toward the men who robbed our city a score of years ago, for they left us
that vast work in atonement), has so changed the neighborhood it is
impossible now for pious feet to make a pilgrimage to those childish
shrines. One house, however, still stands as when it was our nearest
neighbor. It had sheltered General Gage, land for many acres around had
belonged to him. He was an enthusiastic gardener, and imported, among a
hundred other fruits and plants, the "Queen Claude" plum from France,
which was successfully acclimated on his farm. In New York a plum of
that kind is still called a "green gage." The house has changed hands
many times since we used to play around the Grecian pillars of its
portico. A recent owner, dissatisfied doubtless with its classic
simplicity, has painted it a cheerful mustard color and crowned it with a
fine new _Mansard_ roof. Thus disfigured, and shorn of its surrounding
trees, the poor old house stands blankly by the roadside, reminding one
of the Greek statue in Anstey's "Painted Venus" after the London barber
had decorated her to his taste. When driving by there now, I close my
eyes.
Another house, where we used to be taken to play, was that of Audubon, in
the park of that name. Many a rainy afternoon I have passed with his
children choosing our favorite birds in the glass cases that filled every
nook and corner of the tumble-down old place, or turning over the leaves
of the enormous volumes he would so graciously take down from their
places for our amusement. I often wonder what has become of those vast
_in-folios_, and if any one ever opens them now and admires as we did the
glowing colored plates in which the old ornithologist took such pride.
There is something infinitely sad in the idea of a collection of books
slowly gathered together at the price of privations and sacrifices,
cherished, fondled, lovingly read, and then at the owner's death, coldly
sent away to stand for ever unopened on the shelves of some public
library. It is like neglecting poor dumb children!
An event that made a profound impression on my childish imagination
occurred while my father, who was never tired of improving our little
domain, was cutting a pathway down the steep side of the slope to the
river. A great slab, dislodged by a workman's pick, fell disclosing the
grave of an Indian chief. In a low archway or shallow cave sat the
skeleton of the chieftain, his bows and arrows arranged around him on the
ground, mingled with fragments of an elaborate costume, of which little
remained but the bead-work. That it was the tomb of a man great among
his people was evident from the care with which the grave had been
prepared and then hidden, proving how, hundreds of years before our
civilization, another race had chosen this noble cliff and stately river
landscape as the fitting framework for a great warrior's tomb.
This discovery made no little stir in the scientific world of that day.
Hundreds came to see it, and as photography had not then come into the
world, many drawings were made and casts taken, and finally the whole
thing was removed to the rooms of the Historical Society. From that day
the lonely little path held an awful charm for us. Our childish readings
of Cooper had developed in us that love of the Indian and his wild life,
so characteristic of boyhood thirty years ago. On still summer
afternoons, the place had a primeval calm that froze the young blood in
our veins. Although we prided ourselves on our quality as "braves," and
secretly pined to be led on the war-path, we were shy of walking in that
vicinity in daylight, and no power on earth, not even the offer of the
tomahawk or snow-shoes for which our souls longed, would have taken us
there at night.
A place connected in my memory with a tragic association was across the
river on the last southern slope of the Palisades. Here we stood
breathless while my father told the brief story of the duel between Burr
and Hamilton, and showed us the rock stained by the younger man's life-
blood. In those days there was a simple iron railing around the spot
where Hamilton had expired, but of later years I have been unable to find
any trace of the place. The tide of immigration has brought so deep a
deposit of "saloons" and suburban "balls" that the very face of the land
is changed, old lovers of that shore know it no more. Never were the
environs of a city so wantonly and recklessly degraded. Municipalities
have vied with millionaires in soiling and debasing the exquisite shores
of our river, that, thirty years ago, were unrivalled the world over.
The glamour of the past still lies for me upon this landscape in spite of
its many defacements. The river whispers of boyish boating parties, and
the woods recall a thousand childish hopes and fears, resolute departures
to join the pirates, or the red men in their strongholds--journeys boldly
carried out until twilight cooled our courage and the supper-hour proved
a stronger temptation than war and carnage.
When I sat down this summer evening to write a few lines about happy days
on the banks of the Hudson, I hardly realized how sweet those memories
were to me. The rewriting of the old names has evoked from their long
sleep so many loved faces. Arms seem reaching out to me from the past.
The house is very still to-night. I seem to be nearer my loved dead than
to the living. The bells of my lost "Is" are ringing clear in the
silence.
No. 17--Royalty At Play
Few more amusing sights are to be seen in these days, than that of
crowned heads running away from their dull old courts and functions,
roughing it in hotels and villas, gambling, yachting and playing at being
rich nobodies. With much intelligence they have all chosen the same
Republican playground, where visits cannot possibly be twisted into
meaning any new "combination" or political move, thus assuring themselves
the freedom from care or responsibility, that seems to be the aim of
their existence. Alongside of well-to-do Royalties in good paying
situations, are those out of a job, who are looking about for a "place."
One cannot take an afternoon's ramble anywhere between Cannes and Mentone
without meeting a half-dozen of these magnates.
The other day, in one short walk, I ran across three Empresses, two
Queens, and an Heir-apparent, and then fled to my hotel, fearing to be
unfitted for America, if I went on "keeping such company." They are
knowing enough, these wandering great ones, and after trying many places
have hit on this charming coast as offering more than any other for their
comfort and enjoyment. The vogue of these sunny shores dates from their
annexation to France,--a price Victor Emmanuel reluctantly paid for
French help in his war with Austria. Napoleon III.'s demand for Savoy
and this littoral, was first made known to Victor Emmanuel at a state
ball at Genoa. Savoy was his birthplace and his home! The King broke
into a wild temper, cursing the French Emperor and making insulting
allusions to his parentage, saying he had not one drop of Bonaparte blood
in his veins. The King's frightened courtiers tried to stop this
outburst, showing him the French Ambassador at his elbow. With a
superhuman effort Victor Emmanuel controlled himself, and turning to the
Ambassador, said:
"I fear my tongue ran away with me!" With a smile and a bow the great
French diplomatist remarked:
"_Sire_, I am so deaf I have not heard a word your Majesty has been
saying!"
The fashion of coming to the Riviera for health or for amusement, dates
from the sixties, when the Empress of Russia passed a winter at Nice, as
a last attempt to prolong the existence of the dying Tsarewitsch, her
son. There also the next season the Duke of Edinburgh wooed and won her
daughter (then the greatest heiress in Europe) for his bride. The world
moves fast and a journey it required a matter of life and death to decide
on, then, is gayly undertaken now, that a prince may race a yacht, or a
princess try her luck at the gambling tables. When one reflects that the
"royal caste," in Europe alone, numbers some eight hundred people, and
that the East is beginning to send out its more enterprising crowned
heads to get a taste of the fun, that beyond drawing their salaries,
these good people have absolutely nothing to do, except to amuse
themselves, it is no wonder that this happy land is crowded with royal
pleasure-seekers.
After a try at Florence and Aix, "the Queen" has been faithful to Cimiez,
a charming site back of Nice. That gay city is always _en fete_ the day
she arrives, as her carriages pass surrounded by French cavalry, one can
catch a glimpse of her big face, and dowdy little figure, which
nevertheless she can make so dignified when occasion requires. The stay
here is, indeed, a holiday for this record-breaking sovereign, who
potters about her private grounds of a morning in a donkey-chair, sunning
herself and watching her Battenberg grandchildren at play. In the
afternoon, she drives a couple of hours--in an open carriage--one
outrider in black livery alone distinguishing her turnout from the
others.
The Prince of Wales makes his headquarters at Cannes where he has poor
luck in sailing the Brittania, for which he consoles himself with jolly
dinners at Monte Carlo. You can see him almost any evening in the
_Restaurant de Paris_, surrounded by his own particular set,--the Duchess
of Devonshire (who started a penniless German officer's daughter, and
became twice a duchess); Lady de Grey and Lady Wolverton, both showing
near six feet of slender English beauty; at their side, and lovelier than
either, the Countess of Essex. The husbands of these "Merry Wives" are
absent, but do not seem to be missed, as the ladies sit smoking and
laughing over their coffee, the party only breaking up towards eleven
o'clock to try its luck at _trente et quarante_, until a "special" takes
them back to Cannes.
He is getting sadly old and fat, is England's heir, the likeness to his
mamma becoming more marked each year. His voice, too, is oddly like
hers, deep and guttural, more adapted to the paternal German (which all
this family speak when alone) than to his native English. Hair, he has
none, except a little fringe across the back of his head, just above a
fine large roll of fat that blushes above his shirt-collar. Too bad that
this discovery of the microbe of baldness comes rather late for him! He
has a pleasant twinkle in his small eyes, and an entire absence of
_pose_, that accounts largely for his immense and enduring popularity.
But the Hotel Cap Martin shelters quieter crowned heads. The Emperor and
Empress of Austria, who tramp about the hilly roads, the King and Queen
of Saxony and the fat Arch-duchess Stephanie. Austria's Empress looks
sadly changed and ill, as does another lady of whom one can occasionally
catch a glimpse, walking painfully with a crutch-stick in the shadow of
the trees near her villa. It is hard to believe that this white-haired,
bent old woman was once the imperial beauty who from the salons of the
Tuileries dictated the fashions of the world! Few have paid so dearly
for their brief hour of splendor!
Cannes with its excellent harbor is the centre of interest during the
racing season when the Tsarewitsch comes on his yacht Czaritza. At the
Battle of Flowers, one is pretty sure to see the Duke of Cambridge, his
Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Michael, Prince Christian of Denmark,
H.R.H. the Duke of Nassau, H.I.H. the Archduke Ferdinand d'Este, their
Serene Highnesses of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas,
also H.I.H. Marie Valerie and the Schleswig-Holsteins, pelting each other
and the public with _confetti_ and flowers. Indeed, half the _Almanach
de Gotha_, that continental "society list," seems to be sunning itself
here and forgetting its cares, on bicycles or on board yachts. It is
said that the Crown Princess of Honolulu (whoever she may be) honors
Mentone with her presence, and the newly deposed Queen "Ranavalo" of
Madagascar is _en route_ to join in the fun.
This crowd of royalty reminds me of a story the old sea-dogs who gather
about the "Admirals' corner" of the Metropolitan Club in Washington, love
to tell you. An American cockswain, dazzled by a doubly royal visit,
with attending suites, on board the old "Constitution," came up to his
commanding officer and touching his cap, said:
"Beg pardon, Admiral, but one of them kings has tumbled down the gangway
and broke his leg."
It has become a much more amusing thing to wear a crown than it was.
Times have changed indeed since Marie Laczinska lived the fifty lonely
years of her wedded life and bore her many children, in one bed-room at
Versailles--a monotony only broken by visits to Fontainebleau or Marly.
Shakespeare's line no longer fits the case.
Beyond securing rich matches for their children, and keeping a sharp
lookout that the Radicals at home do not unduly cut down their civil
lists, these great ones have little but their amusements to occupy them.
Do they ever reflect, as they rush about visiting each other and
squabbling over precedence when they meet, that some fine morning the tax-
payers may wake up, and ask each other why they are being crushed under
such heavy loads, that eight hundred or more quite useless people may
pass their lives in foreign watering-places, away from their homes and
their duties? It will be a bad day for them when the long-suffering
subjects say to them, "Since we get on so exceedingly well during your
many visits abroad, we think we will try how it will work without you at
all!"
The Prince of little Monaco seems to be about the only one up to the
situation, for he at least stays at home, and in connection with two
other gentlemen runs an exceedingly good hotel and several restaurants on
his estates, doing all he can to attract money into the place, while
making the strictest laws to prevent his subjects gambling at the famous
tables. Now if other royalties instead of amusing themselves all the
year round would go in for something practical like this, they might
become useful members of the community. This idea of Monaco's Prince
strikes one as most timely, and as opening a career for other indigent
crowned heads. Hotels are getting so good and so numerous, that without
some especial "attraction" a new one can hardly succeed; but a
"Hohenzollern House" well situated in Berlin, with William II. to receive
the tourists at the door, and his fat wife at the desk, would be sure to
prosper. It certainly would be pleasanter for him to spend money so
honestly earned than the millions wrested from half-starving peasants
which form his present income. Besides there is almost as much gold lace
on a hotel employee's livery as on a court costume!
The numerous crowned heads one meets wandering about, can hardly lull
themselves over their "games" with the flattering unction that they are
of use, for, have they not France before them (which they find so much to
their taste) stronger, richer, more respected than ever since she shook
herself free of such incumbrances? Not to mention our own democratic
country, which has managed to hold its own, in spite of their many
gleeful predictions to the contrary.
No. 18--A Rock Ahead
Having had occasion several times during this past season, to pass by the
larger stores in the vicinity of Twenty-third Street, I have been struck
more than ever, by the endless flow of womankind that beats against the
doors of those establishments. If they were temples where a beneficent
deity was distributing health, learning, and all the good things of
existence, the rush could hardly have been greater. It saddened me to
realize that each of the eager women I saw was, on the contrary,
dispensing something of her strength and brain, as well as the wearily
earned stipend of the men of her family (if not her own), for what could
be of little profit to her.
It occurred to me that, if the people who are so quick to talk about the
elevating and refining influences of women, could take an hour or two and
inspect the centres in question, they might not be so firm in their
beliefs. For, reluctant as I am to acknowledge it, the one great
misfortune in this country, is the unnatural position which has been
(from some mistaken idea of chivalry) accorded to women here. The result
of placing them on this pedestal, and treating them as things apart, has
been to make women in America poorer helpmeets to their husbands than in
any other country on the face of the globe, civilized or uncivilized.
Strange as it may appear, this is not confined to the rich, but permeates
all classes, becoming more harmful in descending the social scale, and it
will bring about a disintegration of our society, sooner than could be
believed. The saying on which we have all been brought up, viz., that
you can gauge the point of civilization attained in a nation by the
position it accords to woman, was quite true as long as woman was
considered man's inferior. To make her his equal was perfectly just; all
the trouble begins when you attempt to make her man's superior, a
something apart from his working life, and not the companion of his
troubles and cares, as she was intended to be.
When a small shopkeeper in Europe marries, the next day you will see his
young wife taking her place at the desk in his shop. While he serves his
customers, his smiling spouse keeps the books, makes change, and has an
eye on the employees. At noon they dine together; in the evening, after
the shop is closed, are pleased or saddened together over the results of
the day. The wife's _dot_ almost always goes into the business, so that
there is a community of interest to unite them, and their lives are
passed together. In this country, what happens? The husband places his
new wife in a small house, or in two or three furnished rooms, generally
so far away that all idea of dining with her is impossible. In
consequence, he has a "quick lunch" down town, and does not see his wife
between eight o'clock in the morning and seven in the evening. His
business is a closed book to her, in which she can have no interest, for
her weary husband naturally revolts from talking "shop," even if she is
in a position to understand him.
His false sense of shielding her from the rude world makes him keep his
troubles to himself, so she rarely knows his financial position and sulks
over his "meanness" to her, in regard to pin-money; and being a perfectly
idle person, her days are apt to be passed in a way especially devised by
Satan for unoccupied hands. She has learned no cooking from her mother;
"going to market" has become a thing of the past. So she falls a victim
to the allurements of the bargain-counter; returning home after hours of
aimless wandering, irritable and aggrieved because she cannot own the
beautiful things she has seen. She passes the evening in trying to win
her husband's consent to some purchase he knows he cannot afford, while
it breaks his heart to refuse her--some object, which, were she really
his companion, she would not have had the time to see or the folly to ask
for.
The janitor in our building is truly a toiler. He rarely leaves his
dismal quarters under the sidewalk, but "Madam" walks the streets clad in
sealskin and silk, a "Gainsborough" crowning her false "bang." I always
think of Max O'Rell's clever saying, when I see her: "The sweat of the
American husband crystallizes into diamond ear-rings for the American
woman." My janitress sports a diminutive pair of those jewels and has
hopes of larger ones! Instead of "doing" the bachelor's rooms in the
building as her husband's helpmeet, she "does" her spouse, and a char-
woman works for her. She is one of the drops in the tide that ebbs and
flows on Twenty-third Street--a discontented woman placed in a false
position by our absurd customs.
Go a little further up in the social scale and you will find the same
"detached" feeling. In a household I know of only one horse and a
_coupe_ can be afforded. Do you suppose it is for the use of the weary
breadwinner? Not at all. He walks from his home to the "elevated." The
carriage is to take his wife to teas or the park. In a year or two she
will go abroad, leaving him alone to turn the crank that produces the
income. As it is, she always leaves him for six months each year in a
half-closed house, to the tender mercies of a caretaker. Two additional
words could be advantageously added to the wedding service. After "for
richer for poorer," I should like to hear a bride promise to cling to her
husband "for winter for summer!"
Make another step up and stand in the entrance of a house at two A.M.,
just as the cotillion is commencing, and watch the couples leaving. The
husband, who has been in Wall Street all day, knows that he must be there
again at nine next morning. He is furious at the lateness of the hour,
and dropping with fatigue. His wife, who has done nothing to weary her,
is equally enraged to be taken away just as the ball was becoming
amusing. What a happy, united pair they are as the footman closes the
door and the carriage rolls off home! Who is to blame? The husband is
vainly trying to lead the most exacting of double lives, that of a
business man all day and a society man all night. You can pick him out
at a glance in a ballroom. His eye shows you that there is no rest for
him, for he has placed his wife at the head of an establishment whose
working crushes him into the mud of care and anxiety. Has he any one to
blame but himself?
In England, I am told, the man of a family goes up to London in the
spring and gets his complete outfit, down to the smallest details of hat-
box and umbrella. If there happens to be money left, the wife gets a new
gown or two: if not, she "turns" the old ones and rejoices vicariously in
the splendor of her "lord." I know one charming little home over there,
where the ladies cannot afford a pony-carriage, because the three
indispensable hunters eat up the where-withal.
Thackeray was delighted to find one household (Major Ponto's) where the
governess ruled supreme, and I feel a fiendish pleasure in these accounts
of a country where men have been able to maintain some rights, and am
moved to preach a crusade for the liberation of the American husband,
that the poor, down-trodden creature may revolt from the slavery where he
is held and once more claim his birthright. If he be prompt to act (and
is successful) he may work such a reform that our girls, on marrying, may
feel that some duties and responsibilities go with their new positions;
and a state of things be changed, where it is possible for a woman to be
pitied by her friends as a model of abnegation, because she has decided
to remain in town during the summer to keep her husband company and make
his weary home-coming brighter. Or where (as in a story recently heard)
a foreigner on being presented to an American bride abroad and asking for
her husband, could hear in answer: "Oh, he could not come; he was too
busy. I am making my wedding-trip without him."
No. 19--The Grand Prix
In most cities, it is impossible to say when the "season" ends. In
London and with us in New York it dwindles off without any special
finish, but in Paris it closes like a trap-door, or the curtain on the
last scene of a pantomime, while the lights are blazing and the orchestra
is banging its loudest. The _Grand Prix_, which takes place on the
second Sunday in June, is the climax of the spring gayeties. Up to that
date, the social pace has been getting faster and faster, like the finish
of the big race itself, and fortunately for the lives of the women as
well as the horses, ends as suddenly.
In 1897, the last steeple chase at Auteuil, which precedes the _Grand
Prix_ by one week, was won by a horse belonging to an actress of the
_Theatre Francais_, a lady who has been a great deal before the public
already in connection with the life and death of young Lebaudy. This
youth having had the misfortune to inherit an enormous fortune, while
still a mere boy, plunged into the wildest dissipation, and became the
prey of a band of sharpers and blacklegs. Mlle. Marie Louise Marsy
appears to have been the one person who had a sincere affection for the
unfortunate youth. When his health gave way during his military service,
she threw over her engagement with the _Francais_, and nursed her lover
until his death--a devotion rewarded by the gift of a million.
At the present moment, four or five of the band of self-styled noblemen
who traded on the boy's inexperience and generosity, are serving out
terms in the state prisons for blackmailing, and the _Theatre Francais_
possesses the anomaly of a young and beautiful actress, who runs a racing
stable in her own name.