Volume Ii Part 79 (2/2)
”The _usual_ combination is not, perhaps, just the best,--it is a nice matter for a man to judge in his own case how far the proportions are rectified.”
”He can't do it. Human machinery can't do it. Can you measure the height of those waves while they dazzle your eyes with gold and purple as they do now?”
”Nay--but I can tell how much they do or do not throw me out of my right course.”
”What course are you on now, Linden?” said the doctor with his old-fas.h.i.+oned a.s.sumption of carelessness, dismissing the subject.
”Now?” Mr. Linden repeated. ”Do you mean in studies, travels, or conversation?”
”In conversation, you have as usual brought me to a point! I mean--if I mean anything,--the other two; but I mean nothing, unless you like.”
”I do like. Just now, then, I am in the vacation before the last year of my Seminary life,--for the rest, I am on my way to Germany.”
”Finish your course there, eh?” said the doctor. ”Why man, I thought you had found the 'four azure chains' long ago.”
”No, not to finish my course,--if I am kept in Germany more than a few weeks, it will not be by 'azure' chains,” said Mr. Linden.
”That it will not!” said one of the young men coming up, fresh from the tea-table and his cigar. ”Azure chains?--pooh!--Linden breaks _them_ as easy as Samson did the green withs. How biblical it makes one to be in company with such a theologian! But I shouldn't wonder if he was going to Europe to join some order of friars--he'll find nothing monastic enough for him in America.”
”Mistaken your man, Motley!” said the doctor; who for reasons of his own did not choose to quit the conversation. ”The worst _I_ have to say of him is, that if he spends an other year in Germany his hearers will never be able to understand him!”
”Mistaken him!” said Mr. Motley--”at this time of day,--that'll do!
Where did you get acquainted with him, pray?”
”Once when I had the management of him,” said the doctor coolly. ”There is no way of becoming acquainted with a man, like that.”
”Once when you _thought_ you had,” said Mr. Motley. ”Well, where was it?--in a dark pa.s.sage when you got to the door first?”
”Whenever I have had the misfortune to be in a dark pa.s.sage with him, he has _shewed_ me the door,” said the doctor gravely but gracefully, in his old fas.h.i.+on admirably maintained.
”If one of you wasn't Endecott Linden,” said Mr. Motley throwing the end of his cigar overboard, ”I should think you had made acquaintance on a highway robbery.”
”Instead of which, it was in the peaceful town of Pattaqua.s.set,” said Mr. Linden.
”Permit me to request the reason of Mr. Motley's extraordinary guess,”
said the doctor.
”So natural to say where you've met a man--if there's no reason against it,” said the other coolly. ”But you don't say it was in Pattaqua.s.set, doctor? Were _you_ ever there?”
”Depends entirely on the decision of certain questions in metaphysics,”--said the doctor. ”As for instance, whether anything that is, _is_--and the matter of personal ident.i.ty, which you know is doubtful. I know the _appearance_ of the place, Motley.”
”Are there any pretty girls there?” said Mr. Motley, carelessly, but keeping his eye rather on Mr. Linden than the doctor.
”Mr. Linden can answer better than I,” said Dr. Harrison, whose eye also turned that way, and whose tone changed somewhat in spite of himself. ”There are none there that could not answer any question about Mr. Linden.”--
”By the help of a powerful imagination,” said the person spoken of. Mr.
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