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He had an instinctive and rather charitable knowledge of the
weaknesses of men and women, and, like a priest, it made him the
more concerned for the maintenance of outward forms. It was typical
of him that every Sunday morning he taught in a fashionable
Episcopal Sunday-school – even though a cold shower and a quick
change into a cutaway coat were all that separated him from the wild
night before.
After his father's death he was the practical head of his family,
and, in effect, guided the destinies of the younger children. Through a
complication his authority did not extend to his father's estate, which
1
was administrated by his Uncle Robert, who was the horsey member
of the family, a good-natured, hard-drinking member of that set
which centres about Wheatley Hills.
Uncle Robert and his wife, Edna, had been great friends of
Anson's youth, and the former was disappointed when his nephew's
superiority failed to take a horsey form. He backed him for a city club
which was the most difficult in America to enter – one could only
join if one's family had "helped to build up New York" (or, in other
words, were rich before 1880) – and when Anson, after his election,
neglected it for the Yale Club, Uncle Robert gave him a little talk on
the subject. But when on top of that Anson declined to enter Robert
Hunter's own conservative and somewhat neglected brokerage house,
his manner grew cooler. Like a primary teacher who has taught all he
knew, he slipped out of Anson's life.
There were so many friends in Anson's life – scarcely one for
whom he had not done some unusual kindness and scarcely one
whom he did not occasionally embarrass by his bursts of rough
conversation or his habit of getting drunk whenever and however he
liked. It annoyed him when any one else blundered in that regard –
about his own lapses he was always humorous. Odd things happened
to him and he told them with infectious laughter.
I was working in New York that spring, and I used to lunch
with him at the Yale Club, which my university was sharing until the
completion of our own. I had read of Paula's marriage, and one
afternoon, when I asked him about her, something moved him to tell
me the story. After that he frequently invited me to family dinners at
his house and behaved as though there was a special relation between

1
horsey = horsy