INTRUSION.
’Tis he! I ken the manner of his gait—
He rises on the toe; that spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.
SHAKSPEARE.
A barren-spirited fellow! one that feeds
On objects, arts, and imitations.
_Idem._
This is a slight, unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands.
_Idem._
We will now enter one of the upper rooms of the notorious Graham House,
with the interior of which we have before been familiarised, and which
had been reopened, on a modified basis. A single glance at the confused
piles of manuscripts, books, and papers, scattered about the room and
on the table, mingled with stumps of pens and cigars, and a long-tubed
meerschaum, showed that it could be no other than the characteristic
den of a literary bachelor, who, with chair and table drawn close to
the stove, sat there to show for himself, earnestly engaged in what
seemed to be the business of his life—writing.
You saw in a moment that this was not a Northern man, for in
addition to the long, black, and wavy hair, the dark, bronzed,
and vaulting features indicated clearly a Southern origin. He was
evidently young—certainly not more than twenty-seven, judging, as one
instinctively does, by contour of person and features, and not by the
expression of the face. But that expression, when you saw it, as he
lifted his head, at once left you in doubt whether it could possibly
belong to so immature a period of life. Although the brow was broad,
and mild as that of a child, yet there was a solemn and unnatural
fixedness in the whole face, which, united with the cold stillness of
the great, gray, hollow eyes, told at once a dreary tale of suffering,
which sent an involuntary shudder through your soul. Where the
expression rested most, it was impossible for you to tell; but the
feeling it conveyed was one of absolute horror. That a face, which
seemed so young, should be one that never smiled!—And could the story
that it told be true? Could it be that for years that face had never
smiled?
A light tap was heard at the door, and, with a momentary frown of
vexation at the interruption, he turned his head, and a young man
entered the room, with somewhat hesitating step, which showed that he
was by no means certain of his ground.
He was slight and thin, something below the average height, with even
a darker complexion than that of the face we have just described; his
black hair, and preternaturally black and vivid eyes, glittered beneath
straight, heavy brows, which nearly met. His nose was prominent and
partly arched; and there was, in the whole bowed bearing and cat-like
gait of this person, an inexplicably strange and foreign look, which,
alike in all countries, characterises that fated race which is yet an
outcast among the nations.
His greeting was singularly expressive of eager appreciation, while
that of his host to him was cold, distant, and merely polite. Pushing
aside his writing materials, as he handed him a chair, Manton—for such
was the name of our young writer—turned upon his visitor a frigid look
of inquiry, and said, with a formality almost drawling—
“Doctor E. Willamot Weasel, I hope it is well with you this evening?”
His visitor, in rather a confused manner, commenced—“Ye-es, yes—I—I
fear I am intruding on your seclusion; but p-pardon me, I cannot bear
any longer to see you thus seclude yourself from all the amenities of
social life. You need relaxation; your stern isolation here with the
pen, and pen alone, is playing wild work with your fine faculties.
Pardon me, if I insist upon it, that you must and should accept
the sympathies of the men and women around you. In the doctrine of
unity in diversity, Fourier demonstrates that there is nothing more
fatal to consistent development of both body and mind, than entire
pre-occupation in a single object or pursuit.”
Detecting a shade of vexation, at this juncture, crossing the open
brow of Manton, Doctor Ebenezer Willamot Weasel hastily reiterated his
apologies.
“I beg of you not to mistake my zeal for impertinence. I have already
received much good and many valuable truths from conversation with you,
and I conceive myself under strong personal obligations of gratitude
to you, that I hope may plead for me in extenuation of what you, no
doubt, consider an impertinent intrusion. I would, as some measure of
acknowledgment for such obligations, beg to be permitted to protest
with you against this dangerous and obstinate isolation from all human
sympathies, in which your life, dedicated to literary ambition, seems
to be here fixed.”
“My good friend, Doctor Weasel, my life is my own, and my purposes are
fixed. I need no sympathisers, since I am sufficient unto myself. They
would only distract and minify the higher aims of my life. You may
call it literary ambition, but I call it a settled and sacred purpose
to achieve good in my day and generation. I am content, sir! Do not
attempt to disturb that contentment!”
This reply was somewhat curtly delivered, and seemed to discompose the
Doctor, who, however, hesitatingly persisted—
“Ah! ah! ah! yes! I expected to hear something of the sort from you,
of course, but I beg you to consider that, under the harmonic law of
reciprocation or mutual support and benefits, discovered by Fourier,
and which lies at the base of all true organisation, you have no more
right, as an individual, to hold yourself aloof, intellectually and
socially, from the great body of mankind who are working for your
benefit as well as for their own, than a rich man has to lock up his
hoards of gold, and bury it where future generations may not reach it!
The social state can only exist by individual concessions in favour of
the whole.”
“Your argument,” was the cold response, “like all generalising
postulates aimed at particular cases, overleaps its mark. I consider
that I shall effect more earnest good by persisting in this isolation
against which you protest. For as I do not ask or require the
individual sympathies of my race, but rather choose the still-life of
undisturbed sympathy and communion with nature, I feel that I shall
accomplish more, far more, for humanity, in thus dedicating myself
to her interpretation. Through me, as a medium, my fellow men may
thus learn far loftier truths than they themselves might ever impart
reciprocally amidst the babble of what you call social intercourse.”
“But you do not exclude women, surely? That would be unnatural; for
you know that the life of man cannot be completely balanced, without
the ameliorating presence and subduing contact of woman. He becomes
a savage without her; his passions are brutalised, and the man is
spiritually and socially degraded.”
“An admirable truism, Doctor! I honor and revere woman; in her high
place she is to us, emphatically—angel! But this very reverence in
which I hold her, prompts me to avoid contacts that may despoil me of
my ideal. I am prepared to worship her, but not to degrade or look upon
her degraded. There is nothing, in the range of human possibilities, so
hideous to me as such contact—for I would hold my mother’s image always
uncontaminated. I am a stranger, sir. I make no female acquaintances at
present here.”
“Sorry,” said the Doctor, “very sorry, sir; for my special mission in
this case was to persuade you to give up your isolation, in favor of an
acquaintance with a most noble and charming woman, a friend of mine,
who, having met with your papers in the journal you are now editing,
is exceedingly anxious for an introduction, which I, in plain terms,
have come to request. She is a woman of masculine and daring mind, and
is taking the initial in most of the reform movements of the day, and
particularly the most important of them all, the science of physiology
as applicable to her own sex. She has taken the lead as the first
lecturer on such subjects, and is accomplishing a vast amount of good.
I am sure you will be much struck with her, and I never met two people
whom I was more anxious to see brought together. You will appreciate
each other, as physiology is one of your favorite subjects.”
“Bah! a lecture-woman! But I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Doctor.
You could have told me nothing that would have more firmly fixed my
resolution neither to be introduced to or know the person of whom
you speak, on any terms whatever! Your manly-minded women are both
my disgust and abhorrence!—as what they choose to call manliness
is most usually a coarse and sensual impudence, based on inherent
immodesty, which renders them incapable of recognising the delicate
unities of propriety, either in thought or deed. I fully concede a
woman’s capacity for displaying the great and even loftier processes of
intellection; but the moment she unsexes herself, she and her thoughts
become vulgarised. Such people are universally adventuresses, and of
the most unscrupulous sort. I, as a stranger here, wish to run no risk
of becoming entangled in their plausibilities. I am working for a full,
free and frank recognition, by the social world, of my right to choose
the place, the social circle rather, that I shall enter and become a
part of. I do not wish to be dragged into such contacts, but to command
them at my will!”
“But, sir,” persisted the Doctor, “she admires your papers so
fervently, and pities the cruel and self-inflicted isolation in which
you live, with such ardent, disinterested and motherly warmth, that you
can scarcely, in your heart, be so obdurate as to reject her genial
overture—the sole object of which is, to draw you forth into some
participation with the milder humanities—to make you feel that New York
is not really the savage, base and flowerless waste which we are led to
presume you consider it, from the attitude you have assumed toward its
social conditions. You are killing yourself here with tobacco, wine and
labour, while she would show that even self-immolated genius may find a
warm place to nestle, in distant lands, and near the matronly bosom, in
spite of cold and sullen self-reliance!”
“The fact of her being a matron,” frigidly responded Manton,
“considerably modifies the general character of the proposition which
she has done me the honor, through you, to communicate. But, Doctor, I
must finally and definitively state to you that I do not, at present,
wish to cultivate any female acquaintance whatever in the city of New
York. I propose to wait until I can select instead of being selected.”
And rising at the same time with an impatient movement, which might
or might not, be mistaken for a desire to be left alone, Mr. Manton
politely showed Doctor E. Willamot Weasel, who had now taken the hint,
to the door.
* * * * *
Almost the same moment after his discomfited visitor left, Manton
hastily gathered up the scattered leaves of manuscript on his table,
and muttering, as he thrust the roll into his pocket, “Curse the
intrusion! this ought to have been in the printers’ hands an hour ago,
and yet it is not finished!” and snatching up his cap, he passed from
the room, and left the house.
Not long after, there came a sharp ring at the door of the Graham
House, and the female servant, who hurriedly hastened to open it,
was quite as sharply interrogated by a woman on the outside, who was
closely veiled, and wore a sort of Quaker garb—
“Is Mr. Manton in?”
“No, ma’am, he has just gone out.”
“Where is his room? I have a letter for him, which I wish to deposit in
a safe place with my own hands. What is the _number_ of his room?” she
asked, in an imperative manner.
“Ma’am, the gentleman is out. Can’t you leave the letter with me or the
mistress? We will give it to him when he comes.”
“No, I choose to place it myself. What is his _number_?” And as she
spoke, she slightly unveiled herself. The servant seemed to recognise
her face even through the dusk, and said, though rather sullenly, as
she gave way for her to pass—
“Yes, ma’am, walk in. His room is No. 26, on the third floor.” The
female glided rapidly past, and as the servant attempted to follow her,
exclaiming, “Ma’am, I will show you the number,” she answered hastily,
“Never mind, I know where the room is now!” and darted up the stairs.
The servant muttered some droll commentaries on this procedure, which
it is not necessary to repeat, and seeming to be afraid to complain to
her superiors, dragged herself surlily back towards her subterranean
home.
In the meantime our light-footed and unceremonious caller had reached
the third floor, and walked straight forward to the door of the room
just left by Manton. She troubled herself with no idle ceremony of
knocking, but walked confidently in.