Please see the Transcriber’s Notes at the end of this text.
STOP!
No reader will be permitted to pass beyond thispage who is not actually in society. This book isnot for those who dwell in the gloom of mere respectability,or the blaze of sheer wealth. It is a pasturageintended solely for those who bask in the sunlight ofthe smartest society.
Those whose social standing could conceivably beclassed with that of brewers, green-grocers, minorpoets, munition magnates, linen drapers, provincialactors, and cubist sculptors, must not trespass withinthese covers.
BUT—
If your name appears in all the Social Directories;if you are a member of six or eight fashionable clubs;if you never plan a dinner without unpotting a poundor so of pâté de foie gras; if you never witness anopera except from an opera box; if you never go tothe city except in an imported motor-car, why thenjust knock at the title page, open the door, walk in,take off your monocle—or your turreted tiara—andmake yourself perfectly at home.
AN INVITATION TO THE
READER
Elucidating the Little May-Pole
Festival on the following page
Of the younger Social Set,
And, amid their merry May-dance,
Personally pirouette?
Don a garment, smart and snappy,
Wear your most engaging smile,
Banish boredom and be happy—
In the world of chic and style.
Vowing love that never dies;
Ethel sees adoring glances
In athletic Albert’s eyes;
Peter—solvent as Mæcenas,
Lures a mermaid to the shore,
Telling her she looks like Venus,
Which, of course, she’s heard before.
Fiddles an entrancing tune;
Or, if you find jazzing stupid,
There are gardens—and a moon!
Life, and all its animation
Bids us join the mad mêlée,
And, to use an old quotation,
Gather rose-buds while we may.