So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody
forever and ever. Intolerable fate!
Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism, and rushed out into
Broadway, where enthusiastic throngs were crowding to a circus in a
side-street near by, very recently started, and famous for a capital
clown.
Presently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me.
‘Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what’s the matter? Haven’t been
committing murder? Ain’t flying justice? You look wild!’
‘You have seen it, then?’ said I, of course referring to the criticism.
‘Oh yes, I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure
you. But here comes Hautboy. Hautboy--Helmstone.’
Without having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I
was instantly soothed as I gazed on the face of the new acquaintance so
unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a
juvenile, animated cast to it. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye
sincere, cheery, and gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an
overgrown boy. From his hair I set him down as forty or more.
‘Come, Standard,’ he gleefully cried to my friend, ‘are you not going to
the circus? The clown is inimitable, they say. Come; Mr. Helmstone,
too--come both; and circus over, we’ll take a nice stew and punch at
Taylor’s.’
The sterling content, good-humour, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere
expression of this most singular new acquaintance acted upon me like
magic. It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation
from so unmistakably kind and honest a heart.
During the circus performance I kept my eye more on Hautboy than on the
celebrated clown. Hautboy was the sight for me. Such genuine enjoyment
as his struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing
called happiness. The jokes of the clown he seemed to roll under his
tongue as ripe magnum-bonums. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed
to attest his grateful applause. At any hit more than ordinary, he
turned upon Standard and me to see if his rare pleasure was shared. In a
man of forty I saw a boy of twelve; and this, too, without the slightest
abatement of my respect. Because all was so honest and natural, every
expression and attitude so graceful with genuine good-nature, that the
marvellous juvenility of Hautboy assumed a sort of divine and immortal
air, like that of some forever youthful god of Greece.
But much as I gazed upon Hautboy, and much as I admired his air, yet
that desperate mood in which I had first rushed from the house had not
so entirely departed as not to molest me with momentary returns. But
from these relapses I would rouse myself, and swiftly glance round the
broad amphitheatre of eagerly interested and all-applauding human faces.
Hark! claps, thumps, deafening huzzas; the vast assembly seemed frantic
with acclamation; and what, mused I, has caused all this? Why, the clown
only comically grinned with one of his extra grins.
Then I repeated in my mind that sublime passage in my poem, in which
Cleothemes the Argive vindicates the justice of the war. Ay, ay, thought
I to myself, did I now leap into the ring there and repeat that
identical passage, nay, enact the whole tragic poem before them, would
they applaud the poet as they applaud the clown? No! They would hoot me,
and call me doting or mad. Then what does this prove? Your infatuation
or their insensibility? Perhaps both; but indubitably the first. But why
wail? Do you seek admiration from the admirers of a buffoon? Call to
mind the saying of the Athenian, who, when the people vociferously
applauded in the forum, asked his friend in a whisper, what foolish
thing had he said?
Again my eye swept the circus, and fell on the ruddy radiance of the
countenance of Hautboy. But its clear honest cheeriness disdained my
disdain. My intolerant pride was rebuked. And yet Hautboy dreamed not
what magic reproof to a soul like mine sat on his laughing brow. At the
very instant I felt the dart of the censure, his eye twinkled, his hand
waved, his voice was lifted in jubilant delight at another joke of the
inexhaustible clown.
Circus over, we went to Taylor’s. Among crowds of others, we sat down to
our stews and punches at one of the small marble tables. Hautboy sat
opposite to me. Though greatly subdued from its former hilarity, his
face still shone with gladness. But added to this was a quality not so
prominent before; a certain serene expression of leisurely, deep good
sense. Good sense and good humour in him joined hands. As the
conversation proceeded between the brisk Standard and him--for I said
little or nothing--I was more and more struck with the excellent
judgment he evinced. In most of his remarks upon a variety of topics
Hautboy seemed intuitively to hit the exact line between enthusiasm and
apathy. It was plain that while Hautboy saw the world pretty much as it
was, yet he did not theoretically espouse its bright side nor its dark
side. Rejecting all solutions, he but acknowledged facts. What was sad
in the world he did not superficially gainsay; what was glad in it he
did not cynically slur; and all which was to him personally enjoyable,
he gratefully took to his heart. It was plain, then--so it seemed at
that moment, at least--that his extraordinary cheerfulness did not arise
either from deficiency of feeling or thought.
Suddenly remembering an engagement, he took up his hat, bowed
pleasantly, and left us.
‘Well, Helmstone,’ said Standard, inaudibly drumming on the slab, ‘what
do you think of your new acquaintance?’
The two last words tingled with a peculiar and novel significance.
‘New acquaintance indeed,’ echoed I. ‘Standard, I owe you a thousand
thanks for introducing me to one of the most singular men I have ever
seen. It needed the optical sight of such a man to believe in the
possibility of his existence.’
‘You rather like him, then,’ said Standard, with ironical dryness.
‘I hugely love and admire him, Standard. I wish I were Hautboy.’
‘Ah? That’s a pity now. There’s only one Hautboy in the world.’
This last remark set me to pondering again, and somehow it revived my
dark mood.
‘His wonderful cheerfulness, I suppose,’ said I, sneering with spleen,
‘originates not less in a felicitous fortune than in a felicitous
temper. His great good sense is apparent; but great good sense may exist
without sublime endowments. Nay, I take it, in certain cases, that good
sense is simply owing to the absence of those. Much more, cheerfulness.
Unpossessed of genius, Hautboy is eternally blessed.’
‘Ah? You would not think him an extraordinary genius, then?’
‘Genius? What! such a short, fat fellow a genius! Genius, like Cassius,
is lank.’
‘Ah? But could you not fancy that Hautboy might formerly have had
genius, but luckily getting rid of it, at last fatted up?’
‘For a genius to get rid of his genius is as impossible as for a man in
the galloping consumption to get rid of that.’
‘Ah? You speak very decidedly.’
‘Yes, Standard,’ cried I, increasing in spleen, ‘your cheery Hautboy,
after all, is no pattern, no lesson for you and me. With average
abilities; opinions clear, because circumscribed; passions docile,
because they are feeble; a temper hilarious, because he was born to
it--how can your Hautboy be made a reasonable example to a heady fellow
like you, or an ambitious dreamer like me? Nothing tempts him beyond
common limit; in himself he has nothing to restrain. By constitution he
is exempted from all moral harm. Could ambition but prick him; had he
but once heard applause, or endured contempt, a very different man would
your Hautboy be. Acquiescent and calm from the cradle to the grave, he
obviously slides through the crowd.’
‘Ah?’
‘Why do you say _ah_ to me so strangely whenever I speak?’
‘Did you ever hear of Master Betty?’
‘The great English prodigy, who long ago ousted the Siddons and the
Kembles from Drury Lane, and made the whole town run mad with
acclamation?’
‘The same,’ said Standard, once more inaudibly drumming on the slab.
I looked at him perplexed. He seemed to be holding the master-key of our
theme in mysterious reserve; seemed to be throwing out his Master Betty,
too, to puzzle me only the more.
‘What under heaven can Master Betty, the great genius and prodigy, an
English boy twelve years old, have to do with the poor, commonplace
plodder Hautboy, an American of forty?’
‘Oh, nothing in the least. I don’t imagine that they ever saw each
other. Besides, Master Betty must be dead and buried long ere this.’
‘Then why cross the ocean, and rifle the grave to drag his remains into
this living discussion?’
‘Absent-mindedness, I suppose. I humbly beg pardon. Proceed with your
observations on Hautboy. You think he never had genius, quite too
contented and happy, and fat for that--ah? You think him no pattern for
men in general? affording no lesson of value to neglected merit, genius
ignored, or impotent presumption rebuked?--all of which three amount to
much the same thing. You admire his cheerfulness, while scorning his
commonplace soul. Poor Hautboy, how sad that your very cheerfulness
should, by a by-blow, bring you despite!’
‘I don’t say I scorn him; you are unjust. I simply declare that he is no
pattern for me.’
A sudden noise at my side attracted my ear. Turning, I saw Hautboy
again, who very blithely reseated himself on the chair he had left.
‘I was behind time with my engagement,’ said Hautboy, ‘so thought I
would run back and rejoin you. But come, you have sat long enough here.
Let us go to my rooms. It is only a five-minutes’ walk.’
‘If you will promise to fiddle for us, we will,’ said Standard.
Fiddle! thought I--he’s a jigembob _fiddler_, then? No wonder genius
declines to measure its pace to a fiddler’s bow. My spleen was very
strong on me now.
‘I will gladly fiddle you your fill,’ replied Hautboy to Standard. ‘Come
on.’
In a few minutes we found ourselves in the fifth story of a sort of
storehouse, in a lateral street to Broadway. It was curiously furnished
with all sorts of odd furniture which seemed to have been obtained,
piece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned household stuff. But all
was charmingly clean and cosy.
Pressed by Standard, Hautboy forthwith got out his dented old fiddle,
and sitting down on a tall, rickety stool, played away right merrily at
‘Yankee Doodle’ and other off-handed, dashing, and disdainfully
care-free airs. But common as were the tunes, I was transfixed by
something miraculously superior in the style. Sitting there on the old
stool, his rusty hat sideways cocked on his head, one foot dangling
adrift, he plied the bow of an enchanter. All my moody discontent, every
vestige of peevishness fled. My whole splenetic soul capitulated to the
magical fiddle.
‘Something of an Orpheus, ah?’ said Standard, archly nudging me beneath
the left rib.
‘And I, the charmed Bruin,’ murmured I.
The fiddle ceased. Once more, with redoubled curiosity, I gazed upon the
easy, indifferent Hautboy. But he entirely baffled inquisition.
When, leaving him, Standard and I were in the street once more, I
earnestly conjured him to tell me who, in sober truth, this marvellous
Hautboy was.
‘Why, haven’t you seen him? And didn’t you yourself lay his whole
anatomy open on the marble slab at Taylor’s. What more can you possibly
learn? Doubtless your own masterly insight has already put you in
possession of all.’
‘You mock me, Standard. There is some mystery here. Tell me, I entreat
you, who is Hautboy?’
‘An extraordinary genius, Helmstone,’ said Standard, with sudden ardour,
‘who in boyhood drained the whole flagon of glory; whose going from city
to city was a going from triumph to triumph. One who has been an object
of wonder to the wisest, been caressed by the loveliest, received the
open homage of thousands on thousands of the rabble. But to-day he walks
Broadway and no man knows him. With you and me, the elbow of the
hurrying clerk, and the pole of the remorseless omnibus, shove him. He
who has a hundred times been crowned with laurels, now wears, as you
see, a bunged beaver. Once fortune poured showers of gold into his lap,
as showers of laurel leaves upon his brow. To-day, from house to house
he hies, teaching fiddling for a living. Crammed once with fame, he is
now hilarious without it. _With_ genius and _without_ fame, he is
happier than a king. More a prodigy now than ever.’
‘His true name?’
‘Let me whisper it in your ear.’
‘What! Oh, Standard, myself, as a child, have shouted myself hoarse
applauding that very name in the theatre.’
‘I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received,’ said
Standard, now suddenly shifting the subject.
‘Not a word of that, for Heaven’s sake!’ cried I. ‘If Cicero, travelling
in the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the
arid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as
nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the
shattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?’
Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take
regular lessons of Hautboy.
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