No one can quietly watch the seething life of the City of Unrest without being struck with the prevalence of nervous troubles amongst the people. Every day one meets instances. "I dare not drink coffee; I have not drunk it for years," one so often hears—then the piteous longing for sleep denied. "I am not going to any dances this winter; my doctor will not allow me, on account of my nerves," one of the most charming girls in New York said to me a few days ago. The doctors all declare that this nervousness is alarmingly on the increase, and throughout every class of the community—from those who work hardest, through the longest hours, to earn their bread, to those who work at the pursuit of pleasure—the mad social rush of the Charge of the Four Hundred. It is obvious that this pace cannot slacken—every year adds fresh impetus. What will it be in fifty years—at the end of the century? What will the offspring of these quivering, twitching, highly strung men and women be like? Quo vadis, Americane?
Already there are antidotes or remedies for this growing evil—sanatoria where the worn-out over-worked are compelled to seek refuge, asylums of repose for those who have long lost the art of enjoying it. More useful, perhaps, are the facilities for getting healthy exercise which are offered by athletic clubs, gymnasia, and the squash courts and tennis courts now being laid out on the tops of so many of the best houses. But these are only trifling against the magnitude of the menacing evil. Thousands have not the time to enjoy them, and must pay the penalty of the pace of their progress in the City of Unrest.
XV
THE MILLION-MASTER IN THE CITY OF UNREST
Seven-thirty o'clock: the coffee and toast had been placed by the valet on the table beside his bed; the warm water was already running into the bath in the adjoining room; three suits of clothes, carefully brushed and ironed, were laid on the sofa when he was called. He seemed to be awake all of a sudden—quite awake. As he was called, a young man came into the room with a bundle of newspapers. "Let me see," said Mr. X., "I think I can take half an hour extra this morning—read away;" and then the young man began reading rapidly from the papers. He had from long training learned to know what interested the boss, and read selections from one paper after another which he had previously gone over—some closing prices of particular stocks first, then some foreign and general news summary, and then X. asked him to read particulars of what he wanted to learn more about. After about fifteen minutes he had had enough, and one of his secretaries, with a bundle of letters in one hand and a notebook in the other, came in. As he read the letters, X. dictated, or mostly just indicated, the replies; they were all business letters. Then his place was taken by another. His letters were mostly invitations, charitable appeals, letters from his steward and the head of his stables at Lakewood, from the skipper of his yacht, from dealers who had pictures that he ought to buy, from the caretaker of his house in Newport, and letters from house-agents in London about a house he wanted there for the Coronation. At eight he took his bath, and while drying and dressing the litany of letters and responses continued, punctuated at intervals by the bell of the telephone on the table by his bedside, and so on through the breakfast, now laid in an adjoining study, until it was time to telephone to the stables for his automobile. Same telephone message occupied fifteen minutes. Just before leaving he sent to his wife's room to find out where he was dining. Madame was being massaged, but sent word that they were giving a dinner-party at Sherry's, having three boxes at the theatre afterwards, and that then she expected him to come to the Astorbilts' ball. Long cigar, fur coat, gloves, and into the automobile, his secretary sitting beside him, still going through the unfinished letters.
Three inches of snow had fallen during the night—hard, dry snow, on which the horses slipped and struggled as it was being beaten flat, and on which his automobile would have skidded ungovernably if Fifth Avenue had not been already well sprayed by the sand-sprinklers. Progress in the upper part of the Avenue was rapid enough; but from Madison Square slow, halting, and intermittent, horses were falling in all directions, stopping the surface-cars packed with a multitude of toilers, all going city-wards; the gong of the automobile clanged petulantly. Down town the upper altitudes of the sky-scrapers were lost in a vague mist of swirling snow that eddied through the chasm-like clefts between them—there were gaps where other gigantic iron frames were rising up to the rattling Maxim-gun-like sound of the steam riveters.
At length they arrived at the high pilloried portico of the immense building in which his office was situated; passing through the revolving doors—mill-wheels perpetually kept turning by a stream of humanity—one of a number of elevators brought him to the floor entirely occupied by his offices. The walls and counters were of white grey-lined marble; polished mahogany desks and burnished brass railings glistened everywhere. Through waiting-rooms and offices he passed to his private office. It was a plain room, richly carpeted, soft leather chairs, a big table on which were only a few papers; a telephone stood on the right-hand side of the blotter. There were some maps on the walls, nothing more. On a mahogany stand against the wall in the centre of the room, near his desk, stood the ticker, like a sacred image on a pedestal. Strange little god, mysterious little oracle—I don't think I would have felt surprised if on entering he had knelt down before it and said a short prayer. Instead, he seated himself at his desk and commenced speaking into the telephone. There was a switch-board of his private exchange outside the private office which communicated to each of the heads of his departments. Without the delay of sending or going for them, he spoke to six or seven one after the other. Then his confidential clerk came in with a number of papers in his hands. Tickety, tickety, tick, the oracle was speaking all the time, but he took no notice of its remarks—still it went on, as if knowing that sooner or later he would be drawn towards it; and so he was, and passed the tape through his fingers, pausing here and there; and so throughout the day that little chattering fetish dominated him and every one that entered the room. Men came in, and while waiting, or in a pause in conversation, would be drawn to see what was on its tongue. There is nothing more striking about business in New York than the ease and rapidity with which business is carried out. There had been a bad break in sugar in the morning; X. meant to have some if it came to a certain figure. All the morning down, down, it toppled. Within a few seconds of the time a deal was made from the centre of the Stock Exchange it appeared on the tape in X.'s office. It dropped to his price. "Now, time this," said he; "1204 I want. Buy me 5000 sugar at 92" (twenty seconds gone). "He has got my message, and I am holding the wire till I get a reply. Now he has sent it on his private wire to the Stock Exchange; his own telephone-boy has already his number on the telegraph-board. If he is not immediately available a two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the reply: "3000 at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min. 35 sec.) To those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the telephone in London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and so much does it enter into the daily life of the community that it would now give something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all the telephone-wires should be suddenly swept down or the operators suddenly go on strike.
A lunch at the luxuriously furnished Club situated at the top of the building, and not such a serious interruption to business, as during it three messengers come with notes from his office for him. Not much time to dawdle over lunch, as he had three meetings to preside at during the afternoon; then up to the Union Club, a few moments' chat with some friends—change into evening clothes, on to Sherry's—inside the door of the great restaurant he sees a number of people he knows. "Hallo, you, with whom are you dining to-night?" "Why, with you." "Glad of it." Then he sees Mr. Sherry, and finds his table to see how many he has dining with him. A little late, but radiant in a Worth gown and wearing black pearls, his wife arrives—it is the first time he has seen her during the day.
"So sorry to be late, poppa, but that last rubber of bridge was such a slow one, and I won eight dollars." "Good for you." After dinner he sits in the back of the box; the play or the plot does not interest him; his mind is full of more dramatic scenes—plots that, instead of play, can be made into reality—real live characters that he could make dance to the music of his millions. Then on to that great ball in one of the palaces of Fifth Avenue, a palace to which architects, painters, sculptors, have combined to raise into a dream of luxury such as Rome never equalled.
Strolling through the picture-gallery with an old friend, she who, though born to millions, kept fresh that perfume of womanliness which we call charm: "You look tired to-night," said he. "No wonder; out every night now for four months; lunches, bridge, calls, dinners, theatres, suppers, dances, and the treadmill never stops. I sometimes wish Tom only owned a tiny cottage, and that I had to cook his dinner for him." "And that you might ask me to dine off pork and beans." "You, too, look tired, my master of millions." "I am," said he, "but I am not master of millions, it is the millions who are my master—slave-masters with many-lashed whip that keep me hourly toiling in their service, that never let me rest, keep me working and fighting, and have robbed me of repose, keep a glare of limelight on my life, and after all can buy so little, not real success (I was beaten this week by K. in that Union-Pacific deal), not one drop of blue blood into my veins, not one night of sound delicious sleep, not one kiss from the lips of love."