Produced by Colin Bell, Brett Fishburne and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
A PESSIMIST;
IN
THEORY AND PRACTICE.
BY
ROBERT TIMSOL.
NEW YORK:
JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER.
1888.
Copyright, 1888,
BY
THE PROVIDENT BOOK COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
I. Wisdom in the Woods. 7
II. Worse Yet. 17
III. Complications. 24
IV. A Wilful Princess. 28
V. Consultation. 37
VI. Preparation. 44
VII. Initiation. 47
VIII. Introduction. 52
IX. At Newport. 55
X. On the Cliffs. 58
XI. Explanations. 63
XII. Awakening. 71
XIII. Domestic Criticisms. 75
XIV. Over two Cigars. 79
XV. The Catastrophe. 83
XVI. Feminine Councils. 87
XVII. Consolation. 91
XVIII. Against Earnestness. 99
XIX. Conspiracy. 102
XX. Apology for Lying. 108
XXI. Jane to the Rescue. 118
XXII. An Ordeal. 125
XXIII. Plan of Campaign. 132
XXIV. To Wayback again. 139
XXV. A Wild Brook. 145
XXVI. An Intractable Patient. 149
XXVII. Scenery Improved. 156
XXVIII. Diplomacy. 159
XXIX. Submission. 168
XXX. Wasted Advice. 175
XXXI. Results Reported. 178
XXXII. Confession. 185
XXXIII. A Family Conclave. 192
XXXIV. To Persons About to Marry. 197
A PESSIMIST.
I.
WISDOM IN THE WOODS.
I had seen and heard little of Hartman since our college days. There he
was counted a youth of eminent promise: after that I knew that he had
traveled, written something or other, and practised law--or professed
it, and not too eagerly: then he had disappeared. Last May I stumbled on
him in a secluded region where I had gone to fish and rest, after a year
of too close attention to business. We came face to face in the woods,
stared at each other, and then our hands met in the old grip. He took me
home with him, to a comfortable enough bachelor establishment, and we
made a night--or more than an evening--of it. He did not seem curious,
but I was.
"What have you been doing with yourself!" I began; "withdrawing from the
world?"
"To some extent," he said. "You can't do that entirely, you know. The
world is in you as well as around you, unluckily. It is too much with
us, as the poet observed. Do you remember the time you had in class over
that sonnet?"
"Pass that," I said. "I've given up poetry." ("I should have thought
that impossible," he put in, in his nasty nagging fashion; but I took no
notice.) "Where have you been all the time?"
"Here, mostly. It's not much of a place, but that is its merit."
He was getting too deep now, as he often did of old; so I said, "But
it's so far away."
"That's its other merit. You always had a direct and ingenuous mind,
Bob. Here you've hit both bull's-eyes in two shots."
"None of your chaff," said I. "Who do you practice your wits on, up
here?"
"My dogs. And there are some hens in the neighborhood, and a few small
farmers. Or if my bosom cries too loudly to be eased of its perilous
stuff, I can chaff myself, which is more profitable."
"You were always too clever for me. What else do you do?"
"As the Baroness used to say in _The Danicheffs_, in our days of vanity,
'Do you think that is much of a compliment?' I read, and fish, and
climb, and ride several hobbies, and meditate on Man, on Nature, and on
Human Fate."
"What's the good of that?" I was growing impatient of all this nonsense.
"Well, not much, perhaps," said he. "For you, very little indeed. But
intrinsically it is about as profitable as more popular avocations."
"Now look here, Hartman," I said. "You're a better man any day than
I--or you were. But here you are, hidden in the backwoods with owls (one
of them was making a horrid noise outside), and nothing to show. Now
I've got a wife--"
"And seven children," he interposed.
"No, only three. But I have a good business, and a house on the avenue,
and a decent social position, and I'm making money. And I don't like to
see you throw yourself away like this."
"Old man," said Hartman, "we are just of an age, and you would pass for
five years the elder. Your hair is getting gray, and thin on top. You
look fagged. And you owned to me that you came here to pick up."
He had me there a little. "Yes, I've been working hard. But I'm in the
swim. I do as others do. I help to make the wheels go round." I thought
I had him there; but you never can count on Hartman, except for an
answer of some kind.
"Wouldn't they go round without your help? And why should they go
around, anyway? It might be a variety to have them stop. What's the good
of it?"
I stared at him; but his eye looked more rational than his talk sounded.
"The good of it is that I am in things generally, while you are out."
"Exactly so. I am out, while you are in. As to things generally, I
prefer to be with the outs. It is a matter of taste, no doubt."
"Well, you are beyond me. But I brought myself in merely as an
example--not that I set up to be much of that--or an illustration, say.
I want to know about you." It may have been foolish, but somehow I felt
the old affection coming back as we talked. "What does it all mean,
Harty?"
He looked at me. "Do you really want to know, Bob?"
"Of course I do. Do you suppose I've forgotten the larks we used to
have, and the scrapes you got me out of, and how you coached me through
that exam, in Calculus? It's long ago, Jim; but I took it rather hard,
the way you dropped me."
He began to look as he used to: he wasn't a selfish fellow in those
days. "I never meant to be hard on you, Bob, nor supposed you'd take it
so: and I doubt if you did, though you think so at this moment. It was
part of a system; and systems are poor things, though we can't do
without them. I'll tell you how it was."
"Wait till I fill up.--Now go ahead."
"You don't smoke as you used to, Bob. Does the Madam object?"
"She doesn't like tobacco about the house, of course. And I'm not sure
it's good for me."
"Ah. Sorry to be leading you astray. There is no one to interfere with
my little vices. Well, Bob, I got tired of it. Not that that alone would
matter: one could stand being bored in a good cause. But I couldn't see
that it was a good cause."
"Would you mind explaining?" said I. "What cause?"
"Helping to make the wheels go round. Being in the swim. Doing as others
do. Trying to make a little money and a little name, and following the
fashions of a carnal-minded generation. I could see no point to it, Bob;
the game never seemed worth the candle."
"And so you came out in the woods, like what's his name--that Concord
fellow. Do you find this any better?"
"Negatively. I am not so much a part of the things I despise. The pomps
and vanities are conspicuous chiefly by their absence. It is a simpler
life, comparatively laudable for there being less of it."
"And don't you get bored, out here? A week or so of it is well enough in
a way; but take it the year round, I should think you'd find it worse
than civilization."
"I get bored, of course: that is incidental to life, and chronic with
one who has looked beneath the surface and sifted values. But it's not
so oppressive as in town. There are no shams here, to speak of. Having
no business and no society, we don't pretend to be very different from
what we are."
"O, if you come to that, the women still improve on nature, and the
street has its little tricks and methods; but you could keep out of
them. You were in the law."
"It's all the same, Bob. The law now is worked much more as a business
than as a science. Look at Jones, and Brown, and Jenkins: they are
getting on, I hear. I don't want to get on in that way."
"But you might have taken the scientific side of it. With your head
piece, and your high and mighty notions, there was a field for you."
"So is theology a field, or physic, or Greek roots, or chiropody--for
him, who believes in them. I was not able to see that one line of
thought has a right to crowd out all the rest, or to sink my whole soul
in a profession. That's what they want of you now--to make a little
clearing, and put up palings all round it, and see things outside only
through the chinks of your blessed fence. Be a narrow specialist: know
one thing, and care for nothing else. I suppose you can do that with
oil."
I thought there was some uncalled-for bitterness in this; but the poor
fellow can't be contented, with his lonesome and aimless life. "We're
not talking about me, Jim. You're the topic. Stick to your text, and
preach away: my soul is not so immersed in oil that I can't listen. But
I don't blame you for going back on the law; a beast of a business, I
always thought it. Why didn't you go for a Professorship?"
"My poor friend, you were at college four years, and graduated--without
honors, it is true. Don't you remember how little we cared for the
Profs. and their eminent attainments? We took it for granted that it was
all right, and they understood what they were at; but it was a grind, to
them and to us. If a man was an enthusiast for his branch, we rather
laughed at him; or if his name was well up, we were willing to be proud
of him--at a distance--as an honor to Alma Mater; but we kicked all the
same, if he tried to put extra work on us. It was all fashion, routine,
tradition. The student mind doesn't begin to look into things for itself
till about the senior year, and then it's full of what lies ahead, in
the great world outside--poor innocents! With those of us who had
anything in us, it took most of the time to knock the nonsense
out.--And then if a man wants a chair, he must take it in a western
concern, where he'll be expected to lead in prayer-meeting, and to have
no views of geology that conflict with the Catechism."
"Well then, why not go on with literature? That was in your line: you
might have made a good thing of it."
"Yes, by 'unremitting application,' much the same as at law, and taking
it seriously as a profession, I might in time possibly have made five
hundred a year off the magazines, and won an humble place among our
seven hundred rising authors. What's the good of that, when one is not a
transcendent genius, destined for posterity? The crowd seems to be
thickest just there: too many books, too many writers, and by far too
many anxious aspirants. Why should I swell the number? The community was
not especially pining to hear what I might have to say; and I did not
pine so much as some to be heard."
"I fear you lacked ambition, Harty. You would have made a pretty good
preacher; but I suppose you weren't sanctified enough."
"Thanks: scarcely. I prefer to retain some vestiges of self-respect.
That will do for the youths on the beneficiary list, who are taken in
and done for from infancy, to whom it is an object to get a free
education and into a gentlemanly profession. That's the kind they mostly
make parsons of now, I hear. My boy, to do anything really in that line,
a man ought to have notions different from mine--rather. Why don't you
advise me to set up a kindergarten? That would suit as well as
chronicling ecclesiastical small beer. Cudgel your brains, and start
something more plausible."
This did not surprise me at all; but my suggestion-box was getting low.
Then I made a rally. "How about the philanthropic dodge? Robinson is on
the Associated Charities in town. I saw in the paper that he made a
speech the other night."
"If he does nothing better than speech-making, he might as well drop it.
There might be something in benevolent efforts, if one had just the
temperament and talents for them. But as it is, I fear most of it is
humbug; mutual admiration, seeing your name in the paper, and all that.
And how they get imposed on! How they pauperize and debauch those they
try to raise! It's a law of nature, Bob, that every tub must stand on
its own bottom: you can't reform a man from without. Natural selection
will have its way: the shiftless and the lazy must go to the wall. If
you could kill them off, now, that might do some good. The class that
needs help is not like us--not that we are anything to brag of: they've
not had our chance. It's very well to say, give 'em a chance; but that's
no use unless they take it, which they won't. 'Who would be free,
themselves must strike the blow.' If they wouldn't, you are bound to
respect their right of choice. Your drunken ruffian will keep on
breaking the furniture, till another like him breaks his skull. His
wife, the washerwoman with six small children, will continue getting
more and making things worse. This part of it at least ought to be
regulated by law: but that would be a restriction of personal liberty,
which is the idol of this age, and not without reason. We're between two
millstones, and I see no way out."
"How would you like politics? The gentleman is supposed to have an
opening there now."
"A doubtful and difficult one. If it had come in my time I might have
tried it. But it would be uphill work, a sort of Sisyphus affair: you
may get the stone to the top, but the chances are against it. And which
party is one to join, when he sees nothing in either but selfish greed
and stale traditions? Viewed as a missionary field, Bob, it's just like
the ministry: you are weighed down with a lot of dead conventions which
you must pretend to believe have life and juice in them yet. Before you
can do anything you must be a partisan, and that requires a mediaeval
state of mind. Mine, unluckily if you like, is modern. It wouldn't go,
Bob. Try again, if you have more on your list."
"Well, there's pure Science: you wouldn't care for the applied, I know.
But you used to like beetles and things. Truth for Truth's sake is a
fine motto, now?"
"Yes, if they lived by it. There was Bumpus, old Chlorum's favorite
student--in the laboratory, you remember. The old man died, and Bumpus
stole all his discoveries, and published them as his own; made quite a
pretty reputation, and is one of our leading chemists. You know how the
books on Astronomy are made? A man finds out a thing or two for himself,
cribs the rest from other books, changes the wording, and brings it all
out with a blare of trumpets as original research. Those methods are
approved, or at least tolerated, in the best scientific circles, and
other folks don't know the difference. O, I belong to a few societies
yet, and once in an age go to their meetings, when I get tired up here."
"So the outside world still has charms, eh? Have to go back to it now
and then, to keep alive, do you?"
"Yes, when I need to be reconciled to solitude; much as you go to hear
Ingersoll when your orthodoxy wants confirming, or Dr. Deadcreed if your
liberalism is to be stirred up. Let us spice the insipid dish with some
small variety. The lesser evil needs the greater for its foil."
"Look here, Harty; this sounds like pure perverseness; opposition for
its own sake, you know. I believe your money has been the ruin of you.
It's not an original remark, but if you'd had nothing you'd have done
something; gone into business like the rest of us, and made your way."
"Of course, if I had been obliged to; but I should have loved it none
the better. Poor Bayard Taylor said a man could serve God and mammon
both, but only by hating the mammon which he served from sheer
necessity. Say I got my living by a certain craft, would that make the
craft noble? 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' because we sell her
images! Why should I desire to supply the confiding public with shoes,
or sugar, or sealing-wax? Plenty of others can do that better, and find
it more amusing, than I should."
"If it's amusement you're after, most men find it in Society. You're not
too old for that yet."
"Blind guide, I have been there. So long ago, you say, that I've
forgotten what it's like? Not quite. Last winter I had to attend an
execution: couldn't get out of it, you know. My cousin married a
Washington belle, and I had to be there a week, and take it all in. Ah
well, this is a threadbare theme; but I could understand how men fifteen
hundred years ago fled from Alexandrian ball-rooms to Nitrian deserts.
The emptiness of it--the eternal simper, the godless and harrowing
routine! If a man has brains or a soul about him, what can he do with
them in such a crowd? Better leave them at home with his pocket-book, or
he might lose them--less suddenly, but more certainly, I fancy. No, the
clubs are not much better; I don't care for horse-talk or the price of
shares. See human nature? not in its best clothes--and you may read that
remark either way you like. Why man, you can get all this in _Punch_ and
the novels, with far less fatigue, and lay them down when you have had
enough. An hour on Broadway sickens me for the wild-flowers, the
brooks, the free breeze or the mountain side."
He was getting violent now, and I thought I had better calm him down.
"Oho! the rhyme and reason of a rural life, is it? Soothing effect of
Nature on a world-worn bosom, and all that? So you do believe in
something, after all?"
"I told you it was but a choice of evils, and this is the less. Nature
has neither heart nor conscience, and she sets us a bad example. She has
no continuity, no reliableness, no self-control. I can see none of the
fabled sublimity in a storm; only the pettishness of a spoiled child, or
of an angry man bent on breaking things. The sunset is better to look
at, but it has no more moral meaning than a peep-show. Yet this is a
return to primitive conditions, in a way. I can throw off here the
peddler's pack of artificialities that Vanity Fair imposes, and carry
only the inevitable burden of manhood. The air is less poisonous to body
and mind than in the cities. The groves were God's first temples, and
may be the last."
"See here, Hartman. Suppose people in general were to take up with these
cheerful notions of yours, and go away from each other and out in the
backwoods--what then?"
"It might be the best thing they could do. But don't be alarmed, Bob: I
am not a Nihilist agent. Preserve your faith in the Oil Exchange and the
general order. I speak only for myself, and I'm not proselyting to any
great extent. We'll have a week's fishing, and then I'll send you back
to your wife in good shape. Or if you find yourself getting demoralized,
you can skip earlier, either home or to a place further up that I'll
tell you of, where the few inhabitants are as harmless as your youngest
baby."
But I was not to be bluffed off in this way. "Jim," I said, "there is
something behind all this. Was it that girl you met at Newport and
afterwards in Naples? You told me once--"
"Never mind the girl," he said. "You are a married man, and I an old
bachelor. Leave girls to those who have use for them. If we are to get
any trout to-morrow, it's time we turned in. And if you won't stay, I'll
go with you to the tavern and knock up old Hodge: he's been asleep these
four hours." I thought he had talked enough for one night, so I said no
more, but got back to bed.
II.
WORSE YET.
Hartman had asked me to stay with him, but there is no use of
overloading friendship, and I like to be my own master as well as he
does. I might get tired of him, or he of me; and it's not well to be
chained to your best friend for a solid week. Not that I am afraid of
Hartman; he is not a lunatic, only a monomaniac; but I can cheer him up
better when I have a good line of retreat open. He took me next morning
to some superior pools, where the trout were fat and fierce; but I had
not my usual skill. The truth is, Jim was on my mind; and after missing
several big fish and taking a good deal of his chaff, I begged off--said
I had letters to write--and so got to the tavern in time for dinner,
which they have at the pagan hour of half-past eleven. Then I set to
work thinking. I am not quite so dull as I may seem, but Hartman always
had the ascendancy at college, and last night I fell into the old way of
playing chorus to his high tragedy. This will not do, and I must assert
myself. He was much the better student of course, but I have knocked
about and seen more of the world than he has, shut up in these woods
like a toad in a tree. He is too good a sort to go to seed with his
confounded whimseys; so I determined to take a different tone with him.
And I wrote to my wife about it: Mabel is a competent woman, and
sometimes has very good ideas where mine fail--though of course I seldom
let her see that. That evening I took him in hand.
"Jim," I said, "I've been thinking--about you."
"Ah," said he. "Large results may be expected from such unusual
exertion. Impart them by all means."
"James Hartman, you are lazy, and selfish, and unprincipled."
"Yes?" said he, in an inquiring tone. "That is your thesis. Prove it."
I went on. "A man should be doing something: you are doing nothing. A
man should have a stake in the community. What have you got? Three dogs
and an old cow. A man should be in connection and sympathy with the
great tides of life. Here you are with nobody but yokels to talk to, and
the pulse of the region about two to the minute."
"Twin brother of my soul, companion of the palmy days of youth,
methinks--as they say in the wild and wondrous West--you hit me where I
live. But none of these things move me. I am lost in admiration of your
oratory: really, Bob, I didn't think it was in you. But you said all
this, in simpler language, last night."
I saw I had overshot the mark: when he takes that tone, you are nowhere.
"Jim," I said, "let's be serious. Begin where we left off, then. Granted
that you don't care for making money, and the ends most of us are after.
By character and fortune you are above the usual selfish motives. Still
you are a man, a member of the community: you have duties to your
fellows. Let the nobler motives come in. Do something to make the world
happier, wiser, better. You have the power, if you had the will. Are not
private talents a public trust? You used to berate the hogs of Epicurus'
sty. It seems to me you've fallen back on mere self-indulgence. Your
life here is a huge egoism. Cut loose from these withering notions:
there is a better side to things than the one you see. Come back to the
world, and be a man again."
His eye was very bright now--not that it was ever dull--but I could not
quite make out what it meant; perhaps mere curiosity. "Robert," he said,
"I should believe that somebody had been coaching you, but there's no
one in range who could do it except myself. It's not like you to have
brought books along; and you've not had time to hear from home. What put
you up to this?"
"Hartman," I said, "look me in the eye and see whether I mean what I
say. Go back with me next week. Make your home at my house till you can
look round. I'll introduce you to some men who are not shams--and women,
if you like. I know a few who have souls and consciences, though they do
go to parties. I'll help you all I'm worth. You can make a new start.
Something went wrong before. Better luck this time."
"Bob," said he, "I'll take your word for it. Deeply touched by such
unexpected and undeserved consideration--no, I won't chaff. You're not
half a bad lot. But, my dear boy, you see the thing from your
standpoint; mine is different. I'll try to explain. But what would you
have me do?"
"Whatever is best for you. Anything, so you get an object in life."
"Do you remember what De Senancour says, in _Obermann_?"
"Not I. Put it in your own English, please: no French morals in mine."
"What is there to be done that is worth doing? It seems to me that
everything is overdone. I go into a town, big or little: ten stores
where one is needed. How do all these poor creatures live? Do you see
anything noble in this petty struggle for existence? I can't. I serve my
kind best by getting out of their way: that makes one less in the
scramble."
"I shouldn't expect you to sell tape or taffy, Jim. You could deal in a
higher line of goods, and do it in your own way."
"They don't want my goods, Bob, and I can't do it in my own way. I have
tried--not much, but enough to see. There is no market for my wares: and
I'm not sure they are worth marketing--or that any man's are. Truth as I
see it is the last article to be in demand."
"As you think you see it just now, very likely. Your eye is jaundiced,
and sees all things yellow. Get well, and you can find a market. Fit
your mind to the facts, and receive a true impression."
"Exactly what I have done--so far as any impression is true. That's the
point I've been waiting for you to come to. 'The Universe is change, and
Life is opinion.' As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he; and as he
thinks of things outside himself, so are they to him. One can do no more
than use his eyes and brains, and then rule himself by what he sees. I
have looked at matters more carefully and dispassionately than some do,
and seen a little deeper into them: the prospect is not edifying, Bob. I
am prejudiced, you say? No, I have cast aside prejudice. Most of you are
misled by the love of life: you want to give a favorable account of your
own belongings, and the wish is father to the thought: so you blink what
is before you, and won't own the truth. Perhaps you are wise in your
way: you gain such bliss as is in ignorance. Keep it if you can: I have
no desire to disturb it."
"Jim, mayn't there be a little conceit of superior wisdom here?"
"Very possibly: as the lamented Bedott observed, we are all poor
creatures. 'I do not speak as one that is exempt:' doubtless I have my
full share of infirmity."
"Then why not take the benefit of it, with the rest of us? There's a
better as well as a worse side. Take things as they are, and make the
best of them."
"I do. The best is the least, and I get away from things as much as
possible. To minimize life is to make the best of it."
"Now you're at it again; begging the question, and dodging the
argument--you'd say, summing it up, I suppose. I tell you, it's all
mental, and your mind's diseased. You think you're injured by the scheme
of things. Well, change your opinion, and the injury is gone. Didn't one
of your old philosophers say something like that?"
"He didn't give it quite the application you do, Bob. How can I change
an opinion that is based accurately on facts? I don't make the facts: if
I did, my opinion of myself would be yet worse than it is. I have a
brain--such as it is--and a conscience: I can keep them clean and awake,
even on Crusoe's island. Nothing better than that, my boy. 'What is the
good of man? Rectitude of will, and to understand the appearances of
things.'"
"Well, Hartman, if you had two or three kids, as I have, you'd see
things differently. They would give you an interest in life."
"A tragically solemn one, no doubt. That responsibility at least can't
be forced on a man. He can let his part of the curse die out with him."
"Jim, you _are_ selfish. You were made to gladden some woman's eye and
fill her heart. You were the strongest man of the nine, and the best oar
in the crew. We all envied your looks, and there's more of them now.
You could outshine all the gilded youth I know, and hold your own with
the best. I remember a girl that thought so, a dozen years ago.
Somewhere a woman is waiting for you to come and claim her. Why will you
rob her and the world? This wilful waste is selfish wickedness, that's
what it is."
"Think so if you must: it's a free country. But you sugar the pill too
much. Who misses me--or what if some few did for a while? They've
forgotten me long ago. I tell you, I served society by deserting it."
"It's all very well now, Jim, while your youth and strength last. But
after you turn forty, or fifty say, these woods and whims will lose
their charm; you'll get bored as you've never been yet. The emptiness
and dreariness that you theorize about will become stern realities:
you'll pine, when it's too late, for human affection and some hold on
life. My lad, you are storing up for yourself a sad old age."
I thought I had him at last. His surface lightness was all gone: he
looked intent and solemn. "No doubt of it, Bob; not the least in life. I
am human, and the worst is yet to come. But do you think me such a cad
as to go back on my principles in search of so poor a shadow as
happiness? Shall I, in base hope of easing my own burden, throw it on
somebody else who but for me might go through existence lightly? Should
I call sentient beings out of the blessed gulf of nothingness, that they
may pay a duty to my weakness by and by, and curse me in their hearts?
That would be somewhat too high a price to pay for broth when I am
toothless, and the coddling comforts of one who has lived too long."
I am not thin-skinned, but his tone shocked me. "Dear boy," I said,
"they wouldn't look at it in that light. They would be your wife and your
children."
"Yes," he said, still savagely, "they would be my wife and
children--supposing your unsupposable case. Grant that my notions are as
false and monstrous as you think them: a pleasant lot for my wife,
wouldn't it, to be in constant contact with them? And my children would
have my blood in them--the taint of eccentricity, perhaps of madness: O,
I've seen it in your eye. Others would think so too--most, no doubt. No,
Bob; better let it die out with me."
"Jim, you make me tired. I'll go back to the tavern." I was
disappointed, and he saw it.
"Don't make yourself wretched about me, old man. Let this thing go--you
can't mend it. Follow your own doctrine, and take what you find. We have
the May weather, good legs, and our tackle, and the brooks are full of
trout. I kill nothing bigger than fish, but if you want a change I'll
show you where you can have a chance for deer. And for the evenings,
there are other topics besides ourselves--or rather myself. You can tell
me about your children; they are likely to be healthier than mine would
be. Good night, my boy: sound sleep, and no dreams of me."
III.
COMPLICATIONS.
After that I found it best to do as Hartman had said. The sport was
good, but I failed to enjoy it. I suppose I was a fool, for each of us
makes or mars his own life, and it is no use moping over your neighbor's
blunders; but I could not get that poor devil out of my mind. He talks
as well on one subject as on another: it was I, not he, had brought him
under discussion; but the evenings dragged. Then came a letter from
home: the distance is considerable, and the mails slow. "Dear Robert,"
my wife wrote, "I am glad to know you are so comfortable. Keep your
flannels on, and change your clothing when you have been in the wet. The
children are well: Herbert fell over the banisters yesterday, but
fortunately without injury. Bring your friend Mr. H. back with you; he
seems to be presentable, and evidently all he needs is a little cheering
feminine society." [Hum: feminine society puts a higher estimate on its
own powers than I do, then.] "Clarice has returned. You know how
enterprising she is, not to say wilful, and how fond she is of you. She
has taken a fancy to try your retreat, and learn to catch trout." [She
has, eh? Well, let's get on with this.] "Jane will go with her, of
course: they start on Thursday. Secure rooms for them, and have a
vehicle to meet them."
Here was a nice situation. To make Mabel easy about me, I had enlarged
too much on the accommodations here; they are a long way from what she
supposes. I called the landlord. "Hodge, here are two ladies coming from
the city. Where can you put them?"
"Wall, I d'no, Square. Ain't much used to city gals. Hope they don't
bring no sarrytogys. There ain't nothin but your room, an mine, an old
Poll's, and the gerrit. Me and you might go out in the hayloft like, or
sleep on the pyazzer if the nights is warm."
While he was maundering on, the whole truth flashed upon me. Why can't
I see things at once, like Hartman? If I had his sharpness, and he my
slow common sense, there would be two men fit for this world's
uses--which neither of us appears to be, as the case stands. I had
rashly said too much about Jim and his attractions. Mabel is a born
manager and matchmaker--can't endure to see an eligible man uncaught.
She has put the girls up to this game: 'cheering feminine society,'
indeed! My sister Jane is a sensible woman enough, and not much younger
than I; but Clarice is a beauty with six years' experience, and
irresistible, some think. 'Enterprising'--well, I should say so: cheeky,
you might call it. Women do take such stunning liberties nowadays. My
wife would reprove me for slang; but weaker words fail to express the
fact, and my feelings about it. I might stand these girls coming up here
after me--Clarice is a sort of eighth cousin of Mabel's and looks on me
as a brother. But Jim--no. She must be pining for more worlds to
conquer, and it would just suit her book to bring a romantic hermit to
her feet. I should like well enough to see her try it, when I was not
responsible, but not under present circumstances. Great Caesar! Jim will
think I have put up this job on him, and never forgive me: nor would I,
in his place. This field is getting too thick with missionaries.--"Hodge,
it won't do. Harness your old nag, and drive me to the station. I must
telegraph. And while I'm there, I may as well put for home. We can catch
the night train if you hurry."
"Wall, Square, I don't cotton to suddint changes: like to move when I
git a good ready. Ye put a man off his base, Darn--."
I checked his incipient profanity. "My friend, whether you like it or
not is in this case immaterial. I'll pay you for the time I meant to
stay, and all you like for the fifteen miles. But be quick, now."
While he was hunting strings for his broken buckboard, I threw my traps
together, and scratched a line to Jim: called home by sudden press of
business, I said--and so it was, in a way. It is a long ride, but I had
enough to think of. At the depot I wired, "Hold the girls. I am coming
back." As I straightened up from this exercise, there was the old sinner
grinning malignantly over my shoulder. "Hodge," I said, "not a word
about the ladies to Mr. Hartman, mind," and I gave him an extra dollar.
This was another mistake, I suppose.
"Never you mind, Square: tain't me as goes back on my friends." What
could the old fool be thinking of? I would have given him some more
cautions, but the train came, and I was off.
You may imagine the reception at home. I tried to take a high hand, but
what can a man do against three women? "I really think, Robert," said
Mabel, "that since the girls had set their hearts on this excursion, you
might have indulged them." "The conceit of men!" cried Clarice; "what
had our coming to do with Mr. Hartman? Is he lord of the manor, that no
one may trespass on his demesne?" Jane too turned on me. "It was not
very kind of you, brother, to prefer a mere acquaintance above your own
sister, and suspect her motives in order to save his peace, forsooth!" I
knew it was humbug; but I had to eat no end of humble pie, all the same.
You may believe me or not--if you are a family man you will, without
difficulty--but I had to get those women apart, and explain things to
them one at a time, before I could have peace in the house. My own flesh
and blood were soon mollified; but Clarice has not forgiven me yet. I
have been on my knees to her, so to speak--most men do it, and she
expects it--but it is of no use. "My dear Clarice," said I, "you know I
would do anything in the world for you." "Yes," said she contemptuously,
"I've just had experience of it." "But you don't know Hartman." "Then
why couldn't you let me know him?" "But it wouldn't have done, under
these circumstances. He--I--." "Unhappy man," she said, with her tragedy
queen air, "is it possible you imagined that you were a better judge of
the proprieties than I?" And that's the way it goes. I am coming to
believe Hartman was right about the fate of philanthropic efforts, at
least.
In the midst of all this came a note from Jim himself. "Dear Bob, I
enclose something which Hodge says you left behind." [O thrice-accursed
idiot, did I leave Mabel's letter lying around loose?] "Of course I have
not looked into it, but I fear he has." [You may bet on that: the only
chance was that he could not read her fine Italian hand.] "He says one
of your children fell down stairs: I trust the results were not serious.
Sorry you left in such haste, and hindered the ladies from coming.
Hodge's quarters are not palatial, but you could bunk with me, as I at
first proposed; and since they were willing to rough it, we would have
managed somehow. You could surely rely on my humble aid toward making
their sojourn in the wilderness endurable. And _per contra_, a little
cheering feminine society might have assisted your benevolent efforts
toward my reclamation. Was it not selfish to leave me thus unconsoled
and unconverted?"
Well, the business is done now, with neatness and dispatch. That beast
Hodge has told Jim all he knew or suspected, even to that fatal phrase
of my wife's: so there's an end of his faith in me, and of any chance I
might have had to set him straight. That was a fortnight ago, and I have
not the face to answer him. When I have any more doctrinaire anchorites
to convert, I shall not call a family council. But alas, poor Hartman!
IV.
A WILFUL PRINCESS.
I was wrong about Hartman after all. He has written me again, and this
is what he says:
"Do you want to confirm the heretical opinions you argued against so
manfully? You had revived my faith in friendship, Bob: I believed, and
would like still to believe, that one man can be true and kind to
another. And perhaps in general you had stirred and shaken me up more
than you knew. Socrates outranks Pyrrho, and I am open to conviction.
Possibly I have been too sweeping; I don't wish to dogmatize. It may be
that I have lived alone too long, shut up in a narrow space, where light
could enter only through my perversely colored glasses. At any rate,
your coming was like opening a door and letting in a wholesome breeze.
Have I offended you? I thought I was past asking favors from my kind:
but do let me hear from you."
Of course I had to answer that, and worse, to show it to the girls. Some
men, now, would keep it to themselves, and preserve their dignity; but
such is not my style. Let them crow over me if they must.
They did. "Well, Robert," said Mabel, "you see now how absurdly mistaken
you were. Perhaps hereafter you will allow us to manage our own affairs,
and not complicate them with your bungling masculine attempts at
superior wisdom." "I am glad to know, brother," said Jane, "that your
friend is a gentleman, incapable of the base suspicions you would have
attributed to him. You did your best to prevent our knowing him and
carrying out your ideas for his improvement: now we shall be able to
meet him cordially, and try to cheer him a little. But probably he is
not at all as dark as you have painted him."
Clarice would say nothing: she was in one of her high and mighty moods.
Her soul is like a star, and sits up aloft; sometimes it twinkles, but
more generally it does not. I often want to tell her that she is a
creature too bright and good to come to breakfast like other folks; but
somehow she has a way of keeping people at a distance, and even of
repressing my pleasantries. We call her the Princess: She has to be
approached with bated breath, and you must whisper your compliments if
you want to fire them off at her; rear them as gently as a sucking
child, in fact--and then they are very seldom appreciated.
"Clarice," I said, "I want to get Hartman down here. Do treat him
kindly, please; won't you, now?"
She looked at me with her Juno air. "Why should I treat him kindly?"
"O well, I won't say for my sake, because you wouldn't care for that.
But the poor devil has lived in the woods so long."
"He might have been well enough in his woods; but why should you bring
your poor devils into civilized society, and expect me to bear with
their gaucheries, in addition to your own?"
There it is: she'll not forgive me in a year for upsetting her fine plan
of going up there to beard the hermit in his den. She rarely takes these
fancies, I must own; and when she does, she is not accustomed to be
balked of them. As it has turned out, I might as well have let her have
her way that time; there was no harm in it. "Princess, haven't you
trampled on me enough? I was wrong, and I'm very sorry: what more can a
man say? But Hartman had no hand in that."
"Yes, that is clear now, no thanks to you. Small merit in confessing
after you are proved guilty."
"Well, you are pretty hard on a fellow. But you needn't punish Hartman
for my fault. Thrash me all you like, but give him a chance. I give you
my word of honor, Clarice, he is a finished gentleman, and very
different from me. You needn't fear awkwardness in him. I knew you would
like him."
"How do _you_ know what I would like? If this Mr. Hartman wants to see a
little of the world, I have no desire to prevent his being reclaimed
from barbarism. Mabel and Jane can do that, without my aid. To tell you
the truth, Robert, I don't care to meet the man, after the disgusting
complications which you have introduced."
I groaned--I couldn't help it. "Princess, please God, I will never
interfere with you again. You shall be safe from any meddling of mine.
If you will kindly say what you want, and say it slow, so that my
limited faculties can take it in, I will try to act accordingly. But, if
I may make so bold as to inquire, what are you up to now?"
"I shall go away. O, you need not feel so badly about it, Bob: I am not
tied to you and Mabel. I was in the South all winter, you know, and only
returned while you were at your fishing. I have a dozen invitations for
the summer: I think I will join Constance."
"Not if I can help it, you won't. This is your natural home, Clarice,
and you shall not be driven from it. Nobody shall enter here who is not
acceptable to you: if anything about the house don't suit you, name it
and it shall be corrected. You know Jane and Mabel worship you; so do
the children, if you count them. I'll not have Hartman; or I can
entertain him at the club while you are all at Newport."
"That will be hospitality indeed. Would you desert your friend for me?"
"I would not desert you for all the friends under the canopy. You have
always ruled the house when you deigned to be in it, and you always
will. I may be low in your books, but it does not follow that you are
not high in mine. We can't do without you, Princess; you must stay. Name
your price, and I'll pay it if it breaks me."
"Very well then; I will remain, and meet your Mr. Hartman. But one thing
must be distinctly understood: there must be no more crossing of my
will. I must be absolutely free and unhampered, to plan and carry out
what I see fit. I may possibly be wrong at times; but you will not know
when, and it is not for you to judge. No more interference or
opposition, remember. Do the terms suit you?"
"O Lord, yes. I'll have a throne set up in the drawing-room, and
everybody shall approach you Siamese fashion. And perhaps I had better
come to you to see if my tie is right before dinner, and to practice
what I shall say when we have company."
"It might improve you. But Mabel should be competent to attend to those
trifles. On one point I must instruct you, though. I shall doubtless do
things that appear to you strange, perverse, incomprehensible. In such
cases it will be best for you to walk by faith. No meddling nor
espionage, mind."
"Clarice, you don't think me capable of playing the spy on you?"
"Not that exactly, but you sometimes indulge in little tricks and
stratagems: you like to think that you hoodwink your wife--not that it
ever succeeds--in small unimportant matters. Mabel and Jane may endure
your attempts, if they like; but don't try them on me. They would never
deceive me for a moment, of course; but I can't waste time in
explaining that to you in detail. Besides, your fancied success would
unsettle your mind, and so tend to disturb the domestic equilibrium."
"Good heavens, Clarice! would I lie to you?"
"No: you dare not. But let me have no subterfuges, no concealments, and
no criticisms. What I may do you cannot expect to understand, nor is it
necessary that you should."
"Well, thought has been hitherto supposed to be free. When I see you at
those little games of which you are to enjoy a monopoly, can't I have an
opinion of them?"
"O yes. The opinion will be of small value, but your poor mind must be
amused and occupied somehow, I suppose. But you will be carrying your
opinions about the house, and introducing an element of confusion. If
you could keep your own counsel, now--but that is hopeless."
"When you are operating on Hartman, for instance, it might confuse the
programme if I were to say anything to him, eh?"
"When I take Mr. Hartman up, it will be very much better for his welfare
and yours for you to leave him in my hands."
"O, he would rather be left there, no doubt, though they grind him to
powder. But what the deuce am I to do? If I mayn't talk to anybody else,
can't I come to you with my opinions--in odd moments, when your serene
highness has nothing better on hand?"
"You may bring your valuable ideas to me, and I will hear them, when I
have leisure and inclination. Yes, that will be best. But no
concealments, mind. When you think you know anything that affects me,
come to me with it at once: otherwise you will be blurting it out to
somebody else. You promise?"
"I swear, by all my hopes of your royal favor. Anything else? I mean,
has your majesty any further commands? You'll have to give me audience
about three times a day, you know, to keep me in mind of all these
rules, or I'll be safe to forget some of them."
"You had better try to remember. I'll keep an eye on you. And now do you
want any more, or have you learnt your lesson?"
"I'll trust so. Henceforth I shall not call my soul my own. The humblest
of your slaves craves permission to kiss the royal hand. I say, Clarice,
you won't be rough on poor Hartman, will you? He's had hard lines: you
could easily break him to pieces, what is left of him."
"If there is so little left of him, there would be small credit in
breaking him to pieces, as you elegantly express it. I shall probably
let him alone."
"Scarcely. There is a good deal left of him yet: he is as handsome a
fellow, and as fine a fellow, as you'd be apt to find. You're tired of
the regulation article, dancing man and such, that you meet every night:
I don't wonder. This is something out of the common. He needs a little
looking after, too. I wish now I had let you get at him in May, as you
proposed."
"Robert, if you fling that odious and vulgar figment of your debased
imagination at me again, I will go away and never come back. You make me
sick of the man's name. If you ever breathe a hint of this disgusting
slander to him I will never forgive either of you, nor speak to you."
"God forbid, Princess dear. Don't you know that your good name is as
sacred to me as Mabel's? Wasn't I to come to you with notions that I
couldn't put in words to anybody else?"
"Let them have some shadow of reason and decency about them, then.
Cannot a girl plan a rural excursion, in company with your sister and
under your escort, without being accused of designs on a strange man who
chances to be in the neighborhood? You try my patience sorely, Robert. I
wonder how Mabel can endure you."
"Well, he that is down can't fall any lower, as it says in Pilgrim's
Progress. Walk over me some more, and then maybe you'll feel better.
What the d--There, I'm at it again. Clarice, it might improve me if you
would mix a little kindness with your corrections; handle me as if you
loved me, like the old fisherman with his worms, you know. It
discourages a fellow to get all kicks and no kisses."
"Robert, look me in the eye and swear to purge your mind of that vile
thought, and never to admit another that dishonors me."
"O, I swear it. Bring me the Thirty-nine Articles and the Westminster
Catechism and the Ten Tables, and I'll subscribe to all of 'em. I'll
think anything you tell me to: I signed my soul away an hour ago." Here
I saw that I had gone too far, and she was really angry. She's right; I
must learn to check my confounded tongue, if I am to keep on any terms
with the Princess. So I changed my tune, just in time. "Don't go,
Clarice. Honestly, I beg your pardon; upon my soul, I do. Your word is
all the evidence I want of any fact under heaven, of course. Princess
dear, I've been fond of you since you were a baby, and it has grown with
your growth--it has, really. I'll prove it some day: you wait and see.
Forgive me this once, won't you? Don't speak, if you are tired, but just
give me your hand, as they did in the Old Testament, in token of
forgiveness."