Her very failings were so much a part of her that they made us the more sympathetic; she was too lovely to be greatly blamed for anything; gazing into her eyes, we hardly noticed that there was dust under the piano and in the corners; dining at her sumptuous table, we gave but little thought to the fact that the cellar was damp, the house none too healthy, and that there were mosquitoes and rats about the place; nor did it seem to matter, in face of her allurements, that she was shiftless, extravagant, improvident in the management of her affairs. If these things were brought to our attention, we excused them on the grounds of Latin blood and enervating climate.
But if we excused her, she did not excuse herself. Without being shaken awake by an earthquake, or forced to action by a devastating fire or flood, she set to work, calmly and of her own volition, to reform her character.
First she cleaned house, providing good surface drainage, an excellent filtered water supply from the river in place of her old mosquito-breeding cisterns, and modern sewers in place of cesspools. She killed rats by the hundreds of thousands, rat-proofed her buildings, and thus, at one stroke, eliminated all fear of bubonic plague. She began to take interest in the public schools, and soon trebled their advantages. She concerned herself with the revision of repressive tax laws. She secured one of the best street railway systems in the country. But, perhaps most striking of all, she set to work to build scientifically toward the realization of a gigantic dream. This dream embodies the resumption by New Orleans of her old place as second seaport city. To this end she is doing more than any other city to revive the commerce of the Mississippi River, and is at the same time making a strong bid for trade by way of the Panama Canal, as well as other sea traffic. She has restored her forty miles of water front to the people, has built municipal docks and warehouses at a cost of millions, and has so perfectly coördinated her river-rail-sea traffic-handling agencies that rates have been greatly reduced. Upon these, and related enterprises, upward of a hundred millions are being spent, and the vast plan is working out with such promise that one almost begins to fear lest New Orleans become too much enamored of her new-found materialism—lest the easy-going, pleasure-loving, fascinating Creole belle be transformed into the much-less-rare and much-less-desirable business type of woman: a woman whose letters, instead of being written in a fine French hand and scented with the faint fragrance of vertivert, are typewritten upon commercial paper; whose lips, instead of causing one to think of kisses, are laden with the deadly cant of commerce; whose skin, instead of seeming to be made of milk and rose leaves, is dappled with industrial soot.
Lord Chesterfield in one of his letters to his son, intimated that beautiful women desire to be flattered upon their intelligence, while intelligent women who are not altogether ugly like to be told that they are beautiful. So with New Orleans. Speak of her individuality, her picturesqueness, her gift of laughter, and she will listen with polite ennui; but admire her commercial progress and she will hang upon your words. Gaiety and charm are so much a part of her that she not only takes them as a matter of course, but seems to doubt, sometimes, that they are virtues. She is like some unusual and fascinating woman who, instead of rejoicing because she is not like all other women, begins to wonder if she ought not to be like them. Perhaps she is wrong to be gay? Perhaps her carnival proves her frivolous? Perhaps she ought not to continue to hold a carnival each year?
Far to the north of New Orleans the city of St. Paul was afflicted, some years since, by a similar agitation. It will be remembered that St. Paul used to build an ice palace each year. People used to go to see it as they go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Then came some believer in the standardization of cities, advancing the idea that ice palaces advertised St. Paul as a cold place. As a result they ceased to be built. St. Paul threw away something which drew attention to her and which gave her character. Moreover, I am told this mania went so far that when folders were issued for the purpose of advertising the region, they were designed to suggest the warmth and brilliance of the tropics. Had St. Paul a bad climate, instead of a peculiarly fine one, we might feel sympathetic tolerance for these performances, but a city which enjoys cool summers and dry, bracing winters has no apologies to make upon the score of climate, and only need apologize if she tries to make us think that bananas and cocoanuts grow on sugar-maple trees. However, in the last year or two, St. Paul has perceived the folly of her course, and has resumed her annual carnival.
In the case of New Orleans I cannot believe there is real danger that the carnival will be given up. Instead, I believe that the business enthusiasts will be appeased—as they were a year or two ago, for the first time in carnival history—by the inclusion of an industrial pageant glorifying the city's commercial renaissance. Also the New Orleans newspapers soothe the spirit of the Association of Commerce, at carnival time, by publishing items presumably furnished by that capable organization, showing that business is going on as usual, that bank clearings have not diminished during the festivities, and that, despite the air of happiness that pervades the town, New Orleans is not really beginning to have such a good time as a stranger might suppose from superficial signs. With such concessions made to solemn visaged commerce, is the carnival continued.
There are at least six cities on this continent which every one should see. Every one should see New York because it is the largest city in the world, and because it combines the magnificence, the wonder, the beauty, the sordidness, and the shame of a great metropolis; every one should see San Francisco because it is so vivid, so alive, so golden; every one should see Washington, the clean, white splendor of which is like the embodiment of a national dream; every one should see the old gray granite city of Quebec, piled on its hill above the river like some fortified town in France; every one should see the sweet and aristocratic city of Charleston, which suggests a museum of tradition and early American elegance; and of course every one should see New Orleans.
As to whether it is best to see the city in everyday attire, or masked for the revels, that is a matter of taste, and perhaps of age as well. To any one who loves cities, New Orleans is always good to see, while to the lover of spectacles and fêtes the carnival is also worth seeing—once. The two are, however, hardly to be seen to advantage simultaneously. To visit New Orleans in carnival time is like visiting some fine old historic mansion when it is all in a flurry over a fancy-dress ball. The furniture is moved, master, mistress and servants are excited, the cook is overworked and is perhaps complaining a little, and the brilliant costumes of the masquerade divert the eye of the visitor so that he hardly knows what sort of house he is in. Attend the ball if you like, but do not fail to revisit the house when normal conditions have been restored; see the festivities of Mardi Gras if you will, but do not fail to browse about old New Orleans and sit down at her famous tables when her chefs have time to do their best.