Vassall Morton Part 22

It was past but too quickly; in three days more he must set sail.

Walking the street in a rueful mood, he met his cla.s.smate, Chester, who, having made the tour of Europe, had lost his obsolete ways, and grown backward into a man of the present world.

"Good morning, Morton. Making calls?--I see it by your face."

"Yes; it's a thing that must be done sometimes."

"_Pour prendre conge_, I suppose. I hear you are off very soon."

"The day after to-morrow."

"You couldn't do a wiser thing. When a man finds himself in a sc.r.a.pe, he had better get out of it as soon as possible; therefore, if he finds himself born in America, he had better forswear his country."

"Patriotic sentiments those."

"I can't answer for the patriotism; but they are the sentiments of a true son of the Pilgrim Fathers, who renounced their country because they couldn't stand it, and came over here. I mean to follow their example, and go back again. They fled--so the story goes--from persecution. I mean to fly from persecution too,--the persecution of a social atmosphere that I find hostile to my const.i.tution, and a climate not fit for a reasonable being to live in."

"I don't know why you should be so fierce against the climate. By your look, you seem to thrive in it."

"The bodily man thrives pa.s.sably well. It's the immortal part that suffers. Fierce! why, the climate makes me fierce. Who can be a philosopher in such a climate?--or a poet?--or an artist?--any thing but a steam engine? It is a perpetual spur, an unremitting goad.

n.o.body is happy in it except the men who ride on locomotives and conduct express trains,--always on the move. O, so you go in here, do you?"

"Yes, to see Mrs. Primrose. Will you come too?"

"No, thank you," replied Chester, walking away, with a comical look.

Morton rang the door bell, and found Mrs. Primrose at home.

There was a book on the table. He took it up. It was a novel, lately published.

Morton praised it.

Mrs. Primrose dissented, with great emphasis.

"You are severe upon the book."

"Not more so than it deserves," replied Mrs. Primrose; "it is too coa.r.s.e to be permitted for a moment."

"And yet the moral tone seems good enough."

"I do not blame the morality so much as the bad taste. It is full of slang dialogue, and was certainly written by a very unrefined person."

"It makes its characters speak as such people speak in real life."

"It is not merely that," said Mrs. Primrose, slightly pursing her mouth; "it contains, besides, expressions absolutely reprehensible."

"One does not admire its good taste; but a little blunt Saxon never did much harm."

"No daughter of mine shall read it," said Mrs. Primrose, with gravity.

"I imagine that if literature is to reflect human life truly, it can hardly be limited to the language of the drawing room."

"Then it should be banished from the drawing room," said Mrs.

Primrose, with severity.

Here several visitors appeared, and Morton presently took leave.

He was but a few rods from the door, when a quick step came behind him.

"Hallo, colonel, where are you going at such a rate?"

Morton turned, and saw his cla.s.smate, Rosny.

"Why, d.i.c.k, I'm glad to see you."

"They tell me you're bound for Europe."

"Yes."

"Well, it's a good move. If a man has money, he had better enjoy it."

"I shall be driving out of town in an hour. Come and dine with me."

"Sorry, colonel, but it can't be done. I'm out on the stump in the cause of democracy. Shall be off westward in two hours, and shake the dust from my shoes against this nest of whiggery and old fogyism."

"Democracy is under the weather just now, d.i.c.k."

"Just now, I grant you. What with log cabins and hard cider, and c.o.o.ns, the enlightened people are pretty well gammoned. But there's a good time coming. Before you know it, democracy will be upon you again like a load of bricks. Why, what can you expect of a party that will take a c.o.o.n for its emblem? I saw one chained up this morning in the yard of Taft's tavern, a dirty, mean-looking beast, about half way between a jackal and an owl. He looked uncommonly well in health, and could puff out his fur as round as a m.u.f.f. But, when you looked close, there was nothing of him but skin and bone; exactly like the whig party. He put up his nose, and smiled at me. I suppose--d.a.m.n his impudence--he took me for a whig. That c.o.o.n is going into a decline.

It won't be long before he is taken by the tail and tossed over Charles River bridge; and there he'll lie on the mud at low tide, for a genuine emblem of the defunct whig party, and a solemn warning to all c.o.o.n worshippers."

"Let the whigs alone, d.i.c.k; and if you won't dine with me, come in here and drink a gla.s.s of claret."

"That I'll do." And they went into the hotel accordingly.

As Rosny took up his gla.s.s, Morton observed a large old seal ring on his finger.

"Do you call yourself a democrat, and yet always wear that ring of yours?"

"Why, what's the matter with the ring?"

"Nothing, except that it is a badge of feudalism, aristocracy, and every thing else abominable to your party."

"Pshaw, man. Look here: do you see that crest, cut in the stone? That crest followed King Francis to Pavia, and when Henri Quatre charged at Ivry, it wasn't far behind him. It is mine by right. It comes down to me, straight as a bee line, through twenty generations. And do you think I'm going to renounce my birthright? No, be gad!"

"I wouldn't. But what becomes of your democracy?"

"Democracy is tall enough to take care of itself. I wear that ring; but it don't follow that I stand on my ancestry. You needn't laugh: the case is just this. If the blood in my veins makes me stand to my colors where another man would flinch, or hold my head up where another would be sprawling on his back; if it gives me a better pluck, grit, go-ahead; why, _that's_ what I stand on,--_that's_ my patent of n.o.bility. What the deuse are you laughing at?--the personal quality,--don't you see?--and not the ancestry."

"If you stand on personal merit, you'll be sure to go under before long. The democracy are growing as jealous of that as of ancestry, or of wealth either."