Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column
about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,--to the biggest
pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog from
the human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading without
spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces
which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or every
six months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a new
story, an undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonder
that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject
for an inventive and emotional correspondent.
He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's
confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himself
that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summer
season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead
Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits--oranges, bananas,
and others, according to the seasons--did an active business. The
Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that his
hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood
was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examining
the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity. Here
was an introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to the
master.
He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,--there was
no difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was an
Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him.
“Good morning, Mr. Paul,” he said. “How do you like the look of these
oranges?”
“They pretty fair,” said Paolo: “no so good as them las' week; no sweet
as them was.”
“Why, how do you know without tasting them?” said the Interviewer.
“I know by his look,--I know by his smell,--he no good yaller,--he no
smell ripe,--I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is,” and
Paolo laughed at his own comparison.
The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo.
“Good!” said he,--“first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why
can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I
shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get
two nice sweet ones for him.”
Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt
grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of
conferring a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and grave
deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer him
an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation.
“How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?” he asked.
“Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you he
sick?”
“No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day
or two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he
in the house now?”
“No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day.
Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very
early,--in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read,
and study, and write,--he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood.”
“A good many books, has n't he?”
“He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old
books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you.”
“Has n't he some curiosities,--old figures, old jewelry, old coins, or
things of that sort?”
Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. “He don't
keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,--old
jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old
times: she don't pass now.” Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat
indiscriminately distributed.
A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. “I wonder if he would examine
some old coins of mine?” said he, in a modestly tentative manner.
“I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him.
Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?”
“Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and
show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones.”
The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old
battered bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where
they had been passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities.
One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct,--a common
little Roman penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question,
as would two or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told him
that if he came the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeing
Mr. Kirkwood. At any rate, he would speak to his master.
The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his
breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood
at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger up
to his library,--or study, as he modestly called it.
It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one
direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up
in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of
them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that
probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With
these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones
in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found
that he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Some
of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names
which he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange
to his eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature
were there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not
attempt to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar.
The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his
visiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who
was living as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed
them to Maurice.
“I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good
many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that
you could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for
a good while.” So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of
Gallienus.
“Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have
been paid for some of these ancient coins,--ever so many guineas,
sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old.”
“More than a thousand years old,” said Maurice.
“And worth a great deal of money?” asked the Interviewer.
“No, not a great deal of money,” answered Maurice.
“How much, should you say?” said the Interviewer.
Maurice smiled. “A little more than the value of its weight in
copper,--I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coins
of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such
pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to
young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a
relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or
fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is a
good deal a matter of imagination.”
“And what do you say to these others?” asked the Interviewer. Poor old
worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint
trace of a figure on one or two of them.
“Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the
times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one
of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was brought
when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it.'
But the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beauty
and preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is a
coin, now,”--he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. “Here is a
Syracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare,
well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it.”
The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very little
more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thought
his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matter
about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, that
Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what he himself
considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That would
do for a beginning.
“May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?” he said
“That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pick
up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I bought
this of a great dealer in Rome.”
“Lived in Rome once?” said the Interviewer.
“For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?”
The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he should
go there, one of these years, “suppose you studied art and antiquities
while you were there?” he continued.
“Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities.
Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classic
authors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, and
not have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, and
churches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take it
for granted?”
The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them.
“Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome,” he answered. “May I ask
how long you lived in Rome?”
“Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one
should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiar
with Vasari, of course?”
The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out his
handkerchief. “It is a warm day,” he said. “I have not had time to read
all--the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, to
find all the time for reading and study I could have wished.”
“In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardon
my inquiry? said Maurice.
“I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of
letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your own
lips some account of your literary experiences.”
“Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it
for my autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do I
understand that you are an author?”
By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a
very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the
right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's very
simple question.
“If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, I
may call myself one. I write for the 'People's Perennial and Household
Inquisitor'.”
“Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you
manage the political column?”
“I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of
interest.”
“Places you have been to, and people you have known?”
“Well, yes,--generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my
articles.”
“Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?”
The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he had
found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thing
he could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that he
should be able to pick up something or other which he could work into
his report of his visit.
“Well, I--prepared that article for our columns. You know one does not
have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, in
its descriptions?”
“Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I
can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle--the old
Milvian bridge--a good deal too far down the stream, if I remember. I
happened to notice that, but I did not read the article carefully. May
I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visit
and the conversation we have had, for the columns of the newspaper with
which you are connected?”
The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. “If you have no objections,”
he said, “I should like very much to ask a few questions.” He was
recovering his professional audacity.
“You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet,
--after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to
submit me to examination?”
“The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humble
agent of its investigations.”
“What has the public to do with my private affairs?”
“I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles
everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a large
number of curious people that form a majority against you. That is the
way I've heard the chief put it.”
Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the American
citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure,
at last. Maurice calmly answered, “There is nothing left for minorities,
then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made the
subject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding
my own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against your
system of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public
all it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall request
to be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you a
good-morning.”
The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his next
communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a brief
mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting the
place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege of
examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that
shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligence
would otherwise confer upon him.
The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failed
to get the first hint of its solution.
The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle.
The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the various
cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversational
circles which met every evening in the different centres of social
life. The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had a
congenital aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him were
so painful or disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it.
It was known, and it has already been mentioned, that such cases were
on record. There had been a great deal of discussion, of late, with
reference to a fact long known to a few individuals, but only recently
made a matter of careful scientific observation and brought to the
notice of the public. This was the now well-known phenomenon of
color-blindness. It did not seem very strange that if one person in
every score or two could not tell red from green there might be other
curious individual peculiarities relating to color. A case has already
been referred to where the subject of observation fainted at the sight
of any red object. What if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood?
It will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy would tend to
isolate the person who was its unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesis
not difficult to test, but it was a rather delicate business to be
experimenting on an inoffensive stranger. Miss Vincent was thinking
it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of any projects she might
entertain.
XII. MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT.
The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss
Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading various
works selected for her by Dr. Butts,--works chiefly relating to the
nervous system and its different affections. She thought it was about
time to talk over the general subject of the medical profession with her
new teacher,--if such a self-directing person as Lurida could be said to
recognize anybody as teacher.
She began at the beginning. “What is the first book you would put in
a student's hands, doctor?” she said to him one day. They were in his
study, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on Insanity,
one of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it had been a
pamphlet.
“Not that book, certainly,” he said. “I am afraid it will put all sorts
of notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading that, I should
like to know?”
“I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps be
crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what kind
of a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright,
those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid enough ever to
lose my wits.”
“There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that busy
brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about so many
people possessed with such strange notions?”
“Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many people
I had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. Take that
poor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,--not Her Majesty, but
Her Majesty's Person,--a very important distinction, according to her:
how she does remind me of more than one girl I have known! She would let
her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, and pile things on her
head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and throw her head back, and
feel as grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl act very much
in that way. Are not most of us a little crazy, doctor,--just a little?
I think so. It seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free from
every hint of craziness.”
“And who was that, pray?”
“Why, Euthymia,--nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,--I
don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with
our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was
the only achromatic one I ever looked into,--I did n't say looked
through.--But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of your
books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he should
read, the great physician said, 'Read “Don Quixote.”' I want you to
explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the first
book, according to your idea, that a student ought to read.”
“What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper to
be read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies at
the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study of
medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in the
subject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tell
them about their calling.”
“I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubt
there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to say
about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Euthymia to become
a physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so full
of wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm,
or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as well
as the captain of the boat or of the fire-company.”
“Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?”
“Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times we
would have studying together!”
“I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do you
think practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride ten
miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headaches
was racking you?”
“Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of
storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!”
“Well, what does she say to it?”
“She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women
doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by
nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a
good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most
of them are, doctor,--and ends by saying that the same woman who would
be a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that,
she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the
hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her.”
“Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I
am disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a good
nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to me
to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners.
But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving women
every chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one of
their proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that they
had better at least limit themselves to certain specialties, and always
have an expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble is that
they are so impressible and imaginative that they are at the mercy
of all sorts of fancy systems. You have only to see what kinds of
instruction they very commonly flock to in order to guess whether they
would be likely to prove sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always
hobbles on two crutches, the tattle of women, and the certificates of
clergymen, and I am afraid that half the women doctors will be too much
under both those influences.”
Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of
the village, had “carried her through” a fever, brought on by
over-excitement and exhausting study. She took no offence at his
reference to nursery gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. Nobody
so despises the weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's rights.
She accepted the doctor's concession of a fair field and open trial of
the fitness of her sex for medical practice, and did not trouble herself
about his suggested limitations. As to the imaginative tendencies of
women, she knew too well the truth of the doctor's remark relating to
them to wish to contradict it.
“Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting,
doctor,” she said; and in due season it came, and was of course approved
for reading.
XIII. DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER.
“Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal souls
is that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my very first
statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body is the first
thought with a great many,--in fact, with the larger part of the world.
They send for the physician first, and not until he gives them up do
they commonly call in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is not
so very different from other people. We must not blame him if he is
not always impatient to exchange a world of multiplied interests
and ever-changing sources of excitement for that which tradition has
delivered to us as one eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety.
Besides, these bodily frames, even when worn and disfigured by long
years of service, hang about our consciousness like old garments. They
are used to us, and we are used to them. And all the accidents of our
lives,--the house we dwell in, the living people round us, the landscape
we look over, all, up to the sky that covers us like a bell glass,--all
these are but looser outside garments which we have worn until they seem
a part of us, and we do not like the thought of changing them for a new
suit which we have never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear
ancient lady, who lived well into the last decade of her century, as
she repeated the verse which, if I had but one to choose, I would select
from that string of pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'!
“'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey
This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?'
“Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be,
than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well doubted
if there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary,
there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many who have
come here to regain the health they have lost in the wear and tear of
city life, and very few who have not at some time or other of their
lives had occasion to call in the services of a physician.