We all shook hands, two women wept, but not for sorrow, and a man looked out of the window, intent upon the scenery.
III.—A MODEST SCHOLAR
BEING a household of moderate attainments, and not being at all superior people, we were gravely concerned on learning that it was our duty to entertain the distinguished scholar, for our pride was chastened by anxiety and we had once received moderators. His name was carried far and wide on the wings of fame, and even learned people referred to him with a reverence in the tone, because it was supposed there was almost nothing within the range of languages and philosophy and theology which he did not know, and that if there happened to be any obscure department he had not yet overtaken, he would likely be on the way to its conquest. We speculated what like he would be—having only heard rumours—and whether he would be strangely clothed, we discussed what kind of company we could gather to meet such a man, and whether we ought, that is the two trembling heads of the household, to read up some subject beforehand that we might be able at least to know where he was if we could not follow him. And we were haunted with the remembrance of a literary woman who once condescended to live with us for two days, and whose conversation was so exhausting that we took it in turns like the watch on board ship, one standing on the bridge with the spin-drift of quotations flying over his head, and the other snatching a few minutes' sleep to strengthen her for the storm. That overwhelming lady was only the oracle of a circle after all, but our coming visitor was known to the ends of the earth.
It was my place to receive him at the station, and pacing up and down the platform, I turned over in my mind appropriate subjects for conversation in the cab, and determined to lure the great man into a discussion of the work of an eminent Oxford philosopher which had just been published, and which I knew something about. I had just arranged a question which I intended to submit for his consideration, when the express came in, and I hastened down the first-class carriages to identify the great man. High and mighty people, clothed in purple and fine linen, or what corresponds to such garments in our country, were descending in troops with servants and porters waiting upon them, but there was no person that suggested a scholar. Had he, in the multitude of his thoughts, forgotten his engagement altogether, or had he left the train at some stopping-place and allowed it to go without him—anything is possible with such a learned man.
Then I saw a tall and venerable figure descend from a third-class compartment and a whole company of genuine “third classers” handing out his luggage while he took the most affectionate farewell of them. A working man got out to deposit the scholar's Gladstone bag upon the platform while his wife passed out his umbrella, and another working man handled delicately a parcel of books. The scholar shook hands with every one of his fellow-passengers including children, and then I presented myself, and looked him in the face. He was rather over six feet in height, and erect as a sapling, dressed in old-fashioned and well brushed black clothes, and his face placed me immediately at ease, for though it was massive and grave, with deep lines and crowned with thick white hair, his eyes were so friendly and sincere, had such an expression of modesty and affection, that even then, and on the first experience, I forgot the gulf between us. Next instant, and almost before I had mentioned my name he seized me by the hand, and thanked me for my coming.
“This, my good sir,” he said with his old-fashioned courtesy, “is a kindness which I never for an instant anticipated, and when I remember your many important engagements (important!) and the sacrifice which this gracious act (gracious!) must have entailed upon you, I feel this to be an honour, sir, for which you will accept this expression of gratitude.” It seemed as if there must have been something wrong in our imagination of a great man's manner, and when he insisted, beyond my preventing, in carrying his bag himself, and would only allow me with many remonstrances to relieve him of the books; when I had difficulty in persuading him to enter a cab because he was anxious to walk to our house, our fancy portrait had almost disappeared. Before leaving the platform he had interviewed the guard and thanked him by both word and deed for certain “gracious and mindful attentions in the course of the journey.”
My wife acknowledged that she had been waiting to give the great man afternoon tea in fear and trembling, but there was something about him so winsome that she did not need even to study my face, but felt at once that however trying writing-women and dilletante critics might be, one could be at home with a chief scholar. When I described the guests who were coming—to meet him at dinner—such eminent persons as I could gather—he was overcome by the trouble we had taken, but also alarmed lest he should be hardly fit for their company, being, as he explained himself, a man much restricted in knowledge through the just burden of professional studies. And before he went to his room to dress he had struck up an acquaintance with the youngest member of the family, who seemed to have forgotten that our guest was a very great man, and had visited a family of Japanese mice with evident satisfaction. During dinner he was so conscious of his poverty of attainment in the presence of so many distinguished people that he would say very little, but listened greedily to everything that fell from the lips of a young Oxford man who had taken a fair degree and was omniscient. After dinner we wiled him into a field where very few men have gone, and where he was supposed to know everything that could be known, and then being once started he spoke for forty minutes to our huge delight with such fulness and accuracy of knowledge, with such lucidity and purity of speech—allowing for the old-fashioned style—that even the Oxford man was silent and admired.
Once and again he stopped to qualify his statement of some other scholar's position lest he should have done him injustice, and in the end he became suddenly conscious of the time he had spoken and implored every one's pardon, seeing, as he explained “that the gentlemen present will likely have far more intimate knowledge of this subject than I can ever hope to attain.” He then asked whether any person present had ever seen a family of Japanese mice, and especially whether they had ever seen them waltzing, or as he described it “performing their circular motions of the most graceful and intricate nature, with almost incredible continuance.” And when no one had, he insisted on the company going to visit the menagerie, which was conduct not unbecoming a gentleman, but very unbecoming a scholar.