New-York tribune., 1885-03-29

tell me what he thought about this nephew OF mine.
Very possibly he would have said some brill ant.
wise. philosophc thing il he had been called npOn
10 give an estimate of Bradford's true relations
toward society and the place that he really holds
among his fellows. Bnt Bradford, who would
doubtless not have understood the pOhegm even
il he had heard it, would have gone on in his career
precisely the If he is to be pied. Le is very
ioftily ignorant of 1t. He may be a mote IN sun
BEAM but he has got INTO particularly warm .nn-
beam nevertheless, and he has no consciousness
whatever of being ANYTHING so small as Il mote.
Profoundly selfish. and rather proud than ignorant
of his selishness, should like to learn III what
respect my nephew is not more happy than many
very many-virtnous, generous. seli-sacrihclng
men. AS watch him, favored and even prtted Ot
fortune, with his worst faults so easily condOncd,
with his minutest atoms OF goodness so ciaTitably
magnified with the world eager TO bend upon him
its most ndugent smile. with conscience as
pellucid and inty as glass, with heart rs calm
and as frigld as MARBLE with nerves that can sen
suously tinge to all appetite, with an intellect
exempt from all troublous problems because well
below the level OF all tewOrthy Thought as |
watch him in this unalterng and self-contanei
state of human ease am forced to remember the
thousands after tn ,usands of his iellowbengs who
yearly drop manned and weary and jaded into their
graves
give every tenet and axiom of ethical philosophy
the lie. i do not say that they do; only sag that
they seem. We told that there is always n
Nemesis waiting somewhere in the shadow of every
life-a Fury. who will one day bind our vices and
follies into a merciless scorpion whip. Meanwhile,
where is my nophews Nemesis = where is his Fury 7
that calamity. He may lose his wealth. But mag
unanimous reformers of the purest type have thus
suffered And meanwhile no drives. rides, dimes.
and does not dream OF a doubled rose-eaf
under his mattress. En- eTet, lie could sleep peace.
fully over cobbe-stone; he is so blunt and
unsensitve, this nephew of minel
What does it all mean 7 ask myself. again and
again. Are there such absurdly short cuts this
TO the iongsougbt realm of earthly happiness :
When the mightiest of our race spend life-tnes in
seeking that summum bonum, does it now and then
fall willing star in the lap of some idling sybar-
ite7 We sneer nowadays at the doctrn of the
elect. But how tyraDnica Is that strange elective
agency from which, every hour lin the day, Mr..
Bradford Putnam reaps so full and unfaling a
profit We constantly speak of America as young
country, but am sometimes OF the opinion that
we are wrong in ever alludIng to her youth.
Certainly she produces types. now and then, which
would seem the result of hoary, centuries: AS a
confirmation OF this Judgment l have only to look
at my nephew. Old before his time, without a
single republican instinct or impul Sc with not a
CLEAN of spontanety, freshness or juyenity, he
might stand to-day for the latest civilized out
growth of some half-crumbed monarchy. ancient
as India, corrupt as France. as patrician as Eng
land. and II had almost added cruel as Russia
Copyright. by Edgar Fawcett. 1851