I was much pained one morning last winter on picking up a copy of the
_Times_ to note therein the announcement of the death of my friend Tom
Bragdon, from a sudden attack of la grippe. The news stunned me. It was
like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky, for I had not even heard that
Tom was ill; indeed, we had parted not more than four days previously
after a luncheon together, at which it was I who was the object of his
sympathy because a severe cold prevented my enjoyment of the whitebait,
the fillet, the cigar, and indeed of everything, not even excepting
Bragdon's conversation, which upon that occasion should have seemed more
than usually enlivening, since he was in one of his most exuberant moods.
His last words to me were, "Take care of yourself, Phil! I should hate to
have you die, for force of habit is so strong with me that I shall forever
continue to lunch with none but you, ordering two portions of everything,
which I am sure I could not eat, and how wasteful that would be!" And now
he had passed over the threshold into the valley, and I was left to mourn.
I had known Bragdon as a successful commission merchant for some ten or
fifteen years, during which period of time we had been more or less
intimate, particularly so in the last five years of his life, when we were
drawn more closely together; I, attracted by the absolute genuineness of
his character, his delightful fancy, and to my mind wonderful originality,
for I never knew another like him; he, possibly by the fact that I was one
of the very few who could entirely understand him, could sympathize with
his peculiarities, which were many, and was always ready to enter into any
one of his odd moods, and with quite as much spirit as he himself should
display. It was an ideal friendship.
[Illustration]
It had been our custom every summer to take what Bragdon called spirit
trips together--that is to say, generally in the early spring, Bragdon and
I would choose some out-of-the-way corner of the world for exploration; we
would each read all the literature that we could find concerning the
chosen locality, saturate our minds with the spirit, atmosphere, and
history of the place, and then in August, boarding a small schooner-rigged
boat belonging to Bragdon, we would cruise about the Long Island Sound or
sail up and down the Hudson River for a week, where, tabooing all other
subjects, we would tell each other all that we had been able to discover
concerning the place we had decided upon for our imaginary visit. In this
way we became tolerably familiar with several places of interest which
neither of us had ever visited, and which, in my case, financial
limitations, and in Bragdon's, lack of time, were likely always to prevent
our seeing. As I remember the matter, this plan was Bragdon's own, and its
first suggestion by him was received by me with a smile of derision; but
the quaintness of the idea in time won me over, and after the first trial,
when we made a spirit trip to Beloochistan, I was so fascinated by my
experience that I eagerly looked forward to a second in the series, and
was always thereafter only too glad to bear my share of the trouble and
expense of our annual journeyings. In this manner we had practically
circumnavigated this world and one or two of the planets; for, content as
we were to visit unseen countries in spirit only, we were never hampered
by the ordinary limitations of travel, and where books failed to supply us
with information the imagination was called into play. The universe was
open to us at the expense of a captain for our sharpie, canned provisions
for a week, and a moderate consumption of gray matter in the conjuring up
of scenes with which neither ourselves nor others were familiar. The trips
were refreshing always, and in the case of our spirit journey through
Italy, which at that time neither of us had visited, but which I have
since had the good-fortune to see in the fulness of her beauty, I found it
to be far more delightful than the reality.
[Illustration]
"We'll go in," said Bragdon, when he proposed the Italian tour, "by the
St. Gothard route, the description of which I will prepare in detail
myself. You can take the lakes, rounding up with Como. I will follow with
the trip from Como to Milan, and Milan shall be my care. You can do Verona
and Padua; I Venice. Then we can both try our hands at Rome and Naples; in
the latter place, to save time, I will take Pompeii, you Capri. Thence we
can hark back to Rome, thence to Pisa, Genoa, and Turin, giving a day to
Siena and some of the quaint Etruscan towns, passing out by the Mont Cenis
route from Turin to Geneva. If you choose you can take a run along the
Riviera and visit Monte Carlo. For my own part, though, I'd prefer not to
do that, because it brings a sensational element into the trip which I
don't particularly care for. You'd have to gamble, and if your imagination
is to have full play you ought to lose all your money, contemplate
suicide, and all that. I don't think the results would be worth the mental
strain you'd have to go through, and I certainly should not enjoy hearing
about it. The rest of the trip, though, we can do easily in five days,
which will leave us two for fishing, if we feel so disposed. They say the
blue-fish are biting like the devil this year."
I regret now that we did not include a stenographer among the necessaries
of our spirit trips, for, as I look back upon that Italian tour, it was
well worthy of preservation in book form, particularly Bragdon's
contributions, which were so delightfully imaginative that I cannot but
rejoice that he did not live to visit the scenes of which he so eloquently
spoke to me upon that occasion. The reality, I fear, would have been a
sore disappointment to him, particularly in relation to Venice, concerning
which his notions were vaguely suggestive of an earthly floating paradise.
[Illustration]
"Ah, Philip," he said, as we cast anchor one night in a little inlet near
Milford, Connecticut, "I shall never forget Venice. This," he added,
waving his hand over the silvery surface of the moonlit water--"this
reminds me of it. All is so still, so romantic, so beautiful. I arrived
late at night, and my first sensations were those of a man who has entered
a city of the dead. The bustle, the noise and clatter, of a great city
were absent; nothing was there but the massive buildings rising up out of
the still, peaceful waters like gigantic tombs, and as my gondolier guided
the sombre black craft to which I had confided my safety and that of my
valise, gliding in and out along those dark unlit streams, a great wave of
melancholy swept over me, and then, passing from the minor streets into
the Grand Canal, the melancholy was dispelled by the brilliant scene that
met my eyes--great floods of light coming from everywhere, the brilliance
of each ray re-enforced by its reflection in the silent river over which I
was speeding. It was like a glimpse of paradise, and when I reached my
palace I was loath to leave the gondola, for I really felt as though I
could glide along in that way through all eternity."
"You lived in a palace in Venice?" I asked, somewhat amused at the
magnificence of this imaginary tour.
"Certainly. Why not?" he replied. "I could not bring myself to staying in
a hotel, Phil, in Venice. Venice is of a past age, when hotels were not,
and to be thoroughly _en rapport_ with my surroundings, I took up my abode
in a palace, as I have said. It was on one of the side streets, to be
sure, but it was yet a palace, and a beautiful one. And that street! It
was a rivulet of beauty, in which could be seen myriads of golden-hued
fish at play, which as the gondola passed to and fro would flirt into
hiding until the intruder had passed out of sight in the Grand Canal,
after which they would come slowly back again to render the silver waters
almost golden with their brilliance."
"Weren't you rather extravagant, Tom?" I asked. "Palaces are costly, are
they not?"
"Oh no," he replied, with as much gravity as though he had really taken
the trip and was imparting information to a seeker after knowledge. "It
was not extravagant when you consider that anything in Venice in the way
of a habitable house is called a palace, and that there are no servants to
be tipped; that your lights, candles all, cost you first price only, and
not the profit of the landlord, plus that of the concierge, plus that of
the maid, plus several other small but aggravatingly augmentative sums
which make your hotel bills seem like highway robbery. No, living in a
palace, on the whole, is cheaper than living in a hotel; incidentals are
less numerous and not so costly; and then you are so independent. Mine was
a particularly handsome structure. I believe I have a picture of it here."
Here Bragdon fumbled in his satchel for a moment, and then dragged forth a
small unmounted photograph of a Venetian street scene, and, pointing out
an ornate structure at the left of the picture, assured me that that was
his palace, though he had forgotten the name of it.
"By-the-way," he said, "let me say parenthetically that I think our
foreign trips will have a far greater _vraisemblance_ if we heighten the
illusion with a few photographs, don't you? They cost about a quarter
apiece at Blank's, in Twenty-third Street."
"A good idea that," I answered, amused at the thoroughness with which
Bragdon was "doing" Venice. "We can remember what we haven't seen so very
much more easily."
"Yes," Bragdon said, "and besides, they'll keep us from exaggeration."
And then he went on to tell me of his month in Venice; how he chartered a
gondola for the whole of his stay there from a handsome romantic Venetian
youth, whose name was on a card Tom had had printed for the occasion,
reading:
GIUSEPPE ZOCCO
Gondolas at all Hours
Cor. Grand Canal and Garibaldi St.
"Giuseppe was a character," Bragdon said. "One of the remnants of a
by-gone age. He could sing like a bird, and at night he used to bring his
friends around to the front of my palace and hitch up to one of the piles
that were driven beside my doorstep, and there they'd sing their soft
Italian melodies for me by the hour. It was better than Italian opera, and
only cost me ten dollars for the whole season."
"And did this Giuseppe speak English, Tom?" I queried, "or did you speak
Italian? I am curious to know how you got on together in a conversational
sense."
[Illustration]
"That is a point, my dear Phil," Bragdon replied, "that I have never
decided. I have looked at it from every point of view, and it has baffled
me. I have asked myself the question, which would be the more likely, that
Giuseppe should speak English, or that I should speak Italian? It has
seemed to me that the latter would be the better way, for, all things
considered, an American produce-broker is more likely to be familiar with
the Italian tongue than a Venetian gondola-driver with the English. On the
other hand, we want our accounts of these trips to seem truthful, and you
_know_ that I am not familiar with Italian, and we do not either of us
know that a possible Zocco would not be a fluent speaker of English. To be
honest with you, I will say that I had hoped you would not ask the
question."
"Well," I answered, "I'll withdraw it. As this is only a spirit trip we
can each decide the point as it seems best to us."
"I think that is the proper plan," he said, and then, proceeding with his
story, he described to me the marvellous paintings that adorned the walls
of his palace; how he had tried to propel a gondola himself, and got a
fall into the "deliciously tepid waters of the canal," as he called them,
for his pains; and it seemed very real, so minute were the details into
which he entered.
But the height of Bragdon's realism in telling his story of Venice was
reached when, diving down into the innermost recesses of his vest pocket,
he brought forth a silver filigree effigy of a gondola, which he handed me
with the statement that it was for me.
"I got that in the plaza of St. Marc's. I had visited the cathedral,
inspected the mosaic flooring, taken a run to the top of the campanile,
fed the pigeons, and was just about returning to the palace, when I
thought of you, Phil, getting ready to do Rome with me, and I thought to
myself 'what a dear fellow he is!' and, as I thought that, it occurred to
me that I'd like you to know I had you in mind at the time, and so I
stopped in one of those brilliant little shops on the plaza, where they
keep everything they have in the windows, and bought that. It isn't much,
old fellow, but it's for remembrance' sake."
I took it from him and pressed his hand affectionately, and for a moment,
as the little sharpie rose and fell with the rising and falling of the
slight undulating waves made by the passing up to anchorage of a small
steam-tug, I almost believed that Tom had been to Venice. I still treasure
the little filigree gondola, nor did I, when some years later I visited
Venice, see there anything for which I would have exchanged that sweet
token of remembrance.
Bragdon, as will already have been surmised by you who read, was more of a
humorist than anything else, but the enthusiasm of his humor, its absolute
spontaneity and kindliness, gave it at times a semblance to what might
pass for true poetry. He was by disposition a thoroughly sweet spirit, and
when I realized that he had gone before, and that the trips he and I had
looked forward to with such almost boyish delight year by year were never
more to be had, my eyes grew wet, and for a time I was disconsolate; and
yet one week later I was laughing heartily at Bragdon.
He had appointed me, it was found when his will was read, his literary
executor. I fairly roared with mirth to think of Bragdon's having a
literary executor, for, imaginative and humorous as he undoubtedly was, he
had been so thoroughly identified in my mind with the produce business
that I could scarcely bring myself to think of him in the light of a
literary person. Indeed, he had always seemed to me to have an intolerance
of literature. I had taken but half of a spirit trip with him when I
discovered that he relied more upon his own imagination for facts of
interest than upon what could be derived from books. He showed this trait
no more strongly than when we came, upon this same Italian tour of which I
have already written at some length, to do Rome together, for I then
discovered how imaginary indeed the trips were from his point of view.
What seemed to him as proper to be was, and neither history nor
considerations of locality ever interfered with the things being as he
desired them to be. Had it been otherwise he never would have endeavored
to make me believe that he had stood upon the very spot in the Colosseum
where Caesar addressed the Roman mob in impassioned words, exhorting them
to resist the encroachment upon their liberties of the Pope!
At first it seemed to me that my late friend was indulging in a posthumous
joke, and I paid his memory the compliment of seeing the point. But when,
some days later, I received a note from his executors stating that they
had found in the store-room of Bragdon's house a large packing-box full of
papers and books, upon the cover of which was tacked a card bearing my
address, I began to wonder whether or not, after all, the imagination of
my dead friend had really led him to believe that he possessed literary
ability.
I immediately sent word to the executors to have the box forwarded to me
by express, and awaited its coming with no little interest, and, it must
be confessed, with some anxiety; for I am apt to be depressed by the
literary lucubrations of those of my friends who, devoid of the literary
quality, do yet persist in writing, and for as long a time as I had known
Bragdon I had never experienced through him any sensations save those of
exhilaration, and I greatly feared a posthumous breaking of the spell.
Poet in feeling as I thought him, I could hardly imagine a poem written by
my friend, and while I had little doubt that I could live through the
reading of a novel or short prose sketch from his pen, I was apprehensive
as to the effect of a possible bit of verse.
It seemed to me, in short, that a poem by Bragdon, while it might easily
show the poet's fancy, could not fail to show also the produce-broker's
clumsiness of touch. His charm was the spontaneity of his spoken words,
his enthusiastic personality disarming all criticism; what the labored
productions of his fancy might prove to be, I hardly dared think. It was
this dread that induced me, upon receipt of the box, appalling in its bulk
and unpleasantly suggestive of the departure to other worlds of the
original consignor, since it was long and deep like the outer oaken
covering of a casket, to delay opening it for some days; but finally I
nerved myself up to the duty that had devolved upon me, and opened the
box.
[Illustration]
It was full to overflowing with printed books in fine bindings, short
tales in Bragdon's familiar hand in copy-books, manuscripts almost without
number, three Russia-leather record-books containing, the title-page told
me, that which I most dreaded to find, _The Poems of Thomas Bragdon_, and
dedicated to "His Dearest Friend"--myself. I had no heart to read beyond
the dedication that night, but devoted all my time to getting the contents
of the box into my library, having done which I felt it absolutely
essential to my happiness to put on my coat, and, though the night was
stormy, to rush out into the air. I think I should have suffocated in an
open field with those literary remains of Thomas Bragdon heaped about me
that night.
On my return I went immediately to bed, feeling by no means in the mood to
read _The Poems of Thomas Bragdon_. I tossed about through the night,
sleeping little, and in the morning rose up unrefreshed, and set about the
examination of the papers and books intrusted to my care by my departed
friend. And oh, the stuff I found there! If I was depressed at starting
in, I was stupefied when it was all over, for the collection was
mystifying to the point that it stunned.
In the first place, on opening Volume I. of the _Poems of Thomas Bragdon_,
the first thing to greet my eyes were these lines: