Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

That is to say, she shall have the honors of love; she shall love mostand best; she shall enjoy stoically nourishing an unrequited passion. Mr.Bowles is going away on a trip; she writes to Mrs. Bowles: “I’ll rememberyou, if you like me to, while Mr. Bowles is gone, and that will stop thelonesome, some, but I cannot agree to stop when he gets home from Washington.”Does that not practically dictate an answer on Mrs. Bowles’s part,and an effusive one?In a letter of condolence—and to a clergyman!—on the death of achild, she writes: “I hope Heaven is warm, there are so many barefoot ones.”On such great subjects bathos is ever lying in wait for those who are notcontent to say a thing simply.We have heard this tone before. It belongs to women who in childhoodhave received too heavy an impress from their relation to their fathers.It may be called the tone of a misplaced coquetry. Its general character isthat of archness. It is perfectly in order (and arises from profound naturalsprings) when it is exhibited by a young woman as a response to a youngman who is showing deep interest in her. It has certainly no place in maturefriendship.It is not difficult to trace the steps of this mental formation. The growingchild wishes to get its way; it wishes to be succeeding and (note the word)winning. It tests out the relationships of the family toward this end. Thereare certain forms of appeal and persuasion that are successful with the fatherbut have no effect whatever on the mother. The growing girl exercises hercoquetry (as kittens scratch trees) on every man she meets, but particularlyon those whose eyes rest attentively upon her. It is a game in which a girlconcedes that she is somewhat attracted but, advancing provocatively andretreating provocatively, refuses to declare the extent. It is played with themost calculated dissimulation, and its enactment between daughter andfather is mere harmless dress rehearsal for later encounters—in most cases.From time to time, however, the game has been, as it were, surprised byinappropriate intensities.Squire Dickinson was a very grim patriarch indeed. Study hisphotograph. His daughter was to say of him that “his soul was pure andterrible,” that “he never learned to play,” and to speak of his “lonely lifeand lonelier death.” Yet he was a complex man. Startling is the story thathe set the churchbells of Amherst ringing to call the attention of the townto a particularly fine sunset. At Jenny Lind’s concert,Father sat all evening looking mad, and yet so much amused that you[his son] would have died a-laughing. … it wasn’t sarcasm exactly,219