The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories Part 51

S. My darlings! (The young men hesitate a moment, they they add their embrace, flinging themselves on Stephenson's neck, along with the girls.)

THE YOUNG MEN. Why, father!

S. (Struggling.) Oh, come, this is too thin!--too quick, I mean. Let go, you rascals!

GEO. We'll never let go till you put us on the family list.

M. Right! hold to him!

A. Cling to him, Will! (GRETCHEN rushes in and joins the general embrace, but is s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the WIRTHIN, crushed up against the wall, and threatened with destruction.)

S. (Suffocating.) All right, all right--have it your own way, you quartette of swindlers!

W. He's a darling! Three cheers for papa!

EVERYBODY. (Except Stephenson, who bows with hand on heart) Hip--hip--hip: hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

GR. Der Tiger--ah-h-h!

WIRTHIN. Sei ruhig, you hussy!

S. Well, I've lost a couple of precious daughters, but I've gained a couple of precious scamps to fill up the gap with; so it's all right. I'm satisfied, and everybody's forgiven--(With mock threats at Gretchen.)

W. Oh, wir werden fur Dich sorgen--dur herrliches Gretchen!

GR. Danke schon!

M. (To Wirthin.) Und fur Sie auch; denn wenn Sie nicht so freundlich gewesen waren, krank zu werden, wie waren wir je so glucklich geworden wie jetzt?

WIRTHIN. Well, dear, I was kind, but I didn't mean it. But I ain't sorry--not one bit--that I ain't. (Tableau.)

S. Come, now, the situation is full of hope, and grace, and tender sentiment. If I had in the least poetic gift, I know I could improvise under such an inspiration (each girl nudges her sweetheart) something worthy to--to--Is there no poet among us? (Each youth turns solemnly his back upon the other, and raises his hands in benediction over his sweetheart's bowed head.)

BOTH YOUTHS AT ONCE. Mir ist als ob ich die HandeAufs Haupt Dir legen sollt'--(They turn and look reproachfully at each other--the girls contemplate them with injured surprise.)

S. (Reflectively.) I think I've heard that before somewhere.

WIRTHIN. (Aside.) Why, the very cats in Germany know it!

(Curtain.)

(1) (EXPLANATORY.) I regard the idea of this play as a valuable invention. I call it the Patent Universally-Applicable Automatically Adjustable Language Drama. This indicates that it is adjustable to any tongue, and performable in any tongue. The English portions of the play are to remain just as they are, permanently; but you change the foreign portions to any language you please, at will. Do you see? You at once have the same old play in a new tongue. And you can keep changing it from language to language, until your private theatrical pupils have become glib and at home in the speech of all nations. Zum Beispiel, suppose we wish to adjust the play to the French tongue. First, we give Mrs. Blumenthal and Gretchen French names. Next, we knock the German Meisterschaft sentences out of the first scene, and replace them with sentences from the French Meisterschaft--like this, for instance: 'Je voudrais faire des emplettes ce matin; voulez-vous avoir l'obligeance de venir avec moi chez le tailleur francais?' And so on. Wherever you find German, replace it with French, leaving the English parts undisturbed.

When you come to the long conversation in the second act, turn to any pamphlet of your French Meisterschaft, and shovel in as much French talk on any subject as will fill up the gaps left by the expunged German.

Example--page 423, French Meisterschaft: On dirait qu'il va faire chaud.

J'ai chaud. J'ai extremement chaud. Ah! qu'il fait chaud! Il fait une chaleur etouffante! L'air est brulant. Je meurs de chaleur. Il est presque impossible de supporter la chaleur. Cela vous fait transpirer.

Mettons-nous a l'ombre. Il fait du vent. Il fait un vent froid. Il fait un tres agreable pour se promener aujourd'hui. And so on, all the way through. It is very easy to adjust the play to any desired language.

Anybody can do it.

MY BOYHOOD DREAMS

The dreams of my boyhood? No, they have not been realised. For all who are old, there is something infinitely pathetic about the subject which you have chosen, for in no greyhead's case can it suggest any but one thing--disappointment. Disappointment is its own reason for its pain: the quality or dignity of the hope that failed is a matter aside. The dreamer's valuation of the thing lost--not another man's--is the only standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and great and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases. We should carefully remember that. There are sixteen hundred million people in the world. Of these there is but a trifling number--in fact, only thirty-eight millions--who can understand why a person should have an ambition to belong to the French army; and why, belonging to it, he should be proud of that; and why, having got down that far, he should want to go on down, down, down till he struck the bottom and got on the General Staff; and why, being stripped of this livery, or set free and reinvested with his self-respect by any other quick and thorough process, let it be what it might, he should wish to return to his strange serf.a.ge. But no matter: the estimate put upon these things by the fifteen hundred and sixty millions is no proper measure of their value: the proper measure, the just measure, is that which is put upon them by Dreyfus, and is cipherable merely upon the littleness or the vastness of the disappointment which their loss cost him. There you have it: the measure of the magnitude of a dream-failure is the measure of the disappointment the failure cost the dreamer; the value, in others'

eyes, of the thing lost, has nothing to do with the matter. With this straightening out and cla.s.sification of the dreamer's position to help us, perhaps we can put ourselves in his place and respect his dream--Dreyfus's, and the dreams our friends have cherished and reveal to us. Some that I call to mind, some that have been revealed to me, are curious enough; but we may not smile at them, for they were precious to the dreamers, and their failure has left scars which give them dignity and pathos. With this theme in my mind, dear heads that were brown when they and mine were young together rise old and white before me now, beseeching me to speak for them, and most lovingly will I do it.

Howells, Hay, Aldrich, Matthews, Stockton, Cable, Remus--how their young hopes and ambitions come flooding back to my memory now, out of the vague far past, the beautiful past, the lamented past! I remember it so well--that night we met together--it was in Boston, and Mr. Fiends was there, and Mr. Osgood, Ralph Keeler, and Boyle O'Reilly, lost to us now these many years--and under the seal of confidence revealed to each other what our boyhood dreams had been: reams which had not as yet been blighted, but over which was stealing the grey of the night that was to come--a night which we prophetically felt, and this feeling oppressed us and made us sad. I remember that Howells's voice broke twice, and it was only with great difficulty that he was able to go on; in the end he wept. For he had hoped to be an auctioneer. He told of his early struggles to climb to his goal, and how at last he attained to within a single step of the coveted summit. But there misfortune after misfortune a.s.sailed him, and he went down, and down, and down, until now at last, weary and disheartened, he had for the present given up the struggle and become the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. This was in 1830. Seventy years are gone since, and where now is his dream? It will never be fulfilled. And it is best so; he is no longer fitted for the position; no one would take him now; even if he got it, he would not be able to do himself credit in it, on account of his deliberateness of speech and lack of trained professional vivacity; he would be put on real estate, and would have the pain of seeing younger and abler men intrusted with the furniture and other such goods--goods which draw a mixed and intellectually low order of customers, who must be beguiled of their bids by a vulgar and specialised humour and sparkle, accompanied with antics. But it is not the thing lost that counts, but only the disappointment the loss brings to the dreamer that had coveted that thing and had set his heart of hearts upon it, and when we remember this, a great wave of sorrow for Howells rises in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and we wish for his sake that his fate could have been different. At that time Hay's boyhood dream was not yet past hope of realisation, but it was fading, dimming, wasting away, and the wind of a growing apprehension was blowing cold over the peris.h.i.+ng summer of his life. In the pride of his young ambition he had aspired to be a steamboat mate; and in fancy saw himself dominating a forecastle some day on the Mississippi and dictating terms to roustabouts in high and wounding terms. I look back now, from this far distance of seventy years, and note with sorrow the stages of that dream's destruction. Hay's history is but Howells's, with differences of detail. Hay climbed high toward his ideal; when success seemed almost sure, his foot upon the very gang-plank, his eye upon the capstan, misfortune came and his fall began. Down--down--down--ever down: Private Secretary to the President; Colonel in the field; Charge d'Affaires in Paris; Charge d'Affaires in Vienna; Poet; Editor of the Tribune; Biographer of Lincoln; Amba.s.sador to England; and now at last there he lies--Secretary of State, Head of Foreign Affairs. And he has fallen like Lucifer, never to rise again. And his dream--where now is his dream? Gone down in blood and tears with the dream of the auctioneer. And the young dream of Aldrich--where is that? I remember yet how he sat there that night fondling it, petting it; seeing it recede and ever recede; trying to be reconciled and give it up, but not able yet to bear the thought; for it had been his hope to be a horse-doctor. He also climbed high, but, like the others, fell; then fell again, and yet again, and again and again. And now at last he can fall no further. He is old now, he has ceased to struggle, and is only a poet. No one would risk a horse with him now. His dream is over. Has any boyhood dream ever been fulfilled? I must doubt it. Look at Brander Matthews. He wanted to be a cowboy. What is he to-day? Nothing but a professor in a university. Will he ever be a cowboy? It is hardly conceivable. Look at Stockton. What was Stockton's young dream? He hoped to be a barkeeper. See where he has landed. Is it better with Cable?

What was Cable's young dream? To be ring-master in the circus, and swell around and crack the whip. What is he to-day? Nothing but a theologian and novelist. And Uncle Remus--what was his young dream? To be a buccaneer. Look at him now. Ah, the dreams of our youth, how beautiful they are, and how perishable! The ruins of these might-have-beens, how pathetic! The heart-secrets that were revealed that night now so long vanished, how they touch me as I give them voice! Those sweet privacies, how they endeared us to each other! We were under oath never to tell any of these things, and I have always kept that oath inviolate when speaking with persons whom I thought not worthy to hear them. Oh, our lost Youth--G.o.d keep its memory green in our hearts! for Age is upon us, with the indignity of its infirmities, and Death beckons!

TO THE ABOVE OLD PEOPLE

Sleep! for the Sun that scores another Day Against the Tale allotted You to stay, Reminding You, is Risen, and now Serves Notice--ah, ignore it while You stay!

The chill Wind blew, and those who stood before The Tavern murmured, 'Having drunk his Score, Why tarries He with empty Cup? Behold, The Wine of Youth once poured, is poured no more

'Come, leave the Cup, and on the Winter's Snow Your Summer Garment of Enjoyment throw: Your Tide of Life is ebbing fast, and it, Exhausted once, for You no more shall flow.'

While yet the Phantom of false Youth was mine, I heard a Voice from out the Darkness whine, 'O Youth, O whither gone? Return, And bathe my Age in thy reviving Wine.'

In this subduing Draught of tender green And kindly Absinth, with its wimpling Sheen Of dusky half-lights, let me drown The haunting Pathos of the Might-Have-Been.

For every nickeled Joy, marred and brief, We pay some day its Weight in golden Grief Mined from our Hearts. Ah, murmur not-- From this one-sided Bargain dream of no Relief!

The Joy of Life, that streaming through their Veins Tumultuous swept, falls slack--and wanes The Glory in the Eye--and one by one Life's Pleasures perish and make place for Pains.

Whether one hide in some secluded Nook-- Whether at Liverpool or Sandy Hook-- 'Tis one. Old Age will search him out--and He--He--He--when ready will know where to look.

From Cradle unto Grave I keep a House OF Entertainment where may drowse Bacilli and kindred Germs--or feed--or breed Their festering Species in a deep Carouse.

Think--in this battered Caravanserai, Whose Portals open stand all Night and Day, How Microbe after Microbe with his Pomp Arrives unasked, and comes to stay.

Our ivory Teeth, confessing to the l.u.s.t Of masticating, once, now own Disgust Of Clay-Plug'd Cavities--full soon our Snags Are emptied, and our Mouths are filled with Dust.

Our Gums forsake the Teeth and tender grow, And fat, like over-riped Figs--we know The Sign--the Riggs' Disease is ours, and we Must list this Sorrow, add another Woe;

Our Lungs begin to fail and soon we Cough, And chilly Streaks play up our Backs, and off Our fever'd Foreheads drips an icy Sweat-- We scoffered before, but now we may not scoff.

Some for the Bunions that afflict us prate Of Plasters unsurpa.s.sable, and hate To Cut a corn--ah cut, and let the Plaster go, Nor murmur if the Solace come too late.

Some for the Honours of Old Age, and some Long for its Respite from the Hum And Clash of sordid Strife--O Fools, The Past should teach them what's to Come: