Prue and I | Page 2

part, I do not believe that any man can see softer skies than I
see in Prue's eyes; nor hear sweeter music than I hear in Prue's voice;
nor find a more heaven-lighted temple than I know Prue's mind to be.
And when I wish to please myself with a lovely image of peace and
contentment, I do not think of the plain of Sharon, nor of the valley of
Enna, nor of Arcadia, nor of Claude's pictures; but, feeling that the
fairest fortune of my life is the right to be named with her, I whisper
gently, to myself, with a smile--for it seems as if my very heart smiled
within me, when I think of her--"Prue and I."

CONTENTS.
I. DINNER-TIME II. MY CHATEAUX III. SEA FROM SHORE IV.
TITBOTTOM'S SPECTACLES V. A CRUISE IN THE FLYING
DUTCHMAN VI. FAMILY PORTRAITS VII. OUR COUSIN THE

CURATE

DINNER-TIME.
"Within this hour it will be dinner-time; I'll view the manners of the
town, Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings." Comedy of Errors.
In the warm afternoons of the early summer, it is my pleasure to stroll
about Washington Square and along the Fifth Avenue, at the hour when
the diners-out are hurrying to the tables of the wealthy and refined. I
gaze with placid delight upon the cheerful expanse of white waistcoat
that illumes those streets at that hour, and mark the variety of emotions
that swell beneath all that purity. A man going out to dine has a
singular cheerfulness of aspect. Except for his gloves, which fit so well,
and which he has carefully buttoned, that he may not make an awkward
pause in the hall of his friend's house, I am sure he would search his
pocket for a cent to give the wan beggar at the corner. It is impossible
just now, my dear woman; but God bless you!
It is pleasant to consider that simple suit of black. If my man be young
and only lately cognizant of the rigors of the social law, he is a little
nervous at being seen in his dress suit--body coat and black
trowsers--before sunset. For in the last days of May the light lingers
long over the freshly leaved trees in the Square, and lies warm along
the Avenue. All winter the sun has not been permitted to see
dress-coats. They come out only with the stars, and fade with ghosts,
before the dawn. Except, haply, they be brought homeward before
breakfast in an early twilight of hackney-coach. Now, in the budding
and bursting summer, the sun takes his revenge, and looks aslant over
the tree-tops and the chimneys upon the most unimpeachable garments.
A cat may look upon a king.
I know my man at a distance. If I am chatting with the nursery maids
around the fountain, I see him upon the broad walk of Washington
Square, and detect him by the freshness of his movement his springy
gait. Then the white waistcoat flashes in the sun.
"Go on, happy youth," I exclaim aloud, to the great alarm of the
nursery maids, who suppose me to be an innocent insane person
suffered to go at large, unattended,--"go on, and be happy with fellow
waistcoats over fragrant wines."
It is hard to describe the pleasure in this amiable spectacle of a man

going out to dine. I, who am a quiet family man, and take a quiet family
cut at four o'clock; or, when I am detained down town by a false
quantity in my figures, who run into Delmonico's and seek comfort in a
cutlet, am rarely invited to dinner and have few white waistcoats.
Indeed, my dear Prue tells me that I have but one in the world, and I
often want to confront my eager young friends as they bound along,
and ask abruptly, "What do you think of a man whom one white
waistcoat suffices?"
By the time I have eaten my modest repast, it is the hour for the
diners-out to appear. If the day is unusually soft and sunny, I hurry my
simple meal a little, that I may not lose any of my favorite spectacle.
Then I saunter out. If you met me you would see that I am also clad in
black. But black is my natural color, so that it begets no false theories
concerning my intentions. Nobody, meeting me in full black, supposes
that I am going to dine out. That sombre hue is professional with me. It
belongs to book-keepers as to clergymen, physicians, and undertakers.
We wear it because we follow solemn callings. Saving men's bodies
and souls, or keeping the machinery of business well wound, are such
sad professions that it is becoming to drape dolefully those who adopt
them.
I wear a