The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
sentences from the French Meisterschaft--like this, for instance: 'Je
voudrais faire des emplettes ce matin; voulez-vous avoir l'obligeance de
venir avec moi chez le tailleur francais?' And so on. Wherever you find
German, replace it with French, leaving the English parts undisturbed.
When you come to the long conversation in the second act, turn to any
pamphlet of your French Meisterschaft, and shovel in as much French talk
on any subject as will fill up the gaps left by the expunged German.
Example--page 423, French Meisterschaft: On dirait qu'il va faire chaud.
J'ai chaud. J'ai extremement chaud. Ah! qu'il fait chaud! Il fait une
chaleur etouffante! L'air est brulant. Je meurs de chaleur. Il est
presque impossible de supporter la chaleur. Cela vous fait transpirer.
Mettons-nous a l'ombre. Il fait du vent. Il fait un vent froid. Il fait
un tres agreable pour se promener aujourd'hui. And so on, all the way
through. It is very easy to adjust the play to any desired language.
Anybody can do it.
MY BOYHOOD DREAMS
The dreams of my boyhood? No, they have not been realised. For all who
are old, there is something infinitely pathetic about the subject which
you have chosen, for in no greyhead's case can it suggest any but one
thing--disappointment. Disappointment is its own reason for its pain:
the quality or dignity of the hope that failed is a matter aside. The
dreamer's valuation of the thing lost--not another man's--is the only
standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and
great and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases. We should
carefully remember that. There are sixteen hundred million people in
the world. Of these there is but a trifling number--in fact, only
thirty-eight millions--who can understand why a person should have an
ambition to belong to the French army; and why, belonging to it, he
should be proud of that; and why, having got down that far, he should
want to go on down, down, down till he struck the bottom and got on the
General Staff; and why, being stripped of this livery, or set free
and reinvested with his self-respect by any other quick and thorough
process, let it be what it might, he should wish to return to his
strange serfage. But no matter: the estimate put upon these things by
the fifteen hundred and sixty millions is no proper measure of their
value: the proper measure, the just measure, is that which is put upon
them by Dreyfus, and is cipherable merely upon the littleness or the
vastness of the disappointment which their loss cost him. There you have
it: the measure of the magnitude of a dream-failure is the measure of
the disappointment the failure cost the dreamer; the value, in others'
eyes, of the thing lost, has nothing to do with the matter. With this
straightening out and classification of the dreamer's position to
help us, perhaps we can put ourselves in his place and respect his
dream--Dreyfus's, and the dreams our friends have cherished and reveal
to us. Some that I call to mind, some that have been revealed to me, are
curious enough; but we may not smile at them, for they were precious to
the dreamers, and their failure has left scars which give them dignity
and pathos. With this theme in my mind, dear heads that were brown when
they and mine were young together rise old and white before me now,
beseeching me to speak for them, and most lovingly will I do it.
Howells, Hay, Aldrich, Matthews, Stockton, Cable, Remus--how their young
hopes and ambitions come flooding back to my memory now, out of the
vague far past, the beautiful past, the lamented past! I remember it so
well--that night we met together--it was in Boston, and Mr. Fiends was
there, and Mr. Osgood, Ralph Keeler, and Boyle O'Reilly, lost to us
now these many years--and under the seal of confidence revealed to each
other what our boyhood dreams had been: dreams which had not as yet been
blighted, but over which was stealing the grey of the night that was to
come--a night which we prophetically felt, and this feeling oppressed us
and made us sad. I remember that Howells's voice broke twice, and it
was only with great difficulty that he was able to go on; in the end
he wept. For he had hoped to be an auctioneer. He told of his early
struggles to climb to his goal, and how at last he attained to within a
single step of the coveted summit. But there misfortune after misfortune
assailed him, and he went down, and down, and down, until now at last,
weary and disheartened, he had for the present given up the struggle
and become the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. This was in 1830. Seventy
years are gone since, and where now is his dream? It will never be
fulfilled. And it is best so; he is no longer fitted for the position;
no one would take him now; even if he got it, he would not be able to
do himself credit in it, on account of his deliberateness of speech and
lack of trained professional vivacity; he would be put on real estate,
and would have the pain of seeing younger and abler men intrusted
with the furniture and other such goods--goods which draw a mixed and
intellectually low order of customers, who must be beguiled of their
bids by a vulgar and specialised humour and sparkle, accompanied
with antics. But it is not the thing lost that counts, but only the
disappointment the loss brings to the dreamer that had coveted that
thing and had set his heart of hearts upon it, and when we remember
this, a great wave of sorrow for Howells rises in our breasts, and we
wish for his sake that his fate could have been different. At that time
Hay's boyhood dream was not yet past hope of realisation, but it was
fading, dimming, wasting away, and the wind of a growing apprehension
was blowing cold over the perishing summer of his life. In the pride of
his young ambition he had aspired to be a steamboat mate; and in fancy
saw himself dominating a forecastle some day on the Mississippi and
dictating terms to roustabouts in high and wounding terms. I look back
now, from this far distance of seventy years, and note with sorrow the
stages of that dream's destruction. Hay's history is but Howells's, with
differences of detail. Hay climbed high toward his ideal; when success
seemed almost sure, his foot upon the very gang-plank, his eye upon
the capstan, misfortune came and his fall began. Down--down--down--ever
down: Private Secretary to the President; Colonel in the field; Charge
d'Affaires in Paris; Charge d'Affaires in Vienna; Poet; Editor of the
Tribune; Biographer of Lincoln; Ambassador to England; and now at last
there he lies--Secretary of State, Head of Foreign Affairs. And he has
fallen like Lucifer, never to rise again. And his dream--where now
is his dream? Gone down in blood and tears with the dream of the
auctioneer. And the young dream of Aldrich--where is that? I remember
yet how he sat there that night fondling it, petting it; seeing it
recede and ever recede; trying to be reconciled and give it up, but
not able yet to bear the thought; for it had been his hope to be a
horse-doctor. He also climbed high, but, like the others, fell; then
fell again, and yet again, and again and again. And now at last he can
fall no further. He is old now, he has ceased to struggle, and is only a
poet. No one would risk a horse with him now. His dream is over. Has
any boyhood dream ever been fulfilled? I must doubt it. Look at Brander
Matthews. He wanted to be a cowboy. What is he to-day? Nothing but
a professor in a university. Will he ever be a cowboy? It is hardly
conceivable. Look at Stockton. What was Stockton's young dream? He hoped
to be a barkeeper. See where he has landed. Is it better with Cable?
What was Cable's young dream? To be ring-master in the circus, and swell
around and crack the whip. What is he to-day? Nothing but a theologian
and novelist. And Uncle Remus--what was his young dream? To be a
buccaneer. Look at him now. Ah, the dreams of our youth, how beautiful
they are, and how perishable! The ruins of these might-have-beens, how
pathetic! The heart-secrets that were revealed that night now so long
vanished, how they touch me as I give them voice! Those sweet privacies,
how they endeared us to each other! We were under oath never to tell
any of these things, and I have always kept that oath inviolate when
speaking with persons whom I thought not worthy to hear them. Oh, our
lost Youth--God keep its memory green in our hearts! for Age is upon us,
with the indignity of its infirmities, and Death beckons!
TO THE ABOVE OLD PEOPLE
Sleep! for the Sun that scores another Day
Against the Tale allotted You to stay,
Reminding You, is Risen, and now
Serves Notice--ah, ignore it while You stay!
The chill Wind blew, and those who stood before
The Tavern murmured, 'Having drunk his Score,
Why tarries He with empty Cup? Behold,
The Wine of Youth once poured, is poured no more
'Come, leave the Cup, and on the Winter's Snow
Your Summer Garment of Enjoyment throw:
Your Tide of Life is ebbing fast, and it,
Exhausted once, for You no more shall flow.'
While yet the Phantom of false Youth was mine,
I heard a Voice from out the Darkness whine,
'O Youth, O whither gone? Return,
And bathe my Age in thy reviving Wine.'
In this subduing Draught of tender green
And kindly Absinth, with its wimpling Sheen
Of dusky half-lights, let me drown
The haunting Pathos of the Might-Have-Been.
For every nickeled Joy, marred and brief,
We pay some day its Weight in golden Grief
Mined from our Hearts. Ah, murmur not--
From this one-sided Bargain dream of no Relief!
The Joy of Life, that streaming through their Veins
Tumultuous swept, falls slack--and wanes
The Glory in the Eye--and one by one
Life's Pleasures perish and make place for Pains.
Whether one hide in some secluded Nook--
Whether at Liverpool or Sandy Hook--
'Tis one. Old Age will search him out--and
He--He--He--when ready will know where to look.
From Cradle unto Grave I keep a House
Of Entertainment where may drowse
Bacilli and kindred Germs--or feed--or breed
Their festering Species in a deep Carouse.
Think--in this battered Caravanserai,
Whose Portals open stand all Night and Day,
How Microbe after Microbe with his Pomp
Arrives unasked, and comes to stay.
Our ivory Teeth, confessing to the Lust
Of masticating, once, now own Disgust
Of Clay-Plug'd Cavities--full soon our Snags
Are emptied, and our Mouths are filled with Dust.
Our Gums forsake the Teeth and tender grow,
And fat, like over-riped Figs--we know
The Sign--the Riggs' Disease is ours, and we
Must list this Sorrow, add another Woe;
Our Lungs begin to fail and soon we Cough,
And chilly Streaks play up our Backs, and off
Our fever'd Foreheads drips an icy Sweat--
We scoffered before, but now we may not scoff.
Some for the Bunions that afflict us prate
Of Plasters unsurpassable, and hate
To Cut a corn--ah cut, and let the Plaster go,
Nor murmur if the Solace come too late.
Some for the Honours of Old Age, and some
Long for its Respite from the Hum
And Clash of sordid Strife--O Fools,
The Past should teach them what's to Come:
Lo, for the Honours, cold Neglect instead!
For Respite, disputatious Heirs a Bed
Of Thorns for them will furnish. Go,
Seek not Here for Peace--but Yonder--with the Dead.
For whether Zal and Rustam heed this Sign,
And even smitten thus, will not repine,
Let Zal and Rustam shuffle as they may,
The Fine once levied they must Cash the Fine.
O Voices of the Long Ago that were so dear!