The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

O >> Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) >> The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.


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 certain 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, according
to him, which explained the secret of her wonderful effectiveness on the
stage. But magnetism, he said,--magnetism, she was full of. He declared
that he was made aware of her presence on the stage, when he could not
see her or know of her presence otherwise, 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 continued this train of thought into further developments.
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 aureoles 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 restless and anxious by the
unseen nearness of a young woman who was in the next room to him, just as
the 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 powerful 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 influence or effluence should belong
especially or exclusively to the period of complete womanhood in
distinction 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 happiness 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,--oftentimes, in virtue
of their peculiarly sensitive organizations, 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 possibilities of
doubled and indefinitely extended life depending upon it are left
unrealized! Think what numbers of young men in Catholic countries devote
themselves 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
rapture to dream of and torture to endure, so does the presence of the
beloved object paralyze all the powers of expression. Sorcerers have in
all time and countries 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
ignominious flight in five minutes of easy, audacious familiarity with
his lady-love.

Yes, the doctor went on with his reflections, I do not know that I have
seen the term Gynophobia before I opened this manuscript, but I have seen
the malady many times. Only one word has stood between 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 Coleridge's Genevieve, who
knew how to help her lover out of his difficulty, and said yes before he
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 happiness, 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.

The doctor smiled at his own imposing classical allusions and pictorial
imagery. Drifting along from thought to thought, he reflected on the
probable consequences of the general knowledge of Maurice Kirkwood'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 scoffing, what ridicule, what embellishments,
what fables, would follow in the trail of the story! If the Interviewer
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
pinkish, some three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others
"criss-crossed," were growing more frequent 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 relations 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,--strangers, visitors, let us hope,--who
would sacrifice anything 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 overexertion in such cases, hardly allowed him to lift his head from
the pillow. But his mind was gradually recovering its balance, and he
was able to hold some conversation 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 be rarely left his master. When he
did, and the question 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 brokenhearted child than a stalwart man as he was,
such a man as soldiers are made of in the great Continental armies.

"He very bad,--he no eat nothing,--he--no say nothing,--he never be no
better," and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a passionate
burst of lamentation. 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 another 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 returning after too
short an absence. The attendant who 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 condition, although the
force of the disease had spent itself, the state of weakness to which he
had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety, and required great
precautions to be taken. He lay in bed, wasted, enfeebled 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 additional facts about
your history. And in the first place, will you allow me to ask what led
you to this particular 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 specific.
We have no great gambling-houses, no racecourse (except that fox 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 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 somewhere 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 residence. 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 Maurice'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 another time."

The doctor had interrupted Maurice at an interesting 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
depressing nervous influence. Presently, however, it recovered 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
complaint 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
begin 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," Maurice answered; "and, I
will tell you what is the vision which has taken the place of my dreams.
You remember 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 to 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 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 accomplishments. 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 accomplishments. 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
dynamometer 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.

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 trusting 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 vagabond who might cross her
path, and if matters came to the worst she would prove as dangerous as a
panther.

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 except Lurida. For Lurida sex was a trifling
accident, to be disregarded not only in the interests of humanity, but
for the sake of art.

"It is a shame," she said to Euthymia, "that you will not let your
exquisitely moulded form be perpetuated in marble. You have no right to
withhold such a model from the contemplation of your fellow-creatures.
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 suppose the noble woman who was the
original of that divinely chaste statue felt any scruple about allowing
the sculptor to reproduce her pure, unblemished perfections?"

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 Lurida'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 developments with which
nature had so economically endowed herself. An impoverished organization
carries with it certain neutral qualities which make its subject 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 absorbed
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 had repeated what
was said to Lurida, as a good subject for the art of the sculptor, and
she felt all her maiden sensibilities offended by the proposition.
Lurida 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
certain; 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 Euthymia would ever be
married.

"There 's nothing good enough for her in this village," said the old
landlord of what had been the Anchor 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.
Wouldn'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 anything 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 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'. It's one o' them big gents from
Boston or New York that'll step up an' kerry her off."