For anyone to look out upon New York’s immensity and spread out his arms and say: “My city! My home!” would be almost like looking overhead and saying, “My sky, my stars!” Almost, wouldn’t it?
I wanted to lead up to the story of a California bride’s impression of New York. Instead of which I seem to have arrived in New York, but left the bride at home!
The story was told me by Mr. B., himself a New Yorker, but whose wife and stepson were Californians. Last winter the stepson brought his wife to New York on their wedding-trip. This is what Mr. B. told me:
“She had everything we could give her, but spent the afternoon at matinées and galleries and shopping; her evenings at the play or the opera and a cabaret afterward, and her mornings in bed. Finally I said: ‘Why don’t you want us to have some dinners for you, so that you can meet some people? You can’t know much about a city if you meet no one.’
“‘Oh,’ she said,’the people look so queer.’
“‘How, queer?’
“‘Why, so—so well-dressed and so horrid—their faces aren’t kind, and they don’t seem to smile at all.’
“But I insisted on taking her up Fifth Avenue to see the fine houses. No enthusiasm. Finally I said:
“‘But surely, the V. house is wonderful!’