Whitwell

“ I paused and admired with the two looking on, and probably at me, and, as I have said, I alone seemed to display any awkwardness. Carew had passed it off like a gentleman, anyway.
The discovery rendered me slightly uncomfortable, and, moreover, I felt somewhat responsible. I could not now but be conscious of a drama developing darkly under my nose, so to speak. I liked Whitwell. He was very ordinary, but very decent. He had plenty of money, but did not use it like a “bounder,” as many rich folk do. ”

“ Over a little whisky and soda in his smoking-room we were discussing the merits of a current play which had provoked some consideration of a moral problem.
“I don’t know,” said Whitwell, breaking a pause, “I fancy he wasn’t right. After all, he couldn’t know what she was doing, however much he might—well, wonder.” ”

“ Is the British working man a fool, that he does not know his 166friends? What have you, the representative Christian men of Scourby, called to be rulers of men for their good, been doing that this thing should have happened to you?”
Mr. Whitwell was so delighted with Arthur Knight that he told his nephew he must have him for his guest. “Come, too, John,” he said, “and let us talk these things over. My wife and daughters will be glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Knight. Here is the youngest. Tom! Let me introduce you to each other. Mr. Knight, of London—Miss Grace Thomasine Whitwell.” ”

“ He had told me his wife was at the opera at the outset, and he did not mention her again until we had the port on the table.
“My wife’s with the Clares,” he said casually then, “Know them? They’ve got a box.”
“I’ve met them,” I said, with my mind on the fact that the Clares were cousins of Carew.
“Not bad,” said Whitwell, eyeing his cigar, “but a bit too raffish for me.”
“The sort of people who make a trail for themselves anywhere,” I said. “Well, that’s individuality, and has its qualities,”
It was precisely the individuality, I knew, at which Whitwell winced ”

“ The thing hadn’t any real relation to his case, but what he said seemed to invest it with particularity, and with a particularity that was personal to him.
“Of course not,” I said uncomfortably.
“Things are not always what they seem,” said poor Whitwell with a smile, and I knew that he had himself connected up the thought by his next words, which followed after another silence. He looked at his watch.
“Peggy will be here soon. I expect Carew will be bringing her. You'll wait, won’t you?” ”

“ Stapleton, you are brutal!”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Whitwell. What do you want me to do? I am sure the world is better than it ever was before.”
“I am glad I did not live in it before, then. Things seem to me dreadfully bad now.”
“All great growths are slow. But I believe that the right is winning its way more rapidly than slowly, and in the long run it is sure to conquer.”
Tom Whitwell laughed. “You are repeating your creed, doctor. It is very proper of you ”

“ It was the end of one of Whitwell's “Tramps Home to Nature,” as he called his walks and talks with the ladies, and on this day Westover's fellow-painter had added to his lessons in woodlore the claims of art, intending that his class should make studies of various bits in the clearing, and should try to catch something of its peculiar charm. ”

“ Whitwell slapped his leg. Westover saw that he had on long India-rubber boots, which came up to his knees, and he gave a wayward thought to the misery they would be on an August day to another man; but Whitwell was probably insensible to any discomfort from them. “When a man's mindin' his own business any government's good, I guess. ”

“ Whitwell stopped midway in his suggestion, with an inquiring eye on the painter, who asked: “You think he's left off being the old Jeff?”
“Well, sir, you got me there,” the philosopher confessed. “I didn't see anything to the contrary, but come to think of it—”
“Why couldn't the broken shaft be his unfulfilled destiny on the old lines? What reason is there to believe he isn't what he's always been?”
“Well, come to think of it—”
“People don't change in a day, or a year,” Westover went on, “or two or three years, even. Sometimes I doubt if they ever change.” ”

“ Vostrand, in a sort of willowy concession, as if the character before her were not to be crossed or gainsaid.
“Well, it 'll do you good here,” said Whitwell. “'N' the young lady, too. A few tramps over these hills 'll make you look like another woman.” He added, as if he had perhaps made his remarks too personal to the girl, “Both of you.”
“Oh yes,” the mother assented, fervently. “We shall count upon your showing us all their-mysteries.”
Whitwell looked pleased. “I'll do my best-whenever you're ready.” He went on: “Why, Jeff, here, has just got back, too. ”

“ Durgin and Whitwell and Jombateeste and Frank, after they had done their chores, and they had gathered in the old farm-house parlor, around the air-tight sheet-iron stove, in a heat of eighty degrees. Whitwell listened, with planchette ready on the table before him, and he consulted it for telepathic impressions of Jackson's actual mental state when the reading was over. ”

“ I'm much obliged to you, though, Mr.—”
“Westover,” the painter suggested. “But the boy isn't so bad all the time.”
“Couldn't be,” said Whitwell, with a cackle of humorous enjoyment. “He has his spells of bein' decent, and he's pootty smart, too. But when the other spell ketches him it's like as if the devil got a-hold of him, as I said in the first place. I lost my wife here two-three years along back, and that little girl you see him tormentin', she's a regular little mother to her brother; and whenever Jeff Durgin sees her with him, seems as if the Old Scratch got into him. ”

“ Whitwell was able to meet his new responsibilities. Darentdale was so near to London, and the rules of the latest House of Commons were so sensible, that a man was not compelled to spend all the nights in talking or listening to the talk of others; it was therefore possible for the Member for Scourby to attend to his duties in Westminster, and yet not altogether neglect those of his own farm and home. Tom always met her father on Friday night, and his two leisure days were happy ones for her as for the rest of his family. ”

“ And Jeff used to be so fond of him! Well, I guess he got tired of him, too, toward the last.”
“He's gone to the happy hunting-grounds now. Colorady didn't agree with him-or old age,” said Whitwell. “I don't see why the Injuns wa'n't right,” he pursued, thoughtfully. “If they've got souls, why ha'n't their dogs? I suppose Mr. Westover here would say there wa'n't any certainty about the Injuns themselves!”
“You know my weak point, Mr. Whitwell,” the painter confessed. “But I can't prove they haven't.”
“Nor dogs, neither, I guess,” said Whitwell, tolerantly. ”

“ But the incessant misunderstandings and entanglement of a farce make one feel quite young again. I believe I wiped my streaming eyes when the sentimental hero fell into the bath. However, that is of minor and only personal importance. What matters to this narrative is that I saw away by the left Mrs. Whitwell and Carew, the former laughing with as hearty a gusto as myself. ”

“ Whitwell's ascent of the Cimon della Pala. In such a discussion it is difficult to know how to act. To tamely leave a fellow-countryman's credit to take care of itself, with the precarious assistance of any stonemen he may have left behind him, is opposed to one's impulse. Yet the statement that an Englishman's word is above question loses its impressiveness when delivered with a consciousness that your assertions are at that very moment accepted as the strongest evidence to the contrary. ”

“ Whitwell. “He is so good a fellow that it will be too bad if you keep him waiting longer. His mother is quite out of the question now, I am sure of that. And the best medical authority of the land has declared it to-day, for I met Dr. Stapleton, who told me so. That will be the way out of the difficulty. If you think this money ought to be his, what is yours may be made his, in spite of the Married Women’s Property Act.”
Margaret returned to Yorkshire the next day without seeing John. She rightly judged that it was better so. ”

“ Whitwell, “that Arthur Knight will 242have done a great deal to bring about a better state of things in England. Have you heard him speak, Mr. Stapleton?”
“Yes; several times. He is a man of marvellous power and eloquence. What he says goes directly to the hearts of his hearers. His personality is so vivid, and his words and gestures are so telling, that it is difficult to resist him. He sways an audience as few have been able to do. I am sorry he is not at Craighelbyl.”
“I should think he will probably be there during your visit,” said Tom—and then she stopped, as if confused. ”

“ Mr. Whitwell shook his head. “He is engaged just now on grave business,” he said.
“I suppose we are to have another eloquent man in our midst directly—the young clergyman from Canada?”
“Macdonald? Yes; I understand that he will rival Knight. It is another case of Wesley and Whitfield. Only Macdonald is a very staunch Churchman, and speaks in the interests of the English Church.”
“What a good thing it is that the Church will hear him!” remarked the doctor.
“Dr. Stapleton, I wish you could persuade my friend, Margaret Miller, to accompany us to Craighelbyl,” said Tom. ”

“ Westover had to break the silence that followed, and he found himself defending Jeff, though somehow not for Jeff's sake. He urged that if he had the strong will they both recognized in him, he would never commit the errors of a weak man, which were usually the basest.
"How do you know that a strong-willed man a'n't a weak one?" Whitwell astonished him by asking. "A'n't what we call a strong will just a kind of a bull-dog clinch that the dog himself can't unloose? I take it a man that has a good will is a strong man. ”

“ Whitwell (shouts) . Thanks, thanks. (Drops voice.) You intolerable old brute!
Coddle. Ha!
Whitwell (bowing politely) . If you’re ever my father-in-law, I’ll show you how to treat a gentleman.
Coddle. His father-in-law! I’ll give Eglantine to a coal-heaver first,—the animal! (Shouts.) Pray be seated, (drops voice) and choke yourself.
Whitwell (shouts) . One gets a very fine appetite after a hard day’s sport. (Drops voice.) Atrocious old ruffian!
Coddle. Old ruffian! This is insufferable. (They sit.)
Whitwell (shouts) . Will not Miss Coddle dine with us to-day? ”

“ But that little girl, Beechy, as they call her, she's a beauty! And round with Jeff all the while! He seems full as fond of her as her own mother does, and that devil, that couldn't seem to get enough of tormentin' little children when he was a boy, is as good and gentle with that little thing as-pie!"
Whitwell seemed to have come to an end of his celebration of Jeff's success, and Westover asked:
"And what do you make now, of planchette's brokenshaft business? Or don't you believe in planchette any more?" ”

“ His preparation for a frontiersman’s life began early for young Whitman. Born in Connecticut when the eighteenth century had all but run its course, he was still in his swaddling-clothes when his parents, falling victims to the prevalent fever for “going west,” piled their lares and penates into an ox-cart and trekked overland to the fertile lake region of central New York, Mrs. Whitman making the four-hundred-mile journey on foot, with her year-old babe in her arms. Building a cabin with the tree trunks cleared from the site, they began the usual pioneer’s struggle for existence. ”

“ There, in the very pulpit where Whitfield, the persuasive, the silver-tongued, stood—the Whitfield, whom lords and ladies flocked to hear; who lit up with light and life a wicked and adulterous generation—an age destitute alike of faith and heart and hope—you will see a big cumbrous man, of severe face and repulsive manner, with a voice harsh and rough as a mountain-stream. ”

“ Whitman seems one of those old bards, fresh from the hand of nature, young with the first creation, the newest handwork of the great Master, untaught in any schools, unfettered by any of the myriad chords, which time is ever weaving about the brains and 44hearts and consciences of men as the world grows gray; a primitive bard of nature, born by some chance or accident in this old, tired, worn-out world, dropped into this Nineteenth century with its machines and conventions, its artificial life, its unnatural morals and its fettered limbs. ”

“ Love of nature, a vigorous and disciplined will, simplicity, industry, self-forgetfulness, loving-kindness, integrity, reverence,—these are the characteristics which, in spite of the reserve of a recluse, are now recognized as his by a generation of scholars, who delight to say "we were friends and pupils of William Dwight Whitney." ”

“ The Whitman ideal is not, and has never been, the conscious ideal of the mass of our people. We have aspired more to the ideal of the traditional fine gentleman as he has figured in British letters. There seems to have been no hint [Pg 231] or prophecy of such a man as Whitman in our New England literature, unless it be in Emerson, and here it is in the region of the abstract and not of the concrete. ”

“ Whitney was no recluse, nor a typical professor in manner. He attracted men to him and enjoyed being with them. He was not at all emotional, however, and cared little for general society. He gave a rather extreme view of himself in a letter written in 1869: “I am of a more than usually reserved and unsocial nature. I avoid society as much as I can, and am never quite comfortable in the company of any excepting those with whom I am most nearly bound. ”