Excerpt from Social Silhouettes: Being the Impressions of Mr. Mark Manhattan

I used finely to take for granted, when I first cast the most casually observing eye upon social New York matters, that in the gaudy and dizzy whirl which is summed up by "going everywhere, " the person or persons who went everywhere always felt the sure and keen spur of a permanent enjoyment. It did not seem credible that the special development which cynic, optimist, moralist, or denunciator have all frankly conceded to mean "society" could exist without a universal desire and aptitude for sincere recreation. Those who drank of the effervescing waters were thirty, and they drank because they thirsted. I had no suspicion that they drank for any other reason. I was young, and I had not yet learned my fellowship with mortals who were like mills plashing in an almost empty stream, and productive of no appreciable grist.

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