"No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and

pleasanter there.'

"I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an

author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's

boudoir, a sacred apartment.

"So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face,

when I wanted it on has.

"You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the

room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a

Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and

other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it

a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming

Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of

knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit

a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't

want you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly wish to

see.

"Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose

is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes?

Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his oyster,

which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must open. Mark

how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,--how gently at first,

how strenuously when once fairly between the shells!

"And here, I said, you write your books,--those books which have carried

your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to

posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you

write with?

"'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied.

"He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up

the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which the

angel I used to read about in Young's "Night Thoughts" ought to have

dropped, and did n't.

"Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I

asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure.

"So I got out my note-book.

"It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview.

I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are?

"'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.'

"I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said

I. Eight feet,--eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down.

"So I got out my pencil.

"I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not

using them as yet.

"I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a very

early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you began

to write in verse?

"He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are

themselves the subjects of conversation.

"'Very early,--I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Colet

said,

"'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'"

"I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind

enough to translate that line for me.

"'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how

to write them.'

"How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she?

"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information.

"'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse

Karr?'

"Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in

French literature. What had he to do with your lioness?

"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a

case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he

came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing her

case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his

dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He

keeps it with an inscription:

"Donne a Alphonse Karr

Par Madame Louise Colet....

Dans le dos.

"Lively little female!'

"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview the

lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest I

appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably

disposed toward me.

"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything

about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of

the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my

most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new

concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the

public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I

meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here are

some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening

to:

"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated

man?

"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love

is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all

through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the

same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It

generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of

becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or

tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters that

tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and

endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot

before he began to be what you call a celebrity!'

"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called

celebrity?

"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life to

stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to after

his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after a few

months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you thirty-five

millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on condition that

you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do you think you

should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of a year, in which

you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a

hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished your task, after

all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased to call "a literary

celebrity." I won't dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that

title. I will take it for granted I am what you call me, and give you

some few hints on my experience.

"'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for

Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would

come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorry

to say that it has not effected its purpose.'

"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of

that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and as

much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am

sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the

abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was well

conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his

expression that he was its author.)

"'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some

of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom you

have applied the term "Literary Celebrity."

"'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of

his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into

his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for

his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to

him for assistance.

"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by

receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is

expected to fill up.

"'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give

his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word which can

be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the newspapers.

"'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he is

called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscripts

having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have

been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever.

"'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to write

for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to send

money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard of.

"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who

begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate it

by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet after sheet, if

of the other.

"'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment

and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested

to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her

reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an ode

for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found in

Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover who

believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his

affections.'

"Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity.

"'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and

they will both have a good laugh over them.'

"I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the

Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing

self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and

spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen on

the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him that he

had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself exposed to

the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of The People's

Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'"

After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who the

person spoken of as the "Literary Celebrity" might be. Among the various

suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither more

nor less than the unexplained personage known in the village as Maurice

Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be the

Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escape

from the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him and stabbing

him nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy?

The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the

Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened soon

after the meeting when his paper was read.

"I do not know," she said, in the course of a conversation in which she

had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment of

the Society, "that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whom

you interviewed so successfully."

"I did not mention him, Miss Vincent," he answered, "nor do I think it

worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story told

of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if I did,

it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regretting that he

was bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignation at the

bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages of trash, all the

writers of which would expect answers to their letters of condolence."

The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman who

called himself Maurice Kirkwood.

"What," he answered, "the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides all

the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I have

met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me.

Do you know anything particular about him?"

"Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that he

has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what or

whom."

"To newspaper correspondents, perhaps," said the interviewer. "What made

you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity,'

did you?"

"I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview this

mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, I

should think."

"Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story of

crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a few

paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him

professionally."

"I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how much

wiser you are for that piece of information."

"An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as for

a naked caterpillar,--I believe I should go into a fit if I had to touch

one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great green

caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and early

autumn."

"Afraid of them?" asked the young lady.

"Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't

give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these

creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,--sometimes using

very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the moment."

"I understand what you mean," said Miss Vincent. "I used to have the

same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a little

menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, pretty

much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though I

don't scream when I see one."

"What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular

antipathy?"

That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can't

guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to discover

some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way of everybody,

as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seem to be able

to tell which. It would make the old ladies of the village sleep a great

deal sounder,--yes, and some of the young ladies, too,--if they could

find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, that he never

comes near any of the people here."

"I think I can find out," said the Interviewer, whose professional

ambition was beginning to be excited. "I never came across anybody yet

that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a week or

two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, of this

Mr. Maurice Kirkwood."

We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present us

with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure.

XI

THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX.

When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as she

pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strain

she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, but

how great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw its

effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all its

manifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproach

herself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast

to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the

difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice,

penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the corresponding

traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto

of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful and sympathetic.

The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will

one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence of

two young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavily

than the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to

assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes.

On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her superior.

She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, and deferred to

her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, but as wiser

than herself or any of her other companions. It was a different thing,

however, when the graver questions of life came up. Lurida was full of

suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable to run into whims

before she knew where they were tending. She would lay out her ideas

before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could not help

believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend must accept them

with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia would take them up with

her sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on

them.

Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new interests

and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papers to be read

at the meetings of her Society,--for she made it her own in great

measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,--and in the mean time she was

reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing on

the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking

forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herself

with the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion, or

disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name of

antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in

the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and

partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her

desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question.

"How do you like the books I see you reading?" said Euthymia to Lurida,

one day, as they met at the Library.

"Better than all the novels I ever read," she answered. "I have been

reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearer

the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just as

if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in my

head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how many

centres of energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sorts of

influences, external and internal. Do you know, I believe I could solve

the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called him, if

he would only stay here long enough?"

"What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard

of its being mentioned in any of the papers."

"You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here for

some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview with a

celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which he

writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks about

this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a Sphinx here,

who has mystified us all."

"And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll

have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe

where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh,

Lurida, Lurida, do be careful!" What with this mysterious young man and

this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked

about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the

riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people,

the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.--I wonder if

we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much

curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having

anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind,

now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get

your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like."

"Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a

chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get

him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy,

so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about him.

I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a young

man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. I

believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies and

antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the

mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often wonder

whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as

'brain-waves,' which some have already recognized."

Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking

the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of

those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will

never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of

one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious but

enduring intellectual development. If the readers of this narrative

cannot pick them out, they need not expect the writer of it to help them.

If they guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact that

just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing with

are met with from time to time in families where intelligence has been

cumulative for two or three generations.

Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor

should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous

individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were

trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other

informant than Lurida.

The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside his

door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and handsome

youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly that one

might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by his side.

Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewer asked all

sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When he came to

inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interest regarding

him. The greatest curiosity, he said, existed with reference to this

personage. Everybody was trying to find out what his story was,--for a

story, and a strange one, he must surely have,--and nobody had succeeded.

The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told him

the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, about his

horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was

overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help out the

effect of his narrative.

The Interviewer was becoming excited. "Can't find out anything about

him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find?

Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is an

actor,--a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off in

their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are

the very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at the

city theatres; but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings

and Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you."

The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. "I shouldn't wonder if

you were right," he said. "I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo

that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, as

they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believe

there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who

he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, and why he does

n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't

come up here and get hold of this story. It would be just the thing for

a sensational writer."

To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest.

Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column

about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,--to the biggest

pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog from the

human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading without

spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces

which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or every

six months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a new story,

an undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonder that

the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject for an

inventive and emotional correspondent.

He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's

confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himself

that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summer

season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead

Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits--oranges, bananas, and

others, according to the seasons--did an active business. The

Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that his

hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood

was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examining

the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity.

Here was an introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to

the master.

He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,--there was no

difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was an

Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him.

"Good morning, Mr. Paul," he said. "How do you like the look of these

oranges?"

"They pretty fair," said Paolo: "no so good as them las' week; no sweet

as them was."

"Why, how do you know without tasting them?" said the Interviewer.

"I know by his look,--I know by his smell,--he no good yaller,--he no

smell ripe,--I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is," and

Paolo laughed at his own comparison.

The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo.

"Good!" said he,--"first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why

can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I

shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get

two nice sweet ones for him."

Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt

grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of conferring

a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and grave

deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer him

an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation.

"How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?" he asked.

"Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you

he sick?"

"No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day

or two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he

in the house now?"

"No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day.

Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very

early,--in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read,

and study, and write,--he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood."

"A good many books, has n't he?"

"He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old

books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you."

"Has n't he some curiosities,--old figures, old jewelry, old coins, or

things of that sort?"

Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. "He don't

keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,--old

jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old

times: she don't pass now." Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat

indiscriminately distributed.

A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. "I wonder if he would examine

some old coins of mine?" said he, in a modestly tentative manner.

"I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him.

Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?"

"Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and

show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones."

The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old battered

bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where they had been

passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. One had the

name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct,--a common little Roman

penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question, as would two

or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told him that if he

came the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeing Mr.

Kirkwood. At any rate, he would speak to his master.

The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his

breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood

at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger up

to his library,--or study, as he modestly called it.

It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one

direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up

in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of

them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that

probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With

these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones

in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found

that he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Some

of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names

which he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange

to his eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were

there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt

to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar.

The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his visiting

a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who was living

as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed them to

Maurice.

"I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good

many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that

you could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for a

good while." So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of

Gallienus.

"Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have

been paid for some of these ancient coins,--ever so many guineas,

sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old."

"More than a thousand years old," said Maurice.

"And worth a great deal of money?" asked the Interviewer.

"No, not a great deal of money," answered Maurice.

"How much, should you say?" said the Interviewer.

Maurice smiled. "A little more than the value of its weight in

copper,--I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coins

of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such

pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to

young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a

relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or

fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is a

good deal a matter of imagination."

"And what do you say to these others?" asked the Interviewer. Poor old

worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint

trace of a figure on one or two of them.

"Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the

times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one

of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was brought

when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it.'

But the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beauty

and preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is a

coin, now,"--he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. "Here is a

Syracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare,

well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it."

The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very little

more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thought

his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matter

about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, that

Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what he himself

considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That would

do for a beginning.

"May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?" he said

"That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pick

up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I bought

this of a great dealer in Rome."

"Lived in Rome once?" said the Interviewer.

"For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?"

The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he should

go there, one of these years, "suppose you studied art and antiquities

while you were there?" he continued.

"Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities.

Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classic

authors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, and not

have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, and

churches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take it

for granted?"

The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them.

"Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome," he answered. "May I ask

how long you lived in Rome?"

"Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one

should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiar

with Vasari, of course?"

The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out his

handkerchief. "It is a warm day," he said. "I have not had time to read

all--the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, to

find all the time for reading and study I could have wished."

"In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardon my

inquiry? said Maurice.

"I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of

letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your own

lips some account of your literary experiences."

"Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it for my

autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do I

understand that you are an author?"

By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a

very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the

right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's very

simple question.

"If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, I

may call myself one. I write for the "People's Perennial and Household

Inquisitor."

"Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you manage

the political column?"

"I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of

interest."

"Places you have been to, and people you have known?"

"Well, yes,-generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my

articles."

"Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?"

The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he had

found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thing he

could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that he

should be able to pick up something or other which he could work into his

report of his visit.

"Well, I--prepared that article for our columns. You know one does not

have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, in

its descriptions?"

"Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I

can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle--the

old Milvian bridge--a good deal too far down the stream, if I remember.

I happened to notice that, but I did not read the article carefully. May

I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visit and

the conversation we have had, for the columns of the newspaper with which

you are connected?"

The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. "If you have no objections,"

he said, "I should like very much to ask a few questions." He was

recovering his professional audacity.

"You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet,

--after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to

submit me to examination?"

"The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humble

agent of its investigations."

"What has the public to do with my private affairs?"

"I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles

everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a large

number of curious people that form a majority against you. That is the

way I've heard the chief put it."

Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the American

citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure,

at last. Maurice calmly answered, "There is nothing left for minorities,

then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made the

subject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding

my own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against your

system of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public

all it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall request

to be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you a

good-morning."

The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his next

communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a brief

mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting the

place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege of

examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that

shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligence

would otherwise confer upon him.

The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failed to

get the first hint of its solution.

The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle.

The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the various

cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversational

circles which met every evening in the different centres of social life.

The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had a congenital

aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him were so painful or

disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it. It was known,

and it has already been mentioned, that such cases were on record. There

had been a great deal of discussion, of late, with reference to a fact

long known to a few individuals, but only recently made a matter of

careful scientific observation and brought to the notice of the public.

This was the now well-known phenomenon of color-blindness. It did not

seem very strange that if one person in every score or two could not tell

red from green there might be other curious individual peculiarities

relating to color. A case has already been referred to where the subject

of observation fainted at the sight of any red object. What if this were

the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It will be seen at once how such a

congenital antipathy would tend to isolate the person who was its

unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesis not difficult to test, but it

was a rather delicate business to be experimenting on an inoffensive

stranger. Miss Vincent was thinking it over, but said nothing, even to

Euthymia, of any projects she might entertain.

XII

MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT.

The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss

Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading various

works selected for her by Dr. Butts,--works chiefly relating to the

nervous system and its different affections. She thought it was about

time to talk over the general subject of the medical profession with her

new teacher,--if such a self-directing person as Lurida could be said to

recognize anybody as teacher.

She began at the beginning. "What is the first book you would put in a

student's hands, doctor?" she said to him one day. They were in his

study, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on Insanity, one

of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it had been a

pamphlet.

"Not that book, certainly," he said. "I am afraid it will put all sorts

of notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading that, I should

like to know?"

"I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps be

crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what kind of

a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright,

those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid enough ever to

lose my wits."

"There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that busy

brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about so many

people possessed with such strange notions?"

"Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many people

I had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. Take that

poor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,--not Her Majesty, but

Her Majesty's Person,--a very important distinction, according to her:

how she does remind me of more than one girl I have known! She would let

her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, and pile things on her

head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and throw her head back, and

feel as grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl act very much

in that way. Are not most of us a little crazy, doctor,--just a little?

I think so. It seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free from

every hint of craziness."

"And who was that, pray?"

"Why, Euthymia,--nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,--I

don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with

our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was the

only achromatic one I ever looked into,--I did n't say looked

through.---But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of your

books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he should

read, the great physician said, 'Read "Don Quixote."' I want you to

explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the first

book, according to your idea, that a student ought to read."

"What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper to

be read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies at

the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study of

medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in the

subject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tell

them about their calling."

"I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubt

there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to say

about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Eutbymia to become

a physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so full

of wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm,

or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as well as

the captain of the boat or of the fire-company."

"Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?"

"Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times we

would have studying together!"

"I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do you

think practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride ten

miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headaches

was racking you?"

"Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of

storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!"

"Well, what does she say to it?"

"She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women

doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by

nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a

good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most

of them are, doctor,--and ends by saying that the same woman who would be

a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that, she

thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the

hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her."

"Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I am

disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a good

nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to me

to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners.

But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving women

every chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one of

their proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that they

had better at least limit themselves to certain specialties, and always

have an expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble is that

they are so impressible and imaginative that they are at the mercy of all

sorts of fancy systems. You have only to see what kinds of instruction

they very commonly flock to in order to guess whether they would be

likely to prove sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always hobbles on

two crutches, the tattle of women, and the certificates of clergymen, and

I am afraid that half the women doctors will be too much under both those

influences."

Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of the

village, had "carried her through" a fever, brought on by over-excitement

and exhausting study. She took no offence at his reference to nursery

gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. Nobody so despises the

weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's rights. She accepted the

doctor's concession of a fair field and open trial of the fitness of her

sex for medical practice, and did not trouble herself about his suggested

limitations. As to the imaginative tendencies of women, she knew too

well the truth of the doctor's remark relating to them to wish to

contradict it.

"Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting,

doctor," she said; and in due season it came, and was of course approved

for reading.

XIII

DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER.

"Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal souls

is that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my very first

statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body is the first

thought with a great many,--in fact, with the larger part of the world.

They send for the physician first, and not until he gives them up do they

commonly call in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is not so very

different from other people. We must not blame him if he is not always

impatient to exchange a world of multiplied interests and ever-changing

sources of excitement for that which tradition has delivered to us as one

eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety. Besides, these bodily

frames, even when worn and disfigured by long years of service, hang

about our consciousness like old garments. They are used to us, and we

are used to them. And all the accidents of our lives,--the house we dwell

in, the living people round us, the landscape we look over, all, up to

the sky that covers us like a bell glass,--all these are but looser

outside garments which we have worn until they seem a part of us, and we

do not like the thought of changing them for a new suit which we have

never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear ancient lady, who

lived well into the last decade of her century, as she repeated the verse

which, if I had but one to choose, I would select from that string of

pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'!

"'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?'

"Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be,

than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well doubted if

there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary,

there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many who have come

here to regain the health they have lost in the wear and tear of city

life, and very few who have not at some time or other of their lives had

occasion to call in the services of a physician.

"There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering to the members some

remarks upon the peculiar difficulties which beset the medical

practitioner in the discharge of his laborious and important duties.

"A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest in medical studies,

happened to meet with a very familiar story about one of the greatest and

most celebrated of all English physicians, Thomas Sydenham. The story is

that, when a student asked him what books he should read, the great

doctor told him to read 'Don Quixote.'

"This piece of advice has been used to throw contempt upon the study of

books, and furnishes a convenient shield for ignorant pretenders. But

Sydenham left many writings in which he has recorded his medical

experience, and he surely would not have published them if he had not

thought they would be better reading for the medical student than the

story of Cervantes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and he

certainly could not have supposed that they contained all the wisdom of

all the past. No remedy is good, it was said of old, unless applied at

the right time in the right way. So we may say of all anecdotes, like

this which I have told you about Sydenham and the young man. It is very

likely that he carried him to the bedside of some patients, and talked to

him about the cases he showed him, instead of putting a Latin volume in

his hand. I would as soon begin in that way as any other, with a student

who had already mastered the preliminary branches,--who knew enough about

the structure and functions of the body in health.

"But if you ask me what reading I would commend to the medical student of

a philosophical habit of mind, you may be surprised to hear me say it

would be certain passages in 'Rasselas.' They are the ones where the

astronomer gives an account to Imlac of his management of the elements,

the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, had been committed to

him. Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which is commonly

bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like a woollen lining to a silken

mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in processions of paragraphs which

sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum-major to march before

their tramping platoons.

"The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confidence, and reveals to him

the secret of his wonderful powers:--

"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have

possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and the

distribution of the seasons the sun has listened to my dictates, and

passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call,

have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; I

have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors of

the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hitherto

eluded my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial

tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or restrain.'

"The reader naturally wishes to know how the astronomer, a sincere,

devoted, and most benevolent man, for forty years a student of the

heavens, came to the strange belief that he possessed these miraculous

powers. This is his account:

"'One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in

my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains,

and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I

commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command with that

of the inundation I found that the clouds had listened to my lips.'

"'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence? The

Nile does not always rise on the same day.'

"'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, I that such objections could

escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and labored against

truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of

madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a man

like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible and

the incredible from the false.'

"The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom he

has adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and the

seasons, in these impressive words:

"Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride by

innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make

thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The

memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become thee

to let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain

to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.'

"Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in which

the delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the pomp of

the Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young person about

to enter on the study of the science and art of healing? Listen to me

while I show you the parallel of the story of the astronomer in the

history of medicine.

"This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with benevolence,

but all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to struggle with the

ever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which waste and destroy the

race of mankind are vast and resistless as the elemental forces of

nature; nay, they are themselves elemental forces. They may be to some

extent avoided, to some extent diverted from their aim, to some extent

resisted. So may the changes of the seasons, from cold that freezes to

heats that strike with sudden death, be guarded against. So may the

tides be in some small measure restrained in their inroads. So may the

storms be breasted by walls they cannot shake from their foundations.

But the seasons and the tides and the tempests work their will on the

great scale upon whatever stands in their way; they feed or starve the

tillers of the soil; they spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; they

waft the seaman to his harbor or bury him in the angry billows.

"The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from deadly

and dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest the effects

of these influences. But look at the records of the life-insurance

offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's destroying

agencies. Look at the annual reports of the deaths in any of our great

cities, and see how their regularity approaches the uniformity of the

tides, and their variations keep pace with those of the seasons. The

inundations of the Nile are not more certainly to be predicted than the

vast wave of infantile disease which flows in upon all our great cities

with the growing heats of July,--than the fevers and dysenteries which

visit our rural districts in the months of the falling leaf.

"The physician watches these changes as the astronomer watched the rise

of the great river. He longs to rescue individuals, to protect

communities from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He uses all

the means which experience has approved, tries every rational method

which ingenuity can suggest. Some fortunate recovery leads him to

believe he has hit upon a preventive or a cure for a malady which had

resisted all known remedies. His rescued patient sounds his praises, and

a wide circle of his patient's friends joins in a chorus of eulogies.

Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self-interest congratulates him

on his having found the road to fortune; the sense of having proved a

benefactor of his race smooths the pillow on which he lays his head to

dream of the brilliant future opening before him. If a single

coincidence may lead a person of sanguine disposition to believe that he

has mastered a disease which had baffled all who were before his time,

and on which his contemporaries looked in hopeless impotence, what must

be the effect of a series of such coincidences even on a mind of calmer

temper! Such series of coincidences will happen, and they may well

deceive the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush,--you know what a famous man

he was, the very head and front of American medical science in his day,

--and remember how he spoke about yellow fever, which he thought he had

mastered!

"Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of a wide conspiracy, in

which he and his patient and their friends, and-Nature herself, are

involved. What wonder that the history of Medicine should be to so great

an extent a record of self-delusion!

"If this seems a dangerous concession to the enemies of the true science

and art of healing, I will remind you that it is all implied in the first

aphorism of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not draw a wrong

inference from the frank statement of the difficulties which beset the

medical practitioner. Think rather, if truth is so hard of attainment,

how precious are the results which the consent of the wisest and most

experienced among the healers of men agrees in accepting. Think what

folly it is to cast them aside in favor of palpable impositions stolen

from the records of forgotten charlatanism, or of fantastic speculations

spun from the squinting brains of theorists as wild as the Egyptian

astronomer.

"Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the fortieth and the

following four chapters of 'Rasselas.' Your first lesson will teach you

modesty and caution in the pursuit of the most deceptive of all practical

branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when you learn how much

medical science and art have actually achieved for the relief of mankind,

and how great are the promises it holds out of still larger triumphs over

the enemies of human health and happiness."

After the reading of this paper there was a lively discussion, which we

have no room to report here, and the Society adjourned.

XIV

MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY.

The sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. Butts was not a little

exercised in mind by the demands made upon his knowledge by his young

friend, and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida Vincent.

"I don't wonder they called her The Terror," he said to himself. "She is

enough to frighten anybody. She has taken down old books from my shelves

that I had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to the medical journals,

I believe the girl could index them from memory. She is in pursuit of

some special point of knowledge, I feel sure, and I cannot doubt what

direction she is working in, but her wonderful way of dealing with books

amazes me."

What marvels those "first scholars" in the classes of our great

universities and colleges are, to be sure! They are not, as a rule, the

most distinguished of their class in the long struggle of life. The

chances are that "the field" will beat "the favorite" over the long

race-course. Others will develop a longer stride and more staying power.

But what fine gifts those "first scholars" have received from nature!

How dull we writers, famous or obscure, are in the acquisition of

knowledge as compared with them! To lead their classmates they must have

quick apprehension, fine memories, thorough control of their mental

faculties, strong will, power of concentration, facility of

expression,--a wonderful equipment of mental faculties. I always want to

take my hat off to the first scholar of his year.

Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he contemplated The Terror.

She surprised him so often with her knowledge that he was ready to

receive her without astonishment when she burst in upon him one allay

with a cry of triumph, "Eureka! Eureka!"

"And what have you found, my dear?" said the doctor.

Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new discovery.

"I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor's dread

of all human intercourse!"

The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance.

"Wait a minute and get your breath," said the doctor. "Are you not a

little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. He

keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old Tavern,

he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he pulled out

of the water, or rescued somehow,--I don't believe be avoids the whole

human race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as I have

remarked his expression. I passed a few words with him when his man was

ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I don't believe it is much more

than an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with some congenital

or other personal repugnance to which has been given the name of an

antipathy."

Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When he

finished, she began the account of her discovery:

"I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an Italian

medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a reference

which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli Ospitali lying

among the old pamphlets in the medical section of the Library. I have

made a translation of it, which you must read and then tell me if you do

not agree with me in my conclusion."

"Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see for

myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you seem to

have reached."

Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of a

map of the world, as she said,

"I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the

bite of a TARANTULA!"

The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way the

stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but he had

consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fictions have

clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. He looked into the

round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared that she

was in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his professional

training, he waited for another symptom, if indeed her mind was in any

measure off its balance.

"I know what you are thinking," Lurida said, "but it is not so. 'I am

not mad, most noble Festus.' You shall see the evidence and judge for

yourself. Read the whole case,--you can read my hand almost as if it

were print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this young man

is in all probability the same person as the boy described in the Italian

journal,

"One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young patient

is spoken of as Signorino M . . . Ch. . . . But you must remember

that ch is pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which letter is wanting in

the Italian alphabet; and it is natural enough that the initial of the

second name should have got changed in the record to its Italian

equivalent."

Before inviting the reader to follow the details of this extraordinary

case as found in a medical journal, the narrator wishes to be indulged in

a few words of explanation, in order that he may not have to apologize

for allowing the introduction of a subject which may be thought to belong

to the professional student rather than to the readers of this record.

There is a great deal in medical books which it is very unbecoming to

bring before the general public,--a great deal to repel, to disgust, to

alarm, to excite unwholesome curiosity. It is not the men whose duties

have made them familiar with this class of subjects who are most likely

to offend by scenes and descriptions which belong to the physician's

private library, and not to the shelves devoted to polite literature.

Goldsmith and even Smollett, both having studied and practised medicine,

could not by any possibility have outraged all the natural feelings of

delicacy and decency as Swift and Zola have outraged them. But without

handling doubtful subjects, there are many curious medical experiences

which have interest for every one as extreme illustrations of ordinary

conditions with which all are acquainted. No one can study the now

familiar history of clairvoyance profitably who has not learned something

of the vagaries of hysteria. No one can read understandingly the life of

Cowper and that of Carlyle without having some idea of the influence of

hypochondriasis and of dyspepsia upon the disposition and intellect of

the subjects of these maladies. I need not apologize, therefore, for

giving publicity to that part of this narrative which deals with one of

the most singular maladies to be found in the records of bodily and

mental infirmities.

The following is the account of the case as translated by Miss Vincent.

For obvious reasons the whole name was not given in the original paper,

and for similar reasons the date of the event and the birthplace of the

patient are not precisely indicated here.

[Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18-.]

REMARKABLE CASE OF TARANTISM.

"The great interest attaching to the very singular and exceptional

instance of this rare affection induces us to give a full account of the

extraordinary example of its occurrence in a patient who was the subject

of a recent medical consultation in this city.

"Signorino M . . . Ch . . . is the only son of a gentleman

travelling in Italy at this time. He is eleven years of age, of

sanguine-nervous temperament, light hair, blue eyes, intelligent

countenance, well grown, but rather slight in form, to all appearance in

good health, but subject to certain peculiar and anomalous nervous

symptoms, of which his father gives this history.

"Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was travelling in Italy with

his wife, this child, and a nurse. They were passing a few days in a

country village near the city of Bari, capital of the province of the

same name in the division (compartamento) of Apulia. The child was in

perfect health and had never been affected by any serious illness. On

the 10th of July he was playing out in the field near the house where the

family was staying when he was heard to scream suddenly and violently.

The nurse rushing to him found him in great pain, saying that something

had bitten him in one of his feet. A laborer, one Tommaso, ran up at the

moment and perceived in the grass, near where the boy was standing, an

enormous spider, which he at once recognized as a tarantula. He managed

to catch the creature in a large leaf, from which he was afterwards

transferred to a wide-mouthed bottle, where he lived without any food for

a month or more. The creature was covered with short hairs, and had a

pair of nipper-like jaws, with which he could inflict an ugly wound. His

body measured about an inch in length, and from the extremity of one of

the longest limbs to the other was between two and three inches. Such was

the account given by the physician to whom the peasant carried the great

spider.

"The boy who had been bitten continued screaming violently while his

stocking was being removed and the foot examined. The place of the bite

was easily found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already showed

the effects of the poison, a small livid circle extending around them,

with some puffy swelling. The distinguished Dr. Amadei was immediately

sent for, and applied cups over the wounds in the hope of drawing forth

the poison. In vain all his skill and efforts! Soon, ataxic (irregular)

nervous symptoms declared themselves, and it became plain that the system

had been infected by the poison.

"The symptoms were very much like those of malignant fever, such as

distress about the region of the heart, difficulty of breathing, collapse

of all the vital powers, threatening immediate death. From these first

symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organism had been profoundly

affected by the venom circulating through it. His constitution has never

thrown off the malady resulting from this toxic (poisonous) agent. The

phenomena which have been observed in this young patient correspond so

nearly with those enumerated in the elaborate essay of the celebrated

Baglivi that one might think they had been transcribed from his pages.

"He is very fond of solitude,--of wandering about in churchyards and

other lonely places. He was once found hiding in an empty tomb, which

had been left open. His aversion to certain colors is remarkable.

Generally speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker ones, but his likes

and dislikes are capricious, and with regard to some colors his antipathy

amounts to positive horror. Some shades have such an effect upon him

that he cannot remain in the room with them, and if he meets any one

whose dress has any of that particular color he will turn away or retreat

so as to avoid passing that person. Among these, purple and dark green

are the least endurable. He cannot explain the sensations which these

obnoxious colors produce except by saying that it is like the deadly

feeling from a blow on the epigastrium (pit of the stomach).

"About the same season of the year at which the tarantular poisoning took

place he is liable to certain nervous seizures, not exactly like fainting

or epilepsy, but reminding the physician of those affections. All the

other symptoms are aggravated at this time.

"In other respects than those mentioned the boy is in good health. He is

fond of riding, and has a pony on which he takes a great deal of

exercise, which seems to do him more good than any other remedy.

"The influence of music, to which so much has been attributed by popular

belief and even by the distinguished Professor to whom we shall again

refer, has not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. If the graver

symptoms recur while the patient is under our observation, we propose to

make use of an agency discredited by modern skepticism, but deserving of

a fair trial as an exceptional remedy for an exceptional disease.

"The following extracts from the work of the celebrated Italian physician

of the last century are given by the writer of the paper in the Giornale

in the original Latin, with a translation into Italian, subjoined. Here

are the extracts, or rather here is a selection from them, with a

translation of them into English.

"After mentioning the singular aversion to certain colors shown by the

subject of Tarantism, Baglivi writes as follows: "'Et si astantes

incedant vestibus eo colore difusis, qui Tarantatis ingrates est, necesse

est ut ab illorum aspectu recedant; nam ad intuitum molesti coloris

angore cordis, et symptomatum recrudescantia stating corripiuntur.' (G.

Baglivi, Op. Omnia, page 614. Lugduni, 1745.)

"That is, 'if the persons about the patient wear dresses of the color

which is offensive to him, he must get away from the sight of them, for

on seeing the obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress in the

region of the heart, and a renewal of his symptoms.'

"As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi says: "'Dam calor solis

ardentius exurere incip at, quod contingit circa initia Julii et Augusti,

Tarantati lente venientem recrudescentiam veneni percipiunt.' (Ibid.,

page 619.)

"Which I render, 'When the heat of the sun begins to burn more fiercely,

which happens about the beginning of July and August, the subjects of

Tarantism perceive the gradually approaching recrudescence (returning

symptoms) of the poisoning. Among the remedies most valued by this

illustrious physician is that mentioned in the following sentence:

"'Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusticano factas singulis diebus,

hord potissimum matutina, quibus equitationibus morbos chronicos pene

incurabiles protanus eliminavi.'

"Or in translation, 'I commend especially riding on horseback in country

air, every day, by preference in the morning hours, by the aid of which

horseback riding I have driven off chronic diseases which were almost

incurable.'"

Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, and handed it to him to

examine and consider. He listened with a grave countenance and devout

attention.

As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed in the passionate

tones of the deepest conviction,

"There, doctor! Have n't I found the true story of this strange visitor?

Have n't I solved the riddle of the Sphinx? Who can this man be but the

boy of that story? Look at the date of the journal when he was eleven

years old, it would make him twenty-five now, and that is just about the

age the people here think he must be of. What could account so entirely

for his ways and actions as that strange poisoning which produces the

state they call Tarantism? I am just as sure it must be that as I am

that I am alive. Oh, doctor, doctor, I must be right,--this Signprino M

. . . Ch . . . was the boy Maurice Kirkwood, and the story accounts

for everything,--his solitary habits, his dread of people,--it must be

because they wear the colors he can't bear. His morning rides on

horseback, his coming here just as the season was approaching which would

aggravate all his symptoms, does n't all this prove that I must be right

in my conjecture,--no, my conviction?"

The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young enthusiast, and so he let

her run on until she ran down. He was more used to the rules of evidence

than she was, and could not accept her positive conclusion so readily as

she would have liked to have him. He knew that beginners are very apt to

make what they think are discoveries. But he had been an angler and knew

the meaning of a yielding rod and an easy-running reel. He said quietly,

"You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie case

it is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood is not the

same person as the M . . . Ch . . . of the medical journal,--that

is, if I accept your explanation of the difference in the initials of

these two names. Even if there were a difference, that would not

disprove their identity, for the initials of patients whose cases are

reported by their physicians are often altered for the purpose of

concealment. I do not know, however, that Mr. Kirkwood has shown any

special aversion to any particular color. It might be interesting to

inquire whether it is so, but it is a delicate matter. I don't exactly

see whose business it is to investigate Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's

idiosyncrasies and constitutional history. If he should have occasion to

send for me at any time, he might tell me all about himself, in

confidence, you know. These old accounts from Baglivi are curious and

interesting, but I am cautious about receiving any stories a hundred

years old, if they involve an improbability, as his stories about the

cure of the tarantula bite by music certainly do. I am disposed to wait

for future developments, bearing in mind, of course, the very singular

case you have unearthed. It wouldn't be very strange if our young

gentleman had to send for me before the season is over. He is out a good

deal before the dew is off the grass, which is rather risky in this

neighborhood as autumn comes on. I am somewhat curious, I confess, about

the young man, but I do not meddle where I am not asked for or wanted,

and I have found that eggs hatch just as well if you let them alone in

the nest as if you take them out and shake them every day. This is a

wonderfully interesting supposition of yours, and may prove to be

strictly in accordance with the facts. But I do not think we have all

the facts in this young man's case. If it were proved that he had an

aversion to any color, it would greatly strengthen your case. His

'antipatia,' as his man called it, must be one which covers a wide

ground, to account for his self-isolation,--and the color hypothesis

seems as plausible as any. But, my dear Miss Vincent, I think you had

better leave your singular and striking hypothesis in my keeping for a

while, rather than let it get abroad in a community like this, where so

many tongues are in active exercise. I will carefully study this paper,

if you will leave it with me, and we will talk the whole matter over. It

is a fair subject for speculation, only we must keep quiet about it."

This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain time to cool off a little.

She left the paper with the doctor, telling him she would come for it the

next day, and went off to tell the result of this visit to her bosom

friend, Miss Euthymia Tower.

XV

DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA.

The doctor was troubled in thinking over his interview with the young

lady. She was fully possessed with the idea that she had discovered the

secret which had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. It was

of no use to oppose her while her mind was in an excited state. But he

felt it his duty to guard her against any possible results of

indiscretion into which her eagerness and her theory of the equality,

almost the identity, of the sexes might betray her. Too much of the woman

in a daughter of our race leads her to forget danger. Too little of the

woman prompts her to defy it. Fortunately for this last class of women,

they are not quite so likely to be perilously seductive as their more

emphatically feminine sisters.

Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of their infancy.

He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence from its

precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained faculties. He

had looked with admiration on the childish beauty of Euthymia, and had

seen her grow up to womanhood, every year making her more attractive. He

knew that if anything was to be done with his self-willed young scholar

and friend, it would be more easily effected through the medium of

Euthymia than by direct advice to the young lady herself. So the

thoughtful doctor made up his mind to have a good talk with Euthymia, and

put her on her guard, if Lurida showed any tendency to forget the

conventionalities in her eager pursuit of knowledge.

For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss Euthymia

Tower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all the tongues

in the village going. This was one of those families where illness was

hardly looked for among the possibilities of life. There were other

families where a call from the doctor was hardly more thought of than a

call from the baker. But here he was a stranger, at least on his

professional rounds, and when he asked for Miss Euthymia the servant, who

knew his face well, stared as if he had held in his hand a warrant for

her apprehension.

Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made ready

to meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock had not run

astray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for a morning call

was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had been announced, she

might have taken a second look, but with the good middle-aged, married

doctor one was enough for a young lady who had the gift of making all the

dresses she wore look well, and had no occasion to treat her chamber like

the laboratory where an actress compounds herself.

Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not help

suspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk

over her friend's schemes and fancies with him.

The doctor began without any roundabout prelude.

"I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell you

all her plans and projects?"

"Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not

believe she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what she

has been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into her head.

What do you think of the Tarantula business? She has shown you the

paper, she has written, I suppose."

"Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and I do

not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she had come

at the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that this young

man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian medical

journal. But it is very far from clear that he is so. You know all her

reasons, of course, as you have read the story. The times seem to agree

well enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch might be substituted for K

in the report. The singular solitary habits of this young man entirely

coincide with the story. If we could only find out whether he has any of

those feelings with reference to certain colors, we might guess with more

chance of guessing right than we have at present. But I don't see

exactly how we are going to submit him to examination on this point. If

he were only a chemical compound, we could analyze him. If he were only

a bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes. But

being, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will of his

own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problem becomes

more complicated. I hear that a newspaper correspondent has visited him

so as to make a report to his paper,--do you know what he found out?"

"Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, which

was this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to interview.

The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did not learn

much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told Willy about the

Sphinx's library and a cabinet of coins he had; and said he should make

an article out of him, anyhow. I wish the man would take himself off. I

am afraid Lurida's love of knowledge will get her into trouble!"

"Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?"

"I was thinking of the newspaper man."

She blushed a little as she said, "I can't help feeling a strange sort of

interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood. Do you know that I met him this

morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?"

"Well, to be sure! That was an interesting experience. And how did you

like his looks?"

"I thought his face a very remarkable one. But he looked very pale as he

passed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side as if he

had a twinge of pain, or something of that sort,--spasm or neuralgia,--I

don't know what. I wondered whether he had what you call angina

pectoris. It was the same kind of look and movement, I remember, as you

trust, too, in my uncle who died with that complaint."

The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Were you dressed as

you are now?"

"Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over my shoulders. I was

out early, and I have always remembered your caution."

"What color was your mantle?"

"It was black. I have been over all this with Lucinda. A black mantle

on a white dress. A straw hat with an old faded ribbon. There can't be

much in those colors to trouble him, I should think, for his man wears a

black coat and white linen,--more or less white, as you must have

noticed, and he must have seen ribbons of all colors often enough. But

Lurida believes it was the ribbon, or something in the combination of

colors. Her head is full of Tarantulas and Tarantism. I fear that she

will never be easy until the question is settled by actual trial. And

will you believe it? the girl is determined in some way to test her

supposition!"

"Believe it, Euthymia? I can believe almost anything of Lurida. She is

the most irrepressible creature I ever knew. You know as well as I do

what a complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole nature. I

have had some fears lest her zeal might run away with her discretion. It

is a great deal easier to get into a false position than to get out of

it."

"I know it well enough. I want you to tell me what you think about the

whole business. I don't like the look of it at all, and yet I can do

nothing with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I can show

her plainly that she will get herself into trouble in some way or other.

But she is ingenious,--full of all sorts of devices, innocent enough in

themselves, but liable to be misconstrued. You remember how she won us

the boat-race?"

"To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, but she felt she was

paying off an old score. The classical story of Atalanta, told, like

that of Eve, as illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her to make

trial of the powers of resistance in the other sex. But it was

audacious. I hope her audacity will not go too far. You must watch her.

Keep an eye on her correspondence."

The doctor had great confidence in the good sense of Lurida's friend. He

felt sure that she would not let Lurida commit herself by writing foolish

letters to the subject of her speculations, or similar indiscreet

performances. The boldness of young girls, who think no evil, in opening

correspondence with idealized personages is something quite astonishing

to those who have had an opportunity of knowing the facts. Lurida had

passed the most dangerous age, but her theory of the equality of the

sexes made her indifferent to the by-laws of social usage. She required

watching, and her two guardians were ready to check her, in case of need.

XVI

MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER.

Euthymia noticed that her friend had been very much preoccupied for two

or three days. She found her more than once busy at her desk, with a

manuscript before her, which she turned over and placed inside the desk,

as Euthymia entered.

This desire of concealment was not what either of the friends expected to

see in the other. It showed that some project was under way, which, at

least in its present stage, the Machiavellian young lady did not wish to

disclose. It had cost her a good deal of thought and care, apparently,

for her waste-basket was full of scraps of paper, which looked as if they

were the remains of a manuscript like that at which she was at work.

"Copying and recopying, probably," thought Euthymia, but she was willing

to wait to learn what Lurida was busy about, though she had a suspicion

that it was something in which she might feel called upon to interest

herself.

"Do you know what I think?" said Euthymia to the doctor, meeting him as

he left his door. "I believe Lurida is writing to this man, and I don't

like the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she is not like

other girls in many respects, but other people will judge her by the

common rules of life."

"I am glad that you spoke of it," answered the doctor; "she would write

to him just as quickly as to any woman of his age. Besides, under the

cover of her office, she has got into the way of writing to anybody. I

think she has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, asking him to contribute a

paper for the Society. She can find a pretext easily enough if she has

made up her mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she would trouble herself

for any pretext at all if she decided to write. Watch her well. Don't

let any letter go without seeing it, if you can help it."

Young women are much given to writing letters to persons whom they only

know indirectly, for the most part through their books, and especially to

romancers and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and simple-hearted

than most of these letters. They are the spontaneous outflow of young

hearts easily excited to gratitude for the pleasure which some story or

poem has given them, and recognizing their own thoughts, their own

feelings, in those expressed by the author, as if on purpose for them to

read. Undoubtedly they give great relief to solitary young persons, who

must have some ideal reflection of themselves, and know not where to look

since Protestantism has taken away the crucifix and the Madonna. The

recipient of these letters sometimes wonders, after reading through one

of them, how it is that his young correspondent has managed to fill so

much space with her simple message of admiration or of sympathy.

Lurida did not belong to this particular class of correspondents, but she

could not resist the law of her sex, whose thoughts naturally surround

themselves with superabundant drapery of language, as their persons float

in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was she indeed writing to this

unknown gentleman? Euthymia questioned her point-blank.

"Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. Maurice Kirkwood,

Lurida? You seem to be so busy writing, I can think of nothing else. Or

are you going to write a novel, or a paper for the Society,--do tell me

what you are so much taken up with."

"I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not to find fault with me

for carrying out my plan as I have made up my mind to do. You may read

this letter before I seal it, and if you find anything in it you don't

like you can suggest any change that you think will improve it. I hope

you will see that it explains itself. I don't believe that you will find

anything to frighten you in it."

This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by her friend. The bold

handwriting made it look like a man's letter, and gave it consequently a

less dangerous expression than that which belongs to the tinted and often

fragrant sheet with its delicate thready characters, which slant across

the page like an April shower with a south wind chasing it.

ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August--, 18--.

MY DEAR SIR,--You will doubtless be surprised at the sight of a letter

like this from one whom you only know as the Secretary of the Pansophian

Society. There is a very common feeling that it is unbecoming in one of

my sex to address one of your own with whom she is unacquainted, unless

she has some special claim upon his attention. I am by no means disposed

to concede to the vulgar prejudice on this point. If one human being has

anything to communicate to another,--anything which deserves being

communicated,--I see no occasion for bringing in the question of sex. I

do not think the homo sum of Terence can be claimed for the male sex as

its private property on general any more than on grammatical grounds,

I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the noble art of healing.

If I did so, it would be with the fixed purpose of giving my whole powers

to the service of humanity. And if I should carry out that idea, should

I refuse my care and skill to a suffering fellow-mortal because that

mortal happened to be a brother, and not a sister? My whole nature

protests against such one-sided humanity! No! I am blind to all

distinctions when my eyes are opened to any form of suffering, to any

spectacle of want.

You may ask me why I address you, whom I know little or nothing of, and

to whom such an advance may seem presumptuous and intrusive. It is

because I was deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed to

you,--that on Ocean, River, and Lake, which was read at one of our

meetings. I say that I was deeply impressed, but I do not mean this as a

compliment to that paper. I am not bandying compliments now, but

thinking of better things than praises or phrases. I was interested in

the paper, partly because I recognized some of the feelings expressed in

it as my own,--partly because there was an undertone of sadness in all

the voices of nature as you echoed them which made me sad to hear, and

which I could not help longing to cheer and enliven. I said to myself, I

should like to hold communion with the writer of that paper. I have had

my lonely hours and days, as he has had. I have had some of his

experiences in my intercourse with nature. And oh! if I could draw him

into those better human relations which await us all, if we come with the

right dispositions, I should blush if I stopped to inquire whether I

violated any conventional rule or not.

You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe, do you not? in the

insignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from the

brotherhood of mankind. You believe, do you not? that they should be

educated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, due

regard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hard or

light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing with the

"stronger" or the "weaker" sex. I mark these words because,

notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not true.

Stronger! Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of cider,--though

there have been women who could do that, and though when John Wesley was

mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down three or four men, one after

another, until she was at last overpowered and nearly murdered. Talk

about the weaker sex! Go and see Miss Euthymia Tower at the gymnasium!

But no matter about which sex has the strongest muscles. Which has most

to suffer, and which has most endurance and vitality? We go through many

ordeals which you are spared, but we outlast you in mind and body. I

have been led away into one of my accustomed trains of thought, but not

so far away from it as you might at first suppose.

My brother! Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, a

sister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the same

roof? And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes us all one

family? You are lonely, you must be longing for some human fellowship.

Take me into your confidence. What is there that you can tell me to

which I cannot respond with sympathy? What saddest note in your

spiritual dirges which will not find its chord in mine?

I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your existence. I

myself have known what it is to carry a brain that never rests in a body

that is always tired. I have defied its infirmities, and forced it to do

my bidding. You have no such hindrance, if we may judge by your aspect

and habits. You deal with horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indian

could handle his bark canoe more dexterously or more vigorously than we

have seen you handling yours. There must be some reason for your

seclusion which curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not the

province of curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire which I

have to bring you into kindly relations with those around you, I must run

the risk of giving offence that I may know in what direction to look for

those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and sister

can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to change the

course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in accordance with his

true nature.

I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with which

you are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings,--something

which can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from the people whose

acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There can hardly be

anything in the place itself, or you would not have voluntarily sought it

as a residence, even for a single season there might be individuals here

whom you would not care to meet, there must be such, but you cannot have

a personal aversion to everybody. I have heard of cases in which certain

sights and sounds, which have no particular significance for most

persons, produced feelings of distress or aversion that made, them

unbearable to the subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has

occurred to me that possibly you might have some such natural aversion to

the sounds of the street, or such as are heard in most houses, especially

where a piano is kept, as it is in fact in almost all of those in the

village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color in the dresses of

women or the furniture of our rooms affected you unpleasantly. I know

that instances of such antipathy have been recorded, and they would

account for the seclusion of those who are subject to it.

If there is any removable condition which interferes with your free

entrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, I beg

of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it not

strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself into the

hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to be

frightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to be of

use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered

"unfeminine." I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot

endure to think of myself as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'?

Believe me your most sincere well-wisher,

LURIDA VINCENT.

Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As she

finished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of her

grandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early days

are apt to do, on great occasions.

"Well, I never!"

Then she loosened some button or string that was too tight, and went to

the window for a breath of outdoor air. Then she began at the beginning

and read the whole letter all over again.

What should she do about it? She could not let this young girl send a

letter like that to a stranger of whose character little was known except

by inference,--to a young man, who would consider it a most extraordinary

advance on the part of the sender. She would have liked to tear it into

a thousand pieces, but she had no right to treat it in that way. Lurida

meant to send it the next morning, and in the mean time Euthymia had the

night to think over what she should do about it.

There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice like

that which breaks the silence--of the stagnant hours of the night with

its sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia awoke in the

morning, her course of action was as clear before her as if it bad been

dictated by her guardian angel. She went straight over to the home of

Lurida, who was just dressed for breakfast.

She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She was struck

with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, and

contemplating her project with entire complacency.

Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety.

"I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force. It

is a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of the

truest human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. If you

were sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be admissible

to send it. But if you were forty, I should question its propriety; if

you were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a little more than

twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not show your letter to

anybody or everybody? How do you know that he will not send it to one of

the gossiping journals like the 'Household Inquisitor'? But supposing he

keeps it to himself, which is more than you have a right to expect, what

opinion is he likely to form of a young lady who invades his privacy with

such freedom? Ten to one he will think curiosity is at the bottom of

it,--and,--come, don't be angry at me for suggesting it,--may there not

be a little of that same motive mingled with the others? No, don't

interrupt me quite yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis is

correct. You are full of the best and kindest feelings in the world, but

your desire for knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhaps

more than you know."

Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while her friend

was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected her intelligence

too much to take offence at her advice, but she could not give up her

humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear of some awkward

consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself that she was playing

the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and that the fact of her not

wearing the costume of these ministering angels made no difference in her

relations to those who needed her aid.

"I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear to you,"

she said gravely. "It seems to me that I give up everything when I

hesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am not afraid

to send this letter and take all the consequences."

"Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in our

presence? And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it coincides

with mine?"

Lurida winced a little at this proposal. "I don't quite like," she said,

"showing this letter to--to" she hesitated, but it had to come out--"to a

man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was intended."

The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit.

"Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go over to

his house with me at noon, when he comes back after his morning visits,

and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You know I have

sometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say you must go to

the doctor's with me and carry that letter."

There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firm

voice delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's door.

The servant said he had been at the house after his morning visits, but

found a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken suddenly ill

and wished to see him at once. Was the illness dangerous? The

servant-maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty bad, for Mr. Paul

came in as white as a sheet, and talked all sorts of languages which she

couldn't understand, and took on as if he thought Mr. Kirkwood was going

to die right off.

And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed of,

at least for the present.

XVII

Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT.

The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill of a

somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and the

probable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His patient was

not the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in this way. The

autumnal fevers to which our country towns are subject, in the place of

those "agues," or intermittents, so largely prevalent in the South and

West, were already beginning, and Maurice, who had exposed himself in the

early and late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected to go

through the regular stages of this always serious and not rarely fatal

disease.

Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of his

master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must have a

nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and

exhausting.

At the mention of the word "nurse" Paolo turned white, and exclaimed in

an agitated and thoroughly frightened way,

"No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, but

don' let no woman come near him,--if you do, he die!"

The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to

taking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last succeeded

in convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night for a

fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to call in some

assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play the

leading part in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoid fever,

with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials and

pill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution of

a very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations,

and its denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy.

It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of the

village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the young

man about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens of

their kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods and from the

gardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under glass, for there

were some fine houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and greenhouses

and graperies were not unknown in the small but favored settlement.

On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A faint

smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of his

features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his parched

lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the fitful sleep in

which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow hours dragged along

the sluggish days one after another. With no violent symptoms, but with

steady persistency, the disease moved on in its accustomed course. It

was at no time immediately threatening, but the experienced physician

knew its uncertainties only too well. He had known fever patients

suddenly seized with violent internal inflammation, and carried off with

frightful rapidity. He remembered the case of a convalescent, a young

woman who had been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health,

who, on being lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while still

confined to her bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. It

may well be supposed that he took every possible precaution to avert the

accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regular course

of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a railroad

from one city to another. The most natural interpretation which the

common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of these

autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible element had

found its way into the system which must be burned to ashes before the

heat which pervades the whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire may

smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were quite extinguished,

and again it will find some new material to seize upon, and flame up as

fiercely as ever. Its coming on most frequently at the season when the

brush fires which are consuming the dead branches, and withered leaves,

and all the refuse of vegetation are sending up their smoke is

suggestive. Sometimes it seems as if the body, relieved of its effete

materials, renewed its youth after one of these quiet, expurgating,

internal fractional cremations. Lean, pallid students have found

themselves plump and blooming, and it has happened that one whose hair

was straight as gnat of an Indian has been startled to behold himself in

his mirror with a fringe of hyacinthine curls about his rejuvenated

countenance.

There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case of

Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound prostration,

which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly helpless, as

unable to move without aid as the feeblest of paralytics. In this state

he lay for many days, not suffering pain, but with the sense of great

weariness, and the feeling that he should never rise from his bed again.

For the most part his intellect was unclouded when his attention was

aroused. He spoke only in whispers, a few words at a time. The doctor

felt sure, by the expression which passed over his features from time to

time, that something was worrying and oppressing him; something which he

wished to communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity of purpose,

to make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certain desk, and

once he had found strength to lift his emaciated arm and point to it. The

doctor went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he slowly shook his

head. He had not the power to say at that time what he wished. The next

day he felt a little less prostrated; and succeeded in explaining to the

doctor what he wanted. His words, so far as the physician could make

them out, were these which follow. Dr. Butts looked upon them as

possibly expressing wishes which would be his last, and noted them down

carefully immediately after leaving his chamber.

"I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is told

in a paper locked in that desk. The key is--put your hand under my

pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that I

was--human--and save my memory from reproach."

He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollow

cheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. But

he said to himself, "It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong hopes that

he will recover."

Maurice spoke once more. "Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are wise

and kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once and

read. I want you to know the story of my life before it is finished--if

the end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before you sleep." He

was exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the doctor saw a

tranquil look on his features which added encouragement to his hopes.

XVIII

MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE.

I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been passed in

foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed of an ample

fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished and amiable woman.

I was their first and only child. She died while I was yet an infant.

If I remember her at all it is as a vision, more like a glimpse of a

pre-natal existence than as a part of my earthly life. At the death of

my mother I was left in the charge of the old nurse who had enjoyed her

perfect confidence. She was devoted to me, and I became absolutely

dependent on her, who had for me all the love and all the care of a

mother. I was naturally the object of the attentions and caresses of the

family relatives. I have been told that I was a pleasant, smiling

infant, with nothing to indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility; not

afraid of strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their

acquaintance. My father was devoted to me and did all in his power to

promote my health and comfort.

I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happened which

changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonely

existence. I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. I

must force myself to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguely

remembered, for I am not willing that my doomed and wholly exceptional

life should pass away unrecorded, unexplained, unvindicated. My nature

is, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but I have lived apart, as if my

heart were filled with hatred of my fellow-creatures. If there are any

readers who look without pity, without sympathy, upon those who shun the

fellowship of their fellow men and women, who show by their downcast or

averted eyes that they dread companionship and long for solitude, I pray

them, if this paper ever reaches them, to stop at this point. Follow me

no further, for you will not believe my story, nor enter into the

feelings which I am about to reveal. But if there are any to whom all

that is human is of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness

some stirrings of invincible attraction to one individual and equally

invincible repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that

elective affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it were,

their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective repulsions,

let them read with unquestioning faith the story of a blighted life I am

about to relate, much of it, of course, received from the lips of others.

My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, was

considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that she

visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants and my

old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. Laura was

full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtless

occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of her age should

be. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for the first time.

My nurse had me in her arms, walking back and forward on a balcony with a

low railing, upon which opened the windows of the second story of my

father's house. While the nurse was thus carrying me, Laura came

suddenly upon the balcony. She no sooner saw me than with all the

delighted eagerness of her youthful nature she rushed toward me, and,

catching me from the nurse's arms, began tossing me after the fashion of

young girls who have been so lately playing with dolls that they feel as

if babies were very much of the same nature. The abrupt seizure

frightened me; I sprang from her arms in my terror, and fell over the

railing of the balcony. I should probably enough have been killed on the

spot but for the fact that a low thorn-bush grew just beneath the

balcony, into which I fell and thus had the violence of the shock broken.

But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this day marks of the

deep wounds they inflicted.

That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The sudden

apparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from the protecting

arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek that accompanied

my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable space; the cruel

lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns,--all these fearful

impressions blended in one paralyzing terror.

When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, and

the physician who first saw me said that no pulse was perceptible. But

after a time consciousness returned; the wounds, though painful, were

none of them dangerous, and the most alarming effects of the accident

passed away. My old nurse cared for me tenderly day and night, and my

father, who had been almost distracted in the first hours which followed

the injury, hoped and believed that no permanent evil results would be

found to result from it. My cousin Laura was of course deeply distressed

to feel that her thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave an

accident. As soon as I had somewhat recovered she came to see me, very

penitent, very anxious to make me forget the alarm she had caused me,

with all its consequences. I was in the nursery sitting up in my bed,

bandaged, but not in any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to all

appearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As Laura came near

me I shrieked and instantly changed color. I put my hand upon my heart

as if I had been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It was very much

the same state as that in which I was found immediately after my fall.

The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. The

approach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to lay her

hand upon me had called up the same train of effects which the moment of

terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse saw this in a

moment. "Go! go!" she cried to Laura, "go, or the child will die!" Her

command did not have to be repeated. After Laura had gone I lay

senseless, white and cold as marble, for some time. The doctor soon

came, and by the use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color came back

slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set in motion.

It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporary

effect of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought by

the doctor and by my father, that after a few days I should recover from

this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other infants receive

pleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook her head. "The girl

will be the death of the child," she said, "if she touches him or comes

near him. His heart stopped beating just as when the girl snatched him

out of my arms, and he fell over the balcony railing." Once more the

experiment was tried, cautiously, almost insidiously. The same alarming

consequences followed. It was too evident that a chain of nervous

disturbances had been set up in my system which repeated itself whenever

the original impression gave the first impulse. I never saw my cousin

Laura after this last trial. Its result had so distressed her that she

never ventured again to show herself to me.