THE MAN WITH THE WEED MAKES IT AN EVEN QUESTION WHETHER HE BE A GREAT
SAGE OR A GREAT SIMPLETON.
"Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that
is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is. Dear good man. Poor
beating heart!"
It was the man with the weed, not very long after quitting the merchant,
murmuring to himself with his hand to his side like one with the
heart-disease.
Meditation over kindness received seemed to have softened him something,
too, it may be, beyond what might, perhaps, have been looked for from
one whose unwonted self-respect in the hour of need, and in the act of
being aided, might have appeared to some not wholly unlike pride out of
place; and pride, in any place, is seldom very feeling. But the truth,
perhaps, is, that those who are least touched with that vice, besides
being not unsusceptible to goodness, are sometimes the ones whom a
ruling sense of propriety makes appear cold, if not thankless, under a
favor. For, at such a time, to be full of warm, earnest words, and
heart-felt protestations, is to create a scene; and well-bred people
dislike few things more than that; which would seem to look as if the
world did not relish earnestness; but, not so; because the world, being
earnest itself, likes an earnest scene, and an earnest man, very well,
but only in their place--the stage. See what sad work they make of it,
who, ignorant of this, flame out in Irish enthusiasm and with Irish
sincerity, to a benefactor, who, if a man of sense and respectability,
as well as kindliness, can but be more or less annoyed by it; and, if of
a nervously fastidious nature, as some are, may be led to think almost
as much less favorably of the beneficiary paining him by his gratitude,
as if he had been guilty of its contrary, instead only of an
indiscretion. But, beneficiaries who know better, though they may feel
as much, if not more, neither inflict such pain, nor are inclined to run
any risk of so doing. And these, being wise, are the majority. By which
one sees how inconsiderate those persons are, who, from the absence of
its officious manifestations in the world, complain that there is not
much gratitude extant; when the truth is, that there is as much of it as
there is of modesty; but, both being for the most part votarists of the
shade, for the most part keep out of sight.
What started this was, to account, if necessary, for the changed air of
the man with the weed, who, throwing off in private the cold garb of
decorum, and so giving warmly loose to his genuine heart, seemed almost
transformed into another being. This subdued air of softness, too, was
toned with melancholy, melancholy unreserved; a thing which, however at
variance with propriety, still the more attested his earnestness; for
one knows not how it is, but it sometimes happens that, where
earnestness is, there, also, is melancholy.
At the time, he was leaning over the rail at the boat's side, in his
pensiveness, unmindful of another pensive figure near--a young gentleman
with a swan-neck, wearing a lady-like open shirt collar, thrown back,
and tied with a black ribbon. From a square, tableted-broach, curiously
engraved with Greek characters, he seemed a collegian--not improbably, a
sophomore--on his travels; possibly, his first. A small book bound in
Roman vellum was in his hand.
Overhearing his murmuring neighbor, the youth regarded him with some
surprise, not to say interest. But, singularly for a collegian, being
apparently of a retiring nature, he did not speak; when the other still
more increased his diffidence by changing from soliloquy to colloquy, in
a manner strangely mixed of familiarity and pathos.
"Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young friend, did you? Why,
you, too, look sad. My melancholy is not catching!"
"Sir, sir," stammered the other.
"Pray, now," with a sort of sociable sorrowfulness, slowly sliding along
the rail, "Pray, now, my young friend, what volume have you there? Give
me leave," gently drawing it from him. "Tacitus!" Then opening it at
random, read: "In general a black and shameful period lies before me."
"Dear young sir," touching his arm alarmedly, "don't read this book. It
is poison, moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus, such truth
would have the operation of falsity, and so still be poison, moral
poison. Too well I know this Tacitus. In my college-days he came near
souring me into cynicism. Yes, I began to turn down my collar, and go
about with a disdainfully joyless expression."
"Sir, sir, I--I--"
"Trust me. Now, young friend, perhaps you think that Tacitus, like me,
is only melancholy; but he's more--he's ugly. A vast difference, young
sir, between the melancholy view and the ugly. The one may show the
world still beautiful, not so the other. The one may be compatible with
benevolence, the other not. The one may deepen insight, the other
shallows it. Drop Tacitus. Phrenologically, my young friend, you would
seem to have a well-developed head, and large; but cribbed within the
ugly view, the Tacitus view, your large brain, like your large ox in the
contracted field, will but starve the more. And don't dream, as some of
you students may, that, by taking this same ugly view, the deeper
meanings of the deeper books will so alone become revealed to you. Drop
Tacitus. His subtlety is falsity, To him, in his double-refined anatomy
of human nature, is well applied the Scripture saying--'There is a
subtle man, and the same is deceived.' Drop Tacitus. Come, now, let me
throw the book overboard."
"Sir, I--I--"
"Not a word; I know just what is in your mind, and that is just what I
am speaking to. Yes, learn from me that, though the sorrows of the world
are great, its wickedness--that is, its ugliness--is small. Much cause
to pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known adversity, and
know it still. But for that, do I turn cynic? No, no: it is small beer
that sours. To my fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever I
may have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in my kind. Now, then"
(winningly), "this book--will you let me drown it for you?"
"Really, sir--I--"
"I see, I see. But of course you read Tacitus in order to aid you in
understanding human nature--as if truth was ever got at by libel. My
young friend, if to know human nature is your object, drop Tacitus and
go north to the cemeteries of Auburn and Greenwood."
"Upon my word, I--I--"
"Nay, I foresee all that. But you carry Tacitus, that shallow Tacitus.
What do _I_ carry? See"--producing a pocket-volume--"Akenside--his
'Pleasures of Imagination.' One of these days you will know it. Whatever
our lot, we should read serene and cheery books, fitted to inspire love
and trust. But Tacitus! I have long been of opinion that these classics
are the bane of colleges; for--not to hint of the immorality of Ovid,
Horace, Anacreon, and the rest, and the dangerous theology of Eschylus
and others--where will one find views so injurious to human nature as in
Thucydides, Juvenal, Lucian, but more particularly Tacitus? When I
consider that, ever since the revival of learning, these classics have
been the favorites of successive generations of students and studious
men, I tremble to think of that mass of unsuspected heresy on every
vital topic which for centuries must have simmered unsurmised in the
heart of Christendom. But Tacitus--he is the most extraordinary example
of a heretic; not one iota of confidence in his kind. What a mockery
that such an one should be reputed wise, and Thucydides be esteemed the
statesman's manual! But Tacitus--I hate Tacitus; not, though, I trust,
with the hate that sins, but a righteous hate. Without confidence
himself, Tacitus destroys it in all his readers. Destroys confidence,
paternal confidence, of which God knows that there is in this world none
to spare. For, comparatively inexperienced as you are, my dear young
friend, did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, there
is? I mean between man and man--more particularly between stranger and
stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence! I have
sometimes almost thought that confidence is fled; that confidence is the
New Astrea--emigrated--vanished--gone." Then softly sliding nearer, with
the softest air, quivering down and looking up, "could you now, my dear
young sir, under such circumstances, by way of experiment, simply have
confidence in _me_?"
From the outset, the sophomore, as has been seen, had struggled with an
ever-increasing embarrassment, arising, perhaps, from such strange
remarks coming from a stranger--such persistent and prolonged remarks,
too. In vain had he more than once sought to break the spell by
venturing a deprecatory or leave-taking word. In vain. Somehow, the
stranger fascinated him. Little wonder, then, that, when the appeal
came, he could hardly speak, but, as before intimated, being apparently
of a retiring nature, abruptly retired from the spot, leaving the
chagrined stranger to wander away in the opposite direction.