Part 46 (2/2)
”I can wait,” I said
”But a girl like you could never stand that kind of life You aren't fitted for it You weren't brought up to be a poor ,” I returned gayly enough, but heartsick at the thought of the long wait
Carl, however, quite agreed with my brothers and wanted impetuously to start afresh in pursuit of the career in Wall Street he had forsworn, willing and eager--the darling!--to throay ae his inherited tastes, abandon his cultivated talents, and forget the five years he had ”squandered in riotous learning,” as he put it!
However, I was not willing--for his sake He would regret it later
They always do Besides, like Carl, I had certain unuttered ideals about serving the world in those days We still have Only noe better understand the world Make no mistake about this Men are just as noble as they used to be Plenty of the to sacrifice themselves--but not us That is why so few of the sortin these so-called materialistic days
What was the actual,taken seriously the advice ladled out to hie presidents and other evil coht hiain?
At the tie and had just begun his career--an instructor in the economics department, with a thousand-dollar salary That is not why he was called an econo their best to break the engagement? I do not--now It was not their fault if Carl actually practiced what they merely preached Should Carl be blamed? No; for he seriously intended never to marry at all--until he met me Should I be blae abroad and staying abroad until Carl--bless hi anybody I a why so few men in university work, or, for that matter, in most of the professions nowadays, can support wives until after the naturaltime is past
By that time their true mates have usually wed other men--men who can support them--not the men they really love, but the e is woman's only true career, it is hardly true to one's family or oneself not to follow it before it is too late--especially when denied training for any other--even though shefor the only career open to her
This sounds like a confession of personal failure due to the typical unpreparedness for irl I do not think anyone could call ourthe long period of our engagement I became almost as well prepared forin sweet, sighing idleness I took courses in domestic science, studied dietetics,up on econoher education of woe
It amused Carl too, until I convinced him that I was really interested in the subject, not just in hi me boxes of books instead of boxes of candy, which -minded I did not care what they calledup for the ties, which may have made me more attractive to men, but had not fitted me to be the wife of any man, rich or poor
All that my accomplishments and those of my sisters actually accomplished, as I see it noas to kill e incoer family and died a poor man, like so many prominent members of the bar
I shall not dwell on the ordeal of a long engagement It is often made to sound romantic in fiction, but in realistic life such an unnatural relationshi+p is a refined atrocity--often an injurious one--except to pseudo-hus so unreal and unroed at all I nearly died; and as for Carl--well, unrequited affection ood for some men, but requited affection in such circue is!
A high-strung, ambitious fellow like Carl needed no incentive to make him work hard or to keep him out of mischief, any more than he needed a prize toin the score What an ignoble view of these ood people accept! In point of fact he had been able to dohandicap--in short, would have been in a position to ed to e, but that isthat concerns the most important relationshi+p in life
Nevertheless, despite what he was pleased to call his inspiration, he won his assistant professorshi+p at an earlier age than the average, and ere married on fifteen hundred a year
Oh, what a happy year! I am bound to say the family were very nice about it Everyone was nice about it And e ca journey the other professors' wives overwhelmed me with kindness and with calls--and with teas and dinners and receptions in our honor Carl had been a very popular bachelor and his friends were pleased to treat enerous, but disquieting
I was afraid they would soon see through me and pity poor Carl
I had supposed, like most outsiders, that the women of a university toould be dreadfully intellectual andaware of nificent li new friends of mine, especially the wealthier norant in respect of the interesting period of civilization in which they happened to live--alnorant as I was and as most ”nice people” are everywhere
Books sufficiently old, art sufficiently classic, views sufficiently venerable to be respectable--these interested thees; but ideas that were h they e culture, I soon discovered, does not care about what is happening to the world, but what used to happen to it
”You see, my dear,” Carl explained, with that quiet, casualto pious devotees of ”cultureine”--and even to h I adored and soon adopted it! ”--universities don't lead thought--they follow it In Europe institutions of learning may be--indeed, they frequently are--hotbeds of radicalises are merely featherbeds for conservatism to die in respectably”
Then he added: ”But what could you expect? You see, we are still intellectually _nouveaux_ over here, and therefore self-consciously correct and i as you have a broad _a_ you need never worry about a narrow e of sitting at their feet and learning s about the universe Perhaps they were too tired to have their feet encu women; for when I ventured to ask questions about their subject their ansas--not always--but in so many cases a solemn owllike ”yes-and-no” that I soon learnedand preferred light banter and persiflage I like that, too, when it is well done; but I was accustomed to men who did it better
I preferred the society of their wives I do not expect any member of the complacent sex to believe this statement--unless I add that the men did not fancy my society, which would not be strictly true; but, even if not so intellectual as I had feared, the wo than I had hoped, and when you cannot have both cleverness and kindness the latter reeable atmosphere for a permanent home I still consider theret about being lory of youth apart Youth is the ti the instructors h cost of living; and I should have been so willing to live as certain of thes fro on her stove after she had done hers
Carl gave eaged I did not kno to cook, though I was a good dancer and could play Liszt's Polonaise in E flat with but few mistakes