Volume II Part 21 (1/2)
Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room over Pickwick with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of Daniel. I called ”Come in!” and entering with a slow, dejected air, he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head again to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down d.i.c.kens, and spoke myself.
”You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?”
”I don't feel very well, uncle.”
”What's the matter, my boy?”
”Oh-ah, I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you.”
I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered,--
”Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you.
Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you're not hara.s.sed by any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly.
This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness, general dejection, and all--to three causes,--dyspepsia, religious conflicts, love. Now, is your digestion awry?”
”No, sir; good as usual. I'm not melanancholy on religion, and”--
”You don't tell me you're in love?”
”Well--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy.”
I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this unimaginable revelation, then said:
”Is your feeling returned?”
”I really don't know, uncle; I don't believe it is. I don't see how it can be. I never did any thing to make her love me. What is there in me to love? I've borne nothing for her,--that is, nothing that could do her any good,--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, look at it any way you please, I neither am, do, nor suffer any thing that can get a woman's love.”
”Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along with you, and arrange a divine pa.s.sion under the active, pa.s.sive, and neuter!”
Daniel smiled faintly.
”You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you hit the truth there; indeed you do. If she were a Greek or Latin woman, I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood the philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry”--
”Thank G.o.d they don't, Daniel!” sighed I, devoutly.
”Never mind,--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking about the grounds of difference between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women like the star business, they say,--and I could tell her where all the constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman he loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to a.n.a.lyze her bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of Orion? I can't talk bread-and-b.u.t.ter talk. I can't do any thing that makes a man even tolerable to a woman!”
”I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread-and-b.u.t.ter talk is tolerable to a woman!”
”No; but it's necessary to some extent,--at any rate the ability is,--in order to succeed in society; and it's in society men first meet and strike women. And oh, Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in society!--such a dreadful floundering fis.h.!.+ When I see her dancing gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little Jack Mankyn, who 'don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners,--and all sorts of men without an idea in their heads have that,--while I turn all colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy, and abrupt, and abstracted, and bad at repartee,--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so ungrateful to father and mother, who have spent such pains for me)--sometimes, do you know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've ever learned for the power to make a good appearance before her!”
”Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A woman is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name I don't ask you, because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best), you must seek her companions.h.i.+p until you're well enough acquainted with her to have her regard you as something different from the men whom she meets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standard than that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and G.o.d forbid you should marry her otherwise), she knows that people can't always be dancing, or holding fans, or running after orange-ice. If she's a girl capable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marry a girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and, once found, they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in the show-case of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes about, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adapt Milton, she'll drop into your lap 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'”
”I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you the sacredest of secrets,--regularly every day of my life I send her a little poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at Hanft's.”
”Does she know who sends them?'”
”She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, uncle, for not mentioning her name yet? You see she may despise or hate me some day when she knows who it is that has paid her these attentions; and then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've never hurt her by any absurd connection with myself.”
”Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, though a little counsel with your head would show you that your only absurdity is self-depreciation.”