Part 14 (1/2)
-The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding that spring had fairly come, mounted a white hat one day, and walked into the street. It seems to have been a premature or otherwise exceptionable exhibition, not unlike that commemorated by the late Mr. Bayly. When the old gentleman came home, he looked very red in the face, and complained that he had been ”made sport of.” By sympathizing questions, I learned from him that a boy had called him ”old daddy,” and asked him when he had his hat whitewashed.
This incident led me to make some observations at table the next morning, which I here repeat for the benefit of the readers of this record.
-The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial integument. I learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by a ”Port-chuck,” as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality, and the following dialogue ensued.
[Picture: The Port-chuck]
_The Port-chuck_. Hullo, You-sir, joo know th' wuz gon-to be a race to-morrah?
_Myself_. No. Who's gon-to run, 'n' wher's't gon-to be?
_The Port-chuck_. Squire Mico 'n' Doctor Wiliams, round the brim o' your hat.
These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at that time, and the alleged race-course being out of the question, the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress ever since.
Here is an axiom or two relating to it.
A hat which has been _popped_, or exploded by being sat down upon, is never itself again afterwards.
It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the contrary.
Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There is always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, suggestive of a wet brush.
The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing its dilapidated castor. The hat is the _ultimum moriens_ of ”respectability.”
-The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his French except the word for potatoes,-_pummies de tare_.-_Ultimum moriens_, I told him, is old Italian, and signifies _last thing to die_. With this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite calm when I saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his head and the white one in his hand.
-I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor for my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think and talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many respects individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this time. I have not talked with you so long for nothing and therefore I don't think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a word or two about my friends.
The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the grand airs ”Science” puts on, as she stands marking time, but not getting on, while the trumpets are blowing and the big drums beating,-yet I am sure he has a liking for his specially, and a respect for its cultivators.
But I'll tell you what the Professor said to the Poet the other day.-My boy, said he, I can work a great deal cheaper than you, because I keep all my goods in the lower story. You have to hoist yours into the upper chambers of the brain, and let them down again to your customers. I take mine in at the level of the ground, and send them off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you, the higher a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he works it up, the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle. Coleridge knew all this very well when he advised every literary man to have a profession.
-Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with the other.
After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other amus.e.m.e.nts which I have spoken of,-that is, working at my carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to tire. When I was quarantined once at Ma.r.s.eilles, I got to work immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick, and got so interested in it, that when we were set loose, I ”regained my freedom with a sigh,” because my toy was unfinished.
There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my winter's work is over and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn to the Poet's company.
I don't know anybody more alive to life than he is. The pa.s.sion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he says,-yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he can sing least.
Then a fit of despondency comes over him.-I feel ashamed, sometimes,-said he, the other day,-to think how far my worst songs fall below my best.
It sometimes seems to me, as I know it does to others who have told me so, that they ought to be _all best_,-if not in actual execution, at least in plan and motive. I am grateful-he continued-for all such criticisms. A man is always pleased to have his most serious efforts praised, and the highest aspect of his nature get the most suns.h.i.+ne.
Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must change their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or losing their voices. You know, I suppose,-he said,-what is meant by complementary colors? You know the effect, too, which the prolonged impression of any one color has on the retina. If you close your eyes after looking steadily at a _red_ object, you see a _green_ image.
It is so with many minds,-I will not say with all. After looking at one aspect of external nature, or of any form of beauty or truth, when they turn away, the _complementary_ aspect of the same object stamps itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind. Shall they give expression to this secondary mental state, or not?
When I contemplate-said my friend, the Poet-the infinite largeness of comprehension belonging to the Central Intelligence, how remote the creative conception is from all scholastic and ethical formulae, I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to change its mood from time to time, and come down from its n.o.blest condition,-never, of course, to degrade itself by dwelling upon what is itself debasing, but to let its lower faculties have a chance to air and exercise themselves. After the first and second floor have been out in the bright street dressed in all their splendors, shall not our humble friends in the bas.e.m.e.nt have their holiday, and the cotton velvet and the thin-skinned jewelry-simple adornments, but befitting the station of those who wear them-show themselves to the crowd, who think them beautiful, as they ought to, though the people up stairs know that they are cheap and perishable?
-I don't know that I may not bring the Poet here, some day or other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you what he says quite as well as he could do it.-Oh,-he said to me, one day,-I am but a hand-organ man,-say rather, a hand-organ. Life turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I come under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one of my _adagio_ movements, and some of you say,-This is good,-play us so always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, the machine would wear out in one part and rust in another. How easily this or that tune flows!-you say,-there must be no end of just such melodies in him.-I will open the poor machine for you one moment, and you shall look.-Ah! Every note marks where a spur of steel has been driven in. It is easy to grind out the song, but to plant these bristling points which make it was the painful task of time.