United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
The donation for the establishment of Wetmore College was made shortly
after another institution for the education of women in which Pauline
was interested--Everdean College--had been opened to students. The
number of applicants for admission to Everdean had been larger than the
authorities had anticipated, and Pauline, who had been one of the
promoters and most active workers in raising funds for and supervising
the construction of this labor of love, was jubilant over the outlook,
and busy in regard to a variety of new matters presented for solution by
the suddenly evolved needs of the situation. Among these was the
acquisition of two or three new women instructors; and it occurred to
Pauline at once that Selma might know of some desirable candidate. Selma
appeared to manifest but little interest in this inquiry at the time,
but a few months subsequent to their conversation in regard to Mrs.
Taylor she presented herself at Pauline's rooms one morning with the
announcement that she had found some one. Pauline, who was busy at her
desk, asked permission to finish a letter before listening; so there was
silence for a few minutes, and Selma, who wore a new costume of a more
fashionable guise than her last, reflected while she waited that the
details of such work as occupied her sister-in-law must be tedious.
Indeed, she had begun to entertain of late a sort of contempt for the
deliberate, delving processes of the Littletons. She was inclined to ask
herself if Wilbur and Pauline were not both plodders. Her own idea of
doing things was to do them quickly and brilliantly, arriving at
conclusions, as became an American, with prompt energy and despatch. It
seemed to her that Wilbur, in his work, was slow and elaborate, disposed
to hesitate and refine instead of producing boldly and immediately. And
his sister, with her studies and letter-writing, suggested the same
wearisome tendency. Why should not Wilbur, in his line, act with the
confident enterprise and capacity to produce immediate, ostensible
results which their neighbor, Gregory Williams, displayed? As for
Pauline, of course she had not Wilbur's talent and could not, perhaps,
be expected to shine conspicuously, but surely she might make more of
herself if only she would cease to spend so much time in details and
cogitation, with nothing tangible to show for her labor. Selma
remembered her own experience as a small school teacher, and her
thankfulness at her escape from a petty task unworthy of her
capabilities, and she smiled scornfully to herself, as she sat waiting,
at what she regarded Pauline's willingness to spend her energies in such
inconspicuous, self-effacing work. Indeed, when Pauline had finished her
letter and announced that she was now entirely at leisure, Selma felt
impelled to remark:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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