On the Wednesday of that same week the news of my father's sudden and
serious illness came to me in a telegram, and by the time I arrived at
home it was too late to see him again alive. It was my first experience
with death, and what perplexed me continually during the following days
was an inability to feel the loss more deeply. When a child, I had been
easily shaken by the spectacle of sorrow. Had I, during recent years, as
a result of a discovery that emotions arising from human relationships
lead to discomfort and suffering, deliberately been forming a shell,
until now I was incapable of natural feelings? Of late I had seemed
closer to my father, and his letters, though formal, had given evidence
of his affection; in his repressed fashion he had made it clear that he
looked forward to the time when I was to practise with him. Why was it
then, as I gazed upon his fine features in death, that I experienced no
intensity of sorrow? What was it in me that would not break down? He
seemed worn and tired, yet I had never thought of him as weary, never
attributed to him any yearning. And now he was released.
I wondered what had been his private thoughts about himself, his private
opinions about life; and when I reflect now upon my lack of real
knowledge at five and twenty, I am amazed at the futility of an expensive
education which had failed to impress upon me the simple, basic fact that
life was struggle; that either development or retrogression is the fate
of all men, that characters are never completely made, but always in the
making. I had merely a disconcerting glimpse of this truth, with no
powers of formulation, as I sat beside my mother in the bedroom, where
every article evoked some childhood scene. Here was the dent in the
walnut foot-board of the bed made, one wintry day, by the impact of my
box of blocks; the big arm-chair, covered with I know not what stiff
embroidery, which had served on countless occasions as a chariot driven
to victory. I even remembered how every Wednesday morning I had been
banished from the room, which had been so large a part of my childhood
universe, when Ella, the housemaid, had flung open all its windows and
crowded its furniture into the hall.
The thought of my wanderings since then became poignant, almost
terrifying. The room, with all its memories, was unchanged. How safe I
had been within its walls! Why could I not have been, content with what
it represented? of tradition, of custom,--of religion? And what was it
within me that had lured me away from these?
I was miserable, indeed, but my misery was not of the kind I thought it
ought to be. At moments, when my mother relapsed into weeping, I glanced
at her almost in wonder. Such sorrow as hers was incomprehensible. Once
she surprised and discomfited me by lifting her head and gazing fixedly
at me through her tears.
I recall certain impressions of the funeral. There, among the
pall-bearers, was my Cousin Robert Breck, tears in the furrows of his
cheeks. Had he loved my father more than I? The sight of his grief moved
me suddenly and strongly.... It seemed an age since I had worked in his
store, and yet here he was still, coming to town every morning and
returning every evening to Claremore, loving his friends, and mourning
them one by one. Was this, the spectacle presented by my Cousin Robert,
the reward of earthly existence? Were there no other prizes save those
known as greatness of character and depth of human affections? Cousin
Robert looked worn and old. The other pall-bearers, men of weight, of
long standing in the community, were aged, too; Mr. Blackwood, and Mr.
Jules Hollister; and out of place, somehow, in this new church building.
It came to me abruptly that the old order was gone,--had slipped away
during my absence. The church I had known in boyhood had been torn down
to make room for a business building on Boyne Street; the edifice in
which I sat was expensive, gave forth no distinctive note; seemingly
transitory with its hybrid interior, its shiny oak and blue and red
organ-pipes, betokening a compromised and weakened faith. Nondescript,
likewise, seemed the new minister, Mr. Randlett, as he prayed unctuously
in front of the flowers massed on the platform. I vaguely resented his
laudatory references to my father.
The old church, with its severity, had actually stood for something. It
was the Westminster Catechism in wood and stone, and Dr. Pound had been
the human incarnation of that catechism, the fit representative of a
wrathful God, a militant shepherd who had guarded with vigilance his
respectable flock, who had protested vehemently against the sins of the
world by which they were surrounded, against the "dogs, and sorcerers,
and whoremongers, and murderers and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and
maketh a lie." How Dr. Pound would have put the emphasis of the
Everlasting into those words!
Against what was Mr. Randlett protesting?
My glance wandered to the pews which held the committees from various
organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Bar Association,
which had come to do honour to my father. And there, differentiated from
the others, I saw the spruce, alert figure of Theodore Watling. He, too,
represented a new type and a new note,--this time a forceful note, a
secular note that had not belonged to the old church, and seemed likewise
anomalistic in the new....
During the long, slow journey in the carriage to the cemetery my mother
did not raise her veil. It was not until she reached out and seized my
hand, convulsively, that I realized she was still a part of my existence.
In the days that followed I became aware that my father's death had
removed a restrictive element, that I was free now to take without
criticism or opposition whatever course in life I might desire. It may be
that I had apprehended even then that his professional ideals would not
have coincided with my own. Mingled with this sense of emancipation was a
curious feeling of regret, of mourning for something I had never valued,
something fixed and dependable for which he had stood, a rock and a
refuge of which I had never availed myself!... When his will was opened
it was found that the property had been left to my mother during her
lifetime. It was larger than I had thought, four hundred thousand
dollars, shrewdly invested, for the most part, in city real estate. My
father had been very secretive as to money matters, and my mother had no
interest in them.
Three or four days later I received in the mail a typewritten letter
signed by Theodore Watling, expressing sympathy for my bereavement, and
asking me to drop in on him, down town, before I should leave the city.
In contrast to the somewhat dingy offices where my father had practised
in the Blackwood Block, the quarters of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon on the
eighth floor of the new Durrett Building were modern to a degree,
finished in oak and floored with marble, with a railed-off space where
young women with nimble fingers played ceaselessly on typewriters. One of
them informed me that Mr. Watling was busy, but on reading my card added
that she would take it in. Meanwhile, in company with two others who may
have been clients, I waited. This, then, was what it meant to be a lawyer
of importance, to have, like a Chesterfield, an ante-room where clients
cooled their heels and awaited one's pleasure...
The young woman returned, and led me through a corridor to a door on
which was painted Mr. Wailing.
I recall him tilted back in his chair in a debonnair manner beside his
polished desk, the hint of a smile on his lips; and leaning close to him
was a yellow, owl-like person whose eyes, as they turned to me, gave the
impression of having stared for years into hard, artificial lights. Mr.
Watling rose briskly.
"How are you, Hugh?" he said, the warmth of his greeting tempered by just
the note of condolence suitable to my black clothes. "I'm glad you came.
I wanted to see you before you went back to Cambridge. I must introduce
you to Judge Bering, of our State Supreme Court. Judge, this is Mr.
Paret's boy."
The judge looked me over with a certain slow impressiveness, and gave me
a soft and fleshy hand.
"Glad to know you, Mr. Paret. Your father was a great loss to our bar,"
he declared.
I detected in his tone and manner a slight reservation that could not be
called precisely judicial dignity; it was as though, in these few words,
he had gone to the limit of self-commitment with a stranger--a striking
contrast to the confidential attitude towards Mr. Watling in which I had
surprised him.
"Judge," said Mr. Watling, sitting down again, "do you recall that time
we all went up to Mr. Paret's house and tried to induce him to run for
mayor? That was before you went on the lower bench."
The judge nodded gloomily, caressing his watch chain, and suddenly rose
to go.
"That will be all right, then?" Mr. Watling inquired cryptically, with a
smile. The other made a barely perceptible inclination of the head and
departed. Mr. Watling looked at me. "He's one of the best men we have on
the bench to-day," he added. There was a trace of apology in his tone.
He talked a while of my father, to whom, so he said, he had looked up
ever since he had been admitted to the bar.
"It would be a pleasure to me, Hugh, as well as a matter of pride," he
said cordially, but with dignity, "to have Matthew Paret's son in my
office. I suppose you will be wishing to take your mother somewhere this
summer, but if you care to come here in the autumn, you will be welcome.
You will begin, of course, as other young men begin,--as I began. But I
am a believer in blood, and I'll be glad to have you. Mr. Fowndes and Mr.
Ripon feel the same way." He escorted me to the door himself.
Everywhere I went during that brief visit home I was struck by change, by
the crumbling and decay of institutions that once had held me in thrall,
by the superimposition of a new order that as yet had assumed no definite
character. Some of the old landmarks had disappeared; there were new and
aggressive office buildings, new and aggressive residences, new and
aggressive citizens who lived in them, and of whom my mother spoke with
gentle deprecation. Even Claremore, that paradise of my childhood, had
grown shrivelled and shabby, even tawdry, I thought, when we went out
there one Sunday afternoon; all that once represented the magic word
"country" had vanished. The old flat piano, made in Philadelphia ages
ago, the horsehair chairs and sofa had been replaced by a nondescript
furniture of the sort displayed behind plate-glass windows of the city's
stores: rocking-chairs on stands, upholstered in clashing colours, their
coiled springs only half hidden by tassels, and "ornamental" electric
fixtures, instead of the polished coal-oil lamps. Cousin Jenny had grown
white, Willie was a staid bachelor, Helen an old maid, while Mary had
married a tall, anaemic young man with glasses, Walter Kinley, whom
Cousin Robert had taken into the store. As I contemplated the Brecks odd
questions suggested themselves: did honesty and warm-heartedness
necessarily accompany a lack of artistic taste? and was virtue its own
reward, after all? They drew my mother into the house, took off her
wraps, set her down in the most comfortable rocker, and insisted on
making her a cup of tea.
I was touched. I loved them still, and yet I was conscious of
reservations concerning them. They, too, seemed a little on the defensive
with me, and once in a while Mary was caustic in her remarks.
"I guess nothing but New York will be good enough for Hugh now. He'll be
taking Cousin Sarah away from us."
"Not at all, my dear," said my mother, gently, "he's going into Mr.
Watling's office next autumn."
"Theodore Watling?" demanded Cousin Robert, pausing in his carving.
"Yes, Robert. Mr. Watling has been good enough to say that he would like
to have Hugh. Is there anything--?"
"Oh, I'm out of date, Sarah," Cousin Robert replied, vigorously severing
the leg of the turkey. "These modern lawyers are too smart for me.
Watling's no worse than the others, I suppose,--only he's got more
ability."
"I've never heard anything against him," said my mother in a pained
voice. "Only the other day McAlery Willett congratulated me that Hugh was
going to be with him."
"You mustn't mind Robert, Sarah," put in Cousin Jenny,--a remark
reminiscent of other days.
"Dad has a notion that his generation is the only honest one," said
Helen, laughingly, as she passed a plate.
I had gained a sense of superiority, and I was quite indifferent to
Cousin Robert's opinion of Mr. Watling, of modern lawyers in general.
More than once a wave of self-congratulation surged through me that I had
possessed the foresight and initiative to get out of the wholesale
grocery business while there was yet time. I looked at Willie, still
freckled, still literal, still a plodder, at Walter Kinley, and I thought
of the drabness of their lives; at Cousin Robert himself as he sat
smoking his cigar in the bay-window on that dark February day, and
suddenly I pitied him. The suspicion struck me that he had not prospered
of late, and this deepened to a conviction as he talked.
"The Republican Party is going to the dogs," he asserted.
"It used to be an honourable party, but now it is no better than the
other. Politics are only conducted, now, for the purpose of making
unscrupulous men rich, sir. For years I furnished this city with good
groceries, if I do say it myself. I took a pride in the fact that the
inmates of the hospitals, yes, and the dependent poor in the city's
institutions, should have honest food. You can get anything out of the
city if you are willing to pay the politicians for it. I lost my city
contracts. Why? Because I refused to deal with scoundrels. Weill and
Company and other unscrupulous upstarts are willing to do so, and poison
the poor and the sick with adulterated groceries! The first thing I knew
was that the city auditor was holding back my bills for supplies, and
paying Weill's. That's what politics and business, yes, sir, and the law,
have come to in these days. If a man wants to succeed, he must turn into
a rascal."
I was not shocked, but I was silent, uncomfortable, wishing that it were
time to take the train back to the city. Cousin Robert's face was more
worn than I had thought, and I contrasted him inevitably with the
forceful person who used to stand, in his worn alpaca coat, on the
pavement in front of his store, greeting with clear-eyed content his
fellow merchants of the city. Willie Breck, too, was silent, and Walter
Kinley took off his glasses and wiped them. In the meanwhile Helen had
left the group in which my mother sat, and, approaching us, laid her
hands on her father's shoulders.
"Now, dad," she said, in affectionate remonstrance, "you're excited about
politics again, and you know it isn't good for you. And besides, they're
not worth it."
"You're right, Helen," he replied. Under the pressure of her hands he
made a strong effort to control himself, and turned to address my mother
across the room.
"I'm getting to be a crotchety old man," he said. "It's a good thing I
have a daughter to remind me of it."
"It is a good thing, Robert," said my mother.
During the rest of our visit he seemed to have recovered something of his
former spirits and poise, taking refuge in the past. They talked of their
own youth, of families whose houses had been landmarks on the Second
Bank.
"I'm worried about your Cousin Robert, Hugh," my mother confided to me,
when we were at length seated in the train. "I've heard rumours that
things are not so well at the store as they might be." We looked out at
the winter landscape, so different from that one which had thrilled every
fibre of my being in the days when the railroad on which we travelled had
been a winding narrow gauge. The orchards--those that remained--were
bare; stubble pricked the frozen ground where tassels had once waved in
the hot, summer wind. We flew by row after row of ginger-bread, suburban
houses built on "villa plots," and I read in large letters on a hideous
sign-board, "Woodbine Park."
"Hugh, have you ever heard anything against--Mr. Watling?"
"No, mother," I said. "So far as I knew, he is very much looked up to by
lawyers and business men. He is counsel, I believe, for Mr. Blackwood's
street car line on Boyne Street. And I told you, I believe, that I met
him once at Mr. Kyme's."
"Poor Robert!" she sighed. "I suppose business trouble does make one
bitter,--I've seen it so often. But I never imagined that it would
overtake Robert, and at his time of life! It is an old and respected
firm, and we have always had a pride in it." ...
That night, when I was going to bed, it was evident that the subject was
still in her mind. She clung to my hand a moment.
"I, too, am afraid of the new, Hugh," she said, a little tremulously. "We
all grow so, as age comes on."
"But you are not old, mother," I protested.
"I have a feeling, since your father has gone, that I have lived my life,
my dear, though I'd like to stay long enough to see you happily
married--to have grandchildren. I was not young when you were born." And
she added, after a little while, "I know nothing about business affairs,
and now--now that your father is no longer here, sometimes I'm afraid--"
"Afraid of what, mother?"
She tried to smile at me through her tears. We were in the old
sitting-room, surrounded by the books.
"I know it's foolish, and it isn't that I don't trust you. I know that
the son of your father couldn't do anything that was not honourable. And
yet I am afraid of what the world is becoming. The city is growing so
fast, and so many new people are coming in. Things are not the same.
Robert is right, there. And I have heard your father say the same thing.
Hugh, promise me that you will try to remember always what he was, and
what he would wish you to be!"
"I will, mother," I answered. "But I think you would find that Cousin
Robert exaggerates a little, makes things seem worse than they really
are. Customs change, you know. And politics were never well--Sunday
schools." I, too, smiled a little. "Father knew that. And he would never
take an active part in them."
"He was too fine!" she exclaimed.
"And now," I continued, "Cousin Robert has happened to come in contact
with them through business. That is what has made the difference in him.
Before, he always knew they were corrupt, but he rarely thought about
them."
"Hugh," she said suddenly, after a pause, "you must remember one
thing,--that you can afford to be independent. I thank God that your
father has provided for that!"
I was duly admitted, the next autumn, to the bar of my own state, and was
assigned to a desk in the offices of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon. Larry
Weed was my immediate senior among the apprentices, and Larry was a
hero-worshipper. I can see him now. He suggested a bullfrog as he sat in
the little room we shared in common, his arms akimbo over a law book, his
little legs doubled under him, his round, eyes fixed expectantly on the
doorway. And even if I had not been aware of my good fortune in being
connected with such a firm as Theodore Watling's, Larry would shortly
have brought it home to me. During those weeks when I was making my first
desperate attempts at briefing up the law I was sometimes interrupted by
his exclamations when certain figures went by in the corridor.
"Say, Hugh, do you know who that was?"
"No."
"Miller Gorse."
"Who's he?"
"Do you mean to say you never heard of Miller Gorse?"
"I've been away a long time," I would answer apologetically. A person of
some importance among my contemporaries at Harvard, I had looked forward
to a residence in my native city with the complacency of one who has seen
something of the world,--only to find that I was the least in the new
kingdom. And it was a kingdom. Larry opened up to me something of the
significance and extent of it, something of the identity of the men who
controlled it.
"Miller Gorse," he said impressively, "is the counsel for the railroad."
"What railroad? You mean the--" I was adding, when he interrupted me
pityingly.
"After you've been here a while you'll find out there's only one railroad
in this state, so far as politics are concerned. The Ashuela and
Northern, the Lake Shore and the others don't count."
I refrained from asking any more questions at that time, but afterwards I
always thought of the Railroad as spelled with a capital.
"Miller Gorse isn't forty yet," Larry told me on another occasion.
"That's doing pretty well for a man who comes near running this state."
For the sake of acquiring knowledge, I endured Mr. Weed's patronage. I
inquired how Mr. Gorse ran the state.
"Oh, you'll find out soon enough," he assured me.
"But Mr. Barbour's president of the Railroad."
"Sure. Once in a while they take something up to him, but as a rule he
leaves things to Gorse."
Whereupon I resolved to have a good look at Mr. Gorse at the first
opportunity. One day Mr. Watling sent out for some papers.
"He's in there now;" said Larry. "You take 'em."
"In there" meant Mr. Watling's sanctum. And in there he was. I had only a
glance at the great man, for, with a kindly but preoccupied "Thank you,
Hugh," Mr. Watling took the papers and dismissed me. Heaviness, blackness
and impassivity,--these were the impressions of Mr. Gorse which I carried
away from that first meeting. The very solidity of his flesh seemed to
suggest the solidity of his position. Such, say the psychologists, is the
effect of prestige.
I remember well an old-fashioned picture puzzle in one of my boyhood
books. The scene depicted was to all appearances a sylvan, peaceful one,
with two happy lovers seated on a log beside a brook; but presently, as
one gazed at the picture, the head of an animal stood forth among the
branches, and then the body; more animals began to appear, bit by bit; a
tiger, a bear, a lion, a jackal, a fox, until at last, whenever I looked
at the page, I did not see the sylvan scene at all, but only the
predatory beasts of the forest. So, one by one, the figures of the real
rulers of the city superimposed themselves for me upon the simple and
democratic design of Mayor, Council, Board of Aldermen, Police Force,
etc., that filled the eye of a naive and trusting electorate which fondly
imagined that it had something to say in government. Miller Gorse was one
of these rulers behind the screen, and Adolf Scherer, of the Boyne Iron
Works, another; there was Leonard Dickinson of the Corn National Bank;
Frederick Grierson, becoming wealthy in city real estate; Judah B.
Tallant, who, though outlawed socially, was deferred to as the owner of
the Morning Era; and even Ralph Hambleton, rapidly superseding the
elderly and conservative Mr. Lord, who had hitherto managed the great
Hambleton estate. Ralph seemed to have become, in a somewhat gnostic
manner, a full-fledged financier. Not having studied law, he had been
home for four years when I became a legal fledgling, and during the early
days of my apprenticeship I was beholden to him for many "eye openers"
concerning the conduct of great affairs. I remember him sauntering into
my room one morning when Larry Weed had gone out on an errand.
"Hello, Hughie," he said, with his air of having nothing to do. "Grinding
it out? Where's Watling?"
"Isn't he in his office?"
"No."
"Well, what can we do for you?" I asked.
Ralph grinned.
"Perhaps I'll tell you when you're a little older. You're too young." And
he sank down into Larry Weed's chair, his long legs protruding on the
other side of the table. "It's a matter of taxes. Some time ago I found
out that Dickinson and Tallant and others I could mention were paying a
good deal less on their city property than we are. We don't propose to do
it any more--that's all."
"How can Mr. Watling help you?" I inquired.
"Well, I don't mind giving you a few tips about your profession, Hughie.
I'm going to get Watling to fix it up with the City Hall gang. Old Lord
doesn't like it, I'll admit, and when I told him we had been contributing
to the city long enough, that I proposed swinging into line with other
property holders, he began to blubber about disgrace and what my
grandfather would say if he were alive. Well, he isn't alive. A good deal
of water has flowed under the bridges since his day. It's a mere matter
of business, of getting your respectable firm to retain a City Hall
attorney to fix it up with the assessor."
"How about the penitentiary?" I ventured, not too seriously.
"I shan't go to the penitentiary, neither will Watling. What I do is to
pay a lawyer's fee. There isn't anything criminal in that, is there?"
For some time after Ralph had departed I sat reflecting upon this new
knowledge, and there came into my mind the bitterness of Cousin Robert
Breck against this City Hall gang, and his remarks about lawyers. I
recalled the tone in which he had referred to Mr. Watling. But Ralph's
philosophy easily triumphed. Why not be practical, and become master of a
situation which one had not made, and could not alter, instead of being
overwhelmed by it? Needless to say, I did not mention the conversation to
Mr. Watling, nor did he dwindle in my estimation. These necessary
transactions did not interfere in any way with his personal
relationships, and his days were filled with kindnesses. And was not Mr.
Ripon, the junior partner, one of the evangelical lights of the
community, conducting advanced Bible classes every week in the Church of
the Redemption?... The unfolding of mysteries kept me alert. And I
understood that, if I was to succeed, certain esoteric knowledge must be
acquired, as it were, unofficially. I kept my eyes and ears open, and
applied myself, with all industry, to the routine tasks with which every
young man in a large legal firm is familiar. I recall distinctly my pride
when, the Board of Aldermen having passed an ordinance lowering the water
rates, I was intrusted with the responsibility of going before the court
in behalf of Mr. Ogilvy's water company, obtaining a temporary
restricting order preventing the ordinance from going at once into
effect. Here was an affair in point. Were it not for lawyers of the
calibre of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon, hard-earned private property would
soon be confiscated by the rapacious horde. Once in a while I was made
aware that Mr. Watling had his eye on me.
"Well, Hugh," he would say, "how are you getting along? That's right,
stick to it, and after a while we'll hand the drudgery over to somebody
else."
He possessed the supreme quality of a leader of men in that he took pains
to inform himself concerning the work of the least of his subordinates;
and he had the gift of putting fire into a young man by a word or a touch
of the hand on the shoulder. It was not difficult for me, therefore, to
comprehend Larry Weed's hero-worship, the loyalty of other members of the
firm or of those occupants of the office whom I have not mentioned. My
first impression of him, which I had got at Jerry Kyme's, deepened as
time went on, and I readily shared the belief of those around me that his
legal talents easily surpassed those of any of his contemporaries. I can
recall, at this time, several noted cases in the city when I sat in court
listening to his arguments with thrills of pride. He made us all feel--no
matter how humble may have been our contributions to the
preparation--that we had a share in his triumphs. We remembered his
manner with judges and juries, and strove to emulate it. He spoke as if
there could be no question as to his being right as to the law and the
facts, and yet, in some subtle way that bated analysis, managed not to
antagonize the court. Victory was in the air in that office. I do not
mean to say there were not defeats; but frequently these defeats, by
resourcefulness, by a never-say-die spirit, by a consummate knowledge,
not only of the law, but of other things at which I have hinted, were
turned into ultimate victories. We fought cases from one court to
another, until our opponents were worn out or the decision was reversed.
We won, and that spirit of winning got into the blood. What was most
impressed on me in those early years, I think, was the discovery that
there was always a path--if one were clever enough to find it--from one
terrace to the next higher. Staying power was the most prized of all the
virtues. One could always, by adroitness, compel a legal opponent to
fight the matter out all over again on new ground, or at least on ground
partially new. If the Court of Appeals should fail one, there was the
Supreme Court; there was the opportunity, also, to shift from the state
to the federal courts; and likewise the much-prized device known as a
change of venue, when a judge was supposed to be "prejudiced."