Ever faithfully yours,
S.
Santo Espiritu, Midsummer, 1924
CONTENTS
| BOOK ONE: CHALLENGING THE IDEA OF CHASTITY | ||
| PAGE | ||
| I. | We Discuss the Responsibilities of Parents and Critics | [3] |
| II. | I Meditate, in front of a Bookcase, on Scott, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and the Good Victorians | [17] |
| III. | H. G. Wells, Galsworthy, May Sinclair, J. D. Beresford | [27] |
| IV. | Seven Reasons for Mr. Hergesheimer, D. H. Lawrence, and the Emetic School | [35] |
| V. | We Discuss Marriage and the Hope of the Younger Generation | [48] |
| BOOK TWO: AN ELIGIBLE YOUNG MAN | ||
| I. | Cornelia’s Children React to a Suitable Match | [61] |
| II. | “Let’s Walk” | [67] |
| III. | Prerequisites of a Decent Marriage | [73] |
| IV. | Cornelia Appreciates Her Husband | [80] |
| V. | We Discuss the Inner Life | [86] |
| VI. | A Theory of Happiness | [91] |
| VII. | The Real Thing | [97] |
| BOOK THREE: TREATING OF MODERN GIRLS | ||
| I. | The Education of Daughters | [103] |
| II. | Flags of Revolt | [118] |
| III. | Bloom | [120] |
| IV. | Careers for Women | [129] |
| BOOK FOUR: CORNELIA AND DIONYSUS | ||
| I. | Ennui in the Provinces | [139] |
| II. | New Year’s Eve in New York | [150] |
| III. | His Excellency on Economic Necessity | [162] |
| IV. | Vernon Willys on Bacchic Ecstasy | [171] |
| V. | I Explain the Position of Cæsar’s Wives | [184] |
| VI. | I Discuss the Ethics of an Automobiling Civilization | [203] |
| VII. | The Vengeance of Dionysus | [211] |
| BOOK FIVE: APPROACHING RELIGION AND OTHER GRAVE MATTERS | ||
| I. | We Meet in Southern California | [223] |
| II. | Oliver Junior Discusses His Parents, Their Religion, and His Own | [230] |
| III. | Table Talk at Santo Espiritu | [245] |
| IV. | A Silence by the Sea | [253] |
| V. | Cornelia’s Religious Experience | [267] |
BOOK ONE
CHALLENGING THE IDEA OF CHASTITY
I
WE DISCUSS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS AND CRITICS
When I am in doubt, I talk with Cornelia; and while I am with her, my uncertainties disappear. But this subject she herself broached, at her home in one of those paradises of wood and water where Americans of her class have learned to hide their lives—for the summer.
She is a young woman of forty-five, with what Hazlitt somewhere calls a “coronet face,” finely cut and proudly borne, and it gives one a feeling of distinction merely to be in her presence. My memory holds like a piece of radiant sculpture the image that she left there at her wedding, twenty years ago, when she turned at the altar after the episcopal benediction and paced down the aisle, clear-eyed and fearless, to the thunder of organ music: it seemed to me then that the young chevalier of the diplomatic service on whose arm her hand had alighted was leading the Samothracian Victory into the holy state of matrimony. It was an excellent alliance, with high sanctions and distinguished witnesses, auspiciously begun and with a constantly felicitous continuation. She has walked ever since, so her friends declare, between purple ribbons: her ways have gone smoothly and well in delectable regions far above the level of the rank-scented multitude.
When one talks with her, her hands lie still in her lap. She does not think with her hands, nor does any other emphasis of her body intrude its comment upon the serene and assured movements of her intelligence. So remote she seems from the ignominious and infamous aspects of existence, that one wonders how she becomes aware of them. Yet such unpleasant things, verminous or reptilian, as creep within range of her vision she inspects sharply and with intrepidity; for she knows precisely how to deal with them.
As I sat there, blissfully receiving a sense of the security and perfection which emanate from her, it just flickered into my consciousness that, if a mouse could have entered that impeccably ordered room, she would not for a moment have been at a loss. She would quietly have summoned a maid. Then she would have said: “There is a mouse in the room. Take it out.” She likes everything to be right; and she knows so absolutely what is right, that any shade of uncertainty in conversation with her seems a kind of baseness and disloyalty. Yet, as much as a superior being can be troubled, she was troubled about the state of current fiction. She was troubled in that high and spirited sense of responsibility which certain fine women feel for the tone of the Republic.