I RECEIVE AN OVATION.
"And now," the teacher went on, glancing at the gallery where the doctor
and I had been sitting unseen, "I have a great surprise for you. Among
those who have listened to your recitation to-day, both in the forenoon
and afternoon, has been a certain personage whose identity you ought to
be able to infer when I say that, of all persons now on earth, he is
absolutely the one best able, and the only one fully able, to judge how
accurate your portrayal of nineteenth-century conditions has been. Lest
the knowledge should disturb your equanimity, I have refrained from
telling you, until the present moment, that we have present with us this
afternoon a no less distinguished visitor than Julian West, and that with
great kindness he has consented to permit me to present you to him."
I had assented, rather reluctantly, to the teacher's request, not being
desirous of exposing myself unnecessarily to curious staring. But I had
yet to make the acquaintance of twentieth-century boys and girls. When
they came around me it was easy to see in the wistful eyes of the girls
and the moved faces of the boys how deeply their imaginations were
stirred by the suggestions of my presence among them, and how far their
sentiment was from one of common or frivolous curiosity. The interest
they showed in me was so wholly and delicately sympathetic that it could
not have offended the most sensitive temperament.
This had indeed been the attitude of all the persons of mature years whom
I had met, but I had scarcely expected the same considerateness from
school children. I had not, it seemed, sufficiently allowed for the
influence upon manners of the atmosphere of refinement which surrounds
the child of to-day from the cradle. These young people had never seen
coarseness, rudeness, or brusqueness on the part of any one. Their
confidence had never been abused, their sympathy wounded, or their
suspicion excited. Having never imagined such a thing as a person
socially superior or inferior to themselves, they had never learned but
one sort of manners. Having never had any occasion to create a false or
deceitful impression or to accomplish anything by indirection, it was
natural that they should not know what affectation was.
Truly, it is these secondary consequences, these moral and social
reactions of economic equality to create a noble atmosphere of human
intercourse, that, after all, have been the greatest contribution which
the principle has made to human happiness.
At once I found myself talking and jesting with the young people as
easily as if I had always known them, and what with their interest in
what I told them of the old-time schools, and my delight in their naive
comments, an hour slipped away unnoticed. Youth is always inspiring, and
the atmosphere of these fresh, beautiful, ingenuous lives was like a wine
bath.
Florence! Esther! Helen! Marion! Margaret! George! Robert! Harold!
Paul!--Never shall I forget that group of star-eyed girls and splendid
lads, in whom I first made acquaintance with the boys and girls of the
twentieth century. Can it be that God sends sweeter souls to earth now
that the world is so much fitter for them?