The Opinions of a Philosopher Part 8

"Perfectly."

"But what if the doctors said I had?"

"They would be mistaken, father."

I stroked my chin in order to bridle my tongue. "How old are you, Winona?" I asked.

"Just eighteen, father."

"You have never studied medicine, I believe?"

"No."

"Nor had any special advantages or opportunities to investigate the nature of disease?"

"Only through Mrs. t.i.tus."

"Precisely. And yet you are willing to call yourself wiser than the men who have devoted their lives to its study--the physicians of London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, to say nothing of those of New York and Boston."

A faint flush overspread Winona's face. "The doctors have been mistaken many times before, father. You remember Harvey and the circulation of the blood. The doctors laughed at him at first."

"But Harvey was a trained student of medicine; you are a school-girl."

"Mrs. t.i.tus is not a school-girl."

"Has she ever studied medicine?"

"I think not. But as disease is simply human error, we consider the study of medicine a waste of time. Our faith teaches us that everything which doctors call illness is merely a clouding of truth in the soul by error."

"And how do you cure your patients who suffer from the error of typhoid fever?"

"By the restoration of truth and their faith in truth."

"By what active means? What do you do?"

"We think of them. We bring our minds to bear upon the error in their minds."

"Is that all?"

"It is sufficient, father. Mrs. t.i.tus has effected wonderful cures by this means only."

"Does she cure all her patients?"

"When she does not cure them, it is because error has blinded them to the perception of truth. If all could perceive truth, there would be no more error; and, as it is, there are many who cannot perceive as yet even faintly."

"And this is all?"

"Yes, provided you understand."

"I understand the fundamental truth to be that matter does not exist."

"It does not."

"So that even our bodies are a sham."

"We believe that our bodies exist, but they do not really."

"Then why do you believe it?"

"I do not believe it, but I am not yet conscious that my body does not exist. I hope to be some day, yet very likely I shall never be. Mrs.

t.i.tus is conscious of the truth at times."

"Why do you say 'at times?'"

"Because she is still somewhat sensitive to the error of heat and cold.

She considers this a weakness, and she is willing to admit that she is not wholly free from error. You see, Mrs. t.i.tus is a perfectly reasonable woman, father. I am sure you would think so, if you could hear her talk. I heard her questioned the other day on that very point of susceptibility to cold. Some one asked--and asked in a scoffing spirit, father: 'Supposing you were to go out-doors, Mrs. t.i.tus, with nothing on, when the thermometer was below zero, should you feel cold?'

Her answer was: 'I fear I should, though I ought not to. It is possible that after a while I might be proof against the weakness, but in all probability I should never be able to overcome it. It is simply a question of time, though, when Christian Science is able to subdue this error.' Was that not una.s.sumingly and beautifully put, father?"

"Quite unlike the brutal dogmatism of the regular pract.i.tioner, who would be apt to recommend a strait-jacket for the individual who should venture to brave the rigor of our New England climate without a st.i.tch of clothing."

Although I spoke with a sober and sympathetic mien, my beautiful daughter plainly distrusted the sincerity of my words. Her great brown eyes regarded me mournfully, and it seemed to me there was pity in them--pity for her poor benighted parent. She said, sweetly and softly:

"You must not make sport of Christian Science, father. It has done a great deal of good already. Besides, Mrs. t.i.tus did not do anything of the kind. There is nothing in the least sensational about her."

"And you wish to follow in her footsteps, my dear?

"I should like to try to."

"And what if I should forbid you to do anything of the sort?"

Winona's cheek flushed and her eyes dropped a little in the face of my appearance of sternness, but she answered with the same ineffable sweetness, as though she were seeking to impress upon me that persecution could not ruffle the temper of one of her faith. "I should have to give up the plan, of course. But," she murmured, "I should still be a Christian Scientist. I could not help being one, you know."

If you ask me why I did not remand her to afternoon teas and the mantua-makers, or advise her to allay her skipping spirit with some cold drops of philanthropy, I fear that I could not give a very satisfactory explanation. I am not, and I never shall be, a Christian Scientist, notwithstanding my beauty of a daughter declares that she can cure the proletariat of coughs, colics, and fevers simply by thinking about them. It was Josephine, not I, who remarked, after the matter was settled, and Winona had begun to keep office hours, that on the whole it was less dreadful than if she had become an actress or joined a settlement of the Toynbee Hall variety, for the reason that she still remained at home, and we had not wholly lost our hold upon her. Evidently Josephine regards her behavior as a pa.s.sing phase which will sooner or later wear off and leave her more like other people, and she considers the actual practice of Christian Science rather less demoralizing, from a conventional point of view, than some other forms of revolt. I can see what she means. However honorable her intentions, a woman who has knocked about on the stage for half a dozen years is likely to have her perspective of life enlarged to such an extent that she can behold without winking many things which are carefully hidden from the general run of the s.e.x, and the consequence is that she is apt to refuse to wear blinders for the rest of her existence. So, too, it can be safely predicated that continuous exalted fellowship with the dregs of the population on the part of women weaned from the lap of luxury, and a consequent sacrifice of almost every form of creature comfort, barring a tooth-brush, a small piano, a few books, and an etching or two, will be likely to create a sterner and sterner disrelish for the ice-cream and mushrooms vista of life at the end of which stands a husband with a newly furnished house and an ample income. My wife is ready to admit that purely from the point of view of common sense she would have preferred to have the child do almost anything peculiar rather than engage in her present mummery, because some people will consider her crazy; but, on the other hand, she maintains that the chances of losing her altogether are much less serious than if she had become a Toynbee Haller, for instance.

"Mind you," said Josephine, "however much I might have fumed, I should really have been very, very proud if she had gone in for that. I can imagine, if you once got used to the idea, feeling quite as happy over it as if one's son had become a clergyman, which of course," she added, meditatively, "is a peculiar kind of happiness not just like any other.

But it would have meant separation forever, to all intents and purposes, for I am too old to change my interests now, however much I may disapprove of them in theory, and though I should very likely go in for something of the same kind in case I were to begin life over again.

But I don't feel as though this Christian Science were more than a temporary craze; and being just the ordinary every-day woman I am, I cannot help welcoming the possibility that Winona in course of time will come to her senses. It may be selfish of me, but I can't help it."

Now, I do not regard the matter from quite such a personal point of view as Josephine, though I agree with her that I should not have picked out Christian Science as the most desirable loop-hole of escape from the trammels of convention. To be sure, as Josephine says, it is her loss rather than mine, for a father is much less completely estranged from a daughter who is peculiar than is a mother, in that the bond of clothes and parties and all the hitherto traditional tastes of woman does not exist between a father and daughter. Hence it is probably much easier for me to look at the matter philosophically than it is for Josephine. Accordingly, though I laugh in my sleeve at the solemn pretensions of my dear deluded daughter, and am more or less uncomfortable in consequence of my consciousness that all the sensible people of my acquaintance are laughing at her also, I am inclined to watch her progress with a sympathy which includes the hope that she will work out of her present state of lunacy into a more practical field, rather than that she will relapse into the stereotyped woman whom we all know. When, however, Josephine asked me the other day to specify the field, I was obliged to admit that my ideas were a trifle hazy. My state of mind doubtless proceeds from a rooted conviction that the emanc.i.p.ation of woman has only just begun, and a certain sympathetic curiosity with her each and every effort to advance. To realize her progress, I have only to glance up at my ancestor with the mended eye and consider what a doll and a toy she was to him. Then I look at my wife, who was brought up on the old system, and say to myself that, unless indeed, man is to be utterly snuffed out and extinguished, there are certain feminine characteristics in the preservation of which he is deeply interested, even when, like myself, he is at heart an aider and abettor of emanc.i.p.ation. No more gingerbread education, no more treatment as dolls and nincomp.o.o.ps, no more discrimination between one s.e.x and the other as to knowledge of this world's wickedness, no more curtailment of personal liberty on the score of that bugaboo, propriety--all these, if you like, ladies; but we men, we fathers and philosophers, ask that you retain, for our sakes, beauty of face and form, beauty of raiment, low, modulated voices, and a graceful carriage, faith, hope, and charity, even though you continue to reveal these last-named as at present with sweet, illogical inconsequence. More than this, we cannot do without the tender devotion, the unselfish forethought, the aspiring faith, which, even though we seem to mock and to be blind, saves us from the world and from ourselves. If you are to become merely men in petticoats, what will become of us? We shall go down, down, down, like the leaden plummet cast into the depths of the sea. We shall be snuffed out and extinguished in sober truth. Hence, certain that the work of emanc.i.p.ation is to continue, my philosophical glance follows fondly and almost proudly the course of my second daughter, who is making a fool of herself at the moment by practising Christian Science, because she has beauty and grace and a knowledge of the value of colors, purity and tenderness and aspiring faith, as her mother had before her, while at the same time she has forsaken the beaten path of convention and turned her brow to the morning. All of which, Josephine informs me, is charming reasoning, provided Winona does not fall in love with somebody. I do not understand the precise logic of this criticism; but, on the other hand, Josephine is very apt to know what she is talking about.

VIII

I came home one afternoon with a puckered brow.

"Has the Supreme Court decided another case against you?" asked Josephine, with solicitude.