Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “I believe I can explain why,” Boynton continued. “It is because it is not spiritualism at all, but materialism, — a grosser materialism than that which denies; a materialism that asserts and affirms, and appeals for proof to purely physical phenomena. All other systems of belief, all other revelations of the unseen world, have supplied a rule of life, have been given for our use here. But this offers nothing but the barren fact that we live again. If it has had any effect upon morals, it has been to corrupt them. I cannot see how it is better in its effect upon this world than sheer atheism. It is as thoroughly godless as atheism itself, and no man can accept it upon any other man’s word, because it has not yet shown its truth in the ameliorated life of men. It leaves them where it found them, or else a little worse for the conceit with which it fills them. Yes, yes; I see now. I see it all.”

  The vigor of his speculative power buoyed him triumphantly above the abyss into which other men would have sunk. Ford listened with the fascination which the peculiar workings of Boynton’s mind had always had for him, and he felt his heart warm towards him with sympathy that was at once respectful and amused, as he thus constructed a new theory out of the ruin of all his old theories.

  “All the research in that direction,” Boynton presently continued, “has been upon a false basis, and if anything has been granted it has been in mockery of an unworthy hope. I wonder that I was never struck before by that element of derision in it. The Calvinist gets Calvinism, the Unitarian Unitarianism; each carries away from communion with spirits the things that he brought. If men live again, it has been found that they live only in a frivolous tradition of their life in this world. Poor creatures! they seem lamed of half themselves, — the better half that aspires and advances; they hover in a dull stagnation, just above this ball of mire; they have nothing to tell us; they bring us no comfort and no wisdom. Annihilation is better than such an immortality!”

  Ford saw that Boynton did not expect any comment from him, and he did not interrupt his monologue. “What I ought to have asked was not whether there was a life hereafter, but whether there was a life hereafter worth living. I stopped short of the vital question. I fancied that it was essential to men to know surely that they should live again; but now I recognize that it is not essential in itself.” He lay musing a while, and then resumed, “I had got them to bring me a Bible before you came in. I wanted to consult it upon a point raised by Elihu, yesterday. There are a great many new ideas in the Bible,” he added, simply; “a great many new ideas in Job, and David, and Ecclesiastes, and Paul, — a great many in Paul. Would you mind handing it to me from the table? Oh, thanks!” he said, as he took the volume which Ford rose to give him. “This old record, which keeps the veil drawn so close, and lets the light I wanted glimmer out so sparely in a few promises and warnings, against the agonized passion of the Cross, or flings the curtain wide upon the sublime darkness of the Apocalypse, is very clear upon this point. It tells us that we shall live hereafter in the blessing of our good will and the curse of our evil will; the question whether we shall live at all is left in abeyance, as if it were too trivial for affirmation. What a force it has, as it all comes back! I seem to have thought of it for the first time. And what a proof of its truth there is in our experience here! We shall reap as we have sown, and so much is sown which we cannot reap here — And if I should be doomed to spend eternity in asking whether I be really alive! No, no; God doesn’t make a jest of us.” He turned to Ford. “I am curious,” he said, “to know how this strikes you, as you sit here in the full possession of your powers. I know very well, and you know, how men in their extremity are apt to turn back to the faith taught them at their mother’s knees; and perhaps the common experience is repeating itself in my case. But you are in no such extremity. Does there seem to be any truth here?” He laid his hand on the book, and looked intently at Ford.

  “It seems to be all the truth of the sort that there is.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Boynton. “I express myself badly. But it’s hard to express yourself well on this matter. I mean to say that whatever truth there was in that record has not been surpassed or superseded.”

  “And is that all you have to say?”

  “That’s all I could say till I had looked into the question. It seems to me that it is all any one could say.”

  “No doubt,” said Boynton, with disappointment, “from your stand-point, — from the scientific standpoint. You say that there is nothing else, but you imply that this is not much.”

  “No,” said Ford, “I think it’s a great deal. I think it ought to be enough, if one cares” —

  “That’s the scientific attitude!” cried Boynton; “that’s the curse of the scientific attitude! You do not deny, but you ask, ‘ What difference?’”

  “At least,” said Ford, with a smile, “you can let even such a poor representative of the scientific side as I am be glad that you see the fallacy of spiritualism.”

  “Oh, I don’t pronounce it a fallacy,” returned Boynton. “I only say that it has proved fallacious in my hands, and that as long as it is used merely to establish the fact of a future life it will remain sterile. It will continue to be doubted, like a conjurer’s trick, by all who have not seen it; and those who see it will afterwards come to discredit their own senses. The world has been mocked with something of the kind from the beginning; it’s no new thing. Perhaps the hope of absolute assurance is given us only to be broken for our rebuke. Life is not so long at the longest that we need be impatient. If we wake, we shall know; if we do not wake, we shall not even know that we have not awakened.” He added, “It is very curious, very strange, indeed, but the only thing that I have got by all this research is the one great thing which it never included, — which all research of the kind ignores.”

  Ford perceived that he wished him to ask what this was, and he said, “What is that?”

  “God,” replied Boynton. “It may be through an instinctive piety that we forbear to inquire concerning him of those earth-bound spirits. What could they know of him? Many pure and simple souls in this world must be infinitely nearer him. But out of all that chaos I have reached him. No, I am not where I started: I have come in sight of him. I was anxious to know whether we should live hereafter; but whether we live or not, now I know that he lives, and he will take care. We need not be troubled. As for the dead, perhaps we shall go to them, but surely they shall not return to us. That seems true, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s all the truth there is,” said Ford.

  Boynton smiled. “You are an honest man. You won’t say more than you think. I like you for that. I have a great wish to ask your forgiveness.”

  “My forgiveness? I have nothing to forgive!”

  “Oh, yes. I involved you in the destiny of a mistaken and willful man; I afflicted you with the superstitious manias of a lunatic who fancied that he was seeking the truth when he was only seeking himself. I have burdened you with a sense of my wish that you should stay here, because I still hoped to work out something to my own glory and advantage” —

  “I never knew it; I can’t think it,” interrupted Ford. “It was my privilege to stay. These have been the best days of my life, — the happiest.” He stopped; he believed that Boynton must know the meaning that rushed from his heart into the words; but the old man evidently found only a conventional kindliness in them.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It is very strange to find you my friend after all, and to meet you on common ground, — I who have wandered so far round, and you who have continued forward with none of my aims. It would be interesting if a third could stand with us. I should like to see how far a minister of the gospel could come towards us. I should like to talk with a minister: not a theologian, but an ecclesiastic, — some one who embodied and represented the idea of a church.”

  “Do you mean a Catholic priest?” asked Ford. “No, not that, — not just that; but still some one in whom the priestly character prevailed.”

&
nbsp; “I will be glad to gratify any wish you have in the matter, Dr. Boynton,” said Ford. “I imagine it would be easy to get a clergyman to visit you from the village, and I’ll go to any one you want to see.”

  “Well, not now, — not now. Not to-day. Perhaps to-morrow. I should like to think it over first. I may have some new light by that time. I should like to look up some other points, here. There is a text somewhere in Paul — it is a long time since I read it — Wait! ‘ We are saved by hope. But hope that is seen’ — that is seen—’ is not hope; for what a man seeth’ — Very significant, very significant!” he added, more to himself than to Ford. “Saved! Really, there seems to have been no question with them about the mere existence!” He lay quiet for a long time, with his hands folded behind his head, and a dreamy light was in his eyes. Ford heard the ticking of an insect in the wainscot. “Who is it,” Boynton asked suddenly, “that speaks of the undiscovered country?”

  “Hamlet,” replied Ford.

  “It might have been Job, — it might have been Ecclesiastes, — or David. ‘ The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.’ Is that it?”

  “Yes. They commonly misquote it,” added Ford mechanically.

  “I know; they leave out bourn. They say, the undiscovered country whence no traveler returns. But it’s the same thing. Yes; and Hamlet says no traveler returns, when he believes that he has just seen his father’s spirit! The ghost that comes back to prove itself can’t hold him to a belief in its presence after the heated moment of vision is past! We must doubt it; we are better with no proof. Yes; yes! The undiscovered country — thank God, it can be what those babblers say! The undiscovered country — what a weight of doom is in the words — and hope!”

  One of the sisters came in, and he seemed to forget Ford, who presently went away with an absent-minded salutation from him. Boynton had taken up the book, and while the sister propped his head with the pillows, he fluttered the leaves with impatient hands.

  XXV.

  AT the gate Ford turned towards Elihu’s shop, intending to explain why he had not been able to speak of Egeria to her father. In his liberation from Boynton’s appeals for sympathy, his thoughts thronged back to her; he framed a thousand happy phrases, in which he opened his heart, and she always answered as he wished. His face burned with the joyful shame of these thoughts, and he did not hear his name the first time it was called from a buggy standing at the office gate. The gay voices had hailed him a third time when he looked round, and slowly recognized Phillips and Mrs. Perham making frantic signs to him from the vehicle. They laughed at his stupefaction, and his sense of their intrusion mounted as he dragged himself across the street. Mrs. Perham leant out of the buggy and gave him her hand.

  “Well, Mr. Ford! Is this the way you receive your friends? We have been chasing all over this outlandish place for you; we have spent an hour with the sisters here, and have questioned them down to the quick, so that we know all about you; and we were just going to drive away in despair without seeing you.”

  “I’m very unfortunate,” said Ford.

  “To be caught at the last moment? How good you always are! You don’t know how I’ve pined for your little speeches; they ‘re tonic. Yes, Mr. Ford!” she cried, with a daring laugh, “Mr. Perham is very well, for him, — I knew you were going to ask! — or I shouldn’t be philandering about the country in this way.” Ford glanced at Phillips, who trifled with the reins and looked sheepish.

  “You should have gone over to Egerton before this, my dear fellow,” he said. “There have been some charming people over there.”

  “Have been! His modesty,” cried Mrs. Perham, “and my humility! We are at Egerton yet, Mr. Ford!”

  “Oh, certainly. But Ford has us in Boston.”

  “Ah, very true,” said Mrs. Perham. “There was quite a little buzz of excitement for a while, when Mr. Phillips first explained the romantic circumstances. The young ladies drove over the next Sunday to Shaker meeting, on purpose to interview you, but they hadn’t the courage. It was one of Mr. Perham’s bad days, or I should have come, too; and we should have sent Mr. Phillips over long ago, if there had been any Mr. Phillips to send. But he’s only just got back to Egerton.

  “Yes, my dear fellow, I carried out our little programme to the letter, — I wish I could say to the spirit; but your defection prevented. I found Butler at Egerton, and he jumped at the chance of driving on with me, in a manner that made your flattering consent seem nothing. We drove to Greenfield, and then followed up the valley of the Connecticut. It was indescribable, my dear friend. You have lost no end of material. I must really try to reproduce it for you some time. I thought of you often. I was always saying, ‘Now, if Ford were here!’ Two or three times I was actually on the point of writing to you. But you know how that is; you never wrote to me. I’m very glad to hear from our sisters, here, that the old gentleman is better. Is he still in his craze?” Phillips spoke with anxious rapidity, and with a certain propitiation of manner; but Ford did not relax the displeasure of the looks with which he had heard of his explanation of the romantic circumstances.

  “You ought to get something out of him; you ought to write him up; he’d make a capital paper,” said Mrs. Perham. “I shall be on the lookout for him in your articles. And your Shaker experiences! The young ladies were sure you had turned Shaker, Mr. Ford, and they picked you out in the dance. We had such fun over it!” She continued, pulling down the corners of her mouth, “Oh, but we were all very respectful, Mr. Ford. We admired your self-devotion in staying here; especially, as you couldn’t esteem them.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” began Ford, with a sternness that would have silenced a less frivolous spirit.

  “Why, haven’t you heard?” cried Mrs. Perham, leaning forward, and dropping her tone confidentially, while Phillips made some inarticulate attempts to hinder her speaking. “The poor old gentleman was quite tipsy that morning when they stopped up there at that country hotel, and they had to be turned out-of-doors. Is it possible you haven’t heard that?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that,” said Ford.

  “I always said,” continued Mrs. Perham, “it was cruel to the girl; for she wasn’t responsible for her father’s habits, poor thing. Then of course you don’t believe it?”

  “No!”

  “And you believe that all those manifestations took place there?”

  “No!”

  “An armed neutrality! Well, it’s the only tenable position, and I shall take it myself in regard to the other affair. I never thought how convenient it must be.”

  Phillips found his voice: “Mrs. Perham, it’s delightful chatting here; but I have to remind you that we shall be late for dinner if we stay any longer.”

  “Oh, that’s true,” admitted Mrs. Perham. “Good-by, Mr. Ford. Do come over and see us, if you can tear yourself away from your protégés for a few hours. It’s very strange, his lingering along so! Good-by!”

  “Good-by, my dear friend!” said Phillips, trying to throw some exculpation into his afflicted face.

  “I am going back to Boston at the end of the week. Can I do anything for you there?” He did not wait for an answer, but lifted the reins and chirruped to his horse.

  Ford caught the wheel in his hand, and stopped it. “Hold on!” he said, quite white in the face. “What other affair, Mrs. Perham?”

  “Other affair?” she repeated. “Oh! about the water-proof, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know about the water-proof. What do you mean?”

  “Is it possible the Shakers haven’t told you? Perhaps they didn’t think it worth mentioning. You know your friends — I forget the name; Boyntons? — had passed the night before they reached the Elm Tavern in a school-house up here; and the teacher found them there in the morning, and lent the young lady her water-proof. They were to send it back from Vardley Station; but as they never went to Vardley Station they naturally never sent it back.”

  “I don’t believ
e it!” cried Ford.

  “Mr. Phillips always told me you were a terrible skeptic!” said Mrs. Perham. “I merely had the story from the mother of the school-teacher, herself! We happened to stop at her house to ask the way, and when we inquired if the Boyntons were still here she came out with this story. She’s a very voluble old lady. I dare say she tells it to every one. What is your theory about it?”

  Ford released the wheel which he had been gripping, and, giving it a contemptuous push, turned away without a word.

  Mrs. Perham craned her head round to look back after him. “What a natural man!” she said, with sincere admiration. “He’s perfectly fascinating.” She burst into a laugh. “Poor Mr. Phillips! He looked as if he wished you had been my authority.” Phillips shrugged his shoulders, and said dryly, “I hope you are satisfied, Mrs. Perham.”

  “Why, no, I am not,” she candidly owned, with a touch of real regret in her voice. “I only meant to tease him; but if he’s in love with her, I suppose he’ll take it to heart.”

  “In love with whom?” asked Phillips.

  “Sister Diantha.”

  Phillips stared at her.

  “Well, with this medium, then, — this Medea, Ashtaroth, Egeria, — I don’t know what her name is.” As Phillips continued to stare at her, Mrs. Perham gave a shriller laugh. “Really, you are a man, too. I shall never dare take on such easy terms with you again, Mr. Phillips, — never! I don’t wonder men can’t understand women: they don’t understand their own simple sex. Of course he’s in love with her, and must have been from the first.”

  “Well, then, allow me to say, Mrs. Perham, that if you think he’s in love with Miss Boynton I don’t quite see what your object was. I felt that it was an intrusion to come over here, at the best.”

  “Oh, thanks, Mr. Phillips!”

  “And it appears to me that it was extraneous to repeat those stories to him.”

  “Extraneous is good! And you have an ally in my own conscience, Mr. Phillips. I wanted to see a natural man under the influence of a strong emotion, and I don’t like it, I think. I didn’t suppose he was so serious about her. But I don’t believe any harm’s done. He won’t give her up on account of what I’ve said; and if he does perhaps she ought to be given up.” Phillips dealt the horse a cut of the whip, and left the talk to Mrs. Perham, as they drove away.