Have we not lately seen how an institution
with a graceful English name, started in London for women and women
only, has just so far relaxed its rigid rule as to allow men upon its
premises between certain hours, and this relaxation we are told has been
conceded in consequence of the demand of numerous ladies. Well, well, if
men can on the whole get on better without the society of women than
women can without the society of men it is no doubt because they are
rougher creatures, moulded of a coarser clay, and are more entertained
by eating and drinking, smoking and the telling of tales than women are.
If all the men whom the Whartons labelled as wits and beaux of society
could be gathered together they would make a most excellent club in the
sense in which a club was understood in the last century. Johnson
thought that he had praised a man highly when he called him a clubbable
man, and so he had for those days which dreamed not of vast caravanserai
calling themselves clubs and having thousands of members on their roll,
the majority of whom do not know more than perhaps ten of their fellow
members from Adam. In the sense that Dr. Johnson meant, all these wits
and beaux whom our Whartons have gathered together were eminently
clubbable.
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