their insidiously comfortable burden and perhaps, in some inner recess of the mind, begin dimly to see it as somehow associated with their own worth, as even, constructively, "earned." To the more serious-minded it becomes an instrument with which to do good, and private luxuries are now balanced with donations to worthy causes. The final step is to convert the wealth into a tool to promote the very ambition it is supposed to have stifled: its possessor becomes a philanthropist who gives his capital only where he can direct the use of the income and where his name will endure on lintels and tablets.
Dorothy reached the last stage after we had been married only a decade. She set up a foundation (under my legal guidance, of course), rented an office, hired a couple of secretaries and proceeded to make large grants to applicants whose appeals she now spent her mornings reading. She disregarded my warning about charitable institutions: that their officers quite sincerely believe that the ends justify almost any means, certainly flagrant misrepresentation, and she was badly taken in by some of her biggest "investments." She would never have discovered this had I not taken care to make the proper investigations, and although she reluctantly complied with my suggestion that she hire a professional director, I don't think she ever quite forgave what she no doubt regarded as a "cynicism" on my part morally inferior to the basic generosity of her own nature.
By 1938, the year of Munich, the year of compromise (I was to have my own), Dorothy and I had long settled into what is sometimes called a "civilized marriage," though the civilization was largely provided by me. We went more and more our separate ways, she spending her days at her foundation and I at my office when I was not travelling on business. At home we had our own bedrooms, and when we entertained it was I who planned the meals with our housekeeper and selected the guests. Dorothy appeared at our parties when she wanted to and accompanied me to others when she chose. Our domestic manners on the whole were good, though she was more inclined to be openly critical than I, and, uncommonly in such a marriage, we had frequent and interesting conversations about the state of the nation and world. But in 1938 a new and acerb note was introduced into our relationship which was to threaten its precarious balance.
Oscar, our only child, who might have been an added bond in a happier union, was instead a source of mutual jealousy. We coveted his affection and resented the careful equality of the love he returned to each of us. For he was the gentlest and justest of youthsâI tend to wax maudlin in describing his character. With his looks I am less so, for they were, to say the least, singular. He was skinny and agile, with long thin limbs capable of extraordinary dexterityâhe could cross his feet behind his neck. His face, pale and skull-like under short, thick, wiry black hair, was made strangely attractive by the glitter of his green-brown eyes. Intense, romantic and deeply intellectual, he might have been expected to be impatient, abrupt, even caustic, whereas, on the contrary, he was sympathetic and compassionate. With me he was always ... how shall I put it? Protective? But whom did he wish to protect me from?
In the early spring of that year Oscar was halfway through his course at Columbia Law, and was living at home, his suite in our duplex amounting virtually to a separate apartment. We saw him little enough except on weekends, and it was on a Sunday lunch that I gave for a Chicago investment banker, one Graham Barnes, that Dorothy made the remark that was further to complicate our lives.
We were eight at table, including the Horace Aspinwalls, and our genial and good-mannered banker was questioning Horace with a lively curiosity about the ins and outs of Manhattan social life. He showed a particular interest in a discussion club of which Horace was president, the
Dorothy reached the last stage after we had been married only a decade. She set up a foundation (under my legal guidance, of course), rented an office, hired a couple of secretaries and proceeded to make large grants to applicants whose appeals she now spent her mornings reading. She disregarded my warning about charitable institutions: that their officers quite sincerely believe that the ends justify almost any means, certainly flagrant misrepresentation, and she was badly taken in by some of her biggest "investments." She would never have discovered this had I not taken care to make the proper investigations, and although she reluctantly complied with my suggestion that she hire a professional director, I don't think she ever quite forgave what she no doubt regarded as a "cynicism" on my part morally inferior to the basic generosity of her own nature.
By 1938, the year of Munich, the year of compromise (I was to have my own), Dorothy and I had long settled into what is sometimes called a "civilized marriage," though the civilization was largely provided by me. We went more and more our separate ways, she spending her days at her foundation and I at my office when I was not travelling on business. At home we had our own bedrooms, and when we entertained it was I who planned the meals with our housekeeper and selected the guests. Dorothy appeared at our parties when she wanted to and accompanied me to others when she chose. Our domestic manners on the whole were good, though she was more inclined to be openly critical than I, and, uncommonly in such a marriage, we had frequent and interesting conversations about the state of the nation and world. But in 1938 a new and acerb note was introduced into our relationship which was to threaten its precarious balance.
Oscar, our only child, who might have been an added bond in a happier union, was instead a source of mutual jealousy. We coveted his affection and resented the careful equality of the love he returned to each of us. For he was the gentlest and justest of youthsâI tend to wax maudlin in describing his character. With his looks I am less so, for they were, to say the least, singular. He was skinny and agile, with long thin limbs capable of extraordinary dexterityâhe could cross his feet behind his neck. His face, pale and skull-like under short, thick, wiry black hair, was made strangely attractive by the glitter of his green-brown eyes. Intense, romantic and deeply intellectual, he might have been expected to be impatient, abrupt, even caustic, whereas, on the contrary, he was sympathetic and compassionate. With me he was always ... how shall I put it? Protective? But whom did he wish to protect me from?
In the early spring of that year Oscar was halfway through his course at Columbia Law, and was living at home, his suite in our duplex amounting virtually to a separate apartment. We saw him little enough except on weekends, and it was on a Sunday lunch that I gave for a Chicago investment banker, one Graham Barnes, that Dorothy made the remark that was further to complicate our lives.
We were eight at table, including the Horace Aspinwalls, and our genial and good-mannered banker was questioning Horace with a lively curiosity about the ins and outs of Manhattan social life. He showed a particular interest in a discussion club of which Horace was president, the
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