Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 | Page 5

stomach. Mr. Sloane delights, of course, in
Voltaire, but he can't read a line of Emerson. Theodore delights in
Emerson, and enjoys Voltaire, though he thinks him superficial. It
appears that since we parted in Paris, five years ago, his conscience has
dwelt in many lands. _C'est tout une histoire_--which he tells very
prettily. He left college determined to enter the church, and came
abroad with his mind full of theology and Tübingen. He appears to
have studied, not wisely but too well. Instead of faith full-armed and
serene, there sprang from the labor of his brain a myriad sickly
questions, piping for answers. He went for a winter to Italy, where, I
take it, he was not quite so much afflicted as he ought to have been at
the sight of the beautiful spiritual repose that he had missed. It was
after this that we spent those three months together in Brittany--the
best-spent months of my long residence in Europe. Theodore
inoculated me, I think, with some of his seriousness, and I just touched
him with my profanity; and we agreed together that there were a few
good things left--health, friendship, a summer sky, and the lovely
byways of an old French province. He came home, searched the
Scriptures once more, accepted a "call," and made an attempt to
respond to it. But the inner voice failed him. His outlook was cheerless
enough. During his absence his married sister, the elder one, had taken
the other to live with her, relieving Theodore of the charge of
contribution to her support. But suddenly, behold the husband, the
brother-in-law, dies, leaving a mere figment of property; and the two
ladies, with their two little girls, are afloat in the wide world. Theodore
finds himself at twenty-six without an income, without a profession,
and with a family of four females to support. Well, in his quiet way he
draws on his courage. The history of the two years that passed before
he came to Mr. Sloane is really absolutely edifying. He rescued his
sisters and nieces from the deep waters, placed them high and dry,
established them somewhere in decent gentility--and then found at last
that his strength had left him--had dropped dead like an over-ridden
horse. In short, he had worked himself to the bone. It was now his
sisters' turn. They nursed him with all the added tenderness of gratitude
for the past and terror of the future, and brought him safely through a

grievous malady. Meanwhile Mr. Sloane, having decided to treat
himself to a private secretary and suffered dreadful mischance in three
successive experiments, had heard of Theodore's situation and his
merits; had furthermore recognized in him the son of an early and
intimate friend, and had finally offered him the very comfortable
position he now occupies. There is a decided incongruity between
Theodore as a man--as Theodore, in fine--and the dear fellow as the
intellectual agent, confidant, complaisant, purveyor, pander--what you
will--of a battered old cynic and dilettante--a worldling if there ever
was one. There seems at first sight a perfect want of agreement between
his character and his function. One is gold and the other brass, or
something very like it. But on reflection I can enter into it--his having,
under the circumstances, accepted Mr. Sloane's offer and been content
to do his duties. _Ce que c'est de nous!_ Theodore's contentment in
such a case is a theme for the moralist--a better moralist than I. The
best and purest mortals are an odd mixture, and in none of us does
honesty exist on its own terms. Ideally, Theodore hasn't the smallest
business _dans cette galère_. It offends my sense of propriety to find
him here. I feel that I ought to notify him as a friend that he has
knocked at the wrong door, and that he had better retreat before he is
brought to the blush. However, I suppose he might as well be here as
reading Emerson "evenings" in the back parlor, to those two very plain
sisters--judging from their photographs. Practically it hurts no one not
to be too much of a prig. Poor Theodore was weak, depressed, out of
work. Mr. Sloane offers him a lodging and a salary in return for--after
all, merely a little tact. All he has to do is to read to the old man, lay
down the book a while, with his finger in the place, and let him talk;
take it up again, read another dozen pages and submit to another
commentary. Then to write a dozen pages under his dictation--to
suggest a word, polish off a period, or help him out with a complicated
idea or a half-remembered fact. This is all, I say; and yet this is much.
Theodore's apparent success proves it to be