With this statement my companion is in full accord. He admits that he would have drawn the State House had there been no fair, to interfere. But, as with certain items on the breakfast bill, street fairs are a passion with him. And so they are with me.
CHAPTER LVI
THE CITY OF THE CREOLE
When a poet, a painter, or a sculptor wishes to personify a city, why does he invariably give it the feminine gender? Why is this so, even though the city be named for a man, or for a masculine saint? And why is it so in the case of commonplace cities, commercial cities, and ugly, sordid cities? It is not difficult to understand why a beautiful, sparkling city, like Washington or Paris, suggests a handsome woman, richly gowned and bedecked with jewels, but it is hard to understand why some other cities, far less pleasing, seem somehow to be stamped with the qualities of woman-nature rather than man-nature. Is it perhaps because the nature of all cities is so complicated? Is it because they are volatile, changeful, baffling? Or is it only that they are the mothers of great families of men?
When I arrive in a strange city I feel as though I were making the acquaintance of a woman of whom I have often heard. I am curious about her. I am alert. I gaze at her eagerly, wondering if she is as I have imagined her. I try to read her expression while listening to her voice. I consider her raiment, noticing whether it is fine, whether it is good only in spots, and whether it is well put together. I inspect the important buildings, boulevards, parks, and monuments with which she is jeweled, and judge by them not only of her prosperity, but of her sense of beauty. Before long I have a distinct impression of her. Sometimes, as with a woman, this first impression has to be revised; sometimes not. Sometimes, on acquaintance, a single feature, or trait, becomes so important in my eyes that all else seems inconsequential. A noble spirit may cover physical defects; beauty may seem to compensate for weaknesses of character. The spell of a beautiful city which is bad resembles the spell of such a city's prototype among women.
Some young growing cities are like young growing women of whom we think: "She is as yet unformed, but she will fill out and become more charming as she grows older." Or again we think: "She is somewhat dowdy and run down at the heels but she is ambitious, and is replenishing her wardrobe as she can afford it." One expects such failings in young cities, and readily forgives them where there is wholesome promise for the future. But where old cities become slovenly, the affair is different, for then it means physical decay, and physical decay should never come to a city—for a city is not only feminine, but should be immortal. The symbol for every city should be a goddess, forever in her prime.
Among southern cities Richmond is the grande dame; she is gray and distinguished, and wears handsome old brocades and brooches. Richmond is aquiline and crisp and has much "manner." But though Charleston is actually the older, the wonderful beauty of the place, the softness of the ancient architectural lines, the sweet scents wafting from walled gardens, the warmth of color everywhere, gives the place that very quality of immortal youth and loveliness which is so rare in cities, and is so much to be desired. Charleston I might allegorize in the person of a young woman I met there. I was in the drawing-room of a fine old house; a beautifully proportioned room, paneled to the ceiling, hung with family portraits and other old paintings, and furnished with mahogany masterpieces a century and a half old. The girl lived in this house. She was not exactly pretty, nor was her figure beautiful in the usual sense; yet it was beautiful, all the same, with a sort of long-limbed, supple, aristocratic aliveness. Most of all there was about her a great fineness—the kind of fineness which seems to be the expression of generations of fineness. She was the granddaughter of a general in the Civil War, the great-granddaughter of an ambassador, the great-great-granddaughter of a Revolutionary hero, and though one could not but be thankful that she failed of striking resemblance to the portraits of these admirable ancestors, nevertheless it seemed to me that, had I not known definitely of their place in her family history, I might almost have sensed them hovering behind her: a background, nebulous and shadowy, out of which she had emerged.
Memphis, upon the other hand, will always be to me a lively modern débutante. I vision her as dancing—dancing to Handy's ragtime music—all shoulders, neck, and arms, and tulle, and twenty-dollar satin slippers. Atlanta, too, is young, vivid, affluent, altogether modern; while as for Birmingham, she is pretty, but a little strident, a little overdressed; touched a little with the amiability, and the other qualities, of the nouveau riche.
The beauty of New Orleans is of a different kind. She is a full-blown, black-eyed, dreamy, drawly creature, opulent of figure, white of skin, and red of lip. Like San Francisco she has Latin blood which makes her love and preserve the carnival spirit; but she is more voluptuous than San Francisco, for not only is she touched with the languor and the fire of her climate, but she is without the virile blood of the forty-niner, or the invigorating contact of the fresh Pacific wind. In my imaginary picture I see her yawning at eleven in the morning, when her negro maid brings black coffee to her bedside—such wonderful black coffee!—whereas, at that hour, I conceive San Francisco as having long been up and about her affairs. Even in the afternoon I fancy my New Orleans beauty as a little bit relaxed. But at dinner she becomes alive, and after dinner more alive, and by midnight she is like a flame.
I must admit, however, that of late years New Orleans has developed a perfect case of dual personality, and that, as often happens where there is dual personality, one side of her nature seems altogether incompatible with the other. The very new New Orleans has no resemblance to the picture I have drawn; moreover, my picture is not her favorite likeness of herself. She prefers more recent ones—pictures showing the lines of determination which, within the last ten years have stamped themselves upon her features, as she has fought and overcome the defects of character which logically accompanied her peculiar, temperamental type of charm. I, upon the other hand, am like some lover who values most an older picture of the woman he adores. I admire her for building character, but it is by her languorous beauty that I am infatuated, and the portrait which most effectively displays that beauty is the one for which I care.