Idolatry | Page 9

air of feverishness and
disorder. Here, on the contrary, the air is fresh and brisk, for the breeze
from Boston harbor--slightly flavored, it is true, by its journey across
the northern part of the city--has been blowing into the room all night
long. Here are some trunks and carpet-bags, well bepasted with the
names of foreign towns and countries, famous and infamous. One of
the trunks is a bathing-tub, fitted with a cover--an agreeable promise of
refreshment amidst the dust and weariness of travel. A Russia-leather
travelling-bag lies open on the table, disgorging an abundant armament
of brushes and combs and various toilet niceties. Mr. Helwyse must be
a dandy.
Cheek by jowl with the haversack lies a cylindrical case of the same
kind of leather, with a strap attached, to sling over the shoulder. This,
perhaps, contains a telescope. It would not be worth mentioning, save
that our prophetic vision sees it coming into use by and by. Not to
analyze too closely, everything in this room speaks of life, health, and
movement. In spite of smallness, bareness, and angularity, it is fit for a
May morning to enter, and expand to full-grown day.
It is now about half past four, and the crisp new sunshine, just above
ground, has clambered over the window-sill, taken a flying leap across
the narrow floor, and is chuckling full in the agreeable face asleep upon
the pillow. The face, feeling the warmth, and conscious, through its
closed eyelids, of the light, presently stretches its eyebrows, then blinks,
and finally yawns,--Ah--h! Thirty-two even, white teeth, in perfect

order; a great, red, healthy tongue, and a round, mellow roar, the
parting remonstrance of the sleepy god, taking flight for the day.
Thereupon a voice, fetched from some profounder source than the back
of the head,--
"Steward! bring me my--Oh! A land-lubber again, am I!"
Mr. Balder Helwyse now sits up in bed, his hair and beard,--which are
extraordinarily luxuriant, and will be treated at greater length
hereafter,--his hair and beard in the wildest confusion. He stares about
him with a pair of well-opened dark eyes, which contrast strangely with
his fair Northern complexion. Next comes a spasmodic stretching of
arms and legs, a whisking of bedclothes, and a solid thump of two feet
upon the floor. Another survey of the room, ending with a deep
breathing in of the fresh air and an appreciative smack of the lips.
"O nose, eyes, ears, and all my other godlike senses and faculties! what
a sensation is this of Mother Earth at sunrise! Better, seems to me, than
ocean, beloved of my Scandinavian forefathers. Hear those birds! look
at those divine trees, and the tall moist grass round them! By my head!
living is a glorious business!--What, ho! slave, empty me here that
bath-tub, and then ring the bell."
The slave--a handsome, handy fellow, unusually docile, inseparable
from his master, whose life-long bondsman he was, and so much like
him in many ways (owing, perhaps, to the intimacy always subsisting
between the two), that he had more than once been confounded with
him,--this obedient menial--
No! not even for a moment will we mislead our reader. Are we not
sworn confidants? What is he to think, then, of this abrupt introduction,
unheralded, unexplained? Be it at once confessed that Mr. Helwyse
travelled unattended, that there was no slave or other person of any
kind in the room, and that this high-sounding order of his was a mere
ebullition of his peculiar humor.
He was a philosopher, and was in the habit of making many of his
tenets minister to his amusement, when in his more sportive and genial

moods. Not to exhaust his characteristics too early in the story, it need
only be observed here that he held body and soul distinct, and so far
antagonistic that one or the other must be master; furthermore, that the
soul's supremacy was the more desirable. Whether it were also
invariable and uncontested, there will be opportunity to find out later.
Meantime, this dual condition was productive of not a little harmless
entertainment to Mr. Helwyse, at times when persons less happily
organized would become victims of ennui. Be the conditions what they
might, he was never without a companion, whose ways he knew, and
whom he was yet never weary of questioning and studying. No subject
so dull that its different aspects, as viewed from soul and from body,
would not give it piquancy. No question so trivial that its discussion on
material and on spiritual grounds would not lend it importance. Nor
was any enjoyment so keen as not to be enhanced by the contrast of its
physical with its psychical phase.
Waking up, therefore, on this May morning, and being in a charming
humor, he chose to look upon