WITH IRENE AGAIN
I frequently saw Irene during the few weeks of my sojourn at the Newell
residence, but hers was a busy life and there was not much time for
_tête-à-tête_. One evening, however, she seated herself by my side on
the veranda and amid the fragrance of the flowers and the songs of
the birds we had an hour alone which passed so swiftly that it seemed
but a moment. Time hangs heavy only on the hands of those who are not
enjoying it. I had noticed her anxiety for a letter and her evident
disappointment in the morning when the pneumatic tube in the Newell
residence did not deliver it.
Not purposely, but unavoidably, I saw a few days later an envelope
postmarked, “Philippines.” I ventured to say, with an attempt at
teasing, that I trusted she was in good humor to-day since her letter
had come, and surmised that it bore “a message of friendship or love”
for her. She adroitly avoided the subject, which was all the evidence I
wanted to assure me of the truth of my theory as to its contents. The
clue was given which I intended to establish in asking the question.
Love may be blind but it has ways for trailing its game.
Finding no encouragement for pursuing this subject further, I turned
to the discussion of books and finally asked if she had read an old
book which in my day used to be referred to as, “Tom Dixon’s Leopard’s
Spots.” She said she had not, but had seen it instanced as a good
example of that class of writers who misrepresented the best Southern
sentiment and opinion. She stated that her information was that there
was not a godly character in the book, that it represented the Southern
people as justifying prejudice, and ill treatment of a weaker race,
whose faults were admittedly forgivable by reason of circumstances. She
also stated that “the culture of the present time places such writers
in the same class with that English Lord who once predicted that a
steamer could never cross the Atlantic for the reason that she could
never carry enough fuel to make the voyage.”
“And probably in such cases the wish was father to the thought,” I
added.
She also had heard of those false prophets whom history had not
forgotten, but who lived only in ridicule and as examples of error.
She seemed to be ashamed of the ideas once advocated by these men, and
charitably dismissed them with the remark that, “It would have been
better for the cause of true Christianity had they never been listened
to by so large a number of our people, as they represented brute force
rather than the Golden Rule.”
I heard with rapt attention. Although I had already seen much to
convince me of the evolution of sentiment in the South, these words
sank deeper than all else. Here was a woman of aristocratic Southern
blood, cradled under the hills of secession and yet vehement in
denunciation of those whom I had learned to recognize as the beacon
lights of Southern thought and purpose! And when I reflected that her
views were then the views of the whole South, I indeed began to realize
the wonderful transformation I was being permitted to see. I silently
prayed, “God bless the New South!” My heart was full, I felt that I had
met a soul that was a counterpart of my own,--“Each heart shall seek
its kindred heart, and cling to it, as close as ever.”
The pent-up feelings of my breast must find some expression of
admiration for her lofty ideals of joy, for the triumph I had been
permitted to see of truth over error in the subjugation of America’s
greatest curse, _prejudice_, and finally of the meeting with a
congenial spirit in flesh and blood, and of the opposite sex; which
alone creates for man a halo peculiarly its own.
I was hardly myself, and I burst forth with, “Irene, are you engaged to
the man in the ‘Philippines’?”
I was rather presumptuous, but the gentle reply was, “I will tell you
some other time”--and we parted.