As in Kansas City, the wonder of Denver is that it has all happened in such a short time. This was brought home to me when, dining in a delightful house one evening, I was informed by my hostess that the land on which is her home was "homesteaded," in '64 or '65, by her father; that is to say, he had taken it over, gratis, from the Government. That modest corner lot is now worth between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars.
Though Denver has no art gallery, she hopes to have one in connection with her new "civic center." In the meantime, some paintings are shown in the Public Library and in the Colorado Museum of Natural History—a building which also shelters a collection of stuffed animals (somewhat better, on the whole, than the paintings) and of minerals found in the State.
A symphony hall is planned along with the new art gallery, for Denver has a real interest in music. Indeed, I found that true of many cities in the Middle West and West. In Kansas City, for instance, important concerts are patronized not only by residents of the place, but by quantities of people who come in from other cities and towns within a radius of thirty or forty miles.
Denver has her own symphony orchestra, one which compares favorably with many other large orchestras in various parts of the country. The Denver organization is led by Horace Tureman, a very capable conductor, and its seventy musicians have been gathered from theater and café orchestras throughout the city. Six or eight programs of the highest character are given each season, and in order that all music lovers may be enabled to attend the concerts, seats are sold as low as ten cents each.
"If some of the big concert singers who come out here could hear one of our symphony programs," one Denver woman said to me, "I think they might revise their opinion of us. A great many of them must think us less advanced, musically, than we are, for they insist on singing 'The Suwanee River' and 'Home, Sweet Home'—which we always resent."
The one conspicuous example of sculpture which I saw in Denver—the Pioneer's Fountain, by Macmonnies—is not entirely Denver's fault. When a city gives an order to a sculptor of Macmonnies's standing, she shows that she means to do the best she can. It is then up to the sculptor.
The Pioneer's Fountain, which is intended to commemorate the early settlers, could hardly be less suitable. It is large and exceedingly ornate. Surmounting the top of it is a rococo cowboy upon a pony of the same extraction. The pony is not a cow-pony, and the cowboy is not a cowboy, but a theatrical figure: something which might have been modeled by a Frenchman whose acquaintance with this country had been limited to the reading of bad translations of Fenimore Cooper and Bret Harte. At the base of the fountain are figures which, I was informed, represent pioneers. If western pioneers had been like these, there never would have been a West. They are soft creatures, almost voluptuous, who would have wept in face of hostile Indians. The whole fountain seems like something intended for a mantel ornament in Dresden china, but which, through some confusion, had gotten itself enlarged and cast in bronze.
Society in Denver has several odd features. For one thing, it is the habit of fashionables, and those who wish to gaze upon them, to attend the theaters on certain nights, which are known as "society night." Thus, the Broadway Theater has "society night" on Mondays, the Denham on Wednesdays, and the Orpheum on Fridays.
"Society," of course, means different things to different persons. In Denver the word, used in its most restricted, most elegant, most recherché, and most exclusive sense, means that group of persons who are celebrated in the society columns of the Denver newspapers, as "The Sacred Thirty-six."
If it is possible for newspapers anywhere to outdo in idiocy those of New York in the handling of "society news," I should say that the Denver newspapers accomplished it. Having less to work with, they have to make more noise in proportion. Thus the arrival in Denver, at about the time I was there, of Lord and Lady Decies caused an amount of agitation the like of which I have never witnessed anywhere. The Denver papers were absolutely plastered over with the pictures and doings and sayings of this English gentleman and his American wife, and the matter published with regard to them revealed a delight in their presence which was childlike and engaging.