CBBs

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Contented Boston Brahmins (CBBs)

I used to pleasantly tease my gentleman-e-friend Edwin Taylor at Boston that he was a veritable Boston Brahmin.

He of course used to demur, though he lives in his own Duplex Bungalow in Boston and in his entire outlook on filthy lucre he is very contented with little, Contentment being the hallmark of Brahmins (just take a deep breath and look at me, for, I am an authentic South Indian Brahmin, although I use my sacred thread sparingly to keep it from getting dirty; filthy).

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King James Bible:

........Not give to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, nor covetous..................

http://bible.cc/1_timothy/3-3.htm

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According to Oliver Wendell Holmes who coined the term Boston Brahmins are not folks of the sort who buy their silver.

Meaning they had inherited all their family silver from their Pilgrim Fathers who perhaps smuggled it on board the Mayflower .

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"...The term Brahmin is of Indian origin, deriving from Sanskrit and referring to the highest caste in the Indian caste system. In America it has been applied (after it was coined by writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. as part of a January 1860 article in the Atlantic Monthly called "The Professor's Story") to the old, upper crust New England families of British Protestant (usually English) origin that were extremely influential in the development and leadership of arts, culture, science, politics, trade, and academia. The term was certainly applied half in jest to characterize the often erudite nature of the New England gentry to outsiders. The nature of the Brahmins is summarized in the doggerel "Boston Toast" by Harvard alumnus John Collins Bossidy.

"And this is good old Boston,

The home of the bean and the cod,

Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,

And the Cabots talk only to God.".............................

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin

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The Autocrat famously declared: "Give me the Luxuries of Life; I will dispense with its Necessities" (or something like that).
Here is the list:

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Courtesy: www.gutenberg.org/etext/751

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"Man wants but little here below."

 
Little I ask, my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A VERY PLAIN brown stone will do,)

 That I may call my own; -

 
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

 
Plain food is quite enough for me;

Three courses are as good as ten; -

 If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank heaven for three.  Amen!

 
I always thought cold victual nice; -
My CHOICE would be vanilla-ice.

 
I care not much for gold or land; -
Give me a mortgage here and there, -
Some good bank-stock,--some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share; -

 
I only ask that Fortune send
A LITTLE more than I shall spend.

 
Honors are silly toys, I know,
And titles are but empty names; -
I would, PERHAPS, be Plenipo, -
But only near St. James; -

 
I'm very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator's chair.

 
Jewels are baubles; 'tis a sin
To care for such unfruitful things; -
One good-sized diamond in a pin, -
Some, NOT SO LARGE, in rings, -

 
A ruby and a pearl, or so,
Will do for me;--I laugh at show.

 
My dame should dress in cheap attire;
(Good, heavy silks are never dear;) -
I own perhaps I MIGHT desire
Some shawls of true cashmere, -

 
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.

 
I would not have the horse I drive
So fast that folks must stop and stare
An easy gait--two, forty-five -
Suits me; I do not care; -

 
Perhaps, for just a SINGLE SPURT,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.

 
Of pictures, I should like to own
Titians and Raphaels three or four, -
I love so much their style and tone, -
One Turner, and no more, -

 
(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt
The sunshine painted with a squirt.)

 
Of books but few,--some fifty score
For daily use, and bound for wear;
The rest upon an upper floor; -
Some LITTLE luxury THERE

 
Of red morocco's gilded gleam,
And vellum rich as country cream.

 
Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these,
Which others often show for pride,
_I_ value for their power to please,
And selfish churls deride; -

 
ONE Stradivarius, I confess,
TWO Meerschaums, I would fain possess.

 
Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn,
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool; -
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But ALL must be of buhl?

 
Give grasping pomp its double share, -
I ask but ONE recumbent chair.

 
Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas' golden touch,
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them MUCH, -

 
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!

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