HANDSOME HARPIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 116, 18 May 1871, Page 2

HANDSOME HARPIES.

(From the Saturday Review, March 18) t In very old-fashioned, novels it is amusing to remark traces of a delicacy of feeling in the fair sex^pon certain points which has long been 'out of date. On no point was our grandmother's code of propriety more express than on this — that no young lady* or young matron could accept a gift or a loan from a male friend without running the risk of tarnishing her fair name. This may have been an absurdly prudish view ; still, with all its prudery and absurdity, there are a good many persons who would not be sorry to have it re-affirmed at the preseut day. An age of combined luxury and laxity has exploded the, • scrupulous delicacy of the Evelinas and Cecilias of aucient novels. From being squeamish, woman has become exacting. If she is pretty and popular, she may enjoy a, sort of perpetual jour de Pan. No small portion of her pin-money comes out of the pocket of her admirers. The bouquets, bonbons, and trinkets which she nets in the course of a season from theoretically anonymous donors are substantial evidence of the potency of her charms. These are trifles, but they serve to show how obsolete are the prim Richardsonian standards of feminine propriety. It has been reserved for the small but formidable sisterhood of Handsome Harpies to organise on a much more extensive scale a system of requisitions on their male friends. The Handsome Harpy is the Uhlan of societj'. She is as pitiless in her exactions as her renowned Prussian analogue. Her victim is, not a French commune, but a wealthy adorer ; and her booty, not barndoor fowls and cigars, but dress, dinners, and diamonds. She cannot appeal to the rights of war in excuse for her rapacity, for her victim is her own familiar friend ; but at least she can plead the custom of the demi-monde, whose greed she imitates. For some time the Harpie3 within the Pale have envied the good fortune of the harpies outside it. They have seen, with growing discontent, a variety of/ good thing.s falling into the For remainder of news see fourth page.

lap of their rivals, and have fretted at the scruple which debarred them from profiting by it in their turn. Why should Anonyma alone* enact the- part of the modern Danae, and they be excluded by a stupid etiquiette from* a sbaFe' in the golden shower? At .last,, their impatience has culminated in a bold resolution to be bound by no such, restraints „iQ-«future. They have, proclaimed? the /natural right of fascinating woman to live by her fascinations. The result is that a new and formidable danger has begun to be added 4o 4he many which environ our gilded youth. ; What the; Circe of Wapping is to the ingenuous Jack a-shore, thatthe* Handsome Harpy is to the Eldest Son. He is lured to her side and then pillaged. Lord Chesterfield never foresaw the day, or he would have given hie son very different, counsel, when a .■ ' ?J'~ , Till. |1 ' ! *-«..- r •' f • flirtation wiHi a Voman of fashion would become one of the most ruinous luxuries in which a ydung man of fortune could indulge. It is: during the, London season itbat the Handsome Harpy is busiest. Requisitions'' are then at their height.- Ascot, Epsom, Greenwich, •' Richmond, each is in turn the 'scene of therti." Sometimes, to press less heavily on a single adorer, the Handsome Harpy apportions the expense of her small pleasures among a whole circle. One man provides her 1 opera-box, another, her riding-horses; upon a third is devolved the costly privilege of paying her milliner's bill ; while the fourth loads the tables of her pretty salon with china and ve'rtu. Then, when the season is over, glutted with spoils, she flaps her wings and takes to flight, to pluck some especially plump , pigeon, feather by feather, without fear of interruption, on the coasts of Norway, or to forage in Scottish castles in quest of new prey. In October the. Handsome Harpies begin to re-appear in London hungrier than ever. You may see them on their perches at the theatres, pluming themselves on their autumnal exploits, and with fresh lustre in their cruel eyes, preparing to flesh their talons on a new assortment of spoonies. But who and what is . a Handsome Harpy ? Simply a young matron who has mistaken her vocation. Had she remained single, or married under a happier star, the predatory instinct in her bosom would never have attained such alarming proportions. In the one case, it might have been subdued by the conjugal and maternal instincts, and in the otherit would probably never have exceeded' the bounds of that petty pilfering which is excusable in. an, old maid. As it is, marriage has exasperated . her acquisitiveness. She regards it as a state of life allowed in Scripture, which lends itself conveniently to practices which, to say the least^are not exactly Scriptural. To her, home and its endearments ; ';sre as a tale told by an! idiot. No vision of children lisping their sire's return, or pleading;, ■. for ; morning bounties from: a mother's hand, disturbs the ,even tenor of her mercenary musings. All the plums, metaphorical ;as well as confectionary, are strictly reserved for herself. Her husband is a dummy,, her children are invisible. Linked for life to a torpid fribble with the tastes of a milliner and the soul of a City alderman, she must & m M c herself abroad or die of ennui. From a distraction, flirting has become her ; business. 1 ; Once there was a dashW^nderness in, her flirtations. *Tbere was a^tin^eNiviheh .she figured as a barrack-beauty of y garrison iown, and gave free playjfiq, that .^weakness for the military which the Grarid Duchess of Gerolstein so~ candidly avows. Even in that early stage of her married life the tongues of local gossips were set wagging by th>^ireedom with which she raced about the county with a, : posse of young ensigns. Having graduated with so much distinction in this local school of Cupid, she boldly resolved to enlarge the horizon of her gallantries, and enter the lists with the friskiest of young-^. matrons. In London the buxom charms which the young ensigns found ; so irresistible have been toned down to satisfy the more critical eye of fastidious guardsmen and self-complacent dandies. A more delicate pink suffuses ,her,;cheek ; a new and golden gleam plays over her tresses. This singular i development of beauty entails a corresponding. developSnent of expense! ' l But Diimmy's , income is limited. J'lf, he, is capable of feeling a dislike, it is- the dislike of, paying his wife's bills. Pinched for means to gratify her unbridled our heroine has been forced to join the ranks of the Associated ■" Harpies. - Henceforward fiirta^on has .become pe|f:SupportinLg,, , not to say lucrative. " He^Whb flirts must pay. She sniiies^'ifor' • iand i is captivating for value received. There is a graduated tariff for- tokens of her regard, from a passing dalliance , %o a'-coDfidential interview,'' Sentiment, even such jeentimep^s t^«.rpwdy y^ungijepsignsAn^piTed, has loog.sjocj} drojp^ed/.s!|fc o/ A^j^ps T:( action. It is simply an affair of the marked):. Bufc{ifris;'.mft?!»ged with due *W4-s^&fhpr^wii<Mß of aociety. The

same sort of machinery that crops up in a corrupt borough is calleuVi&to operation. Is it a diamond star for her hair that she covets? Her "man, in the , moon" possesses unlimited credit at the fashionable jeweller's. A fifty-guinea dr§3s ! The " v man in the moon" iuj, equal to .the^ occasion,, and . the deft fingers of the* N<K " Iqueeu1 queeu of milliners are set in motion to gratify her wish. It is even rumored that for the rent of the fashionable mansion in which she weaves her web for wealthy noodles, she is beholden to the same mysterious but benevolent agency. Thus she has : solved the difficult problem of living at the rnte of ten thousand a-year on an income of one, without landing her husband iv bankruptcy, or even wbuuding J his susceptibilities. But the spectacle' of a married, woman, dressed, bedecked', amused, aud even housed" by the disinterested' generosity of a circle of contributory adorers, is. one of the curiosities of advanced civilisation, which from our grandmother's point of view may fairly be reckoned with the marvels of electricity and steam. Even more astonishing to our grandfathers, with their stricter notions, of honor and punctilio, would be the., sleek cynicism displayed by the partners and accomplices of these fair requisitionists. A husbaud who effaces himself that his wife may play the jackal among her rich acquaintances, and thereby ease his pocket, may be said to have fairly distanced all former competitors iv the field of sordid complaisance. Yet let us do justice to the tact which he exhibits in a situation of peculiar delicacy. Other husbands have learned to wink at their wives' follies ; he alone has brouafct a tnlent for winking to the perfectioir*«r a fine art. It would be difficult to imagine a more admirable school for diplomacy than the menage of which he is the titular head. A husband must be an adroit dissembler to see his wife glittering in jewels not of his giving and in dresses not of his providing, without exhibiting the faintest symptoms of surprise or askiug one indiscreet question. Whatever raayibe thought of him as a man, us a diplomatist "he is enj titled to high praise. The most important posts iv that profession might be safely entrusted to a domestic tactician of so much resource and versatility. Is it Utopian to hope that an innovation so subversive of all that is modest and womanly in one sex, and of all that is manly and self-respecting in the other, may not be allowed to spread ? And spread it musf, unless fashionable society, in a spasm of returning propriety, agrees to brand the career of a Handsome Harpy as-disreputable. It is not the immodest greed^of frivolous women which saps the morals of Belgravia, but the countenance which they fiad iv the high places of society, and tlie culpable toleration extended to them by their own sex. A halo of prestige surrounds the Handsome Harpy; feminine gossip is busy with her marvellous toilets ; to the easy-goi^g throng she is one of the amusements of the town. Great ladies afiect to regard her proceedings with horror, but they admit her to their salons nevertheless. The virtuous duchesses who compose the Extreme Bight of society may plume themselves on ignoring her. existence,, but the laxer drawing-rooms of the Centre are not closed to the representative of the Extreme Left. If the moral tone of society were more elevated, such a career as hers, combining the sweets of the demi monde with the social privileges of respectability, would be impossible. In herself,, the .: Handsome Harpy may be merely a fresh illustration of Pope's sarcasm, that every womaa: is at heart > a rake. But, taken as an index of her moral surroundings, she acquires a new significance, of evil augury to the class from which her admirers are recruited.