IV
IN WHICH SOCRATES ENCOUNTERS “NEW THOUGHT” AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HAIR
“When people have little to do they go back to childishness. They long for novelty––new playthings, new adventures, new sensations, new friends. So our upper classes are utterly restless. Every old pleasure is a slough of despond. The ladies have tried jewels, laces, crests, titled husbands, divorces, gambling, cocktails, cigarettes, and other branches of exhilaration. They have passed through the slums of literature and of the East Side of Gotham. The gentlemen have shown them the way and smiled with amusement and gone on to greater triumphs. To these people 46 every old idea is ‘bromide.’ It bores them. They scoff at men ‘who take themselves seriously.’ In a word, Moses and the Prophets are so much ‘dope.’ And they are excellent people who really want to make the world better, but the childish craze for novelty is upon them. Mrs. Revere-Chalmers was one of this kind. Harry came to me next day at my house and said:
“‘By Jove! you know, it was my friend Mrs. R.-C. who wore the black square. But she is really a charming woman––not at all a bad sort. I want you to know her better. She made me promise to bring you over to-morrow afternoon if you would come.’
“We went. It was a ‘new-thought’ tea––a deep, brain-racking, forefinger-on-the-brow function. You could see the thoughts of the ladies and sometimes hear them as a ‘professor’ with long hair and smiles of fathomless inspiration wrapped 47 himself in obscurity and called unto them out of the depths. He was all depth. They gazed at his soulful eyes and plunged into deep thought, catching at straws, and he returned to New York by the next train and probably made another payment, on account, to his landlady. Tea and conversation followed his departure.
“I had observed that Mrs. Revere-Chalmers had undergone a singular change of aspect, but failed to locate the point of difference until a sister had said to her in a tone of honeyed deviltry:
“‘My dear, you are growing younger––quite surely younger, and your hair is so lovely and so––different! You know what I mean––it has the luster of youth, and the shade is adorable without a trace of gray in it.’
“This last phrase was the point of the dagger, and Mrs. Chalmers felt it. Sure enough, her hair had changed its hue, and was undeniably fuller and younger.
“Then our hostess gave out a confession which has made some history and is fully qualified to make more. It is a curious fact that one who is abnormal enough to commit a crime is apt to have poor caution.