Part 4 (1/2)
”Why this silence?” he asked.
”Why this recollection?” Mr. Filmer immediately subst.i.tuted. ”What are you all remembering? Speak, my dear,” he said to Mrs. Filmer.
”I was recalling the fact that I had not written a line in my diary for a month.”
”I congratulate you, Emma! People who are happy do not write down their happiness. And you, Miss Van Hoosen?”
”I was remembering some boys that Mr. Filmer and I met in the wood this morning. They were rifling a thrush's nest. I begged them not to do it; but then, boys will be boys.”
”That is the trouble. If they could only be dogs, or any other reasonable, useful, or inoffensive creature! But alas! a good boy is an unnatural boy. Now, Rose, where did your memory stray?”
”To Let.i.tia Landon's wedding. She married Mr. Landon because he was rich, and I was remembering her old lover, Horace Key, standing in the aisle, watching the wedding. There were three at that wedding, I think.”
”And in such cases, two is matrimony, and three divorce. As to your memories, Harry? Are they repeatable?”
”I was thinking of the insane pace and frivolities of the past season; and if I had not spoken, I should have got as far as a reflection on the bliss of a quiet country life, like the present.”
”You must remember, Harry, that the 'frivolity' of the mult.i.tude is never frivolous--it portends too much.”
”And pray, sir, in what direction went your memory?”
”No further than the ferry boat. It gave me, this morning, an opportunity of studying human nature, in its betting aspect.”
”What did you think of it, sir?”
”I thought instantly of Disraeli's definition of the Turf:--'this inst.i.tution for national demoralization.'”
”Is it worse than politics?”
”Yes. Loyalty to one's country is fed upon sentiment, or self-interest.
Americans are a sentimental race--whether they know it or not--and Americans do not, as a general rule, want their country to pay them for loving her. Do you, Harry?”
”No, indeed, sir!”
”There are tens of thousands just as loyal as you are.”
”When women get the suffrage,” said Rose, ”politics will be better and purer.”
”Oh, Rosie! are there not politicians enough in America, without women increasing the awful sum?”
”We feel compelled to increase it, papa. _n.o.blesse oblige_, if you will read s.e.x for rank. I intend to be a Socialist.”
”Then you must become very rich, or very poor. Socialism is only permitted to the very great, or the very small.”
”What of Republicanism, sir?”
”It is highly respectable, Harry. Men who would be gentlemen cannot afford to be anything else; and I have noticed they are more Republican than Harrison himself.”
”Are you a Democrat now, sir?”
”I love Democracy, Harry; but I do not love Democrats.”