* * * * *
Sunday morning found the party possessed of divers minds regarding the
proper use to make of the wonderful sunshine and the mild yet bracing
air, delicately scented with thousands of blooms on every side. Mr. and
Mrs. Thatcher announced definitely that they proposed to hear the band
concert at the Barracks, which gave a certain basis upon which to hang
other plans. Billy Huntington suggested to Merry that they walk to Elba
Beach, and Cosden, with the cordial disapproval of Edith Stevens and
Billy, invited himself to accompany the young people on their walk.
Huntington accounted for himself by reporting that Hamlen had
telephoned, asking him to make the promised visit that morning, so the
Stevenses joined forces with the Thatchers, and the plans were complete.
Hamlen was visibly ill at ease when Huntington arrived. It was the only
time during the twenty years of his residence there that any guest had
been received at his villa by invitation of its owner. The new
experience excited him, but the sincerity of Huntington's admiration of
the grounds, and the friendliness of his attitude, made it impossible
for any barrier long to exist between them. A touch of the old-time
bitterness passed through Hamlen's mind, soon after Huntington's
arrival, as he thought what it would have meant to him during any one of
those four years at college to have had Monty Huntington come to his
room in the same spirit of comradeship! Yet, he admitted to himself, the
tragedies of that small world did lose some of their poignancy in
retrospect, just as Huntington had said. He had been at a disadvantage
in that the world into which he had been graduated was not the great
world of which his classmate spoke, but rather another little one,
smaller even than that which had tortured him,--so small that he had
remained still instead of growing, as the others had, into an estate
from which he might look back with broader vision.
This much at least had borne fruit from the conversation at the hotel,
but beyond this there was an impression still deeper which increased
Hamlen's spirit of unrest. From the time when he began to feel things
strongly there had existed in him a sense of justice which completely
dominated his other attributes. By the time he entered college this
sense had assumed exaggerated proportions, and he had reached a point
where he was looking for injustices, and was quick to resent them. He
might have made a place for himself in athletics had he not expected
some one else to take the initiative; he might have made friends except
that he waited to be sought out. When he saw other fellows around him
succeed where he had failed, the sensitiveness of his nature placed his
classmates on trial, appointed himself judge, and condemned them as
guilty of injustice, the most heinous crime in the category of sin. As a
penalty, he had banished them from his life. The fact that they bore
their punishment with seeming indifference served only to twist the
knife in the wound.
His devotion to Marian Seymour gave his strange nature its only outlet.
Her father and his had been bosom friends in boyhood, and they had hoped
to see their children bound together in even closer ties. The tense,
deep nature of the boy dominated,--even more so after he went to college
and she to school, and they saw less of each other. He was different
from other boys she knew, and at first it pleased her vanity that he had
no thought for any one else, even though he demanded so much of her.
Then she became fairly terrified by his intensity, and when she broke
the engagement, just after his graduation, she welcomed her release.
Her engagement and marriage to Thatcher supplied the final evidence that
the whole world was built upon a structure of injustice, and Hamlen fled
from it with a sense of leaving behind a thing despised. During all
these years the judge had worn his ermine, and the world represented the
condemned prisoner, working out its sentence, but somehow failing to
gain salutary results from its long chastisement. Now a belated witness
appears, supplying testimony which shakes the integrity of the judicial
decision. Huntington presents the case from a position new to the
self-appointed judge, and Hamlen had spent many hours since that
eventful meeting wondering whether the world had really been on trial
or he himself. Many of the words which Marian had spoken, which had not
made their impression when he first heard them came back with redoubled
force after Huntington had added his testimony to hers. "Was it their
failure to understand you or your failure to give them the opportunity?"
she asked. "The citizens of the college world are young, untried boys,"
Huntington explained, "trying to conduct themselves like full-grown
men." What right had he to condemn them because in their youth and
inexperience they had fallen below the standard older men had set? Had
he a right to expect them to search him out any more than they a right
to demand the same of him? "You drew me to you with irresistible force,"
Marian admitted, only to make the agony the more unbearable when she
added, "Then you repelled me by your intolerance of all those lighter
interests which were natural to youth of our age." Intolerance! That was
a form of injustice, and he had judged her guilty upon the same
indictment! "Each member of the Class measures up his fellow-members by
what they have done since they have left college," Huntington had said.
Every word seemed seared into Hamlen's brain as he put himself through
this fierce analysis. "What have you really accomplished?" was Marian's
question.
So Hamlen had struggled with himself during the intervening hours, and
now Huntington came to him as a classmate, as a friend, claiming kinship
and insisting upon recognition of his claim. If Monty Huntington had
been what Hamlen believed him to be in college, he would not now have
forced himself upon him in spite of his own rude disclaimers of any
present desire for recognition. If he had misjudged Huntington had he
not misjudged his other classmates, had he not misjudged the world at
large?
This was the doubt which had been raised in Hamlen's mind, and with it
came a sense of responsibility and the necessity of restitution should
that doubt turn into a certainty. Forty-eight hours earlier he had asked
Marian, "What do I owe the world?" and it was from Huntington he
received his answer. It was uncanny how closely the two opinions of the
case, made by persons widely separated in viewpoint and environment,
dovetailed each into the other. This interview with Huntington would
settle all doubt, he was convinced, and if the injustice proved to be
vested in himself alone, what was there left for him out of the wreck he
had made of life? What wonder that he was ill at ease; what wonder that
his heart beat more quickly as he realized that the moment of his own
conviction might be at hand!
They walked about the grounds, as the others had done, and Huntington's
exclamations were no less enthusiastic; yet it was obvious that this was
but a prelude to the real purpose of his visit. They paused for a moment
as they came back through the garden, and the hesitation forced the
question from Hamlen's lips.
"Don't you care to see the view from the Point?"
"Not to-day," Huntington answered frankly. "I want to come again and
examine every cranny; but to-day, Hamlen, my interest lies in something
deeper. You have shown me what you are by profession; now show me what
you are by nature. You remember the old Greek adage, 'Would you know a
man, give him power.' My version of it is 'Would you know a man, give
him leisure'; for leisure is the expression of power, the stored-up
capital of that unmeasured treasure called Time whose currency is in the
blood and which promotes life itself. Here, in these grounds, your work
has been similar to that of any one of us in his office. Now I want to
know the man. Take me to his workshop."
Hamlen understood him beyond the necessity of further words. He had told
Marian that it was in his books that he found his relaxation, but it was
not to his library that he now silently led his guest. It was to a small
room on the back of the villa, in which Huntington found cases of type,
a hand-press, and a bench containing every description of binder's
tools. As they entered Hamlen closed the door behind them.
"I don't know why I brought you here," he spoke apologetically, "except
that by what you just said you seemed to know this place existed. No one
else has ever entered with me, for I have a sentiment about it which
would seem ridiculous to any one except myself."
"It is a miniature printing-office and bindery combined!"
"This is where I spend my leisure. This is where I withdraw into a
solitude even more complete than that in which I live. These
books"--pointing to a case near by--"represent the pitifully meager
contribution which I have made to the world while you and my other
classmates have taken the positions to which you are entitled. That I
show them to you now is a confession of the narrow outlook I have always
had on life."
Huntington was busy examining the volumes, one by one, giving no sign
that he heard the crisp words. He turned the leaves critically, he
examined the bindings, he studied the typography and the designs. Then
at length he looked up.
"I was mistaken when I said I did not know you," he remarked.
"I don't understand," Hamlen replied.
"Printing as an art has always been a hobby of mine," Huntington
explained. "With two exceptions I have every one of these books in my
collection at home."
The color came into Hamlen's face. "You mean--" he began.
"I mean that these splendid examples of the bookmaker's art have
attracted much attention among those of us who understand what they
represent, and I count myself fortunate to be the first to solve the
mystery which has surrounded them, when I next meet with my
fellow-collectors."
"How is it possible," demanded Hamlen, "that any of these should have
fallen into your hands?"
"Were they not placed upon the market?"
"I did not suppose any of them reached America," Hamlen explained. "Out
of curiosity to see what would happen I sent the first volumes to a
dealer in London, and he has been kind enough to take the subsequent
volumes as they have been issued."
"And kind enough to himself," Huntington added, "to call the attention
of all the leading collectors to the uniqueness of the work. Some time I
will show you his circulars if you care to know what he thinks of you;
and I may add that there is none of us who considers his claims
exaggerated."
"Then the work is good?" Hamlen asked, unable to conceal his excitement.
"It is superb both in conception and execution; but its greatest merit
is its originality. Most of the good printing and binding which we have
to-day rests definitely in conception upon some one of the great
master-printers or binders of the past: the work of Aldus, Jenson,
Etienne, Plantin, Elzevir, Baskerville, Didot, William Morris, is drawn
upon to greater or less degree by every modern printer, the volumes of
Grolier, Maiolus, or Geoffroy Tory are revived in nearly every modern
binding of importance; but your books are absolutely unique. Frankly, I
don't sympathize with all of them, but there is not one which does not
interest me. Tell me, where did you learn the art of bookmaking enough
to make yourself a master?"
"Your praise is too high," Hamlen answered deprecatingly.
"I am not praising your work," Huntington insisted; "that would be
presumptuous. Its merit has passed far beyond the point where praise
from me could affect it. Each volume which comes into the market is
hungrily snatched up, and we all have been eager to discover who the
master was. Where did you learn so much?"
"I have been interested in the mechanics of printing ever since, as a
boy, I had my first press," explained Hamlen; "but I only turned to it
seriously after I came here and felt the need of something to keep my
mind engaged. I have in my library examples from probably most of the
great printers and binders, but--I'm afraid you won't understand me when
I say it--they have never interested me particularly, nor do they now. I
am only interested in what I do myself; and when I explain I am sure you
will not think me egotistical."
"Go on," Huntington urged as Hamlen paused, but there was a break before
the speaker continued.
"You said a moment ago that you did not sympathize with some of my
books; that is perfectly natural. I said just now that I was only
interested in my own work; that, too, I believe, is natural. I have no
knowledge of the great _incunabula_, I know nothing of the history of
printing, and in making these few books I have had no thought of
producing examples of the printer's or the binder's art: they stand to
me simply as symbolic of certain phases of myself,--some good, perhaps,
some bad; but all representative of my mood when they were made. I tell
you, Huntington"--Hamlen continued with deep intensity--"I tell you now
what I have never before put into words, that those are not books at
all; they are simply the expression of a something in my soul which
demands an outlet, and it comes out through my finger-tips. That sounds
absurd, but it is the solemn truth!"
"Absurd?" cried Huntington. "My dear fellow, what you have just said is
the explanation of the books which we collectors, poor simple fools,
haven't been able to give. Don't you see that by your very act you have
placed yourself among the masters? What else are the sculptures of
Michelangelo, the paintings of Raphael, but the expression of their
messages to the world made through the media with which they were
familiar? With them it was stone and canvas, with you it is type and
paper and leather. Thank God you couldn't write!"
Hamlen listened to him in amazement, unable to grasp at once the
significance or the breadth of all he heard. It was natural that
Huntington's last words should be the first in his hearer's mind.
"What do you mean,--'thank God you couldn't write'?"
"I mean that what you have just told me is the reason why the arts of
painting, architecture and sculpture have stood still these four hundred
and fifty years. Stop and think, man! Who in those arts has surpassed
the work of the old masters within that limit of time? No one, I say; no
one! And why? Think of your dates! Four hundred and fifty years take us
back to the invention of printing. That was what did it! With all it
accomplished for the cause of learning it was the death-knell to the
further development of the arts; for with the invention of printing came
an easier way to give to the world that message which the human soul
contains. Since then the real artist, whoever he was, instead of
laboring to express his message in stone, or bronze, or on canvas, has
simply taken pen and ink and patient paper and given the outpourings of
his soul to the dear public in the form of a book. Again I say, thank
God you couldn't write!"
When Huntington turned to his companion he was amazed to see that he had
dropped upon a stool, with bowed head resting on his hands, was sobbing
like a child. With a woman's tenderness and intuition Huntington gently
rested his hand upon his head.
"We have torn off the bandages too fast, my friend," he said quietly.
"Philip Hamlen doesn't belong among the 'missing men'; he belongs among
the masters of art of his generation."
* * * * *