S. Weir Mitchell

“ The paddles dipped and rose; the evening shadows crept forth, as it were, out of the earlier darkness of the woods, and again, as once before, they sped along in the gloom of an overcast night.
The same soft odors of earth and spruce, the peculiar smell of broken water, were as they had been. Once more the hills seemed closing in upon them. The clouded skies overhead appeared to be almost within touch. Then the white flash and roll and strange voices of the rapids went by them like the mysterious uncertainties of a dream. ”

“ Lyndsay.
“Nor I,” echoed Rose.
“My dears,” said Anne, smiling, “the prosperity of life lies largely in the true use of imagination.”
“You are incorrigible, Anne. But I know I am right.”
“Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, are ofttimes different,” quoted Anne, rising, and not over well pleased. “I think I shall go and lie down.”
“I think I would,” said Mrs. Lyndsay, simply. “You are not looking well to-day.”
“I am well enough,” said Miss Anne.
“All ready!—and the fish and Polycarp!” cried Lyndsay.
Rose was soon in the canoe, and the men began poling across the river. ”

“ Our newspapers are every day painfully funny for me. To deal all the time with the serious so as perpetually to make it seem trifling by putting it in comic guises is to damage one’s true sense of humor.”
“And of the serious, which is worse,” said Lyndsay.
“And, Archie, I don’t like the constant misuse of words it brings about. I don’t like to lose respect for words. I don’t like their characters taken away, so as to unfit them for their next place. Words have duties.”
“That is all true, Anne; but if we begin to abuse newspapers, we shall never get home. ”

“ Susan Colkett was by nature inclined to evil. She had base animal cravings, liking high colors and coarse meats. A want was with her at once a fierce hunger of desire, and made temptation dangerous to one who had in its crude fullness brute courage, and that dreadful alliance of the sensual with the destructive instincts which is more rare in woman than in man. But of Susan Colkett’s personality Lyndsay knew almost nothing. He was, however, by no means indifferent as to the matter, but had simply put off speaking of it to Carington for want of an easy chance. ”

“ Dorothy wore no head-cover, and her hair, which was fine and abundant, lay in flat, old-fashioned style on her temples, and was caught back in an ample and perfectly neat coil. Again, as Anne rose, the look of repose on Dorothy’s face, and also the absence of lines of care, struck her no less than the regularity of features. There was none of the slouch of labor; Dorothy sat erect, without touching the back of the chair; a woman of fifty or over, and still keeping many of the gracious curves of feminine maturity. ”

“ It required little skill to draw from this frank and fearless nature, as they walked, the history of a wandering life, of the children dead, of the half-witted husband, of her own long-continued asthma, now gone, as she hoped. It was told with curious vivacity,—with some sense of the humorous quality of complete disaster, and when she spoke of her dead it was with brief gravity, which seemed to deny sympathy or hasten away from it. As they moved along and her companion talked, Rose glanced with curiosity at the Quaker-born woman, who had lost nearly every trace of her origin. ”

“ I said then that as little reason goes into the making of most friendships as into most love-affairs, or, for that matter, into most of the religious attachments which men call their beliefs. Friendship ought to be a tranquil love-affair of the head, without base question of dot,” and she laughed.
“But I like a fellow first, and then find reasons for it afterward.”
“I said it was a love-affair of the head. I have a small heart somewhere in my head; I know that. Some folks have two heads, and call one a heart.”
“I don’t think I quite follow you, Miss Lyndsay,” said Ellett. ”

“ All between the two observers and the trees was a swift flow of hastening water, faintly fretted all over by the underlying brown and gray and white stones of the bottom,—a tremulous brown mirror.
“Oh, the beautiful things!” cried Rose. “Purple reflections,—deeper purple than the trees. How they wriggle!”
“Put me the two purples on paper.”
“There!” she said, “that is as I see them.”
“And I,” he returned,—“for me they should be a much deeper, purer tint. That is the difference between your color sense and mine.”
“Is it true, Pardy, that there may be colors no man has seen?” ”

“ Anne was fond of saying, “Talk is a wedge which widens troubles. When you think, you are talking to yourself alone, and are responsible for the consequences; it is hard so to weigh words as to know what weight they will have for others.” And thus it was that even about her most unbearable pain she said nothing, and disliked all discussions which led to no working opinion. Mrs. Lyndsay alone was given to seeking sympathy in her small ailments; but Anne, as she herself once observed, “wore neither her heart nor her liver on her sleeve.” ”

“ I have been very patient, but I am so no longer. We are here alone: a man and a woman. The world of defense and excuses is far away.”
“Oh, if you only knew! It is so hard! If you think I have been happy this winter, you little know.”
“How long is this indecision to last?”
“I do not know.”
“It is a simple question: Do you care for me? Care! No! I want you to say that you love me! Oh, plainly, Rose Lyndsay, as I have said it until you are weary of it, I dare say.” ”

“ As they went on, the hills became higher and more steep. At their bases lay the wreckage of countless years, the work of ice and heat and storms piled high along the shores. It was covered with dense greenery of beech and birch and poplar. Out of this, in darker masses, broad columns of tamarack, pine, and spruce seemed to be climbing the long upper slopes of the hills which, still higher, lifted gray granite summits, free of growths.
“How fast do we go?” said Rose.
“It is good poling on this stream to make three miles an hour. On the St. Anne there is one ten-mile stretch which takes all day. ”

“ Maybrook’s vivid account of Susan Colkett’s talk with Joe had made on Lyndsay at first a strong impression of disgust and annoyance. He saw in it, after cooler reflection, only one of the numberless beginnings of tragic crime which are refused the prosperity of opportunity. We have no proverbial wisdom as to what place bad intentions go to pave; but those who see much of the darker ways of man are well aware that there is much intended evil, as well as intended good, which never gets beyond the egg of theory. ”

“ Margaret will explain.” And so saying, he went into the cabin, while Mrs. Lyndsay sat down on a low stool, and, letting her head fall on Anne’s bosom, began to cry. But this time she had herself well in hand, and the burst of tears was wholesome, as Anne instantly knew. She let her hand fall over Margaret’s neck.
“Have it out, dear,” she said. “A man always says, ‘Don’t cry’; a woman says, ‘Cry; it will help you.’ Cry as much as you want to. God knew our wants when he gave us tears. ”

“ At last, as, striding to and fro, she went by the doorway, she saw Dorothy, and with her a thin man in shining, much-worn, black alpaca clothing.
She knew at once that he was the preacher who had been brought up from Mackenzie to bury her child.
Upon this she turned back into the room, and stood a moment by the two chairs on which lay the pine box which Joe had made. The little fellow within it had been hardly changed by his brief illness. He was fair to see; white, and strongly modeled; and now he was beautiful with the double refinements of youth and death. ”

“ To like or love a person, a friend, is pleasant; but to love and also fully to understand a friend is better. Then one is at ease, one has true peace, because we have then knowledge with love.”
“That was nicely put, my child, but one can’t talk out in full such subjects as this. One can only sow seed and trust to the fertilization of time. Where did you get your quotation about drifting?”
“I do not know; Aunt Anne would.”
“Oh, that, of course,” said Lyndsay; “she told us once that not to know the name of the man you quote is a form of ingratitude: to take the gift and forget the giver.” ”

“ It was now quiet and warm—no leaf astir—a noonday dreaminess on wood and water. “That canoe’s dropping down,” Ned said. “Is it Mr. Ellett or Mr. Carington, Rose? He doesn’t get any fish.”
“I don’t know. I was half asleep. How nice to be where all the noises are sounds one likes!”
“Do you hear the rapids, Rose? I thought yesterday they were exactly like children laughing—I mean their noise.”
“I said that very thing to Pardy, the night we came up.” ”

“ My Aunt Anne is in some ways queerly like Dorothy.”
“Indeed?”
“As I am like Jack. You may smile,—I am. Yes, and that makes me think of Jack. Poor fellow! he fancies you utterly despise him.”
“No? Does he? I will ask him to go after a bear with me. I was quite too rough with him, but really—-- However, I do not want to talk about that horrid morning. I thought he was splendidly courageous and equally outrageous.”
“There is courage and courage.”
“Yes, of course. It admits of analysis. I am often a coward myself; I am desperately afraid of some things.” ”

“ Their places were now shifted, Carington casting over Miss Lyndsay. For an hour he fished in a distracted way, to Michelle’s disgust, for the fisherman sat for the most part, and paid less attention to the fly than to the back of Miss Lyndsay’s neck, and a pair of delicately modeled ears, and the most distracting lot of hair, which had been disturbed in her casting, and in and out of which two hands were busy with mysteriously guided efforts at readjustment. Also, he wondered how much of a woman’s nature one could learn from these limited opportunities. ”

“ On the beach opposite To-Day sat, and mocked with colors the massive ruin, untroubled by its mystery. To-Day was a maid in a pink gown, for prettiness—standing, sketch in hand, to see, with head on one side, if her sketch had got the vigor of these fallen rocks.
Nature, liking love-affairs, had decoyed the maid into a moment of statuesque repose, and, knowing well her business, had set back of her a bold gray rock, deep sunk in ferns. Against its sternness the 413strength of virginal curves stood out, very fair to see. Meanwhile the canoe drew nearer, running close to shore. ”

“ Aunt Anne and her favorite Ned were silent for a time; but the boy’s glance roamed restlessly from sky 6to stream, and up over the great dim hills. At last he said:
“Hark, Aunt Anne; how loud things sound at night!”
“Them’s the rapids,” said Tom, in tones that made Miss Lyndsay start. “Them’s a mile away.”
“I suppose, Ned, that when all one’s other senses are more or less unused, the ear may hear more distinctly; at all events, what you say is true, I think. If I want to hear very plainly, I am apt to shut my eyes—good music always makes me do that.” ”

“ He says, ‘There is no dishonor in pain.’ I have remarked in my commentary that this passage is not clear.”
“But is it not, papa? He must mean that dishonor is the worst anguish, and that pain is only an evil to the body, and that an ache of the soul is worst of all, and therefore—”
“Only an ill to our grossest part, if we so determine to limit its effects. Is that it, my dear?”
“I suppose so,” said Rose, with some hesitation. “Yes, that is it.”
“But now you shall argue with a fish. You will be awkward at first. Here is a lighter rod; we call it a grilse-rod. ”

“ Then, as he stood, he heard a rifle, and, sure at once that Carington must have shot something, he ran with greater speed. In a few moments the tangle of undergrowth checked his pace. Some five minutes or more went by, and he saw a flare of light. Thinking it strange, he hurried his steps, and then, of a sudden, stood still.
The woman had carefully approached her prey, ax in hand, and at last saw, as she strained her vision, that Carington’s rifle lay out of his reach. Reassured, she went on more boldly. Looking around, and seeing no one near, she calmly lifted the man’s head, and let it fall. ”

“ Lyndsay reached home, Rose had gone, and he had no chance to take a look at the new bowman: he hoped he was competent. The man in the bow especially has to judge with decision as to the watery way before him, to avoid shallows, to look out for rocks, and instantly to obey every order from the stern.
When Polycarp’s birch, for the Indians always use the bark canoe, ran close to the beach, the bowman stepped out, as the way is, into the water and drew the bark to the shore. Polycarp, silent as a monk of La Trappe, went up the steps. ”

“ You will soon get the trick of it.”
“You riz him!” roared Tom, for there was a mighty swash, and half a salmon came into view.
“Sit down. Wait a little.”
“Will he—do you think he will rise again?”
“If I knew, dear, it would save much needless casting. Will a young man propose twice, thrice? Who can say?”
“I fail, sir, to perceive the analogy.”
“My dear Rose, the too logical mind is destructive of the very foundations of social gaiety. Young man rises to a fly; salmon rises to a fly.”
“But no right-minded woman casts a fly over. Oh, they just—you know.” ”

“ Lyndsay, “the wife is his difficulty.”
By this time the boys were at ease.
“What is an ‘environment,’ Aunt Anne?” said Ned. “Is a wife an environment?”
Ellett laughed. “Sometimes she is.”
“Environments are surroundings—a man’s surroundings.” She always answered the boys seriously.
“But does a wife surround a man?” urged Ned, oblivious of his place as a boy among elders in his keen pursuit of a meaning.
“I should think so!” said Carington. “Wait till your turn comes! You will see!”
“I am quite sure Dorothy Maybrook is a fair illustration,” said Anne. ”

“ The poets get an absurd amount of credit for being able to see as other men do not; but, really, the pleasantest people for a woodland walk are those naturalists who see far more than the poet, and combine with their science, or have with it, the love of things for the mere beauty in them. I never did walk with a poet in a wood. I think I should see all he saw.”
“But not the same way.”
“I would dispute that, if you mean to say I get less pleasure, Rose. And there is some nonsense in the notion that poets are very close observers of nature. They vary, of course. ”

“ She considered them with affectionate care, touching a leaf here and there, her head on one side.
“I guess they’re nice enough, even for Miss Anne. Mind, there’s six of ’em. Don’t you lose any, Miss Rose!”
“Shall I carry them?” said Carington. “And the basket? Where is it?”
“Oh, I’ll smudge that a bit to get the fish smell out, and I’ll fetch it to-morrow. I’m coming after Mrs. Macbeth, or whatever her name is. No, Miss Rose is to take the bouquet. They’re sort of relations, you see. Men can’t be trusted with flowers, and roses are scarce up here.” ”

“ It is easier to disregard the unspoken. I like to think I have the good manners to listen to myself. It does so trouble Archie, and that girl, for a day when I break up. I wonder if that small Spartan had had the perpetual company of his fox, how long he would have gone on without squealing. I know he wriggled,” she said, and so fell to laughing, after which she lay back in her chair, waved her handkerchief to Rose, and began to read.
While the Gaspé canoe went away up the stream, urged by skilful arms, Archibald Lyndsay and Rose talked merrily. ”

“ She was now instantly curious as to what effect the drama had had upon a woman like Dorothy.
“If Susan Colkett is as bad as Lady Macbeth, she must be an unpleasant neighbor.”
“There isn’t much to steal here,” said Dorothy, smiling and looking around her; “and I never did see the woman I was afraid of. As for Susie, she’s so bad, she’s—a fool. There wouldn’t be much harm in it if Joe wasn’t the worst fool of the two. She’ll be the losing of that man yet. Two fools can hatch a heap of mischief.” ”

“ When I looked this hungry trout over, he was still bleeding from a fish-hawk’s claws, and his intestines and liver were hanging in the water. Such pain, or injury if you like, as this, does in man utterly destroy appetite and cause inaction. The inference is plain enough: fish cannot be said to suffer what we call pain. I once took a striped bass which had been terribly torn by a gaff. On the whole, Rose, I conclude that, as we go down the scale of life, there is less and less of what we call pain, and at last, probably, only something nearer to discomfort or inconvenience. ”

“ She was wondering why the novelists never make people talk refreshing nonsense the way all really reasonable folks do sometimes.”
“I wonder more, Rose, why they so rarely get really good talk into their conversations, talk such as we do hear, gay and grave by turns. Of course they say of their characters things clever enough.”
“That is terribly true,—one tires of the endless essays about their people. Why not let them say of one another what is to be said. Aunt Anne says she hates to have a critical providence forever hovering about a story.” ”

“ Lyndsay, “and I doubt if she has any moods.”
“I rather suspect,” said Lyndsay, “that Mrs. Maybrook’s equality of temper is partly natural, and partly a singularly intelligent acquired capacity to make the best of her surroundings.”
“Environment,” said Ned, under his breath, and now satisfied.
“Really, Rose knows more about her than even my wife, who has known her longer; but Rose has a curious way of getting at people, and I have seldom seen Rose so carried away by any one.”
“I envy people the power of understanding people on short acquaintance. ”