I wouldn't recommend this odd book for its story. But H.R. is interesting for its social and psychological commentary on early 20th century New York society, as the Gilded Age gave way to the so-called Progressive Era.
Edwin Lefevre is the author of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the famous (at least among investors) pseudobiography of Jesse Livermore. This book, in stark contrast, is a forgotten and comparatively forgettable work.
But not totally forgettable. The reader watches the life arc of a young man who catapults himself across several caste barriers, starting as a frustrated New York City bank clerk who quits and, implausibly, starts a union of sandwich-board advertisers. He then uses this sandwich board advertising platform (you could think of it as an early 1900s "new media" platform) to gain influence throughout the city, ultimately parlaying his way into joining New York's social and economic elite.
At its heart, this book is about power and influence: how to get it, and how to wield it on the right people.
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H.R., our main character, sees a few moves ahead of everybody else. He uses persuasion, manipulation, even Milton Erickson-style suggestion and hypnosis techniques, to influence the media and the city's elites, persuading them to follow along with his grand plans. And as we see H.R. maneuver and manipulate his way through New York society, the reader also gets a fun parody of all of the city's often highly irritating institutions: bankers, corrupt unions, journalists, the advertising industry, even the paparazzi system, where society elites and the paparazzi feed off each other.
Sure, New York City was a lot different a hundred years ago, but certain things haven't changed a bit.
While the plot strains certain credulities here and there, you can't help but read H.R. and be inspired, at least a little, by what a young man with cojones can do to radically change his station in life at a time and place where such a thing just wasn't done. This is no Edith Wharton novel.
One stray final thought. This book was published in 1915, and I'd describe it as middlebrow literature--for that era's readers. Take a quick look at the list of vocabulary words at the end of this post, and you'll see yet another blatant indication of American society's cognitive decline. You'll also likely learn a few new words! I sure did.
[Readers, what follows are chapter-by-chapter plot points, along with my notes and reactions to the book: all of it is to help me order my thinking and better remember what I read. Feel free to stop reading right here.]
Notes:
Chapter 1
Hendrik Rutgers feels underpaid at his job as a bank clerk; he marches into the president's office demanding more pay and more responsibility, and gets himself fired, while aggressively flirting with the bank president's daughter! Upon leaving he feels a mix of pity for all the caged, soulless workers there, but he also feels gratitude to them for showing him what he'd turn into if he remained there working.
He has an idea to organize a sandwich-board man union; he browbeats a sandwich-man to bring a bunch of his fellow workers to a meeting at the Battery. Fourteen come. He gives them a browbeating speech, telling them how underpaid they are, then takes them all out for a beer at a bar where he then rouses these passive men getting them to intimidate the bar owner into giving them all free lunches. "...the boss had made men of them."
Chapter 2
"As secretary and treasurer of the National Street Advertising Men's Association, I've got to have a new frock-coat. Measure me for one." Rutgers then works out a deal with a 30-cent dinner restaurant to feed his union members in return for free publicity; then he works out an arrangement with the secretary of the mayor to get a permit for a parade.
Chapter 3
Rutgers then contrives to arrange a parade band, an office--including even furniture--via promises of free sandwich-board media; he offers more free beer again to members while asking his existing "members" to bring more recruits--and he creates a sort of artificial scarcity by saying those later recruits wouldn't be admitted to the union, but they could participate in the parade. And everybody would get free beer. "On Saturday morning there was not a sandwich-man to be seen at work in Greater New York."
Chapter 4
The parade begins: Rutgers coaches a particularly old and long-suffering sandwich-man to limp a certain way, and he had him carry a sign that says:
"Yesterday I walked 19 miles.
They paid me 35 cents cash
And two meal tickets."
There were hundreds of other examples and the people on Fifth Ave. didn't know what to make of it. News spread and soon all the newspapers wanted to know the story. Rutgers holds an impromptu news conference while the parade goes on, explaining the idea behind the union. The story grows: Rutgers pulls the entire thing off with quite a bit of theater for the newsmen.
Rutgers brings a lawyer in on his plans--paid again in only promises of future publicity--then decides to shorten his name to H.R. He then places a cryptic ad for "advertising canvassers" in all the morning papers.
Chapter 5
The main character develops into a Trumpian personality just days after quitting a low-level clerking job--it strains credulity. A dozen men arrive in response to his ad, and H.R. browbeats them down to two remaining men. "You will now go on Fifth Avenue and graciously permit the swellest shops to employ our union sandwich-men to advertise their wares." When one of the remaining two men gives him a bit of pushback, he sends him away, leaving him with the last man, Barrett. Barrett had already done research on him to get a line on him.
"The greatest stroke of political genius on the part of Louis XIV was his rebuke ,'I almost have been made to wait!'"
Chapter 6
H.R. works a scheme on Valiquet's, a famous jewelry shop on Fifth Ave. He wants their sculptor to fashion statuettes for his new union. "You don't have to buy to be treated politely in New York. The mere suspicion of the power of purchase is enough."
Note the great quote on p72 on how society elites default to philanthropy once they can't get into the papers on their youth and beauty alone: "Mr. Gwathmey saw no humor in either the intention or the phrase. As an alert business man who studied the psychology of customers, he knew that society leaders had advocated the cause of the shirtwaist workers and of certain educational movies--especially society leaders who had reached the age when their looks and their pearls no longer entitled them to the pictorial supplements. How else could they stay in the newspapers except by indignation over the wrongs of social inferiors? By espousing the cause of the lower classes, the latter also remained lower."
Barrett returns, having failed to sign a single business on Fifth Ave. H.R. tells him "Go back and tell them that Valiquet's will advertise with our sandwiches as soon as they have prepared artistic boards. The other men have lost the chance to be first. They are asses. Tell them and book them for second place... On next Monday begins the greatest revolution in advertising this country has ever experienced."
Chapter 7
H.R. continues scheming, drawing up high-end sandwich boards and having them made up in 24 hours with no discussion of price or cost. Also the 30 cent restaurant has gone viral, now well-dressed people now go there. [So New York has always had hipsters...]
There is a near mutiny among the sandwich men as H.R. asks them each to write a letter, dictated by him, to a New York paper. H.R. then dictates "Please pay us five dollars a day!" and each of the men grabs a pencil right away.
Chapter 8
H.R. places another ad in all the city papers, looking for actors, while he fleshes out another plan with Max, his attorney. He hires the actors to act as union sandwich-men, carrying the highest of high-end sandwich boards for Valiquet's. The newspapers would be told they were getting paid a thousand dollars a week, "which the artists have turned over to charity, like gentlemen."
Barrett reports that nearly every shop on Fifth Ave was ready to sign contracts once they saw what Valiquet's did. H.R. has the union members memorize speeches about the iniquity of sandwich board work.
Chapter 9
The march of the Valiquet's sandwich-men is a triumph. All the other Fifth Ave vendors paid even more to contract out their own sandwich ads at once. A manager at Valiquet's tries to stop the procession but Max the attorney steps in. H.R. constructs yet another major news event out of the whole thing.
"'Please do not mention my name!' Then he leaned over confidentially and said, very earnestly: 'My family is conservative, and they hate to see the old name in print. Don't use it, boys. Please! That's why I never sign more than my initials!'
Ah, it was not alone modesty, but high social position and inherited wealth that were responsible for 'H. R.' instead of the full name? And the reporters? News is what is novel; also what is rare. H. R. was therefore doubly news. The minds of the reporters did not work like H. R.'s, but they arrived at the same point at the same time. This is genius—on the part of the other man.
Keeping your mouth shut after it happens is a still higher form of genius."
Chapter 10
H.R. then writes a note to Grace Goodchild, the daughter of the president of the bank, enclosing " a few clippings." He calls on her at her home, and her mother asks him to leave. He puts on yet another performance here; we also learn after the fact that he paid the butler $20 to help him, and as H.R. leaves, the butler is more respectful to him than to Mr. Goodchild.
Chapter 11
H.R. instructs Barrett to expand the sandwich board business to other avenues; the reader learns that the Goodchilds are worth "ten millions." Then we see a bit of a plot contrivance where the attorney Max persuades a photography studio to release a photo to reporters of Grace Goodchild by using his secretary's skill at imitating a society person's voice over the phone. And so the papers print that H.R. is going to marry Grace along with a photo of her. The father calls up the papers and denies the engagement... and so the papers run another story with her photo again, denying the story. "It was so exactly what a Wall Street millionaire father would do that everybody in New York instantly recognized a romance in high life!"
H.R. continues wooing Grace unabashedly and aggressively, sending sandwich men to parade in front of her family home. Grace can't stand it, until she discovers that all her friends envy her! One of her friends tells her, "It's the greatest thing I've ever heard. I don't know him, but if he is half-way presentable you can teach him table manners in a week. I'd make my father give him a job in the bank!" Worse, even her mother's friends are impressed, as one says "I have lived to see a New York society man do something really original."
Grace's opinion of H.R.starts to change. Also a cute meta-reference here as Grace goes to her room, and "taking one of Edwin Lefevre's books, she went to sleep."
Chapter 12
Sandwich-men are also parading in front of Goodchild's bank, and reporters swarm his office, asking why he won't let his daughter marry H.R. Goodchild loses it and yells "Take yourself to hell!" "All the reporters wrote four words." Then two bank directors come into his office and, from another generation, are astounded that he talked to the papers at all. "Your paper used to be decent" one of them says to a reporter.
Goodchild's lawyer calls up H.R.'s lawyer Max, yelling at him. Max responds, "If you will sue us for one million dollars damages I'll name my forthcoming baby after you."
Chapter 13
H.R. continues skillfully playing the media. Crowds start following Grace. "But her friends soothed her and developed the habit of looking pleasantly at cameras." And "sandwiching" became an imagined necessity and an institution in New York. But the problem is, "scabs" start sandwiching too. H.R. releases a statement making this into a thing against capital and the wealthy: "We do not pity Tightwads who make scabs possible. We made Sandwiching an Art, also an Honorable Occupation."
And then he writes:
"Our Emblem is the Sign of the Ultimate Sandwich. Every time you see a Sandwich-Board without it you may be sure it belongs to a merchant who skimps his Advertising Appropriation. If he skimps in that, what won't he skimp in? How about the quality of his goods and his values?"
The document is a tour de force, generating tremendous support H.R.'s union. "The Society of American Sandwich Artists prudently leased three more offices and prepared for the rush. It came." And as the revenues from the union grow, Goodchild realizes "he might have had the account."
Chapter 14
Wealth now "threatens" H.R. Offers come in for his advertising services. "He did not reply to his correspondents. He thus went up in their estimation. To refuse to take money is something. To refuse even to refuse it is everything!"
"But H.R. did not think of what he had not done, not even of what he had done, but of what he would do. Doers of deeds always think that way. To them yesterday is as dead is Caesar. Today is settled. To-morrow alone is opportunity!" Then H.R starts a rumor in the papers, an anti-rumor actually: that he and Grace had not eloped, which became a rumor of the reverse [again, Milton Erickson-grade psychology here!]. The papers call up Goodchild, who denies it, thus making the rumor seem more probable rather than less.
Chapter 15
H.R. meets with the bishop of the Episcopal church: "I want you to help me to help our church... In order that we may stop losing ground! ... I, Bishop Phillipson, am a People-Getter." He confuses the bishop totally with a plan to sell food charity tickets that will be given to the hungry. But yet he persuades him and gets him on board with his plan.
Chapter 16
H.R. ambles through New York City musing about how much he loves Grace. He scans the people around him, tramps on park benches, pedestrians... as he sees it, they all have a quality of blindness and deafness to him, while H.R. "alone was alive and awake!"
He arranges with Barrett to have the sandwich-men carry sandwich boards for two hours the next two days that say:
NEXT WEEK
THE MEN WHO HAVE MADE
THE EMPIRE CITY OF
GOD'S OWN COUNTRY
WILL FEED
ALL THE HUNGRY
WHO HAVE NO MONEY
Chapter 17
After convincing Bishop Phillipson, H.R. now signs on a number of other leaders. "The bankers were easy" because the smaller bank presidents would sign if the larger ones signed--otherwise they'd appear to lack sympathy with a popular cause. Somehow he manages to organize a gathering of all these leaders at the Presbyterian Church. H.R. steps to the podium and thunders about his plan to "feed all the hungry who have no money!" "And, gentleman, we are going to do it in an entirely new way." H.R. hints at how the process will work: no one will be allowed to buy more than one ticket, the price will be 25c, and each ticket will contain a coupon worth $10,000 in cash. "I personally will give the money."
Nobody believed this plan could work at first, but somehow he convinces both everyone at the meeting, as well as all the reporters he spoke to afterward.
Chapter 18
The story of H.R.'s plan to feed New York's hungry hits the news, and calls start coming in from chefs at all the city's restaurants, angry they weren't included in his plan.
H.R. then visits Grace at her house and uses some hypnotic persuasion on her, painting a picture for her about their wedding, how it would be a national event. "She was clever enough to realize that this was not a man to be shooed away, chickenwise... she wondered why she didn't order him away. The reason was that she couldn't. He wasn't that kind of man!" He tells her his plan to sell tickets to this feeding the hungry event using 100 perfectly beautiful girls of New York. "You head the list... your best friends will drive you crazy asking you to use your influence with me." He then tells her to get new photographs taken. As soon as he leaves, she calls up her driver and goes and does exactly what he says! On our way home she's recognized by people, she discovers that she's becoming well-known thanks to him, and it's making her experience a mix of curiosity, revulsion and attraction to H.R., even though she doesn't want to admit it to herself. Somehow he can manage the media, he can get the papers to say good things about him (something her father never could do), all these leaders of New York society were helping him, etc. "He is clever!" she muses.
Chapter 19
H.R. now uses the sandwich-men to promote the fact that they're using 100 perfectly beautiful girls from New York to sell tickets to the feed the hungry event; then he runs an ad in all the papers looking for "perfectly beautiful girls." He then creates a "Public Beauty Commission" and recruits still more leaders of the city to join to judge who was perfectly beautiful--all for the noble cause of charity. He also leaks to the media that "the only one thus far chosen is Miss Grace Goodchild!"
Chapter 20
Grace Goodchild is now at home surrounded by her friends, all of whom want to get on this list of 100 perfectly beautiful girls; all her friends want to know all about H.R.; they all want to meet him, they're entranced by him, and most of all they're fascinated by this contest; as her friends leave, a group of photographers are outside the Goodchild home taking photographs of them, they all love the attention, they carefully spell out their names to the reporters; while at the same time Mr. Goodchild can't even get into his own home past all the paparazzi and commotion; he gets into arguments with the reporters as they ask when the wedding will be. "She'll never marry that infernal idiot!"
Now Bishop Phillipson arrives too: he's received three and a half bushels of letters from strangers commending H.R.'s highly intelligent plan for feeding the hungry; many also have expressed their compliments that Phillipson's name heads the list of leading men involved in this plan; he comments about H.R.: "A most remarkable young man."
A sandwich man arrives in front of the Goodchild mansion. [Note the reference here of raising his glittering top hat "Beau Brummelesquely": Beau Brummel, an Englishman from the early 19th century, was in 1915 apparently the preeminent example of a dandy.] H.R.'s assistant Andrew Barrett is there as well and he shouts out "Speech!" and the crowd picks up the chant, and then Bishop Phillipson encourages Grace to say something: "After all, we may dislike the way it is done, but if the hungry are fed we may be forgiven." She blows a kiss to the crowd and rushes into the house blushing.
Chapter 21
Arguments erupt among the "Public Menu Commission," chosen to select what's on the menu for this event. H.R. interjects: "If we prolong the debate there won't be any hungry men alive to eat our dinner... Let's try beans." After more dramas that capture even more media attention, the menu is released, featuring a bunch of dishes and recipes branded with the names of important people on the commission--and this gives the newspapers even more to talk about. H.R. even goes to each of the shops on Fifth Avenue, knowing they would follow each other's fashions. He persuades them all to post a menu for the charity in their windows.
The "100 perfectly beautiful girls" are announced, and as these girls begin selling tickets many of them become engaged to ticket buyers, and that drives even more news.
Chapter 22
The big moment: the event starts, beginning with making sure every man to be fed didn't have money. [The story starts losing its way here.] There also was free beer offered for the men--to tempt them--and the ones who went for the beer before their meal were led away.
Chapter 23
The main gate of Madison Square Garden is thrown open and the crowd of sightseers exceeds the number of the hungry. "As each ticket-holder presented his ticket he demanded the instant return of the ten-thousand-dollar coupon. Even the skeptics who knew they'd never get the ten thousand dollars did this."
As H.R. pulls out a huge role of bills, all $10,000 "yellow-backs" [these were bills actually redeemable for gold from the US government, as opposed to "greenbacks," which were non-gold-backed paper money], the ticket holders were told they would be asked a question. The question is:
"What is it we have all heard about from earliest childhood and that we acknowledge exists; that is neither a person nor a beast, neither a thing nor an object, but something that no man can kill, though it is dead to-day; that all men need and most New-Yorkers neglect; that should be present everywhere and is found in no trade? The answer is a word of five letters and begins with A. There is another word, a synonym, which is now obsolescent, though it is at times used in poetry." Not a single ticket holder could guess the word. H.R. then whispers to each of the guests "I thank you in the name of the poor starving people whose lives you have prolonged." This was enough to avoid any claims of fraud. [See chapter 24 for the answer(s)!]
Next, Grace Goodchild arrives to a tremendous round of applause from the crowd. The dinner begins and features a whole Rube Goldberg system of overhead conveyors and pipes that serve warm drinks, soup, etc. The system "prevented spilling, waste, delay, inefficient waiters, and the dissatisfaction of the guests." The crowd, as it watched these humble hungry diners, was transfixed.
Chapter 24
Intriguing scene here where H.R. has group of security shout to the crowd "Sit down! Sit down!" which made everyone rise to their feet [yet another example of Milton Erickson-caliber persuasion here]. "Then, and only then, did H.R. advance into the arena, followed by the mayor of the city of New York, the Bishop of the Diocese of the same, and the other dignitaries." The sandwich-men then applauded and cheered with such fervor that it led the rest of the crowd to do the same. H.R. looks up at Grace Goodchild, and she bows to him.
The various contraptions continue to work to feed people, and while they eat a curtain behind them drops down, revealing a large sign:
WATCH THEM EAT!
YOUR TICKET DID IT!
YOUR TICKET DID IT!
"Each charitable person felt that his twenty-five cents had made possible the entire feast. At that moment H.R. could have been elected to any office within the gift of a free and sturdy people."
The meal ends, and then a new gigantic sign unfurls, saying:
AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY
"Everybody cheered, for everybody agreed with the sentiment. Some even thought it was original."
Next, free dancing is offered to all the guests, and H.R. marches directly to Grace Goodchild and hypnotically says to her "We're needed!" And they go down to the dance floor, at the center of attention.
The reader learns here that the secret answer was the word "anima," or its synonym "soul." [This is another interesting misdirection play that H.R. plays here: by saying the word begins with A and had five letters completely misdirects people from the possible synonym.] H.R. then meets with the cardinal of New York as well as with reporters, and when the reporters want to know what the word is, H.R. responds, "It is our secret now. New York is very rich. When it discovers that one word--or its synonym of four letters--it will be infinitely richer in every way."
Chapter 25
H.R. is not done. Even though his position in society "was established on an adamant base" he keeps moving, keeps up his influence. He sends many more missives to the media encouraging charity and good will, encouraging an influx of letters to the editor. But to his dismay he learns Grace had left town for Philadelphia.
"The newspapers always know they have made a bulls-eye when they get letters from their readers. It is an obvious fact that a man who writes is a steady customer--at least, until his communication is printed."
Chapter 26
Grace runs off to Philadelphia to get away from all the commotion in New York. She remains "determined" to not marry H.R. And yet in Philadelphia nobody notices her. She has grown addicted to the attention. "Not one imbecile male look; not one feminine sneer! Nothing! No fame!... There was absolutely no excuse... It was like Lucullus being asked to eat sanitary biscuits." [Can you imagine a modern middlebrow fiction novel assuming its readers knew who Lucullus was?]
Grace comes back to New York and revels once again in the attention she gets there. She realizes that if she married any of her other suitors her life would be "one long visit to Philadelphia."
Chapter 27
H.R. sees Grace again in New York, she realizes there are no social barriers between them anymore. He really handles her well, games her well, taking her outbursts about as seriously as he would those of a tall intelligent child. But yet he also takes great care to express his love and affection for her. "Grace, don't talk nonsense. Just let me look at you."
"'There I will give thee my loves!' He muttered, quoting from the 'Song of Songs.' She knew it wasn't original because he said it so solemnly. She dared not ask from whom the quotation was. It sounded like Swinburne." He stares at her with "actinic rays," she felt herself desired, and he kisses her.
Chapter 28
"It is difficult for a man to know what to do after the first kiss. A second kiss is not so wise as appears at first blush. It impairs mental efficiency by rendering irresistible the desire for a third. A banal remark is equally fatal." H.R. was about to pull an engagement ring out of his pocket, but then Mr. Goodchild arrives at home. H.R. handles the whole situation brilliantly here, totally controlling Goodchild and Grace. Goodchild tries to put him off, stammering "I do not care to have this--er--farce prolonged. If you are after--if there is any reasonable financial consideration that will--er--induce you to desist--I--you--"
"'You have a relapsed,' interrupted H.R., amiably, 'into the language of a bank president.'" H.R. gives a command performance here in the Goodchilds' drawing room, as he describes six companies that he started or are in various stages of capitalization. Finally George Goodchild blows a gasket, yelling about sandwiches, and about being mocked by the directors of his bank who constantly ask him "How is the king of the sandwiches?" He then asked his daughter "Do you wish to be known all your life as the Queen of the Sandwiches? Do you?"
More discussion here where H.R. tells them that within two weeks no one will remember that I'm associated with sandwiches, and then H.R. boldly kisses Grace right there in front of her parents. And then pulls a magnificent green diamond ring out of his pocket. "Mrs. Goodchild rose quickly and said, 'Let me see it!'"
Chapter 29
H.R. meets with one of the pioneering department stores of New York and persuades him to take money in return for canceling all of his newspaper advertising, switching instead to fashion magazines and sandwich men. He then goes to the other major advertisers in the city, bringing them on board as well after having corralled the industry leader. He then goes to each of the leading newspaper editors and persuades them to get his reporters to stop talking about H.R. in any context of sandwich advertising. He times these two things to happen at the same time: the cancellation of all major advertising contracts occurs the next morning. The newspapers are thus forced to comply with H.R.'s editorial wishes.
Chapter 30
H.R. calls at Goodchild's bank to discuss interest rates on his various companies' account balances. "The more formidable your enemy is, the less disgraceful is your defeat." Interesting scene here where H.R. marches into his office and speaks out to him, and then says. "'For an entire minute think of what I have said before you answer. Don't answer until the time is up. One minute. Begin! Now!'" "You have wasted forty seconds in overcoming your anger at my manner of speech." [This scene is totally implausible, but at the same time H.R. uses hypnosis and suggestion methods very effectively in many of his interactions throughout the novel. This scene however is a bridge too far.]
"You sit here and disapprove of my methods because they violate some rule established years ago by somebody as radical then as I appear to be now."
"'I don't want you to give Grace anything; but I tell you now I'm going to marry her, and you'd better begin to be reconciled to the idea of having me for a son-in-law. I want to be your friend, because I'm quite sure you will not enjoy having me for your enemy--not after I begin the counter attack.' It is always the delivery that does it, as Demosthenes triply assured posterity." [Again, note the implicit assumptions about the readers' literacy here.]
As H.R. leaves the office he greets Mr. Coster, the man who led him into Goodchild's office long ago to be fired. The other clerks look on, asking themselves, "Was this what a man became when he ceased to be a clerk?"
Chapter 31
"H.R. returned to his office feeling that the big battle was about to begin. The preliminary skirmishes he had won." He works some reverse psychology on Grace, then begins to contrive something for the suffragette movement through Grace's friend Ethel's mother, Mrs. Vandergilt. He receives an invite to the Vandergilt home for dinner.
Chapter 32
Mrs. Vandergilt becomes H.R.'s final ticket to access to the social elite; she announces to reporters that he is her most trusted advisor. Grace's figures out that he "hypnotizes people"; Grace and H.R. then have a bit of a battle here of psychological control, where H.R. uses reverse psychology on her: "She was willing to pay for her victory. He loved her! She could make him do whatever she wished. It did not matter whether she loved him or not. There was now no reason, that she could see, why she should not marry him--if the worst came to the worst."
Chapter 33
He leaves town on urgent business, leaving Grace, who felt like she had just won control over him, to worry that she had lost him...and this made her love him. [This author understood Milton Erickson well ahead of time!] He has Grace ask for a "sandwich" in a luncheon with the Vandergilts and others and she does so, and no one notices, laughs or even cracks a smile. H.R. suddenly is no longer associated with sandwich-men! "Not a soul smiled! Not having seen anything about it in the newspapers for a month, New York had forgotten that H.R. had wooed Grace with sandwiches. H.R. was as famous as ever, but his fellow-citizens no longer knew why or how."
H.R., his thoughts crystallizing over a plate of sandwiches, imagines his future career in state and then national politics. "'Grace,' he said to her resolutely, ' my work is just beginning!'"
Vocab:
persiflage: witty banter
chiropody: podiatry
chirography: handwriting (as opposed to typography)
pursuivant: (archaic) a follower or attendant; a junior herald [lit. "following" in French]
cynosure: the center of attention or admiration
en cabochon: a gem polished but not faceted
amare et sapere vix deo conceditur: "Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time" (attributed to Publilius Syrus in his Moral Sayings)
morganatic marriage: "left-handed marriage"; a legitimate union between a person of royalty or nobility and someone of lower status, designed to prevent the inheritance of titles, property, and succession rights by the spouse and children. Primarily used in Germanic and European history, it allowed royals to marry for love while protecting dynastic purity
inanition: lack of mental or spiritual vigor and enthusiasm; exhaustion caused by lack of nourishment
actinic: [of light or lighting] able to cause photochemical reactions, as in photography
gratia victrix: conquering grace
trousseau: clothes, household linen and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage
cloaca maxima: [lit. "the greatest sewer"] one of the world's earliest sewage systems, constructed in Rome possibly as early as 600BC by the Tarquin kings; named after Cloacina, the Roman goddess
jacta est alea: "the die is cast" (attributed to Julius Caesar upon crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC)
To Read:
Publilius Syrus: The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus, a Roman Slave (trans. Darius Lyman)