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A Legend of Gotham
O, TERRIBLY proud was Miss MacBride, | |
| The very personification of pride, | |
| As she minced along in fashion’s tide, | |
| Adown Broadway—on the proper side— | |
| When the golden sun was setting; | 5 |
| There was pride in the head she carried so high, | |
| Pride in her lip, and pride in her eye, | |
| And a world of pride in the very sigh | |
| That her stately bosom was fretting! | |
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| O, terribly proud was Miss MacBride, | 10 |
| Proud of her beauty, and proud of her pride, | |
| And proud of fifty matters beside— | |
| That wouldn’t have borne dissection; | |
| Proud of her wit, and proud of her walk, | |
| Proud of her teeth, and proud of her talk, | 15 |
| Proud of “knowing cheese from chalk,” | |
| On a very slight inspection! | |
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| Proud abroad, and proud at home, | |
| Proud wherever she chanced to come— | |
| When she was glad, and when she was glum; | 20 |
| Proud as the head of a Saracen | |
| Over the door of a tippling-shop!— | |
| Proud as a duchess, proud as a fop, | |
| “Proud as a boy with a brand-new top,” | |
| Proud beyond comparison! | 25 |
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| It seems a singular thing to say, | |
| But her very senses led her astray | |
| Respecting all humility; | |
| In sooth, her dull auricular drum | |
| Could find in humble only a “hum,” | 30 |
| And heard no sound of “gentle” come, | |
| In talking about gentility. | |
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| What lowly meant she didn’t know, | |
| For she always avoided “everything low,” | |
| With care the most punctilious; | 35 |
| And, queerer still, the audible sound | |
| Of “super-silly” she never had found | |
| In the adjective supercilious! | |
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| The meaning of meek she never knew, | |
| But imagined the phrase had something to do | 40 |
| With “Moses,” a peddling German Jew, | |
| Who, like all hawkers, the country through, | |
| Was “a person of no position;” | |
| And it seemed to her exceedingly plain, | |
| If the word was really known to pertain | 45 |
| To a vulgar German, it wasn’t germane | |
| To a lady of high condition! | |
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| Even her graces—not her grace— | |
| For that was in the “vocative case”— | |
| Chilled with the touch of her icy face, | 50 |
| Sat very stiffly upon her! | |
| She never confessed a favor aloud, | |
| Like one of the simple, common crowd— | |
| But coldly smiled, and faintly bowed, | |
| As who should say, “You do me proud, | 55 |
| And do yourself an honor!” | |
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| And yet the pride of Miss MacBride, | |
| Although it had fifty hobbies to ride, | |
| Had really no foundation; | |
| But, like the fabrics that gossips devise— | 60 |
| Those single stories that often arise | |
| And grow till they reach a four-story size— | |
| Was merely a fancy creation! | |
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| Her birth, indeed, was uncommonly high— | |
| For Miss MacBride first opened her eye | 65 |
| Through a skylight dim, on the light of the sky; | |
| But pride is a curious passion— | |
| And in talking about her wealth and worth, | |
| She always forgot to mention her birth | |
| To people of rank and fashion! | 70 |
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| Of all the notable things on earth, | |
| The queerest one is pride of birth | |
| Among our “fierce democracie”! | |
| A bridge across a hundred years, | |
| Without a prop to save it from sneers,— | 75 |
| Not even a couple of rotten peers,— | |
| A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers, | |
| Is American aristocracy! | |
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| English and Irish, French and Spanish, | |
| German, Italian, Dutch and Danish, | 80 |
| Crossing their veins until they vanish | |
| In one conglomeration! | |
| So subtle a tangle of blood, indeed, | |
| No Heraldry Harvey will ever succeed | |
| In finding the circulation. | 85 |
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| Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, | |
| Your family thread you can’t ascend, | |
| Without good reason to apprehend | |
| You may find it waxed, at the farther end, | |
| By some plebeian vocation! | 90 |
| Or, worse than that, your boasted line | |
| May end in a loop of stronger twine, | |
| That plagued some worthy relation! | |
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| But Miss MacBride had something beside | |
| Her lofty birth to nourish her pride— | 95 |
| For rich was the old paternal MacBride, | |
| According to public rumor; | |
| And he lived “up town,” in a splendid square, | |
| And kept his daughter on dainty fare, | |
| And gave her gems that were rich and rare, | 100 |
| And the finest rings and things to wear, | |
| And feathers enough to plume her. | |
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| A thriving tailor begged her hand, | |
| But she gave “the fellow” to understand, | |
| By a violent manual action, | 105 |
| She perfectly scorned the best of his clan, | |
| And reckoned the ninth of any man | |
| An exceedingly vulgar fraction! | |
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| Another, whose sign was a golden boot, | |
| Was mortified with a bootless suit, | 110 |
| In a way that was quite appalling; | |
| For, though a regular sutor by trade, | |
| He wasn’t a suitor to suit the maid, | |
| Who cut him off with a saw—and bade | |
| “The cobbler keep to his calling!” | 115 |
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| A rich tobacconist comes and sues, | |
| And, thinking the lady would scarce refuse | |
| A man of his wealth, and liberal views, | |
| Began, at once, with “If you choose— | |
| And could you really love him—” | 120 |
| But the lady spoiled his speech in a huff, | |
| With an answer rough and ready enough, | |
| To let him know she was up to snuff, | |
| And altogether above him! | |
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| A young attorney, of winning grace, | 125 |
| Was scarce allowed to “open his face,” | |
| Ere Miss MacBride had closed his case | |
| With true judicial celerity; | |
| For the lawyer was poor, and “seedy” to boot, | |
| And to say the lady discarded his suit, | 130 |
| Is merely a double verity! | |
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| The last of those who came to court, | |
| Was a lively beau, of the dapper sort, | |
| “Without any visible means of support,” | |
| A crime by no means flagrant | 135 |
| In one who wears an elegant coat, | |
| But the very point on which they vote | |
| A ragged fellow “a vagrant!” | |
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| Now dapper Jim his courtship plied | |
| (I wish the fact could be denied) | 140 |
| With an eye to the purse of the old MacBride, | |
| And really “nothing shorter!” | |
| For he said to himself, in his greedy lust, | |
| “Whenever he dies—as die he must— | |
| And yields to Heaven his vital trust, | 145 |
| He ’s very sure to ‘come down with his dust,’ | |
| In behalf of his only daughter.” | |
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| And the very magnificent Miss MacBride, | |
| Half in love, and half in pride, | |
| Quite graciously relented; | 150 |
| And, tossing her head, and turning her back, | |
| No token of proper pride to lack— | |
| To be a bride, without the “Mac,” | |
| With much disdain, consented! | |
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| Old John MacBride, one fatal day, | 155 |
| Became the unresisting prey | |
| Of fortune’s undertakers; | |
| And staking all on a single die, | |
| His foundered bark went high and dry | |
| Among the brokers and breakers! | 160 |
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| But, alas, for the haughty Miss MacBride, | |
| ’T was such a shock to her precious pride! | |
| She couldn’t recover, although she tried | |
| Her jaded spirits to rally; | |
| ’T was a dreadful change in human affairs, | 165 |
| From a place “up town” to a nook “up stairs,” | |
| From an avenue down to an alley! | |
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| ’T was little condolence she had, God wot, | |
| From her “troops of friends,” who hadn’t forgot | |
| The airs she used to borrow! | 170 |
| They had civil phrases enough, but yet | |
| ’T was plain to see that their “deepest regret” | |
| Was a different thing from sorrow! | |
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| And one of those chaps who make a pun, | |
| As if it were quite legitimate fun | 175 |
| To be blazing away at every one | |
| With a regular, double-loaded gun— | |
| Remarked that moral transgression | |
| Always brings retributive stings | |
| To candle-makers as well as kings; | 180 |
| For “making light of cereous things” | |
| Was a very wick-ed profession! | |
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| And vulgar people—the saucy churls— | |
| Inquired about “the price of pearls,” | |
| And mocked at her situation: | 185 |
| “She wasn’t ruined—they ventured to hope— | |
| Because she was poor, she needn’t mope; | |
| Few people were better off for soap, | |
| And that was a consolation!” | |
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| And to make her cup of woe run over, | 190 |
| Her elegant, ardent plighted lover | |
| Was the very first to forsake her; | |
| “He quite regretted the step, ’t was true— | |
| The lady had pride enough ‘for two,’ | |
| But that alone would never do | 195 |
| To quiet the butcher and baker!” | |
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| And now the unhappy Miss MacBride— | |
| The merest ghost of her early pride— | |
| Bewails her lonely position; | |
| Cramped in the very narrowest niche, | 200 |
| Above the poor, and below the rich— | |
| Was ever a worse condition! | |
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MORAL Because you flourish in worldly affairs, | |
| Don’t be haughty, and put on airs, | |
| With insolent pride of station! | 205 |
| Don’t be proud, and turn up your nose | |
| At poorer people in plainer clothes, | |
| But learn, for the sake of your mind’s repose, | |
| That wealth ’s a bubble that comes—and goes! | |
| And that all proud flesh, wherever it grows, | 210 |
| Is subject to irritation! | |
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