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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2698-0.txt b/2698-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5f07fd --- /dev/null +++ b/2698-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9108 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Mortal Antipathy, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +[The Physician and Poet, not his son the Jurist O. W. Holmes, Jr.] + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Mortal Antipathy + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #2698] +Last Updated: February 18, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MORTAL ANTIPATHY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY + +By Oliver Wendell Holmes + + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PREFACE. + + INTRODUCTION. + + THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. + + A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + + + + I. GETTING READY. + + II. THE BOAT-RACE. + + III. THE WHITE CANOE. + + IV. THE YOUNG SOLITARY + + V. THE ENIGMA STUDIED. + + VI. STILL AT FAULT. + + VII. A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES + + VIII. THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + + IX. THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. + + X. A NEW ARRIVAL. + + XI. THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. + + XII. MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. + + XIII. DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. + + XIV. MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. + + XV. DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. + + XVI. MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER. + + XVII. Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT. + + XVIII. MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. + + XIX. THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. + + XX. DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. + + XXI. AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. + + XXII. EUTHYMIA. + + XXIII. THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. + + XXIV. THE INEVITABLE. + + POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. + + MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + + DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + + DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. + + + + + + + + + +PREFACE. + +“A MORTAL ANTIPATHY” was a truly hazardous experiment. A very wise and +very distinguished physician who is as much at home in literature as he +is in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me in referring +to this story: “I should have been afraid of my subject.” He did +not explain himself, but I can easily understand that he felt the +improbability of the physiological or pathological occurrence on which +the story is founded to be so great that the narrative could hardly be +rendered plausible. I felt the difficulty for myself as well as for my +readers, and it was only by recalling for our consideration a series of +extraordinary but well-authenticated facts of somewhat similar character +that I could hope to gain any serious attention to so strange a +narrative. + +I need not recur to these wonderful stories. There is, however, one, not +to be found on record elsewhere, to which I would especially call the +reader's attention. It is that of the middle-aged man, who assured +me that he could never pass a tall hall clock without an indefinable +terror. While an infant in arms the heavy weight of one of these tall +clocks had fallen with a loud crash and produced an impression on his +nervous system which he had never got over. + +The lasting effect of a shock received by the sense of sight or that of +hearing is conceivable enough. + +But there is another sense, the nerves of which are in close +relation with the higher organs of consciousness. The strength of the +associations connected with the function of the first pair of nerves, +the olfactory, is familiar to most persons in their own experience and +as related by others. Now we know that every human being, as well as +every other living organism, carries its own distinguishing atmosphere. +If a man's friend does not know it, his dog does, and can track him +anywhere by it. This personal peculiarity varies with the age and +conditions of the individual. It may be agreeable or otherwise, a source +of attraction or repulsion, but its influence is not less real, though +far less obvious and less dominant, than in the lower animals. It was +an atmospheric impression of this nature which associated itself with +a terrible shock experienced by the infant which became the subject of +this story. The impression could not be outgrown, but it might possibly +be broken up by some sudden change in the nervous system effected by a +cause as potent as the one which had produced the disordered condition. + +This is the best key that I can furnish to a story which must have +puzzled some, repelled others, and failed to interest many who did not +suspect the true cause of the mysterious antipathy. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August, 1891. O. W. H. + + + + + + + + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + +FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +“And why the New Portfolio, I would ask?” + +Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession to the nursery in +which you have a special interest, whether the new-comer was commonly +spoken of as a baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under all +conditions, in all companies, by the whole household, spoken of as the +baby? And was the small receptacle provided for it commonly spoken of +as a cradle; or was it not always called the cradle, as if there were no +other in existence? + +Now this New Portfolio is the cradle in which I am to rock my new-born +thoughts, and from which I am to lift them carefully and show them to +callers, namely, to the whole family of readers belonging to my list of +intimates, and such other friends as may drop in by accident. And so +it shall have the definite article, and not be lost in the mob of its +fellows as a portfolio. + +There are a few personal and incidental matters of which I wish to say +something before reaching the contents of the Portfolio, whatever these +may be. I have had other portfolios before this,--two, more especially, +and the first thing I beg leave to introduce relates to these. + +Do not throw this volume down, or turn to another page, when I tell you +that the earliest of them, that of which I now am about to speak, was +opened more than fifty years ago. This is a very dangerous confession, +for fifty years make everything hopelessly old-fashioned, without giving +it the charm of real antiquity. If I could say a hundred years, now, my +readers would accept all I had to tell them with a curious interest; but +fifty years ago,--there are too many talkative old people who know all +about that time, and at best half a century is a half-baked bit of ware. +A coin-fancier would say that your fifty-year-old facts have just enough +of antiquity to spot them with rust, and not enough to give them--the +delicate and durable patina which is time's exquisite enamel. + +When the first Portfolio was opened the coin of the realm bore for its +legend,--or might have borne if the more devout hero-worshippers could +have had their way,--Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. Caesar. Aug. +Div., Max., etc., etc. I never happened to see any gold or silver with +that legend, but the truth is I was not very familiarly acquainted with +the precious metals at that period of my career, and, there might have +been a good deal of such coin in circulation without my handling it, or +knowing much about it. + +Permit me to indulge in a few reminiscences of that far-off time. + +In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a principal centre of +attraction to young Boston people and their visitors. Many of us got +our first ideas of art, to say nothing of our first lessons in the +comparatively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive period, in +that agreeable resort of amateurs and artists. + +How the pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places in +the mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red enough in +it for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full-length portrait +of the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's long-waistcoated +gentlemen and satin-clad ladies,--they looked like gentlemen and +ladies, too; and Stuart's florid merchants and high-waisted matrons; and +Allston's lovely Italian scenery and dreamy, unimpassioned women, +not forgetting Florimel in full flight on her interminable +rocking-horse,--you may still see her at the Art Museum; and the rival +landscapes of Doughty and Fisher, much talked of and largely praised in +those days; and the Murillo,--not from Marshal Soup's collection; and +the portrait of Annibale Caracci by himself, which cost the Athenaeum +a hundred dollars; and Cole's allegorical pictures, and his immense +and dreary canvas, in which the prostrate shepherds and the angel in +Joseph's coat of many colors look as if they must have been thrown in +for nothing; and West's brawny Lear tearing his clothes to pieces. But +why go on with the catalogue, when most of these pictures can be seen +either at the Athenaeum building in Beacon Street or at the Art Gallery, +and admired or criticised perhaps more justly, certainly not more +generously, than in those earlier years when we looked at them through +the japanned fish-horns? + +If one happened to pass through Atkinson Street on his way to the +Athenaeum, he would notice a large, square, painted, brick house, in +which lived a leading representative of old-fashioned coleopterous +Calvinism, and from which emerged one of the liveliest of literary +butterflies. The father was editor of the “Boston Recorder,” a very +respectable, but very far from amusing paper, most largely patronized by +that class of the community which spoke habitually of the first day of +the week as “the Sahbuth.” The son was the editor of several different +periodicals in succession, none of them over severe or serious, and of +many pleasant books, filled with lively descriptions of society, which +he studied on the outside with a quick eye for form and color, and with +a certain amount of sentiment, not very deep, but real, though somewhat +frothed over by his worldly experiences. + +Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when I opened my first +Portfolio. He had made himself known by his religious poetry, published +in his father's paper, I think, and signed “Roy.” He had started the +“American Magazine,” afterwards merged in the “New York Mirror.” He had +then left off writing scripture pieces, and taken to lighter forms of +verse. He had just written + + + “I'm twenty-two, I'm twenty-two, + They idly give me joy, + As if I should be glad to know + That I was less a boy.” + +He was young, therefore, and already famous. He came very near being +very handsome. He was tall; his hair, of light brown color, waved in +luxuriant abundance; his cheek was as rosy as if it had been painted to +show behind the footlights; he dressed with artistic elegance. He was +something between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an anticipation of +Oscar Wilde. There used to be in the gallery of the Luxembourg a picture +of Hippolytus and Phxdra, in which the beautiful young man, who had +kindled a passion in the heart of his wicked step-mother, always +reminded me of Willis, in spite of the shortcomings of the living face +as compared with the ideal. The painted youth is still blooming on the +canvas, but the fresh-cheeked, jaunty young author of the year 1830 has +long faded out of human sight. I took the leaves which lie before me +at this moment, as I write, from his coffin, as it lay just outside the +door of Saint Paul's Church, on a sad, overclouded winter's day, in the +year 1867. At that earlier time, Willis was by far the most prominent +young American author. Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Drake, had +all done their best work. Longfellow was not yet conspicuous. Lowell was +a school-boy. Emerson was unheard of. Whittier was beginning to make his +way against the writers with better educational advantages whom he was +destined to outdo and to outlive. Not one of the great histories, +which have done honor to our literature, had appeared. Our school-books +depended, so far as American authors were concerned, on extracts +from the orations and speeches of Webster and Everett; on Bryant's +Thanatopsis, his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death of the Flowers, +Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on Drake's American +Flag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping and Genius +Waking,--and not getting very wide awake, either. These could be +depended upon. A few other copies of verses might be found, but Dwight's +“Columbia, Columbia,” and Pierpont's Airs of Palestine, were already +effaced, as many of the favorites of our own day and generation must +soon be, by the great wave which the near future will pour over the +sands in which they still are legible. + +About this time, in the year 1832, came out a small volume entitled +“Truth, a Gift for Scribblers,” which made some talk for a while, and +is now chiefly valuable as a kind of literary tombstone on which may be +read the names of many whose renown has been buried with their bones. +The “London Athenaeum” spoke of it as having been described as a +“tomahawk sort of satire.” As the author had been a trapper in Missouri, +he was familiarly acquainted with that weapon and the warfare of its +owners. Born in Boston, in 1804, the son of an army officer, educated +at West Point, he came back to his native city about the year 1830. He +wrote an article on Bryant's Poems for the “North American Review,” and +another on the famous Indian chief, Black Hawk. In this last-mentioned +article he tells this story as the great warrior told it himself. It was +an incident of a fight with the Osages. + +“Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist and +tear the scalp from his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushed +furiously upon another, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran my +lance through his body, took off his scalp, and returned in triumph to +my father. He said nothing, but looked pleased.” + +This little red story describes very well Spelling's style of literary +warfare. His handling of his most conspicuous victim, Willis, was very +much like Black Hawk's way of dealing with the Osage. He tomahawked +him in heroics, ran him through in prose, and scalped him in barbarous +epigrams. Bryant and Halleck were abundantly praised; hardly any one +else escaped. + +If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputation that were +floating, some of them gay with prismatic colors, half a century ago, +he will find in the pages of “Truth” a long catalogue of celebrities he +never heard of. I recognize only three names, of all which are mentioned +in the little book, as belonging to persons still living; but as I have +not read the obituaries of all the others, some of them may be still +flourishing in spite of Mr. Spelling's exterminating onslaught. Time +dealt as hardly with poor Spelling, who was not without talent and +instruction, as he had dealt with our authors. I think he found shelter +at last under a roof which held numerous inmates, some of whom had seen +better and many of whom had known worse days than those which they were +passing within its friendly and not exclusive precincts. Such, at least, +was the story I heard after he disappeared from general observation. + +That was the day of Souvenirs, Tokens, Forget-me-nots, Bijous, and +all that class of showy annuals. Short stories, slender poems, steel +engravings, on a level with the common fashion-plates of advertising +establishments, gilt edges, resplendent binding,--to manifestations of +this sort our lighter literature had very largely run for some years. +The “Scarlet Letter” was an unhinted possibility. The “Voices of the +Night” had not stirred the brooding silence; the Concord seer was still +in the lonely desert; most of the contributors to those yearly volumes, +which took up such pretentious positions on the centre table, have +shrunk into entire oblivion, or, at best, hold their place in literature +by a scrap or two in some omnivorous collection. + +What dreadful work Spelling made among those slight reputations, +floating in swollen tenuity on the surface of the stream, and mirroring +each other in reciprocal reflections! Violent, abusive as he was, unjust +to any against whom he happened to have a prejudice, his castigation of +the small litterateurs of that day was not harmful, but rather of use. +His attack on Willis very probably did him good; he needed a little +discipline, and though he got it too unsparingly, some cautions came +with it which were worth the stripes he had to smart under. One noble +writer Spelling treated with rudeness, probably from some accidental +pique, or equally insignificant reason. I myself, one of the three +survivors before referred to, escaped with a love-pat, as the youngest +son of the Muse. Longfellow gets a brief nod of acknowledgment. Bailey, +an American writer, “who made long since a happy snatch at fame,” which +must have been snatched away from him by envious time, for I cannot +identify him; Thatcher, who died early, leaving one poem, The Last +Request, not wholly unremembered; Miss Hannah F. Gould, a very bright +and agreeable writer of light verse,--all these are commended to the +keeping of that venerable public carrier, who finds his scythe and +hour-glass such a load that he generally drops the burdens committed to +his charge, after making a show of paying every possible attention to +them so long as he is kept in sight. + +It was a good time to open a portfolio. But my old one had boyhood +written on every page. A single passionate outcry when the old warship +I had read about in the broadsides that were a part of our kitchen +literature, and in the “Naval Monument,” was threatened with demolition; +a few verses suggested by the sight of old Major Melville in his cocked +hat and breeches, were the best scraps that came out of that first +Portfolio, which was soon closed that it should not interfere with the +duties of a profession authorized to claim all the time and thought +which would have been otherwise expended in filling it. + +During a quarter of a century the first Portfolio remained closed for +the greater part of the time. Only now and then it would be taken up +and opened, and something drawn from it for a special occasion, more +particularly for the annual reunions of a certain class of which I was a +member. + +In the year 1857, towards its close, the “Atlantic Monthly,” which I had +the honor of naming, was started by the enterprising firm of Phillips +& Sampson, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. He thought +that I might bring something out of my old Portfolio which would be not +unacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor old receptacle, +which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had lost its freshness, +and seemed hardly presentable to the new company expected to welcome +the new-comer in the literary world of Boston, the least provincial of +American centres of learning and letters. The gilded covering where +the emblems of hope and aspiration had looked so bright had faded; not +wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold become dim!---how was the most +fine gold changed! Long devotion to other pursuits had left little time +for literature, and the waifs and strays gathered from the old Portfolio +had done little more than keep alive the memory that such a source of +supply was still in existence. I looked at the old Portfolio, and said +to myself, “Too late! too late. This tarnished gold will never brighten, +these battered covers will stand no more wear and tear; close them, and +leave them to the spider and the book-worm.” + +In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had +condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period. +When, a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the +“Saturday Club” gathered about the long table at “Parker's,” such a +representation of all that was best in American literature had never +been collected within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whom +educated foreigners cared to see-leaving out of consideration +official dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects of +curiosity--were seated at that board. But the club did not yet exist, +and the “Atlantic Monthly” was an experiment. There had already been +several monthly periodicals, more or less successful and permanent, +among which “Putnam's Magazine” was conspicuous, owing its success +largely to the contributions of that very accomplished and delightful +writer, Mr. George William Curtis. That magazine, after a somewhat +prolonged and very honorable existence, had gone where all periodicals +go when they die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, and blind +recording angel whose name is Oblivion. It had so well deserved to live +that its death was a surprise and a source of regret. Could another +monthly take its place and keep it when that, with all its attractions +and excellences, had died out, and left a blank in our periodical +literature which it would be very hard to fill as well as that had +filled it? + +This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured upon, +and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn around the +scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given myself to +other studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell insisted +upon my becoming a contributor. And so, yielding to a pressure which I +could not understand, and yet found myself unable to resist, I promised +to take a part in the new venture, as an occasional writer in the +columns of the new magazine. + +That was the way in which the second Portfolio found its way to my +table, and was there opened in the autumn of the year 1857. I was +already at least + + + 'Nel mezzo del cammin di mia, vita,' + +when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little-tried paths of +what looked at first like a wilderness, a selva oscura, where, if I did +not meet the lion or the wolf, I should be sure to find the critic, the +most dangerous of the carnivores, waiting to welcome me after his own +fashion. + +The second Portfolio is closed and laid away. Perhaps it was hardly +worth while to provide and open a new one; but here it lies before me, +and I hope I may find something between its covers which will justify me +in coming once more before my old friends. But before I open it I want +to claim a little further indulgence. + +There is a subject of profound interest to almost every writer, I +might say to almost every human being. No matter what his culture or +ignorance, no matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, the +subject I refer to is one of which he rarely ceases to think, and, if +opportunity is offered, to talk. On this he is eloquent, if on nothing +else. The slow of speech becomes fluent; the torpid listener becomes +electric with vivacity, and alive all over with interest. + +The sagacious reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. He +is accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who has a +subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the depressing +disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted with the +conversational amenities of the cordial and interesting stranger, who, +having had the misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in the cars, or of +having his pocket picked at the station, finds himself without the means +of reaching that distant home where affluence waits for him with its +luxurious welcome, but to whom for the moment the loan of some five and +twenty dollars would be a convenience and a favor for which his heart +would ache with gratitude during the brief interval between the loan and +its repayment. + +I wish to say a few words in my own person relating to some passages in +my own history, and more especially to some of the recent experiences +through which I have been passing. + +What can justify one in addressing himself to the general public as if +it were his private correspondent? There are at least three sufficient +reasons: first, if he has a story to tell that everybody wants to +hear,--if he has been shipwrecked, or has been in a battle, or has +witnessed any interesting event, and can tell anything new about it; +secondly, if he can put in fitting words any common experiences not +already well told, so that readers will say, “Why, yes! I have had +that sensation, thought, emotion, a hundred times, but I never heard +it spoken of before, and I never saw any mention of it in print;” and +thirdly, anything one likes, provided he can so tell it as to make it +interesting. + +I have no story to tell in this Introduction which can of itself claim +any general attention. My first pages relate the effect of a certain +literary experience upon myself,--a series of partial metempsychoses +of which I have been the subject. Next follows a brief tribute to the +memory of a very dear and renowned friend from whom I have recently been +parted. The rest of the Introduction will be consecrated to the memory +of my birthplace. + +I have just finished a Memoir, which will appear soon after this page is +written, and will have been the subject of criticism long before it is +in the reader's hands. The experience of thinking another man's thoughts +continuously for a long time; of living one's self into another man's +life for a month, or a year, or more, is a very curious one. No matter +how much superior to the biographer his subject may be, the man who +writes the life feels himself, in a certain sense, on the level of the +person whose life he is writing. One cannot fight over the battles of +Marengo or Austerlitz with Napoleon without feeling as if he himself +had a fractional claim to the victory, so real seems the transfer of his +personality into that of the conqueror while he reads. Still more must +this identification of “subject” and “object” take place when one is +writing of a person whose studies or occupations are not unlike his own. + +Here are some of my metempsychoses: Ten years ago I wrote what I called +A Memorial Outline of a remarkable student of nature. He was a born +observer, and such are far from common. He was also a man of great +enthusiasm and unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what others +passed by without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see only +pebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his companion +would poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a prize at the +end of it. Getting his single facts together with marvellous sagacity +and long-breathed patience, he arranged them, classified them, described +them, studied them in their relations, and before those around him were +aware of it the collector was an accomplished naturalist. When--he died +his collections remained, and they still remain, as his record in the +hieratic language of science. In writing this memoir the spirit of his +quiet pursuits, the even temper they bred in him, gained possession of +my own mind, so that I seemed to look at nature through his gold-bowed +spectacles, and to move about his beautifully ordered museum as if I had +myself prepared and arranged its specimens. I felt wise with his wisdom, +fair-minded with his calm impartiality; it seemed as if for the time his +placid, observant, inquiring, keen-sighted nature “slid into my soul,” + and if I had looked at myself in the glass I should almost have expected +to see the image of the Hersey professor whose life and character I was +sketching. + +A few years hater I lived over the life of another friend in writing +a Memoir of which he was the subject. I saw him, the beautiful, +bright-eyed boy, with dark, waving hair; the youthful scholar, first +at Harvard, then at Gottingen and Berlin, the friend and companion of +Bismarck; the young author, making a dash for renown as a novelist, and +showing the elements which made his failures the promise of success in a +larger field of literary labor; the delving historian, burying his fresh +young manhood in the dusty alcoves of silent libraries, to come forth in +the face of Europe and America as one of the leading historians of +the time; the diplomatist, accomplished, of captivating presence and +manners, an ardent American, and in the time of trial an impassioned and +eloquent advocate of the cause of freedom; reaching at last the summit +of his ambition as minister at the Court of Saint James. All this I +seemed to share with him as I tracked his career from his birthplace in +Dorchester, and the house in Walnut Street where he passed his boyhood, +to the palaces of Vienna and London. And then the cruel blow which +struck him from the place he adorned; the great sorrow that darkened his +later years; the invasion of illness, a threat that warned of danger, +and after a period of invalidism, during a part of which I shared his +most intimate daily life, the sudden, hardly unwelcome, final summons. +Did not my own consciousness migrate, or seem, at least, to transfer +itself into this brilliant life history, as I traced its glowing record? +I, too, seemed to feel the delight of carrying with me, as if they were +my own, the charms of a presence which made its own welcome everywhere. +I shared his heroic toils, I partook of his literary and social +triumphs, I was honored by the marks of distinction which gathered about +him, I was wronged by the indignity from which he suffered, mourned with +him in his sorrow, and thus, after I had been living for months with his +memory, I felt as if I should carry a part of his being with me so +long as my self-consciousness might remain imprisoned in the ponderable +elements. + +The years passed away, and the influences derived from the +companionships I have spoken of had blended intimately with my own +current of being. Then there came to me a new experience in my relations +with an eminent member of the medical profession, whom I met habitually +for a long period, and to whose memory I consecrated a few pages as a +prelude to a work of his own, written under very peculiar circumstances. +He was the subject of a slow, torturing, malignant, and almost +necessarily fatal disease. Knowing well that the mind would feed upon +itself if it were not supplied with food from without, he determined +to write a treatise on a subject which had greatly interested him, and +which would oblige him to bestow much of his time and thought upon it, +if indeed he could hold out to finish the work. During the period +while he was engaged in writing it, his wife, who had seemed in perfect +health, died suddenly of pneumonia. Physical suffering, mental distress, +the prospect of death at a near, if uncertain, time always before him, +it was hard to conceive a more terrible strain than that which he had to +endure. When, in the hour of his greatest need, his faithful companion, +the wife of many years of happy union, whose hand had smoothed his +pillow, whose voice had consoled and cheered him, was torn from him +after a few days of illness, I felt that my friend's trial was such that +the cry of the man of many afflictions and temptations might well have +escaped from his lips: “I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder; he +hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me up +for his mark. His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins +asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.” + +I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after this crushing blow. +What a lesson he gave me of patience under sufferings which the fearful +description of the Eastern poet does not picture too vividly! We have +been taught to admire the calm philosophy of Haller, watching his +faltering pulse as he lay dying; we have heard the words of pious +resignation said to have been uttered with his last breath by Addison: +but here was a trial, not of hours, or days, or weeks, but of months, +even years, of cruel pain, and in the midst of its thick darkness the +light of love, which had burned steadily at his bedside, was suddenly +extinguished. + +There were times in which the thought would force itself upon my +consciousness, How long is the universe to look upon this dreadful +experiment of a malarious planet, with its unmeasurable freight of +suffering, its poisonous atmosphere, so sweet to breathe, so sure to +kill in a few scores of years at farthest, and its heart-breaking woes +which make even that brief space of time an eternity? There can be but +one answer that will meet this terrible question, which must arise in +every thinking nature that would fain “justify the ways of God to men.” + So must it be until that + + + “one far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves” + +has become a reality, and the anthem in which there is no discordant +note shall be joined by a voice from every life made “perfect through +sufferings.” + +Such was the lesson into which I lived in those sad yet placid years of +companionship with my suffering and sorrowing friend, in retracing which +I seemed to find another existence mingled with my own. + +And now for many months I have been living in daily relations of +intimacy with one who seems nearer to me since he has left us than while +he was here in living form and feature. I did not know how difficult a +task I had undertaken in venturing upon a memoir of a man whom all, or +almost all, agree upon as one of the great lights of the New World, and +whom very many regard as an unpredicted Messiah. Never before was I so +forcibly reminded of Carlyle's description of the work of a newspaper +editor,--that threshing of straw already thrice beaten by the flails of +other laborers in the same field. What could be said that had not been +said of “transcendentalism” and of him who was regarded as its prophet; +of the poet whom some admired without understanding, a few understood, +or thought they did, without admiring, and many both understood and +admired,--among these there being not a small number who went far beyond +admiration, and lost themselves in devout worship? While one exalted him +as “the greatest man that ever lived,” another, a friend, famous in the +world of letters, wrote expressly to caution me against the danger +of overrating a writer whom he is content to recognize as an American +Montaigne, and nothing more. + +After finishing this Memoir, which has but just left my hands, I would +gladly have let my brain rest for a while. The wide range of thought +which belonged to the subject of the Memoir, the occasional mysticism +and the frequent tendency toward it, the sweep of imagination and the +sparkle of wit which kept his reader's mind on the stretch, the union +of prevailing good sense with exceptional extravagances, the modest +audacity of a nature that showed itself in its naked truthfulness and +was not ashamed, the feeling that I was in the company of a sibylline +intelligence which was discounting the promises of the remote future +long before they were due,--all this made the task a grave one. But when +I found myself amidst the vortices of uncounted, various, bewildering +judgments, Catholic and Protestant, orthodox and liberal, scholarly from +under the tree of knowledge and instinctive from over the potato-hill; +the passionate enthusiasm of young adorers and the cool, if not cynical, +estimate of hardened critics, all intersecting each other as they +whirled, each around its own centre, I felt that it was indeed very +difficult to keep the faculties clear and the judgment unbiassed. + +It is a great privilege to have lived so long in the society of such a +man. “He nothing common” said, “or mean.” He was always the same pure +and high-souled companion. After being with him virtue seemed as natural +to man as its opposite did according to the old theologies. But how to +let one's self down from the high level of such a character to one's own +poor standard? I trust that the influence of this long intellectual and +spiritual companionship never absolutely leaves one who has lived in +it. It may come to him in the form of self-reproach that he falls so +far short of the superior being who has been so long the object of +his contemplation. But it also carries him at times into the other's +personality, so that he finds himself thinking thoughts that are not his +own, using phrases which he has unconsciously borrowed, writing, it may +be, as nearly like his long-studied original as Julio Romano's painting +was like Raphael's; and all this with the unquestioning conviction that +he is talking from his own consciousness in his own natural way. So far +as tones and expressions and habits which belonged to the idiosyncrasy +of the original are borrowed by the student of his life, it is a +misfortune for the borrower. But to share the inmost consciousness of +a noble thinker, to scan one's self in the white light of a pure +and radiant soul,--this is indeed the highest form of teaching and +discipline. + +I have written these few memoirs, and I am grateful for all that they +have taught me. But let me write no more. There are but two biographers +who can tell the story of a man's or a woman's life. One is the person +himself or herself; the other is the Recording Angel. The autobiographer +cannot be trusted to tell the whole truth, though he may tell nothing +but the truth, and the Recording Angel never lets his book go out of +his own hands. As for myself, I would say to my friends, in the Oriental +phrase, “Live forever!” Yes, live forever, and I, at least, shall not +have to wrong your memories by my imperfect record and unsatisfying +commentary. + +In connection with these biographies, or memoirs, more properly, in +which I have written of my departed friends, I hope my readers will +indulge me in another personal reminiscence. I have just lost my dear +and honored contemporary of the last century. A hundred years ago this +day, December 13, 1784, died the admirable and ever to be remembered +Dr. Samuel Johnson. The year 1709 was made ponderous and illustrious +in English biography by his birth. My own humble advent to the world of +protoplasm was in the year 1809 of the present century. Summer was just +ending when those four letters, “son b.” were written under the date +of my birth, August 29th. Autumn had just begun when my great +pre-contemporary entered this un-Christian universe and was made a +member of the Christian church on the same day, for he was born and +baptized on the 18th of September. + +Thus there was established a close bond of relationship between the +great English scholar and writer and myself. Year by year, and almost +month by month, my life has kept pace in this century with his life in +the last century. I had only to open my Boswell at any time, and I knew +just what Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, was thinking +and doing; what were his feelings about life; what changes the years +had wrought in his body, his mind, his feelings, his companionships, his +reputation. It was for me a kind of unison between two instruments, both +playing that old familiar air, “Life,”--one a bassoon, if you will, and +the other an oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but still +keeping pace with each other until the players both grew old and gray. +At last the thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and its deep +accompaniment rolls out its thunder no more. + +I feel lonely now that my great companion and friend of so many years +has left me. I felt more intimately acquainted with him than I do with +many of my living friends. I can hardly remember when I did not know +him. I can see him in his bushy wig, exactly like that of the Reverend +Dr. Samuel Cooper (who died in December, 1783) as Copley painted +him,--he hangs there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. His ample +coat, too, I see, with its broad flaps and many buttons and generous +cuffs, and beneath it the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, +arching in front of the fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar Falstaffian +prominence, involving no less than a dozen of the above-mentioned +buttons, and the strong legs with their sturdy calves, fitting columns +of support to the massive body and solid, capacious brain enthroned over +it. I can hear him with his heavy tread as he comes in to the Club, and +a gap is widened to make room for his portly figure. “A fine day,” says +Sir Joshua. “Sir,” he answers, “it seems propitious, but the atmosphere +is humid and the skies are nebulous,” at which the great painter smiles, +shifts his trumpet, and takes a pinch of snuff. + +Dear old massive, deep-voiced dogmatist and hypochondriac of the +eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, +between you and the bony, “mighty-mouthed,” harsh-toned termagant and +dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the +snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the +shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our “spiritualist's” paper in the +Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know what +I shall find when it is opened. + +Yes, my life is a little less precious to me since I have lost that dear +old friend; and when the funeral train moves to Westminster Abbey next +Saturday, for I feel as if this were 1784, and not 1884,--I seem to find +myself following the hearse, one of the silent mourners. + +Among the events which have rendered the past year memorable to me +has been the demolition of that venerable and interesting old +dwelling-house, precious for its intimate association with the earliest +stages of the war of the Revolution, and sacred to me as my birthplace +and the home of my boyhood. + +The “Old Gambrel-roofed House” exists no longer. I remember saying +something, in one of a series of papers published long ago, about the +experience of dying out of a house,--of leaving it forever, as the +soul dies out of the body. We may die out of many houses, but the house +itself can die but once; and so real is the life of a house to one who +has dwelt in it, more especially the life of the house which held him +in dreamy infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate youth,--so real, +I say, is its life, that it seems as if something like a soul of it must +outlast its perishing frame. + +The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed House was, I am ready to admit, +a case of justifiable domicide. Not the less was it to be deplored +by all who love the memories of the past. With its destruction are +obliterated some of the footprints of the heroes and martyrs who took +the first steps in the long and bloody march which led us through the +wilderness to the promised land of independent nationality. Personally, +I have a right to mourn for it as a part of my life gone from me. My +private grief for its loss would be a matter for my solitary digestion, +were it not that the experience through which I have just passed is one +so familiar to my fellow-countrymen that, in telling my own reflections +and feelings, I am repeating those of great numbers of men and women who +have had the misfortune to outlive their birthplace. + +It is a great blessing to be born surrounded by a natural horizon. The +Old Gambrel-roofed House could not boast an unbroken ring of natural +objects encircling it. Northerly it looked upon its own outbuildings and +some unpretending two-story houses which had been its neighbors for a +century and more. To the south of it the square brick dormitories and +the bellfried hall of the university helped to shut out the distant +view. But the west windows gave a broad outlook across the common, +beyond which the historical “Washington elm” and two companions in line +with it, spread their leaves in summer and their networks in winter. And +far away rose the hills that bounded the view, with the glimmer here and +there of the white walls or the illuminated casements of some embowered, +half-hidden villa. Eastwardly also, the prospect was, in my earlier +remembrance, widely open, and I have frequently seen the sunlit sails +gliding along as if through the level fields, for no water was visible. +So there were broad expanses on two sides at least, for my imagination +to wander over. + +I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's horizon with us +all our days. Among these western wooded hills my day-dreams built their +fairy palaces, and even now, as I look at them from my library window, +across the estuary of the Charles, I find myself in the familiar home of +my early visions. The “clouds of glory” which we trail with us in after +life need not be traced to a pre-natal state. There is enough to account +for them in that unconsciously remembered period of existence before we +have learned the hard limitations of real life. Those earliest months +in which we lived in sensations without words, and ideas not fettered in +sentences, have all the freshness of proofs of an engraving “before +the letter.” I am very thankful that the first part of my life was not +passed shut in between high walls and treading the unimpressible and +unsympathetic pavement. + +Our university town was very much like the real country, in those +days of which I am thinking. There were plenty of huckleberries and +blueberries within half a mile of the house. Blackberries ripened in the +fields, acorns and shagbarks dropped from the trees, squirrels ran among +the branches, and not rarely the hen-hawk might be seen circling over +the barnyard. Still another rural element was not wanting, in the form +of that far-diffused, infragrant effluvium, which, diluted by a good +half mile of pure atmosphere, is no longer odious, nay is positively +agreeable, to many who have long known it, though its source and centre +has an unenviable reputation. I need not name the animal whose Parthian +warfare terrifies and puts to flight the mightiest hunter that ever +roused the tiger from his jungle or faced the lion of the desert. +Strange as it may seem, an aerial hint of his personality in the far +distance always awakens in my mind pleasant remembrances and tender +reflections. A whole neighborhood rises up before me: the barn, with +its haymow, where the hens laid their eggs to hatch, and we boys hid our +apples to ripen, both occasionally illustrating the sic vos non vobis; +the shed, where the annual Tragedy of the Pig was acted with a realism +that made Salvini's Othello seem but a pale counterfeit; the rickety old +outhouse, with the “corn-chamber” which the mice knew so well; the paved +yard, with its open gutter,--these and how much else come up at the +hint of my far-off friend, who is my very near enemy. Nothing is more +familiar than the power of smell in reviving old memories. There was +that quite different fragrance of the wood-house, the smell of fresh +sawdust. It comes back to me now, and with it the hiss of the saw; the +tumble of the divorced logs which God put together and man has just put +asunder; the coming down of the axe and the hah! that helped it,--the +straight-grained stick opening at the first appeal of the implement as +if it were a pleasure, and the stick with a knot in the middle of it +that mocked the blows and the hahs! until the beetle and wedge made it +listen to reason,--there are just such straight-grained and just such +knotty men and women. All this passes through my mind while Biddy, whose +parlor-name is Angela, contents herself with exclaiming “egh!*******!” + +How different distances were in those young days of which I am thinking! +From the old house to the old yellow meeting-house, where the head of +the family preached and the limbs of the family listened, was not much +more than two or three times the width of Commonwealth Avenue. But of +a hot summer's afternoon, after having already heard one sermon, +which could not in the nature of things have the charm of novelty of +presentation to the members of the home circle, and the theology of +which was not too clear to tender apprehensions; with three hymns more +or less lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got into voice by many +preliminary snuffles and other expiratory efforts, and accompanied by +the snort of a huge bassviol which wallowed through the tune like a +hippopotamus, with other exercises of the customary character,--after +all this in the forenoon, the afternoon walk to the meeting-house in the +hot sun counted for as much, in my childish dead-reckoning, as from old +Israel Porter's in Cambridge to the Exchange Coffeehouse in Boston +did in after years. It takes a good while to measure the radius of the +circle that is about us, for the moon seems at first as near as the +watchface. Who knows but that, after a certain number of ages, the +planet we live on may seem to us no bigger than our neighbor Venus +appeared when she passed before the sun a few months ago, looking as +if we could take her between our thumb and finger, like a bullet or a +marble? And time, too; how long was it from the serious sunrise to the +joyous “sun-down” of an old-fashioned, puritanical, judaical first day +of the week, which a pious fraud christened “the Sabbath”? Was it a +fortnight, as we now reckon duration, or only a week? Curious entities, +or non-entities, space and tithe? When you see a metaphysician trying to +wash his hands of them and get rid of these accidents, so as to lay his +dry, clean palm on the absolute, does it not remind you of the hopeless +task of changing the color of the blackamoor by a similar proceeding? +For space is the fluid in which he is washing, and time is the soap +which he is using up in the process, and he cannot get free from them +until he can wash himself in a mental vacuum. + +In my reference to the old house in a former paper, published years ago, +I said, + +“By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant itself +on this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung so +tenaciously to the place and its habitations will have died with those +who cherished them.” + +What strides the great University has taken since those words were +written! During all my early years our old Harvard Alma Mater sat still +and lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all at once, +like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her pedestal. The fall +of that “stony foot” has effected a miracle like the harp that Orpheus +played, like the teeth which Cadmus sowed. The plain where the moose and +the bear were wandering while Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, where a +few plain dormitories and other needed buildings were scattered about +in my school-boy days, groans under the weight of the massive edifices +which have sprung up all around them, crowned by the tower of that noble +structure which stands in full view before me as I lift my eyes from the +portfolio on the back of which I am now writing. + +For I must be permitted to remind you that I have not yet opened it. I +have told you that I have just finished a long memoir, and that it has +cost me no little labor to overcome some of its difficulties,--if I have +overcome them, which others must decide. And I feel exactly as honest +Dobbin feels when his harness is slipped off after a long journey with +a good deal of up-hill work. He wants to rest a little, then to feed +a little; then, if you will turn him loose in the pasture, he wants to +roll. I have left my starry and ethereal companionship,--not for a +long time, I hope, for it has lifted me above my common self, but for a +while. And now I want, so to speak, to roll in the grass and among the +dandelions with the other pachyderms. So I have kept to the outside of +the portfolio as yet, and am disporting myself in reminiscences, and +fancies, and vagaries, and parentheses. + +How well I understand the feeling which led the Pisans to load their +vessels with earth from the Holy Land, and fill the area of the Campo +Santo with that sacred soil! The old house stood upon about as perverse +a little patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved earth-worm. +It was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. The rustic +aid-de-camps of the household used to aver that all fertilizing matters +“leached” through it. I tried to disprove their assertion by gorging it +with the best of terrestrial nourishment, until I became convinced that +I was feeding the tea-plants of China, and then I gave over the attempt. +And yet I did love, and do love, that arid patch of ground. I wonder if +a single flower could not be made to grow in a pot of earth from that +Campo Santo of my childhood! One noble product of nature did not +refuse to flourish there,--the tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, +many-jointed, generous maize or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and +defies the blaze of our shrivelling summer. What child but loves to +wander in its forest-like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and with +the lofty tassels tossing their heads high above him! There are two +aspects of the cornfield which always impress my imagination: the first +when it has reached its full growth, and its ordered ranks look like an +army on the march with its plumed and bannered battalions; the second +when, after the battle of the harvest, the girdled stacks stand on the +field of slaughter like so many ragged Niobes,--say rather like the +crazy widows and daughters of the dead soldiery. + +Once more let us come back to the old house. It was far along in its +second century when the edict went forth that it must stand no longer. + +The natural death of a house is very much like that of one of its human +tenants. The roof is the first part to show the distinct signs of age. +Slates and tiles loosen and at last slide off, and leave bald the boards +that supported them; shingles darken and decay, and soon the garret or +the attic lets in the rain and the snow; by and by the beams sag, the +floors warp, the walls crack, the paper peels away, the ceilings scale +off and fall, the windows are crusted with clinging dust, the doors drop +from their rusted hinges, the winds come in without knocking and howl +their cruel death-songs through the empty rooms and passages, and at +last there comes a crash, a great cloud of dust rises, and the home that +had been the shelter of generation after generation finds its grave in +its own cellar. Only the chimney remains as its monument. Slowly, little +by little, the patient solvents that find nothing too hard for their +chemistry pick out the mortar from between the bricks; at last a mighty +wind roars around it and rushes against it, and the monumental relic +crashes down among the wrecks it has long survived. So dies a human +habitation left to natural decay, all that was seen above the surface of +the soil sinking gradually below it, + + + Till naught remains the saddening tale to tell + Save home's last wrecks, the cellar and the well. + +But if this sight is saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling fall +by the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that has kept +out a thousand storms, the tearing off of the once ornamental woodwork, +the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the murderous blows of the axe, +the progressive ruin, which ends by rending all the joints asunder and +flinging the tenoned and mortised timbers into heaps that will be sawed +and split to warm some new habitation as firewood,--what a brutal act of +destruction it seems! + +Why should I go over the old house again, having already described it +more than ten years ago? Alas! how many remember anything they read but +once, and so long ago as that? How many would find it out if one should +say over in the same words that which he said in the last decade? But +there is really no need of telling the story a second time, for it can +be found by those who are curious enough to look it up in a volume of +which it occupies the opening chapter. + +In order, however, to save any inquisitive reader that trouble, let me +remind him that the old house was General Ward's headquarters at the +breaking out of the Revolution; that the plan for fortifying Bunker's +Hill was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower room, the +floor of which was covered with dents, made, it was alleged, by the +butts of the soldiers' muskets. In that house, too, General Warren +probably passed the night before the Bunker Hill battle, and over its +threshold must the stately figure of Washington have often cast its +shadow. + +But the house in which one drew his first breath, and where he one day +came into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a little +universe with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent identity, +with the terrible responsibility of a separate, independent, inalienable +existence,--that house does not ask for any historical associations to +make it the centre of the earth for him. + +If there is any person in the world to be envied, it is the one who is +born to an ancient estate, with a long line of family traditions and +the means in his hands of shaping his mansion and his domain to his own +taste, without losing sight of all the characteristic features which +surrounded his earliest years. The American is, for the most part, a +nomad, who pulls down his house as the Tartar pulls up his tent-poles. +If I had an ideal life to plan for him it would be something like this: + +His grandfather should be a wise, scholarly, large-brained, +large-hearted country minister, from whom he should inherit the +temperament that predisposes to cheerfulness and enjoyment, with the +finer instincts which direct life to noble aims and make it rich with +the gratification of pure and elevated tastes and the carrying out of +plans for the good of his neighbors and his fellow-creatures. He should, +if possible, have been born, at any rate have passed some of his early +years, or a large part of them, under the roof of the good old minister. +His father should be, we will say, a business man in one of our great +cities,--a generous manipulator of millions, some of which have adhered +to his private fortunes, in spite of his liberal use of his means. His +heir, our ideally placed American, shall take possession of the old +house, the home of his earliest memories, and preserve it sacredly, +not exactly like the Santa Casa, but, as nearly as may be, just as +he remembers it. He can add as many acres as he will to the narrow +house-lot. He can build a grand mansion for himself, if he chooses, in +the not distant neighborhood. But the old house, and all immediately +round it, shall be as he recollects it when he had to stretch his little +arm up to reach the door-handles. Then, having well provided for his +own household, himself included, let him become the providence of the +village or the town where he finds himself during at least a portion +of every year. Its schools, its library, its poor,--and perhaps the new +clergyman who has succeeded his grandfather's successor may be one of +them,--all its interests, he shall make his own. And from this centre +his beneficence shall radiate so far that all who hear of his wealth +shall also hear of him as a friend to his race. + +Is not this a pleasing programme? Wealth is a steep hill, which the +father climbs slowly and the son often tumbles down precipitately; but +there is a table-land on a level with it, which may be found by those +who do not lose their head in looking down from its sharply cloven +summit.---Our dangerously rich men can make themselves hated, held as +enemies of the race, or beloved and recognized as its benefactors. +The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the gold-pointed +lightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive element may be +drawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too often +that the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the new +version of the Old World axiom, RICHESS oblige. + + + + + + + + + + + +THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + + + + +I. GETTING READY. + +It is impossible to begin a story which must of necessity tax the powers +of belief of readers unacquainted with the class of facts to which its +central point of interest belongs without some words in the nature of +preparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember that Sarah Battle insisted +on a clean-swept hearth before sitting down to her favorite game of +whist. + +The narrator wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, in these opening +pages, before sitting down to tell his story. He does not intend to +frighten the reader away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to warn +him against hasty judgments when facts are related which are not within +the range of every-day experience. Did he ever see the Siamese twins, or +any pair like them? Probably not, yet he feels sure that Chang and +Eng really existed; and if he has taken the trouble to inquire, he has +satisfied himself that similar cases have been recorded by credible +witnesses, though at long intervals and in countries far apart from each +other. + +This is the first sweep of the brush, to clear the hearth of the +skepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before we +can begin to tell and to listen in peace with ourselves and each other. + +One more stroke of the brush is needed before the stage will be ready +for the chief characters and the leading circumstances to which the +reader's attention is invited. If the principal personages made their +entrance at once, the reader would have to create for himself the whole +scenery of their surrounding conditions. In point of fact, no matter +how a story is begun, many of its readers have already shaped its chief +actors out of any hint the author may have dropped, and provided from +their own resources a locality and a set of outward conditions to +environ these imagined personalities. These are all to be brushed away, +and the actual surroundings of the subject of the narrative represented +as they were, at the risk of detaining the reader a little while from +the events most likely to interest him. The choicest egg that ever +was laid was not so big as the nest that held it. If a story were so +interesting that a maiden would rather hear it than listen to the praise +of her own beauty, or a poet would rather read it than recite his +own verses, still it would have to be wrapped in some tissue of +circumstance, or it would lose half its effectiveness. + +It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred to in this +narrative by looking into the first gazetteer that is at hand. Recent +experiences have shown that it is unsafe to be too exact in designating +places and the people who live in them. There are, it may be added, +so many advertisements disguised under the form of stories and other +literary productions that one naturally desires to avoid the suspicion +of being employed by the enterprising proprietors of this or that +celebrated resort to use his gifts for their especial benefit. There are +no doubt many persons who remember the old sign and the old tavern and +its four chief personages presently to be mentioned. It is to be hoped +that they will not furnish the public with a key to this narrative, +and perhaps bring trouble to the writer of it, as has happened to other +authors. If the real names are a little altered, it need not interfere +with the important facts relating to those who bear them. It might not +be safe to tell a damaging story about John or James Smythe; but if +the slight change is made of spelling the name Smith, the Smythes would +never think of bringing an action, as if the allusion related to any of +them. The same gulf of family distinction separates the Thompsons with a +p from the Thomsons without that letter. + +There are few pleasanter places in the Northern States for a summer +residence than that known from the first period of its settlement by the +name of Arrowhead Village. The Indians had found it out, as the relics +they left behind them abundantly testified. The commonest of these were +those chipped stones which are the medals of barbarism, and from +which the place took its name,--the heads of arrows, of various sizes, +material, and patterns: some small enough for killing fish and little +birds, some large enough for such game as the moose and the bear, to say +nothing of the hostile Indian and the white settler; some of flint, now +and then one of white quartz, and others of variously colored jasper. +The Indians must have lived here for many generations, and it must have +been a kind of factory village of the stone age,--which lasted up to +near the present time, if we may judge from the fact that many of these +relics are met with close to the surface of the ground. + +No wonder they found this a pleasant residence, for it is to-day one +of the most attractive of all summer resorts; so inviting, indeed, that +those who know it do not like to say too much about it, lest the swarms +of tourists should make it unendurable to those who love it for itself, +and not as a centre of fashionable display and extramural cockneyism. + +There is the lake, in the first place,--Cedar Lake,--about five miles +long, and from half a mile to a mile and a half wide, stretching +from north to south. Near the northern extremity are the buildings of +Stoughton University, a flourishing young college with an ambitious +name, but well equipped and promising, the grounds of which reach the +water. At the southern end of the lake are the edifices of the Corinna +Institute, a favorite school for young ladies, where large numbers of +the daughters of America are fitted, so far as education can do it, for +all stations in life, from camping out with a husband at the mines in +Nevada to acting the part of chief lady of the land in the White House +at Washington. + +Midway between the two extremities, on the eastern shore of the lake, +is a valley between two hills, which come down to the very edge of the +lake, leaving only room enough for a road between their base and the +water. This valley, half a mile in width, has been long settled, and +here for a century or more has stood the old Anchor Tavern. A famous +place it was so long as its sign swung at the side of the road: famous +for its landlord, portly, paternal, whose welcome to a guest that +looked worthy of the attention was like that of a parent to a returning +prodigal, and whose parting words were almost as good as a marriage +benediction; famous for its landlady, ample in person, motherly, seeing +to the whole household with her own eyes, mistress of all culinary +secrets that Northern kitchens are most proud of; famous also for its +ancient servant, as city people would call her,--help, as she was called +in the tavern and would have called herself,--the unchanging, seemingly +immortal Miranda, who cared for the guests as if she were their nursing +mother, and pressed the specially favorite delicacies on their attention +as a connoisseur calls the wandering eyes of an amateur to the beauties +of a picture. Who that has ever been at the old Anchor Tavern forgets +Miranda's + + + “A little of this fricassee?-it is ver-y nice;” + +or + + + “Some of these cakes? You will find them ver-y good.” + +Nor would it be just to memory to forget that other notable and noted +member of the household,--the unsleeping, unresting, omnipresent Pushee, +ready for everybody and everything, everywhere within the limits of the +establishment at all hours of the day and night. He fed, nobody could +say accurately when or where. There were rumors of a “bunk,” in which he +lay down with his clothes on, but he seemed to be always wide awake, +and at the service of as many guest, at once as if there had been half a +dozen of him. + +So much for old reminiscences. + +The landlord of the Anchor Tavern had taken down his sign. He had had +the house thoroughly renovated and furnished it anew, and kept it open +in summer for a few boarders. It happened more than once that the summer +boarders were so much pleased with the place that they stayed on through +the autumn, and some of them through the winter. The attractions of +the village were really remarkable. Boating in summer, and skating in +winter; ice-boats, too, which the wild ducks could hardly keep up with; +fishing, for which the lake was renowned; varied and beautiful walks +through the valley and up the hillsides; houses sheltered from the north +and northeasterly winds, and refreshed in the hot summer days by +the breeze which came over the water,--all this made the frame for a +pleasing picture of rest and happiness. But there was a great deal more +than this. There was a fine library in the little village, presented +and richly endowed by a wealthy native of the place. There was a small +permanent population of a superior character to that of an everyday +country town; there was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a +good-hearted rector, broad enough for the Bishop of the diocese to be +a little afraid of, and hospitable to all outsiders, of whom, in the +summer season, there were always some who wanted a place of worship to +keep their religion from dying out during the heathen months, while +the shepherds of the flocks to which they belonged were away from their +empty folds. + +What most helped to keep the place alive all through the year was +the frequent coming together of the members of a certain literary +association. Some time before the tavern took down its sign the landlord +had built a hall, where many a ball had been held, to which the young +folks of all the country round had resorted. It was still sometimes used +for similar occasions, but it was especially notable as being the place +of meeting of the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +This association, the name of which might be invidiously interpreted as +signifying that its members knew everything, had no such pretensions, +but, as its Constitution said very plainly and modestly, held itself +open to accept knowledge on any and all subjects from such as had +knowledge to impart. Its President was the rector of the little chapel, +a man who, in spite of the Thirty-Nine Articles, could stand fire from +the widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without flinching or losing +his temper. The hall of the old Anchor Tavern was a convenient place +of meeting for the students and instructors of the University and +the Institute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes in carriage-loads, +sometimes in processions of skaters, they came to the meetings in +Pansophian Hall, as it was now commonly called. + +These meetings had grown to be occasions of great interest. It was +customary to have papers written by members of the Society, for the +most part, but now and then by friends of the members, sometimes by +the students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer instances +by anonymous personages, whose papers, having been looked over and +discussed by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thought +worth listening to. The variety of topics considered was very great. +The young ladies of the village and the Institute had their favorite +subjects, the young gentlemen a different set of topics, and the +occasional outside contributors their own; so that one who happened +to be admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was going to hear an +account of recent arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom of the +will, or a psychological experience, or a story, or even a poem. + +Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating to +the true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The most +conflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young ladies +and some of the University students were strong in defence of all the +“woman's rights” doctrines. Some of these young people were extreme +in their views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea and Queen +Elizabeth, until they were ready, if they could get the chance, to +vote for a woman as President of the United States or as General of +the United States Army. They were even disposed to assert the physical +equality of woman to man, on the strength of the rather questionable +history of the Amazons, and especially of the story, believed to be +authentic, of the female body-guard of the King of Dahomey,--females +frightful enough to need no other weapon than their looks to scare off +an army of Cossacks. + +Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the Corinna +Institute, was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It was +rather singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of this +extreme doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped with +brain than muscles. In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed, +long-eyelashed, slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; looking +almost like a child at an age when many of the girls had reached their +full stature and proportions. In her studies she was so far in advance +of her different classes that there was always a wide gap between her +and the second scholar. So fatal to all rivalry had she proved herself +that she passed under the school name of The Terror. She learned so +easily that she undervalued her own extraordinary gifts, and felt the +deepest admiration for those of her friends endowed with faculties of an +entirely different and almost opposite nature. After sitting at her desk +until her head was hot and her feet were like ice, she would go and look +at the blooming young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, +and feel as if she would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics and +strange tongues and history, all those accomplishments that made her the +encyclopaedia of every class she belonged to, if she could go through +the series of difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw her +schoolmates delighting. + +One among them, especially, was the object of her admiration, as she was +of all who knew her exceptional powers in the line for which nature had +specially organized her. All the physical perfections which Miss Lurida +had missed had been united in Miss Euthymia Tower, whose school name was +The Wonder. Though of full womanly stature, there were several taller +girls of her age. While all her contours and all her movements betrayed +a fine muscular development, there was no lack of proportion, and her +finely shaped hands and feet showed that her organization was one of +those carefully finished masterpieces of nature which sculptors are +always in search of, and find it hard to detect among the imperfect +products of the living laboratory. + +This girl of eighteen was more famous than she cared to be for her +performances in the gymnasium. She commonly contented herself with +the same exercises that her companions were accustomed to. Only her +dumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and gracefully, were too +heavy for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from the +floor. She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be +checked in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at the +University came over to the Institute now and then, and it was a source +of great excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in which the +young lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and skill in managing +herself in the accomplishment of feats which looked impossible at first +sight. How often The Terror had thought to herself that she would gladly +give up all her knowledge of Greek and the differential and integral +calculus if she could only perform the least of those feats which were +mere play to The Wonder! Miss Euthymia was not behind the rest in her +attainments in classical or mathematical knowledge, and she was one of +the very best students in the out-door branches,--botany, mineralogy, +sketching from nature,--to be found among the scholars of the Institute. + +There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of the young ladies, of +which Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor little +Lurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when there were +many boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere feather-weight, +and quick-witted enough to serve well in the important office where +brains are more needed than muscle. + +There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the University, and +rowed by a picked crew of stalwart young fellows. The bow oar and +captain of the University crew was a powerful young man, who, like the +captain of the girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He had had one or two +quiet trials with Miss Euthymia, in which, according to the ultras of +the woman's rights party, he had not vindicated the superiority of his +sex in the way which might have been expected. Indeed, it was claimed +that he let a cannon-ball drop when he ought to have caught it, and +it was not disputed that he had been ingloriously knocked over by a +sand-bag projected by the strong arms of the young maiden. This was of +course a story that was widely told and laughingly listened to, and +the captain of the University crew had become a little sensitive on +the subject. When there was a talk, therefore, about a race between the +champion boats of the two institutions there was immense excitement in +both of them, as well as among the members of the Pansophian Society and +all the good people of the village. + +There were many objections to be overcome. Some thought it unladylike +for the young maidens to take part in a competition which must attract +many lookers-on, and which it seemed to them very hoidenish to venture +upon. Some said it was a shame to let a crew of girls try their strength +against an equal number of powerful young men. These objections were +offset by the advocates of the race by the following arguments. They +maintained that it was no more hoidenish to row a boat than it was to +take a part in the calisthenic exercises, and that the girls had nothing +to do with the young men's boat, except to keep as much ahead of it as +possible. As to strength, the woman's righters believed that, weight +for weight, their crew was as strong as the other, and of course due +allowance would be made for the difference of weight and all other +accidental hindrances. It was time to test the boasted superiority +of masculine muscle. Here was a chance. If the girls beat, the whole +country would know it, and after that female suffrage would be only +a question of time. Such was the conclusion, from rather insufficient +premises, it must be confessed; but if nature does nothing per +saltum,--by jumps,--as the old adage has it, youth is very apt to take +long leaps from a fact to a possible sequel or consequence. So it had +come about that a contest between the two boat-crews was looked forward +to with an interest almost equal to that with which the combat between +the Horatii and Curiatii was regarded. + +The terms had been at last arranged between the two crews, after +cautious protocols and many diplomatic discussions. It was so novel in +its character that it naturally took a good deal of time to adjust it +in such a way as to be fair to both parties. The course must not be too +long for the lighter and weaker crew, for the staying power of the young +persons who made it up could not be safely reckoned upon. A certain +advantage must be allowed them at the start, and this was a delicate +matter to settle. The weather was another important consideration. June +would be early enough, in all probability, and if the lake should be +tolerably smooth the grand affair might come off some time in that +month. Any roughness of the water would be unfavorable to the weaker +crew. The rowing-course was on the eastern side of the lake, the +starting-point being opposite the Anchor Tavern; from that three +quarters of a mile to the south, where the turning-stake was fixed, so +that the whole course of one mile and a half would bring the boats back +to their starting-point. + +The race was to be between the Algonquin, eight-oared boat with +outriggers, rowed by young men, students of Stoughton University, and +the Atalanta, also eight-oared and outrigger boat, by young ladies from +the Corinna Institute. Their boat was three inches wider than the other, +for various sufficient reasons, one of which was to make it a little +less likely to go over and throw its crew into the water, which was a +sound precaution, though all the girls could swim, and one at least, the +bow oar, was a famous swimmer, who had pulled a drowning man out of the +water after a hard struggle to keep him from carrying her down with him. + +Though the coming trial had not been advertised in the papers, so as to +draw together a rabble of betting men and ill-conditioned lookers-on, +there was a considerable gathering, made up chiefly of the villagers +and the students of the two institutions. Among them were a few who were +disposed to add to their interest in the trial by small wagers. The bets +were rather in favor of the “Quins,” as the University boat was commonly +called, except where the natural sympathy of the young ladies or the +gallantry of some of the young men led them to risk their gloves or +cigars, or whatever it might be, on the Atalantas. The elements of +judgment were these: average weight of the Algonquins one hundred and +sixty-five pounds; average weight of the Atalantas, one hundred and +forty-eight pounds; skill in practice about equal; advantage of the +narrow boat equal to three lengths; whole distance allowed the Atalantas +eight lengths,--a long stretch to be made up in a mile and a half. And +so both crews began practising for the grand trial. + + + + + + +II. THE BOAT-RACE. + +The 10th of June was a delicious summer day, rather warm, but still and +bright. The water was smooth, and the crews were in the best possible +condition. All was expectation, and for some time nothing but +expectation. No boat-race or regatta ever began at the time appointed +for the start. Somebody breaks an oar, or somebody fails to appear in +season, or something is the matter with a seat or an outrigger; or if +there is no such excuse, the crew of one or both or all the boats to +take part in the race must paddle about to get themselves ready for +work, to the infinite weariness of all the spectators, who naturally ask +why all this getting ready is not attended to beforehand. The Algonquins +wore plain gray flannel suits and white caps. The young ladies were all +in dark blue dresses, touched up with a red ribbon here and there, and +wore light straw hats. The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the last +to step on board. As she took her place she carefully deposited at her +feet a white handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps a +sponge, in case the boat should take in water. + +At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook where she lay, +--long, narrow, shining, swift as a pickerel when he darts from the +reedy shore. It was a beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows in +their close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, bending their +backs for the stroke and recovering, as if they were parts of a single +machine. + +“The gals can't stan' it agin them fellers,” said the old blacksmith +from the village. + +“You wait till the gals get a-goin',” said the carpenter, who had often +worked in the gymnasium of the Corinna Institute, and knew something of +their muscular accomplishments. “Y' ought to see 'em climb ropes, and +swing dumb-bells, and pull in them rowin'-machines. Ask Jake there +whether they can't row a mild in double-quick time,--he knows all abaout +it.” + +Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a freshwater fisherman in a +country village is inspector-general of all that goes on out-of-doors, +being a lazy, wandering sort of fellow, whose study of the habits and +habitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of observation, just +as dealing in horses is an education of certain faculties, and breeds a +race of men peculiarly cunning, suspicious, wary, and wide awake, with a +rhetoric of appreciation and depreciation all its own. + +Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and delivered himself to the +following effect: + +“Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I've seed 'em both often enough +when they was practisin', an' I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaout +neither on 'em. But them bats is all-fired long, 'n' eight on 'em +stretched in a straight line eendways makes a consid'able piece aout 'f +a mile 'n' a haaf. I'd bate on them gals if it wa'n't that them fellers +is naterally longer winded, as the gals 'll find aout by the time they +git raound the stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. I'll go ye a quarter +on the pahnts agin the petticoats.” + +The fresh-water fisherman had expressed the prevailing belief that the +young ladies were overmatched. Still there were not wanting those who +thought the advantage allowed the “Lantas,” as they called the Corinna +boatcrew, was too great, and that it would be impossible for the “Quins” + to make it up and go by them. + +The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. They +appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome +as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined +to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of +oars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter fifty cents. No takers. + +Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to the south, looking +for the Atalanta. A clump of trees hid the edge of the lake along which +the Corinna's boat was stealing towards the starting-point. Presently +the long shell swept into view, with its blooming rowers, who, with +their ample dresses, seemed to fill it almost as full as Raphael fills +his skiff on the edge of the Lake of Galilee. But how steadily the +Atalanta came on!---no rocking, no splashing, no apparent strain; the +bow oar turning to look ahead every now and then, and watching her +course, which seemed to be straight as an arrow, the beat of the strokes +as true and regular as the pulse of the healthiest rower among them +all. And if the sight of the other boat and its crew was beautiful, how +lovely was the look of this! Eight young girls,--young ladies, for those +who prefer that more dignified and less attractive expression,--all +in the flush of youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its +duty; each rower alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, +or let her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its +propelling virtue; every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each +of the boats was cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the +Atalanta were naturally the loudest, as the gallantry of one sex and the +clear, high voices of the other gave it life and vigor. + +“Take your places!” shouted the umpire, five minutes before the half +hour. The two boats felt their way slowly and cautiously to their +positions, which had been determined by careful measurement. After a +little backing and filling they got into line, at the proper distance +from each other, and sat motionless, their bodies bent forward, their +arms outstretched, their oars in the water, waiting for the word. + +“Go!” shouted the umpire. + +Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her leaped the Algonquin, +her oars bending like so many long Indian bows as their blades flashed +through the water. + +“A stern chase is a long chase,” especially when one craft is a great +distance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible for +the rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the Algonquin +kept gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That was the question. +As the boats got farther and farther away, it became more and more +difficult to determine what change there was in the interval between +them. But when they came to rounding the stake it was easier to guess at +the amount of space which had been gained. It was clear that something +like half the distance, four lengths, as nearly as could be estimated, +had been made up in rowing the first three quarters of a mile. Could +the Algonquins do a little better than this in the second half of the +race-course, they would be sure of winning. + +The boats had turned the stake, and were coming in rapidly. Every minute +the University boat was getting nearer the other. + +“Go it, Quins!” shouted the students. + +“Pull away, Lantas!” screamed the girls, who were crowding down to the +edge of the water. + +Nearer,--nearer,--the rear boat is pressing the other more and more +closely,--a few more strokes, and they will be even, for there is but +one length between them, and thirty rods will carry them to the line. +It looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow oar of the Algonquin turns +his head. He sees the little coxswain leaning forward at every stroke, +as if her trivial weight were of such mighty consequence,--but a few +ounces might turn the scale of victory. As he turned he got a glimpse of +the stroke oar of the Atalanta. What a flash of loveliness it was! Her +face was like the reddest of June roses, with the heat and the +strain and the passion of expected triumph. The upper button of her +close-fitting flannel suit had strangled her as her bosom heaved with +exertion, and it had given way before the fierce clutch she made at it. +The bow oar was a staunch and steady rower, but he was human. The blade +of his oar lingered in the water; a little more and he would have caught +a crab, and perhaps lost the race by his momentary bewilderment. + +The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and nervousness of a +Derby three-year-old, felt the slight check, and all her men bent more +vigorously to their oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and made a +spurt to keep their lead and gain upon it if they could. It was of +no use. The strong arms of the young men were too much for the young +maidens; only a few lengths remained to be rowed, and they would +certainly pass the Atalanta before she could reach the line. + +The little coxswain saw that it was all up with the girls' crew if she +could not save them by some strategic device. + + + “Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?” + +she whispered to herself,--for The Terror remembered her Virgil as she +did everything else she ever studied. As she stooped, she lifted the +handkerchief at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. “Look!” + she cried, and flung it just forward of the track of the Algonquin. The +captain of the University boat turned his head, and there was the lovely +vision which had a moment before bewitched him. The owner of all that +loveliness must, he thought, have flung the bouquet. It was a challenge: +how could he be such a coward as to decline accepting it. + +He was sure he could win the race now, and he would sweep past the line +in triumph with the great bunch of flowers at the stem of his boat, +proud as Van Tromp in the British channel with the broom at his +mast-head. + +He turned the boat's head a little by backing water. He came up with the +floating flowers, and near enough to reach them. He stooped and snatched +them up, with the loss perhaps of a second in all,--no more. He felt +sure of his victory. + +How can one tell the story of the finish in cold-blooded preterites? +Are we not there ourselves? Are not our muscles straining with those of +these sixteen young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their nerves +all tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, all their life +concentrating itself in this passionate moment of supreme effort? No! We +are seeing, not telling about what somebody else once saw! + +--The bow of the Algonquin passes the stern of the Atalanta! + +--The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the middle of the +Atalanta! + +--Three more lengths' rowing and the college crew will pass the girls! + +--“Hurrah for the Quins!” The Algonquin ranges up alongside of the +Atalanta! + +“Through with her!” shouts the captain of the Algonquin. + +“Now, girls!” shrieks the captain of the Atalanta. + +They near the line, every rower straining desperately, almost madly. + +--Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta's captain, and up flash its +splintered fragments, as the stem of her boat springs past the line, +eighteen inches at least ahead of the Algonquin. + +Hooraw for the Lantas! Hooraw for the Girls! Hooraw for the Institoot! +shout a hundred voices. + +“Hurrah for woman's rights and female suffrage!” pipes the small voice +of The Terror, and there is loud laughing and cheering all round. + +She had not studied her classical dictionary and her mythology for +nothing. “I have paid off one old score,” she said. “Set down my damask +roses against the golden apples of Hippomenes!” + +It was that one second lost in snatching up the bouquet which gave the +race to the Atalantas. + + + + + + +III. THE WHITE CANOE. + +While the two boats were racing, other boats with lookers-on in them +were rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course. The scene +on the water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats were, many +of them, acquainted with each other. There was a good deal of lively +talk until the race became too exciting. Then many fell silent, until, +as the boats neared the line, and still more as they crossed it, the +shouts burst forth which showed how a cramp of attention finds its +natural relief in a fit of convulsive exclamation. + +But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birchbark canoe was to be +seen, in which sat a young man, who paddled it skillfully and swiftly. +It was evident enough that he was watching the race intently, but the +spectators could see little more than that. One of them, however, who +sat upon the stand, had a powerful spy-glass, and could distinguish his +motions very minutely and exactly. It was seen by this curious observer +that the young man had an opera-glass with him, which he used a good +deal at intervals. The spectator thought he kept it directed to the +girls' boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. He thought also that the +opera-glass was more particularly pointed towards the bow of the boat, +and came to the natural conclusion that the bow oar, Miss Euthymia +Tower, captain of the Atalantas, “The Wonder” of the Corinna Institute, +was the attraction which determined the direction of the instrument. + +“Who is that in the canoe over there?” asked the owner of the spy-glass. + +“That's just what we should like to know,” answered the old landlord's +wife. “He and his man boarded with us when they first came, but we could +never find out anything about him only just his name and his ways of +living. His name is Kirkwood, Maurice Kirkwood, Esq., it used to come +on his letters. As for his ways of living, he was the solitariest human +being that I ever came across. His man carried his meals up to him. He +used to stay in his room pretty much all day, but at night he would be +off, walking, or riding on horseback, or paddling about in the lake, +sometimes till nigh morning. There's something very strange about that +Mr. Kirkwood. But there don't seem to be any harm in him. Only nobody +can guess what his business is. They got up a story about him at one +time. What do you think? They said he was a counterfeiter! And so they +went one night to his room, when he was out, and that man of his was +away too, and they carried keys, and opened pretty much everything; and +they found--well, they found just nothing at all except writings and +letters,--letters from places in America and in England, and some with +Italian postmarks: that was all. Since that time the sheriff and +his folks have let him alone and minded their own business. He was a +gentleman,--anybody ought to have known that; and anybody that knew +about his nice ways of living and behaving, and knew the kind of wear he +had for his underclothing, might have known it. I could have told those +officers that they had better not bother him. I know the ways of real +gentlemen and real ladies, and I know those fellows in store clothes +that look a little too fine,--outside. Wait till washing-day comes!” + +The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity, and they were +not wholly unworthy of consideration; they were quite as much to be +relied on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who sent his +accomplice on before him to study out the principal personages in the +village, and in the light of these revelations interpreted the bumps, +with very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim, or any other authorities. + +Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search among +his papers and effects, the gossips of the village had constructed +several distinct histories for the mysterious stranger. He was an agent +of a great publishing house; a leading contributor to several important +periodicals; the author of that anonymously published novel which had +made so much talk; the poet of a large clothing establishment; a spy of +the Italian, some said the Russian, some said the British, Government; +a proscribed refugee from some country where he had been plotting; a +school-master without a school, a minister without a pulpit, an actor +without an engagement; in short, there was no end to the perfectly +senseless stories that were told about him, from that which made him out +an escaped convict to the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric +heir to a great English title and estate. + +The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion. +Nobody in the village, no student in the University, knew his history. +No young lady in the Corinna Institute had ever had a word from +him. Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Institute were +returning at dusk, their rowers would see the canoe stealing into the +shadows as they drew near it. Sometimes on a moonlight night, when a +party of the young ladies were out upon the lake, they would see the +white canoe gliding ghost-like in the distance. And it had happened more +than once that when a boat's crew had been out with singers among them, +while they were in the midst of a song, the white canoe would suddenly +appear and rest upon the water,--not very near them, but within hearing +distance,--and so remain until the singing was over, when it would steal +away and be lost sight of in some inlet or behind some jutting rock. + +Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about this young man. The +landlady had told her story, which explained nothing. There was nobody +to be questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, whose name +was Paolo, but who to the village was known as Mr. Paul. + +Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in the world to worm a +secret out of. He was good-natured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, +talked freely with everybody in such English as he had at command, knew +all the little people of the village, and was followed round by them +partly from his personal attraction for them, and partly because he was +apt to have a stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other desirable +luxury in his pocket for any of his little friends he met with. He had +that wholesome, happy look, so uncommon in our arid countrymen,--a look +hardly to be found except where figs and oranges ripen in the open air. +A kindly climate to grow up in, a religion which takes your money and +gives you a stamped ticket good at Saint Peter's box office, a roomy +chest and a good pair of lungs in it, an honest digestive apparatus, a +lively temperament, a cheerful acceptance of the place in life assigned +to one by nature and circumstance,--these are conditions under which +life may be quite comfortable to endure, and certainly is very pleasant +to contemplate. All these conditions were united in Paolo. He was the +easiest; pleasantest creature to talk with that one could ask for a +companion. His southern vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicity +and openness, made him friends everywhere. + +It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to get the history of +his master out of this guileless and unsophisticated being. He had +been tried by all the village experts. The rector had put a number of +well-studied careless questions, which failed of their purpose. The old +librarian of the town library had taken note of all the books he carried +to his master, and asked about his studies and pursuits. Paolo found +it hard to understand his English, apparently, and answered in the most +irrelevant way. The leading gossip of the village tried her skill in +pumping him for information. It was all in vain. + +His master's way of life was peculiar,--in fact, eccentric. He had hired +rooms in an old-fashioned three-story house. He had two rooms in the +second and third stories of this old wooden building: his study in +the second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. Paolo lived in the +basement, where he had all the conveniences for cooking, and played the +part of chef for his master and himself. This was only a part of his +duty, for he was a man-of-all-work, purveyor, steward, chambermaid,--as +universal in his services for one man as Pushee at the Anchor Tavern +used to be for everybody. + +It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one winter's day, and had +such threatening symptoms that he asked the baker, when he called, to +send the village physician to see him. In the course of his visit the +doctor naturally inquired about the health of Paolo's master. + +“Signor Kirkwood well,--molto bene,” said Paolo. “Why does he keep out +of sight as he does?” asked the doctor. + +“He always so,” replied Paolo. “Una antipatia.” + +Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, whether he revealed it +to him as to a father confessor, or whether he thought it time that the +reason of his master's seclusion should be known, the doctor did not +feel sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to make any further +revelations. Una antipatia,--an antipathy,--that was all the doctor +learned. He thought the matter over, and the more he reflected the +more he was puzzled. What could an antipathy be that made a young man +a recluse! Was it a dread of blue sky and open air, of the smell of +flowers, or some electrical impression to which he was unnaturally +sensitive? + +Dr. Butts carried these questions home with him. His wife was a +sensible, discreet woman, whom he could trust with many professional +secrets. He told her of Paolo's revelation, and talked it over with +her in the light of his experience and her own; for she had known some +curious cases of constitutional likes and aversions. + +Mrs. Butts buried the information in the grave of her memory, where +it lay for nearly a week. At the end of that time it emerged in a +confidential whisper to her favorite sister-in-law, a perfectly safe +person. Twenty-four hours later the story was all over the village that +Maurice Kirkwood was the subject of a strange, mysterious, unheard-of +antipathy to something, nobody knew what; and the whole neighborhood +naturally resolved itself into an unorganized committee of +investigation. + + + + + + +IV. THE YOUNG SOLITARY + +What is a country village without its mysterious personage? Few are now +living who can remember the advent of the handsome young man who was the +mystery of our great university town “sixty years since,”--long enough +ago for a romance to grow out of a narrative, as Waverley may remind us. +The writer of this narrative remembers him well, and is not sure that +he has not told the strange story in some form or other to the last +generation, or to the one before the last. No matter: if he has told it +they have forgotten it,--that is, if they have ever read it; and whether +they have or have not, the story is singular enough to justify running +the risk of repetition. + +This young man, with a curious name of Scandinavian origin, appeared +unheralded in the town, as it was then, of Cantabridge. He wanted +employment, and soon found it in the shape of manual labor, which he +undertook and performed cheerfully. But his whole appearance showed +plainly enough that he was bred to occupations of a very different +nature, if, in deed, he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for his +living. His aspect was that of one of gentle birth. His hands were not +those of a laborer, and his features were delicate and refined, as well +as of remarkable beauty. Who he was, where he came from, why he had +come to Cantabridge, was never clearly explained. He was alone, +without friends, except among the acquaintances he had made in his new +residence. If he had any correspondents, they were not known to the +neighborhood where he was living. But if he had neither friends nor +correspondents, there was some reason for believing that he had enemies. +Strange circumstances occurred which connected themselves with him in +an ominous and unaccountable way. A threatening letter was slipped under +the door of a house where he was visiting. He had a sudden attack of +illness, which was thought to look very much like the effect of poison. +At one time he disappeared, and was found wandering, bewildered, in a +town many miles from that where he was residing. When questioned how he +came there; he told a coherent story that he had been got, under some +pretext, or in some not incredible way, into a boat, from which, at a +certain landing-place, he had escaped and fled for his life, which he +believed was in danger from his kidnappers. + +Whoever his enemies may have been,--if they really existed,--he did not +fall a victim to their plots, so far as known to or remembered by this +witness. + +Various interpretations were put upon his story. Conjectures were as +abundant as they were in the case of Kaspar Hauser. That he was of +good family seemed probable; that he was of distinguished birth, not +impossible; that he was the dangerous rival of a candidate for a greatly +coveted position in one of the northern states of Europe was a favorite +speculation of some of the more romantic young persons. There was no +dramatic ending to this story,--at least none is remembered by the +present writer. + +“He left a name,” like the royal Swede, of whose lineage he may have +been for aught that the village people knew, but not a name at which +anybody “grew pale;” for he had swindled no one, and broken no woman's +heart with false vows. Possibly some withered cheeks may flush faintly +as they recall the handsome young man who came before the Cantabridge +maidens fully equipped for a hero of romance when the century was in its +first quarter. + +The writer has been reminded of the handsome Swede by the incidents +attending the advent of the unknown and interesting stranger who had +made his appearance at Arrowhead Village. + +It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason to assign for the +young man's solitary habits that he was the subject of an antipathy. +For what do we understand by that word? When a young lady screams at +the sight of a spider, we accept her explanation that she has a natural +antipathy to the creature. When a person expresses a repugnance to some +wholesome article of food, agreeable to most people, we are satisfied if +he gives the same reason. And so of various odors, which are pleasing to +some persons and repulsive to others. We do not pretend to go behind +the fact. It is an individual, and it may be a family, peculiarity. Even +between different personalities there is an instinctive elective dislike +as well as an elective affinity. We are not bound to give a reason why +Dr. Fell is odious to us any more than the prisoner who peremptorily +challenges a juryman is bound to say why he does it; it is enough that +he “does not like his looks.” + +There was nothing strange, then, that Maurice Kirkwood should have +his special antipathy; a great many other people have odd likes and +dislikes. But it was a very curious thing that this antipathy should +be alleged as the reason for his singular mode of life. All sorts of +explanations were suggested, not one of them in the least satisfactory, +but serving to keep the curiosity of inquirers active until they were +superseded by a new theory. One story was that Maurice had a great fear +of dogs. It grew at last to a connected narrative, in which a fright +in childhood from a rabid mongrel was said to have given him such +a sensitiveness to the near presence of dogs that he was liable to +convulsions if one came close to him. + +This hypothesis had some plausibility. No other creature would be so +likely to trouble a person who had an antipathy to it. Dogs are very apt +to make the acquaintance of strangers, in a free and easy way. They +are met with everywhere,--in one's daily walk, at the thresholds of the +doors one enters, in the gentleman's library, on the rug of my lady's +sitting-room and on the cushion of her carriage. It is true that there +are few persons who have an instinctive repugnance to this “friend of +man.” But what if this so-called antipathy were only a fear, a terror, +which borrowed the less unmanly name? It was a fair question, if, +indeed, the curiosity of the public had a right to ask any questions at +all about a harmless individual who gave no offence, and seemed entitled +to the right of choosing his way of living to suit himself, without +being submitted to espionage. + +There was no positive evidence bearing on the point as yet. But one +of the village people had a large Newfoundland dog, of a very sociable +disposition, with which he determined to test the question. He watched +for the time when Maurice should leave his house for the woods or the +lake, and started with his dog to meet him. The animal walked up to the +stranger in a very sociable fashion, and began making his acquaintance, +after the usual manner of well-bred dogs; that is, with the courtesies +and blandishments by which the canine Chesterfield is distinguished from +the ill-conditioned cur. Maurice patted him in a friendly way, and spoke +to him as one who was used to the fellowship of such companions. That +idle question and foolish story were disposed of, therefore, and some +other solution must be found, if possible. + +A much more common antipathy is that which is entertained with regard to +cats. This has never been explained. It is not mere aversion to the +look of the creature, or to any sensible quality known to the common +observer. The cat is pleasing in aspect, graceful in movement, nice +in personal habits, and of amiable disposition. No cause of offence is +obvious, and yet there are many persons who cannot abide the presence of +the most innocent little kitten. They can tell, in some mysterious way, +that there is a cat in the room when they can neither see nor hear the +creature. Whether it is an electrical or quasi-magnetic phenomenon, or +whatever it may be, of the fact of this strange influence there are too +many well-authenticated instances to allow its being questioned. But +suppose Maurice Kirkwood to be the subject of this antipathy in its +extremest degree, it would in no manner account for the isolation to +which he had condemned himself. He might shun the firesides of the old +women whose tabbies were purring by their footstools, but these worthy +dames do not make up the whole population. + +These two antipathies having been disposed of, a new suggestion was +started, and was talked over with a curious sort of half belief, very +much as ghost stories are told in a circle of moderately instructed and +inquiring persons. This was that Maurice was endowed with the unenviable +gift of the evil eye. He was in frequent communication with Italy, as +his letters showed, and had recently been residing in that country, as +was learned from Paolo. Now everybody knows that the evil eye is not +rarely met with in Italy. Everybody who has ever read Mr. Story's “Roba +di Roma” knows what a terrible power it is which the owner of the evil +eye exercises. It can blight and destroy whatever it falls upon. No +person's life or limb is safe if the jettatura, the withering glance of +the deadly organ, falls upon him. It must be observed that this malign +effect may follow a look from the holiest personages, that is, if we may +assume that a monk is such as a matter of course. Certainly we have +a right to take it for granted that the late Pope, Pius Ninth, was an +eminently holy man, and yet he had the name of dispensing the mystic and +dreaded jettatura as well as his blessing. If Maurice Kirkwood carried +that destructive influence, so that his clear blue eyes were more to be +feared than the fascinations of the deadliest serpent, it could easily +be understood why he kept his look away from all around him whom he +feared he might harm. + +No sensible person in Arrowhead Village really believed in the evil +eye, but it served the purpose of a temporary hypothesis, as do many +suppositions which we take as a nucleus for our observations without +putting any real confidence in them. It was just suited to the romantic +notions of the more flighty persons in the village, who had meddled more +or less with Spiritualism, and were ready for any new fancy, if it were +only wild enough. + +The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to +find any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk for +the gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in the two +educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was liveliest among +the young ladies. Here is an extract from a letter of one of these young +ladies, who, having received at her birth the ever-pleasing name of +Mary, saw fit to have herself called Mollie in the catalogue and in her +letters. The old postmaster of the town to which her letter was directed +took it up to stamp, and read on the envelope the direction to “Miss +Lulu Pinrow.” He brought the stamp down with a vicious emphasis, coming +very near blotting out the nursery name, instead of cancelling the +postage-stamp. “Lulu!” he exclaimed. “I should like to know if that +great strapping girl isn't out of her cradle yet! I suppose Miss Louisa +will think that belongs to her, but I saw her christened and I heard +the name the minister gave her, and it was n't 'Lulu,' or any such baby +nonsense.” And so saying, he gave it a fling to the box marked P, as if +it burned his fingers. Why a grown-up young woman allowed herself to be +cheapened in the way so many of them do by the use of names which become +them as well as the frock of a ten-year-old schoolgirl would become a +graduate of the Corinna Institute, the old postmaster could not guess. +He was a queer old man. + +The letter thus scornfully treated runs over with a young girl's written +loquacity: + +“Oh, Lulu, there is such a sensation as you never saw or heard of 'in +all your born days,' as mamma used to say. He has been at the village +for some time, but lately we have had--oh, the weirdest stories about +him! 'The Mysterious Stranger is the name some give him, but we girls +call him the Sachem, because he paddles about in an Indian canoe. If I +should tell you all the things that are said about him I should use up +all my paper ten times over. He has never made a visit to the Institute, +and none of the girls have ever spoken to him, but the people at the +village say he is very, very handsome. We are dying to get a look at +him, of course--though there is a horrid story about him--that he has +the evil eye did you ever hear about the evil eye? If a person who is +born with it looks at you, you die, or something happens--awful--is n't +it? + +“The rector says he never goes to church, but then you know a good many +of the people that pass the summer at the village never do--they +think their religion must have vacations--that's what I've heard they +say--vacations, just like other hard work--it ought not to be hard work, +I'm sure, but I suppose they feel so about it. Should you feel afraid to +have him look at you? Some of the girls say they would n't have him +for the whole world, but I shouldn't mind it--especially if I had on my +eyeglasses. Do you suppose if there is anything in the evil eye it would +go through glass? I don't believe it. Do you think blue eye-glasses +would be better than common ones? Don't laugh at me--they tell such +weird stories! The Terror--Lurida Vincent, you know-makes fun of all +they say about it, but then she 'knows everything and doesn't believe +anything,' the girls say--Well, I should be awfully scared, I know, +if anybody that had the evil eye should look at me--but--oh, I +don't know--but if it was a young man--and if he was very--very +good-looking--I think--perhaps I would run the risk--but don't tell +anybody I said any such horrid thing--and burn this letter right +up--there 's a dear good girl.” + +It is to be hoped that no reader will doubt the genuineness of this +letter. There are not quite so many “awfuls” and “awfullys” as one +expects to find in young ladies' letters, but there are two “weirds,” + which may be considered a fair allowance. How it happened that “jolly” + did not show itself can hardly be accounted for; no doubt it turns up +two or three times at least in the postscript. + +Here is an extract from another letter. This was from one of the +students of Stoughton University to a friend whose name as it was +written on the envelope was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmaster +who found fault with Miss “Lulu's” designation would probably have +quarrelled with this address, if it had come under his eye. “Frank” is +a very pretty, pleasant-sounding name, and it is not strange that many +persons use it in common conversation all their days when speaking of a +friend. Were they really christened by that name, any of these numerous +Franks? Perhaps they were, and if so there is nothing to be said. But +if not, was the baptismal name Francis or Franklin? The mind is apt to +fasten in a very perverse and unpleasant way upon this question, which +too often there is no possible way of settling. One might hope, if he +outlived the bearer of the appellation, to get at the fact; but since +even gravestones have learned to use the names belonging to childhood +and infancy in their solemn record, the generation which docks its +Christian names in such an un-Christian way will bequeath whole +churchyards full of riddles to posterity. How it will puzzle and +distress the historians and antiquarians of a coming generation to +settle what was the real name of Dan and Bert and Billy, which last is +legible on a white marble slab, raised in memory of a grown person, in a +certain burial-ground in a town in Essex County, Massachusetts! + +But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter directed to Mr. Frank +Mayfield. + +“DEAR FRANK,--Hooray! Hurrah! Rah! + +“I have made the acquaintance of 'The Mysterious Stranger'! It happened +by a queer sort of accident, which came pretty near relieving you of +the duty of replying to this letter. I was out in my little boat, which +carries a sail too big for her, as I know and ought to have remembered. +One of those fitful flaws of wind to which the lake is so liable struck +the sail suddenly, and over went my boat. My feet got tangled in the +sheet somehow, and I could not get free. I had hard work to keep my head +above water, and I struggled desperately to escape from my toils; for if +the boat were to go down I should be dragged down with her. I thought +of a good many things in the course of some four or five minutes, I can +tell you, and I got a lesson about time better than anything Kant and +all the rest of them have to say of it. After I had been there about an +ordinary lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew that +our shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become +acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what +the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning me in +the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat +tired with my struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the landing +where he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is anything odd about +his manners or his way of talk. I judge him to be a native of one of our +Northern States,--perhaps a New Englander. He has lived abroad during +some parts of his life. He is not an artist, as it was at one time +thought he might be. He is a good-looking fellow, well developed, manly +in appearance, with nothing to excite special remark unless it be a +certain look of anxiety or apprehension which comes over him from time +to time. You remember our old friend Squire B., whose companion was +killed by lightning when he was standing close to him. You know the look +he had whenever anything like a thundercloud came up in the sky. Well, I +should say there was a look like that came over this Maurice Kirkwood's +face every now and then. I noticed that he looked round once or twice as +if to see whether some object or other was in sight. There was a little +rustling in the grass as if of footsteps, and this look came over his +features. A rabbit ran by us, and I watched to see if he showed any sign +of that antipathy we have heard so much of, but he seemed to be pleased +watching the creature. + +“If you ask me what my opinion is about this Maurice Kirkwood, I think +he is eccentric in his habit of life, but not what they call a 'crank' +exactly. He talked well enough about such matters as we spoke of,--the +lake, the scenery in general, the climate. I asked him to come over +and take a look at the college. He did n't promise, but I should not be +surprised if I should get him over there some day. I asked him why he +did n't go to the Pansophian meetings. He did n't give any reason, but +he shook his head in a very peculiar way, as much as to say that it was +impossible. + +“On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the same feeling of dread +of human society, or dislike for it, which under the name of religion +used to drive men into caves and deserts. What a pity that Protestantism +does not make special provision for all the freaks of individual +character! If we had a little more faith and a few more caverns, or +convenient places for making them, we should have hermits in these holes +as thick as woodchucks or prairie dogs. I should like to know if you +never had the feeling, + + + “'Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place!' + +“I know what your answer will be, of course. You will say, 'Certainly, + + + “'With one fair spirit for my minister;'” + +“but I mean alone,--all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should like +to have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong as +lye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry is +looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to send, and a +disgrace to the University--but never mind.) I often feel as if I should +like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,--yes, and have it soaped +from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look down at the bores and +the duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' association. (Jerry--still +looking over says there is an absurd contradiction in the idea.) + +“What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is! + +“How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector general?” + +The reader will not get much information out of this lively young +fellow's letter, but he may get a little. It is something to know that +the mysterious resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor talk like +a crazy person; that he was of agreeable aspect and address, helpful +when occasion offered, and had nothing about him, so far as yet +appeared, to prevent his being an acceptable member of society. + +Of course the people in the village could never be contented without +learning everything there was to be learned about their visitor. All +the city papers were examined for advertisements. If a cashier had +absconded, if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad president was +missing, some of the old stories would wake up and get a fresh currency, +until some new circumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. Unconscious +of all these inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood lived on in his +inoffensive and unexplained solitude, and seemed likely to remain an +unsolved enigma. The “Sachem” of the boating girls became the “Sphinx” + of the village ramblers, and it was agreed on all hands that Egypt did +not hold any hieroglyphics harder to make out than the meaning of this +young man's odd way of living. + + + + + + +V. THE ENIGMA STUDIED. + +It was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circumstance that a young +man, seemingly in good health, of comely aspect, looking as if made for +companionship, should keep himself apart from all the world around him +in a place where there was a general feeling of good neighborhood and a +pleasant social atmosphere. The Public Library was a central point which +brought people together. The Pansophian Society did a great deal to make +them acquainted with each other for many of the meetings were open to +outside visitors, and the subjects discussed in the meetings furnished +the material for conversation in their intervals. A card of invitation +had been sent by the Secretary to Maurice, in answer to which Paolo +carried back a polite note of regret. The paper had a narrow rim of +black, implying apparently some loss of relative or friend, but not +any very recent and crushing bereavement. This refusal to come to the +meetings of the society was only what was expected. It was proper to ask +him, but his declining the invitation showed that he did not wish for +attentions or courtesies. There was nothing further to be done to bring +him out of his shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about him +at present. + +In this state of things it was natural that all which had been +previously gathered by the few who had seen or known anything of him +should be worked over again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the old +refuse heaps are looked over for what may still be found in them. The +landlord of the Anchor Tavern, now the head of the boarding-house, +talked about Maurice, as everybody in the village did at one time or +another. He had not much to say, but he added a fact or two. + +The young gentleman was good pay,--so they all said. Sometimes he paid +in gold; sometimes in fresh bills, just out of the bank. He trusted his +man, Mr. Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew something about +horses; he showed that by the way he handled that colt,--the one that +threw the hostler and broke his collar-bone. “Mr. Paul come down to the +stable. 'Let me see that cult you all 'fraid of,' says he. 'My master, +he ride any hoss,' says Paul. 'You saddle him,' says he; and so they +did, and Paul, he led that colt--the kickinest and ugliest young beast +you ever see in your life--up to the place where his master, as he calls +him, and he lives. What does that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple of +long spurs and jump on to that colt's back, and off the beast goes, tail +up, heels flying, standing up on end, trying all sorts of capers, and at +last going it full run for a couple of miles, till he'd got about enough +of it. That colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come back as quiet +as a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills reg'lar, in good money, and +knows how to handle a hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if he is +n't a whole one,--and most likely he is a whole one.” + +So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His wife had already given +her favorable opinion of her former guest. She now added something to +her description as a sequel to her husband's remarks. + +“I call him,” she said, “about as likely a young gentleman as ever I +clapped my eyes on. He is rather slighter than I like to see a young +man of his age; if he was my son, I should like to see him a little +more fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hundred and thirty +or forty pounds. Did y' ever look at those eyes of his, M'randy? Just as +blue as succory flowers. I do like those light-complected young fellows, +with their fresh cheeks and their curly hair; somehow, curly hair doos +set off anybody's face. He is n't any foreigner, for all that he talks +Italian with that Mr. Paul that's his help. He looks just like our +kind of folks, the college kind, that's brought up among books, and is +handling 'em, and reading of 'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all +their lives. All that you say about his riding the mad colt is just what +I should think he was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought +to see him go over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's +any harm in that young gentleman,--I don't care what people say. I +suppose he likes this place just as other people like it, and cares more +for walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doos +for company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like to +know?” + +The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging +people. + +“I never see him but two or three times,” Miranda said. “I should like +to have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him when he +was eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their jaws +get a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. Do you remember that +chap the sheriff come and took away when we kep' tahvern? Eleven year +ago it was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gentleman from +the City he set up for. I watched him, and I watched him. Says I, I +don't believe you're no gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, and +that ain't the way city folks eats. Every time I handed him anything +I looked closeter and closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them +cheeks, says I to myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in +your shirt-front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's +nothin' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You jes' +step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that chap.' +I knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes up to the +chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. We've had the +hole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your company to +come and look at the old place,' says he, and he pulls out a couple of +handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, an' off +they goes together! I know one thing about that young gentleman, +anyhow,--there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' than he is. +I cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends word to me by +that Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, I that the Pope o' Rome +don't have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent up to me +yesterday,' says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' Rome except that +he's a Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for him, whether it's a +man or a woman; but when it comes to a dish o' maccaroni, I ain't afeard +of their shefs, as they call 'em,--them he-cooks that can't serve up a +cold potater without callin' it by some name nobody can say after 'em. +But this gentleman knows good cookin', and that's as good a sign of a +gentleman as I want to tell 'em by.” + + + + + + +VI. STILL AT FAULT. + +The house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken up his abode was not +a very inviting one. It was old, and had been left in a somewhat +dilapidated and disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in the +part which Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing-boxes +in the cellar, with broken chairs, broken china, and other household +wrecks. A cracked mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the contents +of which were airing themselves through wide rips and rents. A lame +clothes-horse was saddled with an old rug fringed with a ragged border, +out of which all the colors had been completely trodden. No woman would +have gone into a house in such a condition. But the young man did not +trouble himself much about such matters, and was satisfied when the +rooms which were to be occupied by himself and his servant were made +decent and tolerably comfortable. During the fine season all this was +not of much consequence, and if Maurice made up his mind to stay through +the winter he would have his choice among many more eligible places. + +The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had now arrived, and the +young ladies had scattered to their homes. Among the graduates of the +year were Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who had now +returned to their homes in Arrowhead Village. They were both glad to +rest after the long final examinations and the exercises of the closing +day, in which each of them had borne a conspicuous part. It was a +pleasant life they led in the village, which was lively enough at +this season. Walking, riding, driving, boating, visits to the Library, +meetings of the Pansophian Society, hops, and picnics made the time +pass very cheerfully, and soon showed their restoring influences. The +Terror's large eyes did not wear the dull, glazed look by which they had +too often betrayed the after effects of over-excitement of the strong +and active brain behind them. The Wonder gained a fresher bloom, and +looked full enough of life to radiate vitality into a statue of ice. +They had a boat of their own, in which they passed many delightful +hours on the lake, rowing, drifting, reading, telling of what had been, +dreaming of what might be. + +The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, and +visited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar character, +as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of knowledge, +sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs of books, their +title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the class of readers who +call for particular works, the value of different editions, and a good +deal besides. Their minds catch up hints from all manner of works on all +kinds of subjects. They will give a visitor a fact and a reference which +they are surprised to find they remember and which the visitor might +have hunted for a year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, +who has grown into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to +every bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These +nerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do not +like to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like to have +their naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the books of +a great collection are a part, not merely of their own property, though +they are only the agents for their distribution, but that they are, as +it were, outlying portions of their own organization. The old Librarian +was getting a miserly feeling about his books, as he called them. +Fortunately, he had a young lady for his assistant, who was never so +happy as when she could find the work any visitor wanted and put it in +his hands,--or her hands, for there were more readers among the wives +and--daughters, and especially among the aunts, than there were among +their male relatives. The old Librarian knew the books, but the books +seemed to know the young assistant; so it looked, at least, to the +impatient young people who wanted their services. + +Maurice had a good many volumes of his own,--a great many, according to +Paolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well-filled +shelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master frequently +sent him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat enlarged his +notions; still, the Signor was a very learned man, he was certain, and +some of his white books (bound in vellum and richly gilt) were more +splendid, according to Paolo, than anything in the Library. + +There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that Maurice +was in the habit of taking out, and the Librarian's record was carefully +searched by some of the more inquisitive investigators. The list proved +to be a long and varied one. It would imply a considerable knowledge +of modern languages and of the classics; a liking for mathematics and +physics, especially all that related to electricity and magnetism; a +fancy for the occult sciences, if there is any propriety in coupling +these words; and a whim for odd and obsolete literature, like +the Parthenologia of Fortunius Licetus, the quaint treatise 'De +Sternutatione,' books about alchemy, and witchcraft, apparitions, and +modern works relating to Spiritualism. With these were the titles of +novels and now and then of books of poems; but it may be taken for +granted that his own shelves held the works he was most frequently in +the habit of reading or consulting. Not much was to be made out of this +beyond the fact of wide scholarship,--more or less deep it might be, but +at any rate implying no small mental activity; for he appeared to read +very rapidly, at any rate exchanged the books he had taken out for new +ones very frequently. To judge by his reading, he was a man of letters. +But so wide-reading a man of letters must have an object, a literary +purpose in all probability. Why should not he be writing a novel? Not +a novel of society, assuredly, for a hermit is not the person to +report the talk and manners of a world which he has nothing to do with. +Novelists and lawyers understand the art of “cramming” better than any +other persons in the world. Why should not this young man be working +up the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a background for +some story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and hints borrowed from +science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his odd and +miscellaneous selection of books furnished him? That might be, or +possibly he was only reading for amusement. Who could say? + +The funds of the Public Library of Arrowhead Village allowed the +managers to purchase many books out of the common range of reading. The +two learned people of the village were the rector and the doctor. These +two worthies kept up the old controversy between the professions, which +grows out of the fact that one studies nature from below upwards, and +the other from above downwards. The rector maintained that physicians +contracted a squint which turns their eyes inwardly, while the muscles +which roll their eyes upward become palsied. The doctor retorted +that theological students developed a third eyelid,--the nictitating +membrane, which is so well known in birds, and which serves to shut +out, not all light, but all the light they do not want. Their little +skirmishes did not prevent their being very good friends, who had +a common interest in many things and many persons. Both were on the +committee which had the care of the Library and attended to the purchase +of books. Each was scholar enough to know the wants of scholars, and +disposed to trust the judgment of the other as to what books should +be purchased. Consequently, the clergyman secured the addition to the +Library of a good many old theological works which the physician would +have called brimstone divinity, and held to be just the thing to kindle +fires with,--good books still for those who know how to use them, +oftentimes as awful examples of the extreme of disorganization the +whole moral system may undergo when a barbarous belief has strangled the +natural human instincts. The physician, in the mean time, acquired for +the collection some of those medical works where one may find recorded +various rare and almost incredible cases, which may not have their like +for a whole century, and then repeat themselves, so as to give a new +lease of credibility to stories which had come to be looked upon as +fables. + +Both the clergyman and the physician took a very natural interest in the +young man who had come to reside in their neighborhood for the present, +perhaps for a long period. The rector would have been glad to see him +at church. He would have liked more especially to have had him hear his +sermon on the Duties of Young Men to Society. The doctor, meanwhile, was +meditating on the duties of society to young men, and wishing that he +could gain the young man's confidence, so as to help him out of any +false habit of mind or any delusion to which he might be subject, if he +had the power of being useful to him. + +Dr. Butts was the leading medical practitioner, not only of Arrowhead +Village, but of all the surrounding region. He was an excellent specimen +of the country doctor, self-reliant, self-sacrificing, working a great +deal harder for his living than most of those who call themselves the +laboring classes,--as if none but those whose hands were hardened by the +use of farming or mechanical implements had any work to do. He had that +sagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance, and he had also +a fair share of that learning without which sagacity is like a +traveller with a good horse, but who cannot read the directions on the +guideboards. He was not a man to be taken in by names. He well knew that +oftentimes very innocent-sounding words mean very grave disorders; that +all, degrees of disease and disorder are frequently confounded under the +same term; that “run down” may stand for a fatigue of mind or body from +which a week or a month of rest will completely restore the over-worked +patient, or an advanced stage of a mortal illness; that “seedy” + may signify the morning's state of feeling, after an evening's +over-indulgence, which calls for a glass of soda-water and a cup of +coffee, or a dangerous malady which will pack off the subject of it, at +the shortest notice, to the south of France. He knew too well that what +is spoken lightly of as a “nervous disturbance” may imply that the whole +machinery of life is in a deranged condition, and that every individual +organ would groan aloud if it had any other language than the terrible +inarticulate one of pain by which to communicate with the consciousness. + +When, therefore, Dr. Butts heard the word antipatia he did not smile, +and say to himself that this was an idle whim, a foolish fancy, which +the young man had got into his head. Neither was he satisfied to +set down everything to the account of insanity, plausible as that +supposition might seem. He was prepared to believe in some exceptional, +perhaps anomalous, form of exaggerated sensibility, relating to what +class of objects he could not at present conjecture, but which was as +vital to the subject of it as the insulating arrangement to a piece +of electrical machinery. With this feeling he began to look into the +history of antipathies as recorded in all the books and journals on +which he could lay his hands. + + + ------------------------------ + +The holder of the Portfolio asks leave to close it for a brief interval. +He wishes to say a few words to his readers, before offering them some +verses which have no connection with the narrative now in progress. + +If one could have before him a set of photographs taken annually, +representing the same person as he or she appeared for thirty or forty +or fifty years, it would be interesting to watch the gradual changes of +aspect from the age of twenty, or even of thirty or forty, to that of +threescore and ten. The face might be an uninteresting one; still, +as sharing the inevitable changes wrought by time, it would be worth +looking at as it passed through the curve of life,--the vital parabola, +which betrays itself in the symbolic changes of the features. An +inscription is the same thing, whether we read it on slate-stone, or +granite, or marble. To watch the lights and shades, the reliefs and +hollows, of a countenance through a lifetime, or a large part of it, by +the aid of a continuous series of photographs would not only be curious; +it would teach us much more about the laws of physiognomy than we could +get from casual and unconnected observations. + +The same kind of interest, without any assumption of merit to be found +in them, I would claim for a series of annual poems, beginning in middle +life and continued to what many of my correspondents are pleased to +remind me--as if I required to have the fact brought to my knowledge--is +no longer youth. Here is the latest of a series of annual poems +read during the last thirty-four years. There seems to have been one +interruption, but there may have been other poems not recorded or +remembered. This, the latest poem of the series, was listened to by the +scanty remnant of what was a large and brilliant circle of classmates +and friends when the first of the long series was read before them, then +in the flush of ardent manhood:-- + + + THE OLD SONG. + + The minstrel of the classic lay + Of love and wine who sings + Still found the fingers run astray + That touched the rebel strings. + + Of Cadmus he would fair have sung, + Of Atreus and his line; + But all the jocund echoes rung + With songs of love and wine. + + Ah, brothers! I would fair have caught + Some fresher fancy's gleam; + My truant accents find, unsought, + The old familiar theme. + + Love, Love! but not the sportive child + With shaft and twanging bow, + Whose random arrows drove us wild + Some threescore years ago; + + Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, + The urchin blind and bare, + But Love, with spectacles and staff, + And scanty, silvered hair. + + Our heads with frosted locks are white, + Our roofs are thatched with snow, + But red, in chilling winter's spite, + Our hearts and hearthstones glow. + + Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, + And while the running sands + Their golden thread unheeded spin, + He warms his frozen hands. + + Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, + And waft this message o'er + To all we miss, from all we meet + On life's fast-crumbling shore: + + Say that to old affection true + We hug the narrowing chain + That binds our hearts,--alas, how few + The links that yet remain! + + The fatal touch awaits them all + That turns the rocks to dust; + From year to year they break and fall, + They break, but never rust. + + Say if one note of happier strain + This worn-out harp afford, + --One throb that trembles, not in vain, + Their memory lent its chord. + + Say that when Fancy closed her wings + And Passion quenched his fire, + Love, Love, still echoed from the strings + As from Anacreon's lyre! + + January 8, 1885. + + + + + +VII. A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES + +In thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt convinced that, with +care and patience and watching his opportunity, he should get at the +secret, which so far had yielded nothing but a single word. It might +be asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all appearances, the +young stranger was unwilling to explain. He may have been to some extent +infected by the general curiosity of the persons around him, in which +good Mrs. Butts shared, and which she had helped to intensify by +revealing the word dropped by Paolo. But this was not really his +chief motive. He could not look upon this young man, living a life +of unwholesome solitude, without a natural desire to do all that his +science and his knowledge of human nature could help him to do towards +bringing him into healthy relations with the world about him. Still, +he would not intrude upon him in any way. He would only make certain +general investigations, which might prove serviceable in case +circumstances should give him the right to counsel the young man as +to his course of life. The first thing to be done was to study +systematically the whole subject of antipathies. Then, if any further +occasion offered itself, he would be ready to take advantage of it. +The resources of the Public Library of the place and his own private +collection were put in requisition to furnish him the singular and +widely scattered facts of which he was in search. + +It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. Butts in his study +of the natural history of antipathies. The stories told about them are, +however, very curious; and if some of them may be questioned, there is +no doubt that many of the strangest are true, and consequently take away +from the improbability of others which we are disposed to doubt. + +But in the first place, what do we mean by an antipathy? It is an +aversion to some object, which may vary in degree from mere dislike to +mortal horror. What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say. It +acts sometimes through the senses, sometimes through the imagination, +sometimes through an unknown channel. The relations which exist between +the human being and all that surrounds him vary in consequence of some +adjustment peculiar to each individual. The brute fact is expressed in +the phrase “One man's meat is another man's poison.” + +In studying the history of antipathies the doctor began with those +referable to the sense of taste, which are among the most common. In +any collection of a hundred persons there will be found those who cannot +make use of certain articles of food generally acceptable. This may be +from the disgust they occasion or the effects they have been found to +produce. Every one knows individuals who cannot venture on honey, or +cheese, or veal, with impunity. Carlyle, for example, complains of +having veal set before him,--a meat he could not endure. There is a +whole family connection in New England, and that a very famous one, to +many of whose members, in different generations, all the products of the +dairy are the subjects of a congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there +are persons who dread the smell of apples more than they would dread +being exposed to a fire of musketry. The readers of the charming story +“A Week in a French Country-House” will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's +piteous cry in the night: “Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thou +sleepest, but I cannot close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such +a dreadful smell! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thou +couldst smell it! Good-night, my angel!----Dearest! I have found them! +They are apples!” The smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has been +known to cause faintness. The sight of various objects has had singular +effects on some persons. A boar's head was a favorite dish at the table +of great people in Marshal d'Albret's time; yet he used to faint at the +sight of one. It is not uncommon to meet with persons who faint at the +sight of blood. One of the most inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts's +college-mates confessed that he had this infirmity. Stranger and far +more awkward than this is the case mentioned in an ancient collection, +where the subject of the antipathy fainted at the sight of any object of +a red color. There are sounds, also, which have strange effects on +some individuals. Among the obnoxious noises are the crumpling of silk +stuffs, the sound of sweeping, the croaking of frogs. The effects +in different cases have been spasms, a sense of strangling, profuse +sweating,--all showing a profound disturbance of the nervous system. + +All these effects were produced by impressions on the organs of sense, +seemingly by direct agency on certain nerve centres. But there is +another series of cases in which the imagination plays a larger part +in the phenomena. Two notable examples are afforded in the lives of two +very distinguished personages. + +Peter the Great was frightened, when an infant, by falling from a bridge +into the water. Long afterward, when he had reached manhood, this hardy +and resolute man was so affected by the sound of wheels rattling over a +bridge that he had to discipline himself by listening to the sound, in +spite of his dread of it, in order to overcome his antipathy. The story +told by Abbe Boileau of Pascal is very similar to that related of Peter. +As he was driving in his coach and four over the bridge at Neuilly, +his horses took fright and ran away, and the leaders broke from their +harness and sprang into the river, leaving the wheel-horses and the +carriage on the bridge. Ever after this fright it is said that Pascal +had the terrifying sense that he was just on the edge of an abyss, ready +to fall over. + +What strange early impression was it which led a certain lady always to +shriek aloud if she ventured to enter a church, as it is recorded? The +old and simple way of accounting for it would be the scriptural one, +that it was an unclean spirit who dwelt in her, and who, when she +entered the holy place and brought her spiritual tenant into the +presence of the sacred symbols, “cried with a loud voice, and came out +of” her. A very singular case, the doctor himself had recorded, and +which the reader may accept as authentic, is the following: At the head +of the doctor's front stairs stood, and still stands, a tall clock, of +early date and stately presence. A middle-aged visitor, noticing it +as he entered the front door, remarked that he should feel a great +unwillingness to pass that clock. He could not go near one of those tall +timepieces without a profound agitation, which he dreaded to undergo. +This very singular idiosyncrasy he attributed to a fright when he was an +infant in the arms of his nurse. + +She was standing near one of those tall clocks, when the cord which +supported one of its heavy leaden weights broke, and the weight came +crashing down to the bottom of the case. Some effect must have been +produced upon the pulpy nerve centres from which they never recovered. +Why should not this happen, when we know that a sudden mental shock +may be the cause of insanity? The doctor remembered the verse of “The +Ancient Mariner:” + + + “I moved my lips; the pilot shrieked + And fell down in a fit; + The holy hermit raised his eyes + And prayed where he did sit. + I took the oars; the pilot's boy, + Who now doth crazy go, + Laughed loud and long, and all the while + His eyes went to and fro.” + +This is only poetry, it is true, but the poet borrowed the description +from nature, and the records of our asylums could furnish many cases +where insanity was caused by a sudden fright. + +More than this, hardly a year passes that we do not read of some +person, a child commonly, killed outright by terror,--scared to death, +literally. Sad cases they often are, in which, nothing but a surprise +being intended, the shock has instantly arrested the movements on which +life depends. If a mere instantaneous impression can produce effects +like these, such an impression might of course be followed by +consequences less fatal or formidable, but yet serious in their nature. +If here and there a person is killed, as if by lightning, by a sudden +startling sight or sound, there must be more numerous cases in which +a terrible shock is produced by similar apparently insignificant +causes,--a shock which falls short of overthrowing the reason and does +not destroy life, yet leaves a lasting effect upon the subject of it. + +This point, then, was settled in the mind of Dr. Butts, namely, that, +as a violent emotion caused by a sudden shock can kill or craze a human +being, there is no perversion of the faculties, no prejudice, no change +of taste or temper, no eccentricity, no antipathy, which such a cause +may not rationally account for. He would not be surprised, he said to +himself, to find that some early alarm, like that which was experienced +by Peter the Great or that which happened to Pascal, had broken some +spring in this young man's nature, or so changed its mode of action as +to account for the exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But how +could any conceivable antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young +man aloof from all the world, and make a hermit of him? He did not +hate the human race; that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with great +kindness, and the Italian was evidently much attached to him. He had +talked naturally and pleasantly with the young man he had helped out of +his dangerous situation when his boat was upset. Dr. Butts heard that +he had once made a short visit to this young man, at his rooms in the +University. It was not misanthropy, therefore, which kept him solitary. +What could be broad enough to cover the facts of the case? Nothing that +the doctor could think of, unless it were some color, the sight of which +acted on him as it did on the individual before mentioned, who could not +look at anything red without fainting. Suppose this were a case of the +same antipathy. How very careful it would make the subject of it as to +where he went and with whom he consorted! Time and patience would be +pretty sure to bring out new developments, and physicians, of all men in +the world, know how to wait as well as how to labor. + +Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts found them in books or +gathered them from his own experience. He soon discovered that the story +had got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the victim of an +“antipathy,” whatever that word might mean in the vocabulary of the +people of the place. If he suspected the channel through which it had +reached the little community, and, spreading from that centre, the +country round, he did not see fit to make out of his suspicions a +domestic casus belli. Paolo might have mentioned it to others as well +as to himself. Maurice might have told some friend, who had divulged it. +But to accuse Mrs. Butts, good Mrs. Butts, of petit treason in telling +one of her husband's professional secrets was too serious a matter to be +thought of. He would be a little more careful, he promised himself, the +next time, at any rate; for he had to concede, in spite of every wish to +be charitable in his judgment, that it was among the possibilities that +the worthy lady had forgotten the rule that a doctor's patients must put +their tongues out, and a doctor's wife must keep her tongue in. + + + + + + +VIII. THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +The Secretary of this association was getting somewhat tired of the +office, and the office was getting somewhat tired of him. It occurred +to the members of the Society that a little fresh blood infused into +it might stir up the general vitality of the organization. The woman +suffragists saw no reason why the place of Secretary need as a matter of +course be filled by a person of the male sex. They agitated, they +made domiciliary visits, they wrote notes to influential citizens, and +finally announced as their candidate the young lady who had won and +worn the school name of “The Terror,” who was elected. She was just the +person for the place: wide awake, with all her wits about her, full of +every kind of knowledge, and, above all, strong on points of order and +details of management, so that she could prompt the presiding officer, +to do which is often the most essential duty of a Secretary. The +President, the worthy rector, was good at plain sailing in the track of +the common moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get muddled +if anything came up requiring swift decision and off-hand speech. The +Terror had schooled herself in the debating societies of the Institute, +and would set up the President, when he was floored by an awkward +question, as easily as if he were a ninepin which had been bowled over. + +It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society received +communications from time to time from writers outside of its own +organization. Of late these had been becoming more frequent. Many of +them were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors to +the village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both full +of ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often impossible +to trace the papers to their authors. The new Secretary was alive with +curiosity, and as sagacious a little body as one might find if in want +of a detective. She could make a pretty shrewd guess whether a paper was +written by a young or old person, by one of her own sex or the other, by +an experienced hand or a novice. + +Among the anonymous papers she received was one which exercised her +curiosity to an extraordinary degree. She felt a strong suspicion that +“the Sachem,” as the boat-crews used to call him, “the Recluse,” “the +Night-Hawk,” “the Sphinx,” as others named him, must be the author of +it. It appeared to her the production of a young person of a reflective, +poetical turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of writing; at least, +so thought the Secretary. The writer had travelled much; had resided in +Italy, among other places. But so had many of the summer visitors and +residents of Arrowhead Village. The handwriting was not decisive; it +had some points of resemblance with the pencilled orders for books +which Maurice sent to the Library, but there were certain differences, +intentional or accidental, which weakened this evidence. There was an +undertone in the essay which was in keeping with the mode of life of the +solitary stranger. It might be disappointment, melancholy, or only the +dreamy sadness of a young person who sees the future he is to climb, not +as a smooth ascent, but as overhanging him like a cliff, ready to crush +him, with all his hopes and prospects. This interpretation may have been +too imaginative, but here is the paper, and the reader can form his own +opinion: + + + MY THREE COMPANIONS. + +“I have been from my youth upwards a wanderer. I do not mean constantly +flitting from one place to another, for my residence has often been +fixed for considerable periods. From time to time I have put down in a +notebook the impressions made upon me by the scenes through which I +have passed. I have long hesitated whether to let any of my notes appear +before the public. My fear has been that they were too subjective, to +use the metaphysician's term,--that I have seen myself reflected in +Nature, and not the true aspects of Nature as she was meant to be +understood. One who should visit the Harz Mountains would see--might +see, rather his own colossal image shape itself on the morning mist. But +if in every mist that rises from the meadows, in every cloud that hangs +upon the mountain, he always finds his own reflection, we cannot accept +him as an interpreter of the landscape. + +“There must be many persons present at the meetings of the Society to +which this paper is offered who have had experiences like that of its +author. They have visited the same localities, they have had many of +the same thoughts and feelings. Many, I have no doubt. Not all,--no, not +all. Others have sought the companionship of Nature; I have been driven +to it. Much of my life has been passed in that communion. These pages +record some of the intimacies I have formed with her under some of her +various manifestations. + +“I have lived on the shore of the great ocean, where its waves broke +wildest and its voice rose loudest. + +“I have passed whole seasons on the banks of mighty and famous rivers. + +“I have dwelt on the margin of a tranquil lake, and floated through many +a long, long summer day on its clear waters. + +“I have learned the 'various language' of Nature, of which poetry has +spoken,--at least, I have learned some words and phrases of it. I will +translate some of these as I best may into common speech. + +“The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores:-- + +“You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do not trouble myself with the +living tribes that come down to my waters. I have my own people, of +an older race than yours, that grow to mightier dimensions than your +mastodons and elephants; more numerous than all the swarms that fill +the air or move over the thin crust of the earth. Who are you that build +your palaces on my margin? I see your white faces as I saw the dark +faces of the tribes that came before you, as I shall look upon the +unknown family of mankind that will come after you. And what is your +whole human family but a parenthesis in a single page of my history? The +raindrops stereotyped themselves on my beaches before a living creature +left his footprints there. This horseshoe-crab I fling at your feet is +of older lineage than your Adam,--perhaps, indeed, you count your Adam +as one of his descendants. What feeling have I for you? Not scorn, +not hatred,--not love,--not loathing. No!---indifference,--blank +indifference to you and your affairs that is my feeling, say rather +absence of feeling, as regards you.---Oh yes, I will lap your feet, I +will cool you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my strong +arms, I will rock you on my rolling undulations, like a babe in his +cradle. Am I not gentle? Am I not kind? Am I not harmless? But hark! The +wind is rising, and the wind and I are rough playmates! What do you +say to my voice now? Do you see my foaming lips? Do you feel the rocks +tremble as my huge billows crash against them? Is not my anger terrible +as I dash your argosy, your thunder-bearing frigate, into fragments, +as you would crack an eggshell?--No, not anger; deaf, blind, unheeding +indifference,--that is all. Out of me all things arose; sooner or later, +into me all things subside. All changes around me; I change not. I +look not at you, vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save in +momentary glimpses: I look on the white face of my dead mistress, whom +I follow as the bridegroom follows the bier of her who has changed her +nuptial raiment for the shroud. + +“Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at my side. Continents +and islands grow old, and waste and disappear. The hardest rock +crumbles; vegetable and animal kingdoms come into being, wax great, +decline, and perish, to give way to others, even as human dynasties and +nations and races come and go. Look on me! 'Time writes no wrinkle' on +my forehead. Listen to me! All tongues are spoken on my shores, but I +have only one language: the winds taught me their vowels the crags and +the sands schooled me in my rough or smooth consonants. Few words are +mine but I have whispered them and sung them and shouted them to men of +all tribes from the time when the first wild wanderer strayed into my +awful presence. Have you a grief that gnaws at your heart-strings? Come +with it to my shore, as of old the priest of far-darting Apollo carried +his rage and anguish to the margin of the loud-roaring sea. There, if +anywhere you will forget your private and short-lived woe, for my voice +speaks to the infinite and the eternal in your consciousness. + +“To him who loves the pages of human history, who listens to the voices +of the world about him, who frequents the market and the thoroughfare, +who lives in the study of time and its accidents rather than in the +deeper emotions, in abstract speculation and spiritual contemplation, +the RIVER addresses itself as his natural companion. + +“Come live with me. I am active, cheerful, communicative, a natural +talker and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, except +occasionally when I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get +a fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in watching my +changing features. My idlest babble, when I am toying with the trifles +that fall in my way, if not very full of meaning, is at least musical. +I am not a dangerous friend, like the ocean; no highway is absolutely +safe, but my nature is harmless, and the storms that strew the beaches +with wrecks cast no ruins upon my flowery borders. Abide with me, and +you shall not die of thirst, like the forlorn wretches left to the +mercies of the pitiless salt waves. Trust yourself to me, and I will +carry you far on your journey, if we are travelling to the same point of +the compass. If I sometimes run riot and overflow your meadows, I leave +fertility behind me when I withdraw to my natural channel. Walk by my +side toward the place of my destination. I will keep pace with you, and +you shall feel my presence with you as that of a self-conscious being +like yourself. You will find it hard to be miserable in my company; I +drain you of ill-conditioned thoughts as I carry away the refuse of your +dwelling and its grounds.” + +But to him whom the ocean chills and crushes with its sullen +indifference, and the river disturbs with its never-pausing and +never-ending story, the silent LAKE shall be a refuge and a place of +rest for his soul. + +“'Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your limited faculties,' +it says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running stream. Leave +the ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living thing that walks +the solid earth; leave the river, too busy with its own errand, too +talkative about its own affairs, and find peace with me, whose smile +will cheer you, whose whisper will soothe you. Come to me when the +morning sun blazes across my bosom like a golden baldric; come to me +in the still midnight, when I hold the inverted firmament like a cup +brimming with jewels, nor spill one star of all the constellations that +float in my ebon goblet. Do you know the charm of melancholy? Where will +you find a sympathy like mine in your hours of sadness? Does the ocean +share your grief? Does the river listen to your sighs? The salt wave, +that called to you from under last month's full moon, to-day is +dashing on the rocks of Labrador; the stream, that ran by you pure and +sparkling, has swallowed the poisonous refuse of a great city, and is +creeping to its grave in the wide cemetery that buries all things in its +tomb of liquid crystal. It is true that my waters exhale and are renewed +from one season to another; but are your features the same, absolutely +the same, from year to year? We both change, but we know each other +through all changes. Am I not mirrored in those eyes of yours? And +does not Nature plant me as an eye to behold her beauties while she is +dressed in the glories of leaf and flower, and draw the icy lid over +my shining surface when she stands naked and ashamed in the poverty of +winter?' + +“I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts in the course of a life +not very long, but with a record which much longer lives could not match +in incident. Oftentimes the temptation has come over me with dangerous +urgency to try a change of existence, if such change is a part of human +destiny,--to seek rest, if that is what we gain by laying down the +burden of life. I have asked who would be the friend to whom I should +appeal for the last service I should have need of. Ocean was there, +all ready, asking no questions, answering none. What strange voyages, +downward through its glaucous depths, upwards to its boiling and +frothing surface, wafted by tides, driven by tempests, disparted by rude +agencies; one remnant whitening on the sands of a northern beach, +one perhaps built into the circle of a coral reef in the Pacific, one +settling to the floor of the vast laboratory where continents are built, +to emerge in far-off ages! What strange companions for my pall-bearers! +Unwieldy sea-monsters, the stories of which are counted fables by the +spectacled collectors who think their catalogues have exhausted nature; +naked-eyed creatures, staring, glaring, nightmare-like spectres of +the ghastly-green abysses; pulpy islands, with life in gelatinous +immensity,--what a company of hungry heirs at every ocean funeral! No! +No! Ocean claims great multitudes, but does not invite the solitary who +would fain be rid of himself. + +“Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the lake I love than I +have ever found when drifting idly over its surface? No, again. I do not +want the sweet, clear waters to know me in the disgrace of nature, when +life, the faithful body-servant, has ceased caring for me. That must not +be. The mirror which has pictured me so often shall never know me as an +unwelcome object. + +“If I must ask the all-subduing element to be my last friend, and lead +me out of my prison, it shall be the busy, whispering, not unfriendly, +pleasantly companionable river. + +“But Ocean and River and Lake have certain relations to the periods +of human life which they who are choosing their places of abode should +consider. Let the child play upon the seashore. The wide horizon gives +his imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. That background of +mystery, without which life is a poor mechanical arrangement, is shaped +and colored, so far as it can have outline, or any hue but shadow, on a +vast canvas, the contemplation of which enlarges and enriches the sphere +of consciousness. The mighty ocean is not too huge to symbolize the +aspirations and ambitions of the yet untried soul of the adolescent. + +“The time will come when his indefinite mental horizon has found a solid +limit, which shuts his prospect in narrower bounds than he would have +thought could content him in the years of undefined possibilities. Then +he will find the river a more natural intimate than the ocean. It +is individual, which the ocean, with all its gulfs and inlets and +multitudinous shores, hardly seems to be. It does not love you very +dearly, and will not miss you much when you disappear from its margin; +but it means well to you, bids you good-morning with its coming waves, +and good-evening with those which are leaving. It will lead your +thoughts pleasantly away, upwards to its source, downwards to the stream +to which it is tributary, or the wide waters in which it is to lose +itself. A river, by choice, to live by in middle age. + +“In hours of melancholy reflection, in those last years of life which +have little left but tender memories, the still companionship of the +lake, embosomed in woods, sheltered, fed by sweet mountain brooks and +hidden springs, commends itself to the wearied and saddened spirit. I am +not thinking of those great inland seas, which have many of the features +and much of the danger that belong to the ocean, but of those 'ponds,' +as our countrymen used to call them until they were rechristened by +summer visitors; beautiful sheets of water from a hundred to a few +thousand acres in extent, scattered like raindrops over the map of our +Northern sovereignties. The loneliness of contemplative old age finds +its natural home in the near neighborhood of one of these tranquil +basins.” + +Nature does not always plant her poets where they belong, but if we look +carefully their affinities betray themselves. The youth will carry his +Byron to the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved so well. The +man of maturer years will remember that the sonorous couplets of Pope +which ring in his ears were written on the banks of the Thames. The old +man, as he nods over the solemn verse of Wordsworth, will recognize the +affinity between the singer and the calm sheet that lay before him as he +wrote,--the stainless and sleepy Windermere. + +“The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amusement to compare their +own feelings with those of one who has lived by the Atlantic and the +Mediterranean, by the Nile and the Tiber, by Lake Leman and by one of +the fairest sheets of water that our own North America embosoms in its +forests.” + +Miss Lurida Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, read this +paper, and pondered long upon it. She was thinking very seriously of +studying medicine, and had been for some time in frequent communication +with Dr. Butts, under whose direction she had begun reading certain +treatises, which added to such knowledge of the laws of life in health +and in disease as she had brought with her from the Corinna Institute. +Naturally enough, she carried the anonymous paper to the doctor, to get +his opinion about it, and compare it with her own. They both agreed that +it was probably, they would not say certainly, the work of the solitary +visitor. There was room for doubt, for there were visitors who might +well have travelled to all the places mentioned, and resided long enough +on the shores of the waters the writer spoke of to have had all the +experiences mentioned in the paper. The Terror remembered a young lady, +a former schoolmate, who belonged to one of those nomadic families +common in this generation, the heads of which, especially the female +heads, can never be easy where they are, but keep going between America +and Europe, like so many pith-balls in the electrical experiment, +alternately attracted and repelled, never in contented equilibrium. +Every few years they pull their families up by the roots, and by the +time they have begun to take hold a little with their radicles in the +spots to which they have been successively transplanted up they come +again, so that they never get a tap-root anywhere. The Terror suspected +the daughter of one of these families of sending certain anonymous +articles of not dissimilar character to the one she had just received. +But she knew the style of composition common among the young girls, +and she could hardly believe that it was one of them who had sent this +paper. Could a brother of this young lady have written it? Possibly; she +knew nothing more than that the young lady had a brother, then a student +at the University. All the chances were that Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was +the author. So thought Lurida, and so thought Dr. Butts. + +Whatever faults there were in this essay, it interested them both. There +was nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on the part +of the writer, whoever he or she might be. There were references to +suicide, it is true, but they were of a purely speculative nature, and +did not look to any practical purpose in that direction. Besides, if the +stranger were the author of the paper, he certainly would not choose a +sheet of water like Cedar Lake to perform the last offices for him, in +case he seriously meditated taking unceremonious leave of life and its +accidents. He could find a river easily enough, to say nothing of other +methods of effecting his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the +impropriety of selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the +white canoe and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the surface of +the deep waters. + +The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come before +the public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers +belonging to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make +free use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a +diversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is languid, +or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress. The reader can +hardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern had become the +focal point where a good deal of mental activity converged. There were +the village people, including a number of cultivated families; there +were the visitors, among them many accomplished and widely travelled +persons; there was the University, with its learned teachers and +aspiring young men; there was the Corinna Institute, with its eager, +ambitious, hungry-souled young women, crowding on, class after class +coming forward on the broad stream of liberal culture, and rounding +the point which, once passed, the boundless possibilities of womanhood +opened before them. All this furnished material enough and to spare for +the records and the archives of the society. + +The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meetings. It may be +remembered that the girls had said of her, when she was The Terror, that +“she knew everything and didn't believe anything.” That was just +the kind of person for a secretary of such an association. Properly +interpreted, the saying meant that she knew a great deal, and wanted to +know a great deal more, and was consequently always on the lookout for +information; that she believed nothing without sufficient proof that +it was true, and therefore was perpetually asking for evidence where, +others took assertions on trust. + +It was astonishing to see what one little creature like The Terror could +accomplish in the course of a single season. She found out what each +member could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside visitors whom +she suspected of capacity, and urged them to speak at the meetings, or +send written papers to be read. As an official, with the printed title +at the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, she was a privileged +personage. She begged the young persons who had travelled to tell +something of their experiences. She had contemplated getting up a +discussion on the woman's rights question, but being a wary little +body, and knowing that the debate would become a dispute and divide the +members into two hostile camps, she deferred this project indefinitely. +It would be time enough after she had her team well in hand, she said to +herself,--had felt their mouths and tried their paces. This expression, +as she used it in her thoughts, seems rather foreign to her habits, but +there was room in her large brain for a wide range of illustrations and +an ample vocabulary. She could not do much with her own muscles, but +she had known the passionate delight of being whirled furiously over +the road behind four scampering horses, in a rocking stage-coach, and +thought of herself in the Secretary's chair as not unlike the driver +on his box. A few weeks of rest had allowed her nervous energy to store +itself up, and the same powers which had distanced competition in the +classes of her school had of necessity to expend themselves in vigorous +action in her new office. + +Her appeals had their effect. A number of papers were very soon sent +in; some with names, some anonymously. She looked these papers over, and +marked those which she thought would be worth reading and listening to +at the meetings. One of them has just been presented to the reader. As +to the authorship of the following one there were many conjectures. A +well-known writer, who had spent some weeks at Arrowhead Village, was +generally suspected of being its author. Some, however, questioned +whether it was not the work of a new hand, who wrote, not from +experience, but from his or her ideas of the condition to which a +story-teller, a novelist, must in all probability be sooner or later +reduced. The reader must judge for himself whether this first paper is +the work of an old hand or a novice. + + + SOME EXPERIENCES OF A NOVELIST. + +“I have written a frightful number of stories, forty or more, I think. +Let me see. For twelve years two novels a year regularly: that makes +twenty-four. In three different years I have written three +stories annually: that makes thirty-three. In five years one a +year,--thirty-eight. That is all, is n't it? Yes. Thirty-eight, not +forty. I wish I could make them all into one composite story, as Mr. +Galton does his faces. + +“Hero--heroine--mamma--papa--uncle--sister, and so on. Love +--obstacles--misery--tears--despair--glimmer of hope--unexpected +solution of difficulties--happy finale. + +“Landscape for background according to season. Plants of each month got +up from botanical calendars. + +“I should like much to see the composite novel. Why not apply Mr. +Galton's process, and get thirty-eight stories all in one? All the +Yankees would resolve into one Yankee, all the P----West Britons into +one Patrick, etc., what a saving of time it would be! + +“I got along pretty well with my first few stories. I had some +characters around me which, a little disguised, answered well enough. +There was the minister of the parish, and there was an old schoolmaster +either of them served very satisfactorily for grandfathers and +old uncles. All I had to do was to shift some of their leading +peculiarities, keeping the rest. The old minister wore knee-breeches. +I clapped them on to the schoolmaster. The schoolmaster carried a tall +gold-headed cane. I put this in the minister's hands. So with other +things,--I shifted them round, and got a set of characters who, taken +together, reproduced the chief persons of the village where I lived, but +did not copy any individual exactly. Thus it went on for a while; but +by and by my stock company began to be rather too familiarly known, +in spite of their change of costume, and at last some altogether too +sagacious person published what he called a 'key' to several of my +earlier stories, in which I found the names of a number of neighbors +attached to aliases of my own invention. All the 'types,' as he called +them, represented by these personages of my story had come to be +recognized, each as standing for one and the same individual of my +acquaintance. It had been of no use to change the costume. Even changing +the sex did no good. I had a famous old gossip in one of my tales,--a +much-babbling Widow Sertingly. 'Sho!' they all said, that 's old Deacon +Spinner, the same he told about in that other story of his,--only +the deacon's got on a petticoat and a mob-cap,--but it's the same old +sixpence.' So I said to myself, I must have some new characters. I +had no trouble with young characters; they are all pretty much +alike,--dark-haired or light-haired, with the outfits belonging to their +complexion, respectively. I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-top +eccentric. I had never seen anything just like her in books. So I said, +I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure enough, I +fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which I got from the +directory, and sent her forth to the world, disguised, as I supposed, +beyond the possibility of recognition. The book sold well, and the +eccentric personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks after it was +published a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the person in the +directory, whose family name I had used, as he maintained, to his +and all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, grief, shame, and +irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank thousand dollars would be +a modest compensation. The story made the book sell, but not enough +to pay blank thousand dollars. In the mean time a cousin of mine had +sniffed out the resemblance between the character in my book and our +great-aunt. We were rivals in her good graces. 'Cousin Pansie' spoke to +her of my book and the trouble it was bringing on me,--she was so sorry +about it! She liked my story,--only those personalities, you know. 'What +personalities?' says old granny-aunt. 'Why, auntie, dear, they do say +that he has brought in everybody we know,--did n't anybody tell you +about--well,--I suppose you ought to know it,--did n't anybody tell you +you were made fun of in that novel?' Somebody--no matter who--happened +to hear all this, and told me. She said granny-aunt's withered old face +had two red spots come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeks +from a pink saucer. No, she said, not a pink saucer, but as if they +were two coals of fire. She sent out and got the book, and made her (the +somebody that I was speaking of) read it to her. When she had heard +as much as she could stand,--for 'Cousin Pansie' explained passages +to her,--explained, you know,--she sent for her lawyer, and that same +somebody had to be a witness to a new will she had drawn up. It was not +to my advantage. 'Cousin Pansie' got the corner lot where the grocery +is, and pretty much everything else. The old woman left me a legacy. +What do you think it was? An old set of my own books, that looked as if +it had been bought out of a bankrupt circulating library. + +“After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much more +diligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing stories +for my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, and worked +hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every story that went +from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation, +and there was a set of critics,--there is a set of critics now +and everywhere,--that watch as narrowly for the decline of a man's +reputation as ever a village half drowned out by an inundation watched +for the falling of the waters. The fame I had won, such as it was, +seemed to attend me,--not going before me in the shape of a woman with +a trumpet, but rather following me like one of Actaeon's hounds, his +throat open, ready to pull me down and tear me. What a fierce enemy +is that which bays behind us in the voice of our proudest bygone +achievement! + +“But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I must +have characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. Oh, yes! +Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain aspects +of humanity will answer every purpose for which your invention was +intended. A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat +which has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had a +brood of chickens raised in it,--these elements, duly adjusted to each +other, will represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoid +the cornfield when your scarecrow displays his personality. Do you +think you can make your heroes and heroines,--nay, even your scrappy +supernumeraries,--out of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow? +You can't do it. You must study living people and reproduce them. And +whom do you know so well as your friends? You will show up your friends, +then, one after another. When your friends give out, who is left for +you? Why, nobody but your own family, of course. When you have used +up your family, there is nothing left for you but to write your +autobiography. + +“After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, very +naturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well as +sexes. In this way I continued to use up a large amount of material, +which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to meddle with. +Who would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in the guise of a +schoolboy? Yet I managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as the +old gentleman would have decanted a bottle of Juno Madeira through that +long siphon which he always used when the most sacred vintages were +summoned from their crypts to render an account of themselves on his +hospitable board. It was a nice business, I confess, but I did it, and I +drink cheerfully to that good uncle's memory in a glass of wine from +his own cellar, which, with many other more important tokens of his good +will, I call my own since his lamented demise. + +“I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought I would try a course +of cousins. I had enough of them to furnish out a whole gallery of +portraits. There was cousin 'Creeshy,' as we called her; Lucretia, more +correctly. She was a cripple. Her left lower limb had had something +happen to it, and she walked with a crutch. Her patience under her trial +was very pathetic and picturesque, so to speak,--I mean adapted to +the tender parts of a story; nothing could work up better in a +melting paragraph. But I could not, of course, describe her particular +infirmity; that would point her out at once. I thought of shifting the +lameness to the right lower limb, but even that would be seen through. +So I gave the young woman that stood for her in my story a lame elbow, +and put her arm in a sling, and made her such a model of uncomplaining +endurance that my grandmother cried over her as if her poor old heart +would break. She cried very easily, my grandmother; in fact, she had +such a gift for tears that I availed myself of it, and if you remember +old Judy, in my novel 'Honi Soit' (Honey Sweet, the booksellers called +it),--old Judy, the black-nurse,--that was my grandmother. She had +various other peculiarities, which I brought out one by one, and +saddled on to different characters. You see she was a perfect mine of +singularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up pretty well, +I came down upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair game; what +better use could I put them to? I studied them up very carefully, and as +there were a good many of them I helped myself freely. They lasted me, +with occasional intermissions, I should say, three or four years. I had +to be very careful with my poor relations,--they were as touchy as they +could be; and as I felt bound to send a copy of my novel, whatever it +might be, to each one of them,--there were as many as a dozen,--I took +care to mix their characteristic features, so that, though each might +suspect I meant the other, no one should think I meant him or her. I +got through all my relations at last except my father and mother. I had +treated my brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except Elisha and +Joanna. The truth is they both had lots of odd ways,--family traits, +I suppose, but were just different enough from each other to figure +separately in two different stories. These two novels made me some +little trouble; for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in one +of them, and quarrelled with me about it; and Joanna vowed and declared +that Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, and that it was +a real mean thing to make fun of folks' own flesh and blood, and treated +me to one of her cries. She was n't handsome when she cried, poor, dear +Joanna; in fact, that was one of the personal traits I had made use of +in the story that Elisha found fault with. + +“So as there was nobody left but my father and mother, you see for +yourself I had no choice. There was one great advantage in dealing with +them,--I knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a certain delicacy +it handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who have been +so near to him. One's mother, for instance: suppose some of her little +ways were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of them would +furnish amusement to great numbers of readers; it would not be without +hesitation that a writer of delicate sensibility would draw her +portrait, with all its whimsicalities, so plainly that it should be +generally recognized. One's father is commonly of tougher fibre than +one's mother, and one would not feel the same scruples, perhaps, in +using him professionally as material in a novel; still, while you are +employing him as bait,--you see I am honest and plain-spoken, for your +characters are baits to catch readers with,--I would follow kind +Izaak Walton's humane counsel about the frog you are fastening to your +fish-hook: fix him artistically, as he directs, but in so doing I use +him as though you loved him.' + +“I have at length shown up, in one form and another, all my townsmen +who have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up, all +my friends, all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It has +occurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection of +my father-in-law and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of paying them +a visit, and I shall have an admirable opportunity of studying them +and their relatives and visitors. I have long wanted a good chance for +getting acquainted with the social sphere several grades below that to +which I am accustomed, and I have no doubt that I shall find matter for +half a dozen new stories among those connections of mine. Besides, they +live in a Western city, and one doesn't mind much how he cuts up the +people of places he does n't himself live in. I suppose there is not +really so much difference in people's feelings, whether they live in +Bangor or Omaha, but one's nerves can't be expected to stretch across +the continent. It is all a matter of greater or less distance. I read +this morning that a Chinese fleet was sunk, but I did n't think half +so much about it as I did about losing my sleeve button, confound +it! People have accused me of want of feeling; they misunderstand the +artist-nature,--that is all. I obey that implicitly; I am sorry if +people don't like my descriptions, but I have done my best. I have +pulled to pieces all the persons I am acquainted with, and put them +together again in my characters. The quills I write with come from live +geese, I would have you know. I expect to get some first-rate pluckings +from those people I was speaking of, and I mean to begin my thirty-ninth +novel as soon as I have got through my visit.” + + + + + + +IX. THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. + +There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events, in a +narrative like this. June passed away, and July, and August had come, +and as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead Village and +its visitors remained unsolved. The white canoe still wandered over the +lake, alone, ghostly, always avoiding the near approach of the boats +which seemed to be coming in its direction. Now and then a circumstance +would happen which helped to keep inquiry alive. Good horsemanship was +not so common among the young men of the place and its neighborhood that +Maurice's accomplishment in that way could be overlooked. If there was +a wicked horse or a wild colt whose owner was afraid of him, he would +be commended to Maurice's attention. Paolo would lead him to his master +with all due precaution,--for he had no idea of risking his neck on the +back of any ill-conditioned beast,--and Maurice would fasten on his long +spurs, spring into the saddle, and very speedily teach the creature good +behavior. There soon got about a story that he was what the fresh-water +fisherman called “one o' them whisperers.” It is a common legend enough, +coming from the Old World, but known in American horse-talking circles, +that some persons will whisper certain words in a horse's ear which +will tame him if he is as wild and furious as ever Cruiser was. All this +added to the mystery which surrounded the young man. A single improbable +or absurd story amounts to very little, but when half a dozen such +stories are told about the same individual or the same event, they begin +to produce the effect of credible evidence. If the year had been 1692 +and the place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood would have run +the risk of being treated like the Reverend George Burroughs. + +Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely excited with +reference to the young man of whom so many stories were told. She had +pretty nearly convinced herself that he was the author of the paper on +Ocean, Lake, and River, which had been read at one of the meetings of +the Pansophian Society. She was very desirous of meeting him, if it +were possible. It seemed as if she might, as Secretary of the Society, +request the cooperation of any of the visitors, without impropriety. +So, after much deliberation, she wrote a careful note, of which the +following is an exact copy. Her hand was bold, almost masculine, a +curious contrast to that of Euthymia, which was delicately feminine. +PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18-. MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR,--You have received, I trust, a card of invitation to the +meetings of our Society, but I think we have not yet had the pleasure of +seeing you at any of them. We have supposed that we might be indebted +to you for a paper read at the last meeting, and listened to with +much interest. As it was anonymous, we do not wish to be inquisitive +respecting its authorship; but we desire to say that any papers kindly +sent us by the temporary residents of our village will be welcome, and +if adapted to the wants of our Association will be read at one of its +meetings or printed in its records, or perhaps both read and printed. +May we not hope for your presence at the meeting, which is to take place +next Wednesday evening? Respectfully yours, + +LURIDA VINCENT, Secretary of the Pansophian Society. + +To this note the Secretary received the following reply: MISS LURIDA +VINCENT, + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18-. + +Secretary of the Pansophian Society: + +DEAR MISS VINCENT,--I have received the ticket you refer to, and desire +to express my acknowledgments for the polite attention. I regret that I +have not been and I fear shall not be able to attend the meetings of the +Society; but if any subject occurs to me on which I feel an inclination +to write, it will give me pleasure to send a paper, to be disposed of as +the Society may see fit. + +Very respectfully yours, MAURICE KIRKWOOD. + +“He says nothing about the authorship of the paper that was read the +other evening,” the Secretary said to herself. “No matter,--he wrote +it,--there is no mistaking his handwriting. We know something about him, +now, at any rate. But why doesn't he come to our meetings? What has his +antipathy to do with his staying away? I must find out what his secret +is, and I will. I don't believe it's harder than it was to solve that +prize problem which puzzled so many teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, +the great chess-player.” + +To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to bend all the faculties +which had excited the admiration and sometimes the amazement of those +who knew her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece of +business; for though Lurida was an intrepid woman's rights advocate, and +believed she was entitled to do almost everything that men dared to, +she knew very well there were certain limits which a young woman like +herself must not pass. + +In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young student +at the University,--the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous +predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,--an +instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the +instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with +the ease which implied long familiarity with its use. + +After they left, the instructor asked many curious questions about +him,--who he was, how long he had been in the village, whether anything +was known of his history,--all these inquiries with an eagerness which +implied some special and peculiar reason for the interest they evinced. + +“I feel satisfied,” the instructor said, “that I have met that young man +in my own country. It was a number of years ago, and of course he +has altered in appearance a good deal; but there is a look about him +of--what shall I call it?---apprehension,--as if he were fearing the +approach of something or somebody. I think it is the way a man would +look that was haunted; you know what I mean,--followed by a spirit or +ghost. He does not suggest the idea of a murderer,--very far from it; +but if he did, I should think he was every minute in fear of seeing the +murdered man's spirit.” + +The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the instructor could +recall. He had seen him in Rome, he thought, at the Fountain of Trevi, +where so many strangers go before leaving the city. The youth was in +the company of a man who looked like a priest. He could not mistake +the peculiar expression of his countenance, but that was all he now +remembered about his appearance. His attention had been called to this +young man by seeing that some of the bystanders were pointing at him, +and noticing that they were whispering with each other as if with +reference to him. He should say that the youth was at that time fifteen +or sixteen years old, and the time was about ten years ago. + +After all, this evidence was of little or no value. Suppose the youth +were Maurice; what then? We know that he had been in Italy, and had been +there a good while,--or at least we infer so much from his familiarity +with the language, and are confirmed in the belief by his having an +Italian servant, whom he probably brought from Italy when he returned. +If he wrote the paper which was read the other evening, that settles it, +for the writer says he had lived by the Tiber. We must put this scrap of +evidence furnished by the Professor with the other scraps; it may +turn out of some consequence, sooner or later. It is like a piece of a +dissected map; it means almost nothing by itself, but when we find the +pieces it joins with we may discover a very important meaning in it. + +In a small, concentrated community like that which centred in and +immediately around Arrowhead Village, every day must have its local +gossip as well as its general news. The newspaper tells the small +community what is going on in the great world, and the busy tongues of +male and female, especially the latter, fill in with the occurrences +and comments of the ever-stirring microcosm. The fact that the Italian +teacher had, or thought he had, seen Maurice ten years before was +circulated and made the most of,--turned over and over like a cake, +until it was thoroughly done on both sides and all through. It was a +very small cake, but better than nothing. Miss Vincent heard this story, +as others did, and talked about it with her friend, Miss Tower. Here was +one more fact to help along. + +The two young ladies who had recently graduated at the Corinna Institute +remained, as they had always been, intimate friends. They were the +natural complements of each other. Euthymia represented a complete, +symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence was only an index of a +large, wholesome, affluent life. She could not help being courageous, +with such a firm organization. She could not help being generous, +cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she was fair to +look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by the schoolmates +who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but she did not +overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own gifts, in +comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. The two agreed +all the better for differing as they did. The octave makes a perfect +chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the ear. Each admired +the other with a heartiness which if they had been less unlike, would +have been impossible. + +It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence on each other. +The Terror of the schoolroom was the oracle in her relations with her +friend. All the freedom of movement which The Wonder showed in her +bodily exercises The Terror manifested in the world of thought. She +would fling open a book, and decide in a swift glance whether it had +any message for her. Her teachers had compared her way of reading to the +taking of an instantaneous photograph. When she took up the first book +on Physiology which Dr. Butts handed her, it seemed to him that if she +only opened at any place, and gave one look, her mind drank its meaning +up, as a moist sponge absorbs water. “What can I do with such a creature +as this?” he said to himself. “There is only one way to deal with her, +treat her as one treats a silkworm: give it its mulberry leaf, and it +will spin its own cocoon. Give her the books, and she will spin her own +web of knowledge.” + +“Do you really think of studying medicine?” said Dr. Butts to her. + +“I have n't made up my mind about that,” she answered, “but I want to +know a little more about this terrible machinery of life and death we +are all tangled in. I know something about it, but not enough. I find +some very strange beliefs among the women I meet with, and I want to be +able to silence them when they attempt to proselyte me to their whims +and fancies. Besides, I want to know everything.” + +“They tell me you do, already,” said Dr. Butts. + +“I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws the breath of life!” + exclaimed The Terror. + +The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She had reached that stage of +education in which the vast domain of the unknown opens its illimitable +expanse before the eyes of the student. We never know the extent of +darkness until it is partially illuminated. + +“You did not leave the Institute with the reputation of being the most +ignorant young lady that ever graduated there,” said the doctor. “They +tell me you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record since the +school was founded.” + +“What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish in our small +aquarium, to be sure!” answered The Terror. “He was six inches long, the +monster,--a little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with! What did +you hand me that schoolbook for? Did you think I did n't know anything +about the human body?” + +“You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try you +with an easy book, by way of introduction.” + +The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction. + +“I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. When I talk about my +ignorance, I don't measure myself with schoolgirls, doctor. I don't +measure myself with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if I +were a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me anything. Where is your +hat, doctor? Let me try it on.” + +The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Terror's hair was not +naturally abundant, like Euthymia's, and she kept it cut rather short. +Her head used to get very hot when she studied hard. She tried to put +the hat on. + +“Do you see that?” she said. “I could n't wear it--it would squeeze my +eyes out of my head. The books told me that women's brains were smaller +than men's: perhaps they are,--most of them,--I never measured a +great many. But when they try to settle what women are good for, by +phrenology, I like to have them put their tape round my head. I don't +believe in their nonsense, for all that. You might as well tell me +that if one horse weighs more than another horse he is worth more,--a +cart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred pounds better than +Eclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give me a list of the best +books you can think of, and turn me loose in your library. I can find +what I want, if you have it; and what I don't find there I will get at +the Public Library. I shall want to ask you a question now and then.” + +The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, but thoughtfully, +as if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her slight +constitutional resource. + +She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contradiction in her +statements about herself. + +“I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I sail on a wide sea of +ignorance, but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows and +some of its depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life that +interest me most just now, and I want to know something of it. Perhaps I +may find it a calling such as would suit me.” + +“Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?” said +the doctor. + +“Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, but I want to know +something more about it first. Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicine +enough to practise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well enough. No matter +about that. I wish to study some of your best books on some of the +subjects that most interest me. I know about bones and muscles and all +that, and about digestion and respiration and such things. I want to +study up the nervous system, and learn all about it. I am of the nervous +temperament myself, and perhaps that is the reason. I want to read about +insanity and all that relates to it.” + +A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The Terror +said this. + +“Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, I know,--all those +large-headed, hard-thinking girls do, as a matter of course; but what +has set her off about insanity and the nervous system? I wonder if any +of her more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder. Bright +people very often have crazy relations. Perhaps some of her friends are +in that way. I wonder whether”--the doctor did not speak any of these +thoughts, and in fact hardly shaped his “whether,” for The Terror +interrupted his train of reflection, or rather struck into it in a way +which startled him. + +“Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?” she asked, +looking at its empty place on the shelf. + +“On my table,” the doctor answered. “I have been consulting it.” + +Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned the pages rapidly +until she came to the one she wanted. The doctor cast his eye on the +beading of the page, and saw the large letters A N T. + +“I thought so,” he said to himself. “We shall know everything there is +in the books about antipathies now, if we never did before. She has a +special object in studying the nervous system, just as I suspected. I +think she does not care to mention it at this time; but if she finds out +anything of interest she will tell me, if she does anybody. Perhaps +she does not mean to tell anybody. It is a rather delicate business,--a +young girl studying the natural history of a young man. Not quite so +safe as botany or palaeontology!” + +Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had her own plans, and +chose to keep them to herself, for the present, at least. Her hands +were full enough, it might seem, without undertaking the solution of +the great Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the most perfect +training, so far as her intelligence was concerned; and the summer rest +had restored her bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an overcharged +battery which will find conductors somewhere to carry off its crowded +energy. + +At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the most successful season +it had ever known. The Pansophian Society flourished to an extraordinary +degree under the fostering care of the new Secretary. The rector was +a good figure-head as President, but the Secretary was the life of the +Society. Communications came in abundantly: some from the village and +its neighborhood, some from the University and the Institute, some from +distant and unknown sources. The new Secretary was very busy with the +work of examining these papers. After a forenoon so employed, the carpet +of her room looked like a barn floor after a husking-match. A glance at +the manuscripts strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have frightened +any young writer away from the thought of authorship as a business. If +the candidate for that fearful calling had seen the process of selection +and elimination, he would have felt still more desperately. A paper of +twenty pages would come in, with an underscored request to please read +through, carefully. That request alone is commonly sufficient to condemn +any paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; but the +Secretary was not hardened enough yet for that kind of martial law in +dealing with manuscripts. The looker-on might have seen her take up the +paper, cast one flashing glance at its title, read the first sentence +and the last, dip at a venture into two or three pages, and decide as +swiftly as the lightning calculator would add up a column of figures +what was to be its destination. If rejected, it went into the heap +on the left; if approved, it was laid apart, to be submitted to the +Committee for their judgment. The foolish writers who insist on one's +reading through their manuscript poems and stories ought to know how +fatal the request is to their prospects. It provokes the reader, to +begin with. The reading of manuscript is frightful work, at the best; +the reading of worthless manuscript--and most of that which one is +requested to read through is worthless--would add to the terrors of +Tartarus, if any infernal deity were ingenious enough to suggest it as a +punishment. + +If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not come before the +Committee, but was returned to the author, if he sent for it, which he +commonly did. Its natural course was to try for admission into some one +of the popular magazines: into “The Sifter,” the most fastidious of them +all; if that declined it, into “The Second Best;” and if that returned +it, into “The Omnivorous.” If it was refused admittance at the doors of +all the magazines, it might at length find shelter in the corner of a +newspaper, where a good deal of very readable verse is to be met with +nowadays, some of which has been, no doubt, presented to the Pansophian +Society, but was not considered up to its standard. + + + + + + +X. A NEW ARRIVAL. + +There was a recent accession to the transient population of the village +which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a young fellow, +rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at home as if he +owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He commonly had a cigar +in his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the non-explosive sort, and +a stick with a bulldog's head for its knob; wore a soft hat, a +coarse check suit, a little baggy, and gaiterboots which had been +half-soled,--a Bohemian-looking personage, altogether. + +This individual began making explorations in every direction. He was +very curious about the place and all the people in it. He was especially +interested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he made all +sorts of inquiries. This led him to form a summer acquaintance with the +Secretary, who was pleased to give him whatever information he asked +for; being proud of the Society, as she had a right to be, and knowing +more about it than anybody else. + +The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearing +something of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, +connected with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell him +anything about Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note-book +he always had with him. + +All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about this +new visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an attribute +thought to belong more especially to her sex, became somewhat interested +to know more exactly who this inquiring, note-taking personage, who +seemed to be everywhere and to know everybody, might himself be. Meeting +him at the Public Library at a fortunate moment, when there was nobody +but the old Librarian, who was hard of hearing, to interfere with their +conversation, the little Secretary had a chance to try to find out +something about him. + +“This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess,” he +remarked to Miss Lurida. + +“It is, indeed,” she said. “Have you found it well furnished with the +books you most want?” + +“Oh, yes,--books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do for +the Newspapers. I like a Review well enough,--it tells you all there +is in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper saves a +fellow the trouble of reading it.” + +“You find the papers you want, here, I hope,” said the young lady. + +“Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do much +reading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?” + +“I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, there +is a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account of some +of the doings at our Society. The city papers are always glad to get the +reports of our meetings, and to know what is going on in the village.” + +“I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are the +Secretary.” + +This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man about +his business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She ducked her +head, and let the question go over her. + +“Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write, +--especially to give an account of their own papers. I think they like +to have me put in the applause, when they get any. I do that sometimes.” + (How much more, she did not say.) + +“I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what they +tell me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have written +herself.” + +He looked her straight in the eyes. + +“I have transmitted some good papers,” she said, without winking, or +swallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to change; +her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and more too. +“You spoke of Newspapers,” she said, without any change of tone or +manner: “do you not frequently write for them yourself?” + +“I should think I did,” answered the young man. “I am a regular +correspondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'” + +“The regular correspondent from where?” + +“Where! Oh, anywhere,--the place does not make much difference. I have +been writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and then +from Constantinople.” + +“How long since your return to this country, may I ask?” + +“My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with a +gazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can get +the facts much better from them than by trusting your own observation. I +have made the tour of Europe by the help of them and the newspapers. +But of late I have taken to interviewing. I find that a very pleasant +specialty. It is about as good sport as trout-tickling, and much the +same kind of business. I should like to send the Society an account of +one of my interviews. Don't you think they would like to hear it?” + +“I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; and +if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. You +know everything has to be examined and voted on by the Committee,” said +the cautious Secretary. + +“Very well,--I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, please +send it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter,' or 'The Second +Best,' or some of the paying magazines.” + +This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the Pansophian +Society. + +“I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, +'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to +a certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could +concerning him and all that related to him. I have interviewed a good +many politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I had +never tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite sure +how this one would feel about it. I said as much to the chief, but he +pooh-poohed my scruples. 'It is n't our business whether they like it +or not,' said he; 'the public wants it, and what the public wants it's +bound to have, and we are bound to furnish it. Don't be afraid of your +man; he 's used to it,--he's been pumped often enough to take it +easy, and what you've got to do is to pump him dry. You need n't be +modest,--ask him what you like; he is n't bound to answer, you know.' + +“As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up a +little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine on +my best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the house +where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and pass for a +visitor from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' who call in +to pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home and say that +they have met the distinguished So and So, which gives them a certain +distinction in the village circle to which they belong. + +“My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his +reception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on my +face, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his face in +the light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged things so as +to give him that advantage. It was like two frigates manoeuvring,--each +trying to get to windward of the other. I never take out my +note-book until I and my man have got engaged in artless and earnest +conversation,--always about himself and his works, of course, if he is +an author. + +“I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those who +had read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of them. + +“He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a great +many callers. + +“I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his readers +feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to cherish a +certain attachment to him. + +“He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he said. +In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had told him +so. + +“My dear sir,” I said, “there is nothing wonderful in the fact you +mention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts. + + + 'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.' + +“Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), were +your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you very +frequently? + +“He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they will all +turn out well.' + +“I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said. + +“No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and +pleasanter there.' + +“I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an +author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's +boudoir, a sacred apartment. + +“So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face, +when I wanted it on has. + +“You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the +room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a +Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and +other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give +it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's +Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap +compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases +when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what +books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones you +particularly wish to see. + +“Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose +is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes? +Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his +oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must +open. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,--how gently +at first, how strenuously when once fairly between the shells! + +“And here, I said, you write your books,--those books which have +carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to +posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you +write with? + +“'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied. + +“He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up +the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which +the angel I used to read about in Young's 'Night Thoughts' ought to have +dropped, and did n't. + +“Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I +asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure. + +“So I got out my note-book. + +“It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview. +I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are? + +“'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.' + +“I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said +I. Eight feet,--eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down. + +“So I got out my pencil. + +“I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not +using them as yet. + +“I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a +very early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you +began to write in verse? + +“He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are +themselves the subjects of conversation. + +“'Very early,--I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Colet +said, + + + “'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'” + +“I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind +enough to translate that line for me. + +“'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how +to write them.' + +“How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she? + +“My man was pleased to give me a piece of literary information. + +“'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse +Karr?' + +“Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in +French literature. What had he to do with your lioness? + +“'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a +case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he +came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing +her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his +dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He +keeps it with an inscription: + + + “Donne a Alphonse Karr + Par Madame Louise Colet.... + Dans le dos. + +“Lively little female!' + +“I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview +the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest +I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably +disposed toward me. + +“I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything +about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of +the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my +most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new +concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the +public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I +meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here +are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or +listening to: + +“How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated +man? + +“'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love +is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all +through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the +same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It +generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger +of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, +or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters +that tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and +endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot +before he began to be what you call a celebrity!' + +“Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called +celebrity? + +“'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life +to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to +after his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after +a few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you +thirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on +condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do +you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of +a year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, +cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished +your task, after all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased to +call “a literary celebrity.” I won't dispute with you as to whether or +not I deserve that title. I will take it for granted I am what you call +me, and give you some few hints on my experience. + +“'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for +Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would +come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorry +to say that it has not effected its purpose.' + +“I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of +that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and as +much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am +sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the +abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was well +conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his +expression that he was its author.) + +“'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some +of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom +you have applied the term “Literary Celebrity.” + +“'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of +his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into +his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for +his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to +him for assistance. + +“'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by +receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is +expected to fill up. + +“'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give +his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word +which can be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the +newspapers. + +“'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he is +called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscripts +having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have +been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever. + +“'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to write +for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to +send money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard +of. + +“'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who +begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate +it by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet after +sheet, if of the other. + +“'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment +and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested +to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her +reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an +ode for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found in +Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover +who believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his +affections.' + +“Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity. + +“'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and +they will both have a good laugh over them.' + +“I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with +the Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing +self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and +spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen +on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him +that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself +exposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of +The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'” + +After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who the +person spoken of as the “Literary Celebrity” might be. Among the various +suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither more +nor less than the unexplained personage known in the village as Maurice +Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be the +Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escape +from the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him and +stabbing him nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy? + +The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the +Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened +soon after the meeting when his paper was read. + +“I do not know,” she said, in the course of a conversation in which she +had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment of +the Society, “that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whom +you interviewed so successfully.” + +“I did not mention him, Miss Vincent,” he answered, “nor do I think it +worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story told +of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if I +did, it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regretting +that he was bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignation +at the bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages of +trash, all the writers of which would expect answers to their letters of +condolence.” + +The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman who +called himself Maurice Kirkwood. + +“What,” he answered, “the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides all +the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I have +met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me. +Do you know anything particular about him?” + +“Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that he +has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what or +whom.” + +“To newspaper correspondents, perhaps,” said the interviewer. “What made +you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity,' +did you?” + +“I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview this +mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, I +should think.” + +“Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story +of crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a +few paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him +professionally.” + +“I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how much +wiser you are for that piece of information.” + +“An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as for +a naked caterpillar,--I believe I should go into a fit if I had to +touch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great green +caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and early +autumn.” + +“Afraid of them?” asked the young lady. + +“Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't +give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these +creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,--sometimes using +very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the moment.” + +“I understand what you mean,” said Miss Vincent. “I used to have the +same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a little +menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, pretty +much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though I +don't scream when I see one.” + +“What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular +antipathy?” + +“That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can't +guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to +discover some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way of +everybody, as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seem +to be able to tell which. It would make the old ladies of the village +sleep a great deal sounder,--yes, and some of the young ladies, too,--if +they could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, that +he never comes near any of the people here.” + +“I think I can find out,” said the Interviewer, whose professional +ambition was beginning to be excited. “I never came across anybody yet +that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a week +or two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, of +this Mr. Maurice Kirkwood.” + +We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present us +with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure. + + + + + + +XI. THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. + +When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as she +pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strain +she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, but +how great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw +its effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all its +manifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproach +herself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast +to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the +difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, +penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the +corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, +conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful +and sympathetic. + +The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will +one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence of +two young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavily +than the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to +assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes. + +On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her +superior. She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, and +deferred to her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, +but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions. It was a +different thing, however, when the graver questions of life came up. +Lurida was full of suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable +to run into whims before she knew where they were tending. She would lay +out her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could +not help believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend must +accept them with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia would +take them up with her sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmer +judgment to bear on them. + +Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new +interests and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papers +to be read at the meetings of her Society,--for she made it her own in +great measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,--and in the mean time she was +reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing +on the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking +forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herself +with the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion, +or disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name of +antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in +the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and +partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in +her desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question. + +“How do you like the books I see you reading?” said Euthymia to Lurida, +one day, as they met at the Library. + +“Better than all the novels I ever read,” she answered. “I have been +reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearer +the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just as +if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in my +head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how many +centres of energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sorts +of influences, external and internal. Do you know, I believe I could +solve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called +him, if he would only stay here long enough?” + +“What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard +of its being mentioned in any of the papers.” + +“You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here +for some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview with +a celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which +he writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks +about this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a +Sphinx here, who has mystified us all.” + +“And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll +have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe +where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh, +Lurida, Lurida, do be careful! What with this mysterious young man and +this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked +about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the +riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people, +the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.--I wonder +if we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much +curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having +anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, +now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get +your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like.” + +“Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a +chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get +him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy, +so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about +him. I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a +young man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. +I believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies +and antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the +mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often +wonder whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as +'brain-waves,' which some have already recognized.” + +Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking +the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of +those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will +never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of +one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious +but enduring intellectual development. If the readers of this narrative +cannot pick them out, they need not expect the writer of it to help +them. If they guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact +that just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing +with are met with from time to time in families where intelligence has +been cumulative for two or three generations. + +Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor +should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous +individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were +trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other +informant than Lurida. + +The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside +his door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and +handsome youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly +that one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by his +side. Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewer +asked all sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When he +came to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interest +regarding him. The greatest curiosity, he said, existed with reference +to this personage. Everybody was trying to find out what his story +was,--for a story, and a strange one, he must surely have,--and nobody +had succeeded. + +The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told him +the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, about +his horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was +overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help out +the effect of his narrative. + +The Interviewer was becoming excited. “Can't find out anything about +him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find? +Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is an +actor,--a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off in +their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are +the very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at the +city theatres; but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings +and Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell +you.” + +The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. “I shouldn't wonder if +you were right,” he said. “I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo +that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, as +they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believe +there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who +he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, and why he does +n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't +come up here and get hold of this story. It would be just the thing for +a sensational writer.” + +To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. +Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column +about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,--to the biggest +pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog from +the human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading without +spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces +which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or every +six months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a new +story, an undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonder +that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject +for an inventive and emotional correspondent. + +He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's +confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himself +that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summer +season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead +Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits--oranges, bananas, +and others, according to the seasons--did an active business. The +Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that his +hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood +was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examining +the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity. Here +was an introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to the +master. + +He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,--there was +no difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was an +Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him. + +“Good morning, Mr. Paul,” he said. “How do you like the look of these +oranges?” + +“They pretty fair,” said Paolo: “no so good as them las' week; no sweet +as them was.” + +“Why, how do you know without tasting them?” said the Interviewer. + +“I know by his look,--I know by his smell,--he no good yaller,--he no +smell ripe,--I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is,” and +Paolo laughed at his own comparison. + +The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo. + +“Good!” said he,--“first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why +can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I +shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get +two nice sweet ones for him.” + +Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt +grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of +conferring a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and grave +deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer him +an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation. + +“How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?” he asked. + +“Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you he +sick?” + +“No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day +or two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he +in the house now?” + +“No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. +Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very +early,--in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read, +and study, and write,--he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood.” + +“A good many books, has n't he?” + +“He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old +books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you.” + +“Has n't he some curiosities,--old figures, old jewelry, old coins, or +things of that sort?” + +Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. “He don't +keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,--old +jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old +times: she don't pass now.” Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat +indiscriminately distributed. + +A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. “I wonder if he would examine +some old coins of mine?” said he, in a modestly tentative manner. + +“I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him. +Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?” + +“Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and +show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones.” + +The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old +battered bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where +they had been passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. +One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct,--a common +little Roman penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question, +as would two or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told him +that if he came the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeing +Mr. Kirkwood. At any rate, he would speak to his master. + +The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his +breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood +at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger up +to his library,--or study, as he modestly called it. + +It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one +direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up +in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of +them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that +probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With +these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones +in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found +that he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Some +of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names +which he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange +to his eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature +were there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not +attempt to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar. + +The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his +visiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who +was living as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed +them to Maurice. + +“I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good +many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that +you could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for +a good while.” So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of +Gallienus. + +“Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have +been paid for some of these ancient coins,--ever so many guineas, +sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old.” + +“More than a thousand years old,” said Maurice. + +“And worth a great deal of money?” asked the Interviewer. + +“No, not a great deal of money,” answered Maurice. + +“How much, should you say?” said the Interviewer. + +Maurice smiled. “A little more than the value of its weight in +copper,--I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coins +of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such +pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to +young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a +relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or +fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is a +good deal a matter of imagination.” + +“And what do you say to these others?” asked the Interviewer. Poor old +worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint +trace of a figure on one or two of them. + +“Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the +times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one +of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was brought +when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it.' +But the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beauty +and preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is a +coin, now,”--he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. “Here is a +Syracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare, +well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it.” + +The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very little +more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thought +his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matter +about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, that +Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what he himself +considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That would +do for a beginning. + +“May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?” he said + +“That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pick +up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I bought +this of a great dealer in Rome.” + +“Lived in Rome once?” said the Interviewer. + +“For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?” + +The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he should +go there, one of these years, “suppose you studied art and antiquities +while you were there?” he continued. + +“Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities. +Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classic +authors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, and +not have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, and +churches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take it +for granted?” + +The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them. +“Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome,” he answered. “May I ask +how long you lived in Rome?” + +“Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one +should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiar +with Vasari, of course?” + +The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out his +handkerchief. “It is a warm day,” he said. “I have not had time to read +all--the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, to +find all the time for reading and study I could have wished.” + +“In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardon +my inquiry? said Maurice. + +“I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of +letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your own +lips some account of your literary experiences.” + +“Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it +for my autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do I +understand that you are an author?” + +By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a +very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the +right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's very +simple question. + +“If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, I +may call myself one. I write for the 'People's Perennial and Household +Inquisitor'.” + +“Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you +manage the political column?” + +“I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of +interest.” + +“Places you have been to, and people you have known?” + +“Well, yes,--generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my +articles.” + +“Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?” + +The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he had +found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thing +he could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that he +should be able to pick up something or other which he could work into +his report of his visit. + +“Well, I--prepared that article for our columns. You know one does not +have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, in +its descriptions?” + +“Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I +can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle--the old +Milvian bridge--a good deal too far down the stream, if I remember. I +happened to notice that, but I did not read the article carefully. May +I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visit +and the conversation we have had, for the columns of the newspaper with +which you are connected?” + +The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. “If you have no objections,” + he said, “I should like very much to ask a few questions.” He was +recovering his professional audacity. + +“You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet, +--after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to +submit me to examination?” + +“The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humble +agent of its investigations.” + +“What has the public to do with my private affairs?” + +“I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles +everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a large +number of curious people that form a majority against you. That is the +way I've heard the chief put it.” + +Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the American +citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure, +at last. Maurice calmly answered, “There is nothing left for minorities, +then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made the +subject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding +my own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against your +system of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public +all it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall request +to be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you a +good-morning.” + +The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his next +communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a brief +mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting the +place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege of +examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that +shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligence +would otherwise confer upon him. + +The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failed +to get the first hint of its solution. + +The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle. +The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the various +cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversational +circles which met every evening in the different centres of social +life. The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had a +congenital aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him were +so painful or disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it. +It was known, and it has already been mentioned, that such cases were +on record. There had been a great deal of discussion, of late, with +reference to a fact long known to a few individuals, but only recently +made a matter of careful scientific observation and brought to the +notice of the public. This was the now well-known phenomenon of +color-blindness. It did not seem very strange that if one person in +every score or two could not tell red from green there might be other +curious individual peculiarities relating to color. A case has already +been referred to where the subject of observation fainted at the sight +of any red object. What if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? +It will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy would tend to +isolate the person who was its unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesis +not difficult to test, but it was a rather delicate business to be +experimenting on an inoffensive stranger. Miss Vincent was thinking +it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of any projects she might +entertain. + + + + + + +XII. MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. + +The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss +Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading various +works selected for her by Dr. Butts,--works chiefly relating to the +nervous system and its different affections. She thought it was about +time to talk over the general subject of the medical profession with her +new teacher,--if such a self-directing person as Lurida could be said to +recognize anybody as teacher. + +She began at the beginning. “What is the first book you would put in +a student's hands, doctor?” she said to him one day. They were in his +study, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on Insanity, +one of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it had been a +pamphlet. + +“Not that book, certainly,” he said. “I am afraid it will put all sorts +of notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading that, I should +like to know?” + +“I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps be +crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what kind +of a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright, +those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid enough ever to +lose my wits.” + +“There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that busy +brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about so many +people possessed with such strange notions?” + +“Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many people +I had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. Take that +poor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,--not Her Majesty, but +Her Majesty's Person,--a very important distinction, according to her: +how she does remind me of more than one girl I have known! She would let +her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, and pile things on her +head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and throw her head back, and +feel as grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl act very much +in that way. Are not most of us a little crazy, doctor,--just a little? +I think so. It seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free from +every hint of craziness.” + +“And who was that, pray?” + +“Why, Euthymia,--nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,--I +don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with +our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was +the only achromatic one I ever looked into,--I did n't say looked +through.--But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of your +books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he should +read, the great physician said, 'Read “Don Quixote.”' I want you to +explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the first +book, according to your idea, that a student ought to read.” + +“What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper to +be read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies at +the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study of +medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in the +subject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tell +them about their calling.” + +“I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubt +there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to say +about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Euthymia to become +a physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so full +of wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm, +or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as well +as the captain of the boat or of the fire-company.” + +“Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?” + +“Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times we +would have studying together!” + +“I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do you +think practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride ten +miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headaches +was racking you?” + +“Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of +storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!” + +“Well, what does she say to it?” + +“She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women +doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by +nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a +good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most +of them are, doctor,--and ends by saying that the same woman who would +be a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that, +she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the +hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her.” + +“Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I +am disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a good +nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to me +to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners. +But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving women +every chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one of +their proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that they +had better at least limit themselves to certain specialties, and always +have an expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble is that +they are so impressible and imaginative that they are at the mercy +of all sorts of fancy systems. You have only to see what kinds of +instruction they very commonly flock to in order to guess whether they +would be likely to prove sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always +hobbles on two crutches, the tattle of women, and the certificates of +clergymen, and I am afraid that half the women doctors will be too much +under both those influences.” + +Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of +the village, had “carried her through” a fever, brought on by +over-excitement and exhausting study. She took no offence at his +reference to nursery gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. Nobody +so despises the weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's rights. +She accepted the doctor's concession of a fair field and open trial of +the fitness of her sex for medical practice, and did not trouble herself +about his suggested limitations. As to the imaginative tendencies of +women, she knew too well the truth of the doctor's remark relating to +them to wish to contradict it. + +“Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting, +doctor,” she said; and in due season it came, and was of course approved +for reading. + + + + + + +XIII. DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. + +“Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal souls +is that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my very first +statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body is the first +thought with a great many,--in fact, with the larger part of the world. +They send for the physician first, and not until he gives them up do +they commonly call in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is not +so very different from other people. We must not blame him if he is +not always impatient to exchange a world of multiplied interests +and ever-changing sources of excitement for that which tradition has +delivered to us as one eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety. +Besides, these bodily frames, even when worn and disfigured by long +years of service, hang about our consciousness like old garments. They +are used to us, and we are used to them. And all the accidents of our +lives,--the house we dwell in, the living people round us, the landscape +we look over, all, up to the sky that covers us like a bell glass,--all +these are but looser outside garments which we have worn until they seem +a part of us, and we do not like the thought of changing them for a new +suit which we have never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear +ancient lady, who lived well into the last decade of her century, as +she repeated the verse which, if I had but one to choose, I would select +from that string of pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'! + + + “'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey + This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, + Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, + Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?' + +“Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be, +than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well doubted +if there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary, +there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many who have +come here to regain the health they have lost in the wear and tear of +city life, and very few who have not at some time or other of their +lives had occasion to call in the services of a physician. + +“There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering to the members +some remarks upon the peculiar difficulties which beset the medical +practitioner in the discharge of his laborious and important duties. + +“A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest in medical studies, +happened to meet with a very familiar story about one of the greatest +and most celebrated of all English physicians, Thomas Sydenham. The +story is that, when a student asked him what books he should read, the +great doctor told him to read 'Don Quixote.' + +“This piece of advice has been used to throw contempt upon the study of +books, and furnishes a convenient shield for ignorant pretenders. +But Sydenham left many writings in which he has recorded his medical +experience, and he surely would not have published them if he had not +thought they would be better reading for the medical student than the +story of Cervantes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and he +certainly could not have supposed that they contained all the wisdom of +all the past. No remedy is good, it was said of old, unless applied at +the right time in the right way. So we may say of all anecdotes, like +this which I have told you about Sydenham and the young man. It is very +likely that he carried him to the bedside of some patients, and talked +to him about the cases he showed him, instead of putting a Latin volume +in his hand. I would as soon begin in that way as any other, with a +student who had already mastered the preliminary branches,--who knew +enough about the structure and functions of the body in health. + +“But if you ask me what reading I would commend to the medical student +of a philosophical habit of mind, you may be surprised to hear me say +it would be certain passages in 'Rasselas.' They are the ones where the +astronomer gives an account to Imlac of his management of the elements, +the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, had been committed to +him. Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which is commonly +bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like a woollen lining to +a silken mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in processions of +paragraphs which sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum-major +to march before their tramping platoons. + +“The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confidence, and reveals to him +the secret of his wonderful powers:-- + +“'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I +have possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and the +distribution of the seasons the sun has listened to my dictates, and +passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call, +have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; I +have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors of +the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hitherto +eluded my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial +tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or restrain.' + +“The reader naturally wishes to know how the astronomer, a sincere, +devoted, and most benevolent man, for forty years a student of the +heavens, came to the strange belief that he possessed these miraculous +powers. This is his account: + +“'One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in +my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains, +and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I +commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command with +that of the inundation I found that the clouds had listened to my lips.' + +“'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence? The +Nile does not always rise on the same day.' + +“'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, 'that such objections +could escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and labored +against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself +of madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a man +like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible +and the incredible from the false.' + +“The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom he +has adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and the +seasons, in these impressive words: + +“Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride by +innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make +thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The +memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become thee +to let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain +to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.' + +“Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in which +the delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the pomp +of the Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young person +about to enter on the study of the science and art of healing? Listen to +me while I show you the parallel of the story of the astronomer in the +history of medicine. + +“This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with benevolence, +but all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to struggle with the +ever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which waste and destroy +the race of mankind are vast and resistless as the elemental forces of +nature; nay, they are themselves elemental forces. They may be to some +extent avoided, to some extent diverted from their aim, to some extent +resisted. So may the changes of the seasons, from cold that freezes +to heats that strike with sudden death, be guarded against. So may the +tides be in some small measure restrained in their inroads. So may the +storms be breasted by walls they cannot shake from their foundations. +But the seasons and the tides and the tempests work their will on the +great scale upon whatever stands in their way; they feed or starve the +tillers of the soil; they spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; they +waft the seaman to his harbor or bury him in the angry billows. + +“The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from deadly +and dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest the effects +of these influences. But look at the records of the life-insurance +offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's destroying +agencies. Look at the annual reports of the deaths in any of our great +cities, and see how their regularity approaches the uniformity of the +tides, and their variations keep pace with those of the seasons. The +inundations of the Nile are not more certainly to be predicted than the +vast wave of infantile disease which flows in upon all our great cities +with the growing heats of July,--than the fevers and dysenteries which +visit our rural districts in the months of the falling leaf. + +“The physician watches these changes as the astronomer watched the +rise of the great river. He longs to rescue individuals, to protect +communities from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He uses all +the means which experience has approved, tries every rational method +which ingenuity can suggest. Some fortunate recovery leads him to +believe he has hit upon a preventive or a cure for a malady which had +resisted all known remedies. His rescued patient sounds his praises, and +a wide circle of his patient's friends joins in a chorus of eulogies. +Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self-interest congratulates him +on his having found the road to fortune; the sense of having proved a +benefactor of his race smooths the pillow on which he lays his head +to dream of the brilliant future opening before him. If a single +coincidence may lead a person of sanguine disposition to believe that he +has mastered a disease which had baffled all who were before his time, +and on which his contemporaries looked in hopeless impotence, what must +be the effect of a series of such coincidences even on a mind of calmer +temper! Such series of coincidences will happen, and they may well +deceive the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush,--you know what a famous man +he was, the very head and front of American medical science in his day, +--and remember how he spoke about yellow fever, which he thought he had +mastered! + +“Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of a wide conspiracy, +in which he and his patient and their friends, and Nature herself, are +involved. What wonder that the history of Medicine should be to so great +an extent a record of self-delusion! + +“If this seems a dangerous concession to the enemies of the true science +and art of healing, I will remind you that it is all implied in the +first aphorism of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not draw a +wrong inference from the frank statement of the difficulties which +beset the medical practitioner. Think rather, if truth is so hard of +attainment, how precious are the results which the consent of the wisest +and most experienced among the healers of men agrees in accepting. Think +what folly it is to cast them aside in favor of palpable impositions +stolen from the records of forgotten charlatanism, or of fantastic +speculations spun from the squinting brains of theorists as wild as the +Egyptian astronomer. + +“Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the fortieth and the +following four chapters of 'Rasselas.' Your first lesson will teach +you modesty and caution in the pursuit of the most deceptive of all +practical branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when you learn +how much medical science and art have actually achieved for the relief +of mankind, and how great are the promises it holds out of still larger +triumphs over the enemies of human health and happiness.” + +After the reading of this paper there was a lively discussion, which we +have no room to report here, and the Society adjourned. + + + + + + +XIV. MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. + +The sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. Butts was not a little +exercised in mind by the demands made upon his knowledge by his young +friend, and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida Vincent. + +“I don't wonder they called her The Terror,” he said to himself. “She is +enough to frighten anybody. She has taken down old books from my +shelves that I had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to the medical +journals, I believe the girl could index them from memory. She is in +pursuit of some special point of knowledge, I feel sure, and I cannot +doubt what direction she is working in, but her wonderful way of dealing +with books amazes me.” + +What marvels those “first scholars” in the classes of our great +universities and colleges are, to be sure! They are not, as a rule, +the most distinguished of their class in the long struggle of life. +The chances are that “the field” will beat “the favorite” over the long +race-course. Others will develop a longer stride and more staying power. +But what fine gifts those “first scholars” have received from nature! +How dull we writers, famous or obscure, are in the acquisition of +knowledge as compared with them! To lead their classmates they must +have quick apprehension, fine memories, thorough control of their +mental faculties, strong will, power of concentration, facility of +expression,--a wonderful equipment of mental faculties. I always want to +take my hat off to the first scholar of his year. + +Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he contemplated The Terror. +She surprised him so often with her knowledge that he was ready to +receive her without astonishment when she burst in upon him one day with +a cry of triumph, “Eureka! Eureka!” + +“And what have you found, my dear?” said the doctor. + +Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new discovery. + +“I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor's +dread of all human intercourse!” + +The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance. + +“Wait a minute and get your breath,” said the doctor. “Are you not a +little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. +He keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old +Tavern, he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he +pulled out of the water, or rescued somehow,--I don't believe he avoids +the whole human race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as I +have remarked his expression. I passed a few words with him when his man +was ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I don't believe it is much +more than an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with some +congenital or other personal repugnance to which has been given the name +of an antipathy.” + +Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When he +finished, she began the account of her discovery: + +“I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an +Italian medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a +reference which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli +Ospitali lying among the old pamphlets in the medical section of the +Library. I have made a translation of it, which you must read and then +tell me if you do not agree with me in my conclusion.” + +“Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see for +myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you seem to +have reached.” + +Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of a +map of the world, as she said, + +“I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the +bite of a TARANTULA!” + +The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way the +stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but he had +consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fictions have +clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. He looked into +the round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared that +she was in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his professional +training, he waited for another symptom, if indeed her mind was in any +measure off its balance. + +“I know what you are thinking,” Lurida said, “but it is not so. 'I am +not mad, most noble Festus.' You shall see the evidence and judge for +yourself. Read the whole case,--you can read my hand almost as if it +were print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this young +man is in all probability the same person as the boy described in the +Italian journal, + +“One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young patient +is spoken of as Signorino M---- Ch------ But you must remember that ch +is pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which letter is wanting in the +Italian alphabet; and it is natural enough that the initial of the +second name should have got changed in the record to its Italian +equivalent.” + +Before inviting the reader to follow the details of this extraordinary +case as found in a medical journal, the narrator wishes to be indulged +in a few words of explanation, in order that he may not have to +apologize for allowing the introduction of a subject which may be +thought to belong to the professional student rather than to the readers +of this record. There is a great deal in medical books which it is very +unbecoming to bring before the general public,--a great deal to repel, +to disgust, to alarm, to excite unwholesome curiosity. It is not the men +whose duties have made them familiar with this class of subjects who +are most likely to offend by scenes and descriptions which belong to the +physician's private library, and not to the shelves devoted to polite +literature. Goldsmith and even Smollett, both having studied and +practised medicine, could not by any possibility have outraged all the +natural feelings of delicacy and decency as Swift and Zola have outraged +them. But without handling doubtful subjects, there are many curious +medical experiences which have interest for every one as extreme +illustrations of ordinary conditions with which all are acquainted. No +one can study the now familiar history of clairvoyance profitably who +has not learned something of the vagaries of hysteria. No one can read +understandingly the life of Cowper and that of Carlyle without having +some idea of the influence of hypochondriasis and of dyspepsia upon the +disposition and intellect of the subjects of these maladies. I need +not apologize, therefore, for giving publicity to that part of this +narrative which deals with one of the most singular maladies to be found +in the records of bodily and mental infirmities. + +The following is the account of the case as translated by Miss Vincent. +For obvious reasons the whole name was not given in the original paper, +and for similar reasons the date of the event and the birthplace of the +patient are not precisely indicated here. + +[Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18--.] REMARKABLE CASE OF +TARANTISM. + +“The great interest attaching to the very singular and exceptional +instance of this rare affection induces us to give a full account of the +extraordinary example of its occurrence in a patient who was the subject +of a recent medical consultation in this city. + +“Signorino M... Ch... is the only son of a gentleman travelling in +Italy at this time. He is eleven years of age, of sanguine-nervous +temperament, light hair, blue eyes, intelligent countenance, well grown, +but rather slight in form, to all appearance in good health, but subject +to certain peculiar and anomalous nervous symptoms, of which his father +gives this history. + +“Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was travelling in Italy with +his wife, this child, and a nurse. They were passing a few days in a +country village near the city of Bari, capital of the province of the +same name in the division (compartamento) of Apulia. The child was in +perfect health and had never been affected by any serious illness. On +the 10th of July he was playing out in the field near the house +where the family was staying when he was heard to scream suddenly and +violently. The nurse rushing to him found him in great pain, saying that +something had bitten him in one of his feet. A laborer, one Tommaso, +ran up at the moment and perceived in the grass, near where the boy +was standing, an enormous spider, which he at once recognized as a +tarantula. He managed to catch the creature in a large leaf, from which +he was afterwards transferred to a wide-mouthed bottle, where he lived +without any food for a month or more. The creature was covered with +short hairs, and had a pair of nipper-like jaws, with which he could +inflict an ugly wound. His body measured about an inch in length, and +from the extremity of one of the longest limbs to the other was between +two and three inches. Such was the account given by the physician to +whom the peasant carried the great spider. + +“The boy who had been bitten continued screaming violently while his +stocking was being removed and the foot examined. The place of the bite +was easily found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already showed +the effects of the poison, a small livid circle extending around them, +with some puffy swelling. The distinguished Dr. Amadei was immediately +sent for, and applied cups over the wounds in the hope of drawing forth +the poison. In vain all his skill and efforts! Soon, ataxic (irregular) +nervous symptoms declared themselves, and it became plain that the +system had been infected by the poison. + +“The symptoms were very much like those of malignant fever, such +as distress about the region of the heart, difficulty of breathing, +collapse of all the vital powers, threatening immediate death. From +these first symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organism had +been profoundly affected by the venom circulating through it. His +constitution has never thrown off the malady resulting from this toxic +(poisonous) agent. The phenomena which have been observed in this young +patient correspond so nearly with those enumerated in the elaborate +essay of the celebrated Baglivi that one might think they had been +transcribed from his pages. + +“He is very fond of solitude,--of wandering about in churchyards and +other lonely places. He was once found hiding in an empty tomb, which +had been left open. His aversion to certain colors is remarkable. +Generally speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker ones, but his +likes and dislikes are capricious, and with regard to some colors his +antipathy amounts to positive horror. Some shades have such an effect +upon him that he cannot remain in the room with them, and if he meets +any one whose dress has any of that particular color he will turn away +or retreat so as to avoid passing that person. Among these, purple and +dark green are the least endurable. He cannot explain the sensations +which these obnoxious colors produce except by saying that it is like +the deadly feeling from a blow on the epigastrium (pit of the stomach). + +“About the same season of the year at which the tarantular poisoning +took place he is liable to certain nervous seizures, not exactly like +fainting or epilepsy, but reminding the physician of those affections. +All the other symptoms are aggravated at this time. + +“In other respects than those mentioned the boy is in good health. He +is fond of riding, and has a pony on which he takes a great deal of +exercise, which seems to do him more good than any other remedy. + +“The influence of music, to which so much has been attributed by popular +belief and even by the distinguished Professor to whom we shall again +refer, has not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. If the graver +symptoms recur while the patient is under our observation, we propose to +make use of an agency discredited by modern skepticism, but deserving of +a fair trial as an exceptional remedy for an exceptional disease. + +“The following extracts from the work of the celebrated Italian +physician of the last century are given by the writer of the paper in +the Giornale in the original Latin, with a translation into Italian, +subjoined. Here are the extracts, or rather here is a selection from +them, with a translation of them into English. + +“After mentioning the singular aversion to certain colors shown by +the subject of Tarantism, Baglivi writes as follows: “'Et si astantes +incedant vestibus eo colore difusis, qui Tarantatis ingrates est, +necesse est ut ab illorum aspectu recedant; nam ad intuitum molesti +coloris angore cordis, et symptomatum recrudescantia stating +corripiuntur.' (G. Baglivi, Op. Omnia, page 614. Lugduni, 1745.) + +“That is, 'if the persons about the patient wear dresses of the color +which is offensive to him, he must get away from the sight of them, for +on seeing the obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress in the +region of the heart, and a renewal of his symptoms.' + +“As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi says: “'Dam calor solis +ardentius exurere incip at, quod contingit circa initia Julii et +Augusti, Tarantati lente venientem recrudescentiam veneni percipiunt.' +(Ibid., page 619.) + +“Which I render, 'When the heat of the sun begins to burn more fiercely, +which happens about the beginning of July and August, the subjects of +Tarantism perceive the gradually approaching recrudescence (returning +symptoms) of the poisoning. Among the remedies most valued by this +illustrious physician is that mentioned in the following sentence: + +“'Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusticano factas singulis diebus, +hord potissimum matutina, quibus equitationibus morbos chronicos pene +incurabiles protanus eliminavi.' + +“Or in translation, 'I commend especially riding on horseback in country +air, every day, by preference in the morning hours, by the aid of which +horseback riding I have driven off chronic diseases which were almost +incurable.'” + +Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, and handed it to him +to examine and consider. He listened with a grave countenance and devout +attention. + +As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed in the passionate +tones of the deepest conviction, + +“There, doctor! Have n't I found the true story of this strange visitor? +Have n't I solved the riddle of the Sphinx? Who can this man be but the +boy of that story? Look at the date of the journal when he was eleven +years old, it would make him twenty-five now, and that is just about the +age the people here think he must be of. What could account so entirely +for his ways and actions as that strange poisoning which produces the +state they call Tarantism? I am just as sure it must be that as I am +that I am alive. Oh, doctor, doctor, I must be right,--this Signorino +M ... Ch... was the boy Maurice Kirkwood, and the story accounts for +everything,--his solitary habits, his dread of people,--it must be +because they wear the colors he can't bear. His morning rides on +horseback, his coming here just as the season was approaching which +would aggravate all his symptoms, does n't all this prove that I must be +right in my conjecture,--no, my conviction?” + +The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young enthusiast, and so he +let her run on until she ran down. He was more used to the rules of +evidence than she was, and could not accept her positive conclusion so +readily as she would have liked to have him. He knew that beginners are +very apt to make what they think are discoveries. But he had been an +angler and knew the meaning of a yielding rod and an easy-running reel. +He said quietly, + +“You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie case +it is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood is not +the same person as the M... Ch... of the medical journal,--that is, if +I accept your explanation of the difference in the initials of these two +names. Even if there were a difference, that would not disprove their +identity, for the initials of patients whose cases are reported by their +physicians are often altered for the purpose of concealment. I do not +know, however, that Mr. Kirkwood has shown any special aversion to any +particular color. It might be interesting to inquire whether it is so, +but it is a delicate matter. I don't exactly see whose business it is +to investigate Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's idiosyncrasies and constitutional +history. If he should have occasion to send for me at any time, he might +tell me all about himself, in confidence, you know. These old accounts +from Baglivi are curious and interesting, but I am cautious about +receiving any stories a hundred years old, if they involve an +improbability, as his stories about the cure of the tarantula bite +by music certainly do. I am disposed to wait for future developments, +bearing in mind, of course, the very singular case you have unearthed. +It wouldn't be very strange if our young gentleman had to send for me +before the season is over. He is out a good deal before the dew is off +the grass, which is rather risky in this neighborhood as autumn comes +on. I am somewhat curious, I confess, about the young man, but I do not +meddle where I am not asked for or wanted, and I have found that eggs +hatch just as well if you let them alone in the nest as if you take +them out and shake them every day. This is a wonderfully interesting +supposition of yours, and may prove to be strictly in accordance with +the facts. But I do not think we have all the facts in this young man's +case. If it were proved that he had an aversion to any color, it would +greatly strengthen your case. His 'antipatia,' as his man called +it, must be one which covers a wide ground, to account for his +self-isolation,--and the color hypothesis seems as plausible as any. +But, my dear Miss Vincent, I think you had better leave your singular +and striking hypothesis in my keeping for a while, rather than let it +get abroad in a community like this, where so many tongues are in active +exercise. I will carefully study this paper, if you will leave it with +me, and we will talk the whole matter over. It is a fair subject for +speculation, only we must keep quiet about it.” + +This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain time to cool off a +little. She left the paper with the doctor, telling him she would come +for it the next day, and went off to tell the result of this visit to +her bosom friend, Miss Euthymia Tower. + + + + + + +XV. DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. + +The doctor was troubled in thinking over his interview with the young +lady. She was fully possessed with the idea that she had discovered the +secret which had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. It was +of no use to oppose her while her mind was in an excited state. But +he felt it his duty to guard her against any possible results of +indiscretion into which her eagerness and her theory of the equality, +almost the identity, of the sexes might betray her. Too much of the +woman in a daughter of our race leads her to forget danger. Too little +of the woman prompts her to defy it. Fortunately for this last class of +women, they are not quite so likely to be perilously seductive as their +more emphatically feminine sisters. + +Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of their +infancy. He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence from +its precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained faculties. +He had looked with admiration on the childish beauty of Euthymia, +and had seen her grow up to womanhood, every year making her more +attractive. He knew that if anything was to be done with his self-willed +young scholar and friend, it would be more easily effected through the +medium of Euthymia than by direct advice to the young lady herself. +So the thoughtful doctor made up his mind to have a good talk with +Euthymia, and put her on her guard, if Lurida showed any tendency to +forget the conventionalities in her eager pursuit of knowledge. + +For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss Euthymia +Tower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all the tongues +in the village going. This was one of those families where illness was +hardly looked for among the possibilities of life. There were other +families where a call from the doctor was hardly more thought of than +a call from the baker. But here he was a stranger, at least on his +professional rounds, and when he asked for Miss Euthymia the servant, +who knew his face well, stared as if he had held in his hand a warrant +for her apprehension. + +Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made ready +to meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock had not run +astray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for a morning call +was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had been announced, she +might have taken a second look, but with the good middle-aged, married +doctor one was enough for a young lady who had the gift of making all +the dresses she wore look well, and had no occasion to treat her chamber +like the laboratory where an actress compounds herself. + +Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not help +suspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk +over her friend's schemes and fancies with him. + +The doctor began without any roundabout prelude. + +“I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell you +all her plans and projects?” + +“Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not +believe she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what she +has been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into her +head. What do you think of the Tarantula business? She has shown you the +paper, she has written, I suppose.” + +“Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and I do +not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she had come +at the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that this young +man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian medical +journal. But it is very far from clear that he is so. You know all her +reasons, of course, as you have read the story. The times seem to agree +well enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch might be substituted for K +in the report. The singular solitary habits of this young man entirely +coincide with the story. If we could only find out whether he has any +of those feelings with reference to certain colors, we might guess with +more chance of guessing right than we have at present. But I don't see +exactly how we are going to submit him to examination on this point. If +he were only a chemical compound, we could analyze him. If he were only +a bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes. But +being, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will of +his own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problem +becomes more complicated. I hear that a newspaper correspondent has +visited him so as to make a report to his paper,--do you know what he +found out?” + +“Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, which +was this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to interview. +The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did not +learn much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told Willy about the +Sphinx's library and a cabinet of coins he had; and said he should make +an article out of him, anyhow. I wish the man would take himself off. I +am afraid Lurida's love of knowledge will get her into trouble!” + +“Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?” + +“I was thinking of the newspaper man.” + +She blushed a little as she said, “I can't help feeling a strange sort +of interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood. Do you know that I met him +this morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?” + +“Well, to be sure! That was an interesting experience. And how did you +like his looks?” + +“I thought his face a very remarkable one. But he looked very pale as he +passed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side as if he +had a twinge of pain, or something of that sort,--spasm or neuralgia,--I +don't know what. I wondered whether he had what you call angina +pectoris. It was the same kind of look and movement, I remember, as you +must, too, in my uncle who died with that complaint.” + +The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Were you dressed as +you are now?” + +“Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over my shoulders. I was +out early, and I have always remembered your caution.” + +“What color was your mantle?” + +“It was black. I have been over all this with Lucinda. A black mantle on +a white dress. A straw hat with an old faded ribbon. There can't be +much in those colors to trouble him, I should think, for his man wears +a black coat and white linen,--more or less white, as you must have +noticed, and he must have seen ribbons of all colors often enough. But +Lurida believes it was the ribbon, or something in the combination of +colors. Her head is full of Tarantulas and Tarantism. I fear that she +will never be easy until the question is settled by actual trial. And +will you believe it? the girl is determined in some way to test her +supposition!” + +“Believe it, Euthymia? I can believe almost anything of Lurida. She is +the most irrepressible creature I ever knew. You know as well as I do +what a complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole nature. I +have had some fears lest her zeal might run away with her discretion. It +is a great deal easier to get into a false position than to get out of +it.” + +“I know it well enough. I want you to tell me what you think about the +whole business. I don't like the look of it at all, and yet I can do +nothing with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I can show +her plainly that she will get herself into trouble in some way or other. +But she is ingenious,--full of all sorts of devices, innocent enough in +themselves, but liable to be misconstrued. You remember how she won us +the boat-race?” + +“To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, but she felt she was +paying off an old score. The classical story of Atalanta, told, like +that of Eve, as illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her to +make trial of the powers of resistance in the other sex. But it was +audacious. I hope her audacity will not go too far. You must watch her. +Keep an eye on her correspondence.” + +The doctor had great confidence in the good sense of Lurida's friend. +He felt sure that she would not let Lurida commit herself by writing +foolish letters to the subject of her speculations, or similar +indiscreet performances. The boldness of young girls, who think no evil, +in opening correspondence with idealized personages is something quite +astonishing to those who have had an opportunity of knowing the facts. +Lurida had passed the most dangerous age, but her theory of the equality +of the sexes made her indifferent to the by-laws of social usage. She +required watching, and her two guardians were ready to check her, in +case of need. + + + + + + +XVI. MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER. + +Euthymia noticed that her friend had been very much preoccupied for two +or three days. She found her more than once busy at her desk, with a +manuscript before her, which she turned over and placed inside the desk, +as Euthymia entered. + +This desire of concealment was not what either of the friends expected +to see in the other. It showed that some project was under way, which, +at least in its present stage, the Machiavellian young lady did not +wish to disclose. It had cost her a good deal of thought and care, +apparently, for her waste-basket was full of scraps of paper, which +looked as if they were the remains of a manuscript like that at which +she was at work. “Copying and recopying, probably,” thought Euthymia, +but she was willing to wait to learn what Lurida was busy about, though +she had a suspicion that it was something in which she might feel called +upon to interest herself. + +“Do you know what I think?” said Euthymia to the doctor, meeting him as +he left his door. “I believe Lurida is writing to this man, and I don't +like the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she is not like +other girls in many respects, but other people will judge her by the +common rules of life.” + +“I am glad that you spoke of it,” answered the doctor; “she would write +to him just as quickly as to any woman of his age. Besides, under the +cover of her office, she has got into the way of writing to anybody. I +think she has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, asking him to contribute +a paper for the Society. She can find a pretext easily enough if she has +made up her mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she would trouble herself +for any pretext at all if she decided to write. Watch her well. Don't +let any letter go without seeing it, if you can help it.” + +Young women are much given to writing letters to persons whom they only +know indirectly, for the most part through their books, and especially +to romancers and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and simple-hearted +than most of these letters. They are the spontaneous outflow of young +hearts easily excited to gratitude for the pleasure which some story +or poem has given them, and recognizing their own thoughts, their own +feelings, in those expressed by the author, as if on purpose for them to +read. Undoubtedly they give great relief to solitary young persons, who +must have some ideal reflection of themselves, and know not where to +look since Protestantism has taken away the crucifix and the Madonna. +The recipient of these letters sometimes wonders, after reading through +one of them, how it is that his young correspondent has managed to fill +so much space with her simple message of admiration or of sympathy. + +Lurida did not belong to this particular class of correspondents, +but she could not resist the law of her sex, whose thoughts naturally +surround themselves with superabundant drapery of language, as their +persons float in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was she indeed +writing to this unknown gentleman? Euthymia questioned her point-blank. + +“Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. Maurice Kirkwood, +Lurida? You seem to be so busy writing, I can think of nothing else. Or +are you going to write a novel, or a paper for the Society,--do tell me +what you are so much taken up with.” + +“I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not to find fault with +me for carrying out my plan as I have made up my mind to do. You may +read this letter before I seal it, and if you find anything in it you +don't like you can suggest any change that you think will improve it. I +hope you will see that it explains itself. I don't believe that you will +find anything to frighten you in it.” + +This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by her friend. The bold +handwriting made it look like a man's letter, and gave it consequently +a less dangerous expression than that which belongs to the tinted and +often fragrant sheet with its delicate thready characters, which slant +across the page like an April shower with a south wind chasing it. + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August--, 18--. + +MY DEAR SIR,--You will doubtless be surprised at the sight of a letter +like this from one whom you only know as the Secretary of the Pansophian +Society. There is a very common feeling that it is unbecoming in one of +my sex to address one of your own with whom she is unacquainted, unless +she has some special claim upon his attention. I am by no means disposed +to concede to the vulgar prejudice on this point. If one human being +has anything to communicate to another,--anything which deserves being +communicated,--I see no occasion for bringing in the question of sex. I +do not think the homo sum of Terence can be claimed for the male sex as +its private property on general any more than on grammatical grounds, + +I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the noble art of healing. +If I did so, it would be with the fixed purpose of giving my whole +powers to the service of humanity. And if I should carry out that idea, +should I refuse my care and skill to a suffering fellow-mortal because +that mortal happened to be a brother, and not a sister? My whole +nature protests against such one-sided humanity! No! I am blind to all +distinctions when my eyes are opened to any form of suffering, to any +spectacle of want. + +You may ask me why I address you, whom I know little or nothing of, +and to whom such an advance may seem presumptuous and intrusive. It +is because I was deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed to +you,--that on Ocean, River, and Lake, which was read at one of our +meetings. I say that I was deeply impressed, but I do not mean this as +a compliment to that paper. I am not bandying compliments now, but +thinking of better things than praises or phrases. I was interested in +the paper, partly because I recognized some of the feelings expressed in +it as my own,--partly because there was an undertone of sadness in all +the voices of nature as you echoed them which made me sad to hear, and +which I could not help longing to cheer and enliven. I said to myself, I +should like to hold communion with the writer of that paper. I have +had my lonely hours and days, as he has had. I have had some of his +experiences in my intercourse with nature. And oh! if I could draw him +into those better human relations which await us all, if we come with +the right dispositions, I should blush if I stopped to inquire whether I +violated any conventional rule or not. + +You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe, do you not? in the +insignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from the +brotherhood of mankind. You believe, do you not? that they should be +educated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, due +regard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hard +or light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing with +the “stronger” or the “weaker” sex. I mark these words because, +notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not true. +Stronger! Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of cider,--though +there have been women who could do that, and though when John Wesley +was mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down three or four men, one +after another, until she was at last overpowered and nearly murdered. +Talk about the weaker sex! Go and see Miss Euthymia Tower at the +gymnasium! But no matter about which sex has the strongest muscles. +Which has most to suffer, and which has most endurance and vitality? We +go through many ordeals which you are spared, but we outlast you in +mind and body. I have been led away into one of my accustomed trains of +thought, but not so far away from it as you might at first suppose. + +My brother! Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, a +sister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the same +roof? And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes us all one +family? You are lonely, you must be longing for some human fellowship. +Take me into your confidence. What is there that you can tell me +to which I cannot respond with sympathy? What saddest note in your +spiritual dirges which will not find its chord in mine? + +I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your existence. I +myself have known what it is to carry a brain that never rests in a body +that is always tired. I have defied its infirmities, and forced it to do +my bidding. You have no such hindrance, if we may judge by your aspect +and habits. You deal with horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indian +could handle his bark canoe more dexterously or more vigorously than +we have seen you handling yours. There must be some reason for your +seclusion which curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not the +province of curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire which +I have to bring you into kindly relations with those around you, I must +run the risk of giving offence that I may know in what direction to +look for those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and +sister can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to change +the course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in accordance with +his true nature. + +I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with which +you are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings,--something +which can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from the people +whose acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There can hardly be +anything in the place itself, or you would not have voluntarily sought +it as a residence, even for a single season there might be individuals +here whom you would not care to meet, there must be such, but you cannot +have a personal aversion to everybody. I have heard of cases in which +certain sights and sounds, which have no particular significance for +most persons, produced feelings of distress or aversion that made, +them unbearable to the subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has +occurred to me that possibly you might have some such natural aversion +to the sounds of the street, or such as are heard in most houses, +especially where a piano is kept, as it is in fact in almost all of +those in the village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color in +the dresses of women or the furniture of our rooms affected you +unpleasantly. I know that instances of such antipathy have been +recorded, and they would account for the seclusion of those who are +subject to it. + +If there is any removable condition which interferes with your free +entrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, I +beg of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it not +strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself into +the hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to be +frightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to be +of use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered +“unfeminine.” I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot +endure to think of myself as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'? + +Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, LURIDA VINCENT. + +Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As she +finished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of her +grandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early days +are apt to do, on great occasions. + +“Well, I never!” + +Then she loosened some button or string that was too tight, and went to +the window for a breath of outdoor air. Then she began at the beginning +and read the whole letter all over again. + +What should she do about it? She could not let this young girl send +a letter like that to a stranger of whose character little was known +except by inference,--to a young man, who would consider it a most +extraordinary advance on the part of the sender. She would have liked to +tear it into a thousand pieces, but she had no right to treat it in +that way. Lurida meant to send it the next morning, and in the mean time +Euthymia had the night to think over what she should do about it. + +There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice like +that which breaks the silence--of the stagnant hours of the night with +its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia awoke in the +morning, her course of action was as clear before her as if it bad been +dictated by her guardian angel. She went straight over to the home of +Lurida, who was just dressed for breakfast. + +She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She was +struck with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, and +contemplating her project with entire complacency. + +Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety. + +“I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force. +It is a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of the +truest human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. If you +were sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be admissible +to send it. But if you were forty, I should question its propriety; if +you were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a little more than +twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not show your letter to +anybody or everybody? How do you know that he will not send it to one of +the gossiping journals like the 'Household Inquisitor'? But supposing he +keeps it to himself, which is more than you have a right to expect, what +opinion is he likely to form of a young lady who invades his privacy +with such freedom? Ten to one he will think curiosity is at the bottom +of it,--and,--come, don't be angry at me for suggesting it,--may there +not be a little of that same motive mingled with the others? No, don't +interrupt me quite yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis is +correct. You are full of the best and kindest feelings in the world, but +your desire for knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhaps +more than you know.” + +Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while her +friend was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected her +intelligence too much to take offence at her advice, but she could not +give up her humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear of some +awkward consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself that she was +playing the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and that the fact +of her not wearing the costume of these ministering angels made no +difference in her relations to those who needed her aid. + +“I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear to +you,” she said gravely. “It seems to me that I give up everything when I +hesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am not afraid +to send this letter and take all the consequences.” + +“Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in our +presence? And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it coincides +with mine?” + +Lurida winced a little at this proposal. “I don't quite like,” she said, +“showing this letter to--to” she hesitated, but it had to come out--“to +a man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was intended.” + +The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit. + +“Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go over to +his house with me at noon, when he comes back after his morning +visits, and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You know I have +sometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say you must go to +the doctor's with me and carry that letter.” + +There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firm +voice delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's door. +The servant said he had been at the house after his morning visits, but +found a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken suddenly +ill and wished to see him at once. Was the illness dangerous? The +servant-maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty bad, for Mr. Paul +came in as white as a sheet, and talked all sorts of languages which she +couldn't understand, and took on as if he thought Mr. Kirkwood was going +to die right off. + +And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed of, +at least for the present. + + + + + + +XVII. Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT. + +The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill of +a somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and the +probable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His patient was +not the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in this way. The +autumnal fevers to which our country towns are subject, in the place of +those “agues,” or intermittents, so largely prevalent in the South and +West, were already beginning, and Maurice, who had exposed himself in +the early and late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected to go +through the regular stages of this always serious and not rarely fatal +disease. + +Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of +his master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must +have a nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and +exhausting. + +At the mention of the word “nurse” Paolo turned white, and exclaimed in +an agitated and thoroughly frightened way, + +“No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, but +don' let no woman come near him,--if you do, he die!” + +The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to +taking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last succeeded +in convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night for a +fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to call in some +assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play the +leading part in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoid +fever, with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials and +pill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution of +a very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations, +and its denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy. + +It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of the +village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the young +man about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens of +their kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods and from the +gardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under glass, for there +were some fine houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and greenhouses +and graperies were not unknown in the small but favored settlement. + +On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A faint +smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of his +features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his parched +lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the fitful sleep +in which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow hours dragged +along the sluggish days one after another. With no violent symptoms, but +with steady persistency, the disease moved on in its accustomed course. +It was at no time immediately threatening, but the experienced physician +knew its uncertainties only too well. He had known fever patients +suddenly seized with violent internal inflammation, and carried off with +frightful rapidity. He remembered the case of a convalescent, a young +woman who had been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health, +who, on being lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while still +confined to her bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It +may well be supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert +the accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular +course of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a +railroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation which +the common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of these +autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible element had +found its way into the system which must be burned to ashes before the +heat which pervades the whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire may +smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were quite extinguished, +and again it will find some new material to seize upon, and flame up as +fiercely as ever. Its coming on most frequently at the season when the +brush fires which are consuming the dead branches, and withered +leaves, and all the refuse of vegetation are sending up their smoke is +suggestive. Sometimes it seems as if the body, relieved of its effete +materials, renewed its youth after one of these quiet, expurgating, +internal fractional cremations. Lean, pallid students have found +themselves plump and blooming, and it has happened that one whose hair +was straight as that of an Indian has been startled to behold himself +in his mirror with a fringe of hyacinthine curls about his rejuvenated +countenance. + +There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case of +Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound prostration, +which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly helpless, as +unable to move without aid as the feeblest of paralytics. In this state +he lay for many days, not suffering pain, but with the sense of great +weariness, and the feeling that he should never rise from his bed again. +For the most part his intellect was unclouded when his attention was +aroused. He spoke only in whispers, a few words at a time. The doctor +felt sure, by the expression which passed over his features from time to +time, that something was worrying and oppressing him; something which +he wished to communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity of +purpose, to make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certain +desk, and once he had found strength to lift his emaciated arm and +point to it. The doctor went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he +slowly shook his head. He had not the power to say at that time what he +wished. The next day he felt a little less prostrated; and succeeded +in explaining to the doctor what he wanted. His words, so far as the +physician could make them out, were these which follow. Dr. Butts looked +upon them as possibly expressing wishes which would be his last, and +noted them down carefully immediately after leaving his chamber. + +“I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is told +in a paper locked in that desk. The key is--put your hand under +my pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that I +was--human--and save my memory from reproach.” + +He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollow +cheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. But +he said to himself, “It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong hopes +that he will recover.” + +Maurice spoke once more. “Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are wise +and kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once and +read. I want you to know the story of my life before it is finished--if +the end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before you sleep.” + He was exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the doctor saw a +tranquil look on his features which added encouragement to his hopes. + + + + + + +XVIII. MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. + +I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been passed +in foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed of an +ample fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished and amiable +woman. I was their first and only child. She died while I was yet an +infant. If I remember her at all it is as a vision, more like a glimpse +of a pre-natal existence than as a part of my earthly life. At the death +of my mother I was left in the charge of the old nurse who had enjoyed +her perfect confidence. She was devoted to me, and I became absolutely +dependent on her, who had for me all the love and all the care of a +mother. I was naturally the object of the attentions and caresses of +the family relatives. I have been told that I was a pleasant, smiling +infant, with nothing to indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility; +not afraid of strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their +acquaintance. My father was devoted to me and did all in his power to +promote my health and comfort. + +I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happened +which changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonely +existence. I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. I +must force myself to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguely +remembered, for I am not willing that my doomed and wholly exceptional +life should pass away unrecorded, unexplained, unvindicated. My nature +is, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but I have lived apart, as if my +heart were filled with hatred of my fellow-creatures. If there are any +readers who look without pity, without sympathy, upon those who shun the +fellowship of their fellow men and women, who show by their downcast or +averted eyes that they dread companionship and long for solitude, I pray +them, if this paper ever reaches them, to stop at this point. Follow +me no further, for you will not believe my story, nor enter into the +feelings which I am about to reveal. But if there are any to whom all +that is human is of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness +some stirrings of invincible attraction to one individual and equally +invincible repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that +elective affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it +were, their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective +repulsions, let them read with unquestioning faith the story of a +blighted life I am about to relate, much of it, of course, received from +the lips of others. + +My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, was +considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that she +visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants and my +old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. Laura +was full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtless +occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of her age should +be. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for the first time. My +nurse had me in her arms, walking back and forward on a balcony with +a low railing, upon which opened the windows of the second story of +my father's house. While the nurse was thus carrying me, Laura came +suddenly upon the balcony. She no sooner saw me than with all the +delighted eagerness of her youthful nature she rushed toward me, and, +catching me from the nurse's arms, began tossing me after the fashion of +young girls who have been so lately playing with dolls that they feel +as if babies were very much of the same nature. The abrupt seizure +frightened me; I sprang from her arms in my terror, and fell over the +railing of the balcony. I should probably enough have been killed on +the spot but for the fact that a low thorn-bush grew just beneath +the balcony, into which I fell and thus had the violence of the shock +broken. But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this day +marks of the deep wounds they inflicted. + +That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The sudden +apparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from the +protecting arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek that +accompanied my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable space; +the cruel lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns,--all these +fearful impressions blended in one paralyzing terror. + +When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, and +the physician who first saw me said that no pulse was perceptible. But +after a time consciousness returned; the wounds, though painful, were +none of them dangerous, and the most alarming effects of the accident +passed away. My old nurse cared for me tenderly day and night, and my +father, who had been almost distracted in the first hours which followed +the injury, hoped and believed that no permanent evil results would be +found to result from it. My cousin Laura was of course deeply distressed +to feel that her thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave an +accident. As soon as I had somewhat recovered she came to see me, very +penitent, very anxious to make me forget the alarm she had caused me, +with all its consequences. I was in the nursery sitting up in my bed, +bandaged, but not in any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to all +appearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As Laura came near +me I shrieked and instantly changed color. I put my hand upon my heart +as if I had been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It was very much +the same state as that in which I was found immediately after my fall. + +The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. The +approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to lay her +hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which the moment +of terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse saw this in a +moment. “Go! go!” she cried to Laura, “go, or the child will die!” + Her command did not have to be repeated. After Laura had gone I lay +senseless, white and cold as marble, for some time. The doctor soon +came, and by the use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color came +back slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set in +motion. + +It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary +effect of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought by +the doctor and by my father, that after a few days I should recover from +this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other infants receive +pleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook her head. “The girl +will be the death of the child,” she said, “if she touches him or comes +near him. His heart stopped beating just as when the girl snatched him +out of my arms, and he fell over the balcony railing.” Once more the +experiment was tried, cautiously, almost insidiously. The same alarming +consequences followed. It was too evident that a chain of nervous +disturbances had been set up in my system which repeated itself whenever +the original impression gave the first impulse. I never saw my cousin +Laura after this last trial. Its result had so distressed her that she +never ventured again to show herself to me. + +If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, it would have been +a misfortune for my cousin and myself, but hardly a calamity. The world +is wide, and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be considered an +essential of existence. I often heard Laura's name mentioned, but never +by any one who was acquainted with all the circumstances, for it was +noticed that I changed color and caught at my breast as if I wanted to +grasp my heart in my hand whenever that fatal name was mentioned. + +Alas! this was not all. While I was suffering from the effects of +my fall among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse, assisted by +another old woman, by a physician, and my father, who would take his +share in caring for me. It was thought best to keep me perfectly quiet, +and strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery, with one +exception, that my old grandmother came in now and then. With her it +seems that I was somewhat timid and shy, following her with rather +anxious eyes, as if not quite certain whether or not she was dangerous. +But one day, when I was far advanced towards recovery, my father brought +in a young lady, a relative of his, who had expressed a great desire to +see me. She was, as I have been told, a very handsome girl, of about the +same age as my cousin Laura, but bearing no personal resemblance to her +in form, features, or complexion. She had no sooner entered the room +than the same sudden changes which had followed my cousin's visit began +to show themselves, and before she had reached my bedside I was in a +state of deadly collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned. + +Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures. +A little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into the +nursery one day and bring me some flowers. I took them from her hand, +but turned away and shut my eyes. There was no seizure, but there was a +certain dread and aversion, nothing more than a feeling which it might +be hoped that time would overcome. Those around me were gradually +finding out the circumstances which brought on the deadly attack to +which I was subject. + +The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the prettiest +girl of the village where we were passing the summer. She was very +anxious to see me, and as I was now nearly well it was determined that +she should be permitted to pay me a short visit. I had always delighted +in seeing her and being caressed by her. I was sleeping when she entered +the nursery and came and took a seat at my side in perfect silence. +Presently I became restless, and a moment later I opened my eyes and saw +her stooping over me. My hand went to my left breast,--the color faded +from my cheeks,--I was again the cold marble image so like death that it +had well-nigh been mistaken for it. + +Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had left +me with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is most +attractive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender age, who +feel the fascination of her flowing locks, her bright eyes, her blooming +cheeks, and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws all life into +its warm and potently vitalized atmosphere? So it did indeed seem. The +dangerous experiment could not be repeated indefinitely. It was not +intentionally tried again, but accident brought about more than +one renewal of it during the following years, until it became fully +recognized that I was the unhappy subject of a mortal dread of +woman,--not absolutely of the human female, for I had no fear of my +old nurse or of my grandmother, or of any old wrinkled face, and I had +become accustomed to the occasional meeting of a little girl or two, +whom I nevertheless regarded with a certain ill-defined feeling that +there was danger in their presence. I was sent to a boys' school very +early, and during the first ten or twelve years of my life I had rarely +any occasion to be reminded of my strange idiosyncrasy. + +As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change came over the feelings +which had so long held complete possession of me. This was what my +father and his advisers had always anticipated, and was the ground of +their confident hope in my return to natural conditions before I should +have grown to mature manhood. + +How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, bewildering, +dreadful years? Visions of loveliness haunted me sleeping and waking. +Sometimes a graceful girlish figure would so draw my eyes towards it +that I lost sight of all else, and was ready to forget all my fears +and find myself at her side, like other youths by the side of young +maidens,--happy in their cheerful companionship, while I,--I, under +the curse of one blighting moment, looked on, hopeless. Sometimes the +glimpse of a fair face or the tone of a sweet voice stirred within +me all the instincts that make the morning of life beautiful to +adolescence. I reasoned with myself: + +Why should I not have outgrown that idle apprehension which had been the +nightmare of my earlier years? Why should not the rising tide of life +have drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shallows of +childhood? How many children there are who tremble at being left alone +in the dark, but who, a few years later, will smile at their foolish +terrors and brave all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why should I any +longer be the slave of a foolish fancy that has grown into a half insane +habit of mind? I was familiarly acquainted with all the stories of the +strange antipathies and invincible repugnances to which others, some of +them famous men, had been subject. I said to myself, Why should not I +overcome this dread of woman as Peter the Great fought down his dread of +wheels rolling over a bridge? Was I, alone of all mankind, to be doomed +to perpetual exclusion from the society which, as it seemed to me, was +all that rendered existence worth the trouble and fatigue of slavery to +the vulgar need of supplying the waste of the system and working at the +task of respiration like the daughters of Danaus,--toiling day and night +as the worn-out sailor labors at the pump of his sinking vessel? + +Why did I not brave the risk of meeting squarely, and without regard to +any possible danger, some one of those fair maidens whose far-off smile, +whose graceful movements, at once attracted and agitated me? I can only +answer this question to the satisfaction of any really inquiring reader +by giving him the true interpretation of the singular phenomenon of +which I was the subject. For this I shall have to refer to a paper of +which I have made a copy, and which will be found included with +this manuscript. It is enough to say here, without entering into the +explanation of the fact, which will be found simple enough as seen +by the light of modern physiological science, that the “nervous +disturbance” which the presence of a woman in the flower of her +age produced in my system was a sense of impending death, sudden, +overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling. It was a reversed action of the +nervous centres,--the opposite of that which flushes the young lover's +cheek and hurries his bounding pulses as he comes into the presence of +the object of his passion. No one who has ever felt the sensation can +have failed to recognize it as an imperative summons, which commands +instant and terrified submission. + +It was at this period of my life that my father determined to try the +effect of travel and residence in different localities upon my bodily +and mental condition. I say bodily as well as mental, for I was too +slender for my height and subject to some nervous symptoms which were a +cause of anxiety. That the mind was largely concerned in these there +was no doubt, but the mutual interactions of mind and body are often +too complex to admit of satisfactory analysis. Each is in part cause and +each also in part effect. + +We passed some years in Italy, chiefly in Rome, where I was placed in a +school conducted by priests, and where of course I met only those of +my own sex. There I had the opportunity of seeing the influences under +which certain young Catholics, destined for the priesthood, are led to +separate themselves from all communion with the sex associated in +their minds with the most subtle dangers to which the human soul can be +exposed. I became in some degree reconciled to the thought of exclusion +from the society of women by seeing around me so many who were +self-devoted to celibacy. The thought sometimes occurred to me whether I +should not find the best and the only natural solution of the problem +of existence, as submitted to myself, in taking upon me the vows which +settle the whole question and raise an impassable barrier between the +devotee and the object of his dangerous attraction. + +How often I talked this whole matter over with the young priest who was +at once my special instructor and my favorite companion! But accustomed +as I had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and impressed as I was +with the purity and excellence of many of its young members with whom +I was acquainted, my early training rendered it impossible for me to +accept the credentials which it offered me as authoritative. My friend +and instructor had to set me down as a case of “invincible ignorance.” + This was the loop-hole through which he crept out of the prison-house +of his creed, and was enabled to look upon me without the feeling of +absolute despair with which his sterner brethren would, I fear, have +regarded me. + +I have said that accident exposed me at times to the influence which +I had such reasons for dreading. Here is one example of such an +occurrence, which I relate as simply as possible, vividly as it is +impressed upon my memory. A young friend whose acquaintance I had made +in Rome asked me one day to come to his rooms and look at a cabinet of +gems and medals which he had collected. I had been but a short time +in his library when a vague sense of uneasiness came over me. My heart +became restless,--I could feel it stirring irregularly, as if it were +some frightened creature caged in my breast. There was nothing that I +could see to account for it. A door was partly open, but not so that I +could see into the next room. The feeling grew upon me of some influence +which was paralyzing my circulation. I begged my friend to open a +window. As he did so, the door swung in the draught, and I saw a +blooming young woman,--it was my friend's sister, who had been sitting +with a book in her hand, and who rose at the opening of the door. +Something had warned me of the presence of a woman, that occult and +potent aura of individuality, call it personal magnetism, spiritual +effluence, or reduce it to a simpler expression if you will; whatever +it was, it had warned me of the nearness of the dread attraction which +allured at a distance and revealed itself with all the terrors of the +Lorelei if approached too recklessly. A sign from her brother caused +her to withdraw at once, but not before I had felt the impression which +betrayed itself in my change of color, anxiety about the region of the +heart, and sudden failure as if about to fall in a deadly fainting-fit. + +Does all this seem strange and incredible to the reader of my +manuscript? Nothing in the history of life is so strange or exceptional +as it seems to those who have not made a long study of its mysteries. +I have never known just such a case as my own, and yet there must have +been such, and if the whole history of mankind were unfolded I cannot +doubt that there have been many like it. Let my reader suspend his +judgment until he has read the paper I have referred to, which was drawn +up by a Committee of the Royal Academy of the Biological Sciences. In +this paper the mechanism of the series of nervous derangements to which +I have been subject since the fatal shock experienced in my infancy is +explained in language not hard to understand. It will be seen that such +a change of polarity in the nervous centres is only a permanent form and +an extreme degree of an emotional disturbance, which as a temporary +and comparatively unimportant personal accident is far from being +uncommon,--is so frequent, in fact, that every one must have known +instances of it, and not a few must have had more or less serious +experiences of it in their own private history. + +It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I am +now dealing with the reader. I was full of strange fancies and wild +superstitions. One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal which +had been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear next my body. I +was told that this would turn black after a time, in virtue of a power +which it possessed of drawing out original sin, or certain portions +of it, together with the evil and morbid tendencies which had been +engrafted on the corrupt nature. I wore the medal faithfully, as +directed, and watched it carefully. It became tarnished and after a time +darkened, but it wrought no change in my unnatural condition. + +There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more of +futurity than she had any right to know. The story was that she had +foretold the assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour. + +However that may have been, I was persuaded to let her try her black +art upon my future. I shall never forget the strange, wild look of the +wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed her +wicked old eyes on my young countenance. After this examination she +shook her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I could get +them would be in English like these: + + + Fair lady cast a spell on thee, + Fair lady's hand shall set thee free. + +Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose +palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response, +have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment. +The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I was subject +disposed me to believe the incredible with reference to all that relates +to it. I have never ceased to have the feeling that, sooner or later, I +should find myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my infancy. It +seems as if it would naturally come through the influence of some young +and fair woman, to whom that merciful errand should be assigned by the +Providence that governs our destiny. With strange hopes, with trembling +fears, with mingled belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself I +have sought with longing yet half-averted eyes for the “elect lady,” + as I have learned to call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruined +life. + +Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I had +found the object of my superstitious belief.--Singularly enough it +was always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared before +my bewildered vision. Once it was an English girl who was a fellow +passenger with me in one of my ocean voyages. I need not say that she +was beautiful, for she was my dream realized. I heard her singing, I +saw her walking the deck on some of the fair days when sea-sickness was +forgotten. The passengers were a social company enough, but I had kept +myself apart, as was my wont. At last the attraction became too strong +to resist any longer. “I will venture into the charmed circle if it +kills me,” I said to my father. I did venture, and it did not kill me, +or I should not be telling this story. But there was a repetition of the +old experiences. I need not relate the series of alarming consequences +of my venture. The English girl was very lovely, and I have no doubt has +made some one supremely happy before this, but she was not the “elect +lady” of the prophecy and of my dreams. + +A second time I thought myself for a moment in the presence of the +destined deliverer who was to restore me to my natural place among my +fellow men and women. It was on the Tiber that I met the young maiden +who drew me once more into that inner circle which surrounded young +womanhood with deadly peril for me, if I dared to pass its limits. I was +floating with the stream in the little boat in which I passed many long +hours of reverie when I saw another small boat with a boy and a young +girl in it. The boy had been rowing, and one of his oars had slipped +from his grasp. He did not know how to paddle with a single oar, and was +hopelessly rowing round and round, his oar all the time floating farther +away from him. I could not refuse my assistance. I picked up the oar and +brought my skiff alongside of the boat. When I handed the oar to the boy +the young girl lifted her veil and thanked me in the exquisite music of +the language which + + + 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin.' + +She was a type of Italian beauty,--a nocturne in flesh and blood, if +I may borrow a term certain artists are fond of; but it was her voice +which captivated me and for a moment made me believe that I was no +longer shut off from all relations with the social life of my race. An +hour later I was found lying insensible on the floor of my boat, white, +cold, almost pulseless. It cost much patient labor to bring me back to +consciousness. Had not such extreme efforts been made, it seems +probable that I should never have waked from a slumber which was hardly +distinguishable from that of death. + +Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if I invite +it by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause? The habit of +these deadly seizures has become a second nature. The strongest and the +ablest men have found it impossible to resist the impression produced +by the most insignificant object, by the most harmless sight or sound to +which they had a congenital or acquired antipathy. What prospect have I +of ever being rid of this long and deep-seated infirmity? I may well ask +myself these questions, but my answer is that I will never give up +the hope that time will yet bring its remedy. It may be that the wild +prediction which so haunts me shall find itself fulfilled. I have had of +late strange premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could not +help giving heed. But I have seen too much of the faith that deals in +miracles to accept the supernatural in any shape,--assuredly when it +comes from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her revelations +of the future. Be it so: though I am not superstitious, I have a right +to be imaginative, and my imagination will hold to those words of the +old zingara with an irresistible feeling that, sooner or later, they +will prove true. + +Can it be possible that her prediction is not far from its realization? +I have had both waking and sleeping visions within these last months +and weeks which have taken possession of me and filled my life with new +thoughts, new hopes, new resolves. + +Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am dreaming away this +season of bloom and fragrance, sometimes in the fields or woods in +a distant glimpse, once in a nearer glance, which left me pale and +tremulous, yet was followed by a swift reaction, so that my cheeks +flushed and my pulse bounded, I have seen her who--how do I dare to tell +it so that my own eyes can read it?---I cannot help believing is to be +my deliverer, my saviour. + +I have been warned in the most solemn and impressive language by the +experts most deeply read in the laws of life and the history of its +disturbing and destroying influences, that it would be at the imminent +risk of my existence if I should expose myself to the repetition of my +former experiences. I was reminded that unexplained sudden deaths were +of constant, of daily occurrence; that any emotion is liable to arrest +the movements of life: terror, joy, good news or bad news,--anything +that reaches the deeper nervous centres. I had already died once, as +Sir Charles Napier said of himself; yes, more than once, died and been +resuscitated. The next time, I might very probably fail to get my return +ticket after my visit to Hades. It was a rather grim stroke of humor, +but I understood its meaning full well, and felt the force of its +menace. + +After all, what had I to live for if the great primal instinct which +strives to make whole the half life of lonely manhood is defeated, +suppressed, crushed out of existence? Why not as well die in the attempt +to break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous movement as +in any other way? I am alone in the world,--alone save for my faithful +servant, through whom I seem to hold to the human race as it were by +a single filament. My father, who was my instructor, my companion, +my dearest and best friend through all my later youth and my earlier +manhood, died three years ago and left me my own master, with the means +of living as might best please my fancy. This season shall decide my +fate. One more experiment, and I shall find myself restored to my place +among my fellow-beings, or, as I devoutly hope, in a sphere where all +our mortal infirmities are past and forgotten. + +I have told the story of a blighted life without reserve, so that there +shall not remain any mystery or any dark suspicion connected with my +memory if I should be taken away unexpectedly. It has cost me an effort +to do it, but now that my life is on record I feel more reconciled to +my lot, with all its possibilities, and among these possibilities is a +gleam of a better future. I have been told by my advisers, some of them +wise, deeply instructed, and kind-hearted men, that such a life-destiny +should be related by the subject of it for the instruction of others, +and especially for the light it throws on certain peculiarities of human +character often wrongly interpreted as due to moral perversion, when +they are in reality the results of misdirected or reversed actions in +some of the closely connected nervous centres. + +For myself I can truly say that I have very little morbid sensibility +left with reference to the destiny which has been allotted to me. I have +passed through different stages of feeling with reference to it, as +I have developed from infancy to manhood. At first it was mere blind +instinct about which I had no thought, living like other infants the +life of impressions without language to connect them in series. In my +boyhood I began to be deeply conscious of the infirmity which separated +me from those around me. In youth began that conflict of emotions and +impulses with the antagonistic influence of which I have already spoken, +a conflict which has never ceased, but to which I have necessarily +become to a certain degree accustomed; and against the dangers of which +I have learned to guard myself habitually. That is the meaning of my +isolation. You, young man,--if at any time your eyes shall look upon my +melancholy record,--you at least will understand me. Does not your heart +throb, in the presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as if +it “were ready to crack” with its own excess of strain? What if instead +of throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat +again? You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy will +look upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know what it +is when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and the grip of +the bodice seems unendurable as the embrace of the iron virgin of the +Inquisition. Think what it would be if the grasp were tightened so that +no breath of air could enter your panting chest! + +Does your heart beat in the same way, young man, when your honored +friend, a venerable matron of seventy years, greets you with her kindly +smile as it does in the presence of youthful loveliness? When a pretty +child brings you her doll and looks into your eyes with artless grace +and trustful simplicity, does your pulse quicken, do you tremble, does +life palpitate through your whole being, as when the maiden of seventeen +meets your enamored sight in the glow of her rosebud beauty? Wonder +not, then, if the period of mystic attraction for you should be that +of agitation, terror, danger, to one in whom the natural current of the +instincts has had its course changed as that of a stream is changed by a +convulsion of nature, so that the impression which is new life to you is +death to him. + +I am now twenty-five years old. I have reached the time of life which +I have dreamed, nay even ventured to hope, might be the limit of the +sentence which was pronounced upon me in my infancy. I can assign no +good reason for this anticipation. But in writing this paper I feel as +if I were preparing to begin a renewed existence. There is nothing for +me to be ashamed of in the story I have told. There is no man living who +would not have yielded to the sense of instantly impending death which +seized upon me under the conditions I have mentioned. Martyrs have gone +singing to their flaming shrouds, but never a man could hold his +breath long enough to kill himself; he must have rope or water, or some +mechanical help, or nature will make him draw in a breath of air, and +would make him do so though he knew the salvation of the human race +would be forfeited by that one gasp. + +This paper may never reach the eye of any one afflicted in the same way +that I have been. It probably never will; but for all that, there are +many shy natures which will recognize tendencies in themselves in the +direction of my unhappy susceptibility. Others, to whom such weakness +seems inconceivable, will find their scepticism shaken, if not removed, +by the calm, judicial statement of the Report drawn up for the Royal +Academy. It will make little difference to me whether my story is +accepted unhesitatingly or looked upon as largely a product of the +imagination. I am but a bird of passage that lights on the boughs of +different nationalities. I belong to no flock; my home may be among the +palms of Syria, the olives of Italy, the oaks of England, the elms that +shadow the Hudson or the Connecticut; I build no nest; to-day I am here, +to-morrow on the wing. + +If I quit my native land before the trees have dropped their leaves I +shall place this manuscript in the safe hands of one whom I feel sure +that I can trust; to do with it as he shall see fit. If it is only +curious and has no bearing on human welfare, he may think it well to let +it remain unread until I shall have passed away. If in his judgment +it throws any light on one of the deeper mysteries of our nature,--the +repulsions which play such a formidable part in social life, and which +must be recognized as the correlatives of the affinities that distribute +the individuals governed by them in the face of impediments which seem +to be impossibilities,--then it may be freely given to the world. + +But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen, the programme of +my life will have changed, and this story of the dead past will be +illuminated by the light of a living present which will irradiate all +its saddening features. Who would not pray that my last gleam of light +and hope may be that of dawn and not of departing day? + +The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of a story so far +from the common range of experience is once more requested to suspend +his judgment until he has read the paper which will next be offered for +his consideration. + + + + + + +XIX. THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. + +Perhaps it is too much to expect a reader who wishes to be entertained, +excited, amused, and does not want to work his passage through pages +which he cannot understand without some effort of his own, to read the +paper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon it. If he has no +curiosity in the direction of these chapters, he can afford to leave +them to such as relish a slight flavor of science. But if he does so +leave them he will very probably remain sceptical as to the truth of the +story to which they are meant to furnish him with a key. + +Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a remarkable and exceptional +one, and it is hardly probable that any reader's experience will furnish +him with its parallel. But let him look back over all his acquaintances, +if he has reached middle life, and see if he cannot recall more than one +who, for some reason or other, shunned the society of young women, as +if they had a deadly fear of their company. If he remembers any such, he +can understand the simple statements and natural reflections which are +laid before him. + +One of the most singular facts connected with the history of Maurice +Kirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to the +fate which had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped by the +Interviewer, who would show him up in the sensational columns of his +prying newspaper. He lived chiefly by himself, as the easiest mode of +avoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in almost every +society into which he might venture. But he had learned to look upon +himself very much as he would upon an intimate not himself,--upon a +different personality. A young man will naturally enough be ashamed +of his shyness. It is something which others believe, and perhaps he +himself thinks, he might overcome. But in the case of Maurice Kirkwood +there was no room for doubt as to the reality and gravity of the long +enduring effects of his first convulsive terror. He had accepted the +fact as he would have accepted the calamity of losing his sight or his +hearing. When he was questioned by the experts to whom his case was +submitted, he told them all that he knew about it almost without a sign +of emotion. Nature was so peremptory with him,--saying in language that +had no double meaning: “If you violate the condition on which you +hold my gift of existence I slay you on the spot,”--that he became as +decisive in his obedience as she was in her command, and accepted his +fate without repining. + +Yet it must not be thought for a moment,--it cannot be supposed,--that +he was insensible because he looked upon himself with the coolness of an +enforced philosophy. He bore his burden manfully, hard as it was to +live under it, for he lived, as we have seen, in hope. The thought of +throwing it off with his life, as too grievous to be borne, was familiar +to his lonely hours, but he rejected it as unworthy of his manhood. How +he had speculated and dreamed about it is plain enough from the paper +the reader may remember on Ocean, River, and Lake. + +With these preliminary hints the paper promised is submitted to such as +may find any interest in them. + + + ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA. + + WITH REMARKS. + +Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the Biological +Sciences by a Committee of that Institution. + +“The singular nature of the case we are about to narrate and comment +upon will, we feel confident, arrest the attention of those who have +learned the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light upon +her laws by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from time +to time are observed. We have done with the lusus naturae of earlier +generations. We pay little attention to the stories of 'miracles,' +except so far as we receive them ready-made at the hands of the churches +which still hold to them. Not the less do we meet with strange and +surprising facts, which a century or two ago would have been handled by +the clergy and the courts, but today are calmly recorded and judged by +the best light our knowledge of the laws of life can throw upon them. +It must be owned that there are stories which we can hardly dispute, +so clear and full is the evidence in their support, which do, +notwithstanding, tax our faith and sometimes leave us sceptical in spite +of all the testimony which supports them. + +“In this category many will be disposed to place the case we commend to +the candid attention of the Academy. If one were told that a young man, +a gentleman by birth and training, well formed, in apparently perfect +health, of agreeable physiognomy and manners, could not endure the +presence of the most attractive young woman, but was seized with deadly +terror and sudden collapse of all the powers of life, if he came into +her immediate presence; if it were added that this same young man did +not shrink from the presence of an old withered crone; that he had a +certain timid liking for little maidens who had not yet outgrown the +company of their dolls, the listener would be apt to smile, if he did +not laugh, at the absurdity of the fable. Surely, he would say, this +must be the fiction of some fanciful brain, the whim of some romancer, +the trick of some playwright. It would make a capital farce, this idea, +carried out. A young man slighting the lovely heroine of the little +comedy and making love to her grandmother! This would, of course, be +overstating the truth of the story, but to such a misinterpretation +the plain facts lend themselves too easily. We will relate the leading +circumstances of the case, as they were told us with perfect simplicity +and frankness by the subject of an affection which, if classified, would +come under the general head of Antipathy, but to which, if we give it a +name, we shall have to apply the term Gynophobia, or Fear of Woman.” + +Here follows the account furnished to the writer of the paper, which is +in all essentials identical with that already laid before the reader. + +“Such is the case offered to our consideration. Assuming its +truthfulness in all its particulars, it remains to see in the first +place whether or not it is as entirely exceptional and anomalous as it +seems at first sight, or whether it is only the last term of a series +of cases which in their less formidable aspect are well known to us +in literature, in the records of science, and even in our common +experience. + +“To most of those among us the explanations we are now about to give are +entirely superfluous. But there are some whose chief studies have been +in different directions, and who will not complain if certain facts are +mentioned which to the expert will seem rudimentary, and which hardly +require recapitulation to those who are familiarly acquainted with the +common text-books. + +“The heart is the centre of every living movement in the higher animals, +and in man, furnishing in varying amount, or withholding to a greater +or less extent, the needful supplies to all parts of the system. If its +action is diminished to a certain degree, faintness is the immediate +consequence; if it is arrested, loss of consciousness; if its action +is not soon restored, death, of which fainting plants the white flag, +remains in possession of the system. + +“How closely the heart is under the influence of the emotions we need +not go to science to learn, for all human experience and all literature +are overflowing with evidence that shows the extent of this relation. +Scripture is full of it; the heart in Hebrew poetry represents the +entire life, we might almost say. Not less forcible is the language of +Shakespeare, as for instance, in 'Measure for Measure:' + + + “'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, + Making it both unable for itself + And dispossessing all my other parts + Of necessary fitness?' + +“More especially is the heart associated in every literature with the +passion of love. A famous old story is that of Galen, who was called to +the case of a young lady long ailing, and wasting away from some cause +the physicians who had already seen her were unable to make out. The +shrewd old practitioner suspected that love was at the bottom of the +young lady's malady. Many relatives and friends of both sexes, all of +them ready with their sympathy, came to see her. The physician sat by +her bedside during one of these visits, and in an easy, natural way took +her hand and placed a finger on her pulse. It beat quietly enough until +a certain comely young gentleman entered the apartment, when it suddenly +rose in frequency, and at the same moment her hurried breathing, +her changing color, pale and flushed by turns, betrayed the profound +agitation his presence excited. This was enough for the sagacious Greek; +love was the disease, the cure of which by its like may be claimed as an +anticipation of homoeopathy. In the frontispiece to the fine old 'Junta' +edition of the works of Galen, you may find among the wood-cuts +a representation of the interesting scene, with the title Amantas +Dignotio,--the diagnosis, or recognition, of the lover. + +“Love has many languages, but the heart talks through all of them. The +pallid or burning cheek tells of the failing or leaping fountain which +gives it color. The lovers at the 'Brookside' could hear each other's +hearts beating. When Genevieve, in Coleridge's poem, forgot herself, and +was beforehand with her suitor in her sudden embrace, + + + “'T was partly love and partly fear, + And partly 't was a bashful art, + That I might rather feel than see + The swelling of her heart' + +“Always the heart, whether its hurried action is seen, or heard, or +felt. But it is not always in this way that the 'deceitful' organ treats +the lover. + + + “'Faint heart never won fair lady.' + +“This saying was not meant, perhaps, to be taken literally, but it +has its literal truth. Many a lover has found his heart sink within +him,--lose all its force, and leave him weak as a child in his emotion +at the sight of the object of his affections. When Porphyro looked upon +Madeline at her prayers in the chapel, it was too much for him: + + + “'She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, + Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint, + She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from earthly taint.' + +“And in Balzac's novel, 'Cesar Birotteau,' the hero of the story +'fainted away for-joy at the moment when, under a linden-tree, at +Sceaux, Constance-Barbe-Josephine accepted him as her future husband.' + +“One who faints is dead if he does not 'come to,' and nothing is more +likely than that too susceptible lovers have actually gone off in this +way. Everything depends on how the heart behaves itself in these +and similar trying moments. The mechanism of its actions becomes an +interesting subject, therefore, to lovers of both sexes, and to all who +are capable of intense emotions. + +“The heart is a great reservoir, which distributes food, drink, air, and +heat to every part of the system, in exchange for its waste material. It +knocks at the gate of every organ seventy or eighty times in a minute, +calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload its refuse. Between +it and the brain there is the closest relation. The emotions, which act +upon it as we have seen, govern it by a mechanism only of late years +thoroughly understood. This mechanism can be made plain enough to the +reader who is not afraid to believe that he can understand it. + +“The brain, as all know, is the seat of ideas, emotions, volition. It is +the great central telegraphic station with which many lesser centres are +in close relation, from which they receive, and to which they transmit, +their messages. The heart has its own little brains, so to speak,--small +collections of nervous substance which govern its rhythmical motions +under ordinary conditions. But these lesser nervous centres are to a +large extent dominated by influences transmitted from certain groups of +nerve-cells in the brain and its immediate dependencies. + +“There are two among the special groups of nerve-cells which produce +directly opposite effects. One of these has the power of accelerating +the action of the heart, while the other has the power of retarding or +arresting this action. One acts as the spur, the other as the bridle. +According as one or the other predominates, the action of the heart +will be stimulated or restrained. Among the great modern discoveries in +physiology is that of the existence of a distinct centre of inhibition, +as the restraining influence over the heart is called. + +“The centre of inhibition plays a terrible part in the history of +cowardice and of unsuccessful love. No man can be brave without blood +to sustain his courage, any more than he can think, as the German +materialist says, not absurdly, without phosphorus. The fainting +lover must recover his circulation, or his lady will lend him her +smelling-salts and take a gallant with blood in his cheeks. Porphyro got +over his faintness before he ran away with Madeline, and Cesar Birotteau +was an accepted lover when he swooned with happiness: but many an +officer has been cashiered, and many a suitor has been rejected, +because the centre of inhibition has got the upper hand of the centre of +stimulation. + +“In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been recorded, +the most frequent cause has been the disturbed and depressing influence +of the centre of inhibition. Fainting at the sight of blood is one of +the commonest examples of this influence. A single impression, in a very +early period of atmospheric existence,--perhaps, indirectly, before that +period, as was said to have happened in the case of James the First +of England,--may establish a communication between this centre and the +heart which will remain open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across +a field establish itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we call +accidental, but one after another follows it as if he were guided by a +chart on which it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transit +between the centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If once +the path is opened by the track of some profound impression, that same +impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old +footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to traverse, +and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, may perpetuate +itself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its subject. + +“The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of the +effect of inhibition on the heart. + +“We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history of +the human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have been +similar cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has been +the consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. The +case most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well known to +require any lengthened description in this paper. It is enough to recall +the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort suspend the action of +his heart for a considerable period, during which he lay like one dead, +pulseless, and without motion. After a time the circulation returned, +and he does not seem to have been the worse for his dangerous, or +seemingly dangerous, experiment. But in his case it was by an act of the +will that the heart's action was suspended. In the case before us it +is an involuntary impulse transmitted from the brain to the inhibiting +centre, which arrests the cardiac movements. + +“What is like to be the further history of the case? + +“The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty years +old. The chain of nervous actions has become firmly established. +It might have been hoped that the changes of adolescence would have +effected a transformation of the perverted instinct. On the contrary, +the whole force of this instinct throws itself on the centre of +inhibition, instead of quickening the heart-beats, and sending the +rush of youthful blood with fresh life through the entire system to the +throbbing finger-tips. + +“Is it probable that time and circumstances will alter a habit of +nervous interactions so long established? We are disposed to think that +there is a chance of its being broken up. And we are not afraid to say +that we suspect the old gypsy woman, whose prophecy took such hold of +the patient's imagination, has hit upon the way in which the 'spell,' +as she called it, is to be dissolved. She must, in all probability, +have had a hint of the 'antipatia' to which the youth before her was a +victim, and its cause, and if so, her guess as to the probable mode in +which the young man would obtain relief from his unfortunate condition +was the one which would naturally suggest itself. + +“If once the nervous impression which falls on the centre of inhibition +can be made to change its course, so as to follow its natural channel, +it will probably keep to that channel ever afterwards. And this will, it +is most likely, be effected by some sudden, unexpected impression. If +he were drowning, and a young woman should rescue him, it is by no means +impossible that the change in the nervous current we have referred to +might be brought about as rapidly, as easily, as the reversal of the +poles in a magnet, which is effected in an instant. But he cannot be +expected to throw himself into the water just at the right moment +when the 'fair lady' of the gitana's prophecy is passing on the shore. +Accident may effect the cure which art seems incompetent to perform. It +would not be strange if in some future seizure he should never come back +to consciousness. But it is quite conceivable, on the other hand, that +a happier event may occur, that in a single moment the nervous polarity +may be reversed, the whole course of his life changed, and his past +terrible experiences be to him like a scarce-remembered dream. + +“This is one, of those cases in which it is very hard to determine +the wisest course to be pursued. The question is not unlike that which +arises in certain cases of dislocation of the bones of the neck. Shall +the unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face turned far round +to the right or the left, or shall an attempt be made to replace the +dislocated bones? an attempt which may succeed, or may cause instant +death. The patient must be consulted as to whether he will take the +chance. The practitioner may be unwilling to risk it, if the patient +consents. Each case must be judged on its own special grounds. We cannot +think that this young man is doomed to perpetual separation from the +society of womanhood during the period of its bloom and attraction. But +to provoke another seizure after his past experiences would be too much +like committing suicide. We fear that we must trust to the chapter +of accidents. The strange malady--for such it is--has become a second +nature, and may require as energetic a shock to displace it as it did +to bring it into existence. Time alone can solve this question, on which +depends the well-being and, it may be, the existence of a young man +every way fitted to be happy, and to give happiness, if restored to his +true nature.” + + + + + + +XX. DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. + +Dr. Butts sat up late at night reading these papers and reflecting upon +them. He was profoundly impressed and tenderly affected by the entire +frankness, the absence of all attempt at concealment, which Maurice +showed in placing these papers at his disposal. He believed that his +patient would recover from this illness for which he had been taking +care of him. He thought deeply and earnestly of what he could do for him +after he should have regained his health and strength. + +There were references, in Maurice's own account of himself, which +the doctor called to mind with great interest after reading his brief +autobiography. Some one person--some young woman, it must be--had +produced a singular impression upon him since those earlier perilous +experiences through which he had passed. The doctor could not help +thinking of that meeting with Euthymia of which she had spoken to him. +Maurice, as she said, turned pale,--he clapped his hand to his breast. +He might have done so if he had met her chambermaid, or any straggling +damsel of the village. But Euthymia was not a young woman to be looked +upon with indifference. She held herself like a queen, and walked like +one, not a stage queen, but one born and bred to self-reliance, and +command of herself as well as others. One could not pass her without +being struck with her noble bearing and spirited features. If she had +known how Maurice trembled as he looked upon her, in that conflict of +attraction and uncontrollable dread,--if she had known it! But what, +even then, could she have done? Nothing but get away from him as fast as +she could. As it was, it was a long time before his agitation subsided, +and his heart beat with its common force and frequency. + +Dr. Butts was not a male gossip nor a matchmaking go-between. But he +could not help thinking what a pity it was that these two young persons +could not come together as other young people do in the pairing season, +and find out whether they cared for and were fitted for each other. He +did not pretend to settle this question in his own mind, but the thought +was a natural one. And here was a gulf between them as deep and wide +as that between Lazarus and Dives. Would it ever be bridged over? This +thought took possession of the doctor's mind, and he imagined all sorts +of ways of effecting some experimental approximation between Maurice and +Euthymia. From this delicate subject he glanced off to certain general +considerations suggested by the extraordinary history he had been +reading. He began by speculating as to the possibility of the personal +presence of an individual making itself perceived by some channel other +than any of the five senses. The study of the natural sciences teaches +those who are devoted to them that the most insignificant facts may lead +the way to the discovery of the most important, all-pervading laws of +the universe. From the kick of a frog's hind leg to the amazing triumphs +which began with that seemingly trivial incident is a long, a very long +stride if Madam Galvani had not been in delicate health, which was the +occasion of her having some frog-broth prepared for her, the world of +to-day might not be in possession of the electric telegraph and +the light which blazes like the sun at high noon. A common-looking +occurrence, one seemingly unimportant, which had hitherto passed +unnoticed with the ordinary course of things, was the means of +introducing us to a new and vast realm of closely related phenomena. It +was like a key that we might have picked up, looking so simple that it +could hardly fit any lock but one of like simplicity, but which should +all at once throw back the bolts of the one lock which had defied +the most ingenious of our complex implements and open our way into a +hitherto unexplored territory. + +It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice felt the +paralyzing influence. He could contemplate Euthymia from a distance, as +he did on the day of the boat-race, without any nervous disturbance. A +certain proximity was necessary for the influence to be felt, as in the +case of magnetism and electricity. An atmosphere of danger surrounded +every woman he approached during the period when her sex exercises +its most powerful attractions. How far did that atmosphere extend, and +through what channel did it act? + +The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, was to be found in a +fact as humble as that which gave birth to the science of galvanism and +its practical applications. The circumstances connected with the very +common antipathy to cats were as remarkable in many points of view as +the similar circumstances in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects +of that antipathy could not tell what it was which disturbed their +nervous system. All they knew was that a sense of uneasiness, +restlessness, oppression, came over them in the presence of one of +these animals. He remembered the fact already mentioned, that persons +sensitive to this impression can tell by their feelings if a cat is +concealed in the apartment in which they may happen to be. It may be +through some emanation. It may be through the medium of some electrical +disturbance. What if the nerve-thrills passing through the whole system +of the animal propagate themselves to a certain distance without any +more regard to intervening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sieve +lets sand pass through it; a filter arrests sand, but lets fluids pass, +glass holds fluids, but lets light through; wood shuts out light, but +magnetic attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. No +good reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should not betray +itself to certain organizations, at a distance, through the walls of a +box in which the animal is shut up. We need not disbelieve the stories +which allege such an occurrence as a fact and a not very infrequent one. + +If the presence of a cat can produce its effects under these +circumstances, why should not that of a human being under similar +conditions, acting on certain constitutions, exercise its specific +influence? The doctor recalled a story told him by one of his friends, a +story which the friend himself heard from the lips of the distinguished +actor, the late Mr. Fechter. The actor maintained that Rachel had no +genius as an actress. It was all Samson's training and study, according +to him, which explained the secret of her wonderful effectiveness on the +stage. But magnetism, he said,--magnetism, she was full of. He declared +that he was made aware of her presence on the stage, when he could not +see her or know of her presence otherwise, by this magnetic emanation. +The doctor took the story for what it was worth. There might very +probably be exaggeration, perhaps high imaginative coloring about it, +but it was not a whit more unlikely than the cat-stories, accepted as +authentic. He continued this train of thought into further developments. +Into this series of reflections we will try to follow him. + +What is the meaning of the halo with which artists have surrounded the +heads of their pictured saints, of the aureoles which wraps them like +a luminous cloud? Is it not a recognition of the fact that these holy +personages diffuse their personality in the form of a visible emanation, +which reminds us of Milton's definition of light: + + + “Bright effluence of bright essence increate”? + +The common use of the term influence would seem to imply the existence +of its correlative, effluence. There is no good reason that I can see, +the doctor said to himself, why among the forces which work upon the +nervous centres there should not be one which acts at various distances +from its source. It may not be visible like the “glory” of the painters, +it may not be appreciable by any one of the five senses, and yet it may +be felt by the person reached by it as much as if it were a palpable +presence,--more powerfully, perhaps, from the mystery which belongs to +its mode of action. + +Why should not Maurice have been rendered restless and anxious by the +unseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him, just +as the persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious of their +presence through some unknown channel? Is it anything strange that the +larger and more powerful organism should diffuse a consciousness of its +presence to some distance as well as the slighter and feebler one? Is +it strange that this mysterious influence or effluence should belong +especially or exclusively to the period of complete womanhood in +distinction from that of immaturity or decadence? On the contrary, it +seems to be in accordance with all the analogies of nature,--analogies +too often cruel in the sentence they pass upon the human female. + +Among the many curious thoughts which came up in the doctor's mind was +this, which made him smile as if it were a jest, but which he felt very +strongly had its serious side, and was involved with the happiness or +suffering of multitudes of youthful persons who die without telling +their secret: + +How many young men have a mortal fear of woman, as woman, which they +never overcome, and in consequence of which the attraction which draws +man towards her, as strong in them as in others,--oftentimes, in virtue +of their peculiarly sensitive organizations, more potent in them than in +others of like age and conditions,--in consequence of which fear, this +attraction is completely neutralized, and all the possibilities of +doubled and indefinitely extended life depending upon it are left +unrealized! Think what numbers of young men in Catholic countries devote +themselves to lives of celibacy. Think how many young men lose all their +confidence in the presence of the young woman to whom they are most +attracted, and at last steal away from a companionship which it is +rapture to dream of and torture to endure, so does the presence of the +beloved object paralyze all the powers of expression. Sorcerers have in +all time and countries played on the hopes and terrors of lovers. Once +let loose a strong impulse on the centre of inhibition, and the +warrior who had faced bayonets and batteries becomes a coward whom the +well-dressed hero of the ball-room and leader of the German will put to +ignominious flight in five minutes of easy, audacious familiarity with +his lady-love. + +Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do not know that I have +seen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript, but I have +seen the malady many times. Only one word has stood between many a pair +of young people and their lifelong happiness, and that word has got as +far as the lips, but the lips trembled and would not, could not, shape +that little word. All young women are not like Coleridge's Genevieve, +who knew how to help her lover out of his difficulty, and said yes +before he had asked for an answer. So the wave which was to have wafted +them on to the shore of Elysium has just failed of landing them, and +back they have been drawn into the desolate ocean to meet no more on +earth. + +Love is the master-key, he went on thinking, love is the master-key that +opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily +of all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!--not +only the historic wonder of beauty, that “burnt the topless towers of +Ilium” for the smile of Helen, and fired the palaces of Babylon by the +hand of Thais, but the beauty which springs up in all times and places, +and carries a torch and wears a serpent for a wreath as truly as any +of the Eumenides. Paint Beauty with her foot upon a skull and a dragon +coiled around her. + +The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and pictorial +imagery. Drifting along from thought to thought, he reflected on the +probable consequences of the general knowledge of Maurice Kirkwood's +story, if it came before the public. + +What a piece of work it would make among the lively youths of the +village, to be sure! What scoffing, what ridicule, what embellishments, +what fables, would follow in the trail of the story! If the Interviewer +got hold of it, how “The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor” + would blaze with capitals in its next issue! The young fellows of the +place would be disposed to make fun of the whole matter. The young +girls-the doctor hardly dared to think what would happen when the story +got about among them. “The Sachem” of the solitary canoe, the bold +horseman, the handsome hermit,--handsome so far as the glimpses they had +got of him went,--must needs be an object of tender interest among them, +now that he was ailing, suffering, in danger of his life, away from +friends,--poor fellow! Little tokens of their regard had reached his +sick-chamber; bunches of flowers with dainty little notes, some of them +pinkish, some three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others +“criss-crossed,” were growing more frequent as it was understood that +the patient was likely to be convalescent before many days had passed. +If it should come to be understood that there was a deadly obstacle to +their coming into any personal relations with him, the doctor had his +doubts whether there were not those who would subject him to the risk; +for there were coquettes in the village,--strangers, visitors, let us +hope,--who would sacrifice anything or anybody to their vanity and love +of conquest. + + + + + + +XXI. AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. + +The illness from which Maurice had suffered left him in a state of +profound prostration. The doctor, who remembered the extreme danger of +any overexertion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his head from +the pillow. But his mind was gradually recovering its balance, and he +was able to hold some conversation with those about him. His faithful +Paolo had grown so thin in waiting upon him and watching with him that +the village children had to take a second look at his face when they +passed him to make sure that it was indeed their old friend and no +other. But as his master advanced towards convalescence and the doctor +assured him that he was going in all probability to get well, Paolo's +face began to recover something of its old look and expression, and once +more his pockets filled themselves with comfits for his little circle of +worshipping three and four year old followers. + +“How is Mr. Kirkwood?” was the question with which he was always +greeted. In the worst periods of the fever he rarely left his master. +When he did, and the question was put to him, he would shake his head +sadly, sometimes without a word, sometimes with tears and sobs and +faltering words,--more like a brokenhearted child than a stalwart man +as he was, such a man as soldiers are made of in the great Continental +armies. + +“He very bad,--he no eat nothing,--he--no say nothing,--he never be no +better,” and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a passionate +burst of lamentation. But now that he began to feel easy about his +master, his ready optimism declared itself no less transparently. + +“He better every day now. He get well in few weeks, sure. You see him on +hoss in little while.” The kind-hearted creature's life was bound up in +that of his “master,” as he loved to call him, in sovereign disregard of +the comments of the natives, who held themselves too high for any such +recognition of another as their better. They could not understand how +he, so much their superior in bodily presence, in air and manner, could +speak of the man who employed him in any other way than as “Kirkwood,” + without even demeaning himself so far as to prefix a “Mr.” to it. But +“my master” Maurice remained for Paolo in spite of the fact that all +men are born free and equal. And never was a servant more devoted to a +master than was Paolo to Maurice during the days of doubt and danger. +Since his improvement Maurice insisted upon his leaving his chamber and +getting out of the house, so as to breathe the fresh air of which he was +in so much need. It worried him to see his servant returning after too +short an absence. The attendant who had helped him in the care of the +patient was within call, and Paolo was almost driven out of the house +by the urgency of his master's command that he should take plenty of +exercise in the open air. + +Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved condition, although the +force of the disease had spent itself, the state of weakness to which +he had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety, and required great +precautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, enfeebled to such a +degree that he had to be cared for very much as a child is tended. +Gradually his voice was coming back to him, so that he could hold some +conversation, as was before mentioned, with those about him. The doctor +waited for the right moment to make mention of the manuscript which +Maurice had submitted to him. Up to this time, although it had been +alluded to and the doctor had told him of the intense interest with +which he had read it, he had never ventured to make it the subject of +any long talk, such as would be liable to fatigue his patient. But now +he thought the time had come. + +“I have been thinking,” the doctor said, “of the singular seizures to +which you are liable, and as it is my business not merely to think +about such cases, but to do what I can to help any who may be capable +of receiving aid from my art, I wish to have some additional facts about +your history. And in the first place, will you allow me to ask what led +you to this particular place? It is so much less known to the public at +large than many other resorts that we naturally ask, What brings this or +that new visitor among us? We have no ill-tasting, natural spring of bad +water to be analyzed by the state chemist and proclaimed as a specific. +We have no great gambling-houses, no racecourse (except that for boats +on the lake); we have no coaching-club, no great balls, few lions of any +kind, so we ask, What brings this or that stranger here? And I think I +may venture to ask you whether any, special motive brought you among us, +or whether it was accident that determined your coming to this place.” + +“Certainly, doctor,” Maurice answered, “I will tell you with great +pleasure. Last year I passed on the border of a great river. The year +before I lived in a lonely cottage at the side of the ocean. I wanted +this year to be by a lake. You heard the paper read at the meeting of +your society, or at least you heard of it,--for such matters are always +talked over in a village like this. You can judge by that paper, or +could, if it were before you, of the frame of mind in which I came here. +I was tired of the sullen indifference of the ocean and the babbling +egotism of the river, always hurrying along on its own private business. +I wanted the dreamy stillness of a large, tranquil sheet of water that +had nothing in particular to do, and would leave me to myself and my +thoughts. I had read somewhere about the place, and the old Anchor +Tavern, with its paternal landlord and motherly landlady and +old-fashioned household, and that, though it was no longer open as a +tavern, I could find a resting-place there early in the season, at least +for a few days, while I looked about me for a quiet place in which I +might pass my summer. I have found this a pleasant residence. By being +up early and out late I have kept myself mainly in the solitude which +has become my enforced habit of life. The season has gone by too swiftly +for me since my dream has become a vision.” + +The doctor was sitting with his hand round Maurice's wrist, three +fingers on his pulse. As he spoke these last words he noticed that the +pulse fluttered a little,--beat irregularly a few times; intermitted; +became feeble and thready; while his cheek grew whiter than the pallid +bloodlessness of his long illness had left it. + +“No more talk, now,” he said. “You are too tired to be using your voice. +I will hear all the rest another time.” + +The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interesting point. What did +he mean by saying that his dream had become a vision? This is what the +doctor was naturally curious, and professionally anxious, to know. But +his hand was still on his patient's pulse, which told him unmistakably +that the heart had taken the alarm and was losing its energy under +the depressing nervous influence. Presently, however, it recovered its +natural force and rhythm, and a faint flush came back to the pale cheek. +The doctor remembered the story of Galen, and the young maiden whose +complaint had puzzled the physicians. + +The next day his patient was well enough to enter once more into +conversation. + +“You said something about a dream of yours which had become a vision,” + said the doctor, with his fingers on his patient's wrist, as before. He +felt the artery leap, under his pressure, falter a little, stop, then +begin again, growing fuller in its beat. The heart had felt the pull of +the bridle, but the spur had roused it to swift reaction. + +“You know the story of my past life, doctor,” Maurice answered; “and, I +will tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my dreams. +You remember the boat-race? I watched it from a distance, but I held +a powerful opera-glass in my hand, which brought the whole crew of the +young ladies' boat so close to me that I could see the features, the +figures, the movements, of every one of the rowers. I saw the little +coxswain fling her bouquet in the track of the other boat,--you remember +how the race was lost and won,--but I saw one face among those young +girls which drew me away from all the rest. It was that of the young +lady who pulled the bow oar, the captain of the boat's crew. I have +since learned her name, you know it well,--I need not name her. Since +that day I have had many distant glimpses of her; and once I met her +so squarely that the deadly sensation came over me, and I felt that in +another moment I should fall senseless at her feet. But she passed +on her way and I on mine, and the spasm which had clutched my heart +gradually left it, and I was as well as before. You know that young +lady, doctor?” + +“I do; and she is a very noble creature. You are not the first young man +who has been fascinated, almost at a glance, by Miss Euthymia Tower. And +she is well worth knowing more intimately.” + +The doctor gave him a full account of the young lady, of her early days, +her character, her accomplishments. To all this he listened devoutly, +and when the doctor left him he said to himself, “I will see her and +speak with her, if it costs me my life.” + + + + + + +XXII. EUTHYMIA. + +“The Wonder” of the Corinna Institute had never willingly made a show +of her gymnastic accomplishments. Her feats, which were so much admired, +were only her natural exercise. Gradually the dumb-bells others used +became too light for her, the ropes she climbed too short, the clubs +she exercised with seemed as if they were made of cork instead of being +heavy wood, and all the tests and meters of strength and agility had +been strained beyond the standards which the records of the school had +marked as their historic maxima. It was not her fault that she broke +a dynamometer one day; she apologized for it, but the teacher said he +wished he could have a dozen broken every year in the same way. The +consciousness of her bodily strength had made her very careful in her +movements. The pressure of her hand was never too hard for the tenderest +little maiden whose palm was against her own. So far from priding +herself on her special gifts, she was disposed to be ashamed of them. +There were times and places in which she could give full play to her +muscles without fear or reproach. She had her special costume for the +boat and for the woods. She would climb the rugged old hemlocks now +and then for the sake of a wide outlook, or to peep into the large nest +where a hawk, or it may be an eagle, was raising her little brood of +air-pirates. + +There were those who spoke of her wanderings in lonely places as +an unsafe exposure. One sometimes met doubtful characters about the +neighborhood, and stories were told of occurrences which might well +frighten a young girl, and make her cautious of trusting herself alone +in the wild solitudes which surrounded the little village. Those who +knew Euthymia thought her quite equal to taking care of herself. Her +very look was enough to ensure the respect of any vagabond who might +cross her path, and if matters came to the worst she would prove as +dangerous as a panther. + +But it was a pity to associate this class of thoughts with a noble +specimen of true womanhood. Health, beauty, strength, were fine +qualities, and in all these she was rich. She enjoyed all her natural +gifts, and thought little about them. Unwillingly, but over-persuaded +by some of her friends, she had allowed her arm and hand to be modelled. +The artists who saw the cast wondered if it would be possible to get the +bust of the maiden from whom it was taken. Nobody would have dared to +suggest such an idea to her except Lurida. For Lurida sex was a trifling +accident, to be disregarded not only in the interests of humanity, but +for the sake of art. + +“It is a shame,” she said to Euthymia, “that you will not let your +exquisitely moulded form be perpetuated in marble. You have no right to +withhold such a model from the contemplation of your fellow-creatures. +Think how rare it is to see a woman who truly represents the divine +idea! You belong to your race, and not to yourself,--at least, your +beauty is a gift not to be considered as a piece of private property. +Look at the so-called Venus of Milo. Do you suppose the noble woman who +was the original of that divinely chaste statue felt any scruple about +allowing the sculptor to reproduce her pure, unblemished perfections?” + +Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend. She listened to +her eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, used as she was +to Lurida's audacities. “The Terror's” brain had run away with a large +share of the blood which ought to have gone to the nourishment of her +general system. She could not help admiring, almost worshipping, a +companion whose being was rich in the womanly developments with which +nature had so economically endowed herself. An impoverished organization +carries with it certain neutral qualities which make its subject appear, +in the presence of complete manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-mute +among speaking persons. The deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheek +at Lurida's suggestion was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbed +expression. There was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew far +less than she did of those many and difficult studies which had absorbed +her vital forces. She was startled to see what an effect her proposal +had produced, for Euthymia was not only blushing, but there was a flame +in her eyes which she had hardly ever seen before. + +“Is this only your own suggestion?” Euthymia said, “or has some one been +putting the idea into your head?” The truth was that she had happened +to meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she was offended by +the long, searching stare with which that individual had honored her. It +occurred to her that he, or some such visitor to the place, might have +spoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person who had repeated what +was said to Lurida, as a good subject for the art of the sculptor, +and she felt all her maiden sensibilities offended by the proposition. +Lurida could not understand her excitement, but she was startled by +it. Natures which are complementary of each other are liable to these +accidental collisions of feeling. They get along very well together, +none the worse for their differences, until all at once the tender spot +of one or the other is carelessly handled in utter unconsciousness +on the part of the aggressor, and the exclamation, the outcry, or the +explosion explains the situation altogether too emphatically. Such +scenes did not frequently occur between the two friends, and this little +flurry was soon over; but it served to warn Lurida that Miss Euthymia +Tower was not of that class of self-conscious beauties who would be +ready to dispute the empire of the Venus of Milo on her own ground, in +defences as scanty and insufficient as those of the marble divinity. + +Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, while at school, and +in the long vacations, near enough to find out that she was anything but +easy to make love to. She fairly frightened more than one rash youth +who was disposed to be too sentimental in her company. They overdid +flattery, which she was used to and tolerated, but which cheapened +the admirer in her estimation, and now and then betrayed her into an +expression which made him aware of the fact, and was a discouragement +to aggressive amiability. The real difficulty was that not one of her +adorers had ever greatly interested her. It could not be that nature had +made her insensible. It must have been because the man who was made for +her had never yet shown himself. She was not easy to please, that was +certain; and she was one of those young women who will not accept as +a lover one who but half pleases them. She could not pick up the first +stick that fell in her way and take it to shape her ideal out of. Many +of the good people of the village doubted whether Euthymia would ever be +married. + +“There 's nothing good enough for her in this village,” said the old +landlord of what had been the Anchor Tavern. + +“She must wait till a prince comes along,” the old landlady said in +reply. “She'd make as pretty a queen as any of them that's born to it. +Wouldn't she be splendid with a gold crown on her head, and di'monds a +glitterin' all over her! D' you remember how handsome she looked in the +tableau, when the fair was held for the Dorcas Society? She had on an +old dress of her grandma's,--they don't make anything half so handsome +nowadays,--and she was just as pretty as a pictur'. But what's the use +of good looks if they scare away folks? The young fellows think that +such a handsome girl as that would cost ten times as much to keep as +a plain one. She must be dressed up like an empress,--so they seem to +think. It ain't so with Euthymy: she'd look like a great lady dressed +anyhow, and she has n't got any more notions than the homeliest girl +that ever stood before a glass to look at herself.” + +In the humbler walks of Arrowhead Village society, similar opinions +were entertained of Miss Euthymia. The fresh-water fisherman represented +pretty well the average estimate of the class to which he belonged. +“I tell ye,” said he to another gentleman of leisure, whose chief +occupation was to watch the coming and going of the visitors to +Arrowhead Village,--“I tell ye that girl ain't a gon to put up with any +o' them slab-sided fellahs that you see hangin' raound to look at her +every Sunday when she comes aout o' meetin'. It's one o' them big gents +from Boston or New York that'll step up an' kerry her off.” + +In the mean time nothing could be further from the thoughts of Euthymia +than the prospect of an ambitious worldly alliance. The ideals of young +women cost them many and great disappointments, but they save them very +often from those lifelong companionships which accident is constantly +trying to force upon them, in spite of their obvious unfitness. The +higher the ideal, the less likely is the commonplace neighbor who has +the great advantage of easy access, or the boarding-house acquaintance +who can profit by those vacant hours when the least interesting of +visitors is better than absolute loneliness,--the less likely are these +undesirable personages to be endured, pitied, and, if not embraced, +accepted, for want of something better. Euthymia found so much pleasure +in the intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt her own prudence +and reserve so necessary to that independent young lady, that she had +been contented, so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in an +abstract sort of way. Beneath her abstractions there was a capacity +of loving which might have been inferred from the expression of her +features, the light that shone in her eyes, the tones of her voice, all +of which were full of the language which belongs to susceptible natures. +How many women never say to themselves that they were born to love, +until all at once the discovery opens upon them, as the sense that he +was born a painter is said to have dawned suddenly upon Correggio! + +Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she could not help +thinking a good deal about the young man lying ill amongst strangers. +She was not one of those who had sent him the three-cornered notes or +even a bunch of flowers. She knew that he was receiving abounding tokens +of kindness and sympathy from different quarters, and a certain inward +feeling restrained her from joining in these demonstrations. If he had +been suffering from some deadly and contagious malady she would have +risked her life to help him, without a thought that there was any +wonderful heroism in such self-devotion. Her friend Lurida might have +been capable of the same sacrifice, but it would be after reasoning with +herself as to the obligations which her sense of human rights and duties +laid upon her, and fortifying her courage with the memory of noble +deeds recorded of women in ancient and modern history. With Euthymia the +primary human instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection +about them. All her sympathies were excited by the thought of this +forlorn stranger in his solitude, but she felt the impossibility of +giving any complete expression to them. She thought of Mungo Park in the +African desert, and she envied the poor negress who not only pitied him, +but had the blessed opportunity of helping and consoling him. How near +were these two human creatures, each needing the other! How near in +bodily presence, how far apart in their lives, with a barrier seemingly +impassable between them! + + + + + + +XXIII. THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. + +These autumnal fevers, which carry off a large number of our young +people every year, are treacherous and deceptive diseases. Not only are +they liable, as has been mentioned, to various accidental complications +which may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, after convalescence +seems to be established, relapses occur which are more serious than the +disease had appeared to be in its previous course. One morning Dr. Butts +found Maurice worse instead of better, as he had hoped and expected to +find him. Weak as he was, there was every reason to fear the issue +of this return of his threatening symptoms. There was not much to do +besides keeping up the little strength which still remained. It was all +needed. + +Does the reader of these pages ever think of the work a sick man as much +as a well one has to perform while he is lying on his back and taking +what we call his “rest”? More than a thousand times an hour, between a +hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand times a week, he has to lift +the bars of the cage in which his breathing organs are confined, to save +himself from asphyxia. Rest! There is no rest until the last long sigh +tells those who look upon the dying that the ceaseless daily task, to +rest from which is death, is at last finished. We are all galley-slaves, +pulling at the levers of respiration,--which, rising and falling like so +many oars, drive us across an unfathomable ocean from one unknown shore +to another. No! Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to these +four and twenty oars, at which we must tug day and night all our life +long. + +The doctor could not find any accidental cause to account for this +relapse. It presently occurred to him that there might be some local +source of infection which had brought on the complaint, and was still +keeping up the symptoms which were the ground of alarm. He determined to +remove Maurice to his own house, where he could be sure of pure air, +and where he himself could give more constant attention to his patient +during this critical period of his disease. It was a risk to take, +but he could be carried on a litter by careful men, and remain wholly +passive during the removal. Maurice signified his assent, as he could +hardly help doing,--for the doctor's suggestion took pretty nearly the +form of a command. He thought it a matter of life and death, and was +gently urgent for his patient's immediate change of residence. The +doctor insisted on having Maurice's books and other movable articles +carried to his own house, so that he should be surrounded by familiar +sights, and not worry himself about what might happen to objects which +he valued, if they were left behind him. + +All these dispositions were quickly and quietly made, and everything +was ready for the transfer of the patient to the house of the hospitable +physician. Paolo was at the doctor's, superintending the arrangement +of Maurice's effects and making all ready for his master. The nurse in +attendance, a trustworthy man enough in the main, finding his patient in +a tranquil sleep, left his bedside for a little fresh air. While he +was at the door he heard a shouting which excited his curiosity, and he +followed the sound until he found himself at the border of the lake. It +was nothing very wonderful which had caused the shouting. A Newfoundland +dog had been showing off his accomplishments, and some of the idlers +were betting as to the time it would take him to bring back to his +master the various floating objects which had been thrown as far from +the shore as possible. He watched the dog a few minutes, when his +attention was drawn to a light wherry, pulled by one young lady and +steered by another. It was making for the shore, which it would soon +reach. The attendant remembered all at once, that he had left his +charge, and just before the boat came to land he turned and hurried back +to the patient. Exactly how long he had been absent he could not have +said,--perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps longer; the time appeared +short to him, wearied with long sitting and watching. + +It had seemed, when he stole away from Maurice's bedside, that he was +not in the least needed. The patient was lying perfectly quiet, and to +all appearance wanted nothing more than letting alone. It was such a +comfort to look at something besides the worn features of a sick man, to +hear something besides his labored breathing and faint, half-whispered +words, that the temptation to indulge in these luxuries for a few +minutes had proved irresistible. + +Unfortunately, Maurice's slumbers did not remain tranquil during the +absence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which began +quietly enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which dreams +are in the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, distressing, +terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up before him, +fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as reality. He was at +the bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, narrow galleries, or +rather worm-holes, in which human beings pass a large part of their +lives, like so many larvae boring their way into the beams and rafters +of some old building. How close the air was in the stifling passage +through which he was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing a +slippery sheet of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a +shallow niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyss +below him waiting for his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thin +the air seemed, how desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of +Mont Blanc, it may be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he +remembered well as one of the great trials in his mountain ascents. No, +it was not Mont Blanc,--it was not any one of the frozen Alpine summits; +it was Hecla that he was climbing. + +The smoke of the burning mountain was wrapping itself around him; he was +choking with its dense fumes; he heard the flames roaring around him, he +felt the hot lava beneath his feet, he uttered a faint cry, and awoke. + +The room was full of smoke. He was gasping for breath, strangling in the +smothering oven which his chamber had become. + +The house was on fire! + +He tried to call for help, but his voice failed him, and died away in a +whisper. He made a desperate effort, and rose so as to sit up in the bed +for an instant, but the effort was too much for him, and he sank back +upon his pillow, helpless. He felt that his hour had come, for he could +not live in this dreadful atmosphere, and he was left alone. He could +hear the crackle of fire as the flame crept along from one partition to +another. It was a cruel fate to be left to perish in that way,--the +fate that many a martyr had had to face,--to be first strangled and +then burned. Death had not the terror for him that it has for most +young persons. He was accustomed to thinking of it calmly, sometimes +wistfully, even to such a degree that the thought of self-destruction +had come upon him as a temptation. But here was death in an unexpected +and appalling shape. He did not know before how much he cared to live. +All his old recollections came before him as it were in one long, vivid +flash. The closed vista of memory opened to its far horizon-line, and +past and present were pictured in a single instant of clear vision. The +dread moment which had blighted his life returned in all its terror. He +felt the convulsive spring in the form of a faint, impotent spasm,--the +rush of air,--the thorns of the stinging and lacerating cradle into +which he was precipitated. One after another those paralyzing seizures +which had been like deadening blows on the naked heart seemed to repeat +themselves, as real as at the moment of their occurrence. The pictures +passed in succession with such rapidity that they appeared almost as if +simultaneous. The vision of the “inward eye” was so intensified in this +moment of peril that an instant was like an hour of common existence. +Those who have been very near drowning know well what this description +means. The development of a photograph may not explain it, but it +illustrates the curious and familiar fact of the revived recollections +of the drowning man's experience. The sensitive plate has taken one look +at a scene, and remembers it all, + +Every little circumstance is there,--the hoof in air, the wing in +flight, the leaf as it falls, the wave as it breaks. All there, but +invisible; potentially present, but impalpable, inappreciable, as if not +existing at all. A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene comes +out in all its perfection of detail. In those supreme moments when death +stares a man suddenly in the face the rush of unwonted emotion floods +the undeveloped pictures of vanished years, stored away in the memory, +the vast panorama of a lifetime, and in one swift instant the past comes +out as vividly as if it were again the present. So it was at this moment +with the sick man, as he lay helpless and felt that he was left to die. +For he saw no hope of relief: the smoke was drifting in clouds into +the room; the flames were very near; if he was not reached and rescued +immediately it was all over with him. + +His past life had flashed before him. Then all at once rose the thought +of his future,--of all its possibilities, of the vague hopes which he +had cherished of late that his mysterious doom would be lifted from him. +There was something, then, to be lived for, something! There was a new +life, it might be, in store for him, and such a new life! He thought of +all he was losing. Oh, could he but have lived to know the meaning of +love! And the passionate desire of life came over him,--not the dread of +death, but the longing for what the future might yet have of happiness +for him. + +All this took place in the course of a very few moments. Dreams and +visions have little to do with measured time, and ten minutes, possibly +fifteen or twenty, were all that had passed since the beginning of those +nightmare terrors which were evidently suggested by the suffocating air +he was breathing. + +What had happened? In the confusion of moving books and other articles +to the doctor's house, doors and windows had been forgotten. Among the +rest a window opening into the cellar, where some old furniture had +been left by a former occupant, had been left unclosed. One of the lazy +natives, who had lounged by the house smoking a bad cigar, had thrown +the burning stump in at this open window. He had no particular intention +of doing mischief, but he had that indifference to consequences which is +the next step above the inclination to crime. The burning stump happened +to fall among the straw of an old mattress which had been ripped open. +The smoker went his way without looking behind him, and it so chanced +that no other person passed the house for some time. Presently the straw +was in a blaze, and from this the fire extended to the furniture, to the +stairway leading up from the cellar, and was working its way along the +entry under the stairs leading up to the apartment where Maurice was +lying. + +The blaze was fierce and swift, as it could not help being with such a +mass of combustibles,--loose straw from the mattress, dry old furniture, +and old warped floors which had been parching and shrinking for a score +or two of years. The whole house was, in the common language of the +newspaper reports, “a perfect tinder-box,” and would probably be a heap +of ashes in half an hour. And there was this unfortunate deserted sick +man lying between life and death, beyond all help unless some unexpected +assistance should come to his rescue. + +As the attendant drew near the house where Maurice was lying, he was +horror-struck to see dense volumes of smoke pouring out of the lower +windows. It was beginning to make its way through the upper windows, +also, and presently a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward along +the side of the house. The man shrieked Fire! Fire! with all his might, +and rushed to the door of the building to make his way to Maurice's +room and save him. He penetrated but a short distance when, blinded and +choking with the smoke, he rushed headlong down the stairs with a cry of +despair that roused every man, woman, and child within reach of a human +voice. Out they came from their houses in every quarter of the village. +The shout of Fire! Fire! was the chief aid lent by many of the young and +old. Some caught up pails and buckets: the more thoughtful ones filling +them; the hastier snatching them up empty, trusting to find water nearer +the burning building. + +Is the sick man moved? + +This was the awful question first asked,--for in the little village all +knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's house. The +attendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where he had left him, +and gasped out, + +“He is there!” + +A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed off +in search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there was no +ladder to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick man was going +to be swallowed up in the flames before it could possibly arrive. Some +were going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the hope that the young man +might have strength enough to leap from the window and be safely caught +in it. The attendant shook his head, and said faintly, + +“He cannot move from his bed.” + +One of the visitors at the village,--a millionaire, it was said,--a +kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones: + +“A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!” + +The fresh-water fisherman muttered, “I should like to save the man and +to see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten thaousan' +dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death,--or even chokin' to +death, anyhaow.” + +The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, +recent or old, shook his head. + +“The stairs have been shored up,” he said, “and when the fists that +holds 'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to go +over them stairs. Hurry along your ladder,--that's your only chance.” + +All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they had +gone for was missing from its case,--a neighbor had carried it off for +the workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get there in +time. There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a mile from the +lakeside settlement. Some were throwing on water in an aimless, useless +way; one was sending a thin stream through a garden syringe: it seemed +like doing something, at least. But all hope of saving Maurice was fast +giving way, so rapid was the progress of the flames, so thick the cloud +of smoke that filled the house and poured from the windows. Nothing was +heard but confused cries, shrieks of women, all sorts of orders to +do this and that, no one knowing what was to be done. The ladder! The +ladder! Five minutes more and it will be too late! + +In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had stopped +his work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that in which +they had stood in his apartment, and followed in the direction of the +sound, little thinking that his master was lying helpless in the burning +house. “Some chimney afire,” he said to himself; but he would go and +take a look, at any rate. + +Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending death, +two young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect, +had suddenly joined the throng. “The Wonder” and “The Terror” of their +school-days--Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida Vincent had just come +from the shore, where they had left their wherry. A few hurried words +told them the fearful story. Maurice Kirkwood was lying in the chamber +to which every eye was turned, unable to move, doomed to a dreadful +death. All that could be hoped was that he would perish by suffocation +rather than by the flames, which would soon be upon him. The man who had +attended him had just tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled back +out of the door, almost strangled by the smoke. A thousand dollars had +been offered to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one had +dared to make the attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, if +the smoke did not blind and smother the man who passed them before they +fell. + +The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift moment. + +“How can he be reached?” asked Lurida. “Is there nobody that will +venture his life to save a brother like that?” + +“I will venture mine,” said Euthymia. + +“No! no!” shrieked Lurida,--“not you! not you! It is a man's work, not +yours! You shall not go!” Poor Lurida had forgotten all her theories +in this supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held back. Taking a +handkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail of water and bound +it about her head. Then she took several deep breaths of air, and filled +her lungs as full as they would hold. She knew she must not take a +single breath in the choking atmosphere if she could possibly help it, +and Euthymia was noted for her power of staying under water so long that +more than once those who saw her dive thought she would never come up +again. So rapid were her movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, +who would forcibly have prevented her from carrying out her purpose. +Her imperious determination was not to be resisted. And so Euthymia, a +willing martyr, if martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed within +the veil that hid the sufferer. + +Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground. She was +the first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymia +disappeared in the smoke of the burning building. Even the rector grew +very white in the face,--so white that one of his vestry-men begged him +to sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on his forehead, +to his great disgust and manifest advantage. The old landlady was crying +and moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes and shaking his head +sadly. + +“She will nevar come out alive,” he said solemnly. + +“Nor dead, neither,” added the carpenter. “Ther' won't be nothing left +of neither of 'em but ashes.” And the carpenter hid his face in his +hands. + +The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag which he called a +“hangkercher,”--it had served to carry bait that morning,--and was +making use of its best corner to dry the tears which were running down +his cheeks. The whole village was proud of Euthymia, and with these more +quiet signs of grief were mingled loud lamentations, coming alike from +old and young. + +All this was not so much like a succession of events as it was like a +tableau. The lookers-on were stunned with its suddenness, and before +they had time to recover their bewildered senses all was lost, or seemed +lost. They felt that they should never look again on either of those +young faces. + +The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately professional by +habit, had already recovered enough to be thinking of a text for the +funeral sermon. The first that occurred to him was this,--vaguely, of +course, in the background of consciousness: + +“Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came forth of the midst of the +fire.” + +The village undertaker was of naturally sober aspect and reflective +disposition. He had always been opposed to cremation, and here was a +funeral pile blazing before his eyes. He, too, had his human sympathies, +but in the distance his imagination pictured the final ceremony, and how +he himself should figure in a spectacle where the usual centre piece of +attraction would be wanting,--perhaps his own services uncalled for. + +Blame him not, you whose garden-patch is not watered with the tears of +mourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to every +sound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself trembling to +the wail of the De Profundis. Not always,--not always; let us not be +cynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we may safely say, +is subject to those secondary vibrations under the most solemn and +soul-subduing influences. + +It seems as if we were doing great wrong to the scene we are +contemplating in delaying it by the description of little circumstances +and individual thoughts and feelings. But linger as we may, we cannot +compress into a chapter--we could not crowd into a volume--all that +passed through the minds and stirred the emotions of the awe-struck +company which was gathered about the scene of danger and of terror. We +are dealing with an impossibility: consciousness is a surface; narrative +is a line. + +Maurice had given himself up for lost. His breathing was becoming every +moment more difficult, and he felt that his strength could hold out but +a few minutes longer. + +“Robert!” he called in faint accents. But the attendant was not there to +answer. + +“Paolo! Paolo!” But the faithful servant, who would have given his +life for his master, had not yet reached the place where the crowd was +gathered. + +“Oh, for a breath of air! Oh, for an arm to lift me from this bed! +Too late! Too late!” he gasped, with what might have seemed his dying +expiration. + +“Not too late!” The soft voice reached his obscured consciousness as if +it had come down to him from heaven. + +In a single instant he found himself rolled in a blanket and in the arms +of--a woman! + +Out of the stifling chamber,--over the burning stairs,--close by the +tongues of fire that were lapping up all they could reach,--out into the +open air, he was borne swiftly and safely,--carried as easily as if he +had been a babe, in the strong arms of “The Wonder” of the gymnasium, +the captain of the Atalanta, who had little dreamed of the use she was +to make of her natural gifts and her school-girl accomplishments. + +Such a cry as arose from the crowd of on-lookers! It was a sound that +none of them had ever heard before or could expect ever to hear again, +unless he should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a sinking +vessel. Then, those who had resisted the overflow of their emotion, who +had stood in white despair as they thought of these two young lives +soon to be wrapped in their burning shroud,--those stern men--the old +sea-captain, the hard-faced, moneymaking, cast-iron tradesmen of the +city counting-room--sobbed like hysteric women; it was like a convulsion +that overcame natures unused to those deeper emotions which many who are +capable of experiencing die without ever knowing. + +This was the scene upon which the doctor and Paolo suddenly appeared at +the same moment. + +As the fresh breeze passed over the face of the rescued patient, his +eyes opened wide, and his consciousness returned in almost supernatural +lucidity. Euthymia had sat down upon a bank, and was still supporting +him. His head was resting on her bosom. Through his awakening senses +stole the murmurs of the living cradle which rocked him with the +wavelike movements of respiration, the soft susurrus of the air that +entered with every breath, the double beat of the heart which throbbed +close to his ear. And every sense, and every instinct, and every +reviving pulse told him in language like a revelation from another +world that a woman's arms were around him, and that it was life, and not +death, which her embrace had brought him. + +She would have disengaged him from her protecting hold, but the doctor +made her a peremptory sign, which he followed by a sharp command:-- + +“Do not move him a hair's breadth,” he said. “Wait until the litter +comes. Any sudden movement might be dangerous. Has anybody a brandy +flask about him?” + +One or two members of the local temperance society looked rather +awkward, but did not come forward. + +The fresh-water fisherman was the first who spoke. + +“I han't got no brandy,” he said, “but there's a drop or two of old +Medford rum in this here that you're welcome to, if it'll be of any +help. I alliz kerry a little on 't in case o' gettin' wet 'n' chilled.” + +So saying he held forth a flat bottle with the word Sarsaparilla stamped +on the green glass, but which contained half a pint or more of the +specific on which he relied in those very frequent exposures which +happen to persons of his calling. + +The doctor motioned back Paolo, who would have rushed at once to the aid +of Maurice, and who was not wanted at that moment. So poor Paolo, in an +agony of fear for his master, was kept as quiet as possible, and had to +content himself with asking all sorts of questions and repeating all +the prayers he could think of to Our Lady and to his holy namesake the +Apostle. + +The doctor wiped the mouth of the fisherman's bottle very carefully. +“Take a few drops of this cordial,” he said, as he held it to his +patient's lips. “Hold him just so, Euthymia, without stirring. I will +watch him, and say when he is ready to be moved. The litter is near by, +waiting.” Dr. Butts watched Maurice's pulse and color. The “Old Medford” + knew its business. It had knocked over its tens of thousands; it had its +redeeming virtue, and helped to set up a poor fellow now and then. It +did this for Maurice very effectively. When he seemed somewhat restored, +the doctor had the litter brought to his side, and Euthymia softly +resigned her helpless burden, which Paolo and the attendant Robert +lifted with the aid of the doctor, who walked by the patient as he was +borne to the home where Mrs. Butts had made all ready for his reception. + +As for poor Lurida, who had thought herself equal to the sanguinary +duties of the surgeon, she was left lying on the grass with an old woman +over her, working hard with fan and smelling-salts to bring her back +from her long fainting fit. + + + + + + +XXIV. THE INEVITABLE. + +Why should not human nature be the same in Arrowhead Village as +elsewhere? It could not seem strange to the good people of that place +and their visitors that these two young persons, brought together under +circumstances that stirred up the deepest emotions of which the human +soul is capable, should become attached to each other. But the bond +between them was stronger than any knew, except the good doctor, who had +learned the great secret of Maurice's life. For the first time since +his infancy he had fully felt the charm which the immediate presence +of youthful womanhood carries with it. He could hardly believe the fact +when he found himself no longer the subject of the terrifying seizures +of which he had had many and threatening experiences. + +It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he could +possibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state of +debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. Only by +what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocation +and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It was perfectly +clear to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to whom he +owed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the revolution in his +nervous system which would be the beginning of a new existence, it would +be of far more value as a restorative agency than any or all of the +drugs in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to Euthymia, and explained the +matter to her parents and friends. She must go with him on some of his +visits. Her mother should go with her, or her sister; but this was a +case of life and death, and no maidenly scruples must keep her from +doing her duty. + +The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented a +scene not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of the +old edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of the +little group. He went before the others, took his seat by the bedside, +and held the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. As Euthymia +entered it gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant as if with +a faint memory of its old habit, then throbbed full and strong, +comparatively, as if under the spur of some powerful stimulus. +Euthymia's task was a delicate one, but she knew how to disguise its +difficulty. + +“Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood,” she said, and +handed him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and before +she knew it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a gentle +constraint. What could she do? Here was the young man whose life she +had saved, at least for the moment, and who was yet in danger from the +disease which had almost worn out his powers of resistance. + +“Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side,” said the doctor. “He wants to thank +you, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death which +seemed inevitable.” + +Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanly +tears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with the +dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear. + +The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens it; it lets +the old water-course fill up, and never returns to its forsaken bed. +The tyrannous habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had verified +itself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman had +conquered and abolished. + +The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptional character from the +time of his restoration to his natural conditions. His convalescence +was very slow and gradual, but no further accident interrupted its even +progress. The season was over, the summer visitors had left Arrowhead +Village; the chrysanthemums were going out of flower, the frosts had +come, and Maurice was still beneath the roof of the kind physician. The +relation between him and his preserver was so entirely apart from all +common acquaintances and friendships that no ordinary rules could apply +to it. Euthymia visited him often during the period of his extreme +prostration. + +“You must come every day,” the doctor said. “He gains with every visit +you make him; he pines if you miss him for a single day.” So she came +and sat by him, the doctor or good Mrs. Butts keeping her company in +his presence. He grew stronger,--began to sit up in bed; and at last +Euthymia found him dressed as in health, and beginning to walk about the +room. She was startled. She had thought of herself as a kind of nurse, +but the young gentleman could hardly be said to need a nurse any longer. +She had scruples about making any further visits. She asked Lurida what +she thought about it. + +“Think about it?” said Lurida. “Why should n't you go to see a brother +as well as a sister, I should like to know? If you are afraid to go to +see Maurice Kirkwood, I am not afraid, at any rate. If you would rather +have me go than go yourself, I will do it, and let people talk just as +much as they want to. Shall I go instead of you?” + +Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the best thing for the +patient. The doctor had told her he thought there were special reasons +for her own course in coming daily to see him. “I am afraid,” she said, +“you are too bright to be safe for him in his weak state. Your mind is +such a stimulating one, you know. A dull sort of person like myself is +better for him just now. I will continue visiting him as long as the +doctor says it is important that I should; but you must defend me, +Lurida,--I know you can explain it all so that people will not blame +me.” + +Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's penetrating +head-voice would be in a convalescent's chamber. She knew how that +active mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, when +what he wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not these good and +sufficient reasons for her decision? What others could there be? + +So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she blushed to see that she +was continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to +look too well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition of +affairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in their +comments. Free, but kindly, for the story of the rescue had melted every +heart; and what could be more natural than that these two young people +whom God had brought together in the dread moment of peril should find +it hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour of danger was past? +When gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay his debts; and if +Maurice gave his heart to Euthymia, would not she receive it as payment +in full? + +The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice +Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in +a magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the +austral the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took place +while he was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. For +all the long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found their +natural channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ which +throbs in response to every profound emotion. As his health gradually +returned, Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his cheek, +a glitter in his eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, which +altogether were a warning to the young maiden that the highway of +friendly intercourse was fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of which +her woman's eye could read plainly enough, “Dangerous passing.” + +“You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood,” she said, “that I think +I had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next time we +meet I hope you will be strong enough to call on me.” + +She was frightened to see how pale he turned,--he was weaker than she +thought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Butts +looked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten the +good woman's presence. + +Presently Maurice spoke,--very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a stitch +at the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she listened to +what followed. + +“No! you must not leave me. You must never leave me. You saved my life. +But you have done more than that,--more than you know or can ever know. +To you I owe it that I am living; with you I live henceforth, if I am +to live at all. All I am, all I hope,--will you take this poor offering +from one who owes you everything, whose lips never touched those of +woman or breathed a word of love before you?” + +What could Euthymia reply to this question, uttered with all the depth +of a passion which had never before found expression. + +Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs. Butts overhear. But she +told her husband afterwards that there was nothing in the tableaux they +had had in September to compare with what she then saw. It was indeed a +pleasing picture which those two young heads presented as Euthymia gave +her inarticulate but infinitely expressive answer to the question of +Maurice Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman thought it time to leave the +young people. Down went the stocking with the needles in it; out of her +lap tumbled the ball of worsted, rolling along the floor with its yarn +trailing after it, like some village matron who goes about circulating +from hearth to hearth, leaving all along her track the story of the new +engagement or of the arrival of the last “little stranger.” + +Not many suns had set before it was told all through Arrowhead Village +that Maurice Kirkwood was the accepted lover of Euthymia Tower. + + + + + + +POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, May +18. + +MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA,--Who would have thought, when you broke your oar as +the Atalanta flashed by the Algonquin, last June, that before the roses +came again you would find yourself the wife of a fine scholar and grand +gentleman, and the head of a household such as that of which you are the +mistress? You must not forget your old Arrowhead Village friends. What +am I saying?---you forget them! No, dearest, I know your heart too well +for that! You are not one of those who lay aside their old friendships +as they do last years bonnet when they get a new one. You have told me +all about yourself and your happiness, and now you want me to tell you +about myself and what is going on in our little place. + +And first about myself. I have given up the idea of becoming a doctor. I +have studied mathematics so much that I have grown fond of certainties, +of demonstrations, and medicine deals chiefly in probabilities. The +practice of the art is so mixed up with the deepest human interests that +it is hard to pursue it with that even poise of the intellect which is +demanded by science. I want knowledge pure and simple,--I do not fancy +having it mixed. Neither do I like the thought of passing my life in +going from one scene of suffering to another; I am not saintly enough +for such a daily martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easy +occupation. I fainted at the first operation I saw, and I have never +wanted to see another. I don't say that I wouldn't marry a physician, +if the right one asked me, but the young doctor is not forthcoming at +present. Yes, I think I might make a pretty good doctor's wife. I could +teach him a good deal about headaches and backaches and all sorts of +nervous revolutions, as the doctor says the French women call their +tantrums. I don't know but I should be willing to let him try his new +medicines on me. If he were a homeopath, I know I should; for if a +billionth of a grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my tea or coffee, +I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of anything would poison +me,--no, not if it were snake-venom; and if it were not disgusting, I +would swallow a handful of his lachesis globules, to please my husband. +But if I ever become a doctor's wife, my husband will not be one of that +kind of practitioners, you may be sure of that, nor an “eclectic,” nor +a “faith-cure man.” On the whole, I don't think I want to be married at +all. I don't like the male animal very well (except such noble specimens +as your husband). They are all tyrants,--almost all,--so far as our sex +is concerned, and I often think we could get on better without them. + +However, the creatures are useful in the Society. They send us papers, +some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often that you +would like to know how the Society is getting on, and to read some of +the papers sent to it if they happened to be interesting, that I have +laid aside one or two manuscripts expressly for your perusal. You will +get them by and by. + +I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you. Arrowhead Village +misses him dreadfully, I can tell you. That is the reason people become +so attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in their natures? I +suppose life is not long enough to cool their blood down to our Northern +standard. Then they are so child-like, whereas the native of these +latitudes is never young after he is ten or twelve years old. Mother +says,--you know mother's old-fashioned notions, and how shrewd and +sensible she is in spite of them,--mother says that when she was a +girl families used to import young men and young women from the country +towns, who called themselves “helps,” not servants,--no, that was +Scriptural; “but they did n't know everything down in Judee,” and it is +not good American language. She says that these people would live in the +same household until they were married, and the women often remain in +the same service until they died or were old and worn out, and then, +what with the money they had saved and the care and assistance they got +from their former employers, would pass a decent and comfortable old +age, and be buried in the family lot. Mother has made up her mind to the +change, but grandmother is bitter about it. She says there never was +a country yet where the population was made up of “ladies” and +“gentlemen,” and she does n't believe there can be; nor that putting a +spread eagle on a copper makes a gold dollar of it. She is a pessimist +after her own fashion. She thinks all sentiment is dying out of our +people. No loyalty for the sovereign, the king-post of the political +edifice, she says; no deep attachment between employer and employed; no +reverence of the humbler members of a household for its heads; and to +make sure of continued corruption and misery, what she calls “universal +suffrage” emptying all the sewers into the great aqueduct we all must +drink from. “Universal suffrage!” I suppose we women don't belong to the +universe! Wait until we get a chance at the ballot-box, I tell grandma, +and see if we don't wash out the sewers before they reach the aqueduct! +But my pen has run away with me. I was thinking of Paolo, and what a +pleasant thing it is to have one of those child-like, warm-hearted, +attachable, cheerful, contented, humble, faithful, companionable, but +never presuming grownup children of the South waiting on one, as if +everything he could do for one was a pleasure, and carrying a look of +content in his face which makes every one who meets him happier for a +glimpse of his features. + +It does seem a shame that the charming relation of master and servant, +intelligent authority and cheerful obedience, mutual interest in each +other's welfare, thankful recognition of all the advantages which belong +to domestic service in the better class of families, should be almost +wholly confined to aliens and their immediate descendants. Why should +Hannah think herself so much better than Bridget? When they meet at the +polls together, as they will before long, they will begin to feel more +of an equality than is recognized at present. The native female turns +her nose up at the idea of “living out;” does she think herself so much +superior to the women of other nationalities? Our women will have to +come to it,--so grandmother says,--in another generation or two, and in +a hundred years, according to her prophecy, there will be a new set of +old “Miss Pollys” and “Miss Betseys” who have lived half a century in +the same families, respectful and respected, cherished, cared for in +time of need (citizens as well as servants, holding a ballot as well +as a broom, I tell her), and bringing back to us the lowly, underfoot +virtues of contentment and humility, which we do so need to carpet the +barren and hungry thoroughfare of our unstratified existence. + +There, I have got a-going, and am forgetting all the news I have to tell +you. There is an engagement you will want to know all about. It came to +pass through our famous boat-race, which you and I remember, and shall +never forget as long as we live. It seems that the young fellow who +pulled the bow oar of that men's college boat which we had the pleasure +of beating got some glimpses of Georgina, our handsome stroke oar. I +believe he took it into his head that it was she who threw the bouquet +that won the race for us. He was, as you know, greatly mistaken, and +ought to have made love to me, only he did n't. Well, it seems he came +posting down to the Institute just before the vacation was over, and +there got a sight of Georgina. I wonder whether she told him she didn't +fling the bouquet! Anyhow, the acquaintance began in that way, and now +it seems that this young fellow, good-looking and a bright scholar, but +with a good many months more to pass in college, is her captive. It was +too bad. Just think of my bouquet's going to another girl's credit! No +matter, the old Atalanta story was paid off, at any rate. + +You want to know all about dear Dr. Butts. They say he has just been +offered a Professorship in one of the great medical colleges. I asked +him about it, and he did not say that he had or had not. “But,” said he, +“suppose that I had been offered such a place; do you think I ought to +accept it and leave Arrowhead Village? Let us talk it over,” said he, +“just as if I had had such an offer.” I told him he ought to stay. There +are plenty of men that can get into a Professor's chair, I said, and +talk like Solomons to a class of wondering pupils: but once get a really +good doctor in a place, a man who knows all about everybody, whether +they have this or that tendency, whether when they are sick they have +a way of dying or a way of getting well, what medicines agree with them +and what drugs they cannot take, whether they are of the sort that think +nothing is the matter with them until they are dead as smoked herring, +or of the sort that send for the minister if they get a stomach-ache +from eating too many cucumbers,--who knows all about all the people +within half a dozen miles (all the sensible ones, that is, who employ a +regular practitioner),--such a man as that, I say, is not to be replaced +like a missing piece out of a Springfield musket or a Waltham watch. +Don't go! said I. Stay here and save our precious lives, if you can, or +at least put us through in the proper way, so that we needn't be ashamed +of ourselves for dying, if we must die. Well, Dr. Butts is not going +to leave us. I hope you will have no unwelcome occasion for his +services,--you are never ill, you know,--but, anyhow, he is going to be +here, and no matter what happens he will be on hand. + +The village news is not of a very exciting character. Item 1. A new +house is put up over the ashes of the one in which your husband +lived while he was here. It was planned by one of the autochthonous +inhabitants with the most ingenious combination of inconveniences that +the natural man could educe from his original perversity of intellect. +To get at any one room you must pass through every other. It is blind, +or nearly so, on the only side which has a good prospect, and commands +a fine view of the barn and pigsty through numerous windows. Item 2. We +have a small fire-engine near the new house which can be worked by a man +or two, and would be equal to the emergency of putting out a bunch of +fire-crackers. Item 3. We have a new ladder, in a bog, close to the new +fire-engine, so if the new house catches fire, like its predecessor, and +there should happen to, be a sick man on an upper floor, he can be got +out without running the risk of going up and down a burning staircase. +What a blessed thing it was that there was no fire-engine near by and no +ladder at hand on the day of the great rescue! If there had been, what a +change in your programme of life! You remember that “cup of tea spilt +on Mrs. Masham's apron,” which we used to read of in one of Everett's +Orations, and all its wide-reaching consequences in the affairs of +Europe. I hunted up that cup of tea as diligently as ever a Boston +matron sought for the last leaves in her old caddy after the tea-chests +had been flung overboard at Griffin's wharf,--but no matter about that, +now. That is the way things come about in this world. I must write a +lecture on lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, fortunate calamities. It +will be just the converse of that odd essay of Swift's we read together, +the awkward and stupid things done with the best intentions. Perhaps I +shall deliver the lecture in your city: you will come and hear it, and +bring him, won't you, dearest? Always, your loving + +LURIDA. + + + + + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +It seems forever since you left us, dearest Euthymia! And are you, and +is your husband, and Paolo,--good Paolo,--are you all as well and happy +as you have been and as you ought to be? I suppose our small village +seems a very quiet sort of place to pass the winter in, now that you +have become accustomed to the noise and gayety of a great city. For all +that, it is a pretty busy place this winter, I can tell you. We have +sleighing parties,--I never go to them, myself, because I can't keep +warm, and my mind freezes up when my blood cools down below 95 or 96 +deg. Fahrenheit. I had a great deal rather sit by a good fire and +read about Arctic discoveries. But I like very well to hear the bells' +jingling and to see the young people trying to have a good time as hard +as they do at a picnic. It may be that they do, but to me a picnic is +purgatory and a sleigh-ride that other place, where, as my favorite +Milton says, “frost performs the effect of fire.” I believe I have +quoted him correctly; I ought to, for I could repeat half his poems from +memory once, if I cannot now. + +You must have plenty of excitement in your city life. I suppose you +recognized yourself in one of the society columns of the “Household +Inquisitor:” “Mrs. E. K., very beautiful, in an elegant,” etc., etc., +“with pearls,” etc., etc.,--as if you were not the ornament of all that +you wear, no matter what it is! + +I am so glad that you have married a scholar! Why should not +Maurice--you both tell me to call him so--take the diplomatic office +which has been offered him? It seems to me that he would find himself in +exactly the right place. He can talk in two or three languages, has good +manners, and a wife who--well, what shall I say of Mrs. Kirkwood but +that “she would be good company for a queen,” as our old friend the +quondam landlady of the Anchor Tavern used to say? I should so like to +see you presented at Court! It seems to me that I should be willing to +hold your train for the sake of seeing you in your court feathers and +things. + +As for myself, I have been thinking of late that I would become either a +professional lecturer or head mistress of a great school or college for +girls. I have tried the first business a little. Last month I delivered +a lecture on Quaternions. I got three for my audience; two came over +from the Institute, and one from that men's college which they try to +make out to be a university, and where no female is admitted unless she +belongs among the quadrupeds. I enjoyed lecturing, but the subject is +a difficult one, and I don't think any one of them had any very clear +notion of what I was talking about, except Rhodora,--and I know she did +n't. To tell the truth, I was lecturing to instruct myself. I mean to +try something easier next time. I have thought of the Basque language +and literature. What do you say to that? + +The Society goes on famously. We have had a paper presented and read +lately which has greatly amused some of us and provoked a few of the +weaker sort. The writer is that crabbed old Professor of Belles-Lettres +at that men's college over there. He is dreadfully hard on the poor +“poets,” as they call themselves. It seems that a great many young +persons, and more especially a great many young girls, of whom the +Institute has furnished a considerable proportion, have taken to sending +him their rhymed productions to be criticised,--expecting to be praised, +no doubt, every one of them. I must give you one of the sauciest +extracts from his paper in his own words: + +“It takes half my time to read the 'poems' sent me by young people +of both sexes. They would be more shy of doing it if they knew that I +recognize a tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, +and the publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence of +ambitious mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are exceptions +to this rule of judgment, but I maintain that the presumption is always +against the rhymester as compared with the less pretentious persons +about him or her, busy with some useful calling,--too busy to be tagging +rhymed commonplaces together. Just now there seems to be an epidemic +of rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, or the sweating sickness. +After reading a certain amount of manuscript verse one is disposed to +anathematize the inventor of homophonous syllabification. [This phrase +made a great laugh when it was read.] This, that is rhyming, must have +been found out very early, + + + “'Where are you, Adam?' + + “'Here am I, Madam;' + +“but it can never have been habitually practised until after the Fall. +The intrusion of tintinnabulating terminations into the conversational +intercourse of men and angels would have spoiled Paradise itself. Milton +would not have them even in Paradise Lost, you remember. For my own +part, I wish certain rhymes could be declared contraband of written or +printed language. Nothing should be allowed to be hurled at the world or +whirled with it, or furled upon it or curled over it; all eyes should +be kept away from the skies, in spite of os homini sublime dedit; youth +should be coupled with all the virtues except truth; earth should +never be reminded of her birth; death should never be allowed to stop +a mortal's breath, nor the bell to sound his knell, nor flowers from +blossoming bowers to wave over his grave or show their bloom upon his +tomb. We have rhyming dictionaries,--let us have one from which all +rhymes are rigorously excluded. The sight of a poor creature grubbing +for rhymes to fill up his sonnet, or to cram one of those voracious, +rhyme-swallowing rigmaroles which some of our drudging poetical +operatives have been exhausting themselves of late to satiate with +jingles, makes my head ache and my stomach rebel. Work, work of some +kind, is the business of men and women, not the making of jingles! +No,--no,--no! I want to see the young people in our schools and +academies and colleges, and the graduates of these institutions, +lifted up out of the little Dismal Swamp of self-contemplating and +self-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism which is surfeiting +the land with those literary sandwiches,--thin slices of tinkling +sentimentality between two covers looking like hard-baked gilt +gingerbread. But what faces these young folks make up at my good advice! +They get tipsy on their rhymes. Nothing intoxicates one like his--or +her--own verses, and they hold on to their metre-ballad-mongering as the +fellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to the gas-bag.” + +We laughed over this essay of the old Professor; though it hit us pretty +hard. The best part of the joke is that the old man himself published +a thin volume of poems when he was young, which there is good reason to +think he is not very proud of, as they say he buys up all the copies he +can find in the shops. No matter what they say, I can't help agreeing +with him about this great flood of “poetry,” as it calls itself, and +looking at the rhyming mania much as he does. + +How I do love real poetry! That is the reason hate rhymes which have not +a particle of it in them. The foolish scribblers that deal in them are +like bad workmen in a carpenter's shop. They not only turn out bad jobs +of work, but they spoil the tools for better workmen. There is hardly a +pair of rhymes in the English language that is not so dulled and hacked +and gapped by these 'prentice hands that a master of the craft hates to +touch them, and yet he cannot very well do without them. I have not +been besieged as the old Professor has been with such multitudes +of would-be-poetical aspirants that he could not even read their +manuscripts, but I have had a good many letters containing verses, and I +have warned the writers of the delusion under which they were laboring. + +You may like to know that I have just been translating some extracts +from the Greek Anthology. I send you a few specimens of my work, with a +Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I hope you will find something of +the Greek rhythm in my versions, and that I have caught a spark of +inspiration from the impassioned Lesbian. I have found great delight +in this work, at any rate, and am never so happy as when I read from my +manuscript or repeat from memory the lines into which I have transferred +the thought of the men and women of two thousand years ago, or given +rhythmical expression to my own rapturous feelings with regard to them. +I must read you my Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I cannot help +thinking that you will like it better than either of my last two, The +Song of the Roses, or The Wail of the Weeds. + +How I do miss you, dearest! I want you: I want you to listen to what I +have written; I want you to hear all about my plans for the future; I +want to look at you, and think how grand it must be to feel one's self +to be such a noble and beautiful-creature; I want to wander in the woods +with you, to float on the lake, to share your life and talk over every +day's doings with you. Alas! I feel that we have parted as two friends +part at a port of embarkation: they embrace, they kiss each other's +cheeks, they cover their faces and weep, they try to speak good-by to +each other, they watch from the pier and from the deck; the two forms +grow less and less, fainter and fainter in the distance, two white +handkerchiefs flutter once and again, and yet once more, and the last +visible link of the chain which binds them has parted. Dear, dear, +dearest Euthymia, my eyes are running over with tears when I think that +we may never, never meet again. + +Don't you want some more items of village news? We are threatened with +an influx of stylish people: “Buttons” to answer the door-bell, in place +of the chamber-maid; “butler,” in place of the “hired man;” footman +in top-boots and breeches, cockade on hat, arms folded a la Napoleon; +tandems, “drags,” dogcarts, and go-carts of all sorts. It is rather +amusing to look at their ambitious displays, but it takes away the good +old country flavor of the place. + +I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when you come back to +spend your summers here. I suppose you must have a large house, and I +am sure you will have a beautiful one. I suppose you will have some fine +horses, and who would n't be glad to? But I do not believe you will try +to make your old Arrowhead Village friends stare their eyes out of their +heads with a display meant to outshine everybody else that comes here. +You can have a yacht on the lake, if you like, but I hope you will pull +a pair of oars in our old boat once in a while, with me to steer you. I +know you will be just the same dear Euthymia you always were and always +must be. How happy you must make such a man as Maurice Kirkwood! And how +happy you ought to be with him!--a man who knows what is in books, and +who has seen for himself, what is in men. If he has not seen so much of +women, where could he study all that is best in womanhood as he can in +his own wife? Only one thing that dear Euthymia lacks. She is not quite +pronounced enough in her views as to the rights and the wrongs of +the sex. When I visit you, as you say I shall, I mean to indoctrinate +Maurice with sound views on that subject. I have written an essay for +the Society, which I hope will go a good way towards answering all the +objections to female suffrage. I mean to read it to your husband, if +you will let me, as I know you will, and perhaps you would like to hear +it,--only you know my thoughts on the subject pretty well already. + +With all sorts of kind messages to your dear husband, and love to your +precious self, I am ever your LURIDA. + + + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +MY DEAR EUTHYMIA,--My pen refuses to call you by any other name. +Sweet-souled you are, and your Latinized Greek name is--the one which +truly designates you. I cannot tell you how we have followed you, with +what interest and delight through your travels, as you have told their +story in your letters to your mother. She has let us have the privilege +of reading them, and we have been with you in steamer, yacht, felucca, +gondola, Nile-boat; in all sorts of places, from crowded capitals to +“deserts where no men abide,”--everywhere keeping company with you in +your natural and pleasant descriptions of your experiences. And now that +you have returned to your home in the great city I must write you a few +lines of welcome, if nothing more. + +You will find Arrowhead Village a good deal changed since you left it. +We are discovered by some of those over-rich people who make the little +place upon which they swarm a kind of rural city. When this happens +the consequences are striking,--some of them desirable and some far +otherwise. The effect of well-built, well-furnished, well-kept houses +and of handsome grounds always maintained in good order about them shows +itself in a large circuit around the fashionable centre. Houses get on +a new coat of paint, fences are kept in better order, little plots +of flowers show themselves where only ragged weeds had rioted, the +inhabitants present themselves in more comely attire and drive in +handsomer vehicles with more carefully groomed horses. On the other +hand, there is a natural jealousy on the part of the natives of the +region suddenly become fashionable. They have seen the land they sold at +farm prices by the acre coming to be valued by the foot, like the +corner lots in a city. Their simple and humble modes of life look almost +poverty-stricken in the glare of wealth and luxury which so outshines +their plain way of living. It is true that many of them have found them +selves richer than in former days, when the neighborhood lived on +its own resources. They know how to avail themselves of their altered +position, and soon learn to charge city prices for country products; but +nothing can make people feel rich who see themselves surrounded by men +whose yearly income is many times their own whole capital. I think it +would be better if our rich men scattered themselves more than they +do,--buying large country estates, building houses and stables which +will make it easy to entertain their friends, and depending for society +on chosen guests rather than on the mob of millionaires who come +together for social rivalry. But I do not fret myself about it. Society +will stratify itself according to the laws of social gravitation. It +will take a generation or two more, perhaps, to arrange the strata by +precipitation and settlement, but we can always depend on one principle +to govern the arrangement of the layers. People interested in the same +things will naturally come together. The youthful heirs of fortunes +who keep splendid yachts have little to talk about with the oarsman who +pulls about on the lake or the river. What does young Dives, who drives +his four-in-hand and keeps a stable full of horses, care about Lazarus, +who feels rich in the possession of a horse-railroad ticket? You +know how we live at our house, plainly, but with a certain degree of +cultivated propriety. We make no pretensions to what is called “style.” + We are still in that social stratum where the article called “a +napkin-ring” is recognized as admissible at the dinner-table. That fact +sufficiently defines our modest pretensions. The napkin-ring is the +boundary mark between certain classes. But one evening Mrs. Butts and +I went out to a party given by the lady of a worthy family, where the +napkin itself was a newly introduced luxury. The conversation of the +hostess and her guests turned upon details of the kitchen and the +laundry; upon the best mode of raising bread, whether with “emptins” + (emptyings, yeast) or baking powder; about “bluing” and starching and +crimping, and similar matters. Poor Mrs. Butts! She knew nothing more +about such things than her hostess did about Shakespeare and the musical +glasses. What was the use of trying to enforce social intercourse under +such conditions? Incompatibility of temper has been considered ground +for a divorce; incompatibility of interests is a sufficient warrant for +social separation. The multimillionaires have so much that is common +among themselves, and so little that they share with us of moderate +means, that they will naturally form a specialized class, and in virtue +of their palaces, their picture-galleries, their equipages, their +yachts, their large hospitality, constitute a kind of exclusive +aristocracy. Religion, which ought to be the great leveller, cannot +reduce these elements to the same grade. You may read in the parable, +“Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?” The +modern version would be, “How came you at Mrs. Billion's ball not having +a dress on your back which came from Paris?” + +The little church has got a new stained window, a saint who reminds me +of Hamlet's uncle,--a thing “of shreds and patches,” but rather pretty +to look at, with an inscription under it which is supposed to be the +name of the person in whose honor the window was placed in the church. +Smith was a worthy man and a faithful churchwarden, and I hope posterity +will be able to spell out his name on his monumental window; but that +old English lettering would puzzle Mephistopheles himself, if he found +himself before this memorial tribute, on the inside,--you know he goes +to church sometimes, if you remember your Faust. + +The rector has come out, in a quiet way, as an evolutionist. He +has always been rather “broad” in his views, but cautious in their +expression. You can tell the three branches of the mother-island church +by the way they carry their heads. The low-church clergy look down, as +if they felt themselves to be worms of the dust; the high-church priest +drops his head on one side, after the pattern of the mediaeval saints; +the broad-church preacher looks forward and round about him, as if he +felt himself the heir of creation. Our rector carries his head in the +broad-church aspect, which I suppose is the least open to the charge of +affectation,--in fact, is the natural and manly way of carrying it. + +The Society has justified its name of Pansophian of late as never +before. Lurida has stirred up our little community and its neighbors, so +that we get essays on all sorts of subjects, poems and stories in large +numbers. I know all about it, for she often consults me as to the merits +of a particular contribution. + +What is to be the fate of Lurida? I often think, with no little interest +and some degree of anxiety, about her future. Her body is so frail and +her mind so excessively and constantly active that I am afraid one or +the other will give way. I do not suppose she thinks seriously of ever +being married. She grows more and more zealous in behalf of her own sex, +and sterner in her judgment of the other. She declares that she never +would marry any man who was not an advocate of female suffrage, and as +these gentlemen are not very common hereabouts the chance is against her +capturing any one of the hostile sex. + +What do you think? I happened, just as I was writing the last sentence, +to look out of my window, and whom should I see but Lurida, with a young +man in tow, listening very eagerly to her conversation, according to all +appearance! I think he must be a friend of the rector, as I have seen a +young man like this one in his company. Who knows? + +Affectionately yours, etc. + + + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. + +MY BELOVED WIFE,--This letter will tell you more news than you would +have thought could have been got together in this little village during +the short time you have been staying away from it. + +Lurida Vincent is engaged! He is a clergyman with a mathematical +turn. The story is that he put a difficult problem into one of the +mathematical journals, and that Lurida presented such a neat solution +that the young man fell in love with her on the strength of it. I don't +think the story is literally true, nor do I believe that other report +that he offered himself to her in the form of an equation chalked on the +blackboard; but that it was an intellectual rather than a sentimental +courtship I do not doubt. Lurida has given up the idea of becoming +a professional lecturer,--so she tells me,--thinking that her future +husband's parish will find her work enough to do. A certain amount of +daily domestic drudgery and unexciting intercourse with simple-minded +people will be the best thing in the world for that brain of hers, +always simmering with some new project in its least fervid condition. + +All our summer visitors have arrived. Euthymia Mrs. Maurice Kirkwood and +her husband and little Maurice are here in their beautiful house looking +out on the lake. They gave a grand party the other evening. You ought +to have been there, but I suppose you could not very well have left your +sister in the middle of your visit: All the grand folks were there, of +course. Lurida and her young man--Gabriel is what she calls him--were +naturally the objects of special attention. Paolo acted as major-domo, +and looked as if he ought to be a major-general. Nothing could be +pleasanter than the way in which Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood received their +plain country neighbors; that is, just as they did the others of more +pretensions, as if they were really glad to see them, as I am sure they +were. The old landlord and his wife had two arm-chairs to themselves, +and I saw Miranda with the servants of the household looking in at +the dancers and out at the little groups in the garden, and evidently +enjoying it as much as her old employers. It was a most charming and +successful party. We had two sensations in the course of the evening. +One was pleasant and somewhat exciting, the other was thrilling and of +strange and startling interest. + +You remember how emaciated poor Maurice Kirkwood was left after his +fever, in that first season when he was among us. He was out in a boat +one day, when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a place +where the water was rather shallow. “Jake”--you know Jake,--everybody +knows Jake--was rowing him. He promised to come to the spot and fish +up the ring if he could possibly find it. He was seen poking about with +fish-hooks at the end of a pole, but nothing was ever heard from +him about the ring. It was an antique intaglio stone in an Etruscan +setting,--a wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. Kirkwood valued it +highly, and regretted its loss very much. + +While we were in the garden, who should appear at the gate but Jake, +with a great basket, inquiring for Mr. Kirkwood. “Come,” said Maurice to +me, “let us see what our old friend the fisherman has brought us. What +have you got there, Jake?” + +“What I 've got? Wall, I 'll tell y' what I've got: I 've got the +biggest pickerel that's been ketched in this pond for these ten year. +An' I 've got somethin' else besides the pickerel. When I come to cut +him open, what do you think I faound in his insides but this here ring +o' yourn,”--and he showed the one Maurice had lost so long before. There +it was, as good as new, after having tried Jonah's style of housekeeping +for all that time. There are those who discredit Jake's story about +finding the ring in the fish; anyhow, there was the ring and there +was the pickerel. I need not say that Jake went off well paid for his +pickerel and the precious contents of its stomach. Now comes the chief +event of the evening. I went early by special invitation. Maurice took +me into his library, and we sat down together. + +“I have something of great importance,” he said, “to say to you. I +learned within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a friend +in the next town to this. You know, doctor, that we have never met since +the last, almost fatal, experience of my early years. I have determined +to defy the strength of that deadly chain of associations connected +with her presence, and I have begged her to come this evening with the +friends with whom she is staying. Several letters passed between us, +for it was hard to persuade her that there was no longer any risk in my +meeting her. Her imagination was almost as deeply impressed as mine had +been at those alarming interviews, and I had to explain to her fully +that I had become quite indifferent to the disturbing impressions of +former years. So, as the result of our correspondence, Laura is coming +this evening, and I wish you to be present at our meeting. There is +another reason why I wish you to be here. My little boy is not far from +the age at which I received my terrifying, almost disorganizing shock. +I mean to have little Maurice brought into the presence of Laura, who is +said to be still a very handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hint +of that peculiar sensitiveness which showed itself in my threatening +seizure. It seemed to me not impossible that he might inherit some +tendency of that nature, and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of +danger should declare itself. For myself I have no fear. Some radical +change has taken place in my nervous system. I have been born again, as +it were, in my susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new man. +But I must know how it is with my little Maurice.” + +Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment; for +experiment it was, and not without its sources of anxiety, as it seemed +to me. The evening wore along; friends and neighbors came in, but +no Laura as yet. At last I heard the sound of wheels, and a carriage +stopped at the door. Two ladies and a gentleman got out, and soon +entered the drawing room. + +“My cousin Laura!” whispered Maurice to me, and went forward to +meet her. A very handsome woman, who might well have been in the +thirties,--one of those women so thoroughly constituted that they cannot +help being handsome at every period of life. I watched them both as +they approached each other. Both looked pale at first, but Maurice soon +recovered his usual color, and Laura's natural, rich bloom came back by +degrees. Their emotion at meeting was not to be wondered at, but there +was no trace in it of the paralyzing influence on the great centres of +life which had once acted upon its fated victim like the fabled head +which turned the looker-on into a stone. + +“Is the boy still awake?” said Maurice to Paolo, who, as they used to +say of Pushee at the old Anchor Tavern, was everywhere at once on that +gay and busy evening. + +“What! Mahser Maurice asleep an' all this racket going on? I hear him +crowing like young cockerel when he fus' smell daylight.” + +“Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the little room that leads +out of the library.” + +The child was brought down in his night-clothes, wide awake, wondering +apparently at the noise he heard, which he seemed to think was for his +special amusement. + +“See if he will go to that lady,” said his father. Both of us held our +breath as Laura stretched her arms towards little Maurice. + +The child looked for an instant searchingly, but fearlessly, at her +glowing cheeks, her bright eyes, her welcoming smile, and met her +embrace as she clasped him to her bosom as if he had known her all his +days. + +The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and the blood of Maurice +Kirkwood at that supreme moment when he found himself snatched from the +grasp of death and cradled in the arms of Euthymia. + + + -------------------------- + +In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it began with a prefix +which the reader may by this time have forgotten, namely, the First +Opening. It was perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability of a +second opening. + +I am reminded from time to time by the correspondents who ask a certain +small favor of me that, as I can only expect to be with my surviving +contemporaries a very little while longer, they would be much obliged if +I would hurry up my answer before it is too late. They are right, these +delicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding me of a fact which I +cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my recollection. I thank +them for recalling my attention to a truth which I shall be wiser, if +not more hilarious, for remembering. + +No, I had no right to say the First Opening. How do I know that I shall +have a chance to open it again? How do I know that anybody will want it +to be opened a second time? How do I know that I shall feel like opening +it? It is safest neither to promise to open the New Portfolio once more, +nor yet to pledge myself to keep it closed hereafter. There are many +papers potentially existent in it, some of which might interest a +reader here and there. The Records of the Pansophian Society contain +a considerable number of essays, poems, stories, and hints capable of +being expanded into presentable dimensions. In the mean time I will say +with Prospero, addressing my old readers, and my new ones, if such I +have, + + + “If you be pleased, retire into my cell + And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, + To still my beating mind.” + +When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again, and +consider whether it is worth while to open it consider whether it is +worth while to open it. + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Mortal Antipathy, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, +Sr. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MORTAL ANTIPATHY *** + +***** This file should be named 2698-0.txt or 2698-0.zip ***** This and all +associated files of various formats will be found in: https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/2698/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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W. Holmes, Jr.] + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Mortal Antipathy + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #2698] +Last Updated: February 18, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MORTAL ANTIPATHY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <h1> + A MORTAL ANTIPATHY + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Oliver Wendell Holmes + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE. </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION. </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. </a><br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> <b>A MORTAL ANTIPATHY.</b> </a><br /><br /> + <br /><br /><a href="#link2H_4_0006"> I. </a>GETTING READY. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0007"> II. </a>THE BOAT-RACE. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0008"> III. </a>THE WHITE CANOE. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0009"> IV. </a>THE YOUNG SOLITARY <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0010"> V. </a>THE ENIGMA STUDIED. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0011"> VI. </a>STILL AT FAULT. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0012"> VII. </a>A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0013"> VIII. </a>THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0014"> IX. </a>THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0015"> X. </a>A NEW ARRIVAL. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0016"> XI. </a>THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0017"> XII. </a>MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0018"> XIII. </a>DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0019"> XIV. </a>MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. + <br /><br /><a href="#link2H_4_0020"> XV. </a>DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. + <br /><br /><a href="#link2H_4_0021"> XVI. </a>MISS VINCENT WRITES A + LETTER. <br /><br /><a href="#link2H_4_0022"> XVII. </a>Dr. BUTTS'S + PATIENT. <br /><br /><a href="#link2H_4_0023"> XVIII. </a>MAURICE + KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. <br /><br /><a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XIX. + </a>THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0025"> XX. </a>DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0026"> XXI. </a>AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXII. </a>EUTHYMIA. <br /><br /><a + href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXIII. </a>THE MEETING OF + MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. <br /><br /><a href="#link2H_4_0029"> XXIV. </a>THE + INEVITABLE. <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> POSTSCRIPT: + AFTER-GLIMPSES. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> MISS LURIDA + VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0032"> DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. </a><br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. </a><br /><br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + PREFACE. + </h2> + <p> + “A MORTAL ANTIPATHY” was a truly hazardous experiment. A very wise and + very distinguished physician who is as much at home in literature as he is + in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me in referring to this + story: “I should have been afraid of my subject.” He did not explain + himself, but I can easily understand that he felt the improbability of the + physiological or pathological occurrence on which the story is founded to + be so great that the narrative could hardly be rendered plausible. I felt + the difficulty for myself as well as for my readers, and it was only by + recalling for our consideration a series of extraordinary but + well-authenticated facts of somewhat similar character that I could hope + to gain any serious attention to so strange a narrative. + </p> + <p> + I need not recur to these wonderful stories. There is, however, one, not + to be found on record elsewhere, to which I would especially call the + reader's attention. It is that of the middle-aged man, who assured me that + he could never pass a tall hall clock without an indefinable terror. While + an infant in arms the heavy weight of one of these tall clocks had fallen + with a loud crash and produced an impression on his nervous system which he + had never got over. + </p> + <p> + The lasting effect of a shock received by the sense of sight or that of + hearing is conceivable enough. + </p> + <p> + But there is another sense, the nerves of which are in close relation with + the higher organs of consciousness. The strength of the associations + connected with the function of the first pair of nerves, the olfactory, is + familiar to most persons in their own experience and as related by others. + Now we know that every human being, as well as every other living + organism, carries its own distinguishing atmosphere. If a man's friend + does not know it, his dog does, and can track him anywhere by it. This + personal peculiarity varies with the age and conditions of the individual. + It may be agreeable or otherwise, a source of attraction or repulsion, but + its influence is not less real, though far less obvious and less dominant, + than in the lower animals. It was an atmospheric impression of this nature + which associated itself with a terrible shock experienced by the infant + which became the subject of this story. The impression could not be + outgrown, but it might possibly be broken up by some sudden change in the + nervous system effected by a cause as potent as the one which had produced + the disordered condition. + </p> + <p> + This is the best key that I can furnish to a story which must have puzzled + some, repelled others, and failed to interest many who did not suspect the + true cause of the mysterious antipathy. + </p> + <p> + BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August, 1891. O. W. H. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + </h1> + <h2> + FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INTRODUCTION. + </h2> + <h3> + “And why the New Portfolio, I would ask?” + </h3> + <p> + Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession to the nursery in which + you have a special interest, whether the new-comer was commonly spoken of + as a baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under all conditions, + in all companies, by the whole household, spoken of as the baby? And was + the small receptacle provided for it commonly spoken of as a cradle; or + was it not always called the cradle, as if there were no other in + existence? + </p> + <p> + Now this New Portfolio is the cradle in which I am to rock my new-born + thoughts, and from which I am to lift them carefully and show them to + callers, namely, to the whole family of readers belonging to my list of + intimates, and such other friends as may drop in by accident. And so it + shall have the definite article, and not be lost in the mob of its fellows + as a portfolio. + </p> + <p> + There are a few personal and incidental matters of which I wish to say + something before reaching the contents of the Portfolio, whatever these + may be. I have had other portfolios before this,—two, more + especially, and the first thing I beg leave to introduce relates to these. + </p> + <p> + Do not throw this volume down, or turn to another page, when I tell you + that the earliest of them, that of which I now am about to speak, was + opened more than fifty years ago. This is a very dangerous confession, for + fifty years make everything hopelessly old-fashioned, without giving it + the charm of real antiquity. If I could say a hundred years, now, my + readers would accept all I had to tell them with a curious interest; but + fifty years ago,—there are too many talkative old people who know + all about that time, and at best half a century is a half-baked bit of + ware. A coin-fancier would say that your fifty-year-old facts have just + enough of antiquity to spot them with rust, and not enough to give them—the + delicate and durable patina which is time's exquisite enamel. + </p> + <p> + When the first Portfolio was opened the coin of the realm bore for its + legend,—or might have borne if the more devout hero-worshippers + could have had their way,—Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. + Caesar. Aug. Div., Max., etc., etc. I never happened to see any gold or + silver with that legend, but the truth is I was not very familiarly + acquainted with the precious metals at that period of my career, and, + there might have been a good deal of such coin in circulation without my + handling it, or knowing much about it. + </p> + <p> + Permit me to indulge in a few reminiscences of that far-off time. + </p> + <p> + In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a principal centre of + attraction to young Boston people and their visitors. Many of us got our + first ideas of art, to say nothing of our first lessons in the + comparatively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive period, in that + agreeable resort of amateurs and artists. + </p> + <p> + How the pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places in + the mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red enough in it + for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full-length portrait of + the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's long-waistcoated + gentlemen and satin-clad ladies,—they looked like gentlemen and + ladies, too; and Stuart's florid merchants and high-waisted matrons; and + Allston's lovely Italian scenery and dreamy, unimpassioned women, not + forgetting Florimel in full flight on her interminable rocking-horse,—you + may still see her at the Art Museum; and the rival landscapes of Doughty + and Fisher, much talked of and largely praised in those days; and the + Murillo,—not from Marshal Soup's collection; and the portrait of + Annibale Caracci by himself, which cost the Athenaeum a hundred dollars; + and Cole's allegorical pictures, and his immense and dreary canvas, in + which the prostrate shepherds and the angel in Joseph's coat of many + colors look as if they must have been thrown in for nothing; and West's + brawny Lear tearing his clothes to pieces. But why go on with the + catalogue, when most of these pictures can be seen either at the Athenaeum + building in Beacon Street or at the Art Gallery, and admired or criticised + perhaps more justly, certainly not more generously, than in those earlier + years when we looked at them through the japanned fish-horns? + </p> + <p> + If one happened to pass through Atkinson Street on his way to the + Athenaeum, he would notice a large, square, painted, brick house, in which + lived a leading representative of old-fashioned coleopterous Calvinism, + and from which emerged one of the liveliest of literary butterflies. The + father was editor of the “Boston Recorder,” a very respectable, but very + far from amusing paper, most largely patronized by that class of the + community which spoke habitually of the first day of the week as “the + Sahbuth.” The son was the editor of several different periodicals in + succession, none of them over severe or serious, and of many pleasant + books, filled with lively descriptions of society, which he studied on the + outside with a quick eye for form and color, and with a certain amount of + sentiment, not very deep, but real, though somewhat frothed over by his + worldly experiences. + </p> + <p> + Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when I opened my first + Portfolio. He had made himself known by his religious poetry, published in + his father's paper, I think, and signed “Roy.” He had started the + “American Magazine,” afterwards merged in the “New York Mirror.” He had + then left off writing scripture pieces, and taken to lighter forms of + verse. He had just written + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I'm twenty-two, I'm twenty-two, + They idly give me joy, + As if I should be glad to know + That I was less a boy.” + </pre> + <p> + He was young, therefore, and already famous. He came very near being very + handsome. He was tall; his hair, of light brown color, waved in luxuriant + abundance; his cheek was as rosy as if it had been painted to show behind + the footlights; he dressed with artistic elegance. He was something + between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an anticipation of Oscar Wilde. + There used to be in the gallery of the Luxembourg a picture of Hippolytus + and Phxdra, in which the beautiful young man, who had kindled a passion in + the heart of his wicked step-mother, always reminded me of Willis, in + spite of the shortcomings of the living face as compared with the ideal. + The painted youth is still blooming on the canvas, but the fresh-cheeked, + jaunty young author of the year 1830 has long faded out of human sight. I + took the leaves which lie before me at this moment, as I write, from his + coffin, as it lay just outside the door of Saint Paul's Church, on a sad, + overclouded winter's day, in the year 1867. At that earlier time, Willis + was by far the most prominent young American author. Cooper, Irving, + Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Drake, had all done their best work. Longfellow was + not yet conspicuous. Lowell was a school-boy. Emerson was unheard of. + Whittier was beginning to make his way against the writers with better + educational advantages whom he was destined to outdo and to outlive. Not + one of the great histories, which have done honor to our literature, had + appeared. Our school-books depended, so far as American authors were + concerned, on extracts from the orations and speeches of Webster and + Everett; on Bryant's Thanatopsis, his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death + of the Flowers, Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on + Drake's American Flag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping + and Genius Waking,—and not getting very wide awake, either. These + could be depended upon. A few other copies of verses might be found, but + Dwight's “Columbia, Columbia,” and Pierpont's Airs of Palestine, were + already effaced, as many of the favorites of our own day and generation + must soon be, by the great wave which the near future will pour over the + sands in which they still are legible. + </p> + <p> + About this time, in the year 1832, came out a small volume entitled + “Truth, a Gift for Scribblers,” which made some talk for a while, and is + now chiefly valuable as a kind of literary tombstone on which may be read + the names of many whose renown has been buried with their bones. The + “London Athenaeum” spoke of it as having been described as a “tomahawk + sort of satire.” As the author had been a trapper in Missouri, he was + familiarly acquainted with that weapon and the warfare of its owners. Born + in Boston, in 1804, the son of an army officer, educated at West Point, he + came back to his native city about the year 1830. He wrote an article on + Bryant's Poems for the “North American Review,” and another on the famous + Indian chief, Black Hawk. In this last-mentioned article he tells this + story as the great warrior told it himself. It was an incident of a fight + with the Osages. + </p> + <p> + “Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist and tear the + scalp from his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushed furiously + upon another, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran my lance + through his body, took off his scalp, and returned in triumph to my + father. He said nothing, but looked pleased.” + </p> + <p> + This little red story describes very well Spelling's style of literary + warfare. His handling of his most conspicuous victim, Willis, was very + much like Black Hawk's way of dealing with the Osage. He tomahawked him in + heroics, ran him through in prose, and scalped him in barbarous epigrams. + Bryant and Halleck were abundantly praised; hardly any one else escaped. + </p> + <p> + If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputation that were floating, + some of them gay with prismatic colors, half a century ago, he will find + in the pages of “Truth” a long catalogue of celebrities he never heard of. + I recognize only three names, of all which are mentioned in the little + book, as belonging to persons still living; but as I have not read the + obituaries of all the others, some of them may be still flourishing in + spite of Mr. Spelling's exterminating onslaught. Time dealt as hardly with + poor Spelling, who was not without talent and instruction, as he had dealt + with our authors. I think he found shelter at last under a roof which held + numerous inmates, some of whom had seen better and many of whom had known + worse days than those which they were passing within its friendly and not + exclusive precincts. Such, at least, was the story I heard after he + disappeared from general observation. + </p> + <p> + That was the day of Souvenirs, Tokens, Forget-me-nots, Bijous, and all + that class of showy annuals. Short stories, slender poems, steel + engravings, on a level with the common fashion-plates of advertising + establishments, gilt edges, resplendent binding,—to manifestations + of this sort our lighter literature had very largely run for some years. + The “Scarlet Letter” was an unhinted possibility. The “Voices of the + Night” had not stirred the brooding silence; the Concord seer was still in + the lonely desert; most of the contributors to those yearly volumes, which + took up such pretentious positions on the centre table, have shrunk into + entire oblivion, or, at best, hold their place in literature by a scrap or + two in some omnivorous collection. + </p> + <p> + What dreadful work Spelling made among those slight reputations, floating + in swollen tenuity on the surface of the stream, and mirroring each other + in reciprocal reflections! Violent, abusive as he was, unjust to any + against whom he happened to have a prejudice, his castigation of the small + litterateurs of that day was not harmful, but rather of use. His attack on + Willis very probably did him good; he needed a little discipline, and + though he got it too unsparingly, some cautions came with it which were + worth the stripes he had to smart under. One noble writer Spelling treated + with rudeness, probably from some accidental pique, or equally + insignificant reason. I myself, one of the three survivors before referred + to, escaped with a love-pat, as the youngest son of the Muse. Longfellow + gets a brief nod of acknowledgment. Bailey, an American writer, “who made + long since a happy snatch at fame,” which must have been snatched away + from him by envious time, for I cannot identify him; Thatcher, who died + early, leaving one poem, The Last Request, not wholly unremembered; Miss + Hannah F. Gould, a very bright and agreeable writer of light verse,—all + these are commended to the keeping of that venerable public carrier, who + finds his scythe and hour-glass such a load that he generally drops the + burdens committed to his charge, after making a show of paying every + possible attention to them so long as he is kept in sight. + </p> + <p> + It was a good time to open a portfolio. But my old one had boyhood written + on every page. A single passionate outcry when the old warship I had read + about in the broadsides that were a part of our kitchen literature, and in + the “Naval Monument,” was threatened with demolition; a few verses + suggested by the sight of old Major Melville in his cocked hat and + breeches, were the best scraps that came out of that first Portfolio, + which was soon closed that it should not interfere with the duties of a + profession authorized to claim all the time and thought which would have + been otherwise expended in filling it. + </p> + <p> + During a quarter of a century the first Portfolio remained closed for the + greater part of the time. Only now and then it would be taken up and + opened, and something drawn from it for a special occasion, more + particularly for the annual reunions of a certain class of which I was a + member. + </p> + <p> + In the year 1857, towards its close, the “Atlantic Monthly,” which I had + the honor of naming, was started by the enterprising firm of Phillips + & Sampson, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. He + thought that I might bring something out of my old Portfolio which would + be not unacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor old + receptacle, which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had lost its + freshness, and seemed hardly presentable to the new company expected to + welcome the new-comer in the literary world of Boston, the least + provincial of American centres of learning and letters. The gilded + covering where the emblems of hope and aspiration had looked so bright had + faded; not wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold become dim!—-how + was the most fine gold changed! Long devotion to other pursuits had left + little time for literature, and the waifs and strays gathered from the old + Portfolio had done little more than keep alive the memory that such a + source of supply was still in existence. I looked at the old Portfolio, + and said to myself, “Too late! too late. This tarnished gold will never + brighten, these battered covers will stand no more wear and tear; close + them, and leave them to the spider and the book-worm.” + </p> + <p> + In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had + condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period. When, a + little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the “Saturday + Club” gathered about the long table at “Parker's,” such a representation + of all that was best in American literature had never been collected + within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whom educated foreigners + cared to see-leaving out of consideration official dignitaries, whose + temporary importance makes them objects of curiosity—were seated at + that board. But the club did not yet exist, and the “Atlantic Monthly” was + an experiment. There had already been several monthly periodicals, more or + less successful and permanent, among which “Putnam's Magazine” was + conspicuous, owing its success largely to the contributions of that very + accomplished and delightful writer, Mr. George William Curtis. That + magazine, after a somewhat prolonged and very honorable existence, had + gone where all periodicals go when they die, into the archives of the + deaf, dumb, and blind recording angel whose name is Oblivion. It had so + well deserved to live that its death was a surprise and a source of + regret. Could another monthly take its place and keep it when that, with + all its attractions and excellences, had died out, and left a blank in our + periodical literature which it would be very hard to fill as well as that + had filled it? + </p> + <p> + This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured upon, + and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn around the + scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given myself to other + studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell insisted upon my + becoming a contributor. And so, yielding to a pressure which I could not + understand, and yet found myself unable to resist, I promised to take a + part in the new venture, as an occasional writer in the columns of the new + magazine. + </p> + <p> + That was the way in which the second Portfolio found its way to my table, + and was there opened in the autumn of the year 1857. I was already at + least + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'Nel mezzo del cammin di mia, vita,' +</pre> + <p> + when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little-tried paths of what + looked at first like a wilderness, a selva oscura, where, if I did not + meet the lion or the wolf, I should be sure to find the critic, the most + dangerous of the carnivores, waiting to welcome me after his own fashion. + </p> + <p> + The second Portfolio is closed and laid away. Perhaps it was hardly worth + while to provide and open a new one; but here it lies before me, and I + hope I may find something between its covers which will justify me in + coming once more before my old friends. But before I open it I want to + claim a little further indulgence. + </p> + <p> + There is a subject of profound interest to almost every writer, I might + say to almost every human being. No matter what his culture or ignorance, + no matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, the subject I + refer to is one of which he rarely ceases to think, and, if opportunity is + offered, to talk. On this he is eloquent, if on nothing else. The slow of + speech becomes fluent; the torpid listener becomes electric with vivacity, + and alive all over with interest. + </p> + <p> + The sagacious reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. He is + accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who has a + subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the depressing + disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted with the + conversational amenities of the cordial and interesting stranger, who, + having had the misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in the cars, or of + having his pocket picked at the station, finds himself without the means + of reaching that distant home where affluence waits for him with its + luxurious welcome, but to whom for the moment the loan of some five and + twenty dollars would be a convenience and a favor for which his heart + would ache with gratitude during the brief interval between the loan and + its repayment. + </p> + <p> + I wish to say a few words in my own person relating to some passages in my + own history, and more especially to some of the recent experiences through + which I have been passing. + </p> + <p> + What can justify one in addressing himself to the general public as if it + were his private correspondent? There are at least three sufficient + reasons: first, if he has a story to tell that everybody wants to hear,—if + he has been shipwrecked, or has been in a battle, or has witnessed any + interesting event, and can tell anything new about it; secondly, if he can + put in fitting words any common experiences not already well told, so that + readers will say, “Why, yes! I have had that sensation, thought, emotion, + a hundred times, but I never heard it spoken of before, and I never saw + any mention of it in print;” and thirdly, anything one likes, provided he + can so tell it as to make it interesting. + </p> + <p> + I have no story to tell in this Introduction which can of itself claim any + general attention. My first pages relate the effect of a certain literary + experience upon myself,—a series of partial metempsychoses of which + I have been the subject. Next follows a brief tribute to the memory of a + very dear and renowned friend from whom I have recently been parted. The + rest of the Introduction will be consecrated to the memory of my + birthplace. + </p> + <p> + I have just finished a Memoir, which will appear soon after this page is + written, and will have been the subject of criticism long before it is in + the reader's hands. The experience of thinking another man's thoughts + continuously for a long time; of living one's self into another man's life + for a month, or a year, or more, is a very curious one. No matter how much + superior to the biographer his subject may be, the man who writes the life + feels himself, in a certain sense, on the level of the person whose life + he is writing. One cannot fight over the battles of Marengo or Austerlitz + with Napoleon without feeling as if he himself had a fractional claim to + the victory, so real seems the transfer of his personality into that of + the conqueror while he reads. Still more must this identification of + “subject” and “object” take place when one is writing of a person whose + studies or occupations are not unlike his own. + </p> + <p> + Here are some of my metempsychoses: Ten years ago I wrote what I called A + Memorial Outline of a remarkable student of nature. He was a born + observer, and such are far from common. He was also a man of great + enthusiasm and unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what others + passed by without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see only + pebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his companion + would poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a prize at the + end of it. Getting his single facts together with marvellous sagacity and + long-breathed patience, he arranged them, classified them, described them, + studied them in their relations, and before those around him were aware of + it the collector was an accomplished naturalist. When—he died his + collections remained, and they still remain, as his record in the hieratic + language of science. In writing this memoir the spirit of his quiet + pursuits, the even temper they bred in him, gained possession of my own + mind, so that I seemed to look at nature through his gold-bowed + spectacles, and to move about his beautifully ordered museum as if I had + myself prepared and arranged its specimens. I felt wise with his wisdom, + fair-minded with his calm impartiality; it seemed as if for the time his + placid, observant, inquiring, keen-sighted nature “slid into my soul,” and + if I had looked at myself in the glass I should almost have expected to + see the image of the Hersey professor whose life and character I was + sketching. + </p> + <p> + A few years hater I lived over the life of another friend in writing a + Memoir of which he was the subject. I saw him, the beautiful, bright-eyed + boy, with dark, waving hair; the youthful scholar, first at Harvard, then + at Gottingen and Berlin, the friend and companion of Bismarck; the young + author, making a dash for renown as a novelist, and showing the elements + which made his failures the promise of success in a larger field of + literary labor; the delving historian, burying his fresh young manhood in + the dusty alcoves of silent libraries, to come forth in the face of Europe + and America as one of the leading historians of the time; the diplomatist, + accomplished, of captivating presence and manners, an ardent American, and + in the time of trial an impassioned and eloquent advocate of the cause of + freedom; reaching at last the summit of his ambition as minister at the + Court of Saint James. All this I seemed to share with him as I tracked his + career from his birthplace in Dorchester, and the house in Walnut Street + where he passed his boyhood, to the palaces of Vienna and London. And then + the cruel blow which struck him from the place he adorned; the great + sorrow that darkened his later years; the invasion of illness, a threat + that warned of danger, and after a period of invalidism, during a part of + which I shared his most intimate daily life, the sudden, hardly unwelcome, + final summons. Did not my own consciousness migrate, or seem, at least, to + transfer itself into this brilliant life history, as I traced its glowing + record? I, too, seemed to feel the delight of carrying with me, as if they + were my own, the charms of a presence which made its own welcome + everywhere. I shared his heroic toils, I partook of his literary and + social triumphs, I was honored by the marks of distinction which gathered + about him, I was wronged by the indignity from which he suffered, mourned + with him in his sorrow, and thus, after I had been living for months with + his memory, I felt as if I should carry a part of his being with me so + long as my self-consciousness might remain imprisoned in the ponderable + elements. + </p> + <p> + The years passed away, and the influences derived from the companionships + I have spoken of had blended intimately with my own current of being. Then + there came to me a new experience in my relations with an eminent member + of the medical profession, whom I met habitually for a long period, and to + whose memory I consecrated a few pages as a prelude to a work of his own, + written under very peculiar circumstances. He was the subject of a slow, + torturing, malignant, and almost necessarily fatal disease. Knowing well + that the mind would feed upon itself if it were not supplied with food + from without, he determined to write a treatise on a subject which had + greatly interested him, and which would oblige him to bestow much of his + time and thought upon it, if indeed he could hold out to finish the work. + During the period while he was engaged in writing it, his wife, who had + seemed in perfect health, died suddenly of pneumonia. Physical suffering, + mental distress, the prospect of death at a near, if uncertain, time + always before him, it was hard to conceive a more terrible strain than + that which he had to endure. When, in the hour of his greatest need, his + faithful companion, the wife of many years of happy union, whose hand had + smoothed his pillow, whose voice had consoled and cheered him, was torn + from him after a few days of illness, I felt that my friend's trial was + such that the cry of the man of many afflictions and temptations might + well have escaped from his lips: “I was at ease, but he hath broken me + asunder; he hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set + me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my + reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the + ground.” + </p> + <p> + I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after this crushing blow. + What a lesson he gave me of patience under sufferings which the fearful + description of the Eastern poet does not picture too vividly! We have been + taught to admire the calm philosophy of Haller, watching his faltering + pulse as he lay dying; we have heard the words of pious resignation said + to have been uttered with his last breath by Addison: but here was a + trial, not of hours, or days, or weeks, but of months, even years, of + cruel pain, and in the midst of its thick darkness the light of love, + which had burned steadily at his bedside, was suddenly extinguished. + </p> + <p> + There were times in which the thought would force itself upon my + consciousness, How long is the universe to look upon this dreadful + experiment of a malarious planet, with its unmeasurable freight of + suffering, its poisonous atmosphere, so sweet to breathe, so sure to kill + in a few scores of years at farthest, and its heart-breaking woes which + make even that brief space of time an eternity? There can be but one + answer that will meet this terrible question, which must arise in every + thinking nature that would fain “justify the ways of God to men.” So must + it be until that + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “one far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves” + </pre> + <p> + has become a reality, and the anthem in which there is no discordant note + shall be joined by a voice from every life made “perfect through + sufferings.” + </p> + <p> + Such was the lesson into which I lived in those sad yet placid years of + companionship with my suffering and sorrowing friend, in retracing which I + seemed to find another existence mingled with my own. + </p> + <p> + And now for many months I have been living in daily relations of intimacy + with one who seems nearer to me since he has left us than while he was + here in living form and feature. I did not know how difficult a task I had + undertaken in venturing upon a memoir of a man whom all, or almost all, + agree upon as one of the great lights of the New World, and whom very many + regard as an unpredicted Messiah. Never before was I so forcibly reminded + of Carlyle's description of the work of a newspaper editor,—that + threshing of straw already thrice beaten by the flails of other laborers + in the same field. What could be said that had not been said of + “transcendentalism” and of him who was regarded as its prophet; of the + poet whom some admired without understanding, a few understood, or thought + they did, without admiring, and many both understood and admired,—among + these there being not a small number who went far beyond admiration, and + lost themselves in devout worship? While one exalted him as “the greatest + man that ever lived,” another, a friend, famous in the world of letters, + wrote expressly to caution me against the danger of overrating a writer + whom he is content to recognize as an American Montaigne, and nothing + more. + </p> + <p> + After finishing this Memoir, which has but just left my hands, I would + gladly have let my brain rest for a while. The wide range of thought which + belonged to the subject of the Memoir, the occasional mysticism and the + frequent tendency toward it, the sweep of imagination and the sparkle of + wit which kept his reader's mind on the stretch, the union of prevailing + good sense with exceptional extravagances, the modest audacity of a nature + that showed itself in its naked truthfulness and was not ashamed, the + feeling that I was in the company of a sibylline intelligence which was + discounting the promises of the remote future long before they were due,—all + this made the task a grave one. But when I found myself amidst the + vortices of uncounted, various, bewildering judgments, Catholic and + Protestant, orthodox and liberal, scholarly from under the tree of + knowledge and instinctive from over the potato-hill; the passionate + enthusiasm of young adorers and the cool, if not cynical, estimate of + hardened critics, all intersecting each other as they whirled, each around + its own centre, I felt that it was indeed very difficult to keep the + faculties clear and the judgment unbiassed. + </p> + <p> + It is a great privilege to have lived so long in the society of such a + man. “He nothing common” said, “or mean.” He was always the same pure and + high-souled companion. After being with him virtue seemed as natural to + man as its opposite did according to the old theologies. But how to let + one's self down from the high level of such a character to one's own poor + standard? I trust that the influence of this long intellectual and + spiritual companionship never absolutely leaves one who has lived in it. + It may come to him in the form of self-reproach that he falls so far short + of the superior being who has been so long the object of his + contemplation. But it also carries him at times into the other's + personality, so that he finds himself thinking thoughts that are not his + own, using phrases which he has unconsciously borrowed, writing, it may + be, as nearly like his long-studied original as Julio Romano's painting + was like Raphael's; and all this with the unquestioning conviction that he + is talking from his own consciousness in his own natural way. So far as + tones and expressions and habits which belonged to the idiosyncrasy of the + original are borrowed by the student of his life, it is a misfortune for + the borrower. But to share the inmost consciousness of a noble thinker, to + scan one's self in the white light of a pure and radiant soul,—this + is indeed the highest form of teaching and discipline. + </p> + <p> + I have written these few memoirs, and I am grateful for all that they have + taught me. But let me write no more. There are but two biographers who can + tell the story of a man's or a woman's life. One is the person himself or + herself; the other is the Recording Angel. The autobiographer cannot be + trusted to tell the whole truth, though he may tell nothing but the truth, + and the Recording Angel never lets his book go out of his own hands. As + for myself, I would say to my friends, in the Oriental phrase, “Live + forever!” Yes, live forever, and I, at least, shall not have to wrong your + memories by my imperfect record and unsatisfying commentary. + </p> + <p> + In connection with these biographies, or memoirs, more properly, in which + I have written of my departed friends, I hope my readers will indulge me + in another personal reminiscence. I have just lost my dear and honored + contemporary of the last century. A hundred years ago this day, December + 13, 1784, died the admirable and ever to be remembered Dr. Samuel Johnson. + The year 1709 was made ponderous and illustrious in English biography by + his birth. My own humble advent to the world of protoplasm was in the year + 1809 of the present century. Summer was just ending when those four + letters, “son b.” were written under the date of my birth, August 29th. + Autumn had just begun when my great pre-contemporary entered this + un-Christian universe and was made a member of the Christian church on the + same day, for he was born and baptized on the 18th of September. + </p> + <p> + Thus there was established a close bond of relationship between the great + English scholar and writer and myself. Year by year, and almost month by + month, my life has kept pace in this century with his life in the last + century. I had only to open my Boswell at any time, and I knew just what + Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, was thinking and doing; + what were his feelings about life; what changes the years had wrought in + his body, his mind, his feelings, his companionships, his reputation. It + was for me a kind of unison between two instruments, both playing that old + familiar air, “Life,”—one a bassoon, if you will, and the other an + oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace + with each other until the players both grew old and gray. At last the + thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment + rolls out its thunder no more. + </p> + <p> + I feel lonely now that my great companion and friend of so many years has + left me. I felt more intimately acquainted with him than I do with many of + my living friends. I can hardly remember when I did not know him. I can + see him in his bushy wig, exactly like that of the Reverend Dr. Samuel + Cooper (who died in December, 1783) as Copley painted him,—he hangs + there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. His ample coat, too, I see, + with its broad flaps and many buttons and generous cuffs, and beneath it + the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, arching in front of the + fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar Falstaffian prominence, involving no + less than a dozen of the above-mentioned buttons, and the strong legs with + their sturdy calves, fitting columns of support to the massive body and + solid, capacious brain enthroned over it. I can hear him with his heavy + tread as he comes in to the Club, and a gap is widened to make room for + his portly figure. “A fine day,” says Sir Joshua. “Sir,” he answers, “it + seems propitious, but the atmosphere is humid and the skies are nebulous,” + at which the great painter smiles, shifts his trumpet, and takes a pinch + of snuff. + </p> + <p> + Dear old massive, deep-voiced dogmatist and hypochondriac of the + eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, + between you and the bony, “mighty-mouthed,” harsh-toned termagant and + dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the + snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the + shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our “spiritualist's” paper in the + Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know what I + shall find when it is opened. + </p> + <p> + Yes, my life is a little less precious to me since I have lost that dear + old friend; and when the funeral train moves to Westminster Abbey next + Saturday, for I feel as if this were 1784, and not 1884,—I seem to + find myself following the hearse, one of the silent mourners. + </p> + <p> + Among the events which have rendered the past year memorable to me has + been the demolition of that venerable and interesting old dwelling-house, + precious for its intimate association with the earliest stages of the war + of the Revolution, and sacred to me as my birthplace and the home of my + boyhood. + </p> + <p> + The “Old Gambrel-roofed House” exists no longer. I remember saying + something, in one of a series of papers published long ago, about the + experience of dying out of a house,—of leaving it forever, as the + soul dies out of the body. We may die out of many houses, but the house + itself can die but once; and so real is the life of a house to one who has + dwelt in it, more especially the life of the house which held him in + dreamy infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate youth,—so real, I + say, is its life, that it seems as if something like a soul of it must + outlast its perishing frame. + </p> + <p> + The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed House was, I am ready to admit, a + case of justifiable domicide. Not the less was it to be deplored by all + who love the memories of the past. With its destruction are obliterated + some of the footprints of the heroes and martyrs who took the first steps + in the long and bloody march which led us through the wilderness to the + promised land of independent nationality. Personally, I have a right to + mourn for it as a part of my life gone from me. My private grief for its + loss would be a matter for my solitary digestion, were it not that the + experience through which I have just passed is one so familiar to my + fellow-countrymen that, in telling my own reflections and feelings, I am + repeating those of great numbers of men and women who have had the + misfortune to outlive their birthplace. + </p> + <p> + It is a great blessing to be born surrounded by a natural horizon. The Old + Gambrel-roofed House could not boast an unbroken ring of natural objects + encircling it. Northerly it looked upon its own outbuildings and some + unpretending two-story houses which had been its neighbors for a century + and more. To the south of it the square brick dormitories and the + bellfried hall of the university helped to shut out the distant view. But + the west windows gave a broad outlook across the common, beyond which the + historical “Washington elm” and two companions in line with it, spread + their leaves in summer and their networks in winter. And far away rose the + hills that bounded the view, with the glimmer here and there of the white + walls or the illuminated casements of some embowered, half-hidden villa. + Eastwardly also, the prospect was, in my earlier remembrance, widely open, + and I have frequently seen the sunlit sails gliding along as if through + the level fields, for no water was visible. So there were broad expanses + on two sides at least, for my imagination to wander over. + </p> + <p> + I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's horizon with us all + our days. Among these western wooded hills my day-dreams built their fairy + palaces, and even now, as I look at them from my library window, across + the estuary of the Charles, I find myself in the familiar home of my early + visions. The “clouds of glory” which we trail with us in after life need + not be traced to a pre-natal state. There is enough to account for them in + that unconsciously remembered period of existence before we have learned + the hard limitations of real life. Those earliest months in which we lived + in sensations without words, and ideas not fettered in sentences, have all + the freshness of proofs of an engraving “before the letter.” I am very + thankful that the first part of my life was not passed shut in between + high walls and treading the unimpressible and unsympathetic pavement. + </p> + <p> + Our university town was very much like the real country, in those days of + which I am thinking. There were plenty of huckleberries and blueberries + within half a mile of the house. Blackberries ripened in the fields, + acorns and shagbarks dropped from the trees, squirrels ran among the + branches, and not rarely the hen-hawk might be seen circling over the + barnyard. Still another rural element was not wanting, in the form of that + far-diffused, infragrant effluvium, which, diluted by a good half mile of + pure atmosphere, is no longer odious, nay is positively agreeable, to many + who have long known it, though its source and centre has an unenviable + reputation. I need not name the animal whose Parthian warfare terrifies + and puts to flight the mightiest hunter that ever roused the tiger from + his jungle or faced the lion of the desert. Strange as it may seem, an + aerial hint of his personality in the far distance always awakens in my + mind pleasant remembrances and tender reflections. A whole neighborhood + rises up before me: the barn, with its haymow, where the hens laid their + eggs to hatch, and we boys hid our apples to ripen, both occasionally + illustrating the sic vos non vobis; the shed, where the annual Tragedy of + the Pig was acted with a realism that made Salvini's Othello seem but a + pale counterfeit; the rickety old outhouse, with the “corn-chamber” which + the mice knew so well; the paved yard, with its open gutter,—these + and how much else come up at the hint of my far-off friend, who is my very + near enemy. Nothing is more familiar than the power of smell in reviving + old memories. There was that quite different fragrance of the wood-house, + the smell of fresh sawdust. It comes back to me now, and with it the hiss + of the saw; the tumble of the divorced logs which God put together and man + has just put asunder; the coming down of the axe and the hah! that helped + it,—the straight-grained stick opening at the first appeal of the + implement as if it were a pleasure, and the stick with a knot in the + middle of it that mocked the blows and the hahs! until the beetle and + wedge made it listen to reason,—there are just such straight-grained + and just such knotty men and women. All this passes through my mind while + Biddy, whose parlor-name is Angela, contents herself with exclaiming + “egh!*******!” + </p> + <p> + How different distances were in those young days of which I am thinking! + From the old house to the old yellow meeting-house, where the head of the + family preached and the limbs of the family listened, was not much more + than two or three times the width of Commonwealth Avenue. But of a hot + summer's afternoon, after having already heard one sermon, which could not + in the nature of things have the charm of novelty of presentation to the + members of the home circle, and the theology of which was not too clear to + tender apprehensions; with three hymns more or less lugubrious, rendered + by a village-choir, got into voice by many preliminary snuffles and other + expiratory efforts, and accompanied by the snort of a huge bassviol which + wallowed through the tune like a hippopotamus, with other exercises of the + customary character,—after all this in the forenoon, the afternoon + walk to the meeting-house in the hot sun counted for as much, in my + childish dead-reckoning, as from old Israel Porter's in Cambridge to the + Exchange Coffeehouse in Boston did in after years. It takes a good while + to measure the radius of the circle that is about us, for the moon seems + at first as near as the watchface. Who knows but that, after a certain + number of ages, the planet we live on may seem to us no bigger than our + neighbor Venus appeared when she passed before the sun a few months ago, + looking as if we could take her between our thumb and finger, like a + bullet or a marble? And time, too; how long was it from the serious + sunrise to the joyous “sun-down” of an old-fashioned, puritanical, + judaical first day of the week, which a pious fraud christened “the + Sabbath”? Was it a fortnight, as we now reckon duration, or only a week? + Curious entities, or non-entities, space and tithe? When you see a + metaphysician trying to wash his hands of them and get rid of these + accidents, so as to lay his dry, clean palm on the absolute, does it not + remind you of the hopeless task of changing the color of the blackamoor by + a similar proceeding? For space is the fluid in which he is washing, and + time is the soap which he is using up in the process, and he cannot get + free from them until he can wash himself in a mental vacuum. + </p> + <p> + In my reference to the old house in a former paper, published years ago, I + said, + </p> + <p> + “By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant itself on + this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung so + tenaciously to the place and its habitations will have died with those who + cherished them.” + </p> + <p> + What strides the great University has taken since those words were + written! During all my early years our old Harvard Alma Mater sat still + and lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all at once, like + the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her pedestal. The fall of that + “stony foot” has effected a miracle like the harp that Orpheus played, + like the teeth which Cadmus sowed. The plain where the moose and the bear + were wandering while Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, where a few plain + dormitories and other needed buildings were scattered about in my + school-boy days, groans under the weight of the massive edifices which + have sprung up all around them, crowned by the tower of that noble + structure which stands in full view before me as I lift my eyes from the + portfolio on the back of which I am now writing. + </p> + <p> + For I must be permitted to remind you that I have not yet opened it. I + have told you that I have just finished a long memoir, and that it has + cost me no little labor to overcome some of its difficulties,—if I + have overcome them, which others must decide. And I feel exactly as honest + Dobbin feels when his harness is slipped off after a long journey with a + good deal of up-hill work. He wants to rest a little, then to feed a + little; then, if you will turn him loose in the pasture, he wants to roll. + I have left my starry and ethereal companionship,—not for a long + time, I hope, for it has lifted me above my common self, but for a while. + And now I want, so to speak, to roll in the grass and among the dandelions + with the other pachyderms. So I have kept to the outside of the portfolio + as yet, and am disporting myself in reminiscences, and fancies, and + vagaries, and parentheses. + </p> + <p> + How well I understand the feeling which led the Pisans to load their + vessels with earth from the Holy Land, and fill the area of the Campo + Santo with that sacred soil! The old house stood upon about as perverse a + little patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved earth-worm. It + was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. The rustic aid-de-camps + of the household used to aver that all fertilizing matters “leached” + through it. I tried to disprove their assertion by gorging it with the + best of terrestrial nourishment, until I became convinced that I was + feeding the tea-plants of China, and then I gave over the attempt. And yet + I did love, and do love, that arid patch of ground. I wonder if a single + flower could not be made to grow in a pot of earth from that Campo Santo + of my childhood! One noble product of nature did not refuse to flourish + there,—the tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, many-jointed, + generous maize or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and defies the blaze + of our shrivelling summer. What child but loves to wander in its + forest-like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and with the lofty tassels + tossing their heads high above him! There are two aspects of the cornfield + which always impress my imagination: the first when it has reached its + full growth, and its ordered ranks look like an army on the march with its + plumed and bannered battalions; the second when, after the battle of the + harvest, the girdled stacks stand on the field of slaughter like so many + ragged Niobes,—say rather like the crazy widows and daughters of the + dead soldiery. + </p> + <p> + Once more let us come back to the old house. It was far along in its + second century when the edict went forth that it must stand no longer. + </p> + <p> + The natural death of a house is very much like that of one of its human + tenants. The roof is the first part to show the distinct signs of age. + Slates and tiles loosen and at last slide off, and leave bald the boards + that supported them; shingles darken and decay, and soon the garret or the + attic lets in the rain and the snow; by and by the beams sag, the floors + warp, the walls crack, the paper peels away, the ceilings scale off and + fall, the windows are crusted with clinging dust, the doors drop from + their rusted hinges, the winds come in without knocking and howl their + cruel death-songs through the empty rooms and passages, and at last there + comes a crash, a great cloud of dust rises, and the home that had been the + shelter of generation after generation finds its grave in its own cellar. + Only the chimney remains as its monument. Slowly, little by little, the + patient solvents that find nothing too hard for their chemistry pick out + the mortar from between the bricks; at last a mighty wind roars around it + and rushes against it, and the monumental relic crashes down among the + wrecks it has long survived. So dies a human habitation left to natural + decay, all that was seen above the surface of the soil sinking gradually + below it, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Till naught remains the saddening tale to tell + Save home's last wrecks, the cellar and the well. +</pre> + <p> + But if this sight is saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling fall by + the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that has kept out a + thousand storms, the tearing off of the once ornamental woodwork, the + wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the murderous blows of the axe, the + progressive ruin, which ends by rending all the joints asunder and + flinging the tenoned and mortised timbers into heaps that will be sawed + and split to warm some new habitation as firewood,—what a brutal act + of destruction it seems! + </p> + <p> + Why should I go over the old house again, having already described it more + than ten years ago? Alas! how many remember anything they read but once, + and so long ago as that? How many would find it out if one should say over + in the same words that which he said in the last decade? But there is + really no need of telling the story a second time, for it can be found by + those who are curious enough to look it up in a volume of which it + occupies the opening chapter. + </p> + <p> + In order, however, to save any inquisitive reader that trouble, let me + remind him that the old house was General Ward's headquarters at the + breaking out of the Revolution; that the plan for fortifying Bunker's Hill + was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower room, the floor of + which was covered with dents, made, it was alleged, by the butts of the + soldiers' muskets. In that house, too, General Warren probably passed the + night before the Bunker Hill battle, and over its threshold must the + stately figure of Washington have often cast its shadow. + </p> + <p> + But the house in which one drew his first breath, and where he one day + came into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a little + universe with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent identity, with + the terrible responsibility of a separate, independent, inalienable + existence,—that house does not ask for any historical associations + to make it the centre of the earth for him. + </p> + <p> + If there is any person in the world to be envied, it is the one who is + born to an ancient estate, with a long line of family traditions and the + means in his hands of shaping his mansion and his domain to his own taste, + without losing sight of all the characteristic features which surrounded + his earliest years. The American is, for the most part, a nomad, who pulls + down his house as the Tartar pulls up his tent-poles. If I had an ideal + life to plan for him it would be something like this: + </p> + <p> + His grandfather should be a wise, scholarly, large-brained, large-hearted + country minister, from whom he should inherit the temperament that + predisposes to cheerfulness and enjoyment, with the finer instincts which + direct life to noble aims and make it rich with the gratification of pure + and elevated tastes and the carrying out of plans for the good of his + neighbors and his fellow-creatures. He should, if possible, have been + born, at any rate have passed some of his early years, or a large part of + them, under the roof of the good old minister. His father should be, we + will say, a business man in one of our great cities,—a generous + manipulator of millions, some of which have adhered to his private + fortunes, in spite of his liberal use of his means. His heir, our ideally + placed American, shall take possession of the old house, the home of his + earliest memories, and preserve it sacredly, not exactly like the Santa + Casa, but, as nearly as may be, just as he remembers it. He can add as + many acres as he will to the narrow house-lot. He can build a grand + mansion for himself, if he chooses, in the not distant neighborhood. But + the old house, and all immediately round it, shall be as he recollects it + when he had to stretch his little arm up to reach the door-handles. Then, + having well provided for his own household, himself included, let him + become the providence of the village or the town where he finds himself + during at least a portion of every year. Its schools, its library, its + poor,—and perhaps the new clergyman who has succeeded his + grandfather's successor may be one of them,—all its interests, he + shall make his own. And from this centre his beneficence shall radiate so + far that all who hear of his wealth shall also hear of him as a friend to + his race. + </p> + <p> + Is not this a pleasing programme? Wealth is a steep hill, which the father + climbs slowly and the son often tumbles down precipitately; but there is a + table-land on a level with it, which may be found by those who do not lose + their head in looking down from its sharply cloven summit.—-Our + dangerously rich men can make themselves hated, held as enemies of the + race, or beloved and recognized as its benefactors. The clouds of + discontent are threatening, but if the gold-pointed lightning-rods are + rightly distributed the destructive element may be drawn off silently and + harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too often that the safety of great + wealth with us lies in obedience to the new version of the Old World + axiom, RICHESS oblige. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. GETTING READY. + </h2> + <p> + It is impossible to begin a story which must of necessity tax the powers + of belief of readers unacquainted with the class of facts to which its + central point of interest belongs without some words in the nature of + preparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember that Sarah Battle insisted + on a clean-swept hearth before sitting down to her favorite game of whist. + </p> + <p> + The narrator wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, in these opening + pages, before sitting down to tell his story. He does not intend to + frighten the reader away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to warn + him against hasty judgments when facts are related which are not within + the range of every-day experience. Did he ever see the Siamese twins, or + any pair like them? Probably not, yet he feels sure that Chang and Eng + really existed; and if he has taken the trouble to inquire, he has + satisfied himself that similar cases have been recorded by credible + witnesses, though at long intervals and in countries far apart from each + other. + </p> + <p> + This is the first sweep of the brush, to clear the hearth of the + skepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before we can + begin to tell and to listen in peace with ourselves and each other. + </p> + <p> + One more stroke of the brush is needed before the stage will be ready for + the chief characters and the leading circumstances to which the reader's + attention is invited. If the principal personages made their entrance at + once, the reader would have to create for himself the whole scenery of + their surrounding conditions. In point of fact, no matter how a story is + begun, many of its readers have already shaped its chief actors out of any + hint the author may have dropped, and provided from their own resources a + locality and a set of outward conditions to environ these imagined + personalities. These are all to be brushed away, and the actual + surroundings of the subject of the narrative represented as they were, at + the risk of detaining the reader a little while from the events most + likely to interest him. The choicest egg that ever was laid was not so big + as the nest that held it. If a story were so interesting that a maiden + would rather hear it than listen to the praise of her own beauty, or a + poet would rather read it than recite his own verses, still it would have + to be wrapped in some tissue of circumstance, or it would lose half its + effectiveness. + </p> + <p> + It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred to in this + narrative by looking into the first gazetteer that is at hand. Recent + experiences have shown that it is unsafe to be too exact in designating + places and the people who live in them. There are, it may be added, so + many advertisements disguised under the form of stories and other literary + productions that one naturally desires to avoid the suspicion of being + employed by the enterprising proprietors of this or that celebrated resort + to use his gifts for their especial benefit. There are no doubt many + persons who remember the old sign and the old tavern and its four chief + personages presently to be mentioned. It is to be hoped that they will not + furnish the public with a key to this narrative, and perhaps bring trouble + to the writer of it, as has happened to other authors. If the real names + are a little altered, it need not interfere with the important facts + relating to those who bear them. It might not be safe to tell a damaging + story about John or James Smythe; but if the slight change is made of + spelling the name Smith, the Smythes would never think of bringing an + action, as if the allusion related to any of them. The same gulf of family + distinction separates the Thompsons with a p from the Thomsons without + that letter. + </p> + <p> + There are few pleasanter places in the Northern States for a summer + residence than that known from the first period of its settlement by the + name of Arrowhead Village. The Indians had found it out, as the relics + they left behind them abundantly testified. The commonest of these were + those chipped stones which are the medals of barbarism, and from which the + place took its name,—the heads of arrows, of various sizes, + material, and patterns: some small enough for killing fish and little + birds, some large enough for such game as the moose and the bear, to say + nothing of the hostile Indian and the white settler; some of flint, now + and then one of white quartz, and others of variously colored jasper. The + Indians must have lived here for many generations, and it must have been a + kind of factory village of the stone age,—which lasted up to near + the present time, if we may judge from the fact that many of these relics + are met with close to the surface of the ground. + </p> + <p> + No wonder they found this a pleasant residence, for it is to-day one of + the most attractive of all summer resorts; so inviting, indeed, that those + who know it do not like to say too much about it, lest the swarms of + tourists should make it unendurable to those who love it for itself, and + not as a centre of fashionable display and extramural cockneyism. + </p> + <p> + There is the lake, in the first place,—Cedar Lake,—about five + miles long, and from half a mile to a mile and a half wide, stretching + from north to south. Near the northern extremity are the buildings of + Stoughton University, a flourishing young college with an ambitious name, + but well equipped and promising, the grounds of which reach the water. At + the southern end of the lake are the edifices of the Corinna Institute, a + favorite school for young ladies, where large numbers of the daughters of + America are fitted, so far as education can do it, for all stations in + life, from camping out with a husband at the mines in Nevada to acting the + part of chief lady of the land in the White House at Washington. + </p> + <p> + Midway between the two extremities, on the eastern shore of the lake, is a + valley between two hills, which come down to the very edge of the lake, + leaving only room enough for a road between their base and the water. This + valley, half a mile in width, has been long settled, and here for a + century or more has stood the old Anchor Tavern. A famous place it was so + long as its sign swung at the side of the road: famous for its landlord, + portly, paternal, whose welcome to a guest that looked worthy of the + attention was like that of a parent to a returning prodigal, and whose + parting words were almost as good as a marriage benediction; famous for + its landlady, ample in person, motherly, seeing to the whole household + with her own eyes, mistress of all culinary secrets that Northern kitchens + are most proud of; famous also for its ancient servant, as city people + would call her,—help, as she was called in the tavern and would have + called herself,—the unchanging, seemingly immortal Miranda, who + cared for the guests as if she were their nursing mother, and pressed the + specially favorite delicacies on their attention as a connoisseur calls + the wandering eyes of an amateur to the beauties of a picture. Who that + has ever been at the old Anchor Tavern forgets Miranda's + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “A little of this fricassee?-it is ver-y nice;” + </pre> + <p> + or + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Some of these cakes? You will find them ver-y good.” + </pre> + <p> + Nor would it be just to memory to forget that other notable and noted + member of the household,—the unsleeping, unresting, omnipresent + Pushee, ready for everybody and everything, everywhere within the limits + of the establishment at all hours of the day and night. He fed, nobody + could say accurately when or where. There were rumors of a “bunk,” in + which he lay down with his clothes on, but he seemed to be always wide + awake, and at the service of as many guest, at once as if there had been + half a dozen of him. + </p> + <p> + So much for old reminiscences. + </p> + <p> + The landlord of the Anchor Tavern had taken down his sign. He had had the + house thoroughly renovated and furnished it anew, and kept it open in + summer for a few boarders. It happened more than once that the summer + boarders were so much pleased with the place that they stayed on through + the autumn, and some of them through the winter. The attractions of the + village were really remarkable. Boating in summer, and skating in winter; + ice-boats, too, which the wild ducks could hardly keep up with; fishing, + for which the lake was renowned; varied and beautiful walks through the + valley and up the hillsides; houses sheltered from the north and + northeasterly winds, and refreshed in the hot summer days by the breeze + which came over the water,—all this made the frame for a pleasing + picture of rest and happiness. But there was a great deal more than this. + There was a fine library in the little village, presented and richly + endowed by a wealthy native of the place. There was a small permanent + population of a superior character to that of an everyday country town; + there was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a good-hearted rector, + broad enough for the Bishop of the diocese to be a little afraid of, and + hospitable to all outsiders, of whom, in the summer season, there were + always some who wanted a place of worship to keep their religion from + dying out during the heathen months, while the shepherds of the flocks to + which they belonged were away from their empty folds. + </p> + <p> + What most helped to keep the place alive all through the year was the + frequent coming together of the members of a certain literary association. + Some time before the tavern took down its sign the landlord had built a + hall, where many a ball had been held, to which the young folks of all the + country round had resorted. It was still sometimes used for similar + occasions, but it was especially notable as being the place of meeting of + the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + </p> + <p> + This association, the name of which might be invidiously interpreted as + signifying that its members knew everything, had no such pretensions, but, + as its Constitution said very plainly and modestly, held itself open to + accept knowledge on any and all subjects from such as had knowledge to + impart. Its President was the rector of the little chapel, a man who, in + spite of the Thirty-Nine Articles, could stand fire from the + widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without flinching or losing his + temper. The hall of the old Anchor Tavern was a convenient place of + meeting for the students and instructors of the University and the + Institute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes in carriage-loads, sometimes + in processions of skaters, they came to the meetings in Pansophian Hall, + as it was now commonly called. + </p> + <p> + These meetings had grown to be occasions of great interest. It was + customary to have papers written by members of the Society, for the most + part, but now and then by friends of the members, sometimes by the + students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer instances by + anonymous personages, whose papers, having been looked over and discussed + by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thought worth listening + to. The variety of topics considered was very great. The young ladies of + the village and the Institute had their favorite subjects, the young + gentlemen a different set of topics, and the occasional outside + contributors their own; so that one who happened to be admitted to a + meeting never knew whether he was going to hear an account of recent + arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom of the will, or a + psychological experience, or a story, or even a poem. + </p> + <p> + Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating to the + true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The most + conflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young ladies and + some of the University students were strong in defence of all the “woman's + rights” doctrines. Some of these young people were extreme in their views. + They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea and Queen Elizabeth, until they + were ready, if they could get the chance, to vote for a woman as President + of the United States or as General of the United States Army. They were + even disposed to assert the physical equality of woman to man, on the + strength of the rather questionable history of the Amazons, and especially + of the story, believed to be authentic, of the female body-guard of the + King of Dahomey,—females frightful enough to need no other weapon + than their looks to scare off an army of Cossacks. + </p> + <p> + Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the Corinna Institute, + was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It was rather + singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of this extreme + doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped with brain than muscles. + In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed, long-eyelashed, + slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; looking almost like a + child at an age when many of the girls had reached their full stature and + proportions. In her studies she was so far in advance of her different + classes that there was always a wide gap between her and the second + scholar. So fatal to all rivalry had she proved herself that she passed + under the school name of The Terror. She learned so easily that she + undervalued her own extraordinary gifts, and felt the deepest admiration + for those of her friends endowed with faculties of an entirely different + and almost opposite nature. After sitting at her desk until her head was + hot and her feet were like ice, she would go and look at the blooming + young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, and feel as if she + would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics and strange tongues and + history, all those accomplishments that made her the encyclopaedia of + every class she belonged to, if she could go through the series of + difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw her schoolmates + delighting. + </p> + <p> + One among them, especially, was the object of her admiration, as she was + of all who knew her exceptional powers in the line for which nature had + specially organized her. All the physical perfections which Miss Lurida + had missed had been united in Miss Euthymia Tower, whose school name was + The Wonder. Though of full womanly stature, there were several taller + girls of her age. While all her contours and all her movements betrayed a + fine muscular development, there was no lack of proportion, and her finely + shaped hands and feet showed that her organization was one of those + carefully finished masterpieces of nature which sculptors are always in + search of, and find it hard to detect among the imperfect products of the + living laboratory. + </p> + <p> + This girl of eighteen was more famous than she cared to be for her + performances in the gymnasium. She commonly contented herself with the + same exercises that her companions were accustomed to. Only her + dumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and gracefully, were too heavy + for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from the floor. She + was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be checked in her + indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at the University came + over to the Institute now and then, and it was a source of great + excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in which the young lady + showed her remarkable muscular strength and skill in managing herself in + the accomplishment of feats which looked impossible at first sight. How + often The Terror had thought to herself that she would gladly give up all + her knowledge of Greek and the differential and integral calculus if she + could only perform the least of those feats which were mere play to The + Wonder! Miss Euthymia was not behind the rest in her attainments in + classical or mathematical knowledge, and she was one of the very best + students in the out-door branches,—botany, mineralogy, sketching + from nature,—to be found among the scholars of the Institute. + </p> + <p> + There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of the young ladies, of + which Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor little + Lurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when there were many + boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere feather-weight, and + quick-witted enough to serve well in the important office where brains are + more needed than muscle. + </p> + <p> + There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the University, and rowed + by a picked crew of stalwart young fellows. The bow oar and captain of the + University crew was a powerful young man, who, like the captain of the + girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He had had one or two quiet trials with + Miss Euthymia, in which, according to the ultras of the woman's rights + party, he had not vindicated the superiority of his sex in the way which + might have been expected. Indeed, it was claimed that he let a cannon-ball + drop when he ought to have caught it, and it was not disputed that he had + been ingloriously knocked over by a sand-bag projected by the strong arms + of the young maiden. This was of course a story that was widely told and + laughingly listened to, and the captain of the University crew had become + a little sensitive on the subject. When there was a talk, therefore, about + a race between the champion boats of the two institutions there was + immense excitement in both of them, as well as among the members of the + Pansophian Society and all the good people of the village. + </p> + <p> + There were many objections to be overcome. Some thought it unladylike for + the young maidens to take part in a competition which must attract many + lookers-on, and which it seemed to them very hoidenish to venture upon. + Some said it was a shame to let a crew of girls try their strength against + an equal number of powerful young men. These objections were offset by the + advocates of the race by the following arguments. They maintained that it + was no more hoidenish to row a boat than it was to take a part in the + calisthenic exercises, and that the girls had nothing to do with the young + men's boat, except to keep as much ahead of it as possible. As to + strength, the woman's righters believed that, weight for weight, their + crew was as strong as the other, and of course due allowance would be made + for the difference of weight and all other accidental hindrances. It was + time to test the boasted superiority of masculine muscle. Here was a + chance. If the girls beat, the whole country would know it, and after that + female suffrage would be only a question of time. Such was the conclusion, + from rather insufficient premises, it must be confessed; but if nature + does nothing per saltum,—by jumps,—as the old adage has it, + youth is very apt to take long leaps from a fact to a possible sequel or + consequence. So it had come about that a contest between the two + boat-crews was looked forward to with an interest almost equal to that + with which the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii was regarded. + </p> + <p> + The terms had been at last arranged between the two crews, after cautious + protocols and many diplomatic discussions. It was so novel in its + character that it naturally took a good deal of time to adjust it in such + a way as to be fair to both parties. The course must not be too long for + the lighter and weaker crew, for the staying power of the young persons + who made it up could not be safely reckoned upon. A certain advantage must + be allowed them at the start, and this was a delicate matter to settle. + The weather was another important consideration. June would be early + enough, in all probability, and if the lake should be tolerably smooth the + grand affair might come off some time in that month. Any roughness of the + water would be unfavorable to the weaker crew. The rowing-course was on + the eastern side of the lake, the starting-point being opposite the Anchor + Tavern; from that three quarters of a mile to the south, where the + turning-stake was fixed, so that the whole course of one mile and a half + would bring the boats back to their starting-point. + </p> + <p> + The race was to be between the Algonquin, eight-oared boat with + outriggers, rowed by young men, students of Stoughton University, and the + Atalanta, also eight-oared and outrigger boat, by young ladies from the + Corinna Institute. Their boat was three inches wider than the other, for + various sufficient reasons, one of which was to make it a little less + likely to go over and throw its crew into the water, which was a sound + precaution, though all the girls could swim, and one at least, the bow + oar, was a famous swimmer, who had pulled a drowning man out of the water + after a hard struggle to keep him from carrying her down with him. + </p> + <p> + Though the coming trial had not been advertised in the papers, so as to + draw together a rabble of betting men and ill-conditioned lookers-on, + there was a considerable gathering, made up chiefly of the villagers and + the students of the two institutions. Among them were a few who were + disposed to add to their interest in the trial by small wagers. The bets + were rather in favor of the “Quins,” as the University boat was commonly + called, except where the natural sympathy of the young ladies or the + gallantry of some of the young men led them to risk their gloves or + cigars, or whatever it might be, on the Atalantas. The elements of + judgment were these: average weight of the Algonquins one hundred and + sixty-five pounds; average weight of the Atalantas, one hundred and + forty-eight pounds; skill in practice about equal; advantage of the narrow + boat equal to three lengths; whole distance allowed the Atalantas eight + lengths,—a long stretch to be made up in a mile and a half. And so + both crews began practising for the grand trial. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. THE BOAT-RACE. + </h2> + <p> + The 10th of June was a delicious summer day, rather warm, but still and + bright. The water was smooth, and the crews were in the best possible + condition. All was expectation, and for some time nothing but expectation. + No boat-race or regatta ever began at the time appointed for the start. + Somebody breaks an oar, or somebody fails to appear in season, or + something is the matter with a seat or an outrigger; or if there is no + such excuse, the crew of one or both or all the boats to take part in the + race must paddle about to get themselves ready for work, to the infinite + weariness of all the spectators, who naturally ask why all this getting + ready is not attended to beforehand. The Algonquins wore plain gray + flannel suits and white caps. The young ladies were all in dark blue + dresses, touched up with a red ribbon here and there, and wore light straw + hats. The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the last to step on board. + As she took her place she carefully deposited at her feet a white + handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps a sponge, in case + the boat should take in water. + </p> + <p> + At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook where she lay, —long, + narrow, shining, swift as a pickerel when he darts from the reedy shore. + It was a beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows in their + close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, bending their backs + for the stroke and recovering, as if they were parts of a single machine. + </p> + <p> + “The gals can't stan' it agin them fellers,” said the old blacksmith from + the village. + </p> + <p> + “You wait till the gals get a-goin',” said the carpenter, who had often + worked in the gymnasium of the Corinna Institute, and knew something of + their muscular accomplishments. “Y' ought to see 'em climb ropes, and + swing dumb-bells, and pull in them rowin'-machines. Ask Jake there whether + they can't row a mild in double-quick time,—he knows all abaout it.” + </p> + <p> + Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a freshwater fisherman in a + country village is inspector-general of all that goes on out-of-doors, + being a lazy, wandering sort of fellow, whose study of the habits and + habitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of observation, just as + dealing in horses is an education of certain faculties, and breeds a race + of men peculiarly cunning, suspicious, wary, and wide awake, with a + rhetoric of appreciation and depreciation all its own. + </p> + <p> + Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and delivered himself to the + following effect: + </p> + <p> + “Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I've seed 'em both often enough when + they was practisin', an' I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaout neither on + 'em. But them bats is all-fired long, 'n' eight on 'em stretched in a + straight line eendways makes a consid'able piece aout 'f a mile 'n' a + haaf. I'd bate on them gals if it wa'n't that them fellers is naterally + longer winded, as the gals 'll find aout by the time they git raound the + stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. I'll go ye a quarter on the pahnts agin + the petticoats.” + </p> + <p> + The fresh-water fisherman had expressed the prevailing belief that the + young ladies were overmatched. Still there were not wanting those who + thought the advantage allowed the “Lantas,” as they called the Corinna + boatcrew, was too great, and that it would be impossible for the “Quins” + to make it up and go by them. + </p> + <p> + The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. They + appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome as + colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined to + work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of oars. + The fisherman offered to make his quarter fifty cents. No takers. + </p> + <p> + Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to the south, looking for + the Atalanta. A clump of trees hid the edge of the lake along which the + Corinna's boat was stealing towards the starting-point. Presently the long + shell swept into view, with its blooming rowers, who, with their ample + dresses, seemed to fill it almost as full as Raphael fills his skiff on + the edge of the Lake of Galilee. But how steadily the Atalanta came on!—-no + rocking, no splashing, no apparent strain; the bow oar turning to look + ahead every now and then, and watching her course, which seemed to be + straight as an arrow, the beat of the strokes as true and regular as the + pulse of the healthiest rower among them all. And if the sight of the + other boat and its crew was beautiful, how lovely was the look of this! + Eight young girls,—young ladies, for those who prefer that more + dignified and less attractive expression,—all in the flush of youth, + all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower alert, + not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally with the + water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; every eye kindling + with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it came in + sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally the loudest, as the + gallantry of one sex and the clear, high voices of the other gave it life + and vigor. + </p> + <p> + “Take your places!” shouted the umpire, five minutes before the half hour. + The two boats felt their way slowly and cautiously to their positions, + which had been determined by careful measurement. After a little backing + and filling they got into line, at the proper distance from each other, + and sat motionless, their bodies bent forward, their arms outstretched, + their oars in the water, waiting for the word. + </p> + <p> + “Go!” shouted the umpire. + </p> + <p> + Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her leaped the Algonquin, her + oars bending like so many long Indian bows as their blades flashed through + the water. + </p> + <p> + “A stern chase is a long chase,” especially when one craft is a great + distance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible for the + rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the Algonquin kept + gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That was the question. As the + boats got farther and farther away, it became more and more difficult to + determine what change there was in the interval between them. But when + they came to rounding the stake it was easier to guess at the amount of + space which had been gained. It was clear that something like half the + distance, four lengths, as nearly as could be estimated, had been made up + in rowing the first three quarters of a mile. Could the Algonquins do a + little better than this in the second half of the race-course, they would + be sure of winning. + </p> + <p> + The boats had turned the stake, and were coming in rapidly. Every minute + the University boat was getting nearer the other. + </p> + <p> + “Go it, Quins!” shouted the students. + </p> + <p> + “Pull away, Lantas!” screamed the girls, who were crowding down to the + edge of the water. + </p> + <p> + Nearer,—nearer,—the rear boat is pressing the other more and + more closely,—a few more strokes, and they will be even, for there + is but one length between them, and thirty rods will carry them to the + line. It looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow oar of the Algonquin + turns his head. He sees the little coxswain leaning forward at every + stroke, as if her trivial weight were of such mighty consequence,—but + a few ounces might turn the scale of victory. As he turned he got a + glimpse of the stroke oar of the Atalanta. What a flash of loveliness it + was! Her face was like the reddest of June roses, with the heat and the + strain and the passion of expected triumph. The upper button of her + close-fitting flannel suit had strangled her as her bosom heaved with + exertion, and it had given way before the fierce clutch she made at it. + The bow oar was a staunch and steady rower, but he was human. The blade of + his oar lingered in the water; a little more and he would have caught a + crab, and perhaps lost the race by his momentary bewilderment. + </p> + <p> + The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and nervousness of a + Derby three-year-old, felt the slight check, and all her men bent more + vigorously to their oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and made a spurt + to keep their lead and gain upon it if they could. It was of no use. The + strong arms of the young men were too much for the young maidens; only a + few lengths remained to be rowed, and they would certainly pass the + Atalanta before she could reach the line. + </p> + <p> + The little coxswain saw that it was all up with the girls' crew if she + could not save them by some strategic device. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?” + </pre> + <p> + she whispered to herself,—for The Terror remembered her Virgil as + she did everything else she ever studied. As she stooped, she lifted the + handkerchief at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. “Look!” she + cried, and flung it just forward of the track of the Algonquin. The + captain of the University boat turned his head, and there was the lovely + vision which had a moment before bewitched him. The owner of all that + loveliness must, he thought, have flung the bouquet. It was a challenge: + how could he be such a coward as to decline accepting it. + </p> + <p> + He was sure he could win the race now, and he would sweep past the line in + triumph with the great bunch of flowers at the stem of his boat, proud as + Van Tromp in the British channel with the broom at his mast-head. + </p> + <p> + He turned the boat's head a little by backing water. He came up with the + floating flowers, and near enough to reach them. He stooped and snatched + them up, with the loss perhaps of a second in all,—no more. He felt + sure of his victory. + </p> + <p> + How can one tell the story of the finish in cold-blooded preterites? Are + we not there ourselves? Are not our muscles straining with those of these + sixteen young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their nerves all + tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, all their life + concentrating itself in this passionate moment of supreme effort? No! We + are seeing, not telling about what somebody else once saw! + </p> + <p> + —The bow of the Algonquin passes the stern of the Atalanta! + </p> + <p> + —The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the middle of the + Atalanta! + </p> + <p> + —Three more lengths' rowing and the college crew will pass the + girls! + </p> + <p> + —“Hurrah for the Quins!” The Algonquin ranges up alongside of the + Atalanta! + </p> + <p> + “Through with her!” shouts the captain of the Algonquin. + </p> + <p> + “Now, girls!” shrieks the captain of the Atalanta. + </p> + <p> + They near the line, every rower straining desperately, almost madly. + </p> + <p> + —Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta's captain, and up flash its + splintered fragments, as the stem of her boat springs past the line, + eighteen inches at least ahead of the Algonquin. + </p> + <p> + Hooraw for the Lantas! Hooraw for the Girls! Hooraw for the Institoot! + shout a hundred voices. + </p> + <p> + “Hurrah for woman's rights and female suffrage!” pipes the small voice of + The Terror, and there is loud laughing and cheering all round. + </p> + <p> + She had not studied her classical dictionary and her mythology for + nothing. “I have paid off one old score,” she said. “Set down my damask + roses against the golden apples of Hippomenes!” + </p> + <p> + It was that one second lost in snatching up the bouquet which gave the + race to the Atalantas. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. THE WHITE CANOE. + </h2> + <p> + While the two boats were racing, other boats with lookers-on in them were + rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course. The scene on the + water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats were, many of them, + acquainted with each other. There was a good deal of lively talk until the + race became too exciting. Then many fell silent, until, as the boats + neared the line, and still more as they crossed it, the shouts burst forth + which showed how a cramp of attention finds its natural relief in a fit of + convulsive exclamation. + </p> + <p> + But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birchbark canoe was to be + seen, in which sat a young man, who paddled it skillfully and swiftly. It + was evident enough that he was watching the race intently, but the + spectators could see little more than that. One of them, however, who sat + upon the stand, had a powerful spy-glass, and could distinguish his + motions very minutely and exactly. It was seen by this curious observer + that the young man had an opera-glass with him, which he used a good deal + at intervals. The spectator thought he kept it directed to the girls' + boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. He thought also that the opera-glass + was more particularly pointed towards the bow of the boat, and came to the + natural conclusion that the bow oar, Miss Euthymia Tower, captain of the + Atalantas, “The Wonder” of the Corinna Institute, was the attraction which + determined the direction of the instrument. + </p> + <p> + “Who is that in the canoe over there?” asked the owner of the spy-glass. + </p> + <p> + “That's just what we should like to know,” answered the old landlord's + wife. “He and his man boarded with us when they first came, but we could + never find out anything about him only just his name and his ways of + living. His name is Kirkwood, Maurice Kirkwood, Esq., it used to come on + his letters. As for his ways of living, he was the solitariest human being + that I ever came across. His man carried his meals up to him. He used to + stay in his room pretty much all day, but at night he would be off, + walking, or riding on horseback, or paddling about in the lake, sometimes + till nigh morning. There's something very strange about that Mr. Kirkwood. + But there don't seem to be any harm in him. Only nobody can guess what his + business is. They got up a story about him at one time. What do you think? + They said he was a counterfeiter! And so they went one night to his room, + when he was out, and that man of his was away too, and they carried keys, + and opened pretty much everything; and they found—well, they found + just nothing at all except writings and letters,—letters from places + in America and in England, and some with Italian postmarks: that was all. + Since that time the sheriff and his folks have let him alone and minded + their own business. He was a gentleman,—anybody ought to have known + that; and anybody that knew about his nice ways of living and behaving, + and knew the kind of wear he had for his underclothing, might have known + it. I could have told those officers that they had better not bother him. + I know the ways of real gentlemen and real ladies, and I know those + fellows in store clothes that look a little too fine,—outside. Wait + till washing-day comes!” + </p> + <p> + The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity, and they were + not wholly unworthy of consideration; they were quite as much to be relied + on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who sent his + accomplice on before him to study out the principal personages in the + village, and in the light of these revelations interpreted the bumps, with + very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim, or any other authorities. + </p> + <p> + Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search among his + papers and effects, the gossips of the village had constructed several + distinct histories for the mysterious stranger. He was an agent of a great + publishing house; a leading contributor to several important periodicals; + the author of that anonymously published novel which had made so much + talk; the poet of a large clothing establishment; a spy of the Italian, + some said the Russian, some said the British, Government; a proscribed + refugee from some country where he had been plotting; a school-master + without a school, a minister without a pulpit, an actor without an + engagement; in short, there was no end to the perfectly senseless stories + that were told about him, from that which made him out an escaped convict + to the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric heir to a great + English title and estate. + </p> + <p> + The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion. + Nobody in the village, no student in the University, knew his history. No + young lady in the Corinna Institute had ever had a word from him. + Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Institute were returning + at dusk, their rowers would see the canoe stealing into the shadows as + they drew near it. Sometimes on a moonlight night, when a party of the + young ladies were out upon the lake, they would see the white canoe + gliding ghost-like in the distance. And it had happened more than once + that when a boat's crew had been out with singers among them, while they + were in the midst of a song, the white canoe would suddenly appear and + rest upon the water,—not very near them, but within hearing + distance,—and so remain until the singing was over, when it would + steal away and be lost sight of in some inlet or behind some jutting rock. + </p> + <p> + Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about this young man. The + landlady had told her story, which explained nothing. There was nobody to + be questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, whose name was + Paolo, but who to the village was known as Mr. Paul. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in the world to worm a + secret out of. He was good-natured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, talked + freely with everybody in such English as he had at command, knew all the + little people of the village, and was followed round by them partly from + his personal attraction for them, and partly because he was apt to have a + stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other desirable luxury in his + pocket for any of his little friends he met with. He had that wholesome, + happy look, so uncommon in our arid countrymen,—a look hardly to be + found except where figs and oranges ripen in the open air. A kindly + climate to grow up in, a religion which takes your money and gives you a + stamped ticket good at Saint Peter's box office, a roomy chest and a good + pair of lungs in it, an honest digestive apparatus, a lively temperament, + a cheerful acceptance of the place in life assigned to one by nature and + circumstance,—these are conditions under which life may be quite + comfortable to endure, and certainly is very pleasant to contemplate. All + these conditions were united in Paolo. He was the easiest; pleasantest + creature to talk with that one could ask for a companion. His southern + vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicity and openness, made him + friends everywhere. + </p> + <p> + It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to get the history of his + master out of this guileless and unsophisticated being. He had been tried + by all the village experts. The rector had put a number of well-studied + careless questions, which failed of their purpose. The old librarian of + the town library had taken note of all the books he carried to his master, + and asked about his studies and pursuits. Paolo found it hard to + understand his English, apparently, and answered in the most irrelevant + way. The leading gossip of the village tried her skill in pumping him for + information. It was all in vain. + </p> + <p> + His master's way of life was peculiar,—in fact, eccentric. He had + hired rooms in an old-fashioned three-story house. He had two rooms in the + second and third stories of this old wooden building: his study in the + second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. Paolo lived in the + basement, where he had all the conveniences for cooking, and played the + part of chef for his master and himself. This was only a part of his duty, + for he was a man-of-all-work, purveyor, steward, chambermaid,—as + universal in his services for one man as Pushee at the Anchor Tavern used + to be for everybody. + </p> + <p> + It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one winter's day, and had + such threatening symptoms that he asked the baker, when he called, to send + the village physician to see him. In the course of his visit the doctor + naturally inquired about the health of Paolo's master. + </p> + <p> + “Signor Kirkwood well,—molto bene,” said Paolo. “Why does he keep + out of sight as he does?” asked the doctor. + </p> + <p> + “He always so,” replied Paolo. “Una antipatia.” + </p> + <p> + Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, whether he revealed it to + him as to a father confessor, or whether he thought it time that the + reason of his master's seclusion should be known, the doctor did not feel + sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to make any further revelations. + Una antipatia,—an antipathy,—that was all the doctor learned. + He thought the matter over, and the more he reflected the more he was + puzzled. What could an antipathy be that made a young man a recluse! Was + it a dread of blue sky and open air, of the smell of flowers, or some + electrical impression to which he was unnaturally sensitive? + </p> + <p> + Dr. Butts carried these questions home with him. His wife was a sensible, + discreet woman, whom he could trust with many professional secrets. He + told her of Paolo's revelation, and talked it over with her in the light + of his experience and her own; for she had known some curious cases of + constitutional likes and aversions. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Butts buried the information in the grave of her memory, where it lay + for nearly a week. At the end of that time it emerged in a confidential + whisper to her favorite sister-in-law, a perfectly safe person. + Twenty-four hours later the story was all over the village that Maurice + Kirkwood was the subject of a strange, mysterious, unheard-of antipathy to + something, nobody knew what; and the whole neighborhood naturally resolved + itself into an unorganized committee of investigation. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. THE YOUNG SOLITARY + </h2> + <p> + What is a country village without its mysterious personage? Few are now + living who can remember the advent of the handsome young man who was the + mystery of our great university town “sixty years since,”—long + enough ago for a romance to grow out of a narrative, as Waverley may + remind us. The writer of this narrative remembers him well, and is not + sure that he has not told the strange story in some form or other to the + last generation, or to the one before the last. No matter: if he has told + it they have forgotten it,—that is, if they have ever read it; and + whether they have or have not, the story is singular enough to justify + running the risk of repetition. + </p> + <p> + This young man, with a curious name of Scandinavian origin, appeared + unheralded in the town, as it was then, of Cantabridge. He wanted + employment, and soon found it in the shape of manual labor, which he + undertook and performed cheerfully. But his whole appearance showed + plainly enough that he was bred to occupations of a very different nature, + if, in deed, he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for his living. + His aspect was that of one of gentle birth. His hands were not those of a + laborer, and his features were delicate and refined, as well as of + remarkable beauty. Who he was, where he came from, why he had come to + Cantabridge, was never clearly explained. He was alone, without friends, + except among the acquaintances he had made in his new residence. If he had + any correspondents, they were not known to the neighborhood where he was + living. But if he had neither friends nor correspondents, there was some + reason for believing that he had enemies. Strange circumstances occurred + which connected themselves with him in an ominous and unaccountable way. A + threatening letter was slipped under the door of a house where he was + visiting. He had a sudden attack of illness, which was thought to look + very much like the effect of poison. At one time he disappeared, and was + found wandering, bewildered, in a town many miles from that where he was + residing. When questioned how he came there; he told a coherent story that + he had been got, under some pretext, or in some not incredible way, into a + boat, from which, at a certain landing-place, he had escaped and fled for + his life, which he believed was in danger from his kidnappers. + </p> + <p> + Whoever his enemies may have been,—if they really existed,—he + did not fall a victim to their plots, so far as known to or remembered by + this witness. + </p> + <p> + Various interpretations were put upon his story. Conjectures were as + abundant as they were in the case of Kaspar Hauser. That he was of good + family seemed probable; that he was of distinguished birth, not + impossible; that he was the dangerous rival of a candidate for a greatly + coveted position in one of the northern states of Europe was a favorite + speculation of some of the more romantic young persons. There was no + dramatic ending to this story,—at least none is remembered by the + present writer. + </p> + <p> + “He left a name,” like the royal Swede, of whose lineage he may have been + for aught that the village people knew, but not a name at which anybody + “grew pale;” for he had swindled no one, and broken no woman's heart with + false vows. Possibly some withered cheeks may flush faintly as they recall + the handsome young man who came before the Cantabridge maidens fully + equipped for a hero of romance when the century was in its first quarter. + </p> + <p> + The writer has been reminded of the handsome Swede by the incidents + attending the advent of the unknown and interesting stranger who had made + his appearance at Arrowhead Village. + </p> + <p> + It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason to assign for the + young man's solitary habits that he was the subject of an antipathy. For + what do we understand by that word? When a young lady screams at the sight + of a spider, we accept her explanation that she has a natural antipathy to + the creature. When a person expresses a repugnance to some wholesome + article of food, agreeable to most people, we are satisfied if he gives + the same reason. And so of various odors, which are pleasing to some + persons and repulsive to others. We do not pretend to go behind the fact. + It is an individual, and it may be a family, peculiarity. Even between + different personalities there is an instinctive elective dislike as well + as an elective affinity. We are not bound to give a reason why Dr. Fell is + odious to us any more than the prisoner who peremptorily challenges a + juryman is bound to say why he does it; it is enough that he “does not + like his looks.” + </p> + <p> + There was nothing strange, then, that Maurice Kirkwood should have his + special antipathy; a great many other people have odd likes and dislikes. + But it was a very curious thing that this antipathy should be alleged as + the reason for his singular mode of life. All sorts of explanations were + suggested, not one of them in the least satisfactory, but serving to keep + the curiosity of inquirers active until they were superseded by a new + theory. One story was that Maurice had a great fear of dogs. It grew at + last to a connected narrative, in which a fright in childhood from a rabid + mongrel was said to have given him such a sensitiveness to the near + presence of dogs that he was liable to convulsions if one came close to + him. + </p> + <p> + This hypothesis had some plausibility. No other creature would be so + likely to trouble a person who had an antipathy to it. Dogs are very apt + to make the acquaintance of strangers, in a free and easy way. They are + met with everywhere,—in one's daily walk, at the thresholds of the + doors one enters, in the gentleman's library, on the rug of my lady's + sitting-room and on the cushion of her carriage. It is true that there are + few persons who have an instinctive repugnance to this “friend of man.” + But what if this so-called antipathy were only a fear, a terror, which + borrowed the less unmanly name? It was a fair question, if, indeed, the + curiosity of the public had a right to ask any questions at all about a + harmless individual who gave no offence, and seemed entitled to the right + of choosing his way of living to suit himself, without being submitted to + espionage. + </p> + <p> + There was no positive evidence bearing on the point as yet. But one of the + village people had a large Newfoundland dog, of a very sociable + disposition, with which he determined to test the question. He watched for + the time when Maurice should leave his house for the woods or the lake, + and started with his dog to meet him. The animal walked up to the stranger + in a very sociable fashion, and began making his acquaintance, after the + usual manner of well-bred dogs; that is, with the courtesies and + blandishments by which the canine Chesterfield is distinguished from the + ill-conditioned cur. Maurice patted him in a friendly way, and spoke to + him as one who was used to the fellowship of such companions. That idle + question and foolish story were disposed of, therefore, and some other + solution must be found, if possible. + </p> + <p> + A much more common antipathy is that which is entertained with regard to + cats. This has never been explained. It is not mere aversion to the look + of the creature, or to any sensible quality known to the common observer. + The cat is pleasing in aspect, graceful in movement, nice in personal + habits, and of amiable disposition. No cause of offence is obvious, and + yet there are many persons who cannot abide the presence of the most + innocent little kitten. They can tell, in some mysterious way, that there + is a cat in the room when they can neither see nor hear the creature. + Whether it is an electrical or quasi-magnetic phenomenon, or whatever it + may be, of the fact of this strange influence there are too many + well-authenticated instances to allow its being questioned. But suppose + Maurice Kirkwood to be the subject of this antipathy in its extremest + degree, it would in no manner account for the isolation to which he had + condemned himself. He might shun the firesides of the old women whose + tabbies were purring by their footstools, but these worthy dames do not + make up the whole population. + </p> + <p> + These two antipathies having been disposed of, a new suggestion was + started, and was talked over with a curious sort of half belief, very much + as ghost stories are told in a circle of moderately instructed and + inquiring persons. This was that Maurice was endowed with the unenviable + gift of the evil eye. He was in frequent communication with Italy, as his + letters showed, and had recently been residing in that country, as was + learned from Paolo. Now everybody knows that the evil eye is not rarely + met with in Italy. Everybody who has ever read Mr. Story's “Roba di Roma” + knows what a terrible power it is which the owner of the evil eye + exercises. It can blight and destroy whatever it falls upon. No person's + life or limb is safe if the jettatura, the withering glance of the deadly + organ, falls upon him. It must be observed that this malign effect may + follow a look from the holiest personages, that is, if we may assume that + a monk is such as a matter of course. Certainly we have a right to take it + for granted that the late Pope, Pius Ninth, was an eminently holy man, and + yet he had the name of dispensing the mystic and dreaded jettatura as well + as his blessing. If Maurice Kirkwood carried that destructive influence, + so that his clear blue eyes were more to be feared than the fascinations + of the deadliest serpent, it could easily be understood why he kept his + look away from all around him whom he feared he might harm. + </p> + <p> + No sensible person in Arrowhead Village really believed in the evil eye, + but it served the purpose of a temporary hypothesis, as do many + suppositions which we take as a nucleus for our observations without + putting any real confidence in them. It was just suited to the romantic + notions of the more flighty persons in the village, who had meddled more + or less with Spiritualism, and were ready for any new fancy, if it were + only wild enough. + </p> + <p> + The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to find + any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk for the + gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in the two + educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was liveliest among + the young ladies. Here is an extract from a letter of one of these young + ladies, who, having received at her birth the ever-pleasing name of Mary, + saw fit to have herself called Mollie in the catalogue and in her letters. + The old postmaster of the town to which her letter was directed took it up + to stamp, and read on the envelope the direction to “Miss Lulu Pinrow.” He + brought the stamp down with a vicious emphasis, coming very near blotting + out the nursery name, instead of cancelling the postage-stamp. “Lulu!” he + exclaimed. “I should like to know if that great strapping girl isn't out + of her cradle yet! I suppose Miss Louisa will think that belongs to her, + but I saw her christened and I heard the name the minister gave her, and + it was n't 'Lulu,' or any such baby nonsense.” And so saying, he gave it a + fling to the box marked P, as if it burned his fingers. Why a grown-up + young woman allowed herself to be cheapened in the way so many of them do + by the use of names which become them as well as the frock of a + ten-year-old schoolgirl would become a graduate of the Corinna Institute, + the old postmaster could not guess. He was a queer old man. + </p> + <p> + The letter thus scornfully treated runs over with a young girl's written + loquacity: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lulu, there is such a sensation as you never saw or heard of 'in all + your born days,' as mamma used to say. He has been at the village for some + time, but lately we have had—oh, the weirdest stories about him! + 'The Mysterious Stranger is the name some give him, but we girls call him + the Sachem, because he paddles about in an Indian canoe. If I should tell + you all the things that are said about him I should use up all my paper + ten times over. He has never made a visit to the Institute, and none of + the girls have ever spoken to him, but the people at the village say he is + very, very handsome. We are dying to get a look at him, of course—though + there is a horrid story about him—that he has the evil eye did you + ever hear about the evil eye? If a person who is born with it looks at + you, you die, or something happens—awful—is n't it? + </p> + <p> + “The rector says he never goes to church, but then you know a good many of + the people that pass the summer at the village never do—they think + their religion must have vacations—that's what I've heard they say—vacations, + just like other hard work—it ought not to be hard work, I'm sure, + but I suppose they feel so about it. Should you feel afraid to have him + look at you? Some of the girls say they would n't have him for the whole + world, but I shouldn't mind it—especially if I had on my eyeglasses. + Do you suppose if there is anything in the evil eye it would go through + glass? I don't believe it. Do you think blue eye-glasses would be better + than common ones? Don't laugh at me—they tell such weird stories! + The Terror—Lurida Vincent, you know-makes fun of all they say about + it, but then she 'knows everything and doesn't believe anything,' the + girls say—Well, I should be awfully scared, I know, if anybody that + had the evil eye should look at me—but—oh, I don't know—but + if it was a young man—and if he was very—very good-looking—I + think—perhaps I would run the risk—but don't tell anybody I + said any such horrid thing—and burn this letter right up—there + 's a dear good girl.” + </p> + <p> + It is to be hoped that no reader will doubt the genuineness of this + letter. There are not quite so many “awfuls” and “awfullys” as one expects + to find in young ladies' letters, but there are two “weirds,” which may be + considered a fair allowance. How it happened that “jolly” did not show + itself can hardly be accounted for; no doubt it turns up two or three + times at least in the postscript. + </p> + <p> + Here is an extract from another letter. This was from one of the students + of Stoughton University to a friend whose name as it was written on the + envelope was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmaster who found fault with + Miss “Lulu's” designation would probably have quarrelled with this + address, if it had come under his eye. “Frank” is a very pretty, + pleasant-sounding name, and it is not strange that many persons use it in + common conversation all their days when speaking of a friend. Were they + really christened by that name, any of these numerous Franks? Perhaps they + were, and if so there is nothing to be said. But if not, was the baptismal + name Francis or Franklin? The mind is apt to fasten in a very perverse and + unpleasant way upon this question, which too often there is no possible + way of settling. One might hope, if he outlived the bearer of the + appellation, to get at the fact; but since even gravestones have learned + to use the names belonging to childhood and infancy in their solemn + record, the generation which docks its Christian names in such an + un-Christian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of riddles to + posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the historians and antiquarians + of a coming generation to settle what was the real name of Dan and Bert + and Billy, which last is legible on a white marble slab, raised in memory + of a grown person, in a certain burial-ground in a town in Essex County, + Massachusetts! + </p> + <p> + But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter directed to Mr. Frank + Mayfield. + </p> + <p> + “DEAR FRANK,—Hooray! Hurrah! Rah! + </p> + <p> + “I have made the acquaintance of 'The Mysterious Stranger'! It happened by + a queer sort of accident, which came pretty near relieving you of the duty + of replying to this letter. I was out in my little boat, which carries a + sail too big for her, as I know and ought to have remembered. One of those + fitful flaws of wind to which the lake is so liable struck the sail + suddenly, and over went my boat. My feet got tangled in the sheet somehow, + and I could not get free. I had hard work to keep my head above water, and + I struggled desperately to escape from my toils; for if the boat were to + go down I should be dragged down with her. I thought of a good many things + in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, and I got a + lesson about time better than anything Kant and all the rest of them have + to say of it. After I had been there about an ordinary lifetime, I saw a + white canoe making toward me, and I knew that our shy young gentleman was + coming to help me, and that we should become acquainted without an + introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what the trouble was, managed + to disentangle my feet without drowning me in the process or upsetting his + little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat tired with my struggle, took + me in tow and carried me to the landing where he kept his canoe. I can't + say that there is anything odd about his manners or his way of talk. I + judge him to be a native of one of our Northern States,—perhaps a + New Englander. He has lived abroad during some parts of his life. He is + not an artist, as it was at one time thought he might be. He is a + good-looking fellow, well developed, manly in appearance, with nothing to + excite special remark unless it be a certain look of anxiety or + apprehension which comes over him from time to time. You remember our old + friend Squire B., whose companion was killed by lightning when he was + standing close to him. You know the look he had whenever anything like a + thundercloud came up in the sky. Well, I should say there was a look like + that came over this Maurice Kirkwood's face every now and then. I noticed + that he looked round once or twice as if to see whether some object or + other was in sight. There was a little rustling in the grass as if of + footsteps, and this look came over his features. A rabbit ran by us, and I + watched to see if he showed any sign of that antipathy we have heard so + much of, but he seemed to be pleased watching the creature. + </p> + <p> + “If you ask me what my opinion is about this Maurice Kirkwood, I think he + is eccentric in his habit of life, but not what they call a 'crank' + exactly. He talked well enough about such matters as we spoke of,—the + lake, the scenery in general, the climate. I asked him to come over and + take a look at the college. He did n't promise, but I should not be + surprised if I should get him over there some day. I asked him why he did + n't go to the Pansophian meetings. He did n't give any reason, but he + shook his head in a very peculiar way, as much as to say that it was + impossible. + </p> + <p> + “On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the same feeling of dread + of human society, or dislike for it, which under the name of religion used + to drive men into caves and deserts. What a pity that Protestantism does + not make special provision for all the freaks of individual character! If + we had a little more faith and a few more caverns, or convenient places + for making them, we should have hermits in these holes as thick as + woodchucks or prairie dogs. I should like to know if you never had the + feeling, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place!' +</pre> + <p> + “I know what your answer will be, of course. You will say, 'Certainly, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'With one fair spirit for my minister;'” + </pre> + <p> + “but I mean alone,—all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should + like to have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong as + lye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry is + looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to send, and a + disgrace to the University—but never mind.) I often feel as if I + should like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,—yes, and have + it soaped from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look down at the bores + and the duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' association. (Jerry—still + looking over says there is an absurd contradiction in the idea.) + </p> + <p> + “What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is! + </p> + <p> + “How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector general?” + </p> + <p> + The reader will not get much information out of this lively young fellow's + letter, but he may get a little. It is something to know that the + mysterious resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor talk like a + crazy person; that he was of agreeable aspect and address, helpful when + occasion offered, and had nothing about him, so far as yet appeared, to + prevent his being an acceptable member of society. + </p> + <p> + Of course the people in the village could never be contented without + learning everything there was to be learned about their visitor. All the + city papers were examined for advertisements. If a cashier had absconded, + if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad president was missing, some of + the old stories would wake up and get a fresh currency, until some new + circumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. Unconscious of all these + inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood lived on in his inoffensive and + unexplained solitude, and seemed likely to remain an unsolved enigma. The + “Sachem” of the boating girls became the “Sphinx” of the village ramblers, + and it was agreed on all hands that Egypt did not hold any hieroglyphics + harder to make out than the meaning of this young man's odd way of living. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. THE ENIGMA STUDIED. + </h2> + <p> + It was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circumstance that a young + man, seemingly in good health, of comely aspect, looking as if made for + companionship, should keep himself apart from all the world around him in + a place where there was a general feeling of good neighborhood and a + pleasant social atmosphere. The Public Library was a central point which + brought people together. The Pansophian Society did a great deal to make + them acquainted with each other for many of the meetings were open to + outside visitors, and the subjects discussed in the meetings furnished the + material for conversation in their intervals. A card of invitation had + been sent by the Secretary to Maurice, in answer to which Paolo carried + back a polite note of regret. The paper had a narrow rim of black, + implying apparently some loss of relative or friend, but not any very + recent and crushing bereavement. This refusal to come to the meetings of + the society was only what was expected. It was proper to ask him, but his + declining the invitation showed that he did not wish for attentions or + courtesies. There was nothing further to be done to bring him out of his + shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about him at present. + </p> + <p> + In this state of things it was natural that all which had been previously + gathered by the few who had seen or known anything of him should be worked + over again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the old refuse heaps are + looked over for what may still be found in them. The landlord of the + Anchor Tavern, now the head of the boarding-house, talked about Maurice, + as everybody in the village did at one time or another. He had not much to + say, but he added a fact or two. + </p> + <p> + The young gentleman was good pay,—so they all said. Sometimes he + paid in gold; sometimes in fresh bills, just out of the bank. He trusted + his man, Mr. Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew something + about horses; he showed that by the way he handled that colt,—the + one that threw the hostler and broke his collar-bone. “Mr. Paul come down + to the stable. 'Let me see that cult you all 'fraid of,' says he. 'My + master, he ride any hoss,' says Paul. 'You saddle him,' says he; and so + they did, and Paul, he led that colt—the kickinest and ugliest young + beast you ever see in your life—up to the place where his master, as + he calls him, and he lives. What does that Kirkwood do but clap on a + couple of long spurs and jump on to that colt's back, and off the beast + goes, tail up, heels flying, standing up on end, trying all sorts of + capers, and at last going it full run for a couple of miles, till he'd got + about enough of it. That colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come + back as quiet as a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills reg'lar, in good + money, and knows how to handle a hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if + he is n't a whole one,—and most likely he is a whole one.” + </p> + <p> + So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His wife had already given + her favorable opinion of her former guest. She now added something to her + description as a sequel to her husband's remarks. + </p> + <p> + “I call him,” she said, “about as likely a young gentleman as ever I + clapped my eyes on. He is rather slighter than I like to see a young man + of his age; if he was my son, I should like to see him a little more + fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hundred and thirty or forty + pounds. Did y' ever look at those eyes of his, M'randy? Just as blue as + succory flowers. I do like those light-complected young fellows, with + their fresh cheeks and their curly hair; somehow, curly hair doos set off + anybody's face. He is n't any foreigner, for all that he talks Italian + with that Mr. Paul that's his help. He looks just like our kind of folks, + the college kind, that's brought up among books, and is handling 'em, and + reading of 'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all their lives. All + that you say about his riding the mad colt is just what I should think he + was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought to see him go over + that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's any harm in that young + gentleman,—I don't care what people say. I suppose he likes this + place just as other people like it, and cares more for walking in the + woods and paddling about in the water than he doos for company; and if he + doos, whose business is it, I should like to know?” + </p> + <p> + The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging + people. + </p> + <p> + “I never see him but two or three times,” Miranda said. “I should like to + have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him when he was + eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their jaws get + a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. Do you remember that chap + the sheriff come and took away when we kep' tahvern? Eleven year ago it + was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gentleman from the City + he set up for. I watched him, and I watched him. Says I, I don't believe + you're no gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, and that ain't the way + city folks eats. Every time I handed him anything I looked closeter and + closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them cheeks, says I to myself. + Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in your shirt-front hain't got + no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's nothin' more 'n a bit o' + winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You jes' step out and get the sheriff + to come in and take a look at that chap.' I knowed he was after a fellah. + He come right in, an' he goes up to the chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm + mighty glad to see yer. We've had the hole in the wall you got out of + mended, and I want your company to come and look at the old place,' says + he, and he pulls out a couple of handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in + less than no time, an' off they goes together! I know one thing about that + young gentleman, anyhow,—there ain't no better judge of what's good + eatin' than he is. I cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he + sends word to me by that Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, I that + the Pope o' Rome don't have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent + up to me yesterday,' says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' Rome + except that he's a Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for him, + whether it's a man or a woman; but when it comes to a dish o' maccaroni, I + ain't afeard of their shefs, as they call 'em,—them he-cooks that + can't serve up a cold potater without callin' it by some name nobody can + say after 'em. But this gentleman knows good cookin', and that's as good a + sign of a gentleman as I want to tell 'em by.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. STILL AT FAULT. + </h2> + <p> + The house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken up his abode was not a very + inviting one. It was old, and had been left in a somewhat dilapidated and + disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in the part which + Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing-boxes in the cellar, + with broken chairs, broken china, and other household wrecks. A cracked + mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the contents of which were airing + themselves through wide rips and rents. A lame clothes-horse was saddled + with an old rug fringed with a ragged border, out of which all the colors + had been completely trodden. No woman would have gone into a house in such + a condition. But the young man did not trouble himself much about such + matters, and was satisfied when the rooms which were to be occupied by + himself and his servant were made decent and tolerably comfortable. During + the fine season all this was not of much consequence, and if Maurice made + up his mind to stay through the winter he would have his choice among many + more eligible places. + </p> + <p> + The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had now arrived, and the + young ladies had scattered to their homes. Among the graduates of the year + were Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who had now returned to + their homes in Arrowhead Village. They were both glad to rest after the + long final examinations and the exercises of the closing day, in which + each of them had borne a conspicuous part. It was a pleasant life they led + in the village, which was lively enough at this season. Walking, riding, + driving, boating, visits to the Library, meetings of the Pansophian + Society, hops, and picnics made the time pass very cheerfully, and soon + showed their restoring influences. The Terror's large eyes did not wear + the dull, glazed look by which they had too often betrayed the after + effects of over-excitement of the strong and active brain behind them. The + Wonder gained a fresher bloom, and looked full enough of life to radiate + vitality into a statue of ice. They had a boat of their own, in which they + passed many delightful hours on the lake, rowing, drifting, reading, + telling of what had been, dreaming of what might be. + </p> + <p> + The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, and + visited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar character, as + these officials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of knowledge, + sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs of books, their + title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the class of readers who call + for particular works, the value of different editions, and a good deal + besides. Their minds catch up hints from all manner of works on all kinds + of subjects. They will give a visitor a fact and a reference which they + are surprised to find they remember and which the visitor might have + hunted for a year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who has + grown into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to every + bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These nerves + get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do not like to + have a volume meddled with any more than they would like to have their + naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the books of a great + collection are a part, not merely of their own property, though they are + only the agents for their distribution, but that they are, as it were, + outlying portions of their own organization. The old Librarian was getting + a miserly feeling about his books, as he called them. Fortunately, he had + a young lady for his assistant, who was never so happy as when she could + find the work any visitor wanted and put it in his hands,—or her + hands, for there were more readers among the wives and—daughters, + and especially among the aunts, than there were among their male + relatives. The old Librarian knew the books, but the books seemed to know + the young assistant; so it looked, at least, to the impatient young people + who wanted their services. + </p> + <p> + Maurice had a good many volumes of his own,—a great many, according + to Paolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well-filled + shelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master frequently sent + him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat enlarged his notions; + still, the Signor was a very learned man, he was certain, and some of his + white books (bound in vellum and richly gilt) were more splendid, + according to Paolo, than anything in the Library. + </p> + <p> + There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that Maurice was + in the habit of taking out, and the Librarian's record was carefully + searched by some of the more inquisitive investigators. The list proved to + be a long and varied one. It would imply a considerable knowledge of + modern languages and of the classics; a liking for mathematics and + physics, especially all that related to electricity and magnetism; a fancy + for the occult sciences, if there is any propriety in coupling these + words; and a whim for odd and obsolete literature, like the Parthenologia + of Fortunius Licetus, the quaint treatise 'De Sternutatione,' books about + alchemy, and witchcraft, apparitions, and modern works relating to + Spiritualism. With these were the titles of novels and now and then of + books of poems; but it may be taken for granted that his own shelves held + the works he was most frequently in the habit of reading or consulting. + Not much was to be made out of this beyond the fact of wide scholarship,—more + or less deep it might be, but at any rate implying no small mental + activity; for he appeared to read very rapidly, at any rate exchanged the + books he had taken out for new ones very frequently. To judge by his + reading, he was a man of letters. But so wide-reading a man of letters + must have an object, a literary purpose in all probability. Why should not + he be writing a novel? Not a novel of society, assuredly, for a hermit is + not the person to report the talk and manners of a world which he has + nothing to do with. Novelists and lawyers understand the art of “cramming” + better than any other persons in the world. Why should not this young man + be working up the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a + background for some story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and hints + borrowed from science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his + odd and miscellaneous selection of books furnished him? That might be, or + possibly he was only reading for amusement. Who could say? + </p> + <p> + The funds of the Public Library of Arrowhead Village allowed the managers + to purchase many books out of the common range of reading. The two learned + people of the village were the rector and the doctor. These two worthies + kept up the old controversy between the professions, which grows out of + the fact that one studies nature from below upwards, and the other from + above downwards. The rector maintained that physicians contracted a squint + which turns their eyes inwardly, while the muscles which roll their eyes + upward become palsied. The doctor retorted that theological students + developed a third eyelid,—the nictitating membrane, which is so well + known in birds, and which serves to shut out, not all light, but all the + light they do not want. Their little skirmishes did not prevent their + being very good friends, who had a common interest in many things and many + persons. Both were on the committee which had the care of the Library and + attended to the purchase of books. Each was scholar enough to know the + wants of scholars, and disposed to trust the judgment of the other as to + what books should be purchased. Consequently, the clergyman secured the + addition to the Library of a good many old theological works which the + physician would have called brimstone divinity, and held to be just the + thing to kindle fires with,—good books still for those who know how + to use them, oftentimes as awful examples of the extreme of + disorganization the whole moral system may undergo when a barbarous belief + has strangled the natural human instincts. The physician, in the mean + time, acquired for the collection some of those medical works where one + may find recorded various rare and almost incredible cases, which may not + have their like for a whole century, and then repeat themselves, so as to + give a new lease of credibility to stories which had come to be looked + upon as fables. + </p> + <p> + Both the clergyman and the physician took a very natural interest in the + young man who had come to reside in their neighborhood for the present, + perhaps for a long period. The rector would have been glad to see him at + church. He would have liked more especially to have had him hear his + sermon on the Duties of Young Men to Society. The doctor, meanwhile, was + meditating on the duties of society to young men, and wishing that he + could gain the young man's confidence, so as to help him out of any false + habit of mind or any delusion to which he might be subject, if he had the + power of being useful to him. + </p> + <p> + Dr. Butts was the leading medical practitioner, not only of Arrowhead + Village, but of all the surrounding region. He was an excellent specimen + of the country doctor, self-reliant, self-sacrificing, working a great + deal harder for his living than most of those who call themselves the + laboring classes,—as if none but those whose hands were hardened by + the use of farming or mechanical implements had any work to do. He had + that sagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance, and he had + also a fair share of that learning without which sagacity is like a + traveller with a good horse, but who cannot read the directions on the + guideboards. He was not a man to be taken in by names. He well knew that + oftentimes very innocent-sounding words mean very grave disorders; that + all, degrees of disease and disorder are frequently confounded under the + same term; that “run down” may stand for a fatigue of mind or body from + which a week or a month of rest will completely restore the over-worked + patient, or an advanced stage of a mortal illness; that “seedy” may + signify the morning's state of feeling, after an evening's + over-indulgence, which calls for a glass of soda-water and a cup of + coffee, or a dangerous malady which will pack off the subject of it, at + the shortest notice, to the south of France. He knew too well that what is + spoken lightly of as a “nervous disturbance” may imply that the whole + machinery of life is in a deranged condition, and that every individual + organ would groan aloud if it had any other language than the terrible + inarticulate one of pain by which to communicate with the consciousness. + </p> + <p> + When, therefore, Dr. Butts heard the word antipatia he did not smile, and + say to himself that this was an idle whim, a foolish fancy, which the + young man had got into his head. Neither was he satisfied to set down + everything to the account of insanity, plausible as that supposition might + seem. He was prepared to believe in some exceptional, perhaps anomalous, + form of exaggerated sensibility, relating to what class of objects he + could not at present conjecture, but which was as vital to the subject of + it as the insulating arrangement to a piece of electrical machinery. With + this feeling he began to look into the history of antipathies as recorded + in all the books and journals on which he could lay his hands. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ——————————————— +</pre> + <p> + The holder of the Portfolio asks leave to close it for a brief interval. + He wishes to say a few words to his readers, before offering them some + verses which have no connection with the narrative now in progress. + </p> + <p> + If one could have before him a set of photographs taken annually, + representing the same person as he or she appeared for thirty or forty or + fifty years, it would be interesting to watch the gradual changes of + aspect from the age of twenty, or even of thirty or forty, to that of + threescore and ten. The face might be an uninteresting one; still, as + sharing the inevitable changes wrought by time, it would be worth looking + at as it passed through the curve of life,—the vital parabola, which + betrays itself in the symbolic changes of the features. An inscription is + the same thing, whether we read it on slate-stone, or granite, or marble. + To watch the lights and shades, the reliefs and hollows, of a countenance + through a lifetime, or a large part of it, by the aid of a continuous + series of photographs would not only be curious; it would teach us much + more about the laws of physiognomy than we could get from casual and + unconnected observations. + </p> + <p> + The same kind of interest, without any assumption of merit to be found in + them, I would claim for a series of annual poems, beginning in middle life + and continued to what many of my correspondents are pleased to remind me—as + if I required to have the fact brought to my knowledge—is no longer + youth. Here is the latest of a series of annual poems read during the last + thirty-four years. There seems to have been one interruption, but there + may have been other poems not recorded or remembered. This, the latest + poem of the series, was listened to by the scanty remnant of what was a + large and brilliant circle of classmates and friends when the first of the + long series was read before them, then in the flush of ardent manhood:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + THE OLD SONG. + + The minstrel of the classic lay + Of love and wine who sings + Still found the fingers run astray + That touched the rebel strings. + + Of Cadmus he would fair have sung, + Of Atreus and his line; + But all the jocund echoes rung + With songs of love and wine. + + Ah, brothers! I would fair have caught + Some fresher fancy's gleam; + My truant accents find, unsought, + The old familiar theme. + + Love, Love! but not the sportive child + With shaft and twanging bow, + Whose random arrows drove us wild + Some threescore years ago; + + Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, + The urchin blind and bare, + But Love, with spectacles and staff, + And scanty, silvered hair. + + Our heads with frosted locks are white, + Our roofs are thatched with snow, + But red, in chilling winter's spite, + Our hearts and hearthstones glow. + + Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, + And while the running sands + Their golden thread unheeded spin, + He warms his frozen hands. + + Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, + And waft this message o'er + To all we miss, from all we meet + On life's fast-crumbling shore: + + Say that to old affection true + We hug the narrowing chain + That binds our hearts,—alas, how few + The links that yet remain! + + The fatal touch awaits them all + That turns the rocks to dust; + From year to year they break and fall, + They break, but never rust. + + Say if one note of happier strain + This worn-out harp afford, + —One throb that trembles, not in vain, + Their memory lent its chord. + + Say that when Fancy closed her wings + And Passion quenched his fire, + Love, Love, still echoed from the strings + As from Anacreon's lyre! + + January 8, 1885. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES + </h2> + <p> + In thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt convinced that, with + care and patience and watching his opportunity, he should get at the + secret, which so far had yielded nothing but a single word. It might be + asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all appearances, the young + stranger was unwilling to explain. He may have been to some extent + infected by the general curiosity of the persons around him, in which good + Mrs. Butts shared, and which she had helped to intensify by revealing the + word dropped by Paolo. But this was not really his chief motive. He could + not look upon this young man, living a life of unwholesome solitude, + without a natural desire to do all that his science and his knowledge of + human nature could help him to do towards bringing him into healthy + relations with the world about him. Still, he would not intrude upon him + in any way. He would only make certain general investigations, which might + prove serviceable in case circumstances should give him the right to + counsel the young man as to his course of life. The first thing to be done + was to study systematically the whole subject of antipathies. Then, if any + further occasion offered itself, he would be ready to take advantage of + it. The resources of the Public Library of the place and his own private + collection were put in requisition to furnish him the singular and widely + scattered facts of which he was in search. + </p> + <p> + It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. Butts in his study of + the natural history of antipathies. The stories told about them are, + however, very curious; and if some of them may be questioned, there is no + doubt that many of the strangest are true, and consequently take away from + the improbability of others which we are disposed to doubt. + </p> + <p> + But in the first place, what do we mean by an antipathy? It is an aversion + to some object, which may vary in degree from mere dislike to mortal + horror. What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say. It acts + sometimes through the senses, sometimes through the imagination, sometimes + through an unknown channel. The relations which exist between the human + being and all that surrounds him vary in consequence of some adjustment + peculiar to each individual. The brute fact is expressed in the phrase + “One man's meat is another man's poison.” + </p> + <p> + In studying the history of antipathies the doctor began with those + referable to the sense of taste, which are among the most common. In any + collection of a hundred persons there will be found those who cannot make + use of certain articles of food generally acceptable. This may be from the + disgust they occasion or the effects they have been found to produce. + Every one knows individuals who cannot venture on honey, or cheese, or + veal, with impunity. Carlyle, for example, complains of having veal set + before him,—a meat he could not endure. There is a whole family + connection in New England, and that a very famous one, to many of whose + members, in different generations, all the products of the dairy are the + subjects of a congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there are persons who + dread the smell of apples more than they would dread being exposed to a + fire of musketry. The readers of the charming story “A Week in a French + Country-House” will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's piteous cry in the + night: “Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thou sleepest, but I cannot + close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dreadful smell! Oh, Ursula, + it is such a smell! I do so wish thou couldst smell it! Good-night, my + angel!——Dearest! I have found them! They are apples!” The + smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has been known to cause faintness. + The sight of various objects has had singular effects on some persons. A + boar's head was a favorite dish at the table of great people in Marshal + d'Albret's time; yet he used to faint at the sight of one. It is not + uncommon to meet with persons who faint at the sight of blood. One of the + most inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts's college-mates confessed that + he had this infirmity. Stranger and far more awkward than this is the case + mentioned in an ancient collection, where the subject of the antipathy + fainted at the sight of any object of a red color. There are sounds, also, + which have strange effects on some individuals. Among the obnoxious noises + are the crumpling of silk stuffs, the sound of sweeping, the croaking of + frogs. The effects in different cases have been spasms, a sense of + strangling, profuse sweating,—all showing a profound disturbance of + the nervous system. + </p> + <p> + All these effects were produced by impressions on the organs of sense, + seemingly by direct agency on certain nerve centres. But there is another + series of cases in which the imagination plays a larger part in the + phenomena. Two notable examples are afforded in the lives of two very + distinguished personages. + </p> + <p> + Peter the Great was frightened, when an infant, by falling from a bridge + into the water. Long afterward, when he had reached manhood, this hardy + and resolute man was so affected by the sound of wheels rattling over a + bridge that he had to discipline himself by listening to the sound, in + spite of his dread of it, in order to overcome his antipathy. The story + told by Abbe Boileau of Pascal is very similar to that related of Peter. + As he was driving in his coach and four over the bridge at Neuilly, his + horses took fright and ran away, and the leaders broke from their harness + and sprang into the river, leaving the wheel-horses and the carriage on + the bridge. Ever after this fright it is said that Pascal had the + terrifying sense that he was just on the edge of an abyss, ready to fall + over. + </p> + <p> + What strange early impression was it which led a certain lady always to + shriek aloud if she ventured to enter a church, as it is recorded? The old + and simple way of accounting for it would be the scriptural one, that it + was an unclean spirit who dwelt in her, and who, when she entered the holy + place and brought her spiritual tenant into the presence of the sacred + symbols, “cried with a loud voice, and came out of” her. A very singular + case, the doctor himself had recorded, and which the reader may accept as + authentic, is the following: At the head of the doctor's front stairs + stood, and still stands, a tall clock, of early date and stately presence. + A middle-aged visitor, noticing it as he entered the front door, remarked + that he should feel a great unwillingness to pass that clock. He could not + go near one of those tall timepieces without a profound agitation, which + he dreaded to undergo. This very singular idiosyncrasy he attributed to a + fright when he was an infant in the arms of his nurse. + </p> + <p> + She was standing near one of those tall clocks, when the cord which + supported one of its heavy leaden weights broke, and the weight came + crashing down to the bottom of the case. Some effect must have been + produced upon the pulpy nerve centres from which they never recovered. Why + should not this happen, when we know that a sudden mental shock may be the + cause of insanity? The doctor remembered the verse of “The Ancient + Mariner:” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I moved my lips; the pilot shrieked + And fell down in a fit; + The holy hermit raised his eyes + And prayed where he did sit. + I took the oars; the pilot's boy, + Who now doth crazy go, + Laughed loud and long, and all the while + His eyes went to and fro.” + </pre> + <p> + This is only poetry, it is true, but the poet borrowed the description + from nature, and the records of our asylums could furnish many cases where + insanity was caused by a sudden fright. + </p> + <p> + More than this, hardly a year passes that we do not read of some person, a + child commonly, killed outright by terror,—scared to death, + literally. Sad cases they often are, in which, nothing but a surprise + being intended, the shock has instantly arrested the movements on which + life depends. If a mere instantaneous impression can produce effects like + these, such an impression might of course be followed by consequences less + fatal or formidable, but yet serious in their nature. If here and there a + person is killed, as if by lightning, by a sudden startling sight or + sound, there must be more numerous cases in which a terrible shock is + produced by similar apparently insignificant causes,—a shock which + falls short of overthrowing the reason and does not destroy life, yet + leaves a lasting effect upon the subject of it. + </p> + <p> + This point, then, was settled in the mind of Dr. Butts, namely, that, as a + violent emotion caused by a sudden shock can kill or craze a human being, + there is no perversion of the faculties, no prejudice, no change of taste + or temper, no eccentricity, no antipathy, which such a cause may not + rationally account for. He would not be surprised, he said to himself, to + find that some early alarm, like that which was experienced by Peter the + Great or that which happened to Pascal, had broken some spring in this + young man's nature, or so changed its mode of action as to account for the + exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But how could any conceivable + antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young man aloof from all the + world, and make a hermit of him? He did not hate the human race; that was + clear enough. He treated Paolo with great kindness, and the Italian was + evidently much attached to him. He had talked naturally and pleasantly + with the young man he had helped out of his dangerous situation when his + boat was upset. Dr. Butts heard that he had once made a short visit to + this young man, at his rooms in the University. It was not misanthropy, + therefore, which kept him solitary. What could be broad enough to cover + the facts of the case? Nothing that the doctor could think of, unless it + were some color, the sight of which acted on him as it did on the + individual before mentioned, who could not look at anything red without + fainting. Suppose this were a case of the same antipathy. How very careful + it would make the subject of it as to where he went and with whom he + consorted! Time and patience would be pretty sure to bring out new + developments, and physicians, of all men in the world, know how to wait as + well as how to labor. + </p> + <p> + Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts found them in books or + gathered them from his own experience. He soon discovered that the story + had got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the victim of an + “antipathy,” whatever that word might mean in the vocabulary of the people + of the place. If he suspected the channel through which it had reached the + little community, and, spreading from that centre, the country round, he + did not see fit to make out of his suspicions a domestic casus belli. + Paolo might have mentioned it to others as well as to himself. Maurice + might have told some friend, who had divulged it. But to accuse Mrs. + Butts, good Mrs. Butts, of petit treason in telling one of her husband's + professional secrets was too serious a matter to be thought of. He would + be a little more careful, he promised himself, the next time, at any rate; + for he had to concede, in spite of every wish to be charitable in his + judgment, that it was among the possibilities that the worthy lady had + forgotten the rule that a doctor's patients must put their tongues out, + and a doctor's wife must keep her tongue in. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII. THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + </h2> + <p> + The Secretary of this association was getting somewhat tired of the + office, and the office was getting somewhat tired of him. It occurred to + the members of the Society that a little fresh blood infused into it might + stir up the general vitality of the organization. The woman suffragists + saw no reason why the place of Secretary need as a matter of course be + filled by a person of the male sex. They agitated, they made domiciliary + visits, they wrote notes to influential citizens, and finally announced as + their candidate the young lady who had won and worn the school name of + “The Terror,” who was elected. She was just the person for the place: wide + awake, with all her wits about her, full of every kind of knowledge, and, + above all, strong on points of order and details of management, so that + she could prompt the presiding officer, to do which is often the most + essential duty of a Secretary. The President, the worthy rector, was good + at plain sailing in the track of the common moralities and proprieties, + but was liable to get muddled if anything came up requiring swift decision + and off-hand speech. The Terror had schooled herself in the debating + societies of the Institute, and would set up the President, when he was + floored by an awkward question, as easily as if he were a ninepin which + had been bowled over. + </p> + <p> + It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society received + communications from time to time from writers outside of its own + organization. Of late these had been becoming more frequent. Many of them + were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors to the + village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both full of + ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often impossible to trace + the papers to their authors. The new Secretary was alive with curiosity, + and as sagacious a little body as one might find if in want of a + detective. She could make a pretty shrewd guess whether a paper was + written by a young or old person, by one of her own sex or the other, by + an experienced hand or a novice. + </p> + <p> + Among the anonymous papers she received was one which exercised her + curiosity to an extraordinary degree. She felt a strong suspicion that + “the Sachem,” as the boat-crews used to call him, “the Recluse,” “the + Night-Hawk,” “the Sphinx,” as others named him, must be the author of it. + It appeared to her the production of a young person of a reflective, + poetical turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of writing; at least, so + thought the Secretary. The writer had travelled much; had resided in + Italy, among other places. But so had many of the summer visitors and + residents of Arrowhead Village. The handwriting was not decisive; it had + some points of resemblance with the pencilled orders for books which + Maurice sent to the Library, but there were certain differences, + intentional or accidental, which weakened this evidence. There was an + undertone in the essay which was in keeping with the mode of life of the + solitary stranger. It might be disappointment, melancholy, or only the + dreamy sadness of a young person who sees the future he is to climb, not + as a smooth ascent, but as overhanging him like a cliff, ready to crush + him, with all his hopes and prospects. This interpretation may have been + too imaginative, but here is the paper, and the reader can form his own + opinion: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + MY THREE COMPANIONS. +</pre> + <p> + “I have been from my youth upwards a wanderer. I do not mean constantly + flitting from one place to another, for my residence has often been fixed + for considerable periods. From time to time I have put down in a notebook + the impressions made upon me by the scenes through which I have passed. I + have long hesitated whether to let any of my notes appear before the + public. My fear has been that they were too subjective, to use the + metaphysician's term,—that I have seen myself reflected in Nature, + and not the true aspects of Nature as she was meant to be understood. One + who should visit the Harz Mountains would see—might see, rather his + own colossal image shape itself on the morning mist. But if in every mist + that rises from the meadows, in every cloud that hangs upon the mountain, + he always finds his own reflection, we cannot accept him as an interpreter + of the landscape. + </p> + <p> + “There must be many persons present at the meetings of the Society to + which this paper is offered who have had experiences like that of its + author. They have visited the same localities, they have had many of the + same thoughts and feelings. Many, I have no doubt. Not all,—no, not + all. Others have sought the companionship of Nature; I have been driven to + it. Much of my life has been passed in that communion. These pages record + some of the intimacies I have formed with her under some of her various + manifestations. + </p> + <p> + “I have lived on the shore of the great ocean, where its waves broke + wildest and its voice rose loudest. + </p> + <p> + “I have passed whole seasons on the banks of mighty and famous rivers. + </p> + <p> + “I have dwelt on the margin of a tranquil lake, and floated through many a + long, long summer day on its clear waters. + </p> + <p> + “I have learned the 'various language' of Nature, of which poetry has + spoken,—at least, I have learned some words and phrases of it. I + will translate some of these as I best may into common speech. + </p> + <p> + “The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores:— + </p> + <p> + “You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do not trouble myself with the + living tribes that come down to my waters. I have my own people, of an + older race than yours, that grow to mightier dimensions than your + mastodons and elephants; more numerous than all the swarms that fill the + air or move over the thin crust of the earth. Who are you that build your + palaces on my margin? I see your white faces as I saw the dark faces of + the tribes that came before you, as I shall look upon the unknown family + of mankind that will come after you. And what is your whole human family + but a parenthesis in a single page of my history? The raindrops + stereotyped themselves on my beaches before a living creature left his + footprints there. This horseshoe-crab I fling at your feet is of older + lineage than your Adam,—perhaps, indeed, you count your Adam as one + of his descendants. What feeling have I for you? Not scorn, not hatred,—not + love,—not loathing. No!—-indifference,—blank + indifference to you and your affairs that is my feeling, say rather + absence of feeling, as regards you.—-Oh yes, I will lap your feet, I + will cool you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my strong + arms, I will rock you on my rolling undulations, like a babe in his + cradle. Am I not gentle? Am I not kind? Am I not harmless? But hark! The + wind is rising, and the wind and I are rough playmates! What do you say to + my voice now? Do you see my foaming lips? Do you feel the rocks tremble as + my huge billows crash against them? Is not my anger terrible as I dash + your argosy, your thunder-bearing frigate, into fragments, as you would + crack an eggshell?—No, not anger; deaf, blind, unheeding + indifference,—that is all. Out of me all things arose; sooner or + later, into me all things subside. All changes around me; I change not. I + look not at you, vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save in + momentary glimpses: I look on the white face of my dead mistress, whom I + follow as the bridegroom follows the bier of her who has changed her + nuptial raiment for the shroud. + </p> + <p> + “Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at my side. Continents and + islands grow old, and waste and disappear. The hardest rock crumbles; + vegetable and animal kingdoms come into being, wax great, decline, and + perish, to give way to others, even as human dynasties and nations and + races come and go. Look on me! 'Time writes no wrinkle' on my forehead. + Listen to me! All tongues are spoken on my shores, but I have only one + language: the winds taught me their vowels the crags and the sands + schooled me in my rough or smooth consonants. Few words are mine but I + have whispered them and sung them and shouted them to men of all tribes + from the time when the first wild wanderer strayed into my awful presence. + Have you a grief that gnaws at your heart-strings? Come with it to my + shore, as of old the priest of far-darting Apollo carried his rage and + anguish to the margin of the loud-roaring sea. There, if anywhere you will + forget your private and short-lived woe, for my voice speaks to the + infinite and the eternal in your consciousness. + </p> + <p> + “To him who loves the pages of human history, who listens to the voices of + the world about him, who frequents the market and the thoroughfare, who + lives in the study of time and its accidents rather than in the deeper + emotions, in abstract speculation and spiritual contemplation, the RIVER + addresses itself as his natural companion. + </p> + <p> + “Come live with me. I am active, cheerful, communicative, a natural talker + and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, except occasionally when + I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get a fall. When I am + silent you can still have pleasure in watching my changing features. My + idlest babble, when I am toying with the trifles that fall in my way, if + not very full of meaning, is at least musical. I am not a dangerous + friend, like the ocean; no highway is absolutely safe, but my nature is + harmless, and the storms that strew the beaches with wrecks cast no ruins + upon my flowery borders. Abide with me, and you shall not die of thirst, + like the forlorn wretches left to the mercies of the pitiless salt waves. + Trust yourself to me, and I will carry you far on your journey, if we are + travelling to the same point of the compass. If I sometimes run riot and + overflow your meadows, I leave fertility behind me when I withdraw to my + natural channel. Walk by my side toward the place of my destination. I + will keep pace with you, and you shall feel my presence with you as that + of a self-conscious being like yourself. You will find it hard to be + miserable in my company; I drain you of ill-conditioned thoughts as I + carry away the refuse of your dwelling and its grounds.” + </p> + <p> + But to him whom the ocean chills and crushes with its sullen indifference, + and the river disturbs with its never-pausing and never-ending story, the + silent LAKE shall be a refuge and a place of rest for his soul. + </p> + <p> + “'Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your limited faculties,' it + says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running stream. Leave the + ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living thing that walks the + solid earth; leave the river, too busy with its own errand, too talkative + about its own affairs, and find peace with me, whose smile will cheer you, + whose whisper will soothe you. Come to me when the morning sun blazes + across my bosom like a golden baldric; come to me in the still midnight, + when I hold the inverted firmament like a cup brimming with jewels, nor + spill one star of all the constellations that float in my ebon goblet. Do + you know the charm of melancholy? Where will you find a sympathy like mine + in your hours of sadness? Does the ocean share your grief? Does the river + listen to your sighs? The salt wave, that called to you from under last + month's full moon, to-day is dashing on the rocks of Labrador; the stream, + that ran by you pure and sparkling, has swallowed the poisonous refuse of + a great city, and is creeping to its grave in the wide cemetery that + buries all things in its tomb of liquid crystal. It is true that my waters + exhale and are renewed from one season to another; but are your features + the same, absolutely the same, from year to year? We both change, but we + know each other through all changes. Am I not mirrored in those eyes of + yours? And does not Nature plant me as an eye to behold her beauties while + she is dressed in the glories of leaf and flower, and draw the icy lid + over my shining surface when she stands naked and ashamed in the poverty + of winter?' + </p> + <p> + “I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts in the course of a life + not very long, but with a record which much longer lives could not match + in incident. Oftentimes the temptation has come over me with dangerous + urgency to try a change of existence, if such change is a part of human + destiny,—to seek rest, if that is what we gain by laying down the + burden of life. I have asked who would be the friend to whom I should + appeal for the last service I should have need of. Ocean was there, all + ready, asking no questions, answering none. What strange voyages, downward + through its glaucous depths, upwards to its boiling and frothing surface, + wafted by tides, driven by tempests, disparted by rude agencies; one + remnant whitening on the sands of a northern beach, one perhaps built into + the circle of a coral reef in the Pacific, one settling to the floor of + the vast laboratory where continents are built, to emerge in far-off ages! + What strange companions for my pall-bearers! Unwieldy sea-monsters, the + stories of which are counted fables by the spectacled collectors who think + their catalogues have exhausted nature; naked-eyed creatures, staring, + glaring, nightmare-like spectres of the ghastly-green abysses; pulpy + islands, with life in gelatinous immensity,—what a company of hungry + heirs at every ocean funeral! No! No! Ocean claims great multitudes, but + does not invite the solitary who would fain be rid of himself. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the lake I love than I + have ever found when drifting idly over its surface? No, again. I do not + want the sweet, clear waters to know me in the disgrace of nature, when + life, the faithful body-servant, has ceased caring for me. That must not + be. The mirror which has pictured me so often shall never know me as an + unwelcome object. + </p> + <p> + “If I must ask the all-subduing element to be my last friend, and lead me + out of my prison, it shall be the busy, whispering, not unfriendly, + pleasantly companionable river. + </p> + <p> + “But Ocean and River and Lake have certain relations to the periods of + human life which they who are choosing their places of abode should + consider. Let the child play upon the seashore. The wide horizon gives his + imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. That background of mystery, + without which life is a poor mechanical arrangement, is shaped and + colored, so far as it can have outline, or any hue but shadow, on a vast + canvas, the contemplation of which enlarges and enriches the sphere of + consciousness. The mighty ocean is not too huge to symbolize the + aspirations and ambitions of the yet untried soul of the adolescent. + </p> + <p> + “The time will come when his indefinite mental horizon has found a solid + limit, which shuts his prospect in narrower bounds than he would have + thought could content him in the years of undefined possibilities. Then he + will find the river a more natural intimate than the ocean. It is + individual, which the ocean, with all its gulfs and inlets and + multitudinous shores, hardly seems to be. It does not love you very + dearly, and will not miss you much when you disappear from its margin; but + it means well to you, bids you good-morning with its coming waves, and + good-evening with those which are leaving. It will lead your thoughts + pleasantly away, upwards to its source, downwards to the stream to which + it is tributary, or the wide waters in which it is to lose itself. A + river, by choice, to live by in middle age. + </p> + <p> + “In hours of melancholy reflection, in those last years of life which have + little left but tender memories, the still companionship of the lake, + embosomed in woods, sheltered, fed by sweet mountain brooks and hidden + springs, commends itself to the wearied and saddened spirit. I am not + thinking of those great inland seas, which have many of the features and + much of the danger that belong to the ocean, but of those 'ponds,' as our + countrymen used to call them until they were rechristened by summer + visitors; beautiful sheets of water from a hundred to a few thousand acres + in extent, scattered like raindrops over the map of our Northern + sovereignties. The loneliness of contemplative old age finds its natural + home in the near neighborhood of one of these tranquil basins.” + </p> + <p> + Nature does not always plant her poets where they belong, but if we look + carefully their affinities betray themselves. The youth will carry his + Byron to the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved so well. The + man of maturer years will remember that the sonorous couplets of Pope + which ring in his ears were written on the banks of the Thames. The old + man, as he nods over the solemn verse of Wordsworth, will recognize the + affinity between the singer and the calm sheet that lay before him as he + wrote,—the stainless and sleepy Windermere. + </p> + <p> + “The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amusement to compare their own + feelings with those of one who has lived by the Atlantic and the + Mediterranean, by the Nile and the Tiber, by Lake Leman and by one of the + fairest sheets of water that our own North America embosoms in its + forests.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Lurida Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, read this paper, + and pondered long upon it. She was thinking very seriously of studying + medicine, and had been for some time in frequent communication with Dr. + Butts, under whose direction she had begun reading certain treatises, + which added to such knowledge of the laws of life in health and in disease + as she had brought with her from the Corinna Institute. Naturally enough, + she carried the anonymous paper to the doctor, to get his opinion about + it, and compare it with her own. They both agreed that it was probably, + they would not say certainly, the work of the solitary visitor. There was + room for doubt, for there were visitors who might well have travelled to + all the places mentioned, and resided long enough on the shores of the + waters the writer spoke of to have had all the experiences mentioned in + the paper. The Terror remembered a young lady, a former schoolmate, who + belonged to one of those nomadic families common in this generation, the + heads of which, especially the female heads, can never be easy where they + are, but keep going between America and Europe, like so many pith-balls in + the electrical experiment, alternately attracted and repelled, never in + contented equilibrium. Every few years they pull their families up by the + roots, and by the time they have begun to take hold a little with their + radicles in the spots to which they have been successively transplanted up + they come again, so that they never get a tap-root anywhere. The Terror + suspected the daughter of one of these families of sending certain + anonymous articles of not dissimilar character to the one she had just + received. But she knew the style of composition common among the young + girls, and she could hardly believe that it was one of them who had sent + this paper. Could a brother of this young lady have written it? Possibly; + she knew nothing more than that the young lady had a brother, then a + student at the University. All the chances were that Mr. Maurice Kirkwood + was the author. So thought Lurida, and so thought Dr. Butts. + </p> + <p> + Whatever faults there were in this essay, it interested them both. There + was nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on the part of + the writer, whoever he or she might be. There were references to suicide, + it is true, but they were of a purely speculative nature, and did not look + to any practical purpose in that direction. Besides, if the stranger were + the author of the paper, he certainly would not choose a sheet of water + like Cedar Lake to perform the last offices for him, in case he seriously + meditated taking unceremonious leave of life and its accidents. He could + find a river easily enough, to say nothing of other methods of effecting + his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the impropriety of + selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the white canoe and + its occupant, as they watched it skimming the surface of the deep waters. + </p> + <p> + The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come before the + public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers belonging + to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make free use of, + either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a diversion during + those intervals in which the flow of events is languid, or even ceases for + the time to manifest any progress. The reader can hardly have failed to + notice that the old Anchor Tavern had become the focal point where a good + deal of mental activity converged. There were the village people, + including a number of cultivated families; there were the visitors, among + them many accomplished and widely travelled persons; there was the + University, with its learned teachers and aspiring young men; there was + the Corinna Institute, with its eager, ambitious, hungry-souled young + women, crowding on, class after class coming forward on the broad stream + of liberal culture, and rounding the point which, once passed, the + boundless possibilities of womanhood opened before them. All this + furnished material enough and to spare for the records and the archives of + the society. + </p> + <p> + The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meetings. It may be + remembered that the girls had said of her, when she was The Terror, that + “she knew everything and didn't believe anything.” That was just the kind + of person for a secretary of such an association. Properly interpreted, + the saying meant that she knew a great deal, and wanted to know a great + deal more, and was consequently always on the lookout for information; + that she believed nothing without sufficient proof that it was true, and + therefore was perpetually asking for evidence where, others took + assertions on trust. + </p> + <p> + It was astonishing to see what one little creature like The Terror could + accomplish in the course of a single season. She found out what each + member could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside visitors whom + she suspected of capacity, and urged them to speak at the meetings, or + send written papers to be read. As an official, with the printed title at + the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, she was a privileged personage. + She begged the young persons who had travelled to tell something of their + experiences. She had contemplated getting up a discussion on the woman's + rights question, but being a wary little body, and knowing that the debate + would become a dispute and divide the members into two hostile camps, she + deferred this project indefinitely. It would be time enough after she had + her team well in hand, she said to herself,—had felt their mouths + and tried their paces. This expression, as she used it in her thoughts, + seems rather foreign to her habits, but there was room in her large brain + for a wide range of illustrations and an ample vocabulary. She could not + do much with her own muscles, but she had known the passionate delight of + being whirled furiously over the road behind four scampering horses, in a + rocking stage-coach, and thought of herself in the Secretary's chair as + not unlike the driver on his box. A few weeks of rest had allowed her + nervous energy to store itself up, and the same powers which had distanced + competition in the classes of her school had of necessity to expend + themselves in vigorous action in her new office. + </p> + <p> + Her appeals had their effect. A number of papers were very soon sent in; + some with names, some anonymously. She looked these papers over, and + marked those which she thought would be worth reading and listening to at + the meetings. One of them has just been presented to the reader. As to the + authorship of the following one there were many conjectures. A well-known + writer, who had spent some weeks at Arrowhead Village, was generally + suspected of being its author. Some, however, questioned whether it was + not the work of a new hand, who wrote, not from experience, but from his + or her ideas of the condition to which a story-teller, a novelist, must in + all probability be sooner or later reduced. The reader must judge for + himself whether this first paper is the work of an old hand or a novice. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + SOME EXPERIENCES OF A NOVELIST. +</pre> + <p> + “I have written a frightful number of stories, forty or more, I think. Let + me see. For twelve years two novels a year regularly: that makes + twenty-four. In three different years I have written three stories + annually: that makes thirty-three. In five years one a year,—thirty-eight. + That is all, is n't it? Yes. Thirty-eight, not forty. I wish I could make + them all into one composite story, as Mr. Galton does his faces. + </p> + <p> + “Hero—heroine—mamma—papa—uncle—sister, and + so on. Love —obstacles—misery—tears—despair—glimmer + of hope—unexpected solution of difficulties—happy finale. + </p> + <p> + “Landscape for background according to season. Plants of each month got up + from botanical calendars. + </p> + <p> + “I should like much to see the composite novel. Why not apply Mr. Galton's + process, and get thirty-eight stories all in one? All the Yankees would + resolve into one Yankee, all the P——West Britons into one + Patrick, etc., what a saving of time it would be! + </p> + <p> + “I got along pretty well with my first few stories. I had some characters + around me which, a little disguised, answered well enough. There was the + minister of the parish, and there was an old schoolmaster either of them + served very satisfactorily for grandfathers and old uncles. All I had to + do was to shift some of their leading peculiarities, keeping the rest. The + old minister wore knee-breeches. I clapped them on to the schoolmaster. + The schoolmaster carried a tall gold-headed cane. I put this in the + minister's hands. So with other things,—I shifted them round, and + got a set of characters who, taken together, reproduced the chief persons + of the village where I lived, but did not copy any individual exactly. + Thus it went on for a while; but by and by my stock company began to be + rather too familiarly known, in spite of their change of costume, and at + last some altogether too sagacious person published what he called a 'key' + to several of my earlier stories, in which I found the names of a number + of neighbors attached to aliases of my own invention. All the 'types,' as + he called them, represented by these personages of my story had come to be + recognized, each as standing for one and the same individual of my + acquaintance. It had been of no use to change the costume. Even changing + the sex did no good. I had a famous old gossip in one of my tales,—a + much-babbling Widow Sertingly. 'Sho!' they all said, that 's old Deacon + Spinner, the same he told about in that other story of his,—only the + deacon's got on a petticoat and a mob-cap,—but it's the same old + sixpence.' So I said to myself, I must have some new characters. I had no + trouble with young characters; they are all pretty much alike,—dark-haired + or light-haired, with the outfits belonging to their complexion, + respectively. I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-top eccentric. I had + never seen anything just like her in books. So I said, I will have you, + old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure enough, I fitted her out with a + first-rate odd-sounding name, which I got from the directory, and sent her + forth to the world, disguised, as I supposed, beyond the possibility of + recognition. The book sold well, and the eccentric personage was voted a + novelty. A few weeks after it was published a lawyer called upon me, as + the agent of the person in the directory, whose family name I had used, as + he maintained, to his and all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, + grief, shame, and irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank thousand + dollars would be a modest compensation. The story made the book sell, but + not enough to pay blank thousand dollars. In the mean time a cousin of + mine had sniffed out the resemblance between the character in my book and + our great-aunt. We were rivals in her good graces. 'Cousin Pansie' spoke + to her of my book and the trouble it was bringing on me,—she was so + sorry about it! She liked my story,—only those personalities, you + know. 'What personalities?' says old granny-aunt. 'Why, auntie, dear, they + do say that he has brought in everybody we know,—did n't anybody + tell you about—well,—I suppose you ought to know it,—did + n't anybody tell you you were made fun of in that novel?' Somebody—no + matter who—happened to hear all this, and told me. She said + granny-aunt's withered old face had two red spots come to it, as if she + had been painting her cheeks from a pink saucer. No, she said, not a pink + saucer, but as if they were two coals of fire. She sent out and got the + book, and made her (the somebody that I was speaking of) read it to her. + When she had heard as much as she could stand,—for 'Cousin Pansie' + explained passages to her,—explained, you know,—she sent for + her lawyer, and that same somebody had to be a witness to a new will she + had drawn up. It was not to my advantage. 'Cousin Pansie' got the corner + lot where the grocery is, and pretty much everything else. The old woman + left me a legacy. What do you think it was? An old set of my own books, + that looked as if it had been bought out of a bankrupt circulating + library. + </p> + <p> + “After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much more + diligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing stories + for my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, and worked + hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every story that went from + my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation, and there was + a set of critics,—there is a set of critics now and everywhere,—that + watch as narrowly for the decline of a man's reputation as ever a village + half drowned out by an inundation watched for the falling of the waters. + The fame I had won, such as it was, seemed to attend me,—not going + before me in the shape of a woman with a trumpet, but rather following me + like one of Actaeon's hounds, his throat open, ready to pull me down and + tear me. What a fierce enemy is that which bays behind us in the voice of + our proudest bygone achievement! + </p> + <p> + “But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I must + have characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. Oh, yes! + Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain aspects of + humanity will answer every purpose for which your invention was intended. + A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat which has been + soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had a brood of chickens + raised in it,—these elements, duly adjusted to each other, will + represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoid the cornfield + when your scarecrow displays his personality. Do you think you can make + your heroes and heroines,—nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries,—out + of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow? You can't do it. You must + study living people and reproduce them. And whom do you know so well as + your friends? You will show up your friends, then, one after another. When + your friends give out, who is left for you? Why, nobody but your own + family, of course. When you have used up your family, there is nothing + left for you but to write your autobiography. + </p> + <p> + “After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, very + naturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well as sexes. + In this way I continued to use up a large amount of material, which looked + as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to meddle with. Who would have + expected to meet my maternal uncle in the guise of a schoolboy? Yet I + managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as the old gentleman would + have decanted a bottle of Juno Madeira through that long siphon which he + always used when the most sacred vintages were summoned from their crypts + to render an account of themselves on his hospitable board. It was a nice + business, I confess, but I did it, and I drink cheerfully to that good + uncle's memory in a glass of wine from his own cellar, which, with many + other more important tokens of his good will, I call my own since his + lamented demise. + </p> + <p> + “I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought I would try a course of + cousins. I had enough of them to furnish out a whole gallery of portraits. + There was cousin 'Creeshy,' as we called her; Lucretia, more correctly. + She was a cripple. Her left lower limb had had something happen to it, and + she walked with a crutch. Her patience under her trial was very pathetic + and picturesque, so to speak,—I mean adapted to the tender parts of + a story; nothing could work up better in a melting paragraph. But I could + not, of course, describe her particular infirmity; that would point her + out at once. I thought of shifting the lameness to the right lower limb, + but even that would be seen through. So I gave the young woman that stood + for her in my story a lame elbow, and put her arm in a sling, and made her + such a model of uncomplaining endurance that my grandmother cried over her + as if her poor old heart would break. She cried very easily, my + grandmother; in fact, she had such a gift for tears that I availed myself + of it, and if you remember old Judy, in my novel 'Honi Soit' (Honey Sweet, + the booksellers called it),—old Judy, the black-nurse,—that + was my grandmother. She had various other peculiarities, which I brought + out one by one, and saddled on to different characters. You see she was a + perfect mine of singularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up + pretty well, I came down upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair + game; what better use could I put them to? I studied them up very + carefully, and as there were a good many of them I helped myself freely. + They lasted me, with occasional intermissions, I should say, three or four + years. I had to be very careful with my poor relations,—they were as + touchy as they could be; and as I felt bound to send a copy of my novel, + whatever it might be, to each one of them,—there were as many as a + dozen,—I took care to mix their characteristic features, so that, + though each might suspect I meant the other, no one should think I meant + him or her. I got through all my relations at last except my father and + mother. I had treated my brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except + Elisha and Joanna. The truth is they both had lots of odd ways,—family + traits, I suppose, but were just different enough from each other to + figure separately in two different stories. These two novels made me some + little trouble; for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in one of + them, and quarrelled with me about it; and Joanna vowed and declared that + Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, and that it was a real + mean thing to make fun of folks' own flesh and blood, and treated me to + one of her cries. She was n't handsome when she cried, poor, dear Joanna; + in fact, that was one of the personal traits I had made use of in the + story that Elisha found fault with. + </p> + <p> + “So as there was nobody left but my father and mother, you see for + yourself I had no choice. There was one great advantage in dealing with + them,—I knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a certain + delicacy it handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who have + been so near to him. One's mother, for instance: suppose some of her + little ways were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of them would + furnish amusement to great numbers of readers; it would not be without + hesitation that a writer of delicate sensibility would draw her portrait, + with all its whimsicalities, so plainly that it should be generally + recognized. One's father is commonly of tougher fibre than one's mother, + and one would not feel the same scruples, perhaps, in using him + professionally as material in a novel; still, while you are employing him + as bait,—you see I am honest and plain-spoken, for your characters + are baits to catch readers with,—I would follow kind Izaak Walton's + humane counsel about the frog you are fastening to your fish-hook: fix him + artistically, as he directs, but in so doing I use him as though you loved + him.' + </p> + <p> + “I have at length shown up, in one form and another, all my townsmen who + have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up, all my friends, + all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It has occurred to me + that I might open a new field in the family connection of my father-in-law + and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of paying them a visit, and I + shall have an admirable opportunity of studying them and their relatives + and visitors. I have long wanted a good chance for getting acquainted with + the social sphere several grades below that to which I am accustomed, and + I have no doubt that I shall find matter for half a dozen new stories + among those connections of mine. Besides, they live in a Western city, and + one doesn't mind much how he cuts up the people of places he does n't + himself live in. I suppose there is not really so much difference in + people's feelings, whether they live in Bangor or Omaha, but one's nerves + can't be expected to stretch across the continent. It is all a matter of + greater or less distance. I read this morning that a Chinese fleet was + sunk, but I did n't think half so much about it as I did about losing my + sleeve button, confound it! People have accused me of want of feeling; + they misunderstand the artist-nature,—that is all. I obey that + implicitly; I am sorry if people don't like my descriptions, but I have + done my best. I have pulled to pieces all the persons I am acquainted + with, and put them together again in my characters. The quills I write + with come from live geese, I would have you know. I expect to get some + first-rate pluckings from those people I was speaking of, and I mean to + begin my thirty-ninth novel as soon as I have got through my visit.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX. THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. + </h2> + <p> + There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events, in a + narrative like this. June passed away, and July, and August had come, and + as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead Village and its + visitors remained unsolved. The white canoe still wandered over the lake, + alone, ghostly, always avoiding the near approach of the boats which + seemed to be coming in its direction. Now and then a circumstance would + happen which helped to keep inquiry alive. Good horsemanship was not so + common among the young men of the place and its neighborhood that + Maurice's accomplishment in that way could be overlooked. If there was a + wicked horse or a wild colt whose owner was afraid of him, he would be + commended to Maurice's attention. Paolo would lead him to his master with + all due precaution,—for he had no idea of risking his neck on the + back of any ill-conditioned beast,—and Maurice would fasten on his + long spurs, spring into the saddle, and very speedily teach the creature + good behavior. There soon got about a story that he was what the + fresh-water fisherman called “one o' them whisperers.” It is a common + legend enough, coming from the Old World, but known in American + horse-talking circles, that some persons will whisper certain words in a + horse's ear which will tame him if he is as wild and furious as ever + Cruiser was. All this added to the mystery which surrounded the young man. + A single improbable or absurd story amounts to very little, but when half + a dozen such stories are told about the same individual or the same event, + they begin to produce the effect of credible evidence. If the year had + been 1692 and the place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood would + have run the risk of being treated like the Reverend George Burroughs. + </p> + <p> + Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely excited with reference + to the young man of whom so many stories were told. She had pretty nearly + convinced herself that he was the author of the paper on Ocean, Lake, and + River, which had been read at one of the meetings of the Pansophian + Society. She was very desirous of meeting him, if it were possible. It + seemed as if she might, as Secretary of the Society, request the + cooperation of any of the visitors, without impropriety. So, after much + deliberation, she wrote a careful note, of which the following is an exact + copy. Her hand was bold, almost masculine, a curious contrast to that of + Euthymia, which was delicately feminine. PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + </p> + <p> + ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18-. MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ. + </p> + <p> + DEAR SIR,—You have received, I trust, a card of invitation to the + meetings of our Society, but I think we have not yet had the pleasure of + seeing you at any of them. We have supposed that we might be indebted to + you for a paper read at the last meeting, and listened to with much + interest. As it was anonymous, we do not wish to be inquisitive respecting + its authorship; but we desire to say that any papers kindly sent us by the + temporary residents of our village will be welcome, and if adapted to the + wants of our Association will be read at one of its meetings or printed in + its records, or perhaps both read and printed. May we not hope for your + presence at the meeting, which is to take place next Wednesday evening? + Respectfully yours, + </p> + <p> + LURIDA VINCENT, Secretary of the Pansophian Society. + </p> + <p> + To this note the Secretary received the following reply: MISS LURIDA + VINCENT, + </p> + <p> + ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18-. + </p> + <p> + Secretary of the Pansophian Society: + </p> + <p> + DEAR MISS VINCENT,—I have received the ticket you refer to, and + desire to express my acknowledgments for the polite attention. I regret + that I have not been and I fear shall not be able to attend the meetings + of the Society; but if any subject occurs to me on which I feel an + inclination to write, it will give me pleasure to send a paper, to be + disposed of as the Society may see fit. + </p> + <p> + Very respectfully yours, MAURICE KIRKWOOD. + </p> + <p> + “He says nothing about the authorship of the paper that was read the other + evening,” the Secretary said to herself. “No matter,—he wrote it,—there + is no mistaking his handwriting. We know something about him, now, at any + rate. But why doesn't he come to our meetings? What has his antipathy to + do with his staying away? I must find out what his secret is, and I will. + I don't believe it's harder than it was to solve that prize problem which + puzzled so many teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, the great + chess-player.” + </p> + <p> + To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to bend all the faculties + which had excited the admiration and sometimes the amazement of those who + knew her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece of business; for + though Lurida was an intrepid woman's rights advocate, and believed she + was entitled to do almost everything that men dared to, she knew very well + there were certain limits which a young woman like herself must not pass. + </p> + <p> + In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young student at + the University,—the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous + predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,—an + instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the + instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with + the ease which implied long familiarity with its use. + </p> + <p> + After they left, the instructor asked many curious questions about him,—who + he was, how long he had been in the village, whether anything was known of + his history,—all these inquiries with an eagerness which implied + some special and peculiar reason for the interest they evinced. + </p> + <p> + “I feel satisfied,” the instructor said, “that I have met that young man + in my own country. It was a number of years ago, and of course he has + altered in appearance a good deal; but there is a look about him of—what + shall I call it?—-apprehension,—as if he were fearing the + approach of something or somebody. I think it is the way a man would look + that was haunted; you know what I mean,—followed by a spirit or + ghost. He does not suggest the idea of a murderer,—very far from it; + but if he did, I should think he was every minute in fear of seeing the + murdered man's spirit.” + </p> + <p> + The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the instructor could + recall. He had seen him in Rome, he thought, at the Fountain of Trevi, + where so many strangers go before leaving the city. The youth was in the + company of a man who looked like a priest. He could not mistake the + peculiar expression of his countenance, but that was all he now remembered + about his appearance. His attention had been called to this young man by + seeing that some of the bystanders were pointing at him, and noticing that + they were whispering with each other as if with reference to him. He + should say that the youth was at that time fifteen or sixteen years old, + and the time was about ten years ago. + </p> + <p> + After all, this evidence was of little or no value. Suppose the youth were + Maurice; what then? We know that he had been in Italy, and had been there + a good while,—or at least we infer so much from his familiarity with + the language, and are confirmed in the belief by his having an Italian + servant, whom he probably brought from Italy when he returned. If he wrote + the paper which was read the other evening, that settles it, for the + writer says he had lived by the Tiber. We must put this scrap of evidence + furnished by the Professor with the other scraps; it may turn out of some + consequence, sooner or later. It is like a piece of a dissected map; it + means almost nothing by itself, but when we find the pieces it joins with + we may discover a very important meaning in it. + </p> + <p> + In a small, concentrated community like that which centred in and + immediately around Arrowhead Village, every day must have its local gossip + as well as its general news. The newspaper tells the small community what + is going on in the great world, and the busy tongues of male and female, + especially the latter, fill in with the occurrences and comments of the + ever-stirring microcosm. The fact that the Italian teacher had, or thought + he had, seen Maurice ten years before was circulated and made the most of,—turned + over and over like a cake, until it was thoroughly done on both sides and + all through. It was a very small cake, but better than nothing. Miss + Vincent heard this story, as others did, and talked about it with her + friend, Miss Tower. Here was one more fact to help along. + </p> + <p> + The two young ladies who had recently graduated at the Corinna Institute + remained, as they had always been, intimate friends. They were the natural + complements of each other. Euthymia represented a complete, symmetrical + womanhood. Her outward presence was only an index of a large, wholesome, + affluent life. She could not help being courageous, with such a firm + organization. She could not help being generous, cheerful, active. She had + been told often enough that she was fair to look upon. She knew that she + was called The Wonder by the schoolmates who were dazzled by her singular + accomplishments, but she did not overvalue them. She rather tended to + depreciate her own gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss + Lurida Vincent. The two agreed all the better for differing as they did. + The octave makes a perfect chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less + on the ear. Each admired the other with a heartiness which if they had + been less unlike, would have been impossible. + </p> + <p> + It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence on each other. The + Terror of the schoolroom was the oracle in her relations with her friend. + All the freedom of movement which The Wonder showed in her bodily + exercises The Terror manifested in the world of thought. She would fling + open a book, and decide in a swift glance whether it had any message for + her. Her teachers had compared her way of reading to the taking of an + instantaneous photograph. When she took up the first book on Physiology + which Dr. Butts handed her, it seemed to him that if she only opened at + any place, and gave one look, her mind drank its meaning up, as a moist + sponge absorbs water. “What can I do with such a creature as this?” he + said to himself. “There is only one way to deal with her, treat her as one + treats a silkworm: give it its mulberry leaf, and it will spin its own + cocoon. Give her the books, and she will spin her own web of knowledge.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really think of studying medicine?” said Dr. Butts to her. + </p> + <p> + “I have n't made up my mind about that,” she answered, “but I want to know + a little more about this terrible machinery of life and death we are all + tangled in. I know something about it, but not enough. I find some very + strange beliefs among the women I meet with, and I want to be able to + silence them when they attempt to proselyte me to their whims and fancies. + Besides, I want to know everything.” + </p> + <p> + “They tell me you do, already,” said Dr. Butts. + </p> + <p> + “I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws the breath of life!” + exclaimed The Terror. + </p> + <p> + The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She had reached that stage of + education in which the vast domain of the unknown opens its illimitable + expanse before the eyes of the student. We never know the extent of + darkness until it is partially illuminated. + </p> + <p> + “You did not leave the Institute with the reputation of being the most + ignorant young lady that ever graduated there,” said the doctor. “They + tell me you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record since the + school was founded.” + </p> + <p> + “What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish in our small aquarium, + to be sure!” answered The Terror. “He was six inches long, the monster,—a + little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with! What did you hand me + that schoolbook for? Did you think I did n't know anything about the human + body?” + </p> + <p> + “You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try you + with an easy book, by way of introduction.” + </p> + <p> + The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction. + </p> + <p> + “I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. When I talk about my + ignorance, I don't measure myself with schoolgirls, doctor. I don't + measure myself with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if I were + a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me anything. Where is your hat, + doctor? Let me try it on.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Terror's hair was not naturally + abundant, like Euthymia's, and she kept it cut rather short. Her head used + to get very hot when she studied hard. She tried to put the hat on. + </p> + <p> + “Do you see that?” she said. “I could n't wear it—it would squeeze + my eyes out of my head. The books told me that women's brains were smaller + than men's: perhaps they are,—most of them,—I never measured a + great many. But when they try to settle what women are good for, by + phrenology, I like to have them put their tape round my head. I don't + believe in their nonsense, for all that. You might as well tell me that if + one horse weighs more than another horse he is worth more,—a + cart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred pounds better than + Eclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give me a list of the best + books you can think of, and turn me loose in your library. I can find what + I want, if you have it; and what I don't find there I will get at the + Public Library. I shall want to ask you a question now and then.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, but thoughtfully, as + if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her slight + constitutional resource. + </p> + <p> + She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contradiction in her + statements about herself. + </p> + <p> + “I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I sail on a wide sea of + ignorance, but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows and some of + its depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life that interest me + most just now, and I want to know something of it. Perhaps I may find it a + calling such as would suit me.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?” said the + doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, but I want to know + something more about it first. Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicine + enough to practise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well enough. No matter + about that. I wish to study some of your best books on some of the + subjects that most interest me. I know about bones and muscles and all + that, and about digestion and respiration and such things. I want to study + up the nervous system, and learn all about it. I am of the nervous + temperament myself, and perhaps that is the reason. I want to read about + insanity and all that relates to it.” + </p> + <p> + A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The Terror + said this. + </p> + <p> + “Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, I know,—all those + large-headed, hard-thinking girls do, as a matter of course; but what has + set her off about insanity and the nervous system? I wonder if any of her + more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder. Bright people very + often have crazy relations. Perhaps some of her friends are in that way. I + wonder whether”—the doctor did not speak any of these thoughts, and + in fact hardly shaped his “whether,” for The Terror interrupted his train + of reflection, or rather struck into it in a way which startled him. + </p> + <p> + “Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?” she asked, + looking at its empty place on the shelf. + </p> + <p> + “On my table,” the doctor answered. “I have been consulting it.” + </p> + <p> + Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned the pages rapidly until + she came to the one she wanted. The doctor cast his eye on the beading of + the page, and saw the large letters A N T. + </p> + <p> + “I thought so,” he said to himself. “We shall know everything there is in + the books about antipathies now, if we never did before. She has a special + object in studying the nervous system, just as I suspected. I think she + does not care to mention it at this time; but if she finds out anything of + interest she will tell me, if she does anybody. Perhaps she does not mean + to tell anybody. It is a rather delicate business,—a young girl + studying the natural history of a young man. Not quite so safe as botany + or palaeontology!” + </p> + <p> + Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had her own plans, and chose + to keep them to herself, for the present, at least. Her hands were full + enough, it might seem, without undertaking the solution of the great + Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the most perfect training, so far + as her intelligence was concerned; and the summer rest had restored her + bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an overcharged battery which will + find conductors somewhere to carry off its crowded energy. + </p> + <p> + At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the most successful season it + had ever known. The Pansophian Society flourished to an extraordinary + degree under the fostering care of the new Secretary. The rector was a + good figure-head as President, but the Secretary was the life of the + Society. Communications came in abundantly: some from the village and its + neighborhood, some from the University and the Institute, some from + distant and unknown sources. The new Secretary was very busy with the work + of examining these papers. After a forenoon so employed, the carpet of her + room looked like a barn floor after a husking-match. A glance at the + manuscripts strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have frightened any + young writer away from the thought of authorship as a business. If the + candidate for that fearful calling had seen the process of selection and + elimination, he would have felt still more desperately. A paper of twenty + pages would come in, with an underscored request to please read through, + carefully. That request alone is commonly sufficient to condemn any paper, + and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; but the Secretary was not + hardened enough yet for that kind of martial law in dealing with + manuscripts. The looker-on might have seen her take up the paper, cast one + flashing glance at its title, read the first sentence and the last, dip at + a venture into two or three pages, and decide as swiftly as the lightning + calculator would add up a column of figures what was to be its + destination. If rejected, it went into the heap on the left; if approved, + it was laid apart, to be submitted to the Committee for their judgment. + The foolish writers who insist on one's reading through their manuscript + poems and stories ought to know how fatal the request is to their + prospects. It provokes the reader, to begin with. The reading of + manuscript is frightful work, at the best; the reading of worthless + manuscript—and most of that which one is requested to read through + is worthless—would add to the terrors of Tartarus, if any infernal + deity were ingenious enough to suggest it as a punishment. + </p> + <p> + If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not come before the + Committee, but was returned to the author, if he sent for it, which he + commonly did. Its natural course was to try for admission into some one of + the popular magazines: into “The Sifter,” the most fastidious of them all; + if that declined it, into “The Second Best;” and if that returned it, into + “The Omnivorous.” If it was refused admittance at the doors of all the + magazines, it might at length find shelter in the corner of a newspaper, + where a good deal of very readable verse is to be met with nowadays, some + of which has been, no doubt, presented to the Pansophian Society, but was + not considered up to its standard. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X. A NEW ARRIVAL. + </h2> + <p> + There was a recent accession to the transient population of the village + which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a young fellow, + rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at home as if he + owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He commonly had a cigar in + his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the non-explosive sort, and a stick + with a bulldog's head for its knob; wore a soft hat, a coarse check suit, + a little baggy, and gaiterboots which had been half-soled,—a + Bohemian-looking personage, altogether. + </p> + <p> + This individual began making explorations in every direction. He was very + curious about the place and all the people in it. He was especially + interested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he made all sorts + of inquiries. This led him to form a summer acquaintance with the + Secretary, who was pleased to give him whatever information he asked for; + being proud of the Society, as she had a right to be, and knowing more + about it than anybody else. + </p> + <p> + The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearing + something of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, connected + with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell him anything about + Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note-book he always had with + him. + </p> + <p> + All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about this new + visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an attribute thought + to belong more especially to her sex, became somewhat interested to know + more exactly who this inquiring, note-taking personage, who seemed to be + everywhere and to know everybody, might himself be. Meeting him at the + Public Library at a fortunate moment, when there was nobody but the old + Librarian, who was hard of hearing, to interfere with their conversation, + the little Secretary had a chance to try to find out something about him. + </p> + <p> + “This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess,” he + remarked to Miss Lurida. + </p> + <p> + “It is, indeed,” she said. “Have you found it well furnished with the + books you most want?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes,—books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do + for the Newspapers. I like a Review well enough,—it tells you all + there is in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper saves + a fellow the trouble of reading it.” + </p> + <p> + “You find the papers you want, here, I hope,” said the young lady. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do much + reading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, there + is a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account of some of + the doings at our Society. The city papers are always glad to get the + reports of our meetings, and to know what is going on in the village.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are the + Secretary.” + </p> + <p> + This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man about his + business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She ducked her head, and + let the question go over her. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write, —especially + to give an account of their own papers. I think they like to have me put + in the applause, when they get any. I do that sometimes.” (How much more, + she did not say.) + </p> + <p> + “I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what they tell + me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have written + herself.” + </p> + <p> + He looked her straight in the eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I have transmitted some good papers,” she said, without winking, or + swallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to change; + her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and more too. + “You spoke of Newspapers,” she said, without any change of tone or manner: + “do you not frequently write for them yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “I should think I did,” answered the young man. “I am a regular + correspondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'” + </p> + <p> + “The regular correspondent from where?” + </p> + <p> + “Where! Oh, anywhere,—the place does not make much difference. I + have been writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and then + from Constantinople.” + </p> + <p> + “How long since your return to this country, may I ask?” + </p> + <p> + “My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with a + gazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can get + the facts much better from them than by trusting your own observation. I + have made the tour of Europe by the help of them and the newspapers. But + of late I have taken to interviewing. I find that a very pleasant + specialty. It is about as good sport as trout-tickling, and much the same + kind of business. I should like to send the Society an account of one of + my interviews. Don't you think they would like to hear it?” + </p> + <p> + “I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; and + if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. You know + everything has to be examined and voted on by the Committee,” said the + cautious Secretary. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,—I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, please + send it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter,' or 'The Second + Best,' or some of the paying magazines.” + </p> + <p> + This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the Pansophian + Society. + </p> + <p> + “I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, 'The + People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to a certain + well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could concerning him + and all that related to him. I have interviewed a good many politicians, + who I thought rather liked the process; but I had never tried any of these + literary people, and I was not quite sure how this one would feel about + it. I said as much to the chief, but he pooh-poohed my scruples. 'It is + n't our business whether they like it or not,' said he; 'the public wants + it, and what the public wants it's bound to have, and we are bound to + furnish it. Don't be afraid of your man; he 's used to it,—he's been + pumped often enough to take it easy, and what you've got to do is to pump + him dry. You need n't be modest,—ask him what you like; he is n't + bound to answer, you know.' + </p> + <p> + “As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up a + little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine on my + best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the house where + he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and pass for a visitor + from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' who call in to pay + their respects, to get an autograph, and go home and say that they have + met the distinguished So and So, which gives them a certain distinction in + the village circle to which they belong. + </p> + <p> + “My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his + reception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on my + face, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his face in the + light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged things so as to give + him that advantage. It was like two frigates manoeuvring,—each + trying to get to windward of the other. I never take out my note-book + until I and my man have got engaged in artless and earnest conversation,—always + about himself and his works, of course, if he is an author. + </p> + <p> + “I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those who had + read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of them. + </p> + <p> + “He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a great + many callers. + </p> + <p> + “I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his readers + feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to cherish a certain + attachment to him. + </p> + <p> + “He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he said. + In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had told him so. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir,” I said, “there is nothing wonderful in the fact you + mention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.' +</pre> + <p> + “Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), were + your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you very + frequently? + </p> + <p> + “He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they will all + turn out well.' + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said. + </p> + <p> + “No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and + pleasanter there.' + </p> + <p> + “I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an author's + library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's boudoir, a + sacred apartment. + </p> + <p> + “So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face, + when I wanted it on has. + </p> + <p> + “You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the room, + and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a Bible and a + Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other + classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, + and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming + Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of + knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a + scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want + you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly wish to see. + </p> + <p> + “Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose + is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes? + Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his oyster, + which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must open. Mark + how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,—how gently at + first, how strenuously when once fairly between the shells! + </p> + <p> + “And here, I said, you write your books,—those books which have + carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to + posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you + write with? + </p> + <p> + “'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied. + </p> + <p> + “He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up + the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which the + angel I used to read about in Young's 'Night Thoughts' ought to have + dropped, and did n't. + </p> + <p> + “Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I + asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “So I got out my note-book. + </p> + <p> + “It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview. I + admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are? + </p> + <p> + “'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.' + </p> + <p> + “I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said I. + Eight feet,—eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down. + </p> + <p> + “So I got out my pencil. + </p> + <p> + “I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not + using them as yet. + </p> + <p> + “I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a very + early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you began to + write in verse? + </p> + <p> + “He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are + themselves the subjects of conversation. + </p> + <p> + “'Very early,—I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise + Colet said, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'” + </pre> + <p> + “I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind + enough to translate that line for me. + </p> + <p> + “'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how to + write them.' + </p> + <p> + “How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she? + </p> + <p> + “My man was pleased to give me a piece of literary information. + </p> + <p> + “'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse + Karr?' + </p> + <p> + “Why,—yes,—more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well + up in French literature. What had he to do with your lioness? + </p> + <p> + “'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a + case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he came + down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing her + case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his dressing-gown, + put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He keeps it with an + inscription: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Donne a Alphonse Karr + Par Madame Louise Colet.... + Dans le dos. +</pre> + <p> + “Lively little female!' + </p> + <p> + “I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview the + lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest I + appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably + disposed toward me. + </p> + <p> + “I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything + about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of the + points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my most + audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new + concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the + public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I + meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here are + some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening + to: + </p> + <p> + “How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated man? + </p> + <p> + “'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love is + a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all through + it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the same kind. + It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It generates a + craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of becoming + slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. + Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters that tell him he + is this and that and the other, with epithets and endearments, one tenth + part of which would have made him blush red hot before he began to be what + you call a celebrity!' + </p> + <p> + “Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called + celebrity? + </p> + <p> + “'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life to + stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to after + his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after a few + months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you thirty-five + millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on condition that you + cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do you think you should + like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of a year, in which you had + worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a hundred coupons + an hour, and found you had not finished your task, after all? You have + addressed me as what you are pleased to call “a literary celebrity.” I + won't dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that title. I will + take it for granted I am what you call me, and give you some few hints on + my experience. + </p> + <p> + “'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for + Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would come + of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorry to say + that it has not effected its purpose.' + </p> + <p> + “I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of that + Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and as much + needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am sorry to + hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the abuse of a + deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was well conceived, + and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his expression that + he was its author.) + </p> + <p> + “'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some + of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom you + have applied the term “Literary Celebrity.” + </p> + <p> + “'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of + his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into + his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for + his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to + him for assistance. + </p> + <p> + “'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by + receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is + expected to fill up. + </p> + <p> + “'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give his + opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word which can be + used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the newspapers. + </p> + <p> + “'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he is + called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscripts + having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have + been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever. + </p> + <p> + “'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to write + for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to send + money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard of. + </p> + <p> + “'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who + begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate it + by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet after sheet, if + of the other. + </p> + <p> + “'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment + and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested to + him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her + reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an ode + for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found in + Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover who + believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his + affections.' + </p> + <p> + “Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity. + </p> + <p> + “'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and + they will both have a good laugh over them.' + </p> + <p> + “I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the + Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing + self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and + spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen on + the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him that he had + been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself exposed to the + wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of The People's + Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'” + </p> + <p> + After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who the + person spoken of as the “Literary Celebrity” might be. Among the various + suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither more nor + less than the unexplained personage known in the village as Maurice + Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be the + Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escape from + the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him and stabbing him + nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy? + </p> + <p> + The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the + Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened soon + after the meeting when his paper was read. + </p> + <p> + “I do not know,” she said, in the course of a conversation in which she + had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment of the + Society, “that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whom you + interviewed so successfully.” + </p> + <p> + “I did not mention him, Miss Vincent,” he answered, “nor do I think it + worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story told of + how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if I did, it + would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regretting that he was + bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignation at the bores + who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages of trash, all the + writers of which would expect answers to their letters of condolence.” + </p> + <p> + The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman who + called himself Maurice Kirkwood. + </p> + <p> + “What,” he answered, “the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides all + the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I have met + him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me. Do you + know anything particular about him?” + </p> + <p> + “Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that he has + a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what or whom.” + </p> + <p> + “To newspaper correspondents, perhaps,” said the interviewer. “What made + you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity,' + did you?” + </p> + <p> + “I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview this + mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, I + should think.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story of crime, + or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a few paragraphs, with? + If there is, I am willing to handle him professionally.” + </p> + <p> + “I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how much + wiser you are for that piece of information.” + </p> + <p> + “An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as for a + naked caterpillar,—I believe I should go into a fit if I had to + touch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great green + caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and early + autumn.” + </p> + <p> + “Afraid of them?” asked the young lady. + </p> + <p> + “Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't + give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these + creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,—sometimes + using very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the + moment.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand what you mean,” said Miss Vincent. “I used to have the same + feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a little + menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, pretty + much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though I + don't scream when I see one.” + </p> + <p> + “What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular + antipathy?” + </p> + <p> + “That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can't + guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to discover + some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way of everybody, + as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seem to be able to + tell which. It would make the old ladies of the village sleep a great deal + sounder,—yes, and some of the young ladies, too,—if they could + find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, that he never comes + near any of the people here.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I can find out,” said the Interviewer, whose professional + ambition was beginning to be excited. “I never came across anybody yet + that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a week or + two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, of this + Mr. Maurice Kirkwood.” + </p> + <p> + We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present us + with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI. THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. + </h2> + <p> + When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as she + pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strain + she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, but how + great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw its + effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all its + manifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproach + herself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast to + her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the difference + between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, + aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the corresponding traits of + mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto of + Euthymia was the index of a nature restful and sympathetic. + </p> + <p> + The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will + one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence of + two young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavily + than the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to + assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes. + </p> + <p> + On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her superior. + She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, and deferred to + her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, but as wiser + than herself or any of her other companions. It was a different thing, + however, when the graver questions of life came up. Lurida was full of + suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable to run into whims + before she knew where they were tending. She would lay out her ideas + before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could not help + believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend must accept them with + an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia would take them up with her + sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on them. + </p> + <p> + Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new interests + and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papers to be read + at the meetings of her Society,—for she made it her own in great + measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,—and in the mean time she was + reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing on + the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking + forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herself with + the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion, or + disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name of + antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in the + fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and partly + from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her desire + to get at the truth of a very puzzling question. + </p> + <p> + “How do you like the books I see you reading?” said Euthymia to Lurida, + one day, as they met at the Library. + </p> + <p> + “Better than all the novels I ever read,” she answered. “I have been + reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearer + the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just as if + I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in my head, + for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how many centres of + energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sorts of influences, + external and internal. Do you know, I believe I could solve the riddle of + the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called him, if he would only + stay here long enough?” + </p> + <p> + “What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard of + its being mentioned in any of the papers.” + </p> + <p> + “You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here for + some time,—the same one who gave the account of his interview with a + celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which he + writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks about + this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a Sphinx here, + who has mystified us all.” + </p> + <p> + “And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll + have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe + where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh, + Lurida, Lurida, do be careful! What with this mysterious young man and + this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked + about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the + riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people, + the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.—I wonder + if we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much + curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having + anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, + now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get + your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a chance + to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get him to try + his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy, so much the + better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about him. I want to + know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a young man who + ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. I believe there + are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies and antipathies which + will repay study with a deeper insight into the mysteries of life than we + have dreamed of hitherto. I often wonder whether there are not heart-waves + and soul-waves as well as 'brain-waves,' which some have already + recognized.” + </p> + <p> + Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking the + language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of those + persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will never + be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of one of + our great universities are living examples of this precocious but enduring + intellectual development. If the readers of this narrative cannot pick + them out, they need not expect the writer of it to help them. If they + guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact that just such + exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing with are met + with from time to time in families where intelligence has been cumulative + for two or three generations. + </p> + <p> + Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor + should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous + individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were trying + to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other informant than + Lurida. + </p> + <p> + The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside his + door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and handsome + youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly that one + might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by his side. + Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewer asked all + sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When he came to inquire + about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interest regarding him. The + greatest curiosity, he said, existed with reference to this personage. + Everybody was trying to find out what his story was,—for a story, + and a strange one, he must surely have,—and nobody had succeeded. + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told him + the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, about his + horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was overturned, + and every occurrence he could recall which would help out the effect of + his narrative. + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer was becoming excited. “Can't find out anything about him, + you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find? Do you + want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is an actor,—a + fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off in their summer + vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are the very same + chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at the city theatres; + but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings and Emperors + look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you.” + </p> + <p> + The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. “I shouldn't wonder if you + were right,” he said. “I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo that + looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, as they call + him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believe there are people + here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who he is, and where he + came from, and what he is here for, and why he does n't act like other + folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't come up here and get + hold of this story. It would be just the thing for a sensational writer.” + </p> + <p> + To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. + Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column + about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,—to the + biggest pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog from + the human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading without + spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces + which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or every six + months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a new story, an + undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonder that the + Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject for an + inventive and emotional correspondent. + </p> + <p> + He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's + confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himself + that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summer + season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead + Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits—oranges, bananas, and + others, according to the seasons—did an active business. The + Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that his hand-cart + stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood was living. + Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examining the contents of + the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity. Here was an + introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to the master. + </p> + <p> + He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,—there was + no difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was an + Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning, Mr. Paul,” he said. “How do you like the look of these + oranges?” + </p> + <p> + “They pretty fair,” said Paolo: “no so good as them las' week; no sweet as + them was.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, how do you know without tasting them?” said the Interviewer. + </p> + <p> + “I know by his look,—I know by his smell,—he no good yaller,—he + no smell ripe,—I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he + is,” and Paolo laughed at his own comparison. + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo. + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said he,—“first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why + can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I + shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get + two nice sweet ones for him.” + </p> + <p> + Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt + grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of conferring + a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and grave + deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer him + an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation. + </p> + <p> + “How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you he + sick?” + </p> + <p> + “No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day or + two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he in + the house now?” + </p> + <p> + “No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. + Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very early,—in + night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read, and study, + and write,—he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood.” + </p> + <p> + “A good many books, has n't he?” + </p> + <p> + “He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old books, + new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Has n't he some curiosities,—old figures, old jewelry, old coins, + or things of that sort?” + </p> + <p> + Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. “He don't + keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,—old + jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old + times: she don't pass now.” Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat + indiscriminately distributed. + </p> + <p> + A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. “I wonder if he would examine some + old coins of mine?” said he, in a modestly tentative manner. + </p> + <p> + “I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him. Who + will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?” + </p> + <p> + “Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and + show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones.” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old battered + bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where they had been + passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. One had the name + of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct,—a common little Roman + penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question, as would two + or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told him that if he came + the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeing Mr. Kirkwood. At + any rate, he would speak to his master. + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his + breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood + at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger up to + his library,—or study, as he modestly called it. + </p> + <p> + It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one + direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up in + scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of + them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that + probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With + these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones + in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found that + he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Some of the + paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names which he + knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange to his + eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were there; + and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt to + display his erudition in the company of this young scholar. + </p> + <p> + The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his visiting + a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who was living as + a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed them to Maurice. + </p> + <p> + “I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good + many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that you + could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for a good + while.” So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of Gallienus. + </p> + <p> + “Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have been + paid for some of these ancient coins,—ever so many guineas, + sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old.” + </p> + <p> + “More than a thousand years old,” said Maurice. + </p> + <p> + “And worth a great deal of money?” asked the Interviewer. + </p> + <p> + “No, not a great deal of money,” answered Maurice. + </p> + <p> + “How much, should you say?” said the Interviewer. + </p> + <p> + Maurice smiled. “A little more than the value of its weight in copper,—I + am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coins of Gallienus + knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such pieces + occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to young + collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a relic any + piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or fifteen + hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is a good deal + a matter of imagination.” + </p> + <p> + “And what do you say to these others?” asked the Interviewer. Poor old + worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint trace + of a figure on one or two of them. + </p> + <p> + “Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the + times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one of + them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was brought when + One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it.' But + the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beauty and + preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is a coin, + now,”—he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. “Here is a + Syracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare, + well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it.” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very little + more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thought his + purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matter about + the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, that Maurice must + have money and could be extravagant, or what he himself considered so; + also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That would do for a + beginning. + </p> + <p> + “May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?” he said + </p> + <p> + “That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pick + up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I bought + this of a great dealer in Rome.” + </p> + <p> + “Lived in Rome once?” said the Interviewer. + </p> + <p> + “For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he should + go there, one of these years, “suppose you studied art and antiquities + while you were there?” he continued. + </p> + <p> + “Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities. + Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classic + authors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, and not + have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, and + churches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take it + for granted?” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them. “Not + so well as I mean to before going to Rome,” he answered. “May I ask how + long you lived in Rome?” + </p> + <p> + “Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one should + go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiar with + Vasari, of course?” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out his + handkerchief. “It is a warm day,” he said. “I have not had time to read + all—the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, + to find all the time for reading and study I could have wished.” + </p> + <p> + “In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardon my + inquiry? said Maurice. + </p> + <p> + “I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of + letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your own + lips some account of your literary experiences.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it for my + autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do I understand + that you are an author?” + </p> + <p> + By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a very + warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the right + handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's very simple + question. + </p> + <p> + “If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, I + may call myself one. I write for the 'People's Perennial and Household + Inquisitor'.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you manage + the political column?” + </p> + <p> + “I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of + interest.” + </p> + <p> + “Places you have been to, and people you have known?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, yes,—generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my articles.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he had + found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thing he + could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that he + should be able to pick up something or other which he could work into his + report of his visit. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I—prepared that article for our columns. You know one does + not have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, in + its descriptions?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I + can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle—the + old Milvian bridge—a good deal too far down the stream, if I + remember. I happened to notice that, but I did not read the article + carefully. May I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting + this visit and the conversation we have had, for the columns of the + newspaper with which you are connected?” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. “If you have no objections,” he + said, “I should like very much to ask a few questions.” He was recovering + his professional audacity. + </p> + <p> + “You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet, + —after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to + submit me to examination?” + </p> + <p> + “The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humble + agent of its investigations.” + </p> + <p> + “What has the public to do with my private affairs?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles + everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a large + number of curious people that form a majority against you. That is the way + I've heard the chief put it.” + </p> + <p> + Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the American + citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure, at + last. Maurice calmly answered, “There is nothing left for minorities, + then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made the + subject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding + my own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against your + system of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public + all it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall request to + be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you a + good-morning.” + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his next + communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a brief + mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting the + place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege of + examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that + shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligence + would otherwise confer upon him. + </p> + <p> + The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failed to + get the first hint of its solution. + </p> + <p> + The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle. + The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the various + cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversational + circles which met every evening in the different centres of social life. + The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had a congenital + aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him were so painful or + disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it. It was known, and + it has already been mentioned, that such cases were on record. There had + been a great deal of discussion, of late, with reference to a fact long + known to a few individuals, but only recently made a matter of careful + scientific observation and brought to the notice of the public. This was + the now well-known phenomenon of color-blindness. It did not seem very + strange that if one person in every score or two could not tell red from + green there might be other curious individual peculiarities relating to + color. A case has already been referred to where the subject of + observation fainted at the sight of any red object. What if this were the + trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It will be seen at once how such a + congenital antipathy would tend to isolate the person who was its + unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesis not difficult to test, but it was + a rather delicate business to be experimenting on an inoffensive stranger. + Miss Vincent was thinking it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of + any projects she might entertain. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII. MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. + </h2> + <p> + The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss + Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading various + works selected for her by Dr. Butts,—works chiefly relating to the + nervous system and its different affections. She thought it was about time + to talk over the general subject of the medical profession with her new + teacher,—if such a self-directing person as Lurida could be said to + recognize anybody as teacher. + </p> + <p> + She began at the beginning. “What is the first book you would put in a + student's hands, doctor?” she said to him one day. They were in his study, + and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on Insanity, one of + Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it had been a pamphlet. + </p> + <p> + “Not that book, certainly,” he said. “I am afraid it will put all sorts of + notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading that, I should like + to know?” + </p> + <p> + “I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps be + crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what kind of + a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright, those + insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid enough ever to lose my + wits.” + </p> + <p> + “There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that busy + brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about so many + people possessed with such strange notions?” + </p> + <p> + “Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many people I + had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. Take that poor + woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,—not Her Majesty, but + Her Majesty's Person,—a very important distinction, according to + her: how she does remind me of more than one girl I have known! She would + let her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, and pile things on her + head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and throw her head back, and feel + as grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl act very much in that + way. Are not most of us a little crazy, doctor,—just a little? I + think so. It seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free from every + hint of craziness.” + </p> + <p> + “And who was that, pray?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Euthymia,—nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,—I + don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with + our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was the + only achromatic one I ever looked into,—I did n't say looked + through.—But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of + your books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he should + read, the great physician said, 'Read “Don Quixote.”' I want you to + explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the first book, + according to your idea, that a student ought to read.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper to + be read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies at the + meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study of + medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in the + subject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tell them + about their calling.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubt + there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to say + about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Euthymia to become a + physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so full of + wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm, or + the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as well as the + captain of the boat or of the fire-company.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times we + would have studying together!” + </p> + <p> + “I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do you think + practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride ten miles in + a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headaches was racking + you?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of + storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what does she say to it?” + </p> + <p> + “She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women + doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by + nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a good + many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most of them + are, doctor,—and ends by saying that the same woman who would be a + poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that, she thinks, + is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the hospital or + sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her.” + </p> + <p> + “Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I am + disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a good nurse + to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to me to go + together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners. But + come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving women every + chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one of their + proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that they had + better at least limit themselves to certain specialties, and always have + an expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble is that they are + so impressible and imaginative that they are at the mercy of all sorts of + fancy systems. You have only to see what kinds of instruction they very + commonly flock to in order to guess whether they would be likely to prove + sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always hobbles on two crutches, the + tattle of women, and the certificates of clergymen, and I am afraid that + half the women doctors will be too much under both those influences.” + </p> + <p> + Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of the + village, had “carried her through” a fever, brought on by over-excitement + and exhausting study. She took no offence at his reference to nursery + gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. Nobody so despises the + weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's rights. She accepted the + doctor's concession of a fair field and open trial of the fitness of her + sex for medical practice, and did not trouble herself about his suggested + limitations. As to the imaginative tendencies of women, she knew too well + the truth of the doctor's remark relating to them to wish to contradict + it. + </p> + <p> + “Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting, + doctor,” she said; and in due season it came, and was of course approved + for reading. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII. DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. + </h2> + <p> + “Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal souls is + that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my very first + statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body is the first + thought with a great many,—in fact, with the larger part of the + world. They send for the physician first, and not until he gives them up + do they commonly call in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is not + so very different from other people. We must not blame him if he is not + always impatient to exchange a world of multiplied interests and + ever-changing sources of excitement for that which tradition has delivered + to us as one eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety. Besides, + these bodily frames, even when worn and disfigured by long years of + service, hang about our consciousness like old garments. They are used to + us, and we are used to them. And all the accidents of our lives,—the + house we dwell in, the living people round us, the landscape we look over, + all, up to the sky that covers us like a bell glass,—all these are + but looser outside garments which we have worn until they seem a part of + us, and we do not like the thought of changing them for a new suit which + we have never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear ancient lady, + who lived well into the last decade of her century, as she repeated the + verse which, if I had but one to choose, I would select from that string + of pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey + This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, + Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, + Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?' +</pre> + <p> + “Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be, than + to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well doubted if there + is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary, there are + many who think a great deal of their bodies, many who have come here to + regain the health they have lost in the wear and tear of city life, and + very few who have not at some time or other of their lives had occasion to + call in the services of a physician. + </p> + <p> + “There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering to the members some + remarks upon the peculiar difficulties which beset the medical + practitioner in the discharge of his laborious and important duties. + </p> + <p> + “A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest in medical studies, + happened to meet with a very familiar story about one of the greatest and + most celebrated of all English physicians, Thomas Sydenham. The story is + that, when a student asked him what books he should read, the great doctor + told him to read 'Don Quixote.' + </p> + <p> + “This piece of advice has been used to throw contempt upon the study of + books, and furnishes a convenient shield for ignorant pretenders. But + Sydenham left many writings in which he has recorded his medical + experience, and he surely would not have published them if he had not + thought they would be better reading for the medical student than the + story of Cervantes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and he + certainly could not have supposed that they contained all the wisdom of + all the past. No remedy is good, it was said of old, unless applied at the + right time in the right way. So we may say of all anecdotes, like this + which I have told you about Sydenham and the young man. It is very likely + that he carried him to the bedside of some patients, and talked to him + about the cases he showed him, instead of putting a Latin volume in his + hand. I would as soon begin in that way as any other, with a student who + had already mastered the preliminary branches,—who knew enough about + the structure and functions of the body in health. + </p> + <p> + “But if you ask me what reading I would commend to the medical student of + a philosophical habit of mind, you may be surprised to hear me say it + would be certain passages in 'Rasselas.' They are the ones where the + astronomer gives an account to Imlac of his management of the elements, + the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, had been committed to + him. Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which is commonly + bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like a woollen lining to a silken + mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in processions of paragraphs which + sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum-major to march before + their tramping platoons. + </p> + <p> + “The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confidence, and reveals to him + the secret of his wonderful powers:— + </p> + <p> + “'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have + possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and the + distribution of the seasons the sun has listened to my dictates, and + passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call, have + poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; I have + restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors of the + crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hitherto eluded + my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial tempests, which + I found myself unable to prohibit or restrain.' + </p> + <p> + “The reader naturally wishes to know how the astronomer, a sincere, + devoted, and most benevolent man, for forty years a student of the + heavens, came to the strange belief that he possessed these miraculous + powers. This is his account: + </p> + <p> + “'One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in + my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains, + and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I + commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command with that + of the inundation I found that the clouds had listened to my lips.' + </p> + <p> + “'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence? The Nile + does not always rise on the same day.' + </p> + <p> + “'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, 'that such objections could + escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and labored against + truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of madness, + and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a man like you, + capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible and the + incredible from the false.' + </p> + <p> + “The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom he + has adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and the + seasons, in these impressive words: + </p> + <p> + “Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride by + innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make + thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The memory + of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become thee to let + kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain to pour it + on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.' + </p> + <p> + “Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in which the + delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the pomp of the + Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young person about to + enter on the study of the science and art of healing? Listen to me while I + show you the parallel of the story of the astronomer in the history of + medicine. + </p> + <p> + “This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with benevolence, but + all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to struggle with the + ever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which waste and destroy the + race of mankind are vast and resistless as the elemental forces of nature; + nay, they are themselves elemental forces. They may be to some extent + avoided, to some extent diverted from their aim, to some extent resisted. + So may the changes of the seasons, from cold that freezes to heats that + strike with sudden death, be guarded against. So may the tides be in some + small measure restrained in their inroads. So may the storms be breasted + by walls they cannot shake from their foundations. But the seasons and the + tides and the tempests work their will on the great scale upon whatever + stands in their way; they feed or starve the tillers of the soil; they + spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; they waft the seaman to his + harbor or bury him in the angry billows. + </p> + <p> + “The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from deadly + and dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest the effects + of these influences. But look at the records of the life-insurance + offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's destroying + agencies. Look at the annual reports of the deaths in any of our great + cities, and see how their regularity approaches the uniformity of the + tides, and their variations keep pace with those of the seasons. The + inundations of the Nile are not more certainly to be predicted than the + vast wave of infantile disease which flows in upon all our great cities + with the growing heats of July,—than the fevers and dysenteries + which visit our rural districts in the months of the falling leaf. + </p> + <p> + “The physician watches these changes as the astronomer watched the rise of + the great river. He longs to rescue individuals, to protect communities + from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He uses all the means which + experience has approved, tries every rational method which ingenuity can + suggest. Some fortunate recovery leads him to believe he has hit upon a + preventive or a cure for a malady which had resisted all known remedies. + His rescued patient sounds his praises, and a wide circle of his patient's + friends joins in a chorus of eulogies. Self-love applauds him for his + sagacity. Self-interest congratulates him on his having found the road to + fortune; the sense of having proved a benefactor of his race smooths the + pillow on which he lays his head to dream of the brilliant future opening + before him. If a single coincidence may lead a person of sanguine + disposition to believe that he has mastered a disease which had baffled + all who were before his time, and on which his contemporaries looked in + hopeless impotence, what must be the effect of a series of such + coincidences even on a mind of calmer temper! Such series of coincidences + will happen, and they may well deceive the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush,—you + know what a famous man he was, the very head and front of American medical + science in his day, —and remember how he spoke about yellow fever, + which he thought he had mastered! + </p> + <p> + “Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of a wide conspiracy, in + which he and his patient and their friends, and Nature herself, are + involved. What wonder that the history of Medicine should be to so great + an extent a record of self-delusion! + </p> + <p> + “If this seems a dangerous concession to the enemies of the true science + and art of healing, I will remind you that it is all implied in the first + aphorism of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not draw a wrong + inference from the frank statement of the difficulties which beset the + medical practitioner. Think rather, if truth is so hard of attainment, how + precious are the results which the consent of the wisest and most + experienced among the healers of men agrees in accepting. Think what folly + it is to cast them aside in favor of palpable impositions stolen from the + records of forgotten charlatanism, or of fantastic speculations spun from + the squinting brains of theorists as wild as the Egyptian astronomer. + </p> + <p> + “Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the fortieth and the + following four chapters of 'Rasselas.' Your first lesson will teach you + modesty and caution in the pursuit of the most deceptive of all practical + branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when you learn how much + medical science and art have actually achieved for the relief of mankind, + and how great are the promises it holds out of still larger triumphs over + the enemies of human health and happiness.” + </p> + <p> + After the reading of this paper there was a lively discussion, which we + have no room to report here, and the Society adjourned. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV. MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. + </h2> + <p> + The sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. Butts was not a little + exercised in mind by the demands made upon his knowledge by his young + friend, and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida Vincent. + </p> + <p> + “I don't wonder they called her The Terror,” he said to himself. “She is + enough to frighten anybody. She has taken down old books from my shelves + that I had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to the medical journals, + I believe the girl could index them from memory. She is in pursuit of some + special point of knowledge, I feel sure, and I cannot doubt what direction + she is working in, but her wonderful way of dealing with books amazes me.” + </p> + <p> + What marvels those “first scholars” in the classes of our great + universities and colleges are, to be sure! They are not, as a rule, the + most distinguished of their class in the long struggle of life. The + chances are that “the field” will beat “the favorite” over the long + race-course. Others will develop a longer stride and more staying power. + But what fine gifts those “first scholars” have received from nature! How + dull we writers, famous or obscure, are in the acquisition of knowledge as + compared with them! To lead their classmates they must have quick + apprehension, fine memories, thorough control of their mental faculties, + strong will, power of concentration, facility of expression,—a + wonderful equipment of mental faculties. I always want to take my hat off + to the first scholar of his year. + </p> + <p> + Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he contemplated The Terror. She + surprised him so often with her knowledge that he was ready to receive her + without astonishment when she burst in upon him one day with a cry of + triumph, “Eureka! Eureka!” + </p> + <p> + “And what have you found, my dear?” said the doctor. + </p> + <p> + Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new discovery. + </p> + <p> + “I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor's dread + of all human intercourse!” + </p> + <p> + The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance. + </p> + <p> + “Wait a minute and get your breath,” said the doctor. “Are you not a + little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. He + keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old Tavern, + he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he pulled out + of the water, or rescued somehow,—I don't believe he avoids the + whole human race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as I have + remarked his expression. I passed a few words with him when his man was + ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I don't believe it is much more + than an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with some congenital + or other personal repugnance to which has been given the name of an + antipathy.” + </p> + <p> + Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When he + finished, she began the account of her discovery: + </p> + <p> + “I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an Italian + medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a reference which + led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli Ospitali lying among the + old pamphlets in the medical section of the Library. I have made a + translation of it, which you must read and then tell me if you do not + agree with me in my conclusion.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see for + myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you seem to + have reached.” + </p> + <p> + Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of a map + of the world, as she said, + </p> + <p> + “I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the bite + of a TARANTULA!” + </p> + <p> + The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way the + stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but he had + consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fictions have + clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. He looked into the + round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared that she + was in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his professional + training, he waited for another symptom, if indeed her mind was in any + measure off its balance. + </p> + <p> + “I know what you are thinking,” Lurida said, “but it is not so. 'I am not + mad, most noble Festus.' You shall see the evidence and judge for + yourself. Read the whole case,—you can read my hand almost as if it + were print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this young man is + in all probability the same person as the boy described in the Italian + journal, + </p> + <p> + “One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young patient is + spoken of as Signorino M—— Ch——— But you + must remember that ch is pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which letter + is wanting in the Italian alphabet; and it is natural enough that the + initial of the second name should have got changed in the record to its + Italian equivalent.” + </p> + <p> + Before inviting the reader to follow the details of this extraordinary + case as found in a medical journal, the narrator wishes to be indulged in + a few words of explanation, in order that he may not have to apologize for + allowing the introduction of a subject which may be thought to belong to + the professional student rather than to the readers of this record. There + is a great deal in medical books which it is very unbecoming to bring + before the general public,—a great deal to repel, to disgust, to + alarm, to excite unwholesome curiosity. It is not the men whose duties + have made them familiar with this class of subjects who are most likely to + offend by scenes and descriptions which belong to the physician's private + library, and not to the shelves devoted to polite literature. Goldsmith + and even Smollett, both having studied and practised medicine, could not + by any possibility have outraged all the natural feelings of delicacy and + decency as Swift and Zola have outraged them. But without handling + doubtful subjects, there are many curious medical experiences which have + interest for every one as extreme illustrations of ordinary conditions + with which all are acquainted. No one can study the now familiar history + of clairvoyance profitably who has not learned something of the vagaries + of hysteria. No one can read understandingly the life of Cowper and that + of Carlyle without having some idea of the influence of hypochondriasis + and of dyspepsia upon the disposition and intellect of the subjects of + these maladies. I need not apologize, therefore, for giving publicity to + that part of this narrative which deals with one of the most singular + maladies to be found in the records of bodily and mental infirmities. + </p> + <p> + The following is the account of the case as translated by Miss Vincent. + For obvious reasons the whole name was not given in the original paper, + and for similar reasons the date of the event and the birthplace of the + patient are not precisely indicated here. + </p> + <p> + [Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18—.] REMARKABLE CASE OF TARANTISM. + </p> + <p> + “The great interest attaching to the very singular and exceptional + instance of this rare affection induces us to give a full account of the + extraordinary example of its occurrence in a patient who was the subject + of a recent medical consultation in this city. + </p> + <p> + “Signorino M... Ch... is the only son of a gentleman travelling in Italy + at this time. He is eleven years of age, of sanguine-nervous temperament, + light hair, blue eyes, intelligent countenance, well grown, but rather + slight in form, to all appearance in good health, but subject to certain + peculiar and anomalous nervous symptoms, of which his father gives this + history. + </p> + <p> + “Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was travelling in Italy with + his wife, this child, and a nurse. They were passing a few days in a + country village near the city of Bari, capital of the province of the same + name in the division (compartamento) of Apulia. The child was in perfect + health and had never been affected by any serious illness. On the 10th of + July he was playing out in the field near the house where the family was + staying when he was heard to scream suddenly and violently. The nurse + rushing to him found him in great pain, saying that something had bitten + him in one of his feet. A laborer, one Tommaso, ran up at the moment and + perceived in the grass, near where the boy was standing, an enormous + spider, which he at once recognized as a tarantula. He managed to catch + the creature in a large leaf, from which he was afterwards transferred to + a wide-mouthed bottle, where he lived without any food for a month or + more. The creature was covered with short hairs, and had a pair of + nipper-like jaws, with which he could inflict an ugly wound. His body + measured about an inch in length, and from the extremity of one of the + longest limbs to the other was between two and three inches. Such was the + account given by the physician to whom the peasant carried the great + spider. + </p> + <p> + “The boy who had been bitten continued screaming violently while his + stocking was being removed and the foot examined. The place of the bite + was easily found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already showed + the effects of the poison, a small livid circle extending around them, + with some puffy swelling. The distinguished Dr. Amadei was immediately + sent for, and applied cups over the wounds in the hope of drawing forth + the poison. In vain all his skill and efforts! Soon, ataxic (irregular) + nervous symptoms declared themselves, and it became plain that the system + had been infected by the poison. + </p> + <p> + “The symptoms were very much like those of malignant fever, such as + distress about the region of the heart, difficulty of breathing, collapse + of all the vital powers, threatening immediate death. From these first + symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organism had been profoundly + affected by the venom circulating through it. His constitution has never + thrown off the malady resulting from this toxic (poisonous) agent. The + phenomena which have been observed in this young patient correspond so + nearly with those enumerated in the elaborate essay of the celebrated + Baglivi that one might think they had been transcribed from his pages. + </p> + <p> + “He is very fond of solitude,—of wandering about in churchyards and + other lonely places. He was once found hiding in an empty tomb, which had + been left open. His aversion to certain colors is remarkable. Generally + speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker ones, but his likes and + dislikes are capricious, and with regard to some colors his antipathy + amounts to positive horror. Some shades have such an effect upon him that + he cannot remain in the room with them, and if he meets any one whose + dress has any of that particular color he will turn away or retreat so as + to avoid passing that person. Among these, purple and dark green are the + least endurable. He cannot explain the sensations which these obnoxious + colors produce except by saying that it is like the deadly feeling from a + blow on the epigastrium (pit of the stomach). + </p> + <p> + “About the same season of the year at which the tarantular poisoning took + place he is liable to certain nervous seizures, not exactly like fainting + or epilepsy, but reminding the physician of those affections. All the + other symptoms are aggravated at this time. + </p> + <p> + “In other respects than those mentioned the boy is in good health. He is + fond of riding, and has a pony on which he takes a great deal of exercise, + which seems to do him more good than any other remedy. + </p> + <p> + “The influence of music, to which so much has been attributed by popular + belief and even by the distinguished Professor to whom we shall again + refer, has not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. If the graver + symptoms recur while the patient is under our observation, we propose to + make use of an agency discredited by modern skepticism, but deserving of a + fair trial as an exceptional remedy for an exceptional disease. + </p> + <p> + “The following extracts from the work of the celebrated Italian physician + of the last century are given by the writer of the paper in the Giornale + in the original Latin, with a translation into Italian, subjoined. Here + are the extracts, or rather here is a selection from them, with a + translation of them into English. + </p> + <p> + “After mentioning the singular aversion to certain colors shown by the + subject of Tarantism, Baglivi writes as follows: “'Et si astantes incedant + vestibus eo colore difusis, qui Tarantatis ingrates est, necesse est ut ab + illorum aspectu recedant; nam ad intuitum molesti coloris angore cordis, + et symptomatum recrudescantia stating corripiuntur.' (G. Baglivi, Op. + Omnia, page 614. Lugduni, 1745.) + </p> + <p> + “That is, 'if the persons about the patient wear dresses of the color + which is offensive to him, he must get away from the sight of them, for on + seeing the obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress in the + region of the heart, and a renewal of his symptoms.' + </p> + <p> + “As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi says: “'Dam calor solis + ardentius exurere incip at, quod contingit circa initia Julii et Augusti, + Tarantati lente venientem recrudescentiam veneni percipiunt.' (Ibid., page + 619.) + </p> + <p> + “Which I render, 'When the heat of the sun begins to burn more fiercely, + which happens about the beginning of July and August, the subjects of + Tarantism perceive the gradually approaching recrudescence (returning + symptoms) of the poisoning. Among the remedies most valued by this + illustrious physician is that mentioned in the following sentence: + </p> + <p> + “'Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusticano factas singulis diebus, + hord potissimum matutina, quibus equitationibus morbos chronicos pene + incurabiles protanus eliminavi.' + </p> + <p> + “Or in translation, 'I commend especially riding on horseback in country + air, every day, by preference in the morning hours, by the aid of which + horseback riding I have driven off chronic diseases which were almost + incurable.'” + </p> + <p> + Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, and handed it to him to + examine and consider. He listened with a grave countenance and devout + attention. + </p> + <p> + As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed in the passionate tones + of the deepest conviction, + </p> + <p> + “There, doctor! Have n't I found the true story of this strange visitor? + Have n't I solved the riddle of the Sphinx? Who can this man be but the + boy of that story? Look at the date of the journal when he was eleven + years old, it would make him twenty-five now, and that is just about the + age the people here think he must be of. What could account so entirely + for his ways and actions as that strange poisoning which produces the + state they call Tarantism? I am just as sure it must be that as I am that + I am alive. Oh, doctor, doctor, I must be right,—this Signorino M + ... Ch... was the boy Maurice Kirkwood, and the story accounts for + everything,—his solitary habits, his dread of people,—it must + be because they wear the colors he can't bear. His morning rides on + horseback, his coming here just as the season was approaching which would + aggravate all his symptoms, does n't all this prove that I must be right + in my conjecture,—no, my conviction?” + </p> + <p> + The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young enthusiast, and so he let + her run on until she ran down. He was more used to the rules of evidence + than she was, and could not accept her positive conclusion so readily as + she would have liked to have him. He knew that beginners are very apt to + make what they think are discoveries. But he had been an angler and knew + the meaning of a yielding rod and an easy-running reel. He said quietly, + </p> + <p> + “You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie case + it is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood is not the + same person as the M... Ch... of the medical journal,—that is, if I + accept your explanation of the difference in the initials of these two + names. Even if there were a difference, that would not disprove their + identity, for the initials of patients whose cases are reported by their + physicians are often altered for the purpose of concealment. I do not + know, however, that Mr. Kirkwood has shown any special aversion to any + particular color. It might be interesting to inquire whether it is so, but + it is a delicate matter. I don't exactly see whose business it is to + investigate Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's idiosyncrasies and constitutional + history. If he should have occasion to send for me at any time, he might + tell me all about himself, in confidence, you know. These old accounts + from Baglivi are curious and interesting, but I am cautious about + receiving any stories a hundred years old, if they involve an + improbability, as his stories about the cure of the tarantula bite by + music certainly do. I am disposed to wait for future developments, bearing + in mind, of course, the very singular case you have unearthed. It wouldn't + be very strange if our young gentleman had to send for me before the + season is over. He is out a good deal before the dew is off the grass, + which is rather risky in this neighborhood as autumn comes on. I am + somewhat curious, I confess, about the young man, but I do not meddle + where I am not asked for or wanted, and I have found that eggs hatch just + as well if you let them alone in the nest as if you take them out and + shake them every day. This is a wonderfully interesting supposition of + yours, and may prove to be strictly in accordance with the facts. But I do + not think we have all the facts in this young man's case. If it were + proved that he had an aversion to any color, it would greatly strengthen + your case. His 'antipatia,' as his man called it, must be one which covers + a wide ground, to account for his self-isolation,—and the color + hypothesis seems as plausible as any. But, my dear Miss Vincent, I think + you had better leave your singular and striking hypothesis in my keeping + for a while, rather than let it get abroad in a community like this, where + so many tongues are in active exercise. I will carefully study this paper, + if you will leave it with me, and we will talk the whole matter over. It + is a fair subject for speculation, only we must keep quiet about it.” + </p> + <p> + This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain time to cool off a little. + She left the paper with the doctor, telling him she would come for it the + next day, and went off to tell the result of this visit to her bosom + friend, Miss Euthymia Tower. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV. DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. + </h2> + <p> + The doctor was troubled in thinking over his interview with the young + lady. She was fully possessed with the idea that she had discovered the + secret which had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. It was of + no use to oppose her while her mind was in an excited state. But he felt + it his duty to guard her against any possible results of indiscretion into + which her eagerness and her theory of the equality, almost the identity, + of the sexes might betray her. Too much of the woman in a daughter of our + race leads her to forget danger. Too little of the woman prompts her to + defy it. Fortunately for this last class of women, they are not quite so + likely to be perilously seductive as their more emphatically feminine + sisters. + </p> + <p> + Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of their infancy. + He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence from its + precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained faculties. He had + looked with admiration on the childish beauty of Euthymia, and had seen + her grow up to womanhood, every year making her more attractive. He knew + that if anything was to be done with his self-willed young scholar and + friend, it would be more easily effected through the medium of Euthymia + than by direct advice to the young lady herself. So the thoughtful doctor + made up his mind to have a good talk with Euthymia, and put her on her + guard, if Lurida showed any tendency to forget the conventionalities in + her eager pursuit of knowledge. + </p> + <p> + For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss Euthymia + Tower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all the tongues + in the village going. This was one of those families where illness was + hardly looked for among the possibilities of life. There were other + families where a call from the doctor was hardly more thought of than a + call from the baker. But here he was a stranger, at least on his + professional rounds, and when he asked for Miss Euthymia the servant, who + knew his face well, stared as if he had held in his hand a warrant for her + apprehension. + </p> + <p> + Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made ready to + meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock had not run + astray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for a morning call + was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had been announced, she + might have taken a second look, but with the good middle-aged, married + doctor one was enough for a young lady who had the gift of making all the + dresses she wore look well, and had no occasion to treat her chamber like + the laboratory where an actress compounds herself. + </p> + <p> + Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not help suspecting + his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk over her + friend's schemes and fancies with him. + </p> + <p> + The doctor began without any roundabout prelude. + </p> + <p> + “I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell you all + her plans and projects?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not + believe she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what she has + been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into her head. What + do you think of the Tarantula business? She has shown you the paper, she + has written, I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and I do + not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she had come at + the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that this young man is + the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian medical journal. But + it is very far from clear that he is so. You know all her reasons, of + course, as you have read the story. The times seem to agree well enough. + It is easy to conceive that Ch might be substituted for K in the report. + The singular solitary habits of this young man entirely coincide with the + story. If we could only find out whether he has any of those feelings with + reference to certain colors, we might guess with more chance of guessing + right than we have at present. But I don't see exactly how we are going to + submit him to examination on this point. If he were only a chemical + compound, we could analyze him. If he were only a bird or a quadruped, we + could find out his likes and dislikes. But being, as he is, a young man, + with ways of his own, and a will of his own, which he may not choose to + have interfered with, the problem becomes more complicated. I hear that a + newspaper correspondent has visited him so as to make a report to his + paper,—do you know what he found out?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, which was + this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to interview. The + young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did not learn much + about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told Willy about the Sphinx's + library and a cabinet of coins he had; and said he should make an article + out of him, anyhow. I wish the man would take himself off. I am afraid + Lurida's love of knowledge will get her into trouble!” + </p> + <p> + “Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?” + </p> + <p> + “I was thinking of the newspaper man.” + </p> + <p> + She blushed a little as she said, “I can't help feeling a strange sort of + interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood. Do you know that I met him this + morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, to be sure! That was an interesting experience. And how did you + like his looks?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought his face a very remarkable one. But he looked very pale as he + passed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side as if he + had a twinge of pain, or something of that sort,—spasm or neuralgia,—I + don't know what. I wondered whether he had what you call angina pectoris. + It was the same kind of look and movement, I remember, as you must, too, + in my uncle who died with that complaint.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Were you dressed as + you are now?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over my shoulders. I was out + early, and I have always remembered your caution.” + </p> + <p> + “What color was your mantle?” + </p> + <p> + “It was black. I have been over all this with Lucinda. A black mantle on a + white dress. A straw hat with an old faded ribbon. There can't be much in + those colors to trouble him, I should think, for his man wears a black + coat and white linen,—more or less white, as you must have noticed, + and he must have seen ribbons of all colors often enough. But Lurida + believes it was the ribbon, or something in the combination of colors. Her + head is full of Tarantulas and Tarantism. I fear that she will never be + easy until the question is settled by actual trial. And will you believe + it? the girl is determined in some way to test her supposition!” + </p> + <p> + “Believe it, Euthymia? I can believe almost anything of Lurida. She is the + most irrepressible creature I ever knew. You know as well as I do what a + complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole nature. I have had + some fears lest her zeal might run away with her discretion. It is a great + deal easier to get into a false position than to get out of it.” + </p> + <p> + “I know it well enough. I want you to tell me what you think about the + whole business. I don't like the look of it at all, and yet I can do + nothing with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I can show + her plainly that she will get herself into trouble in some way or other. + But she is ingenious,—full of all sorts of devices, innocent enough + in themselves, but liable to be misconstrued. You remember how she won us + the boat-race?” + </p> + <p> + “To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, but she felt she was + paying off an old score. The classical story of Atalanta, told, like that + of Eve, as illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her to make trial + of the powers of resistance in the other sex. But it was audacious. I hope + her audacity will not go too far. You must watch her. Keep an eye on her + correspondence.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor had great confidence in the good sense of Lurida's friend. He + felt sure that she would not let Lurida commit herself by writing foolish + letters to the subject of her speculations, or similar indiscreet + performances. The boldness of young girls, who think no evil, in opening + correspondence with idealized personages is something quite astonishing to + those who have had an opportunity of knowing the facts. Lurida had passed + the most dangerous age, but her theory of the equality of the sexes made + her indifferent to the by-laws of social usage. She required watching, and + her two guardians were ready to check her, in case of need. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVI. MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER. + </h2> + <p> + Euthymia noticed that her friend had been very much preoccupied for two or + three days. She found her more than once busy at her desk, with a + manuscript before her, which she turned over and placed inside the desk, + as Euthymia entered. + </p> + <p> + This desire of concealment was not what either of the friends expected to + see in the other. It showed that some project was under way, which, at + least in its present stage, the Machiavellian young lady did not wish to + disclose. It had cost her a good deal of thought and care, apparently, for + her waste-basket was full of scraps of paper, which looked as if they were + the remains of a manuscript like that at which she was at work. “Copying + and recopying, probably,” thought Euthymia, but she was willing to wait to + learn what Lurida was busy about, though she had a suspicion that it was + something in which she might feel called upon to interest herself. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know what I think?” said Euthymia to the doctor, meeting him as he + left his door. “I believe Lurida is writing to this man, and I don't like + the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she is not like other + girls in many respects, but other people will judge her by the common + rules of life.” + </p> + <p> + “I am glad that you spoke of it,” answered the doctor; “she would write to + him just as quickly as to any woman of his age. Besides, under the cover + of her office, she has got into the way of writing to anybody. I think she + has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, asking him to contribute a paper for + the Society. She can find a pretext easily enough if she has made up her + mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she would trouble herself for any + pretext at all if she decided to write. Watch her well. Don't let any + letter go without seeing it, if you can help it.” + </p> + <p> + Young women are much given to writing letters to persons whom they only + know indirectly, for the most part through their books, and especially to + romancers and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and simple-hearted than + most of these letters. They are the spontaneous outflow of young hearts + easily excited to gratitude for the pleasure which some story or poem has + given them, and recognizing their own thoughts, their own feelings, in + those expressed by the author, as if on purpose for them to read. + Undoubtedly they give great relief to solitary young persons, who must + have some ideal reflection of themselves, and know not where to look since + Protestantism has taken away the crucifix and the Madonna. The recipient + of these letters sometimes wonders, after reading through one of them, how + it is that his young correspondent has managed to fill so much space with + her simple message of admiration or of sympathy. + </p> + <p> + Lurida did not belong to this particular class of correspondents, but she + could not resist the law of her sex, whose thoughts naturally surround + themselves with superabundant drapery of language, as their persons float + in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was she indeed writing to this + unknown gentleman? Euthymia questioned her point-blank. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. Maurice Kirkwood, Lurida? + You seem to be so busy writing, I can think of nothing else. Or are you + going to write a novel, or a paper for the Society,—do tell me what + you are so much taken up with.” + </p> + <p> + “I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not to find fault with me + for carrying out my plan as I have made up my mind to do. You may read + this letter before I seal it, and if you find anything in it you don't + like you can suggest any change that you think will improve it. I hope you + will see that it explains itself. I don't believe that you will find + anything to frighten you in it.” + </p> + <p> + This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by her friend. The bold + handwriting made it look like a man's letter, and gave it consequently a + less dangerous expression than that which belongs to the tinted and often + fragrant sheet with its delicate thready characters, which slant across + the page like an April shower with a south wind chasing it. + </p> + <p> + ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August—, 18—. + </p> + <p> + MY DEAR SIR,—You will doubtless be surprised at the sight of a + letter like this from one whom you only know as the Secretary of the + Pansophian Society. There is a very common feeling that it is unbecoming + in one of my sex to address one of your own with whom she is unacquainted, + unless she has some special claim upon his attention. I am by no means + disposed to concede to the vulgar prejudice on this point. If one human + being has anything to communicate to another,—anything which + deserves being communicated,—I see no occasion for bringing in the + question of sex. I do not think the homo sum of Terence can be claimed for + the male sex as its private property on general any more than on + grammatical grounds, + </p> + <p> + I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the noble art of healing. + If I did so, it would be with the fixed purpose of giving my whole powers + to the service of humanity. And if I should carry out that idea, should I + refuse my care and skill to a suffering fellow-mortal because that mortal + happened to be a brother, and not a sister? My whole nature protests + against such one-sided humanity! No! I am blind to all distinctions when + my eyes are opened to any form of suffering, to any spectacle of want. + </p> + <p> + You may ask me why I address you, whom I know little or nothing of, and to + whom such an advance may seem presumptuous and intrusive. It is because I + was deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed to you,—that on + Ocean, River, and Lake, which was read at one of our meetings. I say that + I was deeply impressed, but I do not mean this as a compliment to that + paper. I am not bandying compliments now, but thinking of better things + than praises or phrases. I was interested in the paper, partly because I + recognized some of the feelings expressed in it as my own,—partly + because there was an undertone of sadness in all the voices of nature as + you echoed them which made me sad to hear, and which I could not help + longing to cheer and enliven. I said to myself, I should like to hold + communion with the writer of that paper. I have had my lonely hours and + days, as he has had. I have had some of his experiences in my intercourse + with nature. And oh! if I could draw him into those better human relations + which await us all, if we come with the right dispositions, I should blush + if I stopped to inquire whether I violated any conventional rule or not. + </p> + <p> + You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe, do you not? in the + insignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from the + brotherhood of mankind. You believe, do you not? that they should be + educated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, due + regard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hard or + light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing with the + “stronger” or the “weaker” sex. I mark these words because, + notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not true. + Stronger! Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of cider,—though + there have been women who could do that, and though when John Wesley was + mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down three or four men, one after + another, until she was at last overpowered and nearly murdered. Talk about + the weaker sex! Go and see Miss Euthymia Tower at the gymnasium! But no + matter about which sex has the strongest muscles. Which has most to + suffer, and which has most endurance and vitality? We go through many + ordeals which you are spared, but we outlast you in mind and body. I have + been led away into one of my accustomed trains of thought, but not so far + away from it as you might at first suppose. + </p> + <p> + My brother! Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, a + sister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the same + roof? And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes us all one + family? You are lonely, you must be longing for some human fellowship. + Take me into your confidence. What is there that you can tell me to which + I cannot respond with sympathy? What saddest note in your spiritual dirges + which will not find its chord in mine? + </p> + <p> + I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your existence. I + myself have known what it is to carry a brain that never rests in a body + that is always tired. I have defied its infirmities, and forced it to do + my bidding. You have no such hindrance, if we may judge by your aspect and + habits. You deal with horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indian could + handle his bark canoe more dexterously or more vigorously than we have + seen you handling yours. There must be some reason for your seclusion + which curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not the province of + curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire which I have to bring + you into kindly relations with those around you, I must run the risk of + giving offence that I may know in what direction to look for those + restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and sister can offer + to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to change the course of a life + which is not, which cannot be, in accordance with his true nature. + </p> + <p> + I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with which + you are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings,—something + which can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from the people whose + acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There can hardly be anything + in the place itself, or you would not have voluntarily sought it as a + residence, even for a single season there might be individuals here whom + you would not care to meet, there must be such, but you cannot have a + personal aversion to everybody. I have heard of cases in which certain + sights and sounds, which have no particular significance for most persons, + produced feelings of distress or aversion that made, them unbearable to + the subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has occurred to me that + possibly you might have some such natural aversion to the sounds of the + street, or such as are heard in most houses, especially where a piano is + kept, as it is in fact in almost all of those in the village. Or it might + be, I imagined, that some color in the dresses of women or the furniture + of our rooms affected you unpleasantly. I know that instances of such + antipathy have been recorded, and they would account for the seclusion of + those who are subject to it. + </p> + <p> + If there is any removable condition which interferes with your free + entrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, I beg + of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it not + strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself into the + hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to be frightened + from the carrying out of any thought which promises to be of use to a + fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered “unfeminine.” I can + bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot endure to think of myself + as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'? + </p> + <p> + Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, LURIDA VINCENT. + </p> + <p> + Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As she + finished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of her + grandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early days + are apt to do, on great occasions. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I never!” + </p> + <p> + Then she loosened some button or string that was too tight, and went to + the window for a breath of outdoor air. Then she began at the beginning + and read the whole letter all over again. + </p> + <p> + What should she do about it? She could not let this young girl send a + letter like that to a stranger of whose character little was known except + by inference,—to a young man, who would consider it a most + extraordinary advance on the part of the sender. She would have liked to + tear it into a thousand pieces, but she had no right to treat it in that + way. Lurida meant to send it the next morning, and in the mean time + Euthymia had the night to think over what she should do about it. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice like + that which breaks the silence—of the stagnant hours of the night + with its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia awoke in + the morning, her course of action was as clear before her as if it bad + been dictated by her guardian angel. She went straight over to the home of + Lurida, who was just dressed for breakfast. + </p> + <p> + She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She was struck + with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, and + contemplating her project with entire complacency. + </p> + <p> + Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety. + </p> + <p> + “I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force. It is + a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of the truest + human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. If you were sixty + years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be admissible to send it. + But if you were forty, I should question its propriety; if you were + thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a little more than twenty. How + do you know that this stranger will not show your letter to anybody or + everybody? How do you know that he will not send it to one of the + gossiping journals like the 'Household Inquisitor'? But supposing he keeps + it to himself, which is more than you have a right to expect, what opinion + is he likely to form of a young lady who invades his privacy with such + freedom? Ten to one he will think curiosity is at the bottom of it,—and,—come, + don't be angry at me for suggesting it,—may there not be a little of + that same motive mingled with the others? No, don't interrupt me quite + yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis is correct. You are full + of the best and kindest feelings in the world, but your desire for + knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhaps more than you know.” + </p> + <p> + Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while her friend + was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected her intelligence + too much to take offence at her advice, but she could not give up her + humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear of some awkward + consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself that she was playing + the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and that the fact of her not + wearing the costume of these ministering angels made no difference in her + relations to those who needed her aid. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear to you,” + she said gravely. “It seems to me that I give up everything when I + hesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am not afraid + to send this letter and take all the consequences.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in our presence? + And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it coincides with mine?” + </p> + <p> + Lurida winced a little at this proposal. “I don't quite like,” she said, + “showing this letter to—to” she hesitated, but it had to come out—“to + a man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was intended.” + </p> + <p> + The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit. + </p> + <p> + “Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go over to + his house with me at noon, when he comes back after his morning visits, + and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You know I have sometimes + had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say you must go to the doctor's + with me and carry that letter.” + </p> + <p> + There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firm voice + delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's door. The + servant said he had been at the house after his morning visits, but found + a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken suddenly ill and + wished to see him at once. Was the illness dangerous? The servant-maid did + n't know, but thought it was pretty bad, for Mr. Paul came in as white as + a sheet, and talked all sorts of languages which she couldn't understand, + and took on as if he thought Mr. Kirkwood was going to die right off. + </p> + <p> + And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed of, at + least for the present. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII. Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT. + </h2> + <p> + The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill of a + somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and the + probable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His patient was + not the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in this way. The + autumnal fevers to which our country towns are subject, in the place of + those “agues,” or intermittents, so largely prevalent in the South and + West, were already beginning, and Maurice, who had exposed himself in the + early and late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected to go + through the regular stages of this always serious and not rarely fatal + disease. + </p> + <p> + Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of his + master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must have a + nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and exhausting. + </p> + <p> + At the mention of the word “nurse” Paolo turned white, and exclaimed in an + agitated and thoroughly frightened way, + </p> + <p> + “No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, but + don' let no woman come near him,—if you do, he die!” + </p> + <p> + The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to taking + care of sick people, and with no little effort at last succeeded in + convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night for a + fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to call in some + assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play the + leading part in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoid fever, + with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials and + pill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution of a + very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations, and + its denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy. + </p> + <p> + It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of the + village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the young man + about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens of their + kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods and from the gardens; + choice fruit grown in the open air or under glass, for there were some + fine houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and greenhouses and graperies + were not unknown in the small but favored settlement. + </p> + <p> + On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A faint + smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of his + features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his parched + lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the fitful sleep in + which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow hours dragged along + the sluggish days one after another. With no violent symptoms, but with + steady persistency, the disease moved on in its accustomed course. It was + at no time immediately threatening, but the experienced physician knew its + uncertainties only too well. He had known fever patients suddenly seized + with violent internal inflammation, and carried off with frightful + rapidity. He remembered the case of a convalescent, a young woman who had + been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health, who, on being + lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while still confined to her + bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It may well be + supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert the accidents + which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular course of which + is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a railroad from one + city to another. The most natural interpretation which the common observer + would put upon the manifestations of one of these autumnal maladies would + be that some noxious combustible element had found its way into the system + which must be burned to ashes before the heat which pervades the whole + body can subside. Sometimes the fire may smoulder and seem as if it were + going out, or were quite extinguished, and again it will find some new + material to seize upon, and flame up as fiercely as ever. Its coming on + most frequently at the season when the brush fires which are consuming the + dead branches, and withered leaves, and all the refuse of vegetation are + sending up their smoke is suggestive. Sometimes it seems as if the body, + relieved of its effete materials, renewed its youth after one of these + quiet, expurgating, internal fractional cremations. Lean, pallid students + have found themselves plump and blooming, and it has happened that one + whose hair was straight as that of an Indian has been startled to behold + himself in his mirror with a fringe of hyacinthine curls about his + rejuvenated countenance. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case of + Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound prostration, + which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly helpless, as unable + to move without aid as the feeblest of paralytics. In this state he lay + for many days, not suffering pain, but with the sense of great weariness, + and the feeling that he should never rise from his bed again. For the most + part his intellect was unclouded when his attention was aroused. He spoke + only in whispers, a few words at a time. The doctor felt sure, by the + expression which passed over his features from time to time, that + something was worrying and oppressing him; something which he wished to + communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity of purpose, to make + perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certain desk, and once he + had found strength to lift his emaciated arm and point to it. The doctor + went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he slowly shook his head. He + had not the power to say at that time what he wished. The next day he felt + a little less prostrated; and succeeded in explaining to the doctor what + he wanted. His words, so far as the physician could make them out, were + these which follow. Dr. Butts looked upon them as possibly expressing + wishes which would be his last, and noted them down carefully immediately + after leaving his chamber. + </p> + <p> + “I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is told in + a paper locked in that desk. The key is—put your hand under my + pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that I was—human—and + save my memory from reproach.” + </p> + <p> + He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollow + cheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. But he + said to himself, “It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong hopes that he + will recover.” + </p> + <p> + Maurice spoke once more. “Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are wise + and kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once and read. + I want you to know the story of my life before it is finished—if the + end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before you sleep.” He was + exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the doctor saw a tranquil + look on his features which added encouragement to his hopes. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII. MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. + </h2> + <p> + I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been passed in + foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed of an ample + fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished and amiable woman. + I was their first and only child. She died while I was yet an infant. If I + remember her at all it is as a vision, more like a glimpse of a pre-natal + existence than as a part of my earthly life. At the death of my mother I + was left in the charge of the old nurse who had enjoyed her perfect + confidence. She was devoted to me, and I became absolutely dependent on + her, who had for me all the love and all the care of a mother. I was + naturally the object of the attentions and caresses of the family + relatives. I have been told that I was a pleasant, smiling infant, with + nothing to indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility; not afraid of + strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their acquaintance. My father + was devoted to me and did all in his power to promote my health and + comfort. + </p> + <p> + I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happened which + changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonely existence. + I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. I must force myself + to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguely remembered, for I am + not willing that my doomed and wholly exceptional life should pass away + unrecorded, unexplained, unvindicated. My nature is, I feel sure, a kind + and social one, but I have lived apart, as if my heart were filled with + hatred of my fellow-creatures. If there are any readers who look without + pity, without sympathy, upon those who shun the fellowship of their fellow + men and women, who show by their downcast or averted eyes that they dread + companionship and long for solitude, I pray them, if this paper ever + reaches them, to stop at this point. Follow me no further, for you will + not believe my story, nor enter into the feelings which I am about to + reveal. But if there are any to whom all that is human is of interest, who + have felt in their own consciousness some stirrings of invincible + attraction to one individual and equally invincible repugnance to another, + who know by their own experience that elective affinities have as their + necessary counterpart, and, as it were, their polar opposites, currents + not less strong of elective repulsions, let them read with unquestioning + faith the story of a blighted life I am about to relate, much of it, of + course, received from the lips of others. + </p> + <p> + My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, was + considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that she + visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants and my + old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. Laura was + full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtless + occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of her age should be. + It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for the first time. My nurse + had me in her arms, walking back and forward on a balcony with a low + railing, upon which opened the windows of the second story of my father's + house. While the nurse was thus carrying me, Laura came suddenly upon the + balcony. She no sooner saw me than with all the delighted eagerness of her + youthful nature she rushed toward me, and, catching me from the nurse's + arms, began tossing me after the fashion of young girls who have been so + lately playing with dolls that they feel as if babies were very much of + the same nature. The abrupt seizure frightened me; I sprang from her arms + in my terror, and fell over the railing of the balcony. I should probably + enough have been killed on the spot but for the fact that a low thorn-bush + grew just beneath the balcony, into which I fell and thus had the violence + of the shock broken. But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I bear to + this day marks of the deep wounds they inflicted. + </p> + <p> + That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The sudden + apparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from the protecting + arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek that accompanied + my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable space; the cruel + lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns,—all these fearful + impressions blended in one paralyzing terror. + </p> + <p> + When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, and + the physician who first saw me said that no pulse was perceptible. But + after a time consciousness returned; the wounds, though painful, were none + of them dangerous, and the most alarming effects of the accident passed + away. My old nurse cared for me tenderly day and night, and my father, who + had been almost distracted in the first hours which followed the injury, + hoped and believed that no permanent evil results would be found to result + from it. My cousin Laura was of course deeply distressed to feel that her + thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave an accident. As soon as I + had somewhat recovered she came to see me, very penitent, very anxious to + make me forget the alarm she had caused me, with all its consequences. I + was in the nursery sitting up in my bed, bandaged, but not in any pain, as + it seemed, for I was quiet and to all appearance in a perfectly natural + state of feeling. As Laura came near me I shrieked and instantly changed + color. I put my hand upon my heart as if I had been stabbed, and fell + over, unconscious. It was very much the same state as that in which I was + found immediately after my fall. + </p> + <p> + The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. The + approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to lay her + hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which the moment of + terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse saw this in a + moment. “Go! go!” she cried to Laura, “go, or the child will die!” Her + command did not have to be repeated. After Laura had gone I lay senseless, + white and cold as marble, for some time. The doctor soon came, and by the + use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color came back slowly to my + cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set in motion. + </p> + <p> + It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary effect + of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought by the doctor + and by my father, that after a few days I should recover from this morbid + sensibility and receive my cousin as other infants receive + pleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook her head. “The girl + will be the death of the child,” she said, “if she touches him or comes + near him. His heart stopped beating just as when the girl snatched him out + of my arms, and he fell over the balcony railing.” Once more the + experiment was tried, cautiously, almost insidiously. The same alarming + consequences followed. It was too evident that a chain of nervous + disturbances had been set up in my system which repeated itself whenever + the original impression gave the first impulse. I never saw my cousin + Laura after this last trial. Its result had so distressed her that she + never ventured again to show herself to me. + </p> + <p> + If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, it would have been a + misfortune for my cousin and myself, but hardly a calamity. The world is + wide, and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be considered an + essential of existence. I often heard Laura's name mentioned, but never by + any one who was acquainted with all the circumstances, for it was noticed + that I changed color and caught at my breast as if I wanted to grasp my + heart in my hand whenever that fatal name was mentioned. + </p> + <p> + Alas! this was not all. While I was suffering from the effects of my fall + among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse, assisted by another old + woman, by a physician, and my father, who would take his share in caring + for me. It was thought best to keep me perfectly quiet, and + strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery, with one + exception, that my old grandmother came in now and then. With her it seems + that I was somewhat timid and shy, following her with rather anxious eyes, + as if not quite certain whether or not she was dangerous. But one day, + when I was far advanced towards recovery, my father brought in a young + lady, a relative of his, who had expressed a great desire to see me. She + was, as I have been told, a very handsome girl, of about the same age as + my cousin Laura, but bearing no personal resemblance to her in form, + features, or complexion. She had no sooner entered the room than the same + sudden changes which had followed my cousin's visit began to show + themselves, and before she had reached my bedside I was in a state of + deadly collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned. + </p> + <p> + Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures. A + little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into the nursery + one day and bring me some flowers. I took them from her hand, but turned + away and shut my eyes. There was no seizure, but there was a certain dread + and aversion, nothing more than a feeling which it might be hoped that + time would overcome. Those around me were gradually finding out the + circumstances which brought on the deadly attack to which I was subject. + </p> + <p> + The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the prettiest + girl of the village where we were passing the summer. She was very anxious + to see me, and as I was now nearly well it was determined that she should + be permitted to pay me a short visit. I had always delighted in seeing her + and being caressed by her. I was sleeping when she entered the nursery and + came and took a seat at my side in perfect silence. Presently I became + restless, and a moment later I opened my eyes and saw her stooping over + me. My hand went to my left breast,—the color faded from my cheeks,—I + was again the cold marble image so like death that it had well-nigh been + mistaken for it. + </p> + <p> + Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had left + me with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is most + attractive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender age, who + feel the fascination of her flowing locks, her bright eyes, her blooming + cheeks, and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws all life into its + warm and potently vitalized atmosphere? So it did indeed seem. The + dangerous experiment could not be repeated indefinitely. It was not + intentionally tried again, but accident brought about more than one + renewal of it during the following years, until it became fully recognized + that I was the unhappy subject of a mortal dread of woman,—not + absolutely of the human female, for I had no fear of my old nurse or of my + grandmother, or of any old wrinkled face, and I had become accustomed to + the occasional meeting of a little girl or two, whom I nevertheless + regarded with a certain ill-defined feeling that there was danger in their + presence. I was sent to a boys' school very early, and during the first + ten or twelve years of my life I had rarely any occasion to be reminded of + my strange idiosyncrasy. + </p> + <p> + As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change came over the feelings which + had so long held complete possession of me. This was what my father and + his advisers had always anticipated, and was the ground of their confident + hope in my return to natural conditions before I should have grown to + mature manhood. + </p> + <p> + How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, bewildering, dreadful + years? Visions of loveliness haunted me sleeping and waking. Sometimes a + graceful girlish figure would so draw my eyes towards it that I lost sight + of all else, and was ready to forget all my fears and find myself at her + side, like other youths by the side of young maidens,—happy in their + cheerful companionship, while I,—I, under the curse of one blighting + moment, looked on, hopeless. Sometimes the glimpse of a fair face or the + tone of a sweet voice stirred within me all the instincts that make the + morning of life beautiful to adolescence. I reasoned with myself: + </p> + <p> + Why should I not have outgrown that idle apprehension which had been the + nightmare of my earlier years? Why should not the rising tide of life have + drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shallows of childhood? + How many children there are who tremble at being left alone in the dark, + but who, a few years later, will smile at their foolish terrors and brave + all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why should I any longer be the slave + of a foolish fancy that has grown into a half insane habit of mind? I was + familiarly acquainted with all the stories of the strange antipathies and + invincible repugnances to which others, some of them famous men, had been + subject. I said to myself, Why should not I overcome this dread of woman + as Peter the Great fought down his dread of wheels rolling over a bridge? + Was I, alone of all mankind, to be doomed to perpetual exclusion from the + society which, as it seemed to me, was all that rendered existence worth + the trouble and fatigue of slavery to the vulgar need of supplying the + waste of the system and working at the task of respiration like the + daughters of Danaus,—toiling day and night as the worn-out sailor + labors at the pump of his sinking vessel? + </p> + <p> + Why did I not brave the risk of meeting squarely, and without regard to + any possible danger, some one of those fair maidens whose far-off smile, + whose graceful movements, at once attracted and agitated me? I can only + answer this question to the satisfaction of any really inquiring reader by + giving him the true interpretation of the singular phenomenon of which I + was the subject. For this I shall have to refer to a paper of which I have + made a copy, and which will be found included with this manuscript. It is + enough to say here, without entering into the explanation of the fact, + which will be found simple enough as seen by the light of modern + physiological science, that the “nervous disturbance” which the presence + of a woman in the flower of her age produced in my system was a sense of + impending death, sudden, overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling. It was a + reversed action of the nervous centres,—the opposite of that which + flushes the young lover's cheek and hurries his bounding pulses as he + comes into the presence of the object of his passion. No one who has ever + felt the sensation can have failed to recognize it as an imperative + summons, which commands instant and terrified submission. + </p> + <p> + It was at this period of my life that my father determined to try the + effect of travel and residence in different localities upon my bodily and + mental condition. I say bodily as well as mental, for I was too slender + for my height and subject to some nervous symptoms which were a cause of + anxiety. That the mind was largely concerned in these there was no doubt, + but the mutual interactions of mind and body are often too complex to + admit of satisfactory analysis. Each is in part cause and each also in + part effect. + </p> + <p> + We passed some years in Italy, chiefly in Rome, where I was placed in a + school conducted by priests, and where of course I met only those of my + own sex. There I had the opportunity of seeing the influences under which + certain young Catholics, destined for the priesthood, are led to separate + themselves from all communion with the sex associated in their minds with + the most subtle dangers to which the human soul can be exposed. I became + in some degree reconciled to the thought of exclusion from the society of + women by seeing around me so many who were self-devoted to celibacy. The + thought sometimes occurred to me whether I should not find the best and + the only natural solution of the problem of existence, as submitted to + myself, in taking upon me the vows which settle the whole question and + raise an impassable barrier between the devotee and the object of his + dangerous attraction. + </p> + <p> + How often I talked this whole matter over with the young priest who was at + once my special instructor and my favorite companion! But accustomed as I + had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and impressed as I was with + the purity and excellence of many of its young members with whom I was + acquainted, my early training rendered it impossible for me to accept the + credentials which it offered me as authoritative. My friend and instructor + had to set me down as a case of “invincible ignorance.” This was the + loop-hole through which he crept out of the prison-house of his creed, and + was enabled to look upon me without the feeling of absolute despair with + which his sterner brethren would, I fear, have regarded me. + </p> + <p> + I have said that accident exposed me at times to the influence which I had + such reasons for dreading. Here is one example of such an occurrence, + which I relate as simply as possible, vividly as it is impressed upon my + memory. A young friend whose acquaintance I had made in Rome asked me one + day to come to his rooms and look at a cabinet of gems and medals which he + had collected. I had been but a short time in his library when a vague + sense of uneasiness came over me. My heart became restless,—I could + feel it stirring irregularly, as if it were some frightened creature caged + in my breast. There was nothing that I could see to account for it. A door + was partly open, but not so that I could see into the next room. The + feeling grew upon me of some influence which was paralyzing my + circulation. I begged my friend to open a window. As he did so, the door + swung in the draught, and I saw a blooming young woman,—it was my + friend's sister, who had been sitting with a book in her hand, and who + rose at the opening of the door. Something had warned me of the presence + of a woman, that occult and potent aura of individuality, call it personal + magnetism, spiritual effluence, or reduce it to a simpler expression if + you will; whatever it was, it had warned me of the nearness of the dread + attraction which allured at a distance and revealed itself with all the + terrors of the Lorelei if approached too recklessly. A sign from her + brother caused her to withdraw at once, but not before I had felt the + impression which betrayed itself in my change of color, anxiety about the + region of the heart, and sudden failure as if about to fall in a deadly + fainting-fit. + </p> + <p> + Does all this seem strange and incredible to the reader of my manuscript? + Nothing in the history of life is so strange or exceptional as it seems to + those who have not made a long study of its mysteries. I have never known + just such a case as my own, and yet there must have been such, and if the + whole history of mankind were unfolded I cannot doubt that there have been + many like it. Let my reader suspend his judgment until he has read the + paper I have referred to, which was drawn up by a Committee of the Royal + Academy of the Biological Sciences. In this paper the mechanism of the + series of nervous derangements to which I have been subject since the + fatal shock experienced in my infancy is explained in language not hard to + understand. It will be seen that such a change of polarity in the nervous + centres is only a permanent form and an extreme degree of an emotional + disturbance, which as a temporary and comparatively unimportant personal + accident is far from being uncommon,—is so frequent, in fact, that + every one must have known instances of it, and not a few must have had + more or less serious experiences of it in their own private history. + </p> + <p> + It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I am now + dealing with the reader. I was full of strange fancies and wild + superstitions. One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal which had + been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear next my body. I was told + that this would turn black after a time, in virtue of a power which it + possessed of drawing out original sin, or certain portions of it, together + with the evil and morbid tendencies which had been engrafted on the + corrupt nature. I wore the medal faithfully, as directed, and watched it + carefully. It became tarnished and after a time darkened, but it wrought + no change in my unnatural condition. + </p> + <p> + There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more of futurity + than she had any right to know. The story was that she had foretold the + assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour. + </p> + <p> + However that may have been, I was persuaded to let her try her black art + upon my future. I shall never forget the strange, wild look of the + wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed her + wicked old eyes on my young countenance. After this examination she shook + her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I could get them + would be in English like these: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Fair lady cast a spell on thee, + Fair lady's hand shall set thee free. +</pre> + <p> + Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose palm + had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response, have + always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment. The + extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I was subject disposed me + to believe the incredible with reference to all that relates to it. I have + never ceased to have the feeling that, sooner or later, I should find + myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my infancy. It seems as if it + would naturally come through the influence of some young and fair woman, + to whom that merciful errand should be assigned by the Providence that + governs our destiny. With strange hopes, with trembling fears, with + mingled belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself I have sought with + longing yet half-averted eyes for the “elect lady,” as I have learned to + call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruined life. + </p> + <p> + Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I had + found the object of my superstitious belief.—Singularly enough it + was always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared before my + bewildered vision. Once it was an English girl who was a fellow passenger + with me in one of my ocean voyages. I need not say that she was beautiful, + for she was my dream realized. I heard her singing, I saw her walking the + deck on some of the fair days when sea-sickness was forgotten. The + passengers were a social company enough, but I had kept myself apart, as + was my wont. At last the attraction became too strong to resist any + longer. “I will venture into the charmed circle if it kills me,” I said to + my father. I did venture, and it did not kill me, or I should not be + telling this story. But there was a repetition of the old experiences. I + need not relate the series of alarming consequences of my venture. The + English girl was very lovely, and I have no doubt has made some one + supremely happy before this, but she was not the “elect lady” of the + prophecy and of my dreams. + </p> + <p> + A second time I thought myself for a moment in the presence of the + destined deliverer who was to restore me to my natural place among my + fellow men and women. It was on the Tiber that I met the young maiden who + drew me once more into that inner circle which surrounded young womanhood + with deadly peril for me, if I dared to pass its limits. I was floating + with the stream in the little boat in which I passed many long hours of + reverie when I saw another small boat with a boy and a young girl in it. + The boy had been rowing, and one of his oars had slipped from his grasp. + He did not know how to paddle with a single oar, and was hopelessly rowing + round and round, his oar all the time floating farther away from him. I + could not refuse my assistance. I picked up the oar and brought my skiff + alongside of the boat. When I handed the oar to the boy the young girl + lifted her veil and thanked me in the exquisite music of the language + which + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin.' +</pre> + <p> + She was a type of Italian beauty,—a nocturne in flesh and blood, if + I may borrow a term certain artists are fond of; but it was her voice + which captivated me and for a moment made me believe that I was no longer + shut off from all relations with the social life of my race. An hour later + I was found lying insensible on the floor of my boat, white, cold, almost + pulseless. It cost much patient labor to bring me back to consciousness. + Had not such extreme efforts been made, it seems probable that I should + never have waked from a slumber which was hardly distinguishable from that + of death. + </p> + <p> + Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if I invite it + by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause? The habit of these + deadly seizures has become a second nature. The strongest and the ablest + men have found it impossible to resist the impression produced by the most + insignificant object, by the most harmless sight or sound to which they + had a congenital or acquired antipathy. What prospect have I of ever being + rid of this long and deep-seated infirmity? I may well ask myself these + questions, but my answer is that I will never give up the hope that time + will yet bring its remedy. It may be that the wild prediction which so + haunts me shall find itself fulfilled. I have had of late strange + premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could not help giving + heed. But I have seen too much of the faith that deals in miracles to + accept the supernatural in any shape,—assuredly when it comes from + an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her revelations of the + future. Be it so: though I am not superstitious, I have a right to be + imaginative, and my imagination will hold to those words of the old + zingara with an irresistible feeling that, sooner or later, they will + prove true. + </p> + <p> + Can it be possible that her prediction is not far from its realization? I + have had both waking and sleeping visions within these last months and + weeks which have taken possession of me and filled my life with new + thoughts, new hopes, new resolves. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am dreaming away this season + of bloom and fragrance, sometimes in the fields or woods in a distant + glimpse, once in a nearer glance, which left me pale and tremulous, yet + was followed by a swift reaction, so that my cheeks flushed and my pulse + bounded, I have seen her who—how do I dare to tell it so that my own + eyes can read it?—-I cannot help believing is to be my deliverer, my + saviour. + </p> + <p> + I have been warned in the most solemn and impressive language by the + experts most deeply read in the laws of life and the history of its + disturbing and destroying influences, that it would be at the imminent + risk of my existence if I should expose myself to the repetition of my + former experiences. I was reminded that unexplained sudden deaths were of + constant, of daily occurrence; that any emotion is liable to arrest the + movements of life: terror, joy, good news or bad news,—anything that + reaches the deeper nervous centres. I had already died once, as Sir + Charles Napier said of himself; yes, more than once, died and been + resuscitated. The next time, I might very probably fail to get my return + ticket after my visit to Hades. It was a rather grim stroke of humor, but + I understood its meaning full well, and felt the force of its menace. + </p> + <p> + After all, what had I to live for if the great primal instinct which + strives to make whole the half life of lonely manhood is defeated, + suppressed, crushed out of existence? Why not as well die in the attempt + to break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous movement as in any + other way? I am alone in the world,—alone save for my faithful + servant, through whom I seem to hold to the human race as it were by a + single filament. My father, who was my instructor, my companion, my + dearest and best friend through all my later youth and my earlier manhood, + died three years ago and left me my own master, with the means of living + as might best please my fancy. This season shall decide my fate. One more + experiment, and I shall find myself restored to my place among my + fellow-beings, or, as I devoutly hope, in a sphere where all our mortal + infirmities are past and forgotten. + </p> + <p> + I have told the story of a blighted life without reserve, so that there + shall not remain any mystery or any dark suspicion connected with my + memory if I should be taken away unexpectedly. It has cost me an effort to + do it, but now that my life is on record I feel more reconciled to my lot, + with all its possibilities, and among these possibilities is a gleam of a + better future. I have been told by my advisers, some of them wise, deeply + instructed, and kind-hearted men, that such a life-destiny should be + related by the subject of it for the instruction of others, and especially + for the light it throws on certain peculiarities of human character often + wrongly interpreted as due to moral perversion, when they are in reality + the results of misdirected or reversed actions in some of the closely + connected nervous centres. + </p> + <p> + For myself I can truly say that I have very little morbid sensibility left + with reference to the destiny which has been allotted to me. I have passed + through different stages of feeling with reference to it, as I have + developed from infancy to manhood. At first it was mere blind instinct + about which I had no thought, living like other infants the life of + impressions without language to connect them in series. In my boyhood I + began to be deeply conscious of the infirmity which separated me from + those around me. In youth began that conflict of emotions and impulses + with the antagonistic influence of which I have already spoken, a conflict + which has never ceased, but to which I have necessarily become to a + certain degree accustomed; and against the dangers of which I have learned + to guard myself habitually. That is the meaning of my isolation. You, + young man,—if at any time your eyes shall look upon my melancholy + record,—you at least will understand me. Does not your heart throb, + in the presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as if it “were + ready to crack” with its own excess of strain? What if instead of + throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat again? + You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy will look upon + these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know what it is when your + breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and the grip of the bodice seems + unendurable as the embrace of the iron virgin of the Inquisition. Think + what it would be if the grasp were tightened so that no breath of air + could enter your panting chest! + </p> + <p> + Does your heart beat in the same way, young man, when your honored friend, + a venerable matron of seventy years, greets you with her kindly smile as + it does in the presence of youthful loveliness? When a pretty child brings + you her doll and looks into your eyes with artless grace and trustful + simplicity, does your pulse quicken, do you tremble, does life palpitate + through your whole being, as when the maiden of seventeen meets your + enamored sight in the glow of her rosebud beauty? Wonder not, then, if the + period of mystic attraction for you should be that of agitation, terror, + danger, to one in whom the natural current of the instincts has had its + course changed as that of a stream is changed by a convulsion of nature, + so that the impression which is new life to you is death to him. + </p> + <p> + I am now twenty-five years old. I have reached the time of life which I + have dreamed, nay even ventured to hope, might be the limit of the + sentence which was pronounced upon me in my infancy. I can assign no good + reason for this anticipation. But in writing this paper I feel as if I + were preparing to begin a renewed existence. There is nothing for me to be + ashamed of in the story I have told. There is no man living who would not + have yielded to the sense of instantly impending death which seized upon + me under the conditions I have mentioned. Martyrs have gone singing to + their flaming shrouds, but never a man could hold his breath long enough + to kill himself; he must have rope or water, or some mechanical help, or + nature will make him draw in a breath of air, and would make him do so + though he knew the salvation of the human race would be forfeited by that + one gasp. + </p> + <p> + This paper may never reach the eye of any one afflicted in the same way + that I have been. It probably never will; but for all that, there are many + shy natures which will recognize tendencies in themselves in the direction + of my unhappy susceptibility. Others, to whom such weakness seems + inconceivable, will find their scepticism shaken, if not removed, by the + calm, judicial statement of the Report drawn up for the Royal Academy. It + will make little difference to me whether my story is accepted + unhesitatingly or looked upon as largely a product of the imagination. I + am but a bird of passage that lights on the boughs of different + nationalities. I belong to no flock; my home may be among the palms of + Syria, the olives of Italy, the oaks of England, the elms that shadow the + Hudson or the Connecticut; I build no nest; to-day I am here, to-morrow on + the wing. + </p> + <p> + If I quit my native land before the trees have dropped their leaves I + shall place this manuscript in the safe hands of one whom I feel sure that + I can trust; to do with it as he shall see fit. If it is only curious and + has no bearing on human welfare, he may think it well to let it remain + unread until I shall have passed away. If in his judgment it throws any + light on one of the deeper mysteries of our nature,—the repulsions + which play such a formidable part in social life, and which must be + recognized as the correlatives of the affinities that distribute the + individuals governed by them in the face of impediments which seem to be + impossibilities,—then it may be freely given to the world. + </p> + <p> + But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen, the programme of my life + will have changed, and this story of the dead past will be illuminated by + the light of a living present which will irradiate all its saddening + features. Who would not pray that my last gleam of light and hope may be + that of dawn and not of departing day? + </p> + <p> + The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of a story so far from + the common range of experience is once more requested to suspend his + judgment until he has read the paper which will next be offered for his + consideration. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIX. THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. + </h2> + <p> + Perhaps it is too much to expect a reader who wishes to be entertained, + excited, amused, and does not want to work his passage through pages which + he cannot understand without some effort of his own, to read the paper + which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon it. If he has no curiosity + in the direction of these chapters, he can afford to leave them to such as + relish a slight flavor of science. But if he does so leave them he will + very probably remain sceptical as to the truth of the story to which they + are meant to furnish him with a key. + </p> + <p> + Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a remarkable and exceptional + one, and it is hardly probable that any reader's experience will furnish + him with its parallel. But let him look back over all his acquaintances, + if he has reached middle life, and see if he cannot recall more than one + who, for some reason or other, shunned the society of young women, as if + they had a deadly fear of their company. If he remembers any such, he can + understand the simple statements and natural reflections which are laid + before him. + </p> + <p> + One of the most singular facts connected with the history of Maurice + Kirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to the + fate which had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped by the + Interviewer, who would show him up in the sensational columns of his + prying newspaper. He lived chiefly by himself, as the easiest mode of + avoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in almost every + society into which he might venture. But he had learned to look upon + himself very much as he would upon an intimate not himself,—upon a + different personality. A young man will naturally enough be ashamed of his + shyness. It is something which others believe, and perhaps he himself + thinks, he might overcome. But in the case of Maurice Kirkwood there was + no room for doubt as to the reality and gravity of the long enduring + effects of his first convulsive terror. He had accepted the fact as he + would have accepted the calamity of losing his sight or his hearing. When + he was questioned by the experts to whom his case was submitted, he told + them all that he knew about it almost without a sign of emotion. Nature + was so peremptory with him,—saying in language that had no double + meaning: “If you violate the condition on which you hold my gift of + existence I slay you on the spot,”—that he became as decisive in his + obedience as she was in her command, and accepted his fate without + repining. + </p> + <p> + Yet it must not be thought for a moment,—it cannot be supposed,—that + he was insensible because he looked upon himself with the coolness of an + enforced philosophy. He bore his burden manfully, hard as it was to live + under it, for he lived, as we have seen, in hope. The thought of throwing + it off with his life, as too grievous to be borne, was familiar to his + lonely hours, but he rejected it as unworthy of his manhood. How he had + speculated and dreamed about it is plain enough from the paper the reader + may remember on Ocean, River, and Lake. + </p> + <p> + With these preliminary hints the paper promised is submitted to such as + may find any interest in them. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA. + + WITH REMARKS. +</pre> + <p> + Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the Biological + Sciences by a Committee of that Institution. + </p> + <p> + “The singular nature of the case we are about to narrate and comment upon + will, we feel confident, arrest the attention of those who have learned + the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light upon her laws + by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from time to time are + observed. We have done with the lusus naturae of earlier generations. We + pay little attention to the stories of 'miracles,' except so far as we + receive them ready-made at the hands of the churches which still hold to + them. Not the less do we meet with strange and surprising facts, which a + century or two ago would have been handled by the clergy and the courts, + but today are calmly recorded and judged by the best light our knowledge + of the laws of life can throw upon them. It must be owned that there are + stories which we can hardly dispute, so clear and full is the evidence in + their support, which do, notwithstanding, tax our faith and sometimes + leave us sceptical in spite of all the testimony which supports them. + </p> + <p> + “In this category many will be disposed to place the case we commend to + the candid attention of the Academy. If one were told that a young man, a + gentleman by birth and training, well formed, in apparently perfect + health, of agreeable physiognomy and manners, could not endure the + presence of the most attractive young woman, but was seized with deadly + terror and sudden collapse of all the powers of life, if he came into her + immediate presence; if it were added that this same young man did not + shrink from the presence of an old withered crone; that he had a certain + timid liking for little maidens who had not yet outgrown the company of + their dolls, the listener would be apt to smile, if he did not laugh, at + the absurdity of the fable. Surely, he would say, this must be the fiction + of some fanciful brain, the whim of some romancer, the trick of some + playwright. It would make a capital farce, this idea, carried out. A young + man slighting the lovely heroine of the little comedy and making love to + her grandmother! This would, of course, be overstating the truth of the + story, but to such a misinterpretation the plain facts lend themselves too + easily. We will relate the leading circumstances of the case, as they were + told us with perfect simplicity and frankness by the subject of an + affection which, if classified, would come under the general head of + Antipathy, but to which, if we give it a name, we shall have to apply the + term Gynophobia, or Fear of Woman.” + </p> + <p> + Here follows the account furnished to the writer of the paper, which is in + all essentials identical with that already laid before the reader. + </p> + <p> + “Such is the case offered to our consideration. Assuming its truthfulness + in all its particulars, it remains to see in the first place whether or + not it is as entirely exceptional and anomalous as it seems at first + sight, or whether it is only the last term of a series of cases which in + their less formidable aspect are well known to us in literature, in the + records of science, and even in our common experience. + </p> + <p> + “To most of those among us the explanations we are now about to give are + entirely superfluous. But there are some whose chief studies have been in + different directions, and who will not complain if certain facts are + mentioned which to the expert will seem rudimentary, and which hardly + require recapitulation to those who are familiarly acquainted with the + common text-books. + </p> + <p> + “The heart is the centre of every living movement in the higher animals, + and in man, furnishing in varying amount, or withholding to a greater or + less extent, the needful supplies to all parts of the system. If its + action is diminished to a certain degree, faintness is the immediate + consequence; if it is arrested, loss of consciousness; if its action is + not soon restored, death, of which fainting plants the white flag, remains + in possession of the system. + </p> + <p> + “How closely the heart is under the influence of the emotions we need not + go to science to learn, for all human experience and all literature are + overflowing with evidence that shows the extent of this relation. + Scripture is full of it; the heart in Hebrew poetry represents the entire + life, we might almost say. Not less forcible is the language of + Shakespeare, as for instance, in 'Measure for Measure:' + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, + Making it both unable for itself + And dispossessing all my other parts + Of necessary fitness?' +</pre> + <p> + “More especially is the heart associated in every literature with the + passion of love. A famous old story is that of Galen, who was called to + the case of a young lady long ailing, and wasting away from some cause the + physicians who had already seen her were unable to make out. The shrewd + old practitioner suspected that love was at the bottom of the young lady's + malady. Many relatives and friends of both sexes, all of them ready with + their sympathy, came to see her. The physician sat by her bedside during + one of these visits, and in an easy, natural way took her hand and placed + a finger on her pulse. It beat quietly enough until a certain comely young + gentleman entered the apartment, when it suddenly rose in frequency, and at + the same moment her hurried breathing, her changing color, pale and + flushed by turns, betrayed the profound agitation his presence excited. + This was enough for the sagacious Greek; love was the disease, the cure of + which by its like may be claimed as an anticipation of homoeopathy. In the + frontispiece to the fine old 'Junta' edition of the works of Galen, you + may find among the wood-cuts a representation of the interesting scene, + with the title Amantas Dignotio,—the diagnosis, or recognition, of + the lover. + </p> + <p> + “Love has many languages, but the heart talks through all of them. The + pallid or burning cheek tells of the failing or leaping fountain which + gives it color. The lovers at the 'Brookside' could hear each other's + hearts beating. When Genevieve, in Coleridge's poem, forgot herself, and + was beforehand with her suitor in her sudden embrace, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'T was partly love and partly fear, + And partly 't was a bashful art, + That I might rather feel than see + The swelling of her heart' +</pre> + <p> + “Always the heart, whether its hurried action is seen, or heard, or felt. + But it is not always in this way that the 'deceitful' organ treats the + lover. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Faint heart never won fair lady.' +</pre> + <p> + “This saying was not meant, perhaps, to be taken literally, but it has its + literal truth. Many a lover has found his heart sink within him,—lose + all its force, and leave him weak as a child in his emotion at the sight + of the object of his affections. When Porphyro looked upon Madeline at her + prayers in the chapel, it was too much for him: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, + Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint, + She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from earthly taint.' +</pre> + <p> + “And in Balzac's novel, 'Cesar Birotteau,' the hero of the story 'fainted + away for-joy at the moment when, under a linden-tree, at Sceaux, + Constance-Barbe-Josephine accepted him as her future husband.' + </p> + <p> + “One who faints is dead if he does not 'come to,' and nothing is more + likely than that too susceptible lovers have actually gone off in this + way. Everything depends on how the heart behaves itself in these and + similar trying moments. The mechanism of its actions becomes an + interesting subject, therefore, to lovers of both sexes, and to all who + are capable of intense emotions. + </p> + <p> + “The heart is a great reservoir, which distributes food, drink, air, and + heat to every part of the system, in exchange for its waste material. It + knocks at the gate of every organ seventy or eighty times in a minute, + calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload its refuse. Between it + and the brain there is the closest relation. The emotions, which act upon + it as we have seen, govern it by a mechanism only of late years thoroughly + understood. This mechanism can be made plain enough to the reader who is + not afraid to believe that he can understand it. + </p> + <p> + “The brain, as all know, is the seat of ideas, emotions, volition. It is + the great central telegraphic station with which many lesser centres are + in close relation, from which they receive, and to which they transmit, + their messages. The heart has its own little brains, so to speak,—small + collections of nervous substance which govern its rhythmical motions under + ordinary conditions. But these lesser nervous centres are to a large + extent dominated by influences transmitted from certain groups of + nerve-cells in the brain and its immediate dependencies. + </p> + <p> + “There are two among the special groups of nerve-cells which produce + directly opposite effects. One of these has the power of accelerating the + action of the heart, while the other has the power of retarding or + arresting this action. One acts as the spur, the other as the bridle. + According as one or the other predominates, the action of the heart will + be stimulated or restrained. Among the great modern discoveries in + physiology is that of the existence of a distinct centre of inhibition, as + the restraining influence over the heart is called. + </p> + <p> + “The centre of inhibition plays a terrible part in the history of + cowardice and of unsuccessful love. No man can be brave without blood to + sustain his courage, any more than he can think, as the German materialist + says, not absurdly, without phosphorus. The fainting lover must recover + his circulation, or his lady will lend him her smelling-salts and take a + gallant with blood in his cheeks. Porphyro got over his faintness before + he ran away with Madeline, and Cesar Birotteau was an accepted lover when + he swooned with happiness: but many an officer has been cashiered, and + many a suitor has been rejected, because the centre of inhibition has got + the upper hand of the centre of stimulation. + </p> + <p> + “In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been recorded, the + most frequent cause has been the disturbed and depressing influence of the + centre of inhibition. Fainting at the sight of blood is one of the + commonest examples of this influence. A single impression, in a very early + period of atmospheric existence,—perhaps, indirectly, before that + period, as was said to have happened in the case of James the First of + England,—may establish a communication between this centre and the + heart which will remain open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across a + field establish itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we call + accidental, but one after another follows it as if he were guided by a + chart on which it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transit + between the centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If once the + path is opened by the track of some profound impression, that same + impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old + footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to traverse, + and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, may perpetuate + itself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its subject. + </p> + <p> + “The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of the + effect of inhibition on the heart. + </p> + <p> + “We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history of the + human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have been similar + cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has been the + consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. The case + most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well known to + require any lengthened description in this paper. It is enough to recall + the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort suspend the action of his + heart for a considerable period, during which he lay like one dead, + pulseless, and without motion. After a time the circulation returned, and + he does not seem to have been the worse for his dangerous, or seemingly + dangerous, experiment. But in his case it was by an act of the will that + the heart's action was suspended. In the case before us it is an + involuntary impulse transmitted from the brain to the inhibiting centre, + which arrests the cardiac movements. + </p> + <p> + “What is like to be the further history of the case? + </p> + <p> + “The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty years + old. The chain of nervous actions has become firmly established. It might + have been hoped that the changes of adolescence would have effected a + transformation of the perverted instinct. On the contrary, the whole force + of this instinct throws itself on the centre of inhibition, instead of + quickening the heart-beats, and sending the rush of youthful blood with + fresh life through the entire system to the throbbing finger-tips. + </p> + <p> + “Is it probable that time and circumstances will alter a habit of nervous + interactions so long established? We are disposed to think that there is a + chance of its being broken up. And we are not afraid to say that we + suspect the old gypsy woman, whose prophecy took such hold of the + patient's imagination, has hit upon the way in which the 'spell,' as she + called it, is to be dissolved. She must, in all probability, have had a + hint of the 'antipatia' to which the youth before her was a victim, and + its cause, and if so, her guess as to the probable mode in which the young + man would obtain relief from his unfortunate condition was the one which + would naturally suggest itself. + </p> + <p> + “If once the nervous impression which falls on the centre of inhibition + can be made to change its course, so as to follow its natural channel, it + will probably keep to that channel ever afterwards. And this will, it is + most likely, be effected by some sudden, unexpected impression. If he were + drowning, and a young woman should rescue him, it is by no means + impossible that the change in the nervous current we have referred to + might be brought about as rapidly, as easily, as the reversal of the poles + in a magnet, which is effected in an instant. But he cannot be expected to + throw himself into the water just at the right moment when the 'fair lady' + of the gitana's prophecy is passing on the shore. Accident may effect the + cure which art seems incompetent to perform. It would not be strange if in + some future seizure he should never come back to consciousness. But it is + quite conceivable, on the other hand, that a happier event may occur, that + in a single moment the nervous polarity may be reversed, the whole course + of his life changed, and his past terrible experiences be to him like a + scarce-remembered dream. + </p> + <p> + “This is one, of those cases in which it is very hard to determine the + wisest course to be pursued. The question is not unlike that which arises + in certain cases of dislocation of the bones of the neck. Shall the + unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face turned far round to the + right or the left, or shall an attempt be made to replace the dislocated + bones? an attempt which may succeed, or may cause instant death. The + patient must be consulted as to whether he will take the chance. The + practitioner may be unwilling to risk it, if the patient consents. Each + case must be judged on its own special grounds. We cannot think that this + young man is doomed to perpetual separation from the society of womanhood + during the period of its bloom and attraction. But to provoke another + seizure after his past experiences would be too much like committing + suicide. We fear that we must trust to the chapter of accidents. The + strange malady—for such it is—has become a second nature, and + may require as energetic a shock to displace it as it did to bring it into + existence. Time alone can solve this question, on which depends the + well-being and, it may be, the existence of a young man every way fitted + to be happy, and to give happiness, if restored to his true nature.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XX. DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. + </h2> + <p> + Dr. Butts sat up late at night reading these papers and reflecting upon + them. He was profoundly impressed and tenderly affected by the entire + frankness, the absence of all attempt at concealment, which Maurice showed + in placing these papers at his disposal. He believed that his patient + would recover from this illness for which he had been taking care of him. + He thought deeply and earnestly of what he could do for him after he + should have regained his health and strength. + </p> + <p> + There were references, in Maurice's own account of himself, which the + doctor called to mind with great interest after reading his brief + autobiography. Some one person—some young woman, it must be—had + produced a singular impression upon him since those earlier perilous + experiences through which he had passed. The doctor could not help + thinking of that meeting with Euthymia of which she had spoken to him. + Maurice, as she said, turned pale,—he clapped his hand to his + breast. He might have done so if he had met her chambermaid, or any + straggling damsel of the village. But Euthymia was not a young woman to be + looked upon with indifference. She held herself like a queen, and walked + like one, not a stage queen, but one born and bred to self-reliance, and + command of herself as well as others. One could not pass her without being + struck with her noble bearing and spirited features. If she had known how + Maurice trembled as he looked upon her, in that conflict of attraction and + uncontrollable dread,—if she had known it! But what, even then, + could she have done? Nothing but get away from him as fast as she could. + As it was, it was a long time before his agitation subsided, and his heart + beat with its common force and frequency. + </p> + <p> + Dr. Butts was not a male gossip nor a matchmaking go-between. But he could + not help thinking what a pity it was that these two young persons could + not come together as other young people do in the pairing season, and find + out whether they cared for and were fitted for each other. He did not + pretend to settle this question in his own mind, but the thought was a + natural one. And here was a gulf between them as deep and wide as that + between Lazarus and Dives. Would it ever be bridged over? This thought + took possession of the doctor's mind, and he imagined all sorts of ways of + effecting some experimental approximation between Maurice and Euthymia. + From this delicate subject he glanced off to certain general + considerations suggested by the extraordinary history he had been reading. + He began by speculating as to the possibility of the personal presence of + an individual making itself perceived by some channel other than any of + the five senses. The study of the natural sciences teaches those who are + devoted to them that the most insignificant facts may lead the way to the + discovery of the most important, all-pervading laws of the universe. From + the kick of a frog's hind leg to the amazing triumphs which began with + that seemingly trivial incident is a long, a very long stride if Madam + Galvani had not been in delicate health, which was the occasion of her + having some frog-broth prepared for her, the world of to-day might not be + in possession of the electric telegraph and the light which blazes like + the sun at high noon. A common-looking occurrence, one seemingly + unimportant, which had hitherto passed unnoticed with the ordinary course + of things, was the means of introducing us to a new and vast realm of + closely related phenomena. It was like a key that we might have picked up, + looking so simple that it could hardly fit any lock but one of like + simplicity, but which should all at once throw back the bolts of the one + lock which had defied the most ingenious of our complex implements and + open our way into a hitherto unexplored territory. + </p> + <p> + It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice felt the + paralyzing influence. He could contemplate Euthymia from a distance, as he + did on the day of the boat-race, without any nervous disturbance. A + certain proximity was necessary for the influence to be felt, as in the + case of magnetism and electricity. An atmosphere of danger surrounded + every woman he approached during the period when her sex exercises its + most powerful attractions. How far did that atmosphere extend, and through + what channel did it act? + </p> + <p> + The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, was to be found in a + fact as humble as that which gave birth to the science of galvanism and + its practical applications. The circumstances connected with the very + common antipathy to cats were as remarkable in many points of view as the + similar circumstances in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects of + that antipathy could not tell what it was which disturbed their nervous + system. All they knew was that a sense of uneasiness, restlessness, + oppression, came over them in the presence of one of these animals. He + remembered the fact already mentioned, that persons sensitive to this + impression can tell by their feelings if a cat is concealed in the + apartment in which they may happen to be. It may be through some + emanation. It may be through the medium of some electrical disturbance. + What if the nerve-thrills passing through the whole system of the animal + propagate themselves to a certain distance without any more regard to + intervening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sieve lets sand pass + through it; a filter arrests sand, but lets fluids pass, glass holds + fluids, but lets light through; wood shuts out light, but magnetic + attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. No good reasons + can be given why the presence of a cat should not betray itself to certain + organizations, at a distance, through the walls of a box in which the + animal is shut up. We need not disbelieve the stories which allege such an + occurrence as a fact and a not very infrequent one. + </p> + <p> + If the presence of a cat can produce its effects under these + circumstances, why should not that of a human being under similar + conditions, acting on certain constitutions, exercise its specific + influence? The doctor recalled a story told him by one of his friends, a + story which the friend himself heard from the lips of the distinguished + actor, the late Mr. Fechter. The actor maintained that Rachel had no + genius as an actress. It was all Samson's training and study, according to + him, which explained the secret of her wonderful effectiveness on the + stage. But magnetism, he said,—magnetism, she was full of. He + declared that he was made aware of her presence on the stage, when he + could not see her or know of her presence otherwise, by this magnetic + emanation. The doctor took the story for what it was worth. There might + very probably be exaggeration, perhaps high imaginative coloring about it, + but it was not a whit more unlikely than the cat-stories, accepted as + authentic. He continued this train of thought into further developments. + Into this series of reflections we will try to follow him. + </p> + <p> + What is the meaning of the halo with which artists have surrounded the + heads of their pictured saints, of the aureoles which wraps them like a + luminous cloud? Is it not a recognition of the fact that these holy + personages diffuse their personality in the form of a visible emanation, + which reminds us of Milton's definition of light: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Bright effluence of bright essence increate”? +</pre> + <p> + The common use of the term influence would seem to imply the existence of + its correlative, effluence. There is no good reason that I can see, the + doctor said to himself, why among the forces which work upon the nervous + centres there should not be one which acts at various distances from its + source. It may not be visible like the “glory” of the painters, it may not + be appreciable by any one of the five senses, and yet it may be felt by + the person reached by it as much as if it were a palpable presence,—more + powerfully, perhaps, from the mystery which belongs to its mode of action. + </p> + <p> + Why should not Maurice have been rendered restless and anxious by the + unseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him, just as + the persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious of their + presence through some unknown channel? Is it anything strange that the + larger and more powerful organism should diffuse a consciousness of its + presence to some distance as well as the slighter and feebler one? Is it + strange that this mysterious influence or effluence should belong + especially or exclusively to the period of complete womanhood in + distinction from that of immaturity or decadence? On the contrary, it + seems to be in accordance with all the analogies of nature,—analogies + too often cruel in the sentence they pass upon the human female. + </p> + <p> + Among the many curious thoughts which came up in the doctor's mind was + this, which made him smile as if it were a jest, but which he felt very + strongly had its serious side, and was involved with the happiness or + suffering of multitudes of youthful persons who die without telling their + secret: + </p> + <p> + How many young men have a mortal fear of woman, as woman, which they never + overcome, and in consequence of which the attraction which draws man + towards her, as strong in them as in others,—oftentimes, in virtue + of their peculiarly sensitive organizations, more potent in them than in + others of like age and conditions,—in consequence of which fear, + this attraction is completely neutralized, and all the possibilities of + doubled and indefinitely extended life depending upon it are left + unrealized! Think what numbers of young men in Catholic countries devote + themselves to lives of celibacy. Think how many young men lose all their + confidence in the presence of the young woman to whom they are most + attracted, and at last steal away from a companionship which it is rapture + to dream of and torture to endure, so does the presence of the beloved + object paralyze all the powers of expression. Sorcerers have in all time + and countries played on the hopes and terrors of lovers. Once let loose a + strong impulse on the centre of inhibition, and the warrior who had faced + bayonets and batteries becomes a coward whom the well-dressed hero of the + ball-room and leader of the German will put to ignominious flight in five + minutes of easy, audacious familiarity with his lady-love. + </p> + <p> + Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do not know that I have + seen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript, but I have seen + the malady many times. Only one word has stood between many a pair of + young people and their lifelong happiness, and that word has got as far as + the lips, but the lips trembled and would not, could not, shape that + little word. All young women are not like Coleridge's Genevieve, who knew + how to help her lover out of his difficulty, and said yes before he had + asked for an answer. So the wave which was to have wafted them on to the + shore of Elysium has just failed of landing them, and back they have been + drawn into the desolate ocean to meet no more on earth. + </p> + <p> + Love is the master-key, he went on thinking, love is the master-key that + opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of + all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!—not + only the historic wonder of beauty, that “burnt the topless towers of + Ilium” for the smile of Helen, and fired the palaces of Babylon by the + hand of Thais, but the beauty which springs up in all times and places, + and carries a torch and wears a serpent for a wreath as truly as any of + the Eumenides. Paint Beauty with her foot upon a skull and a dragon coiled + around her. + </p> + <p> + The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and pictorial + imagery. Drifting along from thought to thought, he reflected on the + probable consequences of the general knowledge of Maurice Kirkwood's + story, if it came before the public. + </p> + <p> + What a piece of work it would make among the lively youths of the village, + to be sure! What scoffing, what ridicule, what embellishments, what + fables, would follow in the trail of the story! If the Interviewer got + hold of it, how “The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor” would + blaze with capitals in its next issue! The young fellows of the place + would be disposed to make fun of the whole matter. The young girls-the + doctor hardly dared to think what would happen when the story got about + among them. “The Sachem” of the solitary canoe, the bold horseman, the + handsome hermit,—handsome so far as the glimpses they had got of him + went,—must needs be an object of tender interest among them, now + that he was ailing, suffering, in danger of his life, away from friends,—poor + fellow! Little tokens of their regard had reached his sick-chamber; + bunches of flowers with dainty little notes, some of them pinkish, some + three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others “criss-crossed,” + were growing more frequent as it was understood that the patient was + likely to be convalescent before many days had passed. If it should come + to be understood that there was a deadly obstacle to their coming into any + personal relations with him, the doctor had his doubts whether there were + not those who would subject him to the risk; for there were coquettes in + the village,—strangers, visitors, let us hope,—who would + sacrifice anything or anybody to their vanity and love of conquest. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXI. AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. + </h2> + <p> + The illness from which Maurice had suffered left him in a state of + profound prostration. The doctor, who remembered the extreme danger of any + overexertion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his head from the + pillow. But his mind was gradually recovering its balance, and he was able + to hold some conversation with those about him. His faithful Paolo had + grown so thin in waiting upon him and watching with him that the village + children had to take a second look at his face when they passed him to + make sure that it was indeed their old friend and no other. But as his + master advanced towards convalescence and the doctor assured him that he + was going in all probability to get well, Paolo's face began to recover + something of its old look and expression, and once more his pockets filled + themselves with comfits for his little circle of worshipping three and + four year old followers. + </p> + <p> + “How is Mr. Kirkwood?” was the question with which he was always greeted. + In the worst periods of the fever he rarely left his master. When he did, + and the question was put to him, he would shake his head sadly, sometimes + without a word, sometimes with tears and sobs and faltering words,—more + like a brokenhearted child than a stalwart man as he was, such a man as + soldiers are made of in the great Continental armies. + </p> + <p> + “He very bad,—he no eat nothing,—he—no say nothing,—he + never be no better,” and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a + passionate burst of lamentation. But now that he began to feel easy about + his master, his ready optimism declared itself no less transparently. + </p> + <p> + “He better every day now. He get well in few weeks, sure. You see him on + hoss in little while.” The kind-hearted creature's life was bound up in + that of his “master,” as he loved to call him, in sovereign disregard of + the comments of the natives, who held themselves too high for any such + recognition of another as their better. They could not understand how he, + so much their superior in bodily presence, in air and manner, could speak + of the man who employed him in any other way than as “Kirkwood,” without + even demeaning himself so far as to prefix a “Mr.” to it. But “my master” + Maurice remained for Paolo in spite of the fact that all men are born free + and equal. And never was a servant more devoted to a master than was Paolo + to Maurice during the days of doubt and danger. Since his improvement + Maurice insisted upon his leaving his chamber and getting out of the + house, so as to breathe the fresh air of which he was in so much need. It + worried him to see his servant returning after too short an absence. The + attendant who had helped him in the care of the patient was within call, + and Paolo was almost driven out of the house by the urgency of his + master's command that he should take plenty of exercise in the open air. + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved condition, although the + force of the disease had spent itself, the state of weakness to which he + had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety, and required great + precautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, enfeebled to such a degree + that he had to be cared for very much as a child is tended. Gradually his + voice was coming back to him, so that he could hold some conversation, as + was before mentioned, with those about him. The doctor waited for the + right moment to make mention of the manuscript which Maurice had submitted + to him. Up to this time, although it had been alluded to and the doctor + had told him of the intense interest with which he had read it, he had + never ventured to make it the subject of any long talk, such as would be + liable to fatigue his patient. But now he thought the time had come. + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking,” the doctor said, “of the singular seizures to + which you are liable, and as it is my business not merely to think about + such cases, but to do what I can to help any who may be capable of + receiving aid from my art, I wish to have some additional facts about your + history. And in the first place, will you allow me to ask what led you to + this particular place? It is so much less known to the public at large + than many other resorts that we naturally ask, What brings this or that + new visitor among us? We have no ill-tasting, natural spring of bad water + to be analyzed by the state chemist and proclaimed as a specific. We have + no great gambling-houses, no racecourse (except that for boats on the + lake); we have no coaching-club, no great balls, few lions of any kind, so + we ask, What brings this or that stranger here? And I think I may venture + to ask you whether any, special motive brought you among us, or whether it + was accident that determined your coming to this place.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, doctor,” Maurice answered, “I will tell you with great + pleasure. Last year I passed on the border of a great river. The year + before I lived in a lonely cottage at the side of the ocean. I wanted this + year to be by a lake. You heard the paper read at the meeting of your + society, or at least you heard of it,—for such matters are always + talked over in a village like this. You can judge by that paper, or could, + if it were before you, of the frame of mind in which I came here. I was + tired of the sullen indifference of the ocean and the babbling egotism of + the river, always hurrying along on its own private business. I wanted the + dreamy stillness of a large, tranquil sheet of water that had nothing in + particular to do, and would leave me to myself and my thoughts. I had read + somewhere about the place, and the old Anchor Tavern, with its paternal + landlord and motherly landlady and old-fashioned household, and that, + though it was no longer open as a tavern, I could find a resting-place + there early in the season, at least for a few days, while I looked about + me for a quiet place in which I might pass my summer. I have found this a + pleasant residence. By being up early and out late I have kept myself + mainly in the solitude which has become my enforced habit of life. The + season has gone by too swiftly for me since my dream has become a vision.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor was sitting with his hand round Maurice's wrist, three fingers + on his pulse. As he spoke these last words he noticed that the pulse + fluttered a little,—beat irregularly a few times; intermitted; + became feeble and thready; while his cheek grew whiter than the pallid + bloodlessness of his long illness had left it. + </p> + <p> + “No more talk, now,” he said. “You are too tired to be using your voice. I + will hear all the rest another time.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interesting point. What did he + mean by saying that his dream had become a vision? This is what the doctor + was naturally curious, and professionally anxious, to know. But his hand + was still on his patient's pulse, which told him unmistakably that the + heart had taken the alarm and was losing its energy under the depressing + nervous influence. Presently, however, it recovered its natural force and + rhythm, and a faint flush came back to the pale cheek. The doctor + remembered the story of Galen, and the young maiden whose complaint had + puzzled the physicians. + </p> + <p> + The next day his patient was well enough to enter once more into + conversation. + </p> + <p> + “You said something about a dream of yours which had become a vision,” + said the doctor, with his fingers on his patient's wrist, as before. He + felt the artery leap, under his pressure, falter a little, stop, then + begin again, growing fuller in its beat. The heart had felt the pull of + the bridle, but the spur had roused it to swift reaction. + </p> + <p> + “You know the story of my past life, doctor,” Maurice answered; “and, I + will tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my dreams. + You remember the boat-race? I watched it from a distance, but I held a + powerful opera-glass in my hand, which brought the whole crew of the young + ladies' boat so close to me that I could see the features, the figures, + the movements, of every one of the rowers. I saw the little coxswain fling + her bouquet in the track of the other boat,—you remember how the + race was lost and won,—but I saw one face among those young girls + which drew me away from all the rest. It was that of the young lady who + pulled the bow oar, the captain of the boat's crew. I have since learned + her name, you know it well,—I need not name her. Since that day I + have had many distant glimpses of her; and once I met her so squarely that + the deadly sensation came over me, and I felt that in another moment I + should fall senseless at her feet. But she passed on her way and I on + mine, and the spasm which had clutched my heart gradually left it, and I + was as well as before. You know that young lady, doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “I do; and she is a very noble creature. You are not the first young man + who has been fascinated, almost at a glance, by Miss Euthymia Tower. And + she is well worth knowing more intimately.” + </p> + <p> + The doctor gave him a full account of the young lady, of her early days, + her character, her accomplishments. To all this he listened devoutly, and + when the doctor left him he said to himself, “I will see her and speak + with her, if it costs me my life.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII. EUTHYMIA. + </h2> + <p> + “The Wonder” of the Corinna Institute had never willingly made a show of + her gymnastic accomplishments. Her feats, which were so much admired, were + only her natural exercise. Gradually the dumb-bells others used became too + light for her, the ropes she climbed too short, the clubs she exercised + with seemed as if they were made of cork instead of being heavy wood, and + all the tests and meters of strength and agility had been strained beyond + the standards which the records of the school had marked as their historic + maxima. It was not her fault that she broke a dynamometer one day; she + apologized for it, but the teacher said he wished he could have a dozen + broken every year in the same way. The consciousness of her bodily + strength had made her very careful in her movements. The pressure of her + hand was never too hard for the tenderest little maiden whose palm was + against her own. So far from priding herself on her special gifts, she was + disposed to be ashamed of them. There were times and places in which she + could give full play to her muscles without fear or reproach. She had her + special costume for the boat and for the woods. She would climb the rugged + old hemlocks now and then for the sake of a wide outlook, or to peep into + the large nest where a hawk, or it may be an eagle, was raising her little + brood of air-pirates. + </p> + <p> + There were those who spoke of her wanderings in lonely places as an unsafe + exposure. One sometimes met doubtful characters about the neighborhood, + and stories were told of occurrences which might well frighten a + young girl, and make her cautious of trusting herself alone in the wild + solitudes which surrounded the little village. Those who knew Euthymia + thought her quite equal to taking care of herself. Her very look was + enough to ensure the respect of any vagabond who might cross her path, and + if matters came to the worst she would prove as dangerous as a panther. + </p> + <p> + But it was a pity to associate this class of thoughts with a noble + specimen of true womanhood. Health, beauty, strength, were fine qualities, + and in all these she was rich. She enjoyed all her natural gifts, and + thought little about them. Unwillingly, but over-persuaded by some of her + friends, she had allowed her arm and hand to be modelled. The artists who + saw the cast wondered if it would be possible to get the bust of the + maiden from whom it was taken. Nobody would have dared to suggest such an + idea to her except Lurida. For Lurida sex was a trifling accident, to be + disregarded not only in the interests of humanity, but for the sake of + art. + </p> + <p> + “It is a shame,” she said to Euthymia, “that you will not let your + exquisitely moulded form be perpetuated in marble. You have no right to + withhold such a model from the contemplation of your fellow-creatures. + Think how rare it is to see a woman who truly represents the divine idea! + You belong to your race, and not to yourself,—at least, your beauty + is a gift not to be considered as a piece of private property. Look at the + so-called Venus of Milo. Do you suppose the noble woman who was the + original of that divinely chaste statue felt any scruple about allowing + the sculptor to reproduce her pure, unblemished perfections?” + </p> + <p> + Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend. She listened to + her eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, used as she was + to Lurida's audacities. “The Terror's” brain had run away with a large + share of the blood which ought to have gone to the nourishment of her + general system. She could not help admiring, almost worshipping, a + companion whose being was rich in the womanly developments with which + nature had so economically endowed herself. An impoverished organization + carries with it certain neutral qualities which make its subject appear, + in the presence of complete manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-mute among + speaking persons. The deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheek at + Lurida's suggestion was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbed + expression. There was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew far + less than she did of those many and difficult studies which had absorbed + her vital forces. She was startled to see what an effect her proposal had + produced, for Euthymia was not only blushing, but there was a flame in her + eyes which she had hardly ever seen before. + </p> + <p> + “Is this only your own suggestion?” Euthymia said, “or has some one been + putting the idea into your head?” The truth was that she had happened to + meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she was offended by the + long, searching stare with which that individual had honored her. It + occurred to her that he, or some such visitor to the place, might have + spoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person who had repeated what was + said to Lurida, as a good subject for the art of the sculptor, and she + felt all her maiden sensibilities offended by the proposition. Lurida + could not understand her excitement, but she was startled by it. Natures + which are complementary of each other are liable to these accidental + collisions of feeling. They get along very well together, none the worse + for their differences, until all at once the tender spot of one or the + other is carelessly handled in utter unconsciousness on the part of the + aggressor, and the exclamation, the outcry, or the explosion explains the + situation altogether too emphatically. Such scenes did not frequently + occur between the two friends, and this little flurry was soon over; but + it served to warn Lurida that Miss Euthymia Tower was not of that class of + self-conscious beauties who would be ready to dispute the empire of the + Venus of Milo on her own ground, in defences as scanty and insufficient as + those of the marble divinity. + </p> + <p> + Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, while at school, and in + the long vacations, near enough to find out that she was anything but easy + to make love to. She fairly frightened more than one rash youth who was + disposed to be too sentimental in her company. They overdid flattery, + which she was used to and tolerated, but which cheapened the admirer in + her estimation, and now and then betrayed her into an expression which + made him aware of the fact, and was a discouragement to aggressive + amiability. The real difficulty was that not one of her adorers had ever + greatly interested her. It could not be that nature had made her + insensible. It must have been because the man who was made for her had + never yet shown himself. She was not easy to please, that was certain; and + she was one of those young women who will not accept as a lover one who + but half pleases them. She could not pick up the first stick that fell in + her way and take it to shape her ideal out of. Many of the good people of + the village doubted whether Euthymia would ever be married. + </p> + <p> + “There 's nothing good enough for her in this village,” said the old + landlord of what had been the Anchor Tavern. + </p> + <p> + “She must wait till a prince comes along,” the old landlady said in reply. + “She'd make as pretty a queen as any of them that's born to it. Wouldn't + she be splendid with a gold crown on her head, and di'monds a glitterin' + all over her! D' you remember how handsome she looked in the tableau, when + the fair was held for the Dorcas Society? She had on an old dress of her + grandma's,—they don't make anything half so handsome nowadays,—and + she was just as pretty as a pictur'. But what's the use of good looks if + they scare away folks? The young fellows think that such a handsome girl + as that would cost ten times as much to keep as a plain one. She must be + dressed up like an empress,—so they seem to think. It ain't so with + Euthymy: she'd look like a great lady dressed anyhow, and she has n't got + any more notions than the homeliest girl that ever stood before a glass to + look at herself.” + </p> + <p> + In the humbler walks of Arrowhead Village society, similar opinions were + entertained of Miss Euthymia. The fresh-water fisherman represented pretty + well the average estimate of the class to which he belonged. “I tell ye,” + said he to another gentleman of leisure, whose chief occupation was to + watch the coming and going of the visitors to Arrowhead Village,—“I + tell ye that girl ain't a gon to put up with any o' them slab-sided + fellahs that you see hangin' raound to look at her every Sunday when she + comes aout o' meetin'. It's one o' them big gents from Boston or New York + that'll step up an' kerry her off.” + </p> + <p> + In the mean time nothing could be further from the thoughts of Euthymia + than the prospect of an ambitious worldly alliance. The ideals of young + women cost them many and great disappointments, but they save them very + often from those lifelong companionships which accident is constantly + trying to force upon them, in spite of their obvious unfitness. The higher + the ideal, the less likely is the commonplace neighbor who has the great + advantage of easy access, or the boarding-house acquaintance who can + profit by those vacant hours when the least interesting of visitors is + better than absolute loneliness,—the less likely are these + undesirable personages to be endured, pitied, and, if not embraced, + accepted, for want of something better. Euthymia found so much pleasure in + the intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt her own prudence and + reserve so necessary to that independent young lady, that she had been + contented, so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in an + abstract sort of way. Beneath her abstractions there was a capacity of + loving which might have been inferred from the expression of her features, + the light that shone in her eyes, the tones of her voice, all of which + were full of the language which belongs to susceptible natures. How many + women never say to themselves that they were born to love, until all at + once the discovery opens upon them, as the sense that he was born a + painter is said to have dawned suddenly upon Correggio! + </p> + <p> + Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she could not help + thinking a good deal about the young man lying ill amongst strangers. She + was not one of those who had sent him the three-cornered notes or even a + bunch of flowers. She knew that he was receiving abounding tokens of + kindness and sympathy from different quarters, and a certain inward + feeling restrained her from joining in these demonstrations. If he had + been suffering from some deadly and contagious malady she would have + risked her life to help him, without a thought that there was any + wonderful heroism in such self-devotion. Her friend Lurida might have been + capable of the same sacrifice, but it would be after reasoning with + herself as to the obligations which her sense of human rights and duties + laid upon her, and fortifying her courage with the memory of noble deeds + recorded of women in ancient and modern history. With Euthymia the primary + human instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection about them. + All her sympathies were excited by the thought of this forlorn stranger in + his solitude, but she felt the impossibility of giving any complete + expression to them. She thought of Mungo Park in the African desert, and + she envied the poor negress who not only pitied him, but had the blessed + opportunity of helping and consoling him. How near were these two human + creatures, each needing the other! How near in bodily presence, how far + apart in their lives, with a barrier seemingly impassable between them! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIII. THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. + </h2> + <p> + These autumnal fevers, which carry off a large number of our young people + every year, are treacherous and deceptive diseases. Not only are they + liable, as has been mentioned, to various accidental complications which + may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, after convalescence seems to be + established, relapses occur which are more serious than the disease had + appeared to be in its previous course. One morning Dr. Butts found Maurice + worse instead of better, as he had hoped and expected to find him. Weak as + he was, there was every reason to fear the issue of this return of his + threatening symptoms. There was not much to do besides keeping up the + little strength which still remained. It was all needed. + </p> + <p> + Does the reader of these pages ever think of the work a sick man as much + as a well one has to perform while he is lying on his back and taking what + we call his “rest”? More than a thousand times an hour, between a hundred + and fifty and two hundred thousand times a week, he has to lift the bars + of the cage in which his breathing organs are confined, to save himself + from asphyxia. Rest! There is no rest until the last long sigh tells those + who look upon the dying that the ceaseless daily task, to rest from which + is death, is at last finished. We are all galley-slaves, pulling at the + levers of respiration,—which, rising and falling like so many oars, + drive us across an unfathomable ocean from one unknown shore to another. + No! Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to these four and twenty + oars, at which we must tug day and night all our life long. + </p> + <p> + The doctor could not find any accidental cause to account for this + relapse. It presently occurred to him that there might be some local + source of infection which had brought on the complaint, and was still + keeping up the symptoms which were the ground of alarm. He determined to + remove Maurice to his own house, where he could be sure of pure air, and + where he himself could give more constant attention to his patient during + this critical period of his disease. It was a risk to take, but he could + be carried on a litter by careful men, and remain wholly passive during + the removal. Maurice signified his assent, as he could hardly help doing,—for + the doctor's suggestion took pretty nearly the form of a command. He + thought it a matter of life and death, and was gently urgent for his + patient's immediate change of residence. The doctor insisted on having + Maurice's books and other movable articles carried to his own house, so + that he should be surrounded by familiar sights, and not worry himself + about what might happen to objects which he valued, if they were left + behind him. + </p> + <p> + All these dispositions were quickly and quietly made, and everything was + ready for the transfer of the patient to the house of the hospitable + physician. Paolo was at the doctor's, superintending the arrangement of + Maurice's effects and making all ready for his master. The nurse in + attendance, a trustworthy man enough in the main, finding his patient in a + tranquil sleep, left his bedside for a little fresh air. While he was at + the door he heard a shouting which excited his curiosity, and he followed + the sound until he found himself at the border of the lake. It was nothing + very wonderful which had caused the shouting. A Newfoundland dog had been + showing off his accomplishments, and some of the idlers were betting as to + the time it would take him to bring back to his master the various + floating objects which had been thrown as far from the shore as possible. + He watched the dog a few minutes, when his attention was drawn to a light + wherry, pulled by one young lady and steered by another. It was making for + the shore, which it would soon reach. The attendant remembered all at + once, that he had left his charge, and just before the boat came to land + he turned and hurried back to the patient. Exactly how long he had been + absent he could not have said,—perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps + longer; the time appeared short to him, wearied with long sitting and + watching. + </p> + <p> + It had seemed, when he stole away from Maurice's bedside, that he was not + in the least needed. The patient was lying perfectly quiet, and to all + appearance wanted nothing more than letting alone. It was such a comfort + to look at something besides the worn features of a sick man, to hear + something besides his labored breathing and faint, half-whispered words, + that the temptation to indulge in these luxuries for a few minutes had + proved irresistible. + </p> + <p> + Unfortunately, Maurice's slumbers did not remain tranquil during the + absence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which began quietly + enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which dreams are in + the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, distressing, + terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up before him, + fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as reality. He was at the + bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, narrow galleries, or rather + worm-holes, in which human beings pass a large part of their lives, like + so many larvae boring their way into the beams and rafters of some old + building. How close the air was in the stifling passage through which he + was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet of + ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow niche, his + hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him waiting for + his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, how + desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, it may be, and + the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he remembered well as one of the + great trials in his mountain ascents. No, it was not Mont Blanc,—it + was not any one of the frozen Alpine summits; it was Hecla that he was + climbing. + </p> + <p> + The smoke of the burning mountain was wrapping itself around him; he was + choking with its dense fumes; he heard the flames roaring around him, he + felt the hot lava beneath his feet, he uttered a faint cry, and awoke. + </p> + <p> + The room was full of smoke. He was gasping for breath, strangling in the + smothering oven which his chamber had become. + </p> + <p> + The house was on fire! + </p> + <p> + He tried to call for help, but his voice failed him, and died away in a + whisper. He made a desperate effort, and rose so as to sit up in the bed + for an instant, but the effort was too much for him, and he sank back upon + his pillow, helpless. He felt that his hour had come, for he could not + live in this dreadful atmosphere, and he was left alone. He could hear the + crackle of fire as the flame crept along from one partition to another. It + was a cruel fate to be left to perish in that way,—the fate that + many a martyr had had to face,—to be first strangled and then + burned. Death had not the terror for him that it has for most young + persons. He was accustomed to thinking of it calmly, sometimes wistfully, + even to such a degree that the thought of self-destruction had come upon + him as a temptation. But here was death in an unexpected and appalling + shape. He did not know before how much he cared to live. All his old + recollections came before him as it were in one long, vivid flash. The + closed vista of memory opened to its far horizon-line, and past and + present were pictured in a single instant of clear vision. The dread + moment which had blighted his life returned in all its terror. He felt the + convulsive spring in the form of a faint, impotent spasm,—the rush + of air,—the thorns of the stinging and lacerating cradle into which + he was precipitated. One after another those paralyzing seizures which had + been like deadening blows on the naked heart seemed to repeat themselves, + as real as at the moment of their occurrence. The pictures passed in + succession with such rapidity that they appeared almost as if + simultaneous. The vision of the “inward eye” was so intensified in this + moment of peril that an instant was like an hour of common existence. + Those who have been very near drowning know well what this description + means. The development of a photograph may not explain it, but it + illustrates the curious and familiar fact of the revived recollections of + the drowning man's experience. The sensitive plate has taken one look at a + scene, and remembers it all, + </p> + <p> + Every little circumstance is there,—the hoof in air, the wing in + flight, the leaf as it falls, the wave as it breaks. All there, but + invisible; potentially present, but impalpable, inappreciable, as if not + existing at all. A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene comes out + in all its perfection of detail. In those supreme moments when death + stares a man suddenly in the face the rush of unwonted emotion floods the + undeveloped pictures of vanished years, stored away in the memory, the + vast panorama of a lifetime, and in one swift instant the past comes out + as vividly as if it were again the present. So it was at this moment with + the sick man, as he lay helpless and felt that he was left to die. For he + saw no hope of relief: the smoke was drifting in clouds into the room; the + flames were very near; if he was not reached and rescued immediately it + was all over with him. + </p> + <p> + His past life had flashed before him. Then all at once rose the thought of + his future,—of all its possibilities, of the vague hopes which he + had cherished of late that his mysterious doom would be lifted from him. + There was something, then, to be lived for, something! There was a new + life, it might be, in store for him, and such a new life! He thought of + all he was losing. Oh, could he but have lived to know the meaning of + love! And the passionate desire of life came over him,—not the dread + of death, but the longing for what the future might yet have of happiness + for him. + </p> + <p> + All this took place in the course of a very few moments. Dreams and + visions have little to do with measured time, and ten minutes, possibly + fifteen or twenty, were all that had passed since the beginning of those + nightmare terrors which were evidently suggested by the suffocating air he + was breathing. + </p> + <p> + What had happened? In the confusion of moving books and other articles to + the doctor's house, doors and windows had been forgotten. Among the rest a + window opening into the cellar, where some old furniture had been left by + a former occupant, had been left unclosed. One of the lazy natives, who + had lounged by the house smoking a bad cigar, had thrown the burning stump + in at this open window. He had no particular intention of doing mischief, + but he had that indifference to consequences which is the next step above + the inclination to crime. The burning stump happened to fall among the + straw of an old mattress which had been ripped open. The smoker went his + way without looking behind him, and it so chanced that no other person + passed the house for some time. Presently the straw was in a blaze, and + from this the fire extended to the furniture, to the stairway leading up + from the cellar, and was working its way along the entry under the stairs + leading up to the apartment where Maurice was lying. + </p> + <p> + The blaze was fierce and swift, as it could not help being with such a + mass of combustibles,—loose straw from the mattress, dry old + furniture, and old warped floors which had been parching and shrinking for + a score or two of years. The whole house was, in the common language of + the newspaper reports, “a perfect tinder-box,” and would probably be a + heap of ashes in half an hour. And there was this unfortunate deserted + sick man lying between life and death, beyond all help unless some + unexpected assistance should come to his rescue. + </p> + <p> + As the attendant drew near the house where Maurice was lying, he was + horror-struck to see dense volumes of smoke pouring out of the lower + windows. It was beginning to make its way through the upper windows, also, + and presently a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward along the side + of the house. The man shrieked Fire! Fire! with all his might, and rushed + to the door of the building to make his way to Maurice's room and save + him. He penetrated but a short distance when, blinded and choking with the + smoke, he rushed headlong down the stairs with a cry of despair that + roused every man, woman, and child within reach of a human voice. Out they + came from their houses in every quarter of the village. The shout of Fire! + Fire! was the chief aid lent by many of the young and old. Some caught up + pails and buckets: the more thoughtful ones filling them; the hastier + snatching them up empty, trusting to find water nearer the burning + building. + </p> + <p> + Is the sick man moved? + </p> + <p> + This was the awful question first asked,—for in the little village + all knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's house. + The attendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where he had left + him, and gasped out, + </p> + <p> + “He is there!” + </p> + <p> + A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed off in + search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there was no ladder + to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick man was going to be + swallowed up in the flames before it could possibly arrive. Some were + going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the hope that the young man might + have strength enough to leap from the window and be safely caught in it. + The attendant shook his head, and said faintly, + </p> + <p> + “He cannot move from his bed.” + </p> + <p> + One of the visitors at the village,—a millionaire, it was said,—a + kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones: + </p> + <p> + “A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!” + </p> + <p> + The fresh-water fisherman muttered, “I should like to save the man and to + see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten thaousan' + dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death,—or even chokin' + to death, anyhaow.” + </p> + <p> + The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, + recent or old, shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “The stairs have been shored up,” he said, “and when the fists that holds + 'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to go over them + stairs. Hurry along your ladder,—that's your only chance.” + </p> + <p> + All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they had gone + for was missing from its case,—a neighbor had carried it off for the + workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get there in time. + There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a mile from the lakeside + settlement. Some were throwing on water in an aimless, useless way; one + was sending a thin stream through a garden syringe: it seemed like doing + something, at least. But all hope of saving Maurice was fast giving way, + so rapid was the progress of the flames, so thick the cloud of smoke that + filled the house and poured from the windows. Nothing was heard but + confused cries, shrieks of women, all sorts of orders to do this and that, + no one knowing what was to be done. The ladder! The ladder! Five minutes + more and it will be too late! + </p> + <p> + In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had stopped + his work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that in which + they had stood in his apartment, and followed in the direction of the + sound, little thinking that his master was lying helpless in the burning + house. “Some chimney afire,” he said to himself; but he would go and take + a look, at any rate. + </p> + <p> + Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending death, two + young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect, had + suddenly joined the throng. “The Wonder” and “The Terror” of their + school-days—Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida Vincent had just + come from the shore, where they had left their wherry. A few hurried words + told them the fearful story. Maurice Kirkwood was lying in the chamber to + which every eye was turned, unable to move, doomed to a dreadful death. + All that could be hoped was that he would perish by suffocation rather + than by the flames, which would soon be upon him. The man who had attended + him had just tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled back out of the + door, almost strangled by the smoke. A thousand dollars had been offered + to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one had dared to make the + attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, if the smoke did not + blind and smother the man who passed them before they fell. + </p> + <p> + The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift moment. + </p> + <p> + “How can he be reached?” asked Lurida. “Is there nobody that will venture + his life to save a brother like that?” + </p> + <p> + “I will venture mine,” said Euthymia. + </p> + <p> + “No! no!” shrieked Lurida,—“not you! not you! It is a man's work, + not yours! You shall not go!” Poor Lurida had forgotten all her theories + in this supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held back. Taking a + handkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail of water and bound it + about her head. Then she took several deep breaths of air, and filled her + lungs as full as they would hold. She knew she must not take a single + breath in the choking atmosphere if she could possibly help it, and + Euthymia was noted for her power of staying under water so long that more + than once those who saw her dive thought she would never come up again. So + rapid were her movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, who would + forcibly have prevented her from carrying out her purpose. Her imperious + determination was not to be resisted. And so Euthymia, a willing martyr, + if martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed within the veil that hid + the sufferer. + </p> + <p> + Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground. She was the + first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymia + disappeared in the smoke of the burning building. Even the rector grew + very white in the face,—so white that one of his vestry-men begged + him to sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on his + forehead, to his great disgust and manifest advantage. The old landlady + was crying and moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes and shaking + his head sadly. + </p> + <p> + “She will nevar come out alive,” he said solemnly. + </p> + <p> + “Nor dead, neither,” added the carpenter. “Ther' won't be nothing left of + neither of 'em but ashes.” And the carpenter hid his face in his hands. + </p> + <p> + The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag which he called a + “hangkercher,”—it had served to carry bait that morning,—and + was making use of its best corner to dry the tears which were running down + his cheeks. The whole village was proud of Euthymia, and with these more + quiet signs of grief were mingled loud lamentations, coming alike from old + and young. + </p> + <p> + All this was not so much like a succession of events as it was like a + tableau. The lookers-on were stunned with its suddenness, and before they + had time to recover their bewildered senses all was lost, or seemed lost. + They felt that they should never look again on either of those young + faces. + </p> + <p> + The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately professional by + habit, had already recovered enough to be thinking of a text for the + funeral sermon. The first that occurred to him was this,—vaguely, of + course, in the background of consciousness: + </p> + <p> + “Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came forth of the midst of the + fire.” + </p> + <p> + The village undertaker was of naturally sober aspect and reflective + disposition. He had always been opposed to cremation, and here was a + funeral pile blazing before his eyes. He, too, had his human sympathies, + but in the distance his imagination pictured the final ceremony, and how + he himself should figure in a spectacle where the usual centre piece of + attraction would be wanting,—perhaps his own services uncalled for. + </p> + <p> + Blame him not, you whose garden-patch is not watered with the tears of + mourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to every + sound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself trembling to the + wail of the De Profundis. Not always,—not always; let us not be + cynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we may safely say, is + subject to those secondary vibrations under the most solemn and + soul-subduing influences. + </p> + <p> + It seems as if we were doing great wrong to the scene we are contemplating + in delaying it by the description of little circumstances and individual + thoughts and feelings. But linger as we may, we cannot compress into a + chapter—we could not crowd into a volume—all that passed + through the minds and stirred the emotions of the awe-struck company which + was gathered about the scene of danger and of terror. We are dealing with + an impossibility: consciousness is a surface; narrative is a line. + </p> + <p> + Maurice had given himself up for lost. His breathing was becoming every + moment more difficult, and he felt that his strength could hold out but a + few minutes longer. + </p> + <p> + “Robert!” he called in faint accents. But the attendant was not there to + answer. + </p> + <p> + “Paolo! Paolo!” But the faithful servant, who would have given his life + for his master, had not yet reached the place where the crowd was + gathered. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, for a breath of air! Oh, for an arm to lift me from this bed! Too + late! Too late!” he gasped, with what might have seemed his dying + expiration. + </p> + <p> + “Not too late!” The soft voice reached his obscured consciousness as if it + had come down to him from heaven. + </p> + <p> + In a single instant he found himself rolled in a blanket and in the arms + of—a woman! + </p> + <p> + Out of the stifling chamber,—over the burning stairs,—close by + the tongues of fire that were lapping up all they could reach,—out + into the open air, he was borne swiftly and safely,—carried as + easily as if he had been a babe, in the strong arms of “The Wonder” of the + gymnasium, the captain of the Atalanta, who had little dreamed of the use + she was to make of her natural gifts and her school-girl accomplishments. + </p> + <p> + Such a cry as arose from the crowd of on-lookers! It was a sound that none + of them had ever heard before or could expect ever to hear again, unless + he should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a sinking vessel. + Then, those who had resisted the overflow of their emotion, who had stood + in white despair as they thought of these two young lives soon to be + wrapped in their burning shroud,—those stern men—the old + sea-captain, the hard-faced, moneymaking, cast-iron tradesmen of the city + counting-room—sobbed like hysteric women; it was like a convulsion + that overcame natures unused to those deeper emotions which many who are + capable of experiencing die without ever knowing. + </p> + <p> + This was the scene upon which the doctor and Paolo suddenly appeared at + the same moment. + </p> + <p> + As the fresh breeze passed over the face of the rescued patient, his eyes + opened wide, and his consciousness returned in almost supernatural + lucidity. Euthymia had sat down upon a bank, and was still supporting him. + His head was resting on her bosom. Through his awakening senses stole the + murmurs of the living cradle which rocked him with the wavelike movements + of respiration, the soft susurrus of the air that entered with every + breath, the double beat of the heart which throbbed close to his ear. And + every sense, and every instinct, and every reviving pulse told him in + language like a revelation from another world that a woman's arms were + around him, and that it was life, and not death, which her embrace had + brought him. + </p> + <p> + She would have disengaged him from her protecting hold, but the doctor + made her a peremptory sign, which he followed by a sharp command:— + </p> + <p> + “Do not move him a hair's breadth,” he said. “Wait until the litter comes. + Any sudden movement might be dangerous. Has anybody a brandy flask about + him?” + </p> + <p> + One or two members of the local temperance society looked rather awkward, + but did not come forward. + </p> + <p> + The fresh-water fisherman was the first who spoke. + </p> + <p> + “I han't got no brandy,” he said, “but there's a drop or two of old + Medford rum in this here that you're welcome to, if it'll be of any help. + I alliz kerry a little on 't in case o' gettin' wet 'n' chilled.” + </p> + <p> + So saying he held forth a flat bottle with the word Sarsaparilla stamped + on the green glass, but which contained half a pint or more of the + specific on which he relied in those very frequent exposures which happen + to persons of his calling. + </p> + <p> + The doctor motioned back Paolo, who would have rushed at once to the aid + of Maurice, and who was not wanted at that moment. So poor Paolo, in an + agony of fear for his master, was kept as quiet as possible, and had to + content himself with asking all sorts of questions and repeating all the + prayers he could think of to Our Lady and to his holy namesake the + Apostle. + </p> + <p> + The doctor wiped the mouth of the fisherman's bottle very carefully. “Take + a few drops of this cordial,” he said, as he held it to his patient's + lips. “Hold him just so, Euthymia, without stirring. I will watch him, and + say when he is ready to be moved. The litter is near by, waiting.” Dr. + Butts watched Maurice's pulse and color. The “Old Medford” knew its + business. It had knocked over its tens of thousands; it had its redeeming + virtue, and helped to set up a poor fellow now and then. It did this for + Maurice very effectively. When he seemed somewhat restored, the doctor had + the litter brought to his side, and Euthymia softly resigned her helpless + burden, which Paolo and the attendant Robert lifted with the aid of the + doctor, who walked by the patient as he was borne to the home where Mrs. + Butts had made all ready for his reception. + </p> + <p> + As for poor Lurida, who had thought herself equal to the sanguinary duties + of the surgeon, she was left lying on the grass with an old woman over + her, working hard with fan and smelling-salts to bring her back from her + long fainting fit. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIV. THE INEVITABLE. + </h2> + <p> + Why should not human nature be the same in Arrowhead Village as elsewhere? + It could not seem strange to the good people of that place and their + visitors that these two young persons, brought together under + circumstances that stirred up the deepest emotions of which the human soul + is capable, should become attached to each other. But the bond between + them was stronger than any knew, except the good doctor, who had learned + the great secret of Maurice's life. For the first time since his infancy + he had fully felt the charm which the immediate presence of youthful + womanhood carries with it. He could hardly believe the fact when he found + himself no longer the subject of the terrifying seizures of which he had + had many and threatening experiences. + </p> + <p> + It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he could + possibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state of + debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. Only by + what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocation + and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It was perfectly clear + to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to whom he owed his + life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the revolution in his nervous + system which would be the beginning of a new existence, it would be of far + more value as a restorative agency than any or all of the drugs in the + pharmacopoeia. He told this to Euthymia, and explained the matter to her + parents and friends. She must go with him on some of his visits. Her + mother should go with her, or her sister; but this was a case of life and + death, and no maidenly scruples must keep her from doing her duty. + </p> + <p> + The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented a scene + not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of the old + edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of the little + group. He went before the others, took his seat by the bedside, and held + the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. As Euthymia entered it + gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant as if with a faint memory of + its old habit, then throbbed full and strong, comparatively, as if under + the spur of some powerful stimulus. Euthymia's task was a delicate one, + but she knew how to disguise its difficulty. + </p> + <p> + “Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood,” she said, and handed + him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and before she knew + it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a gentle constraint. + What could she do? Here was the young man whose life she had saved, at + least for the moment, and who was yet in danger from the disease which had + almost worn out his powers of resistance. + </p> + <p> + “Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side,” said the doctor. “He wants to thank + you, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death which + seemed inevitable.” + </p> + <p> + Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanly + tears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with the + dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear. + </p> + <p> + The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens it; it + lets the old water-course fill up, and never returns to its forsaken bed. + The tyrannous habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had verified + itself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman had conquered + and abolished. + </p> + <p> + The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptional character from the + time of his restoration to his natural conditions. His convalescence was + very slow and gradual, but no further accident interrupted its even + progress. The season was over, the summer visitors had left Arrowhead + Village; the chrysanthemums were going out of flower, the frosts had come, + and Maurice was still beneath the roof of the kind physician. The relation + between him and his preserver was so entirely apart from all common + acquaintances and friendships that no ordinary rules could apply to it. + Euthymia visited him often during the period of his extreme prostration. + </p> + <p> + “You must come every day,” the doctor said. “He gains with every visit you + make him; he pines if you miss him for a single day.” So she came and sat + by him, the doctor or good Mrs. Butts keeping her company in his presence. + He grew stronger,—began to sit up in bed; and at last Euthymia found + him dressed as in health, and beginning to walk about the room. She was + startled. She had thought of herself as a kind of nurse, but the young + gentleman could hardly be said to need a nurse any longer. She had + scruples about making any further visits. She asked Lurida what she + thought about it. + </p> + <p> + “Think about it?” said Lurida. “Why should n't you go to see a brother as + well as a sister, I should like to know? If you are afraid to go to see + Maurice Kirkwood, I am not afraid, at any rate. If you would rather have + me go than go yourself, I will do it, and let people talk just as much as + they want to. Shall I go instead of you?” + </p> + <p> + Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the best thing for the + patient. The doctor had told her he thought there were special reasons for + her own course in coming daily to see him. “I am afraid,” she said, “you + are too bright to be safe for him in his weak state. Your mind is such a + stimulating one, you know. A dull sort of person like myself is better for + him just now. I will continue visiting him as long as the doctor says it + is important that I should; but you must defend me, Lurida,—I know + you can explain it all so that people will not blame me.” + </p> + <p> + Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's penetrating head-voice + would be in a convalescent's chamber. She knew how that active mind of + hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, when what he wanted was + rest of every faculty. Were not these good and sufficient reasons for her + decision? What others could there be? + </p> + <p> + So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she blushed to see that she was + continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to look too + well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition of affairs, and + the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in their comments. Free, + but kindly, for the story of the rescue had melted every heart; and what + could be more natural than that these two young people whom God had + brought together in the dread moment of peril should find it hard to tear + themselves asunder after the hour of danger was past? When gratitude is a + bankrupt, love only can pay his debts; and if Maurice gave his heart to + Euthymia, would not she receive it as payment in full? + </p> + <p> + The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice + Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in a + magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the austral + the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took place while he was + enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. For all the + long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found their natural + channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ which throbs in + response to every profound emotion. As his health gradually returned, + Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his cheek, a glitter in his + eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, which altogether were a + warning to the young maiden that the highway of friendly intercourse was + fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of which her woman's eye could read + plainly enough, “Dangerous passing.” + </p> + <p> + “You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood,” she said, “that I think I + had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next time we meet I + hope you will be strong enough to call on me.” + </p> + <p> + She was frightened to see how pale he turned,—he was weaker than she + thought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Butts + looked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten the good + woman's presence. + </p> + <p> + Presently Maurice spoke,—very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a + stitch at the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she + listened to what followed. + </p> + <p> + “No! you must not leave me. You must never leave me. You saved my life. + But you have done more than that,—more than you know or can ever + know. To you I owe it that I am living; with you I live henceforth, if I + am to live at all. All I am, all I hope,—will you take this poor + offering from one who owes you everything, whose lips never touched those + of woman or breathed a word of love before you?” + </p> + <p> + What could Euthymia reply to this question, uttered with all the depth of + a passion which had never before found expression. + </p> + <p> + Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs. Butts overhear. But she told + her husband afterwards that there was nothing in the tableaux they had had + in September to compare with what she then saw. It was indeed a pleasing + picture which those two young heads presented as Euthymia gave her + inarticulate but infinitely expressive answer to the question of Maurice + Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman thought it time to leave the young + people. Down went the stocking with the needles in it; out of her lap + tumbled the ball of worsted, rolling along the floor with its yarn + trailing after it, like some village matron who goes about circulating + from hearth to hearth, leaving all along her track the story of the new + engagement or of the arrival of the last “little stranger.” + </p> + <p> + Not many suns had set before it was told all through Arrowhead Village + that Maurice Kirkwood was the accepted lover of Euthymia Tower. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. + </h2> + <p> + <b>MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, May 18.</b> + </p> + <p> + MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA,—Who would have thought, when you broke your oar + as the Atalanta flashed by the Algonquin, last June, that before the roses + came again you would find yourself the wife of a fine scholar and grand + gentleman, and the head of a household such as that of which you are the + mistress? You must not forget your old Arrowhead Village friends. What am + I saying?—-you forget them! No, dearest, I know your heart too well + for that! You are not one of those who lay aside their old friendships as + they do last years bonnet when they get a new one. You have told me all + about yourself and your happiness, and now you want me to tell you about + myself and what is going on in our little place. + </p> + <p> + And first about myself. I have given up the idea of becoming a doctor. I + have studied mathematics so much that I have grown fond of certainties, of + demonstrations, and medicine deals chiefly in probabilities. The practice + of the art is so mixed up with the deepest human interests that it is hard + to pursue it with that even poise of the intellect which is demanded by + science. I want knowledge pure and simple,—I do not fancy having it + mixed. Neither do I like the thought of passing my life in going from one + scene of suffering to another; I am not saintly enough for such a daily + martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easy occupation. I fainted at + the first operation I saw, and I have never wanted to see another. I don't + say that I wouldn't marry a physician, if the right one asked me, but the + young doctor is not forthcoming at present. Yes, I think I might make a + pretty good doctor's wife. I could teach him a good deal about headaches + and backaches and all sorts of nervous revolutions, as the doctor says the + French women call their tantrums. I don't know but I should be willing to + let him try his new medicines on me. If he were a homeopath, I know I + should; for if a billionth of a grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my + tea or coffee, I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of anything + would poison me,—no, not if it were snake-venom; and if it were not + disgusting, I would swallow a handful of his lachesis globules, to please + my husband. But if I ever become a doctor's wife, my husband will not be + one of that kind of practitioners, you may be sure of that, nor an + “eclectic,” nor a “faith-cure man.” On the whole, I don't think I want to + be married at all. I don't like the male animal very well (except such + noble specimens as your husband). They are all tyrants,—almost all,—so + far as our sex is concerned, and I often think we could get on better + without them. + </p> + <p> + However, the creatures are useful in the Society. They send us papers, + some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often that you would + like to know how the Society is getting on, and to read some of the papers + sent to it if they happened to be interesting, that I have laid aside one + or two manuscripts expressly for your perusal. You will get them by and + by. + </p> + <p> + I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you. Arrowhead Village + misses him dreadfully, I can tell you. That is the reason people become so + attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in their natures? I + suppose life is not long enough to cool their blood down to our Northern + standard. Then they are so child-like, whereas the native of these + latitudes is never young after he is ten or twelve years old. Mother says,—you + know mother's old-fashioned notions, and how shrewd and sensible she is in + spite of them,—mother says that when she was a girl families used to + import young men and young women from the country towns, who called + themselves “helps,” not servants,—no, that was Scriptural; “but they + did n't know everything down in Judee,” and it is not good American + language. She says that these people would live in the same household + until they were married, and the women often remain in the same service + until they died or were old and worn out, and then, what with the money + they had saved and the care and assistance they got from their former + employers, would pass a decent and comfortable old age, and be buried in + the family lot. Mother has made up her mind to the change, but grandmother + is bitter about it. She says there never was a country yet where the + population was made up of “ladies” and “gentlemen,” and she does n't + believe there can be; nor that putting a spread eagle on a copper makes a + gold dollar of it. She is a pessimist after her own fashion. She thinks + all sentiment is dying out of our people. No loyalty for the sovereign, + the king-post of the political edifice, she says; no deep attachment + between employer and employed; no reverence of the humbler members of a + household for its heads; and to make sure of continued corruption and + misery, what she calls “universal suffrage” emptying all the sewers into + the great aqueduct we all must drink from. “Universal suffrage!” I suppose + we women don't belong to the universe! Wait until we get a chance at the + ballot-box, I tell grandma, and see if we don't wash out the sewers before + they reach the aqueduct! But my pen has run away with me. I was thinking + of Paolo, and what a pleasant thing it is to have one of those child-like, + warm-hearted, attachable, cheerful, contented, humble, faithful, + companionable, but never presuming grownup children of the South waiting + on one, as if everything he could do for one was a pleasure, and carrying + a look of content in his face which makes every one who meets him happier + for a glimpse of his features. + </p> + <p> + It does seem a shame that the charming relation of master and servant, + intelligent authority and cheerful obedience, mutual interest in each + other's welfare, thankful recognition of all the advantages which belong + to domestic service in the better class of families, should be almost + wholly confined to aliens and their immediate descendants. Why should + Hannah think herself so much better than Bridget? When they meet at the + polls together, as they will before long, they will begin to feel more of + an equality than is recognized at present. The native female turns her + nose up at the idea of “living out;” does she think herself so much + superior to the women of other nationalities? Our women will have to come + to it,—so grandmother says,—in another generation or two, and + in a hundred years, according to her prophecy, there will be a new set of + old “Miss Pollys” and “Miss Betseys” who have lived half a century in the + same families, respectful and respected, cherished, cared for in time of + need (citizens as well as servants, holding a ballot as well as a broom, I + tell her), and bringing back to us the lowly, underfoot virtues of + contentment and humility, which we do so need to carpet the barren and + hungry thoroughfare of our unstratified existence. + </p> + <p> + There, I have got a-going, and am forgetting all the news I have to tell + you. There is an engagement you will want to know all about. It came to + pass through our famous boat-race, which you and I remember, and shall + never forget as long as we live. It seems that the young fellow who pulled + the bow oar of that men's college boat which we had the pleasure of + beating got some glimpses of Georgina, our handsome stroke oar. I believe + he took it into his head that it was she who threw the bouquet that won + the race for us. He was, as you know, greatly mistaken, and ought to have + made love to me, only he did n't. Well, it seems he came posting down to + the Institute just before the vacation was over, and there got a sight of + Georgina. I wonder whether she told him she didn't fling the bouquet! + Anyhow, the acquaintance began in that way, and now it seems that this + young fellow, good-looking and a bright scholar, but with a good many + months more to pass in college, is her captive. It was too bad. Just think + of my bouquet's going to another girl's credit! No matter, the old + Atalanta story was paid off, at any rate. + </p> + <p> + You want to know all about dear Dr. Butts. They say he has just been + offered a Professorship in one of the great medical colleges. I asked him + about it, and he did not say that he had or had not. “But,” said he, + “suppose that I had been offered such a place; do you think I ought to + accept it and leave Arrowhead Village? Let us talk it over,” said he, + “just as if I had had such an offer.” I told him he ought to stay. There + are plenty of men that can get into a Professor's chair, I said, and talk + like Solomons to a class of wondering pupils: but once get a really good + doctor in a place, a man who knows all about everybody, whether they have + this or that tendency, whether when they are sick they have a way of dying + or a way of getting well, what medicines agree with them and what drugs + they cannot take, whether they are of the sort that think nothing is the + matter with them until they are dead as smoked herring, or of the sort + that send for the minister if they get a stomach-ache from eating too many + cucumbers,—who knows all about all the people within half a dozen + miles (all the sensible ones, that is, who employ a regular practitioner),—such + a man as that, I say, is not to be replaced like a missing piece out of a + Springfield musket or a Waltham watch. Don't go! said I. Stay here and + save our precious lives, if you can, or at least put us through in the + proper way, so that we needn't be ashamed of ourselves for dying, if we + must die. Well, Dr. Butts is not going to leave us. I hope you will have + no unwelcome occasion for his services,—you are never ill, you know,—but, + anyhow, he is going to be here, and no matter what happens he will be on + hand. + </p> + <p> + The village news is not of a very exciting character. Item 1. A new house + is put up over the ashes of the one in which your husband lived while he + was here. It was planned by one of the autochthonous inhabitants with the + most ingenious combination of inconveniences that the natural man could + educe from his original perversity of intellect. To get at any one room + you must pass through every other. It is blind, or nearly so, on the only + side which has a good prospect, and commands a fine view of the barn and + pigsty through numerous windows. Item 2. We have a small fire-engine near + the new house which can be worked by a man or two, and would be equal to + the emergency of putting out a bunch of fire-crackers. Item 3. We have a + new ladder, in a bog, close to the new fire-engine, so if the new house + catches fire, like its predecessor, and there should happen to, be a sick + man on an upper floor, he can be got out without running the risk of going + up and down a burning staircase. What a blessed thing it was that there + was no fire-engine near by and no ladder at hand on the day of the great + rescue! If there had been, what a change in your programme of life! You + remember that “cup of tea spilt on Mrs. Masham's apron,” which we used to + read of in one of Everett's Orations, and all its wide-reaching + consequences in the affairs of Europe. I hunted up that cup of tea as + diligently as ever a Boston matron sought for the last leaves in her old + caddy after the tea-chests had been flung overboard at Griffin's wharf,—but + no matter about that, now. That is the way things come about in this + world. I must write a lecture on lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, + fortunate calamities. It will be just the converse of that odd essay of + Swift's we read together, the awkward and stupid things done with the best + intentions. Perhaps I shall deliver the lecture in your city: you will + come and hear it, and bring him, won't you, dearest? Always, your loving + </p> + <p> + LURIDA. <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <b>MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD.</b> + </p> + <p> + It seems forever since you left us, dearest Euthymia! And are you, and is + your husband, and Paolo,—good Paolo,—are you all as well and + happy as you have been and as you ought to be? I suppose our small village + seems a very quiet sort of place to pass the winter in, now that you have + become accustomed to the noise and gayety of a great city. For all that, + it is a pretty busy place this winter, I can tell you. We have sleighing + parties,—I never go to them, myself, because I can't keep warm, and + my mind freezes up when my blood cools down below 95 or 96 deg. + Fahrenheit. I had a great deal rather sit by a good fire and read about + Arctic discoveries. But I like very well to hear the bells' jingling and + to see the young people trying to have a good time as hard as they do at a + picnic. It may be that they do, but to me a picnic is purgatory and a + sleigh-ride that other place, where, as my favorite Milton says, “frost + performs the effect of fire.” I believe I have quoted him correctly; I + ought to, for I could repeat half his poems from memory once, if I cannot + now. + </p> + <p> + You must have plenty of excitement in your city life. I suppose you + recognized yourself in one of the society columns of the “Household + Inquisitor:” “Mrs. E. K., very beautiful, in an elegant,” etc., etc., “with + pearls,” etc., etc.,—as if you were not the ornament of all that you + wear, no matter what it is! + </p> + <p> + I am so glad that you have married a scholar! Why should not Maurice—you + both tell me to call him so—take the diplomatic office which has + been offered him? It seems to me that he would find himself in exactly the + right place. He can talk in two or three languages, has good manners, and + a wife who—well, what shall I say of Mrs. Kirkwood but that “she + would be good company for a queen,” as our old friend the quondam landlady + of the Anchor Tavern used to say? I should so like to see you presented at + Court! It seems to me that I should be willing to hold your train for the + sake of seeing you in your court feathers and things. + </p> + <p> + As for myself, I have been thinking of late that I would become either a + professional lecturer or head mistress of a great school or college for + girls. I have tried the first business a little. Last month I delivered a + lecture on Quaternions. I got three for my audience; two came over from + the Institute, and one from that men's college which they try to make out + to be a university, and where no female is admitted unless she belongs + among the quadrupeds. I enjoyed lecturing, but the subject is a difficult + one, and I don't think any one of them had any very clear notion of what I + was talking about, except Rhodora,—and I know she did n't. To tell + the truth, I was lecturing to instruct myself. I mean to try something + easier next time. I have thought of the Basque language and literature. + What do you say to that? + </p> + <p> + The Society goes on famously. We have had a paper presented and read + lately which has greatly amused some of us and provoked a few of the + weaker sort. The writer is that crabbed old Professor of Belles-Lettres at + that men's college over there. He is dreadfully hard on the poor “poets,” + as they call themselves. It seems that a great many young persons, and + more especially a great many young girls, of whom the Institute has + furnished a considerable proportion, have taken to sending him their + rhymed productions to be criticised,—expecting to be praised, no + doubt, every one of them. I must give you one of the sauciest extracts + from his paper in his own words: + </p> + <p> + “It takes half my time to read the 'poems' sent me by young people of both + sexes. They would be more shy of doing it if they knew that I recognize a + tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, and the + publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence of ambitious + mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are exceptions to this + rule of judgment, but I maintain that the presumption is always against + the rhymester as compared with the less pretentious persons about him or + her, busy with some useful calling,—too busy to be tagging rhymed + commonplaces together. Just now there seems to be an epidemic of rhyming + as bad as the dancing mania, or the sweating sickness. After reading a + certain amount of manuscript verse one is disposed to anathematize the + inventor of homophonous syllabification. [This phrase made a great laugh + when it was read.] This, that is rhyming, must have been found out very + early, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Where are you, Adam?' + + “'Here am I, Madam;' +</pre> + <p> + “but it can never have been habitually practised until after the Fall. The + intrusion of tintinnabulating terminations into the conversational + intercourse of men and angels would have spoiled Paradise itself. Milton + would not have them even in Paradise Lost, you remember. For my own part, + I wish certain rhymes could be declared contraband of written or printed + language. Nothing should be allowed to be hurled at the world or whirled + with it, or furled upon it or curled over it; all eyes should be kept away + from the skies, in spite of os homini sublime dedit; youth should be + coupled with all the virtues except truth; earth should never be reminded + of her birth; death should never be allowed to stop a mortal's breath, nor + the bell to sound his knell, nor flowers from blossoming bowers to wave + over his grave or show their bloom upon his tomb. We have rhyming + dictionaries,—let us have one from which all rhymes are rigorously + excluded. The sight of a poor creature grubbing for rhymes to fill up his + sonnet, or to cram one of those voracious, rhyme-swallowing rigmaroles + which some of our drudging poetical operatives have been exhausting + themselves of late to satiate with jingles, makes my head ache and my + stomach rebel. Work, work of some kind, is the business of men and women, + not the making of jingles! No,—no,—no! I want to see the young + people in our schools and academies and colleges, and the graduates of + these institutions, lifted up out of the little Dismal Swamp of + self-contemplating and self-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism + which is surfeiting the land with those literary sandwiches,—thin + slices of tinkling sentimentality between two covers looking like + hard-baked gilt gingerbread. But what faces these young folks make up at + my good advice! They get tipsy on their rhymes. Nothing intoxicates one + like his—or her—own verses, and they hold on to their + metre-ballad-mongering as the fellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to + the gas-bag.” + </p> + <p> + We laughed over this essay of the old Professor; though it hit us pretty + hard. The best part of the joke is that the old man himself published a + thin volume of poems when he was young, which there is good reason to + think he is not very proud of, as they say he buys up all the copies he + can find in the shops. No matter what they say, I can't help agreeing with + him about this great flood of “poetry,” as it calls itself, and looking at + the rhyming mania much as he does. + </p> + <p> + How I do love real poetry! That is the reason hate rhymes which have not a + particle of it in them. The foolish scribblers that deal in them are like + bad workmen in a carpenter's shop. They not only turn out bad jobs of + work, but they spoil the tools for better workmen. There is hardly a pair + of rhymes in the English language that is not so dulled and hacked and + gapped by these 'prentice hands that a master of the craft hates to touch + them, and yet he cannot very well do without them. I have not been + besieged as the old Professor has been with such multitudes of + would-be-poetical aspirants that he could not even read their manuscripts, + but I have had a good many letters containing verses, and I have warned + the writers of the delusion under which they were laboring. + </p> + <p> + You may like to know that I have just been translating some extracts from + the Greek Anthology. I send you a few specimens of my work, with a + Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I hope you will find something of the + Greek rhythm in my versions, and that I have caught a spark of inspiration + from the impassioned Lesbian. I have found great delight in this work, at + any rate, and am never so happy as when I read from my manuscript or + repeat from memory the lines into which I have transferred the thought of + the men and women of two thousand years ago, or given rhythmical + expression to my own rapturous feelings with regard to them. I must read + you my Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I cannot help thinking that you + will like it better than either of my last two, The Song of the Roses, or + The Wail of the Weeds. + </p> + <p> + How I do miss you, dearest! I want you: I want you to listen to what I + have written; I want you to hear all about my plans for the future; I want + to look at you, and think how grand it must be to feel one's self to be + such a noble and beautiful-creature; I want to wander in the woods with + you, to float on the lake, to share your life and talk over every day's + doings with you. Alas! I feel that we have parted as two friends part at a + port of embarkation: they embrace, they kiss each other's cheeks, they + cover their faces and weep, they try to speak good-by to each other, they + watch from the pier and from the deck; the two forms grow less and less, + fainter and fainter in the distance, two white handkerchiefs flutter once + and again, and yet once more, and the last visible link of the chain which + binds them has parted. Dear, dear, dearest Euthymia, my eyes are running + over with tears when I think that we may never, never meet again. + </p> + <p> + Don't you want some more items of village news? We are threatened with an + influx of stylish people: “Buttons” to answer the door-bell, in place of + the chamber-maid; “butler,” in place of the “hired man;” footman in + top-boots and breeches, cockade on hat, arms folded a la Napoleon; + tandems, “drags,” dogcarts, and go-carts of all sorts. It is rather + amusing to look at their ambitious displays, but it takes away the good + old country flavor of the place. + </p> + <p> + I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when you come back to spend + your summers here. I suppose you must have a large house, and I am sure + you will have a beautiful one. I suppose you will have some fine horses, + and who would n't be glad to? But I do not believe you will try to make + your old Arrowhead Village friends stare their eyes out of their heads + with a display meant to outshine everybody else that comes here. You can + have a yacht on the lake, if you like, but I hope you will pull a pair of + oars in our old boat once in a while, with me to steer you. I know you + will be just the same dear Euthymia you always were and always must be. + How happy you must make such a man as Maurice Kirkwood! And how happy you + ought to be with him!—a man who knows what is in books, and who has + seen for himself, what is in men. If he has not seen so much of women, + where could he study all that is best in womanhood as he can in his own + wife? Only one thing that dear Euthymia lacks. She is not quite pronounced + enough in her views as to the rights and the wrongs of the sex. When I + visit you, as you say I shall, I mean to indoctrinate Maurice with sound + views on that subject. I have written an essay for the Society, which I + hope will go a good way towards answering all the objections to female + suffrage. I mean to read it to your husband, if you will let me, as I know + you will, and perhaps you would like to hear it,—only you know my + thoughts on the subject pretty well already. + </p> + <p> + With all sorts of kind messages to your dear husband, and love to your + precious self, I am ever your LURIDA. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <b>DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD.</b> + </p> + <p> + MY DEAR EUTHYMIA,—My pen refuses to call you by any other name. + Sweet-souled you are, and your Latinized Greek name is—the one which + truly designates you. I cannot tell you how we have followed you, with + what interest and delight through your travels, as you have told their + story in your letters to your mother. She has let us have the privilege of + reading them, and we have been with you in steamer, yacht, felucca, + gondola, Nile-boat; in all sorts of places, from crowded capitals to + “deserts where no men abide,”—everywhere keeping company with you in + your natural and pleasant descriptions of your experiences. And now that + you have returned to your home in the great city I must write you a few + lines of welcome, if nothing more. + </p> + <p> + You will find Arrowhead Village a good deal changed since you left it. We + are discovered by some of those over-rich people who make the little place + upon which they swarm a kind of rural city. When this happens the + consequences are striking,—some of them desirable and some far + otherwise. The effect of well-built, well-furnished, well-kept houses and + of handsome grounds always maintained in good order about them shows + itself in a large circuit around the fashionable centre. Houses get on a + new coat of paint, fences are kept in better order, little plots of + flowers show themselves where only ragged weeds had rioted, the + inhabitants present themselves in more comely attire and drive in + handsomer vehicles with more carefully groomed horses. On the other hand, + there is a natural jealousy on the part of the natives of the region + suddenly become fashionable. They have seen the land they sold at farm + prices by the acre coming to be valued by the foot, like the corner lots + in a city. Their simple and humble modes of life look almost + poverty-stricken in the glare of wealth and luxury which so outshines + their plain way of living. It is true that many of them have found them + selves richer than in former days, when the neighborhood lived on its own + resources. They know how to avail themselves of their altered position, + and soon learn to charge city prices for country products; but nothing can + make people feel rich who see themselves surrounded by men whose yearly + income is many times their own whole capital. I think it would be better + if our rich men scattered themselves more than they do,—buying large + country estates, building houses and stables which will make it easy to + entertain their friends, and depending for society on chosen guests rather + than on the mob of millionaires who come together for social rivalry. But + I do not fret myself about it. Society will stratify itself according to + the laws of social gravitation. It will take a generation or two more, + perhaps, to arrange the strata by precipitation and settlement, but we can + always depend on one principle to govern the arrangement of the layers. + People interested in the same things will naturally come together. The + youthful heirs of fortunes who keep splendid yachts have little to talk + about with the oarsman who pulls about on the lake or the river. What does + young Dives, who drives his four-in-hand and keeps a stable full of + horses, care about Lazarus, who feels rich in the possession of a + horse-railroad ticket? You know how we live at our house, plainly, but + with a certain degree of cultivated propriety. We make no pretensions to + what is called “style.” We are still in that social stratum where the + article called “a napkin-ring” is recognized as admissible at the + dinner-table. That fact sufficiently defines our modest pretensions. The + napkin-ring is the boundary mark between certain classes. But one evening + Mrs. Butts and I went out to a party given by the lady of a worthy family, + where the napkin itself was a newly introduced luxury. The conversation of + the hostess and her guests turned upon details of the kitchen and the + laundry; upon the best mode of raising bread, whether with “emptins” + (emptyings, yeast) or baking powder; about “bluing” and starching and + crimping, and similar matters. Poor Mrs. Butts! She knew nothing more + about such things than her hostess did about Shakespeare and the musical + glasses. What was the use of trying to enforce social intercourse under + such conditions? Incompatibility of temper has been considered ground for + a divorce; incompatibility of interests is a sufficient warrant for social + separation. The multimillionaires have so much that is common among + themselves, and so little that they share with us of moderate means, that + they will naturally form a specialized class, and in virtue of their + palaces, their picture-galleries, their equipages, their yachts, their + large hospitality, constitute a kind of exclusive aristocracy. Religion, + which ought to be the great leveller, cannot reduce these elements to the + same grade. You may read in the parable, “Friend, how camest thou in + hither not having a wedding garment?” The modern version would be, “How + came you at Mrs. Billion's ball not having a dress on your back which came + from Paris?” + </p> + <p> + The little church has got a new stained window, a saint who reminds me of + Hamlet's uncle,—a thing “of shreds and patches,” but rather pretty + to look at, with an inscription under it which is supposed to be the name + of the person in whose honor the window was placed in the church. Smith + was a worthy man and a faithful churchwarden, and I hope posterity will be + able to spell out his name on his monumental window; but that old English + lettering would puzzle Mephistopheles himself, if he found himself before + this memorial tribute, on the inside,—you know he goes to church + sometimes, if you remember your Faust. + </p> + <p> + The rector has come out, in a quiet way, as an evolutionist. He has always + been rather “broad” in his views, but cautious in their expression. You + can tell the three branches of the mother-island church by the way they + carry their heads. The low-church clergy look down, as if they felt + themselves to be worms of the dust; the high-church priest drops his head + on one side, after the pattern of the mediaeval saints; the broad-church + preacher looks forward and round about him, as if he felt himself the heir + of creation. Our rector carries his head in the broad-church aspect, which + I suppose is the least open to the charge of affectation,—in fact, + is the natural and manly way of carrying it. + </p> + <p> + The Society has justified its name of Pansophian of late as never before. + Lurida has stirred up our little community and its neighbors, so that we + get essays on all sorts of subjects, poems and stories in large numbers. I + know all about it, for she often consults me as to the merits of a + particular contribution. + </p> + <p> + What is to be the fate of Lurida? I often think, with no little interest + and some degree of anxiety, about her future. Her body is so frail and her + mind so excessively and constantly active that I am afraid one or the + other will give way. I do not suppose she thinks seriously of ever being + married. She grows more and more zealous in behalf of her own sex, and + sterner in her judgment of the other. She declares that she never would + marry any man who was not an advocate of female suffrage, and as these + gentlemen are not very common hereabouts the chance is against her + capturing any one of the hostile sex. + </p> + <p> + What do you think? I happened, just as I was writing the last sentence, to + look out of my window, and whom should I see but Lurida, with a young man + in tow, listening very eagerly to her conversation, according to all + appearance! I think he must be a friend of the rector, as I have seen a + young man like this one in his company. Who knows? + </p> + <p> + Affectionately yours, etc. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <p> + <b>DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS.</b> + </p> + <p> + MY BELOVED WIFE,—This letter will tell you more news than you would + have thought could have been got together in this little village during + the short time you have been staying away from it. + </p> + <p> + Lurida Vincent is engaged! He is a clergyman with a mathematical turn. The + story is that he put a difficult problem into one of the mathematical + journals, and that Lurida presented such a neat solution that the young + man fell in love with her on the strength of it. I don't think the story + is literally true, nor do I believe that other report that he offered + himself to her in the form of an equation chalked on the blackboard; but + that it was an intellectual rather than a sentimental courtship I do not + doubt. Lurida has given up the idea of becoming a professional lecturer,—so + she tells me,—thinking that her future husband's parish will find + her work enough to do. A certain amount of daily domestic drudgery and + unexciting intercourse with simple-minded people will be the best thing in + the world for that brain of hers, always simmering with some new project + in its least fervid condition. + </p> + <p> + All our summer visitors have arrived. Euthymia Mrs. Maurice Kirkwood and + her husband and little Maurice are here in their beautiful house looking + out on the lake. They gave a grand party the other evening. You ought to + have been there, but I suppose you could not very well have left your + sister in the middle of your visit: All the grand folks were there, of + course. Lurida and her young man—Gabriel is what she calls him—were + naturally the objects of special attention. Paolo acted as major-domo, and + looked as if he ought to be a major-general. Nothing could be pleasanter + than the way in which Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood received their plain country + neighbors; that is, just as they did the others of more pretensions, as if + they were really glad to see them, as I am sure they were. The old + landlord and his wife had two arm-chairs to themselves, and I saw Miranda + with the servants of the household looking in at the dancers and out at + the little groups in the garden, and evidently enjoying it as much as her + old employers. It was a most charming and successful party. We had two + sensations in the course of the evening. One was pleasant and somewhat + exciting, the other was thrilling and of strange and startling interest. + </p> + <p> + You remember how emaciated poor Maurice Kirkwood was left after his fever, + in that first season when he was among us. He was out in a boat one day, + when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a place where the + water was rather shallow. “Jake”—you know Jake,—everybody + knows Jake—was rowing him. He promised to come to the spot and fish + up the ring if he could possibly find it. He was seen poking about with + fish-hooks at the end of a pole, but nothing was ever heard from him about + the ring. It was an antique intaglio stone in an Etruscan setting,—a + wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. Kirkwood valued it highly, and + regretted its loss very much. + </p> + <p> + While we were in the garden, who should appear at the gate but Jake, with + a great basket, inquiring for Mr. Kirkwood. “Come,” said Maurice to me, + “let us see what our old friend the fisherman has brought us. What have + you got there, Jake?” + </p> + <p> + “What I 've got? Wall, I 'll tell y' what I've got: I 've got the biggest + pickerel that's been ketched in this pond for these ten year. An' I 've + got somethin' else besides the pickerel. When I come to cut him open, what + do you think I faound in his insides but this here ring o' yourn,”—and + he showed the one Maurice had lost so long before. There it was, as good + as new, after having tried Jonah's style of housekeeping for all that + time. There are those who discredit Jake's story about finding the ring in + the fish; anyhow, there was the ring and there was the pickerel. I need + not say that Jake went off well paid for his pickerel and the precious + contents of its stomach. Now comes the chief event of the evening. I went + early by special invitation. Maurice took me into his library, and we sat + down together. + </p> + <p> + “I have something of great importance,” he said, “to say to you. I learned + within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a friend in the + next town to this. You know, doctor, that we have never met since the + last, almost fatal, experience of my early years. I have determined to + defy the strength of that deadly chain of associations connected with her + presence, and I have begged her to come this evening with the friends with + whom she is staying. Several letters passed between us, for it was hard to + persuade her that there was no longer any risk in my meeting her. Her + imagination was almost as deeply impressed as mine had been at those + alarming interviews, and I had to explain to her fully that I had become + quite indifferent to the disturbing impressions of former years. So, as + the result of our correspondence, Laura is coming this evening, and I wish + you to be present at our meeting. There is another reason why I wish you + to be here. My little boy is not far from the age at which I + received my terrifying, almost disorganizing shock. I mean to have little + Maurice brought into the presence of Laura, who is said to be still a very + handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hint of that peculiar + sensitiveness which showed itself in my threatening seizure. It seemed to + me not impossible that he might inherit some tendency of that nature, and + I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of danger should declare itself. + For myself I have no fear. Some radical change has taken place in my + nervous system. I have been born again, as it were, in my + susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new man. But I must know + how it is with my little Maurice.” + </p> + <p> + Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment; for + experiment it was, and not without its sources of anxiety, as it seemed to + me. The evening wore along; friends and neighbors came in, but no Laura as + yet. At last I heard the sound of wheels, and a carriage stopped at the + door. Two ladies and a gentleman got out, and soon entered the drawing + room. + </p> + <p> + “My cousin Laura!” whispered Maurice to me, and went forward to meet her. + A very handsome woman, who might well have been in the thirties,—one + of those women so thoroughly constituted that they cannot help being + handsome at every period of life. I watched them both as they approached + each other. Both looked pale at first, but Maurice soon recovered his + usual color, and Laura's natural, rich bloom came back by degrees. Their + emotion at meeting was not to be wondered at, but there was no trace in it + of the paralyzing influence on the great centres of life which had once + acted upon its fated victim like the fabled head which turned the + looker-on into a stone. + </p> + <p> + “Is the boy still awake?” said Maurice to Paolo, who, as they used to say + of Pushee at the old Anchor Tavern, was everywhere at once on that gay and + busy evening. + </p> + <p> + “What! Mahser Maurice asleep an' all this racket going on? I hear him + crowing like young cockerel when he fus' smell daylight.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the little room that leads + out of the library.” + </p> + <p> + The child was brought down in his night-clothes, wide awake, wondering + apparently at the noise he heard, which he seemed to think was for his + special amusement. + </p> + <p> + “See if he will go to that lady,” said his father. Both of us held our + breath as Laura stretched her arms towards little Maurice. + </p> + <p> + The child looked for an instant searchingly, but fearlessly, at her + glowing cheeks, her bright eyes, her welcoming smile, and met her embrace + as she clasped him to her bosom as if he had known her all his days. + </p> + <p> + The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and the blood of Maurice + Kirkwood at that supreme moment when he found himself snatched from the + grasp of death and cradled in the arms of Euthymia. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ————————————— +</pre> + <p> + In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it began with a prefix which + the reader may by this time have forgotten, namely, the First Opening. It + was perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability of a second + opening. + </p> + <p> + I am reminded from time to time by the correspondents who ask a certain + small favor of me that, as I can only expect to be with my surviving + contemporaries a very little while longer, they would be much obliged if I + would hurry up my answer before it is too late. They are right, these + delicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding me of a fact which I + cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my recollection. I thank them + for recalling my attention to a truth which I shall be wiser, if not more + hilarious, for remembering. + </p> + <p> + No, I had no right to say the First Opening. How do I know that I shall + have a chance to open it again? How do I know that anybody will want it to + be opened a second time? How do I know that I shall feel like opening it? + It is safest neither to promise to open the New Portfolio once more, nor + yet to pledge myself to keep it closed hereafter. There are many papers + potentially existent in it, some of which might interest a reader here and + there. The Records of the Pansophian Society contain a considerable number + of essays, poems, stories, and hints capable of being expanded into + presentable dimensions. In the mean time I will say with Prospero, + addressing my old readers, and my new ones, if such I have, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “If you be pleased, retire into my cell + And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, + To still my beating mind.” + </pre> + <p> + When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again, and consider + whether it is worth while to open it consider whether it is worth while to + open it. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Mortal Antipathy, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MORTAL ANTIPATHY *** + +***** This file should be named 2698-h.htm or 2698-htm.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/2698/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Etext prepared for Gutenberg, by David Widger < widger@cecomet.net > + + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY + +by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + + +PREFACE. + +"A MORTAL ANTIPATHY" was a truly hazardous experiment. A very wise +and very distinguished physician who is as much at home in literature +as he is in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me in +referring to this story: "I should have been afraid of my subject." +He did not explain himself, but I can easily understand that he felt +the improbability of the, physiological or pathological occurrence on +which the story is founded to be so great that the narrative could +hardly be rendered plausible. I felt the difficulty for myself as +well as for my readers, and it was only by recalling for our +consideration a series of extraordinary but well-authenticated facts +of somewhat similar character that I could hope to gain any serious +attention to so strange a narrative. + +I need not recur to these wonderful stories. There is, however, one, +not to be found on record elsewhere, to which I would especially call +the reader's attention. It is that of the middle-aged man, who +assured me that he could never pass a tall hall clock without an +indefinable terror. While an infant in arms the heavy weight of one +of these tall clocks had fallen with aloud crash and produced an +impression on his nervous system which he had never got over. + +The lasting effect of a shock received by the sense of sight or that +of hearing is conceivable enough. + +But there is another sense, the nerves of which are in close relation +with the higher organs of consciousness. The strength of the +associations connected with the function of the first pair of nerves, +the olfactory, is familiar to most persons in their own experience +and as related by others. Now we know that every human being, as +well as every other living organism, carries its own distinguishing +atmosphere. If a man's friend does not know it, his dog does, and +can track him anywhere by it. This personal peculiarity varies with +the age and conditions of the individual. It may be agreeable or +otherwise, a source of attraction or repulsion, but its influence is +not less real, though far less obvious and less dominant, than in the +lower animals. It was an atmospheric impression of this nature which +associated itself with a terrible shock experienced by the infant +which became the subject of this story. The impression could not be +outgrown, but it might possibly be broken up by some sudden change in +the nervous system effected by a cause as potent as the one which had +produced the disordered condition. + +This is the best key that I can furnish to a story which must have +puzzled some, repelled others, and failed to interest many who did +not suspect the true cause of the mysterious antipathy. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August, 1891. + +O. W. H. + + + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + +FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. + +INTRODUCTION. + +"And why the New Portfolio, I would ask?" + +Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession to the nursery in +which you have a special interest, whether the new-comer was commonly +spoken of as a baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under +all conditions, in all companies, by the whole household, spoken of +as the baby? And was the small receptacle provided for it commonly +spoken of as a cradle; or was it not always called the cradle, as if +there were no other in existence? + +Now this New Portfolio is the cradle in which I am to rock my +new-born thoughts, and from which I am to lift them carefully and +show them to callers, namely, to the whole family of readers +belonging to my list of intimates, and such other friends as may drop +in by accident. And so it shall have the definite article, and not +be lost in the mob of its fellows as a portfolio. + +There are a few personal and incidental matters of which I wish to +say something before reaching the contents of the Portfolio, whatever +these may be. I have had other portfolios before this,--two, more +especially, and the first thing I beg leave to introduce relates to +these. + +Do not throw this volume down, or turn to another page, when I tell +you that the earliest of them, that of which I now am about to speak, +was opened more than fifty years ago. This is a very dangerous +confession, for fifty years make everything hopelessly old-fashioned, +without giving it the charm of real antiquity. If I could say a +hundred years, now, my readers would accept all I had to tell them +with a curious interest; but fifty years ago,--there are too many +talkative old people who know all about that time, and at best half a +century is a half-baked bit of ware. A coin-fancier would say that +your fifty-year-old facts have just enough of antiquity to spot them +with rust, and not enough to give them--the delicate and durable +patina which is time's exquisite enamel. + +When the first Portfolio was opened the coin of the realm bore for +its legend,--or might have borne if the more devout hero-worshippers +could have had their way,--Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. +Caesrzr. Aug. Div., Max., etc., etc. I never happened to see any +gold or silver with that legend, but the truth is I was not very +familiarly acquainted with the precious metals at that period of my +career, and, there might have been a good deal of such coin in +circulation without my handling it, or knowing much about it. + +Permit me to indulge in a few reminiscences of that far-off time. + +In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a principal centre of +attraction to young Boston people and their visitors. Many of us got +our first ideas of art, to say nothing of our first lessons in the +comparatively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive period, in +that agreeable resort of amateurs and artists. + +How the pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places +in the mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red +enough in it for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full- +length portrait of the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's +long-waistcoated gentlemen and satin-clad ladies,--they looked like +gentlemen and ladies, too; and Stuart's florid merchants and high- +waisted matrons; and Allston's lovely Italian scenery and dreamy, +unimpassioned women, not forgetting Florimel in full flight on her +interminable rocking-horse,--you may still see her at the Art Museum; +and the rival landscapes of Doughty and Fisher, much talked of and +largely praised in those days; and the Murillo,--not from Marshal +Soup's collection; and the portrait of Annibale Caracci by himself, +which cost the Athenaeum a hundred dollars; and Cole's allegorical +pictures, and his immense and dreary canvas, in which the prostrate +shepherds and the angel in Joseph's coat of many colors look as if +they must have been thrown in for nothing; and West's brawny Lear +tearing his clothes to pieces. But why go on with the catalogue, +when most of these pictures can be seen either at the Athenaeum +building in Beacon Street or at the Art Gallery, and admired or +criticised perhaps more justly, certainly not more generously, than +in those earlier years when we looked at them through the japanned +fish-horns? + +If one happened to pass through Atkinson Street on his way to the +Athenaeum, he would notice a large, square, painted, brick house, in +which lived a leading representative of old-fashioned coleopterous +Calvinism, and from which emerged one of the liveliest of literary +butterflies. The father was editor of the "Boston Recorder," a very +respectable, but very far from amusing paper, most largely patronized +by that class of the community which spoke habitually of the first +day of the week as "the Sahbuth." The son was the editor of several +different periodicals in succession, none of them over severe or +serious, and of many pleasant books, filled with lively descriptions +of society, which be studied on the outside with a quick eye for form +and color, and with a certain amount of sentiment, not very deep, but +real, though somewhat frothed over by his worldly experiences. + +Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when I opened my first +Portfolio. He had made himself known by his religious poetry, +published in his father's paper, I think, and signed "Roy." He had +started the " American Magazine," afterwards merged in the New York +Mirror." He had then left off writing scripture pieces, and taken to +lighter forms of verse. He had just written + + "I'm twenty-two, I'm twenty-two, + They idly give me joy, + As if I should be glad to know + That I was less a boy." + +He was young, therefore, and already famous. He came very near being +very handsome. He was tall; his hair, of light brown color, waved in +luxuriant abundance; his cheek was as rosy as if it had been painted +to show behind the footlights; he dressed with artistic elegance. He +was something between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an +anticipation of Oscar Wilde. There used to be in the gallery of the +Luxembourg a picture of Hippolytus and Phxdra, in which the beautiful +young man, who had kindled a passion in the heart of his wicked step- +mother, always reminded me of Willis, in spite of the shortcomings of +the living face as compared with the ideal. The painted youth is +still blooming on the canvas, but the fresh-cheecked, jaunty young +author of the year 1830 has long faded out of human sight. I took +the leaves which lie before me at this moment, as I write, from his +coffin, as it lay just outside the door of Saint Paul's Church, on a +sad, overclouded winter's day, in the year 1867. At that earlier +time, Willis was by far the most prominent young American author. +Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Drake, had all done their best +work. Longfellow was not yet conspicuous. Lowell was a school-boy. +Emerson was unheard of. Whittier was beginning to make his way +against the writers with better educational advantages whom he was +destined to outdo and to outlive. Not one of the great histories, +which have done honor to our literature, had appeared. Our school- +books depended, so far as American authors were concerned, on +extracts from the orations and speeches of Webster and Everett; on +Bryant's Thanatopsis, his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death of the +Flowers, Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on Drake's +American Flag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping +and Genius Waking,--and not getting very wide awake, either. These +could be depended upon. A few other copies of verses might be found, +but Dwight's "Columbia, Columbia," and Pierpont's Airs of Palestine, +were already effaced, as many of the favorites of our own day and +generation must soon be, by the great wave which the near future will +pour over the sands in which they still are legible. + +About this time, in the year 1832, came out a small volume entitled +"Truth, a Gift for Scribblers," which made some talk for a while, and +is now chiefly valuable as a kind of literary tombstone on which may +be read the names of many whose renown has been buried with their +bones. The "London Athenaeum" spoke of it as having been described +as a "tomahawk sort of satire." As the author had been a trapper in +Missouri, he was familiarly acquainted with that weapon and the +warfare of its owners. Born in Boston, in 1804, the son of an army +officer, educated at West Point, he came back to his native city +about the year 1830. He wrote an article on Bryant's Poems for the +"North American Review," and another on the famous Indian chief, +Black Hawk. In this last-mentioned article he tells this story as +the great warrior told it himself. It was an incident of a fight +with the Osages. + +"Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist and tear +the scalp from his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushed +furiously upon another, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran +my lance through his body, took off his scalp, and returned in +triumph to my father. He said nothing, but looked pleased." + +This little red story describes very well Spelling's style of +literary warfare. His handling of his most conspicuous victim, +Willis, was very much like Black Hawk's way of dealing with the +Osage. He tomahawked him in heroics, ran him through in prose, and +scalped him in barbarous epigrams. Bryant and Halleck were +abundantly praised; hardly any one else escaped. + +If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputation that were +floating, some of them gay with prismatic colors, half a century ago, +he will find in the pages of "Truth" a long catalogue of celebrities +he never heard of. I recognize only three names, of all which are +mentioned in the little book, as belonging to persons still living; +but as I have not read the obituaries of all the others, some of them +may be still flourishing in spite of Mr. Spelling's exterminating +onslaught. Time dealt as hardly with poor Spelling, who was not +without talent and instruction, as he had dealt with our authors. I +think he found shelter at last under a roof which held numerous +inmates, some of whom had seen better and many of whom had known +worse days than those which they were passing within its friendly and +not exclusive precincts. Such, at least, was the story I heard after +he disappeared from general observation. + +That was the day of Souvenirs, Tokens, Forget-me-nots, Bijous, and +all that class of showy annuals. Short stories, slender poems, steel +engravings, on a level with the common fashion-plates of advertising +establishments, gilt edges, resplendent binding,--to manifestations +of this sort our lighter literature had very largely run for some +years. The "Scarlet Letter" was an unhinted possibility. The +"Voices of the Night " had not stirred the brooding silence; the +Concord seer was still in the lonely desert; most of the contributors +to those yearly volumes, which took up such pretentious positions on +the centre table, have shrunk into entire oblivion, or, at best, hold +their place in literature by a scrap or two in some omnivorous +collection. + +What dreadful work Spelling made among those slight reputations, +floating in swollen tenuity on the surface of the stream, and +mirroring each other in reciprocal reflections! Violent, abusive as +he was, unjust to any against whom he happened to have a prejudice, +his castigation of the small litterateurs of that day was not +harmful, but rather of use. His attack on Willis very probably did +him good; he needed a little discipline, and though he got it too +unsparingly, some cautions came with it which were worth the stripes +he had to smart under. One noble writer Spelling treated with +rudeness, probably from some accidental pique, or equally +insignificant reason. I myself, one of the three survivors before +referred to, escaped with a love-pat, as the youngest son of the +Muse. Longfellow gets a brief nod of acknowledgment. Bailey, an +American writer, "who made long since a happy snatch at fame," which +must have been snatched away from him by envious time, for I cannot +identify him; Thatcher, who died early, leaving one poem, The Last +Request, not wholly unremembered; Miss Hannah F. Gould, a very +bright and agreeable writer of light verse,--all these are commended +to the keeping of that venerable public carrier, who finds his scythe +and hour-glass such a load that he generally drops the burdens +committed to his charge, after making a show of paying every possible +attention to them so long as he is kept in sight. + +It was a good time to open a portfolio. But my old one had boyhood +written on every page. A single passionate outcry when the old +warship I had read about in the broadsides that were a part of our +kitchen literature, and in the " Naval Monument," was threatened with +demolition; a few verses suggested by the sight of old Major Melville +in his cocked hat and breeches, were the best scraps that came out of +that first Portfolio, which was soon closed that it should not +interfere with the duties of a profession authorized to claim all the +time and thought which would have been otherwise expended in filling +it. + +During a quarter of a century the first Portfolio remained closed for +the greater part of the time. Only now and then it would be taken up +and opened, and something drawn from it for a special occasion, more +particularly for the annual reunions of a certain class of which I +was a member. + +In the year 1857, towards its close, the "Atlantic Monthly," which I +had the honor of naming, was started by the enterprising firm of +Phillips & Sampson, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. +He thought that I might bring something out of my old Portfolio which +would be not unacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor +old receptacle, which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had +lost its freshness, and seemed hardly presentable to the new company +expected to welcome the new-comer in the literary world of Boston, +the least provincial of American centres of learning and letters. +The gilded covering where the emblems of hope and aspiration had +looked so bright had faded; not wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold +become dim!---how was the most fine gold changed! Long devotion to +other pursuits had left little time for literature, and the waifs and +strays gathered from the old Portfolio had done little more than keep +alive the memory that such a source of supply was still in existence. +I looked at the old Portfolio, and said to myself, "Too late! too +late. This tarnished gold will never brighten, these battered covers +will stand no more wear and tear; close them, and leave them to the +spider and the book-worm." + +In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had +condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period. +When, a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the +"Saturday Club" gathered about the long table at "Parker's," such a +representation of all that was best in American literature had never +been collected within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whom +educated foreigners cared to see-leaving out of consideration +official dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects +of curiosity--were seated at that board. But the club did not yet +exist, and the "Atlantic Monthly" was an experiment. There had +already been several monthly periodicals, more or less successful and +permanent, among which "Putnam's Magazine" was conspicuous, owing its +success largely to the contributions of that very accomplished and +delightful writer, Mr. George William Curtis. That magazine, after a +somewhat prolonged and very honorable existence, had gone where all +periodicals go when they die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, +and blind recording angel whose name is Oblivion. It had so well +deserved to live that its death was a surprise and a source of +regret. Could another monthly take its place and keep it when that, +with all its attractions and excellences, had died out, and left a +blank in our periodical literature which it would be very hard to +fill as well as that had filled it? + +This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured +upon, and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn +around the scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given +myself to other studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell +insisted upon my becoming a contributor. And so, yielding to a +pressure which I could not understand, and yet found myself unable to +resist, I promised to take a part in the new venture, as an +occasional writer in the columns of the new magazine. + +That was the way in which the second Portfolio found its way to my +table, and was there opened in the autumn of the year 1857. I was +already at least + + Nel mezzo del cammin di mia, vita, + +when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little-tried paths of +what looked at first like a wilderness, a selva oscura, where, if I +did not meet the lion or the wolf, I should be sure to find the +critic, the most dangerous of the carnivores, waiting to welcome me +after his own fashion. + +The second Portfolio is closed and laid away. Perhaps it was hardly +worth while to provide and open a new one; but here it lies before +me, and I hope I may find something between its covers which will +justify me in coming once more before my old friends. But before I +open it I want to claim a little further indulgence. + +There is a subject of profound interest to almost every writer, I +might say to almost every human being. No matter what his culture or +ignorance, no matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, +the subject I refer to is one of which he rarely ceases to think, +and, if opportunity is offered, to talk. On this he is eloquent, if +on nothing else. The slow of speech becomes fluent; the torpid +listener becomes electric with vivacity, and alive all over with +interest. + +The sagacious reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. +He is accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who +has a subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the +depressing disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted +with the conversational amenities of the cordial and interesting +stranger, who, having had the misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in +the cars, or of having his pocket picked at the station, finds +himself without the means of reaching that distant home where +affluence waits for him with its luxurious welcome, but to whom for +the moment the loan of some five and twenty dollars would be a +convenience and a favor for which his heart would ache with gratitude +during the brief interval between the loan and its repayment. + +I wish to say a few words in my own person relating to some passages +in my own history, and more especially to some of the recent +experiences through which I have been passing. + +What can justify one in addressing himself to the general public as +if it were his private correspondent? There are at least three +sufficient reasons: first, if he has a story to tell that everybody +wants to hear,--if be has been shipwrecked, or has been in a battle, +or has witnessed any interesting event, and can tell anything new +about it; secondly, if he can put in fitting words any common +experiences not already well told, so that readers will say, "Why, +yes! I have had that sensation, thought, emotion, a hundred times, +but I never heard it spoken of before, and I never saw any mention of +it in print;" and thirdly, anything one likes, provided he can so +tell it as to make it interesting. + +I have no story to tell in this Introduction which can of itself +claim any general attention. My first pages relate the effect of a +certain literary experience upon myself,--a series of partial +metempsychoses of which I have been the subject. Next follows a +brief tribute to the memory of a very dear and renowned friend from +whom I have recently been parted. The rest of the Introduction will +be consecrated to the memory of my birthplace. + +I have just finished a Memoir, which will appear soon after this page +is written, and will have been the subject of criticism long before +it is in the reader's hands. The experience of thinking another +man's thoughts continuously for a long time; of living one's self +into another man's life for a month, or a year, or more, is a very +curious one. No matter how much superior to the biographer his +subject may be, the man who writes the life feels himself, in a +certain sense, on the level of the person whose life he is writing. +One cannot fight over the battles of Marengo or Austerlitz with +Napoleon without feeling as if he himself had a fractional claim to +the victory, so real seems the transfer of his personality into that +of the conqueror while he reads. Still more must this identification +of "subject" and "object" take place when one is writing of a person +whose studies or occupations are not unlike his own. + +Here are some of my metempsychoses: +Ten years ago I wrote what I called A Memorial Outline of a +remarkable student of nature. He was a born observer, and such are +far from common. He was also a man of great enthusiasm and +unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what others passed by +without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see only +pebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his +companion would poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a +prize at the end of it. Getting his single facts together with +marvellous sagacity and long-breathed patience, he arranged them, +classified them, described them, studied them in their relations, and +before those around him were aware of it the collector was an +accomplished naturalist. When--he died his collections remained, and +they still remain, as his record in the hieratic language of science. +In writing this memoir the spirit of his quiet pursuits, the even +temper they bred in him, gained possession of my own mind, so that I +seemed to look at nature through his gold-bowed spectacles, and to +move about his beautifully ordered museum as if I had myself prepared +and arranged its specimens. I felt wise with his wisdom, fair-minded +with his calm impartiality; it seemed as if for the time his placid, +observant, inquiring, keen-sighted nature "slid into my soul," and if +I had looked at myself in the glass I should almost have expected to +see the image of the Hersey professor whose life and character I was +sketching. + +A few years hater I lived over the life of another friend in writing +a Memoir of which he was the subject. I saw him, the beautiful, +bright-eyed boy, with dark, waving hair; the youthful scholar, first +at Harvard, then at Gottingen and Berlin, the friend and companion of +Bismarck; the young author, making a dash for renown as a novelist, +and showing the elements which made his failures the promise of +success in a larger field of literary labor; the delving historian, +burying his fresh young manhood in the dusty alcoves of silent +libraries, to come forth in the face of Europe and America as one of +the leading historians of the time; the diplomatist, accomplished, of +captivating presence and manners, an ardent American, and in the time +of trial an impassioned and eloquent advocate of the cause of +freedom; reaching at last the summit of his ambition as minister at +the Court of Saint James. All this I seemed to share with him as I +tracked his career from his birthplace in Dorchester, and the house +in Walnut Street where he passed his boyhood, to the palaces of +Vienna and London. And then the cruel blow which struck him from the +place he adorned; the great sorrow that darkened his later years; the +invasion of illness, a threat that warned of danger, and after a +period of invalidism, during a part of which I shared his most +intimate daily life, the sudden, hardly unwelcome, final summons. +Did not my own consciousness migrate, or seem, at least, to transfer +itself into this brilliant life history, as I traced its glowing +record? I, too, seemed to feel the delight of carrying with me, as +if they were my own, the charms of a presence which made its own +welcome everywhere. I shared his heroic toils, I partook of his +literary and social triumphs, I was honored by the marks of +distinction which gathered about him, I was wronged by the indignity +from which he suffered, mourned with him in his sorrow, and thus, +after I had been living for months with his memory, I felt as if I +should carry a part of his being with me so long as my self- +consciousness might remain imprisoned in the ponderable elements. + +The years passed away, and the influences derived from the +companionships I have spoken of had blended intimately with my own +current of being. Then there came to me a new experience in my +relations with an eminent member of the medical profession, whom I +met habitually for a long period, and to whose memory I consecrated a +few pages as a prelude to a work of his own, written under very +peculiar circumstances. He was the subject of a slow, torturing, +malignant, and almost necessarily fatal disease. Knowing well that +the mind would feed upon itself if it were not supplied with food +from without, he determined to write a treatise on a subject which +had greatly interested him, and which would oblige him to bestow much +of his time and thought upon it, if indeed he could hold out to +finish the work. During the period while he was engaged in writing +it, his wife, who had seemed in perfect health, died suddenly of +pneumonia. Physical suffering, mental distress, the prospect of +death at a near, if uncertain, time always before him, it was hard to +conceive a more terrible strain than that which he had to endure. +When, in the hour of his greatest need, his faithful companion, the +wife of many years of happy union, whose hand had smoothed his +pillow, whose voice had consoled and cheered him, was torn from him +after a few days of illness, I felt that my, friend's trial was such +that the cry of the man of many afflictions and temptations might +well have escaped from his lips: "I was at ease, but he hath broken +me asunder; he hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, +and set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about, he +cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall +upon the ground." + +I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after this crushing +blow. What a lesson he gave me of patience under sufferings which +the fearful description of the Eastern poet does not picture too +vividly! We have been taught to admire the calm philosophy of +Haller, watching his faltering pulse as he lay dying; we have heard +the words of pious resignation said to have been uttered with his +last breath by Addison: but here was a trial, not of hours, or days, +or weeks, but of months, even years, of cruel pain, and in the midst +of its thick darkness the light of love, which had burned steadily at +his bedside, was suddenly extinguished. + +There were times in which the thought would force itself upon my +consciousness, How long is the universe to look upon this dreadful +experiment of a malarious planet, with its unmeasurable freight of +suffering, its poisonous atmosphere, so sweet to breathe, so sure to +kill in a few scores of years at farthest, and its heart-breaking +woes which make even that brief space of time an eternity? There can +be but one answer that will meet this terrible question, which must +arise in every thinking nature that would fain "justify the ways of +God to men." So must it be until that + + "one far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves" + +has become a reality, and the anthem in which there is no discordant +note shall be joined by a voice from every life made "perfect through +sufferings." + +Such was the lesson into which I lived in those sad yet placid years +of companionship with my suffering and sorrowing friend, in retracing +which I seemed to find another existence mingled with my own. + +And now for many months I have been living in daily relations of +intimacy with one who seems nearer to me since he has left us than +while he was here in living form and feature. I did not know how +difficult a task I had undertaken in venturing upon a memoir of a man +whom all, or almost all, agree upon as one of the great lights of the +New World, and whom very many regard as an unpredicted Messiah. +Never before was I so forcibly reminded of Carlyle's description of +the work of a newspaper editor,--that threshing of straw already +thrice beaten by the flails of other laborers in the same field. +What could be said that had not been said of "transcendentalism" and +of him who was regarded as its prophet; of the poet whom some admired +without understanding, a few understood, or thought they did, without +admiring, and many both understood and admired,--among these there +being not a small number who went far beyond admiration, and lost +themselves in devout worship? While one exalted him as "the greatest +man that ever lived," another, a friend, famous in the world of +letters, wrote expressly to caution me against the danger of +overrating a writer whom he is content to recognize as an American +Montaigne, and nothing more. + +After finishing this Memoir, which has but just left my hands, I +would gladly have let my brain rest for a while. The wide range of +thought which belonged to the subject of the Memoir, the occasional +mysticism and the frequent tendency toward it, the sweep of +imagination and the sparkle of wit which kept his reader's mind on +the stretch, the union of prevailing good sense with exceptional +extravagances, the modest audacity of a nature that showed itself in +its naked truthfulness and was not ashamed, the feeling that I was in +the company of a sibylline intelligence which was discounting the +promises of the remote future long before they were due,--all this +made the task a grave one. But when I found myself amidst the +vortices of uncounted, various, bewildering judgments, Catholic and +Protestant, orthodox and liberal, scholarly from under the tree of +knowledge and instinctive from over the potato-hill; the passionate +enthusiasm of young adorers and the cool, if not cynical, estimate of +hardened critics, all intersecting each other as they whirled, each +around its own centre, I felt that it was indeed very difficult to +keep the faculties clear and the judgment unbiassed. + +It is a great privilege to have lived so long in the society of such +a man. "He nothing common" said, "or mean." He was always the same +pure and high-souled companion. After being with him virtue seemed +as natural to man as its opposite did according to the old +theologies. But how to let one's self down from the high level of +such a character to one's own poor standard? I trust that the +influence of this long intellectual and spiritual companionship never +absolutely leaves one who has lived in it. It may come to him in the +form of self-reproach that he falls so far short of the superior +being who has been so long the object of his contemplation. But it +also carries him at times into the other's personality, so that he +finds himself thinking thoughts that are not his own, using phrases +which he has unconsciously borrowed, writing, it may be, as nearly +like his long-studied original as Julio Romano's painting was like +Raphael's ; and all this with the unquestioning conviction that he is +talking from his own consciousness in his own natural way. So far as +tones and expressions and habits which belonged to the idiosyncrasy +of the original are borrowed by the student of his life, it is a +misfortune for the borrower. But to share the inmost consciousness +of a noble thinker, to scan one's self in the white light of a pure +and radiant soul,--this is indeed the highest form of teaching and +discipline. + +I have written these few memoirs, and I am grateful for all that they +have taught me. But let me write no more. There are but two +biographers who can tell the story of a man's or a woman's life. One +is the person himself or herself; the other is the Recording Angel. +The autobiographer cannot be trusted to tell the whole truth, though +he may tell nothing but the truth, and the Recording Angel never lets +his book go out of his own hands. As for myself, I would say to my +friends, in the Oriental phrase, "Live forever!" Yes, live forever, +and I, at least, shall not have to wrong your memories by my +imperfect record and unsatisfying commentary. + +In connection with these biographies, or memoirs, more properly, in +which I have written of my departed friends, I hope my readers will +indulge me in another personal reminiscence. I have just lost my +dear and honored contemporary of the last century. A hundred years +ago this day, December 13, 1784, died the admirable and ever to be +remembered Dr. Samuel Johnson. The year 1709 was made ponderous and +illustrious in English biography by his birth. My own humble advent +to the world of protoplasm was in the year 1809 of the present +century. Summer was just ending when those four letters, "son b." +were written under the date of my birth, August 29th. Autumn had +just begun when my great pre-contemporary entered this un-Christian +universe and was made a member of the Christian church on the same +day, for he was born and baptized on the 18th of September. + +Thus there was established a close bond of relationship between the +great English scholar and writer and myself. Year by year, and +almost month by month, my life has kept pace in this century with his +life in the last century. I had only to open my Boswell at any time, +and I knew just what Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, +was thinking and doing; what were his feelings about life; what +changes the years had wrought in his body, his mind, his feelings, +his companionships, his reputation. It was for me a kind of unison +between two instruments, both playing that old familiar air, "Life," +--one a bassoon, if you will, and the other an oaten pipe, if you +care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each other +until the players both grew old and gray. At last the thinner thread +of sound is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment rolls out its +thunder no more. + +I feel lonely now that my great companion and friend of so many years +has left me. I felt more intimately acquainted with him than I do +with many of my living friends. I can hardly remember when I did not +know him. I can see him in his bushy wig, exactly like that of the +Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper (who died in December, 1783) as Copley +painted him,--he hangs there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. +His ample coat, too, I see, with its broad flaps and many buttons and +generous cuffs, and beneath it the long, still more copiously +buttoned waistcoat, arching in front of the fine crescentic, almost +semi-lunar Falstaffian prominence, involving no less than a dozen of +the above-mentioned buttons, and the strong legs with their sturdy +calves, fitting columns of support to the massive body and solid, +capacious brain enthroned over it. I can hear him with his heavy +tread as he comes in to the Club, and a gap is widened to make room +for his portly figure. "A fine day," says Sir Joshua. "Sir," he +answers, "it seems propitious, but the atmosphere is humid and the +skies are nebulous," at which the great painter smiles, shifts his +trumpet, and takes a pinch of snuff. + +Dear old massive, deep-voiced dogmatist and hypochondriac of the +eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, +between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and +dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and +the snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven +the shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper +in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly +know what I shall find when it is opened. + +Yes, my life is a little less precious to me since I have lost that +dear old friend; and when the funeral train moves to Westminster +Abbey next Saturday, for I feel as if this were 1784, and not 1884,-- +I seem to find myself following the hearse, one of the silent +mourners. + +Among the events which have rendered the past year memorable to me +has been the demolition of that venerable and interesting old +dwelling-house, precious for its intimate association with the +earliest stages of the war of the Revolution, and sacred to me as my +birthplace and the home of my boyhood. + +The "Old Gambrel-roofed House" exists no longer. I remember saying +something, in one of a series of papers published long ago, about the +experience of dying out of a house,--of leaving it forever, as the +soul dies out of the body. We may die out of many houses, but the +house itself can die but once; and so real is the life of a house to +one who has dwelt in it, more especially the life of the house which +held him in dreamy infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate +youth,--so real, I say, is its life, that it seems as if something +like a soul of it must outlast its perishing frame. + +The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed House was, I am ready to +admit, a case of justifiable domicide. Not the less was it to be +deplored by all who love the memories of the past. With its +destruction are obliterated some of the footprints of the heroes and +martyrs who took the first steps in the long and bloody march which +led us through the wilderness to the promised land of independent +nationality. Personally, I have a right to mourn for it as a part of +my life gone from me. My private grief for its loss would be a +matter for my solitary digestion, were it not that the experience +through which I have just passed is one so familiar to my fellow- +countrymen that, in telling my own reflections and feelings, I am +repeating those of great numbers of men and women who have had the +misfortune to outlive their birthplace. + +It is a great blessing to be born surrounded by a natural horizon. +The Old Gambrel-roofed House could not boast an unbroken ring of +natural objects encircling it. Northerly it looked upon its own +outbuildings and some unpretending two-story houses which had been +its neighbors for a century and more. To the south of it the square +brick dormitories and the belfried hall of the university helped to +shut out the distant view. But the west windows gave a broad outlook +across the common, beyond which the historical "Washington elm" and +two companions in line with it, spread their leaves in summer and +their networks in winter. And far away rose the hills that bounded +the view, with the glimmer here and there of the white walls or the +illuminated casements of some embowered, half-hidden villa. +Eastwardly also, the prospect was, in my earlier remembrance, widely +open, and I have frequently seen the sunlit sails gliding along as if +through the level fields, for no water was visible. So there were +broad expanses on two sides at least, for my imagination to wander +over. + +I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's horizon with us +all our days. Among these western wooded hills my day-dreams built +their fairy palaces, and even now, as I look at them from my library +window, across the estuary of the Charles, I find myself in the +familiar home of my early visions. The "clouds of glory" which we +trail with us in after life need not be traced to a pre-natal state. +There is enough to account for them in that unconsciously remembered +period of existence before we have learned the hard limitations of +real life. Those earliest months in which we lived in sensations +without words, and ideas not fettered in sentences, have all the +freshness of proofs of an engraving "before the letter." I am very +thankful that the first part of my life was not passed shut in +between high walls and treading the unimpressible and unsympathetic +pavement. + +Our university town was very much like the real country, in those +days of which I am thinking. There were plenty of huckleberries and +blueberries within half a mile of the house. Blackberries ripened in +the fields, acorns and shagbarks dropped from the trees, squirrels +ran among the branches, and not rarely the hen-hawk might be seen +circling over the barnyard. Still another rural element was not +wanting, in the form of that far-diffused, infragrant effluvium, +which, diluted by a good half mile of pure atmosphere, is no longer +odious, nay is positively agreeable, to many who have long known it, +though its source and centre has an unenviable reputation. I need +not name the animal whose Parthian warfare terrifies and puts to +flight the mightiest hunter that ever roused the tiger from his +jungle or faced the lion of the desert. Strange as it may seem, an +aerial hint of his personality in the far distance always awakens in +my mind pleasant remembrances and tender reflections. A whole +neighborhood rises up before me: the barn, with its haymow, where the +hens laid their eggs to hatch, and we boys hid our apples to ripen, +both occasionally illustrating the sic vos non vobis; the shed, where +the annual Tragedy of the Pig was acted with a realism that made +Salvini's Othello seem but a pale counterfeit; the rickety old +outhouse, with the "corn-chamber" which the mice knew so well; the +paved yard, with its open gutter,--these and how much else come up at +the hint of my far-off friend, who is my very near enemy. Nothing is +more familiar than the power of smell in reviving old memories. +There was that quite different fragrance of the wood-house, the smell +of fresh sawdust. It comes back to me now, and with it the hiss of +the saw; the tumble of the divorced logs which God put together and +man has just put asunder; the coming down of the axe and the hah! +that helped it,--the straight-grained stick opening at the first +appeal of the implement as if it were a pleasure, and the stick with +a knot in the middle of it that mocked the blows and the hahs! until +the beetle and wedge made it listen to reason,--there are just such +straight-grained and just such knotty men and women. All this passes +through my mind while Biddy, whose parlor-name is Angela, contents +herself with exclaiming "egh!*******!" + +How different distances were in those young days of which I am +thinking! From the old house to the old yellow meeting-house, where +the head of the family preached and the limbs of the family listened, +was not much more than two or three times the width of Commonwealth +Avenue. But of a hot summer's afternoon, after having already heard +one sermon, which could not in the nature of things have the charm of +novelty of presentation to the members of the home circle, and the +theology of which was not too clear to tender apprehensions; with +three hymns more or less lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got +into voice by many preliminary snuffles and other expiratory efforts, +and accompanied by the snort of a huge bassviol which wallowed +through the tune like a hippopotamus, with other exercises of the +customary character,--after all this in the forenoon, the afternoon +walk to the meeting-house in the hot sun counted for as much, in my +childish dead-reckoning, as from old Israel Porter's in Cambridge to +the Exchange Coffeehouse in Boston did in after years. It takes a +good while to measure the radius of the circle that is about us, for +the moon seems at first as near as the watchface. Who knows but +that, after a certain number of ages, the planet we live on may seem +to us no bigger than our neighbor Venus appeared when she passed +before the sun a few months ago, looking as if we could take her +between our thumb and finger, like a bullet or a marble? And time, +too; how long was it from the serious sunrise to the joyous "sun- +down" of an old-fashioned, puritanical, judaical first day of the +week, which a pious fraud christened "the Sabbath"? Was it a +fortnight, as we now reckon duration, or only a week? Curious +entities, or non-entities, space and tithe? When you see a +metaphysician trying to wash his hands of them and get rid of these +accidents, so as to lay his dry, clean palm on the absolute, does +it not remind you of the hopeless task of changing the color of the +blackamoor by a similar proceeding? For space is the fluid in which +he is washing, and time is the soap which he is using up in the +process, and he cannot get free from them until he can wash himself +in a mental vacuum. + +In my reference to the old house in a former paper, published years +ago, I said, + +"By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant itself +on this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung so +tenaciously to the place and its habitations will have died with +those who cherished them." + +What strides the great University has taken since those words were +written! During all my early years our old Harvard Alma Mater sat +still and lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all +at once, like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her +pedestal. The fall of that "stony foot" has effected a miracle like +the harp that Orpheus played, like the teeth which Cadmus sowed. The +plain where the moose and the bear were wandering while Shakespeare +was writing Hamlet, where a few plain dormitories and other needed +buildings were scattered about in my school-boy days, groans under +the weight of the massive edifices which have sprung up all around +them, crowned by the tower of that noble structure which stands in +full view before me as I lift my eyes from the portfolio on the back +of which I am now writing. + +For I must be permitted to remind you that I have not yet opened it. +I have told you that I have just finished a long memoir, and that it +has cost me no little labor to overcome some of its difficulties,--if +I have overcome them, which others must decide. And I feel exactly +as honest Dobbin feels when his harness is slipped off after a long +journey with a good deal of up-hill work. He wants to rest a little, +then to feed a little; then, if you will turn him loose in the +pasture, he wants to roll. I have left my starry and ethereal +companionship,--not for a long time, I hope, for it has lifted me +above my common self, but for a while. And now I want, so to speak, +to roll in the grass and among the dandelions with the other +pachyderms. So I have kept to the outside of the portfolio as yet, +and am disporting myself in reminiscences, and fancies, and vagaries, +and parentheses. + +How well I understand the feeling which led the Pisans to load their +vessels with earth from the Holy Land, and fill the area of the Campo +Santo with that sacred soil! The old house stood upon about as +perverse a little patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved +earth-worm. It was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. +The rustic aid-de-camps of the household used to aver that all +fertilizing matters "leached" through it. I tried to disprove their +assertion by gorging it with the best of terrestrial nourishment, +until I became convinced that I was feeding the tea-plants of China, +and then I gave over the attempt. And yet I did love, and do love, +that arid patch of ground. I wonder if a single flower could not be +made to grow in a pot of earth from that Campo Santo of my childhood! +One noble product of nature did not refuse to flourish there,--the +tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, many-jointed, generous maize +or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and defies the blaze of our +shrivelling summer. What child but loves to wander in its forest- +like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and with the lofty tassels +tossing their heads high above him! There are two aspects of the +cornfield which always impress my imagination: the first when it has +reached its full growth, and its ordered ranks look like an army on +the march with its plumed and bannered battalions; the second when, +after the battle of the harvest, the girdled stacks stand on the +field of slaughter like so many ragged Niobes,--say rather like the +crazy widows and daughters of the dead soldiery. + +Once more let us come back to the old house. It was far along in its +second century when the edict went forth that it must stand no +longer. + +The natural death of a house is very much like that of one of its +human tenants. The roof is the first part to show the distinct signs +of age. Slates and tiles loosen and at last slide off, and leave +bald the boards that supported them; shingles darken and decay, and +soon the garret or the attic lets in the rain and the snow; by and by +the beams sag, the floors warp, the walls crack, the paper peels +away, the ceilings scale off and fall, the windows are crusted with +clinging dust, the doors drop from their rusted hinges, the winds +come in without knocking and howl their cruel death-songs through the +empty rooms and passages, and at last there comes a crash, a great +cloud of dust rises, and the home that had been the shelter of +generation after generation finds its grave in its own cellar. Only +the chimney remains as its monument. Slowly, little by little, the +patient solvents that find nothing too hard for their chemistry pick +out the mortar from between the bricks; at last a mighty wind roars +around it and rushes against it, and the monumental relic crashes +down among the wrecks it has long survived. So dies a human +habitation left to natural decay, all that was seen above the surface +of the soil sinking gradually below it, + + Till naught remains the saddening tale to tell + Save home's last wrecks, the cellar and the well. + +But if this sight is saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling +fall by the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that +has kept out a thousand storms, the tearing off of the once +ornamental woodwork, the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the +murderous blows of the axe, the progressive ruin, which ends by +rending all the joints asunder and flinging the tenoned and mortised +timbers into heaps that will be sawed and split to warm some new +habitation as firewood,--what a brutal act of destruction it seems! + +Why should I go over the old house again, having already described it +more than ten years ago? Alas! how many remember anything they read +but once, and so long ago as that? How many would find it out if one +should say over in the same words that which he said in the last +decade? But there is really no need of telling the story a second +time, for it can be found by those who are curious enough to look it +up in a volume of which it occupies the opening chapter. + +In order, however, to save any inquisitive reader that trouble, let +me remind him that the old house was General Ward's headquarters at +the breaking out of the Revolution; that the plan for fortifying +Bunker's Hill was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower +room, the floor of which was covered with dents, made, it was +alleged, by the butts of the soldiers' muskets. In that house, too, +General Warren probably passed the night before the Bunker Hill +battle, and over its threshold must the stately figure of Washington +have often cast its shadow. + +But the house in which one drew his first breath, and where he one +day came into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a +little universe with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent +identity, with the terrible responsibility of a separate, +independent, inalienable existence,--that house does not ask for any +historical associations to make it the centre of the earth for him. + +If there is any person in the world to be envied, it is the one who +is born to an ancient estate, with a long line of family traditions +and the means in his hands of shaping his mansion and his domain to +his own taste, without losing sight of all the characteristic +features which surrounded his earliest years. The American is, for +the most part, a nomad, who pulls down his house as the Tartar pulls +up his tent-poles. If I had an ideal life to plan for him it would +be something like this: + +His grandfather should be a wise, scholarly, large-brained, large- +hearted country minister, from whom he should inherit the temperament +that predisposes to cheerfulness and enjoyment, with the finer +instincts which direct life to noble aims and make it rich with the +gratification of pure and elevated tastes and the carrying out of +plans for the good of his neighbors and his fellow-creatures. He +should, if possible, have been born, at any rate have passed some of +his early years, or a large part of them, under the roof of the good +old minister. His father should be, we will say, a business man in +one of our great cities,--a generous manipulator of millions, some of +which have adhered to his private fortunes, in spite of his liberal +use of his means. His heir, our ideally placed American, shall take +possession of the old house, the home of his earliest memories, and +preserve it sacredly, not exactly like the Santa Casa, but, as nearly +as may be, just as he remembers it. He can add as many acres as he +will to the narrow house-lot. He can build a grand mansion for +himself, if he chooses, in the not distant neighborhood. But the old +house, and all immediately round it, shall be as he recollects it +when be had to stretch his little arm up to reach the door-handles. +Then, having well provided for his own household, himself included, +let him become the providence of the village or the town where be +finds himself during at least a portion of every year. Its schools, +its library, its poor,--and perhaps the new clergyman who has +succeeded his grandfather's successor may be one of them,--all its +interests, he shall make his own. And from this centre his +beneficence shall radiate so far that all who hear of his wealth +shall also hear of him as a friend to his race. + +Is not this a pleasing programme? Wealth is a steep hill, which the +father climbs slowly and the son often tumbles down precipitately; +but there is a table-land on a level with it, which may be found by +those who do not lose their head in looking down from its sharply +cloven summit.---Our dangerously rich men can make themselves hated, +held as enemies of the race, or beloved and recognized as its +benefactors. The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the +gold-pointed lightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive +element may be drawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be +repeated too often that the safety of great wealth with us lies in +obedience to the new version of the Old World axiom, RICHESS oblige. + + + + + + +THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + + + +I + +GETTING READY. + +It is impossible to begin a story which must of necessity tax the +powers of belief of readers unacquainted with the class of facts to +which its central point of interest belongs without some words in the +nature of preparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember that Sarah +Battle insisted on a clean-swept hearth before sitting down to her +favorite game of whist. + +The narrator wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, in these opening +pages, before sitting down to tell his story. He does not intend to +frighten the reader away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to +warn him against hasty judgments when facts are related which are not +within the range of every-day experience. Did he ever see the +Siamese twins, or any pair like them? Probably not, yet he feels +sure that Chang and Eng really existed; and if he has taken the +trouble to inquire, he has satisfied himself that similar cases have +been recorded by credible witnesses, though at long intervals and in +countries far apart from each other. + +This is the first sweep of the brush, to clear the hearth of the +skepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before we +can begin to tell and to listen in peace with ourselves and each +other. + +One more stroke of the brush is needed before the stage will be ready +for the chief characters and the leading circumstances to which the +reader's attention is invited. If the principal personages made +their entrance at once, the reader would have to create for himself +the whole scenery of their surrounding conditions. In point of fact, +no matter how a story is begun, many of its readers have already +shaped its chief actors out of any hint the author may have dropped, +and provided from their own resources a locality and a set of outward +conditions to environ these imagined personalities. These are all to +be brushed away, and the actual surroundings of the subject of the +narrative represented as they were, at the risk of detaining the +reader a little while from the events most likely to interest him. +The choicest egg that ever was laid was not so big as the nest that +held it. If a story were so interesting that a maiden would rather +hear it than listen to the praise of her own beauty, or a poet would +rather read it than recite his own verses, still it would have to be +wrapped in some tissue of circumstance, or it would lose half its +effectiveness. + +It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred to in this +narrative by looking into the first gazetteer that is at hand. +Recent experiences have shown that it is unsafe to be too exact in +designating places and the people who live in them. There are, it +may be added, so many advertisements disguised under the form of +stories and other literary productions that one naturally desires to +avoid the suspicion of being employed by the enterprising proprietors +of this or that celebrated resort to use his gifts for their especial +benefit. There are no doubt many persons who remember the old sign +and the old tavern and its four chief personages presently to be +mentioned. It is to be hoped that they will not furnish the public +with a key to this narrative, and perhaps bring trouble to the writer +of it, as has happened to other authors. If the real names are a +little altered, it need not interfere with the important facts +relating to those who bear them. It might not be safe to tell a +damaging story about John or James Smythe; but if the slight change +is made of spelling the name Smith, the Smythes would never think of +bringing an action, as if the allusion related to any of them. The +same gulf of family distinction separates the Thompsons with a p from +the Thomsons without that letter. + +There are few pleasanter places in the Northern States for a summer +residence than that known from the first period of its settlement by +the name of Arrowhead Village. The Indians had found it out, as the +relics they left behind them abundantly testified. The commonest of +these were those chipped stones which are the medals of barbarism, +and from Which the place took its name,--the heads of arrows, of +various sizes, material, and patterns: some small enough for killing +fish and little birds, some large enough for such game as the moose +and the bear, to say nothing of the hostile Indian and the white +settler; some of flint, now and then one of white quartz, and others +of variously colored jasper. The Indians must have lived here for +many generations, and it must have been a kind of factory village of +the stone age,--which lasted up to near the present time, if we may +judge from the fact that many of these relics are met with close to +the surface of the ground. + +No wonder they found this a pleasant residence, for it is to-day one +of the most attractive of all summer resorts; so inviting, indeed, +that those who know it do not like to say too much about it, lest the +swarms of tourists should make it unendurable to those who love it +for itself, and not as a centre of fashionable display and extramural +cockneyism. + +There is the lake, in the first place,--Cedar Lake,--about five miles +long, and from half a mile to a mile and a half wide, stretching from +north to south. Near the northern extremity are the buildings of +Stoughton University, a flourishing young college with an ambitious +name, but well equipped and promising, the grounds of which reach the +water. At the southern end of the lake are the edifices of the +Corinna Institute, a favorite school for young ladies, where large +numbers of the daughters of America are fitted, so far as education +can do it, for all stations in life, from camping out with a husband +at the mines in Nevada to acting the part of chief lady of the land +in the White House at Washington. + +Midway between the two extremities, on the eastern shore of the lake, +is a valley between two hills, which come down to the very edge of +the lake, leaving only room enough for a road between their base and +the water. This valley, half a mile in width, has been long settled, +and here for a century or more has stood the old Anchor Tavern. A +famous place it was so long as its sign swung at the side of the +road: famous for its landlord, portly, paternal, whose welcome to a +guest that looked worthy of the attention was like that of a parent +to a returning prodigal, and whose parting words were almost as good +as a marriage benediction; famous for its landlady, ample in person, +motherly, seeing to the whole household with her own eyes, mistress +of all culinary secrets that Northern kitchens are most proud of; +famous also for its ancient servant, as city people would call her, +--help, as she was called in the tavern and would have called +herself,--the unchanging, seemingly immortal Miranda, who cared for +the guests as if she were their nursing mother, and pressed the +specially favorite delicacies on their attention as a connoisseur +calls the wandering eyes of an amateur to the beauties of a picture. +Who that has ever been at the old Anchor Tavern forgets Miranda's + + "A little of this fricassee?-it is ver-y nice;" + +or + + "Some of these cakes? You will find them ver-y good." + +Nor would it be just to memory to forget that other notable and noted +member of the household,--the unsleeping, unresting, omnipresent +Pushee, ready for everybody and everything, everywhere within the +limits of the establishment at all hours of the day and night. He +fed, nobody could say accurately when or where. There were rumors of +a "bunk," in which he lay down with his clothes on, but he seemed to +be always wide awake, and at the service of as many guest, at once as +if there had been half a dozen of him. + +So much for old reminiscences. + +The landlord of the Anchor Tavern had taken down his sign. He had +had the house thoroughly renovated and furnished it anew, and kept it +open in summer for a few boarders. It happened more than once that +the summer boarders were so much pleased with the place that they +stayed on through the autumn, and some of them through the winter. +The attractions of the village were really remarkable. Boating in +summer, and skating in winter; ice-boats, too, which the wild ducks +could hardly keep up with; fishing, for which the lake was renowned; +varied and beautiful walks through the valley and up the hillsides; +houses sheltered from the north and northeasterly winds, and +refreshed in the hot summer days by the breeze which came over the +water,--all this made the frame for a pleasing picture of rest and +happiness. But there was a great deal more than this. There was a +fine library in the little village, presented and richly endowed by a +wealthy native of the place. There was a small permanent population +of a superior character to that of an everyday country town; there +was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a good-hearted rector, +broad enough for the Bishop of the diocese to be a little afraid of, +and hospitable to all outsiders, of whom, in the summer season, there +were always some who wanted a place of worship to keep their religion +from dying out during the heathen months, while the shepherds of the +flocks to which they belonged were away from their empty folds. + +What most helped to keep the place alive all through the year was the +frequent coming together of the members of a certain literary +association. Some time before the tavern took down its sign the +landlord had built a hall, where many a ball had been held, to which +the young folks of all the country round had resorted. It was still +sometimes used for similar occasions, but it was especially notable +as being the place of meeting of the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +This association, the name of which might be invidiously interpreted +as signifying that its members knew everything, had no such +pretensions, but, as its Constitution said very plainly and modestly, +held itself open to accept knowledge on any and all subjects from +such as had knowledge to impart. Its President was the rector of the +little chapel, a man who, in spite of the Thirty-Nine Articles, could +stand fire from the widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without +flinching or losing his temper. The hall of the old Anchor Tavern +was a convenient place of meeting for the students and instructors of +the University and the Institute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes +in carriage-loads, sometimes in processions of skaters, they came to +the meetings in Pansophian Hall, as it was now commonly called. + +These meetings had grown to be occasions of great interest. It was +customary to have papers written by members of the Society, for the +most part, but now and then by friends of the members, sometimes by +the students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer instances +by anonymous personages, whose papers, having been looked over and +discussed by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thought +worth listening to. The variety of topics considered was very great. +The young ladies of the village and the Institute had their favorite +subjects, the young gentlemen a different set of topics, and the +occasional outside contributors their own; so that one who happened +to be admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was going to hear +an account of recent arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom +of the will, or a psychological experience, or a story, or even a +poem. + +Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating +to the true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The +most conflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young +ladies and some of the University students were strong in defence of +all the "woman's rights" doctrines. Some of these young people were +extreme in their views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea +and Queen Elizabeth, until they were ready, if they could get the +chance, to vote for a woman as President of the United States or as +General of the United States Army. They were even disposed to assert +the physical equality of woman to man, on the strength of the rather +questionable history of the Amazons, and especially of the story, +believed to be authentic, of the female body-guard of the King of +Dahomey,--females frightful enough to need no other weapon than their +looks to scare off an army of Cossacks. + +Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the Corinna +Institute, was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It +was rather singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of +this extreme doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped with +brain than muscles. In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed, +long-eyelashed, slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; +looking almost like a child at an age when many of the girls had +reached their full stature and proportions. In her studies she was +so far in advance of her different classes that there was always a +wide gap between her and the second scholar. So fatal to all rivalry +had she proved herself that she passed under the school name of The +Terror. She learned so easily that she undervalued her own +extraordinary gifts, and felt the deepest admiration for those of her +friends endowed with faculties of an entirely different and almost +opposite nature. After sitting at her desk until her head was hot +and her feet were like ice, she would go and look at the blooming +young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, and feel as if +she would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics and strange +tongues and history, all those accomplishments that made her the +encyclopaedia of every class she belonged to, if she could go through +the series of difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw her +schoolmates delighting. + +One among them, especially, was the object of her admiration, as she +was of all who knew her exceptional powers in the line for which +nature had specially organized her. All the physical perfections +which Miss Lurida had missed had been united in Miss Euthymia Tower, +whose school name was The Wonder. Though of full womanly stature, +there were several taller girls of her age. While all her contours +and all her movements betrayed a fine muscular development, there was +no lack of proportion, and her finely shaped hands and feet showed +that her organization was one of those carefully finished +masterpieces of nature which sculptors are always in search of, and +find it hard to detect among the imperfect products of the living +laboratory. + +This girl of eighteen was more famous than she cared to be for her +performances in the gymnasium. She commonly contented herself with +the same exercises that her companions were accustomed to. Only her +dumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and gracefully, were too +heavy for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from the +floor. She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be +checked in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at +the University came over to the Institute now and then, and it was a +source of great excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in +which the young lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and +skill in managing herself in the accomplishment of feats which looked +impossible at first sight. How often The Terror had thought to +herself that she would gladly give up all her knowledge of Greek and +the differential and integral calculus if she could only perform the +least of those feats which were mere play to The Wonder! Miss +Euthymia was not behind the rest in her attainments in classical or +mathematical knowledge, and she was one of the very best students in +the out-door branches,--botany, mineralogy, sketching from nature,-- +to be found among the scholars of the Institute. + +There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of the young ladies, of +which Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor +little Lurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when +there were many boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere +feather-weight, and quick-witted enough to serve well in the +important office where brains are more needed than muscle. + +There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the University, and +rowed by a picked crew of stalwart young fellows. The bow oar and +captain of the University crew was a powerful young man, who, like +the captain of the girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He had had one +or two quiet trials with Miss Euthymia, in which, according to the +ultras of the woman's rights party, he had not vindicated the +superiority of his sex in the way which might have been expected. +Indeed, it was claimed that he let a cannon-ball drop when he ought +to have caught it, and it was not disputed that he had been +ingloriously knocked over by a sand-bag projected by the strong arms +of the young maiden. This was of course a story that was widely told +and laughingly listened to, and the captain of the University crew +had become a little sensitive on the subject. When there was a talk, +therefore, about a race between the champion boats of the two +institutions there was immense excitement in both of them, as well as +among the members of the Pansophian Society and all the good people +of the village. + +There were many objections to be overcome. Some thought it +unladylike for the young maidens to take part in a competition which +must attract many lookers-on, and which it seemed to them very +hoidenish to venture upon. Some said it was a shame to let a crew of +girls try their strength against an equal number of powerful young +men. These objections were offset by the advocates of the race by +the following arguments. They maintained that it was no more +hoidenish to row a boat than it was to take a part in the calisthenic +exercises, and that the girls had nothing to do with the young men's +boat, except to keep as much ahead of it as possible. As to +strength, the woman's righters believed that, weight for weight, +their crew was as strong as the other, and of course due allowance +would be made for the difference of weight and all other accidental +hindrances. It was time to test the boasted superiority of masculine +muscle. Here was a chance. If the girls beat, the whole country +would know it, and after that female suffrage would be only a +question of time. Such was the conclusion, from rather insufficient +premises, it must be confessed; but if nature does nothing per +saltum,--by jumps,--as the old adage has it, youth is very apt to +take long leaps from a fact to a possible sequel or consequence. So +it had come about that a contest between the two boat-crews was +looked forward to with an interest almost equal to that with which +the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii was regarded. + +The terms had been at last arranged between the two crews, after +cautious protocols and many diplomatic discussions. It was so novel +in its character that it naturally took a good deal of time to adjust +it in such a way as to be fair to both parties. The course must not +be too long for the lighter and weaker crew, for the staying power of +the young persons who made it up could not be safely reckoned upon. +A certain advantage must be allowed them at the start, and this was a +delicate matter to settle. The weather was another important +consideration. June would be early enough, in all probability, and +if the lake should be tolerably smooth the grand affair might come +off some time in that month. Any roughness of the water would be +unfavorable to the weaker crew. The rowing-course was on the eastern +side of the lake, the starting-point being opposite the Anchor +Tavern; from that three quarters of a mile to the south, where the +turning-stake was fixed, so that the whole course of one mile and a +half would bring the boats back to their starting-point. + +The race was to be between the Algonquin, eight-oared boat with +outriggers, rowed by young men, students of Stoughton University, and +the Atalanta, also eight-oared and outrigger boat, by young ladies +from the Corinna Institute. Their boat was three inches wider than +the other, for various sufficient reasons, one of which was to make +it a little less likely to go over and throw its crew into the water, +which was a sound precaution, though all the girls could swim, and +one at least, the bow oar, was a famous swimmer, who had pulled a +drowning man out of the water after a hard struggle to keep him from +carrying her down with him. + +Though the coming trial had not been advertised in the papers, so as +to draw together a rabble of betting men and ill-conditioned lookers- +on, there was a considerable gathering, made up chiefly of the +villagers and the students of the two institutions. Among them were +a few who were disposed to add to their interest in the trial by +small wagers. The bets were rather in favor of the "Quins," as the +University boat was commonly called, except where the natural +sympathy of the young ladies or the gallantry of some of the young +men led them to risk their gloves or cigars, or whatever it might be, +on the Atalantas. The elements of judgment were these: average +weight of the Algonquins one hundred and sixty-five pounds; average +weight of the Atalantas, one hundred and forty-eight pounds; skill in +practice about equal; advantage of the narrow boat equal to three +lengths; whole distance allowed the Atalantas eight lengths,--a long +stretch to be made up in a mile and a half. + +And so both crews began practising for the grand trial. + + + + +II + +THE BOAT-RACE. + +The 10th of June was a delicious summer day, rather warm, but still +and bright. The water was smooth, and the crews were in the best +possible condition. All was expectation, and for some time nothing +but expectation. No boat-race or regatta ever began at the time +appointed for the start. Somebody breaks an oar, or somebody fails +to appear in season, or something is the matter with a seat or an +outrigger; or if there is no such excuse, the crew of one or both or +all the boats to take part in the race must paddle about to get +themselves ready for work, to the infinite weariness of all the +spectators, who naturally ask why all this getting ready is not +attended to beforehand. The Algonquins wore plain gray flannel suits +and white caps. The young ladies were all in dark blue dresses, +touched up with a red ribbon here and there, and wore light straw +hats. The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the last to step on +board. As she took her place she carefully deposited at her feet a +white handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps a +sponge, in case the boat should take in water. + +At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook where she lay,-- +long, narrow, shining, swift as a pickerel when he darts from the +reedy shore. It was a beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows +in their close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, bending +their backs for the stroke and recovering, as if they were parts of a +single machine. + +"The gals can't stan' it agin them fellers," said the old blacksmith +from the village. + +"You wait till the gals get a-goin'," said the carpenter, who had +often worked in the gymnasium of the Corinna Institute, and knew +something of their muscular accomplishments. "Y' ought to see 'em +climb ropes, and swing dumb-bells, and pull in them rowin'-machines. +Ask Jake there whether they can't row a mild in double-quick time,-- +he knows all abaout it." + +Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a freshwater fisherman in a +country village is inspector-general of all that goes on out-of- +doors, being a lazy, wandering sort of fellow, whose study of the +habits and habitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of +observation, just as dealing in horses is an education of certain +faculties, and breeds a race of men peculiarly cunning, suspicious, +wary, and wide awake, with a rhetoric of appreciation and +depreciation all its own. + +Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and delivered himself to the +following effect: + +"Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I've seed 'em both often enough +when they was practisin', an' I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaout +neither on 'em. But them bats is all-fired long, 'n' eight on 'em +stretched in a straight line eendways makes a consid'able piece aout +'f a mile 'n' a haaf. I'd bate on them gals if it wa'n't that them +fellers is naterally longer winded, as the gals 'll find aout by the +time they git raound the stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. I'll go +ye a quarter on the pahnts agin the petticoats." + +The fresh-water fisherman had expressed the prevailing belief that +the young ladies were overmatched. Still there were not wanting +those who thought the advantage allowed the "Lantas," as they called +the Corinna boatcrew, was too great, and that it would be impossible +for the "Quins" to make it up and go by them. + +The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. +They appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, +mettlesome as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, +disciplined to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler +pulls his pair of oars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter +fifty cents. No takers. + +Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to the south, looking +for the Atalanta. A clump of trees hid the edge of the lake along +which the Corinna's boat was stealing towards the starting-point. +Presently the long shell swept into view, with its blooming rowers, +who, with their ample dresses, seemed to fill it almost as full as +Raphael fills his skiff on the edge of the Lake of Galilee. But how +steadily the Atalanta came on!---no rocking, no splashing, no +apparent strain; the bow oar turning to look ahead every now and +then, and watching her course, which seemed to be straight as an +arrow, the beat of the strokes as true and regular as the pulse of +the healthiest rower among them all. And if the sight of the other +boat and its crew was beautiful, how lovely was the look of this! +Eight young girls,--young ladies, for those who prefer that more +dignified and less attractive expression,--all in the flush of youth, +all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower +alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar +dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; +every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was +cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were +naturally the loudest, as the gallantry of one sex and the clear, +high voices of the other gave it life and vigor. + +"Take your places!" shouted the umpire, five minutes before the half +hour. The two boats felt their way slowly and cautiously to their +positions, which had been determined by careful measurement. After a +little backing and filling they got into line, at the proper distance +from each other, and sat motionless, their bodies bent forward, their +arms outstretched, their oars in the water, waiting for the word. + +"Go!" shouted the umpire. + +Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her leaped the Algonquin, +her oars bending like so many long Indian bows as their blades +flashed through the water. + +"A stern chase is a long chase," especially when one craft is a great +distance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible +for the rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the +Algonquin kept gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That was +the question. As the boats got farther and farther away, it became +more and more difficult to determine what change there was in the +interval between them. But when they came to rounding the stake it +was easier to guess at the amount of space which had been gained. It +was clear that something like half the distance, four lengths, as +nearly as could be estimated, had been made up in rowing the first +three quarters of a mile. Could the Algonquins do a little better +than this in the second half of the race-course, they would be sure +of winning. + +The boats had turned the stake, and were coming in rapidly. Every +minute the University boat was getting nearer the other. + +"Go it, Quins!" shouted the students. + +"Pull away, Lantas!" screamed the girls, who were crowding down to +the edge of the water. + +Nearer,--nearer,--the rear boat is pressing the other more and more +closely,--a few more strokes, and they will be even, for there is but +one length between them, and thirty rods will carry them to the line. +It looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow oar of the Algonquin +turns his head. He sees the little coxswain leaning forward at every +stroke, as if her trivial weight were of such mighty consequence,-- +but a few ounces might turn the scale of victory. As he turned he +got a glimpse of the stroke oar of the Atalanta. What a flash of +loveliness it was! Her face was like the reddest of June roses, with +the heat and the strain and the passion of expected triumph. The +upper button of her close-fitting flannel suit had strangled her as +her bosom heaved with exertion, and it had given way before the +fierce clutch she made at it. The bow oar was a staunch and steady +rower, but he was human. The blade of his oar lingered in the water; +a little more and he would have caught a crab, and perhaps lost the +race by his momentary bewilderment. + +The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and nervousness of a +Derby three-year-old, felt the slight check, and all her men bent +more vigorously to their oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and +made a spurt to keep their lead and gain upon it if they could. It +was of no use. The strong arms of the young men were too much for +the young maidens; only a few lengths remained to be rowed, and they +would certainly pass the Atalanta before she could reach the line. + +The little coxswain saw that it was all up with the girls' crew if +she could not save them by some strategic device. + + "Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?" + +she whispered to herself,--for The Terror remembered her Virgil as +she did everything else she ever studied. As she stooped, she lifted +the handkerchief at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. +"Look!" she cried, and flung it just forward of the track of the +Algonquin. The captain of the University boat turned his head, and +there was the lovely vision which had a moment before bewitched him. +The owner of all that loveliness must, he thought, have flung the +bouquet. It was a challenge: how could he be such a coward as to +decline accepting it + +He was sure he could win the race now, and he would sweep past the +line in triumph with the great bunch of flowers at the stem of his +boat, proud as Van Tromp in the British channel with the broom at his +mast-head. + +He turned the boat's head a little by backing water. He came up with +the floating flowers, and near enough to reach them. He stooped and +snatched them up, with the loss perhaps of a second in all,--no more. +He felt sure of his victory. + +How can one tell the story of the finish in cold-blooded preterites? +Are we not there ourselves? Are not our muscles straining with those +of these sixteen young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their +nerves all tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, all +their life concentrating itself in this passionate moment of supreme +effort? No! We are seeing, not telling about what somebody else +once saw! + +--The bow of the Algonquin passes the stern of the Atalanta! + +--The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the middle of the +Atalanta! + +--Three more lengths' rowing and the college crew will pass the +girls! + +--"Hurrah for the Quins!" The Algonquin ranges up alongside of the +Atalanta! + +"Through with her! "shouts the captain of the Algonquin. + +"Now, girls!" shrieks the captain of the Atalanta. + +They near the line, every rower straining desperately, almost madly. + +--Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta's captain, and up flash its +splintered fragments, as the stem of her boat springs past the line, +eighteen inches at least ahead of the Algonquin. + +Hooraw for the Lantas! Hooraw for the Girls! Hooraw for the +Institoot! shout a hundred voices. + +"Hurrah for woman's rights and female suffrage!" pipes the small +voice of The Terror, and there is loud laughing and cheering all +round. + +She had not studied her classical dictionary and her mythology for +nothing. "I have paid off one old score," she said. "Set down my +damask roses against the golden apples of Hippomenes!" + +It was that one second lost in snatching up the bouquet which gave +the race to the Atalantas. + + + + +III + +THE WHITE CANOE. + +While the two boats were racing, other boats with lookers-on in them +were rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course. The +scene on the water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats +were, many of them, acquainted with each other. There was a good +deal of lively talk until the race became too exciting. Then many +fell silent, until, as the boats neared the line, and still more as +they crossed it, the shouts burst forth which showed how a cramp of +attention finds its natural relief in a fit of convulsive +exclamation. + +But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birchbark canoe was to +be seen, in which sat a young man, who paddled it skillfully and +swiftly. It was evident enough that he was watching the race +intently, but the spectators could see little more than that. One of +them, however, who sat upon the stand, had a powerful spy-glass, and +could distinguish his motions very minutely and exactly. It was seen +by this curious observer that the young man had an opera-glass with +him, which he used a good deal at intervals. The spectator thought +he kept it directed to the girls' boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. +He thought also that the opera-glass was more particularly pointed +towards the bow of the boat, and came to the natural conclusion that +the bow oar, Miss Euthymia Tower, captain of the Atalantas, "The +Wonder" of the Corinna Institute, was the attraction which determined +the direction of the instrument. + +"Who is that in the canoe over there?" asked the owner of the spy- +glass. + +"That's just what we should like to know," answered the old +landlord's wife. "He and his man boarded with us when they first +came, but we could never find out anything about him only just his +name and his ways of living. His name is Kirkwood, Maurice Kirkwood, +Esq., it used to come on his letters. As for his ways of living, he +was the solitariest human being that I ever came across. His man +carried his meals up to him. He used to stay in his room pretty much +all day, but at night he would be off, walking, or riding on +horseback, or paddling about in the lake, sometimes till nigh +morning. There's something very strange about that Mr. Kirkwood. +But there don't seem to be any harm in him. Only nobody can guess +what his business is. They got up a story about him at one time. +What do you think? They said he was a counterfeiter! And so they +went one night to his room, when he was out, and that man of his was +away too, and they carried keys, and opened pretty much everything; +and they found--well, they found just nothing at all except writings +and letters,--letters from places in America and in England, and some +with Italian postmarks: that was all. Since that time the sheriff +and his folks have let him alone and minded their own business. He +was a gentleman,--anybody ought to have known that; and anybody that +knew about his nice ways of living and behaving, and knew the kind of +wear he had for his underclothing, might have known it. I could have +told those officers that they had better not bother him. I know the +ways of real gentlemen and real ladies, and I know those fellows in +store clothes that look a little too fine,--outside. Wait till +washing-day comes!" + +The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity, and they +were not wholly unworthy of consideration; they were quite as much to +be relied on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who +sent his accomplice on before him to study out the principal +personages in the village, and in the light of these revelations +interpreted the bumps, with very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim, +or any other authorities. + +Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search +among his papers and effects, the gossips of the village had +constructed several distinct histories for the mysterious stranger. +He was an agent of a great publishing house; a leading contributor to +several important periodicals; the author of that anonymously +published novel which had made so much talk; the poet of a large +clothing establishment; a spy of the Italian, some said the Russian, +some said the British, Government; a proscribed refugee from some +country where he had been plotting; a school-master without a school, +a minister without a pulpit, an actor without an engagement; in +short, there was no end to the perfectly senseless stories that were +told about him, from that which made him out an escaped convict to +the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric heir to a great +English title and estate. + +The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion. +Nobody in the village, no student in the University, knew his +history. No young lady in the Corinna Institute had ever had a word +from him. Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Institute +were returning at dusk, their rowers would see the canoe stealing +into the shadows as they drew near it. Sometimes on a moonlight +night, when a party of the young ladies were out upon the lake, they +would see the white canoe gliding ghost-like in the distance. And it +had happened more than once that when a boat's crew had been out with +singers among them, while they were in the midst of a song, the white +canoe would suddenly appear and rest upon the water,--not very near +them, but within hearing distance,--and so remain until the singing +was over, when it would steal away and be lost sight of in some inlet +or behind some jutting rock. + +Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about this young man. +The landlady had told her story, which explained nothing. There was +nobody to be questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, +whose name was Paolo, but who to the village was known as Mr. Paul. + +Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in the world to worm a +secret out of. He was good-natured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, +talked freely with everybody in such English as he had at command, +knew all the little people of the village, and was followed round by +them partly from his personal attraction for them, and partly because +he was apt to have a stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other +desirable luxury in his pocket for any of his little friends he met +with. He had that wholesome, happy look, so uncommon in our arid +countrymen,--a look hardly to be found except where figs and oranges +ripen in the open air. A kindly climate to grow up in, a religion +which takes your money and gives you a stamped ticket good at Saint +Peter's box office, a roomy chest and a good pair of lungs in it, an +honest digestive apparatus, a lively temperament, a cheerful +acceptance of the place in life assigned to one by nature and +circumstance,--these are conditions under which life may be quite +comfortable to endure, and certainly is very pleasant to contemplate. +All these conditions were united in Paolo. He was the easiest; +pleasantest creature to talk with that one could ask for a companion. +His southern vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicity and +openness, made him friends everywhere. + +It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to get the history +of his master out of this guileless and unsophisticated being. He +had been tried by all the village experts. The rector had put a +number of well-studied careless questions, which failed of their +purpose. The old librarian of the town library had taken note of all +the books he carried to his master, and asked about his studies and +pursuits. Paolo found it hard to understand his English, apparently, +and answered in the most irrelevant way. The leading gossip of the +village tried her skill in pumping him for information. It was all +in vain. + +His master's way of life was peculiar,--in fact, eccentric. He had +hired rooms in an old-fashioned three-story house. He had two rooms +in the second and third stories of this old wooden building: his +study in the second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. Paolo +lived in the basement, where he had all the conveniences for cooking, +and played the part of chef for his master and himself. This was +only a part of his duty, for he was a man-of-all-work, purveyor, +steward, chambermaid,--as universal in his services for one man as +Pushee at the Anchor Tavern used to be for everybody. + +It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one winter's day, and +had such threatening symptoms that he asked the baker, when he +called, to send the village physician to see him. In the course of +his visit the doctor naturally inquired about the health of Paolo's +master. + +"Signor Kirkwood well,--molto bene," said Paolo. "Why does he keep +out of sight as he does?" asked the doctor. + +"He always so," replied Paolo. "Una antipatia." + +Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, whether he revealed +it to him as to a father confessor, or whether he thought it time +that the reason of his master's seclusion should be known, the doctor +did not feel sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to make any +further revelations. Una antipatia,--an antipathy,--that was all the +doctor learned. He thought the matter over, and the more he +reflected the more he was puzzled. What could an antipathy be that +made a young man a recluse! Was it a dread of blue sky and open air, +of the smell of flowers, or some electrical impression to which be +was unnaturally sensitive? + +Dr. Butts carried these questions home with him. His wife was a +sensible, discreet woman, whom he could trust with many professional +secrets. He told her of Paolo's revelation, and talked it over with +her in the light of his experience and her own; for she had known +some curious cases of constitutional likes and aversions. + +Mrs. Butts buried the information in the grave of her memory, where +it lay for nearly a week. At the end of that time it emerged in a +confidential whisper to her favorite sister-in-law, a perfectly safe +person. Twenty-four hours later the story was all over the village +that Maurice Kirkwood was the subject of a strange, mysterious, +unheard-of antipathy to something, nobody knew what; and the whole +neighborhood naturally resolved itself into an unorganized committee +of investigation. + + + + +IV + +What is a country village without its mysterious personage? Few are +now living who can remember the advent of the handsome young man who +was the mystery of our great university town "sixty years since,"-- +long enough ago for a romance to grow out of a narrative, as Waverley +may remind us. The writer of this narrative remembers him well, and +is not sure that he has not told the strange story in some form or +other to the last generation, or to the one before the last. No +matter: if he has told it they have forgotten it,--that is, if they +have ever read it; and whether they have or have not, the story is +singular enough to justify running the risk of repetition. + +This young man, with a curious name of Scandinavian origin, appeared +unheralded in the town, as it was then, of Cantabridge. He wanted +employment, and soon found it in the shape of manual labor, which he +undertook and performed cheerfully. But his whole appearance showed +plainly enough that he was bred to occupations of a very different +nature, if, in deed, he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for +his living. His aspect was that of one of gentle birth. His hands +were not those of a laborer, and his features were delicate and +refined, as well as of remarkable beauty. Who he was, where he came +from, why he had come to Cantabridge, was never clearly explained. +He was alone, without friends, except among the acquaintances he had +made in his new residence. If he had any correspondents, they were +not known to the neighborhood where he was living. But if he had +neither friends nor correspondents, there was some reason for +believing that he had enemies. Strange circumstances occurred which +connected themselves with him in an ominous and unaccountable way. A +threatening letter was slipped under the door of a house where he was +visiting. He had a sudden attack of illness, which was thought to +look very much like the effect of poison. At one time he +disappeared, and was found wandering, bewildered, in a town many +miles from that where he was residing. When questioned how he came +there; he told a coherent story that he had been got, under some +pretext, or in some not incredible way, into a boat, from which, at a +certain landing-place, he had escaped and fled for his life, which he +believed was in danger from his kidnappers. + +Whoever his enemies may have been,--if they really existed,--he did +not fall a victim to their plots, so far as known to or remembered by +this witness. + +Various interpretations were put upon his story. Conjectures were as +abundant as they were in the case of Kaspar Hauser. That he was of +good family seemed probable; that he was of distinguished birth, not +impossible; that he was the dangerous rival of a candidate for a +greatly coveted position in one of the northern states of Europe was +a favorite speculation of some of the more romantic young persons. +There was no dramatic ending to this story,--at least none is +remembered by the present writer. + +"He left a name," like the royal Swede, of whose lineage he may have +been for aught that the village people knew, but not a name at which +anybody "grew pale;" for he had swindled no one, and broken no +woman's heart with false vows. Possibly some withered cheeks may +flush faintly as they recall the handsome young man who came before +the Cantabridge maidens fully equipped for a hero of romance when the +century was in its first quarter. + +The writer has been reminded of the handsome Swede by the incidents +attending the advent of the unknown and interesting stranger who had +made his appearance at Arrowhead Village. + +It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason to assign for +the young man's solitary habits that he was the subject of an +antipathy. For what do we understand by that word? When a young +lady screams at the sight of a spider, we accept her explanation that +she has a natural antipathy to the creature. When a person expresses +a repugnance to some wholesome article of food, agreeable to most +people, we are satisfied if he gives the same reason. And so of +various odors, which are pleasing to some persons and repulsive to +others. We do not pretend to go behind the fact. It is an +individual, and it may be a family, peculiarity. Even between +different personalities there is an instinctive elective dislike as +well as an elective affinity. We are not bound to give a reason why +Dr. Fell is odious to us any more than the prisoner who peremptorily +challenges a juryman is bound to say why he does it; it is enough +that he "does not like his looks." + +There was nothing strange, then, that Maurice Kirkwood should have +his special antipathy; a great many other people have odd likes and +dislikes. But it was a very curious thing that this antipathy should +be alleged as the reason for his singular mode of life. All sorts of +explanations were suggested, not one of them in the least +satisfactory, but serving to keep the curiosity of inquirers active +until they were superseded by a new theory. One story was that +Maurice had a great fear of dogs. It grew at last to a connected +narrative, in which a fright in childhood from a rabid mongrel was +said to have given him such a sensitiveness to the near presence of +dogs that he was liable to convulsions if one came close to him. + +This hypothesis had some plausibility. No other creature would be so +likely to trouble a person who had an antipathy to it. Dogs are very +apt to make the acquaintance of strangers, in a free and easy way. +They are met with everywhere,--in one's daily walk, at the thresholds +of the doors one enters, in the gentleman's library, on the rug of my +lady's sitting-room and on the cushion of her carriage. It is true +that there are few persons who have an instinctive repugnance to this +"friend of man." But what if this so-called antipathy were only a +fear, a terror, which borrowed the less unmanly name? It was a fair +question, if, indeed, the curiosity of the public had a right to ask +any questions at all about a harmless individual who gave no offence, +and seemed entitled to the right of choosing his way of living to +suit himself, without being submitted to espionage. + +There was no positive evidence bearing on the point as yet. But one +of the village people had a large Newfoundland dog, of a very +sociable disposition, with which he determined to test the question. +He watched for the time when Maurice should leave his house for the +woods or the lake, and started with his dog to meet him. The animal +walked up to the stranger in a very sociable fashion, and began +making his acquaintance, after the usual manner of well-bred dogs; +that is, with the courtesies and blandishments by which the canine +Chesterfield is distinguished from the ill-conditioned cur. Maurice +patted him in a friendly way, and spoke to him as one who was used to +the fellowship of such companions. That idle question and foolish +story were disposed of, therefore, and some other solution must be +found, if possible. + +A much more common antipathy is that which is entertained with regard +to cats. This has never been explained. It is not mere aversion to +the look of the creature, or to any sensible quality known to the +common observer. The cat is pleasing in aspect, graceful in +movement, nice in personal habits, and of amiable disposition. No +cause of offence is obvious, and yet there are many persons who +cannot abide the presence of the most innocent little kitten. They +can tell, in some mysterious way, that there is a cat in the room +when they can neither see nor hear the creature. Whether it is an +electrical or quasi-magnetic phenomenon, or whatever it may be, of +the fact of this strange influence there are too many well- +authenticated instances to allow its being questioned. But suppose +Maurice Kirkwood to be the subject of this antipathy in its extremest +degree, it would in no manner account for the isolation to which he +had condemned himself. He might shun the firesides of the old women +whose tabbies were purring by their footstools, but these worthy +dames do not make up the whole population. + +These two antipathies having been disposed of, a new suggestion was +started, and was talked over with a curious sort of half belief, very +much as ghost stories are told in a circle of moderately instructed +and inquiring persons. This was that Maurice was endowed with the +unenviable gift of the evil eye. He was in frequent communication +with Italy, as his letters showed, and had recently been residing in +that country, as was learned from Paolo. Now everybody knows that +the evil eye is not rarely met with in Italy. Everybody who has ever +read Mr. Story's "Roba di Roma" knows what a terrible power it is +which the owner of the evil eye exercises. It can blight and destroy +whatever it falls upon. No person's life or limb is safe if the +jettatura, the withering glance of the deadly organ, falls upon him. +It must be observed that this malign effect may follow a look from +the holiest personages, that is, if we may assume that a monk is such +as a matter of course. Certainly we have a right to take it for +granted that the late Pope, Pius Ninth, was an eminently holy man, +and yet he had the name of dispensing the mystic and dreaded +jettatura as well as his blessing. If Maurice Kirkwood carried that +destructive influence, so that his clear blue eyes were more to be +feared than the fascinations of the deadliest serpent, it could +easily be understood why he kept his look away from all around him +whom he feared he might harm. + +No sensible person in Arrowhead Village really believed in the evil +eye, but it served the purpose of a temporary hypothesis, as do many +suppositions which we take as a nucleus for our observations without +putting any real confidence in them. It was just suited to the +romantic notions of the more flighty persons in the village, who had +meddled more or less with Spiritualism, and were ready for any new +fancy, if it were only wild enough. + +The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to +find any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk +for the gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in +the two educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was +liveliest among the young ladies. Here is an extract from a letter +of one of these young ladies, who, having received at her birth the +ever-pleasing name of Mary, saw fit to have herself called Mollie in +the catalogue and in her letters. The old postmaster of the town to +which her letter was directed took it up to stamp, and read on the +envelope the direction to "Miss Lulu Pinrow." He brought the stamp +down with a vicious emphasis, coming very near blotting out the +nursery name, instead of cancelling the postage-stamp. "Lulu!" he +exclaimed. "I should like to know if that great strapping girl isn't +out of her cradle yet! I suppose Miss Louisa will think that belongs +to her, but I saw her christened and I heard the name the minister +gave her, and it was n't 'Lulu,' or any such baby nonsense." And so +saying, he gave it a fling to the box marked P, as if it burned his +fingers. Why a grown-up young woman allowed herself to be cheapened +in the way so many of them do by the use of names which become them +as well as the frock of a ten-year-old schoolgirl would become a +graduate of the Corinna Institute, the old postmaster could not +guess. He was a queer old man. + +The letter thus scornfully treated runs over with a young girl's +written loquacity: + +"Oh, Lulu, there is such a sensation as you never saw or heard of +'in all your born days,' as mamma used to say. He has been at the +village for some time, but lately we have had--oh, the weirdest +stories about him! 'The Mysterious Stranger is the name some give +him, but we girls call him the Sachem, because he paddles about in an +Indian canoe. If I should tell you all the things that are said +about him I should use up all my paper ten times over. He has never +made a visit to the Institute, and none of the girls have ever spoken +to him, but the people at the village say he is very, very handsome. +We are dying to get a look at him, of course--though there is a +horrid story about him--that he has the evil eye did you ever hear +about the evil eye? If a person who is born with it looks at you, +you die, or something happens--awful--is n't it? + +"The rector says he never goes to church, but then you know a good +many of the people that pass the summer at the village never do--they +think their religion must have vacations--that's what I've heard they +say--vacations, just like other hard work--it ought not to be hard +work, I'm sure, but I suppose they feel so about it. Should you feel +afraid to have him look at you? Some of the girls say they would n't +have him for the whole world, but I shouldn't mind it--especially if +I had on my eyeglasses. Do you suppose if there is anything in the +evil eye it would go through glass? I don't believe it. Do you +think blue eye-glasses would be better than common ones? Don't laugh +at me--they tell such weird stories! The Terror--Lurida Vincent, you +know-makes fun of all they say about it, but then she 'knows +everything and doesn't believe anything,' the girls say--Well, I +should be awfully scared, I know, if anybody that had the evil eye +should look at me--but--oh, I don't know--but if it was a young man-- +and if he was very--very good-looking--I think--perhaps I would run +the risk--but don't tell anybody I said any such horrid thing--and +burn this letter right up--there 's a dear good girl." + +It is to be hoped that no reader will doubt the genuineness of this +letter. There are not quite so many "awfuls" and "awfullys" as one +expects to find in young ladies' letters, but there are two "weirds," +which may be considered a fair allowance. How it happened that +"jolly" did not show itself can hardly be accounted for; no doubt it +turns up two or three times at least in the postscript. + +Here is an extract from another letter. This was from one of the +students of Stoughton University to a friend whose name as it was +written on the envelope was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmaster +who found fault with Miss "Lulu's" designation would probably have +quarrelled with this address, if it had come under his eye. "Frank" +is a very pretty, pleasant-sounding name, and it is not strange that +many persons use it in common conversation all their days when +speaking of a friend. Were they really christened by that name, any +of these numerous Franks? Perhaps they were, and if so there is +nothing to be said. But if not, was the baptismal name Francis or +Franklin? The mind is apt to fasten in a very perverse and +unpleasant way upon this question, which too often there is no +possible way of settling. One might hope, if he outlived the bearer +of the appellation, to get at the fact; but since even gravestones +have learned to use the names belonging to childhood and infancy in +their solemn record, the generation which docks its Christian names +in such an un-Christian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of +riddles to posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the historians +and antiquarians of a coming generation to settle what was the real +name of Dan and Bert and Billy, which last is legible on a white +marble slab, raised in memory of a grown person, in a certain burial- +ground in a town in Essex County, Massachusetts! + +But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter directed to Mr. +Frank Mayfield. + + +"DEAR FRANK,--Hooray! Hurrah! Rah! + +"I have made the acquaintance of 'The Mysterious Stranger'! It +happened by a queer sort of accident, which came pretty near +relieving you of the duty of replying to this letter. I was out in +my little boat, which carries a sail too big for her, as I know and +ought to have remembered. One of those fitful flaws of wind to which +the lake is so liable struck the sail suddenly, and over went my +boat. My feet got tangled in the sheet somehow, and I could not get +free. I had hard work to keep my head above water, and I struggled +desperately to escape from my toils; for if the boat were to go down +I should be dragged down with her. I thought of a good many things +in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, and I got +a lesson about time better than anything Kant and all the rest of +them have to say of it. After I had been there about an ordinary +lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew that our +shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become +acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw +what the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning +me in the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was +somewhat tired with my struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the +landing where he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is anything +odd about his manners or his way of talk. I judge him to be a native +of one of our Northern States,--perhaps a New Englander. He has +lived abroad during some parts of his life. He is not an artist, as +it was at one time thought he might be. He is a good-looking fellow, +well developed, manly in appearance, with nothing to excite special +remark unless it be a certain look of anxiety or apprehension which +comes over him from time to time. You remember our old friend Squire +B., whose companion was killed by lightning when he was standing +close to him. You know the look he had whenever anything like a +thundercloud came up in the sky. Well, I should say there was a look +like that came over this Maurice Kirkwood's face every now and then. +I noticed that he looked round once or twice as if to see whether +some object or other was in sight. There was a little rustling in +the grass as if of footsteps, and this look came over his features. +A rabbit ran by us, and I watched to see if he showed any sign of +that antipathy we have heard so much of, but he seemed to be pleased +watching the creature. + +"If you ask me what my opinion is about this Maurice Kirkwood, I +think he is eccentric in his habit of life, but not what they call a +'crank' exactly. He talked well enough about such matters as we +spoke of,--the lake, the scenery in general, the climate. I asked +him to come over and take a look at the college. He did n't promise, +but I should not be surprised if I should get him over there some +day. I asked him why he did n't go to the Pansophian meetings. He +did n't give any reason, but he shook his head in a very peculiar +way, as much as to say that it was impossible. + +"On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the same feeling of +dread of human society, or dislike for it, which under the name of +religion used to drive men into caves and deserts. What a pity that +Protestantism does not make special provision for all the freaks of +individual character! If we had a little more faith and a few more +caverns, or convenient places for making them, we should have hermits +in these holes as thick as woodchucks or prairie dogs. I should like +to know if you never had the feeling, + + 'Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place!' + +I know what your answer will be, of course. You will say, +'Certainly, + + 'With one fair spirit for my minister;"' + +but I mean alone,--all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should +like to have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong +as lye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? +(Jerry is looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to +send, and a disgrace to the University--but never mind.) I often feel +as if I should like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,--yes, +and have it soaped from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look +down at the bores and the duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' +association. (Jerry--still looking over says there is an absurd +contradiction in the idea.) + +"What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is! + +"How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector general?" + +The reader will not get much information out of this lively young +fellow's letter, but he may get a little. It is something to know +that the mysterious resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor +talk like a crazy person; that he was of agreeable aspect and +address, helpful when occasion offered, and had nothing about him, so +far as yet appeared, to prevent his being an acceptable member of +society. + +Of course the people in the village could never be contented without +learning everything there was to be learned about their visitor. All +the city papers were examined for advertisements. If a cashier had +absconded, if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad president was +missing, some of the old stories would wake up and get a fresh +currency, until some new circumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. +Unconscious of all these inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood +lived on in his inoffensive and unexplained solitude, and seemed +likely to remain an unsolved enigma. The "Sachem" of the boating +girls became the "Sphinx " of the village ramblers, and it was agreed +on all hands that Egypt did not hold any hieroglyphics harder to make +out than the meaning of this young man's odd way of living. + + + + +V + +THE ENIGMA STUDIED. + +It was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circumstance that a +young man, seemingly in good health, of comely aspect, looking as if +made for companionship, should keep himself apart from all the world +around him in a place where there was a general feeling of good +neighborhood and a pleasant social atmosphere. The Public Library +was a central point which brought people together. The Pansophian +Society did a great deal to make them acquainted with each other for +many of the meetings were open to outside visitors, and the subjects +discussed in the meetings furnished the material for conversation in +their intervals. A card of invitation had been sent by the Secretary +to Maurice, in answer to which Paolo carried back a polite note of +regret. The paper had a narrow rim of black, implying apparently +some loss of relative or friend, but not any very recent and crushing +bereavement. This refusal to come to the meetings of the society was +only what was expected. It was proper to ask him, but his declining +the invitation showed that he did not wish for attentions or +courtesies. There was nothing further to be done to bring him out of +his shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about him at +present. + +In this state of things it was natural that all which had been +previously gathered by the few who had seen or known anything of him +should be worked over again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the +old refuse heaps are looked over for what may still be found in them. +The landlord of the Anchor Tavern, now the head of the boarding- +house, talked about Maurice, as everybody in the village did at one +time or another. He had not much to say, but he added a fact or two. + +The young gentleman was good pay,--so they all said. Sometimes he +paid in gold; sometimes in fresh bills, just out of the bank. He +trusted his man, Mr. Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew +something about horses; he showed that by the way he handled that +colt,--the one that threw the hostler and broke his collar-bone. +"Mr. Paul come down to the stable. 'Let me see that cult you all +'fraid of,' says he. 'My master, he ride any hoss,' says Paul. 'You +saddle him,' says be; and so they did, and Paul, he led that colt-- +the kickinest and ugliest young beast you ever see in your life--up +to the place where his master, as he calls him, and he lives. What +does that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple of long spurs and jump on +to that colt's back, and off the beast goes, tail up, heels flying, +standing up on end, trying all sorts of capers, and at last going it +full run for a couple of miles, till he'd got about enough of it. +That colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come back as quiet as +a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills reg'lar, in good money, and +knows how to handle a hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if he is +n't a whole one,--and most likely he is a whole one." + +So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His wife had already +given her favorable opinion of her former guest. She now added +something to her description as a sequel to her husband's remarks. + +"I call him," she said, "about as likely a young gentleman as ever I +clapped my eyes on. He is rather slighter than I like to see a young +man of his age; if he was my sun, I should like to see him a little +more fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hundred and +thirty or forty pounds. Did y' ever look at those eyes of his, +M'randy? Just as blue as succory flowers. I do like those light- +complected young fellows, with their fresh cheeks and their curly +hair; somehow, curly hair doos set off anybody's face. He is n't any +foreigner, for all that he talks Italian with that Mr. Paul that's +his help. He looks just like our kind of folks, the college kind, +that's brought up among books, and is handling 'em, and reading of +'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all their lives. All that +you say about his riding the mad colt is just what I should think he +was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought to see him go +over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's any harm in +that young gentleman,--I don't care what people say. I suppose he +likes this place just as other people like it, and cares more for +walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doos for +company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like to +know?" + +The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging +people. + +"I never see him but two or three times," Miranda said. "I should +like to have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him +when he was eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, +when their jaws get a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. +Do you remember that chap the sheriff come and took away when we kep' +tahvern? Eleven year ago it was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A +mighty grand gentleman from the City he set up for. I watched him, +and I watched him. Says I, I don't believe you're no gentleman, +says I. He eat with his knife, and that ain't the way city folks +eats. Every time I handed him anything I looked closeter and +closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them cheeks, says I to +myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in your shirt- +front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's +nothiri' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You +jes' step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that +chap.' I knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes +up to the chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. +We've had the hole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your +company to come and look at the old place,' says he, and he pulls out +a couple of handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, +an' off they goes together! I know one thing about that young +gentleman, anyhow,--there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' +than he is. I cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends +word to me by that Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, I that the +Pope o' Rome don't have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent +up to me yesterday,' says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' +Rome except that he's a Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for +him, whether it's a man or a woman; but when it comes to a dish o' +maccaroni, I ain't afeard of their shefs, as they call 'em,--them he- +cooks that can't serve up a cold potater without callin' it by some +name nobody can say after 'em. But this gentleman knows good +cookin', and that's as good a sign of a gentleman as I want to tell +'em by." + + + + +VI + +STILL AT FAULT. + +The house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken up his abode was not a +very inviting one. It was old, and had been left in a somewhat +dilapidated and disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in +the part which Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing- +boxes in the cellar, with broken chairs, broken china, and other +household wrecks. A cracked mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the +contents of which were airing themselves through wide rips and rents. +A lame clothes-horse was saddled with an old rug fringed with a +ragged border, out of which all the colors had been completely +trodden. No woman would have gone into a house in such a condition. +But the young man did not trouble himself much about such matters, +and was satisfied when the rooms which were to be occupied by himself +and his servant were made decent and tolerably comfortable. During +the fine season all this was not of much consequence, and if Maurice +made up his mind to stay through the winter he would have his choice +among many more eligible places. + +The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had now arrived, and the +young ladies had scattered to their homes. Among the graduates of +the year were Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who had +now returned to their homes in Arrowhead Village. They were both +glad to rest after the long final examinations and the exercises of +the closing day, in which each of them had borne a conspicuous part. +It was a pleasant life they led in the village, which was lively +enough at this season. Walking, riding, driving, boating, visits to +the Library, meetings of the Pansophian Society, hops, and picnics +made the time pass very cheerfully, and soon showed their restoring +influences. The Terror's large eyes did not wear the dull, glazed +look by which they had too often betrayed the after effects of over- +excitement of the strong and active brain behind them. The Wonder +gained a fresher bloom, and looked full enough of life to radiate +vitality into a statue of ice. They had a boat of their own, in +which they passed many delightful hours on the lake, rowing, +drifting, reading, telling of what had been, dreaming of what might +be. + +The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, and +visited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar +character, as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious +kind of knowledge, sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs +of books, their title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the +class of readers who call for particular works, the value of +different editions, and a good deal besides. Their minds catch up +hints from all manner of works on all kinds of subjects. They will +give a visitor a fact and a reference which they are surprised to +find they remember and which the visitor might have hunted for a +year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who has grown +into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to every +bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These +nerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do +not like to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like +to have their naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the +books of a great collection are a part, not merely of their own +property, though they are only the agents for their distribution, but +that they are, as it were, outlying portions of their own +organization. The old Librarian was getting a miserly feeling about +his books, as he called them. Fortunately, he had a young lady for +his assistant, who was never so happy as when she could find the work +any visitor wanted and put it in his hands,--or her hands, for there +were more readers among the wives and--daughters, and especially +among the aunts, than there were among their male relatives. The old +Librarian knew the books, but the books seemed to know the young +assistant; so it looked, at least, to the impatient young people who +wanted their services. + +Maurice had a good many volumes of his own,--a great many, according +to Paolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well- +filled shelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master +frequently sent him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat +enlarged his notions; still, the Signor was a very learned man, he +was certain, and some of his white books (bound in vellum and richly +gilt) were more splendid, according to Paolo, than anything in the +Library. + +There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that +Maurice was in the habit of taking out, and the Librarian's record +was carefully searched by some of the more inquisitive investigators. +The list proved to be a long and varied one. It would imply a +considerable knowledge of modern languages and of the classics; a +liking for mathematics and physics, especially all that related to +electricity and magnetism; a fancy for the occult sciences, if there +is any propriety in coupling these words; and a whim for odd and +obsolete literature, like the Parthenologia of Fortunius Licetus, the +quaint treatise 'De Sternutatione," books about alchemy, and +witchcraft, apparitions, and modern works relating to Spiritualism. +With these were the titles of novels and now and then of books of +poems; but it may be taken for granted that his own shelves held the +works he was most frequently in the habit of reading or consulting. +Not much was to be made out of this beyond the fact of wide +scholarship,--more or less deep it might be, but at any rate implying +no small mental activity; for he appeared to read very rapidly, at +any rate exchanged the books he had taken out for new ones very +frequently. To judge by his reading, he was a man of letters. But +so wide-reading a man of letters must have an object, a literary +purpose in all probability. Why should not he be writing a novel? +Not a novel of society, assuredly, for a hermit is not the person to +report the talk and manners of a world which he has nothing to do +with. Novelists and lawyers understand the art of "cramming" better +than any other persons in the world. Why should not this young man +be working up the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a +background for some story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and +hints borrowed from science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way +knowledge which his odd and miscellaneous selection of books +furnished him? That might be, or possibly he was only reading for +amusement. Who could say? + +The funds of the Public Library of Arrowhead Village allowed the +managers to purchase many books out of the common range of reading. +The two learned people of the village were the rector and the doctor. +These two worthies kept up the old controversy between the +professions, which grows out of the fact that one studies nature from +below upwards, and the other from above downwards. The rector +maintained that physicians contracted a squint which turns their eyes +inwardly, while the muscles which roll their eyes upward become +palsied. The doctor retorted that theological students developed a +third eyelid,--the nictitating membrane, which is so well known in +birds, and which serves to shut out, not all light, but all the light +they do not want. Their little skirmishes did not prevent their +being very good friends, who had a common interest in many things and +many persons. Both were on the committee which had the care of the +Library and attended to the purchase of books. Each was scholar +enough to know the wants of scholars, and disposed to trust the +judgment of the other as to what books should be purchased,. +Consequently, the clergyman secured the addition to the Library of a +good many old theological works which the physician would have called +brimstone divinity, and held to be just the thing to kindle fires +with,--good books still for those who know how to use them, +oftentimes as awful examples of the extreme of disorganization the +whole moral system may undergo when a barbarous belief has strangled +the natural human instincts. The physician, in the mean time, +acquired for the collection some of those medical works where one may +find recorded various rare and almost incredible cases, which may not +have their like for a whole century, and then repeat themselves, so +as to give a new lease of credibility to stories which had come to be +looked upon as fables. + +Both the clergyman and the physician took a very natural interest in +the young man who had come to reside in their neighborhood for the +present, perhaps for a long period. The rector would have been glad +to see him at church. He would have liked more especially to have +had him hear his sermon on the Duties of Young Men to Society. The +doctor, meanwhile, was meditating on the duties of society to young +men, and wishing that he could gain the young man's confidence, so as +to help him out of any false habit of mind or any delusion to which +he might be subject, if he had the power of being useful to him. + +Dr. Butts was the leading medical practitioner, not only of Arrowhead +Village, but of all the surrounding region. He was an excellent +specimen of the country doctor, self-reliant, self-sacrificing, +working a great deal harder for his living than most of those who +call themselves the laboring classes,--as if none but those whose +hands were hardened by the use of farming or mechanical implements +had any work to do. He had that sagacity without which learning is a +mere incumbrance, and he had also a fair share of that learning +without which sagacity is like a traveller with a good horse, but who +cannot read the directions on the guideboards. He was not a man to +be taken in by names. He well knew that oftentimes very innocent- +sounding words mean very grave disorders; that all, degrees of +disease and disorder are frequently confounded under the same term; +that "run down" may stand for a fatigue of mind or body from which a +week or a month of rest will completely restore the over-worked +patient, or an advanced stage of a mortal illness; that "seedy" may +signify the morning's state of feeling, after an evening's over- +indulgence, which calls for a glass of soda-water and a cup of +coffee, or a dangerous malady which will pack off the subject of it, +at the shortest notice, to the south of France. He knew too well +that what is spoken lightly of as a "nervous disturbance" may imply +that the whole machinery of life is in a deranged condition, and that +every individual organ would groan aloud if it had any other language +than the terrible inarticulate one of pain by which to communicate +with the consciousness. + +When, therefore, Dr. Butts heard the word antipatia he did not smile, +and say to himself that this was an idle whim, a foolish fancy, which +the young man had got into his head. Neither was he satisfied to set +down everything to the account of insanity, plausible as that +supposition might seem. He was prepared to believe in some +exceptional, perhaps anomalous, form of exaggerated sensibility, +relating to what class of objects he could not at present conjecture, +but which was as vital to the subject of it as the insulating +arrangement to a piece of electrical machinery. With this feeling he +began to look into tho history of antipathies as recorded in all the +books and journals on which he could lay his hands. + + ------------------------------ + +The holder of the Portfolio asks leave to close it for a brief +interval. He wishes to say a few words to his readers, before +offering them some verses which have no connection with the narrative +now in progress. + +If one could have before him a set of photographs taken annually, +representing the same person as he or she appeared for thirty or +forty or fifty years, it would be interesting to watch the gradual +changes of aspect from the age of twenty, or even of thirty or forty, +to that of threescore and ten. The face might be an uninteresting +one; still, as sharing the inevitable changes wrought by time, it +would be worth looking at as it passed through the curve of life,-- +the vital parabola, which betrays itself in the symbolic changes of +the features. An inscription is the same thing, whether we read it +on slate-stone, or granite, or marble. To watch the lights and +shades, the reliefs and hollows, of a countenance through a lifetime, +or a large part of it, by the aid of a continuous series of +photographs would not only be curious; it would teach us much more +about the laws of physiognomy than we could get from casual and +unconnected observations. + +The same kind of interest, without any assumption of merit to be +found in them, I would claim for a series of annual poems, beginning +in middle life and continued to what many of my correspondents are +pleased to remind me--as if I required to have the fact brought to my +knowledge--is no longer youth. Here is the latest of a series of +annual poems read during the last thirty-four years. There seems to +have been one interruption, but there may have been other poems not +recorded or remembered. This, the latest poem of the series, was +listened to by the scanty remnant of what was a large and brilliant +circle of classmates and friends when the first of the long series +was read before them, then in the flush of ardent manhood:-- + + + THE OLD SONG. + +The minstrel of the classic lay +Of love and wine who sings +Still found the fingers run astray +That touched the rebel strings. + +Of Cadmus he would fair have sung, +Of Atreus and his line; +But all the jocund echoes rung +With songs of love and wine. + +Ah, brothers! I would fair have caught +Some fresher fancy's gleam; +My truant accents find, unsought, +The old familiar theme. + +Love, Love! but not the sportive child +With shaft and twanging bow, +Whose random arrows drove us wild +Some threescore years ago; + +Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, +The urchin blind and bare, +But Love, with spectacles and staff, +And scanty, silvered hair. + +Our heads with frosted locks are white, +Our roofs are thatched with snow, +But red, in chilling winter's spite, +Our hearts and hearthstones glow. + +Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, +And while the running sands +Their golden thread unheeded spin, +He warms his frozen hands. + +Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, +And waft this message o'er +To all we miss, from all we meet +On life's fast-crumbling shore: + +Say that to old affection true +We hug the narrowing chain +That binds our hearts,--alas, how few +The links that yet remain! + +The fatal touch awaits them all +That turns the rocks to dust; +>From year to year they break and fall, +They break, but never rust. + +Say if one note of happier strain +This worn-out harp afford,-- +One throb that trembles, not in vain, +Their memory lent its chord. + +Say that when Fancy closed her wings +And Passion quenched his fire, +Love, Love, still echoed from the strings +As from Anacreon's lyre! + +January 8, 1885. + + + + +VII + +A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES + +In thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt convinced that, +with care and patience and watching his opportunity, he should get at +the secret, which so far bad yielded nothing but a single word. It +might be asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all +appearances, the young stranger was unwilling to explain. He may +have been to some extent infected by the general curiosity of the +persons around him, in which good Mrs. Butts shared, and which she +had helped to intensify by revealing the word dropped by Paolo. But +this was not really his chief motive. He could not look upon this +young man, living a life of unwholesome solitude, without a natural +desire to do all that his science and his knowledge of human nature +could help him to do towards bringing him into healthy relations with +the world about him. Still, he would not intrude upon him in any +way. He would only make certain general investigations, which might +prove serviceable in case circumstances should give him the right to +counsel the young man as to his course of life. The first thing to +be done was to study systematically the whole subject of antipathies. +Then, if any further occasion offered itself, he would be ready to +take advantage of it. The resources of the Public Library of the +place and his own private collection were put in requisition to +furnish him the singular and widely scattered facts of which he was +in search. + +It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. Butts in his study +of the natural history of antipathies. The stories told about them +are, however, very curious; and if some of them may be questioned, +there is no doubt that many of the strangest are true, and +consequently take away from the improbability of others which we are +disposed to doubt. + +But in the first place, what do we mean by an antipathy? It is an +aversion to some object, which may vary in degree from mere dislike +to mortal horror. What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say. +It acts sometimes through the senses, sometimes through the +imagination, sometimes through an unknown channel. The relations +which exist between the human being and all that surrounds him vary +in consequence of some adjustment peculiar to each individual. The +brute fact is expressed in the phrase "One man's meat is another +man's poison." + +In studying the history of antipathies the doctor began with those +referable to the sense of taste, which are among the most common. In +any collection of a hundred persons there will be found those who +cannot make use of certain articles of food generally acceptable. +This may be from the disgust they occasion or the effects they have +been found to produce. Every one knows individuals who cannot +venture on honey, or cheese, or veal, with impunity. Carlyle, for +example, complains of having veal set before him,--a meat he could +not endure. There is a whole family connection in New England, and +that a very famous one, to many of whose members, in different +generations, all the products of the dairy are the subjects of a +congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there are persons who dread the +smell of apples more than they would dread being exposed to a fire of +musketry. The readers of the charming story "A Week in a French +Country-House" will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's piteous cry in +the night: "Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thou sleepest, but +I cannot close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dreadful +smell! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thou couldst +smell it! Good-night, my angel!----Dearest! I have found them! +They are apples! "The smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has +been known to cause faintness. The sight of various objects has had +singular effects on some persons. A boar's head was a favorite dish +at the table of great people in Marshal d'Albret's time; yet he used +to faint at the sight of one. It is not uncommon to meet with +persons who faint at the sight of blood. One of the most +inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts's college-mates confessed that +he had this infirmity. Stranger and far more awkward than this is +the case mentioned in an ancient collection, where the subject of the +antipathy fainted at the sight of any object of a red color. There +are sounds, also, which have strange effects on some individuals. +Among the obnoxious noises are the crumpling of silk stuffs, the +sound of sweeping, the croaking of frogs. The effects in different +cases have been spasms, a sense of strangling, profuse sweating,--all +showing a profound disturbance of the nervous system. + +All these effects were produced by impressions on the organs of +sense, seemingly by direct agency on certain nerve centres. But +there is another series of cases in which the imagination plays a +larger part in the phenomena. Two notable examples are afforded in +the lives of two very distinguished personages. + +Peter the Great was frightened, when an infant, by falling from a +bridge into the water. Long afterward, when he had reached manhood, +this hardy and resolute man was so affected by the sound of wheels +rattling over a bridge that he had to discipline himself by listening +to the sound, in spite of his dread of it, in order to overcome his +antipathy. The story told by Abbe Boileau of Pascal is very similar +to that related of Peter. As he was driving in his coach and four +over the bridge at Neuilly, his horses took fright and ran away, and +the leaders broke from their harness and sprang into the river, +leaving the wheel-horses and the carriage on the bridge. Ever after +this fright it is said that Pascal had the terrifying sense that he +was just on the edge of an abyss, ready to fall over. + +What strange early impression was it which led a certain lady always +to shriek aloud if she ventured to enter a church, as it is recorded? +The old and simple way of accounting for it would be the scriptural +one, that it was an unclean spirit who dwelt in her, and who, when +she entered the holy place and brought her spiritual tenant into the +presence of the sacred symbols, "cried with a loud voice, and came +out of" her. A very singular case, the doctor himself had recorded, +and which the reader may accept as authentic, is the following: At +the head of the doctor's front stairs stood, and still stands, a tall +clock, of early date and stately presence. A middle-aged visitor, +noticing it as he entered the front door, remarked that he should +feel a great unwillingness to pass that clock. He could not go near +one of those tall timepieces without a profound agitation, which he +dreaded to undergo. This very singular idiosyncrasy he attributed to +a fright when he was an infant in the arms of his nurse. + +She was standing near one of those tall clocks, when the cord which +supported one of its heavy leaden weights broke, and the weight came +crashing down to the bottom of the case. Some effect must have been +produced upon the pulpy nerve centres from which they never +recovered. Why should not this happen, when we know that a sudden +mental shock may be the cause of insanity? The doctor remembered the +verse of "The Ancient Mariner:" + + "I moved my lips; the pilot shrieked + And fell down in a fit; + The holy hermit raised his eyes + And prayed where he did sit. + I took the oars; the pilot's boy, + Who now doth crazy go, + Laughed loud and long, and all the while + His eyes went to and fro." + +This is only poetry, it is true, but the poet borrowed the +description from nature, and the records of our asylums could furnish +many cases where insanity was caused by a sudden fright. + +More than this, hardly a year passes that we do not read of some +person, a child commonly, killed outright by terror,--scared to +death, literally. Sad cases they often are, in which, nothing but a +surprise being intended, the shock has instantly arrested the +movements on which life depends. If a mere instantaneous impression +can produce effects like these, such an impression might of course be +followed by consequences less fatal or formidable, but yet serious in +their nature. If here and there a person is killed, as if by +lightning, by a sudden startling sight or sound, there must be more +numerous cases in which a terrible shock is produced by similar +apparently insignificant causes,--a shock which falls short of +overthrowing the reason and does not destroy life, yet leaves a +lasting effect upon the subject of it. + +This point, then, was settled in the mind of Dr. Butts, namely, that, +as a violent emotion caused by a sudden shock can kill or craze a +human being, there is no perversion of the faculties, no prejudice, +no change of taste or temper, no eccentricity, no antipathy, which +such a cause may not rationally account for. He would not be +surprised, he said to himself, to find that some early alarm, like +that which was experienced by Peter the Great or that which happened +to Pascal, had broken some spring in this young man's nature, or so +changed its mode of action as to account for the exceptional +remoteness of his way of life. But how could any conceivable +antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young man aloof from all +the world, and make a hermit of him? He did not hate the human race; +that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with great kindness, and the +Italian was evidently much attached to him. He had talked naturally +and pleasantly with the young man he had helped out of his dangerous +situation when his boat was upset. Dr. Butts heard that he had once +made a short visit to this young man, at his rooms in the University. +It was not misanthropy, therefore, which kept him solitary. What +could be broad enough to cover the facts of the case? Nothing that +the doctor could think of, unless it were some color, the sight of +which acted on him as it did on the individual before mentioned, who +could not look at anything red without fainting. Suppose this were a +case of the same antipathy. How very careful it would make the +subject of it as to where he went and with whom he consorted! Time +and patience would be pretty sure to bring out new developments, and +physicians, of all men in the world, know how to wait as well as how +to labor. + +Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts found them in books or +gathered them from his own experience. He soon discovered that the +story had got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the victim +of an "antipathy," whatever that word might mean in the vocabulary of +the people of the place. If he suspected the channel through which +it had reached the little community, and, spreading from that centre, +the country round, he did not see fit to make out of his suspicions a +domestic casus belli. Paolo might have mentioned it to others as +well as to himself. Maurice might have told some friend, who had +divulged it. But to accuse Mrs. Butts, good Mrs. Butts, of petit +treason in telling one of her husband's professional secrets was too +serious a matter to be thought of. He would be a little more +careful, he promised himself, the next time, at any rate; for he had +to concede, in spite of every wish to be charitable in his judgment, +that it was among the possibilities that the worthy lady had +forgotten the rule that a doctor's patients must put their tongues +out, and a doctor's wife must keep her tongue in. + + + + +VIII + +THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +The Secretary of this association was getting somewhat tired of the +office, and the office was getting somewhat tired of him. It +occurred to the members of the Society that a little fresh blood +infused into it might stir up the general vitality of the +organization. The woman suffragists saw no reason why the place of +Secretary need as a matter of course be filled by a person of the +male sex. They agitated, they made domiciliary visits, they wrote +notes to influential citizens, and finally announced as their +candidate the young lady who had won and worn the school name of "The +Terror," who was elected. She was just the person for the place: +wide awake, with all her wits about her, full of every kind of +knowledge, and, above all, strong on points of order and details of +management, so that she could prompt the presiding officer, to do +which is often the most essential duty of a Secretary. The +President, the worthy rector, was good at plain sailing in the track +of the common moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get +muddled if anything came up requiring swift decision and off-hand +speech. The Terror had schooled herself in the debating societies of +the Institute, and would set up the President, when he was floored by +an awkward question, as easily as if he were a ninepin which had been +bowled over. + +It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society received +communications from time to time from writers outside of its own +organization. Of late these had been becoming more frequent. Many +of them were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors +to the village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both +full of ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often +impossible to trace the papers to their authors. The new Secretary +was alive with curiosity, and as sagacious a little body as one might +find if in want of a detective. She could make a pretty shrewd guess +whether a paper was written by a young or old person, by one of her +own sex or the other, by an experienced hand or a novice. + +Among the anonymous papers she received was one which exercised her +curiosity to an extraordinary degree. She felt a strong suspicion +that "the Sachem," as the boat-crews used to call him, "the Recluse," +"the Night-Hawk," "the Sphinx," as others named him, must be the +author of it. It appeared to her the production of a young person of +a reflective, poetical turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of +writing; at least, so thought the Secretary. The writer had +travelled much; had resided in Italy, among other places. But so had +many of the summer visitors and residents of Arrowhead Village. The +handwriting was not decisive; it had some points of resemblance with +the pencilled orders for books which Maurice sent to the Library, but +there were certain differences, intentional or accidental, which +weakened this evidence. There was an undertone in the essay which +was in keeping with the mode of life of the solitary stranger. It +might be disappointment, melancholy, or only the dreamy sadness of a +young person who sees the future he is to climb, not as a smooth +ascent, but as overhanging him like a cliff, ready to crush him, with +all his hopes and prospects. This interpretation may have been too +imaginative, but here is the paper, and the reader can form his own +opinion: + + MY THREE COMPANIONS. + +"I have been from my youth upwards a wanderer. I do not mean +constantly flitting from one place to another, for my residence has +often been fixed for considerable periods. From time to time I have +put down in a notebook the impressions made upon me by the scenes +through which I have passed. I have long hesitated whether to let +any of my notes appear before the public. My fear has been that they +were too subjective, to use the metaphysician's term,--that I have +seen myself reflected in Nature, and not the true aspects of Nature +as she was meant to be understood. One who should visit the Harz +Mountains would see--might see, rather his own colossal image shape +itself on the morning mist. But if in every mist that rises from the +meadows, in every cloud that hangs upon the mountain, he always finds +his own reflection, we cannot accept him as an interpreter of the +landscape. + +"There must be many persons present at the meetings of the Society to +which this paper is offered who have had experiences like that of its +author. They have visited the same localities, they have had many of +the same thoughts and feelings. Many, I have no doubt. Not all,-- +no, not all. Others have sought the companionship of Nature; I have +been driven to it. Much of my life has been passed in that +communion. These pages record some of the intimacies I have formed +with her under some of her various manifestations. + +"I have lived on the shore of the great ocean, where its waves broke +wildest and its voice rose loudest. + +"I have passed whole seasons on the banks of mighty and famous +rivers. + +"I have dwelt on the margin of a tranquil lake, and floated through +many a long, long summer day on its clear waters. + +"I have learned the 'various language' of Nature, of which poetry has +spoken,--at least, I have learned some words and phrases of it. I +will translate some of these as I best may into common speech. + +"The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores:-- + +You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do not trouble myself with +the living tribes that come down to my waters. I have my own people, +of an older race than yours, that grow to mightier dimensions than +your mastodons and elephants; more numerous than all the swarms that +fill the air or move over the thin crust of the earth. Who are you +that build your palaces on my margin? I see your white faces as +I saw the dark faces of the tribes that came before you, as I shall +look upon the unknown family of mankind that will come after you. +And what is your whole human family but a parenthesis in a single +page of my history? The raindrops stereotyped themselves on my +beaches before a living creature left his footprints there. This +horseshoe-crab I fling at your feet is of older lineage than your +Adam,--perhaps, indeed, you count your Adam as one of his +descendants. What feeling have I for you? Not scorn, not hatred,-- +not love,--not loathing. No!---indifference,--blank indifference to +you and your affairs that is my feeling, say rather absence of +feeling, as regards you.---Oh yes, I will lap your feet, I will cool +you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my strong arms, I +will rock you on my rolling undulations, like a babe in his cradle. +Am I not gentle? Am I not kind? Am I not harmless? But hark! The +wind is rising, and the wind and I are rough playmates! What do you +say to my voice now? Do you see my foaming lips? Do you feel the +rocks tremble as my huge billows crash against them? Is not my anger +terrible as I dash your argosy, your thunder-bearing frigate, into +fragments, as you would crack an eggshell? --No, not anger; deaf, +blind, unheeding indifference,--that is all. Out of me all things +arose; sooner or later, into me all things subside. All changes +around me; I change not. I look not at you, vain man, and your frail +transitory concerns, save in momentary glimpses: I look on the white +face of my dead mistress, whom I follow as the bridegroom follows the +bier of her who has changed her nuptial raiment for the shroud. + +"Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at my side. +Continents and islands grow old, and waste and disappear. The +hardest rock crumbles; vegetable and animal kingdoms come into being, +wax great, decline, and perish, to give way to others, even as human +dynasties and nations and races come and go. Look on me! "Time +writes no wrinkle" on my forehead. Listen to me! All tongues are +spoken on my shores, but I have only one language: the winds taught +me their vowels the crags and the sands schooled me in my rough or +smooth consonants. Few words are mine but I have whispered them and +sung them and shouted them to men of all tribes from the time when +the first wild wanderer strayed into my awful presence. Have you a +grief that gnaws at your heart-strings? Come with it to my shore, as +of old the priest of far-darting Apollo carried his rage and anguish +to the margin of the loud-roaring sea. There, if anywhere you will +forget your private and short-lived woe, for my voice speaks to the +infinite and the eternal in your consciousness.' + + +"To him who loves the pages of human history, who listens to the +voices of the world about him, who frequents the market and the +thoroughfare, who lives in the study of time and its accidents rather +than in the deeper emotions, in abstract speculation and spiritual +contemplation, the RIVER addresses itself as his natural companion. + +"Come live with me. I am active, cheerful, communicative, a natural +talker and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, except +occasionally when I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get +a fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in watching my +changing features. My idlest babble, when I am toying with the +trifles that fall in my way, if not very full of meaning, is at least +musical. I am not a dangerous friend, like the ocean; no highway is +absolutely safe, but my nature is harmless, and the storms that strew +the beaches with wrecks cast no ruins upon my flowery borders. Abide +with me, and you shall not die of thirst, like the forlorn wretches +left to the mercies of the pitiless salt waves. Trust yourself to +me, and I will carry you far on your journey, if we are travelling to +the same point of the compass. If I sometimes run riot and overflow +your meadows, I leave fertility behind me when I withdraw to my +natural channel. Walk by my side toward the place of my destination. +I will keep pace with you, and you shall feel my presence with you as +that of a self-conscious being like yourself. You will find it hard +to be miserable in my company; I drain you of ill-conditioned +thoughts as I carry away the refuse of your dwelling and its grounds: + + +But to him whom the ocean chills and crushes with its sullen +indifference, and the river disturbs with its never-pausing and +never-ending story, the silent LAKE shall be a refuge and a place of +rest for his soul. + +"'Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your limited +faculties,' it says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running +stream. Leave the ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living +thing that walks the solid earth; leave the river, too busy with its +own errand, too talkative about its own affairs, and find peace with +me, whose smile will cheer you, whose whisper will soothe you. Come +to me when the morning sun blazes across my bosom like a golden +baldric; come to me in the still midnight, when I hold the inverted +firmament like a cup brimming with jewels, nor spill one star of all +the constellations that float in my ebon goblet. Do you know the +charm of melancholy? Where will you find a sympathy like mine in +your hours of sadness? Does the ocean share your grief? Does the +river listen to your sighs? The salt wave, that called to you from +under last month's full moon, to-day is dashing on the rocks of +Labrador; the stream, that ran by you pure and sparkling, has +swallowed the poisonous refuse of a great city, and is creeping to +its grave in the wide cemetery that buries all things in its tomb of +liquid crystal. It is true that my waters exhale and are renewed +from one season to another; but are your features the same, +absolutely the same, from year to year? We both change, but we know +each other through all changes. Am I not mirrored in those eyes of +yours? And does not Nature plant me as an eye to behold her beauties +while she is dressed in the glories of leaf and flower, and draw the +icy lid over my shining surface when she stands naked and ashamed in +the poverty of winter?' + +"I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts in the course of a +life not very long, but with a record which much longer lives could +not match in incident. Oftentimes the temptation has come over me +with dangerous urgency to try a change of existence, if such change +is a part of human destiny,--to seek rest, if that is what we gain by +laying down the burden of life. I have asked who would be the friend +to whom I should appeal for the last service I should have need of. +Ocean was there, all ready, asking no questions, answering none. +What strange voyages, downward through its glaucous depths, upwards +to its boiling and frothing surface, wafted by tides, driven by +tempests, disparted by rude agencies; one remnant whitening on the +sands of a northern beach, one perhaps built into the circle of a +coral reef in the Pacific, one settling to the floor of the vast +laboratory where continents are built, to emerge in far-off ages! +What strange companions for my pall-bearers! Unwieldy sea-monsters, +the stories of which are counted fables by the spectacled collectors +who think their catalogues have exhausted nature; naked-eyed +creatures, staring, glaring, nightmare-like spectres of the ghastly- +green abysses; pulpy islands, with life in gelatinous immensity,-- +what a company of hungry heirs at every ocean funeral! No! No! +Ocean claims great multitudes, but does not invite the solitary who +would fain be rid of himself. + +'Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the lake I love than +I have ever found when drifting idly over its surface? No, again. I +do not want the sweet, clear waters to know me in the disgrace of +nature, when life, the faithful body-servant, has ceased caring for +me. That must not be. The mirror which has pictured me so often +shall never know me as an unwelcome object. + +"If I must ask the all-subduing element to be my last friend, and +lead me out of my prison, it shall be the busy, whispering, not +unfriendly, pleasantly companionable river. + + +"But Ocean and River and Lake have certain relations to the periods +of human life which they who are choosing their places of abode +should consider. Let the child play upon the seashore. The wide +horizon gives his imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. That +background of mystery, without which life is a poor mechanical +arrangement, is shaped and colored, so far as it can have outline, or +any hue but shadow, on a vast canvas, the contemplation of which +enlarges and enriches the sphere of consciousness. The mighty ocean +is not too huge to symbolize the aspirations and ambitions of the yet +untried soul of the adolescent. + +"The time will come when his indefinite mental horizon has found a +solid limit, which shuts his prospect in narrower bounds than he +would have thought could content him in the years of undefined +possibilities. Then he will find the river a more natural intimate +than the ocean. It is individual, which the ocean, with all its +gulfs and inlets and multitudinous shores, hardly seems to be. It +does not love you very dearly, and will not miss you much when you +disappear from its margin; but it means well to you, bids you good- +morning with its coming waves, and good-evening with those which are +leaving. It will lead your thoughts pleasantly away, upwards to its +source, downwards to the stream to which it is tributary, or the wide +waters in which it is to lose itself. A river, by choice, to live by +in middle age. + +"In hours of melancholy reflection, in those last years of life which +have little left but tender memories, the still companionship of the +lake, embosomed in woods, sheltered, fed by sweet mountain brooks and +hidden springs, commends itself to the wearied and saddened spirit. +I am not thinking of those great inland seas, which have many of the +features and much of the danger that belong to the ocean, but of +those 'ponds,' as our countrymen used to call them until they were +rechristened by summer visitors; beautiful sheets of water from a +hundred to a few thousand acres in extent, scattered like raindrops +over the map of our Northern sovereignties. The loneliness of +contemplative old age finds its natural home in the near neighborhood +of one of these tranquil basins. + +Nature does not always plant her poets where they belong, but if we +look carefully their affinities betray themselves. The youth will +carry his Byron to the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved +so well. The man of maturer years will remember that the sonorous +couplets of Pope which ring in his ears were written on the banks of +the Thames. The old man, as he nods over the solemn verse of +Wordsworth, will recognize the affinity between the singer and the +calm sheet that lay before him as he wrote,--the stainless and sleepy +Windermere. + +"The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amusement to compare their +own feelings with those of one who has lived by the Atlantic and the +Mediterranean, by the Nile and the Tiber, by Lake Leman and by one of +the fairest sheets of water that our own North America embosoms in +its forests." + + +Miss Lurida Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, read this +paper, and pondered long upon it. She was thinking very seriously of +studying medicine, and had been for some time in frequent +communication with Dr. Butts, under whose direction she had begun +reading certain treatises, which added to such knowledge of the laws +of life in health and in disease as she had brought with her from the +Corinna Institute. Naturally enough, she carried the anonymous paper +to the doctor, to get his opinion about it, and compare it with her +own. They both agreed that it was probably, they would not say +certainly, the work of the solitary visitor. There was room for +doubt, for there were visitors who might well have travelled to all +the places mentioned, and resided long enough on the shores of the +waters the writer spoke of to have had all the experiences mentioned +in the paper. The Terror remembered a young lady, a former +schoolmate, who belonged to one of those nomadic families common in +this generation, the heads of which, especially the female heads, can +never be easy where they are, but keep going between America and +Europe, like so many pith-balls in the electrical experiment, +alternately attracted and repelled, never in contented equilibrium. +Every few years they pull their families up by the roots, and by the +time they have begun to take hold a little with their radicles in the +spots to which they have been successively transplanted up they come +again, so that they never get a tap-root anywhere. The Terror +suspected the daughter of one of these families of sending certain +anonymous articles of not dissimilar character to the one she had +just received. But she knew the style of composition common among +the young girls, and she could hardly believe that it was one of them +who had sent this paper. Could a brother of this young lady have +written it? Possibly; she knew nothing more than that the young lady +had a brother, then a student at the University. All the chances +were that Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was the author. So thought Lurida, +and so thought Dr. Butts. + +Whatever faults there were in this essay, it interested them both. +There was nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on +the part of the writer, whoever he or she might be. There were +references to suicide, it is true, but they were of a purely +speculative nature, and did not look to any practical purpose in that +direction. Besides, if the stranger were the author of the paper, he +certainly would not choose a sheet of water like Cedar Lake to +perform the last offices for him, in case he seriously meditated +taking unceremonious leave of life and its accidents. He could find +a river easily enough, to say nothing of other methods of effecting +his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the impropriety of +selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the white canoe +and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the surface of the deep +waters. + +The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come before +the public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers +belonging to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make +free use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a +diversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is +languid, or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress. The +reader can hardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern +had become the focal point where a good deal of mental activity +converged. There were the village people, including a number of +cultivated families; there were the visitors, among them many +accomplished and widely travelled persons; there was the University, +with its learned teachers and aspiring young men; there was the +Corinna Institute, with its eager, ambitious, hungry-souled young +women, crowding on, class after class coming forward on the broad +stream of liberal culture, and rounding the point which, once passed, +the boundless possibilities of womanhood opened before them. All +this furnished material enough and to spare for the records and the +archives of the society. + +The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meetings. It may be +remembered that the girls had said of her, when she was The Terror, +that "she knew everything and didn't believe anything." That was +just the kind of person for a secretary of such an association. +Properly interpreted, the saying meant that she knew a great deal, +and wanted to know a great deal more, and was consequently always on +the lookout for information; that she believed nothing without +sufficient proof that it was true, and therefore was perpetually +asking for evidence where, others took assertions on trust. + +It was astonishing to see what one little creature like The Terror +could accomplish in the course of a single season. She found out +what each member could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside +visitors whom she suspected of capacity, and urged them to speak at +the meetings, or send written papers to be read. As an official, +with the printed title at the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, +she was a privileged personage. She begged the young persons who had +travelled to tell something of their experiences. She had +contemplated getting up a discussion on the woman's rights question, +but being a wary little body, and knowing that the debate would +become a dispute and divide the members into two hostile camps, she +deferred this project indefinitely. It would be time enough after +she had her team well in hand, she said to herself,--had felt their +mouths and tried their paces. This expression, as she used it in her +thoughts, seems rather foreign to her habits, but there was room in +her large brain for a wide range of illustrations and an ample +vocabulary. She could not do much with her own muscles, but she had +known the passionate delight of being whirled furiously over the road +behind four scampering horses, in a rocking stage-coach, and thought +of herself in the Secretary's chair as not unlike the driver on his +box. A few weeks of rest had allowed her nervous energy to store +itself up, and the same powers which had distanced competition in the +classes of her school had of necessity to expend themselves in +vigorous action in her new office. + + +Her appeals had their effect. A number of papers were very soon sent +in; some with names, some anonymously. She looked these papers over, +and marked those which she thought would be worth reading and +listening to at the meetings. One of them has just been presented to +the reader. As to the authorship of the following one there were +many conjectures. A well-known writer, who had spent some weeks at +Arrowhead Village, was generally suspected of being its author. +Some, however, questioned whether it was not the work of a new hand, +who wrote, not from experience, but from his or her ideas of the +condition to which a story-teller, a novelist, must in all +probability be sooner or later reduced. The reader must judge for +himself whether this first paper is the work of an old hand or a +novice. + + + SOME EXPERIENCES OF A NOVELIST. + +"I have written a frightful number of stories, forty or more, I +think. Let me see. For twelve years two novels a year regularly: +that makes twenty-four. In three different years I have written +three stories annually: that makes thirty-three. In five years one a +year,--thirty-eight. That is all, is n't it? Yes. Thirty-eight, +not forty. I wish I could make them all into one composite story, as +Mr. Galton does his faces. + +"Hero--heroine--mamma--papa--uncle--sister, and so on. Love-- +obstacles--misery--tears--despair--glimmer of hope--unexpected +solution of difficulties--happy finale. + +"Landscape for background according to season. Plants of each month +got up from botanical calendars. + + +"I should like much to see the composite novel. Why not apply Mr. +Galton's process, and get thirty-eight stories all in one? All the +Yankees would resolve into one Yankee, all the P---- West Britons +into one Patrick, etc., what a saving of time it would be! + +"I got along pretty well with my first few stories. I had some +characters around me which, a little disguised, answered well enough. +There was the minister of the parish, and there was an old +schoolmaster either of them served very satisfactorily for +grandfathers and old uncles. All I had to do was to shift some of +their leading peculiarities, keeping the rest. The old minister wore +knee-breeches. I clapped them on to the schoolmaster. The +schoolmaster carried a tall gold-headed cane. I put this in the +minister's hands. So with other things,--I shifted them round, and +got a set of characters who, taken together, reproduced the chief +persons of the village where I lived, but did not copy any individual +exactly. Thus it went on for a while; but by and by my stock company +began to be rather too familiarly known, in spite of their change of +costume, and at last some altogether too sagacious person published +what he called a 'key' to several of my earlier stories, in which I +found the names of a number of neighbors attached to aliases of my +own invention. All the 'types,' as he called them, represented by +these personages of my story had come to be recognized, each as +standing for one and the same individual of my acquaintance. It had +been of no use to change the costume. Even changing the sex did no +good. I had a famous old gossip in one of my tales,--a much-babbling +Widow Sertingly. 'Sho!' they all said, that 's old Deacon Spinner, +the same he told about in that other story of his,--only the deacon's +got on a petticoat and a mob-cap,--but it's the same old sixpence.' +So I said to myself, I must have some new characters. I had no +trouble with young characters; they are all pretty much alike,--dark- +haired or light-haired, with the outfits belonging to their +complexion, respectively. I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-top +eccentric. I had never seen anything just like her in books. So I +said, I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure +enough, I fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which I +got from the directory, and sent her forth to the world, disguised, +as I supposed, beyond the possibility of recognition. The book sold +well, and the eccentric personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks +after it was published a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the +person in the directory, whose family name I had used, as he +maintained, to his and all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, +grief, shame, and irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank +thousand dollars would be a modest compensation. The story made the +book sell, but not enough to pay blank thousand dollars. In the mean +time a cousin of mine had sniffed out the resemblance between the +character in my book and our great-aunt. We were rivals in her good +graces. 'Cousin Pansie' spoke to her of my book and the trouble it +was bringing on me,--she was so sorry about it! She liked my story, +--only those personalities, you know. 'What personalities?' says old +granny-aunt. 'Why, auntie, dear, they do say that he has brought in +everybody we know,--did n't anybody tell you about--well,--I suppose +you ought to know it,--did n't anybody tell you you were made fun of +in that novel?' Somebody--no matter who--happened to hear all this, +and told me. She said granny-aunt's withered old face had two red +spots come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeks from a pink +saucer. No, she said, not a pink saucer, but as if they were two +coals of fire. She sent out and got the book, and made her (the +somebody that I was speaking of) read it to her. When she had heard +as much as she could stand,--for 'Cousin Pansie' explained passages +to her,--explained, you know,--she sent for her lawyer, and that same +somebody had to be a witness to a new will she had drawn up. It was +not to my advantage. 'Cousin Pansie' got the corner lot where the +grocery is, and pretty much everything else. The old woman left me a +legacy. What do you think it was? An old set of my own books, that +looked as if it had been bought out of a bankrupt circulating +library. + +"After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much more +diligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing +stories for my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, +and worked hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every +story that went from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my +reputation, and there was a set of critics,--there is a set of +critics now and everywhere,--that watch as narrowly for the decline +of a man's reputation as ever a village half drowned out by an +inundation watched for the falling of the waters. The fame I had +won, such as it was, seemed to attend me,--not going before me in the +shape of a woman with a trumpet, but rather following me like one of +Actaeon's hounds, his throat open, ready to pull me down and tear me. +What a fierce enemy is that which bays behind us in the voice of our +proudest bygone achievement! + +"But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I +must have characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. +Oh, yes! Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain +aspects of humanity will answer every purpose for which your +invention was intended. A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of +breeches, a hat which has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken +window, and had a brood of chickens raised in it,--these elements, +duly adjusted to each other, will represent humanity so truthfully +that the crows will avoid the cornfield when your scarecrow displays +his personality. Do you think you can make your heroes and +heroines,--nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries,--out of refuse +material, as you made your scarecrow? You can't do it. You must +study living people and reproduce them. And whom do you know so well +as your friends? You will show up your friends, then, one after +another. When your friends give out, who is left for you? Why, +nobody but your own family, of course. When you have used up your +family, there is nothing left for you but to write your +autobiography. + +"After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, +very naturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well +as sexes. In this way I continued to use up a large amount of +material, which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to +meddle with. Who would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in +the guise of a schoolboy? Yet I managed to decant his +characteristics as nicely as the old gentleman would have decanted a +bottle of Juno Madeira through that long siphon which he always used +when the most sacred vintages were summoned from their crypts to +render an account of themselves on his hospitable board. It was a +nice business, I confess, but I did it, and I drink cheerfully to +that good uncle's memory in a glass of wine from his own cellar, +which, with many other more important tokens of his good will, I call +my own since his lamented demise. + +"I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought I would try a +course of cousins. I had enough of them to furnish out a whole +gallery of portraits. There was cousin 'Creeshy,' as we called her; +Lucretia, more correctly. She was a cripple. Her left lower limb +had had something happen to it, and she walked with a crutch. Her +patience under her trial was very pathetic and picturesque, so to +speak,--I mean adapted to the tender parts of a story; nothing could +work up better in a melting paragraph. But I could not, of course, +describe her particular infirmity; that would point her out at once. +I thought of shifting the lameness to the right lower limb, but even +that would be seen through. So I gave the young woman that stood for +her in my story a lame elbow, and put her arm in a sling, and made +her such a model of uncomplaining endurance that my grandmother cried +over her as if her poor old heart would break. She cried very +easily, my grandmother; in fact, she had such a gift for tears that I +availed myself of it, and if you remember old Judy, in my novel +"Honi Soit " (Honey Sweet, the booksellers called it),--old Judy, the +black-nurse,--that was my grandmother. She had various other +peculiarities, which I brought out one by one, and saddled on to +different characters. You see she was a perfect mine of +singularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up pretty +well, I came dawn upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair +game; what better use could I put them to? I studied them up very +carefully, and as there were a good many of them I helped myself +freely. They lasted me, with occasional intermissions, I should say, +three or four years. I had to be very careful with my poor +relations,--they were as touchy as they could be; and as I felt bound +to send a copy of my novel, whatever it might be, to each one of +them,--there were as many as a dozen,--I took care to mix their +characteristic features, so that, though each might suspect I meant +the other, no one should think I meant him or her. I got through all +my relations at last except my father and mother. I had treated my +brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except Elisha and Joanna. +The truth is they both had lots of odd ways,--family traits, I +suppose, but were just different enough from each other to figure +separately in two different stories. These two novels made me some +little trouble; for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in +one of them, and quarrelled with me about it; and Joanna vowed and +declared that Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, and +that it was a real mean thing to make fun of folks' own flesh and +blood, and treated me to one of her cries. She was n't handsome when +she cried, poor, dear Joanna; in fact, that was one of the personal +traits I had made use of in the story that Elisha found fault with. + +"So as there was nobody left but my father and mother, you see for +yourself I had no choice. There was one great advantage in dealing +with them,--I knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a certain +delicacy it handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who +have been so near to him. One's mother, for instance: suppose some +of her little ways were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of +them would furnish amusement to great numbers of readers; it would +not be without hesitation that a writer of delicate sensibility would +draw her portrait, with all its whimsicalities, so plainly that it +should be generally recognized. One's father is commonly of tougher +fibre than one's mother, and one would not feel the same scruples, +perhaps, in using him professionally as material in a novel; still, +while you are employing him as bait,--you see I am honest and plain- +spoken, for your characters are baits to catch readers with,--I would +follow kind Izaak Walton's humane counsel about the frog you are +fastening to your fish-hook: fix him artistically, as he directs, but +in so doing I use him as though you loved him.' + +"I have at length shown up, in one form and another, all my townsmen +who have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up, all my +friends, all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It has +occurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection +of my father-in-law and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of +paying them a visit, and I shall have an admirable opportunity of +studying them and their relatives and visitors. I have long wanted a +good chance for getting acquainted with the social sphere several +grades below that to which I am accustomed, and I have no doubt that +I shall find matter for half a dozen new stories among those +connections of mine. Besides, they live in a Western city, and one +doesn't mind much how he cuts up the people of places he does n't +himself live in. I suppose there is not really so much difference in +people's feelings, whether they live in Bangor or Omaha, but one's +nerves can't be expected to stretch across the continent. It is all +a matter of greater or less distance. I read this morning that a +Chinese fleet was sunk, but I did n't think half so much about it as +I did about losing my sleeve button, confound it! People have +accused me of want of feeling; they misunderstand the artist-nature, +--that is all. I obey that implicitly; I am sorry if people don't +like my descriptions, but I have done my best. I have pulled to +pieces all the persons I am acquainted with, and put them together +again in my characters. The quills I write with come from live +geese, I would have you know. I expect to get some first-rate +pluckings from those people I was speaking of, and I mean to begin my +thirty-ninth novel as soon as I have got through my visit." + + + + +IX + +THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. + +There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events, in a +narrative like this. June passed away, and July, and August had +come, and as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead +Village and its visitors remained unsolved. The white canoe still +wandered over the lake, alone, ghostly, always avoiding the near +approach of the boats which seemed to be coming in its direction. +Now and then a circumstance would happen which helped to keep inquiry +alive. Good horsemanship was not so common among the young men of +the place and its neighborhood that Maurice's accomplishment in that +way could be overlooked. If there was a wicked horse or a wild colt +whose owner was afraid of him, he would be commended to Maurice's +attention. Paolo would lead him to his master with all due +precaution,--for he had no idea of risking his neck on the back of +any ill-conditioned beast,--and Maurice would fasten on his long +spurs, spring into the saddle, and very speedily teach the creature +good behavior. There soon got about a story that he was what the +fresh-water fisherman called "one o' them whisperers." It is a +common legend enough, coming from the Old World, but known in +American horse-talking circles, that some persons will whisper +certain words in a horse's ear which will tame him if he is as wild +and furious as ever Cruiser was. All this added to the mystery which +surrounded the young man. A single improbable or absurd story +amounts to very little, but when half a dozen such stories are told +about the same individual or the same event, they begin to produce +the effect of credible evidence. If the year had been 1692 and the +place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood would have run the +risk of being treated like the Reverend George Burroughs. + +Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely excited with +reference to the young man of whom so many stories were told. She +had pretty nearly convinced herself that he was the author of the +paper on Ocean, Lake, and River, which had been read at one of the +meetings of the Pansophian Society. She was very desirous of meeting +him, if it were possible. It seemed as if she might, as Secretary of +the Society, request the cooperation of any of the visitors, without +impropriety. So, after much deliberation, she wrote a careful note, +of which the following is an exact copy. Her hand was bold, almost +masculine, a curious contrast to that of Euthymia, which was +delicately feminine. + + +PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18-. + +MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR,--You have received, I trust, a card of invitation to the +meetings of our Society, but I think we have not yet had the pleasure +of seeing you at any of them. We have supposed that we might be +indebted to you for a paper read at the last meeting, and listened to +with much interest. As it was anonymous, we do not wish to be +inquisitive respecting its authorship; but we desire to say that any +papers kindly sent us by the temporary residents of our village will +be welcome, and if adapted to the wants of our Association will be +read at one of its meetings or printed in its records, or perhaps +both read and printed. May we not hope for your presence at the +meeting, which is to take place next Wednesday evening? +Respectfully yours, + +LURIDA VINCENT, +Secretary of the Pansophian Society. + + +To this note the Secretary received the following reply: + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT, + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18-. + +Secretary of the Pansophian Society: + +DEAR MISS VINCENT,--I have received the ticket you refer to, and +desire to express my acknowledgments for the polite attention. I +regret that I have not been and I fear shall not be able to attend +the meetings of the Society; but if any subject occurs to me on which +I feel an inclination to write, it will give me pleasure to send a +paper, to be disposed of as the Society may see fit. + +Very respectfully yours, + +MAURICE KIRKWOOD. + + +"He says nothing about the authorship of the paper that was read the +other evening," the Secretary said to herself. " No matter,--he +wrote it,--there is no mistaking his handwriting. We know something +about him, now, at any rate. But why doesn't he come to our +meetings? What has his antipathy to do with his staying away? I +must find out what his secret is, and I will. I don't believe it's +harder than it was to solve that prize problem which puzzled so many +teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, the great chess-player." + +To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to bend all the faculties +which had excited the admiration and sometimes the amazement of those +who knew her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece of +business; for though Lurida was an intrepid woman's rights advocate, +and believed she was entitled to do almost everything that men dared +to, she knew very well there were certain limits which a young woman +like herself must not pass. + +In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young student +at the University,--the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous +predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,-- +an instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and +the instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke +it with the ease which implied long familiarity with its use. + +After they left, the instructor asked many curious questions about +him,--who he was, how long he had been in the village, whether +anything was known of his history,--all these inquiries with an +eagerness which implied some special and peculiar reason for the +interest they evinced. + +"I feel satisfied," the instructor said, "that I have met that young +man in my own country. It was a number of years ago, and of course +he has altered in appearance a good deal; but there is a look about +him of--what shall I call it?---apprehension,--as if he were fearing +the approach of something or somebody. I think it is the way a man +would look that was haunted; you know what I mean,--followed by a +spirit or ghost. He does not suggest the idea of a murderer,--very +far from it; but if he did, I should think he was every minute in +fear of seeing the murdered man's spirit." + +The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the instructor +could recall. He had seen him in Rome, he thought, at the Fountain +of Trevi, where so many strangers go before leaving the city. The +youth was in the company of a man who looked like a priest. He could +not mistake the peculiar expression of his countenance, but that was +all he now remembered about his appearance. His attention had been +called to this young man by seeing that some of the bystanders were +pointing at him, and noticing that they were whispering with each +other as if with reference to him. He should say that the youth was +at that time fifteen or sixteen years old, and the time was about ten +years ago. + +After all, this evidence was of little or no value. Suppose the +youth were Maurice; what then? We know that he had been in Italy, +and had been there a good while,--or at least we infer so much from +his familiarity with the language, and are confirmed in the belief by +his having an Italian servant, whom he probably brought from Italy +when he returned. If he wrote the paper which was read the other +evening, that settles it, for the writer says he had lived by the +Tiber. We must put this scrap of evidence furnished by the Professor +with the other scraps; it may turn out of some consequence, sooner or +later. It is like a piece of a dissected map; it means almost +nothing by itself, but when we find the pieces it joins with we may +discover a very important meaning in it. + +In a small, concentrated community like that which centred in and +immediately around Arrowhead Village, every day must have its local +gossip as well as its general news. The newspaper tells the small +community what is going on in the great world, and the busy tongues +of male and female, especially the latter, fill in with the +occurrences and comments of the ever-stirring microcosm. The fact +that the Italian , teacher had, or thought he had, seen Maurice ten +years before was circulated and made the most of,--turned over and +over like a cake, until it was thoroughly done on both sides and all +through. It was a very small cake, but better than nothing. Miss +Vincent heard this story, as others did, and talked about it with her +friend, Miss Tower. Here was one more fact to help along. + +The two young ladies who had recently graduated at the Corinna +Institute remained, as they had always been, intimate friends. They +were the natural complements of each other. Euthymia represented a +complete, symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence was only an +index of a large, wholesome, affluent life. She could not help being +courageous, with such a firm organization. She could not help being +generous, cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she +was fair to look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by +the schoolmates who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but +she did not overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own +gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. +The two agreed all the better for differing as they did. The octave +makes a perfect chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the +ear. Each admired the other with a heartiness which if they had been +less unlike, would have been impossible. + +It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence on each other. +The Terror of the schoolroom was the oracle in her relations with her +friend. All the freedom of movement which The Wonder showed in her +bodily exercises The Terror manifested in the world of thought. She +would fling open a book, and decide in a swift glance whether it had +any message for her. Her teachers had compared her way of reading to +the taking of an instantaneous photograph. When she took up the +first book on Physiology which Dr. Butts handed her, it seemed to him +that if she only opened at any place, and gave one look, her mind +drank its meaning up, as a moist sponge absorbs water. "What can I +do with such a creature as this?" he said to himself. " There is +only one way to deal with her, treat her as one treats a silkworm: +give it its mulberry leaf, and it will spin its own cocoon. Give her +the books, and she will spin her own web of knowledge." + +"Do you really think of studying medicine?" said Dr. Butts to her. + +"I have n't made up my mind about that," she answered, "but I want to +know a little more about this terrible machinery of life and death we +are all tangled in. I know something about it, but not enough. I +find some very strange beliefs among the women I meet with, and I +want to be able to silence them when they attempt to proselyte me to +their whims and fancies. Besides, I want to know everything." + +"They tell me you do, already," said Dr. Butts. + +"I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws the breath of life!" +exclaimed The Terror. + +The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She had reached that +stage of education in which the vast domain of the unknown opens its +illimitable expanse before the eyes of the student. We never know +the extent of darkness until it is partially illuminated. + +"You did not leave the Institute with the reputation of being the +most ignorant young lady that ever graduated there," said the doctor. +"They tell me you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record +since the school was founded." + +"What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish in our small +aquarium, to be sure!" answered The Terror. "He was six inches long, +the monster,--a little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with! +What did you hand me that schoolbook for? Did you think I did n't +know anything about the human body?" + +"You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try +you with an easy book, by way of introduction." + +The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction. + +"I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. When I talk about my +ignorance, I don't measure myself with schoolgirls, doctor. I don't +measure myself with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if I +were a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me anything. Where is +your hat, doctor? Let me try it on." + +The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Terror's hair was not +naturally abundant, like Euthymia's, and she kept it cut rather +short. Her head used to get very hot when she studied hard. She +tried to put the hat on. + +"Do you see that?" she said. "I could n't wear it--it would squeeze +my eyes out of my head. The books told me that women's brains were +smaller than men's: "perhaps they are,--most of them,--I never +measured a great many. But when they try to settle what women are +good for, by phrenology, I like to have them put their tape round my +head. I don't believe in their nonsense, for all that. You might as +well tell me that if one horse weighs more than another horse he is +worth more,--a cart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred +pounds better than Eclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give +me a list of the best books you can think of, and turn me loose in +your library. I can find what I want, if you have it; and what I +don't find there I will get at the Public Library. I shall want to +ask you a question now and then." + +The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, but thoughtfully, +as if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her +slight constitutional resource. + +She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contradiction in her +statements about herself. + +"I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I sail on a wide +sea of ignorance, but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows +and some of its depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life +that interest me most just now, and I want to know something of it. +Perhaps I may find it a calling such as would suit me." + +"Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?" said +the doctor. + +"Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, but I want to +know something more about it first. Perhaps I sha'n't believe in +medicine enough to practise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well +enough. No matter about that. I wish to study some of your best +books on some of the subjects that most interest me. I know about +bones and muscles and all that, and about digestion and respiration +and such things. I want to study up the nervous system, and learn +all about it. I am of the nervous temperament myself, and perhaps +that is the reason. I want to read about insanity and all that +relates to it." + +A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The +Terror said this. + +"Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, I know,--all those +large-headed, hard-thinking girls do, as a matter of course; but what +has set her off about insanity and the nervous system? I wonder if +any of her more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder. +Bright people very often have crazy relations. Perhaps some of her +friends are in that way. I wonder whether"--the doctor did not speak +any of these thoughts, and in fact hardly shaped his "whether," for +The Terror interrupted his train of reflection, or rather struck into +it in a way which startled him. + +"Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?" she asked, +looking at its empty place on the shelf. + +"On my table," the doctor answered. "I have been consulting it." + +Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned the pages rapidly +until she came to the one she wanted. The doctor cast his eye on the +beading of the page, and saw the large letters A N T. + +"I thought so," he said to himself. "We shall know everything there +is in the books about antipathies now, if we never did before. She +has a special object in studying the nervous system, just as I +suspected. I think she does not care to mention it at this time; but +if she finds out anything of interest she will tell me, if she does +anybody. Perhaps she does not mean to tell anybody. It is a rather +delicate business,--a young girl studying the natural history of a +young man. Not quite so safe as botany or palaeontology! + +Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had her own plans, and +chose to keep them to herself, for the present, at least. Her hands +were full enough, it might seem, without undertaking the solution of +the great Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the most perfect +training, so far as her intelligence was concerned; and the summer +rest had restored her bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an +overcharged battery which will find conductors somewhere to carry off +its crowded energy. + +At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the most successful +season it had ever known. The Pansophian Society flourished to an +extraordinary degree under the fostering care of the new Secretary. +The rector was a good figure-head as President, but the Secretary was +the life of the Society. Communications came in abundantly: some +from the village and its neighborhood, some from the University and +the Institute, some from distant and unknown sources. The new +Secretary was very busy with the work of examining these papers. +After a forenoon so employed, the carpet of her room looked like a +barn floor after a husking-match. A glance at the manuscripts +strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have frightened any young +writer away from the thought of authorship as a business. If the +candidate for that fearful calling had seen the process of selection +and elimination, he would have felt still more desperately. A paper +of twenty pages would come in, with an underscored request to please +read through, carefully. That request alone is commonly sufficient +to condemn any paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; +but the Secretary was not hardened enough yet for that kind of +martial law in dealing with manuscripts. The looker-on might have +seen her take up the paper, cast one flashing glance at its title, +read the first sentence and the last, dip at a venture into two or +three pages, and decide as swiftly as the lightning calculator would +add up a column of figures what was to be its destination. If +rejected, it went into the heap on the left; if approved, it was laid +apart, to be submitted to the Committee for their judgment. The +foolish writers who insist on one's reading through their manuscript +poems and stories ought to know how fatal the request is to their +prospects. It provokes the reader, to begin with. The reading of +manuscript is frightful work, at the best; the reading of worthless +manuscript--and most of that which one is requested to read through +is worthless--would add to the terrors of Tartarus, if any infernal +deity were ingenious enough to suggest it as a punishment. + +If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not come before the +Committee, but was returned to the author, if he sent for it, which +he commonly did. Its natural course was to try for admission into +some one of the popular magazines: into " The Sifter," the most +fastidious of them all; if that declined it, into "The Second Best;" +and if that returned it, into "The Omnivorous." If it was refused +admittance at the doors of all the magazines, it might at length find +shelter in the corner of a newspaper, where a good deal of very +readable verse is to be met with nowadays, some of which has been, no +doubt, presented to the Pansophian Society, but was not considered up +to its standard. + + + + +X + +A NEW ARRIVAL. + +There was a recent accession to the transient population of the +village which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a +young fellow, rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much +at home as if he owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He +commonly had a cigar in his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the +non-explosive sort, and a stick with a bulldog's bead for its knob; +wore a soft bat, a coarse check suit, a little baggy, and gaiterboots +which had been half-soled,--a Bohemian-looking personage, altogether. + +This individual began making explorations in every direction. He was +very curious about the place and all the people in it. He was +especially interested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he +made all sorts of inquiries. This led him to form a summer +acquaintance with the Secretary, who was pleased to give him whatever +information he asked for; being proud of the Society, as she had a +right to be, and knowing more about it than anybody else. + +The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearing +something of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, +connected with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell him +anything about Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note- +book he always had with him. + +All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about this +new visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an +attribute thought to belong more especially to her sex, became +somewhat interested to know more exactly who this inquiring, note- +taking personage, who seemed to be everywhere and to know everybody, +might himself be. Meeting him at the Public Library at a fortunate +moment, when there was nobody but the old Librarian, who was hard of +hearing, to interfere with their conversation, the little Secretary +had a chance to try to find out something about him. + +"This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess," +he remarked to Miss Lurida. + +"It is, indeed," she said. "Have you found it well furnished with +the books you most want?" + +"Oh, yes,--books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do +for the Newspapers. I like a Review well enough,--it tells you all +there is in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper +saves a fellow the trouble of reading it." + +"You find the papers you want, here, I hope," said the young lady. + +"Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do much +reading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?" + +"I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, +there is a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account +of some of the doings at our Society. The city papers are always +glad to get the reports of our meetings, and to know what is going on +in the village." + +"I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are the +Secretary." + +This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man +about his business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She +ducked her head, and let the question go over her. + +"Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write,-- +especially to give an account of their own papers. I think they like +to have me put in the applause, when they get any. I do that +sometimes." (How much more, she did not say.) + +"I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what they +tell me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have +written herself." + +He looked her straight in the eyes. + +"I have transmitted some good papers," she said, without winking, or +swallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to +change; her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and +more too. "You spoke of Newspapers," she said, without any change of +tone or manner: "do you not frequently write for them yourself?" + +"I should think I did," answered the young man. "I am a regular +correspondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'" + +"The regular correspondent from where?" + +"Where! Oh, anywhere,--the place does not make much difference. I +have been writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and +then from Constantinople." + +"How long since your return to this country, may I ask?" + +"My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with a +gazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can +get the facts much better from them than by trusting your own +observation. I have made the tour of Europe by the help of them and +the newspapers. But of late I have taken to interviewing. I find +that a very pleasant specialty. It is about as good sport as trout- +tickling, and much the same kind of business. I should like to send +the Society an account of one of my interviews. Don't you think they +would like to hear it?" + +"I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; +and if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. +You know everything has to be examined and voted on by the +Committee," said the cautious Secretary. + +"Very well,--I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, please +send it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter,' or 'The +Second Best,' or some of the paying magazines." + +This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the +Pansophian Society. + + +"I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, +'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to +a certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could +concerning him and all that related to him. I have interviewed a +good many politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I +had never tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite +sure how this one would feel about it. I said as much to the chief, +but he pooh-poohed my scruples. 'It is n't our business whether they +like it or not,' said he; 'the public wants it, and what the public +wants it's bound to have, and we are bound to furnish it. Don't be +afraid of your man; he 's used to it,--he's been pumped often enough +to take it easy, and what you've got to do is to pump him dry. You +need n't be modest,--ask him what you like; he is n't bound to +answer, you know.' + +As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up +a little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine +on my best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the +house where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and +pass for a visitor from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' +who call in to pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home +and say that they have met the distinguished So and So, which gives +them a certain distinction in the village circle to which they +belong. + +"My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his +reception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on +my face, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his +face in the light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged +things so as to give him that advantage. It was like two frigates +manoeuvring,--each trying to get to windward of the other. I never +take out my note-book until I and my man have got engaged in artless +and earnest conversation,--always about himself and his works, of +course, if he is an author. + +"I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those +who had read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of +them. + +"He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a +great many callers. + +"I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his +readers feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to +cherish a certain attachment to him. + +"He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he +said. In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had +told him so. + +"My dear sir, I said, there is nothing wonderful in the fact you +mention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts. + + 'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.' + +Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), +were your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you +very frequently? + +"He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they +will all turn out well.' + +"I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said. + +"No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer +and pleasanter there.' + +"I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an +author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a +lady's boudoir, a sacred apartment. + +"So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my +face, when I wanted it on has. + +"You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the +room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a +Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, +and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to +give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of +Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations +and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving +book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to +find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are +the ones you particularly wish to see. + +"Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you +suppose is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster +opened? Yes? Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. +His man is his oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and +note-book, must open. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates +itself,--how gently at first, how strenuously when once fairly +between the shells! + +"And here, I said, you write your books,--those books which have +carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down +to posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the +pen you write with? + +"'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied. + +"He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took +up the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather +which the angel I used to read about in Young's "Night Thoughts" +ought to have dropped, and did n't. + +"Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that +pen? I asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure. + +"So I got out my note-book. + +"It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this +interview. I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just +how high they are? + +"'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.' + +"I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, +said I. Eight feet,--eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that +down. + +"So I got out my pencil. + +"I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but +not using them as yet. + +"I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a +very early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early +you began to write in verse? + +"He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are +themselves the subjects of conversation. + +"'Very early,--I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise +Colet said, + + 'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'" + +"I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be +kind enough to translate that line for me. + +"'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first +verses without knowing how to write them.' + +"How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she? + +"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information. + +"'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of +Alphonse Karr?' + +"Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up +in French literature. What had he to do with your lioness? + +"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a +case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he +came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing +her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his +dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. +He keeps it with an inscription : + + + Donne a Alphonse Karr + Par Madame Louise Colet.... + Dans le dos. + +Lively little female!' + +"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview +the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest +I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel +amiably disposed toward me. + +"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at +everything about his family history and the small events of his +boyhood. Some of the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a +good bold face on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a +great deal that was new concerning my subject. He had been written +about considerably, and the public wouldn't have been satisfied +without some new facts; and these I meant to have, and I got. No +matter about many of them now, but here are some questions and +answers that may be thought worth reading or listening to: + +"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated +man? + +"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self- +love is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes +all through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more +of the same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of +egotism. It generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities +which is in danger of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse +of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, +by every post, letters that tell him he is this and that and the +other, with epithets and endearments, one tenth part of which would +have made him blush red hot before he began to be what you call a +celebrity!' + +"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is +called celebrity? + +"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life +to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has +to after his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel +after a few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given +you thirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, +on condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: +how do you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at +the end of a year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day +but Sunday, cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had +not finished your task, after all? Yon have addressed me as what you +are pleased to call "a literary celebrity." I won't dispute with you +as to whether or not I deserve that title. I will take it for +granted I am what you call me, and give you some few hints on my +experience. + +"'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for +Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something +would come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I +am sorry to say that it has not effected its purpose.' + +"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of +that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and +as much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. +I am sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop +to the abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; +it was well conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. +(I saw by his expression that he was its author.) + +"'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of +some of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to +whom you have applied the term "Literary Celebrity." + +"'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales +of his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes +into his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to +him for his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his +name comes to him for assistance. + +"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by +receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is +expected to fill up. + +"'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and +give his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word +which can be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the +newspapers. + +"'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he +is called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these +manuscripts having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to +whom they have been sent, and having as a rule no literary value +whatever. + +"'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to +write for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner +speeches, to send money for objects he does not believe in to places +he never heard of. + +"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, +who begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then +appropriate it by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and +sheet after sheet, if of the other. + +"'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any +moment and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be +suggested to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great- +grandmother on her reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant +aged six weeks, an ode for the Fourth of July in a Western township +not to be found in Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for +some bucolic lover who believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to +win the object of his affections.' + +"Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity. + +"'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, +and they will both have a good laugh over them.' + + +"I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the +Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing self- +contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and +spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his +linen on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to +him that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found +himself exposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the +columns of The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'" + +After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who +the person spoken of as the "Literary Celebrity" might be. Among the +various suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was +neither more nor less than the unexplained personage known in the +village as Maurice Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why +should not he be the Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to +this retreat to escape from the persecutions of kind friends, who +were pricking him and stabbing him nigh to death with their daggers +of sugar candy? + +The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the +Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened +soon after the meeting when his paper was read. + +"I do not know," she said, in the course of a conversation in which +she had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary +entertainment of the Society, "that you mentioned the name of the +Literary Celebrity whom you interviewed so successfully." + +"I did not mention him, Miss Vincent," he answered, "nor do I think +it worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole +story told of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. +Besides, if I did, it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic +letters, regretting that he was bothered by those horrid +correspondents, full of indignation at the bores who presumed to +intrude upon him with their pages of trash, all the writers of which +would expect answers to their letters of condolence." + +The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman +who called himself Maurice Kirkwood. + +"What," he answered, "the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides +all the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I +have met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they +tell me. Do you know anything particular about him?" + +"Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that +be has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows +what or whom." + +"To newspaper correspondents, perhaps," said the interviewer. "What +made you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary +Celebrity,' did you?" + +"I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview +this mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your +paper, I should think." + +"Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story of +crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a few +paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him +professionally." + +"I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how +much wiser you are for that piece of information." + +"An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as +for a naked caterpillar,--I believe I should go into a fit if I had +to touch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great +green caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and +early autumn." + +"Afraid of them?" asked the young lady. + +"Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I +can't give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of +these creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,-- +sometimes using very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy +for the moment." + +"I understand what you mean," said Miss Vincent. "I used to have the +same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a +little menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that +is, pretty much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very +dearly, though I don't scream when I see one." + +"What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular +antipathy?" + +That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we +can't guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to +discover some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way +of everybody, as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they +don't seem to be able to tell which. It would make the old ladies of +the village sleep a great deal sounder,--yes, and some of the young +ladies, too,--if they could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got +into his head, that he never comes near any of the people here." + +"I think I can find out," said the Interviewer, whose professional +ambition was beginning to be excited. "I never came across anybody +yet that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a +week or two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is +any, of this Mr. Maurice Kirkwood." + +We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present +us with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or +failure. + + + + +XI + +THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. + +When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as +she pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a +strain she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her +best, but how great the force of her best was she was not aware until +she saw its effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, +in all its manifestations. She did not pride herself on her +knowledge, nor reproach herself for her ignorance. In every way she +formed a striking contrast to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word +they spoke betrayed the difference between them: the sharp tones of +Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, +revealed the corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the +quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature +restful and sympathetic. + +The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which +will one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The +dependence of two young friends may be mutual, but one will always +lean more heavily than the other; the masculine and feminine elements +will be as sure to assert themselves as if the friends were of +different sexes. + +On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her +superior. She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, +and deferred to her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an +oracle, but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions. It +was a different thing, however, when the graver questions of life +came up. Lurida was full of suggestions, plans, projects, which were +too liable to run into whims before she knew where they were tending. +She would lay out her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and +eloquently that she could not help believing them herself, and +feeling as if her friend must accept them with an enthusiasm like her +own. Then Euthymia would take them up with her sweet, deliberate +accents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on them. + +Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new +interests and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for +papers to be read at the meetings of her Society,--for she made it +her own in great measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,--and in the +mean time she was reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected +for her, all bearing on the profession to which, at least as a +possibility, she was looking forward. Privately and in a very still +way, she was occupying herself with the problem of the young +stranger, the subject of some delusion, or disease, or obliquity of +unknown nature, to which the vague name of antipathy had been +attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in the fear that +over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and partly from +anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her desire +to get at the truth of a very puzzling question. + +"How do you like the books I see you reading?" said Euthymia to +Lurida, one day, as they met at the Library. + +"Better than all the novels I ever read," she answered. "I have been +reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come +nearer the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I +feel just as if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a +battery in my head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not +know how many centres of energy there are, and how they are played +upon by all sorts of influences, external and internal. Do you know, +I believe I could solve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' +as the paper called him, if he would only stay here long enough?" + +"What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or +heard of its being mentioned in any of the papers." + +"You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here +for some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview +with a celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper +in which he writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household +Inquisitor.' He talks about this village in a very free and easy way. +He says there is a Sphinx here, who has mystified us all." + +"And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that +he'll have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that +nothing is safe where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book +and pencil? Oh, Lurida, Lurida, do be careful!" What with this +mysterious young man and this very questionable newspaper-paragraph +writer, you will be talked about, if you don't mind, before you know +it. You had better let the riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must +deal with such dangerous people, the safest way is to set one of them +to find out the other. --I wonder if we can't get this new man to +interview the visitor you have so much curiosity about. That might +be managed easily enough without your having anything to do with it. +Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, now, you must not +meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get your name in +the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like." + +"Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a +chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can +get him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his +antipathy, so much the better. I am very curious about it, and +therefore about him. I want to know what has produced this strange +state of feeling in a young man who ought to have all the common +instincts of a social being. I believe there are unexplained facts +in the region of sympathies and antipathies which will repay study +with a deeper insight into the mysteries of life than we have dreamed +of hitherto. I often wonder whether there are not heart-waves and +soul-waves as well as 'brain-waves,' which some have already +recognized." + +Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman +talking the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida +was one of those persons who never are young, and who, by way of +compensation, will never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two +well-known graduates of one of our great universities are living +examples of this precocious but enduring intellectual development. +If the readers of this narrative cannot pick them out, they need not +expect the writer of it to help them. If they guess rightly who they +are, they will recognize the fact that just such exceptional +individuals as the young woman we are dealing with are met with from +time to time in families where intelligence has been cumulative for +two or three generations. + +Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable +visitor should learn all that was known in the village about the +nebulous individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the +village were trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from +some other informant than Lurida. + +The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside +his door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and +handsome youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so +strikingly that one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a +seat by his side. Presently the two were engaged in conversation. +The Interviewer asked all sorts of questions about everybody in the +village. When he came to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a +remarkable interest regarding him. The greatest curiosity, he said, +existed with reference to this personage. Everybody was trying to +find out what his story was,--for a story, and a strange one, he must +surely have,--and nobody had succeeded. + +The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told +him the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, +about his horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat +was overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help +out the effect of his narrative. + +The Interviewer was becoming excited. "Can't find out anything about +him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to +find? Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I +think he is an actor,--a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those +fellows go off in their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the +country folks. They are the very same chaps, like as not, the +visitors have seen in plays at the city theatres; but of course they +don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings and Emperors look pretty +shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you." + +The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. "I shouldn't wonder +if you were right," he said. "I remember seeing a young fellow in +Romeo that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the +Sphinx, as they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. +I believe there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to +find out who he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, +and why he does n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those +newspaper men don't come up here and get hold of this story. It +would be just the thing for a sensational writer." + +To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. +Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a +column about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,--to +the biggest pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live +frog from the human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading +without spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous +commonplaces which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every +other year or every six months) at the foot; always in want of a +fresh incident, a new story, an undescribed character, an unexplained +mystery, it is no wonder that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon +this most tempting subject for an inventive and emotional +correspondent. + +He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's +confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to +himself that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In +the summer season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on +in Arrowhead Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits-- +oranges, bananas, and others, according to the seasons--did an active +business. The Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and +saw that his hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, +Maurice Kirkwood was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, +and began examining the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer +saw his opportunity. Here was an introduction to the man, and the +man must introduce him to the master. + +He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,--there was +no difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was +an Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him. + +"Good morning, Mr. Paul," he said. "How do you like the look of +these oranges?" + +"They pretty fair," said Paolo: "no so good as them las' week; no +sweet as them was." + +"Why, how do you know without tasting them?" said the Interviewer. + +"I know by his look,--I know by his smell,--he no good yaller,--he no +smell ripe,--I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is," +and Paolo laughed at his own comparison. + +The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo. + +"Good!" said he,--"first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. +Why can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of +'em? I shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I +want to get two nice sweet ones for him." + +Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt +grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of +conferring a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and +grave deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to +offer him an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation. + +"How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?" he asked. + +"Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell +you he sick?" + +"No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a +day or two, and I thought be might have something the matter with +him. Is he in the house now?" + +"No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. +Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very +early,--in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and +read, and study, and write,--he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood." + +"A good many books, has n't he?" + +"He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old +books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you." + +"Has n't he some curiosities,--old figures, old jewelry, old coins, +or things of that sort?" + +Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. +"He don't keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some +old things,--old jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they +used to have in old times: she don't pass now." Paolo's genders were +apt to be somewhat indiscriminately distributed. + +A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. "I wonder if he would +examine some old coins of mine?" said he, in a modestly tentative +manner. + +"I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask +him. Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?" + +"Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call +and show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones." + +The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old +battered bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where +they had been passed off for cents. He had bought them as +curiosities. One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably +distinct,--a common little Roman penny; but it would serve his +purpose of asking a question, as would two or three others with less +legible legends. Paolo told him that if he came the next morning he +would stand a fair chance of seeing Mr. Kirkwood. At any rate, he +would speak to his master. + +The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing +his breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. +Kirkwood at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the +stranger up to his library,--or study, as he modestly called it. + +It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one +direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it +up in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, +many of them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, +showing that probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other +Italian city. With these were older volumes in their dark original +leather, and recent ones in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran +his eye over them, he found that he could make very little out of +what their backs taught him. Some of the paper-covered books, some +of the cloth-covered ones, had names which he knew; but those on the +backs of many of the others were strange to his eyes. The classics +of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were there; and he saw +enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt to display +his erudition in the company of this young scholar. + +The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his +visiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who +was living as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and +showed them to Maurice. + +"I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a +good many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, +hoping that you could tell me something about some ancient coins I +have had for a good while." So saying, he pointed to the copper with +the name of Gallienus. + +"Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have +been paid for some of these ancient coins,--ever so many guineas, +sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old." + +"More than a thousand years old," said Maurice. + +"And worth a great deal of money?" asked the Interviewer. + +"No, not a great deal of money," answered Maurice. + +"How much, should you say?" said the Interviewer. + +Maurice smiled. "A little more than the value of its weight in +copper,--I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these +coins of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers +take such pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or +ten cents, to young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money +value, but as a relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to +hand a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The +value of such relics is a good deal a matter of imagination." + +"And what do you say to these others?" asked the Interviewer. Poor +old worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some +faint trace of a figure on one or two of them. + +"Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the +times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed +one of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was +brought when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I +may see it.' But the market price is a different matter. That +depends on the beauty and preservation, and above all the rarity, of +the specimen. Here is a coin, now,"--he opened a small cabinet, and +took one from it. "Here is a Syracusan decadrachm with the head of +Persephone, which is at once rare, well preserved, and beautiful. I +am afraid to tell what I paid for it." + +The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very +little more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had +thought his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. +No matter about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any +rate, that Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what +he himself considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient +coins. That would do for a beginning. + +"May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?" he said + +"That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not +'pick up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. +I bought this of a great dealer in Rome." + +"Lived in Rome once?" said the Interviewer. + +"For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?" + +The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he +should go there, one of these years. "suppose you studied art and +antiquities while you were there?" he continued. + +"Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and +antiquities. Before you go there I advise you to review Roman +history and the classic authors. You had better make a study of +ancient and modern art, and not have everything to learn while you +are going about among ruins, and churches, and galleries. You know +your Horace and Virgil well, I take it for granted?" + +The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard +them. "Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome," he answered. +"May I ask how long you lived in Rome?" + +"Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one +should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are +familiar with Vasari, of course?" + +The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out +his handkerchief. "It is a warm day," he said. "I have not had time +to read all--the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, +myself, to find all the time for reading and study I could have +wished." + +"In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will +pardon my inquiry? said Maurice. + +"I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of +letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your +own lips some account of your literary experiences." + +"Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it +for my autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. +Do I understand that you are an author?" + +By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a +very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by +the right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's +very simple question. + +"If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, +I may call myself one. I write for the "People's Perennial and +Household Inquisitor.'" + +"Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you +manage the political column?" + +"I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of +interest." + +"Places you have been to, and people you have known?" + +"Well, yes,-generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my +articles." + +"Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?" + +The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he +had found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best +thing he could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He +thought that he should be able to pick up something or other which he +could work into his report of his visit. + +"Well, I--prepared that article for our columns. You know one does +not have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I +hope, in its descriptions?" + +"Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but +I can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle-- +the old Milvian bridge--a good deal too far down the stream, if I +remember. I happened to notice that, but I did not read the article +carefully. May I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of +reporting this visit and the conversation we have had, for the +columns of the newspaper with which you are connected?" + +The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. "If you have no +objections," he said, "I should like very much to ask a few +questions." He was recovering his professional audacity. + +"You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet,-- +after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to +submit me to examination?" + +"The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the +humble agent of its investigations." + +"What has the public to do with my private affairs?" + +"I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles +everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a +large number of curious people that form a majority against you. +That is the way I've heard the chief put it." + +Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the +American citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had +his man, sure, at last. Maurice calmly answered, "There is nothing +left for minorities, then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care +about being made the subject of an article for your paper. I am here +for my pleasure, minding my own business, and content with that +occupation. I rebel against your system of forced publicity. +Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public all it has any right to +know about me. In the mean time I shall request to be spared reading +my biography while I am living. I wish you a good-morning." + +The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his +next communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a +brief mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now +visiting the place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the +privilege of examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the +modesty that shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular +intelligence would otherwise confer upon him. + +The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had +failed to get the first hint of its solution. + +The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain +idle. The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the +various cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the +conversational circles which met every evening in the different +centres of social life. The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was +that Maurice had a congenital aversion to some color, the effects of +which upon him were so painful or disagreeable that he habitually +avoided exposure to it. It was known, and it has already been +mentioned, that such cases were on record. There had been a great +deal of discussion, of late, with reference to a fact long known to a +few individuals, but only recently made a matter of careful +scientific observation and brought to the notice of the public. This +was the now well-known phenomenon of color-blindness. It did not +seem very strange that if one person in every score or two could not +tell red from green there might be other curious individual +peculiarities relating to color. A case has already been referred to +where the subject of observation fainted at the sight of any red +object. What if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It +will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy would tend to +isolate the person who was its unfortunate victim. It was an +hypothesis not difficult to test, but it was a rather delicate +business to be experimenting on an inoffensive stranger. Miss +Vincent was thinking it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of +any projects she might entertain. + + + + +XII + +MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. + +The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss +Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading +various works selected for her by Dr. Butts,--works chiefly relating +to the nervous system and its different affections. She thought it +was about time to talk over the general subject of the medical +profession with her new teacher,--if such a self-directing person as +Lurida could be said to recognize anybody as teacher. + +She began at the beginning. "What is the first book you would put in +a student's hands, doctor?" she said to him one day. They were in +his study, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on +Insanity, one of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it +had been a pamphlet. + +"Not that book, certainly," he said. "I am afraid it will put all +sorts of notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading +that, I should like to know?" + +"I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps +be crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what +kind of a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very +bright, those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid +enough ever to lose my wits." + +"There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that +busy brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about +so many people possessed with such strange notions?" + +"Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many +people I had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. +Take that poor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,--not Her +Majesty, but Her Majesty's Person,--a very important distinction, +according to her: how she does remind me of more than one girl I have +known! She would let her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, +and pile things on her head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and +throw her head back, and feel as grand as a queen. I have seen more +than one girl act very much in that way. Are not most of us a little +crazy, doctor,--just a little? I think so. It seems to me I never +saw but one girl who was free from every hint of craziness." + +"And who was that, pray?" + +"Why, Euthymia,--nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,-- +I don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work +with our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind +was the only achromatic one I ever looked into,--I did n't say looked +through.---But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of +your books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he +should read, the great physician said, 'Read "Don Quixote."' I want +you to explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the +first book, according to your idea, that a student ought to read." + +"What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper +to be read before the Society? I think there may be other young +ladies at the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing +the study of medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are +interested in the subject; in fact, most people listen readily to +anything doctors tell them about their calling." + +"I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't +doubt there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you +have to say about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade +Eutbymia to become a physician! What a doctor she would make! So +strong, so calm, so full of wisdom! I believe she could take the +wheel of a steamboat in a storm, or the hose of a fire-engine in a +conflagration, and handle it as well as the captain of the boat or of +the fire-company." + +"Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?" + +"Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good +times we would have studying together!" + +"I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do +you think practice would be? How would you like being called up to +ride ten miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging +headaches was racking you?" + +"Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of +storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!" + +"Well, what does she say to it?" + +"She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women +doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it +by nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives +me a good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know +what most of them are, doctor,--and ends by saying that the same +woman who would be a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate +nurse; and that, she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct +carries her to the hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas +out of her." + +"Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I +am disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a +good nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't +seem to me to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for +practitioners. But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am +for giving women every chance for a good education, and if they think +medicine is one of their proper callings let them try it. I think +they will find that they had better at least limit themselves to +certain specialties, and always have an expert of the other sex to +fall back upon. The trouble is that they are so impressible and +imaginative that they are at the mercy of all sorts of fancy systems. +You have only to see what kinds of instruction they very commonly +flock to in order to guess whether they would be likely to prove +sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always hobbles on two crutches, +the tattle of women, and the certificates of clergymen, and I am +afraid that half the women doctors will be too much under both those +influences." + +Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of the +village, had "carried her through" a fever, brought on by over- +excitement and exhausting study. She took no offence at his +reference to nursery gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. +Nobody so despises the weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's +rights. She accepted the doctor's concession of a fair field and +open trial of the fitness of her sex for medical practice, and did +not trouble herself about his suggested limitations. As to the +imaginative tendencies of women, she knew too well the truth of the +doctor's remark relating to them to wish to contradict it. + +"Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting, +doctor," she said; and in due season it came, and was of course +approved for reading. + + + + +XIII + +DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. + +"Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal +souls is that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my +very first statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body +is the first thought with a great many,--in fact, with the larger +part of the world. They send for the physician first, and not until +he gives them up do they commonly call in the clergyman. Even the +minister himself is not so very different from other people. We must +not blame him if he is not always impatient to exchange a world of +multiplied interests and ever-changing sources of excitement for that +which tradition has delivered to us as one eminently deficient in the +stimulus of variety. Besides, these bodily frames, even when worn +and disfigured by long years of service, hang about our consciousness +like old garments. They are used to us, and we are used to them. +And all the accidents of our lives,--the house we dwell in, the +living people round us, the landscape we look over, all, up to the +sky that covers us like a bell glass,--all these are but looser +outside garments which we have worn until they seem a part of us, and +we do not like the thought of changing them for a new suit which we +have never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear ancient lady, +who lived well into the last decade of her century, as she repeated +the verse which, if I had but one to choose, I would select from that +string of pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'! + + 'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey + This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, + Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, + Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?' + +Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be, +than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well +doubted if there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the +contrary, there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many +who have come here to regain the health they have lost in the wear +and tear of city life, and very few who have not at some time or +other of their lives had occasion to call in the services of a +physician. + +"There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering to the members +some remarks upon the peculiar difficulties which beset the medical +practitioner in the discharge of his laborious and important duties. + +"A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest in medical +studies, happened to meet with a very familiar story about one of the +greatest and most celebrated of all English physicians, Thomas +Sydenham. The story is that, when a student asked him what books he +should read, the great doctor told him to read 'Don Quixote.' + +"This piece of advice has been used to throw contempt upon the study +of books, and furnishes a convenient shield for ignorant pretenders. +But Sydenham left many writings in which he has recorded his medical +experience, and he surely would not have published them if he had not +thought they would be better reading for the medical student than the +story of Cervantes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and he +certainly could not have supposed that they contained all the wisdom +of all the past. No remedy is good, it was said of old, unless +applied at the right time in the right way. So we may say of all +anecdotes, like this which I have told you about Sydenham and the +young man. It is very likely that he carried him to the bedside of +some patients, and talked to him about the cases he showed him, +instead of putting a Latin volume in his hand. I would as soon begin +in that way as any other, with a student who had already mastered the +preliminary branches,--who knew enough about the structure and +functions of the body in health. + +"But if you ask me what reading I would commend to the medical +student of a philosophical habit of mind, you may be surprised to +hear me say it would be certain passages in 'Rasselas.' They are the +ones where the astronomer gives an account to Imlac of his management +of the elements, the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, +had been committed to him. Let me read you a few sentences from this +story, which is commonly bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like +a woollen lining to a silken mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in +processions of paragraphs which sound as if they ought to have a +grammatical drum-major to march before their tramping platoons. + +"The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confidence, and reveals to +him the secret of his wonderful powers:-- + +"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have +possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and the +distribution of the seasons the sun has listened to my dictates, and +passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call, +have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; +I have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors +of the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have +hitherto eluded my authority, and multitudes have perished by +equinoctial tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or +restrain.' + +"The reader naturally wishes to know how the astronomer, a sincere, +devoted, and most benevolent man, for forty years a student of the +heavens, came to the strange belief that he possessed these +miraculous powers. This is his account: + +"'One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt +in my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern +mountains, and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my +imagination I commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my +command with that of the inundation I found that the clouds had +listened to my lips.' + +"'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence? +The Nile does not always rise on the same day.' + +"'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, I that such objections +could escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and +labored against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes +suspected myself of madness, and should not have dared to impart this +secret but to a man like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful +from the impossible and the incredible from the false.' + +"The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom +he has adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and +the seasons, in these impressive words: + +"Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride by +innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make +thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The +memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become +thee to let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries +of rain to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.' + +"Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in +which the delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the +pomp of the Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young +person about to enter on the study of the science and art of healing? +Listen to me while I show you the parallel of the story of the +astronomer in the history of medicine. + +"This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with +benevolence, but all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to +struggle with the ever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which +waste and destroy the race of mankind are vast and resistless as the +elemental forces of nature; nay, they are themselves elemental +forces. They may be to some extent avoided, to some extent diverted +from their aim, to some extent resisted. So may the changes of the +seasons, from cold that freezes to heats that strike with sudden +death, be guarded against. So may the tides be in some small measure +restrained in their inroads. So may the storms be breasted by walls +they cannot shake from their foundations. But the seasons and the +tides and the tempests work their will on the great scale upon +whatever stands in their way; they feed or starve the tillers of the +soil; they spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; they waft the +seaman to his harbor or bury him in the angry billows. + +"The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from +deadly and dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest +the effects of these influences. But look at the records of the +life-insurance offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's +destroying agencies. Look at the annual reports of the deaths in any +of our great cities, and see how their regularity approaches the +uniformity of the tides, and their variations keep pace with those of +the seasons. The inundations of the Nile are not more certainly to +be predicted than the vast wave of infantile disease which flows in +upon all our great cities with the growing heats of July,--than the +fevers and dysenteries which visit our rural districts in the months +of the falling leaf. + +"The physician watches these changes as the astronomer watched the +rise of the great river. He longs to rescue individuals, to protect +communities from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He uses +all the means which experience has approved, tries every rational +method which ingenuity can suggest. Some fortunate recovery leads +him to believe he has hit upon a preventive or a cure for a malady +which had resisted all known remedies. His rescued patient sounds +his praises, and a wide circle of his patient's friends joins in a +chorus of eulogies. Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self- +interest congratulates him on his having found the road to fortune; +the sense of having proved a benefactor of his race smooths the +pillow on which he lays his head to dream of the brilliant future +opening before him. If a single coincidence may lead a person of +sanguine disposition to believe that he has mastered a disease which +had baffled all who were before his time, and on which his +contemporaries looked in hopeless impotence, what must be the effect +of a series of such coincidences even on a mind of calmer temper! +Such series of coincidences will happen, and they may well deceive +the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush,--you know what a famous man he +was, the very head and front of American medical science in his day, +--and remember how he spoke about yellow fever, which he thought he +had mastered! + +"Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of a wide conspiracy, +in which he and his patient and their friends, and-Nature herself, +are involved. What wonder that the history of Medicine should be to +so great an extent a record of self-delusion! + +"If this seems a dangerous concession to the enemies of the true +science and art of healing, I will remind you that it is all implied +in the first aphorism of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not +draw a wrong inference from the frank statement of the difficulties +which beset the medical practitioner. Think rather, if truth is so +hard of attainment, how precious are the results which the consent of +the wisest and most experienced among the healers of men agrees in +accepting. Think what folly it is to cast them aside in favor of +palpable impositions stolen from the records of forgotten +charlatanism, or of fantastic speculations spun from the squinting +brains of theorists as wild as the Egyptian astronomer. + +"Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the fortieth and the +following four chapters of 'Rasselas.' Your first lesson will teach +you modesty and caution in the pursuit of the most deceptive of all +practical branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when you +learn how much medical science and art have actually achieved for the +relief of mankind, and how great are the promises it holds out of +still larger triumphs over the enemies of human health and +happiness." + +After the reading of this paper there was a lively discussion, which +we have no room to report here, and the Society adjourned. + + + + +XIV + +MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. + +The sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. Butts was not a +little exercised in mind by the demands made upon his knowledge by +his young friend, and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida +Vincent. + +"I don't wonder they called her The Terror," he said to himself. +"She is enough to frighten anybody. She has taken down old books +from my shelves that I had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to +the medical journals, I believe the girl could index them from +memory. She is in pursuit of some special point of knowledge, I feel +sure, and I cannot doubt what direction she is working in, but her +wonderful way of dealing with books amazes me." + +What marvels those "first scholars" in the classes of our great +universities and colleges are, to be sure! They are not, as a rule, +the most distinguished of their class in the long struggle of life. +The chances are that "the field" will beat "the favorite" over the +long race-course. Others will develop a longer stride and more +staying power. But what fine gifts those "first scholars" have +received from nature! How dull we writers, famous or obscure, are in +the acquisition of knowledge as compared with them! To lead their +classmates they must have quick apprehension, fine memories, thorough +control of their mental faculties, strong will, power of +concentration, facility of expression,--a wonderful equipment of +mental faculties. I always want to take my hat off to the first +scholar of his year. + +Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he contemplated The +Terror. She surprised him so often with her knowledge that he was +ready to receive her without astonishment when she burst in upon him +one allay with a cry of triumph, "Eureka! Eureka!" + +"And what have you found, my dear?" said the doctor. + +Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new +discovery. + +"I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor's +dread of all human intercourse!" + +The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance. + +"Wait a minute and get your breath," said the doctor. "Are you not a +little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. +He keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old +Tavern, he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he +pulled out of the water, or rescued somehow,--I don't believe be +avoids the whole human race. He does not look as if he hated them, +so far as I have remarked his expression. I passed a few words with +him when his man was ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I +don't believe it is much more than an extreme case of shyness, +connected, perhaps, with some congenital or other personal repugnance +to which has been given the name of an antipathy." + +Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When +he finished, she began the account of her discovery: + +"I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an +Italian medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a +reference which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli +Ospitali lying among the old pamphlets in the medical section of the +Library. I have made a translation of it, which you must read and +then tell me if you do not agree with me in my conclusion." + +"Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see +for myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you +seem to have reached." + +Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of +a map of the world, as she said, + +"I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the +bite of a TARANTULA!" + +The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way +the stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but +he had consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many +fictions have clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. +He looked into the round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as +if he feared that she was in a state of undue excitement, but, true +to his professional training, he waited for another symptom, if +indeed her mind was in any measure off its balance. + +"I know what you are thinking," Lurida said, "but it is not so. 'I +am not mad, most noble Festus.' You shall see the evidence and judge +for yourself. Read the whole case,--you can read my hand almost as +if it were print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this +young man is in all probability the same person as the boy described +in the Italian journal, + +One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young +patient is spoken of as Signorino M . . . Ch. . . . But you +must remember that ch is pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which +letter is wanting in the Italian alphabet; and it is natural enough +that the initial of the second name should have got changed in the +record to its Italian equivalent." + +Before inviting the reader to follow the details of this +extraordinary case as found in a medical journal, the narrator wishes +to be indulged in a few words of explanation, in order that he may +not have to apologize for allowing the introduction of a subject +which may be thought to belong to the professional student rather +than to the readers of this record. There is a great deal in medical +books which it is very unbecoming to bring before the general +public,--a great deal to repel, to disgust, to alarm, to excite +unwholesome curiosity. It is not the men whose duties have made them +familiar with this class of subjects who are most likely to offend by +scenes and descriptions which belong to the physician's private +library, and not to the shelves devoted to polite literature. +Goldsmith and even Smollett, both having studied and practised +medicine, could not by any possibility have outraged all the natural +feelings of delicacy and decency as Swift and Zola have outraged +them. But without handling doubtful subjects, there are many curious +medical experiences which have interest for every one as extreme +illustrations of ordinary conditions with which all are acquainted. +No one can study the now familiar history of clairvoyance profitably +who has not learned something of the vagaries of hysteria. No one +can read understandingly the life of Cowper and that of Carlyle +without having some idea of the influence of hypochondriasis and of +dyspepsia upon the disposition and intellect of the subjects of these +maladies. I need not apologize, therefore, for giving publicity to +that part of this narrative which deals with one of the most singular +maladies to be found in the records of bodily and mental infirmities. + +The following is the account of the case as translated by Miss +Vincent. For obvious reasons the whole name was not given in the +original paper, and for similar reasons the date of the event and the +birthplace of the patient are not precisely indicated here. + +[Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18-.1 + +REMARKABLE CASE OF TARANTISM. + +"The great interest attaching to the very singular and exceptional +instance of this rare affection induces us to give a full account of +the extraordinary example of its occurrence in a patient who was the +subject of a recent medical consultation in this city. + + +"Signorino M . . . Ch . . . is the only son of a gentleman +travelling in Italy at this time. He is eleven years of age, of +sanguine-nervous temperament, light hair, blue eyes, intelligent +countenance, well grown, but rather slight in form, to all appearance +in good health, but subject to certain peculiar and anomalous nervous +symptoms, of which his father gives this history. + +"Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was travelling in Italy +with his wife, this child, and a nurse. They were passing a few days +in a country village near the city of Bari, capital of the province +of the same name in the division (compartamento) of Apulia. The +child was in perfect health and had never been affected by any +serious illness. On the 10th of July he was playing out in the field +near the house where the family was staying when he was heard to +scream suddenly and violently. The nurse rushing to him found him in +great pain, saying that something had bitten him in one of his feet. +A laborer, one Tommaso, ran up at the moment and perceived in the +grass, near where the boy was standing, an enormous spider, which he +at once recognized as a tarantula. He managed to catch the creature +in a large leaf, from which he was afterwards transferred to a wide- +mouthed bottle, where he lived without any food for a month or more. +The creature was covered with short hairs, and had a pair of nipper- +like jaws, with which he could inflict an ugly wound. His body +measured about an inch in length, and from the extremity of one of +the longest limbs to the other was between two and three inches. +Such was the account given by the physician to whom the peasant +carried the great spider. + +"The boy who had been bitten continued screaming violently while his +stocking was being removed and the foot examined. The place of the +bite was easily found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already +showed the effects of the poison, a small livid circle extending +around them, with some puffy swelling. The distinguished Dr. Amadei +was immediately sent for, and applied cups over the wounds in the +hope of drawing forth the poison. In vain all his skill and efforts! +Soon, ataxic (irregular) nervous symptoms declared themselves, and it +became plain that the system had been infected by the poison. + +The symptoms were very much like those of malignant fever, such as +distress about the region of the heart, difficulty of breathing, +collapse of all the vital powers, threatening immediate death. From +these first symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organism had +been profoundly affected by the venom circulating through it. His +constitution has never thrown off the malady resulting from this +toxic (poisonous) agent. The phenomena which have been observed in +this young patient correspond so nearly with those enumerated in the +elaborate essay of the celebrated Baglivi that one might think they +had been transcribed from his pages. + +"He is very fond of solitude,--of wandering about in churchyards and +other lonely places. He was once found hiding in an empty tomb, +which had been left open. His aversion to certain colors is +remarkable. Generally speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker +ones, but his likes and dislikes are capricious, and with regard to +some colors his antipathy amounts to positive horror. Some shades +have such an effect upon him that he cannot remain in the room with +them, and if he meets any one whose dress has any of that particular +color he will turn away or retreat so as to avoid passing that +person. Among these, purple and dark green are the least endurable. +He cannot explain the sensations which these obnoxious colors produce +except by saying that it is like the deadly feeling from a blow on +the epigastrium (pit of the stomach). + +"About the same season of the year at which the tarantular poisoning +took place he is liable to certain nervous seizures, not exactly like +fainting or epilepsy, but reminding the physician of those +affections. All the other symptoms are aggravated at this time. + +"In other respects than those mentioned the boy is in good health. +He is fond of riding, and has a pony on which he takes a great deal +of exercise, which seems to do him more good than any other remedy. + +"The influence of music, to which so much has been attributed by +popular belief and even by the distinguished Professor to whom we +shall again refer, has not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. +If the graver symptoms recur while the patient is under our +observation, we propose to make use of an agency discredited by +modern skepticism, but deserving of a fair trial as an exceptional +remedy for an exceptional disease. + +"The following extracts from the work of the celebrated Italian +physician of the last century are given by the writer of the paper in +the Giornale in the original Latin, with a translation into Italian, +subjoined. Here are the extracts, or rather here is a selection from +them, with a translation of them into English. + +"After mentioning the singular aversion to certain colors shown by +the subject of Tarantism, Baglivi writes as follows: +"'Et si astantes incedant vestibus eo colore difusis, qui Tarantatis +ingrates est, necesse est ut ab illorum aspectu recedant; nam ad +intuitum molesti coloris angore cordis, et symptomatum recrudescantia +stating corripiuntur.' (G. Baglivi, Op. Omnia, page 614. Lugduni, +1745.) + +"That is, 'if the persons about the patient wear dresses of the color +which is offensive to him, he must get away from the sight of them, +for on seeing the obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress +in the region of the heart, and a renewal of his symptoms.' + +"As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi says: +"'Dam calor solis ardentius exurere incip at, quod contingit circa +initia Julii et Augusti, Tarantati lente venientem recrudescentiam +veneni percipiunt.' (Ibid., page 619.) + +"Which I render, 'When the heat of the sun begins to burn more +fiercely, which happens about the beginning of July and August, the +subjects of Tarantism perceive the gradually approaching +recrudescence (returning symptoms) of the poisoning. Among the +remedies most valued by this illustrious physician is that mentioned +in the following sentence: +"'Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusticano factas singulis +diebus, hord potissimum matutina, quibus equitationibus morbos +chronicos pene incurabiles protanus eliminavi.' + +" Or in translation, +"'I commend especially riding on horseback in country air, every day, +by preference in the morning hours, by the aid of which horseback +riding I have driven off chronic diseases which were almost +incurable.'" + +Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, and handed it to him +to examine and consider. He listened with a grave countenance and +devout attention. + +As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed in the passionate +tones of the deepest conviction, + +"There, doctor! Have n't I found the true story of this strange +visitor? Have n't I solved the riddle of the Sphinx? Who can this +man be but the boy of that story? Look at the date of the journal +when he was eleven years old, it would make him twenty-five now, and +that is just about the age the people here think he must be of. What +could account so entirely for his ways and actions as that strange +poisoning which produces the state they call Tarantism? I am just as +sure it must be that as I am that I am alive. Oh, doctor, doctor, I +must be right,--this Signprino M . . . Ch . . . was the boy +Maurice Kirkwood, and the story accounts for everything,--his +solitary habits, his dread of people,--it must be because they wear +the colors he can't bear. His morning rides on horseback, his coming +here just as the season was approaching which would aggravate all his +symptoms, does n't all this prove that I must be right in my +conjecture,--no, my conviction?" + +The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young enthusiast, and so he +let her run on until she ran down. He was more used to the rules of +evidence than she was, and could not accept her positive conclusion +so readily as she would have liked to have him. He knew that +beginners are very apt to make what they think are discoveries. But +he had been an angler and knew the meaning of a yielding rod and an +easy-running reel. He said quietly, + +"You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie +case it is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood +is not the same person as the M . . . Ch . . . of the medical +journal,--that is, if I accept your explanation of the difference in +the initials of these two names. Even if there were a difference, +that would not disprove their identity, for the initials of patients +whose cases are reported by their physicians are often altered for +the purpose of concealment. I do not know, however, that Mr. +Kirkwood has shown any special aversion to any particular color. It +might be interesting to inquire whether it is so, but it is a +delicate matter. I don't exactly see whose business it is to +investigate Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's idiosyncrasies and constitutional +history. If he should have occasion to send for me at any time, he +might tell me all about himself, in confidence, you know. These old +accounts from Baglivi are curious and interesting, but I am cautious +about receiving any stories a hundred years old, if they involve an +improbability, as his stories about the cure of the tarantula bite by +music certainly do. I am disposed to wait for future developments, +bearing in mind, of course, the very singular case you have +unearthed. It wouldn't be very strange if our young gentleman had to +send for me before the season is over. He is out a good deal before +the dew is off the grass, which is rather risky in this neighborhood +as autumn comes on. I am somewhat curious, I confess, about the +young man, but I do not meddle where I am not asked for or wanted, +and I have found that eggs hatch just as well if you let them alone +in the nest as if you take them out and shake them every day. This +is a wonderfully interesting supposition of yours, and may prove to +be strictly in accordance with the facts. But I do not think we have +all the facts in this young man's case. If it were proved that he +had an aversion to any color, it would greatly strengthen your case. +His 'antipatia,' as his man called it, must be one which covers a +wide ground, to account for his self-isolation,--and the color +hypothesis seems as plausible as any. But, my dear Miss Vincent, +I think you had better leave your singular and striking hypothesis in +my keeping for a while, rather than let it get abroad in a community +like this, where so many tongues are in active exercise. I will +carefully study this paper, if you will leave it with me, and we will +talk the whole matter over. It is a fair subject for speculation, +only we must keep quiet about it." + +This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain time to cool off a +little. She left the paper with the doctor, telling him she would +come for it the next day, and went off to tell the result of this +visit to her bosom friend, Miss Euthymia Tower. + + + + +XV + +DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. + +The doctor was troubled in thinking over his interview with the young +lady. She was fully possessed with the idea that she had discovered +the secret which had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. +It was of no use to oppose her while her mind was in an excited +state. But he felt it his duty to guard her against any possible +results of indiscretion into which her eagerness and her theory of +the equality, almost the identity, of the sexes might betray her. +Too much of the woman in a daughter of our race leads her to forget +danger. Too little of the woman prompts her to defy it. Fortunately +for this last class of women, they are not quite so likely to be +perilously seductive as their more emphatically feminine sisters. + +Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of their +infancy. He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence +from its precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained +faculties. He had looked with admiration on the childish beauty of +Euthymia, and had seen her grow up to womanhood, every year making +her more attractive. He knew that if anything was to be done with +his self-willed young scholar and friend, it would be more easily +effected through the medium of Euthymia than by direct advice to the +young lady herself. So the thoughtful doctor made up his mind to +have a good talk with Euthymia, and put her on her guard, if Lurida +showed any tendency to forget the conventionalities in her eager +pursuit of knowledge. + +For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss +Euthymia Tower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all +the tongues in the village going. This was one of those families +where illness was hardly looked for among the possibilities of life. +There were other families where a call from the doctor was hardly +more thought of than a call from the baker. But here he was a +stranger, at least on his professional rounds, and when he asked for +Miss Euthymia the servant, who knew his face well, stared as if he +had held in his hand a warrant for her apprehension. + +Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made +ready to meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock +had not run astray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for +a morning call was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had +been announced, she might have taken a second look, but with the good +middle-aged, married doctor one was enough for a young lady who had +the gift of making all the dresses she wore look well, and had no +occasion to treat her chamber like the laboratory where an actress +compounds herself. + +Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not help +suspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk +over her friend's schemes and fancies with him. + +The doctor began without any roundabout prelude. + +"I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell +you all her plans and projects?" + +"Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not +believe she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what +she has been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into +her head. What do you think of the Tarantula business? She has +shown you the paper, she has written, I suppose." + +"Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and +I do not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she +had come at the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that +this young man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian +medical journal. But it is very far from clear that he is so. You +know all her reasons, of course, as you have read the story. The +times seem to agree well enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch +might be substituted for Kin the report. The singular solitary +habits of this young man entirely coincide with the story. If we +could only find out whether he has any of those feelings with +reference to certain colors, we might guess with more chance of +guessing right than we have at present. But I don't see exactly how +we are going to submit him to examination on this point. If he were +only a chemical compound, we could analyze him. If he were only a +bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes. But +being, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will of his +own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problem +becomes more complicated. I hear that a newspaper correspondent has +visited him so as to make a report to his paper,--do you know what he +found out?" + +"Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, +which was this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to +interview. The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he +did not learn much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told +Willy about the Sphinx's library and a cabinet of coins he had; and +said he should make an article out of him, anyhow. I wish the man +would take himself off. I am afraid Lurida's love of knowledge will +get her into trouble!" + +"Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?" + +"I was thinking of the newspaper man." + +She blushed a little as she said, "I can't help feeling a strange +sort of interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood. Do you know that I +met him this morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?" + +"Well, to be sure! That was an interesting experience. And how did +you like his looks?" + +"I thought his face a very remarkable one. But he looked very pale +as he passed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side +as if he had a twinge of pain, or something of that sort,--spasm or +neuralgia,--I don't know what. I wondered whether he had what you +call angina pectoris. It was the same kind of look and movement, I +remember, as you trust, too, in my uncle who died with that +complaint." + +The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Were you dressed +as you are now?" + +"Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over my shoulders. I +was out early, and I have always remembered your caution." + +"What color was your mantle?" + +"It was black. I have been over all this with Lucinda. A black +mantle on a white dress. A straw hat with an old faded ribbon. +There can't be much in those colors to trouble him, I should think, +for his man wears a black coat and white linen,--more or less white, +as you must have noticed, and he must have seen ribbons of all colors +often enough. But Lurida believes it was the ribbon, or something in +the combination of colors. Her head is full of Tarantulas and +Tarantism. I fear that she will never be easy until the question is +settled by actual trial. And will you believe it? the girl is +determined in some way to test her supposition!" + +"Believe it, Euthymia? I can believe almost anything of Lurida. She +is the most irrepressible creature I ever knew. You know as well as +I do what a complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole +nature. I have had some fears lest her zeal might run away with her +discretion. It is a great deal easier to get into a false position +than to get out of it." + +"I know it well enough. I want you to tell me what you think about +the whole business. I don't like the look of it at all, and yet I +can do nothing with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I +can show her plainly that she will get herself into trouble in some +way or other. But she is ingenious,--full of all sorts of devices, +innocent enough in themselves, but liable to be misconstrued. You +remember how she won us the boat-race?" + +"To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, but she felt she was +paying off an old score. The classical story of Atalanta, told, like +that of Eve, as illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her to +make trial of the powers of resistance in the other sex. But it was +audacious. I hope her audacity will not go too far. You must watch +her. Keep an eye on her correspondence." + +The doctor had great confidence in the good sense of Lurida's friend. +He felt sure that she would not let Lurida commit herself by writing +foolish letters to the subject of her speculations, or similar +indiscreet performances. The boldness of young girls, who think no +evil, in opening correspondence with idealized personages is +something quite astonishing to those who have had an opportunity of +knowing the facts. Lurida had passed the most dangerous age, but her +theory of the equality of the sexes made her indifferent to the +by-laws of social usage. She required watching, and her two +guardians were ready to check her, in case of need. + + + + +XVI + +MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER. + +Euthymia noticed that her friend had been very much preoccupied for +two or three days. She found her more than once busy at her desk, +with a manuscript before her, which she turned over and placed inside +the desk, as Euthymia entered. + +This desire of concealment was not what either of the friends +expected to see in the other. It showed that some project was under +way, which, at least in its present stage, the Machiavellian young +lady did not wish to disclose. It had cost her a good deal of +thought and care, apparently, for her waste-basket was full of scraps +of paper, which looked as if they were the remains of a manuscript +like that at which she was at work. "Copying and recopying, +probably," thought Euthymia, but she was willing to wait to learn +what Lurida was busy about, though she had a suspicion that it was +something in which she might feel called upon to interest herself. + +"Do you know what I think?" said Euthymia to the doctor, meeting him +as he left his door. "I believe Lurida is writing to this man, and I +don't like the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she is +not like other girls in many respects, but other people will judge +her by the common rules of life." + +"I am glad that you spoke of it," answered the doctor; "she would +write to him just as quickly as to any woman of his age. Besides, +under the cover of her office, she has got into the way of writing to +anybody. I think she has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, asking him +to contribute a paper for the Society. She can find a pretext easily +enough if she has made up her mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she +would trouble herself for any pretext at all if she decided to write. +Watch her well. Don't let any letter go without seeing it, if you +can help it." + +Young women are much given to writing letters to persons whom they +only know indirectly, for the most part through their books, and +especially to romancers and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and +simple-hearted than most of these letters. They are the spontaneous +outflow of young hearts easily excited to gratitude for the pleasure +which some story or poem has given them, and recognizing their own +thoughts, their own feelings, in those expressed by the author, as if +on purpose for them to read. Undoubtedly they give great relief to +solitary young persons, who must have some ideal reflection of +themselves, and know not where to look since Protestantism has taken +away the crucifix and the Madonna. The recipient of these letters +sometimes wonders, after reading through one of them, how it is that +his young correspondent has managed to fill so much space with her +simple message of admiration or of sympathy. + +Lurida did not belong to this particular class of correspondents, but +she could not resist the law of her sex, whose thoughts naturally +surround themselves with superabundant drapery of language, as their +persons float in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was she indeed +writing to this unknown gentleman? Euthymia questioned her point- +blank. + +"Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. Maurice Kirkwood, +Lurida? You seem to be so busy writing, I can think of nothing else. +Or are you going to write a novel, or a paper for the Society,--do +tell me what you are so much taken up with." + +"I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not to find fault +with me for carrying out my plan as I have made up my mind to do. +You may read this letter before I seal it, and if you find anything +in it you don't like you can suggest any change that you think will +improve it. I hope you will see that it explains itself. I don't +believe that you will find anything to frighten you in it." + +This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by her friend. The +bold handwriting made it look like a man's letter, and gave it +consequently a less dangerous expression than that which belongs to +the tinted and often fragrant sheet with its delicate thready +characters, which slant across the page like an April shower with a +south wind chasing it. + + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August--, 18--. + +MY DEAR SIR,--You will doubtless be surprised at the sight of a +letter like this from one whom you only know as the Secretary of the +Pansophian Society. There is a very common feeling that it is +unbecoming in one of my sex to address one of your own with whom she +is unacquainted, unless she has some special claim upon his +attention. I am by no means disposed to concede to the vulgar +prejudice on this point. If one human being has anything to +communicate to another,--anything which deserves being communicated, +--I see no occasion for bringing in the question of sex. I do not +think the homo sum of Terence can be claimed for the male sex as its +private property on general any more than on grammatical grounds, + +I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the noble art of +healing. If I did so, it would be with the fixed purpose of giving +my whole powers to the service of humanity. And if I should carry +out that idea, should I refuse my care and skill to a suffering +fellow-mortal because that mortal happened to be a brother, and not a +sister? My whole nature protests against such one-sided humanity! +No! I am blind to all distinctions when my eyes are opened to any +form of suffering, to any spectacle of want. + +You may ask me why I address you, whom I know little or nothing of, +and to whom such an advance may seem presumptuous and intrusive. It +is because I was deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed to +you,--that on Ocean, River, and Lake, which was read at one of our +meetings. I say that I was deeply impressed, but I do not mean this +as a compliment to that paper. I am not bandying compliments now, +but thinking of better things than praises or phrases. I was +interested in the paper, partly because I recognized some of the +feelings expressed in it as my own,--partly because there was an +undertone of sadness in all the voices of nature as you echoed them +which made me sad to hear, and which I could not help longing to +cheer and enliven. I said to myself, I should like to hold communion +with the writer of that paper. I have had my lonely hours and days, +as he has had. I have had some of his experiences in my intercourse +with nature. And oh! if I could draw him into those better human +relations which await us all, if we come with the right dispositions, +I should blush if I stopped to inquire whether I violated any +conventional rule or not. + +You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe, do you not? in the +insignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from the +brotherhood of mankind. You believe, do you not? that they should be +educated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, due +regard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hard +or light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing with the +"stronger" or the "weaker" sex. I mark these words because, +notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not +true. Stronger! Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of +cider,--though there have been women who could do that, and though +when John Wesley was mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down +three or four men, one after another, until she was at last +overpowered and nearly murdered. Talk about the weaker sex! Go and +see Miss Euthymia Tower at the gymnasium! But no matter about which +sex has the strongest muscles. Which has most to suffer, and which +has most endurance and vitality? We go through many ordeals which +you are spared, but we outlast you in mind and body. I have been led +away into one of my accustomed trains of thought, but not so far away +from it as you might at first suppose. + +My brother! Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, +a sister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the +same roof? And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes +us all one family? You are lonely, you must be longing for some +human fellowship. Take me into your confidence. What is there that +you can tell me to which I cannot respond with sympathy? What +saddest note in your spiritual dirges which will not find its chord +in mine? + +I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your +existence. I myself have known what it is to carry a brain that +never rests in a body that is always tired. I have defied its +infirmities, and forced it to do my bidding. You have no such +hindrance, if we may judge by your aspect and habits. You deal with +horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indian could handle his bark +canoe more dexterously or more vigorously than we have seen you +handling yours. There must be some reason for your seclusion which +curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not the province of +curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire which I have to +bring you into kindly relations with those around you, I must run the +risk of giving offence that I may know in what direction to look for +those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and +sister can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to +change the course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in +accordance with his true nature. + +I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with +which you are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings,-- +something which can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from +the people whose acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There +can hardly be anything in the place itself, or you would not have +voluntarily sought it as a residence, even for a single season. +there might be individuals here whom you would not care to meet, +there must be such, but you cannot have a personal aversion to +everybody. I have heard of cases in which certain sights and sounds, +which have no particular significance for most persons, produced +feelings of distress or aversion that made, them unbearable to the +subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has occurred to me that +possibly you might have some such natural aversion to the sounds of +the street, or such as are heard in most houses, especially where a +piano is kept, as it is in fact in almost all of those in the +village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color in the dresses +of women or the furniture of our rooms affected you unpleasantly. I +know that instances of such antipathy have been recorded, and they +would account for the seclusion of those who are subject to it. + +If there is any removable condition which interferes with your free +entrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, I +beg of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it +not strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself +into the hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to +be frightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to +be of use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered +"unfeminine." I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot +endure to think of myself as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'? + +Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, + +LURIDA VINCENT. + + +Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As she +finished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of her +grandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early +days are apt to do, on great occasions. + +"Well, I never!" + +Then she loosened some button or string that was too tight, and went +to the window for a breath of outdoor air. Then she began at the +beginning and read the whole letter all over again. + +What should she do about it? She could not let this young girl send +a letter like that to a stranger of whose character little was known +except by inference,--to a young man, who would consider it a most +extraordinary advance on the part of the sender. She would have +liked to tear it into a thousand pieces, but she had no right to +treat it in that way. Lurida meant to send it the next morning, and +in the mean time Euthymia had the night to think over what she should +do about it. + +There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice +like that which breaks the silence--of the stagnant hours of the +night with its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When +Euthymia awoke in the morning, her course of action was as clear +before her as if it bad been dictated by her guardian angel. She +went straight over to the home of Lurida, who was just dressed for +breakfast. + +She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She was +struck with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, +and contemplating her project with entire complacency. + +Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety. + +"I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force. +It is a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of +the truest human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. +If you were sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be +admissible to send it. But if you were forty, I should question its +propriety; if you were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a +little more than twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not +show your letter to anybody or everybody? How do you know that he +will not send it to one of the gossiping journals like the 'Household +Inquisitor'? But supposing he keeps it to himself, which is more +than you have a right to expect, what opinion is he likely to form of +a young lady who invades his privacy with such freedom? Ten to one +he will think curiosity is at the bottom of it,--and,--come, don't be +angry at me for suggesting it,--may there not be a little of that +same motive mingled with the others? No, don't interrupt me quite +yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis is correct. You are +full of the best and kindest feelings in the world, but your desire +for knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhaps more than +you know." + +Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while her +friend was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected her +intelligence too much to take offence at her advice, but she could +not give up her humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear +of some awkward consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself +that she was playing the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and +that the fact of her not wearing the costume of these ministering +angels made no difference in her relations to those who needed her +aid. + +"I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear to +you," she said gravely. "It seems to me that I give up everything +when I hesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am +not afraid to send this letter and take all the consequences." + +"Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in our +presence? And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it +coincides with mine?" + +Lurida winced a little at this proposal. "I don't quite like," she +said, "showing this letter to--to" she hesitated, but it had to come +out--"to a man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was +intended." + +The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit. + +"Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go +over to his house with me at noon, when he comes back after his +morning visits, and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You +know I have sometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say +you must go to the doctor's with me and carry that letter." + +There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firm +voice delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's +door. The servant said he had been at the house after his morning +visits, but found a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken +suddenly ill and wished to see him at once. Was the illness +dangerous? The servant-maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty +bad, for Mr. Paul came in as white as a sheet, and talked all sorts +of languages which she couldn't understand, and took on as if he +thought Mr. Kirkwood was going to die right off. + +And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed +of, at least for the present. + + + + +XVII + +Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT. + +The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill of +a somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and +the probable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His +patient was not the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in +this way. The autumnal fevers to which our country towns are +subject, in the place of those "agues," or intermittents, so largely +prevalent in the South and West, were already beginning, and Maurice, +who had exposed himself in the early and late hours of the dangerous +season, must be expected to go through the regular stages of this +always serious and not rarely fatal disease. + +Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of +his master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must +have a nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and +exhausting. + +At the mention of the word "nurse" Paolo turned white, and exclaimed +in an agitated and thoroughly frightened way, + +"No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, +but don' let no woman come near him,--if you do, he die!" + +The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to +taking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last +succeeded in convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and +night for a fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to +call in some assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood +was to play the leading part in that drama of nature's composing +called a typhoid fever, with its regular bedchamber scenery, its +properties of phials and pill-boxes, its little company of stock +actors, its gradual evolution of a very simple plot, its familiar +incidents, its emotional alternations, and its denouement, sometimes +tragic, oftener happy. + +It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of +the village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the +young man about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. +Tokens of their kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods +and from the gardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under +glass, for there were some fine houses surrounded by well-kept +grounds, and greenhouses and graperies were not unknown in the small +but favored settlement. + +On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A +faint smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of +his features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his +parched lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the +fitful sleep in which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow +hours dragged along the sluggish days one after another. With no +violent symptoms, but with steady persistency, the disease moved on +in its accustomed course. It was at no time immediately threatening, +but the experienced physician knew its uncertainties only too well. +He had known fever patients suddenly seized with violent internal +inflammation, and carried off with frightful rapidity. He remembered +the case of a convalescent, a young woman who had been attacked while +in apparently vigorous general health, who, on being lifted too +suddenly to a sitting position, while still confined to her bed, +fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It may well be +supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert the +accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular +course of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a +railroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation +which the common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of +these autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible +element had found its way into the system which must be burned to +ashes before the heat which pervades the whole body can subside. +Sometimes the fire may smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or +were quite extinguished, and again it will find some new material to +seize upon, and flame up as fiercely as ever. Its coming on most +frequently at the season when the brush fires which are consuming the +dead branches, and withered leaves, and all the refuse of vegetation +are sending up their smoke is suggestive. Sometimes it seems as if +the body, relieved of its effete materials, renewed its youth after +one of these quiet, expurgating, internal fractional cremations. +Lean, pallid students have found themselves plump and blooming, and +it has happened that one whose hair was straight as gnat of an Indian +has been startled to behold himself in his mirror with a fringe of +hyacinthine curls about his rejuvenated countenance. + +There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case of +Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound +prostration, which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly +helpless, as unable to move without aid as the feeblest of +paralytics. In this state he lay for many days, not suffering pain, +but with the sense of great weariness, and the feeling that he should +never rise from his bed again. For the most part his intellect was +unclouded when his attention was aroused. He spoke only in whispers, +a few words at a time. The doctor felt sure, by the expression which +passed over his features from time to time, that something was +worrying and oppressing him; something which he wished to +communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity of purpose, to +make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certain desk, and +once he had found strength to lift his emaciated arm and point to it. +The doctor went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he slowly +shook his head. He had not the power to say at that time what he +wished. The next day he felt a little less prostrated; and succeeded +in explaining to the doctor what he wanted. His words, so far as the +physician could make them out, were these which follow. Dr. Butts +looked upon them as possibly expressing wishes which would be his +last, and noted them down carefully immediately after leaving his +chamber. + +"I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is +told in a paper locked in that desk. The key is--put your hand under +my pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that I +was--human--and save my memory from reproach." + +He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollow +cheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. +But he said to himself, "It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong +hopes that he will recover." + +Maurice spoke once more. "Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are +wise and kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once +and read. I want you to know the story of my life before it is +finished--if the end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before +you sleep." He was exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the +doctor saw a tranquil look on his features which added encouragement +to his hopes. + + + + +XVIII + +MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. + +I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been +passed in foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed +of an ample fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished +and amiable woman. I was their first and only child. She died while +I was yet an infant. If I remember her at all it is as a vision, +more like a glimpse of a pre-natal existence than as a part of my +earthly life. At the death of my mother I was left in the charge of +the old nurse who had enjoyed her perfect confidence. She was +devoted to me, and I became absolutely dependent on her, who had for +me all the love and all the care of a mother. I was naturally the +object of the attentions and caresses of the family relatives. I +have been told that I was a pleasant, smiling infant, with nothing to +indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility; not afraid of +strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their acquaintance. My +father was devoted to me and did all in his power to promote my +health and comfort. + + +I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happened +which changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonely +existence. I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. I +must force myself to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguely +remembered, for I am not willing that my doomed and wholly +exceptional life should pass away unrecorded, unexplained, +unvindicated. My nature is, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but +I have lived apart, as if my heart were filled with hatred of my +fellow-creatures. If there are any readers who look without pity, +without sympathy, upon those who shun the fellowship of their fellow +men and women, who show by their downcast or averted eyes that they +dread companionship and long for solitude, I pray them, if this paper +ever reaches them, to stop at this point. Follow me no further, for +you will not believe my story, nor enter into the feelings which I am +about to reveal. But if there are any to whom all that is human is +of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness some stirrings +of invincible attraction to one individual and equally invincible +repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that elective +affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it were, +their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective +repulsions, let them read with unquestioning faith the story of a +blighted life I am about to relate, much of it, of course, received +from the lips of others. + +My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, +was considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that +she visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants +and my old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. +Laura was full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, +thoughtless occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of +her age should be. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for +the first time. My nurse had me in her arms, walking back and +forward on a balcony with a low railing, upon which opened the +windows of the second story of my father's house. While the nurse +was thus carrying me, Laura came suddenly upon the balcony. She no +sooner saw me than with all the delighted eagerness of her youthful +nature she rushed toward me, and, catching me from the nurse's arms, +began tossing me after the fashion of young girls who have been so +lately playing with dolls that they feel as if babies were very much +of the same nature. The abrupt seizure frightened me; I sprang from +her arms in my terror, and fell over the railing of the balcony. I +should probably enough have been killed on the spot but for the fact +that a low thorn-bush grew just beneath the balcony, into which I +fell and thus had the violence of the shock broken. But the thorns +tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this day marks of the deep wounds +they inflicted. + +That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The sudden +apparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from the +protecting arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek +that accompanied my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable +space; the cruel lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns,--all +these fearful impressions blended in one paralyzing terror. + +When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, +and the physician who first saw me said that no pulse was +perceptible. But after a time consciousness returned; the wounds, +though painful, were none of them dangerous, and the most alarming +effects of the accident passed away. My old nurse cared for me +tenderly day and night, and my father, who had been almost distracted +in the first hours which followed the injury, hoped and believed +that no permanent evil results would be found to result from it. My +cousin Laura was of course deeply distressed to feel that her +thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave an accident. As soon +as I had somewhat recovered she came to see me, very penitent, very +anxious to make me forget the alarm she had caused me, with all its +consequences. I was in the nursery sitting up in my bed, bandaged, +but not in any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to all +appearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As Laura came +near me I shrieked and instantly changed color. I put my hand upon +my heart as if I had been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It +was very much the same state as that in which I was found immediately +after my fall. + +The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. +The approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to +lay her hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which +the moment of terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse +saw this in a moment. "Go! go!" she cried to Laura, "go, or the +child will die! "Her command did not have to be repeated. After +Laura had gone I lay senseless, white and cold as marble, for some +time. The doctor soon came, and by the use of smart rubbing and +stimulants the color came back slowly to my cheeks and the arrested +circulation was again set in motion. + +It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary +effect of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought +by the doctor and by my father, that after a few days I should +recover from this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other +infants receive pleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook +her head. "The girl will be the death of the child," she said, "if +she touches him or comes near him. His heart stopped beating just as +when the girl snatched him out of my arms, and he fell over the +balcony railing." Once more the experiment was tried, cautiously, +almost insidiously. The same alarming consequences followed. It was +too evident that a chain of nervous disturbances had been set up in +my system which repeated itself whenever the original impression gave +the first impulse. I never saw my cousin Laura after this last +trial. Its result had so distressed her that she never ventured +again to show herself to me. + +If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, it would have +been a misfortune for my cousin and myself, but hardly a calamity. +The world is wide, and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be +considered an essential of existence. I often heard Laura's name +mentioned, but never by any one who was acquainted with all the +circumstances, for it was noticed that I changed color and caught at +my breast as if I wanted to grasp my heart in my hand whenever that +fatal name was mentioned. + +Alas! this was not all. While I was suffering from the effects of my +fall among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse, assisted by +another old woman, by a physician, and my father, who would take his +share in caring for me. It was thought best to keep--me perfectly +quiet, and strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery, +with one exception, that my old grandmother came in now and then. +With her it seems that I was somewhat timid and shy, following her +with rather anxious eyes, as if not quite certain whether or not she +was dangerous. But one day, when I was far advanced towards +recovery, my father brought in a young lady, a relative of his, who +had expressed a great desire to see me. She was, as I have been +told, a very handsome girl, of about the same age as my cousin Laura, +but bearing no personal resemblance to her in form, features, or +complexion. She had no sooner entered the room than the same sudden +changes which had followed my cousin's visit began to show +themselves, and before she had reached my bedside I was in a state of +deadly collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned. + +Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures. +A little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into the +nursery one day and bring me some flowers. I took them from her +hand, but turned away and shut my eyes. There was no seizure, but +there was a certain dread and aversion, nothing more than a feeling +which it might be hoped that time would overcome. Those around me +were gradually finding out the circumstances which brought on the +deadly attack to which I was subject. + +The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the +prettiest girl of the village where we were passing the summer. She +was very anxious to see me, and as I was now nearly well it was +determined that she should be permitted to pay me a short visit. I +had always delighted in seeing her and being caressed by her. I was +sleeping when she entered the nursery and came and took a seat at my +side in perfect silence. Presently I became restless, and a moment +later I opened my eyes and saw her stooping over me. My hand went to +my left breast,--the color faded from my cheeks,--I was again the +cold marble image so like death that it had well-nigh been mistaken +for it. + +Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had +left me with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is +most attractive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender +age, who feel the fascination of her flowing locks, her bright eyes, +her blooming cheeks, and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws +all life into its warm and potently vitalized atmosphere? So it did +indeed seem. The dangerous experiment could not be repeated +indefinitely. It was not intentionally tried again, but accident +brought about more than one renewal of it during the following years, +until it became fully recognized that I was the unhappy subject of a +mortal dread of woman,--not absolutely of the human female, for I had +no fear of my old nurse or of my grandmother, or of any old wrinkled +face, and I had become accustomed to the occasional meeting of a +little girl or two, whom I nevertheless regarded with a certain ill- +defined feeling that there was danger in their presence. I was sent +to a boys' school very early, and during the first ten or twelve +years of my life I had rarely any occasion to be reminded of my +strange idiosyncrasy. + +As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change came over the feelings +which had so long held complete possession of me. This was what my +father and his advisers had always anticipated, and was the ground of +their confident hope in my return to natural conditions before I +should have grown to mature manhood. + +How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, bewildering, +dreadful years? Visions of loveliness haunted me sleeping and +waking. Sometimes a graceful girlish figure would so draw my eyes +towards it that I lost sight of all else, and was ready to forget all +my fears and find myself at her side, like other youths by the side +of young maidens,--happy in their cheerful companionship, while I,-- +I, under the curse of one blighting moment, looked on, hopeless. +Sometimes the glimpse of a fair face or the tone of a sweet voice +stirred within me all the instincts that make the morning of life +beautiful to adolescence. I reasoned with myself: + +Why should I not have outgrown that idle apprehension which had been +the nightmare of my earlier years? Why should not the rising tide of +life have drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shallows +of childhood? How many children there are who tremble at being left +alone in the dark, but who, a few years later, will smile at their +foolish terrors and brave all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why +should I any longer be the slave of a foolish fancy that has grown +into a half insane habit of mind? I was familiarly acquainted with +all the stories of the strange antipathies and invincible repugnances +to which others, some of them famous men, had been subject. I said +to myself, Why should not I overcome this dread of woman as Peter the +Great fought down his dread of wheels rolling over a bridge? Was I, +alone of all mankind, to be doomed to perpetual exclusion from the +society which, as it seemed to me, was all that rendered existence +worth the trouble and fatigue of slavery to the vulgar need of +supplying the waste of the system and working at the task of +respiration like the daughters of Danaus,--toiling day and night as +the worn-out sailor labors at the pump of his sinking vessel? + +Why did I not brave the risk of meeting squarely, and without regard +to any possible danger, some one of those fair maidens whose far-off +smile, whose graceful movements, at once attracted and agitated me? +I can only answer this question to the satisfaction of any really +inquiring reader by giving him the true interpretation of the +singular phenomenon of which I was the subject. For this I shall +have to refer to a paper of which I have made a copy, and which will +be found included with this manuscript. It is enough to say here, +without entering into the explanation of the fact, which will be +found simple enough as seen by the light of modern physiological +science, that the "nervous disturbance" which the presence of a woman +in the flower of her age produced in my system was a sense of +impending death, sudden, overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling. It +was a reversed action of the nervous centres,--the opposite of that +which flushes the young lover's cheek and hurries his bounding pulses +as he comes into the presence of the object of his passion. No one +who has ever felt the sensation can have failed to recognize it as an +imperative summons, which commands instant and terrified submission. + +It was at this period of my life that my father determined to try the +effect of travel and residence in different localities upon my bodily +and mental condition. I say bodily as well as mental, for I was too +slender for my height and subject to some nervous symptoms which were +a cause of anxiety. That the mind was largely concerned in these +there was no doubt, but the mutual interactions of mind and body are +often too complex to admit of satisfactory analysis. Each is in part +cause and each also in part effect. + +We passed some years in Italy, chiefly in Rome, where I was placed in +a school conducted by priests, and where of course I met only those +of my own sex. There I had the opportunity of seeing the influences +under which certain young Catholics, destined for the priesthood, are +led to separate themselves from all communion with the sex associated +in their minds with the most subtle dangers to which the human soul +can be exposed. I became in some degree reconciled to the thought of +exclusion from the society of women by seeing around me so many who +were self-devoted to celibacy. The thought sometimes occurred to me +whether I should not find the best and the only natural solution of +the problem of existence, as submitted to myself, in taking upon me +the vows which settle the whole question and raise an impassable +barrier between the devotee and the object of his dangerous +attraction. + +How often I talked this whole matter over with the young priest who +was at once my special instructor and my favorite companion! But +accustomed as I had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and +impressed as I was with the purity and excellence of many of its +young members with whom I was acquainted, my early training rendered +it impossible for me to accept the credentials which it offered me as +authoritative. My friend and instructor had to set me down as a case +of "invincible ignorance." This was the loop-hole through which he +crept out of the prison-house of his creed, and was enabled to look +upon me without the feeling of absolute despair with which his +sterner brethren would, I fear, have regarded me. + +I have said that accident exposed me at times to the influence which +I had such reasons for dreading. Here is one example of such an +occurrence, which I relate as simply as possible, vividly as it is +impressed upon my memory. A young friend whose acquaintance I had +made in Rome asked me one day to come to his rooms and look at a +cabinet of gems and medals which he had collected. I had been but a +short time in his library when a vague sense of uneasiness came over +me. My heart became restless,--I could feel it stirring irregularly, +as if it were some frightened creature caged in my breast. There was +nothing that I could see to account for it. A door was partly open, +but not so that I could see into the next room. The feeling grew +upon me of some influence which was paralyzing my circulation. I +begged my friend to open a window. As be did so, the door swung in +the draught, and I saw a blooming young woman,--it was my friend's +sister, who had been sitting with a book in her hand, and who rose at +the opening of the door. Something had warned me of the presence of +a woman, that occult and potent aura of individuality, call it +personal magnetism, spiritual effluence, or reduce it to a simpler +expression if you will; whatever it was, it had warned me of the +nearness of the dread attraction which allured at a distance and +revealed itself with all the terrors of the Lorelei if approached too +recklessly. A sign from her brother caused her to withdraw at once, +but not before I had felt the impression which betrayed itself in my +change of color, anxiety about the region of the heart, and sudden +failure as if about to fall in a deadly fainting-fit. + +Does all this seem strange and incredible to the reader of my +manuscript? Nothing in the history of life is so strange or +exceptional as it seems to those who have not made a long study of +its mysteries. I have never known just such a case as my own, and +yet there must have been such, and if the whole history of mankind +were unfolded I cannot doubt that there have been many like it. Let +my reader suspend his judgment until he has read the paper I have +referred to, which was drawn up by a Committee of the Royal Academy +of the Biological Sciences. In this paper the mechanism of the +series of nervous derangements to which I have been subject since the +fatal shock experienced in my infancy is explained in language not +hard to understand. It will be seen that such a change of polarity +in the nervous centres is only a permanent form and an extreme degree +of an emotional disturbance, which as a temporary and comparatively +unimportant personal accident is far from being uncommon,--is so +frequent, in fact, that every one must have known instances of it, +and not a few must have had more or less serious experiences of it in +their own private history. + +It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I am now +dealing with the reader. I was full of strange fancies and wild +superstitions. One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal +which had been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear next my +body. I was told that this would turn black after a time, in virtue +of a power which it possessed of drawing out original sin, or certain +portions of it, together with the evil and morbid tendencies which +had been engrafted on the corrupt nature. I wore the medal +faithfully, as directed, and watched it carefully. It became +tarnished and after a time darkened, but it wrought no change in my +unnatural condition. + +There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more of +futurity than she had any right to know. The story was that she had +foretold the assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour. + +However that may have been, I was persuaded to let her try her black +art upon my future. I shall never forget the strange, wild look of +the wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed +her wicked old eyes on my young countenance. After this examination +she shook her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I +could get them would be in English like these: + + Fair lady cast a spell on thee, + Fair lady's hand shall set thee free. + +Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose +palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular +response, have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to +fulfilment. The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I +was subject disposed me to believe the incredible with reference to +all that relates to it. I have never ceased to have the feeling +that, sooner or later, I should find myself freed from the blight +laid upon me in my infancy. It seems as if it would naturally come +through the influence of some young and fair woman, to whom that +merciful errand should be assigned by the Providence that governs our +destiny. With strange hopes, with trembling fears, with mingled +belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself I have sought with +longing yet half-averted eyes for the "elect lady," as I have learned +to call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruined life. + +Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I +had found the object of my superstitious belief. --Singularly enough +it was always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared +before my bewildered vision. Once it was an English girl who was a +fellow passenger with me in one of my ocean voyages. I need not say +that she was beautiful, for she was my dream realized. I heard her +singing, I saw her walking the deck on some of the fair days when +sea-sickness was forgotten. The passengers were a social company +enough, but I had kept myself apart, as was my wont. At last the +attraction became too strong to resist any longer. "I will venture +into the charmed circle if it kills me," I said to my father. I did +venture, and it did not kill me, or I should not be telling this +story. But there was a repetition of the old experiences. I need +not relate the series of alarming consequences of my venture. The +English girl was very lovely, and I have no doubt has made some one +supremely happy before this, but she was not the "elect lady" of the +prophecy and of my dreams. + +A second time I thought myself for a moment in the presence of the +destined deliverer who was to restore me to my natural place among my +fellow men and women. It was on the Tiber that I met the young +maiden who drew me once more into that inner circle which surrounded +young womanhood with deadly peril for me, if I dared to pass its +limits. I was floating with the stream in the little boat in which I +passed many long hours of reverie when I saw another small boat with +a boy and a young girl in it. The boy had been rowing, and one of +his oars had slipped from his grasp. He did not know how to paddle +with a single oar, and was hopelessly rowing round and round, his oar +all the time floating farther away from him. I could not refuse my +assistance. I picked up the oar and brought my skiff alongside of +the boat. When I handed the oar to the boy the young girl lifted her +veil and thanked me in the exquisite music of the language which + + 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin." + +She was a type of Italian beauty,--a nocturne in flesh and blood, if +I may borrow a term certain artists are fond of; but it was her voice +which captivated me and for a moment made me believe that I was no +longer shut off from all relations with the social life of my race. +An hour later I was found lying insensible on the floor of my boat, +white, cold, almost pulseless. It cost much patient labor to bring +me back to consciousness. Had not such extreme efforts been made, it +seems probable that I should never have waked from a slumber which +was hardly distinguishable from that of death. + + +Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if I +invite it by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause? The +habit of these deadly seizures has become a second nature. The +strongest and the ablest men have found it impossible to resist the +impression produced by the most insignificant object, by the most +harmless sight or sound to which they had a congenital or acquired +antipathy. What prospect have I of ever being rid of this long and +deep-seated infirmity? I may well ask myself these questions, but my +answer is that I will never give up the hope that time will yet bring +its remedy. It may be that the wild prediction which so haunts me +shall find itself fulfilled. I have had of late strange +premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could not help +giving heed. But I have seen too much of the faith that deals in +miracles to accept the supernatural in any shape,--assuredly when it +comes from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her +revelations of the future. Be it so: though I am not superstitious, +I have a right to be imaginative, and my imagination will hold to +those words of the old zingara with an irresistible feeling that, +sooner or later, they will prove true. + +Can it be possible that her prediction is not far from its +realization? I have had both waking and sleeping visions within +these last months and weeks which have taken possession of me and +filled my life with new thoughts, new hopes, new resolves. + +Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am dreaming away this +season of bloom and fragrance, sometimes in the fields or woods in a +distant glimpse, once in a nearer glance, which left me pale and +tremulous, yet was followed by a swift reaction, so that my cheeks +flushed and my pulse bounded, I have seen her who--how do I dare to +tell it so that my own eyes can read it?---I cannot help believing is +to be my deliverer, my saviour. + +I have been warned in the most solemn and impressive language by the +experts most deeply read in the laws of life and the history of its +disturbing and destroying influences, that it would be at the +imminent risk of my existence if I should expose myself to the +repetition of my former experiences. I was reminded that unexplained +sudden deaths were of constant, of daily occurrence; that any emotion +is liable to arrest the movements of life: terror, joy, good news or +bad news,--anything that reaches the deeper nervous centres. I had +already died once, as Sir Charles Napier said of himself; yes, more +than once, died and been resuscitated. The next time, I might very +probably fail to get my return ticket after my visit to Hades. It +was a rather grim stroke of humor, but I understood its meaning full +well, and felt the force of its menace. + +After all, what had I to live for if the great primal instinct which +strives to make whole the half life of lonely manhood is defeated, +suppressed, crushed out of existence? Why not as well die in the +attempt to break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous +movement as in any other way? I am alone in the world,--alone save +for my faithful servant, through whom I seem to hold to the human +race as it were by a single filament. My father, who was my +instructor, my companion, my dearest and best friend through all my +later youth and my earlier manhood, died three years ago and left me +my own master, with the means of living as might best please my +fancy. This season shall decide my fate. One more experiment, and I +shall find myself restored to my place among my fellow-beings, or, as +I devoutly hope, in a sphere where all our mortal infirmities are +past and forgotten. + +I have told the story of a blighted life without reserve, so that +there shall not remain any mystery or any dark suspicion connected +with my memory if I should be taken away unexpectedly. It has cost +me an effort to do it, but now that my life is on record I feel more +reconciled to my lot, with all its possibilities, and among these +possibilities is a gleam of a better future. I have been told by my +advisers, some of them wise, deeply instructed, and kind-hearted men, +that such a life-destiny should be related by the subject of it for +the instruction of others, and especially for the light it throws on +certain peculiarities of human character often wrongly interpreted as +due to moral perversion, when they are in reality the results of +misdirected or reversed actions in some of the closely connected +nervous centres. + +For myself I can truly say that I have very little morbid sensibility +left with reference to the destiny which has been allotted to me. I +have passed through different stages of feeling with reference to it, +as I have developed from infancy to manhood. At first it was mere +blind instinct about which I had no thought, living like other +infants the life of impressions without language to connect them in +series. In my boyhood I began to be deeply conscious of the +infirmity which separated me from those around me. In youth began +that conflict of emotions and impulses with the antagonistic +influence of which I have already spoken, a conflict which has never +ceased, but to which I have necessarily become to a certain degree +accustomed; and against the dangers of which I have learned to guard +myself habitually. That is the meaning of my isolation. You, young +man,--if at any time your eyes shall look upon my melancholy record, +--you at least will understand me. Does not your heart throb, in the +presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as if it "were +ready to crack" with its own excess of strain? What if instead of +throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat +again? You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy +will look upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know +what it is when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and +the grip of the bodice seems unendurable as the embrace of the iron +virgin of the Inquisition. Think what it would be if the grasp were +tightened so that no breath of air could enter your panting chest! + +Does your heart beat in the same way, young man, when your honored +friend, a venerable matron of seventy years, greets you with her +kindly smile as it does in the presence of youthful loveliness? When +a pretty child brings you her doll and looks into your eyes with +artless grace and trustful simplicity, does your pulse quicken, do +you tremble, does life palpitate through your whole being, as when +the maiden of seventeen meets your enamored sight in the glow of her +rosebud beauty? Wonder not, then, if the period of mystic attraction +for you should be that of agitation, terror, danger, to one in whom +the natural current of the instincts has had its course changed as +that of a stream is changed by a convulsion of nature, so that the +impression which is new life to you is death to him. + +I am now twenty-five years old. I have reached the time of life +which I have dreamed, nay even ventured to hope, might be the limit +of the sentence which was pronounced upon me in my infancy. I can +assign no good reason for this anticipation. But in writing this +paper I feel as if I were preparing to begin a renewed existence. +There is nothing for me to be ashamed of in the story I have told. +There is no man living who would not have yielded to the sense of +instantly impending death which seized upon me under the conditions I +have mentioned. Martyrs have gone singing to their flaming shrouds, +but never a man could hold his breath long enough to kill himself; he +must have rope or water, or some mechanical help, or nature will make +him draw in a breath of air, and would make him do so though he knew +the salvation of the human race would be forfeited by that one gasp. + +This paper may never reach the eye of any one afflicted in the same +way that I have been. It probably never will; but for all that, +there are many shy natures which will recognize tendencies in +themselves in the direction of my unhappy susceptibility. Others, to +whom such weakness seems inconceivable, will find their scepticism +shaken, if not removed, by the calm, judicial statement of the Report +drawn up for the Royal Academy. It will make little difference to me +whether my story is accepted unhesitatingly or looked upon as largely +a product of the imagination. I am but a bird of passage that lights +on the boughs of different nationalities. I belong to no flock; my +home may be among the palms of Syria, the olives of Italy, the oaks +of England, the elms that shadow the Hudson or the Connecticut; I +build no nest; to-day I am here, to-morrow on the wing. + +If I quit my native land before the trees have dropped their leaves I +shall place this manuscript in the safe hands of one whom I feel sure +that I can trust; to do with it as he shall see fit. If it is only +curious and has no bearing on human welfare, he may think it well to +let it remain unread until I shall have passed away. If in his +judgment it throws any light on one of the deeper mysteries of our +nature,--the repulsions which play such a formidable part in social +life, and which must be recognized as the correlatives of the +affinities that distribute the individuals governed by them in the +face of impediments which seem to be impossibilities,--then it may be +freely given to the world. + +But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen, the programme of my +life will have changed, and this story of the dead past will be +illuminated by the light of a living present which will irradiate all +its saddening features. Who would not pray that my last gleam of +light and hope may be that of dawn and not of departing day? + +The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of a story so far +from the common range of experience is once more requested to suspend +his judgment until he has read the paper which will next be offered +for his consideration. + + +THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. + +Perhaps it is too much to expect a reader who wishes to be +entertained, excited, amused, and does not want to work his passage +through pages which he cannot understand without some effort of his +own, to read the paper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon +it. If he has no curiosity in the direction of these chapters, he +can afford to leave them to such as relish a slight flavor of +science. But if he does so leave them he will very probably remain +sceptical as to the truth of the story to which they are meant to +furnish him with a key. + +Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a remarkable and +exceptional one, and it is hardly probable that any reader's +experience will furnish him with its parallel. But let him look back +over all his acquaintances, if he has reached middle life, and see if +he cannot recall more than one who, for some reason or other, shunned +the society of young women, as if they had a deadly fear of their +company. If he remembers any such, he can understand the simple +statements and natural reflections which are laid before him. + +One of the most singular facts connected with the history of Maurice +Kirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to +the fate which had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped +by the Interviewer, who would show him up in the sensational columns +of his prying newspaper. He lived chiefly by himself, as the easiest +mode of avoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in +almost every society into which he might venture. But he had learned +to look upon himself very much as he would upon an intimate not +himself,--upon a different personality. A young man will naturally +enough be ashamed of his shyness. It is something which others +believe, and perhaps he himself thinks, he might overcome. But in +the case of Maurice Kirkwood there was no room for doubt as to the +reality and gravity of the long enduring effects of his first +convulsive terror. He had accepted the fact as he would have +accepted the calamity of losing his sight or his hearing. When he +was questioned by the experts to whom his case was submitted, he told +them all that he knew about it almost without a sign of emotion. +Nature was so peremptory with him,--saying in language that had no +double meaning: "If you violate the condition on which you hold my +gift of existence I slay you on the spot,"--that he became as +decisive in his obedience as she was in her command, and accepted his +fate without repining. + +Yet it must not be thought for a moment,--it cannot be supposed,-- +that he was insensible because he looked upon himself with the +coolness of an enforced philosophy. He bore his burden manfully, +hard as it was to live under it, for he lived, as we have seen, in +hope. The thought of throwing it off with his life, as too grievous +to be borne, was familiar to his lonely hours, but he rejected it as +unworthy of his manhood. How he had speculated and dreamed about it +is plain enough from the paper the reader may remember on Ocean, +River, and Lake. + +With these preliminary hints the paper promised is submitted to such +as may find any interest in them. + + + ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA. + + WITH REMARKS. + +Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the Bio~ +logical Sciences by a Committee of that Institution. + +"The singular nature of the case we are about to narrate and comment +upon will, we feel confident, arrest the attention of those who have +learned the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light +upon her laws by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from +time to time are observed. We have done with the lusus naturae of +earlier generations. We pay little attention to the stories of +'miracles,' except so far as we receive them ready-made at the hands +of the churches which still hold to them. Not the less do we meet +with strange and surprising facts, which a century or two ago would +have been handled by the clergy and the courts, but today are calmly +recorded and judged by the best light our knowledge of the laws of +life can throw upon them. It must be owned that there are stories +which we can hardly dispute, so clear and full is the evidence in +their support, which do, notwithstanding, tax our faith and sometimes +leave us sceptical in spite of all the testimony which supports them. + +" In this category many will be disposed to place the case we commend +to the candid attention of the Academy. If one were told that a +young man, a gentleman by birth and training, well formed, in +apparently perfect health, of agreeable physiognomy and manners, +could not endure the presence of the most attractive young woman, but +was seized with deadly terror and sudden collapse of all the powers +of life, if he came into her immediate presence; if it were added +that this same young man did not shrink from the presence of an old +withered crone; that he had a certain timid liking for little maidens +who had not yet outgrown the company of their dolls, the listener +would be apt to smile, if he did not laugh, at the absurdity of the +fable. Surely, he would say, this must be the fiction of some +fanciful brain, the whim of some romancer, the trick of some +playwright. It would make a capital farce, this idea, carried out. +A young man slighting the lovely heroine of the little comedy and +making love to her grandmother! This would, of course, be +overstating the truth of the story, but to such a misinterpretation +the plain facts lend themselves too easily. We will relate the +leading circumstances of the case, as they were told us with perfect +simplicity and frankness by the subject of an affection which, if +classified, would come under the general head of Antipathy, but to +which, if we give it a name, we shall have to apply the term +Gynophobia, or Fear of Woman." + +Here follows the account furnished to the writer of the paper, which +is in all essentials identical with that already laid before the +reader. + +" Such is the case offered to our consideration. Assuming its +truthfulness in all its particulars, it remains to see in the first +place whether or not it is as entirely exceptional and anomalous as +it seems at first sight, or whether it is only the last term of a +series of cases which in their less formidable aspect are well known +to us in literature, in the records of science, and even in our +common experience. + +"To most of those among us the explanations we are now about to give +are entirely superfluous. But there are some whose chief studies +have been in different directions, and who will not complain if +certain facts are mentioned which to the expert will seem +rudimentary, and which hardly require recapitulation to those who are +familiarly acquainted with the common text-books. + +"The heart is the centre of every living movement in the higher +animals, and in man, furnishing in varying amount, or withholding to +a greater or less extent, the needful supplies to all parts of the +system. If its action is diminished to a certain degree, faintness +is the immediate consequence; if it is arrested, loss of +consciousness; if its action is not soon restored, death, of which +fainting plants the white flag, remains in possession of the system. + +How closely the heart is under the influence of the emotions we need +not go to science to learn, for all human experience and all +literature are overflowing with evidence that shows the extent of +this relation. Scripture is full of it; the heart in Hebrew poetry +represents the entire life, we might almost say. Not less forcible +is the language of Shakespeare, as for instance, in 'Measure for +Measure:' + + 'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, + Making it both unable for itself + And dispossessing all my other parts + Of necessary fitness?' + +More especially is the heart associated in every literature with the +passion of love. A famous old story is that of Galen, who was called +to the case of a young lady long ailing, and wasting away from some +cause the physicians who had already seen her were unable to make +out. The shrewd old practitioner suspected that love was at the +bottom of the young lady's malady. Many relatives and friends of +both sexes, all of them ready with their sympathy, came to see her. +The physician sat by her bedside during one of these visits, and in +an easy, natural way took her hand and placed a finger on her pulse. +It beat quietly enough until a certain comely young gentleman entered +the apartment, when it suddenly rose infrequency, and at the same +moment her hurried breathing, her changing color, pale and flushed by +turns, betrayed the profound agitation his presence excited. This +was enough for the sagacious Greek; love was the disease, the cure of +which by its like may be claimed as an anticipation of homoeopathy. +In the frontispiece to the fine old 'Junta' edition of the works of +Galen, you may find among the wood-cuts a representation of the +interesting scene, with the title Amantas Dignotio,--the diagnosis, +or recognition, of the lover. + +"Love has many languages, but the heart talks through all of them. +The pallid or burning cheek tells of the failing or leaping fountain +which gives it color. The lovers at the 'Brookside' could hear each +other's hearts beating. When Genevieve, in Coleridge's poem, forgot +herself, and was beforehand with her suitor in her sudden embrace, + + 'T was partly love and partly fear, + And partly 't was a bashful art, + That I might rather feel than see + The swelling of her heart' + +Always the heart, whether its hurried action is seen, or heard, or +felt. But it is not always in this way that the 'deceitful' organ +treats the lover. + + 'Faint heart never won fair lady.' + +This saying was not meant, perhaps, to be taken literally, but it has +its literal truth. Many a lover has found his heart sink within +him,--lose all its force, and leave him weak as a child in his +emotion at the sight of the object of his affections. When Porphyro +looked upon Madeline at her prayers in the chapel, it was too much +for him: + + 'She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, + Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint, + She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from earthly taint.' + +And in Balzac's novel, 'Cesar Birotteau,' the hero of the story +'fainted away for-joy at the moment when, under a linden-tree, at +Sceaux, Constance-Barbe-Josephine accepted him as her future +husband.' + +"One who faints is dead if he does not I come to,' and nothing is +more likely than that too susceptible lovers have actually gone off +in this way. Everything depends on how the heart behaves itself in +these and similar trying moments. The mechanism of its actions +becomes an interesting subject, therefore, to lovers of both sexes, +and to all who are capable of intense emotions. + +"The heart is a great reservoir, which distributes food, drink, air, +and heat to every part of the system, in exchange for its waste +material. It knocks at the gate of every organ seventy or eighty +times in a minute, calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload +its refuse. Between it and the brain there is the closest relation. +The emotions, which act upon it as we have seen, govern it by a +mechanism only of late years thoroughly understood. This mechanism +can be made plain enough to the reader who is not afraid to believe +that he can understand it. + +"The brain, as all know, is the seat of ideas, emotions, volition. +It is the great central telegraphic station with which many lesser +centres are in close relation, from which they receive, and to which +they transmit, their messages. The heart has its own little brains, +so to speak,--small collections of nervous substance which govern its +rhythmical motions under ordinary conditions. But these lesser +nervous centres are to a large extent dominated by influences +transmitted from certain groups of nerve-cells in the brain and its +immediate dependencies. + +"There are two among the special groups of nerve-cells which produce +directly opposite effects. One of these has the power of +accelerating the action of the heart, while the other has the power +of retarding or arresting this action. One acts as the spur, the +other as the bridle. According as one or the other predominates, the +action of the heart will be stimulated or restrained. Among the +great modern discoveries in physiology is that of the existence of a +distinct centre of inhibition, as the restraining influence over the +heart is called. + +"The centre of inhibition plays a terrible part in the history of +cowardice and of unsuccessful love. No man can be brave without +blood to sustain his courage, any more than he can think, as the +German materialist says, not absurdly, without phosphorus. The +fainting lover must recover his circulation, or his lady will lend +him her smelling-salts and take a gallant with blood in his cheeks. +Porphyro got over his faintness before he ran away with Madeline, and +Cesar Birotteau was an accepted lover when he swooned with happiness: +but many an officer has been cashiered, and many a suitor has been +rejected, because the centre of inhibition has got the upper hand of +the centre of stimulation. + +"In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been +recorded, the most frequent cause has been the disturbed and +depressing influence of the centre of inhibition. Fainting at the +sight of blood is one of the commonest examples of this influence. A +single impression, in a very early period of atmospheric existence,-- +perhaps, indirectly, before that period, as was said to have happened +in the case of James the First of England,--may establish a +communication between this centre and the heart which will remain +open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across a field establish +itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we call accidental, but +one after another follows it as if he were guided by a chart on which +it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transit between the +centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If once the path +is opened by the track of some profound impression, that same +impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old +footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to +traverse, and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, +may perpetuate itself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its +subject. + +"The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of +the effect of inhibition on the heart. + +"We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history of +the human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have been +similar cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has been +the consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. +The case most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well +known to require any lengthened description in this paper. It is +enough to recall the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort +suspend the action of his heart for a considerable period, during +which he lay like one dead, pulseless, and without motion. After a +time the circulation returned, and he does not seem to have been the +worse for his dangerous, or seemingly dangerous, experiment. But in +his case it was by an act of the will that the heart's action was +suspended. In the case before us it is an involuntary impulse +transmitted from the brain to the inhibiting centre, which arrests +the cardiac movements. + +"What is like to be the further history of the case? + +"The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty +years old. The chain of nervous actions has become firmly +established. It might have been hoped that the changes of +adolescence would have effected a transformation of the perverted +instinct. On the contrary, the whole force of this instinct throws +itself on the centre of inhibition, instead of quickening the heart- +beats, and sending the rush of youthful blood with fresh life through +the entire system to the throbbing finger-tips. + +"Is it probable that time and circumstances will alter a habit of +nervous interactions so long established? We are disposed to think +that there is a chance of its being broken up. And we are not afraid +to say that we suspect the old gypsy woman, whose prophecy took such +hold of the patient's imagination, has hit upon the way in which the +"spell,' as she called it, is to be dissolved. She must, in all +probability, have had a hint of the 'antipatia' to which the youth +before her was a victim, and its cause, and if so, her guess as to +the probable mode in which the young man would obtain relief from his +unfortunate condition was the one which would naturally suggest +itself. + +"If once the nervous impression which falls on the centre of +inhibition can be made to change its course, so as to follow its +natural channel, it will probably keep to that channel ever +afterwards. And this will, it is most likely, be effected by some +sudden, unexpected impression. If he were drowning, and a young +woman should rescue him, it is by no means impossible that the change +in the nervous current we have referred to might be brought about as +rapidly, as easily, as the reversal of the poles in a magnet, which +is effected in an instant. But he cannot be expected to throw +himself into the water just at the right moment when the 'fair lady' +of the gitana's prophecy is passing on the shore. Accident may +effect the cure which art seems incompetent to perform. It would not +be strange if in some future seizure he should never come back to +consciousness. But it is quite conceivable, on the other hand, that +a happier event may occur, that in a single moment the nervous +polarity may be reversed, the whole course of his life changed, and +his past terrible experiences be to him like a scarce-remembered +dream. + +"This is one, of those cases in which it is very hard to determine +the wisest course to be pursued. The question is not unlike that +which arises in certain cases of dislocation of the bones of the +neck. Shall the unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face +turned far round to the right or the left, or shall an attempt be +made to replace the dislocated bones? an attempt which may succeed, +or may cause instant death. The patient must be consulted as to +whether he will take the chance. The practitioner may be unwilling +to risk it, if the patient consents. Each case must be judged on its +own special grounds. We cannot think that this young man is doomed +to perpetual separation from the society of womanhood during the +period of its bloom and attraction. But to provoke another seizure +after his past experiences would be too much like committing suicide. +We fear that we must trust to the chapter of accidents. The strange +malady--for such it is--has become a second nature, and may require +as energetic a shock to displace it as it did to bring it into +existence. Time alone can solve this question, on which depends the +well-being and, it may be, the existence of a young man every way +fitted to be happy, and to give happiness, if restored to his true +nature." + + + + +XX. + +DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. + +Dr. Butts sat up late at night reading these papers and reflecting +upon them. He was profoundly impressed and tenderly affected by the +entire frankness, the absence of all attempt at concealment, which +Maurice showed in placing these papers at his disposal. He believed +that his patient would recover from this illness for which he had +been taking care of him. He thought deeply and earnestly of what he +could do for him after he should have regained his health and +strength. + +There were references, in Maurice's own account of himself, which the +doctor called to mind with great interest after reading his brief +autobiography. Some one person--some young woman, it must be--had +produced a singular impression upon him since those earlier perilous +experiences through which he had passed. The doctor could not help +thinking of that meeting with Euthymia of which she had spoken to +him. Maurice, as she said, turned pale,--he clapped his hand to his +breast. He might have done so if be had met her chambermaid, or any +straggling damsel of the village. But Euthymia was not a young woman +to be looked upon with indifference. She held herself like a queen, +and walked like one, not a stage queen, but one born and bred to +self-reliance, and command of herself as well as others. One could +not pass her without being struck with her noble bearing and spirited +features. If she had known how Maurice trembled as he looked upon +her, in that conflict of attraction and uncontrollable dread,--if she +had known it! But what, even then, could she have done? Nothing but +get away from him as fast as she could. As it was, it was a long +time before his agitation subsided, and his heart beat with its +common force and frequency. + +Dr. Butts was not a male gossip nor a matchmaking go-between. But he +could not help thinking what a pity it was that these two young +persons could not come together as other young people do in the +pairing season, and find out whether they cared for and were fitted +for each other. He did not pretend to settle this question in his +own mind, but the thought was a natural one. And here was a gulf +between them as deep and wide as that between Lazarus and Dives. +Would it ever be bridged over? This thought took possession of the +doctor's mind, and he imagined all sorts of ways of effecting some +experimental approximation between Maurice and Euthymia. From this +delicate subject he glanced off to certain general considerations +suggested by the extraordinary history he had been reading. He began +by speculating as to the possibility of the personal presence of an +individual making itself perceived by some channel other than any of +the five senses. The study of the natural sciences teaches those who +are devoted to them that the most insignificant facts may lead the +way to the discovery of the most important, all-pervading laws of the +universe. From the kick of a frog's hind leg to the amazing triumphs +which began with that seemingly trivial incident is a long, a very +long stride if Madam Galvani had not been in delicate health, which +was the occasion of her having some frog-broth prepared for her, the +world of to-day might not be in possession of the electric telegraph +and the light which blazes like the sun at high noon. A common- +looking occurrence, one seemingly unimportant, which had hitherto +passed unnoticed with the ordinary course of things, was the means of +introducing us to a new and vast realm of closely related phenomena. +It was like a key that we might have picked up, looking so simple +that it could hardly fit any lock but one of like simplicity, but +which should all at once throw back the bolts of the one lock which +had defied the most ingenious of our complex implements and open our +way into a hitherto unexplored territory. + +It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice felt the +paralyzing influence. He could contemplate Euthymia from a distance, +as he did on the day of the boat-race, without any nervous +disturbance. A certain proximity was necessary for the influence to +be felt, as in the case of magnetism and electricity. An atmosphere +of danger surrounded every woman he approached during the period when +her sex exercises its most powerful attractions. How far did that +atmosphere extend, and through what channel did it act? + +The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, was to be found +in a fact as humble as that which gave birth to the science of +galvanism and its practical applications. The circumstances +connected with the very common antipathy to cats were as remarkable +in many points of view as the similar circumstances in the case of +Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects of that antipathy could not tell what +it was which disturbed their nervous system. All they knew was that +a sense of uneasiness, restlessness, oppression, came over them in +the presence of one of these animals. He remembered the fact already +mentioned, that persons sensitive to this impression can tell by +their feelings if a cat is concealed in the apartment in which they +may happen to be. It may be through some emanation. It may be +through the medium of some electrical disturbance. What if the +nerve-thrills passing through the whole system of the animal +propagate themselves to a certain distance without any more regard to +intervening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sieve lets sand +pass through it; a filter arrests sand, but lets fluids pass, glass +holds fluids, but lets light through; wood shuts out light, but +magnetic attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. +No good reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should not +betray itself to certain organizations, at a distance, through the +walls of a box in which the animal is shut up. We need not +disbelieve the stories which allege such an occurrence as a fact and +a not very infrequent one. + +If the presence of a cat can produce its effects under these +circumstances, why should not that of a human being under similar +conditions, acting on certain constitutions, exercise its specific +influence? The doctor recalled a story told him by one of his +friends, a story which the friend himself heard from the lips of the +distinguished actor, the late Mr. Fechter. The actor maintained that +Rachel had no genius as an actress. It was all Samson's training and +study, according to him, which explained the secret of her wonderful +effectiveness on the stage. But magnetism, he said,--magnetism, she +was full of. He declared that he was made aware of her presence on +the stage, when he could not see her or know of her presence +otherwise, by this magnetic emanation. The doctor took the story for +what it was worth. There might very probably be exaggeration, +perhaps high imaginative coloring about it, but it was not a whit +more unlikely than the cat-stories, accepted as authentic. He +continued this train of thought into further developments. Into this +series of reflections we will try to follow him. + +What is the meaning of the halo with which artists have surrounded +the heads of their pictured saints, of the aureoles which wraps them +like a luminous cloud? Is it not a recognition of the fact that +these holy personages diffuse their personality in the form of a +visible emanation, which reminds us of Milton's definition of light: + + "Bright effluence of bright essence increate"? + +The common use of the term influence would seem to imply the +existence of its correlative, effluence. There is no good reason +that I can see, the doctor said to himself, why among the forces +which work upon the nervous centres there should not be one which +acts at various distances from its source. It may not be visible +like the "glory" of the painters, it may not be appreciable by any +one of the five senses, and yet it may be felt by the person reached +by it as much as if it were a palpable presence,--more powerfully, +perhaps, from the mystery which belongs to its mode of action. + +Why should not Maurice have been rendered restless and anxious by the +unseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him, +just as the persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious of +their presence through some unknown channel? Is it anything strange +that the larger and more powerful organism should diffuse a +consciousness of its presence to some distance as well as the +slighter and feebler one? Is it strange that this mysterious +influence or effluence should belong especially or exclusively to the +period of complete womanhood in distinction from that of immaturity +or decadence? On the contrary, it seems to be in accordance with all +the analogies of nature,--analogies too often cruel in the sentence +they pass upon the human female. + +Among the many curious thoughts which came up in the doctor's mind +was this, which made him smile as if it were a jest, but which he +felt very strongly had its serious side, and was involved with the +happiness or suffering of multitudes of youthful persons who die +without telling their secret: + +How many young men have a mortal fear of woman, as woman, which they +never overcome, and in consequence of which the attraction which +draws man towards her, as strong in them as in others,--oftentimes, +in virtue of their peculiarly sensitive organizations, more potent in +them than in others of like age and conditions,--in consequence of +which fear, this attraction is completely neutralized, and all the +possibilities of doubled and indefinitely extended life depending +upon it are left unrealized! Think what numbers of young men in +Catholic countries devote themselves to lives of celibacy. Think how +many young men lose all their confidence in the presence of the young +woman to whom they are most attracted, and at last steal away from a +companionship which it is rapture to dream of and torture to endure, +so does the presence of the beloved object paralyze all the powers of +expression. Sorcerers have in all time and countries played on the +hopes and terrors of lovers. Once let loose a strong impulse on the +centre of inhibition, and the warrior who had faced bayonets and +batteries becomes a coward whom the well-dressed hero of the ball- +room and leader of the German will put to ignominious flight in five +minutes of easy, audacious familiarity with his lady-love. + +Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do not know that I +have seen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript, but I +have seen the malady many times. Only one word has stood between +many a pair of young people and their lifelong happiness, and that +word has got as far as the lips, but the lips trembled and would not, +could not, shape that little word. All young women are not like +Coleridge's Genevieve, who knew how to help her lover out of his +difficulty, and said yes before he had asked for an answer. So the +wave which was to have wafted them on to the shore of Elysium has +just failed of landing them, and back they have been drawn into the +desolate ocean to meet no more on earth. + +Love is the master-key, he went on thinking, love is the master-key +that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most +easily of all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of +beauty!--not only the historic wonder of beauty, that "burnt the +topless towers of Ilium "for the smile of Helen, and fired the +palaces of Babylon by the hand of Thais, but the beauty which springs +up in all times and places, and carries a torch and wears a serpent +for a wreath as truly as any of the Eumenides. Paint Beauty with her +foot upon a skull and a dragon coiled around her. + +The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and +pictorial imagery. Drifting along from thought to thought, he +reflected on the probable consequences of the general knowledge of +Maurice Kirkwood's story, if it came before the public. + +What a piece of work it would make among the lively youths of the +village, to be sure! What scoffing, what ridicule, what +embellishments, what fables, would follow in the trail of the story! +If the Interviewer got hold of it, how "The People's Perennial and +Household Inquisitor" would blaze with capitals in its next issue! +The young fellows' of the place would be disposed to make fun of the +whole matter. The young girls-the doctor hardly dared to think what +would happen when the story got about among them. "The Sachem" of +the solitary canoe, the bold horseman, the handsome hermit,--handsome +so far as the glimpses they had got of him went,--must needs be an +object of tender interest among them, now that he was ailing, +suffering, in danger of his life, away from friends,--poor fellow! +Little tokens of their regard had reached his sick-chamber; bunches +of flowers with(dainty little notes, some of them pinkish, some +three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others "criss- +crossed," were growing more frequent as it was understood that the +patient was likely to be convalescent before many days had passed. +If it should come to be understood that there was a deadly obstacle +to their coming into any personal relations with him, the doctor had +his doubts whether there were not those who would subject him to the +risk; for there were coquettes in the village,--strangers, visitors, +let us hope,--who would sacrifice anything or anybody to their vanity +and love of conquest. + + + + +XXI + +AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. + +The illness from which Maurice had suffered left him in a state of +profound prostration. The doctor, who remembered the extreme danger +of any overexertion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his +head from the pillow. But his mind was gradually recovering its +balance, and he was able to hold some conversation with those about +him. His faithful Paolo had grown so thin in waiting upon him and +watching with him that the village children had to take a second look +at his face when they passed him to make sure that it was indeed +their old friend and no other. But as his master advanced towards +convalescence and the doctor assured him that he was going in all +probability to get well, Paolo's face began to recover something of +its old look and expression, and once more his pockets filled +themselves with comfits for his little circle of worshipping three +and four year old followers. + +How is Mr. Kirkwood?" was the question with which he was always +greeted. In the worst periods of the fever be rarely left his +master. When he did, and the question was put to him, he would shake +his head sadly, sometimes without a word, sometimes with tears and +sobs and faltering words,--more like a brokenhearted child than a +stalwart man as he was, such a man as soldiers are made of in the +great Continental armies. + +"He very bad,--he no eat nothing,--he--no say nothing,--he never be +no better," and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a +passionate burst of lamentation. But now that he began to feel easy +about his master, his ready optimism declared itself no less +transparently. + +"He better every day now. He get well in few weeks, sure. You see +him on hoss in little while." The kind-hearted creature's life was +bound up in that of his "master," as he loved to call him, in +sovereign disregard of the comments of the natives, who held +themselves too high for any such recognition of another as their +better. They could not understand how he, so much their superior in +bodily presence, in air and manner, could speak of the man who +employed him in any other way than as "Kirkwood," without even +demeaning himself so far as to prefix a "Mr." to it. But "my +master" Maurice remained for Paolo in spite of the fact that all men +are born free and equal. And never was a servant more devoted to a +master than was Paolo to Maurice during the days of doubt and danger. +Since his improvement Maurice insisted upon his leaving his chamber +and getting out of the house, so as to breathe the fresh air of which +he was in so much need. It worried him to see his servant returning +after too short an absence. The attendant who had helped him in the +care of the patient was within call, and Paolo was almost driven out +of the house by the urgency of his master's command that he should +take plenty of exercise in the open air. + +Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved condition, although +the force of the disease had spent itself, the state of weakness to +which he had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety, and required +great precautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, enfeebled to +such a degree that he had to be cared for very much as a child is +tended. Gradually his voice was coming back to him, so that he could +hold some conversation, as was before mentioned, with those about +him. The doctor waited for the right moment to make mention of the +manuscript which Maurice had submitted to him. Up to this time, +although it had been alluded to and the doctor had told him of the +intense interest with which he had read it, he had never ventured to +make it the subject of any long talk, such as would be liable to +fatigue his patient. But now he thought the time had come. + +"I have been thinking," the doctor said, "of the singular seizures to +which you are liable, and as it is my business not merely to think +about such cases, but to do what I can to help any who may be capable +of receiving aid from my art, I wish to have some additional facts +about your history. And in the first place, will you allow me to ask +what led you to this particular place? It is so much less known to +the public at large than many other resorts that we naturally ask, +What brings this or that new visitor among us? We have no ill- +tasting, natural spring of bad water to be analyzed by the state +chemist and proclaimed as a specific. We have no great gambling- +houses, no racecourse (except that fox boats on the lake); we have no +coaching-club, no great balls, few lions of any kind, so we ask, What +brings this or that stranger here? And I think I may venture to ask +you whether any, special motive brought you among us, or whether it +was accident that determined your coming to this place." + +"Certainly, doctor," Maurice answered, "I will tell you with great +pleasure. Last year I passed on the border of a great river. The +year before I lived in a lonely cottage at the side of the ocean. I +wanted this year to be by a lake. You heard the paper read at the +meeting of your society, or at least you heard of it,--for such +matters are always talked over in a village like this. You can judge +by that paper, or could, if it were before you, of the frame of mind +in which I came here. I was tired of the sullen indifference of the +ocean and the babbling egotism of the river, always hurrying along on +its own private business. I wanted the dreamy stillness of a large, +tranquil sheet of water that had nothing in particular to do, and +would leave me to myself and my thoughts. I had read somewhere about +the place, and the old Anchor Tavern, with its paternal landlord and +motherly landlady and old-fashioned household, and that, though it +was no longer open as a tavern, I could find a resting-place there +early in the season, at least for a few days, while I looked about me +for a quiet place in which I might pass my summer. I have found this +a pleasant residence. By being up early and out late I have kept +myself mainly in the solitude which has become my enforced habit of +life. The season has gone by too swiftly for me since my dream has +become a vision." + +The doctor was sitting with his hand round Maurice's wrist, three +fingers on his pulse. As he spoke these last words he noticed that +the pulse fluttered a little,--beat irregularly a few times; +intermitted; became feeble and thready; while his cheek grew whiter +than the pallid bloodlessness of his long illness had left it. + +"No more talk, now," he said. "You are too tired to be using your +voice. I will hear all the rest another time." + +The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interesting point. What did +he mean by saying that his dream had become a vision? This is what +the doctor was naturally curious, and professionally anxious, to +know. But his hand was still on his patient's pulse, which told him +unmistakably that the heart had taken the alarm and was losing its +energy under the depressing nervous influence. Presently, however, +it recovered its natural force and rhythm, and a faint flush came +back to the pale cheek. The doctor remembered the story of Galen, +and the young maiden whose complaint had puzzled the physicians. + +The next day his patient was well enough to enter once more into +conversation. + +"You said something about a dream of yours which had become a +vision," said the doctor, with his fingers on his patient's wrist, as +before. He felt the artery leap, under his pressure, falter a +little, stop, then begin again, growing fuller in its beat. The +heart had felt the pull of the bridle, but the spur had roused it to +swift reaction. + +"You know the story of my past life, doctor," Maurice answered; "and, +I will tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my +dreams. You remember the boat-race? I watched it from a distance, +but I held a powerful opera-glass in my hand, which brought the whole +crew of the young ladies' boat so close to me that I could see the +features, the figures, the movements, of every one of the rowers. I +saw the little coxswain fling her bouquet in the track of the other +boat,--you remember how the race was lost and won,--but I saw one +face among those young girls which drew me away from all the rest. +It was that of the young lady who pulled the bow oar, the captain of +the boat's crew. I have since learned her name, you know it well,--I +need not name her. Since that day I have had many distant glimpses +of her; and once I met her so squarely that the deadly sensation came +over me, and I felt that in another moment I should fall senseless at +her feet. But she passed on her way and I on mine, and the spasm +which had clutched my heart gradually left it, and I was as well as +before. You know that young lady, doctor?" + +"I do; and she is a very noble creature. You are not the first young +man who has been fascinated, almost at a glance, by Miss Euthymia +Tower. And she is well worth knowing more intimately." + +The doctor gave him a full account of the young lady, of her early +days, her character, her accomplishments. To all this he listened +devoutly, and when the doctor left him he said to himself, +"I will see her and speak with her, if it costs me my life." + + + + +XXII + +EUTHYMIA. + +"The Wonder" of the Corinna Institute had never willingly made a show +of her gymnastic accomplishments. Her feats, which were so much +admired, were only her natural exercise. Gradually the dumb-bells +others used became too light for her, the ropes she climbed too +short, the clubs she exercised with seemed as if they were made of +cork instead of being heavy wood, and all the tests and meters of +strength and agility had been strained beyond the standards which the +records of the school had marked as their historic maxima. It was +not her fault that she broke a dynamometer one day; she apologized +for it, but the teacher said he wished he could have a dozen broken +every year in the same way. The consciousness of her bodily strength +had made her very careful in her movements. The pressure of her hand +was never too hard for the tenderest little maiden whose palm was +against her own. So far from priding herself on her special gifts, +she was disposed to be ashamed of them. There were times and places +in which she could give full play to her muscles without fear or +reproach. She had her special costume for the boat and for the +woods. She would climb the rugged old hemlocks now and then for the +sake of a wide outlook, or to peep into the large nest where a hawk, +or it may be an eagle, was raising her little brood of air-pirates. + +There were those who spoke of her wanderings in lonely places as an +unsafe exposure. One sometimes met doubtful characters about the +neighborhood, and stories were--told of occurrences which might well +frighten a young girl, and make her cautious of trusting herself +alone in the wild solitudes which surrounded the little village.. +Those who knew Euthymia thought her quite equal to taking care of +herself. Her very look was enough to ensure the respect of any +vagabond who might cross her path, and if matters came to the worst +she would prove as dangerous as a panther. + +But it was a pity to associate this class of thoughts with a noble +specimen of true womanhood. Health, beauty, strength, were fine +qualities, and in all these she was rich. She enjoyed all her +natural gifts, and thought little about them. Unwillingly, but over- +persuaded by some of her friends, she had allowed her arm and hand to +be modelled. The artists who saw the cast wondered if it would be +possible to get the bust of the maiden from whom it was taken. +Nobody would have dared to suggest such an idea to her except Lurida. +For Lurida sex was a trifling accident, to be disregarded not only in +the interests of humanity, but for the sake of art. + +"It is a shame," she said to Euthymia, "that you will not let your +exquisitely moulded form be perpetuated in marble. You have no right +to withhold such a model from the contemplation of your fellow- +creatures. Think how rare it is to see a woman who truly represents +the divine idea! You belong to your race, and not to yourself,--at +least, your beauty is a gift not to be considered as a piece of +private property. Look at the so-called Venus of Milo. Do you +suppose the noble woman who was the original of that divinely chaste +statue felt any scruple about allowing the sculptor to reproduce her +pure, unblemished perfections?" + +Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend. She +listened to her eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, +used as she was to Lurida's audacities. "The Terror's" brain had run +away with a large share of the blood which ought to have gone to the +nourishment of her general system. She could not help admiring, +almost worshipping, a companion whose being was rich in the womanly +developments with which nature had so economically endowed herself. +An impoverished organization carries with it certain neutral +qualities which make its subject appear, in the presence of complete +manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-mute among speaking persons. The +deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheek at Lurida's suggestion +was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbed expression. There +was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew far less than she +did of those many and difficult studies which had absorbed her vital +forces. She was startled to see what an effect her proposal had +produced, for Euthymia was not only blushing, but there was a flame +in her eyes which she had hardly ever seen before. + +"Is this only your own suggestion?" Euthymia said, "or has some one +been putting the idea into your head?" The truth was that she had +happened to meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she was +offended by the long, searching stare with which that individual had +honored her. It occurred to her that he, or some such visitor to the +place, might have spoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person +who had repeated what was said to Lurida, as a good subject for the +art of the sculptor, and she felt all her maiden sensibilities +offended by the proposition. Lurida could not understand her +excitement, but she was startled by it. Natures which are +complementary of each other are liable to these accidental collisions +of feeling. They get along very well together, none the worse for +their differences, until all at once the tender spot of one or the +other is carelessly handled in utter unconsciousness on the part of +the aggressor, and the exclamation, the outcry, or the explosion +explains the situation altogether too emphatically. Such scenes did +not frequently occur between the two friends, and this little flurry +was soon over; but it served to warn Lurida that Miss Euthymia Tower +was not of that class of self-conscious beauties who would be ready +to dispute the empire of the Venus of Milo on her own ground, in +defences as scanty and insufficient as those of the marble divinity. + +Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, while at school, and +in the long vacations, near enough to find out that she was anything +but easy to make love to. She fairly frightened more than one rash +youth who was disposed to be too sentimental in her company. They +overdid flattery, which she was used to and tolerated, but which +cheapened the admirer in her estimation, and now and then betrayed +her into an expression which made him aware of the fact, and was a +discouragement to aggressive amiability. The real difficulty was +that not one of her adorers had ever greatly interested her. It +could not be that nature had made her insensible. It must have been +because the man who was made for her had never yet shown himself. +She was not easy to please, that was certain; and she was one of +those young women who will not accept as a lover one who but half +pleases them. She could not pick up the first stick that fell in her +way and take it to shape her ideal out of. Many of the good people +of the village doubted whether Euthymia would ever be married. + +"There 's nothing good enough for her in this village," said the old +landlord of what had been the Anchor Tavern. + +"She must wait till a prince comes along," the old landlady said in +reply. "She'd make as pretty a queen as any of them that's born to +it. Wouldn't she be splendid with a gold crown on her head, and +di'monds a glitterin' all over her! D' you remember how handsome she +looked in the tableau, when the fair was held for the Dorcas Society? +She had on an old dress of her grandma's,--they don't make anything. +half so handsome nowadays,--and she was just as pretty as a pictur'. +But what's the use of good looks if they scare away folks? The young +fellows think that such a handsome girl as that would cost ten times +as much to keep as a plain one. She must be dressed up like an +empress,--so they seem to think. It ain't so with Euthymy: she'd +look like a great lady dressed anyhow, and she has n't got any more +notions than the homeliest girl that ever stood before a glass to +look at herself." + +In the humbler walks of Arrowhead Village society, similar opinions +were entertained of Miss Euthymia. The fresh-water fisherman +represented pretty well the average estimate of the class to which he +belonged. 'I tell ye," said he to another gentleman of leisure, +whose chief occupation was to watch the coming and going of the +visitors to Arrowhead Village,--"I tell ye that girl ain't a gon to +put up with any o' them slab-sided fellahs that you see hangin' +raound to look at her every Sunday when she comes aout o' meetin'. +It's one o' them big gents from Boston or New York that'll step up +an' kerry her off." + +In the mean time nothing could be further from the thoughts of +Euthymia than the prospect of an ambitious worldly alliance. The +ideals of young women cost them many and great disappointments, but +they save them very often from those lifelong companionships which +accident is constantly trying to force upon them, in spite of their +obvious unfitness. The higher the ideal, the less likely is the +commonplace neighbor who has the great advantage of easy access, or +the boarding-house acquaintance who can profit by those vacant hours +when the least interesting of visitors is better than absolute +loneliness,--the less likely are these undesirable personages to be +endured, pitied, and, if not embraced, accepted, for want of +something better. Euthymia found so much pleasure in the +intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt her own prudence and +reserve so necessary to that independent young lady, that she had +been contented, so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in +an abstract sort of way. Beneath her abstractions there was a +capacity of loving which might have been inferred from the expression +of her features, the light that shone in her eyes, the tones of her +voice, all of which were full of the language which belongs to +susceptible natures. How many women never say to themselves that +they were born to love, until all at once the discovery opens upon +them, as the sense that he was born a painter is said to have dawned +suddenly upon Correggio! + +Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she could not help +thinking a good deal about the young man lying ill amongst strangers. +She was not one of those who had sent him the three-cornered notes or +even a bunch of flowers. She knew that he was receiving abounding +tokens of kindness and sympathy from different quarters, and a +certain inward feeling restrained her from joining in these +demonstrations. If he had been suffering from some deadly and +contagious malady she would have risked her life to help him, without +a thought that there was any wonderful heroism in such self-devotion. +Her friend Lurida might have been capable of the same sacrifice, but +it would be after reasoning with herself as to the obligations which +her sense of human rights and duties laid upon her, and fortifying +her courage with the memory of noble deeds recorded of women in +ancient and modern history. With Euthymia the primary human +instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection about them. +All her sympathies were excited by the thought of this forlorn +stranger in his solitude, but she felt the impossibility of giving +any complete expression to them. She thought of Mungo Park in the +African desert, and she envied the poor negress who not only pitied +him, but had the blessed opportunity of helping and consoling him. +How near were these two human creatures, each needing the other! How +near in bodily presence, how far apart in their lives, with a barrier +seemingly impassable between them ! + + + + +XXIII + +THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. + +These autumnal fevers, which carry off a large number of our young +people every year, are treacherous and deceptive diseases. Not only +are they liable, as has been mentioned, to various accidental +complications which may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, after +convalescence seems to be established, relapses occur which are more +serious than the disease had appeared to be in its previous course. +One morning Dr. Butts found Maurice worse instead of better, as he +had hoped and expected to find him. Weak as he was, there was every +reason to fear the issue of this return of his threatening symptoms. +There was not much to do besides keeping up the little strength which +still remained. It was all needed. + +Does the reader of these pages ever think of the work a sick man as +much as a well one has to perform while he is lying on his back and +taking what we call his "rest"? More than a thousand times an hour, +between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand times a week, he +has to lift the bars of the cage in which his breathing organs are +confined, to save himself from asphyxia. Rest! There is no rest +until the last long sigh tells those who look upon the dying that the +ceaseless daily task, to rest from which is death, is at last +finished. We are all galley-slaves, pulling at the levers of +respiration,--which, rising and falling like so many oars, drive us +across an unfathomable ocean from one unknown shore to another. No! +Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to these four and +twenty oars, at which we must tug day and night all our life long + +The doctor could not find any accidental cause to account for this +relapse. It presently occurred to him that there might be some local +source of infection which had brought on the complaint, and was still +keeping up the symptoms which were the ground of alarm. He +determined to remove Maurice to his own house, where he could be sure +of pure air, and where he himself could give more constant attention +to his patient during this critical period of his disease. It was a +risk to take, but he could be carried on a litter by careful men, and +remain wholly passive during the removal. Maurice signified his +assent, as he could hardly help doing,--for the doctor's suggestion +took pretty nearly the form of a command. He thought it a matter of +life and death, and was gently urgent for his patient's immediate +change of residence. The doctor insisted on having Maurice's books +and other movable articles carried to his own house, so that he +should be surrounded by familiar sights, and not worry himself about +what might happen to objects which he valued, if they were left +behind him. + +All these dispositions were quickly and quietly made, and everything +was ready for the transfer of the patient to the house of the +hospitable physician. Paolo was at the doctor's, superintending the +arrangement of Maurice's effects and making all ready for his master. +The nurse in attendance, a trustworthy man enough in the main, +finding his patient in a tranquil sleep, left his bedside for a +little fresh air. While he was at the door he heard a shouting which +excited his curiosity, and he followed the sound until he found +himself at the border of the lake. It was nothing very wonderful +which had caused the shouting. A Newfoundland dog had been showing +off his accomplishments, and some of the idlers were betting as to +the time it would take him to bring back to his master the various +floating objects which had been thrown as far from the shore as +possible. He watched the dog a few minutes, when his attention was +drawn to a light wherry, pulled by one young lady and steered by +another. It was making for the shore, which it would soon reach. +The attendant remembered all at once, that he had left his charge, +and just before the boat came to land he turned and hurried back to +the patient. Exactly how long he had been absent he could not have +said,--perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps longer; the time +appeared short to him, wearied with long sitting and watching. + +It had seemed, when he stole away from Maurice's bedside, that he was +not in the least needed. The patient was lying perfectly quiet, and +to all appearance wanted nothing more than letting alone. It was +such a comfort to look at something besides the worn features of a +sick man, to hear something besides his labored breathing and faint, +half-whispered words, that the temptation to indulge in these +luxuries for a few minutes had proved irresistible. + +Unfortunately, Maurice's slumbers did not remain tranquil during the +absence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which began +quietly enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which +dreams are in the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, +distressing, terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up +before him, fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as +reality. He was at the bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, +narrow galleries, or rather worm-holes, in which human beings pass a +large part of their lives, like so many larvae boring their way into +the beams and rafters of some old building. How close the air was in +the stifling passage through which he was crawling! The scene +changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet of ice with desperate +effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow niche, his hold an icicle +ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him waiting for his foot +to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, how +desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, it may +be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he remembered well as +one of the great trials in his mountain ascents. No, it was not Mont +Blanc,--it was not any one of the frozen Alpine summits; it was Hecla +that he was climbing + +The smoke of the burning mountain was wrapping itself around him; he +was choking with its dense fumes; he heard the flames roaring around +him, he felt the hot lava beneath his feet, he uttered a faint cry, +and awoke. + +The room was full of smoke. He was gasping for breath, strangling in +the smothering oven which his chamber had become. + +The house was on fire! + +He tried to call for help, but his voice failed him, and died away in +a whisper. He made a desperate effort, and rose so as to sit up in +the bed for an instant, but the effort was too much for him, and he +sank back upon his pillow, helpless. He felt that his hour had come, +for he could not live in this dreadful atmosphere, and he was left +alone. He could hear the crackle of fire as the flame crept along +from one partition to another. It was a cruel fate to be left to +perish in that way,--the fate that many a martyr had had to face,--to +be first strangled and then burned. Death had not the terror for him +that it has for most young persons. He was accustomed to thinking of +it calmly, sometimes wistfully, even to such a degree that the +thought of self-destruction had come upon him as a temptation. But +here was death in an unexpected and appalling shape. He did not know +before how much he cared to live. All his old recollections came +before him as it were in one long, vivid flash. The closed vista of +memory opened to its far horizon-line, and past and present were +pictured in a single instant of clear vision. The dread moment which +had blighted his life returned in all its terror. He felt the +convulsive spring in the form of a faint, impotent spasm,--the rush +of air,--the thorns of the stinging and lacerating cradle into which +he was precipitated. One after another those paralyzing seizures +which had been like deadening blows on the naked heart seemed to +repeat themselves, as real as at the moment of their occurrence. The +pictures passed in succession with such rapidity that they appeared +almost as if simultaneous. The vision of the "inward eye " was so +intensified in this moment of peril that an instant was like an hour +of common existence. Those who have been very near drowning know +well what this description means. The development of a photograph +may not explain it, but it illustrates the curious and familiar fact +of the revived recollections of the drowning man's experience. The +sensitive plate has taken one look at a scene, and remembers it all, + + +Every little circumstance is there,--the hoof in air, the wing in +flight, the leaf as it falls, the wave as it breaks. All there, but +invisible; potentially present, but impalpable, inappreciable, as if +not existing at all. A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene +comes out in all its perfection of detail. In those supreme moments +when death stares a man suddenly in the face the rush of unwonted +emotion floods the undeveloped pictures of vanished years, stored +away in the memory, the vast panorama of a lifetime, and in one swift +instant the past comes out as vividly as if it were again the +present. So it was at this moment with the sick man, as he lay +helpless and felt that he was left to die. For he saw no hope of +relief: the smoke was drifting in clouds into the room; the flames +were very near; if he was not reached and rescued immediately it was +all over with him. + +His past life had flashed before him. Then all at once rose the +thought of his future,--of all its possibilities, of the vague hopes +which he had cherished of late that his mysterious doom would be +lifted from him. There was something, then, to be lived for, +something! There was a new life, it might be, in store for him, and +such a new life! He thought of all he was losing. Oh, could he but +have lived to know the meaning of love! And the passionate desire of +life came over him,--not the dread of death, but the longing for what +the future might yet have of happiness for him. + +All this took place in the course of a very few moments. Dreams and +visions have little to do with measured time, and ten minutes, +possibly fifteen or twenty, were all that had passed since the +beginning of those nightmare terrors which were evidently suggested +by the suffocating air he was breathing. + +What had happened? In the confusion of moving books and other +articles to the doctor's house, doors and windows had been forgotten. +Among the rest a window opening into the cellar, where some old +furniture had been left by a former occupant, had been left unclosed. +One of the lazy natives, who had lounged by the house smoking a bad +cigar, had thrown the burning stump in at this open window. He had +no particular intention of doing mischief, but he had that +indifference to consequences which is the next step above the +inclination to crime. The burning stump happened to fall among the +straw of an old mattress which had been ripped open. The smoker went +his way without looking behind him, and it so chanced that no other +person passed the house for some time. Presently the straw was in a +blaze, and from this the fire extended to the furniture, to the +stairway leading up from the cellar, and was working its way along +the entry under the stairs leading up to the apartment where Maurice +was lying. + +The blaze was fierce and swift, as it could not help being with such +a mass of combustibles,--loose straw from the mattress, dry old +furniture, and old warped floors which had been parching and +shrinking for a score or two of years. The whole house was, in the +common language of the newspaper reports, "a perfect tinder-box," and +would probably be a heap of ashes in half an hour. And there was +this unfortunate deserted sick man lying between life and death, +beyond all help unless some unexpected assistance should come to his +rescue. + +As the attendant drew near the house where Maurice was lying, he was +horror-struck to see dense volumes of smoke pouring out of the lower +windows. It was beginning to make its way through the upper windows, +also, and presently a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward +along the side of the house. The man shrieked Fire! Fire! with all +his might, and rushed to the door of the building to make his way to +Maurice's room and save him. He penetrated but a short distance +when, blinded and choking with the smoke, he rushed headlong down the +stairs with a cry of despair that roused every man, woman, and child +within reach of a human voice. Out they came from their houses in +every quarter of the village. The shout of Fire! Fire! was the +chief aid lent by many of the young and old. Some caught up pails +and buckets: the more thoughtful ones filling them; the hastier +snatching them up empty, trusting to find water nearer the burning +building. + +Is the sick man moved? + +This was the awful question first asked,--for in the little village +all knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's +house. The attendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where +he had left him, and gasped out, + +"He is there!" + +A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed +off in search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there +was no ladder to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick +man was going to be swallowed up in the flames before it could +possibly arrive. Some were going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the +hope that the young man might have strength enough to leap from the +window and be safely caught in it. The attendant shook his head, and +said faintly, + +"He cannot move from his bed." + +One of the visitors at the village,--a millionaire, it was said,--a +kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones: + +"A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!" + +The fresh-water fisherman muttered, "I should like to save the man +and to see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten +thaousan' dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death,--or +even chokin' to death, anyhaow." + +The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, +recent or old, shook his head. + +"The stairs have been shored up," he said, "and when the fists that +holds 'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to go +over them stairs. Hurry along your ladder,--that's your only +chance." + +All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they had +gone for was missing from its case,--a neighbor had carried it off +for the workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get +there in time. There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a +mile from the lakeside settlement. Some were throwing on water in an +aimless, useless way; one was sending a thin stream through a garden +syringe: it seemed like doing something, at least. But all hope of +saving Maurice was fast giving way, so rapid was the progress of the +flames, so thick the cloud of smoke that filled the house and poured +from the windows. Nothing was heard but confused cries, shrieks of +women, all sorts of orders to do this and that, no one knowing what +was to be done. The ladder! The ladder! Five minutes more and it +will be too late! + +In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had +stopped his work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that +in which they had stood in his apartment, and followed in the +direction of the sound, little thinking that his master was lying +helpless in the burning house. "Some chimney afire," he said to +himself; but he would go and take a look, at any rate. + +Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending +death, two young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish +aspect, had suddenly joined the throng. "The Wonder" and "The +Terror" of their school-days--Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida +Vincent had just come from the shore, where they had left their +wherry. A few hurried words told them the fearful story. Maurice +Kirkwood was lying in the chamber to which every eye was turned, +unable to move, doomed to a dreadful death. All that could be hoped +was that he would perish by suffocation rather than by the flames, +which would soon be upon him. The man who had attended him had just +tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled back out of the door, +almost strangled by the smoke. A thousand dollars had been offered +to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one had dared to +make the attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, if the +smoke did not blind and smother the man who passed them before they +fell. + +The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift +moment. + +"How can he be reached? " asked Lurida. "Is there nobody that will +venture his life to save a brother like that?" + +"I will venture mine," said Euthymia. + +"No! no!" shrieked Lurida,--"not you! not you ! It is a man's work, +not yours! You shall not go! Poor Lurida had forgotten all her +theories in this supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held +back. Taking a handkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail +of water and bound it about her head. Then she took several deep +breaths of air, and filled her lungs as full as they would hold. She +knew she must not take a single breath in the choking atmosphere if +she could possibly help it, and Euthymia was noted for her power of +staying under water so long that more than once those who saw her +dive thought she would never come up again. So rapid were her +movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, who would forcibly have +prevented her from carrying out her purpose. Her imperious +determination was not to be resisted. And so Euthymia, a willing +martyr, if martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed within the +veil that hid the sufferer. + +Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground. She was +the first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymia +disappeared in the smoke of the burning building. Even the rector +grew very white in the face,--so white that one of his vestry-men +begged him to sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on +his forehead, to his great disgust and manifest advantage. The old +landlady was crying and moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes +and shaking his head sadly. + +"She will nevar come out alive," he said solemnly. + +"Nor dead, neither," added the carpenter. "Ther' won't be nothing +left of neither of 'em but ashes." And the carpenter hid his face in +his hands. + +The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag which he called a +"hangkercher,"--it had served to carry bait that morning,--and was +making use of its best corner to dry the tears which were running +down his cheeks. The whole village was proud of Euthymia, and with +these more quiet signs of grief were mingled loud lamentations, +coming alike from old and young. + +All this was not so much like a succession of events as it was like a +tableau. The lookers-on were stunned with its suddenness, and before +they had time to recover their bewildered senses all was lost, or +seemed lost. They felt that they should never look again on either +of those young faces. + +The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately professional by +habit, had already recovered enough to be thinking of a text for the +funeral sermon. The first that occurred to him was this,--vaguely, +of course, in the background of consciousness: + +"Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came forth of the midst of the +fire." + +The village undertaker was of naturally sober aspect and reflective +disposition. He had always been opposed to cremation, and here was a +funeral pile blazing before his eyes. He, too, had his human +sympathies, but in the distance his imagination pictured the final +ceremony, and how he himself should figure in a spectacle where the +usual centre piece of attraction would be wanting,--perhaps his own +services uncalled for. + +Blame him not, you whose garden-patch is not watered with the tears +of mourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to +every sound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself +trembling to the wail of the De Profundis. Not always,--not always; +let us not be cynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we +may safely say, is subject to those secondary vibrations under the +most solemn and soul-subduing influences. + +It seems as if we were doing great wrong to the scene we are +contemplating in delaying it by the description of little +circumstances and individual thoughts and feelings. But linger as we +may, we cannot compress into a chapter--we could not crowd into a +volume--all that passed through the minds and stirred the emotions of +the awe-struck company which was gathered about the scene of danger +and of terror. We are dealing with an impossibility: consciousness +is a surface; narrative is a line. + +Maurice had given himself up for lost. His breathing was becoming +every moment more difficult, and he felt that his strength could hold +out but a few minutes longer. + +"Robert!" he called in faint accents. But the attendant was not +there to answer. + +"Paolo! Paolo!" But the faithful servant, who would have given his +life for his master, had not yet reached the place where the crowd +was gathered. + +"Oh, for a breath of air! Oh, for an arm to lift me from this bed! +Too late! Too late!" he gasped, with what might have seemed his +dying expiration. + +"Not too late!" The soft voice reached his obscured consciousness as +if it had come down to him from heaven. + +In a single instant he found himself rolled in a blanket and in the +arms of--a woman! + +Out of the stifling chamber,--over the burning stairs,--close by the +tongues of fire that were lapping up all they could reach,--out into +the open air, he was borne swiftly and safely,--carried as easily as +if he had been a babe, in the strong arms of "The Wonder" of the +gymnasium, the captain of the Atalanta, who had little dreamed of the +use she was to make of her natural gifts and her school-girl +accomplishments. + +Such a cry as arose from the crowd of on-lookers! It was a sound +that none of them had ever heard before or could expect ever to hear +again, unless he should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a +sinking vessel. Then, those who had resisted the overflow of their +emotion, who had stood in white despair as they thought of these two +young lives soon to be wrapped in their burning shroud,--those stern +men--the old sea-captain, the hard-faced, moneymaking, cast-iron +tradesmen of the city counting-room--sobbed like hysteric women; it +was like a convulsion that overcame natures unused to those deeper +emotions which many who are capable of experiencing die without ever +knowing. + +This was the scene upon which the doctor and Paolo suddenly appeared +at the same moment. + +As the fresh breeze passed over the face of the rescued patient, his +eyes opened wide, and his consciousness returned in almost +supernatural lucidity. Euthymia had sat down upon a bank, and was +still supporting him. His head was resting on her bosom. Through +his awakening senses stole the murmurs of the living cradle which +rocked him with the wavelike movements of respiration, the soft +susurrus of the air that entered with every breath, the double beat +of the heart which throbbed close to his ear. And every sense, and +every instinct, and every reviving pulse told him in language like a +revelation from another world that a woman's arms were around +him, and that it was life, and not death, which her embrace had +brought him. + +She would have disengaged him from her protecting hold, but the +doctor made her a peremptory sign, which he followed by a sharp +command:-- + +"Do not move him a hair's breadth," he said. "Wait until the litter +comes. Any sudden movement might be dangerous. Has anybody a brandy +flask about him?" + +One or two members of the local temperance society looked rather +awkward, but did not come forward. + +The fresh-water fisherman was the first who spoke. + +"I han't got no brandy," he said, "but there's a drop or two of old +Medford rum in this here that you're welcome to, if it'll be of any +help. I alliz kerry a little on 't in case o' gettin' wet 'n' +chilled." + +So saying he held forth a flat bottle with the word ,Sarsaparilla +stamped on the green glass, but which contained half a pint or more +of the specific on which he relied in those very frequent exposures +which happen to persons of his calling. + +The doctor motioned back Paolo, who would have rushed at once to the +aid of Maurice, and who was not wanted at that moment. So poor +Paolo, in an agony of fear for his master, was kept as quiet as +possible, and had to content himself with asking all sorts of +questions and repeating all the prayers he could think of to Our Lady +and to his holy namesake the Apostle. + +The doctor wiped the mouth of the fisherman's bottle very carefully. +"Take a few drops of this cordial," he said, as he held it to his +patient's lips. "Hold him just so, Euthymia, without stirring. I +will watch him, and say when he is ready to be moved. The litter is +near by, waiting." Dr. Butts watched Maurice's pulse and color. The +"old Medford " knew its business. It had knocked over its tens of +thousands; it had its redeeming virtue, and helped to set up a poor +fellow now and then. It did this for Maurice very effectively. When +he seemed somewhat restored, the doctor had the litter brought to his +side, and Euthymia softly resigned her helpless burden, which Paolo +and the attendant Robert lifted with the aid of the doctor, who +walked by the patient as he was borne to the home where Mrs. Butts +had made all ready for his reception. + +As for poor Lurida, who had thought herself equal to the sanguinary +duties of the surgeon, she was left lying on the grass with an old +woman over her, working hard with fan and smelling-salts to bring her +back from her long fainting fit. + + + + +XXIV + +THE INEVITABLE. + +Why should not human nature be the same in Arrowhead Village as +elsewhere? It could not seem strange to the good people of that +place and their visitors that these two young persons, brought +together under circumstances that stirred up the deepest emotions of +which the human soul is capable, should become attached to each +other. But the bond between them was stronger than any knew, except +the good doctor, who had learned the great secret of Maurice's life. +For the first time since his infancy he had fully felt the charm +which the immediate presence of youthful womanhood carries with it. +He could hardly believe the fact when he found himself no longer the +subject of the terrifying seizures of which he had had many and +threatening experiences. + +It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he could +possibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state +of debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. +Only by what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to +suffocation and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It +was perfectly clear to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young +woman to whom he owed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the +revolution in his nervous system which would be the beginning of a +new existence, it would be of far more value as a restorative agency +than any or all of the drugs in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to +Euthymia, and explained the matter to her parents and friends. She +must go with him on some of his visits. Her mother should go with +her, or her sister; but this was a case of life and death, and no +maidenly scruples must keep her from doing her duty. + +The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented a +scene not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of +the old edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated +of the little group. He went before the others, took his seat by the +bedside, and held the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. +As Euthymia entered it gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant +as if with a faint memory of its old habit, then throbbed full and +strong, comparatively, as if under the spur of some powerful +stimulus. Euthymia's task was a delicate one, but she knew how to +disguise its difficulty. + +"Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, and +handed him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and +before she knew it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a +gentle constraint. What could she do? Here was the young man whose +life she had saved, at least for the moment, and who was yet in +danger from the disease which had almost worn out his powers of +resistance. + +"Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side," said the doctor. "He wants to +thank you, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death +which seemed inevitable." + +Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanly +tears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with +the dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear. + +The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens--it; it +lets the old water-course fill up, and never returns to its forsaken +bed. The tyrannous habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had +verified itself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman +bad conquered and abolished. + +The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptional character from +the time of his restoration to his natural conditions. His +convalescence was very slow and gradual, but no further accident +interrupted its even progress. The season was over, the summer +visitors had left Arrowhead Village; the chrysanthemums were going +out of flower, the frosts had come, and Maurice was still beneath the +roof of the kind physician. The relation between him and his +preserver was so entirely apart from all common acquaintances and +friendships that no ordinary rules could apply to it. Euthymia +visited him often during the period of his extreme prostration. + +"You must come every day," the doctor said. "He gains with every +visit you make him; he pines if you miss him for a single day." So +she came and sat by him, the doctor or good Mrs. Butts keeping her +company in his presence. He grew stronger,--began to sit up in bed; +and at last Euthymia found him dressed as in health, and beginning to +walk about the room. She was startled. She had thought of herself +as a kind of nurse, but the young gentleman could hardly be said to +need a nurse any longer. She had scruples about making any further +visits. She asked Lurida what she thought about it. + +"Think about it?" said Lurida. " Why should n't you go to see a +brother as well as a sister, I should like to know? If you are +afraid to go to see Maurice Kirkwood, I am not afraid, at any rate. +If you would rather have me go than go yourself, I will do it, and +let people talk just as much as they want to. Shall I go instead of +you?" + +Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the best thing for the +patient. The doctor had told her he thought there were special +reasons for her own course in coming daily to see him. "I am +afraid," she said, " you are too bright to be safe for him in his +weak state. Your mind is such a stimulating one, you know. A dull +sort of person like myself is better for him just now. I will +continue visiting him as long as the doctor says it is important that +I should; but you must defend me, Lurida,--I know you can explain it +all so that people will not blame me." + +Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's penetrating head- +voice would be in a convalescent's chamber. She knew how that active +mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, when what he +wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not these good and sufficient +reasons for her decision? What others could there be? + +So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she blushed to see that +she was continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to +look too well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition +of affairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in +their comments. Free, but kindly, for the story of the rescue had +melted every heart; and what could be more natural than that these +two young people whom God had brought together in the dread moment of +peril should find it hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour +of danger was past? When gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay +his debts; and if Maurice gave his heart to Euthymia, would not she +receive it as payment in full? + +The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice +Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in a +magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the +austral the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took +place while he was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. +For all the long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found +their natural channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ +which throbs in response to every profound emotion. As his health +gradually returned, Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his +cheek, a glitter in his eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, +which altogether were a warning to the young maiden that the highway +of friendly intercourse was fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of +which her woman's eye could read plainly enough, "Dangerous passing." + +"You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, "that I +think I had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next +time we meet I hope you will be strong enough to call on me." + +She was frightened to see how pale he turned,--he was weaker than she +thought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Butts +looked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten the +good woman's presence. + +Presently Maurice spoke,--very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a +stitch at the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she +listened to what followed. + +"No! you must not leave me. You must never leave me. You saved my +life. But you have done more than that,--more than you know or can +ever know. To you I owe it that I am living; with you I live +henceforth, if I am to live at all. All I am, all I hope,--will you +take this poor offering from one who owes you everything, whose lips +never touched those of woman or breathed a word of love before you? + +What could Euthymia reply to this question, uttered with all the +depth of a passion which had never before found expression. + +Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs. Butts overhear. But +she told her husband afterwards that there was nothing in the +tableaux they had had in September to compare with what she then saw. +It was indeed a pleasing picture which those two young heads +presented as Euthymia gave her inarticulate but infinitely expressive +answer to the question of Maurice Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman +thought it time to leave the young people. Down went the stocking +with the needles in it; out of her lap tumbled the ball of worsted, +rolling along the floor with its yarn trailing after it, like some +village matron who goes about circulating from hearth to hearth, +leaving all along her track the story of the new engagement or of the +arrival of the last "little stranger." + +Not many suns had set before it was told all through Arrowhead +Village that Maurice Kirkwood was the accepted lover of Euthymia +Tower. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. + + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, May 18. + +MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA,--Who would have thought, when you broke your oar +as the Atalanta flashed by the Algonquin, last June, that before the +roses came again you would find yourself the wife of a fine scholar +and grand gentleman, and the head of a household such as that of +which you are the mistress? You must not forget your old Arrowhead +Village friends. What am I saying?---you forget them! No, dearest, +I know your heart too well for that! You are not one of those who +lay aside their old friendships as they do last years bonnet when +they get a new one. You have told me all about yourself and your +happiness, and now you want me to tell you about myself and what is +going on in our little place. + +And first about myself. I have given up the idea of becoming a +doctor. I have studied mathematics so much that I have grown fond of +certainties, of demonstrations, and medicine deals chiefly in +probabilities. The practice of the art is so mixed up with the +deepest human interests that it is hard to pursue it with that even +poise of the intellect which is demanded by science. I want +knowledge pure and simple,--I do not fancy having it mixed. Neither +do I like the thought of passing my life in going from one scene of +suffering to another; I am not saintly enough for such a daily +martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easy occupation. I +fainted at the first operation I saw, and I have never wanted to see +another. I don't say that I wouldn't marry a physician, if the right +one asked me, but the young doctor is not forthcoming at present. +Yes, I think I might make a pretty good doctor's wife. I could teach +him a good deal about headaches and backaches and all sorts of +nervous revolutions, as the doctor says the French women call their +tantrums. I don't know but I should be willing to let him try his +new medicines on me. If he were a homeopath, I know I should; for if +a billionth of a grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my tea or +coffee, I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of anything +would poison me,--no, not if it were snake-venom; and if it were not +disgusting, I would swallow a handful of his lachesis globules, to +please my husband. But if I ever become a doctor's wife, my husband +will not be one of that kind of practitioners, you may be sure of +that, nor an "eclectic," nor a "faith-cure man." On the whole, I +don't think I want to be married at all. I don't like the male +animal very well (except such noble specimens as your husband). They +are all tyrants,--almost all,--so far as our sex is concerned, and I +often think we could get on better without them. + +However, the creatures are useful in the Society. They send us +papers, some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often +that you would like to know how the Society is getting on, and to +read some of the papers sent to it if they happened to be +interesting, that I have laid aside one or two manuscripts expressly +for your perusal. You will get them by and by. + +I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you. Arrowhead +Village misses him dreadfully, I can tell you. That is the reason +people become so attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in +their natures? I suppose life is not long enough to cool their blood +down to our Northern standard. Then they are so child-like, whereas +the native of these latitudes is never young after he is ten or +twelve years old. Mother says,--you know mother's old-fashioned +notions, and how shrewd and sensible she is in spite of them,--mother +says that when she was a girl families used to import young men and +young women from the country towns, who called themselves "helps," +not servants,--no, that was Scriptural; " but they did n't know +everything down in Judee," and it is not good American language. She +says that these people would live in the same household until they +were married, and the women often remain in the same service until +they died or were old and worn out, and then, what with the money +they had saved and the care and assistance they got from their former +employers, would pass a decent and comfortable old age, and be buried +in the family lot. Mother has made up her mind to the change, but +grandmother is bitter about it. She says there never was a country +yet where the population was made up of "ladies" and "gentlemen," and +she does n't believe there can be; nor that putting a spread eagle on +a copper makes a gold dollar of it. She is a pessimist after her own +fashion. She thinks all sentiment is dying out of our people. No +loyalty for the sovereign, the king-post of the political edifice, +she says; no deep attachment between employer and employed; no +reverence of the humbler members of a household for its heads; and to +make sure of continued corruption and misery, what she calls +"universal suffrage" emptying all the sewers into the great aqueduct +we all must drink from. "Universal suffrage!" I suppose we women +don't belong to the universe! Wait until we get a chance at the +ballot-box, I tell grandma, and see if we don't wash out the sewers +before they reach the aqueduct! But my pen has run away with men I +was thinking of Paolo, and what a pleasant thing it is to have one of +those child-like, warm-hearted, attachable, cheerful, contented, +humble, faithful, companionable, but never presuming grownup children +of the South waiting on one, as if everything he could do for one was +a pleasure, and carrying a look of content in his face which makes +every one who meets him happier for a glimpse of his features. + +It does seem a shame that the charming relation of master and +servant, intelligent authority and cheerful obedience, mutual +interest in each other's welfare, thankful recognition of all the +advantages which belong to domestic service in the better class of +families, should be almost wholly confined to aliens and their +immediate descendants. Why should Hannah think herself so much +better than Bridget? When they meet at the polls together, as they +will before long, they will begin to feel more of an equality than is +recognized at present. The native female turns her nose up at the +idea of "living out;" does she think herself so much superior to the +women of other nationalities? Our women will have to come to it,--so +grandmother says,--in another generation or two, and in a hundred +years, according to her prophecy, there will be a new set of old +"Miss Pollys" and " Miss Betseys" who have lived half a century in +the same families, respectful and respected, cherished, cared for in +time of need (citizens as well as servants, holding a ballot as well +as a broom, I tell her), and bringing back to us the lowly, underfoot +virtues of contentment and humility, which we do so need to carpet +the barren and hungry thoroughfare of our unstratified existence. + +There, I have got a-going, and am forgetting all the news I have to +tell you. There is an engagement you will want to know all about. +It came to pass through our famous boat-race, which you and I +remember, and shall never forget as long as we live. It seems that +the young fellow who pulled the bow oar of that men's college boat +which we had the pleasure of beating got some glimpses of Georgina, +our handsome stroke oar. I believe he took it into his head that it +was she who threw the bouquet that won the race for us. He was, as +you know, greatly mistaken, and ought to have made love to me, only +he did n't. Well, it seems he came posting down to the Institute +just before the vacation was over, and there got a sight of Georgina. +I wonder whether she told him she didn't fling the bouquet! Anyhow, +the acquaintance began in that way, and now it seems that this young +fellow, good-looking and a bright scholar, but with a good many +months more to pass in college, is her captive. It was too bad. +Just think of my bouquet's going to another girl's credit! No +matter, the old Atalanta story was paid off, at any rate. + +You want to know all about dear Dr. Butts. They say he has just been +offered a Professorship in one of the great medical colleges. I +asked him about it, and he did not say that he had or had not. +"But," said be, "suppose that I had been offered such a place; do you +think I ought to accept it and leave Arrowhead Village? Let us talk +it over," said he, "just as if I had had such an offer." I told him +he ought to stay. There are plenty of men that can get into a +Professor's chair, I said, and talk like Solomons to a class of +wondering pupils: but once get a really good doctor in a place, a man +who knows all about everybody, whether they have this or that +tendency, whether when they are sick they have a way of dying or a +way of getting well, what medicines agree with them and what drugs +they cannot take, whether they are of the sort that think nothing is +the matter with them until they are dead as smoked herring, or of the +sort that send for the minister if they get a stomach-ache from +eating too many cucumbers,--who knows all about all the people within +half a dozen miles (all the sensible ones, that is, who employ a +regular practitioner),--such a man as that, I say, is not to be +replaced like a missing piece out of a Springfield musket or a +Waltham watch. Don't go! said I. Stay here and save our precious +lives, if you can, or at least put us through in the proper way, so +that we needn't be ashamed of ourselves for dying, if we must die. +Well, Dr. Butts is not going to leave us. I hope you will have no +unwelcome occasion for his services,--you are never ill, you know,-- +but, anyhow, he is going to be here, and no matter what happens he +will be on hand. + +The village news is not of a very exciting character. Item 1. A new +house is put up over the ashes of the one in which your husband lived +while he was here. It was planned by one of the autochthonous +inhabitants with the most ingenious combination of inconveniences +that the natural man could educe from his original perversity of +intellect. To get at any one room you must pass through every other. +It is blind, or nearly so, on the only side which has a good +prospect, and commands a fine view of the barn and pigsty through +numerous windows. Item 2. We have a small fire-engine near the new +house which can be worked by a man or two, and would be equal to the +emergency of putting out a bunch of fire-crackers. Item 3. We have +a new ladder, in a bog, close to the new fire-engine, so if the new +house catches fire, like its predecessor, and there should happen to, +be a sick man on an upper floor, he can be got out without running +the risk of going up and down a burning staircase. What a blessed +thing it was that there was no fire-engine near by and no ladder at +hand on the day of the great rescue! If there had been, what a +change in your programme of life! You remember that "cup of tea +spilt on Mrs. Masham's apron," which we used to read of in one of +Everett's Orations, and all its wide-reaching consequences in the +affairs of Europe. I hunted up that cup of tea as diligently as ever +a Boston matron sought for the last leaves in her old caddy after the +tea-chests had been flung overboard at Griffin's wharf,--but no +matter about that, now. That is the way things come about in this +world. I must write a lecture on lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, +fortunate calamities. It will be just the converse of that odd essay +of Swift's we read together, the awkward and stupid things done with +the best intentions. Perhaps I shall deliver the lecture in your +city: you will come and hear it, and bring him, won't +you, dearest? +Always, your loving + +LURIDA. + + + + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +It seems forever since you left us, dearest Euthymia! And are you, +and is your husband, and Paolo,--good Paolo,--are you all as well and +happy as you have been and as you ought to be? I suppose our small +village seems a very quiet sort of place to pass the winter in, now +that you have become accustomed to the noise and gayety of a great +city. For all that, it is a pretty busy place this winter, I can +tell you. We have sleighing parties,--I never go to them, myself, +because I can't keep warm, and my mind freezes up when my blood cools +down below 95 or 96 deg. Fahrenheit. I had a great deal rather sit +by a good fire and read about Arctic discoveries. But I like very +well to hear the bells' jingling and to see the young people trying +to have a good time as hard as they do at a picnic. It may be that +they do, but to me a picnic is purgatory and a sleigh-ride that other +place, where, as my favorite Milton says, "frost performs the effect +of fire." I believe I have quoted him correctly; I ought to, for I +could repeat half his poems from memory once, if I cannot now. + +You must have plenty of excitement in your city life. I suppose you +recognized yourself in one of the society columns of the "Household +Inquisitor:" "Mrs. E. K., very beautiful, in an elegant," etc., etc, +"with pearls," etc., etc.,--as if you were not the ornament of all +that you wear, no matter what it is! + +I am so glad that you have married a scholar! Why should not +Maurice--you both tell me to call him so--take the diplomatic office +which has been offered him? It seems to me that he would find +himself in exactly the right place. He can talk in two or three +languages, has good manners, and a wife who--well, what shall I say +of Mrs. Kirkwood but that "she would be good company for a queen," as +our old friend the quondam landlady of the Anchor Tavern used to say? +I should so like to see you presented at Court! It seems to me that +I should be willing to hold your train for the sake of seeing you in +your court feathers and things. + +As for myself, I have been thinking of late that I would become +either a professional lecturer or head mistress of a great school or +college for girls. I have tried the first business a little. Last +month I delivered a lecture on Quaternions. I got three for my +audience; two came over from the Institute, and one from that men's +college which they try to make out to be a university, and where no +female is admitted unless she belongs among the quadrupeds. I +enjoyed lecturing, but the subject is a difficult one, and I don't +think any one of them had any very clear notion of what I was talking +about, except Rhodora,--and I know she did n't. To tell the truth, I +was lecturing to instruct myself. I mean to try something easier +next time. I have thought of the Basque language and literature. +What do you say to that? + +The Society goes on famously. We have had a paper presented and read +lately which has greatly amused some of us and provoked a few of the +weaker sort. The writer is that crabbed old Professor of Belles- +Lettres at that men's college over there. He is dreadfully hard on +the poor "poets," as they call themselves. It seems that a great +many young persons, and more especially a great many young girls, of +whom the Institute has furnished a considerable proportion, have +taken to sending him their rhymed productions to be criticised,-- +expecting to be praised, no doubt, every one of them. I must give +you one of the sauciest extracts from his paper in his own words: + +"It takes half my time to read the 'poems' sent me by young people of +both sexes. They would be more shy of doing it if they knew that I +recognize a tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, +and the publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence +of ambitious mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are +exceptions to this rule of judgment, but I maintain that the +presumption is always against the rhymester as compared with the less +pretentious persons about him or her, busy with some useful calling, +--too busy to be tagging rhymed commonplaces together. Just now +there seems to be an epidemic of rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, +or the sweating sickness. After reading a certain amount of +manuscript verse one is disposed to anathematize the inventor of +homophonous syllabification. [This phrase made a great laugh when it +was read.] This, that is rhyming, must have been found out very +early, + + 'Where are you, Adam?' + + 'Here am I, Madam;' + +but it can never have been habitually practised until after the Fall. +The intrusion of tintinnabulating terminations into the +conversational intercourse of men and angels would have spoiled +Paradise itself. Milton would not have them even in Paradise Lost, +you remember. For my own part, I wish certain rhymes could be +declared contraband of written or printed language. Nothing should +be allowed to be hurled at the world or whirled with it, or furled +upon it or curled over it; all eyes should be kept away from the +skies, in spite of os homini sublime dedit; youth should be coupled +with all the virtues except truth; earth should never be reminded of +her birth; death should never be allowed to stop a mortal's breath, +nor the bell to sound his knell, nor flowers from blossoming bowers +to wave over his grave or show their bloom upon his tomb. We have +rhyming dictionaries,--let us have one from which all rhymes are +rigorously excluded. The sight of a poor creature grubbing for +rhymes to fill up his sonnet, or to cram one of those voracious, +rhyme-swallowing rigmaroles which some of our drudging poetical +operatives have been exhausting themselves of late to satiate with +jingles, makes my head ache and my stomach rebel. Work, work of some +kind, is the business of men and women, not the making of jingles! +No,--no,--no! I want to see the young people in our schools and +academies and colleges, and the graduates of these institutions, +lifted up out of the little Dismal Swamp of self-contemplating and +self-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism which is +surfeiting the land with those literary sandwiches,--thin slices of +tinkling sentimentality between two covers looking like hard-baked +gilt gingerbread. But what faces these young folks make up at my +good advice! They get tipsy on their rhymes. Nothing intoxicates +one like his--or her--own verses, and they hold on to their metre- +ballad-mongering as the fellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to +the gas-bag." + +We laughed over this essay of the old Professor; though it hit us +pretty hard. The best part of the joke is that the old man himself +published a thin volume of poems when he was young, which there is +good reason to think he is not very proud of, as they say he buys up +all the copies he can find in the shops. No matter what they say, I +can't help agreeing with him about this great flood of "poetry," as +it calls itself, and looking at the rhyming mania much as he does. + +How I do love real poetry! That is the reason hate rhymes which have +not a particle of it in them. The foolish scribblers that deal in +them are like bad workmen in a carpenter's shop. They not only turn +out bad jobs of work, but they spoil the tools for better workmen. +There is hardly a pair of rhymes in the English language that is not +so dulled and hacked and gapped by these 'prentice hands that a +master of the craft hates to touch them, and yet he cannot very well +do without them. I have not been besieged as the old Professor has +been with such multitudes of would-be-poetical aspirants that he +could not even read their manuscripts, but I have had a good many +letters containing verses, and I have warned the writers of the +delusion under which they were laboring. + +You may like to know that I have just been translating some extracts +from the Greek Anthology. I send you a few specimens of my work, +with a Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I hope you will find +something of the Greek rhythm in my versions, and that I have caught +a spark of inspiration from the impassioned Lesbian. I have found +great delight in this work, at any rate, and am never so happy as +when I read from my manuscript or repeat from memory the lines into +which I have transferred the thought of the men and women of two +thousand years ago, or given rhythmical expression to my own +rapturous feelings with regard to them. I must read you my +Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I cannot help thinking that you +will like it better than either of my last two, The Song of the +Roses, or The Wail of the Weeds. + +How I do miss you, dearest! I want you: I want you to listen to what +I have written; I want you to hear all about my plans for the future; +I want to look at you, and think how grand it must be to feel one's +self to be such a noble and beautiful-creature; I want to wander in +the woods with you, to float on the lake, to share your life and talk +over every day's doings with you. Alas! I feel that we have parted +as two friends part at a port of embarkation: they embrace, they kiss +each other's cheeks, they cover their faces and weep, they try to +speak good-by to each other, they watch from the pier and from the +deck; the two forms grow less and less, fainter and fainter in the +distance, two white handkerchiefs flutter once and again, and yet +once more, and the last visible link of the chain which binds them +has parted. Dear, dear, dearest Euthymia, my eyes are running over +with tears when I think that we may never, never meet again. + +Don't you want some more items of village news? We are threatened +with an influx of stylish people: "Buttons" to answer the door-bell, +in place of the chamber-maid; "butler," in place of the "hired man;" +footman in top-boots and breeches, cockade on hat, arms folded a la +Napoleon; tandems, "drags," dogcarts, and go-carts of all sorts. It +is rather amusing to look at their ambitious displays, but it takes +away the good old country flavor of the place. + +I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when you come back to +spend your summers here. I suppose you must have a large house, and +I am sure you will have a beautiful one. I suppose you will have +some fine horses, and who would n't be glad to? But I do not believe +you will try to make your old Arrowhead Village friends stare their +eyes out of their heads with a display meant to outshine everybody +else that comes here. You can have a yacht on the lake, if you like, +but I hope you will pull a pair of oars in our old boat once in a +while, with me to steer you. I know you will be just the same dear- +Euthymia you always were and always must be. How happy you must make +such a man as Maurice Kirkwood! And how happy you ought to be with +him!--a man who knows what is in books, and who has seen for himself, +what is in men. If he has not seen so much of women, where could he +study all that is best in womanhood as he can in his own wife? Only +one thing that dear Euthymia lacks. She is not quite pronounced +enough in her views as to the rights and the wrongs of the sex. When +I visit you, as you say I shall, I mean to indoctrinate Maurice with +sound views on that subject. I have written an essay for the +Society, which I hope will go a good way towards answering all the +objections to female suffrage. I mean to read it to your husband, if +you will let me, as I know you will, and perhaps you would like to +hear it,--only you know my thoughts on the subject pretty well +already. + +With all sorts of kind messages to your dear husband, and love to +your precious self, +I am ever your + +LURIDA. + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +MY DEAR EUTHYMIA,--My pen refuses to call you by any other name. +Sweet-souled you are, and your Latinized Greek name is--the one which +truly designates you. I cannot tell you how we have followed you, +with what interest and delight through your travels, as you have told +their story in your letters to your mother. She has let us have the +privilege of reading them, and we have been with you in steamer, +yacht, felucca, gondola, Nile-boat; in all sorts of places, from +crowded capitals to "deserts where no men abide,"--everywhere keeping +company with you in your natural and pleasant descriptions of your +experiences. And now that you have returned to your home in the +great city I must write you a few lines of welcome, if nothing more. + +You will find Arrowhead Village a good deal changed since you left +it. We are discovered by some of those over-rich people who make the +little place upon which they swarm a kind of rural city. When this +happens the consequences are striking,--some of them desirable and +some far otherwise. The effect of well-built, well-furnished, well- +kept houses and of handsome grounds always maintained in good order +about them shows itself in a large circuit around the fashionable +centre. Houses get on a new coat of paint, fences are kept in better +order, little plots of flowers show themselves where only ragged +weeds had rioted, the inhabitants present themselves in more comely +attire and drive in handsomer vehicles with more carefully groomed +horses. On the other hand, there is a natural jealousy on the part +of the natives of the region suddenly become fashionable. They have +seen the land they sold at farm prices by the acre coming to be +valued by the foot, like the corner lots in a city. Their simple and +humble modes of life look almost poverty-stricken in the glare of +wealth and luxury which so outshines their plain way of living. It +is true that many of them have found them selves richer than in +former days, when the neighborhood lived on its own resources. They +know how to avail themselves of their altered position, and soon +learn to charge city prices for country products; but nothing can +make people feel rich who see themselves surrounded by men whose +yearly income is many times their own whole capital. I think it +would be better if our rich men scattered themselves more than they +do,--buying large country estates, building houses and stables which +will make it easy to entertain their friends, and depending for +society on chosen guests rather than on the mob of millionaires who +come together for social rivalry. But I do not fret myself about it. +Society will stratify itself according to the laws of social +gravitation. It will take a generation or two more, perhaps, to +arrange the strata by precipitation and settlement, but we can always +depend on one principle to govern the arrangement of the layers. +People interested in the same things will naturally come together. +The youthful heirs of fortunes who keep splendid yachts have little +to talk about with the oarsman who pulls about on the lake or the +river. What does young Dives, who drives his four-in-hand and keeps +a stable full of horses, care about Lazarus, who feels rich in the +possession of a horse-railroad ticket? You know how we live at our +house, plainly, but with a certain degree of cultivated propriety. +We make no pretensions to what is called "style." We are still in +that social stratum where the article called "a napkin-ring" is +recognized as admissible at the dinner-table. That fact sufficiently +defines our modest pretensions. The napkin-ring is the boundary mark +between certain classes. But one evening Mrs. Butts and I went out +to a party given by the lady of a worthy family, where the napkin +itself was a newly introduced luxury. The conversation of the +hostess and her guests turned upon details of the kitchen and the +laundry; upon the best mode of raising bread, whether with "emptins" +(emptyings, yeast) or baking powder; about "bluing" and starching and +crimping, and similar matters. Poor Mrs. Butts! She knew nothing +more about such things than her hostess did about Shakespeare and the +musical glasses. What was the use of trying to enforce social +intercourse under such conditions? Incompatibility of temper has +been considered ground for a divorce; incompatibility of interests is +a sufficient warrant for social separation. The multimillionaires +have so much that is common among themselves, and so little that they +share with us of moderate means, that they will naturally form a +specialized class, and in virtue of their palaces, their picture- +galleries, their equipages, their yachts, their large hospitality, +constitute a kind of exclusive aristocracy. Religion, which ought to +be the great leveller, cannot reduce these elements to the same +grade. You may read in the parable, "Friend, how camest thou in +hither not having a wedding garment?" The modern version would be, +"How came you at Mrs. Billion's ball not having a dress on your back +which came from Paris?" + +The little church has got a new stained window, a saint who reminds +me of Hamlet's uncle,--a thing "of shreds and patches," but rather +pretty to look at, with an inscription under it which is supposed to +be the name of the person in whose honor the window was placed in the +church. Smith was a worthy man and a faithful churchwarden, and I +hope posterity will be able to spell out his name on his monumental +window; but that old English lettering would puzzle Mephistopheles +himself, if he found himself before this memorial tribute, on the +inside,--you know he goes to church sometimes, if you remember your +Faust. + +The rector has come out, in a quiet way, as an evolutionist. He has +always been rather "broad " in his views, but cautious in their +expression. You can tell the three branches of the mother-island +church by the way they carry their heads. The low-church clergy look +down, as if they felt themselves to be worms of the dust; the high- +church priest drops his head on one side, after the pattern of the +mediaeval saints; the broad-church preacher looks forward and round +about him, as if he felt himself the heir of creation. Our rector +carries his head in the broad-church aspect, which I suppose is the +least open to the charge of affectation,--in fact, is the natural and +manly way of carrying it. + +The Society has justified its name of Pansophian of late as never +before. Lurida has stirred up our little community and its +neighbors, so that we get essays on all sorts of subjects, poems and +stories in large numbers. I know all about it, for she often +consults me as to the merits of a particular contribution. + +What is to be the fate of Lurida? I often think, with no little +interest and some degree of anxiety, about her future. Her body is +so frail and her mind so excessively and constantly active that I am +afraid one or the other will give way. I do not suppose she thinks +seriously of ever being married. She grows more and more zealous in +behalf of her own sex, and sterner in her judgment of the other. She +declares that she never would marry any man who was not an advocate +of female suffrage, and as these gentlemen are not very common +hereabouts the chance is against her capturing any one of the hostile +sex. + +What do you think? I happened, just as I was writing the last +sentence, to look out of my window, and whom should I see but Lurida, +with a young man in tow, listening very eagerly to her conversation, +according to all appearance! I think he must be a friend of the +rector, as I have seen a young man like this one in his company. Who +knows? + +Affectionately yours, etc. + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. + +MY BELOVED WIFE,--This letter will tell you more news than you would +have thought could have been got together in this little village +during the short time you have been staying away from it. + +Lurida Vincent is engaged! He is a clergyman with a mathematical +turn. The story is that he put a difficult problem into one of the +mathematical journals, and that Lurida presented such a neat solution +that the young man fell in love with her on the strength of it. I +don't think the story is literally true, nor do I believe that other +report that he offered himself to her in the form of an equation +chalked on the blackboard; but that it was an intellectual rather +than a sentimental courtship I do not doubt. Lurida has given up the +idea of becoming a professional lecturer,--so she tells me,--thinking +that her future husband's parish will find her work enough to do. A +certain amount of daily domestic drudgery and unexciting intercourse +with simple-minded people will be the best thing in the world for +that brain of hers, always simmering with some new project in its +least fervid condition. + +All our summer visitors have arrived. Euthymia Mrs. Maurice +Kirkwood and her husband and little Maurice are here in their +beautiful house looking out on the lake. They gave a grand party the +other evening. You ought to have been there, but I suppose you could +not very well have left your sister in the middle of your visit: All +the grand folks were there, of course. Lurida and her young man-- +Gabriel is what she calls him--were naturally the objects of special +attention. Paolo acted as major-domo, and looked as if he ought to +be a major-general. Nothing could be pleasanter than the way in +which Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood received their plain country neighbors; +that is, just as they did the others of more pretensions, as if they +were really glad to see them, as I am sure they were. The old +landlord and his wife had two arm-chairs to themselves, and I saw +Miranda with the servants of the household looking in at the dancers +and out at the little groups in the garden, and evidently enjoying it +as much as her old employers. It was a most charming and successful +party. We had two sensations in the course of the evening. One was +pleasant and somewhat exciting, the other was thrilling and of +strange and startling interest. + +You remember how emaciated poor Maurice Kirkwood was left after his +fever, in that first season when he was among us. He was out in a +boat one day, when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a +place where the water was rather shallow. "Jake"--you know Jake,-- +everybody knows Jake--was rowing him. He promised to come to the +spot and fish up the ring if he could possibly find it. He was seen +poking about with fish-hooks at the end of a pole, but nothing was +ever heard from him about the ring. It was an antique intaglio stone +in an Etruscan setting,--a wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. +Kirkwood valued it highly, and regretted its loss very much. + +While we were in the garden, who should appear at the gate but Jake, +with a great basket, inquiring for Mr. Kirkwood. "Come," said +Maurice to me, "let us see what our old friend the fisherman has +brought us. What have you got there, Jake?" + +"What I 've got? Wall, I 'll tell y' what I've got: I 've got the +biggest pickerel that's been ketched in this pond for these ten year. +An' I 've got somethin' else besides the pickerel. When I come to +cut him open, what do you think I faound in his insides but this here +ring o' yourn,"--and he showed the one Maurice had lost so long +before. There it was, as good as new, after having tried Jonah's +style of housekeeping for all that time. There are those who +discredit Jake's story about finding the ring in the fish; anyhow, +there was the ring and there was the pickerel. I need not say that +Jake went off well paid for his pickerel and the precious contents of +its stomach. Now comes the chief event of the evening. I went early +by special invitation. Maurice took me into his library, and we sat +down together. + +"I have something of great importance," he said, " to say to you. I +learned within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a +friend in the next town to this. You know, doctor, that we have +never met since the last, almost fatal, experience of my early years. +I have determined to defy the strength of that deadly chain of +associations connected with her presence, and I have begged her to +come this evening with the friends with whom she is staying. Several +letters passed between us, for it was hard to persuade her that there +was no longer any risk in my meeting her. Her imagination was almost +as deeply impressed as mine had been at those alarming interviews, +and I had to explain to her fully that I had become quite indifferent +to the disturbing impressions of former years. So, as the result of +our correspondence, Laura is coming this evening, and I wish you to +be present at our meeting. There is another reason why I wish you to +be here. My little boy is not far from the--age at which I received +my terrifying, almost disorganizing shock. I mean to have little +Maurice brought into the presence of Laura, who is said to be still a +very handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hint of that peculiar +sensitiveness which showed itself in my threatening seizure. It +seemed to me not impossible that he might inherit some tendency of +that nature, and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of danger +should declare itself. For myself I have no fear. Some radical +change has taken place in my nervous system. I have been born again, +as it were, in my susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new +man. But I must know how it is with my little Maurice." + +Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment; for +experiment it was, and not without its sources of anxiety, as it +seemed to me. The evening wore along; friends and neighbors came in, +but no Laura as yet. At last I heard the sound of wheels, and a +carriage stopped at the door. Two ladies and a gentleman got out, +and soon entered the drawing room. + +"My cousin Laura!" whispered Maurice to me, and went forward to meet +her. A very handsome woman, who might well have been in the +thirties,--one of those women so thoroughly constituted that they +cannot help being handsome at every period of life. I watched them +both as they approached each other. Both looked pale at first, but +Maurice soon recovered his usual color, and Laura's natural, rich +bloom came back by degrees. Their emotion at meeting was not to be +wondered at, but there was no trace in it of the paralyzing influence +on the great centres of life which had once acted upon its fated +victim like the fabled head which turned the looker-on into a stone. + +"Is the boy still awake?" said Maurice to Paolo, who, as they used to +say of Pushee at the old Anchor Tavern, was everywhere at once on +that gay and busy evening. + +"What! Mahser Maurice asleep an' all this racket going on? I hear +him crowing like young cockerel when he fus' smell daylight." + +"Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the little room that +leads out of the library." + +The child was brought down in his night-clothes, wide awake, +wondering apparently at the noise he heard, which he seemed to think +was for his special amusement. + +"See if he will go to that lady," said his father. Both of us held +our breath as Laura stretched her arms towards little Maurice. + +The child looked for an instant searchingly, but fearlessly, at her +glowing cheeks, her bright eyes, her welcoming smile, and met her +embrace as she clasped him to her bosom as if he had known her all +his days. + +The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and the blood of +Maurice Kirkwood at that supreme moment when he found himself +snatched from the grasp of death and cradled in the arms of Euthymia. + + + -------------------------- + + +In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it began with a prefix +which the reader may by this time have forgotten, namely, the First +Opening. It was perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability +of a second opening. + +I am reminded from time to time by the correspondents who ask a +certain small favor of me that, as I can only expect to be with my +surviving contemporaries a very little while longer, they would be +much obliged if I would hurry up my answer before it is too late. +They are right, these delicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding +me of a fact which I cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my +recollection. I thank them for recalling my attention to a truth +which I shall be wiser, if not more hilarious, for remembering. + +No, I had no right to say the First Opening. How do I know that I +shall have a chance to open it again? How do I know that anybody +will want it to be opened a second time? How do I know that I shall +feel like opening it? It is safest neither to promise to open the +New Portfolio once more, nor yet to pledge myself to keep it closed +hereafter. There are many papers potentially existent in it, some of +which might interest a reader here and there. The Records of the +Pansophian Society contain a considerable number of essays, poems, +stories, and hints capable of being expanded into presentable +dimensions. In the mean time I will say with Prospero, addressing my +old readers, and my new ones, if such I have, + + "If you be pleased, retire into my cell + And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, + To still my beating mind." + +When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again, and +consider whether it is worth while to open it. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext A Mortal Antipathy, by Oliver W. Holmes + diff --git a/old/antip10.zip b/old/antip10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..adb7542 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/antip10.zip diff --git a/old/antip11.txt b/old/antip11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6745bcd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/antip11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9318 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Mortal Antipathy, by O. W. Holmes, Sr. +#7 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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A very wise +and very distinguished physician who is as much at home in literature +as he is in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me in +referring to this story: "I should have been afraid of my subject." +He did not explain himself, but I can easily understand that he felt +the improbability of the, physiological or pathological occurrence on +which the story is founded to be so great that the narrative could +hardly be rendered plausible. I felt the difficulty for myself as +well as for my readers, and it was only by recalling for our +consideration a series of extraordinary but well-authenticated facts +of somewhat similar character that I could hope to gain any serious +attention to so strange a narrative. + +I need not recur to these wonderful stories. There is, however, one, +not to be found on record elsewhere, to which I would especially call +the reader's attention. It is that of the middle-aged man, who +assured me that he could never pass a tall hall clock without an +indefinable terror. While an infant in arms the heavy weight of one +of these tall clocks had fallen with aloud crash and produced an +impression on his nervous system which he had never got over. + +The lasting effect of a shock received by the sense of sight or that +of hearing is conceivable enough. + +But there is another sense, the nerves of which are in close relation +with the higher organs of consciousness. The strength of the +associations connected with the function of the first pair of nerves, +the olfactory, is familiar to most persons in their own experience +and as related by others. Now we know that every human being, as +well as every other living organism, carries its own distinguishing +atmosphere. If a man's friend does not know it, his dog does, and +can track him anywhere by it. This personal peculiarity varies with +the age and conditions of the individual. It may be agreeable or +otherwise, a source of attraction or repulsion, but its influence is +not less real, though far less obvious and less dominant, than in the +lower animals. It was an atmospheric impression of this nature which +associated itself with a terrible shock experienced by the infant +which became the subject of this story. The impression could not be +outgrown, but it might possibly be broken up by some sudden change in +the nervous system effected by a cause as potent as the one which had +produced the disordered condition. + +This is the best key that I can furnish to a story which must have +puzzled some, repelled others, and failed to interest many who did +not suspect the true cause of the mysterious antipathy. + +BEVERLY FARMS, MASS., August, 1891. + +O. W. H. + + + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + +FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. + +INTRODUCTION. + +"And why the New Portfolio, I would ask?" + +Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession to the nursery in +which you have a special interest, whether the new-comer was commonly +spoken of as a baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under +all conditions, in all companies, by the whole household, spoken of +as the baby? And was the small receptacle provided for it commonly +spoken of as a cradle; or was it not always called the cradle, as if +there were no other in existence? + +Now this New Portfolio is the cradle in which I am to rock my +new-born thoughts, and from which I am to lift them carefully and +show them to callers, namely, to the whole family of readers +belonging to my list of intimates, and such other friends as may drop +in by accident. And so it shall have the definite article, and not +be lost in the mob of its fellows as a portfolio. + +There are a few personal and incidental matters of which I wish to +say something before reaching the contents of the Portfolio, whatever +these may be. I have had other portfolios before this,--two, more +especially, and the first thing I beg leave to introduce relates to +these. + +Do not throw this volume down, or turn to another page, when I tell +you that the earliest of them, that of which I now am about to speak, +was opened more than fifty years ago. This is a very dangerous +confession, for fifty years make everything hopelessly old-fashioned, +without giving it the charm of real antiquity. If I could say a +hundred years, now, my readers would accept all I had to tell them +with a curious interest; but fifty years ago,--there are too many +talkative old people who know all about that time, and at best half a +century is a half-baked bit of ware. A coin-fancier would say that +your fifty-year-old facts have just enough of antiquity to spot them +with rust, and not enough to give them--the delicate and durable +patina which is time's exquisite enamel. + +When the first Portfolio was opened the coin of the realm bore for +its legend,--or might have borne if the more devout hero-worshippers +could have had their way,--Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. +Caesrzr. Aug. Div., Max., etc., etc. I never happened to see any +gold or silver with that legend, but the truth is I was not very +familiarly acquainted with the precious metals at that period of my +career, and, there might have been a good deal of such coin in +circulation without my handling it, or knowing much about it. + +Permit me to indulge in a few reminiscences of that far-off time. + +In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a principal centre of +attraction to young Boston people and their visitors. Many of us got +our first ideas of art, to say nothing of our first lessons in the +comparatively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive period, in +that agreeable resort of amateurs and artists. + +How the pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places +in the mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red +enough in it for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full- +length portrait of the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's +long-waistcoated gentlemen and satin-clad ladies,--they looked like +gentlemen and ladies, too; and Stuart's florid merchants and high- +waisted matrons; and Allston's lovely Italian scenery and dreamy, +unimpassioned women, not forgetting Florimel in full flight on her +interminable rocking-horse,--you may still see her at the Art Museum; +and the rival landscapes of Doughty and Fisher, much talked of and +largely praised in those days; and the Murillo,--not from Marshal +Soup's collection; and the portrait of Annibale Caracci by himself, +which cost the Athenaeum a hundred dollars; and Cole's allegorical +pictures, and his immense and dreary canvas, in which the prostrate +shepherds and the angel in Joseph's coat of many colors look as if +they must have been thrown in for nothing; and West's brawny Lear +tearing his clothes to pieces. But why go on with the catalogue, +when most of these pictures can be seen either at the Athenaeum +building in Beacon Street or at the Art Gallery, and admired or +criticised perhaps more justly, certainly not more generously, than +in those earlier years when we looked at them through the japanned +fish-horns? + +If one happened to pass through Atkinson Street on his way to the +Athenaeum, he would notice a large, square, painted, brick house, in +which lived a leading representative of old-fashioned coleopterous +Calvinism, and from which emerged one of the liveliest of literary +butterflies. The father was editor of the "Boston Recorder," a very +respectable, but very far from amusing paper, most largely patronized +by that class of the community which spoke habitually of the first +day of the week as "the Sahbuth." The son was the editor of several +different periodicals in succession, none of them over severe or +serious, and of many pleasant books, filled with lively descriptions +of society, which be studied on the outside with a quick eye for form +and color, and with a certain amount of sentiment, not very deep, but +real, though somewhat frothed over by his worldly experiences. + +Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when I opened my first +Portfolio. He had made himself known by his religious poetry, +published in his father's paper, I think, and signed "Roy." He had +started the "American Magazine," afterwards merged in the New York +Mirror." He had then left off writing scripture pieces, and taken to +lighter forms of verse. He had just written + + "I'm twenty-two, I'm twenty-two, + They idly give me joy, + As if I should be glad to know + That I was less a boy." + +He was young, therefore, and already famous. He came very near being +very handsome. He was tall; his hair, of light brown color, waved in +luxuriant abundance; his cheek was as rosy as if it had been painted +to show behind the footlights; he dressed with artistic elegance. He +was something between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an +anticipation of Oscar Wilde. There used to be in the gallery of the +Luxembourg a picture of Hippolytus and Phxdra, in which the beautiful +young man, who had kindled a passion in the heart of his wicked step- +mother, always reminded me of Willis, in spite of the shortcomings of +the living face as compared with the ideal. The painted youth is +still blooming on the canvas, but the fresh-cheecked, jaunty young +author of the year 1830 has long faded out of human sight. I took +the leaves which lie before me at this moment, as I write, from his +coffin, as it lay just outside the door of Saint Paul's Church, on a +sad, overclouded winter's day, in the year 1867. At that earlier +time, Willis was by far the most prominent young American author. +Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Drake, had all done their best +work. Longfellow was not yet conspicuous. Lowell was a school-boy. +Emerson was unheard of. Whittier was beginning to make his way +against the writers with better educational advantages whom he was +destined to outdo and to outlive. Not one of the great histories, +which have done honor to our literature, had appeared. Our school- +books depended, so far as American authors were concerned, on +extracts from the orations and speeches of Webster and Everett; on +Bryant's Thanatopsis, his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death of the +Flowers, Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on Drake's +American Flag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping +and Genius Waking,--and not getting very wide awake, either. These +could be depended upon. A few other copies of verses might be found, +but Dwight's "Columbia, Columbia," and Pierpont's Airs of Palestine, +were already effaced, as many of the favorites of our own day and +generation must soon be, by the great wave which the near future will +pour over the sands in which they still are legible. + +About this time, in the year 1832, came out a small volume entitled +"Truth, a Gift for Scribblers," which made some talk for a while, and +is now chiefly valuable as a kind of literary tombstone on which may +be read the names of many whose renown has been buried with their +bones. The "London Athenaeum" spoke of it as having been described +as a "tomahawk sort of satire." As the author had been a trapper in +Missouri, he was familiarly acquainted with that weapon and the +warfare of its owners. Born in Boston, in 1804, the son of an army +officer, educated at West Point, he came back to his native city +about the year 1830. He wrote an article on Bryant's Poems for the +"North American Review," and another on the famous Indian chief, +Black Hawk. In this last-mentioned article he tells this story as +the great warrior told it himself. It was an incident of a fight +with the Osages. + +"Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist and tear +the scalp from his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushed +furiously upon another, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran +my lance through his body, took off his scalp, and returned in +triumph to my father. He said nothing, but looked pleased." + +This little red story describes very well Spelling's style of +literary warfare. His handling of his most conspicuous victim, +Willis, was very much like Black Hawk's way of dealing with the +Osage. He tomahawked him in heroics, ran him through in prose, and +scalped him in barbarous epigrams. Bryant and Halleck were +abundantly praised; hardly any one else escaped. + +If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputation that were +floating, some of them gay with prismatic colors, half a century ago, +he will find in the pages of "Truth" a long catalogue of celebrities +he never heard of. I recognize only three names, of all which are +mentioned in the little book, as belonging to persons still living; +but as I have not read the obituaries of all the others, some of them +may be still flourishing in spite of Mr. Spelling's exterminating +onslaught. Time dealt as hardly with poor Spelling, who was not +without talent and instruction, as he had dealt with our authors. I +think he found shelter at last under a roof which held numerous +inmates, some of whom had seen better and many of whom had known +worse days than those which they were passing within its friendly and +not exclusive precincts. Such, at least, was the story I heard after +he disappeared from general observation. + +That was the day of Souvenirs, Tokens, Forget-me-nots, Bijous, and +all that class of showy annuals. Short stories, slender poems, steel +engravings, on a level with the common fashion-plates of advertising +establishments, gilt edges, resplendent binding,--to manifestations +of this sort our lighter literature had very largely run for some +years. The "Scarlet Letter" was an unhinted possibility. The +"Voices of the Night" had not stirred the brooding silence; the +Concord seer was still in the lonely desert; most of the contributors +to those yearly volumes, which took up such pretentious positions on +the centre table, have shrunk into entire oblivion, or, at best, hold +their place in literature by a scrap or two in some omnivorous +collection. + +What dreadful work Spelling made among those slight reputations, +floating in swollen tenuity on the surface of the stream, and +mirroring each other in reciprocal reflections! Violent, abusive as +he was, unjust to any against whom he happened to have a prejudice, +his castigation of the small litterateurs of that day was not +harmful, but rather of use. His attack on Willis very probably did +him good; he needed a little discipline, and though he got it too +unsparingly, some cautions came with it which were worth the stripes +he had to smart under. One noble writer Spelling treated with +rudeness, probably from some accidental pique, or equally +insignificant reason. I myself, one of the three survivors before +referred to, escaped with a love-pat, as the youngest son of the +Muse. Longfellow gets a brief nod of acknowledgment. Bailey, an +American writer, "who made long since a happy snatch at fame," which +must have been snatched away from him by envious time, for I cannot +identify him; Thatcher, who died early, leaving one poem, The Last +Request, not wholly unremembered; Miss Hannah F. Gould, a very +bright and agreeable writer of light verse,--all these are commended +to the keeping of that venerable public carrier, who finds his scythe +and hour-glass such a load that he generally drops the burdens +committed to his charge, after making a show of paying every possible +attention to them so long as he is kept in sight. + +It was a good time to open a portfolio. But my old one had boyhood +written on every page. A single passionate outcry when the old +warship I had read about in the broadsides that were a part of our +kitchen literature, and in the "Naval Monument," was threatened with +demolition; a few verses suggested by the sight of old Major Melville +in his cocked hat and breeches, were the best scraps that came out of +that first Portfolio, which was soon closed that it should not +interfere with the duties of a profession authorized to claim all the +time and thought which would have been otherwise expended in filling +it. + +During a quarter of a century the first Portfolio remained closed for +the greater part of the time. Only now and then it would be taken up +and opened, and something drawn from it for a special occasion, more +particularly for the annual reunions of a certain class of which I +was a member. + +In the year 1857, towards its close, the "Atlantic Monthly," which I +had the honor of naming, was started by the enterprising firm of +Phillips & Sampson, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. +He thought that I might bring something out of my old Portfolio which +would be not unacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor +old receptacle, which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had +lost its freshness, and seemed hardly presentable to the new company +expected to welcome the new-comer in the literary world of Boston, +the least provincial of American centres of learning and letters. +The gilded covering where the emblems of hope and aspiration had +looked so bright had faded; not wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold +become dim!---how was the most fine gold changed! Long devotion to +other pursuits had left little time for literature, and the waifs and +strays gathered from the old Portfolio had done little more than keep +alive the memory that such a source of supply was still in existence. +I looked at the old Portfolio, and said to myself, "Too late! too +late. This tarnished gold will never brighten, these battered covers +will stand no more wear and tear; close them, and leave them to the +spider and the book-worm." + +In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had +condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period. +When, a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the +"Saturday Club" gathered about the long table at "Parker's," such a +representation of all that was best in American literature had never +been collected within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whom +educated foreigners cared to see-leaving out of consideration +official dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects +of curiosity--were seated at that board. But the club did not yet +exist, and the "Atlantic Monthly" was an experiment. There had +already been several monthly periodicals, more or less successful and +permanent, among which "Putnam's Magazine" was conspicuous, owing its +success largely to the contributions of that very accomplished and +delightful writer, Mr. George William Curtis. That magazine, after a +somewhat prolonged and very honorable existence, had gone where all +periodicals go when they die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, +and blind recording angel whose name is Oblivion. It had so well +deserved to live that its death was a surprise and a source of +regret. Could another monthly take its place and keep it when that, +with all its attractions and excellences, had died out, and left a +blank in our periodical literature which it would be very hard to +fill as well as that had filled it? + +This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured +upon, and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn +around the scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given +myself to other studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell +insisted upon my becoming a contributor. And so, yielding to a +pressure which I could not understand, and yet found myself unable to +resist, I promised to take a part in the new venture, as an +occasional writer in the columns of the new magazine. + +That was the way in which the second Portfolio found its way to my +table, and was there opened in the autumn of the year 1857. I was +already at least + + 'Nel mezzo del cammin di mia, vita,' + +when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little-tried paths of +what looked at first like a wilderness, a selva oscura, where, if I +did not meet the lion or the wolf, I should be sure to find the +critic, the most dangerous of the carnivores, waiting to welcome me +after his own fashion. + +The second Portfolio is closed and laid away. Perhaps it was hardly +worth while to provide and open a new one; but here it lies before +me, and I hope I may find something between its covers which will +justify me in coming once more before my old friends. But before I +open it I want to claim a little further indulgence. + +There is a subject of profound interest to almost every writer, I +might say to almost every human being. No matter what his culture or +ignorance, no matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, +the subject I refer to is one of which he rarely ceases to think, +and, if opportunity is offered, to talk. On this he is eloquent, if +on nothing else. The slow of speech becomes fluent; the torpid +listener becomes electric with vivacity, and alive all over with +interest. + +The sagacious reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. +He is accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who +has a subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the +depressing disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted +with the conversational amenities of the cordial and interesting +stranger, who, having had the misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in +the cars, or of having his pocket picked at the station, finds +himself without the means of reaching that distant home where +affluence waits for him with its luxurious welcome, but to whom for +the moment the loan of some five and twenty dollars would be a +convenience and a favor for which his heart would ache with gratitude +during the brief interval between the loan and its repayment. + +I wish to say a few words in my own person relating to some passages +in my own history, and more especially to some of the recent +experiences through which I have been passing. + +What can justify one in addressing himself to the general public as +if it were his private correspondent? There are at least three +sufficient reasons: first, if he has a story to tell that everybody +wants to hear,--if be has been shipwrecked, or has been in a battle, +or has witnessed any interesting event, and can tell anything new +about it; secondly, if he can put in fitting words any common +experiences not already well told, so that readers will say, "Why, +yes! I have had that sensation, thought, emotion, a hundred times, +but I never heard it spoken of before, and I never saw any mention of +it in print;" and thirdly, anything one likes, provided he can so +tell it as to make it interesting. + +I have no story to tell in this Introduction which can of itself +claim any general attention. My first pages relate the effect of a +certain literary experience upon myself,--a series of partial +metempsychoses of which I have been the subject. Next follows a +brief tribute to the memory of a very dear and renowned friend from +whom I have recently been parted. The rest of the Introduction will +be consecrated to the memory of my birthplace. + +I have just finished a Memoir, which will appear soon after this page +is written, and will have been the subject of criticism long before +it is in the reader's hands. The experience of thinking another +man's thoughts continuously for a long time; of living one's self +into another man's life for a month, or a year, or more, is a very +curious one. No matter how much superior to the biographer his +subject may be, the man who writes the life feels himself, in a +certain sense, on the level of the person whose life he is writing. +One cannot fight over the battles of Marengo or Austerlitz with +Napoleon without feeling as if he himself had a fractional claim to +the victory, so real seems the transfer of his personality into that +of the conqueror while he reads. Still more must this identification +of "subject" and "object" take place when one is writing of a person +whose studies or occupations are not unlike his own. + +Here are some of my metempsychoses: +Ten years ago I wrote what I called A Memorial Outline of a +remarkable student of nature. He was a born observer, and such are +far from common. He was also a man of great enthusiasm and +unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what others passed by +without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see only +pebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his +companion would poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a +prize at the end of it. Getting his single facts together with +marvellous sagacity and long-breathed patience, he arranged them, +classified them, described them, studied them in their relations, and +before those around him were aware of it the collector was an +accomplished naturalist. When--he died his collections remained, and +they still remain, as his record in the hieratic language of science. +In writing this memoir the spirit of his quiet pursuits, the even +temper they bred in him, gained possession of my own mind, so that I +seemed to look at nature through his gold-bowed spectacles, and to +move about his beautifully ordered museum as if I had myself prepared +and arranged its specimens. I felt wise with his wisdom, fair-minded +with his calm impartiality; it seemed as if for the time his placid, +observant, inquiring, keen-sighted nature "slid into my soul," and if +I had looked at myself in the glass I should almost have expected to +see the image of the Hersey professor whose life and character I was +sketching. + +A few years hater I lived over the life of another friend in writing +a Memoir of which he was the subject. I saw him, the beautiful, +bright-eyed boy, with dark, waving hair; the youthful scholar, first +at Harvard, then at Gottingen and Berlin, the friend and companion of +Bismarck; the young author, making a dash for renown as a novelist, +and showing the elements which made his failures the promise of +success in a larger field of literary labor; the delving historian, +burying his fresh young manhood in the dusty alcoves of silent +libraries, to come forth in the face of Europe and America as one of +the leading historians of the time; the diplomatist, accomplished, of +captivating presence and manners, an ardent American, and in the time +of trial an impassioned and eloquent advocate of the cause of +freedom; reaching at last the summit of his ambition as minister at +the Court of Saint James. All this I seemed to share with him as I +tracked his career from his birthplace in Dorchester, and the house +in Walnut Street where he passed his boyhood, to the palaces of +Vienna and London. And then the cruel blow which struck him from the +place he adorned; the great sorrow that darkened his later years; the +invasion of illness, a threat that warned of danger, and after a +period of invalidism, during a part of which I shared his most +intimate daily life, the sudden, hardly unwelcome, final summons. +Did not my own consciousness migrate, or seem, at least, to transfer +itself into this brilliant life history, as I traced its glowing +record? I, too, seemed to feel the delight of carrying with me, as +if they were my own, the charms of a presence which made its own +welcome everywhere. I shared his heroic toils, I partook of his +literary and social triumphs, I was honored by the marks of +distinction which gathered about him, I was wronged by the indignity +from which he suffered, mourned with him in his sorrow, and thus, +after I had been living for months with his memory, I felt as if I +should carry a part of his being with me so long as my self- +consciousness might remain imprisoned in the ponderable elements. + +The years passed away, and the influences derived from the +companionships I have spoken of had blended intimately with my own +current of being. Then there came to me a new experience in my +relations with an eminent member of the medical profession, whom I +met habitually for a long period, and to whose memory I consecrated a +few pages as a prelude to a work of his own, written under very +peculiar circumstances. He was the subject of a slow, torturing, +malignant, and almost necessarily fatal disease. Knowing well that +the mind would feed upon itself if it were not supplied with food +from without, he determined to write a treatise on a subject which +had greatly interested him, and which would oblige him to bestow much +of his time and thought upon it, if indeed he could hold out to +finish the work. During the period while he was engaged in writing +it, his wife, who had seemed in perfect health, died suddenly of +pneumonia. Physical suffering, mental distress, the prospect of +death at a near, if uncertain, time always before him, it was hard to +conceive a more terrible strain than that which he had to endure. +When, in the hour of his greatest need, his faithful companion, the +wife of many years of happy union, whose hand had smoothed his +pillow, whose voice had consoled and cheered him, was torn from him +after a few days of illness, I felt that my, friend's trial was such +that the cry of the man of many afflictions and temptations might +well have escaped from his lips: "I was at ease, but he hath broken +me asunder; he hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, +and set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about, he +cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall +upon the ground." + +I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after this crushing +blow. What a lesson he gave me of patience under sufferings which +the fearful description of the Eastern poet does not picture too +vividly! We have been taught to admire the calm philosophy of +Haller, watching his faltering pulse as he lay dying; we have heard +the words of pious resignation said to have been uttered with his +last breath by Addison: but here was a trial, not of hours, or days, +or weeks, but of months, even years, of cruel pain, and in the midst +of its thick darkness the light of love, which had burned steadily at +his bedside, was suddenly extinguished. + +There were times in which the thought would force itself upon my +consciousness, How long is the universe to look upon this dreadful +experiment of a malarious planet, with its unmeasurable freight of +suffering, its poisonous atmosphere, so sweet to breathe, so sure to +kill in a few scores of years at farthest, and its heart-breaking +woes which make even that brief space of time an eternity? There can +be but one answer that will meet this terrible question, which must +arise in every thinking nature that would fain "justify the ways of +God to men." So must it be until that + + "one far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves" + +has become a reality, and the anthem in which there is no discordant +note shall be joined by a voice from every life made "perfect through +sufferings." + +Such was the lesson into which I lived in those sad yet placid years +of companionship with my suffering and sorrowing friend, in retracing +which I seemed to find another existence mingled with my own. + +And now for many months I have been living in daily relations of +intimacy with one who seems nearer to me since he has left us than +while he was here in living form and feature. I did not know how +difficult a task I had undertaken in venturing upon a memoir of a man +whom all, or almost all, agree upon as one of the great lights of the +New World, and whom very many regard as an unpredicted Messiah. +Never before was I so forcibly reminded of Carlyle's description of +the work of a newspaper editor,--that threshing of straw already +thrice beaten by the flails of other laborers in the same field. +What could be said that had not been said of "transcendentalism" and +of him who was regarded as its prophet; of the poet whom some admired +without understanding, a few understood, or thought they did, without +admiring, and many both understood and admired,--among these there +being not a small number who went far beyond admiration, and lost +themselves in devout worship? While one exalted him as "the greatest +man that ever lived," another, a friend, famous in the world of +letters, wrote expressly to caution me against the danger of +overrating a writer whom he is content to recognize as an American +Montaigne, and nothing more. + +After finishing this Memoir, which has but just left my hands, I +would gladly have let my brain rest for a while. The wide range of +thought which belonged to the subject of the Memoir, the occasional +mysticism and the frequent tendency toward it, the sweep of +imagination and the sparkle of wit which kept his reader's mind on +the stretch, the union of prevailing good sense with exceptional +extravagances, the modest audacity of a nature that showed itself in +its naked truthfulness and was not ashamed, the feeling that I was in +the company of a sibylline intelligence which was discounting the +promises of the remote future long before they were due,--all this +made the task a grave one. But when I found myself amidst the +vortices of uncounted, various, bewildering judgments, Catholic and +Protestant, orthodox and liberal, scholarly from under the tree of +knowledge and instinctive from over the potato-hill; the passionate +enthusiasm of young adorers and the cool, if not cynical, estimate of +hardened critics, all intersecting each other as they whirled, each +around its own centre, I felt that it was indeed very difficult to +keep the faculties clear and the judgment unbiassed. + +It is a great privilege to have lived so long in the society of such +a man. "He nothing common" said, "or mean." He was always the same +pure and high-souled companion. After being with him virtue seemed +as natural to man as its opposite did according to the old +theologies. But how to let one's self down from the high level of +such a character to one's own poor standard? I trust that the +influence of this long intellectual and spiritual companionship never +absolutely leaves one who has lived in it. It may come to him in the +form of self-reproach that he falls so far short of the superior +being who has been so long the object of his contemplation. But it +also carries him at times into the other's personality, so that he +finds himself thinking thoughts that are not his own, using phrases +which he has unconsciously borrowed, writing, it may be, as nearly +like his long-studied original as Julio Romano's painting was like +Raphael's; and all this with the unquestioning conviction that he is +talking from his own consciousness in his own natural way. So far as +tones and expressions and habits which belonged to the idiosyncrasy +of the original are borrowed by the student of his life, it is a +misfortune for the borrower. But to share the inmost consciousness +of a noble thinker, to scan one's self in the white light of a pure +and radiant soul,--this is indeed the highest form of teaching and +discipline. + +I have written these few memoirs, and I am grateful for all that they +have taught me. But let me write no more. There are but two +biographers who can tell the story of a man's or a woman's life. One +is the person himself or herself; the other is the Recording Angel. +The autobiographer cannot be trusted to tell the whole truth, though +he may tell nothing but the truth, and the Recording Angel never lets +his book go out of his own hands. As for myself, I would say to my +friends, in the Oriental phrase, "Live forever!" Yes, live forever, +and I, at least, shall not have to wrong your memories by my +imperfect record and unsatisfying commentary. + +In connection with these biographies, or memoirs, more properly, in +which I have written of my departed friends, I hope my readers will +indulge me in another personal reminiscence. I have just lost my +dear and honored contemporary of the last century. A hundred years +ago this day, December 13, 1784, died the admirable and ever to be +remembered Dr. Samuel Johnson. The year 1709 was made ponderous and +illustrious in English biography by his birth. My own humble advent +to the world of protoplasm was in the year 1809 of the present +century. Summer was just ending when those four letters, "son b." +were written under the date of my birth, August 29th. Autumn had +just begun when my great pre-contemporary entered this un-Christian +universe and was made a member of the Christian church on the same +day, for he was born and baptized on the 18th of September. + +Thus there was established a close bond of relationship between the +great English scholar and writer and myself. Year by year, and +almost month by month, my life has kept pace in this century with his +life in the last century. I had only to open my Boswell at any time, +and I knew just what Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, +was thinking and doing; what were his feelings about life; what +changes the years had wrought in his body, his mind, his feelings, +his companionships, his reputation. It was for me a kind of unison +between two instruments, both playing that old familiar air, "Life," +--one a bassoon, if you will, and the other an oaten pipe, if you +care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each other +until the players both grew old and gray. At last the thinner thread +of sound is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment rolls out its +thunder no more. + +I feel lonely now that my great companion and friend of so many years +has left me. I felt more intimately acquainted with him than I do +with many of my living friends. I can hardly remember when I did not +know him. I can see him in his bushy wig, exactly like that of the +Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper (who died in December, 1783) as Copley +painted him,--he hangs there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. +His ample coat, too, I see, with its broad flaps and many buttons and +generous cuffs, and beneath it the long, still more copiously +buttoned waistcoat, arching in front of the fine crescentic, almost +semi-lunar Falstaffian prominence, involving no less than a dozen of +the above-mentioned buttons, and the strong legs with their sturdy +calves, fitting columns of support to the massive body and solid, +capacious brain enthroned over it. I can hear him with his heavy +tread as he comes in to the Club, and a gap is widened to make room +for his portly figure. "A fine day," says Sir Joshua. "Sir," he +answers, "it seems propitious, but the atmosphere is humid and the +skies are nebulous," at which the great painter smiles, shifts his +trumpet, and takes a pinch of snuff. + +Dear old massive, deep-voiced dogmatist and hypochondriac of the +eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, +between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and +dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and +the snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven +the shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper +in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly +know what I shall find when it is opened. + +Yes, my life is a little less precious to me since I have lost that +dear old friend; and when the funeral train moves to Westminster +Abbey next Saturday, for I feel as if this were 1784, and not 1884,-- +I seem to find myself following the hearse, one of the silent +mourners. + +Among the events which have rendered the past year memorable to me +has been the demolition of that venerable and interesting old +dwelling-house, precious for its intimate association with the +earliest stages of the war of the Revolution, and sacred to me as my +birthplace and the home of my boyhood. + +The "Old Gambrel-roofed House" exists no longer. I remember saying +something, in one of a series of papers published long ago, about the +experience of dying out of a house,--of leaving it forever, as the +soul dies out of the body. We may die out of many houses, but the +house itself can die but once; and so real is the life of a house to +one who has dwelt in it, more especially the life of the house which +held him in dreamy infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate +youth,--so real, I say, is its life, that it seems as if something +like a soul of it must outlast its perishing frame. + +The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed House was, I am ready to +admit, a case of justifiable domicide. Not the less was it to be +deplored by all who love the memories of the past. With its +destruction are obliterated some of the footprints of the heroes and +martyrs who took the first steps in the long and bloody march which +led us through the wilderness to the promised land of independent +nationality. Personally, I have a right to mourn for it as a part of +my life gone from me. My private grief for its loss would be a +matter for my solitary digestion, were it not that the experience +through which I have just passed is one so familiar to my fellow- +countrymen that, in telling my own reflections and feelings, I am +repeating those of great numbers of men and women who have had the +misfortune to outlive their birthplace. + +It is a great blessing to be born surrounded by a natural horizon. +The Old Gambrel-roofed House could not boast an unbroken ring of +natural objects encircling it. Northerly it looked upon its own +outbuildings and some unpretending two-story houses which had been +its neighbors for a century and more. To the south of it the square +brick dormitories and the belfried hall of the university helped to +shut out the distant view. But the west windows gave a broad outlook +across the common, beyond which the historical "Washington elm" and +two companions in line with it, spread their leaves in summer and +their networks in winter. And far away rose the hills that bounded +the view, with the glimmer here and there of the white walls or the +illuminated casements of some embowered, half-hidden villa. +Eastwardly also, the prospect was, in my earlier remembrance, widely +open, and I have frequently seen the sunlit sails gliding along as if +through the level fields, for no water was visible. So there were +broad expanses on two sides at least, for my imagination to wander +over. + +I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's horizon with us +all our days. Among these western wooded hills my day-dreams built +their fairy palaces, and even now, as I look at them from my library +window, across the estuary of the Charles, I find myself in the +familiar home of my early visions. The "clouds of glory" which we +trail with us in after life need not be traced to a pre-natal state. +There is enough to account for them in that unconsciously remembered +period of existence before we have learned the hard limitations of +real life. Those earliest months in which we lived in sensations +without words, and ideas not fettered in sentences, have all the +freshness of proofs of an engraving "before the letter." I am very +thankful that the first part of my life was not passed shut in +between high walls and treading the unimpressible and unsympathetic +pavement. + +Our university town was very much like the real country, in those +days of which I am thinking. There were plenty of huckleberries and +blueberries within half a mile of the house. Blackberries ripened in +the fields, acorns and shagbarks dropped from the trees, squirrels +ran among the branches, and not rarely the hen-hawk might be seen +circling over the barnyard. Still another rural element was not +wanting, in the form of that far-diffused, infragrant effluvium, +which, diluted by a good half mile of pure atmosphere, is no longer +odious, nay is positively agreeable, to many who have long known it, +though its source and centre has an unenviable reputation. I need +not name the animal whose Parthian warfare terrifies and puts to +flight the mightiest hunter that ever roused the tiger from his +jungle or faced the lion of the desert. Strange as it may seem, an +aerial hint of his personality in the far distance always awakens in +my mind pleasant remembrances and tender reflections. A whole +neighborhood rises up before me: the barn, with its haymow, where the +hens laid their eggs to hatch, and we boys hid our apples to ripen, +both occasionally illustrating the sic vos non vobis; the shed, where +the annual Tragedy of the Pig was acted with a realism that made +Salvini's Othello seem but a pale counterfeit; the rickety old +outhouse, with the "corn-chamber" which the mice knew so well; the +paved yard, with its open gutter,--these and how much else come up at +the hint of my far-off friend, who is my very near enemy. Nothing is +more familiar than the power of smell in reviving old memories. +There was that quite different fragrance of the wood-house, the smell +of fresh sawdust. It comes back to me now, and with it the hiss of +the saw; the tumble of the divorced logs which God put together and +man has just put asunder; the coming down of the axe and the hah! +that helped it,--the straight-grained stick opening at the first +appeal of the implement as if it were a pleasure, and the stick with +a knot in the middle of it that mocked the blows and the hahs! until +the beetle and wedge made it listen to reason,--there are just such +straight-grained and just such knotty men and women. All this passes +through my mind while Biddy, whose parlor-name is Angela, contents +herself with exclaiming "egh!*******!" + +How different distances were in those young days of which I am +thinking! From the old house to the old yellow meeting-house, where +the head of the family preached and the limbs of the family listened, +was not much more than two or three times the width of Commonwealth +Avenue. But of a hot summer's afternoon, after having already heard +one sermon, which could not in the nature of things have the charm of +novelty of presentation to the members of the home circle, and the +theology of which was not too clear to tender apprehensions; with +three hymns more or less lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got +into voice by many preliminary snuffles and other expiratory efforts, +and accompanied by the snort of a huge bassviol which wallowed +through the tune like a hippopotamus, with other exercises of the +customary character,--after all this in the forenoon, the afternoon +walk to the meeting-house in the hot sun counted for as much, in my +childish dead-reckoning, as from old Israel Porter's in Cambridge to +the Exchange Coffeehouse in Boston did in after years. It takes a +good while to measure the radius of the circle that is about us, for +the moon seems at first as near as the watchface. Who knows but +that, after a certain number of ages, the planet we live on may seem +to us no bigger than our neighbor Venus appeared when she passed +before the sun a few months ago, looking as if we could take her +between our thumb and finger, like a bullet or a marble? And time, +too; how long was it from the serious sunrise to the joyous "sun- +down" of an old-fashioned, puritanical, judaical first day of the +week, which a pious fraud christened "the Sabbath"? Was it a +fortnight, as we now reckon duration, or only a week? Curious +entities, or non-entities, space and tithe? When you see a +metaphysician trying to wash his hands of them and get rid of these +accidents, so as to lay his dry, clean palm on the absolute, does +it not remind you of the hopeless task of changing the color of the +blackamoor by a similar proceeding? For space is the fluid in which +he is washing, and time is the soap which he is using up in the +process, and he cannot get free from them until he can wash himself +in a mental vacuum. + +In my reference to the old house in a former paper, published years +ago, I said, + +"By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant itself +on this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung so +tenaciously to the place and its habitations will have died with +those who cherished them." + +What strides the great University has taken since those words were +written! During all my early years our old Harvard Alma Mater sat +still and lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all +at once, like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her +pedestal. The fall of that "stony foot" has effected a miracle like +the harp that Orpheus played, like the teeth which Cadmus sowed. The +plain where the moose and the bear were wandering while Shakespeare +was writing Hamlet, where a few plain dormitories and other needed +buildings were scattered about in my school-boy days, groans under +the weight of the massive edifices which have sprung up all around +them, crowned by the tower of that noble structure which stands in +full view before me as I lift my eyes from the portfolio on the back +of which I am now writing. + +For I must be permitted to remind you that I have not yet opened it. +I have told you that I have just finished a long memoir, and that it +has cost me no little labor to overcome some of its difficulties,--if +I have overcome them, which others must decide. And I feel exactly +as honest Dobbin feels when his harness is slipped off after a long +journey with a good deal of up-hill work. He wants to rest a little, +then to feed a little; then, if you will turn him loose in the +pasture, he wants to roll. I have left my starry and ethereal +companionship,--not for a long time, I hope, for it has lifted me +above my common self, but for a while. And now I want, so to speak, +to roll in the grass and among the dandelions with the other +pachyderms. So I have kept to the outside of the portfolio as yet, +and am disporting myself in reminiscences, and fancies, and vagaries, +and parentheses. + +How well I understand the feeling which led the Pisans to load their +vessels with earth from the Holy Land, and fill the area of the Campo +Santo with that sacred soil! The old house stood upon about as +perverse a little patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved +earth-worm. It was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. +The rustic aid-de-camps of the household used to aver that all +fertilizing matters "leached" through it. I tried to disprove their +assertion by gorging it with the best of terrestrial nourishment, +until I became convinced that I was feeding the tea-plants of China, +and then I gave over the attempt. And yet I did love, and do love, +that arid patch of ground. I wonder if a single flower could not be +made to grow in a pot of earth from that Campo Santo of my childhood! +One noble product of nature did not refuse to flourish there,--the +tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, many-jointed, generous maize +or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and defies the blaze of our +shrivelling summer. What child but loves to wander in its forest- +like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and with the lofty tassels +tossing their heads high above him! There are two aspects of the +cornfield which always impress my imagination: the first when it has +reached its full growth, and its ordered ranks look like an army on +the march with its plumed and bannered battalions; the second when, +after the battle of the harvest, the girdled stacks stand on the +field of slaughter like so many ragged Niobes,--say rather like the +crazy widows and daughters of the dead soldiery. + +Once more let us come back to the old house. It was far along in its +second century when the edict went forth that it must stand no +longer. + +The natural death of a house is very much like that of one of its +human tenants. The roof is the first part to show the distinct signs +of age. Slates and tiles loosen and at last slide off, and leave +bald the boards that supported them; shingles darken and decay, and +soon the garret or the attic lets in the rain and the snow; by and by +the beams sag, the floors warp, the walls crack, the paper peels +away, the ceilings scale off and fall, the windows are crusted with +clinging dust, the doors drop from their rusted hinges, the winds +come in without knocking and howl their cruel death-songs through the +empty rooms and passages, and at last there comes a crash, a great +cloud of dust rises, and the home that had been the shelter of +generation after generation finds its grave in its own cellar. Only +the chimney remains as its monument. Slowly, little by little, the +patient solvents that find nothing too hard for their chemistry pick +out the mortar from between the bricks; at last a mighty wind roars +around it and rushes against it, and the monumental relic crashes +down among the wrecks it has long survived. So dies a human +habitation left to natural decay, all that was seen above the surface +of the soil sinking gradually below it, + + Till naught remains the saddening tale to tell + Save home's last wrecks, the cellar and the well. + +But if this sight is saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling +fall by the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that +has kept out a thousand storms, the tearing off of the once +ornamental woodwork, the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the +murderous blows of the axe, the progressive ruin, which ends by +rending all the joints asunder and flinging the tenoned and mortised +timbers into heaps that will be sawed and split to warm some new +habitation as firewood,--what a brutal act of destruction it seems! + +Why should I go over the old house again, having already described it +more than ten years ago? Alas! how many remember anything they read +but once, and so long ago as that? How many would find it out if one +should say over in the same words that which he said in the last +decade? But there is really no need of telling the story a second +time, for it can be found by those who are curious enough to look it +up in a volume of which it occupies the opening chapter. + +In order, however, to save any inquisitive reader that trouble, let +me remind him that the old house was General Ward's headquarters at +the breaking out of the Revolution; that the plan for fortifying +Bunker's Hill was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower +room, the floor of which was covered with dents, made, it was +alleged, by the butts of the soldiers' muskets. In that house, too, +General Warren probably passed the night before the Bunker Hill +battle, and over its threshold must the stately figure of Washington +have often cast its shadow. + +But the house in which one drew his first breath, and where he one +day came into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a +little universe with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent +identity, with the terrible responsibility of a separate, +independent, inalienable existence,--that house does not ask for any +historical associations to make it the centre of the earth for him. + +If there is any person in the world to be envied, it is the one who +is born to an ancient estate, with a long line of family traditions +and the means in his hands of shaping his mansion and his domain to +his own taste, without losing sight of all the characteristic +features which surrounded his earliest years. The American is, for +the most part, a nomad, who pulls down his house as the Tartar pulls +up his tent-poles. If I had an ideal life to plan for him it would +be something like this: + +His grandfather should be a wise, scholarly, large-brained, large- +hearted country minister, from whom he should inherit the temperament +that predisposes to cheerfulness and enjoyment, with the finer +instincts which direct life to noble aims and make it rich with the +gratification of pure and elevated tastes and the carrying out of +plans for the good of his neighbors and his fellow-creatures. He +should, if possible, have been born, at any rate have passed some of +his early years, or a large part of them, under the roof of the good +old minister. His father should be, we will say, a business man in +one of our great cities,--a generous manipulator of millions, some of +which have adhered to his private fortunes, in spite of his liberal +use of his means. His heir, our ideally placed American, shall take +possession of the old house, the home of his earliest memories, and +preserve it sacredly, not exactly like the Santa Casa, but, as nearly +as may be, just as he remembers it. He can add as many acres as he +will to the narrow house-lot. He can build a grand mansion for +himself, if he chooses, in the not distant neighborhood. But the old +house, and all immediately round it, shall be as he recollects it +when be had to stretch his little arm up to reach the door-handles. +Then, having well provided for his own household, himself included, +let him become the providence of the village or the town where be +finds himself during at least a portion of every year. Its schools, +its library, its poor,--and perhaps the new clergyman who has +succeeded his grandfather's successor may be one of them,--all its +interests, he shall make his own. And from this centre his +beneficence shall radiate so far that all who hear of his wealth +shall also hear of him as a friend to his race. + +Is not this a pleasing programme? Wealth is a steep hill, which the +father climbs slowly and the son often tumbles down precipitately; +but there is a table-land on a level with it, which may be found by +those who do not lose their head in looking down from its sharply +cloven summit.---Our dangerously rich men can make themselves hated, +held as enemies of the race, or beloved and recognized as its +benefactors. The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the +gold-pointed lightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive +element may be drawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be +repeated too often that the safety of great wealth with us lies in +obedience to the new version of the Old World axiom, RICHESS oblige. + + + + + + +THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. + + + + +A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. + + + +I + +GETTING READY. + +It is impossible to begin a story which must of necessity tax the +powers of belief of readers unacquainted with the class of facts to +which its central point of interest belongs without some words in the +nature of preparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember that Sarah +Battle insisted on a clean-swept hearth before sitting down to her +favorite game of whist. + +The narrator wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, in these opening +pages, before sitting down to tell his story. He does not intend to +frighten the reader away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to +warn him against hasty judgments when facts are related which are not +within the range of every-day experience. Did he ever see the +Siamese twins, or any pair like them? Probably not, yet he feels +sure that Chang and Eng really existed; and if he has taken the +trouble to inquire, he has satisfied himself that similar cases have +been recorded by credible witnesses, though at long intervals and in +countries far apart from each other. + +This is the first sweep of the brush, to clear the hearth of the +skepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before we +can begin to tell and to listen in peace with ourselves and each +other. + +One more stroke of the brush is needed before the stage will be ready +for the chief characters and the leading circumstances to which the +reader's attention is invited. If the principal personages made +their entrance at once, the reader would have to create for himself +the whole scenery of their surrounding conditions. In point of fact, +no matter how a story is begun, many of its readers have already +shaped its chief actors out of any hint the author may have dropped, +and provided from their own resources a locality and a set of outward +conditions to environ these imagined personalities. These are all to +be brushed away, and the actual surroundings of the subject of the +narrative represented as they were, at the risk of detaining the +reader a little while from the events most likely to interest him. +The choicest egg that ever was laid was not so big as the nest that +held it. If a story were so interesting that a maiden would rather +hear it than listen to the praise of her own beauty, or a poet would +rather read it than recite his own verses, still it would have to be +wrapped in some tissue of circumstance, or it would lose half its +effectiveness. + +It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred to in this +narrative by looking into the first gazetteer that is at hand. +Recent experiences have shown that it is unsafe to be too exact in +designating places and the people who live in them. There are, it +may be added, so many advertisements disguised under the form of +stories and other literary productions that one naturally desires to +avoid the suspicion of being employed by the enterprising proprietors +of this or that celebrated resort to use his gifts for their especial +benefit. There are no doubt many persons who remember the old sign +and the old tavern and its four chief personages presently to be +mentioned. It is to be hoped that they will not furnish the public +with a key to this narrative, and perhaps bring trouble to the writer +of it, as has happened to other authors. If the real names are a +little altered, it need not interfere with the important facts +relating to those who bear them. It might not be safe to tell a +damaging story about John or James Smythe; but if the slight change +is made of spelling the name Smith, the Smythes would never think of +bringing an action, as if the allusion related to any of them. The +same gulf of family distinction separates the Thompsons with a p from +the Thomsons without that letter. + +There are few pleasanter places in the Northern States for a summer +residence than that known from the first period of its settlement by +the name of Arrowhead Village. The Indians had found it out, as the +relics they left behind them abundantly testified. The commonest of +these were those chipped stones which are the medals of barbarism, +and from Which the place took its name,--the heads of arrows, of +various sizes, material, and patterns: some small enough for killing +fish and little birds, some large enough for such game as the moose +and the bear, to say nothing of the hostile Indian and the white +settler; some of flint, now and then one of white quartz, and others +of variously colored jasper. The Indians must have lived here for +many generations, and it must have been a kind of factory village of +the stone age,--which lasted up to near the present time, if we may +judge from the fact that many of these relics are met with close to +the surface of the ground. + +No wonder they found this a pleasant residence, for it is to-day one +of the most attractive of all summer resorts; so inviting, indeed, +that those who know it do not like to say too much about it, lest the +swarms of tourists should make it unendurable to those who love it +for itself, and not as a centre of fashionable display and extramural +cockneyism. + +There is the lake, in the first place,--Cedar Lake,--about five miles +long, and from half a mile to a mile and a half wide, stretching from +north to south. Near the northern extremity are the buildings of +Stoughton University, a flourishing young college with an ambitious +name, but well equipped and promising, the grounds of which reach the +water. At the southern end of the lake are the edifices of the +Corinna Institute, a favorite school for young ladies, where large +numbers of the daughters of America are fitted, so far as education +can do it, for all stations in life, from camping out with a husband +at the mines in Nevada to acting the part of chief lady of the land +in the White House at Washington. + +Midway between the two extremities, on the eastern shore of the lake, +is a valley between two hills, which come down to the very edge of +the lake, leaving only room enough for a road between their base and +the water. This valley, half a mile in width, has been long settled, +and here for a century or more has stood the old Anchor Tavern. A +famous place it was so long as its sign swung at the side of the +road: famous for its landlord, portly, paternal, whose welcome to a +guest that looked worthy of the attention was like that of a parent +to a returning prodigal, and whose parting words were almost as good +as a marriage benediction; famous for its landlady, ample in person, +motherly, seeing to the whole household with her own eyes, mistress +of all culinary secrets that Northern kitchens are most proud of; +famous also for its ancient servant, as city people would call her, +--help, as she was called in the tavern and would have called +herself,--the unchanging, seemingly immortal Miranda, who cared for +the guests as if she were their nursing mother, and pressed the +specially favorite delicacies on their attention as a connoisseur +calls the wandering eyes of an amateur to the beauties of a picture. +Who that has ever been at the old Anchor Tavern forgets Miranda's + + "A little of this fricassee?-it is ver-y nice;" + +or + + "Some of these cakes? You will find them ver-y good." + +Nor would it be just to memory to forget that other notable and noted +member of the household,--the unsleeping, unresting, omnipresent +Pushee, ready for everybody and everything, everywhere within the +limits of the establishment at all hours of the day and night. He +fed, nobody could say accurately when or where. There were rumors of +a "bunk," in which he lay down with his clothes on, but he seemed to +be always wide awake, and at the service of as many guest, at once as +if there had been half a dozen of him. + +So much for old reminiscences. + +The landlord of the Anchor Tavern had taken down his sign. He had +had the house thoroughly renovated and furnished it anew, and kept it +open in summer for a few boarders. It happened more than once that +the summer boarders were so much pleased with the place that they +stayed on through the autumn, and some of them through the winter. +The attractions of the village were really remarkable. Boating in +summer, and skating in winter; ice-boats, too, which the wild ducks +could hardly keep up with; fishing, for which the lake was renowned; +varied and beautiful walks through the valley and up the hillsides; +houses sheltered from the north and northeasterly winds, and +refreshed in the hot summer days by the breeze which came over the +water,--all this made the frame for a pleasing picture of rest and +happiness. But there was a great deal more than this. There was a +fine library in the little village, presented and richly endowed by a +wealthy native of the place. There was a small permanent population +of a superior character to that of an everyday country town; there +was a pretty little Episcopal church, with a good-hearted rector, +broad enough for the Bishop of the diocese to be a little afraid of, +and hospitable to all outsiders, of whom, in the summer season, there +were always some who wanted a place of worship to keep their religion +from dying out during the heathen months, while the shepherds of the +flocks to which they belonged were away from their empty folds. + +What most helped to keep the place alive all through the year was the +frequent coming together of the members of a certain literary +association. Some time before the tavern took down its sign the +landlord had built a hall, where many a ball had been held, to which +the young folks of all the country round had resorted. It was still +sometimes used for similar occasions, but it was especially notable +as being the place of meeting of the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +This association, the name of which might be invidiously interpreted +as signifying that its members knew everything, had no such +pretensions, but, as its Constitution said very plainly and modestly, +held itself open to accept knowledge on any and all subjects from +such as had knowledge to impart. Its President was the rector of the +little chapel, a man who, in spite of the Thirty-Nine Articles, could +stand fire from the widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without +flinching or losing his temper. The hall of the old Anchor Tavern +was a convenient place of meeting for the students and instructors of +the University and the Institute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes +in carriage-loads, sometimes in processions of skaters, they came to +the meetings in Pansophian Hall, as it was now commonly called. + +These meetings had grown to be occasions of great interest. It was +customary to have papers written by members of the Society, for the +most part, but now and then by friends of the members, sometimes by +the students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer instances +by anonymous personages, whose papers, having been looked over and +discussed by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thought +worth listening to. The variety of topics considered was very great. +The young ladies of the village and the Institute had their favorite +subjects, the young gentlemen a different set of topics, and the +occasional outside contributors their own; so that one who happened +to be admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was going to hear +an account of recent arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom +of the will, or a psychological experience, or a story, or even a +poem. + +Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating +to the true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The +most conflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young +ladies and some of the University students were strong in defence of +all the "woman's rights" doctrines. Some of these young people were +extreme in their views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea +and Queen Elizabeth, until they were ready, if they could get the +chance, to vote for a woman as President of the United States or as +General of the United States Army. They were even disposed to assert +the physical equality of woman to man, on the strength of the rather +questionable history of the Amazons, and especially of the story, +believed to be authentic, of the female body-guard of the King of +Dahomey,--females frightful enough to need no other weapon than their +looks to scare off an army of Cossacks. + +Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the Corinna +Institute, was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It +was rather singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of +this extreme doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped with +brain than muscles. In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed, +long-eyelashed, slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; +looking almost like a child at an age when many of the girls had +reached their full stature and proportions. In her studies she was +so far in advance of her different classes that there was always a +wide gap between her and the second scholar. So fatal to all rivalry +had she proved herself that she passed under the school name of The +Terror. She learned so easily that she undervalued her own +extraordinary gifts, and felt the deepest admiration for those of her +friends endowed with faculties of an entirely different and almost +opposite nature. After sitting at her desk until her head was hot +and her feet were like ice, she would go and look at the blooming +young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, and feel as if +she would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics and strange +tongues and history, all those accomplishments that made her the +encyclopaedia of every class she belonged to, if she could go through +the series of difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw her +schoolmates delighting. + +One among them, especially, was the object of her admiration, as she +was of all who knew her exceptional powers in the line for which +nature had specially organized her. All the physical perfections +which Miss Lurida had missed had been united in Miss Euthymia Tower, +whose school name was The Wonder. Though of full womanly stature, +there were several taller girls of her age. While all her contours +and all her movements betrayed a fine muscular development, there was +no lack of proportion, and her finely shaped hands and feet showed +that her organization was one of those carefully finished +masterpieces of nature which sculptors are always in search of, and +find it hard to detect among the imperfect products of the living +laboratory. + +This girl of eighteen was more famous than she cared to be for her +performances in the gymnasium. She commonly contented herself with +the same exercises that her companions were accustomed to. Only her +dumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and gracefully, were too +heavy for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from the +floor. She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be +checked in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at +the University came over to the Institute now and then, and it was a +source of great excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in +which the young lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and +skill in managing herself in the accomplishment of feats which looked +impossible at first sight. How often The Terror had thought to +herself that she would gladly give up all her knowledge of Greek and +the differential and integral calculus if she could only perform the +least of those feats which were mere play to The Wonder! Miss +Euthymia was not behind the rest in her attainments in classical or +mathematical knowledge, and she was one of the very best students in +the out-door branches,--botany, mineralogy, sketching from nature,-- +to be found among the scholars of the Institute. + +There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of the young ladies, of +which Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor +little Lurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when +there were many boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere +feather-weight, and quick-witted enough to serve well in the +important office where brains are more needed than muscle. + +There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the University, and +rowed by a picked crew of stalwart young fellows. The bow oar and +captain of the University crew was a powerful young man, who, like +the captain of the girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He had had one +or two quiet trials with Miss Euthymia, in which, according to the +ultras of the woman's rights party, he had not vindicated the +superiority of his sex in the way which might have been expected. +Indeed, it was claimed that he let a cannon-ball drop when he ought +to have caught it, and it was not disputed that he had been +ingloriously knocked over by a sand-bag projected by the strong arms +of the young maiden. This was of course a story that was widely told +and laughingly listened to, and the captain of the University crew +had become a little sensitive on the subject. When there was a talk, +therefore, about a race between the champion boats of the two +institutions there was immense excitement in both of them, as well as +among the members of the Pansophian Society and all the good people +of the village. + +There were many objections to be overcome. Some thought it +unladylike for the young maidens to take part in a competition which +must attract many lookers-on, and which it seemed to them very +hoidenish to venture upon. Some said it was a shame to let a crew of +girls try their strength against an equal number of powerful young +men. These objections were offset by the advocates of the race by +the following arguments. They maintained that it was no more +hoidenish to row a boat than it was to take a part in the calisthenic +exercises, and that the girls had nothing to do with the young men's +boat, except to keep as much ahead of it as possible. As to +strength, the woman's righters believed that, weight for weight, +their crew was as strong as the other, and of course due allowance +would be made for the difference of weight and all other accidental +hindrances. It was time to test the boasted superiority of masculine +muscle. Here was a chance. If the girls beat, the whole country +would know it, and after that female suffrage would be only a +question of time. Such was the conclusion, from rather insufficient +premises, it must be confessed; but if nature does nothing per +saltum,--by jumps,--as the old adage has it, youth is very apt to +take long leaps from a fact to a possible sequel or consequence. So +it had come about that a contest between the two boat-crews was +looked forward to with an interest almost equal to that with which +the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii was regarded. + +The terms had been at last arranged between the two crews, after +cautious protocols and many diplomatic discussions. It was so novel +in its character that it naturally took a good deal of time to adjust +it in such a way as to be fair to both parties. The course must not +be too long for the lighter and weaker crew, for the staying power of +the young persons who made it up could not be safely reckoned upon. +A certain advantage must be allowed them at the start, and this was a +delicate matter to settle. The weather was another important +consideration. June would be early enough, in all probability, and +if the lake should be tolerably smooth the grand affair might come +off some time in that month. Any roughness of the water would be +unfavorable to the weaker crew. The rowing-course was on the eastern +side of the lake, the starting-point being opposite the Anchor +Tavern; from that three quarters of a mile to the south, where the +turning-stake was fixed, so that the whole course of one mile and a +half would bring the boats back to their starting-point. + +The race was to be between the Algonquin, eight-oared boat with +outriggers, rowed by young men, students of Stoughton University, and +the Atalanta, also eight-oared and outrigger boat, by young ladies +from the Corinna Institute. Their boat was three inches wider than +the other, for various sufficient reasons, one of which was to make +it a little less likely to go over and throw its crew into the water, +which was a sound precaution, though all the girls could swim, and +one at least, the bow oar, was a famous swimmer, who had pulled a +drowning man out of the water after a hard struggle to keep him from +carrying her down with him. + +Though the coming trial had not been advertised in the papers, so as +to draw together a rabble of betting men and ill-conditioned lookers- +on, there was a considerable gathering, made up chiefly of the +villagers and the students of the two institutions. Among them were +a few who were disposed to add to their interest in the trial by +small wagers. The bets were rather in favor of the "Quins," as the +University boat was commonly called, except where the natural +sympathy of the young ladies or the gallantry of some of the young +men led them to risk their gloves or cigars, or whatever it might be, +on the Atalantas. The elements of judgment were these: average +weight of the Algonquins one hundred and sixty-five pounds; average +weight of the Atalantas, one hundred and forty-eight pounds; skill in +practice about equal; advantage of the narrow boat equal to three +lengths; whole distance allowed the Atalantas eight lengths,--a long +stretch to be made up in a mile and a half. + +And so both crews began practising for the grand trial. + + + + +II + +THE BOAT-RACE. + +The 10th of June was a delicious summer day, rather warm, but still +and bright. The water was smooth, and the crews were in the best +possible condition. All was expectation, and for some time nothing +but expectation. No boat-race or regatta ever began at the time +appointed for the start. Somebody breaks an oar, or somebody fails +to appear in season, or something is the matter with a seat or an +outrigger; or if there is no such excuse, the crew of one or both or +all the boats to take part in the race must paddle about to get +themselves ready for work, to the infinite weariness of all the +spectators, who naturally ask why all this getting ready is not +attended to beforehand. The Algonquins wore plain gray flannel suits +and white caps. The young ladies were all in dark blue dresses, +touched up with a red ribbon here and there, and wore light straw +hats. The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the last to step on +board. As she took her place she carefully deposited at her feet a +white handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps a +sponge, in case the boat should take in water. + +At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook where she lay,-- +long, narrow, shining, swift as a pickerel when he darts from the +reedy shore. It was a beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows +in their close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, bending +their backs for the stroke and recovering, as if they were parts of a +single machine. + +"The gals can't stan' it agin them fellers," said the old blacksmith +from the village. + +"You wait till the gals get a-goin'," said the carpenter, who had +often worked in the gymnasium of the Corinna Institute, and knew +something of their muscular accomplishments. "Y' ought to see 'em +climb ropes, and swing dumb-bells, and pull in them rowin'-machines. +Ask Jake there whether they can't row a mild in double-quick time,-- +he knows all abaout it." + +Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a freshwater fisherman in a +country village is inspector-general of all that goes on out-of- +doors, being a lazy, wandering sort of fellow, whose study of the +habits and habitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of +observation, just as dealing in horses is an education of certain +faculties, and breeds a race of men peculiarly cunning, suspicious, +wary, and wide awake, with a rhetoric of appreciation and +depreciation all its own. + +Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and delivered himself to the +following effect: + +"Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I've seed 'em both often enough +when they was practisin', an' I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaout +neither on 'em. But them bats is all-fired long, 'n' eight on 'em +stretched in a straight line eendways makes a consid'able piece aout +'f a mile 'n' a haaf. I'd bate on them gals if it wa'n't that them +fellers is naterally longer winded, as the gals 'll find aout by the +time they git raound the stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. I'll go +ye a quarter on the pahnts agin the petticoats." + +The fresh-water fisherman had expressed the prevailing belief that +the young ladies were overmatched. Still there were not wanting +those who thought the advantage allowed the "Lantas," as they called +the Corinna boatcrew, was too great, and that it would be impossible +for the "Quins" to make it up and go by them. + +The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. +They appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, +mettlesome as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, +disciplined to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler +pulls his pair of oars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter +fifty cents. No takers. + +Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to the south, looking +for the Atalanta. A clump of trees hid the edge of the lake along +which the Corinna's boat was stealing towards the starting-point. +Presently the long shell swept into view, with its blooming rowers, +who, with their ample dresses, seemed to fill it almost as full as +Raphael fills his skiff on the edge of the Lake of Galilee. But how +steadily the Atalanta came on!---no rocking, no splashing, no +apparent strain; the bow oar turning to look ahead every now and +then, and watching her course, which seemed to be straight as an +arrow, the beat of the strokes as true and regular as the pulse of +the healthiest rower among them all. And if the sight of the other +boat and its crew was beautiful, how lovely was the look of this! +Eight young girls,--young ladies, for those who prefer that more +dignified and less attractive expression,--all in the flush of youth, +all in vigorous health; every muscle taught its duty; each rower +alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar +dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of its propelling virtue; +every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Each of the boats was +cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were +naturally the loudest, as the gallantry of one sex and the clear, +high voices of the other gave it life and vigor. + +"Take your places!" shouted the umpire, five minutes before the half +hour. The two boats felt their way slowly and cautiously to their +positions, which had been determined by careful measurement. After a +little backing and filling they got into line, at the proper distance +from each other, and sat motionless, their bodies bent forward, their +arms outstretched, their oars in the water, waiting for the word. + +"Go!" shouted the umpire. + +Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her leaped the Algonquin, +her oars bending like so many long Indian bows as their blades +flashed through the water. + +"A stern chase is a long chase," especially when one craft is a great +distance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible +for the rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the +Algonquin kept gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That was +the question. As the boats got farther and farther away, it became +more and more difficult to determine what change there was in the +interval between them. But when they came to rounding the stake it +was easier to guess at the amount of space which had been gained. It +was clear that something like half the distance, four lengths, as +nearly as could be estimated, had been made up in rowing the first +three quarters of a mile. Could the Algonquins do a little better +than this in the second half of the race-course, they would be sure +of winning. + +The boats had turned the stake, and were coming in rapidly. Every +minute the University boat was getting nearer the other. + +"Go it, Quins!" shouted the students. + +"Pull away, Lantas!" screamed the girls, who were crowding down to +the edge of the water. + +Nearer,--nearer,--the rear boat is pressing the other more and more +closely,--a few more strokes, and they will be even, for there is but +one length between them, and thirty rods will carry them to the line. +It looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow oar of the Algonquin +turns his head. He sees the little coxswain leaning forward at every +stroke, as if her trivial weight were of such mighty consequence,-- +but a few ounces might turn the scale of victory. As he turned he +got a glimpse of the stroke oar of the Atalanta. What a flash of +loveliness it was! Her face was like the reddest of June roses, with +the heat and the strain and the passion of expected triumph. The +upper button of her close-fitting flannel suit had strangled her as +her bosom heaved with exertion, and it had given way before the +fierce clutch she made at it. The bow oar was a staunch and steady +rower, but he was human. The blade of his oar lingered in the water; +a little more and he would have caught a crab, and perhaps lost the +race by his momentary bewilderment. + +The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and nervousness of a +Derby three-year-old, felt the slight check, and all her men bent +more vigorously to their oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and +made a spurt to keep their lead and gain upon it if they could. It +was of no use. The strong arms of the young men were too much for +the young maidens; only a few lengths remained to be rowed, and they +would certainly pass the Atalanta before she could reach the line. + +The little coxswain saw that it was all up with the girls' crew if +she could not save them by some strategic device. + + "Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?" + +she whispered to herself,--for The Terror remembered her Virgil as +she did everything else she ever studied. As she stooped, she lifted +the handkerchief at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. +"Look!" she cried, and flung it just forward of the track of the +Algonquin. The captain of the University boat turned his head, and +there was the lovely vision which had a moment before bewitched him. +The owner of all that loveliness must, he thought, have flung the +bouquet. It was a challenge: how could he be such a coward as to +decline accepting it + +He was sure he could win the race now, and he would sweep past the +line in triumph with the great bunch of flowers at the stem of his +boat, proud as Van Tromp in the British channel with the broom at his +mast-head. + +He turned the boat's head a little by backing water. He came up with +the floating flowers, and near enough to reach them. He stooped and +snatched them up, with the loss perhaps of a second in all,--no more. +He felt sure of his victory. + +How can one tell the story of the finish in cold-blooded preterites? +Are we not there ourselves? Are not our muscles straining with those +of these sixteen young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their +nerves all tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, all +their life concentrating itself in this passionate moment of supreme +effort? No! We are seeing, not telling about what somebody else +once saw! + +--The bow of the Algonquin passes the stern of the Atalanta! + +--The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the middle of the +Atalanta! + +--Three more lengths' rowing and the college crew will pass the +girls! + +--"Hurrah for the Quins!" The Algonquin ranges up alongside of the +Atalanta! + +"Through with her! "shouts the captain of the Algonquin. + +"Now, girls!" shrieks the captain of the Atalanta. + +They near the line, every rower straining desperately, almost madly. + +--Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta's captain, and up flash its +splintered fragments, as the stem of her boat springs past the line, +eighteen inches at least ahead of the Algonquin. + +Hooraw for the Lantas! Hooraw for the Girls! Hooraw for the +Institoot! shout a hundred voices. + +"Hurrah for woman's rights and female suffrage!" pipes the small +voice of The Terror, and there is loud laughing and cheering all +round. + +She had not studied her classical dictionary and her mythology for +nothing. "I have paid off one old score," she said. "Set down my +damask roses against the golden apples of Hippomenes!" + +It was that one second lost in snatching up the bouquet which gave +the race to the Atalantas. + + + + +III + +THE WHITE CANOE. + +While the two boats were racing, other boats with lookers-on in them +were rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course. The +scene on the water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats +were, many of them, acquainted with each other. There was a good +deal of lively talk until the race became too exciting. Then many +fell silent, until, as the boats neared the line, and still more as +they crossed it, the shouts burst forth which showed how a cramp of +attention finds its natural relief in a fit of convulsive +exclamation. + +But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birchbark canoe was to +be seen, in which sat a young man, who paddled it skillfully and +swiftly. It was evident enough that he was watching the race +intently, but the spectators could see little more than that. One of +them, however, who sat upon the stand, had a powerful spy-glass, and +could distinguish his motions very minutely and exactly. It was seen +by this curious observer that the young man had an opera-glass with +him, which he used a good deal at intervals. The spectator thought +he kept it directed to the girls' boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. +He thought also that the opera-glass was more particularly pointed +towards the bow of the boat, and came to the natural conclusion that +the bow oar, Miss Euthymia Tower, captain of the Atalantas, "The +Wonder" of the Corinna Institute, was the attraction which determined +the direction of the instrument. + +"Who is that in the canoe over there?" asked the owner of the spy- +glass. + +"That's just what we should like to know," answered the old +landlord's wife. "He and his man boarded with us when they first +came, but we could never find out anything about him only just his +name and his ways of living. His name is Kirkwood, Maurice Kirkwood, +Esq., it used to come on his letters. As for his ways of living, he +was the solitariest human being that I ever came across. His man +carried his meals up to him. He used to stay in his room pretty much +all day, but at night he would be off, walking, or riding on +horseback, or paddling about in the lake, sometimes till nigh +morning. There's something very strange about that Mr. Kirkwood. +But there don't seem to be any harm in him. Only nobody can guess +what his business is. They got up a story about him at one time. +What do you think? They said he was a counterfeiter! And so they +went one night to his room, when he was out, and that man of his was +away too, and they carried keys, and opened pretty much everything; +and they found--well, they found just nothing at all except writings +and letters,--letters from places in America and in England, and some +with Italian postmarks: that was all. Since that time the sheriff +and his folks have let him alone and minded their own business. He +was a gentleman,--anybody ought to have known that; and anybody that +knew about his nice ways of living and behaving, and knew the kind of +wear he had for his underclothing, might have known it. I could have +told those officers that they had better not bother him. I know the +ways of real gentlemen and real ladies, and I know those fellows in +store clothes that look a little too fine,--outside. Wait till +washing-day comes!" + +The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity, and they +were not wholly unworthy of consideration; they were quite as much to +be relied on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who +sent his accomplice on before him to study out the principal +personages in the village, and in the light of these revelations +interpreted the bumps, with very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim, +or any other authorities. + +Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search +among his papers and effects, the gossips of the village had +constructed several distinct histories for the mysterious stranger. +He was an agent of a great publishing house; a leading contributor to +several important periodicals; the author of that anonymously +published novel which had made so much talk; the poet of a large +clothing establishment; a spy of the Italian, some said the Russian, +some said the British, Government; a proscribed refugee from some +country where he had been plotting; a school-master without a school, +a minister without a pulpit, an actor without an engagement; in +short, there was no end to the perfectly senseless stories that were +told about him, from that which made him out an escaped convict to +the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric heir to a great +English title and estate. + +The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion. +Nobody in the village, no student in the University, knew his +history. No young lady in the Corinna Institute had ever had a word +from him. Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Institute +were returning at dusk, their rowers would see the canoe stealing +into the shadows as they drew near it. Sometimes on a moonlight +night, when a party of the young ladies were out upon the lake, they +would see the white canoe gliding ghost-like in the distance. And it +had happened more than once that when a boat's crew had been out with +singers among them, while they were in the midst of a song, the white +canoe would suddenly appear and rest upon the water,--not very near +them, but within hearing distance,--and so remain until the singing +was over, when it would steal away and be lost sight of in some inlet +or behind some jutting rock. + +Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about this young man. +The landlady had told her story, which explained nothing. There was +nobody to be questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, +whose name was Paolo, but who to the village was known as Mr. Paul. + +Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in the world to worm a +secret out of. He was good-natured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, +talked freely with everybody in such English as he had at command, +knew all the little people of the village, and was followed round by +them partly from his personal attraction for them, and partly because +he was apt to have a stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other +desirable luxury in his pocket for any of his little friends he met +with. He had that wholesome, happy look, so uncommon in our arid +countrymen,--a look hardly to be found except where figs and oranges +ripen in the open air. A kindly climate to grow up in, a religion +which takes your money and gives you a stamped ticket good at Saint +Peter's box office, a roomy chest and a good pair of lungs in it, an +honest digestive apparatus, a lively temperament, a cheerful +acceptance of the place in life assigned to one by nature and +circumstance,--these are conditions under which life may be quite +comfortable to endure, and certainly is very pleasant to contemplate. +All these conditions were united in Paolo. He was the easiest; +pleasantest creature to talk with that one could ask for a companion. +His southern vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicity and +openness, made him friends everywhere. + +It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to get the history +of his master out of this guileless and unsophisticated being. He +had been tried by all the village experts. The rector had put a +number of well-studied careless questions, which failed of their +purpose. The old librarian of the town library had taken note of all +the books he carried to his master, and asked about his studies and +pursuits. Paolo found it hard to understand his English, apparently, +and answered in the most irrelevant way. The leading gossip of the +village tried her skill in pumping him for information. It was all +in vain. + +His master's way of life was peculiar,--in fact, eccentric. He had +hired rooms in an old-fashioned three-story house. He had two rooms +in the second and third stories of this old wooden building: his +study in the second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. Paolo +lived in the basement, where he had all the conveniences for cooking, +and played the part of chef for his master and himself. This was +only a part of his duty, for he was a man-of-all-work, purveyor, +steward, chambermaid,--as universal in his services for one man as +Pushee at the Anchor Tavern used to be for everybody. + +It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one winter's day, and +had such threatening symptoms that he asked the baker, when he +called, to send the village physician to see him. In the course of +his visit the doctor naturally inquired about the health of Paolo's +master. + +"Signor Kirkwood well,--molto bene," said Paolo. "Why does he keep +out of sight as he does?" asked the doctor. + +"He always so," replied Paolo. "Una antipatia." + +Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, whether he revealed +it to him as to a father confessor, or whether he thought it time +that the reason of his master's seclusion should be known, the doctor +did not feel sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to make any +further revelations. Una antipatia,--an antipathy,--that was all the +doctor learned. He thought the matter over, and the more he +reflected the more he was puzzled. What could an antipathy be that +made a young man a recluse! Was it a dread of blue sky and open air, +of the smell of flowers, or some electrical impression to which be +was unnaturally sensitive? + +Dr. Butts carried these questions home with him. His wife was a +sensible, discreet woman, whom he could trust with many professional +secrets. He told her of Paolo's revelation, and talked it over with +her in the light of his experience and her own; for she had known +some curious cases of constitutional likes and aversions. + +Mrs. Butts buried the information in the grave of her memory, where +it lay for nearly a week. At the end of that time it emerged in a +confidential whisper to her favorite sister-in-law, a perfectly safe +person. Twenty-four hours later the story was all over the village +that Maurice Kirkwood was the subject of a strange, mysterious, +unheard-of antipathy to something, nobody knew what; and the whole +neighborhood naturally resolved itself into an unorganized committee +of investigation. + + + + +IV + +What is a country village without its mysterious personage? Few are +now living who can remember the advent of the handsome young man who +was the mystery of our great university town "sixty years since,"-- +long enough ago for a romance to grow out of a narrative, as Waverley +may remind us. The writer of this narrative remembers him well, and +is not sure that he has not told the strange story in some form or +other to the last generation, or to the one before the last. No +matter: if he has told it they have forgotten it,--that is, if they +have ever read it; and whether they have or have not, the story is +singular enough to justify running the risk of repetition. + +This young man, with a curious name of Scandinavian origin, appeared +unheralded in the town, as it was then, of Cantabridge. He wanted +employment, and soon found it in the shape of manual labor, which he +undertook and performed cheerfully. But his whole appearance showed +plainly enough that he was bred to occupations of a very different +nature, if, in deed, he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for +his living. His aspect was that of one of gentle birth. His hands +were not those of a laborer, and his features were delicate and +refined, as well as of remarkable beauty. Who he was, where he came +from, why he had come to Cantabridge, was never clearly explained. +He was alone, without friends, except among the acquaintances he had +made in his new residence. If he had any correspondents, they were +not known to the neighborhood where he was living. But if he had +neither friends nor correspondents, there was some reason for +believing that he had enemies. Strange circumstances occurred which +connected themselves with him in an ominous and unaccountable way. A +threatening letter was slipped under the door of a house where he was +visiting. He had a sudden attack of illness, which was thought to +look very much like the effect of poison. At one time he +disappeared, and was found wandering, bewildered, in a town many +miles from that where he was residing. When questioned how he came +there; he told a coherent story that he had been got, under some +pretext, or in some not incredible way, into a boat, from which, at a +certain landing-place, he had escaped and fled for his life, which he +believed was in danger from his kidnappers. + +Whoever his enemies may have been,--if they really existed,--he did +not fall a victim to their plots, so far as known to or remembered by +this witness. + +Various interpretations were put upon his story. Conjectures were as +abundant as they were in the case of Kaspar Hauser. That he was of +good family seemed probable; that he was of distinguished birth, not +impossible; that he was the dangerous rival of a candidate for a +greatly coveted position in one of the northern states of Europe was +a favorite speculation of some of the more romantic young persons. +There was no dramatic ending to this story,--at least none is +remembered by the present writer. + +"He left a name," like the royal Swede, of whose lineage he may have +been for aught that the village people knew, but not a name at which +anybody "grew pale;" for he had swindled no one, and broken no +woman's heart with false vows. Possibly some withered cheeks may +flush faintly as they recall the handsome young man who came before +the Cantabridge maidens fully equipped for a hero of romance when the +century was in its first quarter. + +The writer has been reminded of the handsome Swede by the incidents +attending the advent of the unknown and interesting stranger who had +made his appearance at Arrowhead Village. + +It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason to assign for +the young man's solitary habits that he was the subject of an +antipathy. For what do we understand by that word? When a young +lady screams at the sight of a spider, we accept her explanation that +she has a natural antipathy to the creature. When a person expresses +a repugnance to some wholesome article of food, agreeable to most +people, we are satisfied if he gives the same reason. And so of +various odors, which are pleasing to some persons and repulsive to +others. We do not pretend to go behind the fact. It is an +individual, and it may be a family, peculiarity. Even between +different personalities there is an instinctive elective dislike as +well as an elective affinity. We are not bound to give a reason why +Dr. Fell is odious to us any more than the prisoner who peremptorily +challenges a juryman is bound to say why he does it; it is enough +that he "does not like his looks." + +There was nothing strange, then, that Maurice Kirkwood should have +his special antipathy; a great many other people have odd likes and +dislikes. But it was a very curious thing that this antipathy should +be alleged as the reason for his singular mode of life. All sorts of +explanations were suggested, not one of them in the least +satisfactory, but serving to keep the curiosity of inquirers active +until they were superseded by a new theory. One story was that +Maurice had a great fear of dogs. It grew at last to a connected +narrative, in which a fright in childhood from a rabid mongrel was +said to have given him such a sensitiveness to the near presence of +dogs that he was liable to convulsions if one came close to him. + +This hypothesis had some plausibility. No other creature would be so +likely to trouble a person who had an antipathy to it. Dogs are very +apt to make the acquaintance of strangers, in a free and easy way. +They are met with everywhere,--in one's daily walk, at the thresholds +of the doors one enters, in the gentleman's library, on the rug of my +lady's sitting-room and on the cushion of her carriage. It is true +that there are few persons who have an instinctive repugnance to this +"friend of man." But what if this so-called antipathy were only a +fear, a terror, which borrowed the less unmanly name? It was a fair +question, if, indeed, the curiosity of the public had a right to ask +any questions at all about a harmless individual who gave no offence, +and seemed entitled to the right of choosing his way of living to +suit himself, without being submitted to espionage. + +There was no positive evidence bearing on the point as yet. But one +of the village people had a large Newfoundland dog, of a very +sociable disposition, with which he determined to test the question. +He watched for the time when Maurice should leave his house for the +woods or the lake, and started with his dog to meet him. The animal +walked up to the stranger in a very sociable fashion, and began +making his acquaintance, after the usual manner of well-bred dogs; +that is, with the courtesies and blandishments by which the canine +Chesterfield is distinguished from the ill-conditioned cur. Maurice +patted him in a friendly way, and spoke to him as one who was used to +the fellowship of such companions. That idle question and foolish +story were disposed of, therefore, and some other solution must be +found, if possible. + +A much more common antipathy is that which is entertained with regard +to cats. This has never been explained. It is not mere aversion to +the look of the creature, or to any sensible quality known to the +common observer. The cat is pleasing in aspect, graceful in +movement, nice in personal habits, and of amiable disposition. No +cause of offence is obvious, and yet there are many persons who +cannot abide the presence of the most innocent little kitten. They +can tell, in some mysterious way, that there is a cat in the room +when they can neither see nor hear the creature. Whether it is an +electrical or quasi-magnetic phenomenon, or whatever it may be, of +the fact of this strange influence there are too many well- +authenticated instances to allow its being questioned. But suppose +Maurice Kirkwood to be the subject of this antipathy in its extremest +degree, it would in no manner account for the isolation to which he +had condemned himself. He might shun the firesides of the old women +whose tabbies were purring by their footstools, but these worthy +dames do not make up the whole population. + +These two antipathies having been disposed of, a new suggestion was +started, and was talked over with a curious sort of half belief, very +much as ghost stories are told in a circle of moderately instructed +and inquiring persons. This was that Maurice was endowed with the +unenviable gift of the evil eye. He was in frequent communication +with Italy, as his letters showed, and had recently been residing in +that country, as was learned from Paolo. Now everybody knows that +the evil eye is not rarely met with in Italy. Everybody who has ever +read Mr. Story's "Roba di Roma" knows what a terrible power it is +which the owner of the evil eye exercises. It can blight and destroy +whatever it falls upon. No person's life or limb is safe if the +jettatura, the withering glance of the deadly organ, falls upon him. +It must be observed that this malign effect may follow a look from +the holiest personages, that is, if we may assume that a monk is such +as a matter of course. Certainly we have a right to take it for +granted that the late Pope, Pius Ninth, was an eminently holy man, +and yet he had the name of dispensing the mystic and dreaded +jettatura as well as his blessing. If Maurice Kirkwood carried that +destructive influence, so that his clear blue eyes were more to be +feared than the fascinations of the deadliest serpent, it could +easily be understood why he kept his look away from all around him +whom he feared he might harm. + +No sensible person in Arrowhead Village really believed in the evil +eye, but it served the purpose of a temporary hypothesis, as do many +suppositions which we take as a nucleus for our observations without +putting any real confidence in them. It was just suited to the +romantic notions of the more flighty persons in the village, who had +meddled more or less with Spiritualism, and were ready for any new +fancy, if it were only wild enough. + +The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely to +find any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk +for the gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in +the two educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was +liveliest among the young ladies. Here is an extract from a letter +of one of these young ladies, who, having received at her birth the +ever-pleasing name of Mary, saw fit to have herself called Mollie in +the catalogue and in her letters. The old postmaster of the town to +which her letter was directed took it up to stamp, and read on the +envelope the direction to "Miss Lulu Pinrow." He brought the stamp +down with a vicious emphasis, coming very near blotting out the +nursery name, instead of cancelling the postage-stamp. "Lulu!" he +exclaimed. "I should like to know if that great strapping girl isn't +out of her cradle yet! I suppose Miss Louisa will think that belongs +to her, but I saw her christened and I heard the name the minister +gave her, and it was n't 'Lulu,' or any such baby nonsense." And so +saying, he gave it a fling to the box marked P, as if it burned his +fingers. Why a grown-up young woman allowed herself to be cheapened +in the way so many of them do by the use of names which become them +as well as the frock of a ten-year-old schoolgirl would become a +graduate of the Corinna Institute, the old postmaster could not +guess. He was a queer old man. + +The letter thus scornfully treated runs over with a young girl's +written loquacity: + +"Oh, Lulu, there is such a sensation as you never saw or heard of +'in all your born days,' as mamma used to say. He has been at the +village for some time, but lately we have had--oh, the weirdest +stories about him! 'The Mysterious Stranger is the name some give +him, but we girls call him the Sachem, because he paddles about in an +Indian canoe. If I should tell you all the things that are said +about him I should use up all my paper ten times over. He has never +made a visit to the Institute, and none of the girls have ever spoken +to him, but the people at the village say he is very, very handsome. +We are dying to get a look at him, of course--though there is a +horrid story about him--that he has the evil eye did you ever hear +about the evil eye? If a person who is born with it looks at you, +you die, or something happens--awful--is n't it? + +"The rector says he never goes to church, but then you know a good +many of the people that pass the summer at the village never do--they +think their religion must have vacations--that's what I've heard they +say--vacations, just like other hard work--it ought not to be hard +work, I'm sure, but I suppose they feel so about it. Should you feel +afraid to have him look at you? Some of the girls say they would n't +have him for the whole world, but I shouldn't mind it--especially if +I had on my eyeglasses. Do you suppose if there is anything in the +evil eye it would go through glass? I don't believe it. Do you +think blue eye-glasses would be better than common ones? Don't laugh +at me--they tell such weird stories! The Terror--Lurida Vincent, you +know-makes fun of all they say about it, but then she 'knows +everything and doesn't believe anything,' the girls say--Well, I +should be awfully scared, I know, if anybody that had the evil eye +should look at me--but--oh, I don't know--but if it was a young man-- +and if he was very--very good-looking--I think--perhaps I would run +the risk--but don't tell anybody I said any such horrid thing--and +burn this letter right up--there 's a dear good girl." + +It is to be hoped that no reader will doubt the genuineness of this +letter. There are not quite so many "awfuls" and "awfullys" as one +expects to find in young ladies' letters, but there are two "weirds," +which may be considered a fair allowance. How it happened that +"jolly" did not show itself can hardly be accounted for; no doubt it +turns up two or three times at least in the postscript. + +Here is an extract from another letter. This was from one of the +students of Stoughton University to a friend whose name as it was +written on the envelope was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmaster +who found fault with Miss "Lulu's" designation would probably have +quarrelled with this address, if it had come under his eye. "Frank" +is a very pretty, pleasant-sounding name, and it is not strange that +many persons use it in common conversation all their days when +speaking of a friend. Were they really christened by that name, any +of these numerous Franks? Perhaps they were, and if so there is +nothing to be said. But if not, was the baptismal name Francis or +Franklin? The mind is apt to fasten in a very perverse and +unpleasant way upon this question, which too often there is no +possible way of settling. One might hope, if he outlived the bearer +of the appellation, to get at the fact; but since even gravestones +have learned to use the names belonging to childhood and infancy in +their solemn record, the generation which docks its Christian names +in such an un-Christian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of +riddles to posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the historians +and antiquarians of a coming generation to settle what was the real +name of Dan and Bert and Billy, which last is legible on a white +marble slab, raised in memory of a grown person, in a certain burial- +ground in a town in Essex County, Massachusetts! + +But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter directed to Mr. +Frank Mayfield. + + +"DEAR FRANK,--Hooray! Hurrah! Rah! + +"I have made the acquaintance of 'The Mysterious Stranger'! It +happened by a queer sort of accident, which came pretty near +relieving you of the duty of replying to this letter. I was out in +my little boat, which carries a sail too big for her, as I know and +ought to have remembered. One of those fitful flaws of wind to which +the lake is so liable struck the sail suddenly, and over went my +boat. My feet got tangled in the sheet somehow, and I could not get +free. I had hard work to keep my head above water, and I struggled +desperately to escape from my toils; for if the boat were to go down +I should be dragged down with her. I thought of a good many things +in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, and I got +a lesson about time better than anything Kant and all the rest of +them have to say of it. After I had been there about an ordinary +lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew that our +shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become +acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw +what the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning +me in the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was +somewhat tired with my struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the +landing where he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is anything +odd about his manners or his way of talk. I judge him to be a native +of one of our Northern States,--perhaps a New Englander. He has +lived abroad during some parts of his life. He is not an artist, as +it was at one time thought he might be. He is a good-looking fellow, +well developed, manly in appearance, with nothing to excite special +remark unless it be a certain look of anxiety or apprehension which +comes over him from time to time. You remember our old friend Squire +B., whose companion was killed by lightning when he was standing +close to him. You know the look he had whenever anything like a +thundercloud came up in the sky. Well, I should say there was a look +like that came over this Maurice Kirkwood's face every now and then. +I noticed that he looked round once or twice as if to see whether +some object or other was in sight. There was a little rustling in +the grass as if of footsteps, and this look came over his features. +A rabbit ran by us, and I watched to see if he showed any sign of +that antipathy we have heard so much of, but he seemed to be pleased +watching the creature. + +"If you ask me what my opinion is about this Maurice Kirkwood, I +think he is eccentric in his habit of life, but not what they call a +'crank' exactly. He talked well enough about such matters as we +spoke of,--the lake, the scenery in general, the climate. I asked +him to come over and take a look at the college. He did n't promise, +but I should not be surprised if I should get him over there some +day. I asked him why he did n't go to the Pansophian meetings. He +did n't give any reason, but he shook his head in a very peculiar +way, as much as to say that it was impossible. + +"On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the same feeling of +dread of human society, or dislike for it, which under the name of +religion used to drive men into caves and deserts. What a pity that +Protestantism does not make special provision for all the freaks of +individual character! If we had a little more faith and a few more +caverns, or convenient places for making them, we should have hermits +in these holes as thick as woodchucks or prairie dogs. I should like +to know if you never had the feeling, + + "'Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place!' + +"I know what your answer will be, of course. You will say, +'Certainly, + + "'With one fair spirit for my minister;"' + +"but I mean alone,--all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should +like to have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong +as lye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? +(Jerry is looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to +send, and a disgrace to the University--but never mind.) I often feel +as if I should like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,--yes, +and have it soaped from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look +down at the bores and the duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' +association. (Jerry--still looking over says there is an absurd +contradiction in the idea.) + +"What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is! + +"How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector general?" + +The reader will not get much information out of this lively young +fellow's letter, but he may get a little. It is something to know +that the mysterious resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor +talk like a crazy person; that he was of agreeable aspect and +address, helpful when occasion offered, and had nothing about him, so +far as yet appeared, to prevent his being an acceptable member of +society. + +Of course the people in the village could never be contented without +learning everything there was to be learned about their visitor. All +the city papers were examined for advertisements. If a cashier had +absconded, if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad president was +missing, some of the old stories would wake up and get a fresh +currency, until some new circumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. +Unconscious of all these inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood +lived on in his inoffensive and unexplained solitude, and seemed +likely to remain an unsolved enigma. The "Sachem" of the boating +girls became the "Sphinx" of the village ramblers, and it was agreed +on all hands that Egypt did not hold any hieroglyphics harder to make +out than the meaning of this young man's odd way of living. + + + + +V + +THE ENIGMA STUDIED. + +It was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circumstance that a +young man, seemingly in good health, of comely aspect, looking as if +made for companionship, should keep himself apart from all the world +around him in a place where there was a general feeling of good +neighborhood and a pleasant social atmosphere. The Public Library +was a central point which brought people together. The Pansophian +Society did a great deal to make them acquainted with each other for +many of the meetings were open to outside visitors, and the subjects +discussed in the meetings furnished the material for conversation in +their intervals. A card of invitation had been sent by the Secretary +to Maurice, in answer to which Paolo carried back a polite note of +regret. The paper had a narrow rim of black, implying apparently +some loss of relative or friend, but not any very recent and crushing +bereavement. This refusal to come to the meetings of the society was +only what was expected. It was proper to ask him, but his declining +the invitation showed that he did not wish for attentions or +courtesies. There was nothing further to be done to bring him out of +his shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about him at +present. + +In this state of things it was natural that all which had been +previously gathered by the few who had seen or known anything of him +should be worked over again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the +old refuse heaps are looked over for what may still be found in them. +The landlord of the Anchor Tavern, now the head of the boarding- +house, talked about Maurice, as everybody in the village did at one +time or another. He had not much to say, but he added a fact or two. + +The young gentleman was good pay,--so they all said. Sometimes he +paid in gold; sometimes in fresh bills, just out of the bank. He +trusted his man, Mr. Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew +something about horses; he showed that by the way he handled that +colt,--the one that threw the hostler and broke his collar-bone. +"Mr. Paul come down to the stable. 'Let me see that cult you all +'fraid of,' says he. 'My master, he ride any hoss,' says Paul. 'You +saddle him,' says be; and so they did, and Paul, he led that colt-- +the kickinest and ugliest young beast you ever see in your life--up +to the place where his master, as he calls him, and he lives. What +does that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple of long spurs and jump on +to that colt's back, and off the beast goes, tail up, heels flying, +standing up on end, trying all sorts of capers, and at last going it +full run for a couple of miles, till he'd got about enough of it. +That colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come back as quiet as +a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills reg'lar, in good money, and +knows how to handle a hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if he is +n't a whole one,--and most likely he is a whole one." + +So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His wife had already +given her favorable opinion of her former guest. She now added +something to her description as a sequel to her husband's remarks. + +"I call him," she said, "about as likely a young gentleman as ever I +clapped my eyes on. He is rather slighter than I like to see a young +man of his age; if he was my sun, I should like to see him a little +more fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hundred and +thirty or forty pounds. Did y' ever look at those eyes of his, +M'randy? Just as blue as succory flowers. I do like those light- +complected young fellows, with their fresh cheeks and their curly +hair; somehow, curly hair doos set off anybody's face. He is n't any +foreigner, for all that he talks Italian with that Mr. Paul that's +his help. He looks just like our kind of folks, the college kind, +that's brought up among books, and is handling 'em, and reading of +'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all their lives. All that +you say about his riding the mad colt is just what I should think he +was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought to see him go +over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's any harm in +that young gentleman,--I don't care what people say. I suppose he +likes this place just as other people like it, and cares more for +walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doos for +company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like to +know?" + +The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging +people. + +"I never see him but two or three times," Miranda said. "I should +like to have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him +when he was eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, +when their jaws get a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. +Do you remember that chap the sheriff come and took away when we kep' +tahvern? Eleven year ago it was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A +mighty grand gentleman from the City he set up for. I watched him, +and I watched him. Says I, I don't believe you're no gentleman, +says I. He eat with his knife, and that ain't the way city folks +eats. Every time I handed him anything I looked closeter and +closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them cheeks, says I to +myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in your shirt- +front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's +nothiri' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You +jes' step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that +chap.' I knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes +up to the chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. +We've had the hole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your +company to come and look at the old place,' says he, and he pulls out +a couple of handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, +an' off they goes together! I know one thing about that young +gentleman, anyhow,--there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' +than he is. I cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends +word to me by that Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, I that the +Pope o' Rome don't have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent +up to me yesterday,' says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' +Rome except that he's a Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for +him, whether it's a man or a woman; but when it comes to a dish o' +maccaroni, I ain't afeard of their shefs, as they call 'em,--them he- +cooks that can't serve up a cold potater without callin' it by some +name nobody can say after 'em. But this gentleman knows good +cookin', and that's as good a sign of a gentleman as I want to tell +'em by." + + + + +VI + +STILL AT FAULT. + +The house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken up his abode was not a +very inviting one. It was old, and had been left in a somewhat +dilapidated and disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in +the part which Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing- +boxes in the cellar, with broken chairs, broken china, and other +household wrecks. A cracked mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the +contents of which were airing themselves through wide rips and rents. +A lame clothes-horse was saddled with an old rug fringed with a +ragged border, out of which all the colors had been completely +trodden. No woman would have gone into a house in such a condition. +But the young man did not trouble himself much about such matters, +and was satisfied when the rooms which were to be occupied by himself +and his servant were made decent and tolerably comfortable. During +the fine season all this was not of much consequence, and if Maurice +made up his mind to stay through the winter he would have his choice +among many more eligible places. + +The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had now arrived, and the +young ladies had scattered to their homes. Among the graduates of +the year were Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who had +now returned to their homes in Arrowhead Village. They were both +glad to rest after the long final examinations and the exercises of +the closing day, in which each of them had borne a conspicuous part. +It was a pleasant life they led in the village, which was lively +enough at this season. Walking, riding, driving, boating, visits to +the Library, meetings of the Pansophian Society, hops, and picnics +made the time pass very cheerfully, and soon showed their restoring +influences. The Terror's large eyes did not wear the dull, glazed +look by which they had too often betrayed the after effects of over- +excitement of the strong and active brain behind them. The Wonder +gained a fresher bloom, and looked full enough of life to radiate +vitality into a statue of ice. They had a boat of their own, in +which they passed many delightful hours on the lake, rowing, +drifting, reading, telling of what had been, dreaming of what might +be. + +The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, and +visited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar +character, as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious +kind of knowledge, sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs +of books, their title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the +class of readers who call for particular works, the value of +different editions, and a good deal besides. Their minds catch up +hints from all manner of works on all kinds of subjects. They will +give a visitor a fact and a reference which they are surprised to +find they remember and which the visitor might have hunted for a +year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who has grown +into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to every +bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These +nerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do +not like to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like +to have their naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the +books of a great collection are a part, not merely of their own +property, though they are only the agents for their distribution, but +that they are, as it were, outlying portions of their own +organization. The old Librarian was getting a miserly feeling about +his books, as he called them. Fortunately, he had a young lady for +his assistant, who was never so happy as when she could find the work +any visitor wanted and put it in his hands,--or her hands, for there +were more readers among the wives and--daughters, and especially +among the aunts, than there were among their male relatives. The old +Librarian knew the books, but the books seemed to know the young +assistant; so it looked, at least, to the impatient young people who +wanted their services. + +Maurice had a good many volumes of his own,--a great many, according +to Paolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well- +filled shelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master +frequently sent him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat +enlarged his notions; still, the Signor was a very learned man, he +was certain, and some of his white books (bound in vellum and richly +gilt) were more splendid, according to Paolo, than anything in the +Library. + +There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that +Maurice was in the habit of taking out, and the Librarian's record +was carefully searched by some of the more inquisitive investigators. +The list proved to be a long and varied one. It would imply a +considerable knowledge of modern languages and of the classics; a +liking for mathematics and physics, especially all that related to +electricity and magnetism; a fancy for the occult sciences, if there +is any propriety in coupling these words; and a whim for odd and +obsolete literature, like the Parthenologia of Fortunius Licetus, the +quaint treatise 'De Sternutatione,' books about alchemy, and +witchcraft, apparitions, and modern works relating to Spiritualism. +With these were the titles of novels and now and then of books of +poems; but it may be taken for granted that his own shelves held the +works he was most frequently in the habit of reading or consulting. +Not much was to be made out of this beyond the fact of wide +scholarship,--more or less deep it might be, but at any rate implying +no small mental activity; for he appeared to read very rapidly, at +any rate exchanged the books he had taken out for new ones very +frequently. To judge by his reading, he was a man of letters. But +so wide-reading a man of letters must have an object, a literary +purpose in all probability. Why should not he be writing a novel? +Not a novel of society, assuredly, for a hermit is not the person to +report the talk and manners of a world which he has nothing to do +with. Novelists and lawyers understand the art of "cramming" better +than any other persons in the world. Why should not this young man +be working up the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a +background for some story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and +hints borrowed from science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way +knowledge which his odd and miscellaneous selection of books +furnished him? That might be, or possibly he was only reading for +amusement. Who could say? + +The funds of the Public Library of Arrowhead Village allowed the +managers to purchase many books out of the common range of reading. +The two learned people of the village were the rector and the doctor. +These two worthies kept up the old controversy between the +professions, which grows out of the fact that one studies nature from +below upwards, and the other from above downwards. The rector +maintained that physicians contracted a squint which turns their eyes +inwardly, while the muscles which roll their eyes upward become +palsied. The doctor retorted that theological students developed a +third eyelid,--the nictitating membrane, which is so well known in +birds, and which serves to shut out, not all light, but all the light +they do not want. Their little skirmishes did not prevent their +being very good friends, who had a common interest in many things and +many persons. Both were on the committee which had the care of the +Library and attended to the purchase of books. Each was scholar +enough to know the wants of scholars, and disposed to trust the +judgment of the other as to what books should be purchased. +Consequently, the clergyman secured the addition to the Library of a +good many old theological works which the physician would have called +brimstone divinity, and held to be just the thing to kindle fires +with,--good books still for those who know how to use them, +oftentimes as awful examples of the extreme of disorganization the +whole moral system may undergo when a barbarous belief has strangled +the natural human instincts. The physician, in the mean time, +acquired for the collection some of those medical works where one may +find recorded various rare and almost incredible cases, which may not +have their like for a whole century, and then repeat themselves, so +as to give a new lease of credibility to stories which had come to be +looked upon as fables. + +Both the clergyman and the physician took a very natural interest in +the young man who had come to reside in their neighborhood for the +present, perhaps for a long period. The rector would have been glad +to see him at church. He would have liked more especially to have +had him hear his sermon on the Duties of Young Men to Society. The +doctor, meanwhile, was meditating on the duties of society to young +men, and wishing that he could gain the young man's confidence, so as +to help him out of any false habit of mind or any delusion to which +he might be subject, if he had the power of being useful to him. + +Dr. Butts was the leading medical practitioner, not only of Arrowhead +Village, but of all the surrounding region. He was an excellent +specimen of the country doctor, self-reliant, self-sacrificing, +working a great deal harder for his living than most of those who +call themselves the laboring classes,--as if none but those whose +hands were hardened by the use of farming or mechanical implements +had any work to do. He had that sagacity without which learning is a +mere incumbrance, and he had also a fair share of that learning +without which sagacity is like a traveller with a good horse, but who +cannot read the directions on the guideboards. He was not a man to +be taken in by names. He well knew that oftentimes very innocent- +sounding words mean very grave disorders; that all, degrees of +disease and disorder are frequently confounded under the same term; +that "run down" may stand for a fatigue of mind or body from which a +week or a month of rest will completely restore the over-worked +patient, or an advanced stage of a mortal illness; that "seedy" may +signify the morning's state of feeling, after an evening's over- +indulgence, which calls for a glass of soda-water and a cup of +coffee, or a dangerous malady which will pack off the subject of it, +at the shortest notice, to the south of France. He knew too well +that what is spoken lightly of as a "nervous disturbance" may imply +that the whole machinery of life is in a deranged condition, and that +every individual organ would groan aloud if it had any other language +than the terrible inarticulate one of pain by which to communicate +with the consciousness. + +When, therefore, Dr. Butts heard the word antipatia he did not smile, +and say to himself that this was an idle whim, a foolish fancy, which +the young man had got into his head. Neither was he satisfied to set +down everything to the account of insanity, plausible as that +supposition might seem. He was prepared to believe in some +exceptional, perhaps anomalous, form of exaggerated sensibility, +relating to what class of objects he could not at present conjecture, +but which was as vital to the subject of it as the insulating +arrangement to a piece of electrical machinery. With this feeling he +began to look into tho history of antipathies as recorded in all the +books and journals on which he could lay his hands. + + ------------------------------ + +The holder of the Portfolio asks leave to close it for a brief +interval. He wishes to say a few words to his readers, before +offering them some verses which have no connection with the narrative +now in progress. + +If one could have before him a set of photographs taken annually, +representing the same person as he or she appeared for thirty or +forty or fifty years, it would be interesting to watch the gradual +changes of aspect from the age of twenty, or even of thirty or forty, +to that of threescore and ten. The face might be an uninteresting +one; still, as sharing the inevitable changes wrought by time, it +would be worth looking at as it passed through the curve of life,-- +the vital parabola, which betrays itself in the symbolic changes of +the features. An inscription is the same thing, whether we read it +on slate-stone, or granite, or marble. To watch the lights and +shades, the reliefs and hollows, of a countenance through a lifetime, +or a large part of it, by the aid of a continuous series of +photographs would not only be curious; it would teach us much more +about the laws of physiognomy than we could get from casual and +unconnected observations. + +The same kind of interest, without any assumption of merit to be +found in them, I would claim for a series of annual poems, beginning +in middle life and continued to what many of my correspondents are +pleased to remind me--as if I required to have the fact brought to my +knowledge--is no longer youth. Here is the latest of a series of +annual poems read during the last thirty-four years. There seems to +have been one interruption, but there may have been other poems not +recorded or remembered. This, the latest poem of the series, was +listened to by the scanty remnant of what was a large and brilliant +circle of classmates and friends when the first of the long series +was read before them, then in the flush of ardent manhood:-- + + + THE OLD SONG. + +The minstrel of the classic lay +Of love and wine who sings +Still found the fingers run astray +That touched the rebel strings. + +Of Cadmus he would fair have sung, +Of Atreus and his line; +But all the jocund echoes rung +With songs of love and wine. + +Ah, brothers! I would fair have caught +Some fresher fancy's gleam; +My truant accents find, unsought, +The old familiar theme. + +Love, Love! but not the sportive child +With shaft and twanging bow, +Whose random arrows drove us wild +Some threescore years ago; + +Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, +The urchin blind and bare, +But Love, with spectacles and staff, +And scanty, silvered hair. + +Our heads with frosted locks are white, +Our roofs are thatched with snow, +But red, in chilling winter's spite, +Our hearts and hearthstones glow. + +Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, +And while the running sands +Their golden thread unheeded spin, +He warms his frozen hands. + +Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, +And waft this message o'er +To all we miss, from all we meet +On life's fast-crumbling shore: + +Say that to old affection true +We hug the narrowing chain +That binds our hearts,--alas, how few +The links that yet remain! + +The fatal touch awaits them all +That turns the rocks to dust; +From year to year they break and fall, +They break, but never rust. + +Say if one note of happier strain +This worn-out harp afford,-- +One throb that trembles, not in vain, +Their memory lent its chord. + +Say that when Fancy closed her wings +And Passion quenched his fire, +Love, Love, still echoed from the strings +As from Anacreon's lyre! + +January 8, 1885. + + + + +VII + +A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES + +In thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt convinced that, +with care and patience and watching his opportunity, he should get at +the secret, which so far bad yielded nothing but a single word. It +might be asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all +appearances, the young stranger was unwilling to explain. He may +have been to some extent infected by the general curiosity of the +persons around him, in which good Mrs. Butts shared, and which she +had helped to intensify by revealing the word dropped by Paolo. But +this was not really his chief motive. He could not look upon this +young man, living a life of unwholesome solitude, without a natural +desire to do all that his science and his knowledge of human nature +could help him to do towards bringing him into healthy relations with +the world about him. Still, he would not intrude upon him in any +way. He would only make certain general investigations, which might +prove serviceable in case circumstances should give him the right to +counsel the young man as to his course of life. The first thing to +be done was to study systematically the whole subject of antipathies. +Then, if any further occasion offered itself, he would be ready to +take advantage of it. The resources of the Public Library of the +place and his own private collection were put in requisition to +furnish him the singular and widely scattered facts of which he was +in search. + +It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. Butts in his study +of the natural history of antipathies. The stories told about them +are, however, very curious; and if some of them may be questioned, +there is no doubt that many of the strangest are true, and +consequently take away from the improbability of others which we are +disposed to doubt. + +But in the first place, what do we mean by an antipathy? It is an +aversion to some object, which may vary in degree from mere dislike +to mortal horror. What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say. +It acts sometimes through the senses, sometimes through the +imagination, sometimes through an unknown channel. The relations +which exist between the human being and all that surrounds him vary +in consequence of some adjustment peculiar to each individual. The +brute fact is expressed in the phrase "One man's meat is another +man's poison." + +In studying the history of antipathies the doctor began with those +referable to the sense of taste, which are among the most common. In +any collection of a hundred persons there will be found those who +cannot make use of certain articles of food generally acceptable. +This may be from the disgust they occasion or the effects they have +been found to produce. Every one knows individuals who cannot +venture on honey, or cheese, or veal, with impunity. Carlyle, for +example, complains of having veal set before him,--a meat he could +not endure. There is a whole family connection in New England, and +that a very famous one, to many of whose members, in different +generations, all the products of the dairy are the subjects of a +congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there are persons who dread the +smell of apples more than they would dread being exposed to a fire of +musketry. The readers of the charming story "A Week in a French +Country-House" will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's piteous cry in +the night: "Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thou sleepest, but +I cannot close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dreadful +smell! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thou couldst +smell it! Good-night, my angel!----Dearest! I have found them! +They are apples! "The smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has +been known to cause faintness. The sight of various objects has had +singular effects on some persons. A boar's head was a favorite dish +at the table of great people in Marshal d'Albret's time; yet he used +to faint at the sight of one. It is not uncommon to meet with +persons who faint at the sight of blood. One of the most +inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts's college-mates confessed that +he had this infirmity. Stranger and far more awkward than this is +the case mentioned in an ancient collection, where the subject of the +antipathy fainted at the sight of any object of a red color. There +are sounds, also, which have strange effects on some individuals. +Among the obnoxious noises are the crumpling of silk stuffs, the +sound of sweeping, the croaking of frogs. The effects in different +cases have been spasms, a sense of strangling, profuse sweating,--all +showing a profound disturbance of the nervous system. + +All these effects were produced by impressions on the organs of +sense, seemingly by direct agency on certain nerve centres. But +there is another series of cases in which the imagination plays a +larger part in the phenomena. Two notable examples are afforded in +the lives of two very distinguished personages. + +Peter the Great was frightened, when an infant, by falling from a +bridge into the water. Long afterward, when he had reached manhood, +this hardy and resolute man was so affected by the sound of wheels +rattling over a bridge that he had to discipline himself by listening +to the sound, in spite of his dread of it, in order to overcome his +antipathy. The story told by Abbe Boileau of Pascal is very similar +to that related of Peter. As he was driving in his coach and four +over the bridge at Neuilly, his horses took fright and ran away, and +the leaders broke from their harness and sprang into the river, +leaving the wheel-horses and the carriage on the bridge. Ever after +this fright it is said that Pascal had the terrifying sense that he +was just on the edge of an abyss, ready to fall over. + +What strange early impression was it which led a certain lady always +to shriek aloud if she ventured to enter a church, as it is recorded? +The old and simple way of accounting for it would be the scriptural +one, that it was an unclean spirit who dwelt in her, and who, when +she entered the holy place and brought her spiritual tenant into the +presence of the sacred symbols, "cried with a loud voice, and came +out of" her. A very singular case, the doctor himself had recorded, +and which the reader may accept as authentic, is the following: At +the head of the doctor's front stairs stood, and still stands, a tall +clock, of early date and stately presence. A middle-aged visitor, +noticing it as he entered the front door, remarked that he should +feel a great unwillingness to pass that clock. He could not go near +one of those tall timepieces without a profound agitation, which he +dreaded to undergo. This very singular idiosyncrasy he attributed to +a fright when he was an infant in the arms of his nurse. + +She was standing near one of those tall clocks, when the cord which +supported one of its heavy leaden weights broke, and the weight came +crashing down to the bottom of the case. Some effect must have been +produced upon the pulpy nerve centres from which they never +recovered. Why should not this happen, when we know that a sudden +mental shock may be the cause of insanity? The doctor remembered the +verse of "The Ancient Mariner:" + + "I moved my lips; the pilot shrieked + And fell down in a fit; + The holy hermit raised his eyes + And prayed where he did sit. + I took the oars; the pilot's boy, + Who now doth crazy go, + Laughed loud and long, and all the while + His eyes went to and fro." + +This is only poetry, it is true, but the poet borrowed the +description from nature, and the records of our asylums could furnish +many cases where insanity was caused by a sudden fright. + +More than this, hardly a year passes that we do not read of some +person, a child commonly, killed outright by terror,--scared to +death, literally. Sad cases they often are, in which, nothing but a +surprise being intended, the shock has instantly arrested the +movements on which life depends. If a mere instantaneous impression +can produce effects like these, such an impression might of course be +followed by consequences less fatal or formidable, but yet serious in +their nature. If here and there a person is killed, as if by +lightning, by a sudden startling sight or sound, there must be more +numerous cases in which a terrible shock is produced by similar +apparently insignificant causes,--a shock which falls short of +overthrowing the reason and does not destroy life, yet leaves a +lasting effect upon the subject of it. + +This point, then, was settled in the mind of Dr. Butts, namely, that, +as a violent emotion caused by a sudden shock can kill or craze a +human being, there is no perversion of the faculties, no prejudice, +no change of taste or temper, no eccentricity, no antipathy, which +such a cause may not rationally account for. He would not be +surprised, he said to himself, to find that some early alarm, like +that which was experienced by Peter the Great or that which happened +to Pascal, had broken some spring in this young man's nature, or so +changed its mode of action as to account for the exceptional +remoteness of his way of life. But how could any conceivable +antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a young man aloof from all +the world, and make a hermit of him? He did not hate the human race; +that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with great kindness, and the +Italian was evidently much attached to him. He had talked naturally +and pleasantly with the young man he had helped out of his dangerous +situation when his boat was upset. Dr. Butts heard that he had once +made a short visit to this young man, at his rooms in the University. +It was not misanthropy, therefore, which kept him solitary. What +could be broad enough to cover the facts of the case? Nothing that +the doctor could think of, unless it were some color, the sight of +which acted on him as it did on the individual before mentioned, who +could not look at anything red without fainting. Suppose this were a +case of the same antipathy. How very careful it would make the +subject of it as to where he went and with whom he consorted! Time +and patience would be pretty sure to bring out new developments, and +physicians, of all men in the world, know how to wait as well as how +to labor. + +Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts found them in books or +gathered them from his own experience. He soon discovered that the +story had got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the victim +of an "antipathy," whatever that word might mean in the vocabulary of +the people of the place. If he suspected the channel through which +it had reached the little community, and, spreading from that centre, +the country round, he did not see fit to make out of his suspicions a +domestic casus belli. Paolo might have mentioned it to others as +well as to himself. Maurice might have told some friend, who had +divulged it. But to accuse Mrs. Butts, good Mrs. Butts, of petit +treason in telling one of her husband's professional secrets was too +serious a matter to be thought of. He would be a little more +careful, he promised himself, the next time, at any rate; for he had +to concede, in spite of every wish to be charitable in his judgment, +that it was among the possibilities that the worthy lady had +forgotten the rule that a doctor's patients must put their tongues +out, and a doctor's wife must keep her tongue in. + + + + +VIII + +THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +The Secretary of this association was getting somewhat tired of the +office, and the office was getting somewhat tired of him. It +occurred to the members of the Society that a little fresh blood +infused into it might stir up the general vitality of the +organization. The woman suffragists saw no reason why the place of +Secretary need as a matter of course be filled by a person of the +male sex. They agitated, they made domiciliary visits, they wrote +notes to influential citizens, and finally announced as their +candidate the young lady who had won and worn the school name of "The +Terror," who was elected. She was just the person for the place: +wide awake, with all her wits about her, full of every kind of +knowledge, and, above all, strong on points of order and details of +management, so that she could prompt the presiding officer, to do +which is often the most essential duty of a Secretary. The +President, the worthy rector, was good at plain sailing in the track +of the common moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get +muddled if anything came up requiring swift decision and off-hand +speech. The Terror had schooled herself in the debating societies of +the Institute, and would set up the President, when he was floored by +an awkward question, as easily as if he were a ninepin which had been +bowled over. + +It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society received +communications from time to time from writers outside of its own +organization. Of late these had been becoming more frequent. Many +of them were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors +to the village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both +full of ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often +impossible to trace the papers to their authors. The new Secretary +was alive with curiosity, and as sagacious a little body as one might +find if in want of a detective. She could make a pretty shrewd guess +whether a paper was written by a young or old person, by one of her +own sex or the other, by an experienced hand or a novice. + +Among the anonymous papers she received was one which exercised her +curiosity to an extraordinary degree. She felt a strong suspicion +that "the Sachem," as the boat-crews used to call him, "the Recluse," +"the Night-Hawk," "the Sphinx," as others named him, must be the +author of it. It appeared to her the production of a young person of +a reflective, poetical turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of +writing; at least, so thought the Secretary. The writer had +travelled much; had resided in Italy, among other places. But so had +many of the summer visitors and residents of Arrowhead Village. The +handwriting was not decisive; it had some points of resemblance with +the pencilled orders for books which Maurice sent to the Library, but +there were certain differences, intentional or accidental, which +weakened this evidence. There was an undertone in the essay which +was in keeping with the mode of life of the solitary stranger. It +might be disappointment, melancholy, or only the dreamy sadness of a +young person who sees the future he is to climb, not as a smooth +ascent, but as overhanging him like a cliff, ready to crush him, with +all his hopes and prospects. This interpretation may have been too +imaginative, but here is the paper, and the reader can form his own +opinion: + + MY THREE COMPANIONS. + +"I have been from my youth upwards a wanderer. I do not mean +constantly flitting from one place to another, for my residence has +often been fixed for considerable periods. From time to time I have +put down in a notebook the impressions made upon me by the scenes +through which I have passed. I have long hesitated whether to let +any of my notes appear before the public. My fear has been that they +were too subjective, to use the metaphysician's term,--that I have +seen myself reflected in Nature, and not the true aspects of Nature +as she was meant to be understood. One who should visit the Harz +Mountains would see--might see, rather his own colossal image shape +itself on the morning mist. But if in every mist that rises from the +meadows, in every cloud that hangs upon the mountain, he always finds +his own reflection, we cannot accept him as an interpreter of the +landscape. + +"There must be many persons present at the meetings of the Society to +which this paper is offered who have had experiences like that of its +author. They have visited the same localities, they have had many of +the same thoughts and feelings. Many, I have no doubt. Not all,-- +no, not all. Others have sought the companionship of Nature; I have +been driven to it. Much of my life has been passed in that +communion. These pages record some of the intimacies I have formed +with her under some of her various manifestations. + +"I have lived on the shore of the great ocean, where its waves broke +wildest and its voice rose loudest. + +"I have passed whole seasons on the banks of mighty and famous +rivers. + +"I have dwelt on the margin of a tranquil lake, and floated through +many a long, long summer day on its clear waters. + +"I have learned the 'various language' of Nature, of which poetry has +spoken,--at least, I have learned some words and phrases of it. I +will translate some of these as I best may into common speech. + +"The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores:-- + +"You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do not trouble myself with +the living tribes that come down to my waters. I have my own people, +of an older race than yours, that grow to mightier dimensions than +your mastodons and elephants; more numerous than all the swarms that +fill the air or move over the thin crust of the earth. Who are you +that build your palaces on my margin? I see your white faces as +I saw the dark faces of the tribes that came before you, as I shall +look upon the unknown family of mankind that will come after you. +And what is your whole human family but a parenthesis in a single +page of my history? The raindrops stereotyped themselves on my +beaches before a living creature left his footprints there. This +horseshoe-crab I fling at your feet is of older lineage than your +Adam,--perhaps, indeed, you count your Adam as one of his +descendants. What feeling have I for you? Not scorn, not hatred,-- +not love,--not loathing. No!---indifference,--blank indifference to +you and your affairs that is my feeling, say rather absence of +feeling, as regards you.---Oh yes, I will lap your feet, I will cool +you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my strong arms, I +will rock you on my rolling undulations, like a babe in his cradle. +Am I not gentle? Am I not kind? Am I not harmless? But hark! The +wind is rising, and the wind and I are rough playmates! What do you +say to my voice now? Do you see my foaming lips? Do you feel the +rocks tremble as my huge billows crash against them? Is not my anger +terrible as I dash your argosy, your thunder-bearing frigate, into +fragments, as you would crack an eggshell?--No, not anger; deaf, +blind, unheeding indifference,--that is all. Out of me all things +arose; sooner or later, into me all things subside. All changes +around me; I change not. I look not at you, vain man, and your frail +transitory concerns, save in momentary glimpses: I look on the white +face of my dead mistress, whom I follow as the bridegroom follows the +bier of her who has changed her nuptial raiment for the shroud. + +"Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at my side. +Continents and islands grow old, and waste and disappear. The +hardest rock crumbles; vegetable and animal kingdoms come into being, +wax great, decline, and perish, to give way to others, even as human +dynasties and nations and races come and go. Look on me! "Time +writes no wrinkle" on my forehead. Listen to me! All tongues are +spoken on my shores, but I have only one language: the winds taught +me their vowels the crags and the sands schooled me in my rough or +smooth consonants. Few words are mine but I have whispered them and +sung them and shouted them to men of all tribes from the time when +the first wild wanderer strayed into my awful presence. Have you a +grief that gnaws at your heart-strings? Come with it to my shore, as +of old the priest of far-darting Apollo carried his rage and anguish +to the margin of the loud-roaring sea. There, if anywhere you will +forget your private and short-lived woe, for my voice speaks to the +infinite and the eternal in your consciousness.' + + +"To him who loves the pages of human history, who listens to the +voices of the world about him, who frequents the market and the +thoroughfare, who lives in the study of time and its accidents rather +than in the deeper emotions, in abstract speculation and spiritual +contemplation, the RIVER addresses itself as his natural companion. + +"Come live with me. I am active, cheerful, communicative, a natural +talker and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, except +occasionally when I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get +a fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in watching my +changing features. My idlest babble, when I am toying with the +trifles that fall in my way, if not very full of meaning, is at least +musical. I am not a dangerous friend, like the ocean; no highway is +absolutely safe, but my nature is harmless, and the storms that strew +the beaches with wrecks cast no ruins upon my flowery borders. Abide +with me, and you shall not die of thirst, like the forlorn wretches +left to the mercies of the pitiless salt waves. Trust yourself to +me, and I will carry you far on your journey, if we are travelling to +the same point of the compass. If I sometimes run riot and overflow +your meadows, I leave fertility behind me when I withdraw to my +natural channel. Walk by my side toward the place of my destination. +I will keep pace with you, and you shall feel my presence with you as +that of a self-conscious being like yourself. You will find it hard +to be miserable in my company; I drain you of ill-conditioned +thoughts as I carry away the refuse of your dwelling and its grounds." + + +But to him whom the ocean chills and crushes with its sullen +indifference, and the river disturbs with its never-pausing and +never-ending story, the silent LAKE shall be a refuge and a place of +rest for his soul. + +"'Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your limited +faculties,' it says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running +stream. Leave the ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living +thing that walks the solid earth; leave the river, too busy with its +own errand, too talkative about its own affairs, and find peace with +me, whose smile will cheer you, whose whisper will soothe you. Come +to me when the morning sun blazes across my bosom like a golden +baldric; come to me in the still midnight, when I hold the inverted +firmament like a cup brimming with jewels, nor spill one star of all +the constellations that float in my ebon goblet. Do you know the +charm of melancholy? Where will you find a sympathy like mine in +your hours of sadness? Does the ocean share your grief? Does the +river listen to your sighs? The salt wave, that called to you from +under last month's full moon, to-day is dashing on the rocks of +Labrador; the stream, that ran by you pure and sparkling, has +swallowed the poisonous refuse of a great city, and is creeping to +its grave in the wide cemetery that buries all things in its tomb of +liquid crystal. It is true that my waters exhale and are renewed +from one season to another; but are your features the same, +absolutely the same, from year to year? We both change, but we know +each other through all changes. Am I not mirrored in those eyes of +yours? And does not Nature plant me as an eye to behold her beauties +while she is dressed in the glories of leaf and flower, and draw the +icy lid over my shining surface when she stands naked and ashamed in +the poverty of winter?' + +"I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts in the course of a +life not very long, but with a record which much longer lives could +not match in incident. Oftentimes the temptation has come over me +with dangerous urgency to try a change of existence, if such change +is a part of human destiny,--to seek rest, if that is what we gain by +laying down the burden of life. I have asked who would be the friend +to whom I should appeal for the last service I should have need of. +Ocean was there, all ready, asking no questions, answering none. +What strange voyages, downward through its glaucous depths, upwards +to its boiling and frothing surface, wafted by tides, driven by +tempests, disparted by rude agencies; one remnant whitening on the +sands of a northern beach, one perhaps built into the circle of a +coral reef in the Pacific, one settling to the floor of the vast +laboratory where continents are built, to emerge in far-off ages! +What strange companions for my pall-bearers! Unwieldy sea-monsters, +the stories of which are counted fables by the spectacled collectors +who think their catalogues have exhausted nature; naked-eyed +creatures, staring, glaring, nightmare-like spectres of the ghastly- +green abysses; pulpy islands, with life in gelatinous immensity,-- +what a company of hungry heirs at every ocean funeral! No! No! +Ocean claims great multitudes, but does not invite the solitary who +would fain be rid of himself. + +"Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the lake I love than +I have ever found when drifting idly over its surface? No, again. I +do not want the sweet, clear waters to know me in the disgrace of +nature, when life, the faithful body-servant, has ceased caring for +me. That must not be. The mirror which has pictured me so often +shall never know me as an unwelcome object. + +"If I must ask the all-subduing element to be my last friend, and +lead me out of my prison, it shall be the busy, whispering, not +unfriendly, pleasantly companionable river. + +"But Ocean and River and Lake have certain relations to the periods +of human life which they who are choosing their places of abode +should consider. Let the child play upon the seashore. The wide +horizon gives his imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. That +background of mystery, without which life is a poor mechanical +arrangement, is shaped and colored, so far as it can have outline, or +any hue but shadow, on a vast canvas, the contemplation of which +enlarges and enriches the sphere of consciousness. The mighty ocean +is not too huge to symbolize the aspirations and ambitions of the yet +untried soul of the adolescent. + +"The time will come when his indefinite mental horizon has found a +solid limit, which shuts his prospect in narrower bounds than he +would have thought could content him in the years of undefined +possibilities. Then he will find the river a more natural intimate +than the ocean. It is individual, which the ocean, with all its +gulfs and inlets and multitudinous shores, hardly seems to be. It +does not love you very dearly, and will not miss you much when you +disappear from its margin; but it means well to you, bids you good- +morning with its coming waves, and good-evening with those which are +leaving. It will lead your thoughts pleasantly away, upwards to its +source, downwards to the stream to which it is tributary, or the wide +waters in which it is to lose itself. A river, by choice, to live by +in middle age. + +"In hours of melancholy reflection, in those last years of life which +have little left but tender memories, the still companionship of the +lake, embosomed in woods, sheltered, fed by sweet mountain brooks and +hidden springs, commends itself to the wearied and saddened spirit. +I am not thinking of those great inland seas, which have many of the +features and much of the danger that belong to the ocean, but of +those 'ponds,' as our countrymen used to call them until they were +rechristened by summer visitors; beautiful sheets of water from a +hundred to a few thousand acres in extent, scattered like raindrops +over the map of our Northern sovereignties. The loneliness of +contemplative old age finds its natural home in the near neighborhood +of one of these tranquil basins." + +Nature does not always plant her poets where they belong, but if we +look carefully their affinities betray themselves. The youth will +carry his Byron to the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved +so well. The man of maturer years will remember that the sonorous +couplets of Pope which ring in his ears were written on the banks of +the Thames. The old man, as he nods over the solemn verse of +Wordsworth, will recognize the affinity between the singer and the +calm sheet that lay before him as he wrote,--the stainless and sleepy +Windermere. + +"The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amusement to compare their +own feelings with those of one who has lived by the Atlantic and the +Mediterranean, by the Nile and the Tiber, by Lake Leman and by one of +the fairest sheets of water that our own North America embosoms in +its forests." + + +Miss Lurida Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, read this +paper, and pondered long upon it. She was thinking very seriously of +studying medicine, and had been for some time in frequent +communication with Dr. Butts, under whose direction she had begun +reading certain treatises, which added to such knowledge of the laws +of life in health and in disease as she had brought with her from the +Corinna Institute. Naturally enough, she carried the anonymous paper +to the doctor, to get his opinion about it, and compare it with her +own. They both agreed that it was probably, they would not say +certainly, the work of the solitary visitor. There was room for +doubt, for there were visitors who might well have travelled to all +the places mentioned, and resided long enough on the shores of the +waters the writer spoke of to have had all the experiences mentioned +in the paper. The Terror remembered a young lady, a former +schoolmate, who belonged to one of those nomadic families common in +this generation, the heads of which, especially the female heads, can +never be easy where they are, but keep going between America and +Europe, like so many pith-balls in the electrical experiment, +alternately attracted and repelled, never in contented equilibrium. +Every few years they pull their families up by the roots, and by the +time they have begun to take hold a little with their radicles in the +spots to which they have been successively transplanted up they come +again, so that they never get a tap-root anywhere. The Terror +suspected the daughter of one of these families of sending certain +anonymous articles of not dissimilar character to the one she had +just received. But she knew the style of composition common among +the young girls, and she could hardly believe that it was one of them +who had sent this paper. Could a brother of this young lady have +written it? Possibly; she knew nothing more than that the young lady +had a brother, then a student at the University. All the chances +were that Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was the author. So thought Lurida, +and so thought Dr. Butts. + +Whatever faults there were in this essay, it interested them both. +There was nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on +the part of the writer, whoever he or she might be. There were +references to suicide, it is true, but they were of a purely +speculative nature, and did not look to any practical purpose in that +direction. Besides, if the stranger were the author of the paper, he +certainly would not choose a sheet of water like Cedar Lake to +perform the last offices for him, in case he seriously meditated +taking unceremonious leave of life and its accidents. He could find +a river easily enough, to say nothing of other methods of effecting +his purpose; but he had committed himself as to the impropriety of +selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about the white canoe +and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the surface of the deep +waters. + +The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come before +the public if he had not counted among his resources certain papers +belonging to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make +free use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, or for a +diversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is +languid, or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress. The +reader can hardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern +had become the focal point where a good deal of mental activity +converged. There were the village people, including a number of +cultivated families; there were the visitors, among them many +accomplished and widely travelled persons; there was the University, +with its learned teachers and aspiring young men; there was the +Corinna Institute, with its eager, ambitious, hungry-souled young +women, crowding on, class after class coming forward on the broad +stream of liberal culture, and rounding the point which, once passed, +the boundless possibilities of womanhood opened before them. All +this furnished material enough and to spare for the records and the +archives of the society. + +The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meetings. It may be +remembered that the girls had said of her, when she was The Terror, +that "she knew everything and didn't believe anything." That was +just the kind of person for a secretary of such an association. +Properly interpreted, the saying meant that she knew a great deal, +and wanted to know a great deal more, and was consequently always on +the lookout for information; that she believed nothing without +sufficient proof that it was true, and therefore was perpetually +asking for evidence where, others took assertions on trust. + +It was astonishing to see what one little creature like The Terror +could accomplish in the course of a single season. She found out +what each member could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside +visitors whom she suspected of capacity, and urged them to speak at +the meetings, or send written papers to be read. As an official, +with the printed title at the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, +she was a privileged personage. She begged the young persons who had +travelled to tell something of their experiences. She had +contemplated getting up a discussion on the woman's rights question, +but being a wary little body, and knowing that the debate would +become a dispute and divide the members into two hostile camps, she +deferred this project indefinitely. It would be time enough after +she had her team well in hand, she said to herself,--had felt their +mouths and tried their paces. This expression, as she used it in her +thoughts, seems rather foreign to her habits, but there was room in +her large brain for a wide range of illustrations and an ample +vocabulary. She could not do much with her own muscles, but she had +known the passionate delight of being whirled furiously over the road +behind four scampering horses, in a rocking stage-coach, and thought +of herself in the Secretary's chair as not unlike the driver on his +box. A few weeks of rest had allowed her nervous energy to store +itself up, and the same powers which had distanced competition in the +classes of her school had of necessity to expend themselves in +vigorous action in her new office. + + +Her appeals had their effect. A number of papers were very soon sent +in; some with names, some anonymously. She looked these papers over, +and marked those which she thought would be worth reading and +listening to at the meetings. One of them has just been presented to +the reader. As to the authorship of the following one there were +many conjectures. A well-known writer, who had spent some weeks at +Arrowhead Village, was generally suspected of being its author. +Some, however, questioned whether it was not the work of a new hand, +who wrote, not from experience, but from his or her ideas of the +condition to which a story-teller, a novelist, must in all +probability be sooner or later reduced. The reader must judge for +himself whether this first paper is the work of an old hand or a +novice. + + + SOME EXPERIENCES OF A NOVELIST. + +"I have written a frightful number of stories, forty or more, I +think. Let me see. For twelve years two novels a year regularly: +that makes twenty-four. In three different years I have written +three stories annually: that makes thirty-three. In five years one a +year,--thirty-eight. That is all, is n't it? Yes. Thirty-eight, +not forty. I wish I could make them all into one composite story, as +Mr. Galton does his faces. + +"Hero--heroine--mamma--papa--uncle--sister, and so on. Love-- +obstacles--misery--tears--despair--glimmer of hope--unexpected +solution of difficulties--happy finale. + +"Landscape for background according to season. Plants of each month +got up from botanical calendars. + +"I should like much to see the composite novel. Why not apply Mr. +Galton's process, and get thirty-eight stories all in one? All the +Yankees would resolve into one Yankee, all the P---- West Britons +into one Patrick, etc., what a saving of time it would be! + +"I got along pretty well with my first few stories. I had some +characters around me which, a little disguised, answered well enough. +There was the minister of the parish, and there was an old +schoolmaster either of them served very satisfactorily for +grandfathers and old uncles. All I had to do was to shift some of +their leading peculiarities, keeping the rest. The old minister wore +knee-breeches. I clapped them on to the schoolmaster. The +schoolmaster carried a tall gold-headed cane. I put this in the +minister's hands. So with other things,--I shifted them round, and +got a set of characters who, taken together, reproduced the chief +persons of the village where I lived, but did not copy any individual +exactly. Thus it went on for a while; but by and by my stock company +began to be rather too familiarly known, in spite of their change of +costume, and at last some altogether too sagacious person published +what he called a 'key' to several of my earlier stories, in which I +found the names of a number of neighbors attached to aliases of my +own invention. All the 'types,' as he called them, represented by +these personages of my story had come to be recognized, each as +standing for one and the same individual of my acquaintance. It had +been of no use to change the costume. Even changing the sex did no +good. I had a famous old gossip in one of my tales,--a much-babbling +Widow Sertingly. 'Sho!' they all said, that 's old Deacon Spinner, +the same he told about in that other story of his,--only the deacon's +got on a petticoat and a mob-cap,--but it's the same old sixpence.' +So I said to myself, I must have some new characters. I had no +trouble with young characters; they are all pretty much alike,--dark- +haired or light-haired, with the outfits belonging to their +complexion, respectively. I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-top +eccentric. I had never seen anything just like her in books. So I +said, I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure +enough, I fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which I +got from the directory, and sent her forth to the world, disguised, +as I supposed, beyond the possibility of recognition. The book sold +well, and the eccentric personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks +after it was published a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the +person in the directory, whose family name I had used, as he +maintained, to his and all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, +grief, shame, and irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank +thousand dollars would be a modest compensation. The story made the +book sell, but not enough to pay blank thousand dollars. In the mean +time a cousin of mine had sniffed out the resemblance between the +character in my book and our great-aunt. We were rivals in her good +graces. 'Cousin Pansie' spoke to her of my book and the trouble it +was bringing on me,--she was so sorry about it! She liked my story, +--only those personalities, you know. 'What personalities?' says old +granny-aunt. 'Why, auntie, dear, they do say that he has brought in +everybody we know,--did n't anybody tell you about--well,--I suppose +you ought to know it,--did n't anybody tell you you were made fun of +in that novel?' Somebody--no matter who--happened to hear all this, +and told me. She said granny-aunt's withered old face had two red +spots come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeks from a pink +saucer. No, she said, not a pink saucer, but as if they were two +coals of fire. She sent out and got the book, and made her (the +somebody that I was speaking of) read it to her. When she had heard +as much as she could stand,--for 'Cousin Pansie' explained passages +to her,--explained, you know,--she sent for her lawyer, and that same +somebody had to be a witness to a new will she had drawn up. It was +not to my advantage. 'Cousin Pansie' got the corner lot where the +grocery is, and pretty much everything else. The old woman left me a +legacy. What do you think it was? An old set of my own books, that +looked as if it had been bought out of a bankrupt circulating +library. + +"After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much more +diligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing +stories for my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, +and worked hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every +story that went from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my +reputation, and there was a set of critics,--there is a set of +critics now and everywhere,--that watch as narrowly for the decline +of a man's reputation as ever a village half drowned out by an +inundation watched for the falling of the waters. The fame I had +won, such as it was, seemed to attend me,--not going before me in the +shape of a woman with a trumpet, but rather following me like one of +Actaeon's hounds, his throat open, ready to pull me down and tear me. +What a fierce enemy is that which bays behind us in the voice of our +proudest bygone achievement! + +"But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I +must have characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. +Oh, yes! Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain +aspects of humanity will answer every purpose for which your +invention was intended. A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of +breeches, a hat which has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken +window, and had a brood of chickens raised in it,--these elements, +duly adjusted to each other, will represent humanity so truthfully +that the crows will avoid the cornfield when your scarecrow displays +his personality. Do you think you can make your heroes and +heroines,--nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries,--out of refuse +material, as you made your scarecrow? You can't do it. You must +study living people and reproduce them. And whom do you know so well +as your friends? You will show up your friends, then, one after +another. When your friends give out, who is left for you? Why, +nobody but your own family, of course. When you have used up your +family, there is nothing left for you but to write your +autobiography. + +"After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, +very naturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well +as sexes. In this way I continued to use up a large amount of +material, which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to +meddle with. Who would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in +the guise of a schoolboy? Yet I managed to decant his +characteristics as nicely as the old gentleman would have decanted a +bottle of Juno Madeira through that long siphon which he always used +when the most sacred vintages were summoned from their crypts to +render an account of themselves on his hospitable board. It was a +nice business, I confess, but I did it, and I drink cheerfully to +that good uncle's memory in a glass of wine from his own cellar, +which, with many other more important tokens of his good will, I call +my own since his lamented demise. + +"I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought I would try a +course of cousins. I had enough of them to furnish out a whole +gallery of portraits. There was cousin 'Creeshy,' as we called her; +Lucretia, more correctly. She was a cripple. Her left lower limb +had had something happen to it, and she walked with a crutch. Her +patience under her trial was very pathetic and picturesque, so to +speak,--I mean adapted to the tender parts of a story; nothing could +work up better in a melting paragraph. But I could not, of course, +describe her particular infirmity; that would point her out at once. +I thought of shifting the lameness to the right lower limb, but even +that would be seen through. So I gave the young woman that stood for +her in my story a lame elbow, and put her arm in a sling, and made +her such a model of uncomplaining endurance that my grandmother cried +over her as if her poor old heart would break. She cried very +easily, my grandmother; in fact, she had such a gift for tears that I +availed myself of it, and if you remember old Judy, in my novel +"Honi Soit" (Honey Sweet, the booksellers called it),--old Judy, the +black-nurse,--that was my grandmother. She had various other +peculiarities, which I brought out one by one, and saddled on to +different characters. You see she was a perfect mine of +singularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up pretty +well, I came dawn upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair +game; what better use could I put them to? I studied them up very +carefully, and as there were a good many of them I helped myself +freely. They lasted me, with occasional intermissions, I should say, +three or four years. I had to be very careful with my poor +relations,--they were as touchy as they could be; and as I felt bound +to send a copy of my novel, whatever it might be, to each one of +them,--there were as many as a dozen,--I took care to mix their +characteristic features, so that, though each might suspect I meant +the other, no one should think I meant him or her. I got through all +my relations at last except my father and mother. I had treated my +brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except Elisha and Joanna. +The truth is they both had lots of odd ways,--family traits, I +suppose, but were just different enough from each other to figure +separately in two different stories. These two novels made me some +little trouble; for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in +one of them, and quarrelled with me about it; and Joanna vowed and +declared that Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, and +that it was a real mean thing to make fun of folks' own flesh and +blood, and treated me to one of her cries. She was n't handsome when +she cried, poor, dear Joanna; in fact, that was one of the personal +traits I had made use of in the story that Elisha found fault with. + +"So as there was nobody left but my father and mother, you see for +yourself I had no choice. There was one great advantage in dealing +with them,--I knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a certain +delicacy it handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who +have been so near to him. One's mother, for instance: suppose some +of her little ways were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of +them would furnish amusement to great numbers of readers; it would +not be without hesitation that a writer of delicate sensibility would +draw her portrait, with all its whimsicalities, so plainly that it +should be generally recognized. One's father is commonly of tougher +fibre than one's mother, and one would not feel the same scruples, +perhaps, in using him professionally as material in a novel; still, +while you are employing him as bait,--you see I am honest and plain- +spoken, for your characters are baits to catch readers with,--I would +follow kind Izaak Walton's humane counsel about the frog you are +fastening to your fish-hook: fix him artistically, as he directs, but +in so doing I use him as though you loved him.' + +"I have at length shown up, in one form and another, all my townsmen +who have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up, all my +friends, all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It has +occurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection +of my father-in-law and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of +paying them a visit, and I shall have an admirable opportunity of +studying them and their relatives and visitors. I have long wanted a +good chance for getting acquainted with the social sphere several +grades below that to which I am accustomed, and I have no doubt that +I shall find matter for half a dozen new stories among those +connections of mine. Besides, they live in a Western city, and one +doesn't mind much how he cuts up the people of places he does n't +himself live in. I suppose there is not really so much difference in +people's feelings, whether they live in Bangor or Omaha, but one's +nerves can't be expected to stretch across the continent. It is all +a matter of greater or less distance. I read this morning that a +Chinese fleet was sunk, but I did n't think half so much about it as +I did about losing my sleeve button, confound it! People have +accused me of want of feeling; they misunderstand the artist-nature, +--that is all. I obey that implicitly; I am sorry if people don't +like my descriptions, but I have done my best. I have pulled to +pieces all the persons I am acquainted with, and put them together +again in my characters. The quills I write with come from live +geese, I would have you know. I expect to get some first-rate +pluckings from those people I was speaking of, and I mean to begin my +thirty-ninth novel as soon as I have got through my visit." + + + + +IX + +THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. + +There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events, in a +narrative like this. June passed away, and July, and August had +come, and as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead +Village and its visitors remained unsolved. The white canoe still +wandered over the lake, alone, ghostly, always avoiding the near +approach of the boats which seemed to be coming in its direction. +Now and then a circumstance would happen which helped to keep inquiry +alive. Good horsemanship was not so common among the young men of +the place and its neighborhood that Maurice's accomplishment in that +way could be overlooked. If there was a wicked horse or a wild colt +whose owner was afraid of him, he would be commended to Maurice's +attention. Paolo would lead him to his master with all due +precaution,--for he had no idea of risking his neck on the back of +any ill-conditioned beast,--and Maurice would fasten on his long +spurs, spring into the saddle, and very speedily teach the creature +good behavior. There soon got about a story that he was what the +fresh-water fisherman called "one o' them whisperers." It is a +common legend enough, coming from the Old World, but known in +American horse-talking circles, that some persons will whisper +certain words in a horse's ear which will tame him if he is as wild +and furious as ever Cruiser was. All this added to the mystery which +surrounded the young man. A single improbable or absurd story +amounts to very little, but when half a dozen such stories are told +about the same individual or the same event, they begin to produce +the effect of credible evidence. If the year had been 1692 and the +place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood would have run the +risk of being treated like the Reverend George Burroughs. + +Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely excited with +reference to the young man of whom so many stories were told. She +had pretty nearly convinced herself that he was the author of the +paper on Ocean, Lake, and River, which had been read at one of the +meetings of the Pansophian Society. She was very desirous of meeting +him, if it were possible. It seemed as if she might, as Secretary of +the Society, request the cooperation of any of the visitors, without +impropriety. So, after much deliberation, she wrote a careful note, +of which the following is an exact copy. Her hand was bold, almost +masculine, a curious contrast to that of Euthymia, which was +delicately feminine. + + +PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18-. + +MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR,--You have received, I trust, a card of invitation to the +meetings of our Society, but I think we have not yet had the pleasure +of seeing you at any of them. We have supposed that we might be +indebted to you for a paper read at the last meeting, and listened to +with much interest. As it was anonymous, we do not wish to be +inquisitive respecting its authorship; but we desire to say that any +papers kindly sent us by the temporary residents of our village will +be welcome, and if adapted to the wants of our Association will be +read at one of its meetings or printed in its records, or perhaps +both read and printed. May we not hope for your presence at the +meeting, which is to take place next Wednesday evening? +Respectfully yours, + +LURIDA VINCENT, +Secretary of the Pansophian Society. + + +To this note the Secretary received the following reply: + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT, + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18-. + +Secretary of the Pansophian Society: + +DEAR MISS VINCENT,--I have received the ticket you refer to, and +desire to express my acknowledgments for the polite attention. I +regret that I have not been and I fear shall not be able to attend +the meetings of the Society; but if any subject occurs to me on which +I feel an inclination to write, it will give me pleasure to send a +paper, to be disposed of as the Society may see fit. + +Very respectfully yours, + +MAURICE KIRKWOOD. + + +"He says nothing about the authorship of the paper that was read the +other evening," the Secretary said to herself. "No matter,--he +wrote it,--there is no mistaking his handwriting. We know something +about him, now, at any rate. But why doesn't he come to our +meetings? What has his antipathy to do with his staying away? I +must find out what his secret is, and I will. I don't believe it's +harder than it was to solve that prize problem which puzzled so many +teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, the great chess-player." + +To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to bend all the faculties +which had excited the admiration and sometimes the amazement of those +who knew her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece of +business; for though Lurida was an intrepid woman's rights advocate, +and believed she was entitled to do almost everything that men dared +to, she knew very well there were certain limits which a young woman +like herself must not pass. + +In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young student +at the University,--the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous +predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,-- +an instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and +the instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke +it with the ease which implied long familiarity with its use. + +After they left, the instructor asked many curious questions about +him,--who he was, how long he had been in the village, whether +anything was known of his history,--all these inquiries with an +eagerness which implied some special and peculiar reason for the +interest they evinced. + +"I feel satisfied," the instructor said, "that I have met that young +man in my own country. It was a number of years ago, and of course +he has altered in appearance a good deal; but there is a look about +him of--what shall I call it?---apprehension,--as if he were fearing +the approach of something or somebody. I think it is the way a man +would look that was haunted; you know what I mean,--followed by a +spirit or ghost. He does not suggest the idea of a murderer,--very +far from it; but if he did, I should think he was every minute in +fear of seeing the murdered man's spirit." + +The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the instructor +could recall. He had seen him in Rome, he thought, at the Fountain +of Trevi, where so many strangers go before leaving the city. The +youth was in the company of a man who looked like a priest. He could +not mistake the peculiar expression of his countenance, but that was +all he now remembered about his appearance. His attention had been +called to this young man by seeing that some of the bystanders were +pointing at him, and noticing that they were whispering with each +other as if with reference to him. He should say that the youth was +at that time fifteen or sixteen years old, and the time was about ten +years ago. + +After all, this evidence was of little or no value. Suppose the +youth were Maurice; what then? We know that he had been in Italy, +and had been there a good while,--or at least we infer so much from +his familiarity with the language, and are confirmed in the belief by +his having an Italian servant, whom he probably brought from Italy +when he returned. If he wrote the paper which was read the other +evening, that settles it, for the writer says he had lived by the +Tiber. We must put this scrap of evidence furnished by the Professor +with the other scraps; it may turn out of some consequence, sooner or +later. It is like a piece of a dissected map; it means almost +nothing by itself, but when we find the pieces it joins with we may +discover a very important meaning in it. + +In a small, concentrated community like that which centred in and +immediately around Arrowhead Village, every day must have its local +gossip as well as its general news. The newspaper tells the small +community what is going on in the great world, and the busy tongues +of male and female, especially the latter, fill in with the +occurrences and comments of the ever-stirring microcosm. The fact +that the Italian teacher had, or thought he had, seen Maurice ten +years before was circulated and made the most of,--turned over and +over like a cake, until it was thoroughly done on both sides and all +through. It was a very small cake, but better than nothing. Miss +Vincent heard this story, as others did, and talked about it with her +friend, Miss Tower. Here was one more fact to help along. + +The two young ladies who had recently graduated at the Corinna +Institute remained, as they had always been, intimate friends. They +were the natural complements of each other. Euthymia represented a +complete, symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence was only an +index of a large, wholesome, affluent life. She could not help being +courageous, with such a firm organization. She could not help being +generous, cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she +was fair to look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by +the schoolmates who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but +she did not overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own +gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. +The two agreed all the better for differing as they did. The octave +makes a perfect chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the +ear. Each admired the other with a heartiness which if they had been +less unlike, would have been impossible. + +It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence on each other. +The Terror of the schoolroom was the oracle in her relations with her +friend. All the freedom of movement which The Wonder showed in her +bodily exercises The Terror manifested in the world of thought. She +would fling open a book, and decide in a swift glance whether it had +any message for her. Her teachers had compared her way of reading to +the taking of an instantaneous photograph. When she took up the +first book on Physiology which Dr. Butts handed her, it seemed to him +that if she only opened at any place, and gave one look, her mind +drank its meaning up, as a moist sponge absorbs water. "What can I +do with such a creature as this?" he said to himself. "There is +only one way to deal with her, treat her as one treats a silkworm: +give it its mulberry leaf, and it will spin its own cocoon. Give her +the books, and she will spin her own web of knowledge." + +"Do you really think of studying medicine?" said Dr. Butts to her. + +"I have n't made up my mind about that," she answered, "but I want to +know a little more about this terrible machinery of life and death we +are all tangled in. I know something about it, but not enough. I +find some very strange beliefs among the women I meet with, and I +want to be able to silence them when they attempt to proselyte me to +their whims and fancies. Besides, I want to know everything." + +"They tell me you do, already," said Dr. Butts. + +"I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws the breath of life!" +exclaimed The Terror. + +The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She had reached that +stage of education in which the vast domain of the unknown opens its +illimitable expanse before the eyes of the student. We never know +the extent of darkness until it is partially illuminated. + +"You did not leave the Institute with the reputation of being the +most ignorant young lady that ever graduated there," said the doctor. +"They tell me you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record +since the school was founded." + +"What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish in our small +aquarium, to be sure!" answered The Terror. "He was six inches long, +the monster,--a little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with! +What did you hand me that schoolbook for? Did you think I did n't +know anything about the human body?" + +"You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try +you with an easy book, by way of introduction." + +The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction. + +"I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. When I talk about my +ignorance, I don't measure myself with schoolgirls, doctor. I don't +measure myself with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if I +were a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me anything. Where is +your hat, doctor? Let me try it on." + +The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Terror's hair was not +naturally abundant, like Euthymia's, and she kept it cut rather +short. Her head used to get very hot when she studied hard. She +tried to put the hat on. + +"Do you see that?" she said. "I could n't wear it--it would squeeze +my eyes out of my head. The books told me that women's brains were +smaller than men's: perhaps they are,--most of them,--I never +measured a great many. But when they try to settle what women are +good for, by phrenology, I like to have them put their tape round my +head. I don't believe in their nonsense, for all that. You might as +well tell me that if one horse weighs more than another horse he is +worth more,--a cart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred +pounds better than Eclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give +me a list of the best books you can think of, and turn me loose in +your library. I can find what I want, if you have it; and what I +don't find there I will get at the Public Library. I shall want to +ask you a question now and then." + +The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, but thoughtfully, +as if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her +slight constitutional resource. + +She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contradiction in her +statements about herself. + +"I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I sail on a wide +sea of ignorance, but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows +and some of its depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life +that interest me most just now, and I want to know something of it. +Perhaps I may find it a calling such as would suit me." + +"Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?" said +the doctor. + +"Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, but I want to +know something more about it first. Perhaps I sha'n't believe in +medicine enough to practise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well +enough. No matter about that. I wish to study some of your best +books on some of the subjects that most interest me. I know about +bones and muscles and all that, and about digestion and respiration +and such things. I want to study up the nervous system, and learn +all about it. I am of the nervous temperament myself, and perhaps +that is the reason. I want to read about insanity and all that +relates to it." + +A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The +Terror said this. + +"Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, I know,--all those +large-headed, hard-thinking girls do, as a matter of course; but what +has set her off about insanity and the nervous system? I wonder if +any of her more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder. +Bright people very often have crazy relations. Perhaps some of her +friends are in that way. I wonder whether"--the doctor did not speak +any of these thoughts, and in fact hardly shaped his "whether," for +The Terror interrupted his train of reflection, or rather struck into +it in a way which startled him. + +"Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?" she asked, +looking at its empty place on the shelf. + +"On my table," the doctor answered. "I have been consulting it." + +Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned the pages rapidly +until she came to the one she wanted. The doctor cast his eye on the +beading of the page, and saw the large letters A N T. + +"I thought so," he said to himself. "We shall know everything there +is in the books about antipathies now, if we never did before. She +has a special object in studying the nervous system, just as I +suspected. I think she does not care to mention it at this time; but +if she finds out anything of interest she will tell me, if she does +anybody. Perhaps she does not mean to tell anybody. It is a rather +delicate business,--a young girl studying the natural history of a +young man. Not quite so safe as botany or palaeontology!" + +Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had her own plans, and +chose to keep them to herself, for the present, at least. Her hands +were full enough, it might seem, without undertaking the solution of +the great Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the most perfect +training, so far as her intelligence was concerned; and the summer +rest had restored her bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an +overcharged battery which will find conductors somewhere to carry off +its crowded energy. + +At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the most successful +season it had ever known. The Pansophian Society flourished to an +extraordinary degree under the fostering care of the new Secretary. +The rector was a good figure-head as President, but the Secretary was +the life of the Society. Communications came in abundantly: some +from the village and its neighborhood, some from the University and +the Institute, some from distant and unknown sources. The new +Secretary was very busy with the work of examining these papers. +After a forenoon so employed, the carpet of her room looked like a +barn floor after a husking-match. A glance at the manuscripts +strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have frightened any young +writer away from the thought of authorship as a business. If the +candidate for that fearful calling had seen the process of selection +and elimination, he would have felt still more desperately. A paper +of twenty pages would come in, with an underscored request to please +read through, carefully. That request alone is commonly sufficient +to condemn any paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; +but the Secretary was not hardened enough yet for that kind of +martial law in dealing with manuscripts. The looker-on might have +seen her take up the paper, cast one flashing glance at its title, +read the first sentence and the last, dip at a venture into two or +three pages, and decide as swiftly as the lightning calculator would +add up a column of figures what was to be its destination. If +rejected, it went into the heap on the left; if approved, it was laid +apart, to be submitted to the Committee for their judgment. The +foolish writers who insist on one's reading through their manuscript +poems and stories ought to know how fatal the request is to their +prospects. It provokes the reader, to begin with. The reading of +manuscript is frightful work, at the best; the reading of worthless +manuscript--and most of that which one is requested to read through +is worthless--would add to the terrors of Tartarus, if any infernal +deity were ingenious enough to suggest it as a punishment. + +If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not come before the +Committee, but was returned to the author, if he sent for it, which +he commonly did. Its natural course was to try for admission into +some one of the popular magazines: into "The Sifter," the most +fastidious of them all; if that declined it, into "The Second Best;" +and if that returned it, into "The Omnivorous." If it was refused +admittance at the doors of all the magazines, it might at length find +shelter in the corner of a newspaper, where a good deal of very +readable verse is to be met with nowadays, some of which has been, no +doubt, presented to the Pansophian Society, but was not considered up +to its standard. + + + + +X + +A NEW ARRIVAL. + +There was a recent accession to the transient population of the +village which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a +young fellow, rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much +at home as if he owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He +commonly had a cigar in his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the +non-explosive sort, and a stick with a bulldog's bead for its knob; +wore a soft bat, a coarse check suit, a little baggy, and gaiterboots +which had been half-soled,--a Bohemian-looking personage, altogether. + +This individual began making explorations in every direction. He was +very curious about the place and all the people in it. He was +especially interested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he +made all sorts of inquiries. This led him to form a summer +acquaintance with the Secretary, who was pleased to give him whatever +information he asked for; being proud of the Society, as she had a +right to be, and knowing more about it than anybody else. + +The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearing +something of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, +connected with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell him +anything about Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note- +book he always had with him. + +All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about this +new visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an +attribute thought to belong more especially to her sex, became +somewhat interested to know more exactly who this inquiring, note- +taking personage, who seemed to be everywhere and to know everybody, +might himself be. Meeting him at the Public Library at a fortunate +moment, when there was nobody but the old Librarian, who was hard of +hearing, to interfere with their conversation, the little Secretary +had a chance to try to find out something about him. + +"This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess," +he remarked to Miss Lurida. + +"It is, indeed," she said. "Have you found it well furnished with +the books you most want?" + +"Oh, yes,--books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do +for the Newspapers. I like a Review well enough,--it tells you all +there is in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper +saves a fellow the trouble of reading it." + +"You find the papers you want, here, I hope," said the young lady. + +"Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do much +reading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?" + +"I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, +there is a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account +of some of the doings at our Society. The city papers are always +glad to get the reports of our meetings, and to know what is going on +in the village." + +"I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are the +Secretary." + +This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man +about his business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She +ducked her head, and let the question go over her. + +"Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write,-- +especially to give an account of their own papers. I think they like +to have me put in the applause, when they get any. I do that +sometimes." (How much more, she did not say.) + +"I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what they +tell me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have +written herself." + +He looked her straight in the eyes. + +"I have transmitted some good papers," she said, without winking, or +swallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to +change; her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and +more too. "You spoke of Newspapers," she said, without any change of +tone or manner: "do you not frequently write for them yourself?" + +"I should think I did," answered the young man. "I am a regular +correspondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'" + +"The regular correspondent from where?" + +"Where! Oh, anywhere,--the place does not make much difference. I +have been writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and +then from Constantinople." + +"How long since your return to this country, may I ask?" + +"My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with a +gazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can +get the facts much better from them than by trusting your own +observation. I have made the tour of Europe by the help of them and +the newspapers. But of late I have taken to interviewing. I find +that a very pleasant specialty. It is about as good sport as trout- +tickling, and much the same kind of business. I should like to send +the Society an account of one of my interviews. Don't you think they +would like to hear it?" + +"I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; +and if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. +You know everything has to be examined and voted on by the +Committee," said the cautious Secretary. + +"Very well,--I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, please +send it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter,' or 'The +Second Best,' or some of the paying magazines." + +This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the +Pansophian Society. + + +"I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, +'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to +a certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could +concerning him and all that related to him. I have interviewed a +good many politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I +had never tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite +sure how this one would feel about it. I said as much to the chief, +but he pooh-poohed my scruples. 'It is n't our business whether they +like it or not,' said he; 'the public wants it, and what the public +wants it's bound to have, and we are bound to furnish it. Don't be +afraid of your man; he 's used to it,--he's been pumped often enough +to take it easy, and what you've got to do is to pump him dry. You +need n't be modest,--ask him what you like; he is n't bound to +answer, you know.' + +"As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up +a little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine +on my best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the +house where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and +pass for a visitor from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' +who call in to pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home +and say that they have met the distinguished So and So, which gives +them a certain distinction in the village circle to which they +belong. + +"My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his +reception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on +my face, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his +face in the light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged +things so as to give him that advantage. It was like two frigates +manoeuvring,--each trying to get to windward of the other. I never +take out my note-book until I and my man have got engaged in artless +and earnest conversation,--always about himself and his works, of +course, if he is an author. + +"I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those +who had read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of +them. + +"He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a +great many callers. + +"I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his +readers feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to +cherish a certain attachment to him. + +"He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he +said. In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had +told him so. + +"My dear sir, I said, there is nothing wonderful in the fact you +mention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts. + + 'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.' + +"Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), +were your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you +very frequently? + +"He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they +will all turn out well.' + +"I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said. + +"No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer +and pleasanter there.' + +"I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an +author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a +lady's boudoir, a sacred apartment. + +"So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my +face, when I wanted it on has. + +"You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the +room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a +Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, +and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to +give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of +Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations +and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving +book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to +find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are +the ones you particularly wish to see. + +"Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you +suppose is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster +opened? Yes? Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. +His man is his oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and +note-book, must open. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates +itself,--how gently at first, how strenuously when once fairly +between the shells! + +"And here, I said, you write your books,--those books which have +carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down +to posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the +pen you write with? + +"'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied. + +"He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took +up the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather +which the angel I used to read about in Young's "Night Thoughts" +ought to have dropped, and did n't. + +"Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that +pen? I asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure. + +"So I got out my note-book. + +"It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this +interview. I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just +how high they are? + +"'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.' + +"I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, +said I. Eight feet,--eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that +down. + +"So I got out my pencil. + +"I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but +not using them as yet. + +"I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a +very early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early +you began to write in verse? + +"He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are +themselves the subjects of conversation. + +"'Very early,--I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise +Colet said, + + "'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'" + +"I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be +kind enough to translate that line for me. + +"'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first +verses without knowing how to write them.' + +"How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she? + +"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information. + +"'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of +Alphonse Karr?' + +"Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up +in French literature. What had he to do with your lioness? + +"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a +case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he +came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing +her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his +dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. +He keeps it with an inscription: + + + "Donne a Alphonse Karr + Par Madame Louise Colet.... + Dans le dos. + +"Lively little female!' + +"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview +the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest +I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel +amiably disposed toward me. + +"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at +everything about his family history and the small events of his +boyhood. Some of the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a +good bold face on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a +great deal that was new concerning my subject. He had been written +about considerably, and the public wouldn't have been satisfied +without some new facts; and these I meant to have, and I got. No +matter about many of them now, but here are some questions and +answers that may be thought worth reading or listening to: + +"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated +man? + +"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self- +love is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes +all through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more +of the same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of +egotism. It generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities +which is in danger of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse +of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, +by every post, letters that tell him he is this and that and the +other, with epithets and endearments, one tenth part of which would +have made him blush red hot before he began to be what you call a +celebrity!' + +"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is +called celebrity? + +"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life +to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has +to after his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel +after a few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given +you thirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, +on condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: +how do you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at +the end of a year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day +but Sunday, cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had +not finished your task, after all? Yon have addressed me as what you +are pleased to call "a literary celebrity." I won't dispute with you +as to whether or not I deserve that title. I will take it for +granted I am what you call me, and give you some few hints on my +experience. + +"'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for +Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something +would come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I +am sorry to say that it has not effected its purpose.' + +"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of +that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and +as much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. +I am sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop +to the abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; +it was well conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. +(I saw by his expression that he was its author.) + +"'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of +some of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to +whom you have applied the term "Literary Celebrity." + +"'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales +of his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes +into his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to +him for his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his +name comes to him for assistance. + +"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by +receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is +expected to fill up. + +"'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and +give his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word +which can be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the +newspapers. + +"'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he +is called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these +manuscripts having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to +whom they have been sent, and having as a rule no literary value +whatever. + +"'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to +write for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner +speeches, to send money for objects he does not believe in to places +he never heard of. + +"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, +who begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then +appropriate it by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and +sheet after sheet, if of the other. + +"'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any +moment and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be +suggested to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great- +grandmother on her reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant +aged six weeks, an ode for the Fourth of July in a Western township +not to be found in Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for +some bucolic lover who believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to +win the object of his affections.' + +"Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity. + +"'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, +and they will both have a good laugh over them.' + +"I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the +Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing self- +contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and +spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his +linen on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to +him that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found +himself exposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the +columns of The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'" + +After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who +the person spoken of as the "Literary Celebrity" might be. Among the +various suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was +neither more nor less than the unexplained personage known in the +village as Maurice Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why +should not he be the Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to +this retreat to escape from the persecutions of kind friends, who +were pricking him and stabbing him nigh to death with their daggers +of sugar candy? + +The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the +Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened +soon after the meeting when his paper was read. + +"I do not know," she said, in the course of a conversation in which +she had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary +entertainment of the Society, "that you mentioned the name of the +Literary Celebrity whom you interviewed so successfully." + +"I did not mention him, Miss Vincent," he answered, "nor do I think +it worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole +story told of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. +Besides, if I did, it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic +letters, regretting that he was bothered by those horrid +correspondents, full of indignation at the bores who presumed to +intrude upon him with their pages of trash, all the writers of which +would expect answers to their letters of condolence." + +The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman +who called himself Maurice Kirkwood. + +"What," he answered, "the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides +all the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I +have met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they +tell me. Do you know anything particular about him?" + +"Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that +be has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows +what or whom." + +"To newspaper correspondents, perhaps," said the interviewer. "What +made you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary +Celebrity,' did you?" + +"I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview +this mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your +paper, I should think." + +"Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story of +crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a few +paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him +professionally." + +"I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how +much wiser you are for that piece of information." + +"An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as +for a naked caterpillar,--I believe I should go into a fit if I had +to touch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great +green caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and +early autumn." + +"Afraid of them?" asked the young lady. + +"Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I +can't give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of +these creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,-- +sometimes using very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy +for the moment." + +"I understand what you mean," said Miss Vincent. "I used to have the +same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a +little menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that +is, pretty much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very +dearly, though I don't scream when I see one." + +"What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular +antipathy?" + +That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we +can't guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to +discover some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way +of everybody, as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they +don't seem to be able to tell which. It would make the old ladies of +the village sleep a great deal sounder,--yes, and some of the young +ladies, too,--if they could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got +into his head, that he never comes near any of the people here." + +"I think I can find out," said the Interviewer, whose professional +ambition was beginning to be excited. "I never came across anybody +yet that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a +week or two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is +any, of this Mr. Maurice Kirkwood." + +We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present +us with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or +failure. + + + + +XI + +THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. + +When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as +she pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a +strain she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her +best, but how great the force of her best was she was not aware until +she saw its effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, +in all its manifestations. She did not pride herself on her +knowledge, nor reproach herself for her ignorance. In every way she +formed a striking contrast to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word +they spoke betrayed the difference between them: the sharp tones of +Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, +revealed the corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the +quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature +restful and sympathetic. + +The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which +will one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The +dependence of two young friends may be mutual, but one will always +lean more heavily than the other; the masculine and feminine elements +will be as sure to assert themselves as if the friends were of +different sexes. + +On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her +superior. She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, +and deferred to her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an +oracle, but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions. It +was a different thing, however, when the graver questions of life +came up. Lurida was full of suggestions, plans, projects, which were +too liable to run into whims before she knew where they were tending. +She would lay out her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and +eloquently that she could not help believing them herself, and +feeling as if her friend must accept them with an enthusiasm like her +own. Then Euthymia would take them up with her sweet, deliberate +accents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on them. + +Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new +interests and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for +papers to be read at the meetings of her Society,--for she made it +her own in great measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,--and in the +mean time she was reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected +for her, all bearing on the profession to which, at least as a +possibility, she was looking forward. Privately and in a very still +way, she was occupying herself with the problem of the young +stranger, the subject of some delusion, or disease, or obliquity of +unknown nature, to which the vague name of antipathy had been +attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in the fear that +over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and partly from +anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her desire +to get at the truth of a very puzzling question. + +"How do you like the books I see you reading?" said Euthymia to +Lurida, one day, as they met at the Library. + +"Better than all the novels I ever read," she answered. "I have been +reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come +nearer the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I +feel just as if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a +battery in my head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not +know how many centres of energy there are, and how they are played +upon by all sorts of influences, external and internal. Do you know, +I believe I could solve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' +as the paper called him, if he would only stay here long enough?" + +"What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or +heard of its being mentioned in any of the papers." + +"You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here +for some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview +with a celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper +in which he writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household +Inquisitor.' He talks about this village in a very free and easy way. +He says there is a Sphinx here, who has mystified us all." + +"And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that +he'll have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that +nothing is safe where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book +and pencil? Oh, Lurida, Lurida, do be careful!" What with this +mysterious young man and this very questionable newspaper-paragraph +writer, you will be talked about, if you don't mind, before you know +it. You had better let the riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must +deal with such dangerous people, the safest way is to set one of them +to find out the other.--I wonder if we can't get this new man to +interview the visitor you have so much curiosity about. That might +be managed easily enough without your having anything to do with it. +Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, now, you must not +meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get your name in +the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like." + +"Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a +chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can +get him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his +antipathy, so much the better. I am very curious about it, and +therefore about him. I want to know what has produced this strange +state of feeling in a young man who ought to have all the common +instincts of a social being. I believe there are unexplained facts +in the region of sympathies and antipathies which will repay study +with a deeper insight into the mysteries of life than we have dreamed +of hitherto. I often wonder whether there are not heart-waves and +soul-waves as well as 'brain-waves,' which some have already +recognized." + +Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman +talking the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida +was one of those persons who never are young, and who, by way of +compensation, will never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two +well-known graduates of one of our great universities are living +examples of this precocious but enduring intellectual development. +If the readers of this narrative cannot pick them out, they need not +expect the writer of it to help them. If they guess rightly who they +are, they will recognize the fact that just such exceptional +individuals as the young woman we are dealing with are met with from +time to time in families where intelligence has been cumulative for +two or three generations. + +Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable +visitor should learn all that was known in the village about the +nebulous individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the +village were trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from +some other informant than Lurida. + +The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside +his door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and +handsome youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so +strikingly that one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a +seat by his side. Presently the two were engaged in conversation. +The Interviewer asked all sorts of questions about everybody in the +village. When he came to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a +remarkable interest regarding him. The greatest curiosity, he said, +existed with reference to this personage. Everybody was trying to +find out what his story was,--for a story, and a strange one, he must +surely have,--and nobody had succeeded. + +The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told +him the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, +about his horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat +was overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help +out the effect of his narrative. + +The Interviewer was becoming excited. "Can't find out anything about +him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to +find? Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I +think he is an actor,--a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those +fellows go off in their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the +country folks. They are the very same chaps, like as not, the +visitors have seen in plays at the city theatres; but of course they +don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings and Emperors look pretty +shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you." + +The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. "I shouldn't wonder +if you were right," he said. "I remember seeing a young fellow in +Romeo that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the +Sphinx, as they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. +I believe there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to +find out who he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, +and why he does n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those +newspaper men don't come up here and get hold of this story. It +would be just the thing for a sensational writer." + +To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. +Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a +column about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,--to +the biggest pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live +frog from the human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading +without spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous +commonplaces which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every +other year or every six months) at the foot; always in want of a +fresh incident, a new story, an undescribed character, an unexplained +mystery, it is no wonder that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon +this most tempting subject for an inventive and emotional +correspondent. + +He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's +confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to +himself that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In +the summer season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on +in Arrowhead Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits-- +oranges, bananas, and others, according to the seasons--did an active +business. The Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and +saw that his hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, +Maurice Kirkwood was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, +and began examining the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer +saw his opportunity. Here was an introduction to the man, and the +man must introduce him to the master. + +He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,--there was +no difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was +an Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him. + +"Good morning, Mr. Paul," he said. "How do you like the look of +these oranges?" + +"They pretty fair," said Paolo: "no so good as them las' week; no +sweet as them was." + +"Why, how do you know without tasting them?" said the Interviewer. + +"I know by his look,--I know by his smell,--he no good yaller,--he no +smell ripe,--I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is," +and Paolo laughed at his own comparison. + +The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo. + +"Good!" said he,--"first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. +Why can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of +'em? I shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I +want to get two nice sweet ones for him." + +Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt +grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of +conferring a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and +grave deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to +offer him an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation. + +"How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?" he asked. + +"Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell +you he sick?" + +"No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a +day or two, and I thought be might have something the matter with +him. Is he in the house now?" + +"No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. +Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very +early,--in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and +read, and study, and write,--he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood." + +"A good many books, has n't he?" + +"He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old +books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you." + +"Has n't he some curiosities,--old figures, old jewelry, old coins, +or things of that sort?" + +Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. +"He don't keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some +old things,--old jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they +used to have in old times: she don't pass now." Paolo's genders were +apt to be somewhat indiscriminately distributed. + +A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. "I wonder if he would +examine some old coins of mine?" said he, in a modestly tentative +manner. + +"I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask +him. Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?" + +"Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call +and show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones." + +The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old +battered bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where +they had been passed off for cents. He had bought them as +curiosities. One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably +distinct,--a common little Roman penny; but it would serve his +purpose of asking a question, as would two or three others with less +legible legends. Paolo told him that if he came the next morning he +would stand a fair chance of seeing Mr. Kirkwood. At any rate, he +would speak to his master. + +The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing +his breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. +Kirkwood at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the +stranger up to his library,--or study, as he modestly called it. + +It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one +direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it +up in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, +many of them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, +showing that probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other +Italian city. With these were older volumes in their dark original +leather, and recent ones in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran +his eye over them, he found that he could make very little out of +what their backs taught him. Some of the paper-covered books, some +of the cloth-covered ones, had names which he knew; but those on the +backs of many of the others were strange to his eyes. The classics +of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were there; and he saw +enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt to display +his erudition in the company of this young scholar. + +The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his +visiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who +was living as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and +showed them to Maurice. + +"I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a +good many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, +hoping that you could tell me something about some ancient coins I +have had for a good while." So saying, he pointed to the copper with +the name of Gallienus. + +"Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have +been paid for some of these ancient coins,--ever so many guineas, +sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old." + +"More than a thousand years old," said Maurice. + +"And worth a great deal of money?" asked the Interviewer. + +"No, not a great deal of money," answered Maurice. + +"How much, should you say?" said the Interviewer. + +Maurice smiled. "A little more than the value of its weight in +copper,--I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these +coins of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers +take such pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or +ten cents, to young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money +value, but as a relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to +hand a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The +value of such relics is a good deal a matter of imagination." + +"And what do you say to these others?" asked the Interviewer. Poor +old worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some +faint trace of a figure on one or two of them. + +"Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the +times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed +one of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was +brought when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I +may see it.' But the market price is a different matter. That +depends on the beauty and preservation, and above all the rarity, of +the specimen. Here is a coin, now,"--he opened a small cabinet, and +took one from it. "Here is a Syracusan decadrachm with the head of +Persephone, which is at once rare, well preserved, and beautiful. I +am afraid to tell what I paid for it." + +The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very +little more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had +thought his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. +No matter about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any +rate, that Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what +he himself considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient +coins. That would do for a beginning. + +"May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?" he said + +"That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not +'pick up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. +I bought this of a great dealer in Rome." + +"Lived in Rome once?" said the Interviewer. + +"For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?" + +The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he +should go there, one of these years. "suppose you studied art and +antiquities while you were there?" he continued. + +"Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and +antiquities. Before you go there I advise you to review Roman +history and the classic authors. You had better make a study of +ancient and modern art, and not have everything to learn while you +are going about among ruins, and churches, and galleries. You know +your Horace and Virgil well, I take it for granted?" + +The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard +them. "Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome," he answered. +"May I ask how long you lived in Rome?" + +"Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one +should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are +familiar with Vasari, of course?" + +The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out +his handkerchief. "It is a warm day," he said. "I have not had time +to read all--the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, +myself, to find all the time for reading and study I could have +wished." + +"In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will +pardon my inquiry? said Maurice. + +"I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of +letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your +own lips some account of your literary experiences." + +"Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it +for my autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. +Do I understand that you are an author?" + +By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a +very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by +the right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's +very simple question. + +"If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, +I may call myself one. I write for the "People's Perennial and +Household Inquisitor.'" + +"Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you +manage the political column?" + +"I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of +interest." + +"Places you have been to, and people you have known?" + +"Well, yes,-generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my +articles." + +"Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?" + +The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he +had found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best +thing he could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He +thought that he should be able to pick up something or other which he +could work into his report of his visit. + +"Well, I--prepared that article for our columns. You know one does +not have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I +hope, in its descriptions?" + +"Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but +I can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle-- +the old Milvian bridge--a good deal too far down the stream, if I +remember. I happened to notice that, but I did not read the article +carefully. May I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of +reporting this visit and the conversation we have had, for the +columns of the newspaper with which you are connected?" + +The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. "If you have no +objections," he said, "I should like very much to ask a few +questions." He was recovering his professional audacity. + +"You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet,-- +after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to +submit me to examination?" + +"The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the +humble agent of its investigations." + +"What has the public to do with my private affairs?" + +"I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles +everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a +large number of curious people that form a majority against you. +That is the way I've heard the chief put it." + +Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the +American citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had +his man, sure, at last. Maurice calmly answered, "There is nothing +left for minorities, then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care +about being made the subject of an article for your paper. I am here +for my pleasure, minding my own business, and content with that +occupation. I rebel against your system of forced publicity. +Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public all it has any right to +know about me. In the mean time I shall request to be spared reading +my biography while I am living. I wish you a good-morning." + +The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his +next communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a +brief mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now +visiting the place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the +privilege of examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the +modesty that shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular +intelligence would otherwise confer upon him. + +The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had +failed to get the first hint of its solution. + +The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain +idle. The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the +various cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the +conversational circles which met every evening in the different +centres of social life. The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was +that Maurice had a congenital aversion to some color, the effects of +which upon him were so painful or disagreeable that he habitually +avoided exposure to it. It was known, and it has already been +mentioned, that such cases were on record. There had been a great +deal of discussion, of late, with reference to a fact long known to a +few individuals, but only recently made a matter of careful +scientific observation and brought to the notice of the public. This +was the now well-known phenomenon of color-blindness. It did not +seem very strange that if one person in every score or two could not +tell red from green there might be other curious individual +peculiarities relating to color. A case has already been referred to +where the subject of observation fainted at the sight of any red +object. What if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It +will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy would tend to +isolate the person who was its unfortunate victim. It was an +hypothesis not difficult to test, but it was a rather delicate +business to be experimenting on an inoffensive stranger. Miss +Vincent was thinking it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of +any projects she might entertain. + + + + +XII + +MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. + +The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss +Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading +various works selected for her by Dr. Butts,--works chiefly relating +to the nervous system and its different affections. She thought it +was about time to talk over the general subject of the medical +profession with her new teacher,--if such a self-directing person as +Lurida could be said to recognize anybody as teacher. + +She began at the beginning. "What is the first book you would put in +a student's hands, doctor?" she said to him one day. They were in +his study, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on +Insanity, one of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it +had been a pamphlet. + +"Not that book, certainly," he said. "I am afraid it will put all +sorts of notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading +that, I should like to know?" + +"I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps +be crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what +kind of a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very +bright, those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid +enough ever to lose my wits." + +"There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that +busy brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about +so many people possessed with such strange notions?" + +"Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many +people I had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. +Take that poor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,--not Her +Majesty, but Her Majesty's Person,--a very important distinction, +according to her: how she does remind me of more than one girl I have +known! She would let her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, +and pile things on her head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and +throw her head back, and feel as grand as a queen. I have seen more +than one girl act very much in that way. Are not most of us a little +crazy, doctor,--just a little? I think so. It seems to me I never +saw but one girl who was free from every hint of craziness." + +"And who was that, pray?" + +"Why, Euthymia,--nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,-- +I don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work +with our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind +was the only achromatic one I ever looked into,--I did n't say looked +through.---But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of +your books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he +should read, the great physician said, 'Read "Don Quixote."' I want +you to explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the +first book, according to your idea, that a student ought to read." + +"What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper +to be read before the Society? I think there may be other young +ladies at the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing +the study of medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are +interested in the subject; in fact, most people listen readily to +anything doctors tell them about their calling." + +"I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't +doubt there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you +have to say about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade +Eutbymia to become a physician! What a doctor she would make! So +strong, so calm, so full of wisdom! I believe she could take the +wheel of a steamboat in a storm, or the hose of a fire-engine in a +conflagration, and handle it as well as the captain of the boat or of +the fire-company." + +"Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?" + +"Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good +times we would have studying together!" + +"I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do +you think practice would be? How would you like being called up to +ride ten miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging +headaches was racking you?" + +"Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of +storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!" + +"Well, what does she say to it?" + +"She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women +doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it +by nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives +me a good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know +what most of them are, doctor,--and ends by saying that the same +woman who would be a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate +nurse; and that, she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct +carries her to the hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas +out of her." + +"Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I +am disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a +good nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't +seem to me to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for +practitioners. But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am +for giving women every chance for a good education, and if they think +medicine is one of their proper callings let them try it. I think +they will find that they had better at least limit themselves to +certain specialties, and always have an expert of the other sex to +fall back upon. The trouble is that they are so impressible and +imaginative that they are at the mercy of all sorts of fancy systems. +You have only to see what kinds of instruction they very commonly +flock to in order to guess whether they would be likely to prove +sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always hobbles on two crutches, +the tattle of women, and the certificates of clergymen, and I am +afraid that half the women doctors will be too much under both those +influences." + +Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of the +village, had "carried her through" a fever, brought on by over- +excitement and exhausting study. She took no offence at his +reference to nursery gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. +Nobody so despises the weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's +rights. She accepted the doctor's concession of a fair field and +open trial of the fitness of her sex for medical practice, and did +not trouble herself about his suggested limitations. As to the +imaginative tendencies of women, she knew too well the truth of the +doctor's remark relating to them to wish to contradict it. + +"Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting, +doctor," she said; and in due season it came, and was of course +approved for reading. + + + + +XIII + +DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. + +"Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal +souls is that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my +very first statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body +is the first thought with a great many,--in fact, with the larger +part of the world. They send for the physician first, and not until +he gives them up do they commonly call in the clergyman. Even the +minister himself is not so very different from other people. We must +not blame him if he is not always impatient to exchange a world of +multiplied interests and ever-changing sources of excitement for that +which tradition has delivered to us as one eminently deficient in the +stimulus of variety. Besides, these bodily frames, even when worn +and disfigured by long years of service, hang about our consciousness +like old garments. They are used to us, and we are used to them. +And all the accidents of our lives,--the house we dwell in, the +living people round us, the landscape we look over, all, up to the +sky that covers us like a bell glass,--all these are but looser +outside garments which we have worn until they seem a part of us, and +we do not like the thought of changing them for a new suit which we +have never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear ancient lady, +who lived well into the last decade of her century, as she repeated +the verse which, if I had but one to choose, I would select from that +string of pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'! + + "'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey + This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, + Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, + Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?' + +"Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be, +than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well +doubted if there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the +contrary, there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many +who have come here to regain the health they have lost in the wear +and tear of city life, and very few who have not at some time or +other of their lives had occasion to call in the services of a +physician. + +"There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering to the members +some remarks upon the peculiar difficulties which beset the medical +practitioner in the discharge of his laborious and important duties. + +"A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest in medical +studies, happened to meet with a very familiar story about one of the +greatest and most celebrated of all English physicians, Thomas +Sydenham. The story is that, when a student asked him what books he +should read, the great doctor told him to read 'Don Quixote.' + +"This piece of advice has been used to throw contempt upon the study +of books, and furnishes a convenient shield for ignorant pretenders. +But Sydenham left many writings in which he has recorded his medical +experience, and he surely would not have published them if he had not +thought they would be better reading for the medical student than the +story of Cervantes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and he +certainly could not have supposed that they contained all the wisdom +of all the past. No remedy is good, it was said of old, unless +applied at the right time in the right way. So we may say of all +anecdotes, like this which I have told you about Sydenham and the +young man. It is very likely that he carried him to the bedside of +some patients, and talked to him about the cases he showed him, +instead of putting a Latin volume in his hand. I would as soon begin +in that way as any other, with a student who had already mastered the +preliminary branches,--who knew enough about the structure and +functions of the body in health. + +"But if you ask me what reading I would commend to the medical +student of a philosophical habit of mind, you may be surprised to +hear me say it would be certain passages in 'Rasselas.' They are the +ones where the astronomer gives an account to Imlac of his management +of the elements, the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, +had been committed to him. Let me read you a few sentences from this +story, which is commonly bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like +a woollen lining to a silken mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in +processions of paragraphs which sound as if they ought to have a +grammatical drum-major to march before their tramping platoons. + +"The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confidence, and reveals to +him the secret of his wonderful powers:-- + +"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have +possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and the +distribution of the seasons the sun has listened to my dictates, and +passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call, +have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; +I have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors +of the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have +hitherto eluded my authority, and multitudes have perished by +equinoctial tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or +restrain.' + +"The reader naturally wishes to know how the astronomer, a sincere, +devoted, and most benevolent man, for forty years a student of the +heavens, came to the strange belief that he possessed these +miraculous powers. This is his account: + +"'One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt +in my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern +mountains, and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my +imagination I commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my +command with that of the inundation I found that the clouds had +listened to my lips.' + +"'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence? +The Nile does not always rise on the same day.' + +"'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, I that such objections +could escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and +labored against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes +suspected myself of madness, and should not have dared to impart this +secret but to a man like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful +from the impossible and the incredible from the false.' + +"The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom +he has adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and +the seasons, in these impressive words: + +"Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride by +innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make +thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The +memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become +thee to let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries +of rain to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.' + +"Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in +which the delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the +pomp of the Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young +person about to enter on the study of the science and art of healing? +Listen to me while I show you the parallel of the story of the +astronomer in the history of medicine. + +"This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with +benevolence, but all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to +struggle with the ever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which +waste and destroy the race of mankind are vast and resistless as the +elemental forces of nature; nay, they are themselves elemental +forces. They may be to some extent avoided, to some extent diverted +from their aim, to some extent resisted. So may the changes of the +seasons, from cold that freezes to heats that strike with sudden +death, be guarded against. So may the tides be in some small measure +restrained in their inroads. So may the storms be breasted by walls +they cannot shake from their foundations. But the seasons and the +tides and the tempests work their will on the great scale upon +whatever stands in their way; they feed or starve the tillers of the +soil; they spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; they waft the +seaman to his harbor or bury him in the angry billows. + +"The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from +deadly and dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest +the effects of these influences. But look at the records of the +life-insurance offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's +destroying agencies. Look at the annual reports of the deaths in any +of our great cities, and see how their regularity approaches the +uniformity of the tides, and their variations keep pace with those of +the seasons. The inundations of the Nile are not more certainly to +be predicted than the vast wave of infantile disease which flows in +upon all our great cities with the growing heats of July,--than the +fevers and dysenteries which visit our rural districts in the months +of the falling leaf. + +"The physician watches these changes as the astronomer watched the +rise of the great river. He longs to rescue individuals, to protect +communities from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He uses +all the means which experience has approved, tries every rational +method which ingenuity can suggest. Some fortunate recovery leads +him to believe he has hit upon a preventive or a cure for a malady +which had resisted all known remedies. His rescued patient sounds +his praises, and a wide circle of his patient's friends joins in a +chorus of eulogies. Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self- +interest congratulates him on his having found the road to fortune; +the sense of having proved a benefactor of his race smooths the +pillow on which he lays his head to dream of the brilliant future +opening before him. If a single coincidence may lead a person of +sanguine disposition to believe that he has mastered a disease which +had baffled all who were before his time, and on which his +contemporaries looked in hopeless impotence, what must be the effect +of a series of such coincidences even on a mind of calmer temper! +Such series of coincidences will happen, and they may well deceive +the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush,--you know what a famous man he +was, the very head and front of American medical science in his day, +--and remember how he spoke about yellow fever, which he thought he +had mastered! + +"Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of a wide conspiracy, +in which he and his patient and their friends, and-Nature herself, +are involved. What wonder that the history of Medicine should be to +so great an extent a record of self-delusion! + +"If this seems a dangerous concession to the enemies of the true +science and art of healing, I will remind you that it is all implied +in the first aphorism of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not +draw a wrong inference from the frank statement of the difficulties +which beset the medical practitioner. Think rather, if truth is so +hard of attainment, how precious are the results which the consent of +the wisest and most experienced among the healers of men agrees in +accepting. Think what folly it is to cast them aside in favor of +palpable impositions stolen from the records of forgotten +charlatanism, or of fantastic speculations spun from the squinting +brains of theorists as wild as the Egyptian astronomer. + +"Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the fortieth and the +following four chapters of 'Rasselas.' Your first lesson will teach +you modesty and caution in the pursuit of the most deceptive of all +practical branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when you +learn how much medical science and art have actually achieved for the +relief of mankind, and how great are the promises it holds out of +still larger triumphs over the enemies of human health and +happiness." + +After the reading of this paper there was a lively discussion, which +we have no room to report here, and the Society adjourned. + + + + +XIV + +MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. + +The sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. Butts was not a +little exercised in mind by the demands made upon his knowledge by +his young friend, and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida +Vincent. + +"I don't wonder they called her The Terror," he said to himself. +"She is enough to frighten anybody. She has taken down old books +from my shelves that I had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to +the medical journals, I believe the girl could index them from +memory. She is in pursuit of some special point of knowledge, I feel +sure, and I cannot doubt what direction she is working in, but her +wonderful way of dealing with books amazes me." + +What marvels those "first scholars" in the classes of our great +universities and colleges are, to be sure! They are not, as a rule, +the most distinguished of their class in the long struggle of life. +The chances are that "the field" will beat "the favorite" over the +long race-course. Others will develop a longer stride and more +staying power. But what fine gifts those "first scholars" have +received from nature! How dull we writers, famous or obscure, are in +the acquisition of knowledge as compared with them! To lead their +classmates they must have quick apprehension, fine memories, thorough +control of their mental faculties, strong will, power of +concentration, facility of expression,--a wonderful equipment of +mental faculties. I always want to take my hat off to the first +scholar of his year. + +Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he contemplated The +Terror. She surprised him so often with her knowledge that he was +ready to receive her without astonishment when she burst in upon him +one allay with a cry of triumph, "Eureka! Eureka!" + +"And what have you found, my dear?" said the doctor. + +Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new +discovery. + +"I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor's +dread of all human intercourse!" + +The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance. + +"Wait a minute and get your breath," said the doctor. "Are you not a +little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. +He keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old +Tavern, he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he +pulled out of the water, or rescued somehow,--I don't believe be +avoids the whole human race. He does not look as if he hated them, +so far as I have remarked his expression. I passed a few words with +him when his man was ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I +don't believe it is much more than an extreme case of shyness, +connected, perhaps, with some congenital or other personal repugnance +to which has been given the name of an antipathy." + +Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When +he finished, she began the account of her discovery: + +"I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an +Italian medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a +reference which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli +Ospitali lying among the old pamphlets in the medical section of the +Library. I have made a translation of it, which you must read and +then tell me if you do not agree with me in my conclusion." + +"Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see +for myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you +seem to have reached." + +Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of +a map of the world, as she said, + +"I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the +bite of a TARANTULA!" + +The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way +the stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but +he had consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many +fictions have clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. +He looked into the round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as +if he feared that she was in a state of undue excitement, but, true +to his professional training, he waited for another symptom, if +indeed her mind was in any measure off its balance. + +"I know what you are thinking," Lurida said, "but it is not so. 'I +am not mad, most noble Festus.' You shall see the evidence and judge +for yourself. Read the whole case,--you can read my hand almost as +if it were print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this +young man is in all probability the same person as the boy described +in the Italian journal, + +"One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young +patient is spoken of as Signorino M . . . Ch. . . . But you +must remember that ch is pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which +letter is wanting in the Italian alphabet; and it is natural enough +that the initial of the second name should have got changed in the +record to its Italian equivalent." + +Before inviting the reader to follow the details of this +extraordinary case as found in a medical journal, the narrator wishes +to be indulged in a few words of explanation, in order that he may +not have to apologize for allowing the introduction of a subject +which may be thought to belong to the professional student rather +than to the readers of this record. There is a great deal in medical +books which it is very unbecoming to bring before the general +public,--a great deal to repel, to disgust, to alarm, to excite +unwholesome curiosity. It is not the men whose duties have made them +familiar with this class of subjects who are most likely to offend by +scenes and descriptions which belong to the physician's private +library, and not to the shelves devoted to polite literature. +Goldsmith and even Smollett, both having studied and practised +medicine, could not by any possibility have outraged all the natural +feelings of delicacy and decency as Swift and Zola have outraged +them. But without handling doubtful subjects, there are many curious +medical experiences which have interest for every one as extreme +illustrations of ordinary conditions with which all are acquainted. +No one can study the now familiar history of clairvoyance profitably +who has not learned something of the vagaries of hysteria. No one +can read understandingly the life of Cowper and that of Carlyle +without having some idea of the influence of hypochondriasis and of +dyspepsia upon the disposition and intellect of the subjects of these +maladies. I need not apologize, therefore, for giving publicity to +that part of this narrative which deals with one of the most singular +maladies to be found in the records of bodily and mental infirmities. + +The following is the account of the case as translated by Miss +Vincent. For obvious reasons the whole name was not given in the +original paper, and for similar reasons the date of the event and the +birthplace of the patient are not precisely indicated here. + +[Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18-.] + +REMARKABLE CASE OF TARANTISM. + +"The great interest attaching to the very singular and exceptional +instance of this rare affection induces us to give a full account of +the extraordinary example of its occurrence in a patient who was the +subject of a recent medical consultation in this city. + +"Signorino M . . . Ch . . . is the only son of a gentleman +travelling in Italy at this time. He is eleven years of age, of +sanguine-nervous temperament, light hair, blue eyes, intelligent +countenance, well grown, but rather slight in form, to all appearance +in good health, but subject to certain peculiar and anomalous nervous +symptoms, of which his father gives this history. + +"Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was travelling in Italy +with his wife, this child, and a nurse. They were passing a few days +in a country village near the city of Bari, capital of the province +of the same name in the division (compartamento) of Apulia. The +child was in perfect health and had never been affected by any +serious illness. On the 10th of July he was playing out in the field +near the house where the family was staying when he was heard to +scream suddenly and violently. The nurse rushing to him found him in +great pain, saying that something had bitten him in one of his feet. +A laborer, one Tommaso, ran up at the moment and perceived in the +grass, near where the boy was standing, an enormous spider, which he +at once recognized as a tarantula. He managed to catch the creature +in a large leaf, from which he was afterwards transferred to a wide- +mouthed bottle, where he lived without any food for a month or more. +The creature was covered with short hairs, and had a pair of nipper- +like jaws, with which he could inflict an ugly wound. His body +measured about an inch in length, and from the extremity of one of +the longest limbs to the other was between two and three inches. +Such was the account given by the physician to whom the peasant +carried the great spider. + +"The boy who had been bitten continued screaming violently while his +stocking was being removed and the foot examined. The place of the +bite was easily found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already +showed the effects of the poison, a small livid circle extending +around them, with some puffy swelling. The distinguished Dr. Amadei +was immediately sent for, and applied cups over the wounds in the +hope of drawing forth the poison. In vain all his skill and efforts! +Soon, ataxic (irregular) nervous symptoms declared themselves, and it +became plain that the system had been infected by the poison. + +"The symptoms were very much like those of malignant fever, such as +distress about the region of the heart, difficulty of breathing, +collapse of all the vital powers, threatening immediate death. From +these first symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organism had +been profoundly affected by the venom circulating through it. His +constitution has never thrown off the malady resulting from this +toxic (poisonous) agent. The phenomena which have been observed in +this young patient correspond so nearly with those enumerated in the +elaborate essay of the celebrated Baglivi that one might think they +had been transcribed from his pages. + +"He is very fond of solitude,--of wandering about in churchyards and +other lonely places. He was once found hiding in an empty tomb, +which had been left open. His aversion to certain colors is +remarkable. Generally speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker +ones, but his likes and dislikes are capricious, and with regard to +some colors his antipathy amounts to positive horror. Some shades +have such an effect upon him that he cannot remain in the room with +them, and if he meets any one whose dress has any of that particular +color he will turn away or retreat so as to avoid passing that +person. Among these, purple and dark green are the least endurable. +He cannot explain the sensations which these obnoxious colors produce +except by saying that it is like the deadly feeling from a blow on +the epigastrium (pit of the stomach). + +"About the same season of the year at which the tarantular poisoning +took place he is liable to certain nervous seizures, not exactly like +fainting or epilepsy, but reminding the physician of those +affections. All the other symptoms are aggravated at this time. + +"In other respects than those mentioned the boy is in good health. +He is fond of riding, and has a pony on which he takes a great deal +of exercise, which seems to do him more good than any other remedy. + +"The influence of music, to which so much has been attributed by +popular belief and even by the distinguished Professor to whom we +shall again refer, has not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. +If the graver symptoms recur while the patient is under our +observation, we propose to make use of an agency discredited by +modern skepticism, but deserving of a fair trial as an exceptional +remedy for an exceptional disease. + +"The following extracts from the work of the celebrated Italian +physician of the last century are given by the writer of the paper in +the Giornale in the original Latin, with a translation into Italian, +subjoined. Here are the extracts, or rather here is a selection from +them, with a translation of them into English. + +"After mentioning the singular aversion to certain colors shown by +the subject of Tarantism, Baglivi writes as follows: +"'Et si astantes incedant vestibus eo colore difusis, qui Tarantatis +ingrates est, necesse est ut ab illorum aspectu recedant; nam ad +intuitum molesti coloris angore cordis, et symptomatum recrudescantia +stating corripiuntur.' (G. Baglivi, Op. Omnia, page 614. Lugduni, +1745.) + +"That is, 'if the persons about the patient wear dresses of the color +which is offensive to him, he must get away from the sight of them, +for on seeing the obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress +in the region of the heart, and a renewal of his symptoms.' + +"As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi says: +"'Dam calor solis ardentius exurere incip at, quod contingit circa +initia Julii et Augusti, Tarantati lente venientem recrudescentiam +veneni percipiunt.' (Ibid., page 619.) + +"Which I render, 'When the heat of the sun begins to burn more +fiercely, which happens about the beginning of July and August, the +subjects of Tarantism perceive the gradually approaching +recrudescence (returning symptoms) of the poisoning. Among the +remedies most valued by this illustrious physician is that mentioned +in the following sentence: + +"'Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusticano factas singulis +diebus, hord potissimum matutina, quibus equitationibus morbos +chronicos pene incurabiles protanus eliminavi.' + +"Or in translation, +"'I commend especially riding on horseback in country air, every day, +by preference in the morning hours, by the aid of which horseback +riding I have driven off chronic diseases which were almost +incurable.'" + +Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, and handed it to him +to examine and consider. He listened with a grave countenance and +devout attention. + +As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed in the passionate +tones of the deepest conviction, + +"There, doctor! Have n't I found the true story of this strange +visitor? Have n't I solved the riddle of the Sphinx? Who can this +man be but the boy of that story? Look at the date of the journal +when he was eleven years old, it would make him twenty-five now, and +that is just about the age the people here think he must be of. What +could account so entirely for his ways and actions as that strange +poisoning which produces the state they call Tarantism? I am just as +sure it must be that as I am that I am alive. Oh, doctor, doctor, I +must be right,--this Signprino M . . . Ch . . . was the boy +Maurice Kirkwood, and the story accounts for everything,--his +solitary habits, his dread of people,--it must be because they wear +the colors he can't bear. His morning rides on horseback, his coming +here just as the season was approaching which would aggravate all his +symptoms, does n't all this prove that I must be right in my +conjecture,--no, my conviction?" + +The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young enthusiast, and so he +let her run on until she ran down. He was more used to the rules of +evidence than she was, and could not accept her positive conclusion +so readily as she would have liked to have him. He knew that +beginners are very apt to make what they think are discoveries. But +he had been an angler and knew the meaning of a yielding rod and an +easy-running reel. He said quietly, + +"You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie +case it is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood +is not the same person as the M . . . Ch . . . of the medical +journal,--that is, if I accept your explanation of the difference in +the initials of these two names. Even if there were a difference, +that would not disprove their identity, for the initials of patients +whose cases are reported by their physicians are often altered for +the purpose of concealment. I do not know, however, that Mr. +Kirkwood has shown any special aversion to any particular color. It +might be interesting to inquire whether it is so, but it is a +delicate matter. I don't exactly see whose business it is to +investigate Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's idiosyncrasies and constitutional +history. If he should have occasion to send for me at any time, he +might tell me all about himself, in confidence, you know. These old +accounts from Baglivi are curious and interesting, but I am cautious +about receiving any stories a hundred years old, if they involve an +improbability, as his stories about the cure of the tarantula bite by +music certainly do. I am disposed to wait for future developments, +bearing in mind, of course, the very singular case you have +unearthed. It wouldn't be very strange if our young gentleman had to +send for me before the season is over. He is out a good deal before +the dew is off the grass, which is rather risky in this neighborhood +as autumn comes on. I am somewhat curious, I confess, about the +young man, but I do not meddle where I am not asked for or wanted, +and I have found that eggs hatch just as well if you let them alone +in the nest as if you take them out and shake them every day. This +is a wonderfully interesting supposition of yours, and may prove to +be strictly in accordance with the facts. But I do not think we have +all the facts in this young man's case. If it were proved that he +had an aversion to any color, it would greatly strengthen your case. +His 'antipatia,' as his man called it, must be one which covers a +wide ground, to account for his self-isolation,--and the color +hypothesis seems as plausible as any. But, my dear Miss Vincent, +I think you had better leave your singular and striking hypothesis in +my keeping for a while, rather than let it get abroad in a community +like this, where so many tongues are in active exercise. I will +carefully study this paper, if you will leave it with me, and we will +talk the whole matter over. It is a fair subject for speculation, +only we must keep quiet about it." + +This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain time to cool off a +little. She left the paper with the doctor, telling him she would +come for it the next day, and went off to tell the result of this +visit to her bosom friend, Miss Euthymia Tower. + + + + +XV + +DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. + +The doctor was troubled in thinking over his interview with the young +lady. She was fully possessed with the idea that she had discovered +the secret which had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. +It was of no use to oppose her while her mind was in an excited +state. But he felt it his duty to guard her against any possible +results of indiscretion into which her eagerness and her theory of +the equality, almost the identity, of the sexes might betray her. +Too much of the woman in a daughter of our race leads her to forget +danger. Too little of the woman prompts her to defy it. Fortunately +for this last class of women, they are not quite so likely to be +perilously seductive as their more emphatically feminine sisters. + +Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of their +infancy. He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence +from its precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained +faculties. He had looked with admiration on the childish beauty of +Euthymia, and had seen her grow up to womanhood, every year making +her more attractive. He knew that if anything was to be done with +his self-willed young scholar and friend, it would be more easily +effected through the medium of Euthymia than by direct advice to the +young lady herself. So the thoughtful doctor made up his mind to +have a good talk with Euthymia, and put her on her guard, if Lurida +showed any tendency to forget the conventionalities in her eager +pursuit of knowledge. + +For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss +Euthymia Tower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all +the tongues in the village going. This was one of those families +where illness was hardly looked for among the possibilities of life. +There were other families where a call from the doctor was hardly +more thought of than a call from the baker. But here he was a +stranger, at least on his professional rounds, and when he asked for +Miss Euthymia the servant, who knew his face well, stared as if he +had held in his hand a warrant for her apprehension. + +Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made +ready to meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock +had not run astray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for +a morning call was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had +been announced, she might have taken a second look, but with the good +middle-aged, married doctor one was enough for a young lady who had +the gift of making all the dresses she wore look well, and had no +occasion to treat her chamber like the laboratory where an actress +compounds herself. + +Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not help +suspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk +over her friend's schemes and fancies with him. + +The doctor began without any roundabout prelude. + +"I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell +you all her plans and projects?" + +"Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not +believe she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what +she has been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into +her head. What do you think of the Tarantula business? She has +shown you the paper, she has written, I suppose." + +"Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and +I do not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she +had come at the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that +this young man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian +medical journal. But it is very far from clear that he is so. You +know all her reasons, of course, as you have read the story. The +times seem to agree well enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch +might be substituted for K in the report. The singular solitary +habits of this young man entirely coincide with the story. If we +could only find out whether he has any of those feelings with +reference to certain colors, we might guess with more chance of +guessing right than we have at present. But I don't see exactly how +we are going to submit him to examination on this point. If he were +only a chemical compound, we could analyze him. If he were only a +bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes. But +being, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will of his +own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problem +becomes more complicated. I hear that a newspaper correspondent has +visited him so as to make a report to his paper,--do you know what he +found out?" + +"Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, +which was this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to +interview. The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he +did not learn much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told +Willy about the Sphinx's library and a cabinet of coins he had; and +said he should make an article out of him, anyhow. I wish the man +would take himself off. I am afraid Lurida's love of knowledge will +get her into trouble!" + +"Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?" + +"I was thinking of the newspaper man." + +She blushed a little as she said, "I can't help feeling a strange +sort of interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood. Do you know that I +met him this morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?" + +"Well, to be sure! That was an interesting experience. And how did +you like his looks?" + +"I thought his face a very remarkable one. But he looked very pale +as he passed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side +as if he had a twinge of pain, or something of that sort,--spasm or +neuralgia,--I don't know what. I wondered whether he had what you +call angina pectoris. It was the same kind of look and movement, I +remember, as you trust, too, in my uncle who died with that +complaint." + +The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Were you dressed +as you are now?" + +"Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over my shoulders. I +was out early, and I have always remembered your caution." + +"What color was your mantle?" + +"It was black. I have been over all this with Lucinda. A black +mantle on a white dress. A straw hat with an old faded ribbon. +There can't be much in those colors to trouble him, I should think, +for his man wears a black coat and white linen,--more or less white, +as you must have noticed, and he must have seen ribbons of all colors +often enough. But Lurida believes it was the ribbon, or something in +the combination of colors. Her head is full of Tarantulas and +Tarantism. I fear that she will never be easy until the question is +settled by actual trial. And will you believe it? the girl is +determined in some way to test her supposition!" + +"Believe it, Euthymia? I can believe almost anything of Lurida. She +is the most irrepressible creature I ever knew. You know as well as +I do what a complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole +nature. I have had some fears lest her zeal might run away with her +discretion. It is a great deal easier to get into a false position +than to get out of it." + +"I know it well enough. I want you to tell me what you think about +the whole business. I don't like the look of it at all, and yet I +can do nothing with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I +can show her plainly that she will get herself into trouble in some +way or other. But she is ingenious,--full of all sorts of devices, +innocent enough in themselves, but liable to be misconstrued. You +remember how she won us the boat-race?" + +"To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, but she felt she was +paying off an old score. The classical story of Atalanta, told, like +that of Eve, as illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her to +make trial of the powers of resistance in the other sex. But it was +audacious. I hope her audacity will not go too far. You must watch +her. Keep an eye on her correspondence." + +The doctor had great confidence in the good sense of Lurida's friend. +He felt sure that she would not let Lurida commit herself by writing +foolish letters to the subject of her speculations, or similar +indiscreet performances. The boldness of young girls, who think no +evil, in opening correspondence with idealized personages is +something quite astonishing to those who have had an opportunity of +knowing the facts. Lurida had passed the most dangerous age, but her +theory of the equality of the sexes made her indifferent to the +by-laws of social usage. She required watching, and her two +guardians were ready to check her, in case of need. + + + + +XVI + +MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER. + +Euthymia noticed that her friend had been very much preoccupied for +two or three days. She found her more than once busy at her desk, +with a manuscript before her, which she turned over and placed inside +the desk, as Euthymia entered. + +This desire of concealment was not what either of the friends +expected to see in the other. It showed that some project was under +way, which, at least in its present stage, the Machiavellian young +lady did not wish to disclose. It had cost her a good deal of +thought and care, apparently, for her waste-basket was full of scraps +of paper, which looked as if they were the remains of a manuscript +like that at which she was at work. "Copying and recopying, +probably," thought Euthymia, but she was willing to wait to learn +what Lurida was busy about, though she had a suspicion that it was +something in which she might feel called upon to interest herself. + +"Do you know what I think?" said Euthymia to the doctor, meeting him +as he left his door. "I believe Lurida is writing to this man, and I +don't like the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she is +not like other girls in many respects, but other people will judge +her by the common rules of life." + +"I am glad that you spoke of it," answered the doctor; "she would +write to him just as quickly as to any woman of his age. Besides, +under the cover of her office, she has got into the way of writing to +anybody. I think she has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, asking him +to contribute a paper for the Society. She can find a pretext easily +enough if she has made up her mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she +would trouble herself for any pretext at all if she decided to write. +Watch her well. Don't let any letter go without seeing it, if you +can help it." + +Young women are much given to writing letters to persons whom they +only know indirectly, for the most part through their books, and +especially to romancers and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and +simple-hearted than most of these letters. They are the spontaneous +outflow of young hearts easily excited to gratitude for the pleasure +which some story or poem has given them, and recognizing their own +thoughts, their own feelings, in those expressed by the author, as if +on purpose for them to read. Undoubtedly they give great relief to +solitary young persons, who must have some ideal reflection of +themselves, and know not where to look since Protestantism has taken +away the crucifix and the Madonna. The recipient of these letters +sometimes wonders, after reading through one of them, how it is that +his young correspondent has managed to fill so much space with her +simple message of admiration or of sympathy. + +Lurida did not belong to this particular class of correspondents, but +she could not resist the law of her sex, whose thoughts naturally +surround themselves with superabundant drapery of language, as their +persons float in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was she indeed +writing to this unknown gentleman? Euthymia questioned her point- +blank. + +"Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. Maurice Kirkwood, +Lurida? You seem to be so busy writing, I can think of nothing else. +Or are you going to write a novel, or a paper for the Society,--do +tell me what you are so much taken up with." + +"I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not to find fault +with me for carrying out my plan as I have made up my mind to do. +You may read this letter before I seal it, and if you find anything +in it you don't like you can suggest any change that you think will +improve it. I hope you will see that it explains itself. I don't +believe that you will find anything to frighten you in it." + +This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by her friend. The +bold handwriting made it look like a man's letter, and gave it +consequently a less dangerous expression than that which belongs to +the tinted and often fragrant sheet with its delicate thready +characters, which slant across the page like an April shower with a +south wind chasing it. + + +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August--, 18--. + +MY DEAR SIR,--You will doubtless be surprised at the sight of a +letter like this from one whom you only know as the Secretary of the +Pansophian Society. There is a very common feeling that it is +unbecoming in one of my sex to address one of your own with whom she +is unacquainted, unless she has some special claim upon his +attention. I am by no means disposed to concede to the vulgar +prejudice on this point. If one human being has anything to +communicate to another,--anything which deserves being communicated, +--I see no occasion for bringing in the question of sex. I do not +think the homo sum of Terence can be claimed for the male sex as its +private property on general any more than on grammatical grounds, + +I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the noble art of +healing. If I did so, it would be with the fixed purpose of giving +my whole powers to the service of humanity. And if I should carry +out that idea, should I refuse my care and skill to a suffering +fellow-mortal because that mortal happened to be a brother, and not a +sister? My whole nature protests against such one-sided humanity! +No! I am blind to all distinctions when my eyes are opened to any +form of suffering, to any spectacle of want. + +You may ask me why I address you, whom I know little or nothing of, +and to whom such an advance may seem presumptuous and intrusive. It +is because I was deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed to +you,--that on Ocean, River, and Lake, which was read at one of our +meetings. I say that I was deeply impressed, but I do not mean this +as a compliment to that paper. I am not bandying compliments now, +but thinking of better things than praises or phrases. I was +interested in the paper, partly because I recognized some of the +feelings expressed in it as my own,--partly because there was an +undertone of sadness in all the voices of nature as you echoed them +which made me sad to hear, and which I could not help longing to +cheer and enliven. I said to myself, I should like to hold communion +with the writer of that paper. I have had my lonely hours and days, +as he has had. I have had some of his experiences in my intercourse +with nature. And oh! if I could draw him into those better human +relations which await us all, if we come with the right dispositions, +I should blush if I stopped to inquire whether I violated any +conventional rule or not. + +You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe, do you not? in the +insignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from the +brotherhood of mankind. You believe, do you not? that they should be +educated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, due +regard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hard +or light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing with the +"stronger" or the "weaker" sex. I mark these words because, +notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not +true. Stronger! Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of +cider,--though there have been women who could do that, and though +when John Wesley was mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down +three or four men, one after another, until she was at last +overpowered and nearly murdered. Talk about the weaker sex! Go and +see Miss Euthymia Tower at the gymnasium! But no matter about which +sex has the strongest muscles. Which has most to suffer, and which +has most endurance and vitality? We go through many ordeals which +you are spared, but we outlast you in mind and body. I have been led +away into one of my accustomed trains of thought, but not so far away +from it as you might at first suppose. + +My brother! Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, +a sister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the +same roof? And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes +us all one family? You are lonely, you must be longing for some +human fellowship. Take me into your confidence. What is there that +you can tell me to which I cannot respond with sympathy? What +saddest note in your spiritual dirges which will not find its chord +in mine? + +I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your +existence. I myself have known what it is to carry a brain that +never rests in a body that is always tired. I have defied its +infirmities, and forced it to do my bidding. You have no such +hindrance, if we may judge by your aspect and habits. You deal with +horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indian could handle his bark +canoe more dexterously or more vigorously than we have seen you +handling yours. There must be some reason for your seclusion which +curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not the province of +curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire which I have to +bring you into kindly relations with those around you, I must run the +risk of giving offence that I may know in what direction to look for +those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and +sister can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to +change the course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in +accordance with his true nature. + +I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with +which you are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings,-- +something which can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from +the people whose acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There +can hardly be anything in the place itself, or you would not have +voluntarily sought it as a residence, even for a single season. +there might be individuals here whom you would not care to meet, +there must be such, but you cannot have a personal aversion to +everybody. I have heard of cases in which certain sights and sounds, +which have no particular significance for most persons, produced +feelings of distress or aversion that made, them unbearable to the +subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has occurred to me that +possibly you might have some such natural aversion to the sounds of +the street, or such as are heard in most houses, especially where a +piano is kept, as it is in fact in almost all of those in the +village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color in the dresses +of women or the furniture of our rooms affected you unpleasantly. I +know that instances of such antipathy have been recorded, and they +would account for the seclusion of those who are subject to it. + +If there is any removable condition which interferes with your free +entrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, I +beg of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it +not strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself +into the hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to +be frightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to +be of use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered +"unfeminine." I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot +endure to think of myself as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'? + +Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, + +LURIDA VINCENT. + + +Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As she +finished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of her +grandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early +days are apt to do, on great occasions. + +"Well, I never!" + +Then she loosened some button or string that was too tight, and went +to the window for a breath of outdoor air. Then she began at the +beginning and read the whole letter all over again. + +What should she do about it? She could not let this young girl send +a letter like that to a stranger of whose character little was known +except by inference,--to a young man, who would consider it a most +extraordinary advance on the part of the sender. She would have +liked to tear it into a thousand pieces, but she had no right to +treat it in that way. Lurida meant to send it the next morning, and +in the mean time Euthymia had the night to think over what she should +do about it. + +There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice +like that which breaks the silence--of the stagnant hours of the +night with its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When +Euthymia awoke in the morning, her course of action was as clear +before her as if it bad been dictated by her guardian angel. She +went straight over to the home of Lurida, who was just dressed for +breakfast. + +She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She was +struck with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, +and contemplating her project with entire complacency. + +Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety. + +"I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force. +It is a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of +the truest human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. +If you were sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be +admissible to send it. But if you were forty, I should question its +propriety; if you were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a +little more than twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not +show your letter to anybody or everybody? How do you know that he +will not send it to one of the gossiping journals like the 'Household +Inquisitor'? But supposing he keeps it to himself, which is more +than you have a right to expect, what opinion is he likely to form of +a young lady who invades his privacy with such freedom? Ten to one +he will think curiosity is at the bottom of it,--and,--come, don't be +angry at me for suggesting it,--may there not be a little of that +same motive mingled with the others? No, don't interrupt me quite +yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis is correct. You are +full of the best and kindest feelings in the world, but your desire +for knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhaps more than +you know." + +Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while her +friend was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected her +intelligence too much to take offence at her advice, but she could +not give up her humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear +of some awkward consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself +that she was playing the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and +that the fact of her not wearing the costume of these ministering +angels made no difference in her relations to those who needed her +aid. + +"I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear to +you," she said gravely. "It seems to me that I give up everything +when I hesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am +not afraid to send this letter and take all the consequences." + +"Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in our +presence? And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it +coincides with mine?" + +Lurida winced a little at this proposal. "I don't quite like," she +said, "showing this letter to--to" she hesitated, but it had to come +out--"to a man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was +intended." + +The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit. + +"Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go +over to his house with me at noon, when he comes back after his +morning visits, and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You +know I have sometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say +you must go to the doctor's with me and carry that letter." + +There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firm +voice delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's +door. The servant said he had been at the house after his morning +visits, but found a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken +suddenly ill and wished to see him at once. Was the illness +dangerous? The servant-maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty +bad, for Mr. Paul came in as white as a sheet, and talked all sorts +of languages which she couldn't understand, and took on as if he +thought Mr. Kirkwood was going to die right off. + +And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed +of, at least for the present. + + + + +XVII + +Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT. + +The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill of +a somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and +the probable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His +patient was not the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in +this way. The autumnal fevers to which our country towns are +subject, in the place of those "agues," or intermittents, so largely +prevalent in the South and West, were already beginning, and Maurice, +who had exposed himself in the early and late hours of the dangerous +season, must be expected to go through the regular stages of this +always serious and not rarely fatal disease. + +Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of +his master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must +have a nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and +exhausting. + +At the mention of the word "nurse" Paolo turned white, and exclaimed +in an agitated and thoroughly frightened way, + +"No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, +but don' let no woman come near him,--if you do, he die!" + +The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to +taking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last +succeeded in convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and +night for a fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to +call in some assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood +was to play the leading part in that drama of nature's composing +called a typhoid fever, with its regular bedchamber scenery, its +properties of phials and pill-boxes, its little company of stock +actors, its gradual evolution of a very simple plot, its familiar +incidents, its emotional alternations, and its denouement, sometimes +tragic, oftener happy. + +It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of +the village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the +young man about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. +Tokens of their kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods +and from the gardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under +glass, for there were some fine houses surrounded by well-kept +grounds, and greenhouses and graperies were not unknown in the small +but favored settlement. + +On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A +faint smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of +his features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his +parched lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the +fitful sleep in which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow +hours dragged along the sluggish days one after another. With no +violent symptoms, but with steady persistency, the disease moved on +in its accustomed course. It was at no time immediately threatening, +but the experienced physician knew its uncertainties only too well. +He had known fever patients suddenly seized with violent internal +inflammation, and carried off with frightful rapidity. He remembered +the case of a convalescent, a young woman who had been attacked while +in apparently vigorous general health, who, on being lifted too +suddenly to a sitting position, while still confined to her bed, +fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It may well be +supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert the +accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular +course of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a +railroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation +which the common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of +these autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible +element had found its way into the system which must be burned to +ashes before the heat which pervades the whole body can subside. +Sometimes the fire may smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or +were quite extinguished, and again it will find some new material to +seize upon, and flame up as fiercely as ever. Its coming on most +frequently at the season when the brush fires which are consuming the +dead branches, and withered leaves, and all the refuse of vegetation +are sending up their smoke is suggestive. Sometimes it seems as if +the body, relieved of its effete materials, renewed its youth after +one of these quiet, expurgating, internal fractional cremations. +Lean, pallid students have found themselves plump and blooming, and +it has happened that one whose hair was straight as gnat of an Indian +has been startled to behold himself in his mirror with a fringe of +hyacinthine curls about his rejuvenated countenance. + +There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case of +Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound +prostration, which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly +helpless, as unable to move without aid as the feeblest of +paralytics. In this state he lay for many days, not suffering pain, +but with the sense of great weariness, and the feeling that he should +never rise from his bed again. For the most part his intellect was +unclouded when his attention was aroused. He spoke only in whispers, +a few words at a time. The doctor felt sure, by the expression which +passed over his features from time to time, that something was +worrying and oppressing him; something which he wished to +communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity of purpose, to +make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certain desk, and +once he had found strength to lift his emaciated arm and point to it. +The doctor went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he slowly +shook his head. He had not the power to say at that time what he +wished. The next day he felt a little less prostrated; and succeeded +in explaining to the doctor what he wanted. His words, so far as the +physician could make them out, were these which follow. Dr. Butts +looked upon them as possibly expressing wishes which would be his +last, and noted them down carefully immediately after leaving his +chamber. + +"I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is +told in a paper locked in that desk. The key is--put your hand under +my pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that I +was--human--and save my memory from reproach." + +He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollow +cheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. +But he said to himself, "It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong +hopes that he will recover." + +Maurice spoke once more. "Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are +wise and kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once +and read. I want you to know the story of my life before it is +finished--if the end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before +you sleep." He was exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the +doctor saw a tranquil look on his features which added encouragement +to his hopes. + + + + +XVIII + +MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. + +I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been +passed in foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed +of an ample fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished +and amiable woman. I was their first and only child. She died while +I was yet an infant. If I remember her at all it is as a vision, +more like a glimpse of a pre-natal existence than as a part of my +earthly life. At the death of my mother I was left in the charge of +the old nurse who had enjoyed her perfect confidence. She was +devoted to me, and I became absolutely dependent on her, who had for +me all the love and all the care of a mother. I was naturally the +object of the attentions and caresses of the family relatives. I +have been told that I was a pleasant, smiling infant, with nothing to +indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility; not afraid of +strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their acquaintance. My +father was devoted to me and did all in his power to promote my +health and comfort. + + +I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happened +which changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonely +existence. I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. I +must force myself to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguely +remembered, for I am not willing that my doomed and wholly +exceptional life should pass away unrecorded, unexplained, +unvindicated. My nature is, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but +I have lived apart, as if my heart were filled with hatred of my +fellow-creatures. If there are any readers who look without pity, +without sympathy, upon those who shun the fellowship of their fellow +men and women, who show by their downcast or averted eyes that they +dread companionship and long for solitude, I pray them, if this paper +ever reaches them, to stop at this point. Follow me no further, for +you will not believe my story, nor enter into the feelings which I am +about to reveal. But if there are any to whom all that is human is +of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness some stirrings +of invincible attraction to one individual and equally invincible +repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that elective +affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it were, +their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective +repulsions, let them read with unquestioning faith the story of a +blighted life I am about to relate, much of it, of course, received +from the lips of others. + +My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, +was considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that +she visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants +and my old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. +Laura was full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, +thoughtless occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of +her age should be. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for +the first time. My nurse had me in her arms, walking back and +forward on a balcony with a low railing, upon which opened the +windows of the second story of my father's house. While the nurse +was thus carrying me, Laura came suddenly upon the balcony. She no +sooner saw me than with all the delighted eagerness of her youthful +nature she rushed toward me, and, catching me from the nurse's arms, +began tossing me after the fashion of young girls who have been so +lately playing with dolls that they feel as if babies were very much +of the same nature. The abrupt seizure frightened me; I sprang from +her arms in my terror, and fell over the railing of the balcony. I +should probably enough have been killed on the spot but for the fact +that a low thorn-bush grew just beneath the balcony, into which I +fell and thus had the violence of the shock broken. But the thorns +tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this day marks of the deep wounds +they inflicted. + +That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The sudden +apparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from the +protecting arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek +that accompanied my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable +space; the cruel lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns,--all +these fearful impressions blended in one paralyzing terror. + +When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, +and the physician who first saw me said that no pulse was +perceptible. But after a time consciousness returned; the wounds, +though painful, were none of them dangerous, and the most alarming +effects of the accident passed away. My old nurse cared for me +tenderly day and night, and my father, who had been almost distracted +in the first hours which followed the injury, hoped and believed +that no permanent evil results would be found to result from it. My +cousin Laura was of course deeply distressed to feel that her +thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave an accident. As soon +as I had somewhat recovered she came to see me, very penitent, very +anxious to make me forget the alarm she had caused me, with all its +consequences. I was in the nursery sitting up in my bed, bandaged, +but not in any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to all +appearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As Laura came +near me I shrieked and instantly changed color. I put my hand upon +my heart as if I had been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It +was very much the same state as that in which I was found immediately +after my fall. + +The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. +The approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to +lay her hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which +the moment of terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse +saw this in a moment. "Go! go!" she cried to Laura, "go, or the +child will die! "Her command did not have to be repeated. After +Laura had gone I lay senseless, white and cold as marble, for some +time. The doctor soon came, and by the use of smart rubbing and +stimulants the color came back slowly to my cheeks and the arrested +circulation was again set in motion. + +It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary +effect of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought +by the doctor and by my father, that after a few days I should +recover from this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other +infants receive pleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook +her head. "The girl will be the death of the child," she said, "if +she touches him or comes near him. His heart stopped beating just as +when the girl snatched him out of my arms, and he fell over the +balcony railing." Once more the experiment was tried, cautiously, +almost insidiously. The same alarming consequences followed. It was +too evident that a chain of nervous disturbances had been set up in +my system which repeated itself whenever the original impression gave +the first impulse. I never saw my cousin Laura after this last +trial. Its result had so distressed her that she never ventured +again to show herself to me. + +If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, it would have +been a misfortune for my cousin and myself, but hardly a calamity. +The world is wide, and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be +considered an essential of existence. I often heard Laura's name +mentioned, but never by any one who was acquainted with all the +circumstances, for it was noticed that I changed color and caught at +my breast as if I wanted to grasp my heart in my hand whenever that +fatal name was mentioned. + +Alas! this was not all. While I was suffering from the effects of my +fall among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse, assisted by +another old woman, by a physician, and my father, who would take his +share in caring for me. It was thought best to keep--me perfectly +quiet, and strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery, +with one exception, that my old grandmother came in now and then. +With her it seems that I was somewhat timid and shy, following her +with rather anxious eyes, as if not quite certain whether or not she +was dangerous. But one day, when I was far advanced towards +recovery, my father brought in a young lady, a relative of his, who +had expressed a great desire to see me. She was, as I have been +told, a very handsome girl, of about the same age as my cousin Laura, +but bearing no personal resemblance to her in form, features, or +complexion. She had no sooner entered the room than the same sudden +changes which had followed my cousin's visit began to show +themselves, and before she had reached my bedside I was in a state of +deadly collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned. + +Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures. +A little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into the +nursery one day and bring me some flowers. I took them from her +hand, but turned away and shut my eyes. There was no seizure, but +there was a certain dread and aversion, nothing more than a feeling +which it might be hoped that time would overcome. Those around me +were gradually finding out the circumstances which brought on the +deadly attack to which I was subject. + +The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the +prettiest girl of the village where we were passing the summer. She +was very anxious to see me, and as I was now nearly well it was +determined that she should be permitted to pay me a short visit. I +had always delighted in seeing her and being caressed by her. I was +sleeping when she entered the nursery and came and took a seat at my +side in perfect silence. Presently I became restless, and a moment +later I opened my eyes and saw her stooping over me. My hand went to +my left breast,--the color faded from my cheeks,--I was again the +cold marble image so like death that it had well-nigh been mistaken +for it. + +Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had +left me with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is +most attractive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender +age, who feel the fascination of her flowing locks, her bright eyes, +her blooming cheeks, and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws +all life into its warm and potently vitalized atmosphere? So it did +indeed seem. The dangerous experiment could not be repeated +indefinitely. It was not intentionally tried again, but accident +brought about more than one renewal of it during the following years, +until it became fully recognized that I was the unhappy subject of a +mortal dread of woman,--not absolutely of the human female, for I had +no fear of my old nurse or of my grandmother, or of any old wrinkled +face, and I had become accustomed to the occasional meeting of a +little girl or two, whom I nevertheless regarded with a certain ill- +defined feeling that there was danger in their presence. I was sent +to a boys' school very early, and during the first ten or twelve +years of my life I had rarely any occasion to be reminded of my +strange idiosyncrasy. + +As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change came over the feelings +which had so long held complete possession of me. This was what my +father and his advisers had always anticipated, and was the ground of +their confident hope in my return to natural conditions before I +should have grown to mature manhood. + +How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, bewildering, +dreadful years? Visions of loveliness haunted me sleeping and +waking. Sometimes a graceful girlish figure would so draw my eyes +towards it that I lost sight of all else, and was ready to forget all +my fears and find myself at her side, like other youths by the side +of young maidens,--happy in their cheerful companionship, while I,-- +I, under the curse of one blighting moment, looked on, hopeless. +Sometimes the glimpse of a fair face or the tone of a sweet voice +stirred within me all the instincts that make the morning of life +beautiful to adolescence. I reasoned with myself: + +Why should I not have outgrown that idle apprehension which had been +the nightmare of my earlier years? Why should not the rising tide of +life have drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shallows +of childhood? How many children there are who tremble at being left +alone in the dark, but who, a few years later, will smile at their +foolish terrors and brave all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why +should I any longer be the slave of a foolish fancy that has grown +into a half insane habit of mind? I was familiarly acquainted with +all the stories of the strange antipathies and invincible repugnances +to which others, some of them famous men, had been subject. I said +to myself, Why should not I overcome this dread of woman as Peter the +Great fought down his dread of wheels rolling over a bridge? Was I, +alone of all mankind, to be doomed to perpetual exclusion from the +society which, as it seemed to me, was all that rendered existence +worth the trouble and fatigue of slavery to the vulgar need of +supplying the waste of the system and working at the task of +respiration like the daughters of Danaus,--toiling day and night as +the worn-out sailor labors at the pump of his sinking vessel? + +Why did I not brave the risk of meeting squarely, and without regard +to any possible danger, some one of those fair maidens whose far-off +smile, whose graceful movements, at once attracted and agitated me? +I can only answer this question to the satisfaction of any really +inquiring reader by giving him the true interpretation of the +singular phenomenon of which I was the subject. For this I shall +have to refer to a paper of which I have made a copy, and which will +be found included with this manuscript. It is enough to say here, +without entering into the explanation of the fact, which will be +found simple enough as seen by the light of modern physiological +science, that the "nervous disturbance" which the presence of a woman +in the flower of her age produced in my system was a sense of +impending death, sudden, overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling. It +was a reversed action of the nervous centres,--the opposite of that +which flushes the young lover's cheek and hurries his bounding pulses +as he comes into the presence of the object of his passion. No one +who has ever felt the sensation can have failed to recognize it as an +imperative summons, which commands instant and terrified submission. + +It was at this period of my life that my father determined to try the +effect of travel and residence in different localities upon my bodily +and mental condition. I say bodily as well as mental, for I was too +slender for my height and subject to some nervous symptoms which were +a cause of anxiety. That the mind was largely concerned in these +there was no doubt, but the mutual interactions of mind and body are +often too complex to admit of satisfactory analysis. Each is in part +cause and each also in part effect. + +We passed some years in Italy, chiefly in Rome, where I was placed in +a school conducted by priests, and where of course I met only those +of my own sex. There I had the opportunity of seeing the influences +under which certain young Catholics, destined for the priesthood, are +led to separate themselves from all communion with the sex associated +in their minds with the most subtle dangers to which the human soul +can be exposed. I became in some degree reconciled to the thought of +exclusion from the society of women by seeing around me so many who +were self-devoted to celibacy. The thought sometimes occurred to me +whether I should not find the best and the only natural solution of +the problem of existence, as submitted to myself, in taking upon me +the vows which settle the whole question and raise an impassable +barrier between the devotee and the object of his dangerous +attraction. + +How often I talked this whole matter over with the young priest who +was at once my special instructor and my favorite companion! But +accustomed as I had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and +impressed as I was with the purity and excellence of many of its +young members with whom I was acquainted, my early training rendered +it impossible for me to accept the credentials which it offered me as +authoritative. My friend and instructor had to set me down as a case +of "invincible ignorance." This was the loop-hole through which he +crept out of the prison-house of his creed, and was enabled to look +upon me without the feeling of absolute despair with which his +sterner brethren would, I fear, have regarded me. + +I have said that accident exposed me at times to the influence which +I had such reasons for dreading. Here is one example of such an +occurrence, which I relate as simply as possible, vividly as it is +impressed upon my memory. A young friend whose acquaintance I had +made in Rome asked me one day to come to his rooms and look at a +cabinet of gems and medals which he had collected. I had been but a +short time in his library when a vague sense of uneasiness came over +me. My heart became restless,--I could feel it stirring irregularly, +as if it were some frightened creature caged in my breast. There was +nothing that I could see to account for it. A door was partly open, +but not so that I could see into the next room. The feeling grew +upon me of some influence which was paralyzing my circulation. I +begged my friend to open a window. As be did so, the door swung in +the draught, and I saw a blooming young woman,--it was my friend's +sister, who had been sitting with a book in her hand, and who rose at +the opening of the door. Something had warned me of the presence of +a woman, that occult and potent aura of individuality, call it +personal magnetism, spiritual effluence, or reduce it to a simpler +expression if you will; whatever it was, it had warned me of the +nearness of the dread attraction which allured at a distance and +revealed itself with all the terrors of the Lorelei if approached too +recklessly. A sign from her brother caused her to withdraw at once, +but not before I had felt the impression which betrayed itself in my +change of color, anxiety about the region of the heart, and sudden +failure as if about to fall in a deadly fainting-fit. + +Does all this seem strange and incredible to the reader of my +manuscript? Nothing in the history of life is so strange or +exceptional as it seems to those who have not made a long study of +its mysteries. I have never known just such a case as my own, and +yet there must have been such, and if the whole history of mankind +were unfolded I cannot doubt that there have been many like it. Let +my reader suspend his judgment until he has read the paper I have +referred to, which was drawn up by a Committee of the Royal Academy +of the Biological Sciences. In this paper the mechanism of the +series of nervous derangements to which I have been subject since the +fatal shock experienced in my infancy is explained in language not +hard to understand. It will be seen that such a change of polarity +in the nervous centres is only a permanent form and an extreme degree +of an emotional disturbance, which as a temporary and comparatively +unimportant personal accident is far from being uncommon,--is so +frequent, in fact, that every one must have known instances of it, +and not a few must have had more or less serious experiences of it in +their own private history. + +It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I am now +dealing with the reader. I was full of strange fancies and wild +superstitions. One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal +which had been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear next my +body. I was told that this would turn black after a time, in virtue +of a power which it possessed of drawing out original sin, or certain +portions of it, together with the evil and morbid tendencies which +had been engrafted on the corrupt nature. I wore the medal +faithfully, as directed, and watched it carefully. It became +tarnished and after a time darkened, but it wrought no change in my +unnatural condition. + +There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more of +futurity than she had any right to know. The story was that she had +foretold the assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour. + +However that may have been, I was persuaded to let her try her black +art upon my future. I shall never forget the strange, wild look of +the wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed +her wicked old eyes on my young countenance. After this examination +she shook her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I +could get them would be in English like these: + + Fair lady cast a spell on thee, + Fair lady's hand shall set thee free. + +Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose +palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular +response, have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to +fulfilment. The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I +was subject disposed me to believe the incredible with reference to +all that relates to it. I have never ceased to have the feeling +that, sooner or later, I should find myself freed from the blight +laid upon me in my infancy. It seems as if it would naturally come +through the influence of some young and fair woman, to whom that +merciful errand should be assigned by the Providence that governs our +destiny. With strange hopes, with trembling fears, with mingled +belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself I have sought with +longing yet half-averted eyes for the "elect lady," as I have learned +to call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruined life. + +Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I +had found the object of my superstitious belief.--Singularly enough +it was always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared +before my bewildered vision. Once it was an English girl who was a +fellow passenger with me in one of my ocean voyages. I need not say +that she was beautiful, for she was my dream realized. I heard her +singing, I saw her walking the deck on some of the fair days when +sea-sickness was forgotten. The passengers were a social company +enough, but I had kept myself apart, as was my wont. At last the +attraction became too strong to resist any longer. "I will venture +into the charmed circle if it kills me," I said to my father. I did +venture, and it did not kill me, or I should not be telling this +story. But there was a repetition of the old experiences. I need +not relate the series of alarming consequences of my venture. The +English girl was very lovely, and I have no doubt has made some one +supremely happy before this, but she was not the "elect lady" of the +prophecy and of my dreams. + +A second time I thought myself for a moment in the presence of the +destined deliverer who was to restore me to my natural place among my +fellow men and women. It was on the Tiber that I met the young +maiden who drew me once more into that inner circle which surrounded +young womanhood with deadly peril for me, if I dared to pass its +limits. I was floating with the stream in the little boat in which I +passed many long hours of reverie when I saw another small boat with +a boy and a young girl in it. The boy had been rowing, and one of +his oars had slipped from his grasp. He did not know how to paddle +with a single oar, and was hopelessly rowing round and round, his oar +all the time floating farther away from him. I could not refuse my +assistance. I picked up the oar and brought my skiff alongside of +the boat. When I handed the oar to the boy the young girl lifted her +veil and thanked me in the exquisite music of the language which + + 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin.' + +She was a type of Italian beauty,--a nocturne in flesh and blood, if +I may borrow a term certain artists are fond of; but it was her voice +which captivated me and for a moment made me believe that I was no +longer shut off from all relations with the social life of my race. +An hour later I was found lying insensible on the floor of my boat, +white, cold, almost pulseless. It cost much patient labor to bring +me back to consciousness. Had not such extreme efforts been made, it +seems probable that I should never have waked from a slumber which +was hardly distinguishable from that of death. + + +Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if I +invite it by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause? The +habit of these deadly seizures has become a second nature. The +strongest and the ablest men have found it impossible to resist the +impression produced by the most insignificant object, by the most +harmless sight or sound to which they had a congenital or acquired +antipathy. What prospect have I of ever being rid of this long and +deep-seated infirmity? I may well ask myself these questions, but my +answer is that I will never give up the hope that time will yet bring +its remedy. It may be that the wild prediction which so haunts me +shall find itself fulfilled. I have had of late strange +premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could not help +giving heed. But I have seen too much of the faith that deals in +miracles to accept the supernatural in any shape,--assuredly when it +comes from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her +revelations of the future. Be it so: though I am not superstitious, +I have a right to be imaginative, and my imagination will hold to +those words of the old zingara with an irresistible feeling that, +sooner or later, they will prove true. + +Can it be possible that her prediction is not far from its +realization? I have had both waking and sleeping visions within +these last months and weeks which have taken possession of me and +filled my life with new thoughts, new hopes, new resolves. + +Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am dreaming away this +season of bloom and fragrance, sometimes in the fields or woods in a +distant glimpse, once in a nearer glance, which left me pale and +tremulous, yet was followed by a swift reaction, so that my cheeks +flushed and my pulse bounded, I have seen her who--how do I dare to +tell it so that my own eyes can read it?---I cannot help believing is +to be my deliverer, my saviour. + +I have been warned in the most solemn and impressive language by the +experts most deeply read in the laws of life and the history of its +disturbing and destroying influences, that it would be at the +imminent risk of my existence if I should expose myself to the +repetition of my former experiences. I was reminded that unexplained +sudden deaths were of constant, of daily occurrence; that any emotion +is liable to arrest the movements of life: terror, joy, good news or +bad news,--anything that reaches the deeper nervous centres. I had +already died once, as Sir Charles Napier said of himself; yes, more +than once, died and been resuscitated. The next time, I might very +probably fail to get my return ticket after my visit to Hades. It +was a rather grim stroke of humor, but I understood its meaning full +well, and felt the force of its menace. + +After all, what had I to live for if the great primal instinct which +strives to make whole the half life of lonely manhood is defeated, +suppressed, crushed out of existence? Why not as well die in the +attempt to break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous +movement as in any other way? I am alone in the world,--alone save +for my faithful servant, through whom I seem to hold to the human +race as it were by a single filament. My father, who was my +instructor, my companion, my dearest and best friend through all my +later youth and my earlier manhood, died three years ago and left me +my own master, with the means of living as might best please my +fancy. This season shall decide my fate. One more experiment, and I +shall find myself restored to my place among my fellow-beings, or, as +I devoutly hope, in a sphere where all our mortal infirmities are +past and forgotten. + +I have told the story of a blighted life without reserve, so that +there shall not remain any mystery or any dark suspicion connected +with my memory if I should be taken away unexpectedly. It has cost +me an effort to do it, but now that my life is on record I feel more +reconciled to my lot, with all its possibilities, and among these +possibilities is a gleam of a better future. I have been told by my +advisers, some of them wise, deeply instructed, and kind-hearted men, +that such a life-destiny should be related by the subject of it for +the instruction of others, and especially for the light it throws on +certain peculiarities of human character often wrongly interpreted as +due to moral perversion, when they are in reality the results of +misdirected or reversed actions in some of the closely connected +nervous centres. + +For myself I can truly say that I have very little morbid sensibility +left with reference to the destiny which has been allotted to me. I +have passed through different stages of feeling with reference to it, +as I have developed from infancy to manhood. At first it was mere +blind instinct about which I had no thought, living like other +infants the life of impressions without language to connect them in +series. In my boyhood I began to be deeply conscious of the +infirmity which separated me from those around me. In youth began +that conflict of emotions and impulses with the antagonistic +influence of which I have already spoken, a conflict which has never +ceased, but to which I have necessarily become to a certain degree +accustomed; and against the dangers of which I have learned to guard +myself habitually. That is the meaning of my isolation. You, young +man,--if at any time your eyes shall look upon my melancholy record, +--you at least will understand me. Does not your heart throb, in the +presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as if it "were +ready to crack" with its own excess of strain? What if instead of +throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat +again? You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy +will look upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know +what it is when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and +the grip of the bodice seems unendurable as the embrace of the iron +virgin of the Inquisition. Think what it would be if the grasp were +tightened so that no breath of air could enter your panting chest! + +Does your heart beat in the same way, young man, when your honored +friend, a venerable matron of seventy years, greets you with her +kindly smile as it does in the presence of youthful loveliness? When +a pretty child brings you her doll and looks into your eyes with +artless grace and trustful simplicity, does your pulse quicken, do +you tremble, does life palpitate through your whole being, as when +the maiden of seventeen meets your enamored sight in the glow of her +rosebud beauty? Wonder not, then, if the period of mystic attraction +for you should be that of agitation, terror, danger, to one in whom +the natural current of the instincts has had its course changed as +that of a stream is changed by a convulsion of nature, so that the +impression which is new life to you is death to him. + +I am now twenty-five years old. I have reached the time of life +which I have dreamed, nay even ventured to hope, might be the limit +of the sentence which was pronounced upon me in my infancy. I can +assign no good reason for this anticipation. But in writing this +paper I feel as if I were preparing to begin a renewed existence. +There is nothing for me to be ashamed of in the story I have told. +There is no man living who would not have yielded to the sense of +instantly impending death which seized upon me under the conditions I +have mentioned. Martyrs have gone singing to their flaming shrouds, +but never a man could hold his breath long enough to kill himself; he +must have rope or water, or some mechanical help, or nature will make +him draw in a breath of air, and would make him do so though he knew +the salvation of the human race would be forfeited by that one gasp. + +This paper may never reach the eye of any one afflicted in the same +way that I have been. It probably never will; but for all that, +there are many shy natures which will recognize tendencies in +themselves in the direction of my unhappy susceptibility. Others, to +whom such weakness seems inconceivable, will find their scepticism +shaken, if not removed, by the calm, judicial statement of the Report +drawn up for the Royal Academy. It will make little difference to me +whether my story is accepted unhesitatingly or looked upon as largely +a product of the imagination. I am but a bird of passage that lights +on the boughs of different nationalities. I belong to no flock; my +home may be among the palms of Syria, the olives of Italy, the oaks +of England, the elms that shadow the Hudson or the Connecticut; I +build no nest; to-day I am here, to-morrow on the wing. + +If I quit my native land before the trees have dropped their leaves I +shall place this manuscript in the safe hands of one whom I feel sure +that I can trust; to do with it as he shall see fit. If it is only +curious and has no bearing on human welfare, he may think it well to +let it remain unread until I shall have passed away. If in his +judgment it throws any light on one of the deeper mysteries of our +nature,--the repulsions which play such a formidable part in social +life, and which must be recognized as the correlatives of the +affinities that distribute the individuals governed by them in the +face of impediments which seem to be impossibilities,--then it may be +freely given to the world. + +But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen, the programme of my +life will have changed, and this story of the dead past will be +illuminated by the light of a living present which will irradiate all +its saddening features. Who would not pray that my last gleam of +light and hope may be that of dawn and not of departing day? + +The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of a story so far +from the common range of experience is once more requested to suspend +his judgment until he has read the paper which will next be offered +for his consideration. + + +THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. + +Perhaps it is too much to expect a reader who wishes to be +entertained, excited, amused, and does not want to work his passage +through pages which he cannot understand without some effort of his +own, to read the paper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon +it. If he has no curiosity in the direction of these chapters, he +can afford to leave them to such as relish a slight flavor of +science. But if he does so leave them he will very probably remain +sceptical as to the truth of the story to which they are meant to +furnish him with a key. + +Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a remarkable and +exceptional one, and it is hardly probable that any reader's +experience will furnish him with its parallel. But let him look back +over all his acquaintances, if he has reached middle life, and see if +he cannot recall more than one who, for some reason or other, shunned +the society of young women, as if they had a deadly fear of their +company. If he remembers any such, he can understand the simple +statements and natural reflections which are laid before him. + +One of the most singular facts connected with the history of Maurice +Kirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to +the fate which had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped +by the Interviewer, who would show him up in the sensational columns +of his prying newspaper. He lived chiefly by himself, as the easiest +mode of avoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in +almost every society into which he might venture. But he had learned +to look upon himself very much as he would upon an intimate not +himself,--upon a different personality. A young man will naturally +enough be ashamed of his shyness. It is something which others +believe, and perhaps he himself thinks, he might overcome. But in +the case of Maurice Kirkwood there was no room for doubt as to the +reality and gravity of the long enduring effects of his first +convulsive terror. He had accepted the fact as he would have +accepted the calamity of losing his sight or his hearing. When he +was questioned by the experts to whom his case was submitted, he told +them all that he knew about it almost without a sign of emotion. +Nature was so peremptory with him,--saying in language that had no +double meaning: "If you violate the condition on which you hold my +gift of existence I slay you on the spot,"--that he became as +decisive in his obedience as she was in her command, and accepted his +fate without repining. + +Yet it must not be thought for a moment,--it cannot be supposed,-- +that he was insensible because he looked upon himself with the +coolness of an enforced philosophy. He bore his burden manfully, +hard as it was to live under it, for he lived, as we have seen, in +hope. The thought of throwing it off with his life, as too grievous +to be borne, was familiar to his lonely hours, but he rejected it as +unworthy of his manhood. How he had speculated and dreamed about it +is plain enough from the paper the reader may remember on Ocean, +River, and Lake. + +With these preliminary hints the paper promised is submitted to such +as may find any interest in them. + + + ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA. + + WITH REMARKS. + +Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the Biological +Sciences by a Committee of that Institution. + +"The singular nature of the case we are about to narrate and comment +upon will, we feel confident, arrest the attention of those who have +learned the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light +upon her laws by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from +time to time are observed. We have done with the lusus naturae of +earlier generations. We pay little attention to the stories of +'miracles,' except so far as we receive them ready-made at the hands +of the churches which still hold to them. Not the less do we meet +with strange and surprising facts, which a century or two ago would +have been handled by the clergy and the courts, but today are calmly +recorded and judged by the best light our knowledge of the laws of +life can throw upon them. It must be owned that there are stories +which we can hardly dispute, so clear and full is the evidence in +their support, which do, notwithstanding, tax our faith and sometimes +leave us sceptical in spite of all the testimony which supports them. + +" In this category many will be disposed to place the case we commend +to the candid attention of the Academy. If one were told that a +young man, a gentleman by birth and training, well formed, in +apparently perfect health, of agreeable physiognomy and manners, +could not endure the presence of the most attractive young woman, but +was seized with deadly terror and sudden collapse of all the powers +of life, if he came into her immediate presence; if it were added +that this same young man did not shrink from the presence of an old +withered crone; that he had a certain timid liking for little maidens +who had not yet outgrown the company of their dolls, the listener +would be apt to smile, if he did not laugh, at the absurdity of the +fable. Surely, he would say, this must be the fiction of some +fanciful brain, the whim of some romancer, the trick of some +playwright. It would make a capital farce, this idea, carried out. +A young man slighting the lovely heroine of the little comedy and +making love to her grandmother! This would, of course, be +overstating the truth of the story, but to such a misinterpretation +the plain facts lend themselves too easily. We will relate the +leading circumstances of the case, as they were told us with perfect +simplicity and frankness by the subject of an affection which, if +classified, would come under the general head of Antipathy, but to +which, if we give it a name, we shall have to apply the term +Gynophobia, or Fear of Woman." + +Here follows the account furnished to the writer of the paper, which +is in all essentials identical with that already laid before the +reader. + +" Such is the case offered to our consideration. Assuming its +truthfulness in all its particulars, it remains to see in the first +place whether or not it is as entirely exceptional and anomalous as +it seems at first sight, or whether it is only the last term of a +series of cases which in their less formidable aspect are well known +to us in literature, in the records of science, and even in our +common experience. + +"To most of those among us the explanations we are now about to give +are entirely superfluous. But there are some whose chief studies +have been in different directions, and who will not complain if +certain facts are mentioned which to the expert will seem +rudimentary, and which hardly require recapitulation to those who are +familiarly acquainted with the common text-books. + +"The heart is the centre of every living movement in the higher +animals, and in man, furnishing in varying amount, or withholding to +a greater or less extent, the needful supplies to all parts of the +system. If its action is diminished to a certain degree, faintness +is the immediate consequence; if it is arrested, loss of +consciousness; if its action is not soon restored, death, of which +fainting plants the white flag, remains in possession of the system. + +"How closely the heart is under the influence of the emotions we need +not go to science to learn, for all human experience and all +literature are overflowing with evidence that shows the extent of +this relation. Scripture is full of it; the heart in Hebrew poetry +represents the entire life, we might almost say. Not less forcible +is the language of Shakespeare, as for instance, in 'Measure for +Measure:' + + "'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, + Making it both unable for itself + And dispossessing all my other parts + Of necessary fitness?' + +"More especially is the heart associated in every literature with the +passion of love. A famous old story is that of Galen, who was called +to the case of a young lady long ailing, and wasting away from some +cause the physicians who had already seen her were unable to make +out. The shrewd old practitioner suspected that love was at the +bottom of the young lady's malady. Many relatives and friends of +both sexes, all of them ready with their sympathy, came to see her. +The physician sat by her bedside during one of these visits, and in +an easy, natural way took her hand and placed a finger on her pulse. +It beat quietly enough until a certain comely young gentleman entered +the apartment, when it suddenly rose infrequency, and at the same +moment her hurried breathing, her changing color, pale and flushed by +turns, betrayed the profound agitation his presence excited. This +was enough for the sagacious Greek; love was the disease, the cure of +which by its like may be claimed as an anticipation of homoeopathy. +In the frontispiece to the fine old 'Junta' edition of the works of +Galen, you may find among the wood-cuts a representation of the +interesting scene, with the title Amantas Dignotio,--the diagnosis, +or recognition, of the lover. + +"Love has many languages, but the heart talks through all of them. +The pallid or burning cheek tells of the failing or leaping fountain +which gives it color. The lovers at the 'Brookside' could hear each +other's hearts beating. When Genevieve, in Coleridge's poem, forgot +herself, and was beforehand with her suitor in her sudden embrace, + + "'T was partly love and partly fear, + And partly 't was a bashful art, + That I might rather feel than see + The swelling of her heart' + +"Always the heart, whether its hurried action is seen, or heard, or +felt. But it is not always in this way that the 'deceitful' organ +treats the lover. + + "'Faint heart never won fair lady.' + +"This saying was not meant, perhaps, to be taken literally, but it has +its literal truth. Many a lover has found his heart sink within +him,--lose all its force, and leave him weak as a child in his +emotion at the sight of the object of his affections. When Porphyro +looked upon Madeline at her prayers in the chapel, it was too much +for him: + + "'She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, + Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint, + She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from earthly taint.' + +"And in Balzac's novel, 'Cesar Birotteau,' the hero of the story +'fainted away for-joy at the moment when, under a linden-tree, at +Sceaux, Constance-Barbe-Josephine accepted him as her future +husband.' + +"One who faints is dead if he does not I come to,' and nothing is +more likely than that too susceptible lovers have actually gone off +in this way. Everything depends on how the heart behaves itself in +these and similar trying moments. The mechanism of its actions +becomes an interesting subject, therefore, to lovers of both sexes, +and to all who are capable of intense emotions. + +"The heart is a great reservoir, which distributes food, drink, air, +and heat to every part of the system, in exchange for its waste +material. It knocks at the gate of every organ seventy or eighty +times in a minute, calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload +its refuse. Between it and the brain there is the closest relation. +The emotions, which act upon it as we have seen, govern it by a +mechanism only of late years thoroughly understood. This mechanism +can be made plain enough to the reader who is not afraid to believe +that he can understand it. + +"The brain, as all know, is the seat of ideas, emotions, volition. +It is the great central telegraphic station with which many lesser +centres are in close relation, from which they receive, and to which +they transmit, their messages. The heart has its own little brains, +so to speak,--small collections of nervous substance which govern its +rhythmical motions under ordinary conditions. But these lesser +nervous centres are to a large extent dominated by influences +transmitted from certain groups of nerve-cells in the brain and its +immediate dependencies. + +"There are two among the special groups of nerve-cells which produce +directly opposite effects. One of these has the power of +accelerating the action of the heart, while the other has the power +of retarding or arresting this action. One acts as the spur, the +other as the bridle. According as one or the other predominates, the +action of the heart will be stimulated or restrained. Among the +great modern discoveries in physiology is that of the existence of a +distinct centre of inhibition, as the restraining influence over the +heart is called. + +"The centre of inhibition plays a terrible part in the history of +cowardice and of unsuccessful love. No man can be brave without +blood to sustain his courage, any more than he can think, as the +German materialist says, not absurdly, without phosphorus. The +fainting lover must recover his circulation, or his lady will lend +him her smelling-salts and take a gallant with blood in his cheeks. +Porphyro got over his faintness before he ran away with Madeline, and +Cesar Birotteau was an accepted lover when he swooned with happiness: +but many an officer has been cashiered, and many a suitor has been +rejected, because the centre of inhibition has got the upper hand of +the centre of stimulation. + +"In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been +recorded, the most frequent cause has been the disturbed and +depressing influence of the centre of inhibition. Fainting at the +sight of blood is one of the commonest examples of this influence. A +single impression, in a very early period of atmospheric existence,-- +perhaps, indirectly, before that period, as was said to have happened +in the case of James the First of England,--may establish a +communication between this centre and the heart which will remain +open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across a field establish +itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we call accidental, but +one after another follows it as if he were guided by a chart on which +it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transit between the +centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If once the path +is opened by the track of some profound impression, that same +impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old +footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to +traverse, and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, +may perpetuate itself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its +subject. + +"The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of +the effect of inhibition on the heart. + +"We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history of +the human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have been +similar cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has been +the consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. +The case most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well +known to require any lengthened description in this paper. It is +enough to recall the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort +suspend the action of his heart for a considerable period, during +which he lay like one dead, pulseless, and without motion. After a +time the circulation returned, and he does not seem to have been the +worse for his dangerous, or seemingly dangerous, experiment. But in +his case it was by an act of the will that the heart's action was +suspended. In the case before us it is an involuntary impulse +transmitted from the brain to the inhibiting centre, which arrests +the cardiac movements. + +"What is like to be the further history of the case? + +"The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty +years old. The chain of nervous actions has become firmly +established. It might have been hoped that the changes of +adolescence would have effected a transformation of the perverted +instinct. On the contrary, the whole force of this instinct throws +itself on the centre of inhibition, instead of quickening the heart- +beats, and sending the rush of youthful blood with fresh life through +the entire system to the throbbing finger-tips. + +"Is it probable that time and circumstances will alter a habit of +nervous interactions so long established? We are disposed to think +that there is a chance of its being broken up. And we are not afraid +to say that we suspect the old gypsy woman, whose prophecy took such +hold of the patient's imagination, has hit upon the way in which the +"spell,' as she called it, is to be dissolved. She must, in all +probability, have had a hint of the 'antipatia' to which the youth +before her was a victim, and its cause, and if so, her guess as to +the probable mode in which the young man would obtain relief from his +unfortunate condition was the one which would naturally suggest +itself. + +"If once the nervous impression which falls on the centre of +inhibition can be made to change its course, so as to follow its +natural channel, it will probably keep to that channel ever +afterwards. And this will, it is most likely, be effected by some +sudden, unexpected impression. If he were drowning, and a young +woman should rescue him, it is by no means impossible that the change +in the nervous current we have referred to might be brought about as +rapidly, as easily, as the reversal of the poles in a magnet, which +is effected in an instant. But he cannot be expected to throw +himself into the water just at the right moment when the 'fair lady' +of the gitana's prophecy is passing on the shore. Accident may +effect the cure which art seems incompetent to perform. It would not +be strange if in some future seizure he should never come back to +consciousness. But it is quite conceivable, on the other hand, that +a happier event may occur, that in a single moment the nervous +polarity may be reversed, the whole course of his life changed, and +his past terrible experiences be to him like a scarce-remembered +dream. + +"This is one, of those cases in which it is very hard to determine +the wisest course to be pursued. The question is not unlike that +which arises in certain cases of dislocation of the bones of the +neck. Shall the unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face +turned far round to the right or the left, or shall an attempt be +made to replace the dislocated bones? an attempt which may succeed, +or may cause instant death. The patient must be consulted as to +whether he will take the chance. The practitioner may be unwilling +to risk it, if the patient consents. Each case must be judged on its +own special grounds. We cannot think that this young man is doomed +to perpetual separation from the society of womanhood during the +period of its bloom and attraction. But to provoke another seizure +after his past experiences would be too much like committing suicide. +We fear that we must trust to the chapter of accidents. The strange +malady--for such it is--has become a second nature, and may require +as energetic a shock to displace it as it did to bring it into +existence. Time alone can solve this question, on which depends the +well-being and, it may be, the existence of a young man every way +fitted to be happy, and to give happiness, if restored to his true +nature." + + + + +XX. + +DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. + +Dr. Butts sat up late at night reading these papers and reflecting +upon them. He was profoundly impressed and tenderly affected by the +entire frankness, the absence of all attempt at concealment, which +Maurice showed in placing these papers at his disposal. He believed +that his patient would recover from this illness for which he had +been taking care of him. He thought deeply and earnestly of what he +could do for him after he should have regained his health and +strength. + +There were references, in Maurice's own account of himself, which the +doctor called to mind with great interest after reading his brief +autobiography. Some one person--some young woman, it must be--had +produced a singular impression upon him since those earlier perilous +experiences through which he had passed. The doctor could not help +thinking of that meeting with Euthymia of which she had spoken to +him. Maurice, as she said, turned pale,--he clapped his hand to his +breast. He might have done so if be had met her chambermaid, or any +straggling damsel of the village. But Euthymia was not a young woman +to be looked upon with indifference. She held herself like a queen, +and walked like one, not a stage queen, but one born and bred to +self-reliance, and command of herself as well as others. One could +not pass her without being struck with her noble bearing and spirited +features. If she had known how Maurice trembled as he looked upon +her, in that conflict of attraction and uncontrollable dread,--if she +had known it! But what, even then, could she have done? Nothing but +get away from him as fast as she could. As it was, it was a long +time before his agitation subsided, and his heart beat with its +common force and frequency. + +Dr. Butts was not a male gossip nor a matchmaking go-between. But he +could not help thinking what a pity it was that these two young +persons could not come together as other young people do in the +pairing season, and find out whether they cared for and were fitted +for each other. He did not pretend to settle this question in his +own mind, but the thought was a natural one. And here was a gulf +between them as deep and wide as that between Lazarus and Dives. +Would it ever be bridged over? This thought took possession of the +doctor's mind, and he imagined all sorts of ways of effecting some +experimental approximation between Maurice and Euthymia. From this +delicate subject he glanced off to certain general considerations +suggested by the extraordinary history he had been reading. He began +by speculating as to the possibility of the personal presence of an +individual making itself perceived by some channel other than any of +the five senses. The study of the natural sciences teaches those who +are devoted to them that the most insignificant facts may lead the +way to the discovery of the most important, all-pervading laws of the +universe. From the kick of a frog's hind leg to the amazing triumphs +which began with that seemingly trivial incident is a long, a very +long stride if Madam Galvani had not been in delicate health, which +was the occasion of her having some frog-broth prepared for her, the +world of to-day might not be in possession of the electric telegraph +and the light which blazes like the sun at high noon. A common- +looking occurrence, one seemingly unimportant, which had hitherto +passed unnoticed with the ordinary course of things, was the means of +introducing us to a new and vast realm of closely related phenomena. +It was like a key that we might have picked up, looking so simple +that it could hardly fit any lock but one of like simplicity, but +which should all at once throw back the bolts of the one lock which +had defied the most ingenious of our complex implements and open our +way into a hitherto unexplored territory. + +It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice felt the +paralyzing influence. He could contemplate Euthymia from a distance, +as he did on the day of the boat-race, without any nervous +disturbance. A certain proximity was necessary for the influence to +be felt, as in the case of magnetism and electricity. An atmosphere +of danger surrounded every woman he approached during the period when +her sex exercises its most powerful attractions. How far did that +atmosphere extend, and through what channel did it act? + +The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, was to be found +in a fact as humble as that which gave birth to the science of +galvanism and its practical applications. The circumstances +connected with the very common antipathy to cats were as remarkable +in many points of view as the similar circumstances in the case of +Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects of that antipathy could not tell what +it was which disturbed their nervous system. All they knew was that +a sense of uneasiness, restlessness, oppression, came over them in +the presence of one of these animals. He remembered the fact already +mentioned, that persons sensitive to this impression can tell by +their feelings if a cat is concealed in the apartment in which they +may happen to be. It may be through some emanation. It may be +through the medium of some electrical disturbance. What if the +nerve-thrills passing through the whole system of the animal +propagate themselves to a certain distance without any more regard to +intervening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sieve lets sand +pass through it; a filter arrests sand, but lets fluids pass, glass +holds fluids, but lets light through; wood shuts out light, but +magnetic attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. +No good reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should not +betray itself to certain organizations, at a distance, through the +walls of a box in which the animal is shut up. We need not +disbelieve the stories which allege such an occurrence as a fact and +a not very infrequent one. + +If the presence of a cat can produce its effects under these +circumstances, why should not that of a human being under similar +conditions, acting on certain constitutions, exercise its specific +influence? The doctor recalled a story told him by one of his +friends, a story which the friend himself heard from the lips of the +distinguished actor, the late Mr. Fechter. The actor maintained that +Rachel had no genius as an actress. It was all Samson's training and +study, according to him, which explained the secret of her wonderful +effectiveness on the stage. But magnetism, he said,--magnetism, she +was full of. He declared that he was made aware of her presence on +the stage, when he could not see her or know of her presence +otherwise, by this magnetic emanation. The doctor took the story for +what it was worth. There might very probably be exaggeration, +perhaps high imaginative coloring about it, but it was not a whit +more unlikely than the cat-stories, accepted as authentic. He +continued this train of thought into further developments. Into this +series of reflections we will try to follow him. + +What is the meaning of the halo with which artists have surrounded +the heads of their pictured saints, of the aureoles which wraps them +like a luminous cloud? Is it not a recognition of the fact that +these holy personages diffuse their personality in the form of a +visible emanation, which reminds us of Milton's definition of light: + + "Bright effluence of bright essence increate"? + +The common use of the term influence would seem to imply the +existence of its correlative, effluence. There is no good reason +that I can see, the doctor said to himself, why among the forces +which work upon the nervous centres there should not be one which +acts at various distances from its source. It may not be visible +like the "glory" of the painters, it may not be appreciable by any +one of the five senses, and yet it may be felt by the person reached +by it as much as if it were a palpable presence,--more powerfully, +perhaps, from the mystery which belongs to its mode of action. + +Why should not Maurice have been rendered restless and anxious by the +unseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him, +just as the persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious of +their presence through some unknown channel? Is it anything strange +that the larger and more powerful organism should diffuse a +consciousness of its presence to some distance as well as the +slighter and feebler one? Is it strange that this mysterious +influence or effluence should belong especially or exclusively to the +period of complete womanhood in distinction from that of immaturity +or decadence? On the contrary, it seems to be in accordance with all +the analogies of nature,--analogies too often cruel in the sentence +they pass upon the human female. + +Among the many curious thoughts which came up in the doctor's mind +was this, which made him smile as if it were a jest, but which he +felt very strongly had its serious side, and was involved with the +happiness or suffering of multitudes of youthful persons who die +without telling their secret: + +How many young men have a mortal fear of woman, as woman, which they +never overcome, and in consequence of which the attraction which +draws man towards her, as strong in them as in others,--oftentimes, +in virtue of their peculiarly sensitive organizations, more potent in +them than in others of like age and conditions,--in consequence of +which fear, this attraction is completely neutralized, and all the +possibilities of doubled and indefinitely extended life depending +upon it are left unrealized! Think what numbers of young men in +Catholic countries devote themselves to lives of celibacy. Think how +many young men lose all their confidence in the presence of the young +woman to whom they are most attracted, and at last steal away from a +companionship which it is rapture to dream of and torture to endure, +so does the presence of the beloved object paralyze all the powers of +expression. Sorcerers have in all time and countries played on the +hopes and terrors of lovers. Once let loose a strong impulse on the +centre of inhibition, and the warrior who had faced bayonets and +batteries becomes a coward whom the well-dressed hero of the ball- +room and leader of the German will put to ignominious flight in five +minutes of easy, audacious familiarity with his lady-love. + +Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do not know that I +have seen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript, but I +have seen the malady many times. Only one word has stood between +many a pair of young people and their lifelong happiness, and that +word has got as far as the lips, but the lips trembled and would not, +could not, shape that little word. All young women are not like +Coleridge's Genevieve, who knew how to help her lover out of his +difficulty, and said yes before he had asked for an answer. So the +wave which was to have wafted them on to the shore of Elysium has +just failed of landing them, and back they have been drawn into the +desolate ocean to meet no more on earth. + +Love is the master-key, he went on thinking, love is the master-key +that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most +easily of all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of +beauty!--not only the historic wonder of beauty, that "burnt the +topless towers of Ilium "for the smile of Helen, and fired the +palaces of Babylon by the hand of Thais, but the beauty which springs +up in all times and places, and carries a torch and wears a serpent +for a wreath as truly as any of the Eumenides. Paint Beauty with her +foot upon a skull and a dragon coiled around her. + +The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and +pictorial imagery. Drifting along from thought to thought, he +reflected on the probable consequences of the general knowledge of +Maurice Kirkwood's story, if it came before the public. + +What a piece of work it would make among the lively youths of the +village, to be sure! What scoffing, what ridicule, what +embellishments, what fables, would follow in the trail of the story! +If the Interviewer got hold of it, how "The People's Perennial and +Household Inquisitor" would blaze with capitals in its next issue! +The young fellows' of the place would be disposed to make fun of the +whole matter. The young girls-the doctor hardly dared to think what +would happen when the story got about among them. "The Sachem" of +the solitary canoe, the bold horseman, the handsome hermit,--handsome +so far as the glimpses they had got of him went,--must needs be an +object of tender interest among them, now that he was ailing, +suffering, in danger of his life, away from friends,--poor fellow! +Little tokens of their regard had reached his sick-chamber; bunches +of flowers with dainty little notes, some of them pinkish, some +three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others "criss- +crossed," were growing more frequent as it was understood that the +patient was likely to be convalescent before many days had passed. +If it should come to be understood that there was a deadly obstacle +to their coming into any personal relations with him, the doctor had +his doubts whether there were not those who would subject him to the +risk; for there were coquettes in the village,--strangers, visitors, +let us hope,--who would sacrifice anything or anybody to their vanity +and love of conquest. + + + + +XXI + +AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. + +The illness from which Maurice had suffered left him in a state of +profound prostration. The doctor, who remembered the extreme danger +of any overexertion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his +head from the pillow. But his mind was gradually recovering its +balance, and he was able to hold some conversation with those about +him. His faithful Paolo had grown so thin in waiting upon him and +watching with him that the village children had to take a second look +at his face when they passed him to make sure that it was indeed +their old friend and no other. But as his master advanced towards +convalescence and the doctor assured him that he was going in all +probability to get well, Paolo's face began to recover something of +its old look and expression, and once more his pockets filled +themselves with comfits for his little circle of worshipping three +and four year old followers. + +How is Mr. Kirkwood?" was the question with which he was always +greeted. In the worst periods of the fever be rarely left his +master. When he did, and the question was put to him, he would shake +his head sadly, sometimes without a word, sometimes with tears and +sobs and faltering words,--more like a brokenhearted child than a +stalwart man as he was, such a man as soldiers are made of in the +great Continental armies. + +"He very bad,--he no eat nothing,--he--no say nothing,--he never be +no better," and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a +passionate burst of lamentation. But now that he began to feel easy +about his master, his ready optimism declared itself no less +transparently. + +"He better every day now. He get well in few weeks, sure. You see +him on hoss in little while." The kind-hearted creature's life was +bound up in that of his "master," as he loved to call him, in +sovereign disregard of the comments of the natives, who held +themselves too high for any such recognition of another as their +better. They could not understand how he, so much their superior in +bodily presence, in air and manner, could speak of the man who +employed him in any other way than as "Kirkwood," without even +demeaning himself so far as to prefix a "Mr." to it. But "my +master" Maurice remained for Paolo in spite of the fact that all men +are born free and equal. And never was a servant more devoted to a +master than was Paolo to Maurice during the days of doubt and danger. +Since his improvement Maurice insisted upon his leaving his chamber +and getting out of the house, so as to breathe the fresh air of which +he was in so much need. It worried him to see his servant returning +after too short an absence. The attendant who had helped him in the +care of the patient was within call, and Paolo was almost driven out +of the house by the urgency of his master's command that he should +take plenty of exercise in the open air. + +Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved condition, although +the force of the disease had spent itself, the state of weakness to +which he had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety, and required +great precautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, enfeebled to +such a degree that he had to be cared for very much as a child is +tended. Gradually his voice was coming back to him, so that he could +hold some conversation, as was before mentioned, with those about +him. The doctor waited for the right moment to make mention of the +manuscript which Maurice had submitted to him. Up to this time, +although it had been alluded to and the doctor had told him of the +intense interest with which he had read it, he had never ventured to +make it the subject of any long talk, such as would be liable to +fatigue his patient. But now he thought the time had come. + +"I have been thinking," the doctor said, "of the singular seizures to +which you are liable, and as it is my business not merely to think +about such cases, but to do what I can to help any who may be capable +of receiving aid from my art, I wish to have some additional facts +about your history. And in the first place, will you allow me to ask +what led you to this particular place? It is so much less known to +the public at large than many other resorts that we naturally ask, +What brings this or that new visitor among us? We have no ill- +tasting, natural spring of bad water to be analyzed by the state +chemist and proclaimed as a specific. We have no great gambling- +houses, no racecourse (except that fox boats on the lake); we have no +coaching-club, no great balls, few lions of any kind, so we ask, What +brings this or that stranger here? And I think I may venture to ask +you whether any, special motive brought you among us, or whether it +was accident that determined your coming to this place." + +"Certainly, doctor," Maurice answered, "I will tell you with great +pleasure. Last year I passed on the border of a great river. The +year before I lived in a lonely cottage at the side of the ocean. I +wanted this year to be by a lake. You heard the paper read at the +meeting of your society, or at least you heard of it,--for such +matters are always talked over in a village like this. You can judge +by that paper, or could, if it were before you, of the frame of mind +in which I came here. I was tired of the sullen indifference of the +ocean and the babbling egotism of the river, always hurrying along on +its own private business. I wanted the dreamy stillness of a large, +tranquil sheet of water that had nothing in particular to do, and +would leave me to myself and my thoughts. I had read somewhere about +the place, and the old Anchor Tavern, with its paternal landlord and +motherly landlady and old-fashioned household, and that, though it +was no longer open as a tavern, I could find a resting-place there +early in the season, at least for a few days, while I looked about me +for a quiet place in which I might pass my summer. I have found this +a pleasant residence. By being up early and out late I have kept +myself mainly in the solitude which has become my enforced habit of +life. The season has gone by too swiftly for me since my dream has +become a vision." + +The doctor was sitting with his hand round Maurice's wrist, three +fingers on his pulse. As he spoke these last words he noticed that +the pulse fluttered a little,--beat irregularly a few times; +intermitted; became feeble and thready; while his cheek grew whiter +than the pallid bloodlessness of his long illness had left it. + +"No more talk, now," he said. "You are too tired to be using your +voice. I will hear all the rest another time." + +The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interesting point. What did +he mean by saying that his dream had become a vision? This is what +the doctor was naturally curious, and professionally anxious, to +know. But his hand was still on his patient's pulse, which told him +unmistakably that the heart had taken the alarm and was losing its +energy under the depressing nervous influence. Presently, however, +it recovered its natural force and rhythm, and a faint flush came +back to the pale cheek. The doctor remembered the story of Galen, +and the young maiden whose complaint had puzzled the physicians. + +The next day his patient was well enough to enter once more into +conversation. + +"You said something about a dream of yours which had become a +vision," said the doctor, with his fingers on his patient's wrist, as +before. He felt the artery leap, under his pressure, falter a +little, stop, then begin again, growing fuller in its beat. The +heart had felt the pull of the bridle, but the spur had roused it to +swift reaction. + +"You know the story of my past life, doctor," Maurice answered; "and, +I will tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my +dreams. You remember the boat-race? I watched it from a distance, +but I held a powerful opera-glass in my hand, which brought the whole +crew of the young ladies' boat so close to me that I could see the +features, the figures, the movements, of every one of the rowers. I +saw the little coxswain fling her bouquet in the track of the other +boat,--you remember how the race was lost and won,--but I saw one +face among those young girls which drew me away from all the rest. +It was that of the young lady who pulled the bow oar, the captain of +the boat's crew. I have since learned her name, you know it well,--I +need not name her. Since that day I have had many distant glimpses +of her; and once I met her so squarely that the deadly sensation came +over me, and I felt that in another moment I should fall senseless at +her feet. But she passed on her way and I on mine, and the spasm +which had clutched my heart gradually left it, and I was as well as +before. You know that young lady, doctor?" + +"I do; and she is a very noble creature. You are not the first young +man who has been fascinated, almost at a glance, by Miss Euthymia +Tower. And she is well worth knowing more intimately." + +The doctor gave him a full account of the young lady, of her early +days, her character, her accomplishments. To all this he listened +devoutly, and when the doctor left him he said to himself, +"I will see her and speak with her, if it costs me my life." + + + + +XXII + +EUTHYMIA. + +"The Wonder" of the Corinna Institute had never willingly made a show +of her gymnastic accomplishments. Her feats, which were so much +admired, were only her natural exercise. Gradually the dumb-bells +others used became too light for her, the ropes she climbed too +short, the clubs she exercised with seemed as if they were made of +cork instead of being heavy wood, and all the tests and meters of +strength and agility had been strained beyond the standards which the +records of the school had marked as their historic maxima. It was +not her fault that she broke a dynamometer one day; she apologized +for it, but the teacher said he wished he could have a dozen broken +every year in the same way. The consciousness of her bodily strength +had made her very careful in her movements. The pressure of her hand +was never too hard for the tenderest little maiden whose palm was +against her own. So far from priding herself on her special gifts, +she was disposed to be ashamed of them. There were times and places +in which she could give full play to her muscles without fear or +reproach. She had her special costume for the boat and for the +woods. She would climb the rugged old hemlocks now and then for the +sake of a wide outlook, or to peep into the large nest where a hawk, +or it may be an eagle, was raising her little brood of air-pirates. + +There were those who spoke of her wanderings in lonely places as an +unsafe exposure. One sometimes met doubtful characters about the +neighborhood, and stories were--told of occurrences which might well +frighten a young girl, and make her cautious of trusting herself +alone in the wild solitudes which surrounded the little village.. +Those who knew Euthymia thought her quite equal to taking care of +herself. Her very look was enough to ensure the respect of any +vagabond who might cross her path, and if matters came to the worst +she would prove as dangerous as a panther. + +But it was a pity to associate this class of thoughts with a noble +specimen of true womanhood. Health, beauty, strength, were fine +qualities, and in all these she was rich. She enjoyed all her +natural gifts, and thought little about them. Unwillingly, but over- +persuaded by some of her friends, she had allowed her arm and hand to +be modelled. The artists who saw the cast wondered if it would be +possible to get the bust of the maiden from whom it was taken. +Nobody would have dared to suggest such an idea to her except Lurida. +For Lurida sex was a trifling accident, to be disregarded not only in +the interests of humanity, but for the sake of art. + +"It is a shame," she said to Euthymia, "that you will not let your +exquisitely moulded form be perpetuated in marble. You have no right +to withhold such a model from the contemplation of your fellow- +creatures. Think how rare it is to see a woman who truly represents +the divine idea! You belong to your race, and not to yourself,--at +least, your beauty is a gift not to be considered as a piece of +private property. Look at the so-called Venus of Milo. Do you +suppose the noble woman who was the original of that divinely chaste +statue felt any scruple about allowing the sculptor to reproduce her +pure, unblemished perfections?" + +Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend. She +listened to her eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, +used as she was to Lurida's audacities. "The Terror's" brain had run +away with a large share of the blood which ought to have gone to the +nourishment of her general system. She could not help admiring, +almost worshipping, a companion whose being was rich in the womanly +developments with which nature had so economically endowed herself. +An impoverished organization carries with it certain neutral +qualities which make its subject appear, in the presence of complete +manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-mute among speaking persons. The +deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheek at Lurida's suggestion +was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbed expression. There +was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew far less than she +did of those many and difficult studies which had absorbed her vital +forces. She was startled to see what an effect her proposal had +produced, for Euthymia was not only blushing, but there was a flame +in her eyes which she had hardly ever seen before. + +"Is this only your own suggestion?" Euthymia said, "or has some one +been putting the idea into your head?" The truth was that she had +happened to meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she was +offended by the long, searching stare with which that individual had +honored her. It occurred to her that he, or some such visitor to the +place, might have spoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person +who had repeated what was said to Lurida, as a good subject for the +art of the sculptor, and she felt all her maiden sensibilities +offended by the proposition. Lurida could not understand her +excitement, but she was startled by it. Natures which are +complementary of each other are liable to these accidental collisions +of feeling. They get along very well together, none the worse for +their differences, until all at once the tender spot of one or the +other is carelessly handled in utter unconsciousness on the part of +the aggressor, and the exclamation, the outcry, or the explosion +explains the situation altogether too emphatically. Such scenes did +not frequently occur between the two friends, and this little flurry +was soon over; but it served to warn Lurida that Miss Euthymia Tower +was not of that class of self-conscious beauties who would be ready +to dispute the empire of the Venus of Milo on her own ground, in +defences as scanty and insufficient as those of the marble divinity. + +Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, while at school, and +in the long vacations, near enough to find out that she was anything +but easy to make love to. She fairly frightened more than one rash +youth who was disposed to be too sentimental in her company. They +overdid flattery, which she was used to and tolerated, but which +cheapened the admirer in her estimation, and now and then betrayed +her into an expression which made him aware of the fact, and was a +discouragement to aggressive amiability. The real difficulty was +that not one of her adorers had ever greatly interested her. It +could not be that nature had made her insensible. It must have been +because the man who was made for her had never yet shown himself. +She was not easy to please, that was certain; and she was one of +those young women who will not accept as a lover one who but half +pleases them. She could not pick up the first stick that fell in her +way and take it to shape her ideal out of. Many of the good people +of the village doubted whether Euthymia would ever be married. + +"There 's nothing good enough for her in this village," said the old +landlord of what had been the Anchor Tavern. + +"She must wait till a prince comes along," the old landlady said in +reply. "She'd make as pretty a queen as any of them that's born to +it. Wouldn't she be splendid with a gold crown on her head, and +di'monds a glitterin' all over her! D' you remember how handsome she +looked in the tableau, when the fair was held for the Dorcas Society? +She had on an old dress of her grandma's,--they don't make anything. +half so handsome nowadays,--and she was just as pretty as a pictur'. +But what's the use of good looks if they scare away folks? The young +fellows think that such a handsome girl as that would cost ten times +as much to keep as a plain one. She must be dressed up like an +empress,--so they seem to think. It ain't so with Euthymy: she'd +look like a great lady dressed anyhow, and she has n't got any more +notions than the homeliest girl that ever stood before a glass to +look at herself." + +In the humbler walks of Arrowhead Village society, similar opinions +were entertained of Miss Euthymia. The fresh-water fisherman +represented pretty well the average estimate of the class to which he +belonged. "I tell ye," said he to another gentleman of leisure, +whose chief occupation was to watch the coming and going of the +visitors to Arrowhead Village,--"I tell ye that girl ain't a gon to +put up with any o' them slab-sided fellahs that you see hangin' +raound to look at her every Sunday when she comes aout o' meetin'. +It's one o' them big gents from Boston or New York that'll step up +an' kerry her off." + +In the mean time nothing could be further from the thoughts of +Euthymia than the prospect of an ambitious worldly alliance. The +ideals of young women cost them many and great disappointments, but +they save them very often from those lifelong companionships which +accident is constantly trying to force upon them, in spite of their +obvious unfitness. The higher the ideal, the less likely is the +commonplace neighbor who has the great advantage of easy access, or +the boarding-house acquaintance who can profit by those vacant hours +when the least interesting of visitors is better than absolute +loneliness,--the less likely are these undesirable personages to be +endured, pitied, and, if not embraced, accepted, for want of +something better. Euthymia found so much pleasure in the +intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt her own prudence and +reserve so necessary to that independent young lady, that she had +been contented, so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in +an abstract sort of way. Beneath her abstractions there was a +capacity of loving which might have been inferred from the expression +of her features, the light that shone in her eyes, the tones of her +voice, all of which were full of the language which belongs to +susceptible natures. How many women never say to themselves that +they were born to love, until all at once the discovery opens upon +them, as the sense that he was born a painter is said to have dawned +suddenly upon Correggio! + +Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she could not help +thinking a good deal about the young man lying ill amongst strangers. +She was not one of those who had sent him the three-cornered notes or +even a bunch of flowers. She knew that he was receiving abounding +tokens of kindness and sympathy from different quarters, and a +certain inward feeling restrained her from joining in these +demonstrations. If he had been suffering from some deadly and +contagious malady she would have risked her life to help him, without +a thought that there was any wonderful heroism in such self-devotion. +Her friend Lurida might have been capable of the same sacrifice, but +it would be after reasoning with herself as to the obligations which +her sense of human rights and duties laid upon her, and fortifying +her courage with the memory of noble deeds recorded of women in +ancient and modern history. With Euthymia the primary human +instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection about them. +All her sympathies were excited by the thought of this forlorn +stranger in his solitude, but she felt the impossibility of giving +any complete expression to them. She thought of Mungo Park in the +African desert, and she envied the poor negress who not only pitied +him, but had the blessed opportunity of helping and consoling him. +How near were these two human creatures, each needing the other! How +near in bodily presence, how far apart in their lives, with a barrier +seemingly impassable between them! + + + + +XXIII + +THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. + +These autumnal fevers, which carry off a large number of our young +people every year, are treacherous and deceptive diseases. Not only +are they liable, as has been mentioned, to various accidental +complications which may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, after +convalescence seems to be established, relapses occur which are more +serious than the disease had appeared to be in its previous course. +One morning Dr. Butts found Maurice worse instead of better, as he +had hoped and expected to find him. Weak as he was, there was every +reason to fear the issue of this return of his threatening symptoms. +There was not much to do besides keeping up the little strength which +still remained. It was all needed. + +Does the reader of these pages ever think of the work a sick man as +much as a well one has to perform while he is lying on his back and +taking what we call his "rest"? More than a thousand times an hour, +between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand times a week, he +has to lift the bars of the cage in which his breathing organs are +confined, to save himself from asphyxia. Rest! There is no rest +until the last long sigh tells those who look upon the dying that the +ceaseless daily task, to rest from which is death, is at last +finished. We are all galley-slaves, pulling at the levers of +respiration,--which, rising and falling like so many oars, drive us +across an unfathomable ocean from one unknown shore to another. No! +Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to these four and +twenty oars, at which we must tug day and night all our life long + +The doctor could not find any accidental cause to account for this +relapse. It presently occurred to him that there might be some local +source of infection which had brought on the complaint, and was still +keeping up the symptoms which were the ground of alarm. He +determined to remove Maurice to his own house, where he could be sure +of pure air, and where he himself could give more constant attention +to his patient during this critical period of his disease. It was a +risk to take, but he could be carried on a litter by careful men, and +remain wholly passive during the removal. Maurice signified his +assent, as he could hardly help doing,--for the doctor's suggestion +took pretty nearly the form of a command. He thought it a matter of +life and death, and was gently urgent for his patient's immediate +change of residence. The doctor insisted on having Maurice's books +and other movable articles carried to his own house, so that he +should be surrounded by familiar sights, and not worry himself about +what might happen to objects which he valued, if they were left +behind him. + +All these dispositions were quickly and quietly made, and everything +was ready for the transfer of the patient to the house of the +hospitable physician. Paolo was at the doctor's, superintending the +arrangement of Maurice's effects and making all ready for his master. +The nurse in attendance, a trustworthy man enough in the main, +finding his patient in a tranquil sleep, left his bedside for a +little fresh air. While he was at the door he heard a shouting which +excited his curiosity, and he followed the sound until he found +himself at the border of the lake. It was nothing very wonderful +which had caused the shouting. A Newfoundland dog had been showing +off his accomplishments, and some of the idlers were betting as to +the time it would take him to bring back to his master the various +floating objects which had been thrown as far from the shore as +possible. He watched the dog a few minutes, when his attention was +drawn to a light wherry, pulled by one young lady and steered by +another. It was making for the shore, which it would soon reach. +The attendant remembered all at once, that he had left his charge, +and just before the boat came to land he turned and hurried back to +the patient. Exactly how long he had been absent he could not have +said,--perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps longer; the time +appeared short to him, wearied with long sitting and watching. + +It had seemed, when he stole away from Maurice's bedside, that he was +not in the least needed. The patient was lying perfectly quiet, and +to all appearance wanted nothing more than letting alone. It was +such a comfort to look at something besides the worn features of a +sick man, to hear something besides his labored breathing and faint, +half-whispered words, that the temptation to indulge in these +luxuries for a few minutes had proved irresistible. + +Unfortunately, Maurice's slumbers did not remain tranquil during the +absence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which began +quietly enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which +dreams are in the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, +distressing, terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up +before him, fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as +reality. He was at the bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, +narrow galleries, or rather worm-holes, in which human beings pass a +large part of their lives, like so many larvae boring their way into +the beams and rafters of some old building. How close the air was in +the stifling passage through which he was crawling! The scene +changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet of ice with desperate +effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow niche, his hold an icicle +ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him waiting for his foot +to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, how +desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, it may +be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he remembered well as +one of the great trials in his mountain ascents. No, it was not Mont +Blanc,--it was not any one of the frozen Alpine summits; it was Hecla +that he was climbing + +The smoke of the burning mountain was wrapping itself around him; he +was choking with its dense fumes; he heard the flames roaring around +him, he felt the hot lava beneath his feet, he uttered a faint cry, +and awoke. + +The room was full of smoke. He was gasping for breath, strangling in +the smothering oven which his chamber had become. + +The house was on fire! + +He tried to call for help, but his voice failed him, and died away in +a whisper. He made a desperate effort, and rose so as to sit up in +the bed for an instant, but the effort was too much for him, and he +sank back upon his pillow, helpless. He felt that his hour had come, +for he could not live in this dreadful atmosphere, and he was left +alone. He could hear the crackle of fire as the flame crept along +from one partition to another. It was a cruel fate to be left to +perish in that way,--the fate that many a martyr had had to face,--to +be first strangled and then burned. Death had not the terror for him +that it has for most young persons. He was accustomed to thinking of +it calmly, sometimes wistfully, even to such a degree that the +thought of self-destruction had come upon him as a temptation. But +here was death in an unexpected and appalling shape. He did not know +before how much he cared to live. All his old recollections came +before him as it were in one long, vivid flash. The closed vista of +memory opened to its far horizon-line, and past and present were +pictured in a single instant of clear vision. The dread moment which +had blighted his life returned in all its terror. He felt the +convulsive spring in the form of a faint, impotent spasm,--the rush +of air,--the thorns of the stinging and lacerating cradle into which +he was precipitated. One after another those paralyzing seizures +which had been like deadening blows on the naked heart seemed to +repeat themselves, as real as at the moment of their occurrence. The +pictures passed in succession with such rapidity that they appeared +almost as if simultaneous. The vision of the "inward eye" was so +intensified in this moment of peril that an instant was like an hour +of common existence. Those who have been very near drowning know +well what this description means. The development of a photograph +may not explain it, but it illustrates the curious and familiar fact +of the revived recollections of the drowning man's experience. The +sensitive plate has taken one look at a scene, and remembers it all, + + +Every little circumstance is there,--the hoof in air, the wing in +flight, the leaf as it falls, the wave as it breaks. All there, but +invisible; potentially present, but impalpable, inappreciable, as if +not existing at all. A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene +comes out in all its perfection of detail. In those supreme moments +when death stares a man suddenly in the face the rush of unwonted +emotion floods the undeveloped pictures of vanished years, stored +away in the memory, the vast panorama of a lifetime, and in one swift +instant the past comes out as vividly as if it were again the +present. So it was at this moment with the sick man, as he lay +helpless and felt that he was left to die. For he saw no hope of +relief: the smoke was drifting in clouds into the room; the flames +were very near; if he was not reached and rescued immediately it was +all over with him. + +His past life had flashed before him. Then all at once rose the +thought of his future,--of all its possibilities, of the vague hopes +which he had cherished of late that his mysterious doom would be +lifted from him. There was something, then, to be lived for, +something! There was a new life, it might be, in store for him, and +such a new life! He thought of all he was losing. Oh, could he but +have lived to know the meaning of love! And the passionate desire of +life came over him,--not the dread of death, but the longing for what +the future might yet have of happiness for him. + +All this took place in the course of a very few moments. Dreams and +visions have little to do with measured time, and ten minutes, +possibly fifteen or twenty, were all that had passed since the +beginning of those nightmare terrors which were evidently suggested +by the suffocating air he was breathing. + +What had happened? In the confusion of moving books and other +articles to the doctor's house, doors and windows had been forgotten. +Among the rest a window opening into the cellar, where some old +furniture had been left by a former occupant, had been left unclosed. +One of the lazy natives, who had lounged by the house smoking a bad +cigar, had thrown the burning stump in at this open window. He had +no particular intention of doing mischief, but he had that +indifference to consequences which is the next step above the +inclination to crime. The burning stump happened to fall among the +straw of an old mattress which had been ripped open. The smoker went +his way without looking behind him, and it so chanced that no other +person passed the house for some time. Presently the straw was in a +blaze, and from this the fire extended to the furniture, to the +stairway leading up from the cellar, and was working its way along +the entry under the stairs leading up to the apartment where Maurice +was lying. + +The blaze was fierce and swift, as it could not help being with such +a mass of combustibles,--loose straw from the mattress, dry old +furniture, and old warped floors which had been parching and +shrinking for a score or two of years. The whole house was, in the +common language of the newspaper reports, "a perfect tinder-box," and +would probably be a heap of ashes in half an hour. And there was +this unfortunate deserted sick man lying between life and death, +beyond all help unless some unexpected assistance should come to his +rescue. + +As the attendant drew near the house where Maurice was lying, he was +horror-struck to see dense volumes of smoke pouring out of the lower +windows. It was beginning to make its way through the upper windows, +also, and presently a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward +along the side of the house. The man shrieked Fire! Fire! with all +his might, and rushed to the door of the building to make his way to +Maurice's room and save him. He penetrated but a short distance +when, blinded and choking with the smoke, he rushed headlong down the +stairs with a cry of despair that roused every man, woman, and child +within reach of a human voice. Out they came from their houses in +every quarter of the village. The shout of Fire! Fire! was the +chief aid lent by many of the young and old. Some caught up pails +and buckets: the more thoughtful ones filling them; the hastier +snatching them up empty, trusting to find water nearer the burning +building. + +Is the sick man moved? + +This was the awful question first asked,--for in the little village +all knew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's +house. The attendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where +he had left him, and gasped out, + +"He is there!" + +A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed +off in search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there +was no ladder to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick +man was going to be swallowed up in the flames before it could +possibly arrive. Some were going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the +hope that the young man might have strength enough to leap from the +window and be safely caught in it. The attendant shook his head, and +said faintly, + +"He cannot move from his bed." + +One of the visitors at the village,--a millionaire, it was said,--a +kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones: + +"A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!" + +The fresh-water fisherman muttered, "I should like to save the man +and to see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten +thaousan' dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death,--or +even chokin' to death, anyhaow." + +The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, +recent or old, shook his head. + +"The stairs have been shored up," he said, "and when the fists that +holds 'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to go +over them stairs. Hurry along your ladder,--that's your only +chance." + +All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they had +gone for was missing from its case,--a neighbor had carried it off +for the workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get +there in time. There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a +mile from the lakeside settlement. Some were throwing on water in an +aimless, useless way; one was sending a thin stream through a garden +syringe: it seemed like doing something, at least. But all hope of +saving Maurice was fast giving way, so rapid was the progress of the +flames, so thick the cloud of smoke that filled the house and poured +from the windows. Nothing was heard but confused cries, shrieks of +women, all sorts of orders to do this and that, no one knowing what +was to be done. The ladder! The ladder! Five minutes more and it +will be too late! + +In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had +stopped his work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that +in which they had stood in his apartment, and followed in the +direction of the sound, little thinking that his master was lying +helpless in the burning house. "Some chimney afire," he said to +himself; but he would go and take a look, at any rate. + +Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending +death, two young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish +aspect, had suddenly joined the throng. "The Wonder" and "The +Terror" of their school-days--Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida +Vincent had just come from the shore, where they had left their +wherry. A few hurried words told them the fearful story. Maurice +Kirkwood was lying in the chamber to which every eye was turned, +unable to move, doomed to a dreadful death. All that could be hoped +was that he would perish by suffocation rather than by the flames, +which would soon be upon him. The man who had attended him had just +tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled back out of the door, +almost strangled by the smoke. A thousand dollars had been offered +to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one had dared to +make the attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, if the +smoke did not blind and smother the man who passed them before they +fell. + +The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift +moment. + +"How can he be reached?" asked Lurida. "Is there nobody that will +venture his life to save a brother like that?" + +"I will venture mine," said Euthymia. + +"No! no!" shrieked Lurida,--"not you! not you! It is a man's work, +not yours! You shall not go!" Poor Lurida had forgotten all her +theories in this supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held +back. Taking a handkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail +of water and bound it about her head. Then she took several deep +breaths of air, and filled her lungs as full as they would hold. She +knew she must not take a single breath in the choking atmosphere if +she could possibly help it, and Euthymia was noted for her power of +staying under water so long that more than once those who saw her +dive thought she would never come up again. So rapid were her +movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, who would forcibly have +prevented her from carrying out her purpose. Her imperious +determination was not to be resisted. And so Euthymia, a willing +martyr, if martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed within the +veil that hid the sufferer. + +Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground. She was +the first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymia +disappeared in the smoke of the burning building. Even the rector +grew very white in the face,--so white that one of his vestry-men +begged him to sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on +his forehead, to his great disgust and manifest advantage. The old +landlady was crying and moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes +and shaking his head sadly. + +"She will nevar come out alive," he said solemnly. + +"Nor dead, neither," added the carpenter. "Ther' won't be nothing +left of neither of 'em but ashes." And the carpenter hid his face in +his hands. + +The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag which he called a +"hangkercher,"--it had served to carry bait that morning,--and was +making use of its best corner to dry the tears which were running +down his cheeks. The whole village was proud of Euthymia, and with +these more quiet signs of grief were mingled loud lamentations, +coming alike from old and young. + +All this was not so much like a succession of events as it was like a +tableau. The lookers-on were stunned with its suddenness, and before +they had time to recover their bewildered senses all was lost, or +seemed lost. They felt that they should never look again on either +of those young faces. + +The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately professional by +habit, had already recovered enough to be thinking of a text for the +funeral sermon. The first that occurred to him was this,--vaguely, +of course, in the background of consciousness: + +"Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came forth of the midst of the +fire." + +The village undertaker was of naturally sober aspect and reflective +disposition. He had always been opposed to cremation, and here was a +funeral pile blazing before his eyes. He, too, had his human +sympathies, but in the distance his imagination pictured the final +ceremony, and how he himself should figure in a spectacle where the +usual centre piece of attraction would be wanting,--perhaps his own +services uncalled for. + +Blame him not, you whose garden-patch is not watered with the tears +of mourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to +every sound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself +trembling to the wail of the De Profundis. Not always,--not always; +let us not be cynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we +may safely say, is subject to those secondary vibrations under the +most solemn and soul-subduing influences. + +It seems as if we were doing great wrong to the scene we are +contemplating in delaying it by the description of little +circumstances and individual thoughts and feelings. But linger as we +may, we cannot compress into a chapter--we could not crowd into a +volume--all that passed through the minds and stirred the emotions of +the awe-struck company which was gathered about the scene of danger +and of terror. We are dealing with an impossibility: consciousness +is a surface; narrative is a line. + +Maurice had given himself up for lost. His breathing was becoming +every moment more difficult, and he felt that his strength could hold +out but a few minutes longer. + +"Robert!" he called in faint accents. But the attendant was not +there to answer. + +"Paolo! Paolo!" But the faithful servant, who would have given his +life for his master, had not yet reached the place where the crowd +was gathered. + +"Oh, for a breath of air! Oh, for an arm to lift me from this bed! +Too late! Too late!" he gasped, with what might have seemed his +dying expiration. + +"Not too late!" The soft voice reached his obscured consciousness as +if it had come down to him from heaven. + +In a single instant he found himself rolled in a blanket and in the +arms of--a woman! + +Out of the stifling chamber,--over the burning stairs,--close by the +tongues of fire that were lapping up all they could reach,--out into +the open air, he was borne swiftly and safely,--carried as easily as +if he had been a babe, in the strong arms of "The Wonder" of the +gymnasium, the captain of the Atalanta, who had little dreamed of the +use she was to make of her natural gifts and her school-girl +accomplishments. + +Such a cry as arose from the crowd of on-lookers! It was a sound +that none of them had ever heard before or could expect ever to hear +again, unless he should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a +sinking vessel. Then, those who had resisted the overflow of their +emotion, who had stood in white despair as they thought of these two +young lives soon to be wrapped in their burning shroud,--those stern +men--the old sea-captain, the hard-faced, moneymaking, cast-iron +tradesmen of the city counting-room--sobbed like hysteric women; it +was like a convulsion that overcame natures unused to those deeper +emotions which many who are capable of experiencing die without ever +knowing. + +This was the scene upon which the doctor and Paolo suddenly appeared +at the same moment. + +As the fresh breeze passed over the face of the rescued patient, his +eyes opened wide, and his consciousness returned in almost +supernatural lucidity. Euthymia had sat down upon a bank, and was +still supporting him. His head was resting on her bosom. Through +his awakening senses stole the murmurs of the living cradle which +rocked him with the wavelike movements of respiration, the soft +susurrus of the air that entered with every breath, the double beat +of the heart which throbbed close to his ear. And every sense, and +every instinct, and every reviving pulse told him in language like a +revelation from another world that a woman's arms were around +him, and that it was life, and not death, which her embrace had +brought him. + +She would have disengaged him from her protecting hold, but the +doctor made her a peremptory sign, which he followed by a sharp +command:-- + +"Do not move him a hair's breadth," he said. "Wait until the litter +comes. Any sudden movement might be dangerous. Has anybody a brandy +flask about him?" + +One or two members of the local temperance society looked rather +awkward, but did not come forward. + +The fresh-water fisherman was the first who spoke. + +"I han't got no brandy," he said, "but there's a drop or two of old +Medford rum in this here that you're welcome to, if it'll be of any +help. I alliz kerry a little on 't in case o' gettin' wet 'n' +chilled." + +So saying he held forth a flat bottle with the word Sarsaparilla +stamped on the green glass, but which contained half a pint or more +of the specific on which he relied in those very frequent exposures +which happen to persons of his calling. + +The doctor motioned back Paolo, who would have rushed at once to the +aid of Maurice, and who was not wanted at that moment. So poor +Paolo, in an agony of fear for his master, was kept as quiet as +possible, and had to content himself with asking all sorts of +questions and repeating all the prayers he could think of to Our Lady +and to his holy namesake the Apostle. + +The doctor wiped the mouth of the fisherman's bottle very carefully. +"Take a few drops of this cordial," he said, as he held it to his +patient's lips. "Hold him just so, Euthymia, without stirring. I +will watch him, and say when he is ready to be moved. The litter is +near by, waiting." Dr. Butts watched Maurice's pulse and color. The +"Old Medford" knew its business. It had knocked over its tens of +thousands; it had its redeeming virtue, and helped to set up a poor +fellow now and then. It did this for Maurice very effectively. When +he seemed somewhat restored, the doctor had the litter brought to his +side, and Euthymia softly resigned her helpless burden, which Paolo +and the attendant Robert lifted with the aid of the doctor, who +walked by the patient as he was borne to the home where Mrs. Butts +had made all ready for his reception. + +As for poor Lurida, who had thought herself equal to the sanguinary +duties of the surgeon, she was left lying on the grass with an old +woman over her, working hard with fan and smelling-salts to bring her +back from her long fainting fit. + + + + +XXIV + +THE INEVITABLE. + +Why should not human nature be the same in Arrowhead Village as +elsewhere? It could not seem strange to the good people of that +place and their visitors that these two young persons, brought +together under circumstances that stirred up the deepest emotions of +which the human soul is capable, should become attached to each +other. But the bond between them was stronger than any knew, except +the good doctor, who had learned the great secret of Maurice's life. +For the first time since his infancy he had fully felt the charm +which the immediate presence of youthful womanhood carries with it. +He could hardly believe the fact when he found himself no longer the +subject of the terrifying seizures of which he had had many and +threatening experiences. + +It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he could +possibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state +of debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. +Only by what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to +suffocation and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It +was perfectly clear to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young +woman to whom he owed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the +revolution in his nervous system which would be the beginning of a +new existence, it would be of far more value as a restorative agency +than any or all of the drugs in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to +Euthymia, and explained the matter to her parents and friends. She +must go with him on some of his visits. Her mother should go with +her, or her sister; but this was a case of life and death, and no +maidenly scruples must keep her from doing her duty. + +The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented a +scene not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of +the old edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated +of the little group. He went before the others, took his seat by the +bedside, and held the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. +As Euthymia entered it gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant +as if with a faint memory of its old habit, then throbbed full and +strong, comparatively, as if under the spur of some powerful +stimulus. Euthymia's task was a delicate one, but she knew how to +disguise its difficulty. + +"Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, and +handed him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and +before she knew it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a +gentle constraint. What could she do? Here was the young man whose +life she had saved, at least for the moment, and who was yet in +danger from the disease which had almost worn out his powers of +resistance. + +"Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side," said the doctor. "He wants to +thank you, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death +which seemed inevitable." + +Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanly +tears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with +the dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear. + +The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens--it; it +lets the old water-course fill up, and never returns to its forsaken +bed. The tyrannous habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had +verified itself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman +bad conquered and abolished. + +The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptional character from +the time of his restoration to his natural conditions. His +convalescence was very slow and gradual, but no further accident +interrupted its even progress. The season was over, the summer +visitors had left Arrowhead Village; the chrysanthemums were going +out of flower, the frosts had come, and Maurice was still beneath the +roof of the kind physician. The relation between him and his +preserver was so entirely apart from all common acquaintances and +friendships that no ordinary rules could apply to it. Euthymia +visited him often during the period of his extreme prostration. + +"You must come every day," the doctor said. "He gains with every +visit you make him; he pines if you miss him for a single day." So +she came and sat by him, the doctor or good Mrs. Butts keeping her +company in his presence. He grew stronger,--began to sit up in bed; +and at last Euthymia found him dressed as in health, and beginning to +walk about the room. She was startled. She had thought of herself +as a kind of nurse, but the young gentleman could hardly be said to +need a nurse any longer. She had scruples about making any further +visits. She asked Lurida what she thought about it. + +"Think about it?" said Lurida. "Why should n't you go to see a +brother as well as a sister, I should like to know? If you are +afraid to go to see Maurice Kirkwood, I am not afraid, at any rate. +If you would rather have me go than go yourself, I will do it, and +let people talk just as much as they want to. Shall I go instead of +you?" + +Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the best thing for the +patient. The doctor had told her he thought there were special +reasons for her own course in coming daily to see him. "I am +afraid," she said, "you are too bright to be safe for him in his +weak state. Your mind is such a stimulating one, you know. A dull +sort of person like myself is better for him just now. I will +continue visiting him as long as the doctor says it is important that +I should; but you must defend me, Lurida,--I know you can explain it +all so that people will not blame me." + +Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's penetrating head- +voice would be in a convalescent's chamber. She knew how that active +mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, when what he +wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not these good and sufficient +reasons for her decision? What others could there be? + +So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she blushed to see that +she was continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to +look too well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition +of affairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in +their comments. Free, but kindly, for the story of the rescue had +melted every heart; and what could be more natural than that these +two young people whom God had brought together in the dread moment of +peril should find it hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour +of danger was past? When gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay +his debts; and if Maurice gave his heart to Euthymia, would not she +receive it as payment in full? + +The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice +Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in a +magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the +austral the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took +place while he was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. +For all the long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found +their natural channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ +which throbs in response to every profound emotion. As his health +gradually returned, Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his +cheek, a glitter in his eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, +which altogether were a warning to the young maiden that the highway +of friendly intercourse was fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of +which her woman's eye could read plainly enough, "Dangerous passing." + +"You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, "that I +think I had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next +time we meet I hope you will be strong enough to call on me." + +She was frightened to see how pale he turned,--he was weaker than she +thought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Butts +looked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten the +good woman's presence. + +Presently Maurice spoke,--very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a +stitch at the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she +listened to what followed. + +"No! you must not leave me. You must never leave me. You saved my +life. But you have done more than that,--more than you know or can +ever know. To you I owe it that I am living; with you I live +henceforth, if I am to live at all. All I am, all I hope,--will you +take this poor offering from one who owes you everything, whose lips +never touched those of woman or breathed a word of love before you?" + +What could Euthymia reply to this question, uttered with all the +depth of a passion which had never before found expression. + +Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs. Butts overhear. But +she told her husband afterwards that there was nothing in the +tableaux they had had in September to compare with what she then saw. +It was indeed a pleasing picture which those two young heads +presented as Euthymia gave her inarticulate but infinitely expressive +answer to the question of Maurice Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman +thought it time to leave the young people. Down went the stocking +with the needles in it; out of her lap tumbled the ball of worsted, +rolling along the floor with its yarn trailing after it, like some +village matron who goes about circulating from hearth to hearth, +leaving all along her track the story of the new engagement or of the +arrival of the last "little stranger." + +Not many suns had set before it was told all through Arrowhead +Village that Maurice Kirkwood was the accepted lover of Euthymia +Tower. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. + + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. +ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, May 18. + +MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA,--Who would have thought, when you broke your oar +as the Atalanta flashed by the Algonquin, last June, that before the +roses came again you would find yourself the wife of a fine scholar +and grand gentleman, and the head of a household such as that of +which you are the mistress? You must not forget your old Arrowhead +Village friends. What am I saying?---you forget them! No, dearest, +I know your heart too well for that! You are not one of those who +lay aside their old friendships as they do last years bonnet when +they get a new one. You have told me all about yourself and your +happiness, and now you want me to tell you about myself and what is +going on in our little place. + +And first about myself. I have given up the idea of becoming a +doctor. I have studied mathematics so much that I have grown fond of +certainties, of demonstrations, and medicine deals chiefly in +probabilities. The practice of the art is so mixed up with the +deepest human interests that it is hard to pursue it with that even +poise of the intellect which is demanded by science. I want +knowledge pure and simple,--I do not fancy having it mixed. Neither +do I like the thought of passing my life in going from one scene of +suffering to another; I am not saintly enough for such a daily +martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easy occupation. I +fainted at the first operation I saw, and I have never wanted to see +another. I don't say that I wouldn't marry a physician, if the right +one asked me, but the young doctor is not forthcoming at present. +Yes, I think I might make a pretty good doctor's wife. I could teach +him a good deal about headaches and backaches and all sorts of +nervous revolutions, as the doctor says the French women call their +tantrums. I don't know but I should be willing to let him try his +new medicines on me. If he were a homeopath, I know I should; for if +a billionth of a grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my tea or +coffee, I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of anything +would poison me,--no, not if it were snake-venom; and if it were not +disgusting, I would swallow a handful of his lachesis globules, to +please my husband. But if I ever become a doctor's wife, my husband +will not be one of that kind of practitioners, you may be sure of +that, nor an "eclectic," nor a "faith-cure man." On the whole, I +don't think I want to be married at all. I don't like the male +animal very well (except such noble specimens as your husband). They +are all tyrants,--almost all,--so far as our sex is concerned, and I +often think we could get on better without them. + +However, the creatures are useful in the Society. They send us +papers, some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often +that you would like to know how the Society is getting on, and to +read some of the papers sent to it if they happened to be +interesting, that I have laid aside one or two manuscripts expressly +for your perusal. You will get them by and by. + +I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you. Arrowhead +Village misses him dreadfully, I can tell you. That is the reason +people become so attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in +their natures? I suppose life is not long enough to cool their blood +down to our Northern standard. Then they are so child-like, whereas +the native of these latitudes is never young after he is ten or +twelve years old. Mother says,--you know mother's old-fashioned +notions, and how shrewd and sensible she is in spite of them,--mother +says that when she was a girl families used to import young men and +young women from the country towns, who called themselves "helps," +not servants,--no, that was Scriptural; "but they did n't know +everything down in Judee," and it is not good American language. She +says that these people would live in the same household until they +were married, and the women often remain in the same service until +they died or were old and worn out, and then, what with the money +they had saved and the care and assistance they got from their former +employers, would pass a decent and comfortable old age, and be buried +in the family lot. Mother has made up her mind to the change, but +grandmother is bitter about it. She says there never was a country +yet where the population was made up of "ladies" and "gentlemen," and +she does n't believe there can be; nor that putting a spread eagle on +a copper makes a gold dollar of it. She is a pessimist after her own +fashion. She thinks all sentiment is dying out of our people. No +loyalty for the sovereign, the king-post of the political edifice, +she says; no deep attachment between employer and employed; no +reverence of the humbler members of a household for its heads; and to +make sure of continued corruption and misery, what she calls +"universal suffrage" emptying all the sewers into the great aqueduct +we all must drink from. "Universal suffrage!" I suppose we women +don't belong to the universe! Wait until we get a chance at the +ballot-box, I tell grandma, and see if we don't wash out the sewers +before they reach the aqueduct! But my pen has run away with men I +was thinking of Paolo, and what a pleasant thing it is to have one of +those child-like, warm-hearted, attachable, cheerful, contented, +humble, faithful, companionable, but never presuming grownup children +of the South waiting on one, as if everything he could do for one was +a pleasure, and carrying a look of content in his face which makes +every one who meets him happier for a glimpse of his features. + +It does seem a shame that the charming relation of master and +servant, intelligent authority and cheerful obedience, mutual +interest in each other's welfare, thankful recognition of all the +advantages which belong to domestic service in the better class of +families, should be almost wholly confined to aliens and their +immediate descendants. Why should Hannah think herself so much +better than Bridget? When they meet at the polls together, as they +will before long, they will begin to feel more of an equality than is +recognized at present. The native female turns her nose up at the +idea of "living out;" does she think herself so much superior to the +women of other nationalities? Our women will have to come to it,--so +grandmother says,--in another generation or two, and in a hundred +years, according to her prophecy, there will be a new set of old +"Miss Pollys" and "Miss Betseys" who have lived half a century in +the same families, respectful and respected, cherished, cared for in +time of need (citizens as well as servants, holding a ballot as well +as a broom, I tell her), and bringing back to us the lowly, underfoot +virtues of contentment and humility, which we do so need to carpet +the barren and hungry thoroughfare of our unstratified existence. + +There, I have got a-going, and am forgetting all the news I have to +tell you. There is an engagement you will want to know all about. +It came to pass through our famous boat-race, which you and I +remember, and shall never forget as long as we live. It seems that +the young fellow who pulled the bow oar of that men's college boat +which we had the pleasure of beating got some glimpses of Georgina, +our handsome stroke oar. I believe he took it into his head that it +was she who threw the bouquet that won the race for us. He was, as +you know, greatly mistaken, and ought to have made love to me, only +he did n't. Well, it seems he came posting down to the Institute +just before the vacation was over, and there got a sight of Georgina. +I wonder whether she told him she didn't fling the bouquet! Anyhow, +the acquaintance began in that way, and now it seems that this young +fellow, good-looking and a bright scholar, but with a good many +months more to pass in college, is her captive. It was too bad. +Just think of my bouquet's going to another girl's credit! No +matter, the old Atalanta story was paid off, at any rate. + +You want to know all about dear Dr. Butts. They say he has just been +offered a Professorship in one of the great medical colleges. I +asked him about it, and he did not say that he had or had not. +"But," said be, "suppose that I had been offered such a place; do you +think I ought to accept it and leave Arrowhead Village? Let us talk +it over," said he, "just as if I had had such an offer." I told him +he ought to stay. There are plenty of men that can get into a +Professor's chair, I said, and talk like Solomons to a class of +wondering pupils: but once get a really good doctor in a place, a man +who knows all about everybody, whether they have this or that +tendency, whether when they are sick they have a way of dying or a +way of getting well, what medicines agree with them and what drugs +they cannot take, whether they are of the sort that think nothing is +the matter with them until they are dead as smoked herring, or of the +sort that send for the minister if they get a stomach-ache from +eating too many cucumbers,--who knows all about all the people within +half a dozen miles (all the sensible ones, that is, who employ a +regular practitioner),--such a man as that, I say, is not to be +replaced like a missing piece out of a Springfield musket or a +Waltham watch. Don't go! said I. Stay here and save our precious +lives, if you can, or at least put us through in the proper way, so +that we needn't be ashamed of ourselves for dying, if we must die. +Well, Dr. Butts is not going to leave us. I hope you will have no +unwelcome occasion for his services,--you are never ill, you know,-- +but, anyhow, he is going to be here, and no matter what happens he +will be on hand. + +The village news is not of a very exciting character. Item 1. A new +house is put up over the ashes of the one in which your husband lived +while he was here. It was planned by one of the autochthonous +inhabitants with the most ingenious combination of inconveniences +that the natural man could educe from his original perversity of +intellect. To get at any one room you must pass through every other. +It is blind, or nearly so, on the only side which has a good +prospect, and commands a fine view of the barn and pigsty through +numerous windows. Item 2. We have a small fire-engine near the new +house which can be worked by a man or two, and would be equal to the +emergency of putting out a bunch of fire-crackers. Item 3. We have +a new ladder, in a bog, close to the new fire-engine, so if the new +house catches fire, like its predecessor, and there should happen to, +be a sick man on an upper floor, he can be got out without running +the risk of going up and down a burning staircase. What a blessed +thing it was that there was no fire-engine near by and no ladder at +hand on the day of the great rescue! If there had been, what a +change in your programme of life! You remember that "cup of tea +spilt on Mrs. Masham's apron," which we used to read of in one of +Everett's Orations, and all its wide-reaching consequences in the +affairs of Europe. I hunted up that cup of tea as diligently as ever +a Boston matron sought for the last leaves in her old caddy after the +tea-chests had been flung overboard at Griffin's wharf,--but no +matter about that, now. That is the way things come about in this +world. I must write a lecture on lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, +fortunate calamities. It will be just the converse of that odd essay +of Swift's we read together, the awkward and stupid things done with +the best intentions. Perhaps I shall deliver the lecture in your +city: you will come and hear it, and bring him, won't +you, dearest? +Always, your loving + +LURIDA. + + + + +MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +It seems forever since you left us, dearest Euthymia! And are you, +and is your husband, and Paolo,--good Paolo,--are you all as well and +happy as you have been and as you ought to be? I suppose our small +village seems a very quiet sort of place to pass the winter in, now +that you have become accustomed to the noise and gayety of a great +city. For all that, it is a pretty busy place this winter, I can +tell you. We have sleighing parties,--I never go to them, myself, +because I can't keep warm, and my mind freezes up when my blood cools +down below 95 or 96 deg. Fahrenheit. I had a great deal rather sit +by a good fire and read about Arctic discoveries. But I like very +well to hear the bells' jingling and to see the young people trying +to have a good time as hard as they do at a picnic. It may be that +they do, but to me a picnic is purgatory and a sleigh-ride that other +place, where, as my favorite Milton says, "frost performs the effect +of fire." I believe I have quoted him correctly; I ought to, for I +could repeat half his poems from memory once, if I cannot now. + +You must have plenty of excitement in your city life. I suppose you +recognized yourself in one of the society columns of the "Household +Inquisitor:" "Mrs. E. K., very beautiful, in an elegant," etc., etc, +"with pearls," etc., etc.,--as if you were not the ornament of all +that you wear, no matter what it is! + +I am so glad that you have married a scholar! Why should not +Maurice--you both tell me to call him so--take the diplomatic office +which has been offered him? It seems to me that he would find +himself in exactly the right place. He can talk in two or three +languages, has good manners, and a wife who--well, what shall I say +of Mrs. Kirkwood but that "she would be good company for a queen," as +our old friend the quondam landlady of the Anchor Tavern used to say? +I should so like to see you presented at Court! It seems to me that +I should be willing to hold your train for the sake of seeing you in +your court feathers and things. + +As for myself, I have been thinking of late that I would become +either a professional lecturer or head mistress of a great school or +college for girls. I have tried the first business a little. Last +month I delivered a lecture on Quaternions. I got three for my +audience; two came over from the Institute, and one from that men's +college which they try to make out to be a university, and where no +female is admitted unless she belongs among the quadrupeds. I +enjoyed lecturing, but the subject is a difficult one, and I don't +think any one of them had any very clear notion of what I was talking +about, except Rhodora,--and I know she did n't. To tell the truth, I +was lecturing to instruct myself. I mean to try something easier +next time. I have thought of the Basque language and literature. +What do you say to that? + +The Society goes on famously. We have had a paper presented and read +lately which has greatly amused some of us and provoked a few of the +weaker sort. The writer is that crabbed old Professor of Belles- +Lettres at that men's college over there. He is dreadfully hard on +the poor "poets," as they call themselves. It seems that a great +many young persons, and more especially a great many young girls, of +whom the Institute has furnished a considerable proportion, have +taken to sending him their rhymed productions to be criticised,-- +expecting to be praised, no doubt, every one of them. I must give +you one of the sauciest extracts from his paper in his own words: + +"It takes half my time to read the 'poems' sent me by young people of +both sexes. They would be more shy of doing it if they knew that I +recognize a tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, +and the publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence +of ambitious mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are +exceptions to this rule of judgment, but I maintain that the +presumption is always against the rhymester as compared with the less +pretentious persons about him or her, busy with some useful calling, +--too busy to be tagging rhymed commonplaces together. Just now +there seems to be an epidemic of rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, +or the sweating sickness. After reading a certain amount of +manuscript verse one is disposed to anathematize the inventor of +homophonous syllabification. [This phrase made a great laugh when it +was read.] This, that is rhyming, must have been found out very +early, + + "'Where are you, Adam?' + + "'Here am I, Madam;' + +"but it can never have been habitually practised until after the Fall. +The intrusion of tintinnabulating terminations into the +conversational intercourse of men and angels would have spoiled +Paradise itself. Milton would not have them even in Paradise Lost, +you remember. For my own part, I wish certain rhymes could be +declared contraband of written or printed language. Nothing should +be allowed to be hurled at the world or whirled with it, or furled +upon it or curled over it; all eyes should be kept away from the +skies, in spite of os homini sublime dedit; youth should be coupled +with all the virtues except truth; earth should never be reminded of +her birth; death should never be allowed to stop a mortal's breath, +nor the bell to sound his knell, nor flowers from blossoming bowers +to wave over his grave or show their bloom upon his tomb. We have +rhyming dictionaries,--let us have one from which all rhymes are +rigorously excluded. The sight of a poor creature grubbing for +rhymes to fill up his sonnet, or to cram one of those voracious, +rhyme-swallowing rigmaroles which some of our drudging poetical +operatives have been exhausting themselves of late to satiate with +jingles, makes my head ache and my stomach rebel. Work, work of some +kind, is the business of men and women, not the making of jingles! +No,--no,--no! I want to see the young people in our schools and +academies and colleges, and the graduates of these institutions, +lifted up out of the little Dismal Swamp of self-contemplating and +self-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism which is +surfeiting the land with those literary sandwiches,--thin slices of +tinkling sentimentality between two covers looking like hard-baked +gilt gingerbread. But what faces these young folks make up at my +good advice! They get tipsy on their rhymes. Nothing intoxicates +one like his--or her--own verses, and they hold on to their metre- +ballad-mongering as the fellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to +the gas-bag." + +We laughed over this essay of the old Professor; though it hit us +pretty hard. The best part of the joke is that the old man himself +published a thin volume of poems when he was young, which there is +good reason to think he is not very proud of, as they say he buys up +all the copies he can find in the shops. No matter what they say, I +can't help agreeing with him about this great flood of "poetry," as +it calls itself, and looking at the rhyming mania much as he does. + +How I do love real poetry! That is the reason hate rhymes which have +not a particle of it in them. The foolish scribblers that deal in +them are like bad workmen in a carpenter's shop. They not only turn +out bad jobs of work, but they spoil the tools for better workmen. +There is hardly a pair of rhymes in the English language that is not +so dulled and hacked and gapped by these 'prentice hands that a +master of the craft hates to touch them, and yet he cannot very well +do without them. I have not been besieged as the old Professor has +been with such multitudes of would-be-poetical aspirants that he +could not even read their manuscripts, but I have had a good many +letters containing verses, and I have warned the writers of the +delusion under which they were laboring. + +You may like to know that I have just been translating some extracts +from the Greek Anthology. I send you a few specimens of my work, +with a Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I hope you will find +something of the Greek rhythm in my versions, and that I have caught +a spark of inspiration from the impassioned Lesbian. I have found +great delight in this work, at any rate, and am never so happy as +when I read from my manuscript or repeat from memory the lines into +which I have transferred the thought of the men and women of two +thousand years ago, or given rhythmical expression to my own +rapturous feelings with regard to them. I must read you my +Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I cannot help thinking that you +will like it better than either of my last two, The Song of the +Roses, or The Wail of the Weeds. + +How I do miss you, dearest! I want you: I want you to listen to what +I have written; I want you to hear all about my plans for the future; +I want to look at you, and think how grand it must be to feel one's +self to be such a noble and beautiful-creature; I want to wander in +the woods with you, to float on the lake, to share your life and talk +over every day's doings with you. Alas! I feel that we have parted +as two friends part at a port of embarkation: they embrace, they kiss +each other's cheeks, they cover their faces and weep, they try to +speak good-by to each other, they watch from the pier and from the +deck; the two forms grow less and less, fainter and fainter in the +distance, two white handkerchiefs flutter once and again, and yet +once more, and the last visible link of the chain which binds them +has parted. Dear, dear, dearest Euthymia, my eyes are running over +with tears when I think that we may never, never meet again. + +Don't you want some more items of village news? We are threatened +with an influx of stylish people: "Buttons" to answer the door-bell, +in place of the chamber-maid; "butler," in place of the "hired man;" +footman in top-boots and breeches, cockade on hat, arms folded a la +Napoleon; tandems, "drags," dogcarts, and go-carts of all sorts. It +is rather amusing to look at their ambitious displays, but it takes +away the good old country flavor of the place. + +I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when you come back to +spend your summers here. I suppose you must have a large house, and +I am sure you will have a beautiful one. I suppose you will have +some fine horses, and who would n't be glad to? But I do not believe +you will try to make your old Arrowhead Village friends stare their +eyes out of their heads with a display meant to outshine everybody +else that comes here. You can have a yacht on the lake, if you like, +but I hope you will pull a pair of oars in our old boat once in a +while, with me to steer you. I know you will be just the same dear- +Euthymia you always were and always must be. How happy you must make +such a man as Maurice Kirkwood! And how happy you ought to be with +him!--a man who knows what is in books, and who has seen for himself, +what is in men. If he has not seen so much of women, where could he +study all that is best in womanhood as he can in his own wife? Only +one thing that dear Euthymia lacks. She is not quite pronounced +enough in her views as to the rights and the wrongs of the sex. When +I visit you, as you say I shall, I mean to indoctrinate Maurice with +sound views on that subject. I have written an essay for the +Society, which I hope will go a good way towards answering all the +objections to female suffrage. I mean to read it to your husband, if +you will let me, as I know you will, and perhaps you would like to +hear it,--only you know my thoughts on the subject pretty well +already. + +With all sorts of kind messages to your dear husband, and love to +your precious self, +I am ever your + +LURIDA. + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. + +MY DEAR EUTHYMIA,--My pen refuses to call you by any other name. +Sweet-souled you are, and your Latinized Greek name is--the one which +truly designates you. I cannot tell you how we have followed you, +with what interest and delight through your travels, as you have told +their story in your letters to your mother. She has let us have the +privilege of reading them, and we have been with you in steamer, +yacht, felucca, gondola, Nile-boat; in all sorts of places, from +crowded capitals to "deserts where no men abide,"--everywhere keeping +company with you in your natural and pleasant descriptions of your +experiences. And now that you have returned to your home in the +great city I must write you a few lines of welcome, if nothing more. + +You will find Arrowhead Village a good deal changed since you left +it. We are discovered by some of those over-rich people who make the +little place upon which they swarm a kind of rural city. When this +happens the consequences are striking,--some of them desirable and +some far otherwise. The effect of well-built, well-furnished, well- +kept houses and of handsome grounds always maintained in good order +about them shows itself in a large circuit around the fashionable +centre. Houses get on a new coat of paint, fences are kept in better +order, little plots of flowers show themselves where only ragged +weeds had rioted, the inhabitants present themselves in more comely +attire and drive in handsomer vehicles with more carefully groomed +horses. On the other hand, there is a natural jealousy on the part +of the natives of the region suddenly become fashionable. They have +seen the land they sold at farm prices by the acre coming to be +valued by the foot, like the corner lots in a city. Their simple and +humble modes of life look almost poverty-stricken in the glare of +wealth and luxury which so outshines their plain way of living. It +is true that many of them have found them selves richer than in +former days, when the neighborhood lived on its own resources. They +know how to avail themselves of their altered position, and soon +learn to charge city prices for country products; but nothing can +make people feel rich who see themselves surrounded by men whose +yearly income is many times their own whole capital. I think it +would be better if our rich men scattered themselves more than they +do,--buying large country estates, building houses and stables which +will make it easy to entertain their friends, and depending for +society on chosen guests rather than on the mob of millionaires who +come together for social rivalry. But I do not fret myself about it. +Society will stratify itself according to the laws of social +gravitation. It will take a generation or two more, perhaps, to +arrange the strata by precipitation and settlement, but we can always +depend on one principle to govern the arrangement of the layers. +People interested in the same things will naturally come together. +The youthful heirs of fortunes who keep splendid yachts have little +to talk about with the oarsman who pulls about on the lake or the +river. What does young Dives, who drives his four-in-hand and keeps +a stable full of horses, care about Lazarus, who feels rich in the +possession of a horse-railroad ticket? You know how we live at our +house, plainly, but with a certain degree of cultivated propriety. +We make no pretensions to what is called "style." We are still in +that social stratum where the article called "a napkin-ring" is +recognized as admissible at the dinner-table. That fact sufficiently +defines our modest pretensions. The napkin-ring is the boundary mark +between certain classes. But one evening Mrs. Butts and I went out +to a party given by the lady of a worthy family, where the napkin +itself was a newly introduced luxury. The conversation of the +hostess and her guests turned upon details of the kitchen and the +laundry; upon the best mode of raising bread, whether with "emptins" +(emptyings, yeast) or baking powder; about "bluing" and starching and +crimping, and similar matters. Poor Mrs. Butts! She knew nothing +more about such things than her hostess did about Shakespeare and the +musical glasses. What was the use of trying to enforce social +intercourse under such conditions? Incompatibility of temper has +been considered ground for a divorce; incompatibility of interests is +a sufficient warrant for social separation. The multimillionaires +have so much that is common among themselves, and so little that they +share with us of moderate means, that they will naturally form a +specialized class, and in virtue of their palaces, their picture- +galleries, their equipages, their yachts, their large hospitality, +constitute a kind of exclusive aristocracy. Religion, which ought to +be the great leveller, cannot reduce these elements to the same +grade. You may read in the parable, "Friend, how camest thou in +hither not having a wedding garment?" The modern version would be, +"How came you at Mrs. Billion's ball not having a dress on your back +which came from Paris?" + +The little church has got a new stained window, a saint who reminds +me of Hamlet's uncle,--a thing "of shreds and patches," but rather +pretty to look at, with an inscription under it which is supposed to +be the name of the person in whose honor the window was placed in the +church. Smith was a worthy man and a faithful churchwarden, and I +hope posterity will be able to spell out his name on his monumental +window; but that old English lettering would puzzle Mephistopheles +himself, if he found himself before this memorial tribute, on the +inside,--you know he goes to church sometimes, if you remember your +Faust. + +The rector has come out, in a quiet way, as an evolutionist. He has +always been rather "broad" in his views, but cautious in their +expression. You can tell the three branches of the mother-island +church by the way they carry their heads. The low-church clergy look +down, as if they felt themselves to be worms of the dust; the high- +church priest drops his head on one side, after the pattern of the +mediaeval saints; the broad-church preacher looks forward and round +about him, as if he felt himself the heir of creation. Our rector +carries his head in the broad-church aspect, which I suppose is the +least open to the charge of affectation,--in fact, is the natural and +manly way of carrying it. + +The Society has justified its name of Pansophian of late as never +before. Lurida has stirred up our little community and its +neighbors, so that we get essays on all sorts of subjects, poems and +stories in large numbers. I know all about it, for she often +consults me as to the merits of a particular contribution. + +What is to be the fate of Lurida? I often think, with no little +interest and some degree of anxiety, about her future. Her body is +so frail and her mind so excessively and constantly active that I am +afraid one or the other will give way. I do not suppose she thinks +seriously of ever being married. She grows more and more zealous in +behalf of her own sex, and sterner in her judgment of the other. She +declares that she never would marry any man who was not an advocate +of female suffrage, and as these gentlemen are not very common +hereabouts the chance is against her capturing any one of the hostile +sex. + +What do you think? I happened, just as I was writing the last +sentence, to look out of my window, and whom should I see but Lurida, +with a young man in tow, listening very eagerly to her conversation, +according to all appearance! I think he must be a friend of the +rector, as I have seen a young man like this one in his company. Who +knows? + +Affectionately yours, etc. + + + + +DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. + +MY BELOVED WIFE,--This letter will tell you more news than you would +have thought could have been got together in this little village +during the short time you have been staying away from it. + +Lurida Vincent is engaged! He is a clergyman with a mathematical +turn. The story is that he put a difficult problem into one of the +mathematical journals, and that Lurida presented such a neat solution +that the young man fell in love with her on the strength of it. I +don't think the story is literally true, nor do I believe that other +report that he offered himself to her in the form of an equation +chalked on the blackboard; but that it was an intellectual rather +than a sentimental courtship I do not doubt. Lurida has given up the +idea of becoming a professional lecturer,--so she tells me,--thinking +that her future husband's parish will find her work enough to do. A +certain amount of daily domestic drudgery and unexciting intercourse +with simple-minded people will be the best thing in the world for +that brain of hers, always simmering with some new project in its +least fervid condition. + +All our summer visitors have arrived. Euthymia Mrs. Maurice +Kirkwood and her husband and little Maurice are here in their +beautiful house looking out on the lake. They gave a grand party the +other evening. You ought to have been there, but I suppose you could +not very well have left your sister in the middle of your visit: All +the grand folks were there, of course. Lurida and her young man-- +Gabriel is what she calls him--were naturally the objects of special +attention. Paolo acted as major-domo, and looked as if he ought to +be a major-general. Nothing could be pleasanter than the way in +which Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood received their plain country neighbors; +that is, just as they did the others of more pretensions, as if they +were really glad to see them, as I am sure they were. The old +landlord and his wife had two arm-chairs to themselves, and I saw +Miranda with the servants of the household looking in at the dancers +and out at the little groups in the garden, and evidently enjoying it +as much as her old employers. It was a most charming and successful +party. We had two sensations in the course of the evening. One was +pleasant and somewhat exciting, the other was thrilling and of +strange and startling interest. + +You remember how emaciated poor Maurice Kirkwood was left after his +fever, in that first season when he was among us. He was out in a +boat one day, when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a +place where the water was rather shallow. "Jake"--you know Jake,-- +everybody knows Jake--was rowing him. He promised to come to the +spot and fish up the ring if he could possibly find it. He was seen +poking about with fish-hooks at the end of a pole, but nothing was +ever heard from him about the ring. It was an antique intaglio stone +in an Etruscan setting,--a wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. +Kirkwood valued it highly, and regretted its loss very much. + +While we were in the garden, who should appear at the gate but Jake, +with a great basket, inquiring for Mr. Kirkwood. "Come," said +Maurice to me, "let us see what our old friend the fisherman has +brought us. What have you got there, Jake?" + +"What I 've got? Wall, I 'll tell y' what I've got: I 've got the +biggest pickerel that's been ketched in this pond for these ten year. +An' I 've got somethin' else besides the pickerel. When I come to +cut him open, what do you think I faound in his insides but this here +ring o' yourn,"--and he showed the one Maurice had lost so long +before. There it was, as good as new, after having tried Jonah's +style of housekeeping for all that time. There are those who +discredit Jake's story about finding the ring in the fish; anyhow, +there was the ring and there was the pickerel. I need not say that +Jake went off well paid for his pickerel and the precious contents of +its stomach. Now comes the chief event of the evening. I went early +by special invitation. Maurice took me into his library, and we sat +down together. + +"I have something of great importance," he said, "to say to you. I +learned within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a +friend in the next town to this. You know, doctor, that we have +never met since the last, almost fatal, experience of my early years. +I have determined to defy the strength of that deadly chain of +associations connected with her presence, and I have begged her to +come this evening with the friends with whom she is staying. Several +letters passed between us, for it was hard to persuade her that there +was no longer any risk in my meeting her. Her imagination was almost +as deeply impressed as mine had been at those alarming interviews, +and I had to explain to her fully that I had become quite indifferent +to the disturbing impressions of former years. So, as the result of +our correspondence, Laura is coming this evening, and I wish you to +be present at our meeting. There is another reason why I wish you to +be here. My little boy is not far from the--age at which I received +my terrifying, almost disorganizing shock. I mean to have little +Maurice brought into the presence of Laura, who is said to be still a +very handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hint of that peculiar +sensitiveness which showed itself in my threatening seizure. It +seemed to me not impossible that he might inherit some tendency of +that nature, and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of danger +should declare itself. For myself I have no fear. Some radical +change has taken place in my nervous system. I have been born again, +as it were, in my susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new +man. But I must know how it is with my little Maurice." + +Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment; for +experiment it was, and not without its sources of anxiety, as it +seemed to me. The evening wore along; friends and neighbors came in, +but no Laura as yet. At last I heard the sound of wheels, and a +carriage stopped at the door. Two ladies and a gentleman got out, +and soon entered the drawing room. + +"My cousin Laura!" whispered Maurice to me, and went forward to meet +her. A very handsome woman, who might well have been in the +thirties,--one of those women so thoroughly constituted that they +cannot help being handsome at every period of life. I watched them +both as they approached each other. Both looked pale at first, but +Maurice soon recovered his usual color, and Laura's natural, rich +bloom came back by degrees. Their emotion at meeting was not to be +wondered at, but there was no trace in it of the paralyzing influence +on the great centres of life which had once acted upon its fated +victim like the fabled head which turned the looker-on into a stone. + +"Is the boy still awake?" said Maurice to Paolo, who, as they used to +say of Pushee at the old Anchor Tavern, was everywhere at once on +that gay and busy evening. + +"What! Mahser Maurice asleep an' all this racket going on? I hear +him crowing like young cockerel when he fus' smell daylight." + +"Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the little room that +leads out of the library." + +The child was brought down in his night-clothes, wide awake, +wondering apparently at the noise he heard, which he seemed to think +was for his special amusement. + +"See if he will go to that lady," said his father. Both of us held +our breath as Laura stretched her arms towards little Maurice. + +The child looked for an instant searchingly, but fearlessly, at her +glowing cheeks, her bright eyes, her welcoming smile, and met her +embrace as she clasped him to her bosom as if he had known her all +his days. + +The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and the blood of +Maurice Kirkwood at that supreme moment when he found himself +snatched from the grasp of death and cradled in the arms of Euthymia. + + + -------------------------- + + +In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it began with a prefix +which the reader may by this time have forgotten, namely, the First +Opening. It was perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability +of a second opening. + +I am reminded from time to time by the correspondents who ask a +certain small favor of me that, as I can only expect to be with my +surviving contemporaries a very little while longer, they would be +much obliged if I would hurry up my answer before it is too late. +They are right, these delicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding +me of a fact which I cannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my +recollection. I thank them for recalling my attention to a truth +which I shall be wiser, if not more hilarious, for remembering. + +No, I had no right to say the First Opening. How do I know that I +shall have a chance to open it again? How do I know that anybody +will want it to be opened a second time? How do I know that I shall +feel like opening it? It is safest neither to promise to open the +New Portfolio once more, nor yet to pledge myself to keep it closed +hereafter. There are many papers potentially existent in it, some of +which might interest a reader here and there. The Records of the +Pansophian Society contain a considerable number of essays, poems, +stories, and hints capable of being expanded into presentable +dimensions. In the mean time I will say with Prospero, addressing my +old readers, and my new ones, if such I have, + + "If you be pleased, retire into my cell + And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, + To still my beating mind." + +When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again, and +consider whether it is worth while to open it. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext A Mortal Antipathy, by Oliver W. Holmes + diff --git a/old/antip11.zip b/old/antip11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ee8e06 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/antip11.zip |