"In my mind's eye, Horatio."
_Hamlet_.
Prue and I do not entertain much; our means forbid it. In truth, other
people entertain for us. We enjoy that hospitality of which no
account is made. We see the show, and hear the music, and smell the
flowers, of great festivities, tasting, as it were, the drippings from
rich dishes.
Our own dinner service is remarkably plain, our dinners, even on state
occasions, are strictly in keeping, and almost our only guest is
Titbottom. I buy a handful of roses as I come up from the office,
perhaps, and Prue arranges them so prettily in a glass dish for the
centre of the table, that, even when I have hurried out to see Aurelia
step into her carriage to go out to dine, I have thought that the
bouquet she carried was not more beautiful because it was more costly.
I grant that it was more harmonious with her superb beauty and her
rich attire. And I have no doubt that if Aurelia knew the old man,
whom she must have seen so often watching her, and his wife, who
ornaments her sex with as much sweetness, although with less splendor,
than Aurelia herself, she would also acknowledge that the nosegay of
roses was as fine and fit upon their table, as her own sumptuous
bouquet is for herself. I have so much faith in the perception of that
lovely lady.
It is my habit,--I hope I may say, my nature,--to believe the best of
people, rather than the worst. If I thought that all this sparkling
setting of beauty,--this fine fashion,--these blazing jewels, and
lustrous silks, and airy gauzes, embellished with gold-threaded
embroidery and wrought in a thousand exquisite elaborations, so that I
cannot see one of those lovely girls pass me by, without thanking God
for the vision,--if I thought that this was all, and that, underneath
her lace flounces and diamond bracelets, Aurelia was a sullen, selfish
woman, then I should turn sadly homeward, for I should see that her
jewels were flashing scorn upon the object they adorned, that her
laces were of a more exquisite loveliness than the woman whom they
merely touched with a superficial grace. It would be like a gaily
decorated mausoleum,--bright to see, but silent and dark within.
"Great excellences, my dear Prue," I sometimes allow myself to say,
"lie concealed in the depths of character, like pearls at the bottom
of the sea. Under the laughing, glancing surface, how little they are
suspected! Perhaps love is nothing else than the sight of them by one
person. Hence every man's mistress is apt to be an enigma to everybody
else.
"I have no doubt that when Aurelia is engaged, people will say she is
a most admirable girl, certainly; but they cannot understand why any
man should be in love with her. As if it were at all necessary that
they should! And her lover, like a boy who finds a pearl in the public
street, and wonders as much that others did not see it as that he did,
will tremble until he knows his passion is returned; feeling, of
course, that the whole world must be in love with this paragon, who
cannot possibly smile upon anything so unworthy as he.
"I hope, therefore, my dear Mrs. Prue," I continue, and my wife looks
up, with pleased pride, from her work, as if I were such an
irresistible humorist, "you will allow me to believe that the depth
may be calm, although the surface is dancing. If you tell me that
Aurelia is but a giddy girl, I shall believe that you think so. But I
shall know, all the while, what profound dignity, and sweetness, and
peace, lie at the foundation of her character."
I say such things to Titbottom, during the dull season at the
office. And I have known him sometimes to reply, with a kind of dry,
sad humor, not as if he enjoyed the joke, but as if the joke must be
made, that he saw no reason why I should be dull because the season
was so.
"And what do I know of Aurelia, or any other girl?" he says to me with
that abstracted air; "I, whose Aurelias were of another century, and
another zone."
Then he falls into a silence which it seems quite profane to
interrupt. But as we sit upon our high stools, at the desk, opposite
each other, I leaning upon my elbows, and looking at him, he, with
sidelong face, glancing out of the window, as if it commanded a
boundless landscape, instead of a dim, dingy office court, I cannot
refrain from saying:
"Well!"
He turns slowly, and I go chatting on,--a little too loquacious
perhaps, about those young girls. But I know that Titbottom regards
such an excess as venial, for his sadness is so sweet that you could
believe it the reflection of a smile from long, long years ago.
One day, after I had been talking for a long time, and we had put up
our books, and were preparing to leave, he stood for some time by the
window, gazing with a drooping intentness, as if he really saw
something more than the dark court, and said slowly:
"Perhaps you would have different impressions of things, if you saw
them through my spectacles."
There was no change in his expression. He still looked from the
window, and I said:
"Titbottom, I did not know that you used glasses. I have never seen
you wearing spectacles."
"No, I don't often wear them. I am not very fond of looking through
them. But sometimes an irresistible necessity compels me to put them
on, and I cannot help seeing."
Titbottom sighed.
"Is it so grievous a fate to see?" inquired I.
"Yes; through my spectacles," he said, turning slowly, and looking at
me with wan solemnity.
It grew dark as we stood in the office talking, and, taking our hats,
we went out together. The narrow street of business was deserted. The
heavy iron shutters were gloomily closed over the windows. From one
or two offices struggled the dim gleam of an early candle, by whose
light some perplexed accountant sat belated, and hunting for his
error. A careless clerk passed, whistling. But the great tide of life
had ebbed. We heard its roar far away, and the sound stole into that
silent street like the murmur of the ocean into an inland dell.
"You will come and dine with us, Titbottom?"
He assented by continuing to walk with me, and I think we were both
glad when we reached the house, and Prue came to meet us, saying:
"Do you know I hoped you would bring Mr. Titbottom to dine?"
Titbottom smiled gently, and answered:
"He might have brought his spectacles with him, and have been a
happier man for it."
Prue looked a little puzzled.
"My dear," I said, "you must know that our friend, Mr. Titbottom, is
the happy possessor of a pair of wonderful spectacles. I have never
seen them, indeed; and, from what he says, I should be rather afraid
of being seen by them. Most short-sighted persons are very glad to
have the help of glasses; but Mr. Titbottom seems to find very little
pleasure in his."
"It is because they make him too far-sighted, perhaps," interrupted
Prue quietly, as she took the silver soup-ladle from the sideboard.
We sipped our wine after dinner, and Prue took her work. Can a man be
too far-sighted? I did not ask the question aloud. The very tone in
which Prue had spoken, convinced me that he might.
"At least," I said, "Mr. Titbottom will not refuse to tell us the
history of his mysterious spectacles. I have known plenty of magic in
eyes (and I glanced at the tender blue eyes of Prue), but I have not
heard of any enchanted glasses."
"Yet you must have seen the glass in which your wife looks every
morning, and, I take it, that glass must be daily enchanted," said
Titbottom, with a bow of quaint respect to my wife.
I do not think I have seen such a blush upon Prue's cheek since--well,
since a great many years ago.
"I will gladly tell you the history of my spectacles," began
Titbottom. "It is very simple; and I am not at all sure that a great
many other people have not a pair of the same kind. I have never,
indeed, heard of them by the gross, like those of our young friend,
Moses, the you of the Vicar of Wakefield. In fact, I think a gross
would be quite enough to supply the world. It is a kind of article for
which the demand does not increase with use If we should all wear
spectacles like mine, we should never smile any more. Or--I am not
quite sure--we should all be very happy."
"A very important difference," said Prue, counting her stitches.
"You know my grandfather Titbottom was a West Indian. A large
proprietor, and an easy man he basked in the tropical sun, leading his
quiet, luxurious life. He lived much alone, and was what people call
eccentric--by which I understand, that he was very much himself, and,
refusing the influence of other people, they had their revenges, and
called him names. It is a habit not exclusively tropical. I think I
have seen the same thing even in this city.
"But he was greatly beloved--my bland and bountiful grandfather. He
was so large-hearted and open-handed. He was so friendly, and
thoughtful, and genial, that even his jokes had the air of graceful
benedictions. He did not seem to grow old, and he was one of those who
never appear to have been very young. He flourished in a perennial
maturity, an immortal middle-age.
"My grandfather lived upon one of the small islands--St. Kitt's,
perhaps--and his domain extended to the sea. His house, a rambling
West Indian mansion, was surrounded with deep, spacious piazzas,
covered with luxurious lounges, among which one capacious chair was
his peculiar seat. They tell me, he used sometimes to sit there for
the whole day, his great, soft, brown eyes fastened upon the sea,
watching the specks of sails that flashed upon the horizon, while the
evanescent expressions chased each other over his placid face as if it
reflected the calm and changing sea before him.
"His morning costume was an ample dressing-gown of gorgeously-flowered
silk, and his morning was very apt to last all day. He rarely read;
but he would pace the great piazza for hours, with his hands buried in
the pockets of his dressing-gown, and an air of sweet reverie, which
any book must be a very entertaining one to produce.
"Society, of course, he saw little. There was some slight apprehension
that, if he were bidden to social entertainments, he might forget his
coat, or arrive without some other essential part of his dress; and
there is a sly tradition in the Titbottom family, that once, having
been invited to a ball in honor of a new governor of the island, my
grand father Titbottom sauntered into the hall towards midnight,
wrapped in the gorgeous flowers of his dressing-gown, and with his
hands buried in the pockets, as usual. There was great excitement
among the guests, and immense deprecation of gubernatorial
ire. Fortunately, it happened that the governor and my grandfather
were old friends, and there was no offence. But, as they were
conversing together, one of the distressed managers cast indignant
glances at the brilliant costume of my grandfather, who summoned him,
and asked courteously:
"'Did you invite me, or my coat?'
"'You, in a proper coat,' replied the manager.
"The governor smiled approvingly, and looked at my grandfather.
"'My friend,' said he to the manager, 'I beg your pardon, I forgot.'
"The next day, my grandfather was seen promenading in full ball dress
along the streets of the little town.
"'They ought to know,' said he, 'that I have a proper coat, and that
not contempt, nor poverty, but forgetfulness, sent me to a ball in my
dressing-gown.'
"He did not much frequent social festivals after this failure, but he
always told the story with satisfaction and a quiet smile.
"To a stranger, life upon those little islands is uniform even to
weariness. But the old native dons, like my grandfather, ripen in the
prolonged sunshine, like the turtle upon the Bahama banks, nor know of
existence more desirable. Life in the tropics, I take to be a placid
torpidity.
"During the long, warm mornings of nearly half a century, my
grandfather Titbottom had sat in his dressing-gown, and gazed at the
sea. But one calm June day, as he slowly paced the piazza after
breakfast, his dreamy glance was arrested by a little vessel,
evidently nearing the shore. He called for his spyglass, and,
surveying the craft, saw that she came from the neighboring
island. She glided smoothly, slowly, over the summer sea. The warm
morning air was sweet with perfumes, and silent with heat. The sea
sparkled languidly, and the brilliant blue sky hung cloudlessly
over. Scores of little island vessels had my grandfather seen coming
over the horizon, and cast anchor in the port. Hundreds of summer
mornings had the white sails flashed and faded, like vague faces
through forgotten dreams. But this time he laid down the spyglass, and
leaned against a column of the piazza, and watched the vessel with an
intentness that he could not explain. She came nearer and nearer, a
graceful spectre in the dazzling morning.
"'Decidedly, I must step down and see about that vessel,' said my
grandfather Titbottom.
"He gathered his ample dressing-gown about him, and stepped from the
piazza, with no other protection from the sun than the little
smoking-cap upon his head. His face wore a calm, beaming smile, as if
he loved the whole world. He was not an old man; but there was almost
a patriarchal pathos in his expression, as he sauntered along in the
sunshine towards the shore. A group of idle gazers was collected, to
watch the arrival. The little vessel furled her sails, and drifted
slowly landward, and, as she was of very light draft, she came close
to the shelving shore. A long plank was put out from her side, and the
debarkation commenced.
"My grandfather Titbottom stood looking on, to see the passengers as
they passed. There were but a few of them, and mostly traders from the
neighboring island. But suddenly the face of a young girl appeared
over the side of the vessel, and she stepped upon the plank to
descend. My grandfather Titbottom instantly advanced, and, moving
briskly, reached the top of the plank at the same moment, and with the
old tassel of his cap flashing in the sun, and one hand in the pocket
of his dressing-gown, with the other he handed the young lady
carefully down the plank. That young lady was afterwards my
grandmother Titbottom.
"For, over the gleaming sea which he had watched so long, and which
seemed thus to reward his patient gaze, came his bride that sunny
morning.
"'Of course, we are happy,' he used to say to her, after they were
married: 'For you are the gift of the sun I have loved so long and so
well.' And my grandfather Titbottom would lay his hand so tenderly
upon the golden hair of his young bride, that you could fancy him a
devout Parsee, caressing sunbeams.
"There were endless festivities upon occasion of the marriage; and my
grandfather did not go to one of them in his dressing-gown. The gentle
sweetness of his wife melted every heart into love and sympathy. He
was much older than she, without doubt. But age, as he used to say
with a smile of immortal youth, is a matter of feeling, not of years.
"And if, sometimes, as she sat by his side on the piazza, her fancy
looked through her eyes upon that summer sea, and saw a younger lover,
perhaps some one of those graceful and glowing heroes who occupy the
foreground of all young maidens' visions by the sea, yet she could not
find one more generous and gracious, nor fancy one more worthy and
loving than my grandfather Titbottom.
"And if, in the moonlit midnight, while he lay calmly sleeping, she
leaned out of the window, and sank into vague reveries of sweet
possibility, and watched the gleaming path of the moonlight upon the
water, until the dawn glided over it--it was only that mood of
nameless regret and longing, which underlies all human happiness; or
it was the vision of that life of cities and the world, which she had
never seen, but of which she had often read, and which looked very
fair and alluring across the sea, to a girlish imagination, which knew
that it should never see that reality.
"These West Indian years were the great days of the family," said
Titbottom, with an air of majestic and regal regret, pausing, and
musing, in our little parlor, like a late Stuart in exile, remembering
England.
Prue raised her eyes from her work, and looked at him with subdued
admiration; for I have observed that, like the rest of her sex, she
has a singular sympathy with the representative of a reduced family.
Perhaps it is their finer perception, which leads these tender-hearted
women to recognize the divine right of social superiority so much more
readily than we; and yet, much as Titbottom was enhanced in my wife's
admiration by the discovery that his dusky sadness of nature and
expression was, as it were, the expiring gleam and late twilight of
ancestral splendors, I doubt if Mr. Bourne would have preferred him
for book-keeper a moment sooner upon that account. In truth, I have
observed, down town, that the fact of your ancestors doing nothing, is
not considered good proof that you can do anything.
But Prue and her sex regard sentiment more than action, and I
understand easily enough why she is never tired of hearing me read of
Prince Charlie. If Titbottom had been only a little younger, a little
handsomer, a little more gallantly dressed--in fact, a little more of
a Prince Charlie, I am sure her eyes would not have fallen again upon
her work so tranquilly, as he resumed his story.
"I can remember my grandfather Titbottom, although I was a very young
child, and he was a very old man. My young mother and my young
grandmother are very distinct figures in my memory, ministering to the
old gentleman, wrapped in his dressing-gown, and seated upon the
piazza. I remember his white hair, and his calm smile, and how, not
long before he died, he called me to him, and laying his hand upon my
head, said to me:
"'My child, the world is not this great sunny piazza, nor life the
fairy stories which the women tell you here, as you sit in their
laps. I shall soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some memento
of my love for you, and I know of nothing more valuable than these
spectacles, which your grandmother brought from her native island,
when she arrived here one fine summer morning, long ago. I cannot tell
whether, when you grow older, you will regard them as a gift of the
greatest value, or as something that you had been happier never to
have possessed.'
"'But, grandpapa, I am not short-sighted.'
"'My son, are you not human?' said the old gentleman; and how shall I
ever forget the thoughtful sadness with which, at the same time, he
handed me the spectacles.
"Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my grandfather. But I saw
no grandfather, no piazza, no flowered dressing-gown; I saw only a
luxuriant palm-tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape;
pleasant homes clustered around it; gardens teeming with fruit and
flowers; flocks quietly feeding; birds wheeling and chirping. I heard
children's voices, and the low lullaby of happy mothers. The sound of
cheerful singing came wafted from distant fields upon the light
breeze. Golden harvests glistened out of sight, and I caught their
rustling whispers of prosperity. A warm, mellow atmosphere bathed the
whole.
"I have seen copies of the landscapes of the Italian, painter Claude,
which seemed to me faint reminiscences of that calm and happy
vision. But all this peace and prosperity seemed to flow from the
spreading palm as from a fountain.
"I do not know how long I looked, but I had, apparently, no power, as
I had no will, to remove the spectacles. What a wonderful island must
Nevis be, thought I, if people carry such pictures in their pockets,
only by buying a pair of spectacles! What wonder that my dear
grandmother Titbottom has lived such a placid life, and has blessed us
all with her sunny temper, when she has lived surrounded by such
images of peace!
"My grandfather died. But still, in the warm morning sunshine upon the
piazza, I felt his placid presence, and as I crawled into his great
chair, and drifted on in reverie through the still tropical day, it
was as if his soft dreamy eye had passed into my soul. My grandmother
cherished his memory with tender regret. A violent passion of grief
for his loss was no more possible than for the pensive decay of the
year.
"We have no portrait of him, but I see always, when I remember him,
that peaceful and luxuriant palm. And I think that to have known one
good old man--one man who, through the chances and rubs of a long
life, has carried his heart in his hand, like a palm branch, waving
all discords into peace, helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in
each other, more than many sermons. I hardly know whether to be
grateful to my grandfather for the spectacles; and yet when I remember
that it is to them I owe the pleasant image of him which I cherish I
seem to myself sadly ungrateful.
"Madam," said Titbottom to Prue, solemnly, "my memory is a long and
gloomy gallery, and only remotely, at its further end, do I see the
glimmer of soft sunshine, and only there are the pleasant pictures
hung. They seem to me very happy along whose gallery the sunlight
streams to their very feet, striking all the pictured walls into
unfading splendor."
Prue had laid her work in her lap, and as Titbottom paused a moment,
and I turned towards her, I found her mild eyes fastened upon my face,
and glistening with many tears. I knew that the tears meant that she
felt herself to be one of those who seemed to Titbottom very happy.
"Misfortunes of many kinds came heavily upon the family after the head
was gone. The great house was relinquished. My parents were both dead,
and my grandmother had entire charge of me. But from the moment that
I received the gift of the spectacles, I could not resist their
fascination, and I withdrew into myself, and became a solitary boy.
There were not many companions for me of my own age, and they
gradually left me, or, at least, had not a hearty sympathy with me;
for, if they teased me, I pulled out my spectacles and surveyed them
so seriously that they acquired a kind of awe of me, and evidently
regarded my grandfather's gift as a concealed magical weapon which
might be dangerously drawn upon them at any moment. Whenever, in our
games, there were quarrels and high words, and I began to feel about
my dress and to wear a grave look, they all took the alarm, and
shouted, 'Look out for Titbottom's spectacles,' and scattered like a
flock of scared sheep.
"Nor could I wonder at it. For, at first, before they took the alarm,
I saw strange sights when I looked at them through the glasses.
"If two were quarrelling about a marble, or a ball, I had only to go
behind a tree where I was concealed and look at them leisurely. Then
the scene changed, and it was no longer a green meadow with boys
playing, but a spot which I did not recognise, and forms that made me
shudder, or smile. It was not a big boy bullying a little one, but a
young wolf with glistening teeth and a lamb cowering before him; or,
it was a dog faithful and famishing--or a star going slowly into
eclipse--or a rainbow fading--or a flower blooming--or a sun
rising--or a waning moon.
"The revelations of the spectacles determined my feeling for the boys,
and for all whom I saw through them. No shyness, nor awkwardness, nor
silence, could separate me from those who looked lovely as lilies to
my illuminated eyes. But the vision made me afraid. If I felt myself
warmly drawn to any one, I struggled with the fierce desire of seeing
him through the spectacles, for I feared to find him something else
than I fancied. I longed to enjoy the luxury of ignorant feeling, to
love without knowing, to float like a leaf upon the eddies of life,
drifted now to a sunny point, now to a solemn shade--now over
glittering ripples, now over gleaming calms,--and not to determined
ports, a trim vessel with an inexorable rudder.
"But sometimes, mastered after long struggles, as if the unavoidable
condition of owning the spectacles were using them, I seized them and
sauntered into the little town. Putting them to my eyes I peered into
the houses and at the people who passed me. Here sat a family at
breakfast, and I stood at the window looking in. O motley meal!
fantastic vision! The good mother saw her lord sitting opposite, a
grave, respectable being, eating muffins. But I saw only a bank-bill,
more or less crumbled and tattered, marked with a larger or lesser
figure. If a sharp wind blew suddenly, I saw it tremble and flutter;
it was thin, flat, impalpable. I removed my glasses, and looked with
my eyes at the wife. I could have smiled to see the humid tenderness
with which she regarded her strange _vis-à-vis_. Is life only a
game of blindman's-buff? of droll cross-purposes?
"Or I put them on again, and then looked at the wives. How many stout
trees I saw,--how many tender flowers,--how many placid pools; yes,
and how many little streams winding out of sight, shrinking before the
large, hard, round eyes opposite, and slipping off into solitude and
shade, with a low, inner song for their own solace.
"In many houses I thought to see angels, nymphs, or, at least, women,
and could only find broomsticks, mops, or kettles, hurrying about,
rattling and tinkling, in a state of shrill activity. I made calls
upon elegant ladies, and after I had enjoyed the gloss of silk, and
the delicacy of lace, and the glitter of jewels, I slipped on my
spectacles, and saw a peacock's feather, flounced, and furbelowed, and
fluttering; or an iron rod, thin, sharp, and hard; nor could I
possibly mistake the movement of the drapery for any flexibility of
the thing draped.
"Or, mysteriously chilled, I saw a statue of perfect form, or flowing
movement, it might be alabaster, or bronze, or marble,--but sadly
often it was ice; and I knew that after it had shone a little, and
frozen a few eyes with its despairing perfection, it could not be put
away in the niches of palaces for ornament and proud family tradition,
like the alabaster, or bronze, or marble statues, but would melt, and
shrink, and fall coldly away in colorless and useless water, be
absorbed in the earth and utterly forgotten.
"But the true sadness was rather in seeing those who, not having the
spectacles, thought that the iron rod was flexible, and the ice statue
warm. I saw many a gallant heart, which seemed to me brave and loyal
as the crusaders, pursuing, through days and nights, and a long life
of devotion, the hope of lighting at least a smile in the cold eyes,
if not a fire in the icy heart. I watched the earnest, enthusiastic
sacrifice. I saw the pure resolve, the generous faith, the fine scorn
of doubt, the impatience of suspicion. I watched the grace, the
ardor, the glory of devotion. Through those strange spectacles how
often I saw the noblest heart renouncing all other hope, all other
ambition, all other life, than the possible love of some one of those
statues.
"Ah! me, it was terrible, but they had not the love to give. The face
was so polished and smooth, because there was no sorrow in the
heart,--and drearily, often, no heart to be touched. I could not
wonder that the noble heart of devotion was broken, for it had dashed
itself against a stone. I wept, until my spectacles were dimmed, for
those hopeless lovers; but there was a pang beyond tears for those icy
statues.
"Still a boy, I was thus too much a man in knowledge,--I did not
comprehend the sights I was compelled to see. I used to tear my
glasses away from my eyes, and, frightened at myself, run to escape my
own consciousness. Reaching the small house where we then lived, I
plunged into my grandmother's room, and, throwing myself upon the
floor, buried my face in her lap; and sobbed myself to sleep with
premature grief.
"But when I awakened, and felt her cool hand upon my hot forehead, and
heard the low sweet song, or the gentle story, or the tenderly told
parable from the Bible, with which she tried to soothe me, I could not
resist the mystic fascination that lured me, as I lay in her lap, to
steal a glance at her through the spectacles.
"Pictures of the Madonna have not her rare and pensive beauty. Upon
the tranquil little islands her life had been eventless, and all the
fine possibilities of her nature were like flowers that never
bloomed. Placid were all her years; yet I have read of no heroine, of
no woman great in sudden crises, that it did not seem to me she might
have been. The wife and widow of a man who loved his home better than
the homes of others, I have yet heard of no queen, no belle, no
imperial beauty whom in grace, and brilliancy, and persuasive
courtesy, she might not have surpassed.
"Madam," said Titbottom to my wife, whose heart hung upon his story;
"your husband's young friend, Aurelia, wears sometimes a camelia in
her hair, and no diamond in the ball-room seems so costly as that
perfect flower, which women envy, and for whose least and withered
petal men sigh; yet, in the tropical solitudes of Brazil, how many a
camelia bud drops from the bush that no eye has ever seen, which, had
it flowered and been noticed, would have gilded all hearts with its
memory.
"When I stole these furtive glances at my grandmother, half fearing
that they were wrong, I saw only a calm lake, whose shores were low,
and over which the sun hung unbroken, so that the least star was
clearly reflected. It had an atmosphere of solemn twilight
tranquillity, and so completely did its unruffled surface blend with
the cloudless, star-studded sky, that, when I looked through my
spectacles at my grandmother, the vision seemed to me all heaven and
stars.
"Yet, as I gazed and gazed, I felt what stately cities might well have
been built upon those shores, and have flashed prosperity over the
calm, like coruscations of pearls. I dreamed of gorgeous fleets,
silken-sailed, and blown by perfumed winds, drifting over those
depthless waters and through those spacious skies. I gazed upon the
twilight, the inscrutable silence, like a God-fearing discoverer upon
a new and vast sea bursting upon him through forest glooms, and in the
fervor of whose impassioned gaze, a millenial and poetic world arises,
and man need no longer die to be happy.
"My companions naturally deserted me, for I had grown wearily grave
and abstracted: and, unable to resist the allurements of my
spectacles, I was constantly lost in the world, of which those
companions were part, yet of which they knew nothing.
"I grew cold and hard, almost morose; people seemed to me so blind and
unreasonable. They did the wrong thing. They called green, yellow; and
black, white. Young men said of a girl, 'What a lovely, simple
creature!' I looked, and there was only a glistening wisp of straw,
dry and hollow. Or they said, 'What a cold, proud beauty!' I looked,
and lo! a Madonna, whose heart held the world. Or they said, 'What a
wild, giddy girl!' and I saw a glancing, dancing mountain stream,
pure as the virgin snows whence it flowed, singing through sun and
shade, over pearls and gold dust, slipping along unstained by weed or
rain, or heavy foot of cattle, touching the flowers with a dewy
kiss,--a beam of grace, a happy song, a line of light, in the dim and
troubled landscape.
"My grandmother sent me to school, but I looked at the master, and saw
that he was a smooth round ferule, or an improper noun, or a vulgar
fraction, and refused to obey him. Or he was a piece of string, a rag,
a willow-wand, and I had a contemptuous pity. But one was a well of
cool, deep water, and looking suddenly in, one day, I saw the stars.
"That one gave me all my schooling. With him I used to walk by the
sea, and, as we strolled and the waves plunged in long legions before
us, I looked at him through the spectacles, and as his eyes dilated
with the boundless view, and his chest heaved with an impossible
desire, I saw Xerxes and his army, tossed and glittering, rank upon
rank, multitude upon multitude, out of sight, but ever regularly
advancing, and with confused roar of ceaseless music, prostrating
themselves in abject homage. Or, as with arms outstretched and hair
streaming on the wind, he chanted full lines of the resounding Iliad,
I saw Homer pacing the Aegean sands of the Greek sunsets of forgotten
times.
"My grandmother died, and I was thrown into the world without
resources, and with no capital but my spectacles. I tried to find
employment, but everybody was shy of me. There was a vague suspicion
that I was either a little crazed, or a good deal in league with the
prince of darkness. My companions, who would persist in calling a
piece of painted muslin, a fair and fragrant flower, had no
difficulty; success waited for them around every corner, and arrived
in every ship.
"I tried to teach, for I loved children. But if anything excited a
suspicion of my pupils, and putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was
fondling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up
in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me through the glasses,
that a cherub smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my
button-hole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, not fit to be
leading and training what was so essentially superior to myself, and I
kissed the children and left them weeping and wondering.
"In despair I went to a great merchant on the island, and asked him to
employ me.
"'My dear young friend,' said he, 'I understand that you have some
singular secret, some charm, or spell, or amulet, or something, I
don't know what, of which people are afraid. Now you know, my dear,'
said the merchant, swelling up, and apparently prouder of his great
stomach than of his large fortune, 'I am not of that kind. I am not
easily frightened. You may spare yourself the pain of trying to impose
upon me. People who propose to come to time before I arrive, are
accustomed to arise very early in the morning,' said he, thrusting his
thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and spreading the fingers
like two fans, upon his bosom. 'I think I have heard something of
your secret. You have a pair of spectacles, I believe, that you value
very much, because your grandmother brought them as a marriage portion
to your grandfather. Now, if you think fit to sell me those
spectacles, I will pay you the largest market price for them. What do
you say?'
"I told him I had not the slightest idea of selling my spectacles.
"'My young friend means to eat them, I suppose,' said he, with a
contemptuous smile.
"I made no reply, but was turning to leave the office, when the
merchant called after me--
"'My young friend, poor people should never suffer themselves to get
into pets. Anger is an expensive luxury, in which only men of a
certain income can indulge. A pair of spectacles and a hot temper are
not the most promising capital for success in life, Master Titbottom.'
"I said nothing, but put my hand upon the door to go out, when the
merchant said, more respectfully--
"'Well, you foolish boy, if you will not sell your spectacles, perhaps
you will agree to sell the use of them to me. That is, you shall only
put them on when I direct you, and for my purposes. Hallo! you little
fool!' cried he, impatiently, as he saw that I intended to make no
reply.
"But I had pulled out my spectacles and put them on for my own
purposes, and against his wish and desire. I looked at him, and saw a
huge, bald-headed wild boar, with gross chaps and a leering eye--only
the more ridiculous for the high-arched, gold-bowed spectacles, that
straddled his nose One of his fore-hoofs was thrust into the safe,
where his bills receivable were hived, and the other into his pocket,
among the loose change and bills there. His ears were pricked forward
with a brisk, sensitive smartness. In a world where prize pork was the
best excellence, he would have carried off all the premiums.
"I stepped into the next office in the street, and a mild-faced;
genial man, also a large and opulent merchant, asked me my business in
such a tone, that I instantly looked through my spectacles, and saw a
land flowing with milk and honey. There I pitched my tent, and staid
till the good man died, and his business was discontinued.
"But while there," said Titbottom, and his voice trembled away into a
sigh, "I first saw Preciosa. Despite the spectacles, I saw
Preciosa. For days, for weeks, for months, I did not take my
spectacles with me. I ran away from them, I threw them up on high
shelves, I tried to make up my mind to throw them into the sea, or
down the well. I could not, I would not, I dared not, look at Preciosa
through the spectacles. It was not possible for me deliberately to
destroy them; but I awoke in the night, and could almost have cursed
my dear old grandfather for his gift.
"I sometimes escaped from the office, and sat for whole days with
Preciosa. I told her the strange things I had seen with my mystic
glasses. The hours were not enough for the wild romances which I raved
in her ear. She listened, astonished and appalled. Her blue eyes
turned upon me with sweet deprecation. She clung to me, and then
withdrew, and fled fearfully from the room.
"But she could not stay away. She could not resist my voice, in whose
tones burnt all the love that filled my heart and brain. The very
effort to resist the desire of seeing her as I saw everybody else,
gave a frenzy and an unnatural tension to my feeling and my manner. I
sat by her side, looking into her eyes, smoothing her hair, folding
her to my heart, which was sunken deep and deep--why not for ever?--in
that dream of peace. I ran from her presence, and shouted, and leaped
with joy, and sat the whole night through, thrilled into happiness by
the thought of her love and loveliness, like a wind harp, tightly
strung, and answering the airiest sigh of the breeze with music.
"Then came calmer days--the conviction of deep love settled upon our
lives--as after the hurrying, heaving days of spring, comes the bland
and benignant summer.
"'It is no dream, then, after all, and we are happy,' I said to her,
one day; and there came no answer, for happiness is speechless.
"'We are happy, then,' I said to myself, 'there is no excitement
now. How glad I am that I can now look at her through my spectacles.'
"I feared least some instinct should warn me to beware. I escaped from
her arms, and ran home and seized the glasses, and bounded back again
to Preciosa. As I entered the room I was heated, my head was swimming
with confused apprehensions, my eyes must have glared. Preciosa was
frightened, and rising from her seat, stood with an inquiring glance
of surprise in her eyes.
"But I was bent with frenzy upon my purpose. I was merely aware that
she was in the room. I saw nothing else. I heard nothing. I cared for
nothing, but to see her through that magic glass, and feel at once all
the fulness of blissful perfection which that would reveal. Preciosa
stood before the mirror, but alarmed at my wild and eager movements,
unable to distinguish what I had in my hands, and seeing me raise them
suddenly to my face, she shrieked with terror, and fell fainting upon
the floor, at the very moment that I placed the glasses before my
eyes, and beheld--_myself_, reflected in the mirror, before which
she had been standing.
"Dear madam," cried Titbottom, to my wife, springing up and falling
back again in his chair, pale and trembling, while Prue ran to him and
took his hand, and I poured out a glass of water--"I saw myself."
There was silence for many minutes. Prue laid her hand gently upon the
head of our guest, whose eyes were closed, and who breathed softly
like an infant in sleeping. Perhaps, in all the long years of anguish
since that hour, no tender hand had touched his brow, nor wiped away
the damps of a bitter sorrow. Perhaps the tender, maternal fingers of
my wife soothed his weary head with the conviction that he felt the
hand of his mother playing with the long hair of her boy in the soft
West India morning. Perhaps it was only the natural relief of
expressing a pent-up sorrow.
When he spoke again, it was with the old subdued tone, and the air of
quaint solemnity.
"These things were matters of long, long ago, and I came to this
country soon after. I brought with me, premature age, a past of
melancholy memories, and the magic spectacles. I had become their
slave. I had nothing more to fear. Having seen myself, I was compelled
to see others, properly to understand my relations to them. The lights
that cheer the future of other men had gone out for me; my eyes were
those of an exile turned backwards upon the receding shore, and not
forwards with hope upon the ocean.
"I mingled with men, but with little pleasure. There are but many
varieties of a few types. I did not find those I came to
clearer-sighted than those I had left behind. I heard men called
shrewd and wise, and report said they were highly intelligent and
successful. My finest sense detected no aroma of purity and principle;
but I saw only a fungus that had fattened and spread in a night. They
went to the theatres to see actors upon the stage. I went to see
actors in the boxes, so consummately cunning, that others did not know
they were acting, and they did not suspect it themselves.
"Perhaps you wonder it did not make me misanthropical. My dear
friends, do not forget that I had seen myself. That made me
compassionate not cynical.
"Of course, I could not value highly the ordinary standards of success
and excellence. When I went to church and saw a thin, blue, artificial
flower, or a great sleepy cushion expounding the beauty of holiness to
pews full of eagles, half-eagles, and three-pences, however adroitly
concealed they might be in broadcloth and boots: or saw an onion in an
Easter bonnet weeping over the sins of Magdalen, I did not feel as
they felt who saw in all this, not only propriety but piety.
"Or when at public meetings an eel stood up on end, and wriggled and
squirmed lithely in every direction, and declared that, for his part,
he went in for rainbows and hot water--how could I help seeing that he
was still black and loved a slimy pool?
"I could not grow misanthropical when I saw in the eyes of so many who
were called old, the gushing fountains of eternal youth, and the light
of an immortal dawn, or when I saw those who were esteemed
unsuccessful and aimless, ruling a fair realm of peace and plenty,
either in their own hearts, or in another's--a realm and princely
possession for which they had well renounced a hopeless search and a
belated triumph.
"I knew one man who had been for years a byword for having sought the
philosopher's stone. But I looked at him through the spectacles and
saw a satisfaction in concentrated energies, and a tenacity arising
from devotion to a noble dream which was not apparent in the youths
who pitied him in the aimless effeminacy of clubs, nor in the clever
gentlemen who cracked their thin jokes upon him over a gossiping
dinner.
"And there was your neighbor over the way, who passes for a woman who
has failed in her career, because she is an old maid. People wag
solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not
marrying the brilliant and famous man who was for long years her
suitor. It is clear that no orange flower will ever bloom for her. The
young people make their tender romances about her as they watch her,
and think of her solitary hours of bitter regret and wasting longing,
never to be satisfied.
"When I first came to town I shared this sympathy, and pleased my
imagination with fancying her hard struggle with the conviction that
she had lost all that made life beautiful. I supposed that if I had
looked at her through my spectacles, I should see that it was only her
radiant temper which so illuminated her dress, that we did not see it
to be heavy sables.
"But when, one day, I did raise my glasses, and glanced at her, I did
not see the old maid whom we all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a
woman whose nature was a tropic, in which the sun shone, and birds
sang, and flowers bloomed for ever. There were no regrets, no doubts
and half wishes, but a calm sweetness, a transparent peace. I saw her
blush when that old lover passed by, or paused to speak to her, but it
was only the sign of delicate feminine consciousness. She knew his
love, and honored it, although she could not understand it nor return
it. I looked closely at her, and I saw that although all the world had
exclaimed at her indifference to such homage, and had declared it was
astonishing she should lose so fine a match, she would only say simply
and quietly--
"'If Shakespeare loved me and I did not love him, how could I marry
him?'
"Could I be misanthropical when I saw such fidelity, and dignity, and
simplicity?
"You may believe that I was especially curious to look at that old
lover of hers, through my glasses. He was no longer young, you know,
when I came, and his fame and fortune were secure. Certainly I have
heard of few men more beloved, and of none more worthy to be loved. He
had the easy manner of a man of the world, the sensitive grace of a
poet, and the charitable judgment of a wide-traveller. He was
accounted the most successful and most unspoiled of men. Handsome,
brilliant, wise, tender, graceful, accomplished, rich, and famous, I
looked at him, without the spectacles, in surprise, and admiration,
and wondered how your neighbor over the way had been so entirely
untouched by his homage. I watched their intercourse in society, I saw
her gay smile, her cordial greeting; I marked his frank address, his
lofty courtesy. Their manner told no tales. The eager world was
baulked, and I pulled out my spectacles.
"I had seen her already, and now I saw him. He lived only in memory,
and his memory was a spacious and stately palace. But he did not
oftenest frequent the banqueting hall, where were endless hospitality
and feasting,--nor did he loiter much in the reception rooms, where a
throng of new visitors was for ever swarming,--nor did he feed his
vanity by haunting the apartment in which were stored the trophies of
his varied triumphs,--nor dream much in the great gallery hung with
pictures of his travels.
"From all these lofty halls of memory he constantly escaped to a
remote and solitary chamber, into which no one had ever
penetrated. But my fatal eyes, behind the glasses, followed and
entered with him, and saw that the chamber was a chapel. It was dim,
and silent, and sweet with perpetual incense that burned upon an altar
before a picture forever veiled. There, whenever I chanced to look, I
saw him kneel and pray; and there, by day and by night, a funeral hymn
was chanted.
"I do not believe you will be surprised that I have been content to
remain a deputy book-keeper. My spectacles regulated my ambition, and
I early learned that there were better gods than Plutus. The glasses
have lost much of their fascination now, and I do not often use
them. But sometimes the desire is irresistible. Whenever I am greatly
interested, I am compelled to take them out and see what it is that I
admire.
"And yet--and yet," said Titbottom, after a pause, "I am not sure that
I thank my grandfather."
Prue had long since laid away her work, and had heard every word of
the story. I saw that the dear woman had yet one question to ask, and
had been earnestly hoping to hear something that would spare her the
necessity of asking. But Titbottom had resumed his usual tone, after
the momentary excitement, and made no further allusion to himself. We
all sat silently; Titbottom's eyes fastened musingly upon the carpet,
Prue looking wistfully at him, and I regarding both.
It was past midnight, and our guest arose to go. He shook hands
quietly, made his grave Spanish bow to Prue, and, taking his hat, went
towards the front door. Prue and I accompanied him. I saw in her eyes
that she would ask her question, And as Titbottom opened the door, I
heard the low words:
"And Preciosa?"
Titbottom paused. He had just opened the door, and the moonlight
streamed over him as he stood, turning back to us.
"I have seen her but once since. It was in church, and she was
kneeling, with her eyes closed, so that she did not see me. But I
rubbed the glasses well, and looked at her, and saw a white lily,
whose stem was broken, but which was fresh, and luminous, and fragrant
still."
"That was a miracle," interrupted Prue.
"Madam, it was a miracle," replied Titbottom, "and for that one sight
I am devoutly grateful for my grandfather's gift. I saw, that although
a flower may have lost its hold upon earthly moisture, it may still
bloom as sweetly, fed by the dews of heaven."
The door closed, and he was gone. But as Prue put her arm in mine, and
we went up stairs together, she whispered in my ear:
"How glad I am that you don't wear spectacles."