A MORTAL ANTIPATHY

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

PREFACE. 

"A MORTAL ANTIPATHY" was a truly hazardous experiment. A very wise andvery distinguished physician who is as much at home in literature as heis in science and the practice of medicine, wrote to me in referringto this story: "I should have been afraid of my subject. " He didnot explain himself, but I can easily understand that he felt theimprobability of the physiological or pathological occurrence on whichthe story is founded to be so great that the narrative could hardly berendered plausible. I felt the difficulty for myself as well as for myreaders, and it was only by recalling for our consideration a series ofextraordinary but well-authenticated facts of somewhat similar characterthat I could hope to gain any serious attention to so strange anarrative. 

I need not recur to these wonderful stories. There is, however, one, notto be found on record elsewhere, to which I would especially call thereader's attention. It is that of the middle-aged man, who assuredme that he could never pass a tall hall clock without an indefinableterror. While an infant in arms the heavy weight of one of these tallclocks had fallen with aloud crash and produced an impression on hisnervous system which he had never got over. 

The lasting effect of a shock received by the sense of sight or that ofhearing is conceivable enough. 

But there is another sense, the nerves of which are in closerelation with the higher organs of consciousness. The strength of theassociations connected with the function of the first pair of nerves, the olfactory, is familiar to most persons in their own experience andas related by others. Now we know that every human being, as well asevery other living organism, carries its own distinguishing atmosphere. If a man's friend does not know it, his dog does, and can track himanywhere by it. This personal peculiarity varies with the age andconditions of the individual. It may be agreeable or otherwise, a sourceof attraction or repulsion, but its influence is not less real, thoughfar less obvious and less dominant, than in the lower animals. It wasan atmospheric impression of this nature which associated itself witha terrible shock experienced by the infant which became the subject ofthis story. The impression could not be outgrown, but it might possiblybe broken up by some sudden change in the nervous system effected by acause as potent as the one which had produced the disordered condition. 

This is the best key that I can furnish to a story which must havepuzzled some, repelled others, and failed to interest many who did notsuspect the true cause of the mysterious antipathy. 

BEVERLY FARMS, MASS. , August, 1891. O. W. H. 

A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 

FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 

INTRODUCTION. 

"And why the New Portfolio, I would ask?"

Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession to the nursery inwhich you have a special interest, whether the new-comer was commonlyspoken of as a baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under allconditions, in all companies, by the whole household, spoken of as thebaby? And was the small receptacle provided for it commonly spoken ofas a cradle; or was it not always called the cradle, as if there were noother in existence?

Now this New Portfolio is the cradle in which I am to rock my new-bornthoughts, and from which I am to lift them carefully and show them tocallers, namely, to the whole family of readers belonging to my list ofintimates, and such other friends as may drop in by accident. And soit shall have the definite article, and not be lost in the mob of itsfellows as a portfolio. 

There are a few personal and incidental matters of which I wish to saysomething before reaching the contents of the Portfolio, whatever thesemay be. I have had other portfolios before this, --two, more especially, and the first thing I beg leave to introduce relates to these. 

Do not throw this volume down, or turn to another page, when I tell youthat the earliest of them, that of which I now am about to speak, wasopened more than fifty years ago. This is a very dangerous confession, for fifty years make everything hopelessly old-fashioned, without givingit the charm of real antiquity. If I could say a hundred years, now, myreaders would accept all I had to tell them with a curious interest; butfifty years ago, --there are too many talkative old people who know allabout that time, and at best half a century is a half-baked bit of ware. A coin-fancier would say that your fifty-year-old facts have just enoughof antiquity to spot them with rust, and not enough to give them--thedelicate and durable patina which is time's exquisite enamel. 

When the first Portfolio was opened the coin of the realm bore for itslegend, --or might have borne if the more devout hero-worshippers couldhave had their way, --Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. Caesar. Aug. Div. , Max. , etc. , etc. I never happened to see any gold or silver withthat legend, but the truth is I was not very familiarly acquainted withthe precious metals at that period of my career, and, there might havebeen a good deal of such coin in circulation without my handling it, orknowing much about it. 

Permit me to indulge in a few reminiscences of that far-off time. 

In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a principal centre ofattraction to young Boston people and their visitors. Many of us gotour first ideas of art, to say nothing of our first lessons in thecomparatively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive period, inthat agreeable resort of amateurs and artists. 

How the pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do keep their places inthe mind's gallery! Trumbull's Sortie of Gibraltar, with red enough init for one of our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full-length portraitof the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves; and Copley's long-waistcoatedgentlemen and satin-clad ladies, --they looked like gentlemen andladies, too; and Stuart's florid merchants and high-waisted matrons; andAllston's lovely Italian scenery and dreamy, unimpassioned women, not forgetting Florimel in full flight on her interminablerocking-horse, --you may still see her at the Art Museum; and the rivallandscapes of Doughty and Fisher, much talked of and largely praised inthose days; and the Murillo, --not from Marshal Soup's collection; andthe portrait of Annibale Caracci by himself, which cost the Athenaeuma hundred dollars; and Cole's allegorical pictures, and his immenseand dreary canvas, in which the prostrate shepherds and the angel inJoseph's coat of many colors look as if they must have been thrown infor nothing; and West's brawny Lear tearing his clothes to pieces. Butwhy go on with the catalogue, when most of these pictures can be seeneither at the Athenaeum building in Beacon Street or at the Art Gallery, and admired or criticised perhaps more justly, certainly not moregenerously, than in those earlier years when we looked at them throughthe japanned fish-horns?

If one happened to pass through Atkinson Street on his way to theAthenaeum, he would notice a large, square, painted, brick house, inwhich lived a leading representative of old-fashioned coleopterousCalvinism, and from which emerged one of the liveliest of literarybutterflies. The father was editor of the "Boston Recorder, " a veryrespectable, but very far from amusing paper, most largely patronized bythat class of the community which spoke habitually of the first day ofthe week as "the Sahbuth. " The son was the editor of several differentperiodicals in succession, none of them over severe or serious, and ofmany pleasant books, filled with lively descriptions of society, whichhe studied on the outside with a quick eye for form and color, and witha certain amount of sentiment, not very deep, but real, though somewhatfrothed over by his worldly experiences. 

Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when I opened my firstPortfolio. He had made himself known by his religious poetry, publishedin his father's paper, I think, and signed "Roy. " He had started the"American Magazine, " afterwards merged in the "New York Mirror. " He hadthen left off writing scripture pieces, and taken to lighter forms ofverse. He had just written

 "I'm twenty-two, I'm twenty-two, They idly give me joy, As if I should be glad to know That I was less a boy. "

He was young, therefore, and already famous. He came very near beingvery handsome. He was tall; his hair, of light brown color, waved inluxuriant abundance; his cheek was as rosy as if it had been painted toshow behind the footlights; he dressed with artistic elegance. He wassomething between a remembrance of Count D'Orsay and an anticipation ofOscar Wilde. There used to be in the gallery of the Luxembourg a pictureof Hippolytus and Phxdra, in which the beautiful young man, who hadkindled a passion in the heart of his wicked step-mother, alwaysreminded me of Willis, in spite of the shortcomings of the living faceas compared with the ideal. The painted youth is still blooming on thecanvas, but the fresh-cheecked, jaunty young author of the year 1830 haslong faded out of human sight. I took the leaves which lie before meat this moment, as I write, from his coffin, as it lay just outside thedoor of Saint Paul's Church, on a sad, overclouded winter's day, in theyear 1867. At that earlier time, Willis was by far the most prominentyoung American author. Cooper, Irving, Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Drake, hadall done their best work. Longfellow was not yet conspicuous. Lowell wasa school-boy. Emerson was unheard of. Whittier was beginning to make hisway against the writers with better educational advantages whom he wasdestined to outdo and to outlive. Not one of the great histories, which have done honor to our literature, had appeared. Our school-booksdepended, so far as American authors were concerned, on extractsfrom the orations and speeches of Webster and Everett; on Bryant'sThanatopsis, his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death of the Flowers, Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on Drake's AmericanFlag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping and GeniusWaking, --and not getting very wide awake, either. These could bedepended upon. A few other copies of verses might be found, but Dwight's"Columbia, Columbia, " and Pierpont's Airs of Palestine, were alreadyeffaced, as many of the favorites of our own day and generation mustsoon be, by the great wave which the near future will pour over thesands in which they still are legible. 

About this time, in the year 1832, came out a small volume entitled"Truth, a Gift for Scribblers, " which made some talk for a while, andis now chiefly valuable as a kind of literary tombstone on which may beread the names of many whose renown has been buried with their bones. The "London Athenaeum" spoke of it as having been described as a"tomahawk sort of satire. " As the author had been a trapper in Missouri, he was familiarly acquainted with that weapon and the warfare of itsowners. Born in Boston, in 1804, the son of an army officer, educatedat West Point, he came back to his native city about the year 1830. Hewrote an article on Bryant's Poems for the "North American Review, " andanother on the famous Indian chief, Black Hawk. In this last-mentionedarticle he tells this story as the great warrior told it himself. It wasan incident of a fight with the Osages. 

"Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist andtear the scalp from his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushedfuriously upon another, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran mylance through his body, took off his scalp, and returned in triumph tomy father. He said nothing, but looked pleased. "

This little red story describes very well Spelling's style of literarywarfare. His handling of his most conspicuous victim, Willis, was verymuch like Black Hawk's way of dealing with the Osage. He tomahawkedhim in heroics, ran him through in prose, and scalped him in barbarousepigrams. Bryant and Halleck were abundantly praised; hardly any oneelse escaped. 

If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputation that werefloating, some of them gay with prismatic colors, half a century ago, he will find in the pages of "Truth" a long catalogue of celebrities henever heard of. I recognize only three names, of all which are mentionedin the little book, as belonging to persons still living; but as I havenot read the obituaries of all the others, some of them may be stillflourishing in spite of Mr. Spelling's exterminating onslaught. Timedealt as hardly with poor Spelling, who was not without talent andinstruction, as he had dealt with our authors. I think he found shelterat last under a roof which held numerous inmates, some of whom had seenbetter and many of whom had known worse days than those which they werepassing within its friendly and not exclusive precincts. Such, at least, was the story I heard after he disappeared from general observation. 

That was the day of Souvenirs, Tokens, Forget-me-nots, Bijous, andall that class of showy annuals. Short stories, slender poems, steelengravings, on a level with the common fashion-plates of advertisingestablishments, gilt edges, resplendent binding, --to manifestations ofthis sort our lighter literature had very largely run for some years. The "Scarlet Letter" was an unhinted possibility. The "Voices of theNight" had not stirred the brooding silence; the Concord seer was stillin the lonely desert; most of the contributors to those yearly volumes, which took up such pretentious positions on the centre table, haveshrunk into entire oblivion, or, at best, hold their place in literatureby a scrap or two in some omnivorous collection. 

What dreadful work Spelling made among those slight reputations, floating in swollen tenuity on the surface of the stream, and mirroringeach other in reciprocal reflections! Violent, abusive as he was, unjustto any against whom he happened to have a prejudice, his castigation ofthe small litterateurs of that day was not harmful, but rather of use. His attack on Willis very probably did him good; he needed a littlediscipline, and though he got it too unsparingly, some cautions camewith it which were worth the stripes he had to smart under. One noblewriter Spelling treated with rudeness, probably from some accidentalpique, or equally insignificant reason. I myself, one of the threesurvivors before referred to, escaped with a love-pat, as the youngestson of the Muse. Longfellow gets a brief nod of acknowledgment. Bailey, an American writer, "who made long since a happy snatch at fame, " whichmust have been snatched away from him by envious time, for I cannotidentify him; Thatcher, who died early, leaving one poem, The LastRequest, not wholly unremembered; Miss Hannah F. Gould, a very brightand agreeable writer of light verse, --all these are commended to thekeeping of that venerable public carrier, who finds his scythe andhour-glass such a load that he generally drops the burdens committed tohis charge, after making a show of paying every possible attention tothem so long as he is kept in sight. 

It was a good time to open a portfolio. But my old one had boyhoodwritten on every page. A single passionate outcry when the old warshipI had read about in the broadsides that were a part of our kitchenliterature, and in the "Naval Monument, " was threatened with demolition;a few verses suggested by the sight of old Major Melville in his cockedhat and breeches, were the best scraps that came out of that firstPortfolio, which was soon closed that it should not interfere with theduties of a profession authorized to claim all the time and thoughtwhich would have been otherwise expended in filling it. 

During a quarter of a century the first Portfolio remained closed forthe greater part of the time. Only now and then it would be taken upand opened, and something drawn from it for a special occasion, moreparticularly for the annual reunions of a certain class of which I was amember. 

In the year 1857, towards its close, the "Atlantic Monthly, " which I hadthe honor of naming, was started by the enterprising firm of Phillips& Sampson, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. He thoughtthat I might bring something out of my old Portfolio which would be notunacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor old receptacle, which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had lost its freshness, and seemed hardly presentable to the new company expected to welcomethe new-comer in the literary world of Boston, the least provincial ofAmerican centres of learning and letters. The gilded covering wherethe emblems of hope and aspiration had looked so bright had faded; notwholly, perhaps, but how was the gold become dim!---how was the mostfine gold changed! Long devotion to other pursuits had left little timefor literature, and the waifs and strays gathered from the old Portfoliohad done little more than keep alive the memory that such a source ofsupply was still in existence. I looked at the old Portfolio, and saidto myself, "Too late! too late. This tarnished gold will never brighten, these battered covers will stand no more wear and tear; close them, andleave them to the spider and the book-worm. "

In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century hadcondensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period. When, a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the"Saturday Club" gathered about the long table at "Parker's, " such arepresentation of all that was best in American literature had neverbeen collected within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whomeducated foreigners cared to see-leaving out of considerationofficial dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects ofcuriosity--were seated at that board. But the club did not yet exist, and the "Atlantic Monthly" was an experiment. There had already beenseveral monthly periodicals, more or less successful and permanent, among which "Putnam's Magazine" was conspicuous, owing its successlargely to the contributions of that very accomplished and delightfulwriter, Mr. George William Curtis. That magazine, after a somewhatprolonged and very honorable existence, had gone where all periodicalsgo when they die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, and blindrecording angel whose name is Oblivion. It had so well deserved to livethat its death was a surprise and a source of regret. Could anothermonthly take its place and keep it when that, with all its attractionsand excellences, had died out, and left a blank in our periodicalliterature which it would be very hard to fill as well as that hadfilled it?

This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured upon, and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn around thescholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given myself toother studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell insistedupon my becoming a contributor. And so, yielding to a pressure which Icould not understand, and yet found myself unable to resist, I promisedto take a part in the new venture, as an occasional writer in thecolumns of the new magazine. 

That was the way in which the second Portfolio found its way to mytable, and was there opened in the autumn of the year 1857. I wasalready at least

 'Nel mezzo del cammin di mia, vita, '

when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little-tried paths ofwhat looked at first like a wilderness, a selva oscura, where, if I didnot meet the lion or the wolf, I should be sure to find the critic, themost dangerous of the carnivores, waiting to welcome me after his ownfashion. 

The second Portfolio is closed and laid away. Perhaps it was hardlyworth while to provide and open a new one; but here it lies before me, and I hope I may find something between its covers which will justify mein coming once more before my old friends. But before I open it I wantto claim a little further indulgence. 

There is a subject of profound interest to almost every writer, Imight say to almost every human being. No matter what his culture orignorance, no matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, thesubject I refer to is one of which he rarely ceases to think, and, ifopportunity is offered, to talk. On this he is eloquent, if on nothingelse. The slow of speech becomes fluent; the torpid listener becomeselectric with vivacity, and alive all over with interest. 

The sagacious reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. Heis accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who has asubscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the depressingdisclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted with theconversational amenities of the cordial and interesting stranger, who, having had the misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in the cars, or ofhaving his pocket picked at the station, finds himself without the meansof reaching that distant home where affluence waits for him with itsluxurious welcome, but to whom for the moment the loan of some five andtwenty dollars would be a convenience and a favor for which his heartwould ache with gratitude during the brief interval between the loan andits repayment. 

I wish to say a few words in my own person relating to some passages inmy own history, and more especially to some of the recent experiencesthrough which I have been passing. 

What can justify one in addressing himself to the general public as ifit were his private correspondent? There are at least three sufficientreasons: first, if he has a story to tell that everybody wants tohear, --if he has been shipwrecked, or has been in a battle, or haswitnessed any interesting event, and can tell anything new about it;secondly, if he can put in fitting words any common experiences notalready well told, so that readers will say, "Why, yes! I have hadthat sensation, thought, emotion, a hundred times, but I never heardit spoken of before, and I never saw any mention of it in print;" andthirdly, anything one likes, provided he can so tell it as to make itinteresting. 

I have no story to tell in this Introduction which can of itself claimany general attention. My first pages relate the effect of a certainliterary experience upon myself, --a series of partial metempsychosesof which I have been the subject. Next follows a brief tribute to thememory of a very dear and renowned friend from whom I have recently beenparted. The rest of the Introduction will be consecrated to the memoryof my birthplace. 

I have just finished a Memoir, which will appear soon after this page iswritten, and will have been the subject of criticism long before it isin the reader's hands. The experience of thinking another man's thoughtscontinuously for a long time; of living one's self into another man'slife for a month, or a year, or more, is a very curious one. No matterhow much superior to the biographer his subject may be, the man whowrites the life feels himself, in a certain sense, on the level of theperson whose life he is writing. One cannot fight over the battles ofMarengo or Austerlitz with Napoleon without feeling as if he himselfhad a fractional claim to the victory, so real seems the transfer of hispersonality into that of the conqueror while he reads. Still more mustthis identification of "subject" and "object" take place when one iswriting of a person whose studies or occupations are not unlike his own. 

Here are some of my metempsychoses: Ten years ago I wrote what I calledA Memorial Outline of a remarkable student of nature. He was a bornobserver, and such are far from common. He was also a man of greatenthusiasm and unwearying industry. His quick eye detected what otherspassed by without notice: the Indian relic, where another would see onlypebbles and fragments; the rare mollusk, or reptile, which his companionwould poke with his cane, never suspecting that there was a prize at theend of it. Getting his single facts together with marvellous sagacityand long-breathed patience, he arranged them, classified them, describedthem, studied them in their relations, and before those around him wereaware of it the collector was an accomplished naturalist. When--he diedhis collections remained, and they still remain, as his record in thehieratic language of science. In writing this memoir the spirit of hisquiet pursuits, the even temper they bred in him, gained possession ofmy own mind, so that I seemed to look at nature through his gold-bowedspectacles, and to move about his beautifully ordered museum as if I hadmyself prepared and arranged its specimens. I felt wise with his wisdom, fair-minded with his calm impartiality; it seemed as if for the time hisplacid, observant, inquiring, keen-sighted nature "slid into my soul, "and if I had looked at myself in the glass I should almost have expectedto see the image of the Hersey professor whose life and character I wassketching. 

A few years hater I lived over the life of another friend in writinga Memoir of which he was the subject. I saw him, the beautiful, bright-eyed boy, with dark, waving hair; the youthful scholar, firstat Harvard, then at Gottingen and Berlin, the friend and companion ofBismarck; the young author, making a dash for renown as a novelist, andshowing the elements which made his failures the promise of success in alarger field of literary labor; the delving historian, burying his freshyoung manhood in the dusty alcoves of silent libraries, to come forth inthe face of Europe and America as one of the leading historians ofthe time; the diplomatist, accomplished, of captivating presence andmanners, an ardent American, and in the time of trial an impassioned andeloquent advocate of the cause of freedom; reaching at last the summitof his ambition as minister at the Court of Saint James. All this Iseemed to share with him as I tracked his career from his birthplace inDorchester, and the house in Walnut Street where he passed his boyhood, to the palaces of Vienna and London. And then the cruel blow whichstruck him from the place he adorned; the great sorrow that darkened hislater years; the invasion of illness, a threat that warned of danger, and after a period of invalidism, during a part of which I shared hismost intimate daily life, the sudden, hardly unwelcome, final summons. Did not my own consciousness migrate, or seem, at least, to transferitself into this brilliant life history, as I traced its glowing record?I, too, seemed to feel the delight of carrying with me, as if they weremy own, the charms of a presence which made its own welcome everywhere. I shared his heroic toils, I partook of his literary and socialtriumphs, I was honored by the marks of distinction which gathered abouthim, I was wronged by the indignity from which he suffered, mourned withhim in his sorrow, and thus, after I had been living for months with hismemory, I felt as if I should carry a part of his being with me solong as my self-consciousness might remain imprisoned in the ponderableelements. 

The years passed away, and the influences derived from thecompanionships I have spoken of had blended intimately with my owncurrent of being. Then there came to me a new experience in my relationswith an eminent member of the medical profession, whom I met habituallyfor a long period, and to whose memory I consecrated a few pages as aprelude to a work of his own, written under very peculiar circumstances. He was the subject of a slow, torturing, malignant, and almostnecessarily fatal disease. Knowing well that the mind would feed uponitself if it were not supplied with food from without, he determinedto write a treatise on a subject which had greatly interested him, andwhich would oblige him to bestow much of his time and thought upon it, if indeed he could hold out to finish the work. During the periodwhile he was engaged in writing it, his wife, who had seemed in perfecthealth, died suddenly of pneumonia. Physical suffering, mental distress, the prospect of death at a near, if uncertain, time always before him, it was hard to conceive a more terrible strain than that which he had toendure. When, in the hour of his greatest need, his faithful companion, the wife of many years of happy union, whose hand had smoothed hispillow, whose voice had consoled and cheered him, was torn from himafter a few days of illness, I felt that my friend's trial was such thatthe cry of the man of many afflictions and temptations might well haveescaped from his lips: "I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder; hehath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me upfor his mark. His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reinsasunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. "

I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after this crushing blow. What a lesson he gave me of patience under sufferings which the fearfuldescription of the Eastern poet does not picture too vividly! We havebeen taught to admire the calm philosophy of Haller, watching hisfaltering pulse as he lay dying; we have heard the words of piousresignation said to have been uttered with his last breath by Addison:but here was a trial, not of hours, or days, or weeks, but of months, even years, of cruel pain, and in the midst of its thick darkness thelight of love, which had burned steadily at his bedside, was suddenlyextinguished. 

There were times in which the thought would force itself upon myconsciousness, How long is the universe to look upon this dreadfulexperiment of a malarious planet, with its unmeasurable freight ofsuffering, its poisonous atmosphere, so sweet to breathe, so sure tokill in a few scores of years at farthest, and its heart-breaking woeswhich make even that brief space of time an eternity? There can be butone answer that will meet this terrible question, which must arise inevery thinking nature that would fain "justify the ways of God to men. "So must it be until that

 "one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves"

has become a reality, and the anthem in which there is no discordantnote shall be joined by a voice from every life made "perfect throughsufferings. "

Such was the lesson into which I lived in those sad yet placid years ofcompanionship with my suffering and sorrowing friend, in retracing whichI seemed to find another existence mingled with my own. 

And now for many months I have been living in daily relations ofintimacy with one who seems nearer to me since he has left us than whilehe was here in living form and feature. I did not know how difficult atask I had undertaken in venturing upon a memoir of a man whom all, oralmost all, agree upon as one of the great lights of the New World, andwhom very many regard as an unpredicted Messiah. Never before was I soforcibly reminded of Carlyle's description of the work of a newspapereditor, --that threshing of straw already thrice beaten by the flails ofother laborers in the same field. What could be said that had not beensaid of "transcendentalism" and of him who was regarded as its prophet;of the poet whom some admired without understanding, a few understood, or thought they did, without admiring, and many both understood andadmired, --among these there being not a small number who went far beyondadmiration, and lost themselves in devout worship? While one exalted himas "the greatest man that ever lived, " another, a friend, famous in theworld of letters, wrote expressly to caution me against the dangerof overrating a writer whom he is content to recognize as an AmericanMontaigne, and nothing more. 

After finishing this Memoir, which has but just left my hands, I wouldgladly have let my brain rest for a while. The wide range of thoughtwhich belonged to the subject of the Memoir, the occasional mysticismand the frequent tendency toward it, the sweep of imagination and thesparkle of wit which kept his reader's mind on the stretch, the unionof prevailing good sense with exceptional extravagances, the modestaudacity of a nature that showed itself in its naked truthfulness andwas not ashamed, the feeling that I was in the company of a sibyllineintelligence which was discounting the promises of the remote futurelong before they were due, --all this made the task a grave one. But whenI found myself amidst the vortices of uncounted, various, bewilderingjudgments, Catholic and Protestant, orthodox and liberal, scholarly fromunder the tree of knowledge and instinctive from over the potato-hill;the passionate enthusiasm of young adorers and the cool, if not cynical, estimate of hardened critics, all intersecting each other as theywhirled, each around its own centre, I felt that it was indeed verydifficult to keep the faculties clear and the judgment unbiassed. 

It is a great privilege to have lived so long in the society of such aman. "He nothing common" said, "or mean. " He was always the same pureand high-souled companion. After being with him virtue seemed as naturalto man as its opposite did according to the old theologies. But how tolet one's self down from the high level of such a character to one's ownpoor standard? I trust that the influence of this long intellectual andspiritual companionship never absolutely leaves one who has lived init. It may come to him in the form of self-reproach that he falls sofar short of the superior being who has been so long the object ofhis contemplation. But it also carries him at times into the other'spersonality, so that he finds himself thinking thoughts that are not hisown, using phrases which he has unconsciously borrowed, writing, it maybe, as nearly like his long-studied original as Julio Romano's paintingwas like Raphael's; and all this with the unquestioning conviction thathe is talking from his own consciousness in his own natural way. So faras tones and expressions and habits which belonged to the idiosyncrasyof the original are borrowed by the student of his life, it is amisfortune for the borrower. But to share the inmost consciousness ofa noble thinker, to scan one's self in the white light of a pureand radiant soul, --this is indeed the highest form of teaching anddiscipline. 

I have written these few memoirs, and I am grateful for all that theyhave taught me. But let me write no more. There are but two biographerswho can tell the story of a man's or a woman's life. One is the personhimself or herself; the other is the Recording Angel. The autobiographercannot be trusted to tell the whole truth, though he may tell nothingbut the truth, and the Recording Angel never lets his book go out ofhis own hands. As for myself, I would say to my friends, in the Orientalphrase, "Live forever!" Yes, live forever, and I, at least, shall nothave to wrong your memories by my imperfect record and unsatisfyingcommentary. 

In connection with these biographies, or memoirs, more properly, inwhich I have written of my departed friends, I hope my readers willindulge me in another personal reminiscence. I have just lost my dearand honored contemporary of the last century. A hundred years ago thisday, December 13, 1784, died the admirable and ever to be rememberedDr. Samuel Johnson. The year 1709 was made ponderous and illustriousin English biography by his birth. My own humble advent to the world ofprotoplasm was in the year 1809 of the present century. Summer was justending when those four letters, "son b. " were written under the dateof my birth, August 29th. Autumn had just begun when my greatpre-contemporary entered this un-Christian universe and was made amember of the Christian church on the same day, for he was born andbaptized on the 18th of September. 

Thus there was established a close bond of relationship between thegreat English scholar and writer and myself. Year by year, and almostmonth by month, my life has kept pace in this century with his life inthe last century. I had only to open my Boswell at any time, and I knewjust what Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, was thinkingand doing; what were his feelings about life; what changes the yearshad wrought in his body, his mind, his feelings, his companionships, hisreputation. It was for me a kind of unison between two instruments, bothplaying that old familiar air, "Life, "--one a bassoon, if you will, andthe other an oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but stillkeeping pace with each other until the players both grew old and gray. At last the thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and its deepaccompaniment rolls out its thunder no more. 

I feel lonely now that my great companion and friend of so many yearshas left me. I felt more intimately acquainted with him than I do withmany of my living friends. I can hardly remember when I did not knowhim. I can see him in his bushy wig, exactly like that of the ReverendDr. Samuel Cooper (who died in December, 1783) as Copley paintedhim, --he hangs there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. His amplecoat, too, I see, with its broad flaps and many buttons and generouscuffs, and beneath it the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, arching in front of the fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar Falstaffianprominence, involving no less than a dozen of the above-mentionedbuttons, and the strong legs with their sturdy calves, fitting columnsof support to the massive body and solid, capacious brain enthroned overit. I can hear him with his heavy tread as he comes in to the Club, anda gap is widened to make room for his portly figure. "A fine day, " saysSir Joshua. "Sir, " he answers, "it seems propitious, but the atmosphereis humid and the skies are nebulous, " at which the great painter smiles, shifts his trumpet, and takes a pinch of snuff. 

Dear old massive, deep-voiced dogmatist and hypochondriac of theeighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed, " harsh-toned termagant anddyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and thesnarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven theshores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper in thePortfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know whatI shall find when it is opened. 

Yes, my life is a little less precious to me since I have lost that dearold friend; and when the funeral train moves to Westminster Abbey nextSaturday, for I feel as if this were 1784, and not 1884, --I seem to findmyself following the hearse, one of the silent mourners. 

Among the events which have rendered the past year memorable to mehas been the demolition of that venerable and interesting olddwelling-house, precious for its intimate association with the earlieststages of the war of the Revolution, and sacred to me as my birthplaceand the home of my boyhood. 

The "Old Gambrel-roofed House" exists no longer. I remember sayingsomething, in one of a series of papers published long ago, about theexperience of dying out of a house, --of leaving it forever, as thesoul dies out of the body. We may die out of many houses, but the houseitself can die but once; and so real is the life of a house to one whohas dwelt in it, more especially the life of the house which held himin dreamy infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate youth, --so real, I say, is its life, that it seems as if something like a soul of it mustoutlast its perishing frame. 

The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed House was, I am ready to admit, a case of justifiable domicide. Not the less was it to be deploredby all who love the memories of the past. With its destruction areobliterated some of the footprints of the heroes and martyrs who tookthe first steps in the long and bloody march which led us through thewilderness to the promised land of independent nationality. Personally, I have a right to mourn for it as a part of my life gone from me. Myprivate grief for its loss would be a matter for my solitary digestion, were it not that the experience through which I have just passed is oneso familiar to my fellow-countrymen that, in telling my own reflectionsand feelings, I am repeating those of great numbers of men and women whohave had the misfortune to outlive their birthplace. 

It is a great blessing to be born surrounded by a natural horizon. TheOld Gambrel-roofed House could not boast an unbroken ring of naturalobjects encircling it. Northerly it looked upon its own outbuildings andsome unpretending two-story houses which had been its neighbors for acentury and more. To the south of it the square brick dormitories andthe bellfried hall of the university helped to shut out the distantview. But the west windows gave a broad outlook across the common, beyond which the historical "Washington elm" and two companions in linewith it, spread their leaves in summer and their networks in winter. Andfar away rose the hills that bounded the view, with the glimmer here andthere of the white walls or the illuminated casements of some embowered, half-hidden villa. Eastwardly also, the prospect was, in my earlierremembrance, widely open, and I have frequently seen the sunlit sailsgliding along as if through the level fields, for no water was visible. So there were broad expanses on two sides at least, for my imaginationto wander over. 

I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's horizon with usall our days. Among these western wooded hills my day-dreams built theirfairy palaces, and even now, as I look at them from my library window, across the estuary of the Charles, I find myself in the familiar home ofmy early visions. The "clouds of glory" which we trail with us in afterlife need not be traced to a pre-natal state. There is enough to accountfor them in that unconsciously remembered period of existence before wehave learned the hard limitations of real life. Those earliest monthsin which we lived in sensations without words, and ideas not fettered insentences, have all the freshness of proofs of an engraving "beforethe letter. " I am very thankful that the first part of my life was notpassed shut in between high walls and treading the unimpressible andunsympathetic pavement. 

Our university town was very much like the real country, in thosedays of which I am thinking. There were plenty of huckleberries andblueberries within half a mile of the house. Blackberries ripened in thefields, acorns and shagbarks dropped from the trees, squirrels ran amongthe branches, and not rarely the hen-hawk might be seen circling overthe barnyard. Still another rural element was not wanting, in the formof that far-diffused, infragrant effluvium, which, diluted by a goodhalf mile of pure atmosphere, is no longer odious, nay is positivelyagreeable, to many who have long known it, though its source and centrehas an unenviable reputation. I need not name the animal whose Parthianwarfare terrifies and puts to flight the mightiest hunter that everroused the tiger from his jungle or faced the lion of the desert. Strange as it may seem, an aerial hint of his personality in the fardistance always awakens in my mind pleasant remembrances and tenderreflections. A whole neighborhood rises up before me: the barn, withits haymow, where the hens laid their eggs to hatch, and we boys hid ourapples to ripen, both occasionally illustrating the sic vos non vobis;the shed, where the annual Tragedy of the Pig was acted with a realismthat made Salvini's Othello seem but a pale counterfeit; the rickety oldouthouse, with the "corn-chamber" which the mice knew so well; the pavedyard, with its open gutter, --these and how much else come up at thehint of my far-off friend, who is my very near enemy. Nothing is morefamiliar than the power of smell in reviving old memories. There wasthat quite different fragrance of the wood-house, the smell of freshsawdust. It comes back to me now, and with it the hiss of the saw; thetumble of the divorced logs which God put together and man has just putasunder; the coming down of the axe and the hah! that helped it, --thestraight-grained stick opening at the first appeal of the implement asif it were a pleasure, and the stick with a knot in the middle of itthat mocked the blows and the hahs! until the beetle and wedge made itlisten to reason, --there are just such straight-grained and just suchknotty men and women. All this passes through my mind while Biddy, whoseparlor-name is Angela, contents herself with exclaiming "egh!*******!"

How different distances were in those young days of which I am thinking!From the old house to the old yellow meeting-house, where the head ofthe family preached and the limbs of the family listened, was not muchmore than two or three times the width of Commonwealth Avenue. But ofa hot summer's afternoon, after having already heard one sermon, which could not in the nature of things have the charm of novelty ofpresentation to the members of the home circle, and the theology ofwhich was not too clear to tender apprehensions; with three hymns moreor less lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got into voice by manypreliminary snuffles and other expiratory efforts, and accompanied bythe snort of a huge bassviol which wallowed through the tune like ahippopotamus, with other exercises of the customary character, --afterall this in the forenoon, the afternoon walk to the meeting-house in thehot sun counted for as much, in my childish dead-reckoning, as from oldIsrael Porter's in Cambridge to the Exchange Coffeehouse in Bostondid in after years. It takes a good while to measure the radius of thecircle that is about us, for the moon seems at first as near as thewatchface. Who knows but that, after a certain number of ages, theplanet we live on may seem to us no bigger than our neighbor Venusappeared when she passed before the sun a few months ago, looking asif we could take her between our thumb and finger, like a bullet or amarble? And time, too; how long was it from the serious sunrise to thejoyous "sun-down" of an old-fashioned, puritanical, judaical first dayof the week, which a pious fraud christened "the Sabbath"? Was it afortnight, as we now reckon duration, or only a week? Curious entities, or non-entities, space and tithe? When you see a metaphysician trying towash his hands of them and get rid of these accidents, so as to lay hisdry, clean palm on the absolute, does it not remind you of the hopelesstask of changing the color of the blackamoor by a similar proceeding?For space is the fluid in which he is washing, and time is the soapwhich he is using up in the process, and he cannot get free from themuntil he can wash himself in a mental vacuum. 

In my reference to the old house in a former paper, published years ago, I said, "By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant itselfon this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung sotenaciously to the place and its habitations will have died with thosewho cherished them. "

What strides the great University has taken since those words werewritten! During all my early years our old Harvard Alma Mater sat stilland lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all at once, like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her pedestal. The fallof that "stony foot" has effected a miracle like the harp that Orpheusplayed, like the teeth which Cadmus sowed. The plain where the moose andthe bear were wandering while Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, where afew plain dormitories and other needed buildings were scattered aboutin my school-boy days, groans under the weight of the massive edificeswhich have sprung up all around them, crowned by the tower of that noblestructure which stands in full view before me as I lift my eyes from theportfolio on the back of which I am now writing. 

For I must be permitted to remind you that I have not yet opened it. Ihave told you that I have just finished a long memoir, and that it hascost me no little labor to overcome some of its difficulties, --if I haveovercome them, which others must decide. And I feel exactly as honestDobbin feels when his harness is slipped off after a long journey witha good deal of up-hill work. He wants to rest a little, then to feeda little; then, if you will turn him loose in the pasture, he wants toroll. I have left my starry and ethereal companionship, --not for along time, I hope, for it has lifted me above my common self, but for awhile. And now I want, so to speak, to roll in the grass and among thedandelions with the other pachyderms. So I have kept to the outside ofthe portfolio as yet, and am disporting myself in reminiscences, andfancies, and vagaries, and parentheses. 

How well I understand the feeling which led the Pisans to load theirvessels with earth from the Holy Land, and fill the area of the CampoSanto with that sacred soil! The old house stood upon about as perversea little patch of the planet as ever harbored a half-starved earth-worm. It was as sandy as Sahara and as thirsty as Tantalus. The rusticaid-de-camps of the household used to aver that all fertilizing matters"leached" through it. I tried to disprove their assertion by gorging itwith the best of terrestrial nourishment, until I became convinced thatI was feeding the tea-plants of China, and then I gave over the attempt. And yet I did love, and do love, that arid patch of ground. I wonder ifa single flower could not be made to grow in a pot of earth from thatCampo Santo of my childhood! One noble product of nature did notrefuse to flourish there, --the tall, stately, beautiful, soft-haired, many-jointed, generous maize or Indian corn, which thrives on sand anddefies the blaze of our shrivelling summer. What child but loves towander in its forest-like depths, amidst the rustling leaves and withthe lofty tassels tossing their heads high above him! There are twoaspects of the cornfield which always impress my imagination: the firstwhen it has reached its full growth, and its ordered ranks look like anarmy on the march with its plumed and bannered battalions; the secondwhen, after the battle of the harvest, the girdled stacks stand on thefield of slaughter like so many ragged Niobes, --say rather like thecrazy widows and daughters of the dead soldiery. 

Once more let us come back to the old house. It was far along in itssecond century when the edict went forth that it must stand no longer. 

The natural death of a house is very much like that of one of its humantenants. The roof is the first part to show the distinct signs of age. Slates and tiles loosen and at last slide off, and leave bald the boardsthat supported them; shingles darken and decay, and soon the garret orthe attic lets in the rain and the snow; by and by the beams sag, thefloors warp, the walls crack, the paper peels away, the ceilings scaleoff and fall, the windows are crusted with clinging dust, the doors dropfrom their rusted hinges, the winds come in without knocking and howltheir cruel death-songs through the empty rooms and passages, and atlast there comes a crash, a great cloud of dust rises, and the home thathad been the shelter of generation after generation finds its grave inits own cellar. Only the chimney remains as its monument. Slowly, littleby little, the patient solvents that find nothing too hard for theirchemistry pick out the mortar from between the bricks; at last a mightywind roars around it and rushes against it, and the monumental reliccrashes down among the wrecks it has long survived. So dies a humanhabitation left to natural decay, all that was seen above the surface ofthe soil sinking gradually below it, Till naught remains the saddening tale to tell Save home's last wrecks, the cellar and the well. 

But if this sight is saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling fallby the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that has keptout a thousand storms, the tearing off of the once ornamental woodwork, the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the murderous blows of the axe, the progressive ruin, which ends by rending all the joints asunder andflinging the tenoned and mortised timbers into heaps that will be sawedand split to warm some new habitation as firewood, --what a brutal act ofdestruction it seems!

Why should I go over the old house again, having already described itmore than ten years ago? Alas! how many remember anything they read butonce, and so long ago as that? How many would find it out if one shouldsay over in the same words that which he said in the last decade? Butthere is really no need of telling the story a second time, for it canbe found by those who are curious enough to look it up in a volume ofwhich it occupies the opening chapter. 

In order, however, to save any inquisitive reader that trouble, let meremind him that the old house was General Ward's headquarters at thebreaking out of the Revolution; that the plan for fortifying Bunker'sHill was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast lower room, thefloor of which was covered with dents, made, it was alleged, by thebutts of the soldiers' muskets. In that house, too, General Warrenprobably passed the night before the Bunker Hill battle, and over itsthreshold must the stately figure of Washington have often cast itsshadow. 

But the house in which one drew his first breath, and where he one daycame into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a littleuniverse with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent identity, with the terrible responsibility of a separate, independent, inalienableexistence, --that house does not ask for any historical associations tomake it the centre of the earth for him. 

If there is any person in the world to be envied, it is the one who isborn to an ancient estate, with a long line of family traditions andthe means in his hands of shaping his mansion and his domain to his owntaste, without losing sight of all the characteristic features whichsurrounded his earliest years. The American is, for the most part, anomad, who pulls down his house as the Tartar pulls up his tent-poles. If I had an ideal life to plan for him it would be something like this:

His grandfather should be a wise, scholarly, large-brained, large-hearted country minister, from whom he should inherit thetemperament that predisposes to cheerfulness and enjoyment, with thefiner instincts which direct life to noble aims and make it rich withthe gratification of pure and elevated tastes and the carrying out ofplans for the good of his neighbors and his fellow-creatures. He should, if possible, have been born, at any rate have passed some of his earlyyears, or a large part of them, under the roof of the good old minister. His father should be, we will say, a business man in one of our greatcities, --a generous manipulator of millions, some of which have adheredto his private fortunes, in spite of his liberal use of his means. Hisheir, our ideally placed American, shall take possession of the oldhouse, the home of his earliest memories, and preserve it sacredly, not exactly like the Santa Casa, but, as nearly as may be, just ashe remembers it. He can add as many acres as he will to the narrowhouse-lot. He can build a grand mansion for himself, if he chooses, inthe not distant neighborhood. But the old house, and all immediatelyround it, shall be as he recollects it when he had to stretch his littlearm up to reach the door-handles. Then, having well provided for hisown household, himself included, let him become the providence of thevillage or the town where he finds himself during at least a portionof every year. Its schools, its library, its poor, --and perhaps the newclergyman who has succeeded his grandfather's successor may be one ofthem, --all its interests, he shall make his own. And from this centrehis beneficence shall radiate so far that all who hear of his wealthshall also hear of him as a friend to his race. 

Is not this a pleasing programme? Wealth is a steep hill, which thefather climbs slowly and the son often tumbles down precipitately; butthere is a table-land on a level with it, which may be found by thosewho do not lose their head in looking down from its sharply clovensummit. ---Our dangerously rich men can make themselves hated, held asenemies of the race, or beloved and recognized as its benefactors. The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the gold-pointedlightning-rods are rightly distributed the destructive element may bedrawn off silently and harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too oftenthat the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the newversion of the Old World axiom, RICHESS oblige. 

THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. 

A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 

I. GETTING READY. 

It is impossible to begin a story which must of necessity tax the powersof belief of readers unacquainted with the class of facts to which itscentral point of interest belongs without some words in the nature ofpreparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember that Sarah Battle insistedon a clean-swept hearth before sitting down to her favorite game ofwhist. 

The narrator wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, in these openingpages, before sitting down to tell his story. He does not intend tofrighten the reader away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to warnhim against hasty judgments when facts are related which are not withinthe range of every-day experience. Did he ever see the Siamese twins, orany pair like them? Probably not, yet he feels sure that Chang andEng really existed; and if he has taken the trouble to inquire, he hassatisfied himself that similar cases have been recorded by crediblewitnesses, though at long intervals and in countries far apart from eachother. 

This is the first sweep of the brush, to clear the hearth of theskepticism and incredulity which must be got out of the way before wecan begin to tell and to listen in peace with ourselves and each other. 

One more stroke of the brush is needed before the stage will be readyfor the chief characters and the leading circumstances to which thereader's attention is invited. If the principal personages made theirentrance at once, the reader would have to create for himself the wholescenery of their surrounding conditions. In point of fact, no matterhow a story is begun, many of its readers have already shaped its chiefactors out of any hint the author may have dropped, and provided fromtheir own resources a locality and a set of outward conditions toenviron these imagined personalities. These are all to be brushed away, and the actual surroundings of the subject of the narrative representedas they were, at the risk of detaining the reader a little while fromthe events most likely to interest him. The choicest egg that everwas laid was not so big as the nest that held it. If a story were sointeresting that a maiden would rather hear it than listen to the praiseof her own beauty, or a poet would rather read it than recite hisown verses, still it would have to be wrapped in some tissue ofcircumstance, or it would lose half its effectiveness. 

It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred to in thisnarrative by looking into the first gazetteer that is at hand. Recentexperiences have shown that it is unsafe to be too exact in designatingplaces and the people who live in them. There are, it may be added, so many advertisements disguised under the form of stories and otherliterary productions that one naturally desires to avoid the suspicionof being employed by the enterprising proprietors of this or thatcelebrated resort to use his gifts for their especial benefit. There areno doubt many persons who remember the old sign and the old tavern andits four chief personages presently to be mentioned. It is to be hopedthat they will not furnish the public with a key to this narrative, and perhaps bring trouble to the writer of it, as has happened to otherauthors. If the real names are a little altered, it need not interferewith the important facts relating to those who bear them. It might notbe safe to tell a damaging story about John or James Smythe; but ifthe slight change is made of spelling the name Smith, the Smythes wouldnever think of bringing an action, as if the allusion related to any ofthem. The same gulf of family distinction separates the Thompsons with ap from the Thomsons without that letter. 

There are few pleasanter places in the Northern States for a summerresidence than that known from the first period of its settlement by thename of Arrowhead Village. The Indians had found it out, as the relicsthey left behind them abundantly testified. The commonest of these werethose chipped stones which are the medals of barbarism, and fromWhich the place took its name, --the heads of arrows, of various sizes, material, and patterns: some small enough for killing fish and littlebirds, some large enough for such game as the moose and the bear, to saynothing of the hostile Indian and the white settler; some of flint, nowand then one of white quartz, and others of variously colored jasper. The Indians must have lived here for many generations, and it must havebeen a kind of factory village of the stone age, --which lasted up tonear the present time, if we may judge from the fact that many of theserelics are met with close to the surface of the ground. 

No wonder they found this a pleasant residence, for it is to-day oneof the most attractive of all summer resorts; so inviting, indeed, thatthose who know it do not like to say too much about it, lest the swarmsof tourists should make it unendurable to those who love it for itself, and not as a centre of fashionable display and extramural cockneyism. 

There is the lake, in the first place, --Cedar Lake, --about five mileslong, and from half a mile to a mile and a half wide, stretchingfrom north to south. Near the northern extremity are the buildings ofStoughton University, a flourishing young college with an ambitiousname, but well equipped and promising, the grounds of which reach thewater. At the southern end of the lake are the edifices of the CorinnaInstitute, a favorite school for young ladies, where large numbers ofthe daughters of America are fitted, so far as education can do it, forall stations in life, from camping out with a husband at the mines inNevada to acting the part of chief lady of the land in the White Houseat Washington. 

Midway between the two extremities, on the eastern shore of the lake, is a valley between two hills, which come down to the very edge of thelake, leaving only room enough for a road between their base and thewater. This valley, half a mile in width, has been long settled, andhere for a century or more has stood the old Anchor Tavern. A famousplace it was so long as its sign swung at the side of the road: famousfor its landlord, portly, paternal, whose welcome to a guest thatlooked worthy of the attention was like that of a parent to a returningprodigal, and whose parting words were almost as good as a marriagebenediction; famous for its landlady, ample in person, motherly, seeingto the whole household with her own eyes, mistress of all culinarysecrets that Northern kitchens are most proud of; famous also for itsancient servant, as city people would call her, --help, as she was calledin the tavern and would have called herself, --the unchanging, seeminglyimmortal Miranda, who cared for the guests as if she were their nursingmother, and pressed the specially favorite delicacies on their attentionas a connoisseur calls the wandering eyes of an amateur to the beautiesof a picture. Who that has ever been at the old Anchor Tavern forgetsMiranda's

 "A little of this fricassee?-it is ver-y nice;"

or

 "Some of these cakes? You will find them ver-y good. "

Nor would it be just to memory to forget that other notable and notedmember of the household, --the unsleeping, unresting, omnipresent Pushee, ready for everybody and everything, everywhere within the limits of theestablishment at all hours of the day and night. He fed, nobody couldsay accurately when or where. There were rumors of a "bunk, " in which helay down with his clothes on, but he seemed to be always wide awake, and at the service of as many guest, at once as if there had been half adozen of him. 

So much for old reminiscences. 

The landlord of the Anchor Tavern had taken down his sign. He had hadthe house thoroughly renovated and furnished it anew, and kept it openin summer for a few boarders. It happened more than once that the summerboarders were so much pleased with the place that they stayed on throughthe autumn, and some of them through the winter. The attractions ofthe village were really remarkable. Boating in summer, and skating inwinter; ice-boats, too, which the wild ducks could hardly keep up with;fishing, for which the lake was renowned; varied and beautiful walksthrough the valley and up the hillsides; houses sheltered from the northand northeasterly winds, and refreshed in the hot summer days bythe breeze which came over the water, --all this made the frame for apleasing picture of rest and happiness. But there was a great deal morethan this. There was a fine library in the little village, presentedand richly endowed by a wealthy native of the place. There was a smallpermanent population of a superior character to that of an everydaycountry town; there was a pretty little Episcopal church, with agood-hearted rector, broad enough for the Bishop of the diocese to bea little afraid of, and hospitable to all outsiders, of whom, in thesummer season, there were always some who wanted a place of worship tokeep their religion from dying out during the heathen months, whilethe shepherds of the flocks to which they belonged were away from theirempty folds. 

What most helped to keep the place alive all through the year wasthe frequent coming together of the members of a certain literaryassociation. Some time before the tavern took down its sign the landlordhad built a hall, where many a ball had been held, to which the youngfolks of all the country round had resorted. It was still sometimes usedfor similar occasions, but it was especially notable as being the placeof meeting of the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. 

This association, the name of which might be invidiously interpreted assignifying that its members knew everything, had no such pretensions, but, as its Constitution said very plainly and modestly, held itselfopen to accept knowledge on any and all subjects from such as hadknowledge to impart. Its President was the rector of the little chapel, a man who, in spite of the Thirty-Nine Articles, could stand fire fromthe widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without flinching or losinghis temper. The hall of the old Anchor Tavern was a convenient placeof meeting for the students and instructors of the University andthe Institute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes in carriage-loads, sometimes in processions of skaters, they came to the meetings inPansophian Hall, as it was now commonly called. 

These meetings had grown to be occasions of great interest. It wascustomary to have papers written by members of the Society, for themost part, but now and then by friends of the members, sometimes bythe students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer instancesby anonymous personages, whose papers, having been looked over anddiscussed by the Committee appointed for that purpose, were thoughtworth listening to. The variety of topics considered was very great. The young ladies of the village and the Institute had their favoritesubjects, the young gentlemen a different set of topics, and theoccasional outside contributors their own; so that one who happenedto be admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was going to hear anaccount of recent arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom of thewill, or a psychological experience, or a story, or even a poem. 

Of late there had been a tendency to discuss the questions relating tothe true status and the legitimate social functions of woman. The mostconflicting views were held on the subject. Many of the young ladiesand some of the University students were strong in defence of all the"woman's rights" doctrines. Some of these young people were extremein their views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea and QueenElizabeth, until they were ready, if they could get the chance, tovote for a woman as President of the United States or as General ofthe United States Army. They were even disposed to assert the physicalequality of woman to man, on the strength of the rather questionablehistory of the Amazons, and especially of the story, believed to beauthentic, of the female body-guard of the King of Dahomey, --femalesfrightful enough to need no other weapon than their looks to scare offan army of Cossacks. 

Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at the CorinnaInstitute, was the leader of these advocates of virile womanhood. It wasrather singular that she should have elected to be the apostle of thisextreme doctrine, for she was herself far better equipped withbrain than muscles. In fact, she was a large-headed, large-eyed, long-eyelashed, slender-necked, slightly developed young woman; lookingalmost like a child at an age when many of the girls had reached theirfull stature and proportions. In her studies she was so far in advanceof her different classes that there was always a wide gap between herand the second scholar. So fatal to all rivalry had she proved herselfthat she passed under the school name of The Terror. She learned soeasily that she undervalued her own extraordinary gifts, and felt thedeepest admiration for those of her friends endowed with faculties of anentirely different and almost opposite nature. After sitting at her deskuntil her head was hot and her feet were like ice, she would go and lookat the blooming young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, and feel as if she would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics andstrange tongues and history, all those accomplishments that made her theencyclopaedia of every class she belonged to, if she could go throughthe series of difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw herschoolmates delighting. 

One among them, especially, was the object of her admiration, as she wasof all who knew her exceptional powers in the line for which nature hadspecially organized her. All the physical perfections which Miss Luridahad missed had been united in Miss Euthymia Tower, whose school name wasThe Wonder. Though of full womanly stature, there were several tallergirls of her age. While all her contours and all her movements betrayeda fine muscular development, there was no lack of proportion, and herfinely shaped hands and feet showed that her organization was one ofthose carefully finished masterpieces of nature which sculptors arealways in search of, and find it hard to detect among the imperfectproducts of the living laboratory. 

This girl of eighteen was more famous than she cared to be for herperformances in the gymnasium. She commonly contented herself withthe same exercises that her companions were accustomed to. Only herdumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and gracefully, were tooheavy for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from thefloor. She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to bechecked in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at theUniversity came over to the Institute now and then, and it was a sourceof great excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in which theyoung lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and skill in managingherself in the accomplishment of feats which looked impossible at firstsight. How often The Terror had thought to herself that she would gladlygive up all her knowledge of Greek and the differential and integralcalculus if she could only perform the least of those feats which weremere play to The Wonder! Miss Euthymia was not behind the rest in herattainments in classical or mathematical knowledge, and she was one ofthe very best students in the out-door branches, --botany, mineralogy, sketching from nature, --to be found among the scholars of the Institute. 

There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of the young ladies, ofwhich Miss Euthymia was the captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor littleLurida could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when there weremany boats out, she was wanted as coxswain, being a mere feather-weight, and quick-witted enough to serve well in the important office wherebrains are more needed than muscle. 

There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the University, androwed by a picked crew of stalwart young fellows. The bow oar andcaptain of the University crew was a powerful young man, who, like thecaptain of the girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He had had one or twoquiet trials with Miss Euthymia, in which, according to the ultras ofthe woman's rights party, he had not vindicated the superiority of hissex in the way which might have been expected. Indeed, it was claimedthat he let a cannon-ball drop when he ought to have caught it, andit was not disputed that he had been ingloriously knocked over by asand-bag projected by the strong arms of the young maiden. This was ofcourse a story that was widely told and laughingly listened to, andthe captain of the University crew had become a little sensitive onthe subject. When there was a talk, therefore, about a race between thechampion boats of the two institutions there was immense excitement inboth of them, as well as among the members of the Pansophian Society andall the good people of the village. 

There were many objections to be overcome. Some thought it unladylikefor the young maidens to take part in a competition which must attractmany lookers-on, and which it seemed to them very hoidenish to ventureupon. Some said it was a shame to let a crew of girls try their strengthagainst an equal number of powerful young men. These objections wereoffset by the advocates of the race by the following arguments. Theymaintained that it was no more hoidenish to row a boat than it was totake a part in the calisthenic exercises, and that the girls had nothingto do with the young men's boat, except to keep as much ahead of it aspossible. As to strength, the woman's righters believed that, weightfor weight, their crew was as strong as the other, and of course dueallowance would be made for the difference of weight and all otheraccidental hindrances. It was time to test the boasted superiorityof masculine muscle. Here was a chance. If the girls beat, the wholecountry would know it, and after that female suffrage would be onlya question of time. Such was the conclusion, from rather insufficientpremises, it must be confessed; but if nature does nothing persaltum, --by jumps, --as the old adage has it, youth is very apt to takelong leaps from a fact to a possible sequel or consequence. So it hadcome about that a contest between the two boat-crews was looked forwardto with an interest almost equal to that with which the combat betweenthe Horatii and Curiatii was regarded. 

The terms had been at last arranged between the two crews, aftercautious protocols and many diplomatic discussions. It was so novel inits character that it naturally took a good deal of time to adjust itin such a way as to be fair to both parties. The course must not be toolong for the lighter and weaker crew, for the staying power of the youngpersons who made it up could not be safely reckoned upon. A certainadvantage must be allowed them at the start, and this was a delicatematter to settle. The weather was another important consideration. Junewould be early enough, in all probability, and if the lake should betolerably smooth the grand affair might come off some time in thatmonth. Any roughness of the water would be unfavorable to the weakercrew. The rowing-course was on the eastern side of the lake, thestarting-point being opposite the Anchor Tavern; from that threequarters of a mile to the south, where the turning-stake was fixed, sothat the whole course of one mile and a half would bring the boats backto their starting-point. 

The race was to be between the Algonquin, eight-oared boat withoutriggers, rowed by young men, students of Stoughton University, andthe Atalanta, also eight-oared and outrigger boat, by young ladies fromthe Corinna Institute. Their boat was three inches wider than the other, for various sufficient reasons, one of which was to make it a littleless likely to go over and throw its crew into the water, which was asound precaution, though all the girls could swim, and one at least, thebow oar, was a famous swimmer, who had pulled a drowning man out of thewater after a hard struggle to keep him from carrying her down with him. 

Though the coming trial had not been advertised in the papers, so as todraw together a rabble of betting men and ill-conditioned lookers-on, there was a considerable gathering, made up chiefly of the villagersand the students of the two institutions. Among them were a few who weredisposed to add to their interest in the trial by small wagers. The betswere rather in favor of the "Quins, " as the University boat was commonlycalled, except where the natural sympathy of the young ladies or thegallantry of some of the young men led them to risk their gloves orcigars, or whatever it might be, on the Atalantas. The elements ofjudgment were these: average weight of the Algonquins one hundred andsixty-five pounds; average weight of the Atalantas, one hundred andforty-eight pounds; skill in practice about equal; advantage of thenarrow boat equal to three lengths; whole distance allowed the Atalantaseight lengths, --a long stretch to be made up in a mile and a half. Andso both crews began practising for the grand trial. 

II. THE BOAT-RACE. 

The 10th of June was a delicious summer day, rather warm, but still andbright. The water was smooth, and the crews were in the best possiblecondition. All was expectation, and for some time nothing butexpectation. No boat-race or regatta ever began at the time appointedfor the start. Somebody breaks an oar, or somebody fails to appear inseason, or something is the matter with a seat or an outrigger; or ifthere is no such excuse, the crew of one or both or all the boats totake part in the race must paddle about to get themselves ready forwork, to the infinite weariness of all the spectators, who naturally askwhy all this getting ready is not attended to beforehand. The Algonquinswore plain gray flannel suits and white caps. The young ladies were allin dark blue dresses, touched up with a red ribbon here and there, andwore light straw hats. The little coxswain of the Atalanta was the lastto step on board. As she took her place she carefully deposited at herfeet a white handkerchief wrapped about something or other, perhaps asponge, in case the boat should take in water. 

At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook where she lay, --long, narrow, shining, swift as a pickerel when he darts from thereedy shore. It was a beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows intheir close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, bending theirbacks for the stroke and recovering, as if they were parts of a singlemachine. 

"The gals can't stan' it agin them fellers, " said the old blacksmithfrom the village. 

"You wait till the gals get a-goin', " said the carpenter, who had oftenworked in the gymnasium of the Corinna Institute, and knew something oftheir muscular accomplishments. "Y' ought to see 'em climb ropes, andswing dumb-bells, and pull in them rowin'-machines. Ask Jake therewhether they can't row a mild in double-quick time, --he knows all abaoutit. "

Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a freshwater fisherman in acountry village is inspector-general of all that goes on out-of-doors, being a lazy, wandering sort of fellow, whose study of the habits andhabitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of observation, justas dealing in horses is an education of certain faculties, and breeds arace of men peculiarly cunning, suspicious, wary, and wide awake, with arhetoric of appreciation and depreciation all its own. 

Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and delivered himself to thefollowing effect:

"Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I've seed 'em both often enoughwhen they was practisin', an' I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaoutneither on 'em. But them bats is all-fired long, 'n' eight on 'emstretched in a straight line eendways makes a consid'able piece aout 'fa mile 'n' a haaf. I'd bate on them gals if it wa'n't that them fellersis naterally longer winded, as the gals 'll find aout by the time theygit raound the stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. I'll go ye a quarteron the pahnts agin the petticoats. "

The fresh-water fisherman had expressed the prevailing belief that theyoung ladies were overmatched. Still there were not wanting those whothought the advantage allowed the "Lantas, " as they called the Corinnaboatcrew, was too great, and that it would be impossible for the "Quins"to make it up and go by them. 

The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. Theyappeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesomeas colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplinedto work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair ofoars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter fifty cents. No takers. 

Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to the south, lookingfor the Atalanta. A clump of trees hid the edge of the lake along whichthe Corinna's boat was stealing towards the starting-point. Presentlythe long shell swept into view, with its blooming rowers, who, withtheir ample dresses, seemed to fill it almost as full as Raphael fillshis skiff on the edge of the Lake of Galilee. But how steadily theAtalanta came on!---no rocking, no splashing, no apparent strain; thebow oar turning to look ahead every now and then, and watching hercourse, which seemed to be straight as an arrow, the beat of the strokesas true and regular as the pulse of the healthiest rower among themall. And if the sight of the other boat and its crew was beautiful, howlovely was the look of this! Eight young girls, --young ladies, for thosewho prefer that more dignified and less attractive expression, --allin the flush of youth, all in vigorous health; every muscle taught itsduty; each rower alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of itspropelling virtue; every eye kindling with the hope of victory. Eachof the boats was cheered as it came in sight, but the cheers for theAtalanta were naturally the loudest, as the gallantry of one sex and theclear, high voices of the other gave it life and vigor. 

"Take your places!" shouted the umpire, five minutes before the halfhour. The two boats felt their way slowly and cautiously to theirpositions, which had been determined by careful measurement. After alittle backing and filling they got into line, at the proper distancefrom each other, and sat motionless, their bodies bent forward, theirarms outstretched, their oars in the water, waiting for the word. 

"Go!" shouted the umpire. 

Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her leaped the Algonquin, her oars bending like so many long Indian bows as their blades flashedthrough the water. 

"A stern chase is a long chase, " especially when one craft is a greatdistance behind the other. It looked as if it would be impossible forthe rear boat to overcome the odds against it. Of course the Algonquinkept gaining, but could it possibly gain enough? That was the question. As the boats got farther and farther away, it became more and moredifficult to determine what change there was in the interval betweenthem. But when they came to rounding the stake it was easier to guess atthe amount of space which had been gained. It was clear that somethinglike half the distance, four lengths, as nearly as could be estimated, had been made up in rowing the first three quarters of a mile. Couldthe Algonquins do a little better than this in the second half of therace-course, they would be sure of winning. 

The boats had turned the stake, and were coming in rapidly. Every minutethe University boat was getting nearer the other. 

"Go it, Quins!" shouted the students. 

"Pull away, Lantas!" screamed the girls, who were crowding down to theedge of the water. 

Nearer, --nearer, --the rear boat is pressing the other more and moreclosely, --a few more strokes, and they will be even, for there is butone length between them, and thirty rods will carry them to the line. It looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow oar of the Algonquin turnshis head. He sees the little coxswain leaning forward at every stroke, as if her trivial weight were of such mighty consequence, --but a fewounces might turn the scale of victory. As he turned he got a glimpse ofthe stroke oar of the Atalanta. What a flash of loveliness it was! Herface was like the reddest of June roses, with the heat and thestrain and the passion of expected triumph. The upper button of herclose-fitting flannel suit had strangled her as her bosom heaved withexertion, and it had given way before the fierce clutch she made at it. The bow oar was a staunch and steady rower, but he was human. The bladeof his oar lingered in the water; a little more and he would have caughta crab, and perhaps lost the race by his momentary bewilderment. 

The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and nervousness of aDerby three-year-old, felt the slight check, and all her men bent morevigorously to their oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and made aspurt to keep their lead and gain upon it if they could. It was ofno use. The strong arms of the young men were too much for the youngmaidens; only a few lengths remained to be rowed, and they wouldcertainly pass the Atalanta before she could reach the line. 

The little coxswain saw that it was all up with the girls' crew if shecould not save them by some strategic device. 

 "Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat?"

she whispered to herself, --for The Terror remembered her Virgil as shedid everything else she ever studied. As she stooped, she lifted thehandkerchief at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. "Look!"she cried, and flung it just forward of the track of the Algonquin. Thecaptain of the University boat turned his head, and there was the lovelyvision which had a moment before bewitched him. The owner of all thatloveliness must, he thought, have flung the bouquet. It was a challenge:how could he be such a coward as to decline accepting it. 

He was sure he could win the race now, and he would sweep past the linein triumph with the great bunch of flowers at the stem of his boat, proud as Van Tromp in the British channel with the broom at hismast-head. 

He turned the boat's head a little by backing water. He came up with thefloating flowers, and near enough to reach them. He stooped and snatchedthem up, with the loss perhaps of a second in all, --no more. He feltsure of his victory. 

How can one tell the story of the finish in cold-blooded preterites?Are we not there ourselves? Are not our muscles straining with those ofthese sixteen young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their nervesall tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, all their lifeconcentrating itself in this passionate moment of supreme effort? No! Weare seeing, not telling about what somebody else once saw!

--The bow of the Algonquin passes the stern of the Atalanta!

--The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the middle of theAtalanta!

--Three more lengths' rowing and the college crew will pass the girls!

--"Hurrah for the Quins!" The Algonquin ranges up alongside of theAtalanta!

"Through with her!" shouts the captain of the Algonquin. 

"Now, girls!" shrieks the captain of the Atalanta. 

They near the line, every rower straining desperately, almost madly. 

--Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta's captain, and up flash itssplintered fragments, as the stem of her boat springs past the line, eighteen inches at least ahead of the Algonquin. 

Hooraw for the Lantas! Hooraw for the Girls! Hooraw for the Institoot!shout a hundred voices. 

"Hurrah for woman's rights and female suffrage!" pipes the small voiceof The Terror, and there is loud laughing and cheering all round. 

She had not studied her classical dictionary and her mythology fornothing. "I have paid off one old score, " she said. "Set down my damaskroses against the golden apples of Hippomenes!"

It was that one second lost in snatching up the bouquet which gave therace to the Atalantas. 

III. THE WHITE CANOE. 

While the two boats were racing, other boats with lookers-on in themwere rowing or sailing in the neighborhood of the race-course. The sceneon the water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats were, manyof them, acquainted with each other. There was a good deal of livelytalk until the race became too exciting. Then many fell silent, until, as the boats neared the line, and still more as they crossed it, theshouts burst forth which showed how a cramp of attention finds itsnatural relief in a fit of convulsive exclamation. 

But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birchbark canoe was to beseen, in which sat a young man, who paddled it skillfully and swiftly. It was evident enough that he was watching the race intently, but thespectators could see little more than that. One of them, however, whosat upon the stand, had a powerful spy-glass, and could distinguish hismotions very minutely and exactly. It was seen by this curious observerthat the young man had an opera-glass with him, which he used a gooddeal at intervals. The spectator thought he kept it directed to thegirls' boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. He thought also that theopera-glass was more particularly pointed towards the bow of the boat, and came to the natural conclusion that the bow oar, Miss EuthymiaTower, captain of the Atalantas, "The Wonder" of the Corinna Institute, was the attraction which determined the direction of the instrument. 

"Who is that in the canoe over there?" asked the owner of the spy-glass. 

"That's just what we should like to know, " answered the old landlord'swife. "He and his man boarded with us when they first came, but we couldnever find out anything about him only just his name and his ways ofliving. His name is Kirkwood, Maurice Kirkwood, Esq. , it used to comeon his letters. As for his ways of living, he was the solitariest humanbeing that I ever came across. His man carried his meals up to him. Heused to stay in his room pretty much all day, but at night he would beoff, walking, or riding on horseback, or paddling about in the lake, sometimes till nigh morning. There's something very strange about thatMr. Kirkwood. But there don't seem to be any harm in him. Only nobodycan guess what his business is. They got up a story about him at onetime. What do you think? They said he was a counterfeiter! And so theywent one night to his room, when he was out, and that man of his wasaway too, and they carried keys, and opened pretty much everything; andthey found--well, they found just nothing at all except writings andletters, --letters from places in America and in England, and some withItalian postmarks: that was all. Since that time the sheriff andhis folks have let him alone and minded their own business. He was agentleman, --anybody ought to have known that; and anybody that knewabout his nice ways of living and behaving, and knew the kind of wear hehad for his underclothing, might have known it. I could have told thoseofficers that they had better not bother him. I know the ways of realgentlemen and real ladies, and I know those fellows in store clothesthat look a little too fine, --outside. Wait till washing-day comes!"

The good lady had her own standards for testing humanity, and they werenot wholly unworthy of consideration; they were quite as much to berelied on as the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who sent hisaccomplice on before him to study out the principal personages in thevillage, and in the light of these revelations interpreted the bumps, with very little regard to Gall and Spurzheim, or any other authorities. 

Even with the small amount of information obtained by the search amonghis papers and effects, the gossips of the village had constructedseveral distinct histories for the mysterious stranger. He was an agentof a great publishing house; a leading contributor to several importantperiodicals; the author of that anonymously published novel which hadmade so much talk; the poet of a large clothing establishment; a spy ofthe Italian, some said the Russian, some said the British, Government;a proscribed refugee from some country where he had been plotting; aschool-master without a school, a minister without a pulpit, an actorwithout an engagement; in short, there was no end to the perfectlysenseless stories that were told about him, from that which made him outan escaped convict to the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentricheir to a great English title and estate. 

The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraordinary seclusion. Nobody in the village, no student in the University, knew his history. No young lady in the Corinna Institute had ever had a word fromhim. Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Institute werereturning at dusk, their rowers would see the canoe stealing into theshadows as they drew near it. Sometimes on a moonlight night, when aparty of the young ladies were out upon the lake, they would see thewhite canoe gliding ghost-like in the distance. And it had happened morethan once that when a boat's crew had been out with singers among them, while they were in the midst of a song, the white canoe would suddenlyappear and rest upon the water, --not very near them, but within hearingdistance, --and so remain until the singing was over, when it would stealaway and be lost sight of in some inlet or behind some jutting rock. 

Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about this young man. Thelandlady had told her story, which explained nothing. There was nobodyto be questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, whose namewas Paolo, but who to the village was known as Mr. Paul. 

Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in the world to worm asecret out of. He was good-natured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, talked freely with everybody in such English as he had at command, knewall the little people of the village, and was followed round by thempartly from his personal attraction for them, and partly because he wasapt to have a stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other desirableluxury in his pocket for any of his little friends he met with. He hadthat wholesome, happy look, so uncommon in our arid countrymen, --a lookhardly to be found except where figs and oranges ripen in the open air. A kindly climate to grow up in, a religion which takes your money andgives you a stamped ticket good at Saint Peter's box office, a roomychest and a good pair of lungs in it, an honest digestive apparatus, alively temperament, a cheerful acceptance of the place in life assignedto one by nature and circumstance, --these are conditions under whichlife may be quite comfortable to endure, and certainly is very pleasantto contemplate. All these conditions were united in Paolo. He was theeasiest; pleasantest creature to talk with that one could ask for acompanion. His southern vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicityand openness, made him friends everywhere. 

It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to get the history ofhis master out of this guileless and unsophisticated being. He hadbeen tried by all the village experts. The rector had put a number ofwell-studied careless questions, which failed of their purpose. The oldlibrarian of the town library had taken note of all the books he carriedto his master, and asked about his studies and pursuits. Paolo foundit hard to understand his English, apparently, and answered in the mostirrelevant way. The leading gossip of the village tried her skill inpumping him for information. It was all in vain. 

His master's way of life was peculiar, --in fact, eccentric. He had hiredrooms in an old-fashioned three-story house. He had two rooms in thesecond and third stories of this old wooden building: his study inthe second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. Paolo lived in thebasement, where he had all the conveniences for cooking, and played thepart of chef for his master and himself. This was only a part of hisduty, for he was a man-of-all-work, purveyor, steward, chambermaid, --asuniversal in his services for one man as Pushee at the Anchor Tavernused to be for everybody. 

It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one winter's day, and hadsuch threatening symptoms that he asked the baker, when he called, tosend the village physician to see him. In the course of his visit thedoctor naturally inquired about the health of Paolo's master. 

"Signor Kirkwood well, --molto bene, " said Paolo. "Why does he keep outof sight as he does?" asked the doctor. 

"He always so, " replied Paolo. "Una antipatia. "

Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, whether he revealed itto him as to a father confessor, or whether he thought it time that thereason of his master's seclusion should be known, the doctor did notfeel sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to make any furtherrevelations. Una antipatia, --an antipathy, --that was all the doctorlearned. He thought the matter over, and the more he reflected themore he was puzzled. What could an antipathy be that made a young mana recluse! Was it a dread of blue sky and open air, of the smell offlowers, or some electrical impression to which he was unnaturallysensitive?

Dr. Butts carried these questions home with him. His wife was asensible, discreet woman, whom he could trust with many professionalsecrets. He told her of Paolo's revelation, and talked it over withher in the light of his experience and her own; for she had known somecurious cases of constitutional likes and aversions. 

Mrs. Butts buried the information in the grave of her memory, whereit lay for nearly a week. At the end of that time it emerged in aconfidential whisper to her favorite sister-in-law, a perfectly safeperson. Twenty-four hours later the story was all over the village thatMaurice Kirkwood was the subject of a strange, mysterious, unheard-ofantipathy to something, nobody knew what; and the whole neighborhoodnaturally resolved itself into an unorganized committee ofinvestigation. 

IV. THE YOUNG SOLITARY

What is a country village without its mysterious personage? Few arenow living who can remember the advent of the handsome young man whowas the mystery of our great university town "sixty years since, "--longenough ago for a romance to grow out of a narrative, as Waverley mayremind us. The writer of this narrative remembers him well, and is notsure that he has not told the strange story in some form or other tothe last generation, or to the one before the last. No matter: if he hastold it they have forgotten it, --that is, if they have ever read it; andwhether they have or have not, the story is singular enough to justifyrunning the risk of repetition. 

This young man, with a curious name of Scandinavian origin, appearedunheralded in the town, as it was then, of Cantabridge. He wantedemployment, and soon found it in the shape of manual labor, which heundertook and performed cheerfully. But his whole appearance showedplainly enough that he was bred to occupations of a very differentnature, if, in deed, he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for hisliving. His aspect was that of one of gentle birth. His hands were notthose of a laborer, and his features were delicate and refined, as wellas of remarkable beauty. Who he was, where he came from, why he hadcome to Cantabridge, was never clearly explained. He was alone, without friends, except among the acquaintances he had made in his newresidence. If he had any correspondents, they were not known to theneighborhood where he was living. But if he had neither friends norcorrespondents, there was some reason for believing that he had enemies. Strange circumstances occurred which connected themselves with him inan ominous and unaccountable way. A threatening letter was slipped underthe door of a house where he was visiting. He had a sudden attack ofillness, which was thought to look very much like the effect of poison. At one time he disappeared, and was found wandering, bewildered, in atown many miles from that where he was residing. When questioned how hecame there; he told a coherent story that he had been got, under somepretext, or in some not incredible way, into a boat, from which, at acertain landing-place, he had escaped and fled for his life, which hebelieved was in danger from his kidnappers. 

Whoever his enemies may have been, --if they really existed, --he did notfall a victim to their plots, so far as known to or remembered by thiswitness. 

Various interpretations were put upon his story. Conjectures were asabundant as they were in the case of Kaspar Hauser. That he was ofgood family seemed probable; that he was of distinguished birth, notimpossible; that he was the dangerous rival of a candidate for a greatlycoveted position in one of the northern states of Europe was a favoritespeculation of some of the more romantic young persons. There was nodramatic ending to this story, --at least none is remembered by thepresent writer. 

"He left a name, " like the royal Swede, of whose lineage he may havebeen for aught that the village people knew, but not a name at whichanybody "grew pale;" for he had swindled no one, and broken no woman'sheart with false vows. Possibly some withered cheeks may flush faintlyas they recall the handsome young man who came before the Cantabridgemaidens fully equipped for a hero of romance when the century was in itsfirst quarter. 

The writer has been reminded of the handsome Swede by the incidentsattending the advent of the unknown and interesting stranger who hadmade his appearance at Arrowhead Village. 

It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason to assign for theyoung man's solitary habits that he was the subject of an antipathy. For what do we understand by that word? When a young lady screams atthe sight of a spider, we accept her explanation that she has a naturalantipathy to the creature. When a person expresses a repugnance to somewholesome article of food, agreeable to most people, we are satisfied ifhe gives the same reason. And so of various odors, which are pleasing tosome persons and repulsive to others. We do not pretend to go behindthe fact. It is an individual, and it may be a family, peculiarity. Evenbetween different personalities there is an instinctive elective dislikeas well as an elective affinity. We are not bound to give a reason whyDr. Fell is odious to us any more than the prisoner who peremptorilychallenges a juryman is bound to say why he does it; it is enough thathe "does not like his looks. "

There was nothing strange, then, that Maurice Kirkwood should havehis special antipathy; a great many other people have odd likes anddislikes. But it was a very curious thing that this antipathy shouldbe alleged as the reason for his singular mode of life. All sorts ofexplanations were suggested, not one of them in the least satisfactory, but serving to keep the curiosity of inquirers active until they weresuperseded by a new theory. One story was that Maurice had a great fearof dogs. It grew at last to a connected narrative, in which a frightin childhood from a rabid mongrel was said to have given him sucha sensitiveness to the near presence of dogs that he was liable toconvulsions if one came close to him. 

This hypothesis had some plausibility. No other creature would be solikely to trouble a person who had an antipathy to it. Dogs are very aptto make the acquaintance of strangers, in a free and easy way. Theyare met with everywhere, --in one's daily walk, at the thresholds of thedoors one enters, in the gentleman's library, on the rug of my lady'ssitting-room and on the cushion of her carriage. It is true that thereare few persons who have an instinctive repugnance to this "friend ofman. " But what if this so-called antipathy were only a fear, a terror, which borrowed the less unmanly name? It was a fair question, if, indeed, the curiosity of the public had a right to ask any questions atall about a harmless individual who gave no offence, and seemed entitledto the right of choosing his way of living to suit himself, withoutbeing submitted to espionage. 

There was no positive evidence bearing on the point as yet. But oneof the village people had a large Newfoundland dog, of a very sociabledisposition, with which he determined to test the question. He watchedfor the time when Maurice should leave his house for the woods or thelake, and started with his dog to meet him. The animal walked up to thestranger in a very sociable fashion, and began making his acquaintance, after the usual manner of well-bred dogs; that is, with the courtesiesand blandishments by which the canine Chesterfield is distinguished fromthe ill-conditioned cur. Maurice patted him in a friendly way, and spoketo him as one who was used to the fellowship of such companions. Thatidle question and foolish story were disposed of, therefore, and someother solution must be found, if possible. 

A much more common antipathy is that which is entertained with regard tocats. This has never been explained. It is not mere aversion to thelook of the creature, or to any sensible quality known to the commonobserver. The cat is pleasing in aspect, graceful in movement, nicein personal habits, and of amiable disposition. No cause of offence isobvious, and yet there are many persons who cannot abide the presence ofthe most innocent little kitten. They can tell, in some mysterious way, that there is a cat in the room when they can neither see nor hear thecreature. Whether it is an electrical or quasi-magnetic phenomenon, orwhatever it may be, of the fact of this strange influence there are toomany well-authenticated instances to allow its being questioned. Butsuppose Maurice Kirkwood to be the subject of this antipathy in itsextremest degree, it would in no manner account for the isolation towhich he had condemned himself. He might shun the firesides of the oldwomen whose tabbies were purring by their footstools, but these worthydames do not make up the whole population. 

These two antipathies having been disposed of, a new suggestion wasstarted, and was talked over with a curious sort of half belief, verymuch as ghost stories are told in a circle of moderately instructed andinquiring persons. This was that Maurice was endowed with the unenviablegift of the evil eye. He was in frequent communication with Italy, ashis letters showed, and had recently been residing in that country, aswas learned from Paolo. Now everybody knows that the evil eye is notrarely met with in Italy. Everybody who has ever read Mr. Story's "Robadi Roma" knows what a terrible power it is which the owner of the evileye exercises. It can blight and destroy whatever it falls upon. Noperson's life or limb is safe if the jettatura, the withering glance ofthe deadly organ, falls upon him. It must be observed that this maligneffect may follow a look from the holiest personages, that is, if we mayassume that a monk is such as a matter of course. Certainly we havea right to take it for granted that the late Pope, Pius Ninth, was aneminently holy man, and yet he had the name of dispensing the mystic anddreaded jettatura as well as his blessing. If Maurice Kirkwood carriedthat destructive influence, so that his clear blue eyes were more to befeared than the fascinations of the deadliest serpent, it could easilybe understood why he kept his look away from all around him whom hefeared he might harm. 

No sensible person in Arrowhead Village really believed in the evileye, but it served the purpose of a temporary hypothesis, as do manysuppositions which we take as a nucleus for our observations withoutputting any real confidence in them. It was just suited to the romanticnotions of the more flighty persons in the village, who had meddled moreor less with Spiritualism, and were ready for any new fancy, if it wereonly wild enough. 

The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did not seem likely tofind any very speedy solution. Every new suggestion furnished talk forthe gossips of the village and the babble of the many tongues in the twoeducational institutions. Naturally, the discussion was liveliest amongthe young ladies. Here is an extract from a letter of one of these youngladies, who, having received at her birth the ever-pleasing name ofMary, saw fit to have herself called Mollie in the catalogue and in herletters. The old postmaster of the town to which her letter was directedtook it up to stamp, and read on the envelope the direction to "MissLulu Pinrow. " He brought the stamp down with a vicious emphasis, comingvery near blotting out the nursery name, instead of cancelling thepostage-stamp. "Lulu!" he exclaimed. "I should like to know if thatgreat strapping girl isn't out of her cradle yet! I suppose Miss Louisawill think that belongs to her, but I saw her christened and I heardthe name the minister gave her, and it was n't 'Lulu, ' or any such babynonsense. " And so saying, he gave it a fling to the box marked P, as ifit burned his fingers. Why a grown-up young woman allowed herself to becheapened in the way so many of them do by the use of names which becomethem as well as the frock of a ten-year-old schoolgirl would become agraduate of the Corinna Institute, the old postmaster could not guess. He was a queer old man. 

The letter thus scornfully treated runs over with a young girl's writtenloquacity:

"Oh, Lulu, there is such a sensation as you never saw or heard of 'inall your born days, ' as mamma used to say. He has been at the villagefor some time, but lately we have had--oh, the weirdest stories abouthim! 'The Mysterious Stranger is the name some give him, but we girlscall him the Sachem, because he paddles about in an Indian canoe. If Ishould tell you all the things that are said about him I should use upall my paper ten times over. He has never made a visit to the Institute, and none of the girls have ever spoken to him, but the people at thevillage say he is very, very handsome. We are dying to get a look athim, of course--though there is a horrid story about him--that he hasthe evil eye did you ever hear about the evil eye? If a person who isborn with it looks at you, you die, or something happens--awful--is n'tit?

"The rector says he never goes to church, but then you know a good manyof the people that pass the summer at the village never do--theythink their religion must have vacations--that's what I've heard theysay--vacations, just like other hard work--it ought not to be hard work, I'm sure, but I suppose they feel so about it. Should you feel afraid tohave him look at you? Some of the girls say they would n't have himfor the whole world, but I shouldn't mind it--especially if I had on myeyeglasses. Do you suppose if there is anything in the evil eye it wouldgo through glass? I don't believe it. Do you think blue eye-glasseswould be better than common ones? Don't laugh at me--they tell suchweird stories! The Terror--Lurida Vincent, you know-makes fun of allthey say about it, but then she 'knows everything and doesn't believeanything, ' the girls say--Well, I should be awfully scared, I know, if anybody that had the evil eye should look at me--but--oh, Idon't know--but if it was a young man--and if he was very--verygood-looking--I think--perhaps I would run the risk--but don't tellanybody I said any such horrid thing--and burn this letter rightup--there 's a dear good girl. "

It is to be hoped that no reader will doubt the genuineness of thisletter. There are not quite so many "awfuls" and "awfullys" as oneexpects to find in young ladies' letters, but there are two "weirds, "which may be considered a fair allowance. How it happened that "jolly"did not show itself can hardly be accounted for; no doubt it turns uptwo or three times at least in the postscript. 

Here is an extract from another letter. This was from one of thestudents of Stoughton University to a friend whose name as it waswritten on the envelope was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmasterwho found fault with Miss "Lulu's" designation would probably havequarrelled with this address, if it had come under his eye. "Frank" isa very pretty, pleasant-sounding name, and it is not strange that manypersons use it in common conversation all their days when speaking of afriend. Were they really christened by that name, any of these numerousFranks? Perhaps they were, and if so there is nothing to be said. Butif not, was the baptismal name Francis or Franklin? The mind is apt tofasten in a very perverse and unpleasant way upon this question, whichtoo often there is no possible way of settling. One might hope, if heoutlived the bearer of the appellation, to get at the fact; but sinceeven gravestones have learned to use the names belonging to childhoodand infancy in their solemn record, the generation which docks itsChristian names in such an un-Christian way will bequeath wholechurchyards full of riddles to posterity. How it will puzzle anddistress the historians and antiquarians of a coming generation tosettle what was the real name of Dan and Bert and Billy, which last islegible on a white marble slab, raised in memory of a grown person, in acertain burial-ground in a town in Essex County, Massachusetts!

But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter directed to Mr. FrankMayfield. 

"DEAR FRANK, --Hooray! Hurrah! Rah!

"I have made the acquaintance of 'The Mysterious Stranger'! It happenedby a queer sort of accident, which came pretty near relieving you ofthe duty of replying to this letter. I was out in my little boat, whichcarries a sail too big for her, as I know and ought to have remembered. One of those fitful flaws of wind to which the lake is so liable struckthe sail suddenly, and over went my boat. My feet got tangled in thesheet somehow, and I could not get free. I had hard work to keep my headabove water, and I struggled desperately to escape from my toils; for ifthe boat were to go down I should be dragged down with her. I thoughtof a good many things in the course of some four or five minutes, I cantell you, and I got a lesson about time better than anything Kant andall the rest of them have to say of it. After I had been there about anordinary lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew thatour shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should becomeacquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw whatthe trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning me inthe process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhattired with my struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the landingwhere he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is anything odd abouthis manners or his way of talk. I judge him to be a native of one of ourNorthern States, --perhaps a New Englander. He has lived abroad duringsome parts of his life. He is not an artist, as it was at one timethought he might be. He is a good-looking fellow, well developed, manlyin appearance, with nothing to excite special remark unless it be acertain look of anxiety or apprehension which comes over him from timeto time. You remember our old friend Squire B. , whose companion waskilled by lightning when he was standing close to him. You know the lookhe had whenever anything like a thundercloud came up in the sky. Well, Ishould say there was a look like that came over this Maurice Kirkwood'sface every now and then. I noticed that he looked round once or twice asif to see whether some object or other was in sight. There was a littlerustling in the grass as if of footsteps, and this look came over hisfeatures. A rabbit ran by us, and I watched to see if he showed any signof that antipathy we have heard so much of, but he seemed to be pleasedwatching the creature. 

"If you ask me what my opinion is about this Maurice Kirkwood, I thinkhe is eccentric in his habit of life, but not what they call a 'crank'exactly. He talked well enough about such matters as we spoke of, --thelake, the scenery in general, the climate. I asked him to come overand take a look at the college. He did n't promise, but I should not besurprised if I should get him over there some day. I asked him why hedid n't go to the Pansophian meetings. He did n't give any reason, buthe shook his head in a very peculiar way, as much as to say that it wasimpossible. 

"On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the same feeling of dreadof human society, or dislike for it, which under the name of religionused to drive men into caves and deserts. What a pity that Protestantismdoes not make special provision for all the freaks of individualcharacter! If we had a little more faith and a few more caverns, orconvenient places for making them, we should have hermits in these holesas thick as woodchucks or prairie dogs. I should like to know if younever had the feeling, "'Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place!'

"I know what your answer will be, of course. You will say, 'Certainly, "'With one fair spirit for my minister;'"

"but I mean alone, --all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should liketo have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong aslye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry islooking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to send, and adisgrace to the University--but never mind. ) I often feel as if I shouldlike to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high, --yes, and have it soapedfrom top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look down at the bores andthe duns? Let us get up a pillar-roosters' association. (Jerry--stilllooking over says there is an absurd contradiction in the idea. )

"What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is!

"How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector general?"

The reader will not get much information out of this lively youngfellow's letter, but he may get a little. It is something to know thatthe mysterious resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor talk likea crazy person; that he was of agreeable aspect and address, helpfulwhen occasion offered, and had nothing about him, so far as yetappeared, to prevent his being an acceptable member of society. 

Of course the people in the village could never be contented withoutlearning everything there was to be learned about their visitor. Allthe city papers were examined for advertisements. If a cashier hadabsconded, if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad president wasmissing, some of the old stories would wake up and get a fresh currency, until some new circumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. Unconsciousof all these inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood lived on in hisinoffensive and unexplained solitude, and seemed likely to remain anunsolved enigma. The "Sachem" of the boating girls became the "Sphinx"of the village ramblers, and it was agreed on all hands that Egypt didnot hold any hieroglyphics harder to make out than the meaning of thisyoung man's odd way of living. 

V. THE ENIGMA STUDIED. 

It was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circumstance that a youngman, seemingly in good health, of comely aspect, looking as if made forcompanionship, should keep himself apart from all the world around himin a place where there was a general feeling of good neighborhood and apleasant social atmosphere. The Public Library was a central point whichbrought people together. The Pansophian Society did a great deal to makethem acquainted with each other for many of the meetings were open tooutside visitors, and the subjects discussed in the meetings furnishedthe material for conversation in their intervals. A card of invitationhad been sent by the Secretary to Maurice, in answer to which Paolocarried back a polite note of regret. The paper had a narrow rim ofblack, implying apparently some loss of relative or friend, but notany very recent and crushing bereavement. This refusal to come to themeetings of the society was only what was expected. It was proper to askhim, but his declining the invitation showed that he did not wish forattentions or courtesies. There was nothing further to be done to bringhim out of his shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about himat present. 

In this state of things it was natural that all which had beenpreviously gathered by the few who had seen or known anything of himshould be worked over again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the oldrefuse heaps are looked over for what may still be found in them. Thelandlord of the Anchor Tavern, now the head of the boarding-house, talked about Maurice, as everybody in the village did at one time oranother. He had not much to say, but he added a fact or two. 

The young gentleman was good pay, --so they all said. Sometimes he paidin gold; sometimes in fresh bills, just out of the bank. He trusted hisman, Mr. Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew something abouthorses; he showed that by the way he handled that colt, --the one thatthrew the hostler and broke his collar-bone. "Mr. Paul come down to thestable. 'Let me see that cult you all 'fraid of, ' says he. 'My master, he ride any hoss, ' says Paul. 'You saddle him, ' says be; and so theydid, and Paul, he led that colt--the kickinest and ugliest young beastyou ever see in your life--up to the place where his master, as he callshim, and he lives. What does that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple oflong spurs and jump on to that colt's back, and off the beast goes, tailup, heels flying, standing up on end, trying all sorts of capers, and atlast going it full run for a couple of miles, till he'd got about enoughof it. That colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come back as quietas a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills reg'lar, in good money, andknows how to handle a hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if he isn't a whole one, --and most likely he is a whole one. "

So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His wife had already givenher favorable opinion of her former guest. She now added something toher description as a sequel to her husband's remarks. 

"I call him, " she said, "about as likely a young gentleman as ever Iclapped my eyes on. He is rather slighter than I like to see a youngman of his age; if he was my sun, I should like to see him a littlemore fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hundred and thirtyor forty pounds. Did y' ever look at those eyes of his, M'randy? Just asblue as succory flowers. I do like those light-complected young fellows, with their fresh cheeks and their curly hair; somehow, curly hair doosset off anybody's face. He is n't any foreigner, for all that he talksItalian with that Mr. Paul that's his help. He looks just like ourkind of folks, the college kind, that's brought up among books, and ishandling 'em, and reading of 'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, alltheir lives. All that you say about his riding the mad colt is just whatI should think he was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you oughtto see him go over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there'sany harm in that young gentleman, --I don't care what people say. Isuppose he likes this place just as other people like it, and cares morefor walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doosfor company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like toknow?"

The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judgingpeople. 

"I never see him but two or three times, " Miranda said. "I should liketo have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him when hewas eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their jawsget a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. Do you remember thatchap the sheriff come and took away when we kep' tahvern? Eleven yearago it was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gentleman fromthe City he set up for. I watched him, and I watched him. Says I, Idon't believe you're no gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, andthat ain't the way city folks eats. Every time I handed him anythingI looked closeter and closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on themcheeks, says I to myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun inyour shirt-front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it'snothin' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You jes'step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that chap. 'I knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes up to thechap. 'Why, Bill, ' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. We've had thehole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your company tocome and look at the old place, ' says he, and he pulls out a couple ofhandcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, an' offthey goes together! I know one thing about that young gentleman, anyhow, --there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' than he is. I cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends word to me bythat Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda, ' says he, I that the Pope o' Romedon't have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent up to meyesterday, ' says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' Rome except thathe's a Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for him, whether it's aman or a woman; but when it comes to a dish o' maccaroni, I ain't afeardof their shefs, as they call 'em, --them he-cooks that can't serve up acold potater without callin' it by some name nobody can say after 'em. But this gentleman knows good cookin', and that's as good a sign of agentleman as I want to tell 'em by. "

VI. STILL AT FAULT. 

The house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken up his abode was nota very inviting one. It was old, and had been left in a somewhatdilapidated and disorderly condition by the tenants who had lived in thepart which Maurice now occupied. They had piled their packing-boxesin the cellar, with broken chairs, broken china, and other householdwrecks. A cracked mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the contentsof which were airing themselves through wide rips and rents. A lameclothes-horse was saddled with an old rug fringed with a ragged border, out of which all the colors had been completely trodden. No woman wouldhave gone into a house in such a condition. But the young man did nottrouble himself much about such matters, and was satisfied when therooms which were to be occupied by himself and his servant were madedecent and tolerably comfortable. During the fine season all this wasnot of much consequence, and if Maurice made up his mind to stay throughthe winter he would have his choice among many more eligible places. 

The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had now arrived, and theyoung ladies had scattered to their homes. Among the graduates of theyear were Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who had nowreturned to their homes in Arrowhead Village. They were both glad torest after the long final examinations and the exercises of the closingday, in which each of them had borne a conspicuous part. It was apleasant life they led in the village, which was lively enough atthis season. Walking, riding, driving, boating, visits to the Library, meetings of the Pansophian Society, hops, and picnics made the timepass very cheerfully, and soon showed their restoring influences. TheTerror's large eyes did not wear the dull, glazed look by which they hadtoo often betrayed the after effects of over-excitement of the strongand active brain behind them. The Wonder gained a fresher bloom, andlooked full enough of life to radiate vitality into a statue of ice. They had a boat of their own, in which they passed many delightfulhours on the lake, rowing, drifting, reading, telling of what had been, dreaming of what might be. 

The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, andvisited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar character, as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of knowledge, sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs of books, theirtitle-pages, their popularity or want of it, the class of readers whocall for particular works, the value of different editions, and a gooddeal besides. Their minds catch up hints from all manner of works on allkinds of subjects. They will give a visitor a fact and a reference whichthey are surprised to find they remember and which the visitor mighthave hunted for a year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who has grown into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going toevery bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. Thesenerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do notlike to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like to havetheir naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the books ofa great collection are a part, not merely of their own property, thoughthey are only the agents for their distribution, but that they are, asit were, outlying portions of their own organization. The old Librarianwas getting a miserly feeling about his books, as he called them. Fortunately, he had a young lady for his assistant, who was never sohappy as when she could find the work any visitor wanted and put it inhis hands, --or her hands, for there were more readers among the wivesand--daughters, and especially among the aunts, than there were amongtheir male relatives. The old Librarian knew the books, but the booksseemed to know the young assistant; so it looked, at least, to theimpatient young people who wanted their services. 

Maurice had a good many volumes of his own, --a great many, according toPaolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well-filledshelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master frequentlysent him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat enlarged hisnotions; still, the Signor was a very learned man, he was certain, andsome of his white books (bound in vellum and richly gilt) were moresplendid, according to Paolo, than anything in the Library. 

There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that Mauricewas in the habit of taking out, and the Librarian's record was carefullysearched by some of the more inquisitive investigators. The list provedto be a long and varied one. It would imply a considerable knowledgeof modern languages and of the classics; a liking for mathematics andphysics, especially all that related to electricity and magnetism; afancy for the occult sciences, if there is any propriety in couplingthese words; and a whim for odd and obsolete literature, likethe Parthenologia of Fortunius Licetus, the quaint treatise 'DeSternutatione, ' books about alchemy, and witchcraft, apparitions, andmodern works relating to Spiritualism. With these were the titles ofnovels and now and then of books of poems; but it may be taken forgranted that his own shelves held the works he was most frequently inthe habit of reading or consulting. Not much was to be made out of thisbeyond the fact of wide scholarship, --more or less deep it might be, butat any rate implying no small mental activity; for he appeared to readvery rapidly, at any rate exchanged the books he had taken out for newones very frequently. To judge by his reading, he was a man of letters. But so wide-reading a man of letters must have an object, a literarypurpose in all probability. Why should not he be writing a novel? Nota novel of society, assuredly, for a hermit is not the person toreport the talk and manners of a world which he has nothing to do with. Novelists and lawyers understand the art of "cramming" better than anyother persons in the world. Why should not this young man be workingup the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a background forsome story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and hints borrowed fromscience, and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his odd andmiscellaneous selection of books furnished him? That might be, orpossibly he was only reading for amusement. Who could say?

The funds of the Public Library of Arrowhead Village allowed themanagers to purchase many books out of the common range of reading. Thetwo learned people of the village were the rector and the doctor. Thesetwo worthies kept up the old controversy between the professions, whichgrows out of the fact that one studies nature from below upwards, andthe other from above downwards. The rector maintained that physicianscontracted a squint which turns their eyes inwardly, while the muscleswhich roll their eyes upward become palsied. The doctor retortedthat theological students developed a third eyelid, --the nictitatingmembrane, which is so well known in birds, and which serves to shutout, not all light, but all the light they do not want. Their littleskirmishes did not prevent their being very good friends, who hada common interest in many things and many persons. Both were on thecommittee which had the care of the Library and attended to the purchaseof books. Each was scholar enough to know the wants of scholars, anddisposed to trust the judgment of the other as to what books shouldbe purchased. Consequently, the clergyman secured the addition to theLibrary of a good many old theological works which the physician wouldhave called brimstone divinity, and held to be just the thing to kindlefires with, --good books still for those who know how to use them, oftentimes as awful examples of the extreme of disorganization thewhole moral system may undergo when a barbarous belief has strangled thenatural human instincts. The physician, in the mean time, acquired forthe collection some of those medical works where one may find recordedvarious rare and almost incredible cases, which may not have their likefor a whole century, and then repeat themselves, so as to give a newlease of credibility to stories which had come to be looked upon asfables. 

Both the clergyman and the physician took a very natural interest in theyoung man who had come to reside in their neighborhood for the present, perhaps for a long period. The rector would have been glad to see himat church. He would have liked more especially to have had him hear hissermon on the Duties of Young Men to Society. The doctor, meanwhile, wasmeditating on the duties of society to young men, and wishing that hecould gain the young man's confidence, so as to help him out of anyfalse habit of mind or any delusion to which he might be subject, if hehad the power of being useful to him. 

Dr. Butts was the leading medical practitioner, not only of ArrowheadVillage, but of all the surrounding region. He was an excellent specimenof the country doctor, self-reliant, self-sacrificing, working a greatdeal harder for his living than most of those who call themselves thelaboring classes, --as if none but those whose hands were hardened by theuse of farming or mechanical implements had any work to do. He had thatsagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance, and he had alsoa fair share of that learning without which sagacity is like atraveller with a good horse, but who cannot read the directions on theguideboards. He was not a man to be taken in by names. He well knew thatoftentimes very innocent-sounding words mean very grave disorders; thatall, degrees of disease and disorder are frequently confounded under thesame term; that "run down" may stand for a fatigue of mind or body fromwhich a week or a month of rest will completely restore the over-workedpatient, or an advanced stage of a mortal illness; that "seedy"may signify the morning's state of feeling, after an evening'sover-indulgence, which calls for a glass of soda-water and a cup ofcoffee, or a dangerous malady which will pack off the subject of it, atthe shortest notice, to the south of France. He knew too well that whatis spoken lightly of as a "nervous disturbance" may imply that the wholemachinery of life is in a deranged condition, and that every individualorgan would groan aloud if it had any other language than the terribleinarticulate one of pain by which to communicate with the consciousness. 

When, therefore, Dr. Butts heard the word antipatia he did not smile, and say to himself that this was an idle whim, a foolish fancy, whichthe young man had got into his head. Neither was he satisfied toset down everything to the account of insanity, plausible as thatsupposition might seem. He was prepared to believe in some exceptional, perhaps anomalous, form of exaggerated sensibility, relating to whatclass of objects he could not at present conjecture, but which was asvital to the subject of it as the insulating arrangement to a pieceof electrical machinery. With this feeling he began to look into thehistory of antipathies as recorded in all the books and journals onwhich he could lay his hands. 

 ------------------------------

The holder of the Portfolio asks leave to close it for a brief interval. He wishes to say a few words to his readers, before offering them someverses which have no connection with the narrative now in progress. 

If one could have before him a set of photographs taken annually, representing the same person as he or she appeared for thirty or fortyor fifty years, it would be interesting to watch the gradual changes ofaspect from the age of twenty, or even of thirty or forty, to that ofthreescore and ten. The face might be an uninteresting one; still, as sharing the inevitable changes wrought by time, it would be worthlooking at as it passed through the curve of life, --the vital parabola, which betrays itself in the symbolic changes of the features. Aninscription is the same thing, whether we read it on slate-stone, orgranite, or marble. To watch the lights and shades, the reliefs andhollows, of a countenance through a lifetime, or a large part of it, bythe aid of a continuous series of photographs would not only be curious;it would teach us much more about the laws of physiognomy than we couldget from casual and unconnected observations. 

The same kind of interest, without any assumption of merit to be foundin them, I would claim for a series of annual poems, beginning in middlelife and continued to what many of my correspondents are pleased toremind me--as if I required to have the fact brought to my knowledge--isno longer youth. Here is the latest of a series of annual poemsread during the last thirty-four years. There seems to have been oneinterruption, but there may have been other poems not recorded orremembered. This, the latest poem of the series, was listened to by thescanty remnant of what was a large and brilliant circle of classmatesand friends when the first of the long series was read before them, thenin the flush of ardent manhood:--

 THE OLD SONG. 

 The minstrel of the classic lay Of love and wine who sings Still found the fingers run astray That touched the rebel strings. 

 Of Cadmus he would fair have sung, Of Atreus and his line; But all the jocund echoes rung With songs of love and wine. 

 Ah, brothers! I would fair have caught Some fresher fancy's gleam; My truant accents find, unsought, The old familiar theme. 

 Love, Love! but not the sportive child With shaft and twanging bow, Whose random arrows drove us wild Some threescore years ago;

 Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, The urchin blind and bare, But Love, with spectacles and staff, And scanty, silvered hair. 

 Our heads with frosted locks are white, Our roofs are thatched with snow, But red, in chilling winter's spite, Our hearts and hearthstones glow. 

 Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, And while the running sands Their golden thread unheeded spin, He warms his frozen hands. 

 Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, And waft this message o'er To all we miss, from all we meet On life's fast-crumbling shore:

 Say that to old affection true We hug the narrowing chain That binds our hearts, --alas, how few The links that yet remain!

 The fatal touch awaits them all That turns the rocks to dust; From year to year they break and fall, They break, but never rust. 

 Say if one note of happier strain This worn-out harp afford, --One throb that trembles, not in vain, Their memory lent its chord. 

 Say that when Fancy closed her wings And Passion quenched his fire, Love, Love, still echoed from the strings As from Anacreon's lyre!

 January 8, 1885. 

VII. A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES

In thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt convinced that, withcare and patience and watching his opportunity, he should get at thesecret, which so far bad yielded nothing but a single word. It mightbe asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all appearances, theyoung stranger was unwilling to explain. He may have been to some extentinfected by the general curiosity of the persons around him, in whichgood Mrs. Butts shared, and which she had helped to intensify byrevealing the word dropped by Paolo. But this was not really hischief motive. He could not look upon this young man, living a lifeof unwholesome solitude, without a natural desire to do all that hisscience and his knowledge of human nature could help him to do towardsbringing him into healthy relations with the world about him. Still, he would not intrude upon him in any way. He would only make certaingeneral investigations, which might prove serviceable in casecircumstances should give him the right to counsel the young man asto his course of life. The first thing to be done was to studysystematically the whole subject of antipathies. Then, if any furtheroccasion offered itself, he would be ready to take advantage of it. The resources of the Public Library of the place and his own privatecollection were put in requisition to furnish him the singular andwidely scattered facts of which he was in search. 

It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. Butts in his studyof the natural history of antipathies. The stories told about them are, however, very curious; and if some of them may be questioned, there isno doubt that many of the strangest are true, and consequently take awayfrom the improbability of others which we are disposed to doubt. 

But in the first place, what do we mean by an antipathy? It is anaversion to some object, which may vary in degree from mere dislike tomortal horror. What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say. Itacts sometimes through the senses, sometimes through the imagination, sometimes through an unknown channel. The relations which exist betweenthe human being and all that surrounds him vary in consequence of someadjustment peculiar to each individual. The brute fact is expressed inthe phrase "One man's meat is another man's poison. "

In studying the history of antipathies the doctor began with thosereferable to the sense of taste, which are among the most common. Inany collection of a hundred persons there will be found those who cannotmake use of certain articles of food generally acceptable. This may befrom the disgust they occasion or the effects they have been found toproduce. Every one knows individuals who cannot venture on honey, orcheese, or veal, with impunity. Carlyle, for example, complains ofhaving veal set before him, --a meat he could not endure. There is awhole family connection in New England, and that a very famous one, tomany of whose members, in different generations, all the products of thedairy are the subjects of a congenital antipathy. Montaigne says thereare persons who dread the smell of apples more than they would dreadbeing exposed to a fire of musketry. The readers of the charming story"A Week in a French Country-House" will remember poor Monsieur Jacque'spiteous cry in the night: "Ursula, art thou asleep? Oh, Ursula, thousleepest, but I cannot close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is sucha dreadful smell! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thoucouldst smell it! Good-night, my angel!----Dearest! I have found them!They are apples!" The smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has beenknown to cause faintness. The sight of various objects has had singulareffects on some persons. A boar's head was a favorite dish at the tableof great people in Marshal d'Albret's time; yet he used to faint at thesight of one. It is not uncommon to meet with persons who faint at thesight of blood. One of the most inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts'scollege-mates confessed that he had this infirmity. Stranger and farmore awkward than this is the case mentioned in an ancient collection, where the subject of the antipathy fainted at the sight of any object ofa red color. There are sounds, also, which have strange effects onsome individuals. Among the obnoxious noises are the crumpling of silkstuffs, the sound of sweeping, the croaking of frogs. The effectsin different cases have been spasms, a sense of strangling, profusesweating, --all showing a profound disturbance of the nervous system. 

All these effects were produced by impressions on the organs of sense, seemingly by direct agency on certain nerve centres. But there isanother series of cases in which the imagination plays a larger partin the phenomena. Two notable examples are afforded in the lives of twovery distinguished personages. 

Peter the Great was frightened, when an infant, by falling from a bridgeinto the water. Long afterward, when he had reached manhood, this hardyand resolute man was so affected by the sound of wheels rattling over abridge that he had to discipline himself by listening to the sound, inspite of his dread of it, in order to overcome his antipathy. The storytold by Abbe Boileau of Pascal is very similar to that related of Peter. As he was driving in his coach and four over the bridge at Neuilly, his horses took fright and ran away, and the leaders broke from theirharness and sprang into the river, leaving the wheel-horses and thecarriage on the bridge. Ever after this fright it is said that Pascalhad the terrifying sense that he was just on the edge of an abyss, readyto fall over. 

What strange early impression was it which led a certain lady always toshriek aloud if she ventured to enter a church, as it is recorded? Theold and simple way of accounting for it would be the scriptural one, that it was an unclean spirit who dwelt in her, and who, when sheentered the holy place and brought her spiritual tenant into thepresence of the sacred symbols, "cried with a loud voice, and came outof" her. A very singular case, the doctor himself had recorded, andwhich the reader may accept as authentic, is the following: At the headof the doctor's front stairs stood, and still stands, a tall clock, ofearly date and stately presence. A middle-aged visitor, noticing itas he entered the front door, remarked that he should feel a greatunwillingness to pass that clock. He could not go near one of those talltimepieces without a profound agitation, which he dreaded to undergo. This very singular idiosyncrasy he attributed to a fright when he was aninfant in the arms of his nurse. 

She was standing near one of those tall clocks, when the cord whichsupported one of its heavy leaden weights broke, and the weight camecrashing down to the bottom of the case. Some effect must have beenproduced upon the pulpy nerve centres from which they never recovered. Why should not this happen, when we know that a sudden mental shockmay be the cause of insanity? The doctor remembered the verse of "TheAncient Mariner:"

 "I moved my lips; the pilot shrieked And fell down in a fit; The holy hermit raised his eyes And prayed where he did sit. I took the oars; the pilot's boy, Who now doth crazy go, Laughed loud and long, and all the while His eyes went to and fro. "

This is only poetry, it is true, but the poet borrowed the descriptionfrom nature, and the records of our asylums could furnish many caseswhere insanity was caused by a sudden fright. 

More than this, hardly a year passes that we do not read of someperson, a child commonly, killed outright by terror, --scared to death, literally. Sad cases they often are, in which, nothing but a surprisebeing intended, the shock has instantly arrested the movements on whichlife depends. If a mere instantaneous impression can produce effectslike these, such an impression might of course be followed byconsequences less fatal or formidable, but yet serious in their nature. If here and there a person is killed, as if by lightning, by a suddenstartling sight or sound, there must be more numerous cases in whicha terrible shock is produced by similar apparently insignificantcauses, --a shock which falls short of overthrowing the reason and doesnot destroy life, yet leaves a lasting effect upon the subject of it. 

This point, then, was settled in the mind of Dr. Butts, namely, that, as a violent emotion caused by a sudden shock can kill or craze a humanbeing, there is no perversion of the faculties, no prejudice, no changeof taste or temper, no eccentricity, no antipathy, which such a causemay not rationally account for. He would not be surprised, he said tohimself, to find that some early alarm, like that which was experiencedby Peter the Great or that which happened to Pascal, had broken somespring in this young man's nature, or so changed its mode of action asto account for the exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But howcould any conceivable antipathy be so comprehensive as to keep a youngman aloof from all the world, and make a hermit of him? He did nothate the human race; that was clear enough. He treated Paolo with greatkindness, and the Italian was evidently much attached to him. He hadtalked naturally and pleasantly with the young man he had helped out ofhis dangerous situation when his boat was upset. Dr. Butts heard thathe had once made a short visit to this young man, at his rooms in theUniversity. It was not misanthropy, therefore, which kept him solitary. What could be broad enough to cover the facts of the case? Nothing thatthe doctor could think of, unless it were some color, the sight of whichacted on him as it did on the individual before mentioned, who could notlook at anything red without fainting. Suppose this were a case of thesame antipathy. How very careful it would make the subject of it as towhere he went and with whom he consorted! Time and patience would bepretty sure to bring out new developments, and physicians, of all men inthe world, know how to wait as well as how to labor. 

Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts found them in books orgathered them from his own experience. He soon discovered that the storyhad got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the victim of an"antipathy, " whatever that word might mean in the vocabulary of thepeople of the place. If he suspected the channel through which it hadreached the little community, and, spreading from that centre, thecountry round, he did not see fit to make out of his suspicions adomestic casus belli. Paolo might have mentioned it to others as wellas to himself. Maurice might have told some friend, who had divulged it. But to accuse Mrs. Butts, good Mrs. Butts, of petit treason in tellingone of her husband's professional secrets was too serious a matter to bethought of. He would be a little more careful, he promised himself, thenext time, at any rate; for he had to concede, in spite of every wish tobe charitable in his judgment, that it was among the possibilities thatthe worthy lady had forgotten the rule that a doctor's patients must puttheir tongues out, and a doctor's wife must keep her tongue in. 

VIII. THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. 

The Secretary of this association was getting somewhat tired of theoffice, and the office was getting somewhat tired of him. It occurredto the members of the Society that a little fresh blood infused intoit might stir up the general vitality of the organization. The womansuffragists saw no reason why the place of Secretary need as a matter ofcourse be filled by a person of the male sex. They agitated, theymade domiciliary visits, they wrote notes to influential citizens, andfinally announced as their candidate the young lady who had won andworn the school name of "The Terror, " who was elected. She was just theperson for the place: wide awake, with all her wits about her, full ofevery kind of knowledge, and, above all, strong on points of order anddetails of management, so that she could prompt the presiding officer, to do which is often the most essential duty of a Secretary. ThePresident, the worthy rector, was good at plain sailing in the track ofthe common moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get muddledif anything came up requiring swift decision and off-hand speech. TheTerror had schooled herself in the debating societies of the Institute, and would set up the President, when he was floored by an awkwardquestion, as easily as if he were a ninepin which had been bowled over. 

It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian Society receivedcommunications from time to time from writers outside of its ownorganization. Of late these had been becoming more frequent. Many ofthem were sent in anonymously, and as there were numerous visitors tothe village, and two institutions not far removed from it, both fullof ambitious and intelligent young persons, it was often impossibleto trace the papers to their authors. The new Secretary was alive withcuriosity, and as sagacious a little body as one might find if in wantof a detective. She could make a pretty shrewd guess whether a paper waswritten by a young or old person, by one of her own sex or the other, byan experienced hand or a novice. 

Among the anonymous papers she received was one which exercised hercuriosity to an extraordinary degree. She felt a strong suspicion that"the Sachem, " as the boat-crews used to call him, "the Recluse, " "theNight-Hawk, " "the Sphinx, " as others named him, must be the author ofit. It appeared to her the production of a young person of a reflective, poetical turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of writing; at least, so thought the Secretary. The writer had travelled much; had resided inItaly, among other places. But so had many of the summer visitors andresidents of Arrowhead Village. The handwriting was not decisive; ithad some points of resemblance with the pencilled orders for bookswhich Maurice sent to the Library, but there were certain differences, intentional or accidental, which weakened this evidence. There was anundertone in the essay which was in keeping with the mode of life of thesolitary stranger. It might be disappointment, melancholy, or only thedreamy sadness of a young person who sees the future he is to climb, notas a smooth ascent, but as overhanging him like a cliff, ready to crushhim, with all his hopes and prospects. This interpretation may have beentoo imaginative, but here is the paper, and the reader can form his ownopinion:

 MY THREE COMPANIONS. 

"I have been from my youth upwards a wanderer. I do not mean constantlyflitting from one place to another, for my residence has often beenfixed for considerable periods. From time to time I have put down in anotebook the impressions made upon me by the scenes through which Ihave passed. I have long hesitated whether to let any of my notes appearbefore the public. My fear has been that they were too subjective, touse the metaphysician's term, --that I have seen myself reflected inNature, and not the true aspects of Nature as she was meant to beunderstood. One who should visit the Harz Mountains would see--mightsee, rather his own colossal image shape itself on the morning mist. Butif in every mist that rises from the meadows, in every cloud that hangsupon the mountain, he always finds his own reflection, we cannot accepthim as an interpreter of the landscape. 

"There must be many persons present at the meetings of the Society towhich this paper is offered who have had experiences like that of itsauthor. They have visited the same localities, they have had many ofthe same thoughts and feelings. Many, I have no doubt. Not all, --no, notall. Others have sought the companionship of Nature; I have been drivento it. Much of my life has been passed in that communion. These pagesrecord some of the intimacies I have formed with her under some of hervarious manifestations. 

"I have lived on the shore of the great ocean, where its waves brokewildest and its voice rose loudest. 

"I have passed whole seasons on the banks of mighty and famous rivers. 

"I have dwelt on the margin of a tranquil lake, and floated through manya long, long summer day on its clear waters. 

"I have learned the 'various language' of Nature, of which poetry hasspoken, --at least, I have learned some words and phrases of it. I willtranslate some of these as I best may into common speech. 

"The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores:--

"You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do not trouble myself with theliving tribes that come down to my waters. I have my own people, ofan older race than yours, that grow to mightier dimensions than yourmastodons and elephants; more numerous than all the swarms that fillthe air or move over the thin crust of the earth. Who are you that buildyour palaces on my margin? I see your white faces as I saw the darkfaces of the tribes that came before you, as I shall look upon theunknown family of mankind that will come after you. And what is yourwhole human family but a parenthesis in a single page of my history? Theraindrops stereotyped themselves on my beaches before a living creatureleft his footprints there. This horseshoe-crab I fling at your feet isof older lineage than your Adam, --perhaps, indeed, you count your Adamas one of his descendants. What feeling have I for you? Not scorn, not hatred, --not love, --not loathing. No!---indifference, --blankindifference to you and your affairs that is my feeling, say ratherabsence of feeling, as regards you. ---Oh yes, I will lap your feet, Iwill cool you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my strongarms, I will rock you on my rolling undulations, like a babe in hiscradle. Am I not gentle? Am I not kind? Am I not harmless? But hark! Thewind is rising, and the wind and I are rough playmates! What do yousay to my voice now? Do you see my foaming lips? Do you feel the rockstremble as my huge billows crash against them? Is not my anger terribleas I dash your argosy, your thunder-bearing frigate, into fragments, as you would crack an eggshell?--No, not anger; deaf, blind, unheedingindifference, --that is all. Out of me all things arose; sooner or later, into me all things subside. All changes around me; I change not. Ilook not at you, vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save inmomentary glimpses: I look on the white face of my dead mistress, whomI follow as the bridegroom follows the bier of her who has changed hernuptial raiment for the shroud. 

"Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at my side. Continentsand islands grow old, and waste and disappear. The hardest rockcrumbles; vegetable and animal kingdoms come into being, wax great, decline, and perish, to give way to others, even as human dynasties andnations and races come and go. Look on me! 'Time writes no wrinkle' onmy forehead. Listen to me! All tongues are spoken on my shores, but Ihave only one language: the winds taught me their vowels the crags andthe sands schooled me in my rough or smooth consonants. Few words aremine but I have whispered them and sung them and shouted them to men ofall tribes from the time when the first wild wanderer strayed into myawful presence. Have you a grief that gnaws at your heart-strings? Comewith it to my shore, as of old the priest of far-darting Apollo carriedhis rage and anguish to the margin of the loud-roaring sea. There, ifanywhere you will forget your private and short-lived woe, for my voicespeaks to the infinite and the eternal in your consciousness. 

"To him who loves the pages of human history, who listens to the voicesof the world about him, who frequents the market and the thoroughfare, who lives in the study of time and its accidents rather than in thedeeper emotions, in abstract speculation and spiritual contemplation, the RIVER addresses itself as his natural companion. 

"Come live with me. I am active, cheerful, communicative, a naturaltalker and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, exceptoccasionally when I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and geta fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in watching mychanging features. My idlest babble, when I am toying with the triflesthat fall in my way, if not very full of meaning, is at least musical. I am not a dangerous friend, like the ocean; no highway is absolutelysafe, but my nature is harmless, and the storms that strew the beacheswith wrecks cast no ruins upon my flowery borders. Abide with me, andyou shall not die of thirst, like the forlorn wretches left to themercies of the pitiless salt waves. Trust yourself to me, and I willcarry you far on your journey, if we are travelling to the same point ofthe compass. If I sometimes run riot and overflow your meadows, I leavefertility behind me when I withdraw to my natural channel. Walk by myside toward the place of my destination. I will keep pace with you, andyou shall feel my presence with you as that of a self-conscious beinglike yourself. You will find it hard to be miserable in my company; Idrain you of ill-conditioned thoughts as I carry away the refuse of yourdwelling and its grounds. "

But to him whom the ocean chills and crushes with its sullenindifference, and the river disturbs with its never-pausing andnever-ending story, the silent LAKE shall be a refuge and a place ofrest for his soul. 

"'Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your limited faculties, 'it says; 'yield not yourself to the babble of the running stream. Leavethe ocean, which cares nothing for you or any living thing that walksthe solid earth; leave the river, too busy with its own errand, tootalkative about its own affairs, and find peace with me, whose smilewill cheer you, whose whisper will soothe you. Come to me when themorning sun blazes across my bosom like a golden baldric; come to mein the still midnight, when I hold the inverted firmament like a cupbrimming with jewels, nor spill one star of all the constellations thatfloat in my ebon goblet. Do you know the charm of melancholy? Where willyou find a sympathy like mine in your hours of sadness? Does the oceanshare your grief? Does the river listen to your sighs? The salt wave, that called to you from under last month's full moon, to-day isdashing on the rocks of Labrador; the stream, that ran by you pure andsparkling, has swallowed the poisonous refuse of a great city, and iscreeping to its grave in the wide cemetery that buries all things in itstomb of liquid crystal. It is true that my waters exhale and are renewedfrom one season to another; but are your features the same, absolutelythe same, from year to year? We both change, but we know each otherthrough all changes. Am I not mirrored in those eyes of yours? Anddoes not Nature plant me as an eye to behold her beauties while she isdressed in the glories of leaf and flower, and draw the icy lid overmy shining surface when she stands naked and ashamed in the poverty ofwinter?'

"I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts in the course of a lifenot very long, but with a record which much longer lives could not matchin incident. Oftentimes the temptation has come over me with dangerousurgency to try a change of existence, if such change is a part of humandestiny, --to seek rest, if that is what we gain by laying down theburden of life. I have asked who would be the friend to whom I shouldappeal for the last service I should have need of. Ocean was there, all ready, asking no questions, answering none. What strange voyages, downward through its glaucous depths, upwards to its boiling andfrothing surface, wafted by tides, driven by tempests, disparted by rudeagencies; one remnant whitening on the sands of a northern beach, one perhaps built into the circle of a coral reef in the Pacific, onesettling to the floor of the vast laboratory where continents are built, to emerge in far-off ages! What strange companions for my pall-bearers!Unwieldy sea-monsters, the stories of which are counted fables by thespectacled collectors who think their catalogues have exhausted nature;naked-eyed creatures, staring, glaring, nightmare-like spectres ofthe ghastly-green abysses; pulpy islands, with life in gelatinousimmensity, --what a company of hungry heirs at every ocean funeral! No!No! Ocean claims great multitudes, but does not invite the solitary whowould fain be rid of himself. 

"Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the lake I love than Ihave ever found when drifting idly over its surface? No, again. I do notwant the sweet, clear waters to know me in the disgrace of nature, whenlife, the faithful body-servant, has ceased caring for me. That must notbe. The mirror which has pictured me so often shall never know me as anunwelcome object. 

"If I must ask the all-subduing element to be my last friend, and leadme out of my prison, it shall be the busy, whispering, not unfriendly, pleasantly companionable river. 

"But Ocean and River and Lake have certain relations to the periodsof human life which they who are choosing their places of abode shouldconsider. Let the child play upon the seashore. The wide horizon giveshis imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. That background ofmystery, without which life is a poor mechanical arrangement, is shapedand colored, so far as it can have outline, or any hue but shadow, on avast canvas, the contemplation of which enlarges and enriches the sphereof consciousness. The mighty ocean is not too huge to symbolize theaspirations and ambitions of the yet untried soul of the adolescent. 

"The time will come when his indefinite mental horizon has found a solidlimit, which shuts his prospect in narrower bounds than he would havethought could content him in the years of undefined possibilities. Thenhe will find the river a more natural intimate than the ocean. Itis individual, which the ocean, with all its gulfs and inlets andmultitudinous shores, hardly seems to be. It does not love you verydearly, and will not miss you much when you disappear from its margin;but it means well to you, bids you good-morning with its coming waves, and good-evening with those which are leaving. It will lead yourthoughts pleasantly away, upwards to its source, downwards to the streamto which it is tributary, or the wide waters in which it is to loseitself. A river, by choice, to live by in middle age. 

"In hours of melancholy reflection, in those last years of life whichhave little left but tender memories, the still companionship of thelake, embosomed in woods, sheltered, fed by sweet mountain brooks andhidden springs, commends itself to the wearied and saddened spirit. I amnot thinking of those great inland seas, which have many of the featuresand much of the danger that belong to the ocean, but of those 'ponds, 'as our countrymen used to call them until they were rechristened bysummer visitors; beautiful sheets of water from a hundred to a fewthousand acres in extent, scattered like raindrops over the map of ourNorthern sovereignties. The loneliness of contemplative old age findsits natural home in the near neighborhood of one of these tranquilbasins. "

Nature does not always plant her poets where they belong, but if we lookcarefully their affinities betray themselves. The youth will carry hisByron to the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved so well. Theman of maturer years will remember that the sonorous couplets of Popewhich ring in his ears were written on the banks of the Thames. The oldman, as he nods over the solemn verse of Wordsworth, will recognize theaffinity between the singer and the calm sheet that lay before him as hewrote, --the stainless and sleepy Windermere. 

"The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amusement to compare theirown feelings with those of one who has lived by the Atlantic and theMediterranean, by the Nile and the Tiber, by Lake Leman and by one ofthe fairest sheets of water that our own North America embosoms in itsforests. "

Miss Lurida Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, read thispaper, and pondered long upon it. She was thinking very seriously ofstudying medicine, and had been for some time in frequent communicationwith Dr. Butts, under whose direction she had begun reading certaintreatises, which added to such knowledge of the laws of life in healthand in disease as she had brought with her from the Corinna Institute. Naturally enough, she carried the anonymous paper to the doctor, to gethis opinion about it, and compare it with her own. They both agreed thatit was probably, they would not say certainly, the work of the solitaryvisitor. There was room for doubt, for there were visitors who mightwell have travelled to all the places mentioned, and resided long enoughon the shores of the waters the writer spoke of to have had all theexperiences mentioned in the paper. The Terror remembered a young lady, a former schoolmate, who belonged to one of those nomadic familiescommon in this generation, the heads of which, especially the femaleheads, can never be easy where they are, but keep going between Americaand Europe, like so many pith-balls in the electrical experiment, alternately attracted and repelled, never in contented equilibrium. Every few years they pull their families up by the roots, and by thetime they have begun to take hold a little with their radicles in thespots to which they have been successively transplanted up they comeagain, so that they never get a tap-root anywhere. The Terror suspectedthe daughter of one of these families of sending certain anonymousarticles of not dissimilar character to the one she had just received. But she knew the style of composition common among the young girls, and she could hardly believe that it was one of them who had sent thispaper. Could a brother of this young lady have written it? Possibly; sheknew nothing more than that the young lady had a brother, then a studentat the University. All the chances were that Mr. Maurice Kirkwood wasthe author. So thought Lurida, and so thought Dr. Butts. 

Whatever faults there were in this essay, it interested them both. Therewas nothing which gave the least reason to suspect insanity on the partof the writer, whoever he or she might be. There were references tosuicide, it is true, but they were of a purely speculative nature, anddid not look to any practical purpose in that direction. Besides, if thestranger were the author of the paper, he certainly would not choose asheet of water like Cedar Lake to perform the last offices for him, incase he seriously meditated taking unceremonious leave of life and itsaccidents. He could find a river easily enough, to say nothing of othermethods of effecting his purpose; but he had committed himself as to theimpropriety of selecting a lake, so they need not be anxious about thewhite canoe and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the surface ofthe deep waters. 

The holder of the Portfolio would never have ventured to come beforethe public if he had not counted among his resources certain papersbelonging to the records of the Pansophian Society, which he can makefree use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, or for adiversion during those intervals in which the flow of events is languid, or even ceases for the time to manifest any progress. The reader canhardly have failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern had become thefocal point where a good deal of mental activity converged. There werethe village people, including a number of cultivated families; therewere the visitors, among them many accomplished and widely travelledpersons; there was the University, with its learned teachers andaspiring young men; there was the Corinna Institute, with its eager, ambitious, hungry-souled young women, crowding on, class after classcoming forward on the broad stream of liberal culture, and roundingthe point which, once passed, the boundless possibilities of womanhoodopened before them. All this furnished material enough and to spare forthe records and the archives of the society. 

The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meetings. It may beremembered that the girls had said of her, when she was The Terror, that"she knew everything and didn't believe anything. " That was justthe kind of person for a secretary of such an association. Properlyinterpreted, the saying meant that she knew a great deal, and wanted toknow a great deal more, and was consequently always on the lookout forinformation; that she believed nothing without sufficient proof thatit was true, and therefore was perpetually asking for evidence where, others took assertions on trust. 

It was astonishing to see what one little creature like The Terror couldaccomplish in the course of a single season. She found out what eachmember could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside visitors whomshe suspected of capacity, and urged them to speak at the meetings, orsend written papers to be read. As an official, with the printed titleat the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, she was a privilegedpersonage. She begged the young persons who had travelled to tellsomething of their experiences. She had contemplated getting up adiscussion on the woman's rights question, but being a wary littlebody, and knowing that the debate would become a dispute and divide themembers into two hostile camps, she deferred this project indefinitely. It would be time enough after she had her team well in hand, she said toherself, --had felt their mouths and tried their paces. This expression, as she used it in her thoughts, seems rather foreign to her habits, butthere was room in her large brain for a wide range of illustrations andan ample vocabulary. She could not do much with her own muscles, butshe had known the passionate delight of being whirled furiously overthe road behind four scampering horses, in a rocking stage-coach, andthought of herself in the Secretary's chair as not unlike the driveron his box. A few weeks of rest had allowed her nervous energy to storeitself up, and the same powers which had distanced competition in theclasses of her school had of necessity to expend themselves in vigorousaction in her new office. 

Her appeals had their effect. A number of papers were very soon sentin; some with names, some anonymously. She looked these papers over, andmarked those which she thought would be worth reading and listening toat the meetings. One of them has just been presented to the reader. Asto the authorship of the following one there were many conjectures. Awell-known writer, who had spent some weeks at Arrowhead Village, wasgenerally suspected of being its author. Some, however, questionedwhether it was not the work of a new hand, who wrote, not fromexperience, but from his or her ideas of the condition to which astory-teller, a novelist, must in all probability be sooner or laterreduced. The reader must judge for himself whether this first paper isthe work of an old hand or a novice. 

 SOME EXPERIENCES OF A NOVELIST. 

"I have written a frightful number of stories, forty or more, I think. Let me see. For twelve years two novels a year regularly: that makestwenty-four. In three different years I have written threestories annually: that makes thirty-three. In five years one ayear, --thirty-eight. That is all, is n't it? Yes. Thirty-eight, notforty. I wish I could make them all into one composite story, as Mr. Galton does his faces. 

"Hero--heroine--mamma--papa--uncle--sister, and so on. Love--obstacles--misery--tears--despair--glimmer of hope--unexpectedsolution of difficulties--happy finale. 

"Landscape for background according to season. Plants of each month gotup from botanical calendars. 

"I should like much to see the composite novel. Why not apply Mr. Galton's process, and get thirty-eight stories all in one? All theYankees would resolve into one Yankee, all the P----West Britons intoone Patrick, etc. , what a saving of time it would be!

"I got along pretty well with my first few stories. I had somecharacters around me which, a little disguised, answered well enough. There was the minister of the parish, and there was an old schoolmastereither of them served very satisfactorily for grandfathers andold uncles. All I had to do was to shift some of their leadingpeculiarities, keeping the rest. The old minister wore knee-breeches. I clapped them on to the schoolmaster. The schoolmaster carried a tallgold-headed cane. I put this in the minister's hands. So with otherthings, --I shifted them round, and got a set of characters who, takentogether, reproduced the chief persons of the village where I lived, butdid not copy any individual exactly. Thus it went on for a while; butby and by my stock company began to be rather too familiarly known, in spite of their change of costume, and at last some altogether toosagacious person published what he called a 'key' to several of myearlier stories, in which I found the names of a number of neighborsattached to aliases of my own invention. All the 'types, ' as he calledthem, represented by these personages of my story had come to berecognized, each as standing for one and the same individual of myacquaintance. It had been of no use to change the costume. Even changingthe sex did no good. I had a famous old gossip in one of my tales, --amuch-babbling Widow Sertingly. 'Sho!' they all said, that 's old DeaconSpinner, the same he told about in that other story of his, --onlythe deacon's got on a petticoat and a mob-cap, --but it's the same oldsixpence. ' So I said to myself, I must have some new characters. Ihad no trouble with young characters; they are all pretty muchalike, --dark-haired or light-haired, with the outfits belonging to theircomplexion, respectively. I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-topeccentric. I had never seen anything just like her in books. So I said, I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure enough, Ifitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which I got from thedirectory, and sent her forth to the world, disguised, as I supposed, beyond the possibility of recognition. The book sold well, and theeccentric personage was voted a novelty. A few weeks after it waspublished a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the person in thedirectory, whose family name I had used, as he maintained, to hisand all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, grief, shame, andirreparable injury, for which the sum of blank thousand dollars would bea modest compensation. The story made the book sell, but not enoughto pay blank thousand dollars. In the mean time a cousin of mine hadsniffed out the resemblance between the character in my book and ourgreat-aunt. We were rivals in her good graces. 'Cousin Pansie' spoke toher of my book and the trouble it was bringing on me, --she was so sorryabout it! She liked my story, --only those personalities, you know. 'Whatpersonalities?' says old granny-aunt. 'Why, auntie, dear, they do saythat he has brought in everybody we know, --did n't anybody tell youabout--well, --I suppose you ought to know it, --did n't anybody tell youyou were made fun of in that novel?' Somebody--no matter who--happenedto hear all this, and told me. She said granny-aunt's withered old facehad two red spots come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeksfrom a pink saucer. No, she said, not a pink saucer, but as if theywere two coals of fire. She sent out and got the book, and made her (thesomebody that I was speaking of) read it to her. When she had heardas much as she could stand, --for 'Cousin Pansie' explained passagesto her, --explained, you know, --she sent for her lawyer, and that samesomebody had to be a witness to a new will she had drawn up. It was notto my advantage. 'Cousin Pansie' got the corner lot where the groceryis, and pretty much everything else. The old woman left me a legacy. What do you think it was? An old set of my own books, that looked as ifit had been bought out of a bankrupt circulating library. 

"After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much morediligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing storiesfor my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, and workedhard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every story that wentfrom my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation, and there was a set of critics, --there is a set of critics nowand everywhere, --that watch as narrowly for the decline of a man'sreputation as ever a village half drowned out by an inundation watchedfor the falling of the waters. The fame I had won, such as it was, seemed to attend me, --not going before me in the shape of a woman witha trumpet, but rather following me like one of Actaeon's hounds, histhroat open, ready to pull me down and tear me. What a fierce enemyis that which bays behind us in the voice of our proudest bygoneachievement!

"But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I musthave characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. Oh, yes!Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain aspectsof humanity will answer every purpose for which your invention wasintended. A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hatwhich has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had abrood of chickens raised in it, --these elements, duly adjusted to eachother, will represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoidthe cornfield when your scarecrow displays his personality. Do youthink you can make your heroes and heroines, --nay, even your scrappysupernumeraries, --out of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow?You can't do it. You must study living people and reproduce them. Andwhom do you know so well as your friends? You will show up your friends, then, one after another. When your friends give out, who is left foryou? Why, nobody but your own family, of course. When you have usedup your family, there is nothing left for you but to write yourautobiography. 

"After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, verynaturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well assexes. In this way I continued to use up a large amount of material, which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to meddle with. Who would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in the guise of aschoolboy? Yet I managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as theold gentleman would have decanted a bottle of Juno Madeira through thatlong siphon which he always used when the most sacred vintages weresummoned from their crypts to render an account of themselves on hishospitable board. It was a nice business, I confess, but I did it, and Idrink cheerfully to that good uncle's memory in a glass of wine fromhis own cellar, which, with many other more important tokens of his goodwill, I call my own since his lamented demise. 

"I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought I would try a courseof cousins. I had enough of them to furnish out a whole gallery ofportraits. There was cousin 'Creeshy, ' as we called her; Lucretia, morecorrectly. She was a cripple. Her left lower limb had had somethinghappen to it, and she walked with a crutch. Her patience under her trialwas very pathetic and picturesque, so to speak, --I mean adapted tothe tender parts of a story; nothing could work up better in amelting paragraph. But I could not, of course, describe her particularinfirmity; that would point her out at once. I thought of shifting thelameness to the right lower limb, but even that would be seen through. So I gave the young woman that stood for her in my story a lame elbow, and put her arm in a sling, and made her such a model of uncomplainingendurance that my grandmother cried over her as if her poor old heartwould break. She cried very easily, my grandmother; in fact, she hadsuch a gift for tears that I availed myself of it, and if you rememberold Judy, in my novel 'Honi Soit' (Honey Sweet, the booksellers calledit), --old Judy, the black-nurse, --that was my grandmother. She hadvarious other peculiarities, which I brought out one by one, andsaddled on to different characters. You see she was a perfect mine ofsingularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up pretty well, I came dawn upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair game; whatbetter use could I put them to? I studied them up very carefully, and asthere were a good many of them I helped myself freely. They lasted me, with occasional intermissions, I should say, three or four years. I hadto be very careful with my poor relations, --they were as touchy as theycould be; and as I felt bound to send a copy of my novel, whatever itmight be, to each one of them, --there were as many as a dozen, --I tookcare to mix their characteristic features, so that, though each mightsuspect I meant the other, no one should think I meant him or her. Igot through all my relations at last except my father and mother. I hadtreated my brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except Elisha andJoanna. The truth is they both had lots of odd ways, --family traits, I suppose, but were just different enough from each other to figureseparately in two different stories. These two novels made me somelittle trouble; for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in oneof them, and quarrelled with me about it; and Joanna vowed and declaredthat Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, and that it wasa real mean thing to make fun of folks' own flesh and blood, and treatedme to one of her cries. She was n't handsome when she cried, poor, dearJoanna; in fact, that was one of the personal traits I had made use ofin the story that Elisha found fault with. 

"So as there was nobody left but my father and mother, you see foryourself I had no choice. There was one great advantage in dealing withthem, --I knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a certain delicacyit handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who have beenso near to him. One's mother, for instance: suppose some of her littleways were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of them wouldfurnish amusement to great numbers of readers; it would not be withouthesitation that a writer of delicate sensibility would draw herportrait, with all its whimsicalities, so plainly that it should begenerally recognized. One's father is commonly of tougher fibre thanone's mother, and one would not feel the same scruples, perhaps, inusing him professionally as material in a novel; still, while you areemploying him as bait, --you see I am honest and plain-spoken, for yourcharacters are baits to catch readers with, --I would follow kindIzaak Walton's humane counsel about the frog you are fastening to yourfish-hook: fix him artistically, as he directs, but in so doing I usehim as though you loved him. '

"I have at length shown up, in one form and another, all my townsmenwho have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up, allmy friends, all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It hasoccurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection ofmy father-in-law and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of paying thema visit, and I shall have an admirable opportunity of studying themand their relatives and visitors. I have long wanted a good chance forgetting acquainted with the social sphere several grades below that towhich I am accustomed, and I have no doubt that I shall find matter forhalf a dozen new stories among those connections of mine. Besides, theylive in a Western city, and one doesn't mind much how he cuts up thepeople of places he does n't himself live in. I suppose there is notreally so much difference in people's feelings, whether they live inBangor or Omaha, but one's nerves can't be expected to stretch acrossthe continent. It is all a matter of greater or less distance. I readthis morning that a Chinese fleet was sunk, but I did n't think halfso much about it as I did about losing my sleeve button, confoundit! People have accused me of want of feeling; they misunderstand theartist-nature, --that is all. I obey that implicitly; I am sorry ifpeople don't like my descriptions, but I have done my best. I havepulled to pieces all the persons I am acquainted with, and put themtogether again in my characters. The quills I write with come from livegeese, I would have you know. I expect to get some first-rate pluckingsfrom those people I was speaking of, and I mean to begin my thirty-ninthnovel as soon as I have got through my visit. "

IX. THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. 

There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events, in anarrative like this. June passed away, and July, and August had come, and as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead Village andits visitors remained unsolved. The white canoe still wandered over thelake, alone, ghostly, always avoiding the near approach of the boatswhich seemed to be coming in its direction. Now and then a circumstancewould happen which helped to keep inquiry alive. Good horsemanship wasnot so common among the young men of the place and its neighborhood thatMaurice's accomplishment in that way could be overlooked. If there wasa wicked horse or a wild colt whose owner was afraid of him, he wouldbe commended to Maurice's attention. Paolo would lead him to his masterwith all due precaution, --for he had no idea of risking his neck on theback of any ill-conditioned beast, --and Maurice would fasten on his longspurs, spring into the saddle, and very speedily teach the creature goodbehavior. There soon got about a story that he was what the fresh-waterfisherman called "one o' them whisperers. " It is a common legend enough, coming from the Old World, but known in American horse-talking circles, that some persons will whisper certain words in a horse's ear whichwill tame him if he is as wild and furious as ever Cruiser was. All thisadded to the mystery which surrounded the young man. A single improbableor absurd story amounts to very little, but when half a dozen suchstories are told about the same individual or the same event, they beginto produce the effect of credible evidence. If the year had been 1692and the place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood would have runthe risk of being treated like the Reverend George Burroughs. 

Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely excited withreference to the young man of whom so many stories were told. She hadpretty nearly convinced herself that he was the author of the paper onOcean, Lake, and River, which had been read at one of the meetings ofthe Pansophian Society. She was very desirous of meeting him, if itwere possible. It seemed as if she might, as Secretary of the Society, request the cooperation of any of the visitors, without impropriety. So, after much deliberation, she wrote a careful note, of which thefollowing is an exact copy. Her hand was bold, almost masculine, acurious contrast to that of Euthymia, which was delicately feminine. PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. 

ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18-. MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ. 

DEAR SIR, --You have received, I trust, a card of invitation to themeetings of our Society, but I think we have not yet had the pleasure ofseeing you at any of them. We have supposed that we might be indebtedto you for a paper read at the last meeting, and listened to withmuch interest. As it was anonymous, we do not wish to be inquisitiverespecting its authorship; but we desire to say that any papers kindlysent us by the temporary residents of our village will be welcome, andif adapted to the wants of our Association will be read at one of itsmeetings or printed in its records, or perhaps both read and printed. May we not hope for your presence at the meeting, which is to take placenext Wednesday evening? Respectfully yours, LURIDA VINCENT, Secretary of the Pansophian Society. 

To this note the Secretary received the following reply: MISS LURIDAVINCENT, ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18-. 

Secretary of the Pansophian Society:

DEAR MISS VINCENT, --I have received the ticket you refer to, and desireto express my acknowledgments for the polite attention. I regret that Ihave not been and I fear shall not be able to attend the meetings of theSociety; but if any subject occurs to me on which I feel an inclinationto write, it will give me pleasure to send a paper, to be disposed of asthe Society may see fit. 

Very respectfully yours, MAURICE KIRKWOOD. 

"He says nothing about the authorship of the paper that was read theother evening, " the Secretary said to herself. "No matter, --he wroteit, --there is no mistaking his handwriting. We know something about him, now, at any rate. But why doesn't he come to our meetings? What has hisantipathy to do with his staying away? I must find out what his secretis, and I will. I don't believe it's harder than it was to solve thatprize problem which puzzled so many teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, the great chess-player. "

To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to bend all the facultieswhich had excited the admiration and sometimes the amazement of thosewho knew her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece ofbusiness; for though Lurida was an intrepid woman's rights advocate, andbelieved she was entitled to do almost everything that men dared to, she knew very well there were certain limits which a young woman likeherself must not pass. 

In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young studentat the University, --the same whom he had rescued from his dangerouspredicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers, --aninstructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and theinstructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it withthe ease which implied long familiarity with its use. 

After they left, the instructor asked many curious questions abouthim, --who he was, how long he had been in the village, whether anythingwas known of his history, --all these inquiries with an eagerness whichimplied some special and peculiar reason for the interest they evinced. 

"I feel satisfied, " the instructor said, "that I have met that young manin my own country. It was a number of years ago, and of course hehas altered in appearance a good deal; but there is a look about himof--what shall I call it?---apprehension, --as if he were fearing theapproach of something or somebody. I think it is the way a man wouldlook that was haunted; you know what I mean, --followed by a spirit orghost. He does not suggest the idea of a murderer, --very far from it;but if he did, I should think he was every minute in fear of seeing themurdered man's spirit. "

The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the instructor couldrecall. He had seen him in Rome, he thought, at the Fountain of Trevi, where so many strangers go before leaving the city. The youth was inthe company of a man who looked like a priest. He could not mistakethe peculiar expression of his countenance, but that was all he nowremembered about his appearance. His attention had been called to thisyoung man by seeing that some of the bystanders were pointing at him, and noticing that they were whispering with each other as if withreference to him. He should say that the youth was at that time fifteenor sixteen years old, and the time was about ten years ago. 

After all, this evidence was of little or no value. Suppose the youthwere Maurice; what then? We know that he had been in Italy, and had beenthere a good while, --or at least we infer so much from his familiaritywith the language, and are confirmed in the belief by his having anItalian servant, whom he probably brought from Italy when he returned. If he wrote the paper which was read the other evening, that settles it, for the writer says he had lived by the Tiber. We must put this scrap ofevidence furnished by the Professor with the other scraps; it mayturn out of some consequence, sooner or later. It is like a piece of adissected map; it means almost nothing by itself, but when we find thepieces it joins with we may discover a very important meaning in it. 

In a small, concentrated community like that which centred in andimmediately around Arrowhead Village, every day must have its localgossip as well as its general news. The newspaper tells the smallcommunity what is going on in the great world, and the busy tongues ofmale and female, especially the latter, fill in with the occurrencesand comments of the ever-stirring microcosm. The fact that the Italianteacher had, or thought he had, seen Maurice ten years before wascirculated and made the most of, --turned over and over like a cake, until it was thoroughly done on both sides and all through. It was avery small cake, but better than nothing. Miss Vincent heard this story, as others did, and talked about it with her friend, Miss Tower. Here wasone more fact to help along. 

The two young ladies who had recently graduated at the Corinna Instituteremained, as they had always been, intimate friends. They were thenatural complements of each other. Euthymia represented a complete, symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence was only an index of alarge, wholesome, affluent life. She could not help being courageous, with such a firm organization. She could not help being generous, cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she was fair tolook upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by the schoolmateswho were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but she did notovervalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own gifts, incomparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. The two agreedall the better for differing as they did. The octave makes a perfectchord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the ear. Each admiredthe other with a heartiness which if they had been less unlike, wouldhave been impossible. 

It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence on each other. The Terror of the schoolroom was the oracle in her relations with herfriend. All the freedom of movement which The Wonder showed in herbodily exercises The Terror manifested in the world of thought. Shewould fling open a book, and decide in a swift glance whether it hadany message for her. Her teachers had compared her way of reading to thetaking of an instantaneous photograph. When she took up the first bookon Physiology which Dr. Butts handed her, it seemed to him that if sheonly opened at any place, and gave one look, her mind drank its meaningup, as a moist sponge absorbs water. "What can I do with such a creatureas this?" he said to himself. "There is only one way to deal with her, treat her as one treats a silkworm: give it its mulberry leaf, and itwill spin its own cocoon. Give her the books, and she will spin her ownweb of knowledge. "

"Do you really think of studying medicine?" said Dr. Butts to her. 

"I have n't made up my mind about that, " she answered, "but I want toknow a little more about this terrible machinery of life and death weare all tangled in. I know something about it, but not enough. I findsome very strange beliefs among the women I meet with, and I want to beable to silence them when they attempt to proselyte me to their whimsand fancies. Besides, I want to know everything. "

"They tell me you do, already, " said Dr. Butts. 

"I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws the breath of life!"exclaimed The Terror. 

The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She had reached that stage ofeducation in which the vast domain of the unknown opens its illimitableexpanse before the eyes of the student. We never know the extent ofdarkness until it is partially illuminated. 

"You did not leave the Institute with the reputation of being the mostignorant young lady that ever graduated there, " said the doctor. "Theytell me you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record since theschool was founded. "

"What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish in our smallaquarium, to be sure!" answered The Terror. "He was six inches long, themonster, --a little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with! What didyou hand me that schoolbook for? Did you think I did n't know anythingabout the human body?"

"You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try youwith an easy book, by way of introduction. "

The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction. 

"I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. When I talk about myignorance, I don't measure myself with schoolgirls, doctor. I don'tmeasure myself with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if Iwere a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me anything. Where is yourhat, doctor? Let me try it on. "

The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Terror's hair was notnaturally abundant, like Euthymia's, and she kept it cut rather short. Her head used to get very hot when she studied hard. She tried to putthe hat on. 

"Do you see that?" she said. "I could n't wear it--it would squeeze myeyes out of my head. The books told me that women's brains were smallerthan men's: perhaps they are, --most of them, --I never measured agreat many. But when they try to settle what women are good for, byphrenology, I like to have them put their tape round my head. I don'tbelieve in their nonsense, for all that. You might as well tell methat if one horse weighs more than another horse he is worth more, --acart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred pounds better thanEclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give me a list of the bestbooks you can think of, and turn me loose in your library. I can findwhat I want, if you have it; and what I don't find there I will get atthe Public Library. I shall want to ask you a question now and then. "

The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, but thoughtfully, as if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her slightconstitutional resource. 

She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contradiction in herstatements about herself. 

"I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I sail on a wide sea ofignorance, but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows andsome of its depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life thatinterest me most just now, and I want to know something of it. Perhaps Imay find it a calling such as would suit me. "

"Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?" saidthe doctor. 

"Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, but I want to knowsomething more about it first. Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicineenough to practise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well enough. No matterabout that. I wish to study some of your best books on some of thesubjects that most interest me. I know about bones and muscles and allthat, and about digestion and respiration and such things. I want tostudy up the nervous system, and learn all about it. I am of the nervoustemperament myself, and perhaps that is the reason. I want to read aboutinsanity and all that relates to it. "

A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The Terrorsaid this. 

"Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, I know, --all thoselarge-headed, hard-thinking girls do, as a matter of course; but whathas set her off about insanity and the nervous system? I wonder if anyof her more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder. Brightpeople very often have crazy relations. Perhaps some of her friends arein that way. I wonder whether"--the doctor did not speak any of thesethoughts, and in fact hardly shaped his "whether, " for The Terrorinterrupted his train of reflection, or rather struck into it in a waywhich startled him. 

"Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?" she asked, looking at its empty place on the shelf. 

"On my table, " the doctor answered. "I have been consulting it. "

Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned the pages rapidlyuntil she came to the one she wanted. The doctor cast his eye on thebeading of the page, and saw the large letters A N T. 

"I thought so, " he said to himself. "We shall know everything there isin the books about antipathies now, if we never did before. She has aspecial object in studying the nervous system, just as I suspected. Ithink she does not care to mention it at this time; but if she finds outanything of interest she will tell me, if she does anybody. Perhapsshe does not mean to tell anybody. It is a rather delicate business, --ayoung girl studying the natural history of a young man. Not quite sosafe as botany or palaeontology!"

Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had her own plans, andchose to keep them to herself, for the present, at least. Her handswere full enough, it might seem, without undertaking the solution ofthe great Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the most perfecttraining, so far as her intelligence was concerned; and the summer resthad restored her bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an overchargedbattery which will find conductors somewhere to carry off its crowdedenergy. 

At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the most successful seasonit had ever known. The Pansophian Society flourished to an extraordinarydegree under the fostering care of the new Secretary. The rector wasa good figure-head as President, but the Secretary was the life of theSociety. Communications came in abundantly: some from the village andits neighborhood, some from the University and the Institute, some fromdistant and unknown sources. The new Secretary was very busy with thework of examining these papers. After a forenoon so employed, the carpetof her room looked like a barn floor after a husking-match. A glance atthe manuscripts strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have frightenedany young writer away from the thought of authorship as a business. Ifthe candidate for that fearful calling had seen the process of selectionand elimination, he would have felt still more desperately. A paper oftwenty pages would come in, with an underscored request to please readthrough, carefully. That request alone is commonly sufficient to condemnany paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; but theSecretary was not hardened enough yet for that kind of martial law indealing with manuscripts. The looker-on might have seen her take up thepaper, cast one flashing glance at its title, read the first sentenceand the last, dip at a venture into two or three pages, and decide asswiftly as the lightning calculator would add up a column of figureswhat was to be its destination. If rejected, it went into the heapon the left; if approved, it was laid apart, to be submitted to theCommittee for their judgment. The foolish writers who insist on one'sreading through their manuscript poems and stories ought to know howfatal the request is to their prospects. It provokes the reader, tobegin with. The reading of manuscript is frightful work, at the best;the reading of worthless manuscript--and most of that which one isrequested to read through is worthless--would add to the terrors ofTartarus, if any infernal deity were ingenious enough to suggest it as apunishment. 

If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not come before theCommittee, but was returned to the author, if he sent for it, which hecommonly did. Its natural course was to try for admission into some oneof the popular magazines: into "The Sifter, " the most fastidious of themall; if that declined it, into "The Second Best;" and if that returnedit, into "The Omnivorous. " If it was refused admittance at the doors ofall the magazines, it might at length find shelter in the corner of anewspaper, where a good deal of very readable verse is to be met withnowadays, some of which has been, no doubt, presented to the PansophianSociety, but was not considered up to its standard. 

X. A NEW ARRIVAL. 

There was a recent accession to the transient population of the villagewhich gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a young fellow, rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at home as if heowned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He commonly had a cigarin his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the non-explosive sort, anda stick with a bulldog's head for its knob; wore a soft hat, acoarse check suit, a little baggy, and gaiterboots which had beenhalf-soled, --a Bohemian-looking personage, altogether. 

This individual began making explorations in every direction. He wasvery curious about the place and all the people in it. He was especiallyinterested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he made allsorts of inquiries. This led him to form a summer acquaintance with theSecretary, who was pleased to give him whatever information he askedfor; being proud of the Society, as she had a right to be, and knowingmore about it than anybody else. 

The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearingsomething of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, connected with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell himanything about Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note-bookhe always had with him. 

All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about thisnew visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an attributethought to belong more especially to her sex, became somewhat interestedto know more exactly who this inquiring, note-taking personage, whoseemed to be everywhere and to know everybody, might himself be. Meetinghim at the Public Library at a fortunate moment, when there was nobodybut the old Librarian, who was hard of hearing, to interfere with theirconversation, the little Secretary had a chance to try to find outsomething about him. 

"This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess, " heremarked to Miss Lurida. 

"It is, indeed, " she said. "Have you found it well furnished with thebooks you most want?"

"Oh, yes, --books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do forthe Newspapers. I like a Review well enough, --it tells you all thereis in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper saves afellow the trouble of reading it. "

"You find the papers you want, here, I hope, " said the young lady. 

"Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do muchreading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?"

"I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, thereis a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account of someof the doings at our Society. The city papers are always glad to get thereports of our meetings, and to know what is going on in the village. "

"I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are theSecretary. "

This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man abouthis business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She ducked herhead, and let the question go over her. 

"Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write, --especially to give an account of their own papers. I think they liketo have me put in the applause, when they get any. I do that sometimes. "(How much more, she did not say. )

"I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what theytell me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have writtenherself. "

He looked her straight in the eyes. 

"I have transmitted some good papers, " she said, without winking, orswallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to change;her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and more too. "You spoke of Newspapers, " she said, without any change of tone ormanner: "do you not frequently write for them yourself?"

"I should think I did, " answered the young man. "I am a regularcorrespondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor. '"

"The regular correspondent from where?"

"Where! Oh, anywhere, --the place does not make much difference. I havebeen writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and thenfrom Constantinople. "

"How long since your return to this country, may I ask?"

"My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with agazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can getthe facts much better from them than by trusting your own observation. Ihave made the tour of Europe by the help of them and the newspapers. But of late I have taken to interviewing. I find that a very pleasantspecialty. It is about as good sport as trout-tickling, and much thesame kind of business. I should like to send the Society an account ofone of my interviews. Don't you think they would like to hear it?"

"I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; andif the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. Youknow everything has to be examined and voted on by the Committee, " saidthe cautious Secretary. 

"Very well, --I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, pleasesend it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter, ' or 'The SecondBest, ' or some of the paying magazines. "

This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the PansophianSociety. 

"I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor, ' to make a visit toa certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I couldconcerning him and all that related to him. I have interviewed a goodmany politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I hadnever tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite surehow this one would feel about it. I said as much to the chief, but hepooh-poohed my scruples. 'It is n't our business whether they like itor not, ' said he; 'the public wants it, and what the public wants it'sbound to have, and we are bound to furnish it. Don't be afraid of yourman; he 's used to it, --he's been pumped often enough to take iteasy, and what you've got to do is to pump him dry. You need n't bemodest, --ask him what you like; he is n't bound to answer, you know. '

"As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up alittle, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine onmy best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the housewhere he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and pass for avisitor from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' who call into pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home and say thatthey have met the distinguished So and So, which gives them a certaindistinction in the village circle to which they belong. 

"My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently hisreception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on myface, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his face inthe light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged things so asto give him that advantage. It was like two frigates manoeuvring, --eachtrying to get to windward of the other. I never take out mynote-book until I and my man have got engaged in artless and earnestconversation, --always about himself and his works, of course, if he isan author. 

"I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those whohad read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of them. 

"He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a greatmany callers. 

"I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his readersfeel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to cherish acertain attachment to him. 

"He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he said. In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had told himso. 

"My dear sir, " I said, "there is nothing wonderful in the fact youmention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts. 

 'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin. '

"Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), wereyour blood relation. Do they not name their children after you veryfrequently?

"He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes, ' he answered. 'I hope they will allturn out well. '

"I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said. 

"No, not at all, ' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer andpleasanter there. '

"I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for anauthor's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady'sboudoir, a sacred apartment. 

"So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face, when I wanted it on has. 

"You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round theroom, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front aBible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, andother classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to giveit a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum'sRhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheapcompends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-caseswhen you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out whatbooks he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones youparticularly wish to see. 

"Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you supposeis an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes?Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is hisoyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, mustopen. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself, --how gentlyat first, how strenuously when once fairly between the shells!

"And here, I said, you write your books, --those books which havecarried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down toposterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen youwrite with?

"'It is the desk and the very pen, ' he replied. 

"He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took upthe pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather whichthe angel I used to read about in Young's 'Night Thoughts' ought to havedropped, and did n't. 

"Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? Iasked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure. 

"So I got out my note-book. 

"It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview. I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are?

"'They are about eight feet, with the cornice. '

"I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, saidI. Eight feet, --eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down. 

"So I got out my pencil. 

"I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but notusing them as yet. 

"I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at avery early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early youbegan to write in verse?

"He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they arethemselves the subjects of conversation. 

"'Very early, --I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Coletsaid, "'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire. '"

"I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kindenough to translate that line for me. 

"'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing howto write them. '

"How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she?

"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information. 

"'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of AlphonseKarr?'

"Why, --yes, --more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up inFrench literature. What had he to do with your lioness?

"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with acase-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by hecame down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishingher case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in hisdressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. Hekeeps it with an inscription:

 "Donne a Alphonse Karr Par Madame Louise Colet. . . . Dans le dos. 

"Lively little female!'

"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interviewthe lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interestI appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiablydisposed toward me. 

"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everythingabout his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some ofthe points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on mymost audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was newconcerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and thepublic wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these Imeant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but hereare some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading orlistening to:

"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity, ' or a celebratedman?

"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-loveis a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes allthrough it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of thesame kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. Itgenerates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in dangerof becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, lettersthat tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets andendearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hotbefore he began to be what you call a celebrity!'

"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is calledcelebrity?

"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your lifeto stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has toafter his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel aftera few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given youthirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, oncondition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how doyou think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end ofa year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finishedyour task, after all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased tocall "a literary celebrity. " I won't dispute with you as to whether ornot I deserve that title. I will take it for granted I am what you callme, and give you some few hints on my experience. 

"'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors forSelf-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something wouldcome of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorryto say that it has not effected its purpose. '

"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws ofthat Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and asmuch needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I amsorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to theabuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was wellconceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by hisexpression that he was its author. )

"'I see I can trust you, ' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of someof the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whomyou have applied the term "Literary Celebrity. "

"'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales ofhis books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes intohis pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him forhis signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes tohim for assistance. 

"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded byreceiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he isexpected to fill up. 

"'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and givehis opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a wordwhich can be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all thenewspapers. 

"'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he iscalled upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscriptshaving almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they havebeen sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever. 

"'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to writefor fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, tosend money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heardof. 

"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, whobegin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriateit by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet aftersheet, if of the other. 

"'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any momentand spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggestedto him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on herreaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, anode for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found inLippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic loverwho believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of hisaffections. '

"Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity. 

"'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, andthey will both have a good laugh over them. '

"I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had withthe Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasingself-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings andspread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linenon the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to himthat he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himselfexposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns ofThe People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor. '"

After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who theperson spoken of as the "Literary Celebrity" might be. Among the varioussuppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither morenor less than the unexplained personage known in the village as MauriceKirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be theCelebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escapefrom the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him andstabbing him nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy?

The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question theInterviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happenedsoon after the meeting when his paper was read. 

"I do not know, " she said, in the course of a conversation in which shehad spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment ofthe Society, "that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whomyou interviewed so successfully. "

"I did not mention him, Miss Vincent, " he answered, "nor do I think itworth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story toldof how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if Idid, it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regrettingthat he was bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignationat the bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages oftrash, all the writers of which would expect answers to their letters ofcondolence. "

The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman whocalled himself Maurice Kirkwood. 

"What, " he answered, "the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides allthe wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I havemet him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me. Do you know anything particular about him?"

"Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that hehas a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what orwhom. "

"To newspaper correspondents, perhaps, " said the interviewer. "What madeyou ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity, 'did you?"

"I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview thismysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, Ishould think. "

"Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any storyof crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even afew paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle himprofessionally. "

"I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how muchwiser you are for that piece of information. "

"An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as fora naked caterpillar, --I believe I should go into a fit if I had totouch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great greencaterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and earlyautumn. "

"Afraid of them?" asked the young lady. 

"Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can'tgive any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of thesecreatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out, --sometimes usingvery improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the moment. "

"I understand what you mean, " said Miss Vincent. "I used to have thesame feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a littlemenagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, prettymuch got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though Idon't scream when I see one. "

"What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particularantipathy?"

"That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can'tguess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying todiscover some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way ofeverybody, as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seemto be able to tell which. It would make the old ladies of the villagesleep a great deal sounder, --yes, and some of the young ladies, too, --ifthey could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, thathe never comes near any of the people here. "

"I think I can find out, " said the Interviewer, whose professionalambition was beginning to be excited. "I never came across anybody yetthat I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a weekor two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, ofthis Mr. Maurice Kirkwood. "

We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present uswith some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure. 

XI. THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. 

When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as shepulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strainshe was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, buthow great the force of her best was she was not aware until she sawits effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all itsmanifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproachherself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrastto her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed thedifference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed thecorresponding traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature restfuland sympathetic. 

The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which willone day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence oftwo young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavilythan the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure toassert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes. 

On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as hersuperior. She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, anddeferred to her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions. It was adifferent thing, however, when the graver questions of life came up. Lurida was full of suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liableto run into whims before she knew where they were tending. She would layout her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she couldnot help believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend mustaccept them with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia wouldtake them up with her sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmerjudgment to bear on them. 

Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her newinterests and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papersto be read at the meetings of her Society, --for she made it her own ingreat measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm, --and in the mean time she wasreading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearingon the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was lookingforward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herselfwith the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion, or disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name ofantipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly inthe fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, andpartly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity inher desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question. 

"How do you like the books I see you reading?" said Euthymia to Lurida, one day, as they met at the Library. 

"Better than all the novels I ever read, " she answered. "I have beenreading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearerthe springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just asif I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in myhead, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how manycentres of energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sortsof influences, external and internal. Do you know, I believe I couldsolve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx, ' as the paper calledhim, if he would only stay here long enough?"

"What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heardof its being mentioned in any of the papers. "

"You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about herefor some time, --the same one who gave the account of his interview witha celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in whichhe writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor. ' He talksabout this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is aSphinx here, who has mystified us all. "

"And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'llhave you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safewhere one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh, Lurida, Lurida, do be careful! What with this mysterious young man andthis very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talkedabout, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let theriddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people, the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other. --I wonderif we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so muchcuriosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your havinganything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and getyour name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like. "

"Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him achance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can gethim to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy, so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore abouthim. I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in ayoung man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. I believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathiesand antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into themysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I oftenwonder whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as'brain-waves, ' which some have already recognized. "

Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talkingthe language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one ofthose persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, willnever be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates ofone of our great universities are living examples of this precociousbut enduring intellectual development. If the readers of this narrativecannot pick them out, they need not expect the writer of it to helpthem. If they guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the factthat just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealingwith are met with from time to time in families where intelligence hasbeen cumulative for two or three generations. 

Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitorshould learn all that was known in the village about the nebulousindividual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village weretrying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some otherinformant than Lurida. 

The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outsidehis door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking andhandsome youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikinglythat one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by hisside. Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewerasked all sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When hecame to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interestregarding him. The greatest curiosity, he said, existed with referenceto this personage. Everybody was trying to find out what his storywas, --for a story, and a strange one, he must surely have, --and nobodyhad succeeded. 

The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told himthe various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, abouthis horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat wasoverturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help outthe effect of his narrative. 

The Interviewer was becoming excited. "Can't find out anything abouthim, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find?Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is anactor, --a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off intheir summer vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They arethe very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at thecity theatres; but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kingsand Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tellyou. "

The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. "I shouldn't wonder ifyou were right, " he said. "I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeothat looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, asthey call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believethere are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out whohe is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, and why he doesn't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don'tcome up here and get hold of this story. It would be just the thing fora sensational writer. "

To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a columnabout; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions, --to the biggestpumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog fromthe human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading withoutspectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaceswhich are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or everysix months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a newstory, an undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonderthat the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subjectfor an inventive and emotional correspondent. 

He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice'sconfidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himselfthat he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summerseason many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in ArrowheadVillage. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits--oranges, bananas, and others, according to the seasons--did an active business. TheInterviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that hishand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwoodwas living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examiningthe contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity. Herewas an introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to themaster. 

He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man, --there wasno difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was anItalian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him. 

"Good morning, Mr. Paul, " he said. "How do you like the look of theseoranges?"

"They pretty fair, " said Paolo: "no so good as them las' week; no sweetas them was. "

"Why, how do you know without tasting them?" said the Interviewer. 

"I know by his look, --I know by his smell, --he no good yaller, --he nosmell ripe, --I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is, " andPaolo laughed at his own comparison. 

The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo. 

"Good!" said he, --"first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Whycan't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? Ishall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to gettwo nice sweet ones for him. "

Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He feltgrateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity ofconferring a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and gravedeliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer himan orange, and so shift the balance of obligation. 

"How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?" he asked. 

"Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you hesick?"

"No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a dayor two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is hein the house now?"

"No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, veryearly, --in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read, and study, and write, --he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood. "

"A good many books, has n't he?"

"He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, oldbooks, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you. "

"Has n't he some curiosities, --old figures, old jewelry, old coins, orthings of that sort?"

Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. "He don'tkeep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things, --oldjugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in oldtimes: she don't pass now. " Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhatindiscriminately distributed. 

A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. "I wonder if he would examinesome old coins of mine?" said he, in a modestly tentative manner. 

"I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him. Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?"

"Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call andshow him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones. "

The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three oldbattered bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, wherethey had been passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct, --a commonlittle Roman penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question, as would two or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told himthat if he came the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeingMr. Kirkwood. At any rate, he would speak to his master. 

The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing hisbreakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwoodat home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger upto his library, --or study, as he modestly called it. 

It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in onedirection, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it upin scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many ofthem, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing thatprobably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. Withthese were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent onesin cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he foundthat he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Someof the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had nameswhich he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strangeto his eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literaturewere there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better notattempt to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar. 

The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for hisvisiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and whowas living as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showedthem to Maurice. 

"I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a goodmany yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping thatyou could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had fora good while. " So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name ofGallienus. 

"Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices havebeen paid for some of these ancient coins, --ever so many guineas, sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old. "

"More than a thousand years old, " said Maurice. 

"And worth a great deal of money?" asked the Interviewer. 

"No, not a great deal of money, " answered Maurice. 

"How much, should you say?" said the Interviewer. 

Maurice smiled. "A little more than the value of its weight incopper, --I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coinsof Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take suchpieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, toyoung collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as arelic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand orfifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is agood deal a matter of imagination. "

"And what do you say to these others?" asked the Interviewer. Poor oldworn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some fainttrace of a figure on one or two of them. 

"Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to thetimes when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed oneof them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was broughtwhen One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it. 'But the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beautyand preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is acoin, now, "--he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. "Here is aSyracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare, well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it. "

The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very littlemore for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thoughthis purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matterabout the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, thatMaurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what he himselfconsidered so; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That woulddo for a beginning. 

"May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?" he said

"That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pickup' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I boughtthis of a great dealer in Rome. "

"Lived in Rome once?" said the Interviewer. 

"For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?"

The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he shouldgo there, one of these years, "suppose you studied art and antiquitieswhile you were there?" he continued. 

"Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities. Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classicauthors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, andnot have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, andchurches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take itfor granted?"

The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them. "Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome, " he answered. "May I askhow long you lived in Rome?"

"Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No oneshould go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiarwith Vasari, of course?"

The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out hishandkerchief. "It is a warm day, " he said. "I have not had time to readall--the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, tofind all the time for reading and study I could have wished. "

"In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardonmy inquiry? said Maurice. 

"I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man ofletters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your ownlips some account of your literary experiences. "

"Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve itfor my autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do Iunderstand that you are an author?"

By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was avery warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by theright handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's verysimple question. 

"If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, Imay call myself one. I write for the 'People's Perennial and HouseholdInquisitor'. "

"Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do youmanage the political column?"

"I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters ofinterest. "

"Places you have been to, and people you have known?"

"Well, yes, -generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile myarticles. "

"Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?"

The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he hadfound that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thinghe could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that heshould be able to pick up something or other which he could work intohis report of his visit. 

"Well, I--prepared that article for our columns. You know one does nothave to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, inits descriptions?"

"Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but Ican't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle--the oldMilvian bridge--a good deal too far down the stream, if I remember. Ihappened to notice that, but I did not read the article carefully. MayI ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visitand the conversation we have had, for the columns of the newspaper withwhich you are connected?"

The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. "If you have no objections, "he said, "I should like very much to ask a few questions. " He wasrecovering his professional audacity. 

"You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet, --after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you tosubmit me to examination?"

"The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humbleagent of its investigations. "

"What has the public to do with my private affairs?"

"I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settleseverything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a largenumber of curious people that form a majority against you. That is theway I've heard the chief put it. "

Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the Americancitizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure, at last. Maurice calmly answered, "There is nothing left for minorities, then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made thesubject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, mindingmy own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against yoursystem of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the publicall it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall requestto be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you agood-morning. "

The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his nextcommunication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a briefmention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting theplace, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege ofexamining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty thatshunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligencewould otherwise confer upon him. 

The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failedto get the first hint of its solution. 

The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle. The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the variouscases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversationalcircles which met every evening in the different centres of sociallife. The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had acongenital aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him wereso painful or disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it. It was known, and it has already been mentioned, that such cases wereon record. There had been a great deal of discussion, of late, withreference to a fact long known to a few individuals, but only recentlymade a matter of careful scientific observation and brought to thenotice of the public. This was the now well-known phenomenon ofcolor-blindness. It did not seem very strange that if one person inevery score or two could not tell red from green there might be othercurious individual peculiarities relating to color. A case has alreadybeen referred to where the subject of observation fainted at the sightof any red object. What if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood?It will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy would tend toisolate the person who was its unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesisnot difficult to test, but it was a rather delicate business to beexperimenting on an inoffensive stranger. Miss Vincent was thinkingit over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of any projects she mightentertain. 

XII. MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. 

The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as MissVincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading variousworks selected for her by Dr. Butts, --works chiefly relating to thenervous system and its different affections. She thought it was abouttime to talk over the general subject of the medical profession with hernew teacher, --if such a self-directing person as Lurida could be said torecognize anybody as teacher. 

She began at the beginning. "What is the first book you would put ina student's hands, doctor?" she said to him one day. They were in hisstudy, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on Insanity, one of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it had been apamphlet. 

"Not that book, certainly, " he said. "I am afraid it will put all sortsof notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading that, I shouldlike to know?"

"I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps becrazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what kindof a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright, those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid enough ever tolose my wits. "

"There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that busybrain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about so manypeople possessed with such strange notions?"

"Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many peopleI had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. Take thatpoor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person, --not Her Majesty, butHer Majesty's Person, --a very important distinction, according to her:how she does remind me of more than one girl I have known! She would lether skirts down so as to make a kind of train, and pile things on herhead like a sort of crown, fold her arms and throw her head back, andfeel as grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl act very muchin that way. Are not most of us a little crazy, doctor, --just a little?I think so. It seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free fromevery hint of craziness. "

"And who was that, pray?"

"Why, Euthymia, --nobody else, of course. She never loses her head, --Idon't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work withour microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind wasthe only achromatic one I ever looked into, --I did n't say lookedthrough. ---But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of yourbooks that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he shouldread, the great physician said, 'Read "Don Quixote. "' I want you toexplain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the firstbook, according to your idea, that a student ought to read. "

"What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper tobe read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies atthe meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study ofmedicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in thesubject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tellthem about their calling. "

"I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubtthere will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to sayabout it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Eutbymia to becomea physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so fullof wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm, or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as wellas the captain of the boat or of the fire-company. "

"Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?"

"Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times wewould have studying together!"

"I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do youthink practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride tenmiles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headacheswas racking you?"

"Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid ofstorms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!"

"Well, what does she say to it?"

"She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in womendoctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it bynature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me agood many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what mostof them are, doctor, --and ends by saying that the same woman who wouldbe a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that, she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to thehospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her. "

"Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but Iam disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a goodnurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to meto go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners. But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving womenevery chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one oftheir proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that theyhad better at least limit themselves to certain specialties, and alwayshave an expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble is thatthey are so impressible and imaginative that they are at the mercyof all sorts of fancy systems. You have only to see what kinds ofinstruction they very commonly flock to in order to guess whether theywould be likely to prove sensible practitioners. Charlatanism alwayshobbles on two crutches, the tattle of women, and the certificates ofclergymen, and I am afraid that half the women doctors will be too muchunder both those influences. "

Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language ofthe village, had "carried her through" a fever, brought on byover-excitement and exhausting study. She took no offence at hisreference to nursery gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. Nobodyso despises the weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's rights. She accepted the doctor's concession of a fair field and open trial ofthe fitness of her sex for medical practice, and did not trouble herselfabout his suggested limitations. As to the imaginative tendencies ofwomen, she knew too well the truth of the doctor's remark relating tothem to wish to contradict it. 

"Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting, doctor, " she said; and in due season it came, and was of course approvedfor reading. 

XIII. DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. 

"Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal soulsis that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my very firststatement may be open to criticism. The care of the body is the firstthought with a great many, --in fact, with the larger part of the world. They send for the physician first, and not until he gives them up dothey commonly call in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is notso very different from other people. We must not blame him if he isnot always impatient to exchange a world of multiplied interestsand ever-changing sources of excitement for that which tradition hasdelivered to us as one eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety. Besides, these bodily frames, even when worn and disfigured by longyears of service, hang about our consciousness like old garments. Theyare used to us, and we are used to them. And all the accidents of ourlives, --the house we dwell in, the living people round us, the landscapewe look over, all, up to the sky that covers us like a bell glass, --allthese are but looser outside garments which we have worn until they seema part of us, and we do not like the thought of changing them for a newsuit which we have never yet tried on. How well I remember that dearancient lady, who lived well into the last decade of her century, asshe repeated the verse which, if I had but one to choose, I would selectfrom that string of pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'!

 "'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?'

"Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be, than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well doubtedif there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary, there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many who havecome here to regain the health they have lost in the wear and tear ofcity life, and very few who have not at some time or other of theirlives had occasion to call in the services of a physician. 

"There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering to the memberssome remarks upon the peculiar difficulties which beset the medicalpractitioner in the discharge of his laborious and important duties. 

"A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest in medical studies, happened to meet with a very familiar story about one of the greatestand most celebrated of all English physicians, Thomas Sydenham. Thestory is that, when a student asked him what books he should read, thegreat doctor told him to read 'Don Quixote. '

"This piece of advice has been used to throw contempt upon the study ofbooks, and furnishes a convenient shield for ignorant pretenders. But Sydenham left many writings in which he has recorded his medicalexperience, and he surely would not have published them if he had notthought they would be better reading for the medical student than thestory of Cervantes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and hecertainly could not have supposed that they contained all the wisdom ofall the past. No remedy is good, it was said of old, unless applied atthe right time in the right way. So we may say of all anecdotes, likethis which I have told you about Sydenham and the young man. It is verylikely that he carried him to the bedside of some patients, and talkedto him about the cases he showed him, instead of putting a Latin volumein his hand. I would as soon begin in that way as any other, with astudent who had already mastered the preliminary branches, --who knewenough about the structure and functions of the body in health. 

"But if you ask me what reading I would commend to the medical studentof a philosophical habit of mind, you may be surprised to hear me sayit would be certain passages in 'Rasselas. ' They are the ones where theastronomer gives an account to Imlac of his management of the elements, the control of which, as he had persuaded himself, had been committed tohim. Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which is commonlybound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield, ' like a woollen lining toa silken mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in processions ofparagraphs which sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum-majorto march before their tramping platoons. 

"The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confidence, and reveals to himthe secret of his wonderful powers:--

"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. Ihave possessed for five years the regulation of the weather and thedistribution of the seasons the sun has listened to my dictates, andpassed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call, have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; Ihave restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors ofthe crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hithertoeluded my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctialtempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or restrain. '

"The reader naturally wishes to know how the astronomer, a sincere, devoted, and most benevolent man, for forty years a student of theheavens, came to the strange belief that he possessed these miraculouspowers. This is his account:

"'One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt inmy mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains, and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination Icommanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command withthat of the inundation I found that the clouds had listened to my lips. '

"'Might not some other cause, ' said I, 'produce this concurrence? TheNile does not always rise on the same day. '

"'Do not believe, ' said he, with impatience, I that such objectionscould escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and laboredagainst truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myselfof madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a manlike you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossibleand the incredible from the false. '

"The good old astronomer gives his parting directions to Imlac, whom hehas adopted as his successor in the government of the elements and theseasons, in these impressive words:

"Do not, in the administration of the year, indulge thy pride byinnovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst makethyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. Thememory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become theeto let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rainto pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient. '

"Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen these passages, in whichthe delusions of an insane astronomer are related with all the pompof the Johnsonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young personabout to enter on the study of the science and art of healing? Listen tome while I show you the parallel of the story of the astronomer in thehistory of medicine. 

"This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant with benevolence, but all its wisdom and all its virtue have had to struggle with theever-rising mists of delusion. The agencies which waste and destroythe race of mankind are vast and resistless as the elemental forces ofnature; nay, they are themselves elemental forces. They may be to someextent avoided, to some extent diverted from their aim, to some extentresisted. So may the changes of the seasons, from cold that freezesto heats that strike with sudden death, be guarded against. So may thetides be in some small measure restrained in their inroads. So may thestorms be breasted by walls they cannot shake from their foundations. But the seasons and the tides and the tempests work their will on thegreat scale upon whatever stands in their way; they feed or starve thetillers of the soil; they spare or drown the dwellers by the shore; theywaft the seaman to his harbor or bury him in the angry billows. 

"The art of the physician can do much to remove its subjects from deadlyand dangerous influences, and something to control or arrest the effectsof these influences. But look at the records of the life-insuranceoffices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's destroyingagencies. Look at the annual reports of the deaths in any of our greatcities, and see how their regularity approaches the uniformity of thetides, and their variations keep pace with those of the seasons. Theinundations of the Nile are not more certainly to be predicted than thevast wave of infantile disease which flows in upon all our great citieswith the growing heats of July, --than the fevers and dysenteries whichvisit our rural districts in the months of the falling leaf. 

"The physician watches these changes as the astronomer watched therise of the great river. He longs to rescue individuals, to protectcommunities from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He uses allthe means which experience has approved, tries every rational methodwhich ingenuity can suggest. Some fortunate recovery leads him tobelieve he has hit upon a preventive or a cure for a malady which hadresisted all known remedies. His rescued patient sounds his praises, anda wide circle of his patient's friends joins in a chorus of eulogies. Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self-interest congratulates himon his having found the road to fortune; the sense of having proved abenefactor of his race smooths the pillow on which he lays his headto dream of the brilliant future opening before him. If a singlecoincidence may lead a person of sanguine disposition to believe that hehas mastered a disease which had baffled all who were before his time, and on which his contemporaries looked in hopeless impotence, what mustbe the effect of a series of such coincidences even on a mind of calmertemper! Such series of coincidences will happen, and they may welldeceive the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush, --you know what a famous manhe was, the very head and front of American medical science in his day, --and remember how he spoke about yellow fever, which he thought he hadmastered!

"Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of a wide conspiracy, in which he and his patient and their friends, and-Nature herself, areinvolved. What wonder that the history of Medicine should be to so greatan extent a record of self-delusion!

"If this seems a dangerous concession to the enemies of the true scienceand art of healing, I will remind you that it is all implied in thefirst aphorism of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not draw awrong inference from the frank statement of the difficulties whichbeset the medical practitioner. Think rather, if truth is so hard ofattainment, how precious are the results which the consent of the wisestand most experienced among the healers of men agrees in accepting. Thinkwhat folly it is to cast them aside in favor of palpable impositionsstolen from the records of forgotten charlatanism, or of fantasticspeculations spun from the squinting brains of theorists as wild as theEgyptian astronomer. 

"Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the fortieth and thefollowing four chapters of 'Rasselas. ' Your first lesson will teachyou modesty and caution in the pursuit of the most deceptive of allpractical branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when you learnhow much medical science and art have actually achieved for the reliefof mankind, and how great are the promises it holds out of still largertriumphs over the enemies of human health and happiness. "

After the reading of this paper there was a lively discussion, which wehave no room to report here, and the Society adjourned. 

XIV. MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. 

The sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. Butts was not a littleexercised in mind by the demands made upon his knowledge by his youngfriend, and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida Vincent. 

"I don't wonder they called her The Terror, " he said to himself. "She isenough to frighten anybody. She has taken down old books from myshelves that I had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to the medicaljournals, I believe the girl could index them from memory. She is inpursuit of some special point of knowledge, I feel sure, and I cannotdoubt what direction she is working in, but her wonderful way of dealingwith books amazes me. "

What marvels those "first scholars" in the classes of our greatuniversities and colleges are, to be sure! They are not, as a rule, the most distinguished of their class in the long struggle of life. The chances are that "the field" will beat "the favorite" over the longrace-course. Others will develop a longer stride and more staying power. But what fine gifts those "first scholars" have received from nature!How dull we writers, famous or obscure, are in the acquisition ofknowledge as compared with them! To lead their classmates they musthave quick apprehension, fine memories, thorough control of theirmental faculties, strong will, power of concentration, facility ofexpression, --a wonderful equipment of mental faculties. I always want totake my hat off to the first scholar of his year. 

Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he contemplated The Terror. She surprised him so often with her knowledge that he was ready toreceive her without astonishment when she burst in upon him one allaywith a cry of triumph, "Eureka! Eureka!"

"And what have you found, my dear?" said the doctor. 

Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new discovery. 

"I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor'sdread of all human intercourse!"

The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance. 

"Wait a minute and get your breath, " said the doctor. "Are you not alittle overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. He keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the OldTavern, he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow hepulled out of the water, or rescued somehow, --I don't believe be avoidsthe whole human race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as Ihave remarked his expression. I passed a few words with him when his manwas ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I don't believe it is muchmore than an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with somecongenital or other personal repugnance to which has been given the nameof an antipathy. "

Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When hefinished, she began the account of her discovery:

"I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in anItalian medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with areference which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degliOspitali lying among the old pamphlets in the medical section of theLibrary. I have made a translation of it, which you must read and thentell me if you do not agree with me in my conclusion. "

"Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see formyself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you seem tohave reached. "

Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of amap of the world, as she said, "I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of thebite of a TARANTULA!"

The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way thestories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but he hadconsigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fictions haveclothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. He looked intothe round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared thatshe was in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his professionaltraining, he waited for another symptom, if indeed her mind was in anymeasure off its balance. 

"I know what you are thinking, " Lurida said, "but it is not so. 'I amnot mad, most noble Festus. ' You shall see the evidence and judge foryourself. Read the whole case, --you can read my hand almost as if itwere print, and tell me if you do not agree with me that this youngman is in all probability the same person as the boy described in theItalian journal, "One thing you might say is against the supposition. The young patientis spoken of as Signorino M---- Ch------ But you must remember that chis pronounced hard in Italian, like k, which letter is wanting in theItalian alphabet; and it is natural enough that the initial of thesecond name should have got changed in the record to its Italianequivalent. "

Before inviting the reader to follow the details of this extraordinarycase as found in a medical journal, the narrator wishes to be indulgedin a few words of explanation, in order that he may not have toapologize for allowing the introduction of a subject which may bethought to belong to the professional student rather than to the readersof this record. There is a great deal in medical books which it is veryunbecoming to bring before the general public, --a great deal to repel, to disgust, to alarm, to excite unwholesome curiosity. It is not the menwhose duties have made them familiar with this class of subjects whoare most likely to offend by scenes and descriptions which belong to thephysician's private library, and not to the shelves devoted to politeliterature. Goldsmith and even Smollett, both having studied andpractised medicine, could not by any possibility have outraged all thenatural feelings of delicacy and decency as Swift and Zola have outragedthem. But without handling doubtful subjects, there are many curiousmedical experiences which have interest for every one as extremeillustrations of ordinary conditions with which all are acquainted. Noone can study the now familiar history of clairvoyance profitably whohas not learned something of the vagaries of hysteria. No one can readunderstandingly the life of Cowper and that of Carlyle without havingsome idea of the influence of hypochondriasis and of dyspepsia upon thedisposition and intellect of the subjects of these maladies. I neednot apologize, therefore, for giving publicity to that part of thisnarrative which deals with one of the most singular maladies to be foundin the records of bodily and mental infirmities. 

The following is the account of the case as translated by Miss Vincent. For obvious reasons the whole name was not given in the original paper, and for similar reasons the date of the event and the birthplace of thepatient are not precisely indicated here. 

[Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18-. ] REMARKABLE CASE OF TARANTISM. 

"The great interest attaching to the very singular and exceptionalinstance of this rare affection induces us to give a full account of theextraordinary example of its occurrence in a patient who was the subjectof a recent medical consultation in this city. 

"Signorino M. . . Ch. . . Is the only son of a gentleman travelling inItaly at this time. He is eleven years of age, of sanguine-nervoustemperament, light hair, blue eyes, intelligent countenance, well grown, but rather slight in form, to all appearance in good health, but subjectto certain peculiar and anomalous nervous symptoms, of which his fathergives this history. 

"Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was travelling in Italy withhis wife, this child, and a nurse. They were passing a few days in acountry village near the city of Bari, capital of the province of thesame name in the division (compartamento) of Apulia. The child was inperfect health and had never been affected by any serious illness. Onthe 10th of July he was playing out in the field near the housewhere the family was staying when he was heard to scream suddenly andviolently. The nurse rushing to him found him in great pain, saying thatsomething had bitten him in one of his feet. A laborer, one Tommaso, ran up at the moment and perceived in the grass, near where the boywas standing, an enormous spider, which he at once recognized as atarantula. He managed to catch the creature in a large leaf, from whichhe was afterwards transferred to a wide-mouthed bottle, where he livedwithout any food for a month or more. The creature was covered withshort hairs, and had a pair of nipper-like jaws, with which he couldinflict an ugly wound. His body measured about an inch in length, andfrom the extremity of one of the longest limbs to the other was betweentwo and three inches. Such was the account given by the physician towhom the peasant carried the great spider. 

"The boy who had been bitten continued screaming violently while hisstocking was being removed and the foot examined. The place of the bitewas easily found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already showedthe effects of the poison, a small livid circle extending around them, with some puffy swelling. The distinguished Dr. Amadei was immediatelysent for, and applied cups over the wounds in the hope of drawing forththe poison. In vain all his skill and efforts! Soon, ataxic (irregular)nervous symptoms declared themselves, and it became plain that thesystem had been infected by the poison. 

"The symptoms were very much like those of malignant fever, suchas distress about the region of the heart, difficulty of breathing, collapse of all the vital powers, threatening immediate death. Fromthese first symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organism hadbeen profoundly affected by the venom circulating through it. Hisconstitution has never thrown off the malady resulting from this toxic(poisonous) agent. The phenomena which have been observed in this youngpatient correspond so nearly with those enumerated in the elaborateessay of the celebrated Baglivi that one might think they had beentranscribed from his pages. 

"He is very fond of solitude, --of wandering about in churchyards andother lonely places. He was once found hiding in an empty tomb, whichhad been left open. His aversion to certain colors is remarkable. Generally speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker ones, but hislikes and dislikes are capricious, and with regard to some colors hisantipathy amounts to positive horror. Some shades have such an effectupon him that he cannot remain in the room with them, and if he meetsany one whose dress has any of that particular color he will turn awayor retreat so as to avoid passing that person. Among these, purple anddark green are the least endurable. He cannot explain the sensationswhich these obnoxious colors produce except by saying that it is likethe deadly feeling from a blow on the epigastrium (pit of the stomach). 

"About the same season of the year at which the tarantular poisoningtook place he is liable to certain nervous seizures, not exactly likefainting or epilepsy, but reminding the physician of those affections. All the other symptoms are aggravated at this time. 

"In other respects than those mentioned the boy is in good health. Heis fond of riding, and has a pony on which he takes a great deal ofexercise, which seems to do him more good than any other remedy. 

"The influence of music, to which so much has been attributed by popularbelief and even by the distinguished Professor to whom we shall againrefer, has not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. If the graversymptoms recur while the patient is under our observation, we propose tomake use of an agency discredited by modern skepticism, but deserving ofa fair trial as an exceptional remedy for an exceptional disease. 

"The following extracts from the work of the celebrated Italianphysician of the last century are given by the writer of the paper inthe Giornale in the original Latin, with a translation into Italian, subjoined. Here are the extracts, or rather here is a selection fromthem, with a translation of them into English. 

"After mentioning the singular aversion to certain colors shown bythe subject of Tarantism, Baglivi writes as follows: "'Et si astantesincedant vestibus eo colore difusis, qui Tarantatis ingrates est, necesse est ut ab illorum aspectu recedant; nam ad intuitum molesticoloris angore cordis, et symptomatum recrudescantia statingcorripiuntur. ' (G. Baglivi, Op. Omnia, page 614. Lugduni, 1745. )

"That is, 'if the persons about the patient wear dresses of the colorwhich is offensive to him, he must get away from the sight of them, foron seeing the obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress in theregion of the heart, and a renewal of his symptoms. '

"As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi says: "'Dam calor solisardentius exurere incip at, quod contingit circa initia Julii etAugusti, Tarantati lente venientem recrudescentiam veneni percipiunt. '(Ibid. , page 619. )

"Which I render, 'When the heat of the sun begins to burn more fiercely, which happens about the beginning of July and August, the subjects ofTarantism perceive the gradually approaching recrudescence (returningsymptoms) of the poisoning. Among the remedies most valued by thisillustrious physician is that mentioned in the following sentence:

"'Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusticano factas singulis diebus, hord potissimum matutina, quibus equitationibus morbos chronicos peneincurabiles protanus eliminavi. '

"Or in translation, 'I commend especially riding on horseback in countryair, every day, by preference in the morning hours, by the aid of whichhorseback riding I have driven off chronic diseases which were almostincurable. '"

Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, and handed it to himto examine and consider. He listened with a grave countenance and devoutattention. 

As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed in the passionatetones of the deepest conviction, "There, doctor! Have n't I found the true story of this strange visitor?Have n't I solved the riddle of the Sphinx? Who can this man be but theboy of that story? Look at the date of the journal when he was elevenyears old, it would make him twenty-five now, and that is just about theage the people here think he must be of. What could account so entirelyfor his ways and actions as that strange poisoning which produces thestate they call Tarantism? I am just as sure it must be that as I amthat I am alive. Oh, doctor, doctor, I must be right, --this SignprinoM . . . Ch. . . Was the boy Maurice Kirkwood, and the story accounts foreverything, --his solitary habits, his dread of people, --it must bebecause they wear the colors he can't bear. His morning rides onhorseback, his coming here just as the season was approaching whichwould aggravate all his symptoms, does n't all this prove that I must beright in my conjecture, --no, my conviction?"

The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young enthusiast, and so helet her run on until she ran down. He was more used to the rules ofevidence than she was, and could not accept her positive conclusion soreadily as she would have liked to have him. He knew that beginners arevery apt to make what they think are discoveries. But he had been anangler and knew the meaning of a yielding rod and an easy-running reel. He said quietly, "You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie caseit is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood is notthe same person as the M. . . Ch. . . Of the medical journal, --that is, ifI accept your explanation of the difference in the initials of these twonames. Even if there were a difference, that would not disprove theiridentity, for the initials of patients whose cases are reported by theirphysicians are often altered for the purpose of concealment. I do notknow, however, that Mr. Kirkwood has shown any special aversion to anyparticular color. It might be interesting to inquire whether it is so, but it is a delicate matter. I don't exactly see whose business it isto investigate Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's idiosyncrasies and constitutionalhistory. If he should have occasion to send for me at any time, he mighttell me all about himself, in confidence, you know. These old accountsfrom Baglivi are curious and interesting, but I am cautious aboutreceiving any stories a hundred years old, if they involve animprobability, as his stories about the cure of the tarantula biteby music certainly do. I am disposed to wait for future developments, bearing in mind, of course, the very singular case you have unearthed. It wouldn't be very strange if our young gentleman had to send for mebefore the season is over. He is out a good deal before the dew is offthe grass, which is rather risky in this neighborhood as autumn comeson. I am somewhat curious, I confess, about the young man, but I do notmeddle where I am not asked for or wanted, and I have found that eggshatch just as well if you let them alone in the nest as if you takethem out and shake them every day. This is a wonderfully interestingsupposition of yours, and may prove to be strictly in accordance withthe facts. But I do not think we have all the facts in this young man'scase. If it were proved that he had an aversion to any color, it wouldgreatly strengthen your case. His 'antipatia, ' as his man calledit, must be one which covers a wide ground, to account for hisself-isolation, --and the color hypothesis seems as plausible as any. But, my dear Miss Vincent, I think you had better leave your singularand striking hypothesis in my keeping for a while, rather than let itget abroad in a community like this, where so many tongues are in activeexercise. I will carefully study this paper, if you will leave it withme, and we will talk the whole matter over. It is a fair subject forspeculation, only we must keep quiet about it. "

This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain time to cool off alittle. She left the paper with the doctor, telling him she would comefor it the next day, and went off to tell the result of this visit toher bosom friend, Miss Euthymia Tower. 

XV. DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. 

The doctor was troubled in thinking over his interview with the younglady. She was fully possessed with the idea that she had discovered thesecret which had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. It wasof no use to oppose her while her mind was in an excited state. Buthe felt it his duty to guard her against any possible results ofindiscretion into which her eagerness and her theory of the equality, almost the identity, of the sexes might betray her. Too much of thewoman in a daughter of our race leads her to forget danger. Too littleof the woman prompts her to defy it. Fortunately for this last class ofwomen, they are not quite so likely to be perilously seductive as theirmore emphatically feminine sisters. 

Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from the days of theirinfancy. He had watched the development of Lurida's intelligence fromits precocious nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained faculties. He had looked with admiration on the childish beauty of Euthymia, and had seen her grow up to womanhood, every year making her moreattractive. He knew that if anything was to be done with his self-willedyoung scholar and friend, it would be more easily effected through themedium of Euthymia than by direct advice to the young lady herself. So the thoughtful doctor made up his mind to have a good talk withEuthymia, and put her on her guard, if Lurida showed any tendency toforget the conventionalities in her eager pursuit of knowledge. 

For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the door of Miss EuthymiaTower's parental home was an event strange enough to set all the tonguesin the village going. This was one of those families where illness washardly looked for among the possibilities of life. There were otherfamilies where a call from the doctor was hardly more thought of thana call from the baker. But here he was a stranger, at least on hisprofessional rounds, and when he asked for Miss Euthymia the servant, who knew his face well, stared as if he had held in his hand a warrantfor her apprehension. 

Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long while she made readyto meet him. One look at her glass to make sure that a lock had not runastray, or a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for a morning callwas finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood had been announced, shemight have taken a second look, but with the good middle-aged, marrieddoctor one was enough for a young lady who had the gift of making allthe dresses she wore look well, and had no occasion to treat her chamberlike the laboratory where an actress compounds herself. 

Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She could not helpsuspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talkover her friend's schemes and fancies with him. 

The doctor began without any roundabout prelude. 

"I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell youall her plans and projects?"

"Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do notbelieve she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what shehas been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into herhead. What do you think of the Tarantula business? She has shown you thepaper, she has written, I suppose. "

"Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and I donot wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she had comeat the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that this youngman is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian medicaljournal. But it is very far from clear that he is so. You know all herreasons, of course, as you have read the story. The times seem to agreewell enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch might be substituted for Kin the report. The singular solitary habits of this young man entirelycoincide with the story. If we could only find out whether he has anyof those feelings with reference to certain colors, we might guess withmore chance of guessing right than we have at present. But I don't seeexactly how we are going to submit him to examination on this point. Ifhe were only a chemical compound, we could analyze him. If he were onlya bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes. Butbeing, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will ofhis own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problembecomes more complicated. I hear that a newspaper correspondent hasvisited him so as to make a report to his paper, --do you know what hefound out?"

"Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, whichwas this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to interview. The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did notlearn much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told Willy about theSphinx's library and a cabinet of coins he had; and said he should makean article out of him, anyhow. I wish the man would take himself off. Iam afraid Lurida's love of knowledge will get her into trouble!"

"Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?"

"I was thinking of the newspaper man. "

She blushed a little as she said, "I can't help feeling a strange sortof interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood. Do you know that I met himthis morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?"

"Well, to be sure! That was an interesting experience. And how did youlike his looks?"

"I thought his face a very remarkable one. But he looked very pale as hepassed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side as if hehad a twinge of pain, or something of that sort, --spasm or neuralgia, --Idon't know what. I wondered whether he had what you call anginapectoris. It was the same kind of look and movement, I remember, as youtrust, too, in my uncle who died with that complaint. "

The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "Were you dressed asyou are now?"

"Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over my shoulders. I wasout early, and I have always remembered your caution. "

"What color was your mantle?"

"It was black. I have been over all this with Lucinda. A black mantle ona white dress. A straw hat with an old faded ribbon. There can't bemuch in those colors to trouble him, I should think, for his man wearsa black coat and white linen, --more or less white, as you must havenoticed, and he must have seen ribbons of all colors often enough. ButLurida believes it was the ribbon, or something in the combination ofcolors. Her head is full of Tarantulas and Tarantism. I fear that shewill never be easy until the question is settled by actual trial. Andwill you believe it? the girl is determined in some way to test hersupposition!"

"Believe it, Euthymia? I can believe almost anything of Lurida. She isthe most irrepressible creature I ever knew. You know as well as I dowhat a complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole nature. Ihave had some fears lest her zeal might run away with her discretion. Itis a great deal easier to get into a false position than to get out ofit. "

"I know it well enough. I want you to tell me what you think about thewhole business. I don't like the look of it at all, and yet I can donothing with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I can showher plainly that she will get herself into trouble in some way or other. But she is ingenious, --full of all sorts of devices, innocent enough inthemselves, but liable to be misconstrued. You remember how she won usthe boat-race?"

"To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, but she felt she waspaying off an old score. The classical story of Atalanta, told, likethat of Eve, as illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her tomake trial of the powers of resistance in the other sex. But it wasaudacious. I hope her audacity will not go too far. You must watch her. Keep an eye on her correspondence. "

The doctor had great confidence in the good sense of Lurida's friend. He felt sure that she would not let Lurida commit herself by writingfoolish letters to the subject of her speculations, or similarindiscreet performances. The boldness of young girls, who think no evil, in opening correspondence with idealized personages is something quiteastonishing to those who have had an opportunity of knowing the facts. Lurida had passed the most dangerous age, but her theory of the equalityof the sexes made her indifferent to the by-laws of social usage. Sherequired watching, and her two guardians were ready to check her, incase of need. 

XVI. MISS VINCENT WRITES A LETTER. 

Euthymia noticed that her friend had been very much preoccupied for twoor three days. She found her more than once busy at her desk, with amanuscript before her, which she turned over and placed inside the desk, as Euthymia entered. 

This desire of concealment was not what either of the friends expectedto see in the other. It showed that some project was under way, which, at least in its present stage, the Machiavellian young lady did notwish to disclose. It had cost her a good deal of thought and care, apparently, for her waste-basket was full of scraps of paper, whichlooked as if they were the remains of a manuscript like that at whichshe was at work. "Copying and recopying, probably, " thought Euthymia, but she was willing to wait to learn what Lurida was busy about, thoughshe had a suspicion that it was something in which she might feel calledupon to interest herself. 

"Do you know what I think?" said Euthymia to the doctor, meeting him ashe left his door. "I believe Lurida is writing to this man, and I don'tlike the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she is not likeother girls in many respects, but other people will judge her by thecommon rules of life. "

"I am glad that you spoke of it, " answered the doctor; "she would writeto him just as quickly as to any woman of his age. Besides, under thecover of her office, she has got into the way of writing to anybody. Ithink she has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, asking him to contributea paper for the Society. She can find a pretext easily enough if she hasmade up her mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she would trouble herselffor any pretext at all if she decided to write. Watch her well. Don'tlet any letter go without seeing it, if you can help it. "

Young women are much given to writing letters to persons whom they onlyknow indirectly, for the most part through their books, and especiallyto romancers and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and simple-heartedthan most of these letters. They are the spontaneous outflow of younghearts easily excited to gratitude for the pleasure which some storyor poem has given them, and recognizing their own thoughts, their ownfeelings, in those expressed by the author, as if on purpose for them toread. Undoubtedly they give great relief to solitary young persons, whomust have some ideal reflection of themselves, and know not where tolook since Protestantism has taken away the crucifix and the Madonna. The recipient of these letters sometimes wonders, after reading throughone of them, how it is that his young correspondent has managed to fillso much space with her simple message of admiration or of sympathy. 

Lurida did not belong to this particular class of correspondents, but she could not resist the law of her sex, whose thoughts naturallysurround themselves with superabundant drapery of language, as theirpersons float in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was she indeedwriting to this unknown gentleman? Euthymia questioned her point-blank. 

"Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. Maurice Kirkwood, Lurida? You seem to be so busy writing, I can think of nothing else. Orare you going to write a novel, or a paper for the Society, --do tell mewhat you are so much taken up with. "

"I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not to find fault withme for carrying out my plan as I have made up my mind to do. You mayread this letter before I seal it, and if you find anything in it youdon't like you can suggest any change that you think will improve it. Ihope you will see that it explains itself. I don't believe that you willfind anything to frighten you in it. "

This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by her friend. The boldhandwriting made it look like a man's letter, and gave it consequentlya less dangerous expression than that which belongs to the tinted andoften fragrant sheet with its delicate thready characters, which slantacross the page like an April shower with a south wind chasing it. 

ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August--, 18--. 

MY DEAR SIR, --You will doubtless be surprised at the sight of a letterlike this from one whom you only know as the Secretary of the PansophianSociety. There is a very common feeling that it is unbecoming in one ofmy sex to address one of your own with whom she is unacquainted, unlessshe has some special claim upon his attention. I am by no means disposedto concede to the vulgar prejudice on this point. If one human beinghas anything to communicate to another, --anything which deserves beingcommunicated, --I see no occasion for bringing in the question of sex. Ido not think the homo sum of Terence can be claimed for the male sex asits private property on general any more than on grammatical grounds, I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the noble art of healing. If I did so, it would be with the fixed purpose of giving my wholepowers to the service of humanity. And if I should carry out that idea, should I refuse my care and skill to a suffering fellow-mortal becausethat mortal happened to be a brother, and not a sister? My wholenature protests against such one-sided humanity! No! I am blind to alldistinctions when my eyes are opened to any form of suffering, to anyspectacle of want. 

You may ask me why I address you, whom I know little or nothing of, and to whom such an advance may seem presumptuous and intrusive. Itis because I was deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed toyou, --that on Ocean, River, and Lake, which was read at one of ourmeetings. I say that I was deeply impressed, but I do not mean this asa compliment to that paper. I am not bandying compliments now, butthinking of better things than praises or phrases. I was interested inthe paper, partly because I recognized some of the feelings expressed init as my own, --partly because there was an undertone of sadness in allthe voices of nature as you echoed them which made me sad to hear, andwhich I could not help longing to cheer and enliven. I said to myself, Ishould like to hold communion with the writer of that paper. I havehad my lonely hours and days, as he has had. I have had some of hisexperiences in my intercourse with nature. And oh! if I could draw himinto those better human relations which await us all, if we come withthe right dispositions, I should blush if I stopped to inquire whether Iviolated any conventional rule or not. 

You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe, do you not? in theinsignificance of the barrier which divides the sisterhood from thebrotherhood of mankind. You believe, do you not? that they should beeducated side by side, that they should share the same pursuits, dueregard being had to the fitness of the particular individual for hardor light work, as it must always be, whether we are dealing withthe "stronger" or the "weaker" sex. I mark these words because, notwithstanding their common use, they involve so much that is not true. Stronger! Yes, to lift a barrel of flour, or a barrel of cider, --thoughthere have been women who could do that, and though when John Wesleywas mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked down three or four men, oneafter another, until she was at last overpowered and nearly murdered. Talk about the weaker sex! Go and see Miss Euthymia Tower at thegymnasium! But no matter about which sex has the strongest muscles. Which has most to suffer, and which has most endurance and vitality? Wego through many ordeals which you are spared, but we outlast you inmind and body. I have been led away into one of my accustomed trains ofthought, but not so far away from it as you might at first suppose. 

My brother! Are you not ready to recognize in me a friend, an equal, asister, who can speak to you as if she had been reared under the sameroof? And is not the sky that covers us one roof, which makes us all onefamily? You are lonely, you must be longing for some human fellowship. Take me into your confidence. What is there that you can tell meto which I cannot respond with sympathy? What saddest note in yourspiritual dirges which will not find its chord in mine?

I long to know what influence has cast its shadow over your existence. Imyself have known what it is to carry a brain that never rests in a bodythat is always tired. I have defied its infirmities, and forced it to domy bidding. You have no such hindrance, if we may judge by your aspectand habits. You deal with horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indiancould handle his bark canoe more dexterously or more vigorously thanwe have seen you handling yours. There must be some reason for yourseclusion which curiosity has not reached, and into which it is not theprovince of curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire whichI have to bring you into kindly relations with those around you, I mustrun the risk of giving offence that I may know in what direction tolook for those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend andsister can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to changethe course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in accordance withhis true nature. 

I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with whichyou are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings, --somethingwhich can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from the peoplewhose acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There can hardly beanything in the place itself, or you would not have voluntarily soughtit as a residence, even for a single season there might be individualshere whom you would not care to meet, there must be such, but you cannothave a personal aversion to everybody. I have heard of cases in whichcertain sights and sounds, which have no particular significance formost persons, produced feelings of distress or aversion that made, them unbearable to the subjects of the constitutional dislike. It hasoccurred to me that possibly you might have some such natural aversionto the sounds of the street, or such as are heard in most houses, especially where a piano is kept, as it is in fact in almost all ofthose in the village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color inthe dresses of women or the furniture of our rooms affected youunpleasantly. I know that instances of such antipathy have beenrecorded, and they would account for the seclusion of those who aresubject to it. 

If there is any removable condition which interferes with your freeentrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, Ibeg of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it notstrange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself intothe hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to befrightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to beof use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered"unfeminine. " I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannotendure to think of myself as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'?

Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, LURIDA VINCENT. 

Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As shefinished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of hergrandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early daysare apt to do, on great occasions. 

"Well, I never!"

Then she loosened some button or string that was too tight, and went tothe window for a breath of outdoor air. Then she began at the beginningand read the whole letter all over again. 

What should she do about it? She could not let this young girl senda letter like that to a stranger of whose character little was knownexcept by inference, --to a young man, who would consider it a mostextraordinary advance on the part of the sender. She would have liked totear it into a thousand pieces, but she had no right to treat it inthat way. Lurida meant to send it the next morning, and in the mean timeEuthymia had the night to think over what she should do about it. 

There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. There is no voice likethat which breaks the silence--of the stagnant hours of the night withits sudden suggestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia awoke in themorning, her course of action was as clear before her as if it bad beendictated by her guardian angel. She went straight over to the home ofLurida, who was just dressed for breakfast. 

She was naturally a little surprised at this early visit. She wasstruck with the excited look of Euthymia, being herself quite calm, andcontemplating her project with entire complacency. 

Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anxiety. 

"I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its spirit and force. It is a fine letter, and does you great credit as an expression of thetruest human feeling. But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. If youwere sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might be admissibleto send it. But if you were forty, I should question its propriety; ifyou were thirty, I should veto it, and you are but a little more thantwenty. How do you know that this stranger will not show your letter toanybody or everybody? How do you know that he will not send it to one ofthe gossiping journals like the 'Household Inquisitor'? But supposing hekeeps it to himself, which is more than you have a right to expect, whatopinion is he likely to form of a young lady who invades his privacywith such freedom? Ten to one he will think curiosity is at the bottomof it, --and, --come, don't be angry at me for suggesting it, --may therenot be a little of that same motive mingled with the others? No, don'tinterrupt me quite yet; you do want to know whether your hypothesis iscorrect. You are full of the best and kindest feelings in the world, butyour desire for knowledge is the ferment under them just now, perhapsmore than you know. "

Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more than once while herfriend was speaking. She loved her too sincerely and respected herintelligence too much to take offence at her advice, but she could notgive up her humane and sisterly intentions merely from the fear of someawkward consequences to herself. She had persuaded herself that she wasplaying the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and that the factof her not wearing the costume of these ministering angels made nodifference in her relations to those who needed her aid. 

"I cannot see your objections in the light in which they appear toyou, " she said gravely. "It seems to me that I give up everything when Ihesitate to help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am not afraidto send this letter and take all the consequences. "

"Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him read it in ourpresence? And will you agree to abide by his opinion, if it coincideswith mine?"

Lurida winced a little at this proposal. "I don't quite like, " she said, "showing this letter to--to" she hesitated, but it had to come out--"toa man, that is, to another man than the one for whom it was intended. "

The neuter gender business had got a pretty damaging side-hit. 

"Well, never mind about letting him read the letter. Will you go over tohis house with me at noon, when he comes back after his morningvisits, and have a talk over the whole matter with him? You know I havesometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and now I say you must go tothe doctor's with me and carry that letter. "

There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as the sweet but firmvoice delivered it. At noon the two maidens rang at the doctor's door. The servant said he had been at the house after his morning visits, butfound a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who had been taken suddenlyill and wished to see him at once. Was the illness dangerous? Theservant-maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty bad, for Mr. Paulcame in as white as a sheet, and talked all sorts of languages which shecouldn't understand, and took on as if he thought Mr. Kirkwood was goingto die right off. 

And so the hazardous question about sending the letter was disposed of, at least for the present. 

XVII. Dr. BUTTS'S PATIENT. 

The physician found Maurice just regaining his heat after a chill ofa somewhat severe character. He knew too well what this meant, and theprobable series of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His patient wasnot the only one in the neighborhood who was attacked in this way. Theautumnal fevers to which our country towns are subject, in the place ofthose "agues, " or intermittents, so largely prevalent in the South andWest, were already beginning, and Maurice, who had exposed himself inthe early and late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected to gothrough the regular stages of this always serious and not rarely fataldisease. 

Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge ofhis master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he musthave a nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long andexhausting. 

At the mention of the word "nurse" Paolo turned white, and exclaimed inan agitated and thoroughly frightened way, "No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, butdon' let no woman come near him, --if you do, he die!"

The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used totaking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last succeededin convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night for afortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to call in someassistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play theleading part in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoidfever, with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials andpill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution ofa very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations, and its denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy. 

It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of thevillage, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the youngman about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens oftheir kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods and from thegardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under glass, for therewere some fine houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and greenhousesand graperies were not unknown in the small but favored settlement. 

On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A faintsmile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of hisfeatures, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his parchedlips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the fitful sleepin which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow hours draggedalong the sluggish days one after another. With no violent symptoms, butwith steady persistency, the disease moved on in its accustomed course. It was at no time immediately threatening, but the experienced physicianknew its uncertainties only too well. He had known fever patientssuddenly seized with violent internal inflammation, and carried off withfrightful rapidity. He remembered the case of a convalescent, a youngwoman who had been attacked while in apparently vigorous general health, who, on being lifted too suddenly to a sitting position, while stillconfined to her bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. Itmay well be supposed that he took every possible precaution to avertthe accidents which tend to throw from its track a disease the regularcourse of which is arranged by nature as carefully as the route of arailroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation whichthe common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of theseautumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible element hadfound its way into the system which must be burned to ashes before theheat which pervades the whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire maysmoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were quite extinguished, and again it will find some new material to seize upon, and flame up asfiercely as ever. Its coming on most frequently at the season when thebrush fires which are consuming the dead branches, and witheredleaves, and all the refuse of vegetation are sending up their smoke issuggestive. Sometimes it seems as if the body, relieved of its effetematerials, renewed its youth after one of these quiet, expurgating, internal fractional cremations. Lean, pallid students have foundthemselves plump and blooming, and it has happened that one whose hairwas straight as gnat of an Indian has been startled to behold himselfin his mirror with a fringe of hyacinthine curls about his rejuvenatedcountenance. 

There was nothing of what medical men call malignity in the case ofMaurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound prostration, which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly helpless, asunable to move without aid as the feeblest of paralytics. In this statehe lay for many days, not suffering pain, but with the sense of greatweariness, and the feeling that he should never rise from his bed again. For the most part his intellect was unclouded when his attention wasaroused. He spoke only in whispers, a few words at a time. The doctorfelt sure, by the expression which passed over his features from time totime, that something was worrying and oppressing him; something whichhe wished to communicate, and had not the force, or the tenacity ofpurpose, to make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a certaindesk, and once he had found strength to lift his emaciated arm andpoint to it. The doctor went towards it as if to fetch it to him, but heslowly shook his head. He had not the power to say at that time what hewished. The next day he felt a little less prostrated; and succeededin explaining to the doctor what he wanted. His words, so far as thephysician could make them out, were these which follow. Dr. Butts lookedupon them as possibly expressing wishes which would be his last, andnoted them down carefully immediately after leaving his chamber. 

"I commit the secret of my life to your charge. My whole story is toldin a paper locked in that desk. The key is--put your hand undermy pillow. If I die, let the story be known. It will show that Iwas--human--and save my memory from reproach. "

He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole down his hollowcheek. The doctor turned his head away, for his own eyes were full. Buthe said to himself, "It is a good sign; I begin to feel strong hopesthat he will recover. "

Maurice spoke once more. "Doctor, I put full trust in you. You are wiseand kind. Do what you will with this paper, but open it at once andread. I want you to know the story of my life before it is finished--ifthe end is at hand. Take it with you and read it before you sleep. "He was exhausted and presently his eyes closed, but the doctor saw atranquil look on his features which added encouragement to his hopes. 

XVIII. MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. 

I am an American by birth, but a large part of my life has been passedin foreign lands. My father was a man of education, possessed of anample fortune; my mother was considered, a very accomplished and amiablewoman. I was their first and only child. She died while I was yet aninfant. If I remember her at all it is as a vision, more like a glimpseof a pre-natal existence than as a part of my earthly life. At the deathof my mother I was left in the charge of the old nurse who had enjoyedher perfect confidence. She was devoted to me, and I became absolutelydependent on her, who had for me all the love and all the care of amother. I was naturally the object of the attentions and caresses ofthe family relatives. I have been told that I was a pleasant, smilinginfant, with nothing to indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility;not afraid of strangers, but on the contrary ready to make theiracquaintance. My father was devoted to me and did all in his power topromote my health and comfort. 

I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the event happenedwhich changed my whole future and destined me to a strange and lonelyexistence. I cannot relate it even now without a sense of terror. Imust force myself to recall the circumstances as told me and vaguelyremembered, for I am not willing that my doomed and wholly exceptionallife should pass away unrecorded, unexplained, unvindicated. My natureis, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but I have lived apart, as if myheart were filled with hatred of my fellow-creatures. If there are anyreaders who look without pity, without sympathy, upon those who shun thefellowship of their fellow men and women, who show by their downcast oraverted eyes that they dread companionship and long for solitude, I praythem, if this paper ever reaches them, to stop at this point. Followme no further, for you will not believe my story, nor enter into thefeelings which I am about to reveal. But if there are any to whom allthat is human is of interest, who have felt in their own consciousnesssome stirrings of invincible attraction to one individual and equallyinvincible repugnance to another, who know by their own experience thatelective affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as itwere, their polar opposites, currents not less strong of electiverepulsions, let them read with unquestioning faith the story of ablighted life I am about to relate, much of it, of course, received fromthe lips of others. 

My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately returned from Europe, wasconsidered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that shevisited my father's house, where he was living with his servants and myold nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. Laurawas full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtlessoccasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of her age shouldbe. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for the first time. Mynurse had me in her arms, walking back and forward on a balcony witha low railing, upon which opened the windows of the second story ofmy father's house. While the nurse was thus carrying me, Laura camesuddenly upon the balcony. She no sooner saw me than with all thedelighted eagerness of her youthful nature she rushed toward me, and, catching me from the nurse's arms, began tossing me after the fashion ofyoung girls who have been so lately playing with dolls that they feelas if babies were very much of the same nature. The abrupt seizurefrightened me; I sprang from her arms in my terror, and fell over therailing of the balcony. I should probably enough have been killed onthe spot but for the fact that a low thorn-bush grew just beneaththe balcony, into which I fell and thus had the violence of the shockbroken. But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this daymarks of the deep wounds they inflicted. 

That dreadful experience is burned deep into my memory. The suddenapparition of the girl; the sense of being torn away from theprotecting arms around me; the frantic effort to escape; the shriek thataccompanied my fall through what must have seemed unmeasurable space;the cruel lacerations of the piercing and rending thorns, --all thesefearful impressions blended in one paralyzing terror. 

When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I was perfectly white, andthe physician who first saw me said that no pulse was perceptible. Butafter a time consciousness returned; the wounds, though painful, werenone of them dangerous, and the most alarming effects of the accidentpassed away. My old nurse cared for me tenderly day and night, and myfather, who had been almost distracted in the first hours which followedthe injury, hoped and believed that no permanent evil results would befound to result from it. My cousin Laura was of course deeply distressedto feel that her thoughtlessness had been the cause of so grave anaccident. As soon as I had somewhat recovered she came to see me, verypenitent, very anxious to make me forget the alarm she had caused me, with all its consequences. I was in the nursery sitting up in my bed, bandaged, but not in any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to allappearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As Laura came nearme I shrieked and instantly changed color. I put my hand upon my heartas if I had been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It was very muchthe same state as that in which I was found immediately after my fall. 

The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was but too obvious. Theapproach of the young girl and the dread that she was about to lay herhand upon me had called up the same train of effects which the momentof terror and pain had already occasioned. The old nurse saw this in amoment. "Go! go!" she cried to Laura, "go, or the child will die!"Her command did not have to be repeated. After Laura had gone I laysenseless, white and cold as marble, for some time. The doctor sooncame, and by the use of smart rubbing and stimulants the color cameback slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was again set inmotion. 

It was hard to believe that this was anything more than a temporaryeffect of the accident. There could be little doubt, it was thought bythe doctor and by my father, that after a few days I should recover fromthis morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other infants receivepleasant-looking young persons. The old nurse shook her head. "The girlwill be the death of the child, " she said, "if she touches him or comesnear him. His heart stopped beating just as when the girl snatched himout of my arms, and he fell over the balcony railing. " Once more theexperiment was tried, cautiously, almost insidiously. The same alarmingconsequences followed. It was too evident that a chain of nervousdisturbances had been set up in my system which repeated itself wheneverthe original impression gave the first impulse. I never saw my cousinLaura after this last trial. Its result had so distressed her that shenever ventured again to show herself to me. 

If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, it would have beena misfortune for my cousin and myself, but hardly a calamity. The worldis wide, and a cousin or two more or less can hardly be considered anessential of existence. I often heard Laura's name mentioned, but neverby any one who was acquainted with all the circumstances, for it wasnoticed that I changed color and caught at my breast as if I wanted tograsp my heart in my hand whenever that fatal name was mentioned. 

Alas! this was not all. While I was suffering from the effects ofmy fall among the thorns I was attended by my old nurse, assisted byanother old woman, by a physician, and my father, who would take hisshare in caring for me. It was thought best to keep--me perfectly quiet, and strangers and friends were alike excluded from my nursery, with oneexception, that my old grandmother came in now and then. With her itseems that I was somewhat timid and shy, following her with ratheranxious eyes, as if not quite certain whether or not she was dangerous. But one day, when I was far advanced towards recovery, my father broughtin a young lady, a relative of his, who had expressed a great desire tosee me. She was, as I have been told, a very handsome girl, of about thesame age as my cousin Laura, but bearing no personal resemblance to herin form, features, or complexion. She had no sooner entered the roomthan the same sudden changes which had followed my cousin's visit beganto show themselves, and before she had reached my bedside I was in astate of deadly collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned. 

Some time passed before any recurrence of these terrifying seizures. A little girl of five or six years old was allowed to come into thenursery one day and bring me some flowers. I took them from her hand, but turned away and shut my eyes. There was no seizure, but there was acertain dread and aversion, nothing more than a feeling which it mightbe hoped that time would overcome. Those around me were graduallyfinding out the circumstances which brought on the deadly attack towhich I was subject. 

The daughter of one of our near neighbors was considered the prettiestgirl of the village where we were passing the summer. She was veryanxious to see me, and as I was now nearly well it was determined thatshe should be permitted to pay me a short visit. I had always delightedin seeing her and being caressed by her. I was sleeping when she enteredthe nursery and came and took a seat at my side in perfect silence. Presently I became restless, and a moment later I opened my eyes and sawher stooping over me. My hand went to my left breast, --the color fadedfrom my cheeks, --I was again the cold marble image so like death that ithad well-nigh been mistaken for it. 

Could it be possible that the fright which had chilled my blood had leftme with an unconquerable fear of woman at the period when she is mostattractive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender age, whofeel the fascination of her flowing locks, her bright eyes, her bloomingcheeks, and that mysterious magnetism of sex which draws all life intoits warm and potently vitalized atmosphere? So it did indeed seem. Thedangerous experiment could not be repeated indefinitely. It was notintentionally tried again, but accident brought about more thanone renewal of it during the following years, until it became fullyrecognized that I was the unhappy subject of a mortal dread ofwoman, --not absolutely of the human female, for I had no fear of myold nurse or of my grandmother, or of any old wrinkled face, and I hadbecome accustomed to the occasional meeting of a little girl or two, whom I nevertheless regarded with a certain ill-defined feeling thatthere was danger in their presence. I was sent to a boys' school veryearly, and during the first ten or twelve years of my life I had rarelyany occasion to be reminded of my strange idiosyncrasy. 

As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change came over the feelingswhich had so long held complete possession of me. This was what myfather and his advisers had always anticipated, and was the ground oftheir confident hope in my return to natural conditions before I shouldhave grown to mature manhood. 

How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, bewildering, dreadful years? Visions of loveliness haunted me sleeping and waking. Sometimes a graceful girlish figure would so draw my eyes towards itthat I lost sight of all else, and was ready to forget all my fearsand find myself at her side, like other youths by the side of youngmaidens, --happy in their cheerful companionship, while I, --I, underthe curse of one blighting moment, looked on, hopeless. Sometimes theglimpse of a fair face or the tone of a sweet voice stirred withinme all the instincts that make the morning of life beautiful toadolescence. I reasoned with myself:

Why should I not have outgrown that idle apprehension which had been thenightmare of my earlier years? Why should not the rising tide of lifehave drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shallows ofchildhood? How many children there are who tremble at being left alonein the dark, but who, a few years later, will smile at their foolishterrors and brave all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why should I anylonger be the slave of a foolish fancy that has grown into a half insanehabit of mind? I was familiarly acquainted with all the stories of thestrange antipathies and invincible repugnances to which others, some ofthem famous men, had been subject. I said to myself, Why should not Iovercome this dread of woman as Peter the Great fought down his dread ofwheels rolling over a bridge? Was I, alone of all mankind, to be doomedto perpetual exclusion from the society which, as it seemed to me, wasall that rendered existence worth the trouble and fatigue of slavery tothe vulgar need of supplying the waste of the system and working at thetask of respiration like the daughters of Danaus, --toiling day and nightas the worn-out sailor labors at the pump of his sinking vessel?

Why did I not brave the risk of meeting squarely, and without regard toany possible danger, some one of those fair maidens whose far-off smile, whose graceful movements, at once attracted and agitated me? I can onlyanswer this question to the satisfaction of any really inquiring readerby giving him the true interpretation of the singular phenomenon ofwhich I was the subject. For this I shall have to refer to a paper ofwhich I have made a copy, and which will be found included withthis manuscript. It is enough to say here, without entering into theexplanation of the fact, which will be found simple enough as seenby the light of modern physiological science, that the "nervousdisturbance" which the presence of a woman in the flower of herage produced in my system was a sense of impending death, sudden, overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling. It was a reversed action of thenervous centres, --the opposite of that which flushes the young lover'scheek and hurries his bounding pulses as he comes into the presence ofthe object of his passion. No one who has ever felt the sensation canhave failed to recognize it as an imperative summons, which commandsinstant and terrified submission. 

It was at this period of my life that my father determined to try theeffect of travel and residence in different localities upon my bodilyand mental condition. I say bodily as well as mental, for I was tooslender for my height and subject to some nervous symptoms which were acause of anxiety. That the mind was largely concerned in these therewas no doubt, but the mutual interactions of mind and body are oftentoo complex to admit of satisfactory analysis. Each is in part cause andeach also in part effect. 

We passed some years in Italy, chiefly in Rome, where I was placed in aschool conducted by priests, and where of course I met only those ofmy own sex. There I had the opportunity of seeing the influences underwhich certain young Catholics, destined for the priesthood, are led toseparate themselves from all communion with the sex associated intheir minds with the most subtle dangers to which the human soul can beexposed. I became in some degree reconciled to the thought of exclusionfrom the society of women by seeing around me so many who wereself-devoted to celibacy. The thought sometimes occurred to me whether Ishould not find the best and the only natural solution of the problemof existence, as submitted to myself, in taking upon me the vows whichsettle the whole question and raise an impassable barrier between thedevotee and the object of his dangerous attraction. 

How often I talked this whole matter over with the young priest who wasat once my special instructor and my favorite companion! But accustomedas I had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and impressed as I waswith the purity and excellence of many of its young members with whomI was acquainted, my early training rendered it impossible for me toaccept the credentials which it offered me as authoritative. My friendand instructor had to set me down as a case of "invincible ignorance. "This was the loop-hole through which he crept out of the prison-houseof his creed, and was enabled to look upon me without the feeling ofabsolute despair with which his sterner brethren would, I fear, haveregarded me. 

I have said that accident exposed me at times to the influence whichI had such reasons for dreading. Here is one example of such anoccurrence, which I relate as simply as possible, vividly as it isimpressed upon my memory. A young friend whose acquaintance I had madein Rome asked me one day to come to his rooms and look at a cabinet ofgems and medals which he had collected. I had been but a short timein his library when a vague sense of uneasiness came over me. My heartbecame restless, --I could feel it stirring irregularly, as if it weresome frightened creature caged in my breast. There was nothing that Icould see to account for it. A door was partly open, but not so that Icould see into the next room. The feeling grew upon me of some influencewhich was paralyzing my circulation. I begged my friend to open awindow. As he did so, the door swung in the draught, and I saw ablooming young woman, --it was my friend's sister, who had been sittingwith a book in her hand, and who rose at the opening of the door. Something had warned me of the presence of a woman, that occult andpotent aura of individuality, call it personal magnetism, spiritualeffluence, or reduce it to a simpler expression if you will; whateverit was, it had warned me of the nearness of the dread attraction whichallured at a distance and revealed itself with all the terrors of theLorelei if approached too recklessly. A sign from her brother causedher to withdraw at once, but not before I had felt the impression whichbetrayed itself in my change of color, anxiety about the region of theheart, and sudden failure as if about to fall in a deadly fainting-fit. 

Does all this seem strange and incredible to the reader of mymanuscript? Nothing in the history of life is so strange or exceptionalas it seems to those who have not made a long study of its mysteries. I have never known just such a case as my own, and yet there must havebeen such, and if the whole history of mankind were unfolded I cannotdoubt that there have been many like it. Let my reader suspend hisjudgment until he has read the paper I have referred to, which was drawnup by a Committee of the Royal Academy of the Biological Sciences. Inthis paper the mechanism of the series of nervous derangements to whichI have been subject since the fatal shock experienced in my infancy isexplained in language not hard to understand. It will be seen that sucha change of polarity in the nervous centres is only a permanent form andan extreme degree of an emotional disturbance, which as a temporaryand comparatively unimportant personal accident is far from beinguncommon, --is so frequent, in fact, that every one must have knowninstances of it, and not a few must have had more or less seriousexperiences of it in their own private history. 

It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I amnow dealing with the reader. I was full of strange fancies and wildsuperstitions. One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal whichhad been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear next my body. Iwas told that this would turn black after a time, in virtue of a powerwhich it possessed of drawing out original sin, or certain portionsof it, together with the evil and morbid tendencies which had beenengrafted on the corrupt nature. I wore the medal faithfully, asdirected, and watched it carefully. It became tarnished and after a timedarkened, but it wrought no change in my unnatural condition. 

There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more offuturity than she had any right to know. The story was that she hadforetold the assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour. 

However that may have been, I was persuaded to let her try her blackart upon my future. I shall never forget the strange, wild look of thewrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed herwicked old eyes on my young countenance. After this examination sheshook her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I could getthem would be in English like these:

 Fair lady cast a spell on thee, Fair lady's hand shall set thee free. 

Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whosepalm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response, have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment. The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I was subjectdisposed me to believe the incredible with reference to all that relatesto it. I have never ceased to have the feeling that, sooner or later, Ishould find myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my infancy. Itseems as if it would naturally come through the influence of some youngand fair woman, to whom that merciful errand should be assigned by theProvidence that governs our destiny. With strange hopes, with tremblingfears, with mingled belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself Ihave sought with longing yet half-averted eyes for the "elect lady, "as I have learned to call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruinedlife. 

Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I hadfound the object of my superstitious belief. --Singularly enough itwas always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared beforemy bewildered vision. Once it was an English girl who was a fellowpassenger with me in one of my ocean voyages. I need not say that shewas beautiful, for she was my dream realized. I heard her singing, Isaw her walking the deck on some of the fair days when sea-sickness wasforgotten. The passengers were a social company enough, but I had keptmyself apart, as was my wont. At last the attraction became too strongto resist any longer. "I will venture into the charmed circle if itkills me, " I said to my father. I did venture, and it did not kill me, or I should not be telling this story. But there was a repetition of theold experiences. I need not relate the series of alarming consequencesof my venture. The English girl was very lovely, and I have no doubt hasmade some one supremely happy before this, but she was not the "electlady" of the prophecy and of my dreams. 

A second time I thought myself for a moment in the presence of thedestined deliverer who was to restore me to my natural place among myfellow men and women. It was on the Tiber that I met the young maidenwho drew me once more into that inner circle which surrounded youngwomanhood with deadly peril for me, if I dared to pass its limits. I wasfloating with the stream in the little boat in which I passed many longhours of reverie when I saw another small boat with a boy and a younggirl in it. The boy had been rowing, and one of his oars had slippedfrom his grasp. He did not know how to paddle with a single oar, and washopelessly rowing round and round, his oar all the time floating fartheraway from him. I could not refuse my assistance. I picked up the oar andbrought my skiff alongside of the boat. When I handed the oar to the boythe young girl lifted her veil and thanked me in the exquisite music ofthe language which

 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin. '

She was a type of Italian beauty, --a nocturne in flesh and blood, ifI may borrow a term certain artists are fond of; but it was her voicewhich captivated me and for a moment made me believe that I was nolonger shut off from all relations with the social life of my race. Anhour later I was found lying insensible on the floor of my boat, white, cold, almost pulseless. It cost much patient labor to bring me back toconsciousness. Had not such extreme efforts been made, it seemsprobable that I should never have waked from a slumber which was hardlydistinguishable from that of death. 

Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears inevitable if I inviteit by exposing myself to its too well ascertained cause? The habit ofthese deadly seizures has become a second nature. The strongest and theablest men have found it impossible to resist the impression producedby the most insignificant object, by the most harmless sight or sound towhich they had a congenital or acquired antipathy. What prospect have Iof ever being rid of this long and deep-seated infirmity? I may well askmyself these questions, but my answer is that I will never give upthe hope that time will yet bring its remedy. It may be that the wildprediction which so haunts me shall find itself fulfilled. I have had oflate strange premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could nothelp giving heed. But I have seen too much of the faith that deals inmiracles to accept the supernatural in any shape, --assuredly when itcomes from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her revelationsof the future. Be it so: though I am not superstitious, I have a rightto be imaginative, and my imagination will hold to those words of theold zingara with an irresistible feeling that, sooner or later, theywill prove true. 

Can it be possible that her prediction is not far from its realization?I have had both waking and sleeping visions within these last monthsand weeks which have taken possession of me and filled my life with newthoughts, new hopes, new resolves. 

Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am dreaming away thisseason of bloom and fragrance, sometimes in the fields or woods ina distant glimpse, once in a nearer glance, which left me pale andtremulous, yet was followed by a swift reaction, so that my cheeksflushed and my pulse bounded, I have seen her who--how do I dare to tellit so that my own eyes can read it?---I cannot help believing is to bemy deliverer, my saviour. 

I have been warned in the most solemn and impressive language by theexperts most deeply read in the laws of life and the history of itsdisturbing and destroying influences, that it would be at the imminentrisk of my existence if I should expose myself to the repetition of myformer experiences. I was reminded that unexplained sudden deaths wereof constant, of daily occurrence; that any emotion is liable to arrestthe movements of life: terror, joy, good news or bad news, --anythingthat reaches the deeper nervous centres. I had already died once, asSir Charles Napier said of himself; yes, more than once, died and beenresuscitated. The next time, I might very probably fail to get my returnticket after my visit to Hades. It was a rather grim stroke of humor, but I understood its meaning full well, and felt the force of itsmenace. 

After all, what had I to live for if the great primal instinct whichstrives to make whole the half life of lonely manhood is defeated, suppressed, crushed out of existence? Why not as well die in the attemptto break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous movement asin any other way? I am alone in the world, --alone save for my faithfulservant, through whom I seem to hold to the human race as it were bya single filament. My father, who was my instructor, my companion, my dearest and best friend through all my later youth and my earliermanhood, died three years ago and left me my own master, with the meansof living as might best please my fancy. This season shall decide myfate. One more experiment, and I shall find myself restored to my placeamong my fellow-beings, or, as I devoutly hope, in a sphere where allour mortal infirmities are past and forgotten. 

I have told the story of a blighted life without reserve, so that thereshall not remain any mystery or any dark suspicion connected with mymemory if I should be taken away unexpectedly. It has cost me an effortto do it, but now that my life is on record I feel more reconciled tomy lot, with all its possibilities, and among these possibilities is agleam of a better future. I have been told by my advisers, some of themwise, deeply instructed, and kind-hearted men, that such a life-destinyshould be related by the subject of it for the instruction of others, and especially for the light it throws on certain peculiarities of humancharacter often wrongly interpreted as due to moral perversion, whenthey are in reality the results of misdirected or reversed actions insome of the closely connected nervous centres. 

For myself I can truly say that I have very little morbid sensibilityleft with reference to the destiny which has been allotted to me. I havepassed through different stages of feeling with reference to it, asI have developed from infancy to manhood. At first it was mere blindinstinct about which I had no thought, living like other infants thelife of impressions without language to connect them in series. In myboyhood I began to be deeply conscious of the infirmity which separatedme from those around me. In youth began that conflict of emotions andimpulses with the antagonistic influence of which I have already spoken, a conflict which has never ceased, but to which I have necessarilybecome to a certain degree accustomed; and against the dangers of whichI have learned to guard myself habitually. That is the meaning of myisolation. You, young man, --if at any time your eyes shall look upon mymelancholy record, --you at least will understand me. Does not your heartthrob, in the presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as ifit "were ready to crack" with its own excess of strain? What if insteadof throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beatagain? You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy willlook upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know what itis when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and the grip ofthe bodice seems unendurable as the embrace of the iron virgin of theInquisition. Think what it would be if the grasp were tightened so thatno breath of air could enter your panting chest!

Does your heart beat in the same way, young man, when your honoredfriend, a venerable matron of seventy years, greets you with her kindlysmile as it does in the presence of youthful loveliness? When a prettychild brings you her doll and looks into your eyes with artless graceand trustful simplicity, does your pulse quicken, do you tremble, doeslife palpitate through your whole being, as when the maiden of seventeenmeets your enamored sight in the glow of her rosebud beauty? Wondernot, then, if the period of mystic attraction for you should be thatof agitation, terror, danger, to one in whom the natural current of theinstincts has had its course changed as that of a stream is changed by aconvulsion of nature, so that the impression which is new life to you isdeath to him. 

I am now twenty-five years old. I have reached the time of life whichI have dreamed, nay even ventured to hope, might be the limit of thesentence which was pronounced upon me in my infancy. I can assign nogood reason for this anticipation. But in writing this paper I feel asif I were preparing to begin a renewed existence. There is nothing forme to be ashamed of in the story I have told. There is no man living whowould not have yielded to the sense of instantly impending death whichseized upon me under the conditions I have mentioned. Martyrs have gonesinging to their flaming shrouds, but never a man could hold hisbreath long enough to kill himself; he must have rope or water, or somemechanical help, or nature will make him draw in a breath of air, andwould make him do so though he knew the salvation of the human racewould be forfeited by that one gasp. 

This paper may never reach the eye of any one afflicted in the same waythat I have been. It probably never will; but for all that, there aremany shy natures which will recognize tendencies in themselves in thedirection of my unhappy susceptibility. Others, to whom such weaknessseems inconceivable, will find their scepticism shaken, if not removed, by the calm, judicial statement of the Report drawn up for the RoyalAcademy. It will make little difference to me whether my story isaccepted unhesitatingly or looked upon as largely a product of theimagination. I am but a bird of passage that lights on the boughs ofdifferent nationalities. I belong to no flock; my home may be among thepalms of Syria, the olives of Italy, the oaks of England, the elms thatshadow the Hudson or the Connecticut; I build no nest; to-day I am here, to-morrow on the wing. 

If I quit my native land before the trees have dropped their leaves Ishall place this manuscript in the safe hands of one whom I feel surethat I can trust; to do with it as he shall see fit. If it is onlycurious and has no bearing on human welfare, he may think it well to letit remain unread until I shall have passed away. If in his judgmentit throws any light on one of the deeper mysteries of our nature, --therepulsions which play such a formidable part in social life, and whichmust be recognized as the correlatives of the affinities that distributethe individuals governed by them in the face of impediments which seemto be impossibilities, --then it may be freely given to the world. 

But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen, the programme ofmy life will have changed, and this story of the dead past will beilluminated by the light of a living present which will irradiate allits saddening features. Who would not pray that my last gleam of lightand hope may be that of dawn and not of departing day?

The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of a story so farfrom the common range of experience is once more requested to suspendhis judgment until he has read the paper which will next be offered forhis consideration. 

XIX. THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. 

Perhaps it is too much to expect a reader who wishes to be entertained, excited, amused, and does not want to work his passage through pageswhich he cannot understand without some effort of his own, to read thepaper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections upon it. If he has nocuriosity in the direction of these chapters, he can afford to leavethem to such as relish a slight flavor of science. But if he does soleave them he will very probably remain sceptical as to the truth of thestory to which they are meant to furnish him with a key. 

Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a remarkable and exceptionalone, and it is hardly probable that any reader's experience will furnishhim with its parallel. But let him look back over all his acquaintances, if he has reached middle life, and see if he cannot recall more than onewho, for some reason or other, shunned the society of young women, asif they had a deadly fear of their company. If he remembers any such, hecan understand the simple statements and natural reflections which arelaid before him. 

One of the most singular facts connected with the history of MauriceKirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to thefate which had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped by theInterviewer, who would show him up in the sensational columns of hisprying newspaper. He lived chiefly by himself, as the easiest mode ofavoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in almost everysociety into which he might venture. But he had learned to look uponhimself very much as he would upon an intimate not himself, --upon adifferent personality. A young man will naturally enough be ashamedof his shyness. It is something which others believe, and perhaps hehimself thinks, he might overcome. But in the case of Maurice Kirkwoodthere was no room for doubt as to the reality and gravity of the longenduring effects of his first convulsive terror. He had accepted thefact as he would have accepted the calamity of losing his sight or hishearing. When he was questioned by the experts to whom his case wassubmitted, he told them all that he knew about it almost without a signof emotion. Nature was so peremptory with him, --saying in language thathad no double meaning: "If you violate the condition on which youhold my gift of existence I slay you on the spot, "--that he became asdecisive in his obedience as she was in her command, and accepted hisfate without repining. 

Yet it must not be thought for a moment, --it cannot be supposed, --thathe was insensible because he looked upon himself with the coolness of anenforced philosophy. He bore his burden manfully, hard as it was tolive under it, for he lived, as we have seen, in hope. The thought ofthrowing it off with his life, as too grievous to be borne, was familiarto his lonely hours, but he rejected it as unworthy of his manhood. Howhe had speculated and dreamed about it is plain enough from the paperthe reader may remember on Ocean, River, and Lake. 

With these preliminary hints the paper promised is submitted to such asmay find any interest in them. 

 ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA. 

 WITH REMARKS. 

Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the BiologicalSciences by a Committee of that Institution. 

"The singular nature of the case we are about to narrate and commentupon will, we feel confident, arrest the attention of those who havelearned the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light uponher laws by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from timeto time are observed. We have done with the lusus naturae of earliergenerations. We pay little attention to the stories of 'miracles, 'except so far as we receive them ready-made at the hands of the churcheswhich still hold to them. Not the less do we meet with strange andsurprising facts, which a century or two ago would have been handled bythe clergy and the courts, but today are calmly recorded and judged bythe best light our knowledge of the laws of life can throw upon them. It must be owned that there are stories which we can hardly dispute, so clear and full is the evidence in their support, which do, notwithstanding, tax our faith and sometimes leave us sceptical in spiteof all the testimony which supports them. 

"In this category many will be disposed to place the case we commend tothe candid attention of the Academy. If one were told that a young man, a gentleman by birth and training, well formed, in apparently perfecthealth, of agreeable physiognomy and manners, could not endure thepresence of the most attractive young woman, but was seized with deadlyterror and sudden collapse of all the powers of life, if he came intoher immediate presence; if it were added that this same young man didnot shrink from the presence of an old withered crone; that he had acertain timid liking for little maidens who had not yet outgrown thecompany of their dolls, the listener would be apt to smile, if he didnot laugh, at the absurdity of the fable. Surely, he would say, thismust be the fiction of some fanciful brain, the whim of some romancer, the trick of some playwright. It would make a capital farce, this idea, carried out. A young man slighting the lovely heroine of the littlecomedy and making love to her grandmother! This would, of course, beoverstating the truth of the story, but to such a misinterpretationthe plain facts lend themselves too easily. We will relate the leadingcircumstances of the case, as they were told us with perfect simplicityand frankness by the subject of an affection which, if classified, wouldcome under the general head of Antipathy, but to which, if we give it aname, we shall have to apply the term Gynophobia, or Fear of Woman. "

Here follows the account furnished to the writer of the paper, which isin all essentials identical with that already laid before the reader. 

"Such is the case offered to our consideration. Assuming itstruthfulness in all its particulars, it remains to see in the firstplace whether or not it is as entirely exceptional and anomalous as itseems at first sight, or whether it is only the last term of a seriesof cases which in their less formidable aspect are well known to usin literature, in the records of science, and even in our commonexperience. 

"To most of those among us the explanations we are now about to give areentirely superfluous. But there are some whose chief studies have beenin different directions, and who will not complain if certain facts arementioned which to the expert will seem rudimentary, and which hardlyrequire recapitulation to those who are familiarly acquainted with thecommon text-books. 

"The heart is the centre of every living movement in the higher animals, and in man, furnishing in varying amount, or withholding to a greateror less extent, the needful supplies to all parts of the system. If itsaction is diminished to a certain degree, faintness is the immediateconsequence; if it is arrested, loss of consciousness; if its actionis not soon restored, death, of which fainting plants the white flag, remains in possession of the system. 

"How closely the heart is under the influence of the emotions we neednot go to science to learn, for all human experience and all literatureare overflowing with evidence that shows the extent of this relation. Scripture is full of it; the heart in Hebrew poetry represents theentire life, we might almost say. Not less forcible is the language ofShakespeare, as for instance, in 'Measure for Measure:'

 "'Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, Making it both unable for itself And dispossessing all my other parts Of necessary fitness?'

"More especially is the heart associated in every literature with thepassion of love. A famous old story is that of Galen, who was called tothe case of a young lady long ailing, and wasting away from some causethe physicians who had already seen her were unable to make out. Theshrewd old practitioner suspected that love was at the bottom of theyoung lady's malady. Many relatives and friends of both sexes, all ofthem ready with their sympathy, came to see her. The physician sat byher bedside during one of these visits, and in an easy, natural way tookher hand and placed a finger on her pulse. It beat quietly enough untila certain comely young gentleman entered the apartment, when it suddenlyrose infrequency, and at the same moment her hurried breathing, herchanging color, pale and flushed by turns, betrayed the profoundagitation his presence excited. This was enough for the sagacious Greek;love was the disease, the cure of which by its like may be claimed as ananticipation of homoeopathy. In the frontispiece to the fine old 'Junta'edition of the works of Galen, you may find among the wood-cutsa representation of the interesting scene, with the title AmantasDignotio, --the diagnosis, or recognition, of the lover. 

"Love has many languages, but the heart talks through all of them. Thepallid or burning cheek tells of the failing or leaping fountain whichgives it color. The lovers at the 'Brookside' could hear each other'shearts beating. When Genevieve, in Coleridge's poem, forgot herself, andwas beforehand with her suitor in her sudden embrace, "'T was partly love and partly fear, And partly 't was a bashful art, That I might rather feel than see The swelling of her heart'

"Always the heart, whether its hurried action is seen, or heard, orfelt. But it is not always in this way that the 'deceitful' organ treatsthe lover. 

 "'Faint heart never won fair lady. '

"This saying was not meant, perhaps, to be taken literally, but ithas its literal truth. Many a lover has found his heart sink withinhim, --lose all its force, and leave him weak as a child in his emotionat the sight of the object of his affections. When Porphyro looked uponMadeline at her prayers in the chapel, it was too much for him:

 "'She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint, She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from earthly taint. '

"And in Balzac's novel, 'Cesar Birotteau, ' the hero of the story'fainted away for-joy at the moment when, under a linden-tree, atSceaux, Constance-Barbe-Josephine accepted him as her future husband. '

"One who faints is dead if he does not I come to, ' and nothing is morelikely than that too susceptible lovers have actually gone off in thisway. Everything depends on how the heart behaves itself in theseand similar trying moments. The mechanism of its actions becomes aninteresting subject, therefore, to lovers of both sexes, and to all whoare capable of intense emotions. 

"The heart is a great reservoir, which distributes food, drink, air, andheat to every part of the system, in exchange for its waste material. Itknocks at the gate of every organ seventy or eighty times in a minute, calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload its refuse. Betweenit and the brain there is the closest relation. The emotions, which actupon it as we have seen, govern it by a mechanism only of late yearsthoroughly understood. This mechanism can be made plain enough to thereader who is not afraid to believe that he can understand it. 

"The brain, as all know, is the seat of ideas, emotions, volition. It isthe great central telegraphic station with which many lesser centres arein close relation, from which they receive, and to which they transmit, their messages. The heart has its own little brains, so to speak, --smallcollections of nervous substance which govern its rhythmical motionsunder ordinary conditions. But these lesser nervous centres are to alarge extent dominated by influences transmitted from certain groups ofnerve-cells in the brain and its immediate dependencies. 

"There are two among the special groups of nerve-cells which producedirectly opposite effects. One of these has the power of acceleratingthe action of the heart, while the other has the power of retarding orarresting this action. One acts as the spur, the other as the bridle. According as one or the other predominates, the action of the heartwill be stimulated or restrained. Among the great modern discoveries inphysiology is that of the existence of a distinct centre of inhibition, as the restraining influence over the heart is called. 

"The centre of inhibition plays a terrible part in the history ofcowardice and of unsuccessful love. No man can be brave without bloodto sustain his courage, any more than he can think, as the Germanmaterialist says, not absurdly, without phosphorus. The faintinglover must recover his circulation, or his lady will lend him hersmelling-salts and take a gallant with blood in his cheeks. Porphyro gotover his faintness before he ran away with Madeline, and Cesar Birotteauwas an accepted lover when he swooned with happiness: but many anofficer has been cashiered, and many a suitor has been rejected, because the centre of inhibition has got the upper hand of the centre ofstimulation. 

"In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been recorded, the most frequent cause has been the disturbed and depressing influenceof the centre of inhibition. Fainting at the sight of blood is one ofthe commonest examples of this influence. A single impression, in a veryearly period of atmospheric existence, --perhaps, indirectly, before thatperiod, as was said to have happened in the case of James the Firstof England, --may establish a communication between this centre and theheart which will remain open ever afterwards. How does a footpath acrossa field establish itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we callaccidental, but one after another follows it as if he were guided by achart on which it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transitbetween the centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If oncethe path is opened by the track of some profound impression, that sameimpression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the oldfootmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to traverse, and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, may perpetuateitself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its subject. 

"The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of theeffect of inhibition on the heart. 

"We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history ofthe human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have beensimilar cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has beenthe consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. Thecase most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well known torequire any lengthened description in this paper. It is enough to recallthe main facts. He could by a voluntary effort suspend the action ofhis heart for a considerable period, during which he lay like one dead, pulseless, and without motion. After a time the circulation returned, and he does not seem to have been the worse for his dangerous, orseemingly dangerous, experiment. But in his case it was by an act of thewill that the heart's action was suspended. In the case before us itis an involuntary impulse transmitted from the brain to the inhibitingcentre, which arrests the cardiac movements. 

"What is like to be the further history of the case?

"The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty yearsold. The chain of nervous actions has become firmly established. It might have been hoped that the changes of adolescence would haveeffected a transformation of the perverted instinct. On the contrary, the whole force of this instinct throws itself on the centre ofinhibition, instead of quickening the heart-beats, and sending therush of youthful blood with fresh life through the entire system to thethrobbing finger-tips. 

"Is it probable that time and circumstances will alter a habit ofnervous interactions so long established? We are disposed to think thatthere is a chance of its being broken up. And we are not afraid to saythat we suspect the old gypsy woman, whose prophecy took such hold ofthe patient's imagination, has hit upon the way in which the 'spell, 'as she called it, is to be dissolved. She must, in all probability, have had a hint of the 'antipatia' to which the youth before her was avictim, and its cause, and if so, her guess as to the probable mode inwhich the young man would obtain relief from his unfortunate conditionwas the one which would naturally suggest itself. 

"If once the nervous impression which falls on the centre of inhibitioncan be made to change its course, so as to follow its natural channel, it will probably keep to that channel ever afterwards. And this will, itis most likely, be effected by some sudden, unexpected impression. Ifhe were drowning, and a young woman should rescue him, it is by no meansimpossible that the change in the nervous current we have referred tomight be brought about as rapidly, as easily, as the reversal of thepoles in a magnet, which is effected in an instant. But he cannot beexpected to throw himself into the water just at the right momentwhen the 'fair lady' of the gitana's prophecy is passing on the shore. Accident may effect the cure which art seems incompetent to perform. Itwould not be strange if in some future seizure he should never come backto consciousness. But it is quite conceivable, on the other hand, thata happier event may occur, that in a single moment the nervous polaritymay be reversed, the whole course of his life changed, and his pastterrible experiences be to him like a scarce-remembered dream. 

"This is one, of those cases in which it is very hard to determinethe wisest course to be pursued. The question is not unlike that whicharises in certain cases of dislocation of the bones of the neck. Shallthe unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face turned far roundto the right or the left, or shall an attempt be made to replace thedislocated bones? an attempt which may succeed, or may cause instantdeath. The patient must be consulted as to whether he will take thechance. The practitioner may be unwilling to risk it, if the patientconsents. Each case must be judged on its own special grounds. We cannotthink that this young man is doomed to perpetual separation from thesociety of womanhood during the period of its bloom and attraction. Butto provoke another seizure after his past experiences would be too muchlike committing suicide. We fear that we must trust to the chapterof accidents. The strange malady--for such it is--has become a secondnature, and may require as energetic a shock to displace it as it didto bring it into existence. Time alone can solve this question, on whichdepends the well-being and, it may be, the existence of a young manevery way fitted to be happy, and to give happiness, if restored to histrue nature. "

XX. DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. 

Dr. Butts sat up late at night reading these papers and reflecting uponthem. He was profoundly impressed and tenderly affected by the entirefrankness, the absence of all attempt at concealment, which Mauriceshowed in placing these papers at his disposal. He believed that hispatient would recover from this illness for which he had been takingcare of him. He thought deeply and earnestly of what he could do for himafter he should have regained his health and strength. 

There were references, in Maurice's own account of himself, whichthe doctor called to mind with great interest after reading his briefautobiography. Some one person--some young woman, it must be--hadproduced a singular impression upon him since those earlier perilousexperiences through which he had passed. The doctor could not helpthinking of that meeting with Euthymia of which she had spoken to him. Maurice, as she said, turned pale, --he clapped his hand to his breast. He might have done so if he had met her chambermaid, or any stragglingdamsel of the village. But Euthymia was not a young woman to be lookedupon with indifference. She held herself like a queen, and walked likeone, not a stage queen, but one born and bred to self-reliance, andcommand of herself as well as others. One could not pass her withoutbeing struck with her noble bearing and spirited features. If she hadknown how Maurice trembled as he looked upon her, in that conflict ofattraction and uncontrollable dread, --if she had known it! But what, even then, could she have done? Nothing but get away from him as fast asshe could. As it was, it was a long time before his agitation subsided, and his heart beat with its common force and frequency. 

Dr. Butts was not a male gossip nor a matchmaking go-between. But hecould not help thinking what a pity it was that these two young personscould not come together as other young people do in the pairing season, and find out whether they cared for and were fitted for each other. Hedid not pretend to settle this question in his own mind, but the thoughtwas a natural one. And here was a gulf between them as deep and wideas that between Lazarus and Dives. Would it ever be bridged over? Thisthought took possession of the doctor's mind, and he imagined all sortsof ways of effecting some experimental approximation between Maurice andEuthymia. From this delicate subject he glanced off to certain generalconsiderations suggested by the extraordinary history he had beenreading. He began by speculating as to the possibility of the personalpresence of an individual making itself perceived by some channel otherthan any of the five senses. The study of the natural sciences teachesthose who are devoted to them that the most insignificant facts may leadthe way to the discovery of the most important, all-pervading laws ofthe universe. From the kick of a frog's hind leg to the amazing triumphswhich began with that seemingly trivial incident is a long, a very longstride if Madam Galvani had not been in delicate health, which was theoccasion of her having some frog-broth prepared for her, the world ofto-day might not be in possession of the electric telegraph andthe light which blazes like the sun at high noon. A common-lookingoccurrence, one seemingly unimportant, which had hitherto passedunnoticed with the ordinary course of things, was the means ofintroducing us to a new and vast realm of closely related phenomena. Itwas like a key that we might have picked up, looking so simple that itcould hardly fit any lock but one of like simplicity, but which shouldall at once throw back the bolts of the one lock which had defiedthe most ingenious of our complex implements and open our way into ahitherto unexplored territory. 

It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice felt theparalyzing influence. He could contemplate Euthymia from a distance, ashe did on the day of the boat-race, without any nervous disturbance. Acertain proximity was necessary for the influence to be felt, as in thecase of magnetism and electricity. An atmosphere of danger surroundedevery woman he approached during the period when her sex exercisesits most powerful attractions. How far did that atmosphere extend, andthrough what channel did it act?

The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, was to be found in afact as humble as that which gave birth to the science of galvanism andits practical applications. The circumstances connected with the verycommon antipathy to cats were as remarkable in many points of view asthe similar circumstances in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The subjectsof that antipathy could not tell what it was which disturbed theirnervous system. All they knew was that a sense of uneasiness, restlessness, oppression, came over them in the presence of one ofthese animals. He remembered the fact already mentioned, that personssensitive to this impression can tell by their feelings if a cat isconcealed in the apartment in which they may happen to be. It may bethrough some emanation. It may be through the medium of some electricaldisturbance. What if the nerve-thrills passing through the whole systemof the animal propagate themselves to a certain distance without anymore regard to intervening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sievelets sand pass through it; a filter arrests sand, but lets fluids pass, glass holds fluids, but lets light through; wood shuts out light, butmagnetic attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. Nogood reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should not betrayitself to certain organizations, at a distance, through the walls of abox in which the animal is shut up. We need not disbelieve the storieswhich allege such an occurrence as a fact and a not very infrequent one. 

If the presence of a cat can produce its effects under thesecircumstances, why should not that of a human being under similarconditions, acting on certain constitutions, exercise its specificinfluence? The doctor recalled a story told him by one of his friends, astory which the friend himself heard from the lips of the distinguishedactor, the late Mr. Fechter. The actor maintained that Rachel had nogenius as an actress. It was all Samson's training and study, accordingto him, which explained the secret of her wonderful effectiveness on thestage. But magnetism, he said, --magnetism, she was full of. He declaredthat he was made aware of her presence on the stage, when he could notsee her or know of her presence otherwise, by this magnetic emanation. The doctor took the story for what it was worth. There might veryprobably be exaggeration, perhaps high imaginative coloring about it, but it was not a whit more unlikely than the cat-stories, accepted asauthentic. He continued this train of thought into further developments. Into this series of reflections we will try to follow him. 

What is the meaning of the halo with which artists have surrounded theheads of their pictured saints, of the aureoles which wraps them likea luminous cloud? Is it not a recognition of the fact that these holypersonages diffuse their personality in the form of a visible emanation, which reminds us of Milton's definition of light:

 "Bright effluence of bright essence increate"?

The common use of the term influence would seem to imply the existenceof its correlative, effluence. There is no good reason that I can see, the doctor said to himself, why among the forces which work upon thenervous centres there should not be one which acts at various distancesfrom its source. It may not be visible like the "glory" of the painters, it may not be appreciable by any one of the five senses, and yet it maybe felt by the person reached by it as much as if it were a palpablepresence, --more powerfully, perhaps, from the mystery which belongs toits mode of action. 

Why should not Maurice have been rendered restless and anxious by theunseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him, justas the persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious of theirpresence through some unknown channel? Is it anything strange that thelarger and more powerful organism should diffuse a consciousness of itspresence to some distance as well as the slighter and feebler one? Isit strange that this mysterious influence or effluence should belongespecially or exclusively to the period of complete womanhood indistinction from that of immaturity or decadence? On the contrary, itseems to be in accordance with all the analogies of nature, --analogiestoo often cruel in the sentence they pass upon the human female. 

Among the many curious thoughts which came up in the doctor's mind wasthis, which made him smile as if it were a jest, but which he felt verystrongly had its serious side, and was involved with the happiness orsuffering of multitudes of youthful persons who die without tellingtheir secret:

How many young men have a mortal fear of woman, as woman, which theynever overcome, and in consequence of which the attraction which drawsman towards her, as strong in them as in others, --oftentimes, in virtueof their peculiarly sensitive organizations, more potent in them than inothers of like age and conditions, --in consequence of which fear, thisattraction is completely neutralized, and all the possibilities ofdoubled and indefinitely extended life depending upon it are leftunrealized! Think what numbers of young men in Catholic countries devotethemselves to lives of celibacy. Think how many young men lose all theirconfidence in the presence of the young woman to whom they are mostattracted, and at last steal away from a companionship which it israpture to dream of and torture to endure, so does the presence of thebeloved object paralyze all the powers of expression. Sorcerers have inall time and countries played on the hopes and terrors of lovers. Oncelet loose a strong impulse on the centre of inhibition, and thewarrior who had faced bayonets and batteries becomes a coward whom thewell-dressed hero of the ball-room and leader of the German will put toignominious flight in five minutes of easy, audacious familiarity withhis lady-love. 

Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do not know that I haveseen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript, but I haveseen the malady many times. Only one word has stood between many a pairof young people and their lifelong happiness, and that word has got asfar as the lips, but the lips trembled and would not, could not, shapethat little word. All young women are not like Coleridge's Genevieve, who knew how to help her lover out of his difficulty, and said yesbefore he had asked for an answer. So the wave which was to have waftedthem on to the shore of Elysium has just failed of landing them, andback they have been drawn into the desolate ocean to meet no more onearth. 

Love is the master-key, he went on thinking, love is the master-key thatopens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easilyof all, the gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty!--notonly the historic wonder of beauty, that "burnt the topless towers ofIlium" for the smile of Helen, and fired the palaces of Babylon by thehand of Thais, but the beauty which springs up in all times and places, and carries a torch and wears a serpent for a wreath as truly as anyof the Eumenides. Paint Beauty with her foot upon a skull and a dragoncoiled around her. 

The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and pictorialimagery. Drifting along from thought to thought, he reflected on theprobable consequences of the general knowledge of Maurice Kirkwood'sstory, if it came before the public. 

What a piece of work it would make among the lively youths of thevillage, to be sure! What scoffing, what ridicule, what embellishments, what fables, would follow in the trail of the story! If the Interviewergot hold of it, how "The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor"would blaze with capitals in its next issue! The young fellows' ofthe place would be disposed to make fun of the whole matter. The younggirls-the doctor hardly dared to think what would happen when the storygot about among them. "The Sachem" of the solitary canoe, the boldhorseman, the handsome hermit, --handsome so far as the glimpses they hadgot of him went, --must needs be an object of tender interest among them, now that he was ailing, suffering, in danger of his life, away fromfriends, --poor fellow! Little tokens of their regard had reached hissick-chamber; bunches of flowers with dainty little notes, some of thempinkish, some three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others"criss-crossed, " were growing more frequent as it was understood thatthe patient was likely to be convalescent before many days had passed. If it should come to be understood that there was a deadly obstacle totheir coming into any personal relations with him, the doctor had hisdoubts whether there were not those who would subject him to the risk;for there were coquettes in the village, --strangers, visitors, let ushope, --who would sacrifice anything or anybody to their vanity and loveof conquest. 

XXI. AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. 

The illness from which Maurice had suffered left him in a state ofprofound prostration. The doctor, who remembered the extreme danger ofany overexertion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his head fromthe pillow. But his mind was gradually recovering its balance, and hewas able to hold some conversation with those about him. His faithfulPaolo had grown so thin in waiting upon him and watching with him thatthe village children had to take a second look at his face when theypassed him to make sure that it was indeed their old friend and noother. But as his master advanced towards convalescence and the doctorassured him that he was going in all probability to get well, Paolo'sface began to recover something of its old look and expression, and oncemore his pockets filled themselves with comfits for his little circle ofworshipping three and four year old followers. 

"How is Mr. Kirkwood?" was the question with which he was alwaysgreeted. In the worst periods of the fever be rarely left his master. When he did, and the question was put to him, he would shake his headsadly, sometimes without a word, sometimes with tears and sobs andfaltering words, --more like a brokenhearted child than a stalwart manas he was, such a man as soldiers are made of in the great Continentalarmies. 

"He very bad, --he no eat nothing, --he--no say nothing, --he never be nobetter, " and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a passionateburst of lamentation. But now that he began to feel easy about hismaster, his ready optimism declared itself no less transparently. 

"He better every day now. He get well in few weeks, sure. You see him onhoss in little while. " The kind-hearted creature's life was bound up inthat of his "master, " as he loved to call him, in sovereign disregard ofthe comments of the natives, who held themselves too high for any suchrecognition of another as their better. They could not understand howhe, so much their superior in bodily presence, in air and manner, couldspeak of the man who employed him in any other way than as "Kirkwood, "without even demeaning himself so far as to prefix a "Mr. " to it. But"my master" Maurice remained for Paolo in spite of the fact that allmen are born free and equal. And never was a servant more devoted to amaster than was Paolo to Maurice during the days of doubt and danger. Since his improvement Maurice insisted upon his leaving his chamber andgetting out of the house, so as to breathe the fresh air of which he wasin so much need. It worried him to see his servant returning after tooshort an absence. The attendant who had helped him in the care of thepatient was within call, and Paolo was almost driven out of the houseby the urgency of his master's command that he should take plenty ofexercise in the open air. 

Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved condition, although theforce of the disease had spent itself, the state of weakness to whichhe had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety, and required greatprecautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, enfeebled to such adegree that he had to be cared for very much as a child is tended. Gradually his voice was coming back to him, so that he could hold someconversation, as was before mentioned, with those about him. The doctorwaited for the right moment to make mention of the manuscript whichMaurice had submitted to him. Up to this time, although it had beenalluded to and the doctor had told him of the intense interest withwhich he had read it, he had never ventured to make it the subject ofany long talk, such as would be liable to fatigue his patient. But nowhe thought the time had come. 

"I have been thinking, " the doctor said, "of the singular seizures towhich you are liable, and as it is my business not merely to thinkabout such cases, but to do what I can to help any who may be capableof receiving aid from my art, I wish to have some additional facts aboutyour history. And in the first place, will you allow me to ask what ledyou to this particular place? It is so much less known to the public atlarge than many other resorts that we naturally ask, What brings this orthat new visitor among us? We have no ill-tasting, natural spring of badwater to be analyzed by the state chemist and proclaimed as a specific. We have no great gambling-houses, no racecourse (except that fox boatson the lake); we have no coaching-club, no great balls, few lions of anykind, so we ask, What brings this or that stranger here? And I think Imay venture to ask you whether any, special motive brought you among us, or whether it was accident that determined your coming to this place. "

"Certainly, doctor, " Maurice answered, "I will tell you with greatpleasure. Last year I passed on the border of a great river. The yearbefore I lived in a lonely cottage at the side of the ocean. I wantedthis year to be by a lake. You heard the paper read at the meeting ofyour society, or at least you heard of it, --for such matters are alwaystalked over in a village like this. You can judge by that paper, orcould, if it were before you, of the frame of mind in which I came here. I was tired of the sullen indifference of the ocean and the babblingegotism of the river, always hurrying along on its own private business. I wanted the dreamy stillness of a large, tranquil sheet of water thathad nothing in particular to do, and would leave me to myself and mythoughts. I had read somewhere about the place, and the old AnchorTavern, with its paternal landlord and motherly landlady andold-fashioned household, and that, though it was no longer open as atavern, I could find a resting-place there early in the season, at leastfor a few days, while I looked about me for a quiet place in which Imight pass my summer. I have found this a pleasant residence. By beingup early and out late I have kept myself mainly in the solitude whichhas become my enforced habit of life. The season has gone by too swiftlyfor me since my dream has become a vision. "

The doctor was sitting with his hand round Maurice's wrist, threefingers on his pulse. As he spoke these last words he noticed that thepulse fluttered a little, --beat irregularly a few times; intermitted;became feeble and thready; while his cheek grew whiter than the pallidbloodlessness of his long illness had left it. 

"No more talk, now, " he said. "You are too tired to be using your voice. I will hear all the rest another time. "

The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interesting point. What didhe mean by saying that his dream had become a vision? This is what thedoctor was naturally curious, and professionally anxious, to know. Buthis hand was still on his patient's pulse, which told him unmistakablythat the heart had taken the alarm and was losing its energy underthe depressing nervous influence. Presently, however, it recovered itsnatural force and rhythm, and a faint flush came back to the pale cheek. The doctor remembered the story of Galen, and the young maiden whosecomplaint had puzzled the physicians. 

The next day his patient was well enough to enter once more intoconversation. 

"You said something about a dream of yours which had become a vision, "said the doctor, with his fingers on his patient's wrist, as before. Hefelt the artery leap, under his pressure, falter a little, stop, thenbegin again, growing fuller in its beat. The heart had felt the pull ofthe bridle, but the spur had roused it to swift reaction. 

"You know the story of my past life, doctor, " Maurice answered; "and, Iwill tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my dreams. You remember the boat-race? I watched it from a distance, but I helda powerful opera-glass in my hand, which brought the whole crew of theyoung ladies' boat so close to me that I could see the features, thefigures, the movements, of every one of the rowers. I saw the littlecoxswain fling her bouquet in the track of the other boat, --you rememberhow the race was lost and won, --but I saw one face among those younggirls which drew me away from all the rest. It was that of the younglady who pulled the bow oar, the captain of the boat's crew. I havesince learned her name, you know it well, --I need not name her. Sincethat day I have had many distant glimpses of her; and once I met herso squarely that the deadly sensation came over me, and I felt that inanother moment I should fall senseless at her feet. But she passedon her way and I on mine, and the spasm which had clutched my heartgradually left it, and I was as well as before. You know that younglady, doctor?"

"I do; and she is a very noble creature. You are not the first young manwho has been fascinated, almost at a glance, by Miss Euthymia Tower. Andshe is well worth knowing more intimately. "

The doctor gave him a full account of the young lady, of her early days, her character, her accomplishments. To all this he listened devoutly, and when the doctor left him he said to himself, "I will see her andspeak with her, if it costs me my life. "

XXII. EUTHYMIA. 

"The Wonder" of the Corinna Institute had never willingly made a showof her gymnastic accomplishments. Her feats, which were so much admired, were only her natural exercise. Gradually the dumb-bells others usedbecame too light for her, the ropes she climbed too short, the clubsshe exercised with seemed as if they were made of cork instead of beingheavy wood, and all the tests and meters of strength and agility hadbeen strained beyond the standards which the records of the school hadmarked as their historic maxima. It was not her fault that she brokea dynamometer one day; she apologized for it, but the teacher said hewished he could have a dozen broken every year in the same way. Theconsciousness of her bodily strength had made her very careful in hermovements. The pressure of her hand was never too hard for the tenderestlittle maiden whose palm was against her own. So far from pridingherself on her special gifts, she was disposed to be ashamed of them. There were times and places in which she could give full play to hermuscles without fear or reproach. She had her special costume for theboat and for the woods. She would climb the rugged old hemlocks nowand then for the sake of a wide outlook, or to peep into the large nestwhere a hawk, or it may be an eagle, was raising her little brood ofair-pirates. 

There were those who spoke of her wanderings in lonely places asan unsafe exposure. One sometimes met doubtful characters about theneighborhood, and stories were--told of occurrences which might wellfrighten a young girl, and make her cautious of trusting herself alonein the wild solitudes which surrounded the little village. . Those whoknew Euthymia thought her quite equal to taking care of herself. Hervery look was enough to ensure the respect of any vagabond who mightcross her path, and if matters came to the worst she would prove asdangerous as a panther. 

But it was a pity to associate this class of thoughts with a noblespecimen of true womanhood. Health, beauty, strength, were finequalities, and in all these she was rich. She enjoyed all her naturalgifts, and thought little about them. Unwillingly, but over-persuadedby some of her friends, she had allowed her arm and hand to be modelled. The artists who saw the cast wondered if it would be possible to get thebust of the maiden from whom it was taken. Nobody would have dared tosuggest such an idea to her except Lurida. For Lurida sex was a triflingaccident, to be disregarded not only in the interests of humanity, butfor the sake of art. 

"It is a shame, " she said to Euthymia, "that you will not let yourexquisitely moulded form be perpetuated in marble. You have no right towithhold such a model from the contemplation of your fellow-creatures. Think how rare it is to see a woman who truly represents the divineidea! You belong to your race, and not to yourself, --at least, yourbeauty is a gift not to be considered as a piece of private property. Look at the so-called Venus of Milo. Do you suppose the noble woman whowas the original of that divinely chaste statue felt any scruple aboutallowing the sculptor to reproduce her pure, unblemished perfections?"

Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend. She listened toher eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, used as she wasto Lurida's audacities. "The Terror's" brain had run away with a largeshare of the blood which ought to have gone to the nourishment of hergeneral system. She could not help admiring, almost worshipping, acompanion whose being was rich in the womanly developments with whichnature had so economically endowed herself. An impoverished organizationcarries with it certain neutral qualities which make its subject appear, in the presence of complete manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-muteamong speaking persons. The deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheekat Lurida's suggestion was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbedexpression. There was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew farless than she did of those many and difficult studies which had absorbedher vital forces. She was startled to see what an effect her proposalhad produced, for Euthymia was not only blushing, but there was a flamein her eyes which she had hardly ever seen before. 

"Is this only your own suggestion?" Euthymia said, "or has some one beenputting the idea into your head?" The truth was that she had happenedto meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she was offended bythe long, searching stare with which that individual had honored her. Itoccurred to her that he, or some such visitor to the place, might havespoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person who had repeated whatwas said to Lurida, as a good subject for the art of the sculptor, and she felt all her maiden sensibilities offended by the proposition. Lurida could not understand her excitement, but she was startled byit. Natures which are complementary of each other are liable to theseaccidental collisions of feeling. They get along very well together, none the worse for their differences, until all at once the tender spotof one or the other is carelessly handled in utter unconsciousnesson the part of the aggressor, and the exclamation, the outcry, or theexplosion explains the situation altogether too emphatically. Suchscenes did not frequently occur between the two friends, and this littleflurry was soon over; but it served to warn Lurida that Miss EuthymiaTower was not of that class of self-conscious beauties who would beready to dispute the empire of the Venus of Milo on her own ground, indefences as scanty and insufficient as those of the marble divinity. 

Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, while at school, andin the long vacations, near enough to find out that she was anything buteasy to make love to. She fairly frightened more than one rash youthwho was disposed to be too sentimental in her company. They overdidflattery, which she was used to and tolerated, but which cheapenedthe admirer in her estimation, and now and then betrayed her into anexpression which made him aware of the fact, and was a discouragementto aggressive amiability. The real difficulty was that not one of heradorers had ever greatly interested her. It could not be that nature hadmade her insensible. It must have been because the man who was made forher had never yet shown himself. She was not easy to please, that wascertain; and she was one of those young women who will not accept asa lover one who but half pleases them. She could not pick up the firststick that fell in her way and take it to shape her ideal out of. Manyof the good people of the village doubted whether Euthymia would ever bemarried. 

"There 's nothing good enough for her in this village, " said the oldlandlord of what had been the Anchor Tavern. 

"She must wait till a prince comes along, " the old landlady said inreply. "She'd make as pretty a queen as any of them that's born to it. Wouldn't she be splendid with a gold crown on her head, and di'monds aglitterin' all over her! D' you remember how handsome she looked in thetableau, when the fair was held for the Dorcas Society? She had on anold dress of her grandma's, --they don't make anything half so handsomenowadays, --and she was just as pretty as a pictur'. But what's the useof good looks if they scare away folks? The young fellows think thatsuch a handsome girl as that would cost ten times as much to keep asa plain one. She must be dressed up like an empress, --so they seem tothink. It ain't so with Euthymy: she'd look like a great lady dressedanyhow, and she has n't got any more notions than the homeliest girlthat ever stood before a glass to look at herself. "

In the humbler walks of Arrowhead Village society, similar opinionswere entertained of Miss Euthymia. The fresh-water fisherman representedpretty well the average estimate of the class to which he belonged. "I tell ye, " said he to another gentleman of leisure, whose chiefoccupation was to watch the coming and going of the visitors toArrowhead Village, --"I tell ye that girl ain't a gon to put up with anyo' them slab-sided fellahs that you see hangin' raound to look at herevery Sunday when she comes aout o' meetin'. It's one o' them big gentsfrom Boston or New York that'll step up an' kerry her off. "

In the mean time nothing could be further from the thoughts of Euthymiathan the prospect of an ambitious worldly alliance. The ideals of youngwomen cost them many and great disappointments, but they save them veryoften from those lifelong companionships which accident is constantlytrying to force upon them, in spite of their obvious unfitness. Thehigher the ideal, the less likely is the commonplace neighbor who hasthe great advantage of easy access, or the boarding-house acquaintancewho can profit by those vacant hours when the least interesting ofvisitors is better than absolute loneliness, --the less likely are theseundesirable personages to be endured, pitied, and, if not embraced, accepted, for want of something better. Euthymia found so much pleasurein the intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt her own prudenceand reserve so necessary to that independent young lady, that she hadbeen contented, so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in anabstract sort of way. Beneath her abstractions there was a capacityof loving which might have been inferred from the expression of herfeatures, the light that shone in her eyes, the tones of her voice, allof which were full of the language which belongs to susceptible natures. How many women never say to themselves that they were born to love, until all at once the discovery opens upon them, as the sense that hewas born a painter is said to have dawned suddenly upon Correggio!

Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she could not helpthinking a good deal about the young man lying ill amongst strangers. She was not one of those who had sent him the three-cornered notes oreven a bunch of flowers. She knew that he was receiving abounding tokensof kindness and sympathy from different quarters, and a certain inwardfeeling restrained her from joining in these demonstrations. If he hadbeen suffering from some deadly and contagious malady she would haverisked her life to help him, without a thought that there was anywonderful heroism in such self-devotion. Her friend Lurida might havebeen capable of the same sacrifice, but it would be after reasoning withherself as to the obligations which her sense of human rights and dutieslaid upon her, and fortifying her courage with the memory of nobledeeds recorded of women in ancient and modern history. With Euthymia theprimary human instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflectionabout them. All her sympathies were excited by the thought of thisforlorn stranger in his solitude, but she felt the impossibility ofgiving any complete expression to them. She thought of Mungo Park in theAfrican desert, and she envied the poor negress who not only pitied him, but had the blessed opportunity of helping and consoling him. How nearwere these two human creatures, each needing the other! How near inbodily presence, how far apart in their lives, with a barrier seeminglyimpassable between them!

XXIII. THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA. 

These autumnal fevers, which carry off a large number of our youngpeople every year, are treacherous and deceptive diseases. Not only arethey liable, as has been mentioned, to various accidental complicationswhich may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, after convalescenceseems to be established, relapses occur which are more serious than thedisease had appeared to be in its previous course. One morning Dr. Buttsfound Maurice worse instead of better, as he had hoped and expected tofind him. Weak as he was, there was every reason to fear the issueof this return of his threatening symptoms. There was not much to dobesides keeping up the little strength which still remained. It was allneeded. 

Does the reader of these pages ever think of the work a sick man as muchas a well one has to perform while he is lying on his back and takingwhat we call his "rest"? More than a thousand times an hour, between ahundred and fifty and two hundred thousand times a week, he has to liftthe bars of the cage in which his breathing organs are confined, to savehimself from asphyxia. Rest! There is no rest until the last long sightells those who look upon the dying that the ceaseless daily task, torest from which is death, is at last finished. We are all galley-slaves, pulling at the levers of respiration, --which, rising and falling like somany oars, drive us across an unfathomable ocean from one unknown shoreto another. No! Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to thesefour and twenty oars, at which we must tug day and night all our lifelong. 

The doctor could not find any accidental cause to account for thisrelapse. It presently occurred to him that there might be some localsource of infection which had brought on the complaint, and was stillkeeping up the symptoms which were the ground of alarm. He determined toremove Maurice to his own house, where he could be sure of pure air, and where he himself could give more constant attention to his patientduring this critical period of his disease. It was a risk to take, but he could be carried on a litter by careful men, and remain whollypassive during the removal. Maurice signified his assent, as he couldhardly help doing, --for the doctor's suggestion took pretty nearly theform of a command. He thought it a matter of life and death, and wasgently urgent for his patient's immediate change of residence. Thedoctor insisted on having Maurice's books and other movable articlescarried to his own house, so that he should be surrounded by familiarsights, and not worry himself about what might happen to objects whichhe valued, if they were left behind him. 

All these dispositions were quickly and quietly made, and everythingwas ready for the transfer of the patient to the house of the hospitablephysician. Paolo was at the doctor's, superintending the arrangementof Maurice's effects and making all ready for his master. The nurse inattendance, a trustworthy man enough in the main, finding his patient ina tranquil sleep, left his bedside for a little fresh air. While hewas at the door he heard a shouting which excited his curiosity, and hefollowed the sound until he found himself at the border of the lake. Itwas nothing very wonderful which had caused the shouting. A Newfoundlanddog had been showing off his accomplishments, and some of the idlerswere betting as to the time it would take him to bring back to hismaster the various floating objects which had been thrown as far fromthe shore as possible. He watched the dog a few minutes, when hisattention was drawn to a light wherry, pulled by one young lady andsteered by another. It was making for the shore, which it would soonreach. The attendant remembered all at once, that he had left hischarge, and just before the boat came to land he turned and hurried backto the patient. Exactly how long he had been absent he could not havesaid, --perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps longer; the time appearedshort to him, wearied with long sitting and watching. 

It had seemed, when he stole away from Maurice's bedside, that he wasnot in the least needed. The patient was lying perfectly quiet, and toall appearance wanted nothing more than letting alone. It was such acomfort to look at something besides the worn features of a sick man, tohear something besides his labored breathing and faint, half-whisperedwords, that the temptation to indulge in these luxuries for a fewminutes had proved irresistible. 

Unfortunately, Maurice's slumbers did not remain tranquil during theabsence of the nurse. He very soon fell into a dream, which beganquietly enough, but in the course of the sudden transitions which dreamsare in the habit of undergoing became successively anxious, distressing, terrifying. His earlier and later experiences came up before him, fragmentary, incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as reality. He was atthe bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, narrow galleries, orrather worm-holes, in which human beings pass a large part of theirlives, like so many larvae boring their way into the beams and raftersof some old building. How close the air was in the stifling passagethrough which he was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing aslippery sheet of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of ashallow niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyssbelow him waiting for his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thinthe air seemed, how desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking ofMont Blanc, it may be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which heremembered well as one of the great trials in his mountain ascents. No, it was not Mont Blanc, --it was not any one of the frozen Alpine summits;it was Hecla that he was climbing. 

The smoke of the burning mountain was wrapping itself around him; he waschoking with its dense fumes; he heard the flames roaring around him, hefelt the hot lava beneath his feet, he uttered a faint cry, and awoke. 

The room was full of smoke. He was gasping for breath, strangling in thesmothering oven which his chamber had become. 

The house was on fire!

He tried to call for help, but his voice failed him, and died away in awhisper. He made a desperate effort, and rose so as to sit up in the bedfor an instant, but the effort was too much for him, and he sank backupon his pillow, helpless. He felt that his hour had come, for he couldnot live in this dreadful atmosphere, and he was left alone. He couldhear the crackle of fire as the flame crept along from one partition toanother. It was a cruel fate to be left to perish in that way, --thefate that many a martyr had had to face, --to be first strangled andthen burned. Death had not the terror for him that it has for mostyoung persons. He was accustomed to thinking of it calmly, sometimeswistfully, even to such a degree that the thought of self-destructionhad come upon him as a temptation. But here was death in an unexpectedand appalling shape. He did not know before how much he cared to live. All his old recollections came before him as it were in one long, vividflash. The closed vista of memory opened to its far horizon-line, andpast and present were pictured in a single instant of clear vision. Thedread moment which had blighted his life returned in all its terror. Hefelt the convulsive spring in the form of a faint, impotent spasm, --therush of air, --the thorns of the stinging and lacerating cradle intowhich he was precipitated. One after another those paralyzing seizureswhich had been like deadening blows on the naked heart seemed to repeatthemselves, as real as at the moment of their occurrence. The picturespassed in succession with such rapidity that they appeared almost as ifsimultaneous. The vision of the "inward eye" was so intensified in thismoment of peril that an instant was like an hour of common existence. Those who have been very near drowning know well what this descriptionmeans. The development of a photograph may not explain it, but itillustrates the curious and familiar fact of the revived recollectionsof the drowning man's experience. The sensitive plate has taken one lookat a scene, and remembers it all, Every little circumstance is there, --the hoof in air, the wing inflight, the leaf as it falls, the wave as it breaks. All there, butinvisible; potentially present, but impalpable, inappreciable, as if notexisting at all. A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene comesout in all its perfection of detail. In those supreme moments when deathstares a man suddenly in the face the rush of unwonted emotion floodsthe undeveloped pictures of vanished years, stored away in the memory, the vast panorama of a lifetime, and in one swift instant the past comesout as vividly as if it were again the present. So it was at this momentwith the sick man, as he lay helpless and felt that he was left to die. For he saw no hope of relief: the smoke was drifting in clouds intothe room; the flames were very near; if he was not reached and rescuedimmediately it was all over with him. 

His past life had flashed before him. Then all at once rose the thoughtof his future, --of all its possibilities, of the vague hopes which hehad cherished of late that his mysterious doom would be lifted from him. There was something, then, to be lived for, something! There was a newlife, it might be, in store for him, and such a new life! He thought ofall he was losing. Oh, could he but have lived to know the meaning oflove! And the passionate desire of life came over him, --not the dread ofdeath, but the longing for what the future might yet have of happinessfor him. 

All this took place in the course of a very few moments. Dreams andvisions have little to do with measured time, and ten minutes, possiblyfifteen or twenty, were all that had passed since the beginning of thosenightmare terrors which were evidently suggested by the suffocating airhe was breathing. 

What had happened? In the confusion of moving books and other articlesto the doctor's house, doors and windows had been forgotten. Among therest a window opening into the cellar, where some old furniture hadbeen left by a former occupant, had been left unclosed. One of the lazynatives, who had lounged by the house smoking a bad cigar, had thrownthe burning stump in at this open window. He had no particular intentionof doing mischief, but he had that indifference to consequences which isthe next step above the inclination to crime. The burning stump happenedto fall among the straw of an old mattress which had been ripped open. The smoker went his way without looking behind him, and it so chancedthat no other person passed the house for some time. Presently the strawwas in a blaze, and from this the fire extended to the furniture, to thestairway leading up from the cellar, and was working its way along theentry under the stairs leading up to the apartment where Maurice waslying. 

The blaze was fierce and swift, as it could not help being with such amass of combustibles, --loose straw from the mattress, dry old furniture, and old warped floors which had been parching and shrinking for a scoreor two of years. The whole house was, in the common language of thenewspaper reports, "a perfect tinder-box, " and would probably be a heapof ashes in half an hour. And there was this unfortunate deserted sickman lying between life and death, beyond all help unless some unexpectedassistance should come to his rescue. 

As the attendant drew near the house where Maurice was lying, he washorror-struck to see dense volumes of smoke pouring out of the lowerwindows. It was beginning to make its way through the upper windows, also, and presently a tongue of fire shot out and streamed upward alongthe side of the house. The man shrieked Fire! Fire! with all his might, and rushed to the door of the building to make his way to Maurice'sroom and save him. He penetrated but a short distance when, blinded andchoking with the smoke, he rushed headlong down the stairs with a cry ofdespair that roused every man, woman, and child within reach of a humanvoice. Out they came from their houses in every quarter of the village. The shout of Fire! Fire! was the chief aid lent by many of the young andold. Some caught up pails and buckets: the more thoughtful ones fillingthem; the hastier snatching them up empty, trusting to find water nearerthe burning building. 

Is the sick man moved?

This was the awful question first asked, --for in the little village allknew that Maurice was about being transferred to the doctor's house. Theattendant, white as death, pointed to the chamber where he had left him, and gasped out, "He is there!"

A ladder! A ladder! was the general cry, and men and boys rushed offin search of one. But a single minute was an age now, and there was noladder to be had without a delay of many minutes. The sick man was goingto be swallowed up in the flames before it could possibly arrive. Somewere going for a blanket or a coverlet, in the hope that the young manmight have strength enough to leap from the window and be safely caughtin it. The attendant shook his head, and said faintly, "He cannot move from his bed. "

One of the visitors at the village, --a millionaire, it was said, --akind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, broken tones:

"A thousand dollars to the man that will bring him from his chamber!"

The fresh-water fisherman muttered, "I should like to save the man andto see the money, but it ain't a thaousan' dollars, nor ten thaousan'dollars, that'll pay a fellah for burnin' to death, --or even chokin' todeath, anyhaow. "

The carpenter, who knew the framework of every house in the village, recent or old, shook his head. 

"The stairs have been shored up, " he said, "and when the fists thatholds 'em up goes, down they'll come. It ain't safe for no man to goover them stairs. Hurry along your ladder, --that's your only chance. "

All was wild confusion around the burning house. The ladder they hadgone for was missing from its case, --a neighbor had carried it off forthe workmen who were shingling his roof. It would never get there intime. There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly half a mile from thelakeside settlement. Some were throwing on water in an aimless, uselessway; one was sending a thin stream through a garden syringe: it seemedlike doing something, at least. But all hope of saving Maurice was fastgiving way, so rapid was the progress of the flames, so thick the cloudof smoke that filled the house and poured from the windows. Nothing washeard but confused cries, shrieks of women, all sorts of orders todo this and that, no one knowing what was to be done. The ladder! Theladder! Five minutes more and it will be too late!

In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Paolo, and he had stoppedhis work of arranging Maurice's books in the same way as that in whichthey had stood in his apartment, and followed in the direction of thesound, little thinking that his master was lying helpless in the burninghouse. "Some chimney afire, " he said to himself; but he would go andtake a look, at any rate. 

Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction and impending death, two young women, in boating dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect, had suddenly joined the throng. "The Wonder" and "The Terror" of theirschool-days--Miss Euthymia rower and Miss Lurida Vincent had just comefrom the shore, where they had left their wherry. A few hurried wordstold them the fearful story. Maurice Kirkwood was lying in the chamberto which every eye was turned, unable to move, doomed to a dreadfuldeath. All that could be hoped was that he would perish by suffocationrather than by the flames, which would soon be upon him. The man who hadattended him had just tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled backout of the door, almost strangled by the smoke. A thousand dollars hadbeen offered to any one who would rescue the sick man, but no one haddared to make the attempt; for the stairs might fall at any moment, ifthe smoke did not blind and smother the man who passed them before theyfell. 

The two young women looked each other in the face for one swift moment. 

"How can he be reached?" asked Lurida. "Is there nobody that willventure his life to save a brother like that?"

"I will venture mine, " said Euthymia. 

"No! no!" shrieked Lurida, --"not you! not you! It is a man's work, notyours! You shall not go!" Poor Lurida had forgotten all her theoriesin this supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held back. Taking ahandkerchief from her neck, she dipped it in a pail of water and boundit about her head. Then she took several deep breaths of air, and filledher lungs as full as they would hold. She knew she must not take asingle breath in the choking atmosphere if she could possibly help it, and Euthymia was noted for her power of staying under water so long thatmore than once those who saw her dive thought she would never come upagain. So rapid were her movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, who would forcibly have prevented her from carrying out her purpose. Her imperious determination was not to be resisted. And so Euthymia, awilling martyr, if martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed withinthe veil that hid the sufferer. 

Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the ground. She wasthe first, but not the only one, of her sex that fainted as Euthymiadisappeared in the smoke of the burning building. Even the rector grewvery white in the face, --so white that one of his vestry-men begged himto sit down at once, and sprinkled a few drops of water on his forehead, to his great disgust and manifest advantage. The old landlady was cryingand moaning, and her husband was wiping his eyes and shaking his headsadly. 

"She will nevar come out alive, " he said solemnly. 

"Nor dead, neither, " added the carpenter. "Ther' won't be nothing leftof neither of 'em but ashes. " And the carpenter hid his face in hishands. 

The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag which he called a"hangkercher, "--it had served to carry bait that morning, --and wasmaking use of its best corner to dry the tears which were running downhis cheeks. The whole village was proud of Euthymia, and with these morequiet signs of grief were mingled loud lamentations, coming alike fromold and young. 

All this was not so much like a succession of events as it was like atableau. The lookers-on were stunned with its suddenness, and beforethey had time to recover their bewildered senses all was lost, or seemedlost. They felt that they should never look again on either of thoseyoung faces. 

The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately professional byhabit, had already recovered enough to be thinking of a text for thefuneral sermon. The first that occurred to him was this, --vaguely, ofcourse, in the background of consciousness:

"Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came forth of the midst of thefire. "

The village undertaker was of naturally sober aspect and reflectivedisposition. He had always been opposed to cremation, and here was afuneral pile blazing before his eyes. He, too, had his human sympathies, but in the distance his imagination pictured the final ceremony, and howhe himself should figure in a spectacle where the usual centre piece ofattraction would be wanting, --perhaps his own services uncalled for. 

Blame him not, you whose garden-patch is not watered with the tears ofmourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to everysound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself trembling tothe wail of the De Profundis. Not always, --not always; let us not becynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we may safely say, is subject to those secondary vibrations under the most solemn andsoul-subduing influences. 

It seems as if we were doing great wrong to the scene we arecontemplating in delaying it by the description of little circumstancesand individual thoughts and feelings. But linger as we may, we cannotcompress into a chapter--we could not crowd into a volume--all thatpassed through the minds and stirred the emotions of the awe-struckcompany which was gathered about the scene of danger and of terror. Weare dealing with an impossibility: consciousness is a surface; narrativeis a line. 

Maurice had given himself up for lost. His breathing was becoming everymoment more difficult, and he felt that his strength could hold out buta few minutes longer. 

"Robert!" he called in faint accents. But the attendant was not there toanswer. 

"Paolo! Paolo!" But the faithful servant, who would have given hislife for his master, had not yet reached the place where the crowd wasgathered. 

"Oh, for a breath of air! Oh, for an arm to lift me from this bed!Too late! Too late!" he gasped, with what might have seemed his dyingexpiration. 

"Not too late!" The soft voice reached his obscured consciousness as ifit had come down to him from heaven. 

In a single instant he found himself rolled in a blanket and in the armsof--a woman!

Out of the stifling chamber, --over the burning stairs, --close by thetongues of fire that were lapping up all they could reach, --out into theopen air, he was borne swiftly and safely, --carried as easily as if hehad been a babe, in the strong arms of "The Wonder" of the gymnasium, the captain of the Atalanta, who had little dreamed of the use she wasto make of her natural gifts and her school-girl accomplishments. 

Such a cry as arose from the crowd of on-lookers! It was a sound thatnone of them had ever heard before or could expect ever to hear again, unless he should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a sinkingvessel. Then, those who had resisted the overflow of their emotion, whohad stood in white despair as they thought of these two young livessoon to be wrapped in their burning shroud, --those stern men--the oldsea-captain, the hard-faced, moneymaking, cast-iron tradesmen of thecity counting-room--sobbed like hysteric women; it was like a convulsionthat overcame natures unused to those deeper emotions which many who arecapable of experiencing die without ever knowing. 

This was the scene upon which the doctor and Paolo suddenly appeared atthe same moment. 

As the fresh breeze passed over the face of the rescued patient, hiseyes opened wide, and his consciousness returned in almost supernaturallucidity. Euthymia had sat down upon a bank, and was still supportinghim. His head was resting on her bosom. Through his awakening sensesstole the murmurs of the living cradle which rocked him with thewavelike movements of respiration, the soft susurrus of the air thatentered with every breath, the double beat of the heart which throbbedclose to his ear. And every sense, and every instinct, and everyreviving pulse told him in language like a revelation from anotherworld that a woman's arms were around him, and that it was life, and notdeath, which her embrace had brought him. 

She would have disengaged him from her protecting hold, but the doctormade her a peremptory sign, which he followed by a sharp command:--

"Do not move him a hair's breadth, " he said. "Wait until the littercomes. Any sudden movement might be dangerous. Has anybody a brandyflask about him?"

One or two members of the local temperance society looked ratherawkward, but did not come forward. 

The fresh-water fisherman was the first who spoke. 

"I han't got no brandy, " he said, "but there's a drop or two of oldMedford rum in this here that you're welcome to, if it'll be of anyhelp. I alliz kerry a little on 't in case o' gettin' wet 'n' chilled. "

So saying he held forth a flat bottle with the word Sarsaparilla stampedon the green glass, but which contained half a pint or more of thespecific on which he relied in those very frequent exposures whichhappen to persons of his calling. 

The doctor motioned back Paolo, who would have rushed at once to the aidof Maurice, and who was not wanted at that moment. So poor Paolo, in anagony of fear for his master, was kept as quiet as possible, and had tocontent himself with asking all sorts of questions and repeating allthe prayers he could think of to Our Lady and to his holy namesake theApostle. 

The doctor wiped the mouth of the fisherman's bottle very carefully. "Take a few drops of this cordial, " he said, as he held it to hispatient's lips. "Hold him just so, Euthymia, without stirring. I willwatch him, and say when he is ready to be moved. The litter is near by, waiting. " Dr. Butts watched Maurice's pulse and color. The "Old Medford"knew its business. It had knocked over its tens of thousands; it had itsredeeming virtue, and helped to set up a poor fellow now and then. Itdid this for Maurice very effectively. When he seemed somewhat restored, the doctor had the litter brought to his side, and Euthymia softlyresigned her helpless burden, which Paolo and the attendant Robertlifted with the aid of the doctor, who walked by the patient as he wasborne to the home where Mrs. Butts had made all ready for his reception. 

As for poor Lurida, who had thought herself equal to the sanguinaryduties of the surgeon, she was left lying on the grass with an old womanover her, working hard with fan and smelling-salts to bring her backfrom her long fainting fit. 

XXIV. THE INEVITABLE. 

Why should not human nature be the same in Arrowhead Village aselsewhere? It could not seem strange to the good people of that placeand their visitors that these two young persons, brought together undercircumstances that stirred up the deepest emotions of which the humansoul is capable, should become attached to each other. But the bondbetween them was stronger than any knew, except the good doctor, who hadlearned the great secret of Maurice's life. For the first time sincehis infancy he had fully felt the charm which the immediate presenceof youthful womanhood carries with it. He could hardly believe the factwhen he found himself no longer the subject of the terrifying seizuresof which he had had many and threatening experiences. 

It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he couldpossibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state ofdebility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. Only bywhat seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocationand the mental anguish through which he had passed. It was perfectlyclear to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to whom heowed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the revolution in hisnervous system which would be the beginning of a new existence, it wouldbe of far more value as a restorative agency than any or all of thedrugs in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to Euthymia, and explained thematter to her parents and friends. She must go with him on some of hisvisits. Her mother should go with her, or her sister; but this was acase of life and death, and no maidenly scruples must keep her fromdoing her duty. 

The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented ascene not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of theold edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of thelittle group. He went before the others, took his seat by the bedside, and held the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. As Euthymiaentered it gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant as if witha faint memory of its old habit, then throbbed full and strong, comparatively, as if under the spur of some powerful stimulus. Euthymia's task was a delicate one, but she knew how to disguise itsdifficulty. 

"Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood, " she said, andhanded him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and beforeshe knew it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a gentleconstraint. What could she do? Here was the young man whose life shehad saved, at least for the moment, and who was yet in danger from thedisease which had almost worn out his powers of resistance. 

"Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side, " said the doctor. "He wants to thankyou, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death whichseemed inevitable. "

Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanlytears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with thedying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear. 

The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens--it; it letsthe old water-course fill up, and never returns to its forsaken bed. The tyrannous habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had verifieditself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman badconquered and abolished. 

The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptional character from thetime of his restoration to his natural conditions. His convalescencewas very slow and gradual, but no further accident interrupted its evenprogress. The season was over, the summer visitors had left ArrowheadVillage; the chrysanthemums were going out of flower, the frosts hadcome, and Maurice was still beneath the roof of the kind physician. Therelation between him and his preserver was so entirely apart from allcommon acquaintances and friendships that no ordinary rules could applyto it. Euthymia visited him often during the period of his extremeprostration. 

"You must come every day, " the doctor said. "He gains with every visityou make him; he pines if you miss him for a single day. " So she cameand sat by him, the doctor or good Mrs. Butts keeping her company inhis presence. He grew stronger, --began to sit up in bed; and at lastEuthymia found him dressed as in health, and beginning to walk about theroom. She was startled. She had thought of herself as a kind of nurse, but the young gentleman could hardly be said to need a nurse any longer. She had scruples about making any further visits. She asked Lurida whatshe thought about it. 

"Think about it?" said Lurida. "Why should n't you go to see a brotheras well as a sister, I should like to know? If you are afraid to go tosee Maurice Kirkwood, I am not afraid, at any rate. If you would ratherhave me go than go yourself, I will do it, and let people talk just asmuch as they want to. Shall I go instead of you?"

Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the best thing for thepatient. The doctor had told her he thought there were special reasonsfor her own course in coming daily to see him. "I am afraid, " she said, "you are too bright to be safe for him in his weak state. Your mind issuch a stimulating one, you know. A dull sort of person like myself isbetter for him just now. I will continue visiting him as long as thedoctor says it is important that I should; but you must defend me, Lurida, --I know you can explain it all so that people will not blameme. "

Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's penetratinghead-voice would be in a convalescent's chamber. She knew how thatactive mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work, whenwhat he wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not these good andsufficient reasons for her decision? What others could there be?

So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she blushed to see that shewas continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning tolook too well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition ofaffairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in theircomments. Free, but kindly, for the story of the rescue had melted everyheart; and what could be more natural than that these two young peoplewhom God had brought together in the dread moment of peril should findit hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour of danger was past?When gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay his debts; and ifMaurice gave his heart to Euthymia, would not she receive it as paymentin full?

The change which had taken place in the vital currents of MauriceKirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change ina magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and theaustral the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took placewhile he was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. Forall the long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found theirnatural channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ whichthrobs in response to every profound emotion. As his health graduallyreturned, Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his cheek, a glitter in his eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, whichaltogether were a warning to the young maiden that the highway offriendly intercourse was fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of whichher woman's eye could read plainly enough, "Dangerous passing. "

"You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood, " she said, "that I thinkI had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next time wemeet I hope you will be strong enough to call on me. "

She was frightened to see how pale he turned, --he was weaker than shethought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Buttslooked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten thegood woman's presence. 

Presently Maurice spoke, --very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a stitchat the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she listened towhat followed. 

"No! you must not leave me. You must never leave me. You saved my life. But you have done more than that, --more than you know or can ever know. To you I owe it that I am living; with you I live henceforth, if I amto live at all. All I am, all I hope, --will you take this poor offeringfrom one who owes you everything, whose lips never touched those ofwoman or breathed a word of love before you?"

What could Euthymia reply to this question, uttered with all the depthof a passion which had never before found expression. 

Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs. Butts overhear. But shetold her husband afterwards that there was nothing in the tableaux theyhad had in September to compare with what she then saw. It was indeed apleasing picture which those two young heads presented as Euthymia gaveher inarticulate but infinitely expressive answer to the question ofMaurice Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman thought it time to leave theyoung people. Down went the stocking with the needles in it; out of herlap tumbled the ball of worsted, rolling along the floor with its yarntrailing after it, like some village matron who goes about circulatingfrom hearth to hearth, leaving all along her track the story of the newengagement or of the arrival of the last "little stranger. "

Not many suns had set before it was told all through Arrowhead Villagethat Maurice Kirkwood was the accepted lover of Euthymia Tower. 

POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. 

MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, May18. 

MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA, --Who would have thought, when you broke your oar asthe Atalanta flashed by the Algonquin, last June, that before the rosescame again you would find yourself the wife of a fine scholar and grandgentleman, and the head of a household such as that of which you are themistress? You must not forget your old Arrowhead Village friends. Whatam I saying?---you forget them! No, dearest, I know your heart too wellfor that! You are not one of those who lay aside their old friendshipsas they do last years bonnet when they get a new one. You have told meall about yourself and your happiness, and now you want me to tell youabout myself and what is going on in our little place. 

And first about myself. I have given up the idea of becoming a doctor. Ihave studied mathematics so much that I have grown fond of certainties, of demonstrations, and medicine deals chiefly in probabilities. Thepractice of the art is so mixed up with the deepest human interests thatit is hard to pursue it with that even poise of the intellect which isdemanded by science. I want knowledge pure and simple, --I do not fancyhaving it mixed. Neither do I like the thought of passing my life ingoing from one scene of suffering to another; I am not saintly enoughfor such a daily martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easyoccupation. I fainted at the first operation I saw, and I have neverwanted to see another. I don't say that I wouldn't marry a physician, if the right one asked me, but the young doctor is not forthcoming atpresent. Yes, I think I might make a pretty good doctor's wife. I couldteach him a good deal about headaches and backaches and all sorts ofnervous revolutions, as the doctor says the French women call theirtantrums. I don't know but I should be willing to let him try his newmedicines on me. If he were a homeopath, I know I should; for if abillionth of a grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my tea or coffee, I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of anything would poisonme, --no, not if it were snake-venom; and if it were not disgusting, Iwould swallow a handful of his lachesis globules, to please my husband. But if I ever become a doctor's wife, my husband will not be one of thatkind of practitioners, you may be sure of that, nor an "eclectic, " nora "faith-cure man. " On the whole, I don't think I want to be married atall. I don't like the male animal very well (except such noble specimensas your husband). They are all tyrants, --almost all, --so far as our sexis concerned, and I often think we could get on better without them. 

However, the creatures are useful in the Society. They send us papers, some of them well worth reading. You have told me so often that youwould like to know how the Society is getting on, and to read some ofthe papers sent to it if they happened to be interesting, that I havelaid aside one or two manuscripts expressly for your perusal. You willget them by and by. 

I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you. Arrowhead Villagemisses him dreadfully, I can tell you. That is the reason people becomeso attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in their natures? Isuppose life is not long enough to cool their blood down to our Northernstandard. Then they are so child-like, whereas the native of theselatitudes is never young after he is ten or twelve years old. Mothersays, --you know mother's old-fashioned notions, and how shrewd andsensible she is in spite of them, --mother says that when she was agirl families used to import young men and young women from the countrytowns, who called themselves "helps, " not servants, --no, that wasScriptural; "but they did n't know everything down in Judee, " and it isnot good American language. She says that these people would live in thesame household until they were married, and the women often remain inthe same service until they died or were old and worn out, and then, what with the money they had saved and the care and assistance they gotfrom their former employers, would pass a decent and comfortable oldage, and be buried in the family lot. Mother has made up her mind to thechange, but grandmother is bitter about it. She says there never wasa country yet where the population was made up of "ladies" and"gentlemen, " and she does n't believe there can be; nor that putting aspread eagle on a copper makes a gold dollar of it. She is a pessimistafter her own fashion. She thinks all sentiment is dying out of ourpeople. No loyalty for the sovereign, the king-post of the politicaledifice, she says; no deep attachment between employer and employed; noreverence of the humbler members of a household for its heads; and tomake sure of continued corruption and misery, what she calls "universalsuffrage" emptying all the sewers into the great aqueduct we all mustdrink from. "Universal suffrage!" I suppose we women don't belong to theuniverse! Wait until we get a chance at the ballot-box, I tell grandma, and see if we don't wash out the sewers before they reach the aqueduct!But my pen has run away with men I was thinking of Paolo, and what apleasant thing it is to have one of those child-like, warm-hearted, attachable, cheerful, contented, humble, faithful, companionable, butnever presuming grownup children of the South waiting on one, as ifeverything he could do for one was a pleasure, and carrying a look ofcontent in his face which makes every one who meets him happier for aglimpse of his features. 

It does seem a shame that the charming relation of master and servant, intelligent authority and cheerful obedience, mutual interest in eachother's welfare, thankful recognition of all the advantages which belongto domestic service in the better class of families, should be almostwholly confined to aliens and their immediate descendants. Why shouldHannah think herself so much better than Bridget? When they meet at thepolls together, as they will before long, they will begin to feel moreof an equality than is recognized at present. The native female turnsher nose up at the idea of "living out;" does she think herself so muchsuperior to the women of other nationalities? Our women will have tocome to it, --so grandmother says, --in another generation or two, and ina hundred years, according to her prophecy, there will be a new set ofold "Miss Pollys" and "Miss Betseys" who have lived half a century inthe same families, respectful and respected, cherished, cared for intime of need (citizens as well as servants, holding a ballot as wellas a broom, I tell her), and bringing back to us the lowly, underfootvirtues of contentment and humility, which we do so need to carpet thebarren and hungry thoroughfare of our unstratified existence. 

There, I have got a-going, and am forgetting all the news I have to tellyou. There is an engagement you will want to know all about. It came topass through our famous boat-race, which you and I remember, and shallnever forget as long as we live. It seems that the young fellow whopulled the bow oar of that men's college boat which we had the pleasureof beating got some glimpses of Georgina, our handsome stroke oar. Ibelieve he took it into his head that it was she who threw the bouquetthat won the race for us. He was, as you know, greatly mistaken, andought to have made love to me, only he did n't. Well, it seems he cameposting down to the Institute just before the vacation was over, andthere got a sight of Georgina. I wonder whether she told him she didn'tfling the bouquet! Anyhow, the acquaintance began in that way, and nowit seems that this young fellow, good-looking and a bright scholar, butwith a good many months more to pass in college, is her captive. It wastoo bad. Just think of my bouquet's going to another girl's credit! Nomatter, the old Atalanta story was paid off, at any rate. 

You want to know all about dear Dr. Butts. They say he has just beenoffered a Professorship in one of the great medical colleges. I askedhim about it, and he did not say that he had or had not. "But, " said be, "suppose that I had been offered such a place; do you think I ought toaccept it and leave Arrowhead Village? Let us talk it over, " said he, "just as if I had had such an offer. " I told him he ought to stay. Thereare plenty of men that can get into a Professor's chair, I said, andtalk like Solomons to a class of wondering pupils: but once get a reallygood doctor in a place, a man who knows all about everybody, whetherthey have this or that tendency, whether when they are sick they havea way of dying or a way of getting well, what medicines agree with themand what drugs they cannot take, whether they are of the sort that thinknothing is the matter with them until they are dead as smoked herring, or of the sort that send for the minister if they get a stomach-achefrom eating too many cucumbers, --who knows all about all the peoplewithin half a dozen miles (all the sensible ones, that is, who employ aregular practitioner), --such a man as that, I say, is not to be replacedlike a missing piece out of a Springfield musket or a Waltham watch. Don't go! said I. Stay here and save our precious lives, if you can, orat least put us through in the proper way, so that we needn't be ashamedof ourselves for dying, if we must die. Well, Dr. Butts is not goingto leave us. I hope you will have no unwelcome occasion for hisservices, --you are never ill, you know, --but, anyhow, he is going to behere, and no matter what happens he will be on hand. 

The village news is not of a very exciting character. Item 1. A newhouse is put up over the ashes of the one in which your husbandlived while he was here. It was planned by one of the autochthonousinhabitants with the most ingenious combination of inconveniences thatthe natural man could educe from his original perversity of intellect. To get at any one room you must pass through every other. It is blind, or nearly so, on the only side which has a good prospect, and commandsa fine view of the barn and pigsty through numerous windows. Item 2. Wehave a small fire-engine near the new house which can be worked by a manor two, and would be equal to the emergency of putting out a bunch offire-crackers. Item 3. We have a new ladder, in a bog, close to the newfire-engine, so if the new house catches fire, like its predecessor, andthere should happen to, be a sick man on an upper floor, he can be gotout without running the risk of going up and down a burning staircase. What a blessed thing it was that there was no fire-engine near by and noladder at hand on the day of the great rescue! If there had been, what achange in your programme of life! You remember that "cup of tea spilton Mrs. Masham's apron, " which we used to read of in one of Everett'sOrations, and all its wide-reaching consequences in the affairs ofEurope. I hunted up that cup of tea as diligently as ever a Bostonmatron sought for the last leaves in her old caddy after the tea-chestshad been flung overboard at Griffin's wharf, --but no matter about that, now. That is the way things come about in this world. I must write alecture on lucky mishaps, or, more elegantly, fortunate calamities. Itwill be just the converse of that odd essay of Swift's we read together, the awkward and stupid things done with the best intentions. Perhaps Ishall deliver the lecture in your city: you will come and hear it, andbring him, won't you, dearest? Always, your loving

LURIDA. 

MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. 

It seems forever since you left us, dearest Euthymia! And are you, andis your husband, and Paolo, --good Paolo, --are you all as well and happyas you have been and as you ought to be? I suppose our small villageseems a very quiet sort of place to pass the winter in, now that youhave become accustomed to the noise and gayety of a great city. For allthat, it is a pretty busy place this winter, I can tell you. We havesleighing parties, --I never go to them, myself, because I can't keepwarm, and my mind freezes up when my blood cools down below 95 or 96deg. Fahrenheit. I had a great deal rather sit by a good fire andread about Arctic discoveries. But I like very well to hear the bells'jingling and to see the young people trying to have a good time as hardas they do at a picnic. It may be that they do, but to me a picnic ispurgatory and a sleigh-ride that other place, where, as my favoriteMilton says, "frost performs the effect of fire. " I believe I havequoted him correctly; I ought to, for I could repeat half his poems frommemory once, if I cannot now. 

You must have plenty of excitement in your city life. I suppose yourecognized yourself in one of the society columns of the "HouseholdInquisitor:" "Mrs. E. K. , very beautiful, in an elegant, " etc. , etc, "with pearls, " etc. , etc. , --as if you were not the ornament of all thatyou wear, no matter what it is!

I am so glad that you have married a scholar! Why should notMaurice--you both tell me to call him so--take the diplomatic officewhich has been offered him? It seems to me that he would find himself inexactly the right place. He can talk in two or three languages, has goodmanners, and a wife who--well, what shall I say of Mrs. Kirkwood butthat "she would be good company for a queen, " as our old friend thequondam landlady of the Anchor Tavern used to say? I should so like tosee you presented at Court! It seems to me that I should be willing tohold your train for the sake of seeing you in your court feathers andthings. 

As for myself, I have been thinking of late that I would become either aprofessional lecturer or head mistress of a great school or college forgirls. I have tried the first business a little. Last month I delivereda lecture on Quaternions. I got three for my audience; two came overfrom the Institute, and one from that men's college which they try tomake out to be a university, and where no female is admitted unless shebelongs among the quadrupeds. I enjoyed lecturing, but the subject isa difficult one, and I don't think any one of them had any very clearnotion of what I was talking about, except Rhodora, --and I know she didn't. To tell the truth, I was lecturing to instruct myself. I mean totry something easier next time. I have thought of the Basque languageand literature. What do you say to that?

The Society goes on famously. We have had a paper presented and readlately which has greatly amused some of us and provoked a few of theweaker sort. The writer is that crabbed old Professor of Belles-Lettresat that men's college over there. He is dreadfully hard on the poor"poets, " as they call themselves. It seems that a great many youngpersons, and more especially a great many young girls, of whom theInstitute has furnished a considerable proportion, have taken to sendinghim their rhymed productions to be criticised, --expecting to be praised, no doubt, every one of them. I must give you one of the sauciestextracts from his paper in his own words:

"It takes half my time to read the 'poems' sent me by young peopleof both sexes. They would be more shy of doing it if they knew that Irecognize a tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, and the publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence ofambitious mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are exceptionsto this rule of judgment, but I maintain that the presumption is alwaysagainst the rhymester as compared with the less pretentious personsabout him or her, busy with some useful calling, --too busy to be taggingrhymed commonplaces together. Just now there seems to be an epidemicof rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, or the sweating sickness. After reading a certain amount of manuscript verse one is disposed toanathematize the inventor of homophonous syllabification. [This phrasemade a great laugh when it was read. ] This, that is rhyming, must havebeen found out very early, "'Where are you, Adam?'

 "'Here am I, Madam;'

"but it can never have been habitually practised until after the Fall. The intrusion of tintinnabulating terminations into the conversationalintercourse of men and angels would have spoiled Paradise itself. Miltonwould not have them even in Paradise Lost, you remember. For my ownpart, I wish certain rhymes could be declared contraband of written orprinted language. Nothing should be allowed to be hurled at the world orwhirled with it, or furled upon it or curled over it; all eyes shouldbe kept away from the skies, in spite of os homini sublime dedit; youthshould be coupled with all the virtues except truth; earth shouldnever be reminded of her birth; death should never be allowed to stopa mortal's breath, nor the bell to sound his knell, nor flowers fromblossoming bowers to wave over his grave or show their bloom upon histomb. We have rhyming dictionaries, --let us have one from which allrhymes are rigorously excluded. The sight of a poor creature grubbingfor rhymes to fill up his sonnet, or to cram one of those voracious, rhyme-swallowing rigmaroles which some of our drudging poeticaloperatives have been exhausting themselves of late to satiate withjingles, makes my head ache and my stomach rebel. Work, work of somekind, is the business of men and women, not the making of jingles!No, --no, --no! I want to see the young people in our schools andacademies and colleges, and the graduates of these institutions, lifted up out of the little Dismal Swamp of self-contemplating andself-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism which is surfeitingthe land with those literary sandwiches, --thin slices of tinklingsentimentality between two covers looking like hard-baked giltgingerbread. But what faces these young folks make up at my good advice!They get tipsy on their rhymes. Nothing intoxicates one like his--orher--own verses, and they hold on to their metre-ballad-mongering as thefellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to the gas-bag. "

We laughed over this essay of the old Professor; though it hit us prettyhard. The best part of the joke is that the old man himself publisheda thin volume of poems when he was young, which there is good reason tothink he is not very proud of, as they say he buys up all the copies hecan find in the shops. No matter what they say, I can't help agreeingwith him about this great flood of "poetry, " as it calls itself, andlooking at the rhyming mania much as he does. 

How I do love real poetry! That is the reason hate rhymes which have nota particle of it in them. The foolish scribblers that deal in them arelike bad workmen in a carpenter's shop. They not only turn out bad jobsof work, but they spoil the tools for better workmen. There is hardly apair of rhymes in the English language that is not so dulled and hackedand gapped by these 'prentice hands that a master of the craft hates totouch them, and yet he cannot very well do without them. I have notbeen besieged as the old Professor has been with such multitudesof would-be-poetical aspirants that he could not even read theirmanuscripts, but I have had a good many letters containing verses, and Ihave warned the writers of the delusion under which they were laboring. 

You may like to know that I have just been translating some extractsfrom the Greek Anthology. I send you a few specimens of my work, with aDedication to the Shade of Sappho. I hope you will find something ofthe Greek rhythm in my versions, and that I have caught a spark ofinspiration from the impassioned Lesbian. I have found great delightin this work, at any rate, and am never so happy as when I read from mymanuscript or repeat from memory the lines into which I have transferredthe thought of the men and women of two thousand years ago, or givenrhythmical expression to my own rapturous feelings with regard to them. I must read you my Dedication to the Shade of Sappho. I cannot helpthinking that you will like it better than either of my last two, TheSong of the Roses, or The Wail of the Weeds. 

How I do miss you, dearest! I want you: I want you to listen to what Ihave written; I want you to hear all about my plans for the future; Iwant to look at you, and think how grand it must be to feel one's selfto be such a noble and beautiful-creature; I want to wander in the woodswith you, to float on the lake, to share your life and talk over everyday's doings with you. Alas! I feel that we have parted as two friendspart at a port of embarkation: they embrace, they kiss each other'scheeks, they cover their faces and weep, they try to speak good-by toeach other, they watch from the pier and from the deck; the two formsgrow less and less, fainter and fainter in the distance, two whitehandkerchiefs flutter once and again, and yet once more, and the lastvisible link of the chain which binds them has parted. Dear, dear, dearest Euthymia, my eyes are running over with tears when I think thatwe may never, never meet again. 

Don't you want some more items of village news? We are threatened withan influx of stylish people: "Buttons" to answer the door-bell, in placeof the chamber-maid; "butler, " in place of the "hired man;" footmanin top-boots and breeches, cockade on hat, arms folded a la Napoleon;tandems, "drags, " dogcarts, and go-carts of all sorts. It is ratheramusing to look at their ambitious displays, but it takes away the goodold country flavor of the place. 

I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when you come back tospend your summers here. I suppose you must have a large house, and Iam sure you will have a beautiful one. I suppose you will have some finehorses, and who would n't be glad to? But I do not believe you will tryto make your old Arrowhead Village friends stare their eyes out of theirheads with a display meant to outshine everybody else that comes here. You can have a yacht on the lake, if you like, but I hope you will pulla pair of oars in our old boat once in a while, with me to steer you. Iknow you will be just the same dear-Euthymia you always were and alwaysmust be. How happy you must make such a man as Maurice Kirkwood! And howhappy you ought to be with him!--a man who knows what is in books, andwho has seen for himself, what is in men. If he has not seen so much ofwomen, where could he study all that is best in womanhood as he can inhis own wife? Only one thing that dear Euthymia lacks. She is not quitepronounced enough in her views as to the rights and the wrongs ofthe sex. When I visit you, as you say I shall, I mean to indoctrinateMaurice with sound views on that subject. I have written an essay forthe Society, which I hope will go a good way towards answering all theobjections to female suffrage. I mean to read it to your husband, ifyou will let me, as I know you will, and perhaps you would like to hearit, --only you know my thoughts on the subject pretty well already. 

With all sorts of kind messages to your dear husband, and love to yourprecious self, I am ever your LURIDA. 

DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. 

MY DEAR EUTHYMIA, --My pen refuses to call you by any other name. Sweet-souled you are, and your Latinized Greek name is--the one whichtruly designates you. I cannot tell you how we have followed you, withwhat interest and delight through your travels, as you have told theirstory in your letters to your mother. She has let us have the privilegeof reading them, and we have been with you in steamer, yacht, felucca, gondola, Nile-boat; in all sorts of places, from crowded capitals to"deserts where no men abide, "--everywhere keeping company with you inyour natural and pleasant descriptions of your experiences. And now thatyou have returned to your home in the great city I must write you a fewlines of welcome, if nothing more. 

You will find Arrowhead Village a good deal changed since you left it. We are discovered by some of those over-rich people who make the littleplace upon which they swarm a kind of rural city. When this happensthe consequences are striking, --some of them desirable and some farotherwise. The effect of well-built, well-furnished, well-kept housesand of handsome grounds always maintained in good order about them showsitself in a large circuit around the fashionable centre. Houses get ona new coat of paint, fences are kept in better order, little plotsof flowers show themselves where only ragged weeds had rioted, theinhabitants present themselves in more comely attire and drive inhandsomer vehicles with more carefully groomed horses. On the otherhand, there is a natural jealousy on the part of the natives of theregion suddenly become fashionable. They have seen the land they sold atfarm prices by the acre coming to be valued by the foot, like thecorner lots in a city. Their simple and humble modes of life look almostpoverty-stricken in the glare of wealth and luxury which so outshinestheir plain way of living. It is true that many of them have found themselves richer than in former days, when the neighborhood lived onits own resources. They know how to avail themselves of their alteredposition, and soon learn to charge city prices for country products; butnothing can make people feel rich who see themselves surrounded by menwhose yearly income is many times their own whole capital. I think itwould be better if our rich men scattered themselves more than theydo, --buying large country estates, building houses and stables whichwill make it easy to entertain their friends, and depending for societyon chosen guests rather than on the mob of millionaires who cometogether for social rivalry. But I do not fret myself about it. Societywill stratify itself according to the laws of social gravitation. Itwill take a generation or two more, perhaps, to arrange the strata byprecipitation and settlement, but we can always depend on one principleto govern the arrangement of the layers. People interested in the samethings will naturally come together. The youthful heirs of fortuneswho keep splendid yachts have little to talk about with the oarsman whopulls about on the lake or the river. What does young Dives, who driveshis four-in-hand and keeps a stable full of horses, care about Lazarus, who feels rich in the possession of a horse-railroad ticket? Youknow how we live at our house, plainly, but with a certain degree ofcultivated propriety. We make no pretensions to what is called "style. "We are still in that social stratum where the article called "anapkin-ring" is recognized as admissible at the dinner-table. That factsufficiently defines our modest pretensions. The napkin-ring is theboundary mark between certain classes. But one evening Mrs. Butts andI went out to a party given by the lady of a worthy family, where thenapkin itself was a newly introduced luxury. The conversation of thehostess and her guests turned upon details of the kitchen and thelaundry; upon the best mode of raising bread, whether with "emptins"(emptyings, yeast) or baking powder; about "bluing" and starching andcrimping, and similar matters. Poor Mrs. Butts! She knew nothing moreabout such things than her hostess did about Shakespeare and the musicalglasses. What was the use of trying to enforce social intercourse undersuch conditions? Incompatibility of temper has been considered groundfor a divorce; incompatibility of interests is a sufficient warrant forsocial separation. The multimillionaires have so much that is commonamong themselves, and so little that they share with us of moderatemeans, that they will naturally form a specialized class, and in virtueof their palaces, their picture-galleries, their equipages, theiryachts, their large hospitality, constitute a kind of exclusivearistocracy. Religion, which ought to be the great leveller, cannotreduce these elements to the same grade. You may read in the parable, "Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?" Themodern version would be, "How came you at Mrs. Billion's ball not havinga dress on your back which came from Paris?"

The little church has got a new stained window, a saint who reminds meof Hamlet's uncle, --a thing "of shreds and patches, " but rather prettyto look at, with an inscription under it which is supposed to be thename of the person in whose honor the window was placed in the church. Smith was a worthy man and a faithful churchwarden, and I hope posteritywill be able to spell out his name on his monumental window; but thatold English lettering would puzzle Mephistopheles himself, if he foundhimself before this memorial tribute, on the inside, --you know he goesto church sometimes, if you remember your Faust. 

The rector has come out, in a quiet way, as an evolutionist. Hehas always been rather "broad" in his views, but cautious in theirexpression. You can tell the three branches of the mother-island churchby the way they carry their heads. The low-church clergy look down, asif they felt themselves to be worms of the dust; the high-church priestdrops his head on one side, after the pattern of the mediaeval saints;the broad-church preacher looks forward and round about him, as if hefelt himself the heir of creation. Our rector carries his head in thebroad-church aspect, which I suppose is the least open to the charge ofaffectation, --in fact, is the natural and manly way of carrying it. 

The Society has justified its name of Pansophian of late as neverbefore. Lurida has stirred up our little community and its neighbors, sothat we get essays on all sorts of subjects, poems and stories in largenumbers. I know all about it, for she often consults me as to the meritsof a particular contribution. 

What is to be the fate of Lurida? I often think, with no little interestand some degree of anxiety, about her future. Her body is so frail andher mind so excessively and constantly active that I am afraid one orthe other will give way. I do not suppose she thinks seriously of everbeing married. She grows more and more zealous in behalf of her own sex, and sterner in her judgment of the other. She declares that she neverwould marry any man who was not an advocate of female suffrage, and asthese gentlemen are not very common hereabouts the chance is against hercapturing any one of the hostile sex. 

What do you think? I happened, just as I was writing the last sentence, to look out of my window, and whom should I see but Lurida, with a youngman in tow, listening very eagerly to her conversation, according to allappearance! I think he must be a friend of the rector, as I have seen ayoung man like this one in his company. Who knows?

Affectionately yours, etc. 

DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. 

MY BELOVED WIFE, --This letter will tell you more news than you wouldhave thought could have been got together in this little village duringthe short time you have been staying away from it. 

Lurida Vincent is engaged! He is a clergyman with a mathematicalturn. The story is that he put a difficult problem into one of themathematical journals, and that Lurida presented such a neat solutionthat the young man fell in love with her on the strength of it. I don'tthink the story is literally true, nor do I believe that other reportthat he offered himself to her in the form of an equation chalked on theblackboard; but that it was an intellectual rather than a sentimentalcourtship I do not doubt. Lurida has given up the idea of becominga professional lecturer, --so she tells me, --thinking that her futurehusband's parish will find her work enough to do. A certain amount ofdaily domestic drudgery and unexciting intercourse with simple-mindedpeople will be the best thing in the world for that brain of hers, always simmering with some new project in its least fervid condition. 

All our summer visitors have arrived. Euthymia Mrs. Maurice Kirkwood andher husband and little Maurice are here in their beautiful house lookingout on the lake. They gave a grand party the other evening. You oughtto have been there, but I suppose you could not very well have left yoursister in the middle of your visit: All the grand folks were there, ofcourse. Lurida and her young man--Gabriel is what she calls him--werenaturally the objects of special attention. Paolo acted as major-domo, and looked as if he ought to be a major-general. Nothing could bepleasanter than the way in which Mr. And Mrs. Kirkwood received theirplain country neighbors; that is, just as they did the others of morepretensions, as if they were really glad to see them, as I am sure theywere. The old landlord and his wife had two arm-chairs to themselves, and I saw Miranda with the servants of the household looking in atthe dancers and out at the little groups in the garden, and evidentlyenjoying it as much as her old employers. It was a most charming andsuccessful party. We had two sensations in the course of the evening. One was pleasant and somewhat exciting, the other was thrilling and ofstrange and startling interest. 

You remember how emaciated poor Maurice Kirkwood was left after hisfever, in that first season when he was among us. He was out in a boatone day, when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a placewhere the water was rather shallow. "Jake"--you know Jake, --everybodyknows Jake--was rowing him. He promised to come to the spot and fishup the ring if he could possibly find it. He was seen poking about withfish-hooks at the end of a pole, but nothing was ever heard fromhim about the ring. It was an antique intaglio stone in an Etruscansetting, --a wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. Kirkwood valued ithighly, and regretted its loss very much. 

While we were in the garden, who should appear at the gate but Jake, with a great basket, inquiring for Mr. Kirkwood. "Come, " said Maurice tome, "let us see what our old friend the fisherman has brought us. Whathave you got there, Jake?"

"What I 've got? Wall, I 'll tell y' what I've got: I 've got thebiggest pickerel that's been ketched in this pond for these ten year. An' I 've got somethin' else besides the pickerel. When I come to cuthim open, what do you think I faound in his insides but this here ringo' yourn, "--and he showed the one Maurice had lost so long before. Thereit was, as good as new, after having tried Jonah's style of housekeepingfor all that time. There are those who discredit Jake's story aboutfinding the ring in the fish; anyhow, there was the ring and therewas the pickerel. I need not say that Jake went off well paid for hispickerel and the precious contents of its stomach. Now comes the chiefevent of the evening. I went early by special invitation. Maurice tookme into his library, and we sat down together. 

"I have something of great importance, " he said, "to say to you. Ilearned within a few days that my cousin Laura is staying with a friendin the next town to this. You know, doctor, that we have never met sincethe last, almost fatal, experience of my early years. I have determinedto defy the strength of that deadly chain of associations connectedwith her presence, and I have begged her to come this evening with thefriends with whom she is staying. Several letters passed between us, for it was hard to persuade her that there was no longer any risk in mymeeting her. Her imagination was almost as deeply impressed as mine hadbeen at those alarming interviews, and I had to explain to her fullythat I had become quite indifferent to the disturbing impressions offormer years. So, as the result of our correspondence, Laura is comingthis evening, and I wish you to be present at our meeting. There isanother reason why I wish you to be here. My little boy is not far fromthe--age at which I received my terrifying, almost disorganizing shock. I mean to have little Maurice brought into the presence of Laura, who issaid to be still a very handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hintof that peculiar sensitiveness which showed itself in my threateningseizure. It seemed to me not impossible that he might inherit sometendency of that nature, and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign ofdanger should declare itself. For myself I have no fear. Some radicalchange has taken place in my nervous system. I have been born again, asit were, in my susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new man. But I must know how it is with my little Maurice. "

Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this experiment; forexperiment it was, and not without its sources of anxiety, as it seemedto me. The evening wore along; friends and neighbors came in, butno Laura as yet. At last I heard the sound of wheels, and a carriagestopped at the door. Two ladies and a gentleman got out, and soonentered the drawing room. 

"My cousin Laura!" whispered Maurice to me, and went forward tomeet her. A very handsome woman, who might well have been in thethirties, --one of those women so thoroughly constituted that they cannothelp being handsome at every period of life. I watched them both asthey approached each other. Both looked pale at first, but Maurice soonrecovered his usual color, and Laura's natural, rich bloom came back bydegrees. Their emotion at meeting was not to be wondered at, but therewas no trace in it of the paralyzing influence on the great centres oflife which had once acted upon its fated victim like the fabled headwhich turned the looker-on into a stone. 

"Is the boy still awake?" said Maurice to Paolo, who, as they used tosay of Pushee at the old Anchor Tavern, was everywhere at once on thatgay and busy evening. 

"What! Mahser Maurice asleep an' all this racket going on? I hear himcrowing like young cockerel when he fus' smell daylight. "

"Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the little room that leadsout of the library. "

The child was brought down in his night-clothes, wide awake, wonderingapparently at the noise he heard, which he seemed to think was for hisspecial amusement. 

"See if he will go to that lady, " said his father. Both of us held ourbreath as Laura stretched her arms towards little Maurice. 

The child looked for an instant searchingly, but fearlessly, at herglowing cheeks, her bright eyes, her welcoming smile, and met herembrace as she clasped him to her bosom as if he had known her all hisdays. 

The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and the blood of MauriceKirkwood at that supreme moment when he found himself snatched from thegrasp of death and cradled in the arms of Euthymia. 

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In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it began with a prefixwhich the reader may by this time have forgotten, namely, the FirstOpening. It was perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability of asecond opening. 

I am reminded from time to time by the correspondents who ask a certainsmall favor of me that, as I can only expect to be with my survivingcontemporaries a very little while longer, they would be much obliged ifI would hurry up my answer before it is too late. They are right, thesedelicious unknown friends of mine, in reminding me of a fact which Icannot gainsay and might suffer to pass from my recollection. I thankthem for recalling my attention to a truth which I shall be wiser, ifnot more hilarious, for remembering. 

No, I had no right to say the First Opening. How do I know that I shallhave a chance to open it again? How do I know that anybody will want itto be opened a second time? How do I know that I shall feel like openingit? It is safest neither to promise to open the New Portfolio once more, nor yet to pledge myself to keep it closed hereafter. There are manypapers potentially existent in it, some of which might interest areader here and there. The Records of the Pansophian Society containa considerable number of essays, poems, stories, and hints capable ofbeing expanded into presentable dimensions. In the mean time I will saywith Prospero, addressing my old readers, and my new ones, if such Ihave, "If you be pleased, retire into my cell And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, To still my beating mind. "

When it has got quiet I may take up the New Portfolio again, andconsider whether it is worth while to open it consider whether it isworth while to open it.