登陆注册
20290500000015

第15章

Mrs. Pasmer philosophised the case with a clearness and a courage which gave her husband a series of twinges analogous to the toothache, for a man naturally shrinks from such bold realisations. She said Alice had the beauty of a beauty, and she had the distinction of a beauty, but she had not the principles of a beauty; there was no use pretending that she had. For this reason the Prince of Wales's set, so accessible to American loveliness with the courage of its convictions, was beyond her;and the question was whether there was money enough for a younger son, or whether, if there was, a younger son was worth it.

However this might be, there was no question but there was now less money than there had been, and a great deal less. The investments had not turned out as they promised; not only had dividends been passed, but there had been permanent shrinkages. What was once an amiable competency from the pooling of their joint resources had dwindled to a sum that needed a careful eye both to the income and the outgo. Alice's becoming a young lady had increased their expenses by the suddenly mounting cost of her dresses, and of the dresses which her mother must now buy for the different role she had to sustain in society. They began to ask themselves what it was for, and to question whether, if she could not marry a noble Englishman, Alice had not better marry a good American.

Even with Mrs. Pasmer this question was tacit, and it need not be explained to any one who knows our life that in her most worldly dreams she intended at the bottom of her heart that her daughter should marry for love. It is the rule that Americans marry for love, and the very rare exception that they marry for anything else; and if our divorce courts are so busy in spite of this fact, it is perhaps because the Americans also unmarry for love, or perhaps because love is not so sufficient in matters of the heart as has been represented in the literature of people who have not been able to give it so fair a trial.

But whether it is all in all in marriage, or only a very marked essential, it is certain that Mrs. Pasmer expected her daughter's marriage to involve it. She would have shrunk from intimating anything else to her as from a gross indecency; and she could not possibly, by any finest insinuation, have made her a partner in her design for her happiness. That, so far as Alice was concerned, was a thing which was to fall to her as from heaven; for this also is part of the American plan.

We are the children of the poets, the devotees of the romancers, so far as that goes; and however material and practical we are in other things, in this we are a republic of shepherds and shepherdesses, and we live in a golden age; which if it sometimes seems an age of inconvertible paper, is certainly so through no want of faith in us.

Though the Pasmers said that they ought to go home for Alice's sake, they both understood that they were going home experimentally, and not with the intention of laying their bones in their native soil, unless they liked it, or found they could afford it. Mrs. Pasmer had no illusions in regard to it. She had learned from her former visits home that it was frightfully expensive; and, during the fifteen years which they had spent chiefly abroad, she had observed the decay of that distinction which formerly attended returning sojourners from Europe. She had seen them cease gradually from the romantic reverence which once clothed them, and decline through a gathering indifference into something like slight and compassion, as people who have not been able to make their place or hold their own at home; and she had taught herself so well how to pocket the superiority natural to the Europeanised American before arriving at consciousness of this disesteem, that she paid a ready tribute to people who had always stayed at home.

In fact Mrs. Pasmer was a flatterer, and it cannot be claimed for her that she flattered adroitly always. But adroitness in flattery is not necessary for its successful use. There is no morsel of it too gross for the condor gullet and the ostrich stomach of human vanity; there is no society in which it does not give the utterer instant honour and acceptance in greater or less degree. Mrs. Pasmer, who was very good-natured, employed it because she liked it herself, and knowing how absolutely worthless it was from her own tongue, prized it from others.

She could have rested perfectly safe without it in her social position, which she found unchanged by years of absence. She had not been a Hibbins for nothing, and she was not a Pasmer for nothing, though why she should have been either for something it would not be easy to say.

But while confessing the foibles of Mrs. Pasmer, it would not be fair to omit from the tale of her many virtues the final conscientiousness of her openly involuted character. Not to mention other things, she instituted and practised economies as alien to her nature as to her husband's, and in their narrowing affairs she kept him out of debt. She was prudent;she was alert; and while presenting to the world all the outward effect of a butterfly, she possessed some of the best qualities of the bee.

With his senatorial presence, his distinction of person and manner, Mr.

同类推荐
  • 阴证略例

    阴证略例

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说无言童子经

    佛说无言童子经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 千金裘

    千金裘

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 洪恩灵济真君自然行道仪

    洪恩灵济真君自然行道仪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER

    THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 狐里狐涂千结缘

    狐里狐涂千结缘

    有没有搞错,这位国主还有完没完了?面对他的调戏,她怒道:“信不信我让你不能人道?”他笑:“我是狐,只能兽道”惹不起,她还走不起么?可这块狗皮膏药,她怎么甩也甩不掉。更加气愤的是,偷了她的心后,他竟不负责任地溜了!好!她便强娶吧!洞房花烛夜,她气焰嚣张,怎料他反客为主,粉碎了她翻身的妄想。“其实我正好缺一个你这样的下饭菜。”然后,她就被吃掉了。
  • 商周行

    商周行

    千古第一大贤姜子牙,居然是一逗比。古今第一妖媚苏妲己,竟然是个矮胖子。才华公子伯邑考的真实死因究竟为何,古之恶来究竟长了几个脑袋。痴心的纣王,薄情的姬发。老谋的姬昌,解梦的周公。小说主人公携女朋友误入商周,二人是将同甘共苦,共建大业,还是各为其主,相互争斗,敬请期待……
  • 警路仙途

    警路仙途

    警察会法术,流氓挡不住。这是一个不入流的小警员,偶得法术之后,纵意警界的传奇。我这人很和善是个老好人,没什么仇人,原因很简单,因为得罪我的人,要么在监狱,要么在地狱。李向东微笑着介绍自己说。。。**************************新书已上传《寻宝美利坚》书号:3478870新书已上传《寻宝美利坚》书号:3478870新书已上传《寻宝美利坚》书号:3478870新书已上传《寻宝美利坚》书号:3478870新书已上传《寻宝美利坚》书号:3478870新书已上传《寻宝美利坚》书号:3478870恭迎大家莅临欣赏,收藏推荐,蚂蚁叩谢!传送门在下面!!!!!!
  • 冰揭罗天童子经

    冰揭罗天童子经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 谜都

    谜都

    一道黑影急速而来,带着凄厉的嘶喊,耳中嗡鸣不断,几乎要晕眩。想逃,却被一股无形的力量束缚,黑影来到了面前,可以看到狰狞的面孔,还在滴血的獠牙。突然,手中的玉戒光亮闪现,刹那间地宫灯火通明,散发出淡紫色妖异的光芒,黑影消失不见,无形的束缚也消散。可还是无法移动分毫,无限放大的瞳孔,眼前的东西足以让一切凝滞,原来……
  • 课本上读不到的地理故事

    课本上读不到的地理故事

    晴朗的天空突然下起倾盆大雨、沙漠中的湖泊居 然会漂移、博物馆里奇怪的雕像和图案……我们身边 这些有趣的生活现象其实蕴含着奥妙无穷的地理知识 。《课本上读不到的地理故事(适读于10-15岁)》 由李琳编著,将把你带进神奇的地理世界,让你知道 云彩是怎么形成的,为什么6月也会下雪,地球脸上 *大的“伤疤”在哪里,海水为什么会变成红色,百 慕大为什么喜欢“吃”飞机……《课本上读不到的地 理故事(适读于10-15岁)》收入的这些妙趣横生的地 理故事一定让你大开眼界、叹为观止,让你轻轻松松 爱上地理、学会地理。
  • 媛定幽蓝

    媛定幽蓝

    我,丘歆瑗在双子星宿下出生,在17岁这年很多事情改变了,我又何去何从。梦中的男子在现实中出现,口口声声说着爱我。莫名其妙的走进了“幽蓝阁”,神秘人赠予我一串幽蓝手链,说能帮我找到命定的恋人还能帮助我度过一次大劫。在学院内和四大校草扯上了关系。风风雨雨过后是不是其中暗藏杀机,最终命运又会是如何的安排……
  • 星辰的交响诗

    星辰的交响诗

    这是存在于未来的的科技时代,但是,它却不是一个文明的时代。当腐朽的皇权与觉醒的民意产生激撞之时,迸发而出的火花,便将乱世的烽火点燃——属于英雄们的时代,就此到来。如同无数颗闪耀于苍穹的星辰,他们辉映着,碰撞着,奏响起传诵于后世的交响诗篇。但是,后人却无从得知,天空中最耀眼的一颗星辰,一名背负沉重命运的稚龄少年,守护他的启明之星,却是来自于三千年前的远古时代……
  • 被时间烫热的你和我

    被时间烫热的你和我

    过往的青春,总该留下点什麽,纪念下轻易流逝的岁月
  • 玉帝灵传

    玉帝灵传

    天下大乱,灾星下凡,一个乞丐最终却是救世英雄,且看这乞丐是如何脱胎换骨,最终成为一代玉帝的