THE comparative value of this perishable commodity, at Paris or at New-York, is a matter of necessary knowledge which we might have expected to see dwelt upon before now. As far as we know, however, this important statistic has been overlooked till within a few days; and each young man, therefore, has been obliged to decide, by chance information or instinct, whether to invest his stock of adolescence in Broadway or the Boulevards. A very amusing and well written article on the subject appears in the Courrier des Etats Unis of Thursday last, written by Th. Lacombe, the able contributor to that paper. We would translate it, if we had any manner of leisure, possibly we shall do so when novelties slacken a little with the summer solstice, but as our class of readers have charming minds of their own, and can understand a matter as well by suggestion as by amplification, we will simply name a point or two of Mons. Lacombe’s two column analysis, and so fulfil the chief object of the Home Journal, which is to keep subscribers promptly supplied with the knowledge to live by.
They have a phrase in Paris, la jeunesse doree, which we have no equivalent expression for, in English, but which means young dandies with plenty of money. Of ten boys born with a natural banker, (a papa that instinctively furnishes funds) , five at least in Paris, take up the life of la jeunesse doree, supremely happy to have nothing to do but wake, dress, breakfast, and push discoveries as to what can be had for their two superfluities of youth and money. Most of these ruin themselves, and worse-ify in various ways, some become satiated, and take to virtue for a change, and some, after quite exhausting pleasure, but still holding on to a corner of the pocket, make a marriage of moderate expectations, and taper off to one end of a fishing line in the country.
What astonishes this French writer is, that there should exist, also, a jeunesse doree at New-York. Here, where work is the only pleasure for which there are any tolerable accommodations, where King Public decrees idleness to be a proof of imbecility, where fathers who know not what to do with the crops they have already harvested, still feel it their duty to put their sons into the furrow, here, also, there are dandies in idleness! They are few. They last but a summer or so, “go into a store” or go to Paris, but, still, every present hour has its specimens, and Broadway, on any sunshiny day, ‘twixt twelve and three, when workies are in Wall street, shows its dozen or more of perambulating Fifth-Ave-noodles. How they contrive to amuse themselves for the twenty-four hours is an unsolved problem to the writer we quote from.
Mons. Lacombe’s description of the New-York dandy is exceedingly graphic. He should have published it in a French “Lorgnette,” with a portrait. Like, as dandies are supposed to be, all over the world, there are some indigenous points about the American biped of this family. His two greatest ambitions are to show a mustache, and be known among the ladies as a “dangerous man.” To attain the latter reputation, he relies on appearances, choosing his opportunity, for instance to seat himself with a certain air by the side of a lady at the Opera, and leaning to her ear with a look of intense sentiment and conscious irresistibleness, to murmur inaudibly to all but herself, “how do you do?” in the better expressed language of the writer:, “On a vu son attitude penchee et minaudiere, c’est tout ce qu’il lui faut; car d’apres les regles strategiques d’une gallanterie surannee, une femme compromise est une bataile gagnee.”
The toilette of the New-York dandy is described by Mons. Lacombe as truly irreproachable. His pantaloons are so diligently renewed that knee-marks never protuberate. His gloves look like primroses, new-blown with thumb and fingers. His head, smooth from the curling-tongs, sits in his collar like a marigold in a paper holder. The tie of his cravat, so broad and so long, is a marvel of untumbled dexterity. With his hat at the angle agreed upon by his set, booted like the model foot in the show-case of the maker, laced, and with a violet in his button-hole, he walks Broadway like a machine moved by single action, and, if he looks at you at all, does it with an expression of “Vulgarian! keep on the other side of the walk!” (“Prends le bas, du pave manant!”)
At his Club, at the Opera, at balls and in Broadway, the New-York dandy is pacha. He is not, in fact, a dangerous member of society , the “business” fathers and husbands of New-York have cyphered up the fact that “appearances” content him. Some intelligence and certain powers of conversation are necessary in fact, to keep up the illusions that are risky to those who “at least will flirt” , but the intelligence and conversation of the Fifth-Ave-Noodle are confined to topics soon exhausted. He knows that Cellarius invented the polka, and that Saracco is his prophet , that Derby and Corraz cut a coat authentically , that Mantel, Taylor and Lenoir make beautiful bouquets, and that Asia Minor and East Broadway are portions of the planet we live on , but other knowledge comes by accident, if at all, and is left to bald-heads and those who are willing to be bored with it.
Mons. Lecompte sketches the autocrat domination of the boy-dandies at balls, and philosophizes over the impression among ladies, as to these blank cartridges of the ammunition directed against their hearts , but we have put the reader in train, and the subject will be followed up and well-sifted by tea-table and tete-a-tete.
Quoted from: N. Parker Willis: The Rag-bag, a Collection of Ephemera. New York: C. Scribner, 1855: 28-31.