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1
Overview
In the old New York of the 'fifties a few families ruled, in simplicity
and affluence. Of these were the Ralstons.
The sturdy English and the rubicund and heavier Dutch had mingled to
produce a prosperous, prudent and yet lavish society. To "do things
handsomely" had always been a fundamental principle in this cautious
world, built up on the fortunes of bankers, India merchants,
ship-builders and ship-chandlers. Those well-fed slow-moving people, who
seemed irritable and dyspeptic to European eyes only because the caprices
of the climate had stripped them of superfluous flesh, and strung their
nerves a little tighter, lived in a genteel monotony of which the surface
was never stirred by the dumb dramas now and then enacted underground.
Sensitive souls in those days were like muted key-boards, on which Fate
played without a sound.
In this compact society, built of solidly welded blocks, one of the
largest areas was filled by the Ralstons and their ramifications. The
Ralstons were of middle-class English stock. They had not come to the
Colonies to die for a creed but to live for a bank-account. The result
had been beyond their hopes, and their religion was tinged by their
success. An edulcorated Church of England which, under the conciliatory
name of the "Episcopal Church of the United States of America," left out
the coarser allusions in the Marriage Service, slid over the comminatory
passages in the Athanasian Creed, and thought it more respectful to say
"Our Father who" than "which" in the Lord's Prayer, was exactly suited to
the spirit of compromise whereon the Ralstons had built themselves up.
There was in all the tribe the same instinctive recoil from new religions
as from unaccounted-for people. Institutional to the core, they
represented the conservative element that holds new societies together as
seaplants bind the seashore.
Compared with the Ralstons, even such traditionalists as the Lovells, the
Halseys or the Vandergraves appeared careless, indifferent to money,
almost reckless in their impulses and indecisions. Old John Frederick
Ralston, the stout founder of the race, had perceived the difference, and
emphasized it to his son, Frederick John, in whom he had scented a faint
leaning toward the untried and unprofitable.
"You let the Lannings and the Dagonets and the Spenders take risks and
fly kites. It's the county-family blood in 'em: we've nothing to do with
that. Look how they're petering out already--the men, I mean. Let your
boys marry their girls, if you like (they're wholesome and handsome);
though I'd sooner see my grandsons take a Lovell or a Vandergrave, or any
of our own kind. But don't let your sons go mooning around after their
young fellows, horse-racing, and running down south to those d---d
Springs, and gambling at New Orleans, and all the rest of it. That's how
you'll build up the family, and keep the weather out. The way we've
always done it."
Frederick John listened, obeyed, married a Halsey, and passively followed
in his father's steps. He belonged to the cautious generation of New York
gentleman who revered Hamilton and served Jefferson, who longed to lay
out New York like Washington, and who laid it out instead like a
gridiron, lest they should be thought "undemocratic" by people they
secretly looked down upon. Shopkeepers to the marrow, they put in their
windows the wares there was most demand for, keeping their private
opinions for the back-shop, where through lack of use, they gradually
lost substance and colour.
The fourth generation of Ralstons had nothing left in the way of
convictions save an acute sense of honour in private and business
matters; on the life of the community and the state they took their daily
views from the newspapers, and the newspapers they already despised. The
Ralstons had done little to shape the destiny of their country, except to
finance the Cause when it had become safe to do so. They were related to
many of the great men who had built the Republic; but no Ralston had so
far committed himself as to be great. As old John Frederick said, it was
safer to be satisfied with three per cent: they regarded heroism as a
form of gambling. Yet by merely being so numerous and so similar they had
come to have a weight in the community. People said: "The Ralstons" when
they wished to invoke a precedent. This attribution of authority had
gradually convinced the third generation of its collective importance,
and the fourth, to which Delia Ralston's husband belonged, had the ease
and simplicity of a ruling class.
and affluence. Of these were the Ralstons.
The sturdy English and the rubicund and heavier Dutch had mingled to
produce a prosperous, prudent and yet lavish society. To "do things
handsomely" had always been a fundamental principle in this cautious
world, built up on the fortunes of bankers, India merchants,
ship-builders and ship-chandlers. Those well-fed slow-moving people, who
seemed irritable and dyspeptic to European eyes only because the caprices
of the climate had stripped them of superfluous flesh, and strung their
nerves a little tighter, lived in a genteel monotony of which the surface
was never stirred by the dumb dramas now and then enacted underground.
Sensitive souls in those days were like muted key-boards, on which Fate
played without a sound.
In this compact society, built of solidly welded blocks, one of the
largest areas was filled by the Ralstons and their ramifications. The
Ralstons were of middle-class English stock. They had not come to the
Colonies to die for a creed but to live for a bank-account. The result
had been beyond their hopes, and their religion was tinged by their
success. An edulcorated Church of England which, under the conciliatory
name of the "Episcopal Church of the United States of America," left out
the coarser allusions in the Marriage Service, slid over the comminatory
passages in the Athanasian Creed, and thought it more respectful to say
"Our Father who" than "which" in the Lord's Prayer, was exactly suited to
the spirit of compromise whereon the Ralstons had built themselves up.
There was in all the tribe the same instinctive recoil from new religions
as from unaccounted-for people. Institutional to the core, they
represented the conservative element that holds new societies together as
seaplants bind the seashore.
Compared with the Ralstons, even such traditionalists as the Lovells, the
Halseys or the Vandergraves appeared careless, indifferent to money,
almost reckless in their impulses and indecisions. Old John Frederick
Ralston, the stout founder of the race, had perceived the difference, and
emphasized it to his son, Frederick John, in whom he had scented a faint
leaning toward the untried and unprofitable.
"You let the Lannings and the Dagonets and the Spenders take risks and
fly kites. It's the county-family blood in 'em: we've nothing to do with
that. Look how they're petering out already--the men, I mean. Let your
boys marry their girls, if you like (they're wholesome and handsome);
though I'd sooner see my grandsons take a Lovell or a Vandergrave, or any
of our own kind. But don't let your sons go mooning around after their
young fellows, horse-racing, and running down south to those d---d
Springs, and gambling at New Orleans, and all the rest of it. That's how
you'll build up the family, and keep the weather out. The way we've
always done it."
Frederick John listened, obeyed, married a Halsey, and passively followed
in his father's steps. He belonged to the cautious generation of New York
gentleman who revered Hamilton and served Jefferson, who longed to lay
out New York like Washington, and who laid it out instead like a
gridiron, lest they should be thought "undemocratic" by people they
secretly looked down upon. Shopkeepers to the marrow, they put in their
windows the wares there was most demand for, keeping their private
opinions for the back-shop, where through lack of use, they gradually
lost substance and colour.
The fourth generation of Ralstons had nothing left in the way of
convictions save an acute sense of honour in private and business
matters; on the life of the community and the state they took their daily
views from the newspapers, and the newspapers they already despised. The
Ralstons had done little to shape the destiny of their country, except to
finance the Cause when it had become safe to do so. They were related to
many of the great men who had built the Republic; but no Ralston had so
far committed himself as to be great. As old John Frederick said, it was
safer to be satisfied with three per cent: they regarded heroism as a
form of gambling. Yet by merely being so numerous and so similar they had
come to have a weight in the community. People said: "The Ralstons" when
they wished to invoke a precedent. This attribution of authority had
gradually convinced the third generation of its collective importance,
and the fourth, to which Delia Ralston's husband belonged, had the ease
and simplicity of a ruling class.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013693036 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | WDS Publishing |
| Publication date: | 01/18/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 71 KB |
About the Author
Born into a prosperous New York family, Edith Wharton (1862-1937) wrote more than 15 novels, including The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, and other esteemed books. She was distinguished for her work in the First World War and was the first woman to receive a Doctorate of Letters from Yale University. She died in France at the age of 75.
Date of Birth:
January 24, 1862Date of Death:
August 11, 1937Place of Birth:
New York, New YorkPlace of Death:
Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, FranceEducation:
Educated privately in New York and EuropeFrom the B&N Reads Blog
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