Almack’s.

• Posted by mgr on December 21st, 2009 filed in HISTORISCHES, Zeitdokumente
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A Report has been prevalent during the pas week, such as we remember to have been raised during the early stage of every season for th last five, that the downfall of fashion was consummated, and Almack’s (or the world) at an end! Nothing could be more unlikely,—nothing is more untrue. So far from accepting a signal of dissolution from the peculiar state of the times, this little oligarchy of the female estate is likely to derive new stability and ample warning from the fate of the various thrones and dominion rumbling around it. It is with the conclave at Willi’s, as with Clan Alpine’s forest emblem,—

“Proof to the tempest’s shock,
Firmer they root them, the ruder it blow ;”

and, whatever concessions may be wrung from King, Lords, and Commons, King street and its constitution remain unshaken.

A subscription before Easter, except in the case of Easter falling very late, is, in fact, unprecedented. Many persons have a decided objection to balls on Wednesday nights during Lent;—many more conceive that the exits and entrances of a heated ball-room during the prevalence of the east winds, are bad for man, woman, and even beast;—and, by general consent, the opening of Almack’s (to the success of which, numbers, however select, are indispensable) is deferred till after the holidays.

It has also been suggested, that the conscript lady-patronesses themselves, are grown weary of the exercise of their authority, and that some, if not all, are anxious to abdicate their sofa of state. This, again, we believe to be devoid of foundation. It is very unlikely that the position and duties which, in their mode of exercise, have conferred such unequalled popularity on these ladies, should ever become irksome; and even, were it so, other stars are already radiant in the seventh heaven of fashion, which might probably be attracted from their spheres to glitter in the constellation of King street;—the Ladies Stafford, Dover, Grosvenor,—the Duchess of Richmond, Marchioness of Clanricarde, and twenty others, to whom the toils of patronage have not yet become tedious. En attendant, there can be no doubt that the balls at Willis’s will open with all their usual eclat immediately after Easter, and be followed up with more than their usual empressement by the elect of the fashionable world.

From: The Court Journal or Gazette of the Fashionable World. March 30, 1833. No. 205.

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