"In some ways we do," said the Angel, "but it has its compensations. For example, not even Paris is so beautifully situated as New York. The tall office buildings in the lower end of town look down upon river sights and shipping with a broad expanse of blue water and green shores which a man would cross the ocean to see on the other side. The Hudson beautifies the West Side. Central Park is in my eyes the most beautiful park I ever saw. With its rocks and rolling greens, its trees and wild flowers, it forms a spot of loveliness that makes in the midst of the hot, rushing, busy city a dream of soothing repose. Washington Heights is a crowning wilderness looking down upon the city from Fort George, while the Sound and a glimpse of the village beyond seen through the faint blue haze of distance lend a touch of fairylike enchantment. The Jersey shore and the Palisades are one long drawn out joy, so that, turn where you will, you find New York beautiful."
"Then, too," said Mrs. Jimmie, speaking for the first time, "New York is old, and say what you will you feel the charm of the established, and it gives you a sense of satisfaction to realize that you can't detect the odour of varnish and new paint. New York has got beyond it, and has begun to take on the gray of age."
"The churches show this," I cut in. "They are beautiful stepping-places in the rush of city life. They cool and steady, and their history and traditions form a restful contrast to the bustle of the marketplace."
"But as to those who worship in these beautiful spots," said Considine, "it is safe to say that church parade in Fifth Avenue is an even smarter spectacle than church parade in Hyde Park, for American women have an air, a carriage, and a taste in dress which English women as a race can never acquire. In Hyde Park on Sunday morning, during the season, one will see half a dozen beauties whose clothes are Parisian and the loveliness of whose whole effect almost takes the breath away, but the general run of the other women makes one want to close one's eyes. In America the average woman is lovely enough to make each one worth looking at, while the word 'frump,' which is continually useful in England, might almost be dropped from the American language.
"As to manners in New York," he went on, "well, patriotic as I am, American manners in public in any city almost make me long for the outward politeness and inward insincerity of the Gallic nations. Russians and Poles are the only ones I have observed to be alike both in public and in private. In New York street-car etiquette or the etiquette of any public conveyance is something highly interesting from its variety of selfishness and rudeness."
"That is true," I said, "New York manners are seldom aggressively rude, except on the elevated trains. In other cities you are pushed about, walked over, elbowed aside, and often bodily hurt in crowds of their own selfish making. Not so in New York. Civilization has gone a step further here. In surface cars men never step on you, but they gently step ahead of you and take the seat you are aiming for, and if they can sit sidewise and occupy one and a half seats, and if you beg two of them to move closer together and let you have the remaining space, the two men may rise, one nearly always does and takes off his hat and begs you to have his place. Then all the eyes in the car are fixed on you—not reprovingly, or smilingly, or in derision or reproach, but earnestly, as if you form a social study which it might be worth their while to investigate. Never once during a year's observance of surface-car phenomena have I seen a row of luxuriously seated people make a movement to give place to a new-comer, no matter how old or how well gowned she may be. Even ladies will sometimes give their seats to each other. But they won't 'move up.'"
"In Denver," said Jimmie, "I once heard a conductor call out 'The gents will please step forward and the ladies set closter.' If I knew where that man was I would try to get him a position with the Metropolitan, for most of them feel as a conductor said here in New York when I jumped on him for not obeying my signal, 'Schmall bit do I care!'"
"Then the cars themselves," I cried, "Aren't they the most awful things! I can earnestly commend the surface cars of New York as the most awkward and uncomfortable to climb in and out of that I have ever seen. I use the word 'climb' advisedly, as the step is so high that one must take both hands to hoist oneself, while the conductor is generally obliged to reach down and seize the ambitious woman by the arm to assist her. The bell rings while you are still on the lower step; the conductor says, 'Step lively, please;' the car attains its maximum of speed at one jump; the conductor puts his dirty hand on your white silk back and gives you a forward shove, and you plunge into the nearest seat, apologizing to the people on each side of you for having sat in their laps. Then comes a cry, 'Hold fast,' and around a curve you go at a speed which throws people down, and on one occasion I saw a woman pitched from her seat.
"The Boston street railway system is the most perfect of any American city that I know of. There they pursue such a leisurely course that a Boston woman never rises from her seat until the car has come to a full stop. In fact, Bee and I were identified as strangers in town by the husband of our friend who met us at the terminus of one of the street-car lines, with his carriage. His never having seen us, and approaching us without hesitation, naturally led us to ask how he knew us. He answered:
"'Oh, I saw you walking through the car before it reached the corner and standing on the platform when it stopped, so I said to myself, "There they are!"'"