Live not unto yourselves! Can any one deny that this blessed sentiment
is extending in modern life? Do we build houses for ourselves or for
others? Do we make great entertainments for our own comfort? I do not
know that anybody regarded the erection of the Henderson palace as an
altruistic performance. The socialistic newspapers said that it was pure
ostentation. But had it not been all along in the minds of the builders
to ask all the world to see it, to share the delight of it? Is this
a selfish spirit? When I stroll in the Park am I not pleased with the
equipages, with the display of elegance upon which so much money has
been lavished for my enjoyment?
All the world was asked to the Henderson reception. The coming event
was the talk of the town. I have now cuttings from the great journals,
articles describing the house, more beautifully written than Gibbon's
stately periods about the luxury of later Rome. It makes one smile to
hear that the day of fine writing is over. Everybody was eager to go;
there was some plotting to obtain invitations by those who felt that
they could not afford to be omitted from the list that would be printed;
by those who did not know the Hendersons, and did not care to know
them, but who shared the general curiosity; and everybody vowed that he
supposed he must go, but he hated such a crush and jam as it was sure
to be. Yet no one would have cared to go if it had not promised to be a
crush. I said that all the world was asked, which is our way of saying
that a thousand or two had been carefully selected from the million
within reach.
Invitations came to Brandon, of course, for old times' sake. The Morgans
said that they preferred a private view; Miss Forsythe declared that she
hadn't the heart to go; in short, Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild alone went to
represent the worldly element.
I am sorry to say that the reader must go to the files of the city press
for an account of the night's festivity. The pen that has been used in
portraying Margaret's career is entirely inadequate to it. There is a
general impression that an American can do anything that he sets his
hand to, but it is not true; it is true only that he tries everything.
The reporter is born, as the poet is; it cannot be acquired--that
astonishing, irresponsible command of the English language; that warm,
lyrical tone; that color, and bewildering metaphorical brilliancy; that
picturesqueness; that use of words as the painter uses pigments, in
splashes and blotches which are so effective; that touch of raillery
and sarcasm and condescension; that gay enjoyment of reveling in the
illimitable; that air of superior knowledge and style; that dash of
sentiment; that calm and somewhat haughty judgment.
I am always impressed at such an entertainment with the good-humor of
the American people, no matter what may be the annoyance and discomfort.
In all the push and thrust and confusion, amid the rending of trains,
the tearing of lace, the general crushing of costumes, there was the
merriest persiflage, laughter, and chatter, and men and women entered
into and drew out of the fashionable wreck in the highest spirits. For
even in such a spacious mansion there were spots where currents met, and
rooms where there was a fight for mere breath. It would have been a tame
affair without this struggle. And what an epitome of life it all was!
There were those who gave themselves up to admiration, who gushed with
enthusiasm; there were those who had the weary air of surfeit with
splendor of this sort; there were the bustling and volatile, who made
facetious remarks, and treated the affair like a Fourth of July; and
there were also groups dark and haughty, like the Stotts, who held a
little aloof, and coldly admitted that it was most successful; it lacked
je ne sais quoi, but it was in much better taste than they had expected.
Is there something in the very nature of a crowd to bring out the
inherent vulgarity of the best-bred people, so that some have doubted
whether the highest civilization will tolerate these crushing and
hilarious assemblies?
At any rate, one could enjoy the general effect. There might be vulgar
units, and one caught notes of talk that disenchanted, but there were so
many women of rare and stately beauty, of exquisite loveliness, of charm
in manner and figure--so many men of fine presence, with such an air
of power and manly prosperity and self-reliance--I doubt if any other
assembly in the world, undecorated by orders and uniforms, with no
blazon of rank, would have a greater air of distinction. Looking over it
from a landing in the great stairway that commanded vistas and ranges
of the lofty, brilliant apartments, vivified by the throng, which
seemed ennobled by the spacious splendor in which it moved, one would be
pardoned a feeling of national pride in the spectacle. I drew aside to
let a stately train of beauty and of fashion descend, and saw it sweep
through the hall, and enter the drawing-rooms, until it was lost in a
sea of shifting color. It was like a dream.
And the centre of all this charming plutocratic graciousness and beauty
was Margaret--Margaret and her handsome husband. Where did the New
Hampshire boy learn this simple dignity of bearing, this good-humored
cordiality without condescension, this easy air of the man of the world?
Was this the railway wrecker, the insurance manipulator, the familiar
of Uncle Jerry, the king of the lobby, the pride and the bugaboo of
Wall Street? Margaret was regnant. And how charmingly she received her
guests! How well I knew that half-imperious toss of the head, and
the glance of those level, large gray eyes, softened instantly, on
recognition, into the sweetest smile of welcome playing about the dimple
and the expressive mouth! What woman would not feel a little thrill of
triumph? The world was at her feet. Why was it, I wonder, as I stood
there watching the throng which saluted this queenly woman of the world,
in an hour of supreme social triumph, while the notes of the distant
orchestra came softly on the air, and the overpowering perfume of banks
of flowers and tropical plants--why was it that I thought of a fair,
simple girl, stirred with noble ideals, eager for the intellectual life,
tender, sympathetic, courageous? It was Margaret Debree--how often I had
seen her thus!--sitting on her little veranda, swinging her chip hat
by the string, glowing from some errand in which her heart had played
a much more important part than her purse. I caught the odor of the
honeysuckle that climbed on the porch, and I heard the note of the robin
that nested there.
“You seem to be in a brown study,” said Carmen, who came up, leaning on
the arm of the Earl of Chisholm.
“I'm lost in admiration. You must make allowance, Miss Eschelle, for a
person from the country.”
“Oh, we are all from the country. That is the beauty of it. There is Mr.
Hollowell, used to drive a peddler's cart, or something of that sort, up
in Maine, talking with Mr. Stott, whose father came in on the towpath
of the Erie Canal. You don't dance? The earl has just been giving me a
whirl in the ballroom, and I've been trying to make him understand about
democracy.”
“Yes,” the earl rejoined; “Miss Eschelle has been interpreting to me
republican simplicity.”
“And he cannot point out, Mr. Fairchild, why this is not as good as a
reception at St. James. I suppose it's his politeness.”
“Indeed, it is all very charming. It must be a great thing to be the
architect of your own fortune.”
“Yes; we are all self-made,” Carmen confessed.
“I am, and I get dreadfully tired of it sometimes. I have to read over
the Declaration and look at the map of the Western country at such
times. A body has to have something to hold on to.”
“Why, this seems pretty substantial,” I said, wondering what the girl
was driving at.
“Oh, yes; I suppose the world looks solid from a balloon. I heard one
man say to another just now, 'How long do you suppose Henderson will
last?' Probably we shall all come down by the run together by-and-by.”
“You seem to be on a high plane,” I suggested.
“I guess it's the influence of the earl. But I am the most misunderstood
of women. What I really like is simplicity. Can you have that without
the social traditions,” she appealed to the earl, “such as you have in
England?”
“I really cannot say,” the earl replied, laughing. “I fancied there was
simplicity in Brandon; perhaps that was traditional.”
“Oh, Brandon!” Carmen cried, “see what Brandon does when it gets a
chance. I assure your lordship that we used to be very simple people in
New York. Come, let us go and tell Mrs. Henderson how delightful it all
is. I'm so sorry for her.”
As I moved about afterwards with my wife we heard not many comments, a
word here and there about Henderson's wonderful success, a remark about
Margaret's beauty, some sympathy for her in such a wearisome ordeal--the
world is full of kindness--the house duly admired, and the ordinary
compliments paid; the people assembled were, as usual, absorbed in their
own affairs. From all we could gather, all those present were used
to living in a palace, and took all the splendor quite as a matter of
course. Was there no envy? Was there nothing said about the airs of
a country school-ma'am, the aplomb of an adventurer? Were there no
criticisms afterwards as the guests rolled home in their carriages,
surfeited and exhausted? What would you have? Do you expect the
millennium to begin in New York?
The newspapers said that it was the most brilliant affair the metropolis
had ever seen. I have no doubt it was. And I do not judge, either,
by the newspaper estimates of the expense. I take the simple words
addressed by the earl to Margaret, when he said good-night, at their
full value. She flushed with pleasure at his modest commendation.
Perhaps it was to her the seal of her night's triumph.
The house was opened. The world had seen it. The world had gone. If
sleep did not come that night to her tired head on the pillow, what
wonder? She had a position in the great world. In imagination it opened
wider and wider. Could not the infinite possibilities of it fill the
hunger of any soul?
The echoes of the Henderson reception continued long in the country
press. Items multiplied as to the cost. It was said that the sum
expended in flowers alone, which withered in a night, would have endowed
a ward in a charity hospital. Some wag said that the price of the supper
would have changed the result of the Presidential election. Views of the
mansion were given in the illustrated papers, and portraits of Mr. and
Mrs. Henderson. In country villages, in remote farmhouses, this great
social event was talked of, Henderson's wealth was the subject of
conjecture, Margaret's toilet was an object of interest. It was a
shining example of success. Preachers, whose sensational sermons are as
widely read as descriptions of great crimes, moralized on Henderson's
career and Henderson's palace, and raised up everywhere an envied image
of worldly prosperity. When he first arrived in New York, with only
fifty cents in his pocket--so the story ran-and walked up Broadway and
Fifth Avenue, he had nearly been run over at the corner of Twenty-sixth
Street by a carriage, the occupants of which, a lady and gentleman,
had stared insolently at the country youth. Never mind, said the lad to
himself, the day will come when you will cringe to me. And the day did
come when the gentleman begged Henderson to spare him in Wall Street,
and his wife intrigued for an invitation to Mrs. Henderson's ball.
The reader knows there is not a word of truth in this. Alas! said the
preacher, if he had only devoted his great talents to the service of the
Good and the True! Behold how vain are all the triumphs of this
world! see the result of the worship of Mammon! My friends, the age is
materialized, a spirit of worldliness is abroad; be vigilant, lest the
deceitfulness of riches send your souls to perdition. And the plain
country people thanked God for such a warning, and the country girl
dreamed of Margaret's career, and the country boy studied the ways of
Henderson's success, and resolved that he, too, would seek his fortune
in this bad metropolis.
The Hendersons were important people. It was impossible that a knowledge
of their importance should not have a reflex influence upon Margaret.
Could it be otherwise than that gradually the fineness of her
discrimination should be dulled by the almost universal public consent
in the methods by which Henderson had achieved his position, and that in
time she should come to regard adverse judgment as the result of envy?
Henderson himself was under less illusion; the world was about what
he had taken it for, only a little worse--more gullible, and with less
principle. Carmen had mocked at Margaret's belief in Henderson. It is
certainly a pitiful outcome that Margaret, with her naturally believing
nature, should in the end have had a less clear perception of what was
right and wrong than Henderson himself. Yet Henderson would not have
shrunk, any more than Carmen would, from any course necessary to his
ends, while Margaret would have shrunk from many things; but in absolute
worldliness, in devotion to it, the time had come when Henderson felt
that his Puritan wife was no restraint upon him. It was this that broke
gentle Miss Forsythe's heart when she came fully to realize it.
I said that the world was at Margaret's feet. Was it? How many worlds
are there, and does one ever, except by birth (in a republic), conquer
them all? Truth to say, there were penetralia in New York society
concerning which this successful woman was uneasy in her heart. There
were people who had accepted her invitations, to whose houses she had
been, who had a dozen ways of making her feel that she was not of them.
These people--I suppose that if two castaways landed naked on a desert
island, one of them would instantly be the ancien regime--had spoken of
Mrs. Henderson and her ambition to the Earl of Chisholm in a way that
pained him. They graciously assumed that he, as one of the elect, would
understand them. It was therefore with a heavy heart that he came to say
good-by to Margaret before his return.
I cannot imagine anything more uncomfortable for an old lover than a
meeting of this sort; but I suppose the honest fellow could not resist
the inclination to see Margaret once more. I dare say she had a little
flutter of pride in receiving him, in her consciousness of the change
in herself into a wider experience of the world. And she may have been
a little chagrined that he was not apparently more impressed by her
surroundings, nor noticed the change in herself, but met her upon the
ground of simple sincerity where they had once stood. What he tried to
see, what she felt he was trying to see, was not the beautiful woman
about whose charm and hospitality the town talked, but the girl he had
loved in the old days.
He talked a little, a very little, about himself and his work in
England, and a great deal about what had interested him here on his
second visit, the social drift, the politics, the organized charities;
and as he talked, Margaret was conscious how little the world in which
she lived seemed to interest him; how little importance he attached to
it. And she saw, as in a momentary vision of herself, that the things
that once absorbed her and stirred her sympathies were now measurably
indifferent to her. Book after book which he casually mentioned, as
showing the drift of the age, and profoundly affecting modern thought,
she knew only by name. “I guess,” said Carmen, afterwards, when Margaret
spoke of the earl's conversation, “that he is one of those who are
trying to live in the spirit--what do they call it?--care for things of
the mind.”
“You are doing a noble work,” he said, “in your Palace of Industry.”
“Yes, it is very well managed,” Margaret replied; “but it is uphill
work, the poor are so ungrateful for charity.”
“Perhaps nobody, Mrs. Henderson, likes to be treated as an object of
charity.”
“Well, work isn't what they want when we give it, and they'd rather live
in the dirt than in clean apartments.”
“Many of them don't know any better, and a good many of our poor resent
condescension.”
“Yes,” said Margaret, with warmth; “they are getting to demand things as
their right, and they are insolent. The last time I drove down in that
quarter I was insulted by their manner. What are you going to do with
such people? One big fellow who was leaning against a lamp-post growled,
'You'd better stay in your own palace, miss, and not come prying round
here.' And a brazen girl cried out: 'Shut yer mouth, Dick; the lady's
got to have some pleasure. Don't yer see, she's a-slummin'?'”
“It's very hard, I know,” said the earl; “perhaps we are all on the
wrong track.”
“Maybe. Mr. Henderson says that the world would get on better if
everybody minded his own business.”
“I wish it were possible,” the earl remarked, with an air of finishing
the topic. “I have just been up to Brandon, Mrs. Henderson. I fear that
I have seen the dear place for the last time.”
“You don't mean that you are tired of America?”
“Not that. I shall never, even in thought, tire of Brandon.”
“Yes, they are dear, good people.”
“I thought Miss Forsythe--what a sweet, brave woman she is!--was looking
sad and weary.”
“Oh, aunt won't do anything, or take an interest in anything. She just
stays there. I've tried in vain to get her here. Do you know”--and she
turned upon the earl a look of the old playfulness--“she doesn't quite
approve of me.”
“Oh,” he replied, hesitating a little--“I think, Mrs. Henderson, that
her heart is bound up in you. It isn't for me to say that you haven't a
truer friend in the world.”
“Yes, I know. If I'd only--” and she stopped, with a petulant look on
her fair face--“well, it doesn't matter. She is a dear soul.”
“I--suppose,” said the earl, rising, “we shall see you again on the
other side?”
“Perhaps,” with a smile. Could anything be more commonplace than such a
parting? Good-by, I shall see you tomorrow or next year, or in the next
world. Hail and farewell! That is the common experience. But, oh, the
bitterness of it to many a soul!
It is quite possible that when the Earl of Chisholm said good-by, with
an air of finality, Margaret felt that another part of her life was
closed. He was not in any way an extraordinary person, he was not a very
rich peer, probably with his modesty and conscientiousness, and devotion
to the ordinary duties of his station, he would never attain high
rank in the government. Yet no one could be long with him without
apprehending that his life was on a high plane. It was with a little
irritation that Margaret recognized this, and remembered, with a twinge
of conscience, that it was upon that plane that her life once traveled.
The time had been when the more important thing to her was the world of
ideas, of books, of intellectual life, of passionate sympathy with the
fortunes of humanity, of deepest interest in all the new thoughts
struck out by the leaders who studied the profound problems of life and
destiny.
That peace of mind which is found only in the highest activity for
the noblest ends she once had, though she thought it then unrest and
striving--what Carmen, who was under no illusions about Henderson, or
Uncle Jerry, or the world of fashion, and had an intuitive perception of
cant that is sometimes denied to the children of light, called “taking
pleasure in the things of the mind.” To do Margaret justice, there
entered into her reflections no thought of the title and position of the
Earl of Chisholm. They had never been alluring to her. If one could
take any satisfaction in this phase of her character, her worldiness was
purely American.
“I hardly know which I should prefer,” Carmen was saying when they
were talking over the ball and the earl's departure, “to be an English
countess or the wife of an American millionaire.”
“It might depend upon the man,” replied Margaret, with a smile.
“The American,” continued Carmen, not heeding this suggestion, “has the
greater opportunities, and is not hindered by traditions. If you were a
countess you would have to act like a countess. If you are an American
you can act--like anything--you can do what you please. That is nicer.
Now, an earl must do what an earl has always done. What could you do
with such a husband? Mind! Yes, I know, dear, about things of the mind.
First, you know, he will be a gentleman socialist (in the magazines),
and maybe a Christian socialist, or a Christian scientist, or something
of that sort, interested in the Mind Cure.”
“I should think that would suit you. Last I knew, you were deep in the
Mind Cure.”
“So I was. That was last week. Now I'm in the Faith Cure; I've found out
about both. The difference is, in the Mind Cure you don't require any
faith; in the Faith Cure you don't require any mind. The Faith Cure just
suits me.”
“So you put your faith in an American millionaire?”
“Yes, I think I should, until an American millionaire put faith in me.
That might shake me. It is such a queer world. No, I'm in doubt. If
you loved an earl he would stay an earl. If you loved an American
millionaire, ten to one he would fail.”
Margaret did not escape the responsibility of her success. Who does? My
dear Charmian, who wrote the successful novel of last year, do you not
already repent your rash act? If you do not write a better novel this
year, will not the public flout you and jeer you for a pretender? Did
the public overpraise you at first? Its mistaken partiality becomes
now your presumption. Last year the press said you were the rival of
Hawthorne. This year it is, “that Miss Charmian who set herself up as a
second Hawthorne.” When the new house was opened, it might be said that
socially Mrs. Henderson had “arrived.” Had she? When one enters on the
path of worldliness is there any resting-place? Is not eternal vigilance
the price of position?
Henderson was apparently on good terms with the world. Many envied him,
many paid him the sincerest flattery, that of imitation. He was a king
in the street, great enterprises sought his aid, all the charities
knocked at his door, his word could organize a syndicate or a trust,
his nod could smash a “corner.” There were fabulous stories about his
wealth, about his luck. This also was Margaret's world. Her ambition
expanded in it with his. The things he set his heart on she coveted.
Alas! there is always another round to the ladder.
Seeing the means by which he gained his ends, and the public condonation
of them, would not his cynicism harden into utter unbelief in general
virtue and goodness? I don't know that Henderson changed much, accented
as his grasping selfishness was on occasion; prosperity had not impaired
that indifferent good-fellowship and toleration which had early gained
him popularity. His presence was nowhere a rebuke to whatever was going
on. He was always accessible, often jocular. The younger members in the
club said Henderson was a devilish good fellow, whatever people said.
The President of the United States used to send for him and consult him,
because he wanted no office; he knew men, and it was a relief to talk
with a liberal rich man of so much bonhomie who wanted nothing.
And Margaret, what view of the world did all this give her? Did she
come in contact with any one who had not his price, who was not going or
wanting to go in the general current? Was it not natural that she should
take Henderson's view? Dear me, I am not preaching about her. We did
not see much of her in those days, and for one or two years of what I
suppose was her greatest enjoyment of her social triumphs. So far as
we heard, she was liked, admired, followed, envied. It could not be
otherwise, for she did not lose her beauty nor her charm, and she tried
to please. Once when I saw her in the city and we fell into talk--and
the talk was gay enough and unconstrained--I was struck with a certain
hardness of tone, a little bitterness quite unlike her old self. It is a
very hard thing to say, and I did not say it even to my wife, but I had
a painful impression that she was valuing people by the money they had,
by the social position they had attained.
Was she content in that great world in which she moved? I had heard
stories of slights, of stabs, of rebuffs, of spiteful remarks. Had
she not come to know how success even in social life is sometimes
attained--the meannesses, the jealousies, the cringing? Even with all
her money at command, did she not know that her position was at the
price of incessant effort? Because she had taken a bold step today, she
must take a bolder one tomorrow--more display, more servants, some new
invention of luxury and extravagance. And seeing, as I say, the inside
of this life and what it required, and how triumphs and notoriety were
gained, was it a wonder that she gradually became in her gayety cynical,
in her judgments bitter?
I am not criticising her. What are we, who have had no opportunities,
to sit in judgment on her! I believe that it is true that it was at
her solicitation that Henderson at last did endow a university in the
Southwest. I know that her name was on all the leading charities of the
city. I know that of all the patronesses of the charity ball her costume
was the most exquisite, and her liberality was most spoken of. I know
that in the most fashionable house of worship (the newspapers call it
that) she was a constant attendant; that in her modest garb she never
missed a Lenten service; and we heard that she performed a novena during
this penitential season.
Why protract the story of how Margaret was lost to us? Could this
interest any but us--we who felt the loss because we still loved her?
And why should we presume to set up our standard of what is valuable in
life, of what is a successful career? She had not become what we hoped,
and little by little all the pleasure of intercourse on both sides, I
dare say, disappeared. Could we say that life, after all, had not given
her what she most desired? Rather than write on in this strain about
her, I would like to read her story as it appeared to the companions
whose pleasures were her pleasures, whose successes were her
successes--her story written by one who appreciated her worldly
advantages, and saw all the delight there was in this attractive
worldliness.
What comfort there was in it we had in knowing that she was a favorite
in the society of which we read such glowing descriptions, and that no
one else bore its honors more winningly. It was not an easy life, with
all its exactions and incessant movement. It demanded more physical
strength than most women possess, and we were not surprised to hear from
time to time that she was delicate, and that she went through her season
with feverish excitement. But she chose it; it had become necessary to
her. Can women stop in such a career, even if they wish to stop?
Yes, she chose it. I, for one, never begrudged her any pleasure she had
in life, and I do not know but she was as happy as it is possible for
human being to be in a full experiment of worldliness. Who is the judge?
But we, I say, who loved her, and knew so well the noble possibilities
of her royal nature under circumstances favorable to its development,
felt more and more her departure from her own ideals. Her life in its
spreading prosperity seemed more and more shallow. I do not say she was
heartless, I do not say she was uncharitable, I do not say that in all
the externals of worldly and religious observance she was wanting; I do
not say that the more she was assimilated to the serenely worldly nature
of her husband she did not love him, or that she was unlovely in the
worldliness that ingulfed her and bore her onward. I do not know that
there is anything singular in her history. But the pain of it to us was
in the certainty--and it seemed so near--that in the decay of her higher
life, in the hardening process of a material existence, in the transfer
of all her interests to the trivial and sensuous gratifications--time,
mind, heart, ambition, all fixed on them--we should never regain our
Margaret. What I saw in a vision of her future was a dead soul--a
beautiful woman in all the success of envied prosperity, with a dead
soul.