The Spell Part 7

"I wish I could show you that you make too much of a mountain out of this intellectual bugbear," Inez replied, candidly. "Your husband is a very unusual man. His interest in the humanities is beyond anything one can appreciate without seeing him as I saw him this morning. He longs to take you with him into this life, and if I were in your place I should let him be the one to discover my lack of understanding, if I really did lack it, instead of insisting upon it as a foregone conclusion. For myself, I don't take much stock in it. I remember too well how quick a certain Miss Cartwright was at school to grasp new ideas, and I have not noticed any serious retrogression since."

Helen pondered carefully over her friend's criticism before replying. "I suppose it does seem like obstinacy," she said, finally--"to him as well as to you; yet to myself it appears perfectly consistent. The one thing which gives me an idea of the extent of his devotion is my music. You know how I adore it, how much a part of my life it has always been--yet it means nothing to Jack, and he therefore takes no particular interest in it. He went to the Symphonies and the Opera with me while we were engaged, and to concerts and recitals, but I knew all the time that it was just to please me. I made up my mind that when we were married I would keep up my interest in this 'devotion' of mine only as much as I could without having it interfere with those things which he cared for or which we could enjoy together. But the fact that music means less to him than it means to me does not make me love him any the less."

"But you don't enter into this particular interest of his, even to please him, as he did to please you."

"Because I appreciate from the experience I have just mentioned how little real satisfaction it would give either one of us. Looking back, I feel that I was positively selfish to let him go to those concerts with me, and I shall never inflict them on him again. I am sure that he knows how I feel, and I think he ought to be grateful for my consideration."

Inez pressed Helen's hand. "You ought to know best, dear," she answered.

"You both possess such wonderful possibilities that it would be a shame not to combine them. It seems to me that you might come to an appreciation of each other's interests by becoming familiar with them.--I wonder if you realize what a man your husband is?"

Helen leaned over and kissed her impulsively. "I realize more than I ever intend to let him know, dear child. He would become unbearably conceited were he even to guess how much he has already become to me. I really did not want to marry him--or to marry any one--but he swept away every objection, just as he always does, and now I find myself wondering how in the world I ever existed without him. Oh, Inez"--Helen's face became tense in her earnestness--"we girls think we know a whole lot about marriage. We antic.i.p.ate it--we dread it; but, when one actually enters into her new estate, she knows how infinitely more it is to be antic.i.p.ated, if happy, than her fondest dream. But if unhappy--then her dread must have been infinitesimal compared with the reality."

"'Marriage is either a complete union or a complete isolation,'" quoted Inez.

"As I tell you, Jack and I understand each other perfectly," Helen continued, confidently, "and that means so much to a girl. One of the first things I told him, after we became engaged, was that if our affection stood for anything it must stand for everything. If at any time while we were engaged, or even after we were married, he felt that he had made a mistake in thinking me the one woman in the world for him, he was to come to me frankly and say so, and together we would plan how best to meet the situation. Suppose, for instance, that Jack met some one whom he really loved better than me. It would be an awful experience, but how much less of a tragedy to recognize the fact than to live on, a hollow, miserable existence, such as we see in so many instances around us."

"And he has not confessed to you yet?"

"Not yet," Helen laughed, "and we shall have been married six weeks to-morrow. That is a pretty good start, is it not?"

"But how about yourself--have you the same privilege?"

"Of course; but that is not important, for I shall never see any one fit to ride in the same automobile with Jack."

"What did you say about my automobile? Has it arrived?"

Armstrong's face was filled with eager expectation as he came up behind Helen, followed by Uncle Peabody. He drew her affectionately toward him.

"You wretch!" cried Helen, "you have been eavesdropping."

"Not an eavesdrop," protested Jack, "and I can prove it by a witness.

When I came down-stairs I looked for my beloved spouse upon the terrace and found her not. The gentle Annetta confided to me that you and the Signorina Thayer were in the garden; I set out upon my quest and found you here discussing my automobile or some one else's. Again I ask you, have you news of its arrival?"

"No, Jack--no news as yet; and you make out so good a case that I must absolve you. Since you insist on knowing, we were discussing the very prosaic subject of matrimony."

"Why discourage Miss Thayer from making the attempt simply because of your own sad case?" Armstrong queried, releasing his wife and seating himself beside her on the edge of the bal.u.s.trade. "Marriage is a lottery--so saith the philosopher. We all know the preponderance of blanks and small prizes, yet each one feels certain that he will be the lucky one. Once in a while a chap pulls out the capital prize, and that encourages the others, though it ought to discourage them, because it lessens the chances just so much. But what I object to is the growling afterward, when each should realize that he is getting exactly what he ought to have expected."

"But it is not fair that both you and Helen should have drawn the lucky numbers," Inez declared. "It makes it so hopeless for the rest of us."

"There, Sir Fisher," cried Helen, "you have gained the compliment for which you strove. Art satisfied?"

"No one has drawn me yet," suggested Uncle Peabody, "and I am a capital prize--I admit it."

"It is a shame to throw cold water on Miss Thayer's beautiful sentiment," continued Armstrong. "Such thoughts are so rare that they should be encouraged; but the facts of the case are that the capital prizes in the men's lottery were discontinued long ago. No--among the girls they are still to be won at rare intervals, but the only way to distinguish the men is by looking up their rating in Bradstreet's, or their mother's family name in the Social Register. Other than this, one man is as bad as another, if not worse."

Inez looked at Armstrong for a moment with a puzzled expression, but failed to find any suggestion that he was speaking lightly. And yet--what a change in att.i.tude from the morning! She hesitated to turn the subject upon what seemed to her to be forbidden ground, yet she could not resist opposing his expressions, even though they might be uttered flippantly. Her voice contained a reproach.

"You spoke differently of men this morning."

Armstrong turned to her quickly. "This morning?" he repeated. "Oh, but I was referring to the humanists, and to ancient ones at that. I am talking now of men in general, rather than of those rare exceptions, ancient or modern, who have succeeded in separating themselves from their commonplace contemporaries. Of course, my respect for the old-timers is supreme, because their great accomplishments were in the face of so much greater obstacles. Since then the world has had five hundred years in which to degenerate."

"Don't pay any attention to him, Inez," Helen interrupted, complacently.

"He is simply trying to start an argument, and he does not believe a word he says. He really looks upon men as infinitely superior beings in the past, present, and future, and this self-abnegation on the part of himself and his s.e.x is only a pa.s.sing conceit."

"I refuse to be side-tracked," Armstrong insisted. "I grant that the conversation started more in jest than in earnest, but I maintain my position, none the less. Modern civilization has brought to us a wonderful material development, but intellectual advance, instead of keeping abreast of the material, has positively retrograded."

"You really make me feel ashamed to be living in such an abominable age," suggested Uncle Peabody.

Inez was serious. "I am quite incompetent to carry on this discussion with you, Mr. Armstrong," she said, disregarding the others, "and I admire, as you know, the marvellous accomplishments of these 'old-timers,' as you call them, wondering at their power to overcome the obstacles which we know existed. Yet I like to believe that the ages which have pa.s.sed have marked an advance on all sides rather than a retrogression."

"So should I like to," a.s.sented Armstrong, "if I could; but look at the facts. William James has just succeeded in making philosophy popular, but Plato and Aristotle gave it to us before the birth of Christ. We enthuse over Shakespeare and Dante and Milton, but Homer and Virgil gave us the grandest of poetry two thousand years ago. The _quattrocento_, that period which so fires me with enthusiasm, gave us Raphael as an artist, together with Leonardo and Michelangelo as the foremost examples of humanists. Whom have we had since to equal them?"

"All this is beyond argument," Inez admitted. "But is this the fault of the men or of the times? Conditions are so changed that the same kind of work can never be done again. The telephone, the telegraph, railroad trains, fast steams.h.i.+ps, the daily papers--everything distracts the modern worker from devoting himself wholly and absolutely to his single purpose; but with this distraction is it not also true that the modern worker gives to the world what the world really needs most under the present conditions? In other words, would not these same great men, if set down in the twentieth century, produce work very similar to what modern great men have given and are giving us?"

"I should be sorry enough to think so," affirmed Jack. "What a pity it would be!"

Uncle Peabody's mood had changed from amus.e.m.e.nt to interest. "If I really thought you were sincere in the att.i.tude you take," he said, addressing Armstrong, "I could prescribe no better cure for your complaint than to force you to subject yourself, for one single week, to those same conditions which you seem to admire so much."

"If you refer to conveniences, Mr. Cartwright," interrupted Armstrong, "I will admit without argument that you are right. These are wholly the result of material development."

"Let us confine ourselves to intellectual achievements if you choose,"

continued Uncle Peabody. "Without an intellect, could one harness steam and electricity and make them obedient to the human will? Is not a wireless message an echo from the brain? What is the telephone if not a product of thought?"

"You and Miss Thayer are arguing my case far better than I can do it myself," replied Armstrong, undisturbed. "The triumphs of Watt and Edison and Marconi and Bell are all intellectual, even though utilitarian. Each of these men has proved himself humanistic, in that he has given to the world the best that is in him, and not simply modified or readapted some previous achievement. If they were not limited by living in an age of specialization they might even have been humanists.

Right here in Italy you see the same thing to-day. The Italians are beyond any other race intellectually fit to rule the world now as they once did, and it is simply because they have been unable to withstand materialism that they have not reclaimed their own."

"Just what do you mean by 'humanism,' Jack?" Helen asked, abruptly.

"The final definition of modern humanism will not be written for several years," Armstrong answered. "The world is not yet ready for it, and I am afraid Cerini's creed of ancient humanism would strike you as being rather heavy."

"Let me see if I could comprehend it." Helen looked across to Inez, and the eyes of the two girls met with mutual understanding. "Can you repeat it?"

"I know it word for word," her husband replied, eagerly, delighted to have Helen manifest an interest. "It was the first lesson the old man taught me, years ago. 'The humanist,' Cerini says, 'is the man who not only knows intimately the ancients and is inspired by them: it is he who is so fascinated by their magic spell that he copies them, imitates them, rehea.r.s.es their lessons, adopts their models and their methods, their examples and their G.o.ds, their spirit and their tongue.'"

Helen was visibly disappointed. "I thought I had an idea," she said, slowly, "but I was wrong. Inez used the word 'humanities' a few moments ago, and I once heard President Eliot say that this was simply another name for a liberal education--teaching men to drink in the inspiration of all the ages and to seek to make their age the best."

"You are not wrong, Helen," continued Armstrong, "unless you understand President Eliot to mean that the ages which have come since these great men lived have been able to add particularly to what has gone before.

All that is included in what Cerini says."

"Then the present, which I love so well, means nothing?"

"It means a great deal." Armstrong laughed at the injured tone of Helen's voice. "The great material achievements of the present, which you just heard cited by Miss Thayer and Uncle Peabody, are of vast importance, but the age does not stand out as a period of intellectual progression. The achievements themselves, and the new conditions which they introduce, make that impossible."

"Can we not admire the past and enjoy what it has given us without becoming a part of it ourselves?" persisted Helen.

"Not if we remain true to our ideals. I spoke just now of Leonardo and Michelangelo as being the foremost examples of humanists. By that I mean that they represent the highest point of intellectual manhood. Da Vinci was a great writer, a great painter, a great scientist, a great engineer, a great mechanician, while Buonarroti was famous not only as a sculptor, but also as a painter, an architect, and a poet. And these men had to develop their own precedent, while all who have striven for more than mediocrity since then have propped themselves up on the work of these and other great masters. Can you wonder that my own great ambition, quite impossible of accomplishment, is to emulate these men--not in the same pursuits, but in some way, in any way, which enables me to give to the world the best that is in me. Should I gratify myself in this, that which I accomplished would be done simply in the fulfilment of my effort, and I should gain my recompense in the knowledge that it _was_ my best. This is my understanding of Cerini's creed."

"All this is most interesting," admitted Helen. "It is indeed splendid to know the ancients intimately, and to receive their inspiration. It is fine to imitate them and to rehea.r.s.e their lessons, but I don't see why we should bind ourselves down to the old-time limitations by using their methods when, to my mind, our own methods are so much better suited to modern conditions?"