New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-05-03
SOCIETY IN LONDON
ITS AUTHORSHIP, SOME OF ITS MISTAKES,
AND SOME OF ITS MERITS.


AND SOME OF ITS MERITS.
lrRoM TIE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT THE TRIBUNE ]
LONDON, April IL.
The question who wrote Society in London +" is
still asked pretty often in the world. or in of
the worlds of which that gossiping volume pro-
fesses to treat risked guess the other day that
the foreign resident of the title page is an English
man. will risk another that he is u society jour
nast, and third that he is not wholly unconnected
with the paper over which Mr.. Yates presides A
fervid eulogy upon the book which appeared in that
journal yesterday perhaps supports this conjecture
The ground, told, is cut from under the feet
of Count Paul Vasili. of anybody else who shall
hereafter presume to compete with the present
writer This is the one true, complete, and allsuff
Gent account of the whole matter. Trespassers
will be prosecuted according to law; or cut up in
the society journal whose premises they intrude.
Yeti believe the presumptuous Paul Yaslis letters
will shortly appear.
There are sundry curious hints clews to the
authorship of Society in London " In the book
itself. The most direct of all is perhaps the
founding remark that The Daily Telegraph made Mr..
Gladstone Surely nobody but one of the young
lions of Fleet Street. young lion grown old and
foolish could have said that The book, moreover.
is strangely full Of Bohemian and snmi-Bohemian
life. It's author dedicates paragraphs and even
pages to nobodies and to persons who, though posi-
bly, sometimes received in certain houses which are
within the mystic circle of society," are received as
eccentricities; in it for the moment but not of it,
The omissions are not less remarkable. Many of
the best-known people in London. including some
Of the leaders of the SETS discussed, are not
much as named. Many real celebrities are left out
to make room for those whose celebrity Is acct
dental. who have none at all The perspective is
often false; the point of view not seldom that of
person from without who has good information. 1t
is perfectly conceivable that the wellinformed out
sider should write accurately enough about society
It Is less likely that man who moves and has bis
being in the gilded salons here described should
know so much about the initiative external world,
occupy himself with personalities which are, so
cially speaking, Insignificant
Yet after all, this ropiousness about the trivial
may he only another of the many DISCUSSES which
the writer takes 80 much trouble to assume. so OF
the rather elaborate classification Of society which
no attempts He divides it into sets, and seeks
TO embrace each of his divisions in formula. An
Englishman would not usually do this. but AN
EGglishman who wished to pass himself OF for
native of foreign climes might do 1t for the sake or
upholding the imposture What Frenchman or
other Outandish person would not do Is also pretty
evident He would not take two bites at his cherry,
NtiCu tutS dutuOl pAObtJ iiOpuOuN's N"N0' "''"'
of the leading characters are twice described, some
more than twice. Sometimes we are allowed to
Zee the sketch first aud the laborous portrait
follows later Sometimes the portrait is hing on
the wall, and after you have passed from 1T you
presently come upon silhouette of the same person
in -the-way corner 1t is necessary to COM
bne yonr impressions if you care to have complete
view of the writer's estimate of these personages.
The Prince of Wales, Mr.. Gladstone, Lady Hayter,
Lord Rosebcry, and many Others are dealt with on
this duplex system
A good test of the authors familiarity with
society may be found IN his chapter on dipiomat'sts
and their hosts. The foreign diplomatst he tells us,
is TO be met with nj all the best houses of the cap
ital This is true OF some foreign diplomatlsts; by
no means OF all. But it is so far true that man
who goes often to the best houses must have met
most of the Ambassadors aud Ministers who are
mentioned in this volume. Yet there Is strong in
ternal evidence that they are described from hear
say aud not from personal knowledge. What we
are told about Count Munster. the German Am
bassador, is what may be found in the pigeon holes
of any society journal or overheard in Rotten Row.
OF Count and Countess KarOlyi the odd remark is
made that they are to be seen nowhere to greater
advantage than in the mansion of Lord Brcadal-
baue The remark is odd, If for no other reason,
because we presently hear OF Lady BTcadalbane as
giving political parties to which asked the dead
wives of living VI. P's. and daughters who are
either in the nursery or married. This reproach
Lady Breadalhane shares with Lady Aberdeen,
neither of whom Ought to incur blame for fault
which rests with the gentlemen whom our foreign
resident with than foreign politeuess, calls the
official understrappers of tho party This is his
way of describing the Liberal whips, Lord Richard
Grosvcnor Lord Kensington, Mr.. Coates and Mr..
Of large social
But neither Lady Aberdeen nor Lady Brcadal-
bane has lately given parties of any kind.
Little is said of the Russian Ambassador except
that he il winning golden opinions and bids fair to
achieve social success. This, like many others TO
be found in this book. is safe generality. but not
nrecisely Photographic. Mr.. Lowell is praised but
tho paragraph about him IL such "a no one who
really knew Mr. Lowell eoald have written. Nor
does it improve the accuracy OF the sketch TO speak
of tho limited States Embassy the last mistake
which anybody would make who had seen the
Minister of the United States going in TO dinner i'll
tina rear of an Ambassador much his junior in di-
pIomacy The Baron de Mohrenhem Is said TO have
had the misfortune to spread wherever no went
sense Of ennui True, unhappily, but how could tho
writer have failed to hear the late Ambassador of
Pussia Familiarity mentioned ~ NJ. dc Bohrenheim e?
Sir Nathaule! do Rothschild, who lives in a palace
In Piccadlly Is noted we learn. for his hospitality
TO foreign Ambassadors and attaches. Beyond
doubt he lives in n palace in Pccadilly, but there
are fe palaces in Pccadilly or elsewhere IN which
foreign Ambassadors and attaches less likely to
be asked. or are less asked in fact, merely because
of their diplomatic quality. The statement Is
guess. based on the presumption that the head Of
the Rothschilds must find it. worth his while TO
cultivate relations with the representatives OF the
foreign Powers But the dinners at the palace IN
Piccadilly have other and much better recon- |
mendations.
Other mistakes there are of a kind which indicate
that the archives from which this writer has supple