Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1883-09-21
Our Goldfish Aristocracy.
Richard Grand White in the North Amer
can Review.

can Review.
Whatever they may have failed to &C.
Quire of Europe's lorg-storied social and
mental wealth, few Of them failed to
learn to initiate the least admirable OF
the manner and customs Of Europe
those which lie upon the surface; those
which might be gathered from super
fetal observation ofuhe most pretentlous
and most frivolous society, the only soc
ETY. in Europe to which such casual
travellers or such transient soiourners
would be admitted. The pitiable spec
tacle Of the American colony in Paris
during the second empire may be passed
over here without remark, but the effect
OF these and their like upon society in
the United States has been deplorablv
debasing nd vulgarizing. The obserya,
ton of ''high lite" by such spectators,
SO transient, SO ignorant, 50 incapable OF
thought, reveals to them nothing which
may not be obtained by an expenditure
Of money; and briefly (for I must brief),
this vast increase of wealth, this de-
mocratic equality and these skippinys
over the surface Of European society,
wor king together, have produced as
their resultant social monster called in
the newspapers "Society" or "World Of
Fashion" Now society and
fashion (singular, inexplicable
word, thus used) are no new things here
but not this society, this fashion. Some
money is necessary always for the for
nation and maintenance ola cultivated
society; some exclusivneess must be
practiced, or your society rests upon
money only; not upon property, possess
slons, estates; but upon sheer money
that may be put in a box and carried
about, got one day and lost another, like
watch or toy, and with no more So
cial disturbance; and this exclusiveness
excludes only those who have little mon
ey, and as to the bears, shuts many Of
them not out but in Let any man who
chooses SO to spend time and trouble
under the ''World Of Society" and "Cir-
c!e of Fashion, headings in three or fonr
of our leading newspapers, and if he has
any particular knowledge of society, and
a knowledge which extends backward
beyond the war, he will see that quite
seven -tenths CT them relate to people
who at that time would themselves not
have dreamed of themselves as persons
OF gentillty Ito use an obsolecent word},
not to say Of consideration or fashion.
People without breeding, without edu-
cation; whose every word and every
tone (surest evidence on such g point
betrays the inferior associations in which
they grew up, whose language, whether
they speak or write, would be put to
shame by that of well-bred upper SER
want in England, and whose notions Of
politenes are confined to the observance
Of etiquet which can be taught to q
monkey and poured into man, and yet
more easily into woman, as liquor can
be poured out ofone vessel into another,
who have indeed generally a sort OF
form1ess, insipid good-nature, but Of
courtesy, Unborn or inbred, no concep-
ton whatever. They have simply
money-money which they are ready to
spend for their own coarse pleasures,
money which they are even willing to
give away--fCr their own aggrAndize-
ment, money which they are anxious to
use III every mode which will enable
them to f'get on" and make figure.
Reslles these, who are hundreds and
thousands, there are others not go
prominently rich, who are tens and
hundreds OF thousands: that are Of like
origin and social history, ard who all
i1loA Q VI 1908 stACCG ClCSe1IICC ttlAA iSto~
cracy," and talk of society and fashion.
Most, but not absolutely all, of these,
like most, but not absolutely all, OF the
others, are wholly, utterly lacking in
any claim to distinction from the crowds
that swarm to Barnum's greatest show
On earth, except money, money gotten
quickly, and, in many cases, not honor
ally, although not illegally. But because
Of their money and their gross and sell
6sn expenditure Of it, they, Or rather
Git is but right and tair to say very
many of them, seem to think that they
have position in this country cor
responding to that of the leaders of So
ciety in Europe; for example the nobil-
ity ard gentry of England. They keep
their fathers and their mothers hidden
away,-in clostts upstairs, or in the
waste places or remote corners Of the
land, and set up for people Of fashion
upon fine clothes, brica- brac, and ehau
payHq