The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-01-20
NEW YORK MARRIAGE.

many years man Of prominence in
New York. He had by no means
reached his present dignity Of repute
by afervid struggle from lower ranks. in
which mountains Of opposition must
be scalded and chasms of disheart-
enment bridged over. There had been
nothing in his quietly successful
career half so additionally "Ameri-
can"
He had never profited by any sud-
den caprice of fortune / am not pre-.
pared even to state that he was q
representative American product at
all, apart from the question of
his being q distinctively New York
one. And yet possibly he could
alone have existed in New York.
He had that carelessness about the
city of his birth-its Importance, it's
population, it's general bigness-
is rarely found in q Boston man, and
which may be external, but is not al
ways latent, in q Londoner. He had
grown with the great, growing, monot-
onous metropolis, and he occupied
himself very lukewarmly in thinking
Central Park superb airing ground,
or in estimating the Seventh avenue
boulevard as afuture Champs Elysees.
I first met Mabelford on really
friendly terms when the Twentieth
Century Club was started by q few
New York ladies and gentlemen who
believed in the perfectly untrammelled
discussion Of all subjects left remark
able beneath the visiting moon. With
his commanding form, his powerful
curving nose, his abundant iron-gray
moustache, his ready smile and his
eye of a fresh, crystalline hazel, he was
truly as winsome as he was imposing
to look upon. Both he and were
interested in the progress and welfare
of the club as an idea, an undertaking
Broadly viewed, he stood in his era
as an instance of healthful and placid
rreceptivity rather than OF any active
intellectual creation. "You some
times remind me-" / once said to him,
"Of a cOmmOdious and well-furnished
room, perilous to any rash insect that
should creep into the folds of its ta-
pestries, blessed by saluhrious ventil-
alton" AS a look OF genial dismay
crossed his face, l added, laughing:
"And you have some very good, fanci-
full bric-a-brac on your mantel, and
what there is choice OF it's kind, with
outa hint of trumpery."
He shook is head, answering my
smile as he did so. "Bric-a- brac
won't complete your metaphor prop
erly," he said. at has too artificial g.
suggestion. You must allow few
flowers, growing with natural grace
on my window lodges"
"I'll allow you one," was my reply.
as a certain new thought crossed me-
"Your daughter, a blush rosebud
with the dew in it!'
My words pleased him, for he knew
the genuine appreciation from which
they had sprung. And they. were be-
yond doubt invited by Hilda Mabel
ford, his only child of whom l had just
spoken.
Hilda was then q little past her
twentieth year. She had lost her
mother while quite a. child. but the
watchful, adoring fondness of her re-
naming parent had more than soft
ened the rigors of this bereavement.
No effort had been spared to make
her education ample and important.
She had enjoyed every possible ad-
vantage OF travel, every most care
full and thorough detail of tuition.
She was today a living embodiment
of her fathers best and most sensible
theories.
"What chiefly strikes me as amaz-
ing in New York society,"" Hilda
Mabelford once said to me, with her
arch and wise little smile, els that
it should really consider it.
self an aristocracy at ALL
In London, in Paris, in Vienna, the
matter is all perfectly apparent. But
here! Why, who are the best of us,
from any ridiculously patrician point
of view, but q family of immigrants?
They tell me that / am born, on both
sides, of people who have position It
seems to me that the MabelfOrds and
the Ten Eycks both have respectable
ity, through several generations of
gentlemen and ladies, but can't per-
ceive that this fact gives them the
right to call themselves better than
many other persons whose record
here Isl just as clean and honest as
theirs. confess, but I can never
quite determine, what is meant by
position in New York. We are a
democracy, are we not? Our posi-
ton is what we make and maintain,
each for himself, by moral conduct,
mental advancement and polite breed
ing. If fate should ever launch me
among body Of natives who denied
that two and two make four, I don't
see how I could help growing didactic
over the majority OF the multiplied
ton table. Do your"
"No:" laughed, amused as much
by her studded appeal as by the re-
freshing nudity Of her frankness. II
think you see our pitiable sham OF
caste here just as it must affect Euro
pean eyes. have the fancy that all
OF London which concerns itself in the
least with New York must be looking
at us with a smile of mixed surprise
and nockery."
$50 it does!" exclaimed Hilda, We
hemently. "And wemight have shown
London something so much more
consistent, consequent and dignified.
But to-day she shames us by lib
erality of social feeling to which our
petty cliques are despicably provin-
cial-ours, in the greatest city of the
greatest republic on earth! What
author, painter, actor, of conceded
power, does New York socially coun-
tenance? Not one born and nurtured
within her own atmosphere. And yet
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