Pushing Women

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Title:     Pushing Women
Author: E. Lynn Linton [More Titles by Linton]

The achievements of Anglo-Saxon energy present a rich mine of material to the bookmaker. We are justly proud of our self-made men--of our Chancellors who have risen from the barber's-shop to the Woolsack, of our low-born inventors who have fought their way to scientific recognition, of our merchant princes who have begun life with a capital of one half-crown. The story of the man who has raised himself to eminence by his own exertions, in the face of overwhelming disadvantages and obstacles, is a thrice-told tale, thanks to Mr. Smiles and other biographers. But our admiration has been almost exclusively drawn to these signal examples of pushing men. The analogous exploits of the fair sex remain comparatively unchronicled. No one has hitherto published a book about Self-made Women. Yet this branch of the subject would be very interesting, and even instructive. Of course the opportunity for the display of energy in pushing is, in the case of woman, much more limited. She cannot push at the Bar or in the Church, or in business. Her sphere for pushing is practically narrowed down to one department of human life--society. But within the limits of that sphere she exhibits very remarkable proofs of this peculiar form of activity. Moreover, pushing is a feature so peculiarly characteristic of the English, as distinct from the Continental salon, that no attempt to place a picture of the Englishwoman in her totality before her foreign critics would be complete without it.

There are three periods in the career of a pushing woman. The first is that in which she emerges from obscurity, or, worse perhaps, from the notoriety of commercial antecedents, and carried, by a vigorous push, the outworks of fashionable society. The wife of a successful speculator in cotton or guano, who is also the mistress of a comfortable mansion in Bloomsbury, gradually becomes restless and dissatisfied with her surroundings. It would be curious to trace the growth of this discontent. Ambition is deeply rooted in the female bosom. Even housemaids are actuated by an impulse to better themselves, and village school-mistresses yearn for a larger sphere. Perhaps it is this instinct to rise, so creditable to the sex, which compels a lady with a long purse, and a name well known in the city, to enter the lists as an aspirant to fashion. Perhaps her career is developed by a more gradual process. Climbing social Alps is like climbing material Alps--for a time the intervening heights shut out from view the grander peaks. It is not till one has topped Peckham or Hackney that a more extended horizon bursts on the eye, and one catches sight of the glittering summits of Belgravia. Account for it as we may, the phenomenon of a woman in the enjoyment of every comfort and luxury that wealth can give, but ready to barter it all for a few crumbs of contemptuous notice from persons of rank, is by no means uncommon. Probably the fashionable newspaper is a great stimulus to pushing.

The rich vulgarian pores over Court Circulars and catalogues of aristocratic names till the fascination becomes irresistible, and the desire to see her own name, purged of cotton or guano, figuring in the same sheet grows to a monomania. But how is this to be done? Fortunately for the purpose which she has in view, there exist in these latter days amphibious beings, half trader, half fop, with one set of relations with the world of commerce and another set of relations with the world of fashion. The dandy, driven into the city by the stress of his fiscal exigencies, forms a link between the East-end and the West. Among his other functions is that of giving aid and counsel, not exactly gratis, to any fair outsider who wants to "get into" society. For every applicant he has but one bit of advice. She must spend money.

For a woman who is neither clever nor beautiful nor high-born, there is but one way to proceed. She must bribe right and left. No rotten borough absorbs more cash than the fashionable world. Its recognition is merely a question of money. All its distinctions have their price. It exacts from the pushing woman a thumping entrance-fee in the shape of a sumptuous concert or ball. Nor is it only the first push which costs. Every subsequent advance is as much a matter of purchase as a step in the army.

There is a tariff of its honors, and any Belgravian actuary can calculate to a nicety the price of a stare from a great lady, or a card from a leader of fashion. This is the philosophy expounded by the amphibious dandy to his civic pupil. The upshot is, that she must give an entertainment, or a series of entertainments, on a scale of great splendor. Of course the house in Bloomsbury must be exchanged for another in a fashionable quarter. A more profuse style of living must be adopted. Her equipages must be gorgeous, her flunkeys numerous and well powdered. Above all, she must at once and for ever make a clean sweep of all her old friends. Upon these conditions, and in consideration of a douceur for himself, he agrees to be her friend, and help her to push. Then follows a delicate negotiation with one of those dowagers who rather pique themselves on their good nature in standing sponsors to pushing nobodies. She, too, makes her conditions. For the sake of the elderly pet to whom she is indebted for her daily supply of scandal, she consents to countenance his protegée. But she declines to ask her to her own house. She will dine with her, provided the dinner is exquisite, and two or three of her own cronies are included in the invitation. Last and crowning condescension, she will ask the company for the proposed concert or ball, provided the thing is done regardless of expense. It would be hard to say which a cynic would think most charming--the readiness to accept, or the inclination to impose, such conditions.

At last the great occasion arrives. Planted at the top of her staircase, under the wing of her fashionable allies, the nominal giver of the entertainment is duly stared at and glared at by a supercilious crowd, who examine her with the same sort of languid interest which they devote to a new animal at the Zoological. The greater number are "going on" to another party. But the next morning brings balm for every mortification. Her ball is blazoned in the fashionable journals, and the well-bred reporter, while elaborately complimentary to the exotics, is discreetly silent as to the supercilious stares. She does not exactly awake to find herself famous, but at least she is no longer outside the Pale. At a considerable outlay, she has got into what a connoisseur in shades of fashion would call tenth-rate society. This is not much; still, it is a beginning, and a beginning is everything to a pushing woman.

In the pushing woman of the transition period we behold a lady who has got a certain footing in society, but who is straining every nerve, in season and out of season, by hook and by crook, to improve her position. Society within the Pale is divided into a great many "zones" or "sets." It is like a target, with outer, middle, inner, and innermost circles. The exterior circle, corresponding to "the black" in archery, consists of persona, for the most part, with limited means and moderate ambition. People who try to combine fashion with economy stick here, and advance no further. Carpet-dances and champagneless suppers are typical of this circle. Here mothers and daughters prey upon the inexperienced youth of the Universities and green young officers, who are deluded for one season by their pretensions to fashion, but who cut them the next. Here, too, may be found persons whose social progress has been retarded by foolish scruples about cutting their old friends. Between this band of prowlers upon the outskirts of fashion and "the best set"--the golden ring in the centre of the shield--are many intermediate circles, each representing a different stage of distinction and exclusiveness. It is the multiplicity of these invisible lines of demarcation which makes pushing so laborious.

The world of fashion is not one homogeneous camp, but it is parcelled out into a number of cliques and coteries. Into one after another of these a pushing woman effects her entrance. She is always edging her way into a new and better set. At every step there are obstacles to be encountered, rivals to be jostled, fierce snubs to be endured. There is something almost sublime in the spectacle of this untiring activity of shoulder and elbow. The mere shoving--vis consilî expers--would never bring her near to her goal. An adept in the art of pushing does not rely on sheer impudence alone. She has recourse to artificial aids and appliances. A great deal of ingenuity is exhibited in the selection of her self-propelling machinery. It is a good plan to acquire a name for some one social speciality.

Private theatricals, for instance, or similar entertainments, may be turned to excellent account. Exhibitions of this kind pique curiosity, and people who come to stare remain to supper, and possibly return to drop a card on the following afternoon. But, if you go in for this sort of thing, you must resign yourself to certain inconveniences. Your pretty drawing-room will be like Park Lane in a state of chronic obstruction. The carpenter's work will interfere somewhat with your comfort, and it is tiresome to be perpetually unhinging your doors and pulling your windows out of their frames. The jealousies and bickerings among the performers are another source of vexation. Miss A. declines to sit as Rowena to Miss B.'s Rebecca; and the drawing-room Roscius invariably objects to the part for which he is cast. Altogether, unless you have a positive taste for carpentry and green-room squabbles, it is better to steer clear of private theatricals.

Then there is the musical dodge. In skillful hands there is no better leverage for pushing operations than drawing-room music. Every one knows Lady Tweedledum and her amateur concerts. The fuss she makes about them is prodigious. They are a cheap sort of entertainment, but they cost the thrifty patroness of art a vast deal of trouble. She is always organizing practices, arranging rehearsals, drawing up programmes, or scouring London for musical recruits. She has been known to invade dingy Government offices for a tenor, and to run a soprano to earth in distant Bloomsbury. After all, her "music" is only so-so. You may hear better any night at Even's or the Oxford. One has heard "Dal tuo stellato soglio" before, and Niedermeyer insipidities are a little fadé. Sometimes, to complete the imposture, the names of Mendelssohn and Mozart are invoked, and, under cover of doing honor to an immortal composer, a chorus of young people assemble for periodical flirtation. On the whole, it is wise not to attempt too much. Miss Quaver, with her staccato notes and semi-professional minauderies, is not exactly a queen of song. Nor does it give one any exquisite delight to hear Sir Raucisonous Trombone give tongue in a French romance. The talented band of the Piccadilly Troubadours, floundering through the overture to Zampa, hardly satisfies a refined musical ear. But, however indifferent in a musical point of view, from the point of view of the fair projector the thing is a success. It serves as a trap to catch duchesses, a device for putting salt on the tails of the popinjays of fashion. One fine day Lady Tweedledum's pretended zeal for music receives its crowning reward. The noise of it reaches august ears. An act of gracious condescension follows. Her Ladyship has the supreme delight of leading a scion of Royalty to a chair of state in her drawing-room, to hear Sir Raucisonous bleat and Miss Quaver trill.

There are subtler means of pushing than amateur concerts and private theatricals. There is the push vertical, as in the case of the commercial lady; and there is also the push lateral. A good example of the latter style of operation is afforded by the dowager who is fortunate enough to have an eldest son to use as a pushing machine. Handled with tact, a young heir, not yet cut adrift from the maternal apron-string, may be turned to excellent account. There is, or was, a sentimental ballad entitled, "I'll kiss him for his mother." One might reverse the sentiment in the case of Madame Mère. Of her the dowagers with daughters to marry sing in chorus, "I'll visit her for her son." Civility to the mother is access to the son. A sharp tactician sees her advantage, and works the precious relationship for her own private ends. It is a mine of invitations of an eligible kind. By aid of it she springs over barriers which it would otherwise take her years to surmount, and is lifted into circles which by their unassisted efforts she and her daughters would never reach. Scheming dowagers are glad to have her at their balls when there is a chance of young Hopeful following in her train, and her five o'clock tea is delightful when there is a young millionaire to sip it with. Deprived of her decoy duck she would soon lose ground, and be left to push her way in society with uncomfortably reduced momentum.

Another capital instrument for pushing is a country-house. The mistress of a fine old hall and a cypher of a husband is apt to take a peculiar view of the duties of property. One might expect her to be content with so dignified and enviable a lot, and to pass tranquil days in coddling the cottagers, patronizing the rector's wife, and impressing her crotchet on the national school. But no--she is bitten with the tarantula of social success. She wants to "get on" in society. She must push as vigorously as any trumpery adventuress in May Fair. A good old name is dragged into the dirt inseparable from pushing. The family portraits look disdainfully from their frames, and the ancestral oaks hang their heads in shame. The company reflects the peculiar ambition of the hostess. The neighboring squires are conspicuous by their absence. The local small fry are of course ignored, though to the great lady of the county, who cuts her in town, she is cringingly obsequious. The visitors consist mainly of relays of youths, fast, foolish, and fashionable, with now and then a stray politician or journalist thrown in to give the party a soupçon of intellect. The principle of invitation is very simple. No one is asked who will not be of use in town. Any brainless little fop, any effete dandy, is sure of a welcome, provided he is known to certain circles and can help her to scramble into a little more vogue.

One more instance of lateral pushing. A connection with literature may be very effectively worked. The wives of poets, novelists, and historians have great facilities for pushing if they care to use them. Even the sleek parasite who fattens on a literature which he has done nothing to adorn, and conceals his emptiness under the airs of Sir Oracle, has been known to hoist his female belongings into the high levels of society.

The last period in the career of a pushing woman is the triumphant. This is when she has achieved fashion, and has virtually done pushing. There is nothing left to push for. The Belgravian citadel has fairly capitulated. Like Alexander weeping that there are no more worlds to conquer, she may indulge a transient regret that there are no more salons left to penetrate. But rest is welcome after so harassing a struggle. And with rest comes a sensible improvement in her character and manners. The last stage of a pushing woman is emphatically better than the first. It is curious to notice what a change for the better is produced in her by the partial recovery of her self-respect. One might almost call her a pleasant person. She can at last afford to be civil, occasionally even good-natured. And this is only natural. In the thick of a struggle which taxes her energies to the uttermost, there is no time for courtesies and amenities. The better instincts of her nature necessarily remain in abeyance. But they reassert themselves, unless she be irretrievably spoilt, when the struggle is over.

At last she can afford to speak her true thoughts, consult her own tastes, and receive her own friends, not another's, like a lady to the manner born. And if this emancipation from a self-imposed thraldom is not too long deferred, if it finds her at sixty with a relish for gaiety still unslaked, she may yet be able to enjoy society herself and to render it enjoyable to others. How many women there are of whom one says, How pleasant they will be when they have done pushing! or have pushed enough to allow themselves and others a little rest! One longs for the time to arrive when they shall have kicked down the ladders by which they have mounted, and effaced the trace of the rebuffs which they have encountered. One longs to see them cleansed from the stains with which their toilsome struggle has bespattered them, enjoying the ease and tranquillity of the after-push. If "getting on in society" must continue to be an object of female ambition, would it not be wise to abate the nuisance by rendering the process somewhat more easy? Might not some central authority be established to grant diplomas to pushing women, which would admit them per saltum to those select circles which they go through so much dirt to reach?

[The end]
E. Lynn Linton's essay: Pushing Women

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