"So you don"t live in New York?--lucky woman!"
Isabelle moved her chair to look at this person, who wanted to talk. She thought him unusual in appearance, and liked his friendliness. His face was lined and thin, and the long, thin hand on his knee was muscular. Isabelle decided that he must be Somebody.
"I am here for my health, but I expect to live in New York," she explained.
"In New York for your health?" he asked in a puzzled tone. "You see, I am a doctor."
"Yes--I came to consult Dr. Potts. I gave out,--am always giving out,"
Isabelle continued with that confiding frankness that always pleased men.
"I"m like so many women these days,--no good, nerves! If you are a doctor, please tell me why we should all go to pieces in this foolish fashion?"
"If _I_ could do that satisfactorily and also tell you how not to go to pieces, I should be a very famous man," he replied pleasantly.
"Perhaps you are!"
"Perhaps. But I haven"t discovered that secret, yet."
"Dr. Potts says it"s all the chemistry inside us--autointoxication, poison!"
"Yes, that is the latest theory."
"It seems reasonable; but why didn"t our grandmothers get poisoned?"
"Perhaps they did,--but they didn"t know what to call it."
"You think that is so,--that we are poor little chemical retorts? It sounds--horrid."
"It sounds sensible, but it isn"t the whole of it."
"Tell me what you think!"
"I don"t like to interfere with Dr. Potts," he suggested.
"I shouldn"t talk to you professionally, I know; but it is in my mind most of the time. What is the matter? What is wrong?"
"I, too, have thought about it a great deal." He smiled and his black eyes had a kindly gleam.
"Do you believe as Dr. Potts does that it is all what you eat, just matter?
If your mind is so much troubled, if you have these queer ideas, it can"t be altogether the chemistry?"
"It might be the soul."
"Don"t laugh--"
"But I really think it might be the soul."
The music burst upon them, and when there was another interval, Isabelle persisted with the topic which filled her mind.
"Will you tell me what you mean by the soul?"
"Can _you_ answer the question? ... Well, since we are both in doubt, let us drop the term for a while and get back to the body."
"Only we must not end with it, as Potts does!"
"No, we must not end with the body."
"First, what causes it,--hysterics, nerves, no-goodness,--the whole thing?"
"Improper food, bad education, steam heat, variable climate, inbreeding, lack of children,--shall I stop?"
"No! I can"t find a reasonable cause yet."
"I haven"t really begun.... The brain is a delicate instrument. It can do a good deal of work in its own way, if you don"t abuse it--"
"Overwork it?" suggested Isabelle.
"I never knew an American woman who overworked her brain," he retorted impatiently. "I mean abuse it. It"s grossly abused."
"Wrong ideas?"
"No ideas at all, in the proper sense,--it"s stuffed with all sorts of things,--sensations, emotions.... Where are you living?"
"At the Metropole."
"And where were you last month?"
"In St. Louis."
"And the month before?"
"I went to Washington with my husband and--"
"Precisely--that"s enough!" he waved his thin hand.
"But it rests me to travel," Isabelle protested.
"It seems to rest you. Did you ever think what all those whisking changes in your environment mean to the brain cells? And it isn"t just travelling, with new scenes, new people; it is everything in your life,--every act from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. You are cramming those brain cells all the time, giving them new records to make,--even when you lie down with an ill.u.s.trated paper. Why, the merest backwoodsman in Iowa is living faster in a sense than Cicero or Webster.... The gray matter cannot stand the strain. It isn"t the quality of what it has to do; it is the mere amount! Understand?"
"I see! I never thought before what it means to be tired. I have worked the machine foolishly. But one must travel fast--be geared up, as you say--or fall behind and become dull and uninteresting. What is living if we can"t keep the pace others do?"
"Must we? Is that _living_?" he asked ironically. "I have a diary kept by an old great-aunt of mine. She was a country clergyman"s wife, away back in a little village. She brought up four sons, helped her husband fit them for college as well as pupils he took in, and baked and washed and sewed. And learned German for amus.e.m.e.nt when she was fifty! I think she lived somewhat, but she probably never lived at the pressure you have the past month."
"One can"t repeat--can"t go back to old conditions. Each generation has its own lesson, its own way."
"But is our way _living_? Are we living now this very minute, listening to music we don"t apparently care for, that means nothing to us, with our mind crammed full of distracting purposes and reflections? When I read my aunt Merelda"s journal of the silent winter days on the snowy farm, I think _she_ lived, as much as one should live. Living doesn"t consist in the number of muscular or nervous reactions that you undergo."
"What is your formula?"
"We haven"t yet mentioned the most formidable reason for the American plague," he continued, ignoring her question. "It has to do with that troublesome term we evaded,--the Soul."