[Gutenberg 43994] • Caleb Wright: A Story of the West

ALL people who have more taste than money are as one in the conviction that people with less money than taste suffer more keenly day by day, week by week, year by year, than any other class of human beings. Of this kind of sufferer was Philip Somerton, a young man who had strayed from a far-western country town to New York to develop his individuality and make his fortune, but especially to enjoy the facilities which a great city offers (as every one knows, except the impecunious persons who have tried it) to all whose hearts hunger for whatever is beautiful, refining, and also enjoyable. To some extent Philip had succeeded, for he quickly adapted himself to his new surroundings; and as he was intelligent, industrious, and of good habits, he soon secured a clerkship which enabled him to pay for food, shelter, and clothing, and still have money enough for occasional books and music and theatre tickets, and to purchase a few articles of a class over which the art editor of Philip’s favorite morning newspaper raved delightfully by the column. Several years later he was still more fortunate; for he met Grace Brymme, a handsome young woman who had quite as much intelligence and taste as he, and who, like Philip, had been reared in a country town. That in New York she was a saleswoman in a great shop called a "department store" was not in the least to her discredit; for she was an orphan, and poor, and with too much respect to allow herself to be supported by relatives as poor as she, or to be "married off" for the sole purpose of securing a home.