In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had told him
so.
“My dear sir,” I said, “there is nothing wonderful in the fact you
mention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts.
'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.'
“Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), were
your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you very
frequently?
“He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they will all
turn out well.'
“I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said.
“No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and
pleasanter there.'
“I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an
author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's
boudoir, a sacred apartment.
“So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face,
when I wanted it on has.
“You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the
room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a
Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and
other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give
it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's
Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap
compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases
when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what
books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones you
particularly wish to see.
“Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose
is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes?
Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his
oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must
open. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,--how gently
at first, how strenuously when once fairly between the shells!
“And here, I said, you write your books,--those books which have
carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to
posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you
write with?
“'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied.
“He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up
the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which
the angel I used to read about in Young's 'Night Thoughts' ought to have
dropped, and did n't.
“Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I
asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure.
“So I got out my note-book.
“It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview.
I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are?
“'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.'
“I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said
I. Eight feet,--eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down.
“So I got out my pencil.
“I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not
using them as yet.
“I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a
very early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you
began to write in verse?
“He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are
themselves the subjects of conversation.
“'Very early,--I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Colet
said,
“'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'”
“I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind
enough to translate that line for me.
“'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how
to write them.'
“How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she?
“My man was pleased to give me a piece of literary information.
“'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse
Karr?'
“Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in
French literature. What had he to do with your lioness?
“'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a
case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he
came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing
her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his
dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He
keeps it with an inscription:
“Donne a Alphonse Karr
Par Madame Louise Colet....
Dans le dos.
“Lively little female!'
“I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview
the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest
I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably
disposed toward me.
“I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything
about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of
the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my
most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new
concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the
public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I
meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here
are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or
listening to:
“How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated
man?
“'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love
is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all
through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the
same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It
generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger
of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium,
or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters
that tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and
endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot
before he began to be what you call a celebrity!'
“Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called
celebrity?
“'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life
to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to
after his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after
a few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you
thirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on
condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do
you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of
a year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday,
cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished
your task, after all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased to
call “a literary celebrity.” I won't dispute with you as to whether or
not I deserve that title. I will take it for granted I am what you call
me, and give you some few hints on my experience.
“'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for
Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would
come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorry
to say that it has not effected its purpose.'
“I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of
that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and as
much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am
sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the
abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was well
conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his
expression that he was its author.)
“'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some
of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom
you have applied the term “Literary Celebrity.”
“'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of
his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into
his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for
his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to
him for assistance.
“'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by
receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is
expected to fill up.
“'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give
his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word
which can be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the
newspapers.
“'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he is
called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscripts
having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have
been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever.
“'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to write
for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to
send money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard
of.
“'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who
begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate
it by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet after
sheet, if of the other.
“'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment
and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested
to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her
reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an
ode for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found in
Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover
who believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his
affections.'
“Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity.
“'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and
they will both have a good laugh over them.'
“I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with
the Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing
self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and
spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen
on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him
that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself
exposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of
The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'”
After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who the
person spoken of as the “Literary Celebrity” might be. Among the various
suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither more
nor less than the unexplained personage known in the village as Maurice
Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be the
Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escape
from the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him and
stabbing him nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy?
The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the
Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened
soon after the meeting when his paper was read.
“I do not know,” she said, in the course of a conversation in which she
had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment of
the Society, “that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whom
you interviewed so successfully.”
“I did not mention him, Miss Vincent,” he answered, “nor do I think it
worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story told
of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if I
did, it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regretting
that he was bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignation
at the bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages of
trash, all the writers of which would expect answers to their letters of
condolence.”
The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman who
called himself Maurice Kirkwood.
“What,” he answered, “the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides all
the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I have
met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me.
Do you know anything particular about him?”
“Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that he
has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what or
whom.”
“To newspaper correspondents, perhaps,” said the interviewer. “What made
you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity,'
did you?”
“I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview this
mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, I
should think.”
“Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story
of crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a
few paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him
professionally.”
“I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how much
wiser you are for that piece of information.”
“An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as for
a naked caterpillar,--I believe I should go into a fit if I had to
touch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great green
caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and early
autumn.”
“Afraid of them?” asked the young lady.
“Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't
give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these
creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,--sometimes using
very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the moment.”
“I understand what you mean,” said Miss Vincent. “I used to have the
same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a little
menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, pretty
much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though I
don't scream when I see one.”
“What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular
antipathy?”
“That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can't
guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to
discover some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way of
everybody, as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seem
to be able to tell which. It would make the old ladies of the village
sleep a great deal sounder,--yes, and some of the young ladies, too,--if
they could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, that
he never comes near any of the people here.”
“I think I can find out,” said the Interviewer, whose professional
ambition was beginning to be excited. “I never came across anybody yet
that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a week
or two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, of
this Mr. Maurice Kirkwood.”
We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present us
with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure.
XI. THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX.
When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as she
pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strain
she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, but
how great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw
its effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all its
manifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproach
herself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast
to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the
difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice,
penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the
corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the quiet,
conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful
and sympathetic.
The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will
one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence of
two young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavily
than the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to
assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes.
On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her
superior. She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, and
deferred to her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle,
but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions. It was a
different thing, however, when the graver questions of life came up.
Lurida was full of suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable
to run into whims before she knew where they were tending. She would lay
out her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could
not help believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend must
accept them with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia would
take them up with her sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmer
judgment to bear on them.
Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new
interests and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papers
to be read at the meetings of her Society,--for she made it her own in
great measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,--and in the mean time she was
reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing
on the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking
forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herself
with the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion,
or disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name of
antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in
the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and
partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in
her desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question.
“How do you like the books I see you reading?” said Euthymia to Lurida,
one day, as they met at the Library.
“Better than all the novels I ever read,” she answered. “I have been
reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearer
the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just as
if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in my
head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how many
centres of energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sorts
of influences, external and internal. Do you know, I believe I could
solve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called
him, if he would only stay here long enough?”
“What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard
of its being mentioned in any of the papers.”
“You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here
for some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview with
a celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which
he writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks
about this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a
Sphinx here, who has mystified us all.”
“And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll
have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe
where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh,
Lurida, Lurida, do be careful! What with this mysterious young man and
this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked
about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the
riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people,
the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.--I wonder
if we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much
curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having
anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind,
now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get
your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like.”
“Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a
chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get
him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy,
so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about
him. I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a
young man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being.
I believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies
and antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the
mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often
wonder whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as
'brain-waves,' which some have already recognized.”
Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking
the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of
those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will
never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of
one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious
but enduring intellectual development. If the readers of this narrative
cannot pick them out, they need not expect the writer of it to help
them. If they guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact
that just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing
with are met with from time to time in families where intelligence has
been cumulative for two or three generations.
Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor
should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous
individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were
trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other
informant than Lurida.
The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside
his door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and
handsome youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly
that one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by his
side. Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewer
asked all sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When he
came to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interest
regarding him. The greatest curiosity, he said, existed with reference
to this personage. Everybody was trying to find out what his story
was,--for a story, and a strange one, he must surely have,--and nobody
had succeeded.
The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told him
the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, about
his horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was
overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help out
the effect of his narrative.
The Interviewer was becoming excited. “Can't find out anything about
him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find?
Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is an
actor,--a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off in
their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are
the very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at the
city theatres; but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings
and Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell
you.”
The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. “I shouldn't wonder if
you were right,” he said. “I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo
that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, as
they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believe
there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who
he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, and why he does
n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't
come up here and get hold of this story. It would be just the thing for
a sensational writer.”