Part 31 (1/2)

'The British Museum is mainly used by the children of the poor, as a place where they play a kind of subdued hide-and-seek,' said Merton.

'That's because they are not interested in tinned Egyptian corpses and broken Greek statuary ware,' answered the fair Republican. 'Now, Mr.

Merton, did you ever see or hear of a _popular_ museum, a museum that the People would give its cents to see?'

'I have heard of Mr. Barnum's museum,' said Merton.

'That's the idea: it is right there,' said Miss McCabe. 'But old man Barnum was not scientific. He saw what our people wanted, but he did not see, Pappa said, how to educate them through their natural instincts.

Barnum's mermaid was not genuine business. It confused the popular mind, and fostered superst.i.tion--and got found out. The result was scepticism, both religious and scientific. Now, Pappa used to argue, the lives of our citizens are monotonous. They see yellow dogs, say, but each yellow dog has only one tail. They see men and women, but almost all of them have only one head: and even a hand with six fingers is not common. This is why the popular mind runs into grooves. This causes what they call ”the dead level of democracy.” Even our men of genius, Pappa allowed (for he was a very fair-minded man), do not go ahead of the European ticket, but rather the reverse. Your Tennyson has the inner tracks of our Longfellow: your Thackeray gives our Bertha Runkle his dust. The papers called Pappa unpatriotic, and a bad American. But he was _not_: he was a white man. When he saw his country's faults he put his finger on them, right there, and tried to cure them.'

'A n.o.ble policy,' murmured Merton.

Miss McCabe was really so pretty and unusual, that he did not care how long she was in coming to the point.

'Well, Pappa argued that there was more genius, or had been since the Declaration of Independence, even in England, than in the States. ”And why?” he asked. ”Why, because they have more _variety_ in England.

Things are not all on one level there--”'

'Our dogs have only one tail apiece,' said Merton, 'in spite of the proverb ”_as proud as a dog with two_ _tails_,” and a plurality of heads is unusual even among British subjects.'

'Yes,' answered Miss McCabe, 'but you have varieties among yourselves.

You have a King and a Queen; and your peerage is rich in differentiated species. A Baronet is not a Marquis, nor is a Duke an Earl.'

'He may be both,' said Merton, but Miss McCabe continued to expose the parental philosophy.

'Now Pappa would not hear of aristocratic distinctions in our country. He was a Hail Columbia man, on the Democratic ticket. But _something_ is wanted, he said, to get us out of grooves, and break the monotony. That something, said Pappa, Nature has mercifully provided in Freaks. The citizens feel this, unconsciously: that's why they spend their money at Barnum's. But Barnum was not scientific, and Barnum was not straight about his mermaid. So Pappa founded his Museum of Natural Varieties, all of them honest Injun. Here the lecturers show off the freaks, and explain how Nature works them, and how she can always see them and go one better. We have the biggest gold nugget and the weeniest cunning least gold nugget; the biggest diamond and the smallest diamond; the tallest man and the smallest man; the whitest negro and the yellowest red man in the world. We have the most eccentric beasts, and the queerest fishes, and everything is explained by lecturers of world-wide reputation, on the principles of evolution, as copyrighted by our Asa Gray and our Aga.s.siz.

_That_ is what Pappa called popular education, and it hits our citizens right where they live.'

Miss McCabe paused, in a flush of filial and patriotic enthusiasm. Merton inwardly thought that among the queerest fishes the late Mr. McCabe must have been pre-eminent. But what he said was, 'The scheme is most original. Our educationists (to employ a term which they do not disdain), such as Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir Joshua Fitch, and others, have I thought out nothing like this. Our capitalists never endow education on this more than imperial scale.'

'Guess they are scaly varmints!' interposed Miss McCabe.

Merton bowed his acquiescence in the sentiment.

'But,' he went on, 'I still do not quite understand how your own prospects in life are affected by Mr. McCabe's most original and, I hope, promising experiment?'

'Pappa loved me, but he loved his country better, and taught me to adore her, and be ready for any sacrifice.' Miss McCabe looked straight at Merton, like an Iphigenia blended with a Joan of Arc.

'I do sincerely trust that no sacrifice is necessary,' said Merton. 'The circ.u.mstances do not call for so--unexampled a victim.'

'I am to be Lady Princ.i.p.al of the museum when I come to the age of twenty- five: that is, in six years,' said Miss McCabe proudly. 'You don't call _that_ a sacrifice?'

Merton wanted to say that the most magnificent of natural varieties would only be in its proper place. But the _man of business_ and the manager of a great and beneficent a.s.sociation overcame the mere amateur of beauty, and he only said that the position of Lady Princ.i.p.al was worthy of the ambition of a patriot, and a friend of the species.

'Well, I reckon! But a clause in Pappa's will is awkward for me, some.

It is about my marriage,' said Miss McCabe bravely.

Merton a.s.sumed an air of grave interest.

'Pappa left it in his will that I was to marry the man (under the age of five-and-thirty, and of unimpeachable character and education) who should discover, and add to the museum, the most original and unheard-of natural variety, whether found in the Old or the New World.'