so ill that I asked Dr. Marigold to come to see me. I had to
explain. He looked grave and finally asked whether he might speak to
Dr. Mullen: he thought it advisable; Dr. Mullen could better counsel
what should be done. Later he called me up to inquire whether Dr.
Mullen and he could call together.
Dr. Mullen asked me to go over what had occurred the evening before.
Dr. Marigold and he went across the room and consulted. Dr. Mullen
then asked me who Beverley's physician was. I said I thought
Beverley had never been ill in his life. He asked whether Ben
Doolittle knew or had better not be told.
Again I leave the matter to Ben and you.
But I have thought it necessary to put down on a separate paper the
questions which Dr. Mullen asked with my reply to each. For I do not
wish Ben Doolittle to think I said anything about Beverley that I
would be unwilling for him or for anyone else to know.
TILLY SNOWDEN.
POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN
_June 2, 1912._
TILLY SNOWDEN:
A telegram from Louisville has reached me this morning, announcing
the dangerous illness of my mother, and I go to her by the earliest
train. I have merely to say that I have sent your letters to Ben.
I shall add, however, that the formidable back of Polly Boles seems
to absorb a good deal of your attention. At least my formidable back
is a safe back. It is not an uncontrollable back. It may be spoken
of, but at least it is never publicly talked about. It does not lead
me into temptation; it is not a scandal. On the whole, I console
myself with the knowledge that very few women have gotten into
trouble on account of their _backs_. If history speaks truly, quite
a few notorious ones have come to grief--but _you_ will understand.
POLLY BOLES.
POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE
_June 2, 1912._
DEAR BEN:
I find bad news does not come single. I have a telegram from
Louisville with the news of my mother's illness and start by the
first train. Just after receiving it I had a letter from Tilly,
which I enclose.
I, too, have noticed for some time that Beverley has been troubled.
Have you seen him of late? Have you noticed anything wrong? What do
you think of Tilly's letter? Write me at once. I should go to see
him myself but for the news from Louisville. I have always thought
Beverley health itself. Would it be possible for him to have a
breakdown? I shall be wretched about him until I hear from you.
What do you make out of the questions Dr. Mullen asked Tilly and her
replies?
Are you going to write to me every day while I am gone?
POLLY.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO PHILLIPS & FAULDS
_June 4, 1912._
DEAR SIRS:
I desire to recall myself to you as a former Louisville patron of
your flourishing business and also as more recently the New York
lawyer who brought unsuccessful suit against you on behalf of one of
his clients.
You will find enclosed my cheque, and you are requested to send the
value of it in long-stemmed red roses to Miss Boles--the same address
as in former years.
If the stems of your roses do not happen to be long, make them long.
(You know the wires.)
Very truly yours,
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
_June 4, 1912._
DEAR POLLY:
You will have had my telegram of sympathy with you in your mother's
illness, and of my unspeakable surprise that you could go away
without letting me see you.
Have I seen Beverley of late? I have seen him early and late. And I
have read Tilly's much mystified and much-mistaken letters. If
Beverley is crazy, a Kentucky cornfield is crazy, all roast beef is a
lunatic, every Irish potato has a screw loose and the Atlantic Ocean
is badly balanced.
I happen to hold the key to Beverley's comic behaviour in Tilly's
parlour.
As to the questions put to Tilly by that dilution of all fools,
Claude Mullen--your favourite nerve specialist and former suitor--I
have just this to say:
All these mutterings of Beverley--during one of the gambols in
Tilly's parlours, which he naturally reserves for me--all these
fragmentary expressions relate to real people and to actual things
that you and Tilly have never known anything about.
Men must not bother their women by telling them everything. That, by
the way, has been an old bone of contention between you and me,
Polly, my chosen rib--a silent bone, but still sometimes, I fear, a
slightly rheumatic bone. But when will a woman learn that her
heavenly charm to a man lies in the thought that he can place her and
keep her in a world, into which his troubles cannot come. Thus he
escapes from them himself. Let him once tell his troubles to her and
she becomes the mirror of them--and possibly the worst kind of mirror.
Beverley has told Tilly nothing of all this entanglement with ferns,
I have not told you. All four of us have thereby been the happier.
But through Tilly's misunderstanding those two mischief-making
charlatans, Marigold and Mullen, have now come into the case; and it
is of the utmost importance that I deal with these two gentlemen at
once; to that end I cut this letter short and start after them.
Oh, but why did you go away without good-bye?
BEN.
BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES
_June 5, 1912._
DEAR POLLY:
I go on where I left off yesterday.
I did what I thought I should never do during my long and memorable
life: I called on your esteemed ex-acquaintance, Dr. Claude Mullen.
I explained how I came to do so, and I desired of him an opinion as
to Beverley. He suggested that more evidence would be required
before an opinion could be given. What evidence, I suggested, and
how to be gotten? He thought the case was one that could best be
further studied if the person were put under secret
observation--since he revealed himself apparently only when alone. I
urged him to take control of the matter, took upon myself, as
Beverley's friend, authority to empower him to go on. He advised
that a dictograph be installed in Beverley's room. It would be a
good idea to send him a good big bunch of ferns also: the ferns, the
dictograph, Beverley alone with them--a clear field.
I explained to Beverley, and we went out and bought a dictograph, and
he concealed it where, of course, he could not find it!
In the evening we had a glorious dinner, returned to his rooms, and
while I smoked in silence, he, in great peace of mind and profound
satisfaction with the world in general, poured into the dictograph
his long pent-up opinion of our two dear old friends, Marigold and
Mullen. He roared it into the machine, shouted it, raved it,
soliloquised it. I had in advance requested him to add my opinion of
your former suitor. Each of us had long been waiting for so good a
chance and he took full advantage of the opportunity. The next
morning I notified Dr. Mullen that Beverley had raved during the
night, and that the machine was full of his queer things.
At the appointed hour this morning we assembled in Beverley's rooms.
I had cleared away his big centre table, all the rubbish of papers
amid which he lives, including some invaluable manuscripts of his
worthless novels. I had taken the cylinders out of the dictograph
and had put them in a dictophone, and there on the table lay that
Pandora's box of information with a horn attached to it.
Dr. Mullen arrived, bringing with him the truly great New York nerve
specialist and scientist whom he relies upon to pilot him in
difficult cases. Dr. Marigold had brought the truly great physician
and scientist who pilots him. At Beverley's request, I had invited
the president of his Club, and he had brought along two Club
affinities; three gossips.
I sent Beverley to Brooklyn for the day.
We seated ourselves, and on the still air of the room that unearthly
asthmatic horn began to deliver Beverley's opinion. Instantly there
was an uproar. There was a scuffle. It was almost a general fight.
Drs. Marigold and Mullen had jumped to their feet and shouted their
furious protests. One of them started to leave the room. He
couldn't, I had locked the door. One slammed at the machine--he was
restrained--everybody else wanted to hear Beverley out. And amid the
riot Beverley kept on his peaceful way, grinding out his healthy
vituperation.
That will do, Polly, my dear. You will never hear anything more of
Beverley's being in bad health--not from those two rear-admirals of
diagnosis--away in the rear. Another happy result; it saves him at
last from Tilly. Her act was one that he will never forgive. His
act she will never forgive. The last tie between them is severed now.
But all this is nothing, nothing, nothing! I am lost without you.
BEN.
P.S. Now that I have disposed of two of Beverley's detractors, in a
day or two I am going to demolish the third one--an Englishman over
on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I have long waited for the
chance to write him just one letter: he's the chief calumniator.
POLLY BOLES TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE
_Louisville, Kentucky,
June 9, 1912._
DEAR BEN:
I cannot tell you what a relief it brought me to hear that Beverley
is well. Of course it was all bound to be a mistake.
At the same time your letters have made me very unhappy. Was it
quite fair? Was it open? Was it quite what anyone would have
expected of Beverley and you?
Nothing leaves me so undone as what I am not used to in people. I do
not like surprises and I do not like changes. I feel helpless unless
I can foresee what my friends will do and can know what to expect of
them. Frankly, your letters have been a painful shock to me.
I foresee one thing: this will bring Tilly and Dr. Marigold more
closely together. She will feel sorry for him, and a woman's sense
of fair play will carry her over to his side. You men do not know
what fair play is or, if you do, you don't care. Only a woman knows
and cares. Please don't keep after Dr. Mullen on my account. Why
should you persecute him because he loved me?
Dr. Marigold will want revenge on Beverley, and he will have his
revenge--in some way.
Your letters have left me wretched. If you surprise me in this way,
how might you not surprise me still further? Oh, if we could only
understand everybody perfectly, and if everything would only settle
and stay settled!
My mother is much improved and she has urged me--the doctor says her
recovery, though sure, will be gradual--to spend at least a month
with her. To-day I have decided to do so. It will be of so much
interest to her if I have my wedding clothes made here. You know how
few they will be. My dresses last so long, and I dislike changes. I
have found my same dear old mantua-maker and she is delighted and
proud. But she insists that since I went to New York I have dropped
behind and that I will not do even for Louisville.
On my way to her I so enjoy looking at old Louisville houses, left
among the new ones. They seem so faithful! My dear old mantua-maker
and the dear old houses--they are the real Louisville.
My mother joins me in love to you.
Sincerely yours,
POLLY BOLES.
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE
_150 Wall Street, New York,
June 10, 1912._
Edward Blackthorne, Esq.,
King Alfred's Wood,
Warwickshire, England.
MY DEAR SIR:
I am a stranger to you. I should have been content to remain a
stranger. A grave matter which I have had no hand in shaping causes
me to write you this one letter--there being no discoverable
likelihood that I shall ever feel painfully obliged to write you a
second.
You are a stranger to me. But you are, I have heard, a great man.
That, of course, means that you are a famous man, otherwise I should
never have heard that you are a great one. You hold a very
distinguished place in your country, in the world; people go on
pilgrimages to you. The thing that has made you famous and that
attracts pilgrims are your novels.
I do not read novels. They contain, I understand, the lives of
imaginary people. I am satisfied to read the lives of actual people
and I do read much biography. One of the Lives I like to study is
that of Samuel Johnson, and I recall just here some words of his to
the effect that he did not feel bound to honour a man who clapped a
hump on his shoulder and another hump on his leg and shouted he was
Richard the Third. I take the liberty of saying that I share Dr.
Johnson's opinion as to puppets, either on the stage or in fiction.
The life of the actual Richard interests me, but the life of
Shakespeare's Richard doesn't. I should have liked to read the
actual life of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
I have never been able to get a clear idea what a novelist is. The
novelists that I superficially encounter seem to have no clear idea
what they are themselves. No two of them agree. But each of them
agrees that _his_ duty and business in life is to imagine things and
then notify people that those things are true and that
they--people--should buy those things and be grateful for them and
look up to the superior person who concocted them and wrote them down.
I have observed that there is danger in many people causing any one
person to think himself a superior person unless he _is_ a superior
person. If he really is what is thought of him, no harm is done him.
But if he is widely regarded a superior person and is not a superior
person, harm may result to him. For whenever any person is praised
beyond his deserts, he is not lifted up by such praise any more than
the stature of a man is increased by thickening the heels of his
shoes. On the contrary, he is apt to be lowered by over-praise.
For, prodded by adulation, he may lay aside his ordinary image and
assume, as far as he can, the guise of some inferior creature which
more glaringly expresses what he is--as the peacock, the owl, the
porcupine, the lamb, the bulldog, the ass. I have seen all these. I
have seen the strutting peacock novelist, the solemn, speechless owl
novelist, the fretful porcupine novelist, the spring-lamb novelist,
the ferocious, jealous bulldog novelist, and the sacred ass novelist.
And many others.
You may begin to wonder why I am led into these reflections in this
letter. The reason is, I have been wondering into what kind of
inferior creature your fame--your over-praise--has lowered _you_.
Frankly, I perfectly know; I will not name the animal. But I feel
sure that he is a highly offensive small beast.
If you feel disposed to read further, I shall explain.
I have in my legal possession three letters of yours. They were
written to a young gentleman whom I have known now for a good many
years, whose character I know about as well as any one man can know
another's, and for whom increasing knowledge has always led me to
feel increasing respect. The young man is Mr. Beverley Sands. You
may now realise what I am coming to.
The first of these letters of yours reveals you as a stranger seeking
the acquaintance of Mr. Sands--to a certain limit: you asked of him a
courtesy and you offered courtesies in exchange. That is common
enough and natural, and fair, and human. But what I have noticed is
your doing this with the air of the superior person. Mr. Sands,
being a novelist, is of course a superior person. Therefore, you
felt called upon to introduce yourself to him as a _more_ superior
person. That is, you condescended to be gracious. You made it a
virtue in you to ask a favour of him. You expected him to be
delighted that you allowed him to serve you.
In the second letter you go further. He wafted some incense toward
you and you got on your knees to this incense. You get up and offer
him more courtesies--all courtesies. Because he praised you, you
even wish him to visit you.
Now the third letter. The favour you asked of Mr. Sands was that he
send you some ferns. By no fault of his except too much confidence
in the agents he employed (he over-trusts everyone and over-trusted
you), by no other fault of his the ferns were not sent. You waited,
time passed, you grew impatient, you grew suspicious of Mr. Sands,
you felt slighted, you became piqued in your vanity, wounded in your
self-love, you became resentful, you became furious, you became
revengeful, you became abusive. You told him that he had never meant
to keep his word, that you had kicked his books out of your library,
that he might profitably study the moral sensitiveness of a head of
cabbage.
During the summer American tourists visited you--pilgrims of your
fame. You took advantage of their visit to promulgate mysteriously
your hostility to Mr. Sands. Not by one explicit word, you
understand. Your exalted imagination merely lied on him, and you
entrusted to other imaginations the duty of scattering broadcast your
noble lie. They did this--some of them happening not to be friends
of Mr. Sands--and as a result of the false light you threw upon his
character, he now in the minds of many persons rests under a cloud.
And that cloud is never going to be dispelled.
Enclosed you will please find copies of these three letters of yours;
would you mind reading them over? And you will find also a packet of
letters which will enable you to understand why the ferns never
reached you and the whole entanglement of the case. And finally, you
will find enclosed a brief with which, were I to appear in Court
against you, as Mr. Sands's lawyer, I should hold you up to public
view as what you are.
I shall merely add that I have often met you in the courtroom as the
kind of criminal who believes without evidence and who distrusts
without reason; who is, therefore, ready to blast a character upon
suspicion. If he dislikes the person, in the absence of evidence
against him, he draws upon the dark traits of his own nature to
furnish the evidence.
I have written because I am a friend of Mr. Sands.
I am, as to you,
Merely,
BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.
EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE
_King Alfred's Wood,
Warwickshire, England,
June 21, 1912._
Benjamin Doolittle,
150 Wall Street,
New York City.
MY DEAR SIR:
You state in your letter, which I have just laid down, that you are a
stranger to me. There is no conceivable reason why I should wish to
offer you the slightest rudeness--even that of crossing your
word--yet may I say, that I know you perfectly? If you had
unfortunately read some of my very despicable novels, you might have
found, scattered here and there, everything that you have said in
your letter, and almost in your very words. That is, I have two or
three times drawn your portrait, or at least drawn at it; and thus
while you are indeed a stranger to me in name, I feel bound to say
that you are an old acquaintance in nature.
You cannot for a moment imagine--however, you despise imagination and
I withdraw the offensive word--you cannot for a moment suppose that I
can have any motive in being discourteous, and I shall, therefore, go
on to say, but only with your permission, that the first time I
attempted to sketch you, was in a very early piece of work; I was a
youthful novelist, at the outset of my career. I projected a story
entitled: "_The Married Cross-Purposes of Ned and Sal Blivvens._" I
feel bound to say that you in your letter pleasantly remind me of the
_Sal Blivvens_ of my story. In Sal's eyes poor Ned's failing was
this: as twenty-one human shillings he never made an exact human
guinea--his shillings ran a few pence over, or they fell a few pence
short. That is, Ned never did just enough of anything, or said just
enough, but either too much or too little to suit _Sal_. He never
had just one idea about any one thing, but two or three ideas; he
never felt in just one way about any one thing, but had mixed
feelings, a variety of feelings. He was not a yard measure or a pint
measure or a pound measure; he overflowed or he didn't fill, and any
one thing in him always ran into other things in him.
Being a young novelist I was not satisfied to offer _Sal_ to the
world on her own account, but I must try to make her more credible
and formidable by following her into the next generation, and giving
her a son who inherited her traits. Thus I had _Tommy Blivvens_.
When Tommy was old enough to receive his first allowance of Christmas
pudding, he proceeded to take the pudding to pieces. He picked out
all the raisins and made a little pile of them. And made a little
separate pile of the currants, and another pile of the almonds, and
another of the citron, or of whatever else there was to separate.
Then in profound satisfaction he ate them, pile by pile, as a
philosopher of the sure.
Thus--and I insist I mean no disrespect--your letter does revive for
me a little innocent laughter at my early literary vision of a human
baggage--friend of my youthful days and artistic enthusiasm--_Sal
Blivvens_. I arranged that when _Ned_ died, his neighbours all felt
sorry and wished him a green turf for his grave. _Sal_, I felt sure,
survived him as one who all her life walks past every human heart and
enters none--being always dead-sure, always dead-right; for the human
heart rejects perfection in any human being.
I recognise you as belonging to the large tough family of the human
cocksures. _Sal Blivvens_ belonged to it--dead-sure, dead-right,
every time. We have many of the cocksures in England, you must have
many of them in the United States. The cocksures are people who have
no dim borderland around their minds, no twilight between day and
darkness. They see everything as they see a highly coloured rug on a
well-lighted floor. There is either rug or no rug, either floor or
no floor. No part of the floor could possibly be rug and no part of
the rug could possibly be floor. A cocksure, as a lawyer, is the
natural prosecuting attorney of human nature's natural misgivings and
wiser doubts and nobler errors. How the American cocksures of their
day despised the man Washington, who often prayed for guidance; with
what contempt they blasted the character of your Abraham Lincoln,
whose patient soul inhabited the border of a divine disquietude and
whose public life was the patient study of hesitation.
I have taken notice of the peculiarly American character of your
cocksureness: it magnifies and qualifies a man to step by the mile,
to sit down by the acre, to utter things by the ton. Do you happen
to know Michael Angelo's _Moses_? I always think of an American
cocksure as looking like Michael Angelo's _Moses_--colossal
law-giver, a hyper-stupendous fellow. And I have often thought that
a regiment of American cocksures would be the most terrific spectacle
on a battlefield that the rest of the human race could ever face.
Just now it has occurred to me that it was your great Emerson who
spoke best on the weakness of the superlative--the cocksure is the
human superlative.
As to your letter: You declare you know nothing about novels, but
your arraignment of the novelist is exact. You are dead-sure that
you are perfectly right about me. Your arraignment of me is exact.
You are conscious of no more moral perturbation as to justice than
exists in a monkey wrench. But that is the nature of the
cocksure--his conclusions have to him the validity of a hardware
store.
This, however, is nothing. I clear it away in order to tell you that
I am filled with admiration of your loyalty to your friend, and of
the savage ferocity with which you attack me as his enemy. That
makes you a friend worth having, and I wish you were to be numbered
among mine; there are none too many such in this world. Next, I wish
to assure you that I have studied your brief against me and confess
that you have made out the case. I fell into a grave mistake, I
wronged your friend deeply, I hope not irreparably, and it was a
poor, sorry, shabby business. I am about to write to Mr. Sands. If
he is what you say he is, then in an instant he will forgive
me--though you never may. I shall ask him, as I could not have asked
him before, whether he will not come to visit me. My house, my
hospitality, all that I have and all that I am, shall be his. I
shall take every step possible to undo what I thoughtlessly,
impulsively did. I shall write to the President of his Club.
One exception is filed to a specification in your brief: no such
things took place in my garden upon the visit of the American
tourists, as you declare. I did not promulgate any mysterious
hostility to Mr. Sands. You tell me that among those tourists were
persons hostile to Mr. Sands. It was these hostile persons who
misinterpreted and exaggerated whatever took place. You knew these
persons to be enemies of Mr. Sands's and then you accepted their
testimony as true--being a cocksure.