An Excerpt from

John True
(1856)
by Jacob Abbott

Chapter I - The Fifth Avenue

John True is a New York boy.  His father is James True, of the firm of Worthy, True, and Co., importers.  Mr. True’s counting-room and warehouses are in Front Street; his home is in a large and handsome house in the Fifth Avenue.

The Fifth Avenue is the most splendid street in New York for private dwellings.  It is, indeed, a street of palaces.  It begins at Washington Square, near the middle of the city, and extends to the northward, in a perfectly straight line, for many miles.  The houses are very large, and the fronts of them toward the street are ornamented with cornices, entablatures, porticoes, and columns; which, being all very massive and substantial in form, and richly carved and sculptured in brown sandstone or white marble, give an air of great magnificence to the whole scene.  John True’s father lived in one of these houses.

Now it is possible that some of the readers of this book, who live in a plain and simple style, and in a small house in the country, may think it must be a very fortunate thing for a boy to have the home of his childhood in such a place as this, where he is surrounded all the time with so much luxury and splendor.  But this is a mistake.  The truth is, that boys care very little about luxury and splendor.  What they want is to enjoy their liberty and have a good time . . . .

Mrs. True’s parlors, too,—there were three of them in a row, with folding-doors between—were very magnificent apartments, and they were very magnificently furnished; but John took no pleasure in them.  He would not have cared if he never went into them from one end of the year to the other.  The carpets were very soft and rich, and of splendid colors.  The curtains were of satin damask, with lace under-curtains, and heavy cornices, splendidly carved and gilded, above.  The other furniture, too, of the rooms was of the most gorgeous description.  There were sofas, and chairs, and beautiful tables, and cabinets, and ottomans, all made of rosewood and ebony, and beautifully carved and inlaid.  There were magnificent mirrors between the windows and over the mantel-pieces, and the walls, in every other part, were covered with large and costly paintings and engravings, all mounted in frames richly carved and gilded.

In the centre of each of the three rooms there was suspended from an ornamented centre-piece in the ceiling a massive chandelier, in gold and bronze, containing six burners, each of which was surmounted with a large glass globe.  Thus there were eighteen globes in all; and as they shone, when the gas was lighted within them, with a very bright and beautiful silvery radiance, the room had the appearance of being lighted by eighteen full moons.  Besides these moons, moreover, there were other lights around the sides of the room.  There were girandoles on the mantle-shelves, and side-lights by the mirrors, and branches in different places on the walls.  The brilliancy of the light in all these burners was properly subdued by glass shades of various forms and patterns; but still, when the parlor was fully lighted up with them in the evening for company, the brilliancy and beauty of the scene seemed like enchantment more than like real life.

In a word, the parlors were very magnificently finished and furnished, and yet John cared very little about them.  Every thing was so costly and fine that he was always very much restricted in his movements there, and John liked freedom a great deal better than finery.  He could not jump upon the sofas and chairs for fear of soiling or wearing out the satin or the velvet of the coverings. He could not play with his ball or battledores for fear of breaking the splendid mirrors, and he could not run about on the floor with his sister Lucy, for that would wear out the carpets, which, having each been made all in one piece to fit the room, with a broad border around the sides, and a great centre-piece in the middle, were extremely costly.  In a word, both John and Lucy were obliged, whenever they were in the parlors, to walk so carefully, and sit so still, and behave, in all respects, with so much studied propriety, that they did not really like to go there at all.

Indeed, I do not think that even Mrs. True herself liked her parlors very much for her own use, for she never staid [stayed] in them, and scarcely ever went into them except to receive ceremonious calls.  She had a very pretty room up stairs, over the back parlor, which she called her room.  This room was very handsomely furnished, but it was furnished for use more than for show.  There were book-cases in the recesses on each side of the fire-place which were full of entertaining and beautiful books, and there were secretaries, and work-tables, and tall work-baskets.  There was a large bow window in this room, too, which looked out upon a green and pretty yard.

In Mrs. True’s management of her house . . . she made it an essential thing that all her servants—and she had a great many, usually seven or eight—should be respectable in character, and of good moral and religious principles. . . . John liked all the servants very much indeed, but his favorite among them was a man who was commonly called the Duke.  He was the coachman.  One reason why John liked him the best was because he had the care of the horses, and John . . . liked the horses and the stable very much indeed.