The Ways of Men
by Eliot Gregory
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by

Eliot Gregory

Chapter 1 - "UNCLE SAM"

THE gentleman who graced the gubernatorial arm-chair of our
state when this century was born happened to be an admirer of
classic lore and the sonorous names of antiquity.

It is owing to his weakness in bestowing pompous cognomens on
our embryo towns and villages that to-day names like Utica,
Syracuse, and Ithaca, instead of evoking visions of historic
pomp and circumstance, raise in the minds of most Americans
the picture of cocky little cities, rich only in trolley-cars
and Methodist meeting-houses.

When, however, this cultured governor, in his ardor,
christened one of the cities Troy, and the hill in its
vicinity Mount Ida, he little dreamed that a youth was living
on its slopes whose name was destined to become a household
word the world over, as the synonym for the proudest and
wealthiest republic yet known to history, a sobriquet that
would be familiar in the mouths of races to whose continents
even the titles of Jupiter or Mars had never penetrated.

A little before this century began, two boys with packs bound
on their stalwart shoulders walked from New York and
established a brickyard in the neighborhood of what is now
Perry Street, Troy. Ebenezer and Samuel Wilson soon became
esteemed citizens of the infant city, their kindliness and
benevolence winning for them the affection and respect of the
community.

The younger brother, Samuel, was an especial favorite with the
children of the place, whose explorations into his deep
pockets were generally rewarded by the discovery of some
simple "sweet" or home-made toy. The slender youth with the
"nutcracker" face proving to be the merriest of playfellows,
in their love his little band of admirers gave him the pet
name of "Uncle Sam," by which he quickly became known, to the
exclusion of his real name. This is the kindly and humble
origin of a title the mere speaking of which to-day quickens
the pulse and moistens the eyes of millions of Americans with
the same thrill that the dear old flag arouses when we catch
sight of it, especially an unexpected glimpse in some foreign
land.

With increasing wealth the brick-yard of the Wilson brothers
was replaced by an extensive slaughtering business, in which
more than a hundred men were soon employed - a vast
establishment for that day, killing weekly some thousand head
of cattle. During the military operations of 1812 the
brothers signed a contract to furnish the troops at Greenbush
with meat, "packed in full bound barrels of white oak"; soon
after, Samuel was appointed Inspector of Provisions for the
army.

It is a curious coincidence that England also should have
taken an ex-army-contractor as her patron saint, for if we are
to believe tradition, St. George of Cappadocia filled that
position unsatisfactorily before he passed through martyrdom
to sainthood.

True prototype of the nation that was later to adopt him as
its godfather, the shrewd and honest patriot, "Uncle Sam," not
only lived loyally up to his contracts, giving full measure
and of his best, but proved himself incorruptible, making it
his business to see that others too fulfilled their
engagements both in the letter and the spirit; so that the
"U.S." (abbreviation of United States) which he pencilled on
all provisions that had passed his inspection became in the
eyes of officers and soldiers a guarantee of excellence.
Samuel's old friends, the boys of Troy (now enlisted in the
army), naively imagining that the mystic initials were an
allusion to the pet name they had given him years before,
would accept no meats but "Uncle Sam's," murmuring if other
viands were offered them. Their comrades without inquiry
followed this example; until so strong did the prejudice for
food marked "U.S." become, that other contractors, in order
that their provisions should find favor with the soldiers,
took to announcing "Uncle Sam" brands.

To the greater part of the troops, ignorant (as are most
Americans to-day) of the real origin of this pseudonym, "Uncle
Sam's" beef and bread meant merely government provisions, and
the step from national belongings to an impersonation of our
country by an ideal "Uncle Sam" was but a logical sequence.

In his vigorous old age, Samuel Wilson again lived on Mount
Ida, near the estates of the Warren family, where as children
we were taken to visit his house and hear anecdotes of the
aged patriot's hospitality and humor. The honor in which he
was held by the country-side, the influence for good he
exerted, and the informal tribunal he held, to which his
neighbors came to get their differences straightened out by
his common sense, are still talked of by the older
inhabitants. One story in particular used to charm our boyish
ears. It was about a dispute over land between the
Livingstons and the Van Rensselaers, which was brought to an
end by "Uncle Sam's" producing a barrel of old papers
(confided to him by both families during the war, for safe
keeping) and extracting from this original "strong box" title
deeds to the property in litigation.

Now, in these troubled times of ours, when rumors of war are
again in the air, one's thoughts revert with pleasure to the
half-mythical figure on the threshold of the century, and to
legends of the clear-eyed giant, with the quizzical smile and
the tender, loyal heart, whose life's work makes him a more
lovable model and a nobler example to hold up before the youth
of to-day than all the mythological deities that ever
disported themselves on the original Mount Ida.

There is a singular fitness in this choice of "Uncle Sam" as
our patron saint, for to be honest and loyal and modest, to
love little children, to do one's duty quietly in the heyday
of life, and become a mediator in old age, is to fulfil about
the whole duty of man; and every patriotic heart must wish the
analogy may be long maintained, that our loved country, like
its prototype, may continue the protector of the feeble and a
peace-maker among nations.

Chapter 2 - Domestic Despots

THOSE who walk through the well-to-do quarters of our city,
and glance, perhaps a little enviously as they pass, toward
the cheerful firesides, do not reflect that in almost every
one of these apparently happy homes a pitiless tyrant reigns,
a misshapen monster without bowels of compassion or thought
beyond its own greedy appetites, who sits like Sinbad's awful
burden on the necks of tender women and distracted men.
Sometimes this incubus takes the form of a pug, sometimes of a
poodle, or simply a bastard cur admitted to the family bosom
in a moment of unreflecting pity; size and pedigree are of no
importance; the result is always the same. Once Caliban is
installed in his stronghold, peace and independence desert
that roof.

We read daily of fathers tyrannizing over trembling families,
of stepmothers and unnatural children turning what might be
happy homes into amateur Infernos, and sigh, as we think of
martyrdoms endured by overworked animals.

It is cheering to know that societies have been formed for the
protection of dumb brutes and helpless children. Will no
attempt be made to alleviate this other form of suffering,
which has apparently escaped the eye of the reformer?

The animal kingdom is divided - like all Gaul - into three
divisions: wild beasts, that are obliged to hustle for
themselves; laboring and producing animals, for which man
provides because they are useful to him - and dogs! Of all
created things on our globe the canine race have the softest
"snap."  The more one thinks about this curious exception in
their favor the more unaccountable it appears. We neglect
such wild things as we do not slaughter, and exact toil from
domesticated animals in return for their keep. Dogs alone,
shirking all cares and labor, live in idle comfort at man's
expense.

When that painful family jar broke up the little garden party
in Eden and forced our first parents to work or hunt for a
living, the original Dog (equally disgusted with either
alternative) hit on the luminous idea of posing as the
champion of the disgraced couple, and attached himself to Adam
and Eve; not that he approved of their conduct, but simply
because he foresaw that if he made himself companionable and
cosy he would be asked to stay to dinner.

From that day to the present, with the exception of
occasionally watching sheep and houses - a lazy occupation at
the best - and a little light carting in Belgium (dogs were
given up as turn-spits centuries ago, because they performed
that duty badly), no canine has raised a paw to do an honest
day's work, neither has any member of the genus been known
voluntarily to perform a useful act.

How then - one asks one's self in a wonder - did the myth
originate that Dog was the friend of Man? Like a multitude of
other fallacies taught to innocent children, this folly must
be unlearned later. Friend of man, indeed! Why, the "Little
Brothers of the Rich" are guileless philanthropists in
comparison with most canines, and unworthy to be named in the
same breath with them. Dogs discovered centuries ago that to
live in luxury, it was only necessary to assume an exaggerated
affection for some wealthy mortal, and have since proved
themselves past masters in a difficult art in which few men
succeed. The number of human beings who manage to live on
their friends is small, whereas the veriest mongrel cur
contrives to enjoy food and lodging at some dupe's expense.

Facts such as these, however, have not over-thrown the great
dog myth. One can hardly open a child's book without coming
across some tale of canine intelligence and devotion. My
tender youth was saddened by the story of one disinterested
dog that refused to leave his master's grave and was found
frozen at his post on a bleak winter's morning. With the
experience of years in pet dogs I now suspect that, instead of
acting in this theatrical fashion, that pup trotted home from
the funeral with the most prosperous and simple-minded couple
in the neighborhood, and after a substantial meal went to
sleep by the fire. He must have been a clever dog to get so
much free advertisement, so probably strolled out to his
master's grave the next noon, when people were about to hear
him, and howled a little to keep up appearances.

I have written "the richest and most simple minded couple,"
because centuries of self-seeking have developed in these
beasts an especial aptitude for spotting possible victims at a
glance. You will rarely find dogs coquetting with the strong-
minded or wasting blandishments where there is not the
probability of immediate profit; but once let even a puppy get
a tenderhearted girl or aged couple under his influence, no
pity will be shown the victims.

There is a house not a square away from Mr. Gerry's
philanthropic headquarters, where a state of things exists
calculated to extract tears from a custom-house official. Two
elderly virgins are there held in bondage by a Minotaur no
bigger than your two fists. These good dames have a taste for
travelling, but change of climate disagrees with their tyrant.
They dislike house-keeping and, like good Americans, would
prefer hotel life, nevertheless they keep up an establishment
in a cheerless side street, with a retinue of servants,
because, forsooth, their satrap exacts a back yard where he
can walk of a morning. These spinsters, although loving
sisters, no longer go about together, Caligula's nerves being
so shaken that solitude upsets them. He would sooner expire
than be left alone with the servant, for the excellent reason
that his bad temper and absurd airs have made him dangerous
enemies below stairs - and he knows it!

Another household in this city revolves around two brainless,
goggle-eyed beasts, imported at much expense from the slopes
of Fuji-yama. The care that is lavished on those heathen
monsters passes belief. Maids are employed to carry them up
and down stairs, and men are called in the night to hurry for
a doctor when Chi has over-eaten or Fu develops colic; yet
their devoted mistress tells me, with tears in her eyes, that
in spite of this care, when she takes her darlings for a walk
they do not know her from the first stranger that passes, and
will follow any boy who whistles to them in the street.

What revolts me in the character of dogs is that, not content
with escaping from the responsibilities entailed on all the
other inhabitants of our globe by the struggle for existence,
these four-legged Pecksniffs have succeeded in making for
themselves a fallacious reputation for honesty and devotion.
What little lingering belief I had in canine fidelity
succumbed then I was told that St. Bernards - those models of
integrity and courage - have fallen into the habit of carrying
the flasks of brandy that the kind monks provide for the
succor of snowbound travellers, to the neighboring hamlets and
exchanging the contents for - chops!

Will the world ever wake to the true character of these four-
legged impostors and realize that instead of being
disinterested and sincere, most family pets are consummate
hypocrites. Innocent? Pshaw! Their pretty, coaxing ways and
pretences of affection are unadulterated guile; their
ostentatious devotion, simply a clever manoeuvre to excite
interest and obtain unmerited praise. It is useless, however,
to hope that things will change. So long as this giddy old
world goes on waltzing in space, so long shall we continue to
be duped by shams and pin our faith on frauds, confounding an
attractive bearing with a sweet disposition and mistaking
dishevelled hair and eccentric appearance for brains. Even in
the Orient, where dogs have been granted immunity from other
labor on the condition that they organized an effective
street-cleaning department, they have been false to their
trust and have evaded their contracts quite as if they were
Tammany braves, like whom they pass their days in slumber and
their nights in settling private disputes, while the city
remains uncleaned.

I nurse yet another grudge against the canine race! That
Voltaire of a whelp, who imposed himself upon our confiding
first parents, must have had an important pull at
headquarters, for he certainly succeeded in getting the decree
concerning beauty and fitness which applies to all mammals,
including man himself, reversed in favor of dogs, and handed
down to his descendants the secret of making defects and
deformities pass current as qualities. While other animals
are valued for sleek coats and slender proportions, canine
monstrosities have always been in demand. We do not admire
squints or protruding under jaws in our own race, yet bulldogs
have persuaded many weak-minded people that these defects are
charming when combined in an individual of their breed.

The fox in the fable, who after losing his tail tried to make
that bereavement the fashion, failed in his undertaking; Dutch
canal-boat dogs have, however, been successful where the fox
failed, and are to-day pampered and prized for a curtailment
that would condemn any other animal (except perhaps a Manx
cat) to a watery grave at birth.

I can only recall two instances where canine sycophants got
their deserts; the first tale (probably apocryphal) is about a
donkey, for years the silent victim of a little terrier who
had been trained to lead him to water and back. The dog - as
might have been expected - abused the situation, while
pretending to be very kind to his charge, never allowed him to
roll on the grass, as he would have liked, or drink in peace,
and harassed the poor beast in many other ways, getting,
however, much credit from the neighbors for devotion and
intelligence. Finally, one day after months of waiting, the
patient victim's chance came. Getting his tormentor well out
into deep water, the donkey quietly sat down on him.

The other tale is true, for I knew the lady who provided in
her will that her entire establishment should be kept up for
the comfort and during the life of the three fat spaniels that
had solaced her declining years. The heirs tried to break the
will and failed; the delighted domestics, seeing before them a
period of repose, proceeded (headed by the portly housekeeper)
to consult a "vet" as to how the life of the precious legatees
might be prolonged to the utmost. His advice was to stop all
sweets and rich food and give each of the animals at least
three hours of hard exercise a day. From that moment the lazy
brutes led a dog's life. Water and the detested "Spratt"
biscuit, scorned in happier days, formed their meagre
ordinary; instead of somnolent airings in a softly cushioned
landau they were torn from chimney corner musings to be raced
through cold, muddy streets by a groom on horseback.

Those two tales give me the keenest pleasure. When I am
received on entering a friend's room with a chorus of yelps
and attacked in dark corners by snarling little hypocrites who
fawn on me in their master's presence, I humbly pray that some
such Nemesis may be in store for these FAUX BONHOMMES before
they leave this world, as apparently no provision has been
made for their punishment in the next.

Chapter 3 - Cyrano, Rostand, Coquelin

AMONG the proverbs of Spanish folk-lore there is a saying that
good wine retains its flavor in spite of rude bottles and
cracked cups. The success of M. Rostand's brilliant drama,
CYRANO DE BERGERAC, in its English dress proves once more the
truth of this adage. The fun and pathos, the wit and satire,
of the original pierce through the halting, feeble translation
like light through a ragged curtain, dazzling the spectators
and setting their enthusiasm ablaze.

Those who love the theatre at its best, when it appeals to our
finer instincts and moves us to healthy laughter and tears,
owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Mansfield for his courage
in giving us, as far as the difference of language and rhythm
would allow, this CHEF D'OEUVRE unchanged, free from the
mutilations of the adapter, with the author's wishes and the
stage decorations followed into the smallest detail. In this
way we profit by the vast labor and study which Rostand and
Coquelin gave to the original production.

Rumors of the success attained by this play in Paris soon
floated across to us. The two or three French booksellers
here could not import the piece fast enough to meet the ever
increasing demand of our reading public. By the time spring
came, there were few cultivated people who had not read the
new work and discussed its original language and daring
treatment.

On arriving in Paris, my first evening was passed at the Porte
St. Martin. After the piece was over, I dropped into
Coquelin's dressing-room to shake this old acquaintance by the
hand and give him news of his many friends in America.

Coquelin in his dressing-room is one of the most delightful of
mortals. The effort of playing sets his blood in motion and
his wit sparkling. He seemed as fresh and gay that evening as
though there were not five killing acts behind him and the
fatigue of a two-hundred-night run, uninterrupted even by
Sundays, added to his "record."

After the operation of removing his historic nose had been
performed and the actor had resumed his own clothes and
features, we got into his carriage and were driven to his
apartment in the Place de l'Etoile, a cosy museum full of
comfortable chairs and priceless bric-a-brac. The
conversation naturally turned during supper on the piece and
this new author who had sprung in a night from obscurity to a
globe-embracing fame. How, I asked, did you come across the
play, and what decided you to produce it?

Coquelin's reply was so interesting that it will be better to
repeat the actor's own words as he told his tale over the
dismantled table in the tranquil midnight hours.

"I had, like most Parisians, known Rostand for some time as
the author of a few graceful verses and a play (LES
ROMANESQUES)which passed almost unnoticed at the Francais.

"About four years ago Sarah Bernhardt asked me to her `hotel'
to hear M. Rostand read a play he had just completed for her.
I accepted reluctantly, as at that moment we were busy at the
theatre. I also doubted if there could be much in the new
play to interest me. It was LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE. I shall
remember that afternoon as long as I live! From the first
line my attention was riveted and my senses were charmed.
What struck me as even more remarkable than the piece was the
masterly power and finish with which the boyish author
delivered his lines. Where, I asked myself, had he learned
that difficult art? The great actress, always quick to
respond to the voice of art, accepted the play then and there.

"After the reading was over I walked home with M. Rostand, and
had a long talk with him about his work and ambitions. When
we parted at his door, I said: `In my opinion, you are
destined to become the greatest dramatic poet of the age; I
bind myself here and now to take any play you write (in which
there is a part for me) without reading it, to cancel any
engagements I may have on hand, and produce your piece with
the least possible delay.' An offer I don't imagine many young
poets have ever received, and which I certainly never before
made to any author.

"About six weeks later my new acquaintance dropped in one
morning to read me the sketch he had worked out for a drama,
the title role of which he thought would please me. I was
delighted with the idea, and told him to go ahead. A month
later we met in the street. On asking him how the play was
progressing, to my astonishment he answered that he had
abandoned that idea and hit upon something entirely different.
Chance had thrown in his way an old volume of Cyrano de
Bergerac's poems, which so delighted him that he had been
reading up the life and death of that unfortunate poet. From
this reading had sprung the idea of making Cyrano the central
figure of a drama laid in the city of Richelieu, d'Artagnan,
and the PRECIEUSES RIDICULES, a seventeenth-century Paris of
love and duelling.

"At first this idea struck me as unfortunate. The elder Dumas
had worked that vein so well and so completely, I doubted if
any literary gold remained for another author. It seemed
foolhardy to resuscitate the THREE GUARDSMEN epoch - and I
doubted if it were possible to carry out his idea and play an
intense and pathetic role disguised with a burlesque nose.

"This contrasting of the grotesque and the sentimental was of
course not new. Victor Hugo had broken away from classic
tradition when he made a hunchback the hero of a drama. There
remained, however, the risk of our Parisian public not
accepting the new situation seriously. It seemed to me like
bringing the sublime perilously near the ridiculous.

"Fortunately, Rostand did not share this opinion or my doubts.
He was full of enthusiasm for his piece and confident of its
success. We sat where we had met, under the trees of the
Champs Elysees, for a couple of hours, turning the subject
about and looking at the question from every point of view.
Before we parted the poet had convinced me. The role, as he
conceived it, was certainly original, and therefore tempting,
opening vast possibilities before my dazzled eyes.

"I found out later that Rostand had gone straight home after
that conversation and worked for nearly twenty hours without
leaving the study, where his wife found him at daybreak, fast
asleep with his head on a pile of manuscript. He was at my
rooms the next day before I was up, sitting on the side of my
bed, reading the result of his labor. As the story unfolded
itself I was more and more delighted. His idea of
resuscitating the quaint interior of the Hotel de Bourgogne
Theatre was original, and the balcony scene, even in outline,
enchanting. After the reading Rostand dashed off as he had
come, and for many weeks I saw no more of him.

"LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE was, in the meantime, produced by
Sarah, first in London and then in Paris. In the English
capital it was a failure; with us it gained a SUCCES D'ESTIME,
the fantastic grace and lightness of the piece saving it from
absolute shipwreck in the eyes of the literary public.

"Between ourselves," continued Coquelin, pushing aside his
plate, a twinkle in his small eyes, "is the reason of this
lack of success very difficult to discover? The Princess in
the piece is supposed to be a fairy enchantress in her
sixteenth year. The play turns on her youth and innocence.
Now, honestly, is Sarah, even on the stage, any one's ideal of
youth and innocence?"  This was asked so naively that I burst
into a laugh, in which my host joined me. Unfortunately, this
grandmamma, like Ellen Terry, cannot be made to understand
that there are roles she should leave alone, that with all the
illusions the stage lends she can no longer play girlish parts
with success.

"The failure of his play produced the most disastrous effect
on Rostand, who had given up a year of his life to its
composition and was profoundly chagrined by its fall. He sank
into a mild melancholy, refusing for more than eighteen months
to put pen to paper. On the rare occasions when we met I
urged him to pull himself together and rise above
disappointment. Little by little, his friends were able to
awaken his dormant interest and get him to work again on
CYRANO. As he slowly regained confidence and began taking
pleasure once more in his work, the boyish author took to
dropping in on me at impossible morning hours to read some
scene hot from his ardent brain. When seated by my bedside,
he declaimed his lines until, lit at his flame, I would jump
out of bed, and wrapping my dressing-gown hastily around me,
seize the manuscript out of his hands, and, before I knew it,
find my self addressing imaginary audiences, poker in hand, in
lieu of a sword, with any hat that came to hand doing duty for
the plumed headgear of our hero. Little by little, line upon
line, the masterpiece grew under his hands. My career as an
actor has thrown me in with many forms of literary industry
and dogged application, but the power of sustained effort and
untiring, unflagging zeal possessed by that fragile youth
surpassed anything I had seen.

"As the work began taking form, Rostand hired a place in the
country, so that no visitors or invitations might tempt him
away from his daily toil. Rich, young, handsome, married to a
woman all Paris was admiring, with every door, social or
Bohemian, wide open before his birth and talent, he
voluntarily shut himself up for over a year in a dismal
suburb, allowing no amusement to disturb his incessant toil.
Mme. Rostand has since told me that at one time she seriously
feared for his reason if not for his life, as he averaged ten
hours a day steady work, and when the spell was on him would
pass night after night at his study table, rewriting, cutting,
modelling his play, never contented, always striving after a
more expressive adjective, a more harmonious or original
rhyme, casting aside a month's finished work without a second
thought when he judged that another form expressed his idea
more perfectly.

"That no success is cheaply bought I have long known; my
profession above all others is calculated to teach one that
truth.

"If Rostand's play is the best this century has produced, and
our greatest critics are unanimous in pronouncing it equal, if
not superior, to Victor Hugo's masterpieces, the young author
has not stolen his laurels, but gained them leaf by leaf
during endless midnight hours of brain-wringing effort - a
price that few in a generation would be willing to give or
capable of giving for fame. The labor had been in proportion
to the success; it always is! I doubt if there is one word in
his `duel' ballad that has not been changed again and again
for a more fitting expression, as one might assort the shades
of a mosaic until a harmonious whole is produced. I have
there in my desk whole scenes that he discarded because they
were not essential to the action of the piece. They will
probably never be printed, yet are as brilliant and cost their
author as much labor as any that the public applauded to-
night.

"As our rehearsals proceeded I saw another side of Rostand's
character; the energy and endurance hidden in his almost
effeminate frame astonished us all. He almost lived at the
theatre, drilling each actor, designing each costume, ordering
the setting of each scene. There was not a dress that he did
not copy from some old print, or a PASSADE that he did not
indicate to the humblest member of the troop. The marvellous
diction that I had noticed during the reading at Sarah's
served him now and gave the key to the entire performance. I
have never seen him peevish or discouraged, but always
courteous and cheerful through all those weary weeks of
repetition, when even the most enthusiastic feel their courage
oozing away under the awful grind of afternoon and evening
rehearsal, the latter beginning at midnight after the regular
performance was over.

"The news was somehow spread among the theatre-loving public
that something out if the ordinary was in preparation. The
papers took up the tale and repeated it until the whole
capital was keyed up to concert pitch. The opening night was
eagerly awaited by the critics, the literary and the artistic
worlds. When the curtain rose on the first act there was the
emotion of a great event floating in the air."  Here
Coquelin's face assumed an intense expression I had rarely
seen there before. He was back on the stage, living over
again the glorious hours of that night's triumph. His breath
was coming quick and his eyes aglow with the memory of that
evening. "Never, never have I lived through such an evening.
Victor Hugo's greatest triumph, the first night of HERNANI,
was the only theatrical event that can compare to it. It,
however, was injured by the enmity of a clique who
persistently hissed the new play. There is but one phrase to
express the enthusiasm at our first performance - UNE SALLE EN
DELIRE gives some idea of what took place. As the curtain
fell on each succeeding act the entire audience would rise to
its feet, shouting and cheering for ten minutes at a time.
The coulisse and the dressing-rooms were packed by the critics
and the author's friends, beside themselves with delight. I
was trembling so I could hardly get from one costume into
another, and had to refuse my door to every one. Amid all
this confusion Rostand alone remained cool and seemed
unconscious of his victory. He continued quietly giving last
recommendations to the figurants, overseeing the setting of
the scenes, and thanking the actors as they came off the
stage, with the same self-possessed urbanity he had shown
during the rehearsals. Finally, when the play was over, and
we had time to turn and look for him, our author had
disappeared, having quietly driven off with his wife to their
house in the country, from which he never moved for a week."

It struck two o'clock as Coquelin ended. The sleepless city
had at last gone to rest. At our feet, as we stood by the
open window, the great square around the Arc de Triomphe lay
silent and empty, its vast arch rising dimly against the night
sky.

As I turned to go, Coquelin took my hand and remarked,
smiling: "Now you have heard the story of a genius, an actor,
and a masterpiece."

Chapter 4 - Machine-made Men

AMONG the commonplace white and yellow envelopes that compose
the bulk of one's correspondence, appear from time to time
dainty epistles on tinted paper, adorned with crests or
monograms. "Ha! ha!" I think when one of these appears, "here
is something worth opening!"  For between ourselves, reader
mine, old bachelors love to receive notes from women. It's so
flattering to be remembered by the dear creatures, and recalls
the time when life was beginning, and POULETS in feminine
writing suggested such delightful possibilities.

Only this morning an envelope of delicate Nile green caused me
a distinct thrill of anticipation. To judge by appearances it
could contain nothing less attractive than a declaration, so,
tearing it hurriedly open, I read: "Messrs. Sparks & Splithers
take pleasure in calling attention to their patent suspenders
and newest designs in reversible paper collars!"

Now, if that's not enough to put any man in a bad humor for
twenty-four hours, I should like to know what is? Moreover, I
have "patents" in horror, experience having long ago revealed
the fact that a patent is pretty sure to be only a new way of
doing fast and cheaply something that formerly was
accomplished slowly and well.

Few people stop to think how quickly this land of ours is
degenerating into a paradise of the cheap and nasty, but allow
themselves to be heated and cooled and whirled about the
streets to the detriment of their nerves and digestions, under
the impression that they are enjoying the benefits of modern
progress.

So complex has life become in these later days that the very
beds we lie on and the meals we eat are controlled by patents.
Every garment and piece of furniture now pays a "royalty" to
some inventor, from the hats on our heads to the carpets under
foot, which latter are not only manufactured, but cleaned and
shaken by machinery, and (be it remarked EN PASSANT) lose
their nap prematurely in the process. To satisfy our national
love of the new, an endless and nameless variety of trifles
appears each season, so-called labor and time-saving
combinations, that enjoy a brief hour of vogue, only to make
way for a newer series of inventions.

As long as our geniuses confined themselves to making life one
long and breathless scramble, it was bad enough, but a line
should have been drawn where meddling with the sanctity of the
toilet began. This, alas! was not done. Nothing has remained
sacred to the inventor. In consequence, the average up-to-
date American is a walking collection of Yankee notions, an
ingenious illusion, made up of patents, requiring as nice
adjustment to put together and undo as a thirteenth-century
warrior, and carrying hardly less metal about his person than
a Crusader of old.

There are a number of haberdashery shops on Broadway that have
caused me to waste many precious minutes gazing into their
windows and wondering what the strange instruments of steel
and elastic could be, that were exhibited alongside of the
socks and ties. The uses of these would, in all probability,
have remained wrapped in mystery but for the experience of one
fateful morning (after a night in a sleeping-car), when
countless hidden things were made clear, as I sat, an awe-
struck witness to my fellow-passengers' - toilets? - No!
Getting their machinery into running order for the day, would
be a more correct expression.

Originally, "tags" were the backbone of the toilet, different
garments being held together by their aid. Later, buttons and
attendant button-holes were evolved, now replaced by the
devices used in composing the machine-made man. As far as I
could see (I have overcome a natural delicacy in making my
discoveries public, because it seems unfair to keep all this
information to myself), nothing so archaic as a button-hole is
employed at the present time by our patent-ridden compatriots.
The shirt, for instance, which was formerly such a simple-
minded and straightforward garment, knowing no guile, has
become, in the hands of the inventors, a mere pretence, a
frail scaffold, on which an elaborate superstructure of shams
is erected.

The varieties of this garment that one sees in the shop
windows, exposing virgin bosoms to the day, are not what they
seem! Those very bosoms are fakes, and cannot open, being
instead pierced by eyelets, into which bogus studs are fixed
by machinery. The owner is obliged to enter into those
deceptive garments surreptitiously from the rear, by
stratagem, as it were. Why all this trouble, one asks, for no
apparent reason, except that old-fashioned shirts opened in
front, and no Yankee will wear a non-patented garment - if he
can help it?

There was not a single accessory to the toilet in that car
which behaved in a normal way. Buttons mostly backed into
place, tail-end foremost (like horses getting between shafts),
where some hidden mechanism screwed or clinched them to their
moorings.

Collars and cuffs (integral parts of the primitive garment)
are now a labyrinth, in which all but the initiated must lose
themselves, being double-decked, detachable, reversible, and
made of every known substance except linen. The cuff most in
favor can be worn four different ways, and is attached to the
shirt by a steel instrument three inches long, with a nipper
at each end. The amount of white visible below the coat-
sleeve is regulated by another contrivance, mostly of elastic,
worn further up the arm, around the biceps. Modern collars
are retained in position by a system of screws and levers.
Socks are attached no longer with the old-fashioned garter,
but by aid of a little harness similar to that worn by pug-
dogs.

One traveller, after lacing his shoes, adjusted a contrivance
resembling a black beetle on the knot to prevent its untying.
He also wore "hygienic suspenders," a discovery of great
importance (over three thousand patents have been taken out
for this one necessity of the toilet!). This brace performs
several tasks at the same time, such as holding unmentionable
garments in place, keeping the wearer erect, and providing a
night-key guard. It is also said to cure liver and kidney
disease by means of an arrangement of pulleys which throw the
strain according to the wearer's position - I omit the rest of
its qualities!

The watches of my companions, I noticed with astonishment, all
wore India-rubber ruffs around their necks. Here curiosity
getting the better of discretion, I asked what purpose that
invention served. It was graciously explained to me how such
ruffs prevented theft. They were so made that it was
impossible to draw your watch out of a pocket unless you knew
the trick, which struck me as a mitigated blessing. In fact,
the idea kept occurring that life might become terribly
uncomfortable under these complex conditions for absent-minded
people.

Pencils, I find, are no longer put into pockets or slipped
behind the ear. Every commercial "gent" wears a patent on his
chest, where his pen and pencil nestle in a coil of wire.
Eyeglasses are not allowed to dangle aimlessly about, as of
old, but retire with a snap into an oval box, after the
fashion of roller shades. Scarf-pins have guards screwed on
from behind, and undergarments - but here modesty stops my
pen.

Seeing that I was interested in their make-up, several
travelling agents on the train got out their boxes and showed
me the latest artifices that could be attached to the person.
One gentleman produced a collection of rings made to go on the
finger with a spring, like bracelets, an arrangement, he
explained, that was particularly convenient for people
afflicted with enlarged joints!

Another tempted me with what he called a "literary shirt
front," - it was in fact a paper pad, from which for
cleanliness a leaf could be peeled each morning; the "wrong"
side of the sheet thus removed contained a calendar, much
useful information, and the chapters of a "continued" story,
which ended when the "dickey" was used up.

A third traveller was "pushing" a collar-button that plied as
many trades as Figaro, combining the functions of cravat-
holder, stud, and scarf-pin. Not being successful in selling
me one of these, he brought forward something "without which,"
he assured me, "no gentleman's wardrobe was complete"! It
proved to be an insidious arrangement of gilt wire, which he
adjusted on his poor, overworked collar-button, and then tied
his cravat through and around it. "No tie thus made," he
said, "would ever slip or get crooked."  He had been so civil
that it was embarrassing not to buy something of him; I
invested twenty-five cents in the cravat-holder, as it seemed
the least complicated of the patents on exhibition; not,
however, having graduated in a school of mechanics I have
never been able to make it work. It takes an hour to tie a
cravat with its aid, and as long to get it untied. Most of
the men in that car, I found, got around the difficulty by
wearing ready-made ties which fastened behind with a clasp.

It has been suggested that the reason our compatriots have
such a strained and anxious look is because they are all
trying to remember the numbers of their streets and houses,
the floor their office is on, and the combination of their
safes. I am inclined to think that the hunted look we wear
comes from an awful fear of forgetting the secrets of our
patents and being unable to undo ourselves in an emergency!

Think for a moment of the horror of coming home tired and
sleepy after a convivial evening, and finding that some of
your hidden machinery had gone wrong; that by a sudden
movement you had disturbed the nice balance of some lever
which in revenge refused to release its prey! The inventors
of one well-known cuff-holder claim that it had a "bull-dog
grip."  Think of sitting dressed all night in the embrace of
that mechanical canine until the inventor could be called in
to set you free!

I never doubted that bravery was the leading characteristic of
the American temperament; since that glimpse into the secret
composition of my compatriots, admiration has been vastly
increased. The foolhardy daring it must require - dressed as
those men were - to go out in a thunder-storm makes one
shudder: it certainly could not be found in any other race.
The danger of cross-country hunting or bull-fighting is as
nothing compared to the risk a modern American takes when he
sits in a trolley-car, where the chances of his machinery
forming a fatal "short circuit" must be immense. The utter
impossibility in which he finds himself of making a toilet
quickly on account of so many time-saving accessories must
increase his chances of getting "left" in an accident about
fifty per cent. Who but one of our people could contemplate
with equanimity the thought of attempting the adjustment of
such delicate and difficult combinations while a steamer was
sinking and the life-boats being manned?

Our grandfathers contributed the wooden nutmeg to
civilization, and endowed a grateful universe with other
money-saving devices. To-day the inventor takes the American
baby from his cradle and does not release him even at the
grave. What a treat one of the machine-made men of to-day
will be to the archeologists of the year 3000, when they
chance upon a well-preserved specimen, with all his patents
thick upon I him! With a prophetic eye one can almost see the
kindly old gentleman of that day studying the paraphernalia
found in the tomb and attempting to account for the different
pieces. Ink will flow and discussions rage between the camp
maintaining that cuff-holders were tutelar deities buried with
the dead by pious relatives and the croup asserting that the
little pieces of steel were a form of pocket money in the year
1900. Both will probably misquote Tennyson and Kipling in
support of their theories.

The question has often been raised, What side of our
nineteenth-century civilization will be most admired by future
generations? In view of the above facts there can remain
little doubt that when the secrets of the paper collar and the
trouser-stretcher have become lost arts, it will be those
benefits that remote ages will envy us, and rare specimens of
"ventilated shoes" and "reversible tissue-paper undergarments"
will form the choicest treasures of the collector.

Chapter 5 - Parnassus

MANY years ago, a gentleman with whom I was driving in a
distant quarter of Paris took me to a house on the rue
Montparnasse, where we remained an hour or more, he chatting
with its owner, and I listening to their conversation, and
wondering at the confusion of books in the big room. As we
drove away, my companion turned to me and said, "Don't forget
this afternoon. You have seen one of the greatest writers our
century has produced, although the world does not yet realize
it. You will learn to love his works when you are older, and
it will be a satisfaction to remember that you saw and spoke
with him in the flesh! "

When I returned later to Paris the little house had changed
hands, and a marble tablet stating that Sainte-Beuve had lived
and died there adorned its facade. My student footsteps took
me many times through that quiet street, but never without a
vision of the poet-critic flashing back, as I glanced up at
the window where he had stood and talked with us; as my friend
predicted, Sainte-Beuve's writings had become a precious part
of my small library, the memory of his genial face adding a
vivid interest to their perusal.

I made a little Pilgrimage recently to the quiet old garden
where, after many years' delay, a bust of this writer has been
unveiled, with the same companion, now very old, who thirty
years ago presented me to the original.

There is, perhaps, in all Paris no more exquisite corner than
the Garden of the Luxembourg. At every season it is
beautiful. The winter sunlight seems to linger on its stately
Italian terraces after it has ceased to shine elsewhere. The
first lilacs bloom here in the spring, and when midsummer has
turned all the rest of Paris into a blazing, white wilderness,
these gardens remain cool and tranquil in the heart of
turbulent "Bohemia," a bit of fragrant nature filled with the
song of birds and the voices of children. Surely it was a
gracious inspiration that selected this shady park as the
"Poets' Corner" of great, new Paris. Henri Murger, Leconte de
Lisle, Theodore de Banville, Paul Verlaine, are here, and now
Sainte-Beuve has come back to his favorite haunt. Like
Francois Coppee and Victor Hugo, he loved these historic
ALLEES, and knew the stone in them as he knew the "Latin
Quater," for his life was passed between the bookstalls of the
quays and the outlying street where he lived.

As we sat resting in the shade, my companion, who had been one
of Sainte-Beuve's pupils, fell to talking of his master, his
memory refreshed by the familiar surroundings. "Can anything
be sadder," he said, "than finding a face one has loved turned
into stone, or names that were the watch-words of one's youth
serving as signs at street corners - la rue Flaubert or
Theodore de Banville? How far away they make the past seem!
Poor Sainte-Beuve, that bust yonder is but a poor reward for a
life of toil, a modest tribute to his encyclopaedic brain!
His works, however, are his best monument; he would be the
last to repine or cavil.

"The literary world of my day had two poles, between which it
vibrated. The little house in the rue Montparnasse was one,
the rock of Guernsey the other. We spoke with awe of `Father
Hugo' and mentioned `Uncle Beuve' with tenderness. The
Goncourt brothers accepted Sainte-Beuve's judgment on their
work as the verdict of a `Supreme Court.'  Not a poet or
author of that day but climbed with a beating heart the narrow
staircase that led to the great writer's library. Paul
Verlaine regarded as his literary diploma a letter from this
`Balzac de la critique.' "

"At the entrance of the quaint Passage du Commerce, under the
arch that leads into the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts, stands a
hotel, where for years Sainte-Beuve came daily to work (away
from the importunate who besieged his dwelling) in a room
hired under the assumed name of Delorme. It was there that we
sent him a basket of fruit one morning addressed to Mr.
Delorme, NE Sainte-Beuve. It was there that most of his
enormous labor was accomplished.

"A curious corner of old Paris that Cour du Commerce! Just
opposite his window was the apartment where Danton lived. If
one chose to seek for them it would not be hard to discover on
the pavement of this same passage the marks made by a young
doctor in decapitating sheep with his newly invented machine.
The doctor's name was Guillotin.

"The great critic loved these old quarters filled with
history. He was fond of explaining that Montparnasse had been
a hill where the students of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries came to amuse themselves. In 1761 the slope was
levelled and the boulevard laid out, but the name was
predestined, he would declare, for the habitation of the
`Parnassiens.'

"His enemies pretended that you had but to mention Michelet,
Balzac, and Victor Hugo to see Sainte-Beuve in three degrees
of rage. He had, it is true, distinct expressions on hearing
those authors discussed. The phrase then much used in
speaking of an original personality, `He is like a character
out of Balzac,' always threw my master into a temper. I
cannot remember, however, having seen him in one of those
famous rages which made Barbey d'Aurevilly say that `Sainte-
Beuve was a clever man with the temper of a turkey!'  The
former was much nearer the truth when he called the author of
LES LUNDIS a French Wordsworth, or compared him to a lay
BENEDICTIN. He had a way of reading a newly acquired volume
as he walked through the streets that was typical of his life.
My master was always studying and always advancing.

"He never entirely recovered from his mortification at being
hissed by the students on the occasion of his first lecture at
the College de France. Returning home he loaded two pistols,
one for the first student who should again insult him, and the
other to blow out his own brains. It was no idle threat. The
man Guizot had nicknamed `Werther' was capable of executing
his plan, for this causeless unpopularity was anguish to him.
After his death, I found those two pistols loaded in his
bedroom, but justice had been done another way. All
opposition had vanished. Every student in the `Quarter'
followed the modest funeral of their Senator, who had become
the champion of literary liberty in an epoch when poetry was
held in chains.

"The Empire which made him Senator gained, however, but an
indocile recruit. On his one visit to Compiegne in 1863, the
Emperor, wishing to be particularly gracious, said to him, `I
always read the MONITEUR on Monday, when your article
appears.'  Unfortunately for this compliment, it was the
CONSTITUTIONNEL that had been publishing the NOUVEAUX LUNDIS
for more than four years. In spite of the united efforts of
his friends, Sainte-Beuve could not be brought to the point of
complimenting Napoleon III. on his LIFE OF CAESAR.

The author of LES CONSOLATIONS remained through life the
proudest and most independent of men, a bourgeois, enemy of
all tyranny, asking protection of no one. And what a worker!
Reading, sifting, studying, analyzing his subject before
composing one of his famous LUNDIS, a literary portrait which
he aimed at making complete and final. One of these articles
cost him as much labor as other authors give to the
composition of a volume.

"By way of amusement on Sunday evenings, when work was
temporarily laid aside, he loved the theatre, delighting in
every kind of play, from the broad farces of the Palais Royal
to the tragedies of Racine, and entertaining comedians in
order, as he said, `to keep young'! One evening Theophile
Gautier brought a pretty actress to dinner. Sainte-Beuve, who
was past-master in the difficult art of conversation, and on
whom a fair woman acted as an inspiration, surpassed himself
on this occasion, surprising even the Goncourts with his
knowledge of the Eighteenth century and the women of that
time, Mme. de Boufflers, Mlle. de Lespinasse, la Marechale de
Luxembourg. The hours flew by unheeded by all of his guests
but one. The DEBUTANTE was overheard confiding, later in the
evening, to a friend at the Gymnase, where she performed in
the last act, `Ouf! I'm glad to get here. I`ve been dining
with a stupid old Senator. They told me he would be amusing,
but I've been bored to death.'  Which reminded me of my one
visit to England, when I heard a young nobleman declare that
he had been to `such a dull dinner to meet a duffer called
"Renan!" '

"Sainte-Beuve's LARMES DE RACINE was given at the Theatre
Francais during its author's last illness. His disappointment
at not seeing the performance was so keen that M. Thierry,
then ADMINISTRATEUR of La Comedie, took Mlle. Favart to the
rue Montparnasse, that she might recite his verses to the
dying writer. When the actress, then in the zenith of her
fame and beauty, came to the lines-

Jean Racine, le grand poete,
Le poete aimant et pieux,
Apres que sa lyre muette
Se fut voilee a tous les yeux,
Renoncant a la gloire humaine,
S'il sentait en son ame pleine
Le flot contenu murmurer,
Ne savait que fondre en priere,
Pencher l'urne dans la poussiere
Aux pieds du Seigneur, et pleurer!

the tears of Sainte-Beuve accompanied those of Racine!"

There were tears also in the eyes my companion turned toward
me as he concluded. The sun had set while he had been
speaking. The marble of the statues gleamed white against the
shadows of the sombre old garden. The guardians were closing
the gates and warning the lingering visitors as we strolled
toward the entrance.

It seemed as if we had been for an hour in the presence of the
portly critic; and the circle of brilliant men and witty women
who surrounded him - Flaubert, Tourgueneff, Theophile Gautier,
Renan, George Sand - were realities at that moment, not
abstractions with great names. It was like returning from
another age, to step out again into the glare and bustle of
the Boulevard St. Michel.

Chapter 6 - Modern Architecture

IF a foreign tourist, ignorant of his whereabouts, were to
sail about sunset up our spacious bay and view for the first
time the eccentric sky-line of lower New York, he would rub
his eyes and wonder if they were not playing him a trick, for
distance and twilight lend the chaotic masses around the
Battery a certain wild grace suggestive of Titan strongholds
or prehistoric abodes of Wotan, rather than the business part
of a practical modern city.

"But," as John Drew used to say in THE MASKED BALL, "what a
difference in the morning!" when a visit to his banker takes
the new arrival down to Wall Street, and our uncompromising
American daylight dispels his illusions.

Years ago SPIRITUAL Arthur Gilman mourned over the decay of
architecture in New York and pointed out that Stewart's shop,
at Tenth Street, bore about the same relation to Ictinus'
noble art as an iron cooking stove! It is well death removed
the Boston critic before our city entered into its present
Brobdingnagian phase. If he considered that Stewart's and the
Fifth Avenue Hotel failed in artistic beauty, what would have
been his opinion of the graceless piles that crowd our island
to-day, beside which those older buildings seem almost
classical in their simplicity?

One hardly dares to think what impression a student familiar
with the symmetry of Old World structures must receive on
arriving for the first time, let us say, at the Bowling Green,
for the truth would then dawn upon him that what appeared from
a distance to be the ground level of the island was in reality
the roof line of average four-story buildings, from among
which the keeps and campaniles that had so pleased him (when
viewed from the Narrows) rise like gigantic weeds gone to seed
in a field of grass.

It is the heterogeneous character of the buildings down town
that renders our streets so hideous. Far from seeking
harmony, builders seem to be trying to "go" each other "one
story better"; if they can belittle a neighbor in the process
it is clear gain, and so much advertisement. Certain blocks
on lower Broadway are gems in this way! Any one who has
glanced at an auctioneer's shelves when a "job lot" of books
is being sold, will doubtless have noticed their resemblance
to the sidewalks of our down town streets. Dainty little
duodecimo buildings are squeezed in between towering in-
folios, and richly bound and tooled octavos chum with cheap
editions. Our careless City Fathers have not even given
themselves the trouble of pushing their stone and brick
volumes into the same line, but allow them to straggle along
the shelf - I beg pardon, the sidewalk - according to their
own sweet will.

The resemblance of most new business buildings to flashy books
increases the more one studies them; they have the proportions
of school atlases, and, like them, are adorned only on their
backs (read fronts). The modern builder, like the frugal
binder, leaves the sides of his creations unadorned, and
expends his ingenuity in decorating the narrow strip which he
naively imagines will be the only part seen, calmly ignoring
the fact that on glancing up or down a street the sides of
houses are what we see first. It is almost impossible to get
mathematically opposite a building, yet that is the only point
from which these new constructions are not grotesque.

It seems as though the rudiments of common sense would suggest
that under existing circumstances the less decoration put on a
facade the greater would be the harmony of the whole. But
trifles like harmony and fitness are splendidly ignored by the
architects of to-day, who, be it remarked in passing, have
slipped into another curious habit for which I should greatly
like to see an explanation offered. As long as the ground
floors and the tops of their creations are elaborate, the
designer evidently thinks the intervening twelve or fifteen
stories can shift for themselves. One clumsy mass on the
Bowling Green is an excellent example of this weakness. Its
ground floor is a playful reproduction of the tombs of Egypt.
About the second story the architect must have become
discouraged - or perhaps the owner's funds gave out - for the
next dozen floors are treated in the severest "tenement house"
manner; then, as his building terminates well up in the sky, a
top floor or two are, for no apparent reason, elaborately
adorned. Indeed, this desire for a brilliant finish pervades
the neighborhood. The Johnson Building on Broad Street (to
choose one out of the many) is sober and discreet in design
for a dozen stories, but bursts at its top into a Byzantine
colonnade. Why? one asks in wonder.

Another new-comer, corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, is a
commonplace structure, with a fairly good cornice, on top of
which - an afterthought, probably - a miniature State Capitol
has been added, with dome and colonnade complete. The result
recalls dear, absent-minded Miss Matty (in Mrs. Gaskell's
charming story), when she put her best cap on top of an old
one and sat smiling at her visitors from under the double
headdress!

Nowhere in the world - not even in Moscow, that city of domes
- can one see such a collection of pagodas, cupolas, kiosks,
and turrets as grace the roofs of our office buildings!
Architects evidently look upon such adornments as
compensations! The more hideous the structure, the finer its
dome! Having perpetrated a blot upon the city that cries to
heaven in its enormity, the repentant owner adds a pagoda or
two, much in the same spirit, doubtless, as prompts an Italian
peasant to hang a votive heart on some friendly shrine when a
crime lies heavy on his conscience.

What would be thought of a book-collector who took to standing
inkstands or pepperboxes on the tops of his tallest volumes by
way of adornment? Yet domes on business buildings are every
bit as appropriate. A choice collection of those
monstrosities graces Park Row, one much-gilded offender
varying the monotony by looking like a yellow stopper in a
high-shouldered bottle! How modern architects with the
exquisite City Hall before them could have wandered so far
afield in their search for the original must always remain a
mystery.

When a tall, thin building happens to stand on a corner, the
likeness to an atlas is replaced by a grotesque resemblance to
a waffle iron, of which one structure just finished on Rector
Street skilfully reproduces' the lines. The rows of little
windows were evidently arranged to imitate the indentations on
that humble utensil, and the elevated road at the back seems
in this case to do duty as the handle. Mrs. Van Rensselaer
tells us in her delightful GOEDE VROUW OF MANA-HA-TA that
waffle irons used to be a favorite wedding present among the
Dutch settlers of this island, and were adorned with monograms
and other devices, so perhaps it is atavism that makes us so
fond of this form in building! As, however, no careful
HAUSFRAU would have stood her iron on its edge, architects
should hesitate before placing their buildings in that
position, as the impression of instability is the same in each
case.

After leaving the vicinity of the City Hall, the tall slabs
that like magnified milestones mark the progress of
Architecture up Broadway become a shade less objectionable,
although one meets some strange freaks in so-called decoration
by the way. Why, for instance, were those Titan columns
grouped around the entrance to the American Surety Company's
building? They do not support anything (the "business" of
columns in architecture) except some rather feeble statuary,
and do seriously block the entrance. Were they added with the
idea of fitness? That can hardly be, for a portico is as
inappropriate to such a building as it would be to a parlor
car, and almost as inconvenient.

Farther up town our attention is arrested by another misplaced
adornment. What purpose can that tomb with a railing round it
serve on top of the New York Life Insurance building? It
looks like a monument in Greenwood, surmounted by a rat-trap,
but no one is interred there, and vermin can hardly be
troublesome at that altitude.

How did this craze for decoration originate? The inhabitants
of Florence and Athens did not consider it necessary. There
must, I feel sure, be a reason for its use in this city;
American land-lords rarely spend money without a purpose;
perhaps they find that rococo detail draws business and
inspires confidence!

I should like to ask the architects of New York one question:
Have they not been taught that in their art, as in every
other, pretences are vulgar, that things should be what they
seem? Then why do they continue to hide steel and fire-brick
cages under a veneer of granite six inches thick, causing them
to pose as solid stone buildings? If there is a demand for
tall, light structures, why not build them simply (as bridges
are constructed), and not add a poultice of bogus columns and
zinc cornices that serve no purpose and deceive no one?

Union Square possesses blocks out of which the Jackson and
Decker buildings spring with a noble disregard of all rules
and a delicious incongruity that reminds one of Falstaff's
corps of ill-drilled soldiers. Madison Square, however, is
FACILE PRINCEPS, with its annex to the Hoffman House, a
building which would make the fortune of any dime museum that
could fence it in and show it for a fee! Long contemplation
of this structure from my study window has printed every comic
detail on my brain. It starts off at the ground level to be
an imitation of the Doge's Palace (a neat and appropriate idea
in itself for a Broadway shop). At the second story,
following the usual New York method, it reverts to a design
suggestive of a county jail (the Palace and the Prison), with
here and there a balcony hung out, emblematical, doubtless, of
the inmates' wash and bedding. At the ninth floor the
repentant architect adds two more stories in memory of the
Doge's residence. Have you ever seen an accordion
(concertina, I believe, is the correct name) hanging in a shop
window? The Twenty-fifth Street Doge's Palace reminds me of
that humble instrument. The wooden part, where the keys and
round holes are, stands on the sidewalk. Then come an
indefinite number of pleats, and finally the other wooden end
well up among the clouds. So striking is this resemblance
that at times one expects to hear the long-drawn moans
peculiar to the concertina issuing from those portals. Alas!
even the most original designs have their drawbacks! After
the proprietor of the Venetian accordion had got his
instrument well drawn out and balanced on its end, he
perceived that it dwarfed the adjacent buildings, so cast
about in his mind for a scheme to add height and dignity to
the rest of the block. One day the astonished neighborhood
saw what appeared to be a "roomy suburban villa" of iron
rising on the roof of the old Hoffman House. The results
suggests a small man who, being obliged to walk with a giant,
had put on a hat several times too large in order to equalize
their heights!

How astonished Pericles and his circle of architects and
sculptors would be could they stand on the corner of Broadway
and Twenty-eighth Street and see the miniature Parthenon that
graces the roof of a pile innocent of other Greek ornament?
They would also recognize their old friends, the ladies of the
Erechtheum, doing duty on the Reveillon Building across the
way, pretending to hold up a cornice, which, being in
proportion to the building, is several hundred times too big
for them to carry. They can't be seen from the sidewalk, -
the street is too narrow for that, - but such trifles don't
deter builders from decorating when the fit is on them.
Perhaps this one got his caryatides at a bargain, and had to
work them in somewhere; so it is not fair to be hard on him.

If ever we take to ballooning, all these elaborate tops may
add materially to our pleasure. At the present moment the
birds, and angels, it is to be hoped, appreciate the effort.
I, perhaps, of all the inhabitants of the city, have seen
those ladies face to face, when I have gone on a semi-monthly
visit to my roof to look for leaks!

"It's all very well to carp and cavil," many readers will say,
"but `Idler' forgets that our modern architects have had to
contend with difficulties that the designers of other ages
never faced, demands for space and light forcing the
nineteenth-century builders to produce structures which they
know are neither graceful nor in proportion!"

If my readers will give themselves the trouble to glance at
several office buildings in the city, they will realize that
the problem is not without a solution. In almost every case
where the architect has refrained from useless decoration and
stuck to simple lines, the result, if not beautiful, has at
least been inoffensive. It is where inappropriate elaboration
is added that taste is offended. Such structures as the
Singer building, corner of Liberty Street and Broadway, and
the home of LIFE, in Thirty-first Street, prove that beauty
and grace of facade can be adapted to modern business wants.

Feeling as many New Yorkers do about this defacing of what
might have been the most beautiful of modern cities, it is
galling to be called upon to admire where it is already an
effort to tolerate.

A sprightly gentleman, writing recently in a scientific
weekly, goes into ecstasies of admiration over the advantages
and beauty of a steel mastodon on Park Row, a building that
has the proportions of a carpenter's plane stood on end,
decorated here and there with balconies and a colonnade
perched on brackets up toward its fifteenth story. He
complacently gives us its weight and height as compared with
the pyramids, and numerous other details as to floor space and
ventilation, and hints in conclusion that only old fogies and
dullards, unable to keep pace with the times, fail to
appreciate the charm of such structures in a city. One of the
"points" this writer makes is the quality of air enjoyed by
tenants, amusingly oblivious of the fact that at least three
facades of each tall building will see the day only so long as
the proprietors of adjacent land are too poor or too busy to
construct similar colossi!

When all the buildings in a block are the same height, seven
eighths of the rooms in each will be without light or
ventilation. It's rather poor taste to brag of advantages
that are enjoyed only through the generosity of one's
neighbors.

Business demands may force us to bow before the necessity of
these horrors, but it certainly is "rubbing it in" to ask our
applause. When the Eiffel Tower was in course of
construction, the artists and literary lights of Paris raised
a tempest of protest. One wonders why so little of the kind
has been done here. It is perhaps rather late in the day to
suggest reform, yet if more New Yorkers would interest
themselves in the work, much might still be done to modify and
improve our metropolis.

One hears with satisfaction that a group of architects have
lately met and discussed plans for the embellishment of our
neglected city. There is a certain poetical justice in the
proposition coming from those who have worked so much of the
harm. Remorse has before now been known to produce good
results. The United States treasury yearly receives large
sums of "conscience money."

Chapter 7 - Worldly Color-Blindness

MYRIADS of people have no ear for music and derive but little
pleasure from sweet sounds. Strange as it may appear, many
gifted and sensitive mortals have been unable to distinguish
one note from another, Apollo's harmonious art remaining for
them, as for the elder Dumas, only an "expensive noise."

Another large class find it impossible to discriminate between
colors. Men afflicted in this way have even become painters
of reputation. I knew one of the latter, who, when a friend
complimented him on having caught the exact shade of a pink
toilet in one of his portraits, answered, "Does that dress
look pink to you? I thought it was green!" and yet he had
copied what he saw correctly.

Both these classes are to be pitied, but are not the cause of
much suffering to others. It is annoying, I grant you, to be
torn asunder in a collision, because red and green lights on
the switches combined into a pleasing harmony before the
brakeman's eyes. The tone-deaf gentleman who insists on
whistling a popular melody is almost as trying as the lady
suffering from the same weakness, who shouts, "Ninon, Ninon,
que fais-tu de la vie!" until you feel impelled to cry, "Que
faites-vous, madame, with the key?"

Examinations now keep daltonic gentlemen out of locomotives,
and ladies who have lost their "keys" are apt to find their
friends' pianos closed. What we cannot guard against is a
variety of the genus HOMO which suffers from "social color-
blindness."  These well-meaning mortals form one of the
hardest trials that society is heir to; for the disease is
incurable, and as it is almost impossible to escape from them,
they continue to spread dismay and confusion along their path
to the bitter end.

This malady, which, as far as I know, has not been diagnosed,
invades all circles, and is, curiously enough, rampant among
well-born and apparently well-bred people.

Why is it that the entertainments at certain houses are always
dull failures, while across the way one enjoys such agreeable
evenings? Both hosts are gentlemen, enjoying about the same
amount of "unearned increment," yet the atmosphere of their
houses is radically different. This contrast cannot be traced
to the dulness or brilliancy of the entertainer and his wife.
Neither can it be laid at the door of inexperience, for the
worst offenders are often old hands at the game.

The only explanation possible is that the owners of houses
where one is bored are socially color-blind, as cheerfully
unconscious of their weakness as the keyless lady and the
whistling abomination.

Since increasing wealth has made entertaining general and
lavish, this malady has become more and more apparent, until
one is tempted to parody Mme. Roland's dying exclamation and
cry, "Hospitality! hospitility! what crimes are committed in
thy name!"

Entertaining is for many people but an excuse for ostentation.
For others it is a means to an end; while a third variety
apparently keep a debit and credit account with their
acquaintances - in books of double entry, so that no errors
may occur - and issue invitations like receipts, only in
return for value received.

We can rarely tell what is passing in the minds of people
about us. Some of those mentioned above may feel a vague
pleasure when their rooms are filled with a chattering crowd
of more or less well-assorted guests; if that is denied them,
can find consolation for the outlay in an indefinite sensation
of having performed a duty, - what duty, or to whom, they
would, however, find it difficult to define.

Let the novice flee from the allurements of such a host. Old
hands know him and have got him on their list, escaping when
escape is possible; for he will mate the green youth with the
red frump, or like a premature millennium force the lion and
the lamb to lie down together, and imagine he has given
unmixed pleasure to both.

One would expect that great worldly lights might learn by
experience how fatal bungled entertainments can be, but such
is not the case. Many well-intentioned people continue
sacrificing their friends on the altar of hospitality year
after year with never a qualm of conscience or a sensation of
pity for their victims. One practical lady of my acquaintance
asks her guests alphabetically, commencing the season and the
first leaf of her visiting list simultaneously and working
steadily on through both to "finis."  If you are an A, you
will meet only A's at her table, with perhaps one or two B's
thrown in to fill up; you may sit next to your mother-in-law
for all the hostess cares. She has probably never heard that
the number of guests at table should not exceed that of the
muses; or if by any chance she has heard it, does not care,
and considers such a rule old-fashioned and not appropriate to
our improved modern methods of entertaining.

One wonders what possible satisfaction a host can derive from
providing fifty people with unwholesome food and drink at a
fixed date. It is a physical impossibility for him to have
more than a passing word with his guests, and ten to one the
unaccustomed number has upset the internal arrangements of his
household, so that the dinner will, in consequence, be poor
and the service defective.

A side-light on this question came to me recently when an
exceedingly frank husband confided to a circle of his friends
at the club the scheme his wife, who, though on pleasure bent,
was of a frugal mind, had adopted to balance her social
ledger.

"As we dine out constantly through the year," remarked
Benedict, "some return is necessary. So we wait until the
height of the winter season, when everybody is engaged two
weeks in advance, then send out our invitations at rather
short notice for two or three consecutive dinners. You'd be
surprised," he remarked, with a beaming smile, "what a number
refuse; last winter we cancelled all our obligations with two
dinners, the flowers and entrees being as fresh on the second
evening as the first! It's wonderful!" he remarked in
conclusion, "how simple entertaining becomes when one knows
how!"  Which reminded me of an ingenious youth I once heard
telling some friends how easy he had found it to write the
book he had just published. After his departure we agreed
that if he found it so easy it would not be worth our while to
read his volume.

Tender-hearted people generally make bad hosts. They have a
way of collecting the morally lame, halt, and blind into their
drawing-rooms that gives those apartments the air of a
convalescent home. The moment a couple have placed themselves
beyond the social pale, these purblind hosts conceive an
affection for and lavish hospitality upon them. If such a
host has been fortunate enough to get together a circle of
healthy people, you may feel confident that at the last moment
a leper will be introduced. This class of entertainers fail
to see that society cannot he run on a philanthropic basis,
and so insist on turning their salons into hospitals.

It would take too long to enumerate the thousand
idiosyncrasies of the color-blind; few, however, are more
amusing than those of the impulsive gentlemen who invite
people to their homes indiscriminately, because they happen to
feel in a good humor or chance to be seated next them at
another house, - invitations which the host regrets half an
hour later, and would willingly recall. "I can't think why I
asked the So-and-sos!" he will confide to you. " I can't
abide them; they are as dull as the dropsy!"  Many years ago
in Paris, we used to call a certain hospitable lady's
invitations "soup tickets," so little individuality did they
possess.

The subtle laws of moral precedence are difficult reading for
the most intelligent, and therefore remain sealed books to the
afflicted mortals mentioned here. The delicate tact that,
with no apparent effort, combines congenial elements into a
delightful whole is lacking in their composition. The nice
discrimination that presides over some households is replaced
by a jovial indifference to other persons' feelings and
prejudices.

The idea of placing pretty Miss Debutante next young
Strongboys instead of giving her over into the clutches of old
Mr. Boremore will never enter these obtuse entertainers'
heads, any more than that of trying to keep poor, defenceless
Mrs. Mouse out of young Tom Cat's claws.

It is useless to enumerate instances; people have suffered too
severely at the hands of careless and incompetent hosts not to
know pretty well what the title of this paper means. So many
of us have come away from fruitless evenings, grinding our
teeth, and vowing never to enter those doors again while life
lasts, that the time seems ripe for a protest.

If the color-blind would only refrain from painting, and the
tone-deaf not insist on inviting one to their concerts, the
world would be a much more agreeable place. If people would
only learn what they can and what they can't do, and leave the
latter feats alone, a vast amount of unnecessary annoyance
would be avoided and the tiresome old grindstone turn to a
more cheerful tune.

Chapter 8 - Idling in Mid-Ocean

TO those fortunate mortals from whom Poseidon exacts no
tribute in crossing his broad domain, a transatlantic voyage
must afford each year an ever new delight. The cares and
worries of existence fade away and disappear in company with
the land, in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. One no
longer feels like the bored mortal who has all winter turned
the millstone of work and pleasure, but seems to have
transmigrated into a new body, endowed with a ravenous
appetite and perfectly fresh sensations.

Perhaps it is only the novelty of the surroundings; but as I
lie somnolent in my chair, tucked into a corner of the white
deck, watching the jade-colored water rush past below, and the
sea-gulls circle gayly overhead, the SUMMUM BONUM of earthly
contentment seems attained. The book chosen with care remains
uncut; the sense of physical and mental rest is too exquisite
to be broken by any effort, even the reading of a favorite
author.

Drowsy lapses into unconsciousness obscure the senses, like
the transparent clouds that from time to time dim the
sunlight. A distant bell in the wheel-house chimes the lazy
half-hours. Groups of people come and go like figures on a
lantern-slide. A curiously detached reeling makes the scene
and the actors in it as unreal as a painted ship manned by a
shadowy crew. The inevitable child tumbles on its face and is
picked up shrieking by tender parents; energetic youths
organize games of skill or discover whales on the horizon,
without disturbing one's philosophic calm.

I congratulate myself on having chosen a foreign line. For a
week at least no familiar name will be spoken, no accustomed
face appear. The galling harness of routine is loosened; one
breathes freely again conscious of the unoccupied hours in
perspective.

The welcome summons to luncheon comes as a pleasant shock. Is
it possible that the morning has passed? It seems to have but
commenced. I rouse myself and descend to the cabin. Toward
the end of the meal a rubicund Frenchman opposite makes the
startling proposition that if I wish to send a message home he
will undertake to have it delivered. It is not until I notice
the little square of oiled paper he is holding out to me that
I understand this reference to the "pigeon post" with which
the Compagnie Transatlantique is experimenting. At the
invitation of this new acquaintance I ascend to the upper deck
and watch his birds depart.

The tiny bits of paper on which we have written (post-card
fashion) message and address are rolled two or three together,
and inserted into a piece of quill less than two inches long,
which, however, they do not entirely fill. While a pigeon is
held by one man, another pushes one of the bird's tail-
feathers well through the quill, which is then fastened in its
place by two minute wooden wedges. A moment later the pigeon
is tossed up into the air, and we witness the working of that
mysterious instinct which all our modern science leaves
unexplained. After a turn or two far up in the clear sky, the
bird gets its bearings and darts off on its five-hundred-mile
journey across unknown seas to an unseen land - a voyage that
no deviation or loitering will lengthen, and only fatigue or
accident interrupt, until he alights at his cote.

Five of these willing messengers were started the first day
out, and five more will leave to-morrow, poor little aerial
postmen, almost predestined to destruction (in the latter
case), for we shall then be so far from land that their one
chance of life and home must depend on finding some friendly
mast where an hour's rest may be taken before the bird starts
again on his journey.

In two or three days, according to the weather, we shall begin
sending French pigeons on ahead of us toward Havre. The
gentleman in charge of them tells me that his wife received
all the messages he sent to her during his westward trip, the
birds appearing each morning at her window (where she was in
the habit feeding them) with their tidings from mid-ocean. He
also tells me that the French fleet in the Mediterranean
recently received messages from their comrades in the Baltic
on the third day by these feathered envoys.

It is hoped that in future ocean steamers will be able to keep
up communication with the land at least four out of the seven
days of their trips, so that, in case of delay or accident,
their exact position and circumstances can be made known at
headquarters. It is a pity, the originator of the scheme
remarked, that sea-gulls are such hopeless vagabonds, for they
can fly much greater distances than pigeons, and are not
affected by dampness, which seriously cripples the present
messengers.

Later in the day a compatriot, inspired doubtless by the
morning's experiment, confided to me that he had hit on "a
great scheme," which he intends to develop on arriving. His
idea is to domesticate families of porpoises at Havre and New
York, as that fish passes for having (like the pigeon) the
homing instinct. Ships provided with the parent fish can free
one every twenty-four hours, charged with the morning's mail.
The inventor of this luminous idea has already designed the
letter-boxes that are to be strapped on the fishes' backs, and
decided on a neat uniform for his postmen.

It is amusing during the first days "out" to watch the people
whom chance has thrown together into such close quarters. The
occult power that impels a pigeon to seek its kind is feeble
in comparison with the faculty that travellers develop under
these circumstances for seeking out congenial spirits. Twelve
hours do not pass before affinities draw together; what was
apparently a homogeneous mass has by that time grouped and
arranged itself into three or four distinct circles.

The "sporty" gentlemen in loud clothes have united in the
bonds of friendship with the travelling agents and have chosen
the smoking-room as their headquarters. No mellow sunset or
serene moonlight will tempt these comrades from the subtleties
of poker; the pool on the run is the event of their day.

A portly prima donna is the centre of another circle. Her
wraps, her dogs, her admirers, and her brand-new husband (a
handsome young Hungarian with a voice like two Bacian bulls)
fill the sitting-room, where the piano gets but little rest.
Neither sunshine nor soft winds can draw them to the deck.
Although too ill for the regular meals, this group eat and
drink during fifteen out of the twenty-four hours.

The deck, however, is not deserted; two fashionable
dressmakers revel there. These sociable ladies asked the
COMMISSAIRE at the start "to introduce all the young unmarried
men to them," as they wanted to be jolly. They have a
numerous court around them, and champagne, like the
conversation, flows freely. These ladies have already become
expert at shuffleboard, but their "sea legs" are not so good
as might be expected, and the dames require to be caught and
supported by their admirers at each moment to prevent them
from tripping - an immense joke, to judge by the peals of
laughter that follow.

The American wife of a French ambassador sits on the captain's
right. A turn of the diplomatic wheel is taking the lady to
Madrid, where her position will call for supreme tact and
self-restraint. One feels a thrill of national pride on
looking at her high-bred young face and listening as she chats
in French and Spanish, and wonders once more at the marvellous
faculty our women have of adapting themselves so graciously
and so naturally to difficult positions, which the women of
other nations rarely fill well unless born to the purple. It
is the high opinion I have of my countrywomen that has made me
cavil, before now, on seeing them turned into elaborately
dressed nullities by foolish and too adoring husbands.

The voyage is wearing itself away. Sunny days are succeeded
by gray mornings, as exquisite in their way, when one can feel
the ship fight against contending wind and wave, and shiver
under the blows received in a struggle which dashes the salt
spray high over the decks. There is an aroma in the air then
that breathes new life into jaded nerves, and stirs the drop
of old Norse blood, dormant in most American veins, into
quivering ecstasy. One dreams of throwing off the trammels of
civilized existence and returning to the free life of older
days.

But here is Havre glittering in the distance against her
background of chalk cliffs. People come on deck in strangely
conventional clothes and with demure citified airs.
Passengers of whose existence you were unaware suddenly make
their appearance. Two friends meet near me for the first
time. "Hallo, Jones!" says one of them, "are you crossing?"

"Yes," answers Jones, "are you?"

The company's tug has come alongside by this time, bringing
its budget of letters and telegrams. The brief holiday is
over. With a sigh one comes back to the positive and the
present, and patiently resumes the harness of life.

Chapter 9 - "Climbers" in England

THE expression "Little Englander," much used of late to
designate an inhabitant of the Mother Isle in contra-
distinction to other subjects of Her Majesty, expresses neatly
the feeling of our insular cousins not only as regards
ourselves, but also the position affected toward their
colonial brothers and sisters.

Have you ever noticed that in every circle there is some
individual assuming to do things better than his comrades - to
know more, dress better, run faster, pronounce more correctly?
Who, unless promptly suppressed, will turn the conversation
into a monologue relating to his own exploits and opinions.
To differ is to bring down his contempt upon your devoted
head! To argue is time wasted!

Human nature is, however, so constituted that a man of this
type mostly succeeds in hypnotizing his hearers into sharing
his estimate of himself, and impressing upon them the
conviction that he is a rare being instead of a commonplace
mortal. He is not a bad sort of person at bottom, and ready
to do one a friendly turn - if it does not entail too great
inconvenience. In short, a good fellow, whose principal
defect is the profound conviction that he was born superior to
the rest of mankind.

What this individual is to his environment, Englishmen are to
the world at large. It is the misfortune, not the fault, of
the rest of the human race, that they are not native to his
island; a fact, by the way, which outsiders are rarely allowed
to lose sight of, as it entails a becoming modesty on their
part.

Few idiosyncrasies get more quickly on American nerves or are
further from our hearty attitude toward strangers. As we are
far from looking upon wandering Englishmen with suspicion, it
takes us some time to realize that Americans who cut away from
their countrymen and settle far from home are regarded with
distrust and reluctantly received. When a family of this kind
prepares to live in their neighborhood, Britons have a formula
of three questions they ask themselves concerning the new-
comers: "Whom do they know? How much are they worth?" and
"What amusement (or profit) are we likely to get out of them?"  
If the answer to all or any of the three queries is
satisfactory, my lord makes the necessary advances and becomes
an agreeable, if not a witty or original, companion.

Given this and a number of other peculiarities, it seems
curious that a certain class of Americans should be so anxious
to live in England. What is it tempts them? It cannot be the
climate, for that is vile; nor the city of London, for it is
one of the ugliest in existence; nor their "cuisine" - for
although we are not good cooks ourselves, we know what good
food is and could give Britons points. Neither can it be art,
nor the opera, - one finds both better at home or on the
Continent than in England. So it must be society, and here
one's wonder deepens!

When I hear friends just back from a stay over there enlarging
on the charms of "country life," or a London "season," I look
attentively to see if they are in earnest, so incomparably
dull have I always found English house parties or town
entertainments. At least that side of society which the
climbing stranger mostly affects. Other circles are charming,
if a bit slow, and the "Bohemia" and semi-Bohemia of London
have a delicate flavor of their own.

County society, that ideal life so attractive to American
readers of British novels, is, taken on the whole, the most
insipid existence conceivable. The women lack the sparkle and
charm of ours; the men, who are out all day shooting or
hunting according to the season, get back so fagged that if
they do not actually drop asleep at the dinner-table, they
will nap immediately after, brightening only when the ladies
have retired, when, with evening dress changed for comfortable
smoking suits, the hunters congregate in the billiard-room for
cigars and brandy and seltzer.

A particularly agreeable American woman, whose husband insists
on going every winter to Melton-Mowbray for the hunting, was
describing the other day the life there among the women, and
expressing her wonder that those who did not hunt could
refrain from blowing out their brains, so awful was the
dulness and monotony! She had ended by not dining out at all,
having discovered that the conversation never by any chance
deviated far from the knees of the horses and the height of
the hedges!

Which reminds one of Thackeray relating how he had longed to
know what women talked about when they were alone after
dinner, imagining it to be on mysterious and thrilling
subjects, until one evening he overheard such a conversation
and found it turned entirely on children and ailments! As
regards wit, the English are like the Oriental potentate who
at a ball in Europe expressed his astonishment that the guests
took the trouble to dance and get themselves hot and
dishevelled, explaining that in the East he paid people to do
that for him. In England "amusers" are invited expressly to
be funny; anything uttered by one of these delightful
individuals is sure to be received with much laughter. It is
so simple that way! One is prepared and knows when to laugh.
Whereas amateur wit is confusing. When an American I knew,
turning over the books on a drawing-room table and finding
Hare's WALKS IN LONDON, in two volumes, said, "So you part
your hair in the middle over here," the remark was received in
silence, and with looks of polite surprise.

It is not necessary, however, to accumulate proofs that this
much described society is less intelligent than our own.
Their authors have acknowledged it, and well they may. For
from Scott and Dickens down to Hall Caine, American
appreciation has gone far toward establishing the reputation
of English writers at home.

In spite of lack of humor and a thousand other defects which
ought to make English swelldom antagonistic to our countrymen,
the fact remains that "smart" London tempts a certain number
of Americans and has become a promised land, toward which they
turn longing eyes. You will always find a few of these
votaries over there in the "season," struggling bravely up the
social current, making acquaintances, spending money at
charity sales, giving