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diff --git a/old/jjphj10.txt b/old/jjphj10.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f17761a..0000000 --- a/old/jjphj10.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,681 +0,0 @@ -*** Project Gutenberg etext of The Philosopher's Joke *** -By Jerome K. Jerome - -Scanned and proofed by Ronald Burkey (rburkey@heads-up.com) and Amy -Thomte. - -Notes on the editing: Punctuation and hyphenation have been retained -as in the original, except words broken across lines have been joined. -Italicized text is delimited by underlines ("_"). A long break -between paragraphs is represented by "***". - - -THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE -By JEROME K. JEROME - -Author of "Paul Kelver," "Three Men in a Boat," etc., etc. - -NEW YORK -DODD, MEAD & COMPANY -1909 - - -COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY JEROME K. JEROME -COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY -Published, September, 1908 - - -THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE - -Myself, I do not believe this story. Six persons are persuaded of its -truth; and the hope of these six is to convince themselves it was an -hallucination. Their difficulty is there are six of them. Each one -alone perceives clearly that it never could have been. Unfortunately, -they are close friends, and cannot get away from one another; and when -they meet and look into each other's eyes the thing takes shape again. - -The one who told it to me, and who immediately wished he had not, was -Armitage. He told it to me one night when he and I were the only -occupants of the Club smoking-room. His telling me--as he explained -afterwards--was an impulse of the moment. Sense of the thing had been -pressing upon him all that day with unusual persistence; and the idea -had occurred to him, on my entering the room, that the flippant -scepticism with which an essentially commonplace mind like my own--he -used the words in no offensive sense--would be sure to regard the -affair might help to direct his own attention to its more absurd -aspect. I am inclined to think it did. He thanked me for dismissing -his entire narrative as the delusion of a disordered brain, and begged -me not to mention the matter to another living soul. I promised; and -I may as well here observe that I do not call this mentioning the -matter. Armitage is not the man's real name; it does not even begin -with an A. You might read this story and dine next to him the same -evening: you would know nothing. - -Also, of course, I did not consider myself debarred from speaking -about it, discreetly, to Mrs. Armitage, a charming woman. She burst -into tears at the first mention of the thing. It took me all I knew -to tranquillize her. She said that when she did not think about the -thing she could be happy. She and Armitage never spoke of it to one -another; and left to themselves her opinion was that eventually they -might put remembrance behind them. She wished they were not quite so -friendly with the Everetts. Mr. and Mrs. Everett had both dreamt -precisely the same dream; that is, assuming it was a dream. Mr. -Everett was not the sort of person that a clergyman ought, perhaps, to -know; but as Armitage would always argue: for a teacher of -Christianity to withdraw his friendship from a man because that man -was somewhat of a sinner would be inconsistent. Rather should he -remain his friend and seek to influence him. They dined with the -Everetts regularly on Tuesdays, and sitting opposite the Everetts, it -seemed impossible to accept as a fact that all four of them at the -same time and in the same manner had fallen victims to the same -illusion. I think I succeeded in leaving her more hopeful. She -acknowledged that the story, looked at from the point of common sense, -did sound ridiculous; and threatened me that if I ever breathed a word -of it to anyone, she never would speak to me again. She is a charming -woman, as I have already mentioned. - -By a curious coincidence I happened at the time to be one of Everett's -directors on a Company he had just promoted for taking over and -developing the Red Sea Coasting trade. I lunched with him the -following Sunday. He is an interesting talker, and curiosity to -discover how so shrewd a man would account for his connection with so -insane--so impossible a fancy, prompted me to hint my knowledge of the -story. The manner both of him and of his wife changed suddenly. They -wanted to know who it was had told me. I refused the information, -because it was evident they would have been angry with him. Everett's -theory was that one of them had dreamt it--probably Camelford--and by -hypnotic suggestion had conveyed to the rest of them the impression -that they had dreamt it also. He added that but for one slight -incident he should have ridiculed from the very beginning the argument -that it could have been anything else than a dream. But what that -incident was he would not tell me. His object, as he explained, was -not to dwell upon the business, but to try and forget it. Speaking as -a friend, he advised me, likewise, not to cackle about the matter any -more than I could help, lest trouble should arise with regard to my -director's fees. His way of putting things is occasionally blunt. - -It was at the Everetts', later on, that I met Mrs. Camelford, one of -the handsomest women I have ever set eyes upon. It was foolish of me, -but my memory for names is weak. I forgot that Mr. and Mrs. Camelford -were the other two concerned, and mentioned the story as a curious -tale I had read years ago in an old Miscellany. I had reckoned on it -to lead me into a discussion with her on platonic friendship. She -jumped up from her chair and gave me a look. I remembered then, and -could have bitten out my tongue. It took me a long while to make my -peace, but she came round in the end, consenting to attribute my -blunder to mere stupidity. She was quite convinced herself, she told -me, that the thing was pure imagination. It was only when in company -with the others that any doubt as to this crossed her mind. Her own -idea was that, if everybody would agree never to mention the matter -again, it would end in their forgetting it. She supposed it was her -husband who had been my informant: he was just that sort of ass. She -did not say it unkindly. She said when she was first married, ten -years ago, few people had a more irritating effect upon her than had -Camelford; but that since she had seen more of other men she had come -to respect him. I like to hear a woman speak well of her husband. It -is a departure which, in my opinion, should be more encouraged than it -is. I assured her Camelford was not the culprit; and on the -understanding that I might come to see her--not too often--on her -Thursdays, I agreed with her that the best thing I could do would be -to dismiss the subject from my mind and occupy myself instead with -questions that concerned myself. - -I had never talked much with Camelford before that time, though I had -often seen him at the Club. He is a strange man, of whom many stories -are told. He writes journalism for a living, and poetry, which he -publishes at his own expense, apparently for recreation. It occurred -to me that his theory would at all events be interesting; but at first -he would not talk at all, pretending to ignore the whole affair, as -idle nonsense. I had almost despaired of drawing him out, when one -evening, of his own accord, he asked me if I thought Mrs. Armitage, -with whom he knew I was on terms of friendship, still attached -importance to the thing. On my expressing the opinion that Mrs. -Armitage was the most troubled of the group, he was irritated; and -urged me to leave the rest of them alone and devote whatever sense I -might possess to persuading her in particular that the entire thing -was and could be nothing but pure myth. He confessed frankly that to -him it was still a mystery. He could easily regard it as chimera, but -for one slight incident. He would not for a long while say what that -was, but there is such a thing as perseverance, and in the end I -dragged it out of him. This is what he told me. - -"We happened by chance to find ourselves alone in the conservatory, -that night of the ball--we six. Most of the crowd had already left. -The last 'extra' was being played: the music came to us faintly. -Stooping to pick up Jessica's fan, which she had let fall to the -ground, something shining on the tesselated pavement underneath a -group of palms suddenly caught my eye. We had not said a word to one -another; indeed, it was the first evening we had any of us met one -another--that is, unless the thing was not a dream. I picked it up. -The others gathered round me, and when we looked into one another's -eyes we understood: it was a broken wine-cup, a curious goblet of -Bavarian glass. It was the goblet out of which we had all dreamt that -we had drunk." - -I have put the story together as it seems to me it must have happened. -The incidents, at all events, are facts. Things have since occurred -to those concerned affording me hope that they will never read it. I -should not have troubled to tell it at all, but that it has a moral. - - *** - -Six persons sat round the great oak table in the wainscoted _Speise -Saal_ of that cosy hostelry, the Kneiper Hof at Konigsberg. It was -late into the night. Under ordinary circumstances they would have -been in bed, but having arrived by the last train from Dantzic, and -having supped on German fare, it had seemed to them discreeter to -remain awhile in talk. The house was strangely silent. The rotund -landlord, leaving their candles ranged upon the sideboard, had wished -them "Gute Nacht" an hour before. The spirit of the ancient house -enfolded them within its wings. - -Here in this very chamber, if rumour is to be believed, Emmanuel Kant -himself had sat discoursing many a time and oft. The walls, behind -which for more than forty years the little peak-faced man had thought -and worked, rose silvered by the moonlight just across the narrow way; -the three high windows of the _Speise Saal_ give out upon the old -Cathedral tower beneath which now he rests. Philosophy, curious -concerning human phenomena, eager for experience, unhampered by the -limitation Convention would impose upon all speculation, was in the -smoky air. - -"Not into future events," remarked the Rev. Nathaniel Armitage, "it is -better they should be hidden from us. But into the future of -ourselves--our temperament, our character--I think we ought to be -allowed to see. At twenty we are one individual; at forty, another -person entirely, with other views, with other interests, a different -outlook upon life, attracted by quite other attributes, repelled by -the very qualities that once attracted us. It is extremely awkward, -for all of us." - -"I am glad to hear somebody else say that," observed Mrs. Everett, in -her gentle, sympathetic voice. "I have thought it all myself so -often. Sometimes I have blamed myself, yet how can one help it: the -things that appeared of importance to us, they become indifferent; new -voices call to us; the idols we once worshipped, we see their feet of -clay." - -"If under the head of idols you include me," laughed the jovial Mr. -Everett, "don't hesitate to say so." He was a large red-faced -gentleman, with small twinkling eyes, and a mouth both strong and -sensuous. "I didn't make my feet myself. I never asked anybody to -take me for a stained-glass saint. It is not I who have changed." - -"I know, dear, it is I," his thin wife answered with a meek smile. "I -was beautiful, there was no doubt about it, when you married me." - -"You were, my dear," agreed her husband: "As a girl few could hold a -candle to you." - -"It was the only thing about me that you valued, my beauty," continued -his wife; "and it went so quickly. I feel sometimes as if I had -swindled you." - -"But there is a beauty of the mind, of the soul," remarked the Rev. -Nathaniel Armitage, "that to some men is more attractive than mere -physical perfection." - -The soft eyes of the faded lady shone for a moment with the light of -pleasure. "I am afraid Dick is not of that number," she sighed. - -"Well, as I said just now about my feet," answered her husband -genially, "I didn't make myself. I always have been a slave to beauty -and always shall be. There would be no sense in pretending among -chums that you haven't lost your looks, old girl." He laid his fine -hand with kindly intent upon her bony shoulder. "But there is no call -for you to fret yourself as if you had done it on purpose. No one but -a lover imagines a woman growing more beautiful as she grows older." - -"Some women would seem to," answered his wife. - -Involuntarily she glanced to where Mrs. Camelford sat with elbows -resting on the table; and involuntarily also the small twinkling eyes -of her husband followed in the same direction. There is a type that -reaches its prime in middle age. Mrs. Camelford, _nee_ Jessica -Dearwood, at twenty had been an uncanny-looking creature, the only -thing about her appealing to general masculine taste having been her -magnificent eyes, and even these had frightened more than they had -allured. At forty, Mrs. Camelford might have posed for the entire -Juno. - -"Yes, he's a cunning old joker is Time," murmured Mr. Everett, almost -inaudibly. - -"What ought to have happened," said Mrs. Armitage, while with deft -fingers rolling herself a cigarette, "was for you and Nellie to have -married." - -Mrs. Everett's pale face flushed scarlet. - -"My dear," exclaimed the shocked Nathaniel Armitage, flushing -likewise. - -"Oh, why may one not sometimes speak the truth?" answered his wife -petulantly. "You and I are utterly unsuited to one another--everybody -sees it. At nineteen it seemed to me beautiful, holy, the idea of -being a clergyman's wife, fighting by his side against evil. Besides, -you have changed since then. You were human, my dear Nat, in those -days, and the best dancer I had ever met. It was your dancing was -your chief attraction for me as likely as not, if I had only known -myself. At nineteen how can one know oneself?" - -"We loved each other," the Rev. Armitage reminded her. - -"I know we did, passionately--then; but we don't now." She laughed a -little bitterly. "Poor Nat! I am only another trial added to your -long list. Your beliefs, your ideals are meaningless to me--mere -narrow-minded dogmas, stifling thought. Nellie was the wife Nature -had intended for you, so soon as she had lost her beauty and with it -all her worldly ideas. Fate was maturing her for you, if only we had -known. As for me, I ought to have been the wife of an artist, of a -poet." Unconsciously a glance from her ever restless eyes flashed -across the table to where Horatio Camelford sat, puffing clouds of -smoke into the air from a huge black meerschaum pipe. "Bohemia is my -country. Its poverty, its struggle would have been a joy to me. -Breathing its free air, life would have been worth living." - -Horatio Camelford leant back with eyes fixed on the oaken ceiling. -"It is a mistake," said Horatio Camelford, "for the artist ever to -marry." - -The handsome Mrs. Camelford laughed good-naturedly. "The artist," -remarked Mrs. Camelford, "from what I have seen of him would never -know the inside of his shirt from the outside if his wife was not -there to take it out of the drawer and put it over his head." - -"His wearing it inside out would not make much difference to the -world," argued her husband. "The sacrifice of his art to the -necessity of keeping his wife and family does." - -"Well, you at all events do not appear to have sacrificed much, my -boy," came the breezy voice of Dick Everett. "Why, all the world is -ringing with your name." - -"When I am forty-one, with all the best years of my life behind me," -answered the Poet. "Speaking as a man, I have nothing to regret. No -one could have had a better wife; my children are charming. I have -lived the peaceful existence of the successful citizen. Had I been -true to my trust I should have gone out into the wilderness, the only -possible home of the teacher, the prophet. The artist is the -bridegroom of Art. Marriage for him is an immorality. Had I my time -again I should remain a bachelor." - -"Time brings its revenges, you see," laughed Mrs. Camelford. "At -twenty that fellow threatened to commit suicide if I would not marry -him, and cordially disliking him I consented. Now twenty years later, -when I am just getting used to him, he calmly turns round and says he -would have been better without me." - -"I heard something about it at the time," said Mrs. Armitage. "You -were very much in love with somebody else, were you not?" - -"Is not the conversation assuming a rather dangerous direction?" -laughed Mrs. Camelford. - -"I was thinking the same thing, "agreed Mrs. Everett. "One would -imagine some strange influence had seized upon us, forcing us to speak -our thoughts aloud." - -"I am afraid I was the original culprit," admitted the Reverend -Nathaniel. "This room is becoming quite oppressive. Had we not -better go to bed?" - -The ancient lamp suspended from its smoke-grimed beam uttered a faint, -gurgling sob, and spluttered out. The shadow of the old Cathedral -tower crept in and stretched across the room, now illuminated only by -occasional beams from the cloud-curtained moon. At the other end of -the table sat a peak-faced little gentleman, clean-shaven, in -full-bottomed wig. - -"Forgive me," said the little gentleman. He spoke in English, with a -strong accent. "But it seems to me here is a case where two parties -might be of service to one another." - -The six fellow-travellers round the table looked at one another, but -none spoke. The idea that came to each of them, as they explained to -one another later, was that without remembering it they had taken -their candles and had gone to bed. This was surely a dream. - -"It would greatly assist me," continued the little peak-faced -gentleman, "in experiments I am conducting into the phenomena of human -tendencies, if you would allow me to put your lives back twenty -years." - -Still no one of the six replied. It seemed to them that the little -old gentleman must have been sitting there among them all the time, -unnoticed by them. - -"Judging from your talk this evening," continued the peak-faced little -gentleman, "you should welcome my offer. You appear to me to be one -and all of exceptional intelligence. You perceive the mistakes that -you have made: you understand the causes. The future veiled, you -could not help yourselves. What I propose to do is to put you back -twenty years. You will be boys and girls again, but with this -difference: that the knowledge of the future, so far as it relates to -yourselves, will remain with you. - -"Come," urged the old gentleman, "the thing is quite simple of -accomplishment. As--as a certain philosopher has clearly proved: the -universe is only the result of our own perceptions. By what may -appear to you to be magic--by what in reality will be simply a -chemical operation--I remove from your memory the events of the last -twenty years, with the exception of what immediately concerns your own -personalities. You will retain all knowledge of the changes, physical -and mental, that will be in store for you; all else will pass from -your perception." - -The little old gentleman took a small phial from his waistcoat pocket, -and, filling one of the massive wine-glasses from a decanter, measured -into it some half-a-dozen drops. Then he placed the glass in the -centre of the table. - -"Youth is a good time to go back to," said the peak-faced little -gentleman, with a smile. "Twenty years ago, it was the night of the -Hunt Ball. You remember it?" - -It was Everett who drank first. He drank it with his little twinkling -eyes fixed hungrily on the proud handsome face of Mrs. Camelford; and -then handed the glass to his wife. It was she perhaps who drank from -it most eagerly. Her life with Everett, from the day when she had -risen from a bed of sickness stripped of all her beauty, had been one -bitter wrong. She drank with the wild hope that the thing might -possibly be not a dream; and thrilled to the touch of the man she -loved, as reaching across the table he took the glass from her hand. -Mrs. Armitage was the fourth to drink. She took the cup from her -husband, drank with a quiet smile, and passed it on to Camelford. And -Camelford drank, looking at nobody, and replaced the glass upon the -table. - -"Come," said the little old gentleman to Mrs. Camelford, "you are the -only one left. The whole thing will be incomplete without you." - -"I have no wish to drink," said Mrs. Camelford, and her eyes sought -those of her husband, but he would not look at her. - -"Come," again urged the Figure. And then Camelford looked at her and -laughed drily. - -"You had better drink," he said. "It's only a dream." - -"If you wish it," she answered. And it was from his hands she took -the glass. - - *** - -It is from the narrative as Armitage told it to me that night in the -Club smoking-room that I am taking most of my material. It seemed to -him that all things began slowly to rise upward, leaving him -stationary, but with a great pain as though the inside of him were -being torn away--the same sensation greatly exaggerated, so he likened -it, as descending in a lift. But around him all the time was silence -and darkness unrelieved. After a period that might have been minutes, -that might have been years, a faint light crept towards him. It grew -stronger, and into the air which now fanned his cheek there stole the -sound of far-off music. The light and the music both increased, and -one by one his senses came back to him. He was seated on a low -cushioned bench beneath a group of palms. A young girl was sitting -beside him, but her face was turned away from him. - -"I did not catch your name," he was saying. "Would you mind telling -it to me?" - -She turned her face towards him. It was the most spiritually -beautiful face he had ever seen. "I am in the same predicament," she -laughed. "You had better write yours on my programme, and I will -write mine on yours." - -So they wrote upon each other's programme and exchanged again. The -name she had written was Alice Blatchley. - -He had never seen her before, that he could remember. Yet at the back -of his mind there dwelt the haunting knowledge of her. Somewhere long -ago they had met, talked together. Slowly, as one recalls a dream, it -came back to him. In some other life, vague, shadowy, he had married -this woman. For the first few years they had loved each other; then -the gulf had opened between them, widened. Stern, strong voices had -called to him to lay aside his selfish dreams, his boyish ambitions, -to take upon his shoulders the yoke of a great duty. When more than -ever he had demanded sympathy and help, this woman had fallen away -from him. His ideals but irritated her. Only at the cost of daily -bitterness had he been able to resist her endeavours to draw him from -his path. A face--that of a woman with soft eyes, full of -helpfulness, shone through the mist of his dream--the face of a woman -who would one day come to him out of the Future with outstretched -hands that he would yearn to clasp. - -"Shall we not dance?" said the voice beside him. "I really won't sit -out a waltz." - -They hurried into the ball-room. With his arm about her form, her -wondrous eyes shyly, at rare moments, seeking his, then vanishing -again behind their drooping lashes, the brain, the mind, the very soul -of the young man passed out of his own keeping. She complimented him -in her bewitching manner, a delightful blending of condescension and -timidity. - -"You dance extremely well," she told him. "You may ask me for -another, later on." - -The words flashed out from that dim haunting future. "Your dancing -was your chief attraction for me, as likely as not, had I but known?" - -All that evening and for many months to come the Present and the -Future fought within him. And the experience of Nathaniel Armitage, -divinity student, was the experience likewise of Alice Blatchley, who -had fallen in love with him at first sight, having found him the -divinest dancer she had ever whirled with to the sensuous music of the -waltz; of Horatio Camelford, journalist and minor poet, whose -journalism earned him a bare income, but at whose minor poetry critics -smiled; of Jessica Dearwood, with her glorious eyes, and muddy -complexion, and her wild hopeless passion for the big, handsome, -ruddy-bearded Dick Everett, who, knowing it, only laughed at her in -his kindly, lordly way, telling her with frank brutalness that the -woman who was not beautiful had missed her vocation in life; of that -scheming, conquering young gentleman himself, who at twenty-five had -already made his mark in the City, shrewd, clever, cool-headed as a -fox, except where a pretty face and shapely hand or ankle were -concerned; of Nellie Fanshawe, then in the pride of her ravishing -beauty, who loved none but herself, whose clay-made gods were jewels, -and fine dresses and rich feasts, the envy of other women and the -courtship of all mankind. - -That evening of the ball each clung to the hope that this memory of -the future was but a dream. They had been introduced to one another; -had heard each other's names for the first time with a start of -recognition; had avoided one another's eyes; had hastened to plunge -into meaningless talk; till that moment when young Camelford, stooping -to pick up Jessica's fan, had found that broken fragment of the -Rhenish wine-glass. Then it was that conviction refused to be shaken -off, that knowledge of the future had to be sadly accepted. - -What they had not foreseen was that knowledge of the future in no way -affected their emotions of the present. Nathaniel Armitage grew day -by day more hopelessly in love with bewitching Alice Blatchley. The -thought of her marrying anyone else--the long-haired, priggish -Camelford in particular--sent the blood boiling through his veins; -added to which sweet Alice, with her arms about his neck, would -confess to him that life without him would be a misery hardly to be -endured, that the thought of him as the husband of another woman--of -Nellie Fanshawe in particular--was madness to her. It was right -perhaps, knowing what they did, that they should say good-bye to one -another. She would bring sorrow into his life. Better far that he -should put her away from him, that she should die of a broken heart, -as she felt sure she would. How could he, a fond lover, inflict this -suffering upon her? He ought of course to marry Nellie Fanshawe, but -he could not bear the girl. Would it not be the height of absurdity -to marry a girl he strongly disliked because twenty years hence she -might be more suitable to him than the woman he now loved and who -loved him? - -Nor could Nellie Fanshawe bring herself to discuss without laughter -the suggestion of marrying on a hundred-and-fifty a year a curate that -she positively hated. There would come a time when wealth would be -indifferent to her, when her exalted spirit would ask but for the -satisfaction of self-sacrifice. But that time had not arrived. The -emotions it would bring with it she could not in her present state -even imagine. Her whole present being craved for the things of this -world, the things that were within her grasp. To ask her to forego -them now because later on she would not care for them! it was like -telling a schoolboy to avoid the tuck-shop because, when a man, the -thought of stick-jaw would be nauseous to him. If her capacity for -enjoyment was to be short-lived, all the more reason for grasping joy -quickly. - -Alice Blatchley, when her lover was not by, gave herself many a -headache trying to think the thing out logically. Was it not foolish -of her to rush into this marriage with dear Nat? At forty she would -wish she had married somebody else. But most women at forty--she -judged from conversation round about her--wished they had married -somebody else. If every girl at twenty listened to herself at forty -there would be no more marriage. At forty she would be a different -person altogether. That other elderly person did not interest her. -To ask a young girl to spoil her life purely in the interests of this -middle-aged party--it did not seem right. Besides, whom else was she -to marry? Camelford would not have her; he did not want her then; he -was not going to want her at forty. For practical purposes Camelford -was out of the question. She might marry somebody else -altogether--and fare worse. She might remain a spinster: she hated -the mere name of spinster. The inky-fingered woman journalist that, -if all went well, she might become: it was not her idea. Was she -acting selfishly? Ought she, in his own interests, to refuse to marry -dear Nat? Nellie--the little cat--who would suit him at forty, would -not have him. If he was going to marry anyone but Nellie he might as -well marry her, Alice. A bachelor clergyman! it sounded almost -improper. Nor was dear Nat the type. If she threw him over it would -be into the arms of some designing minx. What was she to do? - -Camelford at forty, under the influence of favourable criticism, would -have persuaded himself he was a heaven-sent prophet, his whole life to -be beautifully spent in the saving of mankind. At twenty he felt he -wanted to live. Weird-looking Jessica, with her magnificent eyes -veiling mysteries, was of more importance to him than the rest of the -species combined. Knowledge of the future in his ease only spurred -desire. The muddy complexion would grow pink and white, the thin -limbs round and shapely; the now scornful eyes would one day light -with love at his coming. It was what he had once hoped: it was what -he now knew. At forty the artist is stronger than the man; at twenty -the man is stronger than the artist. - -An uncanny creature, so most folks would have described Jessica -Dearwood. Few would have imagined her developing into the -good-natured, easy-going Mrs. Camelford of middle age. The animal, so -strong within her at twenty, at thirty had burnt itself out. At -eighteen, madly, blindly in love with red-bearded, deep-voiced Dick -Everett she would, had he whistled to her, have flung herself -gratefully at his feet, and this in spite of the knowledge forewarning -her of the miserable life he would certainly lead her, at all events -until her slowly developing beauty should give her the whip hand of -him--by which time she would have come to despise him. Fortunately, -as she told herself, there was no fear of his doing so, the future -notwithstanding. Nellie Fanshawe's beauty held him as with chains of -steel, and Nellie had no intention of allowing her rich prize to -escape her. Her own lover, it was true, irritated her more than any -man she had ever met, but at least he would afford her refuge from the -bread of charity. Jessica Dearwood, an orphan, had been brought up by -a distant relative. She had not been the child to win affection. Of -silent, brooding nature, every thoughtless incivility had been to her -an insult, a wrong. Acceptance of young Camelford seemed her only -escape from a life that had become to her a martyrdom. At forty-one -he would wish he had remained a bachelor; but at thirty-eight that -would not trouble her. She would know herself he was much better off -as he was. Meanwhile, she would have come to like him, to respect -him. He would be famous, she would be proud of him. Crying into her -pillow--she could not help it--for love of handsome Dick, it was still -a comfort to reflect that Nellie Fanshawe, as it were, was watching -over her, protecting her from herself. - -Dick, as he muttered to himself a dozen times a day, ought to marry -Jessica. At thirty-eight she would be his ideal. He looked at her as -she was at eighteen, and shuddered. Nellie at thirty would be plain -and uninteresting. But when did consideration of the future ever cry -halt to passion: when did a lover ever pause thinking of the morrow? -If her beauty was to quickly pass, was not that one reason the more -urging him to possess it while it lasted? - -Nellie Fanshawe at forty would be a saint. The prospect did not -please her: she hated saints. She would love the tiresome, solemn -Nathaniel: of what use was that to her now? He did not desire her; -he was in love with Alice, and Alice was in love with him. What would -be the sense--even if they all agreed--in the three of them making -themselves miserable for all their youth that they might be contented -in their old age? Let age fend for itself and leave youth to its own -instincts. Let elderly saints suffer--it was their _metier_--and -youth drink the cup of life. It was a pity Dick was the only "catch" -available, but he was young and handsome. Other girls had to put up -with sixty and the gout. - -Another point, a very serious point, had been overlooked. All that -had arrived to them in that dim future of the past had happened to -them as the results of their making the marriages they had made. To -what fate other roads would lead their knowledge could not tell them. -Nellie Fanshawe had become at forty a lovely character. Might not the -hard life she had led with her husband--a life calling for continual -sacrifice, for daily self-control--have helped towards this end? As -the wife of a poor curate of high moral principles, would the same -result have been secured? The fever that had robbed her of her beauty -and turned her thoughts inward had been the result of sitting out on -the balcony of the Paris Opera House with an Italian Count on the -occasion of a fancy dress ball. As the wife of an East End clergyman -the chances are she would have escaped that fever and its purifying -effects. Was there not danger in the position: a supremely beautiful -young woman, worldly-minded, hungry for pleasure, condemned to a life -of poverty with a man she did not care for? The influence of Alice -upon Nathaniel Armitage, during those first years when his character -was forming, had been all for good. Could he be sure that, married to -Nellie, he might not have deteriorated? - -Were Alice Blatchley to marry an artist could she be sure that at -forty she would still be in sympathy with artistic ideals? Even as a -child had not her desire ever been in the opposite direction to that -favoured by her nurse? Did not the reading of Conservative journals -invariably incline her towards Radicalism, and the steady stream of -Radical talk round her husband's table invariably set her seeking -arguments in favour of the feudal system? Might it not have been her -husband's growing Puritanism that had driven her to crave for -Bohemianism? Suppose that towards middle age, the wife of a wild -artist, she suddenly "took religion," as the saying is. Her last -state would be worse than the first. - -Camelford was of delicate physique. As an absent-minded bachelor with -no one to give him his meals, no one to see that his things were -aired, could he have lived till forty? Could he be sure that home -life had not given more to his art than it had taken from it? - -Jessica Dearwood, of a nervous, passionate nature, married to a bad -husband, might at forty have posed for one of the Furies. Not until -her life had become restful had her good looks shown themselves. Hers -was the type of beauty that for its development demands tranquillity. - -Dick Everett had no delusions concerning himself. That, had he -married Jessica, he could for ten years have remained the faithful -husband of a singularly plain wife he knew to be impossible. But -Jessica would have been no patient Griselda. The extreme probability -was that having married her at twenty for the sake of her beauty at -thirty, at twenty-nine at latest she would have divorced him. - -Everett was a man of practical ideas. It was he who took the matter -in hand. The refreshment contractor admitted that curious goblets of -German glass occasionally crept into their stock. One of the waiters, -on the understanding that in no case should he be called upon to pay -for them, admitted having broken more than one wine-glass on that -particular evening: thought it not unlikely he might have attempted -to hide the fragments under a convenient palm. The whole thing -evidently was a dream. So youth decided at the time, and the three -marriages took place within three months of one another. - -It was some ten years later that Armitage told me the story that night -in the Club smoking-room. Mrs. Everett had just recovered from a -severe attack of rheumatic fever, contracted the spring before in -Paris. Mrs. Camelford, whom previously I had not met, certainly -seemed to me one of the handsomest women I have ever seen. Mrs. -Armitage--I knew her when she was Alice Blatchley--I found more -charming as a woman than she had been as a girl. What she could have -seen in Armitage I never could understand. Camelford made his mark -some ten years later: poor fellow, he did not live long to enjoy his -fame. Dick Everett has still another six years to work off; but he is -well behaved, and there is talk of a petition. - -It is a curious story altogether, I admit. As I said at the -beginning, I do not myself believe it. - -*** End of Project Gutenberg etext of The Philosopher's Joke *** diff --git a/old/jjphj10.zip b/old/jjphj10.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7d15a80..0000000 --- a/old/jjphj10.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-26/868-h.zip b/old/old-2025-02-26/868-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d3ff6a6..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-26/868-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-26/868-h/868-h.htm b/old/old-2025-02-26/868-h/868-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 9ba1027..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-26/868-h/868-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1180 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <title> - The Philosopher's Joke, by Jerome K. Jerome - </title> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; - margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; - text-align: right;} - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Philosopher's Joke, by Jerome K. Jerome - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Philosopher's Joke - -Author: Jerome K. Jerome - -Release Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #868] -Last Updated: January 15, 2013 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE *** - - - - -Produced by Ron Burkey, Amy Thomte, and David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <h1> - THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE - </h1> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <h2> - By Jerome K. Jerome - </h2> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <blockquote> - <p> - Author of "Paul Kelver," "Three Men in a Boat," etc., etc. - </p> - <p> - New York - </p> - <p> - Dodd, Mead & Company - </p> - <p> - 1909 - </p> - <p> - Copyright, 1904, By Jerome K. Jerome - </p> - <p> - Copyright, 1908, By Dodd, Mead & Company - </p> - <p> - Published, September, 1908 - </p> - </blockquote> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <p> - Myself, I do not believe this story. Six persons are persuaded of its - truth; and the hope of these six is to convince themselves it was an - hallucination. Their difficulty is there are six of them. Each one alone - perceives clearly that it never could have been. Unfortunately, they are - close friends, and cannot get away from one another; and when they meet - and look into each other's eyes the thing takes shape again. - </p> - <p> - The one who told it to me, and who immediately wished he had not, was - Armitage. He told it to me one night when he and I were the only occupants - of the Club smoking-room. His telling me—as he explained afterwards—was - an impulse of the moment. Sense of the thing had been pressing upon him - all that day with unusual persistence; and the idea had occurred to him, - on my entering the room, that the flippant scepticism with which an - essentially commonplace mind like my own—he used the words in no - offensive sense—would be sure to regard the affair might help to - direct his own attention to its more absurd aspect. I am inclined to think - it did. He thanked me for dismissing his entire narrative as the delusion - of a disordered brain, and begged me not to mention the matter to another - living soul. I promised; and I may as well here observe that I do not call - this mentioning the matter. Armitage is not the man's real name; it does - not even begin with an A. You might read this story and dine next to him - the same evening: you would know nothing. - </p> - <p> - Also, of course, I did not consider myself debarred from speaking about - it, discreetly, to Mrs. Armitage, a charming woman. She burst into tears - at the first mention of the thing. It took me all I knew to tranquillize - her. She said that when she did not think about the thing she could be - happy. She and Armitage never spoke of it to one another; and left to - themselves her opinion was that eventually they might put remembrance - behind them. She wished they were not quite so friendly with the Everetts. - Mr. and Mrs. Everett had both dreamt precisely the same dream; that is, - assuming it was a dream. Mr. Everett was not the sort of person that a - clergyman ought, perhaps, to know; but as Armitage would always argue: for - a teacher of Christianity to withdraw his friendship from a man because - that man was somewhat of a sinner would be inconsistent. Rather should he - remain his friend and seek to influence him. They dined with the Everetts - regularly on Tuesdays, and sitting opposite the Everetts, it seemed - impossible to accept as a fact that all four of them at the same time and - in the same manner had fallen victims to the same illusion. I think I - succeeded in leaving her more hopeful. She acknowledged that the story, - looked at from the point of common sense, did sound ridiculous; and - threatened me that if I ever breathed a word of it to anyone, she never - would speak to me again. She is a charming woman, as I have already - mentioned. - </p> - <p> - By a curious coincidence I happened at the time to be one of Everett's - directors on a Company he had just promoted for taking over and developing - the Red Sea Coasting trade. I lunched with him the following Sunday. He is - an interesting talker, and curiosity to discover how so shrewd a man would - account for his connection with so insane—so impossible a fancy, - prompted me to hint my knowledge of the story. The manner both of him and - of his wife changed suddenly. They wanted to know who it was had told me. - I refused the information, because it was evident they would have been - angry with him. Everett's theory was that one of them had dreamt it—probably - Camelford—and by hypnotic suggestion had conveyed to the rest of - them the impression that they had dreamt it also. He added that but for - one slight incident he should have ridiculed from the very beginning the - argument that it could have been anything else than a dream. But what that - incident was he would not tell me. His object, as he explained, was not to - dwell upon the business, but to try and forget it. Speaking as a friend, - he advised me, likewise, not to cackle about the matter any more than I - could help, lest trouble should arise with regard to my director's fees. - His way of putting things is occasionally blunt. - </p> - <p> - It was at the Everetts', later on, that I met Mrs. Camelford, one of the - handsomest women I have ever set eyes upon. It was foolish of me, but my - memory for names is weak. I forgot that Mr. and Mrs. Camelford were the - other two concerned, and mentioned the story as a curious tale I had read - years ago in an old Miscellany. I had reckoned on it to lead me into a - discussion with her on platonic friendship. She jumped up from her chair - and gave me a look. I remembered then, and could have bitten out my - tongue. It took me a long while to make my peace, but she came round in - the end, consenting to attribute my blunder to mere stupidity. She was - quite convinced herself, she told me, that the thing was pure imagination. - It was only when in company with the others that any doubt as to this - crossed her mind. Her own idea was that, if everybody would agree never to - mention the matter again, it would end in their forgetting it. She - supposed it was her husband who had been my informant: he was just that - sort of ass. She did not say it unkindly. She said when she was first - married, ten years ago, few people had a more irritating effect upon her - than had Camelford; but that since she had seen more of other men she had - come to respect him. I like to hear a woman speak well of her husband. It - is a departure which, in my opinion, should be more encouraged than it is. - I assured her Camelford was not the culprit; and on the understanding that - I might come to see her—not too often—on her Thursdays, I - agreed with her that the best thing I could do would be to dismiss the - subject from my mind and occupy myself instead with questions that - concerned myself. - </p> - <p> - I had never talked much with Camelford before that time, though I had - often seen him at the Club. He is a strange man, of whom many stories are - told. He writes journalism for a living, and poetry, which he publishes at - his own expense, apparently for recreation. It occurred to me that his - theory would at all events be interesting; but at first he would not talk - at all, pretending to ignore the whole affair, as idle nonsense. I had - almost despaired of drawing him out, when one evening, of his own accord, - he asked me if I thought Mrs. Armitage, with whom he knew I was on terms - of friendship, still attached importance to the thing. On my expressing - the opinion that Mrs. Armitage was the most troubled of the group, he was - irritated; and urged me to leave the rest of them alone and devote - whatever sense I might possess to persuading her in particular that the - entire thing was and could be nothing but pure myth. He confessed frankly - that to him it was still a mystery. He could easily regard it as chimera, - but for one slight incident. He would not for a long while say what that - was, but there is such a thing as perseverance, and in the end I dragged - it out of him. This is what he told me. - </p> - <p> - "We happened by chance to find ourselves alone in the conservatory, that - night of the ball—we six. Most of the crowd had already left. The - last 'extra' was being played: the music came to us faintly. Stooping to - pick up Jessica's fan, which she had let fall to the ground, something - shining on the tesselated pavement underneath a group of palms suddenly - caught my eye. We had not said a word to one another; indeed, it was the - first evening we had any of us met one another—that is, unless the - thing was not a dream. I picked it up. The others gathered round me, and - when we looked into one another's eyes we understood: it was a broken - wine-cup, a curious goblet of Bavarian glass. It was the goblet out of - which we had all dreamt that we had drunk." - </p> - <p> - I have put the story together as it seems to me it must have happened. The - incidents, at all events, are facts. Things have since occurred to those - concerned affording me hope that they will never read it. I should not - have troubled to tell it at all, but that it has a moral. - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - Six persons sat round the great oak table in the wainscoted <i>Speise Saal</i> - of that cosy hostelry, the Kneiper Hof at Konigsberg. It was late into the - night. Under ordinary circumstances they would have been in bed, but - having arrived by the last train from Dantzic, and having supped on German - fare, it had seemed to them discreeter to remain awhile in talk. The house - was strangely silent. The rotund landlord, leaving their candles ranged - upon the sideboard, had wished them "Gute Nacht" an hour before. The - spirit of the ancient house enfolded them within its wings. - </p> - <p> - Here in this very chamber, if rumour is to be believed, Emmanuel Kant - himself had sat discoursing many a time and oft. The walls, behind which - for more than forty years the little peak-faced man had thought and - worked, rose silvered by the moonlight just across the narrow way; the - three high windows of the <i>Speise Saal</i> give out upon the old - Cathedral tower beneath which now he rests. Philosophy, curious concerning - human phenomena, eager for experience, unhampered by the limitation - Convention would impose upon all speculation, was in the smoky air. - </p> - <p> - "Not into future events," remarked the Rev. Nathaniel Armitage, "it is - better they should be hidden from us. But into the future of ourselves—our - temperament, our character—I think we ought to be allowed to see. At - twenty we are one individual; at forty, another person entirely, with - other views, with other interests, a different outlook upon life, - attracted by quite other attributes, repelled by the very qualities that - once attracted us. It is extremely awkward, for all of us." - </p> - <p> - "I am glad to hear somebody else say that," observed Mrs. Everett, in her - gentle, sympathetic voice. "I have thought it all myself so often. - Sometimes I have blamed myself, yet how can one help it: the things that - appeared of importance to us, they become indifferent; new voices call to - us; the idols we once worshipped, we see their feet of clay." - </p> - <p> - "If under the head of idols you include me," laughed the jovial Mr. - Everett, "don't hesitate to say so." He was a large red-faced gentleman, - with small twinkling eyes, and a mouth both strong and sensuous. "I didn't - make my feet myself. I never asked anybody to take me for a stained-glass - saint. It is not I who have changed." - </p> - <p> - "I know, dear, it is I," his thin wife answered with a meek smile. "I was - beautiful, there was no doubt about it, when you married me." - </p> - <p> - "You were, my dear," agreed her husband: "As a girl few could hold a - candle to you." - </p> - <p> - "It was the only thing about me that you valued, my beauty," continued his - wife; "and it went so quickly. I feel sometimes as if I had swindled you." - </p> - <p> - "But there is a beauty of the mind, of the soul," remarked the Rev. - Nathaniel Armitage, "that to some men is more attractive than mere - physical perfection." - </p> - <p> - The soft eyes of the faded lady shone for a moment with the light of - pleasure. "I am afraid Dick is not of that number," she sighed. - </p> - <p> - "Well, as I said just now about my feet," answered her husband genially, - "I didn't make myself. I always have been a slave to beauty and always - shall be. There would be no sense in pretending among chums that you - haven't lost your looks, old girl." He laid his fine hand with kindly - intent upon her bony shoulder. "But there is no call for you to fret - yourself as if you had done it on purpose. No one but a lover imagines a - woman growing more beautiful as she grows older." - </p> - <p> - "Some women would seem to," answered his wife. - </p> - <p> - Involuntarily she glanced to where Mrs. Camelford sat with elbows resting - on the table; and involuntarily also the small twinkling eyes of her - husband followed in the same direction. There is a type that reaches its - prime in middle age. Mrs. Camelford, <i>nee</i> Jessica Dearwood, at - twenty had been an uncanny-looking creature, the only thing about her - appealing to general masculine taste having been her magnificent eyes, and - even these had frightened more than they had allured. At forty, Mrs. - Camelford might have posed for the entire Juno. - </p> - <p> - "Yes, he's a cunning old joker is Time," murmured Mr. Everett, almost - inaudibly. - </p> - <p> - "What ought to have happened," said Mrs. Armitage, while with deft fingers - rolling herself a cigarette, "was for you and Nellie to have married." - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Everett's pale face flushed scarlet. - </p> - <p> - "My dear," exclaimed the shocked Nathaniel Armitage, flushing likewise. - </p> - <p> - "Oh, why may one not sometimes speak the truth?" answered his wife - petulantly. "You and I are utterly unsuited to one another—everybody - sees it. At nineteen it seemed to me beautiful, holy, the idea of being a - clergyman's wife, fighting by his side against evil. Besides, you have - changed since then. You were human, my dear Nat, in those days, and the - best dancer I had ever met. It was your dancing was your chief attraction - for me as likely as not, if I had only known myself. At nineteen how can - one know oneself?" - </p> - <p> - "We loved each other," the Rev. Armitage reminded her. - </p> - <p> - "I know we did, passionately—then; but we don't now." She laughed a - little bitterly. "Poor Nat! I am only another trial added to your long - list. Your beliefs, your ideals are meaningless to me—mere - narrow-minded dogmas, stifling thought. Nellie was the wife Nature had - intended for you, so soon as she had lost her beauty and with it all her - worldly ideas. Fate was maturing her for you, if only we had known. As for - me, I ought to have been the wife of an artist, of a poet." Unconsciously - a glance from her ever restless eyes flashed across the table to where - Horatio Camelford sat, puffing clouds of smoke into the air from a huge - black meerschaum pipe. "Bohemia is my country. Its poverty, its struggle - would have been a joy to me. Breathing its free air, life would have been - worth living." - </p> - <p> - Horatio Camelford leant back with eyes fixed on the oaken ceiling. "It is - a mistake," said Horatio Camelford, "for the artist ever to marry." - </p> - <p> - The handsome Mrs. Camelford laughed good-naturedly. "The artist," remarked - Mrs. Camelford, "from what I have seen of him would never know the inside - of his shirt from the outside if his wife was not there to take it out of - the drawer and put it over his head." - </p> - <p> - "His wearing it inside out would not make much difference to the world," - argued her husband. "The sacrifice of his art to the necessity of keeping - his wife and family does." - </p> - <p> - "Well, you at all events do not appear to have sacrificed much, my boy," - came the breezy voice of Dick Everett. "Why, all the world is ringing with - your name." - </p> - <p> - "When I am forty-one, with all the best years of my life behind me," - answered the Poet. "Speaking as a man, I have nothing to regret. No one - could have had a better wife; my children are charming. I have lived the - peaceful existence of the successful citizen. Had I been true to my trust - I should have gone out into the wilderness, the only possible home of the - teacher, the prophet. The artist is the bridegroom of Art. Marriage for - him is an immorality. Had I my time again I should remain a bachelor." - </p> - <p> - "Time brings its revenges, you see," laughed Mrs. Camelford. "At twenty - that fellow threatened to commit suicide if I would not marry him, and - cordially disliking him I consented. Now twenty years later, when I am - just getting used to him, he calmly turns round and says he would have - been better without me." - </p> - <p> - "I heard something about it at the time," said Mrs. Armitage. "You were - very much in love with somebody else, were you not?" - </p> - <p> - "Is not the conversation assuming a rather dangerous direction?" laughed - Mrs. Camelford. - </p> - <p> - "I was thinking the same thing," agreed Mrs. Everett. "One would imagine - some strange influence had seized upon us, forcing us to speak our - thoughts aloud." - </p> - <p> - "I am afraid I was the original culprit," admitted the Reverend Nathaniel. - "This room is becoming quite oppressive. Had we not better go to bed?" - </p> - <p> - The ancient lamp suspended from its smoke-grimed beam uttered a faint, - gurgling sob, and spluttered out. The shadow of the old Cathedral tower - crept in and stretched across the room, now illuminated only by occasional - beams from the cloud-curtained moon. At the other end of the table sat a - peak-faced little gentleman, clean-shaven, in full-bottomed wig. - </p> - <p> - "Forgive me," said the little gentleman. He spoke in English, with a - strong accent. "But it seems to me here is a case where two parties might - be of service to one another." - </p> - <p> - The six fellow-travellers round the table looked at one another, but none - spoke. The idea that came to each of them, as they explained to one - another later, was that without remembering it they had taken their - candles and had gone to bed. This was surely a dream. - </p> - <p> - "It would greatly assist me," continued the little peak-faced gentleman, - "in experiments I am conducting into the phenomena of human tendencies, if - you would allow me to put your lives back twenty years." - </p> - <p> - Still no one of the six replied. It seemed to them that the little old - gentleman must have been sitting there among them all the time, unnoticed - by them. - </p> - <p> - "Judging from your talk this evening," continued the peak-faced little - gentleman, "you should welcome my offer. You appear to me to be one and - all of exceptional intelligence. You perceive the mistakes that you have - made: you understand the causes. The future veiled, you could not help - yourselves. What I propose to do is to put you back twenty years. You will - be boys and girls again, but with this difference: that the knowledge of - the future, so far as it relates to yourselves, will remain with you. - </p> - <p> - "Come," urged the old gentleman, "the thing is quite simple of - accomplishment. As—as a certain philosopher has clearly proved: the - universe is only the result of our own perceptions. By what may appear to - you to be magic—by what in reality will be simply a chemical - operation—I remove from your memory the events of the last twenty - years, with the exception of what immediately concerns your own - personalities. You will retain all knowledge of the changes, physical and - mental, that will be in store for you; all else will pass from your - perception." - </p> - <p> - The little old gentleman took a small phial from his waistcoat pocket, - and, filling one of the massive wine-glasses from a decanter, measured - into it some half-a-dozen drops. Then he placed the glass in the centre of - the table. - </p> - <p> - "Youth is a good time to go back to," said the peak-faced little - gentleman, with a smile. "Twenty years ago, it was the night of the Hunt - Ball. You remember it?" - </p> - <p> - It was Everett who drank first. He drank it with his little twinkling eyes - fixed hungrily on the proud handsome face of Mrs. Camelford; and then - handed the glass to his wife. It was she perhaps who drank from it most - eagerly. Her life with Everett, from the day when she had risen from a bed - of sickness stripped of all her beauty, had been one bitter wrong. She - drank with the wild hope that the thing might possibly be not a dream; and - thrilled to the touch of the man she loved, as reaching across the table - he took the glass from her hand. Mrs. Armitage was the fourth to drink. - She took the cup from her husband, drank with a quiet smile, and passed it - on to Camelford. And Camelford drank, looking at nobody, and replaced the - glass upon the table. - </p> - <p> - "Come," said the little old gentleman to Mrs. Camelford, "you are the only - one left. The whole thing will be incomplete without you." - </p> - <p> - "I have no wish to drink," said Mrs. Camelford, and her eyes sought those - of her husband, but he would not look at her. - </p> - <p> - "Come," again urged the Figure. And then Camelford looked at her and - laughed drily. - </p> - <p> - "You had better drink," he said. "It's only a dream." - </p> - <p> - "If you wish it," she answered. And it was from his hands she took the - glass. - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - It is from the narrative as Armitage told it to me that night in the Club - smoking-room that I am taking most of my material. It seemed to him that - all things began slowly to rise upward, leaving him stationary, but with a - great pain as though the inside of him were being torn away—the same - sensation greatly exaggerated, so he likened it, as descending in a lift. - But around him all the time was silence and darkness unrelieved. After a - period that might have been minutes, that might have been years, a faint - light crept towards him. It grew stronger, and into the air which now - fanned his cheek there stole the sound of far-off music. The light and the - music both increased, and one by one his senses came back to him. He was - seated on a low cushioned bench beneath a group of palms. A young girl was - sitting beside him, but her face was turned away from him. - </p> - <p> - "I did not catch your name," he was saying. "Would you mind telling it to - me?" - </p> - <p> - She turned her face towards him. It was the most spiritually beautiful - face he had ever seen. "I am in the same predicament," she laughed. "You - had better write yours on my programme, and I will write mine on yours." - </p> - <p> - So they wrote upon each other's programme and exchanged again. The name - she had written was Alice Blatchley. - </p> - <p> - He had never seen her before, that he could remember. Yet at the back of - his mind there dwelt the haunting knowledge of her. Somewhere long ago - they had met, talked together. Slowly, as one recalls a dream, it came - back to him. In some other life, vague, shadowy, he had married this - woman. For the first few years they had loved each other; then the gulf - had opened between them, widened. Stern, strong voices had called to him - to lay aside his selfish dreams, his boyish ambitions, to take upon his - shoulders the yoke of a great duty. When more than ever he had demanded - sympathy and help, this woman had fallen away from him. His ideals but - irritated her. Only at the cost of daily bitterness had he been able to - resist her endeavours to draw him from his path. A face—that of a - woman with soft eyes, full of helpfulness, shone through the mist of his - dream—the face of a woman who would one day come to him out of the - Future with outstretched hands that he would yearn to clasp. - </p> - <p> - "Shall we not dance?" said the voice beside him. "I really won't sit out a - waltz." - </p> - <p> - They hurried into the ball-room. With his arm about her form, her wondrous - eyes shyly, at rare moments, seeking his, then vanishing again behind - their drooping lashes, the brain, the mind, the very soul of the young man - passed out of his own keeping. She complimented him in her bewitching - manner, a delightful blending of condescension and timidity. - </p> - <p> - "You dance extremely well," she told him. "You may ask me for another, - later on." - </p> - <p> - The words flashed out from that dim haunting future. "Your dancing was - your chief attraction for me, as likely as not, had I but known?" - </p> - <p> - All that evening and for many months to come the Present and the Future - fought within him. And the experience of Nathaniel Armitage, divinity - student, was the experience likewise of Alice Blatchley, who had fallen in - love with him at first sight, having found him the divinest dancer she had - ever whirled with to the sensuous music of the waltz; of Horatio - Camelford, journalist and minor poet, whose journalism earned him a bare - income, but at whose minor poetry critics smiled; of Jessica Dearwood, - with her glorious eyes, and muddy complexion, and her wild hopeless - passion for the big, handsome, ruddy-bearded Dick Everett, who, knowing - it, only laughed at her in his kindly, lordly way, telling her with frank - brutalness that the woman who was not beautiful had missed her vocation in - life; of that scheming, conquering young gentleman himself, who at - twenty-five had already made his mark in the City, shrewd, clever, - cool-headed as a fox, except where a pretty face and shapely hand or ankle - were concerned; of Nellie Fanshawe, then in the pride of her ravishing - beauty, who loved none but herself, whose clay-made gods were jewels, and - fine dresses and rich feasts, the envy of other women and the courtship of - all mankind. - </p> - <p> - That evening of the ball each clung to the hope that this memory of the - future was but a dream. They had been introduced to one another; had heard - each other's names for the first time with a start of recognition; had - avoided one another's eyes; had hastened to plunge into meaningless talk; - till that moment when young Camelford, stooping to pick up Jessica's fan, - had found that broken fragment of the Rhenish wine-glass. Then it was that - conviction refused to be shaken off, that knowledge of the future had to - be sadly accepted. - </p> - <p> - What they had not foreseen was that knowledge of the future in no way - affected their emotions of the present. Nathaniel Armitage grew day by day - more hopelessly in love with bewitching Alice Blatchley. The thought of - her marrying anyone else—the long-haired, priggish Camelford in - particular—sent the blood boiling through his veins; added to which - sweet Alice, with her arms about his neck, would confess to him that life - without him would be a misery hardly to be endured, that the thought of - him as the husband of another woman—of Nellie Fanshawe in particular—was - madness to her. It was right perhaps, knowing what they did, that they - should say good-bye to one another. She would bring sorrow into his life. - Better far that he should put her away from him, that she should die of a - broken heart, as she felt sure she would. How could he, a fond lover, - inflict this suffering upon her? He ought of course to marry Nellie - Fanshawe, but he could not bear the girl. Would it not be the height of - absurdity to marry a girl he strongly disliked because twenty years hence - she might be more suitable to him than the woman he now loved and who - loved him? - </p> - <p> - Nor could Nellie Fanshawe bring herself to discuss without laughter the - suggestion of marrying on a hundred-and-fifty a year a curate that she - positively hated. There would come a time when wealth would be indifferent - to her, when her exalted spirit would ask but for the satisfaction of - self-sacrifice. But that time had not arrived. The emotions it would bring - with it she could not in her present state even imagine. Her whole present - being craved for the things of this world, the things that were within her - grasp. To ask her to forego them now because later on she would not care - for them! it was like telling a schoolboy to avoid the tuck-shop because, - when a man, the thought of stick-jaw would be nauseous to him. If her - capacity for enjoyment was to be short-lived, all the more reason for - grasping joy quickly. - </p> - <p> - Alice Blatchley, when her lover was not by, gave herself many a headache - trying to think the thing out logically. Was it not foolish of her to rush - into this marriage with dear Nat? At forty she would wish she had married - somebody else. But most women at forty—she judged from conversation - round about her—wished they had married somebody else. If every girl - at twenty listened to herself at forty there would be no more marriage. At - forty she would be a different person altogether. That other elderly - person did not interest her. To ask a young girl to spoil her life purely - in the interests of this middle-aged party—it did not seem right. - Besides, whom else was she to marry? Camelford would not have her; he did - not want her then; he was not going to want her at forty. For practical - purposes Camelford was out of the question. She might marry somebody else - altogether—and fare worse. She might remain a spinster: she hated - the mere name of spinster. The inky-fingered woman journalist that, if all - went well, she might become: it was not her idea. Was she acting - selfishly? Ought she, in his own interests, to refuse to marry dear Nat? - Nellie—the little cat—who would suit him at forty, would not - have him. If he was going to marry anyone but Nellie he might as well - marry her, Alice. A bachelor clergyman! it sounded almost improper. Nor - was dear Nat the type. If she threw him over it would be into the arms of - some designing minx. What was she to do? - </p> - <p> - Camelford at forty, under the influence of favourable criticism, would - have persuaded himself he was a heaven-sent prophet, his whole life to be - beautifully spent in the saving of mankind. At twenty he felt he wanted to - live. Weird-looking Jessica, with her magnificent eyes veiling mysteries, - was of more importance to him than the rest of the species combined. - Knowledge of the future in his ease only spurred desire. The muddy - complexion would grow pink and white, the thin limbs round and shapely; - the now scornful eyes would one day light with love at his coming. It was - what he had once hoped: it was what he now knew. At forty the artist is - stronger than the man; at twenty the man is stronger than the artist. - </p> - <p> - An uncanny creature, so most folks would have described Jessica Dearwood. - Few would have imagined her developing into the good-natured, easy-going - Mrs. Camelford of middle age. The animal, so strong within her at twenty, - at thirty had burnt itself out. At eighteen, madly, blindly in love with - red-bearded, deep-voiced Dick Everett she would, had he whistled to her, - have flung herself gratefully at his feet, and this in spite of the - knowledge forewarning her of the miserable life he would certainly lead - her, at all events until her slowly developing beauty should give her the - whip hand of him—by which time she would have come to despise him. - Fortunately, as she told herself, there was no fear of his doing so, the - future notwithstanding. Nellie Fanshawe's beauty held him as with chains - of steel, and Nellie had no intention of allowing her rich prize to escape - her. Her own lover, it was true, irritated her more than any man she had - ever met, but at least he would afford her refuge from the bread of - charity. Jessica Dearwood, an orphan, had been brought up by a distant - relative. She had not been the child to win affection. Of silent, brooding - nature, every thoughtless incivility had been to her an insult, a wrong. - Acceptance of young Camelford seemed her only escape from a life that had - become to her a martyrdom. At forty-one he would wish he had remained a - bachelor; but at thirty-eight that would not trouble her. She would know - herself he was much better off as he was. Meanwhile, she would have come - to like him, to respect him. He would be famous, she would be proud of - him. Crying into her pillow—she could not help it—for love of - handsome Dick, it was still a comfort to reflect that Nellie Fanshawe, as - it were, was watching over her, protecting her from herself. - </p> - <p> - Dick, as he muttered to himself a dozen times a day, ought to marry - Jessica. At thirty-eight she would be his ideal. He looked at her as she - was at eighteen, and shuddered. Nellie at thirty would be plain and - uninteresting. But when did consideration of the future ever cry halt to - passion: when did a lover ever pause thinking of the morrow? If her beauty - was to quickly pass, was not that one reason the more urging him to - possess it while it lasted? - </p> - <p> - Nellie Fanshawe at forty would be a saint. The prospect did not please - her: she hated saints. She would love the tiresome, solemn Nathaniel: of - what use was that to her now? He did not desire her; he was in love with - Alice, and Alice was in love with him. What would be the sense—even - if they all agreed—in the three of them making themselves miserable - for all their youth that they might be contented in their old age? Let age - fend for itself and leave youth to its own instincts. Let elderly saints - suffer—it was their <i>metier</i>—and youth drink the cup of - life. It was a pity Dick was the only "catch" available, but he was young - and handsome. Other girls had to put up with sixty and the gout. - </p> - <p> - Another point, a very serious point, had been overlooked. All that had - arrived to them in that dim future of the past had happened to them as the - results of their making the marriages they had made. To what fate other - roads would lead their knowledge could not tell them. Nellie Fanshawe had - become at forty a lovely character. Might not the hard life she had led - with her husband—a life calling for continual sacrifice, for daily - self-control—have helped towards this end? As the wife of a poor - curate of high moral principles, would the same result have been secured? - The fever that had robbed her of her beauty and turned her thoughts inward - had been the result of sitting out on the balcony of the Paris Opera House - with an Italian Count on the occasion of a fancy dress ball. As the wife - of an East End clergyman the chances are she would have escaped that fever - and its purifying effects. Was there not danger in the position: a - supremely beautiful young woman, worldly-minded, hungry for pleasure, - condemned to a life of poverty with a man she did not care for? The - influence of Alice upon Nathaniel Armitage, during those first years when - his character was forming, had been all for good. Could he be sure that, - married to Nellie, he might not have deteriorated? - </p> - <p> - Were Alice Blatchley to marry an artist could she be sure that at forty - she would still be in sympathy with artistic ideals? Even as a child had - not her desire ever been in the opposite direction to that favoured by her - nurse? Did not the reading of Conservative journals invariably incline her - towards Radicalism, and the steady stream of Radical talk round her - husband's table invariably set her seeking arguments in favour of the - feudal system? Might it not have been her husband's growing Puritanism - that had driven her to crave for Bohemianism? Suppose that towards middle - age, the wife of a wild artist, she suddenly "took religion," as the - saying is. Her last state would be worse than the first. - </p> - <p> - Camelford was of delicate physique. As an absent-minded bachelor with no - one to give him his meals, no one to see that his things were aired, could - he have lived till forty? Could he be sure that home life had not given - more to his art than it had taken from it? - </p> - <p> - Jessica Dearwood, of a nervous, passionate nature, married to a bad - husband, might at forty have posed for one of the Furies. Not until her - life had become restful had her good looks shown themselves. Hers was the - type of beauty that for its development demands tranquillity. - </p> - <p> - Dick Everett had no delusions concerning himself. That, had he married - Jessica, he could for ten years have remained the faithful husband of a - singularly plain wife he knew to be impossible. But Jessica would have - been no patient Griselda. The extreme probability was that having married - her at twenty for the sake of her beauty at thirty, at twenty-nine at - latest she would have divorced him. - </p> - <p> - Everett was a man of practical ideas. It was he who took the matter in - hand. The refreshment contractor admitted that curious goblets of German - glass occasionally crept into their stock. One of the waiters, on the - understanding that in no case should he be called upon to pay for them, - admitted having broken more than one wine-glass on that particular - evening: thought it not unlikely he might have attempted to hide the - fragments under a convenient palm. The whole thing evidently was a dream. - So youth decided at the time, and the three marriages took place within - three months of one another. - </p> - <p> - It was some ten years later that Armitage told me the story that night in - the Club smoking-room. Mrs. Everett had just recovered from a severe - attack of rheumatic fever, contracted the spring before in Paris. Mrs. - Camelford, whom previously I had not met, certainly seemed to me one of - the handsomest women I have ever seen. Mrs. Armitage—I knew her when - she was Alice Blatchley—I found more charming as a woman than she - had been as a girl. What she could have seen in Armitage I never could - understand. Camelford made his mark some ten years later: poor fellow, he - did not live long to enjoy his fame. Dick Everett has still another six - years to work off; but he is well behaved, and there is talk of a - petition. - </p> - <p> - It is a curious story altogether, I admit. As I said at the beginning, I - do not myself believe it. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosopher's Joke, by Jerome K. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - -</pre> - </body> -</html> diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-26/868.txt b/old/old-2025-02-26/868.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ecd719f..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-26/868.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1048 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Philosopher's Joke, by Jerome K. Jerome - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Philosopher's Joke - -Author: Jerome K. Jerome - -Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #868] -Release Date: April 1997 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE *** - - - - -Produced by Ron Burkey, and Amy Thomte - - - - - -THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE - -By Jerome K. Jerome - -Author of "Paul Kelver," "Three Men in a Boat," etc., etc. - -New York - -Dodd, Mead & Company - -1909 - - -Copyright, 1904, By Jerome K. Jerome - -Copyright, 1908, By Dodd, Mead & Company - -Published, September, 1908 - - - -Myself, I do not believe this story. Six persons are persuaded of its -truth; and the hope of these six is to convince themselves it was an -hallucination. Their difficulty is there are six of them. Each one alone -perceives clearly that it never could have been. Unfortunately, they are -close friends, and cannot get away from one another; and when they meet -and look into each other's eyes the thing takes shape again. - -The one who told it to me, and who immediately wished he had not, -was Armitage. He told it to me one night when he and I were the only -occupants of the Club smoking-room. His telling me--as he explained -afterwards--was an impulse of the moment. Sense of the thing had been -pressing upon him all that day with unusual persistence; and the -idea had occurred to him, on my entering the room, that the flippant -scepticism with which an essentially commonplace mind like my own--he -used the words in no offensive sense--would be sure to regard the affair -might help to direct his own attention to its more absurd aspect. I -am inclined to think it did. He thanked me for dismissing his entire -narrative as the delusion of a disordered brain, and begged me not to -mention the matter to another living soul. I promised; and I may as well -here observe that I do not call this mentioning the matter. Armitage -is not the man's real name; it does not even begin with an A. You might -read this story and dine next to him the same evening: you would know -nothing. - -Also, of course, I did not consider myself debarred from speaking about -it, discreetly, to Mrs. Armitage, a charming woman. She burst into tears -at the first mention of the thing. It took me all I knew to tranquillize -her. She said that when she did not think about the thing she could be -happy. She and Armitage never spoke of it to one another; and left to -themselves her opinion was that eventually they might put remembrance -behind them. She wished they were not quite so friendly with the -Everetts. Mr. and Mrs. Everett had both dreamt precisely the same dream; -that is, assuming it was a dream. Mr. Everett was not the sort of person -that a clergyman ought, perhaps, to know; but as Armitage would always -argue: for a teacher of Christianity to withdraw his friendship from -a man because that man was somewhat of a sinner would be inconsistent. -Rather should he remain his friend and seek to influence him. They -dined with the Everetts regularly on Tuesdays, and sitting opposite the -Everetts, it seemed impossible to accept as a fact that all four of them -at the same time and in the same manner had fallen victims to the -same illusion. I think I succeeded in leaving her more hopeful. She -acknowledged that the story, looked at from the point of common sense, -did sound ridiculous; and threatened me that if I ever breathed a word -of it to anyone, she never would speak to me again. She is a charming -woman, as I have already mentioned. - -By a curious coincidence I happened at the time to be one of Everett's -directors on a Company he had just promoted for taking over and -developing the Red Sea Coasting trade. I lunched with him the following -Sunday. He is an interesting talker, and curiosity to discover how -so shrewd a man would account for his connection with so insane--so -impossible a fancy, prompted me to hint my knowledge of the story. The -manner both of him and of his wife changed suddenly. They wanted to -know who it was had told me. I refused the information, because it was -evident they would have been angry with him. Everett's theory was -that one of them had dreamt it--probably Camelford--and by hypnotic -suggestion had conveyed to the rest of them the impression that they had -dreamt it also. He added that but for one slight incident he should have -ridiculed from the very beginning the argument that it could have been -anything else than a dream. But what that incident was he would not tell -me. His object, as he explained, was not to dwell upon the business, but -to try and forget it. Speaking as a friend, he advised me, likewise, -not to cackle about the matter any more than I could help, lest trouble -should arise with regard to my director's fees. His way of putting -things is occasionally blunt. - -It was at the Everetts', later on, that I met Mrs. Camelford, one of the -handsomest women I have ever set eyes upon. It was foolish of me, but my -memory for names is weak. I forgot that Mr. and Mrs. Camelford were the -other two concerned, and mentioned the story as a curious tale I had -read years ago in an old Miscellany. I had reckoned on it to lead me -into a discussion with her on platonic friendship. She jumped up from -her chair and gave me a look. I remembered then, and could have bitten -out my tongue. It took me a long while to make my peace, but she came -round in the end, consenting to attribute my blunder to mere stupidity. -She was quite convinced herself, she told me, that the thing was pure -imagination. It was only when in company with the others that any doubt -as to this crossed her mind. Her own idea was that, if everybody -would agree never to mention the matter again, it would end in -their forgetting it. She supposed it was her husband who had been my -informant: he was just that sort of ass. She did not say it unkindly. -She said when she was first married, ten years ago, few people had a -more irritating effect upon her than had Camelford; but that since she -had seen more of other men she had come to respect him. I like to hear a -woman speak well of her husband. It is a departure which, in my opinion, -should be more encouraged than it is. I assured her Camelford was not -the culprit; and on the understanding that I might come to see her--not -too often--on her Thursdays, I agreed with her that the best thing I -could do would be to dismiss the subject from my mind and occupy myself -instead with questions that concerned myself. - -I had never talked much with Camelford before that time, though I had -often seen him at the Club. He is a strange man, of whom many stories -are told. He writes journalism for a living, and poetry, which he -publishes at his own expense, apparently for recreation. It occurred to -me that his theory would at all events be interesting; but at first he -would not talk at all, pretending to ignore the whole affair, as idle -nonsense. I had almost despaired of drawing him out, when one evening, -of his own accord, he asked me if I thought Mrs. Armitage, with whom -he knew I was on terms of friendship, still attached importance to the -thing. On my expressing the opinion that Mrs. Armitage was the most -troubled of the group, he was irritated; and urged me to leave the rest -of them alone and devote whatever sense I might possess to persuading -her in particular that the entire thing was and could be nothing but -pure myth. He confessed frankly that to him it was still a mystery. He -could easily regard it as chimera, but for one slight incident. He would -not for a long while say what that was, but there is such a thing as -perseverance, and in the end I dragged it out of him. This is what he -told me. - -"We happened by chance to find ourselves alone in the conservatory, that -night of the ball--we six. Most of the crowd had already left. The last -'extra' was being played: the music came to us faintly. Stooping to -pick up Jessica's fan, which she had let fall to the ground, something -shining on the tesselated pavement underneath a group of palms suddenly -caught my eye. We had not said a word to one another; indeed, it was -the first evening we had any of us met one another--that is, unless the -thing was not a dream. I picked it up. The others gathered round me, and -when we looked into one another's eyes we understood: it was a broken -wine-cup, a curious goblet of Bavarian glass. It was the goblet out of -which we had all dreamt that we had drunk." - -I have put the story together as it seems to me it must have happened. -The incidents, at all events, are facts. Things have since occurred to -those concerned affording me hope that they will never read it. I should -not have troubled to tell it at all, but that it has a moral. - -***** - -Six persons sat round the great oak table in the wainscoted _Speise -Saal_ of that cosy hostelry, the Kneiper Hof at Konigsberg. It was late -into the night. Under ordinary circumstances they would have been in -bed, but having arrived by the last train from Dantzic, and having -supped on German fare, it had seemed to them discreeter to remain awhile -in talk. The house was strangely silent. The rotund landlord, leaving -their candles ranged upon the sideboard, had wished them "Gute Nacht" -an hour before. The spirit of the ancient house enfolded them within its -wings. - -Here in this very chamber, if rumour is to be believed, Emmanuel Kant -himself had sat discoursing many a time and oft. The walls, behind which -for more than forty years the little peak-faced man had thought and -worked, rose silvered by the moonlight just across the narrow way; the -three high windows of the _Speise Saal_ give out upon the old Cathedral -tower beneath which now he rests. Philosophy, curious concerning human -phenomena, eager for experience, unhampered by the limitation Convention -would impose upon all speculation, was in the smoky air. - -"Not into future events," remarked the Rev. Nathaniel Armitage, "it -is better they should be hidden from us. But into the future of -ourselves--our temperament, our character--I think we ought to be -allowed to see. At twenty we are one individual; at forty, another -person entirely, with other views, with other interests, a different -outlook upon life, attracted by quite other attributes, repelled by the -very qualities that once attracted us. It is extremely awkward, for all -of us." - -"I am glad to hear somebody else say that," observed Mrs. Everett, in -her gentle, sympathetic voice. "I have thought it all myself so often. -Sometimes I have blamed myself, yet how can one help it: the things that -appeared of importance to us, they become indifferent; new voices call -to us; the idols we once worshipped, we see their feet of clay." - -"If under the head of idols you include me," laughed the jovial Mr. -Everett, "don't hesitate to say so." He was a large red-faced gentleman, -with small twinkling eyes, and a mouth both strong and sensuous. "I -didn't make my feet myself. I never asked anybody to take me for a -stained-glass saint. It is not I who have changed." - -"I know, dear, it is I," his thin wife answered with a meek smile. "I -was beautiful, there was no doubt about it, when you married me." - -"You were, my dear," agreed her husband: "As a girl few could hold a -candle to you." - -"It was the only thing about me that you valued, my beauty," continued -his wife; "and it went so quickly. I feel sometimes as if I had swindled -you." - -"But there is a beauty of the mind, of the soul," remarked the Rev. -Nathaniel Armitage, "that to some men is more attractive than mere -physical perfection." - -The soft eyes of the faded lady shone for a moment with the light of -pleasure. "I am afraid Dick is not of that number," she sighed. - -"Well, as I said just now about my feet," answered her husband genially, -"I didn't make myself. I always have been a slave to beauty and always -shall be. There would be no sense in pretending among chums that you -haven't lost your looks, old girl." He laid his fine hand with kindly -intent upon her bony shoulder. "But there is no call for you to fret -yourself as if you had done it on purpose. No one but a lover imagines a -woman growing more beautiful as she grows older." - -"Some women would seem to," answered his wife. - -Involuntarily she glanced to where Mrs. Camelford sat with elbows -resting on the table; and involuntarily also the small twinkling eyes of -her husband followed in the same direction. There is a type that reaches -its prime in middle age. Mrs. Camelford, _nee_ Jessica Dearwood, at -twenty had been an uncanny-looking creature, the only thing about her -appealing to general masculine taste having been her magnificent eyes, -and even these had frightened more than they had allured. At forty, Mrs. -Camelford might have posed for the entire Juno. - -"Yes, he's a cunning old joker is Time," murmured Mr. Everett, almost -inaudibly. - -"What ought to have happened," said Mrs. Armitage, while with deft -fingers rolling herself a cigarette, "was for you and Nellie to have -married." - -Mrs. Everett's pale face flushed scarlet. - -"My dear," exclaimed the shocked Nathaniel Armitage, flushing likewise. - -"Oh, why may one not sometimes speak the truth?" answered his wife -petulantly. "You and I are utterly unsuited to one another--everybody -sees it. At nineteen it seemed to me beautiful, holy, the idea of being -a clergyman's wife, fighting by his side against evil. Besides, you have -changed since then. You were human, my dear Nat, in those days, and -the best dancer I had ever met. It was your dancing was your chief -attraction for me as likely as not, if I had only known myself. At -nineteen how can one know oneself?" - -"We loved each other," the Rev. Armitage reminded her. - -"I know we did, passionately--then; but we don't now." She laughed a -little bitterly. "Poor Nat! I am only another trial added to your -long list. Your beliefs, your ideals are meaningless to me--mere -narrow-minded dogmas, stifling thought. Nellie was the wife Nature had -intended for you, so soon as she had lost her beauty and with it all her -worldly ideas. Fate was maturing her for you, if only we had known. -As for me, I ought to have been the wife of an artist, of a poet." -Unconsciously a glance from her ever restless eyes flashed across the -table to where Horatio Camelford sat, puffing clouds of smoke into -the air from a huge black meerschaum pipe. "Bohemia is my country. Its -poverty, its struggle would have been a joy to me. Breathing its free -air, life would have been worth living." - -Horatio Camelford leant back with eyes fixed on the oaken ceiling. "It -is a mistake," said Horatio Camelford, "for the artist ever to marry." - -The handsome Mrs. Camelford laughed good-naturedly. "The artist," -remarked Mrs. Camelford, "from what I have seen of him would never know -the inside of his shirt from the outside if his wife was not there to -take it out of the drawer and put it over his head." - -"His wearing it inside out would not make much difference to the world," -argued her husband. "The sacrifice of his art to the necessity of -keeping his wife and family does." - -"Well, you at all events do not appear to have sacrificed much, my boy," -came the breezy voice of Dick Everett. "Why, all the world is ringing -with your name." - -"When I am forty-one, with all the best years of my life behind me," -answered the Poet. "Speaking as a man, I have nothing to regret. No one -could have had a better wife; my children are charming. I have lived -the peaceful existence of the successful citizen. Had I been true to my -trust I should have gone out into the wilderness, the only possible -home of the teacher, the prophet. The artist is the bridegroom of Art. -Marriage for him is an immorality. Had I my time again I should remain a -bachelor." - -"Time brings its revenges, you see," laughed Mrs. Camelford. "At twenty -that fellow threatened to commit suicide if I would not marry him, and -cordially disliking him I consented. Now twenty years later, when I am -just getting used to him, he calmly turns round and says he would have -been better without me." - -"I heard something about it at the time," said Mrs. Armitage. "You were -very much in love with somebody else, were you not?" - -"Is not the conversation assuming a rather dangerous direction?" laughed -Mrs. Camelford. - -"I was thinking the same thing," agreed Mrs. Everett. "One would imagine -some strange influence had seized upon us, forcing us to speak our -thoughts aloud." - -"I am afraid I was the original culprit," admitted the Reverend -Nathaniel. "This room is becoming quite oppressive. Had we not better go -to bed?" - -The ancient lamp suspended from its smoke-grimed beam uttered a faint, -gurgling sob, and spluttered out. The shadow of the old Cathedral -tower crept in and stretched across the room, now illuminated only by -occasional beams from the cloud-curtained moon. At the other end of the -table sat a peak-faced little gentleman, clean-shaven, in full-bottomed -wig. - -"Forgive me," said the little gentleman. He spoke in English, with a -strong accent. "But it seems to me here is a case where two parties -might be of service to one another." - -The six fellow-travellers round the table looked at one another, but -none spoke. The idea that came to each of them, as they explained to -one another later, was that without remembering it they had taken their -candles and had gone to bed. This was surely a dream. - -"It would greatly assist me," continued the little peak-faced gentleman, -"in experiments I am conducting into the phenomena of human tendencies, -if you would allow me to put your lives back twenty years." - -Still no one of the six replied. It seemed to them that the little -old gentleman must have been sitting there among them all the time, -unnoticed by them. - -"Judging from your talk this evening," continued the peak-faced little -gentleman, "you should welcome my offer. You appear to me to be one and -all of exceptional intelligence. You perceive the mistakes that you have -made: you understand the causes. The future veiled, you could not help -yourselves. What I propose to do is to put you back twenty years. -You will be boys and girls again, but with this difference: that the -knowledge of the future, so far as it relates to yourselves, will remain -with you. - -"Come," urged the old gentleman, "the thing is quite simple of -accomplishment. As--as a certain philosopher has clearly proved: the -universe is only the result of our own perceptions. By what may appear -to you to be magic--by what in reality will be simply a chemical -operation--I remove from your memory the events of the last twenty -years, with the exception of what immediately concerns your own -personalities. You will retain all knowledge of the changes, physical -and mental, that will be in store for you; all else will pass from your -perception." - -The little old gentleman took a small phial from his waistcoat pocket, -and, filling one of the massive wine-glasses from a decanter, measured -into it some half-a-dozen drops. Then he placed the glass in the centre -of the table. - -"Youth is a good time to go back to," said the peak-faced little -gentleman, with a smile. "Twenty years ago, it was the night of the Hunt -Ball. You remember it?" - -It was Everett who drank first. He drank it with his little twinkling -eyes fixed hungrily on the proud handsome face of Mrs. Camelford; and -then handed the glass to his wife. It was she perhaps who drank from -it most eagerly. Her life with Everett, from the day when she had risen -from a bed of sickness stripped of all her beauty, had been one bitter -wrong. She drank with the wild hope that the thing might possibly be -not a dream; and thrilled to the touch of the man she loved, as reaching -across the table he took the glass from her hand. Mrs. Armitage was the -fourth to drink. She took the cup from her husband, drank with a quiet -smile, and passed it on to Camelford. And Camelford drank, looking at -nobody, and replaced the glass upon the table. - -"Come," said the little old gentleman to Mrs. Camelford, "you are the -only one left. The whole thing will be incomplete without you." - -"I have no wish to drink," said Mrs. Camelford, and her eyes sought -those of her husband, but he would not look at her. - -"Come," again urged the Figure. And then Camelford looked at her and -laughed drily. - -"You had better drink," he said. "It's only a dream." - -"If you wish it," she answered. And it was from his hands she took the -glass. - -***** - -It is from the narrative as Armitage told it to me that night in the -Club smoking-room that I am taking most of my material. It seemed to him -that all things began slowly to rise upward, leaving him stationary, but -with a great pain as though the inside of him were being torn away--the -same sensation greatly exaggerated, so he likened it, as descending in -a lift. But around him all the time was silence and darkness unrelieved. -After a period that might have been minutes, that might have been years, -a faint light crept towards him. It grew stronger, and into the air -which now fanned his cheek there stole the sound of far-off music. The -light and the music both increased, and one by one his senses came back -to him. He was seated on a low cushioned bench beneath a group of palms. -A young girl was sitting beside him, but her face was turned away from -him. - -"I did not catch your name," he was saying. "Would you mind telling it -to me?" - -She turned her face towards him. It was the most spiritually beautiful -face he had ever seen. "I am in the same predicament," she laughed. "You -had better write yours on my programme, and I will write mine on yours." - -So they wrote upon each other's programme and exchanged again. The name -she had written was Alice Blatchley. - -He had never seen her before, that he could remember. Yet at the back of -his mind there dwelt the haunting knowledge of her. Somewhere long ago -they had met, talked together. Slowly, as one recalls a dream, it came -back to him. In some other life, vague, shadowy, he had married this -woman. For the first few years they had loved each other; then the gulf -had opened between them, widened. Stern, strong voices had called to him -to lay aside his selfish dreams, his boyish ambitions, to take upon his -shoulders the yoke of a great duty. When more than ever he had demanded -sympathy and help, this woman had fallen away from him. His ideals but -irritated her. Only at the cost of daily bitterness had he been able to -resist her endeavours to draw him from his path. A face--that of a -woman with soft eyes, full of helpfulness, shone through the mist of -his dream--the face of a woman who would one day come to him out of the -Future with outstretched hands that he would yearn to clasp. - -"Shall we not dance?" said the voice beside him. "I really won't sit out -a waltz." - -They hurried into the ball-room. With his arm about her form, her -wondrous eyes shyly, at rare moments, seeking his, then vanishing again -behind their drooping lashes, the brain, the mind, the very soul of the -young man passed out of his own keeping. She complimented him in her -bewitching manner, a delightful blending of condescension and timidity. - -"You dance extremely well," she told him. "You may ask me for another, -later on." - -The words flashed out from that dim haunting future. "Your dancing was -your chief attraction for me, as likely as not, had I but known?" - -All that evening and for many months to come the Present and the Future -fought within him. And the experience of Nathaniel Armitage, divinity -student, was the experience likewise of Alice Blatchley, who had fallen -in love with him at first sight, having found him the divinest dancer -she had ever whirled with to the sensuous music of the waltz; of Horatio -Camelford, journalist and minor poet, whose journalism earned him a bare -income, but at whose minor poetry critics smiled; of Jessica Dearwood, -with her glorious eyes, and muddy complexion, and her wild hopeless -passion for the big, handsome, ruddy-bearded Dick Everett, who, knowing -it, only laughed at her in his kindly, lordly way, telling her with -frank brutalness that the woman who was not beautiful had missed her -vocation in life; of that scheming, conquering young gentleman himself, -who at twenty-five had already made his mark in the City, shrewd, -clever, cool-headed as a fox, except where a pretty face and shapely -hand or ankle were concerned; of Nellie Fanshawe, then in the pride of -her ravishing beauty, who loved none but herself, whose clay-made gods -were jewels, and fine dresses and rich feasts, the envy of other women -and the courtship of all mankind. - -That evening of the ball each clung to the hope that this memory of the -future was but a dream. They had been introduced to one another; had -heard each other's names for the first time with a start of recognition; -had avoided one another's eyes; had hastened to plunge into meaningless -talk; till that moment when young Camelford, stooping to pick up -Jessica's fan, had found that broken fragment of the Rhenish wine-glass. -Then it was that conviction refused to be shaken off, that knowledge of -the future had to be sadly accepted. - -What they had not foreseen was that knowledge of the future in no way -affected their emotions of the present. Nathaniel Armitage grew day by -day more hopelessly in love with bewitching Alice Blatchley. The thought -of her marrying anyone else--the long-haired, priggish Camelford in -particular--sent the blood boiling through his veins; added to which -sweet Alice, with her arms about his neck, would confess to him that -life without him would be a misery hardly to be endured, that the -thought of him as the husband of another woman--of Nellie Fanshawe in -particular--was madness to her. It was right perhaps, knowing what -they did, that they should say good-bye to one another. She would bring -sorrow into his life. Better far that he should put her away from him, -that she should die of a broken heart, as she felt sure she would. How -could he, a fond lover, inflict this suffering upon her? He ought of -course to marry Nellie Fanshawe, but he could not bear the girl. Would -it not be the height of absurdity to marry a girl he strongly disliked -because twenty years hence she might be more suitable to him than the -woman he now loved and who loved him? - -Nor could Nellie Fanshawe bring herself to discuss without laughter the -suggestion of marrying on a hundred-and-fifty a year a curate that -she positively hated. There would come a time when wealth would be -indifferent to her, when her exalted spirit would ask but for the -satisfaction of self-sacrifice. But that time had not arrived. The -emotions it would bring with it she could not in her present state even -imagine. Her whole present being craved for the things of this world, -the things that were within her grasp. To ask her to forego them now -because later on she would not care for them! it was like telling a -schoolboy to avoid the tuck-shop because, when a man, the thought of -stick-jaw would be nauseous to him. If her capacity for enjoyment was to -be short-lived, all the more reason for grasping joy quickly. - -Alice Blatchley, when her lover was not by, gave herself many a headache -trying to think the thing out logically. Was it not foolish of her to -rush into this marriage with dear Nat? At forty she would wish she -had married somebody else. But most women at forty--she judged from -conversation round about her--wished they had married somebody else. If -every girl at twenty listened to herself at forty there would be no -more marriage. At forty she would be a different person altogether. That -other elderly person did not interest her. To ask a young girl to spoil -her life purely in the interests of this middle-aged party--it did not -seem right. Besides, whom else was she to marry? Camelford would not -have her; he did not want her then; he was not going to want her at -forty. For practical purposes Camelford was out of the question. She -might marry somebody else altogether--and fare worse. She might remain -a spinster: she hated the mere name of spinster. The inky-fingered woman -journalist that, if all went well, she might become: it was not her -idea. Was she acting selfishly? Ought she, in his own interests, to -refuse to marry dear Nat? Nellie--the little cat--who would suit him at -forty, would not have him. If he was going to marry anyone but Nellie he -might as well marry her, Alice. A bachelor clergyman! it sounded almost -improper. Nor was dear Nat the type. If she threw him over it would be -into the arms of some designing minx. What was she to do? - -Camelford at forty, under the influence of favourable criticism, would -have persuaded himself he was a heaven-sent prophet, his whole life -to be beautifully spent in the saving of mankind. At twenty he felt he -wanted to live. Weird-looking Jessica, with her magnificent eyes veiling -mysteries, was of more importance to him than the rest of the species -combined. Knowledge of the future in his ease only spurred desire. The -muddy complexion would grow pink and white, the thin limbs round and -shapely; the now scornful eyes would one day light with love at his -coming. It was what he had once hoped: it was what he now knew. At forty -the artist is stronger than the man; at twenty the man is stronger than -the artist. - -An uncanny creature, so most folks would have described Jessica -Dearwood. Few would have imagined her developing into the good-natured, -easy-going Mrs. Camelford of middle age. The animal, so strong within -her at twenty, at thirty had burnt itself out. At eighteen, madly, -blindly in love with red-bearded, deep-voiced Dick Everett she would, -had he whistled to her, have flung herself gratefully at his feet, and -this in spite of the knowledge forewarning her of the miserable life -he would certainly lead her, at all events until her slowly developing -beauty should give her the whip hand of him--by which time she would -have come to despise him. Fortunately, as she told herself, there was -no fear of his doing so, the future notwithstanding. Nellie Fanshawe's -beauty held him as with chains of steel, and Nellie had no intention -of allowing her rich prize to escape her. Her own lover, it was true, -irritated her more than any man she had ever met, but at least he -would afford her refuge from the bread of charity. Jessica Dearwood, an -orphan, had been brought up by a distant relative. She had not been the -child to win affection. Of silent, brooding nature, every thoughtless -incivility had been to her an insult, a wrong. Acceptance of young -Camelford seemed her only escape from a life that had become to her a -martyrdom. At forty-one he would wish he had remained a bachelor; but at -thirty-eight that would not trouble her. She would know herself he was -much better off as he was. Meanwhile, she would have come to like him, -to respect him. He would be famous, she would be proud of him. Crying -into her pillow--she could not help it--for love of handsome Dick, it -was still a comfort to reflect that Nellie Fanshawe, as it were, was -watching over her, protecting her from herself. - -Dick, as he muttered to himself a dozen times a day, ought to marry -Jessica. At thirty-eight she would be his ideal. He looked at her as -she was at eighteen, and shuddered. Nellie at thirty would be plain and -uninteresting. But when did consideration of the future ever cry halt -to passion: when did a lover ever pause thinking of the morrow? If her -beauty was to quickly pass, was not that one reason the more urging him -to possess it while it lasted? - -Nellie Fanshawe at forty would be a saint. The prospect did not please -her: she hated saints. She would love the tiresome, solemn Nathaniel: of -what use was that to her now? He did not desire her; he was in love with -Alice, and Alice was in love with him. What would be the sense--even if -they all agreed--in the three of them making themselves miserable for -all their youth that they might be contented in their old age? Let age -fend for itself and leave youth to its own instincts. Let elderly saints -suffer--it was their _metier_--and youth drink the cup of life. It was a -pity Dick was the only "catch" available, but he was young and handsome. -Other girls had to put up with sixty and the gout. - -Another point, a very serious point, had been overlooked. All that had -arrived to them in that dim future of the past had happened to them as -the results of their making the marriages they had made. To what fate -other roads would lead their knowledge could not tell them. Nellie -Fanshawe had become at forty a lovely character. Might not the hard life -she had led with her husband--a life calling for continual sacrifice, -for daily self-control--have helped towards this end? As the wife of a -poor curate of high moral principles, would the same result have been -secured? The fever that had robbed her of her beauty and turned her -thoughts inward had been the result of sitting out on the balcony of the -Paris Opera House with an Italian Count on the occasion of a fancy dress -ball. As the wife of an East End clergyman the chances are she would -have escaped that fever and its purifying effects. Was there not danger -in the position: a supremely beautiful young woman, worldly-minded, -hungry for pleasure, condemned to a life of poverty with a man she did -not care for? The influence of Alice upon Nathaniel Armitage, during -those first years when his character was forming, had been all for -good. Could he be sure that, married to Nellie, he might not have -deteriorated? - -Were Alice Blatchley to marry an artist could she be sure that at forty -she would still be in sympathy with artistic ideals? Even as a child had -not her desire ever been in the opposite direction to that favoured -by her nurse? Did not the reading of Conservative journals invariably -incline her towards Radicalism, and the steady stream of Radical talk -round her husband's table invariably set her seeking arguments in favour -of the feudal system? Might it not have been her husband's growing -Puritanism that had driven her to crave for Bohemianism? Suppose that -towards middle age, the wife of a wild artist, she suddenly "took -religion," as the saying is. Her last state would be worse than the -first. - -Camelford was of delicate physique. As an absent-minded bachelor with -no one to give him his meals, no one to see that his things were aired, -could he have lived till forty? Could he be sure that home life had not -given more to his art than it had taken from it? - -Jessica Dearwood, of a nervous, passionate nature, married to a bad -husband, might at forty have posed for one of the Furies. Not until her -life had become restful had her good looks shown themselves. Hers was -the type of beauty that for its development demands tranquillity. - -Dick Everett had no delusions concerning himself. That, had he married -Jessica, he could for ten years have remained the faithful husband of a -singularly plain wife he knew to be impossible. But Jessica would -have been no patient Griselda. The extreme probability was that -having married her at twenty for the sake of her beauty at thirty, at -twenty-nine at latest she would have divorced him. - -Everett was a man of practical ideas. It was he who took the matter in -hand. The refreshment contractor admitted that curious goblets of German -glass occasionally crept into their stock. One of the waiters, on the -understanding that in no case should he be called upon to pay for them, -admitted having broken more than one wine-glass on that particular -evening: thought it not unlikely he might have attempted to hide the -fragments under a convenient palm. The whole thing evidently was a -dream. So youth decided at the time, and the three marriages took place -within three months of one another. - -It was some ten years later that Armitage told me the story that night -in the Club smoking-room. Mrs. Everett had just recovered from a severe -attack of rheumatic fever, contracted the spring before in Paris. Mrs. -Camelford, whom previously I had not met, certainly seemed to me one of -the handsomest women I have ever seen. Mrs. Armitage--I knew her when -she was Alice Blatchley--I found more charming as a woman than she -had been as a girl. What she could have seen in Armitage I never could -understand. Camelford made his mark some ten years later: poor fellow, -he did not live long to enjoy his fame. Dick Everett has still another -six years to work off; but he is well behaved, and there is talk of a -petition. - -It is a curious story altogether, I admit. As I said at the beginning, I -do not myself believe it. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosopher's Joke, by Jerome K. 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