A Pessimist in Theory and Practice

ething or other, and practised law-or professed it, and not too eagerly: then he had disappeared. Last May I stumbled on him in a secluded region where I had gone

helor establishment, and we made a night-or more than

with yourself!" I began; "

is in you as well as around you, unluckily. It is too much with us, as the

hought that impossible," he put in, in his nasty nagging fashi

ot much of a place, b

as he often did of old; so I

a direct and ingenuous mind, Bob. Here y

id I. "Who do you practi

small farmers. Or if my bosom cries too loudly to be eased of i

o clever for me. Wh

you think that is much of a compliment?' I read, and fish, and climb, and

?" I was growing impatie

very little indeed. But intrinsically it is ab

u were. But here you are, hidden in the backwoods with owls (one of them wa

hildren," he

he avenue, and a decent social position, and I'm making money

for five years the elder. Your hair is getting gray, and thin on top

I do as others do. I help to make the wheels go round." I thought I had him

hy should they go around, anyway? It might be a

al than his talk sounded. "The good of it is th

to things generally, I prefer to be with t

e much of that-or an illustration, say. I want to know about you." It may have been foolish,

"Do you really wa

the scrapes you got me out of, and how you coached me through that exam, in Ca

u, Bob, nor supposed you'd take it so: and I doubt if you did, though you think so at this moment. It was

fill up.-No

you used to, Bob. Do

ut the house, of course. And

vices. Well, Bob, I got tired of it. Not that that alone would matter: one coul

explaining?" sai

o make a little money and a little name, and following the fashions of a carnal-minde

like what's his name-that Concord f

pomps and vanities are conspicuous chiefly by their absence. It is

is well enough in a way; but take it the year round,

he surface and sifted values. But it's not so oppressive as in town. There are no shams here, to s

ture, and the street has its little tricks and methods

siness than as a science. Look at Jones, and Brown, and Jenkins:

of it. With your head piece, and your high a

out all the rest, or to sink my whole soul in a profession. That's what they want of you now-to make a little clearing, and put up palings all round it, and see t

e're not talking about me, Jim. You're the topic. Stick to your text, and preach away: my soul is not so immersed in oil that I can't li

we rather laughed at him; or if his name was well up, we were willing to be proud of him-at a distance-as an honor to Alma Mater; but we kicked all the same, if he tried to put extra work on us. It was all fashion, routine, tradition. The student mind doesn't begin to look into things for itself till about the senior year, and then it's full

rature? That was in your line: you

among our seven hundred rising authors. What's the good of that, when one is not a transcendent genius, destined for posterity? The crowd seems to be thickest just there: too many books, too many wr

ould have made a pretty good preacher; bu

get a free education and into a gentlemanly profession. That's the kind they mostly make parsons of now, I hear. My boy, to do anything really in that line, a man ought to have notions differ

made a rally. "How about the philanthropic dodge? Robinson is on the Associat

rm a man from without. Natural selection will have its way: the shiftless and the lazy must go to the wall. If you could kill them off, now, that might do some good. The class that needs help is not like us-not that we are anything to brag of: they've not had our chance. It's very well to say, give 'em a chance; but that's no use unless they take it, which they won't. 'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.' If they wouldn't, you are bo

? The gentleman is supposed

join, when he sees nothing in either but selfish greed and stale traditions? Viewed as a missionary field, Bob, it's just like the ministry: you are weighed down with a lot of dead conventions which you must pretend to believe h

he applied, I know. But you used to like beetles and

one of our leading chemists. You know how the books on Astronomy are made? A man finds out a thing or two for himself, cribs the rest from other books, changes the wording, and brings it all out with a blare of trumpets as original res

arms, eh? Have to go back to it no

thodoxy wants confirming, or Dr. Deadcreed if your liberalism is to be stirred up. Let us spi

I believe your money has been the ruin of you. It's not an original remark, but if you'd had

on which he served from sheer necessity. Say I got my living by a certain craft, would that make the craft noble? 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' because we sell her ima

, most men find it in Society.

d from Alexandrian ball-rooms to Nitrian deserts. The emptiness of it-the eternal simper, the godless and harrowing routine! If a man has brains or a soul about him, what can he do with them in such a crowd? Better leave them at home with his pocket-book, or he might lose them-less suddenly, but more certainly, I fancy. No, the clubs are not much better; I don'

the rhyme and reason of a rural life, is it? Soothing effect of Nature on

m; only the pettishness of a spoiled child, or of an angry man bent on breaking things. The sunset is better to look at, but it has no more moral meaning than a peep-show. Yet this is a return to primitive conditions, in a way. I can throw o

take up with these cheerful notions of yours, and go a

nly for myself, and I'm not proselyting to any great extent. We'll have a week's fishing, and then I'll send you back to your wife in good shape. Or if you find yourself

"there is something behind all this. Was it that girl you

are to get any trout to-morrow, it's time we turned in. And if you won't stay, I'll go with you to the tavern and knock up old