The Wisdom of Fools E-Book

Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

• Herausgeber: Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

THE most delightful thing about our engagement is that everybody is so pleased with it.” Amy Townsend said this, smiling down at her lover, who, full length on the grass beside her, leaned on his elbow, watching her soft hair blowing across her forehead, and the color of the sun flickering through the shadows, hot on her cheek; for she had closed her fluffy white parasol and taken off her hat here under an oak-tree on the grassy bank of the river.
“I should have thought that the fact that we were pleased ourselves was a trifle more important,” he suggested. But Miss Townsend paid no attention to his interruption.
“You know, generally, when people get engaged, there are always people who exclaim: either the man is too good for the girl (and you are too good for me, Billy!), or the girl is too good for the man”—
“She is; there is no question about that,” the man interrupted.
“Be quiet!” the other commanded. “But in our case, everybody approves. You see, in the first place, you are a Parson, and I’m a Worker. That’s what they call me,—the old ladies,—‘a Worker.’ And of course that’s a most appropriate combination to start with.”

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Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

The Wisdom of Fools

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Table of contents

WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS ’TIS FOLLY TO BE WISE

THE HOUSE OF RIMMON

COUNTING THE COST

THE LAW, OR THE GOSPEL

WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS ’TIS FOLLY TO BE WISE

ITHE most delightful thing about our engagement is that everybody is so pleased with it.” Amy Townsend said this, smiling down at her lover, who, full length on the grass beside her, leaned on his elbow, watching her soft hair blowing across her forehead, and the color of the sun flickering through the shadows, hot on her cheek; for she had closed her fluffy white parasol and taken off her hat here under an oak-tree on the grassy bank of the river. “I should have thought that the fact that we were pleased ourselves was a trifle more important,” he suggested. But Miss Townsend paid no attention to his interruption. “You know, generally, when people get engaged, there are always people who exclaim: either the man is too good for the girl (and you are too good for me, Billy!), or the girl is too good for the man”— “She is; there is no question about that,” the man interrupted. “Be quiet!” the other commanded. “But in our case, everybody approves. You see, in the first place, you are a Parson, and I’m a Worker. That’s what they call me,—the old ladies,—‘a Worker.’ And of course that’s a most appropriate combination to start with.” “Well, the old ladies will discover that my wife isn’t going to run their committees for them,” the parson said emphatically. “Besides, if I’m a Parson, you’re a Person! How do the old ladies bear it, that I haven’t any ancestors, and used to run errands in a tin-shop?I’m a Worker, literally enough.” “You are a goose!” she told him calmly. “Don’t keep interrupting me, Billy. What do ancestors amount to? I admit I’m glad that none of mine were hanged (so far as I know), or that they didn’t run off with other people’s money—or wives. (I’d mind the wives less than the money, I must confess. I suppose you think that’s very mediæval in me?) But what credit is their good behavior to me? You are a credit to your people, whoever they were; and my own belief is that they were Princes!”She had such a charming way of flinging up her head and looking down at him sidewise, that he was willing to have had any kind of ancestors, only to catch that look of joyous pride; and in his own joyousness he was impelled to try to take her hand in his: but her fingers were laced about her knee, and she shook her head. “Stop! I’m talking seriously; you mustn’t be silly. You must listen to the other reasons why we are approved of: First, you are a Parson, and I’m a Worker. Secondly, you are forty-two, and ‘it’s high time’—high time, sir!—‘for you to be married’; and I’m twenty-seven—and, really, you know, ‘my chances are lessening’—(that’s what they say, my dear); and I ‘hardly deserve, after all these years’”— “And offers?” suggested her lover. “After all theseyears, Billy,—not to get a crooked stick in the end.” “I am not crooked, I will admit,” he said. “Thirdly,” she proceeded, “you are very good-looking, and all the old Tabbies say that a handsome minister ought to be married.” “The old Tabbies might find something better to talk about,” he said, his face hardening. “Oh, Amy, that’s the kind of thing that makes a man cringe!—I mean a minister. Here is this great, serious, strenuous matter of living—the consciousness of God; that’s what living is in its highest expression. And to further that consciousness is the divinest human passion. A man tries to do it, gives his life to it, and immediately he is food for chattering old women! They gossip about his affairs, or his clothes, or his looks, even!” William West sat up, his face stirred with anger and pity. “But I suppose I must admit that the Parsons bring it on themselves to some extent,” he ended, with a sigh; “we don’t mingle enough with men; they distrust us, and think we talk twaddle about overcoming temptations we know nothing about. So, being shut out from masculine living, we do haunt tea-tables, and gabble about vestments. I suppose there’s no doubt of it. Amy, I believe that the old hunting, swearing parsons of three generations ago were of more real value in the world than the harmless creatures that we have now!”He had a certain stern way of thrusting out his lower lip when he was very much in earnest, and drawing his strong brows together; an impatient fire sprang into his beautiful dark eyes. He turned and looked at her, claiming her understanding. “Yes,” she said; “yes, it is so. The belittling of the profession of the ministry is a dreadful thing—a shameful thing. I once heard a man say that ‘Elderly unmarried women always had to have something to fuss over and coddle, something to lead around by a blue ribbon. Sometimes it was a poodle; sometimes it was a clergyman.’ And there’s truth in it, Billy.” “There is,” he said grimly. “Well, dear,” she reassured him, smiling, “your distinguished rudeness to the ladies of your congregation has at least protected you from the blue ribbon.”He began to protest, but the talk slipped back into their own affairs, and somehow he succeeded in getting her hand, and by and by they were silent, just for happiness, and because it was sunset, and the river was flickering with light, and there was a faint stir of leaves overhead. They were to be married in a fortnight, and they were going to have all their lives together to say how good life was, so there was no need to talk now.As the girl had said, it really was a very satisfactory match. William West was a man whom every one honored, and many loved. For fifteen years he had been settled in Mercer; first as an assistant to old Mr. Brown, and then as rector of the church. But he had taken his place in the community as a man of strong judgment and high character; perhaps as a citizen, rather than as a minister. Men felt that he was a man before he was a clergyman; not knowing that his calling had given him his highest manhood. He was singularly devoid of clerical affectation; consequently the influence of his own reverence was not vitiated by a suspicion of his common sense. In fact, his sanity in matters religious, joined to his knowledge of human nature, made him a man of importance in affairs municipal and social. That he had lived to be forty-two, and had not married, was from no asceticism; he was a very human person, and fully intended to have a wife; only, she must be just what he wanted. And so far, that “not impossible She” who was to possess his heart had never appeared. When she did, he recognized her immediately, and would have proposed to her the next day, had not a feeling of diffidence as to her sentiments deterred him for nearly two weeks. At the end of that time, he told her—ah, well, never mind what he told her! She, at least, will never forget the passion of that claiming.Amy Townsend had come to spend the winter in Mercer, with a cousin. Of course, the first Sunday she went to St. James’s, as everybody who was anybody did. When she came home, her eyes were keen with interest. “Do tell me about him, Cousin Kate,” she said. “I never heard that sort of preaching; what does it mean? Is he a real person, or is he just clever?” Mrs. Paul laughed. “Wait till you meet him! you’ll see.”But she also added to herself, “Wait till he meets you!” For Mrs. Paul was one of those courageous women who rush in where angels fear to tread; she was a match-maker. “Is he married?” the girl asked, naturally enough; but blushed furiously the next instant, which made her angry. “No; but it is not for lack of opportunity,” said Mrs. Paul dryly. “I declare, Amy, women are dreadful fools, sometimes! I should think a clergyman wouldn’t marry, out of sheer disgust for their silliness.” “Oh, he’s run after, is he?” Miss Townsend said coldly. “Well, I must admit he’s very attractive,” Mrs. Paul began, remembering her scheme, and retreating a little,—for nothing will put a girl against a man sooner than to know he is “run after.”Then she told his story: the boy had been a waif. (“His mother was respectable, I think,” said Mrs. Paul, “but nobody knows anything about the father.”) He had had that dreariest sort of childhood which knows no other home than an institution. Then, somehow, “quite like a story-book,” Mrs. Paul said, a gentleman took an interest in him, and began to help him in one way or another. “It was that zoölogical man, Professor Wilson; you know who I mean?” Mrs. Paul explained. “He looked after him. At first he put him in a tinshop, if you please, as errand-boy,—fancy! this man with the ‘grand manner.’” “Oh, I supposed he was a gentleman,” Amy Townsend said. “Amy, you are a snob,” her cousin answered hotly. “He is.”Mrs. Paul was so annoyed that she ended the story of Mr. West’s career very briefly. “Professor Wilson offered either to start him in business or put him through college; he chose to go to college.” “That was rather fine,” Miss Townsend agreed. “Fine? It just showed what sort of a man he was!” cried Mrs. Paul. “He worked his way to some extent; that is, he was Professor Wilson’s secretary, and he did a lot of tutoring. Professor Wilson left him a good deal of money, but he gave away nearly half of it at once, John says. Quite remarkable for a young man. Well, that’s all; you see what he is to-day—a gentleman and a scholar: John says there is no man in Mercer who has the influence that he has.”Miss Townsend, in spite of her careful indifference, was interested. And later, when Rev. William West met her, he, too, was “interested;” and all fell out as the most experienced romancer could desire.Amy had a little money, much charm, a certain distinction that answered for beauty, and a very true nature; there was, perhaps, a certain hard integrity about her, but her impulses were gracious. Also, as the old ladies said, she was a “worker.” She found life too interesting not to meddle with it.So it had come to pass that these two, who, as Mrs. Paul said, “were made for each other,” were going to be married. “Just think, in two weeks!” he said, as they sat there under the oak, the blossoming grass knee-deep about them, and the air sweet with clover. “Amy, it does not seem as if I had been alive until now.” “I wonder, does it go on getting—nicer?” she asked him, a little shyly; “everything seems to be better, and more worth while.” “I understand,” he said.And they were silent for awhile, because understanding is enough, when people are in love. Then the girl’s gayety began to sparkle out. “Billy, Cousin Kate says if I’m not careful I’ll get to be a managing Parsoness; she says I must devote myself to you, not to your poor people.” “Mrs. Paul has given a great deal of good advice in her day,” the Rev. Billy remarked meditatively, “and I really think very little harm has come from it.” “She advised your being called to Mercer,” Amy retorted. “Did you know that?” “Know it? My dear child! how often have I dined at the Pauls’? Just so often have I heard it.” “Now, Billy, that’s not very nice in you.” “I but stated a fact; and I have a high regard for Mrs. Paul. Only, when I think how many girls she has tried to make marry me!—but they would none of them look at me.” “And in two weeks the opportunity will be gone,” she jeered. “Poor girls!” the minister commiserated; and was reproved for vanity. Indeed, just because happiness is so serious a thing, they became very frivolous, these two, sitting watching the sunset, and the river. Amy told him a funny story about the parish; he responded by another concerning Tom Reilly, a policeman; which reminded Amy to tell him that poor Tom had had an accident, and hurt his hand. “But it was very stupid in him,” she added, with a little of that resentful goodness that one sees sometimes in women. “I’m not at all sorry for him, because he deserved it. He had been drinking, and as he went stumbling out of a car, he crushed his hand in the door.”Her lover was not to be lured into professional comments; he only muttered, “Mauvais quart d’heure”—which made her say indignantly: “Now, Billy, really, that istoomuch!” and insist that they should go home immediately. “I cannot descend to such levels,” she told him; and was very stern and forbidding when, looking to the right and left, and seeing no man, he begged to be allowed to kiss her.But this was all froth. Beneath, in the man’s life, were the great tides of love, moving, noiseless and unchangeable, from out the depths of his soul. In the girl’s life it was all shine and perfume and glitter, like flowers blossoming on a rock; beneath, in her heart, was the solid ground of reverence and faith.IIThe two weeks that were to pass before the day that was to be the Day of Days were very full.To get parish work ahead so that things would run themselves for the month’s absence which had been granted the clergyman was no small undertaking. William West was very busy, and a little preoccupied in his endeavor to put his best thought, not upon his own happiness, but upon committees, or Sunday-school matters, or his assistant’s spiritual anxieties concerning his superior’s indifference to the color of the lectern bookmarks; so it chanced that he saw less of Amy than in the earlier part of their engagement. He had but little time to think of her, and absolutely no time to think of himself.They were to be married on Thursday. Late Monday afternoon Mr. West, with great timidity, ventured into Mrs. Paul’s drawing-room, with the bold purpose of abstracting his sweetheart for a walk. The project was, of course, promptly crushed. “As though Amy had any time for that sort of thing!” said Mrs. Paul. “Do you see those presents? She has got to acknowledge every one of them! Amy, your cousin John and I will entertain Mr. West. You can write your notes here, and let him look at you; that’s quite enough for him.”Amy smiled at him across a barricade of silver bric-à-brac. “Billy thinks silver picture-frames and brushes and things are a dreadful waste of money,” she said. “Just think how thankful you ought to be, Billy, that I am making our manners for you; you couldn’t say ‘Thank you,’ with truth.” “Oh, truth,” said John Paul, lounging about the room, with his hands in his pockets—“truth, my dear little cousin, is governed by the law of benefit; didn’t you know that? If it makes the donors feel happy, tell them West has longed for nothing in the world so much as a silver glove buttoner. Now, if you told them the truth, fancy the shock! Ask the Parson.” “The Parson has no such base and cynical theory,” Miss Townsend responded promptly; “have you, Billy? You don’t think truth is governed by the law of benefit?” “I think truth-telling is,” he assured her.John Paul assumed that look of artless and simpering satisfaction which one sees on the countenance of the unprotected male, who, in the bosom of his family, finds himself indorsed by a higher power. “There, Amy, what did I tell you? I had an instance of it yesterday. I”— “Oh, here is a third asparagus fork,” murmured Amy; “whatshallI say about it?” “What’s your instance?” said the minister. “Well, we’ve been looking for an assistant engineer, and there have been the Lord only knows how many applicants. One fellow impressed me very well; he seemed as straight as a string; honest face, thoroughly decent-looking fellow. He was an Englishman, but his references for three years were American. So much the better, of course. I was going to engage him, when, bless my soul, if he didn’t begin to stammer out something about having no references from ‘Home’ (‘’ome,’ he called it), because he ‘’adn’t been over steady,’ but he’d signed the pledge, and ‘he wasn’t afraid of drink any more.’ I didn’t hire him. Now, I call that truth not governed by the law of benefit.” “You don’t discriminate between being truthful and telling the truth,” said William West. “You hadn’t asked him if he had ever drank. I don’t believe you lost much, in not engaging him, poor fellow.” “Oh, Billy, I think it was rather fine in him,” Amy protested, looking up from her notes. “I don’t see anything fine,” the minister said simply. “In the first place, there was a lack of reserve, a lack of privacy, in rushing into confession, which betrays the weak nature. There was also self-consciousness, in dwelling on his sin. And in the third place”— “This sounds like a sermon: firstly—secondly”—Amy murmured, signing her name to her thanks for the third asparagus fork. —“in the third place, if the man has reformed, there was an essential untruth in posing as a sinner.” “Well, I don’t quite agree with that,” began Mrs. Paul. “He’s right; he’s right,” John Paul declared. “I say, West, suppose we went about confessing some of our college performances?” The senior warden of St. James grinned, but his wife looked displeased. “I don’t believe you ever did anything very bad, John; but if you did, I think you should have confessed to me.” “I stole some signs, Kate,” he told her; “can you forgive me?”Amy, listening, smiling, said with that charming sidewise glance at her lover: “Cousin Kate is quite right. I should never forgive a man who didn’t tell me everything! Billy, come here and confess. Have you ever done anything wicked?” “We are all miserable sinners,” John Paul murmured. “I say so publicly every Sunday”— “But you don’t specify!” the minister reminded him, with a laugh. “Yes; but, Billy,” Amy Townsend insisted, “doesn’t it say somewhere that ‘confession is good for the soul’?” “Perhaps it is,” he said dryly, “but, generally speaking, it’s mighty bad for the mind.”There was an outcry at this from the two women. “Of course,” Mrs. Paul said, “simply gossiping about one’s self isn’t confession; but don’t you think, Mr. West, in the really deep relations of life, between friend and friend, or husband and wife, there should be no reserves?” “My dear Mrs. Paul,” he answered, with quick gravity, “there must be reserves—except with God. The human soul is solitary. But for confession, that is different; justice and reparation sometimes demand it; but, again, justice and courage sometimes forbid it. Unless it is necessary, it is flabby vanity. That’s why I said it was bad for the mind.” “Well,” said Amy, with some spirit, “I don’t believe in taking respect, or—or love, on false pretenses. If I had ever done any dreadful thing, I should want to confess; good gracious, for the mere comfort of it I should have to! It would be like walking on a volcano to keep a secret.”William West went over to the table where she was writing, and, finding a place among the clutter of presents to lean his elbow, sat down and looked at her with good-humored amusement. “Where are you going to draw the line? How far back are you going in confessing your sins? Please don’t tell me that you slapped your nurse when you were three. It would be a horrible shock, and make me very unhappy to discover such a crime.” “I shall go all the way back,” said Amy, with decision; “if I had done anything wrong, I mean very wrong, I should tell you,—if I had only been a year old!”The minister laughed. “A desperate villain of one year!” he said; but as he spoke a puzzled look came into his eyes. “I think,” Amy Townsend proceeded, “that honor and fairness demand speaking out. And as for making some one else unhappy,” her voice dropped a little, and the color came up into her face, “where people love each other, they have a right to unhappiness.” “Listen to Amy clamoring for unhappiness!” John Paul commented. “Don’t worry, my child; you’ll get your share. There’s enough to go round, I’ve noticed.”Mrs. Paul laughed, but a note of reality had come into the careless talk that gave her a sense of being a third party. “John, you are flippant,” she said; “come, let’s leave these two poor things alone; they’re dying to get rid of us. And besides, if Amy is going to confess her sins since she was one year old, it will take time.” “That I consider a most uncalled for reference to my twenty-seven years,” Amy retorted; “and besides, I’ve two more notes to write.” “And I must go home,” William West said, rising in a preoccupied manner. “Why—but I thought you were going to stay to dinner!” Mrs. Paul protested, with dismay. “Oh, you must stay to dinner,” Amy urged.But her lover was resolute. Nor did he, as usual, try to lure her out into the hall that he might make his adieus. He said good-night, stopped a moment to discuss with his senior warden something about the appropriation for repairs at St. James, and then, with a sober abstraction deepening in his face, went home through the delicate June dusk, which was full of the scent of the roses that grow behind the garden walls of the old-fashioned part of Mercer.IIIThe Rev. William West went into his study and shut the door. He was a man who was always accessible to his people, yet his lips tightened with impatience when he found a parishioner awaiting him, and saw a pile of notes on his writing-table. But it was only for an instant; he listened to the anxieties of his caller with that concentration of sympathy which can put self aside; and when the man went away it was with the other man’s heartfelt grip of the hand, his heartfelt “I thank you for coming to me; God bless you, my friend, and give you wisdom.”The letters were not so easy; but he went through them faithfully, answering them or filing them away: appeals for help, or money, or work; two invitations; two letters from ladies of his congregation about their souls; the unmarried and interesting clergyman knows this sort of letter too well! He was aware of a sense of haste in getting through with these things; a sense of haste even in disposing of another caller, a boy, who came to say he had doubts about the existence of God, and who felt immensely important in consequence. “I tell you, Mr. West,” this youth declared, nodding his head, “of course I don’t mean to be hard on the church; of course I see the value of such a belief in keeping the masses straight, but, for thinking men!” To treat this sort of thing seriously and patiently is one of the trials of a thinking man who happens to be a minister. Then the Tenor came to give his side of the quarrel with the Bass, and the organist to say that quartette and chorus were all fools.One does not prove the existence of God, or pacify wounded artistic feelings easily; it was nearly midnight before the clergyman had his library to himself.With a sigh of relief he shut the door, and walked once or twice about the room, as though trying to shake off other people’s affairs; then he bit off the end of a cigar, struck a match, and sat down. He put his hands deep into his pockets, and stretched his feet straight out in front of him. “It must be five years since I’ve thought of it,” he said to himself.He held his lighted cigar between his fingers, his chin sunk on his breast, his mouth set in that hard line which refuses to extenuate or evade; his eyes narrowed with thought. Five years: Yes, the memory had so faded and lessened that by and by it had ceased, and now it was as though, as he walked along the level path of daily life, a serpent suddenly lifted its evil head from the dust, and struck at him, hissing. “I was eighteen,” he said to himself; “no, nineteen. And now I’m forty-two! Twenty-nine, thirty-nine—it’s twenty-three years ago.”There is a hideous consciousness which comes to most of us men and women at one time or another in our lives, of our inability to get away from the past. From out of the “roaring loom of Time” comes the fabric of our lives; white, run, perhaps, with a warp of silver in our latter years; set, even, by the mercy of God, with deep jewels of experience; spangled with golden threads of opportunity; but back, in its beginnings—what stains, what rents! dragged through what foul and primeval experiences of youth! Some, by environment and temperament, have nothing to blush for but follies; the joyous baseness of the young animal never broke through the conditions of their lives, or the dullness of their minds. But for most there are black spots from which, with wonder and disgust, the adult turns away his eyes: the cruelty and impurity of childhood; the ingratitude and meanness of youth. With the man, as with the race, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural.Twenty-three years ago: is there any connection between a fault committed then and the William West of to-day? None! What has he in common with the boy of nineteen? Nothing!Suppose he told Amy, would she understand that? Why, the very fact that he had forgotten it meant that he did not belong to it, nor it to him. And yet he wanted to tell h [...]