When the latter turned from Irene to make one of these excursions into the general talk, young Corey talked to her; and Lapham caught some words from which it seemed that they were speaking of Penelope. It vexed him to think she had not come; she could have talked as well as any of them; she was just as bright; and Lapham was aware that Irene was not as bright, though when he looked at her face, triumphant in its young beauty and fondness, he said to himself that it did not make any difference. He felt that he was not holding up his end of the line, however. When some one spoke to him he could only summon a few words of reply, that seemed to lead to nothing; things often came into his mind appropriate to what they were saying, but before he could get them out they were off on something else; they jumped about so, he could not keep up; but he felt, all the same, that he was not doing himself justice.
At one time the talk ran off upon a subject that Lapham had never heard talked of before; but again he was vexed that Penelope was not there, to have her say; he believed that her say would have been worth hearing.
Miss Kingsbury leaned forward and asked Charles Bellingham if he had read Tears, Idle Tears, the novel that was making such a sensation; and when he said no, she said she wondered at him. "It"s perfectly heart-breaking, as you"ll imagine from the name; but there"s such a dear old-fashioned hero and heroine in it, who keep dying for each other all the way through, and making the most wildly satisfactory and unnecessary sacrifices for each other. You feel as if you"d done them yourself."
"Ah, that"s the secret of its success," said Bromfield Corey. "It flatters the reader by painting the characters colossal, but with his limp and stoop, so that he feels himself of their supernatural proportions. You"ve read it, Nanny?"
"Yes," said his daughter. "It ought to have been called Slop, Silly Slop."
"Oh, not quite SLOP, Nanny," pleaded Miss Kingsbury.
"It"s astonishing," said Charles Bellingham, "how we do like the books that go for our heart-strings. And I really suppose that you can"t put a more popular thing than self-sacrifice into a novel. We do like to see people suffering sublimely."
"There was talk some years ago," said James Bellingham, "about novels going out." "They"re just coming in!" cried Miss Kingsbury.
"Yes," said Mr. Sewell, the minister. "And I don"t think there ever was a time when they formed the whole intellectual experience of more people. They do greater mischief than ever."
"Don"t be envious, parson," said the host.
"No," answered Sewell. "I should be glad of their help. But those novels with old-fashioned heroes and heroines in them--excuse me, Miss Kingsbury--are ruinous!"
"Don"t you feel like a moral wreck, Miss Kingsbury?" asked the host.
But Sewell went on: "The novelists might be the greatest possible help to us if they painted life as it is, and human feelings in their true proportion and relation, but for the most part they have been and are altogether noxious."
This seemed sense to Lapham; but Bromfield Corey asked: "But what if life as it is isn"t amusing? Aren"t we to be amused?"
"Not to our hurt," st.u.r.dily answered the minister. "And the self-sacrifice painted in most novels like this----"
"Slop, Silly Slop?" suggested the proud father of the inventor of the phrase.
"Yes--is nothing but psychical suicide, and is as wholly immoral as the spectacle of a man falling upon his sword."
"Well, I don"t know but you"re right, parson," said the host; and the minister, who had apparently got upon a battle-horse of his, careered onward in spite of some tacit attempts of his wife to seize the bridle.
"Right? To be sure I am right. The whole business of love, and love-making and marrying, is painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproportion to the other relations of life. Love is very sweet, very pretty----"
"Oh, THANK you, Mr. Sewell," said Nanny Corey, in a way that set them all laughing.
"But it"s the affair, commonly, of very young people, who have not yet character and experience enough to make them interesting. In novels it"s treated, not only as if it were the chief interest of life, but the sole interest of the lives of two ridiculous young persons; and it is taught that love is perpetual, that the glow of a true pa.s.sion lasts for ever; and that it is sacrilege to think or act otherwise." "Well, but isn"t that true, Mr. Sewell?" pleaded Miss Kingsbury.
"I have known some most estimable people who had married a second time," said the minister, and then he had the applause with him.
Lapham wanted to make some open recognition of his good sense, but could not.
"I suppose the pa.s.sion itself has been a good deal changed," said Bromfield Corey, "since the poets began to idealise it in the days of chivalry."
"Yes; and it ought to be changed again," said Mr. Sewell.
"What! Back?"
"I don"t say that. But it ought to be recognised as something natural and mortal, and divine honours, which belong to righteousness alone, ought not to be paid it."
"Oh, you ask too much, parson," laughed his host, and the talk wandered away to something else.
It was not an elaborate dinner; but Lapham was used to having everything on the table at once, and this succession of dishes bewildered him; he was afraid perhaps he was eating too much. He now no longer made any pretence of not drinking his wine, for he was thirsty, and there was no more water, and he hated to ask for any. The ice-cream came, and then the fruit. Suddenly Mrs. Corey rose, and said across the table to her husband, "I suppose you will want your coffee here." And he replied, "Yes; we"ll join you at tea."
The ladies all rose, and the gentlemen got up with them. Lapham started to follow Mrs. Corey, but the other men merely stood in their places, except young Corey, who ran and opened the door for his mother.
Lapham thought with shame that it was he who ought to have done that; but no one seemed to notice, and he sat down again gladly, after kicking out one of his legs which had gone to sleep.
They brought in cigars with coffee, and Bromfield Corey advised Lapham to take one that he chose for him. Lapham confessed that he liked a good cigar about as well as anybody, and Corey said: "These are new. I had an Englishman here the other day who was smoking old cigars in the superst.i.tion that tobacco improved with age, like wine."
"Ah," said Lapham, "anybody who had ever lived off a tobacco country could tell him better than that." With the fuming cigar between his lips he felt more at home than he had before. He turned sidewise in his chair and, resting one arm on the back, intertwined the fingers of both hands, and smoked at large ease. James Bellingham came and sat down by him. "Colonel Lapham, weren"t you with the 96th Vermont when they charged across the river in front of Pickensburg, and the rebel battery opened fire on them in the water?"
Lapham slowly shut his eyes and slowly dropped his head for a.s.sent, letting out a white volume of smoke from the corner of his mouth.
"I thought so," said Bellingham. "I was with the 85th Ma.s.sachusetts, and I sha"n"t forget that slaughter. We were all new to it still.
Perhaps that"s why it made such an impression."
"I don"t know," suggested Charles Bellingham. "Was there anything much more impressive afterward? I read of it out in Missouri, where I was stationed at the time, and I recollect the talk of some old army men about it. They said that death-rate couldn"t be beaten. I don"t know that it ever was."
"About one in five of us got out safe," said Lapham, breaking his cigar-ash off on the edge of a plate. James Bellingham reached him a bottle of Apollinaris. He drank a gla.s.s, and then went on smoking.
They all waited, as if expecting him to speak, and then Corey said: "How incredible those things seem already! You gentlemen KNOW that they happened; but are you still able to believe it?"
"Ah, n.o.body FEELS that anything happened," said Charles Bellingham.
"The past of one"s experience doesn"t differ a great deal from the past of one"s knowledge. It isn"t much more probable; it"s really a great deal less vivid than some scenes in a novel that one read when a boy."
"I"m not sure of that," said James Bellingham.
"Well, James, neither am I," consented his cousin, helping himself from Lapham"s Apollinaris bottle. "There would be very little talking at dinner if one only said the things that one was sure of."
The others laughed, and Bromfield Corey remarked thoughtfully, "What astonishes the craven civilian in all these things is the abundance--the superabundance--of heroism. The cowards were the exception; the men that were ready to die, the rule."
"The woods were full of them," said Lapham, without taking his cigar from his mouth.
"That"s a nice little touch in School," interposed Charles Bellingham, "where the girl says to the fellow who was at Inkerman, "I should think you would be so proud of it," and he reflects a while, and says, "Well, the fact is, you know, there were so many of us.""
"Yes, I remember that," said James Bellingham, smiling for pleasure in it. "But I don"t see why you claim the credit of being a craven civilian, Bromfield," he added, with a friendly glance at his brother-in-law, and with the willingness Boston men often show to turn one another"s good points to the light in company; bred so intimately together at school and college and in society, they all know these points. "A man who was out with Garibaldi in "48," continued James Bellingham.
"Oh, a little amateur red-shirting," Corey interrupted in deprecation.
"But even if you choose to dispute my claim, what has become of all the heroism? Tom, how many club men do you know who would think it sweet and fitting to die for their country?"
"I can"t think of a great many at the moment, sir," replied the son, with the modesty of his generation.
"And I couldn"t in "61," said his uncle. "Nevertheless they were there."
"Then your theory is that it"s the occasion that is wanting," said Bromfield Corey. "But why shouldn"t civil service reform, and the resumption of specie payment, and a tariff for revenue only, inspire heroes? They are all good causes."
"It"s the occasion that"s wanting," said James Bellingham, ignoring the persiflage. "And I"m very glad of it."