CHAPTER XXII
1897
All that was long ago. It is nearing the end of the century, and the little girl who thought it a great thing to see the half-century mark, bids fair to shake hands with the new one. There have been many changes, there have been sorrows and deaths, and such exquisite satisfying happiness that she could say with the poet,—
"Let come what come may
I shall have had my day."
She is in the older generation now, and a grandmother. You may see her in Central Park, or some of the surburban places, a fair, sweet small personage, with a face more nearly beautiful than in her girlhood. Her hair has that shining silvery tint, her complexion is clear and fine, and her eyes, though they have wept bitter tears, still look out gladly, serenely, on life.
In the carriage will be her twin granddaughters, and sometimes a young man, her son. They are pretty children, and will be "summer girls" when their time comes, and "winter girls" as well, clad in cloth and velvet and furs. They will dance Germans instead of the bewildering Spanish dance she had that first night with her lover. Even children have changed in half a century. Beauty is no longer considered a delusion and a snare. Physical culture gives strength and grace and growth.
The lover of her youth and the husband of her love, and her first-born daughter, who was wedded, and who with her husband faced a railroad tragedy and were its victims, have gone into that "goodly land and large." It seems to many of us as we grow older that there is only a thin wall between this and the other country where we shall see them again. Sometimes she can almost fancy them leaning over the jasper walls, like the Blessed Damosel, and smiling down on her. There are so many of them now! And the children were given to her. They are spoiled, all the aunts and cousins declare. But grandmamma lives another youth over in them,—a delightful life, rich in love and interest.
For conditions have changed. The world, and all that therein is, has changed. It is Greater New York now, and it stretches out everywhere. What was Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, and many a pretty town up above the city, have all been merged into one grand metropolis. What it will do in the next fifty years passes conjecture.
As they drive around nothing interests them more than to have grandmamma talk of what it was like when she was a little girl. They find the places, and look at them through her eyes. There is no longer any Bowling-Green, only in name, and though part of the Battery is left, the elevated roads go winding about among the tree-tops; Castle Garden, after many vicissitudes and debasements, is again a place of interest and entertainment. Here was where she heard that sweet and wonderful Jenny Lind, who, with Parepa Rosa, and many another divine voice, is singing up in the New Jerusalem. And though hundreds in the glare of light and blaze of diamonds listen to Patti, she wonders if the enthusiasm is as deep and sincere.
Over opposite where modest Brooklyn lived its simple, friendly life fifty years ago, stretching out into country ways and green fields, there are miles of houses, and the great bridge is such an everyday affair one hardly gives it a second thought. And all is business now, with tall buildings that the glance can hardly reach. There is no City Hall Park, but a great space of flagging, though the fountain remains. Business crowds hurry to and fro where ladies used to sit and chat while the young people strolled about.