University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
THE MAN WITH THE WEED MAKES IT AN EVEN QUESTION WHETHER
HE BE A GREAT SAGE OR A GREAT SIMPLETON.

“Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness
too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more
than sorrow is. Dear good man. Poor beating heart!”

It was the man with the weed, not very long after
quitting the merchant, murmuring to himself with his
hand to his side like one with the heart-disease.

Meditation over kindness received seemed to have
softened him something, too, it may be, beyond what
might, perhaps, have been looked for from one whose
unwonted self-respect in the hour of need, and in the act
of being aided, might have appeared to some not wholly
unlike pride out of place; and pride, in any place, is
seldom very feeling. But the truth, perhaps, is, that
those who are least touched with that vice, besides being
not unsusceptible to goodness, are sometimes the
ones whom a ruling sense of propriety makes appear
cold, if not thankless, under a favor. For, at such a
time, to be full of warm, earnest words, and heart-felt
protestations, is to create a scene; and well-bred people
dislike few things more than that; which would

seem to look as if the world did not relish earnestness;
but, not so; because the world, being earnest itself, likes
an earnest scene, and an earnest man, very well, but
only in their place—the stage. See what sad work they
make of it, who, ignorant of this, flame out in Irish
enthusiasm and with Irish sincerity, to a benefactor,
who, if a man of sense and respectability, as well as
kindliness, can but be more or less annoyed by it;
and, if of a nervously fastidious nature, as some are,
may be led to think almost as much less favorably of
the beneficiary paining him by his gratitude, as if he had
been guilty of its contrary, instead only of an indiscretion.
But, beneficiaries who know better, though they
may feel as much, if not more, neither inflict such pain,
nor are inclined to run any risk of so doing. And these,
being wise, are the majority. By which one sees how
inconsiderate those persons are, who, from the absence
of its officious manifestations in the world, complain that
there is not much gratitude extant; when the truth is,
that there is as much of it as there is of modesty; but,
both being for the most part votarists of the shade, for
the most part keep out of sight.

What started this was, to account, if necessary, for
the changed air of the man with the weed, who, throwing
off in private the cold garb of decorum, and so giving
warmly loose to his genuine heart, seemed almost
transformed into another being. This subdued air of
softness, too, was toned with melancholy, melancholy
unreserved; a thing which, however at variance with
propriety, still the more attested his earnestness; for

one knows not how it is, but it sometimes happens that,
where earnestness is, there, also, is melancholy.

At the time, he was leaning over the rail at the boat's
side, in his pensiveness, unmindful of another pensive
figure near—a young gentleman with a swan-neck,
wearing a lady-like open shirt collar, thrown back, and
tied with a black ribbon. From a square, tableted
broach, curiously engraved with Greek characters, he
seemed a collegian—not improbably, a sophomore—on
his travels; possibly, his first. A small book bound in
Roman vellum was in his hand.

Overhearing his murmuring neighbor, the youth
regarded him with some surprise, not to say interest.
But, singularly for a collegian, being apparently of a
retiring nature, he did not speak; when the other still
more increased his diffidence by changing from soliloquy
to colloquy, in a manner strangely mixed of familiarity
and pathos.

“Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young
friend, did you? Why, you, too, look sad. My melancholy
is not catching!”

“Sir, sir,” stammered the other.

“Pray, now,” with a sort of sociable sorrowfulness,
slowly sliding along the rail, “Pray, now, my young
friend, what volume have you there? Give me leave,”
gently drawing it from him. “Tacitus!” Then opening
it at random, read: “In general a black and shameful
period lies before me.” “Dear young sir,” touching
his arm alarmedly, “don't read this book. It is poison,
moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus,

such truth would have the operation of falsity, and so
still be poison, moral poison. Too well I know this
Tacitus. In my college-days he came near souring me
into cynicism. Yes, I began to turn down my collar,
and go about with a disdainfully joyless expression.”

“Sir, sir, I—I—”

“Trust me. Now, young friend, perhaps you think
that Tacitus, like me, is only melancholy; but he's more
—he's ugly. A vast difference, young sir, between the
melancholy view and the ugly. The one may show the
world still beautiful, not so the other. The one may be
compatible with benevolence, the other not. The one
may deepen insight, the other shallows it. Drop Tacitus.
Phrenologically, my young friend, you would
seem to have a well-developed head, and large; but
cribbed within the ugly view, the Tacitus view, your
large brain, like your large ox in the contracted field,
will but starve the more. And don't dream, as some of
you students may, that, by taking this same ugly view,
the deeper meanings of the deeper books will so alone
become revealed to you. Drop Tacitus. His subtlety
is falsity. To him, in his double-refined anatomy of
human nature, is well applied the Scripture saying—
`There is a subtle man, and the same is deceived.' Drop
Tacitus. Come, now, let me throw the book overboard.”

“Sir, I—I—”

“Not a word; I know just what is in your mind, and
that is just what I am speaking to. Yes, learn from me
that, though the sorrows of the world are great, its

wickedness—that is, its ugliness—is small. Much cause
to pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known
adversity, and know it still. But for that, do I turn
cynic? No, no: it is small beer that sours. To my
fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever I
may have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in
my kind. Now, then” (winningly), “this book—will
you let me drown it for you?”

“Really, sir—I—”

“I see, I see. But of course you read Tacitus in order
to aid you in understanding human nature—as if truth
was ever got at by libel. My young friend, if to know
human nature is your object, drop Tacitus and go north
to the cemeteries of Auburn and Greenwood.”

“Upon my word, I—I—”

“Nay, I foresee all that. But you carry Tacitus,
that shallow Tacitus. What do I carry? See”—producing
a pocket-volume—“Akenside—his `Pleasures
of Imagination.' One of these days you will know it.
Whatever our lot, we should read serene and cheery
books, fitted to inspire love and trust. But Tacitus! I
have long been of opinion that these classics are the bane
of colleges; for—not to hint of the immorality of Ovid,
Horace, Anacreon, and the rest, and the dangerous theology
of Eschylus and others—where will one find views
so injurious to human nature as in Thucydides, Juvenal,
Lucian, but more particularly Tacitus? When I consider
that, ever since the revival of learning, these classics
have been the favorites of successive generations of students
and studious men, I tremble to think of that mass

of unsuspected heresy on every vital topic which for
centuries must have simmered unsurmised in the heart
of Christendom. But Tacitus—he is the most extraordinary
example of a heretic; not one iota of confidence in
his kind. What a mockery that such an one should be
reputed wise, and Thucydides be esteemed the statesman's
manual! But Tacitus—I hate Tacitus; not,
though, I trust, with the hate that sins, but a righteous
hate. Without confidence himself, Tacitus destroys it
in all his readers. Destroys confidence, paternal confidence,
of which God knows that there is in this world
none to spare. For, comparatively inexperienced as you
are, my dear young friend, did you never observe how
little, very little, confidence, there is? I mean between
man and man—more particularly between stranger and
stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence!
I have sometimes almost thought that confidence
is fled; that confidence is the New Astrea—emigrated—vanished—gone.”
Then softly sliding nearer,
with the softest air, quivering down and looking up,
“could you now, my dear young sir, under such circumstances,
by way of experiment, simply have confidence
in me?”

From the outset, the sophomore, as has been seen,
had struggled with an ever-increasing embarrassment,
arising, perhaps, from such strange remarks coming from
a stranger—such persistent and prolonged remarks, too.
In vain had he more than once sought to break the
spell by venturing a deprecatory or leave-taking word.
In vain. Somehow, the stranger fascinated him. Little

wonder, then, that, when the appeal came, he could
hardly speak, but, as before intimated, being apparently
of a retiring nature, abruptly retired from the spot, leaving
the chagrined stranger to wander away in the opposite
direction.