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The Rise of Silas Lapham
William Dean Howells
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The Rise of Silas Lapham
William Dean Howells
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William Dean Howell's richly humerous characterization of a self-made millionaire in Boston society provides a paradigm of American culture in the Gilded Age. After establishing a fortune in the paint business, Silas Lapham moves his family from their Vermont farm to the city of Boston, where they awkwardly attempt to break into Brahmin society.
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ClassicsXI.
COREY put off his set smile with the help of a frown, of which he first became aware after reaching home, when his father askedâ
âAnything gone wrong with your department of the fine arts to-day, Tom?â
âOh noâno, sir,â said the son, instantly relieving his brows from the strain upon them, and beaming again. âBut I was thinking whether you were not perhaps right in your impression that it might be well for you to make Colonel Laphamâs acquaintance before a great while.â
âHas he been suggesting it in any way?â asked Bromfield Corey, laying aside his book and taking his lean knee between his clasped hands.
âOh, not at all!â the young man hastened to reply. âI was merely thinking whether it might not begin to seem intentional, your not doing it.â
âWell, Tom, you know I have been leaving it altogether to youââ
âOh, I understand, of course, and I didnât mean to urge anything of the kindââ
âYou are so very much more of a Bostonian than I am, you know, that Iâve been waiting your motion in entire confidence that you would know just what to do, and when to do it. If I had been left quite to my own lawless impulses, I think I should have called upon your padrone at once. It seems to me that my father would have found some way of showing that he expected as much as that from people placed in the relation to him that we hold to Colonel Lapham.â
âDo you think so?â asked the young man.
âYes. But you know I donât pretend to be an authority in such matters. As far as they go, I am always in the hands of your mother and you children.â
âIâm very sorry, sir. I had no idea I was over-ruling your judgment. I only wanted to spare you a formality that didnât seem quite a necessity yet. Iâm very sorry,â he said again, and this time with more comprehensive regret. âI shouldnât like to have seemed remiss with a man who has been so considerate of me. They are all very good-natured.â
âI dare say,â said Bromfield Corey, with the satisfaction which no elder can help feeling in disabling the judgment of a younger man, âthat it wonât be too late if I go down to your office with you to-morrow.â
âNo, no. I didnât imagine your doing it at once, sir.â
âAh, but nothing can prevent me from doing a thing when once I take the bit in my teeth,â said the father, with the pleasure which men of weak will sometimes take in recognising their weakness. âHow does their new house get on?â
âI believe they expect to be in it before New Year.â
âWill they be a great addition to society?â asked Bromfield Corey, with unimpeachable seriousness.
âI donât quite know what you mean,â returned the son, a little uneasily.
âAh, I see that you do, Tom.â
âNo one can help feeling that they are all people of good sense andâright ideas.â
âOh, that wonât do. If society took in all the people of right ideas and good sense, it would expand beyond the calling capacity of its most active members. Even your motherâs social conscientiousness could not compass it. Society is a very different sort of thing from good sense and right ideas. It is based upon them, of course, but the airy, graceful, winning superstructure which we all know demands different qualities. Have your friends got these qualities,âwhich may be felt, but not defined?â
The son laughed. âTo tell you the truth, sir, I donât think they have the most elemental ideas of society, as we understand it. I donât believe Mrs. Lapham ever gave a dinner.â
âAnd with all that money!â sighed the father.
âI donât believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that when they donât drink tea and coffee with their dinner, they drink ice-water.â
âHorrible!â said Bromfield Corey.
âIt appears to me that this defines them.â
âOh yes. There are people who give dinners, and who are not cognoscible. But people who have never yet given a dinner, how is society to assimilate them?â
âIt digests a great many people,â suggested the young man.
âYes; but they have always brought some sort of sauce piquante with them. Now, as I understand you, these friends of yours have no such sauce.â
âOh, I donât know about that!â cried the son.
âOh, rude, native flavours, I dare say. But that isnât what I mean. Well, then, they must spend. There is no other way for them to win their way to general regard. We must have the Colonel elected to the Ten Oâclock Club, and he must put himself down in the list of those willing to entertain. Any one can manage a large supper. Yes, I see a gleam of hope for him in that direction.â
In the morning Bromfield Corey asked his son whether he should find Lapham at his place as early as eleven.
âI think you might find him even earlier. Iâve never been there before him. I doubt if the porter is there much sooner.â
âWell, suppose I go with you, then?â
âWhy, if you like, sir,â said the son, with some deprecation.
âOh, the question is, will HE like?â
âI think he will, sir;â and the father could see that his son was very much pleased.
Lapham was rending an impatient course through the morningâs news when they appeared at the door of his inner room. He looked up from the newspaper spread on the desk before him, and then he stood up, making an indifferent feint of not knowing that he knew Bromfield Corey by sight.
âGood morning, Colonel Lapham,â said the son, and Lapham waited for him to say further, âI wish to introduce my father.â Then he answered, âGood morning,â and added rather sternly for the elder Corey, âHow do you do, sir? Will you take a chair?â and he pushed him one.
They shook hands and sat down, and Lapham said to his subordinate, âHave a seat;â but young Corey remained standing, watching them in their observance of each other with an amusement which was a little uneasy. Lapham made his visitor speak first by waiting for him to do so.
âIâm glad to make your acquaintance, Colonel Lapham, and I ought to have come sooner to do so. My father in your place would have expected it of a man in my place at once, I believe. But I canât feel myself altogether a stranger as it is. I hope Mrs. Lapham is well? And your daughter?â
âThank you,â said Lapham, âtheyâre quite well.â
âThey were very kind to my wifeââ
âOh, that was nothing!â cried Lapham. âThereâs nothing Mrs. Lapham likes better than a chance of that sort. Mrs. Corey and the young ladies well?â
âVery well, when I heard from them. Theyâre out of town.â
âYes, so I understood,â said Lapham, with a nod toward the son. âI believe Mr. Corey, here, told Mrs. Lapham.â He leaned back in his chair, stiffly resolute to show that he was not incommoded by the exchange of these civilities.
âYes,â said Bromfield Corey. âTom has had the pleasure which I hope for of seeing you all. I hope youâre able to make him useful to you here?â Corey looked round Laphamâs room vaguely, and then out at the clerks in their railed enclosure, where his eye finally rested on an extremely pretty girl, who was operating a type-writer.
âWell, sir,â replied Lapham, softening for the first time with this approach to business, âI guess it will be our own fault if we donât. By the way, Corey,â he added, to the younger man, as he gathered up some letters from his desk, âhereâs something in your line. Spanish or French, I guess.â
âIâll run them over,â said Corey, taking them to his desk.
His father made an offer to rise.
âDonât go,â said Lapham, gesturing him down again. âI just wanted to get him away a minute. I donât care to say it to his face,âI donât like the principle,âbut since you ask me about it, Iâd just as lief say that Iâve never had any young man take hold here equal to your son. I donât know as you care.â
âYou make me very happy,â said Bromfield Corey. âVery happy indeed. Iâve always had the idea that there was something in my son, if he could only find the way to work it out. And he seems to have gone into your business for the love of it.â
âHe went to work in the right way, sir! He told me about it. He looked into it. And that paint is a thing that will bear looking into.â
âOh yes. You might think he had invented it, if you heard him celebrating it.â
âIs that so?â demanded Lapham, pleased through and through. âWell, there ainât any other way. Youâve got to believe in a thing before you can put any heart in it. Why, I had a partner in this thing once, along back just after the war, and he used to be always wanting to tinker with something else. âWhy,â says I, âyouâve got the best thing in Godâs universe now. Why ainât you satisfied?â I had to get rid of him at last. I stuck to my paint, and that fellowâs drifted round pretty much all over the whole country, whittling his capital down all the while, till here the other day I had to lend him some money to start him new. No, sir, youâve got to believe in a thing. And I believe in your son. And I donât mind telling you that, so far as heâs gone, heâs a success.â
âThatâs very kind of you.â
âNo kindness about it. As I was saying the other day to a friend of mine, Iâve had many a fellow right out of the street that had to work hard all his life, and didnât begin to take hold like this son of yours.â
Lapham expanded with profound self-satisfaction. As he probably conceived it, he had succeeded in praising, in a perfectly casual way, the supreme excellence of his paint, and his own sagacity and benevolence; and here he was sitting face to face with Bromfield Corey, praising his son to him, and receiving his grateful acknowledgments as if he were the father of some office-boy whom Lapham had given a place half but of charity.
âYes, sir, when your son proposed to take hold here, I didnât have much faith in his ideas, thatâs the truth. But I had faith in him, and I saw that he meant business from the start. I could see it was born in him. Any one could.â
âIâm afraid he didnât inherit it directly from me,â said Bromfield Corey; âbut itâs in the blood, on both sides.â âWell, sir, we canât help those things,â said Lapham compassionately. âSome of us have got it, and some of us havenât. The idea is to make the most of what we HAVE got.â
âOh yes; that is the idea. By all means.â
âAnd you canât ever tell whatâs in you till you try. Why, when I started this thing, I didnât more than half understand my own strength. I wouldnât have said, looking back, that I could have stood the wear and tear of what Iâve been through. But I developed as I went along. Itâs just like exercising your muscles in a gymnasium. You can lift twice or three times as much after youâve been in training a month as you could before. And I can see that itâs going to be just so with your son. His going through college wonât hurt him,âheâll soon slough all that off,âand his bringing up wonât; donât be anxious about it. I noticed in the army that some of the fellows that had the most go-ahead were fellows that hadnât ever had much more to do than girls before the war broke out. Your son will get along.â
âThank you,â said Bromfield Corey, and smiledâwhether because his spirit was safe in the humility he sometimes boasted, or because it was triply armed in pride against anything the Colonelâs kindness could do.
âHeâll get along. Heâs a good business man, and heâs a fine fellow. MUST you go?â asked Lapham, as Bromfield Corey now rose more resolutely. âWell, glad to see you. It was natural you should want to come and see what he was about, and Iâm glad you did. I should have felt just so about it. Here is some of our stuff,â he said, pointing out the various packages in his office, including the Persis Brand.
âAh, thatâs very nice, very nice indeed,â said his visitor. âThat colour through the jarâvery richâdelicious. Is Persis Brand a name?â
Lapham blushed.
âWell, Persis is. I donât know as you saw an interview that fellow published in the Events a while back?â
âWhat is the Events?â
âWell, itâs that new paper Witherbyâs started.â
âNo,â said Bromfield Corey, âI havenât seen it. I read The Daily,â he explained; by which he meant The Daily Advertiser, the only daily there is in the old-fashioned Bostonian sense.
âHe put a lot of stuff in my mouth that I never said,â resumed Lapham; âbut thatâs neither here nor there, so long as you havenât seen it. Hereâs the department your sonâs in,â and he showed him the foreign labels. Then he took him out into the warehouse to see the large packages. At the head of the stairs, where his guest stopped to nod to his son and say âGood-bye, Tom,â Lapham insisted upon going down to the lower door with him âWell, call again,â he said in hospitable dismissal. âI shall always be glad to see you. There ainât a great deal doing at this season.â Bromfield Corey thanked him, and let his hand remain perforce in Laphamâs lingering grasp. âIf you ever like to ride after a good horseââ the Colonel began.
âOh, no, no, no; thank you! The better the horse, the more I should be scared. Tom has told me of your driving!â
âHa, ha, ha!â laughed the Colonel. âWell! every one to his taste. Well, good morning, sir!â and he suffered him to go.
âWho is the old man blowing to this morning?â asked Walker, the book-keeper, making an errand to Coreyâs desk.
âMy father.â
âOh! That your father? I thought he must be one of your Italian correspondents that youâd been showing round, or Spanish.â
In fact, as Bromfield Corey found his way at his leisurely pace up through the streets on which the prosperity of his native city was founded, hardly any figure could have looked more alien to its life. He glanced up and down the facades and through the crooked vistas like a stranger, and the swarthy fruiterer of whom he bought an apple, apparently for the pleasure of holding it in his hand, was not surprised that the purchase should be transac...