it had taken the French to install so blatant a symbol in New York harbor, and then I was less intimidated by the city itself. The French are far more intimidating than anybody.
In fact, that city reminded me more of Mother London than of Grande Dame Paris, for it was crowded, noisy, and noxiously fumed, while Paris was open, airy, and impossibly French.
The first most distressing impact of New York City life was the fact that most city streets were numbered rather than named. And such a hubris of numbers! I understood that humble first and seventh and twentieth streets soon vaulted into the eighties and nineties and beyond. The city reminded me of a Scots plaid,for the north-south avenues that crossed the east-west streets were also numbered, Fifth and Seventh being the most notable.
Pink and her mother resided in “midtown” at 120 West 35th Street.
There Irene and I took ourselves the next afternoon, by horse-drawn tram.
Such noise! Not only the clatter of hooves and wheels, but the yammering of the numerous street vendors, who were not confined to certain areas of the city but poured into all the main streets hawking their dubious wares.
In London one saw essentially two classes on the streets: gentlemen of business and Those Others; in New York everyone poured out of the towering buildings . . . urchins, hucksters, businessmen, and women of all sorts, many of them suspect, as well as others too obviously poor to be suspect of anything but starvation.
I could not guess into which category of women Irene and myself would be assigned by passersby, save that Irene seemed sublimely disinterested in how we would be regarded by others at all.
She had always had this distressful attitude, but in New York City it was more obvious than elsewhere. I reflected that how women on the street were regarded by others—that is, passing gentlemen—was the hallmark of a civilization, and I must admit that the French exceeded the English in this regard.
“I see,” Irene remarked, “that Paris is rising in your estimation even as Manhattan Island is sinking like a barge in the East River.”
“How can you see anything of the sort?” I demanded.
“Your glances give you away. You have been frowning at the crowds since we left the hotel. And you hold up your hems as if you expect some unknown man in Oriental robes to collapse at your boot toes at any moment, muttering the immortal phrase, ‘Miss Huxleigh?’ ” Irene chuckled. “That Paris street scenesmacked of Stanley finding Livingstone in the jungles of darkest Africa: ‘Miss Huxleigh, I presume?’ ”
I would not allow her to trivialize my dramatic encounter with Quentin Stanhope in Paris, that had led us all—Irene, Godfrey, and myself—into serial danger and travels to foreign and ancient lands.
“You cast me as Livingstone?”
“Well, like you, he was religious. Stanley was merely a newspaper reporter, a Welsh-born American reporter for the New York Herald who did what no man on earth had been able to accomplish: track down the goodly doctor and incidentally confirm the source of the Nile.”
“Are you trying to give American newspaper reporters some sort of pedigree?”
“Not at all. I merely point that the historical meeting was when—?”
“In the eighteen-fifties.”
“So there is precedence for American reporters combining travel and derring-do and finding impossibly lost persons.”
“Miss Pink is an amateur compared to Mr. Stanley. And Dr. Livingstone was a godly missionary. Finding him was worth the effort.”
“Whereas finding my mother—?”
“I do not mean to impeach your reputed mother, whose existence even you deny! I merely mention that Nellie Bly has made a reputation purely on injecting herself into lurid situations. If she is interested enough to want to produce a mother for you, I, for one, would be very leery of the result.”
Irene smiled while taking my arm and guiding me around a particularly noxious horse
In fact, that city reminded me more of Mother London than of Grande Dame Paris, for it was crowded, noisy, and noxiously fumed, while Paris was open, airy, and impossibly French.
The first most distressing impact of New York City life was the fact that most city streets were numbered rather than named. And such a hubris of numbers! I understood that humble first and seventh and twentieth streets soon vaulted into the eighties and nineties and beyond. The city reminded me of a Scots plaid,for the north-south avenues that crossed the east-west streets were also numbered, Fifth and Seventh being the most notable.
Pink and her mother resided in “midtown” at 120 West 35th Street.
There Irene and I took ourselves the next afternoon, by horse-drawn tram.
Such noise! Not only the clatter of hooves and wheels, but the yammering of the numerous street vendors, who were not confined to certain areas of the city but poured into all the main streets hawking their dubious wares.
In London one saw essentially two classes on the streets: gentlemen of business and Those Others; in New York everyone poured out of the towering buildings . . . urchins, hucksters, businessmen, and women of all sorts, many of them suspect, as well as others too obviously poor to be suspect of anything but starvation.
I could not guess into which category of women Irene and myself would be assigned by passersby, save that Irene seemed sublimely disinterested in how we would be regarded by others at all.
She had always had this distressful attitude, but in New York City it was more obvious than elsewhere. I reflected that how women on the street were regarded by others—that is, passing gentlemen—was the hallmark of a civilization, and I must admit that the French exceeded the English in this regard.
“I see,” Irene remarked, “that Paris is rising in your estimation even as Manhattan Island is sinking like a barge in the East River.”
“How can you see anything of the sort?” I demanded.
“Your glances give you away. You have been frowning at the crowds since we left the hotel. And you hold up your hems as if you expect some unknown man in Oriental robes to collapse at your boot toes at any moment, muttering the immortal phrase, ‘Miss Huxleigh?’ ” Irene chuckled. “That Paris street scenesmacked of Stanley finding Livingstone in the jungles of darkest Africa: ‘Miss Huxleigh, I presume?’ ”
I would not allow her to trivialize my dramatic encounter with Quentin Stanhope in Paris, that had led us all—Irene, Godfrey, and myself—into serial danger and travels to foreign and ancient lands.
“You cast me as Livingstone?”
“Well, like you, he was religious. Stanley was merely a newspaper reporter, a Welsh-born American reporter for the New York Herald who did what no man on earth had been able to accomplish: track down the goodly doctor and incidentally confirm the source of the Nile.”
“Are you trying to give American newspaper reporters some sort of pedigree?”
“Not at all. I merely point that the historical meeting was when—?”
“In the eighteen-fifties.”
“So there is precedence for American reporters combining travel and derring-do and finding impossibly lost persons.”
“Miss Pink is an amateur compared to Mr. Stanley. And Dr. Livingstone was a godly missionary. Finding him was worth the effort.”
“Whereas finding my mother—?”
“I do not mean to impeach your reputed mother, whose existence even you deny! I merely mention that Nellie Bly has made a reputation purely on injecting herself into lurid situations. If she is interested enough to want to produce a mother for you, I, for one, would be very leery of the result.”
Irene smiled while taking my arm and guiding me around a particularly noxious horse
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