community who wear
black cravats and waistcoats, and thrust their thumbs and forefingers in
their waistcoat-pockets, and are called "talking men." Some of them are
literary, and affect the philosopher; have, perhaps, written a book or
two, and are a small species of lion to very young ladies. Some are of
the _blase_ kind; men who affect the extremest elegance, and are reputed
"so aristocratic," and who care for nothing in particular, but wish they
had not been born gentlemen, in which case they might have escaped
ennui. These gentlemen stand with hat in hand, and their coats and
trousers are unexceptionable. They are the "so gentlemanly" persons of
whom one hears a great deal, but which seems to mean nothing but
cleanliness. Vivian Grey and Pelham are the models of their ambition,
and they succeed in being Pendennis. They enjoy the reputation of being
"very clever," and "very talented fellows," and "smart chaps"; but they
refrain from proving what is so generously conceded. They are often men
of a certain cultivation. They have traveled, many of them--spending a
year or two in Paris, and a month or two in the rest of Europe.
Consequently they endure society at home, with a smile, and a shrug, and
a graceful superciliousness, which is very engaging. They are perfectly
at home, and they rather despise Young America, which, in the next room,
is diligently earning its invitation. They prefer to hover about the
ladies who did not come out this season, but are a little used to the
world, with whom they are upon most friendly terms, and they criticize
together, very freely, all the great events in the great world of
fashion.

These elegant Pendennises we saw at Mrs. Potiphar's, but not without a
sadness which can hardly be explained. They had been boys once, all of
them, fresh and frank-hearted, and full of a noble ambition. They had
read and pondered the histories of great men; how they resolved, and
struggled, and achieved. In the pure portraiture of genius, they had
loved and honored noble women, and each young heart was sworn to truth
and the service of beauty. Those feelings were chivalric and fair. Those
boyish instincts clung to whatever was lovely, and rejected the specious
snare, however graceful and elegant. They sailed, new knights, upon that
old and endless crusade against hypocrisy and the devil, and they were
lost in the luxury of Corinth, nor longer seek the difficult shores
beyond. A present smile was worth a