A PARAGRAPH.
There was no sleep for me. This seemed the final stroke of treason
against the happiness of sentient life. I had done my best to spoil
humanity’s share of it, till Victoria entered her _caveat_ against the
crime; and here was this sleeping figure, as my logical sequel, with
all animate Nature for his mark.
It was a distressing thought, and I looked round for something to drive
it away. The Captain’s bundle of newspapers lay on a chair, and I took
them up to read myself to sleep.
I might as well have taken coffee as an opiate. As I turned these
fatal leaves, life in all its littleness seemed to beat in upon me,
with a suffocating rush, from every quarter of the globe. I was in the
fever-struck crowd once more, after my spiritual quarantine of months.
It was as a coming back to consciousness after chloroform: my brain
throbbed, every pulsation was pain. I darted from column to column,
from page to page. I had lost the art of selection: one thing was as
another thing, and each impression was a shock. Once again, I realised
Europe and America, Asia and Africa, but only as masses in a whirl. The
Ball itself, with all its continents, seemed to have suddenly whizzed
my way, as I lay dreaming on a cloud in space. Every particle was in
movement, as well as the mass; it was a huge rolling cheese, putrid
with unwholesome being--a low-bred world, not a world at all, a mere
glorified back-court, with all its cheatings, thefts, lies, cruelties,
small cares, and small ambitions, multiplied into themselves, and into
one another, to make a whole. The finer things alone seemed without an
entry, as though, in a business reckoning, such trifles could not count.
I did not know how to read it. Picking and choosing was impossible; I
took it as it came. ‘Brigandage in the public Thoroughfares;’ ‘Foreign
Paupers blocking the City Streets;’ ‘Outrages on English Fishermen;’
‘Parliament--two Members suspended;’ ‘Afghanistan--Five hundred
killed;’ ‘Moonlighting in Ireland; a Policeman’s Head beaten to Pulp;’
‘Evictions--Death of an Old Woman on the Roadside;’ ‘A Hundred People
Burned to Death in a Theatre;’ ‘Brutal Treatment of a Boy.’ This was
from the English budget. The American was more appalling in the cool
devilry of its mocking headlines, as though all the woe and all the
folly of the world were but one stupendous joke--‘Green Immigrants
sold like Cattle;’ ‘Awful Railway Accident; the Line stripped bare
by Speculators, and no Money to Pay for Repairs;’ ‘Mr. Chown’s
Dyspepsia; In the Acquisition of Millions, his Digestion had to go;’
‘A Crank writing a weekly Begging-Letter for Fourteen Years, asking
for $50,000 to start a Newspaper;’ ‘No Holiday for Philadelphia’s
wealthiest Bachelor; Watching his large Interests, and Keeping the
Run of Quotations all through the Hot Spell;’ ‘Mistaken Parsimony
makes the Insane Asylum a Pest Hole of Disease;’ ‘Schevitch voted
an Idiot;’ ‘The last Wrinkle in Thieving;’ ‘Socialists cry “Rats;”’
‘Carbolic Acid isn’t Holy Water;’ ‘The Bulk of the Jewelry melted into
Bars;’ ‘Marvellous Anecdotes of the Altitudinous Aristocracy of Great
Britain;’ ‘Society at Saratoga--another Brilliant Week;’ ‘Prosperity
of the Country; a lady with Thirty-eight Trunks;’ ‘Pa says he likes
Saratoga, because he has a Private Wire to the Stock Exchange.’
And then, suddenly, in one of our own papers, my own name.
‘Henry is altogether inaccurate as to the disappearance of poor Lord
----. He has been missing, or, at any rate, away from home, for nearly
a year, instead of “for the better part of two months.” The family at
---- Court have tried to keep the matter out of the newspapers, and
that, no doubt, is why Henry has not heard of it till now. Others, who
were better informed, kept silent, because they did not wish to cause
unnecessary alarm.’
* * * * *
‘It is certainly true that the shock has been too much for the
poor Dowager-Countess, and that her condition causes the gravest
uneasiness. Lord ---- was her favourite son. It is not true that he
has been heard from only once since he left England. At the outset, he
wrote from Paris, as well as from Genoa.’
* * * * *
‘The Genoa letter was somewhat enigmatical:--“Running away for a
ramble; news when I come back.” This naturally excited the Dowager’s
apprehensions. The police were consulted, somewhat too soon, and they
discovered that he had been seen at Geneva in rather questionable
company. The Dowager immediately jumped to the conclusion that he
had fallen into a Nihilist snare. From that moment, she refused to
believe that he was alive, and, though a subsequent letter bearing his
signature was shown to her, she declined to accept the evidence of his
handwriting.’
* * * * *
‘Henry is doubly wrong in saying that Lord ---- was never heard of
after the Genoa letter. A few weeks ago, direct news of him was
received in a rather extraordinary way. During her late cruise in the
South Seas, H.M.S. “Rollo” touched at one of the Islands (I forget
which), and there, in the best of health and spirits, she found the
missing man. He had fallen under the spell of a native beauty, and,
I believe, was about to get himself tattooed, as a preliminary to
adoption by the tribe. He sent affectionate messages to his family,
but he could not be prevailed upon to make any promise of an immediate
return.’
* * * * *
‘The messages have been communicated to the Dowager, but she persists
in regarding them with incredulity. She is persuaded that Lord ----
fell a victim to foul play at Genoa, or Geneva, and that all these
communications have been forged in his name. Her delusions constitute
the only serious feature of the case. These are the facts, if Henry
will condescend to accept them as such for the benefit of his readers;
and I may further inform him that ---- Court has been shut up.’