OPENING WITH A POETICAL EULOGY OF THE PRESS AND CONTINUING WITH TALK
INSPIRED BY THE SAME.
"'Praise be unto the press, not Faust's, but Noah's; let us extol and
magnify the press, the true press of Noah, from which breaketh the true
morning. Praise be unto the press, not the black press but the red; let
us extol and magnify the press, the red press of Noah, from which cometh
inspiration. Ye pressmen of the Rhineland and the Rhine, join in with
all ye who tread out the glad tidings on isle Madeira or Mitylene.--Who
giveth redness of eyes by making men long to tarry at the fine
print?--Praise be unto the press, the rosy press of Noah, which giveth
rosiness of hearts, by making men long to tarry at the rosy wine.--Who
hath babblings and contentions? Who, without cause, inflicteth wounds?
Praise be unto the press, the kindly press of Noah, which knitteth
friends, which fuseth foes.--Who may be bribed?--Who may be
bound?--Praise be unto the press, the free press of Noah, which will not
lie for tyrants, but make tyrants speak the truth.--Then praise be unto
the press, the frank old press of Noah; then let us extol and magnify
the press, the brave old press of Noah; then let us with roses garland
and enwreath the press, the grand old press of Noah, from which flow
streams of knowledge which give man a bliss no more unreal than his
pain.'"
"You deceived me," smiled the cosmopolitan, as both now resumed their
seats; "you roguishly took advantage of my simplicity; you archly played
upon my enthusiasm. But never mind; the offense, if any, was so
charming, I almost wish you would offend again. As for certain poetic
left-handers in your panegyric, those I cheerfully concede to the
indefinite privileges of the poet. Upon the whole, it was quite in the
lyric style--a style I always admire on account of that spirit of
Sibyllic confidence and assurance which is, perhaps, its prime
ingredient. But come," glancing at his companion's glass, "for a lyrist,
you let the bottle stay with you too long."
"The lyre and the vine forever!" cried the other in his rapture, or what
seemed such, heedless of the hint, "the vine, the vine! is it not the
most graceful and bounteous of all growths? And, by its being such, is
not something meant--divinely meant? As I live, a vine, a Catawba vine,
shall be planted on my grave!"
"A genial thought; but your glass there."
"Oh, oh," taking a moderate sip, "but you, why don't you drink?"
"You have forgotten, my dear Charlie, what I told you of my previous
convivialities to-day."
"Oh," cried the other, now in manner quite abandoned to the lyric mood,
not without contrast to the easy sociability of his companion. "Oh, one
can't drink too much of good old wine--the genuine, mellow old port.
Pooh, pooh! drink away."
"Then keep me company."
"Of course," with a flourish, taking another sip--"suppose we have
cigars. Never mind your pipe there; a pipe is best when alone. I say,
waiter, bring some cigars--your best."
They were brought in a pretty little bit of western pottery,
representing some kind of Indian utensil, mummy-colored, set down in a
mass of tobacco leaves, whose long, green fans, fancifully grouped,
formed with peeps of red the sides of the receptacle.
Accompanying it were two accessories, also bits of pottery, but smaller,
both globes; one in guise of an apple flushed with red and gold to the
life, and, through a cleft at top, you saw it was hollow. This was for
the ashes. The other, gray, with wrinkled surface, in the likeness of a
wasp's nest, was the match-box. "There," said the stranger, pushing over
the cigar-stand, "help yourself, and I will touch you off," taking a
match. "Nothing like tobacco," he added, when the fumes of the cigar
began to wreathe, glancing from the smoker to the pottery, "I will have
a Virginia tobacco-plant set over my grave beside the Catawba vine."
"Improvement upon your first idea, which by itself was good--but you
don't smoke."
"Presently, presently--let me fill your glass again. You don't drink."
"Thank you; but no more just now. Fill _your_ glass."
"Presently, presently; do you drink on. Never mind me. Now that it
strikes me, let me say, that he who, out of superfine gentility or
fanatic morality, denies himself tobacco, suffers a more serious
abatement in the cheap pleasures of life than the dandy in his iron
boot, or the celibate on his iron cot. While for him who would fain
revel in tobacco, but cannot, it is a thing at which philanthropists
must weep, to see such an one, again and again, madly returning to the
cigar, which, for his incompetent stomach, he cannot enjoy, while still,
after each shameful repulse, the sweet dream of the impossible good
goads him on to his fierce misery once more--poor eunuch!"
"I agree with you," said the cosmopolitan, still gravely social, "but
you don't smoke."
"Presently, presently, do you smoke on. As I was saying about----"
"But _why_ don't you smoke--come. You don't think that tobacco, when in
league with wine, too much enhances the latter's vinous quality--in
short, with certain constitutions tends to impair self-possession, do
you?"
"To think that, were treason to good fellowship," was the warm
disclaimer. "No, no. But the fact is, there is an unpropitious flavor in
my mouth just now. Ate of a diabolical ragout at dinner, so I shan't
smoke till I have washed away the lingering memento of it with wine. But
smoke away, you, and pray, don't forget to drink. By-the-way, while we
sit here so companionably, giving loose to any companionable nothing,
your uncompanionable friend, Coonskins, is, by pure contrast, brought
to recollection. If he were but here now, he would see how much of real
heart-joy he denies himself by not hob-a-nobbing with his kind."
"Why," with loitering emphasis, slowly withdrawing his cigar, "I thought
I had undeceived you there. I thought you had come to a better
understanding of my eccentric friend."
"Well, I thought so, too; but first impressions will return, you know.
In truth, now that I think of it, I am led to conjecture from chance
things which dropped from Coonskins, during the little interview I had
with him, that he is not a Missourian by birth, but years ago came West
here, a young misanthrope from the other side of the Alleghanies, less
to make his fortune, than to flee man. Now, since they say trifles
sometimes effect great results, I shouldn't wonder, if his history were
probed, it would be found that what first indirectly gave his sad bias
to Coonskins was his disgust at reading in boyhood the advice of
Polonius to Laertes--advice which, in the selfishness it inculcates, is
almost on a par with a sort of ballad upon the economies of
money-making, to be occasionally seen pasted against the desk of small
retail traders in New England."
"I do hope now, my dear fellow," said the cosmopolitan with an air of
bland protest, "that, in my presence at least, you will throw out
nothing to the prejudice of the sons of the Puritans."
"Hey-day and high times indeed," exclaimed the other, nettled, "sons of
the Puritans forsooth! And who be Puritans, that I, an Alabamaian, must
do them reverence? A set of sourly conceited old Malvolios, whom
Shakespeare laughs his fill at in his comedies."
"Pray, what were you about to suggest with regard to Polonius," observed
the cosmopolitan with quiet forbearance, expressive of the patience of a
superior mind at the petulance of an inferior one; "how do you
characterize his advice to Laertes?"
"As false, fatal, and calumnious," exclaimed the other, with a degree of
ardor befitting one resenting a stigma upon the family escutcheon, "and
for a father to give his son--monstrous. The case you see is this: The
son is going abroad, and for the first. What does the father? Invoke
God's blessing upon him? Put the blessed Bible in his trunk? No. Crams
him with maxims smacking of my Lord Chesterfield, with maxims of France,
with maxims of Italy."
"No, no, be charitable, not that. Why, does he not among other things
say:--
'The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel'?
Is that compatible with maxims of Italy?"
"Yes it is, Frank. Don't you see? Laertes is to take the best of care of
his friends--his proved friends, on the same principle that a
wine-corker takes the best of care of his proved bottles. When a bottle
gets a sharp knock and don't break, he says, 'Ah, I'll keep that
bottle.' Why? Because he loves it? No, he has particular use for it."
"Dear, dear!" appealingly turning in distress, "that--that kind of
criticism is--is--in fact--it won't do."
"Won't truth do, Frank? You are so charitable with everybody, do but
consider the tone of the speech. Now I put it to you, Frank; is there
anything in it hortatory to high, heroic, disinterested effort? Anything
like 'sell all thou hast and give to the poor?' And, in other points,
what desire seems most in the father's mind, that his son should cherish
nobleness for himself, or be on his guard against the contrary thing in
others? An irreligious warner, Frank--no devout counselor, is Polonius.
I hate him. Nor can I bear to hear your veterans of the world affirm,
that he who steers through life by the advice of old Polonius will not
steer among the breakers."
"No, no--I hope nobody affirms that," rejoined the cosmopolitan, with
tranquil abandonment; sideways reposing his arm at full length upon the
table. "I hope nobody affirms that; because, if Polonius' advice be
taken in your sense, then the recommendation of it by men of experience
would appear to involve more or less of an unhandsome sort of reflection
upon human nature. And yet," with a perplexed air, "your suggestions
have put things in such a strange light to me as in fact a little to
disturb my previous notions of Polonius and what he says. To be frank,
by your ingenuity you have unsettled me there, to that degree that were
it not for our coincidence of opinion in general, I should almost think
I was now at length beginning to feel the ill effect of an immature
mind, too much consorting with a mature one, except on the ground of
first principles in common."
"Really and truly," cried the other with a kind of tickled modesty and
pleased concern, "mine is an understanding too weak to throw out
grapnels and hug another to it. I have indeed heard of some great
scholars in these days, whose boast is less that they have made
disciples than victims. But for me, had I the power to do such things, I
have not the heart to desire."
"I believe you, my dear Charlie. And yet, I repeat, by your commentaries
on Polonius you have, I know not how, unsettled me; so that now I don't
exactly see how Shakespeare meant the words he puts in Polonius' mouth."
"Some say that he meant them to open people's eyes; but I don't think
so."
"Open their eyes?" echoed the cosmopolitan, slowly expanding his; "what
is there in this world for one to open his eyes to? I mean in the sort
of invidious sense you cite?"
"Well, others say he meant to corrupt people's morals; and still others,
that he had no express intention at all, but in effect opens their eyes
and corrupts their morals in one operation. All of which I reject."
"Of course you reject so crude an hypothesis; and yet, to confess, in
reading Shakespeare in my closet, struck by some passage, I have laid
down the volume, and said: 'This Shakespeare is a queer man.' At times
seeming irresponsible, he does not always seem reliable. There appears
to be a certain--what shall I call it?--hidden sun, say, about him, at
once enlightening and mystifying. Now, I should be afraid to say what I
have sometimes thought that hidden sun might be."
"Do you think it was the true light?" with clandestine geniality again
filling the other's glass.
"I would prefer to decline answering a categorical question there.
Shakespeare has got to be a kind of deity. Prudent minds, having certain
latent thoughts concerning him, will reserve them in a condition of
lasting probation. Still, as touching avowable speculations, we are
permitted a tether. Shakespeare himself is to be adored, not arraigned;
but, so we do it with humility, we may a little canvass his characters.
There's his Autolycus now, a fellow that always puzzled me. How is one
to take Autolycus? A rogue so happy, so lucky, so triumphant, of so
almost captivatingly vicious a career that a virtuous man reduced to the
poor-house (were such a contingency conceivable), might almost long to
change sides with him. And yet, see the words put into his mouth: 'Oh,'
cries Autolycus, as he comes galloping, gay as a buck, upon the stage,
'oh,' he laughs, 'oh what a fool is Honesty, and Trust, his sworn
brother, a very simple gentleman.' Think of that. Trust, that is,
confidence--that is, the thing in this universe the sacredest--is
rattlingly pronounced just the simplest. And the scenes in which the
rogue figures seem purposely devised for verification of his principles.
Mind, Charlie, I do not say it _is_ so, far from it; but I _do_ say it
seems so. Yes, Autolycus would seem a needy varlet acting upon the
persuasion that less is to be got by invoking pockets than picking
them, more to be made by an expert knave than a bungling beggar; and for
this reason, as he thinks, that the soft heads outnumber the soft
hearts. The devil's drilled recruit, Autolycus is joyous as if he wore
the livery of heaven. When disturbed by the character and career of one
thus wicked and thus happy, my sole consolation is in the fact that no
such creature ever existed, except in the powerful imagination which
evoked him. And yet, a creature, a living creature, he is, though only a
poet was his maker. It may be, that in that paper-and-ink investiture of
his, Autolycus acts more effectively upon mankind than he would in a
flesh-and-blood one. Can his influence be salutary? True, in Autolycus
there is humor; but though, according to my principle, humor is in
general to be held a saving quality, yet the case of Autolycus is an
exception; because it is his humor which, so to speak, oils his
mischievousness. The bravadoing mischievousness of Autolycus is slid
into the world on humor, as a pirate schooner, with colors flying, is
launched into the sea on greased ways."
"I approve of Autolycus as little as you," said the stranger, who,
during his companion's commonplaces, had seemed less attentive to them
than to maturing with in his own mind the original conceptions destined
to eclipse them. "But I cannot believe that Autolycus, mischievous as he
must prove upon the stage, can be near so much so as such a character as
Polonius."
"I don't know about that," bluntly, and yet not impolitely, returned the
cosmopolitan; "to be sure, accepting your view of the old courtier,
then if between him and Autolycus you raise the question of
unprepossessingness, I grant you the latter comes off best. For a moist
rogue may tickle the midriff, while a dry worldling may but wrinkle the
spleen."
"But Polonius is not dry," said the other excitedly; "he drules. One
sees the fly-blown old fop drule and look wise. His vile wisdom is made
the viler by his vile rheuminess. The bowing and cringing, time-serving
old sinner--is such an one to give manly precepts to youth? The
discreet, decorous, old dotard-of-state; senile prudence; fatuous
soullessness! The ribanded old dog is paralytic all down one side, and
that the side of nobleness. His soul is gone out. Only nature's
automatonism keeps him on his legs. As with some old trees, the bark
survives the pith, and will still stand stiffly up, though but to rim
round punk, so the body of old Polonius has outlived his soul."
"Come, come," said the cosmopolitan with serious air, almost displeased;
"though I yield to none in admiration of earnestness, yet, I think, even
earnestness may have limits. To human minds, strong language is always
more or less distressing. Besides, Polonius is an old man--as I remember
him upon the stage--with snowy locks. Now charity requires that such a
figure--think of it how you will--should at least be treated with
civility. Moreover, old age is ripeness, and I once heard say, 'Better
ripe than raw.'"
"But not better rotten than raw!" bringing down his hand with energy on
the table.
"Why, bless me," in mild surprise contemplating his heated comrade, "how
you fly out against this unfortunate Polonius--a being that never was,
nor will be. And yet, viewed in a Christian light," he added pensively,
"I don't know that anger against this man of straw is a whit less wise
than anger against a man of flesh, Madness, to be mad with anything."
"That may be, or may not be," returned the other, a little testily,
perhaps; "but I stick to what I said, that it is better to be raw than
rotten. And what is to be feared on that head, may be known from this:
that it is with the best of hearts as with the best of pears--a
dangerous experiment to linger too long upon the scene. This did
Polonius. Thank fortune, Frank, I am young, every tooth sound in my
head, and if good wine can keep me where I am, long shall I remain so."
"True," with a smile. "But wine, to do good, must be drunk. You have
talked much and well, Charlie; but drunk little and indifferently--fill
up."
"Presently, presently," with a hasty and preoccupied air. "If I remember
right, Polonius hints as much as that one should, under no
circumstances, commit the indiscretion of aiding in a pecuniary way an
unfortunate friend. He drules out some stale stuff about 'loan losing
both itself and friend,' don't he? But our bottle; is it glued fast?
Keep it moving, my dear Frank. Good wine, and upon my soul I begin to
feel it, and through me old Polonius--yes, this wine, I fear, is what
excites me so against that detestable old dog without a tooth."
Upon this, the cosmopolitan, cigar in mouth, slowly raised the bottle,
and brought it slowly to the light, looking at it steadfastly, as one
might at a thermometer in August, to see not how low it was, but how
high. Then whiffing out a puff, set it down, and said: "Well, Charlie,
if what wine you have drunk came out of this bottle, in that case I
should say that if--supposing a case--that if one fellow had an object
in getting another fellow fuddled, and this fellow to be fuddled was of
your capacity, the operation would be comparatively inexpensive. What do
you think, Charlie?"
"Why, I think I don't much admire the supposition," said Charlie, with a
look of resentment; "it ain't safe, depend upon it, Frank, to venture
upon too jocose suppositions with one's friends."
"Why, bless you, Frank, my supposition wasn't personal, but general. You
mustn't be so touchy."
"If I am touchy it is the wine. Sometimes, when I freely drink, it has a
touchy effect on me, I have observed."
"Freely drink? you haven't drunk the perfect measure of one glass, yet.
While for me, this must be my fourth or fifth, thanks to your
importunity; not to speak of all I drank this morning, for old
acquaintance' sake. Drink, drink; you must drink."
"Oh, I drink while you are talking," laughed the other; "you have not
noticed it, but I have drunk my share. Have a queer way I learned from a
sedate old uncle, who used to tip off his glass-unperceived. Do you fill
up, and my glass, too. There! Now away with that stump, and have a new
cigar. Good fellowship forever!" again in the lyric mood, "Say, Frank,
are we not men? I say are we not human? Tell me, were they not human who
engendered us, as before heaven I believe they shall be whom we shall
engender? Fill up, up, up, my friend. Let the ruby tide aspire, and all
ruby aspirations with it! Up, fill up! Be we convivial. And
conviviality, what is it? The word, I mean; what expresses it? A living
together. But bats live together, and did you ever hear of convivial
bats?"
"If I ever did," observed the cosmopolitan, "it has quite slipped my
recollection."
"But _why_ did you never hear of convivial bats, nor anybody else?
Because bats, though they live together, live not together genially.
Bats are not genial souls. But men are; and how delightful to think that
the word which among men signifies the highest pitch of geniality,
implies, as indispensable auxiliary, the cheery benediction of the
bottle. Yes, Frank, to live together in the finest sense, we must drink
together. And so, what wonder that he who loves not wine, that sober
wretch has a lean heart--a heart like a wrung-out old bluing-bag, and
loves not his kind? Out upon him, to the rag-house with him, hang
him--the ungenial soul!"
"Oh, now, now, can't you be convivial without being censorious? I like
easy, unexcited conviviality. For the sober man, really, though for my
part I naturally love a cheerful glass, I will not prescribe my nature
as the law to other natures. So don't abuse the sober man. Conviviality
is one good thing, and sobriety is another good thing. So don't be
one-sided."
"Well, if I am one-sided, it is the wine. Indeed, indeed, I have
indulged too genially. My excitement upon slight provocation shows it.
But yours is a stronger head; drink you. By the way, talking of
geniality, it is much on the increase in these days, ain't it?"
"It is, and I hail the fact. Nothing better attests the advance of the
humanitarian spirit. In former and less humanitarian ages--the ages of
amphitheatres and gladiators--geniality was mostly confined to the
fireside and table. But in our age--the age of joint-stock companies and
free-and-easies--it is with this precious quality as with precious gold
in old Peru, which Pizarro found making up the scullion's sauce-pot as
the Inca's crown. Yes, we golden boys, the moderns, have geniality
everywhere--a bounty broadcast like noonlight."
"True, true; my sentiments again. Geniality has invaded each department
and profession. We have genial senators, genial authors, genial
lecturers, genial doctors, genial clergymen, genial surgeons, and the
next thing we shall have genial hangmen."
"As to the last-named sort of person," said the cosmopolitan, "I trust
that the advancing spirit of geniality will at last enable us to
dispense with him. No murderers--no hangmen. And surely, when the whole
world shall have been genialized, it will be as out of place to talk of
murderers, as in a Christianized world to talk of sinners."
"To pursue the thought," said the other, "every blessing is attended
with some evil, and----"
"Stay," said the cosmopolitan, "that may be better let pass for a loose
saying, than for hopeful doctrine."
"Well, assuming the saying's truth, it would apply to the future
supremacy of the genial spirit, since then it will fare with the hangman
as it did with the weaver when the spinning-jenny whizzed into the
ascendant. Thrown out of employment, what could Jack Ketch turn his hand
to? Butchering?"
"That he could turn his hand to it seems probable; but that, under the
circumstances, it would be appropriate, might in some minds admit of a
question. For one, I am inclined to think--and I trust it will not be
held fastidiousness--that it would hardly be suitable to the dignity of
our nature, that an individual, once employed in attending the last
hours of human unfortunates, should, that office being extinct, transfer
himself to the business of attending the last hours of unfortunate
cattle. I would suggest that the individual turn valet--a vocation to
which he would, perhaps, appear not wholly inadapted by his familiar
dexterity about the person. In particular, for giving a finishing tie to
a gentleman's cravat, I know few who would, in all likelihood, be, from
previous occupation, better fitted than the professional person in
question."
"Are you in earnest?" regarding the serene speaker with unaffected
curiosity; "are you really in earnest?"
"I trust I am never otherwise," was the mildly earnest reply; "but
talking of the advance of geniality, I am not without hopes that it
will eventually exert its influence even upon so difficult a subject as
the misanthrope."
"A genial misanthrope! I thought I had stretched the rope pretty hard in
talking of genial hangmen. A genial misanthrope is no more conceivable
than a surly philanthropist."
"True," lightly depositing in an unbroken little cylinder the ashes of
his cigar, "true, the two you name are well opposed."
"Why, you talk as if there _was_ such a being as a surly
philanthropist."
"I do. My eccentric friend, whom you call Coonskins, is an example. Does
he not, as I explained to you, hide under a surly air a philanthropic
heart? Now, the genial misanthrope, when, in the process of eras, he
shall turn up, will be the converse of this; under an affable air, he
will hide a misanthropical heart. In short, the genial misanthrope will
be a new kind of monster, but still no small improvement upon the
original one, since, instead of making faces and throwing stones at
people, like that poor old crazy man, Timon, he will take steps, fiddle
in hand, and set the tickled world a'dancing. In a word, as the progress
of Christianization mellows those in manner whom it cannot mend in mind,
much the same will it prove with the progress of genialization. And so,
thanks to geniality, the misanthrope, reclaimed from his boorish
address, will take on refinement and softness--to so genial a degree,
indeed, that it may possibly fall out that the misanthrope of the
coming century will be almost as popular as, I am sincerely sorry to
say, some philanthropists of the present time would seem not to be, as
witness my eccentric friend named before."
"Well," cried the other, a little weary, perhaps, of a speculation so
abstract, "well, however it may be with the century to come, certainly
in the century which is, whatever else one may be, he must be genial or
he is nothing. So fill up, fill up, and be genial!"
"I am trying my best," said the cosmopolitan, still calmly
companionable. "A moment since, we talked of Pizarro, gold, and Peru; no
doubt, now, you remember that when the Spaniard first entered Atahalpa's
treasure-chamber, and saw such profusion of plate stacked up, right and
left, with the wantonness of old barrels in a brewer's yard, the needy
fellow felt a twinge of misgiving, of want of confidence, as to the
genuineness of an opulence so profuse. He went about rapping the shining
vases with his knuckles. But it was all gold, pure gold, good gold,
sterling gold, which how cheerfully would have been stamped such at
Goldsmiths' Hall. And just so those needy minds, which, through their
own insincerity, having no confidence in mankind, doubt lest the liberal
geniality of this age be spurious. They are small Pizarros in their
way--by the very princeliness of men's geniality stunned into distrust
of it."
"Far be such distrust from you and me, my genial friend," cried the
other fervently; "fill up, fill up!"
"Well, this all along seems a division of labor," smiled the
cosmopolitan. "I do about all the drinking, and you do about all--the
genial. But yours is a nature competent to do that to a large
population. And now, my friend," with a peculiarly grave air, evidently
foreshadowing something not unimportant, and very likely of close
personal interest; "wine, you know, opens the heart, and----"
"Opens it!" with exultation, "it thaws it right out. Every heart is
ice-bound till wine melt it, and reveal the tender grass and sweet
herbage budding below, with every dear secret, hidden before like a
dropped jewel in a snow-bank, lying there unsuspected through winter
till spring."
"And just in that way, my dear Charlie, is one of my little secrets now
to be shown forth."
"Ah!" eagerly moving round his chair, "what is it?"
"Be not so impetuous, my dear Charlie. Let me explain. You see,
naturally, I am a man not overgifted with assurance; in general, I am,
if anything, diffidently reserved; so, if I shall presently seem
otherwise, the reason is, that you, by the geniality you have evinced in
all your talk, and especially the noble way in which, while affirming
your good opinion of men, you intimated that you never could prove false
to any man, but most by your indignation at a particularly illiberal
passage in Polonius' advice--in short, in short," with extreme
embarrassment, "how shall I express what I mean, unless I add that by
your whole character you impel me to throw myself upon your nobleness;
in one word, put confidence in you, a generous confidence?"
"I see, I see," with heightened interest, "something of moment you wish
to confide. Now, what is it, Frank? Love affair?"
"No, not that."
"What, then, my _dear_ Frank? Speak--depend upon me to the last. Out
with it."
"Out it shall come, then," said the cosmopolitan. "I am in want, urgent
want, of money."