It is the same whether you have a million in your pocket
or only the price of a week's lodging.
The battle is to decide whether you shall become a New Yorker or turn
the rankest outlander and Philistine. You must be one or the other. You
cannot remain neutral. You must be for or against--lover or enemy--bosom
friend or outcast. And, oh, the city is a general in the ring. Not only
by blows does it seek to subdue you. It woos you to its heart with the
subtlety of a siren. It is a combination of Delilah, green Chartreuse,
Beethoven, chloral and John L. in his best days.
In other cities you may wander and abide as a stranger man as long
as you please. You may live in Chicago until your hair whitens, and
be a citizen and still prate of beans if Boston mothered you, and
without rebuke. You may become a civic pillar in any other town but
Knickerbocker's, and all the time publicly sneering at its buildings,
comparing them with the architecture of Colonel Telfair's residence in
Jackson, Miss., whence you hail, and you will not be set upon. But in
New York you must be either a New Yorker or an invader of a modern Troy,
concealed in the wooden horse of your conceited provincialism.
Pages:
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315