The San Francisco call., 1897-04-25


with the identity OF the President of the
United States, Vanity Fair, which is
edited by the Earl of Dysart. assisted by
staff comprising members of Parliament
and peers and peeresses of the realm, and
Is isperhaps the most extensively recognized
organ of English society, found nothing
better to respond thereto than the follow
ing extraordinary exordium:
"Surely you could not compare igno-
rance as to the occupants of the throne OF
Russia, for example, with non-knowi-
edge as to whether the estimable middle
class gentieman-who has by means of
gigantic bribery in dollars and promises,
or frantic tweakings at the lions tail, been
elected tawdry kind of gloritied boss. to
be shaken hands with at will in the White
House Tor four years = happens to be
called Elihn b. Moggs or Washington
Lafayette Snooker."
This it will be ad mitted cannot be con-
sidered in any way as proof of the
groundlessness of my arguments, but on
the contrary as an ill-natured and rather
vulgar confession that they are true, and
that the American gentlewoman goes out
into the world equipped with far more
extensive stock of useful general knowl-
edge than that possessed by the average
English woman. That In itself very nat
urally has been sufficient 10 render her
conversation and her society infinitely
more interesting and agreeable than that
of their British sisters to men of the
world such as the Prince of Wales and
others equally blase, who look upon ennui
as the one enemy who has it in his power
to i'm pair the en- njoyment of their exist
ence and to enbitter tine pleasures of life.
1t is difficult to fiud any subject OF con-
versation in which the American woman
is not more or less at home aud concern
ing which she is not able to talk brightly,
freshly and intelligently. But the Eng
iish women who can do so are few and far
between, and even these are looked upon
either az blue stockings as for instance
the Duchess of Sutherland the Duchess of
Bedford and Lady Henry Somerset, or
else as dangerously fast and perilously
f1ighty, such as the Countess of Warwick,
save for ber beauty the British counter
part of Princess Pauline NJ. Metternich,
but whose brilliancy has led to her being
assailed with such amin osity in society,
and even at court, as TO render her posi-
tion in the London great world exceed
ingly ditficult-that, too despite her rank
and wealth.
This absence of snobbishness in the
American woman is likewise cons spicuous
IN the American man, no matter what the
position which he occupies in the social
organization in the United States. He
starts out with the conviction, not that
he is better than every body else, but that
he is just as good, that he is every other
mans equal. That imparts to his bearing
certain unconscious dignity which pre-
ctudes the notion of obsequiousness and
enables him to meet princes, kings and
emperors as man to man in such a manner
as to compel regard and respect. An
Englishman of the upper or lower middle
class ushered for the first time into the
presence of ROYALTY will commence by
erring on the side of excessive subser-
viency, which will be transformed into
offensive familiarity if he is treated by the
illustrious parsonage with a sufficient
amount OF geniality and condescension.
But in the case of an American, the prince,
general rulei does not have to fear
this. Nor does he feel disposed to display
any degree of condescension, which would 4
mark the differe nee in rank, and therefore
might be resented. On the contrary, he
talks to the American on the level, and
the consequence is that the conversation
is to the prince vastly more entertaining
and interesting than that of nine-tenths
of his own countrymen. When in addition
to this absence OF snobbishness, this self
respect and sentiment OF indie pendence,
the American man happens to possess
refinement and breeding-qualities with
which ne manages to endow himself in an
astonishingly short time-he becomes
most delightful and much-soug ht-after
friend and associate of the great people in
ha Nnhn1v Of
quiring about mis- parentage. The fact
that be acts, speaks and behaves like a
gentleman is amply sufficient, and doors
are opened wide to him which are kept
vigorously barred to Europeans of inf-
niteiy higher social standing than that to
which he belonged before leaving the
United States
An American gentleman is welcome
every where, even in the most exclusive
society, and no questions are ever asked
concerning his birth, his origin or even
his own antecedents. All that is neces-
sary is that he should bear himself as
gentleman. Providing he does this, he
enjoys an altogether exceptional position
in Europe, and it is a peculiar fact that
almost every monarch OF the Old World
has one or more intimate American
friends with whom he is able occasionally !
stead of having the feeling that he IS
speaking from the top of lofty altitude !
to the people down below. Only those
who have lived for any length OF time at
the courts of royalty, and who have |
noted the manner in which the !
anointed of the Lord are addressed |
the servility TO which they are accus- |
toned and the atmosphere of obsequious- |
ness by which they are environed. will be |
able to understand how warmly the au- |
gust personages appreciate being occa- |
sionally treated, not as princes of the |
blood, but as mere gentlemen, as men |
of the world. Americans thus distin- |
guished by the friendship and regard of |
Old World royalty as rule show that |
they are worthy thereof by abstaining |
from boasting about it And thus it is |
not generally known that it was an Ameri- |
can who acted as best man to the Gran |
duke Michael Of Russia when he married |
Countess Sophie Mehrenberg in defiance |
of the late Cars orders. There are sew
eral Americans, members of the very |
smart Marlborough Club in London, who |
have been proposed and put through by |
the Prince of Wales, and still others for |
whom he has himself obtained the privi- |
leges of the club during their stay in Lon
don. The most intimate friend and most
trusted confdant of the so secreiive EN-
peror Napoleon III was a Bostonian. |
Young Emperor William, as every one
knows, delights in the companionship of
his former American fellow student at the
University of Bonn, who can boast of
beinp the one man on earth with M N M