her--rolled down the steps with sheer delight and reached for
pneumonia with a glad hand to escape his own offspring and her
endless society.
The most terrifying thing to me about this new Clara is her Great
Desert dryness; no drop of humour ever bedewed her mind. I believe
those eminent gentlemen who call themselves biologists have recently
discovered that the human system, if deprived of water, will convert
part of its dry food into water.
I wish these gentlemen would study the contrariwise case of Clara:
she would convert a drink of water into a mouthful of sawdust.
Humour has long been codified by me as one of nature's most solemn
gifts. I divide all witnesses into two classes: those who, while
giving testimony or being examined or cross-examined, cause laughter
in the courtroom at others. The second class turn all laughter
against themselves. That is why the gift of humour is so grave--it
keeps us from making ourselves ridiculous. A Frenchman (still my
French) has recently pointed out that the reason we laugh is to drive
things out of the world, to jolly them out of existence and have a
good time as we do it. Therefore not to be laughed at is to survive.
Beware of this new Clara! War breeds two kinds of people: heroes and
shams--the heroic and the mock heroic. You and I know the Civil War
bred two kinds of burlesque Southerner: the post-bellum Colonel and
the spurious proud daughter of the Southland. Proud, sensitive
Southern people do not go around proclaiming that they are proud and
sensitive. And that word--Southland! Hang the word and shoot the
man who made it. There are no proud daughters of the Westland or of
the Northland. Beware of this new Clara! This breath of the Desert!
Yes, I have noticed something wrong in the Club. I have hesitated
about speaking to you of it. I do not know what it means, but my
suspicions lie where yours lie--with those two wallpaper doctors.
BEN.
RUFUS KENT TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_The Great Dipper,
January 12._
MY DEAR MR. SANDS:
I have been President of this Club so long--they have refused to have
any other president during my lifetime and call me its Nestor--that
whenever I am present my visits are apt to consist of interruptions.
To-night it is raining and not many members are scattered through the
rooms. I shall be at leisure to answer your very grave letter. (I
see, however, that I am going to be interrupted.) ...
My dear Mr. Sands, you are a comparatively new member and much
allowance must be made for your lack of experience with the
traditions of this Club. You ask: "What is this gossip about? Who
started it; what did he start it with?"
My dear Mr. Sands, there is no gossip in this Club. It would not be
tolerated. We have here only the criticism of life. This Club is
The Great Dipper. The origin of the name has now become obscure. It
may first have been adopted to mean that the members would constitute
a star-system--a human constellation; it may be otherwise interpreted
as the wit of some one of the founders who wished to declare in
advance that the Club would be a big, long-handled spoon; with which
any member could dip into the ocean of human affairs and ladle out
what he required for an evening's conversation.
No gossip here, then. The criticism of life only. What is said in
the Club would embrace many volumes. In fact I myself have perhaps
discoursed to the vast extent of whole shelves full. Probably had
the Club undertaken to bind its conversation, the clubhouse would not
hold the books. But not a word of gossip.
I now come to the subject of your letter, and this is what I have
ascertained:
During the past summer one of the members of the Club (no name, of
course, can be called) was travelling in England. Three or four
American tourists joined him at one place or another, and these,
finding themselves in one of those enchanted regions of England to
which nearly all tourists go and which in our time is made more
famous by the novels of Edward Blackthorne--whom I met in England and
many of whose works are read here in the Club by admirers of his
genius--this group of American tourists naturally went to call on him
at his home. They were very hospitably received; there was a great
deal of praise of him and praise everywhere in the world is
hospitably received, so I hear. It was a pleasant afternoon; the
American visitors had tea with Mr. and Mrs. Blackthorne in their
garden. Afterwards Mr. Blackthorne took them for a stroll.
There had been some discussion, as it seems, of English and of
American fiction, of the younger men coming on in the two
literatures. One of the visitors innocently inquired of Mr.
Blackthorne whether he knew of your work. Instantly all noticed a
change in his manner: plainly the subject was distasteful, and he put
it away from him with some vague rejoinder in a curt undertone. At
once some one of the visitors conceived the idea of getting at the
reason for Mr. Blackthorne's unaccountable hostility. But his
evident resolve was not to be drawn out.
As they strolled through the garden, they paused to admire his
collection of ferns, and he impulsively turned to the American who
had been questioning him and pointed to a little spot.
"That," he said, "was once reserved for some ferns which your young
American novelist promised to send me."
The whole company gathered curiously about the spot and all naturally
asked, "But where are the ferns?"
Mr. Blackthorne without a word and with an air of regret that even so
little had escaped him, led the party further away.
That is all. Perhaps that is what you hear in the Club: the hum of
the hive that a member should have acted in some disagreeable,
unaccountable way toward a very great man whose work so many of us
revere. You have merely run into the universal instinct of human
nature to think evil of human nature. Emerson had about as good an
opinion of it as any man that ever lived, and he called it a
scoundrel. It is one of the greatest of mysteries that we are born
with a poor opinion of one another and begin to show it as babies.
If you do not think that babies despise one another, put a lot of
them together for a few hours and see how much good opinion is left.
I feel bound to say that your letter is most unbridled. There cannot
be many things with which the people of Kentucky are more familiar
than the bridle, yet they always impress outsiders as the most
unbridled of Americans. I _will_ add, however, that patrician blood,
ancestral blood, is always unbridled. Otherwise I might not now be
styled the Nestor of this Club. Only some kind of youthful Hector in
this world ever makes one of its aged Nestors. I am interrupted
again....
I must conclude my letter rather abruptly. My advice to you is not
to pay the slightest attention to all this miserable gossip in the
Club. I am too used to that sort of thing here to notice it myself.
And will you not at an early date give me the pleasure of your
company at dinner?
Faithfully yours,
RUFUS KENT.
PART THIRD
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_Seminole, North Carolina,
May 1, 1912_
MY DEAR SIR:
This small greenhouse of Mr. Andy Peters is a stifling, lonesome
place. His acquaintances are not the class of people who buy flowers
unless there is a death in the family. He has no social position,
and receives very few orders in that way. I do what I can for him
through my social connections. Time hangs heavily on my hands and I
have little to do but think of my lot.
When Mr. Peters and I are not busy, I do not find him companionable.
He does not possess the requisite attainments. We have a small
library in this town, and I thought I would take up reading. I have
always felt so much at home with all literature. I asked the
librarian to suggest something new in fiction and she urged me to
read a novel by young Mr. Beverley Sands, the Kentucky novelist. I
write now to inquire whether you are the Mr. Beverley Sands who wrote
the novel. If you are, I wish to tell you how glad I am that I have
long had the pleasure of your acquaintance. Your story comes quite
close to me. You understand what it means to be a proud daughter of
the Southland who is thrown upon her own resources. Your heroine and
I are most alike. There is a wonderful description in your book of a
woodland scene with ferns in it.
Would you mind my sending you my own copy of your book, to have you
write in it some little inscription such as the following: "For Miss
Clara Louise Chamberlain with the compliments of Beverley Sands."
Your story gives me a different feeling from what I have hitherto
entertained toward you. You may not have understood my first letters
to you. The poor and proud and sensitive are so often misunderstood.
You have so truly appreciated me in drawing the heroine of your book
that I feel as much attracted to you now as I was repelled from you
formerly.
Respectfully yours,
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_May 10, 1912._
MY DEAR MR. SANDS:
I wish to thank you for putting your name in my copy of your story.
Your kindness encourages me to believe that you are all that your
readers would naturally think you to be. And I feel that I can reach
out to you for sympathy.
The longer I remain in this place, the more out of place I feel. But
my main trouble is that I have never been able to meet the whole
expense of my father's funeral, though no one knows this but the
undertaker, unless he has told it. He is quite capable of doing such
a thing. The other day he passed me, sitting on his hearse, and he
gave me a look that was meant to remind me of my debt and that was
most uncomplimentary.
And yet I was not extravagant. Any ignorant observer of the
procession would never have supposed that my father was a thinker of
any consequence. The faculty of the college attended, but they did
not make as much of a show as at Commencement. They never do at
funerals.
Far be it from me to place myself under obligation to anyone, least
of all to a stranger, by receiving aid. I do not ask it. I now wish
that I had never spoken to you of your having been instrumental in my
father's death.
A proud daughter of the Southland,
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_May 17, 1912._
MY DEAR MR. SANDS:
I have received your cheque and I think what you have done is most
appropriate.
Since I wrote you last, my position in this establishment has become
still more embarrassing. Mr. Andy Peters has begun to offer me his
attentions. I have done nothing to bring about this infatuation for
me and I regard it as most inopportune.
I should like to leave here and take a position in New York. If I
could find a situation there as secretary to some gentleman, my
experience as my great father's secretary would of course qualify me
to succeed as his. You may not have cordially responded to my first
letters, but you cannot deny that they were well written. If the
gentleman were a married man, I could assure the family beforehand
that there would be no occasion for jealousy on his wife's part, as
so often happens with secretaries, I have heard. If he should have
lost his wife and should have little children, I do love little
children. While not acting as his secretary, I could be acting with
the children.
If my grey-haired father, who is now beyond the blue skies, were only
back in North Carolina!
CLARA LOUISE.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_May 21, 1912._
MY DEAR MR. SANDS:
I have been forced to leave forever the greenhouse of Mr. Andy Peters
and am now thrown upon my own resources without a roof over my proud
head.
Mr. Andy Peters is a confirmed rascal. I almost feel that I shall
have to do something desperate if I am to succeed.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_May 24, 1912._
DEAR BEN:
Clara Louise Chamberlain is in New York! God Almighty!
I have been so taken up lately with other things that I have
forgotten to send you a little bundle of letters from her. You will
discover from one of these that I gave her a cheque. I know you will
say it was folly, perhaps criminal folly; but I _was_ in a way
"instrumental" in bringing about the great botanist's demise.
If I had described no ferns, there would have been no fern trouble,
no fern list. The old gentleman would not have forgotten the list,
if I had not had it sent to him; hence he would not have gotten up at
midnight to search for it, would not have fallen downstairs, might
never have had pneumonia. I can never be acquitted of
responsibility! Besides, she praised my novel (something you have
never done!): that alone was worth nearly a hundred dollars to me!
Now she is here and she writes, asking me to help her to find
employment, as she is without means.
But I can't have that woman as _my_ secretary! I dictate my novels.
Novels are matters of the emotions. The secretary of a novelist must
not interfere with the flow of his emotions. If I were dictating to
this woman, she would be like an organ-grinder, and I should be
nothing but a little hollow-eyed monkey, wondering what next to do,
and too terrified not to do something; my poor brain would be unable
even to hesitate about an idea for fear she would think my ideas had
given out. Besides she would be the living presence of this whole
Pharaoh's plague of Nile Green ferns.
Let her be _your_ secretary, will you? In your mere lawyer's work,
you do not have any emotions. Give her a job, for God's sake! And
remember you have never refused me anything in your life. I enclose
her address and please don't send it back to me.
For I am sick, just sick! I am going to undress and get in bed and
send for the doctor and stretch myself out under my bolster and die
my innocent death. And God have mercy on all of you! But I already
know, when I open my eyes in Eternity, what will be the first thing
I'll see. O Lord, I wonder if there is anything but ferns in heaven
and hell!
BEVERLEY.
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN
_May 25, 1912._
DEAR MADAM:
Mr. Beverley Sands is very much indisposed just at the present time,
and has been kind enough to write me with the request that I interest
myself in securing for you a position as private secretary. Nothing
permanent is before me this morning, but I write to say that I could
give you some work to-morrow for the time at least, if you will
kindly call at these offices at ten o'clock.
Very truly yours,
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_May 27, 1912._
DEAR BEVERLEY:
If you keep on getting into trouble, some day you'll get in and never
get out. You sent her a cheque! Didn't you know that in doing this
you had sent her a blank cheque, which she could afterwards fill in
at any cost to your peace? If you are going to distribute cheques to
young ladies merely because their fathers die, I shall take steps to
have you placed in my legal possession as an adult infant.
Here's what I've done--I wrote to your ward, asking her to present
herself at this office at ten o'clock yesterday morning. She was
here punctually. I had left instructions that she should be shown at
once into my private office.
When she entered, I said good morning, and pointed to a typewriter
and to some matter which I asked her to copy. Meantime I finished
writing a hypothetical address to a hypothetical jury in a
hypothetical case, at the same time making it as little like an
actual address to a jury as possible and as little like law as
possible.
Then I asked her to receive the dictation of the address, which was
as follows:
"I beg you now to take a good look at this young woman--young, but
old enough to know what she, is doing. You will not discover in her
appearance, gentlemen, any marks of the adventuress. But you are men
of too much experience not to know that the adventuress does not
reveal her marks. As for my client, he is a perfectly innocent man.
Worse than innocent; he is, on account of a certain inborn weakness,
a rather helpless human being whenever his sympathies are appealed
to, or if anyone looks at him pleasantly, or but speaks a kind word.
In a moment of such weakness he yielded to this woman's appeal to his
sympathies. At once she converted his generosity into a claim, and
now she has begun to press that claim. But that is an old story: the
greater your kindness to certain people, the more certain they become
that your kindness is simply their due. The better you are, the
worse you must have been. Your present virtues are your
acknowledgment of former shortcomings. It has become the design of
this adventuress--my client having once shown her unmerited
kindness--it has now become her apparent design to force upon him the
responsibility of her support and her welfare.
"You know how often this is done in New York City, which is not only
Babylon for the adventurer and adventuress, but their Garden of Eden,
since here they are truly at large with the serpent. You are aware
that the adventuress never operates, except in a large city, just as
the charlatan of every profession operates in the large city. Little
towns have no adventuresses and no charlatans; they are not to be
found there because there they would be found out. What I ask is
that you protect my client as you would have my client, were he a
juryman, help to protect innocent men like you. I ask then that this
woman be sentenced to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars and be
further sentenced to hard labor in the penitentiary for a term of one
year.
"No, I do not ask that. For this young woman is not yet a bad woman.
But unless she stops right here in her career, she is likely to
become a bad woman. I do ask that you sentence her to pay a few
tears of penitence and to go home, and there be strictly confined to
wiser, better thoughts."
When I had dictated this, I asked her to read it over to me; she did
so in faltering tones. Then I bade her good morning, said there was
no more work for the day, instructed her that when she was through
with copying the work already assigned, the head-clerk would receive
it and pay for it, and requested her to return at ten o'clock this
morning.
This morning she did not come. I called up her address; she had left
there. Nothing was known of her.
If you ever write to her again--! And since you, without visible
means of support, are so fond of sending cheques to everybody, why
not send one to me! Am I to go on defending you for nothing?
Your obedient counsel and turtle,
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_May 28, 1912._
DEAR BEN:
What have you done, what have you done, what have you done! That
green child turned loose in New York, not knowing a soul and not
having a cent! Suppose anything happens to her--how shall I feel
then! Of course, you meant well, but my dear fellow, wasn't it a
terrible, an inhuman thing to do! Just imagine--but then you _can't_
imagine, _can't_ imagine, _can't_ imagine!
BEVERLEY.
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS
_May 29, 1912._
MY DEAR BEVERLEY:
I am sorry that my bungling efforts in your behalf should have proved
such a miscalculation. But as you forgive everybody sooner or later
perhaps you will in time pardon even me.
Your respectful erring servant,
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.
TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES
_May 30, 1912._
POLLY BOLES:
The sight of a letter from me will cause a violent disturbance of
your routine existence. Our "friendship" worked itself to an open
and honourable end about the time I went away last summer and showed
itself to be honest hatred. Since my return in the autumn I have
been absorbed in many delightful ways and you, doubtless, have been
loyally imbedded in the end of the same frayed sofa, with your
furniture arranged as for years past, and with the same breastpin on
your constant heart. Whenever we have met, you have let me know that
the formidable back of Polly Boles was henceforth to be turned on me.
I write because I will not come to see you. My only motive is that
you will forward my letter to Ben Doolittle, whom you have so
prejudiced against me, that I cannot even write to him.
My letter concerns Beverley. You do not know that since our
engagement was broken last summer he has regularly visited me: we
have enjoyed one another in ways that are not fetters. Your
friendship for Beverley of course has lasted with the constancy of a
wooden pulpit curved behind the head and shoulders of a minister.
Ben Doolittle's affection for him is as splendid a thing as one ever
sees in life. I write for the sake of us all.
Have you been with Beverley of late? If so, have you noticed
anything peculiar? Has Ben seen him? Has Ben spoken to you of a
change? I shall describe as if to you both what occurred to-night
during Beverley's visit: he has just gone.
As soon as I entered the parlours I discovered that he was not wholly
himself and instantly recollected that he had not for some time
seemed perfectly natural. Repeatedly within the last few months it
has become increasingly plain that something preyed upon his mind.
When I entered the rooms this evening, although he made a quick,
clever effort to throw it off, he was in this same mood of peculiar
brooding.
Someone--I shall not say who--had sent me some flowers during the
day. I took them down with me, as I often do. I think that
Beverley, on account of his preoccupation, did not at first notice
that I had brought any flowers; he remained unaware, I feel sure,
that I placed the vase on the table near which we sat. But a few
minutes later he caught sight of them--a handful of roses of the
colour of the wild-rose, with some white spray and a few ferns.
When his eyes fell upon the ferns our conversation snapped like a
thread. Painful silence followed. The look with which one
recognises some object that persistently annoys came into his eyes:
it was the identical expression I had already remarked when he was
gazing as on vacancy. He continued absorbed, disregardful of my
presence, until his silence became discourteous. My inquiry for the
reason of his strange action was evaded by a slight laugh.
This evasion irritated me still more. You know I never trust or
respect people who gloss. His rejoinder was gloss. He was taking it
for granted that having exposed to me something he preferred to
conceal, he would receive my aid to cover this up: I was to join him
in the ceremony of gloss.
As a sign of my displeasure I carried the flowers across the room to
the mantelpiece.
But the gaiety and carelessness of the evening were gone. When two
people have known each other long and intimately, nothing so quickly
separates them as the discovery by one that just beneath the surface
of their intercourse the other keeps something hidden. The
carelessness of the evening was gone, a sense of restraint followed
which each of us recognised by periods of silence. To escape from
this I soon afterward for a moment went up to my room.
I now come to the incident which explains why I think my letter
should be sent to Ben Doolittle.
As I re-entered the parlours Beverley was standing before the vase of
flowers on the mantelpiece. His back was turned toward me. He did
not see me or hear me. I was about to speak when I discovered that
he was muttering to himself and making gestures at the ferns.
Fragments of expression straggled from him and the names of strange
people. I shall not undertake to write down his incoherent
mutterings, yet such was the stimulation of my memory due to shock
that I recall many of these.
You ought to know by this time that I am by nature fearless; yet
something swifter and stranger than fear took possession of me and I
slipped from the parlours and ran half-way up the stairs. Then, with
a stronger dread of what otherwise might happen, I returned.
Beverley was sitting where I had left him when I quitted the parlours
first. He had the air of merely expecting my re-entrance. I think
this is what shocked me most: that he could play two parts with such
ready concealment, successful cunning.
Now that he is gone and the whole evening becomes so vivid a memory,
I am urged by a feeling of uneasiness to reach Ben Doolittle with
this letter, since there is no one else to whom I can turn.
Beverley left abruptly; my manner may have forced that. Certainly
for the first time in all these years we separated with a sudden
feeling of positive anger. If he calls again, I shall be excused.
Act as you think best. And remember, please, under what stress of
feeling I must be to write another letter to you. _To you!_
TILLY SNOWDEN.
TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES
[A second letter enclosed in the preceding one]