Memoirs of a millionaire

The class of which I speak make themselves merry without duties. They sit in decorated club-houses in the cities, and burn tobacco and play whist; in the country they sit idle in stores and bar-rooms, and burn tobacco, and gossip and sleep. They complain of the flatness of American life; America has no illusions, no romance. They have no perception of its destiny. They are not Americans.—EMERSON, The Fortune of the Republic.

It was on the evening of election day that I first saw her. I had come up from Salem to Boston, to spend the night and hear Booth and Barrett the next day, and I had gone to dine at aunt Madison’s on Louisburg Square.

The lamps had not been lighted, and we were all sitting cosily around the open grate after dinner, talking over the matinée, and jesting with two or three of Will’s college friends who were there for the evening, when the portière was noiselessly drawn aside, and Mildred Brewster came in with a cheery good evening.

I can recall now just how she looked, as, after the introductions were over, she stood leaning on the back of aunt Madison’s chair, with the ruddy glow of the firelight on her face, and her lithe figure dimly outlined against the shadowy background.

I did not notice her much at first, for, after her blithe greeting, on seeing strangers she had drawn back into the shadow and sat so quietly that I, carrying on a gay banter with the young men, had almost forgotten her.

I do not remember what was said at first. It did not make much impression on me at the time, until, after a while, the talk grew a little more serious, and the young men began to speak of their plans for the future. They were all seniors, and each of them, except Will, had plenty of money in his own right, with apparently nothing in life more burdensome to do than to draw checks and order dinners at Young’s.

They were a handsome trio, broad-chested, keen-eyed, clad in the daintiest of linen from Noyes Brothers,—“the jolliest swells in the class,” Will called them.

Aunt Madison asked them, apropos of the election, how they had voted, for they were all residents of Boston and had passed their majority. They were evidently rather amused at the query, but each and all politely replied that they hadn’t much enthusiasm about voting, and it having been a rainy day, they had not taken the trouble to go to the polls.

“You see, the fact is,” said the young man with the blonde mustache whom Will called Ned Conro, “voting is a confounded bore, any way.”

“But of course you have an interest in national politics, if not in municipal affairs?” said aunt Madison, inquiringly, as she looked up from her knitting and beamed benevolently at the young man through her gold-bowed spectacles. “I suppose you young men at Harvard, with all your study of history and political economy, are wide awake about all these things.”

“Oh, we talk free trade and protection more or less, that is, the fellows did who took that course of study last year. I don’t go in for that sort of thing myself very much; my money isn’t in manufactures, and I don’t care a continental about the tariff one way or the other. And as for politics,—of course we all go in for the hurrah and fun in a presidential campaign, but I don’t look forward to doing anything further in that line after I graduate. It is all well enough for any one who has a fancy for it and who wants to run for office, and that sort of thing. But there can’t be more than two senators and one governor in a state at a time, and anything less than that isn’t worth the trouble.

“I’ve mighty little respect for any man who condescends to be a ward politician. Boston is an Irish city, after all, though last year some of the better class got their blood up and had a clearing out; but the game isn’t worth the candle, and I, for one, am willing to let the Irish go the whole figure if they wish to do it. We can’t get rid of them, and it doesn’t pay to mix up with them. I don’t propose to vote to have my father, or any other gentleman of good old New England stock, sit beside some liquor-seller or grocer as common councilman or alderman.”

“Neither do I,” ejaculated my vis-à-vis, whom Will had introduced as Mr. Mather; “a fellow who begins to bother his head about all these little twopenny municipal affairs only soils his hands for his pains, and doesn’t improve matters one atom. It’s well enough to vote if one wants to, but what does a single vote amount to? It counts no more when cast by a Harvard professor than by some South Cove ‘Mick.’ Suppose Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown are up for school committee; you don’t know a thing about either of them, except that they are nominated by a set of rummies and demagogues, or else by a lot of women or pious temperance cranks. You are a professional man and your time is worth ten dollars an hour,—you don’t care a fig about the whole school committee business anyway; it’s the women’s affair—they can vote on that. Let them turn out and manage it as they did last year, if they want to; but you can’t expect a man to look after these matters, and be elbowed and hooted down at the caucuses, if he has the tastes of a gentleman and all the responsibilities of a profession or a large business on his shoulders.”

“The fact is that in municipal matters the ballot ought to be put on a property basis, and until that is done, I shall bother myself precious little about it,” remarked the third young gentleman, twirling his seal and addressing his three feminine listeners.

I wondered why Mildred’s cheeks had grown so rosy and why her dark eyes had such a gleam in them as she laid down the bit of embroidery on which her fingers had been busy, and turned toward the speaker. “What a profile!” I thought; “almost pure Greek, only the chin is a little too square.”

“The truth is,” the young man continued, “we have no great men now and no great issues, unless you call all this frenzy about the school question a great issue. We’ve got to come to see that the government has no right to tax its citizens to teach history, anyway. It’s an imposition to tax a man to send some one else’s child to a high school. Let the state give a child the three R’s, and then if he wants to learn about Tetzel or Luther, let his father pay to have him taught in his own way. Politics is no profession for a young man. There’s no great amount of money in it, unless you’re mighty shrewd, and tricky, too; and as for fame, the man must be pretty thick-skinned who can stand the pelting which every reputation gets nowadays, and not wince under it. For my part, I think democracy is a good deal played out. It was all right so long as men were equal; but we’re getting about as stratified a society now as there is anywhere in the Old World; and there’s no use in the sentimental every-man-a-brother kind of talk. I don’t propose to shake the greasy hand of any of these beastly foreigners that are coming here and crowding us to the wall. I don’t grudge them the rights of American citizenship; they may have it and welcome, if they want it; but where they step in I step out. In fact, I think I shall settle down in Paris or Florence for a while. There’s lots more fun for a fellow over there.”

There was more of this sort of talk. I watched Mildred’s face, and noticed that her lips were twitching and her fingers playing nervously with the fringe of a scarlet silk shawl which she wore. Evidently she was under some stress of strong emotion, though for what reason I but vaguely guessed. She had come out of the shadow, and stood tall and stately, with her arm resting on the mantel and her eyes fixed on the speakers with such a look as I had never before seen on any countenance. There was anger and pity and contempt, strangely mingled, on her mobile features. She had forgotten herself, and I think they were fairly startled at the look they read in her tell-tale face.

Will made an attempt to change the subject, but Mr. Mather broke in: “You look as though you did not agree with us, Miss Brewster. Come, we have monopolized the conversation so far, now tell us what you think.”

She did not speak at first, and there was an awkward silence for a minute. When it was broken, her voice sounded so painfully hard and calm in its effort not to tremble that I scarcely recognized it.

“Within two weeks,” she said, speaking slowly, “I have sat for five hours face to face with the leading anarchists of New England. I have questioned them, and they have told me frankly of their doctrines, which you already know, and which, I scarcely need to say, I heartily detest. But I have not heard, either from the lips of these misguided men or from any one for many months, anything which has so shocked and surprised me as what I have just listened to here.”

I felt that she was trembling as she spoke, but her voice was low and quiet.