Chapter 12
“There is a kind of Cabbala Alphabetica which the investigators of the numerals in words would do well to take up; it is the formation of sentences which contain all the letters of the alphabet, and each only once. No one has done it with v and j treated as consonants; but you and I can do it. Dr. Whewell and I amused ourselves some years ago with attempts. He could not make sense, though he joined words he gave me Phiz, styx, wrong, buck, flame, quiz.
“I gave him the following, which he agreed was 'admirable sense,'--I certainly think the words would never have come together except in this way: I quartz pyx who fling muck beds. I long thought that no human being could say this under any circumstances. At last I happened to be reading a religious writer,--as he thought himself,--who threw aspersions on his opponents thick and threefold. Heyday came into my head; this fellow flings muck beds; he must be a quartz pyx. And then I remembered that a pyx is a sacred vessel, and quartz is a hard stone, as hard as the heart of a religious foe-curser. So that the line is the motto of the ferocious sectarian who turns his religious vessels into mud-holders, for the benefit of those who will not see what he sees.”
“There are several other sentences given, in which all the letters (except v and j as consonants) are employed, of which the following is the best: Get nymph; quiz sad brow; fix luck,--which in more sober English would be, Marry; be cheerful; watch your business. There is more edification, more religion, in this than in all the 666 interpretations put together.”
There is something very pleasant in the thought of these two sages playing at jackstraws with the letters of the alphabet. The task which De Morgan and Dr. Whewell, “the omniscient,” set themselves would not be unworthy of our own ingenious scholars, and it might be worth while for some one of our popular periodicals to offer a prize for the best sentence using up the whole alphabet, under the same conditions as those submitted to by our two philosophers.
This whole book of De Morgan's seems to me full of instruction. There is too much of it, no doubt; yet one can put up with the redundancy for the sake of the multiplicity of shades of credulity and self-deception it displays in broad daylight. I suspect many of us are conscious of a second personality in our complex nature, which has many traits resembling those found in the writers of the letters addressed to Mr. De Horgan.
I have not ventured very often nor very deeply into the field of metaphysics, but if I were disposed to make any claim in that direction, it would be the recognition of the squinting brain, the introduction of the term “cerebricity” corresponding to electricity, the idiotic area in the brain or thinking-marrow, and my studies of the second member in the partnership of I-My-Self & Co. I add the Co. with especial reference to a very interesting article in a late Scribner, by my friend Mr. William James. In this article the reader will find a full exposition of the doctrine of plural personality illustrated by striking cases. I have long ago noticed and referred to the fact of the stratification of the currents of thought in three layers, one over the other. I have recognized that where there are two individuals talking together there are really six personalities engaged in the conversation. But the distinct, separable, independent individualities, taking up conscious life one after the other, are brought out by Mr. James and the authorities to which he refers as I have not elsewhere seen them developed.
Whether we shall ever find the exact position of the idiotic centre or area in the brain (if such a spot exists) is uncertain. We know exactly where the blind spot of the eye is situated, and can demonstrate it anatomically and physiologically. But we have only analogy to lead us to infer the possible or even probable existence of an insensible spot in the thinking-centre. If there is a focal point where consciousness is at its highest development, it would not be strange if near by there should prove to be an anaesthetic district or limited space where no report from the senses was intelligently interpreted. But all this is mere hypothesis.
Notwithstanding the fact that I am nominally the head personage of the circle of Teacups, I do not pretend or wish to deny that we all look to Number Five as our chief adviser in all the literary questions that come before us. She reads more and better than any of us. She is always ready to welcome the first sign of genius, or of talent which approaches genius. She makes short work with all the pretenders whose only excuse for appealing to the public is that they “want to be famous.” She is one of the very few persons to whom I am willing to read any one of my own productions while it is yet in manuscript, unpublished. I know she is disposed to make more of it than it deserves; but, on the other hand, there are degrees in her scale of judgment, and I can distinguish very easily what delights her from what pleases only, or is, except for her kindly feeling to the writer, indifferent, or open to severe comment. What is curious is that she seems to have no literary aspirations, no desire to be known as a writer. Yet Number Five has more esprit, more sparkle, more sense in her talk, than many a famous authoress from whom we should expect brilliant conversation.
There are mysteries about Number Five. I am not going to describe her personally. Whether she belongs naturally among the bright young people, or in the company of the maturer persons, who have had a good deal of experience of the world, and have reached the wisdom of the riper decades without losing the graces of the earlier ones, it would be hard to say. The men and women, young and old, who throng about her forget their own ages. “There is no such thing as time in her presence,” said the Professor, the other day, in speaking of her. Whether the Professor is in love with her or not is more than I can say, but I am sure that he goes to her for literary sympathy and counsel, just as I do. The reader may remember what Number Five said about the possibility of her getting a sprained ankle, and her asking the young Doctor whether he felt equal to taking charge of her if she did. I would not for the world insinuate that he wishes she would slip and twist her foot a little,--just a little, you know, but so that it would have to be laid on a pillow in a chair, and inspected, and bandaged, and delicately manipulated. There was a banana-skin which she might naturally have trodden on, in her way to the tea-table. Nobody can suppose that it was there except by the most innocent of accidents. There are people who will suspect everybody. The idea of the Doctor's putting that banana-skin there! People love to talk in that silly way about doctors.
Number Five had promised to read us a narrative which she thought would interest some of the company. Who wrote it she did not tell us, but I inferred from various circumstances that she had known the writer. She read the story most effectively in her rich, musical voice. I noticed that when it came to the sounds of the striking clock, the ringing of the notes was so like that which reaches us from some far-off cathedral tower that we wanted to bow our heads, as if we had just heard a summons to the Angelus. This was the short story that Number Five read to The Teacups:--
I have somewhere read this anecdote. Louis the Fourteenth was looking out, one day, from, a window of his palace of Saint-Germain. It was a beautiful landscape which spread out before him, and the monarch, exulting in health, strength, and the splendors of his exalted position, felt his bosom swell with emotions of pride and happiness: Presently he noticed the towers of a church in the distance, above the treetops. “What building is that?” he asked. “May it please your Majesty, that is the Church of St. Denis, where your royal ancestors have been buried for many generations.” The answer did not “please his Royal Majesty.” There, then, was the place where he too was to lie and moulder in the dust. He turned, sick at heart, from the window, and was uneasy until he had built him another palace, from which he could never be appalled by that fatal prospect.
Something like the experience of Louis the Fourteenth was that of the owner of
THE TERRIBLE CLOCK.
I give the story as transcribed from the original manuscript:--
The clock was bequeathed to me by an old friend who had recently died. His mind had been a good deal disordered in the later period of his life. This clock, I am told; seemed to have a strange fascination for him. His eyes were fastened on it during the last hours of his life. He died just at midnight. The clock struck twelve, the nurse told me, as he drew his last breath, and then, without any known cause, stopped, with both hands upon the hour.
It is a complex and costly piece of mechanism. The escapement is in front, so that every tooth is seen as it frees itself. It shows the phases of the moon, the month of the year, the day of the month, and the day of the week, as well as the hour and minute of the day.
I had not owned it a week before I began to perceive the same kind of fascination as that which its former owner had experienced. This gradually grew upon me, and presently led to trains of thought which became at first unwelcome, then worrying, and at last unendurable. I began by taking offence at the moon. I did not like to see that “something large and smooth and round,” so like the skull which little Peterkin picked up on the field of Blenheim. “How many times,” I kept saying to myself, “is that wicked old moon coming up to stare at me?” I could not stand it. I stopped a part of the machinery, and the moon went into permanent eclipse. By and by the sounds of the infernal machine began to trouble and pursue me. They talked to me; more and more their language became that of articulately speaking men. They twitted me with the rapid flight of time. They hurried me, as if I had not a moment to lose. Quick! Quick! Quick! as each tooth released itself from the escapement. And as I looked and listened there could not be any mistake about it. I heard Quick! Quick! Quick! as plainly, at least, as I ever heard a word from the phonograph. I stood watching the dial one day,--it was near one o'clock,--and a strange attraction held me fastened to the spot. Presently something appeared to trip or stumble inside of the infernal mechanism. I waited for the sound I knew was to follow. How nervous I got! It seemed to me that it would never strike. At last the minute-hand reached the highest point of the dial. Then there was a little stir among the works, as there is in a congregation as it rises to receive the benediction. It was no form of blessing which rung out those deep, almost sepulchral tones. But the word they uttered could not be mistaken. I can hear its prolonged, solemn vibrations as if I were standing before the clock at this moment.
Gone! Yes, I said to myself, gone,--its record made up to be opened in eternity.
I stood still, staring vaguely at the dial as in a trance. And as the next hour creeps stealthily up, it starts all at once, and cries aloud, Gone!--Gone! The sun sinks lower, the hour-hand creeps downward with it, until I hear the thrice-repeated monosyllable, Gone!--Gone!--Gone! Soon through the darkening hours, until at the dead of night the long roll is called, and with the last Gone! the latest of the long procession that filled the day follows its ghostly companions into the stillness and darkness of the past.
I silenced the striking part of the works. Still, the escapement kept repeating, Quick! Quick! Quick! Still the long minute-hand, like the dart in the grasp of Death, as we see it in Roubiliac's monument to Mrs. Nightingale, among the tombs of Westminster Abbey, stretched itself out, ready to transfix each hour as it passed, and make it my last. I sat by the clock to watch the leap from one day of the week to the next. Then would come, in natural order, the long stride from one month to the following one.
I could endure it no longer. “Take that clock away!” I said. They took it away. They took me away, too,--they thought I needed country air. The sounds and motions still pursued me in imagination. I was very nervous when I came here. The walks are pleasant, but the walls seem to me unnecessarily high. The boarders are numerous; a little miscellaneous, I think. But we have the Queen, and the President of the United States, and several other distinguished persons, if we may trust what they tell about themselves.
After we had listened to Number Five's story, I was requested to read a couple of verses written by me when the guest of my friends, whose name is hinted by the title prefixed to my lines.
LA MAISON D'OR.
BAR HARBOR.
From this fair home behold on either side The restful mountains or the restless sea: So the warm sheltering walls of life divide Time and its tides from still eternity.
Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach That not on earth may toil and struggle cease. Look on the mountains: better far than speech Their silent promise of eternal peace.
VIII.
I had intended to devote this particular report to an account of my replies to certain questions which have been addressed to me,--questions which I have a right to suppose interest the public, and which, therefore, I was justified in bringing before The Teacups, and presenting to the readers of these articles.
Some may care for one of these questions, and some for another. A good many young people think nothing about life as it presents itself in the far horizon, bounded by the snowy ridges of threescore and the dim peaks beyond that remote barrier. Again, there are numbers of persons who know nothing at all about the Jews; while, on the other hand, there are those who can, or think they can, detect the Israelitish blood in many of their acquaintances who believe themselves of the purest Japhetic origin, and are full of prejudices about the Semitic race.
I do not mean to be cheated out of my intentions. I propose to answer my questioners on the two points just referred to, but I find myself so much interested in the personal affairs of The Teacups that I must deal with them before attacking those less exciting subjects. There is no use, let me say here, in addressing to me letters marked “personal,” “private,” “confidential,” and so forth, asking me how I came to know what happened in certain conversations of which I shall give a partial account. If there is a very sensitive phonograph lying about here and there in unsuspected corners, that might account for some part of my revelations. If Delilah, whose hearing is of almost supernatural delicacy, reports to me what she overhears, it might explain a part of the mystery. I do not want to accuse Delilah, but a young person who assures me she can hear my watch ticking in my pocket, when I am in the next room, might undoubtedly tell many secrets, if so disposed. Number Five is pretty nearly omniscient, and she and I are on the best terms with each other. These are all the hints I shall give you at present.
The Teacups of whom the least has been heard at our table are the Tutor and the Musician. The Tutor is a modest young man, kept down a little, I think, by the presence of older persons, like the Professor and myself. I have met him several times, of late, walking with different lady Teacups: once with the American Annex; twice with the English Annex; once with the two Annexes together; once with Number Five.
I have mentioned the fact that the Tutor is a poet as among his claims to our attention. I must add that I do not think any the worse of him for expressing his emotions and experiences in verse. For though rhyming is often a bad sign in a young man, especially if he is already out of his teens, there are those to whom it is as natural, one might almost say as necessary, as it is to a young bird to fly. One does not care to see barnyard fowls tumbling about in trying to use their wings. They have a pair of good, stout drumsticks, and had better keep to them, for the most part. But that feeling does not apply to young eagles, or even to young swallows and sparrows. The Tutor is by no means one of those ignorant, silly, conceited phrase-tinklers, who live on the music of their own jingling syllables and the flattery of their foolish friends. I think Number Five must appreciate him. He is sincere, warmhearted,--his poetry shows that,--not in haste to be famous, and he looks to me as if he only wanted love to steady him. With one of those two young girls he ought certainly to be captivated, if he is not already. Twice walking with the English Annex, I met him, and they were so deeply absorbed in conversation they hardly noticed me. He has been talking over the matter with Number Five, who is just the kind of person for a confidante.
“I know I feel very lonely,” he was saying, “and I only wish I felt sure that I could make another person happy. My life would be transfigured if I could find such a one, whom I could love well enough to give my life to her,--for her, if that were needful, and who felt an affinity for me, if any one could.”
“And why not your English maiden?” said Number Five.
“What makes you think I care more for her than for her American friend?” said the Tutor.
“Why, have n't I met you walking with her, and did n't you both seem greatly interested in the subject you were discussing? I thought, of course, it was something more or less sentimental that you were talking about.”
“I was explaining that 'enclitic de' in Browning's Grammarian's Funeral. I don't think there was anything very sentimental about that. She is an inquisitive creature, that English girl. She is very fond of asking me questions,--in fact, both of them are. There is one curious difference between them: the English girl settles down into her answers and is quiet; the American girl is never satisfied with yesterday's conclusions; she is always reopening old questions in the light of some new fact or some novel idea. I suppose that people bred from childhood to lean their backs against the wall of the Creed and the church catechism find it hard to sit up straight on the republican stool, which obliges them to stiffen their own backs. Which of these two girls would be the safest choice for a young man? I should really like to hear what answer you would make if I consulted you seriously, with a view to my own choice,--on the supposition that there was a fair chance that either of them might be won.”
“The one you are in love with,” answered Number Five.
“But what if it were a case of 'How happy could I be with either'? Which offers the best chance of happiness,--a marriage between two persons of the same country, or a marriage where one of the parties is of foreign birth? Everything else being equal, which is best for an American to marry, an American or an English girl? We need not confine the question to those two young persons, but put it more generally.”
“There are reasons on both sides,” answered Number Five. “I have often talked this matter over with The Dictator. This is the way he speaks about it. English blood is apt to tell well on the stock upon which it is engrafted. Over and over again he has noticed finely grown specimens of human beings, and on inquiry has found that one or both of the parents or grandparents were of British origin. The chances are that the descendants of the imported stock will be of a richer organization, more florid, more muscular, with mellower voices, than the native whose blood has been unmingled with that of new emigrants since the earlier colonial times.--So talks The Dictator.--I myself think the American will find his English wife concentrates herself more readily and more exclusively on her husband,--for the obvious reason that she is obliged to live mainly in him. I remember hearing an old friend of my early days say, 'A woman does not bear transplanting.' It does not do to trust these old sayings, and yet they almost always have some foundation in the experience of mankind, which has repeated them from generation to generation. Happy is the married woman of foreign birth who can say to her husband, as Andromache said to Hector, after enumerating all the dear relatives she had lost,
“'Yet while my hector still survives, I see My father, mother, brethren, all in thee!'
“How many a sorrowing wife, exiled from her native country, dreams of the mother she shall see no more! How many a widow, in a strange land, wishes that her poor, worn-out body could be laid among her kinsfolk, in the little churchyard where she used to gather daisies in her childhood! It takes a great deal of love to keep down the 'climbing sorrow' that swells up in a woman's throat when such memories seize upon her, in her moments of desolation. But if a foreign-born woman does willingly give up all for a man, and never looks backward, like Lot's wife, she is a prize that it is worth running a risk to gain,--that is, if she has the making of a good woman in her; and a few years will go far towards naturalizing her.”
The Tutor listened to Number Five with much apparent interest. “And now,” he said, “what do you think of her companion?”
“A charming girl for a man of a quiet, easy temperament. The great trouble is with her voice. It is pitched a full note too high. It is aggressive, disturbing, and would wear out a nervous man without his ever knowing what was the matter with him. A good many crazy Northern people would recover their reason if they could live for a year or two among the blacks of the Southern States. But the penetrating, perturbing quality of the voices of many of our Northern women has a great deal to answer for in the way of determining love and friendship. You remember that dear friend of ours who left us not long since? If there were more voices like hers, the world would be a different place to live in. I do not believe any man or woman ever came within the range of those sweet, tranquil tones without being hushed, captivated, entranced I might almost say, by their calming, soothing influence. Can you not imagine the tones in which those words, 'Peace, be still,' were spoken? Such was the effect of the voice to which but a few weeks ago we were listening. It is hard to believe that it has died out of human consciousness. Can such a voice be spared from that world of happiness to which we fondly look forward, where we love to dream, if we do not believe with assured conviction, that whatever is loveliest in this our mortal condition shall be with us again as an undying possession? Your English friend has a very agreeable voice, round, mellow, cheery, and her articulation is charming. Other things being equal, I think you, who are, perhaps, oversensitive, would live from two to three years longer with her than with the other. I suppose a man who lived within hearing of a murmuring brook would find his life shortened if a sawmill were set up within earshot of his dwelling.”
“And so you advise me to make love to the English girl, do you?” asked the Tutor.
Number Five laughed. It was not a loud laugh, she never laughed noisily; it was not a very hearty laugh; the idea did not seem to amuse her much.
“No,” she said, “I won't take the responsibility. Perhaps this is a case in which the true reading of Gay's line would be--
“How happy could I be with neither.
“There are several young women in the world besides our two Annexes.”
I question whether the Tutor had asked those questions very seriously, and I doubt if Number Five thought he was very much in earnest.
One of The Teacups reminded me that I had promised to say something of my answers to certain questions. So I began at once: