Year: 1868

Everybody knows the nice young
man everybody has seen him. He is
that mild and pleasing person who says,
"Oh, yes !" and "Ah, indeed !' with
so much vivacity; who is always the
first to hand around the ices at the
party, who knows all about all the
weddings and engagements and balls !;
who escorts mamma to her carriage,
and suffers her to converse at him so
amiably. He seldom talks much, but
he is SO nice. Generally he is in the
dry goods line and frequently member
of he Young Mems Christian Associa-
ton. He has been known to attempt
to teach Sunday school, but the mental
exertion is commonly too severe. His
personal appearance is not remarkable.
He is usually fair, with light hair and
gentle blue eyes. 1t is desirable that
he should have moustache, straw.col-
ored if possible, and in size like an ex-
aggerated eyebrow. His dress must be
so perfect as to leave, like himself, no
definite impression on the mind, except
one of extreme niceness, and his back
hair should always be parted in an exact
line with the seam of his collar Brains
in moderation are not, as we have al
ready intimated, an absolute objection.
but their possession should be carefully
hidden. Ideas are fatal to his suprem-
acy One of the incest young men we
ever knew lost forever his proud pre-
eminence from this fatal accidental COM
mission of thought. But feelings he
may, indeed must, constantly exhibit !;
it is indispensable that the real nice
young man should be as sensitive as a
new author or functionary accused of
speculation. He may play a little on
the piano, or, better still on the guitar,
and occasionally sing to his own accom-
paniment in an unobtrusive tenor !;
sometimes he paints nicely, and often
writes poetry of sentimental nature,
not fatiguingly intellectual, and he
dances-oh !! he dances divinely.


The nice young man Of Boston is a
very different creature from the nice
young man of New York. and the nice
young man of Philadelphia bears not
the remotest likeness to either, or in
deed to anything else in human SEM
blance. The nice young man of Boston,
for example, is sometimes prig; the
nice young man of New York is often a
snob; the nice young man of Philadel-
phia is usually totus teres atque rOtun-
dus, cipher, the curiosa feliciLas of
nulity. Again, the nice young man of
Boston who has no brains is permitted
to fill the cavity which should hold
them with weak solution of equal
parts of Emerson and Cant; the nice
young man of New York who has brains
is required to shroud their existence in
the profoundest mystery; the nice
young man of Philadelphia has no
brains. The first admires nothing that
he understands, the second understands
nothing that he admires, the third un-
derstands nothing and admires only
himself and Philadelphia. And so on.
Besides there are numberless varieties
produced again by more fuctuation in
feminine taste and in the fashion of
niceness. The nice yonne, man of a
year ago may be as different from his
representation of today as last seasons
beaver from the prevailing tile. Miss
Gigglesby's nice young man il no re
spects resembles Miss Sniggersby's,
mammals is not the one with whom
Arabella exchanges hearts, and hair
and photographs the young man of
Betty, the housemaid, is not the object
of her mistress devotion. The niceness
in all these cases is relative an arbi-
trary quality reflected rather than
actual, and subject to optical delusien.
But each is in his own circle, to all in-
tents and purposes, nice young man.
The end and scope of the nice young
mans existence is not so easy to define


The poet tells us that ga thing of
beauty is a JOY forever" and the nice
man is always thing of beauty; then,
too, his fair worshippers probably find
him useful. He is always so obliging,
so willing to carry parcels, SO ready to
escort one to the opera or balls, to make
up a set or hold worstcd, or to take
dear aunt Jane down to supper; so
eager, to do him justice, for any service
where eagerness does not need to be
supplemented by intellect. And as
these are things which somebody must
do, the nice young man has his place
in the economy of creation. Perhaps
he is intended to show how small
quantity of brains is necessary for human
existence. We have sometimes thought
that his mission was to preserve one
from marrying that nice girl who is his
counterpart, whom everybody falls in
love with, and being sooner or later cut
out by the nice man, blessed his stars
forever after. On the whole, we think
it most probable that the latter is the
design of Heaven in his creation.