VII
An Olive Outline
In Shades and Shadows
Of a Clever Social Life.
Platitudes and Pleasures.
My life is different from the usual social existence of the average society girl.
I have never followed the mirage of a definite ideal.
I have never been a straggler for social honors—they have been mine without the struggling. I was born to a position. It is mine by right of inheritance. There is no strong odor of lately acquired greenbacks about our old and very respectable establishment. We live on a quiet, unfashionable street; we are somewhat apart from the world, and yet we are frequently sought—for we never seek. My grandfather was a man of excellent parts and much power in his native State. He was a well-known, important factor in the home of his adoption. His wife was celebrated for her ready wit and radiant beauty in the days when Madison was President.
My father is a great man. It is not a greatness hedged in by a local limit; he is known far and wide. His scientific researches have made him famous and his name familiar and beloved on foreign shores. Nor is he a prophet without honor even in his own country.
My mother is a rare woman. She is peculiarly a womanly woman. She constantly gives her best thought, her best effort, to the members of her family, always forgetting self; and she is full of the tenderest consideration toward other people. She never speaks ill of her neighbor; she is always true. She is always ready to discharge her duty—and more. She is tender, gentle, firm; there is not a flower which blooms more full, better rounded out, more sweet, better to look upon, or in any way more complete, more perfect than she.
I may not be great or entirely good myself, but I constantly breathe an atmosphere exhilarating and pure—made so by the presence of a great man and a good woman.