The Portland daily press., 1895-04-08
Ny COUSIN MARY.

1t was my sad fortune from earliest boy
hood up to be failure in all ways. 1
was not SO handsome as could have been
expected in the son of my beautiful moth
er and the young father who died before l
was born, and who was also beautiful, I
was told. was not brilliant, though
both sides of the house showed men and
women of excellent ability, and, worst of
all, I was not good, though this puzzled
me not little as child, for my inten-
Itions were of a magnificent order and the
resultant behavior not nearly SO repre-.
hensible as that of many boys knew less
punished.
But in some way the things meant to
do failed of accomplishment or were found
when accomplished to have most unhappy
consequences, and the things / did under
pressure of discipline We're seldom salts
factory.
Years of reproof and often overheard
complaint as to my trying disposition
finally convinced me of my unworthiness,
and in time I grew 80 look at my life as
a failure, merely an opportunity for as
much self indulgence as could be procured
without too great expense.
| Being of lazy and luxurious disposi-
tion, early fell into the habit of deriving
AN inexhaustible fund OF pleasure from
mere imagination of what things might
be, to console myself for my Intellectual
struggle to make them such. AS little
boy 1 was sent to bed with military pre-
cision by my inf1exible mother, usually
with sense of failure and ill doing in
3 6rxy l0bi RI n %, -,
and still in my little chamber and mako
up to myself in royal bursts of imagina-
tion for the disappointments of the real
life How often, so laid and thought to
be sound asleep, I have in spirit not only
established my pre-eminent virtues by a
series of noble acts, SO easy to imagine, SO
difficult to perform in the gray irksome-
ness of everyday life, but besides this have
I glutted my infant soul with the sweet
vengeance of magnanimity, arranging
unparalleled donations and privileges to
be conferred by me, me the lamentable
and unworthy son, upon my grateful fam
lily and friends. One sweetest joy of these
fair dreams was that when should be
man my Cousin Mary, who disliked me
for the disagreeable boy I was, should
love and marry me.
Tt was q sore problem with me in th Sc
days to decide whether should indeed re-
ceiye the open gratitude of my beneficial
ries, reveling gloriously therein, or wheth
er, proudest height of power concealed 7
should bestow all benefits in secret and
yet remain, condemned and criticised by
the unwilling recipients of my bounty.
But my Cousin Mary in these dreams al
ways loved me for myself, and then, after
ward, ah the jewels I showered upon herI
This habit Of internally satisfying my
self, of paying back in triumphant mag
nanimity for all the stings and arrows of
outrageous fortune continued with me
as I grew and remained my best consola-
tion after I had become an unaspiring re-
porter on a great newspaper. And still in
my solitary chamber down town, when I
was not so tired as to sleep perforce in
what hours remained to me, would con-
sole myself for all the notifications of the
day and Of all other days in my unhappy
memory by proud, unhampered visions of
what would do under given conditions
of wealth and power.
Splendid conditions these, SO easily i'm
agined, fitting SO smoothly to my shoul-
ders as I planned and adapted them, but,
ah, so laughably impossible Of attainment!
And then, all at once, by a chance no
stranger, to be sure, than many a one l
was in the daily habit of recording, there
fell into my hands, not talent and beauty
and power indeed as I had demanded in
my boyish dreams, but wealth practically
unbounded, such wealth as could never
Of myself have earned or won or found, or
in any least or faintest way deserved
70 be sure, had been laying myself ont
on the old fellow, as / should never have
dared to do had l known him for a. mil
honaire, but that was not from benevo-
lence, but purely selfish appreciation of
his boundless fund of travel and expert
ence His society was worth money to me
besides the pleasure of it, and therefore
did l court him assiduously, with many
an entertainment and excursion, which
again were no credit to my generosity, for
had I not the interminable tickets and
passes and the duty of going to all these
weary things, a duty much lightened by
the society of the lounging, invalid old
gentleman, whom 1 supposed no richer
than myself.
told him my story, such as it was,
and am fain to think that some subtle
sympathy, some consciousness of a similar
experience in his own boyhood, made him
take more of an interest than I then sus-
pected in this poor series of failures I
called my life.
Then he died very suddenly and serene
ly, leaving me somo unbelievable millions,
and as no one but his solicitor knew that
he had any money so no one knew that I
had any, and behold me forthwith i'll ex
actly the position of my childish hearts
desire
What joy! What wild, free rapture Of
plans, with occasional bursts of fancy
which even dismissed as quite untenable.
For instance, I had no longer any faintest
hope of marrying my Cousin Mary. She
was quite taken up with another cousin,
Fred by name, and would have married
him long since no doubt had he been able
10 support q family. But he was proud
and would not marry until he could offer
something to his wife. 1 knew that, for
he had told me SO.
However, it was now my delicious fate