Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-16
What Leads Our American Daugh-
ters into the Nobility.
Hereditary Influences-Family Pictures
All too True-GIamOur of For
eign AristOcracy.
Influence OF a Coronet on Our Democratic
Soil-How Some International Mar
riages Have Resulted
Copyrighted. 1890, by the Author


Society, as we'll as journalism, is deep
" moved and FriIed up over recent
international marriages of our American
girls with foreign noblemen.
There is a great deal Of affectation and
pharisaism about this thing. Well-to-do
matrons-democratic, as becomes the
wives Of democratic Oficials-women
who quote the declaration of independ-
ence and put their servants into livery
mothers who have more than once taken
their daughters to the great foreign
matrimonial markets, and brought them
back uncoveted and uncoroneted-con
denim all such un-American alliances
with al efTete aristocTacy, and loftily
smile at the claims Of long descent.
Elderly financieTs grow periodically
pathetic at behOlding so much money
going out of the country, and their sons,
who have little in head or pocket to
financier with, are still more shocked.
Every bachelor member of the -Four
Hundred capable of leading the Ger
man, driving the drag, and following
paper trail across country, feels per-
sonally aggrieved.
notice that these democratic disap-
provers and patriotic protesters dwell
more feelingly on the sacrifice of the
fortune Of their hapless young country
women, fallen into the tolls Of impecu-
NOUS foreigners, than on their probable
unhappiness and possible eventual desti-
tuition.
Now LET US, If we can, put ourselves
for few moments IN the place of the
l., froFV
the Vaccinations of one Of these foreign
gentlemen, with long pedigrees and
brief purses.
The damsel, say, is pretty, spirited,
romantic, ambitious, and-ldle. She
has youth, beauty, health, wealth, and
a will of her own. All she wants mot
being III love- is distinction, and she
wants il badly. If not literary, artistic,
or dramatic, how is she to gain it in
America? Not by marrying an As
tor, Gould, or Vanderbilt.
MiIlionaires are quite too common.
She might, if exceptionally studious
and by toiling long and terribly, attain
TO a respectable scholastic height,
through Barnard college or some similar
institution might possibly win degree
of Ii. s., (Spinster of Laws or by de-
flying opposition and ridicule, and brav-
ing the horrors of the clinique, she
might become an NJ. Dor she might
even become an irregular sort of
d. d. at the cost of dimming her bright
eyes and paling her rosy cheeks by
days and nights of 'poring over mis-
cradle books of theology, musty VOL
umes on doctrines and doEmas dead as
Jonathan Edwards.
But she has no heart, possibly no
Mi
science and revelation, end still the de-
sire for honorable distinction burns on
in her soul. She comes by it legitI-
mately, perhaps. Her papa may have
braved death in the great war, not so
much for love Of old stars on the old
flag. as in the hope of new ones, to
shine on the shouldeTstraps of the briga-
der, mayhap the major-general.
Her grandpapa may have spent his
thousands in securing his election to the
United States senate, while her uncle
came down handsomely for the office Of
mayor. and her brother did as much to
make himself president OF tho Pond-lily
club
She sees clever men on all sides sacri-
iicing home comforts, business interests.
principles, honor itself, for the title of
Honorable, - aud hears of great men
struggling nightly for years, giving up
fortune, friends and health, breaking
their hearts, going mad, for the title of
" EXcellency.
just give American women equal polit-
icaI rights and educational and religious
privileges with men, give them fair
chance to compete for honorable and
lucrative positions in state and church,
and their daughters, trained in q new
school of ideas and activities, will not be
likely TO go to the Old World in search of
distraction and distinction.
II sensible and high minded, as the
emancipated young women of the future
are bound to be, they will consider the
title of ''CitOyenne Americaiue' nObler
than that of "Comtesse or 'Mar-
quise, - and be patriotic, proud, and
practical enough to hold on TO It, and
save their millions to buy offices and cor
porations with.
But II will be long time yet before
the glamour pertaining 10 arIstoeratic
names, the magic light which plays
about ancient titles OF nobility, disaD-
pear before the mild rays of reason and
philosophy, and the merolless glare OF
democracy.
Born Of human weakness, the caste of
hereditary nobility grew by what it fed
On-numdn suDserVlenCY ana SupeTSIl-
tIon-till il became 3 power and pos
sessed the world. Out of it came much
folly, injustice, iniquity, tyranny, and
outrage, but also many things good and
noble-chlvalry loyalty, grand ambi-
tons, q lofty sense Of honor. The SEN
timent "Noblesse oblige'' comprehends
much that Is beautiful and gracious.
The order may have degenerated greatly
think il has, on the continent espec-
islly-but il still has peculiar fascina-
tion over minds of gentle culture, at all
romantic and imagiustive-8 charm
nourished by the romance and poetry of
u thousand years.
We all feel it, now, don't we? FL
derry Democrats, Republicans, though
we are, we might rs well own 10 some
Whist of the old, old weakness of our an
cestors; then what wonder if q roman
tic girl should be captivated by it and
carried OF her feet in coroneted
chariot?
Tennyson-Alfrsd not Lord Tenuy-
son-sung,
Kind hearts are more than coronets, -
but kind hearts don't grow on every