by his abdomen, which he did by pounding the side of his torso with a
bulky volume of the "Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini," "what is the
theme of the most conspicuous portion of our fiction by feminine hands?
In large measure it is a peevish criticism of husbands. We have the
popular creator of a type of husband held up to the scorn and ridicule
of the sorority of her readers, remarking by way of commentary on her
satirical pictures that there should be 'a school for husbands.' It
is, apparently, this lady's complacent belief that the origin of the
domestic difficulties of the world is in the inadequate training of
husbands for their delicate office. One of 'the essential
requirements' for marriage which 'men should go to school to learn' she
mentions as 'understanding.' Wives, presumably, are born perfectly
equipped for their functions and do not require to be made. At any
rate, as the production of fiction nowadays is so largely a feminine
industry, and as a dominant trait of the male, even when recording his
observations, is his chivalrous point of view, there is little or no
opportunity given us on the benches, as you might say, to catch a
glimpse of life pointing a way for us to see it steadily and see it
whole."
The Jovian Colonel blew a heavy cloud of tobacco smoke from out his
massive ebony beard, and sat for a moment looking like some portentous
smouldering volcano; then continued:
"Men with hair on their chests would find the most agreeable society in
the pages of our women novelists to be that of the horrible or, as the
case may be, pitiful scoundrels at whom the authors themselves are most
indignant. These miserable beings, generally amiable though rather
purposeless spirits, are, as Colonel Harvey not long ago remarked of
one of them, of a sort that almost all men like and hardly any woman
can tolerate. Men are free to enjoy their engaging qualities because
men are not subject to possible misfortune by reason of the
corresponding infirmities of such characters, that is, men are not
dependent upon them for their own safety. Women, on the other hand,
fear such characters because instinct tells women that they could not
trust their own comfortable security to them; and, consequently, women
heartily dislike such as these and find them villainous, beings to be
branded in any feminine discussion of life as enemies of the sex.
"In the latest novel by one of our most prominent women novelists," the
Colonel went on, "for months the best-selling book in the country, and
also undoubtedly the work of an artist sincerely interpreting the world
according to her lights, we are presented with a distressing scene, an
incident holy horror at which would make a thrilling and delicious
success of any tea party. An undisciplined young pup who is the
husband comes home a bit late one night, and, as a man would describe
it, somewhat 'lit up.' An earnest student of this story cannot find
that this misguided youth was any worse than is ordinarily the case in
such delinquencies. It is intimated, however, that he has been this
way before. The horror, the loathing, which the humorous young scamp's
weakness inspires in his wife, a young woman of thoroughly feminine
loftiness of character, is dramatic indeed, and partakes of the nature
of that which so frequently is occasioned by the nervous organism of
women, a 'scene.' The total lack of large-hearted and intelligent
'understanding' of human nature displayed by the conduct of the young
man would send any connubial craft on to the rocks."
The Colonel mopped his brow with a large bandanna handkerchief. "Sir,"
he resumed, "obnoxious as it is to a sensible man to do so, let us
glance at the hero type of the most popular recent novels by women, the
figure which strikes admiration into the feminine soul. Now," he
roared (and I declare, my hair rose on end), "the most awful thing any
nigger can call another is a 'nigger.' So we all rebel against what we
feel to be the weaknesses of our own position. None so quick as the
vulgar to denounce 'no gentleman.' And so on. Thus, as we see, there
is nothing the weaker sex so much despises in a man as weakness of
character, and, as is consistent with all such reactions of feeling,
nothing which so much attracts it as a firmness and strength of will
beyond itself. Naturally, the adored figures in the popular women's
fiction are always of the 'strong man' type, in feminine eyes. And
here we come to a most extraordinary obliquity of the feminine eye.
"What," he demanded, "are the marks by which you are to know a 'strong
man'--in the feminine picture? A strong man, of course, is a man with
the bark on; polish is incompatible with rugged strength. An
exhilarating air of brusqueness breathes from all strong men. They are
as ignorant of manners as they are of the effete conventions of
grammar. They have fought their way up, and no one can down them.
They can be depended upon absolutely as what are called 'good
providers.' In short, by the written confession of her heart, woman's
idea of a 'dear,' after several centuries more or less of civilisation,
remains precisely the primitive conception that it was in the days when
man wooed her by grabbing her by the hair and handing her one with a
club."
The Colonel was breathing heavily with the exertion of animated speech
as he added: "In real life a man of any stability of judgment would be
decidedly suspicious of the hero of a modern woman's novel if one
should walk into his office, or, doubtless, he would observe this
whimsical caricature with something of the amusement he would find in
the ludicrously false comic Irishman of the vaudeville stage. This
irreverent flight of fancy on our part, however, is yanking the strong
man from his appropriate and supporting setting, where paste is given
the glow of an authentic stone; in the sympathetic pages created by
feminine intuition he dominates the machine. When the heroine takes
into her own hands the right of the individual to a second chance for
happiness," the Colonel declaimed with a demoniac grin, "she turns to
experience with such a one perfect love, as the honoured wife of a
splendid and prosperous man and the mother of beautiful children.
"The ethics of that engrossing theme of divorce," the Colonel went on,
lighting another corpulent and very black cigar, "as decided by the
Supreme Court of our contemporary women novelists suggests that justly
celebrated principle of perfect equity: 'What's yours is mine and
what's mine is my own.' Listen," he demanded; "listen (as the author
of 'The Gentle Art of Making Enemies' was wont to introduce his
lectures) to the story of the unfolding of a woman's heart through
marriage, as it is unfolded in the recent book of a novelist whom both
the million-headed crowd and shoals of reviewers, of very uneven
critical equipment, place 'well forward among America's novelists.' A
penniless young woman brought up amid the standards of very common
people marries for money, and comes to face the collapse of her dreams.
She realises that she is tied to a man for whom she cares nothing.
Also he is a brute, a typical bad egg of a husband from the extensive
though rather monotonous stock of this article dealt in by our women
novelists. Is it right for this young woman to throw away the chances
of her whole life for happiness--and so on? It certainly should not
seem so to readers of the book. And it is natural enough, as her
husband has totally failed to hold her, that this young woman's mind,
and heart, too, should convince her that she may make what she regards
as a wiser disposition of her life.
"The inevitable strong man whom she eventually marries seems
unfortunately to have a bit of a flaw in his granite character; at any
rate, something is wrong with him, as the heroine fails to hold him
altogether, and matters even begin to look as though she might lose
him. But with her great happiness had come a new standard of honour,
and a distrust of divorce as the solution of any marital problem.
Would it be right for her to lose a husband who has tired of her? Not
by a long shot! Marriage is the one vow we take before God. It is a
contract. Is it not against all moral law to break a contract? And
all the rest of it. So feminine logic disposes of what is described as
one of the great problems of the day."
Suddenly the Colonel broke into a terrifying smile. "This novelist of
whom we have just been speaking," he said, "somewhere remarked in an
interview that it was too bad about poor George Gissing--where she
picked up Gissing, God only knows--as, writing away all his life at
stuff people didn't care for, he was one of the tragedies of
literature. Well, Gissing may be dead and gone, but his works stick
on. I could tell her"--the Colonel glared as he pawed his enormous
hand through his mane--"of a more profound tragedy of literature."
XI
THE DESSERT OF LIFE
Birds of a feather flock together, you can tell a dog by its spots, a
man is known by the company he keeps--and all that sort of thing.
It is quite astonishing that nobody has before been struck by what I
have in my eye. People go round all the while writing about Old
Greenwich Village, the harbour, the Ghetto, the walk uptown. Coney
Island, the Great White Way, the subway ride, Riverside Drive, the
spectacle of Fifth Avenue, the Night Court, the "lungs" of the
metropolis, the "cliff dwellers," "faith, hope, and charity" on
University Heights--a cathedral, a university, and a hospital, "lobster
palace society," the "grand canons" of lower Manhattan, and about every
other part of and thing in New York except this most entertaining
section which I am about to discuss.
Now, I never lived on Mars----
You know "Sunday stories" in the newspapers are continually bringing a
gentleman resident on Mars to marvel, with his fresh vision, at the
wonders of this world.
As I say, I never lived on Mars, but, what amounts to the same thing in
this case, perhaps, I did live all of my New York life, up to a short
time ago, below Forty-second Street. I gathered from reading and
conversation that there were districts of the city above this where
people dwelt and went about their daily affairs, just, I supposed, as
fish do at the bottom of the ocean, and beasts in the jungle. But I
knew that I could not breathe at the bottom of the ocean, nor be
comfortable in the jungle.
However, it's this way. The person to whom I am married declared that
she could not live below Forty-second Street; said that that was not
done at all, nobody "lived" below Forty-second Street. So the matter
was settled. I moved "uptown." Of course, by stealth I continue to
visit the neighbourhood of Gramercy Park, as a dog, it is said, will
return to that which is not nice.
The beauties and the advantages of the region in which I now live have
been pointed out to me. It is quite true that everything hereabout is
new and "clean." Here the streets are not infested by "old bums" as
those are in that dirty old downtown. Here one is just between the
beautiful Drive on the one hand and our handsome Central Park on the
other. Here there is fresh air. Here Broadway is a boulevard, and,
further, it winds about in its course like the roads, as they call them
there, in London, and does not have that awful straight look of
everything in that checker-board part of town. Here everybody is well
dressed. And even the grocers' and butchers' shops are quite smart.
All this is indisputable.
But all this is a description of the physical aspects of this part of
town. What I purpose to do is an esoteric thing. Through the outward
aspects of this part of town, its vestments, the features of its
physiognomy, I will show, as through a glass, the beatings of its
heart. I will exhibit the soul of it, interpret its spirit, make plain
for him that runs its inner, hidden meaning.
The part of town that I mean may be said to begin at Seventy-second
Street; it runs along Broadway, and comprises the neighbourhood of
Broadway, to, say, a bit above One Hundred and Tenth Street. Now we
shall see what we shall see.
You remember what a celebrated irascible character said about a
circulating library in a town. Be that as it may. As you stroll along
Broadway, up from Seventy-second Street, you observe, being a person of
highly alert mind, an astonishing number of circulating libraries,
devoted exclusively to the latest fiction. And you note that all
corner drug stores and all stationers' shops present a window display
of "50-cent fiction." Ah! refinement. Reading people are nice people;
they are not rough people. There is, you feel at once, an air, there
is taste--how shall I say?--selectness, about this part of town. It is
not as other parts of town are.
You perceive, as you continue your stroll with a brightened and a more
perfumed mind, that there are no shoe stores here. Shoo stores!!
"Booteries," these are. Combined with "hosieries." Countless are the
smart hat shops for women. That is to say, the establishments of
"chapeaux importers." In the miniature parlours framed by the windows'
glass these chic and ravishing creations, the chapeaux, rise in a row
high upon their slim and lovely stems. This one is the establishment
of Mlle. Edythe, that of Mme. Vigneau. Countless, too, are the
terrestrial heavens devoted to "gowns." Headless they stand, these
symphonies in feminine apparel, side by side here in the windows of the
Maison la Mode, there of the Maison Estelle. Frequent are the places
where the figure is cultivated with famous corsets, the retreats of
"corsetieres"; this one before you bears the name Fayette; it is where
the model "Madame Pompadour" is sold. And numerous are shops
luxuriating in waists, "blouses," lingerie, and "novelties" of dress.
Conspicuous among them, the "Dolly Dimple Shop." The many "furriers"
here all deal in "exclusive" furs and their names all end in "sky."
And there are roses, roses all the way. That is to say, "roseries,"
"violeteries," and the like--what we call florists' shops, you know.
Spots of gorgeous colour and intense fragrance, heaped high with
orchids, violets, roses, gardenias, or, in some cases, "artificial
flowers."
See! the luscious wax busts in the window. With their grandes
coiffures. And their pink and yellow bosoms resplendent with gems. It
is a hair-dresser's, just as in London, with a gentlemen's parlour at
the back. "Structures" are made here in human hair, and "marcel
waving" is done, not, however, we may suppose, for gentlemen. Here may
be had an "olive oil shampoo," and a "facial massage." One could be
"manicured" in the stroll you are taking every ten minutes or so, if
one wished. And "hair cutting" is done along this way by artistes from
various lands. There is, for instance, the Peluqueria Espanola.
"Service," too, is offered "at residence." Beauty here is held in
esteem as it was among the Greeks. Upon one side of the "chemist's"
window "toilet requisites" are announced for sale. The "valet system"
is extensively advertised. The industry of "dry cleansing" nourishes,
and the "shoe renovator" abounds. And hats are "renovated," and
"blocked," and "ironed," in places without number.
What a delightful tea-room is this! With its woodwork, its panelling,
and its little window lattices, all in beautiful enamelled white.
_That_ is not a tea-room! I'm 'sprised at you. That is a laundry. A
laundry? Shades of Hop Loo! It is even so. There are a variety of
types of laundry in this part of the world, but the great point of them
all is their "sanitary" character. All things are sanitary here; the
shaving brushes at the barber's are proclaimed sanitary; "sanitary
tailoring" is announced; and the creameries of this district, it would
seem, go beyond anything yet achieved elsewhere in the way of
sanitation. It might be imagined from a study of window signs that a
perverse person bent upon procuring un-"pasteurized" milk in this part
of town would be frustrated of his design.
I was sent to what my understanding conceived to be the "bakery" in our
immediate neighbourhood, on an errand. This place, I found, was called
the "Queen Elizabeth." I was dreadfully abashed when I got inside. I
was afraid that there might be some bit of mud on my shoes which would
soil the polished floor; and I became keenly conscious that my trowsers
were not perfectly pressed. I should, of course, have worn my
tail-coat. There were several ladies there receiving guests that
afternoon. I had a tete-a-tete with one of these, who gossiped
pleasantly about the cakes--I was to get some cakes. The nicest cakes
at the "Queen Elizabeth," it seems, are of two kinds: "Maids of Court"
and "Ladies in Waiting." Our neighbourhood is rich in shops given to
"pastry," "sweets," "bon bons." Shops of charming names! There is the
"Ambrosia Confection Shop," and the place of the "Patisserie et
Confiserie."
In our neighbourhood there are, too, a vast number of "caterers" and
"fruiterers," and, particularly, delicatessen shops. Delicatessen
shops in our neighbourhood are described upon the windows as places
dealing in "fancy and table luxuries." I have heard my wife say that
many people "just live out of them." They are certainly handsome
places. Why, you wouldn't think there was any food in them.
Everything is so dressed up that it doesn't look at all as if it were
to eat, it is so attractive.
Restaurants hereabouts are commonly named "La Parisienne," or something
like that, or are called "rotisseries." There are some just ordinary
restaurants, too, and many immaculate, light-lunch rooms. "Afternoon
Tea" is a frequent sign, and one often sees the delicate suggestion in
neat gilt, "Sandwiches." Grocers in this part of town, it would seem,
handle only "select," "fancy," and "choice" groceries, and "hot-house
products." There are a number of fine "markets" in this district, very
fine markets indeed. In the season for game, deer and bears may be
seen strung up in front of them; all their chickens appear to come from
Philadelphia, their ducks are "fresh killed Long Island ducks," and
they make considerable of a feature of "frogs' legs." These markets
are usually called the "Superior Market," or the "Quality Market," or
something like that. Great residential hotels here bear the name of
"halls," as "Brummel Hall" on the one hand and "Euripides Hall" on the
other.
You will by now have begun to perceive the note, the flair, of my part
of town. Its care is for the graces, the things that sweeten life, the
refinements of civilisation, the embellishments of existence. Nothing
more clearly, strikingly, bespeaks this than the proofs of its
extraordinary fondness for art--I have mentioned literature. Painting
and sculpture, music, the drama, and the art of "interior decoration,"
these things of the spirit have their homes without number along this
stretch of Broadway.
"Art" shops and art "galleries" are on every hand. In the windows of
these places you will see: innumerable French mirrors; stacks of empty
picture frames of French eighteenth-century design, at an amazingly
cheap figure each; remarkably inexpensive reproductions in bright
colours of Sir Joshua, Corot, Watteau, Chardin, Fragonard, some Italian
Madonnas; an assortment of hunting prints, and prints redolent of Old
English sentiment; many wall "texts," or "creeds"; a variety of the
kind of coloured pictures technically called, I believe, "comics";
numerous little plaster casts of anonymous works and busts of standard
authors; frequently an ambitious original etching by an artist unknown
to you; and an occasional print of the "September Morn" kind of thing;
together with many "art objects" and a great deal of "bric-a-brac."
Upon the windows you are informed that "restoring," "artistic framing,"
"regilding," and "resilvering" are done within. And, in some cases,
that "miniatures" are painted there. There are, too, a number of
"Japanese art stores" along the way, containing vast stocks of Japanese
lilies living in Japanese pans, other exotic blossoming plants, pink
and yellow slippers from the Orient, and striking flowered garments
like a scene from a "Mikado" opera.
In this part of town photography, too, is made one of the fine arts.
You do not here have your photograph taken; you have, it seems, your
"portrait" made. "Home portraiture" is ingratiatingly suggested on
lettered cards, and, further, you are invited to indulge in "art posing
in photographs." The "studios" of the photographers display about an
equal number of portraits of children and dogs. The people of this
community take joy not only in the savour of art, and in taking part in
its professional production, but they would themselves produce it, as
amateurs. The sign "Kodaks" is everywhere about, and "enlarging" is
done, and "developing and printing for amateurs" every few rods. So we
come to the subject of music.
Caruso, Melba, Paderewski, Mischa Elman, Harry Lauder, Sousa, Liszt,
Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner, Brahms, Grieg, Moszkowsky, the "latest song
hit" from anything you please. Ask and you will find along this
thoroughfare. There are no more prosperous looking bazaars on this
street than those consecrated to the sale of "musical phonographs" of
every make. And if the name of these places is not exactly legion, it
is something very like that. Besides every species of Victophone and
Olagraph, the music lover may muse upon the wonders and the variety of
"mechanical piano players." All of de luxe "tone quality."
As for the drama. The brightest word at night in this galaxy of ultra
signs is the gracious word "Photo Play House." Deep beyond plummet's
sound is the interest of this part of town in the human story, as
revealed upon the "screen." Grief and mirth, good and evil, danger and
daring, and the horizon from Hatteras to Matapan may be scanned upon
the poster boards before the entrances of these showy temples of the
mighty film. Here one is invited to witness "Carmen," and also a
"drama of life," "Tricked by a Victim," and also "a comedy drama full
of pep" entitled "Good Old Pop," productions of the "Premier Picture
Corporation." Announcements of scenes of tornadoes, the Great War, of
"Paris fashions," and, ah, yes! of "beauty films" line the way.
To turn to the home. The people of this part of town dwell, according
to their shops, entirely amid "period and art furniture." And it would
seem, by the remarkable number of places in this quarter where this is
displayed for sale, that they dwell amid a most amazing amount of it.
These marts of household gods are of two kinds: ones of imposing size,
with long windows stretching far down the cross street, and dealing in
shining "reproductions," and the tiny, quaint, intimate, delightful
kind of thing, where it is said on a sign on a gilded chair that
"artistic picture hanging by the hour" is done.
The fascinating places are the more alluring. Herein rich jumbles are,
of tapestries, clocks of all periods--including a harvest of those of
the "grandfather" era--fire-screens, brass kettles, andirons,
stained-glass, artistic lamps in endless variety, the latest things in
pillow cushions, book racks, wall papers, wall "decorations" and
"hangings," draperies, curtains, cretonnes. The "decorators" deal,
too, in "parquet floors," and flourish and increase in their kind in
response, evidently, to the volume of demand for "upholstering" and
"cabinet work." And the floors of this part of town must hold rich
stores of Oriental rugs, as importers of these are frequent on our way.
The higher civilisations turn, naturally, to refinements of religious
thought. What the Salvation Army is to Fourteenth Street, what the
Rescue Mission is to the Bowery, the Christian Science Reading Room is
to this stretch of Broadway, and there is no trimmer place to be seen
on your stroll. Then, one of the marks of our culture to-day is the
aesthetic cultivation of the primitive. Our neighbourhood is invited,
on placards in windows, to assemble "every Sunday evening" to enjoy the
"love stories of the Bible."
For the rest, you would see on your stroll, for man cannot live by
taste and the spirit alone, sundry places of business concerned with
real estate, electrical accoutrement, automobile accessories, toys, the
investment and safeguarding of treasure, and so on, and particularly
with ales, wines, liquors, and cigars. Each and all of these, however,
are affirmed to be "places of quality."