GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

1824-1892

George William Curtis, born February 24, 1824, was a descendant of one of the oldest New England families. After receiving his early education in his native town he was sent to a school in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. When his father moved to New York in 1838 young Curtis entered the counting-room of a commercial house to fit himself for a business career. Commercial pursuits proving distasteful to him he, in company with his elder brother, in 1842 joined the Brook Farm Association in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Here he came into friendly relations with Thoreau, Hawthorne, George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and Emerson. The brothers spent eighteen months in study and tilling the soil and another year in similar pursuits with a farmer near Concord. In 1846 Curtis went abroad and after spending two years in Italy attended lectures at the University of Berlin. Another two years were spent in travelling in Egypt and Syria. On his return to America, in 1850, he became a member of the editorial staff of the New York" Tribune," of which his friend George Ripley was at that time the literary editor. Curtis published "Nile Notes of a Howadji' in 1851 and The Howadji in Syria" in 1852, both interesting books of travel. Lotus-Eating," a series of letters written to the "Tribune while abroad, were collected and brought out in book form shortly afterwards.

66

Curtis, who had by this time acquired considerable literary reputation, was now invited to join Parke Godwin and Charles F. Briggs in the editorship of " Putnam's Monthly," when it was first issued in 1853. By a series of essays, including Our Best Society," written in a satirical vein, he contributed much to the popularity and success of this publication. In 1857 the publishers of "Putnam's" failed in business and Curtis, although he was under no legal obligation to the firm, assumed personally a large share of the indebtedness in order to save the creditors from pecuniary loss. For twenty years he labored incessantly to lift the self-imposed burden, deriving his chief income by lecturing. The Harpers had, in the mean time, published his books on travel, and John Harper was so favorably impressed with his ability as a writer that he engaged him to edit the department of the "Easy Chair" in "Harper's New Monthly Magazine.' It is in this capacity that he developed and perfected a prose style which entitles him to a place in the foremost rank of American writers. In 1860 he assumed the editorial direction of "Harper's Weekly," a position which, in conjunction with his department in "Harper's Magazine," he retained until his death.

Of his political career, though Curtis was prominent on many occasions and rendered excellent services to his party, we need make but cursory mention. He never accepted office. His name is closely connected with the movement of civil service reform, and it was under his guidance that the Social Reform League was founded in 1881. For many years, especially before and after the war, Curtis was a prominent and popular lecturer. His manner as a speaker was peculiarly attractive, as his delivery was not fiery nor impassionate, but rather graceful and winning, with a touch of satire and of humor. His voice was musical and pleasing, his bearing in public always dignified. By his many speeches on public occasions, notably his eulogies on Sumner, Brooks, Bryant, and his friend, Lowell, he will long be remembered by those who heard him. He died at his Staten Island home on August 31, 1892.

IF

"OUR BEST SOCIETY”*

F gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common-sense, what a fine thing our society would be! If to lavish money upon objets de vertu, to wear the most costly dresses, and always to have them cut in the height of fashion; to build houses thirty feet broad, as if they were palaces; to furnish them with all the luxurious devices of Parisian genius; to give superb banquets, at which your guests laugh, and which make you miserable; to drive a fine carriage and ape European liveries, and crests, and coats-of-arms; to resent the friendly advances of your baker's wife, and the lady of your butcher (you being yourself a cobbler's daughter); to talk much of the "old families" and of your aristocratic foreign friends; to despise labor; to prate of good society"; to travesty and parody, in every conceivable way, a society which we know only in books and by the superficial observation of foreign travel, which arises out of a social organization entirely unknown to us, and which is opposed to our fundamental and essential principles: if all these were fine, what a prodigiously fine society would ours be!

66

This occurred to us upon lately receiving a card of invitation to a brilliant ball. We were quietly ruminating over our evening fire, with Disraeli's Wellington speech, "all tears," in our hands, with the account of a great man's burial, and a little man's triumph across the channel. So many great men gone, we mused, and such great crises impending! This democratic movement in Europe; Kossuth and Mazzini waiting for the moment to give the word; the Russian bear watchfully sucking his paws; the Napoleonic empire redivivus; Cuba, and annexation, and slavery: California and Australia, and the consequent considerations of political economy; dear me! exclaimed we, putting on a fresh hodful of coal, we must look a little into the state of parties.

As we put down the coal-scuttle, there was a knock at the

This essay was originally published in " Putnam's Magazine " for February, 1853.

door. We said, “Come in," and in came a neat Alhambrawatered envelope, containing the announcement that the queen of fashion was "at home" that evening week. Later in the evening, came a friend to smoke a cigar. The card was lying upon the table, and he read it with eagerness. “You'll go, of course," said he, " for you will meet all the best society.""

Shall we truly? Shall we really see the "best society of the city," the picked flower of its genius, character, and beauty? What makes the "best society" of men and women? The noblest specimens of each, of course. The men who mould the time, who refresh our faith in heroism and virtue, who make Plato, and Zeno, and Shakespeare, and all Shakespeare's gentlemen, possible again. The women, whose beauty, and sweetness, and dignity, and high accomplishment, and grace, make us understand the Greek mythology, and weaken our desire to have some glimpse of the most famous women of history. The "best society" is that in which the virtues are the most shining, which is the most charitable, forgiving, long-suffering, modest, and innocent. The "best society" is, by its very name, that in which there is the least hypocrisy and insincerity of all kinds, which recoils from, and blasts, artificiality, which is anxious to be all that it is possible to be, and which sternly reprobates all shallow pretence, all coxcombery and foppery, and insists upon simplicity as the infallible characteristic of true worth. That is the "best society" which comprises the best men and women.

Had we recently arrived from the moon, we might, upon hearing that we were to meet the "best society," have fancied that we were about to enjoy an opportunity not to be overvalued. But unfortunately we were not so freshly arrived. We had received other cards, and had perfected our toilette many times, to meet this same society, so magnificently described, and had found it the least "best" of all. Who compose it? Whom shall we meet if we go to this ball? We shall meet three classes of persons: first, those who are rich, and who have all that money can buy; second, those who belong to what are technically called "the good old families," because some ancestor was a man of mark in the State or country, or was very rich, and has kept the fortune in the family; and, thirdly, a swarm of youths who can dance dexterously, and who are invited for that

purpose. Now these are all arbitrary and factitious distinctions upon which to found so profound a social difference as that which exists in American, or, at least in New York, society. First, as a general rule, the rich men of every community, who make their own money, are not the most generally intelligent and cultivated. They have a shrewd talent which secures a fortune, and which keeps them closely at the work of amassing from their youngest years until they are old. They are sturdy men of simple tastes often. Sometimes, though rarely, very generous, but necessarily with an altogether false and exaggerated idea of the importance of money. They are a rather rough, unsympathetic, and, perhaps, selfish class, who, themselves, despise purple and fine linen, and still prefer a cot-bed and a bare room, although they may be worth millions. But they are married to scheming, or ambitious, or disappointed women, whose life is a prolonged pageant, and they are dragged hither and thither in it, are bled of their golden blood, and forced into a position they do not covet and which they despise. Then there are the inheritors of wealth. How many of them inherit the valiant genius and hard frugality which built up their fortunes; how many acknowledge the stern and heavy responsibility of their opportunities; how many refuse to dream their lives away in a Sybarite luxury; how many are smitten with the lofty ambition of achieving an enduring name by works of a permanent value; how many do not dwindle into dainty dilettanti, and dilute their manhood with factitious sentimentality instead of a hearty, human sympathy; how many are not satisfied with having the fastest horses and the "crackest " carriages, and an unlimited wardrobe, and a weak affectation and puerile imitation of foreign life?

And who are these of our secondly, these "old families"? The spirit of our time and of our country knows no such thing, but the habitué of "society "hears constantly of "a good family." It means simply the collective mass of children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and descendants, of some man who deserved well of his country, and whom his country honors. But sad is the heritage of a great name! The son of Burke will inevitably be measured by Burke. The niece of Pope must show some superiority to other women (so to speak), or her equality is inferiority. The feeling of men attributes some

magical charm to blood, and we look to see the daughter of Helen as fair as her mother, and the son of Shakespeare musical as his sire. If they are not so, if they are merely names, and common persons-if there is no Burke, nor Shakespeare, nor Washington, nor Bacon, in their words, or actions, or lives, then we must pity them, and pass gently on, not upbraiding them, but regretting that it is one of the laws of greatness that it dwindles all things in its vicinity, which would otherwise show large enough. Nay, in our regard for the great man, we may even admit to a compassionate honor, as pensioners upon our charity, those who bear and transmit his name. But if these heirs should presume upon that fame, and claim any precedence of living men and women because their dead grandfather was a hero-they must be shown the door directly. We should dread to be born a Percy, or a Colonna, or a Bonaparte. We should not like to be the second Duke of Wellington, nor Charles Dickens, Jr. It is a terrible thing, one would say, to a mind of honorable feeling, to be pointed out as somebody's son, or uncle, or granddaughter, as if the excellence were all derived. It must be a little humiliating to reflect that if your great uncle had not been somebody, you would be nobody—that, in fact, you are only a name, and that, if you should consent to change it for the sake of a fortune, as is sometimes done, you would cease to be anything but a rich man. "My father was President, or Governor of the State," some pompous man may say. But, by Jupiter! king of gods and men, what are you? is the instinctive response. Do you not see, our pompous friend, that you are only pointing your own unimportance? If your father was Governor of the State, what right have you to use that fact only to fatten your self-conceit? Take care, good care; for whether you say it by your lips or by your life, that withering response awaits you" then what are you?" If your ancestor was great, you are under bonds to greatness. If you are small, make haste to learn it betimes, and, thanking heaven that your name has been made illustrious, retire into a corner and keep it, at least, untarnished.

Our thirdly is a class made by sundry French tailors, bootmakers, dancing-masters, and Mr. Brown. They are a corps de ballet, for the use of private entertainments. They are fostered by society for the use of young debutantes, and hardier