A Twentieth Century Idealist

by Henry Pettit

When she made her début, scarcely an evening passed that some “man” did not tell her confidentially: “You look lovely to-night, Miss Cultus;” and when upon a certain full-dress occasion she sat with Mr. Warder on the stairway, presumably with none but the old stand-up clock to listen, the first remark she heard was, “Oh, I’m so glad, Miss Cultus, we can have a chat, alone!” “Alone!” exclaimed Adele. “Why, certainly, alone in the crowd,”—and as she drew her skirts aside to allow four other couples and a queue of waiters to pass, her clear responsive laugh appreciative of the situation, made Mr. Warder enjoy the public seclusion immensely.

Evidently there was a personal magnetism about Adele which affected all more or less, and many whose own characteristics were totally unlike hers.

At a glance anyone would have noticed her light hair flowing free, yet under control, tinged with sunlight, the sunlight of youth; hers was a fair complexion like her mother’s, yet with her father’s lustrous eyes. She was a blonde with dark eyes; once seen, a picture in the mind’s eye.

Her father’s facial expression played over her countenance, manifesting that responsive personal interest which drew many to her. Her mother, as we already know, could express that responsive attitude also, and exercise the personal influence when she chose, but with Adele it was spontaneous, perfectly natural, and her smile sincere, ingenuous, rather than ingenious, one of the most precious and potent gifts a woman can possess.

And some of her other gifts by heredity were also very evident, but modified. Dame Nature had been exceedingly kind, and given her as it were only those elements which intensified the better traits of the previous generations. Her active mind reminded one of her father’s intellectual ability in science, but it was so modified by her mother’s more comprehensive susceptibility and impressionability in many directions, her worldly wisdom and promptness, that in Adele it took a different turn from either one of the parents. Her social instincts could not be suppressed, but fundamentally they tended towards an appreciation and insight of the humanities and ethical subjects rather than the material interests one might look for in the granddaughter of Anthony Gains, or the intellectual abstractions which might have come from the Professor’s mode of thought.

Before graduating, some one asked her what she proposed to do after leaving college, for all felt a brilliant career was open. Adele was rather reserved in answering this question, and generally replied that there was so much which ought to be done in the world, no doubt she would be very busy. But to her mother she confided on one occasion her innermost thought, she “would like to work in the slums.” This so horrified Mamma that Adele’s name was entered upon the fashionable Assembly list for the coming season without delay, as an antidote in case of emergency, although somewhat premature as to time.

It would never do to oppose Adele. She was already unaccustomed to that sort of management, and would assert herself even if she regretted it afterwards. A compromise was in order. She did not go to work in the slums, and did attend fashionable functions with her mother, but after serious conversation with her father on the subject of the practice of medicine by women, and her own observations of the constant demand for trained nurses who would not upset the whole household, she concluded to look into that matter herself, and volunteered to serve in the hospital during war times.

“I must do something to help along; and nobody need know, unless I choose.” It was while thus serving that the Doctor and Paul had first met her, when the Doctor was a patient after his bicycle accident in a miniature cyclone. It was in the hospital that Doctor Wise had first read her hand, and made a note of it as approaching the psychic type more clearly than any other he had then met.

From the Doctor’s point of view Adele’s hand was indeed suggestive, but not so purely psychical as to intimate mysticism to excess. It was rather that of a vivid idealist than a moody mystic,—too much intellectuality in the upper part, as well as assertion in the thumb and clearness in the head-line, not to influence and modify the natural tendency and scope as shown by the general form. It was not the hand of one whose vague aspirations after the good but unattainable would lead to extremes either in the activities of communism or socialistic vagaries, nor in the opposite direction towards the passive life of an ascetic. Either one would have soon disgusted Adele. It was the hand of one who endeavored to be logical, and did have common sense; yet in the exuberance of feeling sometimes put her hero upon a pedestal only to find the pedestal had a crack in it and the hero was in danger. As to the hero himself, he was never affected; she remained true to her hero, no sawdust in him; but she certainly did put him quietly aside on the shelf when she found herself beyond his point of view. She simply put him on the shelf to “think it out for himself,” as she had done for herself,—and in consequence had more would-be heroes following in her train, striving to catch up, than is generally found in the domain of hero worship.

Youth has its sway. Adele was most delightfully enthusiastic at times, often bent upon what she called “having a good time.” Then she was a picture worthy of Fortuny’s art in a sunny Spanish patio; but in quieter moments as introspective as one of Millais’ peasants; rather over-confident in her own resources, having really not met as yet any opposition worthy of the name, unless perhaps a weak patient who refused to take medicine. Then she took a sip herself, and told him “Now you’ve got to take it,” and he did,—because her actions spoke louder even than her words.