or symphony. Thus, when we meet a man of achievement,
we invariably have a sense of disappointment.
``Why, that's not the man!'' we exclaim. ``There
must be some mistake.'' And it is, indeed, not the man.
Him we are incapable of seeing. We have only eyes
for surfaces; and, not being doers of extraordinary
deeds, but mere plodders in the routines of existence,
we cannot believe that there is any more to another than
there is to ourselves. The pleasant or unpleasant
surface for the conventional relations of life is about all
there is to us; therefore it is all there is to human
nature. Well, there's no help for it. In measuring our
fellow beings we can use only the measurements of our
own selves; we have no others, and if others are given to
us we are as foozled as one knowing only feet and
inches who has a tape marked off in meters and centimeters.

It so happened that in her social excursions Mildred
had never been in any of the numerous homes of the
suddenly and vastly rich of humble origin. She was
used to--and regarded as proper and elegant--the
ordinary ostentations and crudities of the rich of
conventional society. No more than you or I was she
moved to ridicule or disdain by the silliness and the
tawdry vulgarity of the life of palace and liveried
lackey and empty ceremonial, by the tedious entertainments,
by the displays of costly and poisonous food.
But General Siddall's establishment presented a new
phase to her--and she thought it unique in dreadfulness
and absurdity.