experience is a stupid
delusion, frequently used as a gloss to their souls by well-intentioned
people. Apart from the strict class limitations imposed by the
possession of large property, the object of protected and luxurious
people is generally merely pleasure. And pleasure is one of the
narrowest fields of human experience conceivable, becoming quickly
monotonous, which accounts for many extravagancies and abnormalities
among the rich. Moreover, the sensual life of the well-fed and idle
deadens imagination to such a degree that even their pleasures are
imitative, not original: they do what their kind have found to be
pleasurable without the incentive of initiative. If Adelle Clark had not
been attached to Clark's Field and had been forced to remain in the
Church Street rooming-house, by this time she would have been at work as
a clerk or in some other business: in any case she must have touched
realities closely and thus been immeasurably ahead of all the Herndon
Hall girls.

Probably this doctrine would shock not only the managers of Herndon
Hall, but also the officers of the trust company, who felt that they
were giving their ward the best preparation for "a full life," such as
the possession of a large property entitles mortals to expect. And
though it may seem that the Washington Trust Company had been somewhat
perfunctory in its care of its young ward, merely accepting the routine
ideas of the day in regard to her education and preparation for life,
they did nothing more nor worse in this than the majority of well-to-do
parents who may be supposed to have every incentive of love and family
pride in dealing with their young. The trust company in fact was merely
an impersonal and legal means of fulfilling the ideals of the average
member of our society. Indeed, the trust company, in the person of its
president and also of Mr. Ashly Crane, were just now giving some of
their valuable time to consideration of the personal fate of their ward.
She had been the subject of at least one conference between these
officers. She was now on her way towards eighteen, and that was the age,
as President West well knew, when properly conditioned young women
usually left school, unless they were "queer" enough to seek college,
and entered "society" for the unavowed but perfectly understood object
of getting husbands for themselves. The trust company was puzzled as to
how best to provide this necessary function for its ward. They fe