University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
MY FIRST VISIT TO NEW YORK, AND MY FIRST CLASS OF WINE.

Relying upon my new associations for the preservation of
my socila position, now that my history had become known in
the college, it was necessary for me to be seen occasionally
with the set to which I had been admitted and welcomed.
This apparent necessity not unfrequently led me to their rooms,
in which there were occasional gatherings of the fellows, and
in one or two of which a surreptitious bottle of wine ws indulged
in. Of the wine I steadily refused to be a partaker,
and it was never urged upon me but once, when Livingston
interposed, and said I should act my own pleasure. This made
the attempt to carry on my double life easier, and saved me
from being scared away from it. There was no carousing and
no drunkenness—nothing to offend, in those modest symposia
—and they came at last to wear a very harmless look to me,
associated as they were with good fellowship and hospitality.

Walking one day with Livingston, who fancied me and liked
to have me with him, he said: “Bonnicastle, you ought to see
more of the world. You've been cooped up all your life, and
are as innocent as a chicken.”

“You wouldn't have me anything but innocent would you?”
I said laughing.

“Not a bit of it. I like a clean fellow like you, but you
must see something, some time.”

“There'll be time enough for that when I get through study,”
I responded.

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said, “but, my boy, I've taken it
into my head to introduce you to New York life. I would
like to show you my mother and sisters and my five hundred

friends. I want to have you see where I live and how I live,
and get a taste of my sort of life. Bradford and your aunt are all
very well, I dare say, but they are a little old-fashioned, I fancy.
Come, now, don't they bore you?”

“No, they don't,” I replied heartily. “The best friends I have
in the world are in Bradford, and I am more anxious to please
and satisfy them than I can tell you. They are very fond of
me, and that goes a great way with such a fellow as I am.”

“Oh, I understand that,” said Livingston, “but I am fond
of you too, and, what's more, you must go home with me next
Christmas, for I shall leave college when another summer
comes, and that will be the last of me, so far as you are concerned.
Now you must make that little arrangement with your
aunt. You can tell her what a splendid fellow I am, and
humbug the old lady in any harmless way you choose; but the
thing must be done.”

The project, to tell the truth, set my heart bounding with a
keen anticipation of delight. Livingston was the first New
York friend I had made who seemed to be worth the making.
To be received into his family and introduced to the acquaintance
of his friends seemed to me to be the best opportunity
possible for seeing the city on its better side. I was sure that
he would not willingly lead me into wrong-doing. He had
always forborne any criticism of my conscientious scruples.
So I set myself at work to win Mrs. Sanderson's consent to the
visit. She had become increasingly fond of me, and greedy
of my presence and society with her increasing age, and I knew
it would be an act of self-denial for her to grant my request.
However, under my eloquent representations of the desirableness
of the visit, on social grounds, she was persuaded, and I
had the pleasure of reporting her consent to Livingston.

I pass over the events of the swift months that made up the
record of my first year and of the second autumn of my college
life, mentioning only the facts that I maintained a respectable
position in my class without excellence, and that I visited
home twice. Everything went on well in my aunt's family.

She retained the health she had regained; and Mrs. Belden
had become, as her helper and companion, everything she had
anticipated. She had taken upon herself much of the work I
had learned to do, and, so far as I could see, the family life was
harmonious and happy.

My vanity was piqued by the reflection that Henry had
achieved better progress than I, and was much more generally
respected. He had gradually made himself a social center
without the effort to do so, and had pushed his way by sterling
work and worth. Nothing of this, however, was known in
Bradford, and we were received with equal consideration by all
our friends.

For months the projected holiday visit to New York had
shone before me as a glittering goal; and when at last, on a
sparkling December morning, I found myself with Livingston
dashing over the blue waters of the Sound toward the great
city, my heart bounded with pleasure. Had I been a winged
spirit, about to explore a new star, I could not have felt more
buoyantly expectant. Livingston was as delighted as myself,
for he was sympathetic with me, and anticipated great enjoyment
in being the cup-bearer at this new feast of my life.

We passed Hellgate, we slid by the sunny islands, we approached
the gray-blue cloud pierced by a hundred shadowy
spires under which the city lay. Steamers pushed here and
there, forests of masts bristled in the distance, asthmatic little
tugs were towing great ships seaward, ferry-boats crowded with
men reeled out from their docks and flew in every direction,
and a weather-beaten, black ship, crowded with immigrants,
cheered us as we rushed by them. As far as the eye could see,
down the river and out upon the bay, all was life, large and
abounding. My heart swelled within me as I gazed upon the
splendid spectacle, and in a moment, my past life and all that
was behind me were dwarfed and insignificant.

As we approached the wharf, we saw among the assemblage
of hacks and their drivers—drivers who with frantic whips endeavored
to attract our attention—a plain, shining carriage,

with a coachman and footman in livery on the box. The men
saw us, and raised their hats. The footman jumped from his
place as we touched the wharf, and, relieved by him of our
satchels, we quietly walked through the boisterous crowd, entered
the coach, and slowly took our way along the busy streets.
To be thus shut in behind the cleanest of cut-glass, to recline
upon the most luxurious upholstery, to be taken care of and
shielded from all the roughness of that tumultuous out-door
world, to be lifted out of the harsh necessities that made that
world forbidding, to feel that I was a favored child of fortune,
filled me with a strange, selfish delight. It was like entering
upon the realization of a great, sweet dream.

Livingston watched my face with much secret pleasure, I do
not doubt, but he said little, except to point out to me the more
notable edifices on the route. I was in a city of palaces—
warehouses that were the homes of mighty commerce and
dwellings that spoke of marvelous wealth. Beautiful women,
wrapped in costly furs, swept along the pavement, or peered
forth from the windows of carriages like our own; shops were
in their holiday attire and crowded with every conceivable article
of luxury and taste, and the evidences of money, money,
money, pressed upon me from every side. My love of beautiful
things and of beautiful life—life relieved of all its homely
details and necessities—life that came through the thoughtful
and skillful ministry of others—life that commanded what it
wanted with the waving of a hand or the breathing of a word—
life that looked down upon all other life and looked up to none
—my love of this life, always in me, and more and more developed
by the circumstances which surrounded me, was stimulated
and gratified beyond measure.

At length we drew up to a splendid house in a fashionable
quarter of the city. The footman opened the door in a twinkling,
and we ran up the broad steps to a landing at which an
eager mother waited. Smothered with welcoming kisses from
her and his sisters, Livingston could not immediately present
me, and Mrs. Livingston saved him the trouble by calling my

name and taking my hand with a dignified cordiality which
charmed me. The daughters, three in number, were shyer,
but no less hearty in their greeting than their mother. Two of
them were young ladies, and the third was evidently a schoolgirl
who had come home to spend the holidays.

Livingston and I soon mounted to our room, but in the brief
moments of our pause in the library and our passage through
the hall my eyes had been busy, and had taken in by hurried
glances the beautiful appointments of my friend's home. It
was as charming as good taste could make it, with unlimited
wealth at command. The large mirrors, the exquisite paintings,
the luxurious furniture, the rich carvings, the objects of
art and vertu, gathered from all lands, and grouped with faultless
tact and judgment, the carpets into which the foot sank as into
a close-cropped lawn, the artistic forms of every article of service
and convenience, all combined to make an interior that
was essentially a poem. I had never before seen such a house,
and when I looked upon its graceful and gracious keepers, and
received their gentle courtesies, I went up-stairs with head and
heart and sense as truly intoxicated as if I had been mastered
by music, or eloquence, or song.

At the dinner-table, for which we made a careful toilet, all
these impressions were confirmed or heightened. The ladies
were exquisitely dressed, the service was the perfection of quiet
and thoughtful ceremony, the cooking was French, the china
and glass were objects of artistic study in their forms and decorations,
the choicest flowers gathered from a conservatory which
opened into the dining-room, breathed a delicate perfume, and
all the materials and ministries of the meal were wrapped in
an atmosphere of happy leisure. Livingston was evidently a
favorite and pet of the family, and as he had come back to his
home from another sphere and experience of life, the conversation
was surrendered to him. Into this conversation he
adroitly drew me, and under the grateful excitements of the hour
I talked as I had never talked before. The ladies flattered me
by their attention and applause, and nothing occurred to

dampen my spirits until, at the dessert, Mrs. Livingston begged
the pleasure of drinking a glass of wine with me.

Throughout the dinner I had declined the wine that had
been proffered with every course. It was quietly done, with
only a motion of the hand to indicate refusal, and I do not
think the family had noticed that I had not taken my wine with
themselves. Now the case was different. A lady whom I
honored, whom I desired to please, who was doing her best to
honor and please me—my friend's mother at her own table—
offered what she intended to be a special honor. My face
flamed with embarrassment, I stammered out some sort of
apology, and declined.

“Now, mother, you really must not do anything of that sort,”
said Livingston, “unless you wish to drive Bonnicastle out of
the house. I meant to have told you. It's one of the things
I like in him, for it shows that he's clean and plucky.”

“But only one little glass, you know—just a sip, to celebrate
the fact that we like one another,” said Mrs. Livingston, with
an encouraging smile.

But I did not drink. Livingston still interposed, and, although
the family detected the disturbed condition of my feelings,
and did what they could to restore my equanimity, I felt that
my little scruple had been a discord in the music of the feast.

Mr. Livingston, the head of the house, had not yet shown
himself. His wife regretted his absence, or said she regretted
it, but he had some special reason for dining at his club that
day; and I may as well say that that red-faced gentleman
seemed to have a special reason for dining at his club nearly
every day while I remained in New York, although he consented
to get boozy at his own table on Christmas.

We had delightful music in the evening, and my eyes were
feasted with pictures and statuary and the bric-à-brac gathered
in long foreign travel; but when I retired for the night I was
in no mood for devotion, and I found myself quarreling with
the scruple which had prevented me from accepting the special
friendly courtesy of my hostess at dinner.

Wine seemed to be the natural attendant upon this high and
beautiful life. It was the most delicate and costly language in
which hospitality could speak. There were ladies before me,
old and young, who took it without a thought of wrong or of
harm. Was there any wrong or harm in it? Was my objection
to it born of a narrow education, or an austere view of life, or
of prejudices that were essentially vulgar? One thing I saw
very plainly, viz., that the practice of total abstinence in the
society and surroundings which I most courted would make me
uncomfortably singular, and, what was most distressing to me,
suggest the vulgar rusticity of my associations.

From my childhood wine and strong drink had been represented
to me to be the very poison on which vice and immorality
lived and thrived. My father had a hatred of them which
no words could express. They were the devil's own instruments
for the destruction of the souls and lives of men. I was bred
to this belief and opinion. Mr. Bradford had warned me against
the temptation to drink, in whatever form it might present
itself. Mr. Bird was a sworn foe to all that had the power to
intoxicate. When I went away from home, it was with a determination,
entered into and confirmed upon my knees, that I
would neither taste nor handle the seductive draught which had
brought ruin to such multitudes of young men.

Yet I lay for hours that first night in my friend's home, while
he was quietly sleeping, debating the question whether, in the
new and unlooked-for circumstances in which I found myself, I
should yield my scruples, and thus bring myself into harmony
with the life that had so many charms for me. Then my imagination
went forward into the beautiful possibilities of my future
life in The Mansion, with the grand old house refitted and
refurnished, with its service enlarged and refined, with a graceful
young figure occupying Mrs. Sanderson's place, and with all
the delights around me that eye and ear could covet, and taste
devise and gather.

In fancies like these I found my scruples fading away, and
those manly impulses and ambitions which had moved me

mightily at first, but which had stirred me less and less with the
advancing months, almost extinguished. I was less interested
in what I should do to make myself a man, with power and influence
upon those around me, than with what I should enjoy.
One turn of the kaleidoscope had changed the vision from a
mass of plain and soberly tinted crystals to a galaxy of brilliants,
which enchained and enchanted me.

I slid at last from fancies into dreams. Beautiful maidens
with yellow hair and sweeping robes moved through grand saloons,
pausing at harp and piano to flood the air with the rain
of heavenly music; stately dames bent to me with flattering
words; groups in marble wreathed their snowy arms against a
background of flowering greenery; gilded chandeliers blazed
through screens of prismatic crystal; fountains sang and
splashed and sparkled, yet all the time there was a dread of
some lurking presence—some serpent that was about to leap
and grasp me in its coils—some gorgon that would show his
grinning head behind the forms of beauty that captivated my
senses—some impersonated terror that by the shake of its
finger or the utterance of a dreadful word would shatter the
beautiful world around me into fragments, or scorch it into
ashes.

I woke the next morning unrefreshed and unhappy. I woke
with that feeling of weariness which comes to every man who
tampers with his convictions, and feels that he has lost something
that has been a cherished part of himself. This feeling
wore away as I heard the roar of carriages through the streets,
and realized the novelty of the scenes around me. Livingston
was merry, and at the breakfast table, which was crowned with
flowers and Christmas gifts, the trials of the previous night were
all forgotten.

The Livingstons were Episcopalians—the one Protestant
sect which in those days made much of Christmas. We all
attended their church, and for the first time in my life I witnessed
its beautiful ritual. The music, prepared with great
care for the occasion, was more impressive than any I had

ever heard. My æsthetic nature was charmed. Everything
seemed to harmonize with the order and the appointments of
the house I had just left. And there was my stately hostess,
with her lovely daughters, kneeling and devoulty responding—
she who had offered and they who had drunk without offense
to their consciences the wine which I, no better than they, had
refused. They could be Christians and drink wine, and why
not I? It must be all a matter of education. High life could
be devoulty religious life, and religious life was not harmed by
wine. My conscience had received its salvo, and oh, pitiful,
recreant coward that I was, I was ready to be tempted!

The Christmas dinner brought the temptation. Mr. Livingston
was at home, and presided at his table. He had broached
a particularly old and choice bottle of wine for the occasion,
and would beg the pleasure of drinking with the young men.
And the young men drank with him, and both had the dishonor
of seeing him stupid and silly before he left the board. I did
not look at Mrs. Livingston during the dinner. I had refused to
drink with her the day before, and I had fallen from my resolution.
The wine I drank did not go down to warm and stimulate
the sources of my life, nor did it rise and spread confusion
through my brain, but it burned in my conscience as if a torch,
dipped in some liquid hell, had been tossed there.

It was a special occasion—this was what I whispered to my
conscience—this was the breath that I breathed a hundred
times into it to quench the hissing torture. It was a special
occasion. What was I, to stand before these lovely Christian
women with an assumption of superior virtue, and a rebuke of
their habits and indulgences? I did not want the wine; I
did not wish to drink again; and thus the fire gradually died
away. I was left, however, with the uncomfortable consciousness
that I had in no degree raised myself in the estimation of
the family. They had witnessed the sacrifice of a scruple and
an indication of my weakness. Livingston, I knew, felt sadly
about it. It had brought me nothing that I desired or expected.

The days between Christmas and New Year's were packed

with a thousand pleasures. A party was gathered for us in
which I was presented to many beautiful girls and their stylish
brothers. We visited the theaters, we were invited everywhere,
and we often attended as many as two or three assemblies in
an evening. The days and nights were a continued round of
social pleasures, and we lived in a whirl of excitement. There
was no time for thought, and with me, at least, no desire for it.

But the time flew away until we waited only the excitements
of New Year's Day to close our vacation, and return to the
quiet life we had left under the elms of New Haven. That
day was a memorable one to me and demands a chapter for
its record.