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I have had a shooting box in Scotland on several different occasions; and my wife has conducted successful social campaigns, as I have said before, in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin.  I did not go along, but I read about it all in the papers and received weekly from the scene of conflict a pound or so of mail matter, consisting of hundreds of diaphanous sheets of paper, each covered with my daughters’ fashionable humpbacked handwriting.  Hastings, my stenographer, became very expert at deciphering and transcribing it on the machine for my delectation.

I was quite confused at the number and variety of the titles of nobility with which my family seemed constantly to be surrounded.  They had a wonderful time, met everybody, and returned home perfected cosmopolitans.  What their ethical standards are I confess I do not know exactly, for the reason that I see so little of them.  They lead totally independent lives.

On rare occasions we are invited to the same houses at the same time, and on Christmas Eve we still make it a point always to stay at home together.  Really I have no idea how they dispose of their time.  They are always away, making visits in other cities or taking trips.  They chatter fluently about literature, the theater, music, art, and know a surprising number of celebrities in this and other countries—­particularly in London.  They are good linguists and marvelous dancers.  They are respectful, well mannered, modest, and mildly affectionate; but somehow they do not seem to belong to me.  They have no troubles of which I am the confidant.

If they have any definite opinions or principles I am unaware of them; but they have the most exquisite taste.  Perhaps with them this takes the place of morals.  I cannot imagine my girls doing or saying anything vulgar, yet what they are like when away from home I have no means of finding out.  I am quite sure that when they eventually select their husbands I shall not be consulted in the matter.  My formal blessing will be all that is asked, and if that blessing is not forthcoming no doubt they will get along well enough without it.

However, I am the constant recipient of congratulations on being the parent of such charming creatures.  I have succeeded—­apparently—­in this direction as in others.  Succeeded in what?  I cannot imagine these girls of mine being any particular solace to my old age.

Recently, since writing these confessions of mine, I have often wondered why my children were not more to me.  I do not think they are much more to my wife.  I suppose it could just as well be put the other way.  Why are we not more to them?  It is because, I fancy, this modern existence of ours, where every function and duty of maternity—­except the actual giving of birth—­is performed vicariously for us, destroys any interdependence between parents and their offspring.  “Smart” American mothers no longer, I am informed, nurse their babies.  I know that my wife did not nurse hers.  And thereafter each child had its own particular French bonne and governess besides.