One day, reading in my library so intently that I did not hear the sound
of wheels, my bearer brought me a card on which was the name “Mrs.
Clement.” I told him to show her into the drawing room. Soon I went in
and saw an elderly lady, slender in form, with snow-white hair drawn up
in curls at the side of her forehead and with a very bright, intelligent
face. She was old in years, but evidently young in heart and mind. All
this I saw at a glance. With her was a young man whom I judged at once
to be her son, slender and delicate with a bright face partially covered
with a beard and a heavy moustache. On my entering the room they rose
and greeted me, the mother introducing the young man as her son. We then
seated ourselves, and had some introductory talk, probably about the
weather, or some such interesting, novel subject. In fact I had become
so absorbed in reading Plato’s “New Republic,” that I was still in a
dreamy state and supposed they had called on some matter of business.
The mother then spoke. “Are you the Mr. Japhet who was in the St.
George’s School in 18—.” “Yes,” I replied. “I must be the one as I know
of no other. The Japhets by that name are very scarce, as I never met
one in my life.” “Well!” she replied. “Johnny has always been talking of
you and of coming to see Mr. Japhet, and I thought I would come with
him.” This was what she said, but she had scarcely uttered the name,
“Johnny,” before I aroused from my stupor, sprang from my chair and
taking both his hands in mine, exclaimed, “Johnny, is it you?” I put my
arms around him and gave him a real brotherly hug, and would have kissed
him after the good German fashion, but let my tears of joy flow instead.
Taking his hands again I studied his features, asking: “Is it really
true that you are Johnny?” Then turning to the widow, “Mrs. Clement, I
wish to shake your hand again for Johnny’s sake.” I saw the tears
glistening in her eyes as she observed us, for was not he the only son
of the widow, the treasure of the mother’s heart and life! Had she not a
right to be proud of him and of the love I showed him? Why should we not
give full play to our sympathies and feelings, the noblest traits of our
human nature? Have we not enough in life to make us hard and unfeeling
that we should not soften our natures by yielding to our affections when
we can do this sincerely?
I have seen husbands and wives, parents and children meet and separate
as coldly as if they were only strangers or ashamed to show any feeling.
How very strange, and is it not unnatural? Surely I did not take time
just then to philosophize for I was too excited even to think.
Recovering myself, I ordered the bearer to tell the Khansaman to bring
some tea and toast, to open the two guest rooms, to bring in the luggage
and dismiss the gari, and all this in one sentence and a breath. I was
in a state of delightful excitement and I yielded myself entirely to it,
and why not? No more of Plato’s New or Old Republic, but the pleasure of
the old and new friendship. I have often recalled Mr. Percy’s saying,
“Charles don’t dawdle! When you have anything to do, either work or
play, give to it all your might, mind and being.”
I need not say we were busy, not a moment wasted either before or at
breakfast. I insisted on the midday rest, that my friends might not
become exhausted, but Johnny found me in the library. I call him Johnny
for he was always that to me, and ever will be and why not? Later in the
afternoon we had our walk in the garden, and then our long drive about
the station, but I doubt if either of us saw anything. The pleasant time
was after dinner, when we had our coffee in front of the fire in the big
room. It reminded me of the old times when we three, Mr. Percy, Cockear
and I, sat before our fire and were like boys together. Ah! those happy,
joyous days! How much has passed since then?
In this more quiet time Mrs. Clement gave me a little of their history.
When Johnny’s school days closed, several years after my time, he tried
in various places for a situation, but failed completely. The world
seemed harsh and dreary to the widow and her son, the future without any
prospect on which to rest a hope. Without friends or influence, what
could they expect? Just then a letter came that like the wand of a fairy
swept away all the clouds and darkness. It appeared that years before
Johnny was born, his father had befriended a lad by helping him to a
situation in Bombay, where he commenced at the bottom, and by diligence
and honesty rose step by step, until he became one of the partners of
the firm. He had lost track of his friend, but on the evening of the day
on which he was admitted to the firm, he was recalling the past, and
thought of the time when he was a homeless orphan, and almost
friendless, and of the one to whom he owed his position and the success
of his life. From that moment he could not rest until he had found his
benefactor. He wrote letters to him, not knowing that he was dead. One
of these letters reached the widow. The writer gave an outline of his
life, told of his gratitude, and that if in any way he could do a favor
to the one to whom he owed everything, he was not only ready, but
anxious to do it. It was like a debt, and almost a burden to him, and he
could not be happy until he had discharged it, or shown his willingness
to do so.
This letter came as a message from Heaven to the widow and her son. She
wrote and explained everything, with the result that Johnny got a
situation, and in the course of time became a partner of the man whom,
as a lad, his father had befriended. This was most natural, and such
incidents would oftener happen if people would pay their debts of
gratitude, and put their religion into deeds, and not so much into
words.
“So, Mr. Japhet,” said the mother, sitting with her cup of coffee in her
hand, forgetting to take a sip of it, “you have our history. I say _our_
history, for in it all, Johnny and I have been one. He was all I had,
and I think I was everything to him, though many bright eyes have tried
to win him away from me, I have him still.”
“Don’t be too sure, good mother,” said Johnny, “Don’t you know that
Cupid’s arrow, if the right one be used, may pierce the hardest heart.
Didn’t it your’s once?”
“John, John!” she said very gravely.
I noticed she always called him Johnny, except when she gave him a
reproof, and this was always so kind that it must have given him more
pleasure than otherwise. He then took her hand, as he sat by her side,
just as if he had been her lover. And he was. Blessed is that boy, whose
first love is his mother, and happy is the mother of such a boy. I have
often thought, yet it may be one of my crude notions, that a boy or man
who truly loves a good mother can never go wrong.
As I sat looking at this loving couple, I could not help asking myself,
with a deep, sad sigh: “Why did I not have such a mother?” Thus do the
sorrows of our lives break in upon our joys.
The mother continued: “All his life, since he first met you, he has been
talking about you. It was Mr. Japhet this, and Mr. Japhet that, and he
has always been longing to see you. I often told him to go and visit
you, but he would say: ‘No, not without you, mother,’ and thus the going
was delayed until he became a partner, and was entitled to a long
vacation, when I said to him: ‘Now, we will see Mr. Japhet, if he can be
found anywhere,’ so we started, and here we are. So you see Mr. Japhet,
he is still his mother’s boy.”
“Yes,” said Johnny, soberly, “I am not ashamed to say, it was first God,
then mother and Japhet, all through my life. These three have been my
trinity for good—” and as if talking to himself—“for to these I owe all
my best impulses, and the happiness of my life.”
After a few moments silence we fell to talking of our school days.
“Yes,” said the mother, “Johnny has told me about them again and again.
What a time you must have had! And do you know, Mr. Japhet, that he
never told me about that flogging until after he left school.”
“No, good mother,” he said, “I did not, for I well knew that if I told,
you would have tied me to your apron-string, and never let me go back to
it.” She answered with warmth: “Indeed, I would not, to such a school as
that! A great brute of a man flogging a little boy for not betraying his
comrades! Often when I have thought of it, years since, I have felt like
going to that man, and upbraiding him for his meanness and cruelty.”
“Mother, dear,” spoke Johnny, very gravely, for it was his turn to
reprove, “I am surprised!” And then with a smile: “How funny you would
look shaking your little fists at such a monster man, and all for such a
little thing that occurred years ago.”
“John, John,” she replied very sternly. “It was not a little thing,
John, and you know it.”
“That’s so, I surrender,” he answered. “Haven’t I felt the smart of that
rattan years after, when I have thought of that scene? Not in my body,
but in my sense of right and justice? Didn’t you scream though, Mr.
Japhet? You never knew that I was ready to faint, and thought of dying,
as those cutting strokes fell on me, but when I heard you scream, I made
up my mind in an instant to be brave to the last, if I died. I would not
have you think me a coward. It was your voice that gave me courage and
nerve.”
Thus our talk ran on. I know these things are but trifles, but the sum
total of life is made up of little things, a flogging is but a small
affair, but have we not all of us received cuts that we have remembered
until they have become a part of our very selves, and so have changed
many a destiny for good or evil?
“But,” said the mother, “you might have let me share your sorrow.” “O,
no, good mother,” replied he, “that could not be. Sorrow cannot be
divided, shared, sold or given away. I might have told you and a hundred
others, and you would have felt grieved and sympathized with me, but my
sorrow would not have been diminished in the least so it was better for
me to carry my own burdens than to have troubled you.” Brave as a man,
as he was a brave boy.
The days passed only too quickly, full of delightful enjoyment to me,
and I think, as well to them, and my friends took their departure. Then
I was lonely and sad, yet happy in this renewal of our old friendship,
and the addition of a new acquaintance, the charming mother of Johnny. I
have given this account of their visit for several reasons, first
because of the old friendship; then for the delight I had in their
company, but most of all because of the admiration I had for this loving
couple, mother and son. As the mother said, they were one. She had lived
for her son, he for his mother, and thus their lives were blended
together.
First of all, she was so pure. This was my first impression, and
increased the more I saw of her, not from any special thing she said or
did, but purity seemed to be in her every feature, in her dress, her
walk, her conversation, the tone of her voice. She seemed to be made of
sweetness and light, not simply of the soft and mellow kind, for she had
her opinions, which she dared to defend with energy, yet a sense of
goodness seemed to rule her. Such a life is a perpetual prayer. She had
a great mind in her little body, and was not willing to let it sleep and
rest. It was evident that she had kept up with her son in his reading,
with his thoughts and his business, so she could be his close companion.
There was scarcely a topic in our conversation, on which she could not
converse with excellent sense, and with flashes of wit and fun. On some
subjects her womanly instinct seemed to outrun our slow, plodding
masculine thoughts.
I have read somewhere a criticism on woman, and probably a just one;
that many of them, on becoming married, seem to think that they have
reached the summit of their lives, and lose all their former pride of
appearance, stop reading and thinking, and so cease to be companions of
their husbands and older children, and remain as common useful articles
of house furniture. It was not so with this mother. To her elasticity of
youth in body and mind, she had added the culture and refinement of
years, while her body seemed strengthened and matured through her mental
activity.
I have but little patience with the theory of some scientific men that
there is necessarily an inequality of the sexes because of the greater
avoirdupois quantity of the male brain. Mind cannot be weighed with a
butcher’s scales, no more than strength can be computed according to the
amount of muscle. What does it prove if a difference exists between the
brains of the two sexes of no less than 220 cubic centimeters per
individual, more than to say that because two men live in different
sized houses, the one living in the larger house should be consequently
the greater man, when everybody knows that a large minded man may live
in a hut, and a fool be in a palace. Therefore it seems that size and
weight is no indication of quality.
Should not fineness of texture and quality give value to brains and to
everything else? But, say the scientists, no difference can be seen in
the composition of the male and female brain. Nor can any difference of
texture be seen in the brains of an educated man and a fool. Take two
rays of light of the same degree of brightness, no difference in
appearance is observed, yet the one ray is full of heat, and the other
of cold. Analysis by the spectrum shows a difference. My skeptical
common sense suggests that our scientists have not found the right kind
of a spectrum for brain analysis. Suppose we leave out the material
brain altogether and consider the mind alone as we would lose sight of
the house and think of the man separate from it. Is not the great mental
difference between the sexes, as between individuals of the same sex,
due to the training and development of that immaterial, subtle
something, that no eye can see, or scale can weigh, or mortal
comprehend, the mind itself? Why make the soul a clod of matter? Why try
to estimate mind only by the weight or shape or texture of the brain
matter it lives in and uses, any more than we should judge of the weight
or worth of a man by the size or value of the house he occupies?
It is said that a fool can ask questions that a philosopher cannot
answer, so I have ventured. Yet with all due respect to the philosophers
I cannot always accept their dogmatic assertions without protest or
questions. For instance, a great brain anatomist asserts, “Woman is a
constantly growing child and in the brain, as in so many other parts of
her body, she conforms to her childish type.” Suppose I assert “Man is a
constantly growing child, and in the brain as in so many parts of his
body, he conforms to his childish type.” What value has one assertion
over the other?