For all practical
purposes, parents, as a rule, are bad masters for any but very young
children. They err on the side of over severity or the reverse. So you
see I have no obligations of consequence, and there is, therefore,
nothing in my life to inspire a sense of responsibility. And all this
seems to me a grievous waste of Me. I remember Lord Wensum telling me,
when we discussed this subject, that he was travelling once with a
well-known editor, and, noticing the number of villas that had sprung
up of late years along the whole line of rail they were on, he said: 'I
wonder what the ladies in those villas do with their time? I suppose
their social duties are limited, and they are too well off to be
obliged to trouble themselves about anything.' 'It is the existence of
those villas,' the editor answered, 'that makes the present profession
of the novelist possible.' But I think," said Ideala, "that those women
might find something better to do than to make a profession for
novelists."
"But you do a good deal yourself, Ideala," I ventured.
"Yes, in a purposeless way. All my acts are isolated; it would make
little difference if they had never been done.
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