The divorce trial of a handsome young woman and her wealthy husband,
brings up the story of her early environment and her unfortunate mother’s
disappointed life. The woman now seeking a divorce was reared in the
midst of matrimonial unrest and social misery—what other ending could the
world expect in her own case? Where the union is not purely a union of
heart and soul, a harmony of taste and temperament, where the souls are
not tuned to respond to the same vibrations, conjugal happiness is simply
impossible.
The mother of this woman in the divorce court was once a beautiful
Irish girl, the daughter of a man who kept a small crockery store
in Philadelphia. His store was located around the corner from the
aristocratic neighborhood, where the scions of the old Quaker families
reside in magnificent palaces. Sometimes a few of them would condescend
to stop at the modest shop and make a purchase, but the liveried negro
servants came more frequently to make the purchases desired by their
masters. At such times they would sit and gossip with the Irish merchant
and his wife about their aristocratic and proud employers.
These conversations with the servants revealed the great social chasm
existing between the humble shop people and the wealthy aristocrats
living just around the corner. The shopman’s eldest daughter, a beautiful
girl of sixteen, listened to the tales told by the liveried servants of
the rich, and a longing grew daily stronger in her humble soul to become
rich and aristocratic some day, too. She cared not by what means. She
only thought of the glorious end of the road leading up to one of these
magnificent palaces, and gave no thought to the mud and the mire and the
dangerous chasms to cross before arriving at the end of all this golden
glory and glitter of gilded gladness. She dreamed of it night and day.
Her pure soul became sordid and hard with an ambition that was ever in
her dreams. On the street where the shop was located, students bound for
the University of Pennsylvania would pass daily, and among them were a
number of young aristocrats, exquisitely attired, with their coats thrown
back to display their jeweled fraternity pins. As time went on, the
daughter of the shop man developed into a tall, slender, beautiful girl,
with violet eyes and chestnut brown hair, and a complexion of lovely
pink. In the morning she would go outside the store to put the goods
on display, and was noticed by the wealthy university students. One of
them in particular fell desperately in love with the bewitching girl.
They began to slyly flirt as the students passed. It would not be fair
nor true to put all the blame upon the student. The ambitious shop girl
was just as anxious to make a conquest as was the young man. She knew he
was rich and could see that he was handsome. She felt only hatred toward
the rich people who ignored her, and her humble parents. She could never
love this young man sincerely, but she would sell herself for the grand
position he could give her. He would always hold himself at an elevation
far above her parents, and this would always be a sting in her soul, but
she was too ambitious to hesitate at this.
One day he stopped at the shop to buy a shaving mug, and she waited on
him. They became acquainted. She was fascinated with his beauty and fine
clothes and polite manners. He made love to her from that day with ardor,
and she was in the heaven of glory she had dreamed of as she attended
to the shop. One day he proposed to her, and she gladly accepted his
offer. Her ambition was to be gratified. Oh, the fascination and the
wild ambition and magnificent hopes! But all the time she knew she did
not love him with a sincere heart. Her humble origin, and his proud and
aristocratic parents, made a chasm that could not be bridged in so short
a time. Her parents thought it a fine bargain and sale, and encouraged
the courtship. Love would come later on. A woman must learn to love where
love pays the largest dividends in gold.
So the beautiful, ambitious Irish girl and the aristocratic youth were
quietly married. When he told his proud mother that he had married the
girl from the crockery store, the last happy smile died on her lips, and
she never smiled again. She had such high ambitions for her boy, and he
had spoiled them by a rash marriage.
Is it any wonder the marriage proved a failure? They had six children,
yet the mother never loved her husband as a woman should love the father
of her babies. She was ever conscious of the social chasm between them,
and it was a thorn that never ceased to give pain. She had reached the
place her ambition craved, but it did not reward her with happiness.
There was more pleasure in slowly falling from it, than trying to go
higher. The home and money and position were not satisfying. Her popular
young husband and the social distinction he gave her were not satisfying.
She was not happy.
She filled the aching void with lovers. One was a society man in her
husband’s set, and one other was a big, dark, much-married actor. She
broke her husband’s heart, she broke the heart of his adoring mother, and
she grew more wretched herself every year. She then took to drink, and
soon after to drugs. Coming home one night from a party she fell on the
icy pavement and broke both lower limbs. She never saw a well day after
the accident, and died at the age of thirty-four. She had starved her
heart for wealth and position. She went without love to a high position
and found it a bitter mockery. She had outraged her own soul. Then began
the work of turning to ruin the palace in which she tried to live without
love.