The Fortunes of Oliver Horn | Page 7

savant, for instance, who wanted
a problem in mechanics solved, or a professor, blinded by the dazzling
light of the almost daily discoveries of the time, in search of mental
ammunition to fire back at curious students daily bombarding you with
puzzling questions; or had you been a thrifty capitalist, holding back a
first payment until an expert like Richard Horn had passed upon the
merits of some new labor-saving device of the day; had you been any
one of these, and you might very easily have been, for such persons
came almost daily to see him, the inventor would not only have listened
to your wants, no matter how absorbed he might have been in his own
work, but he would not have allowed you to leave him until he was
sure that your mind was at rest.
Had you, however, been neither friend nor client, but some unbeliever
fresh from the gossip of the Club, where many of the habitues not only
laughed at the inventor's predictions for the future, but often lost their
tempers in discussing his revolutionary ideas; or had you, in a spirit of
temerity, entered his room armed with arguments for his overthrow,
nothing that your good-breeding or the lack of it would have permitted
you to have said could have ruffled his gentle spirit. With the tact of a
man of wide experience among men, he would have turned the talk into
another channel--music, perhaps, or some topic of the day--and all with
such exquisite grace that you would have forgotten the subject you
came to discuss until you found yourself outside the yard and half- way
across Kennedy Square before realizing that the inventor had made no
reply to your attacks.
But whoever you might have been, whether the friend of years, the
anxious client, or the trifling unbeliever, and whatever the purpose of
your visit, whether to shake his hand again for the very delight of
touching it, to seek advice, or to combat his theories, you would have
carried away the impression of a man whose like you had never met
before--a man who spoke in a low, gentle voice, and yet, with an
authority that compelled attention; enthusiastic over the things he loved,
silent over those that pained him; a scholar of wide learning, yet skilled
in the use of tools that obeyed him as readily as nimble fingers do a
hand; a philosopher eminently sane on most of the accepted theories of

the day and yet equally insistent in his support of many of the supposed
sophistries and so-called "fanaticisms of the hour"; an old-time
aristocrat holding fast to the class distinctions of his ancestors and yet
glorying in the dignity of personal labor; a patriot loyal to the traditions
of his State and yet so opposed to the bondage of men and women that
he had freed his own slaves the day his father's will was read; a cavalier
reverencing a woman as sweetheart, wife, and mother, and yet longing
for the time to come when she, too, could make a career, then denied
her, coequal in its dignity with that of the man beside her.
A composite personality of strange contradictions; of pronounced
accomplishments and yet of equally pronounced failures. And yet,
withal, a man so gracious in speech, so courtly in bearing, so helpful in
counsel, so rational, human, and lovable, that agree with him or not, as
you pleased, his vision would have lingered with you for days.
When night came the inventor would rake the coals from the forge, and
laying aside his paper cap and calico gown, close the green door of his
shop, cross the brick pavement of the back yard, and ascend the stairs
with the spindling bannisters to his dressing room. Here Malachi would
have laid out the black swallow-tail coat with the high velvet collar,
trousers to match, double-breasted waistcoat with gilt buttons, and
fluffy cravat of white silk.
Then, while his master was dressing, the old servant would slip
down-stairs and begin arranging the several rooms for the evening's
guests--for there were always guests at night. The red damask curtains
would be drawn close, the hearth swept clean, and fresh logs thrown on
the andirons. The lamp in the library would be lighted, and his master's
great easy- chair wheeled close to a low table piled high with papers
and magazines, his big-eyed reading-glasses within reach of his hand.
The paper would be unfolded, aired at the snapping blaze, and hung
over the arm of the chair. These duties attended to, the old servant, with
a last satisfied glance about the room, would betake himself to the foot
of the stair- case, there to await his master's coming, glancing overhead
at every sound, and ready to conduct him