Chapter I. ROMANCE AND REALITY

CHAPTER I.

ROMANCE AND REALITY.

Mr. Pierce was talking. Mr. Pierce was generally talking. From the day that his proud mamma had given him a sweetmeat for a very inarticulate"goo"which she translated into"papa,"Mr. Pierce had found speech profitable. He had been able to talk his nurse into granting him every indulgence. He had talked his way through school and college. He had talked his wife into marrying him. He had talked himself to the head of a large financial institution. He had talked his admission into society. Conversationally, Mr. Pierce was a success. He could discuss Schopenhauer or cotillion favors; St. Paul, the apostle, or St. Paul, the railroad. He had cultivated the art as painstakingly as a professional musician. He had countless anecdotes, which he introduced to his auditors by a"that reminds me of."He had endless quotations, with the quotation marks omitted. Finally he had an idea on every subject, and generally a theory as well. Carlyle speaks somewhere of an"inarticulate genius."He was not alluding to Mr. Pierce.

Like most good talkers, Mr. Pierce was a tongue despot. Conversation must take his course, or he would none of it. Generally he controlled. If an upstart endeavored to turn the subject, Mr. Pierce waited till the intruder had done speaking, and then quietly, but firmly would remark:"Relative to the subject we were discussing a moment ago—"If any one ventured to speak, even sotto voce, before Mr. Pierce had finished all he had to say, he would at once cease his monologue, wait till the interloper had finished, and then resume his lecture just where he had been interrupted. Only once had Mr. Pierce found this method to fail in quelling even the sturdiest of rivals. The recollection of that day is still a mortification to him. It had happened on the deck of an ocean steamer. For thirty minutes he had fought his antagonist bravely. Then, humbled and vanquished, he had sought the smoking-room, to moisten his parched throat, and solace his wounded spirit, with a star cocktail. He had at last met his superior. He yielded the deck to the fog-horn.

At the present moment Mr. Pierce was having things very much his own way. Seated in the standing-room of a small yacht, were some eight people. With a leaden sky overhead, and a leaden sea about it, the boat gently rose and fell with the ground swell. Three miles away could be seen the flash-light marking the entrance to the harbor. But though slowly gathering clouds told that wind was coming, the yacht now lay becalmed, drifting with the ebb tide. The pleasure-seekers had been together all day, and were decidedly talked out. For the last hour they had been singing songs—always omitting Mr. Pierce, who never so trifled with his vocal organs. During this time he had been restless. At one point he had attempted to deliver his opinion on the relation of verse to music, but an unfeeling member of the party had struck up"John Brown's Body,"and his lecture had ended, in the usual serial style, at the most interesting point, without even the promise of a"continuation in our next."Finally, however, the singers had sung themselves hoarse in the damp night air, the last"Spanish Cavalier"had been safely restored to his inevitable true-love, and the sound of voices and banjo floated away over the water. Mr. Pierce's moment had come.

Some one, and it is unnecessary to mention the sex, had given a sigh, and regretted that nineteenth century life was so prosaic and unromantic. Clearing his throat, quite as much to pre-empt the pause as to articulate the better, Mr. Pierce spoke:

"That modern times are less romantic and interesting than bygone centuries is a fallacy. From time immemorial, love and the battle between evil and good are the two things which have given the world romance and interest. Every story, whether we find it in the myths of the East, the folklore of Europe, the poems of the Troubadours, or in our newspaper of this morning, is based on one or the other of these factors, or on both combined. Now it is a truism that love never played so important a part as now in shaping the destinies of men and women, for this is the only century in which it has obtained even a partial divorce from worldly and parental influences. Moreover the great battle of society, to crush wrong and elevate right, was never before so bravely fought, on so many fields, by so many people as to-day. But because our lovers and heroes no longer brag to the world of their doings; no longer stand in the moonlight, and sing of their'dering does,'the world assumes that the days of tourneys and guitars were the only days of true love and noble deeds. Even our professed writers of romance join in the cry.'Draw life as it is,'they say.'We find nothing in it but mediocrity, selfishness, and money-loving.'By all means let us have truth in our novels, but there is truth and truth. Most of New York's firemen presumably sat down at noon to-day to a dinner of corned-beef and cabbage. But perhaps one of them at the same moment was fighting his way through smoke and flame, to save life at the risk of his own. Boiled dinner and burned firemen are equally true. Are they equally worthy of description? What would the age of chivalry be, if the chronicles had recorded only the brutality, filthiness and coarseness of their contemporaries? The wearing of underclothing unwashed till it fell to pieces; the utter lack of soap; the eating with fingers; the drunkenness and foul-mouthedness that drove women from the table at a certain point, and so inaugurated the custom, now continued merely as an excuse for a cigar? Some one said once that a man finds in a great city just the qualities he takes to it. That's true of romance as well. Modern novelists don't find beauty and nobility in life, because they don't look for them. They predicate from their inner souls that the world is'cheap and nasty'and that is what they find it to be. The re is more true romance in a New York tenement than there ever was in a baron's tower—braver battles, truer love, nobler sacrifices. Romance is all about us, but we must have eyes for it. You are young people, with your lives before you. Let me give you a little advice. As you go through life look for the fine things—not for the despicable. It won't make you any richer. It won't make you famous. It won't better you in a worldly way. But it will make your lives happier, for by the time you are my age, you'll love humanity, and look upon the world and call it good. And you will have found romance enough to satisfy all longings for mediæval times."

"But, dear, one cannot imagine some people ever finding anything romantic in life,"said a voice, which, had it been translated into words would have said,"I know you are right, of course, and you will convince me at once, but in my present state of unenlightenment it seems to me that—"the voice, already low, became lower."Now"—a moment's hesitation—"there is—Peter Stirling."

"Exactly,"said Mr. Pierce."That is a very case in point, and proves just what I've been saying. Peter is like the novelists of whom I've been talking. I don't suppose we ought to blame him for it. What can you expect of a son of a mill-foreman, who lives the first sixteen years of his life in a mill-village? If his hereditary tendencies gave him a chance, such an experience would end it. If one lives in the country, one may get fine thoughts by contact with Nature. In great cities one is developed and stimulated by art, music, literature, and contact with clever people. But a mill-village is one vast expanse of mediocrity and prosaicness, and it would take a bigger nature than Peter's to recognize the beautiful in such a life. In truth, he is as limited, as exact, and as unimaginative as the machines of his own village. Peter has no romance in him; hence he will never find it, nor increase it in this world. This very case only proves my point; that to meet romance one must have it. Boccaccio said he did not write novels, but lived them. Try to imagine Peter living a romance! He could be concerned in a dozen and never dream it. They would not interest him even if he did notice them. And I'll prove it to you."Mr. Pierce raised his voice."We are discussing romance, Peter. Won't you stop that unsocial tramp of yours long enough to give us your opinion on the subject?"

A moment's silence followed, and then a singularly clear voice, coming from the forward part of the yacht, replied:"I never read them, Mr. Pierce."

Mr. Pierce laughed quietly."See,"he said,"that fellow never dreams of there being romance outside of novels. He is so prosaic that he is unconscious of anything bigger than his own little sphere of life. Peter may obtain what he wants in this world, for his desires will be of the kind to be won by work and money. But he will never be controlled by a great idea, nor be the hero of a true romance."

Steele once wrote that the only difference between the Catholic Church and the Church of England was, that the former was infallible and the latter never wrong. Mr. Pierce would hardly have claimed for himself either of these qualities. He was too accustomed in his business to writing,"E. and O.E."above his initials, to put much faith in human dicta. But in the present instance he felt sure of what he said, and the little group clearly agreed. If they were right, this story is like that recounted in Mother Goose, which was ended before it was begun. But Mr. Pierce had said that romance is everywhere to those who have the spirit of it in them. Perhaps in this case the spirit was lacking in his judges—not in Peter Stirling.