Despotism and Democracy: A Study in Washington Society and PoliticsSeawell, Molly Elliot
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Despotism and Democracy: A Study in Washington Society and Politics
Seawell, Molly Elliot
Political fiction; Washington (D.C.) -- Fiction
“Why, Geoffrey, how young you look!”
And everybody who met him told him he looked young, or looked well, or
looked prosperous, and one horny-handed old constituent hazarded the
opinion that Mr. Thorndyke was “thinkin’ o’ gittin’ spliced.” It was
all because Constance Maitland had been kind to him.
On his way back to Washington he found himself in the same car with
James Brentwood Baldwin, Junior, who was coming home to be nursed
and taken to Palm Beach after an attack of the chicken-pox. This
fifteen-year-old youth was in charge of a valet who attended to him
assiduously, and even went into the dining-car with him to see that
he exercised due prudence with regard to his diet. This, however, was
superfluous, as the scion of the house of Baldwin was the very epitome
of prudence, and turned away from entrées, sweets, and ices with a
degree of virtue which, to Thorndyke, dining at the same table with
him, seemed superhuman in a boy of any age. Thorndyke watched the
Baldwin boy curiously; it was one of the most deadly and fascinating
phases of the whole newly-rich question to him, how the children of
the newly rich were brought up. He observed in the Baldwin boy a total
lack of the normal faults and virtues of the normal boy. Young Baldwin
eyed Thorndyke at first with suspicion, but Thorndyke, wishing to
examine and classify the specimen of a boy before him, intimated that
he was acquainted with the James Brentwood Baldwins in Washington. Then
James, Junior, abandoned something of his hauteur. He acknowledged
being the pupil of a school at which Thorndyke happened to know the
fees were made purposely so high as to exclude any but the sons of the
very rich. They had an Anglican nomenclature, a resident chaplain,
and the spiritual direction of the masters as well as the pupils was
attended to by the Bishop of the diocese--the brother of the Secretary
of State. All this James, Junior, communicated while toying with
his rice-pudding, and turning an eye of stern disapproval at the
tutti-frutti ice.
“And what do you expect to be when you grow up, my lad?” asked
Thorndyke.
“I shall be a philanthropist,” replied James, Junior, with dignity.
“I shall try to use my wealth as a means of benefiting others. I am
president of our association for giving Christmas gifts to poor boys,
and I like it very much. We, who have superior advantages, should try
and extend a helping hand to others less fortunately placed.”
Less fortunately placed! Thorndyke looked at the boy with the deepest
commiseration, and pitied the poor children of the rich.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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