Lest the name of a hitherto unknown author be totally obliterated, I am
going to give a description of his curious personality, together with
an account of a manuscript in his handwriting, as bewildering as it
is extraordinary, from which some extracts are now for the first time
brought from obscurity into the daylight of print. I give at once the
name of this writer--William Wirt Dunlevy.
It is essential to begin by relating what little is known of the man
himself. Otherwise these fragments of his work would be even more
inexplicable than if they were presented without comment. Indeed, it
is best to admit at the outset that the character of this man and the
outcome of his life are subjects which seem destined to remain quite
as inscrutable as the meaning of his manuscript. All that lies within
my aim or power is simply to try to make known his personality as I
have conceived it from the few facts of his life known to me, from
his writings and from a slight intimacy with the man himself. What
is finest to me is the man behind the manuscript; and so my part is
strictly to essay at interpretative biography. I am about to tell the
brief story of a life singularly strange, a life whose overmastering
interest is not in public events, not in famous friendships, not in
outward adventures, in nothing but in the man himself. I doubt if
Dunlevy will make a wide appeal for favor. And there will be many, very
many, to whom this whole account will seem not worth while.
Dunlevy was a student at the University of Virginia at the time when
some of us, who were undergraduates, began to notice and comment upon
his personality. He was considerably older than the other students; and
we imagined that this was the reason why he held himself aloof from us.
We used to watch him from the athletic field on pleasant afternoons.
He was wont to stand on the great flight of stone steps which led
from a shaded avenue to gently sloping terraces that lie before the
Rotunda, the name of the college library. Dunlevy used to stand at the
foot of these steps, looking intently at the lofty porticos, as though
impressed with the majesty of this copy of the Pantheon, its majesty in
all its simplicity.
The terraces are connected on the sides by open colonnades, forming
two interior courts. In them, for indefinite periods, Dunlevy was
accustomed to walk, his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the
distant wooded valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We wondered what
sort of man he might be, who was as sufficient unto himself as the
fixed stars in the sky which radiate no other light than their own.
He came to take his meals in the same dining-hall with us; indeed I
sat at the table beside him. I think he liked me, because I let him
alone. I did not attempt conversation. It was noticeable that he tried
to come to his meals after the others had finished eating. But he found
this difficult, as one burly foot-ball player usually remained as long
as anything remained on the table. This fellow used to make stupid,
broadside sallies at Dunlevy, who had the look of a man who had once
been strong and robust, but who was now almost ashamed of his grotesque
appearance. Dunlevy did not try to stop the foot-ball player in any of
his onslaughts of muscular wit. The latter’s name was Crowther. I used
to think that Crowther’s conception of wit amused Dunlevy more often
than it irritated him.
One morning at breakfast I made a most inane remark for a place where
all the conversation was devoted to the subject of athletics, such
as who was the Harvard full-back in ’94 or what was the best batting
average last year. My remark was totally out of place, as it had to do
with literature. It happened this way: when I came into the dining-hall
I noticed a copy of one of Cardinal Newman’s works sticking out of the
pocket of Dunlevy’s overcoat. And as I took my seat at the table no one
was saying anything, so I merely remarked how much I admired Newman’s
style. Every one stared at me except Dunlevy, who was smiling at my
thoughtlessness.
“What is it in the cardinal’s fashion that you admire so much?” asked
Crowther.
“The color of his coat, of course;” suggested Dunlevy with a straight
face.
“Why, what color was it?” asked Crowther, seriously knitting his brow.
“He preferred red,” answered Dunlevy, “because his books were not read.”
The bell rang for nine o’clock lectures; and Dunlevy and I were left
alone.
That was the last time we had breakfast together at the University of
Virginia. Dunlevy had overtaxed himself by his work in the School of
Philosophy, and broke down in health.
All of us knew where he lived, even if none of us had seen the inside
of his quarters. He rented the ground floor of an old private residence
which was situated just beyond the University limits. It was set upon a
knoll, and from this point one could obtain a clear view of Monticello,
the home of Jefferson. I presumed so much upon my slight acquaintance
with Dunlevy as to deem it a simple duty to go to see him. I was
ushered into his chamber by an old negro servant who had not succeeded
in intercepting me. I found Dunlevy propped up in bed, reading a book.
He laid it across his chest open, and looked at me as though he could
not believe my presence.
“Why, you have come to see me, haven’t you?” he said. The poor man
seemed to beam at the thought that some one had actually come to call
upon him.
“I heard that you were sick.”
“And did you let the gentleman in, Sandy?” he asked of the negro, at
the same time trying to conceal a frown from me.
“Maarstar, don’t you say I done it. He say he be a doctor and was sent
for!”
“My trick succeeded even if it was impudent;” I said.
Dunlevy was confused.
“You see--a--I feel a little queer now and then about the head--that
is all--and I do not care to bother others with coming to see me.
Perhaps you may know that feeling of all-goneness, as I call it?”
“And what are you doing for it?” I asked.
“Aha!” he exclaimed; “curiously enough I have just come across a short
passage in this book that fits your question. Do you mind listening to
it?”
He took up the book and read this sentence:
“How hard it is, my dear brother, to recover a little strength when one
has become accustomed to one’s weakness; and how much it costs to fight
for victory when one has long found delight in allowing one’s self to
be conquered!”
I took out a pencil and paper and asked him to read it again in order
that I might write it down.
“And who is the author?” I asked.
“Oh dear!” said he, “you are like all the rest. What difference does
it make who says a thing, so long as it is good? And what difference
does it make how great a man is so long as he says things which are not
good.”
Hereupon he reached over to a little reading table at the head of
his bed upon which was a single tumbler full to the brim of a thick
mixture. He raised it and drank the contents. I imagined that the man
was taking some medicine and that he felt ill. I made an apology for my
intrusion and took my leave.
During this brief call Dunlevy maintained a dignity that was
impenetrable. He had the power to impose respect for himself at all
times, and to do so unconsciously.
As I sat in his bed room I had a chance, as I thought, to take a
glimpse of its furnishings, but there were none. The walls were
perfectly bare with the exception of one picture, hung so that he could
see it from his pillow. It was the portrait of a young girl upon a
horse, habited in the style of twenty years ago.
I went to see him again, but I was not admitted by his servant. Before
the end of the week Dunlevy had left the University, and never returned.
Nobody missed him particularly, because he had had practically little
to do with any of us. There were some stories told concerning his
disappearance. One was to the effect that an old mental trouble
had come over him again, and that he had retired to his ancestral
plantation in Albemarle County, over in the James River country. Though
it was admitted that perhaps this old trouble was brought about by
overwork, as I have said, still, certain students used to look wise
and say nothing whenever it was given as a reason for his breakdown.
As to what his incubus was or the cause of it, I could not well make
out. Two students who came from the same part of the state also sat at
our table, and they said that they used to hear their older brothers
and sisters talk about Dunlevy and tell how he was much like the rest
of them up to the time when he was quite a young man; that he was such
a wit and so entertaining, and what a fine dancer he was, and how he
used to be asked to break the colts which were to be ridden by the
young ladies of the neighborhood. And that he was one of the shrewdest
young poker players that ever drew cards from a pack. Then, of course,
there was a love affair. Was there ever a young southerner without love
affairs? But here, it appears was the unusual with Dunlevy; for he had
just one love affair.
He had courted the girl season after season ever since he was fourteen
years old, so their tale went. She lived down the river near his home
on a big plantation in Goochland County. One of these students said
that he remembered hearing his father say that he had often seen
Dunlevy as a boy in knee breeches and tan legs drop down on a packet
boat when she was going through the locks; and then how Mr. Dunlevy,
senior, would have to send down to Goochland to get him home again.
That was in the last days of the old James River canal when traffic
with Richmond went by packet. But to go on with what I heard about his
unusual case. They said that this couple, young as they were, seemed
perfectly devoted to each other and grew more and more attached and
tender in their affection up to the time when Dunlevy became a full
grown youth.
I am writing this at a distance of nearly a decade since I heard the
account and naturally most of the details have escaped me. But as I
remember, they said it was one Easter vacation when young Dunlevy
felt his blood rise with the sap and determined to see the world by
spending a fortnight in metropolitan New York. Probably he took a
little undue prestige unto himself, for not many young southerners
could afford a metropolitan junket in those poverty stricken days of
the Reconstruction period. He made the journey, staying a month instead
of a fortnight. Up to this point his case is conventional enough.
When he came back he went on a day’s visit to Goochland. The young
girl and he went into the parlor together and the door was closed. No
one ever knew a word of what took place between them; whatever he told
her and whatever she responded must have been serious, for when their
meeting was over, Dunlevy opened the door and walked straight out of
the house without a spoken word to her mother and father, and he never
saw her again from that day to this. But she remained true to him, and
no other man’s hand ever touched her. Dunlevy’s life changed; his face
changed; his disposition changed; he was literally not the same man.
Something had befallen him.
Such was the account that I gathered about him from what the two
students told in our dining hall at the University of Virginia. We
each of us wondered what had happened to him and put our individual
construction upon the bare facts as I have related them. Oddly enough,
I remember that a third-year medical student who sat with us remarked
with a Carolina accent that he “reckoned” he could tell what was the
matter with him. To which Crowther rejoined:
“Well, I always said the man was a damned fool, and now we know it.
Pass the pickles.”
And so the conversation turned to other topics; and I heard no more of
Dunlevy. Thus do men dispose of one who has lived amongst them.
To me the impression that this separation made upon Dunlevy did honor
to his sensibility. His existence was stranded. It bears out my own
observation of the man when I say that in the midst of our college
fellowship, he reflected at an age when we had scarcely begun to think.
Of one thing I can vouch for certain. In the earlier account of him he
is drawn as a strapping, active boy with all the suppleness of youth.
Whereas the man I met was a strange looking, undersized curiosity. This
leads me to recount another incident which is relevant.
One day in the early fall of that year when Dunlevy was forced to leave
the university, he sat at luncheon with even a more sombre demeanor
than usual. His shoulders were bent with weakness, his face calm but
drawn with endurance.
“Why don’t you put on some old clothes and go out on the athletic field
and get some lively exercise?” Crowther asked, good naturedly.
“Why doesn’t a mole see or a snail fly?” answered Dunlevy smiling,
though evidently much embarrassed at having attention centered upon
him. He finished the meal hurriedly and departed.
Poor man! I look back to those days and realize how little we purblind
associates of his knew what a fight for strength he was making before
our very eyes. It is one thing to observe suffering, it is another to
experience it. Those who belong to the robust ranks of health, who
arise in the morning with a song or a whistle on their lips, and at
night drop without restlessness into slumber, those who know not what
it is to be nervous and irritable, all those of sound body and sound
mind, have no right to pass judgment upon Dunlevy and his kind. I say
this because I am reminded that after Dunlevy had gone that day at
luncheon, Crowther said to us:
“I don’t believe that man would have the spunk to run a hundred yards.
He lacks gumption. There is too much of the woman about him. Please
pass the pickles.”
I pondered upon this utterance as I left Crowther eating his third
helping of beef steak. And I wondered which is the more noble--the
courage that comes from strength or the bravery born of suffering?
There was one man, a black man, who understood Dunlevy and his
condition better than we did. He was that old negro body-servant, a
relic of plantation days. I saw his good, open, loyal face when I went
to Dunlevy’s chambers during his illness at the University of Virginia.
His name was Sandy. Could I know what Sandy must have known, I might
have a tale that would be better left untold.