Julian Hawthorne - Idolatry

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"He would keep the deck, though the helmsman had to be lashed to the
wheel. I think he never cared to see land again, but he was full of
spirits and life. He said this was weather fit for a Viking.

"We were standing by the foremast, holding on by a belaying-pin. The
sea came over the side, and struck him overboard. I went after him.
Another wave brought me back; but not my father! I was knocked
senseless, and when I came to, it was too late."

Helwyse's voice, towards the end of this story, became husky, and Mr.
MacGentle's eyes, as he listened, grew dimmer than ever.

"Ah!" said he, "I shall not die so. I shall die away gradually, like a
breeze that has been blowing this way and that all day, and falls at
sunset, no one knows how. Thor died as became him; and I shall die as
becomes me,--as becomes me!" And so, indeed, he did, a few years
later; but not unknown nor uncared for.

Balder Helwyse was a philosopher, no doubt; but it was no part of his
wisdom to be indifferent to unstrained sympathy. He went on to speak
further of his own concerns,--a thing he was little used to do.

It appeared that, from the time he first crossed the Atlantic, being
then about four years old, up to the time he had recrossed it, a few
weeks ago, he had been journeying to and fro over the Eastern
Hemisphere. His father, who, as well as himself, was American by
birth, was the descendant of a Danish family of high station and
antiquity, and inherited the restless spirit of his ancestors. In the
course of his early wanderings he had fallen in with MacGentle, who,
though somewhat older than Helwyse, was still a young man; and later
these two had encountered Hiero Glyphic. About fifteen years after
this it was that Thor appeared at Glyphic's house in New Jersey, and
was welcomed by that singular man as a brother; and here he fell in
love with Glyphic's sister Helen, and married her. With her he
received a large fortune, which the addition of his own made great;
and at Glyphic's death Thor or his heirs would inherit the bulk of the
estate left by him.

So Thor, being then in the first prime of life, was prepared to settle
down and become domestic. But the sudden death of his wife, and the
subsequent loss of one of the children she had borne him, drove him
once more abroad, with his baby son, never again to take root, or to
return. And here Balder's story, as told by him, began. He seemed to
have matured very early, and to have taken hold of knowledge in all
its branches like a Titan. The precise age at which he had learned all
that European schools could teach him, it is not necessary to specify;
since it is rather with the nature of his mind than with the list of
his accomplishments that we shall have to do. It might be possible, by
tracing his-connection with French, or German, or English
philosophers, to make shrewd guesses at the qualities of his own!
creed; but these will perhaps reveal themselves less diffidently under
other tests.

The last four or five years of his life Balder had spent in acquiring
such culture as schools could not give him. Where he went, what he did
and saw, we shall not exercise our power categorically to reveal;
remarking only that his means and his social rank left him free to go
as high as well as low as he pleased,--to dine with English dukes or
with Russian serfs. But a fine chastity inherent in his Northern blood
had, whatever were his moral convictions, kept him from the mire; and
the sudden death of his father had given him a graver turn than was
normal to his years. Meanwhile, the financial crash, which at this
time so largely affected Europe, swallowed up the greater part of
Balder's fortune; and with the remnant (about a thousand pounds
sterling), and a potential independence (in the shape of a learned
profession) in his head, he sailed for Boston.

"I knew you were my uncle Hiero's bankers," he added, "and I supposed
you would be able to tell me about him. He is my only living
relative."

"Why, as to that, I believe it is a long time since the house has had
anything to do with his concerns," returned the venerable President,
abstractedly gazing at Balder's high boots; "but I'll ask Mr. Dyke. He
remembers everything."

That gentleman (who had not passed an easy moment since Mr. Helwyse's
arrival) was now called in, and his suspense regarding the mysterious
visitor soon relieved. In respect to Doctor Glyphic's affair he was
ready and explicit.

"No dollar of his money has been through our hands since winter of
Eighteen thirty-five--six, Mr. Helwyse, sir,--winter following your
and your respected father's departure for foreign parts," stated Mr.
Dyke, straightening his mouth, and planting his fist on his hip.

"Hm--hm!" murmured the President, standing thin and bent before the
empty fireplace, a coat-tail over each arm.

"You have heard nothing of him since then?"

"Nothing, Mr. Helwyse, sir! Reverend Manetho Glyphic--understood to be
the Doctor's adopted son--came here and effected the transfer, under
authority, of course, of his foster-father's signature. Where the
property is at this moment, how invested with what returns, neither
the President nor I can inform you, sir."

"Hm--hm!" remarked Mr. MacGentle again. It was a favorite comment of
his upon business topics.

"It is possible I may be a very wealthy man," said Balder, when Mr.
Dyke had made his resolute bow and withdrawn. "But I hope my uncle is
alive. It would be a loss not to have known so eccentric a man. I have
a miniature of him which I have often studied, so that I shall know
him when we meet. Can he be married, do you think?"

"Why no, Balder; no, I should hardly think so," answered Mr.
MacGentle, who, at the departure of his confidential clerk, had
relapsed into his unofficial position and manner. "By the way, do
_you_ contemplate that step?"

"It is said to be an impediment to great enterprises. I could learn
little by domestic life that I could not learn better otherwise."

"Hm,--we could not do without woman, you know."

"If I could marry Woman, I would do it," said the young man,
unblushingly. "But a single crumb from that great loaf would be of no
use to me."

"Ah, you haven't learned to appreciate women! You never knew your
mother, Balder; and your sister was lost before she was old enough to
be anything to you. By the way, I have always cherished a hope that
she might yet be found. Perhaps she may,--perhaps she may."

Balder looked perplexed, till, thinking the old gentleman might be
referring to a reunion in a future state, he said,--

"You believe that people recognize one another in the next world, Mr.
MacGentle?"

"Perhaps,--perhaps; but why not here as well?" murmured the other, in
reply; and Balder, suspecting a return of absent-mindedness, yielded
the point. He had grown up in the belief that his twin-sister had died
in her infancy; but his venerable friend appeared to be under a
different impression.

"I shall go to New York, and try to find my uncle, or some trace of
him," said he. "If I'm unsuccessful, I mean to come back here, and
settle as a physician."

"What is your specialty?"

"I'm an eye-doctor. The Boston people are not all clear-eyed, I hope."

"Not all,--I should say not all; perhaps you may be able to help me,
to begin with," said Mr. MacGentle, with a gleam of melancholy humor.
"I will ask Mr. Dyke about the chances for a practice he knows
everything. And, Balder," he added, when the young man rose to go,
"let me hear from you, and see you again sometimes, whatever may
happen to you in the way of fortune. I'm rather a lonely old man,--a
lonely old man, Balder."

"I'll be here again very soon, unless I get married, or commit a
murder or some such enormity," rejoined Helwyse, his long mustache
curling to, his smile. They shook hands,--the vigorous young god of
the sun and the faded old wraith of Brahmanism,--with a friendly look
into each other's eyes.

VI.

THE VAGARIES OF HELWYSE.

Balder Helwyse was a man full of natural and healthy instincts: he was
not afraid to laugh uproariously when so inclined; nor apt to
counterfeit so much as a smile, only because a smile would look well.
What showed a rarer audacity,--he had more than once dared to weep! To
crush down real emotions formed, in short, no part of his ideal of a
man. Not belonging to the Little-pot-soon-hot family, he had, perhaps,
never found occasion to go beyond the control of his temper, and blind
rage he would in no wise allow himself; but he delighted in
antagonisms, and though it came not within his rules to hate any man,
he was inclined to cultivate an enemy, as more likely to be
instructive than some friends. His love of actual battle was intense:
he had punched heads with many a hard-fisted school-boy in England; he
bore the scar of a German _schlaeger_ high up on his forehead; and
later, in Paris, he had deliberately invaded the susceptibilities of a
French journalist, had followed him to the field of honor, and been
there run through the body with a small-sword, to the satisfaction of
both parties. He was confined to his bed for a while; but his
overflowing spirits healed the wound to the admiration of his doctors.

These examples of self-indulgence have been touched upon only by way
of preparing the gentle reader for a shock yet more serious. Helwyse
was a disciple of Brillat-Savarin,--in one word, a gourmand! His
appetite never failed him, and, he knew how wisely to direct it. He
never ate a careless or thoughtless meal, be its elements simple as
they might. He knew and was loved by the foremost cooks all over
Europe. Never did he allow coarseness or intemperance to mar the
refinement of his palate.

"Man," he was accustomed to say, "is but a stomach, and the cook is
the pope of stomachs, in whose church are no respectable heretics. Our
happiness lies in his saucepan,--at the mercy of his spit. Eating is
the appropriation to our needs of the good and truth of life, as
existing in material manifestation: the cook is the high-priest of
that symbolic ceremony! I, and kings with me, bow before him! But his
is a responsibility beneath which Atlas might stagger; he, of all men,
must be honest, warm-hearted, quick of sympathy, full of compassion
towards his race. Let him rejoice, for the world extols him for its
well-being;--yet tremble! lest upon his head fall the curse of its
misery!"

This speech was always received with applause; the peroration being
delivered with a vast controlled emphasis of eye and voice; and it was
followed by the drinking of the cook's health. "The generous virtues,"
Mr. Helwyse would then go on to say, "arise from the cultivation of
the stomach. From man's very earthliness springs the flower of his
spiritual virtue. We affect to despise the flesh, as vile and
unworthy. What, then, is flesh made of? of nothing?--let who can,
prove that! No, it is made of spirit,--of the divine, everlasting
substance; it is the wall which holds Heaven in place! If there be
anything vile in it, it is of the Devil's infusion, and enters not
into the argument."

A man who had expressed such views as these at the most renowned
tables of France and England was not likely to forget his principles
in the United States. Accordingly, he arose early, as we have seen, on
the morning after his arrival, and forced an astonished waiter to
marshal him to the kitchen, and introduce him to the cook. The cook of
the Granite Hotel at that time was a round, red-lipped Italian, an
artist and enthusiast, but whose temper had been much tried by lack of
appreciation; and, although his salary was good, he contemplated
throwing it over, abandoning the Yankee nation to its fate, and
seeking some more congenial field. Balder, who, when the mood was on
him, could wield a tongue persuasive as Richard the Third's, talked
to this man, and in seven minutes had won his whole heart. The
immediate result was a delectable breakfast, but the sequel was a
triumph indeed. It seems that the aesthetic Italian had for several
days been watching over a brace of plump, truffled partridges. This
day they had reached perfection, and were to have been eaten by no
less a person than the cook himself. These cherished birds did he now
actually offer to make over to his eloquent and sympathetic
acquaintance. Balder was deeply moved, and accepted the gift on one
condition,--that the donor should share the feast! "When a man serves
me up his own heart,--truffled, too,--he must help me eat it," he
said, with emotion. The condition imposed was, after faint resistance,
agreed to; the other episodes of the bill of fare were decided upon,
and the Italian and the Scandinavian were to dine together that
afternoon.

It still lacked something of the dinner-hour when Mr. Helwyse came out
through the dark passage-way of the Beacon Hill Bank, and paused for a
few moments on the threshold, looking up and down the street. Against
the dark background he made a handsome picture,--tall, gallant,
unique. The May sunshine, falling, athwart the face of the gloomy old
building, was glad to light up the waves of his beard and hair, and
to cast the shadow of his hat-brim over his forehead and eyes. The
picture stays just long enough to fix itself in the memory, and then
the young man goes lightly down the worn steps, and is lost along the
crowded street. Such as he is now, we shall not see him standing in
that dark frame again!

Wherever he went, Balder Helwyse was sure to be stared at; but to this
he was admirably indifferent. He never thought of speculating about
what people thought of Mr. Helwyse; but to his own approval--something
not lightly to be had--he was by no means indifferent. Towards mankind
at large he showed a kindly but irreverent charity, which excused
imperfection, not so much from a divine principle of love as from
scepticism as to man's sufficient motive and faculty to do well. Of
himself he was a blunt and sarcastic critic, perhaps because he
expected more of himself than of the rest of the world, and fancied
that that person only had the ability to be his censor!

If the Christian reader regards this mental attitude as unsound, far
be it from us to defend it! It must, nevertheless, be admitted that
whoever feels the strong stirring of power in his head and hands will
learn its limits from no purely subjective source. The lesson must
begin from without, and the only argument will be a deadly struggle.
Until then, self-esteem, however veiled beneath self-criticism, cannot
but increase. And if the man has had wisdom and strength to abstain
from vulgar self-pollution, Satan must intrust his spear to no
half-fledged devil, but grasp it in his own hand, and join battle in
his own person.

Undismayed by this fact, Helwyse reached Washington Street, and
followed its westerly meanderings, meaning to spend part of the
interval before dinner in exploring Boston. He walked with an easy
sideways-swaying of the shoulders, whisking his cane, and smiling to
himself as he recalled the points of his interview with the President.

"Just the thing, to make MacGentle tutelary divinity of so elusive a
matter as money! Wonder whether the Directors ever thought of that?
For all his unreality, though, he has something more real in him than
the heaviest Director on the Board!

"How composedly he took me for my father! and when he discovered his
mistake, how composedly he welcomed me in my own person! Was that the
extreme of senility? or was it a subtile assertion of the fact, that
he who keeps in the vanguard of the age in a certain sense contains
his father--the past--within himself, and is a distinct person chiefly
by virtue of that containing power?

"Why didn't I ask him more about my foster-cousin Manetho? Egyptians
are more astute than affectionate. Would he cleave to my poor uncle
for these last eighteen years merely for love? Why did he transfer
that money so soon after we sailed? Ten to one, he has in his own
hands the future as well as the present disposal of Doctor Hiero
Glyphic's fortune! The old gentleman has had time to make a hundred
wills since the one he showed my father, twenty years ago!

"Well, and what is that to you? Ah, Balder Helwyse, you lazy impostor,
you are pining for Egyptian flesh-pots! Don't tell me about civility
to relatives, and the study of human nature! You are as bad as you
accuse your poor cousin of being,--who may be dead, or pastor of a
small parish, for all you know. And yet every school-girl can prattle
of the educational uses of poverty, and of having to make one's own
living! I have a good mind to take your thousand pounds sterling out
of your pocket and throw them into Charles River,--and then begin at
the beginning! By the time I'd learnt what poverty can teach, it would
be over,--or I am no true man! Only they who are ashamed of
themselves, or afraid of other people, need to start rich."

Nevertheless, he could not do otherwise than hunt up the only relative
he had in America. Subsequent events did not convict him of being a
mere egotist, swayed only by the current of base success. He did not
despise prosperity, but he cared yet more to find out truths about
things and men. This is not the story of a fortune-hunter; not, at all
events, of a hunter of such fortunes as are made and lost nowadays.
But, when one half of a man detects unworthy motives in the other
half, it is embarrassing. He acts most wisely, perhaps, who drops
discussion, and lets the balance of good and bad, at the given moment,
decide. Our compound life makes many compromises, whereby our
progress, whether heavenward or hellward, is made slow--and sure!

Here, or hereabouts, Balder lost his way. When thinking hard, he was
beside himself; he strode, and tossed his beard, and shouldered
inoffensive people aside, and drew his eyebrows together, or smiled.
Then, by and by, he would awake to realities, and find himself he knew
not where.

This time, it was in an unsavory back-street; some dirty children were
playing in the gutters, and a tall, rather flashily dressed man was
walking along some distance ahead, carrying something in one hand.
Helwyse at first mended his pace to overtake the fellow, and ask the
way to the hotel. But he presently changed his purpose, his attention
being drawn to the oddity of the other's behavior.

The man was evidently one of those who live much alone, and so
contract unconscious habits, against which society offers the only
safeguard. He was absorbed in some imaginary dialogue; and so
imperfectly could his fleshly veil conceal his mental processes, that
he gesticulated everything that passed through his mind. These
gestures, though perfectly apparent to a steady observer, were so far
kept within bounds as not to get more than momentary notice from the
passers-by, who, indeed, found metal more attractive to their gaze in
Helwyse.

Now did the man draw his head back and spread out his arms, as in
surprise and repudiation; now his shoulders rose high, in deprecation
or disclaimer. Now his forefinger cunningly sought the side of his
nose; now his fist shook in an imaginary face. At times he would
stretch out a pleading arm and neck; the next moment he was an
inflexible tyrant, spurning a suppliant. Again he would break into a
soundless chuckle; then, raising his hand to his forehead, seem
overwhelmed with despair and anguish. Occasionally he would walk some
distance quite passively, only glancing furtively about him; but
erelong he would forget himself again, and the dialogue would begin
anew.

Balder watched the man curiously, but without seeming to perceive the
rather grisly similitude between the latter's vagaries and his own.

"What an ugly thing the inside of this person seems to be!" he said.
"But then, whose thoughts and emotions would not render him a
laughing-stock if they could be seen? If everybody looked, to his
fellow, as he really is, or even as he looks to himself, mankind would
fly asunder, and think the stars hiding-places not remote enough! How
many men in the world could walk from one end of the street they live
in to the other, talking and acting their inmost thoughts all the way,
and retain a bit of anybody's respect or love afterwards? No wonder
Heaven is pure, if, our spiritual bodies are only thoughts and
feelings! and a Hell where every devil saw his fellow's deformity
outwardly manifested would be Hell indeed!

"But that can't be. Angels behold their own loveliness, because doing
so makes them lovelier; but no devil could know his own vileness and
live. They think their hideousness charming, and, when the darkness is
thickest about them, most firmly believe themselves in Heaven. But the
light of Heaven would be real darkness to them, for a ray of it would
strike them blind!"

Helwyse was too prone to moralizing. It shall not be our cue to quote
him, save when to do so may seem to serve an ulterior purpose.

"I would like to hear the story that fellow is so exercised about,"
muttered his pursuer. "How do I know it doesn't concern me? That
violin-box he carries is very much in his way; shall I offer to carry
it for him, and, in return, hear his story? If the music soothes his
soul as much as the box moderates his gestures--"

Here the man abruptly turned into a doorway, and was gone. On coming
up, Helwyse found that the doorway led in through a pair of green
folding-doors to some place unseen. The house had an air of villanous
respectability,--a gambling-house air, or worse. Did the musician live
there? Helwyse paused but a moment, and then walked on; and thus,
sagacious reader, the meeting was for the second time put off.

When he reached his hotel, he had only half an hour to dress for
dinner in; but he prepared himself faultlessly, chanting a sort of
hymn to Appetite the while. "Hunger," quoth he, "is mightiest of
magicians; breeds hope, energy, brains; prompts to love and
friendship. Hunger gives day and night their meaning, and makes the
pulse of time beat; creates society, industry, and rank. Hunger moves
man to join in the work of creation,--to harmonize himself with the
music of the universe,--to feel ambition, joy, and sorrow. Hunger
unites man to nature in the ever-recurring inspiration to food,
followed by the ever-alternating ecstasy of digestion. Morning tunes
his heart to joy, for the benison of breakfast awaits him. The sun
scales heaven to light him to his noonday meal. Evening wooes him
supperwards, and night brings timeless sleep, to waft him to another
dawn. Eating is earth's first law, and heaven itself could not subsist
without it!"

So Balder Helwyse and the cook feasted gloriously that afternoon, in
the back pantry, and they solemnly installed the partridges among the
constellations!

VII.

A QUARREL.

That same afternoon Mr. MacGentle put his head into the outer office
and said, "Mr. Dyke, could I speak with you a moment?"

Mr. Dyke scraped back his chair and went in, with his polished bald
head, and square face and figure,--a block of common-sense. He was
more common-sensible than usual, that afternoon, because he had so
strangely forgotten himself in the morning. Mr. MacGentle was in his
usual position for talking with his confidential clerk,--standing up
with his back to the fireplace, and his coat-tails over his arms.
Experience had taught him that this attitude was better adapted than
any other to sustain the crushing weight of Mr. Dyke's sense. To have
conversed with him in a sitting position would have been to lose
breath and vitality before the end of five minutes.

"Mr. Helwyse has thoughts of settling in Boston to practise his
profession," began the President, gently. "I told him you would be
likely to know what the chances are."

"Profession is--what?" demanded Mr. Dyke, settling his fist on his
hip.

"O--doctor--physician; eye-doctor, he said, I think."

"Eye-doctor? Well, Dr. Schlemm won't last the winter; may drop any
day. Just the thing for Mr. Helwyse,--Dr. Helwyse." And the subject,
being discussed at some length between the two gentlemen, took on a
promising aspect. His house was picked out for the new incumbent, his
earnings calculated, his success foretold. Two characters so diverse
as were the President and his clerk united, it seems, in liking the
young physician.

"Married?" asked Mr. Dyke, after a pause.

"Why, no,--no; and he doesn't seem inclined to marry. But he is quite
young; perhaps he may, later on in life, Mr. Dyke."

The elderly clerk straightened his mouth. "Matter of taste--and
policy. Gives solidity,--position;--and is an expense and a
responsibility." Mr. Dyke himself was well known to be the husband of
an idolized wife, and the father of a despotic family.

"He never had the advantage of woman's influence in his childhood, you
know. His poor mother died in giving him and his sister birth; and the
sister was lost,--stolen away, two or three years later. He does not
appreciate woman at her true value," murmured MacGentle.

"Stolen away? His sister died in infancy,--so I understood, sir,"
said the clerk, whose versions of past events were apt to differ from
the President's.

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