Press of J. J. Little & Co.,
Nos. 10 to 20 Astor Place, New York.
THE
CRIME OF HENRY VANE.
"----Make a fool of yourself, like Vane."
"I am not so sure that is fair to Vane," said John; "no one can go
through what he did, and keep perfectly sound."
"I'll leave it to the crowd," said the Major; "what say you, boys?"
All were unanimous. There was no excuse for a crime like Vane's.
Evidently they all knew Vane. He was damned without one dissenting
voice.
"Who was Vane?" said I, "and what did he do? Which commandment did he
break? He must have made merry with them all--or, rather, have kept
them all to get such a judgment in this club."
A babel of voices arose. All these men were intimate friends; and they
were sitting in one of the small smoking-rooms of the Columbian Club
in New York. John had just engaged himself to be married, and we had
given him a dinner; or, as Pel Schuyler put it, we were "recording his
mortgage." Schuyler was a real-estate broker.
"Now, look here," said John, "how many of you fellows know Vane
personally?"
No one, apparently. There was a moment's silence. Then the Major spoke
up. "Bah!" said he, "I have heard the story these ten years." "So
have I!" chimed in several others. "My brother knew Vane in Paris,"
said Pel. "I had it from Mrs. Malgam herself," simpered Daisy Blake,
fatuously.
"Well, at least, I know nothing of it," I said; "tell it for my
benefit, John."
"Yes, yes," cried they, "let's hear the correct and only version
according to John."
It was that critical moment in a dinner, when the fireworks of
champagne have sputtered out, and the burgundy invites to somnolence.
All had lit their cigars, and felt more like listening than talking.
John did not smoke.
"I will," said he. "At that time, I was his best--I may say, his only
friend."
"And I say, still," said the Major, "he acted like a fool and
criminally. There can be no excuse for such conduct."
John shrugged his shoulders and began. Of course, I do not mean that
he told the whole story just as I have written it. He related the
bare facts, with little comment and without conversations. Whether
you condemned the man or excused him, John thought, his story might
be understood, even if his folly were not forgiven. The crowd at the
club did neither; and, perhaps, their judgment is the judgment of the
world; and the world is probably right. But we may learn from folly; it
is sometimes more suggestive than common sense. There is the ordinary
success and there is the exceptional failure; that is pleasanter, but
this is more instructive. Extreme cases fix the law.
The world is probably right; and, to those of us who are healthily
adapted to our environment, the world is enough. Blessed are they who
are fitted, for they shall survive. The world is enough; but the poet
sang, love is enough. Shall we say, love is surplusage? The world is
always right; and how virtuously the healthy world reproves what is
morbid! How all the world unites in condemning him who is not fully
content with itself! For such an one it cannot even spare its pity.
There is a kind of personal animus in its contempt.
Let us hasten to join our little voices to swell the universal song.
So John told the story--plainly and coldly, the more adversely for
the lingering doubt; so we tell the story, and the doubt lessens as
we state the facts, and quite vanishes as we reach the end. It is the
story of a common crime, and the criminal is no friend of ours, as he
was of John's. Moreover, Schuyler called the criminal a fool.