There were three neighbours who lived side by side in a certain
village. They were bound together by the contiguousness of their back
yards and front porches, and by a community of interest in taxes and
water-rates and the high cost of living. They were separated by their
religious opinions; for one of them was a Mystic, and the second was a
Sceptic, and the other was a suppressed Dyspeptic who called himself
an Asthmatic.
These differences were very dear to them, and laid the foundations of
a lasting friendship in a nervous habit of interminable argument on
all possible subjects. Their wives did not share in these
disputations because they were resolved to be neighbourly, and they
could not conceive a difference of opinion without a personal
application. So they called one another Clara and Caroline and
Katharine, and kissed audibly whenever they met, but they were careful
to confine their conversation to topics upon which they had only one
mind, such as the ingratitude of domestic servants.
The husbands, however, as often as they could get together without the
mollifying influence of the feminine presence, continued their debates
with delightful ferocity, finding matter in each event of life, though
clear, and especially in those which had not yet occurred. So they had
a very happy time, and their friendship deepened from day to day.
"I can see your point of view," one of them would say, after an
apparently harmless proposition had been advanced. "Perhaps so," the
other would reply, clinging desperately to the advantage of the first
service in definitions, "but you certainly do not understand it."
Whereupon the third had the pleasure of showing that neither of the
others knew what he was talking about. This invariably resulted in
their combining against him, and usually to his gain, because he was
able to profit by the inconsistencies of their double play.
But of all earthly pleasures, as Sancho Panza said, there cometh in
the end satiety. The neighbours, after several years of refreshing
colloquial combat, felt an alarming decline of virility and the
approach of an anaemic peace. Their arguments grew monotonous, remote,
repetitious, amounting to little more than a bald statement of
position: "Here I stand"--"There you stand"--"There he stands,"--"What
is the use of talking about it?" The salt and pepper had vanished from
their table of conversation, and as each man silently chewed his own
favourite cereal, they all felt as if the banqueting-days were ended
and each must say to the others:
"Grow old apart from me,
The worst is yet to be."
One night as they were about to separate, long before midnight,
without a single spirited controversy, they looked at one another
sadly, as men who felt the approach of a common misfortune.
"The trouble is," said the Mystic, who disliked nothing so much as
solitude, "we do not meditate enough, and so the springs of our
inspiration from the Oversoul are running dry."
"The trouble is," said the Sceptic, whose doubts were more dogmatic
than dogmas, "that our fixed ideas are choking the feed-pipes of our
minds."
"The trouble is," wheezed the Asthmatic, whose suppressed dyspepsia
gave him an enormous appetite, "modern life is demoralised, especially
in domestic service. In the last month my wife has had five cooks, and
she whom she now has is not a cook. Hygiene is the basis of sound
thinking."
This sudden and unexpected renewal of the joy of disputation cheered
them greatly, and they discussed it for several hours, arriving, as
usual, at the same practical conclusions from the most diverse
premises.
They all agreed that the trouble _was_.
To cure it nothing could be better than a change of air. So they
resolved to make a little journey together.
They went first to New York, and the size of it impressed them
immensely. The Sceptic was delighted with the Cathedral of St. John
the Divine, because, as he said, it was so unmistakably human. The
Mystic was delighted with the theatres, because, as he said, most of
the plays seemed so super-human. The Asthmatic was delighted with the
subway, because, as he said, the ventilation was so satisfactory. It
was like eating bread-pudding on a steam-boat; you knew exactly what
you were getting; all the microbes were blended, and they neutralised
each other.
Their next point of visitation was Chicago, where they had heard that
a new Literary School was arising with a noise like thunder out of the
lake. They attended many club-meetings, and revolved rapidly in the
highest literary circles, coming around invariably to the point from
which they had started.
"This is tiresome," said the Mystic; "the Oversoul is not in it."
"It is narrowing," said the Sceptic; "these people are the most
bigoted unbelievers I ever saw."
"It is unwholesome," said the Asthmatic, "but I think I could digest
the stuff if I could only breathe more easily. This wind is too strong
for me."
So they agreed to go to Philadelphia for a rest. The clerk in the
colonial hotel to which they repaired assured them that the house was
crowded--he had only one room, a parlour, which he could fit up with
three beds if they would accept it.
The room was large and old-fashioned. A tall bookcase with glass doors
stood against the wall. The three beds were arranged, side by side, in
the middle of the room. "This is like home," cried the neighbours, and
they lay until midnight in a sweet ferocity of dispute over the moral
character of Benjamin Franklin.
A couple of hours later the Asthmatic was awakened from a sound sleep
by a terrible attack of short breathing.
"Open the window," he gasped; "I am choking to death."
The Mystic sprang from bed and groped along the wall for the
electric-light button, but could not find it. Then he groped for the
window and his hand touched the glass.
"It is fastened," he cried; "I can't find the catch. It will not move
up or down."
"I shall die," groaned the Asthmatic, "unless I have air. Break the
window-pane!"
So the Mystic felt for the footstool, over which he had just stubbed
his toes, and used the corner of it to smash the glass.
"Ah," said the Asthmatic, with a long sigh of relief, "I am better.
There is nothing like fresh air."
Then they all went to sleep again.
The morning roused them slowly, and they lay on their backs looking
around the room. The windows were closed and the shades drawn.
But the glass door of the bookcase had a great hole in it!
"You see!" said the Mystic. "It was the faith cure. The Oversoul cured
you."
"Not at all," said the Sceptic. "It was the doubt cure. The way to get
rid of a thing is to doubt it."
"I think," said the Asthmatic, "that it was the nightmare, and that
miscellaneous cooking is the cause of human misery. We have travelled
enough, and yet we have found no better air than we left at home."
So they went back to the certain village and continued their
disputations very happily for the rest of their lives.
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