Rose Standish Nichols once lived here
in this four-story Federal rowhouse built in 1804 
with money amassed from the mercantile trade with China.
But a fortune didn't stop Rose's mother
from covering the walls of her husband's examination room
with wall paper that imitated the tea paper from China.
Yankees were nothing if not frugal,
even with wall paper.
"Throw nothing away,"
became an organizing principle of life.
It didn't matter that the Japanese cloisonné came from China,
that the raised poppy flower wallpaper in the second floor dining room
was made of imitation leather in Japan strictly for export,
or that the mother-of-pearl Chinoisere cabinetry described
a hodgepodge of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean scenes that existed
together only in the minds of the European artisans who crafted it.
Since nothing could be thrown away,
imitation rose to the level of art.

Rose never took a beau.
She earned her living as a noted landscape architect
and founded the League of Women Voters.
She kept a beau brummel at the foot of her parents' bed.
It stood on four legs and had built-in wooden boxes
to hold the cufflinks, tiepins, and cravat holders of the proper dandy.
Totally untransportable, it required a servant
to carry it to the country.
How bulky it seems compared to the weapons
the corporate warrior measures his/her success by these days -
the phone half the size of a fist,
the CD player in the right pocket,
the Palm organizer in the left,
and the pager hanging from the belt.

Books, of course, were everywhere -
from her collection of classics in her father's office
to the slim volumes of obligatory poetry from her cousins in the hallway reading alcoves.
She had time to read.
With servants to cook and keep house,
and never moving,
she had seventy-five years to read,
to write several books on landscaping,
and to live the life of the first emancipated woman in the new world.

A portrait of Rose sits over the mantle of her father's office.
It shows an aged Rose, so different from the photo of the 18-year old in her room.
It's a portrait by a friend that Rose aged into,
one she hated so much, she hid it in a closet.
But there it sits now,
as if in judgment of us all
as we rush about
with our time-saving devices and no time, 
no time at all, to reflect.
Looking at her portrait,
I wonder what Rose, the frugal Yankee who defied convention, would think of us?






			Brandywine
			2/17/99