"And if we could remember, Josephine, it would not help us very much. Each generation finds the world a virgin field. Somehow, though, I had fancied that when we had seen them through the scarlet fever and landed them in college, it would be plain sailing. We have to begin all over again, though, and the second half promises to be the most difficult."
"I know it. And think how we worried, or rather tried not to worry, over them when they were little things, and how we fancied there were no problems to compare in difficulty with supplying them with proper food and proper masters. In the last fifteen years they have had everything—chicken-pox, measles, whooping-cough, mumps, and scarlet fever. And they've collected everything—postage-stamps, minerals, butterflies, coins, and cigarette pictures. And they've kept everything—rabbits, goats, bull-terriers, white mice, a pony, and guinea-pigs."
"And owned, and subsequently discarded, to my certain knowledge, a music-box, doll's-house, puppet-show, printing-press, steam-engine, aquarium, and camera."
"Yes, and over and above their school learning they've been taught to swim, ride, dance, use tools, play on the piano, and speak fair to middling French. Yet, as you say, Fred, the most difficult part is to come, just as we fancied that we were through. And the terrible reflection is that we're not so sure now what we ought to do for them as we were when they were younger."
"Precisely, dear."
"And it seems sometimes very strange to me, Fred, that though they've eaten out of the same dish, as it were, all their days, and had the same opportunities, they should be so totally unlike one another physically, mentally, and morally. It's impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rule for them now, as one could do when they were little."
It is indeed. I see them on the threshold of manhood and maidenhood looking up to my wife and me for guidance and counsel, though they pretend to be sufficient to themselves in matters of judgment. A word of encouragement or of disapproval from us may be the turning-point in their destinies, may set the seal on what they are to become. Even as the flowers are drawn by the sun and the willows follow the prevailing wind, their young lives may be turned to good or saved from ill by our loving sympathy or remonstrance in the nick of time. We clinch our fingers in the stress of uncertainty. Good counsel? Yes, a thousand times yes; but who will counsel the counsellors?
How the world has changed since Josephine and I were their age! More particularly that choicest section of it which we were taught to think and speak of as the land of the free and the home of the brave. As I look back now in philosophic mood, simplicity seems to me to have been the keynote of our day. Not merely had the gladsome flannel costume and the Indian pajamas not yet begun to force an issue with the oratorical black broadcloth coat and the up-and-down white nightgown. There were no shingle stains to speak of but those of time and eternity, and he who owned a vehicle of any kind must needs be careful that it was of sombre hue and homely pattern. Among the fixed truths which we imbibed with the maternal milk, and from the prejudice of which I never expect to be wholly free, were these: That though the blatant blast of the Western politician offend the sensitive ear of culture by exaggeration, it is still true that we are the greatest nation under the sun by virtue of our total disregard of everything which other nations have held fast to; that the American woman is a newly created species; that George Washington never told a lie; that though France was on our side in our struggle for Independence, for which we should ever be profoundly grateful, the custom of handing over young people to be married at parental dictate, coupled with certain hoarse suspicions of an unmentionable character, must be an everlasting barrier between us and the Gaul; that, nevertheless, if a man will have his fling, he may do so in Paris once without being held to strict account for it, provided that he comes home and lives a respectable life ever after on this side the water; that Russia's ill-treatment of the serf and general barbaric conditions are to be overlooked on account of the friendliness she displayed toward us in our hour of need, barbarism being on the whole a less crucial blemish than the above-mentioned peculiarities of our other ally; and that everyone should hitch his wagon to a star.
In this last injunction lay, perhaps, the gist of the whole matter. To hitch one's wagon to a star was to be, primarily, a plain person, to go in for truth, patriotism, fineness of soul, long hours of labor, little exercise and no vacations, pies and doughnuts, ugliness of physical surroundings, and squeaky feminine voices. Public opinion justified making all the money one could, provided it was not spent in rendering life ornate or beautiful. So lived our fathers and mothers, our up-right, vigorous, single-minded, ascetic predecessors; and in our day their precepts were still held in reverence. Yet even then there were indications of a change. The newly created species took it into her head to look around her, especially in summer, first by itineraries along the rock-bound coast of her native land, and later by amazon-like pilgrimages abroad. She invented Bar Harbor, and while electrified Europe held its breath perambulated Paris alone and climbed Mont Blanc with a single man. She also made the pertinent discovery that her popper's purse was pudgy with the proceeds of wheat, corn, dry goods, and railway shares. Though she still urged the successive youths who strolled and sat under her Japanese sunshade to hitch their wagons to heavenly bodies, she gave it sweetly, and little by little to be understood that chastity among women and high resolve among men need not preclude more picturesque paraphernalia and a broader field of investigation. She bought French clothes; her brothers took the hint from her, and hied them to Paris and Vienna to pursue their studies; penetrated to Pekin and Constantinople, and hunted the tiger in the jungles of India, while popper's pudgy purse grew more and more plethoric despite the drafts upon it. Purification by pie waned, and the first Queen Anne cottage reared its head.
I wooed and won Josephine in those early, transitory days when the influence of the past was still upon us, though we foresaw and caught glimpses of the new. We were simple souls. I believe that Josephine's wagon was hitched to a star; else I could not have loved her. And she believed the same of mine. She wandered in the panoply of her maiden independence to far-off rookeries attended by me only (or some other swain only). Though we were fain to discuss De Musset and Herbert Spencer, Darwin and Dobson, George Eliot and Philip Gilbert Hamerton—strange names to the elder generation—our scheme of life was still essentially grave and plain for all Josephine's Japanese sunshade and tendency to make the most of her willowy figure. Little did we dream of the later development which, like a huge wave, was to sweep over the land of the free and the home of the brave, overwhelming its native simplicity with the virtues, tastes, and vices of the other nations against which our forefathers barred the door. Palaces in all but the name stand where the buffalo was wont to disport himself, and where the American eagle in human form once flapped his wings and screamed most viciously in contempt of the effete civilization of the older world. Sons and daughters of the pioneers who bolted their dinners on the stroke of twelve find seven too early for elegant convenience. Among the reddest and palest of hot-house roses, which deck their tables, glisten glass of Venetian pattern and china from the bankrupt stock of kings. According to their intellectualities their talk is of labor and capital, of working-girls' clubs and model tenement-houses, of Buddha and Zola, of foreign titles, and transplanted fox-hunting. To-day a hundred thousand dollars is barely a competency, and a building less than a dozen stories high dwarfs the highway of trade. The vestibule limited, the ocean grey-hound, the Atlantic cable, and the voice-bearing telephone have made all nations kin, and bid fair to amalgamate society. Even the newly created species condescends to swap her birthright for a coronet.