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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1908)
i f$k?.A BAY Om:QP;WWNm 1 N- By Waster Dr3chairdl Eaton. V i 1 i Crorrifht 106 br Ban. B. IUmptoo. HOLLISTER'S "spiritual adventure" be gan some time between two o'clock and morning of a hot June night. Hol Uiter had retired at two, after a tain attempt to rewrite a story which had Juat come back to him from yet another magazine. Working half the night for a newspaper and rising after ln nfflclent sleep to toll at stories, poems, essays, plays, week In and week out, Is not a healthful node of life for a sensitive, high-strung young man who was brought up to open air and exercise; es pecially when the stories, poems, plays are syste matically rejected and a faltering faith in oneself tas to be lashed constantly. In Holllster the symp toms had been growing recently, till even he, prodi gal ot his youth was beginning to be alarmed-sleep-lesness, a constant twitching of the muscles, worst of all, a pessimism that would not be shaken oflP. He lay In bed on this particular night filled with unutterable gloom about his own powers, his own future, and tried to keep the tired fingers of his right hand from twitching. The bedroom was In sufferably hot. Outside wagons rattled past, flat- wheeled cars on the avenue a block away sent Jar ring echoes down (he side street, distant ferryboat whistles tooted without surcease. He could not seal his ears to these noises. They vexed, then maddened hfm. After one wagon had rattled past . and the echoes died, he waited, every nerve In his, 'body quivering, till the next one came.' He was al most la hysterical tears when an auto horn honked, 'under his window. Holllster gave a cry like a snarl, and found himself out of bed on his feet. He dressed and went out. How long he tramped he did not know. Presently he was crossing Mad ison square and there was a strong hint ot dawn In the east In the middle of Fifth Avenue the Flat iron Building arrested his attention. Never had Jt (seemed so like a great, proud snip, towing lower Broadway northward, as In this strange half light. .when its western side was in heavy shadow and Its . eastern flushed with morning. Holllster stood spellbound by Its beauty. t Tired and nerve-racked as he was, perhaps, as he watched the thing seemed to stir and ave; the great towering prow to lift Into the air as on a mighty wave and to be poising for a plunge directly at him, a pygmy In Its path. 'At the same Instant an auto horn bonked a sud den, sharp, -unexpected warning behind him. With, si cry of terror Holllster sprang across the asphalt, across Broadway, falling up against a pillar of the Hoffman House. He leaned there a moment panting and trying to steady his shaking nerves before he observed that he was not alone. Shrinking into the shadow behind the column was a woman. There was no reason why he should speak, why he should not move away. Hut, from some Impulse, he said. "I'm not crazy, please." Then he was angry for Having spoken, The woman moved ou,t a little Into the light, and they regarded each otjher. She was young and .well dressed, in the prevailing fashion of the Rlal to. Hut there was paint on her cheeks, a ghastly pini now In the dawn light, and her eyes looked keavy, tired, and full of trouble. "I thought M first somebody was chasing you," he said. "But I didn't see anybody." "It was only the Flatiron Building," said Hollls ter with a laugh. "That puzzles you? Just a case of nerves. It looked so like a ship that I got an Illusion It was coming at me. But I wouldn't have Jumped so If an auto hadn't tooted behind me (curse the things!" "It dees look like a ship. I've noticed that," said the girl, glancing toward the building. Somehow her presence was a kind of comfort, tend Holllster still made no move to go, regarding , er curiously. The girl met his look with a half grlghtened timidity that contrasted oddly with her tjpalnt and the place. "I'm not what you think I am!" she blurted out suddenly. "I was already quite sure that you are not what you think I think you are," he answered kindly. ls there anything I can do to help you?' "Help me7" she laughed grimly. "No, I was merely making up my mind. Nobody can help you do that!" "Ah, but they can!" said he. "Perhaps even I could." "Why should you want to?" she asked. Holllster paused. "I don't know, exactly," he said slowly. It's hard to put it into words. But somehow I've a feeling that both of us have been ground out beneath the gigantic millstones of this town and have fallen into the sack side by side. Life does throw strangers together that way and makes them friends Tor the time. Last night I was down miles deep in the blues and my nerves are a frazzle. Something s wrong with you. Here we are. Isn't that enough?'' The girl looked at him a lonr moment, and made ber decision. "Come orer and sit on a park bench," she said. They watched the rhythmic spasms of the foun tain for a time In silence. "Did yon ever want to drown yourself?" the girl asked suddenly. Once," said Holllster. -WnyT- "Because I had'made np my mind to go back on tan Ideal no matter what It was." v "An. bnt yoa didn't! One doesn't one goes .bark en the Ideal Instead. Pi J yon?" "Tea." he nodded. "And after ttat I learned that Lhe only way Is to live things down. I've al most forgottea now." , lie waited, bat the girl did not speak again for a Uk time. Finally she aaU. "What If yoa bad cad to go tack erf one Ideal to reach another?" v Trat wecid tare all depended oa what Iter ' . ' were," he answered, and waited again. Morning was full upon them by now and the streets were filling up with early traffic The girl put her band to her head. "Ob, I can't; I'm too tired!" she said. "If I could only get out of this town awhile! How can one think here?" "Come," he replied. "We will get out of town for a while, for a whole day. , Come." The girl let herself be led to a ferry. They were like two strangers emerging from the flank of a mighty army, who knew not what the battle meant but knew they were wounded and sore and tired. Presently the man raised his fist and shook it at the mortared mountains, gliding past. "Curse you," he said, "I'll get the best of you yet!" Amen," said the girl. When they entered thj Pennsylvania station she caught sight of her face In the mirror of a gum "DID YOU EVER WANT TO DROWN YOUR SELF?" THE GIRL ASKED SUDDENLY. machine, and fled to wash It. "I forgot the paint," 6be said. I didn't even stop last night to get the make-up off. Why didn't you tell me? Or did you .think- " "I'm not going to think," he interrupted gently. "Presently you'll tell me" The express roared In their ears for the next hour, while something like a drowsy half slumber came to them both, the slumber of exhaustion. They alighted at Princeton Junction and the ex press rolled on, leaving a great sense of silence be hind, of silence and the sweet smell of the coun try. The girl threw back her head and- drew a great, deep breath The little branch train they boarded seemed to Belong to another, a slower and milder order of things to be taking them into another world. And when they alighted from it at 1'rlnceton station the beautiful stately gate tow er was opening its portal to them, while from the quletspaces beyond floated the boom of a bell. The girl's eyes swept the sweet low line of dormi tories that flank the gate, and returned to rest on that perfect tower Itself, that no doubt on lower Uroadway would look like a subway entrance. "It Is so beautiful," she said. Can it be real?" For answer Holllster led her up the steps Into the campus. Princeton was not his college. Possibly had It been he would not have returned to it now, and certainly his mood would have been otherwise, a mood of wistful sadness and regret. But, plagued tvith no memories, the academic seclusion of the campus, its low, scholastic Oothlc, the colonial Charm of old Nassau, the elm-shaded walks, were like music to htm, and he moved along almost oblvious for the time of the girl at his side. But the undergraduates, piling out of the dormitories to lectures and recitations, were not oblivious. They glanced at her with frank curiosity and the admir ation of youth for a pretty face, and then at the Fpare,, pale young man beside her who was so ob rlous'ly of their kind as she was of another world. Holllster looked at her, too. She certainly was too sheer, and her hat too striking! There was a strange incongruity between this evident child of the Broadway lights and the scholastic peace of the college campus. She knew ao much of life and no little of books! And 'yet, as she stood In the flowered court of the library, in mere physical ap peal a great rose Tower growing there, the brown backs of ancient Vlrglis, the priceless collection of a scholar, looked oxt at her, and the grnbbiogs of rorgotten grammarians might be seen entombed in leather, through the fen windows. But there ws snrient trouble In her face; some plague of the Ideal aft upon her, too. How many of those dead writers w toe books were all round had grown gray In search of an ideal the magic epithet or the secret of creation or Just the lost digamma! Some how, as they stood In that quiet lnclosure, framing Us green picture under the arch at either end, Hol Uster'a lost hold on his own. Ideals began to come back to him. And then ' ha wondered what tbougbta were passing through the mind of the girl beside him, for her face was growing, more troubled. It's not fair, it's not fair, It's not fair," she sud denly exclaimed, flinging out ber hands, "that some folks should live in so much beauty! All thosd books In there the boys go In and read them and smell the shrubs and look out on this perfect court and dream themselves Into any mood. Bui I, who am trying to create moods, too, have to dolt in sur roundings that are awful. I want to succeed, I want to succeed. I want to be an artist, too! I wish I were dead!" "Come," said Holllster, "we will go up the canal, far up Into the country. Things will look differ ent there." He was beginning dimly to divine her etory. The girl, for whom canoeing was evidently a new sport, climbed gingerly down upon (he cush ions. Holllster threw off his coat, rolled up his sleeves over arms so white that he felt ashamed, dipped his paddle in astern, and the boat moved up the canal In the still summer sun. Neither of them spoke. With the feel of a paddle In his wrists, the sun on his back, the outdoors all around him, the man was too full of the renewed Joy of physical existence. With every d!gof his blade in to the water, with every answering life and spurt of the boat, he felt as If new blood were pumping through him. The girl lay hack on the cushions, half In exhaustion, half In delicious languor, an abandonment to repose, and watched the green v banks slip through half-closed lids. "Low Bridge!" cried Holllster presently. As they ducked and shot nnder the cool shadow where the dusty sunbeams filtered through the cracks abore, their eyes met. He smiled at her reassur ingly, and, leaning forward, touched her hand. "We're getting farther and farther away from it," he said. The canal ran placidly on for a mile or two, wid ening above Mr. Carnegie's foolish lake. The day was windless, the water still as a mirror. Birds sang In the trees on the bank; through the trees on the distant hill the towers of Princeton began to emerge. Once or twice they lay up against the embankment while a slow canal -boat' was towed past. Each time when the wash of the boat had gone down, they moved on again, but ever more slowly, for' the lazy peace of the canal was work- Ing upon them. "Canals have always had a strange fascination for me," said Holllster, once. "When I was a very little chap the train from our town ran along be side one, and I used to wonder where all the barges came from and where they went, just as George Moore says he used to do. There Is a mystery about a canal about this canal for instance. Where does It begin, where does it end? Who dug It In the long ago? It seems ages old, a part of nature, of the landscape. And like all canals, though It leads from somewhere to somewhere else, yet the water does not flow. It is still and quiet, like a secret." "It Is the most utterly peaceful thing I have ever known; It is a rest cure," said the girl, and shut her eyes. By and by they passed the end of Mr Carnegie's foolish lake and drew near a little town. The noon hush was on the world. Their boat glided along the deptha of the sky, so still the water was. All sounds had ceased, save the barking of a distant dog and the happy cry of a child. Before them a white rock barred their way. To the left the lock keeper's cottage, bright with new whitewash and gay with a red geranium in a pot beside the door, looken down at its reflection in the black water. Just at that moment there was not a soul in sight, and from the steeple, thin and faint, drifted down the sound of a bell, tolling twelve. "IT'S THE MOST UTTERLY PEACEFUL THING "Lunch!" cried Holllster, shooting the canoe In under the shade of the willow. "I believe I'm hungry," said the girl, with something like gayety In ber tore. Up in the tlay village tbey found a store where peanut' butter and crackers were sold, and even a ,bonch of bananas bang la the window,, amidst whlri. harnesses, samples of calico, and a eWpy swarm of flies. With their provlslens they return- ed to the canoe. Presently Holllster tossed over board the empty cracker box, , weighted with a atone, because, ha said. It would be a crime to vio late the tidiness ef this picture-book water way) and looked an Interrogation at the girl. She smiled back at him. "You saw the box go down?" she said. ."Well, my last doubt went with It. I've decided. You needn't worry about me any more, kind gentleman." "So the Ideal Is saved?" he cried. "Good!" "It Is curious," she mused, "bow much plainer some things are only fifty miles from town. I can't put It Into words; but I didn't really make the choice myself at all. It was made for me while we were floating up here In this still little boat, with you sitting In the stern, so so different, like the boys we saw there in the college grounds. It's as If a different order of life from mine had Just come and grabbed hold of me, kind but strong, and made me do Its way." "No." said the man, "that's not It. You had the different order deep In you somewhere, and this life to-day has just called to it that's all." . ' "Yes, I suppose I have," she said, half to her self. "I wonder If really that isn't the part of me through which the big things will come oh, I am sure it is!" "What do you mean?" he asked. The girl grew red. Then suddenly she put her blushes aside, and said calmly: "You have been my very, good, friend. I'll tell you everything. I was born In a little city on the one-night circuit, and had to quit school when I was fifteen, to work in a store. I was always ambitious and always crazy about the stage. But my folks weren't only poor, they didn't know enough about things to send me to be trained, even If they could have afforded It. Life In the store was worse than drudgery it was hell. I acted at socials and dramatic clubs when ever I could, and one day when I was eighteen I went to the manager of a musical comedy that came to town and asked him for a Job. He said he needed broilers, and he took me. Most of the fresh girls I mean literally In musical shows are pick ed up like I was round through the country. I told my parents, and they said I couldn't go. So I ran sway. For the rest of the season we did one night?, and I learned what theatrical life Is. All my dreams of ease and luxury vanished, and the things I saw going on In the company sickened me. But a girl who's worked In a department store, even a small one, knows how to take care of herself If she wants to, and I wa'sn't molested much. "But I didn't want the musical line; I wanted to act. When we got In the following June I began the horrid humiliating trot around from one office to another, waiting, begging, suffering all kinds of Insults. Finally a man who wanted somebody for a tiny soubrette role in a cheap stock company took me, and shipped me up to a New England city. There I lived on next to nothing a week, played every afternoon and evening, and rehearsed every morning. But I got a chance to act, and, as I made good, they gave me pretty good parts finally. I learned a lot, too, from our leading woman, who was kind and helpful. She'd be on the three-sheets along Broadway if it wasn't for the booze, poor thing. "Then I came back to the Alley, and did 'the round of the offices again, and was again Insulted Insulted you know, in the worst way a woman can be. I began to wonder if that was the price all of them paid for their parts. And then I began to wonder another thing. I suppose other girls have wondered It before me, God help them! began to wonder, not so much if it was wrong, but If, right or" wrong, it wasn't the way to learn a thousand shades of the emotions we actresses are called on to express, and which I, for one, felt myself so ignor ant of expressing. I was ambitious, terribly Am bitious you believe that, don't you?" "Of course," said Holllster gravely. "Well, it wasn't the promise of better parts for the mere sake of the name, or greater comfort; It was Just this ambition to learn, to get ahead, this I'VE EVER KNOWN," SAID THE GIRL. Ideal of one's art, that began to whisper to me. Jnst about then I saw a play where the doctrine was preached or seemed to be preached. And al ways there are the examples of certain great ac twseoe Idols to ns lesser people. I got all confused and hopeless about It It was wrong; It was right. Jt was my duty to myself to resist; It araa my dsty to mywtlf to yield. I've b werrylng along la a tiny, bo-good part this winter, en Ue road. We , -.- " I came In the other day we're filling In a week down at the Grand now. Last night the manager, offered me the second lead next season at at his price. That's what. I was debating when I met you.'' " The girl looked Holllster In the eyes for a mo ment as she finished, desperately trying to read there if he understood and believed. She saw his TO SHE PUT HER HAND IN HI3 AND THEN VANISHED. kind, strong sympathy. Then she suddenly broke into sobs, and burled her burning face in her hands. He was silent for a time. It seemed best. Then he spoRe. "I've noticed," he said, "that most of the plays and books which preach the doctrine you speak of preach It as a Justification of wrong already com mitted, as a sort of consolation, not as advice to those who haven't stepped out of the path. That's what makes them, when you come to reflect on the matter, to pitiably weak as philosophy or ethics. It Isn't sin, It's sympathy that gives you power to act emotions, or me power to write them for I. too, am trying to be an artist, and I havengot as far as a speaking part yet, either! You spoke of to-day's way ot life, this country way, this high bred, ollege way well, don't you see that this way has, after all, produced more and greater ar tists than the other way ever did? And don't you see it gives you something the other can never give? I mean peace and security and the knowledge that you are not a coward, that you "have never gone back on an Ideal? Sympathy and Imagination can teach you to portray any emotion. And they grow best, believe 'me, In the life you've chosen. You'll get the second lead soon enough, cheer up! Tho world even the stage world isn't so dark as it looks on a hot night in New York." The girl raised her face to his and put out her hand. "You're right; I know you're right. Every bit of me is telling me so now," she said. "To morrow I'll begin silooplng for a part in a different company." "You must let me help you," said Hollister. "I've some friends In the business, even if they don't liko my plays. Besides I'm os a newspaper and that helps a whole lot.'' "Some day, who knows?' she laughed, "I'll star In one of you. dramas!" "Shake on It!" he cried. .And then he faced the canoe toward Princeton, and, chatting gayly, like two new 1)orn Into a world of Joy and sunshine, they slid between green banks ip the. canal. The evening lights on lower Manhattan were twinkling, as of a myriad of cliff dwellings, against the twilight blue - as the ferryboat bearing them back moved out of her slip. A cool, salt breeze came up the bay and touched like a caress their eyelids, neavy with healthy sleep, the sleep that comes from open air and exercise. The great, twinkling city, the tossing river, the evening sky. the gulls, the busy ferryboats darting to and fro like golden waterbugs, seemed beautiful to them,' like a picture. After a hastily snatched supper Holllster left his companion at the stage entrance. "Nerve?" he said. "Why, I shall sleep like a log for ten mortal nours and wake up to work on' our play!" But the girl looked at him shyly. "I've a long way yetno go!" she said In a low tone. I "Nonsense," said he. "The good part will come before you know It." "That Isn't what I mean," she answered. "But you've no doubts any more?" "That isn't -what I mean, either." She smiled a little wistfully as she met his eyes. "Then what?" She shook ber head. "But It's worth It!" she said, as she put her hand in his again, and then Tanlsbed qaickly into the dingy passage. Holllster did sleep that night, the sleep of oblivion, even of oblivion to an Irate city editor, But before be went to bed he read the story he had last beea working on. "Rubbish! "he exclaimed as be finished. "Who Invented the fallacy that the happy ending is illog ical r Here's not an Ideal bnt a delusion gone!" And be tore the last sheets of his msnuscript In to fragments. Jt was net till later that be came to realize what her parting words had meant wales, provesthat be was a modern man. I
