Satire; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
That was enough for me. So I told Mr. Cheese that as he had already
assisted me in colors once, I should be most glad to have him do so
again. What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors, and cloths,
and gaiters, and buttons, and knee-breeches, and waistcoats, and
plush, and coats, and lace, and hatbands, and gloves, and cravats, and
cords, and tassels, and hats. Oh! it was delightful. You can’t fancy
how heartily the Rev. Cream entered into the matter. He was quite
enthusiastic, and at last he said, with so much expression, “Dear
Mrs. Potiphar, why not have a _chasseur?_”
I thought it was some kind of French dish for lunch, so I said:
“I am so sorry, but we haven’t any in the house.”
“Oh,” said he, “but you could hire one, you know.”
Then I thought it must be a musical instrument--a Panharmonicon, or
something of that kind, so I said in a general way--
“I am not very, very fond of it.”
“But it would be so fine to have him standing on the back of the
carriage, his plumes waving in the wind, and his lace and polished
belts flashing in the sun, as you whirled down Broadway.”
Of course I knew then that he was speaking of those military gentlemen
who ride behind carriages, especially upon the Continent, as Margaret
tells me, and who in Paris are very useful to keep the savages and
wild beasts at bay in the _Champ Elysees_, for you know they are
intended as a guard.
But I knew Mr. P. would be firm about that, so I asked Mr. Cheese not
to kindle my imagination with the _Chasseur_.
We concluded finally to have only one full-sized footman, and a fat
driver.
“The corpulence is essential, dear Mrs. Potiphar,” said Mr. Cheese. “I
have been much abroad; I have mingled, I trust, in good, which is to
say, Christian society: and I must say, that few things struck me more
upon my return than that the ladies who drive very handsome carriages,
with footmen, etc., in livery, should permit such thin coachmen upon
the box. I really believe that Mrs. Settum Downe’s coachman doesn’t
weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds, which is ridiculous. A
lady might as well hire a footman with insufficient calves, as a
coachman who weighs less than two hundred and ten. That is the
minimum. Besides, I don’t observe any wigs upon the coachmen. Now, if
a lady sets up her carriage with the family crest and fine liveries,
why, I should like to know, is the wig of the coachman omitted, and
his cocked hat also? It is a kind of shabby, half-ashamed way of doing
things--a garbled glory. The cock-hatted, knee-breeched,
paste-buckled, horse-hair-wigged coachman, one of the institutions of
the aristocracy. If we don’t have him complete, we somehow make
ourselves ridiculous. If we do have him complete, why then”--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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