CHAPTER XXIX.
I RECEIVE AN OVATION.
"And now," the teacher went on, glancing at the gallery where the doctorand I had been sitting unseen, "I have a great surprise for you. Amongthose who have listened to your recitation to-day, both in the forenoonand afternoon, has been a certain personage whose identity you ought tobe able to infer when I say that, of all persons now on earth, he isabsolutely the one best able, and the only one fully able, to judge howaccurate your portrayal of nineteenth-century conditions has been. Lestthe knowledge should disturb your equanimity, I have refrained fromtelling you, until the present moment, that we have present with us thisafternoon a no less distinguished visitor than Julian West, and that withgreat kindness he has consented to permit me to present you to him."
I had assented, rather reluctantly, to the teacher's request, not beingdesirous of exposing myself unnecessarily to curious staring. But I hadyet to make the acquaintance of twentieth-century boys and girls. Whenthey came around me it was easy to see in the wistful eyes of the girlsand the moved faces of the boys how deeply their imaginations werestirred by the suggestions of my presence among them, and how far theirsentiment was from one of common or frivolous curiosity. The interestthey showed in me was so wholly and delicately sympathetic that it couldnot have offended the most sensitive temperament.
This had indeed been the attitude of all the persons of mature years whomI had met, but I had scarcely expected the same considerateness fromschool children. I had not, it seemed, sufficiently allowed for theinfluence upon manners of the atmosphere of refinement which surroundsthe child of to-day from the cradle. These young people had never seencoarseness, rudeness, or brusqueness on the part of any one. Theirconfidence had never been abused, their sympathy wounded, or theirsuspicion excited. Having never imagined such a thing as a personsocially superior or inferior to themselves, they had never learned butone sort of manners. Having never had any occasion to create a false ordeceitful impression or to accomplish anything by indirection, it wasnatural that they should not know what affectation was.
Truly, it is these secondary consequences, these moral and socialreactions of economic equality to create a noble atmosphere of humanintercourse, that, after all, have been the greatest contribution whichthe principle has made to human happiness.
At once I found myself talking and jesting with the young people aseasily as if I had always known them, and what with their interest inwhat I told them of the old-time schools, and my delight in their naivecomments, an hour slipped away unnoticed. Youth is always inspiring, andthe atmosphere of these fresh, beautiful, ingenuous lives was like a winebath.
Florence! Esther! Helen! Marion! Margaret! George! Robert! Harold!Paul!--Never shall I forget that group of star-eyed girls and splendidlads, in whom I first made acquaintance with the boys and girls of thetwentieth century. Can it be that God sends sweeter souls to earth nowthat the world is so much fitter for them?
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