Malbone Part 7

"Not Kate herself?" said Emilia, slyly.

"I?" said Kate. "What am I? A silly chit of a thing, with about a dozen ideas in my head, nearly every one of which was planted there by Hope.

I like the nonsense of the world very well as it is, and without her I should have cared for nothing else. Count Posen asked me the other day, which country produced on the whole the most womanly women, France or America. He is one of the few foreigners who expect a rational answer.

So I told him that I knew very little of Frenchwomen personally, but that I had read French novels ever since I was born, and there was not a woman worthy to be compared with Hope in any of them, except Consuelo, and even she told lies."

"Do not begin upon Hope," said Aunt Jane. "It is the only subject on which Kate can be tedious. Tell me about the dresses. Were people over-dressed or under-dressed?"

"Under-dressed," said Phil. "Miss Ingleside had a half-inch strip of muslin over her shoulder."

Here Philip followed Hope out of the room, and Emilia presently followed him.

"Tell on!" said Aunt Jane. "How did Philip enjoy himself?"

"He is easily amused, you know," said Kate. "He likes to observe people, and to shoot folly as it flies."

"It does not fly," retorted the elder lady. "I wish it did. You can shoot it sitting, at least where Philip is."

"Auntie," said Kate, "tell me truly your objection to Philip. I think you did not like his parents. Had he not a good mother?"

"She was good," said Aunt Jane, reluctantly, "but it was that kind of goodness which is quite offensive."

"And did you know his father well?"

"Know him!" exclaimed Aunt Jane. "I should think I did. I have sat up all night to hate him."

"That was very wrong," said Kate, decisively. "You do not mean that. You only mean that you did not admire him very much."

"I never admired a dozen people in my life, Kate. I once made a list of them. There were six women, three men, and a Newfoundland dog."

"What happened?" said Kate. "The Is-raelites died after Pharaoh, or somebody, numbered them. Did anything happen to yours?"

"It was worse with mine," said Aunt Jane. "I grew tired of some and others I forgot, till at last there was n.o.body left but the dog, and he died."

"Was Philip's father one of them?"

"No."

"Tell me about him," said Kate, firmly.

"Ruth," said the elder lady, as her young handmaiden pa.s.sed the door with her wonted demureness, "come here; no, get me a gla.s.s of water.

Kate! I shall die of that girl. She does some idiotic thing, and then she looks in here with that contented, beaming look. There is an air of baseless happiness about her that drives me nearly frantic."

"Never mind about that," persisted Kate. "Tell me about Philip's father.

What was the matter with him?"

"My dear," Aunt Jane at last answered,--with that fearful moderation to which she usually resorted when even her stock of superlatives was exhausted,--"he belonged to a family for whom truth possessed even less than the usual attractions."

This neat epitaph implied the erection of a final tombstone over the whole race, and Kate asked no more.

Meantime Malbone sat at the western door with Harry, and was running on with one of his tirades, half jest, half earnest, against American society.

"In America," he said, "everything which does not tend to money is thought to be wasted, as our Quaker neighbor thinks the children's croquet-ground wasted, because it is not a potato field."

"Not just!" cried Harry. "Nowhere is there more respect for those who give their lives to intellectual pursuits."

"What are intellectual pursuits?" said Philip. "Editing daily newspapers? Teaching arithmetic to children? I see no others flourishing hereabouts."

"Science and literature," answered Harry.

"Who cares for literature in America," said Philip, "after a man rises three inches above the newspaper level? n.o.body reads Th.o.r.eau; only an insignificant fraction read Emerson, or even Hawthorne. The majority of people have hardly even heard their names. What inducement has a writer?

n.o.body has any weight in America who is not in Congress, and n.o.body gets into Congress without the necessity of bribing or b.u.t.ton-holing men whom he despises."

"But you do not care for public life?" said Harry.

"No," said Malbone, "therefore this does not trouble me, but it troubles you. I am content. My digestion is good. I can always amuse myself. Why are you not satisfied?"

"Because you are not," said Harry. "You are dissatisfied with men, and so you care chiefly to amuse yourself with women and children."

"I dare say," said Malbone, carelessly. "They are usually less ungraceful and talk better grammar."

"But American life does not mean grace nor grammar. We are all living for the future. Rough work now, and the graces by and by."

"That is what we Americans always say," retorted Philip. "Everything is in the future. What guaranty have we for that future? I see none. We make no progress towards the higher arts, except in greater quant.i.ties of mediocrity. We sell larger editions of poor books. Our artists fill larger frames and travel farther for materials; but a ten-inch canvas would tell all they have to say."

"The wrong point of view," said Hal. "If you begin with high art, you begin at the wrong end. The first essential for any nation is to put the ma.s.s of the people above the reach of want. We are all usefully employed, if we contribute to that."

"So is the cook usefully employed while preparing dinner," said Philip.

"Nevertheless, I do not wish to live in the kitchen."

"Yet you always admire your own country," said Harry, "so long as you are in Europe."

"No doubt," said Philip. "I do not object to the kitchen at that distance. And to tell the truth, America looks well from Europe.

No culture, no art seems so n.o.ble as this far-off spectacle of a self-governing people. The enthusiasm lasts till one's return. Then there seems nothing here but to work hard and keep out of mischief."

"That is something," said Harry.

"A good deal in America," said Phil. "We talk about the immorality of older countries. Did you ever notice that no cla.s.s of men are so apt to take to drinking as highly cultivated Americans? It is a very demoralizing position, when one's tastes outgrow one's surroundings.

Positively, I think a man is more excusable for coveting his neighbor's wife in America than in Europe, because there is so little else to covet."

"Malbone!" said Hal, "what has got into you? Do you know what things you are saying?"

"Perfectly," was the unconcerned reply. "I am not arguing; I am only testifying. I know that in Paris, for instance, I myself have no temptations. Art and history are so delightful, I absolutely do not care for the society even of women; but here, where there is nothing to do, one must have some stimulus, and for me, who hate drinking, they are, at least, a more refined excitement."

"More dangerous," said Hal. "Infinitely more dangerous, in the morbid way in which you look at life. What have these sickly fancies to do with the career that opens to every brave man in a great nation?"

"They have everything to do with it, and there are many for whom there is no career. As the nation develops, it must produce men of high culture. Now there is no place for them except as bookkeepers or pedagogues or newspaper reporters. Meantime the incessant unintellectual activity is only a sublime bore to those who stand aside."

"Then why stand aside?" persisted the downright Harry.