The herald., 1897-11-05

Hks
entertainment committee have fixed
the date for the next social for Decem-
ber !.
Brunetier's Impressions Of New York
My greatest surprise is to be sur
prised SO little; and in the mild atmos-
phere under a brilliant sun it does not
seem to me that / have changed cli-
mates.
Nevertheless. I am in America.
But what can you expect? My eyes
and my mind are so fashioned that
wherever 1 have journeyed have found
men more like each other than their
vanity might be willing to admit; and
doubtless that is not a favorable tenn
per for "observing," but who knows
whether it be not an excellent one for
seeing better? How many travellers
there are whose accounts have aroused
in me nothing but great establishment
at their ingenuity! They discover diff
ferences everywhere, and to my eyes
these differences do not exist Euro
peans or Americans, yellow men or
white, Anglo-Saxons or Latins, we all
have specimens at home of all the vices
let us add that the same is true of all
the qualities and virtues, and repeat
with the poet:
"Humani geners mores tibi nosse volenti,
Sufficit una domus. ."
am walking along Fifth
avenue making these reflections and be-
ginning to fear lest a spice of vexation
at not possessing a more Travelled soul
may creep into them, when 1t suddenly
occurs to me that this avenue Is very
long. also perceive that all the streets
cross each other at right angles, and
that, motley as the crowd may be which
fills them with commotion, numerous as
are the car lines by which they are fur
rowed, unlike and sumptuous as are the
shops which line them, the impression
they produce is, after all, trifle mo-
notonous. Fortunately, some tall
houses come to dispel this at the very
nick of time-very tall houses. Of from
twelve to fourteen stories; cubical
houses with fiat roofs; pierced with in
Vulnerable windows; stone houses whose
crude whiteness enlivens at last this
decoration which hitherto has been all
in brick. take pains to note, then, that
in New York there are houses of four
teen stories, and-must it be said-they
are not uglier than If they had only
Ave. Where is it that have seen uglier
ones, not SO tall, but in the same style,
or the same taste, which proceeded less
from the art of Bramante or Palladio
than from the science of Eiffel the en-
gineer? Was it not, perchance, at
Rome, in the new quarters? What as
tonishes me most, however, and what 1
can scarcely account for to myself, is
that positively these enormous houses
do not seem to be imbedded in the
ground; one would say they were ple ced
upon it's surface.
go on to the right, and the aspect of
the scene has suddenly changed. The
flooring of an aerial railway, supported
by enormous cast-iron pillars, has
robbed me of sunlight, and the trains
which momentarily succeed each other
make deafening racket over my head.
Now the streets are lined with popular
shops, saloons. oyster houses, and also
with bootblacks. Peddlers Of Italian
aspect offer me bananas, oranges, ap-
pies, and sticks of marshmallow. These
are no longer the smells of Paris, but
those of Marseilles and Genoa; in fact
they make me remember that am in a
maritime city. Did say in a maritime
city? I should have said in an island.
where ought to have found it quite nat
ural that the manners and institutions
should be floating" Gt is the remark
of an ancient who had not seen Amer
ica), and that the very houses should
not yet succeed in fixing themselves Z"
A great maritime city always has little
the air of having been born yesterday,
its monuments can be counted; and how
often have been surprised that of all
our French cities the most ancient, the
one that existed before there was
mean Marseilles-should also
be one Of the most modern, where one
finds least of the historical and detects
the least of what is past.
There are from $4,000 to $4,000 Italians
at Marseilles, and formerly there were
many Greeks and Levantines; this
doubtless gave it the cosmopolitan as
pect. Here at New York there are from
100000 to 100000 Germans, and how
many Irish? To say nothing of Italians,
French, Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, etc.
am not surprised that all this makes
q mixture, medley, in which one would
be troubled to find anything very
American" The business streets,
Twenty-third, Fourteenth, Broadway,
are filled with crowd. neither very
noisy nor very bustling; numerous lott
erers are seated on benches in the
great Cosmopolitan" city;
a very large city; gigantic city; where
seem to recognize some traits Of Paris
and Marseilles, of Genoa, Antwerp, and
where certain slight diff
ferences, suspected rather than felt,
fancied rather than experienced, in
1efinable for the moment. melt and are
effaced in the multiplicity Of resem-
blances and analogies; such did New
York appear TO me at first. And also as