Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-10-21
MR.. VAN NORES DAUGHTERIN-
LAW.
From Our Continent.

From Our Continent.
The Van Nores were present at the creation
OF the world. Some people say they made it;
but one really knows better than that. II it
had not been for their unaccountable belief
that the builder of the ark that rested on Mount
| Ararat was Jew, and their unutterable con-
tempt for the race of Spnoza and MendelssOhn,
of Heine, Auerbach and Disraeli. they would
not have hesitated to conceive that the family
name of the Patriarch was Van More.
At any rate, you may understand that the
Van NOres were an immensely ancient family.
| so old as to be really wCrm-eaten. In the dust
| of the Van NOres there were soldiers and states
men. and even less regarded author or two;
| in this century there was nothing at all to speak
| or H. however, any one says their family tree
was like one Of those of DID, wide and deep
| rooted fir trees. sometimes seen, with but
single gnar1ed and lchened branch left of all its
/ forest glory. the best part of it underground,
you can see that the person is no friend of the
Van Nores, but one whose eyes have been hurt
! by the dazzle OF their splendOr who has been
| forgotten at their banquets looked at with a
stony glare upon the street or possibly knocked
down and bruised and ignored by their fast
horses.
Being immensely ancient. immensely distin-
guished, and also immensely wealthy. it goes
without saying that the Van NOres thought inn
mensely well of themselves. They never soiled
their garments by contact with the crowd: they
bought their pictures and statues straight from
the manufacturers before they had been pro-
famed by the vulgar gaze; they would have
liked the gold they spent cast with Van More
device and the die broken. They could not hope
to keep all the knowledge i'm the universe to
themselves; but they did not care so much for
that-there were always tutors and chaplains
and all that to be had, after the
custom of certain of the South Sea
Island chiefs, who maintain Fila-Oma or
Talking Man of knowledge. IT. once I'M while.
they allowed themselves to come before the
public in a matter of suffrage 1t was not alto
gether without the sensation of some wicked
scribe who has written the Sacred Name with
unwashed hands. and, being usually defeated
they relapsed into more profound contempt of
the people than before. and talked glibly of the
advantages of monarchy. although not With
out an undercurrent of feeling that i'm the event
of a monarchy the Van NOres would be mon
archs. They intermarried, of course. only with
families of a pedigree and assumption one de-
gree less than-it could not be more than and
could hardly be equal tO-the Van Nores.
Judge. then. OF the bewildered and amazed
wrath of the Van More family. when the son of
the house. the heir of the name. the last of the
name. the only male Van More left to 90 down
the ages with the weight of the family illuStri-
BUSINESS upon his shoulders. married young
girl in the west unknown obscure poor and
Il Jewess,
More Van More had sister older than him
self. dark and imposing creature with the Van
More nose; he had sister younger that himself,
pailid. bloOdles5. with her moth rs del;cacy of
feature, and with nothing about her but her
haughtiness to distinguish her from the herd
OF young women; he had one Van More cousin.
little apple blossom hardly coming up to tine
family requirements; he had four Van More
spinster aunts. who, if they quarrelad among
themselves like birds i'm wood. presented an
unbroken phalanX of family integrity to the
public. and who. with the idea that they had
the manners of duclesses. really gave some
reason to believe them directly descended from
the Patriarch, they looked so extremely like the
wooden women in the chdren's toy arks. His
father embodied all the dignity, pomposty
and grandeur of all the Van Nores be-
fore him. if he were the flame of
their ashes: he had but one gift, and
that was faculty for satirical speech. which
he exercised with impunity upon his wife-his
wife. the line of whose descent was so long that
| IL had worn to cOlOrless, attenuated thread in
her. thin. pale lanruid woman. of whose con-
dltl0n If espresso little to say she dared not call
her soul her own. because in looking at her. or
looking through her. rather it was not clear
that she mad soui-a woman without intellect
without individuality, and almost without
vitality. Into this assemblage More Van More
mad dared Introduce person absolutely without
q grandfather, and whose grandfather had
| bac,
Mr.. Van More and his household would en-
treat this vile and vulgar intriguer who had
thrust herself upon them. aud had thought to
lift herself by pulling them down. as she de-
served. In their heart of hearts they had a
complete. if inartcuiate. consciousness that no
one could have married the bridegroom in cues
ton for any other purpose And More Van
More received a letter of reputation from his
father, dlSOwning and casting him forever into
the outer darkness of the world of people who
were not Van NOreS
And who was More Van More? He was q Young
man of twenty-sX years. whose mental pro-
cesses had mastered the rudiments of learning
/ N N thaf hDn %lo,
paper and make change. All attempts to cuti-
yde those mental processes much further had
failed; If he entered the university at last it
was because tutors and prOcrOrs and family in
1ueEce, a fOrtuitOus chance, and perhaps money
all wrought together. Entrance was |. how
ever: before the first term closed Mr. Van More
had private but authoritative information that
unless he wanted expulsion for stupidity ap-
preaching imbecility he had better withdraw
ms son. In a not and self-righteOus fury Mr.. Van
More turned the tables and expelled the unyer-
sity He Withdrew his son with wild show of an
ger and faculty, curriculum. endowment
and career They have graduated no man who
comesto anything in the last TWENTY-FIVE years,',
he said. And that the matter might be the
sooner forgotten, he gave Mr.. More Van More a
purse and travelling companion. and de-
spatciled him to the far west. 1t was probably
but case OF retarded Development: perhaps he
would do little exploring and discovering;
when he should return the affair would have
quite blown over, and he would marry him to
some maiden who had been SO well brought up
that she would feel herself taking proper place
among Nominations princes and powers by mar
ryin@ VanNore of any caliber. All the same
he did not fail to make his wifes life a burden
to her BY sarcasns on her feeble wit that ha d
been strong enough to adultera:e the strength
OF the Van More, while tine very sense of his
sons incapacty, thus forced upon him, was
another argument against the woman who
would marry an imbecie for the sake of climb
ing into his rank and position.
Ii was not altogether to be wondered at !,
then, if his wife did not fully sympathize with
him in this extremity. and if. being of an affec-
tionate disposition. so far she had ANYTHING
to impart. having impaired that also to her son,
she wrote little surreptitious letter-she who
had usually not thought nor deed nor an
emotion of her own
MY DARLING Boy: / send you all my love-
Any wife you choose to marry will be the dear
daughter OF your MOTHER
That was the letter written so secretly: it
meant volumes to her: it meant volumes to her
boy. She was frightened to a trembling ghost
OF her ghost-like self when she stopped the car
rage and asked the fOOtnan to drop it i'm a
street-box. for she felt that if her husband knew