Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1882-07-31
THE FIRST BEAU BRUMnEL
An Imaginative sketch OF Bar
hey d'AureVil'y, the Last
Oh the Dandies.
London Daily News.

1T this were an art notlce IL would
be easy to prove that the best portrait
in this years salon is by Emile Levy.
1t shows you an old man of spare Wis
age and high features, with the cut OF
a nineteenth century Quixote. He
faces you proudly; his hand is on his
hip, his head thrown back, his chin
in the air. There is a ferocious ex
preston of disdsin in his eye that
awes you like the disdsin of a mono
mania. He has a waist like a woman,
his frook coat is buttoned right up to
the neck in the style of the "thirties,
a silk cravat, with fringed ends, flows
over the coat, the jsuntiest of cuffs OF
white linen are worn outside tie skin
tight sleeve. The figure, unfortH-
nstely, is not full length. but we NAV
see the full length of the original
almost any day in the season in the
Place Vendome, Tor in the Place Ven
dome is the crack artistic and literary
club of Paris-the Mirliton-and to
this club Barley d'Aurevilly belongs.
We may have to wait, but there can
be no ~mistaking the object OF our
search. We shall see the tall figure,
wearing its seventy years without the
vestige of a stoop, and with the Old
World style carried out consistently
everywhere, from the curiously
brimmed hat to the wide trousers
taperiug down to a fne point and
strapped until they are as tsut as thei
rigging of a man-of war. Age tells
Its tale in the cautious sloWness of
the gait, as though the figure feared
that a shock might knock it all to
pieces. This intensi6es the air oil
aloofness with which it seems to look
down on a very distant world. The
wearer of this curious antique mask
was once one of the lions Of the beau
monde. He is a little lost in our
epoch, and has an air Of wandering
about in vain search for the year 1880.
Superficial observers think they have
made a great point against him by
calling hun an old fop. They little
know their man. He has many other
claims to distiuction-he writes
charmingly, he talks well, but it is his
great pride and joy to be a fop. He
glories in the name as much as ever
George Ill gloried in the name of.
BritOn.
His faith on this subject is all set
down in a great little book of which
he is the author, which has Brumnel
for the hero of its story. He has de-
scribed it as a book, "On a Fop, by a
Fop, for FOps." "Foppishness," he
declares, lis miserably misunderstood;
it is but a form of vanity, and vanity
is but a form Of that desire to please
which is the handspring of all good
and most great actions. 1t is only our
incurable hypocrisy that keeps US
from owning as much. Everybody
wishes to appear well dressed; it is the
safeguard Of society, and all that the
radicals can do, with all their reforms,
will be to prevent people from appear
ing nice. Pascal was as big a dandy
as any OF them, though a canting
world has chosen to forget his six
horses, only to remember Port Royal
and Rance, that tiger OF a~asterity, was
another brOther Of the order before he
vent to La TrspPe. But we must dis
tinguish between foppishness and
dandyism; ioppishness Is the desire to
please others by the cultivation OF out
ward graces: dandyism is rather the
desire TO please ones self. Dsndyism
is a special form Of vanity Of one race,
the English, who surpass all the
world 10 the power Of being
themselves. The Fronchman may
shine as a fop, but he is far too sympa-
thetic to be a dandy. He may put on
daudyism and give himself every morn
ing bis little disguised air but it will be
only as be puts 90 a garment. The dis
tressing thing is that the English them
selves do not know what a treasure
they possess 10 this manifestation of
character They nave been stupidity IN.
Just to their handles, and their Carlole
in his book on clothes, wherein he pro-
fesses to treat Of this species, he has
only built up o huge monument to
his own ''splenetic ignorance" He
drew a fashiOn-plate with the drunken
pencil of Hogsrth, and cried out.
Behold dandyiSm." 1t was not
even Its carIcature. In a certain
sense the clothes have nothing TO do
with il; 1t is the manner Of wearing
them; it is tie man inside. Lord
Spencer in rags was a dandy, and
Brummel n day in a freak set the
fashion of wearing papless coats by
having his own scraped with glass.
The next day halt the coats in London
were being treated in the same way.
He introduced a glove, and people
raved of its beautiful fit, which
showed the very outline Of the nails
beneath; but his superlative dandy
ism was not in the fit, it was in the
fact that he had the glove made by five
different artists, one for each finger
and one for the thumb. Byron knew
what he was about when he said that
he would rather be Brummel than
Napoleon. Brummel bad all the re.
quisite gifts Of nature for his great
vocation-elegance and a pleasing face
as a matter Of course, with an intense
sang froid that nothing could discoun.
tenance or disturb, and above all, al
intelligence, free from the genius thai
spoiled many another dandy of thai
glorious epoch. This last disturb.
ing quality gave Sheridan his super.
abundance Of wit and his passion, both
fatal to perfect equilibrium Of manner
and 1t made Byron a dandy only fol
one moment, but something else the
next. Brummel was a dandy at all
times. Dandyism introduces the an.
tique calm in the midst of the modern
agitation; but the calm of the ancients
came from the harmony Of the facul,
ties and from The force Of a life freely
developed, while the calm Of dandyism
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