The Gussies

ORIGINALLY a Gussie was any schoolmate of my mother’s. Later the term was extended to include anyone of the same general type who might have gone to school with her. They were named one summer when we were taken to Europe by our parents on an educational tour. It was then that we first realized what a hardy and ubiquitous band these schoolmates made. There was a thin sprinkling of them on the steamer. Then they appeared here and there all over Europe. We met them in the streets, in galleries and in hotels. Always our procession was halted while Mother clutched these dear friends and exchanged vital statistics about all their acquaintances. The climax was reached in the Wallace Collection. Mother suddenly forgot the English voice she always acquires in London, and uttering a shrill cry, ‘Oh, my dear Gussie!’ hurried joyfully across the gallery. After that they were all called Gussies.

Once you acquire a knowledge of their traits you can recognize a Gussie anywhere. The majority are inclined to be stout, all are erect. They have poise, discrimination, they know exactly what they want and usually get it. Policemen, bank clerks, and head waiters are as clay in their hands. A Gussie’s hat is a thing apart. It has a tendency to be a bit too high and to perch on her head. At its worst it resembles a fern dish, complete with ferns. Better examples are the hats affected by Queen Mary before she shook the world by adding a feather. These hats worry the Gussie’s daughters.

A genuine Gussie has respect for style. She is seldom dowdy. (Her chief weakness is her back hair, which is apt to be streamlined.) She permits a change each year in the shape of her headgear, but, though she nods to fashion, she never bows. She has a strong feeling for what she considers suitable. What is unsuitable she avoids with grim determination. Knox used to build her hats, sturdy erections of felt in winter, straw in summer, trimmed with blobs of cocks’ feathers. Now there is a new haven, and once a Gussie has found it, her daughter may shed anxiety. Standing close by, and firm against the influence of Radio City, is a Gussie hat shop. It is run by a man who makes the perfect Gussie hat. His mother assists and, I suspect, inspires him. The only trouble is that, since most of the Gussies go there, and since the milliner is not Shakespeare, the same models often meet. I like to walk down the street near this shop and watch the Gussies converging upon it.

A genuine, vintage Gussie has lived in New York for at least two generations. A few have moved to Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston, though the Boston Gussie wears her hat with a difference. Farther west or south they acquire other traits and cease to be Gussies. Though they are ubiquitous, they have certain favorite haunts: Maillard’s Restaurant, the Philharmonic concerts on Friday afternoons, and a few selected shops such as McCutcheon’s for linens, Martin and Martin’s for shoes (they never wear high heels), and the more venerable department stores where they buy hair nets, hairpins, and those undergarments for which the newer shops insist ‘they have no call.’ The Atlantic Transport Line was once another favorite haunt. In fact it was when the Gussies reached the age when elevators were essential to them that these nice old ships had to be scrapped.

I have known the Gussies to be completely thwarted only once. A small group of them was invited to lunch at the River Club soon after its opening. They anticipated the occasion with excitement and returned elated, but — there was evidently a but. It seems that as they entered the dining room the Gussies saw everyone making for the bar. This was during prohibition, before their band took up sherry in a big way. They were, however, determined to share whatever privileges the club offered, so they ordered tomato juice and advanced upon the bar to drink it. It was here that defeat met them. In spite of brave attempts, they could not climb up on the stools. After repeated efforts they retired baffled to their table in the corner.

It is my privilege to belong to a so-called Literary Society which boasts a high percentage of Gussies in its membership. It is over fifty years old and has been called the Metropolitan Cranford. The business of this society is conducted in a unique manner of its own. Once the treasurer put the account in a savings bank because its architecture pleased her. It was not until she tried to draw checks that she realized the inconvenience of her choice.

Parliamentary law is unknown. Someone says, ‘ I am sure we would all like to do ’ so and so. Polite murmurs of assent follow and that is all. We seldom move or second, rarely say aye, and are never contrary - minded. It is when the Gussies open discussion that we interlopers from another generation reap our reward. All roads lead backward. We sit enthralled while visions of another New York rise before us: horsecars, cabs, Edwin Booth, Maurice Barrymore, — the handsomest man that ever lived, apparently, — cows in the back yard (there was one in particular, led into a brownstone front through the area as a calf, and never able to emerge again because it grew inconveniently large), evening receptions, evening calls, balls at Delmonico’s, concerts at the Academy of Music. A strange New York, perhaps acquiring charm through the passage of time, but charming at all events.

Though the favorite topics are personal reminiscences and family history, the Literary Society occasionally indulges in a literary afternoon. The Gussies were nourished in their youth on the best Victorian fare: Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Tennyson, and Browning, eagerly read, form the background of their thought. Recently a younger member read a paper which she called ‘A Decade of Forgotten Books.’ She found her title inaccurate. The Gussies were as familiar with the novels of Kingsley, Beaconsfield, Miss Sedgwick, and with the tear-drenched pages of Elizabeth Wetherell as were the other members with the works of Sinclair Lewis and Galsworthy. As a result of their early training the Gussies have acquired, besides faith in romance, a standard of measurement by which all literature is judged. This is no tape measure, but an unbending rod. Novelty, vigor, and reality do not compensate them for the qualities which they deem essential. It is, I think, lack of reticence that troubles them most in modern books and in the modern world. For them certain topics are, and always will be, unmentionable. Because their sensibilities have been shocked so often, they approach current literature fearfully and with some hostility. It is but thinly represented in the books sent them each week by the Society Library. Their lists are chiefly made up of memoirs and biographies, preferably of nineteenth-century personages, with a sprinkling of favorite novels to be reread. I must add that they are conscientious daily readers of the obituary notices in the Times or Herald Tribune. They have been accused of showing disappointment when they fail to find at least one name that they know.

Respect for reticence does not deprive the Gussies’ company of spice. They have, I believe, no opinions, only convictions, and these they state and defend with vigor. I remember one occasion when an unfortunate member expressed contempt for Shelley as a poet. The poor soul was almost annihilated. One Gussie became so angry she had to take a heart pill.

‘No,’ said another, ’I am not angry, only sorry for you. I shall pray for you every night.’

When the meetings adjourn to the tea table and the Gussies indulge in confidential reminiscences, the real fun begins. Every Gussie still sees contemporaries as they were in the seventies. Mrs. Thomas Rogers may be a grandmother, but she is still Sally White to them. And Sally White, I sometimes think, is more real to them than the woman she has become. I have seen a venerable dowager sail into a room like a victorious flagship, her prow festooned with jewels. The younger generations may bow before her, but the Gussies stand unmoved, aloof. ’My dear,’ one confides, ‘she was the most unattractive girl you ever saw, a perfect wallflower. No one would dance with her.’ And then a faded wreck will make an unobtrusive entrance and be greeted with acclaim. ‘She was a great belle,’ I hear, ‘a great beauty. Everyone was in love with her.’

It is, perhaps, their tendency to reminiscence that lends the Gussies their greatest charm, but there is more to it than that. They have acquired the rare quality of all things seasoned by time. They have distinction and value. In the march of progress the Gussies will never lead the van. They have no flair for the untried. But they will not be in the rear. Somewhere in the middle of the procession their sturdy figures, topped by their incredible hats, will appear, carrying banners of their own.