Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1910-01-06

to all appearances for the sake of real.
izing their ideals of wealth.
Counterpart In Perjury.
The penury of the clans of Sellers
and of Hawkins had it's counterpart in
the lives of the Wardlaws and the
Sneads. Here were houses with only
a few sticks and broken-down chairs
for furniture. The House of Mystery,
in East Orange where Mrs. Ocey w. M.
Snead met her yet unexplained death,
had one broken-down chair, stool
made from a packing case, dining
room table composed of a plank laid
across an orange box. There was no
heat from the furnace in that dwell
ling, and the store of food was very
scant. Compare the House of Mystery
then with the abode of Col. Sellers
warmed by candle pickering behind
the mica panes of rickety stove:
"A dreary old haircloth sofa against
the wall" runs the Clemens Warner
description; "a few damaged chairs.
the small table the lamp stood on, the
crippled stove-these constituted the
furniture of the room. There was no
carpet on the floor, on the wall were
occasional square-shaped Interruptions
of the general tint of the plaster which
betrayed that there used to be pic
lures in the house, but there were
none now"
For many years back in the history
of the Wardlaws and the Sneads as
they lived in New York they lived
amid the most dismal and poverty
stricken surroundings. Mrs. Martin,
while receiving a salary of $4,000 a
year from the city was dispossessed
from her rooms for not paying seven
months rent, and she was constantly
pursued by tradesmen who had bills
to collect. She had meanwhile. as
did her sister, married a former Of
ficer of the confederate army, and
her daughter Ocey had come into the
world to live a life devoid of sweet
ness and light and to go to a tragic
death
Laura Van Brunt's Greed.
The creed of Laura Van Brunt, as
expressed in "The Gilded Age" was
this: "She wanted to be rich, she
wanted luxury, she wanted men at
her feet, her slaves. She was impa.
tient; she wished that she were a
man to take hold of the business"
The cult of 1.-THE Gilded Age" pur.
sues the Wardlaws and the Sneads.
We find them living in dreary fur
nished-room houses, busted over
strange land schemes And in the
course of time come the sons of Mrs.
Snead, who fit into the order of things.
First comes John B. Wardlaw Snead,
with his mother, to New York, en-
gagged in the exploitation of wide
acres in Virginia, a scheme which
came to naught. He it was who COM
mitted suicide by igniting kerosene
which he had poured over himself.
1t is under the influence of Mrs.
Martin that another son, Fletcher w.
Snead, dreamer of financial dreams,
also comes to the fore. He Is content
! to wait until fortune comes-a mild
hammered, inoffensive man, compliant
to the will of his mother and sisters.
He had been engaged in the lumber
business in Tennessee in an enter
prise in which his aunt, Miss Virginia
o. Wardlaw, had invested, and when
the ruin of their hopes came he was
seriously involved. His counterpart in
the novel may be found in Washington
Hawkins, the son of the old Squire,
who is introduced as follows:
HE was the inventor of no one
knew how many worthless contriv-
ances and his years had been passed
in dreaming and planning to no pur-
pose, until he was now man of about
thirty, without profession or a per-
manent occupation, a tall, brown
haired, dreamy person of the best in
tentions and the frailest resolutions. Z"
There has ever been more or less of
mystery concerning Mrs. Ocey
Snead, who as girl lived as much