The Cairo bulletin., 1911-02-10
An Unfortunate
Encomium
By EDWARD IGLEHART
Copyright by American Press Asso-
citation, 1911.


thing. but as soon as it becomes con
scious it breeds vanity, and vanity IS
the mother Of a large brood of troubles
My wife and myself--we are both
Vans-belong to the older aristocracy
of New York. None of our ancestors
would have thought of associating
with the ancestors Of persons who are
now in the swim and to whose circle
we were not admitted They care
nothing about our ancestors. though
many of them have heard Of my fa-
Their, who was distinguished com.
modore In the navy, and my wife's
grandmother, who was celebrated
New York belle. The places once oc.
cupied by these worthy people are
now filed with the descendants OF
those who sold them oysters and fish
and whose wealth runs away up into
the millions.
But my wife and | were happy IN
til certain remark was repeated to
her. One Of our old family connee-
tons who owns n by in the diamond
horseshoe"--so called from being that
gallery Of the Metropolitan Opera
House occupied by the multimlllion.
aires-gave us the use Of it for one
night The favor nearly caused our
ruin. Soon after that night at the
opera Gertrude's cousin, who gave us
the box, said to my wife:
'The Earl of Chapperton, recently
from London. asked me, who was The
lady In my box on Thursday night.
saying at the same time. she's the
most beautiful woman ever saw
London could not furnish anything
equal to herr"
The remark was not only repeated to
my wife, but was talked about at ev.
cry function held by the golden SET.
1t finally came to Gertrude. added IL
In this wise: What pity that Mrs.
Van Valkenburg doesn't take the pc.
sition in society that half century
ago was occupied BY her grandmother.
the beautiful Betty Van Wyke,"
From that moment my dear wife GO,
the society bee In her bonnet. "Onl
family has always kept up In the
world till the present generation" she
said. 1--WE have $4,000 n year. ana
on that we could get on in society.
Connections of ours In the swim wouli
introduce us, and our especial assoc,
ates would be of the older aristocratit
set who are not so rich as these new
commercial people,"
"My dear" protested, "our $4,000
income would not keep us In the swim
month"
mot with your management" sh
retorted, "but woman can Away
make money go further than a man
Let me try. I will show you what I
can do"
Like a fool | was persuaded. NJ
wife had no trouble In penetrating the
society sklrmish line because Of tha
remark OF the Earl of Chapperton.
which was on every ones lips She re-
ceived number of invitations, but
found that she must make consider
able outlay for costumes before sh4
could accept any Of them. And since
the costumes she must rival cost al
the way from several hundred to sew
eral thousand dollars, and she mus
have a different costume for each
function, the amount soon ran up to :,
third Of our total income. Since our
ordinary necessary expenditures re.
quired the other two-thirds, 1t was evil
dent we would soon run upon tha
rocks. But what is the one matter q,
woman's costumes, expensive thougl.
they be, compared with the thousand
and one other Injuries that must b.
provided by people of fashion. One
cost us $500, and 1t was considered
plain at that.
We permcated the outer social line
and were making some Roadway into
the inner circle. We We're both disaf-
pointed In discovering that we must be
civil to Il number of the wives Of youns
multimillionalres who had married
actresses, and my wife had discovered
that society was not composed Of such
persons as her grandmother had shone
among Then something happened
that called n halt to our advance.
A certain Mrs. Van valkenburg
whose income was some 100000 q
year and who was as homely as a
hedge fence, caused 1t to be given out
for consideration, the price being
Invitations to certain social climbers tc
her soirees--that q mistake had beer
made in reporting Earl Chapperton's
remark MS to the most beautiful WON
an In New York. The Mrs. Van Val
kenburg referred to was the lady
with the S2,000,OOO income.
Everybody sneered, but as all un
derstood that to gainsay this edict
would cost them the enmity Of one
of the most powerful women In New
York society no one dared to lisr
word to the contrary. The ear
had returned to England and was no
to be even questioned ON the subject
The moment his lordship's compliment
was appropriated by another my wife
ceased to be an object Of curiosity
and, ms she had no other claim to b.
admitted to society, was dropped. Be
sides, any further attention to her was
sure to be resented by the other Mrs
Van valkenburg.
When the battle was over I discov