VII
IN WHICH SOCRATES ATTACKS THE WORST DOERS AND BEST SELLERS
"One evening, soon after that, Betsey and I went to a party at DeaconBenson's. The Deacon is Marie's grandfather--a strict, old-lineCongregationalist. The old gentleman owned some two hundred acres inthe very heart of Pointview and about a mile of shore-front. In allthe buying and selling, he had refused to part with an acre of hisland, now worth at least a million dollars. He had willed it all toMarie.
"Deacon Joe was a relic of Puritan days, with shrewd eyes under heavygray tufts, and a mouth bent like a sickle, and whiskers under astrong chin, and lines in his face that suggested the heart of a lion.In his walks he was always accompanied by a hickory cane and a bulldogwhose countenance and philosophy were like unto those of the Deacon.
"He was a perfectly honest man who had joined the church with mentalreservations. He had reserved the right to employ certain adjectivesand nouns which had been useful in Pointview since the days of thepioneer, and which had grown more and more indispensable to theopinions of an honest man. The verb 'to damn' in all its parts andrelations had been one of them. The word 'hell' was another. Itrepresented a thing of great conversational value, and he recommendedit with perfect frankness to certain people. He loved hell and hardcider, and hated Episcopalians. He loved to tell how one Episcopalianhad cheated him in a horse trade, and how another had never paid for abushel of onions. That was enough for him. He had always thought thema loose, unprincipled lot with no adequate respect for fire andbrimstone. But Deacon Joe was honest, and his word was worth a hundredcents on the dollar.
"Now the Delances were Episcopalians from away back--High-ChurchEpiscopalians, at that. The old man had sniffed a good deal when Harrybegan to pay attention to Marie, and had come to see me about it.
"I eased his fears and appealed to his avarice. Harry had too muchmoney and some follies, I confessed, but he was sound at heart, and Ihad hope of making a strong man of him, and of course his money mightbe a great lever in his hands.
"'Very well--we'll keep an eye on him,' he snapped, and left mewithout another word.
"After that Marie was allowed to go out with the young man in his dragand tandem.
"Harry and his sister came to the party at Deacon Joe's, and broughtwith them a late volume of D'Annunzio for Marie to read. Harry wishedto know if I had read it, and gave us a talk on the realism of thismodern Italian author.
"Again I drew on the memoirs of Dr. Godfrey Vogeldam Guph, and thistime I explained that the learned doctor had all the talents but one.He never told a lie--never but once, and that was on his death-bed.Yes, it was a little late, but still it was in time to save hisreputation, and, possibly, even his soul. To a man of his parts thetruth had always been good enough, and lying unnecessary. If he hadtold a lie it wouldn't have amounted to anything--everybody would havebelieved it. He wouldn't have got any credit--poor man! He had no moreuse for a lie than a fish has for a mackintosh--until he came to hislast touching words, which were delivered to a minister and his sisterSophia, who had been reading to him from a book of D'Annunzio.
"'My chance has arrived at last,' he said to Sophia, 'and in orderthat I may make the most of it, you will please send for a minister.'
"The latter came, and, seeing the book, asked the good man if he hadread it.
"'Alas! my friend, that it should be necessary for me to tell a lie onmy death-bed,' said the Doctor. 'But now, at last, I tell it proudlyand promptly. I have not read that book.'
"'And therein I do clearly see the truth,' said the wise oldminister.
"'Which is this,' the learned Doctor confessed. 'I have come to anhour when a lie, and nothing but a lie, can show my sense of shame. Isolemnly swear that I have not read it!'
"'Well, at least you're a noble liar,' said the man of God. 'I absolveyou.'
"'I claim no credit--I am only doing my duty,' said the good Doctor,with a sign of ineffable peace.
"As soon as I could get his attention, I called Harry aside andwhispered: 'In Heaven's name, boy, get hold of that book and hang onto it.'
"'Why?' he asked.
"'You don't know the old man as I do--that's why,' I said. 'If heshould happen to read it, he'd go after you with his grandfather'ssword the next time you showed up here.'
"Marie stood near us, and I beckoned to her, and she came to my side.
"'The book,' said Harry--'would you let me take it?'
"'I took it to my grandfather, and he is reading it in his room,' sheanswered. 'Shall I go and get it?'
"Harry hesitated.
"'He won't mind,' said Marie; 'I'll go and get it.'
"And away she went.
"She came back to us soon, a bit embarrassed.
"'He seems to be very much interested and--and a little cross,' saidshe. 'I think he will bring it out to you soon.'
"Harry turned pale.
"'You look sick, old man,' I said.
"'I'm not feeling very well,' said he, 'and I think I shall excusemyself and go home.'
"There was danger of a scene, but he got away unharmed. By and by thelionhearted deacon came out of his room, asked severely for 'youngDelance,' wandered through the crowd, answered indignantly a fewinquiries about his health, and returned to his lair.
"I saw that the Deacon was mad. New New England had imprudently bumpedinto old New England, and it was too soon to estimate the damage."
The Honorable Socrates Potter laughed as he filled his pipe, andresumed with an attitude of ease and comfort;
"I'm a bit of a Puritan myself, although I understood Harry betterthan did the Deacon. The young people have been captured by thefrankness of the Latin races. They call it emancipation. Travel andthe higher education have opened the storage vats of foreigndegeneracy and piped them into our land. Certain young men who havebeen 'finished' abroad, where they filled their souls with Latinlewdness, have turned it into fiction and a source of profit. Womenbuy their books and rush through them, and only touch the low places.There they lie entranced, thick as autumnal leaves that strew thebrooks in Vallombrosa. Like the women in the sack of Ismail, they sitthem down and watch for the adultery to begin.
"The imagination of the old world seems to have gone wild--OscarWilde! How the Oscars have thriven there since the first of them wentto jail!--a degenerate dynasty!--hiding the stench of spiritual rotwith the perfume of faultless rhetoric, speaking the unspeakable withthe tongues of angels and of prophets! And mostly, my boy, they havethriven on the dollars of American women under the leadership ofmodern culture. And, you know, the maiden follows mama. She is anapologist of sublime lewdness, of emancipated human caninity. Now I amno prude. I can stand a fairly strong touch of human nature. I caneven put up with a good deal of the frankness of the cat and dog. Butthe frankness of some modern authors makes me sorry that Adam was acommon ancestor of theirs and mine. It's a disgrace to Adam and thewhole human brotherhood. We sons of the Puritans ought to get busy inthe old cause. Noah had the good sense to keep the animals and thepeople apart, and that's what we've always stood for."
'Charge It': Keeping Up With Harry Page 8
