"I do not believe it occurs very often," Homer answered. "When it does, there is usually personal malice at the bottom of it, or a catering to the lowest order of scurrilous journalism. It is a great pity that the victims in such cases have no dignified redress. A thorough caning ought to be considered consistent with the situation. But, I think, as a rule, respectable newspaper men endeavor to do the right thing by those who have treated them with courtesy in this matter. The trouble is, journals are not careful enough in the representatives they send on these commissions. It requires a great deal of delicate tact to write acceptably of a man"s home-life and personality during his life-time.
No thoughtless boy, or sensation-seeking reporter, should be commissioned with such a task. I positively know a New York journalist, who possesses a bright mind and wonderful command of language beside an easy and elegant deportment, who considers it fair play to gain information through private letters or confidential conversations with his friends, and then to use such knowledge for press purposes. He boasts of his skill in this respect."
"Impossible!" cried Percy, indignantly.
"Quite too possible," Homer replied. "His devotion to journalism, and his desire to feed the public appet.i.te, has destroyed every particle of moral principle the fellow ever possessed. Of course, such a man reflects discredit upon the whole profession. That he is an exception to the rule, I know, but that he is retained at all upon a respectable journal, is to be regretted."
"There is still another feature of American journalism to be more regretted and blushed for, I think," said Percy. "That is, the att.i.tude of our so called humorists and paragraphers toward public women. No where else in the world do women occupy so exalted and honored a position as they occupy in America. No other women in the world have accomplished so much in various public callings. Yet no where else are they subjected to such insults as they receive from the newspapers throughout the United States, from the _prima donna_ to the President"s wife, sister, or daughter."
"Are you not a little extreme in that statement, Mr. Durand?" asked Homer Orton. "You must recollect that the royal family are discussed very freely in print, and ladies who have become famous ought to consider themselves members of the royal family of Genius, and take newspaper criticisms as a natural consequence."
"It is not newspaper criticisms to which I refer," answered Percy. "Of course, half the success of an actress, a singer, an author or a painter depends upon public criticism, and often it happens that the severer the criticisms the greater the success. But it is the loose familiarity and the coa.r.s.e jests of the item-seeker of which I speak. Only last week I saw a wretched little item, intended to be humorous, but actually brutal, going the rounds of the press, concerning the advanced years of a famous opera singer, a woman who has reflected credit on our nation by her brilliant and stainless career."
"I saw the item to which you refer," Mr. Elliott said, "and I wondered if it was consistent with the National boast that Americans are the kindest and most thoughtful men in the world toward ladies. It seemed to me an uncalled-for and ungentlemanly incivility toward a n.o.ble lady."
"I often wonder," continued Percy, "if the fellows who perpetrate those things stop and consider that the public women, whose names they use so freely, are _somebody"s_ sisters, wives, or mothers, and that, in nine cases out of ten, they lead a public life, or first entered a public career, to earn a living. If the newspaper men of the country ever do take this view of the matter, I should think their first impulse would be to shield and protect and _help_ every self-supporting woman in the land. At all events, I should think every sensible journalist would realize that, while it is the province of the newspaper to furnish able criticism on the voice of the singer, the book of the author, the speech of the orator, it is not its province to indulge in poor puns, or insulting comments on the age, the personal defects, or the domestic life of the singer, author or speaker. These things should be tabooed by respectable journals, just as they are tabooed in respectable society.
Our journalists should be as careful, in their references to the private matters of individuals in print, as they are in conversation in their parlors, where scandalous or impertinent references to the absent would be considered "bad form." Really, I do not understand how any of us who read the daily papers dare boast of American chivalry."
"The chivalry of the average man," said Dolores, who approached the group just at this moment, "consists in protecting a woman against every man save himself. And now, gentlemen, we are to have a recitation from Madame Volkenburg. Will you join us and listen?"
CHAPTER X.
A DISCOURSE ON SUICIDE.
One day Mrs. Butler, Dolores, Percy, and several of their friends went to visit the Latin Quarter--the ancient homes of the Grisettes--a race rapidly becoming extinct.
"I have always wanted to visit this locality," Dolores said on her way thither. "It is a phase of Parisian life which has possessed a curious fascination for me."
"No doubt you have surrounded the Grisettes with a halo of romance,"
answered Percy. "If so, it will vanish utterly as you approach. What sort of beings do you fancy they are?"
"Physically, lovely sirens: mentally frivolous; morally lax, owing to their education, no doubt. Just the style of woman to fascinate a romantic student."
Percy laughed. "That is the prevailing idea," he said; "but it is wholly unlike the reality, as you will see."
What Dolores saw, were groups of contented looking mothers, tidy housewives, and comfortable young matrons. Women whose lives were devoted to their homes and families. Universally neat, and modest in appearance, but in no case strikingly attractive or beautiful.
"There is every indication here of happy domestic life," Percy said.
"These women make good true consorts, and contented companions. They exchange their culinary and housekeeping accomplishments, and their loyalty, for a little affection, protection and support. On the whole, they lead a very pleasant sort of existence--while it lasts."
"Their position is far more enviable than that of the average wife,"
Dolores responded, "for if they are unhappy in their relations, they can at least get away; and I have no doubt they receive more devotion and loyalty than the majority of married women do. The position of the latter seems to me the more humiliating of the two."
Percy regarded Dolores with a grave expression.
"You are a strange girl," he said. "Yet extreme as you are in your ideas, there is much truth in what you say. I have very little respect for the husbands of my acquaintance. And still I believe G.o.d meant each man to possess one mate, and to be true to her in life and death. That is my ideal of perfect manhood--though an ideal I never expect to attain. There was a time when I imagined it possible--but now I live for the pleasure of the hour, and waste no time in theories or in moralizing. Life is too short. But of one thing I am sure, Miss King--positively sure." He paused, and she looked up expecting some serious remark. "And that is--that you are the most charming companion in the world."
On their way back to the Avenue Josephine, they saw a beautiful girl who had just shot herself in the breast, being conveyed to the hospital. Her lovely features were distorted with pain, and her agonizing groans, as they lifted her from the street where she had fallen, were heartrending to hear. Later, as they sat in Dolores" parlors, they all fell to discussing suicide.
"Terrible as it may seem," Dolores said, "I really cannot think it so great a crime as many do. We are never consulted in regard to coming into this world. Life is thrust upon us, and if, as in the case of that poor girl, perhaps, it becomes an insupportable burden, I cannot help thinking G.o.d will forgive the suffering soul that lays the burden down.
I have always felt the greatest sympathy for suicides. It is a cowardly act, I own, yet it is a cowardice I can comprehend and condone. And I think G.o.d will surely be as sympathetic as a mortal."
"You know Dante"s description of the Seventh Circle," suggested Percy, "and the horrors which await the rash soul of a suicide:
"When departs the fierce soul from the body, by itself Thence torn asunder, to the seventh Gulf By Minos doomed, into the wood it falls, No place a.s.signed, but where so ever Chance hurled it."
"But that was merely the poetic utterance of a visionary mind," Dolores answered. "No one in these days believes in a G.o.d who could be guilty of such atrocious punishments for sin or error, as Dante describes; and then I contend that in many instances suicide is not a crime, it is merely a cowardly act."
"But laying aside the crime of the act, think what an uncomfortable position the poor soul may find itself in!" suggested Percy. "To go where we are not wanted or invited, in this world, is a very embarra.s.sing situation, you know. And to suddenly thrust yourself, without an invitation, upon the exclusive society of angels--I must say I would not have the courage to do it."
"Well, of all things," said Madam Volkenburg, "if any of you ever _do_ commit suicide, never shoot yourselves, or resort to any disgusting or painful process. I can tell you of a very swift and painless method."
"What is it?" they all asked, in chorus, fascinated, as most of us always are, by a discussion of the horrible.
All but Dolores. She already knew.
"Oh, it is a swift poison," Madam Volkenburg explained. "My husband, who was a great experimenter in the chemical world, as you perhaps know, left a package of it among his possessions. It is a white, brilliant, crystallized substance, and the smallest particle of it, the moment it mixes with the saliva of the mouth, and is swallowed, produces instant death, and there is nothing to indicate poison afterward. It cannot be detected, and it leaves the body quietly composed as if sudden sleep had overtaken it."
"Why is it not better known?" some one asked.
"Perhaps it is well known; perhaps many of the sudden deaths by "heart disease," of which we read so often, occur in this way."
"And it will produce, as Madame Volkenburg says, swift and painless death, at least upon an animal," added Dolores. "When my little dog was run over by a carriage wheel, and lay crying in terrible pain, and I knew he must die, I tested the efficacy of this poison upon him. It ended his agonies instantly."
"And by the way," spoke Madame laughingly, turning to Dolores, "I gave you enough of the poison to kill ten dogs, or human beings, either; and you never returned it to me. Since I have heard your views upon suicide I think I had better take the dangerous drug out of your possession."
"If I were anxious to die, I fancy the absence of that drug would not prevent me from finding the means of self-destruction," Dolores answered, lightly. And at that moment refreshments were served, and the conversation turned upon more agreeable subjects.
At the expiration of a month--the swiftest month of his life, it seemed to Percy,--he was obliged to cut loose from this pleasant circle, and visit London and Berlin, on the business which had really brought him abroad.
He felt a curious depression of spirits as he entered the parlors on the Avenue Josephine the evening preceding his departure--a depression which he was hardly able to explain to himself. Only this might be his last interview with his charming friends, and "last times" are always sad.
Dolores seemed grave, as she welcomed him, and a little later she said, with a winning frankness, "I never remember to have felt so lonely at the thought of any other person"s departure in my life, Mr. Durand, as I feel at yours. You have been such an addition to our circle; you are such a _bon comrade_; just what a brother would be, I fancy. How I shall miss you!"
"But I am not your brother, you know," Percy said, and he wanted to add, "And therefore the a.s.sociation has its dangers." He left it unsaid, however, thinking she would understand his simple a.s.sertion.
But she did not. She was a woman with a hobby, which precluded the thought of marriage. And she was a cold woman by nature. Knowing that Mr. Durand fully understood and respected her views, she could see no danger in his companionship. She was very lonely at the thought of his departure. He was her ideal friend, lost as soon as found.
"It has been a charming month in Bohemia," Percy continued. "I have thoroughly enjoyed it--it is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I have had my fill of conventional society, and I have drained the cup of reckless pleasures; but this charming mixture of refinement, _esprit_ and abandon, has been a new element to me."
"_Apropos_ to your reference to a month in Bohemia," said Dolores, "I believe Mr. Orton has written a poem on Bohemia, which he has kindly promised to deliver this evening. Mr. Orton, will you favor us now?"
"I was not aware that you were a poet, Mr. Orton," Percy remarked, as the young man arose, and began to affect the bashful-school-girl air.
"Sir," said the journalist, turning a stern look upon Percy, and speaking in a sepulchral tone, "I am all that is bad: a newspaper man, a poet, and--" pointing toward the piano, "the worst remains to be told; I am a pianist." And then, quickly changing his expression and voice, he recited in the most admirable manner the following verses: