August 19, 2025 • 15 mins
In the late 19th century, being a Jew in Russia came with its own set of challenges and dangers. Facing persecution for their faith, many sought solace in their rich cultural traditions. When Mary Antins father decided to abandon these customs, he discovered that he no longer belonged in Russia. Thus, he emigrated to America with his family. While life presented its own struggles, Mary recalls her childhood in Boston with an almost idyllic sense of wonder. A bright and resilient young girl, she finds beauty in adversity and shares her inspiring journey through her captivating autobiography. Join Bridget as she brings Marys story to life, allowing you to experience her trials and triumphs firsthand. (Summary by Stav Nisser)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter fifteen of The Promised Land. This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain recording by bridget Age The Promised
Land by Mary Anton, chapter fifteen Tarnished Laurels. In the
intervals of hearkening to my growing pains, I was, of
course still a little girl. As a little girl in
many ways immature for my age. I finished my course
(00:21):
in the grammar school and was graduated with honors four
years after my landing in Boston. Wheelers Street recognizes five
great events and a girl's life, namely christening, confirmation, graduation, marriage,
and burial. These occasions all require full dress for the heroine,
and full dress is forthcoming, no matter if the family
(00:43):
goes into debt for it. There was not a girl
who came to school in rags all the year round
that did not burst forth in sudden glory on graduation day.
Fine muslin frocks, lace, trimmed petticoats, patent leather shoes, perishable hats, gloves, parasols, fans.
Every girl had them. A mother who had scrubbed floors
for years to keep her girl in school was not
(01:05):
going to have her shamed in the end for want
of a pretty dress. So she cut off the children's
supply of butter, and worked nights, and borrowed, and fell
into arrears with the rent. And on graduation day she
felt magnificently rewarded seeing her Mamie as fine as any
girl in the school. And in order to preserve for
posterity this triumphant spectacle, she took Mamie after the exercises
(01:28):
to be photographed with her diploma in one hand, a
bouquet in the other, and the gloves van parasol and
patent leather shoes in full sight around a fancy table. Truly,
the follies of the poor are worth studying. It did
not strike me as folly, but as the fulfillment of
the portent of my natal star. When I saw myself
on graduation day a raid like unto a princess, frills, lace,
(01:52):
patent leather shoes, I had everything. I even had a
sash with silk fringes. Did I speak of fouley? Listen,
and I will tell you quite another tale. Perhaps when
you have heard it, you will not be too hasty
to run and teach the poor. Perhaps you will admit
that the poor may have something to teach you. Before
we had been two years in America, my sister Frida
(02:15):
was engaged to be married. This was under the old dispensation.
Frieda came to America too late to avail herself of
the gifts of an American girlhood. Had she been two
years younger, she might have dodged her circumstances, evaded her
Old World fate. She would have gone to school and
imbibed American ideas. She might have clung to her girlhood
(02:36):
longer instead of marrying at seventeen. I am so fond
of the American way that it has always seemed to
me a pitiful accident that my sister should have come
so near and missed by so little the fulfillment of
my country's promise to woman. A long girlhood, a free
choice in marriage, and a brimfull world are the precious
rights of an American woman. My father was too recently
(02:59):
from the Old World to be entirely free from the
influence of its social traditions. He had put Freda to
work out of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when
she had an offer of marriage. But my father would
not stand in the way of what he considered her welfare.
Let her escape from the workshop if she had a
chance while the roses were still in her cheeks. If
(03:20):
she remained for ten years more bent over the needle,
what would she gain, Not even her personal comfort. For
Freda never called her earnings her own, but spent everything
on the family, denying herself all but the necessities. The
young man who sued for her was a good workman,
earning fair wages, of irreproachable character and refined manners. My
father had known him for years. So Freda was to
(03:43):
be released from the workshop. The act was really in
the nature of a sacrifice on my father's part, for
he was still in the woods financially and would sorely
miss Frida's wages. The greater the pity, therefore, that there
was no one to counsel him to give America more
time with my sister at the night school. She was
fond of reading in books. In a slowly ripening experience.
(04:05):
She might have found a better answer to the riddle
of a girl's life than a premature marriage. My sister's
engagement pleased me very well. Our confidences were not interrupted,
and I understood that she was happy. I was very
fond of Moses Rifkin, myself. He was the nicest young
man of my acquaintance, not at all like other workmen.
(04:26):
He was very kind to us children, bringing us presents
and taking us out for excursions. He had a sense
of humor, and he was going to marry Ourfrida. How
could I help being pleased? The marriage was not to
take place for some time, and in the interval Frida
remained in the shop. She continued to bring home all
her wages. If she was going to desert the family,
(04:47):
she would not let them feel it sooner than she must. Then,
all of a sudden, she turned spendthrift. She appropriated I
do not know what fabulous sums to spend just as
she pleased. For once she attended bargainsale and brought away
such finery as had never graced our flat. Before home
from work. In the evening, after a hurried supper, she
shut herself up in the parlor and caught and snipped
(05:10):
and measured and basted and stitched, as if there were
nothing else in the world to do. It was early
summer and the air had a wooing touch even on
Wheeler Street. Moses Rifkin came, and I suppose he also
had a wooing touch, but Frida only smiled and shook
her head, and as her mouth was full of pins,
it was physically impossible for Moses to argue. She remained
(05:31):
all evening in a white disorder of tucked breadths, curled ruffles,
dismembered sleeves, and swirls of fresh lace, her needle glancing
in the lamp light, and poor Moses picking up her spools.
Her trousseau. Was it not? No, not her trousseau. It
was my graduation dress on which she was so intent.
And when it was finished and was pronounced a most
(05:52):
beautiful dress, and she ought to have been satisfied. Frida
went to the shops once more and bought the sash
with the silk fringes them. Providence of the poor is
a most distressing spectacle to all right minded students of sociology.
But please spare me your homily this time. It does
not apply. The poor are the poor in spirit. Those
who are rich in spiritual endowment will never be found bankrupt.
(06:15):
Graduation day was nothing less than a triumph for me.
It was not only that I had two pieces to speak,
one of them an original composition. It was more because
I was known in my school district as the smartest
girl in the class, and all eyes were turned on
the prodigy. And I was aware of it. I was
aware of everything. That is why I am able to
tell you everything now. The Assembly hall was crowded to bursting,
(06:39):
but my friends had no trouble in finding seats. They
were ushered up to the platform, which was reserved for
guests of honor. I was very proud to see my
friends traded with such distinction. My parents were there, and Frieda,
of course, Miss Dillingham, and some others of my Chelsea teachers.
A dozen or so of my humbler friends and acquaintances
were scattered among the crowd on the floor. When I
(07:02):
stepped up on the stage to read my composition, I
was seized with stage fright. The floor under my feet,
in the air around me were oppressively present to my senses.
While my own hand I could not have located. I
did not know where my body began or ended. I
was so conscious of my gloves, my shoes, my flowing sash,
my wonderful dress in which I had taken so much
(07:22):
satisfaction gave me the most trouble. I was suddenly paralyzed
by a conviction that it was too short, And it
seemed to me I stood on absurdly long legs, and
ten thousand people were looking up at me. It was horrible.
I suppose I no more than cleared my throat before
I began to read. But to me it seemed that
I stood petrified for an age, an awful silence booming
(07:45):
in my ears. My voice, when at last I began,
sounded far away. I thought that nobody could hear me.
But I kept on mechanically, for I had rehearsed many times,
And as I read, I gradually forgot myself, forgot place
and the occasion. The people looking up at me heard
the story of a beautiful little boy, my cousin, whom
(08:06):
I had loved very dearly, and who died in far
distant Russia some years after I came to America. My
composition was not a masterpiece. It was merely good for
a girl of fifteen. But I had written that I
still loved the little cousin, and I made a thousand
strangers feel it. And before the applause, there was a
moment of stillness in the Great Hall. After the singing
(08:28):
and reading by the class. There were the customary addresses
by distinguished guests. We girls were reminded that we were
going to be woman, and happiness was promised to those
of us who had aim to be noble woman. A
great money, trite and obvious things. A great deal of
the rhetoric appropriate to the occasion, compliments, applause, general satisfaction.
(08:48):
So went the program. Much of the rhetoric, many of
the fine sentiments, did not penetrate to the thoughts of
us for whom they were intended, because we were in
such a flutter about our ruffles and ribbons, and could
hardly refin from openly pranking. But we applauded very heartily
every speaker and every would be speaker, understanding that by
a consensus of opinion on the platform, we were very
(09:10):
fine young ladies, and much was to be expected of us.
One of the last speakers was introduced as a member
of the school board. He began like all the rest
of them, but he ended differently. Abandoning generalities. He went
on to tell the story of a particular schoolgirl, a
pupil in a Boston school whose phenomenal career might serve
as an illustration of what the American system of free
(09:32):
education and the European immigrant could make of each other.
He had not got very far when I realized, to
my great surprise and no small delight, that he was
telling my story. I saw my friends on the platform
beaming behind the speaker, and I heard my name whispered
in the audience. I had been so much of a
celebrity in a small local way that identification of the
(09:54):
speaker's heroine was inevitable. My classmates, of course, guessed the name,
and they turned to looking me and nudged me, and
all but pointed at me, their new muslins rustling and
silk ribbons, hissing. One or two of the nearest me
forgot etiquette so far as to whisper to me, Mary Anton,
they said. As the speaker sat down, amid a burst
of the most enthusiastic applause, Mary Anton, why don't you
(10:17):
get up and thank him? I was dazed with all
that had happened, bursting with pride, I was, But I
was moved too by nobler feelings. I realized, in a vague,
far off way, what it meant to my father and
mother to be sitting there and seeing me held up
as a paragon my history made the theme of an
eloquent discourse. What it meant to my father to see
his ambitious hopes thus gloriously fulfilled? His judgment of me? Verified?
(10:42):
What it meant to Frieda to hear me all but
named with such honor, With all these things choking my
heart to overflowing, my wits forsook me if I had
had any at all that day. The audience was stirring
and whispering, so that I could hear who is it is? That?
So and again they prompted me, Mary, Auntie, and get up,
Get up and thank him. Mary. And I rose where
(11:03):
I sat, and, in a voice that sounded thin as
a flies after the oratorical base of the last speaker,
I began, I want to thank you. That is as
far as I got. Mister Swan, the principal, waved his
hand to silence me. And then and only then, did
I realize the enormity of what I had done. My
eulogist had had the good taste not to mention names,
(11:25):
and I had been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to
myself when there was no need. Oh it was sickening.
I hated myself I hated with all my heart the
girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I
wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I
was ashamed to look up at my friends on the platform.
What was Miss Dillingham thinking of me? Oh? What a
(11:47):
fool I had been. I had ruined my own triumph.
I had disgraced myself and my friends, and poor mister
Swan and the Winthrop School. The monster vanity had sucked
out my wits and left me a staring at ease.
It is easy to say that I was making a
mountain out of a mole hill, a catastrophe out of
a mere breach of good manners. It is easy to
(12:08):
say that, But I know that I suffered agonies of shame.
After the exercises, when the crowd pressed in all directions
in search of friends, I tried in vain to get
out of the hall. I was mobbed. I was lionized.
Everybody wanted to shake hands with the prodigy of the day,
and they knew who it was. I had made sure
of that. I had exhibited myself. The people smiled on me,
(12:30):
flattered me, passed me on from one to another. I
smirked back, but I did not know what I said.
I was wild to be clear of the building. I
thought everybody mocked me. All my roses had turned to ashes,
and all through my own brazen conduct. I would have
given my diploma to have Miss Dillingham know how the
thing had happened. But I could not bring myself to
(12:51):
speak first if she would ask me, But nobody asked,
Nobody looked away from me. Everybody congratulated me, my father
and mother and my remotest relations, but the sting of
shame smarted just the same. I could not be consoled.
I had made a fool of myself. Mister Swan had
publicly put me down. Ah, So that was it. Vanity
(13:13):
was the vital spot again. It was wounded vanity that
writhed and squirmed. It was not because I had been bold,
but because I had been pronounced bold that I suffered
so monstrously. If mister Swan, with an eloquent gesture, had
not silenced me, I might have made my little speech
good heavens, what did I mean to say? And probably
called it another feather in my bonnet? But he had
(13:36):
stopped me promptly, disgusted with my forwardness, and he had
shown before all those hundreds what he thought of me.
Therein lay the sting. With all my talent for self analysis,
it took me a long time to realize the essential
pettiness of my trouble. For years, actually, for years after
that eventful day of mingled triumph and disgrace, I could
(13:56):
not think of the unhappy incident without inward squirming. I
remembered distinctly how the little scene would suddenly flash upon
me at night as I lay awake in bed, and
I would turn over impatiently, as if to shake off
a nightmare. And this so long after the occurrence, that
I myself was amazed at the persistence of the nightmare.
I had never been reproached by any one for my
(14:17):
conduct on graduation day. Why could I not forgive myself?
I studied the matter deeply. It wearies me to remember
how deeply, till at last I understood that it was
wounded vanity that hurt so and no nobler remorse. Then
and only then was the ghost laid. If it ever
tried to get up again. After that, I only had
to call it names to see it scurry back to
(14:39):
its grave and pull the sod down after it. Before
I had laid my ghost, a friend told me of
a similar experience of his boyhood. He was present at
a small private entertainment, and violinist who should have played,
being absent, the host asked for a volunteer to take
his place. My friend, then, a boy in his teens,
offered himself and actually stood up with the violin in
(15:02):
his hands as if to play. But he could not
even hold the instrument properly. He had never been taught
the violin. He told me, he never knew what possessed
him to get up and make a fool of himself
before a roomful of people, But he was certain that
ten thousand imps possessed him and tormented him for years
and years after, if only he remembered the incident. My
(15:22):
friend's confession was such a consolation to me that I
could not help thinking I might do some other poor
wretch a world of good by offering him my company
and that of my friend in his misery. For if
it took me a long time to find out that
I was a vain fool, the corollery did not escape me.
There must be other vain fools. End of chapter fifteen,
Chapter fifteen of The Promised Land. This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain recording by bridget Age The Promised
Land by Mary Anton, chapter fifteen Tarnished Laurels. In the
intervals of hearkening to my growing pains, I was, of
course still a little girl. As a little girl in
many ways immature for my age. I finished my course
(00:21):
in the grammar school and was graduated with honors four
years after my landing in Boston. Wheelers Street recognizes five
great events and a girl's life, namely christening, confirmation, graduation, marriage,
and burial. These occasions all require full dress for the heroine,
and full dress is forthcoming, no matter if the family
(00:43):
goes into debt for it. There was not a girl
who came to school in rags all the year round
that did not burst forth in sudden glory on graduation day.
Fine muslin frocks, lace, trimmed petticoats, patent leather shoes, perishable hats, gloves, parasols, fans.
Every girl had them. A mother who had scrubbed floors
for years to keep her girl in school was not
(01:05):
going to have her shamed in the end for want
of a pretty dress. So she cut off the children's
supply of butter, and worked nights, and borrowed, and fell
into arrears with the rent. And on graduation day she
felt magnificently rewarded seeing her Mamie as fine as any
girl in the school. And in order to preserve for
posterity this triumphant spectacle, she took Mamie after the exercises
(01:28):
to be photographed with her diploma in one hand, a
bouquet in the other, and the gloves van parasol and
patent leather shoes in full sight around a fancy table. Truly,
the follies of the poor are worth studying. It did
not strike me as folly, but as the fulfillment of
the portent of my natal star. When I saw myself
on graduation day a raid like unto a princess, frills, lace,
(01:52):
patent leather shoes, I had everything. I even had a
sash with silk fringes. Did I speak of fouley? Listen,
and I will tell you quite another tale. Perhaps when
you have heard it, you will not be too hasty
to run and teach the poor. Perhaps you will admit
that the poor may have something to teach you. Before
we had been two years in America, my sister Frida
(02:15):
was engaged to be married. This was under the old dispensation.
Frieda came to America too late to avail herself of
the gifts of an American girlhood. Had she been two
years younger, she might have dodged her circumstances, evaded her
Old World fate. She would have gone to school and
imbibed American ideas. She might have clung to her girlhood
(02:36):
longer instead of marrying at seventeen. I am so fond
of the American way that it has always seemed to
me a pitiful accident that my sister should have come
so near and missed by so little the fulfillment of
my country's promise to woman. A long girlhood, a free
choice in marriage, and a brimfull world are the precious
rights of an American woman. My father was too recently
(02:59):
from the Old World to be entirely free from the
influence of its social traditions. He had put Freda to
work out of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when
she had an offer of marriage. But my father would
not stand in the way of what he considered her welfare.
Let her escape from the workshop if she had a
chance while the roses were still in her cheeks. If
(03:20):
she remained for ten years more bent over the needle,
what would she gain, Not even her personal comfort. For
Freda never called her earnings her own, but spent everything
on the family, denying herself all but the necessities. The
young man who sued for her was a good workman,
earning fair wages, of irreproachable character and refined manners. My
father had known him for years. So Freda was to
(03:43):
be released from the workshop. The act was really in
the nature of a sacrifice on my father's part, for
he was still in the woods financially and would sorely
miss Frida's wages. The greater the pity, therefore, that there
was no one to counsel him to give America more
time with my sister at the night school. She was
fond of reading in books. In a slowly ripening experience.
(04:05):
She might have found a better answer to the riddle
of a girl's life than a premature marriage. My sister's
engagement pleased me very well. Our confidences were not interrupted,
and I understood that she was happy. I was very
fond of Moses Rifkin, myself. He was the nicest young
man of my acquaintance, not at all like other workmen.
(04:26):
He was very kind to us children, bringing us presents
and taking us out for excursions. He had a sense
of humor, and he was going to marry Ourfrida. How
could I help being pleased? The marriage was not to
take place for some time, and in the interval Frida
remained in the shop. She continued to bring home all
her wages. If she was going to desert the family,
(04:47):
she would not let them feel it sooner than she must. Then,
all of a sudden, she turned spendthrift. She appropriated I
do not know what fabulous sums to spend just as
she pleased. For once she attended bargainsale and brought away
such finery as had never graced our flat. Before home
from work. In the evening, after a hurried supper, she
shut herself up in the parlor and caught and snipped
(05:10):
and measured and basted and stitched, as if there were
nothing else in the world to do. It was early
summer and the air had a wooing touch even on
Wheeler Street. Moses Rifkin came, and I suppose he also
had a wooing touch, but Frida only smiled and shook
her head, and as her mouth was full of pins,
it was physically impossible for Moses to argue. She remained
(05:31):
all evening in a white disorder of tucked breadths, curled ruffles,
dismembered sleeves, and swirls of fresh lace, her needle glancing
in the lamp light, and poor Moses picking up her spools.
Her trousseau. Was it not? No, not her trousseau. It
was my graduation dress on which she was so intent.
And when it was finished and was pronounced a most
(05:52):
beautiful dress, and she ought to have been satisfied. Frida
went to the shops once more and bought the sash
with the silk fringes them. Providence of the poor is
a most distressing spectacle to all right minded students of sociology.
But please spare me your homily this time. It does
not apply. The poor are the poor in spirit. Those
who are rich in spiritual endowment will never be found bankrupt.
(06:15):
Graduation day was nothing less than a triumph for me.
It was not only that I had two pieces to speak,
one of them an original composition. It was more because
I was known in my school district as the smartest
girl in the class, and all eyes were turned on
the prodigy. And I was aware of it. I was
aware of everything. That is why I am able to
tell you everything now. The Assembly hall was crowded to bursting,
(06:39):
but my friends had no trouble in finding seats. They
were ushered up to the platform, which was reserved for
guests of honor. I was very proud to see my
friends traded with such distinction. My parents were there, and Frieda,
of course, Miss Dillingham, and some others of my Chelsea teachers.
A dozen or so of my humbler friends and acquaintances
were scattered among the crowd on the floor. When I
(07:02):
stepped up on the stage to read my composition, I
was seized with stage fright. The floor under my feet,
in the air around me were oppressively present to my senses.
While my own hand I could not have located. I
did not know where my body began or ended. I
was so conscious of my gloves, my shoes, my flowing sash,
my wonderful dress in which I had taken so much
(07:22):
satisfaction gave me the most trouble. I was suddenly paralyzed
by a conviction that it was too short, And it
seemed to me I stood on absurdly long legs, and
ten thousand people were looking up at me. It was horrible.
I suppose I no more than cleared my throat before
I began to read. But to me it seemed that
I stood petrified for an age, an awful silence booming
(07:45):
in my ears. My voice, when at last I began,
sounded far away. I thought that nobody could hear me.
But I kept on mechanically, for I had rehearsed many times,
And as I read, I gradually forgot myself, forgot place
and the occasion. The people looking up at me heard
the story of a beautiful little boy, my cousin, whom
(08:06):
I had loved very dearly, and who died in far
distant Russia some years after I came to America. My
composition was not a masterpiece. It was merely good for
a girl of fifteen. But I had written that I
still loved the little cousin, and I made a thousand
strangers feel it. And before the applause, there was a
moment of stillness in the Great Hall. After the singing
(08:28):
and reading by the class. There were the customary addresses
by distinguished guests. We girls were reminded that we were
going to be woman, and happiness was promised to those
of us who had aim to be noble woman. A
great money, trite and obvious things. A great deal of
the rhetoric appropriate to the occasion, compliments, applause, general satisfaction.
(08:48):
So went the program. Much of the rhetoric, many of
the fine sentiments, did not penetrate to the thoughts of
us for whom they were intended, because we were in
such a flutter about our ruffles and ribbons, and could
hardly refin from openly pranking. But we applauded very heartily
every speaker and every would be speaker, understanding that by
a consensus of opinion on the platform, we were very
(09:10):
fine young ladies, and much was to be expected of us.
One of the last speakers was introduced as a member
of the school board. He began like all the rest
of them, but he ended differently. Abandoning generalities. He went
on to tell the story of a particular schoolgirl, a
pupil in a Boston school whose phenomenal career might serve
as an illustration of what the American system of free
(09:32):
education and the European immigrant could make of each other.
He had not got very far when I realized, to
my great surprise and no small delight, that he was
telling my story. I saw my friends on the platform
beaming behind the speaker, and I heard my name whispered
in the audience. I had been so much of a
celebrity in a small local way that identification of the
(09:54):
speaker's heroine was inevitable. My classmates, of course, guessed the name,
and they turned to looking me and nudged me, and
all but pointed at me, their new muslins rustling and
silk ribbons, hissing. One or two of the nearest me
forgot etiquette so far as to whisper to me, Mary Anton,
they said. As the speaker sat down, amid a burst
of the most enthusiastic applause, Mary Anton, why don't you
(10:17):
get up and thank him? I was dazed with all
that had happened, bursting with pride, I was, But I
was moved too by nobler feelings. I realized, in a vague,
far off way, what it meant to my father and
mother to be sitting there and seeing me held up
as a paragon my history made the theme of an
eloquent discourse. What it meant to my father to see
his ambitious hopes thus gloriously fulfilled? His judgment of me? Verified?
(10:42):
What it meant to Frieda to hear me all but
named with such honor, With all these things choking my
heart to overflowing, my wits forsook me if I had
had any at all that day. The audience was stirring
and whispering, so that I could hear who is it is? That?
So and again they prompted me, Mary, Auntie, and get up,
Get up and thank him. Mary. And I rose where
(11:03):
I sat, and, in a voice that sounded thin as
a flies after the oratorical base of the last speaker,
I began, I want to thank you. That is as
far as I got. Mister Swan, the principal, waved his
hand to silence me. And then and only then, did
I realize the enormity of what I had done. My
eulogist had had the good taste not to mention names,
(11:25):
and I had been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to
myself when there was no need. Oh it was sickening.
I hated myself I hated with all my heart the
girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I
wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I
was ashamed to look up at my friends on the platform.
What was Miss Dillingham thinking of me? Oh? What a
(11:47):
fool I had been. I had ruined my own triumph.
I had disgraced myself and my friends, and poor mister
Swan and the Winthrop School. The monster vanity had sucked
out my wits and left me a staring at ease.
It is easy to say that I was making a
mountain out of a mole hill, a catastrophe out of
a mere breach of good manners. It is easy to
(12:08):
say that, But I know that I suffered agonies of shame.
After the exercises, when the crowd pressed in all directions
in search of friends, I tried in vain to get
out of the hall. I was mobbed. I was lionized.
Everybody wanted to shake hands with the prodigy of the day,
and they knew who it was. I had made sure
of that. I had exhibited myself. The people smiled on me,
(12:30):
flattered me, passed me on from one to another. I
smirked back, but I did not know what I said.
I was wild to be clear of the building. I
thought everybody mocked me. All my roses had turned to ashes,
and all through my own brazen conduct. I would have
given my diploma to have Miss Dillingham know how the
thing had happened. But I could not bring myself to
(12:51):
speak first if she would ask me, But nobody asked,
Nobody looked away from me. Everybody congratulated me, my father
and mother and my remotest relations, but the sting of
shame smarted just the same. I could not be consoled.
I had made a fool of myself. Mister Swan had
publicly put me down. Ah, So that was it. Vanity
(13:13):
was the vital spot again. It was wounded vanity that
writhed and squirmed. It was not because I had been bold,
but because I had been pronounced bold that I suffered
so monstrously. If mister Swan, with an eloquent gesture, had
not silenced me, I might have made my little speech
good heavens, what did I mean to say? And probably
called it another feather in my bonnet? But he had
(13:36):
stopped me promptly, disgusted with my forwardness, and he had
shown before all those hundreds what he thought of me.
Therein lay the sting. With all my talent for self analysis,
it took me a long time to realize the essential
pettiness of my trouble. For years, actually, for years after
that eventful day of mingled triumph and disgrace, I could
(13:56):
not think of the unhappy incident without inward squirming. I
remembered distinctly how the little scene would suddenly flash upon
me at night as I lay awake in bed, and
I would turn over impatiently, as if to shake off
a nightmare. And this so long after the occurrence, that
I myself was amazed at the persistence of the nightmare.
I had never been reproached by any one for my
(14:17):
conduct on graduation day. Why could I not forgive myself?
I studied the matter deeply. It wearies me to remember
how deeply, till at last I understood that it was
wounded vanity that hurt so and no nobler remorse. Then
and only then was the ghost laid. If it ever
tried to get up again. After that, I only had
to call it names to see it scurry back to
(14:39):
its grave and pull the sod down after it. Before
I had laid my ghost, a friend told me of
a similar experience of his boyhood. He was present at
a small private entertainment, and violinist who should have played,
being absent, the host asked for a volunteer to take
his place. My friend, then, a boy in his teens,
offered himself and actually stood up with the violin in
(15:02):
his hands as if to play. But he could not
even hold the instrument properly. He had never been taught
the violin. He told me, he never knew what possessed
him to get up and make a fool of himself
before a roomful of people, But he was certain that
ten thousand imps possessed him and tormented him for years
and years after, if only he remembered the incident. My
(15:22):
friend's confession was such a consolation to me that I
could not help thinking I might do some other poor
wretch a world of good by offering him my company
and that of my friend in his misery. For if
it took me a long time to find out that
I was a vain fool, the corollery did not escape me.
There must be other vain fools. End of chapter fifteen,
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