Stories by American Authors Volume VIII Part 9

"So Berkeley has turned out a dilettante instead of an African explorer. I heard he was a minister. He does not seem to have much ambition even in that line of life. I should think Armstrong had got the right kind of place for him. He was a good fellow, but never had much practical ability. You say very little about Clay. How is old 'Sweetness and Light,' any way? I saw some fluff of his in one of the magazines,--a 'romance' I think he called it.

This is not an age for scribbling romances. The country wants something solider. I never took much stock in philosophers like Berkeley and Clay. There is the same thing the trouble with them both: they don't want to do any hard work, and they conceal their laziness under fine names,--culture, transcendentalism, and what not? 'Feeble and restless youths, born to inglorious days.'"

This letter may be supplemented by another,--say Exhibit B,--which I received from Clay not long after:

"MY DEAR POLISSON: It occurs to me that your question the other day, as to how I was 'getting on,' did not receive as candid an answer as it deserved. I am afraid that you carried away an impression of me as of a man who suspected himself to be a failure, but had not the manliness to acknowledge it. You will say, perhaps, that there are all degrees of half success short of absolute failure. But I say no. In the career which I have chosen, to miss of success--p.r.o.nounced, unquestionable success--is to fail; and I am not weak enough to hide from myself on which side of the line I fall. The line is a very distinct one, after all.

The fact is, I took the wrong turning, and it is too late to go back. I am a case of arrested development--a common enough case. I might give plenty of excellent excuses to my friends for not having accomplished what they expected me to. But the world doesn't want apologies; it wants performance.

"You will think this letter a most extraordinary outburst of morbid vanity. But while I can afford to have you think me a failure, I couldn't let you go on thinking me a fraud. That must be my excuse for writing.

"Yours, as ever, E. CLAY."

This letter moved me deeply by its characteristic mingling of egotism with elevation of feeling. As I held it open in my hand, and thought over my cla.s.smates' fortunes, I was led to make a few reflections.

From the fact that Armstrong and Berkeley were leading lives that squarely contradicted their announced ideas and intentions, it was an obvious but not therefore a true inference that circ.u.mstance is usually stronger than will. Say, rather, that the species of necessity which consists in character and inborn tendency is stronger than any resolution to run counter to it.

Both Armstrong and Berkeley, on our Commencement night, had spoken from a sense of their own limitations, and in violent momentary rebellion against them. But, in talking with them fifteen years later, I could not discover that the lack of correspondence between their ideal future and their actual present troubled them much. It is matter of common note that it is impossible to make one man realize another's experience; but it is often quite as hard to make him recover a past stage of his own consciousness.

These, then, had bent to the force of chance or temperament. But Clay had shaped his life according to his programme, and had the result been happier? He who gets his wish often suffers a sharper disappointment than he who loses it. "_So tauscht uns also bald die Hoffnung, bald das Gehoffte_," says the great pessimist, and Fate is never more ironical than when she humors our whim. Doddridge alone, who had thrown himself confidingly into the arms of the Destinies, had obtained their capricious favors.

I cannot say that I drew any counsel, civil or moral, from these comparisons. Life is deeper and wider than any particular lesson to be learned from it; and just when we think that we have at last guessed its best meanings, it laughs in our face with some paradox which turns our solution into a new riddle.

ZERVIAH HOPE.

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

_Scribner's Monthly, November, 1880._

PRELUDE.

In the month of August, in the year 1878, the steamer _Mercy_, of the New York and Savannah line, cast anchor down the channel, off a little town in South Carolina which bore the name of Calhoun. It was not a regular part of her "run" for the _Mercy_ to make a landing at this place. She had departed from her course by special permit to leave three pa.s.sengers, two men and one woman, who had business of a grave nature in Calhoun.

A man, himself a pa.s.senger for Savannah, came upon deck as the steamship hove to, to inquire the reason of the delay. He was a short man, thin, with a nervous hand and neck. His eyes were black, his hair was black, and closely cut. He had an inscrutable mouth, and a forehead well-plowed rather by experience than years. He was not an old man. He was cleanly dressed in new, cheap clothes. He had been commented upon as a reticent pa.s.senger. He had no friends on board the _Mercy_. This was the first time upon the voyage that he had been observed to speak. He came forward and stood among the others, and abruptly said:

"What's this for?"

He addressed the mate, who answered with a sidelong look, and none too cordially:

"We land pa.s.sengers by the Company's order."

"Those three?"

"Yes, the men and the lady."

"Who are they?"

"Physicians from New York."

"Ah-h!" said the man, slowly, making a sighing noise between his teeth. "That means--that means--"

"Volunteers to the fever district," said the mate, shortly, "as you might have known before now. You're not of a sociable cast, I see."

"I have made no acquaintances," said the short pa.s.senger. "I know nothing of the news of the ship. Is the lady a nurse?"

"She's a she-doctor. Doctors, the whole of 'em. There ain't a nurse aboard."

"Plenty to be found, I suppose, in this place you speak of?"

"How should I know?" replied the mate, with another sidelong look.

One of the physicians, it seemed, overheard this last question and reply. It was the woman. She stepped forward without hesitation, and, regarding the short pa.s.senger closely, said:

"There are not nurses. This place is perishing. Savannah and the larger towns have been looked after first--as is natural and right,"

added the physician, in a business-like tone. She had a quick and clear-cut, but not ungentle voice.

The man nodded at her curtly, as he would to another man; he made no answer; then with a slight flush his eye returned to her dress and figure; he lifted his hat and stood uncovered till she had pa.s.sed and turned from him. His face, under the influence of this fluctuation of color, changed exceedingly, and improved in proportion as it changed.

"Who is that glum fellow, Doctor?"

One of the men physicians followed and asked the lady; he spoke to her with an air of _camaraderie_, at once frank and deferential; they had been cla.s.smates at college for a course of lectures; he had theories averse to the medical education of women in general, but this woman in particular, having outranked him at graduation, he had made up his mind to her as a marked exception to a wise rule, ent.i.tled to a candid fellow's respect. Besides, despite her diploma, Marian Dare was a lady--he knew the family.

"_Is_ he glum, Dr. Frank?" replied Dr. Dare.

But the other young man stood silent. He never consulted with doctresses.

Dr. Dare went below for her luggage. A lonely dory, black of complexion and skittish of gait, had wandered out and hung in the shadow of the steamer, awaiting the pa.s.sengers. The dory was manned by one negro, who sat with his oars crossed, perfectly silent.

There is a kind of terror for which we find that animals, as well as men, instinctively refrain from seeking expression. The face and figure of the negro boatman presented a dull form of this species of fear. Dr. Dare wondered if all the people in Calhoun would have that look. The negro regarded the _Mercy_ and her pa.s.sengers apathetically.

It was a hot day, and the water seemed to be blistering about the dory. So, too, the stretching sand of the sh.o.r.e, as one raised the eyes painfully against the direct noon-light, was as if it smoked. The low, gray palmetto leaves were curled and faint. Scanty spots of shade beneath sickly trees seemed to gasp upon the hot ground, like creatures that had thrown themselves down to get cool. The outlines of the town beyond had a certain horrible distinctness, as if of a sight that should but could not be veiled. Overhead, and clean to the flat horizon, flashed a sky of blue and blazing fire.

"Pa.s.sengers for Calhoun!"

The three physicians descended into the dory. The other pa.s.sengers--what there were of them--gathered to see the little group depart. Dr. Frank offered Dr. Dare a hand, which she accepted, like a lady, not needing it in the least. She was a climber, with firm, lithe ankles. No one spoke, as these people got in with the negro, and prepared to drift down with the scorching tide. The woman looked from the steamer to the sh.o.r.e, once, and back again, northwards. The men did not look at all. There was an oppression in the scene which no one was ready to run the risk of increasing by the wrong word.

"Land me here, too," said a low voice, suddenly appearing. It was the glum pa.s.senger. No one noticed him, except, perhaps, the mate (looking on with the air of a man who would feel an individual grievance in anything this person would be likely to do) and the lady.

"There is room for you," said Dr. Dare. The man let himself into the boat at a light bound, and the negro rowed them away. The _Mercy_, heading outwards, seemed to shrug her shoulders, as if she had thrown them off. The strip of burning water between them and the town narrowed rapidly, and the group set their faces firmly landwards.

Once, upon the little voyage, Dr. Frank took up an idle pair of oars, with some vaguely humane intent of helping the negro--he looked so.

"I wouldn't, Frank," said the other gentleman.

"Now, Remane--why, for instance?"

"I wouldn't begin by getting overheated."