Stories by American Authors Volume VIII Part 5

"If you can't stand responsibility," said Doddridge, "I don't see why you choose the law for a profession. You don't seem to me cut out for a lawyer anyway. I always thought you meant to be some kind of a literary chap."

"Yes," said Berkeley, "why don't you go for a snug berth under the government, or study for a tutorship here? That's the life that would suit you, old man."

"Not at all," answered Armstrong; "I have a horror of any salaried position, or of any position where a man is obliged to conform his habits and opinions to other people's. It is the worst sort of dependence. Now a lawyer in successful practice, and especially if he is a bachelor, is about as independent as a man can be. His relations with his clients are merely professional, and what he does or thinks privately is n.o.body's business."

"If you are going to be a mere lawyer," asked Clay, "what becomes of your education and your intellectual satisfactions, etc.?"

"A man can get his best intellectual satisfactions out of the work of his profession," answered Armstrong. "Besides, as to that, there's time enough. Fifteen years of solid work will enable one to put by a fair competence, if he lives carefully and has no one but himself to support; and then he will be free to take up a hobby. Oh, I shall cultivate a hobby or two after awhile. It keeps the mind healthy to have some interest of the kind outside of one's business. I may take to book-collecting or numismatics or raising orchids. Perhaps I may become an authority on ancient armor; time enough for that by and by.

And then I can cut over to Europe every summer if I like, and no one to interfere with my down-sittings or my up-risings, my goings-out or my comings-in. Do you know," he went on, after a pause, "how I always look to myself in the gla.s.s of the future? I figure myself like old Tulkinghorn, in 'Bleak House,'--going down into his reverberating vaults for a bottle of choice vintage, after the work of the day, and then sitting quietly in the twilight in his dusky, old-fashioned law chambers, sipping his wine while the room fills with the fragrance of southern grapes. The gay old silver-top!"

There was silence for a few minutes after Armstrong had finished his declaration. It was broken by Berkeley, who had risen, and was walking up and down in front of the fountain with his hands thrust into his pockets.

"You couldn't lead that sort of life if you tried," he said; "you aren't built for it."

"Don't you make any mistake," rejoined the other; "it's the sort of life I'm going to live."

"It's a cowardly life," retorted Berkeley.

"Did I say it wasn't? I said it was safe. You can call it what you like."

"Well," replied Berkeley, seating himself again, "my ideal career is just the opposite of that."

"Suppose you explain yours, then," said Armstrong.

Berkeley hesitated a few moments before beginning. He was a lean, tallish fellow, with a Scotch cast of countenance, a small blue eye, high cheek bones, a freckled skin, and whity-brown hair. He had a dry, cautious humor, fed by much out-of-the-way reading. He had been distinguished in college by methodical habits, a want of ambition, a disposition to keep to himself, and a mixture of selfishness and _bonhomie_ which made him a cold friend but an agreeable companion.

It was therefore with some surprise that we heard him deliver himself as follows:

"I believe that the greatest mistake a man can make is in not getting enough out of life. I want to lead a full life, to have a wide experience, to develop my whole nature to the utmost, to touch mankind at the largest possible number of points. I want adventure, change, excitement, emotion, suffering even,--I don't care what, so long as it is not stagnation. Just consider what there is on this planet to be seen, learned, enjoyed, and what a miserably small share of it most people appropriate. Why, there are men in my village who have never been outside the county and seldom out of the township; who have never heard a word of any language but English; never seen a city or a mountain or the ocean--or, indeed, any body of water bigger than Fresh Pond or the Hogganum River; never been in a theatre, steamboat, library, or cathedral. Cathedral! Their conception of a church is limited to the white wooden meeting-house at 'the center.' Their art-gallery is the wagon of a travelling photographer. Their metropolitan hotel is the stoop and bar-room of the 'Uncas House.'

Their university is the unpainted school-house on the hill. Their literature is the weekly newspaper from the county town. But take the majority of educated men even. What a rusty, small kind of existence they lead! They are in a rut, just the same as the others, only the rut is a trifle wider. If I had my way I would never do the same work or talk with the same people--hardly live in the same place for two days running. Life is too short to do a thing twice. When I come to the end of mine I don't want to say _J'ai manque la vie_; but make my brag, with the Wife of Bath,

'Unto this day it doth myn herte bote That I have had my world as in my time.'"

"Well, how are you going to do all those fine things?" inquired Armstrong. "For instance, that about not living in one place two days running. I'm afraid you'll find that inconvenient, not to say expensive."

"Oh, you mustn't take me too literally. I may have to travel on foot or take a steerage pa.s.sage, but I shall keep going all the same. I haven't made any definite plans yet. I shall probably strike for something in the diplomatic line,--secretary of legation, or some small consulship perhaps. But the principle is the main thing, and the principle is: Don't do anything because it's the nearest and easiest and most obvious thing to do, but make up your mind to get the best.

Look at the lazy way in which men accept their circ.u.mstances. There is the matter of acquaintance, for instance--we let chance determine it.

We know the men that we can't help knowing,--the ones in the next house, cousins and second cousins, business connections, etc. Here at college, now, we get acquainted with the fellows at the eating club or in the same society, or those who happen to sit next us in the cla.s.s-room, because their names begin with the same letter. That's it; it's just a sample of our whole life. Our friendships, like everything else about us, are determined by the alphabet. We go with the Z's because some arbitrary system of cla.s.sification has put us among them, instead of fighting our way up to the A's, where we naturally belong.

The consequence is that one's friends are mostly dreadful bores."

"I'm sure we are all much obliged to you," murmured Clay, parenthetically.

"There are about two or three thousand people in the world," continued Berkeley, "supremely worth knowing. Why shouldn't _I_ know them?---- I will! Everybody knows two or three thousand people,--mostly very stupid people,--or, rather, he lets them know him. Why shouldn't he use some choice in the matter? Why not know Thackeray and Carlyle, Lord Palmerston and the Pope, and the Emperor of China and all the great statesmen, authors, African explorers, military commanders, artists, hereditary n.o.bles, actresses, wits and belles of the best society, instead of putting up with Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry?"

"Berkeley, 'with whom the bell-mouthed flask had wrought!'" exclaimed Clay. "Decidedly, Berk, you should take your coffee without cognac."

"Let me suggest," put in Doddridge, "that some of those parties you mentioned are not so easy to get introductions to."

"Oh, I say again, you mustn't take me too literally. But even the top swells are easier to know than you think. All that is wanted is a little cheek. But take it in a smaller way; say that we resolve to cultivate the best society within our reach. Doubtless there are numbers of interesting and distinguished people right here in New Haven whose acquaintance it would be worth while to have. But how long would you beggars live here without making the least effort to look them out, and meanwhile put up with the same old every-day bores--like me, or Polisson here? And it's the same way with marriage. A fellow blunders into matrimony with the first attractive girl that gives him the opportunity. He knows, if he takes the time to think about it, that there are a thousand others better than she, if he will wait and look through the world a little. 'Juxtaposition in fine,' as Clough says."

"Of course, with such a brilliant destiny before you, _you'll_ never marry," said I.

"Yes, I think I shall. I fancy that the n.o.blest possibilities of life are never realized without marriage. Yes, I can think of nothing finer than to have a lot of manly boys and sweet girls growing up around one. But when I marry it shall be so as to give completeness and expansion to life, not narrowness and dullness. I shall never marry and settle down. Settle down! What a d.a.m.nable expression that is! A man ought to settle _up_. I mean to have my fling first, too. I should like to gamble a bit at Baden-Baden. I should like to go out to Colorado and have a lick at mining speculations. I want to rough it some too, and see how life is lived close to the bone: ship for a voyage before the mast; enlist for a campaign or two somewhere and have joy of battle; join the gypsies or the Mormons or the Shakers for awhile, and taste all the queerness of things. And then I want to float for another while on the very top-most crest of society. I want to fight a duel or two, elope with a marquise, do a little of everything for the experience's sake, as a man ought to take opium once in his life just to know how it feels."

Whether it was indeed the cognac, or only the unusual excitement attending this outburst of pent-up fire, Berkeley's cheek had got a flush upon it. Perhaps, too, it was owing to the influences of the day and the hour, the splash of the fountain, the rustle of the vine-leaves, and the wavering shadows which played about the court-yard as the gas-jets flickered in the breeze of night, that made his boastful words seem less extravagantly out of character than they otherwise would. The silence which followed his speech was broken by Clay, who sat with his foot on the rim of the fountain, balancing on the hind legs of his chair, and looking thoughtfully at the slender jet as it rose and fell. He still wore the dress suit in which he had figured on the Commencement platform in the afternoon, and which set off the aristocratic grace of his slight figure. There was a pale intellectual light in his face, and his black eyes had the glow of genius.

"I think," he began, "that Berkeley makes a mistake in confounding a full life with a restless one. I believe in a full experience too, but the satisfactions should be inward ones. Take the matter of foreign travel, for one thing, on which you lay so much stress. It is a great stimulus to the imagination, no doubt; but then foreign countries are accessible to the imagination by other means--through books and art, for example. I think it likely that the reality is, quite as often as not, disappointing. Place, after all, is indifferent. 'The soul is its own place': you can't get rid of yourself by going abroad, and it's himself that a man gets sooner tired of than of anything else. Then as to acquaintances, I don't know that I should care to know personally such men as Thackeray and Carlyle, and the big composers and artists and other people that you mentioned. It might be equally disenchanting. They put the best of themselves into their books, or pictures, or music. I certainly would not seek their society through a formal introduction, at all events. It is hard for a small man to keep his self-respect in face of a great man when he obtains his acquaintance as a special favor. If I could meet some of those fellows, quite naturally and accidentally, on equal terms, I might like it, but not otherwise. But, leaving that point out of account, I think that the career which Berkeley proposes to himself would turn out very hollow. It would result in the superficial gratification of the curiosity and the senses; and, as soon as the novelty got rubbed off, what is there left?"

"So then," said Berkeley, "you've swung into line with Armstrong, have you? You mean to plod along in some professional rut too. What has got into all our idealists?"

"Not by any means," answered Clay. "Armstrong talks about independence, and yet destines himself to the worst kind of dependence--slavery to money-getting. Most people, it seems to me, spend the best part of their lives not in living, but in getting the means to live. We'll give Armstrong, say twenty years, to lay up enough money to retire on and begin to live. What sort of a position will he be in then to enjoy his independence? His nature will have got so subdued to what it works in that the only safety for him will be to keep on at the law."

"All right! Then I'll keep on," interjected Armstrong.

"What the devil do _you_ mean to do then?" asked Berkeley of Clay.

"I don't quite know yet," replied the latter. "I shall 'loaf and invite my soul' whenever I feel like it. I shall live as I go along, and not postpone it till I am forty. I sha'n't put myself into any mill that will grind me just so much a day. I need my leisure too badly for that. I presume I shall spend most of my time at first in reading and walking. Then, whenever I think of anything to write I shall write it, and if I can sell what I write to some publisher or other, so much the better. If not, go on as before."

"Meanwhile, where will your bread and b.u.t.ter come from?" asked Armstrong.

"Oh, I sha'n't starve. I can get some sort of hack work--something that won't take much of my time, and which I can do with my left hand.

But the great point, after all, is to make your wants simple; to live like an Arab, content with a few dates and a swallow from the gourd.

'Lessen your denominator.' It's easier than raising your numerator, and the quotient is the same."

"No, it's not the same," Berkeley retorted. "Renunciation and enjoyment are not the same. It makes a heap of difference whether you have a thing or simply do without it. The plain living and high thinking philosophy may do for Clay, whose mind to him a kingdom is; but a fellow like me, whose mind is only a small Central American republic, can't live on the revenues of the spirit. The fact is, Clay, you've read too much Emerson. I went into that myself once, but I soon found out that it wouldn't wear. I want mine thicker. The worst thing about the career of a literary man or an artist is that if he fails there are no compensations; and success is mighty uncertain. n.o.body doubts that you are smart enough, Clay, and I am sure we expect great things of you, whatever line you take up. But, for the sake of the argument, suppose you have grubbed along in a small way, living on crusts and water, till you are fifty, without doing any really good work. Then where are you? You haven't had any fun. You've no other string to your bow. You haven't that practical experience of the world which would enable you to turn your hand to something else. You have no influence or reputation; for, of all poor things, poor art of any kind is the worst--hateful to G.o.ds and men and columns. In short, where are you? You're out of the dance; you don't count."

"Yes," added Armstrong, "and you've no professional success or solid standing in the community; and, what's worse, you've no money, which might make up for the want of all the rest."

"I don't think you get my meaning. I may fail," said Clay, proudly; "I may never even try to succeed, in your sense of the word. I decline all mean compet.i.tions and all low views of success. The n.o.blest ideal of life--at least, the n.o.blest to me--is self-culture in the high meaning of the word; the harmonious development of one's whole nature.

Armstrong has drawn a picture of his future in the likeness of old Tulkinghorn. I suppose we are all accustomed to put our antic.i.p.ations into some such concrete shape before our mind's eye. The typical situation which I am fond of imagining is something like this: I like to fancy myself sitting in a dark old upper room in some remote farm-house, at the close of a winter day, after three or four hours of steady reading or writing. The room is full of books--the _best_ books. There is a little fire on the hearth, there is a dingy curtain at the window. It is solitary and still, and when the light gets too scant to let me read any more, I fill my pipe, and go and stand in the window. Outside, there is a row of leafless elms, and beyond that a dim, wide landscape of lakes and hills, and beyond that a red, windy sunset. I can sit in that window and smoke my pipe and have my own thoughts till the hills grow black. There is no one to say to me 'Go'

or 'Come'; no patient to visit; no confounded case on the docket next morning at nine; no distasteful, mean, slavish job of any kind. How can I fail to have thoughts worth the thinking, and to live a rich and free life when I breathe every day the bracing air of nature and the great poets? Isn't such a life in itself the best kind of success, even if a man accomplishes nothing in particular that you can put your hand on?"

"Yes, I know," said Armstrong, taking a long breath. "I have felt that way too. But a man has got to put all that sternly behind him and do the world's work for the world's wages, if he means to amount to anything. It's only a finer kind of self-indulgence, after all--egoistic Hedonism and that sort of thing."

"It won't be all standing at windows and looking at sunsets," added Doddridge. "Has it ever occurred to you that, before entering on a life of self-denial and devotion to rather vague ideals, a man ought to be mighty sure of himself? Can you keep up the culture business without growing in on yourself unhealthily, and then getting sick of inaction? Don't you think there will be times of disappointment and doubt when you look around and see fellows without half your talents getting ahead of you in the world?"

"Of course," answered Clay, "I shall have to make sacrifices, and I shall have to stick to them when made. But there have always been plenty of people willing to make similar sacrifices for similar compensations. Men have gone out into the wilderness or shut themselves up in the cloister for opportunities of study or self-communion, or for other objects which were perhaps at bottom no more truly devotional than mine. Nowadays such opportunities may be had by any man who will keep himself free from the servitude of a bread-winning profession. It is not necessary now to cry _Ecce in deserto_ or _Ecce in penetralibus_. Oh, I shall have my dark days; but whenever the blue devils get thick I shall take to the woods and return to sanity."

"You mean to live in the country, then?" I inquired.

"Yes; most of the time, at any rate. Nature is fully half of life to me."

Again there was a pause.

"Well, you next, Polisson," said Armstrong, finally. "Let's hear what your programme is."

"Oh, nothing in the least interesting," I replied. "My future is all cut and dried. I shall spend the next two years in the south of France--mainly at Lyons--to learn the details of the silk manufacture.

Then I shall come home to go into my father's store for a year as a clerk in the importing department. At the close of that year the governor will take me in as junior partner, and I shall marry my second cousin. We shall live with my parents, and I am going to be very domestic, though, as a matter of form, I shall join one or two clubs. I shall go down town every morning at nine, and come up at five."

"Quite a neat little destiny," said Armstrong. "I wish I had your backing. Come, Dodd, what's yours? You're the only man left."