THE UNATTAINABLE SIMPLICITY
To Mr. Hopper the being caught was the unpardonable crime. And indeed,
with many of us, it is humiliation and not conscience which makes the
sting. He walked out to the end of the city's growth westward, where the
new houses were going up. He had reflected coolly on consequences, and
found there were none to speak of. Many a moralist, Mr. Davitt included,
would have shaken his head at this. Miss Crane's whole Puritan household
would have raised their hands in horror at such a doctrine.
Some novelists I know of, who are in reality celebrated surgeons in
disguise, would have shown a good part of Mr. Eliphalet Hopper's mental
insides in as many words as I have taken to chronicle his arrival in St.
Louis. They invite us to attend a clinic, and the horrible skill with
which they wield the scalpel holds us spellbound. For God has made all of
us, rogue and saint, burglar and burgomaster, marvellously alike. We read
a patent medicine circular and shudder with seven diseases. We peruse one
of Mr. So and So's intellectual tonics and are sure we are complicated
scandals, fearfully and wonderfully made.
Alas, I have neither the skill nor the scalpel to show the diseases of
Mr. Hopper's mind; if, indeed, he had any. Conscience, when contracted,
is just as troublesome as croup. Mr. Hopper was thoroughly healthy. He
had ambition, as I have said. But he was not morbidly sensitive. He was
calm enough when he got back to the boarding-house, which he found in as
high a pitch of excitement as New Englanders ever reach.
And over what?
Over the prospective arrival that evening of the Brices, mother and son,
from Boston. Miss Crane had received the message in the morning.
Palpitating with the news; she had hurried rustling to Mrs. Abner Reed,
with the paper in her hand.
"I guess you don't mean Mrs. Appleton Brice," said Mrs. Reed.
"That's just who I mean," answered Miss Crane, triumphantly,--nay,
aggressively.
Mrs. Abner shook her curls in a way that made people overwhelm her with
proofs.
"Mirandy, you're cracked," said she. "Ain't you never been to Boston?"
Miss Crane bridled. This was an uncalled-for insult.
"I guess I visited down Boston-way oftener than you, Eliza Reed. You
never had any clothes."
Mrs. Reed's strength was her imperturbability.
"And you never set eyes on the Brice house, opposite the Common, with the
swelled front? I'd like to find out where you were a-visitin'. And you've
never heard tell of the Brice homestead, at Westbury, that was Colonel
Wilton Brice's, who fought in the Revolution? I'm astonished at you,
Mirandy. When I used to be at the Dales', in Mount Vernon Street, in
thirty-seven, Mrs. Charles Atterbury Brice used to come there in her
carriage, a-callin'. She was Appleton's mother. Severe! Save us,"
exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "but she was stiff as starched crepe. His father was
minister to France. The Brices were in the India trade, and they had
money enough to buy the whole of St. Louis."
Miss Crane rattled the letter in her hand. She brought forth her
reserves.
"Yes, and Appleton Brice lost it all, in the panic. And then he died, and
left the widow and son without a cent."
Mrs. Reed took off her spectacles.
"I want to know!" she exclaimed. "The durned fool! Well, Appleton Brice
didn't have the family brains, ands he was kind of soft-hearted. I've
heard Mehitabel Dale say that." She paused to reflect. "So they're coming
here?" she added. "I wonder why."
Miss Crane's triumph was not over.
"Because Silas Whipple was some kin to Appleton Brice, and he has offered
the boy a place in his law office."
Miss Reed laid down her knitting.
"Save us!" she said. "This is a day of wonders, Mirandy. Now Lord help
the boy if he's gain' to work for the Judge."
"The Judge has a soft heart, if he is crabbed," declared the spinster.
"I've heard say of a good bit of charity he's done. He's a soft heart."
"Soft as a green quince!" said Mrs. Abner, scornfully. "How many friends
has he?"
"Those he has are warm enough," Miss Crane retorted. "Look at Colonel
Carvel, who has him to dinner every Sunday."
"That's plain as your nose, Mirandy Crane. They both like quarrellin'
better than anything in this world."
"Well," said Miss Crane, "I must go make ready for the Brices."
Such was the importance of the occasion, however, that she could not
resist calling at Mrs. Merrill's room, and she knocked at Mrs. Chandler's
door to tell that lady and her daughter.
No Burke has as yet arisen in this country of ours to write a Peerage.
Fame awaits him. Indeed, it was even then awaiting him, at the time of
the panic of 1857. With what infinite pains were the pedigree and
possessions of the Brice family pieced together that day by the scattered
residents from Puritan-land in the City of St. Louis. And few buildings
would have borne the wear and tear of many house-cleanings of the kind
Miss Crane indulged in throughout the morning and afternoon.
Mr. Eliphalet Hopper, on his return from business, was met on the steps
and requested to wear his Sunday clothes. Like the good republican that
he was, Mr. Hopper refused. He had ascertained that the golden charm
which made the Brices worthy of tribute had been lost. Commercial
supremacy,--that was Mr. Hopper's creed. Family is a good thing, but of
what use is a crest without the panels on which to paint it? Can a
diamond brooch shine on a calico gown? Mr. Hopper deemed church the place
for worship. He likewise had his own idol in his closet.
Eliphalet at Willesden had heard a great deal of Boston airs and graces
and intellectuality, of the favored few of that city who lived in
mysterious houses, and who crossed the sea in ships. He pictured Mrs.
Brice asking for a spoon, and young Stephen sniffing at Mrs. Crane's
boarding-house. And he resolved with democratic spirit that he would
teach Stephen a lesson, if opportunity offered. His own discrepancy
between the real and the imagined was no greater than that of the rest of
his fellow-boarders.
Barring Eliphalet, there was a dress parade that evening,--silks and
bombazines and broadcloths, and Miss Crane's special preserves on the
tea-table. Alas, that most of the deserved honors of this world should
fall upon barren ground!
The quality which baffled Mr. Hopper, and some other boarders, was
simplicity. None save the truly great possess it (but this is not
generally known). Mrs. Brice was so natural, that first evening at tea,
that all were disappointed. The hero upon the reviewing stand with the
halo of the Unknown behind his head is one thing; the lady of Family who
sits beside you at a boarding-house and discusses the weather and the
journey is quite another. They were prepared to hear Mrs. Brice rail at
the dirt of St. Louis and the crudity of the West. They pictured her
referring with sighs to her Connections, and bewailing that Stephen could
not have finished his course at Harvard.
She did nothing of the sort.
The first shock was so great that Mrs. Abner Reed cried in the privacy of
her chamber, and the Widow Crane confessed her disappointment to the
confiding ear of her bosom friend, Mrs. Merrill. Not many years later a
man named Grant was to be in Springfield, with a carpet bag, despised as
a vagabond. A very homely man named Lincoln went to Cincinnati to try a
case before the Supreme Court, and was snubbed by a man named Stanton.
When we meet the truly great, several things may happen. In the first
place, we begin to believe in their luck, or fate, or whatever we choose
to call it, and to curse our own. We begin to respect ourselves the more,
and to realize that they are merely clay like us, that we are great men
without Opportunity. Sometimes, if we live long enough near the Great, we
begin to have misgivings. Then there is hope for us.
Mrs. Brice, with her simple black gowns, quiet manner, and serene face,
with her interest in others and none in herself, had a wonderful effect
upon the boarders. They were nearly all prepared to be humble. They grew
arrogant and pretentious. They asked Mrs. Brice if she knew this and that
person of consequence in Boston, with whom they claimed relationship or
intimacy. Her answers were amiable and self-contained.
But what shall we say of Stephen Brice? Let us confess at once that it is
he who is the hero of this story, and not Eliphalet Hopper. It would be
so easy to paint Stephen in shining colors, and to make him a first-class
prig (the horror of all novelists), that we must begin with the
drawbacks. First and worst, it must be confessed that Stephen had at that
time what has been called "the Boston manner." This was not Stephen's
fault, but Boston's. Young Mr. Brice possessed that wonderful power of
expressing distance in other terms besides ells and furlongs,--and yet
he was simple enough with it all.
Many a furtive stare he drew from the table that evening. There were one
or two of discernment present, and they noted that his were the generous
features of a marked man,--if he chose to become marked. He inherited his
mother's look; hers was the face of a strong woman, wide of sympathy,
broad of experience, showing peace of mind amid troubles--the touch of
femininity was there to soften it.
Her son had the air of the college-bred. In these surroundings he escaped
arrogance by the wonderful kindliness of his eye, which lighted when his
mother spoke to him. But he was not at home at Miss Crane's table, and he
made no attempt to appear at his ease.
This was an unexpected pleasure for Mr. Eliphalet Hopper. Let it not be
thought that he was the only one at that table to indulge in a little
secret rejoicing. But it was a peculiar satisfaction to him to reflect
that these people, who had held up their heads for so many generations,
were humbled at last. To be humbled meant, in Mr. Hopper's philosophy, to
lose one's money. It was thus he gauged the importance of his
acquaintances; it was thus he hoped some day to be gauged. And he trusted
and believed that the time would come when he could give his fillip to
the upper rim of fortune's wheel, and send it spinning downward.
Mr. Hopper was drinking his tea and silently forming an estimate. He
concluded that young Brice was not the type to acquire the money which
his father had lost. And he reflected that Stephen must feel as strange
in St. Louis as a cod might amongst the cat-fish in the Mississippi. So
the assistant manager of Carvel & Company resolved to indulge in the
pleasure of patronizing the Bostonian.
"Callatin' to go to work?" he asked him, as the boarders walked into the
best room.
"Yes," replied Stephen, taken aback. And it may be said here that, if Mr.
Hopper underestimated him, certainly he underestimated Mr. Hopper.
"It ain't easy to get a job this Fall," said Eliphalet, "St. Louis houses
have felt the panic."
"I am sorry to hear that."
"What business was you callatin' to grapple with?"
"Law," said Stephen.
"Gosh!" exclaimed Mr. Hopper, "I want to know." In reality he was a bit
chagrined, having pictured with some pleasure the Boston aristocrat going
from store to store for a situation. "You didn't come here figurin' on
makin' a pile, I guess."
"A what?"
"A pile."
Stephen looked down and over Mr. Hopper attentively. He took in the
blocky shoulders and the square head, and he pictured the little eyes at
a vanishing-point in lines of a bargain. Then humor blessed humor--came
to his rescue. He had entered the race in the West, where all start
equal. He had come here, like this man who was succeeding, to make his
living. Would he succeed?
Mr. Hopper drew something out of his pocket, eyed Miss Crane, and bit off
a corner.
"What office was you going into?" he asked genially. Mr. Brice decided to
answer that.
"Judge Whipple's--unless he has changed his mind." Eliphalet gave him a
look more eloquent than words.
"Know the Judge?"
Silent laughter.
"If all the Fourth of Julys we've had was piled into one," said Mr.
Hopper, slowly and with conviction, "they wouldn't be a circumstance to
Silas Whipple when he gets mad. My boss, Colonel Carvel, is the only man
in town who'll stand up to him. I've seen 'em begin a quarrel in the
store and carry it all the way up the street. I callate you won't stay
with him a great while."