University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
I MEET A VISION.

“I SAY, Hal, do you want to get acquainted with
any of the P. G.'s here in New York? If you
do, I can put you on the track.”

“P. G.'s?” said I, innocently.

“Yes; you know that's what Plato calls pretty girls. I
don't believe you remember your Greek. I'm going out this
evening where there's a lot of 'em—splendid house on Fifth
avenue—lots of tin—girls gracious. Don't know which of
'em I shall take yet. Don't you want to go with me and
see?”

Jim stood at the looking-glass brushing his hair and arranging
his necktie.

“Jim Fellows, you are a coxcomb,” said I.

“I don't know why I shouldn't be,” said he. “The girls
fairly throw themselves at one's head. They are up to all
that sort of thing. Besides, I'm on the lookout for my fortune,
and it all comes in the way of business. Come, now,
don't sit there writing all the evening. Come out, and let
me show you New York by gaslight.”

“No,” said I; “I've got to finish up this article for the
Milky Way. The fact is, a fellow must be industrious to
make anything, and my time for seeing girls isn't come yet.
I must have something to support a wife on before I look
round in that direction.”

“The idea, Harry, of a good-looking fellow like you, not
making the most of his advantages! Why, there are nice
girls in this city that could help you up faster than all the
writing you can do these ten years. And you sitting, moiling
and toiling, when you ought to be making some lovely
woman happy!”

“I shall never marry for money, Jim, you may depend
upon that.”

“Bah, bah, black sheep,” said Jim. “Who is talking
about marrying for money? A fine girl is none the worse
for fifty thousand dollars, and I can give you a list of
twenty that you can go round among until you fall in love,
and not come amiss anywhere, if it's falling in love that
you want to do.”

“Oh, come, Jim,” said I, “do finish your toilet and be off
with yourself if you are going. I don't blame a woman who
marries for money, since the whole world has always agreed
to shut her out of any other way of gaining an independence.
But for a man, with every other avenue open to him, to
mouse about for a rich wife, I think is too dastardly for
anything.”

“That would make a fine point for a paragraph,” said Jim,
turning round to me, with perfect good humor. “So I advise
you to save it for the moral part of the paper. You see, if
you waste too much of that sort of thing on me, your mill
may run low. It's a deuced hard thing to keep the moral
agoing the whole year, you'll find.”

“Well,” said I, “I am going to try to make a home for a
wife, by good, thorough work, done just as work ought to be
done; and I have no time to waste on society in the meanwhile.”

“And when you are ready for her,” said Jim, “I suppose
you expect to receive her per `Divine Providence' Express,
ticketed and labeled, and expenses paid. Or, may be she'll
be brought to you some time by genii, as the Princess of
China was brought to the Prince of Tartary, when he was
asleep. I used to read about that in the Arabian tales.”

I give this little passage of my conversation with Jim, because
it is a pretty good illustration of the axiom, that “It
is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” When we
have announced any settled purpose or sublime intention,
in regard to our future course of life, it seems to be the
delight of fortune to throw us directly into circumstances in

which we shall be tempted to do what we have just declared
we never will do, and the fortunes of our lives turn upon
the most inconsiderable hinges.

Mine turned upon an umbrella.

The next morning I had business in the very lowermost
part of the city, and started off without my umbrella; but
being weather-wise, and discerning the face of the sky,
I went back to my room and took it. It was one of those
little pet objects of vertu, to which a bachelor sometimes
treats himself in lieu of domestic luxuries. It had a finely-carved
handle, which I bought in Dieppe, and which caused
it to be peculiar among all the umbrellas in New York.

It was one of those uncertain, capricious days that mark
the coming in of April, when Nature, like a nervous beauty,
doesn't seem to know her own mind, and laughs one moment
and cries the next with a perplexing uncertainty.

The first part of the morning the amiable and smiling
predominated, and I began to regret that I had encumbered
myself with the troublesome precaution of an umbrella
while tramping around down town. In this mood of mind
I sat at Fulton Ferry waiting the starting of the Bleecker
street car, when suddenly the scene was enlivened
to my view by the entrance of a young lady, who happened
to seat herself exactly opposite to me.

Now, as a writer, an observer of life and manners, I
had often made quiet studies of the fair flowers of modern
New York society as I rode up and down in the cars.
In no other country in the world, perhaps, has a man the
opportunity of being vis-à-vis with the best and most cultured
class of young women in the public conveyances. In
England, this class are veiled and secluded from gaze by
all the ordinances and arrangements of society. They go
out only in their own carriage; they travel in reserved
compartments of the railway carriages; they pass from
these to reserved apartments in the hotels, where they are
served apart in family privacy as much as in their own
dwellings. In France, a still stricter régime watches over the
young, unmarried girl, who is kept in the shade of an almost

served apart in family privacy as much as in their own
dwellings. In France, a still stricter régime watches over the
young, unmarried girl, who is kept in the shade of an almost
conventual seclusion till marriage opens the doors of her
prison. The young American girl, however, of the better
and of the best classes, is to be met and observed everywhere.
She moves through life with the assured step of a
princess, too certain of her position and familiar with her
power even to dream of a fear. She looks on her surroundings
from above with the eye of a mistress, and expects, of
course, to see all things give way before her, as in our republican
society they generally do.

During the few months I had spent in New York I had
diligently kept out of society. The permitted silent acquaintance
with my fair countrywomen which I gained
while riding up and down the street conveyances, became,
therefore, a favorite and harmless source of amusement.
Not an item in the study escaped me, not a feather in that
rustling and wonderful plumage of fashion that bore them
up, was unnoted. I mused on styles, and characteristics,
and silently wove in my own mind histories to correspond
with the various physiognomies I studied. Let not the
reader imagine me staring point blank, with my mouth
open, at all I met. The art of noting without appearing to
note, of seeing without seeming to see, was one that I cultivated
with assiduity.

Therefore, without any impertinent scrutiny, satisfied
myself of the fact that a feminine presence of an unusual
kind and quality was opposite to me. It was, at first glance,
one of the New York princesses of the blood, accustomed to
treading on clouds and breathing incense. There was a
quiet savoir faire and self-possession as she sat down on her
seat, as if it were a throne; and there was a species of repressed
vitality and decision in all her little involuntary
movements that interested me as live things always do
interest, in proportion to their quantum of life. We all are
familiar with the fact that there are some people, who, let

them sit still as they may, and conduct themselves never so
quietly, nevertheless impress their personality on those
around them, and make their presence felt. An attraction
of this sort drew my eyes toward my neighbor. She was a
young lady of medium height, slender and elastic figure,
features less regularly beautiful than piquant and expressive.
I remarked a pair of fine dark eyes the more from the
contrast with a golden crêpe of hair. The combination of
dark eyes and lashes with fair hair, always produces effect
of a striking character. She was attired as became a
Fifth Avenue princess, who has the world of fashion at her
feet,—yet, to my thinking, as one who had chosen and
adapted her material with an eye of taste. A delicate
cashmere was folded carelessly round her shoulders, and
her little hands were gloved with a careful nicety of fit;
and dangling from one finger was a toy purse of gold and
pearl, in which she began searching for the change to pay
her fare. I saw, too, as she investigated, an expression of
perplexity, slightly tinged with the ludicrous, upon her face.
I perceived at a glance the matter. She was surveying a
ten-dollar note with a glance of amused vexation, and vainly
turning over her little purse for the smaller change or
tickets available in the situation. I leaned forward and
offered, as gentlemen generally do, to take her fare and
pass it forward. With a smile of apology she handed me
the bill, and showed the little empty purse. “Allow me
to arrange it,” I said. She smiled and blushed. I passed up
the ticket necessary for the occasion, returned her bill,
bowed, and immediately looked another way with sedulous
care.

It requires an extra amount of discretion and delicacy
to make it tolerable to a true lady to become in the smallest
degree indebted to a gentleman who is a stranger. I was
aware that my fair vis-à-vis was inwardly disturbed at
having inadvertently been obliged to accept from me even
so small an obligation as a fare ticket; but as matters were,
there was no help for it. On the whole, though I was sorry

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE UMBRELLA.
"Before a very elegant house in Fifth Avenue my unknown alighted,
and the rain still continuing, there was an excuse for my still attending
her up the steps."

[Description: 467EAF. Image of Harry walking down Fifth Avenue with a beautiful woman. He is protecting her from the rain with his umbrella.]

for her, I could not but regard the incident as a species of
good luck for myself. We rode along—perhaps each of us
conscious at times of being attentively considered by the
other, until the cars turned up Park Row before the Astor
House; she signalled the conductor to stop, and got out.
Here it was that the beneficent intentions of the fates, in
causing me to bring my umbrella, were made manifest.

Just as the car started again, came one of those sudden
gushes of rain with which perverse April delights to ruffle
and discompose unwary passengers. It was less a decent,
decorous shower, than a dash of water by the bucketful.
Immediately I jumped out and stepped to the side of my
gentle neighbor, begging her to allow me to hold my umbrella
over her, and see her in safety across Broadway. She
meant to have stopped at one or two places, she said, but it
rained so she would thank me to put her into a Fifth
Avenue stage. So we went together, threading our way
through rushing and trampling carriages, horses, and cars,
—a driving storm above, below, and around, which seemed
to throw my fair princess entirely upon my protection for
a few moments, till I had her safe in the up-town omnibus.
As it was my route, also, I, too, entered, and by this time
feeling a sort of privilege of acquaintance, arranged the
fare for her, and again received a courteous and apologetic
acknowledgment. Before a very elegant house in Fifth
Avenue my unknown alighted, and the rain still continuing,
there was an excuse for my attending her up the steps,
and ringing the door-bell for her.

We were kept waiting in this position several minutes,
when she very gracefully expressed her thanks for my
kindness, and begged that I would walk in.

Surprised and pleased, I excused myself on plea of engagements,
but presented her with my card, and said I
would do myself the pleasure of calling at another time.

With a little laugh and blush she handed me a card from
the tiny pearl and gold case, on which was engraved “Eva
Van Arsdel,” and in the corner, “Wednesdays.”

“We receive on Wednesdays, Mr. Henderson,” she said,
“and mamma will be so happy to make your acquaintance.”

Here the door opened, and my fairy princess vanished
from view, with a parting vision of a blush, smile, and bow,
and I was left outside with the rain and the mud and the
dull, commonplace grind of my daily work.

The house, as I noted it, was palatial in its aspect,
Clear, large windows, which seemed a single sheet of
crystal, gave a view of banks of flowering hyacinths,
daffodils, crocuses, and roses, curtained in by misty falls of
lace drapery. Evidently it was one of those Circean regions
of retreat, where the lovely daughters of fashionable
wealth in New York keep guard over an eternal lotus-eater's
paradise; where they trend on enchanted carpets,
move to the sound of music, and live among flowers and
odors a life of blissful ignorance of toil or care.

“To what purpose,” I thought to myself, “should I call
there, or pursue the vision into its own regions? æneas
might as well try to follow Venus to the scented regions
above Idalia, where her hundred altars forever burn, and
her flowers never die.”

But yet I was no wiser and no older than other men at
three-and-twenty, and the little card which I had placed
in my vest pocket seemed to diffuse an agreeable, electric
warmth, which constantly reminded me of its presence
there. I took it out and looked at it. I spelled the name
over, and dwelt on every letter. There was so much positive
character in the little lady,—such a sort of spicy, racy
individuality, that the little I had seen of her was like reading
the first page of an enchanting romance, and I could
not repress a curiosity to go on with it. To-day was Monday;
the reception day was Wednesday. Should I go?

Prudence said, “No; you are a young man with your way
to make; you are self-dependent; you are poor; you have
no time to spend in helping rich idle people to hunt butterflies,
and string rose-leaves, and make dandelion-chains.
If you set your foot over one of those enchanted thresholds,

where wealth and idleness rule together, you will be bewildered,
enervated, and spoiled for any really high or severe
task-work; you will become an idler, a dangler; the
power of sustained labor and self-denial will depart from
you, and you will run like a breathless lackey after the
chariot of wealth and fashion.”

On the other hand, as the little bit of enchanted pasteboard
gently burned in my vest pocket, it said:

“Why should you be rude? It is incumbent on you as a
gentleman to respond to the invitation so frankly given.
Besides, the writer who aspires to influence society must
know society; and how can one know society unless one
studies it? A hermit in his cell is no judge of what is
going on in the world. Besides, he does not overcome the
world who runs away from it, but he who meets it bravely.
It is the part of a coward to be afraid of meeting wealth and
luxury and indolence on their own grounds. He really conquers
who can keep awake, walking straight through the
enchanted ground; not he who makes a detour to get
round it.'

All which I had arrayed in good set terms as I rode back
to my room, and went up to Bolton to look up in his library
the authorities for an article I was getting out on the Domestic
Life of the Ancient Greeks. Bolton had succeeded in
making me feel so thoroughly at home in his library that
it was to all intents and purposes as if it were my own.

As I was tumbling over the books that filled every corner,
there fell out from a little niche a photograph, or
rather ambrotype, such as were in use in the infancy of the
art. It fell directly into my hand, so that taking it up it
was impossible not to perceive what it was, and I recognized
in an instant the person. It was the head of my
cousin Caroline, not as I knew her now, but as I remembered
her years ago, when she and I went to the Academy
together.

It is almost an involuntary thing, on such occasions, to
exclaim, “Who is this?” But Bolton was so very reticent a

being that I found it extremely difficult to ask him a personal
question. There are individuals who unite a great winning
and sympathetic faculty with great reticence. They
make you talk, they win your confidence, they are interested
in you, but they ask nothing from you, and they tell you
nothing. Bolton was all the while doing obliging things
for me and for Jim, but he asked nothing from us; and
while we felt safe in saying anything in the world before
him, and while we never felt at the moment that conversation
flagged, or that there was any deficiency in sympathy
and good fellowship on his part, yet upon reflection
we could never recall anything which let us into the interior
of his own life-history.

The finding of this little memento impressed me, therefore,
oddly,—as if a door had suddenly been opened into a
private cabinet where I had no right to look, or an open
letter which I had no right to read had been inadvertently
put into my hands. I looked round on Bolton, as he sat
quietly bending over a book that he was consulting, with
his pen in hand and his cat at his elbow; but the question I
longed to ask stuck fast in my throat, and I silently put
back the picture in its place, keeping the incident to ponder
in my heart. What with the one pertaining to myself, and
with the thoughts suggested by this, I found myself in a disturbed
state that I determined to resist by setting myself
a definite task of so many pages of my article.

In the evening, when Jim came in, I recounted my adventure
and showed him the card.

He surveyed it with a prolonged whistle. “Good now!”
he said; “the ticket sent by the Providence Express. I
see—”

“Who are these Van Arsdels, Jim?”

“Upper tens,” said Jim, decisively. “Not the oldest Tens,
but the second batch. Not the old Knickerbocker Vanderhoof,
and Vanderhyde, and Vanderhorn set that Washy
Irving tells about,—but the modern nobs. Old Van Arsdel
does a smashing importing business—is worth his millions

—has five girls, all handsome—two out—two more to come
out, and one strong-minded sister who has retired from
the world, and isn't seen out anywhere. The one you saw
was Eva; they say she's to marry Wat Sydney,—the greatest
match there is going in New York. How do you say—shall
you go, Wednesday?”

“Do you know them?”

“Oh, yes. Alice Van Arsdel is a splendid girl, and we are
good friends, and I look in on them sometimes just to
give them the light of my countenance. They are always
after me to lead the German in their parties; but I've given
that up. Hang it all! it's too steep on a fellow that has to
work all day, with no let up, to be kept dancing till daylight
with those girls. It don't pay!”

“I should think not,” said I.

“You see,” pursued Jim, “these girls have nothing under
heaven to do, and when they've danced all night, they go to
bed and sleep till till eleven or twelve o'clock the next day
and get their rest; while we fellows have to be up and in
our offices at eight o'clock next morning. The fact is, it
may do for once or twice, but it knocks a fellow up pretty
fast. It's a bad thing for the fellows; they get to taking
wine and brandy and one thing or another to keep up, and
the Devil only knows what comes of it.”

“And are these Van Arsdels in that frivolous set?” said I.

“Well, you see they are not really frivolous, either;
they are nice girls, well educated, graduated at the Universal
Thingumbob College, where they teach girls everything
that ever has been heard of, before they are seventeen.
And then they have lived in Paris, and lived in Germany,
and lived in Italy, and picked up all the languages; so
that when they have anything to say they have a choice of
four languages to say it in.”

“And have they anything to say worth hearing in any of
the four?” said I.

“Well, yes, now, honor bright. There's Alice Van Arsdel:
she's ambitious as the devil, but, after all, a good, warmhearted

girl under it—and smart! there's no doubt of that.”

“And this lady?” said I, fingering the card.

“Eva? Well, she's had a great run; she's killing, as they
say, and she's pretty—no denying that; and, really, there's
a good deal to her,—like the sponge cake at the bottom of
the trifle, you know, with a good smart flavor of wine and
spice.”

“And she's engaged to— whom did you say?”

“Wat Sydney.”

“And what sort of a man is he?”

“What sort? why, he's a rich man; owns all sorts of
things,—gold mines in California, and copper mines in Lake
Superior, and salt works, and railroads. In fact, the thing
is to say what he doesn't own. Immense head for business,
—regular steel-trap to deal with,—has the snap of a pike.”

“Pleasing prospect for a domestic companion,” said I.

“Oh, as to that, I believe Wat is good-hearted enough to
his own folks. They say he is very devoted to his old
mother and a parcel of old maid aunts, and as he's rich, it's
thought a great virtue. Nobody sings my praises, I notice,
because I mind my mammy and Aunt Sarah. You see it
takes a million-power solar microscope to bring out fellows'
virtues.”

“Is the gentleman handsome?”

“Well, if he was poor, nobody would think much of
his looks. If he had, say, a hundred thousand or two, he
would be called fair to middling in looks. As it is, the girls
rave about him. He's been after Eva now for six months,
and the other girls are ready to tear her eyes out. But the
engagement hasn't come out yet. I think she's making up
her mind to him.”

“Not in love, then?”

“Well, she's been queen so long she's blasée and difficult,
and likes to play with her fish before she lands him. But of
course she must have him. Girls like that must have
money to keep 'em up; that's the first requisite. I tell you
the purple and fine linen of these princesses come to something.

Now, as rich men go, she'd find ten worse than Wat
where there's one better. Then she's been out three seasons.
There's Alice just come out, and Alice is a stunner,
and takes tremendously! And then there's Angeline, a
handsome, spicy little witch, smarter than either, that is
just fluttering, and scratching, and tearing her hair with
impatience to have her turn. And behind Angeline there's
Marie—she's got a confounded pair of eyes. So you see
there's no help for it; Miss Eva must abdicate and make
room for the next comer.”

“Well,” said I, “about this reception?”

“Oh! go, by all means,” said Jim. “It will be fun. I'll
go with you. You see it's Lent now, thank the stars! and
so there's no dancing,—only quiet evenings and lobster salad;
because, you see, we're all repenting of our sins and getting
ready to go at it again after Easter. A fellow now can go
to receptions, and get away in time to have a night's rest,
and the girls now and then talk a little sense between
whiles. They can talk sense when they like, though one
wouldn't believe it of 'em. Well, take care of yourself, my
son, and I'll take you round there on Wednesday evening.”
And Jim went whistling down the stairs, leaving me to finish
my article on the Domestic Manners of the Greeks.

I remember that very frequently that evening, while
stopping to consider how I should begin the next sentence,
I unconsciously embellished the margin of my manuscript
by writing “Eva, Eva, Eva Van Arsdel” in an absentminded,
mechanical way. In fact, from that time, that name
began often to obtrude itself on every bit of paper when I
tried my pen.

The question of going to the Wednesday evening reception
was settled in the affirmative. What was to hinder my
taking a look at fairy land in a purely philosophical spirit?
Nothing, certainly. If she were engaged she was nothing
to me,—never would be. So, clearly there was no danger.