It will be observed that our family life is not burdensome to any of us:—­not that we do not wish to see one another, but we are too busy to do so.  My daughters seem to be fond of me.  They are proud of my success and their own position; in fact they go out in the smartest circles.  They are smarter, indeed, than their mother and myself; for, though we know everybody in society, we have never formed a part of the intimate inner Newport circle.  But my daughters are inside and in the very center of the ring.  You can read their names as present at every smart function that takes place.

From Friday until Monday they are always in the country at week-end parties.  They are invited to go to Bermuda, Palm Beach, California, Aiken and the Glacier National Park.  They live on yachts and in private cars and automobiles.  They know all the patter of society and everything about everybody.  They also talk surprisingly well about art, music and international politics.  They are as much at home in Rome, Paris and London as they are in New York, and are as familiar with Scotland as Long Island.  They constantly amaze me by the apparent scope of their information.

They are women of the world in a sense unheard of by my father’s generation.  They have been presented at court in London, Berlin and Rome, and have had a social season at Cairo; in fact I feel at a great personal disadvantage in talking with them.  They are respectful, very sweet in a self-controlled and capable sort of way, and, so far as I can see, need no assistance in looking out for themselves.  They seem to be quite satisfied with their mode of life.  They do as they choose, and ask for no advice from either their mother or myself.

My boy also leads his own life.  He is rarely at home except to sleep.  I see less of him than of my daughters.  During the day he is at the office, where he is learning to be a lawyer.  At wide intervals we lunch together; but I find that he is interested in things which do not appeal to me at all.  Just at present he has become an expert—­almost a professional—­dancer to syncopated music.  I hear of him as dancing for charity at public entertainments, and he is in continual demand for private theatricals and parties.  He is astonishingly clever at it.

Yet I cannot imagine Daniel Webster or Rufus Choate dancing in public even in their leisure moments.  Perhaps, however, it is better for him to dance than to do some other things.  It is good exercise; and, to be fair with him, I cannot imagine Choate or Webster playing bridge or taking scented baths.  But, frankly, it is a far cry from my clergyman grandfather to my ragtime dancing offspring.  Perhaps, however, the latter will serve his generation in his own way.

It may seem incredible that a father can be such a stranger to his children, but it is none the less a fact.  I do not suppose we dine together as a family fifteen times in the course of the winter.  When we do so we get along together very nicely, but I find myself conversing with my daughters much as if they were women I had met casually out at dinner.  They are literally “perfect ladies.”