CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
LIST OF WORKS
Among the many peculiarities which contribute to make New York unlikeother cities is the construction of what may be called its social map.As in the puzzles used in teaching children geography, all the piecesare of different shapes, different sizes and different colours; but theyfit neatly together in the compact whole though the lines which defineeach bit are distinctly visible, especially when the map has been longused by the industrious child. What calls itself society everywhere elsecalls itself society in New York also, but whereas in European citiesone instinctively speaks of the social scale, one familiar with New Yorkpeople will be much more inclined to speak of the social map. I do notmean to hint that society here exists on a dead level, but the absenceof tradition, of all acknowledged precedents and of all outward andperceptible distinctions makes it quite impossible[2] to define theposition of any one set in regard to another by the ordinary scale ofsuperiority or inferiority. In London or Paris, for instance, ambitiouspersons are spoken of as climbing, in New York it would be more correctto speak of them as migrating or attempting to migrate from one socialfield to the next. It is impossible to imagine fields real ormetaphorical yielding more different growths under the same sky.
The people in all these different sets are very far from beingunconscious of one another's existence. Sometimes they would like tochange from one set to another and cannot, sometimes other people wishthem to change and they will not, sometimes they exchange places, andsometimes by a considerable effort, or at considerable expense, theychange themselves. The man whose occupations, or tastes, or necessities,lead him far beyond the bounds of the one particular field to which hebelongs, may see a vast deal that is interesting and of which his ownparticular friends and companions know nothing whatever. There are acertain number of such men in every great city, and there are a certainnumber of women[3] also, who, by accident or choice, know a littl