A famous artist, who started out in youth to embrace a military career
and who failed to pass an examination at West Point, is said to have
remarked that if silicon had been a gas he would have been a soldier. I
am afraid I may have given the impression that if I had not gone to
Weathersfield and encountered Mr. Watling I might not have been a lawyer.
This impression would be misleading. And while it is certain that I have
not exaggerated the intensity of the spiritual experience I went through
at Cambridge, a somewhat belated consideration for the truth compels me
to register my belief that the mood would in any case have been
ephemeral. The poison generated by the struggle of my nature with its
environment had sunk too deep, and the very education that was supposed
to make a practical man of me had turned me into a sentimentalist. I
became, as will be seen, anything but a practical man in the true sense,
though the world in which I had been brought up and continued to live
deemed me such. My father was greatly pleased when I wrote him that I was
now more than ever convinced of the wisdom of choosing the law as my
profession, and was satisfied that I had come to my senses at last. He
had still been prepared to see me "go off at a tangent," as he expressed
it. On the other hand, the powerful effect of the appeal made by
Weathersfield and Mr. Watling must not be underestimated. Here in one
object lesson was emphasized a host of suggestions each of which had made
its impression. And when I returned to Cambridge Alonzo Cheyne knew that
he had lost me....
I pass over the rest of my college course, and the years I spent at the
Harvard Law School, where were instilled into me without difficulty the
dictums that the law was the most important of all professions, that
those who entered it were a priestly class set aside to guard from
profanation that Ark of the Covenant, the Constitution of the United
States. In short, I was taught law precisely as I had been taught
religion,--scriptural infallibility over again,--a static law and a
static theology,--a set of concepts that were supposed to be equal to any
problems civilization would have to meet until the millennium. What we
are wont to call wisdom is often naively innocent of impending change. It
has no barometric properties.
I shall content myself with relating one incident only of this period. In
the January of my last year I went with a party of young men and girls to
stay over Sunday at Beverly Farms, where Mrs. Fremantle--a young Boston
matron had opened her cottage for the occasion. This "cottage," a roomy,
gabled structure, stood on a cliff, at the foot of which roared the
wintry Atlantic, while we danced and popped corn before the open fires.
During the daylight hours we drove about the country in sleighs, or made
ridiculous attempts to walk on snow-shoes.
On Sunday afternoon, left temporarily to my own devices, I wandered along
the cliff, crossing into the adjoining property. The wind had fallen; the
waves, much subdued, broke rhythmically against the rocks; during the
night a new mantle of snow had been spread, and the clouds were still low
and menacing. As I strolled I became aware of a motionless figure ahead
of me,--one that seemed oddly familiar; the set of the shabby overcoat on
the stooping shoulders, the unconscious pose contributed to a certain
sharpness of individuality; in the act of challenging my memory, I
halted. The man was gazing at the seascape, and his very absorption gave
me a sudden and unfamiliar thrill. The word absorption precisely
expresses my meaning, for he seemed indeed to have become a part of his
surroundings,--an harmonious part. Presently he swung about and looked at
me as though he had expected to find me there--and greeted me by name.
"Krebs!" I exclaimed.
He smiled, and flung out his arm, indicating the scene. His eyes at that
moment seemed to reflect the sea,--they made the gaunt face suddenly
beautiful.
"This reminds me of a Japanese print," he said.
The words, or the tone in which he spoke, curiously transformed the
picture. It was as if I now beheld it, anew, through his vision: the grey
water stretching eastward to melt into the grey sky, the massed, black
trees on the hillside, powdered with white, the snow in rounded,
fantastic patches on the huge boulders at the foot of the cliff. Krebs
did not seem like a stranger, but like one whom I had known always,--one
who stood in a peculiar relationship between me and something greater I
could not define. The impression was fleeting, but real.... I remember
wondering how he could have known anything about Japanese prints.
"I didn't think you were still in this part of the country," I remarked
awkwardly.
"I'm a reporter on a Boston newspaper, and I've been sent up here to
interview old Mr. Dome, who lives in that house," and he pointed to a
roof above the trees. "There is a rumour, which I hope to verify, that he
has just given a hundred thousand dollars to the University."
"And--won't he see you?"
"At present he's taking a nap," said Krebs. "He comes here occasionally
for a rest."
"Do you like interviewing?" I asked.
He smiled again.
"Well, I see a good many different kinds of people, and that's
interesting."
"But--being a reporter?" I persisted.
This continued patronage was not a conscious expression of superiority on
my part, but he did not seem to resent it. He had aroused my curiosity.
"I'm going into the law," he said.
The quiet confidence with which he spoke aroused, suddenly, a twinge of
antagonism. He had every right to go into the law, of course, and yet!...
my query would have made it evident to me, had I been introspective in
those days, that the germ of the ideal of the profession, implanted by
Mr. Watling, was expanding. Were not influential friends necessary for
the proper kind of career? and where were Krebs's? In spite of the
history of Daniel Webster and a long line of American tradition, I felt
an incongruity in my classmate's aspiration. And as he stood there, gaunt
and undoubtedly hungry, his eyes kindling, I must vaguely have classed
him with the revolutionaries of all the ages; must have felt in him,
instinctively, a menace to the stability of that Order with which I had
thrown my fortunes. And yet there were comparatively poor men in the Law
School itself who had not made me feel this way! He had impressed me
against my will, taken me by surprise, commiseration had been mingled
with other feelings that sprang out of the memory of the night I had
called on him, when he had been sick. Now I resented something in him
which Tom Peters had called "crust."
"The law!" I repeated. "Why?"
"Well," he said, "even when I was a boy, working at odd jobs, I used to
think if I could ever be a lawyer I should have reached the top notch of
human dignity."
Once more his smile disarmed me.
"And now" I asked curiously.
"You see, it was an ideal with me, I suppose. My father was responsible
for that. He had the German temperament of '48, and when he fled to this
country, he expected to find Utopia." The smile emerged again, like the
sun shining through clouds, while fascination and antagonism again
struggled within me. "And then came frightful troubles. For years he
could get only enough work to keep him and my mother alive, but he never
lost his faith in America. 'It is man,' he would say, 'man has to grow up
to it--to liberty.' Without the struggle, liberty would be worth nothing.
And he used to tell me that we must all do our part, we who had come
here, and not expect everything to be done for us. He had made that
mistake. If things were bad, why, put a shoulder to the wheel and help to
make them better.
"That helped me," he continued, after a moment's pause. "For I've seen a
good many things, especially since I've been working for a newspaper.
I've seen, again and again, the power of the law turned against those
whom it was intended to protect, I've seen lawyers who care a great deal
more about winning cases than they do about justice, who prostitute their
profession to profit making,--profit making for themselves and others.
And they are often the respectable lawyers, too, men of high standing,
whom you would not think would do such things. They are on the side of
the powerful, and the best of them are all retained by rich men and
corporations. And what is the result? One of the worst evils, I think,
that can befall a country. The poor man goes less and less to the courts.
He is getting bitter, which is bad, which is dangerous. But men won't see
it."
It was on my tongue to refute this, to say that everybody had a chance. I
could indeed recall many arguments that had been drilled into me;
quotations, even, from court decisions. But something prevented me from
doing this,--something in his manner, which was neither argumentative nor
combative.
"That's why I am going into the law," he added. "And I intend to stay in
it if I can keep alive. It's a great chance for me--for all of us. Aren't
you at the Law School?"
I nodded. Once more, as his earnest glance fell upon me, came that
suggestion of a subtle, inexplicable link between us; but before I could
reply, steps were heard behind us, and an elderly servant, bareheaded,
was seen coming down the path.
"Are you the reporter?" he demanded somewhat impatiently of Krebs. "If
you want to see Mr. Dome, you'd better come right away. He's going out
for a drive."
For a while, after he had shaken my hand and departed, I stood in the
snow, looking after him....