But still, all unconsciously, I did learn something from my lessons at the mill. From the little Latin grammar my father passed to the Roman people, to their struggles and conquests, their triumphs and decline, to the civilization that has ever hovered around the Mediterranean Sea. He, alas! had scarce ever gone outside the walls of Farmington, and had seldom done as much as to peep over the high hills that held the little narrow valley in its place. But through his precious books and his still more precious dreams he had sailed the length and breadth of the Mediterranean Sea,—and though since then I have stood upon the deck of a ship that skims along between the blue waters below and the soft blue sky above, and have looked off at the sloping, fertile uplands to the high mountain-tops of Italy, and even over to Africa on the other side, still my Roman empire will ever be the mighty kingdom of which my father talked, and my Mediterranean that far-off blue sea of which he told when he tried so hard to make me study Latin in the little office of the mill; and ever and ever the soft murmur of the blue white-crested waves crawling up the long Italian beach will be mingled with the lazy whir of the turning stones and my father’s gentle eager voice.
The dust and mould of many ages lie over Cæsar and Virgil and Horace and Ovid. The great empire of the Roman world long since passed to ruin and decay. The waves of the blue Mediterranean have sung their requiem over this mighty Mistress of the Sea, and many others, great and small, since then. The Latin tongue lives only as a memory of the language of these once proud conquerors of a world. And no less dead and past are the turning wheel, the groaning mill, the crumbling dam, and the kindly voice that told me of the wonders of the Roman world. And as my mind goes back to the Latin grammar and the little dusty office in the mill, I cannot suppress the longing hope that somewhere out beyond the stars my patient father has found a haven where they still can speak the Latin tongue, and where he comes nearer to Cæsar and Virgil and Ovid and to the blue Mediterranean Sea than while the high hills and stern conditions of his life kept him busy grinding corn. At all events, I am sure that when my ears are dulled to all earthly sounds, I shall fancy that I hear the falling water and the turning wheel and the groaning mill, and with them the long-silenced voice repeating, in grave, almost religious tones,—
Mensa, mensæ, mensæ, mensam, mensa, mensa.
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW I FAILED
Somehow I can identify my present self only with the boy who went to the Academy on the hill. Back of this, all seems a vision and a dream; and the little child from whom I grew is only one of the old boyish group for whose sake the sun revolved and the changing seasons came and went.
It must be that for a long time I looked forward to going to the Academy as an event in my boyish life. For I know that when I first went up the hill, I wore a collar and a necktie and shoes,—or, rather, boots. I must have felt then that I was growing to be a man, and that it was almost time to put off childish things. When I went to the Academy, we called the teacher “Professor,” and he in turn no longer called me Johnny, or even John, but spoke to me as “Smith.” A certain dignity and individuality had come to me from some source, I knew not where. When we boys came from the playground into the open door, it was not quite the mad rush of noisy and boisterous urchins that carried all before it, like a rushing flood, in the little district school.
Almost unconsciously some new idea of duty and obligation began to dawn upon my mind, and I had even a faint conception that the lessons of the books would be related in some way to my future life. Among us boys, in our relation to each other, the difference was not quite so great as that between the teacher and ourselves; but our bearing toward the girls was still more changed. In the district school they had seemed only different, and rather in the way, or at least of no special interest or importance in the scheme. Now, we stood before them quite abashed and awed. They had put on long dresses, and had taken on a reserved and distant air; and much that we said and did in the Academy was with the conscious thought of how it would look to them. This, too, was a reason why we should wear our collars and our boots, and comb our hair, and not be found always at the bottom of the class.
I began about this time to get letters at the post-office,—letters addressed directly to me, and which I could open first, and show to the others or not as I saw fit. And I began to know about affairs, especially to take an interest in politics, and to know our side—which of course was always beaten. I, like all the rest of the boys, inherited my politics and my religion. I said,—like all the boys; but I should have said like all people, whether boys or men. So little do we have the habit of thought, that our opinions on religion and politics and life are only such as have come down to us from ignorant and remote ancestors, influenced we know not how.
So, too, the same feeling seemed to steal over us at home and in our family group. The old sitting-room was quieter and wore a more serious look as we gathered round the lighted lamp on the great table with our books. The lessons were always tasks, but we tried to get through them for the sake of the magazine or book of travel or adventure that we could read when the work was done. My father was as helpful and interested as ever in our studies, and constantly told us how this task and that would affect our future lives. More and more he made clear to us his intense desire that we should reach the things that had been beyond his grasp.
Almost unconsciously I grew into sympathy with his ideals and his life, seeing faintly the grand visions that were always clear to him, and bewailing more and more my own indolence and love of pleasure that made them seem so hard for me to reach. I learned to understand the tragedy of his obscure and hidden life, and the long and bitter contest he had waged within the narrow shadow of the stubborn little town where he had lived and struggled and hoped so long. It was many years before I came to know fully that the smaller the world in which we move, the more impossible it is to break the prejudices and conventions that bind us down. And so it was many, many years before I realized what must have been my father’s life.