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Page 16
"You'd run a sort of Social Zoo?" suggested Elizabeth.
"Precisely; and provide entertainment for private residences too. An
advertisement in Boswell's paper, which everybody buys--"
"And which nobody reads," said Portia.
"They read the advertisements," retorted Madame R�camier. "As I was
saying, an advertisement could be placed in Boswell's paper as follows:
'Are you giving a Function? Do you want Talent? Get your Genius at the
R�camier Salon (Limited).' It would be simply magnificent as a business
enterprise. The common herd would be tickled to death if they could get
great people at their homes, even if they had to pay roundly for them."
"It would look well in the society notes, wouldn't it, if Mr. John Boggs
gave a reception, and at the close of the account it said, 'The supper was
furnished by Calizetti, and the genius by the R�camier Salon (Limited)'?"
suggested Elizabeth, scornfully.
"I must admit," replied the French lady, "that you call up an unpleasant
possibility, but I don't really see what else we can do if we want to
preserve the salon idea. Somebody has told these talented people that they
have a commercial value, and they are availing themselves of the demand."
"It is a sad age!" sighed Elizabeth.
"Well, all I've got to say is just this," put in Xanthippe: "You people
who get up functions have brought this condition of affairs on yourselves.
You were not satisfied to go ahead and indulge your passion for lions in a
moderate fashion. Take the case of Demosthenes last winter, for instance.
His wife told me that he dined at home three times during the winter. The
rest of the time he was out, here, there, and everywhere, making
after-dinner speeches. The saving on his dinner bills didn't pay his
pebble account, much less remunerate him for his time, and the fearful
expense of nervous energy to which he was subjected. It was as much as she
could do, she said, to keep him from shaving one side of his head, so that
he couldn't go out, the way he used to do in Athens when he was afraid he
would be invited out and couldn't scare up a decent excuse for refusing."
"Did he do that?" cried Elizabeth, with a roar of laughter.
"So the cyclop�dias say. It's a good plan, too," said Xanthippe. "Though
Socrates never had to do it. When I got the notion Socrates was going out
too much, I used to hide his dress clothes. Then there was the case of
Rubens. He gave a Carbon Talk at the Sforza's Thursday Night Club, merely
to oblige Madame Sforza, and three weeks later discovered that she had
sold his pictures to pay for her gown! You people simply run it into the
ground. You kill the goose that when taken at the flood leads on to
fortune. It advertises you, does the lion no good, and he is expected to
be satisfied with confectionery, material and theoretical. If they are
getting tired of candy and compliments, it's because you have forced too
much of it upon them."
"They like it, just the same," retorted R�camier. "A genius likes nothing
better than the sound of his own voice, when he feels that it is falling
on aristocratic ears. The social laurel rests pleasantly on many a noble
brow."
"True," said Xanthippe. "But when a man gets a pile of Christmas wreaths a
mile high on his head, he begins to wonder what they will bring on the
market. An occasional wreath is very nice, but by the ton they are apt to
weigh on his mind. Up to a certain point notoriety is like a woman, and a
man is apt to love it; but when it becomes exacting, demanding instead of
permitting itself to be courted, it loses its charm."
"That is Socratic in its wisdom," smiled Portia.
"But Xanthippic in its origin," returned Xanthippe. "No man ever gave me
my ideas."
As Xanthippe spoke, Lucretia Borgia burst into the room.
"Hurry and save yourselves!" she cried. "The boat has broken loose from
her moorings, and is floating down the stream. If we don't hurry up and do
something, we'll drift out to sea!"
"What!" cried Cleopatra, dropping her cue in terror, and rushing for the
stairs. "I was certain I felt a slight motion. You said it was the wash
from one of Charon's barges, Elizabeth."
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