Produced by Michael Leonard
The Mansion
By
Henry van Dyke
There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the Weightmanmansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudentlyapplied. Standing on a corner of the Avenue no longer fashionable forresidence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with anexpression of complacency and half-disdain.
The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight frontof chocolate-colored stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staringwindows of plate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doorsat the top of the wide stoop, to charm the eye or fascinate theimagination. But it was eminently respectable, and in its wayimposing. It seemed to say that the glittering shops of the jewelers,the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the picture-dealers,the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, retail tradersin luxuries of life, were beneath the notice of a house that had itsfoundations in the high finance, and was built literally andfiguratively in the shadow of St. Petronius' Church.
At the same time there was something self-pleased and congratulatory inthe way in which the mansion held its own amid the changingneighborhood. It almost seemed to be lifted up a little, among thetall buildings near at hand, as if it felt the rising value of the landon which it stood.
John Weightman was like the house into which he had built himselfthirty years ago, and in which his ideals and ambitions were incrusted.He was a self-made man. But in making himself he had chosen a highlyesteemed pattern and worked according to the approved rules. There wasnothing irregular, questionable, flamboyant about him.
He was solid, correct, and justly successful.
His minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date.
At the proper time, pictures of the Barbizon masters, old English plateand portraits, bronzes by Barye and marbles by Rodin, Persian carpetsand Chinese porcelains, had been introduced to the mansion. Itcontained a Louis Quinze reception-room, an Empire drawing-room, aJacobean dining-room, and various apartments dimly reminiscent of thestyles of furniture affected by deceased monarchs. That the hallwayswere too short for the historic perspective did not make muchdifference. American decorative art is capable de tout, it absorbs allperiods. Of each period Mr. Weightman wished to have something of thebest. He understood its value, present as a certificate, andprospective as an investment.
It was only in the architecture of his town house that he remainedconservative, immovable, one might almost sayEarly-Victorian-Christian. His country house at Dulwich-on-the-Soundwas a palace of the Italian Renaissance. But in town he adhered to anarchitecture which had moral associations, theNineteenth-Century-Brownstone epoch. It was a symbol of his socialposition, his religious doctrine, and even, in a way, of his businesscreed.
"A man of fixed principles," he would say, "should express them in thelooks of his house. New York changes its domestic architecture toorapidly. It is like divorce. It is not dignified. I don't like it.Extravagance and fickleness are advertised in most of these new houses.I wish to be known for different qualities. Dignity and prudence arethe things that people trust. Every one knows that I can afford tolive in the house that suits me. It is a guarantee to the public. Itinspires confidence. It helps my influence. There is a text in theBible about 'a house that hath foundations.' That is the pr