“Dear Ronald,–You can’t imagine what a funny place Boston is. I wish you were here, it would be so nice to talk about them together–I mean the people, of course, for they are much funnier than the place they live in. But I think they are very nice, too, particularly some of the men. I don’t understand the women in the least–they go in awfully for sets, if you understand that kind of thing–and art, too, and literature. The other day at a lunch party–that is what they call it here–they sat and talked about pictures for ever so long. I wonder what you would have said if you had been there! but then there were no men, and so you couldn’t have been, could you? And the sets, too. The girls who come out together, all in a batch, like a hive of bees swarming, spend the rest of their lives together; and they have what they call sewing circles, that go on all their lives. There are sewing circles of old frumps sixty years old who have never been parted since they all went to their first ball together. They sew for the poor; they don’t sew so very much, you know; but then they have a tremendous lunch afterwards. I sewed for the poor the other day, because one of the sewing circles asked me to their meeting. I sewed two buttons on to the end of something, and then I ate six kinds of salad, and went to drive with Mr. Vancouver. I dare say it does a lot of good in its way, but I think the poor must be awfully good-natured.
“It is quite too funny about driving, too. You may go out with a man in a sleigh, but you couldn’t possibly go with him on wheels–on the same road, at the same hour, same man, same everything, except the wheels. You agree to go out next week in a sleigh with Mr. Vancouver; but when the day comes, if it has happened to thaw and there is no snow, and he comes in a buggy, you couldn’t possibly go with him, because it would be quite too improper. But I mean to, some day, just to see what they will say. I wish you would come! We would do a lot of driving together, and by and by, in the spring, they say one can ride here, but only along the roads, for everything else is so thick with steam-engines and Irishmen that one could not possibly go across country.
“But although they are so funny, they are really very nice, and awfully clever. I don’t think there are nearly so many clever men anywhere else in society, when once you have got over their Americanisms. Most of them would be in Parliament at home; but nobody goes into Parliament here, except Mr. Harrington–that is, into Congress, which is the same thing, you know. They say politics in America are not at all fit for gentlemen, and they spend an hour or two every day in abusing all the politicians, instead of turning them out and managing things themselves. But Mr. Harrington is going to be a senator as soon as he can, and he is so clever that I am sure he will make a great reform.
“I don’t think of anything else to say just now, but if I do I will write again–only it’s unfeminine to write two letters running, so you must answer at once. And if you should want to travel this winter you can come here; they will treat you ever so much better than you deserve. So good-by. Yours ever sincerely,
“JoeThorn.”
The precise nature of the friendship that existed between Josephine Thorn and Ronald Surbiton could not be accurately inferred from the above specimen of correspondence; and indeed the letter served rather to confuse than to enlighten the recipient as to the nature of his relations with the writer. He was, of course, very much in love with Joe Thorn; he knew it, because he had always been in love with her since they were children together, so there could be no possible doubt in the matter. But whether she cared a jot for him and his feelings he could not clearly make out, from the style of the hurried, ungrammatical sentences, crammed with abbreviations and unpermissible elisions. True, she said three times that she hoped he would come to America; but America was a long way off, and she very likely reckoned on his laziness and dislike to foreign traveling. It is so easy for a young woman writing from Boston to say to a young man residing in Scotland, “Do come over for a few days”–Surbiton thought it would be a good joke to take her at her word and go. The idea of seeing her again so much sooner than he had expected was certainly uppermost in his mind as he began to make his resolution; but it was sustained and strengthened by a couple of allusions Joe had made to men of her acquaintance in Boston, not to say by the sweeping remark that there were more clever men in Boston society than anywhere else, which made his vanity smart rather unpleasantly. When Josephine used to tell him, half in earnest, half in jest, that he was “so dreadfully stupid,” he did not feel much hurt; but it was different when she took the trouble to write all the way from America to tell him that the men there were much cleverer than at home. He had a great mind to go and see for himself whether it were true. Nevertheless, the hunting was particularly good just at the time when he got the letter, and being rather prudent of counsel, Ronald determined to wait until a hard frost should spoil his temper and give the necessary stimulus to his activity, before he packed his boxes for a western voyage.
As for Josephine, it was very natural that she should feel a little homesick, and wish to have some one of her own people with her. In spite of the favorable views she expressed about America, Boston, and her new acquaintances, her position was not without some drawbacks in her own eyes. She felt herself out of her natural element, and the very great admiration she received in society, though pleasant enough in itself, was not to her so entirely satisfactory as it would have been to a woman older or younger than she, or to a more thorough flirt. An older woman would have enjoyed more keenly the flattery of it; a younger girl would have found it more novel and fresh, and the accomplished professional society flirt–there is no other word to express her–would have rejoiced exceedingly over a great holocaust of victims.
In writing to Surbiton and suggesting to him to come to Boston, Joe had no intention of fanning his hopes into flame. She never thought much about Ronald. She had long been used to him, and regarded him in the light of a marriage fixture, though she had never exactly promised to marry him; she had been brought up to suppose she would, and that was all. When or where the marriage would actually take place was a question she did not care to raise, and if ever Surbiton raised it she repressed him ruthlessly. For the present she would look about the world, seeing she had been transported into a new part of it, and she found it amusing. Only she would like to have a companion to whom she could talk. Ronald would be so convenient, and after all it was a great advantage to be able to make use of the man to whom she was engaged. She never had known any other girl who could do that, and she rather prided herself on the fact that she was not ridiculous, although she was in the most traditionally absurd position, that of betrothal. She would like to compare Ronald with the men she had met lately.
The desire for comparison had increased of late. A fortnight had passed since she had first met John Harrington, and she had made up her mind. He was handsome, though his hair was red and he had no beard, and she liked him; she liked him very much; it was quite different from her liking for Ronald. She liked Ronald, she said to herself that she loved him dearly, partly because she expected to marry him, and partly because he was so good and so much in love with herself. He would take any amount of trouble for anything she wanted. But John was different. She knew very well that she was thinking much more of him than he of her, if indeed he thought of her at all. But she was a little ashamed of it, and in order to justify herself in her own eyes she was cold and sarcastic in her manner to him, so that people noticed it, and even John Harrington himself, who never thought twice whether his acquaintances liked him or disliked him, remarked one day to Mrs. Wyndham that he feared he had offended Miss Thorn, as she took such particular pains to treat him differently from others. On the other hand Joe was always extremely candid to Pocock Vancouver.
It was on a Monday that John made the aforesaid remark. All Boston was at Mrs. Wyndham’s, excepting all the other ladies who lived in Beacon Street, and that is a very considerable portion of Boston, as every schoolboy knows. John was standing near the tea-table talking to Mrs. Sam, when Joe entered the room and came up to the hostess, who welcomed her warmly. She nodded coldly to John without shaking hands, and joined a group of young girls near by.
“It is very strange,” said John to Mrs. Wyndham. “I wonder whether I can have done anything Miss Thorn resents. I am not sensitive, but it is impossible to mistake people when they look at one like that. She always does it just in that way.”
Mrs. Wyndham looked inquiringly at John for a moment, and the quick smile of ready comprehension played on her sensitive mouth.
“Are you really quite sure you have not offended her?” she asked.
“Quite sure,” John answered, in a tone of conviction. “Besides, I never offend any one, certainly not ladies. I never did such a thing in my whole life.”
“Not singly,” said Mrs. Wyndham, laughing. “You offend people in large numbers when you do it at all, especially newspaper people. Sam read that ridiculous article in the paper to me last night.”
“Which paper?” asked John, smiling. “They have most of them been at me this week.”
“Thepaper,” answered Mrs. Sam, “thehorridpaper. You do not suppose I would mention such a publication in my house?”
“Oh, my old enemy,” laughed John. “I do not mind that in the least. One might almost think those articles were written by Miss Thorn.”
“Perhaps they are,” answered Mrs. Wyndham. “Really,” she added, glancing at Josephine, whom Pocock Vancouver had just detached from her group of girls, “really you may not be so very, very far wrong.” John’s glance followed the direction of her eyes, and he saw Vancouver. He looked steadily at the man’s delicate pale features and intellectual head, and at the end of half a minute he and Mrs. Wyndham looked at each other again. She probably regretted the hint she had carelessly dropped, but she met Harrington’s gaze frankly.
“I did not mean to say it,” she said, for John looked so grave that she was frightened. “It was only a guess.”
“But have you any reason to think it might be the truth?” asked John.
“None whatever–really none, except that he differs so much from you in every way, politically speaking.”
She knew very well that Vancouver hated John, and she had often thought it possible that the offensive articles in question came from the pen of the former. There was a tone of superior wit and a ring of truer English in them than are generally met with in the average office work of a daily newspaper.
“I do not believe Vancouver writes them,” said John, slowly. “He is not exactly a friend, but he is not an enemy either.”
Mrs. Wyndham, who knew better than that, held her peace. She was not a mischief-maker, and moreover she liked both the men too well to wish a quarrel between them. She busied herself at the tea-table for a moment, and John stood near her, watching the moving crowd. Now and then his eyes rested on Josephine Thorn’s graceful figure, and he noticed how her expressive features lighted up in the conversation. John could hear something of their conversation, which was somewhat noisy. They were talking in that strain of objectless question and answer which may be stupid to idiocy or clever to the verge of wit, according to the talkers. Joe called it “chaff.”
“I have learned America,” said Joe.
“Indeed!” said Vancouver. “You have not been long about it; but then, you will say there is not much to learn.”
“I never believe in places till I have lived in them,” said Joe.
“Nor in people till you have seen them, I suppose,” returned Vancouver. “But now that you have learned America, of course you believe in us all without exception. We are the greatest nation on earth–I suppose you have heard that?”
“Yes; you told me so the other day; but it needs all the faith I have in your judgment to believe it. If any one else had said it, you know, I should have thought there was some mistake.”
“Oh no; it is pretty true, taking it all round,” returned Vancouver, with a smile. “But I am tremendously flattered at the faith you put in my sayings.”
“Oh, are you? That is odd, you know, because if you are so much flattered at my believing you, you would not be much disappointed if I doubted you.”
“I beg to differ. Excuse me”–
“Not at all,” answered Joe, laughing. “Only we have old-fashioned prejudices at home. We begin by expecting to be believed, and are sometimes a good deal annoyed if any one says we are telling fibs.”
“Of course, if you put it in that way,” said Vancouver. “But I suppose it is not a very bad fib to say one’s country is the greatest on earth. I am sure you English say it quite as often and as loudly as we do, and, you see, we cannot both be right, possibly.”
“No, not exactly. But suppose two men, any two, like you and Mr. Harrington for instance, each made a point of telling every one you met that you were the greatest man on earth.”
“It is conceivable that we might both be wrong,” said Vancouver, laughing at the idea.
“But one of you might be right,” objected Joe.
“No–that is not conceivable,” retorted Vancouver.
“No? Let us ask Mr. Harrington. Mr. Harrington!”
Joe turned towards John and called him. He was only a step from her, and joined the two instantly. He looked from one to the other inquiringly.
“Here is a great question to be decided, Mr. Harrington,” said Joe. “I was saying to Mr. Vancouver that, supposing each of you asserted that he was the greatest man on earth, it would–I mean, how could the point be settled?” John stared for a moment.
“If you insist upon raising such a very remarkable point of precedence, Miss Thorn,” he answered calmly, “I am sure Vancouver will agree with me to leave the decision to you also.”
Joe looked slightly annoyed. She had brought the retort on herself.
“Pardon me,” said Vancouver, quickly, “I object to the contest. The match is not a fair one. Mr. Harrington means to be the greatest man on earth, or in the water under the earth, whereas I have no such aspiration.”
Instead of being grateful to Vancouver for coming to her rescue in the rather foolish position in which she was placed, Joe felt unaccountably annoyed. She was willing to make sure of John herself, if she could, but she was not prepared to allow that privilege to any one else. Accordingly she turned upon Vancouver before John could answer. “The question began in a foolish comparison, Mr. Vancouver,” she said coldly. “I think you are inclined to make it personal?”
“I believe it became personal from the moment you hit upon Mr. Harrington and me as illustrations of what you were saying, Miss Thorn,” retorted Vancouver, very blandly, but with a disagreeable look in his eyes. He was angry at Joe’s rebuke.
John stood calmly by without exhibiting the least shade of annoyance. The chaff of a mere girl, and the little satirical thrusts of a lady’s man like Vancouver, did not seem to him of much importance. Joe, however, did not vouchsafe any answer to Vancouver’s last remark, and it devolved on John to say something to relieve the awkwardness of the situation.
“Have you become reconciled to our methods of amusement, Miss Thorn?” he asked, “or shall we devise something different from the everlasting sleighing and five o’clock tea, and dinner parties and ’dancing classes’?”
“Oh, do not remind me of all that,” said Joe. “I did not mean half of it, you know.” She turned to John, and Vancouver moved away in pursuit of Sybil Brandon, who had just entered the room.
“Tell me,” said Joe, when Pocock was gone, “do you like Mr. Vancouver? You are great friends, are you not?” John looked at her inquiringly.
“I should not say we were very great friends,” he answered, “because we are not intimate; but we have always been on excellent terms, as far as I know. Vancouver is a very clever fellow.”
“Yes,” said Joe, thoughtfully, “I fancy he is. You do not mind my having asked, do you?”
“Not in the least,” said John, quietly. His face had grown very grave again, and he seemed suddenly absorbed by some thought. “Let us sit down,” he said presently, and the two installed themselves on a divan in a corner.
“You are not in the least inquisitive,” remarked Joe, as soon as they were settled.
“What makes you say that?” asked John.
“It was such a silly thing, you know, and you never asked what it was all about.”
“When you called me? No–I did not hear what led up to it, and I supposed from what you said afterwards that I understood.”
“Did you? What did you think?” asked Joe.
“I thought from the question about Vancouver that you wanted to put us into an awkward position in order to find out whether we were friends.”
“No,” said Joe, with a little laugh, “I am not so clever as that. It was pure silliness–chaff, you know–that sort of thing.”
“Oh,” ejaculated John, still quite unmoved, “then it was not of any importance.”
“Very silly things sometimes turn out to be very important. Saul, you know–was not it he?–was looking for asses and he found a kingdom.”
John laughed suddenly. “And so it is clear which part Vancouver and I played in the business,” he said. “But where is the kingdom?”
“I did not mean that,” said Joe, seriously. “I am not making fun any more. I have not been successful in my chaff to-day. I should think that in your career it would be very important for you to know who are your friends. Is it not?”
“Certainly,” said John, looking at her curiously. “It is very important; but I think political life is generally much simpler than people suppose. It is rather like fighting. The man who hits you is your enemy. The man who does not is practically your friend. Do you mean in regard to Vancouver?”
“Yes.”
“Vancouver never hit me, that I can swear,” said John, “and I am very sure I never hit him.”
“I dare say I am mistaken,” said Joe. “You ought to know best. Let us leave him alone.”
“With all my heart,” answered John.
“Tell me what you have been doing, Mr. Harrington,” said Joe, after a moment’s pause; “all the papers are full of you.”
“Yes, I have been rather in the passive mood during the last week. I have been standing up to be shot at.”
“Without shooting back? What are they so angry about?”
“The truth,” said John, calmly. “They do not like to hear it.”
“What is truth–in this instance?”
“Apparently something so unpleasant that the mere mention of it has roused the bile of every penny-a-liner in the Republican press. I undertook to demonstrate that one of the fifteen millions of the ’ablest men in the country,’ whom you are always hearing about, is a swindler. He is, but he does not like to be told so.”
“I suppose not,” said Joe. “I wonder if any one likes unpleasant truths. But what do you mean to do now? Are you going to fight it out? I hope so!”
“Of course, in good time. One can hardly retire from such a position as mine; they would make an end of me in a week and quarrel over my bones. But the real fight will be fought by and by, when the elections come on.”
“How exciting it must all be,” said Joe. “I wish I were a man!”
“And an American?” asked John, smiling. “How are the mighty fallen! You were laughing at us and our politics the day before yesterday, and now you are wishing you were one of us yourself. I think you must be naturally fond of fighting”–
“Fond of a row?” suggested Miss Thorn, with a laugh. “Yes, I fancy I am. I am fond of all active things. Are not you?”
“I do not know,” said John. “I never thought much about it. But I suppose I should be called rather an active person.”
“Is not she beautiful?” ejaculated Miss Thorn, looking across the room at Sybil Brandon, whose fair head was just visible between two groups of people.
“Who?” asked John, who was looking at his companion.
“Miss Brandon,” said Joe. “Look at her, over there. I think she is the most beautiful thing I ever saw.”
“Yes,” said John, “she is very beautiful.”
All sorts and conditions of men and women elbowed and crowded each other under the dim gaslight at the three entrances to the Boston Music Hall. The snow was thick on the ground outside, and it had been thawing all the afternoon. The great booby sleighs slid and slipped and rocked through the wet stuff, the policemen vociferated, the horse-car drivers on Tremont Street rang their bells furiously, and a great crowd of pedestrians stumbled and tumbled about in the mud and slush and snow of the crossings, all bent on getting inside the Music Hall in time for the beginning of the lecture.
The affair was called a “lecture” in accordance with the time-honored custom of Boston, and unless it were termed an oration, it would be hard to find a better name for it. A “meeting” implies a number of orators, or at least a well-filled row of chairs upon the platform. A “lecture,” on the other hand, does not convey to the ordinary mind the idea of a political speech, and critical persons with a taste for etymology say that the word means something which is read.
John Harrington had determined to speak in public on certain subjects connected with modern politics, and had caused the fact to be extensively made known. His name alone would have sufficed to draw a large audience, but the great attention he had attracted by his doings for some time past, and the severe criticisms lately made upon him by the local press, rendered the interest even greater than it would otherwise have been. Moreover, the lecture was free. Harrington was a poor man, as fortunes go in Boston, but it was his chiefest principle that a man had no right to be paid for speaking the truth, even though it might sometimes be just that people should pay something for hearing it. Accordingly the lecture was free, and at the appointed hour the house was full to overflowing.
In the front row of the first gallery sat old Miss Schenectady, and by her side was Josephine Thorn. A little colony of “Beacon Street” had collected there, and Pocock Vancouver was not far off. It is not often that Beacon Street goes to such lectures, but John was one of themselves, and had too many friends and enemies among them not to be certain of a large attendance.
Miss Schenectady was there, partly because she believed in John Harrington, and partly because Joe insisted upon going; and, generally speaking, what Joe insisted upon was done. The old lady did not understand why her niece was so very anxious to be present, but as the proposition fell in with her own desires, she made no objection. The fact was that Joe’s interest in John had very greatly increased of late, and her curiosity to hear the man she met so often speak to a great audience was excited to its highest pitch. She fancied, too, from many things she had heard said, that a large proportion of his audience would be hostile to him, and that she would see him roused to his greatest strength and eloquence. She did not consider her impulse in the least, for though she felt a stronger interest in Harrington than she had ever before felt in any individual, it had not struck her that she was beginning to care overmuch for the sight of his face and the sound of his voice. She could not have believed she was beginning to love him; and if any secret voice had suggested to her conscience that it was so, she could have silenced it at once to her own satisfaction by merely remembering the coldness with which she generally treated him. She had got into the habit of treating him in that way from the first, when she had been prejudiced against him and the annoyance she often felt at his indifference made her think that she ought to be consistent and never allow her formal manner to change. Unfortunately she now and then forgot herself, as she had done after the little skirmish with Vancouver at Mrs. Wyndham’s, and then she talked to him and asked him questions of himself almost as though he were an intimate friend.
John, who was a man of the world as well as a man of talent, thought she was capricious, and since he was infinitely removed from falling in love with her, or indeed with any other woman, he found it agreeable to talk to her when she was in a good humor, and when she was ungracious he merely kept out of her way. If he had deliberately made up his mind to attract her attention and interest, he could have chosen no surer way than this. But although he admired her beauty and vivacity, and now and then took a real pleasure in her conversation, his mind was too full of other matters to receive any lasting impression of such a kind. Besides, she was capricious, and he hated mere caprice.
And now there was a hush in the house, and then a short burst of applause, and Josephine, looking down, saw John standing alone upon the platform in front of the great bronze statue of Beethoven. He looked exactly as he did when she met him in society; there was no change in the even color of his face, nor any awkwardness or self-consciousness in his easy attitude as he stood there, broad-shouldered and square, his strong hand just resting on the plain desk that had been placed in the middle of the stage. He waited a few seconds for silence in the audience, and then began to speak. His voice sounded as natural and his accent as unaffected as though he were talking alone with a friend, saving only that every syllable he uttered was audible in the furthest gallery. Josephine leaned forward upon the red leather cushion of the railing before her, watching and listening intently.
She did not understand the subject well. John Harrington was a reformer, she knew; or, to speak more accurately, he desired to be one. He believed great changes were necessary. He believed in an established Civil Service, in something which, if not exactly Free Trade, was much nearer to it than the existing tariff. Above all, he believed in truth and freedom instead of lying and bribery. As he spoke and cleared the way to his main points, his voice never quavered or faltered. He was perfectly sure of himself, and he reserved all his strength for the time when it should be most required. For a quarter of an hour he proceeded, and the people sat in dead silence before him. Then he paused a moment, and shifted his position a little, moving a step forward as though to gain a better hearing.
“I am coming to the point,” he said,–“the point that I must come to sooner or later. I am a Democrat, as perhaps some of you know.”
Here there was an uneasy movement in the house. “Yes, I guess you are!” cried a voice from somewhere, in a tone of high nasal irony. Some one laughed, and some one hissed, and then there was silence again.
“Exactly,” continued John, unmoved by the interruption. “I am a Democrat, and though the sight does not astonish you so much as it might have done twenty years ago, it is worthy of remark, nevertheless. But I have a peculiarity which I think you will allow to be extremely novel. I do not begin by saying that salvation is only to be found with Democrats, and I will not believe any man who says it belongs exclusively to Republicans. If we were suddenly put in great danger of any kind, war, famine, or revolution, I think that in some way or other we should manage to save the country between us, Republicans and Democrats, for the common good.”
“That’s so!” said more than one voice.
“Of course we should. Is there any one among us all who would not give up his individual views about a local election rather than see the country go to pieces? Would any man be such a coward as to be afraid to change his mind in order to prevent another Rebellion, another Civil War? No, no, we are more civilized than that. We want our own men in Congress, our own friends in office, just so long as they are serviceable–just so long as the country can stand it, if you like it in that way. But if it comes to be a question between the public good and having your cousin made postmaster in a country village, I think there is enough patriotism in the average Democrat or Republican to send the country cousin about his business. If worst comes to worst, we can save the country between us, depend upon it. We have done it before.”
Here there was a burst of willing applause. It is a great point to bring an audience into the position of applauding themselves.
Joe watched John’s every gesture, and listened intently to every word. His voice rang clear and strong through the great hall, and he was beginning to be roused. He had gained a decided advantage in the success of his last words, and as he gathered his strength for the real effort which was to come, his cheek paled and his gray eyes grew brighter. He spoke out again through the subsiding clamor.
“Now I say that the country is in danger. It is in very great danger, the greatest danger that can threaten any community. The institutions of a nation are like the habits of a man, except that they are harder to improve and easier to spoil. We have got into bad habits, and if we do not mend them they will take us to a more certain destruction than revolution, famine, or war,–or all three together. It is easier to fight a thing that has a head to it and a name, than a thing that is everywhere and has no name, because no one has the courage to christen it.
“We are like a man who has grown from being a peddler of tape and buttons to be the greatest dry-goods-man in his town, and then to being a great dealer for many towns. When he was a peddler he could carry the profit and loss on his buttons and tape in his head, because the profits were literally in his pocket, and the losses were literally out of it. But when he has grown into a great merchant he must keep books, and he must keep a great many of them, and they must be kept accurately, or he will get into trouble and go to ruin. That is true, is it not? And when he was a peddler he could buy his stock-in-trade himself, and be sure that it was what he wanted; but when he is one of the great merchants he must employ other people to help him, and unless they are the right people and understand the business, he will be ruined. Nobody can deny that.
“Very well. We began in a small way as a nation, without much stock-in-trade, and we kept our accounts by rule of thumb. But it seems to me we are doing a pretty large business as a nation just now.”
There was a laugh, and sundry remarks to the effect that the audience understood what John was driving at.
“Yes, we are doing a great business, and to all intents and purposes we are doing it on false business principles, and with an absolutely incompetent staff of clerks. What would you think of a merchant who dismissed all his book-keepers every four years, and engaged a set of shoemakers, or tailors, or artists, or musicians to fill up the vacancies?”
A low murmur ran through the hall, a murmur of disapprobation. Probably a large number out of the three thousand men and women present had cousins in country post offices. But John did not pause; his voice grew full and clear, ringing high above the dull sounds in the house. From her place in the gallery Josephine looked down, never taking her eyes from the face of the orator. She too was pale with excitement; had she been willing to acknowledge it, it was fear. That deep-toned beginning of a protest from the great concourse was like an omen of failure to her sensitive ear. She longed to see John Harrington succeed and carry his hearers with him into an access of enthusiasm. John expected no such thing. He only wanted the people to understand thoroughly what he meant, for he was sure that if once they knew the truth clearly they would feel for it as he himself did.
“Nevertheless,” he continued, “I tell you that is what we are doing, what we have been doing for years, from the very beginning. And if we go on doing it we shall get into trouble. We choose schoolboys to do the work of men, we expect that by the mere signature of the head of the executive any man can be turned into an accomplished public officer fit to be compared with one whose whole life has been spent in the public service. We wish to be represented abroad among foreign nations in a way becoming to our dignity and very great power, and we select as our ministers a number of gentlemen who in most cases have never read a diplomatic dispatch in their lives, and who sometimes are not even acquainted with any language save their own. Perhaps you will say that our dignity is not of much importance provided our power is great enough. I do not think you will say it, but there are communities in our country where it would most certainly be said. Very well, so be it. But where do you think our power comes from? Do you think there is a boundless store of some natural product called power, of which we need only take as much as we want in order to stand a head and shoulders higher than any other nation in the world? What is power? Can a man be strong if he has an internal disease, or is his strength any use to him if his arms and legs are out of joint? Would you believe in the strength of a great firm that hired a company of actors from a theatre, and made the tragedian cashier and the low-comedy man head book-keeper?
“The sick man may live for years with his sickness, and the man whose limbs are all distorted may still deal a formidable blow with his head, if it is thick enough. The firm may prosper for a time with its staff of theatrical clerks, provided there is enough business to pay for all their mistakes and leave a margin of profit. But the sick man does not live because he is diseased, but in spite of it. The distorted joints of the cripple do not help him to fight. The firm is not rich because its business is done by tragedians and walking-gentlemen, but in spite of them. If the doctor fails to give his medicine, if the fighting grows too rough for the cripple, if business grows slack, or if some good business man with competent assistants starts a strong opposition–what happens? What must inevitably happen? Why, the sick man dies, the cripple gets the worst of it, and the theatrical firm of merchants goes straight into bankruptcy.
“And so I tell you that we are in danger. We are sick with the foul disease of office seeking; we are crippled hand and foot not only for fighting but for working, because our public officers are inexperienced men who spend four years in learning a trade not theirs, and are very generally turned out before they have half learnt it; we are doing a political business which will succeed fairly well just so long as we are rich enough to provide funds for any amount of extravagance and keep enough in our pockets to buy bread and cheese with afterwards. Just so long.
“When we have been lanced here in Boston and the blood is running freely, we can still cut a slice out of the West and use it like court-plaster to stop the bleeding. Some day there will be no more slices to be had. It will be a bad day in State Street.”
This remark raised a laugh and a good deal of noise for a moment. But the audience were soon silent again. Whether they meant to approve or disapprove, they kept their opinions to themselves. Miss Thorn did not comprehend the allusion, but she was listening with all her ears.
“You understand that,” John went on. “Then understand it about the rest of the country as well. Understand that we are all the time patching our income with our capital; and it answers pretty well because there is a good deal of capital and not so very many of ourselves, as yet. There will be twice as many of us in a few years, and very much less than half as much capital. Understand above all that we are getting into bad habits– habits we should despise in a corporation, and condemn by very bad names in any individual man of our acquaintance.
“And when you have understood it, look at matters as they stand. Look at the incompetence of our public officers, look at our ruined carrying trade, at those vile enactions of fools, and worse than fools, the Navigation Laws of the United States, and tell me whether things are as they should be. Tell me what has become of liberty if you cannot buy a ship where you can get her best and cheapest, and hoist your own flag upon her, and call her your own? You may pay for her and bring her home with you, but though she were ten times paid for, you cannot hoist the American flag, nor register her in your own port, nor claim the protection of your country for your own property–because, forsooth, the ship was not built on American stocks, where she would cost three times her value, and put a job into the hands of a set of builders of river steamboats and harbor mudscows.”
Loud murmurs ran through the audience, and cries of “That’s so!” and counter cries of “Freetrader!” were heard on all sides. John’s great voice rang out like a trumpet. He knew the sensitiveness of his townsmen on the point.
“I am not speaking against protection,” he said, and at the magic word “protection” a dead silence again fell over the vast crowd. “I say to you, ‘Protect!’ Protect, all of you, merchants, tradesmen, the great body of the commerce of this country; protect whatever you all decide together needs protection. But by the greatness and the power you have, by the Heaven that gave us this land of ours to till and to enjoy, protect also yourselves and your liberties.”
A patriotic phrase in the mouth of a man who has the golden gift of speech, coupled with the statement of a principle popular with his audience, is a sure point in an oration. Something in John’s tone and gesture touched the sympathetic chord, and the house broke out in a great cry of applause.
An orator cannot always talk in strict logical sequence. He must search about for the right nail till he has found it, and then drive it home.
“Aye, that is the point,” he said. “You men of Boston here, look to your harbors, crowded with English craft, and think of what is gone, lost to you forever, unless you will strike a blow for it. Many of you are old enough to remember how it used to be. Look at Salem Harbor, at Marblehead. Where are the fleets of noble ships that lay side by side along the great docks, the ships that did half the carrying trade of the world? Where are the great merchantmen that used to sail so grandly away to the East and that came home so richly laden? They are sunk or gone to pieces, or sold as old timber and copper and nails to the gentlemen who build mudscows. What are the great merchants doing who owned those fleets? They are employing their time in building railroads with English iron and foreign labor into desolate deserts in the West, which they hope to sell for a handsome profit, and probably will. But when there are no more desolate deserts and English iron and foreign labor to be had, they will wish they had their ships again, and that in all these years they had got possession of the carrying trade of the world, as they might have done.
“That is what I am here to say. The time is come to give up the shifts and unstable expedients that we needed, or thought we needed, in our early beginnings. Let us pull down all these scaffoldings and stages that have helped us to build, and let us see whether our fabric will stand upon its base, erect, without the paltry support of a few rotting timbers. Let us substitute the permanent for the transitory, the stable for the unstable, and the reality for the sham. Let us have a Civil Service in fact as well as in name, a service of men trained to their duties, and who shall spend their lives in fulfilling them; a service of competent men to represent us abroad, and a service of honest men to do the country’s business at home, instead of making the country do theirs and being paid for it into the bargain. Let us put men into Congress who will cover the seas with our ships again, as well as make our harbors impassable with a competition of cheap ferry-boats. Begin here, as you began here more than a hundred years ago, and as you succeeded then you will succeed now.
“Begin, and go on, and God prosper you; and when the work is done, when bribery and extortion and all corruption are crushed forever out of our public life, when the Navigation Act is a thing of the past, and you are again the carriers of the world’s commerce as well as the greatest sharers in it, then it will be time enough to give a name to the men who shall have done all these things, Republicans and Democrats together, a new party, the last and the greatest of all parties that the country has ever seen. You will find a name, surely enough, that will answer the purpose then; but whatever that name may be, it will not be forgotten that, for the third time in the history of our land, Massachusetts has struck the first and the strongest blow in the struggle for liberty, honor, and truth.”
Few men in public life had as good a right as John Harrington to denounce all manner of dishonesty. Many a speaker would have raised a sneering laugh by that last phrase, but even John’s enemies admitted that his hands were clean. Coming from one of themselves it was a strong appeal, and the applause was long and loud. With a courteous inclination John turned and left the platform through the door at the back.
He was well enough satisfied. His hearers had been moved for a moment to enthusiasm. They would go home and on mature reflection would not agree with him; but a blow struck is a point in the fight so long as it is felt at all, and John was well pleased at the reception he had met with. He had avoided every detail, and had confined himself to the widest generalities, but his homely illustrations would not be forgotten, and his strong individuality had created a sincere desire in many who had been there that night to hear him speak again.
For some minutes after John had left the platform, Josephine sat unmoved in her seat beside her aunt, lost in thought as she watched the surging crowd below.
“Well,” said Miss Schenectady, “you have heard John Harrington now.” Joe started. She had grown used to the implied interrogation her aunt usually conveyed in that way.
“He is a great man, Aunt Zoë,” she said quietly, and looked round. There was a moisture in her beautiful brown eyes that told of great excitement. She was very pale too, and looked tired.
“Yes, my dear,” said Aunt Zoruiah. “But we had better go home right away, Joe darling. You are so pale, I suppose you must be a good deal used up.”
“Allow me to see you to your carriage,” said Pocock Vancouver in dulcet tones, coming up to the two ladies as they rose.
“Why can’t you get in, Mr. Vancouver?” inquired Miss Schenectady, when she and Joe were at last packed into the deep booby. It was simply a form of invitation. There was no reason why Mr. Vancouver should not get in, and with a word of thanks he did so. Ten minutes later the three were seated round the fire in Miss Schenectady’s drawing-room.
“It was very fine, was it not, Miss Thorn?” said Vancouver.
“Yes,” said Joe, staring at the fire.
“There are some people,” said Miss Schenectady, “it does not seem to make much difference what they say, but it is always fine.”
“Is that ironical?” asked Vancouver.
“Why, goodness gracious no! Of course not! I am John Harrington’s very best friend. I only mean to say.”
“What, Aunt Zoë?” inquired Joe, not yet altogether accustomed to the peculiar implications of her aunt’s language.
“Why, what I said, of course; it sounds very fine.”
“Then you do not believe it all?” asked Vancouver.
“I don’t understand politics,” said the old lady. “You might ring the bell, Joe, and ask Sarah for some tea.”
“Nobody understands politics,” said Vancouver. “When people do, there will be an end of them. Politics consist in one half of the world trying to drive paradoxes down the throats of the other half.”
Joe laughed a little.
“I do not know anything about politics here,” she said, “though I do at home, of course. I must say, though, Mr. Harrington did not seem so very paradoxical.”
“Oh no,” answered Vancouver, blandly, “I did not mean in this case. Harrington is very much in earnest. But it is like war, you see. When every one understands it thoroughly, it will stop by universal consent. Did you ever read Bulwer’s ’Coming Race’?”
“Yes,” said Joe. “I always read those books.Vril, and that sort of thing, you mean? Oh yes.”
“Approximately,” answered Vancouver. “It was an allegory, you know. A hundred years hence people will write a book to explain what Bulwer meant.Vrilstands for the cumulative power of potential science, of course.”
“I think Bulwer’s word shorter, and a good deal easier to understand,” said Joe, laughing.
“It is a great thing to be great,” remarked Miss Schenectady. “Sarah, I think you might bring us some tea, please, and ask John if he couldn’t stir the furnace a little. And then to have people explain you. Goethe must be a good deal amused, I expect, when people write books to prove that Byron was Euphorion.” Miss Schenectady was fond of German literature, and the extent of her reading was a constant surprise to her niece.
“What a lot of things you know, Aunt Zoë!” said Joe. “But what had Bulwer to do with war, Mr. Vancouver?”
“Oh, in the book–the ‘Coming Race,’ you know–they abolished war because they could kill each other so easily.”
“How nice that would be!” exclaimed Joe, looking at him.
“Why, you perfectly shock me, Joe,” cried Miss Schenectady.
“I mean, to have no war,” returned Joe, sweetly.
“Oh; I belonged to the Peace Conference myself,” said her aunt, immediately pacified. “Well, yes. Perhaps you could bring us a little cake, Sarah? War is a terrible thing, my dear, as Mr. Vancouver will tell you.”
Vancouver, however, was silent. He probably did not care to have it remembered that he was old enough to carry a musket in the Rebellion. Joe understood and asked no Questions about it, and Vancouver was grateful for her tact. She rose and began to pour out some tea.
“You began talking about Mr. Harrington’s speech,” said she presently, “but we got away from the subject. Is it all true?”
“That is scarcely a fair question, Miss Thorn,” answered Vancouver. “You see, I belong to the opposite party in politics.”
“But Mr. Harrington said he wanted both parties to combine. Besides, you do not take any active part in it all.”
“I have very strong opinions, nevertheless,” replied Pocock.
“Strong opinions and activity ought to go together,” said Joe.
“Not always.”
“But if you have strong opinions and disagree with Mr. Harrington,” persisted Miss Thorn, “then you have a strong opinion against your two parties acting together for the common good.”
“Not exactly that,” said Vancouver, embarrassed between the directness of Joe’s question and a very strong impression that he had better not say anything against John Harrington.
“Then what do you believe? Will you please give this cup to Miss Schenectady?”
Vancouver rose quickly to escape.
“Cream and sugar, Miss Schenectady?” he said. “Ah, Miss Thorn has already put them in. It is such celebrated tea of yours! Do you know, I always look forward to a cup of it as one of the greatest pleasures in life!”
“When you have quite done praising the tea, will you please tell me what you believe about Mr. Harrington’s speech?” said the inexorable Joe, drowning her aunt’s reply to Vancouver’s polite remark.
Thus cornered, Vancouver faced the difficulty.
“I believe it was a very good speech,” he said mildly.
“Do you believe what he said was true?”
“A great deal of it was true, but I assure you that Harrington is very enthusiastic. Much of it was extremely imaginative.”
“I dare say; all that about making a Civil Service, I suppose?”
“Well, not exactly. I think all good Republicans hope to have a regular Civil Service some day. It is necessary, or will be so before long.”
“But then it is what he said about that ridiculous Navigation Act that you object to?” pursued Joe, without mercy.
“Really, I think it would be an advantage to repeal it. It is only kept up for the sake of a few builders who have influence.”
“Ah, I see,” exclaimed Joe triumphantly, “you think the hope he expressed that bribery and that sort of thing might be suppressed was altogether imaginary?”
“I hope not, Miss Thorn. But I am sure there is not nearly so much of it as he made out. It was a very great exaggeration.”
“Was there? Really, he only used the word once in the most general way. I remember very well, at the end; he said, ’when bribery, corruption, and all extortion are crushed forever;’ anybody might say that!”
“You make out a wonderfully good case, Miss Thorn,” said Vancouver, who was not altogether pleased; “was the speech printed before Harrington spoke it this evening?”
“No!” exclaimed Joe. “I have a very good memory, in that way, just to remember what I hear. I could repeat word for word everything he said, and everything you have said since during the evening.”
“What a terrible person you are!” said Vancouver, smiling pleasantly. “Well, then, now that you have proved every word of Harrington’s speech out of an opponent’s evidence, I will tell you frankly how it is that I do not agree with him. He is a Democrat, I am a Republican. That is the whole story. I do not believe, nor shall I ever believe, that any large number of the two parties can work together. I cannot help my belief in the least; it is a matter of conscience. Nevertheless, I have a very great respect for Harrington, and as I take no active part whatever in any political contest, my opinion of his politics will never interfere with my personal feeling for him.”
Frankness seemed to be Mr. Vancouver’s strong point. Joe was obliged to admit that he spoke clearly, even if she did not greatly respect his logic. During all this time, Miss Schenectady had been sipping her tea in silence.
“Joe,” she said at last, “you are a perfect Socrates for questions. You ought to have been a lawyer.”
“I wish I were,” said Joe, laughing, “or Socrates himself.”
“Yes, you ought to have been. Here you know nothing at all about this thing, and you have been talking like anything for half an hour. I think Socrates was perfectly horrid.”
“So do I,” said Vancouver, laughing aloud.
“Why?” Joe asked, turning to her aunt.
“To be always stopping people in the street, and button-holing them with his questions. Of course it was very clever, as Plato makes it out; but I do wish he could have met me–when I was young, my dear. I would have answered him once and for all!”
“Try me, Aunt Zoë, for practice,” said Joe, “until you meet him.”
“Really, I expect you would do almost as well. Look at Mr. Vancouver, he is quite used up.”
The case was not so serious with Mr. Vancouver as the old lady made it out to be. He was silent and to all intents vanquished for the present, but it was not long before he turned the conversation to other things, and succeeded in making himself very agreeable. He admired Josephine very much, and though she occasionally made him feel very uncomfortable, he always returned to the charge with renewed intelligence and sweetness. Joe liked him too, in spite of an unfounded suspicion she felt that he was dangerous. He was always ready when she needed anything at a party; he never bored her, but whenever he saw she was wearied by any one else he came up and saved her, clearing a place for himself at her side with an ease that bespoke long and constant experience of the world. Women, especially young women, always like men of that description; they are flattered at the attention of a man who is so evidently able to choose, and they enjoy the immunity from all annoyance and weariness that such men are able to carry with them.
Consequently Joe accepted the attentions of Pocock Vancouver with a certain amount of satisfaction, and she had not been displeased that he should come to Miss Schenectady’s house for tea. The evening passed quickly, and Vancouver took his leave. As he opened the front door to let himself out he nearly fell over a small telegraph messenger.
“Thorn here?” inquired the boy, laconically.
“Yes, I’ll take it in,” said Vancouver quickly. He went back with the telegram, and the boy stood inside the door waiting for the receipt. He noticed the stamp of the Cable Office on the envelope.
“Miss Thorn,” said Vancouver, entering the drawing-room again, hat in hand, “I just met this telegram on the steps, so I brought it in. It may need an answer, you know.”
“Thanks, so much,” said Joe, tearing open the pale yellow cover. She was startled, not being accustomed to receive telegrams. Her brow contracted as she read the contents, and she tapped her small foot on the carpet impatiently.
Thorn, care Schenectady,Beacon, Boston.Sailed to-day.Ronald.
Josephine crushed the paper in her hand and signed the receipt with the pencil Vancouver offered her.
“Thanks, so much,” she said again, but in a different tone of voice.
“Any answer?” suggested Vancouver.
“Thanks, no,” answered Joe. “Good-night again.”
“Good-night.” And Vancouver departed, wondering what the message could have been.
Miss Schenectady had looked on calmly throughout the little scene, and nodded to Pocock as he left the room; her peculiarities were chiefly those of diction; she was a well-bred old lady, not without wisdom.
“Nothing wrong, Joe?” she inquired, when alone with her niece.
“I hardly know,” answered Joe. “Ronald has just sailed from England. I suppose he will be here in ten days.”
“Business here?” asked Miss Schenectady.
“Oh dear, no! He knows nothing about business. I wish he would stay at home. What a bore!”
It was evident that Joe had changed her mind since she had written to Ronald a fortnight before. It seemed to her now, when she looked forward to Surbiton’s coming, that he would not find his place in Boston society so easily as she had done. Of course he would expect to see her every day, and to spend all his leisure hours at Miss Schenectady’s house. Whatever she happened to be doing, it would always be necessary to take Ronald into consideration, and the prospect did not please her at all.
Ronald was a dear good fellow, of course, and she meant to marry him in the end–at least, she probably would. But then, she intended to marry him at a more convenient season, some time in the future. She knew him well, and she was certain that when he saw her surrounded by her Boston acquaintances, his British nature would assert itself, and he would claim her, or try to claim her, and persuade her to go away. She bid Miss Schenectady good night, and went to her room; and presently, when she was sure every one was in bed in the house, she stole down to the drawing-room again, and sat alone by the remains of the coal-fire, thinking what she should do.
Josephine Thorn was young and more full of life and activity than most girls of her age. She enjoyed what came in her way to enjoy with a passionate zest, and she had the reputation of being somewhat capricious and changeable. But she was honest in all her thoughts, and very clear-sighted. People often said she spoke her mind too freely, and was not enough in awe of the veiled deity known in society as “The Thing.” How she hated it! How many times she had been told that what she said and did was not quite “The Thing.” She knew now what Ronald would say when he came, if he found her worshiped on all sides by Pocock Vancouver and his younger and less accomplished compeers. Ronald would say “it was rather rough, you know.”
She sat by the fire and thought the matter over, and when she came to formulating in her mind the exact words that Ronald would say, she paused to think of him and how he would look. He was handsome–far handsomer than Vancouver or–or John Harrington. He was very nice; much nicer than Vancouver. John Harrington was different, “nice” did not describe him; but Ronald was nicer than all the other men she knew. He would make a charming husband. At the thought Joe started.
“My husband!” she repeated aloud to herself in the silence. Then she rose quickly to her feet and leaned against the smooth white marble mantelpiece, and buried her face in her small white hands for an instant.
“Oh no, no, no, no!” she cried aloud. “It is impossible; oh no! never! I never really meant it; did I?” She stared at herself in the glass for a few seconds, and her face was very pale. Then she bent over her hands again, and the tears came and wetted them a little, and at last she sat down as she had sat before, and stared vacantly at the fire.
It would be very wrong to break Ronald’s heart, she thought. He would come to her so full of hope and gladness; how could she tell him she did not love him?
But how was it possible that in all these years she had never before understood that she could not marry him? It had always seemed so natural to marry Ronald. And yet she must have always really felt just as she did to-night; only she had never realized it, never at all. Why had it come over her so suddenly too? It would have been so much better if she could have seen the truth at home, before she parted from him; for it would be so hard for him to bear it now, after coming across the ocean to see her –so cruelly hard. Dear Ronald; and yet he must be told.
Yes, there was no doubt about it, the very first meeting must explain it to him. He would say–what would he say? He would tell her she liked some one else better.
Some one else! Some one who had stolen away her heart; of course he would say that. But he would be wrong, for there was no one else, not one of all these men she had seen, who had so much as breathed a word of love to her. None whom she liked nearly so much as Ronald, no, not one.
For a long time she sat very quietly, following a train of thought that was half unconscious. Her lips moved now and then, as though she were repeating something to herself, and gradually the pained and anxious expression of her face melted away into a look of peace.
The old gilt clock upon the chimney-piece struck twelve in its shrill steel tones. Josephine started at the sound, and passed one hand over her eyes as though to rouse herself, and at the same time a deep blush spread over her delicate cheek. For with the voice of midnight there was also the voice of a man ringing in her ears, and she heard the two together, so that it seemed as though all the world must hear them also, and her gentle maiden’s soul was shamed at the thought.
So it is that our loves are always with us, and though we search ourselves diligently to find them and rebuke them, we find them not; but if we give up searching they come upon us unawares, and speak very soft words. Love also is a gentle thing, full of sweetness and peace, when he comes to us so; and though the maiden blushes at his speaking, she would not stop the ears of her heart against him for all the world; and although the boy trembles and turn pale, and forgets to be boyish when, the fit is on him, nevertheless he goes near and worships, and loses his heart in learning a new language. So kind and soft is love, so tender and sweet-spoken, that you would think he would not so much as ruffle the leaf of a rose, nor breathe too sharply on a violet, lest he should hurt the flower-soul within; and if you treat him hospitably he is kind to the last, so that when he is gone there is still a sweet savor of him left. But if you would drive him roughly away with scorn and rude language, he will stand at your door and will not leave you. Then his wings drop from him, and he grows strong and fierce, and deadly and beautiful, as the fallen archangel of heaven, crying aloud bitter things to you by day and night; till at the last he will break down bolt and bar and panel, and enter your chamber, and drag you out with him to your death in the wild darkness.
But Josephine blushed deeply there in the old-fashioned drawing-room at midnight, and as she turned away she wondered at herself, for she could not believe nor understand what was happening.
Poor girl! She had talked of love so often as an abstract thing, she had seen so many love-makings of others, and so many men had tried to make love to her in her short brilliant life, and she had always thought it could not come near her, because, of course, she really loved Ronald. She had marveled, indeed, at what people were willing to do, and at what they were ready to sacrifice, for a feeling that seemed to her of such little importance as that. It had been an illusion, and the waking had come at last very suddenly. Whoever it might be whom she was destined to take, it was not Ronald. It was madness to think she could be bound forever to him, however much she might admire him and desire him as a friend.
When the clock struck she was thinking of John, and the words he had said that night to his great audience were ringing again in her ears. She blushed indeed at the idea that she was thinking so much of him, but it was not that she believed she loved him. If as yet she really did, she was herself most honestly unconscious of it; and so the blush was not accounted for in the reckoning she made.
She lay awake long, trying to determine what was best to be done, but she could not. One thing she must do; she must explain to Ronald, when he came, that she could never, never marry him.
If only she had a sister, or some one! Dear Aunt Zoruiah was so horrid about such things that it was impossible to talk to her!