Gulmore, The Boss | Page 6

will be proof."
She searched hurriedly, and soon found the newspaper account she
wanted. Glancing down the column with feverish eagerness, she burst
out: "Here it is; this will do. I knew there was something more."
"... Thus the great ones contribute, each his part, towards the
humanization of man. Christ and Buddha are our teachers, but so also,
and in no lower degree, are Plato, Dante, Goethe, and Shakespeare....
"But strange to say, the Divina Commedia seems to us moderns more
remote than the speculations of Plato. For the modern world is founded

upon science, and may be said to begin with the experimental
philosophy of Bacon. The thoughts of Plato, the 'fair humanities' of
Greek religion, are nearer to the scientific spirit than the untutored
imaginings of Christ. The world to-day seeks its rule of life in exact
knowledge of man and his surroundings; its teachers, high-priests in the
temple of Truth, are the Darwins, the Bunsens, the Pasteurs. In the
place of God we see Law, and the old concept of rewards and
punishments has been re-stated as 'the survival of the fittest,' If, on the
other hand, you need emotions, and the inspiration of concrete teaching,
you must go to Balzac, to Turgenief, and to Ibsen...."
"I think that'll do," said the girl half-aloud as she marked the above
passages, and then sent the paper by a servant to her father's office.
"The worst of it is, he'll find another place easily; but, at any rate, he'll
have to leave this State.... How well I remember that lecture. I thought
no one had ever talked like that before. But the people disliked it, and
even those who stayed to the end said they wouldn't have come had
they known that a professor could speak against Christianity. How mad
they made me then! I wouldn't listen to them, and now--now he's with
May Hutchings, perhaps laughing at me with her. Or, if he's not so base
as that, he's accusing my father of dishonesty, and I mean to defend
him. But if, ah, if--" and the girl rose to her feet suddenly, with paling
face.
The house of Lawyer Hutchings was commodious and comfortable. It
was only two storeys high, and its breadth made it appear squat; it was
solidly built of rough, brown stone, and a large wooden verandah gave
shade and a lounging-place in front. It stood in its own grounds on the
outskirts of the town, not far from Mr. Gulmore's, but it lacked the
towers and greenhouse, the brick stables, and black iron gates, which
made Mr. Gulmore's residence an object of public admiration. It had,
indeed, a careless, homelike air, as of a building that disdains show,
standing sturdily upon a consciousness of utility and worth. The study
of the master lay at the back. It was a room of medium size, with two
French windows, which gave upon an orchard of peach and apple-trees
where lush grass hid the fallen fruit. The furniture was plain and
serviceable. A few prints on the wall and a wainscoting of books

showed the owner's tastes.
In this room one morning Lawyer Hutchings and Professor Roberts sat
talking. The lawyer was sparely built and tall, of sympathetic
appearance. The features of the face were refined and fairly regular, the
blue eyes pleasing, the high forehead intelligent-looking. Yet--whether
it was the querulous horizontal lines above the brows, or the frequent,
graceful gestures of the hands--Mr. Hutchings left on one an impression
of weakness, and, somehow or other, his precise way of speaking
suggested intellectual narrowness. It was understood, however, that he
had passed through Harvard with honours, and had done well in the
law-course. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that when he went
West, he went with the idea that that was the shortest way to
Washington. Yet he had had but a moderate degree of success; he was
too thoroughly grounded in his work not to get a good practice, but he
was not the first in his profession. He had been outdone by men who
fought their cases, and his popularity was due to affable manners, and
not to admiration of his power or talents. His obvious good nature had
got with years a tinge of discontent; life had been to him a series of
disappointments.
One glance at Professor Roberts showed him to be a different sort of a
man, though perhaps harder to read. Square shoulders and attenuated
figure--a mixture of energy and nervous force without muscular
strength; a tyrannous forehead overshadowing lambent hazel eyes; a
cordial frankness of manner with a thinker's tricks of gesture, his
nervous fingers emphasizing his words.
Their talk was of an article assailing the Professor that had appeared
that morning in "The Republican Herald."
"I