That Fortune. Charles Dudley WarnerЧитать онлайн книгу.
a year, more or less studiously, in Europe, to really know him if they had not known the dreaming boy in his early home, with all the limitations as well as the vitalizing influences of his start in life. And on the contrary, the error of the neighbors of a lad in forecasting his career comes from the fact that they do not know him. The verdict about Philip would probably have been that he was a very nice sort of a boy, but that he would never “set the North River on fire.” There was a headstrong, selfish, pushing sort of boy, one of Philip's older schoolmates, who had become one of the foremost merchants and operators in New York, and was already talked of for mayor. This success was the sort that fulfilled the rural idea of getting on in the world, whereas Philip's accomplishments, seen through the veneer of conceit which they had occasioned him to take on, did not commend themselves as anything worth while. Accomplishments rarely do unless they are translated into visible position or into the currency of the realm. How else can they be judged? Does not the great public involuntarily respect the author rather for the sale of his books than for the books themselves?
The period of Philip's novitiate—those most important years from his acquaintance with Celia Howard to the attainment of his professional degree—was most interesting to him, but the story of it would not detain the reader of exciting fiction. He had elected to use his little patrimony in making himself instead of in making money—if merely following his inclination could be called an election. If he had reasoned about it he would have known that the few thousands of dollars left to him from his father's estate, if judiciously invested in business, would have grown to a good sum when he came of age, and he would by that time have come into business habits, so that all he would need to do would be to go on and make more money. If he had reasoned more deeply he would have seen that by this process he would become a man of comparatively few resources for the enjoyment of life, and a person of very little interest to himself or to anybody else. So perhaps it was just as well that he followed his instincts and postponed the making of money until he had made himself, though he was to have a good many bitter days when the possession of money seemed to him about the one thing desirable.
It was Celia, who had been his constant counselor and tormentor, about the time when she was beginning to feel a little shy and long-legged, in her short skirts, who had, in a romantic sympathy with his tastes, opposed his going into a “store” as a clerk, which seemed to the boy at one time an ideal situation for a young man.
“A store, indeed!” cried the young lady; “pomatum on your hair, and a grin on your face; snip, snip, snip, calico, ribbons, yard-stick; 'It's very becoming, miss, that color; this is only a sample, only a remnant, but I shall have a new stock in by Friday; anything else, ma'am, today?' Sho! Philip, for a man!”
Fortunately for Philip there lived in the village an old waif, a scholarly oddity, uncommunicative, whose coming to dwell there had excited much gossip before the inhabitants got used to his odd ways.
Usually reticent and rough of speech—the children thought he was an old bear—he was nevertheless discovered to be kindly and even charitable in neighborhood emergencies, and the minister said he was about the most learned man he ever knew. His history does not concern us, but he was doubtless one of the men whose talents have failed to connect with success in anything, who had had his bout with the world, and retired into peaceful seclusion in an indulgence of a mild pessimism about the world generally.
He lived alone, except for the rather neutral presence of Aunt Hepsy, who had formerly been a village tailoress, and whose cottage he had bought with the proviso that the old woman should continue in it as “help.” With Aunt Hepsy he was no more communicative than with anybody else. “He was always readin', when he wasn't goin' fishin' or off in the woods with his gun, and never made no trouble, and was about the easiest man to get along with she ever see. You mind your business and he'll mind his'n.” That was the sum of Aunt Hepsy's delivery about the recluse, though no doubt her old age was enriched by constant “study” over his probable history and character. But Aunt Hepsy, since she had given up tailoring, was something of a recluse herself.
The house was full of books, mostly queer books, “in languages nobody knows what,” as Aunt Hepsy said, which made Philip open his eyes when he went there one day to take to the old man a memorandum-book which he had found on Mill Brook. The recluse took a fancy to the ingenuous lad when he saw he was interested in books, and perhaps had a mind not much more practical than his own; the result was an acquaintance, and finally an intimacy—at which the village wondered until it transpired that Philip was studying with the old fellow, who was no doubt a poor shack of a school-teacher in disguise.
It was from this gruff friend that Philip learned Greek and Latin enough to enable him to enter college, not enough drill and exact training in either to give him a high stand, but an appreciation of the literatures about which the old scholar was always enthusiastic. Philip regretted all his life that he had not been severely drilled in the classics and mathematics, for he never could become a specialist in anything. But perhaps, even in this, fate was dealing with him according to his capacities. And, indeed, he had a greater respect for the scholarship of his wayside tutor than for the pedantic acquirements of many men he came to know afterwards. It was from him that Philip learned about books and how to look for what he wanted to know, and it was he who directed Philip's taste to the best. When he went off to college the lad had not a good preparation, but he knew a great deal that would not count in the entrance examinations.
“You will need all the tools you can get the use of, my boy, in the struggle,” was the advice of his mentor, “and the things you will need most may be those you have thought least of. I never go fishing without both fly and bait.”
Philip was always grateful that before he entered college he had a fine reading knowledge of French, and that he knew enough German to read and enjoy Heine's poems and prose, and that he had read, or read in, pretty much all the English classics.
He used to recall the remark of a lad about his own age, who was on a vacation visit to Rivervale, and had just been prepared for college at one of the famous schools. The boys liked each other and were much together in the summer, and talked about what interested them during their rambles, carrying the rod or the fowling-piece. Philip naturally had most to say about the world he knew, which was the world of books—that is to say, the stored information that had accumulated in the world. This more and more impressed the trained student, who one day exclaimed:
“By George! I might have known something if I hadn't been kept at school all my life.”
Philip's career in college could not have been called notable. He was not one of the dozen stars in the class-room, but he had a reputation of another sort. His classmates had a habit of resorting to him if they wanted to “know anything” outside the text-books, for the range of his information seemed to them encyclopaedic. On the other hand, he escaped the reputation of what is called “a good fellow.” He was not so much unpopular as he was unknown in the college generally, but those who did know him were tolerant of the fact that he cared more for reading than for college sports or college politics. It must be confessed that he added little to the reputation of the university, since his name was never once mentioned in the public prints—search has been made since the public came to know him as a writer—as a hero in any crew or team on any game field. Perhaps it was a little selfish that his muscle developed in the gymnasium was not put into advertising use for the university. The excuse was that he had not time to become an athlete, any more than he had time to spend three years in the discipline of the regular army, which was in itself an excellent thing.
Celia, in one of her letters—it was during her first year at a woman's college, when the development of muscle in gymnastics, running, and the vigorous game of ball was largely engaging the attention of this enthusiastic young lady—took him to task for his inactivity. “This is the age of muscle,” she wrote; “the brain is useless in a flabby body, and probably the brain itself is nothing but concentrated intelligent muscle. I don't know how men are coming out, but women will never get the position they have the right to occupy until they are physically the equals of men.”
Philip had replied, banteringly, that if that were so he had no desire to enter in a physical competition with women, and that men had better look out for another field.
But