The morning sun came creeping through the cracks of the garret as I
slowly awoke to consciousness and began rubbing my eyes, trying to make
out where I was and how I came there. Slowly it dawned upon me, the
awful work of trying to push that wheel through the mud; the descending
darkness; the increasing storm; of how I left the bicycle by the
road-side and the sickening sense that came over me as I felt that I
had lost my way and must find shelter or perish; of how my heavy woolen
dress, soaked with water, tangled my tired legs as I struggled forward;
of the glimmering light, and how I feared that though I had at last
found a house they might mistake me for an outcast and have no pity on
me; of the sweet peace I experienced when the old man spoke to me; of
following his suggestion that I should remove my dress; of how I stood
clad only in my under-clothing before the fire, and of how he put me to
bed, and I was all unabashed and unashamed. I thought of all this and
more, and was just getting ready to be thoroughly frightened when my
reverie was broken into by hearing a step come lightly up the ladder,
and the beautiful face of The Man framed in its becoming snowy white
hair appeared.
“Yes, she is awake,” he said, again seemingly talking to a third
person. “She will be a little sore of course after the exertion, but
refreshed and all the stronger for the hard work. Paradoxical--effort
put forth causes power to accumulate in the body, which is only a
storage battery after all. By giving out power we gain it, by losing
life we save it. How simple yet how wonderful are the works of God!”
Then speaking to me: “I will bring you warm water for a bath. It will
take the stiffness out of your limbs. Breakfast will be ready when you
are.”
I bathed, dressed without the aid of a glass, and was surprised to feel
how strong and well I felt. Down I went cautiously on the ladder, and
we ate breakfast, neither speaking a word. It seemed as if (glib as I
generally am--“A regular gusher,” Martha Heath says) to break in on the
silence would be sacrilege. Silence is music at rest.
Out of every fifty men who pass along the street, only one thinks;
the forty-nine have feelings but no thoughts. We have no time here to
treat of the forty-nine; let us leave them out of the question and
deal only with the one, the men of character, so-called, men who have
opinions and hold them. In this class we cannot admit the girl-men or
boy-men or those who are called men simply because they are not women,
or the vicious or even those of doubtful morality. Let us take only
the best and not even consider the “unco-gude.” Now having banished
the unthinking, the immoral and the doubtful, tell me, reader, have
you ever seen a man? Have you? Not a caricature or imitation of one,
full of a wish to be manly, and therefore anxious about the result?
not a being full of whim and prejudice, receiving the opinions from
the past and referring to numbers as proof; who prides himself on his
self-reliance and his absence of pride, and yet who can be won by
agreeing with him and through diplomacy? not one who endeavors to prove
to you the correctness of his views by argument in the endeavor to win
you over to his side, in order that that side may be strengthened? not
one in whose mouth there is continually a large capital I, or who has a
bad case of egomania and studiously avoids all mention of himself?
But what I mean is a man every whit whole, _mens sana in corpora sano_,
who is afraid of no man and of whom no man is afraid, to whom the
word ‘fear’ is unknown. Prize fighters sometimes boast that they are
without fear, but there is one thing they are afraid of, and that is
_fear_. Fear is the great disturber. It causes all physical ills (Yes,
I know what I say.) and it robs us of our heavenly birthright. What is
the cause of fear? Sin, and if your education had been begun at the
right time and in the right way, you might now be without sin--that
is, without fear. Begin the right education now, and in time you will
come into possession of your heritage; for you are an immortal spirit,
dwelling in this body which to-morrow you may slip off; and all the
right education you have acquired will still be yours, for as in matter
there is nothing lost, so in spirit nothing is destroyed.
When you stand in the presence of a man you will know it by the holy
calm that comes stealing over you. His presence will put you at
your ease--with no effort to please and yet without indifference.
Both can remain silent without there being an awkward pause or any
embarrassment. The atmosphere he will bring will clothe you as with a
garment, and though your sins be as scarlet you will make no effort
to dissemble, to excuse, to explain, or to apologize. You will find
this man is no longer young, for youth is restless and ambitious, and
although he fears not death, nor scarcely thinks of it, yet lives as
though this body was immortal.
I lived under the same roof with The Man one day in each week for two
months, and words utterly fail me when I endeavor to describe him, for
how can I describe to you the Ideal?
At first I thought him an old man, for his luxuriant hair and full wavy
beard were snowy white; but the face, tanned by exposure to the winds,
was free from wrinkles and had the bright anticipatory joyous look of
youth; eyes, large, brown and lustrous, looking through and through
one, but yet the glance was not piercing, for it spoke of love and
sympathy and not of curiosity or aggression; form, strong and athletic;
hands, calloused by work; yet this man, strong, brown, with throat
bared to the breast, seemed to have the strength of an athlete yet the
gentleness of a woman, the high look of wisdom, and with his whole
demeanor the composure of Plato. God had breathed into his nostrils and
he had become a living soul.