SOCIETY IN INDIVIDUALS. 169 superior to itself by nature. What we want is what they have in Paris-a society separate from fashion-the admission to which would be a compliment to the quality of a man—which would give its entertainments with humbler surroundings, but with wit, sparkle, and zest unknown to the japonicas and diamonds a freer society as to etiquette and dress-and a circle of which the power to contribute to its pleasure and brilliancy would be the otherwise un-catechised pass. Vice and vicious people need not necessarily belong to this circle, as they do possibly to the "artistic circles" of Paris. Though the manners are freer in these entertainments than in the drawing-rooms of titled society, there is nothing which could offend propriety; and gaiety by this freedom is but stripped of its unmeaning trammels. As we said before, New York is rich in delightful people-just the people for the formation of a rival aristocracy of mind. There are beautiful, accomplished and gifted women, who are known singly to artists and authors, journalists and scholars; and who would come where they might meet these fresh-minded men-women who at present. have no sphere in which they can shine, but who are as capable, perhaps, as the most brilliant belles of society, of the charming interchanges for which the sex is worshipped. There are dramatic artists, musical stars, foreigners of taste, looking for a society of mind, critics, poets, and strangers of eminence from other cities--all of whom might combine with the superior men among our lawyers, merchants and politicians, and form a new level of intercourse, of which New York is at this moment capable, and which would soon compare favorably in interest and excitement, with the most fascinating circles abroad. To such an arena for mind, taste and beauty only-we repeat--Fashion would soon come and beg to "splinter a lance," and thus, by rivalry and not by favor, might the door of Wealth be thrown open to those superior by nature. WANT OF MARRIED BELLES IN AMERICAN Duke.-"For women are as roses, whose fair flower LET us shape out a similitude to outline first a little, what we have to say: Our entrance to this life and our entrance to the next, are the dawns of two successive mornings of the days of eternity. Our forenoon is childhood; our noon brings us to adult completeness; our afternoon and sunset are the enjoyment of the ripening of foregone hours; our evening is the thoughtful and willing relinquishment of glaring day, the loss of which is compensated by the fainter and purer lights which beckon with twinkles from the sky above us; and our midnight and darkest hour is the old age in which we wait for another morning. But these portions of our day of life are capable, to a certain extent, of differing in their distribution of enjoyment—as the distribution of light in the common day differs, with climate and atmospheric changes. Leaving, to the fancy of the reader, the tracing out of other obvious analogies-(how, for instance, a morning of lowering sky will protract the forenoon's ripening, and how clouds may hasten our evening and hide the stars from our lengthened midnight)--let us select the common phenomenon of a November day in London, when there is no daylight till an hour before noon, and when, an hour after noon, the lamps are lit and night prematurely commences. For this corresponds with curious truthfulness, we think, to the duration of the afternoon, (or period of active enjoyment,) in the day of female life in America. Poetry aside, the cultivated woman is put earlier " on the shelf," in this country, than in any other--obliged by public opinion, that is to say, to give up soon after the birth of a first child all active participation in society, and devote herself to the cares of her nursery, or (in addition,) to such ostentations of dress and establishment as may be prompted by the neces MARRIED PRIVILEGES. 171 sities or vanities of the family position or ambition. Display and the domestic virtues, in fact, are all a woman has to choose from who wishes to pass in common acceptation for "an exemplary wife." But does not woman, at any age when she can exercise it, owe a share of her time, attention, and influence, to general society? Or, if she has no social duties (out of her own family,) has she not social privileges, if she chooses to avail herself of them? May not a married woman consistently with all her obligations to husband and children, be an object of attention and attraction to a well chosen circle of acquaintanceshining by her powers of conversation, her elegance and her powers of pleasing? Is it not important to daughters, that their mothers should go into society with them, as companions -share in their gaieties and in the admiration they excitebe intimate with their intimates-sympathetic enough with girlish tastes and interests, to be their confidants and advisers? The most delightful age of woman, in cultivated society, is between the noon and the evening of her life-when her attentiveness of mind is calm; when her discriminations are rational; when her self-approbation knows what it receives, and her preference knows what it bestows; when she is wise enough to be an adviser and counsellor to a male friend, and yet attractive enough to awaken no less respect than admiration. It is this most charming and most partake-able period of a woman's life that is lost to American society. The exchange of thought and feeling, in fashionable circles, is carried on, on the female side, by girls, with only school knowledge and their natural instincts to guide them; while the mothers, (who should be the inseparable stems and leaves of these half-blown flowers,) are at home, limiting their completed powers to the cares which a nursery-maid would do as well, or appearing occasionally at a large party, to sit, unattended to, against the wall. The general tone of society-its tastes, judgments, partialities and prejudices--are shaped and colored accordingly. Bread-and-butter standards prevail. An intelligent foreigner, who was taken to a stylish party in New York, on his first arrival, and introduced to the leading beaux and belles, is said to have remarked, toward the close of the evening :--" Charming children! but where are the grown-up people?" 66 It is the men, however, who lose most by this post-nuptial taking of the veil.” The majority of youths admire without choosing. They pay attention where it is expected, or encouraged. Not one in a thousand has a mind or taste of his own, or would venture to show any natural instinct of preference, unsupported by the attention of others to the same object. For an hour of mere conversation at a party, or the exchanging of sentiment in a rational friendship with a superior woman, there is little or no taste. But it might be otherwise. It might be "the fashion" for young men to have married friends as well as dancing partners--to value talking with lovely and thoughtful mothers as well as flirting with pretty and giddy daughters—to admire and appreciate the sex, in its ripeness and completeness, as well as in its immaturity and thoughtlessness. This would easily be brought about if cultivated middle-aged women would dress and go to parties to please and to be admired--the refined, among middle-aged men, of course, coming out from their retirement, (when there was anything to come for,) and society thus gaining two varieties of contributors to its gaiety-varieties, besides, which, in other and older countries, are prized as giving a brilliant circle all its value. What the effect of this new two-fold admixture would be, on the tone of the general polite intercourse of New York, and especially on the characters of young men and young women whose minds and tastes are materially influenced by what they encounter in society, it is easy for the most casual observer to divine. SHOULD MARRIED LADIES GO INTO SOCIETY WITH THEIR DAUGHTERS? ONE or two of our gentlemen subscribers have written to us rather angrily, and several newspapers have commented sneeringly, upon a late article in the Home Journal expressing a wish that American married ladies would go more into society. In the spirit in which the guests at an Athenian table threw Diogenes a bone when he entered, let us give these gentlemen and critics an instance, from natural history, of precisely the condition of male and female life which they seem to think desirable. The insect coccus, (from which eochineal, kermes, lac-dye, and other pigments are made,) is thus described by naturalists : : "The males have wings, and, having no care for food, go and come as they please. The females have no wings, and live by suction of plants to which they fix themselves at an early period of their life and remain immovable till death. When impregnated, they spread their bodies over the eggs, and so perish into a membrane, or egg, which the young ones break through and destroy, in coming into life." It seems to be the idea of the Coccusians, who have written to us, that woman's mission is fulfilled by dividing her time between her nursery and her husband. We would publish the articles themselves, if they contained any other essential opinion; but they do not. Let us look, then, for a moment, at the operation and influences of this Coccusian destiny of woman. The A lady who was herself married at seventeen, has a daughter sixteen years of age, and four or five younger children. girl is pretty, has given up school and takes music and French lessons at home, is fast maturing in figure and womanly ways, and begins to be invited to parties and receive calls. Her father is all day at his counting-room, and so tired and sleepy in the evening, that, if he has no business engagement, he stretches himself to sleep in the back parlor, or goes to bed early-leaving "the girls" of course to their mother. The mother lives in the nursery, except at mealtimes or when engaged in household duties. Her rockingchair is her dwelling-place, and there she sits all day, sewing upon the “children's things," or tending her baby, or talking with her nurses--"at home" to no one except "intimate friends who can come up stairs." If she goes out, it is to get into a carriage and do up a month's calls in a day, or to get into an omnibus and “ get through with the family shopping.' Her music, which she acquired at a cost of thousands of dollars and years of practice, she gave up after the birth of her first baby. She has no time to read, having la! more important things to do!" and, indeed, with the incessant calls upon her attention, from the three or four children who are in the same room with her for twelve hours every day, she lives in an eternal fatigue of mind, which makes it impossible for her to give her thoughts to two pages of a book together. She "does her duty to her children 66 66 |