The feet of these young men carry them to strange places; they cope with many and strange monsters. They are our Knights of the Round Table. They find the Grail of Achievement in lives of hard work, simple pleasures and high ideals--in college and factory towns; in law courts and hospitals; in the mountains of Colorado and the plains of the Dakotas. They are the best we have; but the poor rich girl rarely, if ever, meets them. The barrier of wealth completely hems her in. She must take one of those inside or nothing.
When, in a desperate revolt against the artificiality of her existence, she breaks through the wall she is easy game for anybody--as likely to marry a jockey or a professional forger as one of the young men of her desire. One should not blame a rich girl too much for marrying a titled and perhaps attractive foreigner. The would-be critic has only to step into a Fifth Avenue ballroom and see what she is offered in his place to sympathize with and perhaps applaud her selection. Better a year of Europe than a cycle of--shall we say, Narragansett? After all, why not take the real thing, such as it is, instead of an imitation?
I believe that one of the most cruel results of modern social life is the cutting off of young girls from acquaintanceship with youths of the sturdy, intelligent and hardworking type--and the unfitting of such girls for anything except the marriage mart of the millionaire.
I would give half of all I possess to see my daughters happily married; but I now realize that their education renders such a marriage highly difficult of satisfactory achievement. Their mother and I have honestly tried to bring them up in such a way that they can do their duty in that state of life to which it hath pleased God to call them. But unfortunately, unless some man happens to call them also, they will have to keep on going round and round as they are going now.
We did not anticipate the possibility of their becoming old maids, and they cannot become brides of the church. I should honestly be glad to have either of them marry almost anybody, provided he is a decent fellow. I should not even object to their marrying foreigners, but the difficulty is that it is almost impossible to find out whether a foreigner is really decent or not. It is true that the number of foreign noblemen who marry American girls for love is negligible. There is undoubtedly a small and distinguished minority who do so; but the transaction is usually a matter of bargain and sale, and the man regards himself as having lived up to his contract by merely conferring his title on the woman he thus deigns to honor.