An Open-Eyed Conspiracy; An Idyl of SaratogaHowells, William Dean
General
An Open-Eyed Conspiracy; An Idyl of Saratoga
Howells, William Dean
New York (State) -- Fiction; Saratoga (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) -- Fiction
Of course there was pretty constant question of Kendricks in the
management of Miss Gage’s amusement, for that was really what our
enterprise resolved itself into. He showed from the first the sweetest
disposition to forward all our plans in regard to her, and, in fact, he
even anticipated our wishes. I do not mean to give the notion that he
behaved from an interested motive in going to the station the morning
Mrs. Deering left, and getting her ticket for her, and checking her
baggage, and posting her in the changes she would have to make. This was
something I ought to have thought of myself, but I did not think of it,
and I am willing that he should have all the credit.
I know that he did it out of the lovely generosity of nature which always
took me in him. Miss Gage was there with her, and she remained to be
consoled after Mrs. Deering departed. They came straight to us from the
train, and then, when he had consigned Miss Gage to Mrs. March’s care, he
offered to go and see that her things were transferred from her hotel to
ours; they were all ready, she said, and the bill was paid.
He did not come back that day, and, in fact, he delicately waited for
some sign from us that his help was wanted. But when he did come he had
formulated Saratoga very completely, and had a better conception of doing
it than I had, after my repeated sojourns.
We went very early in our explorations to the House of Pansa, which you
find in very much better repair at Saratoga than you do at Pompeii, and
we contrived to pass a whole afternoon there. My wife and I had been
there before more than once; but it always pleasantly recalled our
wander-years, when we first met in Europe, and we suffered round after
those young things with a patience which I hope will not be forgotten at
the day of judgment. When we came to a seat we sat down, and let them go
off by themselves; but my recollection is that there is not much
furniture in the House of Pansa that you can sit down on, and for the
most part we all kept together.
Kendricks and I thought alike about the Pompeian house as a model of
something that might be done in the way of a seaside cottage in our own
country, and we talked up a little paper that might be done for _Every
Other Week_, with pretty architectural drawings, giving an account of our
imaginary realisation of the notion.
“Have somebody,” he said, “visit people who had been boring him to come
down, or up, or out, and see them, and find them in a Pompeian house,
with the sea in front and a blue-green grove of low pines behind. Might
have a thread of story, but mostly talk about how they came to do it, and
how delightfully livable they found it. You could work it up with some
architect, who would help you to ‘keep off the grass’ in the way of
technical blunders. With all this tendency to the classic in public
architecture, I don’t see why the Pompeian villa shouldn’t be the next
word for summer cottages.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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