 | CHAPTER XII.
I LAY THE FIRST STONE IN MY FOUNDATION. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
I LAY THE FIRST STONE IN MY FOUNDATION.
MY story now opens in New York, whither I am come
to seek my fortune as a maker and seller of the
invisible fabrics of the brain.
During my year in Europe I had done my best to make myself
known at the workshops of different literary periodicals,
as a fabricator of these airy wares. I tried all sorts
and sizes of articles, from grave to gay, from lively to
severe, sowing them broadcast in various papers, without
regard to pecuniary profit, and the consequence was that
I came back to New York as a writer favorably known,
who had made something of a position. To be sure my
foot was on the lowest round of the ladder, but it was on
the ladder, and I meant to climb.
“To climb — to what?” In the answer a man gives to
that question lies the whole character of his life-work. If
to climb be merely to gain a name, and a competence, a
home, a wife, and children, with the means of keeping them
in ease and comfort, the question, though beset with difficulties
of practical performance, is comparatively simple.
But if in addition to this a man is to build himself up after
an ideal standard, as carefully as if he were a temple to
stand for eternity; if he is to lend a hand to help that great
living temple which God is perfecting in human society,
the question becomes more complicated still.
I fear some of my fair readers are by this time impatient
to see something of “my wife.” Let me tell them for their
comfort that at this moment, when I entered New York on a
drizzly, lonesome December evening she was there, fair as a
star, though I knew it not. The same may be true of you,
probably now in the world; some house holds her, and
there are mortal eyes at this hour to whom her lineaments
are as familiar as they are unknown to you. So much for
the doctrine of predestination.
But at this hour that I speak of, though the lady in question
was a living and blessed fact, and though she looked
on the same stars, and breathed the same air, and trod daily
the same sidewalk with myself, I was not, as I perceive, any
the wiser or better for it at this particular period of my existence.
In fact, though she was in a large part the unperceived
spring and motive of all that I did, yet at this particular
time I was so busy in adjusting the material foundations of
my life that the ideas of marrying and giving in marriage
were never less immediately in my thoughts. I came into
New York a stranger. I knew nobody personally, and I had
no time for visiting.
I had been, in the course of my wanderings, in many
cities. I had lingered in Paris, Rome, Florence, and Naples,
and, with the exception of London, I never found a place so
difficult to breathe the breath of any ideality, or any enthusiasm,
or exaltation of any description, as New York.
London, with its ponderous gloom, its sullen, mammoth,
aristocratic shadows, seems to benumb, and chill, and freeze
the soul; but New York impressed me like a great hot furnace,
where twig, spray, and flower wither in a moment,
and the little birds flying over, drop down dead. My first
impulse in life there was to cover, and conceal, and hide in
the deepest and most remote caverns of my heart anything
that was sacred, and delicate, and tender, lest the flame
should scorch it. Balzac in his epigrammatic manner has
characterized New York as the city where there is “neither
faith, hope, nor charity,” and, as he never came here, I suppose
he must have taken his impressions from the descriptions
of unfortunate compatriots, who have landed strangers
and been precipitated into the very rush and whirl of its
doing things. There is abundance of selfishness and hardness
in Paris, but it is concealed under a veil of ideality.
The city wooes you like a home, it gives you picture-galleries,
fountains, gardens, and grottoes, and a good natured
lounging population, who have nothing to do but make
themselves agreeable.
I must confess that my first emotion in making my way
about the streets of New York, before I had associated
them with any intimacy or acquaintances, was a vague
sort of terror, such as one would feel at being jostled
among cannibals, who on a reasonable provocation wouldn't
hesitate to skin him and pick his bones. There was such
a driving, merciless, fierce “take-care-of-yourself, and devil
take the hindmost” air, even to the drays and omnibuses,
and hackmen, that I had somewhat the feeling of being in
an unregulated menagerie, not knowing at what moment
some wild beast might spring upon me. As I became more
acquainted in the circles centering around the different
publications, I felt an acrid, eager, nipping air, in which it
appeared to me that everybody had put on defensive armor
in regard to his own innermost and most precious feelings,
and like the lobster, armed himself with claws to seize and
to tear that which came in his way. The rivalry between
great literary organs was so intense, and the competition so
vivid, that the offering of any flower of fancy or feeling to
any of them, seemed about as absurd as if a man should
offer a tea-rose bud to the bawling, shouting hackman that
shake their whips and scream at the landing.
Everything in life and death, and time and eternity,
whether high as Heaven, or deep as hell, seemed to be
looked upon only as subject matter for advertisement, and
material for running a paper. Hand out your wares!
advertise them and see what they will bring, seemed to
be the only law of production, at whose behest the most
delicate webs and traceries of fancy, the most solemn and
tender mysteries of feeling, the most awful of religious
short, New York is the great business mart, the Vanity
Fair of the world, where everything is pushed by advertising
and competition, not even excepting the great moral
enterprise of bringing in the millennium; and in the first
blast and blare of its busy, noisy publicity and activity, I
felt my inner spirits shrink and tremble with dismay.
Even the religion of this modern century bears the deep
impress of the trade-mark, which calendars its financial
value.
I could not but think what the sweet and retiring Galilean,
who in the old days was weary and worn with the
rush of crowds in simple old Palestine, must think if he
looks down now, on the way in which his religion is advertised
and pushed in modern society. Certain it is, if it be
the kingdom of God that is coming in our times, it is coming
with very great observation, and people have long since forgot
the idea that they are not to say “Lo, here!” and “Lo,
there!” since that is precisely what a large part of the
world are getting their living by doing.
These ideas I must confess bore with great weight on
my mind, as I had just parted from my mother, whose last
words were that whatever else I did, and whether I gained
anything for this life or not, she trusted that I would live
an humble, self-denying, Christian life. I must own that
for the first few weeks of looking into the interior management
of literary life in New York, the idea at times often
seemed to me really ludicrous. To be humble, yet to seek
success in society where it is the first duty to crow from
morning till night, and to praise, and vaunt, and glorify, at
the top of one's lungs, one's own party, or paper, or magazine,
seemed to me sufficiently amusing. However, in conformity
with a solemn promise made to my mother, I lost
no time in uniting myself with a Christian body, of my
father's own denomination, and presented a letter from the
Church in Highland to the brethren of the Bethany Church.
And here I will say that for a young man who wants
his fine moral sensibilities, a breakwater to keep the waves
of materialism from dashing over and drowning his higher
life, there is nothing better, as yet to be found, than a union
with some one of the many bodies of differing names and
denominations calling themselves Christian Churches. A
Christian Church, according to the very best definition of
the name ever yet given, is a congregation of faithful men,
in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments
duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance; and
making due allowance for all the ignorance, and prejudice,
and mistakes, and even the willful hypocrisy, which, as
human nature is, must always exist in such connections, I
must say that I think these Churches are the best form of
social moral culture yet invented, and not to be dispensed
with till something more fully answering the purpose has
been tested for as long a time as they.
These are caravans that cross the hot and weary sands of
life, and while there may be wrangling and undesirable
administration at times within them, yet, after all, the pilgrim
that undertakes alone is but a speck in the wide desert,
too often blown away, and withering like the leaf before the
wind.
The great congregation of the Bethany on Sabbath days,
all standing up together and joining in mighty hymn-singing,
though all were outwardly unknown to me, seemed to
thrill my heart with a sense of solemn companionship, in
my earliest and most sacred religious associations. It was
a congregation largely made up of young men, who like
myself were strangers, away from home and friends, and
whose hearts, touched and warmed by the familiar sounds,
seemed to send forth magnetic odors like the interlocked
pine trees under the warm sunshine of a June day.
I have long felt that he who would work his brain for
a living, without premature wear upon the organ, must have
Sunday placed as a sacred barrier of entire oblivion, so far
as possible, of the course of his week-day cares. And what
religious ordinance into the region of those diviner faculties
by which man recognizes his heirship to all that is in God?
In like manner I found an oasis in the hot and hurried
course of my week-day life, by dropping in to the weekly
prayer-meeting. The large, bright, pleasant room seemed
so social and home-like, the rows of cheerful, well-dressed,
thoughtful people, seemed, even before I knew one of them,
fatherly, motherly, brotherly, and sisterly, as they joined
with the piano in familiar hymn-singing, while the pastor
sat among them as a father in his family, and easy social
conversation went on with regard to the various methods
and aspects of the practical religious life.
To me, a stranger, and naturally shy and undemonstrative,
this socialism was in the highest degree warming and
inspiring. I do not mean to set the praise of this Church
above that of a hundred others, with which I might have
become connected, but I will say that here I met the types
of some of those good old-fashioned Christians that Hawthorne
celebrates in his “Celestial Railroad,” under the
name of Messrs. “Stick to the Right,” and “Foot it to
Heaven,” men better known among the poor and afflicted
than in fashionable or literary circles, men who, without
troubling their heads about much speculation, are footing
it to Heaven on the old, time-worn, narrow way, and carrying
with them as many as they can induce to go.
Having thus provided against being drawn down and
utterly swamped in the bread-and-subsistence struggle that
was before me, I sought to gain a position in connection
with some paper in New York. I had offers under consideration
from several of them. The conductors of “The
Moral Spouting Horn” had conversed with me touching
their projects, and I had also been furnishing letters for the
“Great Democracy,” and one of the proprietors had invited
me to a private dinner, I suppose for the purpose of
looking me over and trying my paces before he concluded
to purchase me.
Mr. Goldstick was a florid, middle-aged man, with a
slightly bald head, an easy portliness of manner, and that
air of comfortable patronage which men who are up in
the world sometimes carry towards' young aspirants. It
was his policy and his way to put himself at once on a footng
of equality with them, easy, jolly, and free; justly
thinking that thereby he gained a more unguarded insight
into the inner citadel of their nature, and could see in the
easy play of their faculties just about how much they could
be made to answer his purposes. I had a chatty, merry dinner
of it, and found all my native shyness melting away
under his charming affability. In fact, during the latter
part of the time, I almost felt that I could have told him
anything that I could have told my own mother. What
did we not talk about that is of interest in these stirring
times? Philosophy, history, science, religion, life, death,
and immortality—all received the most graceful off-hand
treatment, and were discussed with a singular unanimity
of sentiment—that unanimity which always takes place
when the partner in a discussion has the controlling purpose
to be of the same mind as yourself. When, under the warm
and sunny air of this genial nature, I had fully expanded,
and confidence was in full blossom, came the immediate
business conversation in relation to the paper.
“I am rejoiced,” said Mr. Goldstick, “in these days of
skepticism to come across a young man with real religious
convictions. I am not, I regret to say, a religious professor
myself, but I appreciate it, Mr. Henderson, as the element
most wanting in our modern life.”
Here Mr. Goldstick sighed and rolled up his eyes, and took
a glass of wine.
I felt encouraged in this sympathetic atmosphere to unfold
to him my somewhat idealized views of what might be
accomplished by the daily press, by editors as truly under
moral vows and consecrations, as the clergymen who ministered
at the altar.
He caught the idea from me with enthusiasm, and went
illustrate it with a profusion of incidents, which left me far
behind him, gazing after him with reverential admiration.
“Mr. Henderson,” said he, The Great Democracy is not
primarily a money-making enterprise—it is a great moral
engine; it is for the great American people, and it contemplates
results which look to the complete regeneration of
society.”
I ventured here to remark that the same object had been
stated to me by the Moral Spouting Horn.
His countenance assumed at once an expression of intense
disgust.
“Is it possible,” he said, “that the charlatan has been trying
to get hold of you? My dear fellow,” he added, drawing
near to me with a confidential air, “of course I would
be the last man to infringe on the courtesies due to my
brethren of the press, and you must be aware that our present
conversation is to be considered strictly confidential.”
I assured him with fervor that I should consider it so.
“Well, then,” he said, “between ourselves, I may say that
The Moral Spouting Horn is a humbug. On mature reflection,”
he added, “I don't know but duty requires me to go
farther, and say, in the strictest confidence, you understand,
that I consider The Moral Spouting Horn a swindle.'
Here it occurred to me that the same communication had
been made in equal confidence, by the proprietor of The
Moral Spouting Horn in relation to The Great Democracy.
But, much as I was warmed into confidence by the genial
atmosphere of my friend, I had still enough prudence to
forbear making this statement.
“Now,” said he, “my young friend, in devoting yourself
to the service of The Great Democracy you may consider
yourself as serving the cause of God and mankind in ways
that no clergyman has an equal chance of doing. Beside
the press, sir, the pulpit is effete. It is, so to speak,” he
added, with a sweep of the right hand, “nowhere. Of course
the responsibilities of conducting such an organ are tremendous,
at him with awe; “and that is why I require in my writers,
above all things, the clearest and firmest moral convictions.
Sir, it is a critical period in our history; there is an amount
of corruption in this nation that threatens its dissolution;
the Church and the Pulpit have proved entirely inadequate
to stem it. It rests with the Press.”
There was a solemn pause, in which nothing was heard but
the clink of the decanter on the glass, as he poured out
another glass of wine.
“It is a great responsibility,” I remarked, with a sigh.
“Enormous!” he added, with almost a groan, eyeing me
sternly. “Consider,” he went on, “the evils of the tremendously
corrupted literature which is now being poured
upon the community. Sir, we are fast drifting to destruction,
it is a solemn fact. The public mind must be aroused
and strengthened to resist; they must be taught to discriminate;
there must be a just standard of moral criticism
no less than of intellectual, and that must be attended to
in our paper.”
I was delighted to find his views in such accordance with
my own, and assured him I should be only too happy to do
what I could to forward them.
“We have been charmed and delighted,” he said, “with
your contributions hitherto; they have a high moral tone
and have been deservedly popular, and it is our desire to
secure you as a stated contributor in a semi-editorial capacity,
looking towards future developments. We wish that
it were in our power to pay a more liberal sum than we can
offer, but you must be aware, Mr. Henderson, that great
moral enterprises must always depend, in a certain degree,
on the element of self-sacrifice in its promoters.”
I reflected, at this moment, on my father's life, and assented
with enthusiasm—remarking that “if I could only get
enough to furnish me with the necessaries of life I should
be delighted to go into the glorious work with him, and
give to it the whole enthusiasm of my soul.”
“You have the right spirit, young man,” he said. “It is
delightful to witness this freshness of moral feeling.” And
thus, before our interview was closed, I had signed a contract
of service to Mr. Goldstick, at very moderate wages,
but my heart was filled with exulting joy at the idea of the
possibilities of the situation.
I was young, and ardent; I did not, at this moment, want
to make money so much as to make myself felt in the
great world. It was the very spirit of Phæton; I wanted
to have a hand on the reins, and a touch of the whip, and
guide the fiery horses of Progress.
I had written stories, and sung songs, but I was not quite
content with those; I wanted the anonymous pulpit of the
Editor to speak in, the opportunity of being the daily invisible
companion and counselor of thousands about their
daily paths. The offer of Mr. Goldstick, as I understood it,
looked that way, and I resolved to deserve so well of
him by unlimited devotion to the interests of the paper,
that he should open my way before me.
| CHAPTER XII.
I LAY THE FIRST STONE IN MY FOUNDATION. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history | |