The Potiphar Papers

ees that it is "palatial." The daily papers have had columns of description, and I am, evide

bed-curtains to give my grizzly old phiz a delicate "uroral hue," as Cream Cheese says of Mrs. P.'s complexion? Because I have made fifty thousand this last year in Timbuctoo bonds, must I convert it all into a house, so large that it will not hold me comfortably,-so

irable Mr. Potiphar, and every evening was a field-day for me, in which I reviewed all the matrimonial forces. It is astonishing, now I come to think of it, how skilfully Brigadier-General Mrs. Pettitoes deployed those daughters of hers; how vigorously Mrs. Tabby led on her

e! The mammas marry,

other didn't marry Polly to me. I fell in love with her, the rest followed. Old Gnu s

ustr

were a good, generous, intelligent, friendly, and patient man, who would be the companion for life she ought to have? You know, as well as I do, and as all the people who said it know, that it meant you were worth a few hundred thousands, that you could build a splendid house, keep horses and chariots, and live in style. You and I are sensible men, Paul, and we take the world as we find it; and know that if a man wants a good dinner he must pay for it. We don't quarrel with this state of things. How can it be helped? But we need not virtuously pretend it's something else. When my wife, being then a gay girl, first smiled at me, and looked at me, and smelt at the flowers I sent her i

more or less, and for which we ardently long as we grow older? A house, I take it, is a retreat to which a man hurries from business, and in which he is compensated by the tenderness and thoughtful re

hile we are to sew, and talk with you if you are talkative, and darn the stockings, and make tea. You come home tired, and likely enough, surly, and gloom about like a thundercloud if dinner isn't ready for you the instant you are ready for it, and then sit mum and eat it; and snap at the childre

and her family everything they want, and which wearies me body and soul, to expect her to let me stay at home, and be quiet. I know I ought to dress and go into Gnu's house, and smirk at his wife, and stand up in a black suit before him attired in the same way, and talk about the same stocks that we discussed down town in the morning in colored trowsers. That's a social duty, I suppose. And I ought to see

is, how "it looks," not to build a larger house for him and Mrs. Gnu to com

Polly sa

, we're getti

you mean,

re actually shops in the next street. Singe, the

n up in it, and love the old house too. It was our home. When any of us said 'home' we meant not the family only, but the house in which the family lived, where the children were all born, and where two have died, and my old mother, too. I'm in a new house now, and have lost my reckoning entirely. I don't know the house; I've no associations

ight," spoken of in Scripture. He imparts this religious consolation to me when I grumble. He says, that it prevents a too-closely clinging affection to temporary abodes. One day, at dinner, that audacious wag, Boosey, asked him if the "many manthuns" mentioned in the Bible, were not as true of

ge and of the country. One can't live among shops. When Pearl street comes to Park Place, Park Place must run for its life up to Thi

ow nothing of the enterprising spirit of your time." "Yes," I answer. "That's pretty from you; you are patriotic aren't you, with your liveries and illimitable expenses, and your low bows to money, and your immense intimacy with al

ludicrous caricature of something foreign. I am not up to the time if I persist in having my own comfort in my own way. I try to resist the irresistible march of improvement, if I decline to build a great house, which, when it is

n. The congregation of the Rev. Far Niente had sold their church and moved up town. Now doesn't it really seem as if we were a cross between the Arabs who dwell in tents and those who live in cities, for we are migratory in the city? A directory is a more imperative annual necessit

es in London, and Paris, and Rome, and Vienna? Do you know that Northumberland House is so called because it is the hereditary town mansion of the Duke, and that

by the example of foreign noblemen? I thought yo

aps, you would like to know the fact, because it might make you more lenient to

ances of our life. The chair in which some dear old friend so often sat-father and mother, perhaps-and in which they shall sit no more; the old-fashioned table with the cuts and scratches that generations of children have made upon it; the old book-cases; the heavy side-boa

n them to the old hearth. In the meeting-house they sit in the wooden pews where long ago they sat and dreamed of Jerusalem, and now as they sit there, that long ago is fairer than the holy city. Through the open window they

she spoke of it-but what then? When I was fifteen, I fell desperately in love with L

married old Firkin, and lived in a splendid house, and now lie

e old gentleman said, "I want you to marry Arabe

id t

her, you are mercenary;

choose. But you have the whim of a good dinner, of a statue, of a book. Why not? Only be careful in following

ciation a mere whim-let it go at that. She is a whim, too. My mistake simply was in not following out the romantic whim, and marrying Lucy Lamb. At

own,-husband of Mrs. Potiphar,-and father of Master Frederic ditto. Per contra; I shall never be in love again,-in getting

the same tie, the same trowsers, the same boots. I hear them all say the same thing, and dance with the same partners in the same way. I see them go to Europe and return-I hear them talk slang to show that they have exhausted human life in foreign parts and observe them demean themselves according to their idea of the English nobleman. I watch them go in strongly for being "manly," and "smashing the spoonies"-asserting intimacies with certain uncertain women in Paris, and proving it by their treatment of lad

corner, and gravely looking on, respect the young lady? Lucy tells me that if she dances with James she must with John. I cannot deny it, for I am not sufficiently familiar with the regulations of the mystery. Only this; if dancing with sober James makes it necessary to dance with tipsy John-it seems to me, upon a hasty glance at the subject, that a self-respecting Lucy would refrain from the dance with James. Why it should be so, I cannot understand. Why Lucy must dance with every man who asks her, whether he is in his senses, or knows how to dance, or is agreeable to her or not, is a profound mystery to Paul Potiphar. Here is a ca

ey could have helped it; and when the world, that loves them both so tenderly, holds up its pure hands of horror, why, Paul Potiphar, goes quietly home to Mrs. P., who is dressing for Lucy's ball, and say

ated sketches of society. Odious man that he is.

to you," is the only answer I have time to make, for it is

, I am constrained to believe that our social tendency is to the wildest extravagance. Here, for instance, is my house. It cost me eighty-five thousand dollars. It is superbly furnished. Mrs. P. and I don't know much about such things. She was only stringent for buhl, and the last Parisian models, so we delivered our house into the hands of ce

upport my mantels, upon which or molu Louis Quatorze clocks ring the hours. In all possible places there are statues, statuettes, vases, plates, teacups, and liquor-cases. The woodwork, when white, is elaborated in Moresco carving-when oak and walnut, it is heavily moulded. The contrasts are pretty, but rather sudden. In truth, my house is a huge curiosity shop of valuable articles,-clustered without taste, or feeling, or reason. They are there, because my house was large and I was able to buy them; and because, as Mrs. P. says, one must have buhl and or molu, and new forms of furniture, and do as well as one's neighbors, and show that one is rich, if he is

iphar, your house is ju

curtains, carpets, chairs, tables, Venuses, Apollos, busts, vases, etc. And he goes into his room, and thinks it's all a devilish bore, just as I do. We have each got to refurnish every few years, and therefore have no possible oppo

as far as the good ones? My dear madame, an or molu Louis Quatorze clock would have given Pericles a fit. Your drawing-rooms would have thrown Aspasia into hysterics. Things are not beautiful because they cost money; nor is any grouping handsome without harmony. Your house is like a w

I could only restrain her by reminding her that the Sennaar Minister had but an imperfect idea

urself, Mr. Potiphar," said my wife,

nswer, none, that I know of, except that of getting the house built. The fact is, it is as much as Paul Potiphar can do, to make the money to erect his palatial residence, and then to

u no love for

Polly is continually cluttering up the halls and stairc

my wife had purchased the furn

ere is one thing we

t's

, you kno

es for?" growled I, rath

lls; what do you suppos

kind of furniture. Pshaw! a man rubs and dabbles a little upon a canv

painted in this country?-No, my dear husband, let us have some choice specimens of the old masters. A landscape by Rayfel, for inst

the pastry cook, who told her his cousin had just come out from Italy with a lot of the very finest pictures in th

ive child in her arms, to which Mrs. P. directly takes all her visitors, and asks them to admire the beautiful Shay douver of Giddo's. When I go out to dinner with people that talk pictures and books, and that kind of thing, I don't like to se

f it wasn't odd to have a religious picture in the dining-room. He smiled, and said that it was pe

would never make another cent. You have order, propriety, harmony, in your dealings with the Symmes's Hole Bore Co., and they are the secrets of your success. Why not have the same elements in your house? Why pitch every century, country, and fashion, higgledy-piggledly into your parlors and dining-room? Have everything you can get, in heaven's

es not understand, and for which he cares nothing,-of which, in fact, he seems afraid, because he knows any chance question about them would trip him up,-my feeling is very much changed. If I should ask him what or molu is, I don't believe he could answer, though his splendid or molu clock rang, indignant, from the mantel. But if I should say, 'Invest me this thousand dollars,' he would secure me eight per cent. It certainly isn't necessary to know what or molu is, nor

e matter, you will be paying money for your pictures blindly, so that the only persons upon whom your

t indicates. If it does not proclaim (in your case) the President of the Patagonia Junction, a man shrewd, and hard, and solid, without taste or liberal cultivation, it is a painted deceiver. If it tries to insinuate by this chaotic profusion of rich and rare objects, that you are a cultivated, accomplished, tasteful, and generous man, it is a bad lie, because a transparent one. Why, my d

g to have plenty of money, and qui

ustr

absurd in a country like ours. How are people to know that I'm rich, unless

library?" sai

ired I. - "Why, our

ven't

such a house as thi

never did, and I never shall; and I don't care

t's part of a h

re you fond

e regard to appearances. Suppose we are Hott

ld never open, and that would stand in gilt upon the shelves, silently laughing

ing, Mrs. P.?" said I. - "

, I'll ar

brary should be without, which I arranged carefully, upon the shelves, and had the best looking library in town. I locked 'em in, and the key is always lost whe

kes care of that-but only yesterday she proposed some

want a pr

- "Stop, you wicked man. I s

ir?" I gasped,

prie-dieu-to pr

sipping the "Blue seal," he told me that he thought Mrs. Potiphar in a prie-

ary does, and it will be precisely as genuine. Mrs. Potiphar in a prie-dieu is like that blue morocco Comus in your library. It is charming to look at, but there's nothing in it. Let her have the prie-dieu by all means, and then begin to build a chapel. No gentleman's house should be wi

ennaar school show you why you are so, is cutting it rather too fat. I am gradually getting resigned to my house. I've got one more struggle to go through next week in Mrs.

eaded from under the steps, and ran a little way after the boy. I know it wasn't proper. I am sorry, very sorry. I am afraid Mrs. Croesus saw me; I know Mrs. Gnu told it all about that morning: and Mrs. Settum Downe called directly upon Mrs. Potiphar, to know if it were really true that I had lost my wits, as everybody was saying.