Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
My Wife and I. Harry Henderson's History

CHAPTER XIII.
BACHELOR COMRADES

I soon became well acquainted with my collaborators on the paper. It was a pleasant surprise to be greeted in the foreground by the familiar face of Jim Fellows, my old college class-mate.

Jim was an agreeable creature, born with a decided genius for gossip. He had in perfection the faculty which phrenologists call individuality. He was statistical in the very marrow of his bones, apparently imbibing all the external facts of every person and everything around him, by a kind of rapid instinct. In college, Jim always knew all about every student; he knew all about everybody in the little town where the college was situated, their name, history, character, business, their front door and their back door affairs. No birth, marriage, or death ever took Jim by surprise; he always knew all about it long ago.

Now, as a newspaper is a gossip market on a large scale, this species of talent often goes farther in our modern literary life than the deepest reflection or the highest culture.

Jim was the best-natured fellow breathing; it was impossible to ruffle or disturb the easy, rattling, chattering flow of his animal spirits. He was like a Frenchman in his power of bright, airy adaptation to circumstances, and determination and ability to make the most of them.

"How lucky!" he said, the morning I first shook hands with him at the office of the Great Democracy; "you are just on the minute; the very lodging you want has been vacated this morning by old Styles; sunny room – south windows – close by here – water, gas, and so on, all correct; and, best of all, me for your opposite neighbor."

I went round with him, looked, approved, and was settled at once, Jim helping me with all the good-natured handiness and activity of old college days. We had a rattling, gay morning, plunging round into auction-rooms, bargaining for second-hand furniture, and with so much zeal did we drive our enterprise, seconded by the co-labors of a whom Jim patronized, that by night I found myself actually settled in a home of my own, making tea in Jim's patent bachelor tea-kettle, and talking over his and my affairs with the freedom of old cronies. Jim made no scruple in inquiring in the most direct manner as to the terms of my agreement with Mr. Goldstick, and opened the subject succinctly, as follows:

"Now, my son, you must let your old grandfather advise you a little about your temporalities. In the first place; what's Old Soapy going to give you?"

"If you mean Mr. Goldstick," said I —

"Yes," said he, "call him 'Soapy' for short. Did he come down handsomely on the terms?"

"His offers were not as large as I should have liked; but then, as he said, this paper is not a money-making affair, but a moral enterprise, and I am willing to work for less."

"Moral grandmother!" said Jim, in a tone of unlimited disgust. "He be – choked, as it were. Why, Harry Henderson, are your eye-teeth in such a retrograde state as that? Why, this paper is a fortune to that man; he lives in a palace, owns a picture gallery, and rolls about in his own carriage."

"I understood him," said I, "that the paper was not immediately profitable in a pecuniary point of view."

"Soapy calls everything unprofitable that does not yield him fifty per cent. on the money invested. Talk of moral enterprise! What did he engage you for?"

I stated the terms.

"For how long?"

"For one year."

"Well, the best you can do is to work it out now. Never make another bargain without asking your grandfather. Why, he pays me just double; and you know, Harry, I am nothing at all of a writer compared to you. But then, to be sure, I fill a place you've really no talent for."

"What is that?"

"General professor of humbug," said Jim. "No sort of business gets on in this world without that, and I'm a real genius in that line. I made Old Soapy come down, by threatening to 'rat,' and go to the Spouting Horn, and they couldn't afford to let me do that. You see, I've been up their back stairs, and know all their little family secrets. The Spouting Horn would give their eye-teeth for me. It's too funny," he said, throwing himself back and laughing.

"Are these papers rivals?" said I.

"Well, I should 'rayther' think they were," said he, eyeing me with an air of superiority amounting almost to contempt. "Why, man, the thing that I'm particularly valuable for is, that I always know just what will plague the Spouting Horn folks the most. I know precisely where to stick a pin or a needle into them; and one great object of our paper is to show that the Spouting Horn is always in the wrong. No matter what topic is uppermost, I attend to that, and get off something on them. For you see, they are popular, and make money like thunder, and, of course, that isn't to be allowed. Now," he added, pointing with his thumb upward, "overhead, there is really our best fellow – Bolton. Bolton is said to be the best writer of English in our day; he's an A No. 1, and no mistake; tremendously educated, and all that, and he knows exactly to a shaving what's what everywhere; he's a gentleman, too; we call him the Dominie. Well, Bolton writes the great leaders, and fires off on all the awful and solemn topics, and lays off the politics of Europe and the world generally. When there's a row over there in Europe, Bolton is magnificent on editorials. You see, he has the run of all the rows they have had there, and every bobbery that has been kicked up since the Christian era. He'll tell you what the French did in 1700 this, and the Germans in 1800 that, and of course he prophesies splendidly on what's to turn up next."

"I suppose they give him large pay," said I.

"Well, you see, Bolton's a quiet fellow and a gentleman – one that hates to jaw – and is modest, and so they keep him along steady on about half what I would get out of them if I were in his skin. Bolton is perfectly satisfied. If I were he, I shouldn't be, you see. I say, Harry, I know you'd like him. Let me bring him down and introduce him," and before I could either consent or refuse, Jim rattled up stairs, and I heard him in an earnest, persuasive treaty, and soon he came down with his captive.

I saw a man of thirty-three or thereabouts, tall, well formed, with bright, dark eyes, strongly-marked features, a finely-turned head, and closely-cropped black hair. He had what I should call presence– something that impressed me, as he entered the room, with the idea of a superior kind of individuality, though he was simple in his manners, with a slight air of shyness and constraint. The blood flushed in his cheeks as he was introduced to me, and there was a tremulous motion about his finely-cut lips, betokening suppressed sensitiveness. The first sound of his voice, as he spoke, struck on my ear agreeably, like the tones of a fine instrument, and, reticent and retiring as he seemed, I felt myself singularly attracted toward him.

What impressed me most, as he joined in the conversation with my rattling, free and easy, good-natured neighbor, was an air of patient, amused tolerance. He struck me as a man who had made up his mind to expect nothing and ask nothing of life, and who was sitting it out patiently, as one sits out a dull play at the theater. He was disappointed with nobody, and angry with nobody, while he seemed to have no confidence in anybody. With all this apparent reserve, he was simply and frankly cordial to me, as a new-comer and a fellow-worker on the same paper.

"Mr. Henderson," he said, "I shall be glad to extend to you the hospitalities of my den, such as they are. If I can at any time render you any assistance, don't hesitate to use me. Perhaps you would like to walk up and look at my books? I shall be only too happy to put them at your disposal."

We went up into a little attic room whose walls were literally lined with books on all sides, only allowing space for the two southerly windows which overlooked the city.

"I like to be high in the world, you see," he said, with a smile.

The room was not a large one, and the center was occupied by a large table, covered with books and papers. A cheerful coal-fire was burning in the little grate, a large leather arm-chair stood before it, and, with one or two other chairs, completed the furniture of the apartment. A small, lighted closet, whose door stood open on the room, displayed a pallet bed of monastic simplicity.

There were two occupants of the apartment who seemed established there by right of possession. A large Maltese cat, with great, golden eyes, like two full moons, sat gravely looking into the fire, in one corner, and a very plebeian, scrubby mongrel, who appeared to have known the hard side of life in former days, was dozing in the other.

Apparently, these genii loci were so strong in their sense of possession that our entrance gave them no disturbance. The dog unclosed his eyes with a sleepy wink as we came in, and then shut them again, dreamily, as satisfied that all was right.

Bolton invited us to sit down, and did the honors of his room with a quiet elegance, as if it had been a palace instead of an attic. As soon as we were seated, the cat sprang familiarly on the table and sat down cosily by Bolton, rubbing her head against his coat-sleeve.

"Let me introduce you to my wife," said Bolton, stroking her head. "Eh, Jenny, what now?" he added, as she seized his hands playfully in her teeth and claws. "You see, she has the connubial weapons," he said, "and insists on being treated with attention; but she's capital company. I read all my articles to her, and she never makes an unjust criticism."

Puss soon stepped from her perch on the table and ensconced herself in his lap, while I went round examining his books.

The library showed varied and curious tastes. The books were almost all rare.

"I have always made a rule," he said, "never to buy a book that I could borrow."

I was amused, in the course of the conversation, at the relations which apparently existed between him and Jim Fellows, which appeared to me to be very like what might be supposed to exist between a philosopher and a lively pet squirrel – it was the perfection of quiet, amused tolerance.

Jim seemed to be not in the slightest degree under constraint in his presence, and rattled on with a free and easy slang familiarity, precisely as he had done with me.

"What do you think Old Soapy has engaged Hal for?" he said. "Why, he only offers him – " Here followed the statement of terms.

I was annoyed at this matter-of-fact way of handling my private affairs, but on meeting the eyes of my new friend I discerned a glance of quiet humor which re-assured me. He seemed to regard Jim only as another form of the inevitable.

"Don't you think it is a confounded take-in?" said Jim.

"Of course," said Mr. Bolton, with a smile, "but he will survive it. The place is only one of the stepping-stones. Meanwhile," he said, "I think Mr. Henderson can find other markets for his literary wares, and more profitable ones. I think," he added, while the blood again rose in his cheeks, "that I have some influence in certain literary quarters, and I shall be happy to do all that I can to secure to him that which he ought to receive for such careful work as this. Your labor on the paper will not by any means take up your whole power or time."

"Well," said Jim, "the fact is the same all the world over – the people that grow a thing are those that get the least for it. It isn't your farmers, that work early and late, that get rich by what they raise out of the earth, it's the middlemen and the hucksters. And just so it is in literature; and the better a fellow writes, and the more work he puts into it, the less he gets paid for it. Why, now, look at me," he said, perching himself astride the arm of a chair, "I'm a genuine literary humbug, but I'll bet you I'll make more money than either of you, because, you see, I've no modesty and no conscience. Confound it all, those are luxuries that a poor fellow can't afford to keep. I'm a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, but I'm just the sort of fellow the world wants, and, hang it, they shall pay me for being that sort of fellow. I mean to make it shell out, and you see if I don't. I'll bet you, now, that I'd write a book that you wouldn't, either of you, be hired to write, and sell one hundred thousand copies of it, and put the money in my pocket, marry the handsomest, richest, and best educated girl in New York, while you are trudging on, doing good, careful work, as you call it."

"Remember us in your will," said I.

"Oh, yes, I will," he said. "I'll found an asylum for decayed authors of merit – a sort of literary 'Hotel des Invalides.'"

We had a hearty laugh over this idea, and, on the whole, our evening passed off very merrily. When I shook hands with Bolton for the night, it was with a silent conviction of an interior affinity between us.

It is a charming thing in one's rambles to come across a tree, or a flower, or a fine bit of landscape that one can think of afterward, and feel richer for their its in the world. But it is more when one is in a strange place, to come across a man that you feel thoroughly persuaded is, somehow or other, morally and intellectually worth exploring. Our lives tend to become so hopelessly commonplace, and the human beings we meet are generally so much one just like another, that the possibility of a new and peculiar style of character in an acquaintance is a most enlivening one.

There was something about Bolton both stimulating and winning, and I lay down less a stranger that night than I had been since I came to New York.

CHAPTER XIV.
HAPS AND MISHAPS

I entered upon my new duties with enthusiasm, and produced some editorials, for which I was complimented by Mr. Goldstick.

"That's the kind of thing wanted!" he said; "a firm, moral tone, and steady religious convictions; that pleases the old standards."

Emboldened by this I proceeded to attack a specific abuse in New York administration, which had struck me as needing to be at once righted. If ever a moral trumpet ought to have its voice, it was on this subject. I read my article to Bolton; in fact I had gradually fallen into the habit of referring myself to his judgment.

"It is all perfectly true," he remarked, when I had finished, while he leaned back in his chair and stroked his cat, "but they never will put that into the paper, in the world."

"Why!" said I, "if ever there was an abuse that required exposing, it is this."

"Precisely!" he replied.

"And what is the use," I went on, "of general moral preaching that is never applied to any particular case?"

"The use," he replied calmly, "is that that kind of preaching pleases everybody, and increases subscribers, while the other kind makes enemies, and decreases them."

"And you really think that they won't put this article in?" said I.

"I'm certain they won't," he replied. "The fact is this paper is bought up on the other side. Messrs. Goldstick and Co. have intimate connection with Messrs. Bunkam and Chaffem, who are part and parcel of this very affair."

I opened my mouth with astonishment. "Then Goldstick is a hypocrite," I said.

"Not consciously," he answered, calmly.

"Why!" said I, "you would have thought by the way he talked to me that he had nothing so much at heart as the moral progress of society, and was ready to sacrifice everything to it."

"Well," said Bolton, quietly, "did you never see a woman who thought she was handsome, when she was not? Did you never see a man who thought he was witty, when he was only scurrilous and impudent? Did you never see people who flattered themselves they were frank, because they were obtuse and impertinent? And cannot you imagine that a man may think himself a philanthropist, when he is only a worshiper of the golden calf? That same calf," he continued, stroking his cat till she purred aloud, "has the largest Church of any on earth."

"Well," said I, "at any rate I'll hand it in."

"You can do so," he replied, "and that will be the last you will hear of it. You see, I've been this way before you, and I have learned to save myself time and trouble on these subjects."

The result was precisely as Bolton predicted.

"We must be a little careful, my young friend," said Mr. Goldstick, "how we handle specific matters of this kind; they have extended relations that a young man cannot be expected to appreciate, and I would advise you to confine yourself to abstract moral principles; keep up a high moral standard, sir, and things will come right of themselves. Now, sir, if you could expose the corruptions in England it would have an admirable moral effect, and our general line of policy now is down on England."

A day or two after, however, I fell into serious disgrace. A part of my duties consisted in reviewing the current literature of the day; Bolton, Jim, and I, took that department among us, and I soon learned to sympathize with the tea-tasters, who are said to ruin their digestion by an incessant tasting of the different qualities of tea. The enormous quantity and variety of magazines and books that I had to "sample" in a few days brought me into such a state of mental dyspepsia, that I began to wish every book in the Red Sea. I really was brought to consider the usual pleas and tone of book notices in America to be evidence of a high degree of Christian forbearance. In looking over my share, however, I fell upon a novel of the modern, hot, sensuous school, in which glowing coloring and a sort of religious sentimentalism were thrown around actions and principles which tended directly to the dissolution of society. Here was exactly the opportunity to stem that tide of corruption against which Mr. Goldstick so solemnly had warned me. I made the analysis of the book a text for exposing the whole class of principles and practices it inculcated, and uttering my warning against corrupt literature; I sent it to the paper, and in it went. A day or two after Mr. Goldstick came into the office in great disorder, with an open letter in his hand.

"What's all this?" he said; "here's Sillery and Peacham, blowing us up for being down on their books, and threatening to take away their advertising from us."

Nobody seemed to know anything about it, till finally the matter was traced back to me.

"It was a corrupt book, Mr. Goldstick," said I, with firmness, "and the very object you stated to me was to establish a just moral criticism."

"Go to thunder! young man," said Mr. Goldstick, in a tone I had never heard before. "Have you no discrimination? are you going to blow us up? The Great Democracy, sir, is a great moral engine, and the advertising of this publishing house gives thousands of dollars yearly towards its support. It's an understood thing that Sillery and Peacham's books are to be treated handsomely."

"I say, Captain," said Jim, who came up behind us at this time, "let me manage this matter; I'll straighten it out; Sillery and Peacham know me, and I'll fix it with them."

"Come! Hal, my boy!" he said, hooking me by the arm, and leading me out.

We walked to our lodgings together. I was gloriously indignant all the way, but Jim laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks.

"You sweet babe of Eden," said he, as we entered my room, "do get quiet! I'll sit right down and write a letter from the Boston correspondent on that book, saying that your article has created a most immense sensation in the literary circles of Boston, in regard to its moral character, and exhort everybody to rush to the book-store and see for themselves. Now, 'hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,' while I do it."

"Why, do you mean to go to Boston?" said I.

"Only in spirit, my dear. Bless you! did you suppose that the Boston correspondents, or any other correspondents, are there, or anywhere else in fact, that they profess to be? I told you that I was the professor of humbug. This little affair lies strictly in my department."

"Jim!" said I, solemnly, "I don't want to be in such a network of chicanery."

"Oh, come, Hal, nobody else wants to be just where they are, and after all, it's none of your business; you and Bolton are great moral forty-pounders. When we get you pointed the right way for the paper you can roar and fire away at your leisure, and the moral effect will be prodigious. I'm your flying-artillery – all over the field everywhere, pop, and off again; and what is it to you what I do? Now you see, Hal, you must just have some general lines about your work; the fact is, I ought to have told you before. There's Sillery and Peacham's books have got to be put straight along: you see there is no mistake about that; and when you and Bolton find one you can't praise honestly, turn it over to me. Then, again, there's Burill and Bangem's books have got to be put down. They had a row with us last year, and turned over their advertising to the Spouting Horn. Now, if you happen to find a bad novel among their books show it up, cut into it without mercy; it will give you just as good a chance to preach, with your muzzle pointed the right way, and do exactly as much good. You see there's everything with you fellows in getting you pointed right."

"But," said I, "Jim, this course is utterly subversive of all just criticism. It makes book notices good for nothing."

"Well, they are not good for much," said Jim reflectively. "I sometimes pity a poor devil whose first book has been all cut up, just because Goldstick's had a row with his publishers. But then there's this comfort – what we run down, the Spouting Horn will run up, so it is about as broad as it is long. Then there's our Magazines. We're in with the Rocky Mountains now – we've been out with them for a year or two and cut up all their articles. Now you see we are in, and the rule is, to begin at the beginning and praise them all straight through, so you'll have plain sailing there. Then there's the Pacific– you are to pick on that all you can. I think you had better leave that to me. I have a talent for saying little provoking things that gall people, and that they can't answer. The fact is, the Pacific has got to come down a little, and come to our terms, before we are civil to it."

"Jim Fellows" – I began,

"Come, come, go and let off to Bolton, if you have got anything more to say;" he added, "I want to write my Boston letter. You see, Hal, I shall bring you out with flying colors, and get a better sale for the book than if you hadn't written."

"Jim," said I, "I'm going to get out of this paper."

"And pray, my dear Sir, what will you get into?"

"I'll get into one of the religious papers."

Jim upon this leaned back, kicked up his heels, and laughed aloud. "I could help you there," he said. "I do the literary for three religious newspapers now. These solemn old Dons are so busy about their tweedle-dums and tweedle-dees of justification and election, baptism and church government, that they don't know anything about current literature, and get us fellows to write their book notices. I rather think that they'd stare if they should read some of the books that we puff up. I tell you, Christy's Minstrels are nothing to it. Think of it, Hal, – the solemn Holy Sentinel with a laudatory criticism of Dante Rosetti's "Jenny" in it – and the Trumpet of Zion with a commendatory notice of Georges Sand's novels." Here Jim laughed with a fresh impulse. "You see the dear, good souls are altogether too pious to know anything about it, and so we liberalize the papers, and the publishers make us a little consideration for getting their books started in religious circles."

"Well, Jim," said I, "I want to just ask you, do you think this sort of thing is right?"

"Bless your soul now!" said Jim, "if you are going to begin with that, here in New York, where are you going to end – 'Where do you 'spect to die when you go to?' – as the old darkey said."

"Well," said I, "would you like to have Dante Rosetti's "Jenny" put into the hands of your sister or younger brother, recommended by a religious newspaper?"

"Well, to tell the truth, Hal, I didn't write those notices. Bill Jones wrote them. Bill's up to anything. You know every person in England and this country have praised Dante Rosetti, and particularly "Jenny," and religious papers may as well be out of the world as out of fashion, – and so mother she bought a copy for a Christmas present to sister Nell. And I tell you if I didn't get a going over about it!"

"I showed her the article in the Holy Sentinel, but it didn't do a bit of good. She made me promise I wouldn't write it up, and I never have. She said it was a shame. You see mother isn't up to the talk about high art, that's got up now a days about Dante Rosetti and Swinburne, and those. I thought myself that "Jenny" was coming it pretty strong, – and honest now, I never could see the sense in it. But then you see I am not artistic. If a fellow should tell a story of that kind to my sister, I should horsewhip him, and kick him down the front steps. But he dresses it up in poetry, and it lies around on pious people's tables, and nobody dares to say a word because it's "artistic." People are so afraid they shall not be supposed to understand what high art is, that they'll knuckle down under most anything. That's the kind of world we live in. Well! I didn't make the world and I don't govern it. But the world owes me a living, and hang it! it shall give me one. So you go up to Bolton, and leave me to do my work; I've got to write columns, and then tramp out to that confounded water-color exhibition, because I promised Snooks a puff, – I shan't get to bed till twelve or one. I tell you it's steep on a fellow now."

I went up to Bolton, boiling, and bubbling and seething, with the spirit of sixteen reformers in my veins. The scene, as I opened the door, was sufficiently tranquilizing. Bolton sat reading by the side of his shaded study-lamp, with his cat asleep in his lap; the ill-favored dog, before mentioned, was planted by his side, with his nose upturned, surveying him with a fullness of doggish adoration and complacency, which made his rubbishly shop-worn figure quite an affecting item in the picture. Crouched down on the floor in the corner, was a ragged, unkempt, freckled-faced little boy, busy doing a sum on a slate.

"Ah! old fellow," he said, as he looked up and saw me. "Come in; there, there, Snubby," he said to the dog, pushing him gently into his corner; "let the gentleman sit down. You see you find me surrounded by my family," he said. "Wait one minute," he added, turning to the boy in the corner, and taking his slate out of his hand, and running over the sum. "All right, Bill. Now here's your book." He took a volume of the Arabian Nights from the table, and handed it to him, and Bill settled himself on the floor, and was soon lost in "Sinbad the Sailor." He watched him a minute or two, and then looked round at me, with a smile. "I wouldn't be afraid to bet that you might shout in that fellow's ear and he wouldn't hear you, now he is fairly in upon that book. Isn't it worth while to be able to give such perfect bliss in this world at so small an expense? I've lost the power of reading the Arabian Nights, but I comfort my self in seeing this chap."

"Who is he?" said I.

"Oh, he's my washerwoman's boy. Poor fellow. He has hard times. I've set him up in selling newspapers. You see, I try now and then to pick up one grain out of the heap of misery, and put it into the heap of happiness, as John Newton said."

I was still bubbling with the unrest of my spirit, and finally overflowed upon him with the whole history of my day's misadventures, and all the troubled thoughts and burning indignations that I had with reference to it.

"My dear fellow," he said, "take it easy. We have to accept this world as a fait accompli. It takes some time for us to learn how little we can do to help or to hinder. You cannot take a step in the business of life anywhere without meeting just this kind of thing; and one part of the science of living is to learn just what our own responsibility is, and to let other people's alone. The fact is," he said, "the growth of current literature in our times has been so sudden and so enormous that things are in a sort of revolutionary state with regard to it, in which it is very difficult to ascertain the exact right. For example, I am connected with a paper which is simply and purely, at bottom, a financial speculation; its owners must make money. Now, they are not bad men as the world goes – they are well-meaning men – amiable, patriotic, philanthropic – some of them are religious; they, all of them, would rather virtue would prevail than vice, and good than evil; they, all of them, would desire every kind of abuse to be reformed, and every good cause to be forwarded, that could be forwarded without a sacrifice of their main object. As for me, I am not a holder or proprietor. I am simply a servant engaged by these people for a certain sum. If I should sell myself to say what I do not think, or to praise what I consider harmful, to propitiate their favor, I should be a dastard. They understand perfectly that I never do it, and they never ask me to. Meanwhile, they employ persons who will do these things. I am not responsible for it any more than I am for anything else which goes on in the city of New York. I am allowed my choice among notices, and I never write them without saying, to the best of my ability, the exact truth, whether literary or in a moral point of view. Now, that is just my stand, and if it satisfies you, you can take the same."

"But," said I, "It makes me indignant, to have Goldstick talk to me as he did about a great self-denying moral enterprise – why, that man must know he's a liar."

"Do you think so?" said he. "I don't imagine he does. Goldstick has considerable sentiment. It's quite easy to get him excited on moral subjects, and he dearly loves to hear himself talk – he is sincerely interested in a good number of moral reforms, so long as they cost him nothing; and when a man is working his good faculties, he is generally delighted with himself, and it is the most natural thing in the world, to think that there is more of him than there is. I am often put in mind of that enthusiastic young ruler that came to the Saviour, who had kept all the commandments, and seemed determined to be on the high road to saintship. The Saviour just touched him on this financial question, and he wilted in a minute. I consider that to be still the test question, and there are a good many young rulers like him, who don't keep all the commandments."