“What’s got into you to look so splendid?  Do you hear, go this instant and dress, and make yourself ten times as fascinating.”

XXI

Live not unto yourselves!  Can any one deny that this blessed sentiment is extending in modern life?  Do we build houses for ourselves or for others?  Do we make great entertainments for our own comfort?  I do not know that anybody regarded the erection of the Henderson palace as an altruistic performance.  The socialistic newspapers said that it was pure ostentation.  But had it not been all along in the minds of the builders to ask all the world to see it, to share the delight of it?  Is this a selfish spirit?  When I stroll in the Park am I not pleased with the equipages, with the display of elegance upon which so much money has been lavished for my enjoyment?

All the world was asked to the Henderson reception.  The coming event was the talk of the town.  I have now cuttings from the great journals, articles describing the house, more beautifully written than Gibbon’s stately periods about the luxury of later Rome.  It makes one smile to hear that the day of fine writing is over.  Everybody was eager to go; there was some plotting to obtain invitations by those who felt that they could not afford to be omitted from the list that would be printed; by those who did not know the Hendersons, and did not care to know them, but who shared the general curiosity; and everybody vowed that he supposed he must go, but he hated such a crush and jam as it was sure to be.  Yet no one would have cared to go if it had not promised to be a crush.  I said that all the world was asked, which is our way of saying that a thousand or two had been carefully selected from the million within reach.

Invitations came to Brandon, of course, for old times’ sake.  The Morgans said that they preferred a private view; Miss Forsythe declared that she hadn’t the heart to go; in short, Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild alone went to represent the worldly element.

I am sorry to say that the reader must go to the files of the city press for an account of the night’s festivity.  The pen that has been used in portraying Margaret’s career is entirely inadequate to it.  There is a general impression that an American can do anything that he sets his hand to, but it is not true; it is true only that he tries everything.  The reporter is born, as the poet is; it cannot be acquired—­that astonishing, irresponsible command of the English language; that warm, lyrical tone; that color, and bewildering metaphorical brilliancy; that picturesqueness; that use of words as the painter uses pigments, in splashes and blotches which are so effective; that touch of raillery and sarcasm and condescension; that gay enjoyment of reveling in the illimitable; that air of superior knowledge and style; that dash of sentiment; that calm and somewhat haughty judgment.

I am always impressed at such an entertainment with the good-humor of the American people, no matter what may be the annoyance and discomfort.