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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY 
 
 FIRST OPENING OF 
 
 THE NEH/ PORTFOLIO 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
 
 NINTH EDITION 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 tatfe Ittoersibe Press, <rr.mbr:&0e 
 1890
 
 Copyright, 1885, 
 BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 AU rigJits reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A- 
 Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. lloughton & Company.
 
 A/ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. INTRODUCTION . 1 
 
 I. GETTING READY 33 
 
 II. THE BOAT-RACE 46 
 
 III. THE WHITE CANOE 53 
 
 IV. THE YOUNG SOLITARY 60 
 
 V. THE ENIGMA STUDIED 73 
 
 VI. STILL AT FAULT 77 
 
 VII. A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES 87 
 
 VIII. THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY 94 
 
 IX. THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY . . 117 
 X. A NEW ARRIVAL . . . . . . . . 130 
 
 XI. THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX . . 145 
 XII. Miss VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT . . . 161 
 
 XIII. DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER 166 
 
 XIV. Miss VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY . . . 174 
 XV. DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA .... 186 
 
 XVI. Miss VINCENT WRITES A LETTER . . . .192 
 
 XVII. DR. BUTTS'S PATIENT 202 
 
 XVIII. MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE . . 207 
 
 XIX. THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE . 228 
 XX. DR. BUTTS REFLECTS 240 
 
 XXI. AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION 248 
 
 XXII. EUTHYMIA 254 
 
 XXIII. THE MKETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHYMIA . 261 
 
 XXIV. THE INEVITABLE 277 
 
 POSTSCRIPT : AFTER-GLIMPSES .... 283 
 
 625466
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 FIRST OPENING OF THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "AND why the New Portfolio, I would ask?" 
 
 Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession 
 to the nursery in which you have a special interest, 
 whether the new-comer was commonly spoken of as a 
 baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under 
 all conditions, in all companies, by the whole house 
 hold, spoken of as the baby? And was the small 
 receptacle provided for it commonly spoken of as a 
 cradle ; or was it not always called the cradle, as if 
 there were no other in existence ? 
 
 Now this New Portfolio is the cradle in which I am 
 to rock my new-born thoughts, and from which I am to 
 lift them carefully and show them to callers, namely, 
 to the whole family of readers belonging to my list of 
 intimates, and such other friends as may drop in by 
 accident. And so it shall have the definite article, 
 and not be lost in the mob of its fellows as a portfolio. 
 
 There are a few personal and incidental matters of 
 which I wish to say something before reaching the 
 contents of the Portfolio, whatever these may be. I 
 have had other portfolios before this, two, more es 
 pecially, and the first thing I beg leave to introduce 
 relates to these. 
 
 1
 
 2 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 Do not throw this volume down, or turn to another 
 page, when I tell you that the earliest of them, that of 
 which I now am about to speak, was opened more 
 than fifty years ago. This is a very dangerous con 
 fession, for fifty years make everything hopelessly 
 old-fashioned, without giving it the charm of real an 
 tiquity. If I could say a hundred years, now, my 
 readers would accept all I had to tell them with a 
 curious interest ; but fifty years ago, there are too 
 many talkative old people who know all about that 
 time, and at best half a century is a half-baked bit 
 of ware. A coin-fancier would say that your fifty- 
 year-old facts have just enough of antiquity to spot 
 them with rust, and not enough to give them the 
 delicate and durable patina which is time's exquisite 
 enamel. 
 
 When the first Portfolio was opened the coin of the 
 realm bore for its legend, or might have borne if 
 the more devout hero-worshippers could have had their 
 way, Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. Cae 
 sar. Aug. Div. Max., etc., etc. I never happened to 
 see any gold or silver with that legend, but the truth is 
 I was not very familiarly acquainted with the precious 
 metals at that period of my career, and there might 
 have been a good deal of such coin in circulation with 
 out my handling it, or knowing much about it. 
 
 Permit me to indulge in a few reminiscences of that 
 far-off time. 
 
 In those days the Athenaeum Picture Gallery was a 
 principal centre of attraction to young Boston people 
 and their visitors. Many of us got our first ideas of 
 art, to say nothing of our first lessons in the compara 
 tively innocent flirtations of our city's primitive pe- 
 uod, in that agreeable resort of amateurs and artists.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 How the pictures on those walls in Pearl Street do 
 keep their places in the mind's gallery! Truinbull's 
 Sortie of Gibraltar, with red enough in it for one of 
 our sunset after-glows; and Neagle's full-length por 
 trait of the blacksmith in his shirt-sleeves ; and Cop 
 ley's long-waistcoated gentlemen and satin-clad ladies, 
 they looked like gentlemen and ladies, too ; and 
 Stuart's florid merchants and high-waisted matrons ; 
 and Allston's lovely Italian scenery and dreamy, un- 
 irnpassioned women, not forgetting Florimel in full 
 flight on her interminable rocking-horse, you may 
 still see her at the Art Museum ; and the rival land 
 scapes of Doughty and Fisher, much talked of and 
 largely praised in those days ; and the Murillo, not 
 from Marshal Soult's collection ; and the portrait of 
 Annibale Caracci by himself, which cost the Athe 
 naeum a hundred dollars ; and Cole's allegorical pic 
 tures, and his immense and dreary canvas, in which 
 the prostrate shepherds and the angel in Joseph's 
 coat of many colors look as if they must have been 
 thrown in for nothing ; and West's brawny Lear tear 
 ing his clothes to pieces. But wkv go on with the 
 catalogue, when most of these pictures can be seen 
 either at the Athenaeum building in Beacon Street or 
 at the Art Gallery, and admired or criticised perhaps 
 more justly, certainly not more generously, than in 
 those earlier years when we looked at them through 
 the japanned fish-horns ? 
 
 If one happened to pass through Atkinson Street 
 on his way to the Athenaeum, he would notice a large, 
 square, painted, brick house, in which lived a leading 
 representative of old-fashioned coleopterous Calvinism, 
 and from which emerged one of the liveliest of liter 
 ary butterflies. The father was editor of the " Boston
 
 4: THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 Recorder," a very respectable, but very far from amus 
 ing paper, most largely patronized by that class of the 
 community which spoke habitually of the first day of 
 the week as " the Sahbuth." The son was the editor 
 of several different periodicals in succession, none of 
 them over severe or serious, and of many pleasant 
 books, filled with lively descriptions of society, which 
 he studied on the outside with a quick eye for form 
 and color, and with a certain amount of sentiment, not 
 very deep, but real, though somewhat frothed over by 
 his worldly experiences. 
 
 Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when 
 I opened my first Portfolio. He had made himself 
 known by his religious poetry, published in his father's 
 paper, I think, and signed " Roy." He had started 
 the " American Magazine," afterwards merged in the 
 " New York Mirror." He had then left off writing 
 scripture pieces, and taken to lighter forms of verse. 
 He had just written 
 
 " I 'm twenty-two, I 'm twenty-two, 
 
 They idly give me joy, 
 As if I should be glad to know 
 That I was less a boy." 
 
 He was young, therefore, and already famous. He 
 came very near being very handsome. He was tall ; 
 his hair, of light brown color, waved in luxuriant 
 abundance ; his cheek was as rosy as if it had been 
 painted to show behind the footlights ; he dressed with 
 artistic elegance. He was something between a re 
 membrance of Count D'Orsay and an anticipation of 
 Oscar Wilde. There used to be in the gallery of the 
 Luxembourg a picture of Hippolytus and Phaedra, in 
 which the beautiful young man, who had kindled a 
 passion in the heart of his wicked step-mother, always
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 reminded me of Willis, in spite of the shortcomings 
 of the living face as compared with the ideal. The 
 painted youth is still blooming on the canvas, but the 
 fresh-cheeked, jaunty young author of the year 1830 
 has long faded out of human sight I took the leaves 
 which lie before me at this moment, as I write, from 
 his coffin, as it lay just outside the door of Saint 
 Paul's Church, on a sad, overclouded winter's day, in 
 the year 1867. At that earlier time, Willis was by far 
 the most prominent young American author. Cooper, 
 Irving, Bryant, Dana, Halleck, Drake, had all done 
 their best work. Longfellow was not yet conspicuous. 
 Lowell was a school-boy. Emerson was unheard of. 
 Whittier was beginning to make his way against the 
 writers with better educational advantages whom he 
 was destined to outdo and to outlive. Not one of the 
 great histories, which have done honor to our litera 
 ture, had appeared. Our school-books depended, so 
 far as American authors were concerned, on extracts 
 from the orations and speeches of Webster and Ev 
 erett ; on Bryant's Thanatopsis, his lines To a Water 
 fowl, and the Death of the Flowers, Halleck's Marco 
 Bozzaris, Red-Jacket, and Burns ; on Drake's Amer 
 ican Flag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Gen 
 ius Sleeping and Genius Waking, and not getting 
 very wide awake, either. These could be depended 
 upon. A few other copies of verses might be found, 
 but Dwight's "Columbia, Columbia," and Pierpont's 
 Airs of Palestine, were already effaced, as many of 
 the favorites of our own day and generation must 
 soon be, by the great wave which the near future will 
 pour over the sands in which they still are legible. 
 
 About this time, in the year 1832, came out a small 
 volume entitled " Truth, a Gift for Scribblers," which
 
 6 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 made some talk for a while, and is now chiefly valu 
 able as a kind of literary tombstone on which may be 
 read the names of many whose renown has been bur 
 ied with their bones. The " London Athenaeum " spoke 
 of it as having been described as a " tomahawk sort of 
 satire." As the author had been a trapper in Mis 
 souri, he was familiarly acquainted with that weapon 
 and the warfare of its owners. Born in Boston, in 
 1804, the son of an army officer, educated at West 
 Point, he came back to his native city about the year 
 1830. He wrote an article on Bryant's Poems for the 
 "North American Review," and another on the famous 
 Indian chief, Black Hawk. In this last-mentioned 
 article he tells this story as the great warrior told it 
 himself. It was an incident of a fight with the Osages. 
 
 " Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his 
 antagonist and tear the scalp from his head. Fired 
 with valor and ambition, I rushed furiously upon an 
 other, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran 
 my lance through his body, took off his scalp, and re 
 turned in triumph to my father. He said nothing, 
 but looked pleased." 
 
 This little red story describes very well Snelling's 
 style of literary warfare. His handling of his most 
 conspicuous victim, Willis, was very much like Black 
 Hawk's way of dealing with the Osage. He toma 
 hawked him in heroics, ran him through in prose, and 
 scalped him in barbarous epigrams. Bryant and Hal- 
 leek were abundantly praised ; hardly any one else 
 escaped. 
 
 If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputa 
 tion that were floating, some of them gay with pris 
 matic colors, half a century ago, he will find in the 
 pages of "Truth" a long catalogue of celebrities he
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 never heard of. I recognize only three names, of all 
 which are mentioned in the little book, as belonging 
 to persons still living; but as I have not read the 
 obituaries of all the others, some of them may be still 
 flourishing in spite of Mr. Snelling's exterminating 
 onslaught. Time dealt as hardly with poor Snelling, 
 who was not without talent and instruction, as he had 
 dealt with our authors. I think he found shelter at 
 last under a roof which held numerous inmates, some 
 of whom had seen better and many of whom had 
 known worse days than those which they were passing 
 within its friendly and not exclusive precincts. Such, 
 at least, was the story I heard after he disappeared 
 from general observation. 
 
 That was the day of Souvenirs, Tokens, Forget-me- 
 nots, Bijous, and all that class of showy annuals. 
 Short stories, slender poems, steel engravings, on a 
 level with the common fashion-plates of advertising 
 establishments, gilt edges, resplendent binding, to 
 manifestations of this sort our lighter literature had 
 very largely run for some years. The " Scarlet Let 
 ter" was an unhinted possibility. The "Voices of the 
 Night " had not stirred the brooding silence ; the Con 
 cord seer was still in the lonely desert ; most of the 
 contributors to those yearly volumes, which took up 
 such pretentious positions on the centre table, have 
 shrunk into entire oblivion, or, at best, hold their place 
 in literature by a scrap or two in some omnivorous 
 collection. 
 
 What dreadful work Snelling made among those 
 slight reputations, floating in swollen tenuity on the 
 surface of the stream, and mirroring each other in re 
 ciprocal reflections ! Violent, abusive as he was, un 
 just to any against whom he happened to have a pre-
 
 8 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 judice, his castigation of the small litterateurs of that 
 day was not harmful, but rather of use. His attack 
 on Willis very probably did him good ; he needed a 
 little discipline, and though he got it too unsparingly, 
 some cautions came with it which were worth the 
 stripes he had to smart under. One noble writer 
 Snelling treated with rudeness, probably from some 
 accidental pique, or equally insignificant reason. I 
 myself, one of the three survivors before referred to, 
 escaped with a love-pat, as the youngest son of the 
 Muse. Longfellow gets a brief nod of acknowledg 
 ment. Bailey, an American writer, " who made long 
 since a happy snatch at fame," which must have been 
 snatched away from him by envious time, for I can 
 not identify him ; Thatcher, who died early, leaving 
 one poem, The Last Request, not wholly unremem- 
 bered; Miss Hannah F. Gould, a very bright and 
 agreeable writer of light verse, all these are com 
 mended to the keeping of that venerable public car 
 rier, who finds his scythe and hour-glass such a load 
 that he generally drops the burdens committed to his 
 charge, after making a show of paying every possible 
 attention to them so long as he is kept in sight. 
 
 It was a good time to open a portfolio. But my 
 old one had boyhood written on every page. A sin 
 gle passionate outcry when the old war-ship I had 
 read about in the broadsides that were a part of our 
 kitchen literature, and in the "Naval Monument," 
 was threatened with demolition ; a few verses sug 
 gested by the sight of old Major Melville in his 
 cocked hat and breeches, were the best scraps that 
 came out of that first Portfolio, which was soon closed 
 that it should not interfere with the duties of a profes 
 sion authorized to claim all the time and thought 
 which would have been otherwise expended in filling it
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 During a quarter of a century the first Portfolio re 
 mained closed for the greater part of the time. Only 
 now and then it would be taken up and opened, and 
 something drawn from it for a special occasion, more 
 particularly for the annual reunions of a certain class 
 of which I was a member. 
 
 In the year 1857, towards its close, the " Atlantic 
 Monthly," which I had the honor of naming, was 
 started by the enterprising firm of Phillips & Samp 
 son, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. 
 He thought that I might bring something out of my 
 old Portfolio which would be not unacceptable in the 
 new magazine. I looked at the poor old receptacle, 
 which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had 
 lost its freshness, and seemed hardly presentable to 
 the new company expected to welcome the new-comer 
 in the literary world of Boston, the least provincial of 
 American centres of learning and letters. The gilded 
 covering where the emblems of hope and aspiration 
 had looked so bright had faded ; not wholly, perhaps, 
 but how was the gold become dim ! how was the 
 most fine gold changed ! Long devotion to other pur 
 suits had left little time for literature, and the waifs 
 and strays gathered from the old Portfolio had done 
 little more than keep alive the memory that such a 
 source of supply was still in existence. I looked at the 
 old Portfolio, and said to myself, " Too late ! too late. 
 This tarnished gold will never brighten, these battered 
 covers will stand no more wear and tear ; close them, 
 and leave them to the spider and the book-worm." 
 
 In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of 
 the century had condensed into the constellation of the 
 middle of the same period. When, a little while after 
 the establishment of the new magazine, the " Saturday
 
 10 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 Club " gathered about the long table at " Parker's," 
 such a representation of all that was best in American 
 literature had never been collected within so small a 
 compass. Most of the Americans whom educated for 
 eigners cared to see leaving out of consideration 
 
 O O 
 
 official dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes 
 them objects of curiosity were seated at that board. 
 But the club did not yet exist, and the " Atlantic 
 Monthly " was an experiment. There had already 
 been several monthly periodicals, more or less success 
 ful and permanent, among which " Putnam's Maga 
 zine " was conspicuous, owing its success largely to the 
 contributions of that very accomplished and delightful 
 writer, Mr. George William Curtis. That magazine, 
 after a somewhat prolonged and very honorable exist 
 ence, had gone where all periodicals go when they 
 die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, and blind 
 recording angel whose name is Oblivion. It had so 
 well deserved to live that its death was a surprise and 
 a source of regret. Could another monthly take its 
 place and keep it when that, with all its attractions 
 and excellences, had died out, and left a blank in our 
 periodical literature which it would be very hard to 
 fill as well as that had filled it ? 
 
 This was the experiment which the enterprising 
 publishers ventured upon, and I, who felt myself out 
 side of the charmed circle drawn around the scholars 
 and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given 
 myself to other studies and duties, wondered some 
 what when Mr. Lowell insisted upon my becoming a 
 contributor. And so, yielding to a pressure which I 
 could not understand, and yet found myself unable to 
 resist, I promised to take a part in the new venture, 
 as an occasional writer in the columns of the new mag 
 azine.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 That was the way in which the second Portfolio 
 found its way to my table, and was there opened in 
 the autumn of the year 1857. I was already at 
 
 least 
 
 Nd mezzo del cammin di mia vita, 
 
 when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little- 
 tried paths of what looked at first like a wilderness, a 
 selva oscura, where, if I did not meet the lion or the 
 wolf, I should be sure to find the critic, the most dan 
 gerous of the carnivora, waiting to welcome me after 
 his own fashion. 
 
 The second Portfolio is closed and laid away. Per 
 haps it was hardly worth while to provide and open a 
 new one ; but here it lies before me, and I hope I may 
 find something between its covers which will justify me 
 in coming once more before my old friends. But before 
 I open it I want to claim a little further indulgence. 
 
 There is a subject of profound interest to almost 
 every writer, I might say to almost every human be 
 ing. No matter what his culture or ignorance, no . 
 matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, 
 the subject I refer to is one of which he rarely ceases 
 to think, and, if opportunity is offered, to talk. On 
 this he is eloquent, if on nothing else. The slow of 
 speech becomes fluent; the torpid listener becomes 
 electric with vivacity, and alive all over with interest. 
 
 The sagacious reader knows well what is coming 
 after this prelude. He is accustomed to the phrases 
 with which the plausible visitor, who has a subscrip 
 tion book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the 
 depressing disclosure of his real errand. He is not 
 unacquainted with the conversational amenities of the 
 cordial and interesting stranger, who, having had the
 
 12 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 misfortune of leaving his carpet-bag in the cars, or of 
 having his pocket picked at the station, finds himself 
 without the means of reaching that distant home where 
 affluence waits for him with its luxurious welcome, but 
 to whom for the moment the loan of some five and 
 twenty dollars would be a convenience and a favor for 
 which his heart would ache with gratitude during the 
 brief interval between the loan and its repayment. 
 
 I wish to say a few words in my own person relating 
 to some passages in my own history, and more espe 
 cially to some of the recent experiences through which 
 I have been passing. 
 
 What can justify one in addressing himself to the 
 general public as if it were his private correspondent ? 
 There are at least three sufficient reasons : first, if he 
 has a story to tell that everybody wants to hear, if 
 he has been shipwrecked, or has been in a battle, or 
 has witnessed any interesting event, and can tell any 
 thing new about it ; secondly, if he can put in fitting 
 words any common experiences not already well told, 
 so that readers will say, " Why, yes ! I have had that 
 sensation, thought, emotion, a hundred times, but I 
 never heard it spoken of before, and I never saw any 
 mention of it in print ; " and thirdly, anything one 
 likes, provided he can so tell it as to make it inter 
 esting. 
 
 I have no story to tell in this Introduction which 
 can of itself claim any general attention. My first 
 pages relate the effect of a certain literary experience 
 upon myself, a series of partial metempsychoses of 
 which I have been the subject! Next follows a brief 
 tribute to the memory of a very dear and renowned 
 friend from whom I have recently been parted. The 
 rest of the Introduction will be consecrated to the 
 memory of my birthplace.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 I have just finished a Memoir, which will appear 
 soon after this page is written, and will have been the 
 subject of criticism long before it is in the reader's 
 hands. The experience of thinking another man's 
 thoughts continuously for a long time ; of living one's 
 self into another man's life for a month, or a year, or 
 more, is a very curious one. No matter how much 
 superior to the biographer his subject may be, the 
 man who writes the life feels himself, in a certain 
 sense, on the level of the person whose life he is 
 writing:. One cannot fight over the battles of Ma- 
 
 O C3 
 
 rengo or Austerlitz with Napoleon without feeling as 
 if he himself had a fractional claim to the victory, so 
 real seems the transfer of his personality into that of 
 the conqueror while he reads. Still more must this 
 identification of " subject " and " object " take place 
 when one is writing of a person whose studies or occu 
 pations are not unlike his own. 
 
 Here are some of my metempsychoses : 
 
 Ten years ago I wrote what I called A Memorial 
 Outline of a remarkable student of nature. He was 
 a born observer, and such are far from common. He 
 was also a man of great enthusiasm and unwearying 
 industry. His quick eye detected what others passed 
 by without notice : the Indian relic, where another 
 would see only pebbles and fragments ; the rare mol- 
 lusk, or reptile, which his companion would poke with 
 his cane, never suspecting that there was a prize at 
 the end of it. Getting his single facts together with 
 marvellous sagacity and long-breathed patience, he ar 
 ranged them, classified them, described them, studied 
 them in their relations, and before those around him 
 were aware of it the collector was an accomplished
 
 14 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 naturalist. When he died his collections remained, 
 and they still remain, as his record in the hieratic lan 
 guage of science. In writing this memoir the spirit 
 of his quiet pursuits, the even temper they bred in 
 him, gained possession of my own mind, so that I 
 seemed to look at nature through his gold-bowed spec 
 tacles, and to move about his beautifully ordered mu 
 seum as if I had myself prepared and arranged its 
 specimens. I felt wise with his wisdom, fair-minded 
 with his calm impartiality ; it seemed as if for the time 
 his placid, observant, inquiring, keen-sighted nature 
 " slid into my soul," and if I had looked at myself in 
 the glass I should almost have expected to see the 
 image of the Hersey professor whose life and char 
 acter I was sketching. 
 
 A few years later I lived over the life of another 
 friend in writing a Memoir of which he was the sub 
 ject. I saw him, the beautiful, bright-eyed boy, with 
 dark, waving hair ; the youthful scholar, first at Har 
 vard, then at Gottingen and Berlin, the friend and 
 companion of Bismarck ; the young author, making 
 a dash for renown as a novelist, and showing the 
 elements which made his failures the promise of suc 
 cess in a larger field of literary labor; the delving 
 historian, burying his fresh young manhood in the 
 dusty alcoves of silent libraries, to come forth in the 
 face of Europe and America as one of the leading 
 historians of the time ; the diplomatist, accomplished, 
 of captivating presence and manners, an ardent Amer 
 ican, and in the time of trial an impassioned and elo 
 quent advocate of the cause of freedom ; reaching at 
 last the summit of his ambition as minister at the 
 Court of Saint James. All this I seemed to share
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 with him as I tracked his career from his birthplace 
 in Dorchester, and the house in Walnut Street where 
 he passed his boyhood, to the palaces of Vienna and 
 London. And then the cruel blow which struck him 
 from the place he adorned ; the great sorrow that 
 darkened his later years ; the invasion of illness, a 
 threat that warned of danger, and after a period of 
 invalidism, during a part of which I shared his most 
 intimate daily life, the sudden, hardly unwelcome, 
 final summons. Did not my own consciousness mi 
 grate, or seem, at least, to transfer itself into this bril 
 liant life history, as I traced its glowing record? I, 
 too, seemed to feel the delight of carrying with me, as 
 if they were my own, the charms of a presence which 
 made its own welcome everywhere. I shared his he 
 roic toils, I partook of his literary and social triumphs, 
 I was honored by the marks of distinction which gath 
 ered about him, I was wronged by the indignity from 
 which he suffered, mourned with him in his sorrow, 
 and thus, after I had been living for months with his 
 memory, I felt as if I should carry a part of his being 
 with me so long as my self -consciousness might remain 
 imprisoned in the ponderable elements. 
 
 The years passed away, and the influences derived 
 from the companionships I have spoken of had blended 
 intimately with my own current of being. Then there 
 came to me a new experience in my relations with an 
 eminent member of the medical profession, whom I 
 met habitually for a long period, and to whose mem 
 ory I consecrated a few pages as a prelude to a work 
 of his own, written under very peculiar circumstances. 
 He was the subject of a slow, torturing, malignant, 
 and almost necessarily fatal disease. Knowing well 
 that the mind would feed upon itself if it were not
 
 16 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 supplied with food from without, he determined to 
 write a treatise 011 a subject which had greatly inter 
 ested him, and which would oblige him to bestow 
 much of his time and thought upon it, if indeed he 
 could hold out to finish the work. During the period 
 while he was engaged in writing it, his wife, who had 
 seemed in perfect health, died suddenly of pneumonia. 
 Physical suffering, mental distress, the prospect of 
 death at a near, if uncertain, time always before him, 
 it was hard to conceive a more terrible strain than 
 that which he had to endure. When, in the hour of 
 his greatest need, his faithful companion, the wife of 
 many years of happy union, whose hand had smoothed 
 his pillow, whose voice had consoled and cheered him, 
 was torn from him after a few days of illness, I felt 
 that my friend's trial was such that the cry of the 
 man of many afflictions and temptations might well 
 have escaped from his lips : " I was at ease, but he 
 hath broken me asunder ; he hath also taken me by 
 my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for 
 his mark. His archers compass me round about, he 
 cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he 
 poureth out my gall upon the ground." 
 
 I had dreaded meeting him for the first time after 
 this crushing blow. What a lesson he gave me of 
 patience under sufferings which the fearful description 
 of the Eastern poet does not picture too vividly ! We 
 have been taught to admire the calm philosophy of 
 Haller, watching his faltering pulse as he lay dying ; 
 we have heard the words of pious resignation said to 
 have been uttered with his last breath by Addison: 
 but here was a trial, not of hours, or days, or weeks, 
 but of months, even years, of cruel pain, and in the 
 midst of its thick darkness the light of love, which had
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 burned steadily at his bedside, was suddenly extin 
 guished. 
 
 There were times in which the thought would force 
 itself upon my consciousness, How long is the uni 
 verse to look upon this dreadful experiment of a ma 
 larious planet, with its immeasurable freight of suffer 
 ing, its poisonous atmosphere, so sweet to breathe, so 
 sure to kill in a few scores of years at farthest, and its 
 heart-breaking woes which make even that brief space 
 of time an eternity? There can be but one answer 
 that will meet this terrible question, which must arise 
 in every thinking nature that would fain "justify the 
 ways of God to men." So must it be until that 
 
 " one far-off divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves " 
 
 has become a reality, and the anthem in which there 
 is no discordant note shall be joined by a voice from 
 every life made " perfect through sufferings." 
 
 Such was the lesson into which I lived in those sad 
 yet placid years of companionship with my suffering 
 and sorrowing friend, in retracing which I seemed to 
 find another existence mingled with my own. 
 
 And now for many months I have been living in 
 daily relations of intimacy with one who seems nearer 
 to me since he has left us than while he was here in 
 living form and feature. I did not know how diffi 
 cult a task I had undertaken in venturing upon a mem 
 oir of a man whom all, or almost all, agree upon as 
 one of the great lights of the New World, and whom 
 very many regard as an unpredicted Messiah. Never 
 before was I so forcibly reminded of Carlyle's descrip 
 tion of the work of a newspaper editor, that thresh- 
 2
 
 18 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 ing of straw already thrice beaten by the flails of other 
 laborers in the same field. What could be said that 
 had not been said of " transcendentalism " and of him 
 who was regarded as its prophet ; of the poet whom 
 some admired without understanding, a few under 
 stood, or thought they did, without admiring, and 
 many both understood and admired, among these 
 there being not a small number who went far beyond 
 admiration, and lost themselves in devout worship ? 
 While one exalted him as " the greatest man that ever 
 lived," another, a friend, famous in the world of let 
 ters, wrote expressly to caution me against the dan 
 ger of overrating a writer whom he is content to recog 
 nize as an American Montaigne, and nothing more. 
 
 After finishing this Memoir, which has but just left 
 my hands, I would gladly have let my brain rest for 
 a while. The wide range of thought which belonged 
 to the subject of the Memoir, the occasional mysticism 
 and the frequent tendency toward it, the sweep of 
 imagination and the sparkle of wit which kept his 
 reader's mind on the stretch, the union of prevailing 
 good sense with exceptional extravagances, the mod 
 est audacity of a nature that showed itself in its naked 
 truthfulness and was not ashamed, the feeling that I 
 was in the company of a sibylline intelligence which 
 was discounting the promises of the remote future 
 long before they were due, all this made the task a 
 grave one. But when I found myself amidst the vor 
 tices of uncounted, various, bewildering judgments, 
 Catholic and Protestant, orthodox and liberal, schol 
 arly from under the tree of knowledge and instinctive 
 from over the potato-hill ; the passionate enthusiasm 
 of young adorers and the cool, if not cynical, estimate 
 of hardened critics, all intersecting each other as they
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 whirled, each around its own centre, I felt that it was 
 indeed very difficult to keep the faculties clear and 
 the judgment unbiassed. 
 
 It is a great privilege to have lived so long in the 
 society of such a man. " He nothing common " said, 
 " or mean." He was always the same pure and high- 
 souled companion. After being with him virtue 
 seemed as natural to man as its opposite did accord 
 ing to the old theologies. But how to let one's self 
 down from the high level of such a character to one's 
 own poor standard ? I trust that the influence of this 
 long intellectual and spiritual companionship never 
 absolutely leaves one who has lived in it. It may 
 come to him in the form of self-reproach that he falls 
 so far short of the superior being who has been so 
 long the object of his contemplation. But it also car 
 ries him at times into the other's personality, so that 
 he finds himself thinking thoughts that are not his 
 own, using phrases which he has unconsciously bor 
 rowed, writing, it may be, as nearly like his long- 
 studied original as Julio Romano's painting was like 
 Raphael's ; and all this with the unquestioning con 
 viction that he is talking from his own consciousness 
 in his own natural way. So far as tones and expres 
 sions and habits which belonged to the idiosyncrasy of 
 the original are borrowed by the student of his life, it 
 is a misfortune for the borrower. But to share the in 
 most consciousness of a noble thinker, to scan one's self 
 in the white light of a pure and radiant soul, this is 
 indeed the highest form of teaching and discipline. 
 
 I have written these few memoirs, and I am grate 
 ful for all that they have taught me. But let me write 
 no more. There are but two biographers who can tell
 
 20 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 the story of a man's or a woman's life. One is the 
 person himself or herself ; the other is the Recording 
 Angel. The autobiographer cannot be trusted to tell 
 the whole truth, though he may tell nothing but the 
 truth, and the Recording Angel never lets his book gc 
 out of his own hands. As for myself, I would say to 
 my friends, in the Oriental phrase, " Live forever ! " 
 Yes, live forever, and I, at least, shall not have to 
 wrong your memories by my imperfect record and un 
 satisfying commentary. 
 
 In connection with these biographies, or memoirs, 
 more properly, in which I have written of my departed 
 friends, I hope my readers will indulge me in another 
 personal reminiscence. I have just lost my dear and 
 honored contemporary of the last century . A hun 
 dred years ago this day, December 13, 1784, died the 
 admirable and ever to be remembered Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson. The year 1709 was made ponderous and 
 illustrious in English biography by his birth. My 
 own humble advent to the world of protoplasm was in 
 the year 1809 of the present century. Summer was 
 just ending when those four letters, " son b." were 
 written under the date of my birth, August 29th. 
 Autumn had just begun when my great pre-contem- 
 porary entered this un-Christian universe and was made 
 a member of the Christian church on the same day, for 
 he was born and baptized on the 18th of September. 
 
 Thus there was established a close bond of relation 
 ship between the great English scholar and writer and 
 myself. Year by year, and almost month by month, 
 my life has kept pace in this century with his life in 
 the last century. 1 had only to open my Boswell at 
 any time, and I knew just what Johnson at my age,
 
 INTRODUCTN. 21 
 
 twenty or fifty or seventy, was thinking and doing; 
 what were his feelings about life ; what changes the 
 years had wrought in his body, his mind, his feel 
 ings, his companionships, his reputation. It was for 
 me a kind of unison between two instruments, both 
 playing that old familiar air, " Life," one a bassoon, 
 if you will, and the other an oaten pipe, if you care to 
 find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each 
 other until the players both grew old and gray. At 
 last the thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and 
 its deep accompaniment rolls out its thunder no more. 
 I feel lonely now that my great companion and 
 friend of so many years has left me. I felt more inti 
 mately acquainted with him than I do with many of 
 my living friends. I can hardly remember when I did 
 not know him. I can see him in his bushy wig, ex 
 actly like that of the Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper 
 (who died in December, 1783) as Copley painted him, 
 he hangs there on my wall, over the revolving book 
 case. His ample coat, too, I see, with its broad flaps 
 and many buttons and generous cuffs, and beneath it 
 the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, arch 
 ing in front of the fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar 
 Falstaffian prominence, involving no less than a dozen 
 of the above-mentioned buttons, and the strong legs 
 with their sturdy calves, fitting columns of support to 
 the massive body and solid, capacious brain enthroned 
 over it. I can hear him with his heavy tread as he 
 comes in to the Club, and a gap is widened to make 
 room for his portly figure. " A fine day," says Sir 
 Joshua. " Sir," he answers, " it seems propitious, but 
 the atmosphere is humid and the skies are nebulous," 
 at which the great painter smiles, shifts his trumpet, 
 and takes a pinch of snuff.
 
 22 THE I\V PORTFOLIO. 
 
 Dear old massive, deep-voiced dogmatist and hypo 
 chondriac of the eighteenth century, how one would 
 like to sit at some ghostly Club, between you and the 
 bony, " mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and 
 dyspeptic of the nineteenth ! The growl of the Eng 
 lish mastiff and the snarl of the Scotch terrier would 
 make a duet which would enliven the shores of Lethe. 
 I wish I could find our " spiritualist's " paper in the 
 Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I 
 hardly know what I shall find when it is opened. 
 
 Yes, my life is a little less precious to me since I 
 have lost that dear old friend ; and when the funeral 
 train moves to Westminster Abbey next Saturday, 
 for I feel as if this were 1784, and not 1884, I seem 
 to find myself following the hearse, one of the silent 
 mourners. 
 
 Among the events which have rendered the past 
 year memorable to me has been the demolition of that 
 venerable and interesting old dwelling-house, precious 
 for its intimate association with the earliest stages of 
 the war of the Revolution, and sacred to me as my 
 birthplace and the home of my boyhood. 
 
 The " Old Gambrel-roofed House " exists no longer. 
 I remember saying something, in one of a series of pa 
 pers published long ago, about the experience of dying 
 out of a house, of leaving it forever, as the soul dies 
 out of the body. We may die out of many houses, 
 but the house itself can die but once ; and so real is 
 the life of a house to one who has dwelt in it, more 
 especially the life of the house which held him in 
 dreamy infancy, in restless boyhood, in passionate 
 youth, so real, I say, is its life, that it seems as if 
 something like a soul of it must outlast its perishing 
 frame.
 
 INTKODUCTION. 23 
 
 The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed House 
 was, I am ready to admit, a case of justifiable domi- 
 cide. Not the less was it to be deplored by all who 
 love the memories of the past. With its destruction 
 are obliterated some of the footprints of the heroes and 
 martyrs who took the first steps in the long and bloody 
 march which led us through the wilderness to the prom 
 ised land of independent nationality. Personally, I 
 have a right to mourn for it as a part of my life 
 gone from me. My private grief for its loss would be 
 a matter for my solitary digestion, were it not that the 
 experience through which I have just passed is one so 
 familiar to my fellow-countrymen that, in telling my 
 own reflections and feelings, I am repeating those of 
 great numbers of men and women who have had the 
 misfortune to outlive their birthplace. 
 
 It is a great blessing to be born surrounded by a 
 natural horizon. The Old Gambrel-roofed House 
 could not boast an unbroken ring of natural objects 
 encircling it. Northerly it looked upon its own out 
 buildings and some unpretending two-story houses 
 which had been its neighbors for a century and more. 
 To the south of it the square brick dormitories and the 
 belfried hall of the university helped to shut out the 
 distant view. But the west windows gave a broad out 
 look across the common, beyond which the historical 
 " Washington elm " and two companions in line with 
 it, spread their leaves in summer and their networks in 
 winter. And far away rose the hills that bounded the 
 view, with the glimmer here and there of the white 
 walls or the illuminated casements of some embowered, 
 half-hidden villa. Eastwardly also, the prospect was, 
 in my earlier remembrance, widely open, and I have 
 frequently seen the sunlit sails gliding along as if
 
 24 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 through the level fields, for no water was visible. So 
 there were broad expanses on two sides at least, for my 
 imagination to wander over. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that we carry our childhood's 
 horizon with us all our days. Among these western 
 wooded hills my day-dreams built their fairy palaces, 
 and even now, as I look at them from my library win 
 dow, across the estuary of the Charles, I find myself in 
 the familiar home of my early visions. The " clouds 
 of glory " which we trail with us in after life need not 
 be traced to a pre-natal state. There is enough to ac 
 count for them in that unconsciously remembered pe 
 riod of existence before we have learned the hard lim 
 itations of real life. Those earliest months in which 
 we lived in sensations without words, and ideas not fet 
 tered in sentences, have all the freshness of proofs of 
 an engraving " before the letter." I am very thank 
 ful that the first part of my life was not passed shut in 
 between high walls and treading the unimpressible and 
 unsympathetic pavement. 
 
 Our university town was very much like the real 
 country, in those days of which I am thinking. There 
 were plenty of huckleberries and blueberries within 
 half a mile of the house. Blackberries ripened in the 
 fields, acorns and shagbarks dropped from the trees, 
 squirrels ran among the branches, and not rarely the 
 hen-hawk might be seen circling over the barnyard. 
 Still another rural element was not wanting, in the 
 form of that far-diffused, infragrant effluvium, which, 
 diluted by a good half mile of pure atmosphere, is no 
 longer odious, nay is positively agreeable, to many 
 who have long known it, though its source and centre 
 has an unenviable reputation. I need not name the 
 animal whose Parthian warfare teirifies and puts to
 
 INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 flight the mightiest hunter that ever roused the tiger 
 from his jungle or faced the lion of the desert. Strange 
 as it may seem, an aerial hint of his personality in the 
 far distance always awakens in my mind pleasant re 
 membrances and tender reflections. A whole neigh 
 borhood rises up before me : the barn, with its hay 
 mow, where the hens laid their eggs to hatch, and we 
 boys hid our apples to ripen, both occasionally illus 
 trating the sic vos non vobis ; the shed, where the an 
 nual Tragedy of the Pig was acted with a realism that 
 made Salvini's Othello seem but a pale counterfeit; 
 the rickety old outhouse, with the " corn-chamber " 
 which the mice knew so well ; the paved yard, with its 
 open gutter, these and how much else come up at 
 the hint of my far-off friend, who is my very near en 
 emy. Nothing is more familiar than the power of 
 smell in reviving old memories. There was that quite 
 different fragrance of the wood-house, the smell of 
 fresh sawdust. It comes back to me now, and with it 
 the hiss of the saw ; the tumble of the divorced logs 
 which God put together and man has just put asunder ; 
 the coming down of the axe and the hah ! that helped 
 it, the straight-grained stick opening at the first ap 
 peal of the implement as if it were a pleasure, and the 
 stick with a knot in the middle of it that mocked the 
 blows and the hahs ! until the beetle and wedge made 
 it listen to reason, there are just such straight- 
 grained and just such knotty men and women. All 
 this passes through my mind while Biddy, whose par 
 lor-name is Angela, contents herself with exclaiming 
 " eVli ! * ***** * ***** < " 
 
 How different distances were in those young days 
 of which I am thinking ! From the old house to the 
 old yellow meeting-house, where the head of the fam-
 
 26 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 ily preached and the limbs of the family listened, was 
 not much more than two or three times the width of 
 Commonwealth Avenue. But of a hot summer's after 
 noon, after having already heard one sermon, which 
 could not in the nature of things have the charm of 
 novelty of presentation to the members of the home 
 circle, and the theology of which was not too clear to 
 tender apprehensions ; with three hymns more or less 
 lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got into voice 
 by many preliminary snuffles and other expiratory 
 efforts, and accompanied by the snort of a huge bass- 
 viol which wallowed through the tune like a hippo 
 potamus, with other exercises of the customary char 
 acter, after all this in the forenoon, the afternoon 
 walk to the meeting-house in the hot sun counted for 
 as much, in my childish dead-reckoning, as from old 
 Israel Porter's in Cambridge to the Exchange Coffee 
 house in Boston did in after years. It takes a good 
 while to measure the radius of the circle that is about 
 us, for the moon seems at first as near as the watch- 
 face. Who knows but that, after a certain number of 
 ages, the planet we live on may seem to us no bigger 
 than our neighbor Venus appeared when she passed 
 before the sun a few months ago, looking as if we 
 could take her between our thumb and finger, like a 
 bullet or a marble ? And time, too ; how long was it 
 from the serious sunrise to the joyous " sun-down " of 
 an old-fashioned, puritanical, judaical first day of the 
 week, which a pious fraud christened " the Sabbath " ? 
 Was it a fortnight, as we now reckon duration, or 
 only a week? [Curious entities, or non-entities, space 
 and time ? When you see a metaphysician trying to 
 wash his hands of them and get rid of these accidents, 
 so as to lay his dry, clean palm on the absolute, does
 
 INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 it not remind you of the hopeless task of changing the 
 color of the blackamoor by a similar proceeding ? For 
 space is the fluid in which he is washing, and time is 
 the soap which he is using up in the process, and he 
 cannot get free from them until he can wash himself 
 in a mental vacuum.] 
 
 In my reference to the old house in a former paper, 
 published years ago, I said, 
 
 " By and by the stony foot of the great University 
 will plant itself on this whole territory, and the pri 
 vate recollections which clung so tenaciously to the 
 place and its habitations will have died with those who 
 cherished them." 
 
 What strides the great University has taken since 
 those words were written ! During all my early years 
 our old Harvard Alma Mater sat still and lifeless as 
 the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all at once, 
 like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her 
 pedestal. The fall of that " stony foot " has effected 
 a miracle like the harp that Orpheus played, like the 
 teeth which Cadmus sowed. The plain where the 
 moose and the bear were wandering while Shakespeare 
 was writing Hamlet, where a few plain dormitories 
 and other needed buildings were scattered about in 
 my school-boy days, groans under the weight of the 
 massive edifices which have sprung up all around 
 them, crowned by the tower of that noble structure 
 which stands in full view before me as I lift my eyes 
 from the portfolio on the back of which I am now 
 writing. 
 
 For I must be permitted to remind you that I have 
 not yet opened it. I have told you that I have just 
 finished a long memoir, and that it has cost me no 
 little labor to overcome some of its difficulties, if
 
 28 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 I have overcome them, which others must decide. 
 And I feel exactly as honest Dobbin feels when his 
 harness is slipped off after a long journey with a good 
 deal of up-hill work. He wants to rest a little, then 
 to feed a little ; then, if you will turn him loose in 
 the pasture, he wants to roll. I have left my starry 
 and ethereal companionship, not for a long time, I 
 hope, for it has lifted me above my common self, but 
 for a while. And now I want, so to speak, to roll in 
 the grass and among the dandelions with the other 
 pachyderms. So I have kept to the outside of the 
 portfolio as yet, and am disporting myself in reminis 
 cences, and fancies, and vagaries, and parentheses. 
 
 How well I understand the feeling which led the 
 Pisans to load their vessels with earth from the Holy 
 Land, and fill the area of the Campo Santo with that 
 sacred soil ! The old house stood upon about as per 
 verse a little patch of the planet as ever harbored a 
 half-starved earth-worm. It was as sandy as Sahara 
 and as thirsty as Tantalus. The rustic aid-de-camps 
 of the household used to aver that all fertilizing mat 
 ters " leached " through it. I tried to disprove their 
 assertion by gorging it with the best of terrestrial 
 nourishment, until I became convinced that I was 
 feeding the tea-plants of China, and then I gave over 
 the attempt. And yet I did love, and do love, that 
 arid patch of ground. I wonder if a single flower 
 could not be made to grow in a pot of earth from that 
 Campo Santo of my childhood ! One noble product 
 of nature did not refuse to flourish there, the tall, 
 stately, beautiful, soft-haired, many-jointed, generous 
 maize or Indian corn, which thrives on sand and de 
 fies the blaze of our shrivelling summer. What child 
 but loves to wander in its forest-like depths, amidst
 
 INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 the rustling leaves and with the lofty tassels tossing 
 their heads high above him ! There are two aspects 
 of the cornfield which always impress my imagination : 
 the first when it has reached its full growth, and its 
 ordered ranks look like an army on the march with its 
 plumed and bannered battalions ; the second when, 
 after the battle of the harvest, the girdled stacks 
 stand on the field of slaughter like so many ragged 
 Niobes, say rather like the crazy widows and daugh 
 ters of the dead soldiery. 
 
 Once more let us come back to the old house. Ifc 
 was far along in its second century when the edict 
 went forth that it must stand no longer. 
 
 The natural death of a house is very much like that 
 of one of its human tenants. The roof is the first 
 part to show the distinct signs of age. Slates and 
 tiles loosen and at last slide off, and leave bald the 
 boards that supported them ; shingles darken and de 
 cay, and soon the garret or the attic lets in the rain 
 and the snow; by and by the beams sag, the floors 
 warp, the walls crack, the paper peels away, the ceil 
 ings scale off and fall, the windows are crusted with 
 clinging dust, the doors drop from their rusted hinges, 
 the winds come in without knocking and howl their 
 cruel death-songs through the empty rooms and pas 
 sages, and at last there comes a crash, a great cloud of 
 dust rises, and the home that had been the shelter of 
 generation after generation finds its grave in its own 
 cellar. Only the chimney remains as its monument. 
 Slowly, little by little, the patient solvents that find 
 nothing too hard for their chemistry pick out the mor 
 tar from between the bricks ; at last a mighty wind 
 roars around it and rushes against it, and the monu 
 mental relic crashes down among the wrecks it has
 
 30 THE NEW POBTFOLIO. 
 
 long survived. So dies a human habitation left to 
 natural decay, all that was seen above the surface of 
 the soil sinking gradually below it, 
 
 Till naught remains the saddening tale to tell 
 Save home's last wrecks, the cellar and the well. 
 
 But if this sight is saddening, what is it to see a 
 human dwelling fall by the hand of violence ! The 
 ripping off of the shelter that has kept out a thousand 
 storms, the tearing off of the once ornamental wood 
 work, the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the mur 
 derous blows of the axe, the progressive ruin, which 
 ends by rending all the joints asunder and flinging the 
 tenoned and mortised timbers into heaps that will be 
 sawed and split to warm some new habitation as fire 
 wood, what a brutal act of destruction it seems ! 
 
 Why should I go over the old house again, having 
 already described it more than ten years ago ? Alas ! 
 how many remember anything they read but once, and 
 so long ago as that? How many would find it out 
 if one should say over in the same words that which 
 he said in the last decade ? But there is really no 
 need of telling the story a second time, for it can be 
 found by those who are curious enough to look it up 
 in a volume of which it occupies the opening chapter. 
 
 In order, however, to save any inquisitive reader that 
 trouble, let me remind him that the old house was 
 General Ward's headquarters at the breaking out of 
 the Revolution ; that the plan for fortifying Bunker's 
 Hill was laid, as commonly believed, in the southeast 
 lower room, the floor of which was covered with dents, 
 made, it was alleged, by the butts of the soldiers' 
 muskets. In that house, too, General Warren proba 
 bly passed the night before the Bunker Hill battle,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 and over its threshold must the stately figure of 
 Washington have often cast its shadow. 
 
 But the house in which one drew his first breath, 
 and where he one day carne into the consciousness that 
 he was a personality, an ego, a little universe with a 
 sky over him all his own, with a persistent identity, 
 with the terrible responsibility of a separate, independ 
 ent, inalienable existence, that house does not ask 
 for any historical associations to make it the centre of 
 the earth for him. 
 
 If there is any person in the world to be envied, it 
 is the one who is born to an ancient estate, with a 
 long line of family traditions and the means in his 
 hands of shaping his mansion and his domain to his 
 own taste, without losing sight of all the characteristic 
 features which surrounded his earliest years. The 
 American is, for the most part, a nomad, who pulls 
 down his house as the Tartar pulls up his tent-poles. 
 If I had an ideal life to plan for him it would be 
 something like this : 
 
 His grandfather should be a wise, scholarly, large- 
 brained, large-hearted country minister, from whom 
 he should inherit the temperament that predisposes to 
 cheerfulness and enjoyment, with the finer instincts 
 which direct life to noble aims and make it rich with 
 the gratification of pure and elevated tastes and the 
 carrying out of plans for the good of his neighbors and 
 his fellow-creatures. He should, if possible, have been 
 bom, at any rate have passed some of his early years, 
 or a large part of them, under tho roof of the good old 
 minister. His father should be, we will say, a busi 
 ness man in one of our great cities, a generous ma 
 nipulator of millions, some of which have adhered to 
 his private fortunes, in spite of his liberal use of his
 
 32 THE NEW PORTFOLIO. 
 
 means. His heii 1 , our ideally placed American, shall 
 take possession of the old house, the home of his ear 
 liest memories, and preserve it sacredly, not exactly 
 like the Santa Casa, but, as nearly as may be, just as 
 he remembers it. He can add as many acres as he 
 will to the narrow house-lot. He can build a grand 
 mansion for himself, if he chooses, in the not distant 
 neighborhood. But the old house, and all immediately 
 round it, shall be as he recollects it when he had to 
 stretch his little arm up to reach the door-handles. 
 Then, having well provided for his own household, 
 himself included, let him become the providence of the 
 village or the town where he finds himself during at 
 least a portion of every year. Its schools, its library, 
 its poor, and perhaps the new clergyman who has 
 succeeded his grandfather's successor may be one of 
 them, all its interests, he shall make his own. And 
 from this centre his beneficence shall radiate so far 
 that all who hear of his wealth shall also hear of him 
 as a friend to his race. 
 
 Is not this a pleasing programme? Wealth is a 
 steep hill, which the father climbs slowly and the son 
 often tumbles down precipitately ; but there is a table 
 land on a level with it, which may be found by those 
 who do not lose their head in looking down from its 
 sharply cloven summit. Our dangerously rich men 
 can make themselves hated, held as enemies of the 
 race, or beloved and recognized as its benefactors. 
 The clouds of discontent are threatening, but if the 
 gold-pointed lightning-rods are rightly distributed the 
 destructive element may be drawn off silently and 
 harmlessly. For it cannot be repeated too often that 
 the safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to 
 the new version of the Old World axiom, RICHESSE 
 oblige. O. W.
 
 THE NEW PORTFOLIO: FIRST OPENING. 
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 I. 
 
 GETTING EEADY. 
 
 IT is impossible to begin a story which must of ne 
 cessity tax the powers of belief of readers unacquainted 
 with the class of facts to which its central point of in 
 terest belongs without some words in the nature of 
 preparation. Readers of Charles Lamb remember 
 that Sarah Battle insisted on a clean-swept hearth be 
 fore sitting down to her favorite game of whist. 
 
 The narrator wishes to sweep the hearth, as it were, 
 in these opening pages, before sitting down to tell his 
 story. He does not intend to frighten the reader 
 away by prolix explanation, but he does mean to warn 
 him against hasty judgments when facts are related 
 which are not within the range of every-day experience. 
 Did he ever see the Siamese twins, or any pair like 
 them? Probably not, yet he feels sure that Chang 
 and Eng really existed ; and if he has taken the trou 
 ble to inquire, he has satisfied himself that similar 
 cases have been recorded by credible witnesses, though 
 at long intervals and in countries far apart from each 
 other. 
 
 3
 
 34 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 This is the first sweep of the brush, to clear the 
 hearth of the skepticism and incredulity which must 
 be got out of the way before we can begin to tell and 
 to listen in peace with ourselves and each other. 
 
 One more stroke of the brush is needed before the 
 stage will be ready for the chief characters and the 
 leading circumstances to which the reader's attention 
 is invited. If the principal personages made their en 
 trance at once, the reader would have to create for 
 himself the whole scenery of their surrounding condi 
 tions. In point of fact, no matter how a story is be 
 gun, many of its readers have already shaped its chief 
 actors out of any hint the author may have dropped, 
 and provided from their own resources a locality and 
 a set of outward conditions to environ these imagined 
 personalities. These are all to be brushed away, and 
 the actual surroundings of the subject of the narrative 
 represented as they were, at the risk of detaining the 
 reader a little while from the events most likely to in 
 terest him. The choicest egg that ever was laid was 
 not so big as the nest that held it. If r, story were so 
 interesting that a maiden would rather hear it than 
 listen to the praise of her own beauty, or a poet would 
 rather read it than recite his own verses, still it would 
 have to be wrapped in some tissvie of circumstance, or 
 it would lose half its effectiveness. 
 
 It may not be easy to find the exact locality referred 
 to in this narrative by looking into the first gazetteer 
 that is at hand. Recent experiences have shown that 
 it is unsafe to be too exact in designating places and 
 the people who live in them. There are, it may be 
 added, so many advertisements disguised under the 
 form of stories and other literary productions that one 
 naturally desires to avoid the suspicion of being em.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 35 
 
 ployed by the enterprising proprietors of this or that 
 celebrated resort to use his gifts for their especial ben 
 efit. There are no doubt many persons who remem 
 ber the old sign and the old tavern and its four chief 
 personages presently to be mentioned. It is to be 
 hoped that they will not furnish the public with a 
 key to this narrative, and perhaps bring trouble to the 
 writer of it, as has happened to other authors. If the 
 real names are a little altered, it need not interfere 
 with the important facts relating to those who bear 
 them. It might not be safe to tell a damaging story 
 about John or James Smythe ; but if the slight change 
 is made of spelling the name Smith, the Smythes would 
 never think of bringing an action, as if the allusion 
 related to any of them. The same gulf of family dis 
 tinction separates the Thompsons with a p from the 
 Thomsons without that letter. 
 
 There are few pleasanter places in the Northern 
 States for a summer residence than that known from 
 the first period of its settlement by the name of Ar 
 rowhead Village. The Indians had found it out, as 
 the relics they left behind them abundantly testified. 
 The commonest of these were those chipped stones 
 which are the medals of barbarism, and from which 
 the place took its name, the heads of arrows, of 
 various sizes, material, and patterns : some small 
 enough for killing fish and little birds, some large 
 enough for such game as the moose and the bear, to 
 say nothing of the hostile Indian and the white settler ; 
 some of flint, now and then one of white quartz, and 
 others of variously colored jasper. The Indians must 
 have lived here for many generations, and it must have 
 been a kind of factory village of the stone age,
 
 36 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 which lasted up to near the present time, if we may 
 judge from the fact that many of these relics are met 
 with close to the surface of the ground. 
 
 No wonder they found this a pleasant residence, for 
 it is to-day one of the most attractive of all summer 
 resorts ; so inviting, indeed, that those who know it do 
 not like to say too much about it, lest the swarms of 
 tourists should make it unendurable to those who love 
 it for itself, and not as a centre of fashionable display 
 and extra-mural cockneyism. 
 
 There is the lake, in the first place, Cedar Lake, 
 about five miles long, and from half a mile to a 
 mile and a half wide, stretching from north to south. 
 Near the northern extremity are the buildings of 
 Stoughton University, a flourishing young college with 
 an ambitious name, but well equipped and promising, 
 the grounds of which reach the water. At the south 
 ern end of the lake are the edifices of the Corinna In 
 stitute, a favorite school for young ladies, where large 
 numbers of the daughters of America are fitted, so far 
 as education can do it, for all stations in life, from 
 camping out with a husband at the mines in Nevada 
 to acting the part of chief lady of the land in the 
 White House at Washington. 
 
 Midway between the two extremities, on the eastern 
 shore of the lake, is a valley between two hills, which 
 come down to the very edge of the lake, leaving only 
 room enough for a road between their base and the 
 water. This valley, half a mile in width, has been 
 long settled, and here for a century or more has stood 
 the old Anchor Tavern. A famous place it was so 
 long as its sign swung at the side of the road : famous 
 for its landlord, portly, paternal, whose welcome to a 
 guest that looked worthy of the attention was like
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 37 
 
 that of a parent to a returning prodigal, and whose 
 parting words were almost as good as a marriage ben 
 ediction; famous for its landlady, ample in person, 
 motherly, seeing to the whole household with her own 
 eyes, mistress of all culinary secrets that Northern 
 kitchens are most proud of ; famous also for its an 
 cient servant, as city people would call her, help, as 
 she was called in the tavern and would have called 
 herself, the unchanging, seemingly immortal Mi 
 randa, who cared for the guests as if she were their 
 nursing mother, and pressed the specially favorite del 
 icacies on their attention as a connoisseur calls the 
 wandering eyes of an amateur to the beauties of a 
 picture. Who that has ever been at the old Anchor 
 Tavern forgets Miranda's 
 
 "A little of this fricassee? it is ver-y nice;" 
 or 
 
 " Some of thess cakes ? You will find them ver-y good." 
 
 Nor would it be just to memory to forget that other 
 notable and noted member of the household, the 
 unsleeping, unresting, omnipresent Pushee, ready for 
 everybody and everything, everywhere within the lim 
 its of the establishment at all hours of the day and 
 night. He fed, nobody could say accurately when or 
 where. There were rumors of a " bunk," in which he 
 lay down with his clothes on, but he seemed to be al 
 ways wide awake, and at the service of as many guests 
 at once as if there had been half a dozen of him. 
 So much for old reminiscences. 
 
 The landlord of the Anchor Tavern had taken down 
 his sign. He had had the house thoroughly renovated 
 and furnished it anew, and kept it open in summer for 
 a few boarders. It happened more than once that the
 
 38 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 summer boarders were so much pleased with the place 
 that they stayed on through the autumn, and some of 
 them through the winter. The attractions of the vil 
 lage were really remarkable. Boating in summer, and 
 skating in winter ; ice-boats, too, which the wild ducks 
 could hardly keep up with ; fishing, for which the lake 
 was renowned ; varied and beautiful walks through the 
 valley and up the hillsides ; houses sheltered from the 
 north and northeasterly winds, and refreshed in the 
 hot summer days by the breeze which came over the 
 water, all this made the frame for a pleasing picture 
 of rest and happiness. But there was a great deal 
 more than this. There was a fine library in the little 
 village, presented and richly endowed by a wealthy 
 native of the place. There was a small permanent 
 population of a superior character to that of an every 
 day country town ; there was a pretty little Episcopal 
 church, with a good-hearted rector, broad enough for 
 the Bishop of the diocese to be a little afraid of, and 
 hospitable to all outsiders, of whom, in the summer 
 season, there were always some who wanted a place of 
 worship to keep their religion from dying out during 
 the heathen months, while the shepherds of the flocks to 
 which they belonged were away from their empty folds. 
 
 What most helped to keep the place alive all 
 through the year was the frequent coining together of 
 the members of a certain literary association. Some 
 time before the tavern took down its sign the landlord 
 had built a hall, where many a ball had been held, to 
 which the young folks of all the country round had re 
 sorted. It was still sometimes used for similar occa 
 sions, but it was especially notable as being the place 
 of meeting of the famous PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 This association, the name of which might be invid
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 39 
 
 ioitsly interpreted as signifying that its members knew 
 everything, had no such pretensions, but, as its Con 
 stitution said very plainly and modestly, held itself 
 open to accept knowledge on any and all subjects from 
 such as had knowledge to impart. Its President was 
 the rector of the little chapel, a man who, in spite of 
 the Thirty-Nine Articles, could stand fire from the 
 widest-mouthed heretical blunderbuss without flinching 
 or losing his temper. The hall of the old Anchor 
 Tavern was a convenient place of meeting for the stu 
 dents and instructors of the University and the Insti 
 tute. Sometimes in boat-loads, sometimes in carriage- 
 loads, sometimes in processions of skaters, they came 
 to the meetings in Pansophian Hall, as it was now 
 commonly called. 
 
 These meetings had grown to be occasions of great 
 interest. It was customary to have papers written by 
 members of the Society, for the most part, but now 
 and then by friends of the members, sometimes by tho 
 students of the College or the Institute, and in rarer 
 instances by anonymous personages, whose papers, hav 
 ing been looked over and discussed by the Committee 
 appointed for that purpose, were thought worth listen 
 ing to. The variety of topics considered was very 
 great. The young ladies of the village and the Insti 
 tute had their favorite subjects, the young gentlemen a 
 different set of topics, and the occasional outside con 
 tributors their own ; so that one who happened to be 
 admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was go 
 ing to hear an account of recent arctic discoveries, or 
 an essay on the freedom of the will, or a psychological 
 experience, or a story, or even a poem. 
 
 Of late there had been a tendency to discuss tho 
 questions relating to the true status and the legitimate
 
 40 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 social functions of woman. The most conflicting 
 views were held on the subject. Many of the young 
 ladies and some of the University students were strong 
 in defence of all the "woman's rights" doctrines. 
 Some of these young people were extreme in their 
 views. They had read about Semiramis and Boadicea 
 and Queen Elizabeth, until they were ready, if they 
 could get the chance, to vote for a woman as President 
 of the United States or as General of the United 
 States Army. They were even disposed to assert the 
 physical equality of woman to man, on the strength of 
 the rather questionable history of the Amazons, and 
 especially of the story, believed to be authentic, of the 
 female body-guard of the King of Dahomey, fe 
 males frightful enough to need no other weapon than 
 their looks to scare off an army of Cossacks. 
 
 Miss Lurida Vincent, gold medallist of her year at 
 the Corinna Institute, was the leader of these advo 
 cates of virile womanhood. It was rather singular 
 that she should have elected to be the apostle of this 
 extreme doctrine, for she was herself far better 
 equipped with brain than muscles. In fact, she was 
 a large-headed, large-eyed, long-ey clashed, slender- 
 necked, slightly developed young woman ; looking al 
 most like a child at an age when many of the girls had 
 reached their full stature and proportions. In her 
 studies she was so far in advance of her different 
 classes that there was always a wide gap between her 
 and the second scholar. So fatal to all rivalry had she 
 proved herself that she passed under the school name 
 of TJie Terror. She learned so easily that she under 
 valued her own extraordinary gifts, and felt the deep 
 est admiration for those of her friends endowed with 
 faculties of an entirely different and almost opposite
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 41 
 
 nature. After sitting at her desk until her head was 
 hot and her feet were like ice, she would go and look 
 at the blooming young girls exercising in the gymna 
 sium of the school, and feel as if she would give all 
 her knowledge, all her mathematics and strange 
 tongues and history, all those accomplishments that 
 made her the encyclopaedia of every class she belonged 
 to, if she could go through the series of difficult and 
 graceful exercises in which she saw her schoolmates 
 delighting. 
 
 One among them, especially, was the object of her 
 admiration, as she was of all who knew her exceptional 
 powers in the line for which nature had specially or 
 ganized her. All the physical perfections which Miss 
 Lurida had missed had been united in Miss Euthymia 
 Tower, whose school name was The Wonder. Though 
 of full womanly stature, there were several taller 
 girls of her age. While all her contours and all her 
 movements betrayed a fine muscular development, 
 there was no lack of proportion, and her finely shaped 
 hands and feet showed that her organization was one 
 of those carefully finished masterpieces of nature 
 which sculptors are always in search of, and find it 
 hard to detect among the imperfect products of the 
 living laboratory. 
 
 This girl of eighteen was more famous than she 
 cared to be for her performances in the gymnasium. 
 She commonly contented herself with the same exer 
 cises that her companions were accustomed to. Only 
 her dumb-bells, with which she exercised easily and 
 gracefully, were too heavy for most of the girls to do 
 more with than lift them from the floor. She was fond 
 of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be checked 
 in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnas-
 
 42 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tics at the University came over to the Institute now 
 and then, and it was a source of great excitement to 
 watch some of the athletic exercises in which the young 
 lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and 
 skill in managing herself in the accomplishment of 
 feats which looked impossible at first sight. How 
 often The Terror had thought to herself that she would 
 gladly give up all her knowledge of Greek and the 
 differential and integral calculus if she could only per 
 form the least of those feats which were mere play to 
 The Wonder! Miss Euthymia was not behind the 
 rest in her attainments in classical or mathematical 
 knowledge, and she was one of the very best students 
 in the out-door branches, botany, mineralogy, sketch 
 ing from nature, to be found among the scholars of 
 the Institute. 
 
 There was an eight-oared boat rowed by a crew of 
 the young ladies, of which Miss Euthymia was the 
 captain and pulled the bow oar. Poor little Lurida 
 could not pull an oar, but on great occasions, when 
 there were many boats out, she was wanted as cox 
 swain, being a mere feather-weight, and quick-witted 
 enough to serve well in the important office whero 
 brains are more needed than muscle. 
 
 There was also an eight-oared boat belonging to the 
 University, and rowed by a picked crew of stalwart 
 young fellows. The bow oar and captain of the Uni 
 versity crew was a powerful young man, who, like the 
 captain of the girls' boat, was a noted gymnast. He 
 had had one or two quiet trials with Miss Euthymia, 
 in which, according to the ultras of the woman's rights 
 party, he had not vindicated the superiority of his sex 
 in the way which might have been expected. Indeed, 
 it was claimed that he let a cannon-ball drop when he
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 43 
 
 ought to have caught it, and it was not disputed that 
 he had been ingloriously knocked over by a sand-bag 
 projected by the strong arms of the young maiden. 
 This was of course a story that was widely told and 
 laughingly listened to, and the captain of the Univer 
 sity crew had become a little sensitive on the subject. 
 When there was a talk, therefore, about a race be 
 tween the champion boats of the two institutions there 
 was immense excitement in both of them, as well as 
 among the members of the Pansophian Society and 
 all the good people of the village. 
 
 There were many objections to be overcome. Some 
 thought it unladylike for the young maidens to take 
 part in a competition which must attract many look 
 ers-on, and which it seemed to them very hoidenish to 
 venture upon. Some said it was a shame to let a crew 
 of girls try their strength against an equal number of 
 powerful young men. These objections were offset by 
 the advocates of the race by the following arguments. 
 They maintained that it was no more hoidenish to 
 row a boat than it was to take a part in the calisthenic 
 exercises, and that the girls had nothing to do with 
 the young men's boat, except to keep as much ahead 
 of it as possible. As to strength, the woman's right- 
 ers believed that, weight for weight, their crew was as 
 strong as the other, and of course due allowance would 
 be made for the difference of weight and all other ac 
 cidental hindrances. It was time to test the boasted 
 superiority of masculine muscle. Here was a chance. 
 If the girls beat, the whole country would know it, 
 and after that female suffrage would be only a ques 
 tion of time. Such was the conclusion, from rather 
 insufficient premises, it must be confessed ; but if na 
 ture does nothing per saltum, by jumps, as the
 
 44 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 old adage has it, youth is very apt to take long leaps 
 from a fact to a possible sequel or consequence. So 
 it had come about that a contest between the two boat- 
 crews was looked forward to with an interest almost 
 equal to that with which the combat between the Ho- 
 ratii and Curiatii was regarded. 
 
 The terms had been at last arranged between the 
 two crews, after cautious protocols and many diplo 
 matic discussions. It was so novel in its character 
 that it naturally took a good deal of time to adjust it 
 in such a way as to be fair to both parties. The 
 course must not be too long for the lighter and 
 weaker crew, for the staying power of the young per 
 sons who made it up could not be safely reckoned 
 upon. A certain advantage must be allowed them at 
 the start, and this was a delicate matter to settle. The 
 weather was another important consideration. June 
 would be early enough, in all probability, and if the 
 lake should be tolerably smooth the grand affair might 
 come off some time in that month. Any roughness 
 of the water would be unfavorable to the weaker crew. 
 The rowing-course was on the eastern side of the lake, 
 the starting-point being opposite the Anchor Tavern ; 
 from that three quarters of a mile to the south, where 
 the turning-stake was fixed, so that the whole course 
 of one mile and a half would bring the boats back to 
 their starting-point. 
 
 The race was to be between the Algonquin, eight- 
 oared boat with outriggers, rowed by young men, stu 
 dents of Stoughton University, and the Atalanta, also 
 eight-oared and outrigger boat, by young ladies from 
 the Corinna Institute. Their boat was three inches 
 wider than the other, for various sufficient reasons, 
 one of which was to make it a little less likely to go
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 45 
 
 over and throw its crew into the water, which was a 
 sound precaution, though all the girls could swim, and 
 one at least, the bow oar, was a famous swimmer, who 
 had pulled a drowning man out of the water after a 
 hard struggle to keep him from carrying her down 
 with him. 
 
 Though the coming trial had not been advertised in 
 the papers, so as to draw together a rabble of betting 
 men and ill-conditioned lookers-on, there was a consid 
 erable gathering, made up chiefly of the villagers and 
 the students of the two institutions. Among them 
 were a few who were disposed to add to their interest 
 in the trial by small wagers. The bets were rather in 
 favor of the " Quins," as the University boat was 
 commonly called, except where the natural sympathy 
 of the young ladies or the gallantry of some of the 
 young men led them to risk their gloves or cigars, or 
 whatever it might be, on the Atalantas. The ele 
 ments of judgment were these: average weight of the 
 Algonquin s one hundred and sixty-five pounds ; aver 
 age weight of the Atalantas, one hundred and forty- 
 eight pounds ; skill in practice about equal ; advan 
 tage of the narrow boat equal to three lengths; whole 
 distance allowed the Atalantas eight lengths, a long 
 stretch to be made up in a mile and a half. 
 
 And so both crews began practising for the grand 
 trial.
 
 II. 
 
 THE BOAT-RACE. 
 
 THE 10th of June was a delicious summer day, 
 rather warm, but still and bright. The water was 
 smooth, and the crews were in the best possible condi 
 tion. All was expectation, and for some time nothing 
 but expectation. No boat-race or regatta ever began 
 at the time appointed for the start. Somebody breaks 
 an oar, or somebody fails to appear in season, or some 
 thing is the matter with a seat or an outrigger ; or if 
 there is no such excuse, the crew of one or both or all 
 the boats to take part in the race must paddle about 
 to get themselves ready for work, to the infinite weari 
 ness of all the spectators, who naturally ask why all 
 this getting ready is not attended to beforehand. 
 The Algonquins wore plain gray flannel suits and 
 white caps. The young ladies were all in dark blue 
 dresses, touched up with a red ribbon here and there, 
 and wore" light straw hats. The little coxswain of the 
 Atalanta was the last to step on board. As she took 
 her place she carefully deposited at her feet a white 
 handkerchief wrapped about something or other, 
 perhaps a sponge, in case the boat should take in 
 water. 
 
 At last the Algonquin shot out from the little nook 
 where she lay, long, narrow, shining, swift as a pick 
 erel when he darts from the reedy shore. It was a 
 beautiful sight to see the eight young fellows in their
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 47 
 
 close-fitting suits, their brown muscular arms bare, 
 bending their backs for the stroke and recovering, as 
 if they were parts of a single machine. 
 
 " The gals can't stan' it agin them fellers," said the 
 old blacksmith from the village. 
 
 " You wait till the gals get a-goin','' said the car 
 penter, who had often worked in the gymnasium of 
 the Corinua Institute, and knew something of their 
 muscular accomplishments. " Y' ought to see 'em 
 climb ropes, and swing dumb-bells, and pull in them 
 rowin'-machines. Ask Jake there whether they can't 
 row a mild in double-quick time, he knows all 
 abaout it." 
 
 Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a fresh 
 water fisherman in a country village is inspector-gen 
 eral of all that goes on out-of-doors, being a lazy, wan 
 dering sort of fellow, whose study of the habits and 
 habitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of 
 observation, just as dealing in horses is an education 
 of certain faculties, and breeds a race of men pecu 
 liarly cunning, suspicious, wary, and wide awake, with 
 a rhetoric of appreciation and depreciation all its own. 
 Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and deliv 
 ered himself to the following effect : 
 
 " Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I 've seed 
 'ein both often enough when they was practising an' 
 I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaout neither on 
 'em. But them boats is allfired long, 'n' eight on 'em 
 stretched in a straight line eendways makes a consid'- 
 able piece aout 'f a mile 'n' a haaf . I 'd bate on them 
 gals if it wa'n't that them fellers is naterally longer 
 winded, as the gals 11 find aout by the time they git 
 raound the stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. 1 1J go 
 ye a quarter on the pahuts agin the petticoats."
 
 48 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 The fresh- water fisherman had expressed the pre 
 vailing belief that the young ladies were overmatched. 
 Still there were not wanting those who thought the 
 advantage allowed the "Lantas," as they called the 
 Corinna boat-crew, was too great, and that it would be 
 impossible for the " Quins " to make it up and go by 
 them. 
 
 The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times 
 before the spectators. They appeared in perfect 
 training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome as 
 colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, 
 disciplined to work together as symmetrically as a sin 
 gle sculler pulls his pair of oars. The fisherman of 
 fered to make his quarter fifty cents. No takers. 
 
 Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to 
 the south, looking for the Atalanta. A clump of trees 
 hid the edge of the lake along which the Corinna's 
 boat was stealing towards the starting-point. Pres 
 ently the long shell swept into view, with its blooming 
 rowers, who, with their ample dresses, seemed to fill 
 it almost as full as Raphael fills his skiff on the edge 
 of the Lake of Galilee. But how steadily the Ata 
 lanta came on ! no rocking, no splashing, no appar 
 ent strain ; the bow oar turning to look ahead every 
 now and then, and watching her course, which seemed 
 to be straight as an arrow, the beat of the strokes as 
 true and regular as the pulse of the healthiest rower 
 among them all. And if the sight of the other boat 
 and its crew was beautiful, how lovely was the look of 
 this ! Eight young girls, young ladies, for those 
 who prefer that more dignified and less attractive ex 
 pression, all in the flush of youth, all in vigorous 
 health ; every muscle taught its duty ; each rower 
 alert, not to be a tenth of a second out of time, or let
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 49 
 
 her oar dally with the water so as to lose an ounce of 
 its propelling virtue ; every eye kindling with the hope 
 of victory. Each of the boats was cheered as it came 
 in sight, but the cheers for the Atalanta were naturally 
 the loudest, as the gallantry of one sex and the clear, 
 high voices of the other gave it life and vigor. 
 
 " Take your places ! " shouted the umpire, five min 
 utes before the half hour. The two boats felt their 
 way slowly and cautiously to their positions, which 
 had been determined by careful measurement. After 
 a little backing and filling they got into line, at the 
 proper distance from each other, and sat motionless, 
 their bodies bent forward, their arms outstretched, their 
 oars in the water, waiting for the word. 
 
 " Go ! " shouted the umpire. 
 
 Away sprang the Atalanta, and far behind her 
 leaped the Algonquin, her oars bending like so many 
 long Indian bows as their blades flashed through the 
 water. 
 
 "A steru chase is a long chase," especially when 
 one craft is a great distance behind the other. It 
 looked as if it would be impossible for the rear boat 
 to overcome the odds against it. Of course the 
 Algonquin kept gaining, but could it possibly gain 
 enough? That was the question. As the boats got 
 farther and farther away, it became more and more 
 difficult to determine what change there was in the 
 interval between them. But when they came to 
 rounding the stake it was easier to guess at the amount 
 of space which had been gained. It was clear that 
 something like half the distance, four lengths, as 
 nearly as could be estimated, had been made up in 
 rowing the first three quarters of a mile. Could the 
 
 Algonquins do a little better than this in the second 
 
 4
 
 50 A MOETAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 half of the race-course, they would be sure of win 
 ning. 
 
 The boats had turned the stake, and were coming 
 in rapidly. Every minute the University boat was 
 getting nearer the other. 
 
 " Go it, Quins ! " shouted the students. 
 
 " Pull away, Lantas ! " screamed the girls, who 
 were crowding down to the edge of the water. 
 
 Nearer, nearer, the rear boat is pressing the 
 other more and more closely, a few more strokes, 
 and they will be even, for there is but one length be 
 tween them, and thirty rods will carry them to the 
 line. It looks desperate for the Atalantas. The bow 
 oar of the Algonquin turns his head. He sees the lit 
 tle coxswain leaning forward at every stroke, as if her 
 trivial weight were of such mighty consequence, but 
 a few ounces might turn the scale of victory. As he 
 turned he got a glimpse of the stroke oar of the Ata- 
 lanta. What a flash of loveliness it was ! Her face 
 was like the reddest of June roses, with the heat and 
 the strain and the passion of expected triumph. The 
 upper button of her close-fitting flannel suit had stran 
 gled her as her bosom heaved with exertion, and it 
 had given way before the fierce clutch she made at 
 it. The bow oar was a staunch and steady rower, 
 but he was human. The blade of his oar lingered in 
 the water ; a little more and he would have caught a 
 crab, and perhaps lost the race by his momentary be 
 wilderment. 
 
 The boat, which seemed as if it had all the life and 
 nervousness of a Derby three-year-old, felt the slight 
 check, and all her men bent more vigorously to their 
 oars. The Atalantas saw the movement, and made a 
 spurt to keep their lead and gain upon it if they
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 51 
 
 could. It was of no use. The strong arras of the 
 young men were too much for the young maidens ; 
 only a few lengths remained to be rowed, and they 
 would certainly pass the Atalanta before she could 
 reach the line. 
 
 The little coxswain saw that it was all up with the 
 girls' crew if she could not save them by some strate 
 gic device. 
 
 " Dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat ? " 
 
 she whispered to herself, for The Terror remem 
 bered her Virgil as she did everything else she ever 
 studied. As she stooped, she lifted the handkerchief 
 at her feet, and took from it a flaming bouquet. 
 " Look ! " she cried, and flung it just forward of the 
 track of the Algonquin. The captain of the Univer 
 sity boat turned his head, and there was the lovely 
 vision which had a moment before bewitched him. 
 The owner of all that loveliness must, he thought, 
 have flung the bouquet. It was a challenge : how 
 could he be such a coward as to decline accepting it ! 
 He was sure he could win the race now, and he would 
 sweep past the line in triumph with the great bunch 
 of flowers at the stem of his boat, proud as Van 
 Tromp in the British channel with the broom at his 
 mast-head. 
 
 He turned the boat's head a little by backing water. 
 He came up with the floating flowers, and near enough 
 to reach them. Pie stooped and snatched them up, 
 with the loss perhaps of a second in all, no more. 
 He felt sure of his victory. 
 
 How can one tell the story of the finish in cold 
 blooded preterites ? Are we not there ourselves ? Are 
 not our muscles straining with those of these sixteen
 
 52 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 young creatures, full of hot, fresh blood, their nerves 
 all tingling like so many tight-strained harp-strings, 
 all their life concentrating itself in this passionate mo 
 ment of supreme effort? No! We are seeing, not 
 telling about what somebody else once saw ! 
 
 The bow of the Algonquin passes the stern of 
 the Atalanta ! 
 
 The bow of the Algonquin is on a level with the 
 middle of the Atalanta ! 
 
 Three more lengths' rowing and the college crew 
 will pass the girls ! 
 
 " Hurrah for the Quins ! " The Algonquin 
 ranges up alongside of the Atalanta ! 
 
 " Through with her ! " shouts the captain of the 
 Algonquin. 
 
 " Now, girls ! " shrieks the captain of the Atalanta. 
 
 They near the line, every rower straining desper 
 ately, almost madly. 
 
 Crack goes the oar of the Atalanta's captain, 
 and up flash its splintered fragments, as the stem of 
 her boat springs past the line, eighteen inches at least 
 ahead of the Algonquin. 
 
 Hooraw for the Lantas ! Hooraw for the Girls ! 
 Hooraw for the Institoot ! shout a hundred voices. 
 
 " Hurrah for woman's righ f s and female suffrage ! " 
 pipes the small voice of The Terror, and there is loud 
 laughing and cheering all round. 
 
 She had not studied her classical dictionary and her 
 mythology for nothing. " I have paid off one old 
 score," she said. " Set down my damask roses against 
 the golden apples of Hippomenes ! " 
 
 It was that one second lost in snatching up the bou. 
 quet which gave the race to the Atalantas.
 
 III. 
 
 THE WHITE CANOE. 
 
 WHILE the two boats were racing, other boats with 
 lookers-on in them were rowing or sailing in the 
 neighborhood of the race-course. The scene on the 
 water was a gay one, for the young people in the boats 
 were, many of them, acquainted with each other. 
 There was a good deal of lively talk until the race be 
 came too exciting. Then many fell silent, until, as the 
 boats neared the line, and still more as they crossed 
 it, the shouts burst forth which showed how a cramp 
 of attention finds its natural relief in a fit of convul 
 sive exclamation. 
 
 But far away, on the other side of the lake, a birch- 
 bark canoe was to be seen, in which sat a young man, 
 who paddled it skilfully and swiftly. It was evident 
 enough that he was watching the race intently, but 
 the spectators could see little more than that. One of 
 them, however, who sat upon the stand, had a power* 
 ful spy-glass, and could distinguish his motions verj 
 minutely and exactly. It was seen by this curious 
 observer that the young man had an opera-glass with 
 him, which he used a good deal at intervals. The 
 spectator thought he kept it directed to the girls' 
 boat, chiefly, if not exclusively. He thought also that 
 the opera-glass was more particularly pointed towards 
 the bow of the boat, and came to the natural conclu 
 sion that the bow oar, Miss Euthymia Tower, captain
 
 54 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 of the Atalantas, " The Wonder " of the Corinna In 
 stitute, was the attraction which determined the direc 
 tion of the instrument. 
 
 " Who is that in the canee over there ? " asked the 
 owner of the spy-glass. 
 
 " That 's just what we should like to know," an 
 swered the old landlord's wife. "He and his man 
 boarded with us when they first came, but we could 
 never find out anything about him only just his name 
 and his ways of living. His name is Kirkwood, 
 Maurice Kirkwood, Esq., it used to come on his let 
 ters. As for his ways of living, he was the solitariest 
 human being that I ever came across. His man car 
 ried his meals up to him. He used to stay in his 
 room pretty much all day, but at night he would be 
 off, walking, or riding on horseback, or paddling about 
 in the lake, sometimes till nigh morning. There 's 
 something very strange about that Mr. Kirkwood. 
 But there don't seem to be any harm in him. Only 
 nobody can guess what his business is. They got up 
 a story about him at one time. What do you think? 
 They said he was a counterfeiter ! And so they went 
 one night to his room, when he was out, and that man 
 of his was aw r ay too, and they carried keys, and opened 
 pretty much everything ; and they found well, they 
 found just nothing at all except writings and let 
 ters, letters from places in America and in Eng 
 land, and some with Italian postmarks : that was all. 
 Since that time the sheriff and his folks have let him 
 alone and minded their own business. He was a gen 
 tleman, anybody ought to have known that ; and 
 anybody that knew about his nice ways of living and 
 behaving, and knew the kind of wear he had for his 
 underclothing, might have known it. I could have
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 55 
 
 told those officers that they had better not bother him. 
 I know the ways of real gentlemen and real ladies, and 
 I know those fellows in store clothes that look a little 
 too fine, outside. Wait till washing-day comes ! " 
 
 The good lady had her own standards for testing 
 humanity, and they were not wholly unworthy of con 
 sideration ; they were quite as much to be relied on as 
 the judgments of the travelling phrenologist, who sent 
 his accomplice on before him to study out the princi 
 pal personages in the village, and in the light of these 
 revelations interpreted the bumps, with very little re 
 gard to Gall and Spurzheim, or any other authorities. 
 
 Even with the small amount of information obtained 
 by the search among his papers and effects, the gossips 
 of the village had constructed several distinct histories 
 for the mysterious stranger. He was an agent of a 
 great publishing house ; a leading contributor to sev 
 eral important periodicals ; the author of that anony 
 mously published novel which had made so much talk ; 
 the poet of a large clothing establishment ; a spy of 
 the Italian, some said the Russian, some said the Brit 
 ish, Government ; a proscribed refugee from some 
 country where he had been plotting ; a school-master 
 without a school, a minister without a pulpit, an actor 
 without an engagement ; in short, there was no end to 
 the perfectly senseless stories that were told about him, 
 from that which made him out an escaped convict to 
 the whispered suggestion that he was the eccentric 
 heir to a great English title and estate. 
 
 The one unquestionable fact was that of his extraor 
 dinary seclusion. Nobody in the village, no student 
 in the University, knew his history. No young lady in 
 the Corinna Institute had ever had a word from him. 
 Sometimes, as the boats of the University or the Insti-
 
 56 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tute were returning at dusk, their rowers would see 
 the canoe stealing into the shadows as they drew near 
 it. Sometimes on a moonlight night, when a party of 
 the young ladies were out upon the lake, they would 
 see the white canoe gliding ghost-like in the distance. 
 And it had happened more than once that when a 
 boat's crew had been out with singers among them, 
 while they were in the midst of a song, the white canoe 
 would suddenly appear and rest upon the water, not 
 very near them, but within hearing distance, and so 
 remain until the singing was over, when it would steal 
 away and be lost sight of in some inlet or behind some 
 jutting rock. 
 
 Naturally enough, there was intense curiosity about 
 this young man. The landlady had told her story, 
 which explained nothing. There was nobody to be 
 questioned about him except his servant, an Italian, 
 whose name was Paolo, but who to the village was 
 known as Mr. Paul. 
 
 Mr. Paul would have seemed the easiest person in 
 the world to worm a secret out of. He was good-na 
 tured, child-like as a Heathen Chinee, talked freely 
 with everybody in such English as he had at command, 
 knew all the little people of the village, and was fol 
 lowed round by them partly from his personal attrac 
 tion for them, and partly because he was apt to have a 
 stick of candy or a handful of peanuts or other desira 
 ble luxury in his pocket for any of his little friends he 
 met with. He had that wholesome, happy look, so 
 uncommon in our arid countrymen, a look hardly to 
 be found except where figs and oranges ripen in the 
 open air. A kindly climate to grow up in, a religion 
 which takes your money and gives you a stamped 
 ticket good at Saint Peter's box office, a roomy chest
 
 A MORTAL AXTIPATHT. 57 
 
 and a good pair of lungs in it, an honest digestive ap 
 paratus, a lively temperament, a cheerful acceptance 
 of the place in life assigned to one by nature and cir 
 cumstance, these are conditions under which life 
 may be quite comfortable to endure, and certainly is 
 very pleasant to contemplate. All these conditions 
 were united in Paolo. He was the easiest, pleasant- 
 est creature to talk with that one could ask for a com 
 panion. His southern vivacity, his amusing English, 
 his simplicity and openness, made him friends every 
 where. 
 
 It seemed as if it would be a very simple matter to 
 get the history of his master out of this guileless and 
 unsophisticated being. He had been tried by all the 
 village experts. The rector had put a number of well- 
 studied careless questions, which failed of their pur 
 pose. The old librarian of the town library had taken 
 note of all the books he carried to his master, and 
 asked about his studies and pursuits. Paolo found it 
 hard to understand his English, apparently, and an 
 swered in the most irrelevant way. The leading gos 
 sip of the village tried her skill in pumping him for 
 information. It was all in vain. 
 
 His master's way of life was peculiar, in fact, ec 
 centric. He had hired rooms in an old-fashioned 
 three-story house. He had two rooms in the second 
 and third stories of this old wooden building : his study 
 in the second, his sleeping-room in the one above it. 
 Paolo lived in the basement, where he had all the con 
 veniences for cooking, and played the part of chef for 
 his master and himself. This was only a part of his 
 duty, for he was a man-of -all- work, purveyor, steward, 
 chambermaid, as universal in his services for one 
 man as Pushee at the Anchor Tavern used to be for 
 everybody.
 
 58 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 It so happened that Paolo took a severe cold one 
 winter's day, and had such threatening symptoms that 
 he asked the baker, when he called, to send the village 
 physician to see him. In the course of his visit the 
 doctor naturally inquired about the health of Paolo's 
 master. 
 
 " Signer Kirkwood well, molto bene," said Paolo. 
 
 " Why does he keep out of sight as he does ? " 
 asked the doctor. 
 
 " He always so," replied Paolo. " Una antipa- 
 tia." 
 
 Whether Paolo was off his guard with the doctor, 
 whether he revealed it to him as to a father confessor, 
 or whether he thought it time that the reason of his 
 master's seclusion should be known, the doctor did not 
 feel sure. At any rate, Paolo was not disposed to 
 make any further revelations. Una antipatia, an 
 antipathy, that was all the doctor learned. He 
 thought the matter over, and the more he reflected the 
 more he was puzzled. What could an antipathy be 
 that made a young man a recluse ! Was it a dread of 
 blue sky and open air, of the smell of flowers, or some 
 electrical impression to which he was unnaturally sen 
 sitive ? 
 
 Dr. Butts carried these questions home with him. 
 His wife was a sensible, discreet woman, whom he 
 could trust with many professional secrets. He told 
 her of Paolo's revelation, and talked it over with her in 
 the light of his experience and her own ; for she had 
 known some curious cases of constitutional likes and 
 aversions. 
 
 Mrs. Butts buried the information in the grave of 
 her memory, where it lay for nearly a week. At the 
 end of that tune it emerged in a confidential whispei
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 59 
 
 to her favorite sister-in-law, a perfectly safe person. 
 Twenty-four hours later the story was all over the vil 
 lage that Maurice Kirkwood was the subject of a 
 strange, mysterious, unheard-of antipathy to some 
 thing, nobody knew what ; and the whole neighbor 
 hood naturally resolved itself into an unorganized com 
 mittee of investigation.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE YOUNG SOLITARY. 
 
 WHAT is a country village without its mysterious 
 personage ? Few are now living who can remember 
 the advent of the handsome young man who was the 
 mystery of our great university town " sixty years 
 since," long enough ago for a romance to grow out 
 of a narrative, as Waverley may remind us. The 
 writer of this narrative remembers him well, and is 
 not sure that he has not told the strange story in 
 some form or other to the last generation, or to the 
 one before the last. No matter : if he has told it they 
 have forgotten it, that is, if they have ever read it ; 
 and whether they have or have not, the story is singu 
 lar enough to justify running the risk of repetition. 
 
 This young man, with a curious name of Scandina 
 vian origin, appeared unheralded in the town, as it 
 was then, of Cantabridge. He wanted employment, 
 and soon found it in the shape of manual labor, which 
 he undertook and performed cheerfully. But his 
 whole appearance showed plainly enough that he was 
 bred to occupations of a very different nature, if, in 
 deed, he had been accustomed to any kind of toil for 
 his living. His aspect was that of one of gentle birth. 
 His hands were not those of a laborer, and his fea 
 tures were delicate and refined, as well as of remark 
 able beauty. Who he was, where he came from, why 
 he had come to Cantabridge, was never clearly ex-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 61 
 
 plained. lie was alone, without friends, except among 
 the acquaintances he had made in his new residence. 
 If he had any correspondents, they were not known to 
 the neighborhood where he was living. But if he had 
 neither friends nor correspondents, there was some 
 reason for believing that he had enemies. Strange 
 circumstances occurred which connected themselves 
 with him in an ominous and unaccountable way. A 
 threatening letter was slipped under the door of a 
 house where he was visiting. He had a sudden attack 
 of illness, which was thought to look very much like 
 the effect of poison. At one time he disappeared, and 
 was found wandering, bewildered, in a town many 
 miles from that where he was residing. When ques 
 tioned how he came there, he told a coherent story 
 that he had been got, under some pretext, or in some 
 not incredible way, into a boat, from which, at a cer 
 tain landing-place, he had escaped and fled for his 
 life, which he believed was in danger from his kid 
 nappers. 
 
 Whoever his enemies may have been, if they 
 really existed, he did not fall a victim to their plots, 
 so far as known to or remembered by this witness. 
 
 Various interpretations were put upon his story. 
 Conjectures were as abundant as they were in the case 
 of Kaspar Hauser. That he was of good family 
 seemed probable ; that he was of distinguished birth, 
 not impossible ; that he was the dangerous rival of a 
 candidate for a greatly coveted position in one of the 
 northern states of Europe was a favorite speculation 
 of some of the more romantic young persons. There 
 was no dramatic ending to this story, at least none 
 is remembered by the present writer. 
 
 " He left a name," like the royal Swede, of whose
 
 62 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 lineage he may have been for aught that the village 
 people knew, but not a name at which an} r body " grew 
 pale ; " for he had swindled no one, and broken no 
 woman's heart with false vows. Possibly some with 
 ered cheeks may flush faintly as they recall the hand 
 some young man who came before the Cantabridge 
 maidens fully equipped for a hero of romance when 
 the century was in its first quarter. 
 
 The writer has been reminded of the handsome 
 Swede by the incidents attending the advent of the 
 unknown and interesting stranger who had made his 
 appearance at Arrowhead Village. 
 
 It was a very insufficient and unsatisfactory reason 
 to assign for the young man's solitary habits that he 
 was the subject of an antipathy. For what do we un 
 derstand by that word ? When a young lady screams 
 at the sight of a spider, we accept her explanation 
 that she has a natural antipathy to the creature. 
 When a person expresses a repugnance to some whole 
 some article of food, agreeable to most people, we are 
 satisfied if he gives the same reason. And so of va 
 rious odors, which are pleasing to some persons and 
 repulsive to others. We do not pretend to go behind 
 the fact. It is an individual, and it may be a family, 
 peculiarity. Even between different personalities there 
 is an instinctive elective dislike as well as an elective 
 affinity. We are not bound to give a reason why Dr. 
 Fell is odious to us any more than the prisoner who per 
 emptorily challenges a juryman is bound to say why he 
 does it; it is enough that he "does not like his looks." 
 
 There was nothing strange, then, that Maurice 
 Kirkwood should have his special antipathy ; a great 
 many other people have odd likes and dislikes. But
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 63 
 
 it was a very curious thing that this antipathy should 
 be alleged as the reason for his singular mode of life. 
 All sorts of explanations were suggested, not one of 
 them in the least satisfactory, but serving to keep the 
 curiosity of inquirers active until they were superseded 
 by a new theory. One story was that Maurice had a 
 great fear of dogs. It grew at last to a connected 
 narrative, in which a fright in childhood from a rabid 
 mongrel was said to have given him such a sensitive 
 ness to the near presence of dogs that he was liable to 
 convulsions if one came close to him. 
 
 This hypothesis had some plausibility. No other 
 creature would be so likely to trouble a person who 
 had an antipathy to it. Dogs are very apt to make 
 the acquaintance of strangers, in a free and easy way. 
 They are met with everywhere, in one's daily walk, 
 at the thresholds of the doors one enters, in the gen 
 tleman's library, on the rug of my lady's sitting-room 
 and on the cushion of her carriage. It is true that 
 there are few persons who have an instinctive repug 
 nance to this " friend of man." But what if this so- 
 called antipathy were only a fear, a terror, which bor 
 rowed the less unmanly name ? It was a fair question, 
 if, indeed, the curiosity of the public had a right to 
 ask any questions at all about a harmless individual 
 who gave no offence, and seemed entitled to the right 
 of choosing his way of living to suit himself, without 
 being submitted to espionage. 
 
 There was no positive evidence bearing on the point 
 as yet. But one of the village people had a large 
 Newfoundland dog, of a very sociable disposition, with 
 which he determined to test the question. He watched 
 for the time when Maurice should leave his house for 
 the woods or the lake, and started with his dog to meet
 
 G4 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 him. The animal walked up to the stranger in a very 
 sociable fashion, and began making his acquaintance, 
 after the usual manner of well-bred dogs ; that is, with 
 the courtesies and blandishments by which the canine 
 Chesterfield is distinguished from the ill-conditioned 
 cur. Maurice patted him in a friendly way, and spoke 
 to him as one who was used to the fellowship of such 
 companions. That idle question and foolish story 
 were disposed of, therefore, and some other solution 
 must be found, if possible. 
 
 A much more common antipathy is that which is 
 entertained with regard to cats. This has never been 
 explained. It is not mere aversion to the look of the 
 creature, or to any sensible quality known to the com 
 mon observer. The cat is pleasing in aspect, graceful 
 in movement, nice in personal habits, and of amiable 
 disposition. No cause of offence is obvious, and yet 
 there are many persons who cannot abide the presence 
 of the most innocent little kitten. They can tell, in 
 some mysterious way, that there is a cat in the room 
 when they can neither see nor hear the creature. 
 Whether it is an electrical or quasi-magnetic phe 
 nomenon, or whatever it may be, of the fact of this 
 strange influence there are too many well-authenticated 
 instances to allow its being questioned. But suppose 
 Maurice Kirkwood to be the subject of this antipathy 
 in its extremest degree, it would in no manner account 
 for the isolation to which he had condemned himself. 
 He might shun the firesides of the old women whose 
 tabbies were purring by their footstools, but these 
 worthy dames do not make up the whole population. 
 
 These two antipathies having been disposed of, a 
 new suggestion was started, and was talked over with 
 a curious sort of half belief, very much as ghost stories
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 65 
 
 are told in a circle of moderately instructed and in 
 quiring persons. This was that Maurice was endowed 
 with the unenviable gift of the evil eye. He was 
 in frequent communication with Italy, as his letters 
 showed, and had recently been residing in that coun 
 try, as was learned from Paolo. Now everybody knows 
 that the evil eye is not rarely met with in Italy. Every 
 body who has ever read Mr. Story's " Roba di Roma " 
 knows what a terrible power it is which the owner of 
 the evil eye exercises. It can blight and destroy what 
 ever it falls upon. No person's life or limb is safe if 
 the jettatura, the withering glance of the deadly organ, 
 falls upon him. It must be observed that this malign 
 effect may follow a look from the holiest personages, 
 that is, if we may assume that a monk is such as a 
 matter of course. Certainly we have a right to take 
 it for granted that the late Pope, Pius Ninth, was an 
 eminently holy man, and yet he had the name of dis 
 pensing the mystic and dreaded jettatura as well as 
 his blessing. If Maurice Kirkwood carried that de 
 structive influence, so that his clear blue eyes were 
 more to be feared than the fascinations of the dead 
 liest serpent, it could easily be understood why he kept 
 his look away from all around him whom he feared 
 he might harm. 
 
 No sensible person in Arrowhead Village really be 
 lieved in the evil eye, but it served the purpose of a 
 temporary hypothesis, as do many suppositions which 
 we take as a nucleus for our observations without put 
 ting any real confidence in them. It was just suited to 
 the romantic notions of the more flighty persons in 
 the village, who had meddled more or less with Spirit 
 ualism, and were ready for any new fancy, if it were 
 only wild enough.
 
 DO A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 The riddle of the young stranger's peculiarity did 
 not seem likely to find any very speedy solution. 
 Every new suggestion furnished talk for the gossips of 
 the village and the babble of the many tongues in the 
 two educational institutions. Naturally, the discussion 
 was liveliest among the young ladies. Here is an ex 
 tract from a letter of one of these young ladies, who, 
 having received at her birth the ever-pleasing name 
 of Mary, saw fit to have herself called Mollie in the 
 catalogue and in her letters. The old postmaster of 
 the town to which her letter was directed took it up 
 to stamp, and read on the envelope the direction to 
 " Miss Lulu Pinrow." He brought the stamp down 
 with a vicious emphasis, coming very near blotting out 
 the nursery name, instead of cancelling the postage- 
 stamp. " Lulu ! " he exclaimed. " I should like to 
 know if that great strapping girl is n't out of her 
 cradle yet! I suppose Miss Louisa will think that 
 belongs to her, but I saw her christened and I heard 
 the name the minister gave her, and it was n't ' Lulu,' 
 or any such baby nonsense." And so saying, he gave 
 it a fling to the box marked P, as if it burned his 
 fingers. Why a grown-up young woman allowed her 
 self to be cheapened in the way so many of them do 
 by the use of names which become them as well as the 
 frock of a ten-year-old schoolgirl would become a 
 graduate of the Corinna Institute, the old postmaster 
 could not guess. He was a queer old man. 
 
 The letter thus scornfully treated runs over with a 
 young girl's written loquacity : 
 
 " Oh, Lulu, there is such a sensation as you never 
 saw or heard of ' in all your born days,' as mamma 
 used to .ay. He has been at the village for some 
 time, but lately we have had oh, the weirdest stories
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 67 
 
 about him ! ' The Mysterious Stranger is the name 
 some give him, but we girls call him the Sachem, be 
 cause he paddles about in an Indian canoe. If I 
 should tell you all the things that are said about him 
 I should use up all my paper ten times over. He has 
 never made a visit to the Institute, and none of the 
 girls have ever spoken to him, but the people at the 
 village say he is very, very handsome. We are dying 
 to get a look at him, of course though there is a 
 horrid story about him that he has the evil eye 
 did you ever hear about the evil eye? If a person 
 who is born with it looks at you, you die, or something 
 happens awful is n't it ? 
 
 " The rector says he never goes to church, but then 
 you know a good many of the people that pass the 
 summer at the village never do they think their 
 religion must have vacations that 's what I Ve 
 heard they say vacations, just like other hard work 
 it ought not to be hard work, I 'm sure, but I sup 
 pose they feel so about it. Should you feel afraid 
 to have him look at you? Some of the girls say 
 they would n't have him for the whole world, but 1 
 should ii't mind it especially if I had on my eye 
 glasses. Do you suppose if there is anything in the 
 evil eye it would go through glass ? I don't believe it. 
 Do you think blue eye-glasses would be better than 
 common ones ? Don't laugh at me they tell such 
 weird stories! The Terror Lurida Vincent, you 
 know makes fun of all they say about it, but then 
 she ' knows everything and does n't believe anything,' 
 the girls say Well, I should be awfully scared, I 
 know, if anybody that had the evil eye should loolc at 
 me but oh, I don't know but if it was a young 
 man and if he was very very good-looking I
 
 68 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 think perhaps I would run the risk but don't tell 
 anybody I said any such horrid thing and burn this 
 letter right up there 's a dear good girl." 
 
 It is to be hoped that no reader will doubt the 
 genuineness of this letter. There are not quite so 
 many " awfuls" and " awfullys " as one expects to find 
 in young ladies' letters, but there are two " weirds," 
 which may be considered a fair allowance. How it 
 happened that " jolly " did not show itself can hardly 
 be accounted for ; no doubt it turns up two or three 
 times at least in the postscript. 
 
 Here is an extract from another letter. This was 
 from one of the students of Stoughton University to 
 a friend whose name as it was written on the envelope 
 was Mr. Frank Mayfield. The old postmaster who 
 found fault with Miss " Lulu's " designation would 
 probably have quarrelled with this address, if it had 
 come under his eye. " Frank " is a very pretty, pleas 
 ant-sounding name, and it is not strange that many 
 persons use it in common conversation all their days 
 when speaking of a friend. Were they really chris 
 tened by that name, any of these numerous Franks ? 
 Perhaps they were, and if so there is nothing to be 
 said. But if not, was the baptismal name Francis or 
 Franklin ? The mind is apt to fasten in a very per 
 verse and unpleasant way upon this question, which 
 too often there is no possible way of settling. One 
 might hope, if he outlived the bearer of the appella 
 tion, to get at the fact ; but since even gravestones 
 have learned to use the names belonging to childhood 
 and infancy in their solemn record, the generation 
 which docks its Christian names in such an un-Chris- 
 tian way will bequeath whole churchyards full of rid 
 dles to posterity. How it will puzzle and distress the
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 69 
 
 historians and antiquarians of a coming generation to 
 settle what was the real name of Dan and Bert and 
 " Billy," which last is legible on a white marble slab, 
 raised in memory of a grown person, in a certain 
 burial-ground in a town in Essex County, Massachu 
 setts ! 
 
 But in the mean time we are forgetting the letter 
 directed to Mr. Frank Mayfield. 
 
 " DEAR FRANK, Hooray ! Hurrah ! Eah ! 
 
 " I have made the acquaintance of ' The Mysterious 
 Stranger ' ! It happened by a queer sort of accident, 
 which came pretty near relieving you of the duty of 
 replying to this letter. I was out in my little boat, 
 which carries a sail too big for her, as I know and 
 ought to have remembered. One of those fitful flaws 
 of wind to which the lake is so liable struck the sail 
 suddenly, and over went my boat. My feet got tan 
 gled in the sheet somehow, and I could not get free. 
 I had hard work to keep my head above water, and I 
 struggled desperately to escape from my toils ; for if 
 the boat were to go down I should be dragged down 
 with her. I thought of a good many things in the 
 course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, 
 and I got a lesson about time better than anything 
 Kant and all the rest of them have to say of it. 
 After I had been there about an ordinary lifetime, I 
 saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew 
 that our shy young gentleman was coming to help me, 
 and that we should become acquainted without an in 
 troduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what 
 the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet with 
 out drowning me in the process or upsetting his little 
 flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat tired with my 
 struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the land-
 
 70 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 ing where he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is 
 anything odd about his manners or his way of talk. 
 I judge him to be a native of one of our Northern 
 States, perhaps a New Englander. He has lived 
 abroad during some parts of his life. He is not an 
 artist, as it was at one time thought he might be. He 
 is a good-looking fellow, well developed, manly in ap 
 pearance, with nothing to excite special remark unless 
 it be a certain look of anxiety or apprehension which 
 comes over him from time to time. You remember 
 our old friend Squire B., whose companion was killed 
 by lightning when he was standing close to him. You 
 know the look he had whenever anything like a thun 
 dercloud came up in the sky. Well, I should say 
 there was a look like that came over this Maurice 
 Kirkwood's face every now and then. I noticed that 
 he looked round once or twice as if to see whether 
 some object or other was in sight. There was a little 
 rustling in the grass as if of footsteps, and this look 
 came over his features. A rabbit ran by us, and I 
 watched to see if he showed any sign of that antipa 
 thy we have heard so much of, but he seemed to be 
 pleased watching the creature. 
 
 " If you ask me what my opinion is about this 
 Maurice Kirkwood, I think he is eccentric in his habit 
 of life, but not what they call a ' crank ' exactly. He 
 talked well enough about such matters as we spoke 
 of, the lake, the scenery in general, the climate. 
 I asked him to come over and take a look at the col 
 lege. He did n't promise, but I should not be sur 
 prised if I should get him over there some day. I 
 asked him why he did n't go to the Pansophian meet 
 ings. He did n't give any reason, but he shook his 
 head in a very peculiar way, as much as to say that it 
 was impossible.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 71 
 
 " On the whole, I think it is nothing more than the 
 same feeling of dread of human society, or dislike for 
 it, which under the name of religion used to drive 
 men into caves and deserts. What a pity that Prot 
 estantism does not make special provision for all the 
 freaks of individual character ! If we had a little 
 more faith and a few more caverns, or convenient 
 places for making them, we should have hermits in 
 these holes as thick as woodchucks or prairie dogs. I 
 should like to know if you never had the feeling, 
 
 ' Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place ! ' 
 
 I know what your answer will be, of course. You will 
 say, ' Certainly, 
 
 " With one fair spirit for my minister ; " ' 
 
 but I mean alone, all alone. Don't you ever feel as 
 if you should like to have been a pillar-saint in the 
 days when faith was as strong as lye (spelt with a y), 
 instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry is 
 looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad 
 to send, and a disgrace to the University but never 
 mind.) / often feel as if I should like to roost on a 
 pillar a hundred feet high, yes, and have it soaped 
 from top to bottom. Would n't it be fun to look down 
 at the bores and the duns ? Let us get up a pillar- 
 roosters' association. (Jerry still looking over 
 says there is an absurd contradiction in the idea.) 
 
 " What a matter-of-fact idiot Jerry is ! 
 
 " How do you like looking over, Mr. Inspector- 
 general ? " 
 
 The reader will not get much information out of 
 this lively young fellow's letter, but he may get a lit 
 tle. It is something to know that the mysterious
 
 72 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 resident of Arrowhead Village did not look nor talk 
 like a crazy person ; that he was of agreeable aspect 
 and address, helpful when occasion offered, and had 
 nothing about him, so far as yet appeared, to prevent 
 his being an acceptable member of society. 
 
 Of course the people in the village could never be 
 contented without learning everything there was to be 
 learned about their visitor. All the city papers were 
 examined for advertisements. If a cashier had ab 
 sconded, if a broker had disappeared, if a railroad 
 president was missing, some of the old stories would 
 wake up and get a fresh currency, until some new cir 
 cumstance gave rise to a new hypothesis. Unconscious 
 of all these inquiries and fictions, Maurice Kirkwood 
 lived on in his inoffensive and unexplained solitude, 
 and seemed likely to remain an unsolved enigma. The 
 " Sachem " of the boating girls became the " Sphinx " 
 of the village ramblers, and it was agreed on all hands 
 that Egypt did not hold any hieroglyphics harder to 
 make out than the meaning of this young man's odd 
 way of living.
 
 V. 
 
 THE ENIGMA STUDIED. 
 
 IT was a curious, if it was not a suspicious, circum 
 stance that a young man, seemingly in good health, of 
 comely aspect, looking as if made for companionship, 
 should keep himself apart from all the world around 
 him in a place where there was a general feeling of 
 good neighborhood and a pleasant social atmosphere. 
 The Public Library was a central point which brought 
 people together. The Pansophian Society did a great 
 deal to make them acquainted with each other, for 
 many of the meetings were open to outside visitors, 
 and the subjects discussed in the meetings furnished 
 the material for conversation in their intervals. A 
 card of invitation had been sent by the Secretary to 
 Maurice, in answer to which Paolo carried back a po 
 lite note of regret. The paper had a narrow rim of 
 black, implying apparently some loss of relative or 
 friend, but not any very recent and crushing bereave 
 ment. This refusal to come to the meetings of the 
 society was only what was expected. It was proper to 
 ask him, but his declining the invitation showed that 
 he did not wish for attentions or courtesies. There was 
 nothing further to be done to bring him out of his 
 shell, and seemingly nothing more to be learned about 
 him at present. 
 
 In this state of things it was natural that all which 
 had been previously gathered by the few who had seen 
 or known anything of him should be worked over
 
 74 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 again. When there is no new ore to be dug, the old 
 refuse heaps are looked over for what may still be 
 found in them. The landlord of the Anchor Tavern, 
 now the head of the boarding-house, talked about 
 Maurice, as everybody in the village did at one time 
 or another. He had not much to say, but he added a 
 fact or two. 
 
 The young gentleman was good pay, so they all 
 said. Sometimes he paid in gold ; sometimes in fresh 
 bills, just out of the bank. He trusted his man, Mr. 
 Paul, with the money to pay his bills. He knew some 
 thing about horses; he showed that by the way he 
 handled that colt, the one that threw the hostler and 
 broke his collar-bone. " Mr. Paul come down to the 
 stable. 'Let me see that colt you all 'fraid of,' says 
 he. ' My master, he ride any hoss,' says Paul. * You 
 saddle him,' says he ; and so they did, and Paul, he 
 led that colt the kickinest and ugliest young beast 
 you ever see in your life up to the place where his 
 master, as he calls him, and he lives. What does 
 that Kirkwood do but clap on a couple of long spurs 
 and jump on to that colt's back, and off the beast 
 goes, tail up, heels flying, standing up on end, trying 
 all sorts of capers, and at last going it full run for a 
 couple of miles, till he 'd got about enough of it. That 
 colt went off as ferce as a wild-cat, and come back as 
 quiet as a cosset lamb. A man that pays his bills 
 reg'lar, in good money, and knows how to handle a 
 hoss is three quarters of a gentleman, if he is n't a 
 whole one, and most likely he is a whole one." 
 
 So spake the patriarch of the Anchor Tavern. His 
 wife had already given her favorable opinion of her 
 former guest. She now added something to her de 
 scription as a sequel to her husband's remarks.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 75 
 
 " I call him," she said, " about as likely a young 
 gentleman as ever I clapped my eyes on. He is rather 
 slighter than I like to see a young man of his age ; if 
 he was my son, I should like to see him a little more 
 fleshy. I don't believe he weighs more than a hun 
 dred and thirty or forty pounds. Did y' ever look at 
 those eyes of his, M'randy? Just as blue as succory 
 flowers. I do like those light-complected young fel 
 lows, with their fresh cheeks and their curly hair; 
 somehow, curly hair doos set off anybody's face. He 
 is n't any foreigner, for all that he talks Italian with 
 that Mr. Paul that 's his help. He looks just like our 
 kind of folks, the college kind, that 's brought up 
 among books, and is handling 'em, and reading of 'em, 
 and making of 'em, as like as not, all their lives. All 
 that you say about his riding the mad colt is just what 
 I should think he was up to, for he 's as spry as a 
 squirrel ; you ought to see him go over that fence, as I 
 did once. I don't believe there 's any harm in that 
 young gentleman, I don't care what people say. I 
 suppose he likes this place just as other people like it, 
 and cares more for walking in the woods and paddling 
 about in the water than he doos for company ; and if 
 he doos, whose business is it, I should like to know ? " 
 
 The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had 
 her own way of judging people. 
 
 " I never see him but two or three times," Miranda 
 said. " I should like to have waited on him, and got 
 a chance to look stiddy at him when he was eatin' his 
 vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their 
 jaws get a-goin' and their eyes are on what 's afore 'em. 
 Do you remember that chap the sheriff come and took 
 away when we kep' tahvern ? Eleven year ago it was, 
 couie nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gen-
 
 76 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tleman from the City he set up for. I watched him, 
 and I watched him. Says I, I don't believe you 're no 
 gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, and that 
 ain't the way city folks eats. Every time I handed 
 him anything I looked closeter and closeter. Them 
 whiskers never growed on them cheeks, says I to my 
 self. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in 
 your shirt-front hain't got no life to it, says I. I 
 don't believe it 's nothin' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. 
 So says I to Pushee, ' You jes' step out and get the 
 sheriff to come in and take a look at that chap.' I 
 knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' 
 he goes up to the chap. ' Why, Bill,' says he, ' I 'm 
 mighty glad to see yer. We 've had the hole in the 
 wall you got out of mended, and I want your company 
 to come and look at the old place,' says he, and he 
 pulls out a couple of handcuffs and has 'em on his 
 wrists in less than no time, an' off they goes together ! 
 I know one thing about that young gentleman, any 
 how, there ain't no better judge of what 's good eat- 
 in' than he is. I cooked him some maccaroni myself 
 one day, and he sends word to me by that Mr. Paul, 
 ' Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, ' that the Pope o' Rome 
 don't have no better cooked maccaroni than what she 
 sent up to me yesterday,' says he. I don' know 
 much about the Pope o' Rome except that he 's a Ro 
 man Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for him, 
 whether it 's a man or a woman ; but when it comes to 
 a dish o' maccaroni, I ain't afeard of their shefs, as 
 they call 'em, them he-cooks that can't serve up a 
 cold potater without callin' it by some name nobody 
 can say after 'em. But this gentleman knows good 
 cookin', and that 's as good a sign of a gentleman as J 
 want to tell 'em by."
 
 VI. 
 
 STILL AT FAULT. 
 
 THE house in which Maurice Kirkwood had taken 
 up his abode was not a very inviting one. It was old, 
 and had been left in a somewhat dilapidated and dis 
 orderly condition by the tenants who had lived in the 
 part which Maurice now occupied. They had piled 
 their packing-boxes in the cellar, with broken chairs, 
 broken china, and other household wrecks. A cracked 
 mirror lay on an old straw mattress, the contents of 
 which were airing themselves through wide rips and 
 rents. A lame clothes-horse was saddled with an old 
 rug fringed with a ragged border, out of which all the 
 colors had been completely trodden. No woman would 
 have gone into a house in such a condition. But the 
 young man did not trouble himself much about such 
 matters, and was satisfied when the rooms which were 
 to be occupied by himself and his servant were made 
 decent and tolerably comfortable. During the fine 
 season all this was not of much consequence, and if 
 Maurice made up his mind to stay through the winter 
 he would have his choice among many more eligible 
 places. 
 
 The summer vacation of the Corinna Institute had 
 now arrived, and the young ladies had scattered to 
 their homes. Among the graduates of the year were 
 Miss Euthymia Tower and Miss Lurida Vincent, who 
 had now returned to their homes in Arrowhead Vil-
 
 78 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 lage. They were both glad to rest after the long final 
 examinations and the exercises of the closing day, in 
 which each of them had borne a conspicuous part. It 
 was a pleasant life they led in the village, which was 
 lively enough at this season. Walking, riding, driv 
 ing, boating, visits to the Library, meetings of the 
 Pansophian Society, hops, and picnics made the time 
 pass very cheerfully, and soon showed their restoring 
 influences. The Terror's large eyes did not wear the 
 dull, glazed look by which they had too often betrayed 
 the after effects of over-excitement of the strong and 
 active brain behind them. The Wonder gained a 
 fresher bloom, and looked full enough of life to radiate 
 vitality into a statue of ice. They had a boat of their 
 own, in which they passed many delightful hours on 
 the lake, rowing, drifting, reading, telling of what had 
 been, dreaming of what might be. 
 
 The Library was one of the chief centres of the 
 fixed population, and visited often by strangers. The 
 old Librarian was a peculiar character, as these offi 
 cials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of 
 knowledge, sometimes immense in its way. They 
 know the backs of books, their title-pages, their popu 
 larity or want of it, the class of readers who call 
 for particular works, the value of different editions, 
 and a good deal besides. Their minds catch up hints 
 from all manner of works on all kinds of subjects. 
 They will give a visitor a fact and a reference which 
 they are surprised to find they remember and which 
 the visitor might have hunted for a year. Every good 
 librarian, every private book-owner, who has grown 
 into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going 
 to every bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig 
 to every book. These nerves get very sensitive in old
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 79 
 
 librarians, sometimes, and they do not like to have a 
 volume meddled with any more than they would like 
 to have their naked eyes handled. They come to feel 
 at last that the books of a great collection are a part, 
 not merely of their own property, though they are only 
 the agents for their distribution, but that they are, as 
 it were, outlying portions of their own organization. 
 The old Librarian was getting a miserly feeling about 
 his books, as he called them. Fortunately, he had a 
 young lady for his assistant, who was never so happy 
 as when she could find the work any visitor wanted 
 and put it in his hands, or her hands, for there were 
 more readers among the wives and daughters, and 
 especially among the aunts, than there were among 
 their male relatives. The old Librarian knew the 
 books, but the books seemed to know the young assist 
 ant ; so it looked, at least, to the impatient young peo 
 ple who wanted their services. 
 
 Maurice had a good many volumes of his own, a 
 great many, according to Paolo's account ; but Paolo's 
 ideas were limited, and a few well-filled shelves seemed 
 a very large collection to him. His master frequently 
 sent him to the Public Library for books, which some 
 what enlarged his notions ; still, the Signer was a 
 very learned man, he was certain, and some of his 
 white books (bound in vellum and richly gilt) were 
 more splendid, according to Paolo, than anything in 
 the Library. 
 
 There was no little curiosity to know what were the 
 books that Maurice was in the habit of taking out, 
 and the Librarian's record was carefully searched by 
 some of the more inquisitive investigators. The list 
 proved to be a long and varied one. It would imply 
 a considerable knowledge of modern languages and of
 
 80 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 the classics; a liking for mathematics and physics, 
 especially all that related to electricity and magnet 
 ism ; a fancy for the occult sciences, if there is any 
 propriety in coupling these words ; and a whim for 
 odd and obsolete literature, like the Parthenologia of 
 Fortunius Licetus, the quaint treatise " De Sternuta- 
 tione," books about alchemy, and witchcraft, appari 
 tions, and modern works relating to Spiritualism. 
 With these were the titles of novels and now and then 
 of books of poems ; but it may be taken for granted 
 that his own shelves held the works he was most fre 
 quently in the habit of reading or consulting. Not 
 much was to be made out of this beyond the fact of 
 wide scholarship, more or less deep it might be, but 
 at any rate implying no small mental activity ; for he 
 appeared to read very rapidly, at any rate exchanged 
 the books he had taken out for new ones very fre 
 quently. To judge by his reading, he was a man of 
 letters. But so wide-reading a man of letters must 
 have an object, a literary purpose in all probability. 
 Why should not he be writing a novel? Not a novel 
 of society, assuredly, for a hermit is not the person to 
 report the talk and manners of a world which he has 
 nothing to do with. Novelists and lawyers understand 
 the art of " cramming " better than any other persons 
 in the 'world. Why should not this young man be 
 working up the picturesque in this romantic region to 
 serve as a background for some story with magic, per 
 haps, and mysticism, and hints borrowed from science, 
 and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his 
 odd and miscellaneous selection of books furnished 
 him ? That might be, or possibly he was only read 
 ing for amusement. Who could say ? 
 
 The funds of the Public Library of Arrowhead Vil
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 81 
 
 lage allowed the managers to purchase many books 
 out of the common range of reading. The two learned 
 people of the village were the rector and the doctor. 
 These two worthies kept up the old controversy be 
 tween the professions, which grows out of the fact 
 that one studies nature from below upwards, and the 
 other from above downwards. The rector maintained 
 that physicians contracted a squint which turns their 
 eyes inwardly, while the muscles which roll their eyes 
 upward become palsied. The doctor retorted that 
 theological students developed a third eyelid, the 
 nictitating membrane, which is so well known in birds, 
 and which serves to shut out, not all light, but all the 
 light they do not want. Their little skirmishes did 
 not prevent their being very good friends, who had a 
 common interest in many things and many persons. 
 Both were on the committee which had the care of the 
 Library and attended to the purchase of books. Each 
 was scholar enough to know the wants of scholars, and 
 disposed to trust the judgment of the other as to what 
 books should be purchased. Consequently, the clergy 
 man secured the addition to the Library of a good 
 many old theological works which the physician would 
 have called brimstone divinity, and held to be just the 
 thing to kindle fires with, good books still for those 
 who know how to use them, oftentimes as awful exam 
 ples of the extreme of disorganization the whole moral 
 system may undergo when a barbarous belief has 
 strangled the natural human instincts. The physician, 
 in the mean time, acquired for the collection some of 
 those medical works where one may find recorded 
 various rare and almost incredible cases, which may 
 not have their like for a whole century, and then re 
 peat themselves, so as to give a new lease of credibility
 
 82 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 to stories which had come to be looked upon as fa 
 bles. 
 
 Both the clergyman and the physician took a very 
 natural interest in the young man who had come to 
 reside in their neighborhood for the present, perhaps 
 for a long period. The rector would have been glad 
 to see him at church. He would have liked more es 
 pecially to have had him hear his sermon on the Du 
 ties of Young Men to Society. The doctor, mean 
 while, was meditating on the duties of society to young 
 men, and wishing that he could gain the young man's 
 confidence, so as to help him out of any false habit of 
 mind or any delusion to which he might be subject, if 
 he had the power of being useful to him. 
 
 Dr. Butts was the leading medical practitioner, not 
 only of Arrowhead Village, but of all the surrounding 
 region. He was an excellent specimen of the country 
 doctor, self-reliant, self-sacrificing, working a great 
 deal harder for his living than most of those who call 
 themselves the laboring classes, as if none but those 
 whose hands were hardened by the use of farming or 
 mechanical implements had any work to do. He had 
 that sagacity without which learning is a mere in- 
 cumbrance, and he had also a fair share of that learn 
 ing without which sagacity is like a traveller with a 
 good horse, but who cannot read the directions on the 
 guideboards. He was not a man to be taken in by 
 names. He well knew that oftentimes very innocent- 
 sounding words mean very grave disorders ; that all 
 degrees of disease and disorder are frequently con 
 founded under the same term ; that " run down " may 
 stand for a fatigue of mind or body from which a week 
 or a month of rest will completely restore the over 
 worked patient, or an advanced stage of a mortal ill
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 83 
 
 ness; that "seedy" may signify the morning's state 
 of feeling, after an evening's over-indulgence, which 
 calls for a glass of soda-water and a cup of coffee, or 
 a dangerous malady which will pack off the subject of 
 it, at the shortest notice, to the south of France. He 
 knew too well that what is spoken lightly of as a 
 " nervous disturbance " may imply that the whole ma 
 chinery of life is in a deranged condition, and that 
 every individual organ would groan aloud if it had 
 any other language than the terrible inarticulate one 
 of pain by which to communicate with the conscious 
 ness. 
 
 When, therefore, Dr. Butts heard the word anti- 
 patia he did not smile, and say to himself that this 
 was an idle whim, a foolish fancy, which the young 
 man had got into his head. Neither was he satisfied 
 to set down everything to the account of insanity, 
 plausible as that supposition might seem. He was 
 prepared to believe in some exceptional, perhaps 
 anomalous, form of exaggerated sensibility, relating 
 to what class of objects he could not at present con 
 jecture, but which was as vital to the subject of it as 
 the insulating arrangement to a piece of electrical ma 
 chinery. With this feeling he began to look into the 
 history of antipathies as recorded in all the books and 
 journals on which he could lay his hands. 
 
 The holder of the Portfolio asks leave to close it 
 for a brief interval. He wishes to say a few words to 
 his readers, before offering them some verses which 
 have no connection with the narrative now in prog 
 ress.
 
 84 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 If one could have before him a set of photographs 
 taken annually, representing the same person as he or 
 she appeared for thirty or forty or fifty years, it would 
 be interesting- to watch the gradual changes of aspect 
 from the age of twenty, or even of thirty or forty, to 
 that of threescore and ten. The face might be an un 
 interesting one ; still, as sharing the inevitable changes 
 wrought by time, it would be worth looking at as it 
 passed through the curve of life, the vital parabola, 
 which betrays itself in the symbolic changes of the 
 features. An inscription is the same thing, whether 
 we read it on slate-stone, or granite, or marble. To 
 watch the lights and shades, the reliefs and hol 
 lows, of a countenance through a lifetime, or a large 
 part of it, by the aid of a continuous series of pho 
 tographs would not only be curious ; it would teach 
 us much more about the laws of physiognomy than 
 we could get from casual and unconnected observa 
 tions. 
 
 The same kind of interest, without any assumption 
 of merit to be found in them, I would claim for a 
 series of annual poems, beginning in middle life and 
 continued to what many of my correspondents are 
 pleased to remind me as if I required to have the 
 fact brought to my knowledge is no longer youth. 
 Here is the latest of a series of annual poems read 
 during the last thirty-four years. There seems to 
 have been one interruption, but there may have been 
 other poems not recorded or remembered. This, the 
 latest poem of the scries, was listened to by the scanty 
 remnant of what was a large and brilliant circle of 
 classmates and friends when the first of the long se 
 ries was read before them, then in the flush of ardent 
 manhood :
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 85 
 
 THE OLD SONG. 
 
 The minstrel of the classic lay 
 
 Of love and wine who sings 
 Still found the fingers run astray 
 
 That touched the rebel strings. 
 
 Of Cadmus he would fain have sung 1 , 
 
 Of Atreus and his line ; 
 But all the jocund echoes rung 
 
 With songs of love and wine. 
 
 Ah, brothers ! I would fain have caught 
 Some fresher fancy's gleam ; 
 
 My truant accents find, unsought, 
 The old familiar theme. 
 
 Love, Love ! but not the sportive child 
 With shaft and twanging bow, 
 
 Whose random arrows drove us wild 
 Some threescore years ago ; 
 
 Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, 
 
 The urchin blind and bare, 
 But Love, with spectacles and staff, 
 
 And scanty, silvered hair. 
 
 Our heads with frosted locks are white, 
 Our roofs are thatched with snow, 
 
 But red, in chilling winter's spite, 
 Our hearts and hearthstones glow. 
 
 Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, 
 And while the running sands 
 
 Their golden thread unheeded spin, 
 He warms his frozen hands. 
 
 Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, 
 
 And waft this message o'er 
 To all we miss, from all we meet 
 
 On life's fast-crumbling shore :
 
 86 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Say that to old affection true 
 We hug the narrowing chain 
 
 That binds our hearts, alas, how few 
 The links that yet remain ! 
 
 The fatal touch awaits them all 
 That turns the rocks to dust; 
 
 From year to year they break and fall, -^= 
 They break, but never rust. 
 
 Say if one note of happier strain 
 This worn-out harp afford, 
 
 One throb that trembles, not in vain, 
 Their memory lent its chord. 
 
 Say that when Fancy closed her wings 
 And Passion quenched his fire, 
 
 Love, Love, still echoed from the strings 
 As from Anacreon's lyre ! 
 
 January 8, 1885.
 
 VII. 
 
 A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 IN thinking the whole matter over, Dr. Butts felt 
 convinced that, with care and patience and watching 
 his opportunity, he should get at the secret, which so 
 far had yielded nothing but a single word. It might 
 be asked why he was so anxious to learn what, from all 
 appearances, the young stranger was unwilling to ex 
 plain. He may have been to some extent infected by 
 the general curiosity of the persons around him, in 
 which good Mrs. Butts shared, and which she had 
 helped to intensify by revealing the word dropped by 
 Paolo. But this was not really his chief motive. He 
 could not look upon this young man, living a life of 
 unwholesome solitude, without a natural desire to do 
 all that his science and his knowledge of human na 
 ture could help him to do towards bringing him into 
 healthy relations with the world about him. Still, he 
 would not intrude upon him in any way. He would 
 only make certain general investigations, which might 
 prove serviceable in case circumstances should give 
 him the right to counsel the young man as to his 
 course of life. The first thing to be done was to study 
 systematically the whole subject of antipathies. Then, 
 if any further occasion offered itself, he would be ready 
 to take advantage of it. The resources of the Public 
 Library of the place and his own private collection 
 were put in requisition to furnish him the singular 
 and widely scattered facts of which he was in search.
 
 88 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr. 
 Butts in his study of the natural history of antipa 
 thies. The stories told about them are, however, very 
 curious ; and if some of them may be questioned, there 
 is no doubt that many of the strangest are true, and 
 consequently take away from the improbability of oth 
 ers which we are disposed to doubt. 
 
 But in the first place, what do we mean by an an 
 tipathy ? It is an aversion to some object, which may 
 vary in degree from mere dislike to mortal horror. 
 What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say. It 
 acts sometimes through the senses, sometimes through 
 the imagination, sometimes through an unknown chan 
 nel. The relations which exist between the human 
 being and all that surrounds him vary in consequence 
 of some adjustment peculiar to each individual. The 
 brute fact is expressed in the phrase " One man's 
 meat is another man's poison." 
 
 In studying the history of antipathies the doctor 
 began with those referable to the sense of taste, which 
 are among the most common. In any collection of a 
 hundred persons there will be found those who cannot 
 make use of certain articles of food generally accepta 
 ble. This may be from the disgust they occasion or 
 the effects they have been found to produce. Every 
 one knows individuals who cannot venture on honey, 
 or cheese, or veal, with impunity. Carlyle, for ex 
 ample, complains of having veal set before him, a 
 meat he could not endure. There is a whole family 
 connection in New England, and that a very famous 
 one, to many of whose members, in different genera 
 tions, all the products of the dairy are the subjects of 
 a congenital antipathy. Montaigne says there are per 
 sons who dread the smell of apples more than they
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 89 
 
 would dread being exposed to a fire of musketry. 
 The readers of the charming story " A Week in a 
 French Country-House " will remember poor Mon 
 sieur Jacque's piteous cry in the night : " Ursula, art 
 thou asleep ? Oh, Ursula, thou sleepest, but I cannot 
 close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dread 
 ful smell ! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell ! I do so 
 wish thou couldst smell it ! Good-night, my angel ! 
 
 Dearest ! I have found them ! . . . They are 
 
 apples ! " The smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has 
 been known to cause faintness. The sight of various 
 objects has had singular effects on some persons. A 
 boar's head was a favorite dish at the table of great 
 people in Marshal d'Albret's time ; yet he used to 
 faint at the sight of one. It is not uncommon to meet 
 with persons who faint at the sight of blood. One of 
 the most inveterately pugnacious of Dr. Butts's college- 
 mates confessed that he had this infirmity. Stranger 
 and far more awkward than this is the case mentioned 
 in an ancient collection, where the subject of the an 
 tipathy fainted at the sight of any object of a red 
 color. There are sounds, also, which have strange ef 
 fects on some individuals. Among the obnoxious 
 noises are the crumpling of silk stuffs, the sound of 
 sweeping, the croaking of frogs. The effects in dif 
 ferent cases have been spasms, a sense of strangling, 
 profuse sweating, all showing a profound disturb 
 ance of the nervous system. 
 
 All these effects were produced by impressions on 
 the organs of sense, seemingly by direct agency on 
 certain nerve centres. But there is another series of 
 cases in which the imagination plays a larger part in 
 the phenomena. Two notable examples are afforded 
 in the lives of two very distinguished personages.
 
 90 A MOETAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Peter the Great was frightened, when an infant, by 
 falling from a bridge into the water. Long afterward, 
 when he had reached manhood, this hardy and reso 
 lute man was so affected by the sound of wheels rat 
 tling over a bridge that he had to discipline himself 
 by listening to the sound, in spite of his dread of it, in 
 order to overcome his antipathy. The story told by 
 Abbe* Boileau of Pascal is very similar to that related 
 of Peter. As he was driving in his coach and four 
 over the bridge at Neuilly, his horses took fright and 
 ran away, and the leaders broke from their harness 
 and sprang into the river, leaving the wheel-horses 
 and the carriage on the bridge. Ever after this fright 
 it is said that Pascal had the terrifying sense that he 
 was just on the edge of an abyss, ready to fall over. 
 
 What strange early impression was it which led a 
 certain lady always to shriek aloud if she ventured to 
 enter a church, as it is recorded ? The old and simple 
 way of accounting for it would be the scriptural one, 
 that it was an unclean spirit who dwelt in her, and 
 who, when she entered the holy place and brought her 
 spiritual tenant into the presence of the sacred sym 
 bols, " cried with a loud voice, and came out of " her. 
 A very singular case, the doctor himself had recorded, 
 and which the reader may accept as authentic, is the 
 following : At the head of the doctor's front stairs 
 stood, and still stands, a tall clock, of early date and 
 stately presence. A middle-aged visitor, noticing it 
 as he entered the front door, remarked that he should 
 feel a great unwillingness to pass that clock. He 
 could not go near one of those tall timepieces without 
 a profound agitation, which he dreaded to undergo. 
 This very singular idiosyncrasy he attributed to a 
 fright when he was an infant in the arms of his nurse,
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 91 
 
 She was standing near one of those tall clocks, when 
 the cord which supported one of its heavy leaden 
 weights broke, and the weight came crashing down to 
 the bottom of the case. Some effect must have been 
 produced upon the pulpy nerve centres from which 
 they never recovered. Why should not this happen, 
 when we know that a sudden mental shock may be 
 the cause of insanity ? The doctor remembered the 
 verse of " The Ancient Mariner : " 
 
 " I moved my lips ; the pilot shrieked 
 And fell down in a fit ; 
 The holy hermit raised his eyes 
 And prayed where he did sit. 
 I took the oars ; the pilot's boy, 
 Who now doth crazy go, 
 Laughed loud and long, and all the while 
 His eyes went to and fro." 
 
 This is only poetry, it is true, but the poet borrowed 
 the description from nature, and the records of our 
 asylums could furnish many cases where insanity was 
 caused by a sudden fright. 
 
 More than this, hardly a year passes that we do not 
 read of some person, a child commonly, killed out 
 right by terror, scared to death, literally. Sad 
 cases they often are, in which, nothing but a surprise 
 being intended, the shock has instantly arrested the 
 movements on which life depends. If a mere instan 
 taneous impression can produce effects like these, such 
 an impression might of course be followed by conse 
 quences less fatal or formidable, but yet serious in 
 their nature. If here and there a person is killed, as 
 if by lightning, by a sudden startling sight or sound, 
 there must be more numerous cases in which a terrible 
 shock is produced by similar apparently insignificant
 
 92 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 causes, a shock which falls short of overthrowing 
 the reason and does not destroy life, yet leaves a last 
 ing effect upon the subject of it. 
 
 This point, then, was settled in the mind of Dr. 
 Butts, namely, that, as a violent emotion caused by a 
 sudden shock can kill or craze a human being, there is 
 no perversion of the faculties, no prejudice, no change 
 of taste or temper, no eccentricity, no antipathy, which 
 such a cause may not rationally account for. He 
 would not be surprised, he said to himself, to find that 
 some early alarm, like that which was experienced by 
 Peter the Great or that which happened to Pascal, 
 had broken some spring in this young man's nature, 
 or so changed its mode of action as to account for the 
 exceptional remoteness of his way of life. But how 
 could any conceivable antipathy be so comprehensive 
 as to keep a young man aloof from all the world, and 
 make a hermit of him? He did not hate the hu 
 man race ; that was clear enough. He treated Paolo 
 with great kindness, and the Italian was evidently 
 much attached to him. He had talked naturally and 
 pleasantly with the young man he had helped out of 
 his dangerous situation when his boat was upset. Dr. 
 Butts heard that he had once made a short visit to 
 this young man, at his rooms in the University. It 
 was not misanthropy, therefore, which kept him soli 
 tary. What could be broad enough to cover the facts 
 of the case ? Nothing that the doctor could think of, 
 unless it were some color, the sight of which acted on 
 him as it did on the individual before mentioned, who 
 could not look at anything red without fainting. Sup 
 pose this were a case of the same antipathy. How 
 very careful it would make the subject of it as to 
 where he went and with whom he consorted ! Time
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 93 
 
 and patience would be pretty sure to bring out new 
 developments, and physicians, of all men in the world, 
 know how to wait as well as how to labor. 
 
 Such were some of the crude facts as Dr. Butts 
 found them in books or gathered them from his own 
 experience. He soon discovered that the story had 
 got about the village that Maurice Kirkwood was the 
 victim of an " antipathy," whatever that word might 
 mean in the vocabulary of the people of the place. 
 If he suspected the channel through which it had 
 reached the little community, and, spreading from that 
 centre, the country round, he did not see fit to make 
 out of his suspicions a domestic casus belli. Paolo 
 might have mentioned it to others as well as to him 
 self. Maurice might have told some friend, who had 
 divulged it. But to accuse Mrs. Butts, good Mrs. 
 Butts, of petit treason in telling one of her husband's 
 professional secrets was too serious a matter to be 
 thought of. He would be a little more careful, he 
 promised himself, the next time, at any rate ; for he 
 had to concede, in spite of every wish to be charitable 
 in his judgment, that it was among the possibilities 
 that the worthy lady had forgotten the rule that a doc 
 tor's patients must put their tongues out, and a doctor's 
 wife must keep her tongue in.
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 THE Secretary of this association was getting some 
 what tired of the office, and the office was getting 
 somewhat tired of him. It occurred to the members 
 of the Society that a little fresh blood infused into it 
 might stir up the general vitality of the organization. 
 The woman suffragists saw no reason why the place 
 of Secretary need as a matter of course be filled by a 
 person of the male sex. They agitated, they made 
 domiciliary visits, they wrote notes to influential citi 
 zens, and finally announced as their candidate the 
 young lady who had won and worn the school name of 
 " The Terror," who was elected. She was just the 
 person for the place : wide awake, with all her wits 
 about her, full of every kind of knowledge, and, 
 above all, strong on points of order and details of 
 management, so that she could prompt the presiding 
 officer, to do which is often the most essential duty of 
 a Secretary. The President, the worthy rector, was 
 good at plain sailing in the track of the common 
 moralities and proprieties, but was liable to get mud 
 dled if anything came up requiring swift decision and 
 off-hand speech. The Terror had schooled herself in 
 the debating societies of the Institute, and would set 
 up the President, when he was floored by an awkward 
 question, as easily as if he were a uinepin which had 
 been bowled over.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 95 
 
 It has been already mentioned that the Pansophian 
 Society received communications from time to time 
 from writers outside of its own organization. Of late 
 these had been becoming more frequent. Many of 
 them were sent in anonymously, and as there were nu 
 merous visitors to the village, and two institutions not 
 far removed from it, both full of ambitious and intel 
 ligent young persons, it was often impossible to trace 
 the papers to their authors. The new Secretary was 
 alive with curiosity, and as sagacious a little body as 
 one might find if in want of a detective. She could 
 make a pretty shrewd guess whether a paper was 
 written by a young or old person, by one of her own 
 sex or the other, by an experienced hand or a novice. 
 
 Among the anonymous papers she received was one 
 which exercised her curiosity to an extraordinary de 
 gree. She felt a strong suspicion that " the Sachem," 
 as the boat-crews used to call him, " the Eecluse," 
 " the Night-Hawk," " the Sphinx," as others named 
 him, must be the author of it. It appeared to her the 
 production of a young person of a reflective, poetical 
 turn of mind. It was not a woman's way of writing ; 
 at least, so thought the Secretary. The writer had 
 travelled much ; had resided in Italy, among other 
 places. But so had many of the summer visitors and 
 residents of Arrowhead Village. The handwriting 
 was not decisive ; it had some points of resemblance 
 with the pencilled orders for books which Maurice 
 sent to the Library, but there were certain differences, 
 intentional or accidental, which weakened this evi 
 dence. There was an undertone in the essay which 
 was in keeping with the mode of life of the solitary 
 stranger. It might be disappointment, melancholy, or 
 only the dreamy sadness of a young person who sees
 
 96 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 the future lie is to climb, not as a smooth ascent, but as 
 overhanging him like a cliff, ready to crush him, with 
 all his hopes and prospects. This interpretation may 
 have been too imaginative, but here is the paper, and 
 the reader can form his own opinion : 
 
 MY THREE COMPANIONS. 
 
 " I have been from my youth upwards a wanderer. 
 I do not mean constantly flitting from one place to an 
 other, for my residence has often been fixed for con 
 siderable periods. From time to time I have put 
 down in a note-book the impressions made upon me 
 by the scenes through which I have passed. I have 
 long hesitated whether to let any of my notes appear 
 before the public. My fear has been that they were 
 too subjective, to use the metaphysician's term, that 
 I have seen myself reflected in Nature, and not the 
 true aspects of Nature as she was meant to be under 
 stood. One who should visit the Harz Mountains 
 would see might see, rather his own colossal 
 image shape itself on the morning mist. But if in 
 every mist that rises from the meadows, in every cloud 
 that hangs upon the mountain, lie always finds his 
 own reflection, we cannot accept him as an interpreter 
 of the landscape. 
 
 " There must be many persons present at the meet 
 ings of the Society to which this paper is offered who 
 have had experiences like that of its author. They 
 have visited the same localities, they have had many of 
 the same thoughts and feelings. Many, I have no 
 doubt. Not all, no, not all. Others have sought 
 the companionship of Nature ; I have been driven to 
 it. Much of my life has been passed in that commun 
 ion. These pages record some of the intimacies I
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 97 
 
 have formed with her under some of her various 
 manifestations. 
 
 " I have lived on the shore of the great ocean, 
 where its waves broke wildest and its voice rose 
 loudest. 
 
 " I have passed whole seasons on the banks of 
 mighty and famous rivers. 
 
 " I have dwelt on the margin of a tranquil lake, 
 and floated through many a long, long summer day 
 on its clear waters. 
 
 " I have learned the ' various language ' of Nature, 
 of which poetry has spoken, at least, I have learned 
 some words and phrases of it. I will translate some 
 of these as I best may into common speech. 
 
 " The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores : 
 
 " ' You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do 
 not trouble myself with the living tribes that come 
 down to my waters. I have my own people, of an older 
 race than yours, that grow to mightier dimensions 
 than your mastodons and elephants ; more numerous 
 than all the swarms that fill the air or move over the 
 thin crust of the earth. Who are you that build your 
 gay palaces on my margin ? I see your white faces as 
 I saw the dark faces of the tribes that came before 
 you, as I shall look upon the unknown family of 
 mankind that will come after you. And what is your 
 whole human family but a parenthesis in a single 
 page of my history ? The raindrops stereotyped them 
 selves on my beaches before a living creature left his 
 footprints there. This horseshoe-crab I fling at your 
 feet is of older lineage than your Adam, perhaps, 
 indeed, you count your Adam as one of his descend 
 ants. What feeling have I for you ? Not scorn, 
 not hatred, not love, not loathing. No ! indif- 
 
 7
 
 98 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 f erence, blank indifference to you and your affairs : 
 that is my feeling, say rather absence of feeling, as 
 regards you. Oh yes, I will lap your feet, I will cool 
 you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my 
 strong arms, I will rock you on my rolling undulations, 
 like a babe in his cradle. Am I not gentle ? Am I 
 not kind ? Am I not harmless ? But hark ! The 
 wind is rising, and the wind and I are rough play 
 mates ! What do you say to my voice now ? Do you 
 see my foaming lips ? Do you feel the rocks tremble 
 as my huge billows crash against them ? Is not my 
 anger terrible as I dash your argosy, your thunder- 
 bearing frigate, into fragments, as you would crack an 
 eggshell ? No, not anger ; deaf, blind, unheeding in 
 difference, that is all. Out of me all things arose ; 
 sooner or later, into me all things subside. All 
 changes around me ; I change not. I look not at you, 
 vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save in 
 momentary glimpses : I look on the white face of my 
 dead mistress, whom I follow as the bridegroom fol 
 lows the bier of her who has changed her nuptial 
 raiment for the shroud. 
 
 " ' Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at 
 my side. Continents and islands grow old, and waste 
 and disappear. The hardest rock crumbles ; vegetable 
 and animal kingdoms come into being, wax great, de 
 cline, and perish, to give way to others, even as human 
 dynasties and nations and races come and go. Look 
 on me! "Time writes no wrinkle" on my forehead. 
 Listen to me ! All tongues are spoken on my shores, 
 but I have only one language : the winds taught me 
 their vowels the crags and the sands schooled me in 
 my rough or smooth consonants. Few words are 
 mine but I have whispered them and sung them and
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 99 
 
 shouted them to men of all tribes from the time when 
 the first wild wanderer strayed into my awful presence. 
 Have you a grief that gnaws at your heart-strings? 
 Come with it to my shore, as of old the priest of far- 
 darting Apollo carried his rage and anguish to the 
 margin of the loud-roaring sea. There, if anywhere, 
 you will forget your private and short-lived woe, for 
 my voice speaks to the infinite and the eternal in your 
 consciousness.' 
 
 " To him who loves the pages of human history, who 
 listens to the voices of the world about him, who fre 
 quents the market and the thoroughfare, who lives in 
 the study of time and its accidents rather than in the 
 deeper emotions, in abstract speculation and spiritual 
 contemplation, the RIVER addresses itself as his nat 
 ural companion. 
 
 " ' Come live with me. I am active, cheerful, com 
 municative, a natural talker and story-teller. I am 
 not noisy, like the ocean, except occasionally when I 
 am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get a 
 fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in 
 watching my changing features. My idlest babble, 
 when I am toying with the trifles that fall in my way, 
 if not very full of meaning, is at least musical. I am 
 not a dangerous friend, like the ocean ; no highway 
 is absolutely safe, but my nature is harmless, and the 
 storms that strew the beaches with wrecks cast no ru 
 ins upon my flowery borders. Abide with me, and 
 you shall not die of thirst, like the forlorn wretches 
 left to the mercies of the pitiless salt waves. Trust 
 yourself to me, and I will carry you far on your jour 
 ney, if we are travelling to tho same point of the com 
 pass. If I sometimes run riot and overflow your mead-
 
 100 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 ows, I leave fertility behind me when I withdraw to 
 my natural channel. Walk by my side toward the 
 place of my destination. I will keep pace with you, 
 and you shall feel my presence with you as that of a 
 self-conscious being like yourself. You will find it 
 hard to be miserable in my company ; I drain you of 
 ill-conditioned thoughts as I carry away the refuse of 
 your dwelling and its grounds.' 
 
 "But to him whom the ocean chills and crushes 
 with its sullen indifference, and the river disturbs with 
 its never-pausing and never-ending story, the silent 
 LAKE shall be a refuge and a place of rest for his 
 soul. 
 
 " ' Vex not yourself with thoughts too vast for your 
 limited faculties,' it says ; ' yield not yourself to the 
 babble of the running stream. Leave the ocean, which 
 cares nothing for you or any living thing that walks 
 the solid earth ; leave the river, too busy with its own 
 errand, too talkative about its own affairs, and find 
 peace with me, whose smile will cheer you, whose 
 whisper will soothe you. Come to me when the morn 
 ing sun blazes across my bosom like a golden baldric ; 
 come to me in the still midnight, when I hold the in 
 verted firmament like a cup brimming with jewels, nor 
 spill one star of all the constellations that float in my 
 ebon goblet. Do you know the charm of melancholy ? 
 Where will you find a sympathy like mine in your 
 hours of sadness ? Does the ocean share your grief ? 
 Does tho river listen to your sighs? The salt wave, 
 that called to you from under last month's full moon, 
 to-day is dashing on the rocks of Labrador ; the stream, 
 that ran by you pure and sparkling, has swallowed the 
 poisonous refuse of a great city, and is creeping to its
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 101 
 
 grave in the wide cemetery that buries all things in 
 its tomb of liquid crystal. It is true that my waters 
 exhale and are renewed from one season to another ; 
 but are your features the same, absolutely the same, 
 from year to year? We both change, but we know 
 each other through all changes. Am I not mirrored 
 in those eyes of yours ? And does not Nature plant 
 me as an eye to behold her beauties while she is 
 dressed in the glories of leaf and flower, and draw 
 the icy lid over my shining surface when she stands 
 naked and ashamed in the poverty of winter ? ' 
 
 " I have had strange experiences and sad thoughts 
 in the course of a life not very long, but with a record 
 which much longer lives could not match in incident. 
 Oftentimes the temptation has come over me with 
 dangerous urgency to try a change of existence, if 
 such change is a part of human destiny, to seek 
 rest, if that is what we gain by laying down the burden 
 of life. I have asked who would be th? friend to 
 whom I should appeal for the last service I should 
 have need of. Ocean was there, all ready, asking no 
 questions, answering none. What strange voyages, 
 downward through its glaucous depths, upwards to its 
 boiling and frothing surface, wafted by tides, driven 
 by tempests, disparted by rude agencies ; one remnant 
 whitening on the sands of a northern beach, one per 
 haps built into the circle of a coral reef in the Pacific, 
 one settling to the floor of the vast laboratory where 
 continents are built, to emerge in far-off ages ! What 
 strange companions for my pall-bearers! Unwieldy 
 sea-monsters, the stories of which are counted fables 
 by the spectacled collectors who think their catalogues 
 have exhausted nature ; naked- eyed creatures, staring,
 
 102 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 glaring, nightmare-like spectres of the ghastly-green 
 abysses ; pulpy islands, with life in gelatinous immen 
 sity, what a company of hungry heirs at every ocean 
 funeral ! No ! No ! Ocean claims great multitudes, 
 but does not invite the solitary who would fain be rid 
 of himself. 
 
 " Shall I seek a deeper slumber at the bottom of the 
 lake I love than I have ever found when drifting idly 
 over its surface? No, again. I do not want the 
 sweet, clear waters to know me in the disgrace of na 
 ture, when life, the faithful body-servant, has ceased 
 caring for me. That must not be. The mirror which 
 has pictured me so often shall never know me as an 
 unwelcome object. 
 
 " If I must ask the all-subduing element to be my 
 last friend, and lead me out of my prison, it shall be 
 the busy, whispering, not unfriendly, pleasantly com 
 panionable river. 
 
 " But Ocean and River and Lake have certain rela 
 tions to the periods of human life which they who are 
 choosing their places of abode should consider. Let 
 the child play upon the seashore. The wide horizon 
 gives his imagination room to grow in, untrammelled. 
 That background of mystery, without which life is a 
 poor mechanical arrangement, is shaped and colored, 
 so far as it can have outline, or any hue but shadow, 
 on a vast canvas, the contemplation of which enlarges 
 and enriches the sphere of consciousness. The mighty 
 ocean is not too huge to symbolize the aspirations and 
 ambitions of the yet untried soul of the adolescent. 
 
 "The time will come when his indefinite mental 
 horizon has found a solid limit, which shuts his pros 
 pect in narrower bounds than he would have thought
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 103 
 
 could content him in the years of undefined possibil 
 ities. Then he will find the river a more natural in 
 timate than the ocean. It is individual, which the 
 ocean, with all its gulfs and inlets and multitudinous 
 shores, hardly seems to be. It does not love you very 
 dearly, and will not miss you much when you disap 
 pear from its margin ; but it means well to you, bids 
 you good-morning with its coming waves, and good- 
 evening with those which are leaving. It will lead 
 your thoughts pleasantly away, upwards to its source, 
 downwards to the stream to which it is tributary, or 
 the wide waters in which it is to lose itself. A river, 
 by choice, to live by in middle age. 
 
 " In hours of melancholy reflection, in those last 
 years of life which have little left but tender memo 
 ries, the still companionship of the lake, embosomed in 
 woods, sheltered, fed by sweet mountain brooks and 
 hidden springs, commends itself to the wearied and 
 saddened spirit. I am not thinking of those great in 
 land seas, which have many of the features and much 
 of the danger that belong to the ocean, but of those 
 ' ponds,' as our countrymen used to call them until 
 they were rechristened by summer visitors ; beautiful 
 sheets of water from a hundred to a few thousand 
 acres in extent, scattered like raindrops over the map 
 of our Northern sovereignties. The loneliness of con- 
 t3mplative old age finds its natural home in the near 
 neighborhood of one of these tranquil basins. 
 
 " Nature does not always plant her poets where 
 they belong, but if we look carefully their affinities 
 betray themselves. The youth will carry his Byron to 
 the rock which overlooks the ocean the poet loved so 
 well. The man of maturer years will remember that 
 the sonorous couplets of Pope which ring in his ears
 
 104 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 were written on the banks of the Thames. The old 
 man, as he nods over the solemn verse of Wordsworth, 
 will recognize the affinity between the singer and the 
 calm sheet that lay before him as he wrote, the 
 stainless and sleepy Windermere. 
 
 " The dwellers by Cedar Lake may find it an amuse 
 ment to compare their own feelings with those of one 
 who has lived by the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, 
 by the Nile and the Tiber, by Lake Leuian and by 
 one of the fairest sheets of water that our own North 
 America embosoms in its forests." 
 
 Miss Lurida Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian 
 Society, read this paper, and pondered long upon it. 
 She was thinking very seriously of studying medicine, 
 and had been for some time in frequent communica 
 tion with Dr. Butts, under whose direction she had be 
 gun reading certain treatises, which added to such 
 knowledge of the laws of life in health and in disease 
 as she had brought with her from the Corinna Insti 
 tute. Naturally enough, she carried the anonymous 
 paper to the doctor, to get his opinion about it, and 
 compare it with her own. They both agreed that it 
 was probably, they would not say certainly, the work 
 of the solitary visitor. There was room for doubt, for 
 there were visitors who might well have travelled to 
 all the places mentioned, and resided long enough on 
 the shores of the waters the writer spoke of to have 
 had all the experiences mentioned in the paper. The 
 Terror remembered a young lady, a former school 
 mate, who belonged to one of those nomadic families 
 common in this generation, the heads of which, espe 
 cially the female heads, can never be easy where they 
 are, but keep going between America and Europe, like
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 105 
 
 so many pith-balls in the electrical experiment, alter 
 nately attracted and repelled, never in contented equi 
 librium. Every few years they pull their families up 
 by the roots, and by the time they have begun to take 
 hold a little with their radicles in the spots to which 
 they have been successively transplanted up they come 
 again, so that they never get a tap-root anywhere. The 
 Terror suspected the daughter of one of these families 
 of sending certain anonymous articles of not dissimilar 
 character to the one she had just received. But she 
 knew the style of composition common among the 
 young girls, and she could hardly believe that it was 
 one of them who had sent this paper. Could a brother 
 of this young lady have written it? Possibly; she 
 knew nothing more than that the young lady had a 
 brother, then a student at the University. All the 
 chances were that Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was the 
 author. So thought Lurida, and so thought Dr. 
 Butts. 
 
 Whatever faults there were in this essay, it inter- 
 ested.them both. There was nothing which gave the 
 least reason to suspect insanity on the part of the 
 writer, whoever he or she might be. There were ref 
 erences to suicide, it is true, but they were of a purely 
 speculative nature, and did not look to any practical 
 purpose in that direction. Besides, if the stranger 
 were the author of the paper, he certainly would not 
 choose a sheet of water like Cedar Lake to perform 
 the last offices for him, in case he seriously meditated 
 taking unceremonious leave of life and its accidents. 
 He could find a river easily enough, to say nothing of 
 other methods of effecting his purpose ; but he had 
 committed himself as to the impropriety of selecting a 
 lake, so they need not be anxious about the white canoe
 
 106 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 and its occupant, as they watched it skimming the sur 
 face of the deep waters. 
 
 The holder of the Portfolio would never have ven 
 tured to come before the public if he had not counted 
 among his resources certain papers belonging to the 
 records of the Pansophian Society, which he can make 
 free use of, either for the illustration of the narrative, 
 or for a diversion during those intervals in which the 
 flow of events is languid, or even ceases for the time to 
 manifest any progress. The reader can hardly have 
 failed to notice that the old Anchor Tavern had be 
 come the focal point where a good deal of mental ac 
 tivity converged. There were the village people, 
 including a number of cultivated families ; there were 
 the visitors, among them many accomplished and 
 widely travelled persons ; there was the University, 
 with its learned teachers and aspiring young men ; 
 there was the Corinna Institute, with its eager, ambi 
 tious, hungry-souled young women, crowding on, class 
 after class coming forward on the broad stream o/ lib 
 eral culture, and rounding the point which, once passed, 
 the boundless possibilities of womanhood opened be 
 fore them. All this furnished material enough and to 
 spare for the records and the archives of the society. 
 
 The new Secretary infused fresh life into the meet 
 ings. It may be remembered that the girls had said 
 of her, when she was The Terror, that "she knew 
 everything and didn't believe anything." That was 
 just the kind of person for a secretary of such an 
 association. Properly interpreted, the saying meant 
 that she knew a great deal, and wanted to know a 
 great deal more, and was consequently always on the 
 lookout for information; that she believed nothing
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 107 
 
 without sufficient proof that it was true, and therefore 
 was perpetually asking for evidence where others took 
 assertions on trust. 
 
 It was astonishing to see what one little creature 
 like The Terror could accomplish in the course of a 
 single season. She found out what each member 
 could do and wanted to do. She wrote to the outside 
 visitors whom she suspected of capacity, and urged 
 them to speak at the meetings, or send written papers 
 to be read. As an official, with the printed title at 
 the head of her notes, PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY, she was 
 a privileged personage. She begged the young per 
 sons who had travelled to tell something of their ex 
 periences. She had contemplated getting up a dis 
 cussion on the woman's rights question, but being a 
 wary little body, and knowing that the debate would 
 become a dispute and divide the members into two 
 hostile camps, she deferred this project indefinitely. 
 It would be time enough after she had her team well 
 in hand, she said to herself, had felt their mouths 
 and tried their paces. This expression, as she used it 
 in her thoughts, seems rather foreign to her habits, 
 but there was room in her large brain for a wide range 
 of illustrations and an ample vocabulary. She could 
 not do much with her own muscles, but she had known 
 the passionate delight of being whirled furiously over 
 the road behind four scampering horses, in a rocking 
 stage-coach, and thought of herself in the Secretary's 
 chair as not unlike the driver on his box. A few 
 weeks of rest had allowed her nervous energy to store 
 itself up, and the same powers which had distanced 
 competition in the classes of her school had of neces 
 sity to expend themselves in vigorous action in her 
 new office.
 
 108 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Her appeals had their effect. A number of papers 
 were very soon sent in ; some with names, some anon 
 ymously. She looked these papers over, and marked 
 those which she thought would be worth reading and 
 listening to at the meetings. One of them has just 
 been presented to the reader. As to the authorship 
 of the following one there were many conjectures. 
 A well-known writer, who had spent some weeks at 
 Arrowhead Village, was generally suspected of being 
 its author. Some, however, questioned whether it was 
 not the work of a new hand, who wrote, not from ex 
 perience, but from his or her ideas of the condition to 
 which a story-teller, a novelist, must in all probability 
 be sooner or later reduced. The reader must judge 
 for himself whether this first paper is the work of an 
 old hand or a novice. 
 
 SOME EXPERIENCES OF A NOVELIST. 
 
 " I have written a frightful number of stories, 
 forty or more, I think. Let me see. For twelve 
 years two novels a year regularly : that makes twenty- 
 four. In three different years I have written three 
 stories annually: that makes thirty-three. In fivo 
 years one a year, thirty-eight. That is all, isn't it? 
 Yes. Thirty-eight, not forty. I wish I could make 
 them all into one composite story, as Mr. Galton does 
 his faces. 
 
 " Hero heroine mamma papa uncle sis 
 ter, and so on. Love obstacles misery tears 
 despair glimmer of hope unexpected solution 
 of difficulties happy finale. 
 
 " Landscape for background according to season. 
 Plants of each month got up from botanical calen 
 dars.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 109 
 
 " I should like much to see the composite novel. 
 Why not apply Mr. Galton's process, and get thirty- 
 eight stories all in one ? All the Yankees would re 
 solve into one Yankee, all the P West Britons 
 into one Patrick, etc., what a saving of time it 
 would be ! 
 
 " I got along pretty well with my first few stories. 
 I had some characters around me which, a little dis 
 guised, answered well enough. There was the min 
 ister of the parish, and there was an old schoolmaster : 
 either of them > served very satisfactorily for grand 
 fathers and old uncles. All I had to do was to shift 
 some of their leading peculiarities, keeping the rest. 
 The old minister wore knee-breeches. I clapped them 
 on to the schoolmaster. The schoolmaster carried a 
 tall gold-headed cane. I put this in the minister's 
 hands. So with other things, I shifted them round, 
 and got a set of characters who, taken together, repro 
 duced the chief persons of the village where I lived, 
 but did not copy any individual exactly. Thus it went 
 on for a while ; but by and by my stock company began 
 to be rather too familiarly known, in spite of their 
 change of costume, and at last some altogether too 
 sagacious person published what he called a ' key ' to 
 several of my earlier stories, in which I found the 
 names of a number of neighbors attached to aliases 
 of my own invention. All the ' types,' as he called 
 them, represented by these personages of my story had 
 come to be recognized, each as standing for one and 
 the same individual of my acquaintance. It had been 
 of no use to change the costume. Even changing the 
 sex did no good. I had a famous old gossip in one 
 of my tales, a much-babbling Widow Sertingly. 
 1 Sho ! ' they all said, l that 's old Deacon Spinner, the
 
 110 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 same he told about in that other story of his, only 
 the deacon 's got on a petticoat and a mob-cap, but 
 it 's the same old sixpence.' So I said to myself, I 
 must have some new characters. I had no trouble 
 with young characters ; they are all pretty much alike, 
 
 dark-haired or light-haired, with the outfits belong 
 ing to their complexion, respectively. I had an old 
 great-aunt, who was a tip-top eccentric. I had never 
 seen anything just like her in books. So I said, I will 
 have you, old lady, in one of my stories ; and, sure 
 enough, I fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding 
 name, which I got from the directory, and sent her 
 forth to the world, disguised, as I supposed, beyond 
 the possibility of recognition. The book sold well, 
 and the eccentric personage was voted a novelty. A 
 few weeks after it was published a lawyer called upon 
 me, as the agent of the person in the directory, whose 
 family name I had used, as he maintained, to his and 
 all his relatives' great damage, wrong, loss, grief, shame, 
 and irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank 
 thousand dollars would be a modest compensation. 
 The story made the book sell, but not enough to pay 
 blank thousand dollars. In the mean time a cousin of 
 mine had sniffed out the resemblance between the 
 character in my book and our great-aunt. We were 
 rivals in her good graces. ' Cousin Pansie ' spoke to 
 her of my book and the trouble it was bringing on 
 me, she was so sorry about it ! She liked my story, 
 
 only those personalities, you know. ' What person 
 alities ? ' says old granny-aunt. ' Why, auntie, dear, 
 they do say that he has brought in everybody we know, 
 
 did n't anybody tell you about well, I suppose 
 you ought to know it, did n't anybody tell you you 
 were made fun of in that novel?' Somebody no
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. Ill 
 
 matter who happened to hear all this, and told me. 
 She said granny-aunt's withered old face had two red 
 spots come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeks 
 from a pink saucer. No, she said, not a pink saucer, 
 but as if they were two coals of fire. .She sent out 
 and got the book, and made her (the somebody that I 
 was speaking of) read it to her. When she had heard 
 as much as she could stand, for ' Cousin Pansie ' ex 
 plained passages to her, explained, you know, she 
 sent for her lawyer, and that same somebody had to 
 be a witness to a new will she had drawn up. It was 
 not to my advantage. ' Cousin Pansie ' got the corner 
 lot where the grocery is, and pretty much everything 
 else. The old woman left me a legacy. What do 
 you think it was ? An old set of my own books, that 
 looked as if it had been bought out of a bankrupt 
 circulating library ! 
 
 " After that I grew more careful. I studied my 
 disguises much more diligently. But after all, what 
 could I do ? Here I was, writing stories for my living 
 and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, and 
 worked hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. 
 Then every story that went from my workshop had to 
 come up to the standard of my reputation, and there 
 was a set of critics, there is a set of critics now and 
 everywhere, that watch as narrowly for the decline 
 of a man's reputation as ever a village half drowned 
 out by an inundation watched for the falling of the 
 waters. The fame I had won, such as it was, seemed 
 to attend me, not going before me in the shape of 
 a woman with a trumpet, but rather following me like 
 one of Action's hounds, his throat open, ready to pull 
 me down and tear rne. What a fierce enemy is that 
 which bays behind us in the voice of our proudest by 
 gone achievement !
 
 112 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " But, as I said above, what could I do ? I must 
 write novels, and I must have characters. ' Then why 
 not invent them ? ' asks some novice. Oh, yes ! In 
 vent them ! You can invent a human being that in 
 certain aspects of humanity will answer every purpose 
 for which your invention was intended. A basket of 
 straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat which 
 has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, 
 and had a brood of chickens raised in it, these ele 
 ments, duly adjusted to each other, will represent hu 
 manity so truthfully that the crows will avoid the 
 cornfield when your scarecrow displays his person 
 ality. Do you think you can make your heroes and 
 heroines, nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries, 
 out of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow ? 
 You can't do it. You must study living people and 
 reproduce them. And whom do you know so well 
 as your friends ? You will show up your friends, 
 then, one after another. When your friends give out, 
 who is left for you? Why, nobody but your own 
 family, of course. When you have used up your fam 
 ily, there is nothing left for you but to write your au 
 tobiography. 
 
 "After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be 
 came more cautious, very naturally. I kept traits of 
 character, but I mixed ages as well as sexes. In this 
 way I continued to use up a large amount of material, 
 which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite 
 to meddle with. Who would have expected to meet 
 my maternal uncle in the guise of a schoolboy ? Yet 
 I managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as 
 the old gentleman would have decanted a bottle of 
 Juno Madeira through that long siphon which he al 
 ways used when the most sacred vintages were sum-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 113 
 
 moned from their crypts to render an account of them 
 selves on his hospitable board. It was a nice business, 
 I confess, but I did it, and I drink cheerfully to that 
 good uncle's memory in a glass of wine from his own 
 cellar, which, with many other more important tokens 
 of his good will, I call my own since his lamented de 
 mise. 
 
 " I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought 
 I would try a course of cousins. I had enough of 
 them to furnish out a whole gallery of portraits. 
 There was cousin ' Creeshy,' as we called her ; Lu- 
 cretia, more correctly. She was a cripple. Her left 
 lower limb had had something happen to it, and she 
 walked with a crutch. Her patience under her trial 
 was very pathetic and picturesque, so to speak, I 
 mean adapted to the tender parts of a story ; nothing 
 could work up better in a melting paragraph. But I 
 could not, of course, describe her particular infirmity ; 
 that would point her out at once. I thought of shift 
 ing the lameness to the right lower limb, but even 
 that would be seen through. So I gave the young 
 woman that stood for her in my story a lame elbow, 
 and put her arm in a sling, and made her such a 
 model of uncomplaining endurance that my grand 
 mother cried over her as if her poor old heart would 
 break. She cried very easily, my grandmother ; in 
 fact, she had such a gift for tears that I availed my 
 self of it, and if you remember old Judy, in my novel 
 " Honi Soit " (Honey Sweet, the booksellers called 
 it), old Judy, the black nurse, that was my grand 
 mother. She had various other peculiarities, which I 
 brought out one by one, and saddled on to different 
 characters. You see she was a perfect mine of singu 
 larities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up
 
 114 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 pretty well, I came down upon my poor relations. 
 They were perfectly fair game ; what better use could 
 I put them to ? I studied them up very carefully, and 
 as there were a good many of them I helped myself 
 freely. They lasted me, with occasional intermissions, 
 I should say, three or four years. I had to be very 
 careful with my poor relations, they were as touchy 
 as they could be ; and as I felt bound to send a copy 
 of my novel, whatever it might be, to each one of 
 them, there were as many as a dozen, I took care 
 to mix their characteristic features, so that, though 
 each might suspect I meant the other, no one should 
 think I meant him or her. I got through all my re 
 lations at last except my father and mother. I had 
 treated my brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except 
 Elisha and Joanna. The truth is they both had lots 
 of odd ways, family traits, I suppose, but were 
 just different enough from each other to figure sepa 
 rately in two different stories. These two novels made 
 rne some little trouble ; for Elisha said he felt sure 
 that I meant Joanna in one of them, and quarrelled 
 with me about it ; and Joanna vowed and declared 
 that Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, 
 and that it was a real mean thing to make fun of folks' 
 own flesh and blood, and treated me to one of her 
 cries. She wasn't handsome when she cried, poor, 
 dear Joanna ; in fact, that was one of the personal 
 traits I had made use of in the story that Elisha found 
 fault with. 
 
 " So as there was nobody left but my father and 
 mother, you see for yourself I had no choice. There 
 was one great advantage in dealing with them, I 
 knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a cer 
 tain delicacy in handling from a purely artistic point
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 115 
 
 of view persons who have been so near to him. One's 
 mother, for instance : suppose some of her little ways 
 were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of them 
 would furnish amusement to great numbers of read 
 ers ; it would not be without hesitation that a writer 
 of delicate sensibility would draw her portrait, with 
 all its whimsicalities, so plainly that it should be 
 generally recognized. One's father is commonly of 
 tougher fibre than one's mother, and one would not 
 feel the same scruples, perhaps, in using him profes 
 sionally as material in a novel ; still, while you are 
 employing him as bait, you see I am honest and 
 plain-spoken, for your characters are baits to catch 
 readers with, I would follow kind Izaak Walton's 
 humane counsel about the frog you are fastening to 
 your fish-hook : fix him artistically, as he directs, but 
 in so doing ' use him as though you loved him.' 
 
 " I have at length shown up, in one form and 
 another, all my townsmen who have anything effective 
 in their bodily or mental make-up, all my friends, all 
 my relatives ; that is, all my blood relatives. It has 
 occurred to me that I might open a new field in the 
 family connection of my father-in-law and mother-in- 
 law. We have been thinking of paying them a visit, 
 and I shall have an admirable opportunity of studying 
 them and their relatives and visitors. I have long 
 wanted a good chance for getting acquainted with the 
 social sphere several grades below that to which I am 
 accustomed, and I have no doubt that I shall find 
 matter for half a dozen new stories among those con 
 nections of mine. Besides, they live in a Western 
 city, and one does n't mind much how he cuts up the 
 people of places he does n't himself live in. I suppose 
 there is not really so much difference in people's feel-
 
 116 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 ings, whether they live in Bangor or Omaha, but one's 
 nerves can't be expected to stretch across the conti 
 nent. It is all a matter of greater or less distance. I 
 read this morning that a Chinese fleet was sunk, but I 
 did n't think half so much about it as I did about los 
 ing my sleeve button, confound it ! People have ac 
 cused me of want of feeling ; they misunderstand the 
 artist-nature, that is all. I obey that implicitly ; I 
 am sorry if people don't like my descriptions, but I 
 have done my best. I have pulled to pieces all the 
 persons I am acquainted with, and put them together 
 again in my characters. The quills I write with come 
 from live geese, I would have you know. I expect to 
 get some first-rate pluckings from those people I was 
 speaking of, and I mean to begin my thirty-ninth 
 novel as soon as I have got through my visit."
 
 IX. 
 
 THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY. 
 
 THERE is no use in trying to hurry the natural * 
 course of events, in a narrative like this. June passed 
 away, and July, and August had come, and as yet the 
 enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead Vil 
 lage and its visitors remained unsolved. The white 
 canoe still wandered over the lake, alone, ghostly, al 
 ways avoiding the near approach of the boats which 
 seemed to be coming in its direction. Now and then 
 a circumstance would happen which helped to keep 
 inquiry alive. Good horsemanship was not so com 
 mon among the young men of the place and its neigh 
 borhood that Maurice's accomplishment in that way 
 could be overlooked. If there was a wicked horse or 
 a wild colt whose owner was afraid of him, he would 
 be commended to Maurice's attention. Paolo would 
 lead him to his master with all due precaution, for 
 he had no idea of risking his neck on the back of any 
 ill-conditioned beast, and Maurice would fasten on 
 his long spurs, spring into the saddle, and very speed 
 ily teach the creature good behavior. There soon 
 got about a story that he was what the fresh-water 
 fisherman called " one o' them whisperers." It is a 
 common legend enough, coming from the Old World, 
 but known in American horse-talking circles, that some 
 persons will whisper certain words in a horse's ear 
 which will tame him if he is as wild and furious as ever
 
 118 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Cruiser was. All this added to the mystery which sur 
 rounded the young man. A single improbable or ab 
 surd story amounts to very little, but when half a 
 dozen such stories are told about the same individual 
 or the same event, they begin to produce the effect of 
 credible evidence. If the year had been 1692 and the 
 place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood 
 would have run the risk of being treated like the Rev 
 erend George Burroughs. 
 
 Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely 
 excited with reference to the young man of whom so 
 many stories were told. She had pretty nearly con : 
 vinced herself that he was the author of the paper on 
 Ocean, Lake, and River, which had been read at one 
 of the meetings of the Pansophian Society. She was 
 very desirous of meeting him, if it were possible. It 
 seemed as if she might, as Secretary of the Society, 
 request the cooperation of any of the visitors, without 
 impropriety. So, after much deliberation, she wrote 
 a careful note, of which the following is an exact copy. 
 Her hand was bold, almost masculine, a curious con 
 trast to that of Euthymia, which was delicately femi 
 nine. 
 
 Pansopljtan Hxmctp. 
 
 ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18 . 
 MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ. 
 
 DEAR SIR, You have received, I trust, a card of 
 invitation to the meetings of our Society, but I think 
 we have not yet had the pleasure of seeing you at any 
 of them. We have supposed that we might be in 
 debted to you for a paper read at the last meeting, and 
 listened to with much interest. As it was anonymous, 
 we do not wish to be inquisitive respecting its author-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 119 
 
 ship ; but we desire to say that any papers kindly sent 
 us by the temporary residents of our village will be 
 welcome, and if adapted to the wants of our Associa 
 tion will be read at one of its meetings or printed in 
 its records, or perhaps both read and printed. May 
 we not hope for your presence at the meeting, which 
 is to take place next Wednesday evening ? 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 LURIDA VINCENT, 
 
 Secretary of the Pansophian Society. 
 
 To this note the Secretary received the following 
 reply: 
 
 ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18 . 
 Miss LURIDA VINCENT, 
 
 Secretary offhe Pansophian Society: 
 DEAR Miss VINCENT, I have received the ticket 
 you refer to, and desire to express my acknowledg 
 ments for the polite attention. I regret that I have not 
 been and I fear shall not be able to attend the meet 
 ings of the Society; but if any subject occurs to me 
 on which I feel an inclination to write, it will give me 
 pleasure to send a paper, to be disposed of as the 
 Society may see fit. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 MAURICE KIRKWOOD. 
 
 " He says nothing about the authorship of the paper 
 that was read the other evening," the Secretary said 
 to herself. " No matter, he wrote it, there is no 
 mistaking his handwriting. We know something 
 about him, now, at any rate. But why does n't he 
 come to our meetings ? What has his antipathy to 
 do with his staying away ? I must find out what his
 
 120 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 secret is, and I will. I don't believe it 's harder than 
 it was to solve that prize problem which puzzled so 
 many teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, the great 
 chess-player." 
 
 To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to 
 bend all the faculties which had excited the admira 
 tion and sometimes the amazement of those who knew 
 her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece 
 of business ; for though Lurida was an intrepid wo 
 man's rights advocate, and believed she was entitled 
 to do almost everything that men dared to, she knew 
 very well there were certain limits which a young 
 woman like herself must not pass. 
 
 In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from 
 the young student at the University, the same 
 whom he had rescued from his dangerous predicament 
 in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers, 
 an instructor in modern languages, a native of 
 Italy. Maurice and the instructor exchanged a few 
 words in Italian. The young man spoke it with the 
 ease which implied long familiarity with its use. 
 
 After they left, the instructor asked many curious 
 questions about him, who he was, how long he had 
 been in the village, whether anything was known of 
 his history, all these inquiries with an eagerness 
 which implied some special and peculiar reason for 
 the interest they evinced. 
 
 " I feel satisfied," the instructor said, " that I have 
 met that young man in my own country. It was a 
 number of years ago, and of course he has altered in 
 appearance a good deal ; but there is a look about 
 him of what shall I call it? apprehension, as 
 if he were fearing the approach of something or some 
 body. I think it is the way a man would look that
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 121 
 
 was haunted ; you know what I mean, followed by 
 a spirit or ghost. He does not suggest the idea of a 
 murderer, very far from it ; but if he did, I should 
 think he was every minute in fear of seeing the mur 
 dered man's spirit." 
 
 The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the 
 instructor could recall. He had seen him in Rome, he 
 thought, at the Fountain of Trevi, where so many 
 strangers go before leaving the city. The youth was 
 in the company of a man who looked like a priest. He 
 could not mistake the peculiar expression of his coun 
 tenance, but that was all he now remembered about 
 his appearance. His attention had been called to this 
 young man by seeing that some of the bystanders were 
 pointing at him, and noticing that they were whisper 
 ing with each other as if with reference to him. He 
 should say that the youth was at that time fifteen or 
 sixteen years old, and the time was about ten years 
 ago. 
 
 After all, this evidence was of little or no value. 
 Suppose the youth were Maurice ; what then ? We 
 know that he had been in Italy, and had been there a 
 good while, or at least we infer so much from his 
 familiarity with the language, and are confirmed in the 
 belief by his having an Italian servant, whom he prob 
 ably brought from Italy when he returned. If he 
 wrote the paper which was read the other evening, 
 that settles it, for the writer says he had lived by the 
 Tiber. We must put this scrap of evidence furnished 
 by the Professor with the other scraps ; it may turn 
 out of some consequence, sooner or later. It is like a 
 piece of a dissected map ; it means almost nothing by 
 itself, but when we find the pieces it joins with we may 
 discover a very important meaning in it.
 
 122 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 In a small, concentrated community like that which 
 centred in and immediately around Arrowhead Village, 
 every day must have its local gossip as well as its gen 
 eral news. The newspaper tells the small community 
 what is going on in the great world, and the busy 
 tongues of male and female, especially the latter, fill 
 in with the occurrences and comments of the ever-stir 
 ring microcosm. The fact that the Italian teacher 
 had, or thought he had, seen Maurice ten years before 
 was circulated and made the most of, turned over 
 and over like a cake, until it was thoroughly done on 
 both sides and all through. It was a very small cake, 
 but better than nothing. Miss Vincent heard this 
 story, as others did, and talked about it with her 
 friend, Miss Tower. Here was one more fact to help 
 along. 
 
 The two young ladies who had recently graduated 
 at the Corinna Institute remained, as they had always 
 been, intimate friends. They were the natural com 
 plements of each other. Euthymia represented a com 
 plete, symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence 
 was only an index of a large, wholesome, affluent life. 
 She could not help being courageous, with such a firm 
 organization. She could not help being generous, 
 cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that 
 she was fair to look upon. She knew that she was 
 called The Wonder by the schoolmates who were daz 
 zled by her singular accomplishments, but she did not 
 overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her 
 own gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss 
 Lurida Vincent. The two agreed all the better for 
 differing as they did. The octave makes a perfect 
 chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the 
 ear. Each admired the other with a heartiness which,
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 123 
 
 if they had been less unlike, would have been impos 
 sible. 
 
 It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence 
 on each other. The Terror of the schoolroom was the 
 oracle in her relations with her friend. All the free 
 dom of movement which The Wonder showed in her 
 bodily exercises The Terror manifested in the world of 
 thought. She would fling open a book, and decide in 
 a swift glance whether it had any message for her. 
 Her teachers had compared her way of reading to the 
 taking of an instantaneous photograph. When she 
 took up the first book on Physiology which Dr u Butts 
 handed her, it seemed to him that if she only opened 
 at any place, and gave one look, her mind drank its 
 meaning up, as a moist sponge absorbs water. " What 
 can I do with such a creature as this ? " he said to 
 himself. " There is only one way to deal with her, 
 treat her as one treats a silkworm : give it its mul 
 berry leaf, and it will spin its own cocoon. Give her 
 the books, and she will spin her own web of knowl 
 edge." 
 
 " Do jon really think of studying medicine ? " said 
 Dr. Butts to her. 
 
 " I have n't made up my mind about that," she an 
 swered, " but I want to know a little more about this 
 terrible machinery of life and death wo are all tangled 
 in. I know something about it, but not enough. I 
 find some very strange beliefs among the women I 
 meet with, and I want to be able to silence them when 
 they attempt to proselyte me to their whims and fan 
 cies. Besides, I want to know everything." 
 
 " They tell me you do, already," said Dr. Butts. 
 
 " I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws 
 the breath of life ! " exclaimed The Terror.
 
 124 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She 
 had reached that stage of education in which the vast 
 domain of the unknown opens its illimitable expanse 
 before the eyes of the student. We never know the 
 extent of darkness until it is partially illuminated. 
 
 " You did not leave the Institute with the reputa 
 tion of being the most ignorant young lady that ever 
 graduated there," said the doctor. "They tell me 
 you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record 
 since the school was founded." 
 
 " What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish 
 in our small aquarium, to be sure ! " answered The 
 Terror. " He was six inches long, the monster, a 
 little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with ! What 
 did you hand me that schoolbook for ? Did you think 
 I did n't know anything about the human body ? " 
 
 " You said you were such an ignorant creature I 
 thought I would try you with an easy book, by way of 
 introduction." 
 
 The Terror was not confused by her apparent self- 
 contradiction. 
 
 " I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. 
 When I talk about my ignorance, I don't measure my 
 self with schoolgirls, doctor. I don't measure myself 
 with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if I 
 were a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me 
 anything. Where is your hat, doctor? Let me try 
 it on." 
 
 The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Ter 
 ror's hair was not naturally abundant, like Euthymia's, 
 and she kept it cut rather short. Her head used to get 
 very hot when she studied hard. She tried to put the 
 hat on. 
 
 " Do you see that ? " she said. " I could n't wear it,
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 125 
 
 it would squeeze my eyes out of my head. The 
 books told me that women's brains were smaller than 
 men's : perhaps they are, most of them, I never 
 measured a great many. But when they try to settle 
 what women are good for, by phrenology, I like to 
 have them put their tape round my head. I don't be 
 lieve in their nonsense, for all that. You might as 
 well tell me that if one horse weighs more than an 
 other horse he is worth more, a cart - horse that 
 weighs twelve or fourteen hundred pounds better than 
 Eclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give me 
 a list of the best books you can think of, and turn me 
 loose in your library. I can find what I want, if you 
 have it ; and what I don't find there I will get at the 
 Public Library. I shall want to ask you a question 
 now and then." 
 
 The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, 
 but thoughtfully, as if he feared she was thinking of 
 a task too formidable for her slight constitutional re 
 source. 
 
 She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contra 
 diction in her statements about herself. 
 
 " I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I 
 sail on a wide sea of ignorance, but I have taken 
 soundings of some of its shallows and some of its 
 depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life 
 that interest me most just now, and I want to know 
 something of it. Perhaps I may find it a calling such 
 as would suit me." 
 
 " Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner 
 of medicine ? " said the doctor. 
 
 " Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, 
 but I want to know something more about it first. 
 Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicine enough to prac-
 
 126 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well enough. No 
 matter about that. I wish to study some of your best 
 books on some of the subjects that most interest me. I 
 know about bones and muscles and all that, and about 
 digestion and respiration and such things. I want to 
 study up the nervous system, and learn all about it. 
 I am of the nervous temperament myself, and perhaps 
 that is the reason. I want to read about insanity and 
 all that relates to it." 
 
 A curious expression flitted across the doctor's fea 
 tures as The Terror said this. 
 
 "Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, 
 I know, all those large-headed, hard-thinking girls 
 do, as a matter of course ; but what has set her off 
 about insanity and the nervous system ? I wonder if 
 any of her more remote relatives are subject to mental 
 disorder. Bright people very often have crazy rela 
 tions. Perhaps some of her friends are in that way. 
 I wonder whether " the doctor did not speak any 
 of these thoughts, and in fact hardly shaped his 
 " whether," for The Terror interrupted his train of 
 reflection, or rather struck into it in a way which 
 startled him. 
 
 " Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclo 
 paedia ? " she asked, looking at its empty place on the 
 shelf. 
 
 " On my table," the doctor answered. " I have 
 been consulting it." 
 
 Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned 
 the pages rapidly until she came to the one she wanted. 
 The doctor cast his eye on the heading of the page, 
 and saw the large letters ANT. 
 
 " I thought so," he said to himself. " We shall 
 know everything there is in the books about antipa-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 127 
 
 tliies now, if we never did before. She has a special 
 object in studying the nervous system, just as I sus 
 pected. I think she does not care to mention it at 
 this time ; but if she finds out anything of interest she 
 will tell me, if she does anybody. Perhaps she does 
 not mean to tell anybody. It is a rather delicate busi 
 ness, a young girl studying the natural history of a 
 young man. Not quite so safe as botany or palasontol- 
 
 Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had 
 her own plans, and chose to keep them to herself, for 
 the present, at least. Her hands were full enough, it 
 might seem, without undertaking the solution of the 
 great Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the 
 most perfect training, so far as her intelligence was 
 concerned ; and the summer rest had restored her 
 bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an over 
 charged battery which will find conductors somewhere 
 to carry off its crowded energy. 
 
 At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the 
 most successful season it had ever known. The Pan- 
 sophian Society flourished to an extraordinary degree 
 under the fostering care of the new Secretary. The 
 rector was a good figure-head as President, but the 
 Secretary was the life of the Society. Communica 
 tions came in abundantly : some from the village and 
 its neighborhood, some from the University and the 
 Institute, some from distant and unknown sources. 
 The new Secretary was very busy with the work of 
 examining these papers. After a forenoon so em 
 ployed, the carpet of her room looked like a barn floor 
 after a husk ing-match. A glance at the manuscripts 
 strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have fright 
 ened any young writer away from the thought of au-
 
 128 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 thorship as a business. If the candidate for that fear 
 ful calling had seen the process of selection and elimi 
 nation, he would have felt still more desperately. A 
 paper of twenty pages would come in, with an under 
 scored request to please read through carefully. That 
 request alone is commonly sufficient to condemn any 
 paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hear 
 ing ; but the Secretary was not hardened enough yet 
 for that kind of martial law in dealing with manu 
 scripts. The looker-on might have seen her take up 
 the paper, cast one flashing glance at its title, read the 
 first sentence and the last, dip at a venture into two or 
 three pages, and decide as swiftly as the lightning cal 
 culator would add up a column of figures what was to 
 be its destination. If rejected, it went into the heap 
 on the left ; if approved, it was laid apart, to be sub 
 mitted to the Committee for their judgment. The 
 foolish writers who insist on one's reading through 
 their manuscript poems and stories ought to know how 
 fatal the request is to their prospects. It provokes 
 the reader, to begin with. The reading of manuscript 
 is frightful work, at the best ; the reading of worth 
 less manuscript and most of that which one is 
 requested to read through is worthless would add 
 to the terrors of Tartarus, if any infernal deity were 
 ingenious enough to suggest it as a punishment. 
 
 If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not 
 come before the Committee, but was returned to the 
 author, if he sent for it, which he commonly did. Its 
 natural course was to try for admission into some one 
 of the popular magazines : into " The Sifter," the most 
 fastidious of them all ; if that declined it, into " The 
 Second Best ; " and if that returned it, into " The 
 Omnivorous." If it was refused admittance at the
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 129 
 
 doors of all the magazines, it might at length find shel 
 ter in the corner of a newspaper, where a good deal of 
 very readable verse is to be met with nowadays, some 
 of which has been, no doubt, presented to the Pan- 
 sophian Society, but was not considered up to its 
 standard.
 
 X. 
 
 A NEW ARKIVAL. 
 
 THERE was a recent accession to the transient pop 
 ulation of the village which gave rise to some specu 
 lation. The new-comer was a young fellow, rather 
 careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at 
 home as if he owned Arrowhead Village and every 
 thing in it. He commonly had a cigar in his mouth, 
 carried a pocket pistol, of the non-explosive sort, and 
 a stick with a bulldog's head for its knob ; wore a soft 
 hat, a coarse check suit, a little baggy, and gaiter- 
 boots which had been half -soled, a Bohemian-look 
 ing personage, altogether. 
 
 This individual began making explorations in every 
 direction. He was very curious about the place and 
 all the people in it. He was especially interested in 
 the Pansophian Society, concerning which he made all 
 sorts of inquiries. This led him to form a summer 
 acquaintance with the Secretary, who was pleased to 
 give him whatever information he asked for ; being 
 proud of the Society, as she had a right to be, and 
 knowing more about it than anybody else. 
 
 The visitor could not have been long in the village 
 without hearing something of Maurice Kirkwood, and 
 the stories, true and false, connected witli his name. 
 He questioned everybody who could tell him anything 
 about Maurice, and set down the answers in a little 
 note-book he always had with him.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 131 
 
 All this naturally excited the curiosity of the vil 
 lage about this new visitor. Among the rest, Miss 
 Vincent, not wanting in an attribute thought to belong 
 more especially to her sex, became somewhat inter 
 ested to know more exactly who this inquiring, note- 
 taking personage, who seemed to be everywhere and 
 to know everybody, might himself be. Meeting him 
 at the Public Library at a fortunate moment, when 
 there was nobody but the old Librarian, who was hard 
 of hearing, to interfere with their conversation, the lit 
 tle Secretary had a chance to try to find out something 
 about him. 
 
 " This is a very "remarkable library for a small vil 
 lage to possess," he remarked to Miss Lurida. 
 
 " It is, indeed," she said. " Have you found it well 
 furnished with the books you most want ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, books enough. I don't care so much 
 for the books as I do for the Newspapers. I like a 
 Review well enough, it tells you all there is in a 
 book ; but a good abstract of the Review in a News 
 paper saves a fellow the trouble of reading it." 
 
 " You find the papers you want, here, I hope," said 
 the young lady. 
 
 " Oh, I get along pretty well. It 's my off-time, and 
 I don't do much reading or writing. Who is the city 
 correspondent of this place ? " 
 
 " I don't think we have any one who writes regu 
 larly. Now and then, there is a letter, with the gos 
 sip of the place in it, or an account of some of the do 
 ings at our Society. The city papers are always glad 
 to get the reports of our meetings, and to know what 
 is going on in the village." 
 
 " I suppose you write about the Society to the pa 
 pers, as you are the Secretary."
 
 132 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 This was a point-blank shot. She meant to ques 
 tion the young man about his business, and here she 
 was on the witness-stand. She ducked her head, and 
 let the question go over her. 
 
 " Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing 
 enough to write, especially to give an account of 
 their own papers. I think they like to have me put 
 in the applause, when they get any. I do that some 
 times." (How much more, she did not say.) 
 
 " I have seen some very well written articles, which, 
 from what they tell me of the Secretary, I should have 
 thought she might have written herself." 
 
 He looked her straight in the eyes. 
 
 " I have transmitted some good papers," she said, 
 without winking, or swallowing, or changing color, 
 precious little color she had to change ; her brain 
 wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and 
 more too. "You spoke of Newspapers," she said, 
 without any change of tone or manner : " do you not 
 frequently write for them yourself ? " 
 
 " I should think I did," answered the young man. 
 " I am a regular correspondent of ' The People's 
 Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' ' 
 
 " The regular correspondent from where ? " 
 
 " Where ! Oh, anywhere, the place does not 
 make much difference. I have been writing chiefly 
 from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and then 
 from Constantinople." 
 
 " How long since your return to this countrv, may 
 I ask?" 
 
 " My return ? I have never been out of this coun 
 try. I travel with a gazetteer and some guide-books. 
 It is the cheapest way, and you can get the facts much 
 better from them than by trusting your own observa-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 133 
 
 tion. I have made the tour of Europe by the help of 
 them and the newspapers. But of late I have taken 
 to interviewing. I find that a very pleasant specialty. 
 It is about as good sport as trout-tickling, and much 
 the same kind of business. I should like to send the 
 Society an account of one of my interviews. Don't 
 you think they would like to hear it?" 
 
 " I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and 
 I will look it over ; and if the Committee approve it, 
 we will have it at the next meeting. You know every 
 thing has to be examined and voted on by the Com 
 mittee," said the cautious Secretary. 
 
 "Very well, I will risk it. After it is read, if it 
 is read, please send it back to me, as I want to sell it 
 to ' The Sifter,' or ' The Second Best,' or some of the 
 paying magazines." 
 
 This is the paper, which was read at the next meet 
 ing of the Pansophian Society. 
 
 " I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to 
 which I am attached, ' The People's Perennial and 
 Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to a certain well- 
 known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could 
 concerning him and all that related to him. I have 
 interviewed a good many politicians, who I thought 
 rather liked the process ; but I had never tried any 
 of these literary people, and I was not quite sure how 
 this one would feel about it. 1 said as much to the 
 chief, but he pooh-poohed my scruples. ' It is n't our 
 business whether they like it or not,' said he ; * the 
 public wants it, and what the public wants it 's bound 
 to have, and we are bound to furnish it. Don't be 
 afraid of your man ; he 's used to it, he 's been 
 pumped often enough to take it easy, and what you 've
 
 134 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 got to do is to pump him dry. You need n't be 
 modest, ask him what you like ; he is n't bound to 
 answer, you know.' 
 
 " As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, 
 I smarted myself up a little, put on a fresh collar and 
 cuffs, and got a five-cent shine on my best high-lows. 
 I said to myself, as I was walking towards the house 
 where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a 
 while and pass for a visitor from a distance ; one of 
 those ' admiring strangers,' who call in to pay their re 
 spects, to get an autograph, and go home and say that 
 they have met the distinguished So and So, which gives 
 them a certain distinction in the village circle to which 
 they belong. 
 
 " My man, the celebrated writer, received me in 
 what was evidently his reception-room. I observed 
 that he managed to get the light full on my face, while 
 his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his 
 face in the light, but he knew the localities, and had 
 arranged things so as to give him that advantage. It 
 was like two frigates mano3uvring, each trying to 
 get to windward of the other. I never take out my 
 note-book until I and my man have got engaged in 
 artless and earnest conversation, always about him 
 self and his works, of course, if he is an author. 
 
 "I began by saying that he must receive a good 
 many callers. Those who had read his books were 
 naturally curious to see the writer of them. 
 
 " He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He 
 had, he said, a great many callers. 
 
 " I remarked that there was a quality in his books 
 which made his readers feel as if they knew him per 
 sonally, and caused them to cherish a certain attach, 
 ment to him.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 135 
 
 " He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed 
 to think so, he said. In fact, a great many persons, 
 strangers writing to him, had told him so. 
 
 " My dear sir, I said, there is nothing wonderful in 
 the fact you mention. You reach a responsive chord 
 in many human breasts. 
 
 ' One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.' 
 
 Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes 
 sparkled), were your blood relation. Do they not 
 name their children after you very frequently ? 
 
 " He blushed perceptibly. ' Sometimes,' he an 
 swered. ' I hope they will all turn out well.' 
 
 "I am afraid I am taking up too much of your 
 time, I said. 
 
 " ' No, not at all,' he replied. ' Come up into my 
 library ; it is warmer and pleasanter there.' 
 
 " I felt confident that I had him by the right han 
 dle then ; for an author's library, which is commonly 
 his working-room, is, like a lady's boudoir, a sacred 
 apartment. 
 
 " So we went upstairs, and again he got me with 
 the daylight on my face, when I wanted it on ft is. 
 
 " You have a fine library, I remarked. There were 
 books all round the room, and one of those whirligig 
 square book-cases. I saw in front a Bible and a Con 
 cordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's 
 book, and other classical works and books of grave as 
 pect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side 
 next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming 
 Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and 
 cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of 
 those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's 
 library. That is the way to find out what books he
 
 136 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones 
 you particularly wish to see. 
 
 " Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. 
 What do you suppose is an interviewer's business ? 
 Did you ever see an oyster opened ? Yes ? Well, an 
 interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is 
 his oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil 
 and note-book, must open. Mark how the oysterman's 
 thin blade insinuates itself, how gently at first, how 
 strenuously when once fairly between the shells ! 
 
 "And here, I said, you write your books, those 
 books which have carried your name to all parts of 
 the world, and will convey it down to posterity ! Is 
 this the desk at which you write ? And is this the pen 
 you write with ? 
 
 " ' It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied. 
 
 " He was pleased with my questions and my way of 
 putting them. I took up the pen as reverentially as 
 if it had been made of the feather which the angel I 
 used to read about in Young's " Night Thoughts " 
 ought to have dropped, and did n't. 
 
 " Would you kindly write your autograph in my 
 note-book, with that pen? I asked him. Yes, he 
 would, with great pleasure. 
 
 " So I got out my note-book. 
 
 "It was a spick and span new one, bought on 
 purpose for this interview. I admire your book 
 cases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they 
 are? 
 
 " ' They are about eight feet, with the cornice.' 
 
 "I should like to have some like those, if I ever 
 get rich enough, said I. Eight feet, eight feet, with 
 the cornice. I must put that down. 
 
 " So I got out my pencil.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 137 
 
 " I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my 
 hand, all ready, but not using them as yet. 
 
 " I have heard it said, I observed, that you began 
 writing poems at a very early age. Is it taking too 
 great a liberty to ask how early you began to write in 
 verse ? 
 
 " He was getting interested, as people are apt to be 
 when they are themselves the subjects of conversation. 
 
 " ' Very early, I hardly know how early. I can 
 say truly, as Louise Colet said, 
 
 "Jejis mes premiers vers sans savoir les e'crire." ' 
 
 " I am not a very good French scholar, said I ; per 
 haps you will be kind enough to translate that line 
 for me. 
 
 " ' Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first 
 verses without knoiving how to tvrite them? 
 
 " How interesting ! But I never heard of Louise 
 Colet. Who was she ? 
 
 " My man was pleased to give me a piece of literary 
 information. 
 
 " ' Louise the lioness ! Never heard of her ? You 
 have heard of Alphonse Karr ? ' 
 
 " Why, yes, more or less. To tell the truth, I 
 am not very well up in French literature. What had 
 he to do with your lioness ? 
 
 " ' A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited 
 at his door with a case-knife in her hand, intending to 
 stick him with it. By and by he came down, smoking 
 a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing 
 her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a 
 cut in his dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went 
 on with his cigarette. He keeps it with an inscrip 
 tion :
 
 138 A MOKTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Donne a Alphonse Karr 
 Par Madame Louise Colet . . . 
 Dans le dos. 
 
 Lively little female ! ' 
 
 " I could n't help thinking that I should n't have 
 cared to interview the lively little female. He was 
 evidently tickled with the interest I appeared to take 
 in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably 
 disposed toward me. 
 
 " I began with very general questions, but by de 
 grees I got at everything about his family history and 
 the small events of his boyhood. Some of the points 
 touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face 
 on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out 
 a great deal that was new concerning my subject. He 
 had been written about considerably, and the public 
 would n't have been satisfied without some new facts ; 
 and these I meant to have, and I got. No matter 
 about many of them now, but here are some questions 
 and answers that may be thought worth reading or lis 
 tening to : 
 
 " How do you enjoy being what they call ' a celeb 
 rity,' or a celebrated man ? 
 
 " ' So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well 
 enough. But self-love is a cup without any bottom, 
 and you might pour the Great Lakes all through it, 
 and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more 
 of the same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a 
 mere lump of egotism. It generates a craving for 
 high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of be 
 coming slavery, like that following the abuse of alco 
 hol, or opium, or tobacco. Think of a man's having 
 every day, by every post, letters that tell him he is 
 this and that and the other, with epithets and endear-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 139 
 
 raents, one tenth part of which would have made him 
 blush red hot before he began to be what you call a 
 celebrity ! ' 
 
 " Are there not some special inconveniences con 
 nected with what is called celebrity ? 
 
 " ' I should think so ! Suppose you were obliged 
 every day of your life to stand and shake hands, as 
 the President of the United States has to after his in 
 auguration : how do you think your hand would feel 
 after a few months' practice of that exercise ? Sup 
 pose you had given you thirty-five millions of money a 
 year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on condition that you 
 cut them all off yourself in the usual manner : how do 
 you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors 
 at the end of a year, in which you had worked ten 
 hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a hun 
 dred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished 
 your task, after all ? You have addressed me as what 
 you are pleased to call " a literary celebrity." I won't 
 dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that 
 title. I will take it for granted I am what you call 
 me, and give you some few hints of my experience. 
 
 " ' You know there was formed a while ago an As 
 sociation of Authors for Self-Protection. It meant 
 well, and it was hoped that something would come of 
 it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I 
 am sorry to say that it has not effected its purpose.' 
 
 " I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Con 
 stitution and Laws of that Association. Yes, I said, 
 an admirable Association it was, and as much needed 
 as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
 I am sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in 
 putting a stop to the abuse of a deserving class of men. 
 It ought to have done it ; it was well conceived, and
 
 140 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his 
 expression that he was its author.) 
 
 " ' I see I can trust you,' he said. ' I will unbosom 
 myself freely of some of the grievances attaching to 
 the position of the individual to whom you have ap 
 plied the term " Literary Celebrity." 
 
 " ' He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of 
 the immense sales of his books, all the money from 
 which, it is taken for granted, goes into his pocket. 
 Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to 
 him for his signature, and every needy stranger who 
 has heard his name comes to him for assistance. 
 
 " ' He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, 
 and is goaded by receiving blank formulae, which, with 
 their promises to pay, he is expected to fill up. 
 
 " ' He receives two or three books daily, with re 
 quests to read and give his opinion about each of them, 
 which opinion, if it has a word which can be used as 
 an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the news 
 papers. 
 
 " * He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose 
 and verse, which he is called upon to examine and pro 
 nounce on their merits ; these manuscripts having al 
 most invariably been rejected by the editors to whom 
 they have been sent, and having as a rule no literary 
 value whatever. 
 
 " ' He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to 
 journals, to write for fairs, to attend celebrations, to 
 make after-dinner speeches, to send money for objects 
 he does not believe in to places he never heard of. 
 
 " ' He is called on to keep up correspondences with 
 unknown admirers, who begin by saying they have no 
 claim upon his time, and then appropriate it by writ 
 ing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet 
 after sheet, if of the other.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 141 
 
 " * If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit 
 down at any moment and spin off any number of 
 verses on any subject which may be suggested to him ; 
 such as congratulations to the writer's great-grand 
 mother on her reaching her hundredth year, an elegy 
 on an infant aged six weeks, an ode for the Fourth of 
 July in a Western township not to be found in Lip- 
 pincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some 
 bucolic lover who believes that wooing in rhyme is the 
 way to win the object of his affections.' 
 
 " Is n't it so ? I asked the Celebrity. 
 
 " ' I would bet on the prose lover. She will show 
 the verses to him, and they will both have a good 
 laugh over them.' 
 
 " I have only reported a small part of the conversa 
 tion I had with the Literary Celebrity. He was so 
 much taken up with his pleasing self-contemplation, 
 while I made him air his opinions and feelings and 
 spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and 
 airs his linen on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it 
 ever occurred to him that he had been in the hands of 
 an interviewer until he found himself exposed to the 
 wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of 
 'The People's -Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'" 
 
 After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was 
 shown as to who the person spoken of as the " Liter 
 ary Celebrity " might be. Among the various suppo 
 sitions the startling idea was suggested that he was 
 neither more nor less than the unexplained personage 
 known in the village as Maurice Kirkwood. ' Why 
 should that be his real name ? Why should not he be 
 the Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to
 
 142 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 this retreat to escape from the persecutions of kind 
 friends, who were pricking him and stabbing him nigh 
 to death with their daggers of sugar candy ? 
 
 The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined 
 to question the Interviewer the next time she met him 
 at the Library, which happened soon after the meeting 
 when his paper was read. 
 
 " I do not know," she said, in the course of a con 
 versation in which she had spoken warmly of his con 
 tribution to the literary entertainment of the Society, 
 " that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celeb 
 rity whom you interviewed so successfully." 
 
 " I did not mention him, Miss Vincent," he an 
 swered, " nor do I think it worth while to name him. 
 He might not care to have the whole story told of how 
 he was handled so as to make him communicative. 
 Besides, if I did, it would bring him a new batch of 
 sympathetic letters, regretting that he was bothered by 
 those horrid correspondents, full of indignation at the 
 bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their 
 pages of trash, all the writers of which would expect 
 answers to their letters of condolence." 
 
 The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the 
 young gentleman who called himself Maurice Kirk- 
 wood. 
 
 " What," he answered, " the man that paddles a 
 birch canoe, and rides all the wild horses of the neigh 
 borhood ? No, I don't know him, but I have met him 
 once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, 
 they tell me. Do you know anything particular about 
 him?" 
 
 " Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. 
 The story is that he has a queer antipathy to some' 
 thing or to somebody, nobody knows what or whom.'
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 143 
 
 " To newspaper correspondents, perhaps," said the 
 Interviewer. " What made you ask me about him? 
 You did n't think he was my ' Literary Celebrity,' 
 did you?" 
 
 " I did not know. I thought he might be. Why 
 don't you interview this mysterious personage? He 
 would make a good sensation for your paper, I should 
 think." 
 
 " Why, what is there to be interviewed in him ? Is 
 there any story of crime, or anything else to spice a 
 column or so, or even a few paragraphs, with? If 
 there is, I am willing to handle him professionally." 
 
 " I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I 
 don't know how much wiser you are for that piece of 
 information." 
 
 " An antipathy ! Why, so have I an antipathy. I 
 hate a spider, and as for a naked caterpillar, I be 
 lieve I should go into a fit if I had to touch one. I 
 know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great 
 green caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees 
 in August and early autumn." 
 
 " Afraid of them ? " asked the young lady. 
 
 "Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They 
 can't bite or sting. I can't give any reason. All I 
 know is that when I come across one of these creatures 
 in my path I jump to one side, and cry out, some 
 times using very improper words. The fact is, they 
 make me crazy for the moment." 
 
 " I understand what you mean," said Miss Vincent. 
 " I used to have the same feeling about spiders, but I 
 was ashamed of it, and kept a little menagerie of spi 
 ders until I had got over the feeling : that is, pretty 
 much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very 
 dearly, though I don't scream when I see one."
 
 144 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fel 
 low's particular antipathy? " 
 
 " That is just the question. I told you that we 
 don't know and we can't guess what it is. The peo 
 ple here are tired out with trying 4 to discover some 
 good reason for the young man's keeping out of the 
 way of everybody, as he does. They say he is odd or 
 crazy, and they don't seem to be able to tell which. It 
 would make the old ladies of the village sleep a great 
 deal sounder, yes, and some of the young ladies, 
 too, if they could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood 
 has got into his head, that he never comes near any of 
 the people here." 
 
 " I think / can find out," said the Interviewer, 
 whose professional ambition was beginning to be ex 
 cited. " I never came across anybody yet that I 
 could n't get something out of. I am going to stay 
 here a week or two, and before I go I will find out 
 the secret, if there is any, of this Mr. Maurice Kirk- 
 wood." 
 
 We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances 
 until they present us with some kind of result, either 
 in the shape of success or failure.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX. 
 
 WHEN Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in 
 flashing splinters, as she pulled her last stroke in the 
 boat-race, she did not know what a strain she was put 
 ting upon it. She did know that she was doing her 
 best, but how great the force of her best was she was 
 not aware until she saw its effects. Unconsciousness 
 belonged to her robust nature, in all its manifestations. 
 She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor re 
 proach herself for her ignorance. In every way she 
 formed a striking contrast to her friend, Miss Vincent. 
 Every word they spoke betrayed the difference be 
 tween them : the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, 
 penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed 
 the corresponding traits of mental and moral charac 
 ter; the quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia 
 was the index of a nature restful and sympathetic. 
 
 The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer 
 relations which will one day come in and dissolve their 
 earlier intimacies. The dependence of two young 
 friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more 
 heavily than the other ; the masculine and feminine 
 elements will be as sure to assert themselves as if the 
 friends were of different sexes. 
 
 On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to 
 her friend as her superior. She fully appreciated all 
 her varied gifts and knowledge, and deferred to her 
 10
 
 146 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, 
 but as wiser than herself or any of her other compan 
 ions. It was a different thing, however, when the 
 graver questions of life came up. Lurida was full of 
 suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable to 
 run into whims before she knew where they were tend 
 ing. She would lay out her ideas before Euthymia so 
 fluently and eloquently that she could not help believing 
 them herself, and feeling as if her friend must accept 
 them with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthy 
 mia would take them up with her sweet, deliberate ac 
 cents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on them. 
 
 Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of 
 all her new interests and occupations. She was con 
 stantly on the lookout for papers to be read at the 
 meetings of her Society, for she made it her own in 
 great measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm, and in 
 the mean time she was reading in various books which 
 Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing on the profes 
 sion to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking 
 forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was 
 occupying herself with the problem of the young 
 stranger, the subject of some delusion, or disease, or 
 obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague 
 name of antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept 
 an eye upon her, partly in the fear that over-excite 
 ment would produce some mental injury, and partly 
 from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly 
 dignity in her desire to get at the truth of a very puz 
 zling question. 
 
 " How do you like the books I see you reading ? " 
 said Euthymia to Lurida, one day, as they met at the 
 Library. 
 
 " Better than all the novels I ever read," she an-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 147 
 
 swered. " I have been reading about the nervous 
 system, and it seems to me I have come nearer the 
 springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I 
 feel just as if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure 
 that I had a battery in my head, for I know my brain 
 works like one ; but I did not know how many centres 
 of energy there are, and how they are played upon 
 by all sorts of influences, external and internal. Do 
 you know, I believe I could solve the riddle of the 
 ' Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called him, 
 if he would only stay here long enough ? " 
 
 " What paper has had anything about it, Lurida ? 
 I have not seen or heard of its being mentioned in 
 any of the papers." 
 
 " You know that rather queer-looking young man 
 who has been about here for some time, the same 
 one who gave the account of his interview with a cele 
 brated author ? Well, he has handed me a copy of 
 a paper in which he writes, ' The People's Perennial 
 and Household Inquisitor.' He talks about this vil 
 lage in a very free and easy way. Ho says there is a 
 Sphinx here, who has mystified us all." 
 
 " And you have been chatting with that fellow ! 
 Don't you know that he '11 have you and all of us in 
 his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe 
 where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book 
 and pencil ? Oh, Lurida, Lurida, do be careful ! 
 What with this mysterious young man and this very 
 questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be 
 talked about, if you don't mind, before you know it. v 
 You had better let the riddle of the Sphinx alone. 
 If you must deal with such dangerous people, the 
 safest way is to set one of them to find out the other. 
 I wonder if we can't get this new man to interview
 
 148 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 the visitor you have so much curiosity about. That 
 might be managed easily enough without your having 
 anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will ar 
 range it. But mind, now, you must not meddle ; if 
 you do, you will spoil everything, and get your name in 
 the ' Household Inquisitor' in away you won't like." 
 
 " Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't 
 mean to give him a chance to work me into his paper," 
 if I can help it. But if you can get him to try his 
 skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy, 
 so much the better. I am very curious about it, and 
 therefore about him. I want to know what has pro 
 duced this strange state of feeling in a young man 
 who ought to have all the common instincts of a social 
 being. I believe there are unexplained facts in the 
 region of sympathies and antipathies which will repay 
 study with a deeper insight into the mysteries of life 
 than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often wonder 
 whether there are not heart- waves and soul-waves as 
 well as ' brain-waves,' which some have already recog 
 nized." 
 
 Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this 
 young woman talking the language of science like an 
 adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of those persons 
 who never are young, and who, by way of compensa 
 tion, will never be old. They are found in both sexes. 
 Two well-known graduates of one of our great uni 
 versities are living examples of this precocious but 
 enduring intellectual development. If the readers of 
 this narrative cannot pick them out, they need not 
 expect the writer of it to help them. If they guess 
 rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact that 
 just such exceptional individuals as the young woman 
 we are dealing with are met with from time to time
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 149 
 
 in families where intelligence has been cumulative for 
 two or three generations. 
 
 Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and 
 questionable visitor should learn all that was known in 
 the village about the nebulous individual whose misty 
 environment all the eyes in the village were trying to 
 penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other 
 informant than Lurida. 
 
 The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat 
 on a bench outside his door, to smoke his after-break 
 fast cigar, a bright-looking and handsome youth, whose 
 features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly that 
 one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a 
 seat by his side. Presently the two were engaged in 
 conversation. The Interviewer asked all sorts of ques 
 tions about everybody in the village. When he came 
 to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remark 
 able interest regarding him. The greatest curiosity, 
 he said, existed with reference to this personage. 
 Everybody was trying to find out what his story was, 
 
 fOr a story, and a strange one, he must surely have, 
 
 and nobody had succeeded. 
 
 The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. 
 The young man told him the various antipathy stories, 
 about the evil-eye hypothesis, about his horse-taming 
 exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was over 
 turned, and every occurrence he could recall which 
 would help out the effect of his narrative. 
 
 The Interviewer was becoming excited. " Can't 
 find out anything about him, you said, did n't you ? 
 How do you know there 's anything to find ? Do you 
 want to know what I think he is? I '11 tell you. I 
 think he is an actor, a fellow from one of the city 
 theatres. Those fellows go off in their summer vaca-
 
 150 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tion, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are 
 the very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen 
 in plays at the city theatres ; but of course they don't 
 know 'em in plain clothes. Kings and Emperors look 
 pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you." 
 
 The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. " I 
 should n't wonder if you were right," he said. " I re 
 member seeing a young fellow in Romeo that looked a 
 good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, 
 as they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a wood- 
 chuck. I believe there are people here that would 
 give a hundred dollars to find out who he is, and 
 where he came from, and what he is here for, and why 
 he does n't act like other folks. I wonder why some 
 of those newspaper men don't come up here and get 
 hold of this story. It would be just the thing for a 
 sensational writer." 
 
 To all this the Interviewer listened with true pro 
 fessional interest. Always on the lookout for some 
 thing to make up a paragraph or a column about ; 
 driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions, to 
 the biggest pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat 
 ox, the live frog from the human stomach story, the 
 third set of teeth and reading without spectacles at 
 ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous common 
 places which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m 
 (every other year or every six months) at the foot ; 
 always in want of a fresh incident, a new story, an un- 
 described character, an unexplained mystery, it is no 
 wonder that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon 
 this most tempting subject for an inventive and emo 
 tional correspondent. 
 
 He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that ho 
 was Maurice's confidential servant, but had never
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 151 
 
 spoken to him. So he said to himself that he must 
 make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the 
 summer season many kinds of small traffic were al 
 ways carried on in Arrowhead Village. Among the 
 rest, the sellers of fruits oranges, bananas, and 
 others, according to the seasons did an active busi 
 ness. The Interviewer watched one of these fruit- 
 sellers, and saw that his hand-cart stopped opposite 
 the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood was 
 living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and 
 began examining the contents of the hand-cart. The 
 Interviewer saw his opportunity. Here was an intro 
 duction to the man, and the man must introduce him 
 to the master. 
 
 He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with 
 the man, there was no difficulty about that. He 
 had learned his name, and that he was an Italian 
 whom Maurice had brought to this country with him. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. Paul," he said. "How do 
 you like the look of these oranges? " 
 
 " They pretty fair," said Paolo : " no so good as 
 them las' week ; no sweet as them was." 
 
 " Why, how do you know without tasting them ? " 
 said the Interviewer. 
 
 " I know by his look, I know by his smell, he 
 no good yaller, he no smell ripe, I know orange 
 ever since my head no bigger than he is," and Paolo 
 laughed at his own comparison. 
 
 The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo. 
 " Good ! " said he, " first-rate ! Of course you 
 know all about 'em. Why can't you pick me out a 
 couple of what you think are the best of 'em ? I shall 
 be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and 
 I want to get two nice sweet ones for him."
 
 152 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were 
 recognized. He felt grateful to the stranger, who had 
 given him an opportunity of conferring a favor. He 
 selected two, after careful examination and grave delib 
 eration. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough 
 not to offer him an orange, and so shift the balance of 
 obligation. 
 
 " How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day ? " he asked. 
 
 " II Signer ? He very well. He always well. Why 
 you ask ? Anybody tell you he sick ? " 
 
 " No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him 
 going about for a day or two, and I thought he might 
 have something the matter with him. Is he in the 
 house now ? " 
 
 " No : he off riding. He take long, long rides, 
 sometime gone all day. Sometime he go on lake, 
 paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very early, in 
 night when the moon shine ; sometime stay in house, 
 and read, and study, and write, he great scholar, 
 Misser Kirkwood." 
 
 " A good many books, has n't he ? " 
 
 " He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, 
 little books, old books, new books, all sorts of books. 
 He great scholar, I tell you." 
 
 " Has n't he some curiosities, old figures, old jew 
 elry, old coins, or things of that sort ? " 
 
 Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost 
 suspiciously. " He don't keep no jewels nor no money 
 in his chamber. He got some old things, old jugs, 
 old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have 
 in old times: she don't pass now." Paolo's genders 
 were apt to be somewhat indiscriminately distributed. 
 
 A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. " I wonder 
 if he would examine some old coins of mine?" said 
 he, in a modestly tentative manner.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 153 
 
 " I think ho like to see anything curious. "When 
 he come home I ask him. Who will I tell him wants 
 to ask him about old coin ? " 
 
 " Tell him a gentleman visiting 1 Arrowhead Village 
 would like to call and show him some old pieces of 
 money, said to be Roman ones." 
 
 The Interviewer had just remembered that he had 
 two or three old battered bits of copper which he had 
 picked up at a tollman's, where they had been passed 
 off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. 
 One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably dis 
 tinct, a common little Roman penny ; but it would 
 serve his purpose of asking a question, as would two 
 or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told 
 him that if he came tbo next morning he would stand 
 a fair chance of seeing Mr. Kirkwood. At any rate, 
 he would speak to his master. 
 
 The Interviewer presented himself the next morn 
 ing, after finishing his breakfast and his cigar, feeling 
 reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood at home, as 
 he proved to be. Pie had told Paolo to show the 
 stranger up to his library, or study, as he modestly 
 called it. 
 
 It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout 011 
 the lake in one direction, and the wooded hill in 
 another. The tenant had fitted it up in scholarly 
 fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, 
 many of them, by their white vellum binding and 
 tasteful gilding, showing that probably they had been 
 bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With 
 these were older volumes in their dark original leather, 
 and recent ones in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer 
 ran his eye over them, he found that he could make 
 very little out of what their backs taught him. Some
 
 154 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered 
 ones, had names which he knew ; but those on the 
 backs of many of the others were strange to his eyes. 
 The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature 
 were there ; and he saw enough to feel convinced that 
 he had better not attempt to display his erudition in 
 the company of this young scholar. 
 
 The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to ac 
 count for his visiting a person who had not asked to 
 make his acquaintance, and who was living as a re 
 cluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed 
 them to Maurice. 
 
 " I understood that you were very skilful in antiqui 
 ties, and had a good many yourself. So I took the 
 liberty of calling upon you, hoping that you could tell 
 me something about some ancient coins I have had for 
 a good while." So saying, he pointed to the copper 
 with the name of Gallienus. 
 
 "Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard 
 that great prices have been paid for some of these an 
 cient coins, ever so many guineas, sometimes. I 
 suppose this is as much as a thousand years old." 
 
 " More than a thousand years old," said Maurice. 
 
 " And worth a great deal of money ? " asked the 
 Interviewer. 
 
 " No, not a great deal of money," answered Mau 
 rice. 
 
 " How much, should you say ? " said the Inter 
 viewer. 
 
 Maurice smiled. " A little more than the value of 
 its weight in copper, lam afraid not much more. 
 There are a good many of these coins of Gallienus 
 knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers 
 take such pieces occasionally, and sell them, some-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY 155 
 
 times for five or ten cents, to young collectors. No, it 
 is not very precious in money value, but as a relic any 
 piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a 
 thousand or fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. 
 The value of such relics is a good deal a matter of im 
 agination." 
 
 " And what do you say to these others ? " asked the 
 Interviewer. Poor old worn-out things they were, 
 with a letter or two only, and some faint trace of a 
 figure on one or two of them. 
 
 " Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagi 
 nation back to the times when you may suppose they 
 were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one of them to 
 a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was 
 brought when One said to those about Him, ' Bring 
 me a penny, that I may see it.' But the market price 
 is a different matter. That depends on the beauty 
 and preservation, and above all the rarity, of the spec 
 imen. Here is a coin, now," he opened a small 
 cabinet, and took one from it. " Here is a Syracusan 
 decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at 
 once rare, well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid 
 to tell what I paid for it." 
 
 The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. 
 He cared very little more for an old coin than he did 
 for an old button, but he had thought his purchase at 
 the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No 
 matter about the battered old pieces: he had found 
 out, at any rate, that Maurice must have money and 
 could be extravagant, or what he himself considered 
 so ; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That 
 would do for a beginning. 
 
 " May I ask where you picked up the coin you are 
 showing me? " he said.
 
 156 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " That is a question which provokes a negative an 
 swer. One does not ' pick up ' first-class coins or 
 paintings, very often, in these times. I bought this of 
 a great dealer in Home." 
 
 " Lived in Rome once ? " said the Interviewer. 
 
 " For some years. Perhaps you have been there 
 yourself? " 
 
 The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, 
 but he hoped he should go there, one of these years. 
 " I suppose you studied art and antiquities while you 
 were there ? " he continued. 
 
 "Everybody who goes to Rome must learn some 
 thing of art and antiquities. Before you go there I 
 advise you to review Roman history and the classic 
 authors. You had better make a study of ancient and 
 modern art, and not have everything to learn while 
 you are going about among ruins, and churches, and 
 galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I 
 take it for granted ? " 
 
 The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as 
 if he had heard them. " Not so well as I mean to be 
 fore going to Rome," ho answered. " May I ask how 
 long you lived in Rome ? " 
 
 " Long enough to know something of what is to be 
 seen in it. No one should go there without careful 
 preparation beforehand. You are familiar with Ya- 
 Bari, of course?" 
 
 The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his fore 
 head. He took out his handkerchief. " It is a warm 
 day," he said. " I have not had time to read all tho 
 works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, 
 myself, to find all the time for reading and study I 
 could have wished." 
 
 " In what literary occupation have you been en-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 157 
 
 gaged, if you will pardon my inquiry? said Mau 
 rice. 
 
 " I am connected with the press. I understood that 
 you were a man of letters, and I hoped I might have 
 the privilege of hearing from your own lips some ac 
 count of your literary experiences." 
 
 " Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I 
 shall reserve it for my autobiography. You said you 
 were connected with the press. Do I understand that 
 you are an author?" 
 
 By this time the Interviewer had come to the con 
 clusion that it was a very warm day. He did not 
 seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the right 
 handle, somehow. But he could not help answering 
 Maurice's very simple question. 
 
 " If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be 
 called an author, I may call myself one. I write for 
 the ' People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' " 
 
 " Are you the literary critic of that well-known 
 journal, or do you manage the political column ? " 
 
 " I am a correspondent from different places and 
 on various matters of interest." 
 
 " Places you have been to, and people you have 
 known?" 
 
 "Well, yes, generally, that is. Sometimes I have 
 to compile my articles." 
 
 " Did you write the letter from Home, published a 
 few weeks ago? " 
 
 The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight 
 place. However, he had found that his man was too 
 much for him, and saw that the best thing he could 
 do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He 
 thought that he should be able to pick up something 
 or other which he could work into his report of his 
 visit.
 
 158 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " Well, I prepared that article for our columns. 
 You know one does not have to see everything he de 
 scribes. You found it accurate, I hope, in its descrip 
 tions?" 
 
 " Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes 
 he makes mistakes, but I can't say how far you have 
 copied them. You got the Ponte Molle the old 
 Milvian bridge a good deal too far down the stream, 
 if I remember. I happened to notice that, but I did 
 not read the article carefully. May I ask whether 
 you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visit 
 and the conversation we have had, for the columns of 
 the newspaper with which you are connected ? " 
 
 The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. " If 
 you have no objections," he said, " I should like very 
 much to ask a few questions." He was recovering his 
 professional audacity. 
 
 " You can ask as many questions as you consider 
 proper and discreet, after you have answered one or 
 two of mine : Who commissioned you to submit me to 
 examination ? " 
 
 " The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, 
 and I am the humble agent of its investigations." 
 
 "What has the public to do with my private af 
 fairs?" 
 
 " I suppose it is a question of majority and minor 
 ity. That settles everything in this country. You 
 are a minority of one opposed to a large number of 
 curious people that form a majority against you. That 
 is the way I 've heard the chief put it." 
 
 Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assump 
 tion of the American citizen. The Interviewer smiled, 
 too, and thought he had his man, sure, at last. Mau 
 rice calmly answered, " There is nothing left for mi-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 159 
 
 norities, then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care 
 about being made the subject of an article for your 
 paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding my own 
 business, and content with that occupation. I rebel 
 against your system of forced publicity. Whenever 
 I am ready I shall tell the public all it has any right 
 to know about me. In the mean time I shall request 
 to be spared reading my biography while I am living. 
 I wish you a good-morning." 
 
 The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book 
 and pencil. In his next communication from Arrow 
 head Village he contented himself with a brief men 
 tion of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman 
 now visiting the place, whose library and cabinet of 
 coins he had had the privilege of examining, and 
 whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that 
 shunned the public notoriety which the organs of 
 popular intelligence would otherwise confer upon him. 
 
 The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of tho 
 Sphinx, and had failed to get the first hint of its solu 
 tion. 
 
 The many tongues of the village and its visitors 
 could not remain idle. The whole subject of antipa 
 thies had been talked over, and the various cases re 
 corded had become more or less familiar to the con 
 versational circles which met every evening in the 
 different centres of social life. The prevalent hypoth 
 esis for the moment was that Maurice had a congeni 
 tal aversion to some color, the effects of which upon 
 him were so painful or disagreeable that he habit 
 ually avoided exposure to it. It was known, and it 
 has already been mentioned, that such cases were on 
 record. There had been a great deal of discussion, of
 
 160 A MOETAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 late, with reference to a fact long known to a few 
 individuals, but only recently made a matter of care 
 ful scientific observation and brought to the notice of 
 the public. This was the now well-known phenom 
 enon of color-blindness. It did not seem very strange 
 that if one person in every score or two could not 
 tell red from green there might be other curious in 
 dividual peculiarities relating to color. A case has 
 already been referred to where the subject of obser 
 vation fainted at the sight of any red object. What 
 if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It 
 will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy 
 would tend to isolate the person who was its unfortu 
 nate victim. It was an hypothesis not difficult to test, 
 but it was a rather delicate business to be experiment 
 ing on an inoffensive stranger. Miss Vincent was 
 thinking it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, 
 of any projects she might entertain.
 
 XII. 
 
 MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT. 
 
 THE young lady whom we have known as The Ter 
 ror, as Lurida, as Miss Vincent, Secretary of the Pan- 
 sophian Society, had been reading various works se 
 lected for her by Dr. Butts, works chiefly relating 
 to the nervous system and its different affections. She 
 thought it was about time to talk over the general 
 subject of the medical profession with her new teacher, 
 if such a self -directing person as Lurida could be 
 said to recognize anybody as teacher. 
 
 She began at the beginning. " What is the first 
 book you would put in a student's hands, doctor?" 
 she said to him one day. They were in his study, and 
 Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on In 
 sanity, one of Bucknill and Tuke's, which she had de 
 voured as if it had been a pamphlet. 
 
 " Not that book, certainly," he said. " I am afraid 
 it will put all sorts of notions into your head. Who 
 or what set you to reading that, I should like to 
 know?" 
 
 " I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought 
 I might perhaps be crazy some time or other, I felt as 
 if I should like to know what kind of a condition in 
 sanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright, 
 those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not 
 stupid enough ever to lose my wits." 
 
 " There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if 
 11
 
 162 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 you overwork that busy brain of yours. But did n't 
 it make you nervous, reading about so many people 
 possessed with such strange notions ? " 
 
 " Nervous ? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, 
 though, how many people I had known that had a lit 
 tle touch of craziness about them. Take that poor 
 woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person, not 
 Her Majesty, but Her Majesty's Person, a very 
 important distinction, according to her : how she does 
 remind me of more than one girl I have known ! She 
 would let her skirts down so as to make a kind of 
 train, and pile things on her head like a sort of crown, 
 fold her arms and throw her head back, and feel as 
 grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl 
 act very much in that way. Are not most of us a lit 
 tle crazy, doctor, just a little? I think so. It 
 seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free 
 from every hint of craziness." 
 
 " And who was that, pray ? " 
 
 " Why, Euthymia, nobody else, of course. She 
 never loses her head, I don't believe she would in 
 an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with our 
 microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her 
 mind was the only achromatic one I ever looked into, 
 I did n't say looked through. But I did n't come 
 to talk about that. I read in one of your books that 
 when Sydenham was asked by a student what books 
 he should read, the great physician said, ' Read " Don 
 Quixote." : I want you to explain that to me ; and 
 then I want you to tell me what is the first book, ac 
 cording to your idea, that a student ought to read." 
 
 " What do you say to my taking your question as 
 the subject of a paper to be read before the Society ? 
 I think there may be other young ladies at the meet-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 163 
 
 ing, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the 
 study of medicine. At any rate, there are a good 
 many who are interested in the subject ; in fact, most 
 people listen readily to anything doctors tell them 
 about their calling." 
 
 " I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to 
 hear it, and I don't doubt there will be others who will 
 be glad to hear everything you have to say about it. 
 But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Euthymia 
 to become a physician! What a doctor she would 
 make ! So strong, so calm, so full of wisdom ! I be 
 lieve she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a 
 storm, or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, 
 and handle it as well as the captain of the boat or of 
 the fire-company." 
 
 " Have you ever talked with her about studying 
 medicine?" 
 
 " Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with 
 me ! What good times we would have studying to 
 gether ! " 
 
 " I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant 
 study. But how do you think practice would be? 
 How would you like being called up to ride ten miles 
 in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your rag 
 ing headaches was racking you ? " 
 
 " Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthy 
 mia is n't afraid of storms or anything else. If she 
 would only study medicine with me ! " 
 
 " Well, what does she say to it?" 
 
 " She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't 
 believe in women doctors. She thinks that now and 
 then a woman may be fitted for it by nature, but she 
 does n't think there are many who are. She gives me 
 a good many reasons against their practising medicine,
 
 164 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 you know what most of them are, doctor, and 
 ends by saying that the same woman who would be a 
 poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse ; and 
 that, she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct 
 carries her to the hospital or sick-chamber. I can't 
 argue her ideas out of her." 
 
 " Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about 
 the matter; but I am disposed to agree with your 
 friend, that you will often spoil a good nurse to make 
 a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to 
 me to go together. Hiding habits would be awkward 
 things for practitioners. But come, we won't have a 
 controversy just now. I am for giving women every 
 chance for a good education, and if they think medi 
 cine is one of their proper callings let them try it. I 
 think they will find that they had better at least limit 
 themselves to certain specialties, and always have an 
 expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble 
 is that they are so impressible and imaginative that 
 they are at the mercy of all sorts of fancy systems. 
 You have only to see what kinds of instruction they 
 very commonly flock to in order to guess whether they 
 would be likely to prove sensible practitioners. Char 
 latanism always hobbles on two crutches, the tattle of 
 women, and the certificates of clergymen, and I am 
 afraid that half the women doctors will be too much 
 under both those influences." 
 
 Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the com 
 mon language of the village, had " carried her through " 
 a fever, brought on by over-excitement and exhaust 
 ing study. She took no offence at his reference to 
 nursery gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. 
 Nobody so despises the weaknesses of women as the 
 champion of woman's rights. She accepted the doc-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 165 
 
 tor's concession of a fair field and open trial of the 
 fitness of her sex for medical practice, and did not 
 trouble herself about his suggested limitations. As to 
 the imaginative tendencies of women, she knew too 
 well the truth of the doctor's remark relating to them 
 to wish to contradict it. 
 
 " Be sure you Jet me have your paper in season for 
 the next meeting, doctor," she said ; and in due season 
 it came, and was of course approved for reading.
 
 XIII. 
 
 DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER. 
 
 " NEXT to the interest we take in all that relates to 
 our immortal souls is that which we feel for our mor 
 tal bodies. I am afraid my very first statement may 
 be open to criticism. The care of the body is the first 
 thought with a great many, in fact, with the larger 
 part of the world. They send for the physician first, 
 and not until he gives them up do they commonly call 
 in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is not so 
 very different from other people. We must not blame 
 him if he is not always impatient to exchange a world 
 of multiplied interests and ever-changing sources of 
 excitement for that which tradition has delivered to us 
 as one eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety. 
 Besides, these bodily frames, even when worn and dis 
 figured by long years of service, hang about our con 
 sciousness like old garments. They are used to us, 
 and we are used to them. And all the accidents of 
 our lives, the house we dwell in, the living people 
 round us, the landscape we look over, all, up to the 
 sky that covers us like a bell glass, all these are but 
 looser outside garments which we have worn until they 
 seem a part of us, and we do not like the thought of 
 changing them for a new suit which we have never yet 
 tried on. How well I remember that dear ancient 
 lady, who lived well into the last decade of her cen 
 tury, as she repeated the verse which, if I had but one
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 167 
 
 to choose, I would select from that string of pearls, 
 Gray's ' Elegy ' ! 
 
 ' For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey 
 
 This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
 Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? ' 
 
 Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Bet 
 ter so, it may be, than to live solely for it, as so many 
 do. But it may be well doubted if there is any dis 
 ciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary, 
 there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, 
 many who have come here to regain the health they 
 have lost in the wear and tear of city life, and very 
 few who have not at some time or other of their lives 
 had occasion to call in the services of a physician. 
 
 " There is, therefore, no impropriety in my offering 
 to the members some remarks upon the peculiar diffi 
 culties which beset the medical practitioner in the dis 
 charge of his laborious and important duties. 
 
 " A young friend of mine, who has taken an interest 
 in medical studies, happened to meet with a very famil 
 iar story about one of the greatest and most celebrated 
 of all English physicians, Thomas Sydenham. The 
 story is that, when a student asked him what books he 
 should read, the great doctor told him to read ' Don 
 Quixote.' 
 
 " This piece of advice has been used to throw con 
 tempt upon the study of books, and furnishes a con 
 venient shield for ignorant pretenders. But Sydenham 
 left many writings in which he has recorded his med 
 ical experience, and he surely would not have published 
 them if he had not thought they would be better read 
 ing for the medical student than the story of Cervan 
 tes. His own works are esteemed to this day, and he
 
 168 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 certainly could not have supposed that they contained 
 all the wisdom of all the past. No remedy is good, it 
 was said of old, unless applied at the right time in the 
 right way. So we may say of all anecdotes, like this 
 which I have told you about Sydenham r.nd the young 
 man. It is very likely that he carried him to the bed 
 side of some patients, and talked to him about the 
 cases he showed him, instead of putting a Latin vol 
 ume in his hand. I would as soon begin in hat way 
 as any other, with a student who had already mastered 
 the preliminary branches, who knew enough about 
 the structure and functions of the body in health. 
 
 " But if you ask me what reading I would com 
 mend to the medical student of a philosophical habit 
 of mind, you may be surprised to hear me say it would 
 be certain passages in ' Kasselas.' They are the ones 
 where the astronomer gives an account to Imlac of his 
 management of the elements, the control of which, as 
 he had persuaded himself, had been committed to him. 
 Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which 
 is commonly bound up with the ' Vicar of Wakefield,' 
 like a woollen lining to a silken mantle, but is full of 
 stately wisdom in processions of paragraphs which, 
 sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum- 
 major to march before their tramping platoons. 
 
 " The astronomer has taken Imlac into his confi 
 dence, and reveals to him the secret of his wonderful 
 powers : 
 
 " ' Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty 
 credit. I have possessed for five years the regulation 
 of the weather and the distribution of the seasons : 
 the sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from 
 tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my 
 call, have poured their waters, and the Nile has over-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 169 
 
 flowed at my command ; I have restrained the rage of 
 the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors of the crab. 
 The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have 
 hitherto eluded my authority, and multitudes have 
 perished by equinoctial tempests, which I found ruy- 
 seli unable to prohibit or restrain.' 
 
 " The reader naturally wishes to kno-v how the as 
 tronomer, a sincere, devoted, and most benevolent 
 man, for forty years a student of the heavens, came 
 to the strange belief that he possessed these miracu 
 lous powers. This is his account : 
 
 " ' One day, as I was looking on the fields withering 
 with heat, I felt in my mind a sudden wish that I 
 could send rain on the southern mountains, and raise 
 the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagi 
 nation I commanded rain to fall, and by comparing 
 the time of my command with that of the inundation 
 I found that the clouds had listened to my lips.' 
 
 " ' Might not some other cause,' said I, ' produce 
 this concurrence ? The Nile does not always rise on 
 the same day.' 
 
 " ' Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, ' that 
 such objections could escape me: I reasoned long 
 against my own conviction, and labored against truth 
 with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected 
 myself of madness, and should not have dared to im 
 part this secret but to a man like you, capable of dis 
 tinguishing the wonderful from the impossible and the 
 incredible from the false.' 
 
 " The good old astronomer gives his parting direc 
 tions to Imlac, whom he has adopted as his successor 
 in the government of the elements and the seasons, in 
 these impressive words : 
 
 " ' Do not, in the administration of the year, in-
 
 170 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 dulge thy pride by innovation ; do not please thyself 
 with thinking that thou canst make thyself renowned 
 to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The 
 memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less 
 will it become thee to let kindness or interest prevaiL 
 Never rob other countries of rain to pour it on thine 
 own. For us the Nile is sufficient.' 
 
 " Do you wonder, my friends, why I have chosen 
 these passages, in which the delusions of an insane 
 astronomer are related with all the pomp of the John 
 sonian vocabulary, as the first lesson for the young 
 person about to enter on the study of the science and 
 art of healing ? Listen to me while I show you the 
 parallel of the story of the astronomer in the history 
 of medicine. 
 
 " This history is luminous with intelligence, radiant 
 with benevolence, but all its wisdom and all its virtue 
 have had to struggle with the ever-rising mists of de 
 lusion. The agencies which waste and destroy the 
 race of mankind are vast and resistless as the ele 
 mental forces of nature ; nay, they are themselves ele 
 mental forces. They may be to some extent avoided, 
 to some extent diverted from their aim, to some ex 
 tent resisted. So may the changes of the seasons, 
 from cold that freezes to heats that strike with sud 
 den death, be guarded against. So may the tides be 
 in some small measure restrained in their inroads. 
 So may the storms be breasted by walls they cannot 
 shake from their foundations. But the seasons and 
 the tides and the tempests work their will on the great 
 scale upon whatever stands in their w r ay ; they feed or 
 starve the tillers of the soil ; they spare or drown the 
 dwellers by the shore ; they waft the seaman to his 
 harbor or bury him in the angry billows.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 171 
 
 " The art of the physician can do much to remove 
 its subjects from deadly and dangerous influences, and 
 something to control or arrest the effects of these in 
 fluences. But look at the records of the life-insurance 
 offices, and see how uniform is the action of nature's 
 destroying agencies. Look at the annual reports of 
 the deaths in any of our great cities, and see how their 
 regularity approaches the uniformity of the tides, and 
 their variations keep pace with those of the seasons. 
 The inundations of the Nile are not more certainly to 
 be predicted than the vast wave of infantile disease 
 which flows in upon all our great cities with the grow 
 ing heats of July, than the fevers and dysenteries 
 which visit our rural districts in the months of the 
 falling leaf. 
 
 " The physician watches these changes as the as 
 tronomer watched the rise of the great river. He 
 longs to rescue individuals, to protect communities 
 from the inroads of these destroying agencies. He 
 uses all the means which experience has approved, 
 tries every rational method which ingenuity can sug 
 gest. Some fortunate recovery leads him to believe 
 he has hit upon a preventive or a cure for a malady 
 which had resisted all known remedies. His rescued 
 patient sounds his praises, and a wide circle of his pa 
 tient's friends joins in a chorus of eulogies. Self-love 
 applauds him for his sagacity. Self-interest congratu 
 lates him on his having found the road to fortune ; 
 the sense of having proved a benefactor of his race 
 smooths the pillow on which he lays his head to dream 
 of the brilliant future opening before him. If a sin 
 gle coincidence may lead a person of sanguine disposi 
 tion to believe that he has mastered a disease which 
 had baffled all who were before his time, and on
 
 172 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 which his contemporaries looked in hopeless impo 
 tence, what must be the effect of a series of such co 
 incidences even on a mind of calmer temper ! Such 
 series of coincidences will happen, and they may well 
 deceive the very elect. Think of Dr. Rush, you 
 know what a famous man he was, the very head and 
 front of American medical science in his day, and 
 remember how he spoke about yellow fever, which he 
 thought he had mastered ! 
 
 " Thus the physician is entangled in the meshes of 
 a wide conspiracy, in which he and his patient and 
 their friends, and Nature herself, are involved. What 
 wonder that the history of Medicine should be to so 
 great an extent a record of self-delusion ! 
 
 " If this seems a dangerous concession to the ene 
 mies of the true science and art of healing, I will re 
 mind you that it is all implied in the first aphorism of 
 Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Do not draw a 
 wrong inference from the frank statement of the diffi 
 culties which beset the medical practitioner. Think 
 rather, if truth is so hard of attainment, how precious 
 are the results which the consent of the wisest and 
 most experienced among the healers of men agrees in 
 accepting. Think what folly it is to cast them aside 
 in favor of palpable impositions stolen from the rec 
 ords of forgotten charlatanism, or of fantastic specu 
 lations spun from the squinting brains of theorists as 
 wild as the Egyptian astronomer. 
 
 " Begin your medical studies, then, by reading the 
 fortieth and the following four chapters of 'Rasselas.' 
 Your first lesson will teach you modesty and caution 
 in the pursuit of the most deceptive of all practical 
 branches of knowledge. Faith will come later, when 
 you learn how much medical science and art have act
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 173 
 
 ually achieved for the relief of mankind, and how 
 great are the promises it holds out of still larger tri 
 umphs over the enemies of human health and happi 
 ness." 
 
 After the reading of this paper there was a lively 
 discussion, which we have no room to report here, and 
 the Society adjourned.
 
 XIV. 
 
 MISS VINCENT'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. 
 
 THE sober-minded, sensible, well-instructed Dr. 
 Butts was not a little exercised in mind by the de 
 mands made upon his knowledge by his young friend, 
 and for the time being his pupil, Miss Lurida Vincent. 
 
 " I don't wonder they called her The Terror," he 
 said to himself. " She is enough to frighten anybody. 
 She has taken down old books from my shelves that I 
 had almost forgotten the backs of, and as to the medi 
 cal journals, I believe the girl could index them from 
 memory. She is in pursuit of some special point of 
 knowledge, I feel sure, and I cannot doubt what direc 
 tion she is working in, but her wonderful way of deal 
 ing with books amazes me." 
 
 What marvels those "first scholars" in the classes 
 of our great universities and colleges are, to be sure ! 
 They are not, as a rule, the most distinguished of their 
 class in the long struggle of life. The chances are that 
 "the field" will beat "the favorite" over the long 
 race-course. Others will develop a longer stride and 
 more staying power. But what fine gifts those " first 
 scholars " have received from nature ! How dull we 
 writers, famous or obscure, are in the acquisition of 
 knowledge as compared with them! To lead their 
 classmates they must have quick apprehension, fine 
 memories, thorough control of their mental faculties,
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 175 
 
 strong will, power of concentration, facility of expres 
 sion, a wonderful equipment of mental faculties. I 
 always want to take my hat off to the first scholar of 
 his year. 
 
 Dr. Butts felt somewhat in the same way as he con 
 templated The Terror. She surprised him so often 
 with her knowledge that he was ready to receive her 
 without astonishment when she burst in upon him one 
 day with a cry of triumph, " Eureka ! Eureka ! " 
 
 " And what have you found, my dear ? " said the 
 doctor. 
 
 Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement 
 of her new discovery. 
 
 " I do believe that I have found the secret of our 
 strange visitor's dread of all human intercourse ! " 
 
 The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off 
 his balance. 
 
 "Wait a minute and get your breath," said the 
 doctor. " Are you not a little overstating his peculi 
 arity? It is not quite so bad as that. He keeps a 
 man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the 
 Old Tavern, he was affable enough, I understand, with 
 the young fellow he pulled out of the water, or rescued 
 somehow, I don't believe he avoids the whole human 
 race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as 
 I have remarked his expression. I passed a few words 
 with him when his man was ailing, and found him po 
 lite enough. No, I don't believe it is much more than 
 an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with 
 some congenital or other personal repugnance to which 
 has been given the name of an antipathy." 
 
 Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was 
 speaking. When he finished, she began the account 
 of her discovery :
 
 176 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " I do certainly believe I have found an account of 
 his case in an Italian medical journal of about four 
 teen years ago. I met with a reference which led me 
 to look over a file of the Giornale degli Ospifatli ly 
 ing among the old pamphlets in the medical section of 
 the Library. I have made a translation of it, which 
 you must read and then tell me if you do not agree 
 with me in my conclusion." 
 
 " Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read 
 your paper and see for myself whether I think the 
 evidence justifies the conviction you seem to have 
 reached." 
 
 Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like 
 the two halves of a map of the world, as she said, 
 
 " / believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering 
 from the effects of the bite of a TARANTULA ! " 
 
 The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in 
 a vague sort of way the stories which used to be told 
 of the terrible Apulian spider, but he had consigned 
 them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fic 
 tions have clothed themselves with a local habitation 
 and a name. He looked into the round eyes and wide 
 pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared that she was 
 in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his profes 
 sional training, he waited for another symptom, if in 
 deed her mind was in any measure off its balance. 
 
 "I know what you are thinking," Lurida said, "but 
 it is not so. ' I am not mad, most noble Festus.' You 
 shall see the evidence and judge for yourself. Read 
 the whole case, you can read my hand almost as if 
 it were print, and tell me if you do not agree with 
 me that this young man is iu all probability the same 
 person as the boy described in the Italian journal
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 177 
 
 One thing you might say is against the supposition. 
 The young patient is spoken of as Signorino M . . . 
 Ch. . . . But you must remember that ch is pro 
 nounced hard in Italian, like &, which letter is want 
 ing in the Italian alphabet ; and it is natural enough 
 that the initial of the second name should have got 
 changed in the record to its Italian equivalent." 
 
 Before inviting the reader to follow the details of 
 this extraordinary case as found in a medical journal, 
 the narrator wishes to be indulged in a few words of 
 explanation, in order that he may not have to apol 
 ogize for allowing the introduction of a subject which 
 may be thought to belong to the professional student 
 rather than to the readers of this record. There is a 
 great deal in medical books which it is very unbecom 
 ing to bring before the general public, a great deal 
 to repel, to disgust, to alarm, to excite unwholesome 
 curiosity. It is not the men whose duties have made 
 them familiar with this class of subjects who are most 
 likely to offend by scenes and descriptions which be 
 long to the physician's private library, and not to the 
 shelves devoted to polite literature. Goldsmith and 
 even Smollett, both having studied and practised med 
 icine, could not by any possibility have outraged all 
 the natural feelings of delicacy and decency as Swift 
 and Zola have outraged them. But without handling 
 doubtful subjects, there are many curious medical ex 
 periences which have interest for every one as extreme 
 illustrations of ordinary conditions with which all are 
 acquainted. No one can study the now familiar history 
 of clairvoyance profitably who has not learned some 
 thing of the vagaries of hysteria. No one can read 
 understandingly the life of Cowper and that of Carlyle 
 
 12
 
 178 A MORTAL AXTIPATHY. 
 
 without having some idea of the influence of hypo- 
 chondriasis and of dyspepsia upon the disposition and 
 intellect of the subjects of these maladies. I need 
 not apologize, therefore, for giving publicity to that 
 part of this narrative which deals with one of the most 
 singular maladies to be found in the records of bodily 
 and mental infirmities. 
 
 The following is the account of the case as trans 
 lated by Miss Vincent. For obvious reasons the whole 
 name was not given in the original paper, and for 
 similar reasons the date of the event and the birth 
 place of the patient are not precisely indicated here. 
 
 [Giornale degli Ospitali, Luglio 21, 18.] 
 REMARKABLE CASE OF TARANTISM. 
 
 " The great interest attaching to the very singular 
 and exceptional instance of this rare affection induces 
 us to give a full account of the extraordinary example 
 of its occurrence in a patient who was the subject of 
 a recent medical consultation in this city. 
 
 " Signorino M . . . Ch ... is the only son of a gen 
 tleman travelling in Italy at this time. He is eleven 
 years of age, of sanguine-nervous temperament, light 
 hair, blue eyes, intelligent countenance, well grown, 
 but rather slight in form, to all appearance in good 
 health, but subject to certain peculiar and anomalous 
 nervous symptoms, of which his father gives this his 
 tory. 
 
 " Nine years ago, the father informs us, he was trav 
 elling in Italy with his wife, this child, and a nurse. 
 They were passing a few days in a country village near 
 the city of Bari, capital of the province of the same 
 name in the division (compartimento^) of Apulia. The
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 179 
 
 child was in perfect health and had never been af 
 fected by any serious illness. On the 10th of July 
 he was playing out in the field near the house where 
 the family was staying when he was heard to scream 
 suddenly and violently. The nurse rushing to him 
 found him in great pain, saying that something had 
 bitten him in one of his feet. A laborer, one Tom- 
 maso, ran up at the moment and perceived in the 
 grass, near where the boy was standing, an enormous 
 spider, which he at once recognized as a tarantula. 
 He managed to catch the creature in a large leaf, from 
 which he was afterwards transferred to a wide-mouthed 
 bottle, where he lived without any food for a month 
 or more. The creature was covered with short hairs, 
 and had a pair of nipper-like jaws, with which ho 
 could inflict an ugly wound. His body measured 
 about an inch in length, and from the extremity of 
 one of the longest limbs to the other was between two 
 and three inches. Such was the account given by the 
 physician to whom the peasant carried the great 
 spider. 
 
 " The boy who had been bitten continued screaming 
 violently while his stocking was being removed and 
 the foot examined. The place of the bite was easily 
 found and the two marks of the claw-like jaws already 
 showed the effects of the poison, a small livid circle 
 extending around them, with some puffy swelling. 
 The distinguished Dr. Amadei was immediately sent 
 for, and applied cups over the wounds in the hope of 
 drawing forth the poison. In vain all his skill and 
 efforts ! Soon, ataxic (irregular) nervous symptoms 
 declared themselves, and it became plain that the sys 
 tem had been infected by the poison. 
 
 " The symptoms were very much like those of ma
 
 180 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 lignant fever, such as distress about the region of the 
 heart, difficulty of breathing, collapse of all the vital 
 powers, threatening immediate death. From these 
 first symptoms the child rallied, but his entire organ 
 ism had been profoundly affected by the venom circu 
 lating through it. His constitution has never thrown 
 off the malady resulting from this toxic (poisonous) 
 agent. The phenomena which have been observed in 
 this young patient correspond so nearly with those 
 enumerated in the elaborate essay of the celebrated 
 Baglivi that one might think they had been tran 
 scribed from his pages. 
 
 " He is very fond of solitude, of wandering about 
 in churchyards and other lonely places. He was once 
 found hiding in an empty tomb, which had been left 
 open. His aversion to certain colors is remarkable. 
 Generally speaking, he prefers bright tints to darker 
 ones, but his likes and dislikes are capricious, and 
 with regard to some colors his antipathy amounts to 
 positive horror. Some shades have such an effect 
 upon him that he cannot remain in the room with 
 them, and if he meets any one whose dress has any of 
 that particular color he will turn away or retreat so 
 as to avoid passing that person. Among these, purple 
 and dark green are the least endurable. He cannot 
 explain the sensations which these obnoxious colors 
 produce except by saying that it is like the deadly 
 feeling from a blow on the epigastrium (pit of the 
 stomach). 
 
 " About the same season of the year at which the 
 tarantular poisoning took place he is liable to certain 
 nervous seizures, not exactly like fainting or epilepsy, 
 but reminding the physician of those affections : all 
 the other symptoms are aggravated at this time.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 181 
 
 " In other respects than those mentioned the boy is 
 in good health. He is fond of riding, and has a pony 
 on which he takes a great deal of exercise, which seems 
 to do him more good than any other remedy. 
 
 " The influence of music, to which so much has been 
 attributed by popular belief and even by the distin 
 guished Professor to whom we shall again refer, has 
 not as yet furnished any satisfactory results. If the 
 graver symptoms recur while the patient is under our 
 observation, we propose to make use of an agency 
 discredited by modern skepticism, but deserving of a 
 fair trial as an exceptional remedy for an exceptional 
 disease. 
 
 " The following extracts from the work of the cele 
 brated Italian physician of the last century are given 
 by the writer of the paper in the Giornale in the 
 original Latin, with a translation into Italian, sub 
 joined. Here are the extracts, or rather here is a 
 selection from them, with a translation of them into 
 English. 
 
 " After mentioning the singular aversion to certain 
 colors shown by the subject of Tarantism, Baglivi 
 writes as follows : 
 
 " ' Et si astantes incedant vestibus eo colore diffusis, 
 qui Tarantatis ingratus eat, necesse est ut ob illorum 
 aspectu recedant ; nam ad intuitum molesti coloris 
 angore cordis, et symptomatum recrudescantia statim 
 corripiuntur.' (G. Baglivi, Op. Omnia, page 614. 
 Lugduni, 1745.) 
 
 " That is, ' if the persons about the patient wear 
 dresses of the color which is offensive to him, he must 
 get away from the sight of them * for on seeing the 
 obnoxious color he is at once seized with distress in
 
 182 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 the region of the heart, and a renewal of his symp 
 toms.' 
 
 " As to the recurrence of the malady, Baglivi 
 says : 
 
 " ' Dum color soils ardentius exurere incipit, quod 
 contingit circa initia Julii et Augusti, Tarantati lente 
 venientem recrudescentlam veneni percipiunt.' (Ibid., 
 page 619.) 
 
 " Which I render, ' When the heat of the sun be 
 gins to burn more fiercely, which happens about the 
 beginning of July and August, the subjects of Taran- 
 tism perceive the gradually approaching recrudescence 
 (returning symptoms) of the poisoning.' Among the 
 remedies most valued by this illustrious physician is 
 that mentioned in the following sentence : 
 
 " ' Laudo magnopere equitationes in aere rusti- 
 cano facias singulis diebus, hord potissimum matu- 
 tina, quibus equitationibus morbos chronicos pene in- 
 curabiles protinus eliminavi.' 
 
 " Or in translation, 
 
 " ' I commend especially riding on horseback in 
 country air, every day, by preference in the morning 
 hours, by the aid of which horseback riding I have 
 driven off chronic diseases which were almost incura 
 ble.' " 
 
 Miss Vincent read this paper aloud to Dr. Butts, 
 and handed it to him to examine and consider. He 
 listened with a grave countenance and devout atten 
 tion. 
 
 As she finished reading her account, she exclaimed 
 in the passionate tones of the deepest conviction, 
 
 " There, doctor ! Have n't I found the true story 
 of this strange visitor ? Have n't I solved the riddle
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 183 
 
 of the Sphinx ? Who can this man be but the boy of 
 that story ? Look at the date of the journal when he 
 was eleven years old: it would make him twenty-five 
 now, and that is just about the age the people here 
 think he must be of. What could account so entirely 
 for his ways and actions as that strange poisoning 
 which produces the state they call Tarantism ? I am 
 just as sure it must be that as I am that I am alive. 
 Oh, doctor, doctor, I must be right, this Signorino 
 M . . . Ch . . . was the boy Maurice Kirkwood, and 
 the story accounts for everything, his solitary hab 
 its, his dread of people, it must be because they 
 wear the colors he can't bear. His morning rides on 
 horseback, his coming here just as the season was ap 
 proaching which would aggravate all his symptoms, 
 does n't all this prove that I must be right in my con 
 jecture, no, my conviction ? " 
 
 The doctor knew too much to interrupt the young 
 enthusiast, and so he let her run on until she ran 
 down. He was more used to the rules of evidence 
 than she was, and could not accept her positive con 
 clusion so readily as she would have liked to have him. 
 He knew that beginners are very apt to make what 
 they think are discoveries. But he had been an an 
 gler and knew the meaning of a yielding rod and an 
 easy-running reel. He said quietly, 
 
 " You are a most sagacious young lady, and a very 
 pretty prima facie case it is that you make out. I 
 can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood is not the same 
 person as the M . . . Ch ... of the medical jour 
 nal, that is, if I accept your explanation of the dif 
 ference in the initials of these two names. Even if 
 there were a difference, that would not disprove their 
 identity, for the initials of patients whose cases are re-
 
 184 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 ported by their physicians are often altered for the 
 purpose of concealment. I do not know, however, 
 that Mr. Kirkwood has shown any special aversion to 
 any particular color. It might be interesting to in 
 quire whether it is so, but it is a delicate matter. I 
 don't exactly see whose business it is to investigate 
 Mr. Maurice Kirkwood's idiosyncrasies and constitu 
 tional history. If he should have occasion to send for 
 me at any time, he might tell me all about himself, 
 in confidence, you know. These old accounts from 
 Baglivi are curious and interesting, but I am cautious 
 about receiving any stories a hundred years old, if 
 they involve an improbability, as his stories about the 
 cure of the tarantula bite by music certainly do. I 
 am disposed to wait for future developments, bearing 
 in mind, of course, the very singular case you have 
 unearthed. It would n't be very strange if our young 
 gentleman had to send for me before the season is 
 over. He is out a good deal before the dew is off the 
 grass, which is rather risky in this neighborhood as 
 autumn comes on. I am somewhat curious, I confess, 
 about the young man, but I do not meddle where I 
 am not asked for or wanted, and I have found that 
 eggs hatch just as well if you let them alone in the 
 nest as if you take them out and shake them every 
 day. This is a wonderfully interesting supposition of 
 yours, and may prove to be strictly in accordance with 
 the facts. But I do not think we have all the facts 
 in this young man's case. If it were proved that he 
 had an aversion to any color, it would greatly strength 
 en your case. His ' antipatia,' as his man called it, 
 must be one which covers a wide ground, to account 
 for his self-isolation, and the color hypothesis seems 
 as plausible as any. But, my dear Miss Vincent, 1
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 185 
 
 think you had better leave your singular and striking 
 hypothesis in my keeping for a while, rather than let 
 it get abroad in a community like this, where so many 
 tongues are in active exercise. I will carefully study 
 this paper, if you will leave it with me, and we will 
 talk the whole matter over. It is a fair subject for 
 speculation, only we must keep quiet about it." 
 
 This long speech gave Lurida's perfervid brain 
 time to cool off a little. She left the paper with the 
 doctor, telling him she would come for it the next day, 
 and went off to tell the result of this visit to her 
 bosom friend, Miss Euthymia Tower.
 
 XV. 
 
 DR. BUTTS CALLS ON EUTHYMIA. 
 
 THE doctor was troubled in thinking over his inter 
 view with the young lady. She was fully possessed 
 with the idea that she had discovered the secret which 
 had defied the most sagacious heads of the village. It 
 was of no use to oppose her while her mind was in an 
 excited state. But he felt it his duty to guard her 
 against any possible results of indiscretion into which 
 her eagerness and her theory of the equality, almost 
 the identity, of the sexes might betray her. Too much 
 of the woman in a daughter of our race leads her to 
 forget danger. Too little of the woman prompts her 
 to defy it. Fortunately for this last class of women, 
 they are not quite so likely to be perilously seductive 
 as their more emphatically feminine sisters. 
 
 Dr. Butts had known Lurida and her friend from 
 the days of their infancy. He had watched the de 
 velopment of Lurida's intelligence from its precocious 
 nursery-life to the full vigor of its trained faculties. 
 He had looked with admiration on the childish beauty 
 of Euthymia, and had seen her grow up to womanhood, 
 every year making her more attractive. He knew 
 that if anything was to be done with his self-willed 
 young scholar and friend, it would be more easily ef 
 fected through the medium of Euthymia than by di 
 rect advice to the young lady herself. So the thought 
 ful doctor made up his mind to have a good talk with
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 187 
 
 Euthymia, and put her on her guard, if Lurida showed 
 any tendency to forget the conventionalities in her ea 
 ger pursuit of knowledge. 
 
 For the doctor's horse and chaise to stop at the 
 door of Miss Euthymia Tower's parental home was an 
 event strange enough to set all the tongues in the vil 
 lage going. This was one of those families where ill 
 ness was hardly looked for among the possibilities of 
 life. There were other families where a call from the 
 doctor was hardly more thought of than a call from 
 the baker. But here he was a stranger, at least on 
 his professional rounds, and when he asked for Miss 
 Euthymia the servant, who knew his face well, stared 
 as if he had held in his hand a warrant for her ap 
 prehension. 
 
 Euthymia did not keep the doctor waiting very long 
 while she made ready to meet him. One look at her 
 glass to make sure that a lock had not run astray, or 
 a ribbon got out of place, and her toilet for a morning 
 call was finished. Perhaps if Mr. Maurice Kirkwood 
 had been announced, she might have taken a second 
 look, but with the good middle-aged, married doctor 
 one was enough for a young lady who had the gift of 
 making all the dresses she wore look well, and had no 
 occasion to treat her chamber like the laboratory where 
 an actress compounds herself. 
 
 Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily. She 
 could not help suspecting his errand, and she was 
 very glad to have a chance to talk over her friend's 
 schemes and fancies with him. 
 
 The doctor began without any roundabout prelude. 
 
 " I want to confer with you about our friend Lu 
 rida. Does she tell you all her plans and projects? " 
 
 " Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, posi-
 
 188 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tively, but I do not believe she keeps back anything 
 of importance from me. I know what she has been 
 busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into 
 her head. What do you think of the Tarantula busi 
 ness ? She has shown you the paper she has written, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has 
 got hold of, and I do not wonder at all that she should 
 have felt convinced that she had come at the true so 
 lution of the village riddle. It may be that this young 
 man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the 
 Italian medical journal. But it is very far from clear 
 that he is so. You know all her reasons, of course, as 
 you have read the story. The times seem to agree 
 well enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch might be 
 substituted for K in the report. The singular solitary 
 habits of this young man entirely coincide with the 
 story. If we could only find out whether he has any 
 of those feelings with reference to certain colors, we 
 might guess with more chance of guessing right than 
 we have at present. But I don't see exactly how we 
 are going to submit him to examination on this point. 
 If he were only a chemical compound, we could ana 
 lyze him. If he were only a bird or a quadruped, we 
 could find out his likes and dislikes. But being, as 
 he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will 
 of his own, which he may not choose to have interfered 
 with, the problem becomes more complicated. I hear 
 that a newspaper correspondent has visited him so as 
 to make a report to his paper, do you know what 
 he found out ? " 
 
 " Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard 
 his own story, which was this : He found out he had 
 got hold of the wrong person to interview. The young
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 189 
 
 gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did 
 not learn much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper 
 man told Willy about the Sphinx's library and a cabi 
 net of coins he had ; and said he should make an arti 
 cle out of him, anyhow. I wish the man would take 
 himself off. I am afraid Lurida's love of knowledge 
 will get her into trouble ! " 
 
 " Which of the men do you wish would take him 
 self off?" 
 
 " I was thinking of the newspaper man." 
 
 She blushed a little as she said, " I can't help feel 
 ing a strange sort of interest about the other, Mr. 
 Kirkwood. Do you know that I met him this morn 
 ing, and had a good look at him, full in the face ? " 
 
 " Well, to be sure ! That was an interesting ex 
 perience. And how did you like his looks ? " 
 
 " I thought his face a very remarkable one. But 
 he looked very pale as he passed me, and I noticed 
 that he put his hand to his left side as if he had a 
 twinge of pain, or something of that sort, spasm or 
 neuralgia, I don't know what. I wondered whether 
 be had what you call angina pectoris. It was the 
 same kind of look and movement, I remember, as you 
 must, too, in my uncle who died with that complaint." 
 
 The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he asked, 
 " Were you dressed as you are now ? " 
 
 " Yes, I was, except that I had a thin mantle over 
 my shoulders. I was out early, and I have always re 
 membered your caution." 
 
 " What color was your mantle ? " 
 
 " It was black. I have been over all this with Lu- 
 
 rida. A black mantle on a white dress. A straw 
 
 "hat with an old faded ribbon. There can't bo much 
 
 in those colors to trouble him, I should think, for his
 
 190' A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 man wears a black coat and white linen, more or 
 less white, as you must have noticed, and he must 
 have seen ribbons of all colors often enough. But 
 Lurida believes it was the ribbon, or something in the 
 combination of colors. Her head is full of Tarantu 
 las and Tarantism. I fear that she will never be easy 
 until the question is settled by actual trial. And will 
 you believe it ? the girl is determined in some way to 
 test her supposition ! " 
 
 " Believe it, Euthymia ! I can believe almost any 
 thing of Lurida. She is the most irrepressible crea 
 ture I ever knew. You know as well as I do what a 
 complete possession any ruling idea takes of her whole 
 nature. I have had some fears lest her zeal might 
 run away with her discretion. It is a great deal easier 
 to get into a false position than to get out of it." 
 
 "I know it well enough. I want you to tell me 
 what you think about the whole business. I don't 
 like the look of it at all, and yet I can do nothing 
 with the girl except let her follow her fancy, until I 
 can show her plainly that she will get herself into 
 trouble in some way or other. But she is ingenious, 
 full of all sorts of devices, innocent enough in them 
 selves, but liable to be misconstrued. You remember 
 how she won us the boat-race ? " 
 
 " To be sure I do. It was rather sharp practice, 
 but she felt she was paying off an old score. The 
 classical story of Atalanta, told, like that of Eve, as 
 illustrating the weakness of woman, provoked her to 
 make trial of the powers of resistance in the other sex. 
 But it was audacious. I hope her audacity will not 
 go too far. You must watch her. Keep an eye on 
 her correspondence" 
 
 The doctor had great confidence in the good sense
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 191 
 
 of Lurida's friend. He felt sure that she would not 
 let Lurida commit herself by writing foolish letters to 
 the subject of her speculations, or similar indiscreet 
 performances. The boldness of young girls, who think 
 no evil, in opening correspondence with idealized per 
 sonages is something quite astonishing to those who 
 have had an opportunity of knowing the facts. Lu 
 rida had passed the most dangerous age, but her the 
 ory of the equality of the sexes made her indifferent 
 to the by-laws of social usage. She required watching, 
 and her two guardians were ready to check her, in 
 case of need.
 
 XVI. 
 
 MISS VINCENT WHITES A LETTER. 
 
 EUTHYMIA noticed that her friend had been very 
 much preoccupied for two or three days. She found 
 her more than once busy at her desk, with a manu 
 script before her, which she turned over and placed 
 inside the desk, as Euthymia entered. 
 
 This desire of concealment was not what either of 
 the friends expected to see in the other. It showed 
 that some project was under way, which, at least in its 
 present stage, the Machiavellian young lady did not 
 wish to disclose. It had cost her a good deal of 
 thought and care, apparently, for her waste-basket was 
 full of scraps of paper, which looked as if they were 
 the remains of a manuscript like that at which she 
 was at work. " Copying and recopying, probably," 
 thought Euthymia, but she was willing to wait to 
 learn what Lurida was busy about, though she had a 
 suspicion that it was something in which she might 
 feel called upon to interest herself. 
 
 " Do you know what I think? " said Euthymia to 
 the doctor, meeting him as he left his door. " I be 
 lieve Lurida is writing to this man, and I don't like 
 the thought of her doing such a thing. Of course she 
 is not like other girls in many respects, but other peo 
 ple will judge her by the common rules of life." 
 
 " I am glad that you spoke of it," answered the doc 
 tor ; " she would write to him just as quickly as to any 
 woman of his age. Besides, under the cover of her
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 193 
 
 office, she has got into the way of writing to anybody. 
 I think she has already written to Mr. Kirkwood, ask 
 ing him to contribute a paper for the Society. She 
 can find a pretext easily enough if she has made up 
 her mind to write. In fact, I doubt if she would 
 trouble herself for any pretext at all if she decided to 
 write. Watch her well. Don't let any letter go with 
 out seeing it, if you can help it." 
 
 Young women are much given to writing letters to 
 persons whom they only know indirectly, for the most 
 part through their books, and especially to romancers 
 and poets. Nothing can be more innocent and simple- 
 hearted than most of these letters. They are the spon 
 taneous outflow of young hearts easily excited to grat 
 itude for the pleasure which some story or poem has 
 given them, and recognizing their own thoughts, their 
 own feelings, in those expressed by the author, as if 
 on purpose for them to read. Undoubtedly they give 
 great relief to solitary young persons, who must have 
 some ideal reflection of themselves, and know not 
 where to look since Protestantism has taken away the 
 crucifix and the Madonna. The recipient of these let 
 ters sometimes wonders, after reading through one of 
 them, how it is that his young correspondent has man 
 aged to fill so much space with her simple message of 
 admiration or of sympathy. 
 
 Lurida did not belong to this particular class of 
 correspondents, but she could not resist the law of her 
 sex, whose thoughts naturally surround themselves 
 with superabundant drapery of language, as their per 
 sons float in a wide superfluity of woven tissues. Was 
 she indeed writing to this unknown gentleman? Eu- 
 thymia questioned her point-blank. 
 
 " Are you going to open a correspondence with Mr. 
 
 13
 
 194 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Maurice Kirkwood, Lurida? You seem to be so busy 
 writing, I can think of nothing else. Or are you going 
 to write a novel, or a paper for the Society, do tell 
 me what you are so much taken up with." 
 
 " I will tell you, Euthymia, if you will promise not 
 to find fault with me for carrying out my plan as I 
 have made up my mind to do. You may read this let 
 ter before I seal it, and if you find anything in it you 
 don't like you can suggest any change that you think 
 will improve it. I hope you will see that it explains 
 itself. I don't believe that you will find anything to 
 frighten you in it." 
 
 This is the letter, as submitted to Miss Tower by 
 her friend. The bold handwriting made it look like a 
 man's letter, and gave it consequently a less danger 
 ous expression than that which belongs to the tinted 
 and often fragrant sheet with its delicate thready char 
 acters, which slant across the page like an April 
 shower with a south wind chasing it. 
 
 ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August , 18 . 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, You will doubtless be surprised at 
 the sight of a letter like this from one whom you only 
 know as the Secretary of the Pansophian Society. 
 There is a very common feeling that it is unbecoming 
 in one of my sex to address one of your own with 
 whom she is unacquainted, unless she has some special 
 claim upon his attention. I am by no means disposed 
 to concede to the vulgar prejudice on this point. If 
 one human being has anything to communicate to an 
 other, anything which deserves being communi 
 cated, I see no occasion for bringing in the question 
 of sex. I do not think the homo sum of Terence can 
 be claimed for the male sex as its private property on 
 general any more than on grammatical grounds.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 195 
 
 I have sometimes thought of devoting myself to the 
 noble art of healing. If I did so, it would be with the 
 fixed purpose of giving my whole powers to the service 
 of humanity. And if I should carry out that idea, 
 should I refuse my care and skill to a suffering fellow- 
 mortal because that mortal happened to be a brother, 
 and not a sister ? My whole nature protests against 
 such one-sided humanity ! No ! I am blind to all 
 distinctions when my eyes are opened to any form of 
 suffering, to any spectacle of want. 
 
 You may ask me why I address you, whom I know 
 little or nothing of, and to whom such an advance may 
 seem presumptuous and intrusive. It is because I was 
 deeply impressed by the paper which I attributed to 
 you, that on Ocean, River, and Lake, which was 
 read at one of our meetings. I say that I was deeply 
 impressed, but I do not mean this as a compliment to 
 that paper. I am not bandying compliments now, but 
 thinking of better things than praises or phrases. I 
 was interested in the paper, partly because I recog 
 nized some of the feelings expressed in it as my own, 
 partly because there was an undertone of sadness in 
 all the voices of nature as you echoed them which made 
 me sad to hear, and which I could not help longing to 
 cheer and enliven. I said to myself, I should like to 
 hold communion with the writer of that paper. I have 
 had my lonely hours and days, as he has had. I have 
 had some of his experiences in my intercourse with na 
 ture. And oh ! if I could draw him into those better 
 human relations which await us all, if we come with 
 the right dispositions, I should blush if I stopped to 
 inquire whether I violated any conventional rule or 
 not. 
 
 You will understand me, I feel sure. You believe,
 
 196 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 do you not ? in the insignificance of the barrier which 
 divides the sisterhood from the brotherhood of man 
 kind. You believe, do you not ? that they should be 
 educated side by side, that they should share the same 
 pursuits, due regard being had to the fitness of the 
 particular individual for hard or light work, as it must 
 always be, whether we are dealing with the " stronger " 
 or the " weaker " sex. I mark these words because, 
 notwithstanding their common use, they involve so 
 much that is not true. Stronger ! Yes, to lift a bar 
 rel of flour, or a barrel of cider, though there have 
 been women who could do that, and though when John 
 Wesley was mobbed in Staffordshire a woman knocked 
 down three or four men, one after another, until she 
 was at last overpowered and nearly murdered. Talk 
 about the weaker sex ! Go and see Miss Euthymia 
 Tower at the gymnasium ! But no matter about which 
 sex has the strongest muscles. Which has most to 
 suffer, and which has most endurance and vitality? 
 We go through many ordeals which you are spared, 
 but we outlast you in mind and body. I have been 
 led away into one of my accustomed trains of thought, 
 but not so far away from it as you might at first sup 
 pose. 
 
 My brother ! Are you not ready to recognize in me 
 a friend, an equal, a sister, who can speak to you as if 
 she had been reared under the same roof ? And is not 
 the sky that covers us one roof, which makes us all 
 one family ? You are lonely, you must be longing for 
 some human fellowship. Take me into your confi 
 dence. What is there that you can tell me to which I 
 cannot respond with sympathy? What saddest note 
 in your spiritual dirges which will not find its chord in 
 mine?
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 197 
 
 I long to know what influence has cast its shadow 
 over your existence. I myself have known what it is 
 to carry a brain that never rests in a body that is al 
 ways tired. I have defied its infirmities, and forced it 
 to do my bidding. You have no such hindrance, if we 
 may judge by your aspect and habits. You deal with 
 horses like a Homeric hero. No wild Indian could 
 handle his bark canoe more dexterously or more vigor 
 ously than we have seen you handling yours. There 
 must be some reason for your seclusion which curiosity 
 has not reached, and into which it is not the province 
 of curiosity to inquire. But in the irresistible desire 
 which I have to bring you into kindly relations with 
 those around you, I must run the risk of giving of 
 fence that I may know in what direction to look for 
 those restorative influences which the sympathy of a 
 friend and sister can offer to a brother in need of 
 some kindly impulse to change the course of a life 
 which is not, which cannot be, in accordance with his 
 true nature. 
 
 I have thought that there may be something in the 
 conditions with which you are here surrounded which 
 is repugnant to your feelings, something which can 
 be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from the 
 people whose acquaintance yoii would naturally have 
 formed. There can hardly be anything in the place 
 itself, or you would not have voluntarily sought it as a 
 residence, even for a single season. There might be 
 individuals here whom you would not care to meet, 
 there must be such, but you cannot have a personal 
 aversion to everybody. I have heard of cases in 
 which certain sights and sounds, which have no par 
 ticular significance for most persons, produced feelings 
 of distress or aversion that made them unbearable to
 
 198 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 the subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has oc 
 curred to me that possibly you might have some such 
 natural aversion to the sounds of the street, or such 
 as are heard in most houses, especially where a piano 
 is kept, as it is in fact in almost all of those in the 
 village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color 
 in the dresses of women or the furniture of our rooms 
 affected you unpleasantly. I know that instances of 
 such antipathy have been recorded, and they would 
 account for the seclusion of those who are subject 
 to it. 
 
 If there is any removable condition which interferes 
 with your free entrance into and enjoyment of the 
 social life around you, tell me, I beg of you, tell me 
 what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it not 
 strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to intro 
 duce myself into the hidden chambers of your life. I 
 will never suffer myself to be frightened from the car 
 rying out of any thought which promises to be of use 
 to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered 
 " unfeminine." I can bear to be considered unfemi- 
 nine, but I cannot endure to think of myself as in 
 human. Can I help you, my brother ? 
 
 Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, 
 
 LURIDA VINCENT. 
 
 Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by 
 herself. As she finished it, her feelings found expres 
 sion in an old phrase of her grandmother's, which 
 came up of itself, as such survivals of early days are 
 apt to do, on great occasions. 
 
 "Well, I never!" 
 
 Then she loosened some button or string that was 
 too tight, and went to the window for a breath of out-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 199 
 
 door air. Then she began at the beginning and read 
 the whole letter all over again. 
 
 What should she do about it ? She could not let 
 this young girl send a letter like that to a stranger of 
 whose character little was known except by inference, 
 to a young man, who would consider it a most ex 
 traordinary advance on the part of the sender. She 
 would have liked to tear it into a thousand pieces, 
 but she had no right to treat it in that way. Lurida 
 meant to send it the next morning, and in the mean 
 time Euthymia had the night to think over what she 
 should do about it. 
 
 There is nothing like the pillow for an oracle. 
 There is no voice like that which breaks the silence of 
 the stagnant hours of the night with its sudden sug 
 gestions and luminous counsels. When Euthymia 
 awoke in the morning, her course of action was as 
 clear before her as if it had been dictated by her 
 guardian angel. She went straight over to the home 
 of Lurida, who was just dressed for breakfast. 
 
 She was naturally a little surprised at this early 
 visit. She was struck with the excited look of Euthy 
 mia, being herself quite calm, and contemplating her 
 project with entire complacency. 
 
 Euthymia began, in tones that expressed deep anx 
 iety. 
 
 " I have read your letter, my dear, and admired its 
 spirit and force. It is a fine letter, and does you great 
 credit as an expression of the truest human feeling. 
 But it must not be sent to Mr. Kirkwood. If you 
 were sixty years old, perhaps if you were fifty, it might 
 be admissible to send it. But if you were forty, I 
 should question its propriety ; if you were thirty, I 
 should veto it, and you are but a little more than
 
 200 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 twenty. How do you know that this stranger will not 
 show your letter to anybody or everybody ? How do 
 you know that he will not send it to one of the gossip 
 ing journals like the ' Household Inquisitor ' ? But 
 supposing he keeps it to himself, which is more than 
 you have a right to expect, what opinion is he likely 
 to form of a young lady who invades his privacy with 
 such freedom ? Ten to one he will think curiosity is 
 at the bottom of it, and, come, don't be angry 
 at me for suggesting it, may there not be a little 
 of that same motive mingled with the others? No, 
 don't interrupt me quite yet; you do want to know 
 whether your hypothesis is correct. You are full of 
 the best and kindest feelings in the world, but your 
 desire for knowledge is the ferment uuder them just 
 now, perhaps more than you know." 
 
 Lurida's pale cheeks flushed and whitened more 
 than once while her friend was speaking. She loved 
 her too sincerely and respected her intelligence too 
 much to take offence at her advice, but she could not 
 give up her humane and sisterly intentions merely 
 from the fear of some awkward consequences to her 
 self. She had persuaded herself that she was playing 
 the part of a Protestant sister of charity, and that the 
 fact of her not wearing the costume of these minister 
 ing angels made no difference in her relations to those 
 who needed her aid. 
 
 " I cannot see your objections in the light in which 
 they appear to you," she said gravely. " It seems 
 to me that I give up everything when I hesitate to 
 help a fellow-creature because I am a woman. I am 
 not afraid to send this letter and take all the conse 
 quences." 
 
 " Will you go with me to the doctor's, and let him
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 201 
 
 read it in our presence? And will you agree to abide 
 by his opinion, if it coincides with mine ? " 
 
 Lurida winced a little at this proposal. " I don't 
 quite like," she said, " showing this letter to to " 
 she hesitated, but it had to come out " to a man, 
 that is, to another man than the one for whom it was 
 intended." 
 
 The neuter gender business had got a pretty dam 
 aging side-hit. 
 
 " Well, never mind about letting him read the let 
 ter. Will you go over to his house with me at noon, 
 when he comes back after his morning visits, and have 
 a talk over the whole matter with him ? You know I 
 have sometimes had to say must to you, Lurida, and 
 now I say you must go to the doctor's with me and 
 carry that letter." 
 
 There was no resisting the potent monosyllable as 
 the sweet but firm voice delivered it. At noon the 
 two maidens rang at the doctor's door. The servant 
 said he had been at the house after his morning visits, 
 but found a hasty summons to Mr. Kirkwood, who 
 had been taken suddenly ill and wished to see him 
 at once. Was the illness dangerous? The servant- 
 maid did n't know, but thought it was pretty bad, for 
 Mr. Paul came in as white as a sheet, and talked, all 
 sorts of languages which she could n't understand, and 
 took on as if he thought Mr. Kirkwood was going to 
 dia right off. 
 
 And so the hazardous question about sending the 
 letter was disposed of, at least for the present.
 
 XVII. 
 
 DK. BUTTS'S PATIENT. 
 
 THE physician found Maurice just regaining his 
 heat after a chill of a somewhat severe character. He 
 knew too well what this meant, and the probable se 
 ries of symptoms of which it was the prelude. His 
 patient was not the only one in the neighborhood who 
 was attacked in this way. The autumnal fevers to 
 which our country towns are subject, in the place of 
 those "agues," or intermittents, so largely prevalent 
 in the South and West, were already beginning, and 
 Maurice, who had exposed himself in the early and 
 late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected 
 to go through the regular stages of this always serious 
 and not rarely fatal disease. 
 
 Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken 
 the sole charge of his master during his illness. But 
 the doctor insisted that he must have a nurse to help 
 him in his. task, which was likely to be long and ex 
 hausting. 
 
 At the mention of the word " nurse " Paolo turned 
 white, and exclaimed in an agitated and thoroughly 
 frightened way, 
 
 " No ! no nuss ! no woman ! She kill him ! I stay 
 by him day and night, but don' let no woman come 
 near him, if you do, he die ! " 
 
 The doctor explained that he intended to send a 
 man who was used to taking care of sick people, and
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 203 
 
 with no little effort at last succeeded in convincing 
 Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night 
 for a fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely nec 
 essary to call in some assistance from without. And 
 so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play the leading part 
 in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoid 
 fever, with its regular bedchamber scenery, its proper 
 ties of phials and pill-boxes, its little company of stock 
 actors, its gradual evolution of a very simple plot, its 
 familiar incidents, its emotional alternations, and its 
 denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy. 
 
 It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the 
 good people of the village, residents and strangers, 
 were actively awakened for the young man about whom 
 they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens 
 of their kindness came to him daily : flowers from the 
 woods and from the gardens ; choice fruit grown in 
 the open air or under glass, for there were some fine 
 houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and green 
 houses and graperies were not unknown in the small, 
 but favored settlement. 
 
 On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and 
 languid eyes. A faint smile of gratitude sometimes 
 struggled through the stillness of his features, or a 
 murmured word of thanks found its way through his 
 parched lips, and he would relapse into the partial stu 
 por or the fitful sleep in which, with intervals of slight 
 wandering, the slow hours dragged along the sluggish 
 days one after another. With no violent symptoms, 
 but with steady persistency, the disease moved on in 
 its accustomed course. It was at no time immediately 
 threatening, but the experienced physician knew its 
 uncertainties only too well. He had known fever 
 patients suddenly seized with violent internal in-
 
 204 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 flammation, and carried off with frightful rapidity. 
 He remembered the case of a convalescent, a young 
 woman who had been attacked while in apparently 
 vigorous general health, who, on being lifted too sud 
 denly to a sitting position, while still confined to her 
 bed, fainted, and in a few moments ceased to breathe. 
 It may well be supposed that he took every possible 
 precaution to avert the accidents which tend to throw 
 from its track a disease the regular course of which is 
 arranged by nature as carefully as the route of a rail 
 road from one city to another. The most natural in 
 terpretation which the common observer would put 
 upon the manifestations of one of these autumnal mal 
 adies would be that some noxious combustible element 
 had found its way into the system which must be 
 burned to ashes before the heat which pervades the 
 whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire may 
 smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were 
 quite extinguished, and again it will find some new 
 material to seize upon, and flame up as fiercely as ever. 
 Its coming on most frequently at the season when the 
 brush fires which are consuming the dead branches, 
 and withered leaves, and all the refuse of vegetation 
 are sending up their smoke is suggestive. Sometimes 
 it seems as if the body, relieved of its effete materials, 
 renewed its youth after one of these quiet, expurgat 
 ing, internal fractional cremations. Lean, pallid stu 
 dents have found themselves plump and blooming, and 
 it has happened that one whose hair was straight as 
 that of an Indian has been startled to behold himself 
 in his mirror with a fringe of hyacinthine curls about 
 his rejuvenated countenance. 
 
 There was nothing of what medical men call ma 
 lignity in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The most
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 205 
 
 alarming symptom was a profound prostration, which 
 at last reached such a point that he lay utterly help 
 less, as unable to move without aid as the feeblest of 
 paralytics. In this state he lay for many days, not 
 suffering pain, but with the sense of great weariness, 
 and the feeling that he should never rise from his bed 
 again. For the most part his intellect was unclouded 
 when his attention was aroused. He spoke only in 
 whispers, a few words at a time. The doctor felt sure, 
 by the expression which passed over his features from 
 time to time, that something was worrying and oppress 
 ing him ; something which he wished to communicate, 
 and had not the force, or the tenacity of purpose, to 
 make perfectly clear. His eyes often wandered to a 
 certain desk, and once he had found strength to lift 
 his emaciated arm and point to it. The doctor went 
 towards it as if to fetch it to him, but he slowly shook 
 his head. He had not the power to say at that time 
 what he wished. The next day he felt a little less 
 prostrated, and succeeded in explaining to the doctor 
 what he wanted. His words, so far as the physician 
 could make them out, were these which follow. Dr. 
 Butts looked upon them as possibly expressing wishes 
 which would be his last, and noted them down care 
 fully immediately after leaving his chamber. 
 
 " I commit the secret of my life to your charge. 
 My \vhole story is told in a paper locked in that desk. 
 The key is put your hand under my pillow. If I 
 die, let the story be known. It will show that I was 
 human and save my memory from reproach." 
 
 He was silent for a little time. A single tear stole 
 down his hollow cheek. The doctor turned his head 
 away, for his own eyes were full. But he said to him 
 self, " It is a good sign ; I begin to feel strong hopes 
 that he will recover."
 
 206 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Maurice spoke once more. " Doctor, I put full 
 trust in you. You are wise and kind. Do what you 
 will with this paper, but open it at once and read. I 
 want you to know the story of my life before it is fin 
 ished if the end is at hand. Take it with you and 
 read it before you sleep." He was exhausted and 
 presently his eyes closed, but the doctor saw a tran 
 quil look on his features which added encouragement 
 to his hopes.
 
 XVIII. 
 MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 I AM an American by birth, but a large part of my 
 life has been passed in foreign lands. My father was 
 a man of education, possessed of an ample fortune ; 
 my mother was considered a very accomplished and 
 amiable woman. I was their first and only child. She 
 died while I was yet an infant. If I remember her at 
 all it is as a vision, more like a glimpse of a pre-natal 
 existence than as a part of my earthly life. At the 
 death of rny mother I was left in the charge of the old 
 nurse who had enjoyed her perfect confidence. She 
 was devoted to me, and I became absolutely dependent 
 on her, who had for me all the love and all the care of 
 a mother. I was naturally the object of the attentions 
 and caresses of the family relatives. I have been told' 
 that I was a pleasant, smiling infant, witn nothing to 
 indicate any peculiar nervous susceptibility ; not afraid 
 of strangers, but on the contrary ready to make their 
 acquaintance. My father was devoted to me and did 
 all in his power to promote my health and comfort. 
 
 I was still a babe, often carried in arms, when the 
 event happened which changed my whole future and 
 destined me to a strange and lonely existence. I can 
 not relate it even now without a sense of terror. I 
 must force myself to recall the circumstances as told 
 me and vaguely remembered, for I am not willing that 
 my doomed and wholly exceptional life should pass
 
 208 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 away unrecorded, unexplained, unvindicated. My na 
 ture is, I feel sure, a kind and social one, but I have 
 lived apart, as if my heart were filled with hatred of 
 my fellow-creatures. If there are any readers who 
 look without pity, without sympathy, upon those who 
 shun the fellowship of their fellow men and women, 
 who show by their downcast or averted eyes that they 
 dread companionship and long for solitude, I pray 
 them, if this paper ever reaches them, to stop at this 
 point. Follow me no further, for you will not believe 
 my story, nor enter into the feelings which I am about 
 to reveal. But if there are any to whom all that is 
 human is of interest, who have felt in their own con 
 sciousness some stirrings of invincible attraction to one 
 individual and equally invincible repugnance to an 
 other, who know by their own experience that elective 
 affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as 
 it were, their polar opposites, currents not less strong 
 of elective repulsions, let them read with unquestion 
 ing faith the story of a blighted life I am about to re 
 late, much of it, of course, received from the lips of 
 others. 
 
 My cousin Laura, a girl of seventeen, lately re 
 turned from Europe, was considered eminently beau 
 tiful. It was in my second summer that she visited 
 my father's house, where he was living with his ser 
 vants and my old nurse, my mother having but re 
 cently left him a widower. Laura was full of vivac 
 ity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtless 
 occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of 
 her age should be. It was a beautiful summer day 
 when she saw me for the first time. My nurse had 
 me in her arms, walking back and forward on a 
 balcony with a low railing, upon which opened the
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 209 
 
 windows of the second story of my father's house. 
 While the nurse was thus carrying me, Laura came 
 suddenly upon the balcony. She no sooner saw me 
 than with all the delighted eagerness of her youthful 
 nature she rushed toward me, and, catching me from 
 the nurse's arms, began tossing me after the fashion 
 of young girls who have been so lately playing with 
 dolls that they feel as if babies were very much of 
 the same nature. The abrupt seizure frightened me ; 
 I sprang from her arms in my terror, and fell over 
 the railing of the balcony. I should probably enough 
 have been killed on the spot but for the fact that 
 a low thorn-bush grew just beneath the balcony, into 
 which I fell and thus had the violence of the shock 
 broken. But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I 
 bear to this day marks of the deep wounds they in 
 flicted. 
 
 That dreadful experience is burned deep into my 
 memory. The sudden apparition of the girl ; the 
 sense of being torn away from the protecting arms 
 around me ; the frantic effort to escape ; the shriek 
 that accompanied my fall through what must have 
 seemed immeasurable space ; the cruel lacerations of 
 the piercing and rending thorns, all these fearful 
 impressions blended in one paralyzing terror. 
 
 When I was taken up I was thought to be dead. I 
 was perfectly white, and the physician who first saw me 
 said that no pulse was perceptible. But after a time 
 consciousness returned ; the wounds, though painful, 
 were none of them dangerous, and the most alarm 
 ing effects of the accident passed away. My old 
 nurse cared for me tenderly day and night, and my 
 father, who had been almost distracted in the first 
 hours which followed the injury, hoped and believed 
 14
 
 210 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 that no permanent evil results would be found to re 
 sult from it. My cousin Laura was of course deeply 
 distressed to feel that her thoughtlessness had been 
 the cause of so grave an accident. As soon as I had 
 somewhat recovered she came to see me, very penitent, 
 very anxious to make me forget the alarm she had 
 caused me, with all its consequences. I was in the 
 nursery sitting up in my bed, bandaged, but not in 
 any pain, as it seemed, for I was quiet and to all ap 
 pearance in a perfectly natural state of feeling. As 
 Laura came near me I shrieked and instantly changed 
 color. I put my hand upon my heart as if I had 
 been stabbed, and fell over, unconscious. It was very 
 much the same state as that in which I was found im 
 mediately after my fall. 
 
 The cause of this violent and appalling seizure was 
 but too obvious. The approach of the young girl and 
 the dread that she was about to lay her hand upon me 
 had called up the same train of effects which the mo 
 ment of terror and pain had already occasioned. The 
 old nurse saw this in a moment. " Go ! go ! " she 
 cried to Laura, " go, or the child will die ! " Her 
 command did not have to be repeated. After Laura 
 had gone I lay senseless, white and cold as marble, for 
 some time. The doctor soon came, and by the use of 
 smart rubbing and stimulants the color came back 
 slowly to my cheeks and the arrested circulation was 
 again set in motion. 
 
 It was hard to believe that this was anything more 
 than a temporary effect of the accident. There could 
 be little doubt, it was thought by the doctor and by 
 my father, that after a few days I should recover from 
 this morbid sensibility and receive my cousin as other 
 infants receive pleasant-looking young persons. The
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 211 
 
 old nurse shook her head. " The girl will be the 
 death of the child," she said, " if she touches him or 
 conies near him. His heart stopped beating just as 
 when the girl snatched him out of my arms, and he 
 fell over the balcony railing." Once more the experi 
 ment was tried, cautiously, almost insidiously. The 
 same alarming consequences followed. It was too evi 
 dent that a chain of nervous disturbances had been 
 set up in my system which repeated itself whenever 
 the original impression gave the first impulse. I 
 never saw my cousin Laura after this last trial. Its 
 residt had so distressed her that she never ventured 
 again to show herself to me. 
 
 If the effect of the nervous shock had stopped there, 
 it would have been a misfortune for my cousin and 
 myself, but hardly a calamity. The world is wide, and 
 a cousin or two more or less can hardly be considered 
 an essential of existence. I often heard Laura's name 
 mentioned, but never by any one who was acquainted 
 with all the circumstances, for it was noticed that I 
 changed color and caught at my breast as if I wanted 
 to grasp my heart in my hand whenever that fatal 
 name was mentioned. 
 
 Alas ! this was not all. While I was suffering from 
 the effects of my fall among the thorns I was attended 
 by my old nurse, assisted by another old woman, by a 
 physician, and my father, who would take his share 
 in caring for me. It was thought best to keep me 
 perfectly quiet, and strangers and friends were alike 
 excluded from my nursery, with one exception, that 
 my old grandmother came in now and then. With 
 her it seems that I was somewhat timid and shy, fol 
 lowing her with rather anxious eyes, as if not quite 
 certain whether or not she was dangerous. But one
 
 212 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 day, when I was far advanced towards recovery, my 
 father brought in a young lady, a relative of his, who 
 had expressed a great desire to see me. She was, as 
 I have been told, a very handsome girl, of about the 
 same age as my cousin Laura, but bearing no per 
 sonal resemblance to her in form, features, or com 
 plexion. She had no sooner entered the room than 
 the same sudden changes which had followed my 
 cousin's visit began to show themselves, and before 
 she had reached my bedside I was in a state of deadly 
 collapse, as on the occasions already mentioned. 
 
 Some time passed before any recurrence of these 
 terrifying seizures. A little girl of five or six years 
 old was allowed to come into the nursery one day and 
 bring me some flowers. I took them from her hand, 
 but turned away and shut my eyes. There was no 
 seizure, but there was a certain dread and aversion, 
 nothing more than a feeling which it might be hoped 
 that time would overcome. Those around me were 
 gradually finding out the circumstances which brought 
 on the deadly attack to which I was subject. 
 
 The daughter of one of our near neighbors was con 
 sidered the prettiest girl of the village where we were 
 passing the summer. She was very anxious to see me, 
 and as I was now nearly well it was determined that 
 she should be permitted to pay me a short visit. I had 
 always delighted in seeing her and being caressed by 
 her. I was sleeping when she entered the nursery 
 and came and took a seat at my side in perfect silence. 
 Presently I became restless, and a moment later I 
 opened my eyes and saw her stooping over me. My 
 hand went to my left breast, the color faded from 
 my cheeks, I was again the cold marble image so 
 like death that it had well-nigrh been mistaken for it.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 213 
 
 Could it be possible that the fright which had 
 chilled my blood had left me with an unconquerable 
 fear of woman at the period when she is most attrac 
 tive not only to adolescents, but to children of tender 
 age, who feel the fascination of her flowing locks, her 
 bright eyes, her blooming cheeks, and that mysterious 
 magnetism of sex which draws all life into its warm 
 and potently vitalized atmosphere ? So it did indeed 
 seem. The dangerous experiment could not be re 
 peated indefinitely. It was not intentionally tried 
 again, but accident brought about more than one re 
 newal of it during the following years, until it became 
 fully recognized that I was the unhappy subject of a 
 mortal dread of woman, not absolutely of the human 
 female, for I had no fear of my old nurse or of my 
 grandmother, or of any old wrinkled face, and I had 
 become accustomed to the occasional meeting of a lit 
 tle girl or two, whom I nevertheless regarded with a 
 certain ill-defined feeling that there was danger in 
 their presence. I was sent to a boys' school very 
 early, and during the first ten or twelve years of my 
 life I had rarely any occasion to be reminded of my 
 strange idiosyncrasy. 
 
 As I grew out of boyhood into youth, a change 
 came over the feelings which had so long held com 
 plete possession of me. This was what my father and 
 his advisers had always anticipated, and was the 
 ground of their confident hope in my return to natural 
 conditions before I should have grown to mature man 
 hood. 
 
 How shall I describe the conflicts of those dreamy, 
 bewildering, dreadful years? Visions of loveliness 
 haunted me sleeping and waking. Sometimes a grace 
 ful girlish figure would so draw my eyes towards it
 
 214 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 that I lost sight of all else, and was ready to forget all 
 my fears and find myself at her side, like other youths 
 by the side of young maidens, happy in their cheer 
 ful companionship, while I, I, under the curse of 
 one blighting moment, looked on, hopeless. Some 
 times the glimpse of a fair face or the tone of a sweet 
 voice stirred within me all the instincts that make the 
 morning of life beautiful to adolescence. I reasoned 
 With myself : 
 
 Why should I not have outgrown that idle appre 
 hension which had been the nightmare of my earlier 
 years ? Why should not the rising tide of life have 
 drowned out the feeble growths that infested the shal 
 lows of childhood? How many children there are 
 who tremble at being left alone in the dark, but who, 
 a few years later, will smile at their foolish terrors and 
 brave all the ghosts of a haunted chamber! Why 
 should I any longer be the slave of a foolish fancy that 
 has grown into a half insane habit of mind ? I was 
 familiarly acquainted with all the stories of the strange 
 antipathies and invincible repugnances to which others, 
 some of them famous men, had been subject. I said 
 to myself, Why should not I overcome this dread of 
 woman as Peter the Great fought down his dread of 
 wheels rolling over a bridge? Was I, alone of all 
 mankind, to be doomed to perpetual exclusion from 
 the society which, as it seemed to me, was all that 
 rendered existence worth the trouble and fatigue of 
 slavery to the vulgar need of supplying the waste of 
 the system and working at the task of respiration like 
 the daughters of Danaus, toiling day and night as 
 the worn-out sailor labors at the pump of his sinking 
 vessel ? 
 
 Why did I not brave the risk of meeting squarely,
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 215 
 
 and without regard to any possible danger, some one 
 of those fair maidens whose far-off smile, whose grace 
 ful movements, at once attracted and agitated me ? I 
 can only answer this question to the satisfaction of any 
 really inquiring reader by giving him the true inter 
 pretation of the singular phenomenon of which I was 
 the subject. For this I shall have to refer to a paper 
 of which I have made a copy, and which will be found 
 included with this manuscript. It is enough to say 
 here, without entering into the explanation of the fact, 
 which will be found simple enough as seen by the light 
 of modern physiological science, that the "nervous 
 disturbance " which the presence of a woman in the 
 flower of her age produced in my system was a sense 
 of impending death, sudden, overwhelming, uncon 
 querable, appalling. It was a reversed action of the 
 nervous centres, the opposite of that which flushes 
 the young lover's cheek and hurries his bounding pulses 
 as he comes into the presence of the object of his pas 
 sion. No one who has ever felt the sensation can have 
 failed to recognize it as an imperative summons, which 
 commands instant and terrified submission. 
 
 It was at this period of my life that my father de 
 termined to try the effect of travel and residence in 
 different localities upon my bodily and mental condi 
 tion. I say bodily as well as mental, for I was too 
 slender for my height and subject to some nervous 
 symptoms which were a cause of anxiety. That the 
 mind was largely concerned in these there was no 
 doubt, buf the mutual interactions of mind and body 
 are often too complex to admit of satisfactory analysis. 
 Each is in part cause and each also in part effect. 
 
 We passed some years in Italy, chiefly in Rome, 
 where I was placed in a school conducted by priests,
 
 216 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 and where of course I met only those of my own sex. 
 There I had the opportunity of seeing the influences 
 under which certain young Catholics, destined for the 
 priesthood, are led to separate themselves from all 
 communion with the sex associated in their minds with 
 the most subtle dangers to which the human soul can 
 be exposed. I became in some degree reconciled to 
 the thought of exclusion from the society of women by 
 seeing around me so many who were self-devoted to 
 celibacy. The thought sometimes occurred to me 
 whether I should not find the best and the only natu 
 ral solution of the problem of existence, as submitted 
 to myself, in taking upon me the vows which settle 
 the whole question and raise an impassable barrier be 
 tween the devotee and the object of his dangerous at 
 traction. 
 
 How often I talked this whole matter over with the 
 young priest who was at onco my special instructor 
 and my favorite companion ! But accustomed as I 
 had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and 
 impressed as I was with the purity and excellence of 
 many of its young members with whom I was ac 
 quainted, my early training rendered it impossible for 
 me to accept the credentials which it offered me as au 
 thoritative. My friend and instructor had to set me 
 down as a case of " invincible ignorance." This was 
 the loop-hole through which he crept out of the pris 
 on-house of his creed, and was enabled to look upon 
 me without the feeling of absolute despair with which 
 his sterner brethren would, I fear, have regarded me. 
 
 I have said that accident exposed me at times to the 
 influence which I had such reasons for dreading. Here 
 is one example of such an occurrence, which I relate as 
 simply as possible, vividly as it is impressed upon my
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 217 
 
 memory. A young friend whose acquaintance I had 
 made in Rome asked me one day to come to his rooms 
 and look at a cabinet of gems and medals which he 
 had collected. 1 had been but a short time in his 
 library when a vague sense of uneasiness came over 
 me. My heart became restless, I could feel it stir 
 ring irregularly, as if it were some frightened creature 
 caged in my breast. There was nothing that I could 
 see to account for it. A door was partly open, but 
 not so that I could see into the next room. The feel 
 ing grew upon me of some influence which was para 
 lyzing my circulation. I begged my friend to open a 
 window. As he did so, the door swung in the draught, 
 and I saw a blooming young woman, it was my 
 friend's sister, who had been sitting with a book in 
 her hand, and who rose at the opening of the door. 
 Something had warned me of the presence of a woman, 
 that occult and potent aura of individuality, call it 
 personal magnetism, spiritual effluence, or reduce it 
 to a simpler expression if you will ; whatever it was, 
 it had warned me of the nearness of the dread attrac 
 tion which allured at a distance and revealed itself 
 with all the terrors of the lorelei if approached too 
 recklessly. A sign from her brother caused her to 
 withdraw at once, but not before I had felt the im 
 pression which betrayed itself in my change of color, 
 anxiety about the region of the heart, and sudden fail 
 ure as if about to fall in a deadly fainting-fit. 
 
 Does all this seem strange and incredible to the 
 reader of my manuscript ? Nothing in the history of 
 life is so strange or exceptional as it seems to those 
 who have not made a long study of its mysteries. I 
 have never known just such a case as my own, and 
 yet there must have been such, and if the whole his-
 
 218 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tory of mankind were unfolded I cannot doubt that 
 there have been many like it. Let my reader suspend 
 his judgment until he has read the paper I have re 
 ferred to, which was drawn up by a Committee of the 
 Royal Academy of the Biological Sciences. In this 
 paper the mechanism of the series of nervous derange 
 ments to which I have been subject since the fatal 
 shock experienced in my infancy is explained in lan 
 guage not hard to understand. It will be seen that 
 such a change of polarity in the nervous centres is 
 only a permanent form and an extreme degree of an 
 emotional disturbance, which as a temporary and com 
 paratively unimportant personal accident is far from 
 being uncommon, is so frequent, in fact, that every 
 one must have known instances of it, and not a few 
 must have had more or less serious experiences of it 
 in their own private history. 
 
 It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt 
 with me as I am now dealing with the reader. I was 
 full of strange fancies and wild superstitions. One of 
 my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal which had 
 been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear 
 next my body. I was told that this would turn black 
 after a time, in virtue of a power which it possessed 
 of drawing out original sin, or certain portions of it, 
 together with the evil and morbid tendencies which 
 had been engrafted on the corrupt nature. I wore 
 the medal faithfully, as directed, and watched it care 
 fully. It became tarnished and after a time darkened, 
 but it wrought no change in my unnatural condition. 
 
 There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of 
 knowing more of futurity than she had any right to 
 know. The story was that she had foretold the as 
 sassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 219 
 
 However that may have been, I was pe^uaded to let 
 her try her black art upon my future. I shall never 
 forget the strange, wild look of the wrinkled hag as 
 she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed her 
 wicked old eyes on my young countenance. After 
 this examination she shook her head and muttered 
 some words, which as nearly as I could get them 
 would be in English like these : 
 
 Fair lady cast a spell on thee, 
 Fair lady's hand shall set thee free. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old 
 creature, whose palm had to be crossed with silver to 
 bring forth her oracular response, have always clung 
 to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment. 
 The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I 
 was subject disposed me to believe the incredible with 
 reference to all that relates to it. I have never ceased 
 to have the feeling that, sooner or later, I should find 
 myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my in 
 fancy. It seems as if it would naturally come through 
 the influence of some young and fair woman, to whom 
 that merciful errand should be assigned by the Provi 
 dence that governs our destiny. With strange hopes, 
 with trembling fears, with mingled belief and doubt, 
 wherever I have found myself I have sought with 
 longing yet half-averted eyes for the " elect lady," as 
 I have learned to call her, who was to lift the curse 
 from my ruined life. 
 
 Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the 
 belief, that I had found the object of my superstitious 
 belief. Singularly enough it was always on the water 
 that the phantom of my hope appeared before my be 
 wildered vision. Once it was an English girl who 
 was a fellow passenger with me in one of my ocean
 
 220 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 voyages. I need not say that she was beautiful, for 
 she was my dream realized. I heard her singing, I 
 saw her walking the deck on some of the fair days 
 when sea-sickness was forgotten. The passengers were 
 a social company enough, but I had kept myself apart, 
 as was my wont. At last the attraction became too 
 strong to resist any longer. " I will venture into the 
 charmed circle if it kills me," I said to my father. I 
 did venture, and it did not kill me, or I should not be 
 telling this story. But there was a repetition of the 
 old experiences. I need not relate the series of alarm 
 ing consequences of my venture. The English girl 
 was very lovely, and I have no doiibt has made some 
 one supremely happy before this, but she was not the 
 " elect lady " of the prophecy and of my dreams. 
 
 A second time I thought myself for a moment in 
 the presence of the destined deliverer who was to re 
 store me to my natural place among my fellow men 
 and women. It was on the Tiber that I met the 
 young maiden who drew me once more into that inner 
 circle which surrounded young womanhood with dead 
 ly peril for me, if I dared to pass its limits. I was 
 floating with the stream in the little boat in which I 
 passed many long hours of reverie when I saw another 
 small boat with a boy and a young girl in it. The 
 boy had been rowing, and one of his oars had slipped 
 from his grasp. He did not know how to paddle with 
 a single oar, and was hopelessly rowing round and 
 round, his oar all the time floating farther away from 
 him. I could not refuse my assistance. I picked up 
 the oar and brought my skiff alongside of the boat. 
 When I handed the oar to the boy the young girl 
 lifted her veil and thanked me in the exquisite music 
 of the language which
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 221 
 
 " Sounds as if it should be writ on satin." 
 She was a type of Italian beauty, a nocturne in 
 flesh and blood, if I may borrow a term certain artists 
 are fond of ; but it was her voice which captivated 
 me and for a moment made me believe that 1 was 
 no longer shut off from all relations with the social 
 life of my race. An hour later I was found lying in 
 sensible on the floor of my boat, white, cold, almost 
 pulseless. It cost much patient labor to bring me 
 back to consciousness. Had not such extreme efforts 
 been made, it seems probable that I should never have 
 waked from a slumber which was hardly distinguish 
 able from that of death. 
 
 Why should I provoke a catastrophe which appears 
 inevitable if I invite it by exposing myself to its too 
 well ascertained cause ? The habit of these deadly 
 seizures has become a second nature. The strongest 
 and the ablest men have found it impossible to resist 
 the impression produced by the most insignificant ob 
 ject, by the most harmless sight or sound to which 
 they had a congenital or acquired antipathy. What 
 prospect have I of ever being rid of this long and 
 deep-seated infirmity ? I may well ask myself these 
 questions, but my answer is that I will never give 
 up the hope that time will yet bring its remedy. 
 It may be that the wild prediction which so haunts me 
 shall find itself fulfilled. I have had of late strange 
 premonitions, to which if I were superstitious I could 
 not help giving heed. But I have seen too much 
 of the faith that deals in miracles to accept the 
 supernatural in any shape, assuredly when it comes 
 from an old witch-like creature who takes pay for her 
 revelations of the future. Be it so : though I am not 
 superstitious, I have a right to be imaginative, and my
 
 222 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 imagination will hold to those words of the old zingara 
 with an irresistible feeling that, sooner or later, they 
 will prove true. 
 
 Can it be possible that her prediction is not far 
 from its realization? I have had both waking and 
 sleeping visions within these last months and weeks 
 which have taken possession of me and filled my life 
 with new thoughts, new hopes, new resolves. 
 
 Sometimes on the bosom of the lake by which I am 
 dreaming away this season of bloom and fragrance, 
 sometimes in the fields or woods in a distant glimpse, 
 once in a nearer glance, which left me pale and tremu 
 lous, yet was followed by a swift reaction, so that my 
 cheeks flushed and my pulse bounded, I have seen her 
 who how do I dare to tell it so that rny own eyes 
 can read it ? I cannot help believing is to be my 
 deliverer, my saviour. 
 
 I have been warned in the most solemn and im 
 pressive language by the experts most deeply read in 
 the laws of life and the history of its disturbing and 
 destroying influences, that it would be at the imminent 
 risk of my existence if I should expose myself to 
 the repetition of my former experiences. I was re 
 minded that unexplained sudden deaths were of con 
 stant, of daily occurrence ; that any emotion is liable 
 to arrest the movements of life : terror, joy, good 
 news or bad news, anything that reaches the deeper 
 nervous centres. I had already died once, as Sir 
 Charles.Napier said of himself ; yes, more than once, 
 died and been resuscitated. The next time, I might 
 very probably fail to get my return ticket after my 
 visit to Hades. It was a rather grim stroke of humor, 
 but I understood its meaning full well, and felt the 
 force of its menace.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 223 
 
 After all, what had I to live for if the great primal 
 instinct which strives to make whole the half life of 
 lonely manhood is defeated, suppressed, crushed out 
 of existence ? Why not as well die in the attempt to 
 break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous 
 movement as in any other way? I am alone in the 
 world, alone save for my faithful servant, through 
 whom I seem to hold to the human race as it were by 
 a single filament. My father, who was my instructor, 
 my companion, my dearest and best friend through all 
 my later youth and my earlier manhood, died three 
 years ago and left me my own master, with the 
 means of living as might best please my fancy. This 
 season shall decide my fate. One more experiment, 
 and I shall find myself restored to my place among my 
 fellow-beings, or, as I devoutly hope, in a sphere where 
 all our mortal infirmities are past and forgotten. 
 
 I have told the story of a blighted life without re 
 serve, so that there shall not remain any mystery or 
 any dark suspicion connected with my memory if I 
 should be taken away unexpectedly. It has cost me an 
 effort to do it, but now that my life is on record I feel 
 more reconciled to my lot, with all its possibilities, 
 and among these possibilities is a gleam of a better 
 future. I have been told by my advisers, some of 
 them wise, deeply instructed, and kind-hearted men, 
 that such a life-destiny should be related by the 
 subject of it for the instruction of others, and espe 
 cially for the light it throws on certain peculiarities of 
 human character often wrongly interpreted as due to 
 moral perversion, when they are in reality the results 
 of misdirected or reversed actions in some of the 
 closely connected nervous centres.
 
 224 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 For myself I can truly say that I have very little 
 morbid sensibility left with reference to the destiny 
 which has been allotted to me. I have passed through 
 different stages of feeling with reference to it, as I 
 have developed from infancy to manhood. At first it 
 was mere blind instinct about which I had no thought, 
 living like other infants the life of impressions without 
 language to connect them in series. In my boyhood 
 I began to be deeply conscious of the infirmity which 
 separated me from those around me. In youth began 
 that conflict of emotions and impulses with the antag 
 onistic influence of which I have already spoken, a 
 conflict which has never ceased, but to which I have 
 necessarily become to a certain degree accustomed, 
 and against the dangers of which I have learned to 
 guard myself habitually. That is the meaning of my 
 isolation. You, young man, if at any time your 
 eyes shall look upon my melancholy record, you at 
 least will understand me. Does not your heart throb, 
 in the presence of budding or blooming womanhood, 
 sometimes as if it " were ready to crack " with its 
 own excess of strain ? What if instead of throbbing 
 it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat 
 again ? You, young woman, who with ready belief 
 and tender sympathy will look upon these pages, if 
 they are ever spread before you, know what it is when 
 your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and 
 the grip of the bodice seems unendurable as the em 
 brace of the iron virgin of the Inquisition. Think 
 what it would be if the grasp were tightened so that 
 no breath of air could enter your panting chest ! 
 
 Does your heart beat in the sain p. way, young man, 
 when your honored friend, a venerable matron of 
 seventy years, greets you with her kindly smile as it
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 225 
 
 does iii the presence of youthful loveliness ? When a 
 pretty child brings you her doll and looks into your 
 eyes with artless grace and trustful simplicity, does 
 your pulse quicken, do you tremble, does life palpitate 
 through your whole being, as when the maiden of sev 
 enteen meets your enamored sight in the glow of her 
 rosebud beauty ? Wonder not, then, if the period of 
 mystic attraction for you should be that of agitation, 
 terror, danger, to one in whom the natural current of 
 the instincts has had its course changed as that of a 
 stream is changed by a convulsion of nature, so that 
 the impression which is new life to you is death to 
 him. 
 
 I am now twenty-five years old. I have reached the 
 time of life which I have dreamed, nay even ventured 
 to hope, might be the limit of the sentence which was 
 pronounced upon me in my infancy. I can assign no 
 good reason for this anticipation. But in writing this 
 paper I feel as if I were preparing to begin a renewed 
 existence. There is nothing for me to be ashamed of 
 in the story I have told. There is no man living who 
 would not have yielded to the sense of instantly im 
 pending death which seized upon me under the condi 
 tions I have mentioned. Martyrs have gone singing 
 to their flaming shrouds, but never a man could hold 
 his breath long enough to kill himself ; he must have 
 rope or water, or some mechanical help, or nature will 
 make him draw in a breath of air, and would make 
 him do so though he knew the salvation of the human 
 race would be forfeited by that one gasp. 
 
 This paper may never reach tho eye of any one af 
 flicted in the same way that I have been. It probably 
 never will ; but for all that, there are many shy na- 
 
 15
 
 226 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tures which will recognize tendencies in themselves in 
 the direction of my unhappy susceptibility. Others, 
 to whom such weakness seems inconceivable, will find 
 their scepticism shaken, if not removed, by the calm, 
 judicial statement of the Report drawn up for the 
 Royal Academy. It will make little difference to me 
 whether my story is accepted unhesitatingly or looked 
 upon as largely a product of the imagination. I am 
 but a bird of passage that lights on the boughs of dif 
 ferent nationalities. I belong to no flock ; my home 
 may be among the palms of Syria, the olives of Italy, 
 the oaks of England, the elms that shadow the Hud 
 son or the Connecticut ; I build no nest ; to-day I am 
 here, to-morrow on the wing. 
 
 If I quit my native land before the trees have 
 dropped their leaves I shall place this manuscript in 
 the safe hands of one whom I feel sure that I can 
 trust, to do with it as he shall see fit. If it is only 
 curious and has no bearing 011 human welfare, he may 
 think it well to let it remain unread until I shall have 
 passed away. If in his judgment it throws any light 
 on one of the deeper mysteries of our nature, the 
 repulsions which play such a formidable part in social 
 life, and which must be recognized as the correlatives 
 of the affinities that distribute the individuals gov 
 erned by them in the face of impediments which seem 
 to be impossibilities, then it may be freely given to 
 the world. 
 
 But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen, the 
 programme of my life will have changed, and this 
 story of the dead past will be illuminated by the light 
 of a living present which will irradiate all its sadden 
 ing features. Who would not pray that my last gleam
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 227 
 
 of light and hope may be that of dawn and not of de 
 parting day ? 
 
 The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of 
 a story so far from the common range of experience is 
 once more requested to suspend his judgment until he 
 has read the paper which will next be offered for his 
 consideration.
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE. 
 
 PERHAPS it is too much to expect a reader who 
 wishes to be entertained, excited, amused, and does not 
 want to work his passage through pages which he can 
 not understand without some effort of his own, to read 
 the paper which follows and Dr. Butts's reflections 
 upon it. If he has no curiosity in the direction of 
 these chapters, he can afford to leave them to such as 
 relish a slight flavor of science. But if he does so 
 leave them he will very probably remain sceptical as 
 to the truth of the story to which they are meant to 
 furnish him with a key. 
 
 Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a re 
 markable and exceptional one, and it is hardly proba 
 ble that any reader's experience will furnish him with 
 its parallel. But let him look back over all his ac 
 quaintances, if he has reached middle life, and see if 
 he cannot recall more than one who, for some reason 
 or other, shunned the society of young women, as if 
 they had a deadly fear of their company. If he remem 
 bers any such, he can understand the simple statements 
 and natural reflections which are laid before him. 
 
 One of the most singular facts connected with the 
 history of Maurice Kirkwood was the philosophical 
 equanimity with which he submitted to the fate which 
 had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped 
 by the Interviewer, who would show him up in the
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 229 
 
 sensational columns of his prying newspaper. He lived 
 chiefly by himself, as the easiest mode of avoiding 
 those meetings to which he would be exposed in almost 
 every society into which he might venture. But he 
 had learned to look upon himself very much as he 
 would upon an intimate not himself, upon a differ 
 ent personality. A young man will naturally enough 
 be ashamed of his shyness. It is something which 
 others believe, and perhaps he himself thinks, he might 
 overcome. But in the case of Maurice Kirkwood 
 there was no room for doubt as to the reality and 
 gravity of the long enduring effects of his first convul 
 sive terror. He had accepted the fact as he would 
 have accepted the calamity of losing his sight or his 
 hearing. When he was questioned by the experts to 
 whom his case was submitted, he told them all that 
 he knew about it almost without a sign of emotion. 
 Nature was so peremptory with him, saying in lan 
 guage that had no double meaning : " If you violate 
 the condition on which you hold my gift of existence 
 I slay you on the spot," that he became as decisive 
 in his obedience as she was in her command, and ac 
 cepted his fate without repining. 
 
 Yet it must not be thought for a moment, it can 
 not be supposed, that he was insensible because he 
 looked upon himself with the coolness of an enforced 
 philosophy. He bore his burden manfully, hard as it 
 was to live under it, for he lived, as we have seen, in 
 hope. The thought of throwing it off with his life, as 
 too grievous to be borne, was familiar to his lonely 
 hours, but he rejected it as unworthy of his manhood. 
 How he had speculated and dreamed about it is plain 
 enough from the paper the reader may remember on 
 Ocean, River, and Lake.
 
 230 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 With these preliminary hints the paper promised 
 is submitted to such as may find any interest in them. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA. 
 
 WITH REMARKS. 
 
 Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the Bio~ 
 logical Sciences by a Committee of that Institution. 
 
 " The singular nature of the case we are about to 
 narrate and comment upon will, we feel confident, ar 
 rest the attention of those who have learned the great 
 fact that Nature often throws the strongest light upon 
 her laws by the apparent exceptions and anomalies 
 which from time to time are observed. We have done 
 with the lusus naturce of earlier generations. We 
 pay little attention to the stories of ' miracles,' except 
 so far as we receive them ready-made at the hands of 
 the churches which still hold to them. Not the less do 
 we meet with strange and surprising facts, which a 
 century or two ago would have been handled by the 
 clergy and the courts, but to-day are calmly recorded 
 and judged by the best light our knowledge of the laws 
 of life can throw upon them. It must be owned that 
 there are stories which we can hardly dispute, so clear 
 and full is the evidence in their support, which do, 
 notwithstanding, tax our faith and sometimes leave us 
 sceptical in spite of all the testimony which supports 
 them. 
 
 " In this category many will be disposed to place 
 the case we commend to the candid attention of the 
 Academy. If one were told that a young man, a gen 
 tleman by birth and training, well formed, in appar 
 ently perfect health, of agreeable physiognomy and 
 manners, could not endure the presence of the most at-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 231 
 
 tractive young woman, but was seized with deadly ter 
 ror and sudden collapse of all the powers of life, if he 
 came into her immediate presence ; if it were added 
 that this same young man did not shrink from the 
 presence of an old withered crone ; that he had a cer 
 tain timid liking for little maidens who had not yet 
 outgrown the company of their dolls, the listener would 
 be apt to smile, if he did not laugh, at the absurdity 
 of the fable. Surely, he would say, this must be the 
 fiction of some fanciful brain, the whim of some ro 
 mancer, the trick of some playwright. It would make 
 a capital farce, this idea, carried out. A young man 
 slighting the lovely heroine of the little comedy and 
 making love to her grandmother! This would, of 
 course, be overstating the truth of the story, but to 
 such a misinterpretation the plain facts lend themselves 
 too easily. We will relate the leading circumstances 
 of the case, as they were told us with perfect simplic 
 ity and frankness by the subject of an affection which, 
 if classified, would come under the general head of 
 Antipathy, but to which, if we give it a name, we 
 shall have to apply the term Gynophobia, or Fear of 
 Woman" 
 
 [Here follows the account furnished to the writer of 
 the paper, which is in all essentials identical with that 
 already laid before the reader.] 
 
 " Such is the case offered to our consideration. As 
 suming its truthfulness in all its particulars, it remains 
 to see in the first place whether or not it is as entirely 
 exceptional and anomalous as it seems at first sight, or 
 whether it is only the last term of a series of cases 
 which in their less formidable aspect are well known 
 to us in literature, in the records of science, and even 
 in our common experience.
 
 232 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " To most of those among us the explanations we 
 are now about to give are entirely superfluous. But 
 there are some whose chief studies have been in differ 
 ent directions, and who will not complain if certain 
 facts are mentioned which to the expert will seem rudi 
 mentary, and which hardly require recapitulation to 
 those who are familiarly acquainted with the common 
 text-books. 
 
 " The heart is the centre of every living movement 
 in the higher animals, and in man, furnishing in vary 
 ing amount, or withholding to a greater or less extent, 
 the needful supplies to all parts of the system. If its 
 action is diminished to a certain degree, faintness is 
 the immediate consequence ; if it is arrested, loss of 
 consciousness ; if its action is not soon restored, death, 
 of which fainting plants the white flag, remains in pos 
 session of the system. 
 
 " How closely the heart is under the influence of 
 the emotions we need not go to science to learn, for all 
 human experience and all literature are overflowing 
 with evidence that shows the extent of this relation. 
 Scripture is full of it ; the heart in Hebrew poetry 
 represents the entire life, we might almost say. Not 
 less forcible is the language of Shakespeare, as for in 
 stance, in ' Measure for Measure : ' 
 
 ' Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, 
 Making it both unable for itself 
 And dispossessing all my other parts 
 Of necessary fitness ? ' 
 
 More especially is the heart associated in every litera 
 ture with the passion of love. A famous old story is 
 that of Galen, who was called to the case of a young 
 lady long ailing, and wasting away from some cause
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 233 
 
 the physicians who had already seen her were unable 
 to make out. The shrewd old practitioner suspected 
 that love was at the bottom of the young lady's mal 
 ady. Many relatives and friends of both sexes, all of 
 them ready with their sympathy, came to see her. The 
 physician sat by her bedside during one of these vis 
 its, and in an easy, natural way took her hand and 
 placed a finger on her pulse. It beat quietly enough 
 until a certain comely young gentleman entered the 
 apartment, when it suddenly rose in frequency, and at 
 the same moment her hurried breathing, her changing 
 color, pale and flushed by turns, betrayed the pro 
 found agitation his presence excited. This was enough 
 for the sagacious Greek ; love was the disease, the cure 
 of which by its like may be claimed as an anticipation 
 of homoeopathy. In the frontispiece to the fine old 
 ' Junta ' edition of the works of Galen, you may find 
 among the wood-cuts a representation of the interest 
 ing scene, with the title Amantis Diynotio, the 
 diagnosis, or recognition, of the lover. 
 
 " Love has many languages, but the heart talks 
 through all of them. The pallid or burning cheek 
 tells of the failing or leaping fountain which gives it 
 color. The lovers at the ' Brookside ' could hear each 
 other's hearts beating. When Genevieve, in Cole 
 ridge's poem, forgot herself, and was beforehand with 
 her suitor in her sudden embrace, 
 
 ' 'T was partly love and partly fear, 
 
 And partly 't was a bashful art, 
 That I might rather feel than see 
 The swelling of her heart.' 
 
 Always the heart, whether its hurried action is seen, 
 or heard, or felt. But it is not always in this way 
 that the ' deceitful ' organ treats the lover.
 
 234 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 'Faint heart never won fair lady.' 
 
 This saying was not meant, perhaps, to be taken liter 
 ally, but it has its literal truth. Many a lover has 
 found his heart ' sink within him,' lose all its force, 
 and leave him weak as a child in his emotion at the 
 sight of the object of his affections. When Porphyro 
 looked upon Madeline at her prayers in the chapel, it 
 was too much for him : 
 
 ' She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, 
 Save wings, for heaven : Porphyro grew faint, 
 She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from earthly taint.' 
 
 And in Balzac's novel, ' Ce"sar Birotteau,' the hero of 
 the story 'fainted away for joy at the moment when, 
 under a linden-tree, at Sceaux, Constance-Barbe-Jose- 
 phine accepted him as her future husband.' 
 
 . " One who faints is dead if he does not ' come to,' 
 and nothing is more likely than that too susceptible 
 lovers have actually gone off in this way. Everything 
 depends on how the heart behaves itself in these and 
 similar trying moments. Tho mechanism of its ac 
 tions becomes an interesting subject, therefore, to lov 
 ers of both sexes, and to all who are capable of intense 
 emotions. 
 
 " The heart is a great reservoir, which distributes 
 food, drink, air, and heat to every part of the system, 
 in exchange for its waste material. It knocks at the 
 gate of every organ seventy or eighty times in a min 
 ute, calling upon it to receive its supplies and unload 
 its refuse. Between it and the brain there is tho 
 closest relation. The emotions, which act upon it as 
 we have seen, govern it by a mechanism only of late 
 years thoroughly understood. This mechanism can be 
 made plain enough to the reader who is not afraid to 
 believe that he can understand it.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 235 
 
 " The brain, as all know, is the seat of ideas, emo 
 tions, volition. It is the great central telegraphic sta 
 tion with which many lesser centres are in close rela 
 tion, from which they receive, and to which they 
 transmit, their messages. The heart has its own lit 
 tle brains, so to speak, small collections of nervous 
 substance which govern its rhythmical motions under 
 ordinary conditions. But these lesser nervous centres 
 are to a large extent dominated by influences trans 
 mitted from certain groups of nerve-cells in the brain 
 and its immediate dependencies. 
 
 " There are two among the special groups of nerve- 
 cells which produce directly opposite effects. One of 
 these has the power of accelerating the action of the 
 heart, while the other has the power of retarding or 
 arresting this action. One acts as the spur, the other 
 as the bridle. According as one or the other pre 
 dominates, the action of the heart will be stimulated 
 or restrained. Among the great modern discoveries 
 in physiology is that of the existence of a distinct cen 
 tre of inhibition, as the restraining influence over the 
 heart is called. 
 
 " The centre of inhibition plays a terrible part in 
 the history of cowardice and of unsuccessful love. No 
 man can be brave without blood to sustain his courage, 
 any more than he can think, as the German material 
 ist says, not absurdly, without phosphorus. The faint 
 ing lover must recover his circulation, or his lady will 
 lend him her smelling-salts and take a gallant with 
 blood in his cheeks. Porphyro got over his faintness 
 before he ran away with Madeline, and Ce*sar Birot- 
 teau was an accepted lover when he swooned with hap 
 piness : but many an officer has been cashiered, and 
 many a suitor has been rejected, because the centre of
 
 236 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 inhibition has got the upper hand of the centre of 
 stimulation. 
 
 " In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which 
 have been recorded, the most frequent cause has been 
 the disturbed and depressing influence of the centre 
 of inhibition. Fainting at the sight of blood is one of 
 the commonest examples of this influence. A single 
 impression, in a very early period of atmospheric ex 
 istence, perhaps, indirectly, before that period, as 
 was said to have happened in the case of James the 
 First of England, may establish a communication 
 between this centre and the heart which will remain 
 open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across a 
 field establish itself ? Its curves are arbitrary, and 
 what we call accidental, but one after another follows 
 it as if he were guided by a chart on which it was laid 
 down. So it is with this dangerous transit between 
 the centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. 
 If once the path is opened by the track of some pro 
 found impression, that same impression, if repeated, 
 or a similar one, is likely to find the old footmarks 
 and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier 
 to traverse, and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, 
 of an infant, may perpetuate itself in a timidity which 
 shames the manhood of its subject. 
 
 " The case before us is an exceptional and most re 
 markable example of the effect of inhibition on the 
 heart. 
 
 " We will not say that we believe it to be unique in 
 the history of the human race ; on the contrary, we 
 do not doubt that there have been similar cases, and 
 that in some rare instances sudden death has been the 
 consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this 
 Report. The case most like it is that of Colonel
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 237 
 
 Townsend, which is too well known to require any 
 lengthened description in this paper. It is enough to 
 recall the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort 
 suspend the action of his heart for a considerable pe 
 riod, during which he lay like one dead, pulseless, and 
 without motion. After a time the circulation returned, 
 and he does not seem to have been the worse for his 
 dangerous, or seemingly dangerous, experiment. But 
 in his case it was by an act of the will that the heart's 
 action was suspended. In the case before us it is an 
 involuntary impulse transmitted from the brain to the 
 inhibiting centre, which arrests the cardiac move 
 ments. 
 
 " What is like to be the further history of the case ? 
 
 " The subject of this anomalous affliction is now 
 more than twenty years old. The chain of nervous 
 actions has become firmly established. It might have 
 been hoped that the changes of adolescence would have 
 effected a transformation of the perverted instinct. 
 On the contrary, the whole force of this instinct throws 
 itself on the centre of inhibition, instead of quickening 
 the heart-beats, and sending the rush of youthful blood 
 with fresh life through the entire system to the throb 
 bing finger-tips. 
 
 " Is it probable that time and circumstances will 
 alter a habit of nervous interactions so long estab 
 lished? We are disposed to think that there is a 
 chance of its being broken up. And we are not afraid 
 to say that we suspect the old gypsy woman, whose 
 prophecy took such hold of the patient's imagination, 
 has hit upon the way in which the ' spell,' as she called 
 it, is to be dissolved. She must, in all probability, 
 have had a hint of the ' antipatia ' to which the youth 
 before her was a victim, and its cause, and if so, her
 
 238 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 guess as to the probable mode in which the young 
 man would obtain relief from his unfortunate condi 
 tion was the one which would naturally suggest itself. 
 
 " If once the nervous impression which falls on the 
 centre of inhibition can be made to change its course, 
 so as to follow its natural channel, it will probably 
 keep to that channel ever afterwards. And this will, 
 it is most likely, be effected by some sudden, unex 
 pected impression. If he were drowning, and a young 
 woman should rescue him, it is by no means impossi 
 ble that the change in the nervous current we have re 
 ferred to might be brought about as rapidly, as easily, 
 as the reversal of the poles in a magnet, which is ef 
 fected in an instant. But he cannot be expected to 
 throw himself into the water just at the right moment 
 when the ' fair lady ' of the gitana's prophecy is pass 
 ing on the shore. Accident may effect the cure which 
 art seems incompetent to perform. It would not be 
 strange if in some future seizure he should never come 
 back to consciousness. But it is quite conceivable, on 
 the other hand, that a happier event may occur, 
 that in a single moment the nervous polarity may be 
 reversed, the whole course of his life changed, and his 
 past terrible experiences be to him like a scarce-re 
 membered dream. 
 
 " This is one of those cases in which it is very hard 
 to determine the wisest course to be pursued. The 
 question is not unlike that which arises in certain 
 cases of dislocation of the bones of the neck. Shall 
 the unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face 
 turned far round to the right or the left, or shall an 
 attempt be made to replace the dislocated bones? 
 an attempt which may succeed, or may cause instant 
 death. The patient must be consulted as to whetKer
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 239 
 
 he will take the chance. The practitioner may be un 
 willing to risk it, if the patient consents. Each case 
 must be judged on its own special grounds. We can 
 not think that this young man is doomed to perpetual 
 separation from the society of womanhood during the 
 period of its bloom and attraction. But to provoke 
 another seizure after his past experiences would be too 
 much like committing suicide. We fear that we must 
 trust to the chapter of accidents. The strange malady 
 for such it is has become a second nature, and 
 may require as energetic a shock to displace it as it 
 did to bring it into existence. Time alone can solve 
 this question, on which depends the well-being and, it 
 may be, the existence of a young man every way fitted 
 to be happy, and to give happiness, if restored to his 
 true nature."
 
 XX. 
 
 DR. BUTTS REFLECTS. 
 
 DR. BUTTS sat up late at night reading these papers 
 and reflecting upon them. He was profoundly im 
 pressed and tenderly affected by the entire frankness, 
 the absence of all attempt at concealment, which Mau 
 rice showed in placing these papers at his disposal. 
 He believed that his patient would recover from this 
 illness for which he had been taking care of him. He 
 thought deeply and earnestly of what he could do for 
 him after he should have regained his health and 
 strength. 
 
 There were references, in Maurice's own account of 
 himself, which the doctor called to mind with great 
 interest after reading his brief autobiography. Some 
 one person some young woman, it must be had 
 produced a singular impression upon him since those 
 earlier perilous experiences through which he had 
 passed. The doctor could not help thinking of that 
 meeting with Euthymia of which she had spoken to 
 him. Maurice, as she said, turned pale, he clapped 
 his hand to his breast. He might have done so if 
 he had met her chambermaid, or any straggling dam 
 sel of the village. But Euthymia was not a young 
 woman to be looked upon with indifference. She 
 held herself like a queen, and walked like one, 
 not a stage queen, but one born and bred to self-re 
 liance, and command of herself as well as others. One
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 241 
 
 could not pass her without being struck with her noble 
 bearing and spirited features. If she had known how 
 Maurice trembled as he looked upon her, in that con 
 flict of attraction and uncontrollable dread, if she 
 had known it ! But what, even then, could she have 
 done ? Nothing but get away from him as fast as she 
 could. As it was, it was a long time before his agi 
 tation subsided, and his heart beat with its common 
 force and frequency. 
 
 Dr. Butts was not a male gossip nor a match-mak 
 ing go-between. But he could not help thinking what 
 a pity it was that these two young persons could not 
 come together as other young people do in the pairing 
 season, and find out whether they carei for and were 
 fitted for each other. He did not pretend to settle 
 this question in his own mind, but the thought was a 
 natural one. And here was a gulf between them as 
 deep and wide as that between Lazarus and Dives. 
 Would it ever be bridged over? This thought took 
 possession of the doctor's mind, and he imagined all 
 sorts of ways of effecting some experimental approxi 
 mation between Maurice and Euthymia. From this 
 delicate subject he glanced off to certain general con 
 siderations suggested by the extraordinary history he 
 had been reading. He began by speculating as to the 
 possibility of the personal presence of an individual 
 making itself perceived by some channel other than 
 any of the five senses. The study of the natural sci 
 ences teaches those who are devoted to them that the 
 most insigniriaant facts may lead the way to the discov 
 ery of the most important, all-pervading laws of the 
 universe. From the kick of a frog's hind leg to the 
 amazing triumphs which began with that seemingly 
 trivial incident is a long, a very long stride. If 
 
 16
 
 242 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Madam Galvani had not been in delicate health, which 
 was the occasion of her having some frog-broth pre 
 pared for her, the world of to-day might not be in 
 possession of the electric telegraph and the light which 
 blazes like the sun at high noon. A common-looking 
 occurrence, one seemingly unimportant, which had 
 hitherto passed unnoticed with the ordinary course of 
 things, was the means of introducing us to a new and 
 vast realm of closely related phenomena. It was like 
 a key that we might have picked up, looking so simple 
 that it could hardly fit any lock but one of like sim 
 plicity, but which should all at once throw back the 
 bolts of the one lock which had defied the most ingen 
 ious of our complex implements and open our way into 
 a hitherto unexplored territory. 
 
 It certainly was not through the eye alone that 
 Maurice felt the paralyzing influence. He could con 
 template Euthymia from a distance, as he did on the 
 day of the boat-race, without any nervous disturbance. 
 A certain proximity was necessary for the influence to 
 be felt, as in the case of magnetism and electricity. 
 An atmosphere of danger surrounded every woman he 
 approached during the period when her sex exercises 
 its most powerful attractions. How far did that at 
 mosphere extend, and through what channel did it 
 act? 
 
 The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, 
 was to be found in a fact as humble as that which 
 gave birth to the science of galvanism and its practical 
 applications. The circumstances connected with the 
 very common antipathy to cats were as remarkable in 
 many points of view as the similar circumstances in 
 the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects of that 
 antipathy could not tell what it was which disturbed
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 243 
 
 their nervous system. All they knew was that a sense 
 of uneasiness, restlessness, oppression, came over them 
 in the presence of one of these animals. He remem 
 bered the fact already mentioned, that persons sensi 
 tive to this impression can tell by their feelings if a 
 cat is concealed in the apartment in which they may 
 happen to be. It may be through some emanation. 
 It may be through the medium of some electrical dis 
 turbance. What if the nerve-thrills passing through 
 the whole system of the animal propagate themselves 
 to a certain distance without any more regard to inter 
 vening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sievo 
 lets sand pass through it ; a filter arrests sand, but lets 
 fluids pass ; glass holds fluids, but lets light through ; 
 wood shuts out light, but magnetic attraction goes 
 through it as sand went through the sieve. No good 
 reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should 
 not betray itself to certain organizations, at a distance, 
 through the walls of a box in which the animal is shut 
 up. We need not disbelieve the stories which allege 
 such an occurrence as a fact and a not very infrequent 
 one. 
 
 If the presence of a cat can produce its effects 
 under these circumstances, why should not that of a 
 human being under similar conditions, acting on cer 
 tain constitutions, exercise its specific influence ? The 
 doctor recalled a story told him by one of his friends, 
 a story which the friend himself heard from the lips 
 of the distinguished actor, the late Mr. Fechter. The 
 actor maintained that Rachel had no genius as an 
 actress. It was all Samson's training and study, ac 
 cording to him, which explained the secret of her won . 
 derful effectiveness on the stage. But magnetism, he 
 said, magnetism, she was full of. He declared that
 
 244 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 he was made aware of her presence on the stage, when 
 he could not see her or know of her presence other 
 wise, by this magnetic emanation. The doctor took 
 the story for what it was worth. There might very 
 probably be exaggeration, perhaps high imaginative 
 coloring about it, but it was not a whit more unlikely 
 than the cat-stories, accepted as authentic. He con 
 tinued this train of thought into further develop 
 ments. Into this series of reflections we will try to 
 follow him. 
 
 What is the meaning of the halo with which artists 
 have surrounded the heads of their pictured saints, 
 of the aureola which wraps them like a luminous 
 cloud ? Is it not a recognition of the fact that these 
 holy personages diffuse their personality in the form 
 of a visible emanation, which reminds us of Milton's 
 definition of light : 
 
 "Bright effluence of bright essence increate " ? 
 
 The common use of the term influence would seem 
 to imply the existence of its correlative, effluence. 
 There is no good reason that I can see, the doctor said 
 to himself, why among the forces which work upon 
 the nervous centres there should not be one which 
 acts at various distances from its source. It may not 
 be visible like the "glory" of the painters, it may 
 not be appreciable by any one of the five senses, and 
 yet it may be felt by the person reached by it as much 
 as if it were a palpable presence, more powerfully, 
 perhaps, from the mystery which belongs to its mode 
 of action. 
 
 Why should not Maurice have been rendered rest 
 less and anxious by the unseen nearness of a young 
 woman who was in the next room to him, just as the
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 persons who have the dread of cats are made conscious 
 of their presence through some unknown channel? 
 Is it anything strange that the larger and more pow 
 erful organism should diffuse a consciousness of its 
 presence to some distance as well as the slighter and 
 feebler one ? Is it strange that this mysterious in 
 fluence or effluence should belong especially or exclu 
 sively to the period of complete womanhood in distinc 
 tion from that of immaturity or decadence ? On the 
 contrary, it seems to be in accordance with all the 
 analogies of nature, analogies too often cruel in the 
 sentence they pass upon the human female. 
 
 Among the many curious thoughts which came up 
 in the doctor's mind was this, which made him smile 
 as if it were a jest, but which he felt very strongly 
 had its serious side, and was involved with the hap 
 piness or suffering of multitudes of youthful persons 
 who die without telling their secret : 
 
 How many young men have a mortal fear of 
 woman, as woman, which they never overcome, and in 
 consequence of which the attraction which draws man 
 towards her, as strong in them as in others, often 
 times, in virtue of their peculiarly sensitive organiza 
 tions, more potent in them than in others of like age 
 and conditions, in consequence of which fear, this 
 attraction is completely neutralized, and all the possi 
 bilities of doubled and indefinitely extended life de 
 pending upon it are left unrealized ! Think what num 
 bers of young men in Catholic countries devote them 
 selves to lives of celibacy. Think how many young 
 men lose all their confidence in the presence of the 
 young woman to whom they are most attracted, and at 
 last steal away from a companionship which it is rap 
 ture to dream of and torture to endure, so does the
 
 246 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 presence of the beloved object paralyze all the powers 
 of expression. Sorcerers have in all time and coun 
 tries played on the hopes and terrors of lovers. Once 
 let loose a strong impulse on the centre of inhibition, 
 and the warrior who had faced bayonets and batteries 
 becomes a coward whom the well-dressed hero of the 
 ball-room and leader of the German will put to igno 
 minious flight in five minutes of easy, audacious famil 
 iarity with his lady-love. 
 
 Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do 
 not know that I have seen the term Gynophobia be 
 fore I opened this manuscript, but I have seen the 
 malady many times. Only one word has stood be 
 tween many a pair of young people and their lifelong 
 happiness, and that word has got as far as the lips, 
 but the lips trembled and would not, could not, shape 
 that little word. All young women are not like Cole 
 ridge's Genevieve, who knew how to help her lover out 
 of his difficulty, and said yes before lie had asked for 
 an answer. So the wave which was to have wafted 
 them on to the shore of Elysium has just failed of 
 landing them, and back they have been drawn into 
 the desolate ocean to meet no more on earth. 
 
 Love is the master-key, he went on thinking, 
 love is the master-key that opens the gates of happi 
 ness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the 
 gate of fear. How terrible is the one fact of beauty ! 
 not only the historic wonder of beauty, that " burnt 
 the topless towers of Ilium " for the smile of Helen, 
 and fired the palaces of Babylon by the hand of Thais, 
 but the beauty which springs up in all times and 
 places, and carries a torch and wears a serpent for a 
 wreath as truly as any of the Eumenides. Paint 
 Beauty with her foot upon a skull and a dragon coiled 
 around her.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 247 
 
 The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical al 
 lusions and pictorial imagery. Drifting along from 
 thought to thought, he reflected on the probable con 
 sequences of the general knowledge of Maurice Kirk- 
 wood's story, if it came before the public. 
 
 What a piece of work it would make among the 
 lively youths of the village, to be sure ! What scoff 
 ing, what ridicule, what embellishments, what fables, 
 would follow in the trail of the story ! If the Inter 
 viewer got hold of it, how " The People's Perennial 
 and Household Inquisitor " would blaze with capitals 
 in its next issue ! The young fellows of the place 
 would be disposed to make fun of the whole matter. 
 The young girls the doctor hardly dared to think 
 what would happen when the story got about among 
 them. " The Sachem " of the solitary canoe, the bold 
 horseman, the handsome hermit, handsome so far 
 as the glimpses they had got of him went, must 
 needs be an object of tender interest among them, 
 now that he was ailing, suffering, in danger of his life, 
 away from friends, poor fellow ! Little tokens of 
 their regard had reached his sick-chamber; bunches 
 of flowers with dainty little notes, some of them pink 
 ish, some three-cornered, some of them with brief mes 
 sages, others " criss-crossed," were growing more fre 
 quent as it was understood that the patient was likely 
 to be convalescent before many days had passed. If 
 it should come to be understood that there was a 
 deadly obstacle to their coming into any personal re 
 lations with him, the doctor had his doubts whether 
 there were not those who would subject him to the 
 risk ; for there were coquettes in the village, stran 
 gers, visitors, let us hope, who would sacrifice any 
 thing or anybody to their vanity and love of conquest.
 
 XXI. 
 
 AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION. 
 
 THE illness from which Maurice had suffered left 
 him in a state of profound prostration. The doctor, 
 who remembered the extreme danger of any over-exer 
 tion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his head 
 from the pillow. But his mind was gradually recov 
 ering its balance, and he was able to hold some con 
 versation with those about him. His faithful Paolo 
 had grown so thin in waiting upon him and watching 
 with him that the village children had to take a second 
 look at his face when they passed him to make sure 
 that it was indeed their old friend and no other. But 
 as his master advanced towards convalescence and the 
 doctor assured him that he was going in all probability 
 to get well, Paolo's face began to recover something of 
 its old look and expression, and once more his pockets 
 filled themselves with comfits for his little circle of 
 worshipping three and four year old followers. 
 
 " How is Mr. Kirkwood ? " was the question with 
 which he was always greeted. In the worst periods of 
 the fever he rarely left his master. When he did, and 
 the qiiestion was put to him, he would shake his head 
 sadly, sometimes without a word, sometimes with tears 
 and sobs and faltering words, more like a broken 
 hearted child than a stalwart man as he was, such a 
 man as soldiers are made of in the great Continental 
 armies.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 249 
 
 " He very bad, he no eat nothing, he no say 
 nothing, he never be no better," and all his South 
 ern nature betrayed itself in a passionate burst of lam 
 entation. But now that he began to feel easy about 
 his master, his ready optimism declared itself no less 
 transparently. 
 
 " He better every day now. He get well in few 
 weeks, sure. You see him on hoss in little while." 
 The kind-hearted creature's life was bound up in that 
 of his " master," as he loved to call him, in sovereign 
 disregard of the comments of the natives, who held 
 themselves too high for any such recognition of an 
 other as their better. They could not understand how 
 he, so much their superior in bodily presence, in air and 
 manner, could speak of the man who employed him 
 in any other way than as " Kirkwood," without even 
 demeaning himself so far as to prefix a " Mr." to it. 
 But " my master " Maurice remained for Paolo in spite 
 of the fact that all men are born free and equal. And 
 never was a servant more devoted to a master than 
 was Paolo to Maurice during the days of doubt and 
 danger. Since his improvement Maurice insisted upon 
 his leaving his chamber and getting out of the house, 
 so as to breathe the fresh air of which he was in so 
 much need. It worried him to see his servant return 
 ing after too short an absence. The attendant who 
 
 o 
 
 had helped him in the care of the patient was within 
 call, and Paolo was almost driven out of the house by 
 the urgency of his master's command that he should 
 take plenty of exercise in the open air. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved con 
 dition, although the force of the disease had spent it 
 self, the state of weakness to which he had been re 
 duced was a cause of some anxiety, and required great
 
 250 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 precautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, en 
 feebled to such a degree that he had to be cared for 
 very much as a child is tended. Gradually his voice 
 was coming back to him, so that he could hold some 
 conversation, as was before "mentioned, with those 
 about him. The doctor waited for the right moment 
 to make mention of the manuscript which Maurice 
 had submitted to him. Up to this time, although it 
 had been alluded to and the doctor had told him of 
 the intense interest with which he had read it, he had 
 never ventured to make it the subject of any long talk, 
 such as would be liable to fatigue his patient. But 
 now he thought the time had come. 
 
 " I have been thinking," the doctor said, " of the 
 singular seizures to which you are liable, and as it is 
 my business not merely to think about such cases, but 
 to do what I can to help any who may be capable of 
 receiving aid from my art, I wish to have some addi 
 tional facts about your history. And in the first place, 
 will you allow me to ask what led you to this particu 
 lar place ? It is so much less known to the public at 
 large than many other resorts that we naturally ask, 
 What brings this or that new visitor among us ? We 
 have no ill-tasting, natural spring of bad water to be 
 analyzed by the state chemist and proclaimed as a spe 
 cific. We have no great gambling-houses, no race 
 course (except that for boats on the lake); we have no 
 coaching-club, no great balls, few lions of any kind, 
 so we ask, What brings this or that stranger here? 
 And I think I may venture to ask you whether any 
 special motive brought you among us, or whether it 
 was accident that determined your coming to this 
 place." 
 
 " Certainly, doctor," Maurice answered, " I will tell
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 251 
 
 you with great pleasure. Last year I passed on the 
 border of a great river. The year before I lived in a 
 lonely cottage at the side of the ocean. I wanted this 
 year to be by a lake. You heard the paper read at 
 the meeting of your society, or at least you heard of it, 
 for such matters are always talked over in a village 
 like this. You can judge by that paper, or could, if it 
 were before you, of the frame of mind in which I came 
 here. I was tired of the sullen indifference of the 
 ocean and the babbling egotism of the river, always 
 hurrying along on its own private business. I wanted 
 the dreamy stillness of a large, tranquil sheet of water 
 that had nothing in particular to do, and would leave 
 me to myself and my thoughts. I had read some 
 where about the place, and the old Anchor Tavern, 
 with its paternal landlord and motherly landlady and 
 old-fashioned household, and that, though it was no 
 longer open as a tavern, I could find a resting-place 
 there early in the season, at least for a few days, while 
 I looked about me for a quiet place in which I might 
 pass my summer. I have found this a pleasant resi 
 dence. By being up early and out late I have kept 
 myself mainly in the solitude which has become my 
 enforced habit of life. The season has gone by too 
 swiftly for me since my dream has become a vision." 
 
 The doctor was sitting with his hand round Mau 
 rice's wrist, three fingers on his pulse. As he spoke 
 these last words he noticed that the pulse fluttered a 
 little, beat irregularly a few times ; intermitted ; 
 became feeble and thready ; while his cheek grew 
 whiter than the pallid bloodlessness of his long illness 
 had left it. 
 
 "No more talk, now," he said. " You are too tired 
 to be using your voice. I will hear all the rest an 
 other time."
 
 252 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interest 
 ing point. What did he mean by saying that his 
 dream had become a vision ? This is what the doctor 
 was naturally curious, and professionally anxious, to 
 know. But his hand was still on his patient's pulse, 
 which told him unmistakably that the heart had taken 
 the alarm and was losing its energy under the depress 
 ing nervous influence. Presently, however, it recov 
 ered its natural force and rhythm, and a faint flush 
 came back to the pale cheek. The doctor remembered 
 the story of Galen, and the young maiden whose com 
 plaint had puzzled the physicians. 
 
 The next day his patient was well enough to enter 
 once more into conversation. 
 
 " You said something about a dream of yours which 
 had become a vision," said the doctor, with his fingers 
 on his patient's wrist, as before. He felt the artery 
 leap, under his pressure, falter a little, stop, then be 
 gin again, growing fuller in its beat. The heart had 
 felt the pull of the bridle, but the spur had roused it 
 to swift reaction. 
 
 " You know the story of my past life, doctor," Mau 
 rice answered ; " and I will tell you what is the vision 
 which has taken the place of my dreams. You re 
 member the boat-race ? I watched it from a distance, 
 but I held a powerful opera-glass in my hand, which 
 brought the whole crew of the young ladies' boat so 
 close o me that I could see the features, the figures, 
 the movements, of every one of the rowers. I saw the 
 little coxswain fling her bouquet in the track of the 
 other boat, you remember how the race was lost and 
 won, but I saw one face among those young girls 
 which drew me away from all the rest. It was that of 
 the young lady who pulled the bow oar, the captain of
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 253 
 
 the boat's crew. I have since learned her name, 
 you know it well, I need not name her. Since that 
 day I have had many distant glimpses of her ; and 
 once I met her so squarely that the deadly sensation 
 came over me, and I felt that in another moment I 
 should fall senseless at her feet. But she passed on 
 her way and I on mine, and the spasm which had 
 clutched my heart gradually left it, and I was as well 
 as before. You know that young lady, doctor ? " 
 
 " I do ; and she is a very noble creature. You are 
 not the first young man who has been fascinated, 
 almost at a glance, by Miss Euthymia Tower. And 
 she is well worth knowing more intimately." 
 
 The doctor gave him a full account of the young 
 lady, of her early days, her character, her accomplish 
 ments. To all this he listened devoutly, and when 
 the doctor left him he said to himself, 
 
 " I will see her and speak with her, if it costs me 
 my life."
 
 XXII. 
 
 EUTHYMIA. 
 
 " THE Wonder " of the Corinna Institute had never 
 willingly made a show of her gymnastic accomplish 
 ments. Her feats, which were so much admired, were 
 only her natural exercise. Gradually the dumb-bells 
 others used became too light for her, the ropes she 
 climbed too short, the clubs she exercised with seemed 
 as if they were made of cork instead of being heavy 
 wood, and all the tests and meters of strength and 
 agility had been strained beyond the standards which 
 the records of the school had marked as their historic 
 maxima. It was not her fault that she broke a dy 
 namometer one day ; she apologized for it, but the 
 teacher said he wished he could have a dozen broken 
 every year in the same way. The consciousness of 
 her bodily strength had made her very careful in her 
 movements. The pressure of her hand was never too 
 hard for the tenderest little maiden whose palm was 
 against her own. So far from priding herself on her 
 special gifts, she was disposed to be ashamed of them. 
 There were times and places in which she could give 
 full play to her muscles without fear or reproach. 
 She had her special costume for the boat and for the 
 woods. She would climb the rugged old hemlocks 
 now and then for the sake of a wide outlook, or to 
 peep into the large nest where a hawk, or it may be 
 an eagle, was raising her little brood of air-pirates.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 255 
 
 There were those who spoke of her wanderings in 
 lonely places as an unsafe exposure. One sometimes 
 met doubtful characters about the neighborhood, and 
 stories were told of occurrences which might well 
 frighten a young girl, and make her cautious of trust 
 ing herself alone in the wild solitudes which surrounded 
 the little village. Those who knew Euthymia thought 
 her quite equal to taking care of herself. Her very 
 look was enough to ensure the respect of any vaga 
 bond who might cross her path, and if matters came 
 to the worst she would prove as dangerous as a pan 
 ther. 
 
 But it was a pity to associate this class of thoughts 
 with a noble specimen of true womanhood. Health, 
 beauty, strength, were fine qualities, and in all these 
 she was rich. She enjoyed all her natural gifts, and 
 thought little about them. Unwillingly, but over- 
 persuaded by some of her friends, she had allowed her 
 arm and hand to be modelled. The artists who saw 
 the cast wondered if it would be possible to get the 
 bust of the maiden from whom it was taken. Nobody 
 would have dared to suggest such an idea to her ex 
 cept Lurida. For Lurida sex was a trifling accident, 
 to be disregarded not only in the interests of human 
 ity, but for the sake of art. 
 
 " It is a shame," she said to Euthymia, " that you 
 will not let your exquisitely moulded form be perpetu 
 ated in marble. You have no right to withhold such 
 a model from the contemplation of your fellow-crea 
 tures. Think how rare it is to see a woman who truly 
 represents the divine idea ! You belong to your race, 
 and not to yourself, at least, your beauty is a gift 
 not to be considered as a piece of private property. 
 Look at the so-called Venus of Milo. Do you sup-
 
 256 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 pose the noble woman who was the original of that di 
 vinely chaste statue felt any scruple about allowing 
 the sculptor to reproduce her pure, unblemished per 
 fections ? " 
 
 Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative 
 friend. She listened to her eloquent discourse, but 
 she could not help blushing, used as she was to Lu- 
 rida's audacities. " The Terror's " brain had run 
 away with a large share of the blood which ought to 
 have gone to the nourishment of her general system. 
 She could not help admiring, almost worshipping, a 
 companion whose being was rich in the womanly de 
 velopments with which nature had so economically en 
 dowed herself. An impoverished organization carries 
 with it certain neutral qualities which make its sub 
 ject appear, in the presence of complete manhood and 
 womanhood, like a deaf-mute among speaking persons. 
 The deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia's cheek at 
 Lurida's suggestion was in a strange contrast to her 
 own undisturbed expression. There was a range of 
 sensibilities of which Lurida knew far less than she 
 did of those many and difficult studies which had ab 
 sorbed her vital forces. She was startled to see what 
 an effect her proposal had produced, for Euthymia 
 was not only blushing, but there was a flame in her 
 eyes which she had hardly ever seen before. 
 
 "Is this only your own suggestion?" Euthymia 
 said, " or has some one been putting the idea into your 
 head ? " The truth was that she had happened to 
 meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she 
 was offended by the long, searching stare with which 
 that individual had honored her. It occurred to her 
 that he, or some such visitor to the place, might have 
 spoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person who
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 257 
 
 had repeated what was said to Lurida, as a good sub 
 ject for the art of the sculptor, and she felt all her 
 maiden sensibilities offended by the proposition. Lu 
 rida could not understand her excitement, but she was 
 startled by it. Natures which are complementary of 
 each other are liable to these accidental collisions of 
 feeling. They get along very well together, none the 
 worse for their differences, until all at once the tender 
 spot of one or the other is carelessly handled in utter 
 unconsciousness on the part of the aggressor, and the 
 exclamation, the outcry, or the explosion explains the 
 situation altogether too emphatically. Such scenes 
 did not frequently occur between the two friends, and 
 this little flurry was soon over ; but it served to warn 
 Lurida that Miss Euthymia Tower was not of that 
 class of self-conscious beauties who would be ready to 
 dispute the empire of the Venus of Milo on her own 
 ground, in defences as scanty and insufficient as those 
 of the marble divinity. 
 
 Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, 
 while at school, and in the long vacations, near enough 
 to find out that she was anything but easy to make 
 love to. She fairly frightened more than one rash, 
 youth who was disposed to be too sentimental in her 
 company. They, overdid flattery, which she was used 
 to and tolerated, but which cheapened the admirer in 
 her estimation, and now and then betrayed her into 
 an expression which made him aware of the fact, and 
 was a discouragement to aggressive amiability. The 
 real difficulty was that not one of her adorers had ever 
 greatly interested her. It could not be that nature 
 had made her insensible. It must have been because 
 the man who was made for her had never yet shown 
 himself. She was not easy to please, that was cer- 
 17
 
 258 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 tain ; and she was one of those young women who will 
 not accept as a lover one who but half pleases them. 
 She could not pick up the first stick that fell in her 
 way and take it to shape her ideal out of. Many of 
 the good people of the village doubted whether Euthy- 
 mia would ever be married. 
 
 " There 's nothing good enough for her in this vil 
 lage," said the old landlord of what had been the An 
 chor Tavern. 
 
 " She must wait till a prince comes along," the old 
 landlady said in reply. " She 'd make as pretty a 
 queen as any of them that 's born to it. Would n't 
 she be splendid with a gold crown on her head, and 
 di'monds a glitterin' all over her ! D' you remember 
 how handsome she looked in the tableau, when the 
 fair was held for the Dorcas Society ? She had on an 
 old dress of her grandma's, they don't make any 
 thing half so handsome nowadays, and she was just 
 as pretty as a pictur'. But what 's the use of good 
 looks if they scare away folks ? The young fellows 
 think that such a handsome girl as that would cost ten 
 times as much to keep as a plain one. She must be 
 dressed up like an empress, so they seem to think. 
 It ain't so with Euthymy : she 'd look like a great lady 
 dressed anyhow, and she has n't got any more notions 
 than the homeliest girl that ever stood before a glass 
 to look at herself." 
 
 In the humbler walks of Arrowhead Village society, 
 similar opinions were entertained of Miss Euthymia. 
 The fresh-water fisherman represented pretty well the 
 average estimate of the class to which he belonged. 
 " I tell ye," said he to another gentleman of leisure, 
 whose chief occupation was to watch the coming and 
 going of the visitors to Arrowhead Village, "I tell
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 259 
 
 ye that girl ain't a gon to put up with any o' them 
 slab-sided fellahs that you see hangin' raound to look 
 at her every Sunday when she comes aout o' meetin'. 
 Jt 's one o' them big gents from Boston or New York 
 that '11 step up an' kerry her off." 
 
 In the mean time nothing could be further from the 
 thoughts of- Euthymia than the prospect of an ambi 
 tious worldly alliance. The ideals of young women 
 cost them many and great disappointments, but they 
 save them very often from those lifelong companion 
 ships which accident is constantly trying to force 
 upon them, in spite of their obvious unfitness. The 
 higher the ideal, the less likely is the commonplace 
 neighbor who has the great advantage of easy access, 
 or the boarding-house acquaintance who can profit by 
 those vacant hours when the least interesting of visi 
 tors is better than absolute loneliness, the less like 
 ly are these undesirable personages to be endured, 
 pitied, and, if not embraced, accepted, for want of 
 something better. Euthymia found so much pleasure 
 in the intellectual companionship of Lurida, and felt 
 her own prudence and reserve so necessary to that 
 independent young lady, that she had been contented, 
 so far, with friendship, and thought of love only in an 
 abstract sort of way. Beneath her abstractions there 
 was a capacity of loving which might have been in 
 ferred from the expression of her features, the light 
 that shone in her eyes, the tones of her voice, all of 
 which were full of the language which belongs to sus 
 ceptible natures. How many women never say to 
 themselves that they were born to love, until all at 
 once the discovery opens upon them, as the sense that 
 he was born a painter is said to have dawned sud 
 denly upon Correggio !
 
 260 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Like all the rest of the village and its visitors, she 
 could not help thinking a good deal about the young 
 man lying ill amongst strangers. She was not one of 
 those who had sent him the three-cornered notes or 
 even a bunch of flowers. She knew that he was re 
 ceiving abounding tokens of kindness and sympathy 
 from different quarters, and a certain inward feeling 
 restrained her from joining in these demonstrations. 
 If he had been suffering from some deadly and con 
 tagious malady she would have risked her life to help 
 him, without a thought that there was any wonderful 
 heroism in such self-devotion. Her friend Lurida 
 might have been capable of the same sacrifice, but it 
 would be after reasoning with herself as to the obliga 
 tions which her sense of human rights and duties laid 
 upon her, and fortifying her courage with the mem 
 ory of noble deeds recorded of women in ancient and 
 modern history. With Euthymia the primary human 
 instincts took precedence of all reasoning or reflection 
 about them. All her sympathies were excited by the 
 thought of this forlorn stranger in his solitude, but 
 she felt the impossibility of giving any complete expres 
 sion to them. She thought of Mungo Park in the 
 African desert, and she envied the poor negress who 
 not only pitied him, but had the blessed opportunity 
 of helping and consoling him. How near were these 
 two human creatures, each needing the other ! How 
 near in bodily presence, how far apart in their lives, 
 with a barrier seemingly impassable between them !
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE MEETING OF MAURICE AND EUTHTMIA. 
 
 THESE autumnal fevers, which carry off a large 
 number of our young people every year, are treacher 
 ous and deceptive diseases. Not only are they liable, 
 as has been mentioned, to various accidental complica 
 tions which may prove suddenly fatal, but too often, 
 after convalescence seems to be established, relapses 
 occur which are more serious than the disease had ap 
 peared to be in its previous course. One morning Dr. 
 Butts found Maurice worse instead of better, as he had 
 hoped and expected to find him. Weak as he was, 
 there was every reason to fear the issue of this return 
 of his threatening symptoms. There was not much to 
 do besides keeping up the little strength which still 
 remained. It was all needed. 
 
 Does the reader of these pages ever think of the 
 work a sick man as much as a well one has to perform 
 while he is lying on his back and taking what we call 
 his "rest"? More than a thousand times an hour, 
 between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand 
 times a week, he has to lift the bars of the cage in 
 which his breathing organs are confined, to save him 
 self from asphyxia. Rest ! There is no rest until the 
 last long sigh tells those who look upon the dying that 
 the ceaseless daily task, to rest from which is death, is 
 at last finished. We are all galley-slaves, pulling at 
 the levers of respiration, which, rising and falling
 
 262 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 like so many oars, drive us across an unfathomable 
 ocean from one unknown shore to another. No! 
 Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to these 
 four and twenty oars, at which we must tug day and 
 night all our life long ! 
 
 The doctor could not find any accidental cause to 
 account for this relapse. It presently occurred to him 
 that there might be some local source of infection 
 which had brought on the complaint, and was still 
 keeping up the symptoms which were the ground of 
 alarm. He determined to remove Maurice to his own 
 house, where he could be sure of pure air, and where 
 he himself could give more constant attention to his 
 patient during this critical period of his disease. It 
 was a risk to take, but he could be carried on a litter 
 by careful men, and remain wholly passive during the 
 removal. Maurice signified his assent, as he could 
 hardly help doing, for the doctor's suggestion took 
 pretty nearly the form of a command. He thought it 
 a matter of life and death, and was gently urgent for 
 his patient's immediate change of residence. The 
 doctor insisted on having Maurice's books and other 
 movable articles carried to his own house, so that he 
 should be surrounded by familiar sights, and not 
 worry himself about what might happen to objects 
 which he valued, if they were left behind him. 
 
 All these dispositions were quickly and quietly 
 made, and everything was ready for the transfer of 
 the patient to the house of the hospitable physician. 
 Paolo was at the doctor's, superintending the arrange 
 ment of Maurice's effects and making all ready for 
 his master. The nurse in attendance, a trustworthy 
 man enough in the main, finding his patient in a tran 
 quil sleep, left his bedside for a little fresh air. While
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 263 
 
 he was at the door he heard a shouting which excited 
 his curiosity, and he followed the sound until he found 
 himself at the border of the lake. It was nothing 
 very wonderful which had caused the shouting. A 
 Newfoundland dog had been showing off his accom 
 plishments, and some of the idlers were betting as to 
 the time it would take him to bring back to his master 
 the various floating objects which had been thrown as 
 far from the shore as possible. He watched the dog 
 a few minutes, when his attention was drawn to a 
 light wherry, pulled by one young lady and steered by 
 another. It was making for the shore, which it would 
 soon reach. The attendant remembered all at once 
 that he had left his charge, and just before the boat 
 came to land he turned and hurried back to the pa 
 tient. Exactly how long he had been absent he could 
 not have said, * perhaps a quarter of an hour, per 
 haps longer ; the time appeared short to him, wearied 
 with long sitting and watching. 
 
 It had seemed, when he stole away from Maurice's 
 bedside, that he was not in the least needed. The 
 patient was lying perfectly quiet, and to all appearance 
 wanted nothing more than letting alone. It was such 
 a comfort to look at something besides the worn fea 
 tures of a sick man, to hear something besides his 
 labored breathing and faint, half-whispered words, 
 that the temptation to indulge in these luxuries for a 
 few minutes had proved irresistible. 
 
 Unfortunately, Maurice's slumbers did not remain 
 tranquil during the absence of the nurse. He very 
 soon fell into a dream, which began quietly enough, 
 but in the course of the sudden transitions which 
 dreams are in the habit of undergoing became succes 
 sively anxious, distressing, terrifying. His earlier and
 
 264 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 later experiences came up before him, fragmentary, 
 incoherent, chaotic even, but vivid as reality. He was 
 at the bottom of a coal-mine in one of those long, nar 
 row galleries, or rather worm-holes, in which human 
 beings pass a large part of their lives, like so many 
 larvas boring their way into the beams and rafters of 
 some old building. How close the air was in the 
 stifling passage through which he was crawling ! The 
 scene changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet 
 of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a 
 shallow niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an 
 instant, an abyss below him waiting for his foot to 
 slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, 
 how desperately hard to breathe ! He was thinking 
 of Mont Blanc, it may be, and the fearfully rarefied 
 atmosphere which he remembered well as one of the 
 great trials in his mountain ascents* No, it was not 
 Mont Blanc, it was not any one of the frozen Al 
 pine summits; it was Hecla that he was climbing! 
 The smoke of the burning mountain was wrapping 
 itself around him ; he was choking with its dense 
 fumes ; he heard the flames roaring around him, he 
 felt the hot lava beneath his feet, he uttered a faint 
 cry, and awoke. 
 
 The room was full of smoke. He was gasping for 
 breath, strangling in the smothering oven which his 
 chamber had become. 
 
 The house was on fire ! 
 
 He tried to call for help, but his voice failed him, 
 and died away in a whisper. He made a desperate 
 effort, and rose so as to sit up in the bed for an in 
 stant, but the effort was too much for him, and he 
 sank back upon his pillow, helpless. He felt that his 
 hour had come, for he could not live in this dreadful
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 265 
 
 atmosphere, and he was left alone. He could hear the 
 crackle of fire as the flame crept along from one par 
 tition to another. It was a cruel fate to be left to 
 perish in that way, the fate that many a martyr had 
 had to face, to be first strangled and then burned. 
 Death had not the terror for him that it has for most 
 young persons. He was accustomed to thinking of it 
 calmly, sometimes wistfully, even to such a degree 
 that the thought of self-destruction had come upon 
 him as a temptation. But here was death in an un 
 expected and appalling shape. He did not know 
 before how much he cared to live. All his old recol 
 lections came before him as it were in one long, vivid 
 flash. The closed vista of memory opened to its far 
 horizon-line, and past and present were pictured in a 
 single instant of clear vision. The dread moment 
 which had blighted his life returned in all its terror. 
 He felt the convulsive spring in the form of a faint, 
 impotent spasm, the rush of air, the thorns of 
 the stinging and lacerating cradle into which he was 
 precipitated. One after another those paralyzing seiz 
 ures which had been like deadening blows on the 
 naked heart seemed to repeat themselves, as real as at 
 the moment of their occurrence. The pictures passed 
 in succession with such rapidity that they appeared 
 almost as if simultaneous. The vision of the "inward 
 eye " was so intensified in this moment of peril that 
 an instant was like an hour of common existence. 
 Those who have been very near drowning know well 
 what this description means. The development of a 
 photograph may not explain it, but it illustrates the 
 curious and familiar fact of the revived recollections 
 of the drowning man's experience. The sensitive plate 
 has taken one look at a scene, and remembers it all
 
 266 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Every little circumstance is there, the hoof in air, 
 the wing in flight, the leaf as it falls, the wave as it 
 breaks. All there, but invisible ; potentially present, 
 but impalpable, inappreciable, as if not existing at all. 
 A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene comes 
 out in all its perfection of detail. In those supreme 
 moments when death stares a man suddenly in the 
 face the rush of unwonted emotion floods the undevel 
 oped pictures of vanished years, stored away in the 
 memory, the vast panorama of a lifetime, and in one 
 swift instant the past conies out as vividly as if it were 
 again the present. So it was at this moment with the 
 sick man, as he lay helpless and felt that he was left 
 to die. For he saw no hope of relief : the smoke was 
 drifting in clouds into the room ; the flames were very 
 near ; if he was not reached and rescued immediately 
 it was all over with him. 
 
 His past life had flashed before him. Then all at 
 once rose the thought of his future, of all its pos 
 sibilities, of the vague hopes which he had cherished 
 of late that his mysterious doom would be lifted from 
 him. There was something, then, to be lived for, 
 something! There was a new life, it might be, in 
 store for him, and such a new life ! He thought of all 
 he was losing. Oh, could he but have lived to know 
 the meaning of love ! And the passionate desire of 
 life came over him, not the dread of death, but the 
 longing for what the future might yet have of happi 
 ness for him. 
 
 All this took place in the course of a very few mo 
 ments. Dreams and visions have little to do with 
 measured time, and ten minutes, possibly fifteen or 
 twenty, were all that had passed since the beginning 
 of those nightmare terrors which were evidently sug 
 gested by the suffocating air he was breathing.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 267 
 
 What had happened ? In the confusion of moving 
 books and other articles to the doctor's house, doors 
 and windows had been forgotten. Among the rest a 
 window opening into the cellar, where some old furni 
 ture had been left by a former occupant, had been 
 left unclosed. One of the lazy natives, who had 
 lounged by the house smoking a bad cigar, had thrown 
 the burning stump in at this open window. He had 
 no particular intention of doing mischief, but he had 
 that indifference to consequences which is the next 
 step above the inclination to crime. The burning 
 stump happened to fall among the straw of an old 
 mattress which had been ripped open. The smoker 
 Went his way without looking behind him, and it so 
 chanced that no other person passed the house for 
 some time. Presently the straw was in a blaze, and 
 from this the fire extended to the furniture, to the 
 stairway leading up from the cellar, and was working 
 its way along the entry under the stairs leading up to 
 the apartment where Maurice was lying. 
 
 The blaze was fierce and swift, as it could not help 
 being with such a mass of combustibles, loose straw 
 from the mattress, dry old furniture, and old warped 
 floors which had been parching and shrinking for a 
 score or two of years. The whole house was, in the 
 common language of the newspaper reports, " a per 
 fect tinder-box," and would probably be a heap of 
 ashes in half an hour. And there was this unfortu 
 nate deserted sick man lying between life and death, 
 beyond all help unless some unexpected assistance 
 should come to his rescue. 
 
 As the attendant drew near the house where Mau 
 rice was lying, he was horror-struck to see dense vol 
 umes of smoke pouring out of the lower windows. It
 
 268 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 was beginning to make its way through the upper 
 windows, also, and presently a tongue of fire shot out 
 and streamed upward along the side of the house. 
 The man shrieked Fire ! Fire ! with all his might, and 
 rushed to the door of the building to make his way to 
 Maurice's room and save him. He penetrated but a 
 short distance when, blinded and choking with the 
 smoke, he rushed headlong down the stairs with a cry 
 of despair that roused every man, woman, and child 
 within reach of a human voice. Out they came from 
 their houses in every quarter of the village. The 
 shout of Fire ! Fire ! was the chief aid lent by many of 
 the young and old. Some caught up pails and buck 
 ets : the more thoughtful ones filling them ; the has 
 tier snatching them up empty, trusting to find water 
 nearer the burning building. 
 
 Is the sick man moved? 
 
 This was the awful question first asked, for in 
 the little village all knew that Maurice was about be 
 ing transferred to the doctor's house. The attendant, 
 white as death, pointed to the chamber where he had 
 left him, and gasped out, 
 
 "He is there!" 
 
 A ladder ! A ladder ! was the general cry, and men 
 and boys rushed off in search of one. But a single 
 minute was an age now, and there was no ladder to be 
 had without a delay of many minutes. The sick man 
 was going to be swallowed up in the flames before it 
 could possibly arrive. Some were going for a blanket 
 or a coverlet, in the hope that the young man might 
 have strength enough to leap from the window and be 
 safely caught in it. The attendant shook his head, 
 and said faintly, 
 
 " He cannot move from his bed."
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 269 
 
 One of the visitors at the village, a millionaire, 
 it was said, a kind-hearted man, spoke in hoarse, 
 broken tones : 
 
 " A thousand dollars to the man that will bring 
 him from his chamber ! " 
 
 The fresh-water fisherman muttered, " I should like 
 to save the man and to see the money, but it ain't a 
 thaousan' dollars, nor ten thaousan' dollars, that'll 
 pay a fellah for burnin' to death, or even chokiu' to 
 death, anyhaow." 
 
 The carpenter, who knew the framework of every 
 house in the village, recent or old, shook his head. 
 
 " The stairs have been shored up," he said, " and 
 when the j'ists that holds 'em up goes, down they'll 
 come. It ain't safe for no man to go over them 
 stairs. Hurry along your ladder, that 's your only 
 chance." 
 
 All was wild confusion around the burning house. 
 The ladder they had gone for was missing from its 
 case, a neighbor had carried it off for the workmen 
 who were shingling his roof. It would never get there 
 in time. There was a fire-engine, but it was nearly 
 half a mile from the lakeside settlement. Some were 
 throwing on water in an aimless, useless way ; one was 
 sending a thin stream through a garden syringe: it 
 seemed like doing something, at least. But all hope of 
 saving Maurice was fast giving way, so rapid was 
 the progress of the flames, so thick the cloud of smoke 
 that filled the house and poured from the windows. 
 Nothing was heard but confused cries, shrieks of wo 
 men, all sorts of orders to do this and that, no one know 
 ing what was to be done. The ladder ! The ladder ! 
 Five minutes more and it will be too laje ! 
 
 In the mean time the alarm of fire had reached Pa-
 
 270 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 olo, and he had stopped his work of arranging Mau 
 rice's books in the same way as that in which they had 
 stood in his apartment, and followed in the direction 
 of the sound, little thinking that his master was lying 
 helpless in the burning house. " Some chimney afire," 
 he said to himself; but he would go and take a look,, 
 at any rate. 
 
 Before Paolo had reached the scene of destruction 
 and impending death, two young women, in boating 
 dresses of decidedly Bloomerish aspect, had suddenly 
 joined the throng. " The Wonder " and " The Ter 
 ror " of their school-days Miss Euthymia Tower and 
 Miss Lurida Vincent had just come from the shore, 
 where they had left their wherry. A few hurried 
 words told them the fearful story. Maurice Kirkwood 
 was lying in the chamber to which every eye was 
 turned, unable to move, doomed to a dreadful death. 
 All that could be hoped was that he would perish by 
 suffocation rather than by the flames, which would 
 soon be upon him. The man who had attended him 
 had just tried to reach his chamber, but had reeled 
 back out of the door, almost strangled by the smoke. 
 A thousand dollars had been offered to any one who 
 would rescue the sick man, but no one had dared to 
 make the attempt ; for the stairs might fall at any mo 
 ment, if the smoke did not blind and smother the man 
 who passed them before they fell. 
 
 The two young women looked each other in the face 
 for one swift moment. 
 
 " How can he be reached ? " asked Lurida. " Is 
 there nobody that will venture his life to save a brother 
 like that?" 
 
 " I will venture mine," said Euthymia. 
 
 "No! no!" shrieked Lurida, "not you! not
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 271 
 
 you ! It is a man's work, not yours ! You shall not 
 go!" 
 
 Poor Luricla had forgotten all her theories in this 
 supreme moment. But Euthymia was not to be held 
 back. Taking a handkerchief from her neck, she 
 dipped it in a pail of water and bound it about her 
 head. Then she took several deep breaths of air, and 
 filled her lungs as full as they would hold. She knew 
 she must not take a single breath in the choking at 
 mosphere if she could possibly help it, and Euthymia 
 was noted for her power of staying under water so long 
 that more than once those who saw her dive thought 
 she would never come up again. So rapid were her 
 movements that they paralyzed the bystanders, who 
 would forcibly have prevented her from carrying out 
 her purpose. Her imperious determination was not to 
 be resisted. And so Euthymia, a willing martyr, if 
 martyr she was to be, and not saviour, passed within 
 the veil that hid the sufferer. 
 
 Lurida turned deadly pale, and sank fainting to the 
 ground. She was the first, but not the only one, of 
 her sex that fainted as Euthymia disappeared in the 
 smoke of the burning building. Even the rector grew 
 very white in the face, so white that one of his 
 vestry-men begged him to sit down at once, and sprin 
 kled a few drops of water on his forehead, to his great 
 disgust and manifest advantage. The old landlady was 
 crying and moaning, and her husband was wiping his 
 eyes and shaking his head sadly. 
 
 " She will never come out alive," he said solemnly. 
 
 " Nor dead, neither," added the carpenter. " Ther' 
 won't be nothing left of neither of 'em but ashes." 
 And the carpenter hid his face in his hands. 
 
 The fresh-water fisherman had pulled out a rag
 
 272 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 which he called a " hangkercher," it had served to 
 carry bait that morning, and was making use of its 
 best corner to dry the tears which were running down 
 his cheeks. The whole village was proud of Euthy- 
 mia, and with these more quiet signs of grief were 
 mingled loud lamentations, coming alike from old and 
 young. 
 
 All this was not so much like a succession of events 
 as it was like a tableau. The lookers-on were stunned 
 with its suddenness, and before they had time to re 
 cover their bewildered senses all was lost, or seemed 
 lost. They felt that they should never look again on 
 either of those young faces. 
 
 The rector, not unfeeling by nature, but inveterately 
 professional by habit, had already recovered enough to 
 be thinking of a text for the funeral sermon. The 
 first that occurred to him was this, vaguely, of 
 course, in the background of consciousness : 
 
 " Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came 
 forth of the midst of the fire." 
 
 The village undertaker was of naturally sober aspect 
 and reflective disposition. He had always been op 
 posed to cremation, and here was a funeral pile blaz 
 ing before his eyes. He, too, had his human sympa 
 thies, but in the distance his imagination pictured the 
 final ceremony, and how he himself should figure in a 
 spectacle where the usual centre piece of attraction 
 would be wanting, perhaps his own services uncalled 
 for. 
 
 Blame him not, you whose garden-patch is not wa 
 tered with the tears of mourners. The string of self- 
 interest answers with its chord to every sound ; it vi 
 brates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself trembling to 
 the wail of the De Profundis. Not always, not
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 273 
 
 always ; let us not be cynical in our judgments, but 
 common human nature, we may safely say, is subject 
 to those secondary vibrations under the most solemn 
 and soul-subduing influences. 
 
 It seems as if we were doing great wrong to the 
 scene we are contemplating in delaying it by the de 
 scription of little circumstances and individual thoughts 
 and feelings. But linger as we may, we cannot com 
 press into a chapter we could not crowd into a vol 
 ume all that passed through the minds and stirred 
 the emotions of the awe-struck company which was 
 gathered about the scene of danger and of terror. We 
 are dealing with an impossibility: consciousness is a 
 surface ; narrative is a line. 
 
 Maurice had given himself up for lost. His breath 
 ing was becoming every moment more difficult, and he 
 felt that his strength could hold out but a few min 
 utes longer. 
 
 " Robert ! " he called in faint accents. But the 
 attendant was not there to answer. 
 
 " Paolo ! Paolo ! " But the faithful servant, who 
 would have given his life for his master, had not yet 
 reached the place where the crowd was gathered. 
 
 " Oh, for a breath of air ! Oh, for an arm to lift 
 me from this bed ! Too late ! Too late ! " he gasped, 
 with what might have seemed his dying expiration. 
 
 " Not too late ! " The soft voice reached his ob 
 scured consciousness as if it had come down to him 
 from heaven. 
 
 In a single instant he found himself rolled in a 
 blanket and in the arms of a woman ! 
 
 Out of the stifling chamber, over the burning 
 stairs, close by the tongues of fire that were lapping 
 up all they could reach, out into the open air, he 
 18
 
 274 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 was borne swiftly and safely, carried as easily as if 
 he had been a babe, in the strong arms of " The Won 
 der " of the gymnasium, the captain of the Atalanta, 
 who had little dreamed of the use she was to make of 
 her natural gifts and her school-girl accomplishments. 
 
 Such a cry as arose from the crowd of on-lookers ! 
 It was a sound that none of them had ever heard be 
 fore or could expect ever to hear again, unless he 
 should be one of the last boat-load rescued from a 
 sinking vessel. Then, those who had resisted the 
 overflow of their emotion, who had stood in white de 
 spair as they thought of these two young lives soon to 
 be wrapped in their burning shroud, those stern 
 men the old sea-captain, the hard-faced, money- 
 making, cast-iron tradesmen of the city counting-room 
 sobbed like hysteric women ; it was like a convul 
 sion that overcame natures unused to those deeper 
 emotions which many who are capable of experiencing 
 die without ever knowing. 
 
 This was the scene upon which the doctor and Pa 
 olo suddenly appeared at the same moment. 
 
 As the fresh breeze passed over the face of the res 
 cued patient, his eyes opened wide, and his conscious 
 ness returned in almost supernatural lucidity. Eu- 
 thymia had sat down upon a bank, and was still 
 supporting him. His head was resting on her bosom. 
 Through his awakening senses stole the murmurs of 
 the living cradle which rocked him with the wave- 
 like movements of respiration, the soft susurrus of 
 the air that entered with every breath, the double 
 beat of the heart which throbbed close to his ear. 
 And every sense, and every instinct, and every re 
 viving pulse told him in language like a revelation 
 from another world that a woman's arms were around
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 him, and that it was life, and not death, which her 
 embrace had brought him. 
 
 She would have disengaged him from her protecting 
 hold, but the doctor made her a peremptory sign, 
 which he followed by a sharp command : 
 
 " Do not move him a hair's breadth," he said. 
 "Wait until the litter comes. Any sudden move 
 ment might be dangerous. Has anybody a brandy 
 flask about him ? " 
 
 One or two members of the local temperance soci 
 ety looked rather awkward, but did not come forward. 
 
 The fresh-water fisherman was the first who spoke. 
 
 " I han't got no brandy," he said, " but there 's a 
 drop or two of old Medford rum in this here that 
 you 're welcome to, if it '11 be of any help. I alliz 
 kerry a little on 't in case o' gettin' wet V chilled." 
 
 So saying he held forth a flat bottle with the word 
 Sarsaparilla stamped on the green glass, but which 
 contained half a pint or more of the specific on which 
 he relied in those very frequent exposures which hap 
 pen to persons of his calling. 
 
 The doctor motioned back Paolo, who would have 
 rushed at once to the aid of Maurice, and who was not 
 wanted at that moment. So poor Paolo, in an agony 
 of fear for his master, was kept as quiet as possible, 
 and had to content himself with asking all sorts of 
 questions and repeating all the prayers he could think 
 of to Our Lady and to his holy namesake the Apostle. 
 
 The doctor wiped the mouth of the fisherman's bot 
 tle very carefully. " Take a few drops of this cor 
 dial," he said, as he held it to his patient's lips. 
 " Hold him just so, Euthymia, without stirring. I 
 will watch him, and say when he is ready to be moved. 
 The litter is near by, waiting." Dr. Butts watched
 
 276 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 Maurice's pulse and color. The " old Medford " knew 
 its business. It had knocked over its tens of thou 
 sands ; it had its redeeming virtue, and helped to set 
 up a poor fellow now and then. It did this for Mau 
 rice very effectively. When he seemed somewhat re 
 stored, the doctor had the litter brought to his side, 
 and Euthymia softly resigned her helpless burden, 
 which Paolo and the attendant Kobert lifted with the 
 aid of the doctor, who walked by the patient as he 
 was borne to the home where Mrs. Butts had made all 
 ready for his reception. 
 
 As for poor Lurida, who had thought herself equal 
 to the sanguinary duties of the surgeon, she was left 
 lying on the grass with an old woman over her, work 
 ing hard with fan and smelling-salts to bring her back 
 from, her long fainting fit.
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE INEVITABLE. 
 
 WHY should not human nature be the same in Ar 
 rowhead Village as elsewhere ? It could not seem 
 strange to the good people of that place and their 
 visitors that these two young persons, brought together 
 under circumstances that stirred up the deepest emo 
 tions of which the human soul is capable, should be 
 come attached to each other. But the bond between 
 them was stronger than any knew, except the good 
 doctor, who had learned the great secret of Maurice's 
 life. For the first time since his infancy he had fully 
 felt the charm which the immediate presence of youth 
 ful womanhood carries with it. He could hardly be 
 lieve the fact when he found himself no longer the 
 subject of the terrifying seizures of which he had had 
 many and threatening experiences. 
 
 It was the doctor's business to save his patient's 
 life, if he could possibly do it. Maurice had been re 
 duced to the most perilous state of debility by the re 
 lapse which had interrupted his convalescence. Only 
 by what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the 
 exposure to suffocation and the mental anguish through 
 which he had passed. It was perfectly clear to Dr. 
 Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to 
 whom he owed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, 
 the revolution in his nervous system which would be 
 the beginning of a new existence, it would be of far
 
 278 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 more value as a restorative agency than any or all of 
 the drugs in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to 
 Euthymia, and explained the matter to her parents 
 and friends. She must go with him on some of his 
 visits. Her mother should go with her, or her sister ; 
 but this was a case of life and death, and no maidenly 
 scruples must keep her from doing her duty. 
 
 The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, 
 man presented a scene not unlike the picture before 
 spoken of on the title-page of the old edition of Galen. 
 The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of the little 
 group. He went before the others, took his seat by 
 the bedside, and held the patient's wrist with his fin 
 ger on the pulse. As Euthymia entered it gave a 
 single bound, fluttered for an instant as if with a faint 
 memory of its old habit, then throbbed full and strong, 
 comparatively, as if under the spur of some powerful 
 stimulus. Euthymia's task was a delicate one, but 
 she knew how to disguise its difficulty. 
 
 " Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirk- 
 wood," she said, and handed him a white chrysanthe 
 mum. He took it from her hand, and before she 
 knew it he took her hand into his own, and held it 
 with a gentle constraint. What could she do ? Here 
 was the young man whose life she had saved, at least 
 for the moment, and who was yet in danger from the 
 disease which had almost worn out his powers of re 
 sistance. 
 
 " Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side," said the doc 
 tor. " He wants to thank you, if he has strength to 
 do it, for saving him from the death which seemed in 
 evitable." 
 
 Not many words could Maurice command. He was 
 weak enough for womanly tears, but their fountains
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 279 
 
 no longer flowed ; it was with him as with the dying, 
 whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear. 
 
 The river which has found a new channel widens 
 and deepens it ; it lets the old water-course fill up, and 
 never returns to its forsaken bed. The tyrannous 
 habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had 
 verified itself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought 
 a fairer woman had conquered and abolished. - 
 
 The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its excep 
 tional character from the time of his restoration to his 
 natural conditions. His convalescence was very slow 
 and gradual, but no further accident interrupted its 
 even progress. The season was over, the summer vis 
 itors had left Arrowhead Village; the chrysanthe 
 mums were going out of flower, the frosts had come, 
 and Maurice was still beneath the roof of the kind phy 
 sician. The relation between him and his preserver 
 was so entirely apart from all common acquaintances 
 and friendships that no ordinary rules could apply to 
 it. Euthymia visited him often during the period of 
 his extreme prostration. 
 
 " You must come every day," the doctor said. " He 
 gains with every visit you make him ; he pines if you 
 miss him for a single day." So she came and sat by 
 him, the doctor or good Mrs. Butts keeping her com 
 pany in his presence. He grew stronger, began to 
 sit up in bed ; and at last Euthymia found him dressed 
 as in health, and beginning to walk about the room. 
 She was startled. She had thought of herself as a 
 kind of nurse, but the young gentleman could hardly 
 be said to need a nurse any longer. She had scruples 
 about making any further visits. She asked Lurida 
 what she thought about it.
 
 280 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " Think about it ? " said Lurida. " Why should n't 
 you go to see a brother as well as a sister, I should 
 like to know ? If you are afraid to go to see Maurice 
 Kirkwood, / am not afraid, at any rate. If you would 
 rather have me go than go yourself, I will do it, and 
 let people talk just as much as they want to. Shall I 
 go instead of you? " 
 
 Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the 
 best thing for the patient. The doctor had told her 
 he thought there were special reasons for her own 
 course in coming daily to see him. " I am afraid," 
 she said, " you are too bright to be safe for him in his 
 weak state. Your mind is such a stimulating one, you 
 know. A dull sort of person like myself is better for 
 him just now. I will continue visiting him as long as 
 the doctor says it is important that I should ; but you 
 must defend me, Lurida, I know you can explain it 
 all so that people will not blame me." 
 
 Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's 
 penetrating head-voice would be in a convalescent's 
 chamber. She knew how that active mind of hers 
 would set the young man's thoughts at work, when 
 what he wanted was rest of every faculty. Were not 
 these good and sufficient reasons for her decision? 
 What others could there be ? 
 
 So Euthymia kept on with her visits, until she 
 blushed to see that she was continuing her charitable 
 office for one who was beginning to look too well to be 
 called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition of 
 affairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips 
 were free in their comments. Free, but kindly, for the 
 story of the rescue had melted every heart ; and what 
 could be more natural than that these two young peo 
 ple whom God had brought together in the dread mo-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 281 
 
 ment of peril should find it hard to tear themselves 
 asunder after the hour of danger was past? When 
 gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay his debts ; 
 and if Maurice gave his heart to Euthymia, would not 
 she receive it as payment in full ? 
 
 The change which had taken place in the vital cur 
 rents of Maurice Kirkwood's system was as simple and 
 solid a fact as the change in a magnetic needle when 
 the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the austral 
 the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change 
 took place while he was enfeebled by the wasting ef 
 fects of long illness. For all the long-defeated, dis 
 turbed, perverted instincts had found their natural 
 channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ 
 which throbs in response to every profound emotion. 
 As his health gradually returned, Euthymia could not 
 help perceiving a flush in his cheek, a glitter in his 
 eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, which alto 
 gether were a warning to the young maiden that the 
 highway of friendly intercourse was fast narrowing to 
 a lane, at the head of which her woman's eye could 
 read plainly enough, " Dangerous passing." 
 
 " You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood," 
 she said, " that I think I had better not play Sister of 
 Charity any longer. The next time we meet I hope 
 you will be strong enough to call on me." 
 
 She was frightened to see how pale he turned, he 
 was weaker than she thought. There was a silence so 
 profound and so long that Mrs. Butts looked up from 
 the stocking she w r as knitting. They had forgotten 
 the good woman's presence. 
 
 Presently Maurice spoke, very faintly, but Mrs. 
 Butts dropped a stitch at the first word, and her knit 
 ting fell into her lap as she listened to what followed.
 
 282 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 " No ! you must not leave me. You must never 
 leave me. You saved my life. But you have done 
 more than that, more than you know or can ever 
 know. To you I owe it that I am living ; with you I 
 live henceforth, if I am to live at all. All I am, all I 
 hope, will you take this poor offering from one who 
 owes you everything, whose lips never touched those 
 of woman or breathed a word of love before you 
 taught him the meaning of that word ? " 
 
 What could Euthymia reply to this question, ut 
 tered with all the depth of a passion which had never 
 before found expression? 
 
 Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs. Butts 
 overhear. But she told her husband afterwards that 
 there was nothing in the tableaux they had had in 
 September to compare with what she then saw. It 
 was indeed a pleasing picture which those two young 
 heads presented as Euthymia gave her inarticulate 
 but infinitely expressive answer to the question of 
 Maurice Kirkwood. The good-hearted woman thought 
 it time to leave the young people. Down went the 
 stocking with the needles in it ; out of her lap tumbled 
 the ball of worsted, rolling along the floor with its 
 yarn trailing after it, like some village matron who 
 goes about circulating from hearth to hearth, leaving 
 all along her track the story of the new engagement 
 or of the arrival of the last "little stranger." 
 
 Not many suns had set before it was told all through 
 Arrowhead Village that Maurice Kirkwood was the 
 accepted lover of Euthymia Tower.
 
 POSTSCRIPT: AFTER-GLIMPSES. 
 
 MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. 
 
 ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, May 18. 
 
 MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA, Who would have 
 thought, when you broke your oar as the Atalanta 
 flashed by the Algonquin, last June, that before the 
 roses came again you would find yourself the wife of a 
 fine scholar and grand gentleman, and the head of a 
 household such as that of which you are the mistress ? 
 You must not forget your old Arrowhead Village 
 friends. What am I saying ? you forget them ! No, 
 dearest, I know your heart too well for that ! You are 
 not one of those who lay aside their old friendships as 
 they do last year's bonnet when they get a new one. 
 You have told me all about yourself and your happi 
 ness, and now you want me to tell you about myself 
 and what is going on in our little place. 
 
 And first about myself. I have given up the idea 
 of becoming a doctor. I have studied mathematics so 
 much that I have grown fond of certainties, of demon 
 strations, and medicine deals chiefly in probabilities. 
 The practice of the art is so mixed up with the deepest 
 human interests that it is hard to pursue it with that 
 even poise of the intellect which is demanded by sci 
 ence. I want knowledge pure and simple, I do not 
 fancy having it mixed. Neither do I like the thought 
 of passing my life in going from one scene of suffering
 
 284 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 to another; I am not saintly enough for such a daily 
 martyrdom, nor callous enough to make it an easy oc 
 cupation. I fainted at the first operation I saw, and I 
 have never wanted to see another. I don't say that I 
 would n't marry a physician, if the right one asked 
 me, but the young doctor is not forthcoming at pres 
 ent. Yes, I think I might make a pretty good doc 
 tor's wife. I could teach him a good deal about head 
 aches and backaches and all sorts of nervous revolutions, 
 as the doctor says the French women call their tan 
 trums. I don't know but I should be willing to let 
 him try his new medicines on me. If he were a 
 homoeopath, I know I should ; for if a billionth of a 
 grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my tea or coffee, 
 I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of any 
 thing would poison me, no, not if it were snake- 
 venom ; and if it were not disgusting, I would swallow 
 a handful of his lachesis globules, to please my hus 
 band. But if I ever become a doctor's wife, my hus 
 band will not be one of that kind of practitioners, you 
 may be sure of that, nor an " eclectic," nor a " faith- 
 cure man." On the whole, I don't think I want to be 
 married at all. I don't like the male animal very 
 well (except such noble specimens as your husband). 
 They are all tyrants, almost all, so far as our sex 
 is concerned, and I often think we could get on better 
 without them. 
 
 However, the creatures are useful in the Society. 
 They send us papers, some of them well worth reading. 
 You have told me so often that you would like to know 
 how the Society is getting on, and to read some of the 
 papers sent to it if they happened to be interesting, 
 that I have laid aside one or two manuscripts expressly 
 for your perusal. You will get them by and by.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 285 
 
 I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with 
 you. Arrowhead Village misses him dreadfully, I can 
 tell you. What is the reason people become so at 
 tached to these servants with Southern sunlight in their 
 natures? I suppose life is not long enough to cool 
 their blood down to our Northern standard. Then 
 they are so child-like, whereas the native of these lati 
 tudes is never young after he is ten or twelve years 
 old. Mother says, you know mother's old-fashioned 
 notions, and how shrewd and sensible she is in spite of 
 them, mother says that when she was a girl families 
 used to import young men and young women from the 
 country towns, who called themselves " helps," not ser 
 vants, no, that was Scriptural ; " but they did n't 
 know everything down in Judee," and it is not good 
 American language. She says that these people would 
 live in the same household until they were married, 
 and the women often remain in the same service un 
 til they died or were old and worn out, and then, 
 what with the money they had saved and the care and 
 assistance they got from their former employers, would 
 pass a decent and comfortable old age, and be buried 
 in the family lot. Mother has made up her mind to 
 the change, but grandmother is bitter about it. She 
 says there never was a country yet where the popula 
 tion was made up of " ladies " and " gentlemen," and 
 she does n't believe there can be ; nor that putting a 
 spread eagle on a copper makes a gold dollar of it. 
 She is a pessimist after her own fashion. She thinks 
 all sentiment is dying out of our people. No loyalty 
 for the sovereign, the king-post of the political edifice, 
 she says ; no deep attachment between employer and 
 employed ; no reverence of the humbler members of a 
 household for its heads ; and to make sure of contin-
 
 286 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 ued corruption and misery, what she calls " universal 
 suffrage " emptying all the sewers into the great aque 
 duct we all must drink from. " Universal suffrage ! " 
 I suppose we women don't belong to the universe ! 
 Wait until we get a chance at the ballot-box, I tell 
 grandma, and see if we don't wash out the sewers be 
 fore they reach the aqueduct ! But my pen has run 
 away with me. I was thinking of Paolo, and what a 
 pleasant thing it is to have one of those child-like, 
 warm-hearted, attachable, cheerful, contented, humble, 
 faithful, companionable, but never presuming grown 
 up children of the South waiting on one, as if every 
 thing he could do for one was a pleasure, and carrying 
 a look of content in his face which makes every one 
 who meets him happier for a glimpse of his features. 
 
 It does seem a shame that the charming relation of 
 master and servant, intelligent authority and cheerful 
 obedience, mutual interest in each other's welfare, 
 thankful recognition of all the advantages which be 
 long to domestic service in the better class of families, 
 should be almost wholly confined to aliens and their 
 immediate descendants. Why should Hannah think 
 herself so much better than Bridget? When they 
 meet at the polls together, as they will before long, 
 they will begin to feel more of an equality than is rec 
 ognized at present. The native female turns her nose 
 up at the idea of " living out ; " does she think herself 
 so much superior to the women of other nationalities ? 
 Our women will have to come to it, so grandmother 
 says, in another generation or two, and in a hun 
 dred years, according to her prophecy, there will be a 
 new set of old "Miss Pollys" and "Miss Betseys" 
 who have lived half a century in the same families, re 
 spectful and respected, cherished, cared for in time of
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 287 
 
 need (citizens as well as servants, holding a ballot as 
 well as a broom, I tell her), and bringing back to us 
 the lowly, underfoot virtues of contentment and hu 
 mility, which we do so need to carpet the barren and 
 hungry thoroughfare of our unstratified existence. 
 
 There, I have got a-going, and am forgetting all 
 the news I have to tell you. There is an engagement 
 you will want to know all about. It came to pass 
 through our famous boat-race, which you and I re 
 member, and shall never forget as long as we live. It 
 seems that the young fellow who pulled the bow oar 
 of that men's college boat which we had the pleasure 
 of beating got some glimpses of Georgina, our hand 
 some stroke oar. I believe he took it into his head 
 that it was she who threw the bouquet that won the 
 race for us. He was, as you know, greatly mistaken, 
 and ought to have made love to me, only he did n't. 
 Well, it seems he came posting down to the Institute 
 just before the vacation was over, and there got a 
 sight of Georgina. I wonder whether she told him 
 she did n't fling the bouquet ! Anyhow, the acquaint 
 ance began in that way, and now it seems that this 
 young fellow, good-looking and a bright scholar, but 
 with a good many months more to pass in college, is 
 her captive. It was too bad. Just think of my bou 
 quet's going to another girl's credit ! No matter, 
 the old Atalanta story was paid off, at any rate. 
 
 You want to know all about dear Dr. Butts. They 
 say he has just been offered a Professorship in one of 
 the great medical colleges. I asked him about it, and 
 he did not say that he had or had not. " But," saM he, 
 " suppose that I had been offered such a place ; do 
 you think I ought to accept it and leave Arrowhead 
 Village? Let us talk it over," said he, "just as if I
 
 288 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 had had such an offer." I told him he ought to stay. 
 There are plenty of men that can get into a Profes 
 sor's chair, I said, and talk like Solomons to a class 
 of wondering pupils : but once get a really good doc 
 tor in a place, a man who knows all about everybody, 
 whether they have this or that tendency, whether when 
 they are sick they have a way of dying or a way of 
 getting well, what medicines agree with them and what 
 drugs they cannot take, whether they are of the sort 
 that think nothing is the matter with them until they 
 are dead as smoked herring, or of the sort that send 
 for the minister if they get a stomach-ache from eating 
 too many cucumbers, who knows all about all the 
 people within half a dozen miles (all the sensible ones, 
 that is, who employ a regular practitioner), such a 
 man as that, I say, is not to be replaced like a missing 
 piece out of a Springfield musket or a Waltham watch. 
 Don't go ! said I. Stay here and save our precious 
 lives, if you can, or at least put us through in the 
 proper way, so that we need n't be ashamed of our 
 selves for dying, if we must die. Well, Dr. Butts is 
 not going to leave us. I hope you will have no un 
 welcome occasion for his services, you are never 
 ill, you know, but, anyhow, he is going to be here, 
 and no matter what happens he will be on hand. 
 
 The village news is not of a very exciting character. 
 Item 1. A new house is put up over the ashes of the 
 one in which your husband lived while he was here. 
 It was planned by one of the autochthonous inhab 
 itants with the most ingenious combination of incon- 
 vertfences that the natural man could educe from his 
 original perversity of intellect. To get at any one 
 room you must pass through every other. It is blind, 
 or nearly so, on the only side which has a good pros-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 289 
 
 pect, and commands a fine view of the barn and pig 
 sty through numerous windows. Item 2. We have a 
 small fire-engine near the new house which can be 
 worked by a man or two, and would be equal to the 
 emergency of putting out a bunch of fire-crackers. 
 Item 3. We have a new ladder, in a box, close to the 
 new fire-engine, so if the new house catches fire, like 
 its predecessor, and there should happen to be a sick 
 man on an upper floor, he can be got out without run 
 ning the risk of going up and down a burning stair 
 case. What a blessed thing it was that there was no 
 fire-engine near by and no ladder at hand on the day 
 of the great rescue ! If there had been, what a change 
 in your programme of life ! You remember that " cup 
 of tea spilt on Mrs. Masham's apron," which we used 
 to read of in one of Everett's Orations, and all its 
 wide-reaching consequences in the affairs of Europe. 
 I hunted up that cup of tea as diligently as ever a 
 Boston matron sought for the last leaves in her old 
 caddy after the tea-chests had been flung overboard at 
 Griffin's wharf, but no matter about that, now. 
 That is the way things come about in this world. I 
 must write a lecture on lucky mishaps, or, more ele 
 gantly, fortunate calamities. It will be just the con 
 verse of that odd essay of Swift's we read together, 
 the awkward and stupid things done with the best in 
 tentions. Perhaps I shall deliver the lecture in your 
 city : you will come and hear it, and bring him, won't 
 you, dearest ? Always, your loving LURIDA. 
 
 19
 
 290 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 MISS LUEIDA VINCENT TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. 
 
 It seems forever since you left us, dearest Euthy- 
 mia ! And are you, and is your husband, and Paolo, 
 good Paolo, are you all as well and happy as 
 you have been and as you ought to be ? I suppose 
 our small village seems a very quiet sort of place to 
 pass the winter in, now that you have become accus 
 tomed to the noise and gayety of a great city. For 
 all that, it is a pretty busy place this winter, I can tell 
 you. We have sleighing parties, I never go to them, 
 myself, because I can't keep warm, and my mind 
 freezes up when my blood cools down below 95 or 
 96 Fahrenheit. I had a great deal rather sit by a 
 good fire and read about Arctic discoveries. But I 
 like very well to hear the bells jingling and to see the 
 young people trying to have a good time as hard as 
 they do at a picnic. It may be that they do, but to 
 me a picnic is purgatory and a sleigh-ride that other 
 place, where, as my favorite Milton says, " frost per 
 forms the effect of fire." I believe I have quoted him 
 correctly ; I ought to, for I could repeat half his po 
 ems from memory once, if I cannot now. 
 
 You must have plenty of excitement in your city 
 life. I suppose you recognized yourself in one of 
 the society columns of the " Household Inquisitor : " 
 " Mrs. E. K., very beautiful, in an elegant," etc., etc., 
 " with pearls," etc., etc., as if you were not the 
 ornament of all that you wear, no matter what it 
 
 is 
 
 I am so glad that you have married a scholar'. 
 Why should not Maurice you both tell me to call 
 him so take the diplomatic office which has been 
 offered him ? It seems to me that he would find him-
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 291 
 
 self in exactly the right place. He can talk in two or 
 three languages, has good manners, and a wife who 
 well, what shall I say of Mrs. Kirkwood but that 
 " she would be good company for a queen," as our 
 old friend the quondam landlady of the Anchor Tav 
 ern used to say ? I should so like to see you presented 
 at Court ! It seems to me that I should be willing to 
 hold your train for the sake of seeing you in your 
 court feathers and things. 
 
 As for myself, I have been thinking of late that I 
 would become either a professional lecturer or head 
 mistress of a great school or college for girls. I have 
 tried the first business a little. Last month I deliv 
 ered a lecture on Quaternions. I got three for my 
 audience ; two came over from the Institute, and one 
 from that men's college which they try to make out to 
 be a university, and where no female is admitted un 
 less she belongs among the quadrupeds. I enjoyed 
 lecturing, but the subject is a difficult one, and I don't 
 think any one of them had any very clear notion of 
 what I was talking about, except Khodora, and I 
 know she did n't. To tell the truth, I was lecturing 
 to instruct myself. I mean to try something easier 
 next time. I have thought of the Basque language 
 and literature. What do you say to that ? 
 
 The Society goes on famously. We have had a 
 paper presented and read lately which has greatly 
 amused some of us and provoked a few of the weaker 
 sort. The writer is that crabbed old Professor of 
 Belles-Lettres at that men's college over there. He 
 is dreadfully hard on the poor " poets," as they call 
 themselves. It seems that a great many young per 
 sons, and more especially a great many young girls, of 
 whom the Institute has furnished a considerable pro-
 
 292 A MOKTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 portion, have taken to sending him their rhymed pro 
 ductions to be criticised, expecting to be praised, 
 no doubt, every one of them. I must give you one 
 of the sauciest extracts from his paper in his own 
 words : 
 
 " It takes half my time to read the ' poems ' sent me 
 by young people of both sexes. They would be more 
 shy of doing it if they knew that I recognize a ten 
 dency to rhyming as a common form of mental weak 
 ness, and the publication of a thin volume of verse as 
 prima facie evidence of ambitious mediocrity, if not 
 inferiority. Of course there are exceptions to this 
 rule of judgment, but I maintain that the presumption 
 is always against the rhymester as compared with the 
 less pretentious persons about him or her, busy with 
 some useful calling, too busy to be tagging rhymed 
 commonplaces together. Just now there seems to be 
 an epidemic of rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, 
 or the sweating sickness. After reading a certain 
 amount of manuscript verse one is disposed to anath 
 ematize the inventor of hornophonous syllabification. 
 [This phrase made a great laugh when it was read.] 
 This, that is rhyming, must have been found out very 
 early, 
 
 ' Where are you, Adam ? ' 
 
 ' Here am I, Madam ; ' 
 
 but it can never have been habitually practised until 
 after the Fall. The intrusion of tintinnabulating 
 terminations into the conversational intercourse of 
 men and angels would have spoiled Paradise itself. 
 Milton would not have them even in Paradise Lost, 
 you remember. For my own part, I wish certain 
 rhymes could be declared contraband of written or 
 printed language. Nothing should be allowed to be
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 293 
 
 hurled at the world or whirled with it, or furled upon 
 it or curled over it ; all eyes should be kept away from 
 the skies, in spite of os homini sublime dcdit ; youth 
 should be coupled with all the virtues except truth ; 
 earth should never be reminded of her birth ; death 
 should never be allowed to stop a mortal's breath, nor 
 the bell to sound his knell, nor flowers from blossom 
 ing bowers to wave over his grave or show their bloom 
 upon his tomb. AVe have rhyming dictionaries, let 
 us have one from which all rhymes are rigorously ex 
 cluded. The sight of a poor creature grubbing for 
 rhymes to fill up his sonnet, or to cram one of those 
 voracious, rhyme-swallowing rigmaroles which some of 
 our drudging poetical operatives have been exhausting 
 themselves of late to satiate with jingles, makes my 
 head ache and my stomach rebel. Work, work of 
 some kind, is the business of men and women, not the 
 making of jingles ! No, no, no ! I want to see 
 the young people in our schools and academies and 
 colleges, and the graduates of these institutions, lifted 
 up out of the little Dismal Swamp of self -contemplat 
 ing and self-indulging and self -commiserating emotion 
 alism which is surfeiting the land with those literary 
 sandwiches, thin slices of tinkling .sentimentality 
 between two covers looking like hard-baked gilt gin 
 gerbread. But what faces these young folks make up 
 at my good advice ! They get tipsy on their rhymes. 
 Nothing intoxicates one like his or her own 
 verses, and they hold on to their metre-ballad-monger- 
 ing as the fellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to 
 the gas-bag." 
 
 ~W e laughed over this essay of the old Professor, 
 though it hit us pretty hard. The best part of the 
 joke is that the old man himself published a thin vol-
 
 294 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 ume of poems when he was young, which there is good 
 reason to think he is not very proud of, as they say he 
 buys up all the copies he can find in the shops. No 
 matter what they say, I can't help agreeing with him 
 about this great flood of "poetry," as it calls itself, 
 and looking at the rhyming mania much as he does. 
 
 How I do love real poetry ! That is the reason I 
 hate rhymes which have not a particle of it in them. 
 The foolish scribblers that deal in them are like bad 
 workmen in a carpenter's shop. They not only turn 
 out bad jobs of work, but they spoil the tools for bet 
 ter workmen. There is hardly a pair of rhymes in 
 the English language that is not so dulled and hacked 
 and gapped by these 'prentice hands that a master of 
 the craft hates to touch them, and yet he cannot very 
 well do without them. I have not been besieged as the 
 old Professor has been with such multitudes of would- 
 be-poetical aspirants that he could not even read their 
 manuscripts, but I have had a good many letters con 
 taining verses, and I have warned the writers of the 
 delusion under which they were laboring. 
 
 You may like to know that I have just been trans 
 lating some extracts from the Greek Anthology. I 
 send you a few specimens of my work, with a Dedica 
 tion to the Shade of Sappho. I hope you will find 
 something of the Greek rhythm in my versions, and 
 that I have caught a spark of inspiration from the im 
 passioned Lesbian. I have found great delight in this 
 work, at any rate, and am never so happy as when I 
 read from my manuscript or repeat from memory the 
 lines into which I have transferred the thought of the 
 men and women of two thousand years ago, or given 
 rhythmical expression to my own rapturous feelings 
 with regard to them. I must read you my Dedication
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 295 
 
 to the Shade of Sappho. I cannot help thinking that 
 you will like it better than either of my last two, The 
 Song of the Roses, or The Wail of the Weeds. 
 
 How I do miss you, dearest ! I want you : I want 
 you to listen to what I have written ; I want you to 
 hear all about my plans for the future ; / want to 
 look at you, and think how grand it must be to feel 
 one's self to be such a noble and beautiful creature ; 
 I want to wander in the woods with you, to float on 
 the lake, to share your life and talk over every day's 
 doings with you. Alas ! I feel that we have parted 
 as two friends part at a port of embarkation: they 
 embrace, they kiss each other's cheeks, they cover 
 their faces and weep, they try to speak good-by to 
 each other, they watch from the pier and from the 
 deck ; the two forms grow less and less, fainter and 
 fainter in the distance, two white handkerchiefs flutter 
 once and again, and yet once more, and the last visi 
 ble link of the chain which binds them has parted. 
 Dear, dear, dearest Euthymia, my eyes are running 
 over with tears when I think that we may never, never 
 meet again. 
 
 Don't you want some more items of village news ? 
 We are threatened with an influx of stylish people : 
 " Buttons " to answer the door-bell, in place of the 
 chamber-maid; "butler," in place of the "hired man;" 
 footman in top-boots and breeches, cockade on hat, 
 arms folded d la Napoleon ; tandems, " drags," dog 
 carts, and go-carts of all sorts. It is rather amusing 
 to look at their ambitious displays, but it takes away 
 the good old country flavor of the place. 
 
 I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when 
 you come back to spend your summers here. I sup 
 pose you must have a large house, and I am sure you
 
 296 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 will have a beautiful one. I suppose you will have 
 some fine horses, and who would n't be glad to ? But 
 I do not believe you will try to make your old Arrow 
 head Village friends stare their eyes out of their heads 
 with a display meant to outshine everybody else that 
 comes here. You can have a yacht on the lake, if you 
 like, but I hope you will pull a pair of oars in our old 
 boat once in a while, with me to steer you. I know 
 you will be just the same dear Euthymia you always 
 were and always must be. How happy you must 
 make such a man as Maurice Kirkwood ! And how 
 happy you ought to be with him ! a man who knows 
 what is in books, and who has seen for himself what 
 is in men. If he has not seen so much of women, 
 where could he study all that is best in womanhood 
 as he can in his own wife ? Only one thing that dear 
 Euthymia lacks. She is not quite pronounced enough 
 in her views as to the rights and the wrongs of the 
 sex. When I visit you, as you say I shall, I mean to 
 indoctrinate Maurice with sound views on that sub 
 ject. I have written an essay for the Society, which 
 I hope will go a good way towards answering all the 
 objections to female suffrage. I mean to read it to 
 your husband, if -you will let me, as I know you will, 
 and perhaps you would like to hear it, only you 
 know my thoughts on the subject pretty well already. 
 With all sorts of kind messages to your dear hus 
 band, and love to your precious self, I am ever your 
 
 LURIDA. 
 
 DR. BUTTS TO MRS. EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD. 
 
 MY DEAR EUTHYMIA, My pen refuses to call yon 
 by any other name. Siveet-souled you are, and youi 
 Latinized Greek name is the one which truly desig.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 297 
 
 nates you. I cannot tell you how we have followed 
 you, with what interest and delight through your trav 
 els, as you have told their story in your letters to your 
 mother. She has let us have the privilege of read 
 ing them, and we have been with you in steamer, 
 yacht, felucca, gondola, Nile-boat ; in all sorts of 
 places, from crowded capitals to 4i deserts where no 
 men abide," everywhere keeping company with you 
 in your natural and pleasant descriptions of your ex 
 periences. And now that you have returned to your 
 home in the great city I must write you a few lines of 
 welcome, if nothing more. 
 
 You will find Arrowhead Village a good deal changed 
 since you left it. We are discovered by some of 
 those over-rich people who make the little place upon 
 which they swarm a kind of rural city. When this 
 happens the consequences aro striking, some of 
 them desirable and some far otherwise. The effect 
 of well-built, well-furnished, well-kept houses and of 
 handsome grounds always maintained in good order 
 about them shows itself in a large circuit around the 
 fashionable centre. Houses get on a new coat of 
 paint, fences are kept in better order, little plots of 
 flowers show themselves where only ragged weeds had 
 rioted, the inhabitants present themselves in more 
 comely attire and drive in handsomer vehicles with 
 more carefully groomed horses. On the other hand, 
 there is a natural jealousy on the part of the natives 
 of the region suddenly become fashionable. They 
 have seen the land they sold at farm prices by the 
 acre coming to be valued by the foot, like the corner 
 lots in a city. Their simple and humble modes of 
 life look almost poverty-stricken in the glare of wealth 
 and luxury which so outshines their plain way of liv-
 
 298 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 ing. It is true that many of them have found them 
 selves richer than in former days, when the neighbor 
 hood lived on its own resources. They know how to 
 avail themselves of their altered position, and soon 
 learn to charge city prices for country products ; but 
 nothing can make people feel rich who see themselves 
 surrounded by men whose yearly income is many times 
 their own whole capital. I think it would be better 
 if our rich men scattered themselves more than they 
 do, buying large country estates, building houses 
 and stables which will make it easy to entertain their 
 friends, and depending for society on chosen guests 
 rather than on the mob of millionaires who come to 
 gether for social rivalry. But I do not fret myself 
 about it. Society will stratify itself according to the 
 laws of social gravitation. It will take a generation 
 or two more, perhaps, to arrange the strata by precip 
 itation and settlement, but we can always depend on 
 one principle to govern the arrangement of the layers. 
 People interested in the same things will naturally 
 come together. The youthful heirs of fortunes who 
 keep splendid yachts have little to talk about with 
 the oarsman who pulls about on the lake or the river. 
 What does young Dives, who drives his four-in-hand 
 and keeps a stable full of horses, care about Lazarus, 
 who feels rich in the possession of a horse-railroad 
 ticket ? You know how we live at our house, plainly, 
 but with a certain degree of cultivated propriety. We 
 make no pretensions to what is called " style." We 
 are still in that social stratum where the article called 
 " a napkin-ring " is recognized as admissible at the 
 ilmner-table. That fact sufficiently defines our mod 
 est pretensions. The napkin-ring is the boundary 
 mark between certain classes. But one evening Mrs,
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 299 
 
 Butts and I went out to a party given by the lady 
 of a worthy family, where the napkin itself was a 
 newly introduced luxury. The conversation of the 
 hostess and her guests turned upon details of the 
 kitchen and the laundry; upon the best mode of 
 raising bread, whether with " emptins " (emptyings, 
 yeast) or baking powder; about "bluing" and starch 
 ing and crimping, and similar matters. Poor Mrs. 
 Butts ! She knew nothing more about such thing's 
 
 o o 
 
 than her hostess did about Shakespeare and the musi 
 cal glasses. What was the use of trying to enforce 
 social intercourse under such conditions ? Incompati 
 bility of temper has been considered ground for a di 
 vorce ; incompatibility of interests is a sufficient war 
 rant for social separation. The multimillionaires have 
 so much that is common among themselves, and so lit 
 tle that they share with us of moderate means, that 
 they will naturally form a specialized class, and in 
 virtue of their palaces, their picture-galleries, their 
 equipages, their yachts, their large hospitality, consti 
 tute a kind of exclusive aristocracy. Religion, which 
 ought to be the great leveller, cannot reduce these 
 elements to the same grade. You may read in the 
 parable, "Friend, how earnest thou in hither not 
 having a wedding garment ? " The modern version 
 would be, " How came you at Mrs. Billion's ball not 
 having a dress on your back which came from Paris ? " 
 The little church has got a new stained window, a 
 saint who reminds me of Hamlet's uncle, a thing 
 " of shreds and patches," but rather pretty to look at, 
 with an inscription under it which is supposed to be 
 the name of the person in whose honor the window 
 was placed in the church. Smith was a worthy man 
 and a faithful churchwarden, and I hope posterity will
 
 300 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 be able to spell out his name on his monumental win 
 dow ; but that old English lettering would puzzle 
 Mephistopheles himself, if he found himself before 
 this memorial tribute, on the inside, you know he 
 goes to church sometimes, if you remember your 
 Faust. 
 
 The rector has come out, in a quiet way, as an evo 
 lutionist. He has always been rather " broad " in his 
 views, but cautious in their expression. You can tell 
 the three branches of the mother-island church by the 
 way they carry their heads. The low-church clergy 
 look down, as if they felt themselves to be worms of 
 the dust ; the high-church priest drops his head on 
 one side, after the pattern of the mediaeval saints ; the 
 broad-church preacher looks forward and round about 
 him, as if he felt himself the heir of creation. Our 
 rector carries his head in the broad-church aspect, 
 which I suppose is the least open to the charge of af 
 fectation, in fact, is the natural and manly way of 
 carrying it. 
 
 The Society has justified its name of Pansophian of 
 late as never before. Lurida has stirred up our little 
 community and its neighbors, so that we get essays on 
 all sorts of subjects, poems and stories in large num 
 bers. I know all about it, for she often consults me 
 as to the merits of a particular contribution. 
 
 What is to be the fate of Lurida? I often think, 
 with no little interest and some degree of anxiety, about 
 her future. Her body is so frail and her mind so ex 
 cessively and constantly active that I am afraid one or 
 the other will give way. I do not suppose she thinks 
 seriously of ever being married. She grows more and 
 more zealous in behalf of her own sex, and sterner 
 in her judgment of the other. She declares that she
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 301 
 
 never would marry any man who was not an advocate 
 of female suffrage, and as these gentlemen are not 
 very common hereabouts the chance is against her 
 capturing any one of the hostile sex. 
 
 What do you think? I happened, just as I was 
 writing the last sentence, to look out of my window, 
 and whom should I see but Lurida, with a young man 
 in tow, listening very eagerly to her conversation, ac 
 cording to all appearance ! I think he must be a 
 friend of the rector, as I have seen a young man like 
 this one in his company. Who knows ? 
 
 Affectionately yours, etc. 
 
 DR. BUTTS TO MRS. BUTTS. 
 
 MY BELOVED WIFE, This letter will tell you 
 more news than you would have thought could have 
 been got together in this little village during the short 
 time you have been staying away from it. 
 
 Lurida Vincent is engaged! He is a clergyman 
 with a mathematical turn. The story is that he put a 
 difficult problem into one of the mathematical jour 
 nals, and that Lurida presented such a neat solution 
 that the young man fell in love with her on the 
 strength of it. I don't think the story is literally true, 
 nor do I believe that other report that he offered him 
 self to her in the form of an equation chalked on the 
 blackboard ; but that it was an intellectual rather than 
 a sentimental courtship I do not doubt. Lurida has 
 given up the idea of becoming a professional lecturer, 
 so she tells me, thinking that her future hus 
 band's parish will find her work enough to do. A 
 certain amount of daily domestic drudgery and unex 
 citing intercourse with simple-minded people will be
 
 302 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 the best thing in the world for that brain of hers, 
 always simmering with some new project in its least 
 fervid condition. 
 
 All our summer visitors have arrived. Euthymia 
 Mrs. Maurice Kirkwood and her husband and 
 little Maurice are here in their beautiful house look 
 ing out on the lake. They gave a grand party the 
 other evening. You ought to have been there, but I 
 suppose you could not very well have left your sister 
 in the middle of your visit. All the grand folks were 
 there, of course. Lurida and her young man Ga 
 briel is what she calls him were naturally the objects 
 of special attention. Paolo acted as major-domo, and 
 looked as if he ought to be a major-general. Nothing 
 could be pleasanter than the way in which Mr. and 
 Mrs. Kirkwood received their plain country neighbors ; 
 that is, just as they did the others of more pretensions, 
 as if they were really glad to see them, as I am sure 
 they were. The old landlord and his wife had two 
 arm-chairs to themselves, and I saw Miranda with the 
 servants of the household looking in at the dancers and 
 out at the little groups in the garden, and evidently 
 enjoying it as much as her old employers. It was a 
 most charming and successful party. We had two 
 sensations in the course of the evening. One was 
 pleasant and somewhat exciting, the other was thrill 
 ing and of strange and startling interest. 
 
 You remember how emaciated poor Maurice Kirk 
 wood was left after his fever, in that first season when 
 he was among us. He was out in a boat one day, 
 when a ring slipped off his thin finger and sunk in a 
 place where the water was rather shallow. " Jake " 
 you know Jake, everybody knows Jake was row 
 ing him. He promised to come to the spot and fish
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 303 
 
 ap the ring- if he could possibly find it. He was seen 
 poking about with fish-hooks at the end of a pole, but 
 nothing was ever heard from him about the ring. It 
 was an antique intaglio stone in an Etruscan setting, 
 a wild goose flying over the Campagna. Mr. Kirk- 
 wood valued it highly, and regretted its loss very 
 much. 
 
 While we were in the garden, who should appear at 
 the gate but Jake, with a great basket, inquiring for 
 Mr. Kirkwood. " Come," said Maurice to me, " let 
 us see what our old friend the fisherman has brought 
 us. What have you got there, Jake ? " 
 
 " What I ' ve got ? WaU, I '11 tell y' what I 've got : 
 I Ve got the biggest pickerel that 's been ketched in 
 this pond for these ten year. An' I 've got somethin' 
 else besides the pickerel. When I come to cut him 
 open, what do you think I faound in his insides but 
 this here ring o' yourn," and he showed the ono 
 Maurice had lost so long before. There it was, as 
 good as new, after having tried Jonah's style of house 
 keeping for all that time. There ate those who dis 
 credit Jake's story about finding the ring in the fish ; 
 anyhow, there was the ring and there was the pickerel. 
 I need not say that Jake went off well paid for his 
 pickerel and the precious contents of its stomach. 
 Now comes the chief event of the evening. I went 
 early by special invitation. Maurice took me into his 
 library, and we sat down together. 
 
 " I have something of great importance," he said, 
 "to say to you. I learned within a few days that 
 my cousin Laura is staying with a friend in the next 
 town to this. You know, doctor, that we have never 
 met since the last, almost fatal, experience of my early 
 years. I have determined to defy the strength of that
 
 304 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 deadly chain of associations connected with her pres 
 ence, and I have begged her to come this evening with 
 the friends with whom she is staying. Several letters 
 passed between us, for it was hard to persuade her 
 that there was no longer any risk in my meeting her. 
 Her imagination was almost as deeply impressed as 
 mine had been at those alarming interviews, and I had 
 to explain to her fully that I had become quite indif 
 ferent to the disturbing impressions of former years. 
 So, as the result of our correspondence, Laura is com 
 ing this evening, and I wish you to be present at our 
 meeting. There is another reason why I wish you to 
 be here. My little boy is not far from the age at 
 which I received my terrifying, almost disorganizing 
 shock. I mean to have little Maurice brought into 
 the presence of Laura, who is said to be still a very 
 handsome woman, and see if he betrays any hint of 
 that peculiar sensitiveness which showed itself in my 
 threatening seizure. It seemed to me not impossible 
 that he might inherit some tendency of that nature, 
 and I wanted you to be at hand if any sign of danger 
 should declare itself. For myself I have no fear. 
 Some radical change has taken place in my nervous 
 system. I have been born again, as it were, in my 
 susceptibilities, and am in certain respects a new man. 
 But I must know how it is with my little Maurice." 
 
 Imagine with what interest I looked forward to this 
 experiment ; for experiment it was, and not without 
 its sources of anxiety, as it seemed to me. The even 
 ing wore along ; friends and neighbors came in, but no 
 Laura as yet. At last I heard the sound of wheels, 
 and a carriage stopped at the door. Two ladies and 
 a gentleman got out, and soon entered the drawing, 
 room.
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 305 
 
 " My cousin Laura ! " whispered Maurice to me, and 
 went forward to meet her. A very handsome woman, 
 who might well have been in the thirties, one of 
 those women so thoroughly constituted that they can 
 not help being handsome at every period of life. I 
 watched them both as they approached each other. 
 Both looked pale at first, but Maurice soon recovered 
 his usual color, and Laura's natural rich bloom came 
 back by degrees. Their emotion at meeting was not 
 to be wondered at, but there was no trace in it of the 
 paralyzing influence on the great centres of life which 
 had once acted upon its fated victim like the fabled 
 head which turned the looker-on into a stone. 
 
 " Is the boy still awake ? " said Maurice to Paolo, 
 who, as they used to say of Pushee at the old Anchor 
 Tavern, was everywhere at once on that gay and busy 
 evening. 
 
 " What ! Mahser Maurice asleep an' all this racket 
 going on ? I hear him crowing like young cockerel 
 when he fus' smell daylight." 
 
 " Tell the nurse to bring him down quietly to the 
 little room that leads out of the library." 
 
 The child was brought down in his night-clothes, 
 wide awake, wondering apparently at the noise he 
 heard, which he seemed to think was for his special 
 amusement. 
 
 " See if he will go to that lady," said his father. 
 Both of us held our breath as Laura stretched her 
 arms towards little Maurice. 
 
 The child looked for an instant searchingly, but 
 fearlessly, at her glowing cheeks, her bright eyes, her 
 welcoming smile, and met her embrace as she clasped 
 him to her bosom as if he had known her all his days. 
 
 The mortal antipathy had died out of the soul and 
 20
 
 306 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 
 
 the blood of Maurice Kirkwood at that supreme mo 
 ment when he found himself snatched from the grasp 
 of death and cradled in the arms of Eutliymia. 
 
 In closing the New Portfolio I remember that it be 
 gan with a prefix which the reader may by this time 
 have forgotten, namely, v the First Opening. It was 
 perhaps presumptuous to thus imply the probability of 
 a second opening. 
 
 I am reminded from time to time by the correspond 
 ents who ask a certain small favor of me that, as I can 
 only expect to be with my surviving contemporaries a 
 very little while longer, they would be much obliged 
 if I would hurry up my answer before it is too late. 
 They are right, these delicious unknown friends of 
 mine, in reminding me of a fact which I cannot gain 
 say and might suffer to pass from my recollection. I 
 thank them for recalling my attention to a truth which 
 I shall be wiser, if not more hilarious, for remember 
 ing. 
 
 No, I had no right to say the First Opening. How 
 do I know that I shall have a chance to open it again ? 
 How do I know that anybody will want it to be 
 opened a second time ? How do I know that I shall 
 feel like opening it ? It is safest neither to promise 
 to open the New Portfolio once more, nor yet to 
 pledge myself to keep it closed hereafter. There are 
 many papers potentially existent in it, some of which 
 might interest a reader here and there. The Records 
 of the Pansophian Society contain a considerable num 
 ber of essa} r s, poems, stories, and hints capable of be 
 ing expanded into presentable dimensions. In the
 
 A MORTAL ANTIPATHY. 307 
 
 mean time I will say with Prospero, addressing my 
 
 old readers, and my new ones, if such I have, 
 
 
 
 . " If you be pleased, retire into my cell 
 
 And there repose : a turn or two I '11 walk, 
 To still my beating mind." 
 
 When it has got quiet I may take up the New Port 
 folio again, and consider whether it is worth while to 
 open it.
 
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