ON a late beautiful spring afternoon the Easy Chair
rolled itself into the suburbs for a stroll. There were everywhere the
signs of the advance of a great city and the pathetic forlornness of the
municipal frontier. Pleasant country-houses, spacious, rambling, with
broad piazzas and gardens and lawns, had been apparently suddenly
overtaken by streets and stone sidewalks and lamps. There were the
rattle and shriek of the incessant railway trains near by. Tall factory
chimneys smoked and machinery hummed and steam-whistles blew all around
the quiet old houses. The contrast gave them a kind of conscious life.
They seemed to be aware of the incongruity of their character with the
new neighborhood. They had a helpless air, as if nothing remained but
submission to division into regular building lots and the absolute
extinction of rural seclusion and charm. There was the impression of a
faint and futile struggle between city and country, in which, indeed,
for a moment the excellence of each was lost, but the result of which
was not doubtful.
As the Easy Chair pushed on, it saw in fancy the old pastoral peace and
retirement of the places when they were indeed in the country. It
recalled the noted men of that older day who sought here relaxation and
repose. There was the placid river, on which no restless steamer foamed,
but only silent sloops drifted or careened. Yonder were the leafy coves
under the wooded and rocky banks, from which the Indian had but recently
paddled his canoe. No railroad harmed the virgin shyness of the shore.
It was El Dorado, Arcadia, the land of Goshen. It was the home of peace,
of plenty, of content.
Such a poet, such a painter, is idealizing memory on a spring afternoon
in the suburbs. It seemed so gross a wrong that sidewalks and gas lamps
and factory chimneys and steam-whistles should invade and devastate the
tranquil fields that indignant imagination filled them as fact with all
the fancies that tranquil fields suggest. Doubtless in the closets of
those quiet houses there were the bones of plenty of old skeletons.
Those spacious, sunny rooms were the scenes of the familiar domestic
tragedies against which not the most romantic of country-houses can shut
the door. Up those steps have swayed and hesitated the doubtful feet of
the oldest son, heir of precious hopes and child of fervent prayers,
hesitating and lingering at hours long past midnight, watched for and
waited for by the mother's heart that breaks but does not falter. In
that broad hall, on the brightest of May mornings, the daughter of the
house has stood, radiant as the day, and crowned with orange blossoms.
There have met the hopes and joys of youth, the tears and blessings and
farewells of older years. The pretty pageant filled the house, and faded
slowly and utterly away. The old house has known, too, the solemn shadow
that falls on every house. It seems to regretful memory the abode of
unchanging delight. But from that door the slow procession moved, and
those whose hospitable smile and word had hallowed every room returned
no more. They are gone, the bride, the parent, the friend; "they are all
gone, the old familiar faces," the age, the society, the politics, the
interests. They are all gone. Why should not the house go too?
It was early spring, and the Easy Chair, looking up, saw half a dozen
kites flying in the air. A little further, and laughing girls were
skipping rope. Boys were spinning peg-tops and playing marbles and
driving hoops. The boys and girls who lived in the quiet old
country-house did the same a hundred years ago. They flew kites and
drove hoops, and that little bride skipped rope and carried dolls. The
age, the society, the politics, the interests, were very different. They
are, indeed, all changed. But tops are changeless, marbles are immortal,
and so are boys and girls. They know nothing of the old house over which
the Easy Chair becomes pensive. They belong to the new time, which
demands its demolition.