Elder Conklin by Frank Harris (free e reader txt) 📕

quick to feel the pain of others and shrank from adding to it—these, indeed, were the two chief articles of the unformulated creed which directed his actions. His optimism was of youth and superficial, but the sense of the brotherhood of human suffering touched his heart in a way that made compassion and tenderness appear to him to be the highest and simplest of duties. It was Ida’s temper that answered his avowal. Still staring at him she burst into loud laughter, and as he turned away her tuneless mirth grew shriller and shriller till it became hysterical. A frightened effort to regain her self-control, and her voice broke in something like a sob, while tears trembled on her lashes. The Professor’s head was bent over his desk and he saw nothing. Ida dashed the tears from her eyes ostentatiously, and walked with shaking limbs out of the room. She would have liked to laugh again scornfully before closing the door, but she dared not trust her nerves. From that moment she tried to hate Professor Roberts as she hated May Hutchings, for her disappointment had been very sore, and the hurt to her pride smarted like a burn. On returning home, she told her father that she had taken her name off the books of the University; she meant to be an actress, and a degree could be of no use to her in her new career. Her father did not oppose her openly; he was content to postpone any decisive step, and in a few days she seemed to have abandoned her project. But time brought no mitigation of her spite. She was tenacious by nature, and her jealous rage came back upon her in wild fits. To be outdone by May Hutchings was intolerable. Besides, the rivalry and triumphs of the class-room had been as the salt of life to her; now she had nothing to do, nothing to occupy her affections or give object to her feverish ambition. And the void of her life she laid to the charge of Roberts. So when the time came and the temptation, she struck as those strike who are tortured by pain.

Alone in her room, she justified to herself what she had done. She thought with pleasure of Professor Roberts’ approaching defeat and punishment. “He deserves it, and more! He knows why I left the University; drew myself away from him for ever. What does he care for my suffering? He can’t leave me in peace. I wasn’t good enough for him, and my father isn’t honest enough. Oh, that I were a man! I’d teach him that it was dangerous to insult the wretched.

“How I was mistaken in him! He has no delicacy, no true manliness of character. I’m glad he has thrown down the challenge. Father may not be well-educated nor refined, but he’s strong. Professor Roberts shall find out what it means to attack us. I hope he’ll be turned out of the University; I hope he will. Let me think. I have a copy of that lecture of his; perhaps there’s something in it worse than I remembered. At any rate, the report will be proof.”

She searched hurriedly, and soon found the newspaper account she wanted. Glancing down the column with feverish eagerness, she burst out: “Here it is; this will do. I knew there was something more.”

“… Thus the great ones contribute, each his part, towards the humanization of man. Christ and Buddha are our teachers, but so also, and in no lower degree, are Plato, Dante, Goethe, and Shakespeare….

“But strange to say, the Divina Commedia seems to us moderns more remote than the speculations of Plato. For the modern world is founded upon science, and may be said to begin with the experimental philosophy of Bacon. The thoughts of Plato, the ‘fair humanities’ of Greek religion, are nearer to the scientific spirit than the untutored imaginings of Christ. The world to-day seeks its rule of life in exact knowledge of man and his surroundings; its teachers, high-priests in the temple of Truth, are the Darwins, the Bunsens, the Pasteurs. In the place of God we see Law, and the old concept of rewards and punishments has been restated as ‘the survival of the fittest.’ If, on the other hand, you need emotions, and the inspiration of concrete teaching, you must go to Balzac, to Turgenief, and to Ibsen….”

“I think that’ll do,” said the girl half-aloud as she marked the above passages, and then sent the paper by a servant to her father’s office. “The worst of it is, he’ll find another place easily; but, at any rate, he’ll have to leave this State…. How well I remember that lecture. I thought no one had ever talked like that before. But the people disliked it, and even those who stayed to the end said they wouldn’t have come had they known that a professor could speak against Christianity. How mad they made me then! I wouldn’t listen to them, and now—now he’s with May Hutchings, perhaps laughing at me with her. Or, if he’s not so base as that, he’s accusing my father of dishonesty, and I mean to defend him. But if, ah, if—” and the girl rose to her feet suddenly, with paling face.

 

*

 

The house of Lawyer Hutchings was commodious and comfortable. It was only two storeys high, and its breadth made it appear squat; it was solidly built of rough, brown stone, and a large wooden verandah gave shade and a lounging-place in front. It stood in its own grounds on the outskirts of the town, not far from Mr. Gulmore’s, but it lacked the towers and greenhouse, the brick stables, and black iron gates, which made Mr. Gulmore’s residence an object of public admiration. It had, indeed, a careless, homelike air, as of a building that disdains show, standing sturdily upon a consciousness of utility and worth. The study of the master lay at the back. It was a room of medium size, with two French windows, which gave upon an orchard of peach and apple-trees where lush grass hid the fallen fruit. The furniture was plain and serviceable. A few prints on the wall and a wainscoting of books showed the owner’s tastes.

In this room one morning Lawyer Hutchings and Professor Roberts sat talking. The lawyer was sparely built and tall, of sympathetic appearance. The features of the face were refined and fairly regular, the blue eyes pleasing, the high forehead intelligent-looking. Yet— whether it was the querulous horizontal lines above the brows, or the frequent, graceful gestures of the hands—Mr. Hutchings left on one an impression of weakness, and, somehow or other, his precise way of speaking suggested intellectual narrowness. It was understood, however, that he had passed through Harvard with honours, and had done well in the law-course. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that when he went West, he went with the idea that that was the shortest way to Washington. Yet he had had but a moderate degree of success; he was too thoroughly grounded in his work not to get a good practice, but he was not the first in his profession. He had been outdone by men who fought their cases, and his popularity was due to affable manners, and not to admiration of his power or talents. His obvious good nature had got with years a tinge of discontent; life had been to him a series of disappointments.

One glance at Professor Roberts showed him to be a different sort of a man, though perhaps harder to read. Square shoulders and attenuated figure—a mixture of energy and nervous force without muscular strength; a tyrannous forehead overshadowing lambent hazel eyes; a cordial frankness of manner with a thinker’s tricks of gesture, his nervous fingers emphasizing his words.

Their talk was of an article assailing the Professor that had appeared that morning in “The Republican Herald.”

“I don’t like it,” Mr. Hutchings was saying. “It’s inspired by Gulmore, and he always means what he says—and something more.”

“Except the suggestion that my father had certain good, or rather bad, reasons for leaving Kentucky, it seems to me merely spiteful. It’s very vilely written.”

“He only begins with your father. Then he wonders what the real motives are which induce you to change your political creed. But the affectation of fairness is the danger signal. One can’t imagine Gulmore hesitating to assert what he has heard, that you have no religious principles. Coming from him, that means a declaration of war; he’ll attack you without scruple—persistently. It’s well known that he cares nothing for religion—even his wife’s a Unitarian. What he’s aiming at, I don’t know, but he’s sure to do you harm. He has done me harm, and yet he never gave me such a warning. He only went for me when I ran for office. As soon as the elections were over, he left me in peace. He’s eminently practical, and rather good-natured. There’s no small vicious malice or hate in him; but he’s overbearing and loves a fight. Is it worth your while to make an enemy of him? We’re sure to be beaten.”

“Of course it isn’t worth my while in that sense, but it’s my duty, I think, as you think it yours. Remark, too, that I’ve never attacked Mr. Gulmore—never even mentioned him. I’ve criticised the system, and avoided personalities.”

“He won’t take it in that way. He is the system; when you criticise it, you criticise him. Every one will so understand it. He makes all the appointments, from mayor down to the boy who sweeps out an office; every contract is given to him or his appointees; that’s how he has made his fortune. Why, he beat me the second time I ran for District Court Judge, by getting an Irishman, the Chairman of my Committee, to desert me at the last moment. He afterwards got Patrick Byrne elected a Justice of the Peace, a man who knows no law and can scarcely sign his own name.”

“How disgraceful! And you would have me sit down quietly under the despotism of Mr. Gulmore? And such a despotism! It cost the city half a million dollars to pave the streets, and I can prove that the work could have been done as well for half the sum. Our democratic system of government is the worst in the world, if a tenth part of what I hear is true; and before I admit that, I’ll see whether its abuses are corrigible. But why do you say we’re sure to be beaten? I thought you said—”

“Yes,” Mr. Hutchings interrupted, “I said that this railway extension gives us a chance. All the workmen are Irishmen, Democrats to a man, who’ll vote and vote straight, and that has been our weak point. You can’t get one-half the better classes to go to the polls. The negroes all vote, too, and vote Republican—that has been Gulmore’s strength. Now I’ve got the Irishmen against his negroes I may win. But what I feel is that even if I do get to be Mayor, you’ll suffer for it more than I shall gain by your help. Do you see? And, now that I’m employed by the Union Pacific I don’t care much for city politics. I’d almost prefer to give up the candidature. May’ll suffer, too. I think you ought to consider the matter before going any further.”

“This is not the time for consideration. Like you I am trying to put an end to a corrupt tyranny. I work and shall vote against a venal and degrading system. May and I will bear what we must. She wouldn’t have me run away from such adversaries. Fancy being governed by the most ignorant, led on by the most dishonest! It’s incomprehensible to me