To the dispassionate eye of reason, no “society” which is founded on birth or on a mixed basis of birth and wealth has seemed quite worthy of this servile attitude. Certainly in these days, when, as the Berlin Hofschneider is said to have observed to Prince Bismarck at the Opera Ball, society is rather mixed (_ein bischen gemischt_), rational men might be expected to leave this kind of homage to the weak-minded. No doubt men of mind caught in the snare have been ready to admit this; yet it may be questioned whether, when they set down their endurance of the boredom of the diner-out to the social ambition of their wives, they evade the laughter of the gods. Pity may find a place at the side of laughter when she visits these absurd scenes. A peep behind the masks will, it has been said, show here, too, the thinnest pretence of gaiety. Dull with something of the dulness of death are many of the older faces, even when they force themselves to produce grimaces and spasmodic cacklings, thin and anæmic like themselves. It looks as if it were a dram of excitement, and not pleasure, which these loyal worshippers of society are seeking; only to find, perhaps, that the hope of excitement itself has grown illusory. Yet, in speaking of the entertaining aspects of the social spectacle, one need not confine oneself to the fashionable scene. “Society,” charmingly irrational as she is, has no monopoly in the matter of the incongruities. The doings of the Great Middle Class and even of the Masses have their amusing aspects for the unprejudiced eye. All phases of social life, indeed, may yield rich entertainment to one who has the mental vision justly accommodated. {334} What first strikes the eye here, perhaps, is the fine display of human oddities. The newspaper, fully alive to the value of things new, gives welcome to the self-revelations of human folly, perverted ingenuity, and uncontrollable vanity. The struggle for its coveted column seems hardly less violent than that for the fashionable gathering. Apparently, the supreme necessity is to show yourself, to win the pestered and rather jaded eye of a crowd, if only for an instant. Many and wonderful are the movements and sounds to which children, feeling themselves overlooked, have been known to resort in order to compel notice: yet the frantic efforts of men and women to advertise themselves to the public eye are, surely, not less numerous or less strange. Even when they have left the social scene these self-advertisers will sometimes still try to seize your eye by sending you an autobiography, consisting largely, it may be, of an account of all the dinner parties attended—a priceless thing for the historian, perhaps, if only the writer had happened to be a politician.