1 files changed, 11425 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/21816-8.txt b/old/21816-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..156708d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/21816-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11425 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confidence-Man, by Herman Melville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Confidence-Man
+
+Author: Herman Melville
+
+Release Date: June 12, 2007 [EBook #21816]
+Last Updated: February 11, 2015
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFIDENCE-MAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by LN Yaddanapudi and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CONFIDENCE-MAN:
+HIS MASQUERADE.
+
+BY
+
+HERMAN MELVILLE,
+AUTHOR OF "PIAZZA TALES," "OMOO," "TYPEE," ETC., ETC.
+
+NEW YORK:
+DIX, EDWARDS & CO., 321 BROADWAY
+1857.
+
+
+Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
+HERMAN MELVILLE,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
+Southern District of New York.
+
+
+MILLER & HOLMAN,
+Printers and Stereotypers, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A mute goes aboard a boat on the Mississippi.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Showing that many men have many minds.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+In which a variety of characters appear.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Renewal of old acquaintance.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+The man with the weed makes it an even question whether he be a great
+sage or a great simpleton.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+At the outset of which certain passengers prove deaf to the call of
+charity.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A gentleman with gold sleeve-buttons.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A charitable lady.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Two business men transact a little business.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+In the cabin.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Only a page or so.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+The story of the unfortunate man, from which may be gathered whether or
+no he has been justly so entitled.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+The man with the traveling-cap evinces much humanity, and in a way which
+would seem to show him to be one of the most logical of optimists.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Worth the consideration of those to whom it may prove worth considering.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+An old miser, upon suitable representations, is prevailed upon to
+venture an investment.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A sick man, after some impatience, is induced to become a patient.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Towards the end of which the Herb-Doctor proves himself a forgiver of
+injuries.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Inquest into the true character of the Herb-Doctor.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A soldier of fortune.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Reappearance of one who may be remembered.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A hard case.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+In the polite spirit of the Tusculan disputations.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+In which the powerful effect of natural scenery is evinced in the case
+of the Missourian, who, in view of the region round about Cairo, has a
+return of his chilly fit.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A philanthropist undertakes to convert a misanthrope, but does not get
+beyond confuting him.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+The Cosmopolitan makes an acquaintance.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Containing the metaphysics of Indian-hating, according to the views of
+one evidently not so prepossessed as Rousseau in favor of savages.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+Some account of a man of questionable morality, but who, nevertheless,
+would seem entitled to the esteem of that eminent English moralist who
+said he liked a good hater.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+Moot points touching the late Colonel John Moredock.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+The boon companions.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+Opening with a poetical eulogy of the Press, and continuing with talk
+inspired by the same.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+A metamorphosis more surprising than any in Ovid.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+Showing that the age of music and magicians is not yet over.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+Which may pass for whatever it may prove to be worth.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+In which the Cosmopolitan tells the story of the gentleman-madman.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+In which the Cosmopolitan strikingly evinces the artlessness of his
+nature.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+In which the Cosmopolitan is accosted by a mystic, whereupon ensues
+pretty much such talk as might be expected.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+The mystical master introduces the practical disciple.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+The disciple unbends, and consents to act a social part.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+The hypothetical friends.
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+In which the story of China Aster is, at second-hand, told by one who,
+while not disapproving the moral, disclaims the spirit of the style.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+Ending with a rupture of the hypothesis.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+Upon the heel of the last scene, the Cosmopolitan enters the barber's
+shop, a benediction on his lips.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+Very charming.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+In which the last three words of the last chapter are made the text of
+the discourse, which will be sure of receiving more or less attention
+from those readers who do not skip it.
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+The Cosmopolitan increases in seriousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A MUTE GOES ABOARD A BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
+
+
+At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac
+at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in the
+city of St. Louis.
+
+His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur
+one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag,
+nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends.
+From the shrugged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd,
+it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a
+stranger.
+
+In the same moment with his advent, he stepped aboard the favorite
+steamer Fidèle, on the point of starting for New Orleans. Stared at, but
+unsaluted, with the air of one neither courting nor shunning regard, but
+evenly pursuing the path of duty, lead it through solitudes or cities,
+he held on his way along the lower deck until he chanced to come to a
+placard nigh the captain's office, offering a reward for the capture of
+a mysterious impostor, supposed to have recently arrived from the East;
+quite an original genius in his vocation, as would appear, though
+wherein his originality consisted was not clearly given; but what
+purported to be a careful description of his person followed.
+
+As if it had been a theatre-bill, crowds were gathered about the
+announcement, and among them certain chevaliers, whose eyes, it was
+plain, were on the capitals, or, at least, earnestly seeking sight of
+them from behind intervening coats; but as for their fingers, they were
+enveloped in some myth; though, during a chance interval, one of these
+chevaliers somewhat showed his hand in purchasing from another
+chevalier, ex-officio a peddler of money-belts, one of his popular
+safe-guards, while another peddler, who was still another versatile
+chevalier, hawked, in the thick of the throng, the lives of Measan, the
+bandit of Ohio, Murrel, the pirate of the Mississippi, and the brothers
+Harpe, the Thugs of the Green River country, in Kentucky--creatures,
+with others of the sort, one and all exterminated at the time, and for
+the most part, like the hunted generations of wolves in the same
+regions, leaving comparatively few successors; which would seem cause
+for unalloyed gratulation, and is such to all except those who think
+that in new countries, where the wolves are killed off, the foxes
+increase.
+
+Pausing at this spot, the stranger so far succeeded in threading his
+way, as at last to plant himself just beside the placard, when,
+producing a small slate and tracing some words upon if, he held it up
+before him on a level with the placard, so that they who read the one
+might read the other. The words were these:--
+
+"Charity thinketh no evil."
+
+As, in gaining his place, some little perseverance, not to say
+persistence, of a mildly inoffensive sort, had been unavoidable, it was
+not with the best relish that the crowd regarded his apparent intrusion;
+and upon a more attentive survey, perceiving no badge of authority about
+him, but rather something quite the contrary--he being of an aspect so
+singularly innocent; an aspect too, which they took to be somehow
+inappropriate to the time and place, and inclining to the notion that
+his writing was of much the same sort: in short, taking him for some
+strange kind of simpleton, harmless enough, would he keep to himself,
+but not wholly unobnoxious as an intruder--they made no scruple to
+jostle him aside; while one, less kind than the rest, or more of a wag,
+by an unobserved stroke, dexterously flattened down his fleecy hat upon
+his head. Without readjusting it, the stranger quietly turned, and
+writing anew upon the slate, again held it up:--
+
+"Charity suffereth long, and is kind."
+
+Illy pleased with his pertinacity, as they thought it, the crowd a
+second time thrust him aside, and not without epithets and some buffets,
+all of which were unresented. But, as if at last despairing of so
+difficult an adventure, wherein one, apparently a non-resistant, sought
+to impose his presence upon fighting characters, the stranger now moved
+slowly away, yet not before altering his writing to this:--
+
+"Charity endureth all things."
+
+Shield-like bearing his slate before him, amid stares and jeers he moved
+slowly up and down, at his turning points again changing his inscription
+to--
+
+"Charity believeth all things."
+
+and then--
+
+"Charity never faileth."
+
+The word charity, as originally traced, remained throughout uneffaced,
+not unlike the left-hand numeral of a printed date, otherwise left for
+convenience in blank.
+
+To some observers, the singularity, if not lunacy, of the stranger was
+heightened by his muteness, and, perhaps also, by the contrast to his
+proceedings afforded in the actions--quite in the wonted and sensible
+order of things--of the barber of the boat, whose quarters, under a
+smoking-saloon, and over against a bar-room, was next door but two to
+the captain's office. As if the long, wide, covered deck, hereabouts
+built up on both sides with shop-like windowed spaces, were some
+Constantinople arcade or bazaar, where more than one trade is plied,
+this river barber, aproned and slippered, but rather crusty-looking for
+the moment, it may be from being newly out of bed, was throwing open
+his premises for the day, and suitably arranging the exterior. With
+business-like dispatch, having rattled down his shutters, and at a
+palm-tree angle set out in the iron fixture his little ornamental pole,
+and this without overmuch tenderness for the elbows and toes of the
+crowd, he concluded his operations by bidding people stand still more
+aside, when, jumping on a stool, he hung over his door, on the customary
+nail, a gaudy sort of illuminated pasteboard sign, skillfully executed
+by himself, gilt with the likeness of a razor elbowed in readiness to
+shave, and also, for the public benefit, with two words not unfrequently
+seen ashore gracing other shops besides barbers':--
+
+"NO TRUST."
+
+An inscription which, though in a sense not less intrusive than the
+contrasted ones of the stranger, did not, as it seemed, provoke any
+corresponding derision or surprise, much less indignation; and still
+less, to all appearances, did it gain for the inscriber the repute of
+being a simpleton.
+
+Meanwhile, he with the slate continued moving slowly up and down, not
+without causing some stares to change into jeers, and some jeers into
+pushes, and some pushes into punches; when suddenly, in one of his
+turns, he was hailed from behind by two porters carrying a large trunk;
+but as the summons, though loud, was without effect, they accidentally
+or otherwise swung their burden against him, nearly overthrowing him;
+when, by a quick start, a peculiar inarticulate moan, and a pathetic
+telegraphing of his fingers, he involuntarily betrayed that he was not
+alone dumb, but also deaf.
+
+Presently, as if not wholly unaffected by his reception thus far, he
+went forward, seating himself in a retired spot on the forecastle, nigh
+the foot of a ladder there leading to a deck above, up and down which
+ladder some of the boatmen, in discharge of their duties, were
+occasionally going.
+
+From his betaking himself to this humble quarter, it was evident that,
+as a deck-passenger, the stranger, simple though he seemed, was not
+entirely ignorant of his place, though his taking a deck-passage might
+have been partly for convenience; as, from his having no luggage, it was
+probable that his destination was one of the small wayside landings
+within a few hours' sail. But, though he might not have a long way to
+go, yet he seemed already to have come from a very long distance.
+
+Though neither soiled nor slovenly, his cream-colored suit had a tossed
+look, almost linty, as if, traveling night and day from some far country
+beyond the prairies, he had long been without the solace of a bed. His
+aspect was at once gentle and jaded, and, from the moment of seating
+himself, increasing in tired abstraction and dreaminess. Gradually
+overtaken by slumber, his flaxen head drooped, his whole lamb-like
+figure relaxed, and, half reclining against the ladder's foot, lay
+motionless, as some sugar-snow in March, which, softly stealing down
+over night, with its white placidity startles the brown farmer peering
+out from his threshold at daybreak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SHOWING THAT MANY MEN HAVE MANY MINDS.
+
+
+"Odd fish!"
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+"Who can he be?"
+
+"Casper Hauser."
+
+"Bless my soul!"
+
+"Uncommon countenance."
+
+"Green prophet from Utah."
+
+"Humbug!"
+
+"Singular innocence."
+
+"Means something."
+
+"Spirit-rapper."
+
+"Moon-calf."
+
+"Piteous."
+
+"Trying to enlist interest."
+
+"Beware of him."
+
+"Fast asleep here, and, doubtless, pick-pockets on board."
+
+"Kind of daylight Endymion."
+
+"Escaped convict, worn out with dodging."
+
+"Jacob dreaming at Luz."
+
+Such the epitaphic comments, conflictingly spoken or thought, of a
+miscellaneous company, who, assembled on the overlooking, cross-wise
+balcony at the forward end of the upper deck near by, had not witnessed
+preceding occurrences.
+
+Meantime, like some enchanted man in his grave, happily oblivious of all
+gossip, whether chiseled or chatted, the deaf and dumb stranger still
+tranquilly slept, while now the boat started on her voyage.
+
+The great ship-canal of Ving-King-Ching, in the Flowery Kingdom, seems
+the Mississippi in parts, where, amply flowing between low, vine-tangled
+banks, flat as tow-paths, it bears the huge toppling steamers, bedizened
+and lacquered within like imperial junks.
+
+Pierced along its great white bulk with two tiers of small
+embrasure-like windows, well above the waterline, the Fiddle, though,
+might at distance have been taken by strangers for some whitewashed fort
+on a floating isle.
+
+Merchants on 'change seem the passengers that buzz on her decks, while,
+from quarters unseen, comes a murmur as of bees in the comb. Fine
+promenades, domed saloons, long galleries, sunny balconies, confidential
+passages, bridal chambers, state-rooms plenty as pigeon-holes, and
+out-of-the-way retreats like secret drawers in an escritoire, present
+like facilities for publicity or privacy. Auctioneer or coiner, with
+equal ease, might somewhere here drive his trade.
+
+Though her voyage of twelve hundred miles extends from apple to orange,
+from clime to clime, yet, like any small ferry-boat, to right and left,
+at every landing, the huge Fidèle still receives additional passengers
+in exchange for those that disembark; so that, though always full of
+strangers, she continually, in some degree, adds to, or replaces them
+with strangers still more strange; like Rio Janeiro fountain, fed from
+the Cocovarde mountains, which is ever overflowing with strange waters,
+but never with the same strange particles in every part.
+
+Though hitherto, as has been seen, the man in cream-colors had by no
+means passed unobserved, yet by stealing into retirement, and there
+going asleep and continuing so, he seemed to have courted oblivion, a
+boon not often withheld from so humble an applicant as he. Those staring
+crowds on the shore were now left far behind, seen dimly clustering like
+swallows on eaves; while the passengers' attention was soon drawn away
+to the rapidly shooting high bluffs and shot-towers on the Missouri
+shore, or the bluff-looking Missourians and towering Kentuckians among
+the throngs on the decks.
+
+By-and-by--two or three random stoppages having been made, and the last
+transient memory of the slumberer vanished, and he himself, not
+unlikely, waked up and landed ere now--the crowd, as is usual, began in
+all parts to break up from a concourse into various clusters or squads,
+which in some cases disintegrated again into quartettes, trios, and
+couples, or even solitaires; involuntarily submitting to that natural
+law which ordains dissolution equally to the mass, as in time to the
+member.
+
+As among Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims, or those oriental ones crossing
+the Red Sea towards Mecca in the festival month, there was no lack of
+variety. Natives of all sorts, and foreigners; men of business and men
+of pleasure; parlor men and backwoodsmen; farm-hunters and fame-hunters;
+heiress-hunters, gold-hunters, buffalo-hunters, bee-hunters,
+happiness-hunters, truth-hunters, and still keener hunters after all
+these hunters. Fine ladies in slippers, and moccasined squaws; Northern
+speculators and Eastern philosophers; English, Irish, German, Scotch,
+Danes; Santa Fé traders in striped blankets, and Broadway bucks in
+cravats of cloth of gold; fine-looking Kentucky boatmen, and
+Japanese-looking Mississippi cotton-planters; Quakers in full drab, and
+United States soldiers in full regimentals; slaves, black, mulatto,
+quadroon; modish young Spanish Creoles, and old-fashioned French Jews;
+Mormons and Papists Dives and Lazarus; jesters and mourners, teetotalers
+and convivialists, deacons and blacklegs; hard-shell Baptists and
+clay-eaters; grinning negroes, and Sioux chiefs solemn as high-priests.
+In short, a piebald parliament, an Anacharsis Cloots congress of all
+kinds of that multiform pilgrim species, man.
+
+As pine, beech, birch, ash, hackmatack, hemlock, spruce, bass-wood,
+maple, interweave their foliage in the natural wood, so these mortals
+blended their varieties of visage and garb. A Tartar-like
+picturesqueness; a sort of pagan abandonment and assurance. Here reigned
+the dashing and all-fusing spirit of the West, whose type is the
+Mississippi itself, which, uniting the streams of the most distant and
+opposite zones, pours them along, helter-skelter, in one cosmopolitan
+and confident tide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN WHICH A VARIETY OF CHARACTERS APPEAR.
+
+
+In the forward part of the boat, not the least attractive object, for a
+time, was a grotesque negro cripple, in tow-cloth attire and an old
+coal-sifter of a tamborine in his hand, who, owing to something wrong
+about his legs, was, in effect, cut down to the stature of a
+Newfoundland dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured, honest
+black face rubbing against the upper part of people's thighs as he made
+shift to shuffle about, making music, such as it was, and raising a
+smile even from the gravest. It was curious to see him, out of his very
+deformity, indigence, and houselessness, so cheerily endured, raising
+mirth in some of that crowd, whose own purses, hearths, hearts, all
+their possessions, sound limbs included, could not make gay.
+
+"What is your name, old boy?" said a purple-faced drover, putting his
+large purple hand on the cripple's bushy wool, as if it were the curled
+forehead of a black steer.
+
+"Der Black Guinea dey calls me, sar."
+
+"And who is your master, Guinea?"
+
+"Oh sar, I am der dog widout massa."
+
+"A free dog, eh? Well, on your account, I'm sorry for that, Guinea. Dogs
+without masters fare hard."
+
+"So dey do, sar; so dey do. But you see, sar, dese here legs? What
+ge'mman want to own dese here legs?"
+
+"But where do you live?"
+
+"All 'long shore, sar; dough now. I'se going to see brodder at der
+landing; but chiefly I libs in dey city."
+
+"St. Louis, ah? Where do you sleep there of nights?"
+
+"On der floor of der good baker's oven, sar."
+
+"In an oven? whose, pray? What baker, I should like to know, bakes such
+black bread in his oven, alongside of his nice white rolls, too. Who is
+that too charitable baker, pray?"
+
+"Dar he be," with a broad grin lifting his tambourine high over his
+head.
+
+"The sun is the baker, eh?"
+
+"Yes sar, in der city dat good baker warms der stones for dis ole darkie
+when he sleeps out on der pabements o' nights."
+
+"But that must be in the summer only, old boy. How about winter, when
+the cold Cossacks come clattering and jingling? How about winter, old
+boy?"
+
+"Den dis poor old darkie shakes werry bad, I tell you, sar. Oh sar, oh!
+don't speak ob der winter," he added, with a reminiscent shiver,
+shuffling off into the thickest of the crowd, like a half-frozen black
+sheep nudging itself a cozy berth in the heart of the white flock.
+
+Thus far not very many pennies had been given him, and, used at last to
+his strange looks, the less polite passengers of those in that part of
+the boat began to get their fill of him as a curious object; when
+suddenly the negro more than revived their first interest by an
+expedient which, whether by chance or design, was a singular temptation
+at once to _diversion_ and charity, though, even more than his crippled
+limbs, it put him on a canine footing. In short, as in appearance he
+seemed a dog, so now, in a merry way, like a dog he began to be treated.
+Still shuffling among the crowd, now and then he would pause, throwing
+back his head and, opening his mouth like an elephant for tossed apples
+at a menagerie; when, making a space before him, people would have a
+bout at a strange sort of pitch-penny game, the cripple's mouth being at
+once target and purse, and he hailing each expertly-caught copper with a
+cracked bravura from his tambourine. To be the subject of alms-giving is
+trying, and to feel in duty bound to appear cheerfully grateful under
+the trial, must be still more so; but whatever his secret emotions, he
+swallowed them, while still retaining each copper this side the
+oesophagus. And nearly always he grinned, and only once or twice did
+he wince, which was when certain coins, tossed by more playful almoners,
+came inconveniently nigh to his teeth, an accident whose unwelcomeness
+was not unedged by the circumstance that the pennies thus thrown proved
+buttons.
+
+While this game of charity was yet at its height, a limping,
+gimlet-eyed, sour-faced person--it may be some discharged custom-house
+officer, who, suddenly stripped of convenient means of support, had
+concluded to be avenged on government and humanity by making himself
+miserable for life, either by hating or suspecting everything and
+everybody--this shallow unfortunate, after sundry sorry observations of
+the negro, began to croak out something about his deformity being a
+sham, got up for financial purposes, which immediately threw a damp upon
+the frolic benignities of the pitch-penny players.
+
+But that these suspicions came from one who himself on a wooden leg went
+halt, this did not appear to strike anybody present. That cripples,
+above all men should be companionable, or, at least, refrain from
+picking a fellow-limper to pieces, in short, should have a little
+sympathy in common misfortune, seemed not to occur to the company.
+
+Meantime, the negro's countenance, before marked with even more than
+patient good-nature, drooped into a heavy-hearted expression, full of
+the most painful distress. So far abased beneath its proper physical
+level, that Newfoundland-dog face turned in passively hopeless appeal,
+as if instinct told it that the right or the wrong might not have
+overmuch to do with whatever wayward mood superior intelligences might
+yield to.
+
+But instinct, though knowing, is yet a teacher set below reason, which
+itself says, in the grave words of Lysander in the comedy, after Puck
+has made a sage of him with his spell:--
+
+"The will of man is by his reason swayed."
+
+So that, suddenly change as people may, in their dispositions, it is not
+always waywardness, but improved judgment, which, as in Lysander's case,
+or the present, operates with them.
+
+Yes, they began to scrutinize the negro curiously enough; when,
+emboldened by this evidence of the efficacy of his words, the
+wooden-legged man hobbled up to the negro, and, with the air of a
+beadle, would, to prove his alleged imposture on the spot, have stripped
+him and then driven him away, but was prevented by the crowd's clamor,
+now taking part with the poor fellow, against one who had just before
+turned nearly all minds the other way. So he with the wooden leg was
+forced to retire; when the rest, finding themselves left sole judges in
+the case, could not resist the opportunity of acting the part: not
+because it is a human weakness to take pleasure in sitting in judgment
+upon one in a box, as surely this unfortunate negro now was, but that it
+strangely sharpens human perceptions, when, instead of standing by and
+having their fellow-feelings touched by the sight of an alleged culprit
+severely handled by some one justiciary, a crowd suddenly come to be all
+justiciaries in the same case themselves; as in Arkansas once, a man
+proved guilty, by law, of murder, but whose condemnation was deemed
+unjust by the people, so that they rescued him to try him themselves;
+whereupon, they, as it turned out, found him even guiltier than the
+court had done, and forthwith proceeded to execution; so that the
+gallows presented the truly warning spectacle of a man hanged by his
+friends.
+
+But not to such extremities, or anything like them, did the present
+crowd come; they, for the time, being content with putting the negro
+fairly and discreetly to the question; among other things, asking him,
+had he any documentary proof, any plain paper about him, attesting that
+his case was not a spurious one.
+
+"No, no, dis poor ole darkie haint none o' dem waloable papers," he
+wailed.
+
+"But is there not some one who can speak a good word for you?" here said
+a person newly arrived from another part of the boat, a young Episcopal
+clergyman, in a long, straight-bodied black coat; small in stature, but
+manly; with a clear face and blue eye; innocence, tenderness, and good
+sense triumvirate in his air.
+
+"Oh yes, oh yes, ge'mmen," he eagerly answered, as if his memory, before
+suddenly frozen up by cold charity, as suddenly thawed back into
+fluidity at the first kindly word. "Oh yes, oh yes, dar is aboard here a
+werry nice, good ge'mman wid a weed, and a ge'mman in a gray coat and
+white tie, what knows all about me; and a ge'mman wid a big book, too;
+and a yarb-doctor; and a ge'mman in a yaller west; and a ge'mman wid a
+brass plate; and a ge'mman in a wiolet robe; and a ge'mman as is a
+sodjer; and ever so many good, kind, honest ge'mmen more aboard what
+knows me and will speak for me, God bress 'em; yes, and what knows me as
+well as dis poor old darkie knows hisself, God bress him! Oh, find 'em,
+find 'em," he earnestly added, "and let 'em come quick, and show you
+all, ge'mmen, dat dis poor ole darkie is werry well wordy of all you
+kind ge'mmen's kind confidence."
+
+"But how are we to find all these people in this great crowd?" was the
+question of a bystander, umbrella in hand; a middle-aged person, a
+country merchant apparently, whose natural good-feeling had been made at
+least cautious by the unnatural ill-feeling of the discharged
+custom-house officer.
+
+"Where are we to find them?" half-rebukefully echoed the young Episcopal
+clergymen. "I will go find one to begin with," he quickly added, and,
+with kind haste suiting the action to the word, away he went.
+
+"Wild goose chase!" croaked he with the wooden leg, now again drawing
+nigh. "Don't believe there's a soul of them aboard. Did ever beggar have
+such heaps of fine friends? He can walk fast enough when he tries, a
+good deal faster than I; but he can lie yet faster. He's some white
+operator, betwisted and painted up for a decoy. He and his friends are
+all humbugs."
+
+"Have you no charity, friend?" here in self-subdued tones, singularly
+contrasted with his unsubdued person, said a Methodist minister,
+advancing; a tall, muscular, martial-looking man, a Tennessean by birth,
+who in the Mexican war had been volunteer chaplain to a volunteer
+rifle-regiment.
+
+"Charity is one thing, and truth is another," rejoined he with the
+wooden leg: "he's a rascal, I say."
+
+"But why not, friend, put as charitable a construction as one can upon
+the poor fellow?" said the soldierlike Methodist, with increased
+difficulty maintaining a pacific demeanor towards one whose own asperity
+seemed so little to entitle him to it: "he looks honest, don't he?"
+
+"Looks are one thing, and facts are another," snapped out the other
+perversely; "and as to your constructions, what construction can you put
+upon a rascal, but that a rascal he is?"
+
+"Be not such a Canada thistle," urged the Methodist, with something less
+of patience than before. "Charity, man, charity."
+
+"To where it belongs with your charity! to heaven with it!" again
+snapped out the other, diabolically; "here on earth, true charity dotes,
+and false charity plots. Who betrays a fool with a kiss, the charitable
+fool has the charity to believe is in love with him, and the charitable
+knave on the stand gives charitable testimony for his comrade in the
+box."
+
+"Surely, friend," returned the noble Methodist, with much ado
+restraining his still waxing indignation--"surely, to say the least, you
+forget yourself. Apply it home," he continued, with exterior calmness
+tremulous with inkept emotion. "Suppose, now, I should exercise no
+charity in judging your own character by the words which have fallen
+from you; what sort of vile, pitiless man do you think I would take you
+for?"
+
+"No doubt"--with a grin--"some such pitiless man as has lost his piety
+in much the same way that the jockey loses his honesty."
+
+"And how is that, friend?" still conscientiously holding back the old
+Adam in him, as if it were a mastiff he had by the neck.
+
+"Never you mind how it is"--with a sneer; "but all horses aint virtuous,
+no more than all men kind; and come close to, and much dealt with, some
+things are catching. When you find me a virtuous jockey, I will find you
+a benevolent wise man."
+
+"Some insinuation there."
+
+"More fool you that are puzzled by it."
+
+"Reprobate!" cried the other, his indignation now at last almost boiling
+over; "godless reprobate! if charity did not restrain me, I could call
+you by names you deserve."
+
+"Could you, indeed?" with an insolent sneer.
+
+"Yea, and teach you charity on the spot," cried the goaded Methodist,
+suddenly catching this exasperating opponent by his shabby coat-collar,
+and shaking him till his timber-toe clattered on the deck like a
+nine-pin. "You took me for a non-combatant did you?--thought, seedy
+coward that you are, that you could abuse a Christian with impunity. You
+find your mistake"--with another hearty shake.
+
+"Well said and better done, church militant!" cried a voice.
+
+"The white cravat against the world!" cried another.
+
+"Bravo, bravo!" chorused many voices, with like enthusiasm taking sides
+with the resolute champion.
+
+"You fools!" cried he with the wooden leg, writhing himself loose and
+inflamedly turning upon the throng; "you flock of fools, under this
+captain of fools, in this ship of fools!"
+
+With which exclamations, followed by idle threats against his
+admonisher, this condign victim to justice hobbled away, as disdaining
+to hold further argument with such a rabble. But his scorn was more than
+repaid by the hisses that chased him, in which the brave Methodist,
+satisfied with the rebuke already administered, was, to omit still
+better reasons, too magnanimous to join. All he said was, pointing
+towards the departing recusant, "There he shambles off on his one lone
+leg, emblematic of his one-sided view of humanity."
+
+"But trust your painted decoy," retorted the other from a distance,
+pointing back to the black cripple, "and I have my revenge."
+
+"But we aint agoing to trust him!" shouted back a voice.
+
+"So much the better," he jeered back. "Look you," he added, coming to a
+dead halt where he was; "look you, I have been called a Canada thistle.
+Very good. And a seedy one: still better. And the seedy Canada thistle
+has been pretty well shaken among ye: best of all. Dare say some seed
+has been shaken out; and won't it spring though? And when it does
+spring, do you cut down the young thistles, and won't they spring the
+more? It's encouraging and coaxing 'em. Now, when with my thistles your
+farms shall be well stocked, why then--you may abandon 'em!"
+
+"What does all that mean, now?" asked the country merchant, staring.
+
+"Nothing; the foiled wolf's parting howl," said the Methodist. "Spleen,
+much spleen, which is the rickety child of his evil heart of unbelief:
+it has made him mad. I suspect him for one naturally reprobate. Oh,
+friends," raising his arms as in the pulpit, "oh beloved, how are we
+admonished by the melancholy spectacle of this raver. Let us profit by
+the lesson; and is it not this: that if, next to mistrusting Providence,
+there be aught that man should pray against, it is against mistrusting
+his fellow-man. I have been in mad-houses full of tragic mopers, and
+seen there the end of suspicion: the cynic, in the moody madness
+muttering in the corner; for years a barren fixture there; head lopped
+over, gnawing his own lip, vulture of himself; while, by fits and
+starts, from the corner opposite came the grimace of the idiot at him."
+
+"What an example," whispered one.
+
+"Might deter Timon," was the response.
+
+"Oh, oh, good ge'mmen, have you no confidence in dis poor ole darkie?"
+now wailed the returning negro, who, during the late scene, had stumped
+apart in alarm.
+
+"Confidence in you?" echoed he who had whispered, with abruptly changed
+air turning short round; "that remains to be seen."
+
+"I tell you what it is, Ebony," in similarly changed tones said he who
+had responded to the whisperer, "yonder churl," pointing toward the
+wooden leg in the distance, "is, no doubt, a churlish fellow enough, and
+I would not wish to be like him; but that is no reason why you may not
+be some sort of black Jeremy Diddler."
+
+"No confidence in dis poor ole darkie, den?"
+
+"Before giving you our confidence," said a third, "we will wait the
+report of the kind gentleman who went in search of one of your friends
+who was to speak for you."
+
+"Very likely, in that case," said a fourth, "we shall wait here till
+Christmas. Shouldn't wonder, did we not see that kind gentleman again.
+After seeking awhile in vain, he will conclude he has been made a fool
+of, and so not return to us for pure shame. Fact is, I begin to feel a
+little qualmish about the darkie myself. Something queer about this
+darkie, depend upon it."
+
+Once more the negro wailed, and turning in despair from the last
+speaker, imploringly caught the Methodist by the skirt of his coat. But
+a change had come over that before impassioned intercessor. With an
+irresolute and troubled air, he mutely eyed the suppliant; against whom,
+somehow, by what seemed instinctive influences, the distrusts first set
+on foot were now generally reviving, and, if anything, with added
+severity.
+
+"No confidence in dis poor ole darkie," yet again wailed the negro,
+letting go the coat-skirts and turning appealingly all round him.
+
+"Yes, my poor fellow _I_ have confidence in you," now exclaimed the
+country merchant before named, whom the negro's appeal, coming so
+piteously on the heel of pitilessness, seemed at last humanely to have
+decided in his favor. "And here, here is some proof of my trust," with
+which, tucking his umbrella under his arm, and diving down his hand into
+his pocket, he fished forth a purse, and, accidentally, along with it,
+his business card, which, unobserved, dropped to the deck. "Here, here,
+my poor fellow," he continued, extending a half dollar.
+
+Not more grateful for the coin than the kindness, the cripple's face
+glowed like a polished copper saucepan, and shuffling a pace nigher,
+with one upstretched hand he received the alms, while, as unconsciously,
+his one advanced leather stump covered the card.
+
+Done in despite of the general sentiment, the good deed of the merchant
+was not, perhaps, without its unwelcome return from the crowd, since
+that good deed seemed somehow to convey to them a sort of reproach.
+Still again, and more pertinaciously than ever, the cry arose against
+the negro, and still again he wailed forth his lament and appeal among
+other things, repeating that the friends, of whom already he had
+partially run off the list, would freely speak for him, would anybody go
+find them.
+
+"Why don't you go find 'em yourself?" demanded a gruff boatman.
+
+"How can I go find 'em myself? Dis poor ole game-legged darkie's friends
+must come to him. Oh, whar, whar is dat good friend of dis darkie's, dat
+good man wid de weed?"
+
+At this point, a steward ringing a bell came along, summoning all
+persons who had not got their tickets to step to the captain's office;
+an announcement which speedily thinned the throng about the black
+cripple, who himself soon forlornly stumped out of sight, probably on
+much the same errand as the rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+RENEWAL OF OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Roberts?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Don't you know me?"
+
+"No, certainly."
+
+The crowd about the captain's office, having in good time melted away,
+the above encounter took place in one of the side balconies astern,
+between a man in mourning clean and respectable, but none of the
+glossiest, a long weed on his hat, and the country-merchant
+before-mentioned, whom, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, the
+former had accosted.
+
+"Is it possible, my dear sir," resumed he with the weed, "that you do
+not recall my countenance? why yours I recall distinctly as if but half
+an hour, instead of half an age, had passed since I saw you. Don't you
+recall me, now? Look harder."
+
+"In my conscience--truly--I protest," honestly bewildered, "bless my
+soul, sir, I don't know you--really, really. But stay, stay," he
+hurriedly added, not without gratification, glancing up at the crape on
+the stranger's hat, "stay--yes--seems to me, though I have not the
+pleasure of personally knowing you, yet I am pretty sure I have at least
+_heard_ of you, and recently too, quite recently. A poor negro aboard
+here referred to you, among others, for a character, I think."
+
+"Oh, the cripple. Poor fellow. I know him well. They found me. I have
+said all I could for him. I think I abated their distrust. Would I could
+have been of more substantial service. And apropos, sir," he added, "now
+that it strikes me, allow me to ask, whether the circumstance of one
+man, however humble, referring for a character to another man, however
+afflicted, does not argue more or less of moral worth in the latter?"
+
+The good merchant looked puzzled.
+
+"Still you don't recall my countenance?"
+
+"Still does truth compel me to say that I cannot, despite my best
+efforts," was the reluctantly-candid reply.
+
+"Can I be so changed? Look at me. Or is it I who am mistaken?--Are you
+not, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania?
+Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to
+have one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man
+I take you for."
+
+"Why," a bit chafed, perhaps, "I hope I know myself."
+
+"And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my
+dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else?
+Stranger things have happened."
+
+The good merchant stared.
+
+"To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now some six years
+back, at Brade Brothers & Co's office, I think. I was traveling for a
+Philadelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some
+business-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a family
+tea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, and
+what I said about Werter's Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that
+capital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I have
+laughed over it. At least you must recall my name--Ringman, John
+Ringman."
+
+"Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?"
+
+"Ah sir," sadly smiling, "don't ring the changes that way. I see you
+have a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness of
+mine."
+
+"Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory aint of the very
+best," was the honest rejoinder. "But still," he perplexedly added,
+"still I----"
+
+"Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that we are all well
+acquainted."
+
+"But--but I don't like this going dead against my own memory; I----"
+
+"But didn't you admit, my dear sir, that in some things this memory of
+yours is a little faithless? Now, those who have faithless memories,
+should they not have some little confidence in the less faithless
+memories of others?"
+
+"But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the slightest----"
+
+"I see, I see; quite erased from the tablet. Pray, sir," with a sudden
+illumination, "about six years back, did it happen to you to receive any
+injury on the head? Surprising effects have arisen from such a cause.
+Not alone unconsciousness as to events for a greater or less time
+immediately subsequent to the injury, but likewise--strange to
+add--oblivion, entire and incurable, as to events embracing a longer or
+shorter period immediately preceding it; that is, when the mind at the
+time was perfectly sensible of them, and fully competent also to
+register them in the memory, and did in fact so do; but all in vain, for
+all was afterwards bruised out by the injury."
+
+After the first start, the merchant listened with what appeared more
+than ordinary interest. The other proceeded:
+
+"In my boyhood I was kicked by a horse, and lay insensible for a long
+time. Upon recovering, what a blank! No faintest trace in regard to how
+I had come near the horse, or what horse it was, or where it was, or
+that it was a horse at all that had brought me to that pass. For the
+knowledge of those particulars I am indebted solely to my friends, in
+whose statements, I need not say, I place implicit reliance, since
+particulars of some sort there must have been, and why should they
+deceive me? You see sir, the mind is ductile, very much so: but images,
+ductilely received into it, need a certain time to harden and bake in
+their impressions, otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in an
+instant obliterate them, as though they had never been. We are but clay,
+sir, potter's clay, as the good book says, clay, feeble, and
+too-yielding clay. But I will not philosophize. Tell me, was it your
+misfortune to receive any concussion upon the brain about the period I
+speak of? If so, I will with pleasure supply the void in your memory by
+more minutely rehearsing the circumstances of our acquaintance."
+
+The growing interest betrayed by the merchant had not relaxed as the
+other proceeded. After some hesitation, indeed, something more than
+hesitation, he confessed that, though he had never received any injury
+of the sort named, yet, about the time in question, he had in fact been
+taken with a brain fever, losing his mind completely for a considerable
+interval. He was continuing, when the stranger with much animation
+exclaimed:
+
+"There now, you see, I was not wholly mistaken. That brain fever
+accounts for it all."
+
+"Nay; but----"
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Roberts," respectfully interrupting him, "but time is
+short, and I have something private and particular to say to you. Allow
+me."
+
+Mr. Roberts, good man, could but acquiesce, and the two having silently
+walked to a less public spot, the manner of the man with the weed
+suddenly assumed a seriousness almost painful. What might be called a
+writhing expression stole over him. He seemed struggling with some
+disastrous necessity inkept. He made one or two attempts to speak, but
+words seemed to choke him. His companion stood in humane surprise,
+wondering what was to come. At length, with an effort mastering his
+feelings, in a tolerably composed tone he spoke:
+
+"If I remember, you are a mason, Mr. Roberts?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+Averting himself a moment, as to recover from a return of agitation, the
+stranger grasped the other's hand; "and would you not loan a brother a
+shilling if he needed it?"
+
+The merchant started, apparently, almost as if to retreat.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Roberts, I trust you are not one of those business men, who
+make a business of never having to do with unfortunates. For God's sake
+don't leave me. I have something on my heart--on my heart. Under
+deplorable circumstances thrown among strangers, utter strangers. I want
+a friend in whom I may confide. Yours, Mr. Roberts, is almost the first
+known face I've seen for many weeks."
+
+It was so sudden an outburst; the interview offered such a contrast to
+the scene around, that the merchant, though not used to be very
+indiscreet, yet, being not entirely inhumane, remained not entirely
+unmoved.
+
+The other, still tremulous, resumed:
+
+"I need not say, sir, how it cuts me to the soul, to follow up a social
+salutation with such words as have just been mine. I know that I
+jeopardize your good opinion. But I can't help it: necessity knows no
+law, and heeds no risk. Sir, we are masons, one more step aside; I will
+tell you my story."
+
+In a low, half-suppressed tone, he began it. Judging from his auditor's
+expression, it seemed to be a tale of singular interest, involving
+calamities against which no integrity, no forethought, no energy, no
+genius, no piety, could guard.
+
+At every disclosure, the hearer's commiseration increased. No
+sentimental pity. As the story went on, he drew from his wallet a bank
+note, but after a while, at some still more unhappy revelation, changed
+it for another, probably of a somewhat larger amount; which, when the
+story was concluded, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-giving,
+he put into the stranger's hands; who, on his side, with an air
+studiously disclamatory of alms-taking, put it into his pocket.
+
+Assistance being received, the stranger's manner assumed a kind and
+degree of decorum which, under the circumstances, seemed almost
+coldness. After some words, not over ardent, and yet not exactly
+inappropriate, he took leave, making a bow which had one knows not what
+of a certain chastened independence about it; as if misery, however
+burdensome, could not break down self-respect, nor gratitude, however
+deep, humiliate a gentleman.
+
+He was hardly yet out of sight, when he paused as if thinking; then with
+hastened steps returning to the merchant, "I am just reminded that the
+president, who is also transfer-agent, of the Black Rapids Coal Company,
+happens to be on board here, and, having been subpoenaed as witness in a
+stock case on the docket in Kentucky, has his transfer-book with him. A
+month since, in a panic contrived by artful alarmists, some credulous
+stock-holders sold out; but, to frustrate the aim of the alarmists, the
+Company, previously advised of their scheme, so managed it as to get
+into its own hands those sacrificed shares, resolved that, since a
+spurious panic must be, the panic-makers should be no gainers by it. The
+Company, I hear, is now ready, but not anxious, to redispose of those
+shares; and having obtained them at their depressed value, will now sell
+them at par, though, prior to the panic, they were held at a handsome
+figure above. That the readiness of the Company to do this is not
+generally known, is shown by the fact that the stock still stands on the
+transfer-book in the Company's name, offering to one in funds a rare
+chance for investment. For, the panic subsiding more and more every day,
+it will daily be seen how it originated; confidence will be more than
+restored; there will be a reaction; from the stock's descent its rise
+will be higher than from no fall, the holders trusting themselves to
+fear no second fate."
+
+Having listened at first with curiosity, at last with interest, the
+merchant replied to the effect, that some time since, through friends
+concerned with it, he had heard of the company, and heard well of it,
+but was ignorant that there had latterly been fluctuations. He added
+that he was no speculator; that hitherto he had avoided having to do
+with stocks of any sort, but in the present case he really felt
+something like being tempted. "Pray," in conclusion, "do you think that
+upon a pinch anything could be transacted on board here with the
+transfer-agent? Are you acquainted with him?"
+
+"Not personally. I but happened to hear that he was a passenger. For the
+rest, though it might be somewhat informal, the gentleman might not
+object to doing a little business on board. Along the Mississippi, you
+know, business is not so ceremonious as at the East."
+
+"True," returned the merchant, and looked down a moment in thought,
+then, raising his head quickly, said, in a tone not so benign as his
+wonted one, "This would seem a rare chance, indeed; why, upon first
+hearing it, did you not snatch at it? I mean for yourself!"
+
+"I?--would it had been possible!"
+
+Not without some emotion was this said, and not without some
+embarrassment was the reply. "Ah, yes, I had forgotten."
+
+Upon this, the stranger regarded him with mild gravity, not a little
+disconcerting; the more so, as there was in it what seemed the aspect
+not alone of the superior, but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort of
+bearing, in a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangely
+enough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether unbecomingly
+upon the beneficiary, being free from anything like the appearance of
+assumption, and mixed with a kind of painful conscientiousness, as
+though nothing but a proper sense of what he owed to himself swayed him.
+At length he spoke:
+
+"To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not availing himself of
+an opportunity for pecuniary investment--but, no, no; it was
+forgetfulness; and this, charity will impute to some lingering effect of
+that unfortunate brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating yet
+further back, disturbed Mr. Roberts's memory still more seriously."
+
+"As to that," said the merchant, rallying, "I am not----"
+
+"Pardon me, but you must admit, that just now, an unpleasant distrust,
+however vague, was yours. Ah, shallow as it is, yet, how subtle a thing
+is suspicion, which at times can invade the humanest of hearts and
+wisest of heads. But, enough. My object, sir, in calling your attention
+to this stock, is by way of acknowledgment of your goodness. I but seek
+to be grateful; if my information leads to nothing, you must remember
+the motive."
+
+He bowed, and finally retired, leaving Mr. Roberts not wholly without
+self-reproach, for having momentarily indulged injurious thoughts
+against one who, it was evident, was possessed of a self-respect which
+forbade his indulging them himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MAN WITH THE WEED MAKES IT AN EVEN QUESTION WHETHER HE BE A GREAT
+SAGE OR A GREAT SIMPLETON.
+
+
+"Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that
+is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is. Dear good man. Poor
+beating heart!"
+
+It was the man with the weed, not very long after quitting the merchant,
+murmuring to himself with his hand to his side like one with the
+heart-disease.
+
+Meditation over kindness received seemed to have softened him something,
+too, it may be, beyond what might, perhaps, have been looked for from
+one whose unwonted self-respect in the hour of need, and in the act of
+being aided, might have appeared to some not wholly unlike pride out of
+place; and pride, in any place, is seldom very feeling. But the truth,
+perhaps, is, that those who are least touched with that vice, besides
+being not unsusceptible to goodness, are sometimes the ones whom a
+ruling sense of propriety makes appear cold, if not thankless, under a
+favor. For, at such a time, to be full of warm, earnest words, and
+heart-felt protestations, is to create a scene; and well-bred people
+dislike few things more than that; which would seem to look as if the
+world did not relish earnestness; but, not so; because the world, being
+earnest itself, likes an earnest scene, and an earnest man, very well,
+but only in their place--the stage. See what sad work they make of it,
+who, ignorant of this, flame out in Irish enthusiasm and with Irish
+sincerity, to a benefactor, who, if a man of sense and respectability,
+as well as kindliness, can but be more or less annoyed by it; and, if of
+a nervously fastidious nature, as some are, may be led to think almost
+as much less favorably of the beneficiary paining him by his gratitude,
+as if he had been guilty of its contrary, instead only of an
+indiscretion. But, beneficiaries who know better, though they may feel
+as much, if not more, neither inflict such pain, nor are inclined to run
+any risk of so doing. And these, being wise, are the majority. By which
+one sees how inconsiderate those persons are, who, from the absence of
+its officious manifestations in the world, complain that there is not
+much gratitude extant; when the truth is, that there is as much of it as
+there is of modesty; but, both being for the most part votarists of the
+shade, for the most part keep out of sight.
+
+What started this was, to account, if necessary, for the changed air of
+the man with the weed, who, throwing off in private the cold garb of
+decorum, and so giving warmly loose to his genuine heart, seemed almost
+transformed into another being. This subdued air of softness, too, was
+toned with melancholy, melancholy unreserved; a thing which, however at
+variance with propriety, still the more attested his earnestness; for
+one knows not how it is, but it sometimes happens that, where
+earnestness is, there, also, is melancholy.
+
+At the time, he was leaning over the rail at the boat's side, in his
+pensiveness, unmindful of another pensive figure near--a young gentleman
+with a swan-neck, wearing a lady-like open shirt collar, thrown back,
+and tied with a black ribbon. From a square, tableted-broach, curiously
+engraved with Greek characters, he seemed a collegian--not improbably, a
+sophomore--on his travels; possibly, his first. A small book bound in
+Roman vellum was in his hand.
+
+Overhearing his murmuring neighbor, the youth regarded him with some
+surprise, not to say interest. But, singularly for a collegian, being
+apparently of a retiring nature, he did not speak; when the other still
+more increased his diffidence by changing from soliloquy to colloquy, in
+a manner strangely mixed of familiarity and pathos.
+
+"Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young friend, did you? Why,
+you, too, look sad. My melancholy is not catching!"
+
+"Sir, sir," stammered the other.
+
+"Pray, now," with a sort of sociable sorrowfulness, slowly sliding along
+the rail, "Pray, now, my young friend, what volume have you there? Give
+me leave," gently drawing it from him. "Tacitus!" Then opening it at
+random, read: "In general a black and shameful period lies before me."
+"Dear young sir," touching his arm alarmedly, "don't read this book. It
+is poison, moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus, such truth
+would have the operation of falsity, and so still be poison, moral
+poison. Too well I know this Tacitus. In my college-days he came near
+souring me into cynicism. Yes, I began to turn down my collar, and go
+about with a disdainfully joyless expression."
+
+"Sir, sir, I--I--"
+
+"Trust me. Now, young friend, perhaps you think that Tacitus, like me,
+is only melancholy; but he's more--he's ugly. A vast difference, young
+sir, between the melancholy view and the ugly. The one may show the
+world still beautiful, not so the other. The one may be compatible with
+benevolence, the other not. The one may deepen insight, the other
+shallows it. Drop Tacitus. Phrenologically, my young friend, you would
+seem to have a well-developed head, and large; but cribbed within the
+ugly view, the Tacitus view, your large brain, like your large ox in the
+contracted field, will but starve the more. And don't dream, as some of
+you students may, that, by taking this same ugly view, the deeper
+meanings of the deeper books will so alone become revealed to you. Drop
+Tacitus. His subtlety is falsity, To him, in his double-refined anatomy
+of human nature, is well applied the Scripture saying--'There is a
+subtle man, and the same is deceived.' Drop Tacitus. Come, now, let me
+throw the book overboard."
+
+"Sir, I--I--"
+
+"Not a word; I know just what is in your mind, and that is just what I
+am speaking to. Yes, learn from me that, though the sorrows of the world
+are great, its wickedness--that is, its ugliness--is small. Much cause
+to pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known adversity, and
+know it still. But for that, do I turn cynic? No, no: it is small beer
+that sours. To my fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever I
+may have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in my kind. Now, then"
+(winningly), "this book--will you let me drown it for you?"
+
+"Really, sir--I--"
+
+"I see, I see. But of course you read Tacitus in order to aid you in
+understanding human nature--as if truth was ever got at by libel. My
+young friend, if to know human nature is your object, drop Tacitus and
+go north to the cemeteries of Auburn and Greenwood."
+
+"Upon my word, I--I--"
+
+"Nay, I foresee all that. But you carry Tacitus, that shallow Tacitus.
+What do _I_ carry? See"--producing a pocket-volume--"Akenside--his
+'Pleasures of Imagination.' One of these days you will know it. Whatever
+our lot, we should read serene and cheery books, fitted to inspire love
+and trust. But Tacitus! I have long been of opinion that these classics
+are the bane of colleges; for--not to hint of the immorality of Ovid,
+Horace, Anacreon, and the rest, and the dangerous theology of Eschylus
+and others--where will one find views so injurious to human nature as in
+Thucydides, Juvenal, Lucian, but more particularly Tacitus? When I
+consider that, ever since the revival of learning, these classics have
+been the favorites of successive generations of students and studious
+men, I tremble to think of that mass of unsuspected heresy on every
+vital topic which for centuries must have simmered unsurmised in the
+heart of Christendom. But Tacitus--he is the most extraordinary example
+of a heretic; not one iota of confidence in his kind. What a mockery
+that such an one should be reputed wise, and Thucydides be esteemed the
+statesman's manual! But Tacitus--I hate Tacitus; not, though, I trust,
+with the hate that sins, but a righteous hate. Without confidence
+himself, Tacitus destroys it in all his readers. Destroys confidence,
+paternal confidence, of which God knows that there is in this world none
+to spare. For, comparatively inexperienced as you are, my dear young
+friend, did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, there
+is? I mean between man and man--more particularly between stranger and
+stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence! I have
+sometimes almost thought that confidence is fled; that confidence is the
+New Astrea--emigrated--vanished--gone." Then softly sliding nearer, with
+the softest air, quivering down and looking up, "could you now, my dear
+young sir, under such circumstances, by way of experiment, simply have
+confidence in _me_?"
+
+From the outset, the sophomore, as has been seen, had struggled with an
+ever-increasing embarrassment, arising, perhaps, from such strange
+remarks coming from a stranger--such persistent and prolonged remarks,
+too. In vain had he more than once sought to break the spell by
+venturing a deprecatory or leave-taking word. In vain. Somehow, the
+stranger fascinated him. Little wonder, then, that, when the appeal
+came, he could hardly speak, but, as before intimated, being apparently
+of a retiring nature, abruptly retired from the spot, leaving the
+chagrined stranger to wander away in the opposite direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AT THE OUTSET OF WHICH CERTAIN PASSENGERS PROVE DEAF TO THE CALL OF
+CHARITY.
+
+
+----"You--pish! Why will the captain suffer these begging fellows on
+board?";
+
+These pettish words were breathed by a well-to-do gentleman in a
+ruby-colored velvet vest, and with a ruby-colored cheek, a ruby-headed
+cane in his hand, to a man in a gray coat and white tie, who, shortly
+after the interview last described, had accosted him for contributions
+to a Widow and Orphan Asylum recently founded among the Seminoles. Upon
+a cursory view, this last person might have seemed, like the man with
+the weed, one of the less unrefined children of misfortune; but, on a
+closer observation, his countenance revealed little of sorrow, though
+much of sanctity.
+
+With added words of touchy disgust, the well-to-do gentleman hurried
+away. But, though repulsed, and rudely, the man in gray did not
+reproach, for a time patiently remaining in the chilly loneliness to
+which he had been left, his countenance, however, not without token of
+latent though chastened reliance.
+
+At length an old gentleman, somewhat bulky, drew nigh, and from him also
+a contribution was sought.
+
+"Look, you," coming to a dead halt, and scowling upon him. "Look, you,"
+swelling his bulk out before him like a swaying balloon, "look, you, you
+on others' behalf ask for money; you, a fellow with a face as long as my
+arm. Hark ye, now: there is such a thing as gravity, and in condemned
+felons it may be genuine; but of long faces there are three sorts; that
+of grief's drudge, that of the lantern-jawed man, and that of the
+impostor. You know best which yours is."
+
+"Heaven give you more charity, sir."
+
+"And you less hypocrisy, sir."
+
+With which words, the hard-hearted old gentleman marched off.
+
+While the other still stood forlorn, the young clergyman, before
+introduced, passing that way, catching a chance sight of him, seemed
+suddenly struck by some recollection; and, after a moment's pause,
+hurried up with: "Your pardon, but shortly since I was all over looking
+for you."
+
+"For me?" as marveling that one of so little account should be sought
+for.
+
+"Yes, for you; do you know anything about the negro, apparently a
+cripple, aboard here? Is he, or is he not, what he seems to be?"
+
+"Ah, poor Guinea! have you, too, been distrusted? you, upon whom nature
+has placarded the evidence of your claims?"
+
+"Then you do really know him, and he is quite worthy? It relieves me to
+hear it--much relieves me. Come, let us go find him, and see what can be
+done."
+
+"Another instance that confidence may come too late. I am sorry to say
+that at the last landing I myself--just happening to catch sight of him
+on the gangway-plank--assisted the cripple ashore. No time to talk, only
+to help. He may not have told you, but he has a brother in that
+vicinity.
+
+"Really, I regret his going without my seeing him again; regret it,
+more, perhaps, than you can readily think. You see, shortly after
+leaving St. Louis, he was on the forecastle, and there, with many
+others, I saw him, and put trust in him; so much so, that, to convince
+those who did not, I, at his entreaty, went in search of you, you being
+one of several individuals he mentioned, and whose personal appearance
+he more or less described, individuals who he said would willingly speak
+for him. But, after diligent search, not finding you, and catching no
+glimpse of any of the others he had enumerated, doubts were at last
+suggested; but doubts indirectly originating, as I can but think, from
+prior distrust unfeelingly proclaimed by another. Still, certain it is,
+I began to suspect."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+A sort of laugh more like a groan than a laugh; and yet, somehow, it
+seemed intended for a laugh.
+
+Both turned, and the young clergyman started at seeing the wooden-legged
+man close behind him, morosely grave as a criminal judge with a
+mustard-plaster on his back. In the present case the mustard-plaster
+might have been the memory of certain recent biting rebuffs and
+mortifications.
+
+"Wouldn't think it was I who laughed would you?"
+
+"But who was it you laughed at? or rather, tried to laugh at?" demanded
+the young clergyman, flushing, "me?"
+
+"Neither you nor any one within a thousand miles of you. But perhaps you
+don't believe it."
+
+"If he were of a suspicious temper, he might not," interposed the man in
+gray calmly, "it is one of the imbecilities of the suspicious person to
+fancy that every stranger, however absent-minded, he sees so much as
+smiling or gesturing to himself in any odd sort of way, is secretly
+making him his butt. In some moods, the movements of an entire street,
+as the suspicious man walks down it, will seem an express pantomimic
+jeer at him. In short, the suspicious man kicks himself with his own
+foot."
+
+"Whoever can do that, ten to one he saves other folks' sole-leather,"
+said the wooden-legged man with a crusty attempt at humor. But with
+augmented grin and squirm, turning directly upon the young clergyman,
+"you still think it was _you_ I was laughing at, just now. To prove your
+mistake, I will tell you what I _was_ laughing at; a story I happened to
+call to mind just then."
+
+Whereupon, in his porcupine way, and with sarcastic details, unpleasant
+to repeat, he related a story, which might, perhaps, in a good-natured
+version, be rendered as follows:
+
+A certain Frenchman of New Orleans, an old man, less slender in purse
+than limb, happening to attend the theatre one evening, was so charmed
+with the character of a faithful wife, as there represented to the life,
+that nothing would do but he must marry upon it. So, marry he did, a
+beautiful girl from Tennessee, who had first attracted his attention by
+her liberal mould, and was subsequently recommended to him through her
+kin, for her equally liberal education and disposition. Though large,
+the praise proved not too much. For, ere long, rumor more than
+corroborated it, by whispering that the lady was liberal to a fault. But
+though various circumstances, which by most Benedicts would have been
+deemed all but conclusive, were duly recited to the old Frenchman by his
+friends, yet such was his confidence that not a syllable would he
+credit, till, chancing one night to return unexpectedly from a journey,
+upon entering his apartment, a stranger burst from the alcove: "Begar!"
+cried he, "now I _begin_ to suspec."
+
+His story told, the wooden-legged man threw back his head, and gave vent
+to a long, gasping, rasping sort of taunting cry, intolerable as that of
+a high-pressure engine jeering off steam; and that done, with apparent
+satisfaction hobbled away.
+
+"Who is that scoffer," said the man in gray, not without warmth. "Who is
+he, who even were truth on his tongue, his way of speaking it would make
+truth almost offensive as falsehood. Who is he?"
+
+"He who I mentioned to you as having boasted his suspicion of the
+negro," replied the young clergyman, recovering from disturbance, "in
+short, the person to whom I ascribe the origin of my own distrust; he
+maintained that Guinea was some white scoundrel, betwisted and painted
+up for a decoy. Yes, these were his very words, I think."
+
+"Impossible! he could not be so wrong-headed. Pray, will you call him
+back, and let me ask him if he were really in earnest?"
+
+The other complied; and, at length, after no few surly objections,
+prevailed upon the one-legged individual to return for a moment. Upon
+which, the man in gray thus addressed him: "This reverend gentleman
+tells me, sir, that a certain cripple, a poor negro, is by you
+considered an ingenious impostor. Now, I am not unaware that there are
+some persons in this world, who, unable to give better proof of being
+wise, take a strange delight in showing what they think they have
+sagaciously read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions of them. I hope
+you are not one of these. In short, would you tell me now, whether you
+were not merely joking in the notion you threw out about the negro.
+Would you be so kind?"
+
+"No, I won't be so kind, I'll be so cruel."
+
+"As you please about that."
+
+"Well, he's just what I said he was."
+
+"A white masquerading as a black?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+The man in gray glanced at the young clergyman a moment, then quietly
+whispered to him, "I thought you represented your friend here as a very
+distrustful sort of person, but he appears endued with a singular
+credulity.--Tell me, sir, do you really think that a white could look
+the negro so? For one, I should call it pretty good acting."
+
+"Not much better than any other man acts."
+
+"How? Does all the world act? Am _I_, for instance, an actor? Is my
+reverend friend here, too, a performer?"
+
+"Yes, don't you both perform acts? To do, is to act; so all doers are
+actors."
+
+"You trifle.--I ask again, if a white, how could he look the negro so?"
+
+"Never saw the negro-minstrels, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, but they are apt to overdo the ebony; exemplifying the old saying,
+not more just than charitable, that 'the devil is never so black as he
+is painted.' But his limbs, if not a cripple, how could he twist his
+limbs so?"
+
+"How do other hypocritical beggars twist theirs? Easy enough to see how
+they are hoisted up."
+
+"The sham is evident, then?"
+
+"To the discerning eye," with a horrible screw of his gimlet one.
+
+"Well, where is Guinea?" said the man in gray; "where is he? Let us at
+once find him, and refute beyond cavil this injurious hypothesis."
+
+"Do so," cried the one-eyed man, "I'm just in the humor now for having
+him found, and leaving the streaks of these fingers on his paint, as the
+lion leaves the streaks of his nails on a Caffre. They wouldn't let me
+touch him before. Yes, find him, I'll make wool fly, and him after."
+
+"You forget," here said the young clergyman to the man in gray, "that
+yourself helped poor Guinea ashore."
+
+"So I did, so I did; how unfortunate. But look now," to the other, "I
+think that without personal proof I can convince you of your mistake.
+For I put it to you, is it reasonable to suppose that a man with brains,
+sufficient to act such a part as you say, would take all that trouble,
+and run all that hazard, for the mere sake of those few paltry coppers,
+which, I hear, was all he got for his pains, if pains they were?"
+
+"That puts the case irrefutably," said the young clergyman, with a
+challenging glance towards the one-legged man.
+
+"You two green-horns! Money, you think, is the sole motive to pains and
+hazard, deception and deviltry, in this world. How much money did the
+devil make by gulling Eve?"
+
+Whereupon he hobbled off again with a repetition of his intolerable
+jeer.
+
+The man in gray stood silently eying his retreat a while, and then,
+turning to his companion, said: "A bad man, a dangerous man; a man to be
+put down in any Christian community.--And this was he who was the means
+of begetting your distrust? Ah, we should shut our ears to distrust, and
+keep them open only for its opposite."
+
+"You advance a principle, which, if I had acted upon it this morning, I
+should have spared myself what I now feel.--That but one man, and he
+with one leg, should have such ill power given him; his one sour word
+leavening into congenial sourness (as, to my knowledge, it did) the
+dispositions, before sweet enough, of a numerous company. But, as I
+hinted, with me at the time his ill words went for nothing; the same as
+now; only afterwards they had effect; and I confess, this puzzles me."
+
+"It should not. With humane minds, the spirit of distrust works
+something as certain potions do; it is a spirit which may enter such
+minds, and yet, for a time, longer or shorter, lie in them quiescent;
+but only the more deplorable its ultimate activity."
+
+"An uncomfortable solution; for, since that baneful man did but just now
+anew drop on me his bane, how shall I be sure that my present exemption
+from its effects will be lasting?"
+
+"You cannot be sure, but you can strive against it."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By strangling the least symptom of distrust, of any sort, which
+hereafter, upon whatever provocation, may arise in you."
+
+"I will do so." Then added as in soliloquy, "Indeed, indeed, I was to
+blame in standing passive under such influences as that one-legged
+man's. My conscience upbraids me.--The poor negro: You see him
+occasionally, perhaps?"
+
+"No, not often; though in a few days, as it happens, my engagements will
+call me to the neighborhood of his present retreat; and, no doubt,
+honest Guinea, who is a grateful soul, will come to see me there."
+
+"Then you have been his benefactor?"
+
+"His benefactor? I did not say that. I have known him."
+
+"Take this mite. Hand it to Guinea when you see him; say it comes from
+one who has full belief in his honesty, and is sincerely sorry for
+having indulged, however transiently, in a contrary thought."
+
+"I accept the trust. And, by-the-way, since you are of this truly
+charitable nature, you will not turn away an appeal in behalf of the
+Seminole Widow and Orphan Asylum?"
+
+"I have not heard of that charity."
+
+"But recently founded."
+
+After a pause, the clergyman was irresolutely putting his hand in his
+pocket, when, caught by something in his companion's expression, he eyed
+him inquisitively, almost uneasily.
+
+"Ah, well," smiled the other wanly, "if that subtle bane, we were
+speaking of but just now, is so soon beginning to work, in vain my
+appeal to you. Good-by."
+
+"Nay," not untouched, "you do me injustice; instead of indulging present
+suspicions, I had rather make amends for previous ones. Here is
+something for your asylum. Not much; but every drop helps. Of course you
+have papers?"
+
+"Of course," producing a memorandum book and pencil. "Let me take down
+name and amount. We publish these names. And now let me give you a
+little history of our asylum, and the providential way in which it was
+started."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A GENTLEMAN WITH GOLD SLEEVE-BUTTONS.
+
+
+At an interesting point of the narration, and at the moment when, with
+much curiosity, indeed, urgency, the narrator was being particularly
+questioned upon that point, he was, as it happened, altogether diverted
+both from it and his story, by just then catching sight of a gentleman
+who had been standing in sight from the beginning, but, until now, as it
+seemed, without being observed by him.
+
+"Pardon me," said he, rising, "but yonder is one who I know will
+contribute, and largely. Don't take it amiss if I quit you."
+
+"Go: duty before all things," was the conscientious reply.
+
+The stranger was a man of more than winsome aspect. There he stood apart
+and in repose, and yet, by his mere look, lured the man in gray from his
+story, much as, by its graciousness of bearing, some full-leaved elm,
+alone in a meadow, lures the noon sickleman to throw down his sheaves,
+and come and apply for the alms of its shade.
+
+But, considering that goodness is no such rare thing among men--the
+world familiarly know the noun; a common one in every language--it was
+curious that what so signalized the stranger, and made him look like a
+kind of foreigner, among the crowd (as to some it make him appear more
+or less unreal in this portraiture), was but the expression of so
+prevalent a quality. Such goodness seemed his, allied with such fortune,
+that, so far as his own personal experience could have gone, scarcely
+could he have known ill, physical or moral; and as for knowing or
+suspecting the latter in any serious degree (supposing such degree of it
+to be), by observation or philosophy; for that, probably, his nature, by
+its opposition, imperfectly qualified, or from it wholly exempted. For
+the rest, he might have been five and fifty, perhaps sixty, but tall,
+rosy, between plump and portly, with a primy, palmy air, and for the
+time and place, not to hint of his years, dressed with a strangely
+festive finish and elegance. The inner-side of his coat-skirts was of
+white satin, which might have looked especially inappropriate, had it
+not seemed less a bit of mere tailoring than something of an emblem, as
+it were; an involuntary emblem, let us say, that what seemed so good
+about him was not all outside; no, the fine covering had a still finer
+lining. Upon one hand he wore a white kid glove, but the other hand,
+which was ungloved, looked hardly less white. Now, as the Fidèle, like
+most steamboats, was upon deck a little soot-streaked here and there,
+especially about the railings, it was marvel how, under such
+circumstances, these hands retained their spotlessness. But, if you
+watched them a while, you noticed that they avoided touching anything;
+you noticed, in short, that a certain negro body-servant, whose hands
+nature had dyed black, perhaps with the same purpose that millers wear
+white, this negro servant's hands did most of his master's handling for
+him; having to do with dirt on his account, but not to his prejudices.
+But if, with the same undefiledness of consequences to himself, a
+gentleman could also sin by deputy, how shocking would that be! But it
+is not permitted to be; and even if it were, no judicious moralist would
+make proclamation of it.
+
+This gentleman, therefore, there is reason to affirm, was one who, like
+the Hebrew governor, knew how to keep his hands clean, and who never in
+his life happened to be run suddenly against by hurrying house-painter,
+or sweep; in a word, one whose very good luck it was to be a very good
+man.
+
+Not that he looked as if he were a kind of Wilberforce at all; that
+superior merit, probably, was not his; nothing in his manner bespoke him
+righteous, but only good, and though to be good is much below being
+righteous, and though there is a difference between the two, yet not, it
+is to be hoped, so incompatible as that a righteous man can not be a
+good man; though, conversely, in the pulpit it has been with much
+cogency urged, that a merely good man, that is, one good merely by his
+nature, is so far from there by being righteous, that nothing short of a
+total change and conversion can make him so; which is something which no
+honest mind, well read in the history of righteousness, will care to
+deny; nevertheless, since St. Paul himself, agreeing in a sense with the
+pulpit distinction, though not altogether in the pulpit deduction, and
+also pretty plainly intimating which of the two qualities in question
+enjoys his apostolic preference; I say, since St. Paul has so meaningly
+said, that, "scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure
+for a good man some would even dare to die;" therefore, when we repeat
+of this gentleman, that he was only a good man, whatever else by severe
+censors may be objected to him, it is still to be hoped that his
+goodness will not at least be considered criminal in him. At all events,
+no man, not even a righteous man, would think it quite right to commit
+this gentleman to prison for the crime, extraordinary as he might deem
+it; more especially, as, until everything could be known, there would be
+some chance that the gentleman might after all be quite as innocent of
+it as he himself.
+
+It was pleasant to mark the good man's reception of the salute of the
+righteous man, that is, the man in gray; his inferior, apparently, not
+more in the social scale than in stature. Like the benign elm again, the
+good man seemed to wave the canopy of his goodness over that suitor, not
+in conceited condescension, but with that even amenity of true majesty,
+which can be kind to any one without stooping to it.
+
+To the plea in behalf of the Seminole widows and orphans, the gentleman,
+after a question or two duly answered, responded by producing an ample
+pocket-book in the good old capacious style, of fine green French
+morocco and workmanship, bound with silk of the same color, not to omit
+bills crisp with newness, fresh from the bank, no muckworms' grime upon
+them. Lucre those bills might be, but as yet having been kept unspotted
+from the world, not of the filthy sort. Placing now three of those
+virgin bills in the applicant's hands, he hoped that the smallness of
+the contribution would be pardoned; to tell the truth, and this at last
+accounted for his toilet, he was bound but a short run down the river,
+to attend, in a festive grove, the afternoon wedding of his niece: so
+did not carry much money with him.
+
+The other was about expressing his thanks when the gentleman in his
+pleasant way checked him: the gratitude was on the other side. To him,
+he said, charity was in one sense not an effort, but a luxury; against
+too great indulgence in which his steward, a humorist, had sometimes
+admonished him.
+
+In some general talk which followed, relative to organized modes of
+doing good, the gentleman expressed his regrets that so many benevolent
+societies as there were, here and there isolated in the land, should not
+act in concert by coming together, in the way that already in each
+society the individuals composing it had done, which would result, he
+thought, in like advantages upon a larger scale. Indeed, such a
+confederation might, perhaps, be attended with as happy results as
+politically attended that of the states.
+
+Upon his hitherto moderate enough companion, this suggestion had an
+effect illustrative in a sort of that notion of Socrates, that the soul
+is a harmony; for as the sound of a flute, in any particular key, will,
+it is said, audibly affect the corresponding chord of any harp in good
+tune, within hearing, just so now did some string in him respond, and
+with animation.
+
+Which animation, by the way, might seem more or less out of character in
+the man in gray, considering his unsprightly manner when first
+introduced, had he not already, in certain after colloquies, given
+proof, in some degree, of the fact, that, with certain natures, a
+soberly continent air at times, so far from arguing emptiness of stuff,
+is good proof it is there, and plenty of it, because unwasted, and may
+be used the more effectively, too, when opportunity offers. What now
+follows on the part of the man in gray will still further exemplify,
+perhaps somewhat strikingly, the truth, or what appears to be such, of
+this remark.
+
+"Sir," said he eagerly, "I am before you. A project, not dissimilar to
+yours, was by me thrown out at the World's Fair in London."
+
+"World's Fair? You there? Pray how was that?"
+
+"First, let me----"
+
+"Nay, but first tell me what took you to the Fair?"
+
+"I went to exhibit an invalid's easy-chair I had invented."
+
+"Then you have not always been in the charity business?"
+
+"Is it not charity to ease human suffering? I am, and always have been,
+as I always will be, I trust, in the charity business, as you call it;
+but charity is not like a pin, one to make the head, and the other the
+point; charity is a work to which a good workman may be competent in all
+its branches. I invented my Protean easy-chair in odd intervals stolen
+from meals and sleep."
+
+"You call it the Protean easy-chair; pray describe it."
+
+"My Protean easy-chair is a chair so all over bejointed, behinged, and
+bepadded, everyway so elastic, springy, and docile to the airiest touch,
+that in some one of its endlessly-changeable accommodations of back,
+seat, footboard, and arms, the most restless body, the body most racked,
+nay, I had almost added the most tormented conscience must, somehow and
+somewhere, find rest. Believing that I owed it to suffering humanity to
+make known such a chair to the utmost, I scraped together my little
+means and off to the World's Fair with it."
+
+"You did right. But your scheme; how did you come to hit upon that?"
+
+"I was going to tell you. After seeing my invention duly catalogued and
+placed, I gave myself up to pondering the scene about me. As I dwelt
+upon that shining pageant of arts, and moving concourse of nations, and
+reflected that here was the pride of the world glorying in a glass
+house, a sense of the fragility of worldly grandeur profoundly impressed
+me. And I said to myself, I will see if this occasion of vanity cannot
+supply a hint toward a better profit than was designed. Let some
+world-wide good to the world-wide cause be now done. In short, inspired
+by the scene, on the fourth day I issued at the World's Fair my
+prospectus of the World's Charity."
+
+"Quite a thought. But, pray explain it."
+
+"The World's Charity is to be a society whose members shall comprise
+deputies from every charity and mission extant; the one object of the
+society to be the methodization of the world's benevolence; to which
+end, the present system of voluntary and promiscuous contribution to be
+done away, and the Society to be empowered by the various governments to
+levy, annually, one grand benevolence tax upon all mankind; as in
+Augustus Cæsar's time, the whole world to come up to be taxed; a tax
+which, for the scheme of it, should be something like the income-tax in
+England, a tax, also, as before hinted, to be a consolidation-tax of all
+possible benevolence taxes; as in America here, the state-tax, and the
+county-tax, and the town-tax, and the poll-tax, are by the assessors
+rolled into one. This tax, according to my tables, calculated with care,
+would result in the yearly raising of a fund little short of eight
+hundred millions; this fund to be annually applied to such objects, and
+in such modes, as the various charities and missions, in general
+congress represented, might decree; whereby, in fourteen years, as I
+estimate, there would have been devoted to good works the sum of eleven
+thousand two hundred millions; which would warrant the dissolution of
+the society, as that fund judiciously expended, not a pauper or heathen
+could remain the round world over."
+
+"Eleven thousand two hundred millions! And all by passing round a _hat_,
+as it were."
+
+"Yes, I am no Fourier, the projector of an impossible scheme, but a
+philanthropist and a financier setting forth a philanthropy and a
+finance which are practicable."
+
+"Practicable?"
+
+"Yes. Eleven thousand two hundred millions; it will frighten none but a
+retail philanthropist. What is it but eight hundred millions for each of
+fourteen years? Now eight hundred millions--what is that, to average it,
+but one little dollar a head for the population of the planet? And who
+will refuse, what Turk or Dyak even, his own little dollar for sweet
+charity's sake? Eight hundred millions! More than that sum is yearly
+expended by mankind, not only in vanities, but miseries. Consider that
+bloody spendthrift, War. And are mankind so stupid, so wicked, that,
+upon the demonstration of these things they will not, amending their
+ways, devote their superfluities to blessing the world instead of
+cursing it? Eight hundred millions! They have not to make it, it is
+theirs already; they have but to direct it from ill to good. And to
+this, scarce a self-denial is demanded. Actually, they would not in the
+mass be one farthing the poorer for it; as certainly would they be all
+the better and happier. Don't you see? But admit, as you must, that
+mankind is not mad, and my project is practicable. For, what creature
+but a madman would not rather do good than ill, when it is plain that,
+good or ill, it must return upon himself?"
+
+"Your sort of reasoning," said the good gentleman, adjusting his gold
+sleeve-buttons, "seems all reasonable enough, but with mankind it wont
+do."
+
+"Then mankind are not reasoning beings, if reason wont do with them."
+
+"That is not to the purpose. By-the-way, from the manner in which you
+alluded to the world's census, it would appear that, according to your
+world-wide scheme, the pauper not less than the nabob is to contribute
+to the relief of pauperism, and the heathen not less than the Christian
+to the conversion of heathenism. How is that?"
+
+"Why, that--pardon me--is quibbling. Now, no philanthropist likes to be
+opposed with quibbling."
+
+"Well, I won't quibble any more. But, after all, if I understand your
+project, there is little specially new in it, further than the
+magnifying of means now in operation."
+
+"Magnifying and energizing. For one thing, missions I would thoroughly
+reform. Missions I would quicken with the Wall street spirit."
+
+"The Wall street spirit?"
+
+"Yes; for if, confessedly, certain spiritual ends are to be gained but
+through the auxiliary agency of worldly means, then, to the surer
+gaining of such spiritual ends, the example of worldly policy in worldly
+projects should not by spiritual projectors be slighted. In brief, the
+conversion of the heathen, so far, at least, as depending on human
+effort, would, by the world's charity, be let out on contract. So much
+by bid for converting India, so much for Borneo, so much for Africa.
+Competition allowed, stimulus would be given. There would be no
+lethargy of monopoly. We should have no mission-house or tract-house of
+which slanderers could, with any plausibility, say that it had
+degenerated in its clerkships into a sort of custom-house. But the main
+point is the Archimedean money-power that would be brought to bear."
+
+"You mean the eight hundred million power?"
+
+"Yes. You see, this doing good to the world by driblets amounts to just
+nothing. I am for doing good to the world with a will. I am for doing
+good to the world once for all and having done with it. Do but think, my
+dear sir, of the eddies and maëlstroms of pagans in China. People here
+have no conception of it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauper
+pagans are found dead in the streets like so many nipped peas in a bin
+of peas. To be an immortal being in China is no more distinction than to
+be a snow-flake in a snow-squall. What are a score or two of
+missionaries to such a people? A pinch of snuff to the kraken. I am for
+sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese
+_en masse_ within six months of the debarkation. The thing is then done,
+and turn to something else."
+
+"I fear you are too enthusiastic."
+
+"A philanthropist is necessarily an enthusiast; for without enthusiasm
+what was ever achieved but commonplace? But again: consider the poor in
+London. To that mob of misery, what is a joint here and a loaf there? I
+am for voting to them twenty thousand bullocks and one hundred thousand
+barrels of flour to begin with. They are then comforted, and no more
+hunger for one while among the poor of London. And so all round."
+
+"Sharing the character of your general project, these things, I take it,
+are rather examples of wonders that were to be wished, than wonders that
+will happen."
+
+"And is the age of wonders passed? Is the world too old? Is it barren?
+Think of Sarah."
+
+"Then I am Abraham reviling the angel (with a smile). But still, as to
+your design at large, there seems a certain audacity."
+
+"But if to the audacity of the design there be brought a commensurate
+circumspectness of execution, how then?"
+
+"Why, do you really believe that your world's charity will ever go into
+operation?"
+
+"I have confidence that it will."
+
+"But may you not be over-confident?"
+
+"For a Christian to talk so!"
+
+"But think of the obstacles!"
+
+"Obstacles? I have confidence to remove obstacles, though mountains.
+Yes, confidence in the world's charity to that degree, that, as no
+better person offers to supply the place, I have nominated myself
+provisional treasurer, and will be happy to receive subscriptions, for
+the present to be devoted to striking off a million more of my
+prospectuses."
+
+The talk went on; the man in gray revealed a spirit of benevolence
+which, mindful of the millennial promise, had gone abroad over all the
+countries of the globe, much as the diligent spirit of the husbandman,
+stirred by forethought of the coming seed-time, leads him, in March
+reveries at his fireside, over every field of his farm. The master chord
+of the man in gray had been touched, and it seemed as if it would never
+cease vibrating. A not unsilvery tongue, too, was his, with gestures
+that were a Pentecost of added ones, and persuasiveness before which
+granite hearts might crumble into gravel.
+
+Strange, therefore, how his auditor, so singularly good-hearted as he
+seemed, remained proof to such eloquence; though not, as it turned out,
+to such pleadings. For, after listening a while longer with pleasant
+incredulity, presently, as the boat touched his place of destination,
+the gentleman, with a look half humor, half pity, put another bank-note
+into his hands; charitable to the last, if only to the dreams of
+enthusiasm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A CHARITABLE LADY.
+
+
+If a drunkard in a sober fit is the dullest of mortals, an enthusiast in
+a reason-fit is not the most lively. And this, without prejudice to his
+greatly improved understanding; for, if his elation was the height of
+his madness, his despondency is but the extreme of his sanity. Something
+thus now, to all appearance, with the man in gray. Society his stimulus,
+loneliness was his lethargy. Loneliness, like the sea breeze, blowing
+off from a thousand leagues of blankness, he did not find, as veteran
+solitaires do, if anything, too bracing. In short, left to himself, with
+none to charm forth his latent lymphatic, he insensibly resumes his
+original air, a quiescent one, blended of sad humility and demureness.
+
+Ere long he goes laggingly into the ladies' saloon, as in spiritless
+quest of somebody; but, after some disappointed glances about him, seats
+himself upon a sofa with an air of melancholy exhaustion and depression.
+
+At the sofa's further end sits a plump and pleasant person, whose aspect
+seems to hint that, if she have any weak point, it must be anything
+rather than her excellent heart. From her twilight dress, neither dawn
+nor dark, apparently she is a widow just breaking the chrysalis of her
+mourning. A small gilt testament is in her hand, which she has just been
+reading. Half-relinquished, she holds the book in reverie, her finger
+inserted at the xiii. of 1st Corinthians, to which chapter possibly her
+attention might have recently been turned, by witnessing the scene of
+the monitory mute and his slate.
+
+The sacred page no longer meets her eye; but, as at evening, when for a
+time the western hills shine on though the sun be set, her thoughtful
+face retains its tenderness though the teacher is forgotten.
+
+Meantime, the expression of the stranger is such as ere long to attract
+her glance. But no responsive one. Presently, in her somewhat
+inquisitive survey, her volume drops. It is restored. No encroaching
+politeness in the act, but kindness, unadorned. The eyes of the lady
+sparkle. Evidently, she is not now unprepossessed. Soon, bending over,
+in a low, sad tone, full of deference, the stranger breathes, "Madam,
+pardon my freedom, but there is something in that face which strangely
+draws me. May I ask, are you a sister of the Church?"
+
+"Why--really--you--"
+
+In concern for her embarrassment, he hastens to relieve it, but, without
+seeming so to do. "It is very solitary for a brother here," eying the
+showy ladies brocaded in the background, "I find none to mingle souls
+with. It may be wrong--I _know_ it is--but I cannot force myself to be
+easy with the people of the world. I prefer the company, however
+silent, of a brother or sister in good standing. By the way, madam, may
+I ask if you have confidence?"
+
+"Really, sir--why, sir--really--I--"
+
+"Could you put confidence in _me_ for instance?"
+
+"Really, sir--as much--I mean, as one may wisely put in a--a--stranger,
+an entire stranger, I had almost said," rejoined the lady, hardly yet at
+ease in her affability, drawing aside a little in body, while at the
+same time her heart might have been drawn as far the other way. A
+natural struggle between charity and prudence.
+
+"Entire stranger!" with a sigh. "Ah, who would be a stranger? In vain, I
+wander; no one will have confidence in me."
+
+"You interest me," said the good lady, in mild surprise. "Can I any way
+befriend you?"
+
+"No one can befriend me, who has not confidence."
+
+"But I--I have--at least to that degree--I mean that----"
+
+"Nay, nay, you have none--none at all. Pardon, I see it. No confidence.
+Fool, fond fool that I am to seek it!"
+
+"You are unjust, sir," rejoins the good lady with heightened interest;
+"but it may be that something untoward in your experiences has unduly
+biased you. Not that I would cast reflections. Believe me, I--yes,
+yes--I may say--that--that----"
+
+"That you have confidence? Prove it. Let me have twenty dollars."
+
+"Twenty dollars!"
+
+"There, I told you, madam, you had no confidence."
+
+The lady was, in an extraordinary way, touched. She sat in a sort of
+restless torment, knowing not which way to turn. She began twenty
+different sentences, and left off at the first syllable of each. At
+last, in desperation, she hurried out, "Tell me, sir, for what you want
+the twenty dollars?"
+
+"And did I not----" then glancing at her half-mourning, "for the widow
+and the fatherless. I am traveling agent of the Widow and Orphan Asylum,
+recently founded among the Seminoles."
+
+"And why did you not tell me your object before?" As not a little
+relieved. "Poor souls--Indians, too--those cruelly-used Indians. Here,
+here; how could I hesitate. I am so sorry it is no more."
+
+"Grieve not for that, madam," rising and folding up the bank-notes.
+"This is an inconsiderable sum, I admit, but," taking out his pencil and
+book, "though I here but register the amount, there is another register,
+where is set down the motive. Good-bye; you have confidence. Yea, you
+can say to me as the apostle said to the Corinthians, 'I rejoice that I
+have confidence in you in all things.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+TWO BUSINESS MEN TRANSACT A LITTLE BUSINESS.
+
+
+----"Pray, sir, have you seen a gentleman with a weed hereabouts, rather
+a saddish gentleman? Strange where he can have gone to. I was talking
+with him not twenty minutes since."
+
+By a brisk, ruddy-cheeked man in a tasseled traveling-cap, carrying
+under his arm a ledger-like volume, the above words were addressed to
+the collegian before introduced, suddenly accosted by the rail to which
+not long after his retreat, as in a previous chapter recounted, he had
+returned, and there remained.
+
+"Have you seen him, sir?"
+
+Rallied from his apparent diffidence by the genial jauntiness of the
+stranger, the youth answered with unwonted promptitude: "Yes, a person
+with a weed was here not very long ago."
+
+"Saddish?"
+
+"Yes, and a little cracked, too, I should say."
+
+"It was he. Misfortune, I fear, has disturbed his brain. Now quick,
+which way did he go?"
+
+"Why just in the direction from which you came, the gangway yonder."
+
+"Did he? Then the man in the gray coat, whom I just met, said right: he
+must have gone ashore. How unlucky!"
+
+He stood vexedly twitching at his cap-tassel, which fell over by his
+whisker, and continued: "Well, I am very sorry. In fact, I had something
+for him here."--Then drawing nearer, "you see, he applied to me for
+relief, no, I do him injustice, not that, but he began to intimate, you
+understand. Well, being very busy just then, I declined; quite rudely,
+too, in a cold, morose, unfeeling way, I fear. At all events, not three
+minutes afterwards I felt self-reproach, with a kind of prompting, very
+peremptory, to deliver over into that unfortunate man's hands a
+ten-dollar bill. You smile. Yes, it may be superstition, but I can't
+help it; I have my weak side, thank God. Then again," he rapidly went
+on, "we have been so very prosperous lately in our affairs--by we, I
+mean the Black Rapids Coal Company--that, really, out of my abundance,
+associative and individual, it is but fair that a charitable investment
+or two should be made, don't you think so?"
+
+"Sir," said the collegian without the least embarrassment, "do I
+understand that you are officially connected with the Black Rapids Coal
+Company?"
+
+"Yes, I happen to be president and transfer-agent."
+
+"You are?"
+
+"Yes, but what is it to you? You don't want to invest?"
+
+"Why, do you sell the stock?"
+
+"Some might be bought, perhaps; but why do you ask? you don't want to
+invest?"
+
+"But supposing I did," with cool self-collectedness, "could you do up
+the thing for me, and here?"
+
+"Bless my soul," gazing at him in amaze, "really, you are quite a
+business man. Positively, I feel afraid of you."
+
+"Oh, no need of that.--You could sell me some of that stock, then?"
+
+"I don't know, I don't know. To be sure, there are a few shares under
+peculiar circumstances bought in by the Company; but it would hardly be
+the thing to convert this boat into the Company's office. I think you
+had better defer investing. So," with an indifferent air, "you have seen
+the unfortunate man I spoke of?"
+
+"Let the unfortunate man go his ways.--What is that large book you have
+with you?"
+
+"My transfer-book. I am subpoenaed with it to court."
+
+"Black Rapids Coal Company," obliquely reading the gilt inscription on
+the back; "I have heard much of it. Pray do you happen to have with you
+any statement of the condition of your company."
+
+"A statement has lately been printed."
+
+"Pardon me, but I am naturally inquisitive. Have you a copy with you?"
+
+"I tell you again, I do not think that it would be suitable to convert
+this boat into the Company's office.--That unfortunate man, did you
+relieve him at all?"
+
+"Let the unfortunate man relieve himself.--Hand me the statement."
+
+"Well, you are such a business-man, I can hardly deny you. Here,"
+handing a small, printed pamphlet.
+
+The youth turned it over sagely.
+
+"I hate a suspicious man," said the other, observing him; "but I must
+say I like to see a cautious one."
+
+"I can gratify you there," languidly returning the pamphlet; "for, as I
+said before, I am naturally inquisitive; I am also circumspect. No
+appearances can deceive me. Your statement," he added "tells a very fine
+story; but pray, was not your stock a little heavy awhile ago? downward
+tendency? Sort of low spirits among holders on the subject of that
+stock?"
+
+"Yes, there was a depression. But how came it? who devised it? The
+'bears,' sir. The depression of our stock was solely owing to the
+growling, the hypocritical growling, of the bears."
+
+"How, hypocritical?"
+
+"Why, the most monstrous of all hypocrites are these bears: hypocrites
+by inversion; hypocrites in the simulation of things dark instead of
+bright; souls that thrive, less upon depression, than the fiction of
+depression; professors of the wicked art of manufacturing depressions;
+spurious Jeremiahs; sham Heraclituses, who, the lugubrious day done,
+return, like sham Lazaruses among the beggars, to make merry over the
+gains got by their pretended sore heads--scoundrelly bears!"
+
+"You are warm against these bears?"
+
+"If I am, it is less from the remembrance of their stratagems as to our
+stock, than from the persuasion that these same destroyers of
+confidence, and gloomy philosophers of the stock-market, though false in
+themselves, are yet true types of most destroyers of confidence and
+gloomy philosophers, the world over. Fellows who, whether in stocks,
+politics, bread-stuffs, morals, metaphysics, religion--be it what it
+may--trump up their black panics in the naturally-quiet brightness,
+solely with a view to some sort of covert advantage. That corpse of
+calamity which the gloomy philosopher parades, is but his
+Good-Enough-Morgan."
+
+"I rather like that," knowingly drawled the youth. "I fancy these gloomy
+souls as little as the next one. Sitting on my sofa after a champagne
+dinner, smoking my plantation cigar, if a gloomy fellow come to me--what
+a bore!"
+
+"You tell him it's all stuff, don't you?"
+
+"I tell him it ain't natural. I say to him, you are happy enough, and
+you know it; and everybody else is as happy as you, and you know that,
+too; and we shall all be happy after we are no more, and you know that,
+too; but no, still you must have your sulk."
+
+"And do you know whence this sort of fellow gets his sulk? not from
+life; for he's often too much of a recluse, or else too young to have
+seen anything of it. No, he gets it from some of those old plays he sees
+on the stage, or some of those old books he finds up in garrets. Ten to
+one, he has lugged home from auction a musty old Seneca, and sets about
+stuffing himself with that stale old hay; and, thereupon, thinks it
+looks wise and antique to be a croaker, thinks it's taking a stand-way
+above his kind."
+
+"Just so," assented the youth. "I've lived some, and seen a good many
+such ravens at second hand. By the way, strange how that man with the
+weed, you were inquiring for, seemed to take me for some soft
+sentimentalist, only because I kept quiet, and thought, because I had a
+copy of Tacitus with me, that I was reading him for his gloom, instead
+of his gossip. But I let him talk. And, indeed, by my manner humored
+him."
+
+"You shouldn't have done that, now. Unfortunate man, you must have made
+quite a fool of him."
+
+"His own fault if I did. But I like prosperous fellows, comfortable
+fellows; fellows that talk comfortably and prosperously, like you. Such
+fellows are generally honest. And, I say now, I happen to have a
+superfluity in my pocket, and I'll just----"
+
+"----Act the part of a brother to that unfortunate man?"
+
+"Let the unfortunate man be his own brother. What are you dragging him
+in for all the time? One would think you didn't care to register any
+transfers, or dispose of any stock--mind running on something else. I
+say I will invest."
+
+"Stay, stay, here come some uproarious fellows--this way, this way."
+
+And with off-handed politeness the man with the book escorted his
+companion into a private little haven removed from the brawling swells
+without.
+
+Business transacted, the two came forth, and walked the deck.
+
+"Now tell me, sir," said he with the book, "how comes it that a young
+gentleman like you, a sedate student at the first appearance, should
+dabble in stocks and that sort of thing?"
+
+"There are certain sophomorean errors in the world," drawled the
+sophomore, deliberately adjusting his shirt-collar, "not the least of
+which is the popular notion touching the nature of the modern scholar,
+and the nature of the modern scholastic sedateness."
+
+"So it seems, so it seems. Really, this is quite a new leaf in my
+experience."
+
+"Experience, sir," originally observed the sophomore, "is the only
+teacher."
+
+"Hence am I your pupil; for it's only when experience speaks, that I can
+endure to listen to speculation."
+
+"My speculations, sir," dryly drawing himself up, "have been chiefly
+governed by the maxim of Lord Bacon; I speculate in those philosophies
+which come home to my business and bosom--pray, do you know of any other
+good stocks?"
+
+"You wouldn't like to be concerned in the New Jerusalem, would you?"
+
+"New Jerusalem?"
+
+"Yes, the new and thriving city, so called, in northern Minnesota. It
+was originally founded by certain fugitive Mormons. Hence the name. It
+stands on the Mississippi. Here, here is the map," producing a roll.
+"There--there, you see are the public buildings--here the landing--there
+the park--yonder the botanic gardens--and this, this little dot here, is
+a perpetual fountain, you understand. You observe there are twenty
+asterisks. Those are for the lyceums. They have lignum-vitae rostrums."
+
+"And are all these buildings now standing?"
+
+"All standing--bona fide."
+
+"These marginal squares here, are they the water-lots?"
+
+"Water-lots in the city of New Jerusalem? All terra firma--you don't
+seem to care about investing, though?"
+
+"Hardly think I should read my title clear, as the law students say,"
+yawned the collegian.
+
+"Prudent--you are prudent. Don't know that you are wholly out, either.
+At any rate, I would rather have one of your shares of coal stock than
+two of this other. Still, considering that the first settlement was by
+two fugitives, who had swum over naked from the opposite shore--it's a
+surprising place. It is, _bona fide_.--But dear me, I must go. Oh, if by
+possibility you should come across that unfortunate man----"
+
+"--In that case," with drawling impatience, "I will send for the
+steward, and have him and his misfortunes consigned overboard."
+
+"Ha ha!--now were some gloomy philosopher here, some theological bear,
+forever taking occasion to growl down the stock of human nature (with
+ulterior views, d'ye see, to a fat benefice in the gift of the
+worshipers of Ariamius), he would pronounce that the sign of a hardening
+heart and a softening brain. Yes, that would be his sinister
+construction. But it's nothing more than the oddity of a genial
+humor--genial but dry. Confess it. Good-bye."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+IN THE CABIN.
+
+
+Stools, settees, sofas, divans, ottomans; occupying them are clusters of
+men, old and young, wise and simple; in their hands are cards spotted
+with diamonds, spades, clubs, hearts; the favorite games are whist,
+cribbage, and brag. Lounging in arm-chairs or sauntering among the
+marble-topped tables, amused with the scene, are the comparatively few,
+who, instead of having hands in the games, for the most part keep their
+hands in their pockets. These may be the philosophes. But here and
+there, with a curious expression, one is reading a small sort of
+handbill of anonymous poetry, rather wordily entitled:--
+
+  "ODE
+  ON THE INTIMATIONS
+  OF
+  DISTRUST IN MAN,
+  UNWILLINGLY INFERRED FROM REPEATED REPULSES,
+  IN DISINTERESTED ENDEAVORS
+  TO PROCURE HIS
+  CONFIDENCE."
+
+On the floor are many copies, looking as if fluttered down from a
+balloon. The way they came there was this: A somewhat elderly person, in
+the quaker dress, had quietly passed through the cabin, and, much in
+the manner of those railway book-peddlers who precede their proffers of
+sale by a distribution of puffs, direct or indirect, of the volumes to
+follow, had, without speaking, handed about the odes, which, for the
+most part, after a cursory glance, had been disrespectfully tossed
+aside, as no doubt, the moonstruck production of some wandering
+rhapsodist.
+
+In due time, book under arm, in trips the ruddy man with the
+traveling-cap, who, lightly moving to and fro, looks animatedly about
+him, with a yearning sort of gratulatory affinity and longing,
+expressive of the very soul of sociality; as much as to say, "Oh, boys,
+would that I were personally acquainted with each mother's son of you,
+since what a sweet world, to make sweet acquaintance in, is ours, my
+brothers; yea, and what dear, happy dogs are we all!"
+
+And just as if he had really warbled it forth, he makes fraternally up
+to one lounging stranger or another, exchanging with him some pleasant
+remark.
+
+"Pray, what have you there?" he asked of one newly accosted, a little,
+dried-up man, who looked as if he never dined.
+
+"A little ode, rather queer, too," was the reply, "of the same sort you
+see strewn on the floor here."
+
+"I did not observe them. Let me see;" picking one up and looking it
+over. "Well now, this is pretty; plaintive, especially the opening:--
+
+    'Alas for man, he hath small sense
+    Of genial trust and confidence.'
+
+--If it be so, alas for him, indeed. Runs off very smoothly, sir.
+Beautiful pathos. But do you think the sentiment just?"
+
+"As to that," said the little dried-up man, "I think it a kind of queer
+thing altogether, and yet I am almost ashamed to add, it really has set
+me to thinking; yes and to feeling. Just now, somehow, I feel as it were
+trustful and genial. I don't know that ever I felt so much so before. I
+am naturally numb in my sensibilities; but this ode, in its way, works
+on my numbness not unlike a sermon, which, by lamenting over my lying
+dead in trespasses and sins, thereby stirs me up to be all alive in
+well-doing."
+
+"Glad to hear it, and hope you will do well, as the doctors say. But who
+snowed the odes about here?"
+
+"I cannot say; I have not been here long."
+
+"Wasn't an angel, was it? Come, you say you feel genial, let us do as
+the rest, and have cards."
+
+"Thank you, I never play cards."
+
+"A bottle of wine?"
+
+"Thank you, I never drink wine."
+
+"Cigars?"
+
+"Thank you, I never smoke cigars."
+
+"Tell stories?"
+
+"To speak truly, I hardly think I know one worth telling."
+
+"Seems to me, then, this geniality you say you feel waked in you, is as
+water-power in a land without mills. Come, you had better take a genial
+hand at the cards. To begin, we will play for as small a sum as you
+please; just enough to make it interesting."
+
+"Indeed, you must excuse me. Somehow I distrust cards."
+
+"What, distrust cards? Genial cards? Then for once I join with our sad
+Philomel here:--
+
+    'Alas for man, he hath small sense
+    Of genial trust and confidence.'
+
+Good-bye!"
+
+Sauntering and chatting here and there, again, he with the book at
+length seems fatigued, looks round for a seat, and spying a
+partly-vacant settee drawn up against the side, drops down there; soon,
+like his chance neighbor, who happens to be the good merchant, becoming
+not a little interested in the scene more immediately before him; a
+party at whist; two cream-faced, giddy, unpolished youths, the one in a
+red cravat, the other in a green, opposed to two bland, grave, handsome,
+self-possessed men of middle age, decorously dressed in a sort of
+professional black, and apparently doctors of some eminence in the civil
+law.
+
+By-and-by, after a preliminary scanning of the new comer next him the
+good merchant, sideways leaning over, whispers behind a crumpled copy of
+the Ode which he holds: "Sir, I don't like the looks of those two, do
+you?"
+
+"Hardly," was the whispered reply; "those colored cravats are not in the
+best taste, at least not to mine; but my taste is no rule for all."
+
+"You mistake; I mean the other two, and I don't refer to dress, but
+countenance. I confess I am not familiar with such gentry any further
+than reading about them in the papers--but those two are--are sharpers,
+aint they?"
+
+"Far be from us the captious and fault-finding spirit, my dear sir."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I would not find fault; I am little given that way: but
+certainly, to say the least, these two youths can hardly be adepts,
+while the opposed couple may be even more."
+
+"You would not hint that the colored cravats would be so bungling as to
+lose, and the dark cravats so dextrous as to cheat?--Sour imaginations,
+my dear sir. Dismiss them. To little purpose have you read the Ode you
+have there. Years and experience, I trust, have not sophisticated you. A
+fresh and liberal construction would teach us to regard those four
+players--indeed, this whole cabin-full of players--as playing at games
+in which every player plays fair, and not a player but shall win."
+
+"Now, you hardly mean that; because games in which all may win, such
+games remain as yet in this world uninvented, I think."
+
+"Come, come," luxuriously laying himself back, and casting a free glance
+upon the players, "fares all paid; digestion sound; care, toil, penury,
+grief, unknown; lounging on this sofa, with waistband relaxed, why not
+be cheerfully resigned to one's fate, nor peevishly pick holes in the
+blessed fate of the world?"
+
+Upon this, the good merchant, after staring long and hard, and then
+rubbing his forehead, fell into meditation, at first uneasy, but at last
+composed, and in the end, once more addressed his companion: "Well, I
+see it's good to out with one's private thoughts now and then. Somehow,
+I don't know why, a certain misty suspiciousness seems inseparable from
+most of one's private notions about some men and some things; but once
+out with these misty notions, and their mere contact with other men's
+soon dissipates, or, at least, modifies them."
+
+"You think I have done you good, then? may be, I have. But don't
+thank me, don't thank me. If by words, casually delivered in the
+social hour, I do any good to right or left, it is but involuntary
+influence--locust-tree sweetening the herbage under it; no merit at
+all; mere wholesome accident, of a wholesome nature.--Don't you see?"
+
+Another stare from the good merchant, and both were silent again.
+
+Finding his book, hitherto resting on his lap, rather irksome there, the
+owner now places it edgewise on the settee, between himself and
+neighbor; in so doing, chancing to expose the lettering on the
+back--"_Black Rapids Coal Company_"--which the good merchant,
+scrupulously honorable, had much ado to avoid reading, so directly would
+it have fallen under his eye, had he not conscientiously averted it. On
+a sudden, as if just reminded of something, the stranger starts up, and
+moves away, in his haste leaving his book; which the merchant observing,
+without delay takes it up, and, hurrying after, civilly returns it; in
+which act he could not avoid catching sight by an involuntary glance of
+part of the lettering.
+
+"Thank you, thank you, my good sir," said the other, receiving the
+volume, and was resuming his retreat, when the merchant spoke: "Excuse
+me, but are you not in some way connected with the--the Coal Company I
+have heard of?"
+
+"There is more than one Coal Company that may be heard of, my good sir,"
+smiled the other, pausing with an expression of painful impatience,
+disinterestedly mastered.
+
+"But you are connected with one in particular.--The 'Black Rapids,' are
+you not?"
+
+"How did you find that out?"
+
+"Well, sir, I have heard rather tempting information of your Company."
+
+"Who is your informant, pray," somewhat coldly.
+
+"A--a person by the name of Ringman."
+
+"Don't know him. But, doubtless, there are plenty who know our Company,
+whom our Company does not know; in the same way that one may know an
+individual, yet be unknown to him.--Known this Ringman long? Old friend,
+I suppose.--But pardon, I must leave you."
+
+"Stay, sir, that--that stock."
+
+"Stock?"
+
+"Yes, it's a little irregular, perhaps, but----"
+
+"Dear me, you don't think of doing any business with me, do you? In my
+official capacity I have not been authenticated to you. This
+transfer-book, now," holding it up so as to bring the lettering in
+sight, "how do you know that it may not be a bogus one? And I, being
+personally a stranger to you, how can you have confidence in me?"
+
+"Because," knowingly smiled the good merchant, "if you were other than I
+have confidence that you are, hardly would you challenge distrust that
+way."
+
+"But you have not examined my book."
+
+"What need to, if already I believe that it is what it is lettered to
+be?"
+
+"But you had better. It might suggest doubts."
+
+"Doubts, may be, it might suggest, but not knowledge; for how, by
+examining the book, should I think I knew any more than I now think I
+do; since, if it be the true book, I think it so already; and since if
+it be otherwise, then I have never seen the true one, and don't know
+what that ought to look like."
+
+"Your logic I will not criticize, but your confidence I admire, and
+earnestly, too, jocose as was the method I took to draw it out. Enough,
+we will go to yonder table, and if there be any business which, either
+in my private or official capacity, I can help you do, pray command
+me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ONLY A PAGE OR SO.
+
+
+The transaction concluded, the two still remained seated, falling into
+familiar conversation, by degrees verging into that confidential sort of
+sympathetic silence, the last refinement and luxury of unaffected good
+feeling. A kind of social superstition, to suppose that to be truly
+friendly one must be saying friendly words all the time, any more than
+be doing friendly deeds continually. True friendliness, like true
+religion, being in a sort independent of works.
+
+At length, the good merchant, whose eyes were pensively resting upon the
+gay tables in the distance, broke the spell by saying that, from the
+spectacle before them, one would little divine what other quarters of
+the boat might reveal. He cited the case, accidentally encountered but
+an hour or two previous, of a shrunken old miser, clad in shrunken old
+moleskin, stretched out, an invalid, on a bare plank in the emigrants'
+quarters, eagerly clinging to life and lucre, though the one was gasping
+for outlet, and about the other he was in torment lest death, or some
+other unprincipled cut-purse, should be the means of his losing it; by
+like feeble tenure holding lungs and pouch, and yet knowing and
+desiring nothing beyond them; for his mind, never raised above mould,
+was now all but mouldered away. To such a degree, indeed, that he had no
+trust in anything, not even in his parchment bonds, which, the better to
+preserve from the tooth of time, he had packed down and sealed up, like
+brandy peaches, in a tin case of spirits.
+
+The worthy man proceeded at some length with these dispiriting
+particulars. Nor would his cheery companion wholly deny that there might
+be a point of view from which such a case of extreme want of confidence
+might, to the humane mind, present features not altogether welcome as
+wine and olives after dinner. Still, he was not without compensatory
+considerations, and, upon the whole, took his companion to task for
+evincing what, in a good-natured, round-about way, he hinted to be a
+somewhat jaundiced sentimentality. Nature, he added, in Shakespeare's
+words, had meal and bran; and, rightly regarded, the bran in its way was
+not to be condemned.
+
+The other was not disposed to question the justice of Shakespeare's
+thought, but would hardly admit the propriety of the application in this
+instance, much less of the comment. So, after some further temperate
+discussion of the pitiable miser, finding that they could not entirely
+harmonize, the merchant cited another case, that of the negro cripple.
+But his companion suggested whether the alleged hardships of that
+alleged unfortunate might not exist more in the pity of the observer
+than the experience of the observed. He knew nothing about the cripple,
+nor had seen him, but ventured to surmise that, could one but get at the
+real state of his heart, he would be found about as happy as most men,
+if not, in fact, full as happy as the speaker himself. He added that
+negroes were by nature a singularly cheerful race; no one ever heard of
+a native-born African Zimmermann or Torquemada; that even from religion
+they dismissed all gloom; in their hilarious rituals they danced, so to
+speak, and, as it were, cut pigeon-wings. It was improbable, therefore,
+that a negro, however reduced to his stumps by fortune, could be ever
+thrown off the legs of a laughing philosophy.
+
+Foiled again, the good merchant would not desist, but ventured still a
+third case, that of the man with the weed, whose story, as narrated by
+himself, and confirmed and filled out by the testimony of a certain man
+in a gray coat, whom the merchant had afterwards met, he now proceeded
+to give; and that, without holding back those particulars disclosed by
+the second informant, but which delicacy had prevented the unfortunate
+man himself from touching upon.
+
+But as the good merchant could, perhaps, do better justice to the man
+than the story, we shall venture to tell it in other words than his,
+though not to any other effect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+STORY OF THE UNFORTUNATE MAN, FROM WHICH MAY BE GATHERED WHETHER OR NO
+HE HAS BEEN JUSTLY SO ENTITLED.
+
+
+It appeared that the unfortunate man had had for a wife one of those
+natures, anomalously vicious, which would almost tempt a metaphysical
+lover of our species to doubt whether the human form be, in all cases,
+conclusive evidence of humanity, whether, sometimes, it may not be a
+kind of unpledged and indifferent tabernacle, and whether, once for all
+to crush the saying of Thrasea, (an unaccountable one, considering that
+he himself was so good a man) that "he who hates vice, hates humanity,"
+it should not, in self-defense, be held for a reasonable maxim, that
+none but the good are human.
+
+Goneril was young, in person lithe and straight, too straight, indeed,
+for a woman, a complexion naturally rosy, and which would have been
+charmingly so, but for a certain hardness and bakedness, like that of
+the glazed colors on stone-ware. Her hair was of a deep, rich chestnut,
+but worn in close, short curls all round her head. Her Indian figure was
+not without its impairing effect on her bust, while her mouth would have
+been pretty but for a trace of moustache. Upon the whole, aided by the
+resources of the toilet, her appearance at distance was such, that some
+might have thought her, if anything, rather beautiful, though of a style
+of beauty rather peculiar and cactus-like.
+
+It was happy for Goneril that her more striking peculiarities were less
+of the person than of temper and taste. One hardly knows how to reveal,
+that, while having a natural antipathy to such things as the breast of
+chicken, or custard, or peach, or grape, Goneril could yet in private
+make a satisfactory lunch on hard crackers and brawn of ham. She liked
+lemons, and the only kind of candy she loved were little dried sticks of
+blue clay, secretly carried in her pocket. Withal she had hard, steady
+health like a squaw's, with as firm a spirit and resolution. Some other
+points about her were likewise such as pertain to the women of savage
+life. Lithe though she was, she loved supineness, but upon occasion
+could endure like a stoic. She was taciturn, too. From early morning
+till about three o'clock in the afternoon she would seldom speak--it
+taking that time to thaw her, by all accounts, into but talking terms
+with humanity. During the interval she did little but look, and keep
+looking out of her large, metallic eyes, which her enemies called cold
+as a cuttle-fish's, but which by her were esteemed gazelle-like; for
+Goneril was not without vanity. Those who thought they best knew her,
+often wondered what happiness such a being could take in life, not
+considering the happiness which is to be had by some natures in the very
+easy way of simply causing pain to those around them. Those who suffered
+from Goneril's strange nature, might, with one of those hyberboles to
+which the resentful incline, have pronounced her some kind of toad; but
+her worst slanderers could never, with any show of justice, have accused
+her of being a toady. In a large sense she possessed the virtue of
+independence of mind. Goneril held it flattery to hint praise even of
+the absent, and even if merited; but honesty, to fling people's imputed
+faults into their faces. This was thought malice, but it certainly was
+not passion. Passion is human. Like an icicle-dagger, Goneril at once
+stabbed and froze; so at least they said; and when she saw frankness and
+innocence tyrannized into sad nervousness under her spell, according to
+the same authority, inly she chewed her blue clay, and you could mark
+that she chuckled. These peculiarities were strange and unpleasing; but
+another was alleged, one really incomprehensible. In company she had a
+strange way of touching, as by accident, the arm or hand of comely young
+men, and seemed to reap a secret delight from it, but whether from the
+humane satisfaction of having given the evil-touch, as it is called, or
+whether it was something else in her, not equally wonderful, but quite
+as deplorable, remained an enigma.
+
+Needless to say what distress was the unfortunate man's, when, engaged
+in conversation with company, he would suddenly perceive his Goneril
+bestowing her mysterious touches, especially in such cases where the
+strangeness of the thing seemed to strike upon the touched person,
+notwithstanding good-breeding forbade his proposing the mystery, on the
+spot, as a subject of discussion for the company. In these cases, too,
+the unfortunate man could never endure so much as to look upon the
+touched young gentleman afterwards, fearful of the mortification of
+meeting in his countenance some kind of more or less quizzingly-knowing
+expression. He would shudderingly shun the young gentleman. So that
+here, to the husband, Goneril's touch had the dread operation of the
+heathen taboo. Now Goneril brooked no chiding. So, at favorable times,
+he, in a wary manner, and not indelicately, would venture in private
+interviews gently to make distant allusions to this questionable
+propensity. She divined him. But, in her cold loveless way, said it was
+witless to be telling one's dreams, especially foolish ones; but if the
+unfortunate man liked connubially to rejoice his soul with such
+chimeras, much connubial joy might they give him. All this was sad--a
+touching case--but all might, perhaps, have been borne by the
+unfortunate man--conscientiously mindful of his vow--for better or for
+worse--to love and cherish his dear Goneril so long as kind heaven might
+spare her to him--but when, after all that had happened, the devil of
+jealousy entered her, a calm, clayey, cakey devil, for none other could
+possess her, and the object of that deranged jealousy, her own child, a
+little girl of seven, her father's consolation and pet; when he saw
+Goneril artfully torment the little innocent, and then play the maternal
+hypocrite with it, the unfortunate man's patient long-suffering gave
+way. Knowing that she would neither confess nor amend, and might,
+possibly, become even worse than she was, he thought it but duty as a
+father, to withdraw the child from her; but, loving it as he did, he
+could not do so without accompanying it into domestic exile himself.
+Which, hard though it was, he did. Whereupon the whole female
+neighborhood, who till now had little enough admired dame Goneril, broke
+out in indignation against a husband, who, without assigning a cause,
+could deliberately abandon the wife of his bosom, and sharpen the sting
+to her, too, by depriving her of the solace of retaining her offspring.
+To all this, self-respect, with Christian charity towards Goneril, long
+kept the unfortunate man dumb. And well had it been had he continued so;
+for when, driven to desperation, he hinted something of the truth of the
+case, not a soul would credit it; while for Goneril, she pronounced all
+he said to be a malicious invention. Ere long, at the suggestion of some
+woman's-rights women, the injured wife began a suit, and, thanks to able
+counsel and accommodating testimony, succeeded in such a way, as not
+only to recover custody of the child, but to get such a settlement
+awarded upon a separation, as to make penniless the unfortunate man (so
+he averred), besides, through the legal sympathy she enlisted, effecting
+a judicial blasting of his private reputation. What made it yet more
+lamentable was, that the unfortunate man, thinking that, before the
+court, his wisest plan, as well as the most Christian besides, being, as
+he deemed, not at variance with the truth of the matter, would be to put
+forth the plea of the mental derangement of Goneril, which done, he
+could, with less of mortification to himself, and odium to her, reveal
+in self-defense those eccentricities which had led to his retirement
+from the joys of wedlock, had much ado in the end to prevent this charge
+of derangement from fatally recoiling upon himself--especially, when,
+among other things, he alleged her mysterious teachings. In vain did his
+counsel, striving to make out the derangement to be where, in fact, if
+anywhere, it was, urge that, to hold otherwise, to hold that such a
+being as Goneril was sane, this was constructively a libel upon
+womankind. Libel be it. And all ended by the unfortunate man's
+subsequently getting wind of Goneril's intention to procure him to be
+permanently committed for a lunatic. Upon which he fled, and was now an
+innocent outcast, wandering forlorn in the great valley of the
+Mississippi, with a weed on his hat for the loss of his Goneril; for he
+had lately seen by the papers that she was dead, and thought it but
+proper to comply with the prescribed form of mourning in such cases. For
+some days past he had been trying to get money enough to return to his
+child, and was but now started with inadequate funds.
+
+Now all of this, from the beginning, the good merchant could not but
+consider rather hard for the unfortunate man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE MAN WITH THE TRAVELING-CAP EVINCES MUCH HUMANITY, AND IN A WAY WHICH
+WOULD SEEM TO SHOW HIM TO BE ONE OF THE MOST LOGICAL OF OPTIMISTS.
+
+
+Years ago, a grave American savant, being in London, observed at an
+evening party there, a certain coxcombical fellow, as he thought, an
+absurd ribbon in his lapel, and full of smart persiflage, whisking about
+to the admiration of as many as were disposed to admire. Great was the
+savan's disdain; but, chancing ere long to find himself in a corner with
+the jackanapes, got into conversation with him, when he was somewhat
+ill-prepared for the good sense of the jackanapes, but was altogether
+thrown aback, upon subsequently being whispered by a friend that the
+jackanapes was almost as great a savan as himself, being no less a
+personage than Sir Humphrey Davy.
+
+The above anecdote is given just here by way of an anticipative reminder
+to such readers as, from the kind of jaunty levity, or what may have
+passed for such, hitherto for the most part appearing in the man with
+the traveling-cap, may have been tempted into a more or less hasty
+estimate of him; that such readers, when they find the same person, as
+they presently will, capable of philosophic and humanitarian
+discourse--no mere casual sentence or two as heretofore at times, but
+solidly sustained throughout an almost entire sitting; that they may
+not, like the American savan, be thereupon betrayed into any surprise
+incompatible with their own good opinion of their previous penetration.
+
+The merchant's narration being ended, the other would not deny but that
+it did in some degree affect him. He hoped he was not without proper
+feeling for the unfortunate man. But he begged to know in what spirit he
+bore his alleged calamities. Did he despond or have confidence?
+
+The merchant did not, perhaps, take the exact import of the last member
+of the question; but answered, that, if whether the unfortunate man was
+becomingly resigned under his affliction or no, was the point, he could
+say for him that resigned he was, and to an exemplary degree: for not
+only, so far as known, did he refrain from any one-sided reflections
+upon human goodness and human justice, but there was observable in him
+an air of chastened reliance, and at times tempered cheerfulness.
+
+Upon which the other observed, that since the unfortunate man's alleged
+experience could not be deemed very conciliatory towards a view of human
+nature better than human nature was, it largely redounded to his
+fair-mindedness, as well as piety, that under the alleged dissuasives,
+apparently so, from philanthropy, he had not, in a moment of excitement,
+been warped over to the ranks of the misanthropes. He doubted not,
+also, that with such a man his experience would, in the end, act by a
+complete and beneficent inversion, and so far from shaking his
+confidence in his kind, confirm it, and rivet it. Which would the more
+surely be the case, did he (the unfortunate man) at last become
+satisfied (as sooner or later he probably would be) that in the
+distraction of his mind his Goneril had not in all respects had fair
+play. At all events, the description of the lady, charity could not but
+regard as more or less exaggerated, and so far unjust. The truth
+probably was that she was a wife with some blemishes mixed with some
+beauties. But when the blemishes were displayed, her husband, no adept
+in the female nature, had tried to use reason with her, instead of
+something far more persuasive. Hence his failure to convince and
+convert. The act of withdrawing from her, seemed, under the
+circumstances, abrupt. In brief, there were probably small faults on
+both sides, more than balanced by large virtues; and one should not be
+hasty in judging.
+
+When the merchant, strange to say, opposed views so calm and impartial,
+and again, with some warmth, deplored the case of the unfortunate man,
+his companion, not without seriousness, checked him, saying, that this
+would never do; that, though but in the most exceptional case, to admit
+the existence of unmerited misery, more particularly if alleged to have
+been brought about by unhindered arts of the wicked, such an admission
+was, to say the least, not prudent; since, with some, it might
+unfavorably bias their most important persuasions. Not that those
+persuasions were legitimately servile to such influences. Because,
+since the common occurrences of life could never, in the nature of
+things, steadily look one way and tell one story, as flags in the
+trade-wind; hence, if the conviction of a Providence, for instance, were
+in any way made dependent upon such variabilities as everyday events,
+the degree of that conviction would, in thinking minds, be subject to
+fluctuations akin to those of the stock-exchange during a long and
+uncertain war. Here he glanced aside at his transfer-book, and after a
+moment's pause continued. It was of the essence of a right conviction of
+the divine nature, as with a right conviction of the human, that, based
+less on experience than intuition, it rose above the zones of weather.
+
+When now the merchant, with all his heart, coincided with this (as being
+a sensible, as well as religious person, he could not but do), his
+companion expressed satisfaction, that, in an age of some distrust on
+such subjects, he could yet meet with one who shared with him, almost to
+the full, so sound and sublime a confidence.
+
+Still, he was far from the illiberality of denying that philosophy duly
+bounded was not permissible. Only he deemed it at least desirable that,
+when such a case as that alleged of the unfortunate man was made the
+subject of philosophic discussion, it should be so philosophized upon,
+as not to afford handles to those unblessed with the true light. For,
+but to grant that there was so much as a mystery about such a case,
+might by those persons be held for a tacit surrender of the question.
+And as for the apparent license temporarily permitted sometimes, to the
+bad over the good (as was by implication alleged with regard to Goneril
+and the unfortunate man), it might be injudicious there to lay too much
+polemic stress upon the doctrine of future retribution as the
+vindication of present impunity. For though, indeed, to the right-minded
+that doctrine was true, and of sufficient solace, yet with the perverse
+the polemic mention of it might but provoke the shallow, though
+mischievous conceit, that such a doctrine was but tantamount to the one
+which should affirm that Providence was not now, but was going to be. In
+short, with all sorts of cavilers, it was best, both for them and
+everybody, that whoever had the true light should stick behind the
+secure Malakoff of confidence, nor be tempted forth to hazardous
+skirmishes on the open ground of reason. Therefore, he deemed it
+unadvisable in the good man, even in the privacy of his own mind, or in
+communion with a congenial one, to indulge in too much latitude of
+philosophizing, or, indeed, of compassionating, since this might, beget
+an indiscreet habit of thinking and feeling which might unexpectedly
+betray him upon unsuitable occasions. Indeed, whether in private or
+public, there was nothing which a good man was more bound to guard
+himself against than, on some topics, the emotional unreserve of his
+natural heart; for, that the natural heart, in certain points, was not
+what it might be, men had been authoritatively admonished.
+
+But he thought he might be getting dry.
+
+The merchant, in his good-nature, thought otherwise, and said that he
+would be glad to refresh himself with such fruit all day. It was sitting
+under a ripe pulpit, and better such a seat than under a ripe
+peach-tree.
+
+The other was pleased to find that he had not, as he feared, been
+prosing; but would rather not be considered in the formal light of a
+preacher; he preferred being still received in that of the equal and
+genial companion. To which end, throwing still more of sociability into
+his manner, he again reverted to the unfortunate man. Take the very
+worst view of that case; admit that his Goneril was, indeed, a Goneril;
+how fortunate to be at last rid of this Goneril, both by nature and by
+law? If he were acquainted with the unfortunate man, instead of
+condoling with him, he would congratulate him. Great good fortune had
+this unfortunate man. Lucky dog, he dared say, after all.
+
+To which the merchant replied, that he earnestly hoped it might be so,
+and at any rate he tried his best to comfort himself with the persuasion
+that, if the unfortunate man was not happy in this world, he would, at
+least, be so in another.
+
+His companion made no question of the unfortunate man's happiness in
+both worlds; and, presently calling for some champagne, invited the
+merchant to partake, upon the playful plea that, whatever notions other
+than felicitous ones he might associate with the unfortunate man, a
+little champagne would readily bubble away.
+
+At intervals they slowly quaffed several glasses in silence and
+thoughtfulness. At last the merchant's expressive face flushed, his eye
+moistly beamed, his lips trembled with an imaginative and feminine
+sensibility. Without sending a single fume to his head, the wine seemed
+to shoot to his heart, and begin soothsaying there. "Ah," he cried,
+pushing his glass from him, "Ah, wine is good, and confidence is good;
+but can wine or confidence percolate down through all the stony strata
+of hard considerations, and drop warmly and ruddily into the cold cave
+of truth? Truth will _not_ be comforted. Led by dear charity, lured by
+sweet hope, fond fancy essays this feat; but in vain; mere dreams and
+ideals, they explode in your hand, leaving naught but the scorching
+behind!"
+
+"Why, why, why!" in amaze, at the burst: "bless me, if _In vino veritas_
+be a true saying, then, for all the fine confidence you professed with
+me, just now, distrust, deep distrust, underlies it; and ten thousand
+strong, like the Irish Rebellion, breaks out in you now. That wine, good
+wine, should do it! Upon my soul," half seriously, half humorously,
+securing the bottle, "you shall drink no more of it. Wine was meant to
+gladden the heart, not grieve it; to heighten confidence, not depress
+it."
+
+Sobered, shamed, all but confounded, by this raillery, the most telling
+rebuke under such circumstances, the merchant stared about him, and
+then, with altered mien, stammeringly confessed, that he was almost as
+much surprised as his companion, at what had escaped him. He did not
+understand it; was quite at a loss to account for such a rhapsody
+popping out of him unbidden. It could hardly be the champagne; he felt
+his brain unaffected; in fact, if anything, the wine had acted upon it
+something like white of egg in coffee, clarifying and brightening.
+
+"Brightening? brightening it may be, but less like the white of egg in
+coffee, than like stove-lustre on a stove--black, brightening seriously,
+I repent calling for the champagne. To a temperament like yours,
+champagne is not to be recommended. Pray, my dear sir, do you feel quite
+yourself again? Confidence restored?"
+
+"I hope so; I think I may say it is so. But we have had a long talk, and
+I think I must retire now."
+
+So saying, the merchant rose, and making his adieus, left the table with
+the air of one, mortified at having been tempted by his own honest
+goodness, accidentally stimulated into making mad disclosures--to
+himself as to another--of the queer, unaccountable caprices of his
+natural heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WORTH THE CONSIDERATION OF THOSE TO WHOM IT MAY PROVE WORTH CONSIDERING.
+
+
+As the last chapter was begun with a reminder looking forwards, so the
+present must consist of one glancing backwards.
+
+To some, it may raise a degree of surprise that one so full of
+confidence, as the merchant has throughout shown himself, up to the
+moment of his late sudden impulsiveness, should, in that instance, have
+betrayed such a depth of discontent. He may be thought inconsistent, and
+even so he is. But for this, is the author to be blamed? True, it may be
+urged that there is nothing a writer of fiction should more carefully
+see to, as there is nothing a sensible reader will more carefully look
+for, than that, in the depiction of any character, its consistency
+should be preserved. But this, though at first blush, seeming reasonable
+enough, may, upon a closer view, prove not so much so. For how does it
+couple with another requirement--equally insisted upon, perhaps--that,
+while to all fiction is allowed some play of invention, yet, fiction
+based on fact should never be contradictory to it; and is it not a fact,
+that, in real life, a consistent character is a _rara avis_? Which
+being so, the distaste of readers to the contrary sort in books, can
+hardly arise from any sense of their untrueness. It may rather be from
+perplexity as to understanding them. But if the acutest sage be often at
+his wits' ends to understand living character, shall those who are not
+sages expect to run and read character in those mere phantoms which flit
+along a page, like shadows along a wall? That fiction, where every
+character can, by reason of its consistency, be comprehended at a
+glance, either exhibits but sections of character, making them appear
+for wholes, or else is very untrue to reality; while, on the other hand,
+that author who draws a character, even though to common view
+incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at different
+periods, as much at variance with itself as the butterfly is with the
+caterpillar into which it changes, may yet, in so doing, be not false
+but faithful to facts.
+
+If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent characters
+as nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a reader
+unerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies of
+conception and those of life as elsewhere. Experience is the only guide
+here; but as no one man can be coextensive with _what is_, it may be
+unwise in every ease to rest upon it. When the duck-billed beaver of
+Australia was first brought stuffed to England, the naturalists,
+appealing to their classifications, maintained that there was, in
+reality, no such creature; the bill in the specimen must needs be, in
+some way, artificially stuck on.
+
+But let nature, to the perplexity of the naturalists, produce her
+duck-billed beavers as she may, lesser authors some may hold, have no
+business to be perplexing readers with duck-billed characters. Always,
+they should represent human nature not in obscurity, but transparency,
+which, indeed, is the practice with most novelists, and is, perhaps, in
+certain cases, someway felt to be a kind of honor rendered by them to
+their kind. But, whether it involve honor or otherwise might be mooted,
+considering that, if these waters of human nature can be so readily seen
+through, it may be either that they are very pure or very shallow. Upon
+the whole, it might rather be thought, that he, who, in view of its
+inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its
+contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out,
+thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always
+representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he
+clearly knows all about it.
+
+But though there is a prejudice against inconsistent characters in
+books, yet the prejudice bears the other way, when what seemed at first
+their inconsistency, afterwards, by the skill of the writer, turns out
+to be their good keeping. The great masters excel in nothing so much as
+in this very particular. They challenge astonishment at the tangled web
+of some character, and then raise admiration still greater at their
+satisfactory unraveling of it; in this way throwing open, sometimes to
+the understanding even of school misses, the last complications of that
+spirit which is affirmed by its Creator to be fearfully and wonderfully
+made.
+
+At least, something like this is claimed for certain psychological
+novelists; nor will the claim be here disputed. Yet, as touching this
+point, it may prove suggestive, that all those sallies of ingenuity,
+having for their end the revelation of human nature on fixed principles,
+have, by the best judges, been excluded with contempt from the ranks of
+the sciences--palmistry, physiognomy, phrenology, psychology. Likewise,
+the fact, that in all ages such conflicting views have, by the most
+eminent minds, been taken of mankind, would, as with other topics, seem
+some presumption of a pretty general and pretty thorough ignorance of
+it. Which may appear the less improbable if it be considered that, after
+poring over the best novels professing to portray human nature, the
+studious youth will still run risk of being too often at fault upon
+actually entering the world; whereas, had he been furnished with a true
+delineation, it ought to fare with him something as with a stranger
+entering, map in hand, Boston town; the streets may be very crooked, he
+may often pause; but, thanks to his true map, he does not hopelessly
+lose his way. Nor, to this comparison, can it be an adequate objection,
+that the twistings of the town are always the same, and those of human
+nature subject to variation. The grand points of human nature are the
+same to-day they were a thousand years ago. The only variability in them
+is in expression, not in feature.
+
+But as, in spite of seeming discouragement, some mathematicians are yet
+in hopes of hitting upon an exact method of determining the longitude,
+the more earnest psychologists may, in the face of previous failures,
+still cherish expectations with regard to some mode of infallibly
+discovering the heart of man.
+
+But enough has been said by way of apology for whatever may have seemed
+amiss or obscure in the character of the merchant; so nothing remains
+but to turn to our comedy, or, rather, to pass from the comedy of
+thought to that of action.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+AN OLD MISER, UPON SUITABLE REPRESENTATIONS, IS PREVAILED UPON TO
+VENTURE AN INVESTMENT.
+
+
+The merchant having withdrawn, the other remained seated alone for a
+time, with the air of one who, after having conversed with some
+excellent man, carefully ponders what fell from him, however
+intellectually inferior it may be, that none of the profit may be lost;
+happy if from any honest word he has heard he can derive some hint,
+which, besides confirming him in the theory of virtue, may, likewise,
+serve for a finger-post to virtuous action.
+
+Ere long his eye brightened, as if some such hint was now caught. He
+rises, book in hand, quits the cabin, and enters upon a sort of
+corridor, narrow and dim, a by-way to a retreat less ornate and cheery
+than the former; in short, the emigrants' quarters; but which, owing to
+the present trip being a down-river one, will doubtless be found
+comparatively tenantless. Owing to obstructions against the side
+windows, the whole place is dim and dusky; very much so, for the most
+part; yet, by starts, haggardly lit here and there by narrow, capricious
+sky-lights in the cornices. But there would seem no special need for
+light, the place being designed more to pass the night in, than the day;
+in brief, a pine barrens dormitory, of knotty pine bunks, without
+bedding. As with the nests in the geometrical towns of the associate
+penguin and pelican, these bunks were disposed with Philadelphian
+regularity, but, like the cradle of the oriole, they were pendulous,
+and, moreover, were, so to speak, three-story cradles; the description
+of one of which will suffice for all.
+
+Four ropes, secured to the ceiling, passed downwards through auger-holes
+bored in the corners of three rough planks, which at equal distances
+rested on knots vertically tied in the ropes, the lowermost plank but an
+inch or two from the floor, the whole affair resembling, on a large
+scale, rope book-shelves; only, instead of hanging firmly against a
+wall, they swayed to and fro at the least suggestion of motion, but were
+more especially lively upon the provocation of a green emigrant
+sprawling into one, and trying to lay himself out there, when the
+cradling would be such as almost to toss him back whence he came. In
+consequence, one less inexperienced, essaying repose on the uppermost
+shelf, was liable to serious disturbance, should a raw beginner select a
+shelf beneath. Sometimes a throng of poor emigrants, coming at night in
+a sudden rain to occupy these oriole nests, would--through ignorance of
+their peculiarity--bring about such a rocking uproar of carpentry,
+joining to it such an uproar of exclamations, that it seemed as if some
+luckless ship, with all its crew, was being dashed to pieces among the
+rocks. They were beds devised by some sardonic foe of poor travelers,
+to deprive them of that tranquility which should precede, as well as
+accompany, slumber.--Procrustean beds, on whose hard grain humble worth
+and honesty writhed, still invoking repose, while but torment responded.
+Ah, did any one make such a bunk for himself, instead of having it made
+for him, it might be just, but how cruel, to say, You must lie on it!
+
+But, purgatory as the place would appear, the stranger advances into it:
+and, like Orpheus in his gay descent to Tartarus, lightly hums to
+himself an opera snatch.
+
+Suddenly there is a rustling, then a creaking, one of the cradles swings
+out from a murky nook, a sort of wasted penguin-flipper is
+supplicatingly put forth, while a wail like that of Dives is
+heard:--"Water, water!"
+
+It was the miser of whom the merchant had spoken.
+
+Swift as a sister-of-charity, the stranger hovers over him:--
+
+"My poor, poor sir, what can I do for you?"
+
+"Ugh, ugh--water!"
+
+Darting out, he procures a glass, returns, and, holding it to the
+sufferer's lips, supports his head while he drinks: "And did they let
+you lie here, my poor sir, racked with this parching thirst?"
+
+The miser, a lean old man, whose flesh seemed salted cod-fish, dry as
+combustibles; head, like one whittled by an idiot out of a knot; flat,
+bony mouth, nipped between buzzard nose and chin; expression, flitting
+between hunks and imbecile--now one, now the other--he made no response.
+His eyes were closed, his cheek lay upon an old white moleskin coat,
+rolled under his head like a wizened apple upon a grimy snow-bank.
+
+Revived at last, he inclined towards his ministrant, and, in a voice
+disastrous with a cough, said:--"I am old and miserable, a poor beggar,
+not worth a shoestring--how can I repay you?"
+
+"By giving me your confidence."
+
+"Confidence!" he squeaked, with changed manner, while the pallet swung,
+"little left at my age, but take the stale remains, and welcome."
+
+"Such as it is, though, you give it. Very good. Now give me a hundred
+dollars."
+
+Upon this the miser was all panic. His hands groped towards his
+waist, then suddenly flew upward beneath his moleskin pillow, and
+there lay clutching something out of sight. Meantime, to himself he
+incoherently mumbled:--"Confidence? Cant, gammon! Confidence? hum,
+bubble!--Confidence? fetch, gouge!--Hundred dollars?--hundred devils!"
+
+Half spent, he lay mute awhile, then feebly raising himself, in a voice
+for the moment made strong by the sarcasm, said, "A hundred dollars?
+rather high price to put upon confidence. But don't you see I am a poor,
+old rat here, dying in the wainscot? You have served me; but, wretch
+that I am, I can but cough you my thanks,--ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+This time his cough was so violent that its convulsions were imparted to
+the plank, which swung him about like a stone in a sling preparatory to
+its being hurled.
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"What a shocking cough. I wish, my friend, the herb-doctor was here now;
+a box of his Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator would do you good."
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"I've a good mind to go find him. He's aboard somewhere. I saw his long,
+snuff-colored surtout. Trust me, his medicines are the best in the
+world."
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"Oh, how sorry I am."
+
+"No doubt of it," squeaked the other again, "but go, get your charity
+out on deck. There parade the pursy peacocks; they don't cough down here
+in desertion and darkness, like poor old me. Look how scaly a pauper I
+am, clove with this churchyard cough. Ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"Again, how sorry I feel, not only for your cough, but your poverty.
+Such a rare chance made unavailable. Did you have but the sum named, how
+I could invest it for you. Treble profits. But confidence--I fear that,
+even had you the precious cash, you would not have the more precious
+confidence I speak of."
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh!" flightily raising himself. "What's that? How, how? Then
+you don't want the money for yourself?"
+
+"My dear, _dear_ sir, how could you impute to me such preposterous
+self-seeking? To solicit out of hand, for my private behoof, an hundred
+dollars from a perfect stranger? I am not mad, my dear sir."
+
+"How, how?" still more bewildered, "do you, then, go about the world,
+gratis, seeking to invest people's money for them?"
+
+"My humble profession, sir. I live not for myself; but the world will
+not have confidence in me, and yet confidence in me were great gain."
+
+"But, but," in a kind of vertigo, "what do--do you do--do with people's
+money? Ugh, ugh! How is the gain made?"
+
+"To tell that would ruin me. That known, every one would be going into
+the business, and it would be overdone. A secret, a mystery--all I have
+to do with you is to receive your confidence, and all you have to do
+with me is, in due time, to receive it back, thrice paid in trebling
+profits."
+
+"What, what?" imbecility in the ascendant once more; "but the vouchers,
+the vouchers," suddenly hunkish again.
+
+"Honesty's best voucher is honesty's face."
+
+"Can't see yours, though," peering through the obscurity.
+
+From this last alternating flicker of rationality, the miser fell back,
+sputtering, into his previous gibberish, but it took now an arithmetical
+turn. Eyes closed, he lay muttering to himself--
+
+"One hundred, one hundred--two hundred, two hundred--three hundred,
+three hundred."
+
+He opened his eyes, feebly stared, and still more feebly said--
+
+"It's a little dim here, ain't it? Ugh, ugh! But, as well as my poor old
+eyes can see, you look honest."
+
+"I am glad to hear that."
+
+"If--if, now, I should put"--trying to raise himself, but vainly,
+excitement having all but exhausted him--"if, if now, I should put,
+put----"
+
+"No ifs. Downright confidence, or none. So help me heaven, I will have
+no half-confidences."
+
+He said it with an indifferent and superior air, and seemed moving to
+go.
+
+"Don't, don't leave me, friend; bear with me; age can't help some
+distrust; it can't, friend, it can't. Ugh, ugh, ugh! Oh, I am so old and
+miserable. I ought to have a guardian. Tell me, if----"
+
+"If? No more!"
+
+"Stay! how soon--ugh, ugh!--would my money be trebled? How soon,
+friend?"
+
+"You won't confide. Good-bye!"
+
+"Stay, stay," falling back now like an infant, "I confide, I confide;
+help, friend, my distrust!"
+
+From an old buckskin pouch, tremulously dragged forth, ten hoarded
+eagles, tarnished into the appearance of ten old horn-buttons, were
+taken, and half-eagerly, half-reluctantly, offered.
+
+"I know not whether I should accept this slack confidence," said the
+other coldly, receiving the gold, "but an eleventh-hour confidence, a
+sick-bed confidence, a distempered, death-bed confidence, after all.
+Give me the healthy confidence of healthy men, with their healthy wits
+about them. But let that pass. All right. Good-bye!"
+
+"Nay, back, back--receipt, my receipt! Ugh, ugh, ugh! Who are you? What
+have I done? Where go you? My gold, my gold! Ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+But, unluckily for this final flicker of reason, the stranger was now
+beyond ear-shot, nor was any one else within hearing of so feeble a
+call.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A SICK MAN, AFTER SOME IMPATIENCE, IS INDUCED TO BECOME A PATIENT
+
+
+The sky slides into blue, the bluffs into bloom; the rapid Mississippi
+expands; runs sparkling and gurgling, all over in eddies; one magnified
+wake of a seventy-four. The sun comes out, a golden huzzar, from his
+tent, flashing his helm on the world. All things, warmed in the
+landscape, leap. Speeds the dædal boat as a dream.
+
+But, withdrawn in a corner, wrapped about in a shawl, sits an
+unparticipating man, visited, but not warmed, by the sun--a plant whose
+hour seems over, while buds are blowing and seeds are astir. On a stool
+at his left sits a stranger in a snuff-colored surtout, the collar
+thrown back; his hand waving in persuasive gesture, his eye beaming with
+hope. But not easily may hope be awakened in one long tranced into
+hopelessness by a chronic complaint.
+
+To some remark the sick man, by word or look, seemed to have just made
+an impatiently querulous answer, when, with a deprecatory air, the other
+resumed:
+
+"Nay, think not I seek to cry up my treatment by crying down that of
+others. And yet, when one is confident he has truth on his side, and
+that is not on the other, it is no very easy thing to be charitable; not
+that temper is the bar, but conscience; for charity would beget
+toleration, you know, which is a kind of implied permitting, and in
+effect a kind of countenancing; and that which is countenanced is so far
+furthered. But should untruth be furthered? Still, while for the world's
+good I refuse to further the cause of these mineral doctors, I would
+fain regard them, not as willful wrong-doers, but good Samaritans
+erring. And is this--I put it to you, sir--is this the view of an
+arrogant rival and pretender?"
+
+His physical power all dribbled and gone, the sick man replied not by
+voice or by gesture; but, with feeble dumb-show of his face, seemed to
+be saying "Pray leave me; who was ever cured by talk?"
+
+But the other, as if not unused to make allowances for such despondency,
+proceeded; and kindly, yet firmly:
+
+"You tell me, that by advice of an eminent physiologist in Louisville,
+you took tincture of iron. For what? To restore your lost energy. And
+how? Why, in healthy subjects iron is naturally found in the blood, and
+iron in the bar is strong; ergo, iron is the source of animal
+invigoration. But you being deficient in vigor, it follows that the
+cause is deficiency of iron. Iron, then, must be put into you; and so
+your tincture. Now as to the theory here, I am mute. But in modesty
+assuming its truth, and then, as a plain man viewing that theory in
+practice, I would respectfully question your eminent physiologist:
+'Sir,' I would say, 'though by natural processes, lifeless natures taken
+as nutriment become vitalized, yet is a lifeless nature, under any
+circumstances, capable of a living transmission, with all its qualities
+as a lifeless nature unchanged? If, sir, nothing can be incorporated
+with the living body but by assimilation, and if that implies the
+conversion of one thing to a different thing (as, in a lamp, oil is
+assimilated into flame), is it, in this view, likely, that by banqueting
+on fat, Calvin Edson will fatten? That is, will what is fat on the board
+prove fat on the bones? If it will, then, sir, what is iron in the vial
+will prove iron in the vein.' Seems that conclusion too confident?"
+
+But the sick man again turned his dumb-show look, as much as to say,
+"Pray leave me. Why, with painful words, hint the vanity of that which
+the pains of this body have too painfully proved?"
+
+But the other, as if unobservant of that querulous look, went on:
+
+"But this notion, that science can play farmer to the flesh, making
+there what living soil it pleases, seems not so strange as that other
+conceit--that science is now-a-days so expert that, in consumptive
+cases, as yours, it can, by prescription of the inhalation of certain
+vapors, achieve the sublimest act of omnipotence, breathing into all but
+lifeless dust the breath of life. For did you not tell me, my poor sir,
+that by order of the great chemist in Baltimore, for three weeks you
+were never driven out without a respirator, and for a given time of
+every day sat bolstered up in a sort of gasometer, inspiring vapors
+generated by the burning of drugs? as if this concocted atmosphere of
+man were an antidote to the poison of God's natural air. Oh, who can
+wonder at that old reproach against science, that it is atheistical? And
+here is my prime reason for opposing these chemical practitioners, who
+have sought out so many inventions. For what do their inventions
+indicate, unless it be that kind and degree of pride in human skill,
+which seems scarce compatible with reverential dependence upon the power
+above? Try to rid my mind of it as I may, yet still these chemical
+practitioners with their tinctures, and fumes, and braziers, and occult
+incantations, seem to me like Pharaoh's vain sorcerers, trying to beat
+down the will of heaven. Day and night, in all charity, I intercede for
+them, that heaven may not, in its own language, be provoked to anger
+with their inventions; may not take vengeance of their inventions. A
+thousand pities that you should ever have been in the hands of these
+Egyptians."
+
+But again came nothing but the dumb-show look, as much as to say, "Pray
+leave me; quacks, and indignation against quacks, both are vain."
+
+But, once more, the other went on: "How different we herb-doctors! who
+claim nothing, invent nothing; but staff in hand, in glades, and upon
+hillsides, go about in nature, humbly seeking her cures. True Indian
+doctors, though not learned in names, we are not unfamiliar with
+essences--successors of Solomon the Wise, who knew all vegetables, from
+the cedar of Lebanon, to the hyssop on the wall. Yes, Solomon was the
+first of herb-doctors. Nor were the virtues of herbs unhonored by yet
+older ages. Is it not writ, that on a moonlight night,
+
+    "Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
+    That did renew old Æson?"
+
+Ah, would you but have confidence, you should be the new Æson, and
+I your Medea. A few vials of my Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator would, I am
+certain, give you some strength."
+
+Upon this, indignation and abhorrence seemed to work by their excess the
+effect promised of the balsam. Roused from that long apathy of
+impotence, the cadaverous man started, and, in a voice that was as the
+sound of obstructed air gurgling through a maze of broken honey-combs,
+cried: "Begone! You are all alike. The name of doctor, the dream of
+helper, condemns you. For years I have been but a gallipot for you
+experimentizers to rinse your experiments into, and now, in this livid
+skin, partake of the nature of my contents. Begone! I hate ye."
+
+"I were inhuman, could I take affront at a want of confidence, born of
+too bitter an experience of betrayers. Yet, permit one who is not
+without feeling----"
+
+"Begone! Just in that voice talked to me, not six months ago, the German
+doctor at the water cure, from which I now return, six months and sixty
+pangs nigher my grave."
+
+"The water-cure? Oh, fatal delusion of the well-meaning Preisnitz!--Sir,
+trust me----"
+
+"Begone!"
+
+"Nay, an invalid should not always have his own way. Ah, sir, reflect
+how untimely this distrust in one like you. How weak you are; and
+weakness, is it not the time for confidence? Yes, when through weakness
+everything bids despair, then is the time to get strength by
+confidence."
+
+Relenting in his air, the sick man cast upon him a long glance of
+beseeching, as if saying, "With confidence must come hope; and how can
+hope be?"
+
+The herb-doctor took a sealed paper box from his surtout pocket, and
+holding it towards him, said solemnly, "Turn not away. This may be the
+last time of health's asking. Work upon yourself; invoke confidence,
+though from ashes; rouse it; for your life, rouse it, and invoke it, I
+say."
+
+The other trembled, was silent; and then, a little commanding himself,
+asked the ingredients of the medicine.
+
+"Herbs."
+
+"What herbs? And the nature of them? And the reason for giving them?"
+
+"It cannot be made known."
+
+"Then I will none of you."
+
+Sedately observant of the juiceless, joyless form before him, the
+herb-doctor was mute a moment, then said:--"I give up."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You are sick, and a philosopher."
+
+"No, no;--not the last."
+
+"But, to demand the ingredient, with the reason for giving, is the mark
+of a philosopher; just as the consequence is the penalty of a fool. A
+sick philosopher is incurable?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he has no confidence."
+
+"How does that make him incurable?"
+
+"Because either he spurns his powder, or, if he take it, it proves a
+blank cartridge, though the same given to a rustic in like extremity,
+would act like a charm. I am no materialist; but the mind so acts upon
+the body, that if the one have no confidence, neither has the other."
+
+Again, the sick man appeared not unmoved. He seemed to be thinking what
+in candid truth could be said to all this. At length, "You talk of
+confidence. How comes it that when brought low himself, the herb-doctor,
+who was most confident to prescribe in other cases, proves least
+confident to prescribe in his own; having small confidence in himself
+for himself?"
+
+"But he has confidence in the brother he calls in. And that he does so,
+is no reproach to him, since he knows that when the body is prostrated,
+the mind is not erect. Yes, in this hour the herb-doctor does distrust
+himself, but not his art."
+
+The sick man's knowledge did not warrant him to gainsay this. But he
+seemed not grieved at it; glad to be confuted in a way tending towards
+his wish.
+
+"Then you give me hope?" his sunken eye turned up.
+
+"Hope is proportioned to confidence. How much confidence you give me, so
+much hope do I give you. For this," lifting the box, "if all depended
+upon this, I should rest. It is nature's own."
+
+"Nature!"
+
+"Why do you start?"
+
+"I know not," with a sort of shudder, "but I have heard of a book
+entitled 'Nature in Disease.'"
+
+"A title I cannot approve; it is suspiciously scientific. 'Nature in
+Disease?' As if nature, divine nature, were aught but health; as if
+through nature disease is decreed! But did I not before hint of the
+tendency of science, that forbidden tree? Sir, if despondency is yours
+from recalling that title, dismiss it. Trust me, nature is health; for
+health is good, and nature cannot work ill. As little can she work
+error. Get nature, and you get well. Now, I repeat, this medicine is
+nature's own."
+
+Again the sick man could not, according to his light, conscientiously
+disprove what was said. Neither, as before, did he seem over-anxious to
+do so; the less, as in his sensitiveness it seemed to him, that hardly
+could he offer so to do without something like the appearance of a kind
+of implied irreligion; nor in his heart was he ungrateful, that since a
+spirit opposite to that pervaded all the herb-doctor's hopeful words,
+therefore, for hopefulness, he (the sick man) had not alone medical
+warrant, but also doctrinal.
+
+"Then you do really think," hectically, "that if I take this medicine,"
+mechanically reaching out for it, "I shall regain my health?"
+
+"I will not encourage false hopes," relinquishing to him the box, "I
+will be frank with you. Though frankness is not always the weakness of
+the mineral practitioner, yet the herb doctor must be frank, or nothing.
+Now then, sir, in your case, a radical cure--such a cure, understand, as
+should make you robust--such a cure, sir, I do not and cannot promise."
+
+"Oh, you need not! only restore me the power of being something else to
+others than a burdensome care, and to myself a droning grief. Only cure
+me of this misery of weakness; only make me so that I can walk about in
+the sun and not draw the flies to me, as lured by the coming of decay.
+Only do that--but that."
+
+"You ask not much; you are wise; not in vain have you suffered. That
+little you ask, I think, can be granted. But remember, not in a day, nor
+a week, nor perhaps a month, but sooner or later; I say not exactly
+when, for I am neither prophet nor charlatan. Still, if, according to
+the directions in your box there, you take my medicine steadily, without
+assigning an especial day, near or remote, to discontinue it, then may
+you calmly look for some eventual result of good. But again I say, you
+must have confidence."
+
+Feverishly he replied that he now trusted he had, and hourly should pray
+for its increase. When suddenly relapsing into one of those strange
+caprices peculiar to some invalids, he added: "But to one like me, it is
+so hard, so hard. The most confident hopes so often have failed me, and
+as often have I vowed never, no, never, to trust them again. Oh," feebly
+wringing his hands, "you do not know, you do not know."
+
+"I know this, that never did a right confidence, come to naught. But
+time is short; you hold your cure, to retain or reject."
+
+"I retain," with a clinch, "and now how much?"
+
+"As much as you can evoke from your heart and heaven."
+
+"How?--the price of this medicine?"
+
+"I thought it was confidence you meant; how much confidence you should
+have. The medicine,--that is half a dollar a vial. Your box holds six."
+
+The money was paid.
+
+"Now, sir," said the herb-doctor, "my business calls me away, and it may
+so be that I shall never see you again; if then----"
+
+He paused, for the sick man's countenance fell blank.
+
+"Forgive me," cried the other, "forgive that imprudent phrase 'never see
+you again.' Though I solely intended it with reference to myself, yet I
+had forgotten what your sensitiveness might be. I repeat, then, that it
+may be that we shall not soon have a second interview, so that
+hereafter, should another of my boxes be needed, you may not be able to
+replace it except by purchase at the shops; and, in so doing, you may
+run more or less risk of taking some not salutary mixture. For such is
+the popularity of the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator--thriving not by the
+credulity of the simple, but the trust of the wise--that certain
+contrivers have not been idle, though I would not, indeed, hastily
+affirm of them that they are aware of the sad consequences to the
+public. Homicides and murderers, some call those contrivers; but I do
+not; for murder (if such a crime be possible) comes from the heart, and
+these men's motives come from the purse. Were they not in poverty, I
+think they would hardly do what they do. Still, the public interests
+forbid that I should let their needy device for a living succeed. In
+short, I have adopted precautions. Take the wrapper from any of my vials
+and hold it to the light, you will see water-marked in capitals the word
+'_confidence_,' which is the countersign of the medicine, as I wish it
+was of the world. The wrapper bears that mark or else the medicine is
+counterfeit. But if still any lurking doubt should remain, pray enclose
+the wrapper to this address," handing a card, "and by return mail I will
+answer."
+
+At first the sick man listened, with the air of vivid interest, but
+gradually, while the other was still talking, another strange caprice
+came over him, and he presented the aspect of the most calamitous
+dejection.
+
+"How now?" said the herb-doctor.
+
+"You told me to have confidence, said that confidence was indispensable,
+and here you preach to me distrust. Ah, truth will out!"
+
+"I told you, you must have confidence, unquestioning confidence, I meant
+confidence in the genuine medicine, and the genuine _me_."
+
+"But in your absence, buying vials purporting to be yours, it seems I
+cannot have unquestioning confidence."
+
+"Prove all the vials; trust those which are true."
+
+"But to doubt, to suspect, to prove--to have all this wearing work to
+be doing continually--how opposed to confidence. It is evil!"
+
+"From evil comes good. Distrust is a stage to confidence. How has it
+proved in our interview? But your voice is husky; I have let you talk
+too much. You hold your cure; I will leave you. But stay--when I hear
+that health is yours, I will not, like some I know, vainly make boasts;
+but, giving glory where all glory is due, say, with the devout
+herb-doctor, Japus in Virgil, when, in the unseen but efficacious
+presence of Venus, he with simples healed the wound of Æneas:--
+
+    'This is no mortal work, no cure of mine,
+    Nor art's effect, but done by power divine.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TOWARDS THE END OF WHICH THE HERB-DOCTOR PROVES HIMSELF A FORGIVER OF
+INJURIES.
+
+
+In a kind of ante-cabin, a number of respectable looking people, male
+and female, way-passengers, recently come on board, are listlessly
+sitting in a mutually shy sort of silence.
+
+Holding up a small, square bottle, ovally labeled with the engraving of
+a countenance full of soft pity as that of the Romish-painted Madonna,
+the herb-doctor passes slowly among them, benignly urbane, turning this
+way and that, saying:--
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand here the Samaritan Pain
+Dissuader, thrice-blessed discovery of that disinterested friend of
+humanity whose portrait you see. Pure vegetable extract. Warranted to
+remove the acutest pain within less than ten minutes. Five hundred
+dollars to be forfeited on failure. Especially efficacious in heart
+disease and tic-douloureux. Observe the expression of this pledged
+friend of humanity.--Price only fifty cents."
+
+In vain. After the first idle stare, his auditors--in pretty good
+health, it seemed--instead of encouraging his politeness, appeared, if
+anything, impatient of it; and, perhaps, only diffidence, or some small
+regard for his feelings, prevented them from telling him so. But,
+insensible to their coldness, or charitably overlooking it, he more
+wooingly than ever resumed: "May I venture upon a small supposition?
+Have I your kind leave, ladies and gentlemen?"
+
+To which modest appeal, no one had the kindness to answer a syllable.
+
+"Well," said he, resignedly, "silence is at least not denial, and may be
+consent. My supposition is this: possibly some lady, here present, has a
+dear friend at home, a bed-ridden sufferer from spinal complaint. If so,
+what gift more appropriate to that sufferer than this tasteful little
+bottle of Pain Dissuader?"
+
+Again he glanced about him, but met much the same reception as before.
+Those faces, alien alike to sympathy or surprise, seemed patiently to
+say, "We are travelers; and, as such, must expect to meet, and quietly
+put up with, many antic fools, and more antic quacks."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," (deferentially fixing his eyes upon their now
+self-complacent faces) "ladies and gentlemen, might I, by your kind
+leave, venture upon one other small supposition? It is this: that there
+is scarce a sufferer, this noonday, writhing on his bed, but in his hour
+he sat satisfactorily healthy and happy; that the Samaritan Pain
+Dissuader is the one only balm for that to which each living
+creature--who knows?--may be a draughted victim, present or prospective.
+In short:--Oh, Happiness on my right hand, and oh, Security on my left,
+can ye wisely adore a Providence, and not think it wisdom to
+provide?--Provide!" (Uplifting the bottle.)
+
+What immediate effect, if any, this appeal might have had, is uncertain.
+For just then the boat touched at a houseless landing, scooped, as by a
+land-slide, out of sombre forests; back through which led a road, the
+sole one, which, from its narrowness, and its being walled up with story
+on story of dusk, matted foliage, presented the vista of some cavernous
+old gorge in a city, like haunted Cock Lane in London. Issuing from that
+road, and crossing that landing, there stooped his shaggy form in the
+door-way, and entered the ante-cabin, with a step so burdensome that
+shot seemed in his pockets, a kind of invalid Titan in homespun; his
+beard blackly pendant, like the Carolina-moss, and dank with cypress
+dew; his countenance tawny and shadowy as an iron-ore country in a
+clouded day. In one hand he carried a heavy walking-stick of swamp-oak;
+with the other, led a puny girl, walking in moccasins, not improbably
+his child, but evidently of alien maternity, perhaps Creole, or even
+Camanche. Her eye would have been large for a woman, and was inky as the
+pools of falls among mountain-pines. An Indian blanket, orange-hued, and
+fringed with lead tassel-work, appeared that morning to have shielded
+the child from heavy showers. Her limbs were tremulous; she seemed a
+little Cassandra, in nervousness.
+
+No sooner was the pair spied by the herb-doctor, than with a cheerful
+air, both arms extended like a host's, he advanced, and taking the
+child's reluctant hand, said, trippingly: "On your travels, ah, my
+little May Queen? Glad to see you. What pretty moccasins. Nice to dance
+in." Then with a half caper sang--
+
+    "'Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle;
+      The cow jumped over the moon.'
+
+Come, chirrup, chirrup, my little robin!"
+
+Which playful welcome drew no responsive playfulness from the child, nor
+appeared to gladden or conciliate the father; but rather, if anything,
+to dash the dead weight of his heavy-hearted expression with a smile
+hypochondriacally scornful.
+
+Sobering down now, the herb-doctor addressed the stranger in a manly,
+business-like way--a transition which, though it might seem a little
+abrupt, did not appear constrained, and, indeed, served to show that his
+recent levity was less the habit of a frivolous nature, than the frolic
+condescension of a kindly heart.
+
+"Excuse me," said he, "but, if I err not, I was speaking to you the
+other day;--on a Kentucky boat, wasn't it?"
+
+"Never to me," was the reply; the voice deep and lonesome enough to have
+come from the bottom of an abandoned coal-shaft.
+
+"Ah!--But am I again mistaken, (his eye falling on the swamp-oak stick,)
+or don't you go a little lame, sir?"
+
+"Never was lame in my life."
+
+"Indeed? I fancied I had perceived not a limp, but a hitch, a slight
+hitch;--some experience in these things--divined some hidden cause of
+the hitch--buried bullet, may be--some dragoons in the Mexican war
+discharged with such, you know.--Hard fate!" he sighed, "little pity for
+it, for who sees it?--have you dropped anything?"
+
+Why, there is no telling, but the stranger was bowed over, and might
+have seemed bowing for the purpose of picking up something, were it not
+that, as arrested in the imperfect posture, he for the moment so
+remained; slanting his tall stature like a mainmast yielding to the
+gale, or Adam to the thunder.
+
+The little child pulled him. With a kind of a surge he righted himself,
+for an instant looked toward the herb-doctor; but, either from emotion
+or aversion, or both together, withdrew his eyes, saying nothing.
+Presently, still stooping, he seated himself, drawing his child between
+his knees, his massy hands tremulous, and still averting his face, while
+up into the compassionate one of the herb-doctor the child turned a
+fixed, melancholy glance of repugnance.
+
+The herb-doctor stood observant a moment, then said:
+
+"Surely you have pain, strong pain, somewhere; in strong frames pain is
+strongest. Try, now, my specific," (holding it up). "Do but look at the
+expression of this friend of humanity. Trust me, certain cure for any
+pain in the world. Won't you look?"
+
+"No," choked the other.
+
+"Very good. Merry time to you, little May Queen."
+
+And so, as if he would intrude his cure upon no one, moved pleasantly
+off, again crying his wares, nor now at last without result. A
+new-comer, not from the shore, but another part of the boat, a sickly
+young man, after some questions, purchased a bottle. Upon this, others
+of the company began a little to wake up as it were; the scales of
+indifference or prejudice fell from their eyes; now, at last, they
+seemed to have an inkling that here was something not undesirable which
+might be had for the buying.
+
+But while, ten times more briskly bland than ever, the herb-doctor was
+driving his benevolent trade, accompanying each sale with added praises
+of the thing traded, all at once the dusk giant, seated at some
+distance, unexpectedly raised his voice with--
+
+"What was that you last said?"
+
+The question was put distinctly, yet resonantly, as when a great
+clock-bell--stunning admonisher--strikes one; and the stroke, though
+single, comes bedded in the belfry clamor.
+
+All proceedings were suspended. Hands held forth for the specific were
+withdrawn, while every eye turned towards the direction whence the
+question came. But, no way abashed, the herb-doctor, elevating his voice
+with even more than wonted self-possession, replied--
+
+"I was saying what, since you wish it, I cheerfully repeat, that the
+Samaritan Pain Dissuader, which I here hold in my hand, will either cure
+or ease any pain you please, within ten minutes after its application."
+
+"Does it produce insensibility?"
+
+"By no means. Not the least of its merits is, that it is not an opiate.
+It kills pain without killing feeling."
+
+"You lie! Some pains cannot be eased but by producing insensibility, and
+cannot be cured but by producing death."
+
+Beyond this the dusk giant said nothing; neither, for impairing the
+other's market, did there appear much need to. After eying the rude
+speaker a moment with an expression of mingled admiration and
+consternation, the company silently exchanged glances of mutual sympathy
+under unwelcome conviction. Those who had purchased looked sheepish or
+ashamed; and a cynical-looking little man, with a thin flaggy beard, and
+a countenance ever wearing the rudiments of a grin, seated alone in a
+corner commanding a good view of the scene, held a rusty hat before his
+face.
+
+But, again, the herb-doctor, without noticing the retort, overbearing
+though it was, began his panegyrics anew, and in a tone more assured
+than before, going so far now as to say that his specific was sometimes
+almost as effective in cases of mental suffering as in cases of
+physical; or rather, to be more precise, in cases when, through
+sympathy, the two sorts of pain coöperated into a climax of both--in
+such cases, he said, the specific had done very well. He cited an
+example: Only three bottles, faithfully taken, cured a Louisiana widow
+(for three weeks sleepless in a darkened chamber) of neuralgic sorrow
+for the loss of husband and child, swept off in one night by the last
+epidemic. For the truth of this, a printed voucher was produced, duly
+signed.
+
+While he was reading it aloud, a sudden side-blow all but felled him.
+
+It was the giant, who, with a countenance lividly epileptic with
+hypochondriac mania, exclaimed--
+
+"Profane fiddler on heart-strings! Snake!"
+
+More he would have added, but, convulsed, could not; so, without another
+word, taking up the child, who had followed him, went with a rocking
+pace out of the cabin.
+
+"Regardless of decency, and lost to humanity!" exclaimed the
+herb-doctor, with much ado recovering himself. Then, after a pause,
+during which he examined his bruise, not omitting to apply externally a
+little of his specific, and with some success, as it would seem, plained
+to himself:
+
+"No, no, I won't seek redress; innocence is my redress. But," turning
+upon them all, "if that man's wrathful blow provokes me to no wrath,
+should his evil distrust arouse you to distrust? I do devoutly hope,"
+proudly raising voice and arm, "for the honor of humanity--hope that,
+despite this coward assault, the Samaritan Pain Dissuader stands
+unshaken in the confidence of all who hear me!"
+
+But, injured as he was, and patient under it, too, somehow his case
+excited as little compassion as his oratory now did enthusiasm. Still,
+pathetic to the last, he continued his appeals, notwithstanding the
+frigid regard of the company, till, suddenly interrupting himself, as
+if in reply to a quick summons from without, he said hurriedly, "I come,
+I come," and so, with every token of precipitate dispatch, out of the
+cabin the herb-doctor went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+INQUEST INTO THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE HERB-DOCTOR.
+
+
+"Sha'n't see that fellow again in a hurry," remarked an auburn-haired
+gentleman, to his neighbor with a hook-nose. "Never knew an operator so
+completely unmasked."
+
+"But do you think it the fair thing to unmask an operator that way?"
+
+"Fair? It is right."
+
+"Supposing that at high 'change on the Paris Bourse, Asmodeus should
+lounge in, distributing hand-bills, revealing the true thoughts and
+designs of all the operators present--would that be the fair thing in
+Asmodeus? Or, as Hamlet says, were it 'to consider the thing too
+curiously?'"
+
+"We won't go into that. But since you admit the fellow to be a
+knave----"
+
+"I don't admit it. Or, if I did, I take it back. Shouldn't wonder if,
+after all, he is no knave at all, or, but little of one. What can you
+prove against him?"
+
+"I can prove that he makes dupes."
+
+"Many held in honor do the same; and many, not wholly knaves, do it
+too."
+
+"How about that last?"
+
+"He is not wholly at heart a knave, I fancy, among whose dupes is
+himself. Did you not see our quack friend apply to himself his own
+quackery? A fanatic quack; essentially a fool, though effectively a
+knave."
+
+Bending over, and looking down between his knees on the floor, the
+auburn-haired gentleman meditatively scribbled there awhile with his
+cane, then, glancing up, said:
+
+"I can't conceive how you, in anyway, can hold him a fool. How he
+talked--so glib, so pat, so well."
+
+"A smart fool always talks well; takes a smart fool to be tonguey."
+
+In much the same strain the discussion continued--the hook-nosed
+gentleman talking at large and excellently, with a view of demonstrating
+that a smart fool always talks just so. Ere long he talked to such
+purpose as almost to convince.
+
+Presently, back came the person of whom the auburn-haired gentleman had
+predicted that he would not return. Conspicuous in the door-way he
+stood, saying, in a clear voice, "Is the agent of the Seminole Widow and
+Orphan Asylum within here?"
+
+No one replied.
+
+"Is there within here any agent or any member of any charitable
+institution whatever?"
+
+No one seemed competent to answer, or, no one thought it worth while
+to.
+
+"If there be within here any such person, I have in my hand two dollars
+for him."
+
+Some interest was manifested.
+
+"I was called away so hurriedly, I forgot this part of my duty. With the
+proprietor of the Samaritan Pain Dissuader it is a rule, to devote, on
+the spot, to some benevolent purpose, the half of the proceeds of sales.
+Eight bottles were disposed of among this company. Hence, four
+half-dollars remain to charity. Who, as steward, takes the money?"
+
+One or two pair of feet moved upon the floor, as with a sort of itching;
+but nobody rose.
+
+"Does diffidence prevail over duty? If, I say, there be any gentleman,
+or any lady, either, here present, who is in any connection with any
+charitable institution whatever, let him or her come forward. He or she
+happening to have at hand no certificate of such connection, makes no
+difference. Not of a suspicious temper, thank God, I shall have
+confidence in whoever offers to take the money."
+
+A demure-looking woman, in a dress rather tawdry and rumpled, here drew
+her veil well down and rose; but, marking every eye upon her, thought it
+advisable, upon the whole, to sit down again.
+
+"Is it to be believed that, in this Christian company, there is no one
+charitable person? I mean, no one connected with any charity? Well,
+then, is there no object of charity here?"
+
+Upon this, an unhappy-looking woman, in a sort of mourning, neat, but
+sadly worn, hid her face behind a meagre bundle, and was heard to sob.
+Meantime, as not seeing or hearing her, the herb-doctor again spoke, and
+this time not unpathetically:
+
+"Are there none here who feel in need of help, and who, in accepting
+such help, would feel that they, in their time, have given or done more
+than may ever be given or done to them? Man or woman, is there none such
+here?"
+
+The sobs of the woman were more audible, though she strove to repress
+them. While nearly every one's attention was bent upon her, a man of the
+appearance of a day-laborer, with a white bandage across his face,
+concealing the side of the nose, and who, for coolness' sake, had been
+sitting in his red-flannel shirt-sleeves, his coat thrown across one
+shoulder, the darned cuffs drooping behind--this man shufflingly rose,
+and, with a pace that seemed the lingering memento of the lock-step of
+convicts, went up for a duly-qualified claimant.
+
+"Poor wounded huzzar!" sighed the herb-doctor, and dropping the money
+into the man's clam-shell of a hand turned and departed.
+
+The recipient of the alms was about moving after, when the auburn-haired
+gentleman staid him: "Don't be frightened, you; but I want to see those
+coins. Yes, yes; good silver, good silver. There, take them again, and
+while you are about it, go bandage the rest of yourself behind
+something. D'ye hear? Consider yourself, wholly, the scar of a nose, and
+be off with yourself."
+
+Being of a forgiving nature, or else from emotion not daring to trust
+his voice, the man silently, but not without some precipitancy,
+withdrew.
+
+"Strange," said the auburn-haired gentleman, returning to his friend,
+"the money was good money."
+
+"Aye, and where your fine knavery now? Knavery to devote the half of
+one's receipts to charity? He's a fool I say again."
+
+"Others might call him an original genius."
+
+"Yes, being original in his folly. Genius? His genius is a cracked pate,
+and, as this age goes, not much originality about that."
+
+"May he not be knave, fool, and genius altogether?"
+
+"I beg pardon," here said a third person with a gossiping expression who
+had been listening, "but you are somewhat puzzled by this man, and well
+you may be."
+
+"Do you know anything about him?" asked the hooked-nosed gentleman.
+
+"No, but I suspect him for something."
+
+"Suspicion. We want knowledge."
+
+"Well, suspect first and know next. True knowledge comes but by
+suspicion or revelation. That's my maxim."
+
+"And yet," said the auburn-haired gentleman, "since a wise man will keep
+even some certainties to himself, much more some suspicions, at least he
+will at all events so do till they ripen into knowledge."
+
+"Do you hear that about the wise man?" said the hook-nosed gentleman,
+turning upon the new comer. "Now what is it you suspect of this fellow?"
+
+"I shrewdly suspect him," was the eager response, "for one of those
+Jesuit emissaries prowling all over our country. The better to
+accomplish their secret designs, they assume, at times, I am told, the
+most singular masques; sometimes, in appearance, the absurdest."
+
+This, though indeed for some reason causing a droll smile upon the face
+of the hook-nosed gentleman, added a third angle to the discussion,
+which now became a sort of triangular duel, and ended, at last, with but
+a triangular result.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.
+
+
+"Mexico? Molino del Rey? Resaca de la Palma?"
+
+"Resaca de la _Tomba_!"
+
+Leaving his reputation to take care of itself, since, as is not seldom
+the case, he knew nothing of its being in debate, the herb-doctor,
+wandering towards the forward part of the boat, had there espied a
+singular character in a grimy old regimental coat, a countenance at once
+grim and wizened, interwoven paralyzed legs, stiff as icicles, suspended
+between rude crutches, while the whole rigid body, like a ship's long
+barometer on gimbals, swung to and fro, mechanically faithful to the
+motion of the boat. Looking downward while he swung, the cripple seemed
+in a brown study.
+
+As moved by the sight, and conjecturing that here was some battered hero
+from the Mexican battle-fields, the herb-doctor had sympathetically
+accosted him as above, and received the above rather dubious reply. As,
+with a half moody, half surly sort of air that reply was given, the
+cripple, by a voluntary jerk, nervously increased his swing (his custom
+when seized by emotion), so that one would have thought some squall had
+suddenly rolled the boat and with it the barometer.
+
+"Tombs? my friend," exclaimed the herb-doctor in mild surprise. "You
+have not descended to the dead, have you? I had imagined you a scarred
+campaigner, one of the noble children of war, for your dear country a
+glorious sufferer. But you are Lazarus, it seems."
+
+"Yes, he who had sores."
+
+"Ah, the _other_ Lazarus. But I never knew that either of them was in
+the army," glancing at the dilapidated regimentals.
+
+"That will do now. Jokes enough."
+
+"Friend," said the other reproachfully, "you think amiss. On principle,
+I greet unfortunates with some pleasant remark, the better to call off
+their thoughts from their troubles. The physician who is at once wise
+and humane seldom unreservedly sympathizes with his patient. But come, I
+am a herb-doctor, and also a natural bone-setter. I may be sanguine, but
+I think I can do something for you. You look up now. Give me your story.
+Ere I undertake a cure, I require a full account of the case."
+
+"You can't help me," returned the cripple gruffly. "Go away."
+
+"You seem sadly destitute of----"
+
+"No I ain't destitute; to-day, at least, I can pay my way."
+
+"The Natural Bone-setter is happy, indeed, to hear that. But you were
+premature. I was deploring your destitution, not of cash, but of
+confidence. You think the Natural Bone-setter can't help you. Well,
+suppose he can't, have you any objection to telling him your story? You,
+my friend, have, in a signal way, experienced adversity. Tell me, then,
+for my private good, how, without aid from the noble cripple, Epictetus,
+you have arrived at his heroic sang-froid in misfortune."
+
+At these words the cripple fixed upon the speaker the hard ironic eye of
+one toughened and defiant in misery, and, in the end, grinned upon him
+with his unshaven face like an ogre.
+
+"Come, come, be sociable--be human, my friend. Don't make that face; it
+distresses me."
+
+"I suppose," with a sneer, "you are the man I've long heard of--The
+Happy Man."
+
+"Happy? my friend. Yes, at least I ought to be. My conscience is
+peaceful. I have confidence in everybody. I have confidence that, in my
+humble profession, I do some little good to the world. Yes, I think
+that, without presumption, I may venture to assent to the proposition
+that I am the Happy Man--the Happy Bone-setter."
+
+"Then, you shall hear my story. Many a month I have longed to get hold
+of the Happy Man, drill him, drop the powder, and leave him to explode
+at his leisure.".
+
+"What a demoniac unfortunate" exclaimed the herb-doctor retreating.
+"Regular infernal machine!"
+
+"Look ye," cried the other, stumping after him, and with his horny hand
+catching him by a horn button, "my name is Thomas Fry. Until my----"
+
+--"Any relation of Mrs. Fry?" interrupted the other. "I still correspond
+with that excellent lady on the subject of prisons. Tell me, are you
+anyway connected with _my_ Mrs. Fry?"
+
+"Blister Mrs. Fry! What do them sentimental souls know of prisons or any
+other black fact? I'll tell ye a story of prisons. Ha, ha!"
+
+The herb-doctor shrank, and with reason, the laugh being strangely
+startling.
+
+"Positively, my friend," said he, "you must stop that; I can't stand
+that; no more of that. I hope I have the milk of kindness, but your
+thunder will soon turn it."
+
+"Hold, I haven't come to the milk-turning part yet. My name is Thomas
+Fry. Until my twenty-third year I went by the nickname of Happy
+Tom--happy--ha, ha! They called me Happy Tom, d'ye see? because I was so
+good-natured and laughing all the time, just as I am now--ha, ha!"
+
+Upon this the herb-doctor would, perhaps, have run, but once more the
+hyæna clawed him. Presently, sobering down, he continued:
+
+"Well, I was born in New York, and there I lived a steady, hard-working
+man, a cooper by trade. One evening I went to a political meeting in the
+Park--for you must know, I was in those days a great patriot. As bad
+luck would have it, there was trouble near, between a gentleman who had
+been drinking wine, and a pavior who was sober. The pavior chewed
+tobacco, and the gentleman said it was beastly in him, and pushed him,
+wanting to have his place. The pavior chewed on and pushed back. Well,
+the gentleman carried a sword-cane, and presently the pavior was
+down--skewered."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"Why you see the pavior undertook something above his strength."
+
+"The other must have been a Samson then. 'Strong as a pavior,' is a
+proverb."
+
+"So it is, and the gentleman was in body a rather weakly man, but, for
+all that, I say again, the pavior undertook something above his
+strength."
+
+"What are you talking about? He tried to maintain his rights, didn't
+he?"
+
+"Yes; but, for all that, I say again, he undertook something above his
+strength."
+
+"I don't understand you. But go on."
+
+"Along with the gentleman, I, with other witnesses, was taken to the
+Tombs. There was an examination, and, to appear at the trial, the
+gentleman and witnesses all gave bail--I mean all but me."
+
+"And why didn't you?"
+
+"Couldn't get it."
+
+"Steady, hard-working cooper like you; what was the reason you couldn't
+get bail?"
+
+"Steady, hard-working cooper hadn't no friends. Well, souse I went into
+a wet cell, like a canal-boat splashing into the lock; locked up in
+pickle, d'ye see? against the time of the trial."
+
+"But what had you done?"
+
+"Why, I hadn't got any friends, I tell ye. A worse crime than murder, as
+ye'll see afore long."
+
+"Murder? Did the wounded man die?"
+
+"Died the third night."
+
+"Then the gentleman's bail didn't help him. Imprisoned now, wasn't he?"
+
+"Had too many friends. No, it was _I_ that was imprisoned.--But I was
+going on: They let me walk about the corridor by day; but at night I
+must into lock. There the wet and the damp struck into my bones. They
+doctored me, but no use. When the trial came, I was boosted up and said
+my say."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"My say was that I saw the steel go in, and saw it sticking in."
+
+"And that hung the gentleman."
+
+"Hung him with a gold chain! His friends called a meeting in the Park,
+and presented him with a gold watch and chain upon his acquittal."
+
+"Acquittal?"
+
+"Didn't I say he had friends?"
+
+There was a pause, broken at last by the herb-doctor's saying: "Well,
+there is a bright side to everything. If this speak prosaically for
+justice, it speaks romantically for friendship! But go on, my fine
+fellow."
+
+"My say being said, they told me I might go. I said I could not without
+help. So the constables helped me, asking _where_ would I go? I told
+them back to the 'Tombs.' I knew no other place. 'But where are your
+friends?' said they. 'I have none.' So they put me into a hand-barrow
+with an awning to it, and wheeled me down to the dock and on board a
+boat, and away to Blackwell's Island to the Corporation Hospital. There
+I got worse--got pretty much as you see me now. Couldn't cure me. After
+three years, I grew sick of lying in a grated iron bed alongside of
+groaning thieves and mouldering burglars. They gave me five silver
+dollars, and these crutches, and I hobbled off. I had an only brother
+who went to Indiana, years ago. I begged about, to make up a sum to go
+to him; got to Indiana at last, and they directed me to his grave. It
+was on a great plain, in a log-church yard with a stump fence, the old
+gray roots sticking all ways like moose-antlers. The bier, set over the
+grave, it being the last dug, was of green hickory; bark on, and green
+twigs sprouting from it. Some one had planted a bunch of violets on the
+mound, but it was a poor soil (always choose the poorest soils for
+grave-yards), and they were all dried to tinder. I was going to sit and
+rest myself on the bier and think about my brother in heaven, but the
+bier broke down, the legs being only tacked. So, after driving some hogs
+out of the yard that were rooting there, I came away, and, not to make
+too long a story of it, here I am, drifting down stream like any other
+bit of wreck."
+
+The herb-doctor was silent for a time, buried in thought. At last,
+raising his head, he said: "I have considered your whole story, my
+friend, and strove to consider it in the light of a commentary on what I
+believe to be the system of things; but it so jars with all, is so
+incompatible with all, that you must pardon me, if I honestly tell you,
+I cannot believe it."
+
+"That don't surprise me."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Hardly anybody believes my story, and so to most I tell a different
+one."
+
+"How, again?"
+
+"Wait here a bit and I'll show ye."
+
+With that, taking off his rag of a cap, and arranging his tattered
+regimentals the best he could, off he went stumping among the passengers
+in an adjoining part of the deck, saying with a jovial kind of air:
+"Sir, a shilling for Happy Tom, who fought at Buena Vista. Lady,
+something for General Scott's soldier, crippled in both pins at glorious
+Contreras."
+
+Now, it so chanced that, unbeknown to the cripple, a prim-looking
+stranger had overheard part of his story. Beholding him, then, on his
+present begging adventure, this person, turning to the herb-doctor,
+indignantly said: "Is it not too bad, sir, that yonder rascal should lie
+so?"
+
+"Charity never faileth, my good sir," was the reply. "The vice of this
+unfortunate is pardonable. Consider, he lies not out of wantonness."
+
+"Not out of wantonness. I never heard more wanton lies. In one breath to
+tell you what would appear to be his true story, and, in the next, away
+and falsify it."
+
+"For all that, I repeat he lies not out of wantonness. A ripe
+philosopher, turned out of the great Sorbonne of hard times, he thinks
+that woes, when told to strangers for money, are best sugared. Though
+the inglorious lock-jaw of his knee-pans in a wet dungeon is a far more
+pitiable ill than to have been crippled at glorious Contreras, yet he is
+of opinion that this lighter and false ill shall attract, while the
+heavier and real one might repel."
+
+"Nonsense; he belongs to the Devil's regiment; and I have a great mind
+to expose him."
+
+"Shame upon you. Dare to expose that poor unfortunate, and by
+heaven--don't you do it, sir."
+
+Noting something in his manner, the other thought it more prudent to
+retire than retort. By-and-by, the cripple came back, and with glee,
+having reaped a pretty good harvest.
+
+"There," he laughed, "you know now what sort of soldier I am."
+
+"Aye, one that fights not the stupid Mexican, but a foe worthy your
+tactics--Fortune!"
+
+"Hi, hi!" clamored the cripple, like a fellow in the pit of a sixpenny
+theatre, then said, "don't know much what you meant, but it went off
+well."
+
+This over, his countenance capriciously put on a morose ogreness. To
+kindly questions he gave no kindly answers. Unhandsome notions were
+thrown out about "free Ameriky," as he sarcastically called his country.
+These seemed to disturb and pain the herb-doctor, who, after an interval
+of thoughtfulness, gravely addressed him in these words:
+
+"You, my Worthy friend, to my concern, have reflected upon the
+government under which you live and suffer. Where is your patriotism?
+Where your gratitude? True, the charitable may find something in your
+case, as you put it, partly to account for such reflections as coming
+from you. Still, be the facts how they may, your reflections are none
+the less unwarrantable. Grant, for the moment, that your experiences are
+as you give them; in which case I would admit that government might be
+thought to have more or less to do with what seems undesirable in them.
+But it is never to be forgotten that human government, being subordinate
+to the divine, must needs, therefore, in its degree, partake of the
+characteristics of the divine. That is, while in general efficacious to
+happiness, the world's law may yet, in some cases, have, to the eye of
+reason, an unequal operation, just as, in the same imperfect view, some
+inequalities may appear in the operations of heaven's law; nevertheless,
+to one who has a right confidence, final benignity is, in every
+instance, as sure with the one law as the other. I expound the point at
+some length, because these are the considerations, my poor fellow,
+which, weighed as they merit, will enable you to sustain with unimpaired
+trust the apparent calamities which are yours."
+
+"What do you talk your hog-latin to me for?" cried the cripple, who,
+throughout the address, betrayed the most illiterate obduracy; and, with
+an incensed look, anew he swung himself.
+
+Glancing another way till the spasm passed, the other continued:
+
+"Charity marvels not that you should be somewhat hard of conviction, my
+friend, since you, doubtless, believe yourself hardly dealt by; but
+forget not that those who are loved are chastened."
+
+"Mustn't chasten them too much, though, and too long, because their skin
+and heart get hard, and feel neither pain nor tickle."
+
+"To mere reason, your case looks something piteous, I grant. But never
+despond; many things--the choicest--yet remain. You breathe this
+bounteous air, are warmed by this gracious sun, and, though poor and
+friendless, indeed, nor so agile as in your youth, yet, how sweet to
+roam, day by day, through the groves, plucking the bright mosses and
+flowers, till forlornness itself becomes a hilarity, and, in your
+innocent independence, you skip for joy."
+
+"Fine skipping with these 'ere horse-posts--ha ha!"
+
+"Pardon; I forgot the crutches. My mind, figuring you after receiving
+the benefit of my art, overlooked you as you stand before me."
+
+"Your art? You call yourself a bone-setter--a natural bone-setter, do
+ye? Go, bone-set the crooked world, and then come bone-set crooked me."
+
+"Truly, my honest friend, I thank you for again recalling me to my
+original object. Let me examine you," bending down; "ah, I see, I see;
+much such a case as the negro's. Did you see him? Oh no, you came aboard
+since. Well, his case was a little something like yours. I prescribed
+for him, and I shouldn't wonder at all if, in a very short time, he were
+able to walk almost as well as myself. Now, have you no confidence in my
+art?"
+
+"Ha, ha!"
+
+The herb-doctor averted himself; but, the wild laugh dying away,
+resumed:
+
+"I will not force confidence on you. Still, I would fain do the friendly
+thing by you. Here, take this box; just rub that liniment on the joints
+night and morning. Take it. Nothing to pay. God bless you. Good-bye."
+
+"Stay," pausing in his swing, not untouched by so unexpected an act;
+"stay--thank'ee--but will this really do me good? Honor bright, now;
+will it? Don't deceive a poor fellow," with changed mien and glistening
+eye.
+
+"Try it. Good-bye."
+
+"Stay, stay! _Sure_ it will do me good?"
+
+"Possibly, possibly; no harm in trying. Good-bye."
+
+"Stay, stay; give me three more boxes, and here's the money."
+
+"My friend," returning towards him with a sadly pleased sort of air, "I
+rejoice in the birth of your confidence and hopefulness. Believe me
+that, like your crutches, confidence and hopefulness will long support a
+man when his own legs will not. Stick to confidence and hopefulness,
+then, since how mad for the cripple to throw his crutches away. You ask
+for three more boxes of my liniment. Luckily, I have just that number
+remaining. Here they are. I sell them at half-a-dollar apiece. But I
+shall take nothing from you. There; God bless you again; good-bye."
+
+"Stay," in a convulsed voice, and rocking himself, "stay, stay! You have
+made a better man of me. You have borne with me like a good Christian,
+and talked to me like one, and all that is enough without making me a
+present of these boxes. Here is the money. I won't take nay. There,
+there; and may Almighty goodness go with you."
+
+As the herb-doctor withdrew, the cripple gradually subsided from his
+hard rocking into a gentle oscillation. It expressed, perhaps, the
+soothed mood of his reverie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+REAPPEARANCE OF ONE WHO MAY BE REMEMBERED.
+
+
+The herb-doctor had not moved far away, when, in advance of him, this
+spectacle met his eye. A dried-up old man, with the stature of a boy of
+twelve, was tottering about like one out of his mind, in rumpled clothes
+of old moleskin, showing recent contact with bedding, his ferret eyes,
+blinking in the sunlight of the snowy boat, as imbecilely eager, and, at
+intervals, coughing, he peered hither and thither as if in alarmed
+search for his nurse. He presented the aspect of one who, bed-rid, has,
+through overruling excitement, like that of a fire, been stimulated to
+his feet.
+
+"You seek some one," said the herb-doctor, accosting him. "Can I assist
+you?"
+
+"Do, do; I am so old and miserable," coughed the old man. "Where is he?
+This long time I've been trying to get up and find him. But I haven't
+any friends, and couldn't get up till now. Where is he?"
+
+"Who do you mean?" drawing closer, to stay the further wanderings of one
+so weakly.
+
+"Why, why, why," now marking the other's dress, "why you, yes you--you,
+you--ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"I?"
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh!--you are the man he spoke of. Who is he?"
+
+"Faith, that is just what I want to know."
+
+"Mercy, mercy!" coughed the old man, bewildered, "ever since seeing him,
+my head spins round so. I ought to have a guard_ee_an. Is this a
+snuff-colored surtout of yours, or ain't it? Somehow, can't trust my
+senses any more, since trusting him--ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"Oh, you have trusted somebody? Glad to hear it. Glad to hear of any
+instance, of that sort. Reflects well upon all men. But you inquire
+whether this is a snuff-colored surtout. I answer it is; and will add
+that a herb-doctor wears it."
+
+Upon this the old man, in his broken way, replied that then he (the
+herb-doctor) was the person he sought--the person spoken of by the other
+person as yet unknown. He then, with flighty eagerness, wanted to know
+who this last person was, and where he was, and whether he could be
+trusted with money to treble it.
+
+"Aye, now, I begin to understand; ten to one you mean my worthy friend,
+who, in pure goodness of heart, makes people's fortunes for them--their
+everlasting fortunes, as the phrase goes--only charging his one small
+commission of confidence. Aye, aye; before intrusting funds with my
+friend, you want to know about him. Very proper--and, I am glad to
+assure you, you need have no hesitation; none, none, just none in the
+world; bona fide, none. Turned me in a trice a hundred dollars the other
+day into as many eagles."
+
+"Did he? did he? But where is he? Take me to him."
+
+"Pray, take my arm! The boat is large! We may have something of a hunt!
+Come on! Ah, is that he?"
+
+"Where? where?"
+
+"O, no; I took yonder coat-skirts for his. But no, my honest friend
+would never turn tail that way. Ah!----"
+
+"Where? where?"
+
+"Another mistake. Surprising resemblance. I took yonder clergyman for
+him. Come on!"
+
+Having searched that part of the boat without success, they went to
+another part, and, while exploring that, the boat sided up to a landing,
+when, as the two were passing by the open guard, the herb-doctor
+suddenly rushed towards the disembarking throng, crying out: "Mr.
+Truman, Mr. Truman! There he goes--that's he. Mr. Truman, Mr.
+Truman!--Confound that steam-pipe., Mr. Truman! for God's sake, Mr.
+Truman!--No, no.--There, the plank's in--too late--we're off."
+
+With that, the huge boat, with a mighty, walrus wallow, rolled away from
+the shore, resuming her course.
+
+"How vexatious!" exclaimed the herb-doctor, returning. "Had we been but
+one single moment sooner.--There he goes, now, towards yon hotel, his
+portmanteau following. You see him, don't you?"
+
+"Where? where?"
+
+"Can't see him any more. Wheel-house shot between. I am very sorry. I
+should have so liked you to have let him have a hundred or so of your
+money. You would have been pleased with the investment, believe me."
+
+"Oh, I _have_ let him have some of my money," groaned the old man.
+
+"You have? My dear sir," seizing both the miser's hands in both his own
+and heartily shaking them. "My dear sir, how I congratulate you. You
+don't know."
+
+"Ugh, ugh! I fear I don't," with another groan. "His name is Truman, is
+it?"
+
+"John Truman."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"In St. Louis."
+
+"Where's his office?"
+
+"Let me see. Jones street, number one hundred and--no, no--anyway, it's
+somewhere or other up-stairs in Jones street."
+
+"Can't you remember the number? Try, now."
+
+"One hundred--two hundred--three hundred--"
+
+"Oh, my hundred dollars! I wonder whether it will be one hundred, two
+hundred, three hundred, with them! Ugh, ugh! Can't remember the number?"
+
+"Positively, though I once knew, I have forgotten, quite forgotten it.
+Strange. But never mind. You will easily learn in St. Louis. He is well
+known there."
+
+"But I have no receipt--ugh, ugh! Nothing to show--don't know where I
+stand--ought to have a guard_ee_an--ugh, ugh! Don't know anything. Ugh,
+ugh!"
+
+"Why, you know that you gave him your confidence, don't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"But what, what--how, how--ugh, ugh!"
+
+"Why, didn't he tell you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What! Didn't he tell you that it was a secret, a mystery?"
+
+"Oh--yes."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"But I have no bond."
+
+"Don't need any with Mr. Truman. Mr. Truman's word is his bond."
+
+"But how am I to get my profits--ugh, ugh!--and my money back? Don't
+know anything. Ugh, ugh!"
+
+"Oh, you must have confidence."
+
+"Don't say that word again. Makes my head spin so. Oh, I'm so old and
+miserable, nobody caring for me, everybody fleecing me, and my head
+spins so--ugh, ugh!--and this cough racks me so. I say again, I ought to
+have a guard_ee_an."
+
+"So you ought; and Mr. Truman is your guardian to the extent you
+invested with him. Sorry we missed him just now. But you'll hear from
+him. All right. It's imprudent, though, to expose yourself this way. Let
+me take you to your berth."
+
+Forlornly enough the old miser moved slowly away with him. But, while
+descending a stairway, he was seized with such coughing that he was fain
+to pause.
+
+"That is a very bad cough."
+
+"Church-yard--ugh, ugh!--church-yard cough.--Ugh!"
+
+"Have you tried anything for it?"
+
+"Tired of trying. Nothing does me any good--ugh! ugh! Not even the
+Mammoth Cave. Ugh! ugh! Denned there six months, but coughed so bad the
+rest of the coughers--ugh! ugh!--black-balled me out. Ugh, ugh! Nothing
+does me good."
+
+"But have you tried the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator, sir?"
+
+"That's what that Truman--ugh, ugh!--said I ought to take.
+Yarb-medicine; you are that yarb-doctor, too?"
+
+"The same. Suppose you try one of my boxes now. Trust me, from what I
+know of Mr. Truman, he is not the gentleman to recommend, even in behalf
+of a friend, anything of whose excellence he is not conscientiously
+satisfied."
+
+"Ugh!--how much?"
+
+"Only two dollars a box."
+
+"Two dollars? Why don't you say two millions? ugh, ugh! Two dollars,
+that's two hundred cents; that's eight hundred farthings; that's two
+thousand mills; and all for one little box of yarb-medicine. My head, my
+head!--oh, I ought to have a guard_ee_an for; my head. Ugh, ugh, ugh,
+ugh!"
+
+"Well, if two dollars a box seems too much, take a dozen boxes at twenty
+dollars; and that will be getting four boxes for nothing, and you need
+use none but those four, the rest you can retail out at a premium, and
+so cure your cough, and make money by it. Come, you had better do it.
+Cash down. Can fill an order in a day or two. Here now," producing a
+box; "pure herbs."
+
+At that moment, seized with another spasm, the miser snatched each
+interval to fix his half distrustful, half hopeful eye upon the
+medicine, held alluringly up. "Sure--ugh! Sure it's all nat'ral? Nothing
+but yarbs? If I only thought it was a purely nat'ral medicine now--all
+yarbs--ugh, ugh!--oh this cough, this cough--ugh, ugh!--shatters my
+whole body. Ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"For heaven's sake try my medicine, if but a single box. That it is pure
+nature you may be confident, Refer you to Mr. Truman."
+
+"Don't know his number--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh! Oh this cough. He did speak
+well of this medicine though; said solemnly it would cure me--ugh, ugh,
+ugh, ugh!--take off a dollar and I'll have a box."
+
+"Can't sir, can't."
+
+"Say a dollar-and-half. Ugh!"
+
+"Can't. Am pledged to the one-price system, only honorable one."
+
+"Take off a shilling--ugh, ugh!"
+
+"Can't."
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh--I'll take it.--There."
+
+Grudgingly he handed eight silver coins, but while still in his hand,
+his cough took him and they were shaken upon the deck.
+
+One by one, the herb-doctor picked them up, and, examining them, said:
+"These are not quarters, these are pistareens; and clipped, and sweated,
+at that."
+
+"Oh don't be so miserly--ugh, ugh!--better a beast than a miser--ugh,
+ugh!"
+
+"Well, let it go. Anything rather than the idea of your not being cured
+of such a cough. And I hope, for the credit of humanity, you have not
+made it appear worse than it is, merely with a view to working upon the
+weak point of my pity, and so getting my medicine the cheaper. Now,
+mind, don't take it till night. Just before retiring is the time. There,
+you can get along now, can't you? I would attend you further, but I land
+presently, and must go hunt up my luggage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A HARD CASE.
+
+
+"Yarbs, yarbs; natur, natur; you foolish old file you! He diddled you
+with that hocus-pocus, did he? Yarbs and natur will cure your incurable
+cough, you think."
+
+It was a rather eccentric-looking person who spoke; somewhat ursine in
+aspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear's-skin; a
+high-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over
+behind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a
+double-barreled gun in hand--a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman,
+of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and
+sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a
+Spartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with woodcraft
+and rifles.
+
+He must have overheard some of the talk between the miser and the
+herb-doctor; for, just after the withdrawal of the one, he made up to
+the other--now at the foot of the stairs leaning against the baluster
+there--with the greeting above.
+
+"Think it will cure me?" coughed the miser in echo; "why shouldn't it?
+The medicine is nat'ral yarbs, pure yarbs; yarbs must cure me."
+
+"Because a thing is nat'ral, as you call it, you think it must be good.
+But who gave you that cough? Was it, or was it not, nature?"
+
+"Sure, you don't think that natur, Dame Natur, will hurt a body, do
+you?"
+
+"Natur is good Queen Bess; but who's responsible for the cholera?"
+
+"But yarbs, yarbs; yarbs are good?"
+
+"What's deadly-nightshade? Yarb, ain't it?"
+
+"Oh, that a Christian man should speak agin natur and yarbs--ugh, ugh,
+ugh!--ain't sick men sent out into the country; sent out to natur and
+grass?"
+
+"Aye, and poets send out the sick spirit to green pastures, like lame
+horses turned out unshod to the turf to renew their hoofs. A sort of
+yarb-doctors in their way, poets have it that for sore hearts, as for
+sore lungs, nature is the grand cure. But who froze to death my teamster
+on the prairie? And who made an idiot of Peter the Wild Boy?"
+
+"Then you don't believe in these 'ere yarb-doctors?"
+
+"Yarb-doctors? I remember the lank yarb-doctor I saw once on a
+hospital-cot in Mobile. One of the faculty passing round and seeing who
+lay there, said with professional triumph, 'Ah, Dr. Green, your yarbs
+don't help ye now, Dr. Green. Have to come to us and the mercury now,
+Dr. Green.--Natur! Y-a-r-b-s!'"
+
+"Did I hear something about herbs and herb-doctors?" here said a
+flute-like voice, advancing.
+
+It was the herb-doctor in person. Carpet-bag in hand, he happened to be
+strolling back that way.
+
+"Pardon me," addressing the Missourian, "but if I caught your words
+aright, you would seem to have little confidence in nature; which,
+really, in my way of thinking, looks like carrying the spirit of
+distrust pretty far."
+
+"And who of my sublime species may you be?" turning short round upon
+him, clicking his rifle-lock, with an air which would have seemed half
+cynic, half wild-cat, were it not for the grotesque excess of the
+expression, which made its sincerity appear more or less dubious.
+
+"One who has confidence in nature, and confidence in man, with some
+little modest confidence in himself."
+
+"That's your Confession of Faith, is it? Confidence in man, eh? Pray,
+which do you think are most, knaves or fools?"
+
+"Having met with few or none of either, I hardly think I am competent to
+answer."
+
+"I will answer for you. Fools are most."
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"For the same reason that I think oats are numerically more than horses.
+Don't knaves munch up fools just as horses do oats?"
+
+"A droll, sir; you are a droll. I can appreciate drollery--ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"But I'm in earnest."
+
+"That's the drollery, to deliver droll extravagance with an earnest
+air--knaves munching up fools as horses oats.--Faith, very droll,
+indeed, ha, ha, ha! Yes, I think I understand you now, sir. How silly I
+was to have taken you seriously, in your droll conceits, too, about
+having no confidence in nature. In reality you have just as much as I
+have."
+
+"_I_ have confidence in nature? _I?_ I say again there is nothing I am
+more suspicious of. I once lost ten thousand dollars by nature. Nature
+embezzled that amount from me; absconded with ten thousand dollars'
+worth of my property; a plantation on this stream, swept clean away by
+one of those sudden shiftings of the banks in a freshet; ten thousand
+dollars' worth of alluvion thrown broad off upon the waters."
+
+"But have you no confidence that by a reverse shifting that soil will
+come back after many days?--ah, here is my venerable friend," observing
+the old miser, "not in your berth yet? Pray, if you _will_ keep afoot,
+don't lean against that baluster; take my arm."
+
+It was taken; and the two stood together; the old miser leaning against
+the herb-doctor with something of that air of trustful fraternity with
+which, when standing, the less strong of the Siamese twins habitually
+leans against the other.
+
+The Missourian eyed them in silence, which was broken by the
+herb-doctor.
+
+"You look surprised, sir. Is it because I publicly take under my
+protection a figure like this? But I am never ashamed of honesty,
+whatever his coat."
+
+"Look you," said the Missourian, after a scrutinizing pause, "you are a
+queer sort of chap. Don't know exactly what to make of you. Upon the
+whole though, you somewhat remind me of the last boy I had on my place."
+
+"Good, trustworthy boy, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, very! I am now started to get me made some kind of machine to do
+the sort of work which boys are supposed to be fitted for."
+
+"Then you have passed a veto upon boys?"
+
+"And men, too."
+
+"But, my dear sir, does not that again imply more or less lack of
+confidence?--(Stand up a little, just a very little, my venerable
+friend; you lean rather hard.)--No confidence in boys, no confidence in
+men, no confidence in nature. Pray, sir, who or what may you have
+confidence in?"
+
+"I have confidence in distrust; more particularly as applied to you and
+your herbs."
+
+"Well," with a forbearing smile, "that is frank. But pray, don't forget
+that when you suspect my herbs you suspect nature."
+
+"Didn't I say that before?"
+
+"Very good. For the argument's sake I will suppose you are in earnest.
+Now, can you, who suspect nature, deny, that this same nature not only
+kindly brought you into being, but has faithfully nursed you to your
+present vigorous and independent condition? Is it not to nature that you
+are indebted for that robustness of mind which you so unhandsomely use
+to her scandal? Pray, is it not to nature that you owe the very eyes by
+which you criticise her?"
+
+"No! for the privilege of vision I am indebted to an oculist, who in my
+tenth year operated upon me in Philadelphia. Nature made me blind and
+would have kept me so. My oculist counterplotted her."
+
+"And yet, sir, by your complexion, I judge you live an out-of-door life;
+without knowing it, you are partial to nature; you fly to nature, the
+universal mother."
+
+"Very motherly! Sir, in the passion-fits of nature, I've known birds fly
+from nature to me, rough as I look; yes, sir, in a tempest, refuge
+here," smiting the folds of his bearskin. "Fact, sir, fact. Come, come,
+Mr. Palaverer, for all your palavering, did you yourself never shut out
+nature of a cold, wet night? Bar her out? Bolt her out? Lint her out?"
+
+"As to that," said the herb-doctor calmly, "much may be said."
+
+"Say it, then," ruffling all his hairs. "You can't, sir, can't." Then,
+as in apostrophe: "Look you, nature! I don't deny but your clover is
+sweet, and your dandelions don't roar; but whose hailstones smashed my
+windows?"
+
+"Sir," with unimpaired affability, producing one of his boxes, "I am
+pained to meet with one who holds nature a dangerous character. Though
+your manner is refined your voice is rough; in short, you seem to have a
+sore throat. In the calumniated name of nature, I present you with this
+box; my venerable friend here has a similar one; but to you, a free
+gift, sir. Through her regularly-authorized agents, of whom I happen to
+be one, Nature delights in benefiting those who most abuse her. Pray,
+take it."
+
+"Away with it! Don't hold it so near. Ten to one there is a torpedo in
+it. Such things have been. Editors been killed that way. Take it further
+off, I say."
+
+"Good heavens! my dear sir----"
+
+"I tell you I want none of your boxes," snapping his rifle.
+
+"Oh, take it--ugh, ugh! do take it," chimed in the old miser; "I wish he
+would give me one for nothing."
+
+"You find it lonely, eh," turning short round; "gulled yourself, you
+would have a companion."
+
+"How can he find it lonely," returned the herb-doctor, "or how desire a
+companion, when here I stand by him; I, even I, in whom he has trust.
+For the gulling, tell me, is it humane to talk so to this poor old man?
+Granting that his dependence on my medicine is vain, is it kind to
+deprive him of what, in mere imagination, if nothing more, may help eke
+out, with hope, his disease? For you, if you have no confidence, and,
+thanks to your native health, can get along without it, so far, at
+least, as trusting in my medicine goes; yet, how cruel an argument to
+use, with this afflicted one here. Is it not for all the world as if
+some brawny pugilist, aglow in December, should rush in and put out a
+hospital-fire, because, forsooth, he feeling no need of artificial heat,
+the shivering patients shall have none? Put it to your conscience, sir,
+and you will admit, that, whatever be the nature of this afflicted one's
+trust, you, in opposing it, evince either an erring head or a heart
+amiss. Come, own, are you not pitiless?"
+
+"Yes, poor soul," said the Missourian, gravely eying the old man--"yes,
+it _is_ pitiless in one like me to speak too honestly to one like you.
+You are a late sitter-up in this life; past man's usual bed-time; and
+truth, though with some it makes a wholesome breakfast, proves to all a
+supper too hearty. Hearty food, taken late, gives bad dreams."
+
+"What, in wonder's name--ugh, ugh!--is he talking about?" asked the old
+miser, looking up to the herb-doctor.
+
+"Heaven be praised for that!" cried the Missourian.
+
+"Out of his mind, ain't he?" again appealed the old miser.
+
+"Pray, sir," said the herb-doctor to the Missourian, "for what were you
+giving thanks just now?"
+
+"For this: that, with some minds, truth is, in effect, not so cruel a
+thing after all, seeing that, like a loaded pistol found by poor devils
+of savages, it raises more wonder than terror--its peculiar virtue being
+unguessed, unless, indeed, by indiscreet handling, it should happen to
+go off of itself."
+
+"I pretend not to divine your meaning there," said the herb-doctor,
+after a pause, during which he eyed the Missourian with a kind of
+pinched expression, mixed of pain and curiosity, as if he grieved at his
+state of mind, and, at the same time, wondered what had brought him to
+it, "but this much I know," he added, "that the general cast of your
+thoughts is, to say the least, unfortunate. There is strength in them,
+but a strength, whose source, being physical, must wither. You will yet
+recant."
+
+"Recant?"
+
+"Yes, when, as with this old man, your evil days of decay come on, when
+a hoary captive in your chamber, then will you, something like the
+dungeoned Italian we read of, gladly seek the breast of that confidence
+begot in the tender time of your youth, blessed beyond telling if it
+return to you in age."
+
+"Go back to nurse again, eh? Second childhood, indeed. You are soft."
+
+"Mercy, mercy!" cried the old miser, "what is all this!--ugh, ugh! Do
+talk sense, my good friends. Ain't you," to the Missourian, "going to
+buy some of that medicine?"
+
+"Pray, my venerable friend," said the herb-doctor, now trying to
+straighten himself, "don't lean _quite_ so hard; my arm grows numb;
+abate a little, just a very little."
+
+"Go," said the Missourian, "go lay down in your grave, old man, if you
+can't stand of yourself. It's a hard world for a leaner."
+
+"As to his grave," said the herb-doctor, "that is far enough off, so he
+but faithfully take my medicine."
+
+"Ugh, ugh, ugh!--He says true. No, I ain't--ugh! a going to die
+yet--ugh, ugh, ugh! Many years to live yet, ugh, ugh, ugh!"
+
+"I approve your confidence," said the herb-doctor; "but your coughing
+distresses me, besides being injurious to you. Pray, let me conduct you
+to your berth. You are best there. Our friend here will wait till my
+return, I know."
+
+With which he led the old miser away, and then, coming back, the talk
+with the Missourian was resumed.
+
+"Sir," said the herb-doctor, with some dignity and more feeling, "now
+that our infirm friend is withdrawn, allow me, to the full, to express
+my concern at the words you allowed to escape you in his hearing. Some
+of those words, if I err not, besides being calculated to beget
+deplorable distrust in the patient, seemed fitted to convey unpleasant
+imputations against me, his physician."
+
+"Suppose they did?" with a menacing air.
+
+"Why, then--then, indeed," respectfully retreating, "I fall back upon my
+previous theory of your general facetiousness. I have the fortune to be
+in company with a humorist--a wag."
+
+"Fall back you had better, and wag it is," cried the Missourian,
+following him up, and wagging his raccoon tail almost into the
+herb-doctor's face, "look you!"
+
+"At what?"
+
+"At this coon. Can you, the fox, catch him?"
+
+"If you mean," returned the other, not unselfpossessed, "whether I
+flatter myself that I can in any way dupe you, or impose upon you, or
+pass myself off upon you for what I am not, I, as an honest man, answer
+that I have neither the inclination nor the power to do aught of the
+kind."
+
+"Honest man? Seems to me you talk more like a craven."
+
+"You in vain seek to pick a quarrel with me, or put any affront upon me.
+The innocence in me heals me."
+
+"A healing like your own nostrums. But you are a queer man--a very queer
+and dubious man; upon the whole, about the most so I ever met."
+
+The scrutiny accompanying this seemed unwelcome to the diffidence of the
+herb-doctor. As if at once to attest the absence of resentment, as well
+as to change the subject, he threw a kind of familiar cordiality into
+his air, and said: "So you are going to get some machine made to do your
+work? Philanthropic scruples, doubtless, forbid your going as far as New
+Orleans for slaves?"
+
+"Slaves?" morose again in a twinkling, "won't have 'em! Bad enough to
+see whites ducking and grinning round for a favor, without having those
+poor devils of niggers congeeing round for their corn. Though, to me,
+the niggers are the freer of the two. You are an abolitionist, ain't
+you?" he added, squaring himself with both hands on his rifle, used for
+a staff, and gazing in the herb-doctor's face with no more reverence
+than if it were a target. "You are an abolitionist, ain't you?"
+
+"As to that, I cannot so readily answer. If by abolitionist you mean a
+zealot, I am none; but if you mean a man, who, being a man, feels for
+all men, slaves included, and by any lawful act, opposed to nobody's
+interest, and therefore, rousing nobody's enmity, would willingly
+abolish suffering (supposing it, in its degree, to exist) from among
+mankind, irrespective of color, then am I what you say."
+
+"Picked and prudent sentiments. You are the moderate man, the invaluable
+understrapper of the wicked man. You, the moderate man, may be used for
+wrong, but are useless for right."
+
+"From all this," said the herb-doctor, still forgivingly, "I infer, that
+you, a Missourian, though living in a slave-state, are without slave
+sentiments."
+
+"Aye, but are you? Is not that air of yours, so spiritlessly enduring
+and yielding, the very air of a slave? Who is your master, pray; or are
+you owned by a company?"
+
+"_My_ master?"
+
+"Aye, for come from Maine or Georgia, you come from a slave-state, and a
+slave-pen, where the best breeds are to be bought up at any price from a
+livelihood to the Presidency. Abolitionism, ye gods, but expresses the
+fellow-feeling of slave for slave."
+
+"The back-woods would seem to have given you rather eccentric notions,"
+now with polite superiority smiled the herb-doctor, still with manly
+intrepidity forbearing each unmanly thrust, "but to return; since, for
+your purpose, you will have neither man nor boy, bond nor free, truly,
+then some sort of machine for you is all there is left. My desires for
+your success attend you, sir.--Ah!" glancing shoreward, "here is Cape
+Girádeau; I must leave you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+IN THE POLITE SPIRIT OF THE TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS.
+
+
+--"'Philosophical Intelligence Office'--novel idea! But how did you come
+to dream that I wanted anything in your absurd line, eh?"
+
+About twenty minutes after leaving Cape Girádeau, the above was growled
+out over his shoulder by the Missourian to a chance stranger who had
+just accosted him; a round-backed, baker-kneed man, in a mean
+five-dollar suit, wearing, collar-wise by a chain, a small brass plate,
+inscribed P. I. O., and who, with a sort of canine deprecation, slunk
+obliquely behind.
+
+"How did you come to dream that I wanted anything in your line, eh?"
+
+"Oh, respected sir," whined the other, crouching a pace nearer, and, in
+his obsequiousness, seeming to wag his very coat-tails behind him,
+shabby though they were, "oh, sir, from long experience, one glance
+tells me the gentleman who is in need of our humble services."
+
+"But suppose I did want a boy--what they jocosely call a good boy--how
+could your absurd office help me?--Philosophical Intelligence Office?"
+
+"Yes, respected sir, an office founded on strictly philosophical and
+physio----"
+
+"Look you--come up here--how, by philosophy or physiology either, make
+good boys to order? Come up here. Don't give me a crick in the neck.
+Come up here, come, sir, come," calling as if to his pointer. "Tell me,
+how put the requisite assortment of good qualities into a boy, as the
+assorted mince into the pie?"
+
+"Respected sir, our office----"
+
+"You talk much of that office. Where is it? On board this boat?"
+
+"Oh no, sir, I just came aboard. Our office----"
+
+"Came aboard at that last landing, eh? Pray, do you know a herb-doctor
+there? Smooth scamp in a snuff-colored surtout?"
+
+"Oh, sir, I was but a sojourner at Cape Girádeau. Though, now that you
+mention a snuff-colored surtout, I think I met such a man as you speak
+of stepping ashore as I stepped aboard, and 'pears to me I have seen him
+somewhere before. Looks like a very mild Christian sort of person, I
+should say. Do you know him, respected sir?"
+
+"Not much, but better than you seem to. Proceed with your business."
+
+With a low, shabby bow, as grateful for the permission, the other began:
+"Our office----"
+
+"Look you," broke in the bachelor with ire, "have you the spinal
+complaint? What are you ducking and groveling about? Keep still. Where's
+your office?"
+
+"The branch one which I represent, is at Alton, sir, in the free state
+we now pass," (pointing somewhat proudly ashore).
+
+"Free, eh? You a freeman, you flatter yourself? With those coat-tails
+and that spinal complaint of servility? Free? Just cast up in your
+private mind who is your master, will you?"
+
+"Oh, oh, oh! I don't understand--indeed--indeed. But, respected sir, as
+before said, our office, founded on principles wholly new----"
+
+"To the devil with your principles! Bad sign when a man begins to talk
+of his principles. Hold, come back, sir; back here, back, sir, back! I
+tell you no more boys for me. Nay, I'm a Mede and Persian. In my old
+home in the woods I'm pestered enough with squirrels, weasels,
+chipmunks, skunks. I want no more wild vermin to spoil my temper and
+waste my substance. Don't talk of boys; enough of your boys; a plague of
+your boys; chilblains on your boys! As for Intelligence Offices, I've
+lived in the East, and know 'em. Swindling concerns kept by low-born
+cynics, under a fawning exterior wreaking their cynic malice upon
+mankind. You are a fair specimen of 'em."
+
+"Oh dear, dear, dear!"
+
+"Dear? Yes, a thrice dear purchase one of your boys would be to me. A
+rot on your boys!"
+
+"But, respected sir, if you will not have boys, might we not, in our
+small way, accommodate you with a man?"
+
+"Accommodate? Pray, no doubt you could accommodate me with a
+bosom-friend too, couldn't you? Accommodate! Obliging word accommodate:
+there's accommodation notes now, where one accommodates another with a
+loan, and if he don't pay it pretty quickly, accommodates him, with a
+chain to his foot. Accommodate! God forbid that I should ever be
+accommodated. No, no. Look you, as I told that cousin-german of yours,
+the herb-doctor, I'm now on the road to get me made some sort of machine
+to do my work. Machines for me. My cider-mill--does that ever steal my
+cider? My mowing-machine--does that ever lay a-bed mornings? My
+corn-husker--does that ever give me insolence? No: cider-mill,
+mowing-machine, corn-husker--all faithfully attend to their business.
+Disinterested, too; no board, no wages; yet doing good all their lives
+long; shining examples that virtue is its own reward--the only practical
+Christians I know."
+
+"Oh dear, dear, dear, dear!"
+
+"Yes, sir:--boys? Start my soul-bolts, what a difference, in a moral
+point of view, between a corn-husker and a boy! Sir, a corn-husker, for
+its patient continuance in well-doing, might not unfitly go to heaven.
+Do you suppose a boy will?"
+
+"A corn-husker in heaven! (turning up the whites of his eyes). Respected
+sir, this way of talking as if heaven were a kind of Washington
+patent-office museum--oh, oh, oh!--as if mere machine-work and
+puppet-work went to heaven--oh, oh, oh! Things incapable of free agency,
+to receive the eternal reward of well-doing--oh, oh, oh!"
+
+"You Praise-God-Barebones you, what are you groaning about? Did I say
+anything of that sort? Seems to me, though you talk so good, you are
+mighty quick at a hint the other way, or else you want to pick a polemic
+quarrel with me."
+
+"It may be so or not, respected sir," was now the demure reply; "but if
+it be, it is only because as a soldier out of honor is quick in taking
+affront, so a Christian out of religion is quick, sometimes perhaps a
+little too much so, in spying heresy."
+
+"Well," after an astonished pause, "for an unaccountable pair, you and
+the herb-doctor ought to yoke together."
+
+So saying, the bachelor was eying him rather sharply, when he with the
+brass plate recalled him to the discussion by a hint, not unflattering,
+that he (the man with the brass plate) was all anxiety to hear him
+further on the subject of servants.
+
+"About that matter," exclaimed the impulsive bachelor, going off
+at the hint like a rocket, "all thinking minds are, now-a-days,
+coming to the conclusion--one derived from an immense hereditary
+experience--see what Horace and others of the ancients say of
+servants--coming to the conclusion, I say, that boy or man, the
+human animal is, for most work-purposes, a losing animal. Can't be
+trusted; less trustworthy than oxen; for conscientiousness a turn-spit
+dog excels him. Hence these thousand new inventions--carding machines,
+horseshoe machines, tunnel-boring machines, reaping machines,
+apple-paring machines, boot-blacking machines, sewing machines, shaving
+machines, run-of-errand machines, dumb-waiter machines, and the
+Lord-only-knows-what machines; all of which announce the era when that
+refractory animal, the working or serving man, shall be a buried
+by-gone, a superseded fossil. Shortly prior to which glorious time, I
+doubt not that a price will be put upon their peltries as upon the
+knavish 'possums,' especially the boys. Yes, sir (ringing his rifle down
+on the deck), I rejoice to think that the day is at hand, when, prompted
+to it by law, I shall shoulder this gun and go out a boy-shooting."
+
+"Oh, now! Lord, Lord, Lord!--But _our_ office, respected sir, conducted
+as I ventured to observe----"
+
+"No, sir," bristlingly settling his stubble chin in his coon-skins.
+"Don't try to oil me; the herb-doctor tried that. My experience, carried
+now through a course--worse than salivation--a course of five and thirty
+boys, proves to me that boyhood is a natural state of rascality."
+
+"Save us, save us!"
+
+"Yes, sir, yes. My name is Pitch; I stick to what I say. I speak from
+fifteen years' experience; five and thirty boys; American, Irish,
+English, German, African, Mulatto; not to speak of that China boy sent
+me by one who well knew my perplexities, from California; and that
+Lascar boy from Bombay. Thug! I found him sucking the embryo life from
+my spring eggs. All rascals, sir, every soul of them; Caucasian or
+Mongol. Amazing the endless variety of rascality in human nature of the
+juvenile sort. I remember that, having discharged, one after another,
+twenty-nine boys--each, too, for some wholly unforeseen species of
+viciousness peculiar to that one peculiar boy--I remember saying to
+myself: Now, then, surely, I have got to the end of the list, wholly
+exhausted it; I have only now to get me a boy, any boy different from
+those twenty-nine preceding boys, and he infallibly shall be that
+virtuous boy I have so long been seeking. But, bless me! this thirtieth
+boy--by the way, having at the time long forsworn your intelligence
+offices, I had him sent to me from the Commissioners of Emigration, all
+the way from New York, culled out carefully, in fine, at my particular
+request, from a standing army of eight hundred boys, the flowers of all
+nations, so they wrote me, temporarily in barracks on an East River
+island--I say, this thirtieth boy was in person not ungraceful; his
+deceased mother a lady's maid, or something of that sort; and in manner,
+why, in a plebeian way, a perfect Chesterfield; very intelligent,
+too--quick as a flash. But, such suavity! 'Please sir! please sir!'
+always bowing and saying, 'Please sir.' In the strangest way, too,
+combining a filial affection with a menial respect. Took such warm,
+singular interest in my affairs. Wanted to be considered one of the
+family--sort of adopted son of mine, I suppose. Of a morning, when I
+would go out to my stable, with what childlike good nature he would trot
+out my nag, 'Please sir, I think he's getting fatter and fatter.' 'But,
+he don't look very clean, does he?' unwilling to be downright harsh with
+so affectionate a lad; 'and he seems a little hollow inside the haunch
+there, don't he? or no, perhaps I don't see plain this morning.' 'Oh,
+please sir, it's just there I think he's gaining so, please.' Polite
+scamp! I soon found he never gave that wretched nag his oats of nights;
+didn't bed him either. Was above that sort of chambermaid work. No end
+to his willful neglects. But the more he abused my service, the more
+polite he grew."
+
+"Oh, sir, some way you mistook him."
+
+"Not a bit of it. Besides, sir, he was a boy who under a Chesterfieldian
+exterior hid strong destructive propensities. He cut up my horse-blanket
+for the bits of leather, for hinges to his chest. Denied it point-blank.
+After he was gone, found the shreds under his mattress. Would
+slyly break his hoe-handle, too, on purpose to get rid of hoeing.
+Then be so gracefully penitent for his fatal excess of industrious
+strength. Offer to mend all by taking a nice stroll to the nighest
+settlement--cherry-trees in full bearing all the way--to get the broken
+thing cobbled. Very politely stole my pears, odd pennies, shillings,
+dollars, and nuts; regular squirrel at it. But I could prove nothing.
+Expressed to him my suspicions. Said I, moderately enough, 'A little
+less politeness, and a little more honesty would suit me better.' He
+fired up; threatened to sue for libel. I won't say anything about his
+afterwards, in Ohio, being found in the act of gracefully putting a bar
+across a rail-road track, for the reason that a stoker called him the
+rogue that he was. But enough: polite boys or saucy boys, white boys or
+black boys, smart boys or lazy boys, Caucasian boys or Mongol boys--all
+are rascals."
+
+"Shocking, shocking!" nervously tucking his frayed cravat-end out of
+sight. "Surely, respected sir, you labor under a deplorable
+hallucination. Why, pardon again, you seem to have not the slightest
+confidence in boys, I admit, indeed, that boys, some of them at least,
+are but too prone to one little foolish foible or other. But, what then,
+respected sir, when, by natural laws, they finally outgrow such things,
+and wholly?"
+
+Having until now vented himself mostly in plaintive dissent of canine
+whines and groans, the man with the brass-plate seemed beginning to
+summon courage to a less timid encounter. But, upon his maiden essay,
+was not very encouragingly handled, since the dialogue immediately
+continued as follows:
+
+"Boys outgrow what is amiss in them? From bad boys spring good men? Sir,
+'the child is father of the man;' hence, as all boys are rascals, so are
+all men. But, God bless me, you must know these things better than I;
+keeping an intelligence office as you do; a business which must furnish
+peculiar facilities for studying mankind. Come, come up here, sir;
+confess you know these things pretty well, after all. Do you not know
+that all men are rascals, and all boys, too?"
+
+"Sir," replied the other, spite of his shocked feelings seeming to pluck
+up some spirit, but not to an indiscreet degree, "Sir, heaven be
+praised, I am far, very far from knowing what you say. True," he
+thoughtfully continued, "with my associates, I keep an intelligence
+office, and for ten years, come October, have, one way or other, been
+concerned in that line; for no small period in the great city of
+Cincinnati, too; and though, as you hint, within that long interval, I
+must have had more or less favorable opportunity for studying
+mankind--in a business way, scanning not only the faces, but ransacking
+the lives of several thousands of human beings, male and female, of
+various nations, both employers and employed, genteel and ungenteel,
+educated and uneducated; yet--of course, I candidly admit, with some
+random exceptions, I have, so far as my small observation goes, found
+that mankind thus domestically viewed, confidentially viewed, I may say;
+they, upon the whole--making some reasonable allowances for human
+imperfection--present as pure a moral spectacle as the purest angel
+could wish. I say it, respected sir, with confidence."
+
+"Gammon! You don't mean what you say. Else you are like a landsman at
+sea: don't know the ropes, the very things everlastingly pulled before
+your eyes. Serpent-like, they glide about, traveling blocks too subtle
+for you. In short, the entire ship is a riddle. Why, you green ones
+wouldn't know if she were unseaworthy; but still, with thumbs stuck back
+into your arm-holes, pace the rotten planks, singing, like a fool, words
+put into your green mouth by the cunning owner, the man who, heavily
+insuring it, sends his ship to be wrecked--
+
+    'A wet sheet and a flowing sea!'--
+
+and, sir, now that it occurs to me, your talk, the whole of it, is
+but a wet sheet and a flowing sea, and an idle wind that follows fast,
+offering a striking contrast to my own discourse."
+
+"Sir," exclaimed the man with the brass-plate, his patience now more or
+less tasked, "permit me with deference to hint that some of your remarks
+are injudiciously worded. And thus we say to our patrons, when they
+enter our office full of abuse of us because of some worthy boy we may
+have sent them--some boy wholly misjudged for the time. Yes, sir, permit
+me to remark that you do not sufficiently consider that, though a small
+man, I may have my small share of feelings."
+
+"Well, well, I didn't mean to wound your feelings at all. And that they
+are small, very small, I take your word for it. Sorry, sorry. But truth
+is like a thrashing-machine; tender sensibilities must keep out of the
+way. Hope you understand me. Don't want to hurt you. All I say is, what
+I said in the first place, only now I swear it, that all boys are
+rascals."
+
+"Sir," lowly replied the other, still forbearing like an old lawyer
+badgered in court, or else like a good-hearted simpleton, the butt of
+mischievous wags, "Sir, since you come back to the point, will you allow
+me, in my small, quiet way, to submit to you certain small, quiet views
+of the subject in hand?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" with insulting indifference, rubbing his chin and looking the
+other way. "Oh, yes; go on."
+
+"Well, then, respected sir," continued the other, now assuming as
+genteel an attitude as the irritating set of his pinched five-dollar
+suit would permit; "well, then, sir, the peculiar principles, the
+strictly philosophical principles, I may say," guardedly rising in
+dignity, as he guardedly rose on his toes, "upon which our office is
+founded, has led me and my associates, in our small, quiet way, to a
+careful analytical study of man, conducted, too, on a quiet theory, and
+with an unobtrusive aim wholly our own. That theory I will not now at
+large set forth. But some of the discoveries resulting from it, I will,
+by your permission, very briefly mention; such of them, I mean, as refer
+to the state of boyhood scientifically viewed."
+
+"Then you have studied the thing? expressly studied boys, eh? Why didn't
+you out with that before?"
+
+"Sir, in my small business way, I have not conversed with so many
+masters, gentlemen masters, for nothing. I have been taught that in this
+world there is a precedence of opinions as well as of persons. You have
+kindly given me your views, I am now, with modesty, about to give you
+mine."
+
+"Stop flunkying--go on."
+
+"In the first place, sir, our theory teaches us to proceed by analogy
+from the physical to the moral. Are we right there, sir? Now, sir, take
+a young boy, a young male infant rather, a man-child in short--what sir,
+I respectfully ask, do you in the first place remark?"
+
+"A rascal, sir! present and prospective, a rascal!"
+
+"Sir, if passion is to invade, surely science must evacuate. May I
+proceed? Well, then, what, in the first place, in a general view, do you
+remark, respected sir, in that male baby or man-child?"
+
+The bachelor privily growled, but this time, upon the whole, better
+governed himself than before, though not, indeed, to the degree of
+thinking it prudent to risk an articulate response.
+
+"What do you remark? I respectfully repeat." But, as no answer came,
+only the low, half-suppressed growl, as of Bruin in a hollow trunk, the
+questioner continued: "Well, sir, if you will permit me, in my small
+way, to speak for you, you remark, respected sir, an incipient creation;
+loose sort of sketchy thing; a little preliminary rag-paper study, or
+careless cartoon, so to speak, of a man. The idea, you see, respected
+sir, is there; but, as yet, wants filling out. In a word, respected sir,
+the man-child is at present but little, every way; I don't pretend to
+deny it; but, then, he _promises_ well, does he not? Yes, promises very
+well indeed, I may say. (So, too, we say to our patrons in reference to
+some noble little youngster objected to for being a _dwarf_.) But, to
+advance one step further," extending his thread-bare leg, as he drew a
+pace nearer, "we must now drop the figure of the rag-paper cartoon, and
+borrow one--to use presently, when wanted--from the horticultural
+kingdom. Some bud, lily-bud, if you please. Now, such points as the
+new-born man-child has--as yet not all that could be desired, I am free
+to confess--still, such as they are, there they are, and palpable as
+those of an adult. But we stop not here," taking another step. "The
+man-child not only possesses these present points, small though they
+are, but, likewise--now our horticultural image comes into play--like
+the bud of the lily, he contains concealed rudiments of others; that
+is, points at present invisible, with beauties at present dormant."
+
+"Come, come, this talk is getting too horticultural and beautiful
+altogether. Cut it short, cut it short!"
+
+"Respected sir," with a rustily martial sort of gesture, like a decayed
+corporal's, "when deploying into the field of discourse the vanguard of
+an important argument, much more in evolving the grand central forces of
+a new philosophy of boys, as I may say, surely you will kindly allow
+scope adequate to the movement in hand, small and humble in its way as
+that movement may be. Is it worth my while to go on, respected sir?"
+
+"Yes, stop flunkying and go on."
+
+Thus encouraged, again the philosopher with the brass-plate proceeded:
+
+"Supposing, sir, that worthy gentleman (in such terms, to an applicant
+for service, we allude to some patron we chance to have in our eye),
+supposing, respected sir, that worthy gentleman, Adam, to have been
+dropped overnight in Eden, as a calf in the pasture; supposing that,
+sir--then how could even the learned serpent himself have foreknown that
+such a downy-chinned little innocent would eventually rival the goat in
+a beard? Sir, wise as the serpent was, that eventuality would have been
+entirely hidden from his wisdom."
+
+"I don't know about that. The devil is very sagacious. To judge by the
+event, he appears to have understood man better even than the Being who
+made him."
+
+"For God's sake, don't say that, sir! To the point. Can it now with
+fairness be denied that, in his beard, the man-child prospectively
+possesses an appendix, not less imposing than patriarchal; and for this
+goodly beard, should we not by generous anticipation give the man-child,
+even in his cradle, credit? Should we not now, sir? respectfully I put
+it."
+
+"Yes, if like pig-weed he mows it down soon as it shoots," porcinely
+rubbing his stubble-chin against his coon-skins.
+
+"I have hinted at the analogy," continued the other, calmly disregardful
+of the digression; "now to apply it. Suppose a boy evince no noble
+quality. Then generously give him credit for his prospective one. Don't
+you see? So we say to our patrons when they would fain return a boy upon
+us as unworthy: 'Madam, or sir, (as the case may be) has this boy a
+beard?' 'No.' 'Has he, we respectfully ask, as yet, evinced any noble
+quality?' 'No, indeed.' 'Then, madam, or sir, take him back, we humbly
+beseech; and keep him till that same noble quality sprouts; for, have
+confidence, it, like the beard, is in him.'"
+
+"Very fine theory," scornfully exclaimed the bachelor, yet in secret,
+perhaps, not entirely undisturbed by these strange new views of the
+matter; "but what trust is to be placed in it?"
+
+"The trust of perfect confidence, sir. To proceed. Once more, if you
+please, regard the man-child."
+
+"Hold!" paw-like thrusting put his bearskin arm, "don't intrude that
+man-child upon me too often. He who loves not bread, dotes not on
+dough. As little of your man-child as your logical arrangements will
+admit."
+
+"Anew regard the man-child," with inspired intrepidity repeated he with
+the brass-plate, "in the perspective of his developments, I mean. At
+first the man-child has no teeth, but about the sixth month--am I right,
+sir?"
+
+"Don't know anything about it."
+
+"To proceed then: though at first deficient in teeth, about the sixth
+month the man-child begins to put forth in that particular. And sweet
+those tender little puttings-forth are."
+
+"Very, but blown out of his mouth directly, worthless enough."
+
+"Admitted. And, therefore, we say to our patrons returning with a boy
+alleged not only to be deficient in goodness, but redundant in ill: 'The
+lad, madam or sir, evinces very corrupt qualities, does he? No end to
+them.' 'But, have confidence, there will be; for pray, madam, in this
+lad's early childhood, were not those frail first teeth, then his,
+followed by his present sound, even, beautiful and permanent set. And
+the more objectionable those first teeth became, was not that, madam, we
+respectfully submit, so much the more reason to look for their speedy
+substitution by the present sound, even, beautiful and permanent ones.'
+'True, true, can't deny that.' 'Then, madam, take him back, we
+respectfully beg, and wait till, in the now swift course of nature,
+dropping those transient moral blemishes you complain of, he
+replacingly buds forth in the sound, even, beautiful and permanent
+virtues.'"
+
+"Very philosophical again," was the contemptuous reply--the outward
+contempt, perhaps, proportioned to the inward misgiving. "Vastly
+philosophical, indeed, but tell me--to continue your analogy--since the
+second teeth followed--in fact, came from--the first, is there no chance
+the blemish may be transmitted?"
+
+"Not at all." Abating in humility as he gained in the argument. "The
+second teeth follow, but do not come from, the first; successors, not
+sons. The first teeth are not like the germ blossom of the apple, at
+once the father of, and incorporated into, the growth it foreruns; but
+they are thrust from their place by the independent undergrowth of the
+succeeding set--an illustration, by the way, which shows more for me
+than I meant, though not more than I wish."
+
+"What does it show?" Surly-looking as a thundercloud with the inkept
+unrest of unacknowledged conviction.
+
+"It shows this, respected sir, that in the case of any boy, especially
+an ill one, to apply unconditionally the saying, that the 'child is
+father of the man', is, besides implying an uncharitable aspersion of
+the race, affirming a thing very wide of----"
+
+"--Your analogy," like a snapping turtle.
+
+"Yes, respected sir."
+
+"But is analogy argument? You are a punster."
+
+"Punster, respected sir?" with a look of being aggrieved.
+
+"Yes, you pun with ideas as another man may with words."
+
+"Oh well, sir, whoever talks in that strain, whoever has no confidence
+in human reason, whoever despises human reason, in vain to reason with
+him. Still, respected sir," altering his air, "permit me to hint that,
+had not the force of analogy moved you somewhat, you would hardly have
+offered to contemn it."
+
+"Talk away," disdainfully; "but pray tell me what has that last analogy
+of yours to do with your intelligence office business?"
+
+"Everything to do with it, respected sir. From that analogy we derive
+the reply made to such a patron as, shortly after being supplied by us
+with an adult servant, proposes to return him upon our hands; not that,
+while with the patron, said adult has given any cause of
+dissatisfaction, but the patron has just chanced to hear something
+unfavorable concerning him from some gentleman who employed said adult,
+long before, while a boy. To which too fastidious patron, we, taking
+said adult by the hand, and graciously reintroducing him to the patron,
+say: 'Far be it from you, madam, or sir, to proceed in your censure
+against this adult, in anything of the spirit of an ex-post-facto law.
+Madam, or sir, would you visit upon the butterfly the caterpillar? In
+the natural advance of all creatures, do they not bury themselves over
+and over again in the endless resurrection of better and better? Madam,
+or sir, take back this adult; he may have been a caterpillar, but is now
+a butterfly."
+
+"Pun away; but even accepting your analogical pun, what does it amount
+to? Was the caterpillar one creature, and is the butterfly another? The
+butterfly is the caterpillar in a gaudy cloak; stripped of which, there
+lies the impostor's long spindle of a body, pretty much worm-shaped as
+before."
+
+"You reject the analogy. To the facts then. You deny that a youth of one
+character can be transformed into a man of an opposite character. Now
+then--yes, I have it. There's the founder of La Trappe, and Ignatius
+Loyola; in boyhood, and someway into manhood, both devil-may-care
+bloods, and yet, in the end, the wonders of the world for anchoritish
+self-command. These two examples, by-the-way, we cite to such patrons as
+would hastily return rakish young waiters upon us. 'Madam, or
+sir--patience; patience,' we say; 'good madam, or sir, would you
+discharge forth your cask of good wine, because, while working, it riles
+more or less? Then discharge not forth this young waiter; the good in
+him is working.' 'But he is a sad rake.' 'Therein is his promise; the
+rake being crude material for the saint.'"
+
+"Ah, you are a talking man--what I call a wordy man. You talk, talk."
+
+"And with submission, sir, what is the greatest judge, bishop or
+prophet, but a talking man? He talks, talks. It is the peculiar vocation
+of a teacher to talk. What's wisdom itself but table-talk? The best
+wisdom in this world, and the last spoken by its teacher, did it not
+literally and truly come in the form of table-talk?"
+
+"You, you, you!" rattling down his rifle.
+
+"To shift the subject, since we cannot agree. Pray, what is your
+opinion, respected sir, of St. Augustine?"
+
+"St. Augustine? What should I, or you either, know of him? Seems to me,
+for one in such a business, to say nothing of such a coat, that though
+you don't know a great deal, indeed, yet you know a good deal more than
+you ought to know, or than you have a right to know, or than it is safe
+or expedient for you to know, or than, in the fair course of life, you
+could have honestly come to know. I am of opinion you should be served
+like a Jew in the middle ages with his gold; this knowledge of yours,
+which you haven't enough knowledge to know how to make a right use of,
+it should be taken from you. And so I have been thinking all along."
+
+"You are merry, sir. But you have a little looked into St. Augustine I
+suppose."
+
+"St. Augustine on Original Sin is my text book. But you, I ask again,
+where do you find time or inclination for these out-of-the-way
+speculations? In fact, your whole talk, the more I think of it, is
+altogether unexampled and extraordinary."
+
+"Respected sir, have I not already informed you that the quite new
+method, the strictly philosophical one, on which our office is founded,
+has led me and my associates to an enlarged study of mankind. It was my
+fault, if I did not, likewise, hint, that these studies directed always
+to the scientific procuring of good servants of all sorts, boys
+included, for the kind gentlemen, our patrons--that these studies, I
+say, have been conducted equally among all books of all libraries, as
+among all men of all nations. Then, you rather like St. Augustine, sir?"
+
+"Excellent genius!"
+
+"In some points he was; yet, how comes it that under his own hand, St.
+Augustine confesses that, until his thirtieth year, he was a very sad
+dog?"
+
+"A saint a sad dog?"
+
+"Not the saint, but the saint's irresponsible little forerunner--the
+boy."
+
+"All boys are rascals, and so are all men," again flying off at his
+tangent; "my name is Pitch; I stick to what I say."
+
+"Ah, sir, permit me--when I behold you on this mild summer's eve, thus
+eccentrically clothed in the skins of wild beasts, I cannot but conclude
+that the equally grim and unsuitable habit of your mind is likewise but
+an eccentric assumption, having no basis in your genuine soul, no more
+than in nature herself."
+
+"Well, really, now--really," fidgeted the bachelor, not unaffected in
+his conscience by these benign personalities, "really, really, now, I
+don't know but that I may have been a little bit too hard upon those
+five and thirty boys of mine."
+
+"Glad to find you a little softening, sir. Who knows now, but that
+flexile gracefulness, however questionable at the time of that thirtieth
+boy of yours, might have been the silky husk of the most solid qualities
+of maturity. It might have been with him as with the ear of the Indian
+corn."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," excitedly cried the bachelor, as the light of this new
+illustration broke in, "yes, yes; and now that I think of it, how often
+I've sadly watched my Indian corn in May, wondering whether such sickly,
+half-eaten sprouts, could ever thrive up into the stiff, stately spear
+of August."
+
+"A most admirable reflection, sir, and you have only, according to the
+analogical theory first started by our office, to apply it to that
+thirtieth boy in question, and see the result. Had you but kept that
+thirtieth boy--been patient with his sickly virtues, cultivated them,
+hoed round them, why what a glorious guerdon would have been yours, when
+at last you should have had a St. Augustine for an ostler."
+
+"Really, really--well, I am glad I didn't send him to jail, as at first
+I intended."
+
+"Oh that would have been too bad. Grant he was vicious. The petty vices
+of boys are like the innocent kicks of colts, as yet imperfectly broken.
+Some boys know not virtue only for the same reason they know not French;
+it was never taught them. Established upon the basis of parental
+charity, juvenile asylums exist by law for the benefit of lads convicted
+of acts which, in adults, would have received other requital. Why?
+Because, do what they will, society, like our office, at bottom has a
+Christian confidence in boys. And all this we say to our patrons."
+
+"Your patrons, sir, seem your marines to whom you may say anything,"
+said the other, relapsing. "Why do knowing employers shun youths from
+asylums, though offered them at the smallest wages? I'll none of your
+reformado boys."
+
+"Such a boy, respected sir, I would not get for you, but a boy that
+never needed reform. Do not smile, for as whooping-cough and measles are
+juvenile diseases, and yet some juveniles never have them, so are there
+boys equally free from juvenile vices. True, for the best of boys'
+measles may be contagious, and evil communications corrupt good manners;
+but a boy with a sound mind in a sound body--such is the boy I would get
+you. If hitherto, sir, you have struck upon a peculiarly bad vein of
+boys, so much the more hope now of your hitting a good one."
+
+"That sounds a kind of reasonable, as it were--a little so, really. In
+fact, though you have said a great many foolish things, very foolish and
+absurd things, yet, upon the whole, your conversation has been such as
+might almost lead one less distrustful than I to repose a certain
+conditional confidence in you, I had almost added in your office, also.
+Now, for the humor of it, supposing that even I, I myself, really had
+this sort of conditional confidence, though but a grain, what sort of a
+boy, in sober fact, could you send me? And what would be your fee?"
+
+"Conducted," replied the other somewhat loftily, rising now in eloquence
+as his proselyte, for all his pretenses, sunk in conviction, "conducted
+upon principles involving care, learning, and labor, exceeding what is
+usual in kindred institutions, the Philosophical Intelligence Office is
+forced to charge somewhat higher than customary. Briefly, our fee is
+three dollars in advance. As for the boy, by a lucky chance, I have a
+very promising little fellow now in my eye--a very likely little fellow,
+indeed."
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"As the day is long. Might trust him with untold millions. Such, at
+least, were the marginal observations on the phrenological chart of his
+head, submitted to me by the mother."
+
+"How old?"
+
+"Just fifteen."
+
+"Tall? Stout?"
+
+"Uncommonly so, for his age, his mother remarked."
+
+"Industrious?"
+
+"The busy bee."
+
+The bachelor fell into a troubled reverie. At last, with much hesitancy,
+he spoke:
+
+"Do you think now, candidly, that--I say candidly--candidly--could I
+have some small, limited--some faint, conditional degree of confidence
+in that boy? Candidly, now?"
+
+"Candidly, you could."
+
+"A sound boy? A good boy?"
+
+"Never knew one more so."
+
+The bachelor fell into another irresolute reverie; then said: "Well,
+now, you have suggested some rather new views of boys, and men, too.
+Upon those views in the concrete I at present decline to determine.
+Nevertheless, for the sake purely of a scientific experiment, I will try
+that boy. I don't think him an angel, mind. No, no. But I'll try him.
+There are my three dollars, and here is my address. Send him along this
+day two weeks. Hold, you will be wanting the money for his passage.
+There," handing it somewhat reluctantly.
+
+"Ah, thank you. I had forgotten his passage;" then, altering in manner,
+and gravely holding the bills, continued: "Respected sir, never
+willingly do I handle money not with perfect willingness, nay, with a
+certain alacrity, paid. Either tell me that you have a perfect and
+unquestioning confidence in me (never mind the boy now) or permit me
+respectfully to return these bills."
+
+"Put 'em up, put 'em-up!"
+
+"Thank you. Confidence is the indispensable basis of all sorts of
+business transactions. Without it, commerce between man and man, as
+between country and country, would, like a watch, run down and stop. And
+now, supposing that against present expectation the lad should, after
+all, evince some little undesirable trait, do not, respected sir, rashly
+dismiss him. Have but patience, have but confidence. Those transient
+vices will, ere long, fall out, and be replaced by the sound, firm, even
+and permanent virtues. Ah," glancing shoreward, towards a
+grotesquely-shaped bluff, "there's the Devil's Joke, as they call it:
+the bell for landing will shortly ring. I must go look up the cook I
+brought for the innkeeper at Cairo."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+IN WHICH THE POWERFUL EFFECT OF NATURAL SCENERY IS EVINCED IN THE CASE
+OF THE MISSOURIAN, WHO, IN VIEW OF THE REGION ROUND-ABOUT CAIRO, HAS A
+RETURN OF HIS CHILLY FIT.
+
+
+At Cairo, the old established firm of Fever & Ague is still settling up
+its unfinished business; that Creole grave-digger, Yellow Jack--his hand
+at the mattock and spade has not lost its cunning; while Don Saturninus
+Typhus taking his constitutional with Death, Calvin Edson and three
+undertakers, in the morass, snuffs up the mephitic breeze with zest.
+
+In the dank twilight, fanned with mosquitoes, and sparkling with
+fire-flies, the boat now lies before Cairo. She has landed certain
+passengers, and tarries for the coming of expected ones. Leaning over
+the rail on the inshore side, the Missourian eyes through the dubious
+medium that swampy and squalid domain; and over it audibly mumbles his
+cynical mind to himself, as Apermantus' dog may have mumbled his bone.
+He bethinks him that the man with the brass-plate was to land on this
+villainous bank, and for that cause, if no other, begins to suspect him.
+Like one beginning to rouse himself from a dose of chloroform
+treacherously given, he half divines, too, that he, the philosopher,
+had unwittingly been betrayed into being an unphilosophical dupe. To
+what vicissitudes of light and shade is man subject! He ponders the
+mystery of human subjectivity in general. He thinks he perceives with
+Crossbones, his favorite author, that, as one may wake up well in the
+morning, very well, indeed, and brisk as a buck, I thank you, but ere
+bed-time get under the weather, there is no telling how--so one may wake
+up wise, and slow of assent, very wise and very slow, I assure you, and
+for all that, before night, by like trick in the atmosphere, be left in
+the lurch a ninny. Health and wisdom equally precious, and equally
+little as unfluctuating possessions to be relied on.
+
+But where was slipped in the entering wedge? Philosophy, knowledge,
+experience--were those trusty knights of the castle recreant? No, but
+unbeknown to them, the enemy stole on the castle's south side, its
+genial one, where Suspicion, the warder, parleyed. In fine, his too
+indulgent, too artless and companionable nature betrayed him. Admonished
+by which, he thinks he must be a little splenetic in his intercourse
+henceforth.
+
+He revolves the crafty process of sociable chat, by which, as he
+fancies, the man with the brass-plate wormed into him, and made such a
+fool of him as insensibly to persuade him to waive, in his exceptional
+case, that general law of distrust systematically applied to the race.
+He revolves, but cannot comprehend, the operation, still less the
+operator. Was the man a trickster, it must be more for the love than the
+lucre. Two or three dirty dollars the motive to so many nice wiles? And
+yet how full of mean needs his seeming. Before his mental vision the
+person of that threadbare Talleyrand, that impoverished Machiavelli,
+that seedy Rosicrucian--for something of all these he vaguely deems
+him--passes now in puzzled review. Fain, in his disfavor, would he make
+out a logical case. The doctrine of analogies recurs. Fallacious enough
+doctrine when wielded against one's prejudices, but in corroboration of
+cherished suspicions not without likelihood. Analogically, he couples
+the slanting cut of the equivocator's coat-tails with the sinister cast
+in his eye; he weighs slyboot's sleek speech in the light imparted by
+the oblique import of the smooth slope of his worn boot-heels; the
+insinuator's undulating flunkyisms dovetail into those of the flunky
+beast that windeth his way on his belly.
+
+From these uncordial reveries he is roused by a cordial slap on the
+shoulder, accompanied by a spicy volume of tobacco-smoke, out of which
+came a voice, sweet as a seraph's:
+
+"A penny for your thoughts, my fine fellow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A PHILANTHROPIST UNDERTAKES TO CONVERT A MISANTHROPE, BUT DOES NOT GET
+BEYOND CONFUTING HIM.
+
+
+"Hands off!" cried the bachelor, involuntarily covering dejection with
+moroseness.
+
+"Hands off? that sort of label won't do in our Fair. Whoever in our Fair
+has fine feelings loves to feel the nap of fine cloth, especially when a
+fine fellow wears it."
+
+"And who of my fine-fellow species may you be? From the Brazils, ain't
+you? Toucan fowl. Fine feathers on foul meat."
+
+This ungentle mention of the toucan was not improbably suggested by the
+parti-hued, and rather plumagy aspect of the stranger, no bigot it would
+seem, but a liberalist, in dress, and whose wardrobe, almost anywhere
+than on the liberal Mississippi, used to all sorts of fantastic
+informalities, might, even to observers less critical than the bachelor,
+have looked, if anything, a little out of the common; but not more so
+perhaps, than, considering the bear and raccoon costume, the bachelor's
+own appearance. In short, the stranger sported a vesture barred with
+various hues, that of the cochineal predominating, in style
+participating of a Highland plaid, Emir's robe, and French blouse; from
+its plaited sort of front peeped glimpses of a flowered regatta-shirt,
+while, for the rest, white trowsers of ample duck flowed over
+maroon-colored slippers, and a jaunty smoking-cap of regal purple
+crowned him off at top; king of traveled good-fellows, evidently.
+Grotesque as all was, nothing looked stiff or unused; all showed signs
+of easy service, the least wonted thing setting like a wonted glove.
+That genial hand, which had just been laid on the ungenial shoulder, was
+now carelessly thrust down before him, sailor-fashion, into a sort of
+Indian belt, confining the redundant vesture; the other held, by its
+long bright cherry-stem, a Nuremburgh pipe in blast, its great porcelain
+bowl painted in miniature with linked crests and arms of interlinked
+nations--a florid show. As by subtle saturations of its mellowing
+essence the tobacco had ripened the bowl, so it looked as if something
+similar of the interior spirit came rosily out on the cheek. But rosy
+pipe-bowl, or rosy countenance, all was lost on that unrosy man, the
+bachelor, who, waiting a moment till the commotion, caused by the boat's
+renewed progress, had a little abated, thus continued:
+
+"Hark ye," jeeringly eying the cap and belt, "did you ever see Signor
+Marzetti in the African pantomime?"
+
+"No;--good performer?"
+
+"Excellent; plays the intelligent ape till he seems it. With such
+naturalness can a being endowed with an immortal spirit enter into that
+of a monkey. But where's your tail? In the pantomime, Marzetti, no
+hypocrite in his monkery, prides himself on that."
+
+The stranger, now at rest, sideways and genially, on one hip, his right
+leg cavalierly crossed before the other, the toe of his vertical slipper
+pointed easily down on the deck, whiffed out a long, leisurely sort of
+indifferent and charitable puff, betokening him more or less of the
+mature man of the world, a character which, like its opposite, the
+sincere Christian's, is not always swift to take offense; and then,
+drawing near, still smoking, again laid his hand, this time with mild
+impressiveness, on the ursine shoulder, and not unamiably said: "That in
+your address there is a sufficiency of the _fortiter in re_ few unbiased
+observers will question; but that this is duly attempered with the
+_suaviter in modo_ may admit, I think, of an honest doubt. My dear
+fellow," beaming his eyes full upon him, "what injury have I done you,
+that you should receive my greeting with a curtailed civility?"
+
+"Off hands;" once more shaking the friendly member from him. "Who in the
+name of the great chimpanzee, in whose likeness, you, Marzetti, and the
+other chatterers are made, who in thunder are you?"
+
+"A cosmopolitan, a catholic man; who, being such, ties himself to no
+narrow tailor or teacher, but federates, in heart as in costume,
+something of the various gallantries of men under various suns. Oh, one
+roams not over the gallant globe in vain. Bred by it, is a fraternal and
+fusing feeling. No man is a stranger. You accost anybody. Warm and
+confiding, you wait not for measured advances. And though, indeed,
+mine, in this instance, have met with no very hilarious encouragement,
+yet the principle of a true citizen of the world is still to return good
+for ill.--My dear fellow, tell me how I can serve you."
+
+"By dispatching yourself, Mr. Popinjay-of-the-world, into the heart of
+the Lunar Mountains. You are another of them. Out of my sight!"
+
+"Is the sight of humanity so very disagreeable to you then? Ah, I may be
+foolish, but for my part, in all its aspects, I love it. Served up à la
+Pole, or à la Moor, à la Ladrone, or à la Yankee, that good dish, man,
+still delights me; or rather is man a wine I never weary of comparing
+and sipping; wherefore am I a pledged cosmopolitan, a sort of
+London-Dock-Vault connoisseur, going about from Teheran to Natchitoches,
+a taster of races; in all his vintages, smacking my lips over this racy
+creature, man, continually. But as there are teetotal palates which have
+a distaste even for Amontillado, so I suppose there may be teetotal
+souls which relish not even the very best brands of humanity. Excuse me,
+but it just occurs to me that you, my dear fellow, possibly lead a
+solitary life."
+
+"Solitary?" starting as at a touch of divination.
+
+"Yes: in a solitary life one insensibly contracts oddities,--talking to
+one's self now."
+
+"Been eaves-dropping, eh?"
+
+"Why, a soliloquist in a crowd can hardly but be overheard, and without
+much reproach to the hearer."
+
+"You are an eaves-dropper."
+
+"Well. Be it so."
+
+"Confess yourself an eaves-dropper?"
+
+"I confess that when you were muttering here I, passing by, caught a
+word or two, and, by like chance, something previous of your chat with
+the Intelligence-office man;--a rather sensible fellow, by the way; much
+of my style of thinking; would, for his own sake, he were of my style of
+dress. Grief to good minds, to see a man of superior sense forced to
+hide his light under the bushel of an inferior coat.--Well, from what
+little I heard, I said to myself, Here now is one with the unprofitable
+philosophy of disesteem for man. Which disease, in the main, I have
+observed--excuse me--to spring from a certain lowness, if not sourness,
+of spirits inseparable from sequestration. Trust me, one had better mix
+in, and do like others. Sad business, this holding out against having a
+good time. Life is a pic-nic _en costume_; one must take a part, assume
+a character, stand ready in a sensible way to play the fool. To come in
+plain clothes, with a long face, as a wiseacre, only makes one a
+discomfort to himself, and a blot upon the scene. Like your jug of cold
+water among the wine-flasks, it leaves you unelated among the elated
+ones. No, no. This austerity won't do. Let me tell you too--_en
+confiance_--that while revelry may not always merge into ebriety,
+soberness, in too deep potations, may become a sort of sottishness.
+Which sober sottishness, in my way of thinking, is only to be cured by
+beginning at the other end of the horn, to tipple a little."
+
+"Pray, what society of vintners and old topers are you hired to lecture
+for?"
+
+"I fear I did not give my meaning clearly. A little story may help. The
+story of the worthy old woman of Goshen, a very moral old woman, who
+wouldn't let her shoats eat fattening apples in fall, for fear the fruit
+might ferment upon their brains, and so make them swinish. Now, during a
+green Christmas, inauspicious to the old, this worthy old woman fell
+into a moping decline, took to her bed, no appetite, and refused to see
+her best friends. In much concern her good man sent for the doctor, who,
+after seeing the patient and putting a question or two, beckoned the
+husband out, and said: 'Deacon, do you want her cured?' 'Indeed I do.'
+'Go directly, then, and buy a jug of Santa Cruz.' 'Santa Cruz? my wife
+drink Santa Cruz?' 'Either that or die.' 'But how much?' 'As much as she
+can get down.' 'But she'll get drunk!' 'That's the cure.' Wise men, like
+doctors, must be obeyed. Much against the grain, the sober deacon got
+the unsober medicine, and, equally against her conscience, the poor old
+woman took it; but, by so doing, ere long recovered health and spirits,
+famous appetite, and glad again to see her friends; and having by this
+experience broken the ice of arid abstinence, never afterwards kept
+herself a cup too low."
+
+This story had the effect of surprising the bachelor into interest,
+though hardly into approval.
+
+"If I take your parable right," said he, sinking no little of his former
+churlishness, "the meaning is, that one cannot enjoy life with gusto
+unless he renounce the too-sober view of life. But since the too-sober
+view is, doubtless, nearer true than the too-drunken; I, who rate truth,
+though cold water, above untruth, though Tokay, will stick to my earthen
+jug."
+
+"I see," slowly spirting upward a spiral staircase of lazy smoke, "I
+see; you go in for the lofty."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Oh, nothing! but if I wasn't afraid of prosing, I might tell another
+story about an old boot in a pieman's loft, contracting there between
+sun and oven an unseemly, dry-seasoned curl and warp. You've seen such
+leathery old garretteers, haven't you? Very high, sober, solitary,
+philosophic, grand, old boots, indeed; but I, for my part, would rather
+be the pieman's trodden slipper on the ground. Talking of piemen,
+humble-pie before proud-cake for me. This notion of being lone and lofty
+is a sad mistake. Men I hold in this respect to be like roosters; the
+one that betakes himself to a lone and lofty perch is the hen-pecked
+one, or the one that has the pip."
+
+"You are abusive!" cried the bachelor, evidently touched.
+
+"Who is abused? You, or the race? You won't stand by and see the human
+race abused? Oh, then, you have some respect for the human race."
+
+"I have some respect for _myself_" with a lip not so firm as before.
+
+"And what race may _you_ belong to? now don't you see, my dear fellow,
+in what inconsistencies one involves himself by affecting disesteem for
+men. To a charm, my little stratagem succeeded. Come, come, think better
+of it, and, as a first step to a new mind, give up solitude. I fear, by
+the way, you have at some time been reading Zimmermann, that old Mr.
+Megrims of a Zimmermann, whose book on Solitude is as vain as Hume's on
+Suicide, as Bacon's on Knowledge; and, like these, will betray him who
+seeks to steer soul and body by it, like a false religion. All they, be
+they what boasted ones you please, who, to the yearning of our kind
+after a founded rule of content, offer aught not in the spirit of
+fellowly gladness based on due confidence in what is above, away with
+them for poor dupes, or still poorer impostors."
+
+His manner here was so earnest that scarcely any auditor, perhaps, but
+would have been more or less impressed by it, while, possibly, nervous
+opponents might have a little quailed under it. Thinking within himself
+a moment, the bachelor replied: "Had you experience, you would know that
+your tippling theory, take it in what sense you will, is poor as any
+other. And Rabelais's pro-wine Koran no more trustworthy than Mahomet's
+anti-wine one."
+
+"Enough," for a finality knocking the ashes from his pipe, "we talk and
+keep talking, and still stand where we did. What do you say for a walk?
+My arm, and let's a turn. They are to have dancing on the hurricane-deck
+to-night. I shall fling them off a Scotch jig, while, to save the
+pieces, you hold my loose change; and following that, I propose that
+you, my dear fellow, stack your gun, and throw your bearskins in a
+sailor's hornpipe--I holding your watch. What do you say?"
+
+At this proposition the other was himself again, all raccoon.
+
+"Look you," thumping down his rifle, "are you Jeremy Diddler No. 3?"
+
+"Jeremy Diddler? I have heard of Jeremy the prophet, and Jeremy Taylor
+the divine, but your other Jeremy is a gentleman I am unacquainted
+with."
+
+"You are his confidential clerk, ain't you?"
+
+"_Whose_, pray? Not that I think myself unworthy of being confided in,
+but I don't understand."
+
+"You are another of them. Somehow I meet with the most extraordinary
+metaphysical scamps to-day. Sort of visitation of them. And yet that
+herb-doctor Diddler somehow takes off the raw edge of the Diddlers that
+come after him."
+
+"Herb-doctor? who is he?"
+
+"Like you--another of them."
+
+"_Who?_" Then drawing near, as if for a good long explanatory chat, his
+left hand spread, and his pipe-stem coming crosswise down upon it like a
+ferule, "You think amiss of me. Now to undeceive you, I will just enter
+into a little argument and----"
+
+"No you don't. No more little arguments for me. Had too many little
+arguments to-day."
+
+"But put a case. Can you deny--I dare you to deny--that the man leading
+a solitary life is peculiarly exposed to the sorriest misconceptions
+touching strangers?"
+
+"Yes, I _do_ deny it," again, in his impulsiveness, snapping at the
+controversial bait, "and I will confute you there in a trice. Look,
+you----"
+
+"Now, now, now, my dear fellow," thrusting out both vertical palms for
+double shields, "you crowd me too hard. You don't give one a chance. Say
+what you will, to shun a social proposition like mine, to shun society
+in any way, evinces a churlish nature--cold, loveless; as, to embrace
+it, shows one warm and friendly, in fact, sunshiny."
+
+Here the other, all agog again, in his perverse way, launched forth into
+the unkindest references to deaf old worldlings keeping in the deafening
+world; and gouty gluttons limping to their gouty gormandizings; and
+corseted coquets clasping their corseted cavaliers in the waltz, all for
+disinterested society's sake; and thousands, bankrupt through
+lavishness, ruining themselves out of pure love of the sweet company of
+man--no envies, rivalries, or other unhandsome motive to it.
+
+"Ah, now," deprecating with his pipe, "irony is so unjust: never could
+abide irony: something Satanic about irony. God defend me from Irony,
+and Satire, his bosom friend."
+
+"A right knave's prayer, and a right fool's, too," snapping his
+rifle-lock.
+
+"Now be frank. Own that was a little gratuitous. But, no, no, you didn't
+mean it; any way, I can make allowances. Ah, did you but know it, how
+much pleasanter to puff at this philanthropic pipe, than still to keep
+fumbling at that misanthropic rifle. As for your worldling, glutton,
+and coquette, though, doubtless, being such, they may have their little
+foibles--as who has not?--yet not one of the three can be reproached
+with that awful sin of shunning society; awful I call it, for not seldom
+it presupposes a still darker thing than itself--remorse."
+
+"Remorse drives man away from man? How came your fellow-creature, Cain,
+after the first murder, to go and build the first city? And why is it
+that the modern Cain dreads nothing so much as solitary confinement?
+
+"My dear fellow, you get excited. Say what you will, I for one must have
+my fellow-creatures round me. Thick, too--I must have them thick."
+
+"The pick-pocket, too, loves to have his fellow-creatures round him.
+Tut, man! no one goes into the crowd but for his end; and the end of too
+many is the same as the pick-pocket's--a purse."
+
+"Now, my dear fellow, how can you have the conscience to say that, when
+it is as much according to natural law that men are social as sheep
+gregarious. But grant that, in being social, each man has his end, do
+you, upon the strength of that, do you yourself, I say, mix with man,
+now, immediately, and be your end a more genial philosophy. Come, let's
+take a turn."
+
+Again he offered his fraternal arm; but the bachelor once more flung it
+off, and, raising his rifle in energetic invocation, cried: "Now the
+high-constable catch and confound all knaves in towns and rats in
+grain-bins, and if in this boat, which is a human grain-bin for the
+time, any sly, smooth, philandering rat be dodging now, pin him, thou
+high rat-catcher, against this rail."
+
+"A noble burst! shows you at heart a trump. And when a card's that,
+little matters it whether it be spade or diamond. You are good wine
+that, to be still better, only needs a shaking up. Come, let's agree
+that we'll to New Orleans, and there embark for London--I staying with
+my friends nigh Primrose-hill, and you putting up at the Piazza, Covent
+Garden--Piazza, Covent Garden; for tell me--since you will not be a
+disciple to the full--tell me, was not that humor, of Diogenes, which
+led him to live, a merry-andrew, in the flower-market, better than that
+of the less wise Athenian, which made him a skulking scare-crow in
+pine-barrens? An injudicious gentleman, Lord Timon."
+
+"Your hand!" seizing it.
+
+"Bless me, how cordial a squeeze. It is agreed we shall be brothers,
+then?"
+
+"As much so as a brace of misanthropes can be," with another and
+terrific squeeze. "I had thought that the moderns had degenerated
+beneath the capacity of misanthropy. Rejoiced, though but in one
+instance, and that disguised, to be undeceived."
+
+The other stared in blank amaze.
+
+"Won't do. You are Diogenes, Diogenes in disguise. I say--Diogenes
+masquerading as a cosmopolitan."
+
+With ruefully altered mien, the stranger still stood mute awhile. At
+length, in a pained tone, spoke: "How hard the lot of that pleader who,
+in his zeal conceding too much, is taken to belong to a side which he
+but labors, however ineffectually, to convert!" Then with another change
+of air: "To you, an Ishmael, disguising in sportiveness my intent, I
+came ambassador from the human race, charged with the assurance that for
+your mislike they bore no answering grudge, but sought to conciliate
+accord between you and them. Yet you take me not for the honest envoy,
+but I know not what sort of unheard-of spy. Sir," he less lowly added,
+"this mistaking of your man should teach you how you may mistake all
+men. For God's sake," laying both hands upon him, "get you confidence.
+See how distrust has duped you. I, Diogenes? I he who, going a step
+beyond misanthropy, was less a man-hater than a man-hooter? Better were
+I stark and stiff!"
+
+With which the philanthropist moved away less lightsome than he had
+come, leaving the discomfited misanthrope to the solitude he held so
+sapient.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE COSMOPOLITAN MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE.
+
+
+In the act of retiring, the cosmopolitan was met by a passenger, who
+with the bluff _abord_ of the West, thus addressed him, though a
+stranger.
+
+"Queer 'coon, your friend. Had a little skrimmage with him myself.
+Rather entertaining old 'coon, if he wasn't so deuced analytical.
+Reminded me somehow of what I've heard about Colonel John Moredock, of
+Illinois, only your friend ain't quite so good a fellow at bottom, I
+should think."
+
+It was in the semicircular porch of a cabin, opening a recess from the
+deck, lit by a zoned lamp swung overhead, and sending its light
+vertically down, like the sun at noon. Beneath the lamp stood the
+speaker, affording to any one disposed to it no unfavorable chance for
+scrutiny; but the glance now resting on him betrayed no such rudeness.
+
+A man neither tall nor stout, neither short nor gaunt; but with a body
+fitted, as by measure, to the service of his mind. For the rest, one
+less favored perhaps in his features than his clothes; and of these the
+beauty may have been less in the fit than the cut; to say nothing of
+the fineness of the nap, seeming out of keeping with something the
+reverse of fine in the skin; and the unsuitableness of a violet vest,
+sending up sunset hues to a countenance betokening a kind of bilious
+habit.
+
+But, upon the whole, it could not be fairly said that his appearance was
+unprepossessing; indeed, to the congenial, it would have been doubtless
+not uncongenial; while to others, it could not fail to be at least
+curiously interesting, from the warm air of florid cordiality,
+contrasting itself with one knows not what kind of aguish sallowness of
+saving discretion lurking behind it. Ungracious critics might have
+thought that the manner flushed the man, something in the same
+fictitious way that the vest flushed the cheek. And though his teeth
+were singularly good, those same ungracious ones might have hinted that
+they were too good to be true; or rather, were not so good as they might
+be; since the best false teeth are those made with at least two or three
+blemishes, the more to look like life. But fortunately for better
+constructions, no such critics had the stranger now in eye; only the
+cosmopolitan, who, after, in the first place, acknowledging his advances
+with a mute salute--in which acknowledgment, if there seemed less of
+spirit than in his way of accosting the Missourian, it was probably
+because of the saddening sequel of that late interview--thus now
+replied: "Colonel John Moredock," repeating the words abstractedly;
+"that surname recalls reminiscences. Pray," with enlivened air, "was he
+anyway connected with the Moredocks of Moredock Hall, Northamptonshire,
+England?"
+
+"I know no more of the Moredocks of Moredock Hall than of the Burdocks
+of Burdock Hut," returned the other, with the air somehow of one whose
+fortunes had been of his own making; "all I know is, that the late
+Colonel John Moredock was a famous one in his time; eye like Lochiel's;
+finger like a trigger; nerve like a catamount's; and with but two little
+oddities--seldom stirred without his rifle, and hated Indians like
+snakes."
+
+"Your Moredock, then, would seem a Moredock of Misanthrope Hall--the
+Woods. No very sleek creature, the colonel, I fancy."
+
+"Sleek or not, he was no uncombed one, but silky bearded and curly
+headed, and to all but Indians juicy as a peach. But Indians--how the
+late Colonel John Moredock, Indian-hater of Illinois, did hate Indians,
+to be sure!"
+
+"Never heard of such a thing. Hate Indians? Why should he or anybody
+else hate Indians? _I_ admire Indians. Indians I have always heard to be
+one of the finest of the primitive races, possessed of many heroic
+virtues. Some noble women, too. When I think of Pocahontas, I am ready
+to love Indians. Then there's Massasoit, and Philip of Mount Hope, and
+Tecumseh, and Red-Jacket, and Logan--all heroes; and there's the Five
+Nations, and Araucanians--federations and communities of heroes. God
+bless me; hate Indians? Surely the late Colonel John Moredock must have
+wandered in his mind."
+
+"Wandered in the woods considerably, but never wandered elsewhere, that
+I ever heard."
+
+"Are you in earnest? Was there ever one who so made it his particular
+mission to hate Indians that, to designate him, a special word has been
+coined--Indian-hater?"
+
+"Even so."
+
+"Dear me, you take it very calmly.--But really, I would like to know
+something about this Indian-hating, I can hardly believe such a thing to
+be. Could you favor me with a little history of the extraordinary man
+you mentioned?"
+
+"With all my heart," and immediately stepping from the porch, gestured
+the cosmopolitan to a settee near by, on deck. "There, sir, sit you
+there, and I will sit here beside you--you desire to hear of Colonel
+John Moredock. Well, a day in my boyhood is marked with a white
+stone--the day I saw the colonel's rifle, powder-horn attached, hanging
+in a cabin on the West bank of the Wabash river. I was going westward a
+long journey through the wilderness with my father. It was nigh noon,
+and we had stopped at the cabin to unsaddle and bait. The man at the
+cabin pointed out the rifle, and told whose it was, adding that the
+colonel was that moment sleeping on wolf-skins in the corn-loft above,
+so we must not talk very loud, for the colonel had been out all night
+hunting (Indians, mind), and it would be cruel to disturb his sleep.
+Curious to see one so famous, we waited two hours over, in hopes he
+would come forth; but he did not. So, it being necessary to get to the
+next cabin before nightfall, we had at last to ride off without the
+wished-for satisfaction. Though, to tell the truth, I, for one, did not
+go away entirely ungratified, for, while my father was watering the
+horses, I slipped back into the cabin, and stepping a round or two up
+the ladder, pushed my head through the trap, and peered about. Not much
+light in the loft; but off, in the further corner, I saw what I took to
+be the wolf-skins, and on them a bundle of something, like a drift of
+leaves; and at one end, what seemed a moss-ball; and over it,
+deer-antlers branched; and close by, a small squirrel sprang out from a
+maple-bowl of nuts, brushed the moss-ball with his tail, through a hole,
+and vanished, squeaking. That bit of woodland scene was all I saw. No
+Colonel Moredock there, unless that moss-ball was his curly head, seen
+in the back view. I would have gone clear up, but the man below had
+warned me, that though, from his camping habits, the colonel could sleep
+through thunder, he was for the same cause amazing quick to waken at the
+sound of footsteps, however soft, and especially if human."
+
+"Excuse me," said the other, softly laying his hand on the narrator's
+wrist, "but I fear the colonel was of a distrustful nature--little or no
+confidence. He _was_ a little suspicious-minded, wasn't he?"
+
+"Not a bit. Knew too much. Suspected nobody, but was not ignorant of
+Indians. Well: though, as you may gather, I never fully saw the man,
+yet, have I, one way and another, heard about as much of him as any
+other; in particular, have I heard his history again and again from my
+father's friend, James Hall, the judge, you know. In every company being
+called upon to give this history, which none could better do, the judge
+at last fell into a style so methodic, you would have thought he spoke
+less to mere auditors than to an invisible amanuensis; seemed talking
+for the press; very impressive way with him indeed. And I, having an
+equally impressible memory, think that, upon a pinch, I can render you
+the judge upon the colonel almost word for word."
+
+"Do so, by all means," said the cosmopolitan, well pleased.
+
+"Shall I give you the judge's philosophy, and all?"
+
+"As to that," rejoined the other gravely, pausing over the pipe-bowl he
+was filling, "the desirableness, to a man of a certain mind, of having
+another man's philosophy given, depends considerably upon what school of
+philosophy that other man belongs to. Of what school or system was the
+judge, pray?"
+
+"Why, though he knew how to read and write, the judge never had much
+schooling. But, I should say he belonged, if anything, to the
+free-school system. Yes, a true patriot, the judge went in strong for
+free-schools."
+
+"In philosophy? The man of a certain mind, then, while respecting the
+judge's patriotism, and not blind to the judge's capacity for narrative,
+such as he may prove to have, might, perhaps, with prudence, waive an
+opinion of the judge's probable philosophy. But I am no rigorist;
+proceed, I beg; his philosophy or not, as you please."
+
+"Well, I would mostly skip that part, only, to begin, some
+reconnoitering of the ground in a philosophical way the judge always
+deemed indispensable with strangers. For you must know that
+Indian-hating was no monopoly of Colonel Moredock's; but a passion, in
+one form or other, and to a degree, greater or less, largely shared
+among the class to which he belonged. And Indian-hating still exists;
+and, no doubt, will continue to exist, so long as Indians do.
+Indian-hating, then, shall be my first theme, and Colonel Moredock, the
+Indian-hater, my next and last."
+
+With which the stranger, settling himself in his seat, commenced--the
+hearer paying marked regard, slowly smoking, his glance, meanwhile,
+steadfastly abstracted towards the deck, but his right ear so disposed
+towards the speaker that each word came through as little atmospheric
+intervention as possible. To intensify the sense of hearing, he seemed
+to sink the sense of sight. No complaisance of mere speech could have
+been so flattering, or expressed such striking politeness as this mute
+eloquence of thoroughly digesting attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+CONTAINING THE METAPHYSICS OF INDIAN-HATING, ACCORDING TO THE VIEWS OF
+ONE EVIDENTLY NOT SO PREPOSSESSED AS ROUSSEAU IN FAVOR OF SAVAGES.
+
+
+"The judge always began in these words: 'The backwoodsman's hatred of
+the Indian has been a topic for some remark. In the earlier times of the
+frontier the passion was thought to be readily accounted for. But Indian
+rapine having mostly ceased through regions where it once prevailed, the
+philanthropist is surprised that Indian-hating has not in like degree
+ceased with it. He wonders why the backwoodsman still regards the red
+man in much the same spirit that a jury does a murderer, or a trapper a
+wild cat--a creature, in whose behalf mercy were not wisdom; truce is
+vain; he must be executed.
+
+"'A curious point,' the judge would continue, 'which perhaps not
+everybody, even upon explanation, may fully understand; while, in order
+for any one to approach to an understanding, it is necessary for him to
+learn, or if he already know, to bear in mind, what manner of man the
+backwoodsman is; as for what manner of man the Indian is, many know,
+either from history or experience.
+
+"'The backwoodsman is a lonely man. He is a thoughtful man. He is a man
+strong and unsophisticated. Impulsive, he is what some might call
+unprincipled. At any rate, he is self-willed; being one who less
+hearkens to what others may say about things, than looks for himself, to
+see what are things themselves. If in straits, there are few to help; he
+must depend upon himself; he must continually look to himself. Hence
+self-reliance, to the degree of standing by his own judgment, though it
+stand alone. Not that he deems himself infallible; too many mistakes in
+following trails prove the contrary; but he thinks that nature destines
+such sagacity as she has given him, as she destines it to the 'possum.
+To these fellow-beings of the wilds their untutored sagacity is their
+best dependence. If with either it prove faulty, if the 'possum's betray
+it to the trap, or the backwoodsman's mislead him into ambuscade, there
+are consequences to be undergone, but no self-blame. As with the
+'possum, instincts prevail with the backwoodsman over precepts. Like the
+'possum, the backwoodsman presents the spectacle of a creature dwelling
+exclusively among the works of God, yet these, truth must confess, breed
+little in him of a godly mind. Small bowing and scraping is his, further
+than when with bent knee he points his rifle, or picks its flint. With
+few companions, solitude by necessity his lengthened lot, he stands the
+trial--no slight one, since, next to dying, solitude, rightly borne, is
+perhaps of fortitude the most rigorous test. But not merely is the
+backwoodsman content to be alone, but in no few cases is anxious to be
+so. The sight of smoke ten miles off is provocation to one more remove
+from man, one step deeper into nature. Is it that he feels that whatever
+man may be, man is not the universe? that glory, beauty, kindness, are
+not all engrossed by him? that as the presence of man frights birds
+away, so, many bird-like thoughts? Be that how it will, the backwoodsman
+is not without some fineness to his nature. Hairy Orson as he looks, it
+may be with him as with the Shetland seal--beneath the bristles lurks
+the fur.
+
+"'Though held in a sort a barbarian, the backwoodsman would seem to
+America what Alexander was to Asia--captain in the vanguard of
+conquering civilization. Whatever the nation's growing opulence or
+power, does it not lackey his heels? Pathfinder, provider of security to
+those who come after him, for himself he asks nothing but hardship.
+Worthy to be compared with Moses in the Exodus, or the Emperor Julian in
+Gaul, who on foot, and bare-browed, at the head of covered or mounted
+legions, marched so through the elements, day after day. The tide of
+emigration, let it roll as it will, never overwhelms the backwoodsman
+into itself; he rides upon advance, as the Polynesian upon the comb of
+the surf.
+
+"'Thus, though he keep moving on through life, he maintains with respect
+to nature much the same unaltered relation throughout; with her
+creatures, too, including panthers and Indians. Hence, it is not
+unlikely that, accurate as the theory of the Peace Congress may be with
+respect to those two varieties of beings, among others, yet the
+backwoodsman might be qualified to throw out some practical suggestions.
+
+"'As the child born to a backwoodsman must in turn lead his father's
+life--a life which, as related to humanity, is related mainly to
+Indians--it is thought best not to mince matters, out of delicacy; but
+to tell the boy pretty plainly what an Indian is, and what he must
+expect from him. For however charitable it may be to view Indians as
+members of the Society of Friends, yet to affirm them such to one
+ignorant of Indians, whose lonely path lies a long way through their
+lands, this, in the event, might prove not only injudicious but cruel.
+At least something of this kind would seem the maxim upon which
+backwoods' education is based. Accordingly, if in youth the backwoodsman
+incline to knowledge, as is generally the case, he hears little from his
+schoolmasters, the old chroniclers of the forest, but histories of
+Indian lying, Indian theft, Indian double-dealing, Indian fraud and
+perfidy, Indian want of conscience, Indian blood-thirstiness, Indian
+diabolism--histories which, though of wild woods, are almost as full of
+things unangelic as the Newgate Calendar or the Annals of Europe. In
+these Indian narratives and traditions the lad is thoroughly grounded.
+"As the twig is bent the tree's inclined." The instinct of antipathy
+against an Indian grows in the backwoodsman with the sense of good and
+bad, right and wrong. In one breath he learns that a brother is to be
+loved, and an Indian to be hated.
+
+"'Such are the facts,' the judge would say, 'upon which, if one seek to
+moralize, he must do so with an eye to them. It is terrible that one
+creature should so regard another, should make it conscience to abhor an
+entire race. It is terrible; but is it surprising? Surprising, that one
+should hate a race which he believes to be red from a cause akin to that
+which makes some tribes of garden insects green? A race whose name is
+upon the frontier a _memento mori_; painted to him in every evil light;
+now a horse-thief like those in Moyamensing; now an assassin like a New
+York rowdy; now a treaty-breaker like an Austrian; now a Palmer with
+poisoned arrows; now a judicial murderer and Jeffries, after a fierce
+farce of trial condemning his victim to bloody death; or a Jew with
+hospitable speeches cozening some fainting stranger into ambuscade,
+there to burk him, and account it a deed grateful to Manitou, his god.
+
+"'Still, all this is less advanced as truths of the Indians than as
+examples of the backwoodsman's impression of them--in which the
+charitable may think he does them some injustice. Certain it is, the
+Indians themselves think so; quite unanimously, too. The Indians, in
+deed, protest against the backwoodsman's view of them; and some think
+that one cause of their returning his antipathy so sincerely as they do,
+is their moral indignation at being so libeled by him, as they really
+believe and say. But whether, on this or any point, the Indians should
+be permitted to testify for themselves, to the exclusion of other
+testimony, is a question that may be left to the Supreme Court. At any
+rate, it has been observed that when an Indian becomes a genuine
+proselyte to Christianity (such cases, however, not being very many;
+though, indeed, entire tribes are sometimes nominally brought to the
+true light,) he will not in that case conceal his enlightened
+conviction, that his race's portion by nature is total depravity; and,
+in that way, as much as admits that the backwoodsman's worst idea of it
+is not very far from true; while, on the other hand, those red men who
+are the greatest sticklers for the theory of Indian virtue, and Indian
+loving-kindness, are sometimes the arrantest horse-thieves and
+tomahawkers among them. So, at least, avers the backwoodsman. And
+though, knowing the Indian nature, as he thinks he does, he fancies he
+is not ignorant that an Indian may in some points deceive himself almost
+as effectually as in bush-tactics he can another, yet his theory and his
+practice as above contrasted seem to involve an inconsistency so
+extreme, that the backwoodsman only accounts for it on the supposition
+that when a tomahawking red-man advances the notion of the benignity of
+the red race, it is but part and parcel with that subtle strategy which
+he finds so useful in war, in hunting, and the general conduct of life.'
+
+"In further explanation of that deep abhorrence with which the
+backwoodsman regards the savage, the judge used to think it might
+perhaps a little help, to consider what kind of stimulus to it is
+furnished in those forest histories and traditions before spoken of. In
+which behalf, he would tell the story of the little colony of Wrights
+and Weavers, originally seven cousins from Virginia, who, after
+successive removals with their families, at last established themselves
+near the southern frontier of the Bloody Ground, Kentucky: 'They were
+strong, brave men; but, unlike many of the pioneers in those days,
+theirs was no love of conflict for conflict's sake. Step by step they
+had been lured to their lonely resting-place by the ever-beckoning
+seductions of a fertile and virgin land, with a singular exemption,
+during the march, from Indian molestation. But clearings made and houses
+built, the bright shield was soon to turn its other side. After repeated
+persecutions and eventual hostilities, forced on them by a dwindled
+tribe in their neighborhood--persecutions resulting in loss of crops and
+cattle; hostilities in which they lost two of their number, illy to be
+spared, besides others getting painful wounds--the five remaining
+cousins made, with some serious concessions, a kind of treaty with
+Mocmohoc, the chief--being to this induced by the harryings of the
+enemy, leaving them no peace. But they were further prompted, indeed,
+first incited, by the suddenly changed ways of Mocmohoc, who, though
+hitherto deemed a savage almost perfidious as Caesar Borgia, yet now put
+on a seeming the reverse of this, engaging to bury the hatchet, smoke
+the pipe, and be friends forever; not friends in the mere sense of
+renouncing enmity, but in the sense of kindliness, active and familiar.
+
+"'But what the chief now seemed, did not wholly blind them to what the
+chief had been; so that, though in no small degree influenced by his
+change of bearing, they still distrusted him enough to covenant with
+him, among other articles on their side, that though friendly visits
+should be exchanged between the wigwams and the cabins, yet the five
+cousins should never, on any account, be expected to enter the chief's
+lodge together. The intention was, though they reserved it, that if
+ever, under the guise of amity, the chief should mean them mischief, and
+effect it, it should be but partially; so that some of the five might
+survive, not only for their families' sake, but also for retribution's.
+Nevertheless, Mocmohoc did, upon a time, with such fine art and pleasing
+carriage win their confidence, that he brought them all together to a
+feast of bear's meat, and there, by stratagem, ended them. Years after,
+over their calcined bones and those of all their families, the chief,
+reproached for his treachery by a proud hunter whom he had made captive,
+jeered out, "Treachery? pale face! 'Twas they who broke their covenant
+first, in coming all together; they that broke it first, in trusting
+Mocmohoc."'
+
+"At this point the judge would pause, and lifting his hand, and rolling
+his eyes, exclaim in a solemn enough voice, 'Circling wiles and bloody
+lusts. The acuteness and genius of the chief but make him the more
+atrocious.'
+
+"After another pause, he would begin an imaginary kind of dialogue
+between a backwoodsman and a questioner:
+
+"'But are all Indians like Mocmohoc?--Not all have proved such; but in
+the least harmful may lie his germ. There is an Indian nature. "Indian
+blood is in me," is the half-breed's threat.--But are not some Indians
+kind?--Yes, but kind Indians are mostly lazy, and reputed simple--at
+all events, are seldom chiefs; chiefs among the red men being taken from
+the active, and those accounted wise. Hence, with small promotion, kind
+Indians have but proportionate influence. And kind Indians may be forced
+to do unkind biddings. So "beware the Indian, kind or unkind," said
+Daniel Boone, who lost his sons by them.--But, have all you backwoodsmen
+been some way victimized by Indians?--No.--Well, and in certain cases
+may not at least some few of you be favored by them?--Yes, but scarce
+one among us so self-important, or so selfish-minded, as to hold his
+personal exemption from Indian outrage such a set-off against the
+contrary experience of so many others, as that he must needs, in a
+general way, think well of Indians; or, if he do, an arrow in his flank
+might suggest a pertinent doubt.
+
+"'In short,' according to the judge, 'if we at all credit the
+backwoodsman, his feeling against Indians, to be taken aright, must be
+considered as being not so much on his own account as on others', or
+jointly on both accounts. True it is, scarce a family he knows but some
+member of it, or connection, has been by Indians maimed or scalped. What
+avails, then, that some one Indian, or some two or three, treat a
+backwoodsman friendly-like? He fears me, he thinks. Take my rifle from
+me, give him motive, and what will come? Or if not so, how know I what
+involuntary preparations may be going on in him for things as unbeknown
+in present time to him as me--a sort of chemical preparation in the
+soul for malice, as chemical preparation in the body for malady.'
+
+"Not that the backwoodsman ever used those words, you see, but the judge
+found him expression for his meaning. And this point he would conclude
+with saying, that, 'what is called a "friendly Indian" is a very rare
+sort of creature; and well it was so, for no ruthlessness exceeds that
+of a "friendly Indian" turned enemy. A coward friend, he makes a valiant
+foe.
+
+"'But, thus far the passion in question has been viewed in a general way
+as that of a community. When to his due share of this the backwoodsman
+adds his private passion, we have then the stock out of which is formed,
+if formed at all, the Indian-hater _par excellence_.'
+
+"The Indian-hater _par excellence_ the judge defined to be one 'who,
+having with his mother's milk drank in small love for red men, in youth
+or early manhood, ere the sensibilities become osseous, receives at
+their hand some signal outrage, or, which in effect is much the same,
+some of his kin have, or some friend. Now, nature all around him by her
+solitudes wooing or bidding him muse upon this matter, he accordingly
+does so, till the thought develops such attraction, that much as
+straggling vapors troop from all sides to a storm-cloud, so straggling
+thoughts of other outrages troop to the nucleus thought, assimilate with
+it, and swell it. At last, taking counsel with the elements, he comes to
+his resolution. An intenser Hannibal, he makes a vow, the hate of which
+is a vortex from whose suction scarce the remotest chip of the guilty
+race may reasonably feel secure. Next, he declares himself and settles
+his temporal affairs. With the solemnity of a Spaniard turned monk, he
+takes leave of his kin; or rather, these leave-takings have something of
+the still more impressive finality of death-bed adieus. Last, he commits
+himself to the forest primeval; there, so long as life shall be his, to
+act upon a calm, cloistered scheme of strategical, implacable, and
+lonesome vengeance. Ever on the noiseless trail; cool, collected,
+patient; less seen than felt; snuffing, smelling--a Leather-stocking
+Nemesis. In the settlements he will not be seen again; in eyes of old
+companions tears may start at some chance thing that speaks of him; but
+they never look for him, nor call; they know he will not come. Suns and
+seasons fleet; the tiger-lily blows and falls; babes are born and leap
+in their mothers' arms; but, the Indian-hater is good as gone to his
+long home, and "Terror" is his epitaph.'
+
+"Here the judge, not unaffected, would pause again, but presently
+resume: 'How evident that in strict speech there can be no biography of
+an Indian-hater _par excellence_, any more than one of a sword-fish, or
+other deep-sea denizen; or, which is still less imaginable, one of a
+dead man. The career of the Indian-hater _par excellence_ has the
+impenetrability of the fate of a lost steamer. Doubtless, events,
+terrible ones, have happened, must have happened; but the powers that be
+in nature have taken order that they shall never become news.
+
+"'But, luckily for the curious, there is a species of diluted
+Indian-hater, one whose heart proves not so steely as his brain. Soft
+enticements of domestic life too, often draw him from the ascetic trail;
+a monk who apostatizes to the world at times. Like a mariner, too,
+though much abroad, he may have a wife and family in some green harbor
+which he does not forget. It is with him as with the Papist converts in
+Senegal; fasting and mortification prove hard to bear.'
+
+"The judge, with his usual judgment, always thought that the intense
+solitude to which the Indian-hater consigns himself, has, by its
+overawing influence, no little to do with relaxing his vow. He would
+relate instances where, after some months' lonely scoutings, the
+Indian-hater is suddenly seized with a sort of calenture; hurries openly
+towards the first smoke, though he knows it is an Indian's, announces
+himself as a lost hunter, gives the savage his rifle, throws himself
+upon his charity, embraces him with much affection, imploring the
+privilege of living a while in his sweet companionship. What is too
+often the sequel of so distempered a procedure may be best known by
+those who best know the Indian. Upon the whole, the judge, by two and
+thirty good and sufficient reasons, would maintain that there was no
+known vocation whose consistent following calls for such
+self-containings as that of the Indian-hater _par excellence_. In the
+highest view, he considered such a soul one peeping out but once an age.
+
+"For the diluted Indian-hater, although the vacations he permits himself
+impair the keeping of the character, yet, it should not be overlooked
+that this is the man who, by his very infirmity, enables us to form
+surmises, however inadequate, of what Indian-hating in its perfection
+is."
+
+"One moment," gently interrupted the cosmopolitan here, "and let me
+refill my calumet."
+
+Which being done, the other proceeded:--
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+SOME ACCOUNT OF A MAN OF QUESTIONABLE MORALITY, BUT WHO, NEVERTHELESS,
+WOULD SEEM ENTITLED TO THE ESTEEM OF THAT EMINENT ENGLISH MORALIST WHO
+SAID HE LIKED A GOOD HATER.
+
+
+"Coming to mention the man to whose story all thus far said was but the
+introduction, the judge, who, like you, was a great smoker, would insist
+upon all the company taking cigars, and then lighting a fresh one
+himself, rise in his place, and, with the solemnest voice,
+say--'Gentlemen, let us smoke to the memory of Colonel John Moredock;'
+when, after several whiffs taken standing in deep silence and deeper
+reverie, he would resume his seat and his discourse, something in these
+words:
+
+"'Though Colonel John Moredock was not an Indian-hater _par excellence_,
+he yet cherished a kind of sentiment towards the red man, and in that
+degree, and so acted out his sentiment as sufficiently to merit the
+tribute just rendered to his memory.
+
+"'John Moredock was the son of a woman married thrice, and thrice
+widowed by a tomahawk. The three successive husbands of this woman had
+been pioneers, and with them she had wandered from wilderness to
+wilderness, always on the frontier. With nine children, she at last
+found herself at a little clearing, afterwards Vincennes. There she
+joined a company about to remove to the new country of Illinois. On the
+eastern side of Illinois there were then no settlements; but on the west
+side, the shore of the Mississippi, there were, near the mouth of the
+Kaskaskia, some old hamlets of French. To the vicinity of those hamlets,
+very innocent and pleasant places, a new Arcadia, Mrs. Moredock's party
+was destined; for thereabouts, among the vines, they meant to settle.
+They embarked upon the Wabash in boats, proposing descending that stream
+into the Ohio, and the Ohio into the Mississippi, and so, northwards,
+towards the point to be reached. All went well till they made the rock
+of the Grand Tower on the Mississippi, where they had to land and drag
+their boats round a point swept by a strong current. Here a party of
+Indians, lying in wait, rushed out and murdered nearly all of them. The
+widow was among the victims with her children, John excepted, who, some
+fifty miles distant, was following with a second party.
+
+"He was just entering upon manhood, when thus left in nature sole
+survivor of his race. Other youngsters might have turned mourners; he
+turned avenger. His nerves were electric wires--sensitive, but steel. He
+was one who, from self-possession, could be made neither to flush nor
+pale. It is said that when the tidings were brought him, he was ashore
+sitting beneath a hemlock eating his dinner of venison--and as the
+tidings were told him, after the first start he kept on eating, but
+slowly and deliberately, chewing the wild news with the wild meat, as
+if both together, turned to chyle, together should sinew him to his
+intent. From that meal he rose an Indian-hater. He rose; got his arms,
+prevailed upon some comrades to join him, and without delay started to
+discover who were the actual transgressors. They proved to belong to a
+band of twenty renegades from various tribes, outlaws even among
+Indians, and who had formed themselves into a maurauding crew. No
+opportunity for action being at the time presented, he dismissed his
+friends; told them to go on, thanking them, and saying he would ask
+their aid at some future day. For upwards of a year, alone in the wilds,
+he watched the crew. Once, what he thought a favorable chance having
+occurred--it being midwinter, and the savages encamped, apparently to
+remain so--he anew mustered his friends, and marched against them; but,
+getting wind of his coming, the enemy fled, and in such panic that
+everything was left behind but their weapons. During the winter, much
+the same thing happened upon two subsequent occasions. The next year he
+sought them at the head of a party pledged to serve him for forty days.
+At last the hour came. It was on the shore of the Mississippi. From
+their covert, Moredock and his men dimly descried the gang of Cains in
+the red dusk of evening, paddling over to a jungled island in
+mid-stream, there the more securely to lodge; for Moredock's retributive
+spirit in the wilderness spoke ever to their trepidations now, like the
+voice calling through the garden. Waiting until dead of night, the
+whites swam the river, towing after them a raft laden with their arms.
+On landing, Moredock cut the fastenings of the enemy's canoes, and
+turned them, with his own raft, adrift; resolved that there should be
+neither escape for the Indians, nor safety, except in victory, for the
+whites. Victorious the whites were; but three of the Indians saved
+themselves by taking to the stream. Moredock's band lost not a man.
+
+"'Three of the murderers survived. He knew their names and persons. In
+the course of three years each successively fell by his own hand. All
+were now dead. But this did not suffice. He made no avowal, but to kill
+Indians had become his passion. As an athlete, he had few equals; as a
+shot, none; in single combat, not to be beaten. Master of that
+woodland-cunning enabling the adept to subsist where the tyro would
+perish, and expert in all those arts by which an enemy is pursued for
+weeks, perhaps months, without once suspecting it, he kept to the
+forest. The solitary Indian that met him, died. When a murder was
+descried, he would either secretly pursue their track for some chance to
+strike at least one blow; or if, while thus engaged, he himself was
+discovered, he would elude them by superior skill.
+
+"'Many years he spent thus; and though after a time he was, in a degree,
+restored to the ordinary life of the region and period, yet it is
+believed that John Moredock never let pass an opportunity of quenching
+an Indian. Sins of commission in that kind may have been his, but none
+of omission.
+
+"'It were to err to suppose,' the judge would say, 'that this gentleman
+was naturally ferocious, or peculiarly possessed of those qualities,
+which, unhelped by provocation of events, tend to withdraw man from
+social life. On the contrary, Moredock was an example of something
+apparently self-contradicting, certainly curious, but, at the same time,
+undeniable: namely, that nearly all Indian-haters have at bottom loving
+hearts; at any rate, hearts, if anything, more generous than the
+average. Certain it is, that, to the degree in which he mingled in the
+life of the settlements, Moredock showed himself not without humane
+feelings. No cold husband or colder father, he; and, though often and
+long away from his household, bore its needs in mind, and provided for
+them. He could be very convivial; told a good story (though never of his
+more private exploits), and sung a capital song. Hospitable, not
+backward to help a neighbor; by report, benevolent, as retributive, in
+secret; while, in a general manner, though sometimes grave--as is not
+unusual with men of his complexion, a sultry and tragical brown--yet
+with nobody, Indians excepted, otherwise than courteous in a manly
+fashion; a moccasined gentleman, admired and loved. In fact, no one more
+popular, as an incident to follow may prove.
+
+"'His bravery, whether in Indian fight or any other, was unquestionable.
+An officer in the ranging service during the war of 1812, he acquitted
+himself with more than credit. Of his soldierly character, this anecdote
+is told: Not long after Hull's dubious surrender at Detroit, Moredock
+with some of his rangers rode up at night to a log-house, there to rest
+till morning. The horses being attended to, supper over, and
+sleeping-places assigned the troop, the host showed the colonel his
+best bed, not on the ground like the rest, but a bed that stood on legs.
+But out of delicacy, the guest declined to monopolize it, or, indeed, to
+occupy it at all; when, to increase the inducement, as the host thought,
+he was told that a general officer had once slept in that bed. "Who,
+pray?" asked the colonel. "General Hull." "Then you must not take
+offense," said the colonel, buttoning up his coat, "but, really, no
+coward's bed, for me, however comfortable." Accordingly he took up with
+valor's bed--a cold one on the ground.
+
+"'At one time the colonel was a member of the territorial council of
+Illinois, and at the formation of the state government, was pressed to
+become candidate for governor, but begged to be excused. And, though he
+declined to give his reasons for declining, yet by those who best knew
+him the cause was not wholly unsurmised. In his official capacity he
+might be called upon to enter into friendly treaties with Indian tribes,
+a thing not to be thought of. And even did no such contingecy arise, yet
+he felt there would be an impropriety in the Governor of Illinois
+stealing out now and then, during a recess of the legislative bodies,
+for a few days' shooting at human beings, within the limits of his
+paternal chief-magistracy. If the governorship offered large honors,
+from Moredock it demanded larger sacrifices. These were incompatibles.
+In short, he was not unaware that to be a consistent Indian-hater
+involves the renunciation of ambition, with its objects--the pomps and
+glories of the world; and since religion, pronouncing such things
+vanities, accounts it merit to renounce them, therefore, so far as this
+goes, Indian-hating, whatever may be thought of it in other respects,
+may be regarded as not wholly without the efficacy of a devout
+sentiment.'"
+
+Here the narrator paused. Then, after his long and irksome sitting,
+started to his feet, and regulating his disordered shirt-frill, and at
+the same time adjustingly shaking his legs down in his rumpled
+pantaloons, concluded: "There, I have done; having given you, not my
+story, mind, or my thoughts, but another's. And now, for your friend
+Coonskins, I doubt not, that, if the judge were here, he would pronounce
+him a sort of comprehensive Colonel Moredock, who, too much spreading
+his passion, shallows it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+MOOT POINTS TOUCHING THE LATE COLONEL JOHN MOREDOCK.
+
+
+"Charity, charity!" exclaimed the cosmopolitan, "never a sound judgment
+without charity. When man judges man, charity is less a bounty from our
+mercy than just allowance for the insensible lee-way of human
+fallibility. God forbid that my eccentric friend should be what you
+hint. You do not know him, or but imperfectly. His outside deceived you;
+at first it came near deceiving even me. But I seized a chance, when,
+owing to indignation against some wrong, he laid himself a little open;
+I seized that lucky chance, I say, to inspect his heart, and found it an
+inviting oyster in a forbidding shell. His outside is but put on.
+Ashamed of his own goodness, he treats mankind as those strange old
+uncles in romances do their nephews--snapping at them all the time and
+yet loving them as the apple of their eye."
+
+"Well, my words with him were few. Perhaps he is not what I took him
+for. Yes, for aught I know, you may be right."
+
+"Glad to hear it. Charity, like poetry, should be cultivated, if only
+for its being graceful. And now, since you have renounced your notion,
+I should be happy, would you, so to speak, renounce your story, too.
+That, story strikes me with even more incredulity than wonder. To me
+some parts don't hang together. If the man of hate, how could John
+Moredock be also the man of love? Either his lone campaigns are fabulous
+as Hercules'; or else, those being true, what was thrown in about his
+geniality is but garnish. In short, if ever there was such a man as
+Moredock, he, in my way of thinking, was either misanthrope or nothing;
+and his misanthropy the more intense from being focused on one race of
+men. Though, like suicide, man-hatred would seem peculiarly a Roman and
+a Grecian passion--that is, Pagan; yet, the annals of neither Rome nor
+Greece can produce the equal in man-hatred of Colonel Moredock, as the
+judge and you have painted him. As for this Indian-hating in general, I
+can only say of it what Dr. Johnson said of the alleged Lisbon
+earthquake: 'Sir, I don't believe it.'"
+
+"Didn't believe it? Why not? Clashed with any little prejudice of his?"
+
+"Doctor Johnson had no prejudice; but, like a certain other person,"
+with an ingenuous smile, "he had sensibilities, and those were pained."
+
+"Dr. Johnson was a good Christian, wasn't he?"
+
+"He was."
+
+"Suppose he had been something else."
+
+"Then small incredulity as to the alleged earthquake."
+
+"Suppose he had been also a misanthrope?"
+
+"Then small incredulity as to the robberies and murders alleged to have
+been perpetrated under the pall of smoke and ashes. The infidels of the
+time were quick to credit those reports and worse. So true is it that,
+while religion, contrary to the common notion, implies, in certain
+cases, a spirit of slow reserve as to assent, infidelity, which claims
+to despise credulity, is sometimes swift to it."
+
+"You rather jumble together misanthropy and infidelity."
+
+"I do not jumble them; they are coordinates. For misanthropy, springing
+from the same root with disbelief of religion, is twin with that. It
+springs from the same root, I say; for, set aside materialism, and what
+is an atheist, but one who does not, or will not, see in the universe a
+ruling principle of love; and what a misanthrope, but one who does not,
+or will not, see in man a ruling principle of kindness? Don't you see?
+In either case the vice consists in a want of confidence."
+
+"What sort of a sensation is misanthropy?"
+
+"Might as well ask me what sort of sensation is hydrophobia. Don't know;
+never had it. But I have often wondered what it can be like. Can a
+misanthrope feel warm, I ask myself; take ease? be companionable with
+himself? Can a misanthrope smoke a cigar and muse? How fares he in
+solitude? Has the misanthrope such a thing as an appetite? Shall a peach
+refresh him? The effervescence of champagne, with what eye does he
+behold it? Is summer good to him? Of long winters how much can he
+sleep? What are his dreams? How feels he, and what does he, when
+suddenly awakened, alone, at dead of night, by fusilades of thunder?"
+
+"Like you," said the stranger, "I can't understand the misanthrope. So
+far as my experience goes, either mankind is worthy one's best love, or
+else I have been lucky. Never has it been my lot to have been wronged,
+though but in the smallest degree. Cheating, backbiting,
+superciliousness, disdain, hard-heartedness, and all that brood, I know
+but by report. Cold regards tossed over the sinister shoulder of a
+former friend, ingratitude in a beneficiary, treachery in a
+confidant--such things may be; but I must take somebody's word for it.
+Now the bridge that has carried me so well over, shall I not praise it?"
+
+"Ingratitude to the worthy bridge not to do so. Man is a noble fellow,
+and in an age of satirists, I am not displeased to find one who has
+confidence in him, and bravely stands up for him."
+
+"Yes, I always speak a good word for man; and what is more, am always
+ready to do a good deed for him."
+
+"You are a man after my own heart," responded the cosmopolitan, with a
+candor which lost nothing by its calmness. "Indeed," he added, "our
+sentiments agree so, that were they written in a book, whose was whose,
+few but the nicest critics might determine."
+
+"Since we are thus joined in mind," said the stranger, "why not be
+joined in hand?"
+
+"My hand is always at the service of virtue," frankly extending it to
+him as to virtue personified.
+
+"And now," said the stranger, cordially retaining his hand, "you know
+our fashion here at the West. It may be a little low, but it is kind.
+Briefly, we being newly-made friends must drink together. What say you?"
+
+"Thank you; but indeed, you must excuse me."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, to tell the truth, I have to-day met so many old friends, all
+free-hearted, convivial gentlemen, that really, really, though for the
+present I succeed in mastering it, I am at bottom almost in the
+condition of a sailor who, stepping ashore after a long voyage, ere
+night reels with loving welcomes, his head of less capacity than his
+heart."
+
+At the allusion to old friends, the stranger's countenance a little
+fell, as a jealous lover's might at hearing from his sweetheart of
+former ones. But rallying, he said: "No doubt they treated you to
+something strong; but wine--surely, that gentle creature, wine; come,
+let us have a little gentle wine at one of these little tables here.
+Come, come." Then essaying to roll about like a full pipe in the sea,
+sang in a voice which had had more of good-fellowship, had there been
+less of a latent squeak to it:
+
+    "Let us drink of the wine of the vine benign,
+    That sparkles warm in Zansovine."
+
+The cosmopolitan, with longing eye upon him, stood as sorely tempted and
+wavering a moment; then, abruptly stepping towards him, with a look of
+dissolved surrender, said: "When mermaid songs move figure-heads, then
+may glory, gold, and women try their blandishments on me. But a good
+fellow, singing a good song, he woos forth my every spike, so that my
+whole hull, like a ship's, sailing by a magnetic rock, caves in with
+acquiescence. Enough: when one has a heart of a certain sort, it is in
+vain trying to be resolute."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE BOON COMPANIONS.
+
+
+The wine, port, being called for, and the two seated at the little
+table, a natural pause of convivial expectancy ensued; the stranger's
+eye turned towards the bar near by, watching the red-cheeked,
+white-aproned man there, blithely dusting the bottle, and invitingly
+arranging the salver and glasses; when, with a sudden impulse turning
+round his head towards his companion, he said, "Ours is friendship at
+first sight, ain't it?"
+
+"It is," was the placidly pleased reply: "and the same may be said of
+friendship at first sight as of love at first sight: it is the only true
+one, the only noble one. It bespeaks confidence. Who would go sounding
+his way into love or friendship, like a strange ship by night, into an
+enemy's harbor?"
+
+"Right. Boldly in before the wind. Agreeable, how we always agree.
+By-the-way, though but a formality, friends should know each other's
+names. What is yours, pray?"
+
+"Francis Goodman. But those who love me, call me Frank. And yours?"
+
+"Charles Arnold Noble. But do you call me Charlie."
+
+"I will, Charlie; nothing like preserving in manhood the fraternal
+familiarities of youth. It proves the heart a rosy boy to the last."
+
+"My sentiments again. Ah!"
+
+It was a smiling waiter, with the smiling bottle, the cork drawn; a
+common quart bottle, but for the occasion fitted at bottom into a little
+bark basket, braided with porcupine quills, gayly tinted in the Indian
+fashion. This being set before the entertainer, he regarded it with
+affectionate interest, but seemed not to understand, or else to pretend
+not to, a handsome red label pasted on the bottle, bearing the capital
+letters, P. W.
+
+"P. W.," said he at last, perplexedly eying the pleasing poser, "now
+what does P. W. mean?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," said the cosmopolitan gravely, "if it stood for port
+wine. You called for port wine, didn't you?"
+
+"Why so it is, so it is!"
+
+"I find some little mysteries not very hard to clear up," said the
+other, quietly crossing his legs.
+
+This commonplace seemed to escape the stranger's hearing, for, full of
+his bottle, he now rubbed his somewhat sallow hands over it, and with a
+strange kind of cackle, meant to be a chirrup, cried: "Good wine, good
+wine; is it not the peculiar bond of good feeling?" Then brimming both
+glasses, pushed one over, saying, with what seemed intended for an air
+of fine disdain: "Ill betide those gloomy skeptics who maintain that
+now-a-days pure wine is unpurchasable; that almost every variety on sale
+is less the vintage of vineyards than laboratories; that most
+bar-keepers are but a set of male Brinvilliarses, with complaisant arts
+practicing against the lives of their best friends, their customers."
+
+A shade passed over the cosmopolitan. After a few minutes' down-cast
+musing, he lifted his eyes and said: "I have long thought, my dear
+Charlie, that the spirit in which wine is regarded by too many in these
+days is one of the most painful examples of want of confidence. Look at
+these glasses. He who could mistrust poison in this wine would mistrust
+consumption in Hebe's cheek. While, as for suspicions against the
+dealers in wine and sellers of it, those who cherish such suspicions can
+have but limited trust in the human heart. Each human heart they must
+think to be much like each bottle of port, not such port as this, but
+such port as they hold to. Strange traducers, who see good faith in
+nothing, however sacred. Not medicines, not the wine in sacraments, has
+escaped them. The doctor with his phial, and the priest with his
+chalice, they deem equally the unconscious dispensers of bogus cordials
+to the dying."
+
+"Dreadful!"
+
+"Dreadful indeed," said the cosmopolitan solemnly. "These distrusters
+stab at the very soul of confidence. If this wine," impressively holding
+up his full glass, "if this wine with its bright promise be not true,
+how shall man be, whose promise can be no brighter? But if wine be
+false, while men are true, whither shall fly convivial geniality? To
+think of sincerely-genial souls drinking each other's health at unawares
+in perfidious and murderous drugs!"
+
+"Horrible!"
+
+"Much too much so to be true, Charlie. Let us forget it. Come, you are
+my entertainer on this occasion, and yet you don't pledge me. I have
+been waiting for it."
+
+"Pardon, pardon," half confusedly and half ostentatiously lifting his
+glass. "I pledge you, Frank, with my whole heart, believe me," taking a
+draught too decorous to be large, but which, small though it was, was
+followed by a slight involuntary wryness to the mouth.
+
+"And I return you the pledge, Charlie, heart-warm as it came to me, and
+honest as this wine I drink it in," reciprocated the cosmopolitan with
+princely kindliness in his gesture, taking a generous swallow,
+concluding in a smack, which, though audible, was not so much so as to
+be unpleasing.
+
+"Talking of alleged spuriousness of wines," said he, tranquilly setting
+down his glass, and then sloping back his head and with friendly
+fixedness eying the wine, "perhaps the strangest part of those allegings
+is, that there is, as claimed, a kind of man who, while convinced that
+on this continent most wines are shams, yet still drinks away at them;
+accounting wine so fine a thing, that even the sham article is better
+than none at all. And if the temperance people urge that, by this
+course, he will sooner or later be undermined in health, he answers,
+'And do you think I don't know that? But health without cheer I hold a
+bore; and cheer, even of the spurious sort, has its price, which I am
+willing to pay.'"
+
+"Such a man, Frank, must have a disposition ungovernably bacchanalian."
+
+"Yes, if such a man there be, which I don't credit. It is a fable, but a
+fable from which I once heard a person of less genius than grotesqueness
+draw a moral even more extravagant than the fable itself. He said that
+it illustrated, as in a parable, how that a man of a disposition
+ungovernably good-natured might still familiarly associate with men,
+though, at the same time, he believed the greater part of men
+false-hearted--accounting society so sweet a thing that even the
+spurious sort was better than none at all. And if the Rochefoucaultites
+urge that, by this course, he will sooner or later be undermined in
+security, he answers, 'And do you think I don't know that? But security
+without society I hold a bore; and society, even of the spurious sort,
+has its price, which I am willing to pay.'"
+
+"A most singular theory," said the stranger with a slight fidget, eying
+his companion with some inquisitiveness, "indeed, Frank, a most
+slanderous thought," he exclaimed in sudden heat and with an involuntary
+look almost of being personally aggrieved.
+
+"In one sense it merits all you say, and more," rejoined the other with
+wonted mildness, "but, for a kind of drollery in it, charity might,
+perhaps, overlook something of the wickedness. Humor is, in fact, so
+blessed a thing, that even in the least virtuous product of the human
+mind, if there can be found but nine good jokes, some philosophers are
+clement enough to affirm that those nine good jokes should redeem all
+the wicked thoughts, though plenty as the populace of Sodom. At any
+rate, this same humor has something, there is no telling what, of
+beneficence in it, it is such a catholicon and charm--nearly all men
+agreeing in relishing it, though they may agree in little else--and in
+its way it undeniably does such a deal of familiar good in the world,
+that no wonder it is almost a proverb, that a man of humor, a man
+capable of a good loud laugh--seem how he may in other things--can
+hardly be a heartless scamp."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other, pointing to the figure of a pale
+pauper-boy on the deck below, whose pitiableness was touched, as it
+were, with ludicrousness by a pair of monstrous boots, apparently some
+mason's discarded ones, cracked with drouth, half eaten by lime, and
+curled up about the toe like a bassoon. "Look--ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"I see," said the other, with what seemed quiet appreciation, but of a
+kind expressing an eye to the grotesque, without blindness to what in
+this case accompanied it, "I see; and the way in which it moves you,
+Charlie, comes in very apropos to point the proverb I was speaking of.
+Indeed, had you intended this effect, it could not have been more so.
+For who that heard that laugh, but would as naturally argue from it a
+sound heart as sound lungs? True, it is said that a man may smile, and
+smile, and smile, and be a villain; but it is not said that a man may
+laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and be one, is it, Charlie?"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!--no no, no no."
+
+"Why Charlie, your explosions illustrate my remarks almost as aptly as
+the chemist's imitation volcano did his lectures. But even if experience
+did not sanction the proverb, that a good laugher cannot be a bad man, I
+should yet feel bound in confidence to believe it, since it is a saying
+current among the people, and I doubt not originated among them, and
+hence _must_ be true; for the voice of the people is the voice of truth.
+Don't you think so?"
+
+"Of course I do. If Truth don't speak through the people, it never
+speaks at all; so I heard one say."
+
+"A true saying. But we stray. The popular notion of humor, considered as
+index to the heart, would seem curiously confirmed by Aristotle--I
+think, in his 'Politics,' (a work, by-the-by, which, however it may be
+viewed upon the whole, yet, from the tenor of certain sections, should
+not, without precaution, be placed in the hands of youth)--who remarks
+that the least lovable men in history seem to have had for humor not
+only a disrelish, but a hatred; and this, in some cases, along with an
+extraordinary dry taste for practical punning. I remember it is related
+of Phalaris, the capricious tyrant of Sicily, that he once caused a poor
+fellow to be beheaded on a horse-block, for no other cause than having a
+horse-laugh."
+
+"Funny Phalaris!"
+
+"Cruel Phalaris!"
+
+As after fire-crackers, there was a pause, both looking downward on the
+table as if mutually struck by the contrast of exclamations, and
+pondering upon its significance, if any. So, at least, it seemed; but on
+one side it might have been otherwise: for presently glancing up, the
+cosmopolitan said: "In the instance of the moral, drolly cynic, drawn
+from the queer bacchanalian fellow we were speaking of, who had his
+reasons for still drinking spurious wine, though knowing it to be
+such--there, I say, we have an example of what is certainly a wicked
+thought, but conceived in humor. I will now give you one of a wicked
+thought conceived in wickedness. You shall compare the two, and answer,
+whether in the one case the sting is not neutralized by the humor, and
+whether in the other the absence of humor does not leave the sting free
+play. I once heard a wit, a mere wit, mind, an irreligious Parisian wit,
+say, with regard to the temperance movement, that none, to their
+personal benefit, joined it sooner than niggards and knaves; because, as
+he affirmed, the one by it saved money and the other made money, as in
+ship-owners cutting off the spirit ration without giving its equivalent,
+and gamblers and all sorts of subtle tricksters sticking to cold water,
+the better to keep a cool head for business."
+
+"A wicked thought, indeed!" cried the stranger, feelingly.
+
+"Yes," leaning over the table on his elbow and genially gesturing at him
+with his forefinger: "yes, and, as I said, you don't remark the sting of
+it?"
+
+"I do, indeed. Most calumnious thought, Frank!"
+
+"No humor in it?"
+
+"Not a bit!"
+
+"Well now, Charlie," eying him with moist regard, "let us drink. It
+appears to me you don't drink freely."
+
+"Oh, oh--indeed, indeed--I am not backward there. I protest, a freer
+drinker than friend Charlie you will find nowhere," with feverish zeal
+snatching his glass, but only in the sequel to dally with it.
+"By-the-way, Frank," said he, perhaps, or perhaps not, to draw attention
+from himself, "by-the-way, I saw a good thing the other day; capital
+thing; a panegyric on the press, It pleased me so, I got it by heart at
+two readings. It is a kind of poetry, but in a form which stands in
+something the same relation to blank verse which that does to rhyme. A
+sort of free-and-easy chant with refrains to it. Shall I recite it?"
+
+"Anything in praise of the press I shall be happy to hear," rejoined the
+cosmopolitan, "the more so," he gravely proceeded, "as of late I have
+observed in some quarters a disposition to disparage the press."
+
+"Disparage the press?"
+
+"Even so; some gloomy souls affirming that it is proving with that great
+invention as with brandy or eau-de-vie, which, upon its first discovery,
+was believed by the doctors to be, as its French name implies, a
+panacea--a notion which experience, it may be thought, has not fully
+verified."
+
+"You surprise me, Frank. Are there really those who so decry the press?
+Tell me more. Their reasons."
+
+"Reasons they have none, but affirmations they have many; among other
+things affirming that, while under dynastic despotisms, the press is to
+the people little but an improvisatore, under popular ones it is too apt
+to be their Jack Cade. In fine, these sour sages regard the press in the
+light of a Colt's revolver, pledged to no cause but his in whose chance
+hands it may be; deeming the one invention an improvement upon the pen,
+much akin to what the other is upon the pistol; involving, along with
+the multiplication of the barrel, no consecration of the aim. The term
+'freedom of the press' they consider on a par with _freedom of Colt's
+revolver_. Hence, for truth and the right, they hold, to indulge hopes
+from the one is little more sensible than for Kossuth and Mazzini to
+indulge hopes from the other. Heart-breaking views enough, you think;
+but their refutation is in every true reformer's contempt. Is it not
+so?"
+
+"Without doubt. But go on, go on. I like to hear you," flatteringly
+brimming up his glass for him.
+
+"For one," continued the cosmopolitan, grandly swelling his chest, "I
+hold the press to be neither the people's improvisatore, nor Jack Cade;
+neither their paid fool, nor conceited drudge. I think interest never
+prevails with it over duty. The press still speaks for truth though
+impaled, in the teeth of lies though intrenched. Disdaining for it the
+poor name of cheap diffuser of news, I claim for it the independent
+apostleship of Advancer of Knowledge:--the iron Paul! Paul, I say; for
+not only does the press advance knowledge, but righteousness. In the
+press, as in the sun, resides, my dear Charlie, a dedicated principle of
+beneficent force and light. For the Satanic press, by its coappearance
+with the apostolic, it is no more an aspersion to that, than to the true
+sun is the coappearance of the mock one. For all the baleful-looking
+parhelion, god Apollo dispenses the day. In a word, Charlie, what the
+sovereign of England is titularly, I hold the press to be
+actually--Defender of the Faith!--defender of the faith in the final
+triumph of truth over error, metaphysics over superstition, theory over
+falsehood, machinery over nature, and the good man over the bad. Such
+are my views, which, if stated at some length, you, Charlie, must
+pardon, for it is a theme upon which I cannot speak with cold brevity.
+And now I am impatient for your panegyric, which, I doubt not, will put
+mine to the blush."
+
+"It is rather in the blush-giving vein," smiled the other; "but such as
+it is, Frank, you shall have it."
+
+"Tell me when you are about to begin," said the cosmopolitan, "for, when
+at public dinners the press is toasted, I always drink the toast
+standing, and shall stand while you pronounce the panegyric."
+
+"Very good, Frank; you may stand up now."
+
+He accordingly did so, when the stranger likewise rose, and uplifting
+the ruby wine-flask, began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+OPENING WITH A POETICAL EULOGY OF THE PRESS AND CONTINUING WITH TALK
+INSPIRED BY THE SAME.
+
+
+"'Praise be unto the press, not Faust's, but Noah's; let us extol and
+magnify the press, the true press of Noah, from which breaketh the true
+morning. Praise be unto the press, not the black press but the red; let
+us extol and magnify the press, the red press of Noah, from which cometh
+inspiration. Ye pressmen of the Rhineland and the Rhine, join in with
+all ye who tread out the glad tidings on isle Madeira or Mitylene.--Who
+giveth redness of eyes by making men long to tarry at the fine
+print?--Praise be unto the press, the rosy press of Noah, which giveth
+rosiness of hearts, by making men long to tarry at the rosy wine.--Who
+hath babblings and contentions? Who, without cause, inflicteth wounds?
+Praise be unto the press, the kindly press of Noah, which knitteth
+friends, which fuseth foes.--Who may be bribed?--Who may be
+bound?--Praise be unto the press, the free press of Noah, which will not
+lie for tyrants, but make tyrants speak the truth.--Then praise be unto
+the press, the frank old press of Noah; then let us extol and magnify
+the press, the brave old press of Noah; then let us with roses garland
+and enwreath the press, the grand old press of Noah, from which flow
+streams of knowledge which give man a bliss no more unreal than his
+pain.'"
+
+"You deceived me," smiled the cosmopolitan, as both now resumed their
+seats; "you roguishly took advantage of my simplicity; you archly played
+upon my enthusiasm. But never mind; the offense, if any, was so
+charming, I almost wish you would offend again. As for certain poetic
+left-handers in your panegyric, those I cheerfully concede to the
+indefinite privileges of the poet. Upon the whole, it was quite in the
+lyric style--a style I always admire on account of that spirit of
+Sibyllic confidence and assurance which is, perhaps, its prime
+ingredient. But come," glancing at his companion's glass, "for a lyrist,
+you let the bottle stay with you too long."
+
+"The lyre and the vine forever!" cried the other in his rapture, or what
+seemed such, heedless of the hint, "the vine, the vine! is it not the
+most graceful and bounteous of all growths? And, by its being such, is
+not something meant--divinely meant? As I live, a vine, a Catawba vine,
+shall be planted on my grave!"
+
+"A genial thought; but your glass there."
+
+"Oh, oh," taking a moderate sip, "but you, why don't you drink?"
+
+"You have forgotten, my dear Charlie, what I told you of my previous
+convivialities to-day."
+
+"Oh," cried the other, now in manner quite abandoned to the lyric mood,
+not without contrast to the easy sociability of his companion. "Oh, one
+can't drink too much of good old wine--the genuine, mellow old port.
+Pooh, pooh! drink away."
+
+"Then keep me company."
+
+"Of course," with a flourish, taking another sip--"suppose we have
+cigars. Never mind your pipe there; a pipe is best when alone. I say,
+waiter, bring some cigars--your best."
+
+They were brought in a pretty little bit of western pottery,
+representing some kind of Indian utensil, mummy-colored, set down in a
+mass of tobacco leaves, whose long, green fans, fancifully grouped,
+formed with peeps of red the sides of the receptacle.
+
+Accompanying it were two accessories, also bits of pottery, but smaller,
+both globes; one in guise of an apple flushed with red and gold to the
+life, and, through a cleft at top, you saw it was hollow. This was for
+the ashes. The other, gray, with wrinkled surface, in the likeness of a
+wasp's nest, was the match-box. "There," said the stranger, pushing over
+the cigar-stand, "help yourself, and I will touch you off," taking a
+match. "Nothing like tobacco," he added, when the fumes of the cigar
+began to wreathe, glancing from the smoker to the pottery, "I will have
+a Virginia tobacco-plant set over my grave beside the Catawba vine."
+
+"Improvement upon your first idea, which by itself was good--but you
+don't smoke."
+
+"Presently, presently--let me fill your glass again. You don't drink."
+
+"Thank you; but no more just now. Fill _your_ glass."
+
+"Presently, presently; do you drink on. Never mind me. Now that it
+strikes me, let me say, that he who, out of superfine gentility or
+fanatic morality, denies himself tobacco, suffers a more serious
+abatement in the cheap pleasures of life than the dandy in his iron
+boot, or the celibate on his iron cot. While for him who would fain
+revel in tobacco, but cannot, it is a thing at which philanthropists
+must weep, to see such an one, again and again, madly returning to the
+cigar, which, for his incompetent stomach, he cannot enjoy, while still,
+after each shameful repulse, the sweet dream of the impossible good
+goads him on to his fierce misery once more--poor eunuch!"
+
+"I agree with you," said the cosmopolitan, still gravely social, "but
+you don't smoke."
+
+"Presently, presently, do you smoke on. As I was saying about----"
+
+"But _why_ don't you smoke--come. You don't think that tobacco, when in
+league with wine, too much enhances the latter's vinous quality--in
+short, with certain constitutions tends to impair self-possession, do
+you?"
+
+"To think that, were treason to good fellowship," was the warm
+disclaimer. "No, no. But the fact is, there is an unpropitious flavor in
+my mouth just now. Ate of a diabolical ragout at dinner, so I shan't
+smoke till I have washed away the lingering memento of it with wine. But
+smoke away, you, and pray, don't forget to drink. By-the-way, while we
+sit here so companionably, giving loose to any companionable nothing,
+your uncompanionable friend, Coonskins, is, by pure contrast, brought
+to recollection. If he were but here now, he would see how much of real
+heart-joy he denies himself by not hob-a-nobbing with his kind."
+
+"Why," with loitering emphasis, slowly withdrawing his cigar, "I thought
+I had undeceived you there. I thought you had come to a better
+understanding of my eccentric friend."
+
+"Well, I thought so, too; but first impressions will return, you know.
+In truth, now that I think of it, I am led to conjecture from chance
+things which dropped from Coonskins, during the little interview I had
+with him, that he is not a Missourian by birth, but years ago came West
+here, a young misanthrope from the other side of the Alleghanies, less
+to make his fortune, than to flee man. Now, since they say trifles
+sometimes effect great results, I shouldn't wonder, if his history were
+probed, it would be found that what first indirectly gave his sad bias
+to Coonskins was his disgust at reading in boyhood the advice of
+Polonius to Laertes--advice which, in the selfishness it inculcates, is
+almost on a par with a sort of ballad upon the economies of
+money-making, to be occasionally seen pasted against the desk of small
+retail traders in New England."
+
+"I do hope now, my dear fellow," said the cosmopolitan with an air of
+bland protest, "that, in my presence at least, you will throw out
+nothing to the prejudice of the sons of the Puritans."
+
+"Hey-day and high times indeed," exclaimed the other, nettled, "sons of
+the Puritans forsooth! And who be Puritans, that I, an Alabamaian, must
+do them reverence? A set of sourly conceited old Malvolios, whom
+Shakespeare laughs his fill at in his comedies."
+
+"Pray, what were you about to suggest with regard to Polonius," observed
+the cosmopolitan with quiet forbearance, expressive of the patience of a
+superior mind at the petulance of an inferior one; "how do you
+characterize his advice to Laertes?"
+
+"As false, fatal, and calumnious," exclaimed the other, with a degree of
+ardor befitting one resenting a stigma upon the family escutcheon, "and
+for a father to give his son--monstrous. The case you see is this: The
+son is going abroad, and for the first. What does the father? Invoke
+God's blessing upon him? Put the blessed Bible in his trunk? No. Crams
+him with maxims smacking of my Lord Chesterfield, with maxims of France,
+with maxims of Italy."
+
+"No, no, be charitable, not that. Why, does he not among other things
+say:--
+
+    'The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
+    Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel'?
+
+Is that compatible with maxims of Italy?"
+
+"Yes it is, Frank. Don't you see? Laertes is to take the best of care of
+his friends--his proved friends, on the same principle that a
+wine-corker takes the best of care of his proved bottles. When a bottle
+gets a sharp knock and don't break, he says, 'Ah, I'll keep that
+bottle.' Why? Because he loves it? No, he has particular use for it."
+
+"Dear, dear!" appealingly turning in distress, "that--that kind of
+criticism is--is--in fact--it won't do."
+
+"Won't truth do, Frank? You are so charitable with everybody, do but
+consider the tone of the speech. Now I put it to you, Frank; is there
+anything in it hortatory to high, heroic, disinterested effort? Anything
+like 'sell all thou hast and give to the poor?' And, in other points,
+what desire seems most in the father's mind, that his son should cherish
+nobleness for himself, or be on his guard against the contrary thing in
+others? An irreligious warner, Frank--no devout counselor, is Polonius.
+I hate him. Nor can I bear to hear your veterans of the world affirm,
+that he who steers through life by the advice of old Polonius will not
+steer among the breakers."
+
+"No, no--I hope nobody affirms that," rejoined the cosmopolitan, with
+tranquil abandonment; sideways reposing his arm at full length upon the
+table. "I hope nobody affirms that; because, if Polonius' advice be
+taken in your sense, then the recommendation of it by men of experience
+would appear to involve more or less of an unhandsome sort of reflection
+upon human nature. And yet," with a perplexed air, "your suggestions
+have put things in such a strange light to me as in fact a little to
+disturb my previous notions of Polonius and what he says. To be frank,
+by your ingenuity you have unsettled me there, to that degree that were
+it not for our coincidence of opinion in general, I should almost think
+I was now at length beginning to feel the ill effect of an immature
+mind, too much consorting with a mature one, except on the ground of
+first principles in common."
+
+"Really and truly," cried the other with a kind of tickled modesty and
+pleased concern, "mine is an understanding too weak to throw out
+grapnels and hug another to it. I have indeed heard of some great
+scholars in these days, whose boast is less that they have made
+disciples than victims. But for me, had I the power to do such things, I
+have not the heart to desire."
+
+"I believe you, my dear Charlie. And yet, I repeat, by your commentaries
+on Polonius you have, I know not how, unsettled me; so that now I don't
+exactly see how Shakespeare meant the words he puts in Polonius' mouth."
+
+"Some say that he meant them to open people's eyes; but I don't think
+so."
+
+"Open their eyes?" echoed the cosmopolitan, slowly expanding his; "what
+is there in this world for one to open his eyes to? I mean in the sort
+of invidious sense you cite?"
+
+"Well, others say he meant to corrupt people's morals; and still others,
+that he had no express intention at all, but in effect opens their eyes
+and corrupts their morals in one operation. All of which I reject."
+
+"Of course you reject so crude an hypothesis; and yet, to confess, in
+reading Shakespeare in my closet, struck by some passage, I have laid
+down the volume, and said: 'This Shakespeare is a queer man.' At times
+seeming irresponsible, he does not always seem reliable. There appears
+to be a certain--what shall I call it?--hidden sun, say, about him, at
+once enlightening and mystifying. Now, I should be afraid to say what I
+have sometimes thought that hidden sun might be."
+
+"Do you think it was the true light?" with clandestine geniality again
+filling the other's glass.
+
+"I would prefer to decline answering a categorical question there.
+Shakespeare has got to be a kind of deity. Prudent minds, having certain
+latent thoughts concerning him, will reserve them in a condition of
+lasting probation. Still, as touching avowable speculations, we are
+permitted a tether. Shakespeare himself is to be adored, not arraigned;
+but, so we do it with humility, we may a little canvass his characters.
+There's his Autolycus now, a fellow that always puzzled me. How is one
+to take Autolycus? A rogue so happy, so lucky, so triumphant, of so
+almost captivatingly vicious a career that a virtuous man reduced to the
+poor-house (were such a contingency conceivable), might almost long to
+change sides with him. And yet, see the words put into his mouth: 'Oh,'
+cries Autolycus, as he comes galloping, gay as a buck, upon the stage,
+'oh,' he laughs, 'oh what a fool is Honesty, and Trust, his sworn
+brother, a very simple gentleman.' Think of that. Trust, that is,
+confidence--that is, the thing in this universe the sacredest--is
+rattlingly pronounced just the simplest. And the scenes in which the
+rogue figures seem purposely devised for verification of his principles.
+Mind, Charlie, I do not say it _is_ so, far from it; but I _do_ say it
+seems so. Yes, Autolycus would seem a needy varlet acting upon the
+persuasion that less is to be got by invoking pockets than picking
+them, more to be made by an expert knave than a bungling beggar; and for
+this reason, as he thinks, that the soft heads outnumber the soft
+hearts. The devil's drilled recruit, Autolycus is joyous as if he wore
+the livery of heaven. When disturbed by the character and career of one
+thus wicked and thus happy, my sole consolation is in the fact that no
+such creature ever existed, except in the powerful imagination which
+evoked him. And yet, a creature, a living creature, he is, though only a
+poet was his maker. It may be, that in that paper-and-ink investiture of
+his, Autolycus acts more effectively upon mankind than he would in a
+flesh-and-blood one. Can his influence be salutary? True, in Autolycus
+there is humor; but though, according to my principle, humor is in
+general to be held a saving quality, yet the case of Autolycus is an
+exception; because it is his humor which, so to speak, oils his
+mischievousness. The bravadoing mischievousness of Autolycus is slid
+into the world on humor, as a pirate schooner, with colors flying, is
+launched into the sea on greased ways."
+
+"I approve of Autolycus as little as you," said the stranger, who,
+during his companion's commonplaces, had seemed less attentive to them
+than to maturing with in his own mind the original conceptions destined
+to eclipse them. "But I cannot believe that Autolycus, mischievous as he
+must prove upon the stage, can be near so much so as such a character as
+Polonius."
+
+"I don't know about that," bluntly, and yet not impolitely, returned the
+cosmopolitan; "to be sure, accepting your view of the old courtier,
+then if between him and Autolycus you raise the question of
+unprepossessingness, I grant you the latter comes off best. For a moist
+rogue may tickle the midriff, while a dry worldling may but wrinkle the
+spleen."
+
+"But Polonius is not dry," said the other excitedly; "he drules. One
+sees the fly-blown old fop drule and look wise. His vile wisdom is made
+the viler by his vile rheuminess. The bowing and cringing, time-serving
+old sinner--is such an one to give manly precepts to youth? The
+discreet, decorous, old dotard-of-state; senile prudence; fatuous
+soullessness! The ribanded old dog is paralytic all down one side, and
+that the side of nobleness. His soul is gone out. Only nature's
+automatonism keeps him on his legs. As with some old trees, the bark
+survives the pith, and will still stand stiffly up, though but to rim
+round punk, so the body of old Polonius has outlived his soul."
+
+"Come, come," said the cosmopolitan with serious air, almost displeased;
+"though I yield to none in admiration of earnestness, yet, I think, even
+earnestness may have limits. To human minds, strong language is always
+more or less distressing. Besides, Polonius is an old man--as I remember
+him upon the stage--with snowy locks. Now charity requires that such a
+figure--think of it how you will--should at least be treated with
+civility. Moreover, old age is ripeness, and I once heard say, 'Better
+ripe than raw.'"
+
+"But not better rotten than raw!" bringing down his hand with energy on
+the table.
+
+"Why, bless me," in mild surprise contemplating his heated comrade, "how
+you fly out against this unfortunate Polonius--a being that never was,
+nor will be. And yet, viewed in a Christian light," he added pensively,
+"I don't know that anger against this man of straw is a whit less wise
+than anger against a man of flesh, Madness, to be mad with anything."
+
+"That may be, or may not be," returned the other, a little testily,
+perhaps; "but I stick to what I said, that it is better to be raw than
+rotten. And what is to be feared on that head, may be known from this:
+that it is with the best of hearts as with the best of pears--a
+dangerous experiment to linger too long upon the scene. This did
+Polonius. Thank fortune, Frank, I am young, every tooth sound in my
+head, and if good wine can keep me where I am, long shall I remain so."
+
+"True," with a smile. "But wine, to do good, must be drunk. You have
+talked much and well, Charlie; but drunk little and indifferently--fill
+up."
+
+"Presently, presently," with a hasty and preoccupied air. "If I remember
+right, Polonius hints as much as that one should, under no
+circumstances, commit the indiscretion of aiding in a pecuniary way an
+unfortunate friend. He drules out some stale stuff about 'loan losing
+both itself and friend,' don't he? But our bottle; is it glued fast?
+Keep it moving, my dear Frank. Good wine, and upon my soul I begin to
+feel it, and through me old Polonius--yes, this wine, I fear, is what
+excites me so against that detestable old dog without a tooth."
+
+Upon this, the cosmopolitan, cigar in mouth, slowly raised the bottle,
+and brought it slowly to the light, looking at it steadfastly, as one
+might at a thermometer in August, to see not how low it was, but how
+high. Then whiffing out a puff, set it down, and said: "Well, Charlie,
+if what wine you have drunk came out of this bottle, in that case I
+should say that if--supposing a case--that if one fellow had an object
+in getting another fellow fuddled, and this fellow to be fuddled was of
+your capacity, the operation would be comparatively inexpensive. What do
+you think, Charlie?"
+
+"Why, I think I don't much admire the supposition," said Charlie, with a
+look of resentment; "it ain't safe, depend upon it, Frank, to venture
+upon too jocose suppositions with one's friends."
+
+"Why, bless you, Frank, my supposition wasn't personal, but general. You
+mustn't be so touchy."
+
+"If I am touchy it is the wine. Sometimes, when I freely drink, it has a
+touchy effect on me, I have observed."
+
+"Freely drink? you haven't drunk the perfect measure of one glass, yet.
+While for me, this must be my fourth or fifth, thanks to your
+importunity; not to speak of all I drank this morning, for old
+acquaintance' sake. Drink, drink; you must drink."
+
+"Oh, I drink while you are talking," laughed the other; "you have not
+noticed it, but I have drunk my share. Have a queer way I learned from a
+sedate old uncle, who used to tip off his glass-unperceived. Do you fill
+up, and my glass, too. There! Now away with that stump, and have a new
+cigar. Good fellowship forever!" again in the lyric mood, "Say, Frank,
+are we not men? I say are we not human? Tell me, were they not human who
+engendered us, as before heaven I believe they shall be whom we shall
+engender? Fill up, up, up, my friend. Let the ruby tide aspire, and all
+ruby aspirations with it! Up, fill up! Be we convivial. And
+conviviality, what is it? The word, I mean; what expresses it? A living
+together. But bats live together, and did you ever hear of convivial
+bats?"
+
+"If I ever did," observed the cosmopolitan, "it has quite slipped my
+recollection."
+
+"But _why_ did you never hear of convivial bats, nor anybody else?
+Because bats, though they live together, live not together genially.
+Bats are not genial souls. But men are; and how delightful to think that
+the word which among men signifies the highest pitch of geniality,
+implies, as indispensable auxiliary, the cheery benediction of the
+bottle. Yes, Frank, to live together in the finest sense, we must drink
+together. And so, what wonder that he who loves not wine, that sober
+wretch has a lean heart--a heart like a wrung-out old bluing-bag, and
+loves not his kind? Out upon him, to the rag-house with him, hang
+him--the ungenial soul!"
+
+"Oh, now, now, can't you be convivial without being censorious? I like
+easy, unexcited conviviality. For the sober man, really, though for my
+part I naturally love a cheerful glass, I will not prescribe my nature
+as the law to other natures. So don't abuse the sober man. Conviviality
+is one good thing, and sobriety is another good thing. So don't be
+one-sided."
+
+"Well, if I am one-sided, it is the wine. Indeed, indeed, I have
+indulged too genially. My excitement upon slight provocation shows it.
+But yours is a stronger head; drink you. By the way, talking of
+geniality, it is much on the increase in these days, ain't it?"
+
+"It is, and I hail the fact. Nothing better attests the advance of the
+humanitarian spirit. In former and less humanitarian ages--the ages of
+amphitheatres and gladiators--geniality was mostly confined to the
+fireside and table. But in our age--the age of joint-stock companies and
+free-and-easies--it is with this precious quality as with precious gold
+in old Peru, which Pizarro found making up the scullion's sauce-pot as
+the Inca's crown. Yes, we golden boys, the moderns, have geniality
+everywhere--a bounty broadcast like noonlight."
+
+"True, true; my sentiments again. Geniality has invaded each department
+and profession. We have genial senators, genial authors, genial
+lecturers, genial doctors, genial clergymen, genial surgeons, and the
+next thing we shall have genial hangmen."
+
+"As to the last-named sort of person," said the cosmopolitan, "I trust
+that the advancing spirit of geniality will at last enable us to
+dispense with him. No murderers--no hangmen. And surely, when the whole
+world shall have been genialized, it will be as out of place to talk of
+murderers, as in a Christianized world to talk of sinners."
+
+"To pursue the thought," said the other, "every blessing is attended
+with some evil, and----"
+
+"Stay," said the cosmopolitan, "that may be better let pass for a loose
+saying, than for hopeful doctrine."
+
+"Well, assuming the saying's truth, it would apply to the future
+supremacy of the genial spirit, since then it will fare with the hangman
+as it did with the weaver when the spinning-jenny whizzed into the
+ascendant. Thrown out of employment, what could Jack Ketch turn his hand
+to? Butchering?"
+
+"That he could turn his hand to it seems probable; but that, under the
+circumstances, it would be appropriate, might in some minds admit of a
+question. For one, I am inclined to think--and I trust it will not be
+held fastidiousness--that it would hardly be suitable to the dignity of
+our nature, that an individual, once employed in attending the last
+hours of human unfortunates, should, that office being extinct, transfer
+himself to the business of attending the last hours of unfortunate
+cattle. I would suggest that the individual turn valet--a vocation to
+which he would, perhaps, appear not wholly inadapted by his familiar
+dexterity about the person. In particular, for giving a finishing tie to
+a gentleman's cravat, I know few who would, in all likelihood, be, from
+previous occupation, better fitted than the professional person in
+question."
+
+"Are you in earnest?" regarding the serene speaker with unaffected
+curiosity; "are you really in earnest?"
+
+"I trust I am never otherwise," was the mildly earnest reply; "but
+talking of the advance of geniality, I am not without hopes that it
+will eventually exert its influence even upon so difficult a subject as
+the misanthrope."
+
+"A genial misanthrope! I thought I had stretched the rope pretty hard in
+talking of genial hangmen. A genial misanthrope is no more conceivable
+than a surly philanthropist."
+
+"True," lightly depositing in an unbroken little cylinder the ashes of
+his cigar, "true, the two you name are well opposed."
+
+"Why, you talk as if there _was_ such a being as a surly
+philanthropist."
+
+"I do. My eccentric friend, whom you call Coonskins, is an example. Does
+he not, as I explained to you, hide under a surly air a philanthropic
+heart? Now, the genial misanthrope, when, in the process of eras, he
+shall turn up, will be the converse of this; under an affable air, he
+will hide a misanthropical heart. In short, the genial misanthrope will
+be a new kind of monster, but still no small improvement upon the
+original one, since, instead of making faces and throwing stones at
+people, like that poor old crazy man, Timon, he will take steps, fiddle
+in hand, and set the tickled world a'dancing. In a word, as the progress
+of Christianization mellows those in manner whom it cannot mend in mind,
+much the same will it prove with the progress of genialization. And so,
+thanks to geniality, the misanthrope, reclaimed from his boorish
+address, will take on refinement and softness--to so genial a degree,
+indeed, that it may possibly fall out that the misanthrope of the
+coming century will be almost as popular as, I am sincerely sorry to
+say, some philanthropists of the present time would seem not to be, as
+witness my eccentric friend named before."
+
+"Well," cried the other, a little weary, perhaps, of a speculation so
+abstract, "well, however it may be with the century to come, certainly
+in the century which is, whatever else one may be, he must be genial or
+he is nothing. So fill up, fill up, and be genial!"
+
+"I am trying my best," said the cosmopolitan, still calmly
+companionable. "A moment since, we talked of Pizarro, gold, and Peru; no
+doubt, now, you remember that when the Spaniard first entered Atahalpa's
+treasure-chamber, and saw such profusion of plate stacked up, right and
+left, with the wantonness of old barrels in a brewer's yard, the needy
+fellow felt a twinge of misgiving, of want of confidence, as to the
+genuineness of an opulence so profuse. He went about rapping the shining
+vases with his knuckles. But it was all gold, pure gold, good gold,
+sterling gold, which how cheerfully would have been stamped such at
+Goldsmiths' Hall. And just so those needy minds, which, through their
+own insincerity, having no confidence in mankind, doubt lest the liberal
+geniality of this age be spurious. They are small Pizarros in their
+way--by the very princeliness of men's geniality stunned into distrust
+of it."
+
+"Far be such distrust from you and me, my genial friend," cried the
+other fervently; "fill up, fill up!"
+
+"Well, this all along seems a division of labor," smiled the
+cosmopolitan. "I do about all the drinking, and you do about all--the
+genial. But yours is a nature competent to do that to a large
+population. And now, my friend," with a peculiarly grave air, evidently
+foreshadowing something not unimportant, and very likely of close
+personal interest; "wine, you know, opens the heart, and----"
+
+"Opens it!" with exultation, "it thaws it right out. Every heart is
+ice-bound till wine melt it, and reveal the tender grass and sweet
+herbage budding below, with every dear secret, hidden before like a
+dropped jewel in a snow-bank, lying there unsuspected through winter
+till spring."
+
+"And just in that way, my dear Charlie, is one of my little secrets now
+to be shown forth."
+
+"Ah!" eagerly moving round his chair, "what is it?"
+
+"Be not so impetuous, my dear Charlie. Let me explain. You see,
+naturally, I am a man not overgifted with assurance; in general, I am,
+if anything, diffidently reserved; so, if I shall presently seem
+otherwise, the reason is, that you, by the geniality you have evinced in
+all your talk, and especially the noble way in which, while affirming
+your good opinion of men, you intimated that you never could prove false
+to any man, but most by your indignation at a particularly illiberal
+passage in Polonius' advice--in short, in short," with extreme
+embarrassment, "how shall I express what I mean, unless I add that by
+your whole character you impel me to throw myself upon your nobleness;
+in one word, put confidence in you, a generous confidence?"
+
+"I see, I see," with heightened interest, "something of moment you wish
+to confide. Now, what is it, Frank? Love affair?"
+
+"No, not that."
+
+"What, then, my _dear_ Frank? Speak--depend upon me to the last. Out
+with it."
+
+"Out it shall come, then," said the cosmopolitan. "I am in want, urgent
+want, of money."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+A METAMORPHOSIS MORE SURPRISING THAN ANY IN OVID.
+
+
+"In want of money!" pushing back his chair as from a suddenly-disclosed
+man-trap or crater.
+
+"Yes," naïvely assented the cosmopolitan, "and you are going to loan me
+fifty dollars. I could almost wish I was in need of more, only for your
+sake. Yes, my dear Charlie, for your sake; that you might the better
+prove your noble, kindliness, my dear Charlie."
+
+"None of your dear Charlies," cried the other, springing to his feet,
+and buttoning up his coat, as if hastily to depart upon a long journey.
+
+"Why, why, why?" painfully looking up.
+
+"None of your why, why, whys!" tossing out a foot, "go to the devil,
+sir! Beggar, impostor!--never so deceived in a man in my life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+SHOWING THAT THE AGE OF MAGIC AND MAGICIANS IS NOT YET OVER.
+
+
+While speaking or rather hissing those words, the boon companion
+underwent much such a change as one reads of in fairy-books. Out of old
+materials sprang a new creature. Cadmus glided into the snake.
+
+The cosmopolitan rose, the traces of previous feeling vanished; looked
+steadfastly at his transformed friend a moment, then, taking ten
+half-eagles from his pocket, stooped down, and laid them, one by one, in
+a circle round him; and, retiring a pace, waved his long tasseled pipe
+with the air of a necromancer, an air heightened by his costume,
+accompanying each wave with a solemn murmur of cabalistical words.
+
+Meantime, he within the magic-ring stood suddenly rapt, exhibiting every
+symptom of a successful charm--a turned cheek, a fixed attitude, a
+frozen eye; spellbound, not more by the waving wand than by the ten
+invincible talismans on the floor.
+
+"Reappear, reappear, reappear, oh, my former friend! Replace this
+hideous apparition with thy blest shape, and be the token of thy return
+the words, 'My dear Frank.'"
+
+"My dear Frank," now cried the restored friend, cordially stepping out
+of the ring, with regained self-possession regaining lost identity, "My
+dear Frank, what a funny man you are; full of fun as an egg of meat. How
+could you tell me that absurd story of your being in need? But I relish
+a good joke too well to spoil it by letting on. Of course, I humored the
+thing; and, on my side, put on all the cruel airs you would have me.
+Come, this little episode of fictitious estrangement will but enhance
+the delightful reality. Let us sit down again, and finish our bottle."
+
+"With all my heart," said the cosmopolitan, dropping the necromancer
+with the same facility with which he had assumed it. "Yes," he added,
+soberly picking up the gold pieces, and returning them with a chink to
+his pocket, "yes, I am something of a funny man now and then; while for
+you, Charlie," eying him in tenderness, "what you say about your
+humoring the thing is true enough; never did man second a joke better
+than you did just now. You played your part better than I did mine; you
+played it, Charlie, to the life."
+
+"You see, I once belonged to an amateur play company; that accounts for
+it. But come, fill up, and let's talk of something else."
+
+"Well," acquiesced the cosmopolitan, seating himself, and quietly
+brimming his glass, "what shall we talk about?"
+
+"Oh, anything you please," a sort of nervously accommodating.
+
+"Well, suppose we talk about Charlemont?"
+
+"Charlemont? What's Charlemont? Who's Charlemont?"
+
+"You shall hear, my dear Charlie," answered the cosmopolitan. "I will
+tell you the story of Charlemont, the gentleman-madman."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+WHICH MAY PASS FOR WHATEVER IT MAY PROVE TO BE WORTH.
+
+
+But ere be given the rather grave story of Charlemont, a reply must in
+civility be made to a certain voice which methinks I hear, that, in view
+of past chapters, and more particularly the last, where certain antics
+appear, exclaims: How unreal all this is! Who did ever dress or act like
+your cosmopolitan? And who, it might be returned, did ever dress or act
+like harlequin?
+
+Strange, that in a work of amusement, this severe fidelity to real life
+should be exacted by any one, who, by taking up such a work,
+sufficiently shows that he is not unwilling to drop real life, and turn,
+for a time, to something different. Yes, it is, indeed, strange that any
+one should clamor for the thing he is weary of; that any one, who, for
+any cause, finds real life dull, should yet demand of him who is to
+divert his attention from it, that he should be true to that dullness.
+
+There is another class, and with this class we side, who sit down to a
+work of amusement tolerantly as they sit at a play, and with much the
+same expectations and feelings. They look that fancy shall evoke scenes
+different from those of the same old crowd round the custom-house
+counter, and same old dishes on the boardinghouse table, with characters
+unlike those of the same old acquaintances they meet in the same old way
+every day in the same old street. And as, in real life, the proprieties
+will not allow people to act out themselves with that unreserve
+permitted to the stage; so, in books of fiction, they look not only for
+more entertainment, but, at bottom, even for more reality, than real
+life itself can show. Thus, though they want novelty, they want nature,
+too; but nature unfettered, exhilarated, in effect transformed. In this
+way of thinking, the people in a fiction, like the people in a play,
+must dress as nobody exactly dresses, talk as nobody exactly talks, act
+as nobody exactly acts. It is with fiction as with religion: it should
+present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.
+
+If, then, something is to be pardoned to well-meant endeavor, surely a
+little is to be allowed to that writer who, in all his scenes, does but
+seek to minister to what, as he understands it, is the implied wish of
+the more indulgent lovers of entertainment, before whom harlequin can
+never appear in a coat too parti-colored, or cut capers too fantastic.
+
+One word more. Though every one knows how bootless it is to be in all
+cases vindicating one's self, never mind how convinced one may be that
+he is never in the wrong; yet, so precious to man is the approbation of
+his kind, that to rest, though but under an imaginary censure applied to
+but a work of imagination, is no easy thing. The mention of this
+weakness will explain why such readers as may think they perceive
+something harmonious between the boisterous hilarity of the cosmopolitan
+with the bristling cynic, and his restrained good-nature with the
+boon-companion, are now referred to that chapter where some similar
+apparent inconsistency in another character is, on general principles,
+modestly endeavored to-be apologized for.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN TELLS THE STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN MADMAN.
+
+
+"Charlemont was a young merchant of French descent, living in St.
+Louis--a man not deficient in mind, and possessed of that sterling and
+captivating kindliness, seldom in perfection seen but in youthful
+bachelors, united at times to a remarkable sort of gracefully
+devil-may-care and witty good-humor. Of course, he was admired by
+everybody, and loved, as only mankind can love, by not a few. But in his
+twenty-ninth year a change came over him. Like one whose hair turns gray
+in a night, so in a day Charlemont turned from affable to morose. His
+acquaintances were passed without greeting; while, as for his
+confidential friends, them he pointedly, unscrupulously, and with a kind
+of fierceness, cut dead.
+
+"One, provoked by such conduct, would fain have resented it with words
+as disdainful; while another, shocked by the change, and, in concern for
+a friend, magnanimously overlooking affronts, implored to know what
+sudden, secret grief had distempered him. But from resentment and from
+tenderness Charlemont alike turned away.
+
+"Ere long, to the general surprise, the merchant Charlemont was
+gazetted, and the same day it was reported that he had withdrawn from
+town, but not before placing his entire property in the hands of
+responsible assignees for the benefit of creditors.
+
+"Whither he had vanished, none could guess. At length, nothing being
+heard, it was surmised that he must have made away with himself--a
+surmise, doubtless, originating in the remembrance of the change some
+months previous to his bankruptcy--a change of a sort only to be
+ascribed to a mind suddenly thrown from its balance.
+
+"Years passed. It was spring-time, and lo, one bright morning,
+Charlemont lounged into the St. Louis coffee-houses--gay, polite,
+humane, companionable, and dressed in the height of costly elegance. Not
+only was he alive, but he was himself again. Upon meeting with old
+acquaintances, he made the first advances, and in such a manner that it
+was impossible not to meet him half-way. Upon other old friends, whom he
+did not chance casually to meet, he either personally called, or left
+his card and compliments for them; and to several, sent presents of game
+or hampers of wine.
+
+"They say the world is sometimes harshly unforgiving, but it was not so
+to Charlemont. The world feels a return of love for one who returns to
+it as he did. Expressive of its renewed interest was a whisper, an
+inquiring whisper, how now, exactly, so long after his bankruptcy, it
+fared with Charlemont's purse. Rumor, seldom at a loss for answers,
+replied that he had spent nine years in Marseilles in France, and there
+acquiring a second fortune, had returned with it, a man devoted
+henceforth to genial friendships.
+
+"Added years went by, and the restored wanderer still the same; or
+rather, by his noble qualities, grew up like golden maize in the
+encouraging sun of good opinions. But still the latent wonder was, what
+had caused that change in him at a period when, pretty much as now, he
+was, to all appearance, in the possession of the same fortune, the same
+friends, the same popularity. But nobody thought it would be the thing
+to question him here.
+
+"At last, at a dinner at his house, when all the guests but one had
+successively departed; this remaining guest, an old acquaintance, being
+just enough under the influence of wine to set aside the fear of
+touching upon a delicate point, ventured, in a way which perhaps spoke
+more favorably for his heart than his tact, to beg of his host to
+explain the one enigma of his life. Deep melancholy overspread the
+before cheery face of Charlemont; he sat for some moments tremulously
+silent; then pushing a full decanter towards the guest, in a choked
+voice, said: 'No, no! when by art, and care, and time, flowers are made
+to bloom over a grave, who would seek to dig all up again only to know
+the mystery?--The wine.' When both glasses were filled, Charlemont took
+his, and lifting it, added lowly: 'If ever, in days to come, you shall
+see ruin at hand, and, thinking you understand mankind, shall tremble
+for your friendships, and tremble for your pride; and, partly through
+love for the one and fear for the other, shall resolve to be beforehand
+with the world, and save it from a sin by prospectively taking that sin
+to yourself, then will you do as one I now dream of once did, and like
+him will you suffer; but how fortunate and how grateful should you be,
+if like him, after all that had happened, you could be a little happy
+again.'
+
+"When the guest went away, it was with the persuasion, that though
+outwardly restored in mind as in fortune, yet, some taint of
+Charlemont's old malady survived, and that it was not well for friends
+to touch one dangerous string."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN STRIKINGLY EVINCES THE ARTLESSNESS OF HIS
+NATURE.
+
+
+"Well, what do you think of the story of Charlemont?" mildly asked he
+who had told it.
+
+"A very strange one," answered the auditor, who had been such not with
+perfect ease, "but is it true?"
+
+"Of course not; it is a story which I told with the purpose of every
+story-teller--to amuse. Hence, if it seem strange to you, that
+strangeness is the romance; it is what contrasts it with real life; it
+is the invention, in brief, the fiction as opposed to the fact. For do
+but ask yourself, my dear Charlie," lovingly leaning over towards him,
+"I rest it with your own heart now, whether such a forereaching motive
+as Charlemont hinted he had acted on in his change--whether such a
+motive, I say, were a sort of one at all justified by the nature of
+human society? Would you, for one, turn the cold shoulder to a friend--a
+convivial one, say, whose pennilessness should be suddenly revealed to
+you?"
+
+"How can you ask me, my dear Frank? You know I would scorn such
+meanness." But rising somewhat disconcerted--"really, early as it is, I
+think I must retire; my head," putting up his hand to it, "feels
+unpleasantly; this confounded elixir of logwood, little as I drank of
+it, has played the deuce with me."
+
+"Little as you drank of this elixir of logwood? Why, Charlie, you are
+losing your mind. To talk so of the genuine, mellow old port. Yes, I
+think that by all means you had better away, and sleep it off.
+There--don't apologize--don't explain--go, go--I understand you exactly.
+I will see you to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+IN WHICH THE COSMOPOLITAN IS ACCOSTED BY A MYSTIC, WHEREUPON ENSUES
+PRETTY MUCH SUCH TALK AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.
+
+
+As, not without some haste, the boon companion withdrew, a stranger
+advanced, and touching the cosmopolitan, said: "I think I heard you say
+you would see that man again. Be warned; don't you do so."
+
+He turned, surveying the speaker; a blue-eyed man, sandy-haired, and
+Saxon-looking; perhaps five and forty; tall, and, but for a certain
+angularity, well made; little touch of the drawing-room about him, but a
+look of plain propriety of a Puritan sort, with a kind of farmer
+dignity. His age seemed betokened more by his brow, placidly thoughtful,
+than by his general aspect, which had that look of youthfulness in
+maturity, peculiar sometimes to habitual health of body, the original
+gift of nature, or in part the effect or reward of steady temperance of
+the passions, kept so, perhaps, by constitution as much as morality. A
+neat, comely, almost ruddy cheek, coolly fresh, like a red
+clover-blossom at coolish dawn--the color of warmth preserved by the
+virtue of chill. Toning the whole man, was one-knows-not-what of
+shrewdness and mythiness, strangely jumbled; in that way, he seemed a
+kind of cross between a Yankee peddler and a Tartar priest, though it
+seemed as if, at a pinch, the first would not in all probability play
+second fiddle to the last.
+
+"Sir," said the cosmopolitan, rising and bowing with slow dignity, "if I
+cannot with unmixed satisfaction hail a hint pointed at one who has just
+been clinking the social glass with me, on the other hand, I am not
+disposed to underrate the motive which, in the present case, could alone
+have prompted such an intimation. My friend, whose seat is still warm,
+has retired for the night, leaving more or less in his bottle here.
+Pray, sit down in his seat, and partake with me; and then, if you choose
+to hint aught further unfavorable to the man, the genial warmth of whose
+person in part passes into yours, and whose genial hospitality meanders
+through you--be it so."
+
+"Quite beautiful conceits," said the stranger, now scholastically and
+artistically eying the picturesque speaker, as if he were a statue in
+the Pitti Palace; "very beautiful:" then with the gravest interest,
+"yours, sir, if I mistake not, must be a beautiful soul--one full of all
+love and truth; for where beauty is, there must those be."
+
+"A pleasing belief," rejoined the cosmopolitan, beginning with an even
+air, "and to confess, long ago it pleased me. Yes, with you and
+Schiller, I am pleased to believe that beauty is at bottom incompatible
+with ill, and therefore am so eccentric as to have confidence in the
+latent benignity of that beautiful creature, the rattle-snake, whose
+lithe neck and burnished maze of tawny gold, as he sleekly curls aloft
+in the sun, who on the prairie can behold without wonder?"
+
+As he breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit--as
+some earnest descriptive speakers will--as unconsciously to wreathe his
+form and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creature
+described. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise,
+apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical sort, and
+presently said:
+
+"When charmed by the beauty of that viper, did it never occur to you to
+change personalities with him? to feel what it was to be a snake? to
+glide unsuspected in grass? to sting, to kill at a touch; your whole
+beautiful body one iridescent scabbard of death? In short, did the wish
+never occur to you to feel yourself exempt from knowledge, and
+conscience, and revel for a while in the carefree, joyous life of a
+perfectly instinctive, unscrupulous, and irresponsible creature?"
+
+"Such a wish," replied the other, not perceptibly disturbed, "I must
+confess, never consciously was mine. Such a wish, indeed, could hardly
+occur to ordinary imaginations, and mine I cannot think much above the
+average."
+
+"But now that the idea is suggested," said the stranger, with infantile
+intellectuality, "does it not raise the desire?"
+
+"Hardly. For though I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice
+against the rattle-snake, still, I should not like to be one. If I were
+a rattle-snake now, there would be no such thing as being genial with
+men--men would be afraid of me, and then I should be a very lonesome and
+miserable rattle-snake."
+
+"True, men would be afraid of you. And why? Because of your rattle, your
+hollow rattle--a sound, as I have been told, like the shaking together
+of small, dry skulls in a tune of the Waltz of Death. And here we have
+another beautiful truth. When any creature is by its make inimical to
+other creatures, nature in effect labels that creature, much as an
+apothecary does a poison. So that whoever is destroyed by a
+rattle-snake, or other harmful agent, it is his own fault. He should
+have respected the label. Hence that significant passage in Scripture,
+'Who will pity the charmer that is bitten with a serpent?'"
+
+"_I_ would pity him," said the cosmopolitan, a little bluntly, perhaps.
+
+"But don't you think," rejoined the other, still maintaining his
+passionless air, "don't you think, that for a man to pity where nature
+is pitiless, is a little presuming?"
+
+"Let casuists decide the casuistry, but the compassion the heart decides
+for itself. But, sir," deepening in seriousness, "as I now for the first
+realize, you but a moment since introduced the word irresponsible in a
+way I am not used to. Now, sir, though, out of a tolerant spirit, as I
+hope, I try my best never to be frightened at any speculation, so long
+as it is pursued in honesty, yet, for once, I must acknowledge that you
+do really, in the point cited, cause me uneasiness; because a proper
+view of the universe, that view which is suited to breed a proper
+confidence, teaches, if I err not, that since all things are justly
+presided over, not very many living agents but must be some way
+accountable."
+
+"Is a rattle-snake accountable?" asked the stranger with such a
+preternaturally cold, gemmy glance out of his pellucid blue eye, that he
+seemed more a metaphysical merman than a feeling man; "is a rattle-snake
+accountable?"
+
+"If I will not affirm that it is," returned the other, with the caution
+of no inexperienced thinker, "neither will I deny it. But if we suppose
+it so, I need not say that such accountability is neither to you, nor
+me, nor the Court of Common Pleas, but to something superior."
+
+He was proceeding, when the stranger would have interrupted him; but as
+reading his argument in his eye, the cosmopolitan, without waiting for
+it to be put into words, at once spoke to it: "You object to my
+supposition, for but such it is, that the rattle-snake's accountability
+is not by nature manifest; but might not much the same thing be urged
+against man's? A _reductio ad absurdum_, proving the objection vain. But
+if now," he continued, "you consider what capacity for mischief there is
+in a rattle-snake (observe, I do not charge it with being mischievous, I
+but say it has the capacity), could you well avoid admitting that that
+would be no symmetrical view of the universe which should maintain that,
+while to man it is forbidden to kill, without judicial cause, his
+fellow, yet the rattle-snake has an implied permit of unaccountability
+to murder any creature it takes capricious umbrage at--man
+included?--But," with a wearied air, "this is no genial talk; at least
+it is not so to me. Zeal at unawares embarked me in it. I regret it.
+Pray, sit down, and take some of this wine."
+
+"Your suggestions are new to me," said the other, with a kind of
+condescending appreciativeness, as of one who, out of devotion to
+knowledge, disdains not to appropriate the least crumb of it, even from
+a pauper's board; "and, as I am a very Athenian in hailing a new
+thought, I cannot consent to let it drop so abruptly. Now, the
+rattle-snake----"
+
+"Nothing more about rattle-snakes, I beseech," in distress; "I must
+positively decline to reenter upon that subject. Sit down, sir, I beg,
+and take some of this wine."
+
+"To invite me to sit down with you is hospitable," collectedly
+acquiescing now in the change of topics; "and hospitality being fabled
+to be of oriental origin, and forming, as it does, the subject of a
+pleasing Arabian romance, as well as being a very romantic thing in
+itself--hence I always hear the expressions of hospitality with
+pleasure. But, as for the wine, my regard for that beverage is so
+extreme, and I am so fearful of letting it sate me, that I keep my love
+for it in the lasting condition of an untried abstraction. Briefly, I
+quaff immense draughts of wine from the page of Hafiz, but wine from a
+cup I seldom as much as sip."
+
+The cosmopolitan turned a mild glance upon the speaker, who, now
+occupying the chair opposite him, sat there purely and coldly radiant as
+a prism. It seemed as if one could almost hear him vitreously chime and
+ring. That moment a waiter passed, whom, arresting with a sign, the
+cosmopolitan bid go bring a goblet of ice-water. "Ice it well, waiter,"
+said he; "and now," turning to the stranger, "will you, if you please,
+give me your reason for the warning words you first addressed to me?"
+
+"I hope they were not such warnings as most warnings are," said the
+stranger; "warnings which do not forewarn, but in mockery come after the
+fact. And yet something in you bids me think now, that whatever latent
+design your impostor friend might have had upon you, it as yet remains
+unaccomplished. You read his label."
+
+"And what did it say? 'This is a genial soul,' So you see you must
+either give up your doctrine of labels, or else your prejudice against
+my friend. But tell me," with renewed earnestness, "what do you take him
+for? What is he?"
+
+"What are you? What am I? Nobody knows who anybody is. The data which
+life furnishes, towards forming a true estimate of any being, are as
+insufficient to that end as in geometry one side given would be to
+determine the triangle."
+
+"But is not this doctrine of triangles someway inconsistent with your
+doctrine of labels?"
+
+"Yes; but what of that? I seldom care to be consistent. In a
+philosophical view, consistency is a certain level at all times,
+maintained in all the thoughts of one's mind. But, since nature is
+nearly all hill and dale, how can one keep naturally advancing in
+knowledge without submitting to the natural inequalities in the
+progress? Advance into knowledge is just like advance upon the grand
+Erie canal, where, from the character of the country, change of level is
+inevitable; you are locked up and locked down with perpetual
+inconsistencies, and yet all the time you get on; while the dullest part
+of the whole route is what the boatmen call the 'long level'--a
+consistently-flat surface of sixty miles through stagnant swamps."
+
+"In one particular," rejoined the cosmopolitan, "your simile is,
+perhaps, unfortunate. For, after all these weary lockings-up and
+lockings-down, upon how much of a higher plain do you finally stand?
+Enough to make it an object? Having from youth been taught reverence for
+knowledge, you must pardon me if, on but this one account, I reject your
+analogy. But really you someway bewitch me with your tempting discourse,
+so that I keep straying from my point unawares. You tell me you cannot
+certainly know who or what my friend is; pray, what do you conjecture
+him to be?"
+
+"I conjecture him to be what, among the ancient Egyptians, was called a
+----" using some unknown word.
+
+"A ----! And what is that?"
+
+"A ---- is what Proclus, in a little note to his third book on the
+theology of Plato, defines as ---- ----" coming out with a sentence of
+Greek.
+
+Holding up his glass, and steadily looking through its transparency, the
+cosmopolitan rejoined: "That, in so defining the thing, Proclus set it
+to modern understandings in the most crystal light it was susceptible
+of, I will not rashly deny; still, if you could put the definition in
+words suited to perceptions like mine, I should take it for a favor.
+
+"A favor!" slightly lifting his cool eyebrows; "a bridal favor I
+understand, a knot of white ribands, a very beautiful type of the purity
+of true marriage; but of other favors I am yet to learn; and still, in a
+vague way, the word, as you employ it, strikes me as unpleasingly
+significant in general of some poor, unheroic submission to being done
+good to."
+
+Here the goblet of iced-water was brought, and, in compliance with a
+sign from the cosmopolitan, was placed before the stranger, who, not
+before expressing acknowledgments, took a draught, apparently
+refreshing--its very coldness, as with some is the case, proving not
+entirely uncongenial.
+
+At last, setting down the goblet, and gently wiping from his lips the
+beads of water freshly clinging there as to the valve of a coral-shell
+upon a reef, he turned upon the cosmopolitan, and, in a manner the most
+cool, self-possessed, and matter-of-fact possible, said: "I hold to the
+metempsychosis; and whoever I may be now, I feel that I was once the
+stoic Arrian, and have inklings of having been equally puzzled by a word
+in the current language of that former time, very probably answering to
+your word _favor_."
+
+"Would you favor me by explaining?" said the cosmopolitan, blandly.
+
+"Sir," responded the stranger, with a very slight degree of severity, "I
+like lucidity, of all things, and am afraid I shall hardly be able to
+converse satisfactorily with you, unless you bear it in mind."
+
+The cosmopolitan ruminatingly eyed him awhile, then said: "The best way,
+as I have heard, to get out of a labyrinth, is to retrace one's steps. I
+will accordingly retrace mine, and beg you will accompany me. In short,
+once again to return to the point: for what reason did you warn me
+against my friend?"
+
+"Briefly, then, and clearly, because, as before said, I conjecture him
+to be what, among the ancient Egyptians----"
+
+"Pray, now," earnestly deprecated the cosmopolitan, "pray, now, why
+disturb the repose of those ancient Egyptians? What to us are their
+words or their thoughts? Are we pauper Arabs, without a house of our
+own, that, with the mummies, we must turn squatters among the dust of
+the Catacombs?"
+
+"Pharaoh's poorest brick-maker lies proudlier in his rags than the
+Emperor of all the Russias in his hollands," oracularly said the
+stranger; "for death, though in a worm, is majestic; while life, though
+in a king, is contemptible. So talk not against mummies. It is a part of
+my mission to teach mankind a due reverence for mummies."
+
+Fortunately, to arrest these incoherencies, or rather, to vary them, a
+haggard, inspired-looking man now approached--a crazy beggar, asking
+alms under the form of peddling a rhapsodical tract, composed by
+himself, and setting forth his claims to some rhapsodical apostleship.
+Though ragged and dirty, there was about him no touch of vulgarity; for,
+by nature, his manner was not unrefined, his frame slender, and appeared
+the more so from the broad, untanned frontlet of his brow, tangled over
+with a disheveled mass of raven curls, throwing a still deeper tinge
+upon a complexion like that of a shriveled berry. Nothing could exceed
+his look of picturesque Italian ruin and dethronement, heightened by
+what seemed just one glimmering peep of reason, insufficient to do him
+any lasting good, but enough, perhaps, to suggest a torment of latent
+doubts at times, whether his addled dream of glory were true.
+
+Accepting the tract offered him, the cosmopolitan glanced over it, and,
+seeming to see just what it was, closed it, put it in his pocket, eyed
+the man a moment, then, leaning over and presenting him with a shilling,
+said to him, in tones kind and considerate: "I am sorry, my friend, that
+I happen to be engaged just now; but, having purchased your work, I
+promise myself much satisfaction in its perusal at my earliest leisure."
+
+In his tattered, single-breasted frock-coat, buttoned meagerly up to his
+chin, the shutter-brain made him a bow, which, for courtesy, would not
+have misbecome a viscount, then turned with silent appeal to the
+stranger. But the stranger sat more like a cold prism than ever, while
+an expression of keen Yankee cuteness, now replacing his former mystical
+one, lent added icicles to his aspect. His whole air said: "Nothing
+from me." The repulsed petitioner threw a look full of resentful pride
+and cracked disdain upon him, and went his way.
+
+"Come, now," said the cosmopolitan, a little reproachfully, "you ought
+to have sympathized with that man; tell me, did you feel no
+fellow-feeling? Look at his tract here, quite in the transcendental
+vein."
+
+"Excuse me," said the stranger, declining the tract, "I never patronize
+scoundrels."
+
+"Scoundrels?"
+
+"I detected in him, sir, a damning peep of sense--damning, I say; for
+sense in a seeming madman is scoundrelism. I take him for a cunning
+vagabond, who picks up a vagabond living by adroitly playing the madman.
+Did you not remark how he flinched under my eye?'
+
+"Really?" drawing a long, astonished breath, "I could hardly have
+divined in you a temper so subtlely distrustful. Flinched? to be sure he
+did, poor fellow; you received him with so lame a welcome. As for his
+adroitly playing the madman, invidious critics might object the same to
+some one or two strolling magi of these days. But that is a matter I
+know nothing about. But, once more, and for the last time, to return to
+the point: why sir, did you warn me against my friend? I shall rejoice,
+if, as I think it will prove, your want of confidence in my friend rests
+upon a basis equally slender with your distrust of the lunatic. Come,
+why did you warn me? Put it, I beseech, in few words, and those
+English."
+
+"I warned you against him because he is suspected for what on these
+boats is known--so they tell me--as a Mississippi operator."
+
+"An operator, ah? he operates, does he? My friend, then, is something
+like what the Indians call a Great Medicine, is he? He operates, he
+purges, he drains off the repletions."
+
+"I perceive, sir," said the stranger, constitutionally obtuse to the
+pleasant drollery, "that your notion, of what is called a Great
+Medicine, needs correction. The Great Medicine among the Indians is less
+a bolus than a man in grave esteem for his politic sagacity."
+
+"And is not my friend politic? Is not my friend sagacious? By your own
+definition, is not my friend a Great Medicine?"
+
+"No, he is an operator, a Mississippi operator; an equivocal character.
+That he is such, I little doubt, having had him pointed out to me as
+such by one desirous of initiating me into any little novelty of this
+western region, where I never before traveled. And, sir, if I am not
+mistaken, you also are a stranger here (but, indeed, where in this
+strange universe is not one a stranger?) and that is a reason why I felt
+moved to warn you against a companion who could not be otherwise than
+perilous to one of a free and trustful disposition. But I repeat the
+hope, that, thus far at least, he has not succeeded with you, and trust
+that, for the future, he will not."
+
+"Thank you for your concern; but hardly can I equally thank you for so
+steadily maintaining the hypothesis of my friend's objectionableness.
+True, I but made his acquaintance for the first to-day, and know little
+of his antecedents; but that would seem no just reason why a nature like
+his should not of itself inspire confidence. And since your own
+knowledge of the gentleman is not, by your account, so exact as it might
+be, you will pardon me if I decline to welcome any further suggestions
+unflattering to him. Indeed, sir," with friendly decision, "let us
+change the subject."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE MYSTICAL MASTER INTRODUCES THE PRACTICAL DISCIPLE.
+
+
+"Both, the subject and the interlocutor," replied the stranger rising,
+and waiting the return towards him of a promenader, that moment turning
+at the further end of his walk.
+
+"Egbert!" said he, calling.
+
+Egbert, a well-dressed, commercial-looking gentleman of about thirty,
+responded in a way strikingly deferential, and in a moment stood near,
+in the attitude less of an equal companion apparently than a
+confidential follower.
+
+"This," said the stranger, taking Egbert by the hand and leading him to
+the cosmopolitan, "this is Egbert, a disciple. I wish you to know
+Egbert. Egbert was the first among mankind to reduce to practice the
+principles of Mark Winsome--principles previously accounted as less
+adapted to life than the closet. Egbert," turning to the disciple, who,
+with seeming modesty, a little shrank under these compliments, "Egbert,
+this," with a salute towards the cosmopolitan, "is, like all of us, a
+stranger. I wish you, Egbert, to know this brother stranger; be
+communicative with him. Particularly if, by anything hitherto dropped,
+his curiosity has been roused as to the precise nature of my philosophy,
+I trust you will not leave such curiosity ungratified. You, Egbert, by
+simply setting forth your practice, can do more to enlighten one as to
+my theory, than I myself can by mere speech. Indeed, it is by you that I
+myself best understand myself. For to every philosophy are certain rear
+parts, very important parts, and these, like the rear of one's head, are
+best seen by reflection. Now, as in a glass, you, Egbert, in your life,
+reflect to me the more important part of my system. He, who approves
+you, approves the philosophy of Mark Winsome."
+
+Though portions of this harangue may, perhaps, in the phraseology seem
+self-complaisant, yet no trace of self-complacency was perceptible in
+the speaker's manner, which throughout was plain, unassuming, dignified,
+and manly; the teacher and prophet seemed to lurk more in the idea, so
+to speak, than in the mere bearing of him who was the vehicle of it.
+
+"Sir," said the cosmopolitan, who seemed not a little interested in this
+new aspect of matters, "you speak of a certain philosophy, and a more or
+less occult one it may be, and hint of its bearing upon practical life;
+pray, tell me, if the study of this philosophy tends to the same
+formation of character with the experiences of the world?"
+
+"It does; and that is the test of its truth; for any philosophy that,
+being in operation contradictory to the ways of the world, tends to
+produce a character at odds with it, such a philosophy must necessarily
+be but a cheat and a dream."
+
+"You a little surprise me," answered the cosmopolitan; "for, from an
+occasional profundity in you, and also from your allusions to a profound
+work on the theology of Plato, it would seem but natural to surmise
+that, if you are the originator of any philosophy, it must needs so
+partake of the abstruse, as to exalt it above the comparatively vile
+uses of life."
+
+"No uncommon mistake with regard to me," rejoined the other. Then meekly
+standing like a Raphael: "If still in golden accents old Memnon murmurs
+his riddle, none the less does the balance-sheet of every man's ledger
+unriddle the profit or loss of life. Sir," with calm energy, "man came
+into this world, not to sit down and muse, not to befog himself with
+vain subtleties, but to gird up his loins and to work. Mystery is in the
+morning, and mystery in the night, and the beauty of mystery is
+everywhere; but still the plain truth remains, that mouth and purse must
+be filled. If, hitherto, you have supposed me a visionary, be
+undeceived. I am no one-ideaed one, either; no more than the seers
+before me. Was not Seneca a usurer? Bacon a courtier? and Swedenborg,
+though with one eye on the invisible, did he not keep the other on the
+main chance? Along with whatever else it may be given me to be, I am a
+man of serviceable knowledge, and a man of the world. Know me for such.
+And as for my disciple here," turning towards him, "if you look to find
+any soft Utopianisms and last year's sunsets in him, I smile to think
+how he will set you right. The doctrines I have taught him will, I
+trust, lead him neither to the mad-house nor the poor-house, as so many
+other doctrines have served credulous sticklers. Furthermore," glancing
+upon him paternally, "Egbert is both my disciple and my poet. For poetry
+is not a thing of ink and rhyme, but of thought and act, and, in the
+latter way, is by any one to be found anywhere, when in useful action
+sought. In a word, my disciple here is a thriving young merchant, a
+practical poet in the West India trade. There," presenting Egbert's hand
+to the cosmopolitan, "I join you, and leave you." With which words, and
+without bowing, the master withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE DISCIPLE UNBENDS, AND CONSENTS TO ACT A SOCIAL PART.
+
+
+In the master's presence the disciple had stood as one not ignorant of
+his place; modesty was in his expression, with a sort of reverential
+depression. But the presence of the superior withdrawn, he seemed
+lithely to shoot up erect from beneath it, like one of those wire men
+from a toy snuff-box.
+
+He was, as before said, a young man of about thirty. His countenance of
+that neuter sort, which, in repose, is neither prepossessing nor
+disagreeable; so that it seemed quite uncertain how he would turn out.
+His dress was neat, with just enough of the mode to save it from the
+reproach of originality; in which general respect, though with a
+readjustment of details, his costume seemed modeled upon his master's.
+But, upon the whole, he was, to all appearances, the last person in the
+world that one would take for the disciple of any transcendental
+philosophy; though, indeed, something about his sharp nose and shaved
+chin seemed to hint that if mysticism, as a lesson, ever came in his
+way, he might, with the characteristic knack of a true New-Englander,
+turn even so profitless a thing to some profitable account.
+
+"Well" said he, now familiarly seating himself in the vacated chair,
+"what do you think of Mark? Sublime fellow, ain't he?"
+
+"That each member of the human guild is worthy respect my friend,"
+rejoined the cosmopolitan, "is a fact which no admirer of that guild
+will question; but that, in view of higher natures, the word sublime, so
+frequently applied to them, can, without confusion, be also applied to
+man, is a point which man will decide for himself; though, indeed, if he
+decide it in the affirmative, it is not for me to object. But I am
+curious to know more of that philosophy of which, at present, I have but
+inklings. You, its first disciple among men, it seems, are peculiarly
+qualified to expound it. Have you any objections to begin now?"
+
+"None at all," squaring himself to the table. "Where shall I begin? At
+first principles?"
+
+"You remember that it was in a practical way that you were represented
+as being fitted for the clear exposition. Now, what you call first
+principles, I have, in some things, found to be more or less vague.
+Permit me, then, in a plain way, to suppose some common case in real
+life, and that done, I would like you to tell me how you, the practical
+disciple of the philosophy I wish to know about, would, in that case,
+conduct."
+
+"A business-like view. Propose the case."
+
+"Not only the case, but the persons. The case is this: There are two
+friends, friends from childhood, bosom-friends; one of whom, for the
+first time, being in need, for the first time seeks a loan from the
+other, who, so far as fortune goes, is more than competent to grant it.
+And the persons are to be you and I: you, the friend from whom the loan
+is sought--I, the friend who seeks it; you, the disciple of the
+philosophy in question--I, a common man, with no more philosophy than to
+know that when I am comfortably warm I don't feel cold, and when I have
+the ague I shake. Mind, now, you must work up your imagination, and, as
+much as possible, talk and behave just as if the case supposed were a
+fact. For brevity, you shall call me Frank, and I will call you Charlie.
+Are you agreed?"
+
+"Perfectly. You begin."
+
+The cosmopolitan paused a moment, then, assuming a serious and care-worn
+air, suitable to the part to be enacted, addressed his hypothesized
+friend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE HYPOTHETICAL FRIENDS.
+
+
+"Charlie, I am going to put confidence in you."
+
+"You always have, and with reason. What is it Frank?"
+
+"Charlie, I am in want--urgent want of money."
+
+"That's not well."
+
+"But it _will_ be well, Charlie, if you loan me a hundred dollars. I
+would not ask this of you, only my need is sore, and you and I have so
+long shared hearts and minds together, however unequally on my side,
+that nothing remains to prove our friendship than, with the same
+inequality on my side, to share purses. You will do me the favor won't
+you?"
+
+"Favor? What do you mean by asking me to do you a favor?"
+
+"Why, Charlie, you never used to talk so."
+
+"Because, Frank, you on your side, never used to talk so."
+
+"But won't you loan me the money?"
+
+"No, Frank."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because my rule forbids. I give away money, but never loan it; and of
+course the man who calls himself my friend is above receiving alms. The
+negotiation of a loan is a business transaction. And I will transact no
+business with a friend. What a friend is, he is socially and
+intellectually; and I rate social and intellectual friendship too high
+to degrade it on either side into a pecuniary make-shift. To be sure
+there are, and I have, what is called business friends; that is,
+commercial acquaintances, very convenient persons. But I draw a red-ink
+line between them and my friends in the true sense--my friends social
+and intellectual. In brief, a true friend has nothing to do with loans;
+he should have a soul above loans. Loans are such unfriendly
+accommodations as are to be had from the soulless corporation of a bank,
+by giving the regular security and paying the regular discount."
+
+"An _unfriendly_ accommodation? Do those words go together handsomely?"
+
+"Like the poor farmer's team, of an old man and a cow--not handsomely,
+but to the purpose. Look, Frank, a loan of money on interest is a sale
+of money on credit. To sell a thing on credit may be an accommodation,
+but where is the friendliness? Few men in their senses, except
+operators, borrow money on interest, except upon a necessity akin to
+starvation. Well, now, where is the friendliness of my letting a
+starving man have, say, the money's worth of a barrel of flour upon the
+condition that, on a given day, he shall let me have the money's worth
+of a barrel and a half of flour; especially if I add this further
+proviso, that if he fail so to do, I shall then, to secure to myself
+the money's worth of my barrel and his half barrel, put his heart up at
+public auction, and, as it is cruel to part families, throw in his
+wife's and children's?"
+
+"I understand," with a pathetic shudder; "but even did it come to that,
+such a step on the creditor's part, let us, for the honor of human
+nature, hope, were less the intention than the contingency."
+
+"But, Frank, a contingency not unprovided for in the taking beforehand
+of due securities."
+
+"Still, Charlie, was not the loan in the first place a friend's act?"
+
+"And the auction in the last place an enemy's act. Don't you see? The
+enmity lies couched in the friendship, just as the ruin in the relief."
+
+"I must be very stupid to-day, Charlie, but really, I can't understand
+this. Excuse me, my dear friend, but it strikes me that in going into
+the philosophy of the subject, you go somewhat out of your depth."
+
+"So said the incautious wader out to the ocean; but the ocean replied:
+'It is just the other way, my wet friend,' and drowned him."
+
+"That, Charlie, is a fable about as unjust to the ocean, as some of
+Æsop's are to the animals. The ocean is a magnanimous element, and would
+scorn to assassinate a poor fellow, let alone taunting him in the act.
+But I don't understand what you say about enmity couched in friendship,
+and ruin in relief."
+
+"I will illustrate, Frank, The needy man is a train slipped off the
+rail. He who loans him money on interest is the one who, by way of
+accommodation, helps get the train back where it belongs; but then, by
+way of making all square, and a little more, telegraphs to an agent,
+thirty miles a-head by a precipice, to throw just there, on his account,
+a beam across the track. Your needy man's principle-and-interest friend
+is, I say again, a friend with an enmity in reserve. No, no, my dear
+friend, no interest for me. I scorn interest."
+
+"Well, Charlie, none need you charge. Loan me without interest."
+
+"That would be alms again."
+
+"Alms, if the sum borrowed is returned?"
+
+"Yes: an alms, not of the principle, but the interest."
+
+"Well, I am in sore need, so I will not decline the alms. Seeing that it
+is you, Charlie, gratefully will I accept the alms of the interest. No
+humiliation between friends."
+
+"Now, how in the refined view of friendship can you suffer yourself to
+talk so, my dear Frank. It pains me. For though I am not of the sour
+mind of Solomon, that, in the hour of need, a stranger is better than a
+brother; yet, I entirely agree with my sublime master, who, in his Essay
+on Friendship, says so nobly, that if he want a terrestrial convenience,
+not to his friend celestial (or friend social and intellectual) would he
+go; no: for his terrestrial convenience, to his friend terrestrial (or
+humbler business-friend) he goes. Very lucidly he adds the reason:
+Because, for the superior nature, which on no account can ever descend
+to do good, to be annoyed with requests to do it, when the inferior
+one, which by no instruction can ever rise above that capacity, stands
+always inclined to it--this is unsuitable."
+
+"Then I will not consider you as my friend celestial, but as the other."
+
+"It racks me to come to that; but, to oblige you, I'll do it. We are
+business friends; business is business. You want to negotiate a loan.
+Very good. On what paper? Will you pay three per cent a month? Where is
+your security?"
+
+"Surely, you will not exact those formalities from your old
+schoolmate--him with whom you have so often sauntered down the groves of
+Academe, discoursing of the beauty of virtue, and the grace that is in
+kindliness--and all for so paltry a sum. Security? Our being
+fellow-academics, and friends from childhood up, is security."
+
+"Pardon me, my dear Frank, our being fellow-academics is the worst of
+securities; while, our having been friends from childhood up is just no
+security at all. You forget we are now business friends."
+
+"And you, on your side, forget, Charlie, that as your business friend I
+can give you no security; my need being so sore that I cannot get an
+indorser."
+
+"No indorser, then, no business loan."
+
+"Since then, Charlie, neither as the one nor the other sort of friend
+you have defined, can I prevail with you; how if, combining the two, I
+sue as both?"
+
+"Are you a centaur?"
+
+"When all is said then, what good have I of your friendship, regarded in
+what light you will?"
+
+"The good which is in the philosophy of Mark Winsome, as reduced to
+practice by a practical disciple."
+
+"And why don't you add, much good may the philosophy of Mark Winsome do
+me? Ah," turning invokingly, "what is friendship, if it be not the
+helping hand and the feeling heart, the good Samaritan pouring out at
+need the purse as the vial!"
+
+"Now, my dear Frank, don't be childish. Through tears never did man see
+his way in the dark. I should hold you unworthy that sincere friendship
+I bear you, could I think that friendship in the ideal is too lofty for
+you to conceive. And let me tell you, my dear Frank, that you would
+seriously shake the foundations of our love, if ever again you should
+repeat the present scene. The philosophy, which is mine in the strongest
+way, teaches plain-dealing. Let me, then, now, as at the most suitable
+time, candidly disclose certain circumstances you seem in ignorance of.
+Though our friendship began in boyhood, think not that, on my side at
+least, it began injudiciously. Boys are little men, it is said. You, I
+juvenilely picked out for my friend, for your favorable points at the
+time; not the least of which were your good manners, handsome dress, and
+your parents' rank and repute of wealth. In short, like any grown man,
+boy though I was, I went into the market and chose me my mutton, not for
+its leanness, but its fatness. In other words, there seemed in you, the
+schoolboy who always had silver in his pocket, a reasonable probability
+that you would never stand in lean need of fat succor; and if my early
+impression has not been verified by the event, it is only because of
+the caprice of fortune producing a fallibility of human expectations,
+however discreet.'"
+
+"Oh, that I should listen to this cold-blooded disclosure!"
+
+"A little cold blood in your ardent veins, my dear Frank, wouldn't do
+you any harm, let me tell you. Cold-blooded? You say that, because my
+disclosure seems to involve a vile prudence on my side. But not so. My
+reason for choosing you in part for the points I have mentioned, was
+solely with a view of preserving inviolate the delicacy of the
+connection. For--do but think of it--what more distressing to delicate
+friendship, formed early, than your friend's eventually, in manhood,
+dropping in of a rainy night for his little loan of five dollars or so?
+Can delicate friendship stand that? And, on the other side, would
+delicate friendship, so long as it retained its delicacy, do that? Would
+you not instinctively say of your dripping friend in the entry, 'I have
+been deceived, fraudulently deceived, in this man; he is no true friend
+that, in platonic love to demand love-rites?'"
+
+"And rites, doubly rights, they are, cruel Charlie!"
+
+"Take it how you will, heed well how, by too importunately claiming
+those rights, as you call them, you shake those foundations I hinted of.
+For though, as it turns out, I, in my early friendship, built me a fair
+house on a poor site; yet such pains and cost have I lavished on that
+house, that, after all, it is dear to me. No, I would not lose the sweet
+boon of your friendship, Frank. But beware."
+
+"And of what? Of being in need? Oh, Charlie! you talk not to a god, a
+being who in himself holds his own estate, but to a man who, being a
+man, is the sport of fate's wind and wave, and who mounts towards heaven
+or sinks towards hell, as the billows roll him in trough or on crest."
+
+"Tut! Frank. Man is no such poor devil as that comes to--no poor
+drifting sea-weed of the universe. Man has a soul; which, if he will,
+puts him beyond fortune's finger and the future's spite. Don't whine
+like fortune's whipped dog, Frank, or by the heart of a true friend, I
+will cut ye."
+
+"Cut me you have already, cruel Charlie, and to the quick. Call to mind
+the days we went nutting, the times we walked in the woods, arms
+wreathed about each other, showing trunks invined like the trees:--oh,
+Charlie!"
+
+"Pish! we were boys."
+
+"Then lucky the fate of the first-born of Egypt, cold in the grave ere
+maturity struck them with a sharper frost.--Charlie?"
+
+"Fie! you're a girl."
+
+"Help, help, Charlie, I want help!"
+
+"Help? to say nothing of the friend, there is something wrong about the
+man who wants help. There is somewhere a defect, a want, in brief, a
+need, a crying need, somewhere about that man."
+
+"So there is, Charlie.--Help, Help!"
+
+"How foolish a cry, when to implore help, is itself the proof of
+undesert of it."
+
+"Oh, this, all along, is not you, Charlie, but some ventriloquist who
+usurps your larynx. It is Mark Winsome that speaks, not Charlie."
+
+"If so, thank heaven, the voice of Mark Winsome is not alien but
+congenial to my larynx. If the philosophy of that illustrious teacher
+find little response among mankind at large, it is less that they do not
+possess teachable tempers, than because they are so unfortunate as not
+to have natures predisposed to accord with him.
+
+"Welcome, that compliment to humanity," exclaimed Frank with energy,
+"the truer because unintended. And long in this respect may humanity
+remain what you affirm it. And long it will; since humanity, inwardly
+feeling how subject it is to straits, and hence how precious is help,
+will, for selfishness' sake, if no other, long postpone ratifying a
+philosophy that banishes help from the world. But Charlie, Charlie!
+speak as you used to; tell me you will help me. Were the case reversed,
+not less freely would I loan you the money than you would ask me to loan
+it.
+
+"_I_ ask? _I_ ask a loan? Frank, by this hand, under no circumstances
+would I accept a loan, though without asking pressed on me. The
+experience of China Aster might warn me."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"Not very unlike the experience of the man that built himself a palace
+of moon-beams, and when the moon set was surprised that his palace
+vanished with it. I will tell you about China Aster. I wish I could do
+so in my own words, but unhappily the original story-teller here has so
+tyrannized over me, that it is quite impossible for me to repeat his
+incidents without sliding into his style. I forewarn you of this, that
+you may not think me so maudlin as, in some parts, the story would seem
+to make its narrator. It is too bad that any intellect, especially in so
+small a matter, should have such power to impose itself upon another,
+against its best exerted will, too. However, it is satisfaction to know
+that the main moral, to which all tends, I fully approve. But, to
+begin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+IN WHICH THE STORY OF CHINA ASTER IS AT SECOND-HAND TOLD BY ONE WHO,
+WHILE NOT DISAPPROVING THE MORAL, DISCLAIMS THE SPIRIT OF THE STYLE.
+
+
+"China Aster was a young candle-maker of Marietta, at the mouth of the
+Muskingum--one whose trade would seem a kind of subordinate branch of
+that parent craft and mystery of the hosts of heaven, to be the means,
+effectively or otherwise, of shedding some light through the darkness of
+a planet benighted. But he made little money by the business. Much ado
+had poor China Aster and his family to live; he could, if he chose,
+light up from his stores a whole street, but not so easily could he
+light up with prosperity the hearts of his household.
+
+"Now, China Aster, it so happened, had a friend, Orchis, a shoemaker;
+one whose calling it is to defend the understandings of men from naked
+contact with the substance of things: a very useful vocation, and which,
+spite of all the wiseacres may prophesy, will hardly go out of fashion
+so long as rocks are hard and flints will gall. All at once, by a
+capital prize in a lottery, this useful shoemaker was raised from a
+bench to a sofa. A small nabob was the shoemaker now, and the
+understandings of men, let them shift for themselves. Not that Orchis
+was, by prosperity, elated into heartlessness. Not at all. Because, in
+his fine apparel, strolling one morning into the candlery, and gayly
+switching about at the candle-boxes with his gold-headed cane--while
+poor China Aster, with his greasy paper cap and leather apron, was
+selling one candle for one penny to a poor orange-woman, who, with the
+patronizing coolness of a liberal customer, required it to be carefully
+rolled up and tied in a half sheet of paper--lively Orchis, the woman
+being gone, discontinued his gay switchings and said: 'This is poor
+business for you, friend China Aster; your capital is too small. You
+must drop this vile tallow and hold up pure spermaceti to the world. I
+tell you what it is, you shall have one thousand dollars to extend with.
+In fact, you must make money, China Aster. I don't like to see your
+little boy paddling about without shoes, as he does.'
+
+"'Heaven bless your goodness, friend Orchis,' replied the candle-maker,
+'but don't take it illy if I call to mind the word of my uncle, the
+blacksmith, who, when a loan was offered him, declined it, saying: "To
+ply my own hammer, light though it be, I think best, rather than piece
+it out heavier by welding to it a bit off a neighbor's hammer, though
+that may have some weight to spare; otherwise, were the borrowed bit
+suddenly wanted again, it might not split off at the welding, but too
+much to one side or the other."'
+
+"'Nonsense, friend China Aster, don't be so honest; your boy is
+barefoot. Besides, a rich man lose by a poor man? Or a friend be the
+worse by a friend? China Aster, I am afraid that, in leaning over into
+your vats here, this, morning, you have spilled out your wisdom. Hush! I
+won't hear any more. Where's your desk? Oh, here.' With that, Orchis
+dashed off a check on his bank, and off-handedly presenting it, said:
+'There, friend China Aster, is your one thousand dollars; when you make
+it ten thousand, as you soon enough will (for experience, the only true
+knowledge, teaches me that, for every one, good luck is in store), then,
+China Aster, why, then you can return me the money or not, just as you
+please. But, in any event, give yourself no concern, for I shall never
+demand payment.'
+
+"Now, as kind heaven will so have it that to a hungry man bread is a
+great temptation, and, therefore, he is not too harshly to be blamed,
+if, when freely offered, he take it, even though it be uncertain whether
+he shall ever be able to reciprocate; so, to a poor man, proffered money
+is equally enticing, and the worst that can be said of him, if he accept
+it, is just what can be said in the other case of the hungry man. In
+short, the poor candle-maker's scrupulous morality succumbed to his
+unscrupulous necessity, as is now and then apt to be the case. He took
+the check, and was about carefully putting it away for the present, when
+Orchis, switching about again with his gold-headed cane, said:
+'By-the-way, China Aster, it don't mean anything, but suppose you make a
+little memorandum of this; won't do any harm, you know.' So China Aster
+gave Orchis his note for one thousand dollars on demand. Orchis took it,
+and looked at it a moment, 'Pooh, I told you, friend China Aster, I
+wasn't going ever to make any _demand_.' Then tearing up the note, and
+switching away again at the candle-boxes, said, carelessly; 'Put it at
+four years.' So China Aster gave Orchis his note for one thousand
+dollars at four years. 'You see I'll never trouble you about this,' said
+Orchis, slipping it in his pocket-book, 'give yourself no further
+thought, friend China Aster, than how best to invest your money. And
+don't forget my hint about spermaceti. Go into that, and I'll buy all my
+light of you,' with which encouraging words, he, with wonted, rattling
+kindness, took leave.
+
+"China Aster remained standing just where Orchis had left him; when,
+suddenly, two elderly friends, having nothing better to do, dropped in
+for a chat. The chat over, China Aster, in greasy cap and apron, ran
+after Orchis, and said: 'Friend Orchis, heaven will reward you for your
+good intentions, but here is your check, and now give me my note.'
+
+"'Your honesty is a bore, China Aster,' said Orchis, not without
+displeasure. 'I won't take the check from you.'
+
+"'Then you must take it from the pavement, Orchis,' said China Aster;
+and, picking up a stone, he placed the check under it on the walk.
+
+"'China Aster,' said Orchis, inquisitively eying him, after my leaving
+the candlery just now, what asses dropped in there to advise with you,
+that now you hurry after me, and act so like a fool? Shouldn't wonder if
+it was those two old asses that the boys nickname Old Plain Talk and Old
+Prudence.'
+
+"'Yes, it was those two, Orchis, but don't call them names.'
+
+"'A brace of spavined old croakers. Old Plain Talk had a shrew for a
+wife, and that's made him shrewish; and Old Prudence, when a boy, broke
+down in an apple-stall, and that discouraged him for life. No better
+sport for a knowing spark like me than to hear Old Plain Talk wheeze out
+his sour old saws, while Old Prudence stands by, leaning on his staff,
+wagging his frosty old pow, and chiming in at every clause.'
+
+"'How can you speak so, friend Orchis, of those who were my father's
+friends?'"
+
+"'Save me from my friends, if those old croakers were Old Honesty's
+friends. I call your father so, for every one used to. Why did they let
+him go in his old age on the town? Why, China Aster, I've often heard
+from my mother, the chronicler, that those two old fellows, with Old
+Conscience--as the boys called the crabbed old quaker, that's dead
+now--they three used to go to the poor-house when your father was there,
+and get round his bed, and talk to him for all the world as Eliphaz,
+Bildad, and Zophar did to poor old pauper Job. Yes, Job's comforters
+were Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence, and Old Conscience, to your poor
+old father. Friends? I should like to know who you call foes? With their
+everlasting croaking and reproaching they tormented poor Old Honesty,
+your father, to death.'
+
+"At these words, recalling the sad end of his worthy parent, China Aster
+could not restrain some tears. Upon which Orchis said: 'Why, China
+Aster, you are the dolefulest creature. Why don't you, China Aster,
+take a bright view of life? You will never get on in your business or
+anything else, if you don't take the bright view of life. It's the
+ruination of a man to take the dismal one.' Then, gayly poking at him
+with his gold-headed cane, 'Why don't you, then? Why don't you be bright
+and hopeful, like me? Why don't you have confidence, China Aster?
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, friend Orchis,' soberly replied China Aster,
+'but may be my not having drawn a lottery-prize, like you, may make some
+difference.'
+
+"Nonsense! before I knew anything about the prize I was gay as a lark,
+just as gay as I am now. In fact, it has always been a principle with me
+to hold to the bright view.'
+
+"Upon this, China Aster looked a little hard at Orchis, because the
+truth was, that until the lucky prize came to him, Orchis had gone under
+the nickname of Doleful Dumps, he having been beforetimes of a
+hypochondriac turn, so much so as to save up and put by a few dollars of
+his scanty earnings against that rainy day he used to groan so much
+about.
+
+"I tell you what it is, now, friend China Aster,' said Orchis, pointing
+down to the check under the stone, and then slapping his pocket, 'the
+check shall lie there if you say so, but your note shan't keep it
+company. In fact, China Aster, I am too sincerely your friend to take
+advantage of a passing fit of the blues in you. You _shall_ reap the
+benefit of my friendship.' With which, buttoning up his coat in a
+jiffy, away he ran, leaving the check behind.
+
+"At first, China Aster was going to tear it up, but thinking that this
+ought not to be done except in the presence of the drawer of the check,
+he mused a while, and picking it up, trudged back to the candlery, fully
+resolved to call upon Orchis soon as his day's work was over, and
+destroy the check before his eyes. But it so happened that when China
+Aster called, Orchis was out, and, having waited for him a weary time in
+vain, China Aster went home, still with the check, but still resolved
+not to keep it another day. Bright and early next morning he would a
+second time go after Orchis, and would, no doubt, make a sure thing of
+it, by finding him in his bed; for since the lottery-prize came to him,
+Orchis, besides becoming more cheery, had also grown a little lazy. But
+as destiny would have it, that same night China Aster had a dream, in
+which a being in the guise of a smiling angel, and holding a kind of
+cornucopia in her hand, hovered over him, pouring down showers of small
+gold dollars, thick as kernels of corn. 'I am Bright Future, friend
+China Aster,' said the angel, 'and if you do what friend Orchis would
+have you do, just see what will come of it.' With which Bright Future,
+with another swing of her cornucopia, poured such another shower of
+small gold dollars upon him, that it seemed to bank him up all round,
+and he waded about in it like a maltster in malt.
+
+"Now, dreams are wonderful things, as everybody knows--so wonderful,
+indeed, that some people stop not short of ascribing them directly to
+heaven; and China Aster, who was of a proper turn of mind in everything,
+thought that in consideration of the dream, it would be but well to wait
+a little, ere seeking Orchis again. During the day, China Aster's mind
+dwelling continually upon the dream, he was so full of it, that when Old
+Plain Talk dropped in to see him, just before dinnertime, as he often
+did, out of the interest he took in Old Honesty's son, China Aster told
+all about his vision, adding that he could not think that so radiant an
+angel could deceive; and, indeed, talked at such a rate that one would
+have thought he believed the angel some beautiful human philanthropist.
+Something in this sort Old Plain Talk understood him, and, accordingly,
+in his plain way, said: 'China Aster, you tell me that an angel appeared
+to you in a dream. Now, what does that amount to but this, that you
+dreamed an angel appeared to you? Go right away, China Aster, and return
+the check, as I advised you before. If friend Prudence were here, he
+would say just the same thing.' With which words Old Plain Talk went off
+to find friend Prudence, but not succeeding, was returning to the
+candlery himself, when, at distance mistaking him for a dun who had long
+annoyed him, China Aster in a panic barred all his doors, and ran to the
+back part of the candlery, where no knock could be heard.
+
+"By this sad mistake, being left with no friend to argue the other side
+of the question, China Aster was so worked upon at last, by musing over
+his dream, that nothing would do but he must get the check cashed, and
+lay out the money the very same day in buying a good lot of spermaceti
+to make into candles, by which operation he counted upon turning a
+better penny than he ever had before in his life; in fact, this he
+believed would prove the foundation of that famous fortune which the
+angel had promised him.
+
+"Now, in using the money, China Aster was resolved punctually to pay the
+interest every six months till the principal should be returned, howbeit
+not a word about such a thing had been breathed by Orchis; though,
+indeed, according to custom, as well as law, in such matters, interest
+would legitimately accrue on the loan, nothing to the contrary having
+been put in the bond. Whether Orchis at the time had this in mind or
+not, there is no sure telling; but, to all appearance, he never so much
+as cared to think about the matter, one way or other.
+
+"Though the spermaceti venture rather disappointed China Aster's
+sanguine expectations, yet he made out to pay the first six months'
+interest, and though his next venture turned out still less
+prosperously, yet by pinching his family in the matter of fresh meat,
+and, what pained him still more, his boys' schooling, he contrived to
+pay the second six months' interest, sincerely grieved that integrity,
+as well as its opposite, though not in an equal degree, costs something,
+sometimes.
+
+"Meanwhile, Orchis had gone on a trip to Europe by advice of a
+physician; it so happening that, since the lottery-prize came to him, it
+had been discovered to Orchis that his health was not very firm, though
+he had never complained of anything before but a slight ailing of the
+spleen, scarce worth talking about at the time. So Orchis, being abroad,
+could not help China Aster's paying his interest as he did, however much
+he might have been opposed to it; for China Aster paid it to Orchis's
+agent, who was of too business-like a turn to decline interest regularly
+paid in on a loan.
+
+"But overmuch to trouble the agent on that score was not again to be the
+fate of China Aster; for, not being of that skeptical spirit which
+refuses to trust customers, his third venture resulted, through bad
+debts, in almost a total loss--a bad blow for the candle-maker. Neither
+did Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence neglect the opportunity to read him
+an uncheerful enough lesson upon the consequences of his disregarding
+their advice in the matter of having nothing to do with borrowed money.
+'It's all just as I predicted,' said Old Plain Talk, blowing his old
+nose with his old bandana. 'Yea, indeed is it,' chimed in Old Prudence,
+rapping his staff on the floor, and then leaning upon it, looking with
+solemn forebodings upon China Aster. Low-spirited enough felt the poor
+candle-maker; till all at once who should come with a bright face to him
+but his bright friend, the angel, in another dream. Again the cornucopia
+poured out its treasure, and promised still more. Revived by the vision,
+he resolved not to be down-hearted, but up and at it once more--contrary
+to the advice of Old Plain Talk, backed as usual by his crony, which was
+to the effect, that, under present circumstances, the best thing China
+Aster could do, would be to wind up his business, settle, if he could,
+all his liabilities, and then go to work as a journeyman, by which he
+could earn good wages, and give up, from that time henceforth, all
+thoughts of rising above being a paid subordinate to men more able than
+himself, for China Aster's career thus far plainly proved him the
+legitimate son of Old Honesty, who, as every one knew, had never shown
+much business-talent, so little, in fact, that many said of him that he
+had no business to be in business. And just this plain saying Plain Talk
+now plainly applied to China Aster, and Old Prudence never disagreed
+with him. But the angel in the dream did, and, maugre Plain Talk, put
+quite other notions into the candle-maker.
+
+"He considered what he should do towards reëstablishing himself.
+Doubtless, had Orchis been in the country, he would have aided him in
+this strait. As it was, he applied to others; and as in the world, much
+as some may hint to the contrary, an honest man in misfortune still can
+find friends to stay by him and help him, even so it proved with China
+Aster, who at last succeeded in borrowing from a rich old farmer the sum
+of six hundred dollars, at the usual interest of money-lenders, upon the
+security of a secret bond signed by China Aster's wife and himself, to
+the effect that all such right and title to any property that should be
+left her by a well-to-do childless uncle, an invalid tanner, such
+property should, in the event of China Aster's failing to return the
+borrowed sum on the given day, be the lawful possession of the
+money-lender. True, it was just as much as China Aster could possibly do
+to induce his wife, a careful woman, to sign this bond; because she had
+always regarded her promised share in her uncle's estate as an anchor
+well to windward of the hard times in which China Aster had always been
+more or less involved, and from which, in her bosom, she never had seen
+much chance of his freeing himself. Some notion may be had of China
+Aster's standing in the heart and head of his wife, by a short sentence
+commonly used in reply to such persons as happened to sound her on the
+point. 'China Aster,' she would say, 'is a good husband, but a bad
+business man!' Indeed, she was a connection on the maternal side of Old
+Plain Talk's. But had not China Aster taken good care not to let Old
+Plain Talk and Old Prudence hear of his dealings with the old farmer,
+ten to one they would, in some way, have interfered with his success in
+that quarter.
+
+"It has been hinted that the honesty of China Aster was what mainly
+induced the money-lender to befriend him in his misfortune, and this
+must be apparent; for, had China Aster been a different man, the
+money-lender might have dreaded lest, in the event of his failing to
+meet his note, he might some way prove slippery--more especially as, in
+the hour of distress, worked upon by remorse for so jeopardizing his
+wife's money, his heart might prove a traitor to his bond, not to hint
+that it was more than doubtful how such a secret security and claim, as
+in the last resort would be the old farmer's, would stand in a court of
+law. But though one inference from all this may be, that had China Aster
+been something else than what he was, he would not have been trusted,
+and, therefore, he would have been effectually shut out from running his
+own and wife's head into the usurer's noose; yet those who, when
+everything at last came out, maintained that, in this view and to this
+extent, the honesty of the candle-maker was no advantage to him, in so
+saying, such persons said what every good heart must deplore, and no
+prudent tongue will admit.
+
+"It may be mentioned, that the old farmer made China Aster take part of
+his loan in three old dried-up cows and one lame horse, not improved by
+the glanders. These were thrown in at a pretty high figure, the old
+money-lender having a singular prejudice in regard to the high value of
+any sort of stock raised on his farm. With a great deal of difficulty,
+and at more loss, China Aster disposed of his cattle at public auction,
+no private purchaser being found who could be prevailed upon to invest.
+And now, raking and scraping in every way, and working early and late,
+China Aster at last started afresh, nor without again largely and
+confidently extending himself. However, he did not try his hand at the
+spermaceti again, but, admonished by experience, returned to tallow.
+But, having bought a good lot of it, by the time he got it into candles,
+tallow fell so low, and candles with it, that his candles per pound
+barely sold for what he had paid for the tallow. Meantime, a year's
+unpaid interest had accrued on Orchis' loan, but China Aster gave
+himself not so much concern about that as about the interest now due to
+the old farmer. But he was glad that the principal there had yet some
+time to run. However, the skinny old fellow gave him some trouble by
+coming after him every day or two on a scraggy old white horse,
+furnished with a musty old saddle, and goaded into his shambling old
+paces with a withered old raw hide. All the neighbors said that surely
+Death himself on the pale horse was after poor China Aster now. And
+something so it proved; for, ere long, China Aster found himself
+involved in troubles mortal enough.
+
+At this juncture Orchis was heard of. Orchis, it seemed had returned
+from his travels, and clandestinely married, and, in a kind of queer
+way, was living in Pennsylvania among his wife's relations, who, among
+other things, had induced him to join a church, or rather semi-religious
+school, of Come-Outers; and what was still more, Orchis, without coming
+to the spot himself, had sent word to his agent to dispose of some of
+his property in Marietta, and remit him the proceeds. Within a year
+after, China Aster received a letter from Orchis, commending him for his
+punctuality in paying the first year's interest, and regretting the
+necessity that he (Orchis) was now under of using all his dividends; so
+he relied upon China Aster's paying the next six months' interest, and
+of course with the back interest. Not more surprised than alarmed, China
+Aster thought of taking steamboat to go and see Orchis, but he was saved
+that expense by the unexpected arrival in Marietta of Orchis in person,
+suddenly called there by that strange kind of capriciousness lately
+characterizing him. No sooner did China Aster hear of his old friend's
+arrival than he hurried to call upon him. He found him curiously rusty
+in dress, sallow in cheek, and decidedly less gay and cordial in manner,
+which the more surprised China Aster, because, in former days, he had
+more than once heard Orchis, in his light rattling way, declare that all
+he (Orchis) wanted to make him a perfectly happy, hilarious, and
+benignant man, was a voyage to Europe and a wife, with a free
+development of his inmost nature.
+
+"Upon China Aster's stating his case, his trusted friend was silent for
+a time; then, in an odd way, said that he would not crowd China Aster,
+but still his (Orchis') necessities were urgent. Could not China Aster
+mortgage the candlery? He was honest, and must have moneyed friends; and
+could he not press his sales of candles? Could not the market be forced
+a little in that particular? The profits on candles must be very great.
+Seeing, now, that Orchis had the notion that the candle-making business
+was a very profitable one, and knowing sorely enough what an error was
+here, China Aster tried to undeceive him. But he could not drive the
+truth into Orchis--Orchis being very obtuse here, and, at the same time,
+strange to say, very melancholy. Finally, Orchis glanced off from so
+unpleasing a subject into the most unexpected reflections, taken from a
+religious point of view, upon the unstableness and deceitfulness of the
+human heart. But having, as he thought, experienced something of that
+sort of thing, China Aster did not take exception to his friend's
+observations, but still refrained from so doing, almost as much for the
+sake of sympathetic sociality as anything else. Presently, Orchis,
+without much ceremony, rose, and saying he must write a letter to his
+wife, bade his friend good-bye, but without warmly shaking him by the
+hand as of old.
+
+"In much concern at the change, China Aster made earnest inquiries in
+suitable quarters, as to what things, as yet unheard of, had befallen
+Orchis, to bring about such a revolution; and learned at last that,
+besides traveling, and getting married, and joining the sect of
+Come-Outers, Orchis had somehow got a bad dyspepsia, and lost
+considerable property through a breach of trust on the part of a factor
+in New York. Telling these things to Old Plain Talk, that man of some
+knowledge of the world shook his old head, and told China Aster that,
+though he hoped it might prove otherwise, yet it seemed to him that all
+he had communicated about Orchis worked together for bad omens as to his
+future forbearance--especially, he added with a grim sort of smile, in
+view of his joining the sect of Come-Outers; for, if some men knew what
+was their inmost natures, instead of coming out with it, they would try
+their best to keep it in, which, indeed, was the way with the prudent
+sort. In all which sour notions Old Prudence, as usual, chimed in.
+
+"When interest-day came again, China Aster, by the utmost exertions,
+could only pay Orchis' agent a small part of what was due, and a part of
+that was made up by his children's gift money (bright tenpenny pieces
+and new quarters, kept in their little money-boxes), and pawning his
+best clothes, with those of his wife and children, so that all were
+subjected to the hardship of staying away from church. And the old
+usurer, too, now beginning to be obstreperous, China Aster paid him his
+interest and some other pressing debts with money got by, at last,
+mortgaging the candlery.
+
+"When next interest-day came round for Orchis, not a penny could be
+raised. With much grief of heart, China Aster so informed Orchis' agent.
+Meantime, the note to the old usurer fell due, and nothing from China
+Aster was ready to meet it; yet, as heaven sends its rain on the just
+and unjust alike, by a coincidence not unfavorable to the old farmer,
+the well-to-do uncle, the tanner, having died, the usurer entered upon
+possession of such part of his property left by will to the wife of
+China Aster. When still the next interest-day for Orchis came round, it
+found China Aster worse off than ever; for, besides his other troubles,
+he was now weak with sickness. Feebly dragging himself to Orchis' agent,
+he met him in the street, told him just how it was; upon which the
+agent, with a grave enough face, said that he had instructions from his
+employer not to crowd him about the interest at present, but to say to
+him that about the time the note would mature, Orchis would have heavy
+liabilities to meet, and therefore the note must at that time be
+certainly paid, and, of course, the back interest with it; and not only
+so, but, as Orchis had had to allow the interest for good part of the
+time, he hoped that, for the back interest, China Aster would, in
+reciprocation, have no objections to allowing interest on the interest
+annually. To be sure, this was not the law; but, between friends who
+accommodate each other, it was the custom.
+
+"Just then, Old Plain Talk with Old Prudence turned the corner, coming
+plump upon China Aster as the agent left him; and whether it was a
+sun-stroke, or whether they accidentally ran against him, or whether it
+was his being so weak, or whether it was everything together, or how it
+was exactly, there is no telling, but poor China Aster fell to the
+earth, and, striking his head sharply, was picked up senseless. It was a
+day in July; such a light and heat as only the midsummer banks of the
+inland Ohio know. China Aster was taken home on a door; lingered a few
+days with a wandering mind, and kept wandering on, till at last, at dead
+of night, when nobody was aware, his spirit wandered away into the other
+world.
+
+"Old Plain Talk and Old Prudence, neither of whom ever omitted attending
+any funeral, which, indeed, was their chief exercise--these two were
+among the sincerest mourners who followed the remains of the son of
+their ancient friend to the grave.
+
+"It is needless to tell of the executions that followed; how that the
+candlery was sold by the mortgagee; how Orchis never got a penny for his
+loan; and how, in the case of the poor widow, chastisement was tempered
+with mercy; for, though she was left penniless, she was not left
+childless. Yet, unmindful of the alleviation, a spirit of complaint, at
+what she impatiently called the bitterness of her lot and the hardness
+of the world, so preyed upon her, as ere long to hurry her from the
+obscurity of indigence to the deeper shades of the tomb.
+
+"But though the straits in which China Aster had left his family had,
+besides apparently dimming the world's regard, likewise seemed to dim
+its sense of the probity of its deceased head, and though this, as some
+thought, did not speak well for the world, yet it happened in this case,
+as in others, that, though the world may for a time seem insensible to
+that merit which lies under a cloud, yet, sooner or later, it always
+renders honor where honor is due; for, upon the death of the widow, the
+freemen of Marietta, as a tribute of respect for China Aster, and an
+expression of their conviction of his high moral worth, passed a
+resolution, that, until they attained maturity, his children should be
+considered the town's guests. No mere verbal compliment, like those of
+some public bodies; for, on the same day, the orphans were officially
+installed in that hospitable edifice where their worthy grandfather, the
+town's guest before them, had breathed his last breath.
+
+"But sometimes honor maybe paid to the memory of an honest man, and
+still his mound remain without a monument. Not so, however, with the
+candle-maker. At an early day, Plain Talk had procured a plain stone,
+and was digesting in his mind what pithy word or two to place upon it,
+when there was discovered, in China Aster's otherwise empty wallet, an
+epitaph, written, probably, in one of those disconsolate hours, attended
+with more or less mental aberration, perhaps, so frequent with him for
+some months prior to his end. A memorandum on the back expressed the
+wish that it might be placed over his grave. Though with the sentiment
+of the epitaph Plain Talk did not disagree, he himself being at times of
+a hypochondriac turn--at least, so many said--yet the language struck
+him as too much drawn out; so, after consultation with Old Prudence, he
+decided upon making use of the epitaph, yet not without verbal
+retrenchments. And though, when these were made, the thing still
+appeared wordy to him, nevertheless, thinking that, since a dead man was
+to be spoken about, it was but just to let him speak for himself,
+especially when he spoke sincerely, and when, by so doing, the more
+salutary lesson would be given, he had the retrenched inscription
+chiseled as follows upon the stone.
+
+  'HERE LIE
+  THE REMAINS OF
+  CHINA ASTER THE CANDLE-MAKER,
+  WHOSE CAREER
+  WAS AN EXAMPLE OF THE TRUTH OF SCRIPTURE, AS FOUND
+  IN THE
+  SOBER PHILOSOPHY
+  OF
+  SOLOMON THE WISE;
+  FOR HE WAS RUINED BY ALLOWING HIMSELF TO BE PERSUADED,
+  AGAINST HIS BETTER SENSE,
+  INTO THE FREE INDULGENCE OF CONFIDENCE,
+  AND
+  AN ARDENTLY BRIGHT VIEW OF LIFE,
+  TO THE EXCLUSION
+  OF
+  THAT COUNSEL WHICH COMES BY HEEDING
+  THE
+  OPPOSITE VIEW.'
+
+"This inscription raised some talk in the town, and was rather severely
+criticised by the capitalist--one of a very cheerful turn--who had
+secured his loan to China Aster by the mortgage; and though it also
+proved obnoxious to the man who, in town-meeting, had first moved for
+the compliment to China Aster's memory, and, indeed, was deemed by him a
+sort of slur upon the candle-maker, to that degree that he refused to
+believe that the candle-maker himself had composed it, charging Old
+Plain Talk with the authorship, alleging that the internal evidence
+showed that none but that veteran old croaker could have penned such a
+jeremiade--yet, for all this, the stone stood. In everything, of course,
+Old Plain Talk was seconded by Old Prudence; who, one day going to the
+grave-yard, in great-coat and over-shoes--for, though it was a sunshiny
+morning, he thought that, owing to heavy dews, dampness might lurk in
+the ground--long stood before the stone, sharply leaning over on his
+staff, spectacles on nose, spelling out the epitaph word by word; and,
+afterwards meeting Old Plain Talk in the street, gave a great rap with
+his stick, and said: 'Friend, Plain Talk, that epitaph will do very
+well. Nevertheless, one short sentence is wanting.' Upon which, Plain
+Talk said it was too late, the chiseled words being so arranged, after
+the usual manner of such inscriptions, that nothing could be interlined.
+Then,' said Old Prudence, 'I will put it in the shape of a postscript.'
+Accordingly, with the approbation of Old Plain Talk, he had the
+following words chiseled at the left-hand corner of the stone, and
+pretty low down:
+
+  'The root of all was a friendly loan.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+ENDING WITH A RUPTURE OF THE HYPOTHESIS.
+
+
+"With what heart," cried Frank, still in character, "have you told me
+this story? A story I can no way approve; for its moral, if accepted,
+would drain me of all reliance upon my last stay, and, therefore, of my
+last courage in life. For, what was that bright view of China Aster but
+a cheerful trust that, if he but kept up a brave heart, worked hard, and
+ever hoped for the best, all at last would go well? If your purpose,
+Charlie, in telling me this story, was to pain me, and keenly, you have
+succeeded; but, if it was to destroy my last confidence, I praise God
+you have not."
+
+"Confidence?" cried Charlie, who, on his side, seemed with his whole
+heart to enter into the spirit of the thing, "what has confidence to do
+with the matter? That moral of the story, which I am for commending to
+you, is this: the folly, on both sides, of a friend's helping a friend.
+For was not that loan of Orchis to China Aster the first step towards
+their estrangement? And did it not bring about what in effect was the
+enmity of Orchis? I tell you, Frank, true friendship, like other
+precious things, is not rashly to be meddled with. And what more
+meddlesome between friends than a loan? A regular marplot. For how can
+you help that the helper must turn out a creditor? And creditor and
+friend, can they ever be one? no, not in the most lenient case; since,
+out of lenity to forego one's claim, is less to be a friendly creditor
+than to cease to be a creditor at all. But it will not do to rely upon
+this lenity, no, not in the best man; for the best man, as the worst, is
+subject to all mortal contingencies. He may travel, he may marry, he may
+join the Come-Outers, or some equally untoward school or sect, not to
+speak of other things that more or less tend to new-cast the character.
+And were there nothing else, who shall answer for his digestion, upon
+which so much depends?"
+
+"But Charlie, dear Charlie----"
+
+"Nay, wait.--You have hearkened to my story in vain, if you do not see
+that, however indulgent and right-minded I may seem to you now, that is
+no guarantee for the future. And into the power of that uncertain
+personality which, through the mutability of my humanity, I may
+hereafter become, should not common sense dissuade you, my dear Frank,
+from putting yourself? Consider. Would you, in your present need, be
+willing to accept a loan from a friend, securing him by a mortgage on
+your homestead, and do so, knowing that you had no reason to feel
+satisfied that the mortgage might not eventually be transferred into the
+hands of a foe? Yet the difference between this man and that man is not
+so great as the difference between what the same man be to-day and what
+he may be in days to come. For there is no bent of heart or turn of
+thought which any man holds by virtue of an unalterable nature or will.
+Even those feelings and opinions deemed most identical with eternal
+right and truth, it is not impossible but that, as personal persuasions,
+they may in reality be but the result of some chance tip of Fate's elbow
+in throwing her dice. For, not to go into the first seeds of things, and
+passing by the accident of parentage predisposing to this or that habit
+of mind, descend below these, and tell me, if you change this man's
+experiences or that man's books, will wisdom go surety for his unchanged
+convictions? As particular food begets particular dreams, so particular
+experiences or books particular feelings or beliefs. I will hear nothing
+of that fine babble about development and its laws; there is no
+development in opinion and feeling but the developments of time and
+tide. You may deem all this talk idle, Frank; but conscience bids me
+show you how fundamental the reasons for treating you as I do."
+
+"But Charlie, dear Charlie, what new notions are these? I thought that
+man was no poor drifting weed of the universe, as you phrased it; that,
+if so minded, he could have a will, a way, a thought, and a heart of his
+own? But now you have turned everything upside down again, with an
+inconsistency that amazes and shocks me."
+
+"Inconsistency? Bah!"
+
+"There speaks the ventriloquist again," sighed Frank, in bitterness.
+
+Illy pleased, it may be, by this repetition of an allusion little
+flattering to his originality, however much so to his docility, the
+disciple sought to carry it off by exclaiming: "Yes, I turn over day and
+night, with indefatigable pains, the sublime pages of my master, and
+unfortunately for you, my dear friend, I find nothing _there_ that leads
+me to think otherwise than I do. But enough: in this matter the
+experience of China Aster teaches a moral more to the point than
+anything Mark Winsome can offer, or I either."
+
+"I cannot think so, Charlie; for neither am I China Aster, nor do I
+stand in his position. The loan to China Aster was to extend his
+business with; the loan I seek is to relieve my necessities."
+
+"Your dress, my dear Frank, is respectable; your cheek is not gaunt. Why
+talk of necessities when nakedness and starvation beget the only real
+necessities?"
+
+"But I need relief, Charlie; and so sorely, that I now conjure you to
+forget that I was ever your friend, while I apply to you only as a
+fellow-being, whom, surely, you will not turn away."
+
+"That I will not. Take off your hat, bow over to the ground, and
+supplicate an alms of me in the way of London streets, and you shall not
+be a sturdy beggar in vain. But no man drops pennies into the hat of a
+friend, let me tell you. If you turn beggar, then, for the honor of
+noble friendship, I turn stranger."
+
+"Enough," cried the other, rising, and with a toss of his shoulders
+seeming disdainfully to throw off the character he had assumed.
+"Enough. I have had my fill of the philosophy of Mark Winsome as put
+into action. And moonshiny as it in theory may be, yet a very practical
+philosophy it turns out in effect, as he himself engaged I should find.
+But, miserable for my race should I be, if I thought he spoke truth when
+he claimed, for proof of the soundness of his system, that the study of
+it tended to much the same formation of character with the experiences
+of the world.--Apt disciple! Why wrinkle the brow, and waste the oil
+both of life and the lamp, only to turn out a head kept cool by the
+under ice of the heart? What your illustrious magian has taught you, any
+poor, old, broken-down, heart-shrunken dandy might have lisped. Pray,
+leave me, and with you take the last dregs of your inhuman philosophy.
+And here, take this shilling, and at the first wood-landing buy yourself
+a few chips to warm the frozen natures of you and your philosopher by."
+
+With these words and a grand scorn the cosmopolitan turned on his heel,
+leaving his companion at a loss to determine where exactly the
+fictitious character had been dropped, and the real one, if any,
+resumed. If any, because, with pointed meaning, there occurred to him,
+as he gazed after the cosmopolitan, these familiar lines:
+
+                  "All the world's a stage,
+    And all the men and women merely players,
+    Who have their exits and their entrances,
+    And one man in his time plays many parts."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+UPON THE HEEL OF THE LAST SCENE THE COSMOPOLITAN ENTERS THE BARBER'S
+SHOP, A BENEDICTION ON HIS LIPS.
+
+
+"Bless you, barber!"
+
+Now, owing to the lateness of the hour, the barber had been all alone
+until within the ten minutes last passed; when, finding himself rather
+dullish company to himself, he thought he would have a good time with
+Souter John and Tam O'Shanter, otherwise called Somnus and Morpheus, two
+very good fellows, though one was not very bright, and the other an
+arrant rattlebrain, who, though much listened to by some, no wise man
+would believe under oath.
+
+In short, with back presented to the glare of his lamps, and so to the
+door, the honest barber was taking what are called cat-naps, and
+dreaming in his chair; so that, upon suddenly hearing the benediction
+above, pronounced in tones not unangelic, starting up, half awake, he
+stared before him, but saw nothing, for the stranger stood behind. What
+with cat-naps, dreams, and bewilderments, therefore, the voice seemed a
+sort of spiritual manifestation to him; so that, for the moment, he
+stood all agape, eyes fixed, and one arm in the air.
+
+"Why, barber, are you reaching up to catch birds there with salt?"
+
+"Ah!" turning round disenchanted, "it is only a man, then."
+
+"_Only_ a man? As if to be but a man were nothing. But don't be too sure
+what I am. You call me _man_, just as the townsfolk called the angels
+who, in man's form, came to Lot's house; just as the Jew rustics called
+the devils who, in man's form, haunted the tombs. You can conclude
+nothing absolute from the human form, barber."
+
+"But I can conclude something from that sort of talk, with that sort of
+dress," shrewdly thought the barber, eying him with regained
+self-possession, and not without some latent touch of apprehension at
+being alone with him. What was passing in his mind seemed divined by the
+other, who now, more rationally and gravely, and as if he expected it
+should be attended to, said: "Whatever else you may conclude upon, it is
+my desire that you conclude to give me a good shave," at the same time
+loosening his neck-cloth. "Are you competent to a good shave, barber?"
+
+"No broker more so, sir," answered the barber, whom the business-like
+proposition instinctively made confine to business-ends his views of the
+visitor.
+
+"Broker? What has a broker to do with lather? A broker I have always
+understood to be a worthy dealer in certain papers and metals."
+
+"He, he!" taking him now for some dry sort of joker, whose jokes, he
+being a customer, it might be as well to appreciate, "he, he! You
+understand well enough, sir. Take this seat, sir," laying his hand on a
+great stuffed chair, high-backed and high-armed, crimson-covered, and
+raised on a sort of dais, and which seemed but to lack a canopy and
+quarterings, to make it in aspect quite a throne, "take this seat, sir."
+
+"Thank you," sitting down; "and now, pray, explain that about the
+broker. But look, look--what's this?" suddenly rising, and pointing,
+with his long pipe, towards a gilt notification swinging among colored
+fly-papers from the ceiling, like a tavern sign, "_No Trust?_" "No trust
+means distrust; distrust means no confidence. Barber," turning upon him
+excitedly, "what fell suspiciousness prompts this scandalous confession?
+My life!" stamping his foot, "if but to tell a dog that you have no
+confidence in him be matter for affront to the dog, what an insult to
+take that way the whole haughty race of man by the beard! By my heart,
+sir! but at least you are valiant; backing the spleen of Thersites with
+the pluck of Agamemnon."
+
+"Your sort of talk, sir, is not exactly in my line," said the barber,
+rather ruefully, being now again hopeless of his customer, and not
+without return of uneasiness; "not in my line, sir," he emphatically
+repeated.
+
+"But the taking of mankind by the nose is; a habit, barber, which I
+sadly fear has insensibly bred in you a disrespect for man. For how,
+indeed, may respectful conceptions of him coexist with the perpetual
+habit of taking him by the nose? But, tell me, though I, too, clearly
+see the import of your notification, I do not, as yet, perceive the
+object. What is it?"
+
+"Now you speak a little in my line, sir," said the barber, not
+unrelieved at this return to plain talk; "that notification I find very
+useful, sparing me much work which would not pay. Yes, I lost a good
+deal, off and on, before putting that up," gratefully glancing towards
+it.
+
+"But what is its object? Surely, you don't mean to say, in so many
+words, that you have no confidence? For instance, now," flinging aside
+his neck-cloth, throwing back his blouse, and reseating himself on the
+tonsorial throne, at sight of which proceeding the barber mechanically
+filled a cup with hot water from a copper vessel over a spirit-lamp,
+"for instance, now, suppose I say to you, 'Barber, my dear barber,
+unhappily I have no small change by me to-night, but shave me, and
+depend upon your money to-morrow'--suppose I should say that now, you
+would put trust in me, wouldn't you? You would have confidence?"
+
+"Seeing that it is you, sir," with complaisance replied the barber, now
+mixing the lather, "seeing that it is _you_ sir, I won't answer that
+question. No need to."
+
+"Of course, of course--in that view. But, as a supposition--you would
+have confidence in me, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Why--yes, yes."
+
+"Then why that sign?"
+
+"Ah, sir, all people ain't like you," was the smooth reply, at the same
+time, as if smoothly to close the debate, beginning smoothly to apply
+the lather, which operation, however, was, by a motion, protested
+against by the subject, but only out of a desire to rejoin, which was
+done in these words:
+
+"All people ain't like me. Then I must be either better or worse than
+most people. Worse, you could not mean; no, barber, you could not mean
+that; hardly that. It remains, then, that you think me better than most
+people. But that I ain't vain enough to believe; though, from vanity, I
+confess, I could never yet, by my best wrestlings, entirely free myself;
+nor, indeed, to be frank, am I at bottom over anxious to--this same
+vanity, barber, being so harmless, so useful, so comfortable, so
+pleasingly preposterous a passion."
+
+"Very true, sir; and upon my honor, sir, you talk very well. But the
+lather is getting a little cold, sir."
+
+"Better cold lather, barber, than a cold heart. Why that cold sign? Ah,
+I don't wonder you try to shirk the confession. You feel in your soul
+how ungenerous a hint is there. And yet, barber, now that I look into
+your eyes--which somehow speak to me of the mother that must have so
+often looked into them before me--I dare say, though you may not think
+it, that the spirit of that notification is not one with your nature.
+For look now, setting, business views aside, regarding the thing in an
+abstract light; in short, supposing a case, barber; supposing, I say,
+you see a stranger, his face accidentally averted, but his visible part
+very respectable-looking; what now, barber--I put it to your conscience,
+to your charity--what would be your impression of that man, in a moral
+point of view? Being in a signal sense a stranger, would you, for that,
+signally set him down for a knave?"
+
+"Certainly not, sir; by no means," cried the barber, humanely resentful.
+
+"You would upon the face of him----"
+
+"Hold, sir," said the barber, "nothing about the face; you remember,
+sir, that is out of sight."
+
+"I forgot that. Well then, you would, upon the _back_ of him, conclude
+him to be, not improbably, some worthy sort of person; in short, an
+honest man: wouldn't you?"
+
+"Not unlikely I should, sir."
+
+"Well now--don't be so impatient with your brush, barber--suppose that
+honest man meet you by night in some dark corner of the boat where his
+face would still remain unseen, asking you to trust him for a shave--how
+then?"
+
+"Wouldn't trust him, sir."
+
+"But is not an honest man to be trusted?"
+
+"Why--why--yes, sir."
+
+"There! don't you see, now?"
+
+"See what?" asked the disconcerted barber, rather vexedly.
+
+"Why, you stand self-contradicted, barber; don't you?"
+
+"No," doggedly.
+
+"Barber," gravely, and after a pause of concern, "the enemies of our
+race have a saying that insincerity is the most universal and
+inveterate vice of man--the lasting bar to real amelioration, whether of
+individuals or of the world. Don't you now, barber, by your stubbornness
+on this occasion, give color to such a calumny?"
+
+"Hity-tity!" cried the barber, losing patience, and with it respect;
+"stubbornness?" Then clattering round the brush in the cup, "Will you be
+shaved, or won't you?"
+
+"Barber, I will be shaved, and with pleasure; but, pray, don't raise
+your voice that way. Why, now, if you go through life gritting your
+teeth in that fashion, what a comfortless time you will have."
+
+"I take as much comfort in this world as you or any other man," cried
+the barber, whom the other's sweetness of temper seemed rather to
+exasperate than soothe.
+
+"To resent the imputation of anything like unhappiness I have often
+observed to be peculiar to certain orders of men," said the other
+pensively, and half to himself, "just as to be indifferent to that
+imputation, from holding happiness but for a secondary good and inferior
+grace, I have observed to be equally peculiar to other kinds of men.
+Pray, barber," innocently looking up, "which think you is the superior
+creature?"
+
+"All this sort of talk," cried the barber, still unmollified, "is, as I
+told you once before, not in my line. In a few minutes I shall shut up
+this shop. Will you be shaved?"
+
+"Shave away, barber. What hinders?" turning up his face like a flower.
+
+The shaving began, and proceeded in silence, till at length it became
+necessary to prepare to relather a little--affording an opportunity for
+resuming the subject, which, on one side, was not let slip.
+
+"Barber," with a kind of cautious kindliness, feeling his way, "barber,
+now have a little patience with me; do; trust me, I wish not to offend.
+I have been thinking over that supposed case of the man with the averted
+face, and I cannot rid my mind of the impression that, by your opposite
+replies to my questions at the time, you showed yourself much of a piece
+with a good many other men--that is, you have confidence, and then
+again, you have none. Now, what I would ask is, do you think it sensible
+standing for a sensible man, one foot on confidence and the other on
+suspicion? Don't you think, barber, that you ought to elect? Don't you
+think consistency requires that you should either say 'I have confidence
+in all men,' and take down your notification; or else say, 'I suspect
+all men,' and keep it up."
+
+This dispassionate, if not deferential, way of putting the case, did not
+fail to impress the barber, and proportionately conciliate him.
+Likewise, from its pointedness, it served to make him thoughtful; for,
+instead of going to the copper vessel for more water, as he had
+purposed, he halted half-way towards it, and, after a pause, cup in
+hand, said: "Sir, I hope you would not do me injustice. I don't say, and
+can't say, and wouldn't say, that I suspect all men; but I _do_ say that
+strangers are not to be trusted, and so," pointing up to the sign, "no
+trust."
+
+"But look, now, I beg, barber," rejoined the other deprecatingly, not
+presuming too much upon the barber's changed temper; "look, now; to say
+that strangers are not to be trusted, does not that imply something like
+saying that mankind is not to be trusted; for the mass of mankind, are
+they not necessarily strangers to each individual man? Come, come, my
+friend," winningly, "you are no Timon to hold the mass of mankind
+untrustworthy. Take down your notification; it is misanthropical; much
+the same sign that Timon traced with charcoal on the forehead of a skull
+stuck over his cave. Take it down, barber; take it down to-night. Trust
+men. Just try the experiment of trusting men for this one little trip.
+Come now, I'm a philanthropist, and will insure you against losing a
+cent."
+
+The barber shook his head dryly, and answered, "Sir, you must excuse me.
+I have a family."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+VERY CHARMING.
+
+
+"So you are a philanthropist, sir," added the barber with an illuminated
+look; "that accounts, then, for all. Very odd sort of man the
+philanthropist. You are the second one, sir, I have seen. Very odd sort
+of man, indeed, the philanthropist. Ah, sir," again meditatively
+stirring in the shaving-cup, "I sadly fear, lest you philanthropists
+know better what goodness is, than what men are." Then, eying him as if
+he were some strange creature behind cage-bars, "So you are a
+philanthropist, sir."
+
+"I am Philanthropos, and love mankind. And, what is more than you do,
+barber, I trust them."
+
+Here the barber, casually recalled to his business, would have
+replenished his shaving-cup, but finding now that on his last visit to
+the water-vessel he had not replaced it over the lamp, he did so now;
+and, while waiting for it to heat again, became almost as sociable as if
+the heating water were meant for whisky-punch; and almost as pleasantly
+garrulous as the pleasant barbers in romances.
+
+"Sir," said he, taking a throne beside his customer (for in a row there
+were three thrones on the dais, as for the three kings of Cologne, those
+patron saints of the barber), "sir, you say you trust men. Well, I
+suppose I might share some of your trust, were it not for this trade,
+that I follow, too much letting me in behind the scenes."
+
+"I think I understand," with a saddened look; "and much the same thing I
+have heard from persons in pursuits different from yours--from the
+lawyer, from the congressman, from the editor, not to mention others,
+each, with a strange kind of melancholy vanity, claiming for his
+vocation the distinction of affording the surest inlets to the
+conviction that man is no better than he should be. All of which
+testimony, if reliable, would, by mutual corroboration, justify some
+disturbance in a good man's mind. But no, no; it is a mistake--all a
+mistake."
+
+"True, sir, very true," assented the barber.
+
+"Glad to hear that," brightening up.
+
+"Not so fast, sir," said the barber; "I agree with you in thinking that
+the lawyer, and the congressman, and the editor, are in error, but only
+in so far as each claims peculiar facilities for the sort of knowledge
+in question; because, you see, sir, the truth is, that every trade or
+pursuit which brings one into contact with the facts, sir, such trade or
+pursuit is equally an avenue to those facts."
+
+"_How_ exactly is that?"
+
+"Why, sir, in my opinion--and for the last twenty years I have, at odd
+times, turned the matter over some in my mind--he who comes to know
+man, will not remain in ignorance of man. I think I am not rash in
+saying that; am I, sir?"
+
+"Barber, you talk like an oracle--obscurely, barber, obscurely."
+
+"Well, sir," with some self-complacency, "the barber has always been
+held an oracle, but as for the obscurity, that I don't admit."
+
+"But pray, now, by your account, what precisely may be this mysterious
+knowledge gained in your trade? I grant you, indeed, as before hinted,
+that your trade, imposing on you the necessity of functionally tweaking
+the noses of mankind, is, in that respect, unfortunate, very much so;
+nevertheless, a well-regulated imagination should be proof even to such
+a provocation to improper conceits. But what I want to learn from you,
+barber, is, how does the mere handling of the outside of men's heads
+lead you to distrust the inside of their hearts?
+
+"What, sir, to say nothing more, can one be forever dealing in macassar
+oil, hair dyes, cosmetics, false moustaches, wigs, and toupees, and
+still believe that men are wholly what they look to be? What think you,
+sir, are a thoughtful barber's reflections, when, behind a careful
+curtain, he shaves the thin, dead stubble off a head, and then dismisses
+it to the world, radiant in curling auburn? To contrast the shamefaced
+air behind the curtain, the fearful looking forward to being possibly
+discovered there by a prying acquaintance, with the cheerful assurance
+and challenging pride with which the same man steps forth again, a gay
+deception, into the street, while some honest, shock-headed fellow
+humbly gives him the wall! Ah, sir, they may talk of the courage of
+truth, but my trade teaches me that truth sometimes is sheepish. Lies,
+lies, sir, brave lies are the lions!"
+
+"You twist the moral, barber; you sadly twist it. Look, now; take it
+this way: A modest man thrust out naked into the street, would he not be
+abashed? Take him in and clothe him; would not his confidence be
+restored? And in either case, is any reproach involved? Now, what is
+true of the whole, holds proportionably true of the part. The bald head
+is a nakedness which the wig is a coat to. To feel uneasy at the
+possibility of the exposure of one's nakedness at top, and to feel
+comforted by the consciousness of having it clothed--these feelings,
+instead of being dishonorable to a bold man, do, in fact, but attest a
+proper respect for himself and his fellows. And as for the deception,
+you may as well call the fine roof of a fine chateau a deception, since,
+like a fine wig, it also is an artificial cover to the head, and
+equally, in the common eye, decorates the wearer.--I have confuted you,
+my dear barber; I have confounded you."
+
+"Pardon," said the barber, "but I do not see that you have. His coat and
+his roof no man pretends to palm off as a part of himself, but the bald
+man palms off hair, not his, for his own."
+
+"Not _his_, barber? If he have fairly purchased his hair, the law will
+protect him in its ownership, even against the claims of the head on
+which it grew. But it cannot be that you believe what you say, barber;
+you talk merely for the humor. I could not think so of you as to suppose
+that you would contentedly deal in the impostures you condemn."
+
+"Ah, sir, I must live."
+
+"And can't you do that without sinning against your conscience, as you
+believe? Take up some other calling."
+
+"Wouldn't mend the matter much, sir."
+
+"Do you think, then, barber, that, in a certain point, all the trades
+and callings of men are much on a par? Fatal, indeed," raising his hand,
+"inexpressibly dreadful, the trade of the barber, if to such conclusions
+it necessarily leads. Barber," eying him not without emotion, "you
+appear to me not so much a misbeliever, as a man misled. Now, let me set
+you on the right track; let me restore you to trust in human nature, and
+by no other means than the very trade that has brought you to suspect
+it."
+
+"You mean, sir, you would have me try the experiment of taking down that
+notification," again pointing to it with his brush; "but, dear me, while
+I sit chatting here, the water boils over."
+
+With which words, and such a well-pleased, sly, snug, expression, as
+they say some men have when they think their little stratagem has
+succeeded, he hurried to the copper vessel, and soon had his cup foaming
+up with white bubbles, as if it were a mug of new ale.
+
+Meantime, the other would have fain gone on with the discourse; but the
+cunning barber lathered him with so generous a brush, so piled up the
+foam on him, that his face looked like the yeasty crest of a billow, and
+vain to think of talking under it, as for a drowning priest in the sea
+to exhort his fellow-sinners on a raft. Nothing would do, but he must
+keep his mouth shut. Doubtless, the interval was not, in a meditative
+way, unimproved; for, upon the traces of the operation being at last
+removed, the cosmopolitan rose, and, for added refreshment, washed his
+face and hands; and having generally readjusted himself, began, at last,
+addressing the barber in a manner different, singularly so, from his
+previous one. Hard to say exactly what the manner was, any more than to
+hint it was a sort of magical; in a benign way, not wholly unlike the
+manner, fabled or otherwise, of certain creatures in nature, which have
+the power of persuasive fascination--the power of holding another
+creature by the button of the eye, as it were, despite the serious
+disinclination, and, indeed, earnest protest, of the victim. With this
+manner the conclusion of the matter was not out of keeping; for, in the
+end, all argument and expostulation proved vain, the barber being
+irresistibly persuaded to agree to try, for the remainder of the present
+trip, the experiment of trusting men, as both phrased it. True, to save
+his credit as a free agent, he was loud in averring that it was only for
+the novelty of the thing that he so agreed, and he required the other,
+as before volunteered, to go security to him against any loss that might
+ensue; but still the fact remained, that he engaged to trust men, a
+thing he had before said he would not do, at least not unreservedly.
+Still the more to save his credit, he now insisted upon it, as a last
+point, that the agreement should be put in black and white, especially
+the security part. The other made no demur; pen, ink, and paper were
+provided, and grave as any notary the cosmopolitan sat down, but, ere
+taking the pen, glanced up at the notification, and said: "First down
+with that sign, barber--Timon's sign, there; down with it."
+
+This, being in the agreement, was done--though a little
+reluctantly--with an eye to the future, the sign being carefully put
+away in a drawer.
+
+"Now, then, for the writing," said the cosmopolitan, squaring himself.
+"Ah," with a sigh, "I shall make a poor lawyer, I fear. Ain't used, you
+see, barber, to a business which, ignoring the principle of honor, holds
+no nail fast till clinched. Strange, barber," taking up the blank paper,
+"that such flimsy stuff as this should make such strong hawsers; vile
+hawsers, too. Barber," starting up, "I won't put it in black and white.
+It were a reflection upon our joint honor. I will take your word, and
+you shall take mine."
+
+"But your memory may be none of the best, sir. Well for you, on your
+side, to have it in black and white, just for a memorandum like, you
+know."
+
+"That, indeed! Yes, and it would help _your_ memory, too, wouldn't it,
+barber? Yours, on your side, being a little weak, too, I dare say. Ah,
+barber! how ingenious we human beings are; and how kindly we reciprocate
+each other's little delicacies, don't we? What better proof, now, that
+we are kind, considerate fellows, with responsive fellow-feelings--eh,
+barber? But to business. Let me see. What's your name, barber?"
+
+"William Cream, sir."
+
+Pondering a moment, he began to write; and, after some corrections,
+leaned back, and read aloud the following:
+
+     "AGREEMENT
+     Between
+     FRANK GOODMAN, Philanthropist, and Citizen of the World,
+     and
+     WILLIAM CREAM, Barber of the Mississippi steamer, Fidèle.
+
+     "The first hereby agrees to make good to the last any loss that may
+     come from his trusting mankind, in the way of his vocation, for the
+     residue of the present trip; PROVIDED that William Cream keep out
+     of sight, for the given term, his notification of NO TRUST, and by
+     no other mode convey any, the least hint or intimation, tending to
+     discourage men from soliciting trust from him, in the way of his
+     vocation, for the time above specified; but, on the contrary, he
+     do, by all proper and reasonable words, gestures, manners, and
+     looks, evince a perfect confidence in all men, especially
+     strangers; otherwise, this agreement to be void.
+
+     "Done, in good faith, this 1st day of April 18--, at a quarter to
+     twelve o'clock, P. M., in the shop of said William Cream, on board
+     the said boat, Fidèle."
+
+"There, barber; will that do?"
+
+"That will do," said the barber, "only now put down your name."
+
+Both signatures being affixed, the question was started by the barber,
+who should have custody of the instrument; which point, however, he
+settled for himself, by proposing that both should go together to the
+captain, and give the document into his hands--the barber hinting that
+this would be a safe proceeding, because the captain was necessarily a
+party disinterested, and, what was more, could not, from the nature of
+the present case, make anything by a breach of trust. All of which was
+listened to with some surprise and concern.
+
+"Why, barber," said the cosmopolitan, "this don't show the right spirit;
+for me, I have confidence in the captain purely because he is a man; but
+he shall have nothing to do with our affair; for if you have no
+confidence in me, barber, I have in you. There, keep the paper
+yourself," handing it magnanimously.
+
+"Very good," said the barber, "and now nothing remains but for me to
+receive the cash."
+
+Though the mention of that word, or any of its singularly numerous
+equivalents, in serious neighborhood to a requisition upon one's purse,
+is attended with a more or less noteworthy effect upon the human
+countenance, producing in many an abrupt fall of it--in others, a
+writhing and screwing up of the features to a point not undistressing to
+behold, in some, attended with a blank pallor and fatal
+consternation--yet no trace of any of these symptoms was visible upon
+the countenance of the cosmopolitan, notwithstanding nothing could be
+more sudden and unexpected than the barber's demand.
+
+"You speak of cash, barber; pray in what connection?"
+
+"In a nearer one, sir," answered the barber, less blandly, "than I
+thought the man with the sweet voice stood, who wanted me to trust him
+once for a shave, on the score of being a sort of thirteenth cousin."
+
+"Indeed, and what did you say to him?"
+
+"I said, 'Thank you, sir, but I don't see the connection,'"
+
+"How could you so unsweetly answer one with a sweet voice?"
+
+"Because, I recalled what the son of Sirach says in the True Book: 'An
+enemy speaketh sweetly with his lips;' and so I did what the son of
+Sirach advises in such cases: 'I believed not his many words.'"
+
+"What, barber, do you say that such cynical sort of things are in the
+True Book, by which, of course, you mean the Bible?"
+
+"Yes, and plenty more to the same effect. Read the Book of Proverbs."
+
+"That's strange, now, barber; for I never happen to have met with those
+passages you cite. Before I go to bed this night, I'll inspect the Bible
+I saw on the cabin-table, to-day. But mind, you mustn't quote the True
+Book that way to people coming in here; it would be impliedly a
+violation of the contract. But you don't know how glad I feel that you
+have for one while signed off all that sort of thing."
+
+"No, sir; not unless you down with the cash."
+
+"Cash again! What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, in this paper here, you engage, sir, to insure me against a
+certain loss, and----"
+
+"Certain? Is it so _certain_ you are going to lose?"
+
+"Why, that way of taking the word may not be amiss, but I didn't mean
+it so. I meant a _certain_ loss; you understand, a CERTAIN loss; that is
+to say, a certain loss. Now then, sir, what use your mere writing and
+saying you will insure me, unless beforehand you place in my hands a
+money-pledge, sufficient to that end?"
+
+"I see; the material pledge."
+
+"Yes, and I will put it low; say fifty dollars."
+
+"Now what sort of a beginning is this? You, barber, for a given time
+engage to trust man, to put confidence in men, and, for your first step,
+make a demand implying no confidence in the very man you engage with.
+But fifty dollars is nothing, and I would let you have it cheerfully,
+only I unfortunately happen to have but little change with me just now."
+
+"But you have money in your trunk, though?"
+
+"To be sure. But you see--in fact, barber, you must be consistent. No, I
+won't let you have the money now; I won't let you violate the inmost
+spirit of our contract, that way. So good-night, and I will see you
+again."
+
+"Stay, sir"--humming and hawing--"you have forgotten something."
+
+"Handkerchief?--gloves? No, forgotten nothing. Good-night."
+
+"Stay, sir--the--the shaving."
+
+"Ah, I _did_ forget that. But now that it strikes me, I shan't pay you
+at present. Look at your agreement; you must trust. Tut! against loss
+you hold the guarantee. Good-night, my dear barber."
+
+With which words he sauntered off, leaving the barber in a maze, staring
+after.
+
+But it holding true in fascination as in natural philosophy, that
+nothing can act where it is not, so the barber was not long now in being
+restored to his self-possession and senses; the first evidence of which
+perhaps was, that, drawing forth his notification from the drawer, he
+put it back where it belonged; while, as for the agreement, that he tore
+up; which he felt the more free to do from the impression that in all
+human probability he would never again see the person who had drawn it.
+Whether that impression proved well-founded or not, does not appear. But
+in after days, telling the night's adventure to his friends, the worthy
+barber always spoke of his queer customer as the man-charmer--as certain
+East Indians are called snake-charmers--and all his friends united in
+thinking him QUITE AN ORIGINAL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+IN WHICH THE LAST THREE WORDS OF THE LAST CHAPTER ARE MADE THE TEXT OF
+DISCOURSE, WHICH WILL BE SURE OF RECEIVING MORE OR LESS ATTENTION FROM
+THOSE READERS WHO DO NOT SKIP IT.
+
+
+"Quite an original:" A phrase, we fancy, rather oftener used by the
+young, or the unlearned, or the untraveled, than by the old, or the
+well-read, or the man who has made the grand tour. Certainly, the sense
+of originality exists at its highest in an infant, and probably at its
+lowest in him who has completed the circle of the sciences.
+
+As for original characters in fiction, a grateful reader will, on
+meeting with one, keep the anniversary of that day. True, we sometimes
+hear of an author who, at one creation, produces some two or three score
+such characters; it may be possible. But they can hardly be original in
+the sense that Hamlet is, or Don Quixote, or Milton's Satan. That is to
+say, they are not, in a thorough sense, original at all. They are novel,
+or singular, or striking, or captivating, or all four at once.
+
+More likely, they are what are called odd characters; but for that, are
+no more original, than what is called an odd genius, in his way, is.
+But, if original, whence came they? Or where did the novelist pick them
+up?
+
+Where does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, in
+town, to be sure. Every great town is a kind of man-show, where the
+novelist goes for his stock, just as the agriculturist goes to the
+cattle-show for his. But in the one fair, new species of quadrupeds are
+hardly more rare, than in the other are new species of characters--that
+is, original ones. Their rarity may still the more appear from this,
+that, while characters, merely singular, imply but singular forms so to
+speak, original ones, truly so, imply original instincts.
+
+In short, a due conception of what is to be held for this sort of
+personage in fiction would make him almost as much of a prodigy there,
+as in real history is a new law-giver, a revolutionizing philosopher, or
+the founder of a new religion.
+
+In nearly all the original characters, loosely accounted such in works
+of invention, there is discernible something prevailingly local, or of
+the age; which circumstance, of itself, would seem to invalidate the
+claim, judged by the principles here suggested.
+
+Furthermore, if we consider, what is popularly held to entitle
+characters in fiction to being deemed original, is but something
+personal--confined to itself. The character sheds not its characteristic
+on its surroundings, whereas, the original character, essentially such,
+is like a revolving Drummond light, raying away from itself all round
+it--everything is lit by it, everything starts up to it (mark how it is
+with Hamlet), so that, in certain minds, there follows upon the adequate
+conception of such a character, an effect, in its way, akin to that
+which in Genesis attends upon the beginning of things.
+
+For much the same reason that there is but one planet to one orbit, so
+can there be but one such original character to one work of invention.
+Two would conflict to chaos. In this view, to say that there are more
+than one to a book, is good presumption there is none at all. But for
+new, singular, striking, odd, eccentric, and all sorts of entertaining
+and instructive characters, a good fiction may be full of them. To
+produce such characters, an author, beside other things, must have seen
+much, and seen through much: to produce but one original character, he
+must have had much luck.
+
+There would seem but one point in common between this sort of phenomenon
+in fiction and all other sorts: it cannot be born in the author's
+imagination--it being as true in literature as in zoology, that all life
+is from the egg.
+
+In the endeavor to show, if possible, the impropriety of the phrase,
+_Quite an Original_, as applied by the barber's friends, we have, at
+unawares, been led into a dissertation bordering upon the prosy, perhaps
+upon the smoky. If so, the best use the smoke can be turned to, will be,
+by retiring under cover of it, in good trim as may be, to the story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE COSMOPOLITAN INCREASES IN SERIOUSNESS.
+
+
+In the middle of the gentleman's cabin burned a solar lamp, swung from
+the ceiling, and whose shade of ground glass was all round fancifully
+variegated, in transparency, with the image of a horned altar, from
+which flames rose, alternate with the figure of a robed man, his head
+encircled by a halo. The light of this lamp, after dazzlingly striking
+on marble, snow-white and round--the slab of a centre-table beneath--on
+all sides went rippling off with ever-diminishing distinctness, till,
+like circles from a stone dropped in water, the rays died dimly away in
+the furthest nook of the place.
+
+Here and there, true to their place, but not to their function, swung
+other lamps, barren planets, which had either gone out from exhaustion,
+or been extinguished by such occupants of berths as the light annoyed,
+or who wanted to sleep, not see.
+
+By a perverse man, in a berth not remote, the remaining lamp would have
+been extinguished as well, had not a steward forbade, saying that the
+commands of the captain required it to be kept burning till the natural
+light of day should come to relieve it. This steward, who, like many in
+his vocation, was apt to be a little free-spoken at times, had been
+provoked by the man's pertinacity to remind him, not only of the sad
+consequences which might, upon occasion, ensue from the cabin being left
+in darkness, but, also, of the circumstance that, in a place full of
+strangers, to show one's self anxious to produce darkness there, such an
+anxiety was, to say the least, not becoming. So the lamp--last survivor
+of many--burned on, inwardly blessed by those in some berths, and
+inwardly execrated by those in others.
+
+Keeping his lone vigils beneath his lone lamp, which lighted his book on
+the table, sat a clean, comely, old man, his head snowy as the marble,
+and a countenance like that which imagination ascribes to good Simeon,
+when, having at last beheld the Master of Faith, he blessed him and
+departed in peace. From his hale look of greenness in winter, and his
+hands ingrained with the tan, less, apparently, of the present summer,
+than of accumulated ones past, the old man seemed a well-to-do farmer,
+happily dismissed, after a thrifty life of activity, from the fields to
+the fireside--one of those who, at three-score-and-ten, are
+fresh-hearted as at fifteen; to whom seclusion gives a boon more blessed
+than knowledge, and at last sends them to heaven untainted by the world,
+because ignorant of it; just as a countryman putting up at a London inn,
+and never stirring out of it as a sight-seer, will leave London at last
+without once being lost in its fog, or soiled by its mud.
+
+Redolent from the barber's shop, as any bridegroom tripping to the
+bridal chamber might come, and by his look of cheeriness seeming to
+dispense a sort of morning through the night, in came the cosmopolitan;
+but marking the old man, and how he was occupied, he toned himself down,
+and trod softly, and took a seat on the other side of the table, and
+said nothing. Still, there was a kind of waiting expression about him.
+
+"Sir," said the old man, after looking up puzzled at him a moment,
+"sir," said he, "one would think this was a coffee-house, and it was
+war-time, and I had a newspaper here with great news, and the only copy
+to be had, you sit there looking at me so eager."
+
+"And so you _have_ good news there, sir--the very best of good news."
+
+"Too good to be true," here came from one of the curtained berths.
+
+"Hark!" said the cosmopolitan. "Some one talks in his sleep."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "and you--_you_ seem to be talking in a dream.
+Why speak you, sir, of news, and all that, when you must see this is a
+book I have here--the Bible, not a newspaper?"
+
+"I know that; and when you are through with it--but not a moment
+sooner--I will thank you for it. It belongs to the boat, I believe--a
+present from a society."
+
+"Oh, take it, take it!"
+
+"Nay, sir, I did not mean to touch you at all. I simply stated the fact
+in explanation of my waiting here--nothing more. Read on, sir, or you
+will distress me."
+
+This courtesy was not without effect. Removing his spectacles, and
+saying he had about finished his chapter, the old man kindly presented
+the volume, which was received with thanks equally kind. After reading
+for some minutes, until his expression merged from attentiveness into
+seriousness, and from that into a kind of pain, the cosmopolitan slowly
+laid down the book, and turning to the old man, who thus far had been
+watching him with benign curiosity, said: "Can you, my aged friend,
+resolve me a doubt--a disturbing doubt?"
+
+"There are doubts, sir," replied the old man, with a changed
+countenance, "there are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not
+man that can solve them."
+
+"True; but look, now, what my doubt is. I am one who thinks well of man.
+I love man. I have confidence in man. But what was told me not a
+half-hour since? I was told that I would find it written--'Believe not
+his many words--an enemy speaketh sweetly with his lips'--and also I was
+told that I would find a good deal more to the same effect, and all in
+this book. I could not think it; and, coming here to look for myself,
+what do I read? Not only just what was quoted, but also, as was engaged,
+more to the same purpose, such as this: 'With much communication he will
+tempt thee; he will smile upon thee, and speak thee fair, and say What
+wantest thou? If thou be for his profit he will use thee; he will make
+thee bear, and will not be sorry for it. Observe and take good heed.
+When thou hearest these things, awake in thy sleep.'"
+
+"Who's that describing the confidence-man?" here came from the berth
+again.
+
+"Awake in his sleep, sure enough, ain't he?" said the cosmopolitan,
+again looking off in surprise. "Same voice as before, ain't it? Strange
+sort of dreamy man, that. Which is his berth, pray?"
+
+"Never mind _him_, sir," said the old man anxiously, "but tell me truly,
+did you, indeed, read from the book just now?"
+
+"I did," with changed air, "and gall and wormwood it is to me, a truster
+in man; to me, a philanthropist."
+
+"Why," moved, "you don't mean to say, that what you repeated is really
+down there? Man and boy, I have read the good book this seventy years,
+and don't remember seeing anything like that. Let me see it," rising
+earnestly, and going round to him.
+
+"There it is; and there--and there"--turning over the leaves, and
+pointing to the sentences one by one; "there--all down in the 'Wisdom of
+Jesus, the Son of Sirach.'"
+
+"Ah!" cried the old man, brightening up, "now I know. Look," turning the
+leaves forward and back, till all the Old Testament lay flat on one
+side, and all the New Testament flat on the other, while in his fingers
+he supported vertically the portion between, "look, sir, all this to the
+right is certain truth, and all this to the left is certain truth, but
+all I hold in my hand here is apocrypha."
+
+"Apocrypha?"
+
+"Yes; and there's the word in black and white," pointing to it. "And
+what says the word? It says as much as 'not warranted;' for what do
+college men say of anything of that sort? They say it is apocryphal. The
+word itself, I've heard from the pulpit, implies something of uncertain
+credit. So if your disturbance be raised from aught in this apocrypha,"
+again taking up the pages, "in that case, think no more of it, for it's
+apocrypha."
+
+"What's that about the Apocalypse?" here, a third time, came from the
+berth.
+
+"He's seeing visions now, ain't he?" said the cosmopolitan, once more
+looking in the direction of the interruption. "But, sir," resuming, "I
+cannot tell you how thankful I am for your reminding me about the
+apocrypha here. For the moment, its being such escaped me. Fact is, when
+all is bound up together, it's sometimes confusing. The uncanonical part
+should be bound distinct. And, now that I think of it, how well did
+those learned doctors who rejected for us this whole book of Sirach. I
+never read anything so calculated to destroy man's confidence in man.
+This son of Sirach even says--I saw it but just now: 'Take heed of thy
+friends;' not, observe, thy seeming friends, thy hypocritical friends,
+thy false friends, but thy _friends_, thy real friends--that is to say,
+not the truest friend in the world is to be implicitly trusted. Can
+Rochefoucault equal that? I should not wonder if his view of human
+nature, like Machiavelli's, was taken from this Son of Sirach. And to
+call it wisdom--the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach! Wisdom, indeed! What an
+ugly thing wisdom must be! Give me the folly that dimples the cheek,
+say I, rather than the wisdom that curdles the blood. But no, no; it
+ain't wisdom; it's apocrypha, as you say, sir. For how can that be
+trustworthy that teaches distrust?"
+
+"I tell you what it is," here cried the same voice as before, only more
+in less of mockery, "if you two don't know enough to sleep, don't be
+keeping wiser men awake. And if you want to know what wisdom is, go find
+it under your blankets."
+
+"Wisdom?" cried another voice with a brogue; "arrah and is't wisdom the
+two geese are gabbling about all this while? To bed with ye, ye divils,
+and don't be after burning your fingers with the likes of wisdom."
+
+"We must talk lower," said the old man; "I fear we have annoyed these
+good people."
+
+"I should be sorry if wisdom annoyed any one," said the other; "but we
+will lower our voices, as you say. To resume: taking the thing as I did,
+can you be surprised at my uneasiness in reading passages so charged
+with the spirit of distrust?"
+
+"No, sir, I am not surprised," said the old man; then added: "from what
+you say, I see you are something of my way of thinking--you think that
+to distrust the creature, is a kind of distrusting of the Creator. Well,
+my young friend, what is it? This is rather late for you to be about.
+What do you want of me?"
+
+These questions were put to a boy in the fragment of an old linen coat,
+bedraggled and yellow, who, coming in from the deck barefooted on the
+soft carpet, had been unheard. All pointed and fluttering, the rags of
+the little fellow's red-flannel shirt, mixed with those of his yellow
+coat, flamed about him like the painted flames in the robes of a victim
+in _auto-da-fe_. His face, too, wore such a polish of seasoned grime,
+that his sloe-eyes sparkled from out it like lustrous sparks in fresh
+coal. He was a juvenile peddler, or _marchand_, as the polite French
+might have called him, of travelers' conveniences; and, having no
+allotted sleeping-place, had, in his wanderings about the boat, spied,
+through glass doors, the two in the cabin; and, late though it was,
+thought it might never be too much so for turning a penny.
+
+Among other things, he carried a curious affair--a miniature mahogany
+door, hinged to its frame, and suitably furnished in all respects but
+one, which will shortly appear. This little door he now meaningly held
+before the old man, who, after staring at it a while, said: "Go thy ways
+with thy toys, child."
+
+"Now, may I never get so old and wise as that comes to," laughed the boy
+through his grime; and, by so doing, disclosing leopard-like teeth, like
+those of Murillo's wild beggar-boy's.
+
+"The divils are laughing now, are they?" here came the brogue from the
+berth. "What do the divils find to laugh about in wisdom, begorrah? To
+bed with ye, ye divils, and no more of ye."
+
+"You see, child, you have disturbed that person," said the old man; "you
+mustn't laugh any more."
+
+"Ah, now," said the cosmopolitan, "don't, pray, say that; don't let him
+think that poor Laughter is persecuted for a fool in this world."
+
+"Well," said the old man to the boy, "you must, at any rate, speak very
+low."
+
+"Yes, that wouldn't be amiss, perhaps," said the cosmopolitan; "but, my
+fine fellow, you were about saying something to my aged friend here;
+what was it?"
+
+"Oh," with a lowered voice, coolly opening and shutting his little door,
+"only this: when I kept a toy-stand at the fair in Cincinnati last
+month, I sold more than one old man a child's rattle."
+
+"No doubt of it," said the old man. "I myself often buy such things for
+my little grandchildren."
+
+"But these old men I talk of were old bachelors."
+
+The old man stared at him a moment; then, whispering to the
+cosmopolitan: "Strange boy, this; sort of simple, ain't he? Don't know
+much, hey?"
+
+"Not much," said the boy, "or I wouldn't be so ragged."
+
+"Why, child, what sharp ears you have!" exclaimed the old man.
+
+"If they were duller, I would hear less ill of myself," said the boy.
+
+"You seem pretty wise, my lad," said the cosmopolitan; "why don't you
+sell your wisdom, and buy a coat?"
+
+"Faith," said the boy, "that's what I did to-day, and this is the coat
+that the price of my wisdom bought. But won't you trade? See, now, it
+is not the door I want to sell; I only carry the door round for a
+specimen, like. Look now, sir," standing the thing up on the table,
+"supposing this little door is your state-room door; well," opening it,
+"you go in for the night; you close your door behind you--thus. Now, is
+all safe?"
+
+"I suppose so, child," said the old man.
+
+"Of course it is, my fine fellow," said the cosmopolitan.
+
+"All safe. Well. Now, about two o'clock in the morning, say, a
+soft-handed gentleman comes softly and tries the knob here--thus; in
+creeps my soft-handed gentleman; and hey, presto! how comes on the soft
+cash?"
+
+"I see, I see, child," said the old man; "your fine gentleman is a fine
+thief, and there's no lock to your little door to keep him out;" with
+which words he peered at it more closely than before.
+
+"Well, now," again showing his white teeth, "well, now, some of you old
+folks are knowing 'uns, sure enough; but now comes the great invention,"
+producing a small steel contrivance, very simple but ingenious, and
+which, being clapped on the inside of the little door, secured it as
+with a bolt. "There now," admiringly holding it off at arm's-length,
+"there now, let that soft-handed gentleman come now a' softly trying
+this little knob here, and let him keep a' trying till he finds his head
+as soft as his hand. Buy the traveler's patent lock, sir, only
+twenty-five cents."
+
+"Dear me," cried the old man, "this beats printing. Yes, child, I will
+have one, and use it this very night."
+
+With the phlegm of an old banker pouching the change, the boy now turned
+to the other: "Sell you one, sir?"
+
+"Excuse me, my fine fellow, but I never use such blacksmiths' things."
+
+"Those who give the blacksmith most work seldom do," said the boy,
+tipping him a wink expressive of a degree of indefinite knowingness, not
+uninteresting to consider in one of his years. But the wink was not
+marked by the old man, nor, to all appearances, by him for whom it was
+intended.
+
+"Now then," said the boy, again addressing the old man. "With your
+traveler's lock on your door to-night, you will think yourself all safe,
+won't you?"
+
+"I think I will, child."
+
+"But how about the window?"
+
+"Dear me, the window, child. I never thought of that. I must see to
+that."
+
+"Never you mind about the window," said the boy, "nor, to be honor
+bright, about the traveler's lock either, (though I ain't sorry for
+selling one), do you just buy one of these little jokers," producing a
+number of suspender-like objects, which he dangled before the old man;
+"money-belts, sir; only fifty cents."
+
+"Money-belt? never heard of such a thing."
+
+"A sort of pocket-book," said the boy, "only a safer sort. Very good for
+travelers."
+
+"Oh, a pocket-book. Queer looking pocket-books though, seems to me.
+Ain't they rather long and narrow for pocket-books?"
+
+"They go round the waist, sir, inside," said the boy "door open or
+locked, wide awake on your feet or fast asleep in your chair, impossible
+to be robbed with a money-belt."
+
+"I see, I see. It _would_ be hard to rob one's money-belt. And I was
+told to-day the Mississippi is a bad river for pick-pockets. How much
+are they?"
+
+"Only fifty cents, sir."
+
+"I'll take one. There!"
+
+"Thank-ee. And now there's a present for ye," with which, drawing from
+his breast a batch of little papers, he threw one before the old man,
+who, looking at it, read "_Counterfeit Detector_."
+
+"Very good thing," said the boy, "I give it to all my customers who
+trade seventy-five cents' worth; best present can be made them. Sell you
+a money-belt, sir?" turning to the cosmopolitan.
+
+"Excuse me, my fine fellow, but I never use that sort of thing; my money
+I carry loose."
+
+"Loose bait ain't bad," said the boy, "look a lie and find the truth;
+don't care about a Counterfeit Detector, do ye? or is the wind East,
+d'ye think?"
+
+"Child," said the old man in some concern, "you mustn't sit up any
+longer, it affects your mind; there, go away, go to bed."
+
+"If I had some people's brains to lie on. I would," said the boy, "but
+planks is hard, you know."
+
+"Go, child--go, go!"
+
+"Yes, child,--yes, yes," said the boy, with which roguish parody, by way
+of congé, he scraped back his hard foot on the woven flowers of the
+carpet, much as a mischievous steer in May scrapes back his horny hoof
+in the pasture; and then with a flourish of his hat--which, like the
+rest of his tatters, was, thanks to hard times, a belonging beyond his
+years, though not beyond his experience, being a grown man's cast-off
+beaver--turned, and with the air of a young Caffre, quitted the place.
+
+"That's a strange boy," said the old man, looking after him. "I wonder
+who's his mother; and whether she knows what late hours he keeps?"
+
+"The probability is," observed the other, "that his mother does not
+know. But if you remember, sir, you were saying something, when the boy
+interrupted you with his door."
+
+"So I was.--Let me see," unmindful of his purchases for the moment,
+"what, now, was it? What was that I was saying? Do _you_ remember?"
+
+"Not perfectly, sir; but, if I am not mistaken, it was something like
+this: you hoped you did not distrust the creature; for that would imply
+distrust of the Creator."
+
+"Yes, that was something like it," mechanically and unintelligently
+letting his eye fall now on his purchases.
+
+"Pray, will you put your money in your belt to-night?"
+
+"It's best, ain't it?" with a slight start. "Never too late to be
+cautious. 'Beware of pick-pockets' is all over the boat."
+
+"Yes, and it must have been the Son of Sirach, or some other morbid
+cynic, who put them there. But that's not to the purpose. Since you are
+minded to it, pray, sir, let me help you about the belt. I think that,
+between us, we can make a secure thing of it."
+
+"Oh no, no, no!" said the old man, not unperturbed, "no, no, I wouldn't
+trouble you for the world," then, nervously folding up the belt, "and I
+won't be so impolite as to do it for myself, before you, either. But,
+now that I think of it," after a pause, carefully taking a little wad
+from a remote corner of his vest pocket, "here are two bills they gave
+me at St. Louis, yesterday. No doubt they are all right; but just to
+pass time, I'll compare them with the Detector here. Blessed boy to make
+me such a present. Public benefactor, that little boy!"
+
+Laying the Detector square before him on the table, he then, with
+something of the air of an officer bringing by the collar a brace of
+culprits to the bar, placed the two bills opposite the Detector, upon
+which, the examination began, lasting some time, prosecuted with no
+small research and vigilance, the forefinger of the right hand proving
+of lawyer-like efficacy in tracing out and pointing the evidence,
+whichever way it might go.
+
+After watching him a while, the cosmopolitan said in a formal voice,
+"Well, what say you, Mr. Foreman; guilty, or not guilty?--Not guilty,
+ain't it?"
+
+"I don't know, I don't know," returned the old man, perplexed, "there's
+so many marks of all sorts to go by, it makes it a kind of uncertain.
+Here, now, is this bill," touching one, "it looks to be a three dollar
+bill on the Vicksburgh Trust and Insurance Banking Company. Well, the
+Detector says----"
+
+"But why, in this case, care what it says? Trust and Insurance! What
+more would you have?"
+
+"No; but the Detector says, among fifty other things, that, if a good
+bill, it must have, thickened here and there into the substance of the
+paper, little wavy spots of red; and it says they must have a kind of
+silky feel, being made by the lint of a red silk handkerchief stirred up
+in the paper-maker's vat--the paper being made to order for the
+company."
+
+"Well, and is----"
+
+"Stay. But then it adds, that sign is not always to be relied on; for
+some good bills get so worn, the red marks get rubbed out. And that's
+the case with my bill here--see how old it is--or else it's a
+counterfeit, or else--I don't see right--or else--dear, dear me--I don't
+know what else to think."
+
+"What a peck of trouble that Detector makes for you now; believe me, the
+bill is good; don't be so distrustful. Proves what I've always thought,
+that much of the want of confidence, in these days, is owing to these
+Counterfeit Detectors you see on every desk and counter. Puts people up
+to suspecting good bills. Throw it away, I beg, if only because of the
+trouble it breeds you."
+
+"No; it's troublesome, but I think I'll keep it.--Stay, now, here's
+another sign. It says that, if the bill is good, it must have in one
+corner, mixed in with the vignette, the figure of a goose, very small,
+indeed, all but microscopic; and, for added precaution, like the figure
+of Napoleon outlined by the tree, not observable, even if magnified,
+unless the attention is directed to it. Now, pore over it as I will, I
+can't see this goose."
+
+"Can't see the goose? why, I can; and a famous goose it is. There"
+(reaching over and pointing to a spot in the vignette).
+
+"I don't see it--dear me--I don't see the goose. Is it a real goose?"
+
+"A perfect goose; beautiful goose."
+
+"Dear, dear, I don't see it."
+
+"Then throw that Detector away, I say again; it only makes you purblind;
+don't you see what a wild-goose chase it has led you? The bill is good.
+Throw the Detector away."
+
+"No; it ain't so satisfactory as I thought for, but I must examine this
+other bill."
+
+"As you please, but I can't in conscience assist you any more; pray,
+then, excuse me."
+
+So, while the old man with much painstakings resumed his work, the
+cosmopolitan, to allow him every facility, resumed his reading. At
+length, seeing that he had given up his undertaking as hopeless, and was
+at leisure again, the cosmopolitan addressed some gravely interesting
+remarks to him about the book before him, and, presently, becoming more
+and more grave, said, as he turned the large volume slowly over on the
+table, and with much difficulty traced the faded remains of the gilt
+inscription giving the name of the society who had presented it to the
+boat, "Ah, sir, though every one must be pleased at the thought of the
+presence in public places of such a book, yet there is something that
+abates the satisfaction. Look at this volume; on the outside, battered
+as any old valise in the baggage-room; and inside, white and virgin as
+the hearts of lilies in bud."
+
+"So it is, so it is," said the old man sadly, his attention for the
+first directed to the circumstance.
+
+"Nor is this the only time," continued the other, "that I have observed
+these public Bibles in boats and hotels. All much like this--old
+without, and new within. True, this aptly typifies that internal
+freshness, the best mark of truth, however ancient; but then, it speaks
+not so well as could be wished for the good book's esteem in the minds
+of the traveling public. I may err, but it seems to me that if more
+confidence was put in it by the traveling public, it would hardly be
+so."
+
+With an expression very unlike that with which he had bent over the
+Detector, the old man sat meditating upon his companions remarks a
+while; and, at last, with a rapt look, said: "And yet, of all people,
+the traveling public most need to put trust in that guardianship which
+is made known in this book."
+
+"True, true," thoughtfully assented the other. "And one would think they
+would want to, and be glad to," continued the old man kindling; "for,
+in all our wanderings through this vale, how pleasant, not less than
+obligatory, to feel that we need start at no wild alarms, provide for no
+wild perils; trusting in that Power which is alike able and willing to
+protect us when we cannot ourselves."
+
+His manner produced something answering to it in the cosmopolitan, who,
+leaning over towards him, said sadly: "Though this is a theme on which
+travelers seldom talk to each other, yet, to you, sir, I will say, that
+I share something of your sense of security. I have moved much about the
+world, and still keep at it; nevertheless, though in this land, and
+especially in these parts of it, some stories are told about steamboats
+and railroads fitted to make one a little apprehensive, yet, I may say
+that, neither by land nor by water, am I ever seriously disquieted,
+however, at times, transiently uneasy; since, with you, sir, I believe
+in a Committee of Safety, holding silent sessions over all, in an
+invisible patrol, most alert when we soundest sleep, and whose beat lies
+as much through forests as towns, along rivers as streets. In short, I
+never forget that passage of Scripture which says, 'Jehovah shall be thy
+confidence.' The traveler who has not this trust, what miserable
+misgivings must be his; or, what vain, short-sighted care must he take
+of himself."
+
+"Even so," said the old man, lowly.
+
+"There is a chapter," continued the other, again taking the book,
+"which, as not amiss, I must read you. But this lamp, solar-lamp as it
+is, begins to burn dimly."
+
+"So it does, so it does," said the old man with changed air, "dear me,
+it must be very late. I must to bed, to bed! Let me see," rising and
+looking wistfully all round, first on the stools and settees, and then
+on the carpet, "let me see, let me see;--is there anything I have
+forgot,--forgot? Something I a sort of dimly remember. Something, my
+son--careful man--told me at starting this morning, this very morning.
+Something about seeing to--something before I got into my berth. What
+could it be? Something for safety. Oh, my poor old memory!"
+
+"Let me give a little guess, sir. Life-preserver?"
+
+"So it was. He told me not to omit seeing I had a life-preserver in my
+state-room; said the boat supplied them, too. But where are they? I
+don't see any. What are they like?"
+
+"They are something like this, sir, I believe," lifting a brown stool
+with a curved tin compartment underneath; "yes, this, I think, is a
+life-preserver, sir; and a very good one, I should say, though I don't
+pretend to know much about such things, never using them myself."
+
+"Why, indeed, now! Who would have thought it? _that_ a life-preserver?
+That's the very stool I was sitting on, ain't it?"
+
+"It is. And that shows that one's life is looked out for, when he ain't
+looking out for it himself. In fact, any of these stools here will float
+you, sir, should the boat hit a snag, and go down in the dark. But,
+since you want one in your room, pray take this one," handing it to him.
+"I think I can recommend this one; the tin part," rapping it with his
+knuckles, "seems so perfect--sounds so very hollow."
+
+"Sure it's _quite_ perfect, though?" Then, anxiously putting on his
+spectacles, he scrutinized it pretty closely--"well soldered? quite
+tight?"
+
+"I should say so, sir; though, indeed, as I said, I never use this sort
+of thing, myself. Still, I think that in case of a wreck, barring
+sharp-pointed timbers, you could have confidence in that stool for a
+special providence."
+
+"Then, good-night, good-night; and Providence have both of us in its
+good keeping."
+
+"Be sure it will," eying the old man with sympathy, as for the moment he
+stood, money-belt in hand, and life-preserver under arm, "be sure it
+will, sir, since in Providence, as in man, you and I equally put trust.
+But, bless me, we are being left in the dark here. Pah! what a smell,
+too."
+
+"Ah, my way now," cried the old man, peering before him, "where lies my
+way to my state-room?"
+
+"I have indifferent eyes, and will show you; but, first, for the good of
+all lungs, let me extinguish this lamp."
+
+The next moment, the waning light expired, and with it the waning flames
+of the horned altar, and the waning halo round the robed man's brow;
+while in the darkness which ensued, the cosmopolitan kindly led the old
+man away. Something further may follow of this Masquerade.
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | Transcriber's Note and Errata                                |
+  |                                                              |
+  | The following words were seen in both hyphenated and         |
+  | un-hyphenated forms:                                         |
+  |                                                              |
+  | |church-yard (2) |churchyard (1) |                           |
+  | |cross-wise (1)  |crosswise (1)  |                           |
+  | |thread-bare (1) |threadbare (1) |                           |
+  |                                                              |
+  | The following typographical errors were corrected:           |
+  |                                                              |
+  | |Error               |Correction          |                  |
+  | |                    |                    |                  |
+  | |ACQUANTANCE         |ACQUAINTANCE        |                  |
+  | |prevailent          |prevalent           |                  |
+  | |the the             |the                 |                  |
+  | |tranquillity        |tranquility         |                  |
+  | |abox                |a box               |                  |
+  | |acommodates         |accommodates        |                  |
+  | |have have           |have                |                  |
+  | |worldlingg, lutton, |worldling, glutton, |                  |
+  | |backswoods'         |backwoods'          |                  |
+  | |it it               |it is               |                  |
+  | |fellew              |fellow              |                  |
+  | |principal           |principle           |                  |
+  | |it it               |it                  |                  |
+  | |everwhere           |everywhere          |                  |
+  | |SUPRISING           |SURPRISING          |                  |
+  | |freind              |friend              |                  |
+  |                                                              |
+  | One 'oe' ligature was replaced with oe.                      |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confidence-Man, by Herman Melville
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONFIDENCE-MAN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 21816-8.txt or 21816-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/8/1/21816/
+
+Produced by LN Yaddanapudi and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.