Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

nothing except what others had told him? Clergymen are always wondering why people persist in vice that they admit is killing them, physically and mentally. They have never discovered that the habit of vice increases as the will to resist decreases.

Therefore, in so far as this new something, that has come into my life and changed me from a sodden lump of clay into a conductor of electricity, is concerned, I propose to retain it so long as it will stay, - and you know, old man, I am nothing if not obstinate, all weak people are. I rather admire obstinacy for this reason. There are two sorts of force in individuals

one comes from obstinacy and one from a conscious sense of right, but for every-day use give me the former; it can stand the wear and tear of argument and a flood of light, but a mere conscious sense of right,

from the very intelligence that prompted its deductions, permits itself to waver and doubt.

My friendship with Mrs. B. has widened and deepened, and is only bounded now by the horizon of my life. The intimate friendship of one good woman is often to a man a complete recompense for all the bad women in the world, and all the dull ones, too, which is saying much more.

With Mrs. B., it is a case of the marriage of innate goodness to intellect, with the one child, Beauty, as a result. Here beauty is the visible expression of herself; it is logical, therefore convincing. Where she is the air is charged with electricity; you inhale new life; your dead ambitions rise from their graves and are born again. Your sympathies for others, atrophied for years, become strong and lusty once more

and seek a practical outlet. Of course this atmosphere seems good to me, and I drink it in with long, deep breaths,

"For when the sun is hot as fire,
And sky one burning soft sapphire,
One doesn't drink in little sips."

You see, I have been touched by a fairy wand, and changed from a pumpkin into a man. However, do believe I mean no wrong in all this, you must believe it, because you can, as you have a trained intellect, which is simply one that, in religion, law, or politics, makes itself believe what it likes.

Yours impenitently,

DOUGLAS.

TENTH LETTER

West Braintree, Mass.

DEAR DOUGLAS:

I have your extraordinary letter, written after an interval of nearly a month. If this is a mere midsummer's madness, or perhaps, a melodrama arranged with your well-known dramatic ability for the amusement of the backless, I thank you for your pains. If, on the other hand, your last letter was a serious composition, I am aghast. I have never missed my poor broken pedestrian machinery so much as now, for I should "chuck" any other duty to follow you, to draw you from the quicksands into which you are light-heartedly walking. May I have a vision for a moment? I see

a woman, probably an unusually attractive woman, for you have known too many to be thrown off your balance by passing fancies, tied presumably to a husband whom she has ceased to respect, or who interests. her no longer. You appear, —

may I be frank, and say, somewhat weary of your

[ocr errors]

own home affairs. You are both more or less in a receptive condition for this kind. of contagious disease. Of her talk, I know nothing. Of yours, I can guess that it leads first to amusement, then interest, then confidence on her part, and then sympathy on yours. Sympathy, as we all know, is but the ability to surround ourselves with an atmosphere in which others find themselves at their best. A lower form of the same thing is the fish that can colour the water about himself. This Mrs. B. has coloured the air about her to suit your mental and

« AnteriorContinuar »