0,00 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 0,00 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 0,00 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
In "Society as I Have Found It," Ward McAllister offers a candid and insightful exploration of the social hierarchies and cultural dynamics of Gilded Age America. Written with a sharp wit and keen observation, the book serves both as memoir and social critique, detailing the extravagant lifestyles of the New York elite and the intricate workings of high society. McAllister's prose captures the opulence, contradictions, and sometimes absurdities of the era, providing readers with a vivid portrayal of the societal constructs that governed behavior and relationships during this transformative period in American history. Ward McAllister, a prominent social figure and event planner, was immersed in the high society he critiques. His intimate familiarity with the upper echelons of society stemmed from his role as the unofficial arbiter of social etiquette. McAllister's privileged insider perspective allows him to navigate and articulate the nuances of class, wealth, and gender roles, making his observations not only personal but resonant with the complexities of an era marked by economic disparity and cultural shifts. This book is highly recommended for readers interested in American social history, as it offers a unique window into the lives of the elite, enriched by McAllister's sharp commentary. Scholars of the Gilded Age will find his reflections illuminating, while casual readers will appreciate the engaging narrative that brings a past world to life.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Ähnliche
Society as I Have Found It
Table of Contents
MY FAMILY.
Society as I have Found It.
CHAPTER I.
My Family—My Mother an Angel of Beauty and Charity—My Father’s Nobleness of Character—Building Bonfires on Paradise Rocks and Flying Kites from Purgatory with Uncle Sam Ward—My Brother the Soldier—My Brother the Lawyer.
In 1820 my mother, a beautiful girl of eighteen years, was introduced into New York society by her sister, Mrs. Samuel Ward, the wife of Samuel Ward, the banker, of the firm of Prime, Ward & King. She was a great belle in the days when Robert and Richard Ray and Prescott Hall were of the jeunesse dorée of this city. In my opinion, she was the most beautiful, Murillo-like woman I have ever seen, and she was as good as she was beautiful;—an angel in works of charity and sympathy for her race. Charlotte Corday’s picture in the Louvre is a picture of my mother. The likeness arose from the fact that her family were descended on the maternal side from the Corday family of France. This also accounts for all my family being, from time immemorial, good Democrats. No one was too humble to be received and cared for and sympathized with by my mother. Her pastime was by the bedside of hospital patients, and in the schoolroom of her children. She followed the precepts of her mother’s great-grandfather, the Rev. Gabriel Marion (grandfather of Gen. Francis Marion) as expressed in his will to the following effect: “As to the poor, I have always treated them as my brethren. My dear family will, I know, follow my example.” It also contained this item: “I give her, my wife, my new carriage and horses, that she may visit her friends in comfort.” This ancestor came from Rochelle in a large ship chartered for the Carolinas by several wealthy Huguenot families. The Hugers and Trapiers and others came over in the same ship. He did not leave France empty-handed, for on his arrival in Carolina he bought a plantation on Goose Creek, near Charleston, where he was buried.
While a belle in this city her admirers were legion, until a young Georgian, in the person of my father, stepped in, and secured the prize and took her off to Savannah. He was fresh from Princeton College, cut short in his college career by a large fire in Savannah (his native city), which burnt it down, destroying my grandfather’s city property. The old gentleman, when the fire occurred, refused to leave his residence (now the Pulaski Hotel), and was taken forcibly from the burning building in his chair. He then owned the valuable business portion of the city, and at once went to work to rebuild. His relatives would not assist him, and so he sent for his only son, then at college, and got him to indorse all his notes, and in this way secured from the banks the money he wanted for building purposes. He undertook too much, and my father bore for one-third of his life a burden of debt then incurred. Nothing daunted, he went to work at the bar and commenced life with his beautiful, young Northern wife.
At that time, there was a great prejudice against Northern people. My father’s mother never forgave my mother for being a Northern woman, and when she died, though she knew her son was weighed down with his father’s debts, insisted on his freeing all the negroes she owned and left him by will, enjoining him to do this as her last dying request. It is needless to say that he did it, and not only this, but became the guardian of those people and helped and cared for them so long as he lived. Being repeatedly Mayor of the City of Savannah, he was able to protect them, and so devoted were the whole colored population to him, that one Andrew Marshall, the clergyman of the largest colored church in the city of Savannah, offered up prayers for him on every Sunday, as is done in our Episcopal church for the President of the United States. Blest with five sons and one daughter, struggling to maintain them by his practice at the bar, this best of fathers sent his family North every summer, with one or two exceptions, to Newport, R. I., which at that time was really a Southern colony.
It was the fashion then at Newport to lease for the summer a farmer’s house on the Island, and not live in the town. Well do I remember, with my Uncle Sam Ward and Dr. Francis, of New York, and my father, building bonfires on Paradise Rocks on the Fourth of July and flying kites from Purgatory. The first relief to this hard-worked man was sending his oldest son to West Point, where, I will here add, he did the family great credit by becoming, being, and dying a noble soldier and Christian. Fighting in both armies, one may say, though I believe he was in active service only in the Mexican War, having graduated second in his class at West Point and entered the Ordnance Corps; so in place of fighting, he was making arms, casting cannon, etc. His pride lay in the fact that he was a soldier. His last request was that the Secretary of War should grant permission for his remains to be buried at West Point, which request was granted. My second brother, Hall, grew up with the poet Milton always under his arm. He was a great student. At the little village of Springfield, Georgia, where my family had a country house, and where we occasionally passed the summer in the piney woods, I remember as a boy of fifteen years of age, reading the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July from the pulpit of the village church to the descendants of the old Salzburghers, who came over soon after Oglethorpe, and it was before an audience of these piney woods farmers, that, with this brother, at a meeting of our Debating Society in this village, I discussed the question, “Which is the stronger passion, Love or Ambition,” he advocating Ambition, I Love. I well remember going for him, as follows: “If his motto be that of Hercules the Invincible, I assume for mine that of his opponent, Venus the Victorious. With my sling and stone I will enter this unequal combat and thus hope to slay the great Goliath.” The twelve good and true men who heard the discussion decided in my favor. To the end of his days this brother of mine was guided and governed by this self-same ambition; it made him what he became, a great lawyer, the lawyer of the Pacific coast; his boast to me being that he had saved seventeen lives, never having lost a murder case. I let ambition go, and through life and to the present moment swear by my goddess Venus. This brother, after entering the Georgia bar, started for a trip around the world. On reaching San Francisco he heard of the discovery of gold, and Commodore Jones, then in command of our Pacific Squadron, urged him to prosecute some sailors who had thrown an officer overboard and deserted, and it was this which caused him to settle down there to the practice of law.
LAW AND HOUSEKEEPING.
CHAPTER II.
My New York Life—A Penurious Aunt who Fed me on Turkey—My First Fancy Ball—Spending One Thousand Dollars for a Costume—The Schermerhorns give a Ball in Great Jones Street—Sticking a Man’s Calf and Drawing Blood—A Craze for Dancing—I Study Law—Blackstone has a Rival in Lovely Southern Maidens—I go to San Francisco in ’50—Fees Paid in Gold Dust—Eggs at $2—My First Housekeeping—A faux pas at a Reception.
I myself soon left Savannah for New York after Hall’s departure, residing there in Tenth Street with an old maiden lady, my relative and godmother, whom I always felt would endow me with all her worldly goods, but who, I regret to say, preferred the Presbyterian church and the Georgia Historical Society to myself, for between them she divided a million. At that time Tenth Street was a fashionable street; our house was a comfortable, ordinary one, but my ancient relative considered it a palace, so that all her visitors were taken from garret to cellar to view it. Occupying the front room in the third story, as I would hear these visitors making for my room, I often had to scramble into the bath-room or under the bed, to hide myself. Having a large fortune, my relative, whom I called Aunt (but who was really only my father’s cousin), was saving to meanness; her plantations in the South furnished our table; turkeys came on in barrels. “It was turkey hot and turkey cold, turkey tender, and turkey tough, until at grace one would exclaim, ‘I thank ye, Lord, we’ve had enough.’” As the supposed heir of my saving godmother, the portals of New York society were easily open to me, and I well remember my first fancy ball, given by Mrs. John C. Stevens in her residence in College Place. A company of soldiers were called in to drill on the waxed floors to perfect them for dancing. A legacy of a thousand dollars paid me by the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company I expended in a fancy dress, which I flattered myself was the handsomest and richest at the ball. I danced the cotillion with a nun, a strange costume for her to appear in, as “I wont be a nun” was engraved on every expression of her face. She was at that day one of the brightest and most charming young women in this city, and had a power of fascination rarely equaled.
The next great social event that I recall was the great fancy ball given by the Schermerhorns in their house on the corner of Great Jones Street and Lafayette Place. All the guests were asked to appear in the costume of the period of Louis XV. The house itself was furnished and decorated in that style for this occasion. No pains or expense were spared. It was intended to be the greatest affaire de luxe New Yorkers had ever seen. The men, as well as the women, vied with each other in getting up as handsome costumes as were ever worn at that luxurious Court. The lace and diamonds on the women astonished society. All the servants of the house wore costumes, correct copies of those worn at that period. The men in tights and silk stockings, for the first time in their lives, became jealous of each other’s calves, and in one instance, a friend of mine, on gazing at the superb development in this line of a guest, doubted nature’s having bestowed such generous gifts on him; so, to satisfy himself, he pricked his neighbor’s calf with his sword, actually drawing blood, but the possessor of the fine limbs never winced; later on he expressed forcibly his opinion of the assault. By not wincing the impression that he had aided nature was confirmed.
These two balls were the greatest social events that had ever occurred in this city. Even then subscription balls were the fashion. One of the most brilliant was given at Delmonico’s on the corner of Beaver and William streets (the old building in which the ball was given is now being torn down). Saracco’s dancing-rooms were then much resorted to. They became the rage, and every one was seized with a desire to perfect himself in dancing.
Disgusted with book-keeping, I resolved to study law, and knowing that I could not do much studying whilst flirting and going to balls and dinners, I went South to my native city, took up the second volume of Blackstone, committed it to memory, passed an examination, and was admitted to the bar by one of our ex-ministers to Austria, then a judge.
Blackstone did not wholly absorb all my time that winter. I exercised my memory in the morning and indulged my imagination of an afternoon, breathing soft words to lovely Southern maidens, in the piney groves which surround that charming city. From time immemorial they had always given these on Valentine’s Eve a Valentine party. I was tempted to go to the one given that year. And as I entered the house a basketful of sealed envelopes was handed me, one of which I took; on breaking the seal, I found on the card the name of a brilliant, charming young woman, whom I then had a right to claim as my partner for the evening, but to whom I must bend the knee, and express interest and devotion to her in a species of poetical rhapsody. As all the young men were to go through the same ordeal, it was less embarrassing. From the time of entering the ball-room until the late hour at which supper was served, the guests in the crowded rooms were laughing over the sight of each young man dropping on one knee before his partner and presenting her with a bouquet of flowers, and in low and tender words pouring out his soul in poetry. When it came my turn, I secured a cushion and down I went, the young woman laughing immoderately; but I, not in the least perturbed, grasping my bouquet of flowers with one hand and placing my other hand over my heart, looking into the depths of her lovely eyes, addressed to her these words:
In the mean time, while I was dancing and reciting poetry to beautiful women, my generous brother was rapidly making money at the bar in San Francisco, and urging my father and me to leave Georgia and go to him, writing that he was making more money in two months’ practice than my father received in a year. This to my conservative parent seemed incredible; he shook his head, saying to me, “It is hard for an old tree to take root in a new soil.” His friends of the Savannah bar ridiculed his entertaining the notion of leaving Georgia, where his father had been a Judge of the Superior Court of that State; he himself had been United States District Attorney, for years had presided over the Georgia Senate, had been nominated for Governor of the State, and for a lifetime had been at the head of the Georgia bar. Always a Union man, opposing Nullification, he was beloved by the people of his State, and his law practice was then most lucrative. The idea of his pulling up stakes and going to the outposts of civilization seemed absurd. He would not entertain the thought; he laughed at my brother’s Arabian Nights stories of his law firm in San Francisco making money at the rate of $100,000 a year. But just here, my father’s purpose was suddenly shaken, by my brother’s remitting to me a large amount of money in gold dust, and he, my father, being then paid five thousand dollars by the Bank of the State of Georgia for an argument made for them before the United States Supreme Court at Washington. My gold dust was tangible evidence of my brother’s success, and as continual dropping wears away a stone, so by continual pleading I at last persuaded him to take me to California. Mournfully he sold our old homestead and sadly closed up his Savannah law office, and with me, on the 13th of May, 1850, left for San Francisco, where in two years he made a comfortable fortune, retired from practice and went to Europe. My brother Hall’s motto was, “Ten millions or nothing.” He made himself, to my certain knowledge, two comfortable fortunes. Grand speculations to double my father’s fortune very soon made inroads in it, and the dear old gentleman to save a remnant returned to this country. As he expressed himself to me, “California must have a Circuit Judge of the United States. I will get our Democratic Congress to pass a bill to this effect, and will myself return to California as its United States Circuit Judge. I do not care to return to the practice of law when I reach San Francisco, where, I expect to find that, like the ‘fruit of the Dead Sea,’ my little competency will turn into ashes at the touch. Being on the Bench, I shall at least have a support”; all of which he carried out to the letter, and he died devoted to the people of the State of California.
Imagine me then, a well-fed man, with always an appreciative appetite, learning, on my arrival in San Francisco, that eggs, without which I could not breakfast, cost $2 apiece, a fowl $8, a turkey $16. One week’s mess bill for my breakfast and dinner alone was $225, and one visit to my doctor cost me $50. Gloom settled upon me, until my noble parent requested me to bring back to the office our first retainer (for I was then a member of my father and brother’s law firm). It was $4000 in gold ounces. I put it in a bag and lugged it to the office, and as I laid them ounce by ounce on my father’s desk, he danced a pirouette, for he was as jolly an old fellow as ever lived. I went to work at once in earnest; it struck me that in that country it was “root, pig, or die.”
My first purchase was a desk, which combined the qualities of bed and desk. How well I remember the rats playing hide-and-seek over me at night, and over the large barrel of English Brown Stout that I invested in and placed in the entry to console myself with. After six months’ hard work, I began to ease up, and feel rich. I built a small house for myself, the front entry 4 × 4, the back entry the same, one dining-room 12 × 14, and one bedroom, same dimensions. My furniture, just from Paris, was acajou and white and blue horsehair. My bed-quilt cost me $250; it was a lovely Chinese floss silk shawl. An Indian chief, calling to see me, found me in bed, and was so delighted with the blankets that he seized hold of them and exclaimed, “Quanto pesos?” (How much did they cost?)
My first row as a householder was with my neighbor, a Texan. I found my yard fence, if put up, would close up the windows and front door of his house. We had an interview. He, with strong adjectives, assured me that he would blow out my brains if I put up that fence. I asked him in reply, where he kept his private burying ground. All men then went armed day and night. For two years I slept with a revolver under my pillow. With a strong force of men the next day, I put up the fence, and the Texan moved out and sold his lot. As our firm was then making $100,000 a year, our senior partner, my father, asked me to entertain, for the firm, our distinguished European clients, as he himself had not the time to do so. His injunction to me was, “Be sure, my boy, that you always invite nice people.” I had heard that my dear old father had on more than one occasion gotten off a witticism on me as follows: Being told how well his son kept house, he replied, “Yes, he keeps everything but the Ten Commandments,” so I assured him if he would honor me with his presence I would have to meet him every respectable woman in the city, and I kept my word. Before we reached the turkey, my guests had so thoroughly dined that when it appeared, the handsomest woman in the room heaved a deep sigh and exclaimed, “Oh, that I might have some of it for lunch to-morrow!” Such dinners as I then gave, I have never seen surpassed anywhere. It is needless to say that my father was intensely gratified. We had, tempted by exaggerated accounts of the gold fields, French cooks who received $6000 a year as salary. The turkey, costly as it was at $16, always came on table with its feathered tail intact, and as eggs were so expensive, omelette soufflée was always the dish at dessert. Two years was the length of my stay in San Francisco.
On reaching New York in 1852, from California, I found great objection made to my return there as a married man, and gracefully yielded to circumstances. Though loath to give up my profession of the law, I was forced to make this sacrifice; so the moment I concluded to give up California and the legal profession, not wishing to be idle, I went to Washington and applied to the President for the position of Secretary of Legation in England. The Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and California delegations urged me for this appointment; Mr. Buchanan was going to England as Minister. He was a warm friend of my father’s, and, when approached, expressed not only willingness but gratification at having the son of an old friend as his Secretary of Legation, and I was to have had the position. But just at this time, my father, who had returned from Europe, wished to obtain from President Pierce the appointment of Circuit Judge of the United States for the State of California. He came to me and stated the case as follows: “My boy,” he said, “the President says he cannot give two appointments to one family. If you go to England as Buchanan’s Secretary, President Pierce cannot make me Circuit Judge of California.” “Enough said,” I replied, “I yield with pleasure. I will go abroad, but not in the diplomatic service.” Passing the winter in Washington, I soon learned how to ingratiate myself with the law-makers of our country. Good dinners and wine were always effective. And as I had the friendship of the California, New York and Southern delegations, I was dining out all the time, invited by one man or other who had an axe to grind. On these occasions, there was always a room prepared to receive a guest who had indulged too freely in strong waters. Men then drank in good earnest, a striking contrast to the days in which we now live, when really, at dinner, people only taste wine, but do not drink it. I was then placed on the Committee of Management for the Inaugural Ball, and did good service and learned much from my Washington winter.
An amusing incident I must here relate. Quietly breakfasting and chatting with a beautiful woman, then a bride, who had lived for years in Washington as a widow, she asked me if I was going to Corcoran’s ball that evening, and on my replying, “Yes, of course I was,” she requested me to accompany her husband and self, which I did. On entering Mr. Corcoran’s ball room with her on my arm, I noticed that the old gentleman bowed very stiffly to us; however, I paid no attention to this and went on dancing, and escorting through the rooms my fair partner, from whom I had no sooner been separated than my host slapped me on the shoulder with, “My dear young man, I know you did not know it, but the lady you have just had on your arm is not only not a guest of mine, but this morning I positively refused to send her an invitation to this ball.” Fortunately I had brought letters to this distinguished man, so seeing my annoyance, he patted me on the shoulder and said, “My boy, this is not an unusual occurrence in this city; but let it be a warning to you to take care hereafter whom you bring to a friend’s house.”
INTRODUCTION TO LONDON SPORTS.
CHAPTER III.
Introduction to London Sports—A Dog Fight in the Suburbs—Sporting Ladies—The Drawing of the Badger—My Host gets Gloriously Drunk—Visit to Her Majesty’s Kitchen—Dinner with the Chef of Windsor Castle—I taste Mantilla Sherry for the First Time—“A Shilling to Pay for the ‘Times.’”
After my marriage I took up my residence in Newport, buying a farm on Narragansett Bay and turning farmer in good earnest. I planted out 10,000 trees on that farm and then went to Europe to let them grow, expecting a forest on my return, but I found only one of them struggling for existence three years later. In London, I met a Californian, in with all the sporting world, on intimate terms with the champion prize-fighter of England, the Queen’s pages, Tattersall’s and others. He suggested that if I would defray the expense, he would show me London as no American had ever seen it. Agreeing to do this, I was taken to a swell tailor in Regent Street, to put me, as he expressed it, “in proper rig.” My first introduction to London life was dining out in the suburbs to see a dog-fight, and sup at a Regent Street dry-goods merchant’s residence. I was introduced as an American landed proprietor. Mine host, I was told, spent twelve thousand pounds, i.e. $60,000 a year, on his establishment. He was an enthusiast in his way, an old sport. The women whom I was invited to meet looked like six-footers; the hall of the house and the sitting-rooms were filled with stuffed bull-terriers, prize dogs, that had done good service. We walked through beautifully laid-out grounds to a miniature ornamental villa which contained a rat pit, and there we saw a contest between what seemed to me a myriad of rats and a bull-terrier. The latter’s work was expeditious. We surrounded the pit, each one with his watch in hand timing the dog’s work, which he easily accomplished in the allotted time, killing all the rats, which called forth great applause. From this pit we went to another, where we saw the drawing of the badger, a very amusing sight. There was a long narrow box with a trap-door, by which the badger was shut in; up went the door, in went the terrier; he seized the badger by the ear and pulled him out of his box and around the pit, the badger held back with all his might; should the dog fail to catch the badger by the ear, the badger would kill him. Again, we assembled around a third pit, to see a dog-fight, and saw fight after fight between these bull-terriers, to me a disgusting sight, but the women shouted with delight, and kept incessantly calling “Time, sir; time, sir!” Large bets were made on the result. At midnight we went to supper. I sat next to the champion prize-fighter of England, who informed me that a countryman of mine had died in his arms after a prize-fight. Such drinking I never saw before or since; the host, calling for bumper after bumper, insisted on every one draining his glass. I skillfully threw my wine under the table. The host and all the company were soon intoxicated. The footmen in green and gold liveries never cracked a smile. The master, after a bumper, would fall forward on the table, smashing everything. His butler picked him up and replaced him in his chair. This was kept up until 3 A.M., when with pleasure I slipped out and was off in my hansom for London.
My visit to Windsor Castle, dining at the village inn with Her Majesty’s chef, and the keeper of her jewel room, was interesting. I saw the old, tall doorkeeper, with his long staff, sitting at the door of the servants’ hall. I saw Her Majesty’s kitchen and the roasts for all living in the castle—at least twenty separate pieces turning on a spit. Then I examined a large, hot, steel table on which any cooked article being placed would stay hot as long as it remained there. The chef told me a German prince, when informed of its price, said it would take all his yearly revenue to pay for it. Then I saw Her Majesty’s jewel room; the walls wainscoted, as it were, with gold plates; the large gold bowl, which looks like a small bath-tub, from which the Prince of Wales was baptized, stood in the dining-room. I saw Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales that morning shooting pheasants, alongside of the Windsor Long Walk, and stood within a few yards of them. I feel sure we ate, that day, at the inn, the pheasants that had been shot by Prince Albert. I visited Her Majesty’s model farm, and found that all the flax-seed cake for the cattle was imported from America. The simple cognomen, American Landed Proprietor, was “open sesame” to me everywhere, accompanied as I was by one of her Majesty’s pages. In London, of an evening, we went to Evans’s, a sort of public hall where one took beer and listened to comic songs. Jubber, a wine merchant, kept the hotel where I lodged. As a celebrated London physician was dining with me, I asked for the palest and most delicate sherry to be found in London, regardless of cost, to be served that day, at my dinner. He looked at me and smiled, seeing I was quite a young man, saying, “If I give it to you, you will not drink it.” “Send me the sherry,” I replied, “and you will see.” The result was I got a delicious Montilla sherry and sent a butt of it to America. This was my first acquaintance with Montilla sherry, the most delicate wine that I know of, to be served from soup to dessert.
Before getting through with my sporting friend, after paying all his expenses and remunerating him liberally for his services, as I was about to cross the Channel, he came up to me and said, “Mc, I want you to lend me some money.” I saw by his face he was in earnest, and thought that he was about to make a demand for a large amount. So, equally serious, I replied, “It is out of the question, my dear fellow; I am here in a strange country with my family and have no money to lend.” He roared, “Why, all I wanted was a shilling to pay for the Times,” which made me feel very sheepish. That was the last I saw of him. When two years later I returned to London, I found he had conscientiously paid no bills, and, strange to relate, his hotel keeper and tailors seemed fully compensated for the food and raiment they had furnished him, by his sending them a few valueless colored plates of sporting scenes in this country.
A WINTER IN ITALY.
CHAPTER IV.
A Winter in Florence and Rome—Cheap Living and Good Cooking—Walnut-fed Turkeys—The Grand Duke of Tuscany’s Ball—An American Girl who Elbowed the King—What a Ball Supper Should be—Ball to the Archduke of Tuscany—“The Duke of Pennsylvania”—Following the Hounds on the Campagna—The American Minister Snubs American Gentlemen.
I landed in France, not knowing how to speak the language, and only remembering a few French words learned in childhood. It was the year of the Paris Exposition of 1857; all the hotels were full. The Meurice Hotel people sent me off to a neighboring house, where we lodged in the ninth story. I saw the baptism of the Prince Imperial, and on that occasion, and later on in Rome, at the Carnival, saw the handsomest women I had yet seen in Europe. We then made for Florence, and there, getting a most captivating little apartment, on the Arno, kept house, and if it had not been for the terrible and incessant winds called the tramontana would probably have passed our days there. I had the most admirable cook, and had never lived as well. Then the economy of the thing; it cost nothing to live. I paid the fellow twenty-four pauls ($2.40) a day. For this sum he gave us breakfast and exquisite dinners. For each extra guest, at dinner, I paid a few pauls; if I gave a dinner party he hired for me as handsome a service of silver plate as I have ever seen. His whole kitchen seemed to consist of half a dozen pots and pans, and everything was cooked by charcoal.
His manner of roasting a turkey was indeed novel; he placed his bird on a spit, put it in an iron pot, covered it with hot coals top and bottom, and then kept turning the spit incessantly and basting the bird. Such a perfect roast I have never before or since eaten. I shall speak later on of the Newport turkey and the Southern barnyard-fed turkey, but they are not a circumstance to the Florentine walnut-fed turkey. In Florence, at the markets, all turkeys and fowls were cut up and sold, not as a whole, but piece by piece. For instance, you saw on the marble slabs the breasts of chickens, the wings of chickens, the legs of chickens; the same with turkeys. To get an entire bird, you had to order him ahead, so that a few days before Christmas, as we came home from our drive, we found a superb turkey strutting through the drawing-room, the largest creature I had ever seen, weighing twenty-five pounds. When he was served, the walnuts he had eaten could be seen all over his back in large, round yellow spots of fat. As he came on the table, he was indeed a sight to behold; the skin, as it were, mahogany color and crisp, his flesh partaking of the flavor of the walnut, would have satisfied Lucullus.
At that period I worshipped doctors; my theory then was that you owed your existence to them, that they kept you in the world, and not to have a doctor within call was to place yourself in danger of immediate and sudden death; so the first man I cultivated in Florence was the English doctor. He came to see me every day; it was indeed a luxury; his fee was two dollars. We became great friends, and as he was the Court physician, he got me invitations to all the balls. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, then the richest sovereign in Europe, gave a ball every fortnight at the Pitti Palace. It was said that the Italians lived on chestnuts and air between these suppers, and, like the bear, laid in such a supply of food at them as comfortably to carry them through from one entertainment to the other. Certainly such feasting I had never before seen. The number of rooms thrown open really confused one, it was hard not to lose one’s way. All the guests were assembled, and grouped in the form of a circle, in the largest of these salons, when the grand ducal party entered. The minister of each foreign country stood at the head of his little band of countrymen and countrywomen who were to be presented. The Grand Duke, Archduke, and suite passed from group to group. The presentation over, the ball began in earnest. All waited until the Archduke started in the dance, and as he waltzed by you, you followed. When he stopped dancing, all stopped.
I remember, at one of these balls, dancing with an American girl, a strikingly handsome woman, a great Stonington belle. As we waltzed by the King of Bavaria, I felt a hand placed on my shoulder, and a voice exclaimed, “Mais, Monsieur, c’est le roi”; I stopped at once, and hastily inquired of my fair partner, “What is it?” She replied, “I did it, I was determined to do it. As I passed the King I punched him in the ribs with my elbow. Now I am satisfied.” I rushed up to the King and Grand Chamberlain, saying, “Mille pardons, mille pardons,” and the affair passed over, but I soon disposed of the young woman and never “attempted her again.” The diamonds the women wore amazed me. You see nothing in this country like the tiaras of diamonds I saw at this ball; tiara after tiara, the whole head blazing with diamonds, and yet there was but little beauty.
It was here that I first learned what a ball supper should be, and what were the proper mural decorations for a ball-room and the halls opening into it. The supper system was perfect. In one salon, large tables for coffee, tea, chocolate, and cakes. In another, tables covered simply with ices and other light refreshments, foie gras, sandwiches, etc. In the grand supper room, the whole of the wall of one side of the room, from floor almost to ceiling, was covered with shelves, on which every imaginable dish was placed, hot and cold. The table in front of these shelves was lined with servants in livery, and simply loaded with empty plates and napkins to serve the supper on. The favorite and most prized dishes at all these suppers was cold sturgeon (a fish we never eat), and the most prized fruit the hot-house pineapple, with all its leaves, and to the eye seemingly growing. Opposite the supper table, in another part of the room, the wines were served, all by themselves, and there was, it appears to me, every wine grown in any quarter of the globe. Everything was abundant and lavish, and the whole affair was most imposing.
That winter the Archduke of Tuscany married one of the princesses of Bavaria, and the Austrian Minister gave them a ball, which I attended. The effect produced in approaching his palace, all the streets illuminated by immense flaring torches attached to the house, was grand. The ball-room was superb. From the ceiling hung, not one or two, but literally fifty or more chandeliers of glass, with long prisms dangling from them. The women were not handsome, but what most struck me was the freshness of their toilets. They all looked new, as if made for the occasion; not so elaborate, but so fresh and light and delicate. I noticed that the royal party supped in a room by themselves, always attended by their host.
As I was strolling through the rooms, my host, the Austrian Minister, approached me and said, “I see I have another American as a guest to-night, and he is decorated. Will you kindly tell me what his decoration is?” “I really do not know,” I replied; “I will present myself to him and ask.”
We approached my countryman together, and, after a few words, the minister most courteously put the question to him. He drew himself up and said, “Sir, my country is a Republic; if it had been a Monarchy, I would have been the Duke of Pennsylvania. The Order I wear is that of The Cincinnati.” The minister, deeply impressed, withdrew, and I intensely enjoyed the little scene.
After the great works of art, what most impressed me in Florence were the immense, orderly crowds seen on all public occasions, a living mass of humanity, as far as the eye could see. No jostling or shoving, but human beings filling up every inch of space between the carriage wheels, as our horses, on a walk, dragged our carriage through them.
