Eric Hobsbawm - Age Of Revolution 1789 -1848

THE ARTSnational aristocratic culture, or rather unculture; for the interests of'the dandy'—clean-shaven, impassive and refulgent—were supposedto be confined to horses, dogs, carriages, prize-fighters, gaming,gentlemanly dissipation and his own person. Such heroic extremismfired even the romantics, who fancied dandyism themselves; butprobably it fired young ladies of lesser ranks even more, and set themdreaming (in Gautier's words):'Sir Edward was so splendidly the Englishman of her dreams. The Englishmanfreshly shaved, pink, shining, groomed and polished, facing the first raysof the morning sun in an already perfect white cravat, the Englishman ofwaterproof and mackintosh. Was he not the very crown of civilization? . . .I shall have English silverware, she thought, and Wedgwood china. Therewill be carpets all over the house and powdered footmen and I shall take theair by the side of my husband driving our four-in-hand through Hyde Park.. .. Tame spotted deer will play on the green lawn of my country house, andperhaps also a few blond and rosy children. Children look so well on the frontseat of a Barouche, beside a pedigree King Charles spaniel . . . .' 14It was perhaps an inspiring vision, but not a romantic one, any morethan the picture of Royal or Imperial Majesties graciously attendingopera or ball, surmounting expanses of jewelled, but strictly well-born,gallantry and beauty.Middle and lower middle class culture was no more romantic. Itskeynote was soberness and modesty. Only among the great bankersand speculators, or the very first generation of industrial millionaires,who never or no longer needed to plough much of their profits back intothe business, did the opulent pseudo-baroque of the latter nineteenthcentury begin to show itself; and then only in the few countries inwhich the old monarchies or aristocrats no longer dominated 'society'entirely. The Rothschilds, monarchs in their own right, already showedoff like princes. 15 The ordinary bourgeois did not. Puritanism, evangelicalor Catholic pietism encouraged moderation, thrift, a comfortablespartanism and an unparalleled moral self-satisfaction in Britain, theUSA, Germany and Huguenot France; the moral tradition of eighteenthcentury illuminism and freemasonry did the same for the moreemancipated or anti-religious. Except in the pursuit of profit and logic,middle class life was a life of controlled emotion and deliberate restrictionof scope. The very large section of the middle classes who, onthe continent, were not in business at all but in government service,whether as officials, teachers, professors or in some cases pastors, lackedeven the expanding frontier of capital accumulation; and so did the271