My temperament seems to be quiet, methodical, undemonstrative, retiring; people find me sympathetic, appreciative, benevolent. I am made the confidant of all manner of troubles and secrets: it is my fate to be an adviser and a mediator. Though I was born four years later than John, and two years after Henry, yet I am older in my ways and external feeling than either of them. In this my twenty-eighth year my character appears already fixed. And yet I am never without a misgiving that this is not my real self,—that the genuine Frank Mainwaring has never yet been revealed. I am asleep: the hour of my awakening has never struck.
Of course it never will strike: this perception of latent possibilities is no doubt common, and the practical realities of life gradually obliterate it. I am an observer and a student; but I have never attempted to control circumstances. My acts have been obedient, not aggressive. I have taken relief in imagination; but that will cool in time. I only wish the whole thing did not seem so like play-acting. I fancy I should have been better (being what I am) without that fifty thousand dollars that my father's will gave me. I ought to have had the whole estate, or nothing. Henry did very well with his fifty thousand: at least, his desire always was to roam about the world, and his bequest has enabled him to do it, all these four years since father died. But Henry is as different from me—from both my actual and my possible self—as a brother could be. He is a restless, lawless bohemian,—unconventional in thought and act, mysterious, unaccountable, lovable, and a genius. He can be happy anywhere, for he enjoys even his miseries. No one can help serving him, for no one can help liking him. For my part, though not of a gushing disposition, I am his willing slave whenever he is within reach of me; and I have actually pined for him during this long absence.
As regards John, it was another matter. He is the eldest, and, as father saw fit to maintain the English prejudice of primogeniture (in fact, father always remained English to the core, though the last five-and-thirty years of his life were passed in America, and though he spoke of himself and thought of himself as an out-and-out Yankee), we were always trained to regard John as the future head of the family, and in some sort of another flesh and blood than we. Though a generous and very affectionate fellow, John was naturally overbearing and peremptory, and his position would tend to develop these traits. I respect him, and something more; but I care most for Henry. And I am inclined to suspect that Henry is mother's favorite too; though she has never confessed as much, and is too aristocratic in her instincts to admit it even to herself.
