PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN OF FASHION: 179

amusement was not made the business of life, and we paused not to consider, as the English do, whether we were fashionable or unfashionable; or how many persons' vanities we had wounded by excluding them from our réunions a reflection indispensable, as it appears to me, to the perfect enjoyment of my inanimate and blasés compatriots.

You ask me, chère amie, for a description or definition of a woman of fashion, according to the common acceptation of the term here. They are actresses, who play difficult parts on the stage of life, to audiences who are ever more prone to hiss than to applaud their performances. They lose their individuality as wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers, the sole parts women ought to enact, being recognised only in those fictitious rôles in which they have chosen to exhibit before the public, and for which frivolous mummery, they are paid

by slander, mockery, and contempt. They, as you may well believe, are little aware of the sentiments they excite; au contraire, they imagine themselves to be admired and envied; and even should some demonstration of the reverse meet their observation, they would, in all probability, attribute it to jealousy and

envy.

There are few métiers more fatiguing than that of a woman of fashion. She is condemned to a perpetual activity to maintain her position, as Napoleon was, to make war abroad to preserve his power at home. Indolence on her part would quickly lead to her deposition, for there are as many competitors for the role as for that of premier; and, like their political parallels, the most incapable are those who are the most indefatigable in seeking the distinction.

A woman of fashion must be callous to the domestic affections. How could she fulfil the

arduous duties of her post, were she watching by the sick-bed of some dear relative, or consoling some bereaved one? How could she devote that attention to the regulations which, as a patroness of Almack's, she must see enforced, were her mornings devoted to superintending the studies of her children, or overlooking the details of her ménage? Luckily for women of fashion, excellent nurses can now be hired, who perform for gold the duties to the sick which were wont to be fulfilled at the instigation of affection. Humble companions, known here under the appellation of toadies, speak, look, or read, according to order, by the easy-chair or sofa of the mourner; governesses, with "all manner of accomplishments," and no manner of knowledge, in

struct the young ladies how to catch rich husbands; and maîtres d'hôtel regulate the establishment, and also the per centage they

are to receive for encouraging waste and ex

tortion in it.

The woman of fashion, having emancipated herself from the drudgery of household cares, and domestic duties, and, having substituted the services of hirelings, has ample time to perform the self-imposed functions of her office. She can devote a considerable portion of her mornings to looking over and answering the various applications for admission to Almack's. She can reject or accede to the humble petitions, for the success of which young hearts throb, and old ones deign to sue. She can receive the élite of her coterie, sit in conclave on the admissibility of those who aspire to enter it, take a femininely warm part in the politics of whichever faction she has adopted; and pronounce on the ineligibility of those of the opposite one, without ever having given a serious thought (for ladies of fashion

are not addicted to serious thoughts) to the merits or qualifications of either party. Thus, half the life of the being I have attempted to describe is passed; not so much in seeking her own gratification as in endeavouring to impede that of others.

A wish of displaying the power she has usurped, induces her, not unfrequently, to an arbitrary and ill-natured abuse of it, exhibited in preventing the access of others to scenes where they, in their ignorance, imagine enjoyment is to be found; but where she, in her knowledge, has only too often proved the fallacy of their supposition.

How different is the life of a grande dame chez vous! for, luckily, you have no women of fashion. In Paris, each lady is satisfied with the distinction to which her birth, station, and talents, entitle her. She is only one of a galaxy of stars that shine in the same sphere. She