DR. NORTH 
 AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
Butbor s JEMtton 
 
 DR. NORTH 
 AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D. 
 
 LL.D. HARVARD AND EDINBURGH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 1903 
 
Copyright, 1900, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS, 
 
5)1 
 
 TO 
 HOKACE HOWAED FURNESS 
 
 WITH EVEB PLEASANT MEMOBIES 
 
 OF 
 
 MANY YEAKS OF FRIENDSHIP 
 
 32881)8 
 
The people who won for "Characteristics" 
 a continually increasing number of friends 
 reappear with others in this present book. 
 When published in the " Century Magazine " 
 at least one third of it was of necessity 
 omitted. It now appears in full. 
 
 S. WEIR MITCHELL. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 (ABLY in the summer, five years after 
 my marriage with Alice Leigh, my friend 
 Clayborne moved into the country. This 
 step surprised all of our little circle. He 
 had said nothing about it, and on our 
 return from our holiday we learned, for the first time, 
 of this amazing change. I say amazing, because the 
 great scholar liked company of his own choosing, and 
 the move thus made was sure to deprive him of the 
 occasional visits of many whom he was well pleased 
 to see. He explained his action by the statement that 
 he desired to have more leisure to complete his work 
 on the Mohammedan sects, which was now nearing a 
 conclusion. We, his friends, were not well pleased to 
 have this familiar resort so far removed, nor were we 
 quite satisfied with his reasons for this radical alter 
 ation in his mode of life. 
 
 He had in the past lacked neither will nor way to 
 secure to himself the solitude in which thought ma 
 tures. When he had been of a mind to be alone we 
 respected the least hint of such intention, and none 
 of us, except St. Clair, ventured to intrude. As to 
 
 1 
 
2 BE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 this indulged favorite, Clayborne said grimly, "One 
 cannot make laws for kittens." 
 
 We of course discussed among ourselves this change 
 of residence, which seemed to us to involve so much, 
 but soon ceased to criticize, being sure that our friend 
 must, as usual, have competent reasons for so great 
 an alteration in his mode of life. Moreover, we were 
 not given to that excess of gossip about friends or 
 relatives which is common. Vincent especially dis 
 liked such debates. We decided that, at all events, 
 Clayborne s change of home must not be allowed to 
 lessen the freedom of relation which had come to 
 mean so much for all concerned. And yet as some 
 of us were very busy people, Clayborne s move did at 
 times render inconvenient the claim he never ceased 
 to make on the men and women who were dear to 
 him. 
 
 St. Glair had just before this time returned from 
 wandering in the East Indies. Nothing unusual in the 
 lives of men surprised him. He laughed when he 
 heard of Clayborne s change of residence, and said it 
 was well, and that perhaps now he would learn to tell 
 a pine from a hemlock ; and did Mrs. Vincent know 
 why he had chosen the country, for which he had a 
 frequently declared want of taste ? 
 
 Mrs. Vincent shook her head at this, and declined 
 to express an opinion. She knew no more than we, 
 but had a well-understood weakness as to being sup 
 posed to know more of Clayborne than the rest of us. 
 This was at times a source of annoyance to my wife. 
 
 Vincent thought that the scholar had been wise, and 
 that all men when growing old should escape from 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 3 
 
 cities, because age is irritable, and some limitation of 
 human contact becomes therefore desirable. As Clay- 
 borne liked nothing better than a bitter feud with 
 other scholars, and, failing this, a tangled lawsuit, the 
 explanation did not seem to me to assist our quest 
 after reasonably explanatory motives. 
 
 When I told Mrs. Vincent that Clayborne had 
 bought his new home two years before he moved into 
 it, she remarked, with an air of gentle dejection: 
 "And he never told me. Did he tell Alice ? " This 
 was my wife. Fortunately I was able to say " No," 
 and that he had altered the house and had the garden 
 put in order nearly a year ago. "And never men 
 tioned it ? " 
 
 " No ; certainly not to me. He may have told Fred 
 Vincent; as his counsel, he may very likely have 
 done so." 
 
 " I shall ask him why he was so mysterious," said 
 she, decisively. I was very sure that she would do 
 nothing of the kind. 
 
 We ourselves had returned to the city early in the 
 autumn. Clayborne called at once, and then it was 
 that, for the first time, we learned of the new home, 
 for, as I have said, he had been silent as to the matter, 
 and, I fancy, rather enjoyed the completeness of our 
 surprise. He bade us to come out any afternoon 
 and see his house. We must arrange to come with 
 the Vincents, he added, and with no more words he 
 left us. 
 
 "I did want to ask him so many questions," said 
 my wife. 
 
 We drove to Holm wood of a delightful afternoon, 
 
4 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 into a neighborhood somewhat unfamiliar, to me at 
 least. As we reached the house Clay borne was in the 
 act of mounting for his daily ride. He turned back 
 much pleased, and with the eager joy of a child 
 showed us over the house and garden, loading Mrs. 
 Vincent and my wife with autumn flowers. The 
 drawing-room was still without furniture. Mrs. Vin 
 cent was to furnish it, he told her. A wise arrange 
 ment ; her taste was perfect. My wife said : " How 
 delightful, Anne ! We must talk it over together." 
 "Certainly, dear"; but I, who am sometimes wise, 
 knew this talk would never occur, or, if it did, would 
 never have materially influential results. 
 
 These two women loved each other sincerely, but 
 were inclined to feed, with fractional opportunities, 
 the reserve of half -concealed jealousy they felt as to 
 Clayborne. At one time, years before, Mrs. Vincent 
 did not like him, then she endured him, and at last 
 was conquered by his honest qualities and his devo 
 tion to Frederick Vincent. My wife had always 
 liked him. 
 
 We remained an hour, and as we were leaving 
 Clayborne insisted that we should dine with him 
 every Saturday, or at least while the autumn weather 
 made the little journey agreeable. To this we will 
 ingly assented. " I have some queer people to show 
 you by and by," he said j " some of my neighbors and 
 others. You have always wanted a round table ; 
 now, my dear ladies, I have one." 
 
 We had a glad welcome at that first dinner. He 
 was particular about his diet, and had the peculiarity 
 of giving but one wine during the dinner. It might 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS . 5 
 
 be a Burgundy, a claret, or a vintage champagne, but 
 we were given no other until, after our good old 
 fashion, the cloth was removed and the decanters of 
 Madeira were set on the well-rubbed mahogany table. 
 Vincent and I had often remonstrated with our 
 friend on his disregard of the tastes of his guests. 
 He replied that the Jews had the sense not to mix 
 wines when they drank. Vincent remarked that a 
 too generous use of texts would probably leave us 
 neither drink nor diet, and certainly would forbid 
 champagne. We did not change Clayborne s ways, 
 and he continued, I do not know why, to limit us to 
 the one wine he that day fancied. At table he talked 
 very little, but knew well how to keep going the talk 
 of others. Now and then he could be teased into 
 strenuous gusts of talk, though rarely into the merry 
 give and take of lighter chat. When by good luck 
 in this more companionable mood he was the best 
 table-comrade I ever knew, although since then I 
 have sat beside Lowell and George Meredith, and 
 dined often with one great bishop, who, when at his 
 best, was a brilliant companion. 
 
 But it was after dining, when we had wandered 
 into the great library, that Clayborne was most 
 happy. It had long been understood that Anne Vin 
 cent and my wife should share with us the pleasant 
 privilege of this easy digestive hour. Here in the 
 great book-lined room we chatted in groups, or were 
 free to wander in this home of learning, to look at 
 the latest additions, or to comment on the last new 
 water-color left on the table for St. Glair s stringent 
 criticisms. Soon or late we were sure to settle down 
 
6 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 about the blazing hickory logs. The coffee and li 
 queurs were left on a side-table, pipe or cigar was 
 lighted, and we talked or were silent, as suited the 
 after-dinner mood of each. 
 
 I had been respectfully and temperately amused 
 during this first dinner, by a slight discussion which 
 arose as to the furnishing of the drawing-room, con 
 fided to Anne Vincent s taste. Clayborne had him 
 self some indistinct appreciation of the fact that he 
 was looked upon as the legitimate prey of two un 
 usual women. He liked it. He had always been 
 happy in friendship and luckless in love, and this I 
 believe to be common. In middle age he began, as 
 St. Clair once said, to collect a variety of friendships, 
 and gave up all effort to find a domestic partner. 
 His two women friends constantly advised marriage ; 
 but, as Vincent said, this advice was given for self- 
 justification alone, and meant nothing. In fact, 
 although, as I have observed, Mrs. Vincent and my 
 wife were jealous of each other, they were ready, with 
 childlike absence of self-analysis, to unite forces 
 against any other woman who seemed desirous of 
 sharing in the task of looking after Clayborne s com 
 fort. Men are rarely jealous as to their friends; 
 women are often thus when the friends are men, and 
 sometimes when they are women : but this latter is a 
 vice of youth. I am not sure that to be capable of 
 controlled jealousy is not a needful qualification for 
 both love and friendship. 
 
 As we came out from dinner Vincent and his wife 
 and I settled down with our host near to the fire ; 
 St. Clair and Mrs. North wandered about the room. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 7 
 
 She had come hither by an earlier train, and had busied 
 herself in decorating the library with great branches 
 of gloriously tinted maple and oak. At the hearth- 
 side there was silence awhile, for here we felt free to 
 say nothing when we were so disposed. 
 
 St. Clair said to my wife : " Why do you bring all 
 this autumn splendor out of the woods to shrivel in a 
 hot room ? " 
 
 "Why not?" she asked. 
 
 "Why not? It was alive on its slow, beautiful, 
 changeful way to nature s death." 
 
 My wife never quite admitted the honesty of some 
 of St. Glair s fancies. " Why," said she, " do you air 
 these affectations before us who know you ? Now, is 
 it not pure affectation ? " 
 
 "I thank the affectations of life that I know at 
 least one woman who never allows a flower to be cut 
 in her garden." 
 
 " And who is she ? " 
 
 " As if I would tell you ! The next thing would be 
 her conversion to brutal common very, very common 
 sense. A word of surprise would well, would 
 change her." 
 
 " Then she must be rather weak. I am sorry that 
 any woman should be so foolish." 
 
 " Thank God for the fools ! " he returned. What 
 were life without them? There is no promise of 
 wisdom in another world. That is a comfort. There 
 will, I trust, be a few fool-angels. No, as I live, I 
 am never affected. I am impulsive, excessive; I 
 represent in extremes what I am sure you feel, must 
 feel. The next time you cut a great lily, think, think ! 
 
8 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Do you like to see a noble tree fall, ruined by the ax ? 
 It gives you a pang. Oh, it does ! n 
 
 " Yes, it does." 
 
 " Well, what of the lily ? All deaths are horrible 
 to me. I never got over the scene in that hospital 
 with North. He said death was common. So said 
 Hamlet s stepfather, but I doubt if that comforted the 
 melancholy prince, or any heart before or since. No 
 one really believes in death ; I do not. I suppose you 
 think that nonsense." 
 
 " I do. But as to the oak. It is centuries old, all 
 manner of romance surrounds its life. If I were a 
 poet I could oh, how hard to be unable to answer 
 fitly ! " 
 
 " Then let me help, and answer, too, for oak and 
 lily. No, it is not my verse. 
 
 It is not growing like a tree 
 
 In bulk, doth make Man better be ; 
 
 Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 
 
 To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear : 
 A lily of a day 
 Is fairer far in May, 
 Although it fall and die that night- 
 It was the plant and flower of Light. 
 
 In small proportions we just beauty see ; 
 
 And in short measures life may perfect be." 
 
 "You have no right to call in other folks to help 
 you to say things ; and yet the verse was worth while. 
 Thank you. It is not unfamiliar. I forgive and be 
 lieve you. But as you are an avowed vegetarian since 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 9 
 
 you came home, what of say the cabbages cut for 
 dinner ? " 
 
 " Oh, they are ugly." 
 
 "So is Clayborne," she said, pointing with her fan. 
 He was of a grand, nobly rugged type of ugliness. 
 "Would that make it a less crime to do for him as 
 some of his critics would desire ? " 
 
 " I hate argument," he replied. 
 
 " But this is illustration." 
 
 "Oh, I hate illustration. Did you see the new 
 edition of my book of poems? The illustrations 
 were I always see the illustrations now. They 
 have killed my ideal people in the drama, and set 
 in their place lay figures. Illustrations never il 
 lustrate." 
 
 As Clayborne and Vincent at the fireside were 
 smoking in entire silence, I carried my cigar across 
 the library, to where my wife s laughter called me. 
 
 " A laugh is always a riddle," I said. " What is 
 amusing you, Alice?" 
 
 " We were discussing illustrations. But I was just 
 now laughing at the way Mr. St. Clair wriggled out 
 of an absurd proposition. On the whole I agree with 
 him in his dislike of the illustrations in well-known 
 books, and yet," she added, turning to him, " there is 
 something more to be said. Remember how the great 
 masters have illustrated the Bible stories. When I 
 think of the Virgin it is the tender figure of Del 
 Sarto s l Annunciation I see. And then there is the 
 Christ of the Brera, Da Vinci s. That does help one 
 to realize the Christus. I think I am sure that face 
 has done much good, has helped many. I once saw 
 
10 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 a grave, middle-aged officer stand long before that 
 picture. He walked away in tears." 
 
 "You are right/ returned St. Glair; "but oil- 
 paintings are not in my sense illustrations. I might 
 urge also the fact that even the great artists have 
 sometimes hurt, rather than helped, our appreciation 
 of some of the most beautiful of the Bible stories. 
 Ideals are tender things ; one has to be careful. But 
 we were really talking of the books of to-day. As to 
 helpful illustration of the Bible, no modern man seems 
 to be competent. These fables you good people so 
 lightly accept 
 
 " Stop, please," said my wife ; " you know our agree 
 ment. You are on forbidden ground." 
 
 " I step off it," he said gently. " Pardon the tres 
 passer." 
 
 " Thank you ; but tell me, was it that the great 
 painters honestly believed with a faith unmatched to 
 day ? " 
 
 " No j they were a most dissolute lot, those old fel 
 lows; some had no more belief than Filippo Lippi. 
 They painted for priest, pope, or prince, to order, and 
 were paid, as I was for my last book or statue." 
 
 My wife paused in thought for a moment, and said : 
 " Work is none the worse because men pay for it. 
 But it was not money which gave them something 
 the world has missed ever since. You say they had 
 no faith, or at least that some of the greatest had no 
 more than has many an artist to-day. Why, then, 
 were they so great ? " 
 
 " I will tell you," he replied. " It was because they 
 were both poets and artists. Certainly the greatest 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 11 
 
 were poets. Who is this to-day? What artist 
 Rossetti j yes. But who else ? Who else writes 
 poetry? These men did: Da Vinci, Raphael, and 
 Michael the Archangel, who was the Milton of painters. 
 I do not say a deep faith would not have gone for 
 something. No doubt some of them had it at times ; 
 but now art has neither faith nor poetry, and imagi 
 nation in art is dead dead." 
 
 " And yet two years ago you saw the future of all 
 art in the Church of Rome. You meant to become 
 a monk. You tried it." 
 
 " I did, for three weeks. They were dirty. I left." 
 
 "Three weeks was pretty long. You are like a 
 bird. Every bough is good for a while ; then the 
 wind swings it and away you go." 
 
 St. Clair tossed up his hands in mirthful protest. 
 " Alas for the limitations of friendship ! Let us join 
 those by the fire. The room is cold, and we are on 
 the way to a minor quarrel. Only my sweet temper 
 saved us. How is the girl ? " 
 
 " She is four years old to-day. You have not seen 
 her for a week, and I told you then of her birthday. 
 Will you kindly explain that, sir ? " When at home 
 he rarely passed a day without seeing the child. 
 
 " I was very busy," he said ; " my best workman 
 got himself married ; I was busy." 
 
 "Ah, my dear Mr. St. Clair," cried the indignant 
 mother, " your life is punctuated with excuses ! " 
 
 " How cruel you are ! I shall come to-morrow. I 
 have two Indian dolls for the maid, and a Thibet shawl 
 for you. Only don t abuse me. What is Mrs. Vin 
 cent saying ? " 
 
12 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " You are a delightful man," said my wife. " I 
 always accept practical excuses. Let us go and hear 
 Anne Vincent. I think she must be rousing Mr. 
 Clayborne; I have not heard his voice this half- 
 hour." 
 
 We went across the room and found places at the 
 fireside. Mrs. Vincent had, as we learned, just an 
 nounced a Frenchwoman s dictum as to conversa 
 tion. She said: "I saw in a very unpleasant book 
 yesterday what a Frenchwoman said of conversation ; 
 she thought there would be only silence if gossip, 
 scandal, the fatuous and commonplace were left out 
 of social talk." 
 
 " She was right," said Clayborne, through a cloud 
 of smoke. 
 
 "Let us accept her proposition," said Vincent, 
 " and talk scandal, gossip, and commonplace, and fine 
 any one a dollar who says any intelligent thing." 
 
 "But," said Mrs. Vincent, "I forbid gossip." 
 
 " And I scandal," cried my wife. 
 
 " Then," laughed St. Clair, " we are reduced to the 
 commonplace 
 
 " And fatuous," I added. 
 
 "Well, begin, one of you. It should be easy," 
 smiled Clayborne. 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 "Commonplaces seem to exact a good deal of 
 thinking," laughed Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " No," said Clayborne ; " they imply absence of 
 thought. And we fail because we are all thinking, 
 which is quite uncommon." 
 
 " One dollar gone," cried I. " Try it again." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 13 
 
 The poet said, with the tone of one conducting a 
 party of tourists : " The Venus of Milo is universally 
 acknowledged to be the most beautiful of statues." 
 
 " Stuff ! " said Clayborne ; " it is not Venus, and 
 the Japanese consider it a quite brutal type." 
 
 " Pay up," said St. Clair, overjoyed. 
 
 " There is no such thing as universally indubitable 
 commonplace," said my wife j "it is a question of 
 time and people. You had best begin by denning it." 
 
 " It does not exist as a noun in the old dictionaries. 
 1 To commonplace is to reduce to general heads/ says 
 Johnson. The trite, stale, and hackneyed is a more 
 modern definition," said Clayborne. "We seem to 
 be sadly incompetent. Commonplace well, that is 
 something any one can say and any one can under 
 stand. There is Tupper, a forgotten name, and 
 Walt Whitman ; my second definition covers their 
 trash." 
 
 "Ah, now," cried St. Clair, "my good old poet 
 Walt ! * 
 
 Clayborne sat up alert. " He was neither poet nor 
 confound our tongue ! I want to revive an old 
 word nor proser. He was so vain that he had no 
 power of self-criticism. No man is great who has lost 
 power to be self-critical. I asked him once if he 
 thought Shakespeare as great a poet as he himself. 
 He said he had often considered that question, and 
 had never been able to make up his mind." 
 
 " Oh, but he was jesting," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " No, not at all," said I. " I, too, knew him well. 
 He was matchless in his vanity. He had the courage 
 of his vanity. Very few strong people are fearless 
 
14 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 enough to tell you their honest self-estimate. The 
 poets have been decently shy about that. One would 
 like to know where Wordsworth and Shelley ranked 
 themselves in the peerage of genius." 
 
 "Tell us more about Walt Whitman/ 7 said Mrs. 
 Vincent. "He must have been anything but com 
 monplace." 
 
 " I will tell you something," said I. " He consulted a 
 physician, a friend of mine, some time ago. When 
 about to leave, well pleased with advice to live out of 
 doors and to take no physic, he asked what he was to 
 give as a fee. The doctor said : l The debt was paid 
 long ago ; it is you who are still the creditor. 7 Walt 
 rose up, with his great head like that of the Capitoline 
 Jove, and saying, * Thank you j good morning, 7 went 
 out of the room as a stout lady entered. A moment 
 later he reappeared, without knocking, set two large 
 hands on the table opposite to the doctor, and said, 
 < That, sir, I call poetry ! 7 " 
 
 " How pretty ! " cried Mrs. Vincent. " But what 
 did the stout lady say I " 
 
 " I asked that very question. She said, when Walt 
 had gone, Is the gentleman insane? 7 The doctor 
 said l Yes 7 ; as he was a poet he was of course cracked 
 at times, and that his name was Walt Whitman. 
 The stout lady was the head of a school. She de 
 clared that although his books were not for young 
 ladies, she wished she had known his name in time to 
 ask for an autograph. The doctor consoled her with 
 a note of Walt Whitman s." 
 
 " Do they still bother you for autographs, Clay- 
 borne ? " said Vincent. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 15 
 
 "Yes, now and then. I use the stamps, and tear 
 up their letters." 
 
 "And never answer them?" said my wife. 
 "Never?" 
 
 "Yes, I did once. A persistent young woman 
 wrote to me three times, and in a rage I answered 
 her at last. I wrote : 
 
 What can a wise man do but laugh 
 At fools who ask an autograph? 
 
 That is the only poetry I ever wrote." 
 
 "But she got what she asked for?" said St. Clair. 
 
 "No," growled Clayborne; "my secretary wrote 
 it." 
 
 " I consider that cruel," said my wife. 
 
 " Unkind, she said it was, and then declared, to my 
 surprise, that she was a far-away New England cousin, 
 and that I might have been contented to make no 
 reply, and that she would trouble me no more." 
 
 " This being her fourth letter," said I. 
 
 " Yes. I suppose that if you were written to once 
 a week as to something you had no mind to do, at 
 some time the request would find you in the mood to 
 say yes." 
 
 "That," said I, "is the principle of fly-fishing, of 
 making love, and of advertising." 
 
 " And of success in life," said Vincent. " Perse 
 vere and change your fly." 
 
 " She persevered," said Clayborne. 
 
 " And," said Mrs. Vincent, " she found, poor thing, 
 that it was a wicked shark, and not a well-mannered 
 salmon." 
 
16 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "But after? What came next?" said my wife, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Nothing, I am sure," returned Anne Vincent. 
 " What should or could come, my dear child ? " 
 
 " A dozen six-button gloves to one that it did not 
 end there." 
 
 " I take it, my dear ! " 
 
 " Good ! " said my wife. " Mr. Clayborne wrote her 
 a nice long letter." 
 
 " I did j but who told you ? " 
 
 " No one ! " cried Mrs. North, triumphantly. 
 
 We laughed, while Mrs. Vincent stared in the fire, 
 reflective. 
 
 " Six buttons," said Mrs. North. 
 
 " She was a poor little cripple," added Clayborne, 
 " who was trying to get some education at home out 
 of books, and with a faint, far-away interest in the 
 cousin who wrote books. Now I send no smart 
 answers." 
 
 " Was it costly, that autograph ? " asked St. Clair. 
 
 Clayborne made no reply. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent shook her head at the poet by way of 
 warning. 
 
 I happened to know that Clayborne s care of this 
 girl began four years before he moved to the country. 
 He gave her the chance of education which the girl 
 craved, and now this was the slightly deformed young 
 woman who had but lately come to live in the village, 
 and who came daily to receive her cousin s dictations 
 and to type-write his letters. 
 
 When Clayborne failed to reply, St. Clair knew 
 himself to have been reproved, and lapsed into 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 17 
 
 silence, dismayed like a child. My wife, who had a 
 motherly regard for her abdicated lovers, smiled, and 
 murmured under shelter of her fan : " Did not you 
 know? The girl is the new secretary, Miss May- 
 wood, the youug woman we saw in the hall last 
 week." 
 
 " How stupid of me ! " said St. Clair, aside. " But 
 why should not one speak of another man s bounty ? 
 If hidden, it loses its value as an example. Your 
 Bible texts are in conflict. l Let your light so shine 
 before men/ and then you are given the text about 
 the desirable ignorance of the hand." 
 
 " Let us ask Mr. Clayborne," said my wife. " He 
 knows the Bible as few know it." 
 
 The general talk had lapsed. The hospitality of 
 silence was one of the charms of this house, and in 
 deed, as I have said, had come to be an accepted 
 freedom whenever we met. It was broken by my 
 wife s question. The scholar looked up with the rare 
 smile he always had ready for those whom he loved. 
 
 " Charity, dear lady, is but one of the illuminating 
 virtues which make life to shine. A man s light is 
 not charity. His light is the radiating influence of a 
 good and true life. The text should not be read as 
 inviting to liberality when giving in church. It means 
 nothing there in the way of example. No one knows 
 what you give, or why, which is of far more moment." 
 
 " Thank you for the better interpretation," said my 
 wife. 
 
 " It is," said Mrs. Vincent, " the other text as to 
 that ignorant left hand which has always puzzled 
 
18 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 I saw my wife s face light up as it does when 
 thought surprises her with some of its strange re- 
 vealments. She said with a certain quiet timidity, 
 as if in doubt : " Is there not, Anne, an intimation in 
 the text that giving should be, as it were, a part of 
 the unrecording automatism of a well-trained life, 
 without self-ful sense of good done something as 
 simple and natural as breathing ? " 
 
 "But surely, Alice," said Anne Vincent, "you do 
 not mean that we should give without thought ? No, 
 pardon me, dear! I was stupid. I see what you 
 mean, but you were hardly clear." 
 
 Clayborne looked over at my wife with his large, 
 slow, kindly smile. 
 
 " It seems to me clear enough," he said. 
 
 "No," said my wife; "I never can express what I 
 mean. Sometimes I think I am clever, but when I 
 talk it out I conclude that I am a fool. Tell me what 
 I mean." 
 
 " I think," said the scholar, " you mean that the 
 single act of giving should be merely the easy out 
 come of a habit formed, like a rut in a road, by end 
 less repetitions. It does not involve absence of con 
 siderate thought. It is, it should be, thus of all our 
 virtues. It should be as with our garments, which 
 we used to call habits. Any abrupt change in the 
 habits of the mind should bring to us an awakening 
 sense of awkwardness, of something wrong, and so 
 stay us with self-question." 
 
 "I knew he would say it better than I," said my 
 wife. 
 
 "Ah!" murmured St. Glair; "habits of the body; 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 19 
 
 garments of the mind to be acquired. I have none, 
 thank goodness ! Now I know why I hate to wear 
 a hat or clothes. But go on. It was tremendously 
 like a sermon, except that it was brief, and that the 
 privilege to interrupt was permissible." 
 
 " But should not be," said Vincent. 
 
 "Oh, I suppose not," returned St. Clair. "When 
 I snap at Clayborne or growl at his dignified attitude 
 of big dog, I am, as you all appear to think, like the 
 little dog Beaver. In fact, Clayborne does sometimes 
 talk astonishing nonsense." 
 
 Clayborne smiled. "We don t know the dog 
 Beaver." 
 
 "Well, then, here is wisdom. Once on a time, 
 when the Rebs were marching on Gettysburg, they 
 passed a house close to the road. On the porch stood 
 a child and her mother. A tiny terrier safe behind 
 the paling-fence barked furiously at the soldiers. 
 Beaver was the name of that loyal dog. Beaver re 
 fused to behave himself. Then at last came General 
 
 A and rode on the sidewalk. At this liberty the 
 
 small dog ran to and fro, and barked yet more an^ 
 grily. Upon this the general heard the child cry out 
 in alarm, Oh, mama, mama ! Don t let Beav bite 
 that army ! Well, I am Beaver." 
 
 " Thank you," said I j " you have not lived in vain." 
 
 " What a delightful story ! " said Anne Vincent. 
 
 "It has large applications," said her husband. 
 "May I use it, Victor?" 
 
 "I never patent my stories," said St. Clair. " Wil) 
 the army please to move on ? " 
 
 "Oh," said Clayborne, "I was only about to ask 
 
20 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 when the offertory first came into use. How was the 
 bag filled the bag which Judas carried? Is not 
 that a Christian custom ? I never saw it in a mosque. 
 Do the Jews use it f " 
 
 No one could answer his questions, but Vincent 
 said : " It seems a natural and easy way of collecting 
 money for church uses. I never liked it. That may 
 be my Quaker ancestry. I believe Friends have not 
 this custom." 
 
 "I am with you as to this/ 7 said my wife. "I, 
 too, dislike it. We are nearly all descendants of 
 Quakers, and no one of us can answer this simple 
 question." 
 
 Said our host : " I will sometime invite my neighbor 
 Randolph to join us. Then you can ask him." 
 
 " Do," said I. 
 
 " When," said Clayborne, " St. Clair dislocated the 
 talk, I was reflecting where I had seen some Eastern 
 sayings about charity. Generally some one has said 
 in the past whatever we say to-day, and often has 
 said it better." 
 
 " That seems acceptably commonplace," laughed St. 
 Clair, "and how easily that disposes of all need to 
 talk ! I do not see why we should not dispense with 
 original conversation and talk in quotations." 
 
 "Our friend Anne Lyndsay might, or you," said 
 Mrs. Vincent. " The rest of us, except Mr. Clay- 
 borne, would be silent listeners." 
 
 I ventured to say that there would be long pauses. 
 
 "If Clayborne," said Vincent, who at times was 
 literal, " means that some things have been so said in 
 the past that we cannot put them better, it is hardly 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 21 
 
 true. As man changes and society alters, so does the 
 need to restate emotion or repeat the great truths in 
 some novel form. Otherwise what need to preach 
 sermons or write books ? " 
 
 " There is no need/ 7 said St. Clair. 
 
 " No one needs sermons more than a certain friend 
 of ours," said Mrs. Vincent, " and he does also write 
 books." 
 
 " But as to sermons, three words answer for me. 
 When my dear Mrs. Vincent says, l Don t do it/ it is 
 enough, as you know. I repent and stop. But here 
 comes Clayborne." 
 
 The scholar had been wandering about among his 
 books, and now came back with two little volumes 
 beautifully bound, and a manuscript in Arabic rolled 
 on an ivory rod. " I wanted/ he said, " to find some 
 Eastern sayings about charity." As he spoke he un 
 rolled the script. " These are the poems of El-Din- 
 Attar, the friend of Omar Khayyam; the book is 
 rare." He began to translate. "He says: i Listen 
 with the two ears given thee of Allah. Cover thy 
 face when thou givest alms, that he who receives may 
 know only Allah beneath thy cloak. He who giveth 
 moon- white silver at night is repaid with the gold of 
 the sun at morning. These/ says El-Din-Attar, 
 are not my wisdom, but were made by the sufi poet 
 El-Amin. The added comment is not bad, and is 
 apropos I should say relevant: That which hath 
 been already said is like thy dinner of dates of yester 
 day. Shall it withhold thee from eating thy dates 
 to-morrow ? Then he goes on, as he thinks, to im 
 prove on El-Amin : The fool thinks that he gives. 
 
22 DE. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 He is only honestly returning to Allah that which he 
 gave. Give without words. 
 
 A gift is as the young foal of the camel; 
 
 It should carry nothing on its back. 
 
 A gift is as an egg; what gain to decorate the shell? 
 
 Here is a bit . of verse, with apologies to St. Glair. 
 This is from my little collection of Arabic, or rather 
 of Oriental, morsels of wisdom what Attar calls, 
 with gentle vanity, l crumbs from the loaf of my wis 
 dom. 7 All poets are vain." 
 
 " Ah, to own the entire loaf ! " said St. Clair. " As 
 to the vanity of poets the great poets are never 
 vain. But we will talk of that some day. Now for 
 your poem." 
 
 " Oh, it is only four lines, and, after all, some things 
 do seem to drop readily into verse. 
 
 When thou givest to the poor 
 
 Be thou ever sure, 
 
 As thy share, 
 
 To ask large usury of prayer." 
 
 "I do not like that," said Mrs. Vincent. "Why 
 ask any return ? " 
 
 " Well, here is an odd one. This is Malayan : 
 
 It is not always the receiver who receives ; 
 It is not always the giver who gives." 
 
 " Oh, I like that much better ! " cried my wife. 
 
 " They are really very interesting," said St. Clair. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 23 
 
 " The phrase as to asking the usury of prayer ver 
 bally reminds me of the sonnet of a friend of mine. 
 I think it is on a lost philopena. I am not sure that 
 I can repeat it. Yes ; this is it : 
 
 More blest is he who gives than who receives, 
 For he that gives doth always something get : 
 Angelic usurers that interest set : 
 And what we give is like the cloak of leaves 
 
 Which to the beggared earth the great trees fling, 
 Thoughtless of gain in chilly autumn days : 
 The mystic husbandly of nature s ways 
 Shall fetch it back in greenery of the spring. 
 
 One tender gift there is, my little maid, 
 That doth the giver and receiver bless, 
 And shall with obligation none distress : 
 
 Coin of the heart in God s just balance weighed; 
 Therefore, sweet spendthrift, still be prodigal, 
 And freely squander what thou hast from all." 
 
 " How much is gained by rhythm and rhyme ! " 
 said my wife. " I like your sonnet." 
 
 " What else have you ? " said St. Clair. 
 
 " Here is one for Mrs. Vincent. Again it is El- 
 Din-Attar. But the translation is not mine : 
 
 Give as the peach-trees give in the oasis of Sevol-Nedrag 
 the grace of the blossom, the sweet of the fruit, shade for 
 the sun-hurt, rest for the wanderer, that he may hear the 
 wind in the branches over him calling to prayer, and thus 
 refreshed, may return to his home and plant trees by the 
 wells and the wayside. For a good deed hath length of life ; 
 and who shall number the years of remembrance? " 
 
24 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " I like that best," said my wife j " how to give 
 with grace, how to flavor your gift." 
 
 " You have small need to learn that, dear lady," 
 said our host. It was true. Clayborne grew gentler 
 as he became older ; but direct praise he rarely gave. 
 My wife flushed and was silent. Clayborne was 
 vaguely conscious of a kindly indiscretion. He went 
 on hastily : " These bits of Eastern wisdom lose much 
 in the translation." 
 
 "I myself like," said my wife, "the thought that 
 an act of goodness may live on and on. You recall, 
 
 Owen, what J F said to you when he was 
 
 dying?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Tell it, please. Here surely you may." 
 
 " You will greatly oblige me, Owen, if you will tell 
 it," said Vincent. "You once did begin to tell me, 
 but something interrupted you." He asked it with 
 what I might call the tender formality of manner I 
 knew and liked. 
 
 I hesitated a moment. My wife had revived a sad 
 memory. Then I said : " If you wish it. My friend 
 was dying of cancer, of that one of its forms which 
 is the most terrible to a man of refinement, like my 
 friend, who desired with every instinct of a gentle 
 man to be agreeable to all about him. He wrote me : 
 
 Come to "W and see me. Come soon. I want 
 
 to say good-by. I am being tortured to death. I 
 am disgusting to myself and to all who approach 
 me. It is agony and insult. I should not have said 
 insult, but I leave it as said. Come, and soon; I 
 have something to say/ I went. He had set nine 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 25 
 
 in the morning as the hour for my call. He ex 
 plained this early appointment, saying : I am given 
 morphia. It merely dulls the pain. I wanted to see 
 you when my head is clear, and for this reason I 
 have taken none since last night. I am in great pain. 
 But I wanted to say this to you. When my dear 
 friend, your sister, was dying, after years of patiently 
 borne pain, and I spoke of her cheerfulness, she said 
 to me : " When I recall the calm endurance shown in 
 my brother s illness (he died at nineteen, during ser 
 vice in the Civil War), I am somehow made strong, 
 
 and can go on." I myself/ said F , was then 
 
 well and sturdy. Now, and I must talk briefly, I 
 want only to say to you that the remembrance of her 
 example has been to me in turn a constant help. I 
 knew that you would like to hear that her long years 
 of trial were not without some good results. 7 Then 
 he said, That is all. Please to go now ! Good-by ! " 
 
 For a little while no one spoke. Then St. Glair 
 said : " Horrible ! I should end it quickly. I hate 
 pain. I am never ill. I wonder if pain exists outside 
 of this world. I like that man of whom Owen told 
 us, who could not feel pain. Do not talk of it any 
 more. Let me tell you an Eastern story about charity. 
 If you talk about death I shall sleep none to-night ; 
 I shall go away. I heard my tale in the market at 
 Tangier from a man who taught me a little of the 
 Berber language." 
 
 "Is this honest, Victor?" said our host. 
 
 " All poets are." 
 
 " Lord ! they have contributed more to the annals 
 of unpunished villainy than" 
 
26 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Well, then, I won t tell it," broke in St. Clair, an 
 noyed. " Personally I like to be wicked, and I do 
 not mind being put in a corner for it j but just now I 
 am not bad. I hate. to be whipped for the sins of my 
 betters." 
 
 " What stuff ! " said Clayborne. " Go on ! " 
 
 " Don t mind him, Victor," said Vincent. 
 
 " Please," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 St. Clair laughed and threw back his head, which was 
 like that of a young Greek. " I shall tell Mrs.Vincent." 
 
 " And we will not listen," said I. 
 
 He rose and stood by the fire, at one side, was 
 silent a moment, and then said: 
 
 " The Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid went out one night 
 basely clad. Because he was a sufi poet he knew how 
 to become for an hour whatsoever he would. This 
 time he made himself hungry and friendless and in 
 sore need, for now there dwelt in him the mind of a 
 beggar. He bent low and asked alms at the gate of 
 the mosque. An old man gave him a paraf. i I thank 
 thee, said Haroun, t although it is the least of all 
 coins. But tell me thy name, that when the muezzin 
 calls at morning I may pray for thee to the Father of 
 gifts. 7 Charity hath no name/ said he who gave. 
 Thus speaking, he went his way. Others refused to 
 give, and some mocked him. At last came a young 
 man. Help me ; I am poor ! said Haroun. 1 1, too, 
 have nothing/ returned the man. Even my verses 
 are poor. I am a sufi poet, a maker of songs/ Give 
 me, then, at least a song/ said the caliph ; that is little. 
 Here is one/ replied the poet. At this the caliph for 
 got and drew himself up to his full height. Seeing 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 27 
 
 him thus in the moonlight, the young man knew 
 him, and said in" haste, Here is a better song/ and 
 giving him a scroll, took back that he had given. 
 Then said Haroun : 1 1 am the caliph. Come to me at 
 morning without fail, and if the verse be good it shall 
 profit thee, and if bad thou shalt suffer. " 
 
 " By George ! " said Clayborne, " a fine way to deal 
 with poets." 
 
 " Or historians," said I. " Go on, Victor." 
 
 "When the man came at morning and the caliph 
 unrolled the scroll, it was a song of his own. i Young 
 man/ he said, l you are too wise for a poet/ and made 
 him governor of Bagdad." 
 
 "That is either reasonably well imitated," said 
 Clayborne, "or a real Oriental story. I never can 
 tell. Perhaps you may like to know, Victor, that the 
 reigning royal house of Othman has given to Turkey 
 some of its best poets. But where did^ou get that 
 tale ? At Tangier, I think you said." 
 
 " Yes ; did you really think I made it ? " 
 
 " By all the Muses, I do not know," said Clayborne. 
 " Write it for me, then I can tell ; when it is on paper 
 I can tell." 
 
 " Can you, indeed ? You shall have it," replied St. 
 Clair, smiling. 
 
 " Oh, the bad boy ! n murmured Vincent to me. 
 
 Before I could answer, my wife said : " I have had 
 what my girl calls < a dood time. Come, Owen, or we 
 shall be late for the train. We are also too late for 
 what was it Mr. Clayborne promised last week at our 
 house? Oh, yes. You said there was no text on 
 which a sermon could not be written." 
 
28 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Yes, I recall it," said Clayborne. " It was to be 
 ready to-night. St. Clair and I were each to write a 
 sermon on it." 
 
 " The text we gave you," said Mrs. Vincent, " was, 
 I remember, l Jesus wrote on the ground. " 
 
 " Good, I shall try 5 I lacked for time." 
 
 " I myself think it is too easy," said St. Clair. 
 
 " Indeed ! Do make haste, Owen j we are late," 
 and so with this we went away. 
 
|WO weeks or more went by before we 
 dined again at Holmwood. Meanwhile 
 Vincent was in Washington, convincing 
 the Supreme Court. St. Clair had dis 
 appeared, with no more apparent sense 
 of need to explain why than a ghost at the end of a 
 brief earthly call. At times he forgot engagements, 
 neglected any one who might be sitting for bust or 
 medallion, and simply went away. No one knew 
 where he had been until his return, unless he wrote 
 to Mrs. Vincent or to my wife. Once he asked me 
 to go with him, and what he did and what I saw I 
 may find time to state. When on this present occa 
 sion he thus flitted he went up to the head waters of 
 the Delaware River, bought a canoe, and paddled 
 himself down the great stream to Lewes. There on 
 the sea-shore he dried his canoe and set it afire. I 
 asked him why. He said Mrs. North knew, but I did 
 not. How could I, indeed? My good wife declared 
 she was, in fact, no wiser than I. St. Clair insists to 
 this day that she knows it, and it may be that she 
 does. It seems to me stupid to add needlessly to the 
 mysteries of life ; but this he liked to do. 
 
 When, being curious, I asked Mrs. Vincent, she 
 said, " You men are queer people, and yet I read you 
 his letter." 
 
 29 
 
30 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Now, this was his letter. It did not assist me. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM SUMMER [he said this was her true name, 
 because of her naturalness of bounty] : I am on the edge of 
 a wood. A cat-bird, astray from his home, is playing at 
 imitating the wood-robins. They listen surprised and in 
 sulted. Not far below is a rapid. I am writing on a mol- 
 dered log. The rapid above is talking to the rapid below, 
 because it is just after sundown, when the waters acquire 
 speech. All day long they babble, but far into the night 
 they sing or talk with the tongues of many lands. Who has 
 not heard or cannot hear them had better stay among men, 
 for the great forests have never given him their freedom. 
 There are three frogs in the marsh ; one has a drum, one a 
 fife, and one a bassoon. The air is full of leafy funerals. 
 The waters are carrying the red and yellow leaves in fleets 
 to the sea. Here alone is death beautiful. I float all day 
 long on this generous river. I have only to keep the prow 
 straight; the strong-willed water has the flow of decisive 
 fate. I go past the homes of men, past mills and pastures, 
 where the herds, with heads all one way, graze with patient 
 eyes. Here and there are primeval woods, where I camp 
 under the stars or wander. Do you think any church is as 
 solemn as a slowly darkening wood? Where else have you 
 the dreamy sense of something about to happen? What is 
 it seems to follow you? A gentle terror makes you glad to 
 get out to the verge of the river. All woods are haunted. 
 You are tempted by mysterious longings to return again. 
 You know, dear lady, how the need to be alone seizes me 
 at times. I wonder how long Adam was alone. That was 
 a noble loneliness, the finest the world ever gave. Eve was 
 a doubtful gift. To be alone restores my sense of being 
 only one person. I sometimes think that by chance or de 
 sign several souls get stowed away in this single lodging- 
 house we call the body. Who the landlord is at times it 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 31 
 
 were hard to tell. Here I own myself. Not to want to be 
 at times alone is a signal of commonplace identity. Alone 
 we are nearest to God. You think I am a trifler as to reli 
 gion. You are wrong. None of you is as deeply religious 
 as I am. You are wrong. Ah, I am so good when I am 
 in the woods ! Yes, at my best. VICTOR. 
 
 " P. S. I forgot. Years have I spent in the woods, and 
 to-day saw a thing new to me. To see it makes me happy. 
 I must tell some one. 
 
 "When leaves drop in the autumn they fall face down, 
 as if to salute the great mother. It is true of nearly all 
 leaves when the air is still. But why is it so? I can see you 
 smile, well pleased. I leave you to guess. I sat to-day a 
 long while watching the leaves fall. I think I know now why 
 they do not come to earth in the position they hold while on 
 the tree. V. ST. C." 
 
 When Mrs. Vincent had read thus far I told her 
 that it was a large dose of St. Glair s enigmatic, half- 
 meant nonsense, and that on his return from these 
 woodland conversions to goodness he was sure to 
 plunge into outrageous ways, and to need all of us 
 to get him back to a reasonably decorous life. Mrs. 
 Vincent, who liked no one but herself to scold him, 
 said he had the fire of genius, and that much was to 
 be forgiven an unrestrained nature ; to which I re 
 turned that there was no insurance against the fire 
 of genius, and that other folks were apt to get a trifle 
 singed. Upon this we quarreled mildly, and I was 
 coolly received for a week or two, and had to send 
 flowers and generally make myself gracious. I was 
 generous enough not to tell her that St. Clair bought, 
 on his return, a charming picture by Rousseau, for 
 
32 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 which he could as easily pay as fly. When Clay- 
 borne heard of this extravagance he went to the 
 dealer and paid for it. As to St. Clair, he said that 
 was exactly what he himself would have done under 
 like circumstances, and that it was a good thing, be 
 cause he could sell the picture if ever and that would 
 never be he should run into debt. We missed it a 
 year later. It was bought, I believe, by Xerxes 
 Crofter, my railroad reiver, whom I had set on foot 
 again to the misery of many. 
 
 It was in mid-October, as I recall it, that we were 
 once more at Holmwood. 
 
 Clayborne was a man of singularly equable charac 
 ter. He was capable of conducting a savage contro 
 versy with exasperating calmness, and with merciless 
 use of the weapons of incisive English. Like some 
 other men of large nature, he showed, as he grew 
 older, a tendency toward greater forbearance, but 
 never quite lost his sense of pleasure in contest. St. 
 Clair said he was born old and grew younger as 
 years went on. To our surprise, he proved to have 
 the capacity to find novel sources of enjoyment, and 
 to exhibit an almost childlike satisfaction in certain 
 newly found pursuits. At present he had taken with 
 fresh happiness to gardening, and when we met was 
 in what Vincent called a state of eruptive satisfac 
 tion as to the success of his wild garden. St. Clair 
 declared him to be under the impression that he had 
 discovered flowers and invented trees. To me he 
 seemed like a man who, having been mind-blind to 
 nature, had found his eyesight ; but genius is always 
 competent to present us with surprises. Certain of 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 33 
 
 these changes of occupative tastes may have been 
 fostered by the fact that of late his eyes had some 
 what failed him, and declined to be tasked all day 
 and half the night. When he became aware of this 
 he bought Holmwood, and for two years or more 
 amused himself by secretly adorning his purchase. 
 It became a constantly sought resting-place during 
 his long afternoon rides, and before we saw it he had 
 dealt with it in a way which filled us all with aston 
 ishment. 
 
 As we walked through the hall he said to my wife : 
 "You saw your garden, a place to plunder as you 
 like. Now I shall have the pleasure to show you my 
 own garden. Come." 
 
 We wandered here and there as he led us through 
 a belt of pines, and at last came out on an open space 
 of perhaps an acre. Around it was a low wall of 
 gray stone. This must have been long in place, for 
 it was covered with Japanese ivy and our own Vir 
 ginia creeper, both aglow with varied tints of autum 
 nal red. Straight walks of dull-red brick led across 
 this space of flowers, those still in bloom being chiefly 
 great masses of chrysanthemum, aster, and scarlet 
 sage. At each corner of the walks were antique 
 crumbled capitals of Greek columns. At the far 
 side, in a curve of the wall, he had set a sixteenth- 
 century well-head with a Latin inscription, and on 
 top was placed a shallow basin of red antique marble, 
 as a water-supply for the birds. 
 
 " The well is from Siena," he said] " the marbles I 
 bought in Rome last year. I have an antique altar j 
 it is not yet here." 
 
34 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Very quaint it was, and beautiful, as the women 
 said, with cries of surprised delight. St. Clair was 
 silent. Clayborne looked at him expectant. 
 
 " Do you like it ? " he said. 
 
 When St. Clair was feeling even a great joy in 
 tensely his eyes were apt to fill, and he himself to 
 feel, as now, a vague sense of dismay at the girl-like 
 unrestraint of his emotion. 
 
 "Who did it, Clayborne ?" he said. "Not you. 
 It is beautiful, fitting, in perfect taste." 
 
 Our host smiled. " Why not I ? " 
 
 " Because because there was a woman s hand in it." 
 
 " By Zeus ! Who told you that ? " 
 
 " No one ; I told myself. You like it, but a woman 
 helped you. There is that gray amphora lying on 
 the wall with the red vines over it. No ; that was 
 not your thought, nor the water for the birds." 
 
 Clayborne looked amused and a trifle annoyed. 
 " Yes," he replied ; " my cousin, Sibyl Maywood, my 
 secretary ; the most of it was her idea. I meant to 
 put these capitals around the grass-plot in front of 
 the house." 
 
 " Did you, indeed ? " said St. Clair, smiling. 
 
 " Then," said Vincent, " she is the young woman we 
 saw leaving the house when last we were here to dine ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Clayborne. 
 
 " I saw her," said St. Clair, " before you returned 
 home. She must be a person of singular good taste. 
 She is lame and not quite erect, Mrs. Vincent, but, 
 
 : Fore God, she hath a lovely face. 
 God in his mercy send her grace." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 35 
 
 " Poor child ! " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " She is slightly, very slightly deformed, and halts/ 
 said Clayborne. He seemed to me, who knew him 
 well, to be annoyed at these comments. 
 
 " How pitiful ! It were better," said Anne Vin 
 cent, " that she were also deformed of face." 
 
 " Oh, no," said St. Clair ; " no ! " 
 
 "Why not? "said I. 
 
 " I do not know. Why do you ask ? She has hair. 
 Did you notice her hair? And a face 
 
 11 Naturally," said Vincent, " the girl has hair and 
 a face." 
 
 " What a man ! " said St. Clair. 
 
 " I shall ask you all," said Clayborne, pausing, " to 
 take an interest in my cousin she is sure to please 
 you. She has been living in the village for two 
 months, and has become to me far more than a very 
 clever secretary." 
 
 "May I ask where she came from?" said Anne 
 Vincent. 
 
 "Her people," he replied, "were of the earliest 
 settlers at Hingham. They were important in war 
 and peace until two generations ago, when, after loss 
 of means, the family fell away into incapables. They 
 sought a cheap home in a remote New England vil 
 lage, and there lost touch of the class in which they 
 had lived for two hundred years." 
 
 " That is not a rare case in our country," said Vin 
 cent ; " for a family to keep its social place, product 
 of some kind is needed. A race must make and keep 
 money, or from time to time win some form of dis 
 tinction. If it desire permanency, have the preserva- 
 
36 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 live instinct, it can only retain its hold upon the 
 social group it has reached by more or less continu 
 ous recognition of social duties. At least this is true 
 of our cities." 
 
 "Is it worth while/ I said, " artificially to preserve 
 station for a breed, as is done in England, or to let it 
 depend for continued place and influence on its own 
 power to keep what it has won ? There is no doubt 
 at all that real talent, capacity, is valuably adver 
 tised and gets its chance earlier if, as in England, it 
 carry the name the label of a race already well 
 known. Is it worth while to insure the chance of 
 fresh product ? " 
 
 "Perhaps," said Clayborne; "and since all real 
 success is now more and more distinctly competi 
 tive, the label helps the strong more than it does the 
 feeble. It does secure for literature an early audi 
 ence. It does not now make that audience lenient, 
 as it once did." 
 
 " But," said I, " may not all this measurably apply 
 also to us? If a young man has available qualities, 
 is he not advantaged in their use owing to his being 
 one of a well-known family which has been able to 
 hold its own ? " 
 
 " Or get other folks own," laughed St. Clair. 
 
 " Stop him," said Clayborne ; " he has no conversa 
 tional reverence. This is not foot-ball, Victor ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said St. Clair, gaily. 
 
 " You are surety right, Owen, for several reasons, 
 most of them obvious. If the father be a man of 
 achievement, the son is apt, unfairly, to be predictively 
 judged in youth by what in the parent is the resultant 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 37 
 
 of years. But then, also, because of family distinc 
 tion, he does more easily get a hearing, and that is so 
 hard to get. Moreover, certain social qualifications, 
 which are fostered by generations of training, make 
 for success in every line of life." 
 
 "Good manners for instance, and tact," said my 
 wife. 
 
 " Oh, tact," said I, " is a gift of nature, unteachable. 
 A duke may miss it, a mechanic have it." 
 
 " One sees it in some children, and very early in 
 life," said Mrs. Vincent. " I think it presupposes re 
 finement, automatic tendency to notice the little things 
 of life, desire to please. I think some dogs have it j 
 yes, I really think so." 
 
 " Why not ? " said Clayborne. " I am sure that they 
 are observant, gentle, and wish to please as much as 
 any one of us." Our friend who spoke was as entirely 
 lacking in the quality we discussed as a kindly man 
 could be. We smiled as he added, " Some men have 
 tact which seems to be available only in certain rela 
 tions of life." 
 
 " That is true," said Vincent j " one might talk long 
 about it. As an example, I recall the case of General 
 
 B . He had the art to charm and convince a great 
 
 political assembly, and was quick to discern hostility, 
 and to answer questions with competence, courtesy, 
 and grace. When, after the meeting, he was intro 
 duced to his political supporters, he quickly succeeded 
 in displeasing most of them, and was pretty certain 
 to say the wrong thing to every one." 
 
 " That seems hardly credible," said my wife. 
 
 " And yet," returned Clayborne, " it is true." 
 
38 BE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 As we wandered to and fro the talk also wandered, 
 
 until Vincent brought it back to the question of tact. 
 
 "We were not very brilliant in our comments/ he 
 
 said, " and I let slip the chance of asking if the word 
 
 tact be, in our sense, an old one." 
 
 " No," replied Clayborne j " it is modern, and only 
 of late is to be found in the dictionaries. "Who 
 coined it I do not know, nor who gave it the meaning 
 now accepted. In Massinger a man says : 
 
 They [women] being created 
 To be both tractable and tactable. 
 
 Here is an adjective which has not our modern mean 
 ing. It may have been meant to describe women as 
 tacticians. The context does not clear up the mean 
 ing. It would be a good adjective, tactable. As to 
 the noun, I must look further." 
 
 "Thank you," said Vincent; "and as I have been 
 fortunate, I repeat the process and return to the 
 other matter we talked over. I had meant to say, 
 as regards what we see in England, that their way 
 appeals to me personally, sentimentally. I like their 
 idea of anchoring a family. I like these ancient 
 homesteads, with their abiding traditions, their cher 
 ished graves, their emotional hold on the young who 
 go out to win their way. When I come to reason on 
 it coldly" 
 
 " Oh, don t," cried St. Clair ; " I like the English 
 plan ; I should have made a very admirable duke." 
 
 " The entail, would have to be strict," said Clay- 
 borne. " As a question in hereditation it is interest- 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 39 
 
 ing to observe how many American families have 
 kept for over two hundred years the same social 
 place, how many do this with remarkable distinction, 
 and how many without such illustration." 
 
 "Of course/ said I; " we see and know that. 
 Abroad it is less well understood. The permanence 
 of races, of families, in republican countries, where it 
 is assumed that the leveling influences are effective, 
 is really an interesting illustration of the despotic 
 power of the inborn characteristics of a breed." 
 
 " Tell me, Mr. Clayborne," said my wife, " do large 
 or small families produce the people of ability ? " 
 
 " Shall we exclude genius?" he asked. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because genius is a glad freak of nature in a good 
 humor. It has in a sense neither grandfather nor 
 grandchild. Leave it out, and I answer that great 
 talent, ability, or capacity is more apt to be found in 
 children of large families." 
 
 " I am not sure," said Vincent. " There are some 
 possible fallacies, numerical fallacies. But given a 
 hundred thousand people, select the successful. Will 
 these have come out of large family groups or small 
 ones ? " 
 
 " That states the problem fairly. I still think that 
 I am correct j and there are good reasons why the chil 
 dren of a numerous family should excel an equal num 
 ber of the children of small families. The inter-disci 
 pline of large sets of children is valuable. It is fine 
 training for a larger world. The advantages are ob 
 vious. But all children should be brought up in the 
 country. One sees the value of this in the success of 
 
40 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 country-bred lads, who bring to a city the sturdy vigor 
 of a youth hardened by farm life. The three B s, as 
 the English say, are needed to make a lord chancellor, 
 or for any lifelong contest." 
 
 "The three B s" said my wife "what are they?" 
 
 I laughed. " I am like a certain American journal," 
 replied Clayborne. " It once modestly declined to 
 use these three B s as the title of a paper on boys, or 
 to put them in fuller form. I am equally modest." 
 
 "And provoking," said Alice. "I do believe you 
 are laughing at me." 
 
 It was rare that Clayborne desired to leave any 
 question until it was completely dealt with. His in 
 clination to lecture was like that of the people in Sir 
 Arthur Helps s books, who are supposed to be merely 
 talking, but who really converse in essays. We had 
 a tacit agreement to prevent these interminable dis 
 cussions. Now, to my surprise, Clayborne said : " This 
 is indoor talk. Let us leave it, and take it up again 
 some night by the fireside." We had been strolling 
 about or pausing as we chatted. 
 
 St. Clair cast a mischievous glance at Mrs. Vin 
 cent, and said: "Dr. Johnson remarked that irrev 
 erence for continuity in conversation is apt to be 
 associated with undeveloped intellectual capacity to 
 connect the past with the future." 
 
 " What, what ! " said Clayborne. 
 
 " How is it about conversational foot-ball ? " laughed 
 the poet. 
 
 "A talk must end sometime," said Clayborne. 
 "No; on reflection I am wrong a talk never ends. 
 It is only adjourned. Come, you bad boy ! " 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 41 
 
 " Indeed, you are right, Clayborne. But I want to 
 discuss this charming novelty. Your garden is most 
 beautiful. It has distinction. Everything in it 
 seems fitting. But here at this middle space, where 
 you have this fine Corinthian capital, there is want 
 ingwell, some larger object. I shall make for you 
 Keats s vase the whole ode in marble. I have long 
 wished to do it." 
 
 " Make it," said Clayborne. " Probably I shall like 
 it better than that absurd poem. If Sibyl likes it I 
 will put it here on this capital. Will it be very 
 costly, Victor ? " and he laughed. 
 
 " Yes, you old sinner. If I make it you are not to 
 scold me for a year and a day." 
 
 " It will be costly," I remarked. 
 
 " Ah, here is the servant to call us to dinner. I 
 have persuaded Miss Maywood to dine with us," said 
 our host. " She is very shy. She is, as I told you, 
 or did I ? the last of a long line of Puritan saints, 
 with a fair dilution of sinners. You will, I know, 
 remember that this young woman has suddenly to 
 appear among people who are unlike those she has 
 seen or known." 
 
 He was evidently a trifle uneasy as to his experi 
 ment. As we walked toward the house my wife and 
 Mrs. Vincent fell behind with me. 
 
 "Is not that like him? "said the elder woman. 
 "As if dear old friend ! surely excess of tact is 
 not his failing," 
 
 My wife had and has certain fading beliefs as to 
 classes, and the impropriety of bringing together 
 people who do not fit comfortably into places to 
 
42 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 which they are not accustomed. She said to Mrs. 
 Vincent : " Our old friend may well be in doubt. It 
 is pure folly, Anne. Of course the girl won t like it, 
 and it will quite spoil our dinners." 
 
 "It will hardly be as bad as that. Let us make 
 her like it, Alice. Now, you must not freeze her, 
 poor thing ! " 
 
 "As if 17 said Mrs. North. "You are simply 
 horrid, Anne Vincent." 
 
 I moved on, wisely silent, quite sure as to what 
 each woman would do. 
 
 As we passed through the hall the new guest met 
 us. " Miss May wood," said Clayborne, formally pre 
 senting her in turn to each of us. 
 
 The secretary was in a white gown. She was of 
 middle stature and slightly deformed, one shoulder 
 being higher than the other. As she walked her 
 halting gait was plainly to be seen. Her hands had 
 what St. Clair described as a look of competence, and 
 all their movements were singularly graceful. When 
 seated, as I observed later, the results of long-extinct 
 disease were no longer visible. Above this crooked 
 frame rose a head of the utmost beauty. It was 
 lighted up by dark-gray eyes, tender with lifelong 
 reproach of the fate which had dealt with her beauty 
 in so malign a fashion. Mrs. Vincent said later that 
 the girl had too much hair. It was deep black, but 
 of such extreme fineness as in the black-haired is rare. 
 The mass of it seemed at first sight so great as to 
 overweight the head, but this was carried well, and 
 no feature lacked beauty. 
 
 Clayborne, who at this time had uncertain views 
 
DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 43 
 
 as to Miss Maywood s future, had spoken of her to 
 me with freedom. I had, however, said no word of 
 this to my wife, and preferred to give no chance of 
 prejudging a person who must, I felt, be in some 
 ways peculiar. I was quite unprepared by what my 
 friend had told me for this refined face, with eyes 
 made brilliant by the amount of light their unusual 
 size reflected. This young woman may have been 
 somewhat embarrassed, but she was among people of 
 tact, who had every desire to set at ease a person who, 
 as some of them thought, had been needlessly put in 
 a false position. 
 
 My wife professed, as I have said, certain social 
 theories which she defended with zeal, but on which 
 she never acted. I was not surprised, therefore, to 
 see that she was most gracious to Miss Maywood. 
 As we went in to dinner the two elder women said 
 all manner of appreciative things about the garden, 
 our host having gaily presented the secretary as his 
 landscape-gardener. We were still chatting as we 
 sat down. Miss Maywood sat between me and Mrs. 
 Vincent ; St. Clair was opposite. I am very sensitive 
 to voices, and when Miss Maywood spoke I knew at 
 once that I was hearing one of those speaking instru 
 ments which are more rare than any voice of song, 
 whatever its compass or its sympathetic qualities. 
 While she was talking to Mrs. Vincent, or being 
 talked to, I sat reflecting upon the irony of fate which 
 should have forever denied to this voice the privilege 
 of saying to a man, " Yes, I love you." Our host was 
 talking of Greek cemeteries to my wife. Vincent, on 
 his left, was silent, a quiet listener. Mrs. Vincent 
 
44 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 was sedulously engaged in making talk which might 
 interest a young person situated as was Miss May- 
 wood. At first she had scant replies, but soon the 
 " tender art of head and heart " had its usual tri 
 umph. As Miss May wood, encouraged, began to 
 make little ventures, I was so caught by the charm of 
 her voice that I became aware, as often chanced there 
 after, that I was only half conscious of what thought 
 this changeful music carried. I have known only 
 two other women who possessed this gift. One had 
 it by right of inheritance. One was an Irish lady, a 
 nursing Sister of Charity. 
 
 St. Clair, who sat opposite, was tranquilly studying 
 the very remarkable face of the young woman beside 
 me. Once or twice she seemed aware of the too 
 steady attention of which she was the object. It did 
 not appear to me that the indecorous steadfastness 
 of St. Glair s gaze actually embarrassed her. As she 
 looked and turned away she was apparently only 
 curious and gently amused. 
 
 I began by and by to attend more closely to the 
 chat of my neighbors, and was not long in under 
 standing that Miss Maywood was to become one of 
 those sudden attractions in which Mrs. Vincent de 
 lighted. These were apt to be what St. Clair called 
 "friendly flirtations," and to end with more or less 
 abruptness. If the person concerned proved perma 
 nently attractive, these early and somewhat deceptive 
 attentions might result in a friendship the value of 
 which I had long learned to know. But this relation 
 involved for Anne Vincent s friends such charity as 
 knew how to condone the faults of a noble but master- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 45 
 
 fully impulsive nature. In her efforts to set right the 
 world she sometimes hurt when she would have helped, 
 and was sure in the end to suffer far more than the 
 wounded friend. It was at times as hard to be her 
 friend as not to be. I was thinking of her peculiar 
 ities when, as I said, the substance of the talk beside 
 me began to capture my attention. The shy cripple 
 with the beautiful face was speaking at last with ani 
 mated freedom. Mrs. Vincent related the offer of St. 
 Clair as to the vase. 
 
 "I read it last week/ said Miss May wood " I 
 mean the poem j I never read it before." 
 
 " Indeed? Then you are to be envied. There 
 ought to be a way of blotting out of memory all 
 remembrance of a great poem or novel, so that many 
 times one could have the joy a first reading gives. I 
 envy you" 
 
 " Ah, no, no," cried Miss Maywood j " I never want 
 to let anything go, never ! " 
 
 "And have you what I so lack a memory?" 
 
 " Yes ; I can often repeat a poem after once hearing 
 it. I got my real education late, and that is why I 
 am so ignorant, and there was, there is, so much to 
 learn. I try to be careful how I talk about books, 
 because the great ones I am only just learning to 
 know. I am like a prince coming into his kingdom 
 out of exile. Books seem to me like people." 
 
 " I do not think, my dear, that I know people who 
 are like books, except that some people are unread 
 able, and some appear to have no table of contents." 
 
 Miss Maywood laughed. " Oh, but I meant that 
 books are like people, not people like books." 
 
46 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Is not that rather confusing ? " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 "I mean that books, the great books, are to me 
 distinct and personal. Perhaps I am not clear." 
 
 " Yes j now I think I see." 
 
 " Mr. Clayborne says it is because I did not know 
 the great books when I was too young. Children, he 
 said, do sometimes come into the inheritance of high 
 thought before they know how to value or understand 
 it. Then, he says, familiarity breeds indifference. Is 
 he not interesting ? " 
 
 " Always, usually," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 "Do you think, Mrs. Vincent, that Shakespeare s 
 children understood how great he was ? I don t mean 
 that j I mean oh, would it have been terrible, or de 
 lightful, to have lived in the house with him?" 
 
 "Good gracious, child!" said Mrs. Vincent; "he 
 was not Macbeth or Mercutio." 
 
 " Oh, no ; he was everybody. Mr. Clayborne says 
 that sooner or later every great writer puts himself, 
 his real self, on paper, and who could he have been 
 among the seven hundred characters? I really 
 counted them." 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Vincent s face was worth 
 seeing for one who knew her. I said : " I have been 
 a happy listener, Miss Maywood. Usually the man 
 who writes much, either drama or novel, does some 
 where unconsciously portray himself, but it is apt to 
 be in fragments. I have, as others have had, a feeling 
 that there is in Hamlet more of the person Shakespeare 
 than in any other of his many characters." 
 
 " I never have read t Hamlet/ " said Miss May- 
 wood. " Mr. Clayborne says books should be labeled 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 47 
 
 to be read at this age or that. He says at thirty I 
 may read l Hamlet. " 
 
 " I hardly agree with him," said I ; "I am for let 
 ting young people loose in a library. The reader is 
 born, not made j you cannot help the others." Mrs. 
 Vincent shook her head in dissent. " I am sure," I 
 added, "that Mr. Clayborne never advised you to 
 read Keats. He has no real taste for verse. He 
 likes dramas of action, and no others. He has, as 
 St. Clair says in his absurd way, every ology except 
 imaginology, and that it is because of his want of 
 imagination that he fails in the drawing of great 
 historic characters." 
 
 Miss Maywood flushed slightly, hesitated, and 
 then, to my amusement, said, " And yet does he not 
 understand all of you ? " 
 
 " Not fully," said Mrs. Vincent, smiling, " and 
 never will; enough to love us, that suffices. What 
 does he give you as a literary diet ? " 
 
 " He advises me to learn Greek, and to read Euripi 
 des. He says Keats s poem about the vase is pure 
 nonsense." 
 
 "Then," said St. Clair, overhearing us, "you read 
 it first only a week ago ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, of a sudden shy ; " only a week 
 ago." 
 
 " And where did you read it ? " 
 
 This was so like the speaker that Mrs. Vincent and 
 I smiled at each other unspoken comment of amuse 
 ment. 
 
 "In the woods one day," she answered, with no 
 sign of the amazement I felt at his question. 
 
48 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Did you cry ? n he said, with strange insight, and 
 with his amazing unconcealment of thought. 
 
 "I did," she said quietly, " a little." 
 
 " What nonsense, Victor ! " I said. " Why should 
 it make any one cry?" 
 
 Not heeding me, he went on : " What made you 
 cry?" 
 
 " I know," said my wife, overhearing this singular 
 talk, and realizing its unfitness. 
 
 To my surprise, Miss Maywood did not accept her 
 amiable interruption, but replied: "Why did I cry? 
 Oh, there are two lines 
 
 "I know them," cried St. Clair : 
 
 " That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloyed, 
 A burning forehead, and a parching tongue." 
 
 "Yes," she said, without any appearance of sur 
 prise j " you are right. But I do not know why they 
 disturbed me." 
 
 " Oh," he cried, " they do not belong in that poem. 
 They strike a false note. I have inked them out in 
 my Keats. But the rest ! Ah, the rest is golden, 
 precious, as nearly perfect as verse can be, except 
 
 " Please not to criticize," she pleaded. 
 
 "I will not. You are right." He flushed with 
 strong emotion as he spoke. " Such things as that 
 are like lilies, not good to eat, cast before a mean 
 world of swine. What shall it do with them ? I am 
 sorry he wrote it." 
 
 "No, no," she said, forgetful of her shyness. "It 
 gives a new joy to those who may have few." At 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 49 
 
 this she, too, flushed confession, aware of having 
 yielded to a reflection on her own limitations. 
 
 These were two children of nature. He was really 
 a noble thing to see, as he paused thinking. He had 
 walked out from town, in snow-white flannel, a bit of 
 red tie around his neck, and above it the delicately 
 featured face with its crown of curls. He turned 
 abruptly and began to speak to Mrs. North. 
 
 "Mr. Clayborne told me," said Miss May wood, 
 " that Mr. St. Clair was a bundle of surprises. He 
 can surprise one, can he not, Dr. North?" 
 
 " Indeed, he is rich in that capacity," I returned. 
 " You have had as yet but a mild experience. I am 
 sure that Clayborne described us all. He told me 
 he had prepared you for the extraordinary people 
 you were to meet." 
 
 " He did he did," she said, laughing. " Oh, he 
 did ! " 
 
 She was queerly simple, and had as yet no defen 
 sive conversational stratagems at command. 
 
 " And what did he say of us ? " asked I. 
 
 " Come ! That is hardly fair," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Quite true," said I. "I could easily complete his 
 account of St. Clair. He probably said he was so 
 good to-day that you wondered that he could ever be 
 bad, and so bad to-morrow that you wondered how 
 he ever could be good." 
 
 She looked comically conscious, but said only, 
 " He did say he was a poet a kind of poet, he 
 said." 
 
 " That, at least, is true," remarked Mrs. Vincent ; 
 " he is a poet." 
 
60 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Are poets ever ugly ? " said Miss Maywood. 
 
 " Certainly he is not/ 7 said I. 
 
 " No," she said, with honest simplicity j " he is 
 beautiful." 
 
 Now, when this artless child said " beautiful," it 
 acquired a fresh value, like worn gold reissued from 
 a royal mint. Even Mrs. Vincent was a trifle discon 
 certed. She hastened to say, " Oh, he is well enough j 
 men are never beautiful, my dear." 
 
 " Then I may say you are," said this wonderful 
 voice. 
 
 " Indeed ! " laughed the elder woman j " I have been 
 told that in my day, but usually by men who soon or 
 late expected a pleasant return." 
 
 " But I don t expect anything." 
 
 " Then you shall have a little love, child." She 
 touched with caressing gentleness the hand next to 
 her. 
 
 At this moment Clayborne asked Mrs. Vincent a 
 question, and I had leisure to reflect upon this intel 
 lectual ingenue. Would she keep her bewildering 
 simplicity? How would the hard world deal with 
 her ? Then there was more chat, and merry, around 
 the table, for, luckily, this day we had champagne. 
 Miss Maywood listened, smiling at times, but natu 
 rally enough saying almost nothing after the talk 
 became general. Had Clayborne been wise in giving 
 her to eat of the fruit of knowledge, and in trans 
 planting this wild rose with its broken stalk ? 
 
 We soon went into the library, and after wander 
 ing in groups, fell into the usual circle, standing 
 about the fire. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 51 
 
 "I have been thinking over your story of the 
 caliph," said I, aside, to St. Clair. " I am sure you 
 made it up yourself j but if it left an Orientalist like 
 Clayborne in doubt, it was good enough." 
 
 " I had a better in my mind yesterday, but when I 
 came to look for it to-day it was gone. Some one, 
 something, had opened the cage, and the bird had 
 flown." 
 
 " Will it ever return ? " 
 
 " Probably not ; no use to call it. Leave the cage 
 door open and go away. I have lost many thoughts 
 in this way. You think you have them safe in the 
 bank of memory, and to-morrow your draft comes 
 back protested. And yet a thought is a thing that, 
 once it is alive, does not die. Where is it? Not 
 gone, because to-morrow or a month hence I may find 
 it, or it me." 
 
 "Associative relation does, of course, help one," 
 said I, " but it is where it fails that the puzzle comes 
 in, and tells us how little we know of the mechanics 
 of the mind." 
 
 " What ! what ! " exclaimed Clayborne, turning 
 toward us. " Is St. Clair talking psychology ? " 
 
 "Yes j we were restating the commonplace that the 
 laws of association usually fail to explain the sudden 
 revival of long-lost ideas, and that not to search, as 
 we all know, is the sure way to find." 
 
 " Like Bo-Peep s sheep," said my wife, overhearing 
 us. " Let them alone and they 11 come home ; and 
 bring their tales behind them." 
 
 " My compliments, Madam North," cried St. Clair. 
 "As an illustrative quotation that is faultless." 
 
52 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " What ? " cried Clayborne. " I do not see it. 
 What amuses you all ? " 
 
 " T-a-i-1-s," spelled my wife ; " t-a-1-e-s, please." 
 
 " What nonsense ! " said the scholar. 
 
 When our laughter ceased, I said : "I was about to 
 tell St. Clair a fact in regard to memorial association 
 of ideas, and more than mere ideas. Dr. M - told 
 me that this chanced to him. He has studied the 
 venom of serpents, as you know, but for years, many 
 years, had given it no serious thought. Neither had 
 he nor any one known or conceived of this poison as 
 other than a single noxious form of albumin. One 
 day, in ascending the steps of a house in which he 
 had at one time resided, he found himself, by habit, 
 with a latch-key in his hand. He was clearly in an 
 absent mood. As he recognized the fact, he happened 
 to glance at the door-mat. It was made of rope. One 
 side was loose and lay in a coil, like the familiar coil 
 of a serpent. Instantly there was present in his con 
 sciousness the belief that the venom of serpents is 
 not one, but two or more distinct poisons. He stood 
 surprised, seeing at once how much this might ex 
 plain. He was so secure of this conclusion that he 
 set to work, aided by a friend, and after five months 
 of laboratory research succeeded in confirming his 
 thought I mean, in discovering that all serpent 
 venom contains two or more poisons, a fact which 
 proved the key to many problems in animal toxicology." 
 
 " And is that," said Vincent, " really and simply all 
 of the known fact ? I mean as to how the idea was 
 born into the recognition of the conscious mind." 
 
 " Yes j all that he or any one knows." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 63 
 
 " Was it a subconscious mechanism," said St. Glair, 
 "which long before evolved this conclusion, and 
 waited the developmental process of a chance associa 
 tion to bring it into the region of consciousness ? " 
 
 Clayborne glanced at the poet with amused curi 
 osity. The reflection was unlike St. Clair ; but then, 
 as Vincent once said, St. Clair was continually falling 
 below or rising above what was expected of him. 
 
 Our host said : " Did you ever have such a thing 
 happen to you, Victor ? " 
 
 "I? No, indeed," laughed St. Clair; "not I. I do 
 not think ; I dream. I lose, and never find ; you find, 
 and never lose. Sometimes I am a month in hot 
 chase after a single word I require, or a strong rhyme 
 I want, and know is to be found. At last I find it, 
 or it finds me." 
 
 As we talked, the girl with the beautiful face lis 
 tened with rapt attention. I observed that her eye 
 lashes were it is hard to say almost too long. Their 
 veil-like overshadowing of the eyes gave her a look 
 of dreamy tenderness, of reverie, which passed away 
 when she addressed any one. Then her face became 
 expressively earnest, and despite her shyness, she 
 studied with untrained intensity of gaze the person 
 to whom she was speaking. 
 
 "What are you thinking about, Miss Maywood?" 
 said my wife. " These great folks get me sadly be 
 fogged at times." 
 
 " My thought is not of much value. I was thinking 
 how glad Mr. St. Clair must be when he finds the 
 very word he wants j like" and she paused, coloring 
 slightly. 
 
54 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "Well, Sibyl?" said Clayborne, gently. 
 
 " Oh, it is as if a wild bird of the woods were to 
 alight on his window-sill and say: I will sing for 
 you. This is the song you want. " 
 
 "Yes 5 it is always at morning," said St. Clair. 
 
 I saw, as he regarded this ethereal face, a look of 
 pity, plain to read for one who knew him. I saw, too, 
 by the soft lift of Anne Vincent s brow, how aston 
 ished she was at this childlike revelation of imagina 
 tive thought. Clayborne did not like it. I hardly 
 know why. Any exercise of imagination in every 
 day talk displeased him. 
 
 " If," he said, " St. Clair had been decently edu 
 cated he would not need the birds to fetch his vocab 
 ulary." 
 
 " Oh, mauler of men and tangler of history ! " cried 
 the poet. " You would write better if you felt now 
 and then the pangs of word-hunger. Ah, if one 
 could be allowed to invent words " 
 
 " Only childhood has that privilege," said my wife. 
 
 "Or the childhood of nations," said Clayborne. 
 " Then, too, the nation, like the child, loses much of 
 its invented vocabulary. I wish some one would col 
 lect the vocabulary of childhood. My mother, up to 
 the age of eight, persistently used certain words which 
 only her family could understand, as dibbin for 
 water, walla > for food of all kinds, wunk for a 
 dog." 
 
 " How very strange ! " said my wife. " How could 
 they have originated ? " 
 
 "Ah, that is a world- wide puzzle as to all the 
 tongues," said our host. 
 
DR NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 55 
 
 " I saw/ 7 said I, " once, in my clinical service, a 
 child who spoke volubly a language entirely her own. 
 It was understood at last, or acquired, by those about 
 her, bat no word of it could I comprehend." 
 
 " That is the more singular," said Vincent, " when 
 one considers how imitative is childhood." 
 
 " Yes," said St. Glair li it would seem to be more 
 easy to imitate than to invent. Children are myste 
 rious folk to me, and yet mysteriously near to me, 
 too." 
 
 It was true. All children were instantly on easy 
 terms of intimacy with this receptive nature. 
 
 "Which are harder to understand, I mean as to 
 character," said Miss May wood, "boys or girls ? 
 When I taught a class of little children I did seem to 
 see through the boys more clearly." 
 
 "Oh, girls, girls," said my wife; "even for 
 women." 
 
 "Nobody is hard to understand," said Clayborne. 
 " Let us sit by the fire ; my ride has made me tired. 
 There are the cigars." 
 
 " Girls are always little women," continued my wife ; 
 " but boys are boys, not little men." 
 
 " They represent more fully the primitive barba 
 rian," said St. Clair. 
 
 No one replied to this, but I saw on Mrs. Vin 
 cent s face the look of far-away sadness which came 
 now and then when children were the subject of our 
 talk. She was childless, as I have elsewhere said. 
 
 For a while we sat smoking, the chat going where 
 chance took it. At last St. Clair asked : " Where is 
 that sermon, Clayborne?" 
 
56 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 The big bulk of the scholar stirred uneasily in his 
 chair. " I repent," he said. 
 
 " Pity more preachers do not," said St. Clair. 
 
 Turning to the scholar, Mrs. Vincent said: "You 
 wrote it. I see it in your face." 
 
 " But St. Clair also promised," returned Clayborne. 
 
 " I did, but I pre-repented. I am sure Clayborne 
 did not ; he always keeps his word." 
 
 "Queer little phrase that to keep your word," 
 said Vincent. "A man who gives his word keeps it. 
 What was the text we gave as our choice for its diffi 
 culty of use ? " 
 
 " The text," said my wife, " was, * Jesus wrote on 
 the ground. It came out of a statement of Mr. 
 Clayborne that a sermon could be made on any 
 text." 
 
 " Please, Mr. Clayborne," said Sibyl, " we do want 
 to hear." 
 
 " I always obey Mrs. Vincent," he returned. As he 
 spoke, he took a portfolio from the table beside him. 
 " Well, if you will have it, here it is." 
 
 I saw on Miss May wood s face an expression of re 
 pressed mirth, for which I did not see cause. 
 
 " What can he say ? " murmured my wife to me. 
 
 " Listen. Who knows ? " 
 
 " Before I begin," said our host, " let me say a word 
 or two. Except as to St. Clair, who has a dozen 
 creeds, we are all, I fancy, with variations, of one 
 mode of thought as to our faith. At least, in the 
 noble old Church of England we find sufficient free 
 dom, and this alone holds me, as it holds many ; for, 
 as the years go by, and we come nearer to a world 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 67 
 
 which has no creed, the freedom to use unfettered 
 thought becomes a cherished privilege. My dear 
 Mrs. Vincent thinks me at times unorthodox. So 
 does my Quaker friend Randolph. Indeed, I am 
 variously and affectionately criticized. Let us, each 
 and all, hope that we are right, and remember that 
 many of the forms of religious usage are the children 
 of taste and sentiment, or tradition." 
 
 " I cannot stand this," said St. Clair. " Here am I 
 selected as the one wicked boy. I wish to say that 
 no man can live by the words of Christnone of 
 you." 
 
 " Ah, my dear Victor, nothing I have said led up 
 to this. I was claiming the freedom which is a con 
 sequence of the mental powers God gave. I was 
 stating the fact, or meant to, that for the mass the 
 form is far more than the creed. Now your wander 
 ing wits bring us on to ground I did not mean to 
 tread. The man who does not look broadly at that 
 great biography must land in unhappy incredulity, or, 
 if narrow, fasten on certain texts, or commit himself 
 to some form of absurd effort to live by the bread 
 alone of single texts which, because of some mental 
 perversity in the man, become for him dominant." 
 
 " There is no need to illustrate that," said St. Clair. 
 " Go on." 
 
 " Give me, then, a moment more," said Clay borne. 
 "To his disciples, the primal heroes of a new creed, 
 the parents of altruism, to these he gave laws of con 
 duct clearly impossible for the world of men. The 
 application of the commentary of common sense to 
 Christ s life and sayings would have saved much 
 
58 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 doubt. My Quaker friend will say that Christ forbade 
 all retaliation, all use of force, and hence that to us 
 war should be impossible, and a police force seem 
 wicked ; but he says of the centurion, the man whose 
 trade was war, that he has seen no such faith as his. 
 He does not use his faith and gratitude to turn him 
 from the business of war. I left my friend Randolph 
 to digest this idea. More could be said of it on both 
 sides. And now, dear congregation, this is my first 
 sermon, and will be my last. I assume on your part 
 intelligence, which is what the clergy do not always 
 assume. This assumption enables me to be brief, 
 and rarely to do more than sow seed of thought, for 
 it is to be remembered that Christ preached no long 
 sermons. We use his sermons as texts. 
 
 " What Christ wrote on the dust of the temple pave 
 ment we do not know. Here alone we learn that he 
 could write. That is interesting. In our study of 
 him, we are confused by our conception of the man 
 who, being God, was yet man, and could pray for re 
 lease from a cruel fate. Was he really writing, did 
 he write words, or was it that automatic use of the 
 hand which is so common during a time of intense 
 thought?" 
 
 " Pardon me ! " said Vincent ; " I have often seen 
 that. I put a grave question to a man last week. 
 He listened, I suppose ; but even after I ceased to 
 speak, he went on drawing triangles on my blotting- 
 pad, and at last answered me decisively." 
 
 " Is the congregation allowed the privilege of inter 
 polation ? " said I. 
 
 " Certainly," said Clayborne. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 59 
 
 " It would contribute interest to the ordinary ser 
 mon/ 7 said St. Glair. 
 
 " I vote against interruption," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 " Do go on ! " 
 
 " I cannot answer my own question/ continued our 
 host ; " but I feel for myself that whatever brings the 
 Christ into nearness of relation with the ways of men 
 is for me valuable. It cannot destroy our sense of 
 the infinitely larger relation. I dare say there are 
 times in the lives of the best of us when the sense of 
 nearness to shall I say oneness with? the great 
 Maker makes it easier to comprehend the lofty duality 
 of Christ s nature. He wrote, or, seeming to write, 
 at all events was silent. How few of us have the 
 courage of silence ! We speak, and hearing no re 
 ply, speak again. This silence was to give time for 
 thought to himself, to the hostile questioners, to the 
 woman in her anguish of guilt and fear. If he wrote, 
 what was it ? There are strange traditions as to these 
 unread words, lost as the wind blew about the dust 
 on the temple floor. An air of mystery lies about 
 this striking scene, the mystery of a half-revealed 
 life. But no life is wholly revealed to us. The auto 
 biography least of all gives us to know the whole of 
 a man. No man is ever perfectly revealed to those 
 who best know him. No man knows himself wholly. 
 The higher the man, the less can he be entirely ac 
 quainted with that self, the less can the world know 
 him. Genius must be full of self-surprising revela 
 tions, and this helps our comprehension of Christ, for, 
 as he thought, and to the Christ-man came the full 
 sense of the majesty of the thoughts born to his con- 
 
60 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 sciousness, he must have had in supreme measure the 
 feeling of joyful creativeness, which is the reward of 
 genius. A larger mystery envelops this white-robed 
 figure, but it is a mystery shared by all who are great 
 in a degree by all who live." 
 
 " By George, that is fine ! " cried St. Clair. 
 
 " We don t swear during sermons," said my wife. 
 " Don t interrupt, please." 
 
 " But what is mystery ? " said Vincent. 
 
 " Yes," murmured Sibyl ; " I was about to ask that. 
 And what is mysticism ? " 
 
 "Let us leave that," said Mrs. Vincent. "Please 
 to go on ; you men are intolerable." 
 
 "If," read Clayborne, "there were left nothing un- 
 guessed, unknown, mysterious, about those you love 
 or like, life would lose the charm of curiosity." 
 
 " Oh, say of imagination," said the irrepressible St. 
 Clair. 
 
 " Well, then, of imagination. The mystery of na 
 ture is half its charm. Complete revealment would 
 take out of the life of human relations much of their 
 joy, and even of their power. To be indifferent to the 
 attractiveness of the unrevealed is one of the signs of 
 a low nature. 
 
 " Finally, if religion were not founded on the un 
 knowable, it would cease to live in the hearts of men. 
 As of religion, as of Christ, so of all who are worthy of 
 love. As life goes on we secure firmer reasons for love, 
 and the friendship born of love. We seem to know one 
 another. What have the changing fortunes of years 
 left you two to learn ? Yes, you know one another. 
 You think so. Comes then into your lives some new 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 61 
 
 
 
 joy or some incomprehensible sorrow. You are 
 startled at the revelations it brings, of faith, of forti 
 tude, of generous unselfishness. These growths, de 
 veloped out of the long-sown seeds of character, may 
 come up again and again in new forms and with ten 
 der surprises, because this is the mystery of life, that 
 no one knows another wholly, not even the well-loved 
 companion of a lifetime. 
 
 "And what of the to-morrow of death? Will all 
 things become plain to us? Shall we have only to 
 ask and receive answer ? Would that be as one could 
 wish ? Then would effort cease and character remain 
 a changeless quantity. The Christian attempt to 
 realize the mystery of the world to come has resulted 
 in a materialistic degradation of the obvious meanings 
 of Him who placed us here, and who will surely not 
 leave us motiveless hereafter. Says El-Din-Attar: 
 <O man, thou art ever a stranger in the tents of 
 life, and in the tents of the hereafter thou shalt be 
 still a stranger. " 
 
 When the resonant voice ceased there was silence 
 for a time. Mrs. Vincent said at last : " Who wrote 
 that ? Not you, dear old friend." 
 
 "Why not I?" 
 
 " Because you are not an imaginative man. Mr. St. 
 Clair wrote it. It was a neat little plot ; but for my 
 part I am thankful. I forgive you both." 
 
 "And yet," said my wife, " I did want to hear how 
 each of you two would deal with a difficult text. I 
 presume it was Mr. St. Clair who wrote it ? " 
 
 " Yes, I wrote it. Do you like it ? " he added, turn 
 ing to Miss Maywood. 
 
62 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " I yes I should have to read it again to be sure. 
 I wish Mr. Clayborne had also given us his sermon. 
 If I were Mr. St. Clair I should have made it a 
 poem." 
 
 I learned later that Miss Maywood had type-written 
 the sermon, and was therefore in the secret. 
 
 St. Clair smiled. " I did, I did, but I tore it up." 
 
 " Good sense that," growled the scholar, and mean 
 while I saw Mrs. Vincent gravely regarding the two 
 younger people. 
 
 " I did not know how to deal with it," said Clay- 
 borne. 
 
 " Lack of imagination," said St. Clair, pleased at 
 the chance. 
 
 Miss Maywood flushed a little. An attack on her 
 benefactor surprised and hurt her. " Perhaps Mr. 
 Clayborne was afraid." 
 
 " I was," said he. " Don t explain, child. They all 
 know what you mean. You are quite correct. I can 
 reason and deal coldly enough with some things, but 
 not with certain others." 
 
 St. Clair was hard to silence. "I am not sure I 
 comprehend. It seems to me nothing is too sacred 
 for comment. Was I irreverent ? " 
 
 " No, no," said I. 
 
 " You people, I know, regard me as irreligious, be 
 cause you think if a man does not go to church 
 and" 
 
 " Don t spoil it all for us," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose I am like a butterfly over a stormy 
 ocean. I flutter, unaware of the soundless depths 
 below me." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 63 
 
 " Please don t ! " said Sibyl. 
 
 It was an unpleasing turn of talk, for we were all 
 feeling the strength and reverence of his sermon. 
 
 Quick to note it, my wife said gaily : " Miss May- 
 wood, when you know Mr. St. Clair better you will 
 believe about one third he says." 
 
 "And," cried St. Clair, laughing, "is this the re 
 ward of your preacher? And have none of you the 
 courage to wrestle with the thought I gave you, that 
 Christ could not have expected the mass of men to 
 live the life he pointed out as desirable for the first 
 disciples of his faith ? I saw the other day at Owen s 
 a life of one Linacre, a doctor, who had the luck to 
 live about 1460 to 1524, when men knew little, and 
 thought they knew all. In his old age he took, for 
 novelty, to reading St. Matthew. The fifth, sixth, 
 and seventh chapters were enough. He threw the 
 book aside, and cried out, l Either this is not the gos 
 pel or we are not Christians ! What else could he 
 say ? " 
 
 " And is this invention ? " said Clayborne. 
 
 Then, to our amazement, we learned that our 
 scholar had never heard of the great physician who 
 attended on Erasmus and was the friend of Sir 
 Thomas More. It did not trouble him. As for St. 
 Clair, he said, laughing : " I, Miss Maywood, am the 
 court fool. All my folly is my own, all my wisdom 
 is borrowed." 
 
 " If you were a fool," said the young woman, seri 
 ously, " you would not know it. That is the worst 
 foolishness of folly." 
 
 " Good gracious, my dear ! " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
64 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " That sounds like Mr. Clayborne s wisdom," said 
 my wife. 
 
 Sibyl laughed. 
 
 " Come, it is late," said Mrs. Vincent. " We must 
 go. And, Sibyl, I shall call you Sibyl, you are to 
 be at my house to-morrow at three for the Boston 
 symphony concert. Don t forget." 
 
 "Forget! How could I?" 
 
 In the carriage, for we had driven out to dine, 
 Mrs. Vincent talked to me of the evening we had 
 passed, while Vincent smoked in silence. St. Clair 
 remained at Holmwood for the night. 
 
 " What do you think," said I, " of Miss Maywood? 
 Is it a wise thing Clayborne has done ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it was both wise and kind. She will gain 
 enlarged possibilities of enjoyment." 
 
 "And will learn new limitations of happiness," 
 said Vincent. 
 
 "But anywhere," returned Mrs. Vincent, "life 
 would teach her at last what that crippled body must 
 bring in the way of denials to a heart ready for love. 
 I think there is much in that girl. How simple she 
 is, how acute, how oddly courageous ! " 
 
 Said Vincent : " Anne, you are going to make a 
 favorite of this young woman. You will dangerously 
 enlarge her opportunities for contrast of her own 
 fate with that of the more happily made. If you 
 leave her to this simple life of helping Clayborne, it 
 will do her no great harm, and may perhaps be a 
 good thing. What you will do will be of more than 
 doubtful value. Is it not so, Owen? Am I not 
 right?" 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 65 
 
 No woman likes her husband to call in another s 
 judgment to sustain his hostility of opinion. Mrs. 
 Vincent was quiet for a minute, and then said : " You 
 may be right, Fred; but I am not sure you are. I 
 will be careful." 
 
 This she was not likely to be, but I, being discreet, 
 held my tongue, and, after a little, remarked : " She 
 is the Lady of Shalott, and when she floats out into 
 the world her heart will break." 
 
 "Yes; that was what St. Clair meant. He has 
 terrible insight at times." 
 
 My wife, all this time silent, said : " Anne, my heart 
 aches for the girl. She was a great surprise to me. 
 I expected to see the ordinary typical New England 
 school-marm. How she must suffer with that face 
 and that crumpled figure ! I should have no mirror 
 in my room were I as she is." 
 
 " Last week," said I, " as you know, she was in bed 
 a day or two with influenza. I saw her, at Clay- 
 borne s request. She has no large mirror in her 
 room." 
 
 " Poor child ! " said my wife ; " but there was a 
 cheval-glass in that room." 
 
 Again Mrs. Vincent was silent awhile, and then 
 said : " Fred, did you notice the girl s voice f " 
 
 " I ? No ; what is there to notice ? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear Fred ! " 
 
 " It is heavenly sweet," said I ; " like Sister Mary s. 
 You remember her, Mrs. Vincent, at Chestnut Hill 
 Hospital, during the war." 
 
 " I do. It was wonderful." 
 
 " I recollect once, when in a hospital in Washing- 
 
66 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 ton, asking her to persuade a Confederate captain to 
 submit to the removal of a part of his hand. He had 
 absolutely refused. I stood by as she urged the mat 
 ter upon him. She talked long and earnestly, stating 
 the case well. When she came to an end I said to 
 him, as she moved away, I think you must see the 
 need for an operation. 
 
 " What operation? 7 
 
 " i Did you not understand what Sister Mary said ? 
 
 " No, I did n t understand what the deuce she 
 said. I was listening to Her. Lord, does n t she 
 warble ! Do what you like, doctor. " 
 
 " A rather doubtful accomplishment," said Vincent. 
 " I am glad I have it not." 
 
 " Some one else has," said my wife, touching Anne 
 Vincent s hand. 
 
 " That must be why Fred Vincent never knows 
 what I say to him. When I say seriously, 1 1 want 
 five minutes of your attention, Fred/ he says, Very 
 good, Anne. Then after a while he remarks, I do 
 not think I am quite clear, my dear, as to what you 
 mean. Now I shall agreeably interpret his want of 
 apprehension." 
 
 " Pure slander," said Vincent ; " I cannot defend 
 myself. I hate to talk in a carriage. But what a 
 pretty name Sibyl is ! " 
 
Ill 
 
 [NNE VINCENT was sure to consider 
 what Vincent said to her, and probably 
 he put his case later with his usual 
 vigor of statement, for that lady was 
 more than commonly thoughtful as to 
 where she took the new favorite, and to whom she 
 presented her. My wife may also have contributed 
 prudent counsels, for although she too was attracted, 
 and inclined to add Sibyl to her collection of what we 
 called her lame ducks, she was less apt than Anne 
 Vincent to insist on their acceptance by those who 
 were less kind and more critical. Mrs. Vincent took 
 Miss Maywood to concerts, now and then to the 
 theater, and saw, personally, a good deal of the girl. 
 I was sure that the striking face of Sibyl Maywood 
 would at once attract the too attentive eyes of St. 
 Clair. Perfect physical beauty of body or of face ex 
 cited him strangely. He held himself free to study 
 the new face or form, and to make comments which 
 at times seemed to us outrageous. Then he was given 
 to poetically idealizing the art idol, and imagining 
 for it moral and mental gifts which it might or might 
 not possess. My wife said that St. Clair was never 
 a bore, even when he talked his wildest nonsense, but 
 that sometimes, when he imagined some dull girl to 
 be Minerva because she had the hand of Venus, the 
 
 G7 
 
68 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 faint shadow of the adjective " tiresome " did hover 
 over that sensitive noun "talk." I said that was 
 true, but elaborate. 
 
 "You are ungrateful. Be so good as to say it 
 better." 
 
 I admitted my incapacity, and ventured upon a 
 prophetic statement. I said : " If ever St. Glair feels 
 the charm of some unusual temperament, and sees 
 later the beauty of its owner, he will be hopelessly 
 tangled in the net of love. He will never be hard 
 hit in the ordinary way by being caught first by face 
 or form. He is too accustomed, as an artist, to be 
 over-critical and to look for defects." 
 
 My wife admitted that there were several ways of 
 falling in love, but when I laughed because she said 
 some men stumbled into love, she declined to go on, 
 for, indeed, her experience had been large. 
 
 Now, all this took the form of comments made at 
 breakfast, when most I like to talk. During my win 
 ter of work all day long I examine the witnesses we 
 call nurses or patients, and try with much use of 
 skilled labor to get at the truth. Then come the tired 
 evenings, when I have little left to give. But during 
 the night season (I like that phrase, the night season : 
 it implies change) the weary man may unconsciously 
 travel in stranger lands than daylight knows, and 
 return again refreshed and eager, to linger over the 
 earliest meal, and gladly break the fast of the night s 
 silence. 
 
 When my wife invited me to say better what she 
 had said, I had to confess that I could not. This 
 challenge came at the close of a half -hour gay with 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 69 
 
 the kind of good talk which no man can or should 
 expect to be able to report fully. When Alice doubted 
 my wisdom as applied to our friend, I added evasively 
 that there might be a better way of describing St. 
 Glair s mental and moral attitude where the beautiful 
 attracted him. I said : " It is absolutely free from 
 the sensual. 77 
 
 " Yes ; it appears to be a pure adoration of beauty." 
 
 " No, no, it is more complex. If it were unalloyed 
 he would not admit the need to idealize the possessor, 
 and thus to excuse himself. Is it not our tendency to 
 attribute to mere beauty all that is not beauty ? Thus 
 man self -excuses his weakness." 
 
 " But that is love in its childhood, Owen." 
 
 " True; and now at last you are wise. This man 
 has brief love-affairs oh, surface love-affairs with a 
 hand, a foot, a face, a figure. It has made mischief, 
 my dear Alice, and will again, but nothing can hap 
 pen in this way to Clayborne s poor little crippled 
 cousin." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, stupid Owen ! You forget Clay- 
 borne s Eastern sayer of proverbs ? " 
 
 " What is it, Alice ? Hang his proverbs ! " 
 
 " I forget. I thought I had it." 
 
 " Well, I must go. Was it very fine ? " 
 
 "It was." 
 
 When I was in the hall she called me back. " Now 
 I remember it," she said. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I won t tell you, because you won t believe it." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said I, and left her. She has never 
 told me. 
 
70 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 On his return from the East St. Clair established 
 his studio in an old-fashioned double house in 
 an out-of-the-way locality It belonged to Clay- 
 borne. "I can t let it," said the scholar. "I will 
 not sell my family home. Use it, Victor." St. 
 Clair, who was like a child about gifts > said, " Yes, it 
 will do admirably." To make a studio a lofty addition 
 was built out into the garden, and a door opened into 
 it from the old drawing-room. The up-stairs rooms 
 served for bedroom and study, and here St. Clair took 
 up his abode. An old black man became his cook 
 and valet. 
 
 Late in November he asked us to take tea with 
 him, and to see the vase he had made for Clayborne s 
 garden the vase of Keats s poem. I confess to hav 
 ing been curious. It was near dusk when we entered 
 the studio. Vincent was too busy to come. I saw 
 Miss Maywood look about her with quick glances of 
 interest. " Come," I said ; " let me show you how 
 statues are born." The clay models, the bits of plas 
 ter legs and arms, the tools, the sketches here and 
 there, the costly, carelessly used brocades and Orien 
 tal stuffs, caught her eye in turn. She asked many 
 questions. At last she said, " Where is my vase ? " 
 
 " Your vase ? " 
 
 " Yes. It was I who told Mr. St. Clair he ought to 
 make it." 
 
 " Indeed ! " She promised to be as fertile of sur 
 prises as our poet. 
 
 " Yes ; before I saw all of you I knew about Mr. 
 St. Clair. When I made the garden I said to Mr. 
 Clayborne that it would be pretty to have a marble 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 71 
 
 vase like some of his, which are, you know, of clay. 
 He said it would, and so, thinking to please him, I 
 wrote a little letter to Mr. St. Clair. That was how 
 he came to think of it." 
 
 " And when you wrote you had not yet seen him ? " 
 
 " No. Was that wrong ? He was a friend of my 
 cousin." She was quick to observe the note of faint 
 criticism in my query. 
 
 " Oh, not wrong," I said. " Did he answer ? " 
 
 " No, he did not. Mr. Clay borne, I saw, liked the 
 idea, and I thought if I could see the vase I should 
 understand how Keats felt when he wrote. But now 
 I feel that it must not stand in the garden. It must 
 be alone somewhere in the wood. There is a spring 
 don t you think I am right? " 
 
 " Good gracious ! I do not know. It may be a 
 failure, not fit to be seen or put anywhere." 
 
 "Oh, do not say that! That would really grieve 
 me. Let us see it." With these words she walked 
 across the room. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent, my wife, and Clayborne were stand 
 ing near a life-size statue, which was boldly modeled, 
 and still in the clay. St. Clair had thrown off the 
 wet sheet which kept it moist. 
 
 " What is it ? " said I. " Ah, I see ! 
 
 " It is only a crude sketch," said the sculptor, " the 
 model for a monument." 
 
 " Lincoln ! " said I. 
 
 " Yes j the two Lincolns the complete leader of 
 men and the boy. It has been rejected by the com 
 mittee." 
 
 The sketch was of the utmost vigor. On a rock 
 
72 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 high above us stood the great President, with his 
 strong, homely, humorous face, a look of- loneliness 
 in the eyes. The hands were clasped, palms down. 
 I once saw him standing in this attitude. We were 
 silent a moment. 
 
 " When was it ? " said Miss Maywood. 
 
 My wife looked at her. " When ? What do you 
 mean, Sibyl?" 
 
 The girl did not seem to hear. She was gazing in 
 tensely at the storied visage, so pathetic with the 
 deep lines drawn by multitudinous decisions and fifty 
 years of patient endurance of many things. 
 
 St. Clair replied for her. " I thought of him as on 
 the night before his death. He is thinking of his life, 
 of his boyhood, of the past." 
 
 Beside the rough rock, at his feet, stood the long, 
 ungainly figure of Lincoln, the boy, in a hunting- 
 shirt, his hand resting on an ax-handle, one foot on a 
 log, a serious figure, in the brief pause from labor, 
 considering with quiet, lineless face the future, as 
 above him the complete man regarded an heroic past. 
 
 " How could they reject it ? " said my wife. 
 
 " Committees are quaint animals," said the sculp 
 tor ; " but they cannot deprive me of the pleasure 
 this conception brought me." 
 
 " Yes," said my wife ; " that must be the best of it. 
 Do you recall the monument at Constantinople they 
 call <Les Pleureuses ? No committee would have 
 passed that." 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes," cried St. Clair j " and I know what 
 you want to say of it." 
 
 " Well," said Alice, smiling, " teU us." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 73 
 
 " Miss Maywood," he said, turning to the secretary, 
 "it is a large tomb, and on it are eighteen figures 
 of one woman, in every mood of sorrow, from the 
 anguish of recent loss to the calm of attained se 
 renity." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. North, "it is one and the same 
 woman, and the tomb is her husband s. It must 
 have taken long to make. She may, she must, have 
 seen that the sculptor was telling in marble not only 
 what she herself had been, but also what she would 
 be." 
 
 "Do you know the lines about it ? I can recall 
 only the first verse : 
 
 What gracious nunnery of grief is here ! 
 
 One woman garbed in sorrow s every mood; 
 Each fair presentment celled apart in fear, 
 
 Lest that herself upon herself intrude, 
 And break some tender dream of sorrow s day 
 Here cloistered lonely, set in marble gray." 
 
 "Who wrote that?" asked Clayborne. 
 
 St. Clair did not reply, but said : " Come, now, and 
 see Keats s vase my vase." 
 
 Leaving Sibyl and the scholar contemplative before 
 his great hero, Lincoln, we followed St. Clair, and 
 saw him take the cover from a marble vase some four 
 feet in height. At a loss for a pedestal, the sculptor 
 had set his vase on a broken-backed kitchen chair. 
 He had strengthened one cracked leg with twine and 
 a splint of wood. The incongruity of the vase and 
 the improvised support struck me at once, but I said 
 nothing. Then I heard Clayborne, who had left 
 
74 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Sibyl: "Why did you put it on that hideous stool, 
 Victor ? It is very beautiful ; but the chair spoils it. 
 It is like putting a beautiful head on a distorted 
 body." As he spoke, Sibyl approached. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent looked up at the speaker. She had 
 hoped, as she told me later, that Miss Maywood had 
 not heard him. I was so charmed with the loveliness 
 of my friend s realization of the poet s dream that I 
 scarcely took in this tactless criticism. Nor, strange 
 to say, did St. Glair apprehend the awkward force of 
 Clayborne s words. He looked annoyed, but this was 
 because he loved all praise and deeply felt all blame. 
 Above everything he liked praise from Clayborne, 
 who now called to Sibyl as she came nearer. 
 
 " Look at this, Sibyl. The pedestal ruins the vase. 
 Is not that so ? " 
 
 He had not turned as he spoke. She made no re 
 ply. Mrs. Vincent said afterward that the girl heard 
 it all, and that she flushed and slipped away at once. 
 My wife spoke quickly a whispered word to Anne 
 Vincent, and then said aloud: "I think Sibyl has 
 gone into the outer room, Mr. Clayborne. I will see 
 about the tea and send her back." 
 
 In a few minutes she herself returned, saying that 
 we must all come and take tea ; Sibyl would have it 
 ready in a few minutes. St. Clair had arranged the 
 remaining apartment on the ground floor as his din 
 ing-room. Thanks to Mrs. Vincent, it was simply 
 furnished. When we entered, Miss Maywood was 
 bending over the silver samovar which St. Clair had 
 brought from Russia. I saw Clayborne looking at 
 her with unusual attention. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 75 
 
 "Why did you run away? What is the matter, 
 child?" he said, with the absolute directness which 
 characterized the man. I saw that her eyes were red. 
 Mrs. Vincent touched his arm as she passed. " But I 
 must know," he said. 
 
 " The child has a headache," said my wife, quick 
 to help. " Here is your tea, lemon, and three lumps 
 of sugar." 
 
 " Let her alone," whispered Mrs. Vincent to Clay- 
 borne, and, apropos of the vase, began to abuse him 
 roundly because of his incapacity to care for the best 
 verse. This lack of imagination was why the critics de 
 clared that his historical portraits had no life in them. 
 The giant took up the glove, and was soon deep in a 
 contest as to what history should be. 
 
 We talked gaily over our tea, and at last went 
 away. 
 
 Clayborne took my wife home, and I, having an 
 errand elsewhere, went with Mrs. Vincent. 9 
 
 "That girl is very interesting," I said, "but not 
 quite easy to comprehend." 
 
 " And you who are supposed to understand women ! 
 You really are exasperating sometimes." 
 
 "This is a woman, not women." I was rather 
 proud of knowledge born of many years of varied 
 contact with the sex. 
 
 " Sick women you may know," she added, " but not 
 the rest." 
 
 " I did not say I understood Miss May wood. I do 
 not. What was the matter ? She looked at the vase 
 and at once slipped away. When we joined you she 
 had been in tears. Am I indiscreet in asking why 1 " 
 
76 DK. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " No ; I will tell you, but any one could see why. 
 When Clayborne saw that really beautiful thing set 
 on an old broken-backed kitchen chair, he said, with 
 his terrible bluntness, l Why did you set that noble 
 vase on a broken-backed, deformed chair? You 
 heard the rest. Could he have chosen a more stupid 
 thing to say ? " 
 
 "No. But really it seems a quite natural criti 
 cism." 
 
 " Yes, natural, and tactless like many natural com 
 ments. Tact consists in the suppression of the 
 natural." 
 
 " I see," said I. " She, too, is like that, a lovely head 
 set on a maimed body. I was dull, but I scarcely 
 heard him. You must never tell him. He is as 
 tender as she, but he has no tentacula. He is like a 
 crab j all his hardness is outside. To know he hurt 
 her would grieve him deeply. He is very sensitive as 
 to this girl, and has grown to love the poor child 
 with a strong, parental, protective affection." 
 
 " And she is worth it, Owen North." 
 
 It was a curious little catastrophe, and told me far 
 too much of what Sibyl would suffer, unless with ed 
 ucation there should develop a larger self-control and 
 capacity to strengthen, under the inevitable trials her 
 deformity must bring. 
 
 For a time neither of us spoke. Then Mrs. Vin 
 cent said abruptly : "I wish St. Clair would keep 
 away from her. It is the old story. He was at 
 Holmwood all last week. He reads to her, sings with 
 her, and now he wants to make a rilievo of her head. 
 Mr. Clayborne, for once, had a crumb of sense, and 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 77 
 
 said no, upon which St. Clair went into a rage, and 
 said Clayborne had no right to deprive an artist of 
 his natural privilege to study the beautiful." 
 
 " His rages do not last long, and what nonsense ! n 
 
 " Yes j but you see you understand me, I am 
 sure." 
 
 " Yes, only too well ; but what can I do ? He is 
 well, who can help seeing his personal beauty 1 The 
 girl will fall in love. He is so fatally attractive, and 
 she, poor little maid ! 
 
 " Could you not speak to him ? " 
 
 "Hardly," said I. I remembered one too painful 
 occasion when I had spoken out all of my mind to 
 St. Clair. 
 
 " Then I must speak to her. I do so plainly fore 
 see trouble. Yes, I shall wait. I will do nothing 
 hastily. Ah, here we are at home. Bring Alice to 
 dine to-morrow. Good night. Don t fail me." 
 
 I well knew that Mrs. Vincent would not at once 
 fulfil her intention. Indeed, she might never do so. 
 Knowing St. Clair as we did, it was not an unreason 
 able intention, but I felt that it was rather premature. 
 After all, Anne Vincent s second thoughts were the 
 wise bases of her life, and if she had always acted on 
 her declarations as to what she thought and said was 
 advisable she would have been a difficult wife and a 
 nearly impossible friend. I am myself liable to fits 
 of dullness of apprehension, and also at times to 
 failure to see what is obvious to others. I may add 
 that I am now and then surprised at the insight I 
 have as to what folks are or will do. On this occa 
 sion I had to be enlightened by Anne Vincent and 
 
78 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 my wife, who, as I soon learned, shared her friend s 
 opinion that there might already be mischief brew 
 ing. I found it hard to believe, but after a little talk 
 we were finally at one as to the present value of 
 silence. 
 
IV 
 
 |NE day in the delightful time of au 
 tumn all of us chanced to be together 
 at Holmwood for afternoon tea. St. 
 Clair was late, and before he came our 
 host wished to show us the lily-pond, to 
 make which he had turned aside the waters of the 
 creek. He meant it to become a part of his wild 
 garden, and desired to fill and surround it with our 
 native aquatic plants. After seeing what he had 
 done, we came back to the house, and soon began to 
 talk about St. Glair s sermon, which all of us had 
 liked. Mrs. Vincent had to own that St. Clair had 
 dealt fairly with a text we all thought hard to handle. 
 " Try us with another," said I. 
 " No," she said ; " I dislike making a kind of game 
 of it." 
 
 " That depends, Anne," said my wife, " on how you 
 take it in what spirit. I am sure that no one could 
 have dealt more reverently with the text than our 
 friend did." 
 
 " Yes, dear, you are right. Only I wish I thought 
 he was in earnest." 
 
 " I am sure," said Sibyl, " that I, for one, did get 
 new and useful thoughts out of Mr. St. Glair s sermon. 
 It may have needed a note of appeal at the close." 
 
 "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Vincent, "that is so 
 difficult. I heard a delightful gentleman, who was a 
 
 79 
 
80 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 clergyman, say that when at the close of a sermon he 
 came to apply a truth to the people before him, he 
 always felt as if he were taking a liberty." 
 
 " With young preachers one feels that, but I liked 
 this sermon," said I, " because it did leave to the in 
 telligence of those who heard it the inference of ap 
 peal, the beautiful moral." 
 
 "We are perhaps an unusual congregation," said 
 Clay borne, " and yet I do not see the personal appeal 
 so apparent to you." 
 
 " He knows too much already," laughed St. Clair, 
 who had just come in. " Let us leave it untold to 
 punish him for always knowing so much more than 
 we." 
 
 Clayborne protested amid continued merriment, 
 and at last retired into the recesses of his own mind 
 to search for the needed appeal or the missing moral. 
 
 As my wife still insisted on her wish for that text 
 on which no man could with relevancy preach, Mrs. 
 Vincent said : " Well, my dear Alice, if you really 
 want to have a competition in preaching, I will pre 
 sent you with a text. I fancy that no one has ever 
 used it, or ever will use it. It may serve to put an 
 end to your ambitions." 
 
 " And this impossible text," said St. Clair, " is" 
 
 " Oh," cried Mrs. Vincent, " it is but you are out 
 of it." 
 
 " Good ! I am hors concours" 
 
 " Yes ; we agree to that," said I. 
 
 " My text is, So Pilate, willing to content the peo 
 ple, released Barabbas unto them. 7 " 
 
 " I am very well out of it," cried St. Clair j " I see 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 81 
 
 no interest in your text. The man was a thief, and 
 was set at liberty. That is all." 
 
 My wife laughed. " The absence of imagination 
 renders some minds very unproductive." 
 
 It much amused us to hear St. Clair thus rated. 
 He, too, enjoyed it. 
 
 " Oh, go on. My imagination goes on frolics, gets 
 drunk, goes mad, but is always about, and has the 
 sense to know when its key will not unlock things." 
 
 "It is from want of knowledge this time," said 
 Clayborne. " As you quote it, the text is barren ; 
 but not when one considers the laws of the Romans. 
 You will find in 
 
 " Please, please ! " cried Anne Vincent. " Do not 
 help them with the sermon. I protest." 
 
 " But I see so clearly. It is a lack of charity to fail 
 to contribute essential knowledge." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent looked up, amused at this cumbrous 
 statement. " Then do not contribute your clearer 
 view to our lesser insight or outsight j is there such 
 a word ? " 
 
 " No need for it, and, dear Mrs. Vincent, I am 
 dumb." 
 
 " Who will do it?" said she. 
 
 No one claimed this doubtful privilege. 
 
 " Alas ! " cried my wife, " are we so bankrupt of 
 wits ? 
 
 "You should have accepted Clayborne s charity," 
 said St. Clair. 
 
 " Charity ? " returned Clayborne. " Another cup, 
 Mrs. Vincent. Charity j perhaps I misapplied the 
 word." 
 
82 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 I saw the twinkle of self-amused mischief in St. 
 Glair s face as he said, " I know a nice little story 
 about charity out of your favorite sayer of sooths, 
 El-Din-Attar." 
 
 " Well," said Clayborne, " go on. It is not very 
 long, I trust." 
 
 " No," laughed St. Clair j " I shall never compete with 
 you as to quantity 5 as to quality, that is another affair." 
 
 " Oh, go on," said Clayborne. 
 
 " It is a story," cried Mrs. Vincent, drawing nearer. 
 
 " Haroun-al-Easchid was again of a mind to play 
 beggar. He betook himself to the gate of the palace, 
 where, even after dark, many went in and out. Pres 
 ently came forth the court poet, Mustapha, and with 
 him the court fool. The caliph made himself small as 
 they approached, and said: Alms to the starving. 
 The caliph, men say, hath made you both rich to-day. 
 Give as it was given/ 
 
 " i That were to want respect, said Mustapha, to 
 abandon so soon what his mightiness the protector 
 of the poor has given. In the words of a wise poet of 
 the infidel, " Sing a song of sixpence," which is to say, 
 write a great poem like mine, and collect of lovers of 
 song, such as Haroun the Magnificent, thy propor 
 tioned pay, as I have done/ " 
 
 " What stuff ! " said Clayborne. 
 
 " Said the caliph : I understand sixpence to be a 
 very modest sum ; that must be the usual pay of infidel 
 poets. Thou art not generous, but thou hast given 
 me to-night the coin of reflection. The poor of soul 
 are the poor of pocket. 
 
 " l To give the coin of reflection/ said the poet, * is 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 83 
 
 my business and my delight. Thou art welcome to 
 all that I have. 
 
 " Alas ! cried the beggar, i but will it buy me 
 kabobs or so much as the tail of a fish ? 
 
 " Upon this he turned to the poet s companion, and 
 said : l O Fool, thou, too, art rich to-day. Let me have 
 a penny ; I am hungry. 
 
 " I must justify the proverb, cried the fool, * " A 
 fool and his money" and gave him a handful of 
 gold sequins. 
 
 " < I shall pray for you at morning/ said Haroun. 
 And now I have emptied the head of wisdom and 
 the purse of folly. 
 
 " True/ said the fool ; 1 1 have not a penny for 
 supper I gave you all. Give me alms, a trifle, I 
 pray you. 
 
 " c Not I/ cried the beggar ; ( that were to show dis 
 respect to the proverb you so wisely quoted. I, at 
 least, am no fool. 
 
 " * You rascal ! cried the poet, laughing, < give me 
 back a little of my wisdom. 
 
 " 1 1 have given to both of you/ returned Haroun, 
 and ye know it not. 
 
 " By Allah! said the fool, the man must be a 
 poet. Let us go to the tavern and drink of the wis 
 dom called wine/ 
 
 " Thus saying, they went away. The next day, in 
 the divan, Haroun said to Mustapha, < Did a beggar 
 ask alms of thee last night ? 
 
 " Yes, Sustainer of the universe, Prop of the stars. 
 It is as thou hast said/ 
 
 " l And you gave not ! You also asked alms of him. 
 
84 DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " c I did, O Inventor of wisdom. 
 
 " What did the beggar give f 
 
 " The poet shook in his sandals. l O Caliph, he said 
 he had given ; I knew not what he meant. 
 
 " A pretty poet ! > cried Haroun. 1 I, too, am a sufi 
 poet. I will interpret. He gave you both the noble 
 alms which Allah gives to all men, the alms called 
 opportunity. Henceforth thou, O Poet, art my court 
 Fool. And thou, O Fool, be thou my Poet. Abide 
 now in the shadow of reflection, and find me a rhyme 
 for opportunity. 7 
 
 " Immunity ! cried the fool, laughing ; forgive 
 my brother ! 
 
 " l Thy brother V asked the caliph. 
 
 " Yes, my foster-brother. We were both fed from 
 the breast of folly j all poets are/ " 
 
 "How do you do it?" asked Miss May wood. 
 
 Even Clayborne was amused, and called it wisdom, 
 and so we strayed into other chat. 
 
 A few days later our friends dined with us. Clay- 
 borne and I played chess after dinner, and the rest 
 were talking, when the servant brought me a large 
 envelop marked " Immediate." I said, " Pardon me, 
 Clayborne," and opened it. I looked around, and said : 
 " Who wrote this! It is a sermon, hardly that, a 
 something on Mrs. Vincent s text. Who wrote it ? " 
 
 St. Clair and Clayborne denied any share in it j I 
 certainly had none. 
 
 " Was it is it yours, Miss Maywood?" 
 
 She said : " No, indeed. Read it ; then we can guess. 
 
 "Let me see it," said Alice. "It is type- written 
 and mailed to you, Owen. Let us hear it." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 85 
 
 " By all means/ said Clayborne., 
 
 Upon this we settled ourselves to listen, and I read. 
 It began with the text, " So Pilate, willing to content 
 the people, released Barabbas unto them." " In four 
 places this man, who says no word of or for himself, 
 is spoken of. He, it is probable, was, like our Saviour, 
 known by the commonly used name Jesus, Jesus Bar- 
 abbas. The Jews desired his release, as Pilate knew. 
 He is mentioned variously as a notable prisoner, a 
 robber, a murderer during insurrection, a leader of 
 sedition. It seems fair to infer that, if a Jew, he 
 may have been one who, during unsuccessful revolt, 
 had committed what the Roman rule regarded as 
 murder. If so, the Jews would naturally have been 
 inclined to think other than ill of him. He may not 
 have been a murderer, or even a bad man. Before 
 the Roman procurator, Pilate, in the hall of judg 
 ment, stood this Jesus Barabbas, the man set free, 
 and that other Jesus, the Christ, in his white Syrian 
 robe. l So Pilate released Barabbas unto them. 
 What thoughts were in the mind of Christ as he 
 looked on the man in whose place he was to die ? In 
 this tragic hour we seem hardly aware of any one 
 but the silent Christ, who had said his say, and would 
 speak no more to man. The released criminal, who 
 may have been innocent of anything but hatred of the 
 oppressors of his race, has for me a share in the his 
 toric interest of that memorable hour. He was free. 
 Astonished and relieved, he, too, must surely have 
 looked in turn at the unmoved figure before Pilate. 
 He must have heard of him, and no doubt shared the 
 disbelief in his message held by all in that judgment- 
 
86 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 hall. He could not have been human and remained 
 without some thought of the strange situation which 
 gave him back to hope and life. Then he turned and 
 went out, glad of the fresh air of freedom. How can 
 we fail to imagine the rest? Did his interest cease 
 here? I cannot so believe. Among the many who 
 stood to see the Christ go past to die, stood Barabbas 
 by the wayside. As the Christ went past he set his 
 eyes on the man Barabbas. I think they said, Fol 
 low thou me, and the man arose and went after him. 
 When the night was deepening around the mournful 
 group below the cross, afar off sat the malefactor. 
 Above hung the tortured body of the dead Christ. 
 He, too, was released by a greater than Pilate Death. 
 Then one touched the shoulder of the man Barabbas. 
 He turned in alarm. Have no fear; thou art the 
 first for whom he died, and he died for many. Go, 
 and sin no more. Upon this Barabbas arose and 
 girded his loins, and went forth into the desert, and 
 was seen no more of those who had known him." 
 
 " Is that all?" said Alice. 
 
 " Yes, all/ 7 said I. " It is hardly to be called a ser 
 mon." 
 
 " I do not think he was a robber," said Mrs. Vin 
 cent. " I like to believe that he was not." 
 
 " If," said Clay borne, " he were, as he might have 
 been, only a rebel against Roman rule, he may have 
 fallen in the great siege of Jerusalem, a leader of his 
 ruined race." 
 
 " Or through life have followed forever those sad 
 eyes. Who can say ? " It was St. Clair who spoke. 
 
 " And who wrote it ? " said I. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 87 
 
 No one could or would say. We talked it over for 
 a while, making vain guesses. 
 
 When, later, St. Clair had risen and was about to 
 take his leave, he said: " I was stupid as to that text ; 
 but why did the writer end his sermon just when it 
 had brought him to the point where the story, with 
 an ever-enlarging moral, takes in so much of life ? A 
 lost chance, a lost chance ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said we. " Go on." 
 
 "No," he said; "not I. Good night"; and that 
 unstated wisdom never became ours. 
 
 Clayborne and I went back to our unfinished game, 
 leaving the women still earnestly guessing at what 
 St. Clair meant. Vincent watched us in silence. I 
 won at last. 
 
 Said Vincent, " You went wrong with that knight, 
 Clayborne." 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " I find it hard not to criticize openly a game when 
 I am looking on," said Vincent. 
 
 " That reminds me," said I, "of what General Sher 
 idan told me. I had asked him about the Franco- 
 Prussian war. He said that, being with King William, 
 he saw, and could not fail to anticipate, more or less 
 of Moltke s plans and the results. He said he was like 
 an expert watching a game of chess ; that the fail 
 ure to see how to use cavalry was remarkable on 
 both sides, and that he sometimes found it hard to 
 keep quiet." 
 
 " I am sure he did," said Vincent, " though he could 
 be as silent as Grant." 
 
 " That is saying a good deal. Dr. B told me 
 
88 DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 that in two years of constant intercourse with Grant 
 he only once heard him express an opinion of any 
 officer on either side." 
 
 "And that once?" queried Clayborne. 
 
 " It was at Donaldson. Dr. B complained that 
 
 his hospitals were so near the Confederate lines that 
 a sally would certainly put them in peril. General 
 Grant said : Be easy. I know the generals in com 
 mand. They are thinking far more as to how they 
 shall stay inside than how they shall get out. And 
 yet," continued I, "Grant liked to talk. But that 
 was after the war. Another game ? " 
 
 "No 5 we must go." 
 
 When we were alone, we three, my wife, my cigar, 
 and this writer, I said to Alice : " You wrote that little 
 poetic commentary. It is not a sermon." 
 
 "Yes 5 I thought you would know. I want you to 
 like it." 
 
 "I liked it very much." 
 
 Although Alice found it agreeable to relate her 
 thought on paper, she had no ambition to be seen in 
 print. When I said that I liked what she modestly 
 described as a shred of a possible sermon, she was 
 pleased. She often complained that to express her 
 self in speech was never satisfactory, but that when 
 she wrote she felt assured of power to state her 
 thought. This is also my own case. She said, " You 
 will not tell ? " I said no, but that the slow mecha 
 nism of Clayborne s mind would be sure to grind out 
 the truth, and, in fact, this proved to be as I pre 
 dicted. 
 
were again together after dinner, but 
 this time it was in the Vincents draw 
 ing-room. Miss May wood was not with 
 us. 
 
 " Tell us some new thing, Owen North," 
 said Mrs. Vincent, turning round on the piano-stool. 
 She had been singing capriciously, as birds sing, bits 
 of songs. 
 
 " Some new thing ? That is desirable," said Clay- 
 borne, " or not." 
 
 " What a challenge ! Some new thing ! I cannot. 
 I was just now thinking over St. Glair s sermon. It 
 took me back to my remembrance of a sermon I once 
 heard. It was during the third year of the war. I was 
 with Phillips Brooks on the coast of Maine. We went 
 to a Methodist meeting-house on Sunday morning. I 
 have been trying to recall the text." 
 
 " Can you recall the sermon ? " said my wife. 
 
 " Yes ] after a fashion." 
 
 " Then tell it, and let us find the text to fit it." 
 
 "Ah," said Mrs. Vincent, "given the sermon, to 
 find the text. That might often be difficult." 
 
 " What the preacher desired was to make clear that 
 we should always do our duty without regard to con 
 sequences. He assured his hearers that very often 
 they would find it easier than to shirk it. He said : 
 
90 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 There is a ship ashore, we will say ; got to get her 
 men off. It s right risky. Well, so is shipwreck of 
 a man s soul. You ve got to choose. 7 He had many 
 illustrations. He described the battle between the 
 Israelites and the Amalekites. He said that Moses 
 considered the fight through a telescope. This nearly 
 upset even the technical gravity of the famous 
 preacher, my companion. The fishermen and sailors 
 were undisturbed. What more natural to them than a 
 telescope ? Do your duty/ he said, < and you 11 often 
 find the Lord lettin you off easy. I was chaplain 
 last year to a Maine regiment. Our time was out. 
 We were asked to stay on and volunteer for a fight 
 next day. I told the boys, and some said no only a 
 few, mostly married men. The rest stayed right on. 
 Next day at dawn I said a few strengthenin words, 
 and then we went on. It was a little outlyin fort, 
 south of Petersburg. Well, we rushed it. My friends, 
 the Rebs had left. There was n t no one there. We 
 did n t lose a man, and we saved our souls alive. 
 This is how God is good to a man that does his duty. 
 Alive or dead, that man is safe. That s so whenever 
 a man s got to take risks on land or sea. Just you 
 think of that, my friends, when life is stormy, and 
 your soul s on a lee shore. The right-doin man has 
 always got two strings to his bow. You may get out 
 and be none the worse, or you may die and never 
 come to any shore but where the black waves of 
 death break on the golden sands of heaven ; and the 
 hand that will be stretched out to you, there ain t need 
 to tell you whose it will be. This is all I can recall." 
 " That old proverb," said Vincent, " of the bow- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 91 
 
 strings, which comes down from the bowmen of 
 Cressy or Agincourt, has had a long life. I found 
 another in one of Queen Bess s letters. She says: 
 1 He who seeketh two strings to one bowe may shute 
 strong, but never strait. There is a small literature 
 of proverbs about the bow. I find your sermon much 
 to my mind." 
 
 " And," said Clayborne, " you did not make it up ? " 
 
 " No ; I have tried to render it fairly. That it is 
 verbally accurate I cannot say. Find me his text. 
 That I have lost." 
 
 We discussed this want in vain. All that we could 
 be sure of was that the text must have suggested the 
 sermon. At last Vincent said to his wife, " You ex 
 pect Le Clerc to-night, Anne ? " 
 
 I knew that she did, as she had previously spoken 
 to me of it, and was, as usual with her, greatly ex 
 cited by the expectation of any quite novel experi 
 ence. I had looked, as I entered, to see what fresh 
 dramatic setting there would be, and had observed, 
 as Vincent came in after our arrival, a look of mirth 
 on his telltale face. Her habit of slightly changing 
 her drawing-room to suit her sense of the fitness of 
 things was well known to all of us. It was purely to 
 satisfy herself, and was without the least affectation. 
 I understood at a glance. Le Clerc was to talk about 
 things mystical. The mise en scene was at times elab 
 orate, as I had once occasion to observe, and have 
 elsewhere stated. To-night it was simple. 
 
 Years before St. Clair had sent from Japan two 
 historically famous balls of crystal. These were well 
 known in Japan as the Rock of Remembrance and the 
 
92 DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Rock of Reflection. They were fully ten inches in 
 diameter. One was of smoky quartz ; the other was 
 a crystal sphere of delicate rose-color. When these 
 reached Clayborne with a parlous bill, he paid with a 
 groan, and sent them to Anne Vincent. 
 
 And now the Rock of Reflection lay to the left of 
 the blazing hearth, on a cushion of fawn-tinted vel 
 vet, and was glowing like a glorious, ruddy moon, 
 mysteriously beautiful. Midway in the room stood 
 a small, round Chippendale table of dark mahogany. 
 It was an unusual bit of furniture, because the rim 
 was a narrow edge of silver. This table commonly 
 held the roses Anne Vincent loved so well. On this 
 occasion there was a shallow dish of pearl-gray china, 
 and afloat in it half a dozen water-lilies. These were 
 wide open, as they had no natural business to be at 
 night, but, as St. Glair once remarked, flowers and 
 people did for Anne Vincent what they never di d for 
 any one else. Beside this dish was a slim Greek vase, 
 in which stood a few grotesque orchids, rich in color 
 and as strange as gargoyles. 
 
 As I stood admiring this suggestive and, for Anne 
 Vincent, quite moderate setting, she herself, replying 
 to her husband s question, said : 
 
 " Yes ; I think I hear Mr. Le Clerc s voice in the 
 hall. What a queer falsetto ! He has promised, if 
 Fred does not object, that I shall see a famous me 
 dium oh, not now, of course. 77 
 
 " I think it all very silly, v said Clayborne. 
 
 "At least it may amuse you," she said. 
 
 " It will not, my dear lady. But it may have other 
 values." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 93 
 
 The gentleman who entered was a tall man, slightly 
 bent, a professor of physics, and well known in the 
 world of science. He spoke to us in turn quietly, in 
 a sharp voice of unpleasing tones. He apologized for 
 being late, and added that he had only a few minutes 
 time, but had come to place himself at Mrs. Vincent s 
 command. 
 
 Upon this we fell to talking about spiritualism, 
 mind-reading, and the like. At last Vincent said : 
 " Le Clerc, you have seen a good deal of these mat 
 ters. Is there any one thing among them of which 
 you are sure ? " 
 
 He replied with evident caution : " I think I have 
 seen a man read cards which he could not see. Thus, 
 if you chose a card from a new pack, and held it up 
 so that he saw only the back of your hand, and you 
 the face of the card, he was often successful in nam 
 ing the card. I cannot see how he could have tricked 
 me, and in justice I should add that I have done it 
 myself, but not nearly as well as he. He professed to 
 be able to name also any card I had in mind. In 
 this he was less fortunate." 
 
 " Let me say something, Mr. Le Clerc," said I. 
 " This is an exhibition of so-called telepathy in its 
 simplest form. Suppose we admit its truth. What 
 one man can do must represent a power possessed in 
 some degree by all men. It may be small in most 
 men, or in abeyance. It must be in the mass of men 
 a quality, a capacity, on the way to fuller develop 
 ment. All our abilities, all sensual perceptivity, must 
 have gone through endless ranges of acuteness, and 
 always, in their evolution, certain persons must have 
 
94 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 had this or that sense in a larger degree than the less- 
 developed mass of their fellows." 
 
 " If we accept the fact as stated, that seems reason 
 able," said Clayborne, " but in the cases you mention 
 the organ of sense existed. It was recognizable. 
 What is the mechanism in this present case ? Where 
 or what is the new sense thus used! For it is 
 through the senses alone that we get news from 
 without." 
 
 " Who can guess ? " said Le Clerc. " There are 
 many parts of the brain to which we assign no func 
 tion. I am not sufficiently sure of the facts to go 
 further." 
 
 " Do you know," said Vincent, " how you do this 
 thing?" 
 
 " I do not. I am rarely fortunate ; at times I fail 
 entirely. This makes it hard to condition, and thus 
 unlike the facts of outside nature. I have given up 
 its study for this reason, and, too, because it affects 
 me disagreeably." 
 
 " Can you," said my wife, " tell us how you seemed 
 to do it ? It cannot be chance." 
 
 " No," said Clayborne, decisively. 
 
 " I seemed to see the card," Le Clerc said. " It 
 looked larger than the real card. Once I stated the 
 number, but was unable to tell the color. It requires 
 a certain amount of time. I cannot succeed if the 
 person who holds the card does not know the card 
 and does not think of it. In fact, most of the larger 
 pretensions as to this matter break down under se 
 vere tests, and I am still in doubt." 
 
 " I have," said I, " at times suspected myself of 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 95 
 
 having a certain amount of capacity to know what 
 people are thinking. It may have been that I was 
 mistaken." 
 
 " For my part," said St. Clair, " I hope it will re 
 main an undeveloped capacity. To read at will the 
 minds even of those we love would be disastrous to 
 happiness." 
 
 " Or at times quite the reverse," said my wife. 
 
 " But," returned St. Clair, " imagine a world from 
 which speech was gone, and where this power had be 
 come universal. To lie would be impossible. The 
 whole fabric of civilization would crumble ; war would 
 be impossible, love a farce." 
 
 " Even nonsense may suggest thought," said Clay- 
 borne, who was apt to take St. Clair literally. " In 
 dividual capacity to conceal thought is an essential 
 of civilized life. The savage conceals nothing. This 
 would be retrogression. The barbarian is willingly 
 open-minded. We should be self-revealed unwill 
 ingly." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Vincent, " this power, if it be one, 
 is, as we assume to have it, an abnormal thing, like those 
 excessive attributes of the senses acquired in disease." 
 
 " But," said Clayborne, " this other could not be 
 any excess of a sense known to us. It must be a 
 radically different sense." 
 
 " Yes," returned Vincent, " you are right. Nor have 
 I any, even the dimmest, consciousness of any unused 
 power to apprehend another s thought. Owen North 
 may have. He said so." 
 
 " Oh," cried my wife, " but I do not think Owen is 
 in the least abnormal." 
 
96 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 At this we laughed, Le Clerc also declining to be 
 thus classed. 
 
 " At all events," said Clayborne, " no possible good 
 can come of these investigations. If taken seriously, 
 their study should be in hands which are competent 
 for the work. Few are. The mere man of science, 
 the physicist, horrid word, has been endlessly 
 fooled by the trickery of so-called spiritualists. As 
 Le Clerc has said, I think you said that, one cannot 
 condition the facts." 
 
 " Hysterical and hypnotic telepathy," said I, " have 
 repeatedly taken in some of the ablest of my profes 
 sion. The study may some day be more fortunate. 
 Now men in general get no good, and often harm, 
 out of attempts along the lines of these too vague 
 phenomena." 
 
 " And yet," said Mrs. Vincent, " such small facts as 
 we have just now heard do give one a sense of the 
 possibility of mind directly communicating with 
 mind, and so of the possibility of our minds being 
 affected by those who, being dead, speak no more the 
 ordinary tongue of man." 
 
 " No," said Clayborne, " that by no means follows. 
 You infer too much." 
 
 " Let us then wholesomely stop here," said I ; " I quite 
 decline a plunge into the idiotic chaos of spiritualism." 
 
 " He," said Clayborne, " who needs that help to faith 
 must strangely want the power to read aright his own 
 nature and the great world." 
 
 This was gravely said by Clayborne, and was one 
 of the frank statements of his calmly held beliefs 
 to which we rarely heard him commit himself. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 97 
 
 Said Le Clerc : " I busied myself once with many 
 of these phenomena. Some I thought at one time 
 honest facts ; others mere obvious trickery. I gave it 
 all up, and came to see that some, even of the ablest 
 and most honest of the men given over to these 
 pursuits, got at last into a condition of utter inca 
 pacity to disbelieve things which were clearly absurd, 
 such as the so-called materialization of spirits." 
 
 " If," said I, " it be full of pitfalls for men of intel 
 lect, it is a slough of mental disaster for feebler 
 minds. I have seen in the followers of these ways 
 much sad disorder of mind." 
 
 " I have a very mild desire," said Clayborne, " to 
 see once a spiritual display seance, they call it, I 
 think." 
 
 "Listen, Fred," cried Mrs. Vincent; "even Mr. 
 Clayborne shares my curiosity." 
 
 "I am sorry for him, Anne. I shall not stand in 
 your way, but let it be once, and only once." 
 
 "I could arrange for it," said Le Clerc. "I gave 
 up all personal interest in this matter long ago, but I 
 know many of these people." 
 
 " I should like," said my wife, " that we should be 
 unknown to the medium." 
 
 " That is easily managed," said Le Clerc. 
 
 Like Vincent, I rather strongly objected to this 
 folly. I agreed, however, that we would be present, 
 and predicted that one sitting would satisfy all con 
 cerned. The famous Seybert commission was enough 
 for me. Its report is as amusing as a volume of 
 " Punch," and more instructive. 
 
 "I will see about it," said Le Clerc, "and now I 
 
98 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 must go. I called merely to know what Mrs. Vin 
 cent wanted." 
 
 As we, too, were about to leave, I said to Vincent : 
 " I have had a visit from Xerxes Crofter, my Western 
 railway brigand. You will grieve to hear that he is 
 still entirely well. After a noble career of destruction 
 in the West he moved to New York. He is here just 
 now, to my amusement, to see Clayborne, who, as you 
 know, owns a coal-mine in Ohio, and a little branch 
 road, which is a feeder of Xerxes s great railway sys 
 tem. Clayborne thinks the rates on the main line ex 
 cessive, and threatens a big fight. When Xerxes 
 heard that Clayborne was my friend, he came hither 
 to have a talk with him. Both are rather cross, and 
 Clayborne happy over the imminence of a row." 
 
 " I should like to see that robber," said Vincent, 
 " but not in my own house. Probably Clayborne will 
 ask me to be present at their conference. One would 
 like, Owen, to talk frankly with a man who has stolen 
 fifty millions." 
 
 " It may be possible with Crofter. He is a man with 
 no end of bad qualities, and an underlying stratum 
 of something better." 
 
 " That of course," returned Vincent. " The giants 
 of criminal finance are rarely without some fractional 
 capacity to imitate their betters. That is no real 
 gain. Men wholly bad are less dangerous." 
 
 "Well, you will be interested. That I promise. 
 The man has learned many things since I first saw 
 him. I think I said that Clayborne has asked him to 
 dinner." 
 
 " Yes, it does not surprise me. He would ask a 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 99 
 
 murderer if he wanted to study him. He has none 
 of our feeling as to the social sacredness of the act of 
 feeding. After it he will be as remorseless in his 
 dealings with this potential scamp as if he had never 
 given him of his salt. Your wife is waiting. By-by ! " 
 
VI 
 
 |HE next day I saw Xerxes. Three years 
 of the life of what he at first called the 
 " meetropolis," and the vigor of reac- 
 quired health, together with another 
 influence, had wrought notable changes 
 in the outer ways, dress, and language of the great 
 railroad-wrecker. He still had the look of animal 
 power. The ursine appearance of awkward strength 
 was still present ; the huge hands, the strong, promi 
 nent muscles of the jaw, like those of the Bona- 
 partes, the rolling walk of the plantigrade, all were 
 as before. Vincent remarked later that he must 
 always have been a person of varied and unexpectable 
 capabilities, and even of undeveloped tastes. Cour 
 ageous in action, outspoken rather than frank, lavish 
 rather than generous, at times amazingly impulsive, 
 he was, beneath all, the wild beast of the jungles of 
 finance, strong, adroit, and merciless. " He has also 
 the Christianity of humor," said St. Clair, at a still 
 later date, " and that," observed the poet, " does pre 
 vent a man from being consistently inhuman." This 
 queer comment set me to thinking whether the great 
 criminal natures I had met in my time were ever en 
 dowed with this quality of humor., 
 
 Mr. Xerxes Crofter came into my library at morn 
 ing, and before accepting a seat, set his huge hands 
 
 100 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS F.RIENDS 101 
 
 on the table and stood still. I rose and said : " Good 
 morning. Sit down." 
 
 Without returning my salutation, he said : " Can t 
 do it, doctor; got to meet some railroad men. I 
 came here to talk with your friend Clayborne. He 
 says I must dine with him to-morrow; afterward 
 he will see about it. That is n t business. I came 
 here to get the better of him about a coal deal." 
 Here he paused. 
 
 "Well? "said I. 
 
 " Confound it ! Where I was born you can t shoot 
 a man in his own cabin. He won t talk business at 
 table, I guess ? " 
 
 " No, certainly not. Rest at ease about that." 
 
 11 But after I feed and drink his champagne he will 
 know all about me. When I eat and drink 1 m a 
 rather loose-languaged sort of man. Now he can t 
 judge my hand." 
 
 " But you will know him, too." 
 
 " Well, maybe. We won t play chess if I know X. 
 Crofter." He laughed as he recalled the incident of 
 our first encounter. 
 
 " I am to dine with you," said I ; "no one else." 
 
 " Good ! Then you will take care of this innocent 
 orphan. I forgot his lawyer is to dine with us, too, 
 a man named Vincent. I heard him argue a case 
 once. He talked the gentlest you ever heard, but, 
 Lord ! when he was through with that man, and the 
 court rose, it was in Arkansas; the Supreme Court, 
 you know, the fellow followed him out on to the 
 sidewalk. Joe Bristed had killed two or more, and 
 now we all knew he was red-blood-mad. Says he to 
 
102 DB. NORTH AND HIS FBIENBS 
 
 this Vincent, No man can talk that way about me 
 and live/ and with this he drew a Colt, and folks 
 squandered. Well, Vincent he just stood still with 
 his hands at his sides and looked at Joe. All he said 
 was : "I made it clear that you are a thief. Now I 
 know that you are a coward. i Great Scott ! says 
 Joe, you are a brave man, and he put out his hand. 
 This Vincent he just took no kind of notice of him, 
 and walked away as cool as a cucumber. Darned if 
 I know why cucumbers are cool." 
 
 " And Joe ? " 
 
 " Oh, says he, l Busted, boys, and gave it up. I 
 want to see that man. Ever tell you that story? 
 No? He did n t? That s queer. It was in the 
 papers, though, but the editor got punctuated full 
 stop, you know. Good joke that ! Well, I just came 
 in to show myself. I m as right as a young grizzly. 
 I suppose it is white tie and full uniform? Yes? 
 Good-by." 
 
 I drove Vincent out next day to this singular din 
 ner-party. On the way we talked over my Western 
 patient. 
 
 " He has ruined many better men," said Vincent, 
 " and now he has quit plundering and retired from 
 brigandage with some incredible amount of plunder. 
 He has corrupted courts, bought legislation, bribed 
 men, and caused tears enough to drown him. And his 
 grandchildren may marry yours. Success covers a 
 multitude of sins. And this devil goes to church, 
 meeting, my wife would say, and some of the 
 preachers fawn at his feet. I should like to talk 
 frankly with a man like this man." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 103 
 
 " It might, it may, be entirely possible. I think I 
 have already said so." 
 
 "I cannot see, Owen, how one could do it. I 
 mean talk frankly. How surely our manners protect 
 a man from the shafts of social opinion, and how 
 easily we in America condone or forget the crimes of 
 finance ! In England one slip as to money matters 
 will ruin the career of a politician. With us it is 
 strangely passed over and soon forgotten. But let a 
 man with us go notoriously wrong about women, and 
 he is ruined." 
 
 " Yes, and, on the other hand, in England that sin 
 does not affect a career." 
 
 " Is that due to the vast influence of women in our 
 national life ? I do not think they feel as you or I 
 do, that looseness as to money matters is a more in 
 fluential, a more radical evil in public life. The one 
 form of crime personally appeals to them ; the other 
 does not." 
 
 " That may be so." 
 
 "Here we are. I never before dined with a com 
 plete rascal. 7 
 
 " He is sadly incomplete, Vincent." 
 
 We were twenty minutes before our time. Clay- 
 borne was dressing. We walked into the drawing- 
 room, and at last, as Vincent wanted to look at a 
 book, into the great library. There, to my surprise, 
 was Crofter, standing in front of a replica of Stuart s 
 " Washington." The Western man, too, was before 
 his time. He turned as we entered, and I introduced 
 these two most dissimilar men. 
 
 Then, and later, I was surprised to see how much 
 
104 DE. NORTH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 Crofter had changed. He was in full evening dress, 
 and as to his attire not otherwise remarkable except 
 for a pair of costly sapphire shirt-studs. Except 
 when he told some wild Western story, he used far 
 better English than he had employed in the days of 
 our earlier acquaintance. The gradual alteration puz 
 zled me, until I learned that a well-known and clever 
 widow in New York had undertaken the task of tam 
 ing and civilizing this sturdy brute. She ended by 
 marrying him, and did really effect such a notable 
 alteration in his dress, language, and manners as is 
 possible only when an intelligent and well-bred lady 
 is resolute to influence an American of Crofter s type. 
 She was a refined woman, and, I should add, was hon 
 estly in love with my powerful grizzly. 
 
 " That is one of the best replicas I ever saw," he 
 said. " Pity Stuart did not sign his pictures. I make 
 a point of that when I buy a picture. I like it auto 
 graphed." 
 
 "Do you think, Mr. Crofter," said I, " that this por 
 trait gives one any idea of the man Washington ? " 
 
 " Now, that is just the kind of thing I should like to 
 ask Mr. Vincent," returned Crofter j " he knows men 
 and he knows pictures." 
 
 Vincent, too much a man of the world to betray 
 himself, was, I knew well, resenting inwardly this in 
 timate judgment as to his qualities as a student of 
 men and their portraits. But it was scarcely possible 
 not to be interested by Crofter. His mind was vigor 
 ous, his opinions bold and freshly original, his 
 mode of expression at times uncommon, but always 
 effective. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 105 
 
 Vincent replied : " I think that if we take the man 
 Washington far on in mid-life, as now at last we 
 know him, and were to construct a face to express 
 the man and his life, it would not be the face of such 
 a picture as Stuart drew." 
 
 " They ought/ 7 said Crofter, " to have hired Rey 
 nolds to have come over and painted him ; and there 
 is no great painting of Lincoln." 
 
 " It is one thing," said I, " to paint a man s face j 
 quite another to paint on it his character. Usually, 
 in these days of concealment and self-control, only a 
 part of a man s nature gets written clearly on his face. 
 That is the interest of the sixteenth-century portraits. 
 The time unmuzzled all passions, all personal qualities. 
 It was fatal to Italy ; it was fortunate for the artist." 
 
 " I am not sure you are right as to this portrait," 
 said Crofter. " Washington was an out-of-doors man, 
 and I do notice that men who live in the saddle and 
 under the sun don t get their faces wrinkle-written 
 like men that live indoors. You just get a light 
 sketch of the man on his features. He don t draw 
 himself strong. This Washington only looks grave 
 and serious. He don t show for what he went through. 
 And then there s another thing. His kind of bred 
 men don t scrawl what they are all over their faces. 
 Ever notice that, Mr. Vincent ? Now, your face don t 
 give any clear notion of what you are." 
 
 " I do not think I have," said Vincent, shortly. " I 
 was wondering what Washington would have been 
 had he lived to-day." 
 
 " Hard question that," returned Crofter. " He cer 
 tainly was a large man. I don t suppose he had the 
 
106 DR. NOKTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 outfit for our time. But then, no time is the boss of 
 a big man. He was a hard, steady fighter ; he never 
 did have quiet horses to ride. Had a hard time from 
 the start. His own State did n t altogether want him. 
 He kept goin to school all his life. He made himself 
 if ever a man did." 
 
 " What you say as to his own State is true," said 
 Clayborne, coming up behind us as we stood before 
 the portrait. " But how did you know that ? " The 
 scholar was as much astonished as Vincent. " What 
 the deuce," he said later, " has this fellow to do with 
 history ? " I fancy he considered it disrespectful to 
 the historic Muse. 
 
 " The planters did not want him," said Crofter. 
 " Did you ever see Meade s Diary/ Mr. Vincent ? " 
 
 "Never. What of it?" 
 
 " I happened on it last year. I ve taken to picking 
 up books about the Revolution. I have time to read 
 now. Novels don t get me. Meade says they wanted 
 Colonel Byrd of Westover, and declares that he was 
 the bigger man of the two." 
 
 Vincent, who knew our history rarely well, said, " I 
 never saw the diary." 
 
 " Glad to send it to you. It was privately printed. 
 Can t buy it." 
 
 " Don t trouble yourself," said Vincent. He had 
 no mind to be under obligations to Crofter. 
 
 " It is no trouble. There is another oh, some au 
 tograph letters. I 11 send them all." 
 
 I saw Vincent s look of annoyance, and was amused. 
 He had, however, no chance to defend himself further, 
 for at this moment dinner was announced. 
 
VII 
 
 HAVE always had a fancy for the study 
 of character. Novel social contacts offer 
 fresh opportunities for such study. A 
 new situation becomes a laboratory in 
 which one may consider the reactions 
 of one man upon another. If people are diverse, yet 
 positive, the results are the more apt to be distinct 
 and valuable. Here were three very definite people. 
 Each of them was typically peculiar. In the labora 
 tory certain agents which come in contact chemically 
 decline to alter or to be altered, and remain neutrally 
 indifferent. This idea was in my mind as I watched 
 Vincent and Crofter. The Western man was of 
 gladiatorial make. Audacity, endurance, and intelli 
 gent power were clearly to be read on the strong- 
 featured face below the wire-like, resolute curls of his 
 abundant hair. He was now, as I said, on guard, at 
 tentive. Only once did I note any trace of the crude 
 society out of which he came. When Clayborne gave 
 signs of leaving the table, Crofter, who was listening 
 intently to Vincent, put out a searching paw, in evi 
 dent pursuit of the boarding-house napkin-ring of 
 youthful days. I was sure of this, because he 
 had automatically folded and rolled up his napkin. 
 He shook it out and cast it on the table as our host 
 rose. In contrast to Crofter was the refinement of 
 
 107 
 
108 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Vincent s familiar face, with its look of reserved 
 power, and its suggestion of sternness in mouth and 
 chin. There was a queer look of innocence about the 
 large blue eyes of the man of the financial prize-ring, 
 but Vincent s eyes of lucent gray possessed mysteri 
 ous influences for those who loved, hated, or respected 
 this sensitive and high-bred gentleman. Would these 
 two prove too socially neutral? It seemed likely to 
 be so. Once or twice I tried to come in as the third 
 reagent, which in a chemist s solution of inactive 
 compounds has the capacity to cause abrupt and in 
 teresting interchange of the constituent elements. I 
 had no such luck. 
 
 The champagne was evidently to Crofter s liking ; 
 he asked if it were not a vintage wine. Clayborne, 
 who to appearance was no more affected by wine than 
 by beer, which was his ordinary drink, set his guest 
 a sad example. Crofter took of the gay vintage, as it 
 seemed to me, in excess. Perhaps this novel society 
 made him forget his usually moderate habits. In 
 fact, I had forbidden him to use stimulants, and he 
 had been singularly obedient. He talked well, and 
 at first listened quietly, but I suspect that the in 
 creasing effects of our host s champagne may ac 
 count in some degree for what happened after 
 dinner. 
 
 No word was said as to railroads or money. New 
 York had bored him at first. Yes, he had had to find 
 occupation, and had taken to buying pictures, but 
 only landscapes or, now and then, portraits. Vin 
 cent s taste was apparently well known to Crofter, 
 for, with his usual businesslike turn, he had employed 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 109 
 
 his secretary to make a list of notable private collec 
 tions. Vincent s was not large, but of remarkable 
 interest. 
 
 " You have a little Gainsborough I bid on once," 
 said Crofter. " It was too dear. I waited. When I 
 thought it would have dropped to my notion of value, 
 I found you had bought it. If ever you feel like 
 selling it, I won t stand on price." 
 
 I saw Vincent stiffen himself a little. " Thank 
 you," he said. " Mrs. Vincent gave it to me. I, too, 
 thought it rather dear." 
 
 "Now," said Crofter, "is n t that just like a 
 woman? You wanted it, and she never thought of 
 the price." The faintest possible flush came out on 
 my friend s cheeks. "How much did she give for 
 it ? " added Xerxes. 
 
 " I do not know," said Vincent. 
 
 " Might guess," said Crofter. 
 
 I began to suspect, as I listened, that the wine was 
 already beginning to disturb Crofter s too recently 
 acquired respect for the decencies of social life. 
 
 " When can I see your pictures ? " he asked. 
 
 "I can hardly say," returned Vincent. "I am 
 going to try a case in Pittsburg to-morrow." 
 
 "Perhaps Mrs. Vincent will be so kind as to let 
 me see them." My man was, in little as in big things, 
 persistent. 
 
 Clayborne, satisfied as long as the talk kept alive, 
 listened, but was quite outside of the game. He was 
 very much attached to Vincent, but never fully under 
 stood him. 
 
 When Crofter said that perhaps Mrs. Vincent 
 
110 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 would gratify his wish, Vincent replied, " I will ask 
 Mrs. Vincent. 7 
 
 But now it dawned upon the man that somehow he 
 was, as he would have said, being shunted. His edu 
 cation in feminine hands had progressed far enough 
 to enable him to be dimly conscious of his social mis 
 takes, even when he was unable to understand fully 
 how he had blundered. He said at once : " I won t 
 trouble her, I guess; perhaps sometime I may be 
 more lucky. Come and see my pictures when you 
 have an idle hour in New York." 
 
 I read in Vincent s face a danger-signal, but he re 
 turned quietly, "I shall hope to have the pleasure. 
 And, by the way, Clayborne," he said, turning to our 
 host, " have you decided where to put the vase ? " 
 
 After this the talk wandered as we discussed sport, 
 salmon-fishing, and the like. Crofter found the win 
 ters in New York rather tedious. " As long as a man 
 can kill things he can get on ; but war and gambling 
 are the two things best worth doing for real excite 
 ment, and, after all, war is just a big kind of bet. 
 Was in it awhile as a commissary officer." 
 
 " Then you saw no fighting?" said I. 
 
 " Oh, did n t I ? The last year I got into the artil 
 lery. The fact is, I like excitement, danger. I guess 
 you do too, Mr. Vincent." 
 
 He did, as I well knew. 
 
 "Yes," said Vincent; "I have that folly." 
 
 " Thought so. An artillery duel, or poker for large 
 stakes when you have no money, are the two finest 
 things I know well, the best worth doing." 
 
 Vincent smiled, conscious that the guest was, as he 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 111 
 
 himself would have said, on a down grade, and the 
 brakes out of order. I said that I hated war, and 
 then spoke of the wearisome life of the camps, upon 
 which Clayborne remarked that he had never been 
 conscious of the thing for which we have no word, 
 ennui. 
 
 "Indeed/ 1 said Crofter, "is that so? As long as I 
 can gamble I am never bored." 
 
 "I myself never could see the charm of uncer 
 tainty/ 7 said Clayborne, " and for many reasons I dis 
 like gambling." 
 
 " Yes/ said Crofter ; " one is, you Ve got to pay 
 up. But what about chess, doctor?" There was a 
 gleam of amusement in the rugged face. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " said I, laughing. " That is for 
 bidden ground." 
 
 " Ah, I see. All right. Did I ever tell you what 
 came of your advice to teach my big Irishman 
 poker?" 
 
 " No," said I, glad to turn the talk, for none of my 
 friends had heard from me of that famous game of 
 chess in which I had won back my railroad stock. 
 
 "What was it?" said Vincent, quick to note my 
 slight embarrassment. 
 
 "Well, when you told me to go to bed for two 
 months, I did. When you saw me again, you remem 
 ber, I asked you what on earth I was to do to amuse 
 myself. You see, Mr. Vincent, every night I lost or 
 won at the club a hundred dollars or so, and that 
 was about my entire amusement. In comes the doc 
 tor, and says he, i Teach Mickey Maguire to play 
 poker. Mickey was my nurse, and a good one, too." 
 
112 DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 " What for? says I. 
 
 " * Watermelon-seeds/ says you. 
 
 "Well, I did. Mickey was an old army orderly, 
 and he took to poker natural, like a young mule takes 
 to kickin . After a bit it got monotonous. So then 
 I gave Mickey a thousand dollars to gamble with. This 
 time there was some fun in it. I cleaned out Mickey 
 in a week money, wages, and all, down to his tooth 
 brush. When he lost that I lent him fifty dollars. By 
 this time Mickey had got his education. In a month 
 he had it all back, and three thousand besides. Then 
 Mrs. Mickey sailed in and took it away, and put it 
 in the bank, and there was Mick cleaned out again. 
 Mrs. Mick said if he ever gambled any more she 
 would get a divorce. About this time I was up and 
 well, so I put Mick to work to superintend a mine in 
 Montana." 
 
 " Did he do it well ? " said Clay borne, much amused. 
 
 " Well, I guess so. A man that can play poker 
 like Mickey can do anything. Life s only a big gam 
 ble, gentlemen, and all its insides are little gambles. 
 Marriage is the worst." 
 
 On this we rose, laughing, and followed Clayborne 
 into the library. Vincent, lingering behind, whis 
 pered : " That fellow s cure must sit heavy on your 
 conscience, Owen. I wish Mrs. Vincent had heard 
 the talk, but I shall never tell her, never. She has 
 no social morals fit to stand up against her curiosity. 
 She would insist on seeing him." 
 
 "I think that likely. I suspect, Fred, that our 
 grizzly has begun to feel the large liberty of wine." 
 
 " Yes, very clearly. Ah, there is St. Clair." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 113 
 
 At all times at home with any of us, and especially 
 with Clayborne, St. Clair might chance to come in on 
 a formal dinner, at bedtime, or at breakfast. He 
 had walked out in the dusk of evening, and now lay 
 at easy length on a lounge. He rose as we entered. 
 
 " Mr. Crofter, Mr. St. Clair." 
 
 I saw St. Clair shrink and lift one foot a little as 
 the broad paw of Xerxes closed on his hand. The 
 grip was meant to emphasize the satisfaction the 
 Western man felt. 
 
 "I am very pleased to see you, Mr. St. Clair. I 
 bought that Diana > of yours from Overton." 
 
 St. Clair liked all forms of praise. 
 
 " I hope she will not move again." 
 
 "No, sir; she is one of the family." 
 
 " Will you have a cigar ? " asked our host, and we 
 fell into chairs about the fire. 
 
 " Tell you about Diana. My old aunt came on last 
 week. She nearly fell down when she saw Mrs. 
 Diana in the hall. She gave me a fine rating for in 
 decency. By George ! when I came down to break 
 fast the next day I found she had tied a red flannel 
 petticoat around the lady s waist. Most killed my 
 English butler. Never knew him to grin before or 
 since." 
 
 " I know of several statues which would be the 
 better for clothes," said St. Clair, laughing gaily. 
 
 "It was comical," returned Crofter; "I compro 
 mised on a screen while she stayed." 
 
 "I should have liked to have seen Diana in petti 
 coats," said I. 
 
 St. Clair sat still, smoking like Vesuvius, and un- 
 
114 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 usually silent, both sure signs of rising mischief. I 
 saw that he was vexed as well as amused; but I 
 could not imagine why he was angry. He was now 
 chewing the end of his mustache ; that, too, meant a 
 change of weather. I made up my mind that here 
 was the reagent needed to disturb this solution of 
 neutral elements. I was not mistaken. St. Glair, I 
 ought to add, knew very little of Crofter, or of the 
 vastness of the booty which was now safely invested. 
 
 "I see," said Clayborne, " that Lawton has bought 
 Millet s Sheepf old. I wanted it, but thirty thousand 
 was more than I could compass." 
 
 Now, Lawton was another of the fellows who had 
 thriven on corruption, and was well known by repu 
 tation to all of us. St. Clair sat up. 
 
 " Damn such people ! They have no right to own 
 honest pictures." 
 
 Crofter smiled. " Lawton was once a partner of 
 mine/ he said in an unconcerned way. 
 
 I saw Clayborne look warningly at the poet. It 
 was of small use. St. Clair went on : 
 
 " I had heard as much, and I am sorry for you. 
 Perhaps you know how the deuce a fellow like that 
 settles things with his conscience. I do awful things 
 myself, as Clayborne will tell you, but then I have 
 abominable hours of negotiation with a certain change 
 less, implacable clearing-house." 
 
 " Conscience, I suppose," said Crofter, who was 
 now too plainly set free from the finer restraints 
 which govern social intercourse. " What the thunder 
 is conscience ? " 
 
 Vincent looked at St. Clair and then at me. It 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 115 
 
 was as much as to say : " He is off. Who can stop 
 him ? " 
 
 " That is a large question," said our host. " What 
 is conscience?" 
 
 " It may have varieties," said Crofter. 
 
 St. Clair took no notice of this. " How can an 
 honest gentleman comprehend a fellow like Lawton ? 
 I wonder if he ever thinks of the misery he causes. 
 I know one good old fellow, yes, and another, hard 
 working artists. Both lost all their small savings by 
 that man s rascally schemes." 
 
 St. Clair was off indeed. Three of us were struck 
 silent for a moment. Crofter, although instantly con 
 scious of an awkward situation, was, as always, bold 
 and outspoken. He sat up, laid his cigar on the edge 
 of the table, and said : " Mr. St. Clair, I don t mind plain 
 talk, and I don t shirk. If Lawton is a bad man, so 
 am I ; but just you listen. Railroads get built where 
 there is n t trade to run them. They go to bits. The 
 stock don t pay, the bonds don t pay. Then a man 
 buys the bonds and sells out the road, well, practi 
 cally to himself. I want to face it square. Oh, you 
 hold on a bit. I know. Maybe he juggles with the 
 bonds in big lots, knocks em down, and then comes 
 in. Of course there are other ways." 
 
 " And worse," said Vincent, calmly, and to my sur 
 prise. " Also there are other modes of saving a bank 
 rupt property. I did not bring on this discussion, 
 and I am far from desiring to annoy you, Mr. Crofter. 
 But the case of innocent people thus ruined does ap 
 peal to me. The many suffer. One man, or a syndi 
 cate, becomes rich. It seems hard." 
 
116 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " It is. But where does war leave the women and 
 children ? " 
 
 " At least we pension them," said St. Clair. 
 
 I saw Crofter s face set in stern anger. " Then get 
 all the fools pensioned. The men who kill don t pay 
 the bill. Some other million of idiots does that. 
 What you overnice people call conscience never made 
 a great country. It s men that are like glaciers do 
 that, men that just move and move, sir, and crush 
 whatever comes in their way." 
 
 The wine had told at last. 
 
 During this astounding statement I saw that St. 
 Clair was becoming more and more moved. He threw 
 away his cigar and stood up before the fire. My social 
 chemistry seemed to me about to result in a disastrous 
 explosion. Clayborne sat sternly silent, not liking it, 
 but not seeing how to interfere ; perhaps not caring 
 greatly. 
 
 " You are frank," said Vincent, in his most quiet 
 way. " If I do not answer you it is because I cannot, 
 here. If I do not it is not because there is no 
 answer." 
 
 " Oh, but I sha n t mind it." 
 
 " Possibly not, but I should." 
 
 " There is an answer. The answer," said St. Clair, 
 recklessly, as he rose to his feet, " is that there are 
 men of business who can conduct affairs with honor 
 and justice. The answer is that there are equitable 
 means of restoring wrecked roads. The consequences 
 for such hard-hearted wreckers as Lawton are the 
 contempt and disgust of gentlemen, yes, of every 
 honest man." 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 117 
 
 Clay borne was also standing. " St. Glair," he said, 
 "you forget you are in my house, and that you are 
 talking to a guest." 
 
 " Then why the devil do you insult your house with 
 a man like that ? Good night " j and he left the room 
 in angry haste. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Clayborne, turning to Crofter. 
 
 "Oh, you need not be sorry. I brought it on my 
 self, and I assure you, sir, I don t mind it. It s all 
 been in the papers dozens of times, the same kind of 
 thing. It does n t disturb me nowadays. I threaten 
 a little loss of advertisement, and down comes Mr. 
 Editor. One kind of man just slavers and excuses. 
 I am not that kind. I like the young man, too. I 
 had a mind to have him try his hand on a bust of me." 
 
 " He will no doubt be pleased," said Vincent, with 
 a glance of amusement at me. 
 
 Clayborne, delighted to be clear of an unpleasant 
 ness, added cautiously, " He is very busy just now." 
 
 "Well, I think I can make him see his way to find 
 time." 
 
 Upon this Vincent rose, and with a word or two as 
 to the address of St. Glair s studio, which Crofter had 
 asked for, they went out to the carriage. Here Crof 
 ter turned back. 
 
 " A word with you, Mr. Clayborne," he said. 
 
 " Certainly ; what is it ? " 
 
 " Write me what rates you want on your coal. I 
 shall accept them." 
 
 Clayborne was not well pleased. He was agreeably 
 considering the delights of a long battle with this 
 devouring octopus. 
 
118 DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " I shall be greedy/ 7 he said. 
 
 "No, you won t. Anyhow, I shall stand by my 
 word ; I never broke it in my life." 
 
 " Very good ; I will write to you." 
 
 In the carriage there was silence. At last Crofter 
 said abruptly : " Confound that young fellow ! He s 
 an interesting fool." 
 
 " Pardon me, he is my friend," said Vincent. 
 
 " Friend ! You are lucky. I have n t a friend in 
 the world. There are people who do what I want, 
 and people who won t until they have to." 
 
 Vincent remained silent. Then the other added : 
 " You and Clayborne are men of the world. Do you 
 really think as he does, now, honestly ? " 
 
 " With all my heart," said Vincent. 
 
 " Is that so ? That young fellow, he is impulsive, 
 kind of half woman ; but if well, darned if I see 
 how you run your business. Oh, here 7 s the train 
 ahead of time. That s risky. If he was on the Z. 
 and Q. he d hear news to-morrow." 
 
 The cars were nearly full, and, to Vincent s relief, 
 they were obliged to separate. 
 
 I myself spent the night at Holmwood, and early 
 next day I telegraphed St. Clair that he might expect 
 to see Crofter. I did not mention his errand. The 
 telegram lay a week on the sculptor s table with un 
 answered invitations and what he called " replicas " 
 of bills. Crofter, who had been hammered into hard 
 ened indifference to the opinions of men, appeared at 
 my house about ten the next day. 
 
 " Come to say good-by. Come over soon. I want 
 a little advice. I gave the whole business away 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FBIENDS 119 
 
 last night. I knew I M do it. You might have 
 heard" 
 
 " No ; Mr. Clayborne did express his regrets at " 
 
 " Oh, I did n t mind. I forgot St. Glair s address ; 
 let me have it." 
 
 I did so, and he left with me curiosity as to a queer 
 encounter. 
 
 It seems that he soon after appeared at St. Glair s 
 studio, and found him at work. 
 
 " Glad to see you," he said. 
 
 " Perhaps," said St. Glair, " I may as well antici 
 pate what I suppose you came here to say. If you 
 have come to get an apology, Mr. Crofter, it is not on 
 hand. If you feel insulted, I shall have much plea 
 sure in going with you to Montana. There we can 
 settle it in decent Western style." 
 
 " Guess my feelings ain t badly bruised." 
 
 "Indeed? I had hoped " 
 
 " Oh, drop that. I came to see you about a bust of 
 me. You may set your own price when you have 
 done the job. Will you do it? " 
 
 " Where is it to go I " 
 
 " In the big rotunda of the Z. and Q. station." 
 
 " Good ! I will do it if you can give me time. I 
 shall do it in my friend Stahl s studio in New York. 
 But I must have my own terms, and your word that 
 it shall go where you said." 
 
 " It will ; and the terms not over two thousand." 
 
 u It will be less." 
 
 "Well, not much. I don t care for cheap art. I 
 want to say a word. I was a little set up by your 
 friend s wine last night. I might have held my 
 
120 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 tongue about Lawton ; but that is not my way. We 
 both talked out our side of the question. That ends 
 it for me." 
 
 " Will next week suit you ? " said St. Clair. 
 
 " Yes," and Crofter went his way. 
 
 When, later, Crofter wrote to me that St. Clair was 
 to make a bust of his massive head, I was as much 
 amazed as my knowledge of St. Clair ever allowed me 
 to be. 
 
 When Vincent s wife and mine came to hear of the 
 after-dinner scene at Holm wood, Mrs. Vincent said : 
 " How very interesting ! I wish I could have heard 
 it." 
 
 Mrs. North considered it disgusting, but that St. 
 Clair was right. " I suppose," she added, " that you 
 call this a self-made man. I am glad that no one ever 
 heard of a self-made woman. And truly, when a man 
 ruins a lot of people and takes their bread, and retires 
 in safety to devour widows substance, does he really 
 never have a pang ? Why, Anne, that would kill me 
 or you." 
 
 " Yes, dear ; but we are you and I. I do not envy 
 the children of the robbers, Alice." 
 
 " No need to ; but a million is very explanatory, and 
 I am of opinion that even an indulgent conscience 
 can be self-bought. As to the children of these 
 wretches, do you fancy they ever think of their pa 
 rent as sinful ? " 
 
 " Probably not, dear." 
 
VIII 
 
 OR a while we heard no more of Crofter. 
 Time ran on and brought us to mid 
 winter. Miss Maywood had come to be 
 regarded as a part of our circle. Under 
 the tender and generally wise educational 
 influence of Anne Vincent, she had grown less shy, 
 but without loss of her charm of artless conversation. 
 It said much for the spiritual beauty of her face that 
 at last, for us at least, the less perfect framework of 
 the body was quite forgotten. 
 
 How St. Clair made his peace with the master of 
 Holmwood I do not know. I suspect that the big 
 scholar said he was much obliged to him, and that St. 
 Clair smiled sweetly, and said, " Was n t it jolly?" I 
 know also that Clayborne took no pains to conciliate 
 Crofter ; nevertheless, Xerxes stood firmly by his 
 word. 
 
 "And makes quite enough out of my coal," said 
 Clayborne. "I would much rather have fought it 
 out. Now he thinks he has obliged me. Blank 
 him ! " 
 
 This was said on one of our precious Sunday nights 
 at Vincent s. My wife and I came early. On great 
 occasions the room was apt to be rearranged, as I have 
 said before, to suit Mrs. Anne s view of the fitness of 
 things. Now, as always, there were flowers, but never 
 
 121 
 
122 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 in careless excess. A few perfect roses in a Spanish 
 vase were set on a table which was covered with a 
 square of dark-green and gold brocade. Here they 
 were allowed, as they opened into fullness of bloom, 
 to let fall their petals. These were removed each 
 morning until the last rose died. The leaves were 
 dropped into a Persian jar. Anne Vincent had many 
 such unusual ways, but none were stupid; and she 
 was free from such affectations as in their very nature 
 demand an audience. A low chair with a stool near 
 by was set close to the fire, and by this I knew that 
 Miss Maywood was coming. The girl was always 
 chilly, and was sensitive as to this as well as to other 
 peculiarities due to her delicate make. Mrs. Vincent 
 came to the doorway with the radiant look she always 
 had for friends. 
 
 "No, not that chair, Alice. That is SibyPs. Let 
 us have a little mild gossip before the rest come. Do 
 you know that I got out of Fred only last night a 
 really full account of that scene between Mr. St. Clair 
 and the great Western man? I must see that ani 
 mal." 
 
 " Owen told me the next night/ said my wife. " He 
 was absent the day after the dinner. He woke me up 
 to teU me." 
 
 " I wish you would educate Fred Vincent, my dear. 
 He is painfully, inconsiderately secretive. He is a 
 miser of secrets. Really, the evolutionary education 
 of the husband is well, I have given it up." 
 
 " I never tried it," said Alice. 
 
 " You mean it is useless ? " 
 
 "No, no. He does not need it. As to secrets, he 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 123 
 
 cannot keep them ; he forgets, and out they come. As 
 to professional matters, he is simply dumb ; and, really, 
 he must know so many queer stories." 
 
 " Apropos of queer stories, Dr. North," she was 
 apt at times, though not frequently, to call me Owen, 
 but rarely when my wife was present, " Fred tells 
 me that St. Clair is actually making a bust of the 
 Western bear. After that scene it does appear in 
 credible." 
 
 " And yet it is true." 
 
 "Then," said my wife, "there is something about 
 the matter that is unexplained. It is not like Victor. 
 Let us ask him. Ah, here they are, all of them." 
 
 As she spoke, Clayborne and Sibyl came in. 
 
 "Shall it be around the fire?" said the hostess. 
 " There, Sibyl ; and here is my husband. I have 
 said I am at home to no one else this evening." 
 
 " That is a privilege and a necessity of the higher 
 life," said Clayborne, in his serious way. " As you 
 go down the social ladder toward cave life, somewhere 
 the power to exclude your fellows ceases." 
 
 " A comparative study of manners and mere social 
 customs would be worth attempting." This was Vin 
 cent who spoke. " Even to limit it to table ways 
 would be of interest from a bone gnawed in a cave- 
 corner to the evolution of one of Mrs. North s lit 
 tle dinners, which fill my wife with envy, and me 
 with a sense of having eaten and said many good 
 things." 
 
 My wife rose and made him a curtsey. 
 
 " All my earthly ambitions are fulfilled," she said. 
 
 " Fred," said Anne Vincent, " the compliment was 
 
124 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 neat, elaborate, and has an air of preparation. I 
 could better it." 
 
 " Then do, Madam Cynic." 
 
 Anne blew a kiss from her finger-tips to Alice. 
 
 " We know, dear," she said. 
 
 " Yes, we know," said Alice. 
 
 Now, what did they know? Clayborne regarded 
 them as one does children. He had a pitiless dis 
 respect for the mental powers of women, saying that 
 they had intelligence, but not intellect. He disliked 
 these pretty levities cast on to the tide of graver talk, 
 and was then given to falling silent or to thundering 
 out a brief protest. At times, as on this occasion, he 
 fell back upon something previously said, and, using 
 it as a text, took possession of the talk. 
 
 " You were speaking about a treatise on manners, 
 Vincent. There are many books on manners. l La 
 Vie Privee, by Alfred Franklin, is worth reading ; 
 but, above all, FurnivalPs collection is admirable. 
 You will find amusing * The Manners of Babees : A 
 Lytyl Reporte of how Young People should Behave. 7 
 The Booke of Demeanour/ too, and How to Eat at 
 Table/ show how much attention our remote ances 
 tors gave to these matters. Some of the rules are 
 queer enough, and hardly to be quoted. By the way, 
 North, you will find Vaughan s fifteen directions as to 
 how to preserve health quite sensible." 
 
 I said I did not know them, and my wife said to 
 Clayborne : " You have only given us a mere state 
 ment as to the contents of a rare book. Usually you 
 are more liberal." 
 
 Clayborne smiled grimly. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 125 
 
 "I will lend it to you I mean FurnivalPs book. 
 It has some fine poetry. Here, for example, of neez- 
 ing/ that is, sneezing : 
 
 If them by force doe chance to neeze, 
 
 Then backwards turne away 
 From presence of the companie 
 
 Wherever thou art to stay; 
 
 and of yawning : 
 
 To gape in such unseemly sort, 
 
 With ugly gaping mouth, 
 Is like an image pictured 
 
 A blowing from the south, 
 
 Which to avoid, etc., 
 
 and so on." 
 
 " But what does that mean ? " asked Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " My dear lady, who knows ? Ask Victor. It is of 
 the essence of poetry to make the easy hard to under 
 stand." 
 
 We discussed this comparison in vain. Then, at 
 last, I saw Clayborne sit up and lift his great head. 
 I made haste to talk of some trivial matter, in dread 
 lest he should get off to the manners of ancient Baby 
 lon. We escaped the lecture, and presently, turning 
 away, he fell upon the books which were lying on 
 Anne Vincent s table. He tried first a volume of 
 Blanco White s poems. This he gave up promptly. 
 Next he took up the " In Memoriam." He abhorred 
 modern verse and would not look at it, but now 
 something caught and held him. As St. Clair said, a 
 
126 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 book which attracted him was, for Clayborne, what 
 La Trappe was to its inmates. He became dead- 
 dumb to the outer world. This time he was in the 
 overmastering possession of genius, Our talk went 
 on unheard and unheeded. It was of the evolution 
 of the modern dinner. 
 
 " When I was a little boy/ said Vincent, " the assis 
 tant bishop of one of the Southern States was staying 
 at my father s house for the first time. I remember his 
 asking the servant to take away his silver fork and 
 to fetch him a real fork. He was comforted with a 
 two-pronged iron fork, such as was then used by 
 servants." 
 
 " I remember, Vincent," said I, " a story your father 
 told me of this same bishop. He came upon a certain 
 
 Colonel L leaning against a snake-fence, very 
 
 drunk. He said : * Colonel, do you never think of 
 what will become of your soul in another world ? 
 
 " The colonel said : < I do often. That s aU right/ 
 
 " What ! and you constantly drunk ? 
 
 " Then said the colonel : Where is a man s soul, 
 bishop, where ? Is n t it in his head ? 
 
 " The bishop was a little puzzled. He said he sup 
 posed it was. The admission was unfortunate. The 
 colonel said : i Then it s all right. I never am drunk 
 in the head. It is always my legs. That is what is the 
 matter now. Soul s all right. " 
 
 On being appealed to as to the possibility of sec 
 tional drunkenness, I said I had known men who 
 were always drunk in the legs, and others who, when 
 in liquor, were more drunk on one side of the body 
 than on the other. Presently we went back to the 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 127 
 
 question of manners and to the customs of our own 
 young days. 
 
 " Those were simpler," said I. " We have changed, 
 very greatly changed. I can recall seeing the ac 
 count with our baker kept on wooden tallies which 
 were laid together and notched with a file for each 
 loaf. The baker kept one and we the other. I re 
 member, too, how busy the house-mother was kept 
 when preserves and pickles were home-made, and the 
 sugar-loaves had to be split with a knife and mallet." 
 
 " I am thankful we are better off," said my wife. 
 " One has time to read and to think." 
 
 " They, too, found time for both," said Vincent. 
 
 "And did not desire to be doctors," added Alice, 
 slyly. 
 
 " I do not think I should like to have a woman 
 doctor," said Sibyl. 
 
 "Why not?" Tasked. 
 
 " Oh, I should never obey her never ; why, I could 
 not say. I should have no confidence." 
 
 " What you say is due altogether," said Mrs. Vin 
 cent, "to our want of primary education. When 
 women are early and sufficiently trained and can 
 compete with men even in athletics, they will have 
 the full confidence of their own sex." 
 
 "Foot-ball between two female colleges would 
 draw," said I. 
 
 Our dear Mrs. Vincent had, in fact, a very moder 
 ate estimate of the fitness of her own sex to do cer 
 tain things. When, from some theoretic altitude, 
 she threatened to have a woman for her physician, 
 Vincent smiled, and said : " Have her young and 
 
128 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 handsome, Anne, and we will divide her medical 
 cares." 
 
 Now my wife began to tell us of the great univer 
 sity for women to be organized on a vast scale, with 
 schools of medicine, theology, law, navigation, and 
 engineering. 
 
 " I have one fear," said Anne Vincent, ever prone 
 to lapse into common sense. " Young women will 
 go to their colleges, and live the vie de gar$on, during 
 four years. Some will become teachers and what 
 not. The rest will go back untrained for domestic 
 life, and soon become discontented with the dull rou 
 tine of home duties. Is not that likely ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said. "It is so likely that it happens. 
 Women should be highly educated. That is well. 
 But women, unlike men, have by nature a profession. 
 At the formative time of life they are to be taught to 
 forget it. For this alone the college gives no train 
 ing. Except for those who are to support themselves, 
 college life will be merely a perilous episode. It is 
 craved by too many, in this day of unrest, for its in 
 dependence. What college trains for the life of wife 
 and mother ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Vincent, "wife and" after a 
 brief, scarce noticeable pause "mother." 
 
 I saw the frail form of Sibyl turn. The large, 
 tender eyes regarded Anne Vincent for a moment, 
 and she repeated, almost in a whisper, "Wife and 
 mother." Then, turning again, she stared at the fire ; 
 but presently, with courage I should scarce have 
 expected, she said : " I have been through college. 
 You are quite correct. It does unfit many for life at 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 129 
 
 home. Mr. Clayborne was good enough to dictate 
 what I should study, and, as I have no home life, 
 what I got only contributes to make me the more 
 able to be well more contented." 
 
 " Why not teach domestic economy scientifically ? " 
 said my wife, quickly. "Why not group the girls 
 in small households and ask them to be in turn 
 housekeepers ? It shall be done in our university for 
 women." 
 
 "Ah," said Anne Vincent, "here is Mr. St. Clair. 
 Good evening. We want to hear about that bust of 
 Mr. Crofter." 
 
 " Oh, that bust ; it is nearly done." 
 
 " How could you ? " said my wife. 
 
 " Ask Owen," he replied, " how he could set that 
 man on his feet and give him back health and energy 
 to ruin more unlucky men. My crime is a small 
 one." 
 
 " My answer would be easy," said I. 
 
 "And mine as easy," said St. Clair. "Why do 
 men describe rascals in books ? " 
 
 " But they make the rascality plain, and the man 
 is drawn so as to be an example j and usually he has 
 in the book an unpleasant ending. He is punished." 
 
 " Yes j that is the fault of most books," said Vin 
 cent. " Here is this man, gloriously prosperous. 
 Who ever tells him to-day that he is a thief and 
 should be picking oakum in a cell ? " 
 
 "You did, in your way," said St. Clair. 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Yes. He told me he guessed folks out West could 
 speak out, but that you and I were worse. We had 
 
130 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 some queer talks. He is n t bad through and through. 
 I should really like to know one entire out-and-out 
 rascal. The bust will be here next week. Come and 
 see it. I have refused to show it to him until it is 
 quite done. I want your opinion." 
 
 Miss Maywood, who had been watching his ani 
 mated face with evident satisfaction, said : " I see 
 that you have done him justice, the higher justice." 
 
 St. Clair nodded. I have." 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed of yourself to serve 
 such a man at all," said Mrs. Vincent. " What can 
 compensate you for so degrading a task ? How you 
 men could dine with him is to me amazing. If you 
 at least spoke your honest mind to him, Frederick 
 Vincent, I am glad you did not tell me." And with 
 that she got up and touched Vincent on the shoulder, 
 a sort of approving accolade. 
 
 It was unlike her. She was demonstrative to her 
 friends, but very conventionally undemonstrative to 
 the man she adored. My wife smiled at me. 
 
 " When you see my bust," cried St. Clair, " I shall 
 have my reward." 
 
 " I should like to hang him ! " said my wife, with 
 ferocity. 
 
 " I have executed the bust/ said St. Clair, laughing. 
 " Oh, come and see it." 
 
 " And you will be paid, I presume ? " said Mrs. Vin 
 cent, scornfully, as she shut up her fan with decisive 
 abruptness. 
 
 " I will give every cent I shall make by it to those 
 horrid orphans you feed." 
 
 " Will you? You are forgiven." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 131 
 
 " The orphans will starve," said Miss Maywood. 
 
 " Thank you. I am glad that some one under 
 stands me," said the sculptor. "You are all all the 
 rest of you pretty dull of comprehension to-night. 
 May we smoke, Madam Vincent ? " 
 
 Now and then this was allowed in her drawing- 
 room, a rare privilege. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " because you told that man the 
 truth ; and Fred, for the same good reason ; and Mr. 
 Clayborne, because no corner of condemnation is big 
 enough to hold him. Get the cigars, Fred. The 
 room will be uninhabitable to-morrow." 
 
 As the men rose to light their cigars, St. Clair 
 slipped into a chair beside Clayborne, and was thus 
 opposite to Sibyl. He fell into such unembarrassed 
 study of her face as few men could have been guilty of. 
 
 The talk, agreeably punctuated by need to keep 
 the cigars alight, fell into mild ways, in which St. 
 Clair and Sibyl took no part. The secretary sat look 
 ing at the fire. The poet scarcely took his eyes from 
 study of her face. At last, turning, he looked with 
 curiosity over Clayborne s broad shoulder. 
 
 " By George ! " he exclaimed. " He is reading l In 
 Memoriam. " 
 
 The gay chat ceased. 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 "Why not?" said the scholar, laying the open 
 book on his knee. 
 
 "Why not?" cried St. Clair, overjoyed at the 
 chance to twit the historian. " Because you have not 
 spoken for a half -hour, and yet the book was written 
 since 1600 A.D." 
 
132 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "There is stuff in it," said Clayborne, calmly. 
 " Sibyl has been imploring me to read it. I chanced 
 upon it just now. It is quite readable." 
 
 He was like an apologetic child. St. Clair laughed. 
 " Quite readable ! " 
 
 " My cousin is terribly particular as to what I 
 read/ said Miss May wood. " Mr. St. Clair brought 
 me the book a week ago, and my cousin said I might 
 read it, but that he never had and never would. And 
 now is n t it delightful to see him caught ? She had 
 no fear of the scholar, and looked at him tenderly as 
 she spoke. 
 
 " My dear child," said Mrs. Vincent, " is it true you 
 yourself have only just of late been allowed to read 
 1 In Memoriam ? As to Mr. Clayborne, he is full 
 charged with prejudices. Tell me, dear, not if you 
 like it, but how you like it." 
 
 " Oh, I cannot. How can I criticize ? " 
 
 " Why not? " said St. Clair, eagerly. 
 
 She answered at once : "It would be personal." 
 
 " How personal ? I do not quite understand." 
 
 Usually St. Clair was sensitive to the tones, which 
 say so much more than the words, but sometimes he 
 lost this characteristic in the ardor of interesting 
 talk. 
 
 She was silent a moment, and then replied quietly : 
 "It was very long ago but I lost in turn within 
 a year, father, mother, and brother. How can I talk 
 of what is the very handbook of sorrow ? " 
 
 "I see, dear," said my wife. " There are verses in 
 that book I dare not read aloud. I would rather talk 
 of something else," 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FKIENDS 133 
 
 " No," said Miss May wood, seeing through this little 
 ruse, " no ; you are very good, but now I do want to 
 say something. Mr. Tennyson speaks of a friend s 
 death. He must have loved him well j but it seems 
 to me too elaborate ; I cannot find the right word." 
 
 "It was written in portions, at long intervals/ 
 said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " And no doubt in many moods," added St. Clair. 
 
 "I did not know that. It explains a good deal. 
 But, indeed indeed, it wants something." 
 
 There was that in the girl s voice which made me 
 regard her with a certain anxiety. I tried to turn the 
 talk, saying: "Yes, it does lack unity. But it is 
 many poems, not merely one, that is what makes it 
 so interesting, and of course it is not all upon an 
 equally high level. You know some one has said that 
 there is no long poem. It is true. The long poems 
 are really jewels of poetry in settings of mere verse. 
 There must be in all long rhythmical utterances more 
 or less of what we anatomists call connective tissue 
 the body stuff, the mortar which binds all parts 
 together." 
 
 Sibyl was not in a mood to be thus lightly turned 
 aside. 
 
 "Yes, yes," she returned; "but I did not, I could 
 not, criticize this book as to its technical values. I 
 said I was speaking from the personal point of view." 
 
 " Well ? " I queried. 
 
 She was for some reason, or moved by some deci 
 sive impulse, eager to speak her mind. 
 
 " You will think me very silly, I fear, but I miss in 
 this great book the sorrow which can only be for 
 10 
 
134 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 some one of a household, some one of our own blood 
 a mother, a child. I do not feel in this verse the 
 agony of loss, the death which is many deaths in one, 
 the funeral of countless hopes, of sweet expectations, 
 of oh, of many things. Above all" and as she 
 paused I hoped that she would not go on. She drew 
 a long breath and continued : " I miss oh, above all 
 else the sorrow for another s grief, and and the 
 sorrow those have who, seeing their own death 
 near upon them, grieve for those they leave, with 
 living power to weep. I remember the sorrow I 
 had for my mother s grief when my brother died. 
 I miss the not unpleasing sense of the nearness 
 of death which such loss brings to those who 
 still live j I miss that strange grief which comes be 
 cause of inability to recall the dear face. This po 
 etry seems to me to tell of oh, I want a word of 
 a far-away sorrow. It is noble and uplifting, yes, 
 and helpful. I go with him, after him, but somehow 
 he has not hold of my hand. There, I have had my 
 foolish say." 
 
 I saw the great scholar s look of wonder as she 
 went on with this burst of hurried speech. As she 
 spoke, the tremor I had noticed disappeared from her 
 voice. Her uplifted face was very beautiful. 
 
 " No doubt, dear, you are right," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 " You have put the case as against Tennyson admi 
 rably well. But you expect more than he meant to 
 give." 
 
 " I do not know," said St. Clair ; " I do not know. 
 I lost all who would have been dear before I knew 
 what tears were. There is another great poem of 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 135 
 
 many forms of grief. It is that sarcophagus at Con 
 stantinople, Les Pleureuses. We talked of it some 
 time ago. Not the happiest can see it and fail to feel 
 this changeless grief/ 
 
 " Oh, but I should like to see it," cried Sibyl, and 
 again her voice was the voice of unwept tears. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent was quick to note it, and rose, say 
 ing : "I have the photographs somewhere. Come, 
 help me to look for them, my dear." ^ 
 
 " I have them at my studio," said St. Clair. " You 
 lent them to me last week." 
 
 I did not wonder at the glance of exasperation my 
 good Alice cast on the thoughtless poet. Mrs. Vin 
 cent s interference came too late. Sibyl rose at her 
 call, but suddenly burst into tears, and then laughing 
 hysterically, cried : " Oh, excuse me. I I am so 
 foolish. I" and she dropped into a chair and looked 
 about her with large, wondering eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent said, as she knelt beside her : " You 
 look pale, dear. It is the smoke." 
 
 "I am all right now, Mrs. Vincent. It is nothing." 
 
 We, the men, were a little embarrassed, and Clay- 
 borne whispered sternly to St. Clair : " What a fool 
 you are ! Don t answer me ! " And he did not. 
 
 " Ring for tea, Fred," said his wife, " and do you 
 men go and smoke in the library. I knew the to 
 bacco would be intolerable here." 
 
 We went like forth-driven sheep, and had our tea 
 sent to us like naughty children. 
 
 When, thus exiled, we had settled down in the li 
 brary, no word was said of Miss Maywood s emotional 
 disaster. Vincent spoke of an interesting case of a 
 
136 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 forged will; Clayborne discussed, rather heavily, a 
 book on Aztec hieroglyphics ; and St. Glair fluttered 
 over the conversation like an uninterested ephemerid. 
 At last Vincent asked the scholar why he had invited 
 Crofter to dine. 
 
 " I asked him as I would have asked Caesar Borgia." 
 
 " Or Mephistopheles," added St. Clair. 
 
 "Out of pure curiosity, then?" said Vincent. 
 " What a -mess we made of it ! " 
 
 " We did I did," said St. Clair. " I am glad I 
 did. He s a queer specimen, and for cool willingness 
 of frank statement beats anything I have ever seen. 
 He talked steadily at times while sitting to me, and 
 discussed all of you as if he felt bound to enlighten 
 me. It was fine, I assure you." 
 
 a Well, and what did he say ? " asked Vincent. 
 " The opinion of a large-brained outlaw as to his 
 moral betters might be curious." 
 
 " He thought Clayborne a man easily to be under 
 stood." 
 
 " Oh, confound the fellow ! Am I, indeed ? " 
 
 No man likes to have it supposed that he is easy to 
 see through. Why, I cannot say. 
 
 " He says he never saw a man like you, Vincent. 
 He put it in this fashion: Well, that man s the 
 calmest cuss I ever saw. ( Calm cuss is good.) 
 1 He s a clarif yin cuss. You can t muddle things for 
 him, and he does think quicker and truer than any 
 man I know. I 11 have him in my next bad case. 
 He s got one drawback. He is n t a man makes al 
 lowances. He s got useless fences round him. I 
 wonder, if he d been fetched up the way I was, if 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 137 
 
 he d have been like a little God Almighty about other 
 folks ways of gettin on? " 
 
 " Ah, perhaps not," said Vincent. " No doubt the 
 man has qualities that are good." 
 
 " He is generous," said St. Clair. " I hear that he 
 has been giving money freely to charities." 
 
 " No He is lavish. You remember our old prov 
 erb, A fool and other people s money are soon 
 parted ?" 
 
 " I remember it well. I think it was applied to me. 
 But this man is no fool." 
 
 " Certainly not," said Vincent. "He is merely 
 bribing opinion that he may get social place. Now 
 it is social legislation he is corrupting." 
 
 " Would you ever act for him ? " said I to Vincent. 
 
 "How can you ask? Even if his case were right 
 eous altogether I would not." 
 
 "He has declined," said Clayborne, "to give me 
 the pleasure of a contest over my coal-rates." 
 
 "That is sad," said Vincent. "Ah, I hear Mrs. 
 North, Owen. Do we dine with you, Clayborne, next 
 week?" 
 
 " Yes j and I have asked an old gentleman, Dr. 
 Randolph, to meet you." 
 
 " Oh, Randolph," said I. " He retired from active 
 work years ago. I shall be most glad to meet him 
 once more. He is full of talk about older days. Yes, 
 Alice, I m coming." 
 
IX 
 
 JEFORE we dined again with Clayborne 
 I had been to a distant Western city. 
 My errand was to consult in a difficult 
 case. I had been able, as it chanced, to 
 throw much light upon it, and with 
 reason to revive the failing hopes of the patient and 
 his friends. I returned in high good humor, because 
 of having honestly earned my fee, and because a com 
 fortable railway journey is always agreeable to me. 
 Nowhere do I think as fluently and with more sure 
 result than in a swift train. Here I feel secure from 
 invasion. I am guarded by the immense average of 
 silent reserve attained by the American. If, however, 
 I no longer crave solitary thought, and desire to talk, 
 in the smoking-car I am reasonably sure to find those 
 who will cordially respond. I drop into a seat near 
 some selected man, and in ten minutes he is telling 
 me his life-story. To converse about what a man 
 knows best is a certain way to please the man, and to 
 learn what he knows and what you may not. I regret 
 that I have kept no record of the many biographies 
 frankly given me in the long hours of travel. 
 
 This time I made a very entertaining capture. The 
 train was only half full, and in the luxurious easy- 
 chairs of the drawing-room smoker were not more 
 than half a dozen men. I looked about me and chose 
 
 138 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 139 
 
 as the comrade of my cigar a lean man with large 
 features. I have a prejudice in favor of large features. 
 I asked for a match. He gave me one without a word, 
 but made no sign of willingness to talk. Thanking 
 him, I said : " Once in a train in Georgia a man asked 
 me for a light. I did not offer the stump of my nearly 
 finished cigar, but, meaning to be more civil, handed 
 him my match-box. He returned it unused, and said : 
 * In my country, when you ask a man for a light, he 
 gives you his cigar if he is a gentleman. " 
 
 "And he said that?" returned my neighbor, sud 
 denly all alive. " I d like to hear what you said." 
 
 " I said : With pleasure ; but first let me light an 
 other cigar. This is almost out and would have been 
 useless. 7 He instantly replied : I beg your pardon, 
 sir. I did n t understand ; and we fell to chatting 
 about the great war." 
 
 After this little conversational lure my new com 
 panion accepted a cigar, and we slid into easy rela 
 tions. When he mentioned his business, I saw a 
 chance and expressed my desire to hear more of it. 
 From this he was readily led to talk of himself, and 
 slipped into telling me his own history. He had 
 worked on his father s farm in New York. He had 
 been a clerk in a village shop. He had been a book- 
 agent, and saved a little money. This was an every 
 day story. An American at thirty has no idea of 
 anchorage. He is open to do any one of a dozen 
 things. It is not the versatility that amazes me so 
 much as the power to apply variously a certain afflu 
 ence of energy. At thirty my man concluded to go 
 into business. He had invented, as he believed^ an 
 
140 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 important improvement on the threshing-machine. I 
 said: 
 
 " Were you always inventive as a boy 1 " 
 
 " Never until I was thirty. Then I chanced to see 
 a thresher break down, and, as I am always curious, 
 I looked into the animal s make, and seemed to see 
 what was needed to better the machine. Since then 
 I have made many inventions." 
 
 This did not surprise me. I knew a similar case. 
 These discoveries in middle life of unused capacities 
 are apt to be made in families the children of which, 
 as a rule, develop late. It was so of the case to which 
 I refer. 
 
 I was reminded, by what passed through my mind, 
 of a question once asked me by Vincent, as to how late 
 in life a man might hope to bring into use and train 
 hitherto little used or unused faculties. I said in reply 
 that such efforts were rare, that few old men were thus 
 given to novel forms of mental enterprise. I said 
 also that such cases had occurred. In fact, the brain 
 in those who grow old wholesomely does not seem to 
 age as does the rest of the human body, nor to feel 
 as distinctly as do the locomotive mechanisms the ex 
 asperating vetoes of time. As a rule, the highly cul 
 tivated brain is apt to outlast functionally that of the 
 mere day-laborer, and yet, after all, its prosperity de* 
 pends largely on the health of many distant organs. 
 But this I felt to be too broad a question for imme 
 diate consideration, and I began anew to pay atten 
 tion to the continued talk of my companion. He 
 went on : 
 
 " I took my idea to a workman and had it made up. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 141 
 
 Then I got a patent and asked a big firm to consider 
 it. They offered me a fair price for it. I said : No. 
 Make me a small partner, and let this machine be my 
 capital. I have two better ones in my head. 7 After 
 fussing a year they took my offer. That was ten years 
 ago. Now I am well up in the firm. We make all 
 kinds of agricultural machines, fruit-parers, butter- 
 stamps, cream-separators. Now and then I still travel 
 for the firm. I began that way. I was the man to 
 get up the lecture-traveler and the special-accom 
 plishment man." 
 
 " What ? " said I. " Explain a little." 
 
 "Well, you get a bright young college fellow. 
 You put him in the factory three months. Then you 
 make him get up the science of the things we make. 
 He fixes up a lot of illustrations and models, and goes 
 to a village in a good, well-to-do farming country. 
 There he sees the local editor, and advertises a free 
 lecture or two on farm science for everybody. The 
 lectures are interesting. If they are not, we drop him. 
 Next week comes our sample-man and takes orders. 
 I tell you it works." 
 
 " But the accomplishment traveler," said I. 
 
 " Oh, that >s fine ! At first I traveled myself for 
 the firm. I sold small household machines. I can 
 sing like a bird, and I can do the church music to 
 beat most men. So I used to get hold of the preach 
 ers and deacons of a Saturday. I always had letters 
 from our ministers. The firm saw to that. I would 
 sing hymns and songs to the children and the rest, 
 and get leave to sing during the collection the Sun 
 day after. I liked to do it, too, and don t you make 
 
142 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 any mistake about it. I am a member of the Metho 
 dist Church. It is n t all business. Next day I went 
 round with the machines. I know a man that travels 
 in shovels and hoes. His plan is to lead prayer-meet 
 ings. I pick out our travelers myself. I have a list. 
 See, now, here it is in my pocket-book. I tell you it 
 works. E. Jones, card tricks, sleight of hand ; Tomp- 
 kins, negro songs ; Walker, photographs the babies 
 no charge/ It works well in the West. There, too, 
 is the church-music department." 
 
 " Selling is a peculiar talent," said I. 
 
 " Yes. Some men can sell anybody anything. I 
 once sold a threshing-machine to a confectioner. I 
 could sell ice in Greenland, or hot-air furnaces in 
 Ashanti. I am going to Europe now. I want rest. 
 I ve got six weeks to see Italy, France, and England." 
 
 This is a fair statement of what a man, curious as 
 to his fellows, may pick up in travel. I once went to 
 Harrisburg and had to return during the night. The 
 train was crowded. At last, in the stifling, dimly 
 lighted smoking-car, I found a man asleep across two 
 seats. I awakened him, and saying I was sorry to 
 disturb him, sat down. 
 
 After a little he said, "Do you know Dr. Owen 
 North?" 
 
 Rather astonished, I said, " Yes." 
 
 " What kind of a man is he ? " 
 
 " Oh, a very good fellow." 
 
 " He is like all them high-up doctors, I guess. He 
 gets big fees. I want to know." 
 
 " No," said I. " That is always exaggerated. Why 
 do you ask ? " 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 143 
 
 "Well, I ve had a lot of doctors, and I ain t no 
 better, and now I have n t much money left." 
 
 Upon this my friend confided to me all his physical 
 woes in detail. We parted before daybreak. It was 
 too dark in the car for either of us to see plainly the 
 face of the other. 
 
 About ten next day the man entered my consult 
 ing-room. As I should not have known him, except 
 for a rather peculiar voice, I, too, remained unidenti 
 fied. I could not resist so comic an opportunity. 
 I said, looking at him : "Sit down. You have a pain 
 in your back." 
 
 " That s queer. I have." 
 
 " And you are blind in the left eye, and your di 
 gestion is very bad," and so I went on. 
 
 At last he said : " I never saw a doctor like you. 
 It scares a man, most. Can you cure me ? " 
 
 I said, "Yes," and wrote out my directions. It 
 was really a simple case. 
 
 When he produced a well-worn wallet I declined to 
 take a fee, and said: "I owe you for the seat, and 
 the good sleep I disturbed last night." 
 
 " Thunder ! I see. You were the man. But law ! 
 why did you give it away ? I d have sent you the 
 whole township." 
 
 I reached home from my Western trip just in time 
 to dress and, with my wife, to catch the train to the 
 station near Holmwood. A slight mishap to the en 
 gine delayed us, and we found the party at dinner. 
 I dropped into a vacant chair on Miss Maywood s left. 
 St. Clair was on her right Mrs. Vincent in the seat 
 next to me. Dr. Randolph, an old man, ruddy, vig- 
 
144 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 orous, and crowned with abundant gray locks, was 
 between Clayborne and my wife. The wine was 
 Gorton vieux, such as recalled to me my student 
 days, when on Sundays we dined at the Cafe Magny. 
 
 I had not seen the good doctor for many years. 
 The next day my wife described him neatly as " an 
 altogether wholesome-looking man with a valuable 
 smile." I asked what she meant, to which she 
 answered that, like Mrs. Vincent, he never laughed, 
 and that he had a look of antique gravity which 
 made you feel his rare smile a kindly compliment. 
 
 The talk was quiet, and, being hungry, I said little 
 until I caught up to the rest and felt I had suffi 
 ciently attended to my appetite. Then I spoke to 
 Miss May wood. 
 
 " Well," I said, " how goes the work ? " 
 
 " Oh, we have finished a long article on Professor 
 Edmundstone s book about the Northland sagas. 
 There are only fragments of him left ; but I did beg 
 him off from Mr. Clayborne s final chastisement." 
 
 " And books ? Are you still on a diet, and what ? 
 There are animal and vegetable books." 
 
 " I am reading aloud to the master Shakespeare s 
 historical plays. He says I read well. Is n t that 
 delightful ? " Her joy at this approval was beautiful 
 to see, as with some slight difficulty she half turned 
 toward me and added : " He thinks Shakespeare wrote 
 at times bits of poetry and then used them in his 
 plays. He says that some one has remarked upon 
 the improbability of Hamlet, the prince, having suf 
 fered from the proud man s contumely and especially 
 the insolence of office." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 145 
 
 " That is not very novel, and not up to Clayborne s 
 usual force; but Hamlet might have been, in his 
 melancholy sensitiveness, overstating, too, what such 
 men overfeel. He who wrote was a keen observer 
 of the world about him, and perhaps was himself a 
 sensitive man. I think of Hamlet as very feminine 
 in the ghost scene. He behaved as some women 
 might have done." 
 
 " Ah," she said seriously, " as I did that horrid 
 night. I was so ashamed." 
 
 " My dear Miss Sibyl, you had you have no reason 
 to be ashamed." 
 
 " Oh, but I have. Mr. Clayborne told me that I 
 must have more self-control. He is dreadfully out 
 spokenas if I did not know. I may talk to you, 
 may I not ? You are so good to me." 
 
 " Say what you please." 
 
 " I try not to give way, but oh, Dr. North, it is 
 hard sometimes not to give way. I love beautiful 
 things, and the woods and the country, and I cannot 
 even walk far. I get tired. I love children, and they 
 tire me. I am a disabled wreck of a woman ; and I 
 must go on and on. I never talked to any one in 
 this way. Please to excuse me. Mr. Clayborne says 
 to bewail what cannot be bettered is to feed calamity 
 with attention, and that I have what the healthy 
 should envy. Have I ? " 
 
 " Yes, in large measure." 
 
 " Mr. St. Clair says I have a beautiful face." 
 
 "He said that?" 
 
 "Yes. He seems to say whatever comes upper 
 most in his mind." 
 
146 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " He said what is true, but he should not have said 
 it." 
 
 " I suppose not/ she murmured sadly. " It does 
 no good. I mean I" 
 
 Fortunately, at this moment Vincent asked me a 
 question, and St. Clair said a word to Miss Maywood 
 as to his vase. 
 
 When, being in a way troubled, I mentioned this 
 talk to my wife, she said : " Some one must speak to 
 St. Clair. You know that any form of personal 
 beauty makes the man utterly regardless of everything 
 else. It becomes worship. Then he finds a new idol, 
 and so it goes on." 
 
 " I see we are going to have mischief, Alice. I have 
 already talked this over with Anne Vincent, but that 
 was a good while ago." 
 
 " The man has for some women power to fascinate. 
 He does not know it. He does not mean to do harm. 
 He was devoted for a month to that idiot Dorothy 
 Summers because she has beautiful hands. At last 
 she lost her head, and would never wear gloves. 
 Meanwhile all the heart she has was lost, and after 
 that hysterics. Owen North, you may smile but it 
 is really fascination." 
 
 " That is, dear, inexplicable attractiveness." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 All this was after we were at home. 
 
 The table party soon followed Clayborne into the 
 library. 
 
 " I have set out," he said, " a little side feast for my 
 friend Randolph. Come here, doctor." We gathered 
 around them. " Here is Raleigh s copy of Tasso. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 147 
 
 See < W. Ralegh writ clear across the title-page. You 
 know how much I like books with personal associ 
 ations." 
 
 " It brings Raleigh very near," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 " It was printed in Ferrara, I see, in 1583." 
 
 "When did Raleigh write in it?" I asked. "It 
 opens stiffly, as if unused this long while. But see 
 how strong the binding is. Book-clothes were meant 
 to last in those days." 
 
 "Did he leave any other mark upon it?" asked 
 Vincent. 
 
 "No 5 not a line. Yet it was then common to 
 make marginal comments. My black-letter Chaucer 
 is full of them." 
 
 Sibyl took the little book reverently from Mrs. 
 Vincent s hand, saying: "Was it in the Tower he 
 read it?" 
 
 I saw the girl furtively kiss the little vellum-bound 
 volume as she took it away to replace it on the shelf. 
 
 "Here, St. Clair," said Clayborne, "is a copy of 
 Pope in eight volumes. It belonged to Burns. His 
 name is in it in three places. His son, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Burns, gave it to an old friend of the poet. 
 Here, too, is this gentleman s memorandum. One 
 missing volume of the set he replaced by purchase of 
 a full set of the same edition. One autograph is 
 curious. Across the title-page of Volume IV. Burns 
 has written, Rt. Burns, Poet. The same description 
 of himself is also in another book, owned, I am told, 
 in Chicago." 
 
 " I fancy," said St. Clair, " that nowhere else has as 
 great a poet ventured to describe himself thus." 
 
148 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Is it," said my wife, " because they doubt, or are 
 they shy of assuming a great title, or is it because it 
 is not the custom ? " 
 
 St. Clair stood looking at the volume he held. 
 
 " The signature is slightly different from the other 
 two." 
 
 " Perhaps it was the barley brew," said I. 
 
 " For shame ! " said Clayborne. " Take it away, 
 Sibyl. Here is Sterne s copy of l Tristram Shandy, 
 with three autographs." 
 
 " I do not care for him or for his books," said Vin 
 cent. 
 
 " Oh, this is better. It is HowelPs Letters/ with 
 Walpole s book-plate, and later it belonged to Thack 
 eray. I may have shown you this before." 
 
 " Delightful gossip it is ! Imagine a fellow keeping 
 copies of his own letters for publication. It was once 
 a fashion." 
 
 " The book interested me," said I, " because in it he 
 relates how, having a rheum, he consulted the great 
 William Harvey. He tells where he had for drink on 
 the Continent a fine beverage, caughey. He, too, had 
 his turn in the Tower." 
 
 " I have no fancy for autographs," said Vincent, 
 "except to put in the books the man wrote. It is 
 pleasant to pick up Ruskin or Byron and have a 
 letter drop out. It is like a personal welcome. By 
 the way, Clayborne, you must have many letters of 
 value." 
 
 " I burn them." 
 
 " Wise man," said Dr. Randolph. 
 
 " I dislike to burn even a note," said St. Clair. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 149 
 
 " You do not even read them ? " 
 
 " No. It saves a deal of bother." 
 
 " I am glad," said Randolph, " that my ancestors 
 kept their letters. I am now reading them, and with 
 interest, too. I am pleased to say they were all 
 Tories." 
 
 "Like yourself," said Clayborne. 
 
 "Yes. I regret our separation from Great Brit 
 ain. Our government is a sad failure, and always 
 has been." 
 
 The doctor of the bright blue eyes and pleasant 
 face was as complete a pessimist as I ever knew. He 
 called himself a Quaker, and when I so describe him 
 I mean that, although not a member of meeting, he 
 still attended the service of orthodox Friends, and 
 spoke coldly of Hicksites as " Separatists." He com 
 monly used Friends language, but always correctly. 
 Before the Civil War he had been in close relation to 
 Friends. When the flag was lowered at Fort Sum- 
 ter he gave up his practice, went away quietly, and, 
 although no longer a young man, became an assistant 
 surgeon. On one occasion he was near a battery 
 when all its officers were disabled. He took com 
 mand, and, although twice wounded, brought the 
 guns out of a position of great danger when they had 
 come near to being taken. Upon his return on sick- 
 leave, he was waited upon by a committee of Friends, 
 who desired him to abandon his wicked ways. He 
 declared that he was only one of a few hundred thou 
 sand policemen required to prevent certain people 
 from taking Uncle Sam s property. As this did not 
 quite satisfy Friends, and he declined to show signs 
 
150 Dtt. NOBl H AND HIS FttfENDS 
 
 of penitence, he ceased to keep up his former connec 
 tion with their body. 
 
 When the good doctor thus stated his regret at the 
 disunion of the colonies and the mother-land, Vin 
 cent said : " It is delightful nowadays to hear a man 
 avow himself a Tory. I like inherited opinions. I 
 still like to call myself a Federalist." 
 
 "We are consistent," said Randolph. "My people 
 have always been loyal, long ago to the king, and of 
 late to their own country." 
 
 " That is prettily said," remarked my wife. " I 
 should certainly have been a Tory." 
 
 "I should like, doctor," returned Vincent, "to 
 argue the older question. But are you not practi 
 cally inconsistent? Why try to save this miserable 
 country, at cost, too, of time and of blood ? Was it 
 worth while ? " 
 
 The doctor hesitated. Then he said: "We are 
 here among friends. I thought, I still think, the 
 South right j but I stood by my State, as did Robert 
 Lee." 
 
 "I cannot understand that," said Vincent, with 
 more than usual fervor. "Nor, pardon me, can I 
 comprehend that fractional form of love of, shall we 
 say country ? which Owen North once labeled l State- 
 riotism. What does your State represent? What 
 ideas ? Can you describe its flag to-day ? The love 
 of a city I can comprehend, and that of a country, 
 but the other I cannot. As to being still a colony, 
 as to that being desirable, good heavens ! no colony 
 ever comes to anything, in letters, arms, or invention. 
 It has no individuality as a nation. Look at Canada, 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 151 
 
 older than we. What has she to show? Colonies 
 have no adult life. They are overgrown children. 
 They are simply imitative, and imitation implies 
 weakness." 
 
 "And what have we?" said Randolph. "We are 
 only a vast human average." 
 
 " If so, our average must be high enough to com 
 pete with the best of other lands, no matter if it be 
 in war, diplomacy, invention, or product of influen 
 tial ideas." 
 
 "And I," said Randolph, "should like to argue 
 that with thee; but one cannot get up a debating 
 society in Clayborne s house. I inherit my ideas, I 
 fear." 
 
 "No one inherits ideas," said Clayborne. "You 
 inherit a peculiar form of mental and moral structure 
 which makes easy of assimilation ideas sown in the 
 soil of childhood." 
 
 " T is a consoling doctrine," said St. Clair; "a 
 dreadful thing to have to wrestle with your ances 
 tors. But, really, the world is very illogical. When 
 I get in debt, Clayborne ought to select one of my 
 grandfathers and keep a little account against him, 
 chalked up on his tombstone, instead of abusing me." 
 
 " But what would be the use ? " said Sibyl. 
 
 The serious aspect of any statement was that which 
 usually addressed itself to this young woman. Mrs. 
 Vincent looked at her with suppressed amusement, 
 and then, as she caught my eye, with a glance of 
 swift-following sadness. It is one of the charms of 
 close friendship that we acquire sensitive apprehen- 
 siveness as to the unspoken thought of friends. Now 
 
152 BE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 both of us were asking ourselves who was responsible 
 in the past for all the sorrow of this crippled frame. 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed Sibyl, "if we could punish the 
 past ! " 
 
 St. Clair, who was in one of his wild moods, cried 
 out : " We can t even do that for ourselves, our own 
 past. We ought to have life reversed at eighty and 
 live it backward to extinction. Oh, then we should 
 catch it ! We should say, as we youthed to some age of 
 former indiscretion, Now I have you, my little man. 
 All my troubles began when you first stole apples. 
 What an example for my later years ! ; Whack ! 
 Whack ! Then one would ask, not how old are you, 
 but how young are you." 
 
 We laughed, except Sibyl, who was half puzzled, 
 and Clayborne, who disliked this sort of harmless 
 nonsense. For a moment he sat still, saying, 
 " l Youthed youthed St. Clair is past hope." Then 
 he quoted : " l See that thou art master of thyself. In 
 the day of consequences thou shalt not revile thy 
 father, since he, too, may have suffered for the sins 
 of his father ; and of all who are Allah is the Father, 
 and what at last shalt thou say of him ? " 
 
 " I think," said St. Clair, " I should say that if the 
 child be the father of the man, he occasionally fails of 
 parental obligations, and that if Allah be the Father 
 of us all, I, at least, am of opinion 1 
 
 " Please not," said my wife, touching his arm with 
 her fan. " What has become of Dr. Randolph s Tory 
 ancestors ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Vincent, "I am sure we were 
 about to hear something of unusual interest." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 153 
 
 "I cheerfully accept my corner," said St. Glair. 
 "What is it, doctor?" 
 
 " Let me explain," said Clayborne. " Pray sit down, 
 all of you. Take a cigar, St. Clair, and keep quiet." 
 
 " I am still considering your quotation. I am di 
 gesting the vague," said the poet. 
 
 " Suicidal cannibal ! " cried Vincent, laughing. 
 " Go on, Dr. Randolph." 
 
 " But first a word," said Clayborne. " Last week 
 my neighbor read me parts of his maternal grand 
 mother s diary. It seemed to me well worth your 
 hearing. I asked him to read it to you to-night. 
 Now, then, Randolph." 
 
 "Thou must understand, Friend Clayborne," said 
 the doctor, " that it will seem disconnected. That I 
 cannot help. I have marked the portions which deal 
 with her personal life. The rest is receipts, memo 
 randa of public events, of deaths, births, and the like. 
 She was, when young, a good girl of emotional na 
 ture. She was born and brought up in a family of 
 Friends of the best type, who lived plainly and accu 
 mulated wealth. She had been early taught the valu 
 able lesson of self-discipline and absolute obedience. 
 This discipline she readily assimilated, having been, 
 I presume, a person unusually dependent for her 
 ideas and beliefs upon those with whom she lived. 
 Here is her miniature, painted when she was over 
 thirty. She was still a beauty. In later years the 
 possession of wealth made her, as is common, more 
 decisive." 
 
 "The face," said Mrs. Vincent, "is still one of 
 gentle submissiveness. It has a look of tender 
 
154 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 appeal, as if she felt the need of protection, of 
 guidance." 
 
 While the picture went from hand to hand Ran 
 dolph read aloud : " t My mother tells me to keep a 
 diary, that I may learn to write better, and to acquire 
 what she calls " a good style." I do not know precise 
 ly what that is. I must try. I am eighteen, and this 
 is the first day of Tenth month, 1777. My mother 
 says to begin with an account of our family. My 
 grandfather came over in the Welcome. He was the 
 third son of Jn. Austin. The Austins live in Thistle- 
 ways Hall. This is in Monmouthshire. Cyril Austin 
 is my father. He is a Friend, and that is the only 
 religion I know about. There are others. I have 
 wanted to see Christ Church and the Meeting-house 
 of the Swedes. This I may not. Here follows in a dif 
 ferent hand, l This is ill wrote, my child. Then she 
 continues : l My mother writes this, but I can do no 
 better. My father grieves for that the laws are broke 
 and the king ill used. . . . My sampler is done. 
 Next comes a receipt for pickling of walnuts, and so 
 it runs on. A year later it grows interesting. Was 
 much moved First day by the words of Hosea Morgan 
 concerning lightness of talk. Made good resolves. 
 Yesterday I was in the sitting-room darning socks 
 with mother. The maid said a young man was with 
 out on business. When he was fetched in he said his 
 name was Trent. He had been to see my father to 
 buy certain goods for the supplying of his slaves in 
 Maryland. He was not like our young men, for only 
 the most serious are let come to see us, that is, me. 
 I must not write that this young man was pleasant 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FEIENDS 155 
 
 to see. He was dressed very fine with silver buckles. 
 I will set down what he said, because I am led to re 
 cord things strange to me. He called mother " mad 
 am," and kept looking at me j but this is the world s 
 way, I suppose. I must get used to it. He said, 
 " Madam, Mr. Austin refuses to take the Congress 
 money. When I was plainly distressed because I 
 have little other, he was very kind, but said to take 
 it was against his conscience. If I were to go 
 around to Second Street to his house and see you, 
 madam, there might a way be opened. I thanked 
 him ; and now, whether that mysterious way open or 
 not, I am well rewarded for my faith." Then my 
 mother said, " Thou art pleasant to say so, but we 
 are plain people, and I do not fully understand thy 
 words. How art thou rewarded?" At this he 
 bowed, and said, "I have had the happiness to see 
 what I have heard of, a Quaker beauty " ; and then 
 this young man bowed to me. I did think my mother 
 was not much displeased, but, ah ! that I should be 
 told such a thing to my face. My mother said, " Thy 
 manners, young man, are forward. Leave the room, 
 Cyrilla. This is a matter of business." "How singu 
 lar ! " he said. " My own name is Cyril. Cyrilla ! " 
 Now, the way he said " Cyrilla " had a kind of sweet 
 lingering, as if he meant to say it long. I think he 
 liked it. I had to go. I did not want to go. The 
 rest my mother told me, and it was what often took 
 place. She said, " Friend Trent, when people are dis 
 tressed as thou must be, we have this way to help 
 such as are in real need. I will take thy continental 
 money and give thee for it the king s gold. The dis- 
 
156 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 count we must lose. Thy poor slaves shall not suffer." 
 " Madam/ he said, " it is true. I am sore pressed to 
 provide in these evil days when men have no loyalty. 
 I hoped to have been paid certain debts. Men are no 
 longer honest. I do frankly accept. I shall be able 
 to repay it at some future day." Thus he got his 
 money and went, and my father s conscience was set 
 at ease. I would I could know what is done with the 
 money of Congress ; for to buy with it is the same as 
 to take it. Perhaps my father hath one way to see 
 it, and my mother another. I dare not ask. 
 
 " On this the first of Second month, Fifth day, 
 78, I met the young man near to the State-house on 
 Fifth Street. He took off his hat, and might he es 
 cort me home ? I was so confused I could not speak. 
 It seemed that he was come on tobacco business. A 
 ship being to sail from Annapolis, he desired my 
 father to share in the venture, and would himself go 
 out to France, as was to be supposed, but truly to 
 England. 
 
 " Second month, twentieth ; Sixth day. Friend 
 Trent comes often to eat dinner and to sup, and by 
 chance we have met elsewhere. Oh, it must be wrong ! 
 
 " Fourth month, twelfth; Third day. I knew it 
 must come. I am unhappy. Cyril Trent hath asked 
 me of my father, and he will not hear to it. The 
 young man is of the Church of Rome. I may not 
 even see him again. But I did, this Fourth day, and 
 he asked me to go with him and be married, if my 
 father will have it or not. I cannot. It would be 
 wicked. But I love him. 
 
 "After this we hear no more of Cyril," said Ran- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 157 
 
 dolph. " I gather that he went to England, as did 
 many good loyalists, and no wonder. He is never 
 named again, until ten years later she writes: <I 
 shall never see Cyril Trent in this life. I must think 
 of it as a dream that can never be real. I do hear 
 that he hath gone to India. 
 
 " During these years we learn that her father and 
 mother die, and that her brother and she divide a 
 great estate. There are large gaps in her diary. We 
 find her, at last, a sad woman in England with the 
 Austins, who are glad to see the rich colonial cousin. 
 These people are, as she first says, papists, and later 
 Romish ; then at last she speaks of them as Catholics. 
 She has found a heart home in that church. But of 
 the lost lover there is no word. And now, when she 
 is thirty-two, she goes back to settle her affairs and 
 see her brother. This is 1791. Here I find written 
 simply: <I go home, whither business affairs call. 
 I dared not set down long ago that when Cyril Trent 
 went away he did tell my father that he should never 
 change (my mother used to look over my diary), but 
 now I am more free to write. My father answered : 
 "It is thus young men speak. Time will change 
 thee, 1 and thou wilt come to see that I am right. 
 Thou art of Rome ; we are of Friends. Hadst thou 
 been of us, none were more to my mind." Then I, 
 being in the back room, heard Cyril say, " I may 
 write?" and heard my father answer, "To me, if 
 there be occasion " j for he had declined Mr. Trent s 
 venture, which proved an ill one. A privateer took 
 the Nancy. After a year, my mother, seeing me 
 
 1 I do fear that he was right " (1791). 
 
158 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 pine, told me Mr. Trent had never wrote, and this 
 was when my father s partner, Jasper Morewood, had 
 leave to ask me in marriage, which he did many 
 times. I never liked him. I fear now I may lack 
 courage to tell my brother of my late return to the 
 church of our fathers, nor will he be pleased with my 
 dress. These things are to be endured with patience. 
 A month after I first came to England I asked of 
 some if Cyril were alive. None knew. Is he yet 
 alive ? He could not have cared for me. Sometimes 
 he is out of my mind for months, and then, as Mr. 
 Goldsmith did say to my cousin of a lady, u he comes 
 unasked and takes a seat in the best room of my 
 heart, and stays as he pleases. For," said Mr. Gold 
 smith, " some thoughts seem to step in thus from the 
 outside without so much as the ceremony of knock 
 ing." I thought it pretty. I wonder does he yet 
 live. Thrice did I write to Cyril ; but if my father 
 saw my letters and took them out of the letter-bag, I 
 know not. He had a right. Or if they ever reached 
 Cyril, he did not reply. I must have been in despair 
 to do such a thing. I should have wrote my brother 
 I had become a Catholic/ 
 
 "Of the brother we have no word. She settled 
 herself in a home, and found people hostile to her 
 and her creed, as was common in those days. A 
 year later she writes: Ninth month, tenth; Third 
 day ; (still using Quaker forms). 1 1 have had a great 
 shock. I was in Wilmington on First day. As we 
 have no church there, I walked in the forenoon. God 
 willed that I stayed to one side to let go by the 
 Friends who were coming forth from meeting. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 159 
 
 Among the last was Cyril. Although in the plain 
 dress of Friends, I knew him, and he me. He said, 
 " Cyrilla ! " and I could but gasp, " Cyril ! " I can 
 write no more/ 
 
 "A week later: t Cyril has had many disastrous 
 fortunes. At last, being poor, he took to the sea, and, 
 rising, became mate of a ship plying to Bristol in 
 England. There falling ill, the owner, a Friend, took 
 him to his house, where, abiding long in great weak 
 ness, he was moved by their kindness, and perhaps 
 because of weakened mind, to consider the cause of 
 so much goodness. Finding it in their religion, he 
 became a Friend. Again she says: And now he is 
 become what I was, and I am what he was. In a play 
 I saw in London, the unhappy lover saith: "If I 
 could be thou, and thou I, this thing would be other, 
 wise considered." He is I, or, I might say, being a 
 Quaker, he is as I was. But then it was my father 
 who did object, and not I. Mr. Addison once said to 
 my cousin : " The heart hath no creed. T is a pagan 
 and adores idols, but its litany is ever the same." ; 
 
 "A month later she writes: Second day. I saw 
 that Cyril, being poor, is yet too rich in pride to ask 
 me again. Now I know that he wrote often for two 
 years and had no reply from any, not even my 
 mother. I am sure my father had no hand in this 
 matter. He was of an open life and mind. It has 
 come to pass that I, who am rich, must consider his 
 pride/ She does not say how she considered it. We 
 may guess. 
 
 " Soon after I find : i We were married in St. Peter s 
 Church, on Pine Street. The priest of my own church 
 
160 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 would not unite us, and the meeting hath renounced 
 Cyril. Mr. Addison had reason. 
 
 " There is more of it, with distinct evidence of a 
 happy life, and the record of the birth of my mother, 
 Cyrilla Trent. 
 
 " I found in St. Peter s list of vestry the name of 
 Cyril Trent in 1794. In 1798 both died of yellow 
 fever, and lie buried in St. Peter s ground, on the side 
 near to Pine Street." 
 
 " Then," said my wife, " both compromised on the 
 church our church." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "They were people of easy religious virtue," said 
 St. Clair, " like me. I envy them the experience of 
 three forms of belief." 
 
 " Naughty boy ! " said Mrs. Vincent. " But who 
 stole the letters ? " 
 
 "Ah, there comes an interesting question," said 
 Randolph. " I forgot to tell thee that, in mentioning 
 them, she says : I blush to think who may have read 
 my lost letters and his, too/ " 
 
 " She may be blushing now at the thought of our 
 talk," said Sibyl, " if if people blush in that other 
 world." 
 
 " But, at least, we know she was happy," said my 
 wife. " She had the good fortune not to outlive the 
 man she loved. What of the letters ? " 
 
 " I have them here." 
 
 This greatly excited the women. 
 
 " Oh, let us see them ! " 
 
 "That you shall decide. My father succeeded 
 Cyrilla s brother in their India trade. On his death 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 161 
 
 I had to dispose of a huge mass of business papers. 
 These I burned, or most of them. I found a small 
 red-leather trunk labeled i Jasper More wood. 7 It was 
 locked. Let me add that this man was lost at sea in 
 1789. He left no heirs, and was found to be in debt. I 
 broke open the trunk. In it I found, lying open, the 
 much-amended draft of a letter to Cyril Trent. It 
 seemed to have been meant to be a letter from Cyrilla 
 to her lover, giving him up, and hinting cleverly of 
 another engagement. If Morewood used it to forge 
 a completer letter in her handwriting I do not know. 
 She does not speak of the matter. In any case, it is 
 strange that he kept the draft." 
 
 " Ah," said Vincent, " wiser folks have done this. 
 There are I have seen them drafts of most danger 
 ous letters, written during the Revolution or later. 
 At the foot of some of them the writer copies the 
 caution on the letter sent, i Burn this. " 
 
 " That is hard to comprehend," said Clayborne. " I 
 have seen the letters of which Vincent speaks, and 
 very queer they are. But go on, Randolph." 
 
 " I found, too, in the same box, three letters in Mr. 
 Trent s hand to Mr. Austin, and four to Cyrilla. The 
 three letters of Cyrilla to Trent were separately tied 
 up with faded ribbon. The letters to Mr. Austin had 
 been opened. Those I left at home. The seven 
 others are here four to Cyrilla, three from her to her 
 lover." 
 
 " Oh, do let us see them ! " said my wife. 
 
 " A moment ; they are sealed, all seven." 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed Sibyl, " he never read them ! How 
 strange ! " 
 
162 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " No ; he had not opened one of them. I mean 
 that Morewood had not opened them. Those ad 
 dressed to Mr. Austin he seems to have opened and 
 read." 
 
 " Ah," said Vincent, " that is still stranger. What 
 stops certain men on the ways of crime has always in 
 terested me. He could steal letters, perhaps forge 
 letters, but why not have read these others?" 
 
 I sat still, puzzling myself over this human 
 problem. 
 
 " Men are variously made," said my wife. " What 
 do you think, Sibyl ? " 
 
 " I think," she said, meaning her reply for my wife 
 alone "I think is n t it possible that Morewood so 
 cared for Cyrilla that he feared the hurt of reading 
 what Cyril or she might have said to each other ? " 
 
 I did not catch all of my wife s answer, but did 
 hear her say, " The letters to Cyrilla s father were 
 opened, so Dr. Randolph said." 
 
 " Yes ; that was different," said Sibyl. 
 
 " A queer business ! " exclaimed St. Glair. " Let us 
 hear them, doctor. Read them." 
 
 " I have never done so," said the doctor. " The 
 seals are still unbroken. Here they are." 
 
 As he spoke, he laid on the table seven letters. 
 They were yellow with age, a century old. Trent s 
 arms were on three, stamped in faded red wax. 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed Anne Vincent, " see, Fred, the 
 grains of sand still on the addresses of the letters 
 from Cyrilla ! " 
 
 The unopened letters invited comment. 
 
 " Shall we open and read them ? " said Randolph. 
 
BE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 163 
 
 " No," said Vincent ; " certainly not." 
 
 " Shall we read and not open them f " said St. Clair. 
 " I can tell what they wrote." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " cried Clayborne. 
 
 " Then let us vote," said St. Clair. He asked each 
 in turn, " Shall we open them ? " 
 
 " I am neutral," said Clayborne. " It is quite im 
 material." 
 
 All the rest said "No/ 7 until he came to Miss 
 Maywood. 
 
 " Burn them," she said. 
 
 " Burn them I But I want to see them," said St. 
 Clair. 
 
 " No, no. Cyrilla is waiting ; she is blushing," said 
 Sibyl. " Please to burn them. I feel as if I were 
 she." 
 
 " Thou art right," said Randolph. " Do with them 
 as thou wilt, Friend Sibyl." 
 
 Sibyl gathered the letters from the table, and rising 
 with her usual difficulty, amid entire silence, cast 
 them one by one into the fire. Then she stood 
 watching them as they burned. Something in her 
 attitude troubled my wife, who said, " What is it, 
 dear?" 
 
 " Nothing, only they moved like live things. Cy 
 rilla must have been uneasy. Now she thanks us." 
 With this Miss Maywood turned, and stood as if in 
 thought. It was an impressive little scene, and we 
 were still silent. Then she looked at St. Clair, who 
 was the first to stir, and added, " You should not 
 have wanted to see the letters." 
 
 " But I did." 
 
164 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Yes, that is a pity a pity." 
 
 She moved toward him as she spoke, emphasizing 
 her words with a deprecatory movement of uplifted 
 hands. And always, I may add, she used her arms 
 with distinctive grace. As she passed Mrs. Vincent, 
 she leaned over and whispered. 
 
 " Yes, dear," returned the woman addressed. " You 
 were; we all are all women should be. These men 
 would have opened them. Are you going to leave 
 us?" 
 
 " Yes, I am tired. I must go. I am sleeping here 
 to-night." 
 
 As she passed St. Clair, he said : " I can write Cy- 
 rilla s letters if you want them." 
 
 " I do not," said Sibyl, with decision. She stead 
 ied herself by touching the table, and, as we stood 
 up, said, " Good night ; good night, every one." She 
 was a little flushed and very delicately beautiful, as 
 she lingered, smiling, with large trustful eyes like 
 those of childhood. 
 
 After this we thanked the pessimistic doctor, and 
 soon went away. As we sat in the train, Vincent 
 said : " Men who think all things bad never act up to 
 their beliefs. The logical outcome of true pessimism 
 would be suicide. This man fought well, is a good 
 citizen, an untiring helper of his fellow-men." 
 
 " Did you see Miss Maywood," said I, " when she 
 swayed as she left us ? Clayborne gave her his arm. 
 She said so pleasantly, There is always help/ She 
 has the instinctive trust of a seeking tendril." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said my wife; and we lapsed into 
 silence. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 165 
 
 When this young woman next saw my wife, she 
 said : " Do you think Mr. St. Clair could write a let 
 ter of love to be like those we burned ? " 
 
 " Probably. He would do it well." 
 
 " I cannot imagine it. Nothing seems to me so re 
 mote as" 
 
 " As what, my dear ? " 
 
 " As well, I was thinking but here is Mary." 
 
N Wednesday Clayborne came to tell me 
 that we must take Sibyl and himself 
 for a week, because of plumbers in his 
 house. We were all well pleased, and 
 none more than Alice, for on this Satur 
 day there was to be a woman s convention in favor of 
 female suffrage. Delegates were expected from States 
 as remote as Florida and Montana, and many subjects 
 of interest were to be discussed besides the main ques 
 tion. My wife was always attracted by such refor 
 matory movements as were to end in fulfilling the 
 prophet s words : " The Lord hath created a new thing 
 in the earth, A woman shall compass a man." When 
 it came to putting in practice certain of these re 
 forms, she soon began to see so many difficulties that 
 her brief enthusiasm by degrees faded away. To the 
 ludicrous aspect of some of the changes advocated 
 she was, perhaps, even too sensitive. Her friend 
 Anne Vincent once said : " My dear, I hope I shall 
 never present myself to you as laughable. A jest to 
 you is what the sternest logic is to Mr. Clayborne." 
 This was certainly clever, but hardly true, and was 
 only half meant. Indeed, a good deal of Mrs. Vin 
 cent s brilliant talk at times needed the gentle exegesis 
 of friendly disbelief. 
 
 This especial Saturday was to be devoted to the Anti- 
 Dress League a title from which modesty seemed to 
 
 166 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 167 
 
 me to demand explanatory comment. My wife ex 
 plained that it was meant to advocate economy in 
 dress. When I said to Anne Vincent that I presumed 
 she would be the chairman, she replied coldly that she 
 herself was going out of pure curiosity j that as to 
 economy in dress among women, it was like disarma 
 ment among the nations : who would begin ? Then 
 my wife explained that she meant to oppose the whole 
 movement as being, in the event of success, cruel to 
 working-women. I did observe that, as an emphatic 
 example of their views, both ladies were equipped for 
 this occasion in a manner to excite the envy of the 
 economic many. 
 
 No reporters of either sex were to be present, which, 
 perhaps, was as well, for I heard that it was finally 
 considered wise to apply this money-saving measure 
 at first to the garments which are unseen. 
 
 There was to be some kind of feast in the evening, 
 and I was therefore left free to ask our usual party 
 of men to dine. To these I added Randolph and 
 Haro, an old army comrade. When I told Clay- 
 borne, he said: 
 
 " Of course that means endless, futile war talk." 
 
 As I could not deny it, I advised him to dine alone 
 and to attend a lecture by one of the Western lady 
 professors. My wife had hesitated between the dress- 
 reform dinner and this lecture. I was amused when 
 Clayborne took me gravely, and I had to look for the 
 program. " It is," I said, " on < The Tertiary Man. " 
 Then I did say that my wife, unlearned in geology, 
 had observed that up to this time she had been con 
 tent to consider him as Secondary. 
 
168 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 This was lost on Clayborne. He did not even stay 
 to examine it logically, but merely said : 
 
 "By the way, Haro knows about that confounded 
 road and your abominable friend. I shall stay and 
 dine here." 
 
 " Well, you are warned ; expect a camp-fire gossip." 
 
 We dined merrily, discussing the woman movement 
 and less serious matters. When we came to my 
 father s old Madeira, we fell upon the war, as Clay- 
 borne had predicted. It came about in this wise: 
 John Haro was a well-built man, with a red head, 
 now well mixed with gray. He was a railroad presi 
 dent, and a person of most efficient character. 
 Courageous, ready-witted, and resolute, he had an 
 enviable war record, and came out of the struggle a 
 brigadier, declining a higher brevet rank. As is 
 common among us, he was plain Mr. John Haro on 
 his card, and was rarely called by the title won on 
 the battle-fields of Virginia. I was one of the few 
 who still called him general, and yet not many men 
 in the world had seen more battles. When I spoke 
 of his disregard of a well-won title, Randolph re 
 marked that he, too, had almost forgotten that Haro 
 had ever had such a label. 
 
 Vincent observed that at the North, after the great 
 war, by popular consent, nobody under the rank of 
 major was addressed by his army title. He went on 
 to say that many men of much higher rank, like 
 Haro, never used their old titles. 
 
 Clayborne added that it was all true, especially of 
 the Northern States, and that although we were sup 
 posed in England to be fond of titles, we certainly did 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 169 
 
 not cling to them as retired officers of all grades do in 
 England, even men who have seen no more martial 
 service than that of an escort. 
 
 From titles the talk fell upon names and surnames. 
 Vincent quoted Addenda and Octopia as names which, 
 although used in fiction, were real appellations. Haro 
 said the drollest he knew of were given by an Irish 
 tutor who called his twins Gem and Mini. This, 
 oddly enough, had to be explained to Clayborne, who 
 admitted, as I never heard him do before, that he was 
 mind-blind to certain forms of the comic. St. Glair, 
 laughing, declared that he should be forgiven if he 
 could match Haro s illustration. Clayborne replied 
 promptly that the name of a once famous bishop of 
 London was, he thought, as remarkable. This man, he 
 said, was a poet, and wrote on Death. He advised St. 
 Clair to read it. Here Clayborne forgot the promised 
 name, and began to lecture on the limited jurisdiction 
 of the episcopate of London, which did not cover the 
 Temple Church or the Abbey. We were used to this, 
 and when we got him back to the starting-point he 
 told us that the bishop was called Belly Porteus. 
 His parents were Virginians, but if he were born in 
 that colony Clayborne did not know. We voted the 
 name matchless, and wondered at the parental cour 
 age, and whence it came. 
 
 Then Vincent, whose range of reading was wide 
 and often unusual, said quietly : 
 
 " May not you be mistaken in this name ? " 
 
 St. Clair said once that when Vincent was sure he 
 was apt to be perilously gentle. 
 
 Clayborne replied : " I quote from Walsh s l English 
 
170 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Poets/ that amazing collection of forgotten poet 
 asters." 
 
 " It is a misprint/ said Vincent. " It should be 
 Beilby. " 
 
 " Good heavens ! " ejaculated the scholar ; but 
 whether he exclaimed surprise at an inaccuracy or at 
 the oddness of the blunder I never learned. 
 
 Randolph then asked why certain names seemed 
 vulgar or were considered common. 
 
 "Question of usage/ said I, "if you mean Chris 
 tian names ; but much might be said of this matter. 
 Let us ask Clayborne to report on it." They agreed 
 to this, laughing, while Clayborne retired into the her 
 mitage of his own mind to turn over all the accumu 
 lations of memory on the subject we set before him. 
 
 Meanwhile Haro said: "There is a pretty story 
 about names which Mrs. North s mother told me. 
 
 " Lord E was calling on Mrs. K , and 
 
 chanced to remark that the names on the signs in 
 England showed how much of the good blood of the 
 old families had been scattered everywhere, but that 
 here he saw only common names on the signs. This 
 
 aroused the indignation of Mrs. K s daughter, 
 
 a girl of fifteen. i But/ she said, they do have 
 homely oh, really vulgar names in England. I saw 
 in the Peerage 
 
 " Mrs. K exclaimed in her sternest voice, l My 
 
 dear ! 
 
 " His Lordship, somewhat curious, and desirous to 
 be further informed, said, i Pray, my child, let us 
 hear. 
 
 " Upon this, the young lady, in no wise dismayed, 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 171 
 
 went on: In the Peerage I saw the name oh, 
 there are others as queer the name of Lady Cecilia 
 Buggins. Now, is n t that a vulgar name ? 
 
 "His Lordship said, Oh, quite remarkable ; and 
 Mrs. K promptly turned the talk into more pleas 
 ant ways, while the culprit was silenced by a frown 
 which might have been a survival of the mother s 
 memories of Lady Macbeth. When his Lordship had 
 
 gone Mrs. K said: Well, my dear, you have 
 
 covered yourself with glory. Lady Cecilia Buggins 
 is his Lordship s aunt. 
 
 " Then I am glad, said the young woman." 
 
 "Charmingly told, Haro," said Vincent; and, as 
 we made laughing comments, Clayborne, returning 
 to our world again, said to Haro : " Your own name 
 interests me. It is the Norman war-cry, Haro, 
 haro ! " 
 
 The general returned, smijing : " Yes, if it has not 
 a baser agricultural origin. I suppose some loud- 
 voiced ancestor may have howled l Haro louder than 
 the rest, and got it for a name." 
 
 "It was heard in battle later," said I, "when our 
 fellows hesitated at the Bloody Angle in the Wilder 
 ness, and a friend of mine called out, Come, boys ! 
 Your men cried out, Haro, Haro ! and they rushed 
 it. My friend Francis told me he heard it." 
 
 " It is true," said Haro, flushing a little at a splen 
 did memory. 
 
 " A little Smoke," I said, pushing toward him the 
 wine we call " Smoke Madeira," because of its singu 
 lar smoke-like bouquet. 
 
 "A great wine," said Vincent, "and a fine story. 
 
172 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Were not you caught after Antietam ? Tell us about 
 it, Haro. I have heard it only at second-hand." 
 
 " Certainly, if you would like." 
 
 I saw Clayborne light a cigar and fall back in his 
 chair, resigned to his fate. 
 
 Haro, who well knew our friend s peculiar ways* 
 said : " I shall make it mercifully brief. 
 
 " After McClellan allowed Lee to get away over the 
 Potomac, I was for a few days in charge of the intel 
 ligence department. We got no trustworthy news. 
 Jackson had shot two of our spies, which rather dis 
 couraged the rest. At last I saw the general, and 
 said I had resolved to go over and see what was 
 going on. He said this was not my business, and I, 
 that it was. I was then only a lieutenant-colonel. 
 I persisted, and at last I was told to do as seemed 
 best to me. 
 
 " Now, I am a bit of -a naturalist, and hunt bugs 
 and other vermin. I had then two pet rattlers which 
 I kept in a stout wicker basket. I had taken out 
 their fangs and poison-glands, wishing to see if then 
 they would lose immunity to their own venom. My 
 staff was never quite satisfied with my precautions. 
 One day I laid down on this basket a lighted cigar. 
 An aide came in for orders. I said, t Sit down. He 
 did, on the cigar. As he felt the fire, the snakes be 
 gan to rattle. The aide cried out, Great heavens, I 
 am bitten ! and fled to seek a surgeon. He was so 
 laughed at that he left the staff. That ; s incidental. 
 I got a linsey-woolsey outfit, two vials of beetles, and 
 my little basket of snakes. A Methodist clergyman, 
 who wanted to go South, went with me. We got 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 173 
 
 over the Potomac far up the river, and slipped through 
 the pickets after some adventures. I shook off my 
 preacher, and was a lost naturalist caught in the army 
 net. Fact is, I lived two days with the doctor of the 
 Fourth Georgia, who was in the same line. I was 
 talking bugs with the doctor in front of his tent, 
 when an old major of regulars stopped. You look 
 mighty much like that fellow Haro who was a plebe 
 at West Point when I was in command. This un 
 fortunate reminiscence was addressed to me. 
 
 " My doctor said, nonsense ; I was Professor Cyrus 
 Burton of Williams College, and I was trying to get 
 away North. My doctor assured him that he had 
 been promised a pass for me. The major insisted 
 that I should go with the doctor next day and clear 
 things up with the provost marshal. I said I would 
 go with the major at once. This bluff answered, es 
 pecially as he was rather in a hurry and had some 
 outpost duty. The doctor said for form s sake he 
 would go with me in person next day to get my pass, 
 but that I was all right. 
 
 " I had no least desire to visit that provost marshal. 
 I got away late that night to an old mill on the Poto 
 mac ; but as it was then near dawn, it was too bright 
 to risk the riverside guard and a swim. I hid all 
 day. No one was about. Next night at dusk I got 
 ready to leave, but just then I saw a score of men 
 with intrenching-tools coming to occupy my mill. I 
 was lost. I went up-stairs, and on the way let out 
 my snakes on the first landing. This was to give me 
 time. I ran up to the loft. The rattlers saved me. 
 My snakes held the fort for five minutes in a truly 
 
174 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 loyal fashion. They fortunately had no convictions 
 as to their being bankrupt in poison and harmless. 
 Accordingly, they rattled furiously on the dark stair 
 way and struck at every one who came near. There 
 was a tremendous row before my gallant outpost was 
 destroyed. They saved my neck. I got the time to 
 look hastily about me. I saw hanging up a dirty 
 United States cavalry jacket and a battered undress 
 cap. I put on both, and stuffed my wide-awake felt 
 hat and my coat into a flour-barrel. 
 
 " Well, they caught me, bugs and all, and I was 
 tried as a spy. Luckily, I was miles away from my 
 doctor. Two fellows swore they had been at West 
 Point with me. I went out of the bug line, said I 
 was Lieutenant Peter Starling, Company B, Fourth 
 Pennsylvania, of the Third Corps, and was in uni 
 form. This bluff bothered them. One man said I 
 was not Haro. I saw him years afterward. He said 
 he was sorry. I never liked to ask why. 
 
 " Then I had a great bit of good luck. The major 
 was too inquisitive on the skirmish-line, and got a ball 
 through his shoulder, which lessened his interest in the 
 outside world. If I knew who shot him he would have 
 a fat place on my road. They could prove nothing. I 
 was sent to Libby Prison. There I licked a lieutenant 
 of Connecticut volunteers because he insisted I was 
 Haro. I had tried in vain to make him hold his 
 tongue. The preacher who crossed with me was 
 finally sent back into our lines, and put himself and 
 me in the paper, names and all. Tom Alston, my 
 chief of staff, wired that journal that I was ill at 
 home with pneumonia, and the sermon he wrote that 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 175 
 
 preacher contained many promises and was calcu 
 lated to insure silence. 
 
 " After a month I was one of a lot that dug them 
 selves out. I was pretty near to going back. I was 
 hid in a log hut near Charlestown, West Virginia, with 
 some nice Quaker people. Three soldiers came into 
 the yard. I gave up. Well, a girl s kiss saved me. 
 She swore or said I was Cousin Joe, and was kiss 
 ing me in a very worldly fashion as they entered. 
 It s a pretty addition, but you have had enough. 
 That girl s husband and brother are on my road, but 
 to this day she gets red when I drop in at Cross-roads 
 station. A long story. I had to tell it in blocks. I 
 saw that major last week. He said I had had a nar 
 row escape. I hate walking. I must have walked 
 three hundred miles." , 
 
 " That reminds me," said Randolph, " of the colonel 
 I saw at Avoca in North Carolina. It was last year. 
 He declined to walk a few miles to our yacht, and 
 said he never walked; had had enough to last 
 him all his life. I asked him when that was. i Oh, 
 in the war; walked three hundred miles with that 
 blank villain Sherman after me. No more walking 
 for me ; have a horse hitched every morning to the 
 paling-fence. Throw your leg over him, and there 
 you are. Why should a gentleman walk? I told 
 this to General Sherman, to his great amusement." 
 
 " Your escape, Haro," said I, " recalls to me Harry 
 Wilson s. There was a smart little fight on the Ka- 
 nawha. The Rebels caught Wilson and his orderly. 
 Harry was a very clever young surgeon, and as the 
 Rebs had no surgeon, and we had supplied them well 
 
176 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 with wounded, lie did his best for them. Next day 
 
 they sent him across country to see General S , 
 
 who was in command. This officer had a Minie ball 
 through his ankle. Wilson said the leg must be am 
 putated. There was no chloroform or ether. The 
 tourniquet was put on, and the leg taken off. Then 
 Wilson stopped. Before I tie these arteries/ he said, 
 * I must make a bargain. You are to send me over 
 our lines. 
 
 " The general said he would not do it. 
 
 " Wilson said, ( Then I shall leave you to die of the 
 bleeding/ 
 
 " The general said he would have him shot. 
 
 " Harry said that a bullet was to be preferred to 
 Andersonville. 
 
 " Ttoe general said Wilson was a something or 
 other scoundrel, and Harry, that now he must both 
 apologize and let him go free. 
 
 " The situation was critical ; the general yielded. 
 Harry stayed a week looking after the damaged Rebs, 
 and was duly sent into our lines. The general prom 
 ised that if ever he caught him again he would make 
 it unpleasant." 
 
 " Ethically considered," said Vincent, " that is a 
 valuable story. Was your man justified, Owen? I 
 think not." 
 
 Randolph agreed with Vincent. I was in no least 
 doubt that he was wrong. 
 
 Haro said grimly : " I have been in Libby. I de 
 cline to vote." 
 
 Clayborne said that he had no business to help any 
 of them. But this most kindly old scholar was 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 177 
 
 savage only in talk or with the pen. "We rated him 
 soundly. He was one of the first to send help to 
 Charleston after the war. 
 
 " By the way," said I, " Wilson told me that when 
 the general was hit he sat down and cried like a 
 child." 
 
 " One of the effects of shock/ remarked Randolph. 
 
 " Colonel A was hit in the arm at Gettysburg, 
 
 just as his regiment was going into the fight. He 
 was about to mount, and when the ball smashed his 
 wrist he ran along the line, calling out, l Run, run j 
 the Rebs are on us/ " 
 
 " Cerebral shock," said I. 
 
 "Yes; he was of faultless courage," continued 
 Randolph. " In a minute he was again clear of head. 
 He found the ambulance people, had the arm am 
 putated, and, returning, commanded his regiment 
 through the rest of the fight." 
 
 "Did he not suffer afterward?" asked Vincent. 
 
 " Yes," said Randolph " it was past the endurance 
 of mortal nerves. I think I reported the case." 
 
 Clayborne had become interested. He inquired: 
 " Was that the man who later was wounded at Fort 
 Fisher, and for a day was thought to be dead ? " 
 
 " No j but we have had enough of doctors and 
 wounds. Pass the wine, Fred." 
 
 "But was that man really thought to be dead?" 
 asked Clayborne. 
 
 "Yes; he was an officer of distinction, and was 
 carefully examined. He revived just in time to escape 
 being embalmed." 
 
 " Cheerful that," said Vincent. 
 
178 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " And would you mind my telling you a story ? " 
 asked Clayborne. " It may interest you doctors." 
 
 Said St. Clair, who had taken but a small share in the 
 talk : "I was about to speak of what I have seen in 
 India." 
 
 " My own tale is of the East," said Clayborne. 
 
 " I resign in your favor." 
 
 " Then I wish to begin by saying that I heard it 
 from two witnesses my cousin Tom Church and an 
 old sea-dog, Captain Barr, at that time a mate." 
 
 " Pardon me, Clayborne," said Vincent ; "if, as I 
 presume, your story is of resuscitation after apparent 
 death, I had once in a suit for damages to consider 
 the literature of this question. The evidence in Dr. 
 Cheyne s famous case is, or would be, considered of 
 dubious value to-day. I am sure that the Indian cases 
 are frauds. But go on, Clayborne." 
 
 "Well, my cousin a doctor and the mate went 
 ashore to shoot ducks near Whampoa in China. This 
 was in 1818. As they were going back to their boat, 
 a big Chinaman claimed pay for his tame ducks, 
 which he swore they had shot. There was an angry 
 altercation. The Chinaman used rather too strong 
 Pidgin-English, and the mate knocked him down. 
 My cousin and the mate fled amid a hail of stones 
 from a mob of Chinese, and went on board the ship, 
 which had, as I remember, the odd name of Garnadiffe. 
 This was at dawn. Before noon came a mandarin. 
 He said the man was dead. They must pay twelve 
 hundred dollars or go ashore for trial. Both offers 
 were declined. Barr said, i We want to see the dead 
 man. At evening came a funeral of sampans, a kind 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 179 
 
 of boat. There were mourners in yellow, and in ad 
 vance a sampan with the corpse, a mandarin, and a 
 retinue of other boats. At first they talked over the 
 ship s side. Then my cousin was invited to come 
 down and inspect the departed one. Barr said yes, 
 but first they must secure the boat. This was agreed 
 to. The Chinamen had a good case. The hoisting- 
 tackle was without suspicion fastened to the two 
 hooks at the bow and the stern of the sampan. 
 
 "Then my cousin and the mate went down the 
 ship s side. The man was dead. A mirror failed to 
 show the moisture of breath. He was tickled, burned 
 with a cigar, and otherwise ingeniously dealt with. 
 No one spoke, and the dismayed men at last went 
 back to the deck of their ship to consult. My cousin 
 said, That is certainly the man, Barr, and he is 
 dead/ 
 
 " * But who killed him ? I surely did not/ 
 
 "Barr gave an order. At once the men on the 
 ship began to haul, and the sampan rose out of the 
 water. There was a howl from the mourners. Barr 
 cried out that they meant to keep him until he was 
 high, and explained in crude Pidgin-English what he 
 meant by high. If he goes the way of honest 
 corpses we will pay. Haul, my lads ! Upon this 
 arose the corpse, plunged overboard, and swam in a 
 lively fashion to the nearest" boat. This is a true 
 story. My cousin told it to me, and years after Barr 
 repeated it without important variations." 
 
 " Rather startling/ 7 said Vincent. 
 
 " What is startling ? " said my wife, standing in the 
 doorway. " Come to the drawing-room, and have tea, 
 
180 DR. NORTH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 and be thankful, Owen, that I did not bring home 
 some economic ladies. I am quite cured of economy 
 in dress." 
 
 " Had you ever the disease ? " cried Vincent, and we 
 went up to tea laughing. 
 
 " Do you believe that story?" said Randolph, as we 
 followed Clayborne. 
 
 "I do. I know a stranger one," said Vincent. 
 " No j not now. It is long. It gave a name to an old 
 house not far from here a house dear to some of us 
 for many memories of gracious hospitality. Another 
 time. Remind me." 
 
 "I certainly shall," said Randolph. "You mean 
 Champlost, of course." 
 
XI 
 
 WEEK or two later in the year we prom 
 ised to go to the studio. St. Glair had 
 been at work on a pedestal for Keats s 
 vase, and desired us also to see the 
 bust of Xerxes Crofter. 
 It was about 4 P.M. when we entered. Vincent was 
 too busy to come early. We found Clayborne seated 
 in a corner, deep in a book on Greek vases. Sibyl 
 Maywood was in a chair in front of the vase, and to 
 her St. Clair was reading with passionate emphasis 
 the poem of Keats. 
 
 He paused as we came in, and greeting us, said : 
 " I was just saying to Miss Maywood that in English 
 there are but two, perhaps three, poems which deal 
 with their subjects as this does. It makes throughout 
 an unusual claim on the receptive imagination, and fail 
 ing of this interpretive aid must seem pure nonsense. 
 There are elsewhere lines, passages, verses, which ask 
 the same form of unreserved mental sympathy, but 
 here the need runs through the whole poem. There 
 is in it the undying springtime of joy and love. I 
 never liked the last two lines. They lack relation to 
 the rest of it. Truth may be, in a sense, beautiful j it 
 is not beauty ; and is beauty truth ? I wish he had 
 lived to alter the lines. I am self-assured he would 
 have done so." 
 
 13 181 
 
182 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " How joyously extravagant it is ! " said Mrs. Yin- 
 cent. " I have no heart to quarrel with it. The other 
 poem is, of course, Shelley s fantasy of the skylark j 
 and the third?" 
 
 "No one has seen/ said St. Clair, laughing. 
 " Look at my pedestal." 
 
 It was of white, or rather of rose-gray, marble, 
 square, and about two feet and a half high. Above 
 was a wreath of grapes and leaves carried around all 
 four sides. Below were lilies. In front he had set 
 a noble relief of the dead face of Keats, and had 
 given it a look such as I had never seen in a marble 
 face. 
 
 "What is it gives that tenderness to the closed 
 eyes? 7 I asked. 
 
 " Look j go nearer," he replied. " I have ventured 
 to indicate by chisel touches on the lower lids the 
 sweep of his eyelashes. I shall be told it is not good 
 art. I don t care an etcetera. You like it ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes," said my wife. " Where have I seen 
 that before? Oh, now I remember. It is on the 
 tomb figure of Guidarello Guidarelli at Ravenna." 
 
 " Yes, that beautiful thing. I have succeeded, have 
 I not? Now look at the two sides. At the back I 
 have put a broken hour-glass." 
 
 On one of the two sides was a Greek youth in re 
 lief, and on the other side a girl s face. Seeing it, 
 we looked at one another, but made no remark. It 
 was Sibyl. I do not think she recognized herself; 
 indeed, I am sure she did not, a fact which surprised 
 me. 
 
 My wife moved around to the front of the pedestal, 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 183 
 
 and said : " Anne, the face of Keats has a look of 
 lifelong struggle merged in peace rest, if you like. 
 I see a line beneath it. What is it? Ah, that is 
 prettily used," and she read : 
 
 " When old age shall this generation waste, 
 Thou shalt remain." 
 
 St. Clair suddenly threw a sheet over vase and 
 pedestal, and turning away, said: "Here is my 
 Xerxes. I have done him justice." He cast the 
 cover off the marble and stood aside. 
 
 He had done him stern justice. All the features 
 were strangely exaggerated. It was a brute, hard, 
 inflexible, rapacious, and capable a terrible likeness. 
 
 " The deuce ! " exclaimed Vincent, coming up be 
 hind us, having just come in. 
 
 " Yes, he is the devil. I hope he will like it. All 
 the man is there. I have taken vengeance for many. 
 But, by George ! it is Xerxes." 
 
 "Will he like it?" said I. 
 
 " Who cares? I would bet he will like it." 
 
 " He will not," said Mrs. Vincent. " It is justice 
 without charity." f 
 
 " He will like it," said Vincent. " What do you 
 say, Sibyl?" 
 
 "Say? It is horrible. I cannot look at it any 
 more. It is wicked, wicked," and she walked away. 
 
 " A very good likeness," said Clayborne ; " rather 
 too strongly well accentuated." 
 
 The artist had given the eyes a slight slant down 
 ward and inward. It was that which gave the look 
 of Mephistophelian intelligence. 
 
184 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Yet it is not a caricature," said St. Clair. 
 
 " No," said I. " There is here only an intensifying 
 of all the worst expressions which belong to the 
 man s face, as men must have seen it at different 
 times. It excites no laughter in one who looks at 
 it." 
 
 "But should a caricature always do that?" said 
 my wife. 
 
 " Certainly not," replied St. Clair. 
 
 " Yours would be a dangerous art if you always 
 used it to bring out on the face subtle confessions of 
 all that is bad in the man," said I. 
 
 "Why not all that is good?" said Mrs. Vincent. 
 " Your bust is uncharitable. You do not let us see 
 that this man has, as Mr. Clayborne says, the virtue 
 of fidelity to his pledges. He is not a liar. He is not 
 avaricious. He has courage. He keeps his word." 
 
 "That," laughed St. Clair, "must amazingly add 
 to the difficulties of a career like his." 
 
 " Let us drop him," said Vincent. " He has been 
 too long in decent society. Let me see the vase." 
 
 St. Clair said : " No ; not to-day. You will find 
 tea in the drawing-room." 
 
 Why he was unwilling I do not know. Vincent 
 did not urge him. 
 
 As we went out, Mrs. Vincent detained him. 
 
 " Why," she asked, " did you put Sibyl s face on 
 the pedestal and your own ? " 
 
 " Oh, because her face has, like the girl s face on 
 the vase, a history of joy which can never mature or 
 be more than it is. And then, it is beautiful, and I 
 wanted to do it." 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 185 
 
 " Do you always do what you want to do, Victor?" 
 
 " Generally." 
 
 " Without thought of consequences, Victor ? " 
 
 When she called him Victor he knew, as he said, 
 that he was vanquished. 
 
 "You sometimes make friendship difficult," he 
 said. 
 
 " In order," she replied bravely, " to keep it from 
 becoming impossible." 
 
 " What ami to do?" 
 
 " I do not know." She was vexed, annoyed, void 
 of counsel. But she said, in her just anger: "It 
 was a great liberty, and you put it there because she, 
 too, is never to realize maturity of joy. Incredibly 
 brutal, I call it." 
 
 "Vae victis ! " he groaned. " I will smash the whole 
 thing. Habet"; and he followed the indignant 
 woman, who sat down to her tea in silent wrath. 
 
XII 
 
 HEN St. Clair saw any "beautiful thing 
 it produced an effect which seemed to 
 leave him for a time in a mood of sim 
 ple adoration. This often showed in 
 strong emotion. Great music moved 
 him to tears. As regards nature, I am sure that he 
 was free from affectation. A flare of crimson 
 possessing the sky to the zenith is to me beautiful, 
 and something indefinably more. When he said to 
 me that it was terrible, I know that he meant what 
 he said. All novel forms of beauty in women or in 
 men caused, as I have said, uncomplicated, childlike 
 admiration. It had at times awkward results, for no 
 woman was ever yet able to accept the possibility of 
 a man s admiration not going deeper than the limit 
 set for beauty by the proverb. St. Clair, when in 
 one of these moods, was soon willing to supply all 
 manner of excuses for what he called creating the 
 " prosperity of opportunity." In plain terms, he 
 would pay his art idol enough attention to give the 
 desired occasions for study of face or form. After 
 this, at some uncertain date, came by degrees the 
 analytic condition of mind, when faults were seen and 
 the causes of grace or beauty more and more coldly 
 and critically considered. 
 
 I once saw him much disturbed in the presence of 
 186 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 187 
 
 Lawton, the botanist, who was pulling a magnolia- 
 flower to pieces as he studied it, pistil and stamen. 
 The artist could not be made to see the analogy when 
 reproached with his own analytic studies of the 
 natural history of the beautiful in human beings. 
 
 He was just now filled with admiration of the 
 face and hands of Sibyl Maywood. It is probable 
 that the crippled body may have contributed by 
 its sad contrast to the charm of a face which, we 
 long afterward agreed, could not be fitly described. 
 That it was of rare beauty was plain. That it 
 was classic in form was obvious. But it had also 
 spiritual expression, such as comes to the simple- 
 hearted or high-minded from the death of some one 
 greatly loved, but never from mere temporal trial or 
 disaster. On this, too, we were at one. Had the ex 
 pression I mean been capable of definite description, 
 it would not have had the quality which gave a deli 
 cate unearthliness to all the silent language of her 
 changeful features. 
 
 The winter went on, and, as several of us were 
 busy, we met more rarely. Vincent was here and 
 there trying cases. Mrs. Vincent was occupied with 
 her many charities. My wife was struggling in the 
 interests of the newly endowed university for wo 
 men. She wished it to consist of a group of cottage 
 homes where, besides the higher studies, there should 
 be taught the art and the science of the one natural 
 profession for which no college trains young women. 
 She was having bad luck, and was seriously troubled 
 by the possible loss of a noble opportunity. St. Clair 
 was in one of his prolonged moods, which we had 
 
188 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 learned to forgive. He might be in the city, and yet 
 never see us for a month, and then make up for it by 
 bothering the busy with daily visits. Both Clayborne 
 and I were writing books, and the scholar was twice 
 absent on business in the West. 
 
 Mrs. North still tenderly cared for Sibyl, and now 
 and then, when Clayborne was long absent, asked 
 her to visit us for a week or more. Our daughter, who 
 was now in her fifth year, had for Sibyl one of those 
 passionate attachments seen at times in little girls 
 for their elders. As usual, it was imitative. " I am 
 Sibyl," she said one day, and began, to her mother s 
 horror, to walk with an excellent simulation of the 
 gait of Miss Maywood. When told not to do so, she 
 said : " But I can t help it, mama. I am Sibyl." As 
 for Miss Maywood, she loved the little one, related 
 stories, and taught her songs in a clear, true voice of 
 great sweetness and no great volume. It was a 
 pretty love-affair, useful to the child, valuable to Sibyl. 
 
 One day, early in May, Mrs. Vincent asked me to 
 call, as she desired to talk to me of Sibyl, who was 
 then at Holmwood for a week during Clayborne s 
 absence. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " she asked. " I see Alice, 
 but you men are invisible." 
 
 " Mr. Clayborne is off again. He is building a few 
 miles of rail to connect his lines with another main 
 line. Xerxes declares this to be against their agree 
 ment. Clayborne says he made no such agreement, 
 and is joyous over the chance of a lawsuit. Vincent 
 is equally happy in the likelihood of having a shot at 
 Xerxes." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 189 
 
 " Really, you men are a quarrelsome folk. But I 
 want to talk about Sibyl. Do you know that Victor 
 St. Clair, whom I never see, goes almost daily to visit 
 her ? He takes her flowers, he reads to her. You 
 know, Owen, it is the old story. The only time I 
 have seen him of late he raved about her beauty. 
 He says she is like that broken marble head in 
 Rome, in the museum of the Baths of Diocletian, 
 is n t it ? The one we agreed to call the Sleeping 
 Vestal " 
 
 " Yes, I recaU it," said I. " He is right." 
 " Oh, that man, Owen ! He has left her face on the 
 pedestal, although he promised he would not. This 
 girl is susceptible to passion; she is sensitive to all 
 forms of beauty ; and we know how fatal this man s 
 ways and looks have been. She was meant to love 
 and to be loved. Ah, Owen! How will it end? 
 She is utterly unconventional. In a little while St. 
 Clair will drop her as he has done others. The ana 
 lytic stage will come, of which we have talked so 
 often, and after that Ah, it is sad, sad ! Some one 
 must talk to him. I said so months ago. You 
 thought me hasty." 
 
 " Will you do it now, Mrs. Vincent ? " 
 " I must. I must, I suppose. Fred sees it. He 
 is greatly concerned. Bring the man to me. I have 
 written to ask him to call. He made no answer. He 
 has probably forgotten. Why do we all care for 
 him ? Why does Clayborne spoil him, and leave that 
 girl alone? Really, friends add terribly to the re 
 sponsibilities of life." 
 
 I drove at once to St. Glair s house. I found him 
 
190 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 lying on the lounge, gazing at Sibyl s profile. He 
 had already begun to justify Mrs. Vincent s pre 
 diction. 
 
 " It is not as interesting as I thought/ he said, as 
 I entered. " The drop from the brow down the nose 
 is not quite Greek. I altered it in the rilievo. The 
 mouth is a trifle too large. It is too expressive. You 
 may have noticed that. I saw it only last week. I 
 am to take a mold of her hand. That is match 
 less. People do not observe hands. Clark told me 
 last week that he had just painted three children 
 for one of our freshly millioned men. One, a boy, 
 had a beautiful right hand; his left was that of a 
 peasant. But this boy was left-handed and expert 
 with tools." 
 
 "That is curious," said I. "Did you get a note 
 from Mrs. Vincent ? " 
 
 "Yes, but I forgot oh, here it is." It was un 
 opened. 
 
 " Do you value that woman s friendship ? You are 
 near to the loss of it." 
 
 " I ? What ! I would give her or Vincent my life 
 at need." 
 
 " Then give her an hour of it and make your peace. 
 The people who would give a million and do not give 
 a penny are not made for friendship. We do not 
 want the million. We often want the penny." 
 
 " Damn your financial parables ! I will go now j 
 no I will go to-night." 
 
 I made him dress and go with me at once. Pre 
 tending an engagement, I left him with the vexed 
 woman. What passed I heard next day. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 191 
 
 "Say? What did I say, Owen North? I said, 
 1 Victor, you have neither heart nor conscience. " 
 
 " That was a promising beginning. What next f " 
 
 "I said: You go to see Sibyl daily, even when 
 Clayborne is absent. You take her flowers. You 
 read to her. You take her books. And you do it all 
 merely to look at her. It is cruel. You could do no 
 more if you meant to marry her. 
 
 " Good heavens, marry her ! I am not fit to open 
 a door for her. 
 
 " i Do not dare to defend yourself/ 
 
 " i But I do not 
 
 " i Then do it. You are past endurance. Have you 
 begun to see faults in her face ? 
 
 " St. Clair flushed. * A girl in her condition, with 
 that tormented frame, must know that for her love, 
 marriage, is impossible. I have only made her life 
 happier, he said. 1 1 have not the vanity to presume 
 to dare to believe 
 
 " i Victor, you have no right to exasperate me by 
 adding fiction to folly. I have seen these little trage 
 dies before. Usually I did not care for the victim. 
 This time it is different. If Sibyl Maywood s body 
 is crippled, her heart is not. It does not reason 
 
 " I wish you would not talk about her as crippled. 
 It is a horrible word. 
 
 " l Nonsense. You will drop her of a sudden, and 
 hurt us through her. You are incapable of a quiet 
 friendship for this dear child whom God has seen fit 
 to afflict. You will only make life for her sadly diffi 
 cult. I do not see why we all care for a man whose 
 art makes him so selfish. 
 
192 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Nor I, said St. Clair. <I 11 be hanged if I see. 
 What can I do? 
 
 " l It is humiliating to a woman to have to say these 
 things. Make some excuse. Go away. God grant 
 it may not be too late. Go somewhere. To any other 
 man I should say, stay and amend your ways. You 
 are good at excuses. Find one. 
 
 " l But I have engagements. I have 
 
 " l I never before knew them to stand in your way. 
 
 " 1 1 am sorry. I will go. But it does seem a 
 little absurd. I really do not want to go now. 
 
 " l Victor, if you wish me ever to speak to you 
 again, you will go at once. Let me add, dear friend, 
 that Fred entirely agrees with me. 
 
 " Oh, hang Fred ! I can stand the women. " 
 
 He was like a child. He took his story to my wife, 
 and what she said I do not know. It troubled him. 
 As he went out, he met my little maid. She looked 
 at him, and said: "Mr. Wictor, have you been vewy 
 naughty to-day ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the poet. " Bad with a big B and a 
 big D before it ! " 
 
 " Oh, my ! " said Mary. " What do they do to you 
 when you are bad ? " 
 
 " They whip me with whips no one can see." 
 
 " They would n t hurt," said the maid. 
 
 Early next day I found St. Clair gaily singing as he 
 packed his trunk. 
 
 " You will have your will," he said. " I am going. 
 And, confound it, do these women think I am going 
 to kneel down and confess ? I had far rather go. O 
 Lord ! they know, do they ? They think they know 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 193 
 
 everything. N importe. Don t tell, but you should 
 have seen Anne Vincent s mise en scdne for my trial. 
 The room was twilight dark, and the dear lady was in 
 some amazing black lace, and not a rose anywhere. 
 Unluckily, Mrs. Leigh came, but the set was not for 
 her. She sat down on the open piano. I was so sorry 
 that woman could not swear. She went soon. I 
 know her disaster contributed ferocity to the dismal 
 after-scene." 
 
 " You do not seem much the worse for it," I said. 
 
 " No, perhaps not." He became grave. "My dear 
 Owen, you have sometimes misunderstood me. It is 
 really possible no, I decline to explain, even to you. 
 But try not to think too ill of me. While I am away, 
 write me now and then, and do not be such an ass as 
 to think it needful never to speak of Miss Maywood. 
 You will want to know my plans. It is May. I am 
 going to ride through the Virginia mountains. I do 
 not know where else I may go. I think of going to 
 live in Paris. I am never bad there. t Not bad/ you 
 say ? Only thoughtless/ Yes, it requires a good 
 deal of intelligence to be good. Do get these notes 
 answered for me." There were a dozen or more. " I 
 did not show you this. I have had it a month." 
 
 It was a telegram : " Bust first-rate. Make another 
 for my house. Check by mail, $2000. If not enough, 
 wire. XERXES CROFTER." 
 
 " And you answered ? " 
 
 " Yes. I wrote a copy of my reply on the back of 
 this telegram. < Can t do two busts. Busy. Consider 
 pleasure of making bust sufficient pay. Can t accept 
 money which is not your own. ST. CLAIR. " 
 
194 BE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " And he ? What did he say f " 
 
 " Here is his answer : Guess it was worth while 
 to bust me. Don t understand what you mean about 
 money. Check sent. CROFTER. Then I wired: 
 1 Check returned. ST. CLAIR. I wrote < Plunder 
 across the face of his check, and mailed it to 
 Xerxes." 
 
 " Give me these telegrams. I want to show them 
 to Vincent." ; 
 
 So far I had expressed no opinion. St. Clair was 
 in a sensitive mood, dissatisfied with himself, vexed, 
 and with as yet no more real conscience about the 
 trouble his esthetic madness made than was provided 
 for him unasked by the less eccentric morality of his 
 friends. What mischief there was to be made out of 
 the matter of this bust was already made. It was 
 now useless to scold him. He returned to his pack 
 ing business, while I stood re-reading these astonish 
 ing telegrams. 
 
 Presently St. Clair looked up. " Why the deuce 
 don t you say something, Owen? I seem to please 
 no one just now, not even myself." 
 
 Thus challenged, I said : " Neither Vincent nor I will 
 agree with you. You should not have replied as you 
 have done. You should not have made -that bust 
 what you did. It was unfair. It was not the way 
 to punish him." 
 
 " Confound it, Owen ! It was the only way." 
 
 " Then no way were the better way. And there 
 is no more to say. Xerxes is learning many 
 things, some good and some bad. A little charity 
 might" 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 195 
 
 " I can t run a Sunday-school for brigands. Hang 
 the fellow ! " 
 
 " Yes, with pleasure. But, truly, it is not easy to 
 deal fairly with a man like this, who is cultivating for 
 the first time the decencies of life. Something between 
 kicks and kisses seems to me the thing. I have 
 obliged him, I have set him on his feet again, and I 
 feel" 
 
 " Yes, by George ! Dr. Frankenstein, you are 
 welcome to the man you have remade. You are 
 responsible for whatever beastly things he may 
 do." 
 
 " And for all your sins, dear old boy, since I pulled 
 you out of that typhoid scrape years ago." 
 
 " Quite true. It has kept me easy in mind ever 
 since. But, oh, here is the end of our correspondence. 
 I did not finish. Here is his reply : My old doctor 
 used to say, " Foolitis is an incurable disease." You 
 have it badly. I have the bust. CROFTER. " 
 
 " You come out pretty even." 
 
 " No ; he has not yet seen the fun of it. He sent 
 the bust to the New York spring exhibition. Here is 
 what the Tribunal says of it. Take it with you. 
 Perhaps Mrs. Vincent will forgive me when she reads 
 it." 
 
 I ran over the article as he resumed his task. 
 
 " There is one bust, < X. C., by Victor St. Glair, 
 which is a strange and powerful work. It is No. 30. 
 If the man is like it, we are sorry for him. It should 
 be labeled, The Scapegoat. Probably it will turn 
 out to be a class-leader or a Sunday-school superin 
 tendent. The face looks as if it carried all the sins 
 
196 BE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 of the people. It is questionable whether an artist 
 has a right to set out on a man s features all his 
 worst attributes. A suit for defamation of character 
 should be in order." 
 
 " You will hear from Xerxes yet, Victor, or you may 
 never hear. He is said to have a good memory and 
 to be unforgiving. No one can say what he will do. 
 I fancy him more likely to avenge material injuries, 
 but, like Clay borne, he sometimes finds joy in battle, 
 and fancies a trial of sharpened wits. I think him 
 by nature good-humored." 
 
 " Well, so far I am the boy on top. Good-by." 
 
 " Ah, one thing more, Victor. Have you done any 
 thing about that bas-relief? You took a great lib 
 erty, and when you put your own face on the other 
 side you did a worse thing." 
 
 " I altered my phiz on the vase and on the pedestal. 
 I will not touch the other never, never ! Great 
 heavens, it is beautiful ! I shall keep the pedestal, 
 and that is all I will do." 
 
 I felt that enough had been said. " Write me a 
 line, Victor. Don t quite forget us. You have a 
 mighty talent for neglect." 
 
 I went away thinking of the two men for whom I 
 was so hopelessly responsible. Then came to my 
 mind certain other cases of people whom I had made 
 well, and who for years came to me at intervals for 
 help. I recall one hapless and grotesque little hunch 
 back, who was paralyzed. I asked a despairing sur 
 geon to let me try my hand on his case. The lad, 
 who was about fifteen, got well. Then he came to 
 me and calmly told me I ought to help him. " If you 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 197 
 
 had let me die I would n t have been a trouble to 
 nobody. You oughter of let me died." 
 
 I started him as a shoeblack. He sold out in a 
 fortnight at a loss. I set him up in a market-stall 
 for fruit. He did no business, and lived on his own 
 apples. Next we put capital into a peanut-stand. As 
 to this bankruptcy I am less clear. On each financial 
 defeat he assured me that I was to blame for keeping 
 a helpless cripple alive. In despair, I found for him 
 a home as doorkeeper in an asylum for incurables. 
 He reproached me for thus classing a person willing 
 to work, and was meekly indignant. 
 
 One day, somewhat later, I met Haro and Clay- 
 borne in Vincent s office, and chanced to mention my 
 sad experience, apropos of a friend who was credited 
 with unusual intelligence, but who somehow failed in 
 all his undertakings. 
 
 It amused Haro, and we fell into talk about the 
 causes of failure in the conduct of life. It was 
 interesting to note the variety of reasons given for 
 unsuccess by these successful men. 
 
 Vincent said : " Of course one presumes the man, 
 like our friend, to have mental competence. Granting 
 that, lack of persistent energy is the common cause of 
 failure in my profession, and also the lesser qualities 
 are often fatally wanting, such as good manners, 
 tact, patience." 
 
 "In my own profession," I said, " these lesser charac 
 teristics occasionally assist men to win who are really 
 inferior to some who, for want of this group of minor 
 social qualities, miss the place they would otherwise 
 attain." 
 
 14 
 
198 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Clayborne said briefly : " I think I should have suc 
 ceeded in any line of life to which I had given myself , 
 but one must give one s self." 
 
 " As a soldier ? " I asked. 
 
 "No. I lack power of quick decision. I take it 
 that in war a rare few are intellectually stimulated by 
 peril, and thus, in time of danger, see with instinctive 
 clearness, every sense, every power, being quickened 
 by the need of the moment. It is like the periods of 
 inspiration which at times come to poets, or are said 
 to." 
 
 Haro, who was an example of this capacity for swift 
 decisiveness, smiled, and the talk passed into a discus 
 sion of the varieties of courage or want of it seen in 
 war. 
 
XIII 
 
 |T. CLAIR was gone seven weeks. He 
 had the grace to write Miss Maywood 
 that he had an errand in the South. 
 When he came back he was at his best. 
 " Was he forgiven ? n he asked Mrs. Vin 
 cent. He had seen a woman in West Virginia j such 
 a figure ! But art was perilous among the mountain 
 people. He had commented upon her figure to her 
 husband, and been promptly asked what the blank 
 was it his business. Mrs. Vincent said she was glad, 
 and hoped the experience would prove of permanent 
 value. 
 
 As it was now near to summer, we were all of us 
 about to flit in different directions, and we were to 
 dine with Clayborne before we separated. On our 
 way to Holmwood, in the train, Mrs. Vincent said to 
 me: "Sibyl is not looking well. I have arranged 
 with Mr. Clayborne that she is to go with Fred and 
 me. He has no idea that one can overuse a human 
 machine. The girl is tired. I think I told you or 
 Alice that we have taken a cottage on the bay at Bar 
 Harbor. It is a pleasant wilderness. Few people go 
 there. The anchorage for the yacht is good. You 
 must come and see us, you and Alice and the maidie. 
 Alice says yes. St. Glair is behaving himself beauti 
 fully." 
 
 199 
 
200 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "Yes; his present love-affair is our little Mary. 
 That, at least, can do no harm." 
 
 " I wish I thought the other matter had done none. 
 Sibyl is changed. She is less simple. I came upon 
 her in my drawing-room yesterday looking at St. 
 Glair s photograph. She put it down hastily and 
 took up another." 
 
 " It may be," said I, " that our knowledge and our 
 fears come too late. She is not strong. She has a 
 weak, insufficient heart. But then time is a great 
 doctor." 
 
 " Yes, soon or late he cures all human ills," she re. 
 turned sadly. 
 
 At the back of Clayborne s house he had built out 
 an ample semicircular addition to the wide veranda. 
 
 " Come," he said ; " we dine out of doors." 
 
 We followed him, and found the table set on this 
 porch. It was covered with roses. At this time of 
 the year and at this hour we needed no artificial 
 light. Beyond the garden the view was limited by a 
 thin wood fringe which hid the stone-walled space I 
 have already described. The round table brought us 
 close together, and all were gayer than common, 
 pleasingly excited by the novelty of dining out of 
 doors. Moreover, we had this day a vintage cham 
 pagne past praise. 
 
 Sibyl was in unusual spirits, in one of her childlike 
 moods of what seemed to me at times too excessive 
 gaiety. The talk was certainly well fitted to arouse 
 mirth, and she clapped her hands joyously as she 
 listened. 
 
 St. Clair was telling of that verbal duel with Xerxes, 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 201 
 
 of which Vincent and I, at least, were already in 
 formed. She laughed at the narration, but said no 
 word of approval to St. Clair. A moment later, turn 
 ing to me, she discussed quietly the ethics of the 
 matter. She thought the artist had not been fair. 
 
 " I am curious about your foe," said my wife to St. 
 Clair. u Tell us more about him. Does he talk 
 much?" 
 
 " Sometimes steadily all through a sitting. Some 
 times he did not speak for an hour." 
 
 "Have you ever known an excessive talker who 
 rose to great eminence ? " asked Vincent of me. 
 
 " There have been such, but they were never ad 
 ministrative people, nor in the professions do I recall 
 one. Of course we mean the men who have the 
 malady of talk." 
 
 " Your strong men," said Clayborne, " are at times 
 steady talkers, and then, like this man, silent. The 
 morbidly silent are to me the most remarkable ; De 
 foe s silence, for example, when for twenty-eight years 
 he did not speak to his wife because, as he said, she 
 provoked him, which urged him to make rash 
 replies. " 
 
 " Imagine," I said, " the exasperation of this silence. 
 No wonder his wife went distracted. One daughter 
 stayed with him, and, why I know not, talked to De 
 foe by signs. Twenty-eight years two months and 
 nineteen days was the term of his silence, and, as his 
 last biographer mentions, was exactly the time of 
 Crusoe s life of silence. There must have been in 
 Defoe s mind some queer relation between the two 
 cases." 
 
202 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Shall we call this eccentricity or insanity f As I 
 recall it, the return of willing speech," said Clay- 
 borne, "was at the end of an illness." 
 
 " I knew/ said I, " of an insane man, once an army 
 officer. For forty years he never spoke. Then accident 
 brought him into the company of an old general who 
 had been his second in a duel. The insane man at 
 once began to talk to him, but never again broke 
 silence. But what of Xerxes? I have personally 
 found him an amusing companion." 
 
 "Yes, he tells a story well," said St. Glair. " There 
 was one worth repeating. The man was born and 
 raised in Arkansas in its worst days. His father kept 
 a small grocery and general l notion shop. Xerxes 
 has still the belief that slavery is a good institution. 
 You should hear him. l Sir, I would propose to extend 
 it to about one third of the white people I know, and 
 all the niggers, of course. This slave business cost 
 my father a lot of trouble. Our judge was Walter 
 Wampum. He came from Virginia; Indian blood, 
 Pocahontas, and all that. Let me explain," said St. 
 Clair, " that to do justice to Xerxes s Western tongue 
 is past my skill. He gets off guard when he tells a 
 story. I shall let him speak. i Well, our judge was 
 mighty set up about his family. To be fit for any 
 thing a man s got to be set up about something. The 
 judge he had a lot of boys, and, as he was right well 
 off, he kep a tooter to learn them things. When Bill 
 Wampum got old enough to be allowed a bowie-knife 
 there was n t a tooter would remain. At last they 
 got a Massachusetts Yankee named Joe Chalkley. He 
 was a long-legged, watery sort of a poultice of a man. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 203 
 
 He had yeller hair and wabbled around town with his 
 hands in his pockets. Everybody bossed that man. 
 He liked boys best, and went about with them like a 
 youngster. You might have noticed, Mr. Saint Clair, 
 that meek men are sometimes rash. Well, this Chalk- 
 ley he had some eccentric notions about slavery. If 
 you chanced to get onto the institootion with this 
 man, he d get red in the face and say things like any 
 other man might. 
 
 " ( One day he told my father that black people 
 were just as good as white ; he reckoned they d all 
 be one color when they got to heaven, or some was 
 white here would be black there. This was so rank 
 unreasonable that my father lost patience, and says 
 he, " You keep clear of me. The next time you 
 come f oolin round here with your abolition rot, I 11 
 perforate you." I guess father did n t mean it, but 
 Chalkley he went straight away to the judge s. When 
 the judge come in he found the tooter pilin his clothes 
 in a trunk and jumpin on em to get it shut. 
 
 " < Says the judge. " What >s up ? " 
 
 11 Says Chalkley, " Crofter, the groceryman, he 
 says he s goin to kill me on sight because I said 
 black men d be white in heaven." 
 
 " l " Great Scott ! " says the judge. " You ve got a 
 low opinion of your Maker. He 11 shoot sure." 
 
 " Says Chalkley, " I m goin to leave." 
 
 " Says the judge, " Mr. Chalkley, whether you 
 live or die is n t of much moment ; but, sir, in this 
 business the honor of my family is concerned you 
 understand, sir, the honor of the Wampum family." 
 
 " Chalkley he felt weak, and down he sat on his 
 
204= DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 trunk and looked at the judge. The judge he says, 
 " You take this six-shooter, and you walk down-town, 
 and when you see Crofter you shoot. I do advise you 
 not to miss." 
 
 " Says the tooter, "It s awful, judge. I don t 
 know one end of the machine from the other." 
 
 " * Says the judge, " I regret, sir, your neglected 
 education, but, sir, the honor of my family, sir, makes 
 that of small consideration ; and, sir, either I must 
 shoot you, and then kill Crofter, or you, sir, must 
 attend to this matter in person. I prefer the latter 
 course." 
 
 " t Well, down-town goes the tooter, and after him 
 the judge to keep him on the path of dooty. There 
 was dad swappin brooms for chickens and turkeys 
 with an old woman. I was sittin on a crate whittlin . 
 Chalkley he out with his pistol and shut his eyes and 
 fired. Down went dad all in a heap. Bang goes the 
 tooter again, and there was a dead turkey, and Mrs. 
 Booker hoppin round on one leg, with her thumb 
 in her mouth, clean blowed off. Dad was n t badly 
 hurt, but he had to feed standin up for a fortnight. 
 Chalkley was for shootin him deader, but the judge 
 says, " Quit that, you fool. Can t you see the honor 
 of the Wampum family s been sufficiently attended 
 to ? And, Crofter, you d better go out of the busi 
 ness of threatenin members of my family. Now, 
 Mr. Chalkley, what stage do you take? West or 
 East?" 
 
 " l Well, sir/ said Xerxes, * that man stayed on, and 
 just before the war he was ordered to leave by a 
 vigilance committee, because the widows and orphans 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 205 
 
 were multiplyin under that man s hands to such an 
 extent that the town finances could n t stand it. " 
 
 Every one laughed except Miss Maywood. 
 
 "A good story," said I. "Do you think Xerxes 
 invented it ? " 
 
 " Invent it f No ; he has no more imagination than 
 a clam. I am sure it is true. He said that the way 
 Chalkley took to shooting was instructive concern 
 ing what came later. 
 
 " It seems Xerxes went to the North soon after 
 this event, and, I fancy, concluded that as shooting 
 was a matter of education, and at the North the num 
 ber available for this purpose was larger than at the 
 South, it was well to remain, as he said, with the big 
 gest crowd. At all events, he became a commissary 
 clerk and prospered." 
 
 "I must see that man," said Mrs. Vincent. "Do 
 ask him to dinner, Fred." 
 
 " Cheerfully, my dear. You will permit me to dine 
 at the club that day." 
 
 " And," said I, " did he never show any annoy 
 ance as to the extraordinary verdict you pronounced 
 on him that night at Holmwood ? " 
 
 " Not a sign," said St. Clair. " I think he consid 
 ered me a kind of art-engine, and not a subject 
 for hostile remembrance. He may have changed his 
 mind." 
 
 " Yes ; he will remember," said Vincent. " The 
 debt is doubled. He will collect it as surely as Shy- 
 lock, and it will be from near your heart, Victor." 
 
 " I hope you will be careful," said Sibyl, simply. 
 
 " What nonsense, child ! " exclaimed Mrs. Vincent. 
 
206 DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 By this time the dusk of the late June twilight was 
 upon us. Candles with tall, old-fashioned glass shades 
 were placed on the table with the fruit. While we 
 discussed where the Keats vase should be set, the 
 shadows deepened under the stars. The dim light, 
 which is not star-given, but seems as if it were the 
 return of radiance stored by day in the sunlit earth, 
 lent to all things the tenderness of indistinct out 
 lines. Fireflies flashed here and there. A gentle 
 hint of silence was in the air. The talk fell away, 
 and for a little while no one spoke. Then, of a sud 
 den, St. Clair pushed back his seat and began to sing. 
 It was his way, and surprised none of us. 
 
 "Come through the roses, dear; 
 
 Thy gentle kin are they. 
 The lilies share thy fear 
 Because the month is May. 
 
 "Come through the shadows, come; 
 
 The twilight hour is still. 
 The voice of toil is dumb, 
 On meadow, lake, and hill." 
 
 At the second verse, to my surprise, Sibyl s voice 
 joined in. She must have known the song. She 
 must before this have sung it with St. Clair. The 
 two voices rose pure and sweet in the evening quiet. 
 Mrs. Vincent touched my arm with her fan. I un 
 derstood. As they ceased, Sibyl said: "We must 
 sing, now, The Holy Hour/ It is better than your 
 song. Sing it ; I want it now, at once. 7 
 
 spoke with the eagerness of a child. I was 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 207 
 
 struck of a sudden with the intimacy implied in her 
 manner to St. Glair. It had in it a gentle assurance 
 of trust, of some easy right to the imperative mood. 
 Sibyl was still very natural. She was not yet at the 
 point of self-confession as to her feeling for St. Clair. 
 It might never come. 
 
 " He who wrote < The Holy Hour/ " said St. Clair, 
 "can write a song. Few can. The art is lost. I 
 set it, but Miss Maywood thinks my music might be 
 bettered." 
 
 Then again he began to sing, but Sibyl was silent. 
 
 " This hour to thee ! When as the sun 
 His course in the high heaven hath run, 
 And dew upon the earth doth fall, 
 And clouds their infant light recall, 
 May I in heart and spirit be 
 
 An hour with thee ! 
 
 " This hour be thine ! As tender sweet 
 As to the heart returning feet 
 That timely come, and hands that bless, 
 And eyes that add their own caress, 
 So tender and so timely be 
 
 This hour to me, 
 
 " This hour to thee ! And if I weep, 
 Let hope her watches o er me keep, 
 And build a rainbow from my tears 
 That neath this sullen cloud of years 
 Shall promise brightly I may be 
 
 More than an earthly hour with thee." 
 
 " Thank you," said my wife. 
 
 We had, as it were, a shock when Clayborne, rising, 
 
208 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 said : " We have had enough, I think. Did it take 
 him long to write it, St. Clair, or did you do it ? " 
 
 "I did not. I cannot. I wish I could. My 
 heavens, it is so simple, so tender ! " 
 
 " Stuff ! stuff ! " exclaimed the scholar. " Come into 
 the garden and have your tobacco. Pick up those 
 cushions, St. Clair." 
 
 Meanwhile Sibyl had disappeared into the house. 
 We followed Clayborne through the roses into the 
 garden beyond, where, in the pallid light, the worn 
 Greek capitals and the sacrificial altar were gray 
 blurs in the evening shade. We sat down at the far 
 side on the marble bench. Vincent stretched him 
 self out on a cushion at our feet, while St. Clair 
 walked to and fro. As we talked of our summer 
 schemes, I chanced to observe that St. Clair was 
 standing still at the end of the long garden walk. 
 His pipe was out. He was leaning on the altar. A 
 firefly flashed beside him, and I noticed that he was 
 looking at the sky. Again half a dozen of these 
 winged lanterns lighted up his face. He was very 
 quiet. At this moment I saw Sibyl at the upper en 
 trance, a white figure moving with accustomed slow 
 ness down the garden walk. She paused, came on, 
 paused again, and, I supposed, would turn into the 
 cross-walk which led to our seat. When I saw that 
 she did not, but went on toward St. Clair, I rose and 
 stepped across a bed of flowers so as to meet her. I 
 felt some vague uneasiness. 
 
 " Sibyl," I said. 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 "Sibyl!" 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 209 
 
 She still moved on. I was struck with the fact 
 that she appeared not to notice me, and that she did 
 not, as usual, halt in her gait. She moved slowly, 
 but seemed free from awkwardness of motion. Again 
 I spoke, and louder. As she still did not seem to 
 hear me, I took her arm, and said, " This way, Sibyl." 
 We were now near to St. Clair. 
 
 She said softly, "Where am I?" and then very 
 low, but in a voice of ecstasy, " My love, I am com 
 ing, coming," and instantly became rigid from head 
 to foot. I caught her falling form. 
 
 I cried : " Don t be alarmed. She has fainted." 
 
 It was really a hysterical attack. Clayborne was 
 troubled. St. Clair, who had heard her, was far more 
 plainly disturbed. She was carried to the house and 
 put to bed. My wife and I remained all night. Be 
 fore morning the girl was clear in mind, but very 
 weak, and quite unable to recall this unpleasant little 
 drama. 
 
 " Something happened at dinner," she said. " Did 
 we sing? I went indoors, I think I forget. Did I 
 faint? Mr. Clayborne was cross." 
 
 "People do faint," I said. "No 5 no one is to 
 blame for fainting. You have been working too 
 hard." 
 
 " It must be that, I suppose," she said wearily. 
 
 Clayborne was worried, and could not see how 
 work could hurt any one. The women were wiser. 
 My wife, who hears everything she ought not to 
 hear, said to me : " Hysterics ! Yes, and something 
 else. Owen, I have learned to love this girl, and she 
 is so frail and so tender. She gives out her love as a 
 
210 BE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 flower gives its odor, asking no return. Was it St. 
 Glair s fault ? Anne Vincent will not talk of it. But 
 what to do?" 
 
 This time Victor was hard hit. Sibyl s rapid emer 
 gence from childhood interested him ; her freshness, 
 the unexpected way in which her mind worked, were 
 attractive. Her great beauty of face appealed to him. 
 He knew now what had happened. As he did every 
 thing in excess, now he told Anne Vincent that he 
 loved the girl. 
 
 " It is not true," she said, indignant. " You do 
 not. You cannot." 
 
 " No, I don t ! " he cried. " I do not know. Why 
 did Mrs. North tell you? As to loving her, I said 
 then I did not." 
 
 " Then why do you lie about it ? " 
 
 " Sometimes I must," he said, " and, indeed, I am 
 greatly troubled. I do wish all of you would let me 
 alone as if I did not know." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent took no notice of this appeal. 
 
 "The girl is very weak, very sick, Victor. At 
 least, so says Owen North. If if she should fall ill, 
 or die, do you think you would be blameless ? " 
 
 " I know," he cried, " I know ! " and went away, 
 flying like a scared bird that has no resort but flight. 
 He had a human inclination to get away from a 
 place where anything unpleasant had occurred. No 
 one asked him to go. He had behaved well of late. 
 I saw no reason why he should go. 
 
 This time he was gone until September. He wrote 
 to me, and spoke of all of us except Miss Maywood, 
 and meanwhile we had scattered for the summer. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 211 
 
 Before we left, Clayborne had talked to me very 
 freely of Sibyl s health. We had agreed, however, 
 among ourselves to be careful as to what we said to 
 him. If Clayborne had understood the situation, he 
 would have been more watchful. As usual, the mis 
 chief-maker had fled, and to have warned Clayborne 
 now would only have made certain a rupture be 
 tween him and St. Clair. We continued to hope that 
 absence and wholesome society would have for the 
 secretary their usual value. The extent and quality 
 of the morbidness due to uncertain health and a 
 background of emotional temperament even I did not 
 as yet appreciate. It was clear to me before St. Clair 
 went away that he was filled with distress at what his 
 folly had brought about. I had seen him before this 
 in like trouble and annoyed at the obvious result of 
 his own folly, but never before had he shown any 
 notable regret or acknowledged that he was to blame. 
 
XIV 
 
 |HE Vincents had rented a small farm 
 house on Frenchman s Bay, upon the 
 shores of Mount Desert Island, and we, 
 my wife and child and I, having ac 
 cepted their invitation, settled down for 
 a long stay in the delightful summer climate of 
 Maine. It was still half wilderness ; the people sim 
 ple and interesting, with a flavor of the salt seas and 
 fish. The hills were trackless, the roads bad, and the 
 contrast with our city life very grateful to us all. 
 Vincent s yacht lay at anchor in the bay, and there 
 were boats and canoes on or at the landing-slip. 
 Clayborne talked of a visit we knew to be improb 
 able, but, as I have said, he had reluctantly given us 
 Sibyl, to my little Mary s joy. I shared the child s 
 satisfaction. In contact with the vigorous mind of 
 Clayborne, Sibyl had assimilated knowledge with such 
 ease as surprised me. Nor did this lessen the spirit 
 ual grace of her own individuality. It is true that 
 she had what Vincent called mental, as well as emo 
 tional, moods, and was wise and temperately thought 
 ful at one moment, and again childlike or overfull of 
 sentiment. In this perfect air, where the seaside cli 
 matic conditions are modified by the nearness of 
 mountains, she swiftly gained health, and with it self- 
 control. Yet, as we all saw, she had undergone some 
 
 212 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 213 
 
 radical change. She was more decisive, and at times 
 seemed older. I was puzzled by her as I am rarely 
 puzzled. She spoke tranquilly of St. Clair, saying 
 without trace of emotion that we must miss him, and 
 when would he come ? 
 
 My wife said to me one day: "I have had a long 
 talk with Sibyl. She likes St. Clair, but I am sure 
 she has not lost her heart. She discussed him quite 
 coldly, Owen. Sometimes her acuteness is remark 
 able. She said he was self -full rather than selfish; 
 that he cared too much for his art, and would be no, 
 might be unhappy if he married; and then But 
 is n t he a charming companion ? She does not love 
 him, Owen, I am sure of that." 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but if not," said I, " how explain 
 that scene in the garden ? In some way he disturbs 
 her, but whether consciously to her or not I cannot 
 say." 
 
 My wife was silent a moment, and then replied : " If 
 Sibyl were two people I could comprehend it." 
 
 I had seen enough of the double consciousness of 
 some hysterias to feel no surprise at this flash of 
 feminine insight. 
 
 "That is not impossible," I said. "I will think 
 about it." Very soon I had still more cause to 
 reflect. 
 
 One day I had failed to find St. Glair s last address 
 in his letter, and, thinking to discover it on the en 
 velop, I searched my table and waste-paper basket. 
 It is a valuable habit of mine never to destroy an en 
 velop until the inclosure has been read. I was, 
 therefore, sure that I had left the missing envelop on 
 
 15 
 
214 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 a table beside my desk. I went away a little thought 
 ful to take my afternoon pull on the water. As I 
 passed I heard Sibyl call from her favorite nest in a 
 hammock : " May I go with you ? n 
 
 I said : " Yes, of course. Delighted to have you." 
 
 "Then the canoe, please. " 
 
 I settled her comfortably on the red cushions in 
 the. birch, and knelt, Indian fashion, in the stern, 
 facing her, as I paddled out on to the broad waters 
 of Frenchman s Bay. 
 
 " Let us not talk for a while," she said. 
 
 My profession has taught me respect for the moods 
 of other people. She wanted silence. So did I. I 
 used the paddle quietly, and we stole out a mile from 
 the shore on water without a ripple. To left the set 
 ting sun cast its light laterally across the bay. The 
 sea was a vast glow of crimson. Far away the 
 Gouldsborough hills were like domes of ruddy bronze. 
 Overhead the splendor of scarlet and rose faded 
 toward the zenith, to glow again in the east above 
 the Mount Desert hills. I ceased to paddle, and lay 
 back in the stern. As Sibyl looked across the water 
 at the changing tints of rose-gold on low-lying clouds 
 over the mainland, I watched her face, and observed 
 once more the indescribable look of serene spiritual 
 ity. I might wrestle long with the incapacities of 
 language and still be unable to set on paper what 
 was so plain to my eyes. I resolved that she should 
 be first to crack what El-Din-Attar calls " the egg of 
 silence." I waited long, the birch drifting. Now and 
 then a faint breeze here and there fretted the water. 
 On these wind-ruffled spaces the cloud shadows lay, 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 215 
 
 dark purple islands amid the shimmering plane of red. 
 Far away a frail mist filled the air, and near by iri 
 descent lights, with a wonder of changeful colors, 
 glanced or glowed on the water. Between us and 
 the setting sun two great coasting-schooners moved 
 slowly; their ample sails, set against the scarlet 
 sea and sky, appeared of a pallid green, like the 
 delicate underwing of the katydid. At last Sibyl 
 spoke. 
 
 " Do you think that bad people ever really enjoy 
 beautiful things f " 
 
 " I fear they do. There were those terrible Italian 
 despots, Malatestas, Medici, and their kind. And 
 some very good folks, I fancy, get nothing out of 
 nature, Sibyl. The Italian of that day loved the 
 beautiful in art. I doubt, on second thought, if 
 nature, as we speak of it, appealed to him." 
 
 She was still a moment, and then said : " I am glad 
 that nature -was not intimate with those terrible 
 people." 
 
 " What an odd way to put it, Sibyl ! " 
 
 " Is it ? I do not like that bad people should find 
 in all this what we find. It seems very near to me ; 
 sometimes I seem a part of it, or it of me. Do not 
 you feel that sometimes ? " 
 
 I smiled gently, and looking out over the splendor 
 of the evening lights wondered if I had really any of 
 the feeling she expressed. 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " when I say these things you do 
 not even answer. You smile. It is not fair. You 
 are very vexing at times, my good, dear doctor. I 
 told something like this to the master last month, 
 
216 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 and he just said, What, what, girl ! Then I quoted 
 to him : 
 
 For head with foot hath private amitie, 
 
 And both with winds and tides. 
 
 His eyes dismount the farthest star, 
 
 He is in little all the sphere. 
 
 Herbs gladly cure our flesh because that they 
 
 Find their acquaintance there. 
 
 When I finished he asked if that were Emerson or a 
 charade. I never puzzled him before as to a quota 
 tion, unless it were modern. He affects to know only 
 certain writers. He has read, voraciously, every 
 thing." 
 
 I said : " No wonder he did not know. You picked 
 out the lines best fitted to puzzle." 
 
 " And you know ? n 
 
 " Certainly I do. Did he say no more ? " 
 
 " Yes. When I told him who wrote them, he said : 
 I never have felt that kinship to nature, but here is 
 what Pico della Mirandola said : " It is a commonplace 
 of the schools that man is a little world in which 
 may be discerned a body mingled of earthly elements 
 and ethereal breath, and also of the vegetable life of 
 plants and the senses of lower animals, and reason, 
 and the intelligence of angels, and a likeness to God." 
 When he saw how this pleased me, the master advised 
 me to read concerning Pico, his life by Sir Thomas 
 More. Oh, dear ! I tried it ! 
 
 I laughed with reminiscent sympathy. 
 
 " I had to give up that book," she said. " I hate 
 some books. You cannot answer a book. And some 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 217 
 
 books do have such bad manners. In one I read last 
 week there was something about this very matter." 
 
 " What did it say, Sibyl ? " 
 
 " Oh, that to give imagined life and thought and 
 feeling and sympathy to tree or sea or hill or flower 
 was pure nonsense ; that to cultivate and accept such 
 beliefs was silly and even unwise, mere superstitions 
 of the imagination." 
 
 "I d rather be 
 A pagan suckled hi a creed outworn," 
 
 I quoted. 
 
 " Yes, indeed. It is the things you cannot prove 
 that are the best of life." 
 
 " Go on," I said. " I am, I was, smiling, but only 
 with, not at, you." 
 
 " Perhaps," she said, " as we surely are of the God 
 who set us here, so must there be in all that he has 
 made some mystery of kinship. It seems an essential 
 part of me, this desire to feel in nature sympathies of 
 relation." 
 
 "You find/ I returned, " as I do, something solemn 
 in this blaze of evening scarlet, something of the 
 same feeling in deep woods, the sense of serene peace 
 in a mountain lake, of joy in wild waters." 
 
 "Yes, yes," she said; "and although I cannot ex 
 plain it, I know, I feel, that it is a part of my right 
 ful property." 
 
 " But is not that, Sibyl, very different from presum 
 ing that nature feels for or with you ? " 
 
 " It must. It does." 
 
 " There is no harm in the belief, my dear Sibyl. It 
 
218 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 is not a bad belief. If there be in it a mysterious 
 satisfaction, it harms no one. Nature thus loved and 
 dealt with will not make of you a mystic." 
 
 " Now, there is something I do want to talk about, 
 mystery and mysticism. What is the line between 
 them ? I remember one evening at Holmwood Mr. 
 St. Clair tried to get a definition of mystical out 
 of my cousin, but he would not reply, or something 
 turned the talk aside." 
 
 " And now you think I will answer!" 
 " Yes. It left me with a desire to hear more." 
 " What is a mystic ? Perhaps I may be best able 
 to exemplify what in my mind is very distinct. The 
 man who finds plant-forms or what not growing in 
 threes, and in that discovers relations to the Trinity, is 
 so far a mystic. When I recognize anything as mys 
 terious I want to understand it. The mystic invents 
 mystery, and casts a shroud of perplexing inadequacies, 
 of fanciful explanation, about the simple. There is 
 much that is probably forever unknowable, but let us 
 not add needlessly to the inexplicable." 
 
 " I think I see," she said thoughtfully. " But," she 
 returned, "as to this sympathetic relation of nature 
 with me, I have to confess it as affectionately held 
 and not capable of proof, like well, like some other 
 grave things which we cannot prove, like well, like 
 what a great love must be." 
 
 " But we can prove that your thesis about nature 
 is not true. You may not wish to do so, but do not 
 confuse yourself." 
 
 " I like to confuse myself." 
 
 " I abandon the field," said I, laughing. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 219 
 
 "Oh, Dr. North, are n t you hardened by science 
 until all mystery is distressful to you ? n 
 
 11 Between mystery and mysticism let us once more 
 draw the line. You have the temperament of the 
 mystic. The mysterious is attractive to you only 
 because it is mysterious. That is the mystic/ 7 
 
 "Ami? Perhaps." 
 
 The talk fell away as twilight cast her veil of 
 shadows on the face of the dead day. Presently 
 Sibyl said with hesitative shyness : " I was naughty 
 to-day, Dr. North." Here was another Sibyl, the child. 
 
 " Indeed ? And how, little woman ? " 
 
 " I took an envelop from your table. 7 
 
 Then I understood. The naivete of such a confes 
 sion was astounding. 
 
 " Well, what then ? T is no great crime. But 
 why take it ? " It seemed best to me to go through 
 the path thus opened. 
 
 " I saw it was Mr. St. Glair s writing. I wanted it. 
 I had a fancy to see if I could find his character in 
 his writing." 
 
 " Ah ! His character. Well ! " 
 
 " Was there any harm in it ? n 
 
 " Oh, no. But why not have asked me to show 
 you his letters ? " 
 
 " Yes, that would have been better." 
 
 " Sometimes no one can read them," I said. " I do 
 not think that writing shows character. Writing is 
 formed, as to its peculiarities, in youth, and before 
 that complex thing, character, is fully constructed. 
 Nor as character alters does the writing of the man 
 show change." 
 
220 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " That seems to dispose of the beliefs of some 
 people as to handwriting." 
 
 " Yes. Once it is well formed, the permanence of 
 the form a man s script has is remarkable. I had 
 once a terrible case of hysterical palsy. This girl in 
 turn wrote with her right hand steadied by the left, 
 then with the left, then at last with a pen held in her 
 teeth. All of this variously produced script was 
 practically the same, was decided by an expert to be 
 written by one person." 
 
 Sibyl sat quiet a little while, as she was apt to do 
 when considering something of interest. Then she 
 sat up rather abruptly and said, " Mr. St. Clair " 
 
 "What, Sibyl?" 
 
 "Mr. St. Clair is on the water. I hear him 
 coming." 
 
 " Nonsense." 
 
 " I do, doctor. Do not you hear 1 " She was plainly 
 excited. She sat up erect of a sudden, staring down 
 the bay. 
 
 " Lie down. Keep still, Sibyl." I feared more hys 
 terics, and this, in a frail birch half a mile from land, 
 presented me with a new terror. " Take care," I said. 
 "Lie still." 
 
 " But he is coming." 
 
 Her voice betrayed her excitement. 
 
 " Well, what then ? Sit still." 
 
 My own ear now detected the splash of a paddle. I 
 turned toward the landing. Another boat drew near. 
 As we paddled in through the dark, I heard St. Clair 
 call : " Is that you, Owen North ? Good evening, Miss 
 Maywood." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 221 
 
 To my surprise, she was suddenly as quiet as any 
 woman of half a dozen social campaigns. I felt 
 relieved. She had come again, for the time, into 
 healthy self-command of her unstable temperament. 
 
 As we walked toward the house, St. Clair said: 
 " Glad to see you. I have been camped on Iron 
 Bound Island, and then on the shore at Seal Harbor. 
 As you know, for I wrote from. Portland, I came in 
 my canoe by sea from New York. Last night my 
 little tent took fire. I could not find a corner in the 
 village, and so here I am. Luckily, Owen, your clothes 
 fit me. I have not a garment except what is on me." 
 
 I was a little annoyed, thinking of Sibyl, but the 
 poet was made welcome, and it was soon clear that 
 Sibyl was mistress of herself. She neither sought nor 
 shunned St. Clair, and his too-attentive pleasure in her 
 serene and tender face had apparently gone the way of 
 many another such possession. Very soon we all felt 
 easier, and he was so charming a companion that 
 not to be glad of his company was impossible. My 
 wife declared herself reassured. And yet, as we 
 walked and drove, or boated and sailed on these lovely 
 waters, and the weeks went by, I was not altogether 
 at ease about this singular young woman. At 
 times she was too self-absorbed, at times too silent ; 
 and yet at no time was she otherwise with St. Clair 
 than to appearance frank and natural. For a long 
 time I hesitated to believe that his mere presence 
 affected her without her being consciously aware of it. 
 It seemed to Alice an absurd idea, one of my queer no 
 tions, she said. I have several. Some I keep muzzled. 
 Some not even my wife knows. This idea kept firm 
 
222 DK. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 hold of me. I watched her more closely than did the 
 others, and, in fact, she was both friend and patient. 
 As part of my systematic care I obliged her to rest 
 much in the hammock and to go to bed at nine. Af 
 ter she thus left us an indefinite sense of relief was 
 present. Then, and never before, St. Clair was apt 
 to go to the piano and sing or improvise, giving way 
 to the varying mootf of the hour, like the mere child 
 of genius he was when set free from the constraint 
 of conventional society. One evening he had been 
 chanting bits of wild lullabies picked up in Borneo, 
 when Mrs. Vincent said : " Victor, tell us of your 
 voyage." 
 
 " Certainly j but, first, here is a queer thing. You 
 may remember that Alcott bought, years ago, my 
 Indian standing unarmed on a peak of the Catskills, 
 looking down sadly on the land where once his tribe 
 had hunted. Alcott failed, and at the sale of his 
 gallery Xerxes bought my chief. I grieve to say it 
 cost him very little." 
 
 " That is rather odd," remarked Vincent. 
 
 " Look out for mischief," said I. 
 
 " But what," said Mrs. Vincent, " can he do ? " 
 
 " I do not know," I replied. " The devil is inge 
 nious. He may roast it to make lime of it." 
 
 "Well," said St. Clair, "we shall see. By the way, 
 did I tell you how he came to relate that tale about 
 the honor of the Wampum family ? " 
 
 "No; what was it?" 
 
 " I went one day to his house to change the time of 
 a sitting. There I saw the new Mrs. Xerxes, Mrs. 
 Gladwyn that was. She has him well in hand. She 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 223 
 
 is tall, very handsome, rather full-blown ; a lady, to 
 my surprise." 
 
 " I knew her," said Mrs. Vincent, " when she was 
 Miss Van Osten. She was a well-bred, rather cold 
 and stately girl. She married Gladwyn, an English 
 man of good Dorset stock. He ill-treated her, and, 
 dying, left her poor." 
 
 " And so she has polished Mr. Xerxes ? " said Vin 
 cent. 
 
 " Yes, most notably. She was very civil, of course, 
 and did not overdo it. When I declined to dine with 
 them, she said simply that perhaps they might be 
 more fortunate another day. When Xerxes, who 
 must be forgiving, urged it, I saw her cleverly signal 
 him, and at this he dropped it, and asked me to look 
 at his new Meissonier. It was labeled * Ronneur. A 
 pale young man stood before a table littered with 
 papers. Opposite sat an old man, the father, I pre 
 sume. The old man s face was cold and stern. He 
 was handing a pistol to the son. The story was plain 
 disgrace, shame ; there was but one thing to do, as 
 the old man saw it. As I stood charmed with the 
 picture, I said, * He must atone by death. How dis 
 tinctly the tale is told! Disgrace, honor, death. 
 ( That young fellow/ said Xerxes, * he don t seem to 
 like it. He is no such darned fool. The young 
 man is a coward/ said madam. < I am for the father. 
 Xerxes glanced at her, a quick look of surprise and 
 curiosity. Evidently neither his social education nor 
 his knowledge of Mrs. Crofter was quite complete. 
 He said : I wonder if the old man will pay the bills. 
 I would n t. I should have advised Texas. I told my 
 
224 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 son Peter that once. Then/ said madam, flushing a 
 little, i if you are in earnest, which I doubt, you had 
 better repent and settle. It was lightly said, but it 
 answered. If you like, said Xerxes, coolly. I 
 did n t mean that Peter did worse than get in debt. 
 I would delight to be able to oblige you, only that I 
 paid up long ago. That honor business is a queer 
 thing. It was apropos of this that I was told the 
 story. I fancy there may have been bills to pay for 
 Peter, his son. Xerxes is founding libraries, endow 
 ing asylums, and altogether is worked pretty shrewdly. 
 He ought to be interesting on the question of honor. 
 It is by no means easy to define." 
 
 " I happen to have here," said Vincent, " one of Clay- 
 borne s books in which he marked for me a passage to 
 illustrate this very matter." As he spoke he took up 
 an old copy of " Reliquiae Wottonianae." " The book 
 is interesting," he said. " See this. On a blank page 
 is written, t Susanna Hopton, Her Booke ; and under 
 neath, l Given by her unknown generous friend, Mr. Izaac 
 Walton. Ex libris Tho. Hopton, 1695. I should like 
 to know more of it, and how the dear old angler was 
 generous, and why unknown. But let me read the 
 passage : 
 
 " l Upon Munday was seven-night fell out another 
 quarrel, nobly carried (branching from the former) 
 between my Lord Fielding and Mr. Goring, Son and 
 Heir to the Lord of that Name. They had been the 
 night before at Supper, I know not were, together ; 
 were Mr. Goring spake something in diminution of 
 my Lord Weston, vvich my Lord Fielding told him, it 
 could not become him to suffer, lying by the side of 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 225 
 
 his Sister. Thereupon, these hot hearts appoint a 
 meeting next day morning, themselves alone, each 
 upon his Horse. They pass by Hide-Park, at a place 
 were they might be parted too soon, and turn into a 
 Lane by Knights-Bridge; were having tyed up their 
 Horses at a Hedge or Gate, they got over into a 
 Close j ther stripped into their Shirts, with single 
 Rapiers, they fell to an eager Duel, till they were 
 severed by the Host and his servants of the Inne of 
 the Prince of Orange, who by meer chance had taken 
 some notice of them. In this noble encounter, where 
 in blood was spent, though (by God s providence) not 
 much on either side, ther passed between them a very 
 memorable interchange of a piece of courtesie, if that 
 word may have room in this place ; Sayes my Lord 
 Fielding, Mr. Goring u if you leave me here, let me 
 advise you not to go back by Piccadillia-hall, lest if 
 mischance befall me, and be suddenly noised (as it 
 falleth out in these occasions now between us) you 
 might receive some harm by some of my friends that 
 lodge thereabouts." "My Lord (replyes Goring] I 
 have no way but one to answer this courtesie : I have 
 here by chance in my Pocket a Warrent to pass the 
 Ports out of England, without a Name (gotten, I sup 
 pose, upon some other occasion before). If you leave 
 me here, take it for your use, and put it in your own 
 name." This is a passage much commended, as pro 
 ceeding both from sweetness and stoutness of spirit, 
 which are very compatible. 7 " 
 
 " How pretty that is the t sweetness and stoutness 
 of spirit ! The passage is new to me." 
 
 " I suppose," returned Vincent, " to go back on our 
 
226 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 talk a little, that however much a man like Xerxes 
 may change, many of the finer qualities of more 
 high-minded natures must remain to him mere rid 
 dles, delicacies of conduct he can never know." 
 
 " Yes ; that seems likely," I said. " An old writer 
 says of honor that i it is the sweete extravagance of 
 honestie/ but while I agree that it is impossible to 
 define it, to illustrate it is tempting." 
 
 " What a pretty bit of old-time gossip ! " said Mrs. 
 Vincent, who had listened smiling. " How far away 
 from one like Mr. Crofter ! And yet I should 
 like to know him. I have always felt sure that I 
 shall." 
 
 "Feminine curiosity," said Vincent, "has cost the 
 world pretty dear. Be thankful that occasionally, as 
 now, it never can be gratified. Let us drop Xerxes. 
 But what of the voyage, Victor ? " 
 
 " Oh, I wrote all about it to Owen." 
 
 " I never saw your letters," said my wife, reproach 
 fully. " Owen has so trained himself to hold his 
 tongue that I never, never hear anything." 
 
 " I could not read his letter," said I. " An intoxi 
 cated beetle, just out of an ink-pot and crawling over 
 the page, would have scrawled his maudlin dreams as 
 clearly." Having said thus much in my defense, I went 
 out and brought back with me the letter. " Bead it 
 yourself," said I. 
 
 He took it and, spinning round on the piano-stool, 
 faced us and the letter with a puzzled look. How 
 much of what we heard was letter and how much 
 was added, I do not know. 
 
 At last he said : "It is not fair to ask a man to 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 227 
 
 read his own letters aloud I mean two weeks after 
 writing them. How can he remember ? " 
 
 This was greeted with wild laughter, and, thus 
 reviled, he began : 
 
 " I left New York at noon in my Rob Roy canoe, 
 and ran up the Sound, with my little red silk sail 
 spread, and a gentle southwester after me, and much 
 chaff from coasters. Toward evening, next day, I 
 stood out to sea, using my paddle. I soon lost sight 
 of land. Then about midnight I lighted my small 
 lantern, and lay on a moveless ocean under a star 
 lit sky. I fell back at ease on my cushions. I 
 was folded about with peace as with a mantle. 
 Around me and above was the night, and below 
 the deeper darkness of the sea. A great ocean 
 liner went by a few hundred yards away. I heard 
 the pulse of her propeller, and saw the upheaval 
 of white water at her bow. The touch of peril made 
 sweet the sense of solitude, the voiceless loneli 
 ness of the ocean. The darkness deepened toward 
 dawn. A strange feeling of the imminence of death 
 possessed me. All life was so far away, with its busy 
 contradictions of life s inevitable ending. I was alone 
 as God is alone, as the unpeopled stars are alone. I 
 seemed to be a soul in space, thought-bereft, without 
 hopes or memories, a child-soul drifting on to alien 
 shores. Then a great white bird swept by on hesita 
 tive wing, and far to the east the day welled up on the 
 edge of the night ; and so a gentle joy fell upon me, 
 and I slept till the fuller light wakened me, saying, 
 " Here is time again." ? The rest," he said, " is worth 
 less." Upon this he turned to the piano and sang 
 
228 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 song after song. He rose at last, and said : " I have 
 kept the floor rather long, dear people. Good night." 
 Then he turned back, and said : " Have you ever at 
 evening on the ocean, alone, watched a gull hovering 
 overhead, he and you alone, both silent ? " 
 
 " I have been in that good company," said I. 
 
 " Then you will like this. I made it while I watched 
 him. I have never written it." He played some sort 
 of improvised accompaniment, and chanted, or rather 
 intoned. It was not singing. 
 
 We rose silently. No words can convey the effect 
 he could produce when in one of these rapt moods. I 
 have never seen any one else who had this power. 
 
 " Thank you," said my wife. " Leave us with this 
 to dream on. Come, Anne." 
 
 A moment after the women had gone, I heard Mrs. 
 Vincent say, as they went up-stairs, " Who could have 
 spilled candle-grease on the rail and stairs, too ? " 
 
 As the bedroom candles were set on a table at the 
 head of the stairway, I understood why she was sur 
 prised, and then I forgot it in a medical pamphlet " On 
 Displacements of the Colon." Vincent, who has a mania 
 as to punctuation, fell on to it greedily next day, and 
 was much disgusted when he discovered it to be only 
 medical. 
 
 While I was dressing next morning, Mrs. Vincent 
 knocked and asked me to see Sibyl before I break 
 fasted. I found Miss Maywood in bed, and was 
 more than ever struck with her singular beauty. The 
 spinal distortion was, of course, unseen as she lay 
 with her perfect hands outside of the cover. I have 
 as a physician a great horror of deformities. They 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 229 
 
 usually represent incompetence, vice, neglect, or ig 
 norance. Because some doctor did not know his 
 business this girl was to be whipped through life with 
 a lash he would never feel. Sibyl s first welcome was 
 usually a smile like the ready smile of childhood- 
 mysterious coinage before mirth is conscious. Now 
 she did not smile. Clearly she was not well, had 
 slept ill, and, as I found, had a slight fever. It was 
 nothing, she said. I advised rest for a day. 
 
 As I went from her bedside I saw something which 
 caused me to take Mrs. Vincent aside after breakfast. 
 I said to her : " Last night, after Sibyl left us, she 
 heard St. Clair reading or singing. She went half 
 way down the stair and listened. He began just 
 after she left us." 
 
 " How do you know that, Owen North ? " 
 
 " She dropped candle-grease on the stair and also 
 on her gown." 
 
 " Oh, I am glad you are not my doctor. And what 
 next?" 
 
 " I do not think that she knew what she was doing." 
 
 "Can that be?" 
 
 " Yes. I do not suppose that she realizes her own 
 condition. Perhaps she never will. The mischief is 
 done. It is vain to talk to her. Common sense is a 
 tonic which here is useless. Time, which some one 
 brutally called the opium of grief, time will not help 
 her." 
 
 " Then this is serious ? Her physical state, I mean, 
 and this condition of somnambulism, or double con 
 sciousness. It seems to me horrible, Owen, to be and 
 not to be yourself." 
 
230 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Yes ; it is perplexing." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent stood still. " I have come to love 
 this girl more than I thought I could love so peculiar 
 a person. Is there no way to help her? What can 
 we do or help you to do ? St. Glair must not know. 
 He is more really sorry for what has occurred than 
 I ever saw him about anything. He thinks it is 
 over ; that it was on her side a brief fancy. But he 
 does not like to talk of it or of her. I have sometimes 
 thought but no matter." 
 
 " Ah, me ! " I said. " First some fool costs her this 
 crippled life, then this un thoughtful fellow adds an 
 unendurable pain. And yet, how could he dream 
 that she is a woman capable of love, of passion, of 
 despair ? We are apt not to credit physical incom 
 pleteness with the moral or even the mental equip 
 ment of the physically competent." 
 
 "Yes, that is true. I myself have the feeling. 
 Poor Sibyl ! I see it all now. At times she gives way 
 to emotion as in the garden, or as she did last night. 
 And then there is a new Sibyl. It is a strange 
 nature. I suppose this is what you doctors call 
 hysteria. Dr. Randolph comes to-morrow for a week, 
 and she is to go back with him, and will remain at 
 Holmwood. I must write to Clayborne as to her 
 work, or you had better do so." 
 
 " Very good. I will do it. And do not be troubled ; 
 it is only temporary." 
 
 In fact, Bibyl grew slowly better, and then very 
 suddenly was herself. Meanwhile St. Clair was twice 
 absent for two days in his canoe. 
 
 I was glad to talk with Randolph about my patient. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 231 
 
 He listened with medical patience, and then could not 
 agree with me. Plainly anemia was the trouble. Yes, 
 but what caused it ? He took a great fancy to Miss 
 Maywood. He carried with him what Vincent called 
 "the robust atmosphere of a life of success." He 
 rowed her about on the bay, set her on a pony and 
 led it, or read to her as she lay in the hammock, be 
 traying no evidence of intimate knowledge of her life. 
 She grew better, and I tried to think I had been 
 wrong as to her condition. But that something was 
 mysteriously affecting her I still saw but too plainly. 
 
 Finally St. Clair left us again in his usual abrupt 
 way, talking of it for a week beforehand, and, without 
 other warning, was gone one morning at break of 
 day. 
 
 And now September had come. The boarders in 
 the village, and what the inhabitants then called 
 "the mealers and team-mealers," were gone. We 
 seemed once more to own the woods and waters. 
 
 One perfect day early in this month of weather 
 moods, we ran across Frenchman s Bay, and skirted the 
 north shore under easy sail, scarce moving on a quiet 
 ocean. Mrs. Vincent had at last agreed to go if we 
 could rely upon tranquil seas. We ran along after 
 luncheon in sight of the Gouldsborough hills, and in 
 and out among islands, and close to the bold cliffs 
 of Iron Bound. We exhausted epithets as the day 
 wore on. The mountains on Mount Desert began to 
 glow with the hazy violet tints of evening, while the 
 islands hid from us one of the ugliest towns on the 
 coast of New England. 
 
 As we moved with a scarce-felt wind, Sibyl and I 
 
232 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 were walking the deck, while I pointed out the vari 
 ous Porcupine islands. At last I said, " That is Iron 
 Bound yonder." 
 
 " Yes," she returned, " where Mr. St. Clair camped. 
 I am glad he went away. We used to be such good 
 friends, but of late he has quietly dropped me. He is 
 really a strange man. I wonder what I could ever 
 have done to make him avoid me." 
 
 I turned sharply to look at the maker of this critical 
 speech. 
 
 " I thought you liked him," I said. 
 
 " I did. I do. No one can help liking him. I think 
 I understand him better than at first. I did at first 
 think him a sort of continuous riddle. He was rather 
 bewildering to a simple young woman." 
 
 Suddenly a thought struck me. " See those gulls, 
 Sibyl. Have you ever heard St. Clair sing The Sea 
 gull ? Watch that rover now." 
 
 "No," she said, "never. It must be a new song. I 
 do not know why, but he never sings early in the 
 evening, and I am in bed by your orders, sir, at nine ; 
 also, I sleep at once and well." 
 
 So, then, she had not consciously heard St. Clair 
 sing. Of this I was sure. Here was stuff for reflec 
 tion. Sibyl said presently : "I want to ask Dr. Ran 
 dolph something. I have been trying to recall what 
 it was ; now I have it. Excuse me, I must ask him." 
 
 Did she desire to escape further question? That 
 was most unlikely. I followed her, thoughtful. She 
 was absolutely truthful. That she must have heard 
 St. Clair sing the night before her small illness was 
 to my mind certain. I was driven to the conclusion 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 233 
 
 that this woman had ceased to love St. Glair, if, in 
 deed, she had ever loved him, but that in some state 
 of unresisting dual consciousness she was the victim 
 of an overmastering passion. The thought seemed 
 to explain a good deal which had appeared to me 
 incomprehensible. 
 
 Meanwhile Miss Maywood had crossed the deck, and 
 joined the good old Tory doctor and the rest of the 
 party. She at once reminded him that he had not 
 fulfilled his promise to tell us or read to us the re 
 maining portions of his grandmother s diary. 
 
 " I did not forget/ 7 he said, " but when I came to 
 look it over with care I found that it dwelt merely 
 on the commonplaces of a happy life. Cyrilla s child 
 became my mother. She, too, married late in life. 
 Her uncle is worth remembering. He never entirely 
 forgave his sister s double change of religion that is, 
 he said he could not ; but no one ever saw him other 
 than most affectionate to her. He was an admirable 
 example of the orthodox Quaker, charitable, kindly, 
 religious, and a steady adherent to every ancient 
 usage of Friends. Assuredly he never forgot the 
 cruel ill-treatment his father, like many other Tories, 
 met with at the hands of the Whigs. Up to the time 
 of his last and only illness, he protested in writing 
 whenever he paid taxes, and never voted, declaring 
 himself to be still a subject of the King of England." 
 
 " How delightful ! " said my wife. " I wonder some 
 of the Anglophiles do not revive this custom." 
 
 " He did more," added Randolph. " Like the old 
 Friends, he used stimulants in reasonable amount. 
 Once a month he gathered all of his family at an 
 
234 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 early dinner. Then he had a bowl of punch, and 
 himself drank out of a curious horn cup which his 
 ancestor brought from England. Before drinking, he 
 said, To the king/ He remained loyal to the crown, 
 dying at a great age, the last of the Tories." 
 
 " They were harshly treated/ 7 said I. " They went 
 away in numbers to Canada. To-day you find some 
 of the best blood of New England scattered along 
 the desolate shores of Gaspe and Labrador. Men of 
 the uneducated class rarely emigrate for mere senti 
 ment. These were people of the upper classes. Now 
 they are fishers, smiths, or small farmers. The envi 
 ronment has been too hopelessly sterile of chances. 
 Of course others rose to distinction, as the interesting 
 old graveyard of the city of St. John s still shows." 
 
 "I have some sad records," said Randolph, "of the 
 hatred felt for the Tories. What with personal violence 
 and confiscations, they were very hardly used. Those 
 who were in arms for the king may have given cause, 
 if not excuse, but many, not all of the Society of 
 Friends, were really neutral, and in some cases paid 
 dear for their inoffensive loyalty." 
 
 " We must have changed greatly," said Vincent. 
 " Where else has a great civil war ended without 
 cruel retribution and wholesale confiscation ? " 
 
 " Every one was weary of slaughter," said Randolph. 
 
 "No," said Vincent, "it was not that. We are 
 changing as a nation I should say as a race, for only 
 one breed really expresses itself in our story. The 
 race which gave us a language is our race despite the 
 various tribes it, like the motherland, has swallowed. 
 No other race has such assimilative capacity. I think 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 235 
 
 the language has something to do with that. It is a 
 conquering tongue. I am talking rather slackly, 
 Randolph, but to thresh all this out would be tedious, 
 at least here. It is, at all events, sure that we are 
 to-day a gentler-minded people than we were, and 
 perhaps than are our cousins across the sea." 
 
 " A good many of thy theses I shall like to discuss 
 and dispute," said Randolph. "Certainly amid all 
 the horrors of our great war 
 
 I knew how much Mrs. Vincent disliked what we 
 others liked, "a good war talk." I therefore inter 
 rupted the good doctor, as if I had not heard him. 
 He was about to resume when Sibyl, who was using 
 my glass, exclaimed : " What a pretty little town set 
 among the trees, and so many boats and nets on the 
 shore, and dories, and, oh, men in ilers is n t that 
 correct? I seem to smell fish and tar. If Mr. St. 
 Clair were here he would put it into verse." 
 
 Welcoming the interruption, I said: "Everything 
 pretty is in verse somewhere." 
 
 " Find it," said Vincent. " Come now, Mrs. North, 
 Sibyl." 
 
 " Will this do ? " she said. " I learned it a week ago. 
 
 " The wind blows coldly from the north 
 On winter dawns, when in the gray 
 Dim light the fisherfolk set forth, 
 And in their dories ride away. 
 
 " All day a golden sunlight sleeps 
 
 On the gray town ; and hour by hour 
 The sea its calm reflection keeps 
 All golden as a golden flower." 
 
236 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " How simple, how effective ! " said I j "and the 
 rest?" 
 
 " I do not know any more. There is more." 
 
 "No one cares for verse in these days/ 7 said I. " I 
 know many men who have not read a line of it for 
 years. The young no longer read it. There was a 
 time when verse was the best-paid form of literary 
 product. Now who buys poetry ? " 
 
 " And yet/ said Mrs. Vincent, a great lover of verse, 
 "it is, as I see it, a natural mode of expressing 
 thought. The first history is in verse. Children like 
 to rhyme." 
 
 "And some insane folks/ said I, "if that will help 
 you." 
 
 " Is it," said Vincent, " because we have become 
 more critical that verse seems to us artificial 1 " 
 
 "No," said Randolph, "it is not that. It is more 
 artificial than it once was. The early verse was of 
 and for the people. Who writes for them now? 
 Verse became by degrees the luxury of the refined. 
 Can you interest the laborer or mechanic in any verse 
 which any man writes to-day ? To do that he must 
 use their tongue, know their ways ; and when such 
 verse as this comes to life it will be simple. We want 
 an American Burns. He will have a hearing." 
 
 " There was an age in all nations when music and 
 lyric verse were inseparable," said Vincent. "It 
 must have been in the blood of Elizabeth s time, 
 but of that we have talked more than once. And 
 speaking of this naturalness of verse as a vehicle of 
 thought, when I told Clayborne that he must admit 
 that men when dying would be apt to be natural, he 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 237 
 
 said promptly, l No, never less so, and that the mak 
 ing of verse at such times was a decisive argument 
 against verse being natural. This rather anticipated 
 my argument by strangling the premise." 
 
 "I recall the talk," said L "We mentioned the 
 case of the second Essex, the doubtful one of Kaleigh, 
 Tichborne s, and the sad instance of Everard Digby, 
 who spent the day before his execution in writing 
 execrable verse to his wife and children. There are 
 others." 
 
 "And," said my wife, "it was so like Mr. Clayborne 
 to turn on us with no end of illustrations to help the 
 argument, our argument." 
 
 "The queerest," added Mrs. Vincent, "were Ori 
 ental. He said, as I understood him, that several of 
 the princes of the house of Othman, when condemned 
 to the bowstring, asked for a respite of some hours 
 that they might express their death-thought in verse." 
 
 " I," said my wife, " can in no way conceive of 
 that as possible. You forgot the French cases, and 
 especially that of Andre Chenier." 
 
 "Yes, quite true," I said. "Since the ballad died 
 and the song has gone out of the every-day life of 
 men, I suspect that poetry has become such that 
 only the cultivated class are likely to care for it, 
 and they, it seems, care but little." 
 
 "And yet," said Randolph, "how gladly an au 
 dience which does not read verse listens to verse, if 
 it be fairly well read aloud ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Vincent. " When men s memories were 
 the only books and the king s singer his library, no 
 one recited prose. There is some charm in words 
 
238 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 read aloud as compared with those which only the 
 eye sees. The ear must attend. It cannot shut out 
 the spoken words. It has no lids. See how readily 
 some fluent fool on the platform captures an audience. 
 You or they must go back to cool print to recover 
 reason. The eye corrects the ear. The fate of a 
 nation s honor may hang on this fact." 
 
 " That is all true, Vincent," I said. " It would be 
 clearer if stated at greater length." 
 
 " Yes," said my wife. " I did not quite follow the 
 thought." 
 
 "And yet you must recall, Alice, my reading to 
 you and your cousins that poem of Woodville s. It 
 is spirited, vigorous, made for recitation. It visibly 
 stirred two women of not very imaginative nature. 
 Miss Margaret said to me afterward, I read that 
 soberly after you left. There is not much in it. I 
 said, * Soberly ! Why, it describes a charge of cav 
 alry. Shout it. Can you blow a trumpet soberly ? " 
 
 " I wish," said Mrs. Vincent, " verse were like 
 music, and had always to be heard." 
 
 " I think," said Vincent, " that, with us, the peo 
 ple s poet has yet to come. But even to-day now 
 and then some rare bit of verse captures the popular 
 ear, some poem echoes the mood of the nation, and 
 shows how one man can justify the use of verse to 
 say nobly, as prose cannot, what is in the heart of 
 every one." 
 
 " I fancy," said Mrs. North, " that the higher poetry 
 never has had in any time a great audience." 
 
 " And is it not strange," said Mrs. Vincent, " that all 
 the great national songs came from the minor poets ? " 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 239 
 
 " Indeed/ said my wife, " that is no doubt true. 
 I never thought of it before. But I hate the adjec 
 tive minor applied to poets. No one says minor 
 novelists. By the way, Anne, Haydn s * Austrian 
 Hymn is the one piece of really great national 
 music composed by a musician of celebrity. The 
 minor poets wrote the great national songs, and the 
 minor musicians fitted them to music j but why, 
 Anne," and she turned again to Mrs. Vincent, 
 "does the adjective minor applied to the lesser 
 poets seem so objectionable to me 1 I have heard 
 you say the same thing. It sounds reasonably de 
 scriptive. As usual, I find myself unable to defend 
 my opinion in words." 
 
 "Because," said Mrs. Vincent, "you cannot classify 
 poets. Do you judge by the quality of verse ? Then 
 at times the great masters are very minor poets, or the 
 reverse is true. Do you judge by the vitality of verse ? 
 Who wrote the hymns we love the best, the songs, the 
 ballads? The minor poets, surely. A delightful 
 golden may I say silver? treasury could be made 
 out of our minor poets. I should not object to be 
 called any kind of a poet, were I ever so small a poet. 
 St. Clair is furious when a critic describes him as a 
 minor poet." 
 
 "And yet he is," said Vincent. 
 
 "Are you a minor lawyer?" said I. 
 
 " Yes," cried Vincent, laughing, " and I abide by 
 my adjective. As to poetry, the law has produced no 
 poets. I am excused by the despotism of statistics. 
 I am a lawyer, therefore I cannot be a poet." 
 
 " Oh, was not Goethe?" ventured Sibyl. 
 
240 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so," lie replied, laughing. " Some 
 one always annihilates my efforts at generalization." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent scarcely approved of any one s cor 
 recting her husband. She never did so herself without 
 an apology. Now she said : " Sibyl, you have lived 
 too long in Mr. Clayborne s society, and," smiling, 
 "you know, dear, accuracy is very destructive of con 
 versation." 
 
 " And of poetry," said Vincent. 
 
 "The sad fact remains," said Randolph, "few 
 people read verse. I myself find it hard to under 
 stand the intelligent life which finds no pleasure or 
 help in good verse. To write it well must be an 
 indescribable joy." 
 
 " And yet," said Miss May wood, demure as a kitten, 
 " folks wickedly credit you with being pessimistic." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent turned to Sibyl, amused at this bold 
 onset. 
 
 "la pessimist! My dear young lady, thou art 
 wrong. I am only an old fellow who, from the 
 mountain summit of years, sees truly the world be 
 low him. I see disaster, failure, corruption, a people 
 indifferent except to money, laws made only to be 
 broken, unanswerable questions ahead of us, like that 
 of the negro. The angels must grin at this final ex 
 periment in democracy. It is sad to look down on it, 
 as I do, from the serenity of years." 
 
 Amused by the fine certainties of this confident 
 and cheerful old gentleman, Vincent said dryly : "The 
 world looks flat from mountain-tops. But what, 
 Sibyl, is the connection in your mind between poet 
 and, shall I venture to say, pessimist ? " 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 241 
 
 " Only this : the great poets are never pessimists." 
 
 " I think," said Randolph, " thou must be getting 
 better. The sick are pessimistic." 
 
 " Indeed, I am better/ she said, "and I think your 
 dark views of the country and the future are pure 
 humbug." 
 
 " My dear Sibyl ! " exclaimed Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Oh, but let me end," she cried, coloring. " The 
 good doctor is a priceless friend. Everything near 
 and personal he believes in with undying faith, and 
 everything large and remote he criticizes severely. If 
 that be a real pessimist, we must emend the diction 
 aries." 
 
 No one could help laughing. The courage and 
 truth of the statement were startling. 
 
 " I bow to the verdict, and thank thee for the com 
 pliment," said Randolph, in his old-fashioned manner. 
 
 "Well, there goes the anchor," said Vincent. "We 
 are at home again." 
 
XV 
 
 [E liked at Bar Harbor to dine at six or 
 ivy// ^ I e ^ se a ^ er e *ght, so as to be free for the 
 I yy JM sunset time. Thus it came about that 
 one day at evening we were on the lawn, 
 a hundred feet from the shore. The 
 tide was slowly moving up the bay. The scene was 
 set in gold. The sky was aglow with dark, orange- 
 tinted clouds; the sea, a shimmering plane of paler 
 gold; the Gouldsborough hills domes of darkling 
 gold. 
 
 Said Randolph : "I have been reflecting upon the 
 verdict of pessimist which Miss Maywood pronounced 
 upon me." 
 
 " There is time to reform," said I. 
 "Oh, you are all optimists. Wait awhile; time 
 converts most women and all men to pessimism. I 
 think of the world as growing worse. It is to me a 
 failure; I mean the whole of it, not merely this un- 
 governed country." 
 
 Said Sibyl quietly: "Do you think its Maker meant 
 it to be ? I mean the world s Maker." 
 " I do not know." 
 " And yet you believe as " 
 " Yes, as thou dost." 
 " Then you cannot be a pessimist." 
 The doctor was quiet for a moment. "I am not 
 242 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 243 
 
 more or worse than a chronic doubter. I am by na 
 ture apprehensive. My sense of duty has always 
 been urgent. Had I lacked its higher source I 
 should have been of little use. I have always lived 
 in an atmosphere of doubt as to my creed, myself, 
 the future, as to every one but my friends." 
 
 " And yet" said Sibyl. 
 
 "Yes," he returned, "I understand, Friend Sibyl. 
 I shall not take up thy glove. How can I believe as 
 I do and yet think the world so far, and despite 
 Christianity, a failure ? I do not say it will be, I say 
 only that so far it is." 
 
 " Oh, oh ! " I exclaimed. " That is fine. I myself 
 hate the very word i pessimist. I think it modern." 
 
 " Of the last century," said Vincent. " Was it not 
 St. Clair who said l doubt is only hope crippled ? " 
 
 " Dead lame at times," said Randolph. 
 
 " Then it is despair," cried Sibyl. 
 
 " I hate St. Glair s morsels of wisdom," said Vin 
 cent. "Hope is emotional 5 doubt is of the mind. 
 Why mix the things ? " 
 
 " Let me go on," said Randolph. " Set aside America. 
 Can you look at Spain, Italy, France, and not share 
 my belief as to human failure ? " 
 
 "But," said Vincent, "history is a record of neces 
 sary, even of desirable failures. Is not the destruction 
 of the inadequate hopeful ? The world has been drown 
 ing her bad puppies ever since the world began." 
 
 "Are not the four conquering races rising in all 
 ways ? " said my wife. " These have futures." 
 
 " What ? " said the doctor. "Who ? What races ? " 
 
 " England, Russia, America j I add Germany with 
 
244 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 doubt. And these are still the religious nations, or 
 rather the peoples with whom religion is a part of 
 their national life." 
 
 " And the Turk," said I. 
 
 " Yes, even the Turk. It is his honest belief which 
 has made him the capable soldier and kept him in 
 Europe." 
 
 " When/ 7 said I, " the German becomes like his pro 
 fessors, without religious belief, the French, who are 
 naturally better soldiers, not merely organized war- 
 machines, will go to Berlin. I should be sorry" 
 
 " Pardon me. Who is that on the slip ? " said 
 Vincent. 
 
 " Miss Norreys, I fancy," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " And who, Anne, is Miss Norreys ? " 
 
 " I met her on Great Head when we went to see 
 the surf in the storm a week ago." 
 
 " That does not enlighten me." 
 
 " She is English." 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " A governess." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " Handsome and intelligent." 
 
 " That is better." 
 
 " She asked leave to sketch here. It is getting too 
 dark now. I wish, Fred, you would go and ask her 
 to join us for tea. Come, I will go with you." 
 
 " If you wish, certainly. Is this a new addition to 
 your social menagerie, Anne ? " he asked as he rose. 
 
 " Cynicism fits you like ready-made clothes, Fred." 
 
 " I indorse Mrs. Vincent s views as to Miss Nor 
 reys," said Randolph. " I met Miss Norreys in Italy 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 245 
 
 years ago, and shall be glad to meet her again. I 
 will go with thee, Vincent." 
 
 When we saw them returning with the lady in 
 question, my wife went forward to meet them, while 
 Sibyl, rising in her hammock, considered the tall, 
 handsome Englishwoman. 
 
 " She is very nice," she said to me, decidedly, 
 while as yet Miss Norreys was a hundred feet away. 
 " I like her." This judgment was pronounced at 
 fifty feet. " She has a friendly face," was whispered 
 at twenty-five feet. " She is friendlikely." 
 
 "Not a bad word, Sibyl." 
 
 She had a way of coining words which Clayborne 
 disliked, but which St. Clair and I fancied. It seemed 
 to me a relic of the childlike ways which at times 
 came out so distinctly in this interesting nature. 
 Being thus approved of, she smiled one of the many 
 smiles out of a large armament. It said so surely 
 "Thank you," that this little current coin became 
 golden. 
 
 We were presented, and Miss Norreys sat down 
 beside Sibyl, and began in a quiet voice to talk of 
 sunsets at Venice or on the Nile. She seemed at once 
 to understand the frail girl in the hammock, so that 
 presently Sibyl glanced at me archly as much as to 
 say, " I was right, you see." 
 
 Said Randolph : " I think I saw thee at a distance 
 on Newport Mountain yesterday." 
 
 " Yes. I am fond of walking, and my two charges, 
 the Misses Graham, have gone away with their aunt 
 to Quebec for a week. I am free ; and to be off sen 
 tinel duty for a while is, I assure you, a vast relief. 
 
 17 
 
246 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 I never took very kindly to my work as a gover 
 ness." 
 
 " When/ said Randolph, " we first met, thou hadst 
 quite another line of business." 
 
 " Yes," she returned, smiling, " and I find most peo 
 ple think it a rather queer one." 
 
 " May I ask you what it was?" said my wife. 
 
 " Certainly. I taught the art of conversation." 
 
 " Bless me ! " said Sibyl, much amused. " I should 
 like to take lessons." 
 
 " I think you might give them," said Miss Norreys. 
 
 My wife declared for a class. It should include 
 the art of listening and how to begin a talk. 
 
 " And how to end it," I suggested. 
 
 "And the gentle art of interruption," cried Mrs. 
 Vincent. 
 
 " Make your mind easy as to that," said Vincent, 
 viciously. 
 
 " As to the beginnings of talk," said Miss Norreys, 
 "there is a queer little book called Conversational 
 Openings/ like chess problems. It is not first-rate, 
 and some people took it frankly. I do not suggest it 
 as a text-book." 
 
 " I should think," said I, " that a book like that 
 might be entertaining. My friend Wendell Holmes 
 should have written it. How to end a talk is the 
 difficult art." 
 
 " The book is amusing," said Miss Norreys, but 
 might have been much better. It is too well- 
 obvious. For instance, there is the bread opening, 
 or the salt with remarks on salt superstitions ; or the 
 general opening, as, l What shall we talk about, Miss 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 247 
 
 Black? And then, too, there is what I may call the 
 personal gambit. It is like this. I may be invent 
 ing, not quoting. Black says : Do you know Mrs. 
 Blank ? You remind me of her. White : I do not, 
 and I have a curious dislike to being supposed to be 
 like other people. Black, revising his opinion : i Oh, 
 I should have said she looks like you. White : t That 
 is better. Is she as agreeable as my double ought to 
 be ? etc. It is a hopeful opening." 
 
 " I like that," said Randolph. " TeU us more." 
 
 " Well, the interrogative gambit affords chances. 
 Black opens : i Do not you wonder how the modern din 
 ner was evolved ? White fails to accept her chance, 
 and says feebly: <I really never thought about it. 
 Stale mate; best to try the woman on the other 
 side. In England, where we rarely present guests, 
 conversation must be an experimental art for a 
 stranger." 
 
 "And yet I like your way," said Vincent. "It 
 gives the zest of discovery, of investigation. It has 
 also its awkward side. I once criticized severely to a 
 male dinner neighbor the last work of a well-known 
 novelist. At last he said pleasantly, You may be 
 right. I shall do better next time. Then I knew I 
 had been beside the author." 
 
 " But who was it ? " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " I decline to state." 
 
 " I think you are rather cruel," said I. 
 
 " When you women retire," said Vincent, "you have 
 an easy game : the servant gambit, the baby gambit, 
 the husband gambit." 
 
 " Oh, yes j the book deals largely with these." 
 
248 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " For shame ! " said my wife. " And what do you 
 men talk?" 
 
 " That you will never know/ 7 said Vincent " One 
 has dinner adventures in England. I once took a 
 dowager in to dinner, or out which is it they say in 
 England, Miss Norreys?" 
 
 " Out, please." 
 
 " She fell into chat with her neighbor, and I natu 
 rally spoke to the woman on my left. I said : i One 
 who is strange to London is at some disadvantage 
 with your custom of assuming that every one knows 
 everybody. She : l It seems incredible. I : It is 
 sometimes embarrassing. She : 1 1 rarely take soup. 
 I, accepting the play: The national soups might 
 make a curious menu. She : * I cannot credit such a 
 story. I, bewildered : l Our best soup we call gumbo. 
 She : * Yes, the beau has gone out ; now it is the 
 some vulgar word masher, is n t it ? I, very loud, 
 beginning to suspect the truth : l Gumbo soup. She : 
 1 Yes. Gum. Bird-nests. Just so. She was deaf, and 
 now and then caught on to a word ; never asked you 
 to speak louder, and sturdily plunged through with 
 out confessing her defect." 
 
 "Tell us," said Mrs. Vincent, "how you came to 
 teach conversation." 
 
 " Yes, pray do," added my wife. 
 
 "With pleasure. My father is a clergyman with 
 a large family of daughters. We took to nursing, news 
 paper work, or teaching. After two years of school- 
 teaching, I was on my way from London to York to 
 take a new place as governess. The second-class car 
 riages were full, and I was put in a first-class. In it 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 249 
 
 were two very well-dressed women of middle age. It 
 chanced that I had come to the station with an old aunt 
 who lives in France. She bade me good-by in French, 
 and I replied in the same tongue, chatting until the 
 train moved. I presume that the two women took me 
 to be French. Certainly they talked with great frank 
 ness, reassured, I suppose, by my apparent want of in 
 terest. I was listening eagerly. We had good intro 
 ductions and went about a lot. Mrs. Laurence told her 
 friends that Susan would have half a million and more 
 to come. But, my dear, you know Susan ! She just 
 is n t one bit like most of our girls. She honestly 
 expects those men to amuse her. They just don t. 
 She has n t any talk in her: A man says, "Do 
 you like it here in the season?" and Sue says, "Not 
 awful much," and shuts up like scissors. Then he 
 says, "Awful jolly at Hurlingham; ever been 
 there?" and she says, "You just ought to see Chi 
 cago." Usually that man collapses, and they dance, 
 or don t. What can I do? The other woman said, 
 * I do think there should be some one to teach con 
 versation/ i Dear me ! I would give ten pounds, 
 oh, guineas a week to find some one to do that. 
 Susan is incredible. Up comes a man, oh, a right 
 nice one, too, Sir John or Lord Somebody, and in 
 about two minutes the talk just pines away. Here 
 was my chance, so I said, i Pardon me I can teach 
 conversation, madam. Indeed, I had had to teach 
 children in a way. How much is twice two ? and 
 so on. i Railly ! She said it very well, and quite 
 like us. She put up a pair of gold eye-glasses and 
 regarded me. l It would have to be a lady/ she said. 
 
250 DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 That is/ I returned, a woman of well accus 
 tomed to society. Yes, that s about it. It was 
 good fun, so I went on and said grandly, I am a 
 
 relative of the Earl of C . I am, but he is only 
 
 a second cousin, and I never in my life have seen 
 him, except in Punch. He is in the cabinet, I 
 added. This answered very well, and with some 
 rather clever fencing as to who and what I was and 
 had been, we came to a conclusion. I wired at once, 
 declining the place of governess, and settled down at 
 Bath to teach Susan conversation. It was great fun. 
 She was as shy as a swallow, but f railly not stupid. 
 We got on well. She was very pretty, and when, later, 
 in London, I found out who were the men on hand, I 
 got up her talk for the dinners. The rehearsals were 
 fit for the stage. Sometimes the unexpected turned 
 up, and Susan was, as her brother said, t dead broke. 
 She ain t very suggestive/ he remarked. Neverthe 
 less, she married Lord B , and, I hope, has not re 
 lapsed. My success brought other pupils. I made a 
 good thing of it, and some hearty friendships. At 
 last I was persuaded to come to America with two 
 young women and their mother. I must say they 
 need no coaching in the art of talk." 
 
 " Conversation ? " said I. 
 
 " No, talk. No one under thirty can converse." 
 
 "A friend of ours, Mr. Clayborne, would fix the 
 time at forty," said Vincent. " But how did you set 
 about it ? Your lessons, I mean." 
 
 " Oh, I was the man. We went over no end of 
 subjects, such as politics, fox-hunting, English and 
 American ways. Then we got up a limited list of 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 251 
 
 brief quotations. Some of these girls were most apt, 
 and not all Americans. It was great fun when Lord 
 
 B fell in love. Susan was frank, and I conducted 
 
 the affair with well, I did it admirably until Susan 
 fell in love, too j and after that she grew less confid 
 ing. I dropped out as I ceased to learn what passed. 
 When sign-language is added I am at the end of my 
 science." 
 
 " Sign-language ? " asked Sibyl. 
 
 We broke into laughter, and declined to explain. 
 
 "Incredibly delightful," said Mrs. Vincent. "Ah, 
 here is the mail. Let us go into the house. I must 
 see my letters. Come, Miss Norreys. No, you can 
 not go yet. You must have your tea, and we will 
 send you home in the dog-cart whenever you must 
 needs go." 
 
 In the house my wife made tea. The talk became 
 general, while Mrs. Vincent, excusing herself, ran 
 over the letters. 
 
 "One for you, Fred, and two for you, doctor. Oh, 
 and one from St. Clair. I must read that. Miss 
 Norreys, you will pardon me ? Fred, show those 
 photos of Otter Creek to Miss Norreys." 
 
 Fred obeyed, chatting over the pictures with Sibyl 
 and Miss Norreys. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Vincent said : "Fred, come here. You 
 were right. Read that." 
 
 Fred took the letter. " Good gracious ! " he ex 
 claimed, laughing. " This is too good to keep." 
 
 "What is it?" said I. 
 
 " Oh, Xerxes has revenged himself. I was sure he 
 would." 
 
252 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Xerxes ? " said Miss Norreys. " Pardon me. Is 
 that a man s name ? " 
 
 " Yes/ I said, and then Vincent gaily described the 
 great duel between Xerxes and our sculptor. The 
 amazement of the Englishwoman was, as comment, 
 most interesting. 
 
 "You certainly must permit me to say that you 
 are an amazing people." 
 
 "Wait, Miss Norreys, until you hear the letter. 
 There is a climax. St. Clair is the spoiled child of our 
 little circle." 
 
 "What! St. Clair, the poet, the sculptor? I should 
 so much like to see him." 
 
 " The letter, the letter ! " said we. 
 
 " Read it, oh, do read it ! " said Sibyl. 
 
 " It is long." 
 
 " No matter ; let us have it." 
 
 Thus urged, she read : " l DEAR MRS. VINCENT : 
 Xerxes has got even with me. He presented my 
 Indian chief to a Cuban cigar-shop on Broadway. 
 Now he stands outside for a sign. He draws crowds 
 every day. As Xerxes goes down -town he buys a 
 cigar and grins at my chief. 
 
 " Oh, here is a clipping from the l Tribunal s art col 
 umn : The well-known railway man whose bust by St. 
 Clair we noticed must have come to a realizing sense 
 of that too remarkable marble. Is it a vendetta ? He 
 has presented St. Clair s noble statue of the " Indian 
 Chief " to Diego s cigar-shop. If it be a vendetta, it is 
 otherwise appreciated by the public, as every one 
 pauses to look at the chief. But what will he do 
 with the bust of the E. E. R . T " 
 
DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 253 
 
 " That is a railroad robber, Miss Norreys," I ex 
 plained. " Go on, Mrs. Vincent." 
 
 " Pardon me/ said Miss Norreys. " You must have 
 very frank newspapers." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent continued : " 1 1 wrote and thanked 
 Xerxes for giving the public so good a chance, and 
 advised him to keep the bust for his tombstone, in 
 place of an epitaph. Oh, t is a very pretty quarrel. 
 I should like to hear what Mrs. Xerxes thinks of it. 
 Let him wallow. Here is something better. 
 
 " 1 1 went to Marquette, bought a canoe and a tent, 
 and slipped away at daybreak over Muscakeewininy 
 Gitchie, that is, Big Water, Lake Superior. It was 
 as smooth as a mill-pond. I slept at Grand Isle. 
 Next day at sunset I ran up on the shore, midway 
 of the Pictured Rocks. Here is a beach of pink- 
 and-white pebbles. A cascade falls on to it from 
 the bluff above. East and west stretch cliffs of 
 white sandstone, cut into fantastic forms by the 
 water when the land was lower or the lake higher. 
 From the strata oozes out moisture tinted with the 
 purples of manganese, the greens of copper, the yel 
 lows or browns of iron. Lichens, silver, golden, 
 gray, or black, grow where the water trickles forth. 
 At evening I stole out through the twilight in my canoe 
 under the rosy light, with every pebble seen below 
 me in forty feet of water. Here, to my right, is a 
 vast cave facing the lake. It is eighty feet high by 
 a hundred and fifty feet wide, half of a vast dome, a 
 mass of brilliant color like a town afire. A little 
 beyond is a great smooth rock, on which one sees a 
 procession of men in black robes walking over ice, 
 
254 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 and before them the headsman with his ax. No 
 one lands here. I went up on to the bluff and saw a 
 bear. He ate berries twelve feet away, apparently 
 neither scared nor hostile. Meanwhile I half filled a 
 pail with blueberries, plucking leaves and fruit, with 
 out more than turning round. I took them down to 
 the lake and filled up my bucket with water at 45 F., 
 letting the leaves float out. Good for breakfast are 
 the berries, with the chill on them. I took a few 
 trout, and after supper and making camp I wan 
 dered down the shore. The moon was a huge red 
 pearl flashing a long track of ruddy color to my feet. 
 I sat down in a druidical temple, the weary work 
 of wave and storm through countless ages. Vast 
 columns upheld the stone roof, on which tall trees 
 were growing. I lit my pipe and lay quiet. Now 
 and then rose and fell strange noises from the wood- 
 people somewhere behind me. The long, wild trem 
 olo of the loons shook across the lake as they sailed 
 shoreward, lured by the red glow of my camp-fire. 
 How I wished you all were with me, for, indeed, I am 
 at my best here. You would " 
 
 Here Mrs. Vincent ceased reading. " The rest," 
 she said, " is personal. Oh, Fred, do take me there 
 next summer." 
 
 " Certainly, my dear, and as you want to see 
 Xerxes, we will ask him, and as you are planning a 
 country house, we will build there." 
 
 We laughed. Mrs. Vincent said he was unpardon- 
 ably disagreeable, and I asked if I might see the 
 letter. After glancing over it I said : " There seems 
 no reason why Miss Norreys should not know more 
 of our friend." 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 255 
 
 Mrs. Vincent said : " If you wish/ and I read aloud : 
 " l Here, dear, undeserved friend, you would for 
 get all my naughty ways. Here is no material pos 
 sibility of weakness or wickedness; not a woman, 
 not a man not one. How that simplifies life ! The 
 devil could not be bad here. What commandment 
 could he break? You will say he can bear false 
 witness, but who is his neighbor ! The bears don t 
 care. He cannot lie. But there is no commandment 
 as to that, and, at all events, no one to lie to. Envy, 
 hatred, and malice require objects. The bear is my 
 only neighbor. We are on terms of amity and 
 divide the berries. In a word, this is Eden before 
 Eve came and tempted that innocent snake to tempt 
 her in turn, as a poet has once said. 
 
 " l Dear love to all. Here I am Saint Clair. " 
 "The hermits understood how to manufacture 
 inevitable virtue," said Vincent. 
 My wife, laughing, quoted : 
 
 " Such was that happy garden state 
 While man there walked without a mate: 
 After a place so pure and sweet, 
 What other help could yet be meet? 
 But t was beyond a mortal s share 
 To wander solitary there. 
 Two paradises are in one 
 To live in paradise alone." 
 
 It was aptly quoted, and I said so with a nod. 
 Then, returning to the letter, I came upon a postscript : 
 " l Xerxes has been given a degree by Cucumber Col 
 lege. Imagine Xerxes LL.D. I do not quite recall 
 the real name of the college. It is a bisexual 
 
256 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 university, I think. L.S.D. were a better degree, 
 but the joke is no good on this side the seas. I think 
 of sending it to " Punch." > 
 
 " How like him ! " I said, returning the letter to 
 Mrs. Vincent. 
 > " And now I must go," said Miss Norreys. 
 
 " One moment/ 7 said Mrs. Vincent. " This is so 
 like him a second postscript: I have seen the most 
 beautiful woman. It was at Muskrat Bay. Her 
 husband is a German. He advertised for a wife, 
 and got this glorious creature. It is such a pretty 
 story. We sat on a log and smoked pipes while he 
 told me all about it. I keep it for you, dear lover of 
 tales. V, ST. C. 
 
XVI 
 
 was ripe October before we were again 
 at home. Sibyl was better. Now and 
 then, for days, she fell into silent moods, 
 but, although visibly paler, she did her 
 lessened work to Clayborne s satisfac 
 tion. St. Clair, still wandering, wrote at intervals ; 
 and for the rest of us life went on as usual. I was 
 at work ; my wife was busy with wonderful plans for 
 keeping women what they are and making them all 
 that they are not. Clayborne was writing his book on 
 the Mohammedan sects, and happy over a promising 
 lawsuit concerning an irredeemable ground-rent. 
 
 I was sorry and glad that St. Clair was absent; 
 glad for Sibyl s sake, and sorry for our own. When 
 I was tired and worried I missed his persistent cheer 
 fulness : it was more than that j it was joyousness 
 which forgot failures, weaknesses, and worse things, 
 and was unassailable, communicable and elevative. 
 
 Late in November we were again to dine with 
 Clayborne. My wife having an engagement else 
 where, I went alone and by an earlier train, in order 
 to see Clayborne and talk with him undisturbed. 
 
 I said to him, " Let us see the vase," and, he assent 
 ing, we walked through a woodland to the south of 
 the Italian garden. The ground was covered with 
 fallen leaves, in that chance mingled variety which 
 
 257 
 
25$ DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 makes so beautiful the autumn carpet of earth. A 
 few remaining leaves, falling, one by one, through the 
 still air, fluttered to and fro, as if reluctant. Here, 
 before us, lay a little open space surrounded by an 
 cient chestnut-trees. From underneath a rock of gray 
 lichen-tinted stone rose a copious spring, and, forming 
 a small pool, flowed thence down the hill. Upon the 
 rock, amid ferns and above the spring-head, stood 
 the white wonder of St. Glair s vase. The pedestal 
 was absent. I recognized the taste which had decided 
 not to use it here, and asked where it was. St. Clair had 
 said he would keep it, but it was like the man to forget. 
 
 Clayborne replied: "About the house somewhere. 
 Sibyl would not have it, and chose this place for the 
 vase. She was so decisive as to the pedestal that I 
 gave way. The proper place for the vase is the hall 
 or the garden." 
 
 " No, no/ said I ; " she was right. Here the vase 
 will soon look old and become tinted and leaf- 
 stained." 
 
 " So said Sibyl. I indulged her, of course ; but now 
 she comes here in this chilly autumn weather, and 
 reads or sews. You sentimental people are droll 
 folks to me. Sibyl has caught it, like a disease. I 
 think it is partly the fault of St. Clair. She used to 
 be shy about expressing her sentimentalities. Think 
 of her telling me that, some day at dusk, she would 
 see Keats. He would be smiling with joy to find his 
 dream set in marble. St. Clair says this kind of thing 
 to astonish me; it is half, or wholly, a jest. She says 
 it in an assured way, as you or I might say we ex 
 pected to meet Vincent at the club." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 250 
 
 I said: "Yes, Sibyl is a peculiar person, Clay- 
 borne. She is intellectual, impressible, full of senti 
 ment. The mind is used to feed emotions which it 
 should set aside or control. Her will-power is less 
 than that which is normal to a woman as able as 
 Sibyl ; I mean it is so just now ; but much of her 
 present state depends on her health." 
 
 "Her health?" Clayborne was always surprised 
 when any one he knew became ill. 
 
 " Yes," I said. " Cannot you see that she is grow 
 ing gradually paler? I do not like her condition. 
 She must give up all your work and be idle for a 
 while ; and as for other matters, I will see to them." 
 
 "I wish you would see her now," he returned 
 hastily. " She is lying down in her room. Of late 
 she always does lie down before dinner." 
 
 I said, "Very good," and we went to the house. 
 On my knocking and naming myself, she said, 
 " Come in." She was now one of the household, and 
 had two apartments. One was a small sitting-room, 
 with many books, a bird-cage, and a piano. Here I 
 found her lying on a lounge. In the bow-window 
 overlooking the garden stood the pedestal. It was 
 covered by a piece of some stuff, and was really con 
 cealed except for a white corner, which caught my 
 eye and told me at once what it was. It has been 
 said that the physician should see, hear, hide, and 
 bide. The art of observing and not attracting the at 
 tention of the observed is a fine art. There are men 
 who see things, but are as obviously observant as 
 Paul Pry. When, my talk being over, I rose, Sibyl 
 said to me : " I will do as you say. I see the need 
 
260 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 for rest and care. But there is still a thing which 
 disturbs me more than all my weakness. It is that 
 at times I find I have forgotten the having done 
 something, which later I perceive to have been done 
 I mean, of course, by me." 
 
 "As what?" I asked. 
 
 "Yesterday I made a pen- wiper. Since making it I 
 have written no letters. To-day it is blackened. I 
 must have used it ; no one else could have done so. 
 Last week I twice answered a dinner invitation for 
 Mr. Clayborne. I recall having done so but once." 
 
 I reassured her, and told her that, as is common, 
 memory suffers loss of competency when the bodily 
 health is impaired. 
 
 " That is very consoling," she said "and now please 
 to go. I must dress for dinner. I shall be down 
 presently. Mr. St. Clair is in town." 
 
 "Yes, he is. But how did you hear of it?" 
 
 " Some one must have told me." 
 
 "But who, Sibyl?" 
 
 " I do not remember." 
 
 " He has been in town for some days," said I. " But 
 you know that he might have been there longer, and 
 no one the wiser. Mr. Le Clerc told me he had met 
 him. I, at least, supposed him still absent. Imagine 
 a friend who, after being absent for months, can, on 
 his return, stay away from you as he does." 
 
 " He is in the house now." 
 
 " Indeed ! That may be," and so saying I went away. 
 
 As I set foot in the hall, St. Clair welcomed me 
 joyously. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " I said. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 261 
 
 " I knew you would scold. I have never left the 
 studio for a week. I saw in Wyoming 
 
 " A woman ? " 
 
 " No, no. A king grizzly, the grandfather of Xerxes. 
 I had to model him as soon as I came home. How is 
 everybody ? " 
 
 Had Sibyl heard his voice, consciously heard it, or 
 had she unconsciously heard it? Hysterical women 
 have in rare cases abnormal acuteness of hearing. 
 
 "And who have you to dine?" I said to our host, 
 dismissing the question for a time. 
 
 " Oh, our usual party j Randolph, too, and Thorn- 
 hill." 
 
 "What! the novelist? That is charming of you. I 
 have no end of questions to ask him." 
 
 "He is in the city to make some studies for that 
 absurdity, an historical novel. Your questions will 
 have to be few, because Le Clerc has arranged to have 
 Weevils, the thing they call a medium, here at ten." 
 
 As he spoke, Thornhill arrived, and began to chat 
 with Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 St. Glair, overhearing us, asked : " Who is Weevils, 
 Clayborne ? " 
 
 "A medium," returned Clayborne. "Le Clerc was 
 to have dined with us." 
 
 " So he told me, two days ago. He has fallen out ? " 
 
 "Yes," said our host; "I am sorry. I protested a 
 little about this nonsense, but Vincent, who loathes 
 it as I do, asked me to have the fellow here rather 
 than for us to see him elsewhere. Of course I said 
 yes. If Mrs. Vincent wants that, or anything, I re 
 main pleased." 
 
 18 
 
262 BE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 " Jolly name, Weevils," said St. Clair, as Clayborne 
 gave his arm to Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Raps or voice ? " said I. 
 
 " Voice," said Clayborne. 
 
 " Randolph," said I, " have you any belief in this 
 stuff?" 
 
 " How can you ask me ? It is a tangle of fraud, 
 delusion, and self-deceit." 
 
 I was glad that my wife was absent. She has a mild 
 tendency to coquet with the mystical. I saw pass 
 over Vincent s sensitive face a shadow-like cloud of 
 annoyance when Clayborne mentioned Weevils. But 
 he was very gentle as to Anne Vincent s follies. 
 They were rare and of brief duration. 
 
 As we took our seats, I said : " Watkins, the mathe 
 matician, was carried away by these fools." 
 
 " And yet there are few more able men," remarked 
 Randolph ; " but a man may possess such an intellect 
 as to give him success in physics, or chemistry, or 
 law, and yet be curiously incapable of dealing with the 
 vague, the incomplete, with apparent facts which can 
 not be analytically questioned, facts which cannot be 
 conditioned and thus cross-examined. In the physi 
 cal world we do not have these difficulties." 
 
 " I have been," said I, " through a multitude of 
 these experiences and have come out of all with dis 
 gust and disbelief. But I have still an open mind." 
 Here, turning to Vincent, I said that I would send 
 Mrs. Vincent the report of the Seybert Commission 
 on so-called spiritualism. I had promised to do so 
 and quite forgotten it. Vincent nodded to me ap 
 provingly. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 263 
 
 "It is full of nourishment for laughter/ said St. 
 Clair. " Read the story of the skull." 
 
 "The skull?" said Thornhill. 
 
 " Yes/ I said. " I gave to my friend H F , 
 
 the Shakespeare scholar, the skull used as Yorick s by 
 all the great actors who have happened to play here 
 the part of Hamlet. It is covered with their auto 
 graphs. It is, in fact, a negro man s cranium. We 
 asked by letter three mediums to communicate with 
 the spirit owner of the skull. According to one, it 
 proved to be a French lady, if I remember correctly, 
 of light character, and who else I forget. It was 
 immense fun, I assure you. I will not ruin the 
 character of a good story by telling it too briefly. 
 Read it." 
 
 " But," said Mrs. Vincent, " do not many honest 
 believers in this spirit business admit that it is often 
 fraudulently used ? " 
 
 " Yes. But read this report and remember that 
 here were a number of unusually competent men for 
 years investigating these matters, and unable at last 
 to say they had seen anything inexplicable to them or 
 which the conjurer could not repeat. Meanwhile, as 
 a physician, I should say that I have seen this folly 
 give rise to ruin of households and to some insanity." 
 
 " So may religion," said Thornhill. 
 
 " But the one is needed, the other is useless ; and 
 really I have seen so many clever men taken in that 
 I begin to believe few are so prepared as to be com 
 petent students of a subject as elusively difficult as 
 this. I saw one of the greatest of my profession in 
 Europe completely deluded by an hysterical girl. I 
 
264 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 showed him how it was done, and he was simply 
 annoyed, and by no means grateful." 
 
 With this the talk ceased to be generally heard, 
 and St. Glair, beside me, said : " Vincent does not like 
 this medium business." 
 
 "No. He has with difficulty kept Mrs. Vincent 
 out of it. Le Clerc is, of course, ignorant of this. 
 Clayborne ought to have seen that Miss Maywood is 
 of all persons most unfit to subject to the emotions 
 these people may stir up." 
 
 " It is too late to do anything now," said St. Clair. 
 
 " It cannot be stopped, but we must only see that 
 it does not go too far. I have had a heavy dose of it 
 and know well how mischievous it may be. I shall 
 call up Faraday and question him on electricity, or 
 invite the spirit of Beethoven to beat musical time 
 to some one playing his sonatas." 
 
 St. Clair was silent for a time. At last he said : 
 " That may answer. I must leave at nine. I have 
 to meet Winstone at the club about his child s bas- 
 relief. I shall miss your medium. I am very sorry." 
 
 Meanwhile Randolph was talking to Sibyl and 
 Mrs. Vincent, and as it was plainly about this same 
 matter, I broke up the talk by a question to Thornhill 
 across the table. His reply was too interesting not to 
 attract attention. 
 
 I said : " I have long desired to ask you something 
 about the historical novel. How do you approach it ? " 
 
 " To answer you I should have to lecture." 
 
 " Why not? " said Clayborne. 
 
 " Well, do not let me bore you. Suppose I have a 
 story to tell and wish to evolve character amid the 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 265 
 
 scenery and events of an historical episode. Suppose, 
 for instance, the story to lie largely in a great city. 
 For years I must study the topography, dress, man 
 ners, and family histories ; must be able in mind to 
 visit this or that house ; know where to call, whom I 
 shall see, the hours of meals, the diet, games, etc. 
 I must know what people say on meeting and part 
 ing. Then I must read letters, diaries, and so on, to 
 get the speech forms and to enable me, if it be auto 
 biography, to command the written style of the day. 
 Most men who write thus of another time try to give 
 the eifect of actuality by an excessive use of archaic 
 forms. Only enough should be used to keep from 
 time to time some touch of this past, and not so 
 much as to distract incessantly by needless reminders. 
 It is an art, and, like all good art effects, it escapes 
 complete analysis. 
 
 " Then, as to the use of historical characters. 
 These must naturally influence the fate of your pup 
 pets; they must never be themselves the most 
 prominent personages of your story." 
 
 " And where/ 7 said I, " do you get your charac 
 ters?" 
 
 "It is hard to answer. Usually some person I 
 know is in my mind; although this ideal becomes 
 modified in actual use, or else my character may be 
 unlike any one I can recall ; but often, later, I come 
 upon a person like it. Character is best deline 
 ated by occasional broad touches, without much 
 explanatory comment, without excess of minute de 
 scription. If I fail to characterize I fail in novel- 
 writing. It is the main thing j the rest is secondary/ 1 
 
266 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Said Mrs. Vincent: "One thing puzzles me. In 
 some few novels people seem alive. Not only are 
 their actions natural, their words such as are used in 
 actual life, but they become well known to us. We 
 might meet them and, to put it strongly, see them 
 without astonishment, and find natural and familiar 
 their talk of this or that." 
 
 " Yes, that is the highest attainment of our art. 
 How it is done I cannot tell you. If I doubt that a 
 conversation is what I call l alive/ I read it aloud j 
 then I know. Or if still in doubt, I have it read to 
 me. That is better. Nor can I tell why some men 
 cannot create gentlefolk. It is not knowledge, nor 
 is it the being in or of their world that gives this 
 power. Thackeray had it ; so had Trollope ; Dickens 
 never j nor, to my mind, was George Eliot always 
 happy in this respect j and of the living I shall say 
 nothing." 
 
 " And yet," said Vincent, " in our daily intercourse 
 what is more easy than this may we call it diagnosis, 
 Owen?" 
 
 "But that is not description," said the novelist. 
 " You would find that more difficult." 
 
 " My favorite novels," said Mrs. Vincent, " are for 
 ever injured by illustrations. I fall a prey to the 
 artist s crude conceptions. When I recall the char 
 acters I see them as drawn, not as written." 
 
 " True, too true," said St. Clair. We talked about 
 that, or was it with Mrs. North ? How do you ex 
 plain it?" 
 
 " Is it," said I, " because what we see is better 
 remembered and recalled than is the complex ideali- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 267 
 
 zation or the mere description of personal appear 
 ance ? " 
 
 " It is so," said Thornhili. " If the artist s pictures 
 do not assist you to see the writer s people as he 
 conceived them, they do not illustrate. I never yet 
 knew an artist who read with sufficient care the 
 thing he was to help us to see." 
 
 " You have been very interesting," said Mrs. Vin 
 cent. 
 
 Sibyl, who had been silently listening, said : " I 
 should like to give an artist the outline of a story 
 and let him try to tell it only by pictures." 
 
 " The man does not live who could do it," said 
 St. Clair. 
 
 Said Vincent : "I am still dissatisfied as to one 
 of your answers. Do you content yourself with the 
 common experiences of life, or do you go afield in 
 search of incidents ? " 
 
 " The newspapers help me, and I am apt to wander 
 in the slums and to talk in trains with working-people. 
 I remember one curious experience, but" and he 
 paused" it is too long, and I have had the floor all 
 through dinner." 
 
 " We can stand more," said Clayborne, " and mean 
 while I can contribute a pretty little fact which fell 
 in my way in Spain. We were looking at the porches 
 of that dismal palace, the Escorial. The guide 
 pointed out a vast picture of Lepanto. Here were 
 Don John and this and that grandee. I asked where 
 was Don Cervantes. He said he was not there, and 
 that he, the guide, had never heard of him. I had 
 the wit to ask if Don Quixote were there. To this 
 
268 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 he said most likely he was, but that he had not 
 been long a guide. He would ask which was Don 
 Quixote." 
 
 " Then," said Thornhill, " the author was dead, so 
 to speak the creation of his brain lived on." 
 
 As Thornhill concluded Clayborne rose and said : 
 
 " Let us have our tobacco in the library. We can 
 hear the rest there." 
 
 We followed him, and St. Clair excused himself and 
 left us. When we were seated in the library, Thorn- 
 hill, being reminded of his promise, went on : "I was, 
 many years ago, walking down the Bowery one after 
 noon, when I saw on a door t Professor of Tattooing. 
 Tattooing in all Colors. Oriental and Indian Styles. 
 Third Floor/ This so attracted me that I went up 
 stairs and knocked at the door on which I found the 
 professor s name. It was opened by a small, fat 
 Hindoo. He was clad in white, spotless linen. He 
 was of a beauty I may fitly call singular. The skin 
 was a clear brown, his eyes large and like great 
 garnets, his mouth and nose of faultless form, and 
 the dominant expression watchful and sensual. He 
 spoke very fair English, and had the sleek, soft man 
 ner of the Orient. I said I came to talk business, 
 and that, having been in India, I was interested to 
 find that he was a native of the East. i Might I ask, 
 said I, where the professor was born ? In Cawn- 
 pore. Then he added quietly, l You are not Eng 
 lish? No; American. Why do you ask? Be 
 cause my father was degraded by being made to lick 
 the floor where blood was, and then hanged. It was 
 at Cawnpore in what they call the mutiny. I said it 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 269 
 
 was sad, and felt no doubt that the father of this fat 
 fellow well deserved his fate. i You can tattoo ? I 
 asked. Yes. Look. And he showed me two fat 
 arms which were wonderfully covered with strange 
 devices, not all of them such as my taste approved. 
 1 Will the sahib see my book ? I saw his book. I 
 prefer not to say more. Ha! You do not want 
 these. They please you not. I said that was of no 
 moment. l Let us get to business. Just then, as we 
 were seated, one of his fat and very clean hands 
 rested on the table. With the other he patted it and 
 smoothed it as one does a pet cat 5 meanwhile he 
 looked at me steadily. I said, t Why do you do that ? 
 It got on to my nerves, as people say, and as no doubt 
 it was meant to do. He smiled the slow smile of the 
 fat of face, in whom the mirth-signal is difficult of 
 display. I began to see that I was meant to be im 
 pressed, for he was long in answering. That is my 
 evil hand, he said. The bad thought goes there. I 
 trust it not. With that hand I strike j with this I give 
 alms. l Nonsense/ I said. l When I strike I do not 
 talk. Nor I, sahib, when I strike. It is business. 
 And what, said he, can I do for you ? I replied : 
 1 Suppose I want you to tattoo initials and a date on 
 a child? Good. But why? < Oh, the child may be 
 lost, and it may be desirable years hence to identify 
 it. For ornament, he said, 1 1 have my terms ; for 
 other affairs well, special terms. I must have one 
 hundred dollars. l Good, said I. Shall I bring the 
 child here to-night ? Yes, at nine. Now, as I had 
 only begun my researches, I desired to hear more of 
 my man. I said : Here are ten dollars. He replied : 
 
270 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 The sahib is generous and honored. He no doubt 
 meant honorable. l You must have had some inter 
 esting experiences ? Yes. I learned to tattoo in 
 Japan. There it is an art. 1 1 do not mean to dis 
 cuss the art/ I returned. I am curious, that is all. 
 If I commit myself, as I may do to-night, I shall want 
 to feel sure. You must have had some queer adven 
 turesin your business, I mean. 7 Oh, many, many 
 adventure/ and again the lazy smile crawled about 
 his face. l Such as I said I. l Oh, when your great 
 war broke out many men came to have names and 
 company and regiment and where they lived tattooed 
 on their arms. It was good business. To some it 
 was of use, I did hear. l Do the police trouble you ? 
 No ; why should they ? I am careful. Once a man 
 would have me tattoo him, and he would bring 
 another, and would I mix what he would give me 
 with my pigments? He would pay five hundred 
 dollars. I said yes, but I only made believe to use it, 
 and that man he came nevermore, but his five hun 
 dred dollars, it. remains. I tattoo then my neighbor s 
 cat with his stuff, and that cat no more disturbs my 
 rest. Once I have a trouble, not much. A man he 
 paid me to go to a house to tattoo. There was a fine 
 room and a woman asleep, she and a baby of a year. 
 I saw no servant, although the house was great ; and 
 there were pictures and rugs, fine rugs. I know 
 about rugs. It was twelve of night. When I saw 
 the woman she was in bed asleep, and the child. I 
 lift her lid and see. Then I say to that man, " She 
 has taken of opium." I take it myself and I know. 
 He say, " Yes. She will not feel till morning." When 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 271 
 
 I was come to this I say, " Too cheap " j and he, he 
 say, " Here will be double." I did not like it, but I 
 used my left hand only. Ha ! it was a small thing 
 I did it and came away. Next day I see in the 
 paper that the man of that house shoot himself, and 
 the woman, his wife, have disappeared, child and all. 
 I was seen to come out alone, and there was some 
 talk of murder. But it was foolish, and soon I 
 was let go. What crime to tattoo a lady ? No one 
 knew, and the man was dead. I tattoo manjr lady. 
 But, professor, what did you tattoo on them? 7 " 
 Here Thornhill hesitated a moment and seemed a 
 little confused. Then he added: "What the man 
 wanted put on the mother was an X on the forehead, 
 and on the child a Y. < Very stupid/ said my Hindoo. 
 What it did mean I know not. I said nothing ex 
 cept that it was a queer story, and was it at nine I 
 was to bring the baby ? l At nine, sahib. 7 Then I came 
 away, sorry not to have a longer talk with this rascal. 77 
 
 Chancing to meet the novelist a few days later, I 
 said : " You puzzled me about those letters, X and Y, 
 which your Hindoo tattooed on mother and child. I 
 cannot see any meaning in it^ 77 
 
 " Ah," he replied, laughing, " I began to tell a story, 
 as one sometimes does, unmindful that the closing 
 part might not be altogether well, suitable. The 
 real ending of the story was different, but, suddenly 
 remembering Miss Maywood 7 s presence, I changed 
 the letters. What the rascal put on the mother was 
 A, on the child B. 77 
 
 " I see, of course. How atrocious ! What strange 
 ingenuity of revenge ! 77 
 
272 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 When Thornliill ceased we began to make com 
 ments. 
 
 "An X and a Y/ said Mrs. Vincent. "What a 
 singular tale ! " 
 
 " Yes. Is n t it a strange story ? " said Sibyl. 
 
 " Oddly enough, I can continue the tale/ said I. 
 " A brother M.D., a surgeon who has not our ideas as 
 to the impropriety of mentioning facts as to patients, 
 once told me that he had long ago removed letters 
 tattooed on a woman and child. He refused to say 
 what letters, but these must have been your Hindoo s 
 patients. "What a remarkable coincidence that we 
 two, who alone know the two ends of this story, 
 should chance to meet ! " 
 
 " Suppose," said Vincent, " the lady to have been a 
 woman of our class, and, God knows, she may well 
 have been, and have happened to dine here to 
 night." 
 
 "Yes, it might have been/ said I. "It reminds 
 me of something as serious. Major P - was in 
 charge during the war of the spy department of the 
 army. He had twice occasion to meet a woman who was 
 in our pay and who was in one of the Confederate de 
 partments as a clerk, and known by name to him 
 alone. Years after he arrived late at a dinner in New 
 port, and hastily offered his arm to the woman as 
 signed to him. It was the spy. She grew pale. He 
 whispered: Take care. You are safe. You may 
 imagine them to have had an agreeable meal. She 
 was a woman of the highest social class, and, as I 
 said, employed during the war in one of the Rebel 
 departments." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 273 
 
 Said Vincent : " I can contribute a pleasanter coin 
 cidence. I was one day talking at lunch to my wife 
 of parodies. I said : 1 1 have lost my copy of " Milk- 
 anwatha," the finest of all parodies. At least, so said 
 
 our friend Mrs. K . It was out of print. I added : 
 
 If ever I see the Reverend George Strong, who 
 wrote it, I shall ask for a copy. I have not seen him 
 in seven years. At this moment the servant brought 
 me a card. It was that of the author of Milk- 
 anwatha. " 
 
 "And did you get a copy?" said Sibyl. "May I 
 not see it ? " 
 
 " I did get it, and you shall see it," said I. 
 
 At this moment came the butler. " Mr. Weevils is 
 in the drawing-room, sir. The windows is all shut, 
 and the curtains over the doors, accordin as ordered, 
 sir." 
 
 " Now," said our host, " we are to enter without 
 noise, and find our ways to the table as we can. His 
 letter was very exact. I have agreed to all the fel 
 low s terms. Once seated, he will direct us what to 
 do." 
 
 "How delightful!" said Mrs. Vincent. "Come, 
 Sibyl, we must sit together. I wish St. Clair were 
 here." 
 
 We were about to encounter something confidently 
 asserted to be outside of the boundaries of our every 
 day experiences. For once we were to pass the limits 
 of common human knowledge and hear voices or 
 sounds from the unseen world. I had been through 
 it many times, but always with a little anticipative 
 sense of what it were misuse of the word to call awe. 
 
274 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 It was now plainly discernible on the faces of the 
 people who followed Mrs. Vincent and Sibyl as they 
 passed out of the lighted hall through the curtained 
 doorway into entire darkness, there to find, as they 
 might, seats around a large table. I groped about, 
 and at last discovered myself to be next to Sibyl. 
 Who were next to the medium, Mr. Weevils, I do not 
 remember, although we talked it all over the week 
 after. I think he sat at one end of the table, with no 
 one very close to him. We were in perfect darkness. 
 We remained thus at least five minutes. Then we 
 were told by a voice, low and rather feminine, to 
 grasp the hands of our neighbors. I found Sibyl s 
 and Vincent s. Who, if any, touched those of the 
 medium I do not know. The gloom, the silence, the 
 attention, expectant of none knew what, were admi 
 rable preparations for an introduction to the citizens 
 of another sphere of being. I was speculating as to 
 what Mr. Weevils might look like, when I heard the 
 most singular voice. It was small, thin, and hesita 
 tive, with something of the quality of a child s voice. 
 It said: "The conditions are good to-night. We 
 shall be favored, I am sure. Ah, I am feeling it. Do 
 not be alarmed. I may suffer. I may become rigid. 
 Do not move. It will go. It will pass. And then 
 our friends will be with us." With this the table 
 shook, we heard groans, and at last a long sigh. " It 
 is over. She is here. What will you of her ? Speak." 
 
 Those present were plainly not prepared with in 
 terrogative wisdom. There was silence. At last I 
 said : " Who are you ? " 
 
 After a pause I was answered by a high-pitched 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 275 
 
 female voice distinctly of Boston, and clearly that of 
 a woman. I should have judged her to be past mid 
 dle life. Weevils was evidently a first-rate artist. 
 The voice said : " I am Euphemia Briars. My friends 
 call me Phemie. What is it you want ? " 
 
 I said: "My friend Mr. Clayborne is writing a 
 commentary on Kant. Is Kant here ? " 
 
 There was a brief silence, and then : " He is here. 
 What do you want ? He is difficult. He is a nega 
 tive spirit." 
 
 "Naturally/ 7 murmured Vincent. 
 
 "Herr Kant," said Clayborne, "is consciousness a 
 unit or is it ever doubled ! " 
 
 Said the voice : " Personal consciousness is a fraction 
 of the perceptivity of the world-soul." 
 
 " By George ! " exclaimed Clayborne, while Sibyl 
 shook with irreverent mirth. 
 
 "Would Herr Kant kindly explain," said Clay- 
 borne, " what is consciousness f " 
 
 A brief pause followed, and then : " Consciousness 
 is the interpreter of the objective to the subjective. 
 It is the eye and ear of the ego." 
 
 " It must have long ears," growled Clayborne, " or 
 at least Kant has. That is enough for me." 
 
 Said Randolph: "Herr Kant, is the devil a pes 
 simist ? " 
 
 "There are many devils. They are all naturally 
 optimists by desire and pessimists by experience, but 
 their theory as to the desirable is not yours, for how 
 can those who are at the worst be pessimists ? " 
 
 I began to perceive that we had to deal with a 
 somewhat unusual performer. Then I heard Sibyl 
 
276 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 say, in her low, clear tones: "You know botli 
 worlds, Herr Kant. Is it worth while in this sphere 
 to struggle with one s temptations ? " 
 
 I was a little surprised at the question, but no one 
 could anticipate what Sibyl might say. 
 
 The voice changed and became stern. " Make thy 
 self strong against temptations in thy own world, that 
 thou mayest be strong to resist those of this other 
 world, for here the angels also are tempted, and for 
 ever and ever rise on strengthened wings through 
 eternities of struggle. For that thou art here." 
 
 " I am answered," said Sibyl, and, in my ear : " I 
 was answered beforehand." 
 
 After this there was a long silence. Then I asked : 
 "Why do we never hear any novel idea from the 
 spirit world f " 
 
 " Because," said an odd falsetto voice, " we are in 
 eternity. Novelty involves the time relation, and 
 therefore cannot exist here." 
 
 " It must be dull," murmured Sibyl, as a squeaky 
 voice was heard in very good German, which I 
 translate : 
 
 " Is Herr von Clayborne here ? " 
 
 " He is," said our host. " The more fool he. Who 
 are you?" 
 
 " I am Hegel. Why do you write foolish books as 
 to the sects of the Mohammedans? You know no 
 thing. Herr Schweinhausen is right." 
 
 This was more than we could stand. A titter went 
 round in the gloom as I translated for Sibyl. 
 
 Clayborne said : " What idiotic nonsense ! We have 
 had enough of it" 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 277 
 
 " No, no," said Mrs. Vincent ; " not yet. Will the 
 spirit of the first lady we interviewed tell me what is 
 considered in the other world the true religion ? " 
 
 The high-pitched voice replied : " We had thirty- 
 seven new religions when I left Boston, and several 
 fractional ones coming on. In this other world are 
 no religions, but much religion. Herr Kant is angry 
 because he had so brief an interview with Herr von 
 Clayborne. He says Herr von Clayborne s double is 
 annoyed at the indefiniteness of Herr von Clayborne s 
 mind." 
 
 This was charming. 
 
 " My double ? Indefinite ? Good gracious ! " 
 
 "Yes. Souls are created double; one remains in 
 the spheres, one is born to earth. When the spheral 
 spirit visits the earthly double he becomes what psy 
 chologists call the subliminal consciousness. He 
 gives his earthly double gleams of celestial wisdom. 
 He says Herr von Clayborne should have been a poet 
 that he has too much imagination for a historian." 
 
 " Delightful ! " cried Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 There was noise of suppressed mirth in the dark 
 ness. 
 
 " How shall we know the truth of all this ? " 
 
 " Shall I tell you some of your secret thoughts ? n 
 
 " Well, why not?" 
 
 " You overdrew your bank-account last week." 
 
 " Good gracious ! I did." 
 
 " You told a man named Clair, in a letter, that he 
 was a fool. He wrote you about some anonymous 
 letters. You said, Burn them. " 
 
 " That will do," said Mrs. Vincent, rather faintly. 
 
278 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " You are impertinent. I do not desire to hear any 
 more." 
 
 " Is there a man named Vincent here a little man 
 with tall manners and an eye-glass ? " 
 
 " Oh, stuff ! " said Vincent, rising. I heard his 
 chair move as he pushed it back. Clayborne threw 
 open a window. The medium was gone. He had 
 slipped out quietly and, as we learned, left the house 
 unseen of any one. 
 
 We went back to the library Clayborne growling 
 out anathemas, Vincent laughing, his wife silent. 
 
 " Well," said Randolph, as we sat down, " that is 
 certainly my queerest experience in this line." 
 
 " You should be satisfied, Anne," said Vincent. 
 
 " Not entirely. It is quite inexplicable. I wanted 
 to ask him so many more things." 
 
 " I think this may suffice." 
 
 Said Sibyl : " They do not appear to have improved 
 upon us in the world of spirits." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Randolph. " I like what my friend 
 
 W said of it. Dr. Q assured him that 
 
 one of the advantages of the spheres lay in the fact 
 that if a spirit desired to indulge in naughtiness, as, 
 for instance, if he inclined to get drunk, he had only 
 to enter the soul of some one on earth, possess that 
 man with the appetite for whisky, and thus enjoy the 
 
 consequent frolic, and so depart. i But/ said W , 
 
 my dear sir, you tell me justice reigns supreme in the 
 spirit world/ l That is true. ( Then is it not sad 
 that the unlucky contributor to the happiness of his 
 temporary spiritual lodger should be left next morn 
 ing with a headache for two ? " 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 279 
 
 " What said the doctor ? " I queried. 
 
 " Of course we do not know what the doctor said. 
 All the wit in the world lacks sequels." 
 
 "I hope/ said Sibyl, "my double will always stay 
 away." 
 
 " Oh, yes/ cried Mrs. Vincent. " To keep a free 
 bodily boarding-house for spirits who may make you 
 do things which will bring the police down on you. 
 Good gracious ! " 
 
 " It accounts for St. Glair," said I. "He may have 
 a score of doubles. And did you really overdraw 
 your account ? and did he write you about anonymous 
 letters 1 " 
 
 " Yes. That does seem strange, because he did not 
 wish me to mention the letters. Now, Fred, is it not 
 really strange ? " she added, turning to Vincent. 
 
 " Yes ; and unwholesome and useless and imperti 
 nent." 
 
 " And wicked," said Sibyl. " As if nonsense like 
 this were needed to strengthen our belief in a world 
 beyond our own." 
 
 " Come, Anne," said Vincent, rising. " Thank you, 
 Clayborne. Good night, Randolph." 
 
 " Mr. Thornhill," said I, " you must dine with us. 
 Will Tuesday suit you ? Yes ? Then at eight, please." 
 
 On the day named Thornhill dined alone with us, 
 as I found it impossible to gather at short notice the 
 guests I desired. The talk ranged widely, the novel 
 ist speaking with envy of the physician s opportunity 
 of seeing character as we see it. I in turn discussed 
 the doctor and patient as used in fiction, and amused 
 Thornhill and my wife by my critical comments. We 
 
280 DE. NORTH AND HIS FKIENDS 
 
 united in regret as to there being so little delineation 
 of the doctor in Shakespeare. 
 
 " And yet/ I said, " nothing in all Shakespeare is 
 as natural as the doctor in l Macbeth. " 
 
 "Was the queen as natural?" said Thornhill. 
 
 " We should have asked Shakespeare last week, at 
 the se*ance." 
 
 We laughed heartily at the remembrance. 
 
 "I was about to add," Thornhill said, "that the 
 preceding talk of the doctor, in Scene III, about the 
 cure of scrofula, seems to have in it nothing relative." 
 
 "No," I said; "unless it were meant as a mere 
 tribute to royalty, I see no reason for it. The fact 
 that the queen was seen washing her hands for a 
 quarter of an hour at a time is very interesting. Was 
 it in the day that this was to be seen, or only at 
 night? If in the day, it implies a disordered mind, 
 something more than shall I say ? normal remorse, 
 a possession akin to insanity. I cannot even mildly 
 match in my professional memory the night- walking 
 horror. I have often meant to ask some prison 
 warden if murderers ever speak of their crimes in 
 their sleep, or dream of them." 
 
 " What a tempting subject ! " said the novelist. " But 
 pray explain more fully what you mean by the hand- 
 washing as the indication of insanity." 
 
 " I mean this. There is a form of mental disorder 
 marked by a never-ending sense of being unclean. 
 If let alone, these people bathe repeatedly and wash 
 their hands many times a day, and feel that they are 
 continually being contaminated. This disease takes 
 many forms and is very lasting. I have only spoken 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 281 
 
 of so much of it as has relation to the case of Lady 
 Macbeth." 
 
 " It is interesting," said my wife, " I never before 
 heard it mentioned." 
 
 " But," asked Thornhill, " in the instances seen 
 by you was there, as in this example, a cause f What 
 starts so strange a habit ? " 
 
 " We are rarely able to trace it to a distinct emo 
 tion. Occasionally some woman attributes the trou 
 ble to something done or seen, which she dwells 
 upon until it develops into what we call the mania of 
 impurity. That is all I can say without talking too 
 much medicine." 
 
 " Then let us change the subject," said my wife. 
 " I want, Mr. Thornhill, to ask you a rather personal 
 question." 
 
 " I am at your service," said the novelist. 
 
 "I understand a man s writing many books, but 
 not how he comes to write the first one a novel, I 
 mean." 
 
 " I see," said Thornhill. " Nowadays men usually 
 begin as writers of short tales. A distinct art, by the 
 way. In older times no one began thus." 
 
 "Yes, Cervantes did," said I. 
 
 "No; that was, I think, after he wrote Don 
 Quixote/ and very pretty those stories are. Scott 
 began with a novel, unless the poems count as tales j 
 and you know Dickens." 
 
 " I think you are correct j but how did you begin ? " 
 
 Thornhill laughed. " That is a queer story. I was 
 a reporter on the Moon/ a mild weekly. One day I 
 saw in it an advertisement : Wanted, a plot for a 
 
282 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 novel. The idea struck me as a fertile one. I sent 
 the sketch of a plot, and, to my surprise, received ten 
 dollars. Then I advertised: Plots furnished for 
 tales and novels/ and gave as reference the editor. 
 What became of my plots I do not know. Not all 
 tales see the light of print. I made a quite comforta 
 ble addition to my meager income. At last one of my 
 clients wrote that she could make plots easily enough, 
 but wanted to pay me liberally to take a plot of 
 her own and give a full scenario, as the play 
 wrights call it. Her plot was good. I fell in with 
 her wish, gave her characters, sketched situations, 
 noted hints as to talk, and so on. She returned 
 the manuscript with a very fair check, and wrote 
 frankly that she had tried to make a story and had 
 failed. I in turn wrote my thanks. There was a 
 pretty exchange of letters. She is now Mrs. Thorn- 
 hill, and if you ever tell her well, I will put you in a 
 book. 7 
 
 We swore eternal secrecy. The lady was an heiress 
 with literary aspirations. 
 
 " Then you wrote a novel ? " said my wife. 
 
 " Yes ; I asked leave to use her plot, and that was 
 the way I began to inflict myself upon an indulgent 
 public." 
 
 My wife rose. "I shall now retire and write a 
 novel. I leave you to your cigars. Good night. I am 
 sorry I cannot give you your tea myself. I am going 
 to a little dance at Mrs. Vincent s." 
 
XVII 
 
 |HE next morning I was in my library, 
 when St. Clair entered. 
 
 "Have you a few minutes to spare?" 
 he said. 
 
 This was an unusual question for St. 
 Clair to ask. He hated to be interrupted in his own 
 work, but as to whether he disturbed that of others 
 he was quite careless. 
 
 " Of course. What is it ? How well you look ! I 
 was sorry you went away that night. We had a 
 famous sitting with Weevils. I confess to having 
 been somewhat mystified." 
 " Yes. I did it well, Owen." 
 11 Then I saw it all. You scamp ! " 
 " Yes. I chanced to hear of it from Le Clerc, and got 
 Weevils s address from him. I gave the fellow twenty 
 dollars to let me have his cloak and hat and to act in 
 his place. I don t like other folks hats. I got the 
 full directions, as given beforehand in a note from 
 Weevils to Clayborne. Never had such fun in my 
 life. It will cure Anne Vincent." 
 " Will you teU her!" 
 
 " Of course, and all of them j only let me do it in 
 my own way, Owen, or I shall catch it. You know 
 how Vincent abhors practical jokes." 
 
 283 
 
284: DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "I think you had better go to Kamchatka and 
 write thence. You will never be forgiven." 
 
 " Yes, I shall. You have all had so much practice 
 in forgiving me that forgiveness has acquired the 
 force of instinct." 
 
 " Well, perhaps. I shall hold my tongue. It was 
 splendidly done. What was that about anonymous 
 letters, may I ask f " 
 
 "I came to speak to you of them. Few things 
 trouble me j these have done so. I wrote Mrs. Vin 
 cent to that effect, but said little more nothing of 
 their contents, nothing of moment. She told me in 
 reply that I was a fool, and to burn them. The fact 
 is, Owen, if it were not for me Mrs. Vincent would be 
 an unendurably amiable woman. I keep her temper 
 sharpened. Why she did not see through my trick I 
 cannot understand." 
 
 " Probably she was right as to your letters, Victor. 
 But why were you troubled ? " 
 
 " You will understand when you have seen the let 
 ters. Read them. Let your wife read them. There 
 they are. Then we can talk it over." 
 
 With some hesitation I took the letters, and when 
 St. Glair had gone, read them carefully, and, like St. 
 Clair, but for reasons of my own, was shocked. That 
 evening late I said to my wife : " Put aside your book 
 and don t sew. I want, as you say, a little undivided 
 attention." 
 
 " Certainly, Owen ; nothing serious, I hope." 
 
 " No and yes. St. Clair has been receiving, while 
 away, letters four in all anonymous. I have them 
 here. He is troubled about them, and has asked you 
 and me to consider them." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 285 
 
 " And why ? Few things trouble him. I should 
 think there was but one course open burn them." 
 
 " That is not the question. It is far more grave." 
 
 " If I may go on with my embroidering, Owen, I 
 shall be far wiser counsel. How you men get on 
 without using your hands I cannot comprehend." 
 
 11 Nor I. But listen. We will talk over the matter 
 after you have heard me read the letters. They are 
 type- written and are not signed." 
 
 " This sounds interesting, Owen. Now I have my 
 work I am ready. I suppose anonymous letters are 
 always meant to injure by false or by true state 
 ments." 
 
 " No," I replied, " not always. Thornhill says he 
 has had in his life many unsigned letters about his 
 books, some ill-natured, some lavish of praise. 
 These letters before us leave the way to detection 
 open, invite comment and reply." 
 
 " And why, then, in any sense anonymous, Owen?" 
 
 " They are not signed." 
 
 " But, Owen, most of the critical people who write 
 in journals would be probably quite as unknown if 
 they added real names as if they added none. As to 
 malicious letters, meant to make mischief and to say 
 what the writer would fear to say openly, that is 
 plain, or rather, I should say, the motive of these is 
 plain, but as to others 
 
 " They are often explicable," I said. " Some mod 
 est woman is taken with desire to criticize your 
 book, or to say it had helped her, and is ashamed 
 to add her name." 
 
 " Yes, that also I can comprehend." 
 
 "Many others," I went on to say, "are produced 
 
286 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 by the craving for confession ; not that the writers 
 desire advice or to find rest in the decisions of experi 
 ence, but purely for the satisfaction of emptying a 
 burdened mind. If you ask me to explain why this 
 gives some form of ease, I cannot answer you." 
 
 "Wait a moment, Owen." And as she spoke she 
 went to a bookcase, and opening a book, read : 
 
 " You say to speak, confess, let loose 
 To man our hurt, lacks reason s use. 
 God hears; why speak? A straw you toss 
 To one who drowns; yet from the cross 
 Fell on the reeling world below 
 Some words of overmastering woe." 
 
 " Yes, that was truly said," I returned ; " but behind 
 this tendency to speak out, to confess, must lie some 
 explanatory group of human instincts. Its sternest 
 illustration is in the murderer. Despite the known 
 consequences, and quite apart from repentant feel 
 ings or any form of remorse, he is ceaselessly urged 
 from within to relate what he has done. Men are 
 gregarious. The common mind abhors solitude. The 
 lonely horror of crime becomes unendurable." 
 
 " But why is there relief in confession, Owen ? " 
 
 " I do not know, and yet I have thought much 
 about it. Finally, my dear, a word about anony 
 mous love-letters. The same human instinct lies 
 behind these, the joy of confession without the shame. 
 1 He will see it, he will read it, he will never know, 
 he will imagine me beautiful, charming, and, alas ! I 
 am not! 7 " 
 
 " You are a dangerous man, Owen." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 287 
 
 " This is all obvious, Alice. You and I can readily 
 imagine the charm of such a correspondence in 
 which the woman may never be known by name, 
 never seen. i Let us love one another on paper. We 
 shall never meet. Such correspondences have been." 
 
 " I can appreciate their attractiveness," she said. 
 " One would feel so free to write one s thoughts." 
 
 " I know a case in point," I said. " A well-known 
 man received a witty and very amusing anonymous 
 letter. He replied as requested. The letters came 
 and went for years. Often those of the woman were 
 in terms of warm affection. An accident revealed 
 her identity. She was a woman double the man s 
 age in fact, an old lady. No doubt she enjoyed 
 the game. She never knew that the man had 
 finally learned who and what she was. He ceased to 
 write, and was a great deal disturbed by the anti 
 climax." 
 
 " I think," said Alice, " he was properly punished." 
 
 " Perhaps j but we have wandered from the matter 
 in hand." 
 
 " No. You have prepared me to be charitable. 
 Let me add that there ought to be very strong rea 
 sons for allowing these letters to be read by you, by 
 us." 
 
 "There are. They have disturbed a man not 
 easily troubled." 
 
 " Well, go on. A type- written love-letter seems to 
 me but no matter. Bead it to me, please." 
 
 " You will be annoyed to receive this letter, and 
 yet who knows better than you do the charm of 
 addressing a man or woman you will never see on 
 
288 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 earth ? You will think me immodest if I say, " Read 
 my letter," and yet this is practically what you say 
 when you print a poem; and you did this for 
 years over a name not your own. Shall no one 
 assume a like privilege with you ? When you wrote 
 your series of love-poems, they went straight to 
 many hearts ; and now here is one who ventures to 
 make reply. If I, who have seen you and read every 
 line you have written, if I ah, do not dare to smile 
 if I love you, where is the harm ? We shall not ever 
 meet. You are a spirit to me, as much outside my 
 world as if you were dead. What, then, you will ask, 
 is the good! For you, none. Be kind to me in 
 thought. Imagine me poor, lonely, often in the 
 society of your best and noblest words. I can bear 
 it no longer, and must speak to you directly, as I am 
 now doing. What good will it do me ? Ah ! you a 
 poet, and know not the joys of confession ? Consider 
 mine as though it were the revelation of a dream ; 
 and thus without shame I can say I love you. I do 
 not ask you to write to me. In some other world we 
 shall meet, and I may say, " It was I." I may never 
 write again. I may write to-morrow. You are mine 
 because you are that in the higher sense. I have 
 selected your best for company. If there is in your 
 daily life what might please me less, I shall not 
 know it. Let me live a little in your life on this 
 same plane of partial knowledge ; that much of you 
 mine, this much of me yours. 
 
 " Thy ever friend. 
 
 " < P.S. Address, "Friend, General P. O,">" 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 289 
 
 " Owen, Owen/ said Alice, " I should never, never 
 have shown that letter. It is very tender, and to me 
 very sad." 
 
 " Suspend judgment, dear, as to the propriety of 
 our seeing it until I have done." 
 
 "He did not answer it? Owen, I am afraid I 
 could not have resisted. I hope he did not." 
 
 " He was wise for once, and he is not always wise. 
 Here is the second letter." 
 
 " Wait, Owen. She who wrote it is young." 
 
 " Probably." 
 
 " Unhappy?" 
 
 " Or thinks she is. I am not sure." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " It begins oddly. Listen, Alice : 
 
 " l To you, friend of my vision, long and cheerful 
 years. To you, for whom I wish this and every other 
 good, I write again. You did not answer me. I am 
 glad you did not. I should have hated you had you 
 done so. Life sits lighter since I won the courage of 
 the pen. Are you a trifle curious as to this silly fool ? 
 You adore beauty. I am beautiful ; and you shall see 
 me in spirit only. Thus shall I be the more beauti 
 ful, because imagination will lend her artful aid. All 
 this I may with daring say, because we shall never 
 meet. It remains the guiltless vanity of a dream. I 
 shall appear to your spirit with the radiant loveliness 
 of immaterial conceptions. 
 
 " l Ah, the sweet foolishness of love ! I lay on the 
 grass yesterday and surrendered myself to the easy 
 prosperity of day-dreams. My sleep dreams are 
 often sad. We were in a boat on a swift river. 
 
290 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 You had the helm. I lay facing you. Vast cliffs, 
 tree-crowned, hung over us. The waters leaped in 
 great curves across hidden rocks 5 voices of hope 
 and voices of fear called to us from the watery 
 turmoil ; sweet confusions of the stream, as of memo 
 ries of long ago, songs by dead lovers sung, fading, 
 and heard again. At last night came, and darkness 
 inconceivable, close, stifling. Yet still we sped on, 
 winged by unseen forces j and now over the quiet of 
 tranquil water we seemed to be flying as through 
 space. Then suddenly you cried, " Behold the day- 
 spring from on high/ 7 The sun leaped up, and was 
 born of the night in an instant of time, amid swift- 
 rolling clouds of scarlet and gold ; and there about 
 us lay a wonderland of peace and quiet labor and fer 
 tile fields. Quickly the river narrowed to where it 
 swept into a deep gorge, under a low arch of dark 
 marble, and behold, it split to right and left, and the 
 boat paused before a palace stair. " Come," you said ; 
 and we went in. At last we came to a great bronze 
 door. You said : " Within are all the secrets of life. 
 Within are they who will answer all questions. Art 
 happy ? Thou wilt learn why. The day of thy death 1 
 Ask. It will be told thee. What is eternity ? What 
 is God? Why the earth is?" Then said I, "No, 
 never." And, saying I was wise, you led me forth to 
 a garden, and there you said, " Behold, as the day- 
 spring, so too is the nightfall " ; and as at morning, 
 so at evening the sun fell like a great meteor, and it 
 was dark. My strange day-dream, with its impress 
 of reality, was over. I was lying on the grass, un 
 happy because of the loss of your company. There 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 291 
 
 came to my mind some lines of a poem, for I felt the 
 sweet touches and the dear homeliness of the grass : 
 
 " Green countenance of earth, forever fair ! 
 Thou lovely smile of the maternal earth, 
 When, lying in the soft embrace of air, 
 She feeleth the young spring abound in her, 
 And laugheth in her bliss, and looketh forth 
 Amongst the clouds. 
 
 " c And such as this is given men to read, and they 
 will not. Perhaps it is well that the idle world leaves 
 the best to the best, and goes its meager way. Here 
 is a silly letter, but again I say, to write it gives me 
 a certain joy, and you must, you will, forgive and not 
 quite forget thy ever friend/ 
 
 " One letter/ I said, " is quite commonplace, very 
 simple, even childlike. Let us leave that. But here 
 is one other I must read : 
 
 " * To you long and cheerful years. Sometimes I 
 sit alone and cry because of having sent these letters. 
 Then a voice from within, the voice of nature, com 
 forts me. I seem to have escaped, in them, into the 
 natural world of the earth s youth, whence I know 
 not. I make mad use of freedom to be myself, to 
 say, " I love you." I hear you ask in scorn, " Why ? " 
 
 "Do not thou bewilder love, asking for his reasons. 
 
 " * There is your own feather on the fatal dart. 
 Soon or late there is a tragedy in every love. If 
 I should die and lose you ! I am sick with the an 
 guish of a giant fear, the fear to lose that which I 
 
292 DE. NORTH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 have not. Oh, the sweet folly of it all ! Love, the 
 magic toy which makes us children all! I see you 
 flush a little. We fence in darkness. I hear. Ah, I 
 have touched you, a pin-point. No, you will never 
 see me. I should die of shame ; and yet, I am fair to 
 see, strong and beautiful. No, no ! Good night. I 
 shall write no more. 7 " 
 
 " Owen, Owen ! ". said my wife. " It is sad, pitiful. 
 I am sorry for her, ashamed for her." There were 
 tears in the dear eyes of my Alice. 
 
 "Yes, dear," I. said, " I understand. Now let us 
 talk. You may look them over before I return 
 them." 
 
 "She must be very young; and, Owen, is this 
 last letter quite sane ? Was the woman in her right 
 mind?" 
 
 " Ah, dear Alice, her right mind ! Have we a left 
 mind which is less dexterous? But, not to jest, 
 there are times when certain people are, as we say, 
 not themselves, but another. No woman, unless in a 
 passion of love, could have written a part of the last 
 letter. Better read it yourself." 
 
 Alice took the sheets and read it slowly. " Is love 
 ever sane, Owen ? " she said, looking up. 
 
 " Let us postpone the answer. Have you no idea 
 who wrote these letters, my dear ? " 
 
 "Not I, Owen." 
 
 " Look at the ending, l Thy ever friend. " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " And the beginning of the second, t To you long 
 and cheerful years. 7 " 
 
 " They are certainly rather quaint." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 293 
 
 " And, dear Alice, are remembrances of Sir Henry 
 Woton s letters to his nephew." 
 
 " Owen ! How dreadful ! Is it can it be Sibyl ? " 
 
 "Yes and no. You saw her in the garden in her 
 trance state, a product of hysteria. She has periods 
 when she does things of which later she has no re 
 membrance. Thus she ordered the pedestal put in 
 her own sittiDg-room, as the butler told me ; and she 
 herself assured me that she found it there and had 
 been surprised. In her sound state she is able to 
 control herself, and has, I think, overcome the impres 
 sion made by St. Glair s thoughtless admiration of 
 her head and face. In these times of alternate con 
 sciousness she obeys her emotional nature; she is 
 even vain of her beauty is, in fact, no longer our 
 modest Sibyl. This is my conclusion. I may be 
 wrong." 
 
 " And what, Owen, can we do ? And does Mr. St. 
 Clair know?" 
 
 " He does not. But the letters trouble him. He 
 said, if it were some foolish school-girl it would 
 matter little, but these were the letters of no common 
 person." 
 
 "You will tell him?" 
 
 " I do not think I shall, but I want above all to 
 be sure he does not reply to these letters. The girl 
 is in a state of peril. Her anemia is of a danger 
 ous type, for months better, and then alarming. 
 Let us put it all aside for to-night. I want to send 
 you to bed with something more amusing to think 
 over." 
 
 " Indeed, nothing will put it out of my head. I 
 20 
 
294 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 shall imagine all manner of things. If I am two 
 people, and one can pop up like a jack-in-the-box, I 
 may be six people, and how can I be responsible for 
 the love-affairs of five ? Have I six consciences ? " 
 
 I laughed. " Most folks never see their double, the 
 eccentric boarder. But I promised to amuse you." 
 
 " No one can amuse me to-night." 
 
 " Listen, then, and believe." 
 
 "Well, and what is it?" 
 
 " Anne Vincent has told you about Weevils and 
 the seance." 
 
 " Yes. She was very much impressed." 
 
 " She might well be that. I, too, was puzzled. Our 
 dear scamp St. Clair bribed the medium to let him 
 take his place. You know what a perfect mimic he 
 is. He did it well." 
 
 "Owen, Owen! is that so? What a daring joke! 
 I grieve to have missed it. I shall make St. Clair 
 rehearse for me. Will Anne ever forgive him ? And 
 Vincent?" 
 
 "I think he will if it does anything to cure his 
 wife of her taste for the mysterious." 
 
 " Dear Anne ! It is only a taste for novel sensa 
 tions. She wants whatever she has not or cannot 
 have. To this day she wants to see that man Xerxes 
 she, of all people." 
 
 " St. Clair declares that he will tell them all, and 
 he will." 
 
 " And he ought to do so, Owen." 
 
 " If," said I, " Anne Vincent is in what you call 
 her receptive mood when he confesses, it will go 
 well enough." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 295 
 
 " She is very odd about that," said my wife. " If 
 I say, Here, Anne, is a delightful poem/ and read it 
 to her, as like as not she may say, l My dear, it is 
 wretched stuff/ And if she is, as you say, receptive, 
 she is all thanks and delighted like a child." 
 
 "May I be there to see?" said I. "I dislike prac 
 tical jokes as much as Vincent does j but it will be 
 great fun. You should have heard Clayborne inter 
 viewing Kant. I think St. Glair will bring it out 
 when we are all together, and thus escape the private 
 tribulation of making his peace with one at a time." 
 
 " That would be clever. We dine with Clayborne 
 on Friday week, do we not ? n 
 
 " Yes. Good night, dear." 
 
 " Good night, and don t sit up too late, and don t 
 smoke too much." 
 
 "No as if I ever do." 
 
XVIII 
 
 MADE several attempts to find St. 
 Glair, and at last wrote him a note, to 
 which he made no reply. I had, how 
 ever, an appointment with him which 
 I knew he would keep; but this was 
 ten days from the date of my talk with Mrs. North. 
 Meanwhile the seance and Mr. Weevils had been much 
 discussed. Clayborne, who had called to pay the me 
 dium, told us that Weevils declared himself to be en 
 tirely without recollection of what had passed. The 
 comical truth of this amused my wife and St. Clair, who 
 had reenacted the whole comedy f or Mrs.North s benefit. 
 At this time Sibyl, during a temporary absence of 
 Clayborne, was spending a few days in our house. 
 She was in one of her periods of improved health, and, 
 although far from vigorous, was interesting, simple, 
 and natural. That this gentle, modest maid had in her 
 the possibilities disclosed by the letters to St. Clair 
 appeared to my wife almost unbelievable. Our little 
 girl, now five years old, never willingly left Sibyl. 
 Their acquaintance began in an odd way, which I 
 might better have mentioned earlier. 
 
 My young lady was observant. Few things es 
 caped her, and she was apt to be frank as to what- 
 
 296 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 297 
 
 ever excited her interest. When she asked my wife s 
 mother why she put powder on her nose it was 
 simply the statement of a fact observed, and on a 
 level with her announcement that St. Glair had a 
 new necktie. She had yet to learn the useful art of 
 concealing knowledge. 
 
 When first she met Miss Maywood, Sibyl was 
 seated on a bench in Mr. Clayborne s garden. I was 
 behind her unnoticed, and was nursing the precious 
 end of a cigar, which, as often happens, had been 
 valuable in aiding that form of conjuring we call 
 thought. I saw my little maid come hesitating 
 across the garden. She saw, but took no notice of 
 me. She picked a flower and came nearer. I was 
 not wanted. Something drew her to Miss Maywood, 
 who, seeing, her, laid aside her book and began in 
 turn to inspect my young diplomatist as she made 
 cautious approach. Said Sibyl, "This must be Mary 
 North. Come and pay me a little visit." Sibyl s 
 voice, of which I have already spoken, seemed con 
 vincing. My little lady, pausing, said, " I don t know 
 you," and then, "I like you." Sibyl s tact with 
 children was faultless. She did not kiss the child, 
 but made room for her on the bench, saying, " We 
 shall be friends, I know. Did you ever make dande 
 lion chains?" Mary confessed ignorance. Mean 
 while Miss Maywood talked pleasant nothings, not 
 insisting on abrupt intimacy, such as wise child 
 hood instinctively dislikes. Meanwhile this small 
 social naturalist was considering her new acquain 
 tance. I listened with interest. She would by and 
 by announce some verdict. At last she said : 
 
298 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "You have long eyelashes, termendously long." 
 The little maid had the vocabulary of a girl of six 
 teen, and delighted in the use of the big words which 
 she picked up from her elders. 
 
 " I must have them cut," said Sibyl, laughing. 
 
 " No, you must not. They are lovelly." And then 
 with abruptness, " Why do you have one shoulder so 
 high up, and why do you walk hippety-hop ? I saw 
 you." 
 
 To have interfered would have been to embarrass 
 Sibyl, as yet unconscious of my presence. 
 
 She replied at once : " When I was a little girl 
 like you a careless nurse left me alone, and I had a 
 fall down-stairs, and then I had a bad doctor; and 
 that is why I shall never, never be straight like you." 
 
 " I will speak to my papa. He can make anybody 
 well." 
 
 " No j only God can make me well." 
 
 " Then I will pway God to make you stwaight like 
 my mama." 
 
 " He will some day, dear." 
 
 "Oh, I am glad of that"; and, to my surprise, the 
 child, who rarely condescended to embrace any one 
 not of her home circle, threw her arms about Sibyl s 
 neck and kissed her. Then she confided to her new 
 friend that mama did say that she, Mary, must sit 
 up straight at table. Miss Maywood also thought it 
 advisable. 
 
 " If I am not stwaight I can never, never be maw- 
 ied. Nurse says so. Can you never be mawied ? " 
 
 "Never, never." 
 
 " I want to be mawied sevewal times." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 299 
 
 " Goodness, dear ! Why ? " 
 
 "Because you get pwesents." Then there was a 
 pause. 
 
 "I wish I was older, then I would have been at 
 my mama s wedding." 
 
 Upon this I broke down, and Sibyl, laughing, rose., 
 
 Mary said gravely, " I will kiss you once more." 
 It was the solemn seal of an unlimited friendship, and 
 the pair walked away to practise the enticing art of 
 making dandelion chains. 
 
 On the Wednesday of my appointment with St. 
 Clair I took Mary with me in my carriage. Her 
 mother was eager to know why I wanted the child 
 so frequently. In fact, St. Clair was making a me 
 dallion of her head, and it was to remain unknown 
 to Alice until Christmas. Mary had been told to 
 keep this a secret, and, like many children, enjoyed 
 the legitimate privilege of concealing something 
 from her elders. She kept faith as to the matter 
 with staunch fidelity. 
 
 St. Clair was at home. He set the small maid 
 on a stool, put a table before her, and invited her 
 to make something out of a lump of moist clay. 
 She worked at it ardently, asking advice, and trying 
 with sedulous care to copy a leaf. St. Clair helped 
 her, and went to and fro from her side to his own 
 work, the maid chattering at intervals. 
 
 Meanwhile I gave him back the letters. He put 
 them in the pouch of his blouse. When the sitting 
 was over and he had set free the little one, he said : 
 
 " And now, what about these letters ? What should 
 I do?" 
 
300 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " You must do nothing, Victor, and I want you to 
 promise me that you will not answer them." 
 
 "But why not?" 
 
 " Because that will encourage a folly. The writer 
 may be an old woman." 
 
 " Great heavens, Owen ! " 
 
 " Or an experimental schoolmistress." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I am jesting, Victor j but for obvious reasons you 
 must not reply." 
 
 " What, not a word ? " He was evidently yearning 
 to write to this romantic correspondent. 
 
 " I should do no such thing." 
 
 "I really must make some reply. I must make 
 some reply." 
 
 I had meant to conceal my own conviction as to 
 Sibyl having been the anonymous writer. Now I 
 knew that unless Victor made me a distinct promise 
 he would surely answer in a letter of poetic rhetoric. 
 
 I said : " My dear Victor, you cannot, must not 
 reply to these letters, because" and I hesitated. 
 
 " Because of what ? " he urged. 
 
 " You yourself," I urged, " saw that they were un 
 usual. You were troubled sufficiently to ask advice. 
 Now you are in another mood and cannot resist the 
 temptation to play with a perilous situation." 
 
 " What nonsense ! " 
 
 Then I knew that I must speak frankly. I could 
 not let Sibyl run the risk of a correspondence. I said : 
 "You must not reply. If you had been a little 
 more observant you would have seen that your 
 letter- writer quoted Sir Henry Watton." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 301 
 
 " Good heavens, Owen ! " 
 
 " Yes, Victor. Sibyl May wood wrote those letters." 
 
 At this time we were distant from my still-occupied 
 child, at the far end of the studio. St. Clair turned 
 suddenly. 
 
 " It is a damned lie, whoever said it." 
 
 Hush ! " I cried, amazed at this outbreak. The 
 girl had begun to listen. " You are not very wise, 
 nor very 
 
 " Oh, confound it ! I don t believe it. Why the 
 devil did you tell me ? " 
 
 He was in the toils of an overmastering emotion, 
 the reason for which I could not see. His chin 
 muscles were twitching an unfailing signal of emo 
 tional disturbance. Seeing the effort he was making 
 to regain self-command, I went on talking of the 
 conditions of physical health which in some rare 
 cases bring on the irresponsible state of an alternate 
 consciousness, in which people may write as Sibyl 
 had done. At last he began to hear, and soon to listen, 
 and by and by said abruptly : " Curious case, Owen." 
 Then he laughed a kind of laugh not quite pleasing 
 to hear, and said : " Well, I suppose you are correct ; 
 but what a charming reply one could have made ! " 
 
 "St. Clair, you cannot mean that?" 
 
 " Yes. I did conclude to write to this woman. In 
 her first letter she tells me her post-office address. I 
 was troubled, but I meant merely to say a kind word, 
 and now, don t grin in that extra-exasperating way 
 I would have pointed out the folly of what she was 
 doing. What you have said, of course, ends the mat 
 ter, so far as I am concerned." 
 
302 DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 St. Clair, as an adviser of a damsel unwise enough 
 to write him love-letters, did amuse me. I said : " You 
 dear old fellow ! You would begin your letter like a 
 grandpapa and wind up like a lover. 
 
 " She wrote," I added, " in a state of alternate con 
 sciousness. The real Sibyl does not know that she 
 wrote these letters. It is an hysterical phenomenon, 
 strange to you, not unfamiliar to me. You must do 
 nothing, and must speak of it to no one. If you get 
 other letters, I, as her doctor, must see them. No 
 one else shall do so." 
 
 St. Clair stood still a moment. "Yes, you alone 
 shall see them. I mentioned them to Mrs. Vincent. 
 She advised me to burn them. Take them. Keep 
 them, Owen, and when it appears best to burn 
 them, do so. I wish to say, Owen, that I am pro 
 foundly sorry. I spoke rather wildly. Do not 
 scold me. I am the fool of my art. I know it too 
 well. I am more than sufficiently punished. At first 
 it seemed well then I thought what passing fancy 
 I had called out was gone. I well no matter." 
 
 " For this abnormal result you are hardly respon 
 sible. Let us drop the matter for the present." 
 
 " Thank you, Owen " ; and he set a hand on each of 
 my shoulders. " Thank you, old friend, and kindly 
 let what has passed here rest between us." 
 
 " Of course." And yet it had puzzled me. 
 
 We looked at Mary, still busy, and then I asked : 
 " By the way, have you ever heard of Xerxes since 
 your last bout with him ? " 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 " Well, good-by " 5 and we left him. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 303 
 
 Clayborne wrote me soon after this interview that 
 he would be absent for a month or more ; and we, of 
 course, were glad to keep his cousin. 
 
 St. Clair had on him one of his visiting-spells. At 
 times we did not see him in our houses for weeks to 
 gether. It was his way, and we had long since learned 
 one of the great lessons of friendship, not to insist on 
 friends being other than their nature lets them be. 
 Now, as I said, he was a frequent visitor, or, as Sibyl 
 used at first to say, " caller." One Sunday evening he 
 came in after dinner, at which meal we had as guests 
 the Vincents. When St. Clair entered I was talking 
 to Mrs. Vincent about Mary, her goddaughter. My 
 wife and Sibyl were close together, exchanging little 
 laughs as if in a game. They seemed very well 
 pleased. What was the source of this flow of gentle 
 merriment I do not know. I wondered, as I glanced 
 at them, if men or women laugh more. I was about 
 to put this question to Mrs. Vincent when, as I have 
 said, St. Clair entered. He was clad in his studio 
 jacket of brown velvet, with a careless red tie and a 
 low shirt-collar, the same unconventional attire which 
 once so shocked my good mother-in-law. He was in 
 radiant spirits, handsome with that rare type of regu 
 larity of features combined with the look of intellec 
 tual energy. Alcibiades may have had it. Vincent, 
 at ease in our friendly house, was hastily skimming 
 the pages of the Sunday " Tribunal." 
 
 "And so you forgot us and your dinner?" said 
 Mrs. North to St. Clair. 
 
 " I did, I did. But I had an adventure, a real ad 
 venture. Shall I be pardoned my failure if I tell it ? n 
 
304 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Yes, if it be told at once, because if I let you off 
 a promised taie I never hear any more of it. There 
 was that fine story of the man who advertised for a 
 wife. Where is that, sir ? " 
 
 " I promise/ said St. Glair, " you shall have it, but 
 this adventure was so interesting that I forgot 
 your dinner and went to the club. On my way home 
 I heard your piano reproaching me, and so here I am." 
 
 I said : 
 
 " The wedding-guest he beat his breast, 
 For he heard the loud bassoon." 
 
 " But it is not loud," said Sibyl. " It is of all the 
 instruments the least heard, the softest." 
 
 " My dear child," said I, " this comes of living with 
 Mr. Clayborne." 
 
 " There is a mania for accuracy nowadays," said 
 my wife. " I see that Esmond/ my dear l Esmond is 
 historically false; that Duke Hamilton would have 
 been guilty of bigamy had he married Beatrix ; that 
 the Pretender never was in England in the reign of 
 Anne. It is most provoking. And here is Sibyl find 
 ing fault with the t loud bassoon. When we come to 
 taxing poets with want of accuracy it becomes 
 Owen, I want an adjective." 
 
 " Leave your adjectives to the imagination of your 
 adversary." 
 
 " Good," she added. " Sibyl, I leave you the de 
 scriptive choice. Next we shall have absolute accu 
 racy demanded in social life." 
 
 " Or, worse," said I, " exacted in conversation, or, 
 worse yet, in domestic life." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 305 
 
 " Is nature ever inaccurate f " said Sibyl. Usually 
 simple, Miss Maywood would occasionally ask some 
 such absurd question. 
 
 "She is always inaccurate," said St. Clair. "That 
 is her charm." 
 
 " But define accuracy," said Vincent, behind the 
 newspaper. 
 
 " I should have stayed at the club," said the poet. 
 " At this rate I shall never tell my adventure. I in 
 sist on my right. I was about to dress for your din 
 ner when my man said a gentleman insisted on seeing 
 me. I found him in the drawing-room. He apolo 
 gized for his visit, and said he was a younger brother 
 of Mr. Gaston, once minister to Berlin. He laid a 
 card on the table as he spoke. I expressed my plea 
 sure at seeing him. I knew all the other brothers and 
 had made busts of two of them. He desired to have 
 a bas-relief of his daughter and to make an appoint 
 ment and learn my terms. On my replying, he took 
 out a pocket-book and wrote the needed information 
 on a slip of paper. Then he said, 1 1 have a check in 
 blank. Shall I settle now? 7 I thought this rather 
 queer, and said, No, of course not/ Ah, I see/ he 
 added, that I am out of money. Can you let me 
 have twenty dollars ? I am on my way to New York. 
 But it is of no moment ; I can cash a check at the 
 St. George Hotel. They know me. I said, < That is 
 needless/ and went at once to my secretary to get 
 the money. Then I had a sudden qualm of doubt. I 
 said, How is John Gaston s son? He was ill last 
 spring; a spinal curvature, you know. Oh, he is 
 quite well now. 7 Ah, my friend/ said I, you seem 
 
306 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 sadly ignorant as to your family. John Gaston has 
 no son, and you are a fraud/ He replied that he had 
 not come there to be insulted, and would go. On this 
 I said : i Don t rise The little scheme is ruined. You 
 are a scamp, but you did it all so well that you inter 
 est me. If you will take a cigar and sit down for a 
 half -hour and tell me your true history I will give 
 you twenty-five dollars, and I will not call a police 
 man/" 
 
 " What did he say ? " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " For a little while, nothing. Meanwhile I took out 
 my cigar-case. He took a cigar in silence, accepted 
 a match, lit it, and, seating himself, said : l You could 
 prove nothing. You may do as you please. I shall 
 not mention my name. I think I may interest you. 
 I am a kleptomaniac. From my first remembrance I 
 stole, and whatever I thus obtained gave me pleasure 
 such as nothing else did. I stole and hoarded useless 
 things like a raven; but as I grew older, though 
 more cautious, I continued to steal. At last I found 
 it agreeable to take a spoon or a fork off a table and 
 leave it elsewhere, on the floor or on a chair. Of 
 course I was in endless trouble, and at last was put 
 in an asylum, I ran away easily, and an effort to 
 prove me insane failed. At twenty-five I inherited a 
 competency, and this proved valuable, because when 
 detected I could pay. I know I am peculiar, because 
 I steal utterly valueless articles, and I even steal from 
 myself. I like to steal my hat and leave it in the 
 attic and set every one looking for it. I find pleasure 
 in elaborate plans of theft like the one you detected. 
 It is a game of skill. I should have sent back the 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 307 
 
 money. I do not need it. I think I should have 
 sent it back. I said, Are you never arrested nowa 
 days ? 7 l Yes. But I keep two closets full of gridirons, 
 frying-pans, corsets, inkstands, women s bonnets, and 
 what not. That always clears me, that and the doc 
 tors. You see, I am a kleptomaniac. I take quite 
 useless things. 7 l And could you stop thieving V i I 
 think I could have done so once. I cannot now j I do 
 not want to stop. I like it. I like the risk. 7 < Don t 
 you think/ said I, that a good sound thrashing might 
 cure you ? 7 l Pain is a powerful motive. It might. 
 I dread pain. 7 l It is very interesting/ said I. l Is it 
 not ? said he. i I knew it would interest you. But 
 now I must go. I am much obliged, and of course 
 I do not want the money. Thanks for a pleasant 
 visit. 7 I showed him to the door, and he went away, 
 a well-dressed man of thirty-five, in a neat silk hat, 
 and carrying a slim, neatly folded umbrella." 
 
 " And was all that an invention of the thief ? 77 said 
 Vincent. 
 
 "No; it is probably/ 7 said I, "a true story. The 
 man has a morbid pride in his mental disorder. Very 
 likely he decorated the tale. You observe that he did 
 not take St. Claires money. One sees sane people 
 who are distinctly proud of what may be to others 
 disagreeable moral or physical traits. This man has 
 a monomania. He sets all that is sound in him to 
 assist his indulgence of the unsound impulse, and, at 
 need, to protect him from legal or other consequences. 77 
 
 Said Vincent : " We all want our neighbors goods. 
 A thief takes them deliberately. An insane man 
 takes them at first as a child takes, impulsively. At 
 
308 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 last he learns the consequences, but meanwhile the 
 impelling desire strengthens. These people should 
 be physically punished. They disobey law and know 
 that they do so. They say they cannot help it. I 
 would raise the punitive consequences to the level of 
 the impulsive activity." 
 
 " That s a phrase worthy of Clayborne," said St. 
 Clair j " but how would you do it ? " 
 
 "Let me answer for Vincent/ said I. "The only 
 kleptomaniac I ever knew to be cured was a young 
 woman. After her people, who were mechanics, had 
 seriously suffered from her useless thefts, her father 
 treated her as he would have done a child, and soundly 
 whipped her. The consequences thus rose to the pre 
 ventive point. After three such thrashings she got 
 entirely well, and later said it was the only cure pos 
 sible. I do not advise it." 
 
 " I cannot see why," said Vincent. " I should like 
 to apply it to the megalo-kleptomaniacs like Xerxes." 
 
 "What a name ! " cried Sibyl. 
 
 " This man s case," said I, " as he described it, is 
 more complicated, and will end in some form of gen 
 eral mental degeneration. It is a mistake to suppose 
 that only the honest and the sane take pride in the 
 success with which they pursue their callings." 
 
 "The study of criminal natures," said Vincent, 
 "must be interesting. Tell them, Owen, about the 
 man you knew who was what he called a respectable 
 thief." 
 
 "I will," said I, "but it is rather a long story. 
 When I was a very young doctor, a man came to 
 consult me. He was stout, rosy, and very alert in his 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 309 
 
 movements. He spoke fairly good English, but was, 
 I thought, uneducated. He was known as an insur 
 ance agent, and lived with some ,old clerks in a house 
 kept by the sisters of one of them. When first he 
 consulted me he had very little money, and was, of 
 course, charitably considered. Year after year he 
 called on me at long intervals, being subject to slight 
 gouty troubles. One day he came in looking pale 
 and ill. He said to me apart : l Please to look out of 
 your window and see if a tall man is walking to and 
 fro across the way. I thought it an odd request, 
 but did as he desired. There was no one there. I 
 made no comment until he had received some needed 
 advice, but felt that I might reasonably inquire as to 
 what or whom he feared. He made no answer for 
 quite a minute, sitting perfectly still. Then he said : 
 1 You were, you always have been, kind to me. I 
 sometimes think I ought to tell you something. * Do 
 so if it will help you. Say nothing if it will not be 
 of use for me to know. I hear too many confessions, 
 and I am not a priest. It seems mean to deceive a 
 man like you and I want to tell you. Very well. 
 What is it ? I am not an insurance agent. I am a 
 thief. I confess that, although it was even then dif 
 ficult to surprise me, I was both amazed and inter 
 ested. I said as much. The small, fat man regarded 
 me attentively. l Tell me your life, I said. I will. 
 I want to. I don t know who my father or mother 
 was. I was born in the Bowery, and was fed and 
 lodged and beaten by an old woman who had a pea 
 nut-stand. A man used to give her money to look 
 after me. She taught me to steal fruit and vegetables 
 
 21 
 
310 DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 from the markets. I was clever at it. At fourteen I 
 ran away and became a stable-boy in a circus. 
 Pretty soon I got into the ring. At last the juggler 
 took me, and in two years I could do all his tricks. I 
 never quite gave up stealing. My skill in sleight of 
 hand, I found, helped me in business. One day I had 
 a bad fall, and lay three months in the Belle vue Hos 
 pital. When I came out the circus was in California, 
 and I had to rely on my profession. I was careful 
 and of wonderful dexterity, so much so that I am aston 
 ished other thieves do not learn to juggle. I never 
 drank. It made me ill. I never did like to be with 
 thieves. I learned to read from the street signs, and 
 I went one winter to a night-school. At last I came 
 very near to being arrested. It was the only time. 
 It scared me so badly that I came to this city. In the 
 train I met an old clerk. I told him that I was an 
 insurance agent. It ended by my going to lodge 
 with his sisters/ And you still live by theft ? Yes. 
 I do most of it at the theaters here and in New York, 
 as people go out in a crowd or when I sit behind 
 them. I have had some large bits of luck, and I 
 don t waste money. Thieves might lay by money if 
 they were not such a bad lot. I like to read. I don t 
 know a single thief. I like the country and animals. 
 After a few years I tried my luck in the stock market. 
 It is n t very unlike my regular business. I did 
 pretty well, and with one thing and another, and a 
 risky grab I made once in a Sound steamer, I have 
 put away safely about thirty-eight thousand dollars. 
 Now I am going to Karlsbad, as you advised, and I 
 am going out of business, too. I shall get a little farm 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FBIENDS 311 
 
 in Kansas and have animals about me. I was afraid 
 just now. I thought I saw the only detective I ever 
 dreaded. Indeed, I shall be easier if you would let 
 me go out the back way. It would be just like luck 
 if I were to get pinched as I am retiring from busi 
 ness/ I said, Does it never strike you as wrong to 
 live by theft? 7 No. Most people have too much. 
 I had too little. I was left to go to the devil. Who 
 cared for me? I tried often to get work. Either I 
 could not, or I soon lost the place, or else I made too 
 little to live upon. All around me was plenty. Was 
 I to starve? I was like a bird in an apple-orchard. 
 I wanted my diet and I did n t want luxuries. I can t 
 see that it is worse than gambling in stocks, or brib 
 ing city councils to enable men to swindle a whole 
 town. Why am I to be put in jail, and these big 
 thieves let off ? It is n t fair. What could I say in 
 reply, except that he was the more excusable thief? 
 I let him out the back way, and we have never met 
 again." 
 
 Said Vincent : " Is he serving his term somewhere, 
 or is he married and settled down to peaceful farm 
 ing, a church vestryman perhaps? Who can tell? 
 He ought to meet Xerxes." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent had listened with the utmost atten 
 tion. Now she said : " How delightful to see such 
 people ! I should so much like to have this fellow 
 and Xerxes to dine." 
 
 " That is our difficulty, Anne," said Vincent. " We 
 can never see these entertaining scamps. It must be 
 very educational. There is an asylum for moral 
 cripples sustained by the State. It is known as the 
 
312 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 penitentiary. A visit there would gratify your taste 
 for criminal society." 
 
 Sibyl said : " I once did know a man who was mor 
 ally perfect, and who never had said or done a wrong 
 thing from childhood to manhood. I was thinking 
 that there might be those who never do or say a 
 right thing. A great deal must be due to original 
 construction ! " 
 
 " That/ said St. Glair, " makes us the victims of a 
 corporeal fate. We are, therefore we must be. I 
 like that. It lets a fellow off so easy." 
 
 " It is well for a jesting argument," said my wife. 
 " If one lived in control of a world, how interesting it 
 would be to take a man like the doctor s thief and 
 set him as a child to live his life over amid better 
 surroundings, with people who were both honest and 
 intelligent. What chance had that poor fellow ? " 
 
 I saw that Sibyl was thinking how she would make 
 over her world. Very often I observed in her this 
 tendency to apply to her own case remarks like that 
 made by my wife. I said to her : " What is it Mr. 
 Clayborne likes to quote from El-Din-Attar about 
 this matter ? " 
 
 " I recall it," said my wife, who, having once heard 
 a short poem, could ever after repeat the most of it. 
 
 " I am the potter j Allah s the clay. 
 Was it the potter? Was it the clay? 
 At his feet the fragments roll j 
 Lo ! beside the wheel he stands 
 Wondering, with idle hands. 
 Let him gather up his soul, 
 And make the clay a poor man s bowl. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 313 
 
 You may remember that he sets out to make of the 
 clay a vase for a king." 
 
 " Yes," said Sibyl, quite cheerfully. " Some of us 
 must be content to be the poor man s bowl." 
 
 "And yet," said my wife, " the clay is fit to make 
 the king s vase." 
 
 " How we have wandered in our talk ! " said Mrs. 
 Vincent. "Mr. Clay borne hates it, but what his 
 ideal of conversation may be I never clearly made 
 out. He talks admirably, but he does not converse, 
 because he is among those who think it better to 
 give than to receive. When you present him with 
 any little problem he retires into a leisurely corner 
 of his mind, like a squirrel with a nut, to crack and 
 consider the matter at lonely ease." 
 
 " He writes me that he will be at home very soon," 
 said his cousin. 
 
XIX 
 
 [LAYBORNE had returned, and Sibyl, 
 the better for my wife s watchful care, 
 was again at Holmwood, where she 
 had now but little work. Clayborne 
 had taken to speaking his many letters 
 into a phonograph, and as the use of the hearing- 
 tubes caused Sibyl to have headache, he employed a 
 clerk to take off these records and to type-write his 
 correspondence. Thus the secretary had little to do 
 except to find the books he needed, to keep his table 
 in order, and to answer his invitations. He was 
 always unable to use a stenographer, for if he at 
 tempted to dictate, his clear, substantial English at 
 once lost the valuable qualities of a style which, if 
 lacking lightness and grace, was never diffuse or 
 obscure. " My mind," he used to say, " becomes 
 self-attentive when I dictate to an individual, but 
 with the pen, or when relating thought to a machine, 
 I am at ease." 
 
 It was our Christmas dinner, and, as always, we 
 met for this glad season at Clayborne s. "We were to 
 spend the night, and, as some of us were busy people, 
 we went to Holmwood that day at such times as 
 pleased us. 
 
 314 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 315 
 
 I found Clayborne, an hour before dinner, sitting 
 before his phonograph and talking with my wife and 
 Sibyl. I heard him say : " It is humiliating to become 
 aware that your mode of expression is influenced by 
 the agency through which you record it j but there is 
 one comfort. This machine can hear and record at 
 almost any speed. No ordinary stenographer writes 
 steadily more than a hundred and fifty words a min 
 ute, and I often talk too fast." 
 
 " The next question," said my wife, " is the rate at 
 which an audience can use speech addressed to it. I 
 have never heard a speaker I could not follow, but 
 there are people who fall hopelessly in the rear when 
 Phillips Brooks is rolling out his sermons." 
 
 " My trouble," said Sibyl, " is that I stop to con 
 sider something and get left behind." 
 
 " I wonder," said I, " what originally determined the 
 rate of human speech, and if among the lower tribes 
 it be any slower than it is among the more civilized. 
 I have the fancy that the intellectual class does, as 
 a rule, speak faster than the uneducated; but, of 
 course, there are the exasperating exceptions of able 
 men who speak as if it were needful to consider the 
 rest of mankind incapable of quickly apprehending 
 what is said." 
 
 "Yes," said my wife, "we once talked about this. 
 You said that the diffuse talkers, the profuse talkers, 
 are nearly always rapid. The combination of excess 
 of talk with slowness of speech is what goes to the 
 making of the high-class bore." 
 
 "You mentioned just now," said Clayborne, "that 
 we once discussed this matter of the rate of speech. 
 
316 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 I became interested, and wrote to the oldest reporter 
 of the Senate. This is the substance of his reply. 
 Speech at the rate of one hundred and twenty words 
 a minute is slow, and below that number it becomes 
 wearisome to listen to. The fastest talkers in the 
 Senate reach a speed of one hundred and eighty 
 words. That is three a second. But this is only for 
 a minute or two in fierce debate. Uneducated Irish 
 women and negroes on the witness-stand are terrors 
 to a reporter, and may rise for a minute to three 
 hundred and twenty-five words. Finally, my re 
 porter says, Phillips Brooks habitually spoke, when 
 preaching, two hundred and ten words to the minute." 
 
 " That," said I, " is all very interesting. As I 
 recall the great bishop, and none knew him better, 
 in e very-day talk he was not very rapid. I have 
 heard his sermon rate set as high as two hundred and 
 fifty. This I think is to overestimate the rate of his 
 speech." 
 
 " But," said my wife, " does not the rate depend 
 somewhat upon the size of the words used ? Saxon 
 words are short and those of Latin derivation long." 
 
 "That is well said," remarked Clayborne, "and 
 as to that, also, my reporter has something to say. 
 I have it here," and he turned to his diary. 
 
 " English speech is numerically rapid because of 
 the number of little Anglo-Saxon words. You see he 
 is writing with relation to reporting. He adds : I 
 incline to believe that English is spoken at a higher 
 word-rate than other tongues. " 
 
 " I thought," said Mrs. Vincent, " that French was 
 the most rapidly spoken language." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 317 
 
 " That is a common belief/ said Clayborne. " The 
 reporters say it is not and that it is easy to report. 
 There is another lingual matter which I have had 
 occasion to consider." 
 
 "What is that I" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, simply what tongue is the most condensed. 
 If I write out in English a clear statement, will a 
 translation of it into French, German, or Arabic be 
 longer or shorter than the original statement?" 
 
 Clayborne thought Arabic would certainly be the 
 most brief that is, would be the language which 
 would use least space in rendering the meaning. 
 French probably takes more space than English. 
 Concerning German we differed, but as the rest of 
 our party arrived at this moment, the question re 
 mained unsettled. 
 
 As we welcomed the Vincents, my wife said : " We 
 have been terribly profound, and have settled and 
 unsettled a variety of matters; we began about 
 bores." 
 
 " I am sure, dear," said Mrs. Vincent, " that at 
 times we are all bores to ourselves, if not to others." 
 
 " Or become bores as we age," said Vincent. " That 
 is a fear I have always had." 
 
 " I hate people to talk of being old," said St. Clair. 
 " To me the specter of age is the most terrible of all 
 the ghosts that haunt the mind." 
 
 " He is very near to me," said Clayborne. " I do 
 not dread him, but, like St. Clair, I do vastly dread 
 pain." 
 
 " Ah, that is it ! " said the poet. " He comes, that 
 gray specter, with his hands behind his back. What 
 
318 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 is it they hold ? Ah, that is what scares me ! But 
 old age I shall never know never." 
 
 " And why not ? " asked Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " I was once told that it would not be." 
 
 "I think that is horrible," said Miss Maywood. 
 " And you believe it ? " 
 
 "Yes. I did. I do." 
 
 " I should dislike to be sure of what to-morrow will 
 bring. A prophet must have a sad life and be a very 
 unpleasant companion," said my wife, laughing. " But 
 who predicted your early demise ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I will tell you after dinner. It is a long 
 story." 
 
 " Come, then," said Clayborne. " You are to have 
 to-day all the wines you desire, and one with a story." 
 
 "What! from you?" said my wife. "How very 
 nice ! " 
 
 We went in to dinner. Beside each plate was a 
 little package, Clayborne s Christmas present, or, if it 
 were too bulky, a little note explanatory. 
 
 " There is a letter for you, Mrs. Anne," said our 
 host, " and that Mexican opal you admired." 
 
 " How beautiful ! " said Mrs. Vincent, holding up the 
 red jewel and then putting it on her finger. " I never 
 saw as fine a stone. And the letter, may I read it ? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly. It came to-day." 
 
 " To-day ? " She looked up greatly pleased. 
 
 "What is it?" said St. Clair. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent laughed as she finished the letter. 
 " You promised me for my orphans, Victor, the pay 
 you were to get from Xerxes." 
 
 "I did." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 319 
 
 " You defrauded my orphans." 
 
 " I did. They are overfed, pampered." 
 
 " I thought," said Mrs. Vincent, " that perhaps Mr. 
 Xerxes Crofter would be more generous. I was told 
 that he is rarely appealed to in vain. You see the 
 result," and laughing, she held up a check. 
 
 " You wrote to Xerxes ! " exclaimed St. Clair, who 
 had his moments of credulity like the rest of us. 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! " cried Sibyl, as she hid away her own 
 present in her pocket. It also was an ample check. 
 
 Vincent, much amused, watched his wife. 
 
 " I know better who pays my debts," cried St. Clair. 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Vincent. " How can I thank you, 
 Mr. Clayborne ? I cannot." 
 
 " You cannot in my sense. You know what that 
 real poet, El-Din-Attar, says : " Who gives is already 
 thanked. Who thanks gives." 
 
 "And I," said my wife, "what am I to say? What 
 a charming idea ! " She rose and went joyously around 
 the table, showing us a small basket of delicate gold 
 wire with network spaces, just small enough to hold 
 within it four royal pearls. They lay loose in the basket. 
 One pearl was pink, one black, one a pale green, one 
 a pure pearl. The gold basket was closed with a little 
 padlock, and a tiny key hung from it by a chain. 
 
 " Don t look at me in that severe manner," said 
 Clayborne to me. " Your wife may wear the basket 
 on her own necklace. The pearls are for my god 
 child Mary. Get used to it. I shall add one every 
 year." 
 
 " I surrender," said I. " You are as bountiful as 
 Haroun-al-Raschid, and as lavish as Xerxes." 
 
320 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Meanwhile my wife opened the basket and rolled 
 the great pearls on to a napkin. 
 
 " It was Sibyl s idea," said the delighted giver. " She 
 said a pearl should never be pierced." 
 
 " Oh, no ; wounded/ said Sibyl. 
 
 " I have always had that feeling myself," said my 
 wife, " and now more than ever. I shall feel that I 
 was right." 
 
 We, the men, were all as kindly, if less extrava 
 gantly, remembered with scarf-pins in which were set 
 antique intaglios from Clayborne s well-known collec 
 tion of gems. And so the dinner went on merrily, 
 with no memorable talk, but effervescent with the gay 
 humor of people who had in common the remem 
 brance of years of friendly intercourse and the glad 
 freedom of entire trust. While the talk was flitting 
 gaily from this to that, I observed that Vincent was 
 unusually silent. I, being near him, spoke across 
 Sibyl, and said, " Fred, is the opal heavy to bear ? " 
 He had an unexplained dislike to being given pres 
 ents, and a better-concealed dislike to having any one 
 but himself give gifts of value to Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " No," he replied. " It was not that. Clayborne is 
 privileged. I was recalling the fact that three times 
 on Christmas day I have seen strange incidents." 
 
 "Such as?" 
 
 "Ah, two, the strangest, I cannot relate. One I 
 can." 
 
 " And what was that ? " asked Miss May wood, over 
 hearing us. 
 
 "It is worth telling. Many years ago a friend in 
 Carolina fell heir to a life-estate in a large amount of 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 321 
 
 personal property at the North. I was trustee under 
 the will. He also had a still larger fortune of his own 
 in the South, in cotton and rice lands, in slaves, and 
 in personalty. He was a violent partizan, and when 
 the war came he and his son, a spoiled child, then a 
 young man of twenty, entered the Confederate army. 
 The father was killed in almost our last fight. When 
 the war ended and things got settled, I went to Charles 
 ton, and finally made over to young Percival such 
 securities as were held by me in the North. A very 
 considerable personal property at the South had mys 
 teriously vanished. The slaves were gone. Only the 
 lands were left, and these, as my wife is too well 
 aware, had become valueless. Young Percival went 
 abroad, and in five years squandered all he had except 
 the cotton and rice lands, which I kept for him by 
 occasionally extorting from him enough to pay the 
 taxes, or by personally paying them myself. At last 
 he wrote me that he was on his way home, penniless." 
 
 By this time every one was listening to Vincent, 
 whose wife said, as her husband paused : " And he 
 was, Alice, the handsomest, the most charming, and 
 most utterly reckless boy one could find." 
 
 "The boy," continued Vincent, "was a man of 
 twenty-six. He had written to me previously in re 
 gard to a trunk of Revolutionary papers in my pos 
 session. I had brought them from the South. When 
 his means became low he wrote me that a cousin 
 would give him for these a hundred dollars. Would 
 I kindly go over them and select any I wanted ? The 
 trunk was brought to my house, and it was on a 
 Christmas afternoon that, as he desired, I overhauled 
 
322 DR. NORTH AND HIS FKIENDS 
 
 the contents of the chest. I found numberless let 
 ters, and sadly saw pass under my eye the names of 
 soldier, sailor, statesman well known in our history. 
 It seemed a wretched ending. Underneath all I 
 found a long folio Bible, the family Bible of the Per- 
 civals. It was carefully wrapped up in stout paper. 
 Tied to the back within this cover were four bulky 
 envelops, sealed and addressed to young Percival. 
 The book opened at the parable of the prodigal son, 
 where the place was marked by a sheet of letter- 
 paper. I began to be curious. My old friend had 
 aided a weak mother to ruin their son. The father 
 was always eccentric, and this, or perhaps his know 
 ing his son too well, may have led him to leave what 
 here I found. On the outer envelop of the large 
 package tied fast to the Bible he had written : 
 Soon or late, my dear son, you will find here what 
 will make you far richer than I have ever been. 
 If, through wasteful ways, you have become poor, 
 this will make you rich once more. Use better what 
 I now give/ Then I knew that here was the missing 
 personal property which had so mysteriously disap 
 peared. I sat reflecting over this queer affair, as I 
 have said, on Christmas day, when, dramatically in 
 time, came young Percival. To cut short too long 
 a tale, I set before him the Bible, and drew his at 
 tention to the envelop on which his father had writ 
 ten his message. Yes/ he said, as he opened the 
 Bible at the place marked, * yes, I have eaten of the 
 husks. I do not deserve that my dear father should 
 have thus cared for me/ As he spoke he hastily tore 
 open the envelops. Here was a nominal fortune, oh, 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 323 
 
 a large one, in Confederate cotton bonds, and per 
 fectly worthless. I saw the young fellow reel, and 
 caught him as he fainted. That is all." 
 
 " What a travesty of the Heir of Lynne ! " said St. 
 Clair. 
 
 " But that is not all," cried Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " I am sure it is not," said I. 
 
 " No. I, or rather we, took care of the scapegrace. 
 Anne fell in love with him, and later we found phos 
 phates on his lands. I must say that he is now well 
 reconstructed in mind, morals, and estate, a happy 
 husband, and a very watchful and rather severe papa." 
 
 " I envy your young Rebel," said St. Clair. " He 
 had war, peace, ill luck, disaster, and final good for 
 tune." 
 
 "And the permanent conscience called a wife," 
 cried Alice. 
 
 " Nice woman ? " asked the poet. 
 
 " Sensible, handsome, and amiable." 
 
 " The tale is complete. What of the other Christ 
 mas stories ? " 
 
 Vincent said he could not tell them. 
 
 " I think I know one of them," said St. Clair. 
 
 " It is not possible," returned Vincent. 
 
 " It is the story of the five hair-pins." 
 
 " Victor," said Vincent, very gravely, " you know 
 it, I see ; but you will, of course, keep it to yourself." 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " How you could ever have learned it is past my 
 power to guess." 
 
 " A woman," said St. Clair. 
 
 " Well, well," murmured Vincent. 
 
324 BE. NORTH AND HIS FKIENDS 
 
 " And shall no one hear it ? " asked Sibyl. " Five 
 hair-pins ! " 
 
 "No one," said St. Glair. 
 
 Then again the talk became gay and general. 
 
 When we came to the end of a pleasant hour and 
 a half, the cloth was removed, and the butler set on 
 the table two decanters of old Madeira. 
 
 " A grape-juice," said our host, as he passed the 
 wine to left. After it had gone round the table he 
 added in his old-fashioned way : " Absent friends and 
 your own good selves. 
 
 " Here, next," he said, " is the wine with a story. 
 It is the Rose Madeira, Vincent." 
 
 " Indeed ! I fear your ancient wines j but I must 
 taste this. It is not quite perfect, Clayborne, on its 
 last legs, as our fathers used to say, and yet it is 
 still very fine. How old is it ? " 
 
 " It was put in demijohn in 1798, and was before 
 that in cask. You can detect the taste of the wood. 
 You must all of you admit that I rarely tell stories, 
 but-" 
 
 "Well," interrupted St. Glair, "for an historian, 
 that is a crammer." 
 
 " Do not mind him," said my wife. " Please to 
 go on." 
 
 " Vincent has heard it. It is a family legend. My 
 great-uncle Rupert commanded the privateer Rose, 
 out of New London. She was lucky, and during a 
 West Indian cruise sent home several prizes, from 
 one of which she supplied herself with provisions and 
 several hogsheads of the wine you are now drinking. 
 Soon after, while off Cape Hatteras, she was taken in 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 325 
 
 a calm by his Majesty s frigate Olympia. It was a 
 boat attack, and only succeeded after one disastrous 
 failure. In the second effort my uncle was cut on 
 the head, but not severely hurt, and had also a 
 wound in his left arm, a rather bad flesh-wound from 
 a cutlass. He had so often declared he would blow 
 up his ship rather than surrender, that when, as his 
 flag came down, he turned to run below, his men 
 seized him and prevented him from effecting his pur 
 pose. A prize crew of eight men, and a lieutenant by 
 the name of Tregarthen, were put on the Rose. Three 
 of the old crew were also kept to assist. My uncle 
 seemed to suffer much. He was also left on the prize. 
 As he sat dejected on the deck, no one disturbed him. 
 The Rose received orders to repair damages, and then 
 to make sail for New York. As the Olympia was 
 about to continue her cruise in the West Indies, she 
 sent aboard the Rose two prisoners, taken off a Yankee 
 merchant ship which the Olympia had captured a 
 week before. At dusk my uncle Rupert, being for 
 the time free and on deck, saw, to his amazement, Mr. 
 Swan wick and his daughter Margaret come up the 
 side. He kept away from them, and, complaining of 
 his wounds, went below to have them dressed. At 
 night the wind failed, and again a dead calm came 
 on. This lasted two days. In the dusk that night 
 my uncle contrived to talk ten minutes to Margaret. 
 He told her that she and her father were to seem 
 total strangers to him. He was to give them 
 reason to complain of him to the British lieutenant j 
 also on no account, and under no circumstances, were 
 she and her father to leave the Rose. Her father was 
 
 22 
 
326 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 to say as much to the three Yankees left to help the 
 prize crew. Having thus arranged matters, Uncle 
 Rupert went mad. He did it well. He fell into a 
 melancholy, and then at intervals became restless 
 and excited. He declared he was George, the king. 
 He tried to kiss Margaret, and when threatened 
 with irons sat down and sobbed. After this he wan 
 dered about, a harmless lunatic, watched the repairs 
 completed, and saw the lieutenant making brisk sailor 
 love to the lady. On the third day a smart breeze 
 sprang up, and just before noon they got under way. 
 At this time the lieutenant went below to get his 
 transit instrument. Uncle Rupert, loudly lamenting 
 his fate, slipped away down the other hatchway. A 
 minute later a wild cry was heard, and two or three 
 men ran below to see the cause. Instantly they 
 came up pale with fright, and told the lieutenant 
 what they had seen. He in turn ran below. The 
 door of the powder-room was open. Uncle Rupert 
 had concealed on his person a duplicate key. To the 
 horror of the lieutenant, there was Uncle Rupert in 
 the magazine, seated on a keg and laughing mania 
 cally. A second keg stood open beside him. He held 
 in his hand a dry rope, the end of which was lighted 
 and smoldering. The lieutenant fell back with an 
 oath. Ho, ho ! ; yells Rupert, with his watch on his 
 knee. Hurrah ! Up you go ! Got half an hour to 
 live ! King George forever ! The Union Jack 7 s 
 going to heaven ! Two minutes gone. i The lieu 
 tenant talked, implored, cursed. Five minutes 
 gone, cried Rupert. The officer advanced, cutlass in 
 hand. l One step nearer and up we go/ cried Uncle 
 
t>R. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 327 
 
 Rupert. Say your prayers, and be quick/ and he blew 
 the match to a red heat. The officer fled. On deck 
 there was mutiny. The man-of-war s-men were already 
 in a boat fifty feet away. Miss Swanwick had fainted. 
 She did it well. The distracted officer ordered the 
 Yankees to get out another boat. He would stay with 
 the ship. He went to get his pistols, resolute to try 
 conclusions with the madman. As he turned, Swan- 
 wick pinioned him, and in a moment was his master. 
 He was a powerful man even &t fifty. A sailor tied 
 the officer s legs together. Miss Margaret, promptly 
 recovering, ran below. Up came Rupert. Ready 
 about, boys/ he cried. l Take the helm, my man, and 
 quick. 7 After one or two rapid orders he turned to 
 the lieutenant. l Lord, sir ! did you think I would 
 blow up Miss Swanwick? We have been engaged 
 for a year. In three days they were lying off Phila 
 delphia. Margaret Swanwick s picture is in the hall, 
 as you know. Of course Uncle Rupert married her. 
 I heard that story when I was a boy." 
 
 " For a historian," said St. Clair, " it was cleverly 
 told. I could improve upon it." 
 
 " No one could," cried Sibyl. 
 
 " Another glass ? " asked Clayborne. " No ? Well, 
 then, let us smoke." 
 
 We lingered in the hall to see if Margaret Swan- 
 wick had the face heroic ; but, as there was a differ 
 ence of opinion, we deserted her for the company of 
 tobacco, and followed Clayborne. As we went in, 
 I said to him : " For a test of what people call nerve, 
 the case of a madman below you in a powder-maga 
 zine leaves nothing to be desired." 
 
328 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " What was that officer s duty ? " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " It was plain," said Vincent. " He should have 
 armed himself, got out boats, provisioned them, put 
 every one in them, sent them a quarter of a mile 
 away, and then gone down and captured the madman, 
 or have gone to death with honor." 
 
 Said Mrs. Vincent: "If your uncle believed the woman 
 he loved to be still on the deck, would he have blown 
 up the ship? He told the lieutenant that he would 
 not, or said something like that." 
 
 " I am not sure," said Clayborne. " His duty was 
 always first with him. I incline to think he would have 
 been capable of this or any other madness in such a 
 moment." 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Vincent j " you are wrong. No 
 man would do that." 
 
 "A sharp test," said I. "What became of the 
 lieutenant ? " 
 
 " Of course the story got out. After he was ex 
 changed he was a good deal ridiculed, and at last shot 
 himself." 
 
 " That was rather illogical," said my wife. 
 
 " And I," cried Mrs. Vincent, " would have jumped 
 into the first boat." 
 
 " You would not, Anne," said my wife. 
 
 Said Sibyl : " Does any one know what he would do 
 at such a time ? " 
 
 " I do not," said St. Clair. 
 
 " He should," said Vincent, " either have done as I 
 just now suggested, or have taken the risk of attack 
 ing the man when he first saw him. The pistols 
 would not have helped the matter." 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 329 
 
 Said Clayborne : "I should have taken the boats 
 and the crew and Miss Swanwick, and left the man 
 I believed to be insane to do what he pleased. Cour 
 age which wins nothing material and saves nothing 
 does not appeal to me." 
 
 " Oh," cried Sibyl, a trifle disappointed in her 
 friend, "it saves honor, it sets example. It is not 
 heroic; it is merely dutiful, the man s business. 
 Like a doctor s, it is perilous. It is accepted with all 
 its risks. Oh, I am ashamed for that man." 
 
 " Yes, I think on the whole you are right," said 
 Clayborne. " On reflection, you are right." 
 
 " What," said Vincent, as he sat down, " Miss May- 
 wood says of the value of high conduct as an exam 
 ple probably never occurs to men at these moments. 
 I doubt if a man feels the urgency of motives in 
 moments of peril, of need for high conduct, quick 
 decision, unflinching courage. The motives are pre 
 paratory, what Owen calls chronic. They preact on 
 character to create habits. The occasion comes, and 
 then the disciplined mind is, without thought, impera 
 tively obedient to duty." 
 
 " But," said my wife, " example does help ; it is 
 motive." 
 
 " Certainly," I said, " but not from being recalled 
 to mind at a moment of danger. It has only a pre 
 parative value, as Vincent said. Of course an exam 
 ple set to others at the instant of peril is quite 
 another thing." 
 
 " No doubt that is true," said Clayborne," and when 
 people are continually hearing of acts of courage it 
 does have educational value. In our quiet modern 
 
330 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 life we have not the constant risks which made battle 
 and personal conflict common in the life of wilder 
 days j and yet there is far more heroism of the best 
 kind than in days when altruistic self-devotion had 
 less motive power than it has now. Look at the 
 papers if you doubt me. 7 
 
 " You are right," said my wife, who was apt to be a 
 silent listener to our debates. "If we were to keep 
 for a year clippings from the papers as to all the 
 cases of gallant attempts at rescue, we should see how 
 much nobler is our life than that of a day which 
 some appear to regret." 
 
 " Very true," said Clayborne. " I saw in one week 
 mention of two instances of boys taking risks to save 
 drowning comrades. Here I kept it is a boy of 
 eight who is badly burned in saving an infant. Here 
 is a laboring man who is injured in stopping a runa 
 way. It is constant ; we hardly pause to notice it. 
 Not long ago we talked over this very matter. Sibyl 
 cut out for me the paragraphs for a week. There is 
 also the familiar case of an engineer who could have 
 deserted his engine and saved his own life. I agree 
 that at the moment we act almost mechanically. The 
 character-building accumulation of motives is like 
 loading a gun occasion pulls the trigger." 
 
 Sibyl had been listening very intently. Now she 
 said : " I do not think you allow enough for the ra 
 pidity of thought in time of peril. A man thinks 
 fast then." 
 
 "But," said Vincent, "we are now dealing only 
 with cases of need for instant decision. He is alone, 
 or in the loneliness of command, assured that death 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 331 
 
 is in his path. I am sure that one kind of man then 
 acts with the decisiveness of a mechanism. Do you 
 suppose motives as to duty or what men might say for 
 or against him were in Cushing s mind when he drove 
 that launch through darkness against the Albemarle f 
 Or does the boy think as he plunges in to save a com 
 rade ? He is the moral slave of a despotic past. To 
 pause and reflect is often fatal to noble action." 
 
 " I have listened with interest/ said I. " Let me 
 add a word. Example has its largest recognized val 
 ues in the chronic affairs of life. I see this in sick 
 ness. A man says, i What So-and-so bore patiently, 
 I can bear. If the influence of example be myste 
 rious, it is nevertheless positive." 
 
 " Thank you/ said Sibyl, quietly. " We talked of 
 this long ago." 
 
 There was a momentary silence, then Mrs. Vincent 
 said : " What a strange thing is the passing of an 
 example from life to life ! How endless it may be ! " 
 
 "It has," said I, "been compared to the endless 
 ness of physical force." 
 
 " But physical force must at last cease to be per 
 ceptible," said Vincent, "whereas example is rein 
 forced by use, and if to-day feeble in effect, to-morrow 
 it becomes potent." 
 
 " That gives one/ said Mrs. Vincent, " a strong 
 sense of the reality of character." 
 
 " I hate to think," said St. Clair, " of these unknown 
 possibilities. Disease and pain are awful shadows. 
 Let us think of them no more. Owen says they are 
 our physical whips. What stuff ! I was once ill. It 
 made me angry. I am glad it did me no good," 
 
332 DK. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 " Then tell us your story/ 7 said I. " You are a 
 very sensitive young man, and sometimes you talk 
 fine nonsense." 
 
 " But when I come to think it over my story is by 
 no means gay. My dear Mrs. Vincent hates snakes j 
 it is about snakes." 
 
 " I abhor them," said this lady. 
 
 " And I," said my wife. 
 
 " And I," said Clayborne j " but go on." 
 
 Mrs. Vincent, drawing nearer to the fire, smiled as 
 she remarked : " If I may be well warmed I shall not 
 mind. I can stand anything if I am warm." 
 
 St. Clair rose as she spoke, and stood beside the 
 ample hearth. He was, of course, in simple evening 
 dress, but it became in a wonderful way, his rich color 
 and the fine carriage of his head. For some reason 
 he was more than commonly serious. He hesitated a 
 moment, and then said : " It is rather a grim story. 
 It will seem incredible. I beg to ask that I be not 
 questioned about it. I and again he paused. 
 " There are on earth no other people to whom I 
 would tell it. If any one, if Miss Maywood, per 
 haps, be in doubt, for it is rather thrilling, I shall not 
 tell it." 
 
 "It is not stories, true or false, that I fear," said 
 Sibyl. " Please to go on." 
 
 "Very good." As he spoke, he threw in the fire 
 the cigar he had just lighted. Then for a full half- 
 minute we sat quiet, respecting his silence, as he stood 
 leaning against the mantel and facing us. 
 
 " You know that I spent a year in India. I saw 
 while there much of the occult science, or, if you like, 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 333 
 
 arts of the Hindoo. Some of it is very absurd ; some 
 of it is well is not. I learned Hindoostanee and 
 certain dialects, and because I was not English was 
 enabled to see much that is jealously hidden from 
 the conquering race. 
 
 11 1 was very curious as to what is known I trans 
 late crudely as the Temple School of the Moralities. 
 Where it was, and how I came to see it, I am unwill 
 ing to state. Do not let that make you distrust my 
 story. On one of the lower foot-hills of the Himalayas 
 is a temple excavated out of the rock. There are 
 others which are better known. Around a vast court 
 are gigantic figures of Vishnu in his many incarna 
 tions. Between these are cells cut deep into the rock. 
 In each is a man who has come to ask help of the god 
 that he may be freed from some form of immorality. 
 I have known three Europeans who resorted to this 
 place. These men remained without food in their cells 
 all day until set of sun. At fixed intervals the priests 
 entered these cells and, touching each man on the 
 forehead and on the lips, said, t What was, is not. Let 
 thy sin be starved, lest sorrow be fed. At evening, 
 when it grew dark, food was brought, usually fruit, or 
 grain food such as rice. At midnight each man was 
 given a drug which, he was told, and I believe it, 
 had power to influence morally him who took it. In 
 a few minutes it caused sleep. At morning the man 
 awoke with the soul of a little child; the thief was 
 honest, the violent gentle, the sensual pure in heart." 
 
 Clayborne rolled about in his chair, an uneasy lis 
 tener. He had no power to surrender to a story. He 
 said: "What stuff, Victor! The gist of it is stolen 
 
334 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 bodily out of All Omar. We did not bargain for a 
 half -hour of fairy-tales." 
 
 I never had seen St. Clair as he was that evening. 
 He flushed a little and remained standing, with an 
 elbow on the mantel, his cheek on his hand. " Dear 
 old friend," he said very quietly, " this is a true story 
 out of a man s life, told for friends alone. I know 
 the verse you mean. Wait and hear me out." 
 
 " I can wait/ said Clayborne, and fell back sub 
 missive. 
 
 " One word, Victor," said I. " This does not seem 
 to me altogether as absurd as it does to Clayborne. 
 We of the West know as yet of no drug which makes 
 men better. Alcohol, opium, chloral, and, worse than 
 these, cocaine and hashish, all ruin the morals of men 
 and make them cruel, brutal, sensual, liars, and some 
 times insane. Why there may not be some drugs which 
 do the reverse I cannot see. I took mescal once, and 
 among its splendid dreams of unearthly color I had 
 a gentle desire to propitiate every one, to be pleasant 
 and agreeable. This did not last long, and next day 
 I found I had brought out of fairyland a furious 
 headache and no permanent gain in amiability." 
 
 " Thank you, Owen," said St. Clair. " But now let 
 me go on without comment. Pardon me ; you have 
 not done ? " 
 
 "A word more," said I. "I have taken experi 
 mentally in my time a number of these drugs, and 
 none of them appeared to me to have any immediate 
 moral influence. I, of course, do not now include 
 alcohol. Of their bad influence, when taken often or 
 continuously, I am sure j but quite possibly the ten- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 335 
 
 dency of some of them to impair the moral nature 
 may be indirect. It varies with men and even with 
 races. I have by no means said all that may be said. 
 But now, Victor, let us hear the rest of your story." 
 
 " I have seen," he said, " the results of this treat 
 ment, and I cannot doubt its value j but it is not of 
 this I meant to speak at length. 
 
 " After I had spent a month with these people I 
 told a priest that I wanted to see the Cobra City. He 
 said no European had seen it, and of the few natives 
 who had ventured within it, not one in a hundred had 
 returned. I was to think of it for a week and come 
 to him again. He said there are men whom the cobra 
 obeys and fears, but never were these white men or 
 Christians. 
 
 " I went away, and a week later asked him to enter 
 my tent. I threw apart the tent folds, and he went in. 
 He saw a large daboia lying on my couch. He re 
 coiled, crying out, l It is death, sure death ! Come 
 away. It will come after us ; for this is the serpent 
 men most fear, since it alone follows and attacks, and 
 does not, like the cobra, merely await and resent 
 hostile approach. He said, l Where did it come 
 from V I brought it from the woods. See, I said. 
 I went to the couch and quietly picked up the great 
 snake. As the priest fell back in fear I carried the 
 serpent out and, setting it free, saw it glide into the 
 jungle. 
 
 "He stood still, amazed, and then said, You 
 must be- of the blood of Aissah. You shall see the 
 City of the Cobra; but once in it you must pass 
 through, and when you have come out you will have 
 
336 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 knowledge you had not; for they who touch death 
 grow wise. Will you go ? I said, t Certainly. l Then 
 I shall come for you at midnight; but have written 
 for those dear to you a letter, because you may not 
 return. 
 
 " At twelve he came. l You are unarmed ? I said, 
 1 Yes/ and followed him up the mountain behind the 
 temple. After an hour s walk we came to a small 
 valley. At the far end I saw dimly, as we approached, 
 that on each side of what we would call a canon 
 were gigantic figures hewn out of rock. Here, he 
 said, l you must wait until the first faint light of dawn 
 is seen. Then you will take off your shoes, and with 
 bare feet and bare head enter. Yonder is the great 
 street of the cobras. Do not dare to turn back. I 
 shall wait for you at the other gate. It is not too 
 late to refuse. I replied by taking off my shoes 
 and socks and giving them to him, with my pith 
 helmet. 
 
 " An hour passed by after he left me. Then I saw 
 the first gleam of dawn on a distant peak. I turned 
 and walked up the incline and stood between the 
 stone monsters, hearing beyond me a faint noise 
 like the stir of leaves in the wind or the hum of 
 rainfall. I went on slowly. It was still dusk below. 
 Of a sudden it was pale morning overhead. Then I 
 saw. The valley was perhaps a hundred yards wide. 
 It was shut in by rocky boundaries so high that the 
 day was long in finding its depth. The canon sloped 
 upward, narrowing. I stood still a moment. It was 
 peopled ; by degrees I made them out, an army of 
 serpents, gray, inert forms pendent from bough or 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 337 
 
 rock-ledge, slowly moving loops, or on the ground 
 gray tangles of lazily stirring, intricate coils. 
 
 " I went on, seeing the light increase. I seemed 
 to attract no notice. Then in the dim haze, on the 
 rock floor, some few feet away I saw ! Across my 
 path were some scores of the noblest cobras I have 
 ever beheld. They stood erect, their heads some two or 
 three feet above their anchoring coils. Between the 
 spectacle-like markings of their wide-spread mantles 
 the fierce little head with the dull eyes stood ready. 
 They were in clusters, as it were, but thick across my 
 way. The cobra is apt to sway from side to side, and 
 now the hedge of poison-bearers swung thus to and 
 fro, as if moved by some monotonous mechanism. 
 This pendulum-like marking of what were really 
 quite regular fractions of time somehow upset me. 
 How often was it in the minute ? How often ? It was 
 noiseless and regular, and seemed to murmur, l Death 
 and life, death and life. 
 
 " I stood still a moment, feeling that I was losing in 
 telligent self-control. For a moment my heart failed 
 me. On one side of my path lay the skeleton of a 
 man. I half turned to go back, when, as if this were 
 a signal, all the slowly gliding or hanging or inertly 
 coiled tangles acquired individuality, and came, not 
 swiftly, but as if deliberately, toward me, gray, sinu 
 ous lines, convergent. I knew that I must go on. I 
 knew that I must do more. In the mid-path before 
 me stood, high above its coil, a great serpent. It 
 stayed, attentive. Before this they had moved away 
 as I advanced ; now I must yield the path or they. I 
 set on him unwinking eyes, and, bending, took the 
 
338 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 cobra by the neck. He made no resistance, but, coil 
 ing around my arm, lay with his head on my out 
 stretched palm, moveless. 
 
 " I do not explain it j but now I felt reassured and 
 walked fearlessly up to the hedge of serpents. They 
 slid away to right and left. I went past this thicket 
 of death j and still the light increased, so that I saw 
 where, on one side, a great cleft divided the rock wall. 
 The serpents were fewer and moved more swiftly as I 
 went on, shuddering if my bare feet chanced to tread 
 on a round bit of branch or a cold rolling stone. Sud 
 denly I heard faint humming noises. Something was 
 disturbing this deathful assembly. In the dark of the 
 rock cleavage, high to left, I saw two shining eyes. 
 Ah, but I knew them well. I stood still, understand 
 ing that the tiger must first leap into the canon and 
 then would turn on me. For a moment he made no 
 noise. Then I heard his roar and saw the splendid 
 terror in mid-air, and then on the ground, twenty feet 
 away. As he gathered himself, I heard a wild cry, and 
 again a roar which echoed thunderous. He turned, 
 terrible in his anguish. I saw a hundred gray death- 
 whips strike and sting. He stood up on his strong 
 hind legs, fell back, rose and smote, here, there, rolled 
 convulsed with pain, tore them with his claws, bit 
 them in terror unknown before to this fierce life 
 of unconquered vigor. It was vain against these 
 noiseless, multiplied, lethal onsets. He rose and 
 fell again convulsed, his skin quivering in the last 
 agony. The great cat was dead. Slowly the pallid, 
 sinuous things, like live ropes, slid away, and stillness 
 fell on me and on the valley. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 339 
 
 " Despite the precious increase of morning light the 
 depth of the canon still left it in twilight obscurity. I 
 saw as I went on that the rocks were hollowed into 
 deep caves on each side, and that between the rock 
 walls I was walking barefooted on a narrowing path. 
 I moved slowly and carefully with chilled feet, fearing 
 lest I might tread on some one of these languid coils 
 and convert it on the instant into a swift giver of death. 
 The walls of rock were here about sixty feet apart, and 
 in their dim grayness were many blacknesses. These 
 were caves, out of which now rolled, with slow disen 
 tangling writhings, unnumbered cobras. They came 
 forth from crevices and hung motionless from bush 
 and rock shelf. I was in the heart of the Cobra City, 
 and, like as the folk of a town come forth to see a 
 stranger, came those terrible citizens. One single 
 beautiful cobra in his pride of power with his mantle 
 spread is a splendid fear. Here is absolute, unreason 
 ing courage. Here is death, swift, sure, implacable, 
 without remedy. Around me were thousands. Many 
 came close to me as if curious, following me with 
 swaying heads, the wide neck cloak, shrinking or agi 
 tated as it was spread wide when angry doubt dwelt 
 in those cold, pitiless eyes. Some touched my bare 
 feet 5 some retired slowly, crawling back to their 
 house caves ; others stood in tall ranks as I passed, 
 their small heads swinging to and fro on a level with 
 my waist, for cobras like these had I never seen in 
 cave or jungle. 
 
 " Meanwhile I grew cold. I do not think it was with 
 earthly fear. If there be some unnamed emotion 
 which is such terror as may come to a man in another 
 
340 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 world of judgment, I had it. The sleek, slowly mov 
 ing folds of the cobra stirred about my arm, and the 
 small, deathful head moved uneasily. If in what I 
 must call the agony of a too long and enfeebling 
 emotion I should let go my grasp, release it, I was lost. 
 That I knew. The light increased, the canon nar 
 rowed, the tall death-givers folded their war cloaks 
 and slowly retired to cave and crevice. I knelt down 
 and set free my hostage, caressing with my hand the 
 neck and head. It crawled away slowly, and I was 
 alone. 
 
 " Before me lay a dark cavern. It was the only 
 exit. To return was to die. I went on in absolute dark 
 ness. Suddenly I stood still. The pathway went down 
 ward. I groped my way with outstretched hands and 
 cautious feet. The darkness was as complete as dark 
 ness ever can be. At last I felt that I was again los 
 ing self-control. I had been in a state of perilous 
 tension. I saw huge shapes of gigantic serpents 
 swaying over me. Then I heard the familiar rattle 
 of our own crotalus. Upon this I used my judgment 
 as one does in a dream, saying, Nonsense. In Hiii- 
 doostan ! There are no rattlesnakes here. But then 
 a vast serpent towered over me like a column, and 
 swayed and drew back his head till I saw the fangs 
 play in the upper jaw pure phantoms all. I stag 
 gered forward, fell, crawled a little way, and fell once 
 more ; and this was all I remember. 
 
 " When I revived I was lying in the sun, my head on 
 the priest s lap. What was it I saw! said I. I 
 know not/ he said. i You went by unharmed. You 
 are snake-wise. You will walk unhurt on the viper 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 341 
 
 and through the nests of the daboia. If you have a 
 foe, a man you would kill, a woman who has slighted 
 you, you have now only to go to the opening into 
 their city and ask help. There will come forth nine 
 who will go by jungle and marsh and byways till 
 they find the foe of your father s son. For him 
 and his wife and his child they will abide until the 
 thing is ended; and if one cobra be left he will 
 come to you, and, seeing him, you will need no 
 more news of your foe, for the thing will have 
 been done by those who turn not back. A thought 
 was given you in the darkness, yes, something more 
 convincing than thought. It was true. I had a defi 
 nite sense of a vast and sudden outflow of life, as of 
 having spent swiftly in an hour years of existence. It 
 was as if from a book you are reading unread chapters 
 are torn. This you have learned/ he said, l and what 
 else ? i That I cannot, may not, say. The sahib is 
 right. He is prudent, as one of a sudden grown older 
 should be. Now you know why I shall not live to be 
 old. And, dear friends, all this poor priest s talk, for 
 you nonsense, is but a part of the cobra beliefs with 
 which India is. filled; but as to the rest, believe it or 
 not as you like. I have never before been willing to 
 speak of it. I never shall again. Give me a cigar, 
 Clayborne, and some brandy, please." He sat down 
 and wiped his forehead. 
 
 Whether this was a true story or an adventure re 
 lated with additions, or but a dream vividly told, we 
 never knew. St. Clair said, as he took his seat, " Take 
 it as you please. It is true." At all events, the effect 
 of his narration was enough to satisfy any teller of 
 
342 DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 stories. There was silence for a time. Then Sibyl 
 said: "I should have liked to have been with you. 
 I think serpents beautiful. I do not believe they 
 would hurt me. I can handle bees." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said St. Clair. " Then no other wild 
 thing would hurt you, certainly no snake." 
 
 " It is dreadful/ said Mrs. Vincent. " I shall dream 
 of them. Let us talk of something gay. I would far 
 rather have had the story of the marriage by adver 
 tisement." 
 
 Clayborne sat at ease, smiling grimly. "Let us 
 have a little rational talk." 
 
 My wife said at last : " Then I shall be critical. I 
 don t believe your story, and I do not want to believe 
 it. I do not think you should have told us that you 
 are sure you will not live to be old." 
 
 "I did not ask you to believe me or it. It is 
 true." 
 
 " Please not to die soon," said Sibyl. " It is so in 
 convenient for other people." It was not like her, 
 and we laughed merrily. 
 
 " The cobra charm is broken," said I. "I wonder 
 how Xerxes keeps Christmas." 
 
 "And," said St. Clair, "how some keep Christmas 
 whom he has ruined. But the word reminds me of 
 something I nearly forgot," and thus speaking, he 
 went to an alcove and came back with his bas-relief 
 of my daughter Mary. " There," he said, " Mrs. North, 
 is my Christmas gift. Forget the serpents. No won 
 der women hate them." 
 
 It was a charming head, with that strange look of 
 tender mystery about it which belongs to childhood, 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 343 
 
 and yet with the look of alert intelligence character 
 istic of our pretty, wilful maiden. My wife turned 
 with full eyes, and taking both of St. Glair s hands, 
 thanked him. 
 
 " We forgive you," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " All ? " he asked. " Everything ?- all my sins, past 
 and present ? " 
 
 " Yes, and to come/ said Mrs. Vincent. " We have 
 immense belief in your capacity to test our good 
 faith." 
 
 " Thanks, my dear lady. I accept the absolution 
 and the indulgences. They come aptly." 
 
 "What have you been doing?" said Clayborne. 
 
 " I have a mighty mind to have this absolution put 
 on paper," said the poet. 
 
 " We promised," said my wife. " I am sure you 
 have been very naughty. Confess." 
 
 " Are you in love, married, out of debt? What is 
 it ? " cried Vincent. 
 
 "Ah," said St. Glair, "it is no light matter. My 
 dear Clayborne, have you heard again from Kant ? " 
 
 " What stuff is this ? " growled our host. 
 
 " Is personal consciousness a fragment of the per 
 ceptivity of the world-soul 1 " 
 
 This was high fun for Alice and me, who were in 
 the secret. 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed the scholar. 
 
 "Excuse me," cried St. Glair, laughing. "In the 
 words of Alcott, Is there not somewhere in the uni 
 verse an Eternal Tea-pot ? 7 How about double souls, 
 Mrs. Vincent, and the thirty-seven religions of Bos 
 ton? And have you again overdrawn your bank- 
 
344 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 account ? I heard Vincent say so a week before the 
 seance. I believe you once used to add your checks 
 to your balance." 
 
 " Shame, shame ! " cried Anne Vincent. " What an 
 outrage ! " 
 
 Upon this we broke into inextinguishable laughter, 
 St. Glair retreating behind the table and gleefully 
 clapping his hands. 
 
 " I must get a little space between us. I did it ! I 
 am Weevils ! Lovely name ! I was Weevils ! Thank 
 Heaven, I am forgiven. Three cheers for Weevils ! " 
 
 " Did you know of this, Frederick Vincent ? " said 
 Mrs. Vincent, severely. 
 
 " Not I. Was I not described ? Accept my thanks, 
 Victor. 7 
 
 " And I, what a pretty moral lesson I got ! " said 
 Mrs. Vincent. " Let us laugh and forgive, but never 
 forget." 
 
 We certainly forgave, for in laughter is forgiveness, 
 and we were humbly merry over this gigantic piece 
 of mischief. 
 
 " At least I have relieved the gloom," said St. Clair, 
 " and I have a clean slate. What dear people you all 
 are ! If I had only had Xerxes, too ! Think of the 
 freedom of speech one has. I should have called up 
 a man he and his partner ruined, and who shot him 
 self. The things that man would have said to Xerxes ! 
 What a lost opportunity ! " 
 
 " Are we going to relapse into the serious ? n said 
 Mrs. Vincent. " I forbid it. Come, Alice j come, Sibyl. 
 Let us go to bed before they make us sad again. A 
 merry Christmas to you all, good gentlemen ; and so, 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 345 
 
 good night. It is useless, Fred, to tell you not to 
 smoke too much." 
 
 " Entirely. Good night, Anne." 
 
 " It is Christmas eve. We should have had a carol. 
 Good night." 
 
 A half -hour later St. Glair went out of doors. I 
 heard the crunch of his feet in the dry snow. Then 
 presently he began to sing, and I knew it was a carol 
 in answer to my wife s wish. We went to the window 
 and raised the sash. This was what he sang : 
 
 " King Christmas sat in his house of ice, 
 
 And looked across the snow. 
 Hallo, my little man ! he cried, 
 Now whither dost thou go? 
 
 " I go, my lord, along the way 
 That all my kin have gone, 
 Where you, my lord, shall follow me 
 Before another dawn. 
 
 " Right gaily, cried the Christmas King. 
 
 Who ride to-night with thee ? 
 The days of grief, the days of joy, 
 Are they who ride with me. 
 
 " God keep thee merry, little man ; 
 
 Go whisper them that mourn 
 How surely comes again the day 
 When Christ the Lord was born. 
 
 " And be not sad, my little man, 
 
 But when thou too art old, 
 And stumble o er the wintry waste, 
 A weary man and cold, 
 
346 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Right cheerily, I pray thee, then 
 
 To keep this gracious tryst, 
 And leave thy weary burden here, 
 Where cares grow light, with Christ. 
 
 " * Now bid thy gallant company 
 
 Ride onward without fear; 
 For I, the King of Christmas, 
 
 Have blessed the glad New Year. " 
 
 As he ceased, I heard my wife say from her win 
 dow, " Thank you, thank you," and then Mrs. Vin 
 cent s rich voice rang out overhead in a verse of the 
 old English carol : 
 
 "God rest you merry, gentlemen; 
 
 Let nothing you dismay. 
 For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, 
 Was born on Christmas day." 
 
XX 
 
 IHIS was the last of our pleasant dinners 
 T^ TO ^ or manv months. Clayborne discovered 
 J| that he must consult the Archives of 
 Simancas, and perhaps visit Constantino 
 ple. He wished to take Miss Maywood 
 with him. I positively forbade it, to her disappoint 
 ment. She was not strong ; and, as Clayborne trav 
 eled at a rate destructive to comfort, I was sure she 
 could not endure it and retain even such uncer 
 tain health as she still possessed. St. Clair had been 
 well paid for two busts, and, as usual when money 
 was abundant, he became restless. One day he dis 
 appeared, leaving a note for me to say that he had 
 gone to Mexico, and did not my wife want some black 
 opals ? To complete our social losses, Vincent had a 
 series of annoying attacks of influenza, and I felt that 
 it was needful to order him to Florida. Sibyl settled 
 down with a brevet appointment of governess, and I 
 to complete my book. In this task my wife took 
 the utmost interest. It was on character-building, 
 and was, of course, dealt with from the view-point 
 of a physician. 
 
 " Where are you in the book ? " she asked one night 
 when, as usual, she claimed what she called her own 
 
 347 
 
348 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 hour before she went to bed. After that I took to a 
 novel and a final cigar. 
 
 I said : " I am wondering what influence diet has 
 on character. I should like to know if children 
 brought up as vegetarians would be different from 
 such as have meat added." 
 
 " Are not meat-fed dogs cross ? " she asked. 
 
 " That is an old notion j whether correct or not I 
 do not know. It is certain that some people who 
 are old and have weak arteries become clear of head 
 and less irritable if they give up meat diet. I have 
 seen extreme ill temper in persons fed on meat alone 
 for a year." 
 
 " Do not you remember St. Clair telling us that the 
 long fasts of Ramadan, the Mohammedan Lent, make 
 people cross, and enormously increase at that time 
 the number of divorces ? " 
 
 " Yes, I recall it. Fasting can hardly contribute 
 to human virtue." 
 
 " Is it possible, Owen, to live on meat alone ? " 
 
 "Yes. It is done by the G-auchos, and has been 
 done by sick people. The patient gets very thin and 
 very red. The blood-cells may then run up in num 
 ber to six million for each cubic millimeter." 
 
 "And they should number?" 
 
 " Well, a man ought to have five million. It varies. 
 A woman has about four million." 
 
 " How humiliating ! " said my wife, laughing. " I 
 shall take to meat diet." 
 
 " Don t, please. Mary might regret it, and I." 
 
 " I shall reflect on it, Owen." 
 
 " And don t introduce it, dear, into the colleges for 
 
DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 349 
 
 women, in order to the lifting of the more anemic 
 sex to the level of man." 
 
 " Why not ? " she cried, laughing. " Or why not 
 bring his excess of blood down to our number? 
 Perhaps he would then be easier to live with." 
 
 " Kiss me, and go to bed," I said, laughing. 
 
 " Have you a nice novel, Owen ? " It was part of 
 her care of me to provide me with this evening diet. I 
 found it cleared my head of the cobwebs of the day. 
 
 " No," I said. " I am studying boy character in a 
 report I have here of the McDonough School, near 
 Baltimore. It seems to be little known." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Oh, the school is in a vast woodland, and this is 
 full of nut-trees and all manner of small game. The 
 boys by degrees made game laws and nut laws, pun 
 ished those who broke them, and had school meetings 
 to arrange these matters. It is an illustration of the 
 parliamentary instincts of our race." 
 
 " How interesting ! " 
 
 " The bigger boys, like barons of old, at last held 
 by force the best of the game preserves, and claimed, 
 on leaving school, the right to will their property. 
 Thus property accumulated in the hands of the 
 strong. A social revolution against this selfishness 
 was checked for a time by bribing the socialist lead 
 ers with land grants. As taffy, the great luxury of 
 the school, required butter, the ounce of butter 
 allowed at each meal became the circulating unit, in 
 fact, their money, because it did not vary and be 
 cause it was needed to make taffy. So many l butters 
 were the price of a rabbit, and so on. It is too long a 
 
350 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 story to relate in full. I have found it valuable. It 
 was published by the Johns Hopkins University. I 
 shall keep it for you." 
 
 " I wonder," said my wife, "if in a girls school 
 any such rules would be made." 
 
 " In one, I believe, they regulated in some way the 
 picking of flowers. I never heard the details. But 
 as they don t climb trees for nuts, or collect birds 
 eggs, or trap rabbits, there might be small occasion 
 for such laws." 
 
 " They should do all," said my wife, firmly. " They 
 shall have in my college five million corpuscles and 
 climb trees." 
 
 "And wear I fear to go on and never, never 
 condescend to the low estate of marriage." 
 
 " Never," said madam, " unless they desire to be 
 as unhappy as I. Good night, you dear, bad man." 
 
XXI 
 
 HE Vincents, vastly bored by Florida, 
 had come home. On the 25th of May 
 I received a note from Clayborne : "I 
 landed yesterday. Shall be with you 
 to-morrow after dinner. Ask all our 
 round-table folk. I need a little good society." St. 
 Clair had arrived a week before, brown and handsome. 
 On the day named, Mrs. North and I were unluckily 
 engaged to dine with my wife s mother. Excusing 
 ourselves, we came away early, and, returning home, 
 found Sibyl and St. Clair in my library. Although I 
 was still uneasy about Miss Maywood s fluctuating 
 health, she had seemed to us to have quite overcome 
 her emotional weakness, and nothing in her manner 
 to St. Clair now betrayed a trace of the unfortunate 
 influence his folly had caused. When we entered, he 
 was standing silent before a cast of the wasted 
 features of Keats. Without the usual conventional 
 greeting, or even a turn of the head as we entered, 
 he said: " What is this, Owen?" As he spoke he 
 took, from a hook where it hung under the mask, a 
 small brass shield surmounted by a coronet. " Owen, 
 what is this, < Crede Byron > 1 
 
 " Ah," said I, " that is an illustration of Tout vient 
 a qui sait attendre. When I was a lad of eighteen 
 
 351 
 
352 DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 and adored Byron, I was once with my father in the 
 
 house of Mr. W . He told us that when young 
 
 he had for his gondolier at Venice the son of Byron s 
 boatman. One day, in this man s house, he saw the 
 children playing with this brass. He learned that it 
 was the poet s arms and coronet, and had been long 
 used on his gondola. Below is the hook for a lan 
 tern. As we walked homeward, I said to my father : 
 * How much I should like to have that relic !/ Ah, 
 said he, l you will live to get many things in this life, 
 but never that never that. 7 Last week my friend 
 Mrs. S , Mr. W s daughter, gave it to me." 
 
 " I envy you the possession. Wise Protestants smile 
 at the Catholic s passion for relics, but even Clayborne 
 has it in his own way. Byron died too soon." 
 
 " Mr. Vincent," said Miss May wood, " says we may 
 divide great men into two sets, those who die too soon 
 and those who live too long." 
 
 "A pregnant text," laughed St. Clair, "and much 
 matter in it. Byron died too soon. To know what 
 he might have become, you should read his letters." 
 
 " Fine praise ; even Clayborne admits that," said I. 
 
 " Was it not, my dear Owen," returned the poet, 
 " Goethe who so greatly admired Byron s letters ? One 
 has a most natural curiosity as to these uncompleted 
 lives, and most as to those who fall in early middle 
 life." 
 
 Meanwhile St. Clair stood looking down at the brass 
 escutcheon he had taken from the wall. 
 
 " l Crede Byron] what a strange motto for him ! 
 How cynical is time ! If Shelley may be trusted, these 
 brasses must have seen some queer adventures. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 353 
 
 * Crede Byron; what a sad plea ! " And as he spoke he 
 replaced the brass below the pensive mask of that 
 other poet, the greatest of those whom, alas ! the gods 
 loved too well. 
 
 "Perhaps now," said my wife to St. Clair, "you 
 will attend to the living and say good evening. 77 
 
 "Ah," cried St. Clair, turning, "you know, I hope 
 you know, how glad I am to see you. What need to 
 say so ? Let Miss May wood read Byron, Owen. She 
 has never read a line of him. Clayborne hates him ; 
 but he hates everything in verse since Shakespeare." 
 
 "She shall," said I. 
 
 " Ah, he will never become like so many, a mere 
 scholars poet, his works a playground for critic school 
 boys. He will have in every age his audience. He 
 will always interest. Virility is a fine assurance to a 
 poet of a long life of fame." 
 
 " The master," said Sibyl, " says that he is a poet of 
 the obvious. I did not understand." 
 
 "I think I do," said St. Clair, "but it is false criti 
 cism. It is how you say and interpret the obvious 
 that is of moment. Rest sure that he will live. He 
 is of the immortals. No man can escape entirely the 
 influence of his time. Byron felt it, shows it. But 
 there is still enough of the forever in Byron to be 
 secure of constant appeal to man. Read him, Miss 
 Maywood." 
 
 Then Sibyl said one of the unexpected things which 
 often had small relation to the present subject of 
 talk: 
 
 "It is hard even to conceive of that which you call 
 immortality of appeal. Social life, tastes, sentiment 
 
354 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 or the manners of sentiment, all change so much. 
 As to that other immortality, I wonder if in that life 
 to come, mortality, the certainty of coming to an end, 
 becomes inconceivable." 
 
 " Ah ! " said St. Clair. " Surely, to know yourself 
 as endless, not merely to feel that you are, must be 
 well, I fear that I should think it a doubtful privi 
 lege. Now, I know that I had one end ; some call it 
 a beginning. It does n t seem correct not to have 
 another end." 
 
 " Sibyl," said my wife, "your texts are pretty grim 
 at times, and Mr. St. Clair s sermons upon them fantas 
 tic. Do Mr. Clayborne and you spend your days over 
 these cheerful riddles ? Thank goodness ! here he is 
 at last, and the Vincents, too." 
 
 She went forward and greeted Clayborne with both 
 hands. " And so they gave you a degree at Oxford ? 
 I hope you brought home your gown. We were very 
 proud. And Spain Madrid. Sit down and tell us all 
 about it." 
 
 Clayborne was at his best and lectured on Spain to 
 his heart s content. " I saw one bull-fight," he said. 
 " I shall never see another. It made me ill, what 
 John Bull calls sick, and I could not get out. It is 
 not a thing one can venture to describe. A woman 
 fainted. The mob hissed her. At last a man was 
 killed, a rare incident. I was not as sorry as I ought 
 to have been." 
 
 " I have seen it," said Vincent. "It is really a 
 spectacle which cannot decently be put on paper with 
 all its horrible details." 
 
 " And yet," said Clayborne, " a nation throngs to 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 355 
 
 see it. To tamper with it has unsettled ministries, 
 and even the church, once resolute against it, does no 
 longer deny absolution to the bull-fighter mangled by 
 the tortured bull." 
 
 " Oh, do not talk of it any more/ said Sibyl. " And 
 yet you liked the Spaniards." 
 
 "Yes, the lower classes, the country people, oh, 
 very much. The rest I did not like as well. What I 
 liked least in Spain was the certain uncertainty as to 
 when you were told the truth." 
 
 " I rather fancied it," returned St. Clair. " It gave 
 a new flavor to life, kept one alert." 
 
 " I can give you a droll illustration," said Clayborne. 
 " The day I arrived I went in my carriage to the great 
 picture-gallery. My courier said, The gallery is 
 closed. Wait a moment, sir. I was about to get out. 
 He went up the steps, and I saw him for a time in 
 busy talk with a well-dressed man, who then disap 
 peared, while a servant opened the door of the gallery. 
 My courier returned, said, It is all right/ and for 
 three hours I wandered alone, with no company but 
 Velasquez, Titian, and the rest. Next day, on entering 
 the gallery, I saw, as I passed, the man who had or 
 dered me to be admitted. He was engaged in pleas 
 ant chat with my courier. They laughed so much 
 and seemed so well acquainted that by and by I asked 
 what it meant. Oh/ said my courier, he is the 
 guardian. He was congratulating me on how well I 
 lied to him yesterday. And what had you told 
 him? 7 Oh, as he did not see you, I told him you 
 were to be in Madrid only half a day, that you were 
 an English general, eighty years old, on your way to 
 
356 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 see your sick son at Gibraltar, and would never be 
 here again. Then I gave him five francs, and you got 
 in. " 
 
 "How dreadful ! " said Sibyl. 
 
 " One gets used to it at last/ said Clayborne. 
 
 " But that must have been very bad for you," she 
 said, at which we laughed, and she cried out, coloring 
 a little, " Oh, I did not mean that." 
 
 Some one, Vincent probably, hoped that here at 
 home he would recover his moral tone. 
 
 "I was in Spain," said St. Clair, "when I was a 
 fellow of twenty-two. I saw one bull-fight, and came 
 away disgusted. It is so brutally unfair. That night 
 it was at Seville I was fool enough to cross the bridge 
 about nine and wander in the quarter where live the 
 matadors, Gypsies, and worse. It was an ill-lighted 
 tangle of lanes and narrow streets. At last I saw a 
 bright glow in a long alley. I went up it and came 
 into a noisy cafe, half full of the worst-looking 
 rascals I ever saw. I sat down at an unoccupied 
 table, and was soon aware that I was in hostile 
 company. Now and then a fellow turned to stare at 
 me. I sat still and lighted a cigar, making believe 
 that I w^as not scared. I was. Presently a splendidly 
 made beast of a man in a gorgeous costume came to 
 my table and sat down and said something. It was 
 very insulting, a fine temptation to a row. I called a 
 garc,on, clapping my hands as one does in Spain. 
 Then I said in my best Spanish, l Six bottles of the 
 best wine/ and to my neighbor, Let us drink. Bring 
 all your friends, senor. May I offer you a cigar? 
 He looked at me puzzled, took the cigar, and then the 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 357 
 
 hand I held out, and shouted something in a dialect 
 unknown to my Castilian tongue. At once we were 
 surrounded. More wine/ said I. More. 7 In five 
 minutes I was talking bull-fights, and was safe. Lord, 
 what stuff I swallowed ! At last my friend said, 
 Come and see the bull-fight dance. I followed him. 
 We went out into a spacious portico. He elbowed 
 his way to the inside of a vast ring of men whom I 
 longed to sketch. Here he called for chairs, and we 
 sat down on a marble floor. In the middle of the 
 court stood a tall woman in a short black silk skirt 
 and bodice, black silk stockings, and black slippers. 
 She was a light brunette, with large blue eyes and a 
 quantity of brilliant red hair. A black ribbon tied 
 under her chin, and a second secured at the back 
 below this coil of hair, kept firmly in place on the top 
 of her head a pair of horns. On the tip of each of 
 these was a small pad well chalked. As we sat down 
 she began to dance to the wild music of guitars, cas 
 tanets, and cymbals. The players were in black vel 
 vet, and wore caps with a silver spoon on the front. 
 What this meant I did not understand." 
 " I do," said Clayborne. " But go on." 
 " Then let us sit down," said I, and St. Glair 
 continued : 
 
 " She danced with grace, and clearly enough en 
 joyed it. Presently one, two, three fellows in gay 
 dresses came out of the crowd and danced around 
 her. Each man had a long bodkin of horn or wood, 
 ornamented with red silk tassels. As they flew 
 around her, these men tried to set their darts in her 
 coil of red hair. She, in turn, sought to escape, and 
 
 24 
 
358 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 to touch their dark velvet jackets with the chalked 
 horns. The music quickened, the crowd yelled ap 
 plause, and the dance became wilder. It was really 
 a most beautiful thing to see. When she touched a 
 man, he fell out amid jeers j when he left his dart 
 in her hair he retired laughing, having won his 
 drink. After an hour I rose to go. Not alone, 
 said my friend j and, accompanied by him and two 
 other splendid scamps, I went away. When we had 
 passed over the bridge I took out my little silver 
 match-box and gave it to the chief of my escort. He 
 thanked me profusely, and said : 1 1 am Sanchez, the 
 picador. Name me, and you are safe over there ; 
 but go no more, except in the daytime, senor. Buenas 
 noches. " 
 
 " What a fine picture it would make ! " said my wife, 
 and we thanked him for a word-sketch charmingly 
 rendered, and told as only St. Glair knew how. Then 
 the talk went back to the question of national respect 
 for truth, and at last Mrs. Vincent said : " There are 
 people who seem naturally unable to tell the truth." 
 
 I said that was a rather strong statement, but that 
 it was one of the forms of mental disorder. 
 
 " I saw," said I, " not long ago a woman, a lady in 
 middle life, who began to alarm her family by lying. 
 She was not merely inaccurate from loss of memory. 
 She became so unable to tell the truth that it was 
 generally safe to assume as true the reverse of what 
 she said. If you asked her what time it was, she 
 looked at her watch and said twelve if it were six 
 o clock. She invented the most singular and perplex 
 ing stories, and once calmly assured a woman that 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 359 
 
 she had heard her husband had been guilty of for 
 gery. She always denied these stories when challenged, 
 and never repeated her tales. It became at last a 
 very serious matter. I advised a change of all her 
 surroundings." 
 
 " You might," said Vincent, " have suggested Spain 
 or Italy as a homeopathic health resort." 
 
 " I should think her a fit inmate for an asylum," 
 said Clayborne. 
 
 " No one, 7 said I, " should be sent to an asylum 
 unless because of poverty or because of being so 
 dangerous that he cannot be treated outside of a 
 hospital." 
 
 " Is that a common opinion among physicians ? " 
 said Vincent. 
 
 " It is becoming that. There is no special value in 
 an asylum. The treatment of insanity, to be of ser 
 vice, depends on individualized study of cases, and 
 where there are hundreds how is it possible ? " 
 
 " I have in me," said Clayborne, " that which ena 
 bles me to explain the possibility of almost any crime, 
 but nothing which helps me to conceive of my becom 
 ing insane." 
 
 "Nor have I. But if I had to live perpetually 
 among the mentally unsound, amid the hordes which 
 crowd our State asylums, I should certainly end in a 
 condition of what I may be allowed to call intellectual 
 despair. There is too little success to feed hope ; I 
 like to keep him fat." 
 
 " Hope is feminine," said Alice. 
 
 " Thanks ; we will argue that," I said. " I cannot see 
 that it is big medicine/ as the Indians say, to put an 
 
360 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 insane man in the company of the insane. Bather 
 should all around him be of the sanest." 
 
 " That seems plain to my mind," said Clayborne. 
 " But if, as appears likely, there is a physical change 
 back of and responsible for the moral and mental 
 disturbance, how can a normal moral or mental en 
 vironment be of value ? " 
 
 " It cannot as long as the physical, let me say the 
 crude pathological, alteration of brain is still actively 
 present. But this is too technical for talk, would take 
 too long to make clear." 
 
 " No," said Vincent ; " pray go on." 
 
 " Better not. We will leave it. But I like to add 
 that in some insanities the abruptness of recovery is 
 such as to disable us from believing that the physi 
 cal mechanism was ever gravely altered. When we 
 come to study the long-affected brain of the insane, 
 how much of the changes seen is cause and how 
 much consequence is as yet our constantly recurring 
 riddle." 
 
 "You interest me," said Clayborne. "Does the 
 normal brain-action involve visible alteration of 
 structure ? " 
 
 " Fatigue does." 
 
 "A fit of wrath we look upon as natural. Would 
 successive fits change the brain-tissue ? " 
 
 "Possibly. The furious maniac, the victim of 
 chronic anger, has usually some distinct organic 
 affection of the tissues. But this is hard to discuss 
 lightly. One sees (the case is rare) a woman in pro 
 found apathetic melancholy for years. One morning 
 she resumes her place at the tea-urn, and says : One 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 361 
 
 lump or two, John ? I forget j and so is well ! What 
 happened ? " 
 
 " It gives me," said my wife, " a shuddering sense 
 of how near we may be to such a state." 
 
 "No/ 7 I said; "it makes one feel how near all the 
 while she was to our state." 
 
 " That is a close approach to an intellectual bull," 
 said St. Clair. "I like to see you wise folks 
 stumble." 
 
 " Some subjects," said I, " are unfit for the quick, 
 uncertain thought of mere talk. This is one. It 
 were better left to the pen." 
 
 "I," said Mrs. Vincent, "must say that sometimes 
 sleep furnishes me with dreams which give me a 
 glimpse of the fact that we may have within us a 
 quite populous hospital full of insanities ; and, bless 
 me, I am sometimes very wicked in my dreams. I 
 stole Fred s pocket-book one night last week." 
 
 " That suggests care," laughed Vincent. 
 
 " Or experience," cried St. Clair. 
 
 "Has sleep no conscience?" said Sibyl. "I often 
 have vague impressions when awake of having 
 done things which were wrong. Might that be a 
 sort of remorse for something which happened in 
 sleep and is forgotten ? " 
 
 I glanced at my wife as Sibyl spoke. 
 
 " I know," said I, " a woman of the highest character 
 who continually dreams crime and is tortured by 
 remorse." 
 
 " What an atrocious suggestion ! " said St. Clair. 
 " It is bad enough to be responsible for our waking 
 wickedness." 
 
362 DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 
 
 "What strange things you doctors must see or 
 hear ! " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " So says Alice when she wants to be entertained. 
 She loves stories as a child loves them. Usually she 
 casts that fly in vain. Concerning most of life s 
 strangest experiences my lips are professionally 
 sealed. Sometimes they may be told when years 
 have gone by and death has removed all concerned." 
 
 " Do be good and imprudent and tell us/ said Mrs. 
 Vincent. 
 
 " I myself once brought you a case," said Vincent, 
 " which the patient published widely, until she quite 
 lost her reason. You may relate that." 
 
 " It is hardly a story. The one you mean was the 
 case of a woman who complained that her thoughts 
 were solid and cast shadows on her mind. These, 
 she explained, were colored shadows ; anger cast red, 
 jealousy black, love blue shadows. I asked could she 
 see them. Yes, in her mind." 
 
 "Let me stir your memory again, Owen," said 
 
 Clayborne. "L s case became public property. 
 
 You may tell that." 
 
 "Yes," said Ij "that is better worth telling. It 
 was most curious. This was a man of forty, who 
 was accomplished, intelligent, rich, and a bachelor. 
 He came to me and stated, as he did to every one he 
 met, that he was the devil. This is a delusion I have 
 seen more than once, but commonly persons so 
 afflicted are not wicked. This man said that he had 
 long doubted if he really were Satan, but that now 
 he felt sure. Then why come to me? 7 I asked. 
 Because there are moments when I still doubt. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 363 
 
 I am at times sorry for something, and that does 
 not seem natural to the devil. 7 As his case devel 
 oped, he became more confident that he was Satan, 
 and was very cunning in his efforts to conceal his 
 belief. Here comes in the difference between this 
 case and all others I have seen. He began to act 
 as if he were a fiend; not by doing things which 
 would get him into trouble, but by acting with intelli 
 gent caution the role of tempter. I was going out 
 of my house with him, when a dissolute tramp asked 
 
 alms. i Well, said L , if you will promise to get 
 
 very drunk, here are five dollars. ( I will, said the 
 tramp. This gentleman really applied a very good 
 mind to making people evil. It is a long and com 
 plicated story. It ended in a singular fashion. He 
 wrote two advertisements : t Wanted, skilful or un 
 trained young men willing to learn to steal. Wanted, 
 a few innocent young persons desirous of learning 
 how, with profit and safety, to take human life by the 
 use of poison. Persons already wicked need not 
 apply. Terms low. Clergymen half-price. SATAN. 
 Naturally enough, these advertisements were de 
 clined. When at last he was examined with reference 
 to placing his estate in commission, he defended him 
 self with notable skill. When asked, Are you the 
 devil ? he said, Yes. Then why do you lead so 
 exemplary a life ? You pay your debts ; you assist 
 charities ; you even go to church. l Yes/ he replied. 
 You are very dull. When you good people want to 
 be amused, you do something wicked ; but when Satan 
 desires variety and interest, he, of course, does some 
 thing good. His personal business my business 
 
364: DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 is not sin. I have exhausted the Decalogue. Even 
 I cannot invent new sins. I tempt others/ and 
 so on." 
 
 " That is a fine idea/ said St. Clair. " An insane 
 Mephistopheles. It would make a good opera." 
 
 " I," said Mrs. Vincent, " dislike to see insanity set 
 on the stage. t Lear I once saw. No more of that for 
 me. What say you, Alice ? " 
 
 " I am altogether of your opinion. The better the 
 acting, the less I like it. Leontes, I mean in l The 
 Winter s Tale/ must be a most unpleasing part." 
 
 "Evidently," said I, "the dramatist meant to draw 
 a portrait of insanity, the homicidal outcome of sudden 
 jealousy. It is too abrupt in its onset. Nothing pre 
 pares the mind for his unreason." 
 
 "But what of Ophelia?" said Vincent. 
 
 To this I made answer: "I have an experience of 
 insanity far beyond any possible to Shakespeare. I 
 have seen two cases somewhat like that of Ophelia." 
 
 " I have often seen the part acted," said Clayborne, 
 " but it always failed to move me. It does not ever 
 seem a correct rendering. I find it difficult to explain 
 myself. It is as with a picture, a portrait. We say, 
 There is something wrong with it. We cannot tell 
 what it is. And yet, when I read the play I have not 
 this feeling." 
 
 " Perhaps," said I, " I may help you. To act the 
 role of an insane person so as to make it continuously 
 gentle, prettily sentimental, is not to follow after 
 nature. In one of the cases I referred to, a refined, 
 sensitive woman sang sad love-songs and then 
 became abruptly violent, wildly screaming some 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 365 
 
 tender sentiment; or at the close of a song that 
 was serious would burst into laughter with the last 
 line of the refrain. That is the way Ophelia ought 
 to be acted." 
 
 "The trouble/ said Vincent, "is that the great 
 characters get so crusted about with stage traditions 
 that freshly revised renderings become impossible, or 
 at least they are so except in the case of actors made 
 independent by genius, and that we have not on the 
 stage to-day. We have stage artists, but not great 
 actors. I think that never was the English stage so 
 far from nature." 
 
 " There is," said St. Clair, " another trouble in our 
 mode of dealing with great dramatic characters such 
 as Hamlet, which are set for contrast against some 
 other and different nature. Thus Hamlet is con 
 trasted with the positive criminal decisiveness and 
 sensual nature of the king. When the king s part is 
 made weak by omissions the whole picture is damaged. 
 We lose the background." 
 
 Said Vincent : " That is true. I was thinking lately 
 of what a good case for a moot court would be Ham 
 let s. Was he insane ? In a court to-day his mother s 
 misbehavior and the fact of his uncle having been a 
 murderer would, I fancy, be used as implying heredi 
 tary unsoundness." 
 
 "Ingenious, that," said Clayborne. "I should be a 
 puzzled juryman." 
 
 Said my wife : " Are there many insane people in 
 the other dramatic works of Shakespeare s day ? " 
 
 No one could answer, and Sibyl said, with her not 
 uncommon want of relevancy: "It is pleasant to 
 
366 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 know so little of the man Shakespeare. We might 
 have learned so much that one would not wish to 
 credit." 
 
 " I like better/ said I, " to know all of a man, the 
 good and the bad." 
 
 " I am glad you do not/ 7 said St. Clair. 
 
 "Let me answer/ said Vincent. "When one has 
 a man s writings you have all that he meant you to 
 know. Where a man is a soldier or sailor, a man of 
 action, it is otherwise. A poet s poems are his actions. 
 I have, too, an utter disbelief in biography. Usually 
 its judgments, its omissions, and its editing, espe 
 cially of letters, tell you more truth about the biogra 
 pher than about the man of whom he writes." 
 
 "And autobiographies," said Clayborne, who had 
 been unusually silent" these must be untrue. Who 
 can tell the truth about himself ? Boswell is the only 
 biographer ; but his was the unlimited devotion of a 
 life to a life, and he was also with delightful ingenu 
 ousness delineating James Boswell." 
 
 "If," said Vincent, " we were all to write, and then 
 have type- written, our statement of our own charac 
 ters, could we, who know one another well, pick them 
 out and identify them ? " 
 
 "None of that for me," cried St. Clair. "How 
 would you do it ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Sibyl, " I should make a list of moral 
 and mental attributes. Each person should put a 
 number under these in turn, say from one hundred 
 to naught." 
 
 " It has been tried," said Vincent, " by a group of 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 367 
 
 clever people. They completely failed to identify 
 their friends. There was amazing similarity. They 
 seemed to be as much alike in mind and morals as 
 are new-born babes." 
 
 " Oh, but they are very unlike," said my wife. 
 
 " Are they?" said I. "In Vienna once they took 
 twelve babies of a month old, dressed alike or all un 
 dressed, I do not remember as to this. They tied an 
 identifying number to each babe s foot and invited 
 the mothers to pick out their own offspring. They 
 failed sadly." 
 
 " I don t believe it," said my wife. " What a wicked 
 experiment ! " 
 
 We laughed at the maligned motherhood, and St. 
 Clair turned to the piano, invitingly open. " I won 
 der," he said, " if Shakespeare could sing." He waited 
 for no answer, but began to carol gaily to the air of 
 " Drink to me only with thine eyes." 
 
 " Give me thy thoughts, thou gentle maid, 
 
 And I will lend them wings 
 To soar elate above the world 
 Of transitory things. 
 
 " Give me thy virgin dreams, and I 
 
 Will give their shyness song 
 Shall rise as with an angel s flight 
 That doth for heaven long. 
 
 Oh, I forget the rest. Is it not pretty ? " 
 " Is it new or old?" said I. 
 He made no reply, but turning again to the piano, 
 
368 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 said : " Here is what a long-forgotten poet said about 
 old songs and new : 
 
 " A new song should be sweetly sung, 
 
 It goes but to the ear j 
 A new song should be sweetly sung, 
 
 For it touches no one near. 
 But an old song may be roughly sung; 
 
 The ear forgets its art, 
 As rises from the rudest tongue 
 
 The tribute to the heart. 
 
 "On tented fields t is welcome still; 
 
 T is sweet on the stormy sea, 
 In forests wild, on lonely hill, 
 
 And away on the prairie lea. 
 But dearer far the old song 
 
 When friends we love are nigh, 
 And well-known voices, clear and strong, 
 
 Ring out the chorus cry." 
 
 " How old-fashioned and simple ! " said my wife. 
 " Thanks thank you." 
 
 As he ceased, Mrs. Vincent rose. " It is so pleasant 
 to be once more together. Goodness, how you men 
 have talked ! I am weary with weight of new ideas. 
 Come, Fred; it is late. We shall soon be on the 
 wing. Let us all meet at Bar Harbor. You must 
 come this time," she said to Clayborne. " Mr. St. 
 Clair will promise, and stay away but you " 
 
 " I will come, and Sibyl." 
 
 " And I," said St. Clair, " if I may make love to 
 Miss Mary." 
 
 Now, when all had left and Sibyl bade us good 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 369 
 
 night, I said : " Come into my study, Alice, and let us 
 have a council. You may differ with me in what I 
 am about to say, but 
 
 " Oh, there is nothing serious, I hope ? " She was 
 apprehensive ; but no one I ever knew took with finer 
 courage the ills of life, and no one had in peril such 
 instant possession of all the qualities needed to meet 
 disaster. 
 
 "No, no," said I. "It is only that I want to hold 
 a council." 
 
 " A pity it is not a council of war," she cried, laugh 
 ing. " That never fights, they say." 
 
 " You may fight, if you choose. I want to speak 
 at length of Sibyl." 
 
 " Go on, Owen," she returned, sitting down. 
 
 " And hear me to the end." She was apt, as wives 
 are, to anticipate conclusions when, in time grown 
 familiar with the mode of thought of a life-comrade, 
 they forecast what is as yet unsaid. 
 
 "I will listen," she replied. "We have grown to 
 love her, and our dear little Mary adores her." 
 
 I held up a warning finger. " Sibyl is very loving, 
 very emotional; is a too easy prisoner of senti 
 ment, and, worse than all, is of nervous organiza 
 tion." 
 
 "And, practically, what does that amount to, 
 Owen ? * 
 
 " It means that she has a temperament the precise 
 reverse of yours. Moreover, she is what people call 
 nervous. She is apt to lose control of herself, to cry 
 readily, to be subject to ungoverned excesses of mirth 
 or grief. She lives too near the danger-line of loss 
 
370 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 of power to discipline her emotions. It may sound 
 absurd to say that such people are liable to moral an 
 archy. In other words, owing to temperament and 
 ill health, she has been and may again be hysterical." 
 
 " But I thought you were more at ease as to her 
 health ! 
 
 " I am at times ; but, on the whole, I am not. She 
 fluctuates strangely as to her physical state. Always 
 she is gravely anemic." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "No. This is merely a doctor s opinion. There 
 is more. No one can anticipate the extent to which 
 the sensitiveness of hysteria may go. Undoubtedly 
 this poor child allowed herself to care too much for 
 our thoughtless man of genius." 
 
 " I considered that as over." 
 
 " A woman, and say that ! Sibyl s every-day life 
 has put it aside, seeing all the sad folly of it ; but it 
 is what I may call latent, like a great sorrow. We 
 control with time the outward display of emotion. We 
 know our loss to be complete, without hope, and still 
 it abides with us, never to be forgotten ; and how 
 much it affects the future conduct of life depends upon 
 the amount of reasoning self-control we see fit or are 
 able to exercise. She has no trustworthy capacity 
 to get out of disaster the good discipline it brings or 
 may bring." 
 
 "And what next?" 
 
 " Ah, now comes the mystery. The mere presence 
 of St. Glair affects her physically. When she sees 
 him, or he is often with us, she becomes distinctly 
 feebler in body. When he is absent she rises, so to 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 371 
 
 speak, but never to the level of full health. If she 
 were really vigorous it might not be felt." 
 
 " I must say, Owen, that I had not observed this. 
 I cannot understand it." 
 
 " Nor I j but it is true. I have seen men who, in 
 some mysterious way, were injurious to persons of 
 sensitive organization." 
 
 " But, Owen, is it not natural that a woman who 
 has been forced to conceal and overcome a passion 
 may suffer so as to be enfeebled in the presence of 
 the object of what is a hopeless affection?" 
 
 " Perfectly true ; but this seems to me more than 
 that. I cannot be sure of my conclusion. I could 
 not prove it; only to you can I speak of it ; but I have 
 the fancy that, even before this unhappy business, 
 she was curiously influenced by St. Glair s presence. 
 Understand me as speaking with doubt as to Sibyl s 
 case. I have certainly seen cases where the mere 
 presence of one person did seriously affect the health 
 of another." 
 
 " But," said Alice, " if this idea once happened to 
 possess the mind of a nervous person, might not that 
 alone suffice in the future to give rise to a repetition 
 of the imagined effect?" 
 
 " Very well put. Yes. But what would first sug 
 gest it ? And the evil would be no less active. There 
 is more than this. I have known a vigorous man 
 who became and much against his will aware that 
 in the presence of one other person, a woman he dis 
 liked, he was unaccountably weak. Suppose it to be 
 a delusion. He had no other. He was a rather cold 
 blooded, selfish banker, very able j a man more apt to 
 
372 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 hurt than to be hurt. I have known one other case 
 where a man a friend of mine, now dead became 
 so weak as to feel faint when a certain man was in 
 the room. I had occasion to know that this person 
 very much disliked my friend. 77 
 
 "What a dreadful idea, Owen ! It is like the effect 
 cats produce on certain people. You may remember 
 my uncle John s case." 
 
 " Yes, I recall the fact. I have seen one other case. 
 There are people," I added, " oh, only two or three, 
 always women, who give me when they are present a 
 very distinct discomfort, an uneasy sensation close to 
 a sense of disgust, even of horror. Two are hand 
 some, intelligent people, one is a general favorite." 
 
 "And you really think that Sibyl is physically 
 affected, and disastrously, by the mere presence of Mr. 
 St. Clairf" 
 
 " I am inclined to think so. I know of one case of 
 a violent love-affair ending in an engagement to 
 marry. It was broken, and years after I learned, not 
 as a physician, that the woman came at last to feel 
 that the man s presence seriously affected her health. 
 This became so plain that she at last told him so. 
 Then he said, in great distress, that this was the second 
 time he had learned he was capable of injuring the 
 health of a woman to whom he was attached. Both 
 the man and the woman married other persons, and 
 in neither instance was there any similar experience. 
 There are several ways of accounting for these facts, 
 but I am not going to treat you to a psychological 
 treatise. I know of one case where, with return of 
 health, all of this influence passed away completely; 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 373 
 
 and remember, dear, that the hysterical are curious 
 instruments, and are emotionally susceptible as we 
 are not." 
 
 " But what to do, Owen 1 " 
 
 " I think we must let Sibyl go to Bar Harbor. St. 
 Clair will not remain there long. If she does not 
 improve I shall talk frankly to Clayborne. He is, as 
 we know, very much attached to her. I shall advise 
 that he take her to Europe, and see what one of the 
 iron spas will do for her. I shall, or I may, make 
 this my sole excuse, but, aside from St. Clair, she is 
 very ill. As to talking to Clayborne as I have done 
 to you, it would be useless. And besides, there is 
 more than enough in her bodily state to justify my 
 alarm." 
 
 " Yes, that does seem the best course. She must go 
 to Bar Harbor. Poor child! If I could only do 
 something for her ! " 
 
 " That, dear, is the sadness of life, to wait helpless. 
 It does always seem as if love must contain resources." 
 
 "Owen, if ever people are hurtful to those they 
 love, a dreadful idea, do not you think that others 
 are like a strong tonic to the world they move in, and 
 above all for those they love ? I think so." 
 
 " Well, that is a happier thought to carry into sleep. 
 I do believe it. I think also that if a man as affec 
 tionate as Victor ever came to have for Sibyl that 
 which we call love both natures would prosper under 
 its wholesome influence. But for this she would have 
 to be a far more healthy woman." 
 
 " Oh, I could pray for that, Owen." 
 
 " Let us leave it all just here, Alice. Good night." 
 
 25 
 
374 DK. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Good night. Oh, what was it Ciayborne read to 
 us last summer ? You were away. I mean something 
 about good night. Wait ; I shall get it. When I 
 want to recall a thing I seem to sit like a cat at a 
 mouse-hole. Presently it comes out, and I have it. 
 Ah, this was it. It was from his favorite poet, Attar. 
 Say not good night. Say rather thou good-by, for 
 thou shalt sail in sleep upon a sea which all men 
 travel and which no man knows ; to-morrow thou wilt 
 come again to port, as from a strange country. 7 " 
 
 " Good night/ 7 1 cried as she went, " and not good- 
 by." 
 
 I sat down with my cigar, revolving many things 
 in my mind, until I stumbled over some problems 
 which are bad preparations for sleep. Then I went 
 to bed. 
 
 I had found it a relief to speak out to my wife as 
 to Sibyl. I should have hesitated to be as frank to 
 others. It is hard to defend a belief so eccentric. 
 
 Sibyl, at my desire, remained with us for the few 
 weeks after Clayborne s return and until we went to 
 Maine. Her health continued uncertain, but never 
 had she seemed to me more interesting. 
 
 It was near to the close of May, and we were 
 gathered about the open bow-window at Holmwood 
 after a pleasant dinner. St. Clair lay on the piazza 
 floor, with his head on a cushion. There had been 
 one of the long periods of silence so natural to peo 
 ple as intimate as we. Presently something occurred 
 to St. Clair. He said: "If you are not all sound 
 asleep, I will tell you something curious about the 
 great bear Xerxes." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 375 
 
 We at once announced our curiosity. 
 
 " I had a letter from him last week. Not a word 
 about our row. He asked for the addresses of my two 
 friends who were ruined by his partner. Guess what 
 I answered." 
 
 Said Vincent: " You answered, Too late. 7 " 
 
 Mrs. Vincent said : " You sent them." 
 
 I said nothing. 
 
 Clayborne laughed. " You made no reply." 
 
 " And, Miss May wood," asked St. Glair, sitting up 
 and looking at her, " what do you say that I said ? " 
 
 It is absurd to pretend to read faces as do the won 
 derful folk in novels, for commonly people do not 
 watch the features of their fellows j but to do this is 
 a part of the daily life of my profession. Was there 
 in St. Glair s face and tones a slight expression of 
 anxiety ? 
 
 " You wrote," she replied, " that it was not neces 
 sary, as they had been helped by others, and would 
 not in any case take alms of unjustly earned money." 
 
 "By George!" cried St. Glair. "I did. Not in 
 those very words, but just that. Who told you?" 
 
 " No one. Why should any one tell me ? I did not 
 say you were right." 
 
 "Was I not?" 
 
 " I do not think you were." 
 
 " Nor I," said Mrs. Vincent, perhaps thinking Sibyl s 
 frankness undesirable. 
 
 " I wonder," said Mrs. North, " if his wife is really 
 making this man better, and if this be some of the 
 fruit. Or was it spontaneous ? As to these especial 
 cases, for which, as I understand, Mr. Crofter was not 
 
376 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 directly responsible as to these she could not know, 
 that is, unless he is more confiding than some people 
 I might name." 
 
 " Thanks, madam/ 7 I said. "Never was I more 
 convinced of my own domestically applied wisdom." 
 
 "You get off easy/ 7 laughed St. Glair. "I am a 
 daily victim, all about my promised indulgences quite 
 forgotten." 
 
 "There was a certain story," said Mrs. Vincent, 
 " also promised. Perhaps, now, you might" 
 
 "Tell it. Surely. You are like a child about 
 stories." Indeed, this was true. 
 
 " Oh, do," she said j " but, first, why do you go on 
 cultivating this man s enmity ? " 
 
 " Ah," he answered, " it is easy to ask questions. I 
 obey my nature. If I had replied sweetly I should 
 have done myself a wrong. Better to make an enemy 
 of another than to make an enemy of yourself." 
 
 " Would you kindly repeat that wisdom ? " laughed 
 Vincent. " It sounds so proverbial. No ? Well, then, 
 what of your story ? " 
 
 " Yes, let us have it," we said. 
 
 "Well, once on a time I ran my canoe on to the 
 beach at Muskrat Bluff, on the north shore of Lake 
 Superior. I had paddled up of a calm day from 
 Temperance River, seeing nor man nor boat. By the 
 way, that river was so named by an early voyageur 
 because it has no bar at the mouth. This is true, 
 please. It was pretty cool at evening, and I went up 
 a rough way to the half-dozen houses on the bluff to 
 ask a supper. I fell into company with a big, hand 
 some German about thirty-five years old. He was 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 377 
 
 clearly an educated man, and proved interesting. Then 
 there was the most magnificent woman." 
 
 "I have been expecting her/ said I. " Enter 
 Diana." 
 
 " Bother ! She was glorious. Next day I told her 
 husband that she was splendid. He liked it. Some 
 men do not. Then I said, She is an American ; 
 where in this wilderness did you find her? 7 This 
 man said, Sit down, and all of it I will tell you. It 
 is a tale. 
 
 " l My two uncles came here a long while ago and 
 have bought pine lands and made a mill. After they 
 got to be rich they wrote out to me to come here from 
 Stettin, where we lived. I came. They said, "We 
 are rich. We will not marry. We want a young 
 woman up here. Go and get married." I said, " How 1 " 
 They said, "It is here all so easy. You put in the 
 1 Tribune 7 of Chicago an advertisement." Well, it 
 seemed easy, and they did say every one did it, and 
 there was no need to take any that offered. 
 
 " So we made it up this way: "A young man 
 which is of good appearance and will have of money 
 enough wants to marry. Answer to Muskrat Bluff, 
 Minnesota." We ourselves were all there was of 
 Muskrat Bluff. Indians don t count. It took a month 
 to get news from Chicago. At last the canoe we sent 
 to Duluth came back. There were two pecks of let 
 ters. The old fellows went into it in business fashion. 
 Most were fakes, I guess. One was, " We are a board 
 ing-school. We accept." Some sent photographs. At 
 last Uncle Karl says, " Here she is," and there was a 
 photograph of my wife what is now, and a nice letter 
 
378 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 to say that if I was handsome and a Protestant and 
 loved music to come to Freeburg, Ohio, and settle 
 things. 
 
 " l So next day I took the letter and the picture and 
 went up to the head of the lake, and so to Freeburg, 
 a big travel. It was night when I arrived. I went 
 to the hotel. After supper I asked a little if Miss 
 Easterday was to any known. So then it seemed she 
 taught a public school. I had the good notion to say 
 I came to get a schoolmistress for another town. All 
 they I asked hoped she would not go. Next day, 
 after time of school, I went to see her. She had a 
 room in the hotel, and a little room also next, where 
 I was bid to come. The piano was going. I stayed 
 to hear. Ach, not Uncle Karl plays better ! Then she 
 sang " Der Erl Konig." Himmel, what a voice, and in 
 German ! When I went in I, that am a big man, felt 
 small. But you have seen her, and it is nine years 
 ago, this. When she said to sit and what was it that 
 she could do for me, I felt a fool; but then she had 
 written I was to come. I said, "Fraulein, I have 
 here my advertisement and your letter, and here your 
 photograph, beyond which you are more beautiful." 
 Then she got red and then pale, and said, "What 
 foolishness is this ? This is I, but I wrote no letter, 
 and this is not my hand, nor even like it. Here is a 
 note of mine. See, see ! " 
 
 " i Himmel, I saw ! I could have fallen down. I 
 said, " Some one has played a cruel trick on you and 
 me. Who was it ? " She did not know. What could 
 I say? I apologized so ill in English, which then I 
 badly did know, that she said to speak in German. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 379 
 
 Ach, she spoke it well ! I went away down-stairs ; 
 I went very slow. I was in love. I was angry. I 
 went again to-morrow to say how sorry I was. When 
 she said it must be a man that wrote, I asked, " Who ? " 
 She turned very red and would say no more. After 
 that I said to me, " This is a man that she would not 
 listen to." That night I talked about the schoolmis 
 tress and what a fine salary she would have in the 
 new school. By and by one man, a preacher, said 
 the editor of their newspaper wanted to marry her, 
 but she was hard to please. I got it in my head 
 he was the man that has put a trick on me. I saw 
 that man. He was little and I am not. I scared him 
 so that he owned up. I made that man sit down and 
 say he was sorry on paper. I what you call edited 
 him. Then I took it to her. She said I was a 
 man. Well, I stayed on, and the end was I got mar 
 ried and took her home. And the school is getting 
 on now. There are four scholars in our school. 
 That 7 s how it came about. " 
 
 " A very pretty story," said Mrs. Vincent. " Thank 
 you." 
 
 " And true," said the narrator. 
 
 Then, to our amusement, through the deepening 
 gloom came the strong voice of Clayborne. During 
 the narration he had been walking on the porch, 
 where we sat, and was carefully nursing with eco 
 nomical puffs the failing fires of his big meerschaum 
 pipe. He gave no warning, but began in a sententious 
 manner : 
 
 " Once on a time there were in Bagdad one hundred 
 and twenty-three tellers of tales; also there were 
 
380 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 seventy -three apprentices learning the business. The 
 caliph said : i These fellows are tiresome and prey on 
 the faithful. For a year they shall be shut up in the 
 courtyard of the Mosque of Gubmuh and tell their 
 tales to one another, for it is said that one teller of 
 tales will not willingly listen to the tales of another. 
 Thus shall the weary be avenged and the faithful 
 have repose. As the caliph ordered, all the tellers 
 of tales were gathered out of the bazaars and the 
 baths and shut up in the Mosque of Gubmuh. For 
 a while a great noise went up to heaven, and in all 
 Persia the faithful had rest from them that are the 
 fathers of lies. At the end of a year the court fool 
 besought pardon for the few who were yet alive in 
 the mosque. Then the Ever-Merciful sent forth these 
 gray of head and tale-tired, assured that they would 
 now have one new tale to tell." 
 
 We greeted the parable joyously, but the scholar, 
 declaring it was not of his own, would not tell whence 
 it came. 
 
 St. Clair, laughing, said : " It is pretty true. I have 
 seen many tellers of tales, we will say novelists, who 
 never read novels." 
 
 " I can understand that," said Vincent. " Thorn- 
 hill told me that in a train a man who hawked books 
 offered him one of his own novels. Thornhill said, 
 1 A poor book. < No, sir, said the vender ; 1 1 have 
 read that book myself ; it is a fine book. The writer 
 assured him that, having read it at least a score 
 of times, he knew better. Then, seeing the young 
 fellow s perplexed look, he said, l The fact is, I wrote 
 it. Good gracious ! sir, when a man writes a book 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 381 
 
 does he have to read it twenty times V I do/ said 
 Thornhill." 
 
 " His books/ said my wife, " show the care he takes. 
 He told me that after a book was written he kept 
 it in manuscript two years before he allowed it to 
 appear in print." 
 
 "Wise man/ said Clayborne, "but he might be 
 wiser." 
 
 " For shame ! " cried Mrs. Vincent. " But I have 
 no time to defend him. And now I must go home." 
 
XXII 
 
 EOPLE who play hard do not always 
 work hard; but they who work hard, 
 if they play at all, are apt to play hard. 
 Clayborne could not play, and knew 
 not how to be agreeably idle, which is 
 also a fine art. Neither did he incline to any exercise 
 except riding the horse, and even this he did not do 
 because he liked it. For these reasons we awaited 
 his arrival at Bar Harbor with some amused doubt as 
 to how we should occupy pleasantly this powerful 
 intellectual machine. 
 
 The Vincents and ourselves had been from mid- 
 June in two adjacent farm-houses, which we had 
 contrived to make comfortable. St. Clair was to 
 appear at some indefinite future time. Clayborne 
 meant, on his way north, to give Sibyl her first sight 
 of Niagara. After that we hoped to induce him to 
 make a long stay with us. I found a quiet horse 
 which would carry his weight, and then dismissed 
 the matter. The two women discussed it at greater 
 length. I overheard a little of this talk. 
 
 Said Anne Vincent : " We must feed him well. He 
 does eat what they call here powerful much. " 
 " And," said Alice, " he must not read his eyes sore." 
 " Yes. And he must be amused. But how f " 
 382 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 383 
 
 " Who must be amoosed ? " said Miss Mary. 
 
 " Mr. Clayborne, dear." 
 
 " I will amoose him/ said the child j and she did, 
 devoting herself quite conscientiously to the task. 
 
 They arrived that evening, having driven over 
 from Southwest Harbor. I was shocked at Sibyl s 
 appearance. She was very pale, and had an un 
 pleasant waxen look. After the usual greetings she 
 was sent, not unwillingly, to bed. When, later in the 
 evening, we had a little chance to question Clayborne, 
 he said they had met St. Clair at Niagara. "He 
 had some queer notion as to the curves of the human 
 form resembling those of water. He was photo 
 graphing the rapids, and was full of this idea." 
 
 " How long were you there?" said I. 
 
 " Two days alone," he replied, and then St. Clair 
 had been with them. 
 
 " How did Sibyl like Niagara?" I asked. 
 
 " Not at all. It seemed to terrify and yet to attract 
 her. Indeed, I could not comprehend the child. At 
 first she would only look at it from a distance ; then 
 she went nearer and paused ; and then again nearer 
 and paused. At last she stood still on the brink, 
 saying strange things about it, and very soon desired 
 to go away." 
 
 " The climate at Niagara does not suit every one," 
 said I. 
 
 " No j Sibyl felt it, or said as much. Then St. 
 Clair came ; and, after a few days, I was sure I must 
 take her to some other place." 
 
 My wife glanced at me as he ceased. " We shall 
 make her well here," she said. 
 
384 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 The following afternoon Alice informed me that 
 Mr. Clayborne had brought two immense trunks 
 full of books. " You may laugh," she added j " but 
 where are they to be put would the upper hall do?" 
 
 "JMy dear, I decline hostile interpretation of my 
 mirth. The more books, the more easily will Clay- 
 borne entertain Clayborne. He is in other hands at 
 present. Mary discovered him on the porch, deep in 
 a volume of Shaftesbury on wit. I tried it once. It 
 is a melancholic essay." 
 
 Our friend had brought out a half-dozen books. 
 I never yet could discover why he read this or that 
 book. My young lady tried one or two in hope of 
 pictures. " Sparkles of Glory, by John Saltmarsh 
 [fine name], Preacher of the Gospel," was her final 
 effort. At last she succeeded in attracting the 
 scholar s attention, inquiring if that was a nice book 
 for girls. Clayborne said it was not. Then the true 
 purpose of my diplomatist appeared. I heard her 
 say: 
 
 " My mama says I am to amoose you evewy day." 
 
 " Goodness ! you mite, and how? " 
 
 " You come wis me." 
 
 He went. They were soon building corn-cob palaces 
 under the big apple-tree. 
 
 It proved a pleasant alliance. " Alice North," he 
 said, " I have discovered that in the growth of a child 
 it passes through the stages which mark the upward 
 progress of humanity. Mary is now in the stone age. 
 We have a cave on the shore. I feel like getting the 
 loan of a baby, and studying it from this point of 
 view." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 385 
 
 " I would," said Mrs. Vincent. " I can send you a 
 variety of orphans, all sizes, all colors, warranted 
 barbarians." 
 
 When we discovered that he also took kindly to 
 the monotony of deep-sea fishing, we felt more at ease. 
 
 Much relieved, Vincent said to me : " And now I 
 trust that we shall have an uneventful summer." 
 
 "We shall," I said, " unless St. Clair should dis 
 cover events, as is probable enough." 
 
 I look back upon this summer as one of great 
 happiness. Here were two married couples, alike 
 only in their entire comprehension of what is needed 
 to make marriage the perfect bond of noble natures. 
 There are households in which the best qualities of 
 heart and mind are so fitly joined together in a part 
 nership of high aims and dutiful industries as to 
 give at last a sense of that oneness of life which 
 realizes the true conception of marriage. If to such 
 an alliance you grant well-earned friendships and 
 definite pursuits, rewarded by competence sufficient 
 to allow of power to give generously and to indulge 
 tastes which refine, and then such leisure as keeps 
 strong the muscles of mind and body, you have that 
 ideal life which for years was enjoyed by the two 
 households I am now discussing. 
 
 To this group were added the rugged nature, vast 
 attainments, and interior tenderness of the great 
 scholar, the genius and impulsive nature of St. Clair, 
 and now the puzzling but attractive individuality of 
 the young woman whom Clayborne had brought into 
 relation with all of us. 
 
 We were most happy when, as in summer, we were 
 
386 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 all together. Then, although away from a larger social 
 world which she liked and keenly enjoyed, Anne Yin- 
 cent was at her best. She could be heard at any 
 hour of the day singing with the affluent ease of a 
 bird. She knew and helped the Indians in their 
 summer camp on the island. She learned from them, 
 and taught little Mary, to make baskets. She culti 
 vated a wild garden, fetched the side-saddle plants and 
 orchids from the swamps, and showed Mary the savage 
 trap the Drosera set for gnats. It was a full life, and 
 supremely capable of diffusing joy. My wife s quick 
 wit and her sagacious critical power added a large 
 intellectual charm, felt even by the somewhat despotic 
 mind of the historian, and respected even when she 
 failed, as sometimes chanced, to be able to explain 
 or defend her conclusions. Mrs. Vincent was in a 
 large way charitable, but did not find agreeable 
 close relations with the poor. Alice met them with 
 a certain respectful tenderness so delicately fine as 
 always to preserve her helpfulness from seeming in 
 trusive. Here in the summer she had, as at home, 
 needy people who humbly adored this ever-gracious 
 woman. 
 
 Then, also, we profited when he chose to appear 
 by St. Glair s amiable charm and large knowledge of 
 art, and by his many social gifts ; the weightier in 
 terest of Clayborne s cyclopedic memory and Sibyl s 
 quaintly acting intelligence contributing their share 
 of companionable interests. Thus humanly provided, 
 we took up our summer life of walking, sailing, 
 canoeing, fishing, music, and talk. Some of its 
 memories are worth recalling. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 387 
 
 Sibyl, improving again in health, was at her best, 
 and was full of her surprising talk. I chanced one 
 day to ask how she liked Niagara. She replied that 
 it kept her in a state between terror and adoration, 
 as one might feel when face to face with some mighty 
 spirit of another world. It did seem to her as if here 
 the silent earth had found a voice. It seemed to 
 say: 
 
 " Come, come. You are a part of me. Come now." 
 "And I did want to come, to leap into the turmoil 
 of those waters. I fear that I alarmed the master." 
 
 I looked at her steadily. The talk seemed to re 
 new the emotion described in so wild a way. 
 
 " Is that temptation to leap over unusual ? " she said. 
 "I heard of one woman who looked down at the 
 cataract, and then ran away until she fell exhausted." 
 
 "No, it is not rare," I said; "but, to be honest, my 
 dear Sibyl, you have at times a tendency to energetic 
 statement. All this jejune stuff about mother earth 
 sounds a good deal like St. Clair." 
 
 " Oh, it was he who said it," she returned j " but I 
 felt it. He often says what I feel. It does not 
 sound foolish to me." 
 
 When thus she spoke we were near the foot of 
 Newport Mountain. Any higher ascent was for 
 bidden her by the excessive fatigue, or rather exhaus 
 tion, to which exercise gave rise. Clayborne was 
 wandering among the trees, having declined to go 
 up the hill with my wife and the Vincents. As we 
 talked, Sibyl was lying on a bed of moss, with her 
 animated face set against the impassive sternness of 
 the gray rock behind her. 
 
388 DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Is it natural ? " she said " this impulse ? " 
 
 "Well, the mere impulse is common, and per 
 haps one may therefore admit that it is a part of 
 one s nature ; if of original or acquired nature I do 
 not know. But," I said, " to answer you further, all 
 men and women have at times unwholesome possi 
 bilities. The origin of this one I cannot trace. 
 Danger allures many minds. The marge of peril s 
 sweet/ But danger does not always involve the dis 
 tinct idea of an end to earthly hope. This does. 
 The wholesome-minded do not want to die." 
 
 " No, no," she replied. " And yet, as death is natu 
 ral, may not this half -felt desire be a relic of some 
 thing educated out of us by generations of control, 
 by the despotism of long-held beliefs? Does not a 
 passing train, a stormy sea, a loaded pistol, give us 
 the same mingled desire and fear ? " 
 
 I glanced at the beautiful face with its marble 
 pallor. "The thought is not a wholesome guest, 
 Sibyl. I think it is no latent desire to die that 
 prompts to leap from a height. Delire des hauteurs 
 the French call it; but this helps us to understand 
 as little as labels generally do. Certainly there are 
 present. the fear of falling and the strange tempta 
 tion to fall." 
 
 " But sometimes the impulse to do that which must 
 result in death overcomes the conservative instinct." 
 
 " Yes. Well stated." 
 
 " I had it until I feared to stay. I think it inex 
 plicable." 
 
 " Perhaps it is. Children do not have it. I laughed, 
 but it was surely a weird idea of St. Glair s, that 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 389 
 
 this mighty voice of Niagara is the hoarse call of 
 mother earth, eager to reclaim her children." 
 
 " And I did want to say, l Yes, I am here. I come. 
 Take me. " 
 
 " Hush ! " I said. " That is not wise." 
 
 " I know it. But is n t it sometimes a relief to be 
 foolish ? " 
 
 "Yes; but not to toy with follies which are play 
 ing the dance of death. You are not one to trifle 
 with the abnormal." 
 
 " No, that is true. I know it well." 
 
 " We have had a most unsatisfactory talk," said I. 
 " Eternity is less familiar and not more astounding 
 to me than the complexity, the boundless products, 
 of our moral and mental mechanisms. There are 
 times when I seem to hang awed over the abyss of 
 my own mind, with wonder near akin to terror. 
 That out of this world of thought, feelings, and mem 
 ories should come, to the most healthy nature, at 
 times inexplicable desires, moments of unreason, im 
 pulses which defy analytic research, even brief in 
 sanities, is not strange to me. I wonder, indeed, at 
 the permanence of mental health, even at the marvel 
 of bodily soundness, at the myriad automatisms, bal 
 anced, interregulated, preservative how this checks 
 that, and that this; how, to fractions of a degree, 
 temperatures remain the same from pole to equator. 
 But this is all commonplace. If Hamlet wondered, 
 we have even greater cause to wonder." 
 
 She seemed to hesitate a little, and then said : 
 
 "It is anything but commonplace to me. Pray 
 go on. I am really interested. I was thinking of 
 
 26 
 
390 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 what my cousin said last week. It was not quite like 
 his usual thought. He said : l If I, the man, could 
 have a talk with my boy self, as he or I once was, 
 I do not think I should recognize myself in him. 
 Then he said : If the boy could see what manner of 
 man he would become at seventy, how much more 
 would he be astonished to find himself the same and 
 yet not the same/ " 
 
 "It might not be pleasant, Sibyl. Curiously 
 enough, I was on the point of speaking of individu 
 ality. I mean of the amazing way in which every 
 man remains a thing apart from every other man, 
 with constant conformity to type. It is seen in all 
 life to the lowest nomad. Years ago, before we 
 knew you, we talked a long while about this ques 
 tion." 
 
 "My cousin has mentioned it more than once 
 lately ; he told me you had said that even the rattle 
 snakes in your laboratory were different in character 
 one from another. One was brave, one timid ; one 
 had a good memory, one had not." 
 
 " I recall the discussion. But if no two leaves are 
 the same, no two cells in their structure exactly 
 alike, we need feel no surprise that in the whole 
 range of existence the individuality of the creature 
 is even more securely preserved than is the continuity 
 of specific forms. As this differentiation is marked in 
 man, so in fact is it in every sun or star. Each is 
 distinct, and no two created things from nomad to 
 planet are identically the same. I remember, Sibyl, 
 that when we had reached this point my old friend 
 stopped us with a strange question." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 391 
 
 " Oh, dear Dr. North, what was it * He does puzzle 
 me at times." 
 
 "What he first said was that civilized man was 
 endlessly engaged in efforts to produce complete 
 identity of product, just the opposite of the constant 
 effort of nature." 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Sibyl, quickly. " To make needles 
 or pins alike, to make watches or engines so as to 
 deprive the thing made of individuality." 
 
 " Yes," I went on ; " but although he practically 
 succeeds, he still fails, even in machines, to secure 
 unassailable identity." 
 
 " It is a curious thought," said Sibyl. " What was 
 the question asked ? " 
 
 " Let me see," said I, " if I can state it. If indi 
 viduality be a universal quality of all things in the 
 universe as we see it, does not this imply individual 
 ity in the Creator, and therefore oneness? I said, 
 not of necessity, but Vincent took the other side, 
 while St. Glair promptly remembered an engage 
 ment, and left us deep in a noble battle which has 
 had no end." 
 
 As I spoke, Clayborne, reappearing from the deeper 
 woods around us, asked of what we were talking. 
 
 " Oh, we were diving deep," said Sibyl, gaily. 
 
 " We were," said I, " discussing the universality of 
 the law of individual differences. I was keeping for 
 you two questions : If no two things we see are iden 
 tical, neither is it likely that any two ultimate mole 
 cules or atoms are the same, despite the belief attained 
 by our physical investigations." 
 
 " That is a bold thought. It would mean that a 
 
392 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 dozen specimens of pure iron, for example, would 
 differ. I must think it over. What is the other 
 question 1 " 
 
 I said : " That may wait." 
 
 " Very good. Come, Sibyl," he said, giving her 
 his hand. " Come with me. It is not far. I want 
 to show you what the ice-chisel and -plane have done. 
 I will show you where the granite rocks record the 
 giant march of the glaciers and their alterative effect 
 on the earth s surface." 
 
 By and by we stood with him on one of these 
 graven slabs. 
 
 " Poor old earth," said Sibyl, looking down at the 
 deep furrows which the slowly moving ice had plowed 
 in the stone. 
 
 As she spoke I was aware of a man in gray knicker 
 bockers. He had a well-bronzed face, which neatly 
 framed large eyes of deep blue. His hair was curly. 
 He uncovered as he spoke a man of forty years, I 
 fancied. 
 
 " Pardon me," he said. " I am off the trail. I have 
 lost my way in coming down." 
 
 " It is here to the left," said I. 
 
 As he spoke I recalled him to mind. I remember 
 voices well, faces badly, and those vexing labels, 
 names, scarce at all. 
 
 " It is Af ton," said I. 
 
 "What! Owen North! How delightful to see 
 you ! " 
 
 "Miss Maywood," said I, "Mr. Clayborne; an old 
 acquaintance, Dr. Afton." 
 
 The doctor bowed to Miss Maywood, and shook 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 393 
 
 hands with the historian, saying, " It is very pleasant 
 to meet a man with whose thoughts one has been 
 long familiar, to meet him face to face." 
 
 "But apt to disappoint," said Clay borne, "or at 
 least I have found it so." 
 
 "Naturally," said Afton. " Talk is the child of the 
 minute, a book the adult of thoughtful hours." 
 
 " Let us," said I, "go back to our rocks and sit 
 down. We are waiting for friends who have gone up 
 Newport Mountain." 
 
 " I met them," said Afton. " Two handsome women 
 and a man with character in his face writ plain." 
 
 " One is his wife," said I, " one is mine." 
 
 We sat down. 
 
 " Indeed ! You are to be congratulated no matter 
 which one it may be." 
 
 " But you, too, are married." 
 
 " I was. My wife has been dead these many years, 
 and I have been a rolling stone ever since." 
 
 " Pardon me," said I. " Are you staying here ? " 
 
 " Yes, in a farm-house, and I am very comfortable 
 except that my host is named Afton. I dislike that. 
 I have a distinct and ridiculous prejudice against 
 strangers who own my name. I feel it to be a 
 liberty." 
 
 " Ah ! " laughed Sibyl, " I like it. It seems a com 
 pliment." 
 
 Dr. Afton glanced at her, briefly curious. 
 
 " You must come and see us," I said. " When last 
 we met it was years ago you were what you called 
 a character doctor." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said Clayborne. " Now I remember. 
 
394 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 North told us about you. I was interested in some of 
 your papers." 
 
 " Does it seem to you, Miss May wood, an odd busi 
 ness 1 " asked Af ton. 
 
 "No ; Dr. North told me of it once. It must have 
 been an absorbing occupation." 
 
 " I gave it up. It became quite too absorbing. For 
 most of my patients it proved practically valueless." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Miss May wood. " Why should that 
 have been 1 " 
 
 " I certainly had some capacity to read character, 
 but when you present a man with a true picture of 
 himself he no more believes it is he himself than does 
 a monkey who first sees himself in a mirror." 
 
 " Oh, yes," she cried. " What a terrible thing an 
 honest moral mirror would be ! Dreadful to see our 
 selves, even t as in a glass darkly. 7 " 
 
 " Sibyl, Sibyl," said Clayborne, " be careful of your 
 quotations. I suppose the feminine mind turns in 
 stinctively to mirrors. You mean to quote, l For now 
 we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. 
 And don t misapply quotations. Of course it should 
 read, not a glass, but a mirror. The word through 
 puzzled me until I chanced to have an antique metal 
 mirror repolished. Then I saw that not only did it 
 reflect darkly, but also that the image seemed to be 
 remote, as if seen through something. St. Paul was 
 a good observer." 
 
 " Even with your statement," I said, " the transla 
 tion, or the comparison if the translation be correct, 
 is not satisfactory." 
 
 "Yes," returned Clayborne. "Whether it means 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 395 
 
 that we shall see our own self -reality, long masked on 
 earth, or shall have a larger view of all things, I am 
 not clear." 
 
 "Once," said Afton, "in the delirium of a fever, 
 I saw myself facing me. It was most unpleasant. I 
 was a huge, magnified figure, with, as it seemed to 
 me, all my worst qualities featured on my face. I 
 cried out in my terror to the thing to go away. It 
 said, l How can a man depart from himself ? I will 
 shrink and go back to you, whence I came. " 
 
 " How dreadful ! " cried Sibyl. " That might appall 
 the saintliest soul." 
 
 " If the text means that it is our truer selves we 
 are to see, one likes," said Afton, " to take refuge in 
 the next verse, that, of those things which abide, hope 
 is one, and to feel also that when we see ourselves 
 face to face the charity of the great Maker will be 
 also there." 
 
 " Thank you," said Sibyl ; " and now let me ask you, 
 if I may, was there no value in the work you did as a 
 character doctor ? " 
 
 " Yes ; my most useful errand," said Afton, " was in 
 advising as to peculiar children. It is they who are 
 most likely to develop original powers, and it is they 
 who are the most apt to be injured by the procrustean 
 system of schools. There should be a psychological 
 consultant for schools. True education considers in 
 dividuality. Teachers rarely do that or can do that." 
 
 At this time the Vincents and my wife appeared 
 through the trees. Afton was duly presented. Sibyl 
 was set on her pony, and we walked homeward. Af 
 ton soon fell into chat with Vincent about the East, 
 
396 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 which Vincent talked of visiting. After a cordial 
 invitation to call on us, we left the doctor at the vil 
 lage and continued on our homeward way. 
 
 The evening after this encounter we were seated 
 on the porch, saying little and watching the colors 
 fade from the hills of the mainland. Clayborne was 
 reading, indifferent to sunsets. 
 
 " Anne," exclaimed Vincent, " you will be glad to 
 hear that Dr. Afton will call this evening. I met 
 him in the village to-day. To my amusement, he 
 asked who was a man named Crofter. He had met 
 him while walking. I said merely that he was a rich 
 man from the West. Then Afton said he was here in 
 his yacht." 
 
 " The Night Hawk" growled Clayborne, looking up 
 from his book. " I thought that here we were insured 
 against such vermin." 
 
 " What can bring him here ? " queried my wife. 
 
 " Probably to call on you," said I. 
 
 " Owen," she said with affected gravity, " there are 
 some subjects too serious for jest. This is one. Do 
 you propose asking the man to dine with us ? " 
 
 " Oh, if you would ! " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 "More strange things have happened," said Vin 
 cent, " but this seems improbable." 
 
 " How could it come about ? " said my wife. " If I 
 put you all on an imagination committee of ways and 
 means, you could not dream me a possibility of this." 
 
 " A perilous illustration, my dear. Dreams involve 
 queer possibilities, and, after all, everything is pos 
 sible to audacity and money. Given a man of certain 
 means and an uncertain past, give him, say, fifty mil- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 397 
 
 lions of dollars, and, with time, decent manners, and 
 the chances of life, he will break through at least the 
 outer barriers of any society." 
 
 "I often wonder," said Clay borne, "how the chil 
 dren of the great robbers of finance regard their in 
 herited plunder. Even if they know all that can be 
 known, are themselves honest and incapable of the 
 greed of accumulation, what can they do? Restitu 
 tion is impossible." 
 
 " Not altogether," said Alice ; " but who ever heard 
 of it as having been made ? The children of the rob 
 ber would admit his guilt by such restitution." 
 
 " I knew," said Vincent, " a great scamp who cheated 
 a number of people and, at last, his partner. I acted 
 for him in the only just lawsuit he ever had. He lost 
 it. I was very young. He came to me later about 
 a very scaly business. I refused to help him. When 
 he died he surprised every one by leaving me, for 
 reasons known to me (so ran his will), ten thousand 
 dollars. I was very clear about it, and so, too, was 
 Anne Vincent. I could not keep it. I offered these 
 ill-gotten gains to the partner he had cheated. He 
 said, No. " 
 
 Upon this my wife remarked: "I am sure Anne 
 took it for those all-devouring orphans." 
 
 "Yes, I did; and I wish Xerxes would leave Fred 
 a million." 
 
 "Please not, my dear, indiscreet Fate," said Vin 
 cent, smiling. "That might not turn out as well. 
 The answer to limitless temptation is not always 
 easy." 
 
 " Not for all men," said Anne Vincent, proudly. 
 
398 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " When/ said I, " I was a boy, we used to be served 
 with butter, chickens, nuts, and apple-butter by a 
 farmer. He insisted on being paid every week. When 
 asked to render an account once a month he said, No. 
 I guess I am week-honest. I don t know as I am 
 month-honest. He guessed he was n t goin to ex 
 periment none with his conscience." 
 
 " That million, say five, twentj^ millions, might it 
 not alter the case?" It was Clayborne who asked, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Not for Fred Vincent," said Anne, coldly, dislik 
 ing even the discussion of such a question. 
 
 " No, by George ! " said Clayborne. 
 
 "Ah," laughed Vincent, "I like others to have 
 boundless confidence in me. It is a very good tonic. 
 And suppose, Owen, I were abruptly to do some im 
 moral thing, to lie largely, to steal in some way, to 
 contradict the monotony of the decently straight life, 
 what would you say ? " 
 
 " Say ? I should say that in your case it was the 
 beginning of insanity. In the cases of most of the 
 men who thus go wrong, the previous life has been 
 a long concealment of lesser crime. I am a believer 
 in the despotism of moral habits. I do not think 
 that a man who has lived a life of rectitude since 
 boyhood does ever become abruptly base or fraudu 
 lent." 
 
 " I wish," said Anne Vincent, " you would choose 
 some other human example of wicked possibilities 
 than Fred Vincent." 
 
 " You may take me," said I. 
 
 " Unless I, too, object," cried Alice. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 399 
 
 "I have been reflecting/ said Clayborne, "that if 
 some robber willed me his evilly gotten gains I would 
 accept them and keep them, and use them as I would 
 any other product of lucky accident. Certainly I 
 should not give them away in bulk and at once. As 
 to what Owen says I agree. Sudden financial or 
 other baseness in a high-minded man is as improbable 
 as the display of refined honor in the habitually base. 
 Habit is the best moral legislator." 
 
 " Ah, here comes our character doctor," said I. " I 
 was about to ask whether there is not, should not be, 
 a statute of limitations as to the punishment of ini 
 quities like those of Xerxes." 
 
 " For shame," said my wife. 
 
 " But there is, there must be," said Clayborne, per 
 sistently. 
 
 " Shall a man never forgive himself?" laughed 
 Afton, as we welcomed him. " He usually does, even 
 to seventy times seven." 
 
 " You are both unpleasantly confusing," said my 
 wife, " and you know it, too." 
 
 "Yes, we do," cried Afton, as he accepted a cigar 
 and sat down to talk with Mrs. Vincent. During a 
 pause I heard her say, " You saw Mr. Xerxes Crofter, 
 I think, Dr. Afton." 
 
 " Yes, I mentioned having met him. We met by 
 odd chance on the top of Dry Mountain. I went up 
 a rough way not very good for timid climbers. I sat 
 down under a rock shelter to get out of the wind, and 
 found I had lost my pipe. After a little I saw a big 
 man come up the same way. He looked hot, and his 
 clothes had suffered in the ascent. A? I lay flat be- 
 
400 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 hind a rock amid the berry-bushes, he did not see me. 
 He sat down only a few feet away. I could see his 
 side face. I set myself to study him. Who was he, 
 and what ? How often one does this when traveling ! 
 He took out a gold cigar-case and then a gold match 
 box. He said, l Damn that fellow ! Not a match. If 
 he does it again out he goes. I said to myself, i He 
 is rich, hard, luxurious, has many servants. He tried 
 a dry smoke. He looked over the great hills and 
 away up the valley cloven by ice long ago. He looked 
 past Bubble Pond and Eagle Lake through to the cleft 
 where the sun was setting in mists of scarlet and gold 
 on the distant bay. It seemed not to interest him. 
 He took out a bulky pocket-book and a pencil, and 
 appeared to be absorbed in calculations. I had seen 
 enough. I said, May I offer you a match ? 7 It would 
 have startled me. He turned tranquilly, and said, 
 Will I? You bet, as he came over and sat down 
 by me. He smoked for a minute before it occurred 
 to him to offer me a cigar. Then we talked. He said 
 he knew you I mean Mr. Vincent and the doctor. I 
 fancy he means to call on you." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said my wife. 
 
 " I found him interesting. I know nothing of 
 his history, except that he is perilously rich. He 
 thought he would buy the island, and build a rail 
 road and a big hotel." 
 
 " And what else ? " said I. 
 
 "A character undergoing modification; a man in 
 a new country, making intelligent discoveries. The 
 vigorous intellect may remain late in life valuably 
 receptive of novel ideas." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 401 
 
 " That is, mentally," said Vincent ; " certainly not 
 as to morals ? " 
 
 " I am not sure as to that. In your profession 
 it is not rare to see the unscrupulous lawyer when 
 he has won money and success begin to hanker after 
 respectability and become, as to obvious conduct, 
 careful and scrupulous." 
 
 "Yes 5 I have seen that. How deep it goes I do 
 not know. 77 
 
 " Oh, the longer it lasts the deeper it goes, 77 con 
 tinued Afton. " The man gets into a rut of good 
 behavior. Some cause or causes must be at work to 
 change this strong animal, I saw that plainly. He 
 is making new habits. What is the motive, or what 
 are the motives ? 77 
 
 " A woman, a wife, 7 said Anne Vincent. " Wives 
 are great alteratives for good or ill. The woman he 
 married, or who married him, is a well-bred lady. 
 She was a widow without a penny. She has two 
 boys whom she was struggling to educate. One, who 
 is about fourteen, took a prize in a school for manual 
 training. The prize was given by Mr. Crofter. He 
 saw the mother, and was easily captured. I heard all 
 this last month. I should like to see the man. 77 
 
 " You will, I fancy. He is crude, rather coarse, 
 humorous in an excessive way, free-handed has sud 
 denly discovered that money can buy certain agreeable 
 things. He told me that he had found out oh, he is 
 queerly frank he had found out that it was pleasant 
 to have people like you. He spoke as if he had made 
 a discovery and meant to invest in affection. I fancy 
 him to have been previously given over to money- 
 
402 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 making, and as enjoying the game to the utter exclu 
 sion of all the gentlenesses of life." 
 
 "That is nearly true/ said I. 
 
 "He would terrify me like Niagara," said Sibyl. 
 " But I can understand the woman s marrying him." 
 
 " I cannot," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 "You have a right to be puzzled," said Afton. 
 " It could not have been a marriage of mere selfish 
 interest. These big, strong, bold men remind me in 
 their power and amorality of the resistless forces of 
 nature, of a cyclone, of a cataract, of a glacier." 
 
 " He himself spoke once of men of his kind as 
 being like glaciers," remarked Clayborne. 
 
 "They attract certain women," said Afton. "I 
 should guess Mrs. Crofter to be a slight, refined 
 woman, with gentle ways, and probably with a sturdy 
 basis of character." 
 
 " Yes, that is all true," said Anne Vincent, " ex 
 cept that she is stout." 
 
 " That is incidental and unimportant. She has," 
 he added, " a rather large mouth, full lips 
 
 " Good gracious ! Yes ! " exclaimed Mrs. Vincent. 
 " I shall be afraid of you. How do you know her 
 mouth to be large ? " 
 
 " And well formed." 
 
 " How do you guess that?" 
 
 " How? I have seen him. He will have to behave 
 himself. While we are on this subject, may I tell you 
 a long story ? " 
 
 " We adore long stories," said my wife. 
 
 " Well, this is a queer one. It illustrates a different 
 type from that of Mrs. Xerxes. The man was of 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 403 
 
 Crofter s tribe a variation of the type. He made a 
 great fortune suddenly by taking for a debt a patent 
 supposed to be of small value. Then he married a 
 pretty woman without means of her own. She was 
 deeply in love with him. I may add that, unlike the 
 man Xerxes, he was singularly handsome. He soon 
 began to distribute his affection and his money. The 
 woman was jealous and passionate. At last she be 
 came hysterical the mental type of hysteria, North. 
 Her suspicions went far beyond his misdeeds. When, 
 after some brief unfaithfulness, he returned to re 
 claim the affection of his wife, he was made to under 
 stand that love is not eternal or pardon an unlimited 
 quantity. The woman was becoming dangerous. Then 
 he came to me. He was very frank, and I equally 
 frank. As he was in a penitent mood, he promised 
 everything. I suppose he told his wife he had seen 
 me, and she was taken with the idea. At all events, 
 she came to see me. But I am relating a long 
 story." 
 
 We begged him to continue. 
 
 "I found the woman pleasant, well-mannered- 
 much the superior of the man. She, too, told me her 
 history. I said he had pledged himself to decent 
 behavior. It will not last long/ she said. I can 
 tell at once when he is going astray. I am fond of 
 photography. Last week he looked over some fancy 
 photographs I made of a pretty girl, a dressmaker of 
 mine whom I use as a model. I saw at once he was 
 captured. Yesterday I missed the pictures. I have 
 stood it pretty long. I cannot go on much longer. 
 Life is valueless. I have no child, no ties but this 
 
404 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 one. Let him take care. I looked at the woman s 
 face and read a danger-signal. He soon gave her 
 fresh cause to be jealous. A few weeks later she 
 asked him to go to a photographic shop and buy her 
 certain drugs, among them one much used by pho 
 tographersthe cyanide of potassium, a swift and 
 deadly poison. The day after he had brought her 
 the photographic materials, she mailed a note to me, 
 and then went to bed, stating that she had a head 
 ache. She next prepared a glass of water, dissolved 
 in it a large quantity of cyanide of potassium, and 
 set it beside her bed. When her husband came home 
 he heard that she was ill, and went to her room. She 
 said : l Get me some magnesia. It is in my bath 
 room. When he returned with it, she asked him to 
 put a teaspoonful of this medicine in the glass of 
 water. He did so. She said to her maid : Do not 
 go out yet. When he turned to hand her the glass, 
 he said : l Stop j it has a queer smell. Let me taste 
 it. As he set the glass to his lips, she cried out, 
 1 No, no, struck the glass from his hand, and fell back 
 in hysterics. Her own doctor could not be found, and 
 I was sent for. Her husband told me what had oc 
 curred. The overturned glass smelled strongly of cya 
 nide. It has the familiar odor of bitter almonds or 
 peach-kernels. I felt that he ought to see her letter 
 to me. It said very little, except that she was un 
 happy and was firmly convinced that some day her 
 husband would poison her. She added : i Be sure to 
 keep this letter. She became maniacal after a long 
 illness, and ended her sad life in an asylum. The 
 dregs of the fluid were analyzed, and the result justi- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 405 
 
 fied my belief in the presence of an enormous dose of 
 one of the deadliest poisons known to man." 
 
 " What a diabolical plot ! " said Clayborne. " I can 
 not see how he could have escaped. A man buys 
 poison, apparently gives it in the maid s presence, 
 and the woman leaves on record a statement that her 
 husband meant to poison her. His infidelities, which 
 were well known, complete the links of motives. He 
 would probably have been hanged." 
 
 " What became of him ? " said my wife. 
 
 " He married again, and was kept in rigorous 
 order." 
 
 "It was all too obvious to have hanged him," said 
 Vincent. " She made him buy the poison, and meant 
 to take it and die, and leave him burdened with the 
 certainty of having killed her. She managed it awk 
 wardly, but came near to success. I suppose her nerve 
 failed her at the decisive moment. He made a narrow 
 escape. I hate murder cases, but this one I should 
 have liked to handle." 
 
 I said : " She was willing to die and to punish him, 
 but not willing to kill him." 
 
 " What a strange story," said my wife, " and how 
 cleverly wicked the woman was ! " 
 
 " It reminds me," said I, " of a famous case where 
 a murderer took cyanide to escape the gallows. He 
 killed his mother-in-law." 
 
 " Poor maligned mothers-in-law," cried my wife, 
 " much-abused relation ; and yet, never before did I 
 hear of one having been murdered. Wives, hus 
 bands, even fathers have been poisoned, or what not - f 
 but no historic mother-in-law." 
 
 27 
 
406 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Clayborne regarded the gay speaker as if he were 
 considering a grave problem. These half -serious 
 propositions annoyed him. Now he gave it up and 
 said: "English is weak in words of relationship. 
 The wife s mother and the husband s mother are, 
 may I say, officially different. We have for them 
 only the one added phrase in law. 7 What has law 
 to do with the relation? The adjectives maternal 
 and paternal 7 we do not apply here. 7 
 
 " Let us/ 7 said Afton, " appoint a committee to in 
 vent names for these unlabeled relations. Shall we 
 forever abandon the right to make new words? 
 How free we are in science ! 77 
 
 " Yes/ 7 said Clayborne, " and I wish it would keep 
 its own. We are being loaded with abominable 
 terms. English is rich enough. If we could reclaim 
 the words we have lost, that were better. 77 
 
 " Before we go on/ 7 said I, " let me say a word of 
 
 the father-in-law. My friend Captain R , with 
 
 two squadrons of cavalry, was cut off and surrounded, 
 during our Civil War, by an overwhelming force of 
 Confederates. When, in mercy, a flag of truce in 
 vited him to surrender, he asked who was in com 
 mand. l General B / was the answer. l What ! 
 
 My father-in-law? No. I should hear of it till I 
 die. 7 He cut his way out, losing heavily, and has a 
 handsome lot of scars as a remembrance. 77 
 
 "Were mothers-in-law always in bad repute? 77 
 asked Sibyl. " Among those which seem chosen as 
 affectionate relations we are told that l the daughter- 
 in-law shall be set against the mother-in-law/ as if 
 that were uncommon. 77 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 407 
 
 " A neat defense," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " But, meanwhile," said Af ton, " we are losing Dr. 
 North s story." 
 
 "It is not," said I, " one which supports the com 
 mon belief. He, my present murderer, killed his 
 mother-in-law, not for hate of her, but to get money. 
 It was greed, not hate, which supplied the motive. 
 He was convicted, and the day before his execution 
 killed himself with this same drug, the cyanide. The 
 interest of the story lies in the way he obtained the 
 poison. He was, of course, watched with care, as it 
 was known that he meant to take his own life. He 
 complained that the print of a Bible given him by 
 the chaplain was too small, and asked to have one 
 from his own home. A friend was allowed to bring 
 it. The soft blank leaves were saturated with cya 
 nide. Who did this was never known. The con 
 demned man rolled up one of these leaves into a 
 pellet, put it in his mouth, drank a little water, and 
 feU dead." 
 
 " How horrible ! " cried Sibyl. " And the Bible of 
 all books ! " 
 
 " Yes," said I. 
 
 " And now," said Aft on, " I must go." 
 
 " But come again and tell us more stories," said 
 my wife. 
 
 " You should leave us with a promise like Schehe- 
 rezade, or with a half -told tale like him who left 
 half told the story of Cambuscan bold. Alas! too 
 many have left us tales half told. I will go with you 
 to the gate," I said. 
 
 But when I rose Vincent would also go with us, 
 
408 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 and then the women, because the moon was up, a 
 great, ruddy pearl, over the mainland. Clayborne, 
 being thus left alone, tardily followed, and, very 
 merrily disposed, we went across the damp grass 
 under the thin-leaved apple-trees to the road. When 
 half a mile away, Mrs. Vincent assured us that we 
 would be unwise to escort Dr. Afton farther, as it 
 was quite too large an honor. Laughing, he left us, 
 and we sat down on the roadside, while my wife and 
 Vincent climbed up on to the top rail of a fence. 
 Presently Sibyl began to cap verses with my wife 
 about the moon, and after a few minutes chat we 
 heard some one say it was damp. This was Afton. 
 
 "I concluded that you would not go home at 
 once, and as the dew is falling, that it would be cow 
 ardly not to share the imprudence of agreeable people." 
 
 Af ton s return was hailed with pleasure. He was re 
 minded by Mrs. Vincent of the peril of such returns, 
 
 and of what happened to our friend C 5 but she 
 
 declined to explain. It was worth telling, I said, but 
 that I, at least, never would tell it. Afton said that 
 was personal cruelty. 
 
 Clayborne had rather reluctantly gone with us, and 
 was seated silent by the roadside on a rock. Now 
 he rose. " I am going home," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent broke out into song, which, as Alice 
 used to say, always tamed him. He sat down again. 
 Then from the top of the fence Alice said: "Now, 
 some one tell us a story." 
 
 " I know one, such a nice one," said Afton, " about 
 a man who was married at one time to two wives, 
 but was innocent of bigamy." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 409 
 
 " Delightful ! " cried Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " But I wiU never tell it," he added. " That is my 
 revenge. Good night." 
 
 " Sometimes you people are quite unbearable," said 
 the scholar, " and I am very damp." 
 
 We went home, Anne Vincent singing as we went, 
 and we in the intervals guessing as to how, innocently, 
 a man could be the husband of two wives for, as 
 Afton assured us, it did happen. 
 
XXIII 
 
 I WO days later we sailed in Vincent s 
 yacht around the entire coast of Mount 
 Desert Island. Mrs. Vincent, who hated 
 the sea, preferred a buckboard drive to 
 Somesville with Sibyl. We started very 
 early, but were delayed on our way because Clayborne 
 desired to go up Somes Sound that he might see 
 the Jesuits 7 well and the meadow where the earliest 
 French settlement was made. Thus, despite favoring 
 winds, it was near to dusk when, on our return, we 
 walked up the grass slope to Vincent s house. 
 " By Jove ! Vincent," said I, " there is Xerxes." 
 It was true. Large, in spotless white flannel, the big 
 man was comfortably seated on Vincent s back porch, 
 smoking a huge Cabana breva. What Vincent said 
 is not to be repeated. 
 
 My wife, enjoying the situation, murmured : " What 
 can Mr. Vincent do now ? " 
 "Hush!" said I. 
 
 Mr. Crofter came down the steps in a leisurely way. 
 " A young woman said you would be late, so I guessed 
 I would wait. I m right glad to see you, Mr. Vin 
 cent, and Mrs. Vincent, I suppose." 
 
 I corrected him. " Let me present you to Mrs. 
 North. Mrs. Vincent is not in." 
 
 410 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 411 
 
 " Pleased to see you/ said Xerxes. " It is rather 
 curious we should never have met." 
 
 Vincent was coldly polite. The others spoke to 
 him in turn. 
 
 Said Xerxes, as we went up the steps to the porch : 
 " Thought I would wait for you outside. Don t you 
 find it rather cool here toward evening ? " He spoke 
 as if he were receiving us as guests. 
 
 To this Vincent made no reply, except to say, "Mrs. 
 Vincent is away." He was in the temperate zone of 
 mere civility. 
 
 I passed on into the house with my wife, leaving 
 the others on the porch. "Oh, if only Anne Vin 
 cent were here ! " she said, quivering with suppressed 
 laughter. 
 
 " The man has a talent, Alice. He can forget. 
 Can a man forget and not forgive ? " For I recalled 
 what Vincent had said to him on a former occasion. 
 
 " No. But I wish Mr. Clayborne had heard your 
 remark. He would say entire f orgetf ulness eliminates 
 the need to forgive, and that you were very near to a 
 bull. Do not leave poor Mr. Vincent alone." 
 
 " He has Clayborne," I said. 
 
 "Who will be silent dumb. You know that." 
 
 "Very well, dear. Where are you going?" 
 
 " I must look after the child, Owen. I will return 
 at once." 
 
 She went away by a side door to our own house, 
 which was near by. 
 
 I went out again on to the porch, where I found all 
 three men smoking, while Xerxes, quite at ease, was 
 joyfully sustaining the weight of the talk. To my 
 
412 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 disgust, he was relating at length the story of our first 
 meeting and that famous game of chess. He told it 
 well, and not to be amused was impossible. Clay- 
 borne was shaking with laughter, and Vincent, after 
 a sorry effort to listen calmly, had also broken down. 
 
 " And he never told you ? n said Xerxes. " Why, I 
 spread it all over the country. It was well worth the 
 price of admission. A right good circus j and you 
 never told it, doc Dr. North 1 " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "And why not?" 
 
 " Because," said I, " I was ashamed ; because I beat 
 you with weapons I do not like to use, and because I 
 was not pleased with myself for using them." 
 
 In the red glow of his cigar I saw my friend Vin 
 cent s face light up pleasantly. 
 
 "Well, that is curious," returned Crofter, reflec 
 tively. " Can t understand it. I Ve done a heap of 
 things in my time, but, Lord ! they re done." 
 
 "And so," thought I, "is murder, theft." 
 
 Presently we heard the sound of wheels, and a 
 minute later Mrs. Vincent sailed out. There was, in 
 fact, something stately and like a noble ship in her 
 way of moving. 
 
 She said graciously : " Mr. Crofter, I believe. I 
 am glad to see you." 
 
 She was well pleased. She had been very curious 
 about Xerxes, and fate had favored her. My wife 
 soon returned, and both sat down, while Sibyl dropped 
 into her hammock. Vincent shamelessly abandoned 
 the conversation to the newcomers, and Clayborne 
 said as little as possible. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 413 
 
 " You came up in your yacht, I think," said Mrs. 
 Vincent. 
 
 " Yes. I am a bit hard up for amusement in the 
 summer-time, since I came East. As long as I had to 
 fight for a living I enjoyed life. Then I took to rail 
 roading, and while that was a scrimmage I had a good 
 time. Now I have married and settled down in New 
 York, I sometimes find it dull." 
 
 " I should think so," said my wife, sympathetically. 
 " And does yachting amuse you ? " 
 
 " Yes, as long as there is risk in it. Between times 
 it is poor fun. Now and then I make em carry a lot 
 of sail in a big blow. My captain don t like it. I do. 
 You must risk money or life if you want to be happy." 
 
 "I hope, Fred," said Mrs. Vincent, "that you will 
 not take to either of these forms of happiness." She 
 was merrily bent upon getting her husband into the 
 talk. 
 
 Vincent said : " You may rest at ease." 
 
 Sibyl, to my surprise, replied: "I can understand 
 Mr. Crofter s feeling." 
 
 " Let me take you all out," said Xerxes. " We will 
 wait for a brisk sou wester. We will run up to the 
 Grand Manan. I can take you all and make you 
 right comfortable, too." 
 
 " Thank you," said Vincent. " My wife never sails, 
 and I have my own yacht." 
 
 " Well, it s an open offer. And talking of risks, 
 off Cape Cod we were running in a gale, when I saw 
 a canoe. We came within a few yards of her. I sung 
 out, and the man in her looked up. It was that free- 
 spoken young man, Saint Clair. I offered to take him 
 
414 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 in. I won t relate what he said. It was concise. You 
 know we had a row, Mr. Vincent, and I guess he don t 
 feel we got even. I can t see what vexed the man." 
 
 " Perhaps he can," said Vincent. " The point of 
 view is important." 
 
 " Well, really. What was it ? I like that man, and 
 there was n t a dollar of difference between us." 
 
 Meanwhile I saw in Clayborne the usual storm- 
 signals. He moved uneasily in his chair, laid down 
 his cigar and took it up again, and at last said quietly : 
 "It is not easy, Mr. Crofter, to discuss a friend s 
 quarrels, but I believe that, as St. Clair said, you 
 ruined two of his friends. I beg leave to say that, 
 while I thought he should have held his tongue in my 
 house, I did think he had some reason to speak as he 
 did." 
 
 I saw Vincent look up at Clayborne. He clearly 
 disapproved of the overfrank turn the talk had taken. 
 In fact, Clayborne was guilty of the very offense for 
 which he censured St. Clair. 
 
 " I think," said Vincent, " we had better leave St. 
 Clair to fight his own battles. I should remind you, 
 Clayborne, that it was not Mr. Crofter, but his former 
 partner, who had been in fault." 
 
 There was a scarce perceptible pause, and then 
 Xerxes spoke with entire good humor. 
 
 " Now, I m obliged to you. I was n t in it, but I 
 did n t care to explain. What s the good ? As to Mr. 
 Saint Clair, he is n t altogether incapable of taking 
 care of himself ; and, after all, it was more a glove- 
 fight than a blood-quarrel. I suppose, too" and he 
 spoke with deliberate care "I suppose, Mr. Vincent, 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 415 
 
 my point of view and yours may be different. My 
 wife sees that. I do suppose I ask too many ques 
 tions." As he spoke he looked from us to the women. 
 
 " Oh, no/ said my wife. " Pray go on." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Crofter says everything is to be had 
 by patient observation. I m observing, I ve been 
 observing, but I am not patient." 
 
 Vincent began to be interested despite his dislike 
 of the man, a dislike born generations back. He felt, 
 too, that, whether a willing host or not, he could not 
 remain permanently outside of the talk. He said : 
 " Pardon me, but I do not quite understand." 
 
 Xerxes, evidently more at ease, returned : 
 
 " Well, I was born and raised and fought my way 
 among people, Mr. Vincent, so different from you peo 
 ple that it s like being in China. I don t mean the 
 heavy railroad men and bankers. I mean people like 
 you and my wife. I like them. I did n t at first. But 
 once I did n t know a chromo from a Constable. I 
 do now. To be plain, I came East, and I wanted 
 human fine arts." 
 
 " Human fine arts," murmured my wife, delighted. 
 
 " What a charming phrase ! " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 "Yes, ma am," continued Xerxes, now under way, 
 and habitually accustomed to be heard with re 
 spect even where hostility was imminent. "I find 
 difficulties. My wife says, Time and patience. I 
 hate waiting, and I never was patient. A man tells 
 me I had better not just yet be put up at the Hudson 
 Club. Well, that is pretty plain. If I ask men like 
 you, Mr. Vincent, to dine with me, they won t. They 
 won t yet. Of course I shall get on top of it all some 
 
416 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 day j but I hate to wait and Well, things in a way 
 led up to it to-night, and so I just thought I would 
 have it out. Fact is, I don t understand you Eastern 
 people." 
 
 It was, socially speaking, appalling. This fearless, 
 rude baron of dubious finance and elaborate railway 
 theft had cast down his glove of challenge before a 
 gentler people than those among whom he had been 
 born. The courage of the man was interesting. His 
 belief that he would be considered was no doubt the re 
 sult of habit. His feeling that he would be counseled 
 wisely was almost childlike. For a moment no one re 
 plied. Clayborne would not answer. I did not want to. 
 Vincent said later, " In my own house, how could I?" 
 Xerxes was quick to note this hesitation. He added, 
 " Perhaps I m making myself unpleasant. I don t want 
 to, but I do want to know." The simplicity of his 
 obstinacy was embarrassing. I looked at Vincent. 
 The appeal was honest and of the utmost sincerity. I 
 knew that Vincent must in some way accept its 
 challenge. 
 
 He said at last : " Mr. Crofter, I fear that we are 
 thinking more of our own difficulty than of your very 
 natural desire ; but and you will pardon me I do not 
 want to reply at all ; and if I wished to do so, I could 
 not in my own house. I should want a larger free 
 dom." 
 
 " Oh, but I don t mind, and, anyway, we are half 
 out of doors." 
 
 " You must let us off this time," said Vincent, laugh 
 ing. " Could we have tea, Anne ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 417 
 
 She rose and went into the house, while Clayborne 
 said : " We are going to have a change of weather." 
 
 I said, " Yes ; there is a fog on Green Mountain," 
 and considered an awkward business disposed of. Not 
 so Xerxes. 
 
 " I have half a mind to ask the ladies," he said. 
 
 What could one do with a man like this ? "I fear 
 that we should follow suit," said my wife. 
 
 Sibyl had listened to this remarkable talk with 
 silent intensity of interest. She was lying in a ham 
 mock under the porch where we sat. Now she rose 
 on her elbow, and, to Vincent s dismay, said : " I will 
 tell you, Mr. Crofter. We think of you as a man who 
 has made an extravagant fortune by means which 
 seem to us wicked. We do not like it. We say, t Why 
 should such a man think mere wealth gives him a 
 right to take at will an equal place among people of 
 stainless lives, men of honor ? That is the truth, all 
 of it. I do not see why some one should not speak 
 out." 
 
 During this bewildering revelation of opinion, Vin 
 cent sat smoking furiously, Clayborne smiled grimly, 
 my wife pursued a ball of worsted down the steps, 
 and I sat still. 
 
 Xerxes said at once : " You are a brave little woman, 
 and I am much obliged to you. I could argue that 
 question of my wickedness. I don t see it. Suppose 
 we admit it or set it aside. Here I am. I shall get 
 where I want to soon or late." 
 
 " That is true," said Clayborne, " you will." 
 
 " More s the pity, you will say." 
 
 " I did not." 
 
418 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "No. Well, Mr. Clayborne, here I am, me and 
 my money. I can t give it away. I don t mean to. 
 You Ve got me here." 
 
 This powerful human machine seemed to think we 
 were responsible for his future. 
 
 " Do you really mean," said Sibyl, " do you honestly 
 mean to ask" 
 
 Here Vincent interposed. " Pardon me, Miss May- 
 wood, if I say that all this is to me most unpleasing. 
 What Mr. Crofter does with himself and his property 
 should in no way concern us. I trust he will excuse 
 your freedom and mine." 
 
 " But I like it," said the machine. 
 
 "I think," said Clayborne, with grim indifference 
 to the amenities of life" I think that Mr. Crofter has 
 struck upon the opportunity of a lifetime. Let Sibyl 
 answer, even if you and I will not, cannot." 
 
 " I am sure it is very interesting," said my wife, 
 with appearance of ingenuous simplicity. 
 
 Vincent was furious. He lit a cigar and remained 
 silent. 
 
 Sibyl said quietly : " May I, Mr. Clayborne ? Oh, I 
 do want to speak." 
 
 "Yes. Go on, if Mr. Crofter wishes it. I see no 
 objection." 
 
 " Now, that s all right," said the machine, cheer 
 fully. "You go ahead, little woman. You have a 
 clear track." 
 
 "I wanted to ask you if you did really desire a 
 foolish little maid like me to tell you, a strong, suc 
 cessful man, what to do with your life and your 
 gains." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 419 
 
 " That s it. If you say, Give away money, help 
 this or that/ I do it oh, pretty much as my wife 
 says." 
 
 "And why? 7 
 
 " Because she tells me." 
 
 " In order to get certain things, to please certain 
 people ? " 
 
 " It s about that. What would you do ? " 
 
 Sibyl laughed. " I never had enough to be troubled 
 as to what to do with it. If I had your income I 
 should give it away, every year, all of it, every cent." 
 
 " Would you ? Got to protect property with money. 
 Does any one do that ? " 
 
 " Ask Mr. Clay borne," said Sibyl, audaciously. 
 
 " I ask him," he said, turning in his seat. 
 
 Clayborne said : " This is an unusual talk. The 
 palace of truth was a trifle to it. Yes j to be plain, 
 I save no income. I used to j now I do not." 
 
 "And how about you, Mr. Vincent?" said Xerxes. 
 
 " I prefer not to discuss my private affairs. You 
 must pardon my reticence. Miss Maywood s frank 
 ness is not to my taste. Let it suffice." 
 
 " Oh, that s all right," said Crofter. " Guess I Ve 
 been to Sunday-school to-day. Perhaps I shall re 
 pent. But whether or not, I shall get at last what I 
 want. I always do." 
 
 " You will," said Clayborne. " I have not the least 
 doubt you will." 
 
 Crofter hesitated. Then he swung himself around 
 and put the confiding hand of familiarity on Vincent s 
 knee. My friend stood it bravely. 
 
 " Mr. Vincent, you people are not used to men like 
 
420 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 me. I am feeling that. I ve made myself disagree 
 able. I want to say I did n t think any one but me 
 could be hurt by it. 77 
 
 " There has been no harm done/ said Vincent, 
 coldly. 
 
 " Well, we 11 drop it. Only there s one thing I 
 don t get clear about. We had it up before at your 
 house, Mr. Clayborne. Miss Maywood talked about 
 men of honor. A man keeps his word, he meets his 
 pecuniary obligations, and then some one says, Oh, 
 he s straight enough, but he is n t a man of honor. 
 I sha n t bother you about X. C. any more, but I want 
 to ask my young friend here, what is honor ? " 
 
 I thought of Pilate s historic question. 
 
 " The honesty of a gentleman," said Sibyl, promptly. 
 
 Crofter laughed in hearty animal enjoyment of 
 what to us was an awkward situation. 
 
 " Miss Maywood, you are as hard to understand as 
 another woman I ask questions of. This beats chess 
 problems, doctor." 
 
 " And is not an answer," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Will you smoke again ? " said Vincent. 
 
 "With pleasure. I went by here to-day on the 
 shore. There I made acquaintance with Miss Mary. 
 After she heard my name, she said, Why did papa say 
 you was a plantigwade, and what is a plantigwade? 
 I had to own up I did n t know. Then the young 
 lady guessed it was a kind of bear, and informed me 
 I had hairy hands just like a bear. I laughed and said 
 people out West used to call me Old Grizzly. Then 
 she said I was a real nice bear, and would I play 
 being bear on the beach." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 421 
 
 At this we laughed, relieved by our escape from the 
 dilemma of silence or reproach. 
 
 My wife said, " The child was impertinent." 
 
 " Oh, no," said Xerxes. " I played bear, I did. I 
 walked on all fours, and I learned that Mr. Clayborne 
 was n t half as nice a bear. I should like to buy that 
 young lady." 
 
 " Not for millions," said my wife, gaily. " Oh, here 
 is tea. One lump or two, Mr. Crofter?" And so, 
 after a little more of less perilous chat, Xerxes de 
 parted. 
 
 " The dinner must be ruined," said Mrs. Vincent, 
 rising. " You men shall not dress." 
 
 "Come in, Owen," said Vincent. "If ever you 
 bring that fellow here again, I will 
 
 " I did not bring him. He came to see you. He 
 will come again. And now" viciously "you will 
 have to go out to his yacht and call." 
 
 " I 11 be blanked if I do." 
 
 " I like him," said Mrs. Vincent. " No doubt we 
 seem as strange to him as he to us. Sibyl, you cov 
 ered yourself with glory." 
 
 " Did I ? Oh, dear Mrs. Vincent, I wish I had held 
 my tongue." 
 
 " It had been wiser," said Vincent. 
 
 "I don t know," said Clayborne. " Out of the 
 mouths of, etc." 
 
 " So," said Vincent, " St. Clair is on his way north. 
 What an astonishing talk ! " 
 
 The conversation which Vincent had not without 
 reason called astonishing was more than this, and so 
 said my wife to me that evening. Here was a man 
 
 28 
 
422 DR. NOKTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 with a large supply of good and bad qualities. Life, 
 as lie had used it, had educated and invigorated what 
 was not of the best. It was strange that so much of 
 available good remained. I was inclined to believe 
 that his questions, his new tastes, his wish for some 
 touch of other modes of life, were merely forms of 
 ambition and had behind them no very worthy motive. 
 Alice said it was a wholly uncharitable view, and 
 time would show, because time is a fine diagnostician. 
 
XXIV 
 
 |HE days went by most happily. In the 
 mornings my book grew under my 
 hands j in the afternoons I went into the 
 woods, or of quiet days took Sibyl and 
 Mary in a canoe and paddled down to 
 Bar Island or farther, returning to meet the sunsets 
 as one sees them nowhere else. After three days 
 the tall masts of Xerxes s yacht were no longer seen 
 above the morning fog. He had gone. Vincent 
 put his head into my little study to announce this 
 fact. 
 
 " Oh, I see you are at work. Excuse me, Owen ? 
 but I had to tell you. It is a load off my mind. At 
 any hour that man might have returned. He is the 
 most innocently disagreeable rascal I ever saw. He 
 made himself as free of my house as an Irishman s 
 pig does of his hovel. He is an intelligent fool. A 
 fool is always a riddle. I confess that I do not com 
 prehend the man. Sibyl was outrageous, but I was 
 honestly obliged to her. How cool he was ! No, I 
 do not think I understand that man. He seems to 
 me so improbable." 
 
 " Don t stand there," I said. " Come in and talk. 
 I .am unable to settle a question. I shall leave it for 
 to-day. It will simmer in my head, and to-morrow I 
 
 423 
 
424 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 shall write it, as a once famous lawyer said, curente 
 calamito. Now I am glad of interruption. 77 
 
 Vincent entered and took a seat at the open win 
 dow. " How beautiful it is, Owen ! Why does a 
 fellow like that Xerxes poison it for me ? It is like 
 the remembrance of a decayed olive or a too ancient 
 egg. It lingers." 
 
 That was like my friend. Some human beings had 
 power to make him feel uncomfortable, to fill him 
 for a day or two with smoldering fires of dull anger. 
 But, as he said, it was only the incomprehensibly dis 
 agreeable who annoyed him ; the merely unpleasant 
 or simply base who seemed obvious troubled him 
 less, or not at all. 
 
 He went on talking. "When a fellow like that 
 man discusses with a sneer what we call honor, good 
 heavens ! Owen, it is like a sensual rake discussing 
 some pure-minded maid." 
 
 " Is n t that rather excessive, Fred ? He was merely 
 curious, ripely puzzled. He did not sneer. How de 
 fend honor to a man like Xerxes ? How could he com 
 prehend? And, after all, who can define it? Sibyl 
 made a vain attempt. No dictionary could help him, 
 or us for that matter. The fact is, certain words ac 
 quire histories, manners, traditions, memories. There 
 comes to be a kind of misty halo about them which 
 defies definition or forces a man to lengthen his 
 definition into an essay. Let us look at the dic 
 tionary." 
 
 " Or ask Clayborne, which is much the same 
 thing." 
 
 When we brought it up that evening, as we sat 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 425 
 
 under the trees, Clayborne said: "You are right, 
 Vincent. Symonds says you may recall his dis 
 cussion of the Italian word onore, used in contra 
 distinction to our word Honor is that mixture of 
 conscience, pride, and self-respect which makes a 
 man true to a high ideal in all the possible circum 
 stances of life. " 
 
 " Even that is rather vague," said Vincent. " As 
 to dictionaries, there are no perfect dictionaries. 
 There can be none. Words are at the mercy of their 
 verbal environment. A woman s honor; the honor 
 of a gentleman ; a debt of honor. Words are like 
 colors : the tints which surround them make or alter 
 their values." 
 
 " Yes," said I; "we looked up the noun virgin 
 yesterday. There is no substantive word for a 
 virgin man." 
 
 "That is sadly significant," said Vincent. "Ah, 
 here come the ladies ! " 
 
 We were at this time on the lawn after dinner. 
 As they approached, Mrs. Vincent said : " We have 
 been talking trivialities, and guessing at what you 
 were discussing. We heard no laughter. We con 
 cluded that it was 
 
 " What ? " said Clayborne. 
 
 " We decline to say," said Mrs. Vincent. " What 
 was it ? " 
 
 " Words," I replied. " We have been listening to 
 Clayborne. I asked him when English writers began 
 to talk of style, when the critic came. I forget all he 
 said, but he recalled a pretty couplet of Chaucer. 
 What was it, Clayborne? " 
 
426 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Merely this, and I am in doubt just what it 
 
 means : 
 
 Eke Plato sayeth, whoso him may rede, 
 The wordes mot be cosyn to the dede. 
 
 But I cannot find it in Plato." 
 
 " It admits of more meanings than one/ said Vin 
 cent. " But before you lecture on it, as you will, let 
 me ask you to repeat your quotation from Temple. 
 We were talking chiefly of definitions of honor, and 
 Clayborne gave us one of honesty as a help. Repeat 
 it, please." 
 
 "Certainly. It is finely simple. That which 
 makes men prefer their duty and their promise be 
 fore their passions or their interests. But as to 
 honor all definitions fail." 
 
 Said Vincent : " Does it not come to this ? Honesty 
 is an externally available virtue, honor a far more 
 personal and interior thing." 
 
 " All our talk of words," said my wife, " ends in a 
 belief that the dictionaries have never yetdone jus 
 tice to the English tongue. I want a dictionary of 
 my own." 
 
 "Neither words nor men get justice," said Mrs. 
 Vincent. "Sibyl and I agreed just now that you 
 men are very hard on Mr. Crofter." 
 
 "As how?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, you fully realize his bad qualities, and do not 
 consider the life and inheritances which nourished 
 them." 
 
 " And," cried Sibyl, " you do not see how much 
 there is of good in the man, nor, perhaps, how in 
 evitable was his career." 
 
DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 427 
 
 " He has good qualities," I said. 
 
 "And that/ said Vincent, " is cause for regret." 
 
 " Regret, Fred ? " asked his wife. " Why ? " 
 
 " Because his good qualities serve to give efficiency 
 to his bad ones." 
 
 " I like that," said Clayborne. " But now I am off 
 to bed. I get sleepy here." It was hardly ten, and 
 we were all of us people who were apt to talk at 
 times far into the small hours. 
 
 " It is very good for you," said my wife. " Good 
 night." And he left us. 
 
 " Thank Heaven, we are rid of Xerxes," said Vin 
 cent. "I have been up the road with Clayborne to 
 day. He begins to talk about a cottage near us." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said I. " I thought him uneasy here, 
 not quite happy. We had good luck with him yes 
 terday. We rowed down Eagle Lake, walked along 
 Bubble Pond, and climbed the farther spur of Green 
 Mountain. I doubt if ever before he walked as far, 
 or climbed anything except a staircase. He is amus 
 ingly proud of his exploit j when I declared myself 
 stiff, he was vastly pleased. The glacier-planed slabs 
 on Green Mountain were really interesting, and when 
 we found a number of deep glacier pot-holes, what 
 the Swiss call giant kettles/ he was delighted." 
 
 " Like those in the garden at Lucerne ? " asked my 
 wife. 
 
 "Yes. You should have seen the old fellow s 
 pleasure. There seem to be none elsewhere on the 
 island except on Mount Pemetic, or at least I have 
 found none. Did you notice how greatly he was 
 impressed last night by that fine aurora? When it 
 
428 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 grew so brilliant and we heard it, that faint, rustling 
 noise, like the movement of a silk gown, he stood 
 still, more awed than I have ever seen him." 
 
 " It is a strange thing to hear," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " The faint, quick, silken murmurings, 
 
 A noise as of an angel s flight, 
 Heard like the whispers of a dream 
 Across the cool, clear Northern night." 
 
 Seeing that Sibyl had strayed away to the shore, 
 my wife said : " Did you observe Sibyl last night, 
 Owen?" 
 
 " I did. She walked to the shore, and stood a long 
 while watching the great lances of changing light. 
 At last I joined her. She said it was terribly beau 
 tiful." 
 
 " All great natural phenomena disturb her, Owen, 
 but worst of all a thunder-storm." 
 
 " That is not rare. Like some hysterical people, 
 she can predict an electric storm hours before it 
 comes. I have seen persons no one person only, 
 who declared she could foretell a thunder-storm by 
 the odor." 
 
 " By the odor how absurd ! " 
 
 "No. I have nryself several times been conscious 
 of the peculiar smell which is noticeable after vivid 
 lightning 5 but this was always on the water of a 
 river." 
 
 " I never had that experience," said Vincent. 
 " If Sibyl has this power I hope she will predict the 
 return of Xerxes in time for me to escape. There is 
 something elemental, cyclonic, in that fellow." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 429 
 
 " He will be here again/ I said. " I met him in 
 the village the day before he sailed. He said he had 
 some idea of building here." 
 
 " Has he ? " groaned Vincent. 
 
 " He told me that he had had an agreeable visit to 
 your house/ 7 said I. 
 
 " By George ! he is easily pleased." 
 
 " He said he could comprehend Clayborne and the 
 ladies and me, but that you were a bit outside, and 
 therefore, as he declared, mighty interesting. 7 " 
 
 " I am much obliged to him. I shall continue a 
 riddle." 
 
 " No, you will not. That man has curiosity ex 
 cited by novel human surroundings. He has energy, 
 force, and brute determination to have his way. He 
 has taken a fancy to you, and he will apply the same 
 vigor and ingenuity to your capture which he used to 
 employ to ruin a road." 
 
 Vincent smiled. "He will find me hard. As 
 Queen Elizabeth wrote to James of Scotland, I have 
 had of the world much hammering. Come out for a 
 pull on the bay." 
 
 " Very good," I said. " Did I tell you that Afton 
 is coming after dinner to-morrow ? " 
 
 " No, He is always welcome," 
 
XXV 
 
 HE next evening we were again sitting in 
 the long, friendly twilight on the porch, 
 talking little and watching the light of 
 day fade on the hills of the distant coast 
 of Maine. I heard voices, and Vincent 
 rose. The next minute Afton entered with St. Clair, 
 who had met him on the road. While he was joyously 
 shaking hands with us, our little maid Mary suddenly 
 appeared at the door barefooted and in her night 
 gown. 
 
 "I did hear Cousin Wictor" so she always called 
 him ; " I must kiss him good night." 
 He caught her up and kissed her. 
 " You must see my new gown," she said. " It is 
 pink." My lady was strong on the matter of dress, 
 and was given to decorating herself and personating 
 older people whom she chanced to admire. 
 
 " I have two bears now. One is Mr. Cwofter. He 
 is a real bear. Mr. Clayborne he is only a make- 
 believe bear." Upon this she was promptly consigned 
 to the maid and sent to bed in what our young folks 
 call a gale of laughter. 
 
 " Has Xerxes been here ? " asked St. Clair. 
 " Oh, yes," said Mrs. Vincent. " He is all my fancy 
 painted him, and more. I think he must have prof- 
 
 430 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 431 
 
 ited by his visit. Sibyl Maywood discoursed to him 
 on the moralities." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Vincent ! " cried Sibyl. " I had to say it 
 
 J n 
 
 "Well, and what did you say?" said St. Glair. 
 
 " Tell him, Sibyl," said my wife. Whereupon she 
 rather shyly narrated our interview with the great 
 man. 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Maywood," said St. Clair. " I 
 am sorry I was not there. I could have imagined 
 what you all said or would not say. As to my row 
 with Xerxes, I am rather indifferent now; I never 
 can keep a vendetta up to the scalping-point. Every 
 body asks me about it. Once a week some news 
 paper chiffonnier adds it to his rag-basket of insolent 
 personal gossip. I suppose I made a fool of myself. 
 The worst of being a fool is that experience is of no 
 use. If any of you speak to me about Xerxes I 
 
 Said Clayborne: "My dear Victor, El-Din- Attar 
 once wrote : l When thou hast dined at the Inn of 
 Folly do not dispute the bill. " 
 
 " I do not," said St. Clair. " I came away with a 
 sweet temper, and, by George ! not the whole Atlantic 
 can keep us apart. His confounded yacht nearly ran 
 over my canoe. I said in his native dialect unre 
 peatable things." 
 
 " So he told us," said Sibyl. 
 
 Vincent smiled. " He thinks you liberally edu 
 cated for an Eastern man." 
 
 " I am often amazed," said Afton, " at the freaks 
 of the rich. Who could suppose this man would 
 really like the sea or art ? I presume a yacht to be 
 
432 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 essential to one with his present aims. I do not 
 believe that he really likes yachting." 
 
 " He may. He likes all manner of risks," said I. 
 " He is a connoisseur in emotions of peril. Once they 
 were financial. Always that man enjoys danger." 
 
 " A museum of risks does not appeal to me," said 
 my wife. 
 
 " Well, tastes vary," said Afton. " Nothing is more 
 interesting than to see what the uneducated man 
 likes to do when something releases him from a life 
 of toil." 
 
 " Most of them," said I, " wabble on through their 
 days without doing anything, mildly unhappy, or 
 perish of the coarse poisoning of too good a table." 
 
 " Men have endless possibilities of enjoyment," said 
 St. Clair. " Once I dined at Pearson s, in the Strand 
 in London, with two English friends, one very fat 
 and one lean. They enjoyed as I did not the turtle 
 soup and their tasteless venison. They drank, with 
 small aid from me, a magnum of dry champagne and 
 a bottle of aggressively strong port. When we had 
 smoked and were about to go, my friends put on 
 their top-coats. Mine was missing. At this time we 
 were standing in what they call the smoking-divan. 
 At last I said to the waiter, l Here is my card. Some 
 one has, by mistake, taken my coat. As we turned 
 to go, my stout friend felt in his pocket for his gloves 
 and pulled out a letter. I saw on it Vincent s writ 
 ing. l Good gracious ! said I. He had contrived 
 to put on my coat over his own. We laughed at this 
 consequence of a magnum, and turned to go. Then 
 a stout little man in the corner said, Excuse me, 
 
DR. NOKTH AND HIS FKIENDS 433 
 
 gents, but I noticed the gent s coat did n t fit." 
 My friends regarded him sternly. Unabashed, he 
 went on : I notices gents clothes. I am a tailor, 
 but I ain t in business now. I spends my evenin s 
 here a-studyin of gents clothes. It don t cost no- 
 thin , and it kind of keeps me occupied. Indeed ! 
 said I, and we went out. This was one man s idea 
 of enjoyment. Afton spends his life in studying the 
 garments called character." 
 
 " We all do," said Vincent ; " and that reminds me. 
 Did you not promise, North, to tell us the story of 
 that famous Chapman murder ? " 
 
 " How nice ! " said Mrs. Vincent. " Next to a ghost- 
 story I like a thrilling murder." 
 
 Then we discussed De Quincey and his " Two 
 Famous Murders" until Mrs. Vincent insisted on 
 my story. 
 
 " This is a true story," I said, " without any fanci 
 ful additions. In the year 1831 lived at Andalusia, 
 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, an old clergyman 
 named William Chapman. Late in life he married 
 a woman who was young, clever, and handsome. 
 One day a man called Mina, who said he was a Span 
 iard, stopped to ask assistance. He was charitably 
 treated and given some temporary work in the gar 
 den. Mina was much younger than the clergyman s 
 wife. He was handsome, attractive, and spoke very 
 little English. His account of his family and how 
 for the time he chanced to be without means was 
 plausible, or at least seemed so to these people. 
 
 " At this time Mr. and Mrs. Chapman kept with 
 some success a school in which Chapman gave in- 
 
434 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 struction to pupils who had defects in speech. Early 
 in May Mina promised Mr. Chapman three thousand 
 dollars for the instruction in English which he de 
 sired. The events of this tragedy followed with 
 amazing rapidity. The woman very soon became the 
 prey of this man. On the 16th of May they went to 
 Philadelphia, where Mina personally bought arsenic. 
 On June 23 the reverend gentleman died in great 
 agony, poisoned. 
 
 "The story, as it runs on, invites comment. As 
 for motive, Chapman had saved a little money; 
 it was necessary to marry the widow in order to 
 obtain certain possession of this and also of her 
 small valuables. The murderer was reckless. The 
 woman was the slave of a passion for a young and 
 handsome man. The bare statements of the printed 
 trial do not contain all the facts as I remember 
 to have heard them. The murder was carried out 
 with decision and with a certain deliberate care. 
 After buying the arsenic Mina is said to have tested 
 its power. He gave it to a dog, and by multiplying 
 his weight into that of the husband hoped to attain 
 efficiency in the lethal dose. Of this nothing is said 
 in the trial. Several efforts failed of complete suc 
 cess, but on the 23d of June the man died. His 
 death was believed to have been caused by cholera 
 morbus. No active suspicion was aroused. Let me 
 remind you that he died on the 23d of June. On 
 the 26th of June the victim was buried, and on July 5 
 the widow married the murderer. Before the month 
 was out he left her. The haste of this marriage and 
 the absence of precaution seem most amazing. Mina s 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 435 
 
 later conduct was as foolish. He wrote to his wife from 
 various places, and at last from Washington. But 
 now the woman, who may have been the confederate 
 in the crime, was undeceived. Lucretia what a 
 name in the annals of crime .wrote to Mina a letter 
 of passionate appeal. In it she used a phrase full of 
 peril : Mina, when I pause for a moment I am con 
 strained to acknowiedge that I do not believe God 
 will permit either you or me to be happy for a mo 
 ment this side of the grave. 
 
 "The incident which brought Mina s letters to 
 the light of justice is not told in the trial. A 
 Spaniard, whose name was either Minos or some 
 thing as near to Mina, had committed, as I recall 
 it, forgery. Orders were issued to detain all letters 
 to him. A clerk sent with these, to the Depart 
 ment of State, Lucretia s letter. It was hastily 
 opened and the mistake as to the name observed. 
 It was about to be returned to the post when a junior 
 secretary remarked to his superior that it seemed to 
 allude to a crime. Upon this it was sent to the Re 
 corder, so called, of Philadelphia, whence the letter 
 had been mailed. Here it gave rise to much interest, 
 but seemed to give no needed clue. At last it was 
 resolved to return it to the Washington post-office 
 and set a watch on whoever asked for it. Just here 
 comes in another strange turn of fate. A captain 
 of police asked to look at the letter. I know the 
 writing/ he said. He received permission to examine 
 it at leisure. In three days he came again. Mr. 
 Recorder/ he said, I used years ago to read proof in 
 a printing establishment. We printed a book on 
 
436 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 shorthand by a clergyman named Chapman. He 
 lived at Andalusia. His wife copied parts of it. 
 This is her writing. Here is some of the proof re 
 tained as evidence of the work done or of a contract 
 completed/ 
 
 " A very little inquiry aroused suspicion. Lucretia 
 was arrested and fainted. Mina was caught, and 
 at the trial, for the first time in America, chemi 
 cal experts swore to the results of their analysis. 
 Arsenic was found in the stomach. And now again 
 fate seemed to set against Mina. No one saw him 
 give the poison. His wife s evidence could not be 
 used against her husband ; and, in fact, she too was on 
 trial. No distinct proof existed as to Mina s having 
 bought the arsenic. He had a quite fair chance of 
 escape. At this time Mr. Reed, the assistant attorney 
 for the prosecution, was going into the court-house, 
 
 when he met a young law-student, Mr. G . Reed 
 
 said, Come in and see this fellow Mina. G said he 
 
 should like to do so. As they passed near the prisoner, 
 Mr. G said, Mr. Reed, I saw this man once, some 
 time in June. He is peculiar-looking. He was buying 
 arsenic to kill rats. It was in Durand s apothecary- 
 shop. This evidence was fatal." 
 
 " And he was hanged ? " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What of the woman Lucretia?" asked Sibyl 
 
 " She was acquitted." 
 
 " Oh, she was the worse of the two. I am sure she 
 helped him." 
 
 " Many thought her as guilty as he," said I. 
 
 " What became of her?" asked my wife. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 437 
 
 " She kept, under an assumed name, a fairly suc 
 cessful boarding-school in New Orleans." 
 
 " What an interesting tale ! " said Vincent. " I 
 wonder what proportion of murders do out." 
 
 " You frequently see that the law fails to find crim 
 inals." It was Clayborne who spoke. " But, apart 
 from murders thus openly known, there must be 
 many of which no one save the slayer ever knows." 
 
 " A famous detective," said I, " told me that one 
 fourth of all murderers escape detection." 
 
 " I should think the estimate large," said Afton. 
 "But one must define murder first. What we call 
 murder is not so called in some parts of Mr. Xerxes s 
 country. I saw in a Western paper a l census of the 
 deaths which occurred in a county during one year 
 from causes not natural. They were classified as in 
 tentional, accidental, and incidental, these latter 
 being deaths by pistol or bowie-knife. Intentional 
 was meant to cover long-premeditated murder. Of 
 this class so many were acquitted, and so many i mer 
 cifully relieved by the sheriff from the possibility of 
 future temptation. This mode of statement was, I 
 suppose, regarded as what a Western newspaper lately 
 described as i amusive. " 
 
 " I doubt if the word be needed," said Clayborne, 
 gravely. " Our newspaper wit is bad, because it is so 
 often out of place, so excessive, so persistently funny 
 in the wrong place. The heading of a grave accident 
 is jocose, that of a comic incident is serious. How 
 ever, Mr. Afton, this is a favored text for our sermons 
 of abuse. I meant to turn the talk a little. There is 
 such a thing among us as humor ; it exults in excess, 
 
 29 
 
438 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 in extravagance, in exaggeration ; but what I want 
 now is to ask you all if humor be not with us a some 
 what recent addition to our national characteristics." 
 
 Vincent said : " Probably that is true. Before, 
 during, and even long after the Revolution we had 
 the crude fun and hearty jokes of our English ances 
 try. During that war the songs, broadsides, and so 
 on were certainly not witty, or what we should to-day 
 class as humorous. I have read many. l The Battle 
 of the Kegs is by far the best." 
 
 " Perhaps they seemed funny then. Tastes change/ 
 said I. " There was no l funny column ; in the papers. 
 What humor came later was in the almanacs." 
 
 " I wonder," said my wife, " how i Pickwick would 
 present itself to Fielding. Would our fun be funny 
 to Addison, our humor such to Sterne or Steele ? " 
 
 " Ah, if one could know ! " said I. 
 
 " I think," remarked Clayborne, " it would be pos 
 sible to discover when the newspaper began to have 
 a comic column, when our peculiar humor was 
 born." 
 
 St. Clair said : " The books are easily found. I 
 mean those which especially represent our life under 
 humorous aspects. Sam Slick is the eldest of the 
 family ; but that was a Canadian product." 
 
 " I have played a little," said Clayborne, " with the 
 idea of writing a history of wit and humor." 
 
 I saw my wife give a side glance of amusement to 
 the address of Mrs. Vincent, who had half turned with 
 a like critical purpose. The notion of a book on 
 humor by this scholar struck the two women as un 
 speakably diverting. The thing being past human 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 439 
 
 power to talk about calmly, they smiled with, gentle 
 unanimity. 
 
 St. Clair said : Why not do it ? 
 
 Clayborne went on gravely : " One must consider 
 the quality of wit, humor, fun, among barbarous 
 people, among the classic races, the rise of these 
 forms of human statement among civilized people, 
 the relation of wit and humor to genius, as to what 
 feeds and what discourages national wit and humor, 
 biblical jests." 
 
 " In a word," said Af ton, " the psychology of the 
 comic historically considered." 
 
 " But to do that," said St. Clair, " one should sit in 
 judgment on the wit, humor, and fun of all ages. 
 And no one age would be a competent tribunal for 
 the fun of another j still less would one man be com 
 petent. Shakespeare s clowns are not comical to most 
 educated people to-day." 
 
 " They are to the gallery," said I, " and are cer 
 tainly true to their time. I, for one, enjoy them." 
 
 " And, pray," said Mrs. Vincent, " would your book 
 consider relatively the wit and humor of men and 
 women ? " 
 
 " Why not ?" said Clayborne. "What two races 
 of mankind differ as much as do men and women ? " 
 
 " What a droll statement ! " said Af ton. " You 
 would find it difficult. Women are often witty, but 
 less often humorous, or the productive mothers of 
 that which causes laughter." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said my wife, with indignation j " and 
 yet they are the mothers of men." 
 
 St. Clair clapped his hands gleefully. "A good 
 
440 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 defense/ lie cried, as we laughed applause at her 
 mot. 
 
 " We are not to be joked aside, madam/ said I. 
 "What woman has written a striking book with 
 humor as the dominant note ? " 
 
 " I should like to think that over/ replied Mrs. Vin 
 cent. "I should, I think, conclude that feminine 
 humor is often to be found in books, but that it is of 
 a gentle type, like my dear Jane Austen s or that of 
 Cranford/ and that it is more common of late. I shall 
 
 write to Miss M and ask her about it. And by 
 
 the way, that reminds me, Fred told me, Dr. North, 
 of your continuance of Mr. Xerxes s discussion of 
 
 honor. I wrote of this to Miss M , and here is 
 
 her reply." So saying, she took a note from her 
 work-basket, and read : 
 
 " i Although, my dear Anne, as you say, the French 
 word honneur and the Italian onore do not convey to 
 the Anglo-Saxon mind the idea of our word " honor," 
 I think there is no better definition of it than " no 
 blesse oblige," provided we give to " noblesse," as we 
 instinctively do, the ideal meaning of nobility of 
 character, and not merely the limited French accep 
 tation of the phrase, which, as they understand it, 
 states a principle of conduct based on pride of race, 
 such as almost precludes the idea of individual choice 
 and character. Their motto has the sad, impersonal, 
 fateful ring of an unchangeable destiny, as though 
 one said : " I must be fine whether I will or not, and 
 no one below me can. It is mine inheritance." 
 
 " And yet," said Vincent, " that has its influence." 
 
 " Sadly little," said Clayborne. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 441 
 
 " I do not agree with you," said I. 
 
 "Nor I," said St. Clair. 
 
 " Ah, must you go, Dr. Afton ? " said Vincent. 
 " Before we consign our talk to the forge tfulness of 
 to-morrow, let me ask why the Irish poor, who are 
 so witty and so humorous amid their home poverty, 
 lose these qualities as soon as they are set down here 
 in more prosperous surroundings." 
 
 "Is it true? "said I. 
 
 " Yes," returned Afton. " I scarcely recall an 
 amusing thing ever said to me in this country by the 
 Irish. At home it is constant. Yes, I remember 
 one." 
 
 " And that?" said I. 
 
 " Oh, I remember that it was amusing. "What it 
 was I forget." 
 
 " What an unsatisfactory man ! " said my wife. 
 
 " Good night, Dr. Afton," said Vincent. " Come 
 soon again, and please to bring your memory with 
 you." 
 
XXVI 
 
 WAS annoyed next day to receive a 
 summons to go to Boston. It was to 
 consult in the case of an old friend. 
 For me the call was imperative. I 
 went most reluctantly and was absent 
 four days. It was after dinner on a Sunday even 
 ing when I returned. Refreshed by a bath and a 
 change of garments, I supped, and with my wife went 
 out to join our friends on Vincent s porch. I took 
 my cigar and sat down. 
 
 " Tell us some new thing," said Mrs. Vincent ; " you 
 always have something to tell. We are moldering for 
 lack of contact with the world that moves. 7 
 " The mackerel are in the bay," replied Vincent. 
 Said Clayborne : " I have found the glacier pot-holes 
 on Mount Pemetic." 
 
 " And Mr. St. Clair has been angelic," cried Mrs. 
 Vincent. " And now for you. I am sure you have had 
 adventures." 
 
 " He always has," said my wife. 
 " Indeed," said I, " I had one mishap. Near Port 
 land we had a collision, not very bad, luckily. I was 
 standing up in the smoking-car. The glass crashed, 
 the floor was heaved upward, and the platforms were 
 crushed. I was thrown across the cars. No one was 
 
 442 
 
DE. NOETH AND HIS FEIENDS 443 
 
 seriously hurt. I had, however, a queer experience. 
 I was very giddy and as if seasick. I sat on the side 
 of the embankment and was given brandy by a young 
 woman with red hair. When, being better, I climbed 
 into the half-wrecked car, I found my bag, but a 
 novel in which I was deeply interested had been lost 
 or stolen. From that hour I have been trying to 
 recall the name of the book or the author. I lost re 
 membrance of much of the story. I remember that 
 it interested me deeply, and that the tale was at a 
 crisis. Then came the crash, and it was gone. No 
 doubt you know that a bad fall or a blow on the 
 head may, if violent, destroy recently accumulated 
 memories." 
 
 "We have talked of this before," said Clayborne. 
 " It seems as if when the memory acquires what I may 
 call, in photographer s language, a negative, a period 
 of undisturbed quiet is needed to develop it into per 
 manence." 
 
 " That is a happy illustration," said I, " the idea 
 of a memorial impression being like a photographic 
 negative. Then when we wish, the consciousness 
 creates a positive." 
 
 " Unless," said Vincent, " a shock or what not has 
 injured the negative image." 
 
 " I think this time my negative got broken," said 
 I. " I can recall nothing of my lost book. As an 
 experience it entirely suffices for me." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Mrs. Vincent, " this is all very inter 
 esting to you and Mr. Clayborne, but as for me, I 
 remember nothing, and I still await the adventure." 
 
 " I had no other adventure. You are hard to sat- 
 
444 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 isfy. I did have two interesting talks. Shall I tell 
 of them?" 
 
 " Of course/ said Vincent. 
 
 " I met a man from Boston on my way southward. 
 It was he who was interrogative, and not I. In fact, 
 I was cross and not in a mood for conversation. 
 However, the man was persistent and asked ques 
 tions. I told him a good deal about war and other 
 matters. When he learned that I was a doctor, he 
 laughed and said he was more used to quacks. On 
 this I in turn became curious, and, on frankly asking, 
 learned that he was called a promoter. It seems that 
 there are many varieties of this animal. My trav 
 eling companion was a person consulted as to the 
 probable success of novelties in the way of quack 
 remedies. Will they sell? How much money will 
 be needed to test commercially the credulity of men ? 
 Advice is given as to the name of the new pill or 
 potion. Alliterative labels are best. What he called 
 1 freak names are desirable. He was proud of the 
 K K, Kolic Kure/ and of the Health Hoist tonic. 
 About one in a hundred of the quack medicines has 
 any success, and the cost of advertising is immense. 
 His career at last interested me. He began his busi 
 ness life as a boy in a drug-shop. When about 
 twenty he saw an advertisement asking for new 
 modes of catching the ear or eye of the public. I 
 shall try to let him tell it in his own way. 1 1 was 
 pretty smart, doctor, and I set to thinking it over. 
 Oh, mostly the notions I got on to were right good, 
 and the thing kept me alive. When I made the 
 great stroke on the S. S. I was set up for life. t The 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 445 
 
 S. S. ? I asked. He seemed a little mortified that I 
 should never have heard of this achievement. I have 
 seen famous authors who have felt a similar sense of 
 disappointment as to their books. The S. S., it seems, 
 was a brand of cigarettes. The letters stood origi 
 nally for Schlief & Son. He said : I saw these people 
 and showed them my idea. There was to be a blank 
 card in a black envelop. " S. S. Try to guess" was 
 printed in gold on it, and below, " Open this and keep 
 card in a warm place, and then you will know." The 
 thing is to make folks curious. You print a placard 
 upside down or spell a word backward, and every 
 second man will be mad to read them. That is 
 true/ said I. * Go on/ My envelop did the trick. 
 Everybody warmed those cards. As soon as they 
 were hot out came, " S. S. stands for Sin Segarettes, 
 because they are so pleasant." Oh,, it sold em. Af 
 ter a bit I did verses for the cards. It was a simple 
 chemical trick. The verses came out when you heated 
 the cards. Later on I hired a poet. He makes now 
 about five thousand a year. S. & S. tried to get 
 verses out of the real swell poets. I did hear they 
 offered Lowell a thousand for ten verses about 
 tobacco. " 
 
 " The story is true. He told me so," said Vincent, 
 " or at least that he had once been invited to do this 
 kind of thing." 
 
 " What an opening ! " said St. Clair. 
 
 "As a curiosity-trap," said Mrs. Vincent, "S. S. 
 seems to be admirable. "Who would not take the 
 bait?" 
 
 My account gave rise to a long talk about advertise- 
 
446 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 ments, and at last to a long and learned lecture by 
 Clayborne on advertisements in Rome and Greece. I 
 saw my wife yawn behind her fan, but Sibyl listened 
 with rapt attention. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent said, " Excuse me," and leaving us, 
 went indoors and ordered tea. When the servant an 
 nounced it and asked should he bring it out to the 
 porch, we, with one accord, rose and went in, declar 
 ing our thirst, and that it was too cold outside. The 
 last I heard of the essay was something about adver 
 tisements of Greek slaves, and then Clayborne, who 
 liked archaeology well, but tea better, followed my 
 wife. These spoken essays were rare penalties of 
 friendship. 
 
 After cups enough to have satisfied Dr. Johnson, 
 and big enough to have shocked the female taste of his 
 day, Clayborne resigned himself to thought and a cigar. 
 
 A little later Mrs. Vincent remarked : " We are to 
 have the Rev. Mr. L next Sunday." 
 
 " English, is n t he ? " asked Vincent. 
 
 " Yes. He worships Gud," said I. 
 
 " We had a man last week," said Sibyl, " who prayed 
 to Gawde." 
 
 " He is an old acquaintance," said my wife. " He 
 knows that he drawls out Gawde/ and once defended 
 it to Mr. Vincent, assuring him that it was more re 
 spectful than to say l God. But in fact few clergymen 
 can say l God/ or ever do. In England men worship 
 Gud or Gawde." 
 
 " Your Mr. L ," said I, " who is to preach here 
 
 must be the very pleasant clergyman with whom I 
 talked on the steamboat. He is rector of a church in 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 447 
 
 Nova Scotia, and had been on a visit to Boston. He 
 was on his homeward way, and, I suppose, has been 
 asked to preach here. I found him very agreeable, 
 but not in the sense of agreeing with me. Far from 
 it. We differed on nearly every subject we touched. 
 When the steamer stopped at, I think it was Rockland, 
 Mr. L and I were on the upper deck, quietly en 
 joying the fine scenery of the islands about us. I saw 
 come aboard on the lower deck three young men, 
 probably clerks or baggage-agents. One sat down on 
 a barrel and lit a cigar. The three were evidently 
 discussing some very exciting matter. Just before 
 the plank was removed a rather older man came on 
 board. He went at once up to the group. I shall 
 call him A. He said in an angry voice to No. 1, l You 
 lied to-day. No. 1 said, <I did not, and you know 
 it. Then said A to No. 2, l You are a liar, too. l No/ 
 No. 2 returned j you are the liar, not me. Lastly A 
 said to No. 3, You are the worst liar of the lot. 
 No. 3 got off the barrel and knocked down A." 
 
 " That is pretty nearly an adventure," said Mrs. 
 Vincent. " Do tell us the rest." 
 
 " A got up and walked away." 
 
 " But how mysterious ! " 
 
 " Yes. I learned later that the younger men had 
 been that morning witnesses in a lawsuit against A, 
 but what about I do not know. My clerical friend 
 had looked on with curious tranquillity. I said : l Mr. 
 
 L , which of the three did the right thing ? He 
 
 replied : That depends on the cause of the quarrel. 
 Certainly he who struck was wrong ; but I am always 
 distressed to find that I sympathize more than is right 
 
448 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 with violence. I was long in the army. I became 
 convinced that all war is wicked. I left the service 
 of the Queen. " 
 
 " I am sure, Owen/ said my wife, " that you set to 
 work to bewilder that man about war." 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed." 
 
 " But I am not. I merely reported my honest con 
 victions." 
 
 " But why bother a soul at rest with your uneasy 
 convictions ? " 
 
 " I had to say something." 
 
 " Well, if that is your only defense, I am at one 
 with Alice," said Anne Vincent. " Men are never at 
 rest about their beliefs, and go about to trouble quiet- 
 minded folks." 
 
 " I was not very wicked. I had to defend my 
 opinion. The man said that no man who was a 
 Christian could believe war to be right. He made 
 the usual commonplace statements as to turning the 
 other cheek and offering non-resistance to violence. 
 I said that war, like personal violence, was only justi 
 fiable in cases where law was not available and a great 
 wrong was being done. My clergyman declared this 
 to be against the teaching of Christ." 
 
 " Of course you went further," said my wife. 
 
 " I did, and this was what shocked the man most. 
 I said that Christ gave to his disciples certain rules of 
 conduct, and that these were clearly meant for a 
 chosen few." 
 
 " That is Mr. Clayborne s exegetic thunder," said 
 Vincent. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 449 
 
 " Or some one else s," said I. " But no matter. It 
 is true. It did not, as I see it, include entire non- 
 resistance, for that would put an end to order and 
 to progress. The most remarkable praise which 
 fell from Christ s lips is given to a professional 
 soldier. Nor is he told to sin no more or to give up 
 a wicked business. When the man Christ drove out 
 the money-changers, it was with violence, not by act 
 ing through a miracle, but as a man using righteous 
 weapons. Was there no resistance? Is it likely 
 there was not ? The soldier, we are told, was to be 
 contented with his wages. He was not to quit the 
 business of war. Let me defend myself further. If 
 the commentary of common sense be refused an opin 
 ion on the ethics of Christ, we meet with certain dis 
 aster. The charity and moderation of his" opinions 
 are best represented in the few verses which follow, 
 in St. Mark, his decree as to divorce. This is a brief 
 summary of what I said. I declared at last that if 
 our creed made all war, personal and national, an 
 impossible thing for an honest follower of Christ, I 
 should cease to rest quiet in the church. After I said 
 
 this Mr. L remained a long time silent. Then he 
 
 said: I left the army because it seemed to me a 
 wicked profession. I was better fitted for it than for 
 the pulpit. I wish I could have felt as you do. Oh, 
 long ago I was a pretty good centurion. 7 n 
 
 "Ah, I am sorry for him," said Sibyl. 
 
 " And I," said Mrs. Vincent. " That Roman officer 
 is pretty convincing." 
 
 " It should not need argument," said I. " If ever 
 you and I, Vincent, served God well it was in those 
 
450 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 bitter years of war, and I told the man so. He said : 
 i I am glad not to have had that trial. We must go 
 our own ways. See how differently you and I regard 
 a grave question. After this he was silent a little 
 while, and then added : l Christianity has many labels, 
 but how vast was that personality from which such 
 numberless forms of belief have claimed descent! 
 I sometimes think that the Christ will outlast 
 Christianity. " 
 
 " And what did you say, Owen ? " asked my wife. 
 " I hardly understand his last phrase. 7 
 
 " Well, I said nothing, or nothing relevant, because 
 just then I burned my finger with a match, also a 
 shower drove us in, and, between fire and water, the 
 talk broke up. I hope I did not annoy him." 
 
 " You can be very positive, Owen," remarked my 
 wife. 
 
 " I asked him to dinner, Alice." 
 
 "Owen thinks that covers many sins. Will he 
 come ? " 
 
 "No, he could not." 
 
 " Well, it is bedtime," said my wife. " I hope he 
 will revenge himself in his Sunday sermon. The 
 other cheek of logic is never turned. What is it, 
 Sibyl?" 
 
 Miss May wood detained them, saying : " Oh, talk 
 ing of quarrels, that reminds me to tell you some 
 thing which Mr. Afton Dr. Afton, I mean told me 
 of a woman he knew, a maiden lady who was deaf and 
 dumb. He said she was a person of remarkable edu 
 cation and of singular gentleness. She was one of a 
 family of strong, vehement people, who held diverse 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 451 
 
 opinions as to religion, politics, and much besides. 
 They quarreled endlessly, and had it not been for 
 Miss C- - would have been long ago hopelessly 
 separated." 
 
 "And how," said Vincent, " could a deaf-and- 
 dumb woman influence such people ? " 
 
 " That was the curious thing. They all loved her 
 and all respected her. To be able to talk with her 
 they had learned the finger sign-language. None of 
 them used it very readily. When she observed them 
 to be in one of their heated talks she began to speak 
 with her sign-language. Its use was for them such a 
 deliberate matter, so much more tranquil and slow 
 than speech, that the discussion inevitably cooled, and 
 ended by every one getting quieted." 
 
 " How delightful, Fred ! " said Mrs. Vincent. " Sup 
 pose we introduce that into the acrimony of our 
 household debates." 
 
 Vincent smiled, but said nothing. 
 
 " I am glad that Sibyl kept us up," said my wife. 
 " It is very early." 
 
 Every one laughed, and we all sat down. 
 
 " Suppose we send up," said St. Clair, " and fetch 
 down Clayborne. This promises a discussion which 
 may easily become historical. I affirm that to be 
 entirely silent is the best mode of keeping the peace. 
 It is my sole chance." 
 
 " Oh, no," cried Sibyl. " What is, what can be, so 
 exasperating to the other people? The deaf-and- 
 dumb talk seems to me admirable. But perhaps 
 they have oh, perhaps they bite thumbs at one 
 another." 
 
452 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " And to shake your fist," said Vincent, " is expres 
 sive." 
 
 "Ah," cried St. Clair, "of all the eternally silent 
 people I want to chat with, there is one 
 
 " Only one ? " broke in my wife. 
 
 " Oh, this one never spoke. She was born I 
 may assume that she was born; certainly she was 
 named. Of all a delightful company who talked 
 a great deal, she alone said nothing. I can see 
 her, and twice her name is used. She is tall, 
 stately, middle-aged, and forever merely a name. 
 She slips away unheard, with her finger on her 
 lips." 
 
 " What a pretty riddle ! " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Who is it ? Who can it be ? " cried Sibyl. 
 
 " Guess." 
 
 " I know," said Vincent. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Imogen, Leonato s wife, the mother of Hero." 
 
 " Of course," cried Alice. " The mother of Hero. 
 How dull of us ! It is in l Much Ado about Nothing. 
 Was she a printer s or player s mistake ? Did Shake 
 speare mean her to be in the play ? Did he forget 
 her?" 
 
 "Who knows? "said St. Clair. "When I found 
 this mother of Hero in an old folio, she went with 
 me silent through the play, broken-hearted for her 
 child s sorrows. Let no one disenchant me concern 
 ing this immortal silent one." He went on : " The 
 modern editors left out the name of this neglected 
 lady at least, Rowe and Pope did, and every one 
 since. I made a little verse about her." 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 453 
 
 "Well," said my wife, who had listened silently. 
 " This is it," said St. Clair. " Please to like it. 
 
 Immortal shadow, faint and ever fair, 
 
 Dear for unspoken words that might have been, 
 Compelled to silent sorrow none may share, 
 
 A ghost of Shakespeare s world, unheard, unseen. 
 How many more, like thee, have voiceless stood 
 
 Uncalled upon the threshold of his mind, 
 The speechless children of a mighty brood, 
 
 Who were and are not ! Never shall they find 
 The happier comrades unto whom he gave 
 
 Thought, speech, and action ; they who shall not know 
 The end of our realities, the grave, 
 
 Nor what is sadder, life, or any human woe." 
 
 " Thank you/ we said. " Thank you." 
 
 " That was your riddle," cried Sibyl, " Shakespeare s 
 dumb child. What a pleasant thought to take into 
 sleep ! " She had listened intently, bending forward, 
 a little flushed. 
 
 " Thank you," said Mrs. Vincent to St. Clair. " Is 
 that all?" 
 
 " No, but I forget the rest. The wind-up is com 
 monplace." 
 
 " Ah," said Sibyl, as they rose, " where now are 
 the thoughts which Shakespeare never put in words ? 
 Does thought ever die ? Where are they ? " 
 
 " In dreams, no doubt," cried my wife, laughing. 
 " Let us go and find them. Good night, everybody." 
 
XXVII 
 
 JT. CLAIR went and came, but appeared 
 to me to avoid being alone with Miss 
 Maywood. When together in the com 
 pany of others neither he nor she 
 seemed to afford occasion for comment. 
 But it was hard to say what might chance with a 
 man like Victor. He might be entirely convinced 
 of the wisdom of a course, and then of a sudden 
 startle one by some contradictory action. 
 
 Late one afternoon, when all but Sibyl and this 
 writer had gone on a long walk, I strolled to the 
 beach, and met Sibyl coming up from the slip. Her 
 gait had never been that of a strong woman, and now, 
 as she came near to me, I saw her sway a little and 
 then stop and lean against one of the old apple-trees. 
 I turned and said : " Take my arm, Sibyl. What is 
 wrong with you ? " 
 
 " Nothing ; I am not very strong. I want to learn 
 to paddle a canoe. Mr. St. Clair said he would give 
 me a lesson. We were out only a half -hour. 77 
 " It was imprudent. St. Clair has no sense. 77 
 " Oh, but he was most interesting." 
 This seemed to me an odd reply. 
 " But, really, you should 77 
 " Yes, I know. Was I very naughty ? 77 
 454 
 
DK. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 455 
 
 "You were." 
 
 u I am very tired; I think I was born tired. Even 
 to talk long with you tires me. But Mr. St. Glair 
 does tire me most. If I am very attentive, that is 
 worst of all." 
 
 I left her at my own door and went back to find 
 Victor. 
 
 To scold him was useless. He had now the child 
 like look of one expecting to be blamed. I pleasantly 
 surprised him by saying : 
 
 " And did Sibyl learn to paddle ? " 
 
 " No. When we came in she asked me if she had 
 done well. I said yes. Is not that droll, Owen? 
 She had not touched a paddle. We were out two 
 hours. I merely showed her how to paddle." 
 
 " Two hours ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 As I went in reflective, I heard St. Clair call. I 
 turned back. 
 
 " Owen, will Miss May wood ever be well and 
 and strong ? " 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " I never asked before, but she is so frail and so 
 dependent that one naturally well, you understand." 
 
 Victor rarely lacked for words. I said yes, of course 
 we all felt as he did. 
 
 I was perplexed by her account and his, and inclined 
 to think there might be less occult and more obvious 
 reasons for the weakness which I had attributed in 
 part to mysterious causes. 
 
 The weeks ran away, and I still believed I saw the 
 influence of St. Glair s presence on Sibyl. Again I 
 
456 DR. NOKTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 talked to my wife about it, and although she still 
 doubted my explanation, she saw very plainly that 
 without apparent cause Sibyl was failing. I began to 
 feel that some prolonged separation was needed, and 
 at last said to Clayborne that I thought he must take 
 his cousin to Europe and let her have the benefit of 
 the Schwalbach Spa. I also did venture to say, what 
 was true, that she was keenly inquisitive, actively in 
 tellectual, and was and had been in a society too 
 stimulating to be borne by one who was mentally 
 eager and physically feeble. When I said that our 
 talk left her exhausted, I saw by Clayborne s look 
 of astonishment that I had been wise to go no 
 further. It would indeed have been useless to have 
 stated to Clayborne my suspicion that what I called 
 to myself latent affection and also influences more 
 mysterious had a share in making mischief. Of love- 
 affairs the scholar knew little, and as to the rest, he 
 would have smiled at an opinion so incapable of proof. 
 The physician is credited with want of faith in things 
 spiritual. The charge is common and has classical 
 support, and yet of all people he is the one most often 
 called upon to think and act with decision in cases 
 where action must rest on incomplete knowledge. He 
 moves amid mystery. If he does not intellectually 
 respect the complex riddles of soul, mind, and body, 
 and their interdependence, he is unfit for the higher 
 seats in the temple of the god of medicine. When I 
 supposed that the mere presence of St. Clair was hurt 
 ful to Sibyl, I was face to face with what was to me a 
 fact. We all tired her of late, but this other influence 
 was more mischievous. I could not prove it j but every 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 457 
 
 day I was acting on beliefs which no man could en 
 tirely justify by proof. I must put my conclusion on 
 ground where Clayborne and others could stand with 
 me. This is a common experience with the best of 
 my guild. It is the power to reason from uncertain 
 premises to conclusions as often unsure that makes 
 the best physician. He practises an art not yet a 
 science. It is based on many sciences. A man may 
 know them all and be a less skilful healer than one 
 who, knowing them less well, is master of the art to 
 which they increasingly contribute. 
 
 Clayborne was much alarmed when I thus reopened 
 the matter of Sibyl s health, and at once declared him 
 self willing and ready to go in September. It was 
 now August. The summer had been most fortunate. 
 I had finished my book ; Clayborne had nearly com 
 pleted his own task; all had gone well with us. 
 Except as to Sibyl, I had no care ; and, as Vincent re 
 marked, to complete our good luck the great Xerxes 
 had stayed away. Fate, which had dealt kindly with 
 us, was about to give us a taste of the perverse pos 
 sibilities of life. 
 
 One fine day in mid- August we arranged for a pic 
 nic on Otter Creek. Every one went except Mary, 
 who, to her disgust, was left behind, but was told 
 that she might fish from the rocks in the afternoon. 
 With a final caution to the nurse from my wife, we 
 drove away in our buckboard wagon. Five miles of 
 very bad road brought us at noon to where the Otter 
 Creek, now in full flow from recent rain, crossed 
 the road. A walk of half a mile took us along the 
 stream, among gigantic masses of tumbled granite. 
 
458 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 We settled down at last by a clear pool. Here 
 Clayborne, Vincent, and my wife left us to climb the 
 hill, that Clayborne might revisit the glacier pot-holes. 
 The servant busied himself with the lunch, put the 
 wine to cool in the brook, and St. Clair wandered off 
 through the woods. I sat down to keep Sibyl com 
 pany, together with Mrs. Vincent and Dr. Afton. We 
 were silent awhile, and then Mrs. Vincent said: " We 
 seem not to be in the mood for talk. I am not. Tell 
 us a story, Dr. Afton. I am like a child about stories. 
 I should always prefer to hear rather than to read 
 them." 
 
 Afton said : " Wait a little, Mrs. Vincent ; I must 
 search that index called memory." After a little he 
 said : " My puppets are off somewhere on a holiday. 
 I am storyless. Now, if Mary were asking me with 
 those seeking eyes, I should find them a tale at once. 
 I not only like to tell stories to children, but I delight 
 in stories about children. When my new book appears 
 you will see what a diligent collector I have been." 
 
 "What will you call your book? " asked Sibyl. 
 
 " The Wit and Wisdom of Childhood/ " he replied. 
 " And will not you contribute, Mrs. Vincent ? " 
 
 " I think not," she returned. 
 
 " Oh, but I will tell you a story," cried Sibyl ; " and 
 such a pretty story, oh, a mere bit of a story ! I heard 
 
 Mrs. K tell it to Mr. Clayborne. Once she was at 
 
 L in the Berkshire Hills, and went with the 
 
 S s to see a model village school. The teacher, 
 
 very proud of it, said : Now, children, we shall have 
 silence. While no one speaks you must think, and 
 some one of you shall tell me what his thoughts are. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 459 
 
 There was quiet for a while, the teacher explaining, 
 in an aside, that this plan led to introspective origi 
 nality. Suddenly a small boy rose, lifted his hand, and 
 said, Please, ma am. 7 
 
 " Well? 
 
 " l Please, ma am, may I kiss the new girl? M 
 
 " How pretty ! " said Mrs. Vincent. " It sounds a 
 bit like Concord and that amazing man Alcott, who 
 
 had a school at G for a time. He began school, 
 
 one day, by opening a blue cotton umbrella over his 
 head, and asking the children what idea it suggested." 
 
 " What answer did he get ? " said Afton. 
 
 " Ah, that I do not know. One does want to hear 
 what came after, and, indeed, what came after the 
 famous retorts, the memorable bons mots." 
 
 "Nothing comes," said Afton, "except laugh or 
 wrath." 
 
 " Oh, I suppose not," said Mrs. Vincent. " I envy 
 the ready people. I am never ready." 
 
 Sibyl laughed. " Oh, Mrs. Vincent ! " Few were 
 more apt at the quick rapier play of talk. 
 
 " It is true," said she. " I look before and after, 
 and pine and pine for what is not. I know next day 
 what I should have said. What is that Spanish 
 proverb St. Clair quotes ? The French saying is bet 
 ter, but every one knows that." 
 
 "Yes, yes," cried Sibyl; "this is it: 
 
 T is only fools who borrow 
 Their answers from to-morrow." 
 
 " That is not bad," said Afton ; " but I should put 
 1 the wise for l fools. Silence is often a fine epigram." 
 
460 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "I must tell Fred that/ laughed Mrs. Vincent. 
 " When, last year, we were talking of this matter, Mr. 
 Clayborne quoted I think it ran this way: 
 
 If to be silent is to be wise, 
 
 Then hath death the best replies." 
 
 "That is quaintly unsatisfactory," said Aftonj 
 " but you have it wrong. Pardon me : 
 
 If the best wisdom doth in silence lie, 
 How wise is death, that maketh no reply ! " 
 
 " Death is a grim question," said Sibyl. 
 
 Af ton looked at her gravely. 
 
 " That reminds me," said Mrs. Vincent, " of what 
 my husband said the other day, after we had talked 
 of men who wrote verse when about to die. He said 
 something as to the way in which humor showed 
 itself even in the last hours of life. Have you, Dr. 
 Afton, ever seen that?" 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 Then I said: "I have; but if it be to the sayer 
 always what it seems to the hearer, I do not know. 
 In fact, I have seen it often. I once attended a 
 circus clown who was dying. A Methodist clergy 
 man present said to him, My friend, you are very 
 ill. You have led a bad life which was too 
 true. Think of yourself. The poor fellow had 
 been worrying about his children. i What will you 
 say to your Maker when he asks you of your life ? 
 
 " 1 1 guess I 11 say, " What can I do for you next, 
 Master Ringmaster?" Guess he 11 know a circus 
 ain t a church. " 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 461 
 
 " Is that really true ? " asked Sibyl. 
 
 I said : " Yes ; and so is this. A man dying on the 
 field of Gettysburg asked me where he was hit. I 
 said, In the liver. To which the volunteer replied : 
 1 1 might have known that. I always did have trou 
 ble with my liver. " 
 
 " Was that humor ? I suppose not," said Mrs. Vin 
 cent ; " but how to classify it ? Was it simply humor ? 
 Was it, for the man, a mere statement of a fact ? Was 
 it self -felt, intentional humor? My husband tells a 
 
 charming story of the famous lawyer Mr. M . He 
 
 was slowly dying day by day, and well aware of it. 
 His doctor said, Did you take the pill ? Pill ! said 
 the sick man. l My daughter gave me two. A 
 harmless mistake, said the doctor. Well/ said 
 M , it is only another example of female dupli 
 city. The next day the doctor chanced to see on the 
 mantel-shelf a bottle of German spa water with some 
 unpronounceable name. For whom is that, Mr. 
 
 M ? he asked. l Oh, Mrs. C sent it to my 
 
 daughter. She takes it. l But why ? said the doc 
 tor. l Oh, to improve her German accent, I suppose. 
 Her German accent ? t Yes ; the taste is so damnably 
 pronounced. " 
 
 " That is quite perfect," said Dr. Afton. 
 
 " I forgot that you were the physician, Dr. North," 
 said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 "Yes, and it was like the man. He was full of 
 those queer verbal surprises." 
 
 Then said Sibyl : "How curious to be talking human 
 wit in this wild woodland ! How little it suggests 
 that ! " 
 
462 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " How little ! " I said. "As little as the approach of 
 death would seem to suggest or permit the mere play 
 upon words. Ah, here is Mr. St. Clair ! And what have 
 you seen in the woods ? We are talking bons mots." 
 
 " I have been better employed. I saw a wildcat." 
 
 " Oh ! n exclaimed Sibyl, looking about her. 
 
 " I watched him long. He had glorious eyes." 
 
 " Did he come after you ? " 
 
 "No; we interviewed each other ten feet apart. 
 I know what he thought." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. St. Clair, what was it?" 
 
 " I neither print nor relate my interviews, Miss 
 Maywood. I am not of the tribe who do. He was 
 a gentleman. He followed me a little way. Then I 
 said I was otherwise engaged, and he left me." 
 
 " I trust he did not find Fred," said Mrs. Vincent, 
 smiling. " Ah, here they are ! " And so presently we 
 were gaily lunching. 
 
 After luncheon I said I would leave them and 
 walk home, as I had some proof to read and send 
 away. I left St. Clair puzzling Clayborne over a 
 novel theory of glaciers, invented on the spot. 
 
 The road was lonely. Here and there it dropped 
 into deep valleys, with small regard to the con 
 venience of man or horse. Glad of my lonely walk, 
 I went on amid a moldering company of red-oaks 
 and vast pines left to rot at ancient ease. All 
 around were the young generation of trees. Off the 
 road to the right was a hillside of rocks in rough 
 cubes, like huge dice tumbled from the summit of the 
 mountain. The desire to struggle up this gray and 
 not attractive rubbish came upon me. I stood awhile 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 463 
 
 to see how best to do it, and then went on. A little 
 farther the road dipped nearly to the level of a bog, 
 meant to be a lake, but fallen to the low estate of 
 a morass fertile in due season, a mass of unattain 
 able lilies and somber cattails. Here again I made 
 a halt, and saw how the maples, which love water 
 fringes, were predictively suggesting the scarlet and 
 gold of autumn. Then I wandered off the road and 
 around the marsh. Strongly set in some natures is 
 the desire to go where one cannot, or to win the un- 
 attained, or to get the useless and difficult. I stood 
 thinking why the deadly peril of this marsh tempted 
 me. I tried it for the lilies sake, and went back to 
 the road, convinced by wet feet. I fell to thinking, 
 and of all things away and apart from the place I 
 reflected over a therapeutic problem which had often 
 puzzled me. For me to walk greatly prospers thought. 
 It was so now. I found what I wanted; but with 
 me such conclusions stray easily from my memory ; I 
 must insure their lives by instant record. I rose well 
 pleased. Then I was aware of St. Clair coming swiftly 
 through the wood and hailing me. 
 
 Seeing my muddy foot-wear and the bunch of brown 
 cattails with which I was fain to be content, he said : 
 " In England they call those things reed-mice. I am 
 glad you got no lilies. I was ashamed to tell Mrs. North 
 what Ruskin says of folks who plunder gardens or raid 
 the woods for wildings : l Luxurious and disorderly 
 people rejoice in them gathered. " 
 
 " What stuff ! A good rose lasts as long in a glass 
 on my table as in a garden. I like to see it unfold to 
 matronly maturity. I like to see the change as its red 
 
464 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 shadows darken. I like to see it let fall its leaves on 
 my table, over the books." 
 
 St. Clair had a pretty charm as a listener, and an 
 air of gentle attention which at times was very tak 
 ing. He was interested, and forgot his critic mood. 
 
 " Ah, if the decay of life were beautiful ! " 
 
 " And," I said, " you, a poet, do not see that some 
 lives are truly like this." He sat beside me, silent. I 
 turned to look at him. " Well I " I said, interrogatively. 
 
 "Nothing," he said, "nothing." 
 
 His eyes were full of tears. I stood up. " And so 
 you, too, ran away," I added. 
 
 "Yes, I deserted. I wanted to get home early. I 
 have to finish a sketch I began yesterday. The 
 weather and light are much the same as they were 
 when I began it. Besides, Clayborne was lecturing 
 on the ethics of history. In a forest like that ! Con 
 ceive of it, Owen. I told him he should make it a 
 chapter of his book on humor. Do you know, dear 
 old fellow to speak English as she is spoke railly 
 that s any amount more critically expressive than 
 really railly, he asked me, Why? 7 Oh, he is as 
 simple sometimes as a lumbering old box-turtle. 
 Mrs. Vincent shook her head at me. Miss Sibyl 
 looked cross and then puzzled. I left. The way those 
 women spoil him ! " 
 
 "What did he mean by the ethics of history?" 
 asked I. 
 
 "You are inconsiderate even to ask the question. 
 I came away disgusted. Here comes nature, sets her 
 scene with a perfect day, leads you into the woods, 
 gives you a brook for chorus; and a man knocks 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 465 
 
 out all the poetry with an essay on what was it? 
 Thank Heaven, I have forgotten it ! Don t tell me, 
 please. Oh, ethics of history ! And the dear people 
 jibed me about the wildcat." 
 
 " You saw one, Victor ? " 
 
 " I did. I was like a child, afraid to tell all. No 
 one ever believes me. I will tell you." 
 
 " Please do." 
 
 " When I saw that cat I got on my hands and 
 knees and crawled toward him. Also he crawled. 
 When I got within two feet of him he began- to wink. 
 Then I knew he was afraid. Oh, what golden eyes ! 
 Then I put out a paw and smoothed his fur. After 
 that he lay on my lap, and we talked." 
 
 I had not the least doubt as to the truth of what 
 he now told me. 
 
 " Did you hypnotize him ? " I asked. 
 
 " No. Perhaps. How can I tell ? I have no fear 
 of wild things. I never tried a lion. If Xerxes 
 were really a beast through and through I could 
 tame him." 
 
 " That is the worst of this world," I said. " Men 
 are losing their instincts, and not getting brains fast 
 enough to supply the loss of animal talents." 
 
 " I should like to have Xerxes in a menagerie. 
 He does look like a bear, and he has not one com 
 plete beastly quality." 
 
 " Well, he is being tamed, Victor." 
 
 "Yes; he will become uninteresting, like all tame 
 things. His yacht came in to-day. Fred will be 
 pleased." 
 
 "Will he not? His capability of being seriously 
 
466 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 annoyed by a man like Crofter is strange to me. 
 You would have been amused at that visit. Vincent 
 was quiet, dignified, and, as usual, tranquilly well- 
 mannered. You know his manners have no accent. 
 I wished you had been with us. To us who know 
 Vincent well it was a delightful encounter. The 
 gentle, scarce obvious self-restraint was clear to see. 
 It was lost on Xerxes, not on us." 
 
 " The scamp ! Ah, if he only knew, as I do in my 
 small way, the satisfaction of feeling that, if not 
 yourself good, you are the cause of good in others ! 
 What with Xerxes and Clayborne, I have lost half 
 a day. I came out of the wood with my head full of 
 verses about my gold-eyed cat, and there were the 
 ethics of history, and now you and Xerxes." 
 
 " How delightful," I said, " to have the crude stuff 
 of poetry in your mind and to watch it take shape ! 
 Does it grow like a child? How do fellows make 
 poetry ? The embryology of a poem has always been 
 to me more of a mystery than any other mental 
 process." 
 
 We were now seated on the roadside, the sketch 
 forgotten. 
 
 "We once before discussed it, Owen. If one had 
 all the copies of one great poem from the initial 
 thought to the final verbal touches we should know 
 more about it. After a poem is born it has to be 
 educated. All verse worth writing at all costs labor, 
 in some cases very great labor. Its primary con 
 ception and birth must always remain mysterious. 
 But of this be sure, Owen, that, as with a foreign 
 tongue, one must think in it, so with poetry : if a 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 467 
 
 man does not think in rhythms he is not a poet. And 
 if he be ever so much of one he is little wanted now 
 adays. Fellows write to me and send verse. * Will I 
 kindly criticize and return? 7 I write 7 
 
 " You do really answer?" 
 
 " Yes. I write : Do you think in rhythms ? If 
 not, you had better retire from that business j no one 
 wants it now, bad or good. Fools like me will go on 
 scribbling verse. The love of verse is lost out of the 
 life of the time. It never was in our life as it was 
 in Elizabeth s day. Imagine the President or our 
 English ambassador winding up a state paper with a 
 sonnet." 
 
 " Who ever did, Victor ? " 
 
 " Some one j I forget his name. But come along, 
 Owen, or I shall lose my evening light." 
 
 By five o clock I was at my own door. Mary was 
 on the rocks, deluding small flounders. I saw St. 
 Clair hurrying through the orchard to the eastern 
 side of the projecting promontory which here divided 
 the beach. Pleased to have a tranquil afternoon for 
 revision of my book, I went up to my study. My 
 wife by no means allowed afternoon work, but that 
 lady was in the woods listening to the ethics of his 
 tory. I pulled my table to the window and began to 
 read my manuscript. Below me the old apple-trees 
 gave glimpses through their gnarled limbs of the sun 
 lit sward. Standing out to the north and breaking 
 the beach-line rose a short headland, rocky and bare, 
 and not over twenty feet high. Below it on one side 
 was a level ledge of rock some six feet wide. Here, 
 above the sea, which was breaking on the rocks, I 
 
468 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 caught sight at times of my little maid s yellow locks 
 and of the woman in charge sitting near by. St. 
 Glair was on a lower ledge to the southeast, on the 
 other side of the headland. Presently, as an apple- 
 tree swayed in the wind, I saw on the summit of the 
 rock a bulky figure. To see better I moved to the 
 next window, and, as it was quite four hundred feet 
 away, caught up a field- glass to make sure. It was 
 Xerxes. St. Clair had approached the rocks from the 
 farther side. I could not see him, but I knew ex 
 actly where he was sitting, and that he must be un 
 aware of the fact that Xerxes could look critically 
 down on him and his work. 
 
 With this comical situation in full view I gave 
 up my book and went out on to the upper porch. 
 Here at the western end T could see better all 
 concerned, or unconcerned, except St. Clair. Mary 
 was the most patient of fishers, because if the fish 
 were on her hook or not seemed of no moment. 
 She went on intently fishing and making no noise. 
 Mr. Crofter, ignorant of being spied upon by me, 
 enjoyed the situation. I could see him smile. He 
 was of no mind to disturb the fisher or the painter, 
 upon whom in turn he looked down. I could see his 
 liberal grin as he inspected St. Clair from this van 
 tage. Then he turned and watched Mary. She stood 
 or sat on the ledge of rock, and now and then freely 
 refreshed her bait with lavish addition of clams as 
 the bare hook came up after having regaled the much- 
 comforted fish, who were the supes in my little drama. 
 Suddenly Crofter had a mind to smoke. He gave 
 it up either because, again, of absence of matches 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 469 
 
 or because he was unwilling to risk the betrayal of 
 a situation which he evidently enjoyed. I laid down 
 my glass, and having no such fear of consequences, I 
 lit a pipe. A little later I went in and got a stronger 
 glass ; then I sat down to enjoy this comedy. 
 
 I cannot quite disentangle what next I saw from 
 what I afterward heard. The little maid was quick 
 of ear. Hearing something, she jumped up, and sud 
 denly was aware of her friendly bear overhead. I 
 heard a cry of warning from the nurse. Mary backed 
 a little, the better to see Crofter. She cried out, " Oh, 
 Bear, Bear, come down and fish ! " and put her foot be 
 hind her where no rock was. She fell backward into 
 the sea, and in an instant was twenty feet away. Be 
 fore I could throw a leg over the rail of the porch I 
 saw Crofter jump down some ten feet on to the ledge 
 below. As he alighted he slipped and fell heavily. 
 He rose at once and threw himself into the sea. For 
 the time I saw no more. I dropped on to the grass 
 below me and ran down through the trees. I saw 
 Crofter, a rod or so out, trying to reach the sand-beach. 
 He held the child clear of the water, and seemed to 
 me to be in some way disabled. St. Clair, a wonder 
 ful swimmer, was helping him toward the strand. 
 
 " All right," he cried, laughing, as he caught sight 
 of me. " A hand, quick, Owen." 
 
 I ran down the beach, and wading into the sea, 
 caught up the child ; then I offered a hand to Crofter. 
 "Can t," he said; "something >s broke." 
 
 In a moment both men were ashore. The infant 
 cause of this scene was crying lustily and very wet j the 
 nurse was making a noise larger in proportion to her 
 
 31 
 
470 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 size. St. Clair was laughing and shaking the water from 
 his coat, like a wet dog. Xerxes was standing still, 
 looking at the maid, and saying at intervals, " Damn 
 it, don t cry." He had a cut over his left eye, and his 
 right arm hung helpless. To add to the dramatic 
 effect, my wife was running down through the or 
 chard. Vincent, far behind her, was tranquilly talk 
 ing with Afton, not yet having seen or guessed our 
 nearness to a tragedy. There were scant words of quick 
 explanation. My wife seized the scared child and ran 
 with her to our house, declaring that I ought to be 
 ashamed, and that she would never leave her again, 
 and where, indeed, had I been ? Mrs. Vincent went 
 with her, too wise to try to set her right at the wrong 
 moment, but, as usual, silently efficient. Miss Mary 
 was put to bed, and leaving the mother, Mrs. Vincent 
 went over to her own home to ask questions. Fred, 
 coming out, met her. 
 
 "You cannot go in yet, Anne," he said. "Yes, it 
 is simple. This is all of it. Mr. Crofter was up on 
 the top rock when Mary fell in. In place of scram 
 bling down, as any sensible man would have done, 
 he jumped the ten feet, and of course slipped, and 
 fell on the ledge. He put his shoulder out of place, 
 and cut his stupid head ; but somehow he got into the 
 sea and fetched up your godchild, who was in the 
 condition of Ophelia as to appetite for water. Then 
 St. Clair, who was in the side scenes somewhere, en 
 tered, to left, I believe, and he, too, went into the sea. 
 He had all he could do to get the crippled bear and 
 Mary into shallow water." 
 
 Anne Vincent said sternly : " Fred, I never heard 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 471 
 
 you so I am ashamed of you. I see nothing amus 
 ing in it." 
 
 "Nor I, you dear goose. Confound it, Anne, 
 sometimes a laugh is the only escape from tears. 
 Get the blue room ready. Mr. Crofter must stay 
 here, I suppose." 
 
 " Of course ; where else should he stay ? A year, 
 if he will/ 
 
 Vincent reentered the room to aid me in the easy 
 task of replacing a simple dislocation of the shoulder. 
 It was brief in the doing, but painful. Xerxes bore 
 it well. Then I sent Vincent to my own house to get 
 the needed dressings for the cut on Crofter s forehead. 
 At last, his arm in a sling and his head neatly ban 
 daged, I left him that I might take a look at my 
 child. While he was being put to rights he scarcely 
 let fall a word, except to say, " Is that all right ? " 
 or, " Don t be afraid to hurt me." 
 
 On my way I met Clayborne and Sibyl, who had 
 lingered in the village and walked home. They were 
 the last to hear of our disaster. Sibyl turned pale 
 and went hastily toward my house. Clayborne asked 
 me if he could be of any service. When I said no, 
 and that everything had been done that could be 
 done, he went in silence to his own room. 
 
 I found the little maid quite recovered from her 
 fright and disposed to turn the matter to good ac 
 count, realizing her recent increment of importance. 
 " Might she have two cakes for tea, and was the 
 bear very wet 1 " 
 
 As soon as I had left Crofter he said to Vincent : 
 "Is the kid all right?" 
 
472 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Vincent. " There is no cause for 
 alarm. But you are not to talk. You have had a 
 bad fall." Vincent was in a condition of mind for 
 which no previous experience could have prepared 
 him. He himself did not want to talk, but the big 
 man was not easily kept quiet. As he lay on the 
 lounge he regarded Vincent with a succession of 
 serene smiles. At last he said : 
 
 " You ; re awfully fond of the kid." 
 
 " I Yes ? of course." 
 
 "You ve got to like me, Mr. Vincent. Fate ? s a 
 right tricky bronco. I guess she has bucked you 
 bad." 
 
 " I rather think she has," he said frankly. " I am 
 eternally in your debt, Mr. Crofter." 
 
 "Receipt in full," said Xerxes. "Where 7 s that 
 Indian, Saint Clair ? He s on top this time. Between 
 us, Mr. Vincent, that beach was miles off when he 
 got hold of me. I was swimming sort of crab style, 
 sideways, a bit dazed, I guess, head turning round. 
 Could n t I see that young scalp-hunter ? " 
 
 St. Clair, satisfied as to Mary, had promptly dis 
 appeared. Vincent, pleased at so good an excuse to 
 escape, said : " I will find him, but you are to keep 
 quiet. Mrs. Vincent will have a room ready at once. 
 The child s mother will want to see you in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 "All right," said Xerxes. "You find me the 
 young man. I want to thank him. I want to get 
 it over. I hate thanking people. So do you, I 
 guess." 
 
 Vincent winced. It was true. He had a well- 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 473 
 
 marked dislike to being thanked. Now, relieved, he 
 went out to look for St. Clair. Not finding him, he 
 found himself obliged to come back. Then he dis 
 covered, as I had also done, that Xerxes Crofter had 
 departed. We learned later that on the road he met 
 what folks at Bar Harbor call a " cut-under," was 
 driven swiftly to the village, went on board the Night 
 Hawk, and was away in an hour, with all sail set. 
 When we missed him my wife declared war on all 
 the male sex. We might have known what he would 
 do. Plainly, Mr. Crofter was unwilling to face the 
 gratitude of a mother. She supposed we had never 
 said a word to him of our boundless debt, and now 
 just to patch up the poor fellow and let him go ! We 
 explained in vain. As to Vincent, he was slightly 
 ashamed at his satisfaction in Xerxes s flight. " No 
 one could have known he would go," I said. Mrs. 
 Vincent said his flight showed remarkable delicacy of 
 sentiment. He did not want to be thanked. But, really, 
 we could not let him go in this abrupt way. I said the 
 abruptness was his, not ours. My wife considered 
 me with grave severity. 
 
 "You must find him, Fred," said Anne Vincent. 
 
 " And you, too," said my wife. " Where is Mr. 
 St. Clair?" 
 
 No one could say. Clearly, it was not a male 
 day, and we knew it. We passively obeyed. It was 
 too late. Crofter had gone when we reached the 
 village. 
 
 At dinner we assembled as usual ; for we dined 
 together on alternate days, and now it was at the 
 Vincents house. Sibyl, my wife said, had gone to 
 
474 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 bed much overcome and, as I knew, a little hys 
 terical. Clayborne had learned of Crofter s disap 
 pearance. The new situation in regard to Crofter 
 did not call for prolonged discussion, but we all 
 knew that we had contracted a heavy debt. Vin 
 cent was indisposed to talk. When I said I would 
 write to Crofter, to my surprise Clayborne said that 
 he had already written, and had sent his letter to the 
 village to catch the Portland mail. He had heard 
 that the yacht would put in there. Upon this my 
 wife said Clayborne was an angel, and informed me 
 with decisiveness that I should have shown similar 
 good sense. When I said I would write as soon as 
 dinner was over, Alice said : " I must see your letter, 
 Owen, and I shall write one myself." 
 
 St. Clair was silent, until at dessert he got up, 
 exclaiming, " By George, it is maddening ! Here is 
 Xerxes my friend for life. I shall have to apologize 
 and make more busts, and, great Scott ! With this, 
 feeling that language was useless or inadequate, he 
 went out and took to his canoe. 
 
 Next day, to my surprise, Sibyl came down to break 
 fast, which of late was rare, and before the meal was 
 over the Vincents and St. Clair came in to ask news 
 of Mary, who was still in bed. 
 
 " I am going away to-day," said St. Clair. 
 
 " You are going to New York/ 7 said my wife. 
 
 " I did not say so." 
 
 "No, you did not, but that is where you are 
 going. Here is a letter which my Mary insisted 
 on dictating. The signature is her own. Please to 
 deliver it for me." 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 475 
 
 " Oh, read it, do ! " said Mrs. Vincent. Whereupon 
 we had the letter. 
 
 " t DEAR MR. BEAR : My mama says I may thank 
 you. I did not know bears could swim. I hope you 
 got dry soon. Come soon and play bear. Bears are 
 nice people. I have to stay in bed. Are you in bed ? 
 Mama says I must say now 
 
 " 1 1 am yours truly, 
 
 " < MARY. 
 
 "When," added Mrs. North, "I asked, <Is there 
 anything else you want to have me write ? the dear 
 child said, Please say, " I prayed God to make you 
 and me good bears." 
 
 "You put it in?" said I. 
 
 " I did, of course." 
 
 There was silence for a moment, and full eyes. 
 Then St. Clair said : " Mary may prove a good moral 
 missionary for the old pagan." 
 
 " Victor ! " exclaimed Mrs. Vincent, sternly. 
 
 The culprit smiled. "You will see that I am 
 right. Saith El-Din-Attar : l Successful virtue natters 
 the soul of man. " Then he added irascibly: "It is 
 all very well for you people who have never been in 
 sulted by this amazing animal. But think of me. 
 I must eat the pie of humility, and I am going to do 
 it now, at once ; but truly life is very unsatisfactory. 
 A sorrow s crown of sorrows is well, is to be the 
 dog on top and to be muzzled. Come, Owen, let us 
 smoke. There is a time for that, although the sage 
 Ecclesiastes does not mention it." 
 
476 DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 As we rose Mrs. Vincent and my wife assured him 
 that nothing justified the manner in which he per 
 mitted himself to speak of a man who had saved 
 Mary s life. 
 
 " It is my final snarl/ said St. Glair. 
 
 " Well," said Clayborne, " it does seem to me that 
 Victor had some share in the matter." 
 
 " As if we did not know that ! " said my wife. " I 
 think I made that clear to him. I can never, never 
 forget, never." 
 
 " Oh, please not ! " cried St. Clair. " Come," he 
 added gloomily, " come, let us smoke, Owen." 
 
 In the evening St. Clair left us, but what he said 
 to Crofter I do not know. 
 
 The next morning brought us this characteristic 
 letter, written on the yacht and addressed to my wife : 
 
 " DEAR MRS. NORTH : You will desire to know from 
 me just what happened yesterday ; and, luckily, my 
 left hand is in good state. I can manage to scrawl 
 letters with it. I walked to your farm, and, as no 
 one was in, went to the rocks and got on top. Miss 
 Mary was there already, fishing. Later on Mr. Saint 
 Clair arrived on the other side of the rocks and 
 sat down under a projecting ledge. I could see 
 his sketch and his hands, and, as he was twenty 
 feet away, I watched him with my glass. It is a 
 first-class sketch. I mean to have it; tell him so. 
 Between the two, I had a right good time. Then the 
 kid fell in, and I jumped and fell, but I got into the 
 water. The nurse howled most usefully; an engine 
 danger-whistle could n t beat her. I was thrashing 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 477 
 
 round like a lame duck when Mr. Saint Clair caught 
 me. I held the maid, and he held me. I guess he 
 never did suspect he d be that affectionate. We got 
 out, and you know the rest. I do suppose I have n t 
 often given people large occasion to thank me. Come 
 to collect interest on that debt, and I could n t stand 
 it, especially the mother. I left. Tell North I am 
 all right. Got a right nice little doctor on the yacht. 
 He always consults me as to what he shall do. Tell 
 Miss Mary the bear sends his love and seven nice 
 growls. Mrs. Crofter is on board and desires me to 
 send you her apologies for my rudeness in leaving 
 you. I do. XERXES CROFTER." 
 
 This odd letter was duly answered, but what my 
 wife said I do not know. Also other letters passed, 
 but neither was I let to see any of these. 
 
 Early in September Clayborne told us that, as I 
 had advised, he was going abroad at once with Sibyl. 
 No sooner did St. Clair hear this than he said he, too, 
 was going. He had returned long before from New 
 York, but declined gaily to relate his interview with 
 Crofter ; and now he said he was going with Clay- 
 borne. I was too wise to tell him why he should 
 not. He knew the very obvious reasons against it, 
 and I had no mind to do more than to repeat what 
 it did seem to me any man of sense and feeling 
 should have at once decisively felt. And still, de 
 spite Mrs. Vincent s words, and what my wife added, 
 he continued resolute to accompany Clayborne. It 
 was unlike him. He rarely resisted when we all 
 held an opinion contrary to his own. At last my 
 
478 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 wife again took the matter in hand. She had agreed 
 with me that it would be cruel and unwise to use as a 
 motive the strange view I held as to his mere pres 
 ence being hurtful to Sibyl. She said to me at 
 the close of a long and anxious conversation : "I 
 mean to talk to him to-morrow." What passed I 
 do not know, but he told me next day that the only 
 true art in a debased world was that of Japan, and 
 that the degenerate artists of Italy, like Da Vinci 
 and the rest, were as mere groping children. He had 
 told Clayborne he could not go with him. I was 
 greatly relieved. Soon after Clayborne sailed St. 
 Clair went to California. What had my wife said 
 to him? Our friends went away early in Septem 
 ber, leaving us somewhat anxious. Until the day 
 he himself left, Victor was quiet, and, for him, 
 depressed as I had never before seen him. Sibyl, 
 no doubt, felt keenly the separation from the two 
 friendly women who had learned to love her. She 
 said little, but, when finally it was decided upon, 
 her eyes showed that she had indulged in the com 
 fort of tears. Now, at the moment of departure, 
 as had occurred at other times of trial, she showed 
 unexpected fortitude. As I looked at the face she 
 turned back when they drove away, I saw its pale 
 ness, and knowing too much, paid the sad penalty 
 of knowledge. It was not, however, a case for de 
 spair, and I said so to Mrs. Vincent. I was not 
 without hope the gentle guest who lingers last, re 
 luctant to depart. 
 
 We remained at Bar Harbor long after Clayborne 
 and his cousin had sailed, and saw no more of St. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 479 
 
 Clair, who followed them to New York on his way 
 to California. I recall our last afternoon on the 
 island. Vincent had been called away on business. 
 For three days a fierce east wind had been blowing. 
 The storm broke at noon. The sun came out, and 
 we decided with one voice to spend the afternoon at 
 Great Head. On that high headland we found a dry, 
 rocky camping-ground, and leaving the servant to 
 get the tea ready, we went up on to a side rock to 
 watch for a while the march of the waves still roll 
 ing landward from the sea. The child sat on my 
 lap, and looked with wondering eyes on the billows, 
 as they rose, ramping up the black rocks, and broke 
 in a wild roar like lions disappointed of their prey. 
 We too sat silent, awed by the spectacle of this incal 
 culable force. At last a larger wave sent over us a 
 shower of spray. We retreated to our tea-camp, 
 and threw ourselves down on the cushions we had 
 brought. Behind us the far cliffs of Newport, the 
 Beehive Hills, and the higher slopes of the larger 
 mountains were masses of red and gold, with here 
 and there somber contrast of dark-green pine and 
 spruce. 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed Mrs. Vincent, sadly, "the fall 
 has come. I do not like the season, but I do like our 
 word, the fall. It seems so prettily to predict the 
 spring. How beautiful it is ! " 
 
 "Indeed, I wish it were spring," said my wife. 
 " The birds are leaving us. They, at least, are sure 
 of endless spring. What are those lines, Owen, St. 
 Clair liked to repeat ? " 
 
 "You mean about the cuckoo? Logan s or Mi- 
 
480 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 chael Brace s? I certainly think them Logan s 
 1 The Cuckoo s Return in Spring. 
 
 What time the daisy decks the green, 
 
 Thy certain voice we hear; 
 Hast thou a star to guide thy path, 
 
 Or mark the rolling year? 
 
 And then, I forget the rest, all but : 
 
 Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 
 No winter in thy year." 
 
 "I did not know the lines," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 " We could not well afford to lose these minor poets. 
 Just think what a tender little thrill of pleasure it 
 gave us all, this small voice out of the last century. 
 It makes one think of Victor. You said you had a 
 letter from him, Alice. It is now six weeks, and we 
 have not had a line from any of them, except that 
 brief note to say that Sibyl had been the better for 
 the voyage." 
 
 " I have one from Mr. St. Clair and one from Clay- 
 borne," returned my wife. " They came just as 
 your buckboard drove up for us. Here they are. I 
 left them unopened until we could read them to 
 gether." 
 
 " And there are none for me ? " said Mrs. Vincent. 
 " He should have answered me about the curtains in 
 the red room." 
 
 " I am sure, Anne, that is a perfectly simple thing. 
 Why should you plague the man about his curtains ? 
 You will hear soon, I am sure ; and if not, what does 
 it matter ? " she added, amiably contented, while Vin- 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 481 
 
 cent s face suggested an immature smile, and I re 
 plied in kind. 
 
 u Victor writes : I sail for Japan to-morrow. I 
 stayed a good while in Salt Lake City with the 
 Mormons, in a Mormon house. The man had 
 modestly contented himself with four wives. One, 
 he said, was a fine cook. One was the intellectual 
 wife, and doctored the family. There were lots 
 of books about. One wife was a really good mu 
 sician, and one was young and very, very pretty. 
 It seemed an intelligible arrangement and worthy 
 of imitation. He calmly ordered "either dear 
 charmer" away at will, which seems agreeably to 
 dispose of a difficulty. I did not venture to raise 
 the question of multiplicity of mothers-in-law. Ar- 
 temus Ward is not used as a classic in their public 
 schools. If you read Artemus on Mormons you 
 will know why. I went from home a much-dis 
 gruntled man. I am not sure I was wise to go away, 
 or at least to the Eastern world. I should have gone 
 to Europe with Clayborne, who never scolds me, and 
 who accepts me as I am. I had better have gone 
 with them and faced Here my wife stopped and 
 became slightly embarrassed. "The rest is rather 
 personal," she said. " I shall not read it. What does 
 Mr. Clayborne say ? I gave you the letter, Owen." 
 
 " Yes ; shall I read it aloud ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 It was like all of the scholar s epistles, brief. I 
 have known several great talkers who always wrote 
 condensed letters. He spoke cheerfully of Sibyl, and 
 thought Schwalbach had been and continued to be 
 
482 DE. NOBTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 of use to her. She was forbidden to write. Her ex 
 treme pallor had left her, and she had now a pretty 
 color which went and came. 
 
 There was pleasant comment on the good news of 
 Sibyl, and I read the postscript : " I am more troubled 
 here than at home, because, among this mass of 
 strangers, now and then Sibyl overhears things she 
 had better not. Yesterday some one said : " What a 
 pretty girl ! Pity she is so crooked." I was with her 
 at the time, and observed how it hurt her. You 
 know how strangely keen is her sense of hearing. " 
 
 " My poor Sibyl," said Alice. 
 
 Upon this Mary expressed herself in this wise and 
 with much emphasis : 
 
 " Sibyl she did tell me cwooked people could never 
 inawy. I heard papa say Cousin Wictor he was 
 vewy cwooked sometimes. So, mama, if bofe was 
 cwooked" 
 
 Here mama thought fit to check this small disposer of 
 fate. Mary replied : " But I can t help finking, mama." 
 
 We laughed and went off to the cliff edge again, 
 and had our tea and cigars, and waited, stilled by the 
 thunder voices of the sea. By and by it fell dark and 
 darker, and then the heave and tumble and crash of 
 the billows became glorious with phosphorescent 
 lights, the fireflies of the ocean, and this was the last 
 of a too eventful summer. 
 
 I asked my wife no questions as to the part of St. 
 Glair s letter which she would not read aloud. We 
 both held sacred the secrets of others, and felt that 
 the union which seeks too completely to merge two 
 individualities into one does not fitly represent the 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 483 
 
 ideal republic of marriage. However curious I was, 
 and I am an intensely curious man, I asked no ques 
 tions as to the matter. 
 
 And yet I was very curious. I was still more so 
 when, two months later, Mrs. Vincent, coming in to af 
 ternoon tea, said : " I got this envelop from St. Clair 
 to-day, from Burma. I suppose it was intended to 
 inclose a letter. There was nothing within it. Is 
 not that like him ? " 
 
 A week later this lady showed my wife a short 
 note from the poet. It said merely that he wanted 
 to apologize for having failed to inclose the letter, 
 and to add that he was very glad he had so failed. 
 
 "And now," cried Anne Vincent, "I shall never 
 see it. What could he have said ? " 
 
 " I do not know," returned my wife. 
 
 " Of course not, dear but you do want to know, and 
 it was very like him and very exasperating. He 
 knows perfectly well how much I dislike these mys 
 teries to which he treats us now and then." 
 
 " It was a quite natural accident, Anne, to leave out 
 his letter, and, for my part, I often wish I had never 
 written some letters or had neglected to inclose them. 
 I do not think he should be blamed for so common an 
 accident." 
 
 " My dear Alice," said her friend, setting down her 
 tea-cup, "since Victor helped to save my godchild 
 you flash up at the mildest comment on this riddle 
 of a man. I cannot be wholly deprived of the privi 
 lege of abusing my friends." 
 
 " As much as you please, dear, but not to me, and 
 not St. Clair or my dear bear." 
 
484 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 "Well, my love, I promise, and* I do understand. 
 You must know that." 
 
 Vincent came in at this moment. He had been ab 
 sent for a week. 
 
 " How pleasant to be here once more ! Crofter has 
 built a steam-ark of unheard-of dimensions. I had 
 to see it, of course. He sails for Europe in March. 
 Mrs. C. has selected the animals. They represent 
 finance, family, and fashion. I told him we really 
 could not go, and now he wants Clayborne and Sibyl 
 for a summer cruise in the eastern Mediterranean." 
 
 " Oh, we ought to go," said Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " Well, I shall not interfere. Go by all means." 
 
 Of course we saw more or less of Crofter and his 
 very pleasant wife. Sometimes, it is to be feared, he 
 did not consult her tastes or ask her advice. 
 
 When Christmas came arrived a gorgeous pearl 
 necklace for Miss Mary. My wife put it away, and 
 the young lady did not see it for many a year. 
 
 " It is too absurd," said Vincent. " What can one 
 do with a man like this ? " 
 
 His turn came next day. Crofter sent him two 
 thousand cigars. Vincent groaned. I laughed and 
 said : " Whom the gods of finance love they overwhelm 
 with many gifts. He has sent me a priceless Horace, 
 an incunabula. I tremble to think of the cost." 
 
 "And me a ruby," said Alice, "and I am very 
 much obliged to him. He gave me back my child. 
 What is a ruby ! " 
 
 " You need not smoke the cigars, Fred," said I. 
 
 " Thank you for sage advice." 
 
 " My wife," said I, " has asked them to come over 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 485 
 
 for a week. You will dine with them on New Year s 
 day." 
 
 "Certainly. Anne cynically advises me to burn 
 the cigars. I suspect Mrs. Alice of that mild jest. I 
 shall accept the counsel. Anne says men are incom 
 prehensible. And the moral of it all, Owen ? " 
 
 " Good gracious, Fred ! How do I know ? Will 
 this run of gifts go on 1 " 
 
 "I," said Vincent, "have sent him the landscape 
 by Rousseau which he admired. I sent it as from 
 Anne and myself. It was her happy idea. Clay- 
 borne will be grimly amused. I wrote him last 
 night and asked him, as I ask you, the moral of this 
 terrible fable of the oppression of wealth." 
 
 When this letter was answered the scholar wrote : 
 " El-Din-Attar has somewhere remarked but perhaps 
 I had better not quote it. One of you would be sure 
 to tell your wife, and then 
 
 " And he, no doubt, calls that a joke/ said Vin 
 cent. It was not so considered by the women re 
 ferred to. 
 
 The visit of Mr. and Mrs. Crofter was cut down to 
 three days. In this I recognized Mrs. Crofter s judi 
 cious hand. I think Crofter enjoyed most his con 
 quest of Vincent, who during the time of their stay 
 was a source of boundless amusement to Alice and 
 Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 32 
 
XXVIII 
 
 |HE winter had gone. It was now April. 
 We were sitting before dinner, waiting 
 for the Vincents. My wife, with her 
 feet on the fender, turned to me and 
 said : " Do you remember what you 
 once said as to the mysterious effect you believed 
 St. Glair s presence had on Sibyl?" 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 "All our letters speak of her as better. Clay- 
 borne writes : I did not tell you, as I meant to do, 
 that with the return of health and color the halt in 
 her gait is at times hardly visible. Could that be so, 
 Owen ? " 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And about the other matter, will it be the same ? 
 You know I never believed it ; but, if you were right, 
 could it change ? " 
 
 " Possibly. The sick and the well are two people. 
 How completely they may be two we doctors alone 
 know. 7 
 
 " Could you have been wrong about it?" 
 
 " Yes, I may have been." 
 
 " You are a very extraordinary man, Owen North." 
 
 I laughed, but had no time to question her as to 
 
 486 
 
DK. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 487 
 
 this verdict, because the Vincents entered, followed 
 by Afton, whom I had caught on his way South. 
 
 We were a very merry party, and the more so be 
 cause of our letter that day from Sibyl, in fact, her 
 first letter, and one from Clayborne. Sibyl wrote 
 simply that her winter in the Engadine had still 
 further helped her, and that for the first time in 
 years she was free from constant sense of weakness. 
 She spoke of all of us, but not of St. Clair. Clay- 
 borne wrote that, although she still had the ethereal 
 and delicate loveliness we all knew so well, she was 
 able to drive and to ride donkeys and to enjoy the 
 life of the Alpine winter. " Of course," he added, 
 " she has to be very careful, and always will be unlike 
 other young women." 
 
 Afton was good company, and the talk took a wide 
 range, settling down at last on handwriting, as we 
 had been looking over my wife s collection of auto 
 graphs, which were chiefly family papers. 
 
 Mrs. Vincent asked Afton if he believed that char 
 acter could be read from handwriting. 
 
 He replied : "If you give me a number of speci 
 mens of the writing of one person a dozen or so of 
 letters I can sometimes tell something of the writer s 
 mental or emotional states at the time he wrote." 
 
 "But, beyond this," urged Mrs. North, "as to gen 
 eral character ? " 
 
 " Try me," he said. 
 
 Vincent chose for him to read the unsigned page of 
 a rather angry letter from Washington to an officer. 
 Afton said, as he read : " I think I recall this writing. 
 I do not now know whose it is. The man was a per- 
 
488 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 son of strong nature. The handwriting gives no evi 
 dence of the emotion which dictated the letter. Show 
 me a note of his. I do not know the hand. Ah, yes, 
 Washington s ! A pass. But he did not write it. It 
 is an aide s imitation, and so is the signature. A 
 perilous talent. As to character in its large sense, I 
 have at times made queer hits. Try me again. I may 
 fail. I often do." 
 
 My wife gave him a letter of Sibyl s and one of St. 
 Glair s, both doubled over to hide the signatures. 
 
 He said : " The woman s puzzles me. It is a 
 woman. The man s I at first thought it to be femi 
 nine. He is sensitive. Oh, an artist ! It must be Mr. 
 St. Glair s. That ends the value of my revelations, 
 but I think" 
 
 "Well?" said Vincent. 
 
 Afton laughed merrily. " I will write my opinion, 
 what I think, and one of you shall read it. I let me 
 look again yes, at both letters. I prefer not to pub 
 lish my opinion. One of you shall read it, and" 
 
 u Let us draw," said I, and, much amused, we did 
 so. My wife won, to Mrs. Vincent s dissatisfaction. 
 
 " But you will tell me, dear," she said. 
 
 " Not I," cried Alice ; " nor Owen, nor anybody." 
 
 Afton sat down, wrote a few words, put the slip 
 in an envelop, and gave it to my wife. Without 
 reading it, she put it in her pocket, after a half- 
 minute s search for that receptacle. We protested in 
 vain. 
 
 " Then," said Mrs. Vincent, " you must at least tell 
 me a story." 
 
 " About handwriting," I said. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 489 
 
 " Severe limitation, that, but I accept," returned 
 Aftou. 
 
 I said, as I rose : " Let us all go into the library 
 and smoke." 
 
 When we were thus at ease, Afton said : " This is 
 a family legend, and, on the whole, I would rather 
 not relate a too incredible tale. Will you not ransom 
 me, Mrs. North ? Show Mrs. Vincent my opinion as 
 to the letters." 
 
 "Not I, indeed. I have what Owen would call 
 your diagnosis. It is private property." 
 
 " It is, I should say, a prognosis," said Afton. 
 
 "That is better," said Alice, "but we must have 
 the story." 
 
 " Well, then, in the year 1839 my father s surviv 
 ing cousin, Thaddeus Afton, lived near Tracadie, New 
 Hampshire. He was a childless widower, very rich, 
 and of singular character. When he and my father 
 were young they both loved one and the same woman. 
 My father was successful. Thaddeus broke off all 
 relations with him, and they never met again until the 
 time of which I am about to speak. My father, the 
 most kindly man I ever knew, tried over and over 
 to mend a quarrel not of his making and which he 
 honestly lamented. 
 
 " In April, 1839, my father was hastily called to the 
 bedside of his cousin. Thaddeus said to him these ex 
 traordinary things : 1 1 have hated you, Harry Afton, 
 all my life. I hate you still. You know why. I have 
 left my whole estate to hospitals. I have made you 
 my executor. My father said, 1 1 have enough. Then 
 Thaddeus returned, 1 1 am sorry you have. I wish you 
 
490 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 were poor/ My dear cousin/ replied my father, I 
 am probably as well off as you, but no matter ; I am 
 most glad to oblige you. Whether I am rich or poor 
 is of no moment. I will act for you most gladly. 
 When the will was produced and the witnesses ready, 
 Cousin Thad said, I wish to add a codicil. Send for 
 my lawyer. My father said, Best not to wait, Thad/ 
 to which he replied that it was his business and not 
 my father s. No more was said. They waited at least 
 two hours for the man of law. At last Uncle Thaddeus 
 said, i I suppose I ought to forgive you, Harry, as I 
 am going to die. I do forgive you. It is proper to do 
 so. But I want it clearly understood that if I should 
 chance to get well I take it all back. I hope I make 
 myself plain. It is very disappointing to find that 
 you are rich. I have been misinformed. But I must 
 not wait. The will, quick. I can wait no longer. On 
 this he fell back dead." Here Afton paused. 
 
 "Is that all?" asked Mrs. Vincent. "But the 
 handwriting ? " 
 
 " Yes, wait a little. That night at ten o clock, when 
 all the usual arrangements had been made, my father 
 went back to the chamber. The unsigned will he put 
 in a desk. He locked it and then went out, also lock 
 ing the only door and taking the two keys with him. 
 The next day he reentered the room early. On the 
 table lay a holograph will giving him the entire 
 estate." 
 
 "What is a holograph will?" asked Mrs. Vincent. 
 
 " One written throughout in the handwriting of the 
 testator. On the floor was the desk, broken to pieces. 
 The unsigned will was gone and was never found. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 491 
 
 No one could for a moment doubt that the new will 
 was in Cousin Thad s handwriting. He wrote a 
 queer cramped hand like old English writing. It 
 was without witnesses, and, oddly enough, had been 
 sanded ; for this use of sand Thaddeus always held 
 to." 
 
 Vincent said : " Afton, that is the strangest story 
 I ever heard. What do you think? What opinion 
 did you personally form ? " 
 
 " I formed none. Nor did my father. Was the 
 man not dead when he left him ? The doctors decided 
 that he was dead." 
 
 " Did he could he have risen and found an older 
 will ? " asked Vincent. 
 
 " No ; it was dated the day of his death, and he 
 was paralyzed as to his legs, I mean." 
 
 "What," I asked, "did your father do?" 
 
 " He refused to take even his legal share in the 
 estate. There was endless litigation." 
 
 " The ghostly part of your story, Afton, would be 
 incredible but for the man who tells it." 
 
 " I was not there," said Afton, quickly ; " remember 
 that." 
 
 "No, but your father was. It is inexplicable, I 
 admit that." 
 
 " What is of more human interest," said Vincent, 
 " is the enmity which hoped to find your father poor, 
 which desired to disappoint him, and which so trusted 
 him as to make him what one might call the execu 
 tor of a vengeance against himself. Then, too, the 
 dying man forgives, or says he does, and warns the 
 man forgiven that restoration to health will can- 
 
492 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 eel the forgiveness. What a pity the will had not 
 had a few dead witnesses ! Imagine the case in 
 court. Of course I can comprehend your father s 
 feelings." 
 
 "The estate," said Afton, "was finally divided 
 among a number of distant cousins. My father 
 disliked to talk about it ; indeed, he would never do 
 so." 
 
 " You have certainly earned our forgiveness," said 
 Mrs. Vincent, "but as to Mrs. North, well, that 
 remains a vendetta." 
 
 This was in April, as I have said. Of what was in 
 the envelop Afton gave my wife I never heard a 
 word, nor shall, I presume. In June we went to 
 the island as usual. In July Clayborne wrote that 
 St. Clair had met them in Athens, and that they 
 had given up their return passages and would join 
 Crofter at the Piraeus for a cruise in the ^Egean Sea. 
 
 When Anne Vincent heard this news, she said : " Mr. 
 Clayborne has very little sense, and Victor neither 
 sense nor feeling. I am sure, Alice, that you must 
 agree with me." 
 
 This time my Alice only looked at me, smiling, and 
 made no reply to her friend s challenge, except to 
 say : "If, dear, one knew everything, replies would be 
 easy." 
 
 Then Anne Vincent said : "Sometimes, Alice North, 
 you are very trying." 
 
 To our great regret, Clayborne decided to remain 
 in Europe all winter. Most of the time was spent in 
 Paris, where St. Clair was superintending the bronze 
 cast of his famous group of the Jesuit pioneers for 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 493 
 
 Montreal. Clayborne wrote rarely, or only on business 
 to Vincent. St. Clair did not write at all, and Sibyl 
 merely very fresh accounts of things seen or heard. 
 In May we ourselves went direct to Naples for a 
 three months stay in Italy. We joined our friends 
 in Venice. 
 
XXIX 
 
 [HEN we came out of the station on to 
 the broad marble quay overlooking the 
 Grand Canal, we saw St. Clair. 
 
 " Ah/ he cried joyously, " we gave up 
 your rooms at the Britannia. Here no 
 sane man lives in a hotel." 
 
 I considered this rather cool, even for an old friend 5 
 but Mrs. North said it was delightful, and we went 
 away in St. Glair s gondola, with the baggage and ser 
 vants in another. St. Clair, laughing, said we were 
 prisoners of joy, and would explain no more. And 
 now it was evening. The sun was nearly down. A 
 dusking, orange haze was everywhere. 
 
 My wife had never seen Venice. I knew it well, and 
 then and after had great joy in making Alice know 
 it, the bits the tourist never sees, the deep, narrow 
 canals, the archways, where the shadows are centuries 
 old, the cowled monks, themselves like wandering 
 shadows, the ferry to Padua, and Gobbo of the mar 
 ket-place. History here is hand in hand with romance. 
 Rome is my friend, but Venice is my lover. 
 
 We were very quiet while the dark gondola swept 
 on through the deepening gloom. When we had 
 threaded many narrow water lanes, and it was full 
 
 494 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 495 
 
 twilight, we swept out on the broad Giudecca, and 
 turning, stopped at a garden gate. 
 
 " This is home/ 7 said St. Clair. 
 
 In a minute we were in a wide space of trees and 
 flowers. Alice was kissing Sibyl or holding her off at 
 arm s-length, delightedly bidding me to see our Sibyl, 
 if I could, in the slender but quite erect Sibyl with 
 roses in her cheeks. 
 
 Clayborne had a look of fresh happiness in his face 
 as he saw our glad surprise. " Come," he said ; " din 
 ner will be ready in a half -hour." 
 
 Set deep in the greenery of this ancient garden, 
 amid fountains retired from duty and crumbling 
 gods, was this old palace, where we owned for a sea 
 son the second floor. There are three quiet cities in 
 the world, and if Venice is the stillest, these ancient 
 homes on the Giudecca are of all Venice the most 
 noiseless. Ah, how we wandered in these new sur 
 roundings ! I frankly enjoyed the vast learning of 
 the scholar, the simple ease with which St. Clair 
 played with his toys of imaginative thought, and the 
 pleasure with which Sibyl used her new strength. 
 
 My wife was like a child in her happiness, but I 
 noticed that she was quietly observant of these two 
 very unusual young people. I myself saw nothing 
 remarkable to observe. When I had so said, Alice 
 was much amused. 
 
 " Nothing to observe ! Do not you see that St. 
 Clair is at times embarrassed and awkward ? He is 
 thinking of what he says and does. He never used 
 to do that. You men have been idiotic enough to 
 admit that you do not understand women. It is a 
 
496 DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 signal evidence of our superior intelligence that as 
 to the riddle man we have made no such damaging 
 admission." 
 
 Then I began to watch these two people. Victor 
 had a foolish scheme of going by sea in an open 
 boat to Rimini. Sibyl said it would be dangerous. 
 Her boatman had said so. We heard no more of it. 
 When he ventured upon some stringent criticism 
 of Crofter, I overheard her say : " Hush ! you will 
 annoy Mrs. North." Our reckless Victor was being 
 tamed. 
 
 My wife said : " It is wholesome this time, but per 
 haps it will come to nothing. We may let it alone. 
 He is getting older and, I hope, wiser ; that is all." 
 
 Upon this I quoted a posy she had once used and I 
 had liked : " True love is a court fool. He is sup 
 posed to be foolish, and is often wise." 
 
 As to Sibyl, she was less startling, more self-con 
 tained, and evidently had her full share of that no 
 table assimilative power which is the fortunate gift 
 of nature to the American woman. She had won, 
 too, such health as had enabled her to profit by ex 
 ercise. Her gait was rarely other than that of vigor, 
 and she was assuredly no longer notably deformed. 
 When I came to hear how she had been treated to 
 effect these results, I was amazed at her courage and 
 endurance. Had she lost any of the almost spiritual 
 refinement of her face ? I do not know. Certainly 
 there was more of the world in our Sibyl, less mysti 
 cism just enough wholesome change, as Alice said, 
 to make you wish to spell her name in the more 
 modern fashion. 
 
DR. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 497 
 
 As for Victor St. Clair, he would never be other 
 than a more or less peculiar man j but he had always 
 taken moral color from his environment not alto 
 gether a very fine thing, that, to confess. 
 
 There were curious little things chancing at this 
 time, which my wife watched and saw with the in 
 terest of a connoisseur. But every man s mind has a 
 blind side, and this was mine. At last I chanced on 
 what did seem to me a strange incident. We had 
 been at evening to the Armenian convent. Here 
 Sibyl had made the acquaintance of a pallid young 
 monk, who showed her, deep hidden in the cloistral 
 shadow of its shining leaves, a huge bud of the 
 greater magnolia. When she asked for it, St. Clair 
 protested. She took no notice of this, and carried 
 the bud away. It was set in a green bowl on the 
 table of our salon. Two or three times a day for 
 two days it partially opened, and then closed as 
 though undecided. Victor told her that at this 
 time of maturing its temperature always rose. I 
 found her sketching it, and, as it were, fascinated. 
 Then at morning she called me. " Come, Dr. 
 North ; it is sure this time. It has opened. Oh, it 
 is glorious ! " 
 
 It was glorious for two days, a wonder of lucent, 
 ivory-like whiteness, perfuming the great room. The 
 next day early I saw her looking with dismay at the 
 faded yellow wreck of its fallen beauty. It suddenly 
 affected her as even far less things had at times dis 
 turbed her in the more morbid past of her life. 
 
 She said to St. Clair, as I stood unnoticed at the 
 door : " How horrible ! It is so deathful." 
 
498 DR. NOETH AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 " I loathe it," lie replied. " Why did you bring it 
 here ? " 
 
 "I was wrong/ 7 she said. "Even the odor is dread 
 ful." 
 
 She threw up her hands in a rather wild way as 
 she spoke. St. Clair saw something I did not see, as 
 her back was toward me. He said quickly : " Take 
 care, Sibyl, take care j control yourself." 
 
 She turned on him sharply : "I am not Sibyl, Mr. 
 St. Clair." 
 
 "Ah," he replied in his gentlest tones, "you are 
 not. You were. Was I rude ? " 
 
 On this she said, as softly, " Pardon me," which, 
 on the whole, seemed to me irrelevant. At this mo 
 ment I coughed. When I mentioned all this to Alice 
 she said I might have had more tact. 
 
 These were happy weeks for our little maid. She 
 sat hand in hand with her adored Sibyl as the gon 
 dola shot out under the moon of Venice and wan 
 dered among the islands, or else she strolled about 
 afoot with Cousin Victor, and was fetched home 
 loaded with strange gifts. Best of all it was when 
 St. Clair took the bowman s oar and delighted the 
 gondoliers as Sibyl and he sang their own Venetian 
 songs. Ah, brief and happy days alas ! too soon 
 at an end. We had overstayed our time, and it was 
 imperative that I return home. My wife said it was 
 like leaving a theater before the play was over. 
 
 We returned by Naples, and went up to our island 
 home, where we found Mrs. Vincent alone. I fear 
 that my friend found me unsatisfactory. I said that 
 Clayborne was well, and Sibyl wonderful, and St. 
 
DE. NORTH AND HIS FRIENDS 499 
 
 Clair less of a delightful fool than usual. I thought 
 he was becoming older and more staid. Anne Vin 
 cent was apparently better pleased with Mary, who 
 was perilously awake to all that she was meant not to 
 see or to hear. She may have collected facts quite 
 unknown to me. For a day my wife was too busy to 
 be socially interviewed ; but Anne Vincent was heard 
 later to declare that Alice North was sometimes in 
 conceivably lacking in capacity to observe. This 
 greatly amused me. To some such charge Alice had 
 replied : 
 
 " My dear, there is so much to see in Venice that one 
 hardly notices what one s companions are about. By 
 the way, I bought you the lace, but it was very dear." 
 
 Alice likes nothing better than to keep a secret 
 from Anne Vincent. Was there a secret? 
 
TTT <--VT THE 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY