"No," laughed Zoile, "Ned isn't sorry,--be sure of that; for he wants his
dear 'Whitewash' restored again to the bosom of society, lest the walls of
his reputation should by chance suffer from fly-speck."
These words created a laugh at my expense; for Clarian had shown himself,
in his warm, generous way, such a zealous advocate of my immaculate
perfection, that he was quite generally known by the _sobriquet_ of "Ned
Blount's Whitewash."
Just then Mac came along, on his way to the post-office, and I joined him,
showing him Ciarian's note.
"Hum," growled my good old chum, as he read it, "don't want to be disturbed
to-day; sick, is he? I'd like to know who's to blame, if he isn't. Wishes
me to bring my Shakspeare along;--it's a wonder he had not said Plotinus,
or Jacob Böhme's 'Aurora'; they're more in his style. The deuse take that
boy and his picture, Ned! What if we two fools have been playing too
roughly with such plastic clay? I wish to-night were come and gone
safely. I'll go see Dr. Thorne, and ask him to accompany us to-night. He
claims to be something of a connoisseur, and the picture is really worth
seeing, if the lad has not spoiled it with his 'final touches'. And anyhow,
the boy will be a study for a psychological monomaniac like Thorne."
"You apprehend, then...."
"_Sapperment_, you owl-face! I apprehend nothing; only it will be as well
to have Thorne present, for the boy is out of sorts, and his nerves were
never very strong. Now look here, Ned Blount! don't put on that lugubrious
phiz, I pray you;--and, moreover, don't you ever dare introduce any more of
your Freshmen _protégé's_ to me; for, I warn you, I'll insult them, and
you, too,--I will, by Jove!"
I was not less impatient than Mac for the night to come, for I was very
anxious about Clarian, dreading lest some catastrophe was about to overtake
him,--and the thought was by no means pleasant. For, as Mac had said, the
lad was a _protégé_ of mine; he had been given into my charge by his sweet
lady-mother; he had looked up to me as his senior and his friend; and I
could not help feeling, that, if anything untoward should happen to him, it
would be partly my fault.
From the very first I had been strongly attracted towards Clarian. Indeed,
the lad was remarkable for a peculiar spiritual beauty of person and
sweetness of manner that made almost every one love him. He was, in fact,
_lovely_, in the etymological sense of that misused word, and people
softened towards him as to a young, guileless child. I have known men cease
swearing when he drew near, drop ribaldry, and take up some more innocent
topic, simply through an unconscious impulse of fitness,--feeling that such
things had no business to be repeated in his presence. And they were right;
for a purer spirit than Clarian's I have never encountered in man or woman.
His face most reminded one of the portraits of Raphael at twenty. He had
the same broad, smooth forehead,--the same soft skin, delicate, yet rich as
the inner leaves of a pale rose,--the same finely shaped nose, and ripe,
womanly mouth, which a Persian, in default of a more tangible analogy,
would have likened to the seal of Solomon. But his lower face was somewhat
less full than Raphael's, the chin being shorter and sharper, and the jaw
curving less sensuously. His hair was of the purest chestnut hue, rich and
silken, showing here and there a thread of gold; he wore it long, and
flowing in half-ringlets upon his neck and shoulders. Clarian's eye was
large and dark, tender, rather sad, with now and then a speculative depth,
now and then a hint of the Romeo fore-doom, now and then a warm eloquence,
when meeting yours, that reminded strangely of a woman loving and in
love. Other womanly traits he had, such as the ingenuous blush with which
he asked or did a favor, and a certain not very boyish fondness for
softness and elegance of dress. Not that Clarian was effeminate, or in any
material respect deficient in manly character; but his mother was a widow,
and he her only son, and consequently he had been brought up like a girl,
at home, without any slightest opportunity to acquire those
rough-and-tumble experiences of ordinary boyhood which are so necessary to
fit us for battling in the world; for the world, though not unfeeling at
core, wears yet a sufficiently rough rind, and pretends but little sympathy
with persons of Clarian's stamp.
Hence, when Clarian came to college, he knew very little of life
indeed,--and, moreover, he cherished not a few ascetic notions, deeming
this world "all a fleeting show," from whose vain illusions it was one's
chief duty to shield one's self. He had never read a novel, save "some of
Scott's,"--nor ever seen or read a play, not even of Shakspeare's. How I
envied him this new world, in whose usages I had been _blasé_ long before I
was of an age to appreciate its beauties,--this bright, fancy-fostering
world, to which he was to go all fresh and unsophisticated, like a bride to
the nuptial sheets! In literature of a more solid kind his practice was
quite considerable: he had surveyed many fields of Art, History, and
Theology, all of which, however, had first been submitted to the test of
that anxious maternal _Index Expurgatorius_, lest some drop of infidelity
or impurity should trickle in unawares, to darken or embitter the pure
crystal waters of his soul. Ah, thou poor fond mother, so unreasoningly
ignoring the fact that each of us must somehow eat his "peck of dirt"!
Thus intrusted to my charge, and having such attractive elements in his
character, I naturally took great interest in Clarian, and particularly
spared no effort to give him use in college ways. I saw that the lad was
not one to bear being laughed at, and so did all I could to screen him from
the embarrassments of ignorance,--taught him our customs, our fashions, and
gave him lessons upon that immemorial dialect in which college sublegists
delight. I chicaned to secure him a fine room, which his lady-mother
furnished "like a bridal chamher", if our Nassau cynics were to be
credited,--introduced him where it was necessary, and exercised generally
towards him that distinguished patronage which one who "knows the ropes" is
able to bestow upon a very Freshman.
A fine generous fellow was Clarian, for all his apron-string
antecedents,--bold as a lion, and as trustworthy as he was enthusiastic.
He was of rather too nervous a temperament to be precisely healthy in all
mental respects, but nevertheless had a fine comprehensive mind, very
capable of sustained and concentrated effort. He had been well taught, and,
unfortunately, was so far advanced beyond the studies of his class as to
have a great deal of leisure. In consequence he turned to reading, and
here, again unfortunately, he put himself under my guidance, and suffered
me to govern him in his choice of books: unfortunately, I say, for I was
then a worshipper of that clay-footed Nebuchadnezzar-image, Metaphysics,
which I fondly deemed all of gold, and the most genuine of things. So, when
Clarian came to me, I was eager enough to put to his lips the wine of which
I was drunken. The boy took his first sip from Coleridge's "Biographia
Literaria",--that cracked Bohemian glass, which, handed in a golden salver
that might have come from the cunning graver of Cellini, yet forces one to
taste, over a flawed and broken edge, the sourest drop of ill-made _vin du
pays_, heavily drugged and made bitter with Paracelsian laudanum. Under
that strange patchwork quilt so imaginative a soul as Clarian could not
fail to dream. It was a great pity I had not been more circumspect, for the
boy was already too deeply steeped in those Acherontic waters. His mother,
like many other women, had loved to wander along the dreamy paths of
sentimental theology, clothing from her own beautiful mind the dim,
unsubstantial spectres that beckoned her, and accepting all their mystic
utterances, in blind faith, for genuine oracles of God. Into these by-ways
he had followed her, and his clearer vision had just sufficed to reveal to
him the ghosts, without teaching him how to master or dispel them. Thus,
Cowper's sweetness, which charmed her, became to him Cowper's dejection and
despairing sadness, perplexing enough to his young brain. Where she took up
and fed her soul upon John Wesley's conclusions, the boy found himself
involved in John Wesley's perplexities, and struggling in desperate wrestle
with the haunting shapes to which John Wesley had given successful
battle. Thus prepared, no wonder my eager little friend plunged headlong
into the sea of doubts, impatient to cry, "Eureka!" and plant his foot upon
the Islands of the Blessed. The new excitement completely swept his feet
from under him. 'Twas but a step from Coleridge and _Esemplastic_ matters
to Plotinus, and in a month he had taken that step,--the more readily, that
he was a right good Grecian, and found no unpleasant philological
difficulties in the "Enneades". Thence he went on in feverish unrest,
wildly running up and down all _Niffelheim_ in quest of some centre-point
upon which he could stand firm and look around him. He had an excellent
mind, and, unexcited, could take sufficiently common-sense views of most
matters; but this was too much for him. He made substance of shadows, and
then exhausted himself in giving them battle. He became anxious, uneasy,
nervous,--showing very plainly, that, in his search after the Alkahest, he
had injured his powers by making trial of too many drugs.
Mac, with his sturdy good sense, and unerring mace-like judgment, speedily
became aware of this waste of function to which Clarian was subjecting
himself, and warned me accordingly.
"Why do you let that boy bother his brains about your stupid _Ego_ and
_Non-Ego_?" said he. "Don't you see he is injuring himself, beginning to
sink under a sort of mental _albumenurea_,--at the very time, too, when he
has most need of stamina? He does nothing but read, read, read,--and what,
forsooth? Not anything that will teach him the genuineness of life and
manhood, but those damnable spirit-exalting, body-despising emasculates of
Alexandria,--Madame Guyon's meditations, too, and Isaac Taylor's giddy
see-sawings,--all heresies, and bosh,--'Dead-Sea fruits that turn to
ashes', and not only disgust you, but blister tongue and lips most
vilely. You'll have him next trying to treat with the gods, to attain
Brahm's purification, Boodh's annihilation, to jump over the moon, or doing
something that will make him candidate for the shaved-head-and-blister
treatment. Remember, Ned, his brain is made of finer stuff than that stolid
sponge inside your _pia mater_, that can take in _quantum sufficit_ of
beer, fog, and tobacco-smoke, unharmed. He can't stand it, and he's too
rare and delicate a machine to go cranky thus soon. You've got the child
under your thumb,--bring him out o' that. Make him take a dose of Verulam,
get him back into the world again, and order him four hours _per diem_ at
the dumb-bells."
And so, the next time Clarian came to our rooms, and was eagerly soliciting
my opinion of a little essay he had written, to establish the identity of
the Logos with the Demiurgic Mind, ("Plato's World-Soul, called in 'Timæus'
the best of Eternal Intelligences, the Noetic Partaker and Digester of
Reason", said Clarian in his tract,) with some corollaries for the purpose
of reconciling _Geist_ and _Freiheit_, all sauced down, _à l'Allemagne_,
with numerous capitals and a proper degree of incomprehensibility,--Mac
bluffly interrupted the colloquy, and accosted Clarian,--
"Younker! do you know you're a fool?"