IX
Boston—The English High School
While at Lyons Falls, Louis made acquaintance of the sons of the tenant farmer; twins, two or three years older than he, and he appraised them accordingly. Broad shouldered, heavily built throughout, with large-featured homely faces evenly browned by the sun, they had big coarse hands which Louis envied. They swayed and lurched in talking, shifting their feet; good natured, heavy-minded fellows, taller than Louis. One day they said they were bound for Brown’s Tract and would have as guide a trapper, a grown man; that they would head for a certain lake twenty miles away, where the trapper had a shack and a canoe; that they were after game; they asked Louis if he would like to come along. Louis jumped at a chance he had been aching for. Many a day he had wondered what a forest could be, within its depths, as he gazed at the mass of sombre and silentious green rising from the dark waters of the river and had seen no hope to solve the mystery. The boys warned him that it would be rough, heavy work, with some danger; but he said the rougher the better, and that as to the dangers he was curious.
Now, afoot, heavy laden, they have passed the fringe of the forest, and begun the ascent of a rough stony trail, climbing and descending the hills in a winding obscure way. Five miles in, they cross a “bark road,” so called, a ragged gash through the woods with stumps of trees, loose boulders and corduroy for roadbed. Strewn along the way of the road lie huge naked hemlocks stripped of bark for the tanneries to southward. No trail beyond this road; the real hard work, the stern hardship begins in the utter wildness of ancient fallen trees, tangled wildwood, precipitous ravines, the crossing of raging torrents—feeders of the Moose River—roaring under masses of forest wreckage, involving high danger in the crossing, their waters dark brown, forbidding, foaming brown-white; detours to be made around impassable rock outcroppings; wadings through cedar swamps; a bit of smooth needle-carpeted floor, for relief at times; many panting rests, many restarts, grimly wending their way between close-set uprearing shafts of mighty hemlocks, and tamaracks, with recurring narrow vistas quickly closing as the trampers cross a plateau, and then again descent and climb and hardship, hidden danger of falling aged trees, no warning but the groan, then a crash and trembling earth; so pass four weary ones through a long August day, amid cathedral gloom, the roaring and the stillness of primeval forest.
By sundown they have made ten miles. A hasty camp—no tent, a quick fire—coffee, bacon, hardtack, water from canteens; a small tamarack felled, its delicate fragrant boughs laid thick for a bed, a circle of smudge-fires, and shortly, four humans, in soaking boots, and clothing soaked with sweat and spray, sleep the instant sleep of exhaustion, in the dark of the moon, in the pitch black forest, as the circle of smudge fires faintly smolders.
At early dawn the trapper blows no horn, he rings no bell, but in bright good humor emits the awful siren of the screech-owl; the dead turn in their slumber-graves. Once more—the dead jump up. Campfire lighted, hurry-up, fires trod out, packs again on sore backs, stiff legs start and shortly limber. That day six miles of going, and again death-asleep. Next day four miles of easy going as they reach the margin of a wide basin or valley, with level floor and stop at one end of a sumptuous lake, resting placid and serene as a fathomless mirror upheld by forest walls. At this point is a limited natural clearing; nearby is the shack, a large rough-hewn affair of unbarked sapling logs; and, bottom up, in the deep shade are found canoe and paddles. It is early afternoon. They take their ease, lying awhile on the green sward, then spread boots and clothing in the sun to dry, bathe in the cool shallows safe from the icy spring-fed deep of the lake, resume half-dried boots and clothes and leisurely arrange the camp. Meanwhile the trapper, tall and lank, brings in a brace of partridge. Now all is joy, the pains forgot, the prize attained—they burst into raucous song to the effect that they are “dreaming now of Hallie.”
Louis, musket in hand, walked to the edge of the shore, stopping not far from the timber wall. The lake, to his eye, appeared three miles long and three-quarters wide. He raised his gun and fired straight ahead. Instantly set in an astounding roar. It smashed, dashed and rolled sonorously along the mighty wall, suddenly fainting into an unseen bay, then rolling forth again into the open, passing on like subdued thunder; from the beginning scattering wild echoes, which in turn reechoed criss-wise and cross-wise, an immense maze of vibrations, now passing slowly in decrescendo into a far away rumble and nearby trembling, fainting, dying, as the forest sternly regained its own, and primal stillness came. This display was too dramatic, even for Louis. Once was enough. It seemed too much like an eerie protest, the wildly passionate rejoinder of a living forest disturbed in its primal solitudes of contemplation. Yet the stupendous rhythm, the orchestral beauty of it all, sank deep in Louis’s soul, now become as one with nature’s mood. He wandered from the camp, wishing to be alone, where he might be himself, solitary, in nature’s deep, and commune with venerable immensities that gave forth a voice of haunting stillness which seemed to murmur and at times to chant of an unseen, age-long, immanent, eternal power, which Louis coupled as one with a gentle, sensuous, alluring power to whose moving song of enchantment he had trembled in response, within a bygone springtime in the open.
The brief camp-life was much the usual thing. Game was scarce, but small speckled trout could be scooped up in quantity from a slow, deep rivulet in a nearby beaver meadow.
Came time to return. The trapper said he could lead them back by an easier way, but it meant a detour of thirty miles to Lyons Falls. They made the distance in three days. They had been away ten days all told; and Louis was exultant that he had made as good a showing as the farm-boy twins.
All too soon came the hour to begin the journey homeward. Goodbyes were said—some of them wistful.
At Albany, Grandpa revealed a plan he had cherished in secret: They were to take the day-boat down the Hudson to New York. Louis was profuse in gratitude as he prefigured coming wonders which he was to see with his very own eyes, and appraise with his own sensibilities. And so it was, as Louis passed almost directly from the sublimity of forest solitudes to the grandeur of the lower Hudson. As they passed West Point, Grandpa said that he had once taught French at the United States Military Academy, and that his pleasure there had been to swim the Hudson, across and back every morning before breakfast. Grandpa’s stock immediately jumped many points, for Louis held prowess in high honor. As they passed the Palisades Louis was astounded as Grandpa explained their nature—huge basalt crystals standing on end. The life on the river all the way down had greatly entertained him; now he came in sight of greater shipping and entered an immense floating activity.
Of New York Louis saw but little; and when Grandpa said it was here they landed when he with his family came from Geneva, Louis took the information deafly, not even inquiring when and why they had moved to Boston. Grandpa felt the hurt of this indifference. Here was this boy, his own cherished grandson, whose fourteen living years had been filled to overflow with vivid episodes, with active thoughts, with dreams, mysteries, prophetic intuitions and rude industrious practicalities, all commingled; here was this boy, ignorant, grossly innocent and careless of the vicissitudes and follies of a seething human world. He shuddered momentarily at the chasm that lay between them. For Grandpa all too well knew the profound significance of a wholly truthful story of any human life, told continuously, without a break, from cradle to old age, could it be known and recorded of any other than one’s self. He knew that the key to the mystery of human destiny and fate lay wrapped and lost within these lived but unrecorded stories. He knew also that Louis was now paying in ignorance the penalty of a sheltered life. Then he told Louis another secret: They were to leave on a Fall River boat and traverse the length of Long Island Sound. Thus, Louis, in renewed joy and ecstasy made his first long trip on the salted sea. Then duly came Boston, Wakefield and the romantic journey’s end.
Louis still had time to brush up rapidly for the high school examinations. He had chosen the English High rather than the Latin High. He was accustomed to thinking and acting for himself, seldom asking advice. His thoughts in mass were directed ever toward his chosen career; and he believed that the study of Latin would be a waste of time for him; the time element was present always as a concomitant of his ambitions. He wished always to advance in the shortest time compatible with sure results. He had no objection to Latin as such, but believed its study suitable only to those who might have use for it in afterlife. He had a keen gift for separating out what he deemed essential for himself.
On September third, his birthday, he received a letter from Utica, filled with delicate sentiments, encouraging phrases, and concluding with an assurance that the writer would be with him in spirit through his high school days.
The English and Latin High Schools, in those days, were housed in a single building, rather old and dingy, on the south side of Bedford Street; a partition wall separating them, a single roof covering them. The street front was of granite, the side walls of brick. There were brick-paved yards for the recess half-hour with overflow to the street and a nearby bakery. It was a barn-like, repellant structure fronting on a lane as narrow as the prevailing New England mind of its day.
Louis passed the examinations and his name was entered in the year book 1870–71.
He was among those—about forty in all—assigned to a room on the second floor, presided over by a “master” named Moses Woolson. This room was dingy rather than gloomy. The individual desks were in rows facing north, the light came from windows in the west and south walls. The master’s platform and desk were at the west wall; on the opposite wall was a long blackboard. The entrance door was at the north, and in the southwest corner were two large glass-paneled cabinets, one containing a collection of minerals, the other carefully prepared specimens of wood from all parts of the world.
The new class was assembled and seated by a monitor, while the master sat at his desk picking his right ear. Louis felt as one entering upon a new adventure, the outcome of which he could not forecast, but surmised would be momentous.
Seated at last, Louis glanced at the master, whose appearance and makeup suggested, in a measure, a farmer of the hardy, spare, weather-beaten, penurious, successful type—apparently a man of forty or under. When silence had settled over the mob, the master rose and began an harangue to his raw recruits; indeed he plunged into it without a word of welcome. He was a man above medium height, very scant beard, shocky hair, his movements were panther-like, his features, in action, were set as with authority and pugnacity, like those of a first mate taking on a fresh crew.
He was tense, and did not swagger—a man of passion. He said, in substance: “Boys, you don’t know me, but you soon will. The discipline here will be rigid. You have come here to learn and I’ll see that you do. I will not only do my share but I will make you do yours. You are here under my care; no other man shall interfere with you. I rule here—I am master here—as you will soon discover. You are here as wards in my charge; I accept that charge as sacred; I accept the responsibility involved as a high, exacting duty I owe to myself and equally to you. I will give to you all that I have; you shall give to me all that you have. But mark you: The first rule of discipline shall be silence. Not a desktop shall be raised, not a book touched, no shuffling of feet, no whispering, no sloppy movements, no rustling. I do not use the rod, I believe it the instrument of barbarous minds and weak wills, but I will shake the daylight out of any boy who transgresses, after one warning. The second rule shall be strict attention: You are here to learn, to think, to concentrate on the matter in hand, to hold your minds steady. The third rule shall cover alertness. You shall be awake all the time—body and brain; you shall cultivate promptness, speed, nimbleness, dexterity of mind. The fourth rule: You shall learn to listen; to listen in silence with the whole mind, not part of it; to listen with your whole heart, not part of it, for sound listening is a basis for sound thinking; sympathetic listening is a basis for sympathetic, worthwhile thinking; accurate listening is a basis of accurate thinking. Finally you are to learn to observe, to reflect, to discriminate. But this subject is of such high importance, so much above your present understanding, that I will not comment upon it now; it is not to be approached without due preparation. I shall not start you with a jerk, but tighten the lines bit by bit until I have you firmly in hand at the most spirited pace you can go.” As he said this last saying, a dangerous smile went back and forth over his grim set face. As to the rest, he outlined the curriculum and his plan of procedure for the coming school year. He stressed matters of hygiene; and stated that a raised hand would always have attention. Lessons were then marked off in the various books—all were to be “home lessons”—and the class was dismissed for the day.
Louis was amazed, thunderstruck, dumbfounded, overjoyed! He had caught and weighed every word as it fell from the lips of the master; to each thrilling word he had vibrated in open-eyed, amazed response. He knew now that through the years his thoughts, his emotions, his dreams, his feelings, his romances, his visions, had been formless and chaotic; now in this man’s utterances, they were voiced in explosive condensation, in a flash they became defined, living, real. A pathway had been shown him, a wholly novel plan revealed that he grasped as a banner in his hand, as homeward bound he cried within: At last a Man!
Louis felt the hour of freedom was at hand. He saw, with inward glowing, that true freedom could come only through discipline of power, and he translated the master’s word of discipline into its true intent: Self Discipline of self power. His eager life was to condense now in a focusing of powers: What had the words meant;—“silence,” “attention,” “promptness,” “speed,” “accurate,” “observe,” “reflect,” “discriminate,” but powers of his own, obscurely mingled, uncoordinated, and, thus far, vain to create? Now, in the master’s plan, which he saw as a ground plan, he beheld that for which, in the darkness of broad daylight, he had yearned so desperately in vain; that for which, as it were with empty, outstretched hands, he had grasped, vaguely groping; as one seeing through a film, that for which he had hungered with an aching heart as empty as his hands. He had not known, surely, what it was he wished to find, but when the master breathed the words that Louis felt to be inspired: “You are here as wards in my charge; I accept that charge as sacred; I accept the responsibility involved as a high exacting duty I owe to myself and equally to you. I will give to you all that I have, you shall give me all that you have,”—a veil was parted, as it were by magic, and behold! there stood forth not alone a man but a teacher of the young.
On board the train for Wakefield, Louis took account of himself; he viewed the long, loop-like journey he had but recently completed, still fresh and free in memory’s hold. He had gathered in, as though he had flung and drawn a huge lassoo, the Berkshires, the Mohawk and its valley, Little Falls, the Black River, the Moose River, the primeval forest, and the Falls, the Hudson, the Catskills, the Palisades, New York Harbor, Long Island Sound; he had voyaged by rail, by river, and by sea. All these things, these acts, with their inspiring thoughts and emotions and reveries he had drawn into himself and shaped as one single imposing drama, ushering in a new and greater life. Or, in a sense reversed, his “child-domain,” holding, within the encircling woods, his ravine, his rivulet, his dam, his lovely marsh, his great green field, his tall, beauteous, slender elm; land of his delight, paradise of his earth-love, sequestered temple of his nature-worship, sanctuary of his visions and his dreams, had seemed at first, and hopefully, to extend itself progressively into a larger world as far as Newburyport and Boston, there, however, to stop, to remain fixed and bound up for seven long years, held as by a sinister unseen dam, the larger, urgently growing Louis, held also back within it, impatient, repressed, confined, dreaming of power, storing up ambition, searching for what lies behind the face of things, agitated and at times morose, malignant. When, of a sudden, the dam gives way, the child-domain so far enlarged, rushes forth, spreading over the earth, carrying with it the invisible living presence of Louis’s ardent soul, pouring its power of giving and receiving far and wide over land and sea, encompassing mountains and broad valleys, great rivers, turbulent waterfalls, a solemn boundless forest enfolding a lustrous lake, and again a noble river mountain-banked, an amazing harbor, and the great salt waves of the sea itself.
Thus were the boundaries extended; thus were the power and splendor of Mother Earth revealed in part; thus was provided deep and sound foundation for the masterful free spirit, striding in power, in the open, as the genius of the race of purblind, groping, striving, ever hoping, ever dreaming, illusioned mankind.
And thus it seemed to Louis that he was becoming stronger and surer of himself. Reverting to the words of the master, he dared affirm that this very power was within him, as a ward in his charge; that he must accept that charge as sacred; that he must accept the responsibility involved as a high exacting duty he owed to himself and equally to it; that he must give to it his all, to insure that it might give to him its all.
And Louis now saw clearly and in wonder, that a whim of his Grandpa, not the Rice Grammar School, had prepared him to meet Moses Woolson on fair terms. With confident assurance he awaited the beginning of what he foresaw was to be a long and arduous disciplinary training, which he knew he needed, and now welcomed.
That evening he told Grandpa what he thought of Moses Woolson and his plan; and Grandpa, with inward seeing eyes, smiled indulgence at his grandson seated on his knee, one hand about his neck, as he mused aloud: “My dear child, allowing for the rosy mist of romance through which an adolescent like yourself sees all things glorified, I will say that in the whole wide world it is true there may be found a few such men as you portray; but as a venerable and prudent Grandpa I shall reserve the right to wait awhile that we may see how the ideal and the real agree. But you go at it just the same, regardless of what may be passing in the back of my bald head.” And Louis laughed, and kissed and hugged his Grandpa, and settled to his lessons, as grandma knitted by the student lamp, as uncle Julius thrummed away on a helpless guitar and sang the melancholy sentimental ditties of the day, and as Grandpa, in slippers, gazed with incredulity at a boy on the floor oblivious of them all.
As it has but little import in this story, we shall pass over the breaking-in period of Moses Woolson’s class, and begin an exposition of Moses Woolson’s plan and method, and Louis’s responses thereto at that period the master himself had forecast as “when I have you firmly in hand at the most spirited pace you can go.” Suffice it to say that with great skill in intensive training he had brought them to this point within three months.
The ground work of his plan was set forth in his opening address, and is now to be revealed in its workings in detail.
The studies on which Louis set the highest value were Algebra, Geometry, English Literature, Botany, Mineralogy and French language. All these subjects were to him revelations. Algebra had startled him; for, through its portal he entered an unsuspected world of symbols. To him the symbol × flashed at once as a key to the unknown but ascertainable. Standing alone, he viewed this × in surprise as a mystic spirit in a land of enchantment, opening vistas so deep he could not see the end, and his vivid imagination saw at once that this ×, expanded in its latent power, might prove the key to turn a lock in a door within a wall which shut out the truth he was seeking—the truth which might dissolve for him the mystery that lay behind appearances. For this ×, he saw, was manipulated by means of things unknown.
Thus he saw far ahead; looking toward the time when he would be mature. Geometry delighted him because of its nicety, its exactitude of relationships, its weird surprises—all like fairy tales, fairy tales which could be proved, and then you said: Q.E.D. He began to see what was meant by a theorem, a postulate, a problem, and that proof was a reasoned process based on certain facts or assertions. It was well for him, at the time, that he did not perceive the Euclidian rigidity, in the sense that he had noted the fluency of Algebra. As to Botany, had he not always seen trees and shrubs and vines and flowers of the field, the orchard and the garden?
Now he was learning their true story, their most secret intimacies, and the organization of their world. He loved them all the more for this. Mineralogy was new and revealing, the common stones had begun as it were, to talk to him in their own words. Concerning French he was ardent, for he had France in view. English literature opened to him the great world of words, of ordered speech, the marvelous vehicle whereby were conveyed every human thought and feeling from mind to mind, from heart to heart, from soul to soul, from imagination to imagination, from thought to thought; and to his ever widening view, it soon arose before him as a vast treasure house wherein was stored, in huge accumulation, a record of the thoughts, the deeds, the hopes, the joys, the sorrows, and the triumphs of mankind.
Moses Woolson was not a deep thinker, nor was Moses Woolson erudite or scholarly, or polished in manners, or sedate. Rather was he a blend of wild man and of poet. But of a surety he had the art of teaching at his fingertips and his plan of procedure was scientific to a degree, so far beyond the pedagogic attainments of his day that he stood unique, and was cordially hated by his craft as lambs might fear and hate a wolf. Today men would speak of such a man as a “human dynamo,” a man ninety-nine percent “efficient.” His one weakness was a temper he all too often let escape him, but his high strung, nervous makeup may be averred in part extenuation, for this very makeup was the source of his accomplishment and power: He surely gave in abundance, with overflowing hands, all that he had of the best to give.
His plan of procedure was simple in idea, and therefore possible of high elaboration in the steady course of its unfolding into action and results. For convenience it may be divided into three daily phases seemingly consecutive, but really interblended; first came severe memory drill, particularly in geometry, algebra, French grammar and in exact English; this work first done at home, and tested out next day in the school room. Second, (first, next day) a period of recitation in which memory discipline and every aspect of alertness were carried at high tension. At the end of this period came the customary half-hour recess for fresh air and easing up. After recess came nature study with open book. Chief among them Gray’s School and Field Book of Botany—Louis’s playground; then came a closing lecture by the Master.
Thus it may be said, there was a period of high tension, followed by a period of reduced tension, and this in turn by a closing period of semi or complete relaxation, as the master reeled off in easy, entertaining talk, one of his delightful lectures. It was in the nature studies, and in these closing lectures, particularly those in which he dwelt upon the great out-of-doors, and upon the glories of English literature, that the deep enthusiasms of the man’s nature came forth undisguised and unrestrained, rising often to the heights of impassioned eloquence, and beauteous awakening imagery. These lectures, or rather, informal talks covered a wide range of subjects, most of them lying beyond the boundaries of the school curriculum.
Thus, in a sense, Moses Woolson’s school room partook of the nature of a university—quite impressively so when Professor Asa Gray of Harvard came occasionally to talk botany to the boys. He did this out of regard for Moses Woolson’s love of the science. The unfailing peroration of these lectures—every one of them, was an exhortation in favor of “Women’s Rights,” as the movement was called at the time; for Moses Woolson was a sincere and ardent champion of womankind. On this topic he spoke in true nobility of spirit.
But the talks that gripped Louis the hardest were those on English literature. Here the master was completely at his ease. Here, indeed, he revelled, as it were, in the careful analysis and lucid exposition of every phase of his subject, copious in quotation, delightfully critical in taking apart a passage, a single line, explaining the value of each word in respect of action, rhythm, color, quality, texture, fitness, then putting these elements together in a renewed recital of the passage which now became a living moving utterance. Impartial in judgment, fertile in illustration and expedient, clear in statement, he opened to view a new world, a new land of enchantment.
One day, to Louis’s amazement, he announced that the best existing history of English literature was written by a Frenchman, one Hyppolite Taine by name. This phenomenon he explained by stating that the fine French mind possessed a quality and power of detachment unknown to the English; that Monsieur Taine further possessed that spiritual aspect of sympathy, that vision, which enabled him to view, to enter freely and to comprehend a work of art regardless yet regardful of its origin in time or place; and he rounded an antithesis of French and English culture in such wise as to arouse Louis’s keenest attention, for the word “culture,” had hitherto possessed no significance for him; it was merely a word! Now his thoughts, his whole being floated o’er the sea to distant France, whereupon he arose from his seat and asked Moses Woolson what culture really meant, and was told it signified the genius of a people, of a race. And what was meant by the genius of a people? It signified their innate qualities and powers of heart and mind; that therefore their culture was their own expression of their inmost selves, as individuals, as a people, as a race. Louis was magnificently bewildered by this high concentration. He seemed to be in a flood of light which hid everything from view; he made some sheepish rejoinder, whereupon Moses Woolson saw his own mistake.
He came down from his high perch to which he had climbed unwittingly, for it was dead against his theory and practice to talk above the heads of his boys. He thereupon diluted the prior statement with a simply worded illustration, and Louis was glad to find his own feet still on the ground. Then Louis put the two aspects of the statement side by side again, and “culture” became for him a living word—a sheer veil through which, at first, he could but dimly see; but living word and sheer living veil had come from without to abide with him. It seemed indeed as though Moses Woolson had passed on to him a wand of enchantment which he must learn to use to unveil the face of things. Thus Louis dreamed.
By the end of the school year Moses Woolson through genius as a teacher, had turned a crudely promising boy into, so to speak, a mental athlete. He had brought order out of disorder, definition out of what was vague, superb alertness out of mere boyish ardor; had nurtured and concentrated all that was best in the boy; had made him consciously courageous and independent; had focused his powers of thought, feeling and action; had confirmed Louis’s love of the great out of doors, as a source of inspiration; and had climaxed all by parting a great veil which opened to the view of this same boy, the wonderland of Poetry.
Thus with great skill he made of Louis a compacted personality, ready to act on his own initiative, in an intelligent purposeful way. Louis had the same capacity to absorb, and to value discipline, that Moses Woolson had to impart it, and Louis was not a brilliant or showy scholar. He stood well up in his class and that was enough. His purpose was not to give out, but to receive, to acquire. He was adept in the art of listening and was therefore rather silent of mood. His object was to get every ounce of treasure out of Moses Woolson. And yet for Moses Woolson, the master and the man, he felt neither love nor affection, and it is quite likely that the master felt much the same toward him. What he felt toward the man was a vast admiration, he felt the power and the vigor of his intense and prodigal personality. It is scarcely likely that the master really knew, to the full extent, what he was doing for this boy, but Louis knew it; and there came gradually over him a cumulative reciprocity which, at the end, when he had fully realized the nature of the gift, burst forth into a sense of obligation and of gratitude so heartfelt, so profound, that it has remained with him in constancy throughout the years. There may have been teachers and teachers, but for Louis Sullivan there was and could be only one. And now, in all too feeble utterance he pleads this token, remembrance, to the memory of that one long since passed on.
Meanwhile a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand arose into the clear blue above the horizon of Henri List’s placid life. Early in 1871 Anna List, his wife, his prop, his anchor, his life’s mainstay, was taken with her first and last illness. Louis was forbidden her room. All was quiet; furtive comings and goings; whispered anxious words. The cloud arose, darkened the world and passed on. One morning, it was told that he, Louis, might see her. He went directly to her room, opened the door, and entered. The white shades were down and all was light within. On the bed he saw extended an object fully covered by a sheet. He advanced, drew aside the sheet, rashly pressed his lips upon the cold forehead, drew back as though stung.
Standing erect he gazed steadfastly down upon rigid features that seemed of unearthly ivory.
Grandmamma had vanished!
What signified this cold menace he now scanned? This stranger in the house—whence Grandmamma had gone forever?
What meant this effigy, this ivory simulacrum that had come here in her stead?
It could not see, it could not hear, it could not feel, it could not move, it could not speak, it could not love!
Grandmamma had vanished!
She had passed on with a great cloud that had cast its shadow.
And here, now before him lay a counterfeit, where once she was.
An object, a nothing, a something and a nothing, which Louis could not think or name; an ivory mask which repelled, which instantly he rejected, as a ghastly intrusion.
And they had said that he would see his Grandmamma!
Ah! then, was this petrified illusion his Grandmamma?
They lied!
His true Grandmamma was in his heart and would remain there till his own end should come. Whatever this object before him might be, it was not Gran’ma!
His Grandmamma had vanished!
He replaced the shroud. Dry-eyed, and as one filled with a cold light, he left the room.
Never before had Louis seen what Death, the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, leaves behind it as it passes overhead and vanishes.
An upright white marble slab, in the cemetery, at the point of the promontory that juts into Lake Quannapowitt, says to the stranger wandering therein, that Anna, wife of Henri List died 2 April, 1871, aged sixty-six years.
In this laconic statement the cynic hand of Henri List is clearly seen, even as at the funeral service in the “spare room” he was prostrate in an overwhelming flood of hysteria and tears, even as Louis stood by, gazing at him in wonder that a strong man could be so weak; even as Louis, cold and harshly irritated by the Baptist minister, whose sensuous words in praise of human bloodshed, he cursed. Driven to desperation by the whining quartet, he rushed into the open, sat under a tree and damned them all to perdition. Why had he been dragged into this gross orgy of grief? Could he not be left alone and in peace, to revere in memory that grandmamma who still lived on within his heart? The others with their noisy and their mercenary grief would soon forget. He, never. As thus he raged, a peach tree in full bloom in the garden caught his eye. He hastened to it as to a friend, in dire need. Its joyous presence in the garden gave him courage, for spring again was singing her great song. The air was vocal in a choir of resurrection. Here indeed was resurrection and the life. It seemed to him not in the least incongruous that his beloved had vanished into that great life whence she came—whence he had come; and that as Life was within him, so was his beloved within him as life within a life to be treasured evermore.
Thus near the peach tree in full bloom, Louis’s tortured mind was stilled. He accepted death as an evanishment, he accepted Life as the power of powers. It seemed, indeed, as standing near his friend, gazing fondly round about and upward through the invisible firmament, that this great power, Life, in gesture and in utterance through the song of spring, had set its glowing rainbow in the passing cloud as a token of a covenant that the pure of eye might see. And indeed it seemed to him as quite lucid that the cloud with the glowing rainbow in its heart might well stand forever as a symbol of a token of a covenant between Life, and Man’s proud spirit, and the Earth. Thus Louis dreamed. And it seemed as though a small voice coming from afar, said: “If one must dream let the dream be one of happiness.”
For the second time the house of Henri List had collapsed and gone down. This time in fragments. Soon the farm was sold. Julia, she of flaming hair, bewitching fairy tales, and temper of Iseult, cook and companion for nine long years, vanished in turn; Julius, the son, now twenty-five, offered a place, “in Philadelphia,” went there; his father followed.
Louis found welcome and shelter with the next door neighbors, the John A. Tompsons, whose son George for years had been his playmate. And the earth resumed its revolution about its own private axis as before; day following night as usual. Daily, George Tompson went to Tech to pursue his studies in railway engineering. Daily, Louis paid his renewed respects to Moses Woolson. Daily, John A. Tompson returned from Boston at an exact hour, removed his hat, walked to a glass cabinet, took exactly one stiff swig of bourbon straight, smacked his lips, twinkled his eyes, sank into an easy chair which had remained in the same place for exactly how many years no one knows, dozed off for exactly ten minutes, arose, stretched his short muscular body, smiled widely, displaying false teeth, dyed-black side whiskers and moustache, a fine high forehead and dark fine eyes with as merry a twinkle as one could wish; then he went forth to see if each cultivated tree and shrub and bush and vine were exactly where they were in the morning. This man, gifted with extraordinary deftness of hand and a high-spirited intelligence, became a wonder and an inspiration to Louis, who spent the following two years in this charming household where epicureanism prevailed.
That spring and summer, Louis botanized and mineralized with incessant ardor, and he saw what it signified that each thing should have a name, and what order and classification meant in the way of organized intelligence, and increased power of manipulation of things and thoughts. His insight into the relationship of function and structure deepened rapidly. A thousand things now began to cohere and arrange into groups which hitherto had seemed disparate and wide apart. To be sure, Moses Woolson was the impelling cause and it was up to Louis to do the work and to search and find and see these things objectively and clearly for himself. Thus logical connections began to form a plexus in his growing mind, beside which also upgrew a sense of equal logic and order in action. Now, John A. Tompson had this faculty of order and delicate precision in so marked a degree that Louis kept a close eye on his doings. In the fall Louis returned to the English High School and entered the Second Class under a sub-master named Hale. Mr. Hale was a scholar and a gentleman, a shining light of conscientious, conventional, virtuous routine.
With that clear and ruthless faculty, which boys possess, of spotting the essentials of their elders, Louis at the first session so sized up Hale; and dismay and despair swept through him in an awful wave of depression; it seemed as though the light of life had gone out. What was this tallow dip to the hot sun of Woolson? What could this mannikin accomplish? What could this respectable and approved lay figure do for one who had been trained intensively for a year by Moses Woolson? Let us therefore quickly draw the veil; and forget.
At the end of this school year, George Tompson asked Louis why he did not try for Tech. And Louis replied that he supposed that he must first finish “High.” “Nonsense,” said George. “You can pass easily.” And thus encouraged, Louis passed easily.
It should be mentioned that at the time of the great Chicago fire, Louis received prompt word that the family were safe and sound beyond the reach of its fearsome ravages. And also Louis’s faithful correspondence with those far away must not be overlooked. Thus he now felt safe and strong to face in Tech his first adventure, as prelude to an architectural career.