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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +NOTE: This work was previously published in [Etext #2671] +The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 1., +Project Gutenberg The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner +1warn10.txt or 1warn10.zip + + + + + +BACKLOG STUDIES + +By Charles Dudley Warner + + + +FIRST STUDY + +I + +The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in New England; the hearth +has gone out; the family has lost its center; age ceases to be +respected; sex is only distinguished by a difference between +millinery bills and tailors' bills; there is no more toast-and-cider; +the young are not allowed to eat mince-pies at ten o'clock at night; +half a cheese is no longer set to toast before the fire; you scarcely +ever see in front of the coals a row of roasting apples, which a +bright little girl, with many a dive and start, shielding her sunny +face from the fire with one hand, turns from time to time; scarce are +the gray-haired sires who strop their razors on the family Bible, and +doze in the chimney-corner. A good many things have gone out with +the fire on the hearth. + +I do not mean to say that public and private morality have vanished +with the hearth. A good degree of purity and considerable happiness +are possible with grates and blowers; it is a day of trial, when we +are all passing through a fiery furnace, and very likely we shall be +purified as we are dried up and wasted away. Of course the family is +gone, as an institution, though there still are attempts to bring up +a family round a "register." But you might just as well try to bring +it up by hand, as without the rallying-point of a hearthstone. Are +there any homesteads nowadays? Do people hesitate to change houses +any more than they do to change their clothes? People hire houses as +they would a masquerade costume, liking, sometimes, to appear for a +year in a little fictitious stone-front splendor above their means. +Thus it happens that so many people live in houses that do not fit +them. I should almost as soon think of wearing another person's +clothes as his house; unless I could let it out and take it in until +it fitted, and somehow expressed my own character and taste. But we +have fallen into the days of conformity. It is no wonder that people +constantly go into their neighbors' houses by mistake, just as, in +spite of the Maine law, they wear away each other's hats from an +evening party. It has almost come to this, that you might as well be +anybody else as yourself. + +Am I mistaken in supposing that this is owing to the discontinuance +of big chimneys, with wide fireplaces in them? How can a person be +attached to a house that has no center of attraction, no soul in it, +in the visible form of a glowing fire, and a warm chimney, like the +heart in the body? When you think of the old homestead, if you ever +do, your thoughts go straight to the wide chimney and its burning +logs. No wonder that you are ready to move from one fireplaceless +house into another. But you have something just as good, you say. +Yes, I have heard of it. This age, which imitates everything, even +to the virtues of our ancestors, has invented a fireplace, with +artificial, iron, or composition logs in it, hacked and painted, in +which gas is burned, so that it has the appearance of a wood-fire. +This seems to me blasphemy. Do you think a cat would lie down before +it? Can you poke it? If you can't poke it, it is a fraud. To poke +a wood-fire is more solid enjoyment than almost anything else in the +world. The crowning human virtue in a man is to let his wife poke +the fire. I do not know how any virtue whatever is possible over an +imitation gas-log. What a sense of insincerity the family must have, +if they indulge in the hypocrisy of gathering about it. With this +center of untruthfulness, what must the life in the family be? +Perhaps the father will be living at the rate of ten thousand a year +on a salary of four thousand; perhaps the mother, more beautiful and +younger than her beautified daughters, will rouge; perhaps the young +ladies will make wax-work. A cynic might suggest as the motto of +modern life this simple legend,--"just as good as the real." But I am +not a cynic, and I hope for the rekindling of wood-fires, and a +return of the beautiful home light from them. If a wood-fire is a +luxury, it is cheaper than many in which we indulge without thought, +and cheaper than the visits of a doctor, made necessary by the want +of ventilation of the house. Not that I have anything against +doctors; I only wish, after they have been to see us in a way that +seems so friendly, they had nothing against us. + +My fireplace, which is deep, and nearly three feet wide, has a broad +hearthstone in front of it, where the live coals tumble down, and a +pair of gigantic brass andirons. The brasses are burnished, and +shine cheerfully in the firelight, and on either side stand tall +shovel and tongs, like sentries, mounted in brass. The tongs, like +the two-handed sword of Bruce, cannot be wielded by puny people. We +burn in it hickory wood, cut long. We like the smell of this +aromatic forest timber, and its clear flame. The birch is also a +sweet wood for the hearth, with a sort of spiritual flame and an even +temper,--no snappishness. Some prefer the elm, which holds fire so +well; and I have a neighbor who uses nothing but apple-tree wood,--a +solid, family sort of wood, fragrant also, and full of delightful +suggestions. But few people can afford to burn up their fruit trees. +I should as soon think of lighting the fire with sweet-oil that comes +in those graceful wicker-bound flasks from Naples, or with manuscript +sermons, which, however, do not burn well, be they never so dry, not +half so well as printed editorials. + +Few people know how to make a wood-fire, but everybody thinks he or +she does. You want, first, a large backlog, which does not rest on +the andirons. This will keep your fire forward, radiate heat all +day, and late in the evening fall into a ruin of glowing coals, like +the last days of a good man, whose life is the richest and most +beneficent at the close, when the flames of passion and the sap of +youth are burned out, and there only remain the solid, bright +elements of character. Then you want a forestick on the andirons; +and upon these build the fire of lighter stuff. In this way you have +at once a cheerful blaze, and the fire gradually eats into the solid +mass, sinking down with increasing fervor; coals drop below, and +delicate tongues of flame sport along the beautiful grain of the +forestick. There are people who kindle a fire underneath. But these +are conceited people, who are wedded to their own way. I suppose an +accomplished incendiary always starts a fire in the attic, if he can. +I am not an incendiary, but I hate bigotry. I don't call those +incendiaries very good Christians who, when they set fire to the +martyrs, touched off the fagots at the bottom, so as to make them go +slow. Besides, knowledge works down easier than it does up. +Education must proceed from the more enlightened down to the more +ignorant strata. If you want better common schools, raise the +standard of the colleges, and so on. Build your fire on top. Let +your light shine. I have seen people build a fire under a balky +horse; but he wouldn't go, he'd be a horse-martyr first. A fire +kindled under one never did him any good. Of course you can make a +fire on the hearth by kindling it underneath, but that does not make +it right. I want my hearthfire to be an emblem of the best things. + + + +II + +It must be confessed that a wood-fire needs as much tending as a pair +of twins. To say nothing of fiery projectiles sent into the room, +even by the best wood, from the explosion of gases confined in its +cells, the brands are continually dropping down, and coals are being +scattered over the hearth. However much a careful housewife, who +thinks more of neatness than enjoyment, may dislike this, it is one +of the chief delights of a wood-fire. I would as soon have an +Englishman without side-whiskers as a fire without a big backlog; and +I would rather have no fire than one that required no tending,--one +of dead wood that could not sing again the imprisoned songs of the +forest, or give out in brilliant scintillations the sunshine it +absorbed in its growth. Flame is an ethereal sprite, and the spice +of danger in it gives zest to the care of the hearth-fire. Nothing +is so beautiful as springing, changing flame,--it was the last freak +of the Gothic architecture men to represent the fronts of elaborate +edifices of stone as on fire, by the kindling flamboyant devices. A +fireplace is, besides, a private laboratory, where one can witness +the most brilliant chemical experiments, minor conflagrations only +wanting the grandeur of cities on fire. It is a vulgar notion that a +fire is only for heat. A chief value of it is, however, to look at. +It is a picture, framed between the jambs. You have nothing on your +walls, by the best masters (the poor masters are not, however, +represented), that is really so fascinating, so spiritual. Speaking +like an upholsterer, it furnishes the room. And it is never twice +the same. In this respect it is like the landscape-view through a +window, always seen in a new light, color, or condition. The +fireplace is a window into the most charming world I ever had a +glimpse of. + +Yet direct heat is an agreeable sensation. I am not scientific +enough to despise it, and have no taste for a winter residence on +Mount Washington, where the thermometer cannot be kept comfortable +even by boiling. They say that they say in Boston that there is a +satisfaction in being well dressed which religion cannot give. There +is certainly a satisfaction in the direct radiance of a hickory fire +which is not to be found in the fieriest blasts of a furnace. The +hot air of a furnace is a sirocco; the heat of a wood-fire is only +intense sunshine, like that bottled in Lacrimae Christi. Besides +this, the eye is delighted, the sense of smell is regaled by the +fragrant decomposition, and the ear is pleased with the hissing, +crackling, and singing,--a liberation of so many out-door noises. +Some people like the sound of bubbling in a boiling pot, or the +fizzing of a frying-spider. But there is nothing gross in the +animated crackling of sticks of wood blazing on the earth, not even +if chestnuts are roasting in the ashes. All the senses are +ministered to, and the imagination is left as free as the leaping +tongues of flame. + +The attention which a wood-fire demands is one of its best +recommendations. We value little that which costs us no trouble to +maintain. If we had to keep the sun kindled up and going by private +corporate action, or act of Congress, and to be taxed for the support +of customs officers of solar heat, we should prize it more than we +do. Not that I should like to look upon the sun as a job, and have +the proper regulation of its temperature get into politics, where we +already have so much combustible stuff; but we take it quite too much +as a matter of course, and, having it free, do not reckon it among +the reasons for gratitude. Many people shut it out of their houses +as if it were an enemy, watch its descent upon the carpet as if it +were only a thief of color, and plant trees to shut it away from the +mouldering house. All the animals know better than this, as well as +the more simple races of men; the old women of the southern Italian +coasts sit all day in the sun and ply the distaff, as grateful as the +sociable hens on the south side of a New England barn; the slow +tortoise likes to take the sun upon his sloping back, soaking in +color that shall make him immortal when the imperishable part of him +is cut up into shell ornaments. The capacity of a cat to absorb +sunshine is only equaled by that of an Arab or an Ethiopian. They +are not afraid of injuring their complexions. + +White must be the color of civilization; it has so many natural +disadvantages. But this is politics. I was about to say that, +however it may be with sunshine, one is always grateful for his +wood-fire, because he does not maintain it without some cost. + +Yet I cannot but confess to a difference between sunlight and the +light of a wood-fire. The sunshine is entirely untamed. Where it +rages most freely it tends to evoke the brilliancy rather than the +harmonious satisfactions of nature. The monstrous growths and the +flaming colors of the tropics contrast with our more subdued +loveliness of foliage and bloom. The birds of the middle region +dazzle with their contrasts of plumage, and their voices are for +screaming rather than singing. I presume the new experiments in +sound would project a macaw's voice in very tangled and inharmonious +lines of light. I suspect that the fiercest sunlight puts people, as +well as animals and vegetables, on extremes in all ways. A wood-fire +on the hearth is a kindler of the domestic virtues. It brings in +cheerfulness, and a family center, and, besides, it is artistic. +I should like to know if an artist could ever represent on canvas a +happy family gathered round a hole in the floor called a register. +Given a fireplace, and a tolerable artist could almost create a +pleasant family round it. But what could he conjure out of a +register? If there was any virtue among our ancestors,--and they +labored under a great many disadvantages, and had few of the aids +which we have to excellence of life,--I am convinced they drew it +mostly from the fireside. If it was difficult to read the eleven +commandments by the light of a pine-knot, it was not difficult to get +the sweet spirit of them from the countenance of the serene mother +knitting in the chimney-corner. + + + +III + +When the fire is made, you want to sit in front of it and grow genial +in its effulgence. I have never been upon a throne,--except in +moments of a traveler's curiosity, about as long as a South American +dictator remains on one,--but I have no idea that it compares, for +pleasantness, with a seat before a wood-fire. A whole leisure day +before you, a good novel in hand, and the backlog only just beginning +to kindle, with uncounted hours of comfort in it, has life anything +more delicious? For "novel" you can substitute "Calvin's +Institutes," if you wish to be virtuous as well as happy. Even +Calvin would melt before a wood-fire. A great snowstorm, visible on +three sides of your wide-windowed room, loading the evergreens, blown +in fine powder from the great chestnut-tops, piled up in ever +accumulating masses, covering the paths, the shrubbery, the hedges, +drifting and clinging in fantastic deposits, deepening your sense of +security, and taking away the sin of idleness by making it a +necessity, this is an excellent ground to your day by the fire. + +To deliberately sit down in the morning to read a novel, to enjoy +yourself, is this not, in New England (I am told they don't read much +in other parts of the country), the sin of sins? Have you any right +to read, especially novels, until you have exhausted the best part of +the day in some employment that is called practical? Have you any +right to enjoy yourself at all until the fag-end of the day, when you +are tired and incapable of enjoying yourself? I am aware that this +is the practice, if not the theory, of our society,--to postpone the +delights of social intercourse until after dark, and rather late at +night, when body and mind are both weary with the exertions of +business, and when we can give to what is the most delightful and +profitable thing in life, social and intellectual society, only the +weariness of dull brains and over-tired muscles. No wonder we take +our amusements sadly, and that so many people find dinners heavy and +parties stupid. Our economy leaves no place for amusements; we +merely add them to the burden of a life already full. The world is +still a little off the track as to what is really useful. + +I confess that the morning is a very good time to read a novel, or +anything else which is good and requires a fresh mind; and I take it +that nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind. +I suppose it is necessary that business should be transacted; though +the amount of business that does not contribute to anybody's comfort +or improvement suggests the query whether it is not overdone. I know +that unremitting attention to business is the price of success, but +I don't know what success is. There is a man, whom we all know, who +built a house that cost a quarter of a million of dollars, and +furnished it for another like sum, who does not know anything more +about architecture, or painting, or books, or history, than he cares +for the rights of those who have not so much money as he has. I +heard him once, in a foreign gallery, say to his wife, as they stood +in front of a famous picture by Rubens: "That is the Rape of the +Sardines!" What a cheerful world it would be if everybody was as +successful as that man! While I am reading my book by the fire, and +taking an active part in important transactions that may be a good +deal better than real, let me be thankful that a great many men are +profitably employed in offices and bureaus and country stores in +keeping up the gossip and endless exchange of opinions among mankind, +so much of which is made to appear to the women at home as +"business." I find that there is a sort of busy idleness among men in +this world that is not held in disrepute. When the time comes that I +have to prove my right to vote, with women, I trust that it will be +remembered in my favor that I made this admission. If it is true, as +a witty conservative once said to me, that we never shall have peace +in this country until we elect a colored woman president, I desire to +be rectus in curia early. + + + +IV + +The fireplace, as we said, is a window through which we look out upon +other scenes. We like to read of the small, bare room, with +cobwebbed ceiling and narrow window, in which the poor child of +genius sits with his magical pen, the master of a realm of beauty and +enchantment. I think the open fire does not kindle the imagination +so much as it awakens the memory; one sees the past in its crumbling +embers and ashy grayness, rather than the future. People become +reminiscent and even sentimental in front of it. They used to become +something else in those good old days when it was thought best to +heat the poker red hot before plunging it into the mugs of flip. +This heating of the poker has been disapproved of late years, but I +do not know on what grounds; if one is to drink bitters and gins and +the like, such as I understand as good people as clergymen and women +take in private, and by advice, I do not know why one should not make +them palatable and heat them with his own poker. Cold whiskey out of +a bottle, taken as a prescription six times a day on the sly, is n't +my idea of virtue any more than the social ancestral glass, sizzling +wickedly with the hot iron. Names are so confusing in this world; +but things are apt to remain pretty much the same, whatever we call +them. + +Perhaps as you look into the fireplace it widens and grows deep and +cavernous. The back and the jambs are built up of great stones, not +always smoothly laid, with jutting ledges upon which ashes are apt to +lie. The hearthstone is an enormous block of trap rock, with a +surface not perfectly even, but a capital place to crack butternuts +on. Over the fire swings an iron crane, with a row of pot-hooks of +all lengths hanging from it. It swings out when the housewife wants +to hang on the tea-kettle, and it is strong enough to support a row +of pots, or a mammoth caldron kettle on occasion. What a jolly sight +is this fireplace when the pots and kettles in a row are all boiling +and bubbling over the flame, and a roasting spit is turning in front! +It makes a person as hungry as one of Scott's novels. But the +brilliant sight is in the frosty morning, about daylight, when the +fire is made. The coals are raked open, the split sticks are piled +up in openwork criss-crossing, as high as the crane; and when the +flame catches hold and roars up through the interstices, it is like +an out-of-door bonfire. Wood enough is consumed in that morning +sacrifice to cook the food of a Parisian family for a year. How it +roars up the wide chimney, sending into the air the signal smoke and +sparks which announce to the farming neighbors another day cheerfully +begun! The sleepiest boy in the world would get up in his red +flannel nightgown to see such a fire lighted, even if he dropped to +sleep again in his chair before the ruddy blaze. Then it is that the +house, which has shrunk and creaked all night in the pinching cold of +winter, begins to glow again and come to life. The thick frost melts +little by little on the small window-panes, and it is seen that the +gray dawn is breaking over the leagues of pallid snow. It is time to +blow out the candle, which has lost all its cheerfulness in the light +of day. The morning romance is over; the family is astir; and member +after member appears with the morning yawn, to stand before the +crackling, fierce conflagration. The daily round begins. The most +hateful employment ever invented for mortal man presents itself: the +"chores" are to be done. The boy who expects every morning to open +into a new world finds that to-day is like yesterday, but he believes +to-morrow will be different. And yet enough for him, for the day, is +the wading in the snowdrifts, or the sliding on the diamond-sparkling +crust. Happy, too, is he, when the storm rages, and the snow is +piled high against the windows, if he can sit in the warm chimney- +corner and read about Burgoyne, and General Fraser, and Miss McCrea, +midwinter marches through the wilderness, surprises of wigwams, and +the stirring ballad, say, of the Battle of the Kegs:-- + + +"Come, gallants, attend and list a friend +Thrill forth harmonious ditty; +While I shall tell what late befell +At Philadelphia city." + + +I should like to know what heroism a boy in an old New England +farmhouse--rough-nursed by nature, and fed on the traditions of the +old wars did not aspire to. "John," says the mother, "You'll burn +your head to a crisp in that heat." But John does not hear; he is +storming the Plains of Abraham just now. "Johnny, dear, bring in a +stick of wood." How can Johnny bring in wood when he is in that +defile with Braddock, and the Indians are popping at him from behind +every tree? There is something about a boy that I like, after all. + +The fire rests upon the broad hearth; the hearth rests upon a great +substruction of stone, and the substruction rests upon the cellar. +What supports the cellar I never knew, but the cellar supports the +family. The cellar is the foundation of domestic comfort. Into its +dark, cavernous recesses the child's imagination fearfully goes. +Bogies guard the bins of choicest apples. I know not what comical +sprites sit astride the cider-barrels ranged along the walls. The +feeble flicker of the tallow-candle does not at all dispel, but +creates, illusions, and magnifies all the rich possibilities of this +underground treasure-house. When the cellar-door is opened, and the +boy begins to descend into the thick darkness, it is always with a +heart-beat as of one started upon some adventure. Who can forget the +smell that comes through the opened door;--a mingling of fresh earth, +fruit exhaling delicious aroma, kitchen vegetables, the mouldy odor +of barrels, a sort of ancestral air,--as if a door had been opened +into an old romance. Do you like it? Not much. But then I would +not exchange the remembrance of it for a good many odors and perfumes +that I do like. + +It is time to punch the backlog and put on a new forestick. + + + + +SECOND STUDY + +I + +The log was white birch. The beautiful satin bark at once kindled +into a soft, pure, but brilliant flame, something like that of +naphtha. There is no other wood flame so rich, and it leaps up in a +joyous, spiritual way, as if glad to burn for the sake of burning. +Burning like a clear oil, it has none of the heaviness and fatness of +the pine and the balsam. Woodsmen are at a loss to account for its +intense and yet chaste flame, since the bark has no oily appearance. +The heat from it is fierce, and the light dazzling. It flares up +eagerly like young love, and then dies away; the wood does not keep +up the promise of the bark. The woodsmen, it is proper to say, have +not considered it in its relation to young love. In the remote +settlements the pine-knot is still the torch of courtship; it endures +to sit up by. The birch-bark has alliances with the world of +sentiment and of letters. The most poetical reputation of the North +American Indian floats in a canoe made of it; his picture-writing was +inscribed on it. It is the paper that nature furnishes for lovers in +the wilderness, who are enabled to convey a delicate sentiment by its +use, which is expressed neither in their ideas nor chirography. It +is inadequate for legal parchment, but does very well for deeds of +love, which are not meant usually to give a perfect title. With +care, it may be split into sheets as thin as the Chinese paper. It +is so beautiful to handle that it is a pity civilization cannot make +more use of it. But fancy articles manufactured from it are very +much like all ornamental work made of nature's perishable seeds, +leaves, cones, and dry twigs,--exquisite while the pretty fingers are +fashioning it, but soon growing shabby and cheap to the eye. And yet +there is a pathos in "dried things," whether they are displayed as +ornaments in some secluded home, or hidden religiously in bureau +drawers where profane eyes cannot see how white ties are growing +yellow and ink is fading from treasured letters, amid a faint and +discouraging perfume of ancient rose-leaves. + +The birch log holds out very well while it is green, but has not +substance enough for a backlog when dry. Seasoning green timber or +men is always an experiment. A man may do very well in a simple, let +us say, country or backwoods line of life, who would come to nothing +in a more complicated civilization. City life is a severe trial. +One man is struck with a dry-rot; another develops season-cracks; +another shrinks and swells with every change of circumstance. +Prosperity is said to be more trying than adversity, a theory which +most people are willing to accept without trial; but few men stand +the drying out of the natural sap of their greenness in the +artificial heat of city life. This, be it noticed, is nothing +against the drying and seasoning process; character must be put into +the crucible some time, and why not in this world? A man who cannot +stand seasoning will not have a high market value in any part of the +universe. It is creditable to the race, that so many men and women +bravely jump into the furnace of prosperity and expose themselves to +the drying influences of city life. + +The first fire that is lighted on the hearth in the autumn seems to +bring out the cold weather. Deceived by the placid appearance of the +dying year, the softness of the sky, and the warm color of the +foliage, we have been shivering about for days without exactly +comprehending what was the matter. The open fire at once sets up a +standard of comparison. We find that the advance guards of winter +are besieging the house. The cold rushes in at every crack of door +and window, apparently signaled by the flame to invade the house and +fill it with chilly drafts and sarcasms on what we call the temperate +zone. It needs a roaring fire to beat back the enemy; a feeble one +is only an invitation to the most insulting demonstrations. Our +pious New England ancestors were philosophers in their way. It was +not simply owing to grace that they sat for hours in their barnlike +meeting-houses during the winter Sundays, the thermometer many +degrees below freezing, with no fire, except the zeal in their own +hearts,--a congregation of red noses and bright eyes. It was no +wonder that the minister in the pulpit warmed up to his subject, +cried aloud, used hot words, spoke a good deal of the hot place and +the Person whose presence was a burning shame, hammered the desk as +if he expected to drive his text through a two-inch plank, and heated +himself by all allowable ecclesiastical gymnastics. A few of their +followers in our day seem to forget that our modern churches are +heated by furnaces and supplied with gas. In the old days it would +have been thought unphilosophic as well as effeminate to warm the +meeting-houses artificially. In one house I knew, at least, when it +was proposed to introduce a stove to take a little of the chill from +the Sunday services, the deacons protested against the innovation. +They said that the stove might benefit those who sat close to it, but +it would drive all the cold air to the other parts of the church, and +freeze the people to death; it was cold enough now around the edges. +Blessed days of ignorance and upright living! Sturdy men who served +God by resolutely sitting out the icy hours of service, amid the +rattling of windows and the carousal of winter in the high, windswept +galleries! Patient women, waiting in the chilly house for +consumption to pick out his victims, and replace the color of youth +and the flush of devotion with the hectic of disease! At least, you +did not doze and droop in our over-heated edifices, and die of +vitiated air and disregard of the simplest conditions of organized +life. It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its +own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous. +It is something also that each age has its choice of the death it +will die. Our generation is most ingenious. From our public +assembly-rooms and houses we have almost succeeded in excluding pure +air. It took the race ages to build dwellings that would keep out +rain; it has taken longer to build houses air-tight, but we are on +the eve of success. We are only foiled by the ill-fitting, insincere +work of the builders, who build for a day, and charge for all time. + + + +II + +When the fire on the hearth has blazed up and then settled into +steady radiance, talk begins. There is no place like the chimney- +corner for confidences; for picking up the clews of an old +friendship; for taking note where one's self has drifted, by +comparing ideas and prejudices with the intimate friend of years ago, +whose course in life has lain apart from yours. No stranger puzzles +you so much as the once close friend, with whose thinking and +associates you have for years been unfamiliar. Life has come to mean +this and that to you; you have fallen into certain habits of thought; +for you the world has progressed in this or that direction; of +certain results you feel very sure; you have fallen into harmony with +your surroundings; you meet day after day people interested in the +things that interest you; you are not in the least opinionated, it is +simply your good fortune to look upon the affairs of the world from +the right point of view. When you last saw your friend,--less than a +year after you left college,--he was the most sensible and agreeable +of men; he had no heterodox notions; he agreed with you; you could +even tell what sort of a wife he would select, and if you could do +that, you held the key to his life. + +Well, Herbert came to visit me the other day from the antipodes. And +here he sits by the fireplace. I cannot think of any one I would +rather see there, except perhaps Thackery; or, for entertainment, +Boswell; or old, Pepys; or one of the people who was left out of the +Ark. They were talking one foggy London night at Hazlitt's about +whom they would most like to have seen, when Charles Lamb startled +the company by declaring that he would rather have seen Judas +Iscariot than any other person who had lived on the earth. For +myself, I would rather have seen Lamb himself once, than to have +lived with Judas. Herbert, to my great delight, has not changed; I +should know him anywhere,--the same serious, contemplative face, with +lurking humor at the corners of the mouth,--the same cheery laugh and +clear, distinct enunciation as of old. There is nothing so winning +as a good voice. To see Herbert again, unchanged in all outward +essentials, is not only gratifying, but valuable as a testimony to +nature's success in holding on to a personal identity, through the +entire change of matter that has been constantly taking place for so +many years. I know very well there is here no part of the Herbert +whose hand I had shaken at the Commencement parting; but it is an +astonishing reproduction of him,--a material likeness; and now for +the spiritual. + +Such a wide chance for divergence in the spiritual. It has been such +a busy world for twenty years. So many things have been torn up by +the roots again that were settled when we left college. There were +to be no more wars; democracy was democracy, and progress, the +differentiation of the individual, was a mere question of clothes; if +you want to be different, go to your tailor; nobody had demonstrated +that there is a man-soul and a woman-soul, and that each is in +reality only a half-soul,--putting the race, so to speak, upon the +half-shell. The social oyster being opened, there appears to be two +shells and only one oyster; who shall have it? So many new canons of +taste, of criticism, of morality have been set up; there has been +such a resurrection of historical reputations for new judgment, and +there have been so many discoveries, geographical, archaeological, +geological, biological, that the earth is not at all what it was +supposed to be; and our philosophers are much more anxious to +ascertain where we came from than whither we are going. In this +whirl and turmoil of new ideas, nature, which has only the single end +of maintaining the physical identity in the body, works on +undisturbed, replacing particle for particle, and preserving the +likeness more skillfully than a mosaic artist in the Vatican; she has +not even her materials sorted and labeled, as the Roman artist has +his thousands of bits of color; and man is all the while doing his +best to confuse the process, by changing his climate, his diet, all +his surroundings, without the least care to remain himself. But the +mind? + +It is more difficult to get acquainted with Herbert than with an +entire stranger, for I have my prepossessions about him, and do not +find him in so many places where I expect to find him. He is full of +criticism of the authors I admire; he thinks stupid or improper the +books I most read; he is skeptical about the "movements" I am +interested in; he has formed very different opinions from mine +concerning a hundred men and women of the present day; we used to eat +from one dish; we could n't now find anything in common in a dozen; +his prejudices (as we call our opinions) are most extraordinary, and +not half so reasonable as my prejudices; there are a great many +persons and things that I am accustomed to denounce, uncontradicted +by anybody, which he defends; his public opinion is not at all my +public opinion. I am sorry for him. He appears to have fallen into +influences and among a set of people foreign to me. I find that his +church has a different steeple on it from my church (which, to say +the truth, hasn't any). It is a pity that such a dear friend and a +man of so much promise should have drifted off into such general +contrariness. I see Herbert sitting here by the fire, with the old +look in his face coming out more and more, but I do not recognize any +features of his mind,--except perhaps his contrariness; yes, he was +always a little contrary, I think. And finally he surprises me with, +"Well, my friend, you seem to have drifted away from your old notions +and opinions. We used to agree when we were together, but I +sometimes wondered where you would land; for, pardon me, you showed +signs of looking at things a little contrary." + +I am silent for a good while. I am trying to think who I am. There +was a person whom I thought I knew, very fond of Herbert, and +agreeing with him in most things. Where has he gone? and, if he is +here, where is the Herbert that I knew? + +If his intellectual and moral sympathies have all changed, I wonder +if his physical tastes remain, like his appearance, the same. There +has come over this country within the last generation, as everybody +knows, a great wave of condemnation of pie. It has taken the +character of a "movement!" though we have had no conventions about +it, nor is any one, of any of the several sexes among us, running for +president against it. It is safe almost anywhere to denounce pie, +yet nearly everybody eats it on occasion. A great many people think +it savors of a life abroad to speak with horror of pie, although they +were very likely the foremost of the Americans in Paris who used to +speak with more enthusiasm of the American pie at Madame Busque's +than of the Venus of Milo. To talk against pie and still eat it is +snobbish, of course; but snobbery, being an aspiring failing, is +sometimes the prophecy of better things. To affect dislike of pie is +something. We have no statistics on the subject, and cannot tell +whether it is gaining or losing in the country at large. Its +disappearance in select circles is no test. The amount of writing +against it is no more test of its desuetude, than the number of +religious tracts distributed in a given district is a criterion of +its piety. We are apt to assume that certain regions are +substantially free of it. Herbert and I, traveling north one summer, +fancied that we could draw in New England a sort of diet line, like +the sweeping curves on the isothermal charts, which should show at +least the leading pie sections. Journeying towards the White +Mountains, we concluded that a line passing through Bellows Falls, +and bending a little south on either side, would mark northward the +region of perpetual pie. In this region pie is to be found at all +hours and seasons, and at every meal. I am not sure, however, that +pie is not a matter of altitude rather than latitude, as I find that +all the hill and country towns of New England are full of those +excellent women, the very salt of the housekeeping earth, who would +feel ready to sink in mortification through their scoured kitchen +floors, if visitors should catch them without a pie in the house. +The absence of pie would be more noticed than a scarcity of Bible +even. Without it the housekeepers are as distracted as the +boarding-house keeper, who declared that if it were not for canned +tomato, she should have nothing to fly to. Well, in all this great +agitation I find Herbert unmoved, a conservative, even to the +under-crust. I dare not ask him if he eats pie at breakfast. There +are some tests that the dearest friendship may not apply. + +"Will you smoke?" I ask. + +"No, I have reformed." + +"Yes, of course." + +"The fact is, that when we consider the correlation of forces, the +apparent sympathy of spirit manifestations with electric conditions, +the almost revealed mysteries of what may be called the odic force, +and the relation of all these phenomena to the nervous system in man, +it is not safe to do anything to the nervous system that will--" + +"Hang the nervous system! Herbert, we can agree in one thing: old +memories, reveries, friendships, center about that:--is n't an open +wood-fire good?" + +"Yes," says Herbert, combatively, "if you don't sit before it too +long." + + + + +III + +The best talk is that which escapes up the open chimney and cannot be +repeated. The finest woods make the best fire and pass away with the +least residuum. I hope the next generation will not accept the +reports of "interviews" as specimens of the conversations of these +years of grace. + +But do we talk as well as our fathers and mothers did? We hear +wonderful stories of the bright generation that sat about the wide +fireplaces of New England. Good talk has so much short-hand that it +cannot be reported,--the inflection, the change of voice, the shrug, +cannot be caught on paper. The best of it is when the subject +unexpectedly goes cross-lots, by a flash of short-cut, to a +conclusion so suddenly revealed that it has the effect of wit. It +needs the highest culture and the finest breeding to prevent the +conversation from running into mere persiflage on the one hand--its +common fate--or monologue on the other. Our conversation is largely +chaff. I am not sure but the former generation preached a good deal, +but it had great practice in fireside talk, and must have talked +well. There were narrators in those days who could charm a circle +all the evening long with stories. When each day brought +comparatively little new to read, there was leisure for talk, and the +rare book and the in-frequent magazine were thoroughly discussed. +Families now are swamped by the printed matter that comes daily upon +the center-table. There must be a division of labor, one reading +this, and another that, to make any impression on it. The telegraph +brings the only common food, and works this daily miracle, that every +mind in Christendom is excited by one topic simultaneously with every +other mind; it enables a concurrent mental action, a burst of +sympathy, or a universal prayer to be made, which must be, if we have +any faith in the immaterial left, one of the chief forces in modern +life. It is fit that an agent so subtle as electricity should be the +minister of it. + +When there is so much to read, there is little time for conversation; +nor is there leisure for another pastime of the ancient firesides, +called reading aloud. The listeners, who heard while they looked +into the wide chimney-place, saw there pass in stately procession the +events and the grand persons of history, were kindled with the +delights of travel, touched by the romance of true love, or made +restless by tales of adventure;--the hearth became a sort of magic +stone that could transport those who sat by it to the most distant +places and times, as soon as the book was opened and the reader +began, of a winter's night. Perhaps the Puritan reader read through +his nose, and all the little Puritans made the most dreadful nasal +inquiries as the entertainment went on. The prominent nose of the +intellectual New-Englander is evidence of the constant linguistic +exercise of the organ for generations. It grew by talking through. +But I have no doubt that practice made good readers in those days. +Good reading aloud is almost a lost accomplishment now. It is little +thought of in the schools. It is disused at home. It is rare to +find any one who can read, even from the newspaper, well. Reading is +so universal, even with the uncultivated, that it is common to hear +people mispronounce words that you did not suppose they had ever +seen. In reading to themselves they glide over these words, in +reading aloud they stumble over them. Besides, our every-day books +and newspapers are so larded with French that the ordinary reader is +obliged marcher a pas de loup,--for instance. + +The newspaper is probably responsible for making current many words +with which the general reader is familiar, but which he rises to in +the flow of conversation, and strikes at with a splash and an +unsuccessful attempt at appropriation; the word, which he perfectly +knows, hooks him in the gills, and he cannot master it. The +newspaper is thus widening the language in use, and vastly increasing +the number of words which enter into common talk. The Americans of +the lowest intellectual class probably use more words to express +their ideas than the similar class of any other people; but this +prodigality is partially balanced by the parsimony of words in some +higher regions, in which a few phrases of current slang are made to +do the whole duty of exchange of ideas; if that can be called +exchange of ideas when one intellect flashes forth to another the +remark, concerning some report, that "you know how it is yourself," +and is met by the response of "that's what's the matter," and rejoins +with the perfectly conclusive "that's so." It requires a high degree +of culture to use slang with elegance and effect; and we are yet very +far from the Greek attainment. + + + + +IV + +The fireplace wants to be all aglow, the wind rising, the night heavy +and black above, but light with sifting snow on the earth, a +background of inclemency for the illumined room with its pictured +walls, tables heaped with books, capacious easy-chairs and their +occupants,--it needs, I say, to glow and throw its rays far through +the crystal of the broad windows, in order that we may rightly +appreciate the relation of the wide-jambed chimney to domestic +architecture in our climate. We fell to talking about it; and, as is +usual when the conversation is professedly on one subject, we +wandered all around it. The young lady staying with us was roasting +chestnuts in the ashes, and the frequent explosions required +considerable attention. The mistress, too, sat somewhat alert, ready +to rise at any instant and minister to the fancied want of this or +that guest, forgetting the reposeful truth that people about a +fireside will not have any wants if they are not suggested. The +worst of them, if they desire anything, only want something hot, and +that later in the evening. And it is an open question whether you +ought to associate with people who want that. + +I was saying that nothing had been so slow in its progress in the +world as domestic architecture. Temples, palaces, bridges, +aqueducts, cathedrals, towers of marvelous delicacy and strength, +grew to perfection while the common people lived in hovels, and the +richest lodged in the most gloomy and contracted quarters. The +dwelling-house is a modern institution. It is a curious fact that it +has only improved with the social elevation of women. Men were never +more brilliant in arms and letters than in the age of Elizabeth, and +yet they had no homes. They made themselves thick-walled castles, +with slits in the masonry for windows, for defense, and magnificent +banquet-halls for pleasure; the stone rooms into which they crawled +for the night were often little better than dog-kennels. The +Pompeians had no comfortable night-quarters. The most singular thing +to me, however, is that, especially interested as woman is in the +house, she has never done anything for architecture. And yet woman +is reputed to be an ingenious creature. + +HERBERT. I doubt if woman has real ingenuity; she has great +adaptability. I don't say that she will do the same thing twice +alike, like a Chinaman, but she is most cunning in suiting herself to +circumstances. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Oh, if you speak of constructive, creative +ingenuity, perhaps not; but in the higher ranges of achievement--that +of accomplishing any purpose dear to her heart, for instance--her +ingenuity is simply incomprehensible to me. + +HERBERT. Yes, if you mean doing things by indirection. + +THE MISTRESS. When you men assume all the direction, what else is +left to us? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Did you ever see a woman refurnish a house? + +THE YOUNG LADY STAYING WITH US. I never saw a man do it, unless he +was burned out of his rookery. + +HERBERT. There is no comfort in new things. + +THE FIRE-TENDER (not noticing the interruption). Having set her mind +on a total revolution of the house, she buys one new thing, not too +obtrusive, nor much out of harmony with the old. The husband +scarcely notices it, least of all does he suspect the revolution, +which she already has accomplished. Next, some article that does +look a little shabby beside the new piece of furniture is sent to the +garret, and its place is supplied by something that will match in +color and effect. Even the man can see that it ought to match, and +so the process goes on, it may be for years, it may be forever, until +nothing of the old is left, and the house is transformed as it was +predetermined in the woman's mind. I doubt if the man ever +understands how or when it was done; his wife certainly never says +anything about the refurnishing, but quietly goes on to new +conquests. + +THE MISTRESS. And is n't it better to buy little by little, enjoying +every new object as you get it, and assimilating each article to your +household life, and making the home a harmonious expression of your +own taste, rather than to order things in sets, and turn your house, +for the time being, into a furniture ware-room? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Oh, I only spoke of the ingenuity of it. + +THE YOUNG LADY. For my part, I never can get acquainted with more +than one piece of furniture at a time. + +HERBERT. I suppose women are our superiors in artistic taste, and I +fancy that I can tell whether a house is furnished by a woman or a +man; of course, I mean the few houses that appear to be the result of +individual taste and refinement,--most of them look as if they had +been furnished on contract by the upholsterer. + +THE MISTRESS. Woman's province in this world is putting things to +rights. + +HERBERT. With a vengeance, sometimes. In the study, for example. +My chief objection to woman is that she has no respect for the +newspaper, or the printed page, as such. She is Siva, the destroyer. +I have noticed that a great part of a married man's time at home is +spent in trying to find the things he has put on his study-table. + +THE YOUNG LADY. Herbert speaks with the bitterness of a bachelor +shut out of paradise. It is my experience that if women did not +destroy the rubbish that men bring into the house, it would become +uninhabitable, and need to be burned down every five years. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I confess women do a great deal for the appearance +of things. When the mistress is absent, this room, although +everything is here as it was before, does not look at all like the +same place; it is stiff, and seems to lack a soul. When she returns, +I can see that her eye, even while greeting me, takes in the +situation at a glance. While she is talking of the journey, and +before she has removed her traveling-hat, she turns this chair and +moves that, sets one piece of furniture at a different angle, +rapidly, and apparently unconsciously, shifts a dozen little +knick-knacks and bits of color, and the room is transformed. I +couldn't do it in a week. + +THE MISTRESS. That is the first time I ever knew a man admit he +couldn't do anything if he had time. + +HERBERT. Yet with all their peculiar instinct for making a home, +women make themselves very little felt in our domestic architecture. + +THE MISTRESS. Men build most of the houses in what might be called +the ready-made-clothing style, and we have to do the best we can with +them; and hard enough it is to make cheerful homes in most of them. +You will see something different when the woman is constantly +consulted in the plan of the house. + +HERBERT. We might see more difference if women would give any +attention to architecture. Why are there no women architects? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Want of the ballot, doubtless. It seems to me that +here is a splendid opportunity for woman to come to the front. + +THE YOUNG LADY. They have no desire to come to the front; they would +rather manage things where they are. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. If they would master the noble art, and put their +brooding taste upon it, we might very likely compass something in our +domestic architecture that we have not yet attained. The outside of +our houses needs attention as well as the inside. Most of them are +as ugly as money can build. + +THE YOUNG LADY. What vexes me most is, that women, married women, +have so easily consented to give up open fires in their houses. + +HERBERT. They dislike the dust and the bother. I think that women +rather like the confined furnace heat. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Nonsense; it is their angelic virtue of submission. +We wouldn't be hired to stay all-day in the houses we build. + +THE YOUNG LADY. That has a very chivalrous sound, but I know there +will be no reformation until women rebel and demand everywhere the +open fire. + +HERBERT. They are just now rebelling about something else; it seems +to me yours is a sort of counter-movement, a fire in the rear. + +THE MISTRESS. I'll join that movement. The time has come when woman +must strike for her altars and her fires. + +HERBERT. Hear, hear! + +THE MISTRESS. Thank you, Herbert. I applauded you once, when you +declaimed that years ago in the old Academy. I remember how +eloquently you did it. + +HERBERT. Yes, I was once a spouting idiot. + +Just then the door-bell rang, and company came in. And the company +brought in a new atmosphere, as company always does, something of the +disturbance of out-doors, and a good deal of its healthy cheer. The +direct news that the thermometer was approaching zero, with a hopeful +prospect of going below it, increased to liveliness our satisfaction +in the fire. When the cider was heated in the brown stone pitcher, +there was difference of opinion whether there should be toast in it; +some were for toast, because that was the old-fashioned way, and +others were against it, "because it does not taste good" in cider. +Herbert said there, was very little respect left for our forefathers. + +More wood was put on, and the flame danced in a hundred fantastic +shapes. The snow had ceased to fall, and the moonlight lay in +silvery patches among the trees in the ravine. The conversation +became worldly. + + + + +THIRD STUDY + + +I + +Herbert said, as we sat by the fire one night, that he wished he had +turned his attention to writing poetry like Tennyson's. + +The remark was not whimsical, but satirical. Tennyson is a man of +talent, who happened to strike a lucky vein, which he has worked with +cleverness. The adventurer with a pickaxe in Washoe may happen upon +like good fortune. The world is full of poetry as the earth is of +"pay-dirt;" one only needs to know how to "strike" it. An able man +can make himself almost anything that he will. It is melancholy to +think how many epic poets have been lost in the tea-trade, how many +dramatists (though the age of the drama has passed) have wasted their +genius in great mercantile and mechanical enterprises. I know a man +who might have been the poet, the essayist, perhaps the critic, of +this country, who chose to become a country judge, to sit day after +day upon a bench in an obscure corner of the world, listening to +wrangling lawyers and prevaricating witnesses, preferring to judge +his fellow-men rather than enlighten them. + +It is fortunate for the vanity of the living and the reputation of +the dead, that men get almost as much credit for what they do not as +for what they do. It was the opinion of many that Burns might have +excelled as a statesman, or have been a great captain in war; and Mr. +Carlyle says that if he had been sent to a university, and become a +trained intellectual workman, it lay in him to have changed the whole +course of British literature! A large undertaking, as so vigorous +and dazzling a writer as Mr. Carlyle must know by this time, since +British literature has swept by him in a resistless and widening +flood, mainly uncontaminated, and leaving his grotesque contrivances +wrecked on the shore with other curiosities of letters, and yet among +the richest of all the treasures lying there. + +It is a temptation to a temperate man to become a sot, to hear what +talent, what versatility, what genius, is almost always attributed to +a moderately bright man who is habitually drunk. Such a mechanic, +such a mathematician, such a poet he would be, if he were only sober; +and then he is sure to be the most generous, magnanimous, friendly +soul, conscientiously honorable, if he were not so conscientiously +drunk. I suppose it is now notorious that the most brilliant and +promising men have been lost to the world in this way. It is +sometimes almost painful to think what a surplus of talent and genius +there would be in the world if the habit of intoxication should +suddenly cease; and what a slim chance there would be for the +plodding people who have always had tolerably good habits. The fear +is only mitigated by the observation that the reputation of a person +for great talent sometimes ceases with his reformation. + +It is believed by some that the maidens who would make the best wives +never marry, but remain free to bless the world with their impartial +sweetness, and make it generally habitable. This is one of the +mysteries of Providence and New England life. It seems a pity, at +first sight, that all those who become poor wives have the +matrimonial chance, and that they are deprived of the reputation of +those who would be good wives were they not set apart for the high +and perpetual office of priestesses of society. There is no beauty +like that which was spoiled by an accident, no accomplishments--and +graces are so to be envied as those that circumstances rudely +hindered the development of. All of which shows what a charitable +and good-tempered world it is, notwithstanding its reputation for +cynicism and detraction. + +Nothing is more beautiful than the belief of the faithful wife that +her husband has all the talents, and could, if he would, be +distinguished in any walk in life; and nothing will be more +beautiful--unless this is a very dry time for signs--than the +husband's belief that his wife is capable of taking charge of any of +the affairs of this confused planet. There is no woman but thinks +that her husband, the green-grocer, could write poetry if he had +given his mind to it, or else she thinks small beer of poetry in +comparison with an occupation or accomplishment purely vegetable. It +is touching to see the look of pride with which the wife turns to her +husband from any more brilliant personal presence or display of wit +than his, in the perfect confidence that if the world knew what she +knows, there would be one more popular idol. How she magnifies his +small wit, and dotes upon the self-satisfied look in his face as if +it were a sign of wisdom! What a councilor that man would make! +What a warrior he would be! There are a great many corporals in +their retired homes who did more for the safety and success of our +armies in critical moments, in the late war, than any of the "high- +cock-a-lorum" commanders. Mrs. Corporal does not envy the +reputation of General Sheridan; she knows very well who really won +Five Forks, for she has heard the story a hundred times, and will +hear it a hundred times more with apparently unabated interest. What +a general her husband would have made; and how his talking talent +would shine in Congress! + +HERBERT. Nonsense. There isn't a wife in the world who has not +taken the exact measure of her husband, weighed him and settled him +in her own mind, and knows him as well as if she had ordered him +after designs and specifications of her own. That knowledge, +however, she ordinarily keeps to herself, and she enters into a +league with her husband, which he was never admitted to the secret +of, to impose upon the world. In nine out of ten cases he more than +half believes that he is what his wife tells him he is. At any rate, +she manages him as easily as the keeper does the elephant, with only +a bamboo wand and a sharp spike in the end. Usually she flatters +him, but she has the means of pricking clear through his hide on +occasion. It is the great secret of her power to have him think that +she thoroughly believes in him. + +THE YOUNG LADY STAYING WITH Us. And you call this hypocrisy? I have +heard authors, who thought themselves sly observers of women, call it +so. + +HERBERT. Nothing of the sort. It is the basis on which society +rests, the conventional agreement. If society is about to be +overturned, it is on this point. Women are beginning to tell men +what they really think of them; and to insist that the same relations +of downright sincerity and independence that exist between men shall +exist between women and men. Absolute truth between souls, without +regard to sex, has always been the ideal life of the poets. + +THE MISTRESS. Yes; but there was never a poet yet who would bear to +have his wife say exactly what she thought of his poetry, any more +than be would keep his temper if his wife beat him at chess; and +there is nothing that disgusts a man like getting beaten at chess by +a woman. + +HERBERT. Well, women know how to win by losing. I think that the +reason why most women do not want to take the ballot and stand out in +the open for a free trial of power, is that they are reluctant to +change the certain domination of centuries, with weapons they are +perfectly competent to handle, for an experiment. I think we should +be better off if women were more transparent, and men were not so +systematically puffed up by the subtle flattery which is used to +control them. + +MANDEVILLE. Deliver me from transparency. When a woman takes that +guise, and begins to convince me that I can see through her like a +ray of light, I must run or be lost. Transparent women are the truly +dangerous. There was one on ship-board [Mandeville likes to say +that; he has just returned from a little tour in Europe, and he quite +often begins his remarks with "on the ship going over; "the Young +Lady declares that he has a sort of roll in his chair, when he says +it, that makes her sea-sick] who was the most innocent, artless, +guileless, natural bunch of lace and feathers you ever saw; she was +all candor and helplessness and dependence; she sang like a +nightingale, and talked like a nun. There never was such simplicity. +There was n't a sounding-line on board that would have gone to the +bottom of her soulful eyes. But she managed the captain and all the +officers, and controlled the ship as if she had been the helm. All +the passengers were waiting on her, fetching this and that for her +comfort, inquiring of her health, talking about her genuineness, and +exhibiting as much anxiety to get her ashore in safety, as if she had +been about to knight them all and give them a castle apiece when they +came to land. + +THE MISTRESS. What harm? It shows what I have always said, that the +service of a noble woman is the most ennobling influence for men. + +MANDEVILLE. If she is noble, and not a mere manager. I watched this +woman to see if she would ever do anything for any one else. She +never did. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Did you ever see her again? I presume Mandeville +has introduced her here for some purpose. + +MANDEVILLE. No purpose. But we did see her on the Rhine; she was +the most disgusted traveler, and seemed to be in very ill humor with +her maid. I judged that her happiness depended upon establishing +controlling relations with all about her. On this Rhine boat, to be +sure, there was reason for disgust. And that reminds me of a remark +that was made. + +THE YOUNG LADY. Oh! + +MANDEVILLE. When we got aboard at Mayence we were conscious of a +dreadful odor somewhere; as it was a foggy morning, we could see no +cause of it, but concluded it was from something on the wharf. The +fog lifted, and we got under way, but the odor traveled with us, and +increased. We went to every part of the vessel to avoid it, but in +vain. It occasionally reached us in great waves of disagreeableness. +We had heard of the odors of the towns on the Rhine, but we had no +idea that the entire stream was infected. It was intolerable. + +The day was lovely, and the passengers stood about on deck holding +their noses and admiring the scenery. You might see a row of them +leaning over the side, gazing up at some old ruin or ivied crag, +entranced with the romance of the situation, and all holding their +noses with thumb and finger. The sweet Rhine! By and by somebody +discovered that the odor came from a pile of cheese on the forward +deck, covered with a canvas; it seemed that the Rhinelanders are so +fond of it that they take it with them when they travel. If there +should ever be war between us and Germany, the borders of the Rhine +would need no other defense from American soldiers than a barricade +of this cheese. I went to the stern of the steamboat to tell a stout +American traveler what was the origin of the odor he had been trying +to dodge all the morning. He looked more disgusted than before, when +he heard that it was cheese; but his only reply was: "It must be a +merciful God who can forgive a smell like that!" + + + + +II + +The above is introduced here in order to illustrate the usual effect +of an anecdote on conversation. Commonly it kills it. That talk +must be very well in hand, and under great headway, that an anecdote +thrown in front of will not pitch off the track and wreck. And it +makes little difference what the anecdote is; a poor one depresses +the spirits, and casts a gloom over the company; a good one begets +others, and the talkers go to telling stories; which is very good +entertainment in moderation, but is not to be mistaken for that +unwearying flow of argument, quaint remark, humorous color, and +sprightly interchange of sentiments and opinions, called +conversation. + +The reader will perceive that all hope is gone here of deciding +whether Herbert could have written Tennyson's poems, or whether +Tennyson could have dug as much money out of the Heliogabalus Lode as +Herbert did. The more one sees of life, I think the impression +deepens that men, after all, play about the parts assigned them, +according to their mental and moral gifts, which are limited and +preordained, and that their entrances and exits are governed by a law +no less certain because it is hidden. Perhaps nobody ever +accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do; but nearly every +one who tries his powers touches the walls of his being occasionally, +and learns about how far to attempt to spring. There are no +impossibilities to youth and inexperience; but when a person has +tried several times to reach high C and been coughed down, he is +quite content to go down among the chorus. It is only the fools who +keep straining at high C all their lives. + +Mandeville here began to say that that reminded him of something that +happened when he was on the + +But Herbert cut in with the observation that no matter what a man's +single and several capacities and talents might be, he is controlled +by his own mysterious individuality, which is what metaphysicians +call the substance, all else being the mere accidents of the man. +And this is the reason that we cannot with any certainty tell what +any person will do or amount to, for, while we know his talents and +abilities, we do not know the resulting whole, which is he himself. +THE FIRE-TENDER. So if you could take all the first-class qualities +that we admire in men and women, and put them together into one +being, you wouldn't be sure of the result? + +HERBERT. Certainly not. You would probably have a monster. It +takes a cook of long experience, with the best materials, to make a +dish "taste good;" and the "taste good" is the indefinable essence, +the resulting balance or harmony which makes man or woman agreeable +or beautiful or effective in the world. + +THE YOUNG LADY. That must be the reason why novelists fail so +lamentably in almost all cases in creating good characters. They put +in real traits, talents, dispositions, but the result of the +synthesis is something that never was seen on earth before. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Oh, a good character in fiction is an inspiration. +We admit this in poetry. It is as true of such creations as Colonel +Newcome, and Ethel, and Beatrix Esmond. There is no patchwork about +them. + +THE YOUNG LADY. Why was n't Thackeray ever inspired to create a +noble woman? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. That is the standing conundrum with all the women. +They will not accept Ethel Newcome even. Perhaps we shall have to +admit that Thackeray was a writer for men. + +HERBERT. Scott and the rest had drawn so many perfect women that +Thackeray thought it was time for a real one. + +THE MISTRESS. That's ill-natured. Thackeray did, however, make +ladies. If he had depicted, with his searching pen, any of us just +as we are, I doubt if we should have liked it much. + +MANDEVILLE. That's just it. Thackeray never pretended to make +ideals, and if the best novel is an idealization of human nature, +then he was not the best novelist. When I was crossing the Channel + +THE MISTRESS. Oh dear, if we are to go to sea again, Mandeville, I +move we have in the nuts and apples, and talk about our friends. + + + + +III + +There is this advantage in getting back to a wood-fire on the hearth, +that you return to a kind of simplicity; you can scarcely imagine any +one being stiffly conventional in front of it. It thaws out +formality, and puts the company who sit around it into easy attitudes +of mind and body,--lounging attitudes,--Herbert said. + +And this brought up the subject of culture in America, especially as +to manner. The backlog period having passed, we are beginning to +have in society people of the cultured manner, as it is called, or +polished bearing, in which the polish is the most noticeable thing +about the man. Not the courtliness, the easy simplicity of the +old-school gentleman, in whose presence the milkmaid was as much at +her ease as the countess, but something far finer than this. These +are the people of unruffled demeanor, who never forget it for a +moment, and never let you forget it. Their presence is a constant +rebuke to society. They are never "jolly;" their laugh is never +anything more than a well-bred smile; they are never betrayed into +any enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a sign of inexperience, of ignorance, +of want of culture. They never lose themselves in any cause; they +never heartily praise any man or woman or book; they are superior to +all tides of feeling and all outbursts of passion. They are not even +shocked at vulgarity. They are simply indifferent. They are calm, +visibly calm, painfully calm; and it is not the eternal, majestic +calmness of the Sphinx either, but a rigid, self-conscious +repression. You would like to put a bent pin in their chair when +they are about calmly to sit down. + +A sitting hen on her nest is calm, but hopeful; she has faith that +her eggs are not china. These people appear to be sitting on china +eggs. Perfect culture has refined all blood, warmth, flavor, out of +them. We admire them without envy. They are too beautiful in their +manners to be either prigs or snobs. They are at once our models and +our despair. They are properly careful of themselves as models, for +they know that if they should break, society would become a scene of +mere animal confusion. + +MANDEVILLE. I think that the best-bred people in the world are the +English. + +THE YOUNG LADY. You mean at home. + +MANDEVILLE. That's where I saw them. There is no nonsense about a +cultivated English man or woman. They express themselves sturdily +and naturally, and with no subservience to the opinions of others. +There's a sort of hearty sincerity about them that I like. Ages of +culture on the island have gone deeper than the surface, and they +have simpler and more natural manners than we. There is something +good in the full, round tones of their voices. + +HERBERT. Did you ever get into a diligence with a growling English- +man who had n't secured the place he wanted? + +[Mandeville once spent a week in London, riding about on the tops of +omnibuses.] + +THE MISTRESS. Did you ever see an English exquisite at the San +Carlo, and hear him cry "Bwavo"? + +MANDEVILLE. At any rate, he acted out his nature, and was n't afraid +to. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I think Mandeville is right, for once. The men of +the best culture in England, in the middle and higher social classes, +are what you would call good fellows,--easy and simple in manner, +enthusiastic on occasion, and decidedly not cultivated into the +smooth calmness of indifference which some Americans seem to regard +as the sine qua non of good breeding. Their position is so assured +that they do not need that lacquer of calmness of which we were +speaking. + +THE YOUNG LADY. Which is different from the manner acquired by those +who live a great deal in American hotels? + +THE MISTRESS. Or the Washington manner? + +HERBERT. The last two are the same. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Not exactly. You think you can always tell if a +man has learned his society carriage of a dancing-master. Well, you +cannot always tell by a person's manner whether he is a habitui of +hotels or of Washington. But these are distinct from the perfect +polish and politeness of indifferentism. + + + + +IV + +Daylight disenchants. It draws one from the fireside, and dissipates +the idle illusions of conversation, except under certain conditions. +Let us say that the conditions are: a house in the country, with some +forest trees near, and a few evergreens, which are Christmas-trees +all winter long, fringed with snow, glistening with ice-pendants, +cheerful by day and grotesque by night; a snow-storm beginning out of +a dark sky, falling in a soft profusion that fills all the air, its +dazzling whiteness making a light near at hand, which is quite lost +in the distant darkling spaces. + +If one begins to watch the swirling flakes and crystals, he soon gets +an impression of infinity of resources that he can have from nothing +else so powerfully, except it be from Adirondack gnats. Nothing +makes one feel at home like a great snow-storm. Our intelligent cat +will quit the fire and sit for hours in the low window, watching the +falling snow with a serious and contented air. His thoughts are his +own, but he is in accord with the subtlest agencies of Nature; on +such a day he is charged with enough electricity to run a telegraphic +battery, if it could be utilized. The connection between thought and +electricity has not been exactly determined, but the cat is mentally +very alert in certain conditions of the atmosphere. Feasting his +eyes on the beautiful out-doors does not prevent his attention to the +slightest noise in the wainscot. And the snow-storm brings content, +but not stupidity, to all the rest of the household. + +I can see Mandeville now, rising from his armchair and swinging his +long arms as he strides to the window, and looks out and up, with, +"Well, I declare!" Herbert is pretending to read Herbert Spencer's +tract on the philosophy of style but he loses much time in looking at +the Young Lady, who is writing a letter, holding her portfolio in her +lap,--one of her everlasting letters to one of her fifty everlasting +friends. She is one of the female patriots who save the post-office +department from being a disastrous loss to the treasury. Herbert is +thinking of the great radical difference in the two sexes, which +legislation will probably never change; that leads a woman always, to +write letters on her lap and a man on a table,--a distinction which +is commended to the notice of the anti-suffragists. + +The Mistress, in a pretty little breakfast-cap, is moving about the +room with a feather-duster, whisking invisible dust from the picture- +frames, and talking with the Parson, who has just come in, and is +thawing the snow from his boots on the hearth. The Parson says the +thermometer is 15 deg., and going down; that there is a snowdrift +across the main church entrance three feet high, and that the house +looks as if it had gone into winter quarters, religion and all. +There were only ten persons at the conference meeting last night, and +seven of those were women; he wonders how many weather-proof +Christians there are in the parish, anyhow. + +The Fire-Tender is in the adjoining library, pretending to write; but +it is a poor day for ideas. He has written his wife's name about +eleven hundred times, and cannot get any farther. He hears the +Mistress tell the Parson that she believes he is trying to write a +lecture on the Celtic Influence in Literature. The Parson says that +it is a first-rate subject, if there were any such influence, and +asks why he does n't take a shovel and make a path to the gate. +Mandeville says that, by George! he himself should like no better +fun, but it wouldn't look well for a visitor to do it. The +Fire-Tender, not to be disturbed by this sort of chaff, keeps on +writing his wife's name. + +Then the Parson and the Mistress fall to talking about the +soup-relief, and about old Mrs. Grumples in Pig Alley, who had a +present of one of Stowe's Illustrated Self-Acting Bibles on +Christmas, when she had n't coal enough in the house to heat her +gruel; and about a family behind the church, a widow and six little +children and three dogs; and he did n't believe that any of them had +known what it was to be warm in three weeks, and as to food, the +woman said, she could hardly beg cold victuals enough to keep the +dogs alive. + +The Mistress slipped out into the kitchen to fill a basket with +provisions and send it somewhere; and when the Fire-Tender brought in +a new forestick, Mandeville, who always wants to talk, and had been +sitting drumming his feet and drawing deep sighs, attacked him. + +MANDEVILLE. Speaking about culture and manners, did you ever notice +how extremes meet, and that the savage bears himself very much like +the sort of cultured persons we were talking of last night? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. In what respect? + +MANDEVILLE. Well, you take the North American Indian. He is never +interested in anything, never surprised at anything. He has by +nature that calmness and indifference which your people of culture +have acquired. If he should go into literature as a critic, he would +scalp and tomahawk with the same emotionless composure, and he would +do nothing else. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Then you think the red man is a born gentleman of +the highest breeding? + +MANDEVILLE. I think he is calm. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. How is it about the war-path and all that? + +MANDEVILLE. Oh, these studiously calm and cultured people may have +malice underneath. It takes them to give the most effective "little +digs;" they know how to stick in the pine-splinters and set fire to +them. + +HERBERT. But there is more in Mandeville's idea. You bring a red +man into a picture-gallery, or a city full of fine architecture, or +into a drawing-room crowded with objects of art and beauty, and he is +apparently insensible to them all. Now I have seen country people,-- +and by country people I don't mean people necessarily who live in the +country, for everything is mixed in these days,--some of the best +people in the world, intelligent, honest, sincere, who acted as the +Indian would. + +THE MISTRESS. Herbert, if I did n't know you were cynical, I should +say you were snobbish. + +HERBERT. Such people think it a point of breeding never to speak of +anything in your house, nor to appear to notice it, however beautiful +it may be; even to slyly glance around strains their notion of +etiquette. They are like the countryman who confessed afterwards +that he could hardly keep from laughing at one of Yankee Hill's +entertainments, + +THE YOUNG LADY. Do you remember those English people at our house in +Flushing last summer, who pleased us all so much with their apparent +delight in everything that was artistic or tasteful, who explored the +rooms and looked at everything, and were so interested? I suppose +that Herbert's country relations, many of whom live in the city, +would have thought it very ill-bred. + +MANDEVILLE. It's just as I said. The English, the best of them, +have become so civilized that they express themselves, in speech and +action, naturally, and are not afraid of their emotions. + +THE PARSON. I wish Mandeville would travel more, or that he had +stayed at home. It's wonderful what a fit of Atlantic sea-sickness +will do for a man's judgment and cultivation. He is prepared to +pronounce on art, manners, all kinds of culture. There is more +nonsense talked about culture than about anything else. + +HERBERT. The Parson reminds me of an American country minister I +once met walking through the Vatican. You could n't impose upon him +with any rubbish; he tested everything by the standards of his native +place, and there was little that could bear the test. He had the sly +air of a man who could not be deceived, and he went about with his +mouth in a pucker of incredulity. There is nothing so placid as +rustic conceit. There was something very enjoyable about his calm +superiority to all the treasures of art. + +MANDEVILLE. And the Parson reminds me of another American minister, +a consul in an Italian city, who said he was going up to Rome to have +a thorough talk with the Pope, and give him a piece of his mind. +Ministers seem to think that is their business. They serve it in +such small pieces in order to make it go round. + +THE PARSON. Mandeville is an infidel. Come, let's have some music; +nothing else will keep him in good humor till lunch-time. + +THE MISTRESS. What shall it be? + +THE PARSON. Give us the larghetto from Beethoven's second symphony. + +The Young Lady puts aside her portfolio. Herbert looks at the young +lady. The Parson composes himself for critical purposes. Mandeville +settles himself in a chair and stretches his long legs nearly into +the fire, remarking that music takes the tangles out of him. + +After the piece is finished, lunch is announced. It is still +snowing. + + + + +FOURTH STUDY + +It is difficult to explain the attraction which the uncanny and even +the horrible have for most minds. I have seen a delicate woman half +fascinated, but wholly disgusted, by one of the most unseemly of +reptiles, vulgarly known as the "blowing viper" of the Alleghanies. +She would look at it, and turn away with irresistible shuddering and +the utmost loathing, and yet turn to look at it again and again, only +to experience the same spasm of disgust. In spite of her aversion, +she must have relished the sort of electric mental shock that the +sight gave her. + +I can no more account for the fascination for us of the stories of +ghosts and "appearances," and those weird tales in which the dead are +the chief characters; nor tell why we should fall into converse about +them when the winter evenings are far spent, the embers are glazing +over on the hearth, and the listener begins to hear the eerie noises +in the house. At such times one's dreams become of importance, and +people like to tell them and dwell upon them, as if they were a link +between the known and unknown, and could give us a clew to that +ghostly region which in certain states of the mind we feel to be more +real than that we see. + +Recently, when we were, so to say, sitting around the borders of the +supernatural late at night, MANDEVILLE related a dream of his which +he assured us was true in every particular, and it interested us so +much that we asked him to write it out. In doing so he has curtailed +it, and to my mind shorn it of some of its more vivid and picturesque +features. He might have worked it up with more art, and given it a +finish which the narration now lacks, but I think best to insert it +in its simplicity. It seems to me that it may properly be called, + + +A NEW "VISION OF SIN" + +In the winter of 1850 I was a member of one of the leading colleges +of this country. I was in moderate circumstances pecuniarily, +though I was perhaps better furnished with less fleeting riches than +many others. I was an incessant and indiscriminate reader of books. +For the solid sciences I had no particular fancy, but with mental +modes and habits, and especially with the eccentric and fantastic in +the intellectual and spiritual operations, I was tolerably familiar. +All the literature of the supernatural was as real to me as the +laboratory of the chemist, where I saw the continual struggle of +material substances to evolve themselves into more volatile, less +palpable and coarse forms. My imagination, naturally vivid, +stimulated by such repasts, nearly mastered me. At times I could +scarcely tell where the material ceased and the immaterial began (if +I may so express it); so that once and again I walked, as it seemed, +from the solid earth onward upon an impalpable plain, where I heard +the same voices, I think, that Joan of Arc heard call to her in the +garden at Domremy. She was inspired, however, while I only lacked +exercise. I do not mean this in any literal sense; I only describe a +state of mind. I was at this time of spare habit, and nervous, +excitable temperament. I was ambitious, proud, and extremely +sensitive. I cannot deny that I had seen something of the world, and +had contracted about the average bad habits of young men who have the +sole care of themselves, and rather bungle the matter. It is +necessary to this relation to admit that I had seen a trifle more of +what is called life than a young man ought to see, but at this period +I was not only sick of my experience, but my habits were as correct +as those of any Pharisee in our college, and we had some very +favorable specimens of that ancient sect. + +Nor can I deny that at this period of my life I was in a peculiar +mental condition. I well remember an illustration of it. I sat +writing late one night, copying a prize essay,--a merely manual task, +leaving my thoughts free. It was in June, a sultry night, and about +midnight a wind arose, pouring in through the open windows, full of +mournful reminiscence, not of this, but of other summers,--the same +wind that De Quincey heard at noonday in midsummer blowing through +the room where he stood, a mere boy, by the side of his dead sister,- +-a wind centuries old. As I wrote on mechanically, I became conscious +of a presence in the room, though I did not lift my eyes from the +paper on which I wrote. Gradually I came to know that my +grandmother--dead so long ago that I laughed at the idea--was in the +room. She stood beside her old-fashioned spinning-wheel, and quite +near me. She wore a plain muslin cap with a high puff in the crown, +a short woolen gown, a white and blue checked apron, and shoes with +heels. She did not regard me, but stood facing the wheel, with the +left hand near the spindle, holding lightly between the thumb and +forefinger the white roll of wool which was being spun and twisted on +it. In her right hand she held a small stick. I heard the sharp +click of this against the spokes of the wheel, then the hum of the +wheel, the buzz of the spindles as the twisting yarn was teased by +the whirl of its point, then a step backwards, a pause, a step +forward and the running of the yarn upon the spindle, and again a +backward step, the drawing out of the roll and the droning and hum of +the wheel, most mournfully hopeless sound that ever fell on mortal +ear. Since childhood it has haunted me. All this time I wrote, and +I could hear distinctly the scratching of the pen upon the paper. +But she stood behind me (why I did not turn my head I never knew), +pacing backward and forward by the spinning-wheel, just as I had a +hundred times seen her in childhood in the old kitchen on drowsy +summer afternoons. And I heard the step, the buzz and whirl of the +spindle, and the monotonous and dreary hum of the mournful wheel. +Whether her face was ashy pale and looked as if it might crumble at +the touch, and the border of her white cap trembled in the June wind +that blew, I cannot say, for I tell you I did NOT see her. But I +know she was there, spinning yarn that had been knit into hose years +and years ago by our fireside. For I was in full possession of my +faculties, and never copied more neatly and legibly any manuscript +than I did the one that night. And there the phantom (I use the word +out of deference to a public prejudice on this subject) most +persistently remained until my task was finished, and, closing the +portfolio, I abruptly rose. Did I see anything? That is a silly and +ignorant question. Could I see the wind which had now risen +stronger, and drove a few cloud-scuds across the sky, filling the +night, somehow, with a longing that was not altogether born of +reminiscence? + +In the winter following, in January, I made an effort to give up the +use of tobacco,--a habit in which I was confirmed, and of which I +have nothing more to say than this: that I should attribute to it +almost all the sin and misery in the world, did I not remember that +the old Romans attained a very considerable state of corruption +without the assistance of the Virginia plant. + +On the night of the third day of my abstinence, rendered more nervous +and excitable than usual by the privation, I retired late, and later +still I fell into an uneasy sleep, and thus into a dream, vivid, +illuminated, more real than any event of my life. I was at home, and +fell sick. The illness developed into a fever, and then a delirium +set in, not an intellectual blank, but a misty and most delicious +wandering in places of incomparable beauty. I learned subsequently +that our regular physician was not certain to finish me, when a +consultation was called, which did the business. I have the +satisfaction of knowing that they were of the proper school. I lay +sick for three days. + +On the morning of the fourth, at sunrise, I died. The sensation was +not unpleasant. It was not a sudden shock. I passed out of my body +as one would walk from the door of his house. There the body lay,--a +blank, so far as I was concerned, and only interesting to me as I was +rather entertained with watching the respect paid to it. My friends +stood about the bedside, regarding me (as they seemed to suppose), +while I, in a different part of the room, could hardly repress a +smile at their mistake, solemnized as they were, and I too, for that +matter, by my recent demise. A sensation (the word you see is +material and inappropriate) of etherealization and imponderability +pervaded me, and I was not sorry to get rid of such a dull, slow mass +as I now perceived myself to be, lying there on the bed. When I +speak of my death, let me be understood to say that there was no +change, except that I passed out of my body and floated to the top of +a bookcase in the corner of the room, from which I looked down. For +a moment I was interested to see my person from the outside, but +thereafter I was quite indifferent to the body. I was now simply +soul. I seemed to be a globe, impalpable, transparent, about six +inches in diameter. I saw and heard everything as before. Of +course, matter was no obstacle to me, and I went easily and quickly +wherever I willed to go. There was none of that tedious process of +communicating my wishes to the nerves, and from them to the muscles. +I simply resolved to be at a particular place, and I was there. It +was better than the telegraph. + +It seemed to have been intimated to me at my death (birth I half +incline to call it) that I could remain on this earth for four weeks +after my decease, during which time I could amuse myself as I chose. + +I chose, in the first place, to see myself decently buried, to stay +by myself to the last, and attend my own funeral for once. As most +of those referred to in this true narrative are still living, I am +forbidden to indulge in personalities, nor shall I dare to say +exactly how my death affected my friends, even the home circle. +Whatever others did, I sat up with myself and kept awake. I saw the +"pennies" used instead of the "quarters" which I should have +preferred. I saw myself "laid out," a phrase that has come to have +such a slang meaning that I smile as I write it. When the body was +put into the coffin, I took my place on the lid. + +I cannot recall all the details, and they are commonplace besides. +The funeral took place at the church. We all rode thither in +carriages, and I, not fancying my place in mine, rode on the outside +with the undertaker, whom I found to be a good deal more jolly than +he looked to be. The coffin was placed in front of the pulpit when +we arrived. I took my station on the pulpit cushion, from which +elevation I had an admirable view of all the ceremonies, and could +hear the sermon. How distinctly I remember the services. I think I +could even at this distance write out the sermon. The tune sung was +of--the usual country selection,--Mount Vernon. I recall the text. +I was rather flattered by the tribute paid to me, and my future was +spoken of gravely and as kindly as possible,--indeed, with remarkable +charity, considering that the minister was not aware of my presence. +I used to beat him at chess, and I thought, even then, of the last +game; for, however solemn the occasion might be to others, it was not +so to me. With what interest I watched my kinsfolks, and neighbors +as they filed past for the last look! I saw, and I remember, who +pulled a long face for the occasion and who exhibited genuine +sadness. I learned with the most dreadful certainty what people +really thought of me. It was a revelation never forgotten. + +Several particular acquaintances of mine were talking on the steps as +we passed out. + +"Well, old Starr's gone up. Sudden, was n't it? He was a first-rate +fellow." + +"Yes, queer about some things; but he had some mighty good streaks," +said another. And so they ran on. + +Streaks! So that is the reputation one gets during twenty years of +life in this world. Streaks! + +After the funeral I rode home with the family. It was pleasanter +than the ride down, though it seemed sad to my relations. They did +not mention me, however, and I may remark, that although I stayed +about home for a week, I never heard my name mentioned by any of the +family. Arrived at home, the tea-kettle was put on and supper got +ready. This seemed to lift the gloom a little, and under the +influence of the tea they brightened up and gradually got more +cheerful. They discussed the sermon and the singing, and the mistake +of the sexton in digging the grave in the wrong place, and the large +congregation. From the mantel-piece I watched the group. They had +waffles for supper,--of which I had been exceedingly fond, but now I +saw them disappear without a sigh. + +For the first day or two of my sojourn at home I was here and there +at all the neighbors, and heard a good deal about my life and +character, some of which was not very pleasant, but very wholesome, +doubtless, for me to hear. At the expiration of a week this +amusement ceased to be such for I ceased to be talked of. I realized +the fact that I was dead and gone. + +By an act of volition I found myself back at college. I floated into +my own room, which was empty. I went to the room of my two warmest +friends, whose friendship I was and am yet assured of. As usual, +half a dozen of our set were lounging there. A game of whist was +just commencing. I perched on a bust of Dante on the top of the +book-shelves, where I could see two of the hands and give a good +guess at a third. My particular friend Timmins was just shuffling +the cards. + +"Be hanged if it is n't lonesome without old Starr. Did you cut? I +should like to see him lounge in now with his pipe, and with feet on +the mantel-piece proceed to expound on the duplex functions of the +soul." + +"There--misdeal," said his vis-a-vis. "Hope there's been no misdeal +for old Starr." + +"Spades, did you say?" the talk ran on, "never knew Starr was +sickly." + +"No more was he; stouter than you are, and as brave and plucky as he +was strong. By George, fellows,--how we do get cut down! Last term +little Stubbs, and now one of the best fellows in the class." + +"How suddenly he did pop off,--one for game, honors easy,--he was +good for the Spouts' Medal this year, too." + +"Remember the joke he played on Prof. A., freshman year? "asked +another. + +"Remember he borrowed ten dollars of me about that time," said +Timmins's partner, gathering the cards for a new deal. + +"Guess he is the only one who ever did," retorted some one. + +And so the talk went on, mingled with whist-talk, reminiscent of me, +not all exactly what I would have chosen to go into my biography, but +on the whole kind and tender, after the fashion of the boys. At +least I was in their thoughts, and I could see was a good deal +regretted,--so I passed a very pleasant evening. Most of those +present were of my society, and wore crape on their badges, and all +wore the usual crape on the left arm. I learned that the following +afternoon a eulogy would be delivered on me in the chapel. + +The eulogy was delivered before members of our society and others, +the next afternoon, in the chapel. I need not say that I was +present. Indeed, I was perched on the desk within reach of the +speaker's hand. The apotheosis was pronounced by my most intimate +friend, Timmins, and I must say he did me ample justice. He never +was accustomed to "draw it very mild" (to use a vulgarism which I +dislike) when he had his head, and on this occasion he entered into +the matter with the zeal of a true friend, and a young man who never +expected to have another occasion to sing a public "In Memoriam." It +made my hair stand on end,--metaphorically, of course. From my +childhood I had been extremely precocious. There were anecdotes of +preternatural brightness, picked up, Heaven knows where, of my +eagerness to learn, of my adventurous, chivalrous young soul, and of +my arduous struggles with chill penury, which was not able (as it +appeared) to repress my rage, until I entered this institution, of +which I had been ornament, pride, cynosure, and fair promising bud +blasted while yet its fragrance was mingled with the dew of its +youth. Once launched upon my college days, Timmins went on with all +sails spread. I had, as it were, to hold on to the pulpit cushion. +Latin, Greek, the old literatures, I was perfect master of; all +history was merely a light repast to me; mathematics I glanced at, +and it disappeared; in the clouds of modern philosophy I was wrapped +but not obscured; over the field of light literature I familiarly +roamed as the honey-bee over the wide fields of clover which blossom +white in the Junes of this world! My life was pure, my character +spotless, my name was inscribed among the names of those deathless +few who were not born to die! + +It was a noble eulogy, and I felt before he finished, though I had +misgivings at the beginning, that I deserved it all. The effect on +the audience was a little different. They said it was a "strong" +oration, and I think Timmins got more credit by it than I did. After +the performance they stood about the chapel, talking in a subdued +tone, and seemed to be a good deal impressed by what they had heard, +or perhaps by thoughts of the departed. At least they all soon went +over to Austin's and called for beer. My particular friends called +for it twice. Then they all lit pipes. The old grocery keeper was +good enough to say that I was no fool, if I did go off owing him four +dollars. To the credit of human nature, let me here record that the +fellows were touched by this remark reflecting upon my memory, and +immediately made up a purse and paid the bill,--that is, they told +the old man to charge it over to them. College boys are rich in +credit and the possibilities of life. + +It is needless to dwell upon the days I passed at college during this +probation. So far as I could see, everything went on as if I were +there, or had never been there. I could not even see the place where +I had dropped out of the ranks. Occasionally I heard my name, but I +must say that four weeks was quite long enough to stay in a world +that had pretty much forgotten me. There is no great satisfaction in +being dragged up to light now and then, like an old letter. The case +was somewhat different with the people with whom I had boarded. They +were relations of mine, and I often saw them weep, and they talked of +me a good deal at twilight and Sunday nights, especially the youngest +one, Carrie, who was handsomer than any one I knew, and not much +older than I. I never used to imagine that she cared particularly +for me, nor would she have done so, if I had lived, but death brought +with it a sort of sentimental regret, which, with the help of a +daguerreotype, she nursed into quite a little passion. I spent most +of my time there, for it was more congenial than the college. + +But time hastened. The last sand of probation leaked out of the +glass. One day, while Carrie played (for me, though she knew it not) +one of Mendelssohn's "songs without words," I suddenly, yet gently, +without self-effort or volition, moved from the house, floated in the +air, rose higher, higher, by an easy, delicious, exultant, yet +inconceivably rapid motion. The ecstasy of that triumphant flight! +Groves, trees, houses, the landscape, dimmed, faded, fled away +beneath me. Upward mounting, as on angels' wings, with no effort, +till the earth hung beneath me a round black ball swinging, remote, +in the universal ether. Upward mounting, till the earth, no longer +bathed in the sun's rays, went out to my sight, disappeared in the +blank. Constellations, before seen from afar, I sailed among. +Stars, too remote for shining on earth, I neared, and found to be +round globes flying through space with a velocity only equaled by my +own. New worlds continually opened on my sight; newfields of +everlasting space opened and closed behind me. + +For days and days--it seemed a mortal forever--I mounted up the great +heavens, whose everlasting doors swung wide. How the worlds and +systems, stars, constellations, neared me, blazed and flashed in +splendor, and fled away! At length,--was it not a thousand years?--I +saw before me, yet afar off, a wall, the rocky bourn of that country +whence travelers come not back, a battlement wider than I could +guess, the height of which I could not see, the depth of which was +infinite. As I approached, it shone with a splendor never yet beheld +on earth. Its solid substance was built of jewels the rarest, and +stones of priceless value. It seemed like one solid stone, and yet +all the colors of the rainbow were contained in it. The ruby, the +diamond, the emerald, the carbuncle, the topaz, the amethyst, the +sapphire; of them the wall was built up in harmonious combination. +So brilliant was it that all the space I floated in was full of the +splendor. So mild was it and so translucent, that I could look for +miles into its clear depths. + +Rapidly nearing this heavenly battlement, an immense niche was +disclosed in its solid face. The floor was one large ruby. Its +sloping sides were of pearl. Before I was aware I stood within the +brilliant recess. I say I stood there, for I was there bodily, in my +habit as I lived; how, I cannot explain. Was it the resurrection of +the body? Before me rose, a thousand feet in height, a wonderful +gate of flashing diamond. Beside it sat a venerable man, with long +white beard, a robe of light gray, ancient sandals, and a golden key +hanging by a cord from his waist. In the serene beauty of his noble +features I saw justice and mercy had met and were reconciled. I +cannot describe the majesty of his bearing or the benignity of his +appearance. It is needless to say that I stood before St. Peter, who +sits at the Celestial Gate. + +I humbly approached, and begged admission. St. Peter arose, and +regarded me kindly, yet inquiringly. + +"What is your name?" asked he, "and from what place do you come?" + +I answered, and, wishing to give a name well known, said I was from +Washington, United States. He looked doubtful, as if he had never +heard the name before. + +"Give me," said he, "a full account of your whole life." + +I felt instantaneously that there was no concealment possible; all +disguise fell away, and an unknown power forced me to speak absolute +and exact truth. I detailed the events of my life as well as I +could, and the good man was not a little affected by the recital of +my early trials, poverty, and temptation. It did not seem a very +good life when spread out in that presence, and I trembled as I +proceeded; but I plead youth, inexperience, and bad examples. + +"Have you been accustomed," he said, after a time, rather sadly, "to +break the Sabbath?" + +I told him frankly that I had been rather lax in that matter, +especially at college. I often went to sleep in the chapel on +Sunday, when I was not reading some entertaining book. He then asked +who the preacher was, and when I told him, he remarked that I was not +so much to blame as he had supposed. + +"Have you," he went on, "ever stolen, or told any lie?" + +I was able to say no, except admitting as to the first, usual college +"conveyances," and as to the last, an occasional "blinder" to the +professors. He was gracious enough to say that these could be +overlooked as incident to the occasion. + +"Have you ever been dissipated, living riotously and keeping late +hours?" + +"Yes." + +This also could be forgiven me as an incident of youth. + +"Did you ever," he went on, "commit the crime of using intoxicating +drinks as a beverage?" + +I answered that I had never been a habitual drinker, that I had never +been what was called a "moderate drinker," that I had never gone to a +bar and drank alone; but that I had been accustomed, in company with +other young men, on convivial occasions to taste the pleasures of the +flowing bowl, sometimes to excess, but that I had also tasted the +pains of it, and for months before my demise had refrained from +liquor altogether. The holy man looked grave, but, after reflection, +said this might also be overlooked in a young man. + +"What," continued he, in tones still more serious, "has been your +conduct with regard to the other sex?" + +I fell upon my knees in a tremor of fear. I pulled from my bosom a +little book like the one Leperello exhibits in the opera of "Don +Giovanni." There, I said, was a record of my flirtation and +inconstancy. I waited long for the decision, but it came in mercy. + +"Rise," he cried; "young men will be young men, I suppose. We shall +forgive this also to your youth and penitence." + +"Your examination is satisfactory, he informed me," after a pause; +"you can now enter the abodes of the happy." + +Joy leaped within me. We approached the gate. The key turned in the +lock. The gate swung noiselessly on its hinges a little open. Out +flashed upon me unknown splendors. What I saw in that momentary +gleam I shall never whisper in mortal ears. I stood upon the +threshold, just about to enter. + +"Stop! one moment," exclaimed St. Peter, laying his hand on my +shoulder; "I have one more question to ask you." + +I turned toward him. + +"Young man, did you ever use tobacco?" + +"I both smoked and chewed in my lifetime," I faltered, "but..." + +"THEN TO HELL WITH YOU!" he shouted in a voice of thunder. + +Instantly the gate closed without noise, and I was flung, hurled, +from the battlement, down! down! down! Faster and faster I sank in +a dizzy, sickening whirl into an unfathomable space of gloom. The +light faded. Dampness and darkness were round about me. As before, +for days and days I rose exultant in the light, so now forever I sank +into thickening darkness,--and yet not darkness, but a pale, ashy +light more fearful. + +In the dimness, I at length discovered a wall before me. It ran up +and down and on either hand endlessly into the night. It was solid, +black, terrible in its frowning massiveness. + +Straightway I alighted at the gate,--a dismal crevice hewn into the +dripping rock. The gate was wide open, and there sat-I knew him at +once; who does not?--the Arch Enemy of mankind. He cocked his eye at +me in an impudent, low, familiar manner that disgusted me. I saw +that I was not to be treated like a gentleman. + +"Well, young man," said he, rising, with a queer grin on his face," +what are you sent here for? + +"For using tobacco," I replied. + +"Ho!" shouted he in a jolly manner, peculiar to devils, "that's what +most of 'em are sent here for now." + +Without more ado, he called four lesser imps, who ushered me within. +What a dreadful plain lay before me! There was a vast city laid out +in regular streets, but there were no houses. Along the streets were +places of torment and torture exceedingly ingenious and disagreeable. +For miles and miles, it seemed, I followed my conductors through +these horrors, Here was a deep vat of burning tar. Here were rows of +fiery ovens. I noticed several immense caldron kettles of boiling +oil, upon the rims of which little devils sat, with pitchforks in +hand, and poked down the helpless victims who floundered in the +liquid. But I forbear to go into unseemly details. The whole scene +is as vivid in my mind as any earthly landscape. + +After an hour's walk my tormentors halted before the mouth of an +oven,--a furnace heated seven times, and now roaring with flames. +They grasped me, one hold of each hand and foot. Standing before the +blazing mouth, they, with a swing, and a "one, two, THREE...." + +I again assure the reader that in this narrative I have set down +nothing that was not actually dreamed, and much, very much of this +wonderful vision I have been obliged to omit. + +Haec fabula docet: It is dangerous for a young man to leave off the +use of tobacco. + + + + +FIFTH STUDY + + +I + +I wish I could fitly celebrate the joyousness of the New England +winter. Perhaps I could if I more thoroughly believed in it. But +skepticism comes in with the south wind. When that begins to blow, +one feels the foundations of his belief breaking up. This is only +another way of saying that it is more difficult, if it be not +impossible, to freeze out orthodoxy, or any fixed notion, than it is +to thaw it out; though it is a mere fancy to suppose that this is the +reason why the martyrs, of all creeds, were burned at the stake. +There is said to be a great relaxation in New England of the ancient +strictness in the direction of toleration of opinion, called by some +a lowering of the standard, and by others a raising of the banner of +liberality; it might be an interesting inquiry how much this change +is due to another change,--the softening of the New England winter +and the shifting of the Gulf Stream. It is the fashion nowadays to +refer almost everything to physical causes, and this hint is a +gratuitous contribution to the science of metaphysical physics. + +The hindrance to entering fully into the joyousness of a New England +winter, except far inland among the mountains, is the south wind. It +is a grateful wind, and has done more, I suspect, to demoralize +society than any other. It is not necessary to remember that it +filled the silken sails of Cleopatra's galley. It blows over New +England every few days, and is in some portions of it the prevailing +wind. That it brings the soft clouds, and sometimes continues long +enough to almost deceive the expectant buds of the fruit trees, and +to tempt the robin from the secluded evergreen copses, may be +nothing; but it takes the tone out of the mind, and engenders +discontent, making one long for the tropics; it feeds the weakened +imagination on palm-leaves and the lotus. Before we know it we +become demoralized, and shrink from the tonic of the sudden change to +sharp weather, as the steamed hydropathic patient does from the +plunge. It is the insidious temptation that assails us when we are +braced up to profit by the invigorating rigor of winter. + +Perhaps the influence of the four great winds on character is only a +fancied one; but it is evident on temperament, which is not +altogether a matter of temperature, although the good old deacon used +to say, in his humble, simple way, that his third wife was a very +good woman, but her "temperature was very different from that of the +other two." The north wind is full of courage, and puts the stamina +of endurance into a man, and it probably would into a woman too if +there were a series of resolutions passed to that effect. The west +wind is hopeful; it has promise and adventure in it, and is, except +to Atlantic voyagers America-bound, the best wind that ever blew. +The east wind is peevishness; it is mental rheumatism and grumbling, +and curls one up in the chimney-corner like a cat. And if the +chimney ever smokes, it smokes when the wind sits in that quarter. +The south wind is full of longing and unrest, of effeminate +suggestions of luxurious ease, and perhaps we might say of modern +poetry,--at any rate, modern poetry needs a change of air. I am not +sure but the south is the most powerful of the winds, because of its +sweet persuasiveness. Nothing so stirs the blood in spring, when it +comes up out of the tropical latitude; it makes men "longen to gon on +pilgrimages." + +I did intend to insert here a little poem (as it is quite proper to +do in an essay) on the south wind, composed by the Young Lady Staying +With Us, beginning,-- + + "Out of a drifting southern cloud + My soul heard the night-bird cry," + +but it never got any farther than this. The Young Lady said it was +exceedingly difficult to write the next two lines, because not only +rhyme but meaning had to be procured. And this is true; anybody can +write first lines, and that is probably the reason we have so many +poems which seem to have been begun in just this way, that is, with a +south-wind-longing without any thought in it, and it is very +fortunate when there is not wind enough to finish them. This +emotional poem, if I may so call it, was begun after Herbert went +away. I liked it, and thought it was what is called "suggestive;" +although I did not understand it, especially what the night-bird was; +and I am afraid I hurt the Young Lady's feelings by asking her if she +meant Herbert by the "night-bird,"--a very absurd suggestion about +two unsentimental people. She said, "Nonsense;" but she afterwards +told the Mistress that there were emotions that one could never put +into words without the danger of being ridiculous; a profound truth. +And yet I should not like to say that there is not a tender +lonesomeness in love that can get comfort out of a night-bird in a +cloud, if there be such a thing. Analysis is the death of sentiment. + +But to return to the winds. Certain people impress us as the winds +do. Mandeville never comes in that I do not feel a north-wind vigor +and healthfulness in his cordial, sincere, hearty manner, and in his +wholesome way of looking at things. The Parson, you would say, was +the east wind, and only his intimates know that his peevishness is +only a querulous humor. In the fair west wind I know the Mistress +herself, full of hope, and always the first one to discover a bit of +blue in a cloudy sky. It would not be just to apply what I have said +of the south wind to any of our visitors, but it did blow a little +while Herbert was here. + + + + +II + +In point of pure enjoyment, with an intellectual sparkle in it, I +suppose that no luxurious lounging on tropical isles set in tropical +seas compares with the positive happiness one may have before a great +woodfire (not two sticks laid crossways in a grate), with a veritable +New England winter raging outside. In order to get the highest +enjoyment, the faculties must be alert, and not be lulled into a mere +recipient dullness. There are those who prefer a warm bath to a +brisk walk in the inspiring air, where ten thousand keen influences +minister to the sense of beauty and run along the excited nerves. +There are, for instance, a sharpness of horizon outline and a +delicacy of color on distant hills which are wanting in summer, and +which convey to one rightly organized the keenest delight, and a +refinement of enjoyment that is scarcely sensuous, not at all +sentimental, and almost passing the intellectual line into the +spiritual. + +I was speaking to Mandeville about this, and he said that I was +drawing it altogether too fine; that he experienced sensations of +pleasure in being out in almost all weathers; that he rather liked to +breast a north wind, and that there was a certain inspiration in +sharp outlines and in a landscape in trim winter-quarters, with +stripped trees, and, as it were, scudding through the season under +bare poles; but that he must say that he preferred the weather in +which he could sit on the fence by the wood-lot, with the spring sun +on his back, and hear the stir of the leaves and the birds beginning +their housekeeping. + +A very pretty idea for Mandeville; and I fear he is getting to have +private thoughts about the Young Lady. Mandeville naturally likes +the robustness and sparkle of winter, and it has been a little +suspicious to hear him express the hope that we shall have an early +spring. + +I wonder how many people there are in New England who know the glory +and inspiration of a winter walk just before sunset, and that, too, +not only on days of clear sky, when the west is aflame with a rosy +color, which has no suggestion of languor or unsatisfied longing in +it, but on dull days, when the sullen clouds hang about the horizon, +full of threats of storm and the terrors of the gathering night. We +are very busy with our own affairs, but there is always something +going on out-doors worth looking at; and there is seldom an hour +before sunset that has not some special attraction. And, besides, it +puts one in the mood for the cheer and comfort of the open fire at +home. + +Probably if the people of New England could have a plebiscitum on +their weather, they would vote against it, especially against winter. +Almost no one speaks well of winter. And this suggests the idea that +most people here were either born in the wrong place, or do not know +what is best for them. I doubt if these grumblers would be any +better satisfied, or would turn out as well, in the tropics. +Everybody knows our virtues,--at least if they believe half we tell +them,--and for delicate beauty, that rare plant, I should look among +the girls of the New England hills as confidently as anywhere, and I +have traveled as far south as New Jersey, and west of the Genesee +Valley. Indeed, it would be easy to show that the parents of the +pretty girls in the West emigrated from New England. And yet--such +is the mystery of Providence--no one would expect that one of the +sweetest and most delicate flowers that blooms, the trailing. +arbutus, would blossom in this inhospitable climate, and peep forth +from the edge of a snowbank at that. + +It seems unaccountable to a superficial observer that the thousands +of people who are dissatisfied with their climate do not seek a more +congenial one--or stop grumbling. The world is so small, and all +parts of it are so accessible, it has so many varieties of climate, +that one could surely suit himself by searching; and, then, is it +worth while to waste our one short life in the midst of unpleasant +surroundings and in a constant friction with that which is +disagreeable? One would suppose that people set down on this little +globe would seek places on it most agreeable to themselves. It must +be that they are much more content with the climate and country upon +which they happen, by the accident of their birth, than they pretend +to be. + + + + +III + +Home sympathies and charities are most active in the winter. Coming +in from my late walk,--in fact driven in by a hurrying north wind +that would brook no delay,--a wind that brought snow that did not +seem to fall out of a bounteous sky, but to be blown from polar +fields,--I find the Mistress returned from town, all in a glow of +philanthropic excitement. + +There has been a meeting of a woman's association for Ameliorating +the Condition of somebody here at home. Any one can belong to it by +paying a dollar, and for twenty dollars one can become a life +Ameliorator,--a sort of life assurance. The Mistress, at the +meeting, I believe, "seconded the motion" several times, and is one +of the Vice-Presidents; and this family honor makes me feel almost as +if I were a president of something myself. These little distinctions +are among the sweetest things in life, and to see one's name +officially printed stimulates his charity, and is almost as +satisfactory as being the chairman of a committee or the mover of a +resolution. It is, I think, fortunate, and not at all discreditable, +that our little vanity, which is reckoned among our weaknesses, is +thus made to contribute to the activity of our nobler powers. +Whatever we may say, we all of us like distinction; and probably +there is no more subtle flattery than that conveyed in the whisper, +"That's he," "That's she." + +There used to be a society for ameliorating the condition of the +Jews; but they were found to be so much more adept than other people +in ameliorating their own condition that I suppose it was given up. +Mandeville says that to his knowledge there are a great many people +who get up ameliorating enterprises merely to be conspicuously busy +in society, or to earn a little something in a good cause. They seem +to think that the world owes them a living because they are +philanthropists. In this Mandeville does not speak with his usual +charity. It is evident that there are Jews, and some Gentiles, whose +condition needs ameliorating, and if very little is really +accomplished in the effort for them, it always remains true that the +charitable reap a benefit to themselves. It is one of the beautiful +compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help +another without helping himself + +OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR. Why is it that almost all philanthropists +and reformers are disagreeable? + +I ought to explain who our next-door neighbor is. He is the person +who comes in without knocking, drops in in the most natural way, as +his wife does also, and not seldom in time to take the after-dinner +cup of tea before the fire. Formal society begins as soon as you +lock your doors, and only admit visitors through the media of bells +and servants. It is lucky for us that our next-door neighbor is +honest. + +THE PARSON. Why do you class reformers and philanthropists together? +Those usually called reformers are not philanthropists at all. They +are agitators. Finding the world disagreeable to themselves, they +wish to make it as unpleasant to others as possible. + +MANDEVILLE. That's a noble view of your fellow-men. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Well, granting the distinction, why are both apt to +be unpleasant people to live with? + +THE PARSON. As if the unpleasant people who won't mind their own +business were confined to the classes you mention! Some of the best +people I know are philanthropists,--I mean the genuine ones, and not +the uneasy busybodies seeking notoriety as a means of living. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. It is not altogether the not minding their own +business. Nobody does that. The usual explanation is, that people +with one idea are tedious. But that is not all of it. For few +persons have more than one idea,--ministers, doctors, lawyers, +teachers, manufacturers, merchants,--they all think the world they +live in is the central one. + +MANDEVILLE. And you might add authors. To them nearly all the life +of the world is in letters, and I suppose they would be astonished if +they knew how little the thoughts of the majority of people are +occupied with books, and with all that vast thought circulation which +is the vital current of the world to book-men. Newspapers have +reached their present power by becoming unliterary, and reflecting +all the interests of the world. + +THE MISTRESS. I have noticed one thing, that the most popular +persons in society are those who take the world as it is, find the +least fault, and have no hobbies. They are always wanted to dinner. + +THE YOUNG LADY. And the other kind always appear to me to want a +dinner. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. It seems to me that the real reason why reformers +and some philanthropists are unpopular is, that they disturb our +serenity and make us conscious of our own shortcomings. It is only +now and then that a whole people get a spasm of reformatory fervor, +of investigation and regeneration. At other times they rather hate +those who disturb their quiet. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Professional reformers and philanthropists are +insufferably conceited and intolerant. + +THE MISTRESS. Everything depends upon the spirit in which a reform +or a scheme of philanthropy is conducted. + +MANDEVILLE. I attended a protracted convention of reformers of a +certain evil, once, and had the pleasure of taking dinner with a +tableful of them. It was one of those country dinners accompanied +with green tea. Every one disagreed with every one else, and you +would n't wonder at it, if you had seen them. They were people with +whom good food wouldn't agree. George Thompson was expected at the +convention, and I remember that there was almost a cordiality in the +talk about him, until one sallow brother casually mentioned that +George took snuff,--when a chorus of deprecatory groans went up from +the table. One long-faced maiden in spectacles, with purple ribbons +in her hair, who drank five cups of tea by my count, declared that +she was perfectly disgusted, and did n't want to hear him speak. In +the course of the meal the talk ran upon the discipline of children, +and how to administer punishment. I was quite taken by the remark of +a thin, dyspeptic man who summed up the matter by growling out in a +harsh, deep bass voice, "Punish 'em in love!" It sounded as if he had +said, "Shoot 'em on the spot!" + +THE PARSON. I supposed you would say that he was a minister. There +is another thing about those people. I think they are working +against the course of nature. Nature is entirely indifferent to any +reform. She perpetuates a fault as persistently as a virtue. +There's a split in my thumb-nail that has been scrupulously continued +for many years, not withstanding all my efforts to make the nail +resume its old regularity. You see the same thing in trees whose +bark is cut, and in melons that have had only one summer's intimacy +with squashes. The bad traits in character are passed down from +generation to generation with as much care as the good ones. Nature, +unaided, never reforms anything. + +MANDEVILLE. Is that the essence of Calvinism? + +THE PARSON. Calvinism has n't any essence, it's a fact. + +MANDEVILLE. When I was a boy, I always associated Calvinism and +calomel together. I thought that homeopathy--similia, etc.--had done +away with both of them. + +OUR NEXT DOOR (rising). If you are going into theology, I'm off.. + + + + +IV + +I fear we are not getting on much with the joyousness of winter. In +order to be exhilarating it must be real winter. I have noticed that +the lower the thermometer sinks the more fiercely the north wind +rages, and the deeper the snow is, the higher rise the spirits of the +community. The activity of the "elements" has a great effect upon +country folk especially; and it is a more wholesome excitement than +that caused by a great conflagration. The abatement of a snow-storm +that grows to exceptional magnitude is regretted, for there is always +the half-hope that this will be, since it has gone so far, the +largest fall of snow ever known in the region, burying out of sight +the great fall of 1808, the account of which is circumstantially and +aggravatingly thrown in our way annually upon the least provocation. +We all know how it reads: "Some said it began at daylight, others +that it set in after sunrise; but all agree that by eight o'clock +Friday morning it was snowing in heavy masses that darkened the air." + +The morning after we settled the five--or is it seven?--points of +Calvinism, there began a very hopeful snow-storm, one of those +wide-sweeping, careering storms that may not much affect the city, +but which strongly impress the country imagination with a sense of +the personal qualities of the weather,--power, persistency, +fierceness, and roaring exultation. Out-doors was terrible to those +who looked out of windows, and heard the raging wind, and saw the +commotion in all the high tree-tops and the writhing of the low +evergreens, and could not summon resolution to go forth and breast +and conquer the bluster. The sky was dark with snow, which was not +permitted to fall peacefully like a blessed mantle, as it sometimes +does, but was blown and rent and tossed like the split canvas of a +ship in a gale. The world was taken possession of by the demons of +the air, who had their will of it. There is a sort of fascination in +such a scene, equal to that of a tempest at sea, and without its +attendant haunting sense of peril; there is no fear that the house +will founder or dash against your neighbor's cottage, which is dimly +seen anchored across the field; at every thundering onset there is no +fear that the cook's galley will upset, or the screw break loose and +smash through the side, and we are not in momently expectation of the +tinkling of the little bell to "stop her." The snow rises in +drifting waves, and the naked trees bend like strained masts; but so +long as the window-blinds remain fast, and the chimney-tops do not +go, we preserve an equal mind. Nothing more serious can happen than +the failure of the butcher's and the grocer's carts, unless, indeed, +the little news-carrier should fail to board us with the world's +daily bulletin, or our next-door neighbor should be deterred from +coming to sit by the blazing, excited fire, and interchange the +trifling, harmless gossip of the day. The feeling of seclusion on +such a day is sweet, but the true friend who does brave the storm and +come is welcomed with a sort of enthusiasm that his arrival in +pleasant weather would never excite. The snow-bound in their Arctic +hulk are glad to see even a wandering Esquimau. + +On such a day I recall the great snow-storms on the northern New +England hills, which lasted for a week with no cessation, with no +sunrise or sunset, and no observation at noon; and the sky all the +while dark with the driving snow, and the whole world full of the +noise of the rioting Boreal forces; until the roads were obliterated, +the fences covered, and the snow was piled solidly above the first- +story windows of the farmhouse on one side, and drifted before the +front door so high that egress could only be had by tunneling the +bank. + +After such a battle and siege, when the wind fell and the sun +struggled out again, the pallid world lay subdued and tranquil, and +the scattered dwellings were not unlike wrecks stranded by the +tempest and half buried in sand. But when the blue sky again bent +over all, the wide expanse of snow sparkled like diamond-fields, and +the chimney signal-smokes could be seen, how beautiful was the +picture! Then began the stir abroad, and the efforts to open up +communication through roads, or fields, or wherever paths could be +broken, and the ways to the meeting-house first of all. Then from +every house and hamlet the men turned out with shovels, with the +patient, lumbering oxen yoked to the sleds, to break the roads, +driving into the deepest drifts, shoveling and shouting as if the +severe labor were a holiday frolic, the courage and the hilarity +rising with the difficulties encountered; and relief parties, meeting +at length in the midst of the wide white desolation, hailed each +other as chance explorers in new lands, and made the whole +country-side ring with the noise of their congratulations. There was +as much excitement and healthy stirring of the blood in it as in the +Fourth of July, and perhaps as much patriotism. The boy saw it in +dumb show from the distant, low farmhouse window, and wished he were +a man. At night there were great stories of achievement told by the +cavernous fireplace; great latitude was permitted in the estimation +of the size of particular drifts, but never any agreement was reached +as to the "depth on a level." I have observed since that people are +quite as apt to agree upon the marvelous and the exceptional as upon +simple facts. + + + + +V + +By the firelight and the twilight, the Young Lady is finishing a +letter to Herbert,--writing it, literally, on her knees, transforming +thus the simple deed into an act of devotion. Mandeville says that +it is bad for her eyes, but the sight of it is worse for his eyes. +He begins to doubt the wisdom of reliance upon that worn apothegm +about absence conquering love. + +Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend +absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable. +Mandeville begins to wish he were in New South Wales. + +I did intend to insert here a letter of Herbert's to the Young Lady, +--obtained, I need not say, honorably, as private letters which get +into print always are,--not to gratify a vulgar curiosity, but + +to show how the most unsentimental and cynical people are affected by +the master passion. But I cannot bring myself to do it. Even in the +interests of science one has no right to make an autopsy of two +loving hearts, especially when they are suffering under a late attack +of the one agreeable epidemic. + +All the world loves a lover, but it laughs at him none the less in +his extravagances. He loses his accustomed reticence; he has +something of the martyr's willingness for publicity; he would even +like to show the sincerity of his devotion by some piece of open +heroism. Why should he conceal a discovery which has transformed the +world to him, a secret which explains all the mysteries of nature and +human-ity? He is in that ecstasy of mind which prompts those who +were never orators before to rise in an experience-meeting and pour +out a flood of feeling in the tritest language and the most +conventional terms. I am not sure that Herbert, while in this glow, +would be ashamed of his letter in print, but this is one of the cases +where chancery would step in and protect one from himself by his next +friend. This is really a delicate matter, and perhaps it is brutal +to allude to it at all. + +In truth, the letter would hardly be interesting in print. Love has +a marvelous power of vivifying language and charging the simplest +words with the most tender meaning, of restoring to them the power +they had when first coined. They are words of fire to those two who +know their secret, but not to others. It is generally admitted that +the best love-letters would not make very good literature. +"Dearest," begins Herbert, in a burst of originality, felicitously +selecting a word whose exclusiveness shuts out all the world but one, +and which is a whole letter, poem, confession, and creed in one +breath. What a weight of meaning it has to carry! There may be +beauty and wit and grace and naturalness and even the splendor of +fortune elsewhere, but there is one woman in the world whose sweet +presence would be compensation for the loss of all else. It is not +to be reasoned about; he wants that one; it is her plume dancing down +the sunny street that sets his heart beating; he knows her form among +a thousand, and follows her; he longs to run after her carriage, +which the cruel coachman whirls out of his sight. It is marvelous to +him that all the world does not want her too, and he is in a panic +when he thinks of it. And what exquisite flattery is in that little +word addressed to her, and with what sweet and meek triumph she +repeats it to herself, with a feeling that is not altogether pity for +those who still stand and wait. To be chosen out of all the +available world--it is almost as much bliss as it is to choose. "All +that long, long stage-ride from Blim's to Portage I thought of you +every moment, and wondered what you were doing and how you were +looking just that moment, and I found the occupation so charming that +I was almost sorry when the journey was ended." Not much in that! +But I have no doubt the Young Lady read it over and over, and dwelt +also upon every moment, and found in it new proof of unshaken +constancy, and had in that and the like things in the letter a sense +of the sweetest communion. There is nothing in this letter that we +need dwell on it, but I am convinced that the mail does not carry any +other letters so valuable as this sort. + +I suppose that the appearance of Herbert in this new light +unconsciously gave tone a little to the evening's talk; not that +anybody mentioned him, but Mandeville was evidently generalizing from +the qualities that make one person admired by another to those that +win the love of mankind. + +MANDEVILLE. There seems to be something in some persons that wins +them liking, special or general, independent almost of what they do +or say. + +THE MISTRESS. Why, everybody is liked by some one. + +MANDEVILLE. I'm not sure of that. There are those who are +friendless, and would be if they had endless acquaintances. But, to +take the case away from ordinary examples, in which habit and a +thousand circumstances influence liking, what is it that determines +the world upon a personal regard for authors whom it has never seen? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Probably it is the spirit shown in their writings. + +THE MISTRESS. More likely it is a sort of tradition; I don't believe +that the world has a feeling of personal regard for any author who +was not loved by those who knew him most intimately. + +THE FIRE-TENDFR. Which comes to the same thing. The qualities, the +spirit, that got him the love of his acquaintances he put into his +books. + +MANDEVILLE. That does n't seem to me sufficient. Shakespeare has +put everything into his plays and poems, swept the whole range of +human sympathies and passions, and at times is inspired by the +sweetest spirit that ever man had. + +THE YOUNG LADY. No one has better interpreted love. + +MANDEVILLE. Yet I apprehend that no person living has any personal +regard for Shakespeare, or that his personality affects many,--except +they stand in Stratford church and feel a sort of awe at the thought +that the bones of the greatest poet are so near them. + +THE PARSON. I don't think the world cares personally for any mere +man or woman dead for centuries. + +MANDEVILLE. But there is a difference. I think there is still +rather a warm feeling for Socrates the man, independent of what he +said, which is little known. Homer's works are certainly better +known, but no one cares personally for Homer any more than for any +other shade. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Why not go back to Moses? We've got the evening +before us for digging up people. + +MANDEVILLE. Moses is a very good illustration. No name of antiquity +is better known, and yet I fancy he does not awaken the same kind of +popular liking that Socrates does. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Fudge! You just get up in any lecture assembly and +propose three cheers for Socrates, and see where you'll be. +Mandeville ought to be a missionary, and read Robert Browning to the +Fijis. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. How do you account for the alleged personal regard +for Socrates? + +THE PARSON. Because the world called Christian is still more than +half heathen. + +MANDEVILLE. He was a plain man; his sympathies were with the people; +he had what is roughly known as "horse-sense," and he was homely. +Franklin and Abraham Lincoln belong to his class. They were all +philosophers of the shrewd sort, and they all had humor. It was +fortunate for Lincoln that, with his other qualities, he was homely. +That was the last touching recommendation to the popular heart. + +THE MISTRESS. Do you remember that ugly brown-stone statue of St. +Antonio by the bridge in Sorrento? He must have been a coarse saint, +patron of pigs as he was, but I don't know any one anywhere, or the +homely stone image of one, so loved by the people. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Ugliness being trump, I wonder more people don't win. +Mandeville, why don't you get up a "centenary" of Socrates, and put +up his statue in the Central Park? It would make that one of Lincoln +in Union Square look beautiful. + +THE PARSON. Oh, you'll see that some day, when they have a museum +there illustrating the "Science of Religion." + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Doubtless, to go back to what we were talking of, +the world has a fondness for some authors, and thinks of them with an +affectionate and half-pitying familiarity; and it may be that this +grows out of something in their lives quite as much as anything in +their writings. There seems to be more disposition of personal +liking to Thackeray than to Dickens, now both are dead,--a result +that would hardly have been predicted when the world was crying over +Little Nell, or agreeing to hate Becky Sharp. + +THE YOUNG LADY. What was that you were telling about Charles Lamb, +the other day, Mandeville? Is not the popular liking for him +somewhat independent of his writings? + +MANDEVILLE. He is a striking example of an author who is loved. +Very likely the remembrance of his tribulations has still something +to do with the tenderness felt for him. He supported no dignity and +permitted a familiarity which indicated no self-appreciation of his +real rank in the world of letters. I have heard that his +acquaintances familiarly called him "Charley." + +OUR NEXT DOOR. It's a relief to know that! Do you happen to know +what Socrates was called? + +MANDEVILLE. I have seen people who knew Lamb very well. One of them +told me, as illustrating his want of dignity, that as he was going +home late one night through the nearly empty streets, he was met by a +roystering party who were making a night of it from tavern to tavern. +They fell upon Lamb, attracted by his odd figure and hesitating +manner, and, hoisting him on their shoulders, carried him off, +singing as they went. Lamb enjoyed the lark, and did not tell them +who he was. When they were tired of lugging him, they lifted him, +with much effort and difficulty, to the top of a high wall, and left +him there amid the broken bottles, utterly unable to get down. Lamb +remained there philosophically in the enjoyment of his novel +adventure, until a passing watchman rescued him from his ridiculous +situation. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. How did the story get out? + +MANDEVILLE. Oh, Lamb told all about it next morning; and when asked +afterwards why he did so, he replied that there was no fun in it +unless he told it. + + + + +SIXTH STUDY + + +I + +The King sat in the winter-house in the ninth month, and there was a +fire on the hearth burning before him . . . . When Jehudi had +read three or four leaves he cut it with the penknife. + +That seems to be a pleasant and home-like picture from a not very +remote period,--less than twenty-five hundred years ago, and many +centuries after the fall of Troy. And that was not so very long ago, +for Thebes, in the splendid streets of which Homer wandered and sang +to the kings when Memphis, whose ruins are older than history, was +its younger rival, was twelve centuries old when Paris ran away with +Helen. + +I am sorry that the original--and you can usually do anything with +the "original"--does not bear me out in saying that it was a pleasant +picture. I should like to believe that Jehoiakiin--for that was the +singular name of the gentleman who sat by his hearthstone--had just +received the Memphis "Palimpsest," fifteen days in advance of the +date of its publication, and that his secretary was reading to him +that monthly, and cutting its leaves as he read. I should like to +have seen it in that year when Thales was learning astronomy in +Memphis, and Necho was organizing his campaign against Carchemish. +If Jehoiakim took the "Attic Quarterly," he might have read its +comments on the banishment of the Alcmaeonida, and its gibes at +Solon for his prohibitory laws, forbidding the sale of unguents, +limiting the luxury of dress, and interfering with the sacred rights +of mourners to passionately bewail the dead in the Asiatic manner; +the same number being enriched with contributions from two rising +poets,--a lyric of love by Sappho, and an ode sent by Anacreon from +Teos, with an editorial note explaining that the Maces was not +responsible for the sentiments of the poem. + +But, in fact, the gentleman who sat before the backlog in his +winter-house had other things to think of. For Nebuchadnezzar was +coming that way with the chariots and horses of Babylon and a great +crowd of marauders; and the king had not even the poor choice whether +he would be the vassal of the Chaldean or of the Egyptian. To us, +this is only a ghostly show of monarchs and conquerors stalking +across vast historic spaces. It was no doubt a vulgar enough scene +of war and plunder. The great captains of that age went about to +harry each other's territories and spoil each other's cities very +much as we do nowadays, and for similar reasons;--Napoleon the Great +in Moscow, Napoleon the Small in Italy, Kaiser William in Paris, +Great Scott in Mexico! Men have not changed much. + +--The Fire-Tender sat in his winter-garden in the third month; there +was a fire on the hearth burning before him. He cut the leaves of +"Scribner's Monthly" with his penknife, and thought of Jehoiakim. + +That seems as real as the other. In the garden, which is a room of +the house, the tall callas, rooted in the ground, stand about the +fountain; the sun, streaming through the glass, illumines the +many-hued flowers. I wonder what Jehoiakim did with the mealy-bug on +his passion-vine, and if he had any way of removing the scale-bug +from his African acacia? One would like to know, too, how he treated +the red spider on the Le Marque rose. The record is silent. I do +not doubt he had all these insects in his winter-garden, and the +aphidae besides; and he could not smoke them out with tobacco, for +the world had not yet fallen into its second stage of the knowledge +of good and evil by eating the forbidden tobacco-plant. + +I confess that this little picture of a fire on the hearth so many +centuries ago helps to make real and interesting to me that somewhat +misty past. No doubt the lotus and the acanthus from the Nile grew +in that winter-house, and perhaps Jehoiakim attempted--the most +difficult thing in the world the cultivation of the wild flowers from +Lebanon. Perhaps Jehoiakim was interested also, as I am through this +ancient fireplace,--which is a sort of domestic window into the +ancient world,--in the loves of Bernice and Abaces at the court of +the Pharaohs. I see that it is the same thing as the sentiment-- +perhaps it is the shrinking which every soul that is a soul has, +sooner or later, from isolation--which grew up between Herbert and +the Young Lady Staying With Us. Jeremiah used to come in to that +fireside very much as the Parson does to ours. The Parson, to be +sure, never prophesies, but he grumbles, and is the chorus in the +play that sings the everlasting ai ai of "I told you so!" Yet we +like the Parson. He is the sprig of bitter herb that makes the +pottage wholesome. I should rather, ten times over, dispense with +the flatterers and the smooth-sayers than the grumblers. But the +grumblers are of two sorts,--the healthful-toned and the whiners. +There are makers of beer who substitute for the clean bitter of the +hops some deleterious drug, and then seek to hide the fraud by some +cloying sweet. There is nothing of this sickish drug in the Parson's +talk, nor was there in that of Jeremiah, I sometimes think there is +scarcely enough of this wholesome tonic in modern society. The +Parson says he never would give a child sugar-coated pills. +Mandeville says he never would give them any. After all, you cannot +help liking Mandeville. + + + + +II + +We were talking of this late news from Jerusalem. The Fire-Tender +was saying that it is astonishing how much is telegraphed us from the +East that is not half so interesting. He was at a loss +philosophically to account for the fact that the world is so eager to +know the news of yesterday which is unimportant, and so indifferent +to that of the day before which is of some moment. + +MANDEVILLE. I suspect that it arises from the want of imagination. +People need to touch the facts, and nearness in time is contiguity. +It would excite no interest to bulletin the last siege of Jerusalem +in a village where the event was unknown, if the date was appended; +and yet the account of it is incomparably more exciting than that of +the siege of Metz. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. The daily news is a necessity. I cannot get along +without my morning paper. The other morning I took it up, and was +absorbed in the telegraphic columns for an hour nearly. I thoroughly +enjoyed the feeling of immediate contact with all the world of +yesterday, until I read among the minor items that Patrick Donahue, +of the city of New York, died of a sunstroke. If he had frozen to +death, I should have enjoyed that; but to die of sunstroke in +February seemed inappropriate, and I turned to the date of the paper. +When I found it was printed in July, I need not say that I lost all +interest in it, though why the trivialities and crimes and accidents, +relating to people I never knew, were not as good six months after +date as twelve hours, I cannot say. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. You know that in Concord the latest news, except a +remark or two by Thoreau or Emerson, is the Vedas. I believe the +Rig-Veda is read at the breakfast-table instead of the Boston +journals. + +THE PARSON. I know it is read afterward instead of the Bible. + +MANDEVILLE. That is only because it is supposed to be older. I have +understood that the Bible is very well spoken of there, but it is not +antiquated enough to be an authority. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. There was a project on foot to put it into the +circulating library, but the title New in the second part was +considered objectionable. + +HERBERT. Well, I have a good deal of sympathy with Concord as to the +news. We are fed on a daily diet of trivial events and gossip, of +the unfruitful sayings of thoughtless men and women, until our mental +digestion is seriously impaired; the day will come when no one will +be able to sit down to a thoughtful, well-wrought book and assimilate +its contents. + +THE MISTRESS. I doubt if a daily newspaper is a necessity, in the +higher sense of the word. + +THE PARSON. Nobody supposes it is to women,--that is, if they can +see each other. + +THE MISTRESS. Don't interrupt, unless you have something to say; +though I should like to know how much gossip there is afloat that the +minister does not know. The newspaper may be needed in society, but +how quickly it drops out of mind when one goes beyond the bounds of +what is called civilization. You remember when we were in the depths +of the woods last summer how difficult it was to get up any interest +in the files of late papers that reached us, and how unreal all the +struggle and turmoil of the world seemed. We stood apart, and could +estimate things at their true value. + +THE YOUNG LADY. Yes, that was real life. I never tired of the +guide's stories; there was some interest in the intelligence that a +deer had been down to eat the lily-pads at the foot of the lake the +night before; that a bear's track was seen on the trail we crossed +that day; even Mandeville's fish-stories had a certain air of +probability; and how to roast a trout in the ashes and serve him hot +and juicy and clean, and how to cook soup and prepare coffee and heat +dish-water in one tin-pail, were vital problems. + +THE PARSON. You would have had no such problems at home. Why will +people go so far to put themselves to such inconvenience? I hate the +woods. Isolation breeds conceit; there are no people so conceited as +those who dwell in remote wildernesses and live mostly alone. + +THE YOUNG LADY. For my part, I feel humble in the presence of +mountains, and in the vast stretches of the wilderness. + +THE PARSON. I'll be bound a woman would feel just as nobody would +expect her to feel, under given circumstances. + +MANDEVILLE. I think the reason why the newspaper and the world it +carries take no hold of us in the wilderness is that we become a kind +of vegetable ourselves when we go there. I have often attempted to +improve my mind in the woods with good solid books. You might as +well offer a bunch of celery to an oyster. The mind goes to sleep: +the senses and the instincts wake up. The best I can do when it +rains, or the trout won't bite, is to read Dumas's novels. Their +ingenuity will almost keep a man awake after supper, by the +camp-fire. And there is a kind of unity about them that I like; the +history is as good as the morality. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I always wondered where Mandeville got his historical +facts. + +THE MISTRESS. Mandeville misrepresents himself in the woods. I +heard him one night repeat "The Vision of Sir Launfal"--(THE +FIRE-TENDER. Which comes very near being our best poem.)--as we were +crossing the lake, and the guides became so absorbed in it that they +forgot to paddle, and sat listening with open mouths, as if it had +been a panther story. + +THE PARSON. Mandeville likes to show off well enough. I heard that +he related to a woods' boy up there the whole of the Siege of Troy. +The boy was very much interested, and said "there'd been a man up +there that spring from Troy, looking up timber." Mandeville always +carries the news when he goes into the country. + +MANDEVILLE. I'm going to take the Parson's sermon on Jonah next +summer; it's the nearest to anything like news we've had from his +pulpit in ten years. But, seriously, the boy was very well informed. +He'd heard of Albany; his father took in the "Weekly Tribune," and he +had a partial conception of Horace Greeley. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I never went so far out of the world in America yet +that the name of Horace Greeley did n't rise up before me. One of +the first questions asked by any camp-fire is, "Did ye ever see +Horace?" + +HERBERT. Which shows the power of the press again. But I have often +remarked how little real conception of the moving world, as it is, +people in remote regions get from the newspaper. It needs to be read +in the midst of events. A chip cast ashore in a refluent eddy tells +no tale of the force and swiftness of the current. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I don't exactly get the drift of that last remark; +but I rather like a remark that I can't understand; like the +landlady's indigestible bread, it stays by you. + +HERBERT. I see that I must talk in words of one syllable. The +newspaper has little effect upon the remote country mind, because the +remote country mind is interested in a very limited number of things. +Besides, as the Parson says, it is conceited. The most accomplished +scholar will be the butt of all the guides in the woods, because he +cannot follow a trail that would puzzle a sable (saple the trappers +call it). + +THE PARSON. It's enough to read the summer letters that people write +to the newspapers from the country and the woods. Isolated from the +activity of the world, they come to think that the little adventures +of their stupid days and nights are important. Talk about that being +real life! Compare the letters such people write with the other +contents of the newspaper, and you will see which life is real. +That's one reason I hate to have summer come, the country letters set +in. + +THE MISTRESS. I should like to see something the Parson does n't +hate to have come. + +MANDEVILLE. Except his quarter's salary; and the meeting of the +American Board. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I don't see that we are getting any nearer the +solution of the original question. The world is evidently interested +in events simply because they are recent. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I have a theory that a newspaper might be published +at little cost, merely by reprinting the numbers of years before, +only altering the dates; just as the Parson preaches over his +sermons. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. It's evident we must have a higher order of +news-gatherers. It has come to this, that the newspaper furnishes +thought-material for all the world, actually prescribes from day to +day the themes the world shall think on and talk about. The +occupation of news-gathering becomes, therefore, the most important. +When you think of it, it is astonishing that this department should +not be in the hands of the ablest men, accomplished scholars, +philosophical observers, discriminating selectors of the news of the +world that is worth thinking over and talking about. The editorial +comments frequently are able enough, but is it worth while keeping an +expensive mill going to grind chaff? I sometimes wonder, as I open +my morning paper, if nothing did happen in the twenty-four hours +except crimes, accidents, defalcations, deaths of unknown loafers, +robberies, monstrous births,--say about the level of police-court +news. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I have even noticed that murders have deteriorated; +they are not so high-toned and mysterious as they used to be. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. It is true that the newspapers have improved vastly +within the last decade. + +HERBERT. I think, for one, that they are very much above the level +of the ordinary gossip of the country. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. But I am tired of having the under-world still +occupy so much room in the newspapers. The reporters are rather more +alert for a dog-fight than a philological convention. It must be +that the good deeds of the world outnumber the bad in any given day; +and what a good reflex action it would have on society if they could +be more fully reported than the bad! I suppose the Parson would call +this the Enthusiasm of Humanity. + +THE PARSON. You'll see how far you can lift yourself up by your +boot-straps. + +HERBERT. I wonder what influence on the quality (I say nothing of +quantity) of news the coming of women into the reporter's and +editor's work will have. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. There are the baby-shows; they make cheerful reading. + +THE MISTRESS. All of them got up by speculating men, who impose upon +the vanity of weak women. + +HERBERT. I think women reporters are more given to personal details +and gossip than the men. When I read the Washington correspondence I +am proud of my country, to see how many Apollo Belvederes, Adonises, +how much marble brow and piercing eye and hyacinthine locks, we have +in the two houses of Congress. + +THE YOUNG LADY. That's simply because women understand the personal +weakness of men; they have a long score of personal flattery to pay +off too. + +MANDEVILLE. I think women will bring in elements of brightness, +picturesqueness, and purity very much needed. Women have a power of +investing simple ordinary things with a charm; men are bungling +narrators compared with them. + +THE PARSON. The mistake they make is in trying to write, and +especially to "stump-speak," like men; next to an effeminate man +there is nothing so disagreeable as a mannish woman. + +HERBERT. I heard one once address a legislative committee. The +knowing air, the familiar, jocular, smart manner, the nodding and +winking innuendoes, supposed to be those of a man "up to snuff," and +au fait in political wiles, were inexpressibly comical. And yet the +exhibition was pathetic, for it had the suggestive vulgarity of a +woman in man's clothes. The imitation is always a dreary failure. + +THE MISTRESS. Such women are the rare exceptions. I am ready to +defend my sex; but I won't attempt to defend both sexes in one. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I have great hope that women will bring into the +newspaper an elevating influence; the common and sweet life of +society is much better fitted to entertain and instruct us than the +exceptional and extravagant. I confess (saving the Mistress's +presence) that the evening talk over the dessert at dinner is much +more entertaining and piquant than the morning paper, and often as +important. + +THE MISTRESS. I think the subject had better be changed. + +MANDEVILLE. The person, not the subject. There is no entertainment +so full of quiet pleasure as the hearing a lady of cultivation and +refinement relate her day's experience in her daily rounds of calls, +charitable visits, shopping, errands of relief and condolence. The +evening budget is better than the finance minister's. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. That's even so. My wife will pick up more news in +six hours than I can get in a week, and I'm fond of news. + +MANDEVILLE. I don't mean gossip, by any means, or scandal. A woman +of culture skims over that like a bird, never touching it with the +tip of a wing. What she brings home is the freshness and brightness +of life. She touches everything so daintily, she hits off a +character in a sentence, she gives the pith of a dialogue without +tediousness, she mimics without vulgarity; her narration sparkles, +but it does n't sting. The picture of her day is full of vivacity, +and it gives new value and freshness to common things. If we could +only have on the stage such actresses as we have in the drawing-room! + +THE FIRE-TENDER. We want something more of this grace, +sprightliness, and harmless play of the finer life of society in the +newspaper. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I wonder Mandeville does n't marry, and become a +permanent subscriber to his embodied idea of a newspaper. + +THE YOUNG LADY. Perhaps he does not relish the idea of being unable +to stop his subscription. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Parson, won't you please punch that fire, and give us +more blaze? we are getting into the darkness of socialism. + + + + +III + +Herbert returned to us in March. The Young Lady was spending the +winter with us, and March, in spite of the calendar, turned out to be +a winter month. It usually is in New England, and April too, for +that matter. And I cannot say it is unfortunate for us. There are +so many topics to be turned over and settled at our fireside that a +winter of ordinary length would make little impression on the list. +The fireside is, after all, a sort of private court of chancery, +where nothing ever does come to a final decision. The chief effect +of talk on any subject is to strengthen one's own opinions, and, in +fact, one never knows exactly what he does believe until he is warmed +into conviction by the heat of attack and defence. A man left to +himself drifts about like a boat on a calm lake; it is only when the +wind blows that the boat goes anywhere. + +Herbert said he had been dipping into the recent novels written by +women, here and there, with a view to noting the effect upon +literature of this sudden and rather overwhelming accession to it. +There was a good deal of talk about it evening after evening, off and +on, and I can only undertake to set down fragments of it. + +HERBERT. I should say that the distinguishing feature of the +literature of this day is the prominence women have in its +production. They figure in most of the magazines, though very rarely +in the scholarly and critical reviews, and in thousands of +newspapers; to them we are indebted for the oceans of Sunday-school +books, and they write the majority of the novels, the serial stories, +and they mainly pour out the watery flood of tales in the weekly +papers. Whether this is to result in more good than evil it is +impossible yet to say, and perhaps it would be unjust to say, until +this generation has worked off its froth, and women settle down to +artistic, conscien-tious labor in literature. + +THE MISTRESS. You don't mean to say that George Eliot, and Mrs. +Gaskell, and George Sand, and Mrs. Browning, before her marriage and +severe attack of spiritism, are less true to art than contemporary +men novelists and poets. + +HERBERT. You name some exceptions that show the bright side of the +picture, not only for the present, but for the future. Perhaps +genius has no sex; but ordinary talent has. I refer to the great +body of novels, which you would know by internal evidence were +written by women. They are of two sorts: the domestic story, +entirely unidealized, and as flavorless as water-gruel; and the +spiced novel, generally immoral in tendency, in which the social +problems are handled, unhappy marriages, affinity and passional +attraction, bigamy, and the violation of the seventh commandment. +These subjects are treated in the rawest manner, without any settled +ethics, with little discrimination of eternal right and wrong, and +with very little sense of responsibility for what is set forth. Many +of these novels are merely the blind outbursts of a nature impatient +of restraint and the conventionalities of society, and are as chaotic +as the untrained minds that produce them. + +MANDEVILLE. Don't you think these novels fairly represent a social +condition of unrest and upheaval? + +HERBERT. Very likely; and they help to create and spread abroad the +discontent they describe. Stories of bigamy (sometimes disguised by +divorce), of unhappy marriages, where the injured wife, through an +entire volume, is on the brink of falling into the arms of a sneaking +lover, until death kindly removes the obstacle, and the two souls, +who were born for each other, but got separated in the cradle, melt +and mingle into one in the last chapter, are not healthful reading +for maids or mothers. + +THE MISTRESS. Or men. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. The most disagreeable object to me in modern +literature is the man the women novelists have introduced as the +leading character; the women who come in contact with him seem to be +fascinated by his disdainful mien, his giant strength, and his brutal +manner. He is broad across the shoulders, heavily moulded, yet as +lithe as a cat; has an ugly scar across his right cheek; has been in +the four quarters of the globe; knows seventeen languages; had a +harem in Turkey and a Fayaway in the Marquesas; can be as polished as +Bayard in the drawing-room, but is as gloomy as Conrad in the +library; has a terrible eye and a withering glance, but can be +instantly subdued by a woman's hand, if it is not his wife's; and +through all his morose and vicious career has carried a heart as pure +as a violet. + +THE MISTRESS. Don't you think the Count of Monte Cristo is the elder +brother of Rochester? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. One is a mere hero of romance; the other is meant +for a real man. + +MANDEVILLE. I don't see that the men novel-writers are better than +the women. + +HERBERT. That's not the question; but what are women who write so +large a proportion of the current stories bringing into literature? +Aside from the question of morals, and the absolutely demoralizing +manner of treating social questions, most of their stories are vapid +and weak beyond expression, and are slovenly in composition, showing +neither study, training, nor mental discipline. + +THE MISTRESS. Considering that women have been shut out from the +training of the universities, and have few opportunities for the wide +observation that men enjoy, isn't it pretty well that the foremost +living writers of fiction are women? + +HERBERT. You can say that for the moment, since Thackeray and +Dickens have just died. But it does not affect the general estimate. +We are inundated with a flood of weak writing. Take the Sunday- +school literature, largely the product of women; it has n't as much +character as a dried apple pie. I don't know what we are coming to +if the presses keep on running. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. We are living, we are dwelling, in a grand and awful +time; I'm glad I don't write novels. + +THE PARSON. So am I. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I tried a Sunday-school book once; but I made the +good boy end in the poorhouse, and the bad boy go to Congress; and +the publisher said it wouldn't do, the public wouldn't stand that +sort of thing. Nobody but the good go to Congress. + +THE MISTRESS. Herbert, what do you think women are good for? + +OUR NEXT DOOR. That's a poser. + +HERBERT. Well, I think they are in a tentative state as to +literature, and we cannot yet tell what they will do. Some of our +most brilliant books of travel, correspondence, and writing on topics +in which their sympathies have warmly interested them, are by women. +Some of them are also strong writers in the daily journals. + +MANDEVILLE. I 'm not sure there's anything a woman cannot do as well +as a man, if she sets her heart on it. + +THE PARSON. That's because she's no conscience. + +CHORUS. O Parson! + +THE PARSON. Well, it does n't trouble her, if she wants to do +anything. She looks at the end, not the means. A woman, set on +anything, will walk right through the moral crockery without wincing. +She'd be a great deal more unscrupulous in politics than the average +man. Did you ever see a female lobbyist? Or a criminal? It is Lady +Macbeth who does not falter. Don't raise your hands at me! The +sweetest angel or the coolest devil is a woman. I see in some of the +modern novels we have been talking of the same unscrupulous daring, a +blindness to moral distinctions, a constant exaltation of a passion +into a virtue, an entire disregard of the immutable laws on which the +family and society rest. And you ask lawyers and trustees how +scrupulous women are in business transactions! + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Women are often ignorant of affairs, and, besides, +they may have a notion often that a woman ought to be privileged more +than a man in business matters; but I tell you, as a rule, that if +men would consult their wives, they would go a deal straighter in +business operations than they do go. + +THE PARSON. We are all poor sinners. But I've another indictment +against the women writers. We get no good old-fashioned love-stories +from them. It's either a quarrel of discordant natures one a +panther, and the other a polar bear--for courtship, until one of them +is crippled by a railway accident; or a long wrangle of married life +between two unpleasant people, who can neither live comfortably +together nor apart. I suppose, by what I see, that sweet wooing, +with all its torturing and delightful uncertainty, still goes on in +the world; and I have no doubt that the majority of married people +live more happily than the unmarried. But it's easier to find a dodo +than a new and good love-story. + +MANDEVILLE. I suppose the old style of plot is exhausted. +Everything in man and outside of him has been turned over so often +that I should think the novelists would cease simply from want of +material. + +THE PARSON. Plots are no more exhausted than men are. Every man is +a new creation, and combinations are simply endless. Even if we did +not have new material in the daily change of society, and there were +only a fixed number of incidents and characters in life, invention +could not be exhausted on them. I amuse myself sometimes with my +kaleidoscope, but I can never reproduce a figure. No, no. I cannot +say that you may not exhaust everything else: we may get all the +secrets of a nature into a book by and by, but the novel is immortal, +for it deals with men. + +The Parson's vehemence came very near carrying him into a sermon; and +as nobody has the privilege of replying to his sermons, so none of +the circle made any reply now. + +Our Next Door mumbled something about his hair standing on end, to +hear a minister defending the novel; but it did not interrupt the +general silence. Silence is unnoticed when people sit before a fire; +it would be intolerable if they sat and looked at each other. + +The wind had risen during the evening, and Mandeville remarked, as +they rose to go, that it had a spring sound in it, but it was as cold +as winter. The Mistress said she heard a bird that morning singing +in the sun a spring song, it was a winter bird, but it sang + + + + +SEVENTH STUDY + + +We have been much interested in what is called the Gothic revival. +We have spent I don't know how many evenings in looking over +Herbert's plans for a cottage, and have been amused with his vain +efforts to cover with Gothic roofs the vast number of large rooms +which the Young Lady draws in her sketch of a small house. + +I have no doubt that the Gothic, which is capable of infinite +modification, so that every house built in that style may be as +different from every other house as one tree is from every other, can +be adapted to our modern uses, and will be, when artists catch its +spirit instead of merely copying its old forms. But just now we are +taking the Gothic very literally, as we took the Greek at one time, +or as we should probably have taken the Saracenic, if the Moors had +not been colored. Not even the cholera is so contagious in this +country as a style of architecture which we happen to catch; the +country is just now broken out all over with the Mansard-roof +epidemic. + +And in secular architecture we do not study what is adapted to our +climate any more than in ecclesiastic architecture we adopt that +which is suited to our religion. + +We are building a great many costly churches here and there, we +Protestants, and as the most of them are ill adapted to our forms of +worship, it may be necessary and best for us to change our religion +in order to save our investments. I am aware that this would be a +grave step, and we should not hasten to throw overboard Luther and +the right of private judgment without reflection. And yet, if it is +necessary to revive the ecclesiastical Gothic architecture, not in +its spirit (that we nowhere do), but in the form which served another +age and another faith, and if, as it appears, we have already a great +deal of money invested in this reproduction, it may be more prudent +to go forward than to go back. The question is, "Cannot one easier +change his creed than his pew?" + +I occupy a seat in church which is an admirable one for reflection, +but I cannot see or hear much that is going on in what we like to +call the apse. There is a splendid stone pillar, a clustered column, +right in front of me, and I am as much protected from the minister as +Old Put's troops were from the British, behind the stone wall at +Bunker's Hill. I can hear his voice occasionally wandering round in +the arches overhead, and I recognize the tone, because he is a friend +of mine and an excellent man, but what he is saying I can very seldom +make out. If there was any incense burning, I could smell it, and +that would be something. I rather like the smell of incense, and it +has its holy associations. But there is no smell in our church, +except of bad air,--for there is no provision for ventilation in the +splendid and costly edifice. The reproduction of the old Gothic is +so complete that the builders even seem to have brought over the +ancient air from one of the churches of the Middle Ages,--you would +declare it had n't been changed in two centuries. + +I am expected to fix my attention during the service upon one man, +who stands in the centre of the apse and has a sounding-board behind +him in order to throw his voice out of the sacred semicircular space +(where the aitar used to stand, but now the sounding-board takes the +place of the altar) and scatter it over the congregation at large, +and send it echoing up in the groined roof I always like to hear a +minister who is unfamiliar with the house, and who has a loud voice, +try to fill the edifice. The more he roars and gives himself with +vehemence to the effort, the more the building roars in +indistinguishable noise and hubbub. By the time he has said (to +suppose a case), "The Lord is in his holy temple," and has passed on +to say, "let all the earth keep silence," the building is repeating +"The Lord is in his holy temple" from half a dozen different angles +and altitudes, rolling it and growling it, and is not keeping silence +at all. A man who understands it waits until the house has had its +say, and has digested one passage, before he launches another into +the vast, echoing spaces. I am expected, as I said, to fix my eye +and mind on the minister, the central point of the service. But the +pillar hides him. Now if there were several ministers in the church, +dressed in such gorgeous colors that I could see them at the distance +from the apse at which my limited income compels me to sit, and +candles were burning, and censers were swinging, and the platform was +full of the sacred bustle of a gorgeous ritual worship, and a bell +rang to tell me the holy moments, I should not mind the pillar at +all. I should sit there, like any other Goth, and enjoy it. But, as +I have said, the pastor is a friend of mine, and I like to look at +him on Sunday, and hear what he says, for he always says something +worth hearing. I am on such terms with him, indeed we all are, that +it would be pleasant to have the service of a little more social +nature, and more human. When we put him away off in the apse, and +set him up for a Goth, and then seat ourselves at a distance, +scattered about among the pillars, the whole thing seems to me a +trifle unnatural. Though I do not mean to say that the congregations +do not "enjoy their religion" in their splendid edifices which cost +so much money and are really so beautiful. + +A good many people have the idea, so it seems, that Gothic +architecture and Christianity are essentially one and the same thing. +Just as many regard it as an act of piety to work an altar cloth or +to cushion a pulpit. It may be, and it may not be. + +Our Gothic church is likely to prove to us a valuable religious +experience, bringing out many of the Christian virtues. It may have +had its origin in pride, but it is all being overruled for our good. +Of course I need n't explain that it is the thirteenth century +ecclesiastic Gothic that is epidemic in this country; and I think it +has attacked the Congregational and the other non-ritual churches +more violently than any others. We have had it here in its most +beautiful and dangerous forms. I believe we are pretty much all of +us supplied with a Gothic church now. Such has been the enthusiasm +in this devout direction, that I should not be surprised to see our +rich private citizens putting up Gothic churches for their individual +amusement and sanctification. As the day will probably come when +every man in Hartford will live in his own mammoth, five-story +granite insurance building, it may not be unreasonable to expect that +every man will sport his own Gothic church. It is beginning to be +discovered that the Gothic sort of church edifice is fatal to the +Congregational style of worship that has been prevalent here in New +England; but it will do nicely (as they say in Boston) for private +devotion. + +There isn't a finer or purer church than ours any where, inside and +outside Gothic to the last. The elevation of the nave gives it even +that "high-shouldered" appearance which seemed more than anything +else to impress Mr. Hawthorne in the cathedral at Amiens. I fancy +that for genuine high-shoulderness we are not exceeded by any church +in the city. Our chapel in the rear is as Gothic as the rest of it,- +-a beautiful little edifice. The committee forgot to make any more +provision for ventilating that than the church, and it takes a pretty +well-seasoned Christian to stay in it long at a time. The Sunday- +school is held there, and it is thought to be best to accustom the +children to bad air before they go into the church. The poor little +dears shouldn't have the wickedness and impurity of this world break +on them too suddenly. If the stranger noticed any lack about our +church, it would be that of a spire. There is a place for one; +indeed, it was begun, and then the builders seem to have stopped, +with the notion that it would grow itself from such a good root. It +is a mistake however, to suppose that we do not know that the church +has what the profane here call a "stump-tail" appearance. But the +profane are as ignorant of history as they are of true Gothic. All +the Old World cathedrals were the work of centuries. That at Milan +is scarcely finished yet; the unfinished spires of the Cologne +cathedral are one of the best-known features of it. I doubt if it +would be in the Gothic spirit to finish a church at once. We can +tell cavilers that we shall have a spire at the proper time, and not +a minute before. It may depend a little upon what the Baptists do, +who are to build near us. I, for one, think we had better wait and +see how high the Baptist spire is before we run ours up. The church +is everything that could be desired inside. There is the nave, with +its lofty and beautiful arched ceiling; there are the side aisles, +and two elegant rows of stone pillars, stained so as to be a perfect +imitation of stucco; there is the apse, with its stained glass and +exquisite lines; and there is an organ-loft over the front entrance, +with a rose window. Nothing was wanting, so far as we could see, +except that we should adapt ourselves to the circumstances; and that +we have been trying to do ever since. It may be well to relate how +we do it, for the benefit of other inchoate Goths. + +It was found that if we put up the organ in the loft, it would hide +the beautiful rose window. Besides, we wanted congregational sing- +ing, and if we hired a choir, and hung it up there under the roof, +like a cage of birds, we should not have congregational singing. We +therefore left the organ-loft vacant, making no further use of it +than to satisfy our Gothic cravings. As for choir,--several of the +singers of the church volunteered to sit together in the front +side-seats, and as there was no place for an organ, they gallantly +rallied round a melodeon,--or perhaps it is a cabinet organ,--a +charming instrument, and, as everybody knows, entirely in keeping +with the pillars, arches, and great spaces of a real Gothic edifice. +It is the union of simplicity with grandeur, for which we have all +been looking. I need not say to those who have ever heard a +melodeon, that there is nothing like it. It is rare, even in the +finest churches on the Continent. And we had congregational singing. +And it went very well indeed. One of the advantages of pure +congregational singing, is that you can join in the singing whether +you have a voice or not. The disadvantage is, that your neighbor can +do the same. It is strange what an uncommonly poor lot of voices +there is, even among good people. But we enjoy it. If you do not +enjoy it, you can change your seat until you get among a good lot. + +So far, everything went well. But it was next discovered that it was +difficult to hear the minister, who had a very handsome little desk +in the apse, somewhat distant from the bulk of the congregation; +still, we could most of us see him on a clear day. The church was +admirably built for echoes, and the centre of the house was very +favorable to them. When you sat in the centre of the house, it +sometimes seemed as if three or four ministers were speaking. + +It is usually so in cathedrals; the Right Reverend So-and-So is +assisted by the very Reverend Such-and-Such, and the good deal +Reverend Thus-and-Thus, and so on. But a good deal of the minister's +voice appeared to go up into the groined arches, and, as there was no +one up there, some of his best things were lost. We also had a +notion that some of it went into the cavernous organ-loft. It would +have been all right if there had been a choir there, for choirs +usually need more preaching, and pay less heed to it, than any other +part of the congregation. Well, we drew a sort of screen over the +organ-loft; but the result was not as marked as we had hoped. We +next devised a sounding-board,--a sort of mammoth clamshell, painted +white,--and erected it behind the minister. It had a good effect on +the minister. It kept him up straight to his work. So long as he +kept his head exactly in the focus, his voice went out and did not +return to him; but if he moved either way, he was assailed by a Babel +of clamoring echoes. There was no opportunity for him to splurge +about from side to side of the pulpit, as some do. And if he raised +his voice much, or attempted any extra flights, he was liable to be +drowned in a refluent sea of his own eloquence. And he could hear +the congregation as well as they could hear him. All the coughs, +whispers, noises, were gathered in the wooden tympanum behind him, +and poured into his ears. + +But the sounding-board was an improvement, and we advanced to bolder +measures; having heard a little, we wanted to hear more. Besides, +those who sat in front began to be discontented with the melodeon. +There are depths in music which the melodeon, even when it is called +a cabinet organ, with a colored boy at the bellows, cannot sound. +The melodeon was not, originally, designed for the Gothic worship. +We determined to have an organ, and we speculated whether, by +erecting it in the apse, we could not fill up that elegant portion of +the church, and compel the preacher's voice to leave it, and go out +over the pews. It would of course do something to efface the main +beauty of a Gothic church; but something must be done, and we began a +series of experiments to test the probable effects of putting the +organ and choir behind the minister. We moved the desk to the very +front of the platform, and erected behind it a high, square board +screen, like a section of tight fence round the fair-grounds. This +did help matters. The minister spoke with more ease, and we could +hear him better. If the screen had been intended to stay there, we +should have agitated the subject of painting it. But this was only +an experiment. + +Our next move was to shove the screen back and mount the volunteer +singers, melodeon and all, upon the platform,--some twenty of them +crowded together behind the minister. The effect was beautiful. It +seemed as if we had taken care to select the finest-looking people in +the congregation,--much to the injury of the congregation, of course, +as seen from the platform. There are few congregations that can +stand this sort of culling, though ours can endure it as well as any; +yet it devolves upon those of us who remain the responsibility of +looking as well as we can. + +The experiment was a success, so far as appearances went, but when +the screen went back, the minister's voice went back with it. We +could not hear him very well, though we could hear the choir as plain +as day. We have thought of remedying this last defect by putting the +high screen in front of the singers, and close to the minister, as it +was before. This would make the singers invisible,--"though lost to +sight, to memory dear,"--what is sometimes called an "angel choir," +when the singers (and the melodeon) are concealed, with the most +subdued and religious effect. It is often so in cathedrals. + +This plan would have another advantage. The singers on the platform, +all handsome and well dressed, distract our attention from the +minister, and what he is saying. We cannot help looking at them, +studying all the faces and all the dresses. If one of them sits up +very straight, he is a rebuke to us; if he "lops" over, we wonder why +he does n't sit up; if his hair is white, we wonder whether it is age +or family peculiarity; if he yawns, we want to yawn; if he takes up a +hymn-book, we wonder if he is uninterested in the sermon; we look at +the bonnets, and query if that is the latest spring style, or whether +we are to look for another; if he shaves close, we wonder why he +doesn't let his beard grow; if he has long whiskers, we wonder why he +does n't trim 'em; if she sighs, we feel sorry; if she smiles, we +would like to know what it is about. And, then, suppose any of the +singers should ever want to eat fennel, or peppermints, or Brown's +troches, and pass them round! Suppose the singers, more or less of +them, should sneeze! + +Suppose one or two of them, as the handsomest people sometimes will, +should go to sleep! In short, the singers there take away all our +attention from the minister, and would do so if they were the +homeliest people in the world. We must try something else. + +It is needless to explain that a Gothic religious life is not an idle +one. + + + + +EIGHTH STUDY + + +I + +Perhaps the clothes question is exhausted, philosophically. I cannot +but regret that the Poet of the Breakfast-Table, who appears to have +an uncontrollable penchant for saying the things you would like to +say yourself, has alluded to the anachronism of "Sir Coeur de Lion +Plantagenet in the mutton-chop whiskers and the plain gray suit." + +A great many scribblers have felt the disadvantage of writing after +Montaigne; and it is impossible to tell how much originality in +others Dr. Holmes has destroyed in this country. In whist there are +some men you always prefer to have on your left hand, and I take it +that this intuitive essayist, who is so alert to seize the few +remaining unappropriated ideas and analogies in the world, is one of +them. + +No doubt if the Plantagenets of this day were required to dress in a +suit of chain-armor and wear iron pots on their heads, they would be +as ridiculous as most tragedy actors on the stage. The pit which +recognizes Snooks in his tin breastplate and helmet laughs at him, +and Snooks himself feels like a sheep; and when the great tragedian +comes on, shining in mail, dragging a two-handed sword, and mouths +the grandiloquence which poets have put into the speech of heroes, +the dress-circle requires all its good-breeding and its feigned love +of the traditionary drama not to titter. + +If this sort of acting, which is supposed to have come down to us +from the Elizabethan age, and which culminated in the school of the +Keans, Kembles, and Siddonses, ever had any fidelity to life, it must +have been in a society as artificial as the prose of Sir Philip +Sidney. That anybody ever believed in it is difficult to think, +especially when we read what privileges the fine beaux and gallants +of the town took behind the scenes and on the stage in the golden +days of the drama. When a part of the audience sat on the stage, and +gentlemen lounged or reeled across it in the midst of a play, to +speak to acquaintances in the audience, the illusion could not have +been very strong. + +Now and then a genius, like Rachel as Horatia, or Hackett as +Falstaff, may actually seem to be the character assumed by virtue of +a transforming imagination, but I suppose the fact to be that getting +into a costume, absurdly antiquated and remote from all the habits +and associations of the actor, largely accounts for the incongruity +and ridiculousness of most of our modern acting. Whether what is +called the "legitimate drama" ever was legitimate we do not know, but +the advocates of it appear to think that the theatre was some time +cast in a mould, once for all, and is good for all times and peoples, +like the propositions of Euclid. To our eyes the legitimate drama of +to-day is the one in which the day is reflected, both in costume and +speech, and which touches the affections, the passions, the humor, of +the present time. The brilliant success of the few good plays that +have been written out of the rich life which we now live--the most +varied, fruitful, and dramatically suggestive--ought to rid us +forever of the buskin-fustian, except as a pantomimic or spectacular +curiosity. + +We have no objection to Julius Caesar or Richard III. stalking about +in impossible clothes, and stepping four feet at a stride, if they +want to, but let them not claim to be more "legitimate" than "Ours" +or "Rip Van Winkle." There will probably be some orator for years +and years to come, at every Fourth of July, who will go on asking, +Where is Thebes? but he does not care anything about it, and he does +not really expect an answer. I have sometimes wished I knew the +exact site of Thebes, so that I could rise in the audience, and stop +that question, at any rate. It is legitimate, but it is tiresome. + +If we went to the bottom of this subject, I think we should find that +the putting upon actors clothes to which they are unaccustomed makes +them act and talk artificially, and often in a manner intolerable. + +An actor who has not the habits or instincts of a gentleman cannot be +made to appear like one on the stage by dress; he only caricatures +and discredits what he tries to represent; and the unaccustomed +clothes and situation make him much more unnatural and insufferable +than he would otherwise be. Dressed appropriately for parts for +which he is fitted, he will act well enough, probably. What I mean +is, that the clothes inappropriate to the man make the incongruity of +him and his part more apparent. Vulgarity is never so conspicuous as +in fine apparel, on or off the stage, and never so self-conscious. +Shall we have, then, no refined characters on the stage? Yes; but +let them be taken by men and women of taste and refinement and let us +have done with this masquerading in false raiment, ancient and +modern, which makes nearly every stage a travesty of nature and the +whole theatre a painful pretension. We do not expect the modern +theatre to be a place of instruction (that business is now turned +over to the telegraphic operator, who is making a new language), but +it may give amusement instead of torture, and do a little in +satirizing folly and kindling love of home and country by the way. + +This is a sort of summary of what we all said, and no one in +particular is responsible for it; and in this it is like public +opinion. The Parson, however, whose only experience of the theatre +was the endurance of an oratorio once, was very cordial in his +denunciation of the stage altogether. + +MANDEVILLE. Yet, acting itself is delightful; nothing so entertains +us as mimicry, the personation of character. We enjoy it in private. +I confess that I am always pleased with the Parson in the character +of grumbler. He would be an immense success on the stage. I don't +know but the theatre will have to go back into the hands of the +priests, who once controlled it. + +THE PARSON. Scoffer! + +MANDEVILLE. I can imagine how enjoyable the stage might be, cleared +of all its traditionary nonsense, stilted language, stilted behavior, +all the rubbish of false sentiment, false dress, and the manners of +times that were both artificial and immoral, and filled with living +characters, who speak the thought of to-day, with the wit and culture +that are current to-day. I've seen private theatricals, where all +the performers were persons of cultivation, that.... + +OUR NEXT DOOR. So have I. For something particularly cheerful, +commend me to amateur theatricals. I have passed some melancholy +hours at them. + +MANDEVILLE. That's because the performers acted the worn stage +plays, and attempted to do them in the manner they had seen on the +stage. It is not always so. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I suppose Mandeville would say that acting has got +into a mannerism which is well described as stagey, and is supposed +to be natural to the stage; just as half the modern poets write in a +recognized form of literary manufacture, without the least impulse +from within, and not with the purpose of saying anything, but of +turning out a piece of literary work. That's the reason we have so +much poetry that impresses one like sets of faultless cabinet- +furniture made by machinery. + +THE PARSON. But you need n't talk of nature or naturalness in acting +or in anything. I tell you nature is poor stuff. It can't go alone. +Amateur acting--they get it up at church sociables nowadays--is apt +to be as near nature as a school-boy's declamation. Acting is the +Devil's art. + +THE MISTRESS. Do you object to such innocent amusement? + +MANDEVILLE. What the Parson objects to is, that he isn't amused. + +THE PARSON. What's the use of objecting? It's the fashion of the +day to amuse people into the kingdom of heaven. + +HERBERT. The Parson has got us off the track. My notion about the +stage is, that it keeps along pretty evenly with the rest of the +world; the stage is usually quite up to the level of the audience. +Assumed dress on the stage, since you were speaking of that, makes +people no more constrained and self-conscious than it does off the +stage. + +THE MISTRESS. What sarcasm is coming now? + +HERBERT. Well, you may laugh, but the world has n't got used to good +clothes yet. The majority do not wear them with ease. People who +only put on their best on rare and stated occasions step into an +artificial feeling. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I wonder if that's the reason the Parson finds it so +difficult to get hold of his congregation. + +HERBERT. I don't know how else to account for the formality and +vapidity of a set "party," where all the guests are clothed in a +manner to which they are unaccustomed, dressed into a condition of +vivid self-consciousness. The same people, who know each other +perfectly well, will enjoy themselves together without restraint in +their ordinary apparel. But nothing can be more artificial than the +behavior of people together who rarely "dress up." It seems +impossible to make the conversation as fine as the clothes, and so it +dies in a kind of inane helplessness. Especially is this true in the +country, where people have not obtained the mastery of their clothes +that those who live in the city have. It is really absurd, at this +stage of our civilization, that we should be so affected by such an +insignificant accident as dress. Perhaps Mandeville can tell us +whether this clothes panic prevails in the older societies. + +THE PARSON. Don't. We've heard it; about its being one of the +Englishman's thirty-nine articles that he never shall sit down to +dinner without a dress-coat, and all that. + +THE MISTRESS. I wish, for my part, that everybody who has time to +eat a dinner would dress for that, the principal event of the day, +and do respectful and leisurely justice to it. + +THE YOUNG LADY. It has always seemed singular to me that men who +work so hard to build elegant houses, and have good dinners, should +take so little leisure to enjoy either. + +MANDEVILLE. If the Parson will permit me, I should say that the +chief clothes question abroad just now is, how to get any; and it is +the same with the dinners. + + + + +II + +It is quite unnecessary to say that the talk about clothes ran into +the question of dress-reform, and ran out, of course. You cannot +converse on anything nowadays that you do not run into some reform. +The Parson says that everybody is intent on reforming everything but +himself. We are all trying to associate ourselves to make everybody +else behave as we do. Said-- + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Dress reform! As if people couldn't change their +clothes without concert of action. Resolved, that nobody should put +on a clean collar oftener than his neighbor does. I'm sick of every +sort of reform. I should like to retrograde awhile. Let a dyspeptic +ascertain that he can eat porridge three times a day and live, and +straightway he insists that everybody ought to eat porridge and +nothing else. I mean to get up a society every member of which shall +be pledged to do just as he pleases. + +THE PARSON. That would be the most radical reform of the day. That +would be independence. If people dressed according to their means, +acted according to their convictions, and avowed their opinions, it +would revolutionize society. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. I should like to walk into your church some Sunday +and see the changes under such conditions. + +THE PARSON. It might give you a novel sensation to walk in at any +time. And I'm not sure but the church would suit your retrograde +ideas. It's so Gothic that a Christian of the Middle Ages, if he +were alive, couldn't see or hear in it. + +HERBERT. I don't know whether these reformers who carry the world on +their shoulders in such serious fashion, especially the little fussy +fellows, who are themselves the standard of the regeneration they +seek, are more ludicrous than pathetic. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. Pathetic, by all means. But I don't know that they +would be pathetic if they were not ludicrous. There are those reform +singers who have been piping away so sweetly now for thirty years, +with never any diminution of cheerful, patient enthusiasm; their hair +growing longer and longer, their eyes brighter and brighter, and +their faces, I do believe, sweeter and sweeter; singing always with +the same constancy for the slave, for the drunkard, for the +snufftaker, for the suffragist,--"There'sa-good-time-com-ing-boys +(nothing offensive is intended by "boys," it is put in for euphony, +and sung pianissimo, not to offend the suffragists), it's- +almost-here." And what a brightening up of their faces there is when +they say, "it's-al-most-here," not doubting for a moment that "it's" +coming tomorrow; and the accompanying melodeon also wails its wheezy +suggestion that "it's-al-most-here," that "good-time" (delayed so +long, waiting perhaps for the invention of the melodeon) when we +shall all sing and all play that cheerful instrument, and all vote, +and none shall smoke, or drink, or eat meat, "boys." I declare it +almost makes me cry to hear them, so touching is their faith in the +midst of a jeer-ing world. + +HERBERT. I suspect that no one can be a genuine reformer and not be +ridiculous. I mean those who give themselves up to the unction of +the reform. + +THE MISTRESS. Does n't that depend upon whether the reform is large +or petty? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I should say rather that the reforms attracted to +them all the ridiculous people, who almost always manage to become +the most conspicuous. I suppose that nobody dare write out all that +was ludicrous in the great abolition movement. But it was not at all +comical to those most zealous in it; they never could see--more's the +pity, for thereby they lose much--the humorous side of their per- +formances, and that is why the pathos overcomes one's sense of the +absurdity of such people. + +THE YOUNG LADY. It is lucky for the world that so many are willing +to be absurd. + +HERBERT. Well, I think that, in the main, the reformers manage to +look out for themselves tolerably well. I knew once a lean and +faithful agent of a great philanthropic scheme, who contrived to +collect every year for the cause just enough to support him at a good +hotel comfortably. + +THE MISTRESS. That's identifying one's self with the cause. + +MANDEVILLE. You remember the great free-soil convention at Buffalo, +in 1848, when Van Buren was nominated. All the world of hope and +discontent went there, with its projects of reform. There seemed to +be no doubt, among hundreds that attended it, that if they could get +a resolution passed that bread should be buttered on both sides, it +would be so buttered. The platform provided for every want and every +woe. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I remember. If you could get the millennium by +political action, we should have had it then. + +MANDEVILLE. We went there on the Erie Canal, the exciting and +fashionable mode of travel in those days. I was a boy when we began +the voyage. The boat was full of conventionists; all the talk was of +what must be done there. I got the impression that as that boat-load +went so would go the convention; and I was not alone in that feeling. +I can never be grateful enough for one little scrubby fanatic who was +on board, who spent most of his time in drafting resolutions and +reading them privately to the passengers. He was a very +enthusiastic, nervous, and somewhat dirty little man, who wore a +woolen muffler about his throat, although it was summer; he had +nearly lost his voice, and could only speak in a hoarse, disagreeable +whisper, and he always carried a teacup about, containing some sticky +compound which he stirred frequently with a spoon, and took, whenever +he talked, in order to improve his voice. If he was separated from +his cup for ten minutes, his whisper became inaudible. I greatly +delighted in him, for I never saw any one who had so much enjoyment +of his own importance. He was fond of telling what he would do if +the conven-tion rejected such and such resolutions. He'd make it hot +for them. I did n't know but he'd make them take his mixture. The +convention had got to take a stand on tobacco, for one thing. He'd +heard Gid-dings took snuff; he'd see. When we at length reached +Buffalo he took his teacup and carpet-bag of resolutions and went +ashore in a great hurry. I saw him once again in a cheap restaurant, +whispering a resolution to another delegate, but he did n't appear in +the con-vention. I have often wondered what became of him. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Probably he's consul somewhere. They mostly are. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. After all, it's the easiest thing in the world to +sit and sneer at eccentricities. But what a dead and uninteresting +world it would be if we were all proper, and kept within the lines! +Affairs would soon be reduced to mere machinery. There are moments, +even days, when all interests and movements appear to be settled upon +some universal plan of equilibrium; but just then some restless and +absurd person is inspired to throw the machine out of gear. These +individual eccentricities seem to be the special providences in the +general human scheme. + +HERBERT. They make it very hard work for the rest of us, who are +disposed to go along peaceably and smoothly. + +MANDEVILLE. And stagnate. I 'm not sure but the natural condition +of this planet is war, and that when it is finally towed to its +anchorage--if the universe has any harbor for worlds out of +commission--it will look like the Fighting Temeraire in Turner's +picture. + +HERBERT. There is another thing I should like to understand: the +tendency of people who take up one reform, perhaps a personal +regeneration in regard to some bad habit, to run into a dozen other +isms, and get all at sea in several vague and pernicious theories and +practices. + +MANDEVILLE. Herbert seems to think there is safety in a man's being +anchored, even if it is to a bad habit. + +HERBERT. Thank you. But what is it in human nature that is apt to +carry a man who may take a step in personal reform into so many +extremes? + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Probably it's human nature. + +HERBERT. Why, for instance, should a reformed drunkard (one of the +noblest examples of victory over self) incline, as I have known the +reformed to do, to spiritism, or a woman suffragist to "pantarchism" +(whatever that is), and want to pull up all the roots of society, and +expect them to grow in the air, like orchids; or a Graham-bread +disciple become enamored of Communism? + +MANDEVILLE. I know an excellent Conservative who would, I think, +suit you; he says that he does not see how a man who indulges in the +theory and practice of total abstinence can be a consistent believer +in the Christian religion. + +HERBERT. Well, I can understand what he means: that a person is +bound to hold himself in conditions of moderation and control, using +and not abusing the things of this world, practicing temperance, not +retiring into a convent of artificial restrictions in order to escape +the full responsibility of self-control. And yet his theory would +certainly wreck most men and women. What does the Parson say? + +THE PARSON. That the world is going crazy on the notion of individual +ability. Whenever a man attempts to reform himself, or anybody else, +without the aid of the Christian religion, he is sure to go adrift, +and is pretty certain to be blown about by absurd theories, and +shipwrecked on some pernicious ism. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I think the discussion has touched bottom. + + + + +III + +I never felt so much the value of a house with a backlog in it as +during the late spring; for its lateness was its main feature. +Everybody was grumbling about it, as if it were something ordered +from the tailor, and not ready on the day. Day after day it snowed, +night after night it blew a gale from the northwest; the frost sunk +deeper and deeper into the ground; there was a popular longing for +spring that was almost a prayer; the weather bureau was active; +Easter was set a week earlier than the year before, but nothing +seemed to do any good. The robins sat under the evergreens, and +piped in a disconsolate mood, and at last the bluejays came and +scolded in the midst of the snow-storm, as they always do scold in +any weather. The crocuses could n't be coaxed to come up, even with +a pickaxe. I'm almost ashamed now to recall what we said of the +weather only I think that people are no more accountable for what +they say of the weather than for their remarks when their corns are +stepped on. + +We agreed, however, that, but for disappointed expectations and the +prospect of late lettuce and peas, we were gaining by the fire as +much as we were losing by the frost. And the Mistress fell to +chanting the comforts of modern civilization. + +THE FIRE-TENDER said he should like to know, by the way, if our +civilization differed essentially from any other in anything but its +comforts. + +HERBERT. We are no nearer religious unity. + +THE PARSON. We have as much war as ever. + +MANDEVILLE. There was never such a social turmoil. + +THE YOUNG LADY. The artistic part of our nature does not appear to +have grown. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. We are quarreling as to whether we are in fact +radically different from the brutes. + +HERBERT. Scarcely two people think alike about the proper kind of +human government. + +THE PARSON. Our poetry is made out of words, for the most part, and +not drawn from the living sources. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. And Mr. Cumming is uncorking his seventh phial. I +never felt before what barbarians we are. + +THE MISTRESS. Yet you won't deny that the life of the average man is +safer and every way more comfortable than it was even a century ago. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. But what I want to know is, whether what we call +our civilization has done any thing more for mankind at large than to +increase the ease and pleasure of living? Science has multiplied +wealth, and facilitated intercourse, and the result is refinement of +manners and a diffusion of education and information. Are men and +women essentially changed, however? I suppose the Parson would say +we have lost faith, for one thing. + +MANDEVILLE. And superstition; and gained toleration. + +HERBERT. The question is, whether toleration is anything but +indifference. + +THE PARSON. Everything is tolerated now but Christian orthodoxy. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. It's easy enough to make a brilliant catalogue of +external achievements, but I take it that real progress ought to be +in man himself. It is not a question of what a man enjoys, but what +he can produce. The best sculpture was executed two thousand years +ago. The best paintings are several centuries old. We study the +finest architecture in its ruins. The standards of poetry are +Shakespeare, Homer, Isaiah, and David. The latest of the arts, +music, culminated in composition, though not in execution, a century +ago. + +THE MISTRESS. Yet culture in music certainly distinguishes the +civilization of this age. It has taken eighteen hundred years for +the principles of the Christian religion to begin to be practically +incorporated in government and in ordinary business, and it will take +a long time for Beethoven to be popularly recognized; but there is +growth toward him, and not away from him, and when the average +culture has reached his height, some other genius will still more +profoundly and delicately express the highest thoughts. + +HERBERT. I wish I could believe it. The spirit of this age is +expressed by the Calliope. + +THE PARSON. Yes, it remained for us to add church-bells and cannon +to the orchestra. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. It's a melancholy thought to me that we can no longer +express ourselves with the bass-drum; there used to be the whole of +the Fourth of July in its patriotic throbs. + +MANDEVILLE. We certainly have made great progress in one art,--that +of war. + +THE YOUNG LADY. And in the humane alleviations of the miseries of +war. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. The most discouraging symptom to me in our +undoubted advance in the comforts and refinements of society is the +facility with which men slip back into barbarism, if the artificial +and external accidents of their lives are changed. We have always +kept a fringe of barbarism on our shifting western frontier; and I +think there never was a worse society than that in California and +Nevada in their early days. + +THE YOUNG LADY. That is because women were absent. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. But women are not absent in London and New York, +and they are conspicuous in the most exceptionable demonstrations of +social anarchy. Certainly they were not wanting in Paris. Yes, +there was a city widely accepted as the summit of our material +civilization. No city was so beautiful, so luxurious, so safe, so +well ordered for the comfort of living, and yet it needed only a +month or two to make it a kind of pandemonium of savagery. Its +citizens were the barbarians who destroyed its own monuments of +civilization. I don't mean to say that there was no apology for what +was done there in the deceit and fraud that preceded it, but I simply +notice how ready the tiger was to appear, and how little restraint +all the material civilization was to the beast. + +THE MISTRESS. I can't deny your instances, and yet I somehow feel +that pretty much all you have been saying is in effect untrue. Not +one of you would be willing to change our civilization for any other. +In your estimate you take no account, it seems to me, of the growth +of charity. + +MANDEVILLE. And you might add a recognition of the value of human +life. + +THE MISTRESS. I don't believe there was ever before diffused +everywhere such an element of good-will, and never before were women +so much engaged in philanthropic work. + +THE PARSON. It must be confessed that one of the best signs of the +times is woman's charity for woman. That certainly never existed to +the same extent in any other civilization. + +MANDEVILLE. And there is another thing that distinguishes us, or is +beginning to. That is, the notion that you can do something more +with a criminal than punish him; and that society has not done its +duty when it has built a sufficient number of schools for one class, +or of decent jails for another. + +HERBERT. It will be a long time before we get decent jails. + +MANDEVILLE. But when we do they will begin to be places of education +and training as much as of punishment and disgrace. The public will +provide teachers in the prisons as it now does in the common schools. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. The imperfections of our methods and means of +selecting those in the community who ought to be in prison are so +great, that extra care in dealing with them becomes us. We are +beginning to learn that we cannot draw arbitrary lines with infal- +lible justice. Perhaps half those who are convicted of crimes are as +capable of reformation as half those transgressors who are not +convicted, or who keep inside the statutory law. + +HERBERT. Would you remove the odium of prison? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. No; but I would have criminals believe, and society +believe, that in going to prison a man or woman does not pass an +absolute line and go into a fixed state. + +THE PARSON. That is, you would not have judgment and retribution +begin in this world. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Don't switch us off into theology. I hate to go up +in a balloon, or see any one else go. + +HERBERT. Don't you think there is too much leniency toward crime and +criminals, taking the place of justice, in these days? + +THE FIRE-TENDER. There may be too much disposition to condone the +crimes of those who have been considered respectable. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. That is, scarcely anybody wants to see his friend +hung. + +MANDEVILLE. I think a large part of the bitterness of the condemned +arises from a sense of the inequality with which justice is +administered. I am surprised, in visiting jails, to find so few +respectable-looking convicts. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. Nobody will go to jail nowadays who thinks anything +of himself. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. When society seriously takes hold of the +reformation of criminals (say with as much determination as it does +to carry an election) this false leniency will disappear; for it +partly springs from a feeling that punishment is unequal, and does +not discriminate enough in individuals, and that society itself has +no right to turn a man over to the Devil, simply because he shows a +strong leaning that way. A part of the scheme of those who work for +the reformation of criminals is to render punishment more certain, +and to let its extent depend upon reformation. There is no reason +why a professional criminal, who won't change his trade for an honest +one, should have intervals of freedom in his prison life in which he +is let loose to prey upon society. Criminals ought to be discharged, +like insane patients, when they are cured. + +OUR NEXT DOOR. It's a wonder to me, what with our multitudes of +statutes and hosts of detectives, that we are any of us out of jail. +I never come away from a visit to a State-prison without a new spasm +of fear and virtue. The faculties for getting into jail seem to be +ample. We want more organizations for keeping people out. + +MANDEVILLE. That is the sort of enterprise the women are engaged in, +the frustration of the criminal tendencies of those born in vice. I +believe women have it in their power to regenerate the world morally. + +THE PARSON. It's time they began to undo the mischief of their +mother. + +THE MISTRESS. The reason they have not made more progress is that +they have usually confined their individual efforts to one man; they +are now organizing for a general campaign. + +THE FIRE-TENDER. I'm not sure but here is where the ameliorations of +the conditions of life, which are called the comforts of this +civilization, come in, after all, and distinguish the age above all +others. They have enabled the finer powers of women to have play as +they could not in a ruder age. I should like to live a hundred years +and see what they will do. + +HERBERT. Not much but change the fashions, unless they submit them- +selves to the same training and discipline that men do. + +I have no doubt that Herbert had to apologize for this remark +afterwards in private, as men are quite willing to do in particular +cases; it is only in general they are unjust. The talk drifted off +into general and particular depreciation of other times. Mandeville +described a picture, in which he appeared to have confidence, of a +fight between an Iguanodon and a Megalosaurus, where these huge +iron-clad brutes were represented chewing up different portions of +each other's bodies in a forest of the lower cretaceous period. So +far as he could learn, that sort of thing went on unchecked for +hundreds of thousands of years, and was typical of the intercourse of +the races of man till a comparatively recent period. There was also +that gigantic swan, the Plesiosaurus; in fact, all the early brutes +were disgusting. He delighted to think that even the lower animals +had improved, both in appearance and disposition. + +The conversation ended, therefore, in a very amicable manner, having +been taken to a ground that nobody knew anything about. + + + + +NINTH STUDY + + +I + +Can you have a backlog in July? That depends upon circumstances. + +In northern New England it is considered a sign of summer when the +housewives fill the fireplaces with branches of mountain laurel, and, +later, with the feathery stalks of the asparagus. This is often, +too, the timid expression of a tender feeling, under Puritanic +repression, which has not sufficient vent in the sweet-william and +hollyhock at the front door. This is a yearning after beauty and +ornamentation which has no other means of gratifying itself + +In the most rigid circumstances, the graceful nature of woman thus +discloses itself in these mute expressions of an undeveloped taste. +You may never doubt what the common flowers growing along the pathway +to the front door mean to the maiden of many summers who tends them; +--love and religion, and the weariness of an uneventful life. The +sacredness of the Sabbath, the hidden memory of an unrevealed and +unrequited affection, the slow years of gathering and wasting +sweetness, are in the smell of the pink and the sweet-clover. These +sentimental plants breathe something of the longing of the maiden who +sits in the Sunday evenings of summer on the lonesome front +doorstone, singing the hymns of the saints, and perennial as the +myrtle that grows thereby. + +Yet not always in summer, even with the aid of unrequited love and +devotional feeling, is it safe to let the fire go out on the hearth, +in our latitude. I remember when the last almost total eclipse of +the sun happened in August, what a bone-piercing chill came over the +world. Perhaps the imagination had something to do with causing the +chill from that temporary hiding of the sun to feel so much more +penetrating than that from the coming on of night, which shortly +followed. It was impossible not to experience a shudder as of the +approach of the Judgment Day, when the shadows were flung upon the +green lawn, and we all stood in the wan light, looking unfamiliar to +each other. The birds in the trees felt the spell. We could in +fancy see those spectral camp-fires which men would build on the +earth, if the sun should slow its fires down to about the brilliancy +of the moon. It was a great relief to all of us to go into the +house, and, before a blazing wood-fire, talk of the end of the world. + +In New England it is scarcely ever safe to let the fire go out; it is +best to bank it, for it needs but the turn of a weather-vane at any +hour to sweep the + +Atlantic rains over us, or to bring down the chill of Hudson's Bay. +There are days when the steam ship on the Atlantic glides calmly +along under a full canvas, but its central fires must always be ready +to make steam against head-winds and antagonistic waves. Even in our +most smiling summer days one needs to have the materials of a +cheerful fire at hand. It is only by this readiness for a change +that one can preserve an equal mind. We are made provident and +sagacious by the fickleness of our climate. We should be another +sort of people if we could have that serene, unclouded trust in +nature which the Egyptian has. The gravity and repose of the Eastern +peoples is due to the unchanging aspect of the sky, and the +deliberation and reg-ularity of the great climatic processes. Our +literature, politics, religion, show the effect of unsettled weather. +But they compare favorably with the Egyptian, for all that. + + + + +II + +You cannot know, the Young Lady wrote, with what longing I look back +to those winter days by the fire; though all the windows are open to +this May morning, and the brown thrush is singing in the chestnut- +tree, and I see everywhere that first delicate flush of spring, which +seems too evanescent to be color even, and amounts to little more +than a suffusion of the atmosphere. I doubt, indeed, if the spring +is exactly what it used to be, or if, as we get on in years [no one +ever speaks of "getting on in years" till she is virtually settled in +life], its promises and suggestions do not seem empty in comparison +with the sympathies and responses of human friendship, and the +stimulation of society. Sometimes nothing is so tiresome as a +perfect day in a perfect season. + +I only imperfectly understand this. The Parson says that woman is +always most restless under the most favorable conditions, and that +there is no state in which she is really happy except that of change. +I suppose this is the truth taught in what has been called the "Myth +of the Garden." Woman is perpetual revolution, and is that element +in the world which continually destroys and re-creates. She is the +experimenter and the suggester of new combinations. She has no +belief in any law of eternal fitness of things. She is never even +content with any arrangement of her own house. The only reason the +Mistress could give, when she rearranged her apartment, for hanging a +picture in what seemed the most inappropriate place, was that it had +never been there before. Woman has no respect for tradition, and +because a thing is as it is is sufficient reason for changing it. +When she gets into law, as she has come into literature, we shall +gain something in the destruction of all our vast and musty libraries +of precedents, which now fetter our administration of individual +justice. It is Mandeville's opinion that women are not so +sentimental as men, and are not so easily touched with the unspoken +poetry of nature; being less poetical, and having less imagination, +they are more fitted for practical affairs, and would make less +failures in business. I have noticed the almost selfish passion for +their flowers which old gardeners have, and their reluctance to part +with a leaf or a blossom from their family. They love the flowers +for themselves. A woman raises flowers for their use. She is +destruct-ion in a conservatory. She wants the flowers for her lover, +for the sick, for the poor, for the Lord on Easter day, for the +ornamentation of her house. She delights in the costly pleasure of +sacrificing them. She never sees a flower but she has an intense but +probably sinless desire to pick it. + +It has been so from the first, though from the first she has been +thwarted by the accidental superior strength of man. Whatever she +has obtained has been by craft, and by the same coaxing which the sun +uses to draw the blossoms out of the apple-trees. I am not surprised +to learn that she has become tired of indulgences, and wants some of +the original rights. We are just beginning to find out the extent to +which she has been denied and subjected, and especially her condition +among the primitive and barbarous races. I have never seen it in a +platform of grievances, but it is true that among the Fijians she is +not, unless a better civilization has wrought a change in her behalf, +permitted to eat people, even her own sex, at the feasts of the men; +the dainty enjoyed by the men being considered too good to be wasted +on women. Is anything wanting to this picture of the degradation of +woman? By a refinement of cruelty she receives no benefit whatever +from the missionaries who are sent out by--what to her must seem a +new name for Tantalus--the American Board. + +I suppose the Young Lady expressed a nearly universal feeling in her +regret at the breaking up of the winter-fireside company. Society +needs a certain seclusion and the sense of security. Spring opens +the doors and the windows, and the noise and unrest of the world are +let in. Even a winter thaw begets a desire to travel, and summer +brings longings innumerable, and disturbs the most tranquil souls. +Nature is, in fact, a suggester of uneasiness, a promoter of +pilgrimages and of excursions of the fancy which never come to any +satisfactory haven. The summer in these latitudes is a campaign of +sentiment and a season, for the most part, of restlessness and +discontent. We grow now in hot-houses roses which, in form and +color, are magnificent, and appear to be full of passion; yet one +simple June rose of the open air has for the Young Lady, I doubt not, +more sentiment and suggestion of love than a conservatory full of +them in January. And this suggestion, leavened as it is with the +inconstancy of nature, stimulated by the promises which are so often +like the peach-blossom of the Judas-tree, unsatisfying by reason of +its vague possibilities, differs so essentially from the more limited +and attainable and home-like emotion born of quiet intercourse by the +winter fireside, that I do not wonder the Young Lady feels as if some +spell had been broken by the transition of her life from in-doors to +out-doors. Her secret, if secret she has, which I do not at all +know, is shared by the birds and the new leaves and the blossoms on +the fruit trees. If we lived elsewhere, in that zone where the poets +pretend always to dwell, we might be content, perhaps I should say +drugged, by the sweet influences of an unchanging summer; but not +living elsewhere, we can understand why the Young Lady probably now +looks forward to the hearthstone as the most assured center of +enduring attachment. + +If it should ever become the sad duty of this biographer to write of +disappointed love, I am sure he would not have any sensational story +to tell of the Young Lady. She is one of those women whose +unostentatious lives are the chief blessing of humanity; who, with a +sigh heard only by herself and no change in her sunny face, would put +behind her all the memories of winter evenings and the promises of +May mornings, and give her life to some ministration of human +kindness with an assiduity that would make her occupation appear like +an election and a first choice. The disappointed man scowls, and +hates his race, and threatens self-destruction, choosing oftener the +flowing bowl than the dagger, and becoming a reeling nuisance in the +world. It would be much more manly in him to become the secretary of +a Dorcas society. + +I suppose it is true that women work for others with less expectation +of reward than men, and give themselves to labors of self-sacrifice +with much less thought of self. At least, this is true unless woman +goes into some public performance, where notoriety has its +attractions, and mounts some cause, to ride it man-fashion, when I +think she becomes just as eager for applause and just as willing that +self-sacrifice should result in self-elevation as man. For her, +usually, are not those unbought--presentations which are forced upon +firemen, philanthropists, legislators, railroad-men, and the +superintendents of the moral instruction of the young. These are +almost always pleasing and unexpected tributes to worth and modesty, +and must be received with satisfaction when the public service +rendered has not been with a view to procuring them. We should say +that one ought to be most liable to receive a "testimonial" who, +being a superintendent of any sort, did not superintend with a view +to getting it. But "testimonials" have become so common that a +modest man ought really to be afraid to do his simple duty, for fear +his motives will be misconstrued. Yet there are instances of very +worthy men who have had things publicly presented to them. It is the +blessed age of gifts and the reward of private virtue. And the +presentations have become so frequent that we wish there were a +little more variety in them. There never was much sense in giving a +gallant fellow a big speaking-trumpet to carry home to aid him in his +intercourse with his family; and the festive ice-pitcher has become a +too universal sign of absolute devotion to the public interest. The +lack of one will soon be proof that a man is a knave. The +legislative cane with the gold head, also, is getting to be +recognized as the sign of the immaculate public servant, as the +inscription on it testifies, and the steps of suspicion must ere-long +dog him who does not carry one. The "testimonial" business is, in +truth, a little demoralizing, almost as much so as the "donation;" +and the demoralization has extended even to our language, so that a +perfectly respectable man is often obliged to see himself "made the +recipient of" this and that. It would be much better, if +testimonials must be, to give a man a barrel of flour or a keg of +oysters, and let him eat himself at once back into the ranks of +ordinary men. + + + + +III + +We may have a testimonial class in time, a sort of nobility here in +America, made so by popular gift, the members of which will all be +able to show some stick or piece of plated ware or massive chain, "of +which they have been the recipients." In time it may be a +distinction not to belong to it, and it may come to be thought more +blessed to give than to receive. For it must have been remarked that +it is not always to the cleverest and the most amiable and modest man +that the deputation comes with the inevitable ice-pitcher (and +"salver to match"), which has in it the magic and subtle quality of +making the hour in which it is received the proudest of one's life. +There has not been discovered any method of rewarding all the +deserving people and bringing their virtues into the prominence of +notoriety. And, indeed, it would be an unreasonable world if there +had, for its chief charm and sweetness lie in the excellences in it +which are reluctantly disclosed; one of the chief pleasures of living +is in the daily discovery of good traits, nobilities, and kindliness +both in those we have long known and in the chance passenger whose +way happens for a day to lie with ours. The longer I live the more I +am impressed with the excess of human kindness over human hatred, and +the greater willingness to oblige than to disoblige that one meets at +every turn. The selfishness in politics, the jealousy in letters, +the bickering in art, the bitterness in theology, are all as nothing +compared to the sweet charities, sacrifices, and deferences of +private life. The people are few whom to know intimately is to +dislike. Of course you want to hate somebody, if you can, just to +keep your powers of discrimination bright, and to save yourself from +becoming a mere mush of good-nature; but perhaps it is well to hate +some historical person who has been dead so long as to be indifferent +to it. It is more comfortable to hate people we have never seen. I +cannot but think that Judas Iscariot has been of great service to the +world as a sort of buffer for moral indignation which might have made +a collision nearer home but for his utilized treachery. I used to +know a venerable and most amiable gentleman and scholar, whose +hospitable house was always overrun with wayside ministers, agents, +and philanthropists, who loved their fellow-men better than they +loved to work for their living; and he, I suspect, kept his moral +balance even by indulgence in violent but most distant dislikes. +When I met him casually in the street, his first salutation was +likely to be such as this: "What a liar that Alison was! Don't you +hate him?" And then would follow specifications of historical +inveracity enough to make one's blood run cold. When he was thus +discharged of his hatred by such a conductor, I presume he had not a +spark left for those whose mission was partly to live upon him and +other generous souls. + +Mandeville and I were talking of the unknown people, one rainy night +by the fire, while the Mistress was fitfully and interjectionally +playing with the piano-keys in an improvising mood. Mandeville has a +good deal of sentiment about him, and without any effort talks so +beautifully sometimes that I constantly regret I cannot report his +language. He has, besides, that sympathy of presence--I believe it +is called magnetism by those who regard the brain as only a sort of +galvanic battery--which makes it a greater pleasure to see him think, +if I may say so, than to hear some people talk. + +It makes one homesick in this world to think that there are so many +rare people he can never know; and so many excellent people that +scarcely any one will know, in fact. One discovers a friend by +chance, and cannot but feel regret that twenty or thirty years of +life maybe have been spent without the least knowledge of him. When +he is once known, through him opening is made into another little +world, into a circle of culture and loving hearts and enthusiasm in a +dozen congenial pursuits, and prejudices perhaps. How instantly and +easily the bachelor doubles his world when he marries, and enters +into the unknown fellowship of the to him continually increasing +company which is known in popular language as "all his wife's +relations." + +Near at hand daily, no doubt, are those worth knowing intimately, if +one had the time and the opportunity. And when one travels he sees +what a vast material there is for society and friendship, of which he +can never avail himself. Car-load after car-load of summer travel +goes by one at any railway-station, out of which he is sure he could +choose a score of life-long friends, if the conductor would introduce +him. There are faces of refinement, of quick wit, of sympathetic +kindness,--interesting people, traveled people, entertaining people, +--as you would say in Boston, "nice people you would admire to know," +whom you constantly meet and pass without a sign of recognition, many +of whom are no doubt your long-lost brothers and sisters. You can +see that they also have their worlds and their interests, and they +probably know a great many "nice" people. The matter of personal +liking and attachment is a good deal due to the mere fortune of +association. More fast friendships and pleasant acquaintanceships +are formed on the Atlantic steamships between those who would have +been only indifferent acquaintances elsewhere, than one would think +possible on a voyage which naturally makes one as selfish as he is +indifferent to his personal appearance. The Atlantic is the only +power on earth I know that can make a woman indifferent to her +personal appearance. + +Mandeville remembers, and I think without detriment to himself, the +glimpses he had in the White Mountains once of a young lady of whom +his utmost efforts could give him no further information than her +name. Chance sight of her on a passing stage or amid a group on some +mountain lookout was all he ever had, and he did not even know +certainly whether she was the perfect beauty and the lovely character +he thought her. He said he would have known her, however, at a great +distance; there was to her form that command of which we hear so much +and which turns out to be nearly all command after the "ceremony;" or +perhaps it was something in the glance of her eye or the turn of her +head, or very likely it was a sweet inherited reserve or hauteur that +captivated him, that filled his days with the expectation of seeing +her, and made him hasten to the hotel-registers in the hope that her +name was there recorded. Whatever it was, she interested him as one +of the people he would like to know; and it piqued him that there was +a life, rich in friendships, no doubt, in tastes, in many +noblenesses, one of thousands of such, that must be absolutely +nothing to him,--nothing but a window into heaven momentarily opened +and then closed. I have myself no idea that she was a countess +incognito, or that she had descended from any greater heights than +those where Mandeville saw her, but I have always regretted that she +went her way so mysteriously and left no glow, and that we shall wear +out the remainder of our days without her society. I have looked for +her name, but always in vain, among the attendants at the rights- +conventions, in the list of those good Americans presented at court, +among those skeleton names that appear as the remains of beauty in +the morning journals after a ball to the wandering prince, in the +reports of railway collisions and steamboat explosions. No news +comes of her. And so imperfect are our means of communication in +this world that, for anything we know, she may have left it long ago +by some private way. + + + + +IV + +The lasting regret that we cannot know more of the bright, sincere, +and genuine people of the world is increased by the fact that they +are all different from each other. Was it not Madame de Sevigne who +said she had loved several different women for several different +qualities? Every real person--for there are persons as there are +fruits that have no distinguishing flavor, mere gooseberries--has a +distinct quality, and the finding it is always like the discovery of +a new island to the voyager. The physical world we shall exhaust +some day, having a written description of every foot of it to which +we can turn; but we shall never get the different qualities of people +into a biographical dictionary, and the making acquaintance with a +human being will never cease to be an exciting experiment. We cannot +even classify men so as to aid us much in our estimate of them. The +efforts in this direction are ingenious, but unsatisfactory. If I +hear that a man is lymphatic or nervous-sanguine, I cannot tell +therefrom whether I shall like and trust him. He may produce a +phrenological chart showing that his knobby head is the home of all +the virtues, and that the vicious tendencies are represented by holes +in his cranium, and yet I cannot be sure that he will not be as +disagreeable as if phrenology had not been invented. I feel +sometimes that phrenology is the refuge of mediocrity. Its charts +are almost as misleading concerning character as photographs. And +photography may be described as the art which enables commonplace +mediocrity to look like genius. The heavy-jowled man with shallow +cerebrum has only to incline his head so that the lying instrument +can select a favorable focus, to appear in the picture with the brow +of a sage and the chin of a poet. Of all the arts for ministering to +human vanity the photographic is the most useful, but it is a poor +aid in the revelation of character. You shall learn more of a man's +real nature by seeing him walk once up the broad aisle of his church +to his pew on Sunday, than by studying his photograph for a month. + +No, we do not get any certain standard of men by a chart of their +temperaments; it will hardly answer to select a wife by the color of +her hair; though it be by nature as red as a cardinal's hat, she may +be no more constant than if it were dyed. The farmer who shuns all +the lymphatic beauties in his neighborhood, and selects to wife the +most nervous-sanguine, may find that she is unwilling to get up in +the winter mornings and make the kitchen fire. Many a man, even in +this scientific age which professes to label us all, has been cruelly +deceived in this way. Neither the blondes nor the brunettes act +according to the advertisement of their temperaments. The truth is +that men refuse to come under the classifications of the pseudo- +scientists, and all our new nomenclatures do not add much to our +knowledge. You know what to expect--if the comparison will be +pardoned--of a horse with certain points; but you wouldn't dare go on +a journey with a man merely upon the strength of knowing that his +temperament was the proper mixture of the sanguine and the +phlegmatic. Science is not able to teach us concerning men as it +teaches us of horses, though I am very far from saying that there are +not traits of nobleness and of meanness that run through families and +can be calculated to appear in individuals with absolute certainty; +one family will be trusty and another tricky through all its members +for generations; noble strains and ignoble strains are perpetuated. +When we hear that she has eloped with the stable-boy and married him, +we are apt to remark, "Well, she was a Bogardus." And when we read +that she has gone on a mission and has died, distinguishing herself +by some extraordinary devotion to the heathen at Ujiji, we think it +sufficient to say, "Yes, her mother married into the Smiths." But +this knowledge comes of our experience of special families, and +stands us in stead no further. + +If we cannot classify men scientifically and reduce them under a kind +of botanical order, as if they had a calculable vegetable +development, neither can we gain much knowledge of them by +comparison. It does not help me at all in my estimate of their +characters to compare Mandeville with the Young Lady, or Our Next +Door with the Parson. The wise man does not permit himself to set up +even in his own mind any comparison of his friends. His friendship +is capable of going to extremes with many people, evoked as it is by +many qualities. When Mandeville goes into my garden in June I can +usually find him in a particular bed of strawberries, but he does not +speak disrespectfully of the others. When Nature, says Mandeville, +consents to put herself into any sort of strawberry, I have no +criticisms to make, I am only glad that I have been created into the +same world with such a delicious manifestation of the Divine favor. +If I left Mandeville alone in the garden long enough, I have no doubt +he would impartially make an end of the fruit of all the beds, for +his capacity in this direction is as all-embracing as it is in the +matter of friendships. The Young Lady has also her favorite patch of +berries. And the Parson, I am sorry to say, prefers to have them +picked for him the elect of the garden--and served in an orthodox +manner. The straw-berry has a sort of poetical precedence, and I +presume that no fruit is jealous of it any more than any flower is +jealous of the rose; but I remark the facility with which liking for +it is transferred to the raspberry, and from the raspberry (not to +make a tedious enumeration) to the melon, and from the melon to the +grape, and the grape to the pear, and the pear to the apple. And we +do not mar our enjoyment of each by comparisons. + +Of course it would be a dull world if we could not criticise our +friends, but the most unprofitable and unsatisfactory criticism is +that by comparison. Criticism is not necessarily uncharitableness, +but a wholesome exercise of our powers of analysis and +discrimination. It is, however, a very idle exercise, leading to no +results when we set the qualities of one over against the qualities +of another, and disparage by contrast and not by independent +judgment. And this method of procedure creates jealousies and heart- +burnings innumerable. + +Criticism by comparison is the refuge of incapables, and especially +is this true in literature. It is a lazy way of disposing of a young +poet to bluntly declare, without any sort of discrimination of his +defects or his excellences, that he equals Tennyson, and that Scott +never wrote anything finer. What is the justice of damning a +meritorious novelist by comparing him with Dickens, and smothering +him with thoughtless and good-natured eulogy? The poet and the +novelist may be well enough, and probably have qualities and gifts of +their own which are worth the critic's attention, if he has any time +to bestow on them; and it is certainly unjust to subject them to a +comparison with somebody else, merely because the critic will not +take the trouble to ascertain what they are. If, indeed, the poet +and novelist are mere imitators of a model and copyists of a style, +they may be dismissed with such commendation as we bestow upon the +machines who pass their lives in making bad copies of the pictures of +the great painters. But the critics of whom we speak do not intend +depreciation, but eulogy, when they say that the author they have in +hand has the wit of Sydney Smith and the brilliancy of Macaulay. +Probably he is not like either of them, and may have a genuine though +modest virtue of his own; but these names will certainly kill him, +and he will never be anybody in the popular estimation. The public +finds out speedily that he is not Sydney Smith, and it resents the +extravagant claim for him as if he were an impudent pretender. How +many authors of fair ability to interest the world have we known in +our own day who have been thus sky-rocketed into notoriety by the +lazy indiscrimination of the critic-by-comparison, and then have sunk +into a popular contempt as undeserved! I never see a young aspirant +injudiciously compared to a great and resplendent name in literature, +but I feel like saying, My poor fellow, your days are few and full of +trouble; you begin life handicapped, and you cannot possibly run a +creditable race. + +I think this sort of critical eulogy is more damaging even than that +which kills by a different assumption, and one which is equally +common, namely, that the author has not done what he probably never +intended to do. It is well known that most of the trouble in life +comes from our inability to compel other people to do what we think +they ought, and it is true in criticism that we are unwilling to take +a book for what it is, and credit the author with that. When the +solemn critic, like a mastiff with a ladies' bonnet in his mouth, +gets hold of a light piece of verse, or a graceful sketch which +catches the humor of an hour for the entertainment of an hour, he +tears it into a thousand shreds. It adds nothing to human knowledge, +it solves none of the problems of life, it touches none of the +questions of social science, it is not a philosophical treatise, and +it is not a dozen things that it might have been. The critic cannot +forgive the author for this disrespect to him. This isn't a rose, +says the critic, taking up a pansy and rending it; it is not at all +like a rose, and the author is either a pretentious idiot or an +idiotic pretender. What business, indeed, has the author to send the +critic a bunch of sweet-peas, when he knows that a cabbage would be +preferred,--something not showy, but useful? + +A good deal of this is what Mandeville said and I am not sure that it +is devoid of personal feeling. He published, some years ago, a +little volume giving an account of a trip through the Great West, and +a very entertaining book it was. But one of the heavy critics got +hold of it, and made Mandeville appear, even to himself, he +confessed, like an ass, because there was nothing in the volume about +geology or mining prospects, and very little to instruct the student +of physical geography. With alternate sarcasm and ridicule, he +literally basted the author, till Mandeville said that he felt almost +like a depraved scoundrel, and thought he should be held up to less +execration if he had committed a neat and scientific murder. + +But I confess that I have a good deal of sympathy with the critics. +Consider what these public tasters have to endure! None of us, I +fancy, would like to be compelled to read all that they read, or to +take into our mouths, even with the privilege of speedily ejecting it +with a grimace, all that they sip. The critics of the vintage, who +pursue their calling in the dark vaults and amid mouldy casks, give +their opinion, for the most part, only upon wine, upon juice that has +matured and ripened into development of quality. But what crude, +unrestrained, unfermented--even raw and drugged liquor, must the +literary taster put to his unwilling lips day after day! + + + + +TENTH STUDY + + +I + +It was my good fortune once to visit a man who remembered the +rebellion of 1745. Lest this confession should make me seem very +aged, I will add that the visit took place in 1851, and that the man +was then one hundred and thirteen years old. He was quite a lad +before Dr. Johnson drank Mrs. Thrale's tea. That he was as old as he +had the credit of being, I have the evidence of my own senses (and I +am seldom mistaken in a person's age), of his own family, and his own +word; and it is incredible that so old a person, and one so +apparently near the grave, would deceive about his age. + +The testimony of the very aged is always to be received without +question, as Alexander Hamilton once learned. He was trying a +land-title with Aaron Burr, and two of the witnesses upon whom Burr +relied were venerable Dutchmen, who had, in their youth, carried the +surveying chains over the land in dispute, and who were now aged +respectively one hundred and four years and one hundred and six +years. Hamilton gently attempted to undervalue their testimony, but +he was instantly put down by the Dutch justice, who suggested that +Mr. Hamilton could not be aware of the age of the witnesses. + +My old man (the expression seems familiar and inelegant) had indeed +an exaggerated idea of his own age, and sometimes said that he +supposed he was going on four hundred, which was true enough, in +fact; but for the exact date, he referred to his youngest son,--a +frisky and humorsome lad of eighty years, who had received us at the +gate, and whom we had at first mistaken for the veteran, his father. +But when we beheld the old man, we saw the difference between age and +age. The latter had settled into a grizzliness and grimness which +belong to a very aged and stunted but sturdy oak-tree, upon the bark +of which the gray moss is thick and heavy. The old man appeared hale +enough, he could walk about, his sight and hearing were not seriously +impaired, he ate with relish, and his teeth were so sound that he +would not need a dentist for at least another century; but the moss +was growing on him. His boy of eighty seemed a green sapling beside +him. + +He remembered absolutely nothing that had taken place within thirty +years, but otherwise his mind was perhaps as good as it ever was, for +he must always have been an ignoramus, and would never know anything +if he lived to be as old as he said he was going on to be. Why he +was interested in the rebellion of 1745 I could not discover, for he +of course did not go over to Scotland to carry a pike in it, and he +only remembered to have heard it talked about as a great event in the +Irish market-town near which he lived, and to which he had ridden +when a boy. And he knew much more about the horse that drew him, and +the cart in which he rode, than he did about the rebellion of the +Pretender. + +I hope I do not appear to speak harshly of this amiable old man, and +if he is still living I wish him well, although his example was bad +in some respects. He had used tobacco for nearly a century, and the +habit has very likely been the death of him. If so, it is to be +regretted. For it would have been interesting to watch the process +of his gradual disintegration and return to the ground: the loss of +sense after sense, as decaying limbs fall from the oak; the failure +of discrimination, of the power of choice, and finally of memory +itself; the peaceful wearing out and passing away of body and mind +without disease, the natural running down of a man. The interesting +fact about him at that time was that his bodily powers seemed in +sufficient vigor, but that the mind had not force enough to manifest +itself through his organs. The complete battery was there, the +appetite was there, the acid was eating the zinc; but the electric +current was too weak to flash from the brain. And yet he appeared so +sound throughout, that it was difficult to say that his mind was not +as good as it ever had been. He had stored in it very little to feed +on, and any mind would get enfeebled by a century's rumination on a +hearsay idea of the rebellion of '45. + +It was possible with this man to fully test one's respect for age, +which is in all civilized nations a duty. And I found that my +feelings were mixed about him. I discovered in him a conceit in +regard to his long sojourn on this earth, as if it were somehow a +credit to him. In the presence of his good opinion of himself, I +could but question the real value of his continued life, to himself +or to others. If he ever had any friends he had outlived them, +except his boy; his wives--a century of them--were all dead; the +world had actually passed away for him. He hung on the tree like a +frost-nipped apple, which the farmer has neglected to gather. The +world always renews itself, and remains young. What relation had he +to it? + +I was delighted to find that this old man had never voted for George +Washington. I do not know that he had ever heard of him. Washington +may be said to have played his part since his time. I am not sure +that he perfectly remembered anything so recent as the American +Revolution. He was living quietly in Ireland during our French and +Indian wars, and he did not emigrate to this country till long after +our revolutionary and our constitutional struggles were over. The +Rebellion Of '45 was the great event of the world for him, and of +that he knew nothing. + +I intend no disrespect to this man,--a cheerful and pleasant enough +old person,--but he had evidently lived himself out of the world, as +completely as people usually die out of it. His only remaining value +was to the moralist, who might perchance make something out of him. +I suppose if he had died young, he would have been regretted, and his +friends would have lamented that he did not fill out his days in the +world, and would very likely have called him back, if tears and +prayers could have done so. They can see now what his prolonged life +amounted to, and how the world has closed up the gap he once filled +while he still lives in it. + +A great part of the unhappiness of this world consists in regret for +those who depart, as it seems to us, prematurely. We imagine that if +they would return, the old conditions would be restored. But would +it be so? If they, in any case, came back, would there be any place +for them? The world so quickly readjusts itself after any loss, that +the return of the departed would nearly always throw it, even the +circle most interested, into confusion. Are the Enoch Ardens ever +wanted? + + + + +II + +A popular notion akin to this, that the world would have any room for +the departed if they should now and then return, is the constant +regret that people will not learn by the experience of others, that +one generation learns little from the preceding, and that youth never +will adopt the experience of age. But if experience went for +anything, we should all come to a standstill; for there is nothing so +discouraging to effort. Disbelief in Ecclesiastes is the mainspring +of action. In that lies the freshness and the interest of life, and +it is the source of every endeavor. + +If the boy believed that the accumulation of wealth and the +acquisition of power were what the old man says they are, the world +would very soon be stagnant. If he believed that his chances of +obtaining either were as poor as the majority of men find them to be, +ambition would die within him. It is because he rejects the +experience of those who have preceded him, that the world is kept in +the topsy-turvy condition which we all rejoice in, and which we call +progress. + +And yet I confess I have a soft place in my heart for that rare +character in our New England life who is content with the world as he +finds it, and who does not attempt to appropriate any more of it to +himself than he absolutely needs from day to day. He knows from the +beginning that the world could get on without him, and he has never +had any anxiety to leave any result behind him, any legacy for the +world to quarrel over. + +He is really an exotic in our New England climate and society, and +his life is perpetually misunderstood by his neighbors, because he +shares none of their uneasiness about getting on in life. He is even +called lazy, good-for-nothing, and "shiftless,"--the final stigma +that we put upon a person who has learned to wait without the +exhausting process of laboring. + +I made his acquaintance last summer in the country, and I have not in +a long time been so well pleased with any of our species. He was a +man past middle life, with a large family. He had always been from +boyhood of a contented and placid mind, slow in his movements, slow +in his speech. I think he never cherished a hard feeling toward +anybody, nor envied any one, least of all the rich and prosperous +about whom he liked to talk. Indeed, his talk was a good deal about +wealth, especially about his cousin who had been down South and "got +fore-handed" within a few years. He was genuinely pleased at his +relation's good luck, and pointed him out to me with some pride. But +he had no envy of him, and he evinced no desire to imitate him. I +inferred from all his conversation about "piling it up" (of which he +spoke with a gleam of enthusiasm in his eye), that there were moments +when he would like to be rich himself; but it was evident that he +would never make the least effort to be so, and I doubt if he could +even overcome that delicious inertia of mind and body called +laziness, sufficiently to inherit. + +Wealth seemed to have a far and peculiar fascination for him, and I +suspect he was a visionary in the midst of his poverty. Yet I +suppose he had--hardly the personal property which the law exempts +from execution. He had lived in a great many towns, moving from one +to another with his growing family, by easy stages, and was always +the poorest man in the town, and lived on the most niggardly of its +rocky and bramble-grown farms, the productiveness of which he reduced +to zero in a couple of seasons by his careful neglect of culture. +The fences of his hired domain always fell into ruins under him, +perhaps because he sat on them so much, and the hovels he occupied +rotted down during his placid residence in them. He moved from +desolation to desolation, but carried always with him the equal mind +of a philosopher. Not even the occasional tart remarks of his wife, +about their nomadic life and his serenity in the midst of discomfort, +could ruffle his smooth spirit. + +He was, in every respect, a most worthy man, truthful, honest, +temperate, and, I need not say, frugal; and he had no bad habits,-- +perhaps he never had energy enough to acquire any. Nor did he lack +the knack of the Yankee race. He could make a shoe, or build a +house, or doctor a cow; but it never seemed to him, in this brief +existence, worth while to do any of these things. He was an +excellent angler, but he rarely fished; partly because of the +shortness of days, partly on account of the uncertainty of bites, but +principally because the trout brooks were all arranged lengthwise and +ran over so much ground. But no man liked to look at a string of +trout better than he did, and he was willing to sit down in a sunny +place and talk about trout-fishing half a day at a time, and he would +talk pleasantly and well too, though his wife might be continually +interrupting him by a call for firewood. + +I should not do justice to his own idea of himself if I did not add +that he was most respectably connected, and that he had a justifiable +though feeble pride in his family. It helped his self-respect, which +no ignoble circumstances could destroy. He was, as must appear by +this time, a most intelligent man, and he was a well-informed man; +that is to say, he read the weekly newspapers when he could get them, +and he had the average country information about Beecher and Greeley +and the Prussian war (" Napoleon is gettin' on't, ain't he?"), and +the general prospect of the election campaigns. Indeed, he was +warmly, or rather luke-warmly, interested in politics. He liked to +talk about the inflated currency, and it seemed plain to him that his +condition would somehow be improved if we could get to a specie +basis. He was, in fact, a little troubled by the national debt; it +seemed to press on him somehow, while his own never did. He +exhibited more animation over the affairs of the government than he +did over his own,--an evidence at once of his disinterestedness and +his patriotism. He had been an old abolitionist, and was strong on +the rights of free labor, though he did not care to exercise his +privilege much. Of course he had the proper contempt for the poor +whites down South. I never saw a person with more correct notions on +such a variety of subjects. He was perfectly willing that churches +(being himself a member), and Sunday-schools, and missionary +enterprises should go on; in fact, I do not believe he ever opposed +anything in his life. No one was more willing to vote town taxes and +road-repairs and schoolhouses than he. If you could call him +spirited at all, he was public-spirited. + +And with all this he was never very well; he had, from boyhood, +"enjoyed poor health." You would say he was not a man who would ever +catch anything, not even an epidemic; but he was a person whom +diseases would be likely to overtake, even the slowest of slow +fevers. And he was n't a man to shake off anything. And yet +sickness seemed to trouble him no more than poverty. He was not +discontented; he never grumbled. I am not sure but he relished a +"spell of sickness" in haying-time. + +An admirably balanced man, who accepts the world as it is, and +evidently lives on the experience of others. I have never seen a man +with less envy, or more cheerfulness, or so contented with as little +reason for being so. The only drawback to his future is that rest +beyond the grave will not be much change for him, and he has no works +to follow him. + + + + +III + +This Yankee philosopher, who, without being a Brahmin, had, in an +uncongenial atmosphere, reached the perfect condition of Nirvina, +reminded us all of the ancient sages; and we queried whether a world +that could produce such as he, and could, beside, lengthen a man's +years to one hundred and thirteen, could fairly be called an old and +worn-out world, having long passed the stage of its primeval poetry +and simplicity. Many an Eastern dervish has, I think, got +immortality upon less laziness and resignation than this temporary +sojourner in Massachusetts. It is a common notion that the world +(meaning the people in it) has become tame and commonplace, lost its +primeval freshness and epigrammatic point. Mandeville, in his +argumentative way, dissents from this entirely. He says that the +world is more complex, varied, and a thousand times as interesting as +it was in what we call its youth, and that it is as fresh, as +individual and capable of producing odd and eccentric characters as +ever. He thought the creative vim had not in any degree abated, that +both the types of men and of nations are as sharply stamped and +defined as ever they were. + +Was there ever, he said, in the past, any figure more clearly cut and +freshly minted than the Yankee? Had the Old World anything to show +more positive and uncompromising in all the elements of character +than the Englishman? And if the edges of these were being rounded +off, was there not developing in the extreme West a type of men +different from all preceding, which the world could not yet define? +He believed that the production of original types was simply +infinite. + +Herbert urged that he must at least admit that there was a freshness +of legend and poetry in what we call the primeval peoples that is +wanting now; the mythic period is gone, at any rate. + +Mandeville could not say about the myths. We couldn't tell what +interpretation succeeding ages would put upon our lives and history +and literature when they have become remote and shadowy. But we need +not go to antiquity for epigrammatic wisdom, or for characters as +racy of the fresh earth as those handed down to us from the dawn of +history. He would put Benjamin Franklin against any of the sages of +the mythic or the classic period. He would have been perfectly at +home in ancient Athens, as Socrates would have been in modern Boston. +There might have been more heroic characters at the siege of Troy +than Abraham Lincoln, but there was not one more strongly marked +individually; not one his superior in what we call primeval craft and +humor. He was just the man, if he could not have dislodged Priam by +a writ of ejectment, to have invented the wooden horse, and then to +have made Paris the hero of some ridiculous story that would have set +all Asia in a roar. + +Mandeville said further, that as to poetry, he did not know much +about that, and there was not much he cared to read except parts of +Shakespeare and Homer, and passages of Milton. But it did seem to +him that we had men nowadays, who could, if they would give their +minds to it, manufacture in quantity the same sort of epigrammatic +sayings and legends that our scholars were digging out of the Orient. +He did not know why Emerson in antique setting was not as good as +Saadi. Take for instance, said Mandeville, such a legend as this, +and how easy it would be to make others like it: + +The son of an Emir had red hair, of which he was ashamed, and wished +to dye it. But his father said: "Nay, my son, rather behave in such +a manner that all fathers shall wish their sons had red hair." + +This was too absurd. Mandeville had gone too far, except in the +opinion of Our Next Door, who declared that an imitation was just as +good as an original, if you could not detect it. But Herbert said +that the closer an imitation is to an original, the more unendurable +it is. But nobody could tell exactly why. + +The Fire-Tender said that we are imposed on by forms. The nuggets of +wisdom that are dug out of the Oriental and remote literatures would +often prove to be only commonplace if stripped of their quaint +setting. If you gave an Oriental twist to some of our modern +thought, its value would be greatly enhanced for many people. + +I have seen those, said the Mistress, who seem to prefer dried fruit +to fresh; but I like the strawberry and the peach of each season, and +for me the last is always the best. + +Even the Parson admitted that there were no signs of fatigue or decay +in the creative energy of the world; and if it is a question of +Pagans, he preferred Mandeville to Saadi. + + + + +ELEVENTH STUDY + + +It happened, or rather, to tell the truth, it was contrived,--for I +have waited too long for things to turn up to have much faith in +"happen," that we who have sat by this hearthstone before should all +be together on Christmas eve. There was a splendid backlog of +hickory just beginning to burn with a glow that promised to grow more +fiery till long past midnight, which would have needed no apology in +a loggers' camp,--not so much as the religion of which a lady (in a +city which shall be nameless) said, "If you must have a religion, +this one will do nicely." + +There was not much conversation, as is apt to be the case when people +come together who have a great deal to say, and are intimate enough +to permit the freedom of silence. It was Mandeville who suggested +that we read something, and the Young Lady, who was in a mood to +enjoy her own thoughts, said, "Do." And finally it came about that +the Fire Tender, without more resistance to the urging than was +becoming, went to his library, and returned with a manuscript, from +which he read the story of + + +MY UNCLE IN INDIA + +Not that it is my uncle, let me explain. It is Polly's uncle, as I +very well know, from the many times she has thrown him up to me, and +is liable so to do at any moment. Having small expectations myself, +and having wedded Polly when they were smaller, I have come to feel +the full force, the crushing weight, of her lightest remark about "My +Uncle in India." The words as I write them convey no idea of the +tone in which they fall upon my ears. I think it is the only fault +of that estimable woman, that she has an "uncle in India" and does +not let him quietly remain there. I feel quite sure that if I had an +uncle in Botany Bay, I should never, never throw him up to Polly in +the way mentioned. If there is any jar in our quiet life, he is the +cause of it; all along of possible "expectations" on the one side +calculated to overawe the other side not having expectations. And +yet I know that if her uncle in India were this night to roll a +barrel of "India's golden sands," as I feel that he any moment may +do, into our sitting-room, at Polly's feet, that charming wife, who +is more generous than the month of May, and who has no thought but +for my comfort in two worlds, would straightway make it over to me, +to have and to hold, if I could lift it, forever and forever. And +that makes it more inexplicable that she, being a woman, will +continue to mention him in the way she does. + +In a large and general way I regard uncles as not out of place in +this transitory state of existence. They stand for a great many +possible advantages. They are liable to "tip" you at school, they +are resources in vacation, they come grandly in play about the +holidays, at which season mv heart always did warm towards them with +lively expectations, which were often turned into golden solidities; +and then there is always the prospect, sad to a sensitive mind, that +uncles are mortal, and, in their timely taking off, may prove as +generous in the will as they were in the deed. And there is always +this redeeming possibility in a niggardly uncle. Still there must be +something wrong in the character of the uncle per se, or all history +would not agree that nepotism is such a dreadful thing. + +But, to return from this unnecessary digression, I am reminded that +the charioteer of the patient year has brought round the holiday +time. It has been a growing year, as most years are. It is very +pleasant to see how the shrubs in our little patch of ground widen +and thicken and bloom at the right time, and to know that the great +trees have added a laver to their trunks. To be sure, our garden,-- +which I planted under Polly's directions, with seeds that must have +been patented, and I forgot to buy the right of, for they are mostly +still waiting the final resurrection,--gave evidence that it shared +in the misfortune of the Fall, and was never an Eden from which one +would have required to have been driven. It was the easiest garden +to keep the neighbor's pigs and hens out of I ever saw. If its +increase was small its temptations were smaller, and that is no +little recommendation in this world of temptations. But, as a +general thing, everything has grown, except our house. That little +cottage, over which Polly presides with grace enough to adorn a +palace, is still small outside and smaller inside; and if it has an +air of comfort and of neatness, and its rooms are cozy and sunny by +day and cheerful by night, and it is bursting with books, and not +unattractive with modest pictures on the walls, which we think do +well enough until my uncle--(but never mind my uncle, now),--and if, +in the long winter evenings, when the largest lamp is lit, and the +chestnuts glow in embers, and the kid turns on the spit, and the +house-plants are green and flowering, and the ivy glistens in the +firelight, and Polly sits with that contented, far-away look in her +eyes that I like to see, her fingers busy upon one of those cruel +mysteries which have delighted the sex since Penelope, and I read in +one of my fascinating law-books, or perhaps regale ourselves with a +taste of Montaigne,--if all this is true, there are times when the +cottage seems small; though I can never find that Polly thinks so, +except when she sometimes says that she does not know where she +should bestow her uncle in it, if he should suddenly come back from +India. + +There it is, again. I sometimes think that my wife believes her +uncle in India to be as large as two ordinary men; and if her ideas +of him are any gauge of the reality, there is no place in the town +large enough for him except the Town Hall. She probably expects him +to come with his bungalow, and his sedan, and his palanquin, and his +elephants, and his retinue of servants, and his principalities, and +his powers, and his ha--(no, not that), and his chowchow, and his--I +scarcely know what besides. + +Christmas eve was a shiny cold night, a creaking cold night, a +placid, calm, swingeing cold night. + +Out-doors had gone into a general state of crystallization. The +snow-fields were like the vast Arctic ice-fields that Kane looked on, +and lay sparkling under the moonlight, crisp and Christmasy, and all +the crystals on the trees and bushes hung glistening, as if ready, at +a breath of air, to break out into metallic ringing, like a million +silver joy-bells. I mentioned the conceit to Polly, as we stood at +the window, and she said it reminded her of Jean Paul. She is a +woman of most remarkable discernment. + +Christmas is a great festival at our house in a small way. Among the +many delightful customs we did not inherit from our Pilgrim Fathers, +there is none so pleasant as that of giving presents at this season. +It is the most exciting time of the year. No one is too rich to +receive something, and no one too poor to give a trifle. And in the +act of giving and receiving these tokens of regard, all the world is +kin for once, and brighter for this transient glow of generosity. +Delightful custom! Hard is the lot of childhood that knows nothing +of the visits of Kriss Kringle, or the stockings hung by the chimney +at night; and cheerless is any age that is not brightened by some +Christmas gift, however humble. What a mystery of preparation there +is in the preceding days, what planning and plottings of surprises! +Polly and I keep up the custom in our simple way, and great is the +perplexity to express the greatest amount of affection with a limited +outlay. For the excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness +rather than in its value. As we stood by the window that night, we +wondered what we should receive this year, and indulged in I know not +what little hypocrisies and deceptions. + +I wish, said Polly, "that my uncle in India would send me a +camel's-hair shawl, or a string of pearls, each as big as the end of +my thumb." + +"Or a white cow, which would give golden milk, that would make butter +worth seventy-five cents a pound," I added, as we drew the curtains, +and turned to our chairs before the open fire. + +It is our custom on every Christmas eve--as I believe I have +somewhere said, or if I have not, I say it again, as the member from +Erin might remark--to read one of Dickens's Christmas stories. And +this night, after punching the fire until it sent showers of sparks +up the chimney, I read the opening chapter of "Mrs. Lirriper's +Lodgings," in my best manner, and handed the book to Polly to +continue; for I do not so much relish reading aloud the succeeding +stories of Mr. Dickens's annual budget, since he wrote them, as men +go to war in these days, by substitute. And Polly read on, in her +melodious voice, which is almost as pleasant to me as the Wasser- +fluth of Schubert, which she often plays at twilight; and I looked +into the fire, unconsciously constructing stories of my own out of +the embers. And her voice still went on, in a sort of running +accompaniment to my airy or fiery fancies. + +"Sleep?" said Polly, stopping, with what seemed to me a sort of +crash, in which all the castles tumbled into ashes. + +"Not in the least," I answered brightly, "never heard anything more +agreeable." And the reading flowed on and on and on, and I looked +steadily into the fire, the fire, fire, fi.... + +Suddenly the door opened, and into our cozy parlor walked the most +venerable personage I ever laid eyes on, who saluted me with great +dignity. Summer seemed to have burst into the room, and I was +conscious of a puff of Oriental airs, and a delightful, languid +tranquillity. I was not surprised that the figure before me was clad +in full turban, baggy drawers, and a long loose robe, girt about the +middle with a rich shawl. Followed him a swart attendant, who +hastened to spread a rug upon which my visitor sat down, with great +gravity, as I am informed they do in farthest Ind. The slave then +filled the bowl of a long-stemmed chibouk, and, handing it to his +master, retired behind him and began to fan him with the most +prodigious palm-leaf I ever saw. Soon the fumes of the delicate +tobacco of Persia pervaded the room, like some costly aroma which you +cannot buy, now the entertainment of the Arabian Nights is +discontinued. + +Looking through the window I saw, if I saw anything, a palanquin at +our door, and attendant on it four dusky, half-naked bearers, who did +not seem to fancy the splendor of the night, for they jumped about on +the snow crust, and I could see them shiver and shake in the keen +air. Oho! thought! this, then, is my uncle from India! + +"Yes, it is," now spoke my visitor extraordinary, in a gruff, harsh +voice. + +"I think I have heard Polly speak of you," I rejoined, in an attempt +to be civil, for I did n't like his face any better than I did his +voice,--a red, fiery, irascible kind of face. + +"Yes I've come over to O Lord,--quick, Jamsetzee, lift up that foot,- +-take care. There, Mr. Trimings, if that's your name, get me a +glass of brandy, stiff." + +I got him our little apothecary-labeled bottle and poured out enough +to preserve a whole can of peaches. My uncle took it down without a +wink, as if it had been water, and seemed relieved. It was a very +pleasant uncle to have at our fireside on Christmas eve, I felt. + +At a motion from my uncle, Jamsetzee handed me a parcel which I saw +was directed to Polly, which I untied, and lo! the most wonderful +camel's-hair shawl that ever was, so fine that I immediately drew it +through my finger-ring, and so large that I saw it would entirely +cover our little room if I spread it out; a dingy red color, but +splendid in appearance from the little white hieroglyphic worked in +one corner, which is always worn outside, to show that it cost nobody +knows how many thousands of dollars. + +"A Christmas trifle for Polly. I have come home--as I was saying +when that confounded twinge took me--to settle down; and I intend to +make Polly my heir, and live at my ease and enjoy life. Move that +leg a little, Jamsetzee." + +I meekly replied that I had no doubt Polly would be delighted to see +her dear uncle, and as for inheriting, if it came to that, I did n't +know any one with a greater capacity for that than she. + +"That depends," said the gruff old smoker, "how I like ye. A +fortune, scraped up in forty years in Ingy, ain't to be thrown away +in a minute. But what a house this is to live in!"; the +uncomfortable old relative went on, throwing a contemptuous glance +round the humble cottage. "Is this all of it?" + +"In the winter it is all of it," I said, flushing up; but in the +summer, when the doors and windows are open, it is as large as +anybody's house. And," I went on, with some warmth, "it was large +enough just before you came in, and pleasant enough. And besides, I +said, rising into indignation, "you can not get anything much better +in this city short of eight hundred dollars a year, payable first +days of January, April, July, and October, in advance, and my +salary...." + +"Hang your salary, and confound your impudence and your seven-by-nine +hovel! Do you think you have anything to say about the use of my +money, scraped up in forty years in Ingy? THINGS HAVE GOT TO BE +CHANGED!" he burst out, in a voice that rattled the glasses on the +sideboard. + +I should think they were. Even as I looked into the little fireplace +it enlarged, and there was an enormous grate, level with the floor, +glowing with seacoal; and a magnificent mantel carved in oak, old and +brown; and over it hung a landscape, wide, deep, summer in the +foreground with all the gorgeous coloring of the tropics, and beyond +hills of blue and far mountains lying in rosy light. I held my +breath as I looked down the marvelous perspective. Looking round for +a second, I caught a glimpse of a Hindoo at each window, who vanished +as if they had been whisked off by enchantment; and the close walls +that shut us in fled away. Had cohesion and gravitation given out? +Was it the "Great Consummation" of the year 18-? It was all like the +swift transformation of a dream, and I pinched my arm to make sure +that I was not the subject of some diablerie. + +The little house was gone; but that I scarcely minded, for I had +suddenly come into possession of my wife's castle in Spain. I sat in +a spacious, lofty apartment, furnished with a princely magnificence. +Rare pictures adorned the walls, statues looked down from deep +niches, and over both the dark ivy of England ran and drooped in +graceful luxuriance. Upon the heavy tables were costly, illuminated +volumes; luxurious chairs and ottomans invited to easy rest; and upon +the ceiling Aurora led forth all the flower-strewing daughters of the +dawn in brilliant frescoes. Through the open doors my eyes wandered +into magnificent apartment after apartment. There to the south, +through folding-doors, was the splendid library, with groined roof, +colored light streaming in through painted windows, high shelves +stowed with books, old armor hanging on the walls, great carved oaken +chairs about a solid oaken table, and beyond a conservatory of +flowers and plants with a fountain springing in the center, the +splashing of whose waters I could hear. Through the open windows I +looked upon a lawn, green with close-shaven turf, set with ancient +trees, and variegated with parterres of summer plants in bloom. It +was the month of June, and the smell of roses was in the air. + +I might have thought it only a freak of my fancy, but there by the +fireplace sat a stout, red-faced, puffy-looking man, in the ordinary +dress of an English gentleman, whom I had no difficulty in +recognizing as my uncle from India. + +"One wants a fire every day in the year in this confounded climate," +remarked that amiable old person, addressing no one in particular. + +I had it on my lips to suggest that I trusted the day would come when +he would have heat enough to satisfy him, in permanent supply. I +wish now that I had. + +I think things had changed. For now into this apartment, full of the +morning sunshine, came sweeping with the air of a countess born, and +a maid of honor bred, and a queen in expectancy, my Polly, stepping +with that lofty grace which I always knew she possessed, but which +she never had space to exhibit in our little cottage, dressed with +that elegance and richness that I should not have deemed possible to +the most Dutch duchess that ever lived, and, giving me a complacent +nod of recognition, approached her uncle, and said in her smiling, +cheery way, "How is the dear uncle this morning?" And, as she spoke, +she actually bent down and kissed his horrid old cheek, red-hot with +currie and brandy and all the biting pickles I can neither eat nor +name, kissed him, and I did not turn into stone. + +"Comfortable as the weather will permit, my darling!"--and again I +did not turn into stone. + +"Wouldn't uncle like to take a drive this charming morning?" Polly +asked. + +Uncle finally grunted out his willingness, and Polly swept away again +to prepare for the drive, taking no more notice of me than if I had +been a poor assistant office lawyer on a salary. And soon the +carriage was at the door, and my uncle, bundled up like a mummy, and +the charming Polly drove gayly away. + +How pleasant it is to be married rich, I thought, as I arose and +strolled into the library, where everything was elegant and prim and +neat, with no scraps of paper and piles of newspapers or evidences of +literary slovenness on the table, and no books in attractive +disorder, and where I seemed to see the legend staring at me from all +the walls, "No smoking." So I uneasily lounged out of the house. +And a magnificent house it was, a palace, rather, that seemed to +frown upon and bully insignificant me with its splendor, as I walked +away from it towards town. + +And why town? There was no use of doing anything at the dingy +office. Eight hundred dollars a year! It wouldn't keep Polly in +gloves, let alone dressing her for one of those fashionable +entertainments to which we went night after night. And so, after a +weary day with nothing in it, I went home to dinner, to find my uncle +quite chirruped up with his drive, and Polly regnant, sublimely +engrossed in her new world of splendor, a dazzling object of +admiration to me, but attentive and even tender to that +hypochondriacal, gouty old subject from India. + +Yes, a magnificent dinner, with no end of servants, who seemed to +know that I couldn't have paid the wages of one of them, and plate +and courses endless. I say, a miserable dinner, on the edge of which +seemed to sit by permission of somebody, like an invited poor +relation, who wishes he had sent a regret, and longing for some of +those nice little dishes that Polly used to set before me with +beaming face, in the dear old days. + +And after dinner, and proper attention to the comfort for the night +of our benefactor, there was the Blibgims's party. No long, +confidential interviews, as heretofore, as to what she should wear +and what I should wear, and whether it would do to wear it again. +And Polly went in one coach, and I in another. No crowding into the +hired hack, with all the delightful care about tumbling dresses, and +getting there in good order; and no coming home together to our +little cozy cottage, in a pleasant, excited state of "flutteration," +and sitting down to talk it all over, and "Was n't it nice?" and "Did +I look as well as anybody?" and "Of course you did to me," and all +that nonsense. We lived in a grand way now, and had our separate +establishments and separate plans, and I used to think that a real +separation couldn't make matters much different. Not that Polly +meant to be any different, or was, at heart; but, you know, she was +so much absorbed in her new life of splendor, and perhaps I was a +little old-fashioned. + +I don't wonder at it now, as I look back. There was an army of +dressmakers to see, and a world of shopping to do, and a houseful of +servants to manage, and all the afternoon for calls, and her dear, +dear friend, with the artless manners and merry heart of a girl, and +the dignity and grace of a noble woman, the dear friend who lived in +the house of the Seven Gables, to consult about all manner of im- +portant things. I could not, upon my honor, see that there was any +place for me, and I went my own way, not that there was much comfort +in it. + +And then I would rather have had charge of a hospital ward than take +care of that uncle. Such coddling as he needed, such humoring of +whims. And I am bound to say that Polly could n't have been more +dutiful to him if he had been a Hindoo idol. She read to him and +talked to him, and sat by him with her embroidery, and was patient +with his crossness, and wearied herself, that I could see, with her +devoted ministrations. + +I fancied sometimes she was tired of it, and longed for the old +homely simplicity. I was. Nepotism had no charms for me. There was +nothing that I could get Polly that she had not. I could surprise +her with no little delicacies or trifles, delightedly bought with +money saved for the purpose. There was no more coming home weary +with office work and being met at the door with that warm, loving +welcome which the King of England could not buy. There was no long +evening when we read alternately from some favorite book, or laid our +deep housekeeping plans, rejoiced in a good bargain or made light of +a poor one, and were contented and merry with little. I recalled +with longing my little den, where in the midst of the literary +disorder I love, I wrote those stories for the "Antarctic" which +Polly, if nobody else, liked to read. There was no comfort for me in +my magnificent library. We were all rich and in splendor, and our +uncle had come from India. I wished, saving his soul, that the ship +that brought him over had foundered off Barnegat Light. It would +always have been a tender and regretful memory to both of us. And +how sacred is the memory of such a loss! + +Christmas? What delight could I have in long solicitude and +ingenious devices touching a gift for Polly within my means, and +hitting the border line between her necessities and her extravagant +fancy? A drove of white elephants would n't have been good enough +for her now, if each one carried a castle on his back. + +"--and so they were married, and in their snug cottage lived happy +ever after."--It was Polly's voice, as she closed the book. + +"There, I don't believe you have heard a word of it," she said half +complaininglv. + +"Oh, yes, I have," I cried, starting up and giving the fire a jab +with the poker; "I heard every word of it, except a few at the close +I was thinking"--I stopped, and looked round. + +"Why, Polly, where is the camel's-hair shawl?" + +"Camel's-hair fiddlestick! Now I know you have been asleep for an +hour." + +And, sure enough, there was n't anv camel's-hair shawl there, nor any +uncle, nor were there any Hindoos at our windows. + +And then I told Polly all about it; how her uncle came back, and we +were rich and lived in a palace and had no end of money, but she +didn't seem to have time to love me in it all, and all the comfort of +the little house was blown away as by the winter wind. And Polly +vowed, half in tears, that she hoped her uncle never would come back, +and she wanted nothing that we had not, and she wouldn't exchange our +independent comfort and snug house, no, not for anybody's mansion. +And then and there we made it all up, in a manner too particular for +me to mention; and I never, to this day, heard Polly allude to My +Uncle in India. + +And then, as the clock struck eleven, we each produced from the place +where we had hidden them the modest Christmas gifts we had prepared +for each other, and what surprise there was! "Just the thing I +needed." And, "It's perfectly lovely." And, "You should n't have +done it." And, then, a question I never will answer, "Ten? fifteen? +five? twelve?" "My dear, it cost eight hundred dollars, for I have +put my whole year into it, and I wish it was a thousand times +better." + +And so, when the great iron tongue of the city bell swept over the +snow the twelve strokes that announced Christmas day, if there was +anywhere a happier home than ours, I am glad of it! + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of End of Backlog Studies +by Charles Dudley Warner + |