We may have a testimonial class in time, a sort of nobility here in
America, made so by popular gift, the members of which will all be able
to show some stick or piece of plated ware or massive chain, "of which
they have been the recipients." In time it may be a distinction not to
belong to it, and it may come to be thought more blessed to give than
to receive. For it must have been remarked that it is not always to the
cleverest and the most amiable and modest man that the deputation comes
with the inevitable ice-pitcher (and "salver to match"), which has in it
the magic and subtle quality of making the hour in which it is received
the proudest of one's life. There has not been discovered any method of
rewarding all the deserving people and bringing their virtues into the
prominence of notoriety. And, indeed, it would be an unreasonable world
if there had, for its chief charm and sweetness lie in the excellences
in it which are reluctantly disclosed; one of the chief pleasures
of living is in the daily discovery of good traits, nobilities, and
kindliness both in those we have long known and in the chance passenger
whose way happens for a day to lie with ours. The longer I live the more
I am impressed with the excess of human kindness over human hatred, and
the greater willingness to oblige than to disoblige that one meets at
every turn. The selfishness in politics, the jealousy in letters,
the bickering in art, the bitterness in theology, are all as nothing
compared to the sweet charities, sacrifices, and deferences of private
life. The people are few whom to know intimately is to dislike. Of
course you want to hate somebody, if you can, just to keep your powers
of discrimination bright, and to save yourself from becoming a mere mush
of good-nature; but perhaps it is well to hate some historical person
who has been dead so long as to be indifferent to it. It is more
comfortable to hate people we have never seen. I cannot but think that
Judas Iscariot has been of great service to the world as a sort of
buffer for moral indignation which might have made a collision nearer
home but for his utilized treachery. I used to know a venerable and most
amiable gentleman and scholar, whose hospitable house was always overrun
with wayside ministers, agents, and philanthropists, who loved their
fellow-men better than they loved to work for their living; and he, I
suspect, kept his moral balance even by indulgence in violent but most
distant dislikes. When I met him casually in the street, his first
salutation was likely to be such as this: "What a liar that Alison was!
Don't you hate him?" And then would follow specifications of historical
inveracity enough to make one's blood run cold. When he was thus
discharged of his hatred by such a conductor, I presume he had not a
spark left for those whose mission was partly to live upon him and other
generous souls.
Mandeville and I were talking of the unknown people, one rainy night by
the fire, while the Mistress was fitfully and interjectionally playing
with the piano-keys in an improvising mood. Mandeville has a good deal
of sentiment about him, and without any effort talks so beautifully
sometimes that I constantly regret I cannot report his language. He has,
besides, that sympathy of presence--I believe it is called magnetism
by those who regard the brain as only a sort of galvanic battery--which
makes it a greater pleasure to see him think, if I may say so, than to
hear some people talk.
It makes one homesick in this world to think that there are so many rare
people he can never know; and so many excellent people that scarcely any
one will know, in fact. One discovers a friend by chance, and cannot but
feel regret that twenty or thirty years of life maybe have been spent
without the least knowledge of him. When he is once known, through him
opening is made into another little world, into a circle of culture
and loving hearts and enthusiasm in a dozen congenial pursuits, and
prejudices perhaps. How instantly and easily the bachelor doubles his
world when he marries, and enters into the unknown fellowship of the to
him continually increasing company which is known in popular language as
"all his wife's relations."
Near at hand daily, no doubt, are those worth knowing intimately, if one
had the time and the opportunity. And when one travels he sees what a
vast material there is for society and friendship, of which he can never
avail himself. Car-load after car-load of summer travel goes by one at
any railway-station, out of which he is sure he could choose a score of
life-long friends, if the conductor would introduce him. There are
faces of refinement, of quick wit, of sympathetic kindness,--interesting
people, traveled people, entertaining people,--as you would say in
Boston, "nice people you would admire to know," whom you constantly meet
and pass without a sign of recognition, many of whom are no doubt your
long-lost brothers and sisters. You can see that they also have their
worlds and their interests, and they probably know a great many "nice"
people. The matter of personal liking and attachment is a good deal due
to the mere fortune of association. More fast friendships and pleasant
acquaintanceships are formed on the Atlantic steamships between those
who would have been only indifferent acquaintances elsewhere, than one
would think possible on a voyage which naturally makes one as selfish as
he is indifferent to his personal appearance. The Atlantic is the only
power on earth I know that can make a woman indifferent to her personal
appearance.
Mandeville remembers, and I think without detriment to himself, the
glimpses he had in the White Mountains once of a young lady of whom
his utmost efforts could give him no further information than her name.
Chance sight of her on a passing stage or amid a group on some mountain
lookout was all he ever had, and he did not even know certainly whether
she was the perfect beauty and the lovely character he thought her. He
said he would have known her, however, at a great distance; there was to
her form that command of which we hear so much and which turns out to be
nearly all command after the "ceremony;" or perhaps it was something in
the glance of her eye or the turn of her head, or very likely it was a
sweet inherited reserve or hauteur that captivated him, that filled
his days with the expectation of seeing her, and made him hasten to the
hotel-registers in the hope that her name was there recorded. Whatever
it was, she interested him as one of the people he would like to know;
and it piqued him that there was a life, rich in friendships, no doubt,
in tastes, in many noblenesses, one of thousands of such, that must be
absolutely nothing to him,--nothing but a window into heaven momentarily
opened and then closed. I have myself no idea that she was a countess
incognito, or that she had descended from any greater heights than those
where Mandeville saw her, but I have always regretted that she went her
way so mysteriously and left no glow, and that we shall wear out the
remainder of our days without her society. I have looked for her name,
but always in vain, among the attendants at the rights-conventions,
in the list of those good Americans presented at court, among those
skeleton names that appear as the remains of beauty in the morning
journals after a ball to the wandering prince, in the reports of railway
collisions and steamboat explosions. No news comes of her. And so
imperfect are our means of communication in this world that, for
anything we know, she may have left it long ago by some private way.