For it seemed as if the old prizes had lost their lustre; and there were no longer any public for a man; an honest one getting so little applause, in this world’s stage, and the general taste being vitiated, and too coarse to relish the finer flavors of the human soul. He believed Arthur to be an honest man, with the education and breeding of a gentleman; more he did not ask, his smartness, or his faculty for getting on. The old Judge had little of the avarice miscalled of age; he thought too little of the worth of money for one who grieved so much that it alone had worth; perhaps Arthur, in his way, thought as much of this. With Gracie married, he at least might well go off the stage. Many creatures live but to their time of reproduction; this is all that nature seems to care; and the time which is given to live with and cherish his children to nature would seem but surplusage. He had lived and married; he had found all that even his youthful ambitions had dared to formulate or hope; but was he quite content? Somehow, the sky, so blue in the morning, had grown troubled and overcast toward the twilight. There was no one thing he could say was wanting; he had done what he had sought to do; he had been honored more than he had hoped; he would leave—what? A few well-wrought opinions, valuable until the next statute; a reputation as a nice old fogy; a few poor dollars, some books, and—
The door opened softly, but the Judge did not hear it; and his daughter entered and placed her soft hand on his. He started, as if he had been dreaming. Gracie was troubled by his absence of mind, and feared she might be the cause; she looked at him, not timidly, nor inquiringly, and yet so that the old man’s eyes grew softer as he looked at hers. “No, dear, you did not disturb me,—neither you nor Arthur,” he added, at her half-spoken word. “Tell me, do you care for him very much?”
“No more than I do for you, dear,” said the girl; but in her manner the Judge could read her silent strength of love. And more was said between them; but come, we are not fit for such scenes, you and I; let us go out gently and leave these two alone.
Meantime, Arthur, the cause of all this, was sleeping quietly, with the sleep of a hunter of any manner of wild-fowl, and the dreamlessness of insouciant youth. For Gracie loved him—that was clear, both to happy Arthur and the wakeful Judge.
There is a curious timeliness in our modern ailments; a timeliness which would be still more striking if we could know the elements of each man’s life. In older times, men wore out slowly, by labor or by rust; they set about dying deliberately, as they worked their land or managed their daily concernments. But in these days of steam and dynamite, our mode of death is sudden, quick and certain, like an explosion or a railway catastrophe; less like the processes of nature than those of man. Paralysis, like nihilism, has developed in the nineteenth century, and chooses, as if by some secret intelligence, its moment with a terrible skill.
So, one such night as this, and not long after—of the exact date I am not sure—death came upon the Judge, as he was sitting with his papers, working late at night and lonely, striving to fashion human statutes to fit diviner laws, that justice might be seen of men.
CHAPTER VII.
ARTHUR SEES THE WORLD.
IT was near the end of the first hour in the New York Stock Exchange. The floor was crowded. A few of the young brokers, who had less business and more time, having executed their orders, were now ready for sky-larking and horse-play. But it had been a great “bull” morning, and the greater number, many of whom were older brokers, and had only been attracted personally to the scene as the news of the great battle spread abroad about the Street, were still madly pressing around the painted signs which were set, like standards, to mark the stations of the stocks. The high roof of the hall seemed too close to make the noise endurable; the air itself seemed torn and tired with the cries of the combatants. The rays of light which came down from the high windows were full of shreds and the dust of battle; the worn floor was littered with bits of paper, telegrams and orders, the exploded cartridges of that paper warfare. To the contemplative stranger in the gallery—if any contemplating stranger there had presence of mind and spirit calm enough to remain so—it seemed as if the actors in the scene, rushing madly from one skirmish to another, crying their orders, now unheeded, now to a crazy crowd, were the orators or leaders of a vast mob, trying each to work his will upon the multitude. Or he may have thought it a parliament, a congress that had overleapt all rules of decorum, where each member forgot all save the open rush for private gain. But one who understood might still have seen the battle wax and wane; might have seen here the attack and there the repulse, here the concentration of forces and the charge, there the support brought up to the post that showed signs of wavering. And it was a battle, of a sort more common now than that of arms; and who shall say, less real than it? Surely, they were fighting for their hearths and for their altars; such altars and such firesides as they had. And many a city palace, and many a country cottage, were hanging with their owners on the outcome of the day. Each magnate of the market, each leader in the fray, stood surrounded by his staff and subaltern officers; while the telegraph boys and camp-followers rushed hither and thither, and nimble clerks hastened from the room with messages and returned with new supplies.