"So I supposed," said Professor Owlsdarck. "And yet how can a man be
said to know anything, who has not mastered this alphabet of our race?
The naturalist or botanist studies the remains of extinct life in the
rock or the gravel-pit. But how can the crumbling remnants of bygone
brutes and plants compare in interest with the characteristic physical
organization of ancient men? Remember, too, those natural and original
peculiarities which distinguish every human body from myriads of its
fellows. No, Sir, depend upon it, if Pope was right in declaring the
proper study of mankind to be man, we must begin with mummies."
"But in these days," I pleaded, "education has become so varied, that,
if we began at the beginning to study down, no man's lifetime would
suffice to bring him within speaking distance of ordinary affairs."
"Education, as you call it, has become varied, but only because it has
become shallow. Education is everywhere, and learning is wellnigh gone.
Men sharpen their vulgar wits with a smattering of trifles; but fields
of sober intellectual labor are neglected. What is the gain of surface
to the fatal loss of depth in our acquirements!"
"For my own part," I said, "I have generally striven to inform myself
upon topics connected with our own country."
"And such subjects are most interesting," replied the Professor, "if
only the selection be proper and the study exhaustive. The _bones_," he
continued, laying a pungent emphasis on the word,--"the bones of the
Paugussetts, the Potatucks, and the Quinnipiacs are beneath our feet.
The language of these extinct tribes clings to river, lake, and
mountain. Coming from the contemplation of a people historically older,
I have been refreshed in the proximity of these native objects of
research. Consider the mysterious mounds on either side of the Ohio.
What better reward for a life of scrutiny than to catch the slightest
glimpse of the secret they have so long guarded!"
After this manner talked Professor Owlsdarck. Our conversation continued
long enough to show me his complete adaptation to the admiring
friendship of Colonel Prowley. He had the desperate, antiquarian
dilettanteism of our host, with a really accurate knowledge in
unpopular, and most people would think unprofitable, branches of
learning. His love of what may be called the faded upholstery and
tattered millinery of history was, indeed, remarkable. His imagination
was decidedly less than that of Prowley, but his capacity for genuine
rummaging in the dust of ages was vastly superior. Colonel Prowley (to
borrow a happy illustration from Mr. Grant White) would much rather have
had the pen with which Shakspeare wrote "Hamlet" than the wit to
understand just what he meant by it. Owlsdarck, on the contrary, would
have preferred to understand the anatomy and habits of life of the
particular goose which furnished the quill, and the exact dimensions of
the onions with which it was finally served. Yet, notwithstanding a
quivering sensation produced by the mouldy nature of his contemplations,
I found the Professor's conversation, within the narrow limits of his
specialities, intelligent and profitable. He had none of the morbid
horror of giving exact information sometimes encountered in more
pretentious society; and I confess it is never disagreeable to me to
meet a man whose objects of pursuit are not precisely those of that
commonplace, highly respectable citizen we all hope to become.
It must have been an hour before Colonel Prowley rejoined us, and when
he returned it was easy to see that something annoying had happened.
"Ah, my dear friend," he began, "here has been a sad mistake! Your wife
has shown your address to the chief leader of the party which opposes
your election. Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden Weekly Regulator,"
did not come here for nothing. He sent me out of the room to get some
beans to illustrate the Athenian manner of voting, and then he managed
to get a sight of your manuscript."
"I hope it is no very serious blunder," said Kate, who had followed the
Colonel to the piazza. "It was thoughtless, I admit; but the gentleman
told me that he was an editor, and that it was always the custom to give
the press information withheld from the general public. And then, he
promised secrecy; and, after all, he had the manuscript only about five
minutes,--just long enough to get an idea of the subject and its style
of treatment; so I hope there's no great harm done."
"I should have thought you would have remembered Strype's connection
with Howke and his Indian quackery," said I, a little irritated. "But it
can be no great matter, since it will only give him an hour or two more
to prepare the adverse criticism with which he will honor my
performance."
"It is of much more matter than you think," said Colonel Prowley, sadly.
"For the 'Regulator,' which appears to-morrow, goes to press this
afternoon. Strype don't like to have it known, as it lessens the
interest of the 'Latest Intelligence' column; but I happened to find it
out some time ago."
"Then we are worsted indeed," I cried. "His eagerness is well explained;
for, of course, any strictures he might make, on hearing the exercises
this evening, would be useless for his purpose."
"A _critique_ of the performance, purporting to come from an impartial
auditor, will be printed in a thousand 'Regulators' before you open your
lips in our Town Hall," said the Colonel, bitterly.
I knew for the first time that stinging indignation felt by all decent
aspirants for public favor upon encountering the underhand knavery which
dims the lustre of democratic politics. It is not the blunt, open abuse,
my young republican, which you will find galling,--but the contemptible
meanness of dastards who have not mettle enough to be charlatans. For an
instant my blood ran fiery hot; I grasped my cane, and for a moment had
an impulse to fly after Strype and favor him with an assault-and-battery
case for his despicable journal. But the passion was speedily over; for,
upon reflection, I saw that no real injury could be done me with those
who witnessed the success I confidently expected. And--it is awkward to
acknowledge it--I nearly regained my former complacency when my wife
whispered that Strype had declared to her that Professor Owlsdarck had
come upon a bootless errand; for the Wrexford Trustees would never
provide their Academy with so dark and gloomy a Principal, though he
carried the Astor Library in his head. Do not mistake the encouragement
I derived from this announcement: there was in it not the slightest
ill-will to the distinguished antiquary, but only a comfortable
appreciation of my own sagacity in putting it out of the power of any
mischievous person to oppose my election on similar grounds.
Soon after this I proposed to Kate to go to the arbor at the end of the
garden, and hear, once more, the sensation-passages of my poem, to the
end that I might be certain that all the proprieties of pause and
emphasis we had agreed upon were fresh in my memory. It turned out that
there was just time to do this satisfactorily before the bell rang for
dinner. And I felt greatly relieved, when, upon reëntering the house, I
closed the bothering production for the last time, and left it--where I
could not fail to remember it--with my hat and gloves upon the
entry-table.
You are apt to catch people in their freshness at a one o'clock dinner.
Full of the half-finished schemes of the morning, they have much more
individuality than at six. For, the work of the day fairly over, the
clergyman, the merchant, the lawyer, and the doctor subside to a level
of decent humanity, and leave out the salient contrasts of breeding
which are worth noting.
Again those massive chairs, strong enough to bear a century of future
guests, as they had borne a century of past ones, were ranged about the
table. The great brass andirons, sparkling with recent rubbing, nearly
made up for the spiritual life of the wood-fire that the day was too
warm to admit. Mr. Clifton, the clergyman, a gentleman whose liberal and
generous disposition could at times catch in the antiquarian ruts of his
chief parishioners, was, as usual, the representative guest from the
town. Kate and I, being expected to talk only just enough to pay for our
admission, listened with much profit while the political question
pending the next day, and many matters relevant and irrelevant thereto,
underwent discussion.
"They say Howke's pills are growing in esteem of late; the names of many
reverend brothers of yours are to be read in his advertisements as
certifying the cure of some New-England ailment," observed our host.
"So I see," said Mr. Clifton; "and I regret to think that a class of
men, unjustly accused of dogmatizing in those spiritual things they
assuredly know, should lay themselves open to the suspicion, by
testifying in those material matters whereof they are mostly ignorant.
Not that I disallow that hackneyed tenth of Juvenal, "_Orandum est ut
sit mens sana_," and the rest of it. But rather would I follow the
Apostle, who, to the end that every man might possess his vessel in
sanctification and honor, was content to prescribe temperance and
chastity,--leaving the recommendation of plasters and sirups to those
who had made them their special study.
"Yet in ancient times," remarked Professor Owlsdarck, "the offices of
priest and physician were most happily combined. Among those lost
children of Asia whom our fathers met in New England, the Powwows were
the doctors of the body as well as the soul."
"For all that, I cannot believe that Shakspeare meant to indorse Indian
medicine, as Strype says he did," said the Colonel.
We all looked surprise and incredulity at this unexpected assertion.
"You can't have read the last 'Regulator,' then," said Prowley, in
explanation. "You know that Howke and Strype have long been endeavoring
to find some motto from the great dramatist to print upon the boxes
containing the Wigwam Pills; but, somehow, they never could discover one
which seemed quite appropriate."
"'Familiar in their mouths as household words,'" suggested Mr. Clifton.
"Well, that might have done, to be sure; but they happened to miss it.
So for the last month Strype has been studying the works of numerous
ingenious commentators to see whether some of their happy emendations to
the text might not meet the difficulty."
"But it must require the insertion of some entire speech or paragraph to
make Shakspeare give his testimony in favor of savage pharmacy," said I,
innocently.
"Not in the least necessary; it merely requires the slightest possible
change in a single letter,--aided, of course, by a little intelligent
commentary."
As we all looked rather doubtful, Colonel Prowley sent for the last
number of Strype's valuable publication, and read as follows:--
"IMPORTANT LITERARY DISCOVERY. We learn by the last steamer from England
that a certain distinguished Shakspearian Editor and Critic, who has
already proved that the Mighty Bard was perfectly acquainted with the
circulation of the blood, and distinctly prophesied iron-plated
steamers and the potato-rot, has now discovered that the Swan of Avon
fully comprehended the Indian System of Medicine, and urged its
universal adoption. Our readers have doubtless puzzled over that
exclamation in Macbeth which reads, in common editions of the poet,
'Throw physic to the dogs!' The slightest consideration of the
circumstances shows the absurdity of this vulgar interpretation. Macbeth
was deservedly disgusted with the practice of the regular family
physician who confessed himself unable to relieve the case in hand. He
would therefore request him to abandon his pretensions, not to the dogs,
which is simply ridiculous, but in favor of some class of men more
skilled in the potencies of medicine. The line, as it came from the pen
of Shakspeare, undoubtedly read, 'Throw Physicke to the Powwows'; in
other words, resign the healing art to the Indians, who alone are able
to practise it with success. And now mark the perfectly simple method of
accounting for the blunder. We have only to suppose that a careless
copyist or tipsy type-setter managed to get one loop too many upon the
'P,'--thus transforming the passage into, 'Throw Physicke to the
Bowwows.' The proof-reader, naturally taking this for an infantile
expression for the canine race, changed the last word to 'dogs,' as it
has ever since stood."
Mr. Clifton smiled, and said, "Even if the emendation and inference
could be accepted, the testimony of any man off the speciality he
studied would only imply, not that the new school was perfect, but that
he realized some imperfection in the old one. And this conviction I have
had occasion to act upon, when my church has been shaken by
spiritualism, abolitionism, and the like; for I knew that what was truly
effective in a rival ministry must show what was defective in my own."
"If you speak of modern spiritualism," said Professor Owlsdarck, "you
must allow it to be lamentably inferior to the same mystery of old. For
how compare the best ghostly doings of these days, those at Stratford in
Connecticut, for example, I will not say to the famous doings at Delphi
and Dodona, but even to the Moodus Noises once heard at East Haddam in
that State? The ancestors of some of these nervous media testify to
roarings in the air, rumblings in the bowels of the mountain, explosions
like volleys of musketry, the moving of heavy stones, and the violent
shaking of houses. Ah, Sir, you should use effort to have put to type
your reverend brother Bradley's memoir on this subject, whereof the sole
copy is held by the Historical Society at Hartford."
"Every recent quackery is so overlaid with a veneering of science," said
the clergyman, "that those who have not had sufficient training to know
that they lack scientific methods of thought are often unable to draw
the distinction between a fact and an inference. There is much practical
shrewdness and intelligence here in Foxden; yet I am constantly
surprised to see how few, in relation to any circumstance out of the
daily routine of business-life, recognize the difference between
possibility, probability, and demonstration. And, indeed, it is no easy
matter to impart a sense of their deficiency to those who have only been
accustomed to deal with the loose forms of ordinary language."
"If we may believe the Padre Clavigero," observed the Professor, "it
will not be easy to find a language so fit for metaphysical subjects,
and so abounding in abstract terms, as the ancient Mexican."
This remark seemed hardly to the purpose; for whatever the excellences
of that tongue might have been, there were insuperable objections to its
adoption as a vehicle of communication between Mr. Clifton and his
parishioners. But the last-named gentleman, with generous tact, allowed
the conversation to wander back to those primitive solidities whither it
naturally tended. It did not take long to get to the Pharaohs, of whose
domestic arrangements the Professor talked with the familiar air of a
man who dined with them once a week. From these venerable potentates we
soon came upon their irrepressible mummies, and here Owlsdarck was as
thoroughly at home as if he had been brought up in a catacomb. Indeed,
this singular person appeared fairly alive only when he surrounded
himself with the deadest antiquities of the dimmest past. His remarks,
as I have before admitted, had that interest which must belong to the
careful investigation of anything; but I could not help thinking into
how much worthier channels his powers of accurate investigation and
indefatigable research might have been directed.
Colonel Prowley was of course delighted, and declared that every
syllable his friend delivered was worthy to be recorded in that golden
ink known to the Greeks and Romans; for, as he assured us, there were
extant ancient manuscripts, written with a pigment of the precious
metals, of which the matter was of far less importance than that
conveyed by the learned utterances we had been privileged to hear.
Mr. Clifton showed no disposition to dispute this assertion, but kindly
assisted by asking many intelligent questions, none having reference to
anything later than B. C. 500. After dinner we adjourned to the library,
and passed the afternoon in looking over collections of autographs and
relics. We were also shown some volumes possessing an interest quite
apart from their rarity, and some very choice engravings. In short, the
hours went so pleasantly that we were all astonished when our host,
looking at his watch, declared that it was time to order Tom to bring
the carryall for Wrexford. Accordingly, Miss Prowley having rung the
bell, whispered in the gentlest manner to the maid who answered the
summons. A shrill feminine shouting was presently heard from the rear of
the house, followed by the voice of Tom gruffly responsive from the
distant barn. At this juncture Mr. Clifton took his leave, and Professor
Owlsdarck retired to his chamber to bedeck himself for the trustees,
parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy.