The Eagle's Shadow by James Branch Cabell (online e book reader .txt) 📕

a tinkling cymbal and faith a sounding brass and
fidelity an obsolete affectation: but for my part, I honour and
think better of the woman who through all her struggles with the
world--through all those sordid, grim, merciless, secret battles where
the vanquished may not even cry for succour--I honour her, I say, for
that she had yet cherished the memory of that first love which is the
best and purest and most unselfish and most excellent thing in life.



XVI

Breakfast Margaret enjoyed hugely. I regret to confess that the fact
that every one of her guests was more or less miserable moved this
hard-hearted young woman to untimely and excessive mirth. Only Mrs.
Saumarez puzzled her, for she could think of no reason for that lady's
manifest agitation when Kathleen eventually joined the others.

But for the rest, the hopeless glances that Hugh Van Orden cast toward
her caused Ad�le to flush, and Mrs. Haggage to become despondent and
speechless and astonishingly rigid; and Petheridge Jukesbury's vaguely
apologetic attitude toward the world struck Miss Hugonin as infinitely
diverting. Kennaston she pitied a little; but his bearing toward
her ranged ludicrously from that of proprietorship to that of
supplication, and, moreover, she was furious with him for having
hinted at various times that Billy was a fortune-hunter.

Margaret was quite confident by this that she had never believed
him--"not really, you know"--having argued the point out at some
length the night before, and reaching her conclusion by a course of
reasoning peculiar to herself.

Mr. Woods, as you may readily conceive, was sunk in the Slough of
Despond deeper than ever plummet sounded. Margaret thought this very
nice of him; it was a delicate tribute to her that he ate nothing;
and the fact that Hugh Van Orden and Petheridge Jukesbury--as she
believed--acted in precisely the same way for precisely the same
reason, merely demonstrated, of course, their overwhelming conceit and
presumption.

So sitting in the great Eagle's shadow, she ate a quantity of
marmalade--she was wont to begin the day in this ungodly English
fashion--and gossiped like a brook trotting over sunlit pebbles. She
had planned a pulverising surprise for the house-party; and in due
time, she intended to explode it, and subsequently Billy was to
apologise for his conduct, and then they were to live happily ever
afterward.

She had not yet decided what he was to apologise for; that was his
affair. His conscience ought to have told him, by this, wherein he had
offended; and if his conscience hadn't, why then, of course, he would
have to apologise for his lack of proper sensibility.

After breakfast she went, according to her usual custom, to her
father's rooms, for, as I think I have told you, the old gentleman was
never visible until noon. She had astonishing news for him.

What time she divulged it, the others sat on the terrace, and Mr.
Kennaston read to them, as he had promised, from his "Defense of
Ignorance." It proved a welcome diversion to more than one of the
party. Mr. Woods, especially, esteemed it a godsend; it staved off
misfortune for at least a little; so he sat at Kathleen's side in
silence, trying desperately to be happy, trying desperately not to see
the tiny wrinkles, the faint crow's feet Time had sketched in her face
as a memorandum of the work he meant to do shortly.

Billy consoled himself with the reflection that he was very fond of
her; but, oh (he thought), what worship, what adoration he could
accord this woman if she would only decline--positively--to have
anything whatever to do with him!

I think we ought not to miss hearing Mr. Kennaston's discourse. It is
generally conceded that his style is wonderfully clever; and I have
no doubt that his detractors--who complain that his style is mere
word-twisting, a mere inversion of the most ancient truisms--are
actuated by the very basest jealousy. Let us listen, then, and be duly
edified as he reads in a low, sweet voice, and the birds twitter about
him in the clear morning.

"It has been for many years," Mr. Kennaston began, "the custom of
patriotic gentlemen in quest of office to point with pride to the fact
that the schoolmaster is abroad in the land, in whose defense they
stand pledged to draw their salaries and fight to the last gasp
for reelection. These lofty platitudes, while trying to the lungs,
doubtless appeal to a certain class of minds. But, indeed, the
schoolmaster is not abroad; he is domesticated in every village in
America, where each hamlet has its would-be Shakespeare, and each
would-be Shakespeare has his 'Hamlet' by heart. Learning is rampant in
the land, and valuable information is pasted up in the streetcars so
that he who rides may read.

"And Ignorance--beautiful, divine Ignorance--is forsaken by a
generation that clamours for the truth. And what value, pray, has this
Truth that we should lust after it?"

He glanced up, in an inquiring fashion. Mr. Jukesbury, meeting his
eye, smiled and shook his head and said "Fie, fie!" very placidly.

To do him justice, he had not the least idea what Kennaston was
talking about.

"I am aware," the poet continued, with an air of generosity, "that
many pleasant things have been said of it. In fact, our decade has
turned its back relentlessly upon the decayed, and we no longer read
the lament over the lost art of lying issued many magazines ago by
a once prominent British author. Still, without advancing any Wilde
theories, one may fairly claim that truth is a jewel--a jewel with
many facets, differing in appearance from each point of view.

"And while 'Tell the truth and shame the Devil' is a very pretty
sentiment, it need not necessarily mean anything. The Devil, if there
be a personal devil--and it has been pointed out, with some show of
reason, that an impersonal one could scarcely carry out such enormous
contracts--would, in all probability, rather approve than otherwise of
indiscriminate truth-telling. Irritation is the root of all evil; and
there is nothing more irritating than to hear the truth about one's
self. It is bad enough, in all conscience, to be insulted, but the
truth of an insult is the barb that prevents its retraction. 'Truth
hurts' has all the pathos of understatement. It not only hurts, but
infuriates. It has no more right to go naked in public than any one
else. Indeed, it has less right; for truth-telling is natural to
mankind--as is shown by its prevalence among the younger sort, such as
children and cynics--and, as Shakespeare long ago forgot to tell us, a
touch of nature makes the whole world embarrassed."

At this point Mrs. Haggage sniffed. She considered he was growing
improper. She distrusted Nature.

"Truth-telling, then, may safely be regarded as an unamiable
indiscretion. In art, the bare truth must, in common gallantry, be
awarded a print petticoat or one of canvas, as the case may be, to
hide her nakedness; and in life, it is a disastrous virtue that we
have united to commend and avoid. Nor is the decision an unwise one;
for man is a gregarious animal, knowing that friendship is, at best,
but a feeble passion and therefore to be treated with the care due an
invalid. It is impossible to be quite candid in conversation with a
man; and with a woman it is absolutely necessary that your speech
should be candied.

"Truth, then, is the least desirable of acquaintances.

"But even if one wished to know the truth, the desire could scarcely
be fulfilled. Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, a prominent lawyer of
Elizabeth's time, who would have written Shakespeare's plays had his
other occupations not prevented it, quotes Pilate as inquiring, 'What
is Truth?'--and then not staying for an answer. Pilate deserves all
the praise he has never received. Nothing is quite true. Even Truth
lies at the bottom of a well and not infrequently in other places. No
assertion is one whit truer than its opposite."

A mild buzz of protest rose about him. Kennaston smiled and cocked his
head on one side.

"We have, for example," he pointed out, "a large number of proverbs,
the small coin of conversation, received everywhere, whose value no
one disputes. They are rapped forth, like an oath, with an air of
settling the question once and forever. Well! there is safety in
quotations. But even the Devil can cite Shakespeare for his purpose.
'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day' agrees ill with
'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'; and it is somewhat
difficult to reconcile 'Take care of the pence, and the pounds will
take care of themselves' with the equally familiar 'Penny-wise,
pound-foolish.' Yet the sayings are equally untrue; any maxim is,
perforce, a general statement, and therefore fallacious, and therefore
universally accepted. Art is long, and life is short, but the
platitudes concerning them are both insufferable and eternal. We must
remember that a general statement is merely a snap-shot at flying
truth, an instantaneous photograph of a moving body. It may be the way
that a thing is; but it is never the way in which any one ever saw
that thing, or ever will. This is, of course, a general statement.

"As to present events, then, it may be assumed that no one is either
capable or desirous of speaking the truth; why, then, make such
a pother about it as to the past? There we have carried the
investigation of truth to such an extreme that nowadays very few of us
dare believe anything. Opinions are difficult to secure when a quarter
of an hour in the library will prove either side of any question.
Formerly, people had a few opinions, which, if erroneous, were at
least universal. Nero was not considered an immaculate man. The Flood
was currently believed to have caused the death of quite a number of
persons. And George Washington, it was widely stated, once cut down
a cherry-tree. But now all these comfortable illusions have been
destroyed by 'the least little men who spend their time and lose their
wits in chasing nimble and retiring truth, to the extreme perturbation
and drying up of the moistures.'"

Kennaston looked up for a moment, and Billy Woods, who had counted
seven wrinkles and was dropping into a forlorn doze, started
violently. His interest then became abnormal.

"There are," Mr. Kennaston complained, rather reproachfully, "too many
inquiries, doubts, investigations, discoveries, and apologies. There
are palliations of Tiberius, eulogies of Henry VIII., rehabilitations
of Aaron Burr. Lucretia Borgia, it appears, was a grievously
misunderstood woman, and Heliogabalus a most exemplary monarch; even
the dog in the manger may have been a nervous animal in search of
rest and quiet. As for Shakespeare, he was an atheist, a syndicate, a
lawyer's clerk, an inferior writer, a Puritan, a scholar, a nom de
plume, a doctor of medicine, a fool, a poacher, and another man of
the same name. Information of this sort crops up on every side. Even
the newspapers are infected; truth lurks in the patent-medicine
advertisements, and sometimes creeps stealthily into the very
editorials. We must all learn the true facts of history, whether we
will or no; eventually, the writers of historical romance will not
escape.

"So the sad tale goes. Ignorance--beautiful, divine Ignorance--is
forsaken by a generation that clamours for the truth. The
earnest-minded person has plucked Zeus out of Heaven, and driven the
Maenad from the wood, and dragged Poseidon out of his deep-sea palace.
The conclaves of Olympus, it appears, are merely nature-myths;
the stately legends clustering about them turn out to be a rather
elaborate method of expressing the fact that it occasionally rains.
The heroes who endured their angers and jests and tragic loves are
delicately veiled allusions to the sun--surely, a very harmless topic
of conversation, even in Greece; and the monsters, 'Gorgons and Hydras
and Chim�ras dire,' their grisly offspring, their futile opponents,
are but personified frosts. Mythology--the poet's necessity, the
fertile mother of his inventions--has become a series of atmospheric
phenomena, and the labours of Hercules prove to be a dozen weather
bulletins.

"Is it any cause for wonder, that under this cheerless influence our
poetry is either silent or unsold? The true poet must be ignorant, for
information is the thief of rhyme. And it is only in dealing with--"

Kennaston paused. Margaret had appeared in the vestibule, and behind
her stood her father, looking very grave.

"We have made a most interesting discovery," Miss Hugonin airily
announced to the world at large. "It appears that Uncle Fred left all
his property to Mr. Woods here. We found the will only last night. I'm
sure you'll all be interested to learn I'm a pauper now, and intend to
support myself by plain sewing. Any work of this nature you may
choose to favour me with, ladies and gentlemen, will receive my most
earnest attention."

She dropped a courtesy. The scene appealed to her taste for the
dramatic.

Billy came toward her quickly.

"Peggy," he demanded of her, in the semi-privacy of the vestibule,
"will you kindly