Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-11-06
BETWEEN OURSELVES.

Every town in the country has its van
ity, from New Haven with its big elms
to St. Paul with its big houses. To have
cumbrous, unwieldy home is the oltho-
dox ambition of the majority of its bust
ness men. Not infrequently the persons
least fitted to show-off in such spacious
mansions are the ones with the most ag
gravated symptoms of big house.
The amorphous building goes up and
the infatuated owner moves in, to live an
unfamiliar nondescript life, for, he finds
that so much money has been absorbed
in the construction and appointments of
his domicile that he has no margin for
style of expenditure betting his big en-
barassing hobby.
The establishment calling for at least o
half dozen servants is carried on with
the help of two, and the mistress
must perforce have a very
active hand in the house
work, or there is pretty slipshod con-
dition of affairs.
To lessen the exaction the family with
draws gradually from the snowy spa
ciousness into the less roomy and garn-
ished part of the house, giving thereby
all unconsciously whitening touch OF
ironical realism to the situation.
The house may be called practically
closed except when social pressure calls
for some special, swell Demonstration
and then, there must be discord in the
combination of finances with inclination,
and fitness in all the circumstances.
But the orchestra plays bravely, and
who cares for this unerdtone?
In some cases the house is given up
from choice, or pecunlary stress---or the
tired man thereof is let off by death, and
some other volunteer victim tries his
hand at managing the domestic architec
tural elephant.
There is one house whose frontage en-
joys the magnificence of our transcendent
sunsets, as it would seem no other build
ing ever had the privilege before, and it is
almost as pathetic as if it were sentient
to sympathy.
1t is immense for home. A regiment
might be quartered in it without being
crowded.
No pent up hall leads to the great rooms
below stairs, and above-but royal
sweep of generous proportions suggesting
the kind called ancestral
In some time honored town of New
England this house with the vicissitudes
it has seen, would find favor with the
romancer, who, if he could not make it
as interesting as the House of the Seven
Gables. might at least work it into the
history of the place as significant and
'eerie landmark
Hawthorne could have proved with
subtle spell that sinister influence had
been the legacy of each occupant, and that
there was a voiceless, but inevitable lure
of social aggrandizement for them all
ending in disappointment and death.
For years this great house has been
shrouded in the demi- life of that bitterest
of all bitter destiny-genteel poverty,
and at night a dim light in some remote
angle at the side reveals the gloom of its
sombre hugeness and the darkness of its
inchoate ambition.
0, Pompilia, what struggles and
straits have wrenched the stout fibre of
thy pride, and what volcanic disturbance
has burned under that ultra refined crust
of thine. Men have won the Victoria
cross for nothing approaching thy high
hearted courage in the worst cause that
ever called it forth-that of excepting up
appearances.
I admire thee, but cannot pity thee.
Fortunately, its of no consequence in thy
own appraisal. ],
This house has been let, and re-let, but
the tenants find it too much
for them. and abandon it for
some wealthy excuse, such as requiring
warmer climate, a journey to Europe
for educational chimeres in the family
musical development, operate achieve
ment-possibly matrimonial speculation
in titled foreigners, ETC., etc. At any
rate they move.
One set of occupants looked as if they,
might be permanently equal to the house
because they were snowy and expansive,
and liking to spread themselves, natur-
ally wanted lots of room.
They 'entertained'' good deal. Now
this is q curiously elastic term as the So
ciety gossip of our newspapers will
verify. 1t means much, or very little
constructively. One thing was certain.
This gorgeous family s'entertained'
the observing few very much, and were
better than any average play in interest.
Indeed the father was suggestively
dramatic, that is he had way of putting
in a sort of fitting appearance in the
bosom of his family that set one think
ing of stage entrances and exits.
There was vague, yet well-intrenched
prevalence of sentiment that the family
were almost foreign in tastes and habits
from having been so long abroad.
When Mrs. Harris saw the old man
with his chatoyant, calculating eyes, she
said she believed tin Monaco-really