CHAPTER XXIV.
One day, reading in my library so intently that I did not hear the sound of wheels, my bearer brought me a card on which was the name “Mrs. Clement.” I told him to show her into the drawing room. Soon I went in and saw an elderly lady, slender in form, with snow-white hair drawn up in curls at the side of her forehead and with a very bright, intelligent face. She was old in years, but evidently young in heart and mind. All this I saw at a glance. With her was a young man whom I judged at once to be her son, slender and delicate with a bright face partially covered with a beard and a heavy moustache. On my entering the room they rose and greeted me, the mother introducing the young man as her son. We then seated ourselves, and had some introductory talk, probably about the weather, or some such interesting, novel subject. In fact I had become so absorbed in reading Plato’s “New Republic,” that I was still in a dreamy state and supposed they had called on some matter of business.
The mother then spoke. “Are you the Mr. Japhet who was in the St. George’s School in 18—.” “Yes,” I replied. “I must be the one as I know of no other. The Japhets by that name are very scarce, as I never met one in my life.” “Well!” she replied. “Johnny has always been talking of you and of coming to see Mr. Japhet, and I thought I would come with him.” This was what she said, but she had scarcely uttered the name, “Johnny,” before I aroused from my stupor, sprang from my chair and taking both his hands in mine, exclaimed, “Johnny, is it you?” I put my arms around him and gave him a real brotherly hug, and would have kissed him after the good German fashion, but let my tears of joy flow instead.Taking his hands again I studied his features, asking: “Is it really true that you are Johnny?” Then turning to the widow, “Mrs. Clement, I wish to shake your hand again for Johnny’s sake.” I saw the tears glistening in her eyes as she observed us, for was not he the only son of the widow, the treasure of the mother’s heart and life! Had she not a right to be proud of him and of the love I showed him? Why should we not give full play to our sympathies and feelings, the noblest traits of our human nature? Have we not enough in life to make us hard and unfeeling that we should not soften our natures by yielding to our affections when we can do this sincerely?
I have seen husbands and wives, parents and children meet and separate as coldly as if they were only strangers or ashamed to show any feeling. How very strange, and is it not unnatural? Surely I did not take time just then to philosophize for I was too excited even to think. Recovering myself, I ordered the bearer to tell the Khansaman to bring some tea and toast, to open the two guest rooms, to bring in the luggage and dismiss the gari, and all this in one sentence and a breath. I was in a state of delightful excitement and I yielded myself entirely to it, and why not? No more of Plato’s New or Old Republic, but the pleasure of the old and new friendship. I have often recalled Mr. Percy’s saying, “Charles don’t dawdle! When you have anything to do, either work or play, give to it all your might, mind and being.”
I need not say we were busy, not a moment wasted either before or at breakfast. I insisted on the midday rest, that my friends might not become exhausted, but Johnny found me in the library. I call him Johnny for he was always that to me, and ever will be and why not? Later in the afternoon we had our walk in the garden, and then our long drive about the station, but I doubt if either of us saw anything. The pleasant time was after dinner, when we had our coffee in front of the fire in the big room. It reminded me of the old times when we three, Mr. Percy, Cockear and I, sat before our fire and were like boys together. Ah! those happy, joyous days! How much has passed since then?
In this more quiet time Mrs. Clement gave me a little of their history. When Johnny’s school days closed, several years after my time, he tried in various places for a situation, but failed completely. The world seemed harsh and dreary to the widow and her son, the future without any prospect on which to rest a hope. Without friends or influence, what could they expect? Just then a letter came that like the wand of a fairy swept away all the clouds and darkness. It appeared that years before Johnny was born, his father had befriended a lad by helping him to a situation in Bombay, where he commenced at the bottom, and by diligence and honesty rose step by step, until he became one of the partners of the firm. He had lost track of his friend, but on the evening of the day on which he was admitted to the firm, he was recalling the past, and thought of the time when he was a homeless orphan, and almost friendless, and of the one to whom he owed his position and the success of his life. From that moment he could not rest until he had found his benefactor. He wrote letters to him, not knowing that he was dead. One of these letters reached the widow. The writer gave an outline of his life, told of his gratitude, and that if in any way he could do a favor to the one to whom he owed everything, he was not only ready, but anxious to do it. It was like a debt, and almost a burden to him, and he could not be happy until he had discharged it, or shown his willingness to do so.
This letter came as a message from Heaven to the widow and her son. She wrote and explained everything, with the result that Johnny got a situation, and in the course of time became a partner of the man whom, as a lad, his father had befriended. This was most natural, and such incidents would oftener happen if people would pay their debts of gratitude, and put their religion into deeds, and not so much into words.
“So, Mr. Japhet,” said the mother, sitting with her cup of coffee in her hand, forgetting to take a sip of it, “you have our history. I sayourhistory, for in it all, Johnny and I have been one. He was all I had, and I think I was everything to him, though many bright eyes have tried to win him away from me, I have him still.”
“Don’t be too sure, good mother,” said Johnny, “Don’t you know that Cupid’s arrow, if the right one be used, may pierce the hardest heart. Didn’t it your’s once?”
“John, John!” she said very gravely.
I noticed she always called him Johnny, except when she gave him a reproof, and this was always so kind that it must have given him more pleasure than otherwise. He then took her hand, as he sat by her side, just as if he had been her lover. And he was. Blessed is that boy, whose first love is his mother, and happy is the mother of such a boy. I have often thought, yet it may be one of my crude notions, that a boy or man who truly loves a good mother can never go wrong.
As I sat looking at this loving couple, I could not help asking myself, with a deep, sad sigh: “Why did I not have such a mother?” Thus do the sorrows of our lives break in upon our joys.
The mother continued: “All his life, since he first met you, he has been talking about you. It was Mr. Japhet this, and Mr. Japhet that, and he has always been longing to see you. I often told him to go and visit you, but he would say: ‘No, not without you, mother,’ and thus the going was delayed until he became a partner, and was entitled to a long vacation, when I said to him: ‘Now, we will see Mr. Japhet, if he can be found anywhere,’ so we started, and here we are. So you see Mr. Japhet, he is still his mother’s boy.”
“Yes,” said Johnny, soberly, “I am not ashamed to say, it was first God, then mother and Japhet, all through my life. These three have been my trinity for good—” and as if talking to himself—“for to these I owe all my best impulses, and the happiness of my life.”
After a few moments silence we fell to talking of our school days.
“Yes,” said the mother, “Johnny has told me about them again and again. What a time you must have had! And do you know, Mr. Japhet, that he never told me about that flogging until after he left school.”
“No, good mother,” he said, “I did not, for I well knew that if I told, you would have tied me to your apron-string,and never let me go back to it.” She answered with warmth: “Indeed, I would not, to such a school as that! A great brute of a man flogging a little boy for not betraying his comrades! Often when I have thought of it, years since, I have felt like going to that man, and upbraiding him for his meanness and cruelty.”
“Mother, dear,” spoke Johnny, very gravely, for it was his turn to reprove, “I am surprised!” And then with a smile: “How funny you would look shaking your little fists at such a monster man, and all for such a little thing that occurred years ago.”
“John, John,” she replied very sternly. “It was not a little thing, John, and you know it.”
“That’s so, I surrender,” he answered. “Haven’t I felt the smart of that rattan years after, when I have thought of that scene? Not in my body, but in my sense of right and justice? Didn’t you scream though, Mr. Japhet? You never knew that I was ready to faint, and thought of dying, as those cutting strokes fell on me, but when I heard you scream, I made up my mind in an instant to be brave to the last, if I died. I would not have you think me a coward. It was your voice that gave me courage and nerve.”
Thus our talk ran on. I know these things are but trifles, but the sum total of life is made up of little things, a flogging is but a small affair, but have we not all of us received cuts that we have remembered until they have become a part of our very selves, and so have changed many a destiny for good or evil?
“But,” said the mother, “you might have let me share your sorrow.” “O, no, good mother,” replied he, “that could not be. Sorrow cannot be divided, shared, sold or given away. I might have told you and a hundred others, and you would have felt grieved and sympathized with me, but my sorrow would not have been diminished in the least so it was better for me to carry my own burdens than to have troubled you.” Brave as a man, as he was a brave boy.
The days passed only too quickly, full of delightful enjoyment to me, and I think, as well to them, and myfriends took their departure. Then I was lonely and sad, yet happy in this renewal of our old friendship, and the addition of a new acquaintance, the charming mother of Johnny. I have given this account of their visit for several reasons, first because of the old friendship; then for the delight I had in their company, but most of all because of the admiration I had for this loving couple, mother and son. As the mother said, they were one. She had lived for her son, he for his mother, and thus their lives were blended together.
First of all, she was so pure. This was my first impression, and increased the more I saw of her, not from any special thing she said or did, but purity seemed to be in her every feature, in her dress, her walk, her conversation, the tone of her voice. She seemed to be made of sweetness and light, not simply of the soft and mellow kind, for she had her opinions, which she dared to defend with energy, yet a sense of goodness seemed to rule her. Such a life is a perpetual prayer. She had a great mind in her little body, and was not willing to let it sleep and rest. It was evident that she had kept up with her son in his reading, with his thoughts and his business, so she could be his close companion. There was scarcely a topic in our conversation, on which she could not converse with excellent sense, and with flashes of wit and fun. On some subjects her womanly instinct seemed to outrun our slow, plodding masculine thoughts.
I have read somewhere a criticism on woman, and probably a just one; that many of them, on becoming married, seem to think that they have reached the summit of their lives, and lose all their former pride of appearance, stop reading and thinking, and so cease to be companions of their husbands and older children, and remain as common useful articles of house furniture. It was not so with this mother. To her elasticity of youth in body and mind, she had added the culture and refinement of years, while her body seemed strengthened and matured through her mental activity.
I have but little patience with the theory of some scientific men that there is necessarily an inequality of the sexesbecause of the greater avoirdupois quantity of the male brain. Mind cannot be weighed with a butcher’s scales, no more than strength can be computed according to the amount of muscle. What does it prove if a difference exists between the brains of the two sexes of no less than 220 cubic centimeters per individual, more than to say that because two men live in different sized houses, the one living in the larger house should be consequently the greater man, when everybody knows that a large minded man may live in a hut, and a fool be in a palace. Therefore it seems that size and weight is no indication of quality.
Should not fineness of texture and quality give value to brains and to everything else? But, say the scientists, no difference can be seen in the composition of the male and female brain. Nor can any difference of texture be seen in the brains of an educated man and a fool. Take two rays of light of the same degree of brightness, no difference in appearance is observed, yet the one ray is full of heat, and the other of cold. Analysis by the spectrum shows a difference. My skeptical common sense suggests that our scientists have not found the right kind of a spectrum for brain analysis. Suppose we leave out the material brain altogether and consider the mind alone as we would lose sight of the house and think of the man separate from it. Is not the great mental difference between the sexes, as between individuals of the same sex, due to the training and development of that immaterial, subtle something, that no eye can see, or scale can weigh, or mortal comprehend, the mind itself? Why make the soul a clod of matter? Why try to estimate mind only by the weight or shape or texture of the brain matter it lives in and uses, any more than we should judge of the weight or worth of a man by the size or value of the house he occupies?
It is said that a fool can ask questions that a philosopher cannot answer, so I have ventured. Yet with all due respect to the philosophers I cannot always accept their dogmatic assertions without protest or questions. For instance, a great brain anatomist asserts, “Woman is a constantly growing child and in the brain, as in so many other parts of her body, she conforms to her childish type.”Suppose I assert “Man is a constantly growing child, and in the brain as in so many parts of his body, he conforms to his childish type.” What value has one assertion over the other?