"Vices?" echoed Aunt Helen. "I should say there was much less vice in this country than in Europe."
"Not if we judge by the newspapers."
"Ah, but one can"t believe all one reads in the newspapers," she said with an air of triumph.
Mr. Spence had, unluckily for the impression he was likely to create, the courage of his convictions as I well knew, and as he began to reply I felt less secure that he would not trench upon dangerous ground.
"There is a general tendency to ape foreign ideas, which is fast destroying our originality as a nation," he continued.
"Foreign ideas are often the best," said my aunt.
"We are beginning to talk and dress, and dine and give in marriage, just like all the rest of the world," he explained, without regarding her comment.
Aunt Helen looked a little blank. Then with her most stately air she said:--
"Surely you wouldn"t have marriages performed before a Justice of the Peace? It destroys all their sentiment. I know a great many persons who wouldn"t consider themselves married so. As to living differently, I don"t know what you mean. There are people here who advocate cremation, co-operation, and that sort of thing, but one doesn"t meet them in society."
"I am no judge," said Mr. Spence coolly, "for I never go into society."
"Indeed!" Aunt Helen surveyed him through her eye-gla.s.s as if he were a curious animal, and her haughtiness perceptibly increased. "Are you--eh--in business in Boston?"
"No, madam. I am a Bohemian," replied Mr. Spence, in whose eye I perceived a twinkle.
"A what? Ah, yes, of course. I understood you to say you were born in this country. And the other gentleman--eh--is he a foreigner too?"
For an instant Mr. Spence looked bewildered; and as for me I was inwardly convulsed, so much so that I betrayed my feelings in a smile at the moment when Paul Barr was reciting a bloodcurdling piece of poetry of his own composing,--an indiscretion which offended the artist-poet to such an extent that in my efforts to mollify him I failed to catch Mr.
Spence"s reply. He rose to take his leave at this point; but it chanced that just then my father entered the room, and I was obliged to repeat the introductions. While I was saying a few last words to Mr. Spence in regard to the sort of instruction I was to receive from Mr. Fleisch, Paul Barr conversed with my father, laying down the law in his most superb fashion regarding the immense fortune in store for any one who would start what he called a fig farm in this country. Although I had never heard him broach a business matter before, he seemed entirely familiar with his subject, and fairly bristled with statistics and calculations to prove the soundness of his theory, gardeners to the contrary notwithstanding. My father listened to him patiently, and seemed to be amused. Aunt Helen sat apart with a reserved, patrician air.
My two callers took their leave together; and when the front door closed, my father said jocosely,--
"Who are your friends, Virginia? I hope they have not been persuading you to invest in a fig farm."
I blushed, remembering my former design of speculating with Mr.
Dale,--of which, however, my father had no knowledge.
"Both are literary men of high reputation," I answered quietly, though I had an instinctive feeling that my father would make sport of this a.s.sertion. But experience had taught me that with him it was best to call a spade a spade.
"That accounts for it. I thought the gentleman in velveteen had a screw loose somewhere," he said as he pa.s.sed out of the room.
"Well, Virginia," exclaimed Aunt Helen when we were alone, "whom _have_ you picked up now?"
"I don"t understand you," said I.
"Who are those young men who were here just now? They are foreigners, on their own admission,--Bohemians. My own belief is that they have gypsy blood in their veins, for what can one know of the antecedents of persons who come from a small German princ.i.p.ality? They don"t even claim to be counts, and any one with the smallest pretext to respectability in that part of the world is a count, at least. They look to me as if they had been on the stage, especially the one to whom you were talking. I will do him the justice to say he is a handsome wretch, but like all those foreign adventurers he has a dissipated air. As for the other, he is simply commonplace and vulgar, with little upstart radical notions."
I waited for her to finish before replying. "I have already said that Mr. Spence and Mr. Barr are both literary men of high standing. They are neither of them foreigners, but were born in this State. By "Bohemian"
Mr. Spence meant the literary and artistic fraternity in general, Aunt Helen. He is a philosopher as well as a poet; and Mr. Barr paints pictures in addition to his other work."
"But who are they? Where do they come from? It is all very well to say they were born in this country. But who and what are their parents?
Spence--Spence--I never heard the name in my life. There were some Barrs who used to live in the next street to us when your mother and I were young; but they were all girls, and, as I remember them, ordinary."
"When men have acquired fame, it is hardly necessary to inquire if they belong to the best families," I rejoined, borrowing a leaf from Aunt Agnes"s book.
"It is one thing to admire the works of genius, and another to have it trampoosing over your house. Your acquaintances are, I dare say, well enough as poets and philosophers, but I don"t see what that has to do with you. You are neither a poet nor a philosopher, and you will flatter them much more by buying their books than by asking them to five o"clock tea. I must say that, philosopher or no philosopher, the young man who was talking with me has very strange ideas. Just think of his advocating co-operative house-keeping, and marriages before a Justice of the Peace.
I fancy too that he is lax in his religious opinions. If he is your idea of a desirable acquaintance to invite to your house, I am sorry for it.
You never got any such notions from my side of the family."
"It is useless to talk with you if you go off at a tangent, Aunt Helen,"
said I. "I am proud to call both those young men my friends, and they are vastly superior in every way to nine tenths of those one meets in society. Mr. Spence, whose ideas you think so peculiar, is one of the ablest scientists in the country, and I am going to take lessons in his philosophy from one of his a.s.sistants. As I told you the other day, I am tired of frittering away my time in nonsense."
"And as I told _you_ the other day, Virginia, go on as you have begun, and we shall hear of you presently on the stage. That Mr. Barr might pa.s.s in a drawing-room on account of his picturesqueness, if he were to brush his hair; but the other one is simply a gawk, to be plain. Science indeed! Don"t come in a few weeks to ask me to believe that we are all descended from monkeys, or any other stuff, for I sha"n"t do it. That"s what I call nonsense; and you will discover some day that most people who have any self-respect are of my way of thinking."
I had never known Aunt Helen to be so excited, but there was nothing to be done. Society and etiquette were her household G.o.ds; and by ceasing to worship the same divinities I had drawn upon myself the full energy of her displeasure. Nothing could have offended her so much. To be odd or different from other people was in her estimation a cardinal sin; whereas I parted from her with a still firmer conviction that I had chosen wisely. The calm unselfish wisdom and steadfastness of Mr. Spence seemed more indisputable to me than ever; and in the way of companionship, Paul Barr"s gallantries and sallies were vastly preferable to any drawing-room flirtation.
It was only when I thought of my father that I felt any concern or doubt. I knew that he had set his heart upon my devoting myself to the study of practical matters. He wished me to become cultivated, but scarcely in the direction I had chosen. What would he say if he knew of my determination; and was it filial and just to let him remain in ignorance of it? Yet I reasoned that after all I had made no final decision. I was attracted, it is true, by what might be called a visionary theory; but when I had given the principles of moderation further thought, I might conclude not to devote myself to them. It would be time enough later to speak of the subject. At present I was only too poorly prepared to present the ideas of Mr. Spence in an intelligent manner, and should probably prejudice my father against the whole system.
However, I could not refrain from a few reflections on the apparent hostility of practical men to pure theory, which must after all be the basis of all intelligent action. How much n.o.bler to help to establish principles serviceable to humanity than to make later unconscious use of those same principles to advance one"s own selfish interests! Why must there needs be mutual disdain and coolness between those who thought and those who acted? It had been easy for me to perceive at a glance that there was likely to be but little mutual sympathy between my father and Mr. Spence, and the consciousness grieved me.
But I did not falter in my purpose. Mr. Fleisch called to see me the following day and laid out an elaborate course of study. He was to come twice a week to examine me and give me suggestions, but he said that my progress was mainly dependent on my own exertions. I bought a number of books of his selection, and tried to devote five hours each day to systematic work. My tasks were largely of a philosophical character, but poetry and music of a restrained sort were also included in Mr.
Fleisch"s instruction; and he said that after the foundations were laid, I should be taught the dangers of extremes by studying examples of the overmuch and the undermuch.
At last I was successful one day in finding Aunt Agnes at home, and alone. It was about a week after my visit from Mr. Spence. I was disturbed at seeing her brow contract at sight of me, but my worst fears were realized when she said:--
"I do not wonder that you have preferred to keep away from me."
"On the contrary, Aunt Agnes, I have called twice before, this week."
"When you knew I was out, I dare say."
There was no answering such logic as this.
"I seem never to be able to satisfy you," I said bravely. "I had come to tell you that I am studying hard under the direction of Mr. Fleisch, a favorite pupil of Mr. Spence, and am doing all I can to improve myself."
"Fiddlesticks! Tell _me_!"
"But, Aunt Agnes, it is so."
"I have heard all about you. You can"t tell me anything about the matter I don"t know already. We shall hear next of your carrying your habit of flirting into the sanctuary itself. You might almost as well coquet with a minister of the holy Gospel as with him you have selected to try your fascinations on. I might have guessed what would be the result of introducing you to sober-minded people. It was none of my work, thank Heaven! Lucretia Kingsley has herself to blame, for I heard her give you the invitation from her own lips. But I blush for you as my niece. No amount of proficiency or cleverness can be a palliation of your behavior."
"I have been maligned, Aunt Agnes," I cried with flashing eyes. "Some one has told you a pack of falsehoods. It is not true that I have been flirting with anybody. I have given up everything of the kind, as I said I should. Who has been accusing me? I insist on knowing who told you."
"No matter who told me. My authority is of the best."
"I suppose it was your friend Miss Kingsley. I half suspected that she would misrepresent me in private."
"You admit, then, that you are guilty?"
"I admit nothing. If, as your words seem to imply, Miss Kingsley says I acted unbecomingly at her house, she does not speak the truth. She is jealous. The long and short of it is, Mr. Spence was polite to me, and that made her angry. I believe she wishes to marry him herself," I said in the fulness of my anger.