The Vanderbilt mansion, in Fifth Avenue, New York, is a princely habitation. One might fill a volume in giving a complete description of the treasures that are crowded into it. The luxury on all sides is extreme. In the bath-room, I am told, the walls are all mirrors painted thickly with trails of morning glories, so that the bather seems to be in a bower of flowers. In plate and pictures, several million dollars must have been spent. The pictures hang in two spacious, well-lighted rooms. They number one hundred and seventy-four works, from the brushes of great modern masters, including the "Sower" and seven other masterpieces of Jean François Millett, three Rosa Bonheurs, seven Meissoniers, Turners, Géromes, the "Bataille de Rezonville" by Detaille, seven pictures by Theodore Rousseau, and beautiful examples of Alma Tadema, Sir F. Leighton, John Linnell, Bouguereau, Corot, Doré, Bonnat, and Munkacsy. In the entrance-hall hangs a portrait of Vanderbilt I., founder of the dynasty.
The Americans, having no king in our sense of the word, make the most of those they have, Republicans though they be. To read the pedigrees, published in full every time a death occurs in one of these rich families, is highly entertaining. A Mrs. Astor died while I was in America, and, after the enumeration of her charms and virtues, which were many, came the list of John Jacobs from whom her husband had sprung. The Astors were all John Jacobs apparently, and were mentioned as John Jacob I., John Jacob II., John Jacob III. The line does not go back very far, John Jacob I. having gone to America as a poor emigrant early in this century, I believe, and laid the foundation of the present grandeur of his House by trading in furs.
It will not do to inquire too closely into the way in which some of America's millionaires have amassed wealth. Strange stories are told of men so grasping that they stopped at nothing, even to the ruining of their own sons. When I saw Mr. Bronson Howard's clever play, The Henrietta, in which he portrays a son so madly engrossed by the excitement of gambling on the Stock Exchange as to try and absorb even his father's millions, I thought the picture was overdrawn. Americans, however, told me that the case was historical, but with the characters reversed—which made it still more odious.
As for the colossal fortunes of railway kings, it is well known how thousands of small ones go to make them; how the rich man's palace is too often built with the stones of hundreds of ruined homes.
There is no other name than king used in speaking of the few rich financiers who hold the bulk of the railway stock in America. But they are not the only ones. There are oil kings, copper kings, silver kings, and I know not what other majesties in America; and when you see the power possessed by these, and the numberless Trusts, Combinations, and Pools—a power pressing often very sorely on the million—you wonder how the Americans, who found one King one too many, should submit so patiently to being governed by scores.
CHAPTER XI.
The American Girl.—Her Liberty.—Her Manners.—Respect for Woman.—Youthful Reminiscences.—Flirtation Perfected.—The "Boston."—Why the Young American Lady does not Object to the Society of Men.—European Coats of Arms Regilt and Redeemed from Pawn.—Americans of the Faubourg Saint Germain.—Lady Randolph Churchill.—Mating of May and December.—Stale Theme of American Plays.—An Angel.—The Tell-tale Collodion.—The Heroine of "L'Abbé Constantin."—What American Girls Admire in a Man.
he liberty enjoyed by American girls astonishes the English as much as the liberty of the English girl astonishes the French.