The following is a selection from the play Fashion, or Life in New York (1845) by Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt. It involves a conversation between Mrs. Tiffany, a lady who imagines herself fashionable, and Millinette, a French ladies maid. Mrs. Tiffany is part of the social more of New York's upper class and absurdity arises when she tries to utilize social forms which she does not understand, to try and become part of what she calls the "ee-light." (A.1 s.1).
Mrs. Tiffany: Is everything in order, Millinette? Ah! Very elegant, very elegant, .
Indeed! There is a jenny-says-quoi look about this furniture, -an air of fashion and gentility perfectly bewitching. Is there not, Millinette?.
Millinette: Oh, oui, Madame!.
Mrs. Tiffany: But where is Miss Seraphina? It is twelve o"clock; our visitors will be poring in, and she has not made her appearance. But I keep people waiting. -None but vulgar persons pay attention to punctuality. Is it not so, Millinette?.
Millinette: Quite comme it faut. -Great personnes always do make little personnes wait, Madame.
Mrs. Tiffany: This mode of receiving visitors only upon one specified day of the week is a most convenient custom! It saves the trouble of keeping the house continually in order and of being always dressed. I flatter myself that I was the first to introduce it amongst the New York ee-light. You are quite sure that it is strictly a Parisian mode, Millinette?.
Page 2.
Millinette: Oh, oui, Madame; entirely mode de Paris.
Mrs. Tiffany: This girl is worth her weight in gold. (Aside) Millinette, how do you say armchair in French?.
Millinette: Fauteuil, Madame.
Mrs. Tiffany: Fo-tool! That has a foreign-an out-of-the-wayish sound that is perfectly charming-and so genteel! There is something about our American words decidedly vulgar. Fowtool! How refined. Fowtool! Arm-chair! What a difference!.
Millinette: Madame have one charmante pronunciation. Fowtool (mimicking aside) charmante, Madame!.
