"What is your decision?" asked the Doctor smiling--the first smile I had
ever seen on his face.
"I will be a man!" I exclaimed.
* * * * *
I became a frequent visitor at the Doctor's, and gradually learned more
and more of this remarkable man. His little daughter told me much, that
I could never have guessed. She was a very serious child, perhaps of
eleven years, and not very attractive. In fact, she was ugly, but her
gravity seemed somehow to suit her so well that I could by no means
dislike her. Her father was very fond of her; of an evening the three
of us would sit in the west room; the Doctor would smoke and read; I
would read some special matter--usually on philosophy--selected by my
tutor; Lydia would sit silently by, engaged in sewing or knitting, and
absorbed seemingly in her own imaginings. Lydia at one time said some
words which I could not exactly catch, and which made me doubt the
seeming poverty of her father, but I attributed her speech to the
natural pride of a child who thinks its father great in every way. I was
not greatly interested, moreover, in the domestic affairs of the
household, and never thought of asking for information that seemed
withheld. I learned from the child's talk, at odd times when the Doctor
would be absent from the room, that they were foreigners,--a fact which.
I had already taken for granted,--but I was never made to know the land
of their birth. It was certain that Dr. Khayme could speak German and
French, and I could frequently see him reading in books printed in
characters unknown to me. Several times I have happened to come
unexpectedly into the presence of the father and daughter when they were
conversing in a tongue which I was sure I had never heard. The Doctor
had no companions. He was at home, or at school, or else on the way from
the one to the other. No visitor ever showed himself when I was at the
cottage. Lydia attended the convent school. I understood from remarks
dropped incidentally, as well as from seeing the books she had, that her
studies were the languages in the main, and I had strong evidence that,
young as she was, her proficiency in French and German far exceeded my
own acquirements.
By degrees I learned that the Doctor was deeply interested in what we
would call speculative philosophy. I say by degrees, for the experience
I am now writing down embraces the winters of five or six years. Most of
the books that composed his library were abstruse treatises on
metaphysics, philosophy, and religion. I believe that in his collection
could have been found the Bible of every religious faith. Sometimes he
would read aloud a passage in the Bhagavadgita, of which he had a
manuscript copy interleaved with annotations in his own delicate
handwriting.
He seldom spoke of the past, but he seemed strangely interested in the
political condition of every civilized nation. The future of the human
race was a subject to which he undoubtedly gave much thought. I have
heard him more than once declare, with emphasis, that the outlook for
the advancement of America was not auspicious. In regard to the
sectional discord in the United States, he showed a strange unconcern. I
knew that he believed it a matter of indifference whether secession, of
which we were beginning again to hear some mutterings, was a
constitutional right; but on the question of slavery his interest was
intense. He believed that slavery could not endure, let secession be
attempted or abandoned, let secession fail or succeed.
In my vacations I spoke to my father of the profound man who had
interested himself in my mental welfare; my father approved the
intimacy. He did not know Dr. Khayme personally, but he had much reason
to believe him a worthy man. I had never said anything to my father
about the note he had written to the Doctor; for a long time, in fact,
the thought of doing so did not come to me, and when it did come I
decided that, since my father had not mentioned the matter, it was not
for me to do so; it was a peculiar note.
My father gave me to know that his former wish to abridge my life in the
South had given way to his fears, and that I was to continue to spend my
winters in Charleston. In after years I learned that Dr. Khayme had not
thought my condition exempt from danger.
So had passed the winters and vacations until the fall of '57, without
recurrence of my trouble. I no longer feared a lapse; my father and the
physicians agreed that my migrations should cease, and I entered
college. I wrote Dr. Khayme a letter, in which I expressed great regret
on account of our separation, but I received no reply.
On Christmas Day of this year, 1857, I was at home. Suddenly, even
without the least premonition or obvious cause, I suffered lapse of
memory. The period affected embraced, with remarkable exactness, all the
time that had elapsed since I had last seen Dr. Khayme.
Early in January my father accompanied me to Charleston. He was induced
to take me there because I was conscious of nothing that had happened
since the last day I spent there, and he was, moreover, very anxious to
meet Dr. Khayme. We learned, on our arrival in Charleston, however, that
the Doctor and his daughter had sailed for Liverpool early in September.
My father and I travelled in the South until November, 1858, when my
memory was completely restored. He then returned to Massachusetts,
leaving me in Carolina, and I did not return to the North until
August, 1860.
* * * * *
The military enthusiasm of the North, aroused by the firing on Sumter,
was contagious; but for a time my father opposed my desire to enter the
army. Beyond the fears which every parent has, he doubted the effect of
military life upon my mental nature. Our family physician, however, was
upon my side, and contended, with what good reason I did not know, that
the active life of war would be a benefit rather than a harm to me; so
my father ceased to oppose, and I enlisted.