My eyes dilated as Mrs. Symple rattled off this jargon about the intellectual growth of Ourtown. A year ago I had regarded her as a young woman with brain-cells of the most primitive form imaginable, picking up pebbles on the shores of the Shakespeare class; and here she was drinking deep draughts of advanced thought, and talking about Ibsen and Tolstoï and Emerson as glibly as if they were old acquaintances.
“And who is Professor Gnowital?” I asked, “and by what formula does he estimate the comparative degrees of culture to the square foot in Boston and Ourtown? He must be a man of remarkable gifts.”
“Remarkable gifts!” echoed Mrs. Symple, “well, I should think so. He comes from Boston and he’s been giving readings here before the Saturday Night Club. And oh, you must come and make an address at the meeting next week! It’s to be the grand gala one of the whole course. Professor Gnowital is coming on to attend it with some really cultivated people from Boston, and you’ll be surprised to see what a fine literary society there is here now.”
I agreed to address the Saturday Night Club, but I saw with deep sorrow that the town had simply gone mad over what it termed “culture.” People whom I had always regarded as but little better than half-wits were gravely uttering opinions about Carlyle and Emerson, or “doing” German literature through the medium of English translations. And all this idiocy in place of the Shakespeare Club, sleigh-rides, late suppers, and coasting, that once made life so delightful for us all.
Mrs. Symple had asked me to address the club on whatever topic I might select, and while I was considering the invitation a great idea took possession of my brain. To think was to act; and without a moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a long letter to my old friend, Dr. Paulejeune, begging him to come up and address the club in my stead, and by so doing render a service not only to his lifelong friend, but to the great cause of enlightenment and human progress as well.
Now Dr. Paulejeune is not only an educated man with the thinking habit long fastened upon him, but also that rara avis, a Frenchman who thoroughly understands the language, literature, and social structure of America. Moreover he possesses in a marked degree the patriotism, wit, and cynicism of his race, and has a few hearty prejudices against certain modern vogues in art which are remote from the accepted ideals of the Latin race. Happily enough his name was well known in Ourtown by reason of his little volume of essays, which had just then made its appearance.
Our town society never gathered in stronger force than it did on the evening of the Saturday Night Club meeting at the Assembly Rooms. At half-past eight the president of the club introduced the first speaker, Mr. W. Brindle Fantail, a young man who made himself conspicuous in Boston a few years ago by means of Browning readings, which he conducted with a brazen effrontery that compelled the unwilling admiration of his rivals. In the words of Jack Symple, “He caught the Browning boom on the rise and worked it for all it was worth.” Mr. Fantail advanced to the edge of the platform, ran a large flabby hand through his dank shock of light hair, and then announced as his subject, “Tolstoï, the Modern Homer.” Then, with that calm self-possession which has carried him unharmed through many a dreary monologue or reading, he told his hearers what a great man Tolstoï was, and how grateful they ought to be for an opportunity to learn of his many excellences. Of course he did not put it quite as broadly as that, but that was the gist of his remarks. He told us, moreover, that the whole range of English literature contained no such work of fiction as Sevastopol, and that no writer of modern times excelled—or even equaled—this Russian Homer. “In short,” he said, impressively, “Tolstoï is distinctly epoch-making.”
The next speaker was the illustrious Professor Gnowital, who declared that Ourtown would never experience any genuine intellectual development unless a thorough study of the fantastic romances of Hoffmann was begun at once. I cannot imagine what started the professor off on that tack unless it was a desire to choose a subject of which his hearers knew absolutely nothing. His words had a great effect, however, for very few members of the club had ever heard of Hoffmann, and it had never occurred to these that his ghostly tales were at all in the line of that modern culture which they all adored.
The next speaker was Mrs. Measel, whose career I have watched with feelings of mingled respect and amazement. Mrs. Measel has taught art in a dozen towns, lectured on the Great Unknowable in at least two of the large cities, and given “Mornings with Montaigne,” “Babblings from Browning,” and “Studies from Stepniak,” in whatever place she could obtain a hearing. On this occasion she talked about the renaissance of something or other, I’ve forgotten exactly what—and, by the way, there is no better word for use in culture circles than renaissance, and that, too, whether you can pronounce it or not—well, she began with her renaissance, but very soon branched off into a dissertation on Tolstoï and Ibsen and a few more “epoch-making” people with whose names she happened to be familiar. I remember she said that The Doll’s House was one of the grandest plays of modern times, whereat Dr. Paulejeune, who had listened to everything up to this point without turning a hair, smiled broadly. On the whole Mrs. Measel’s was a good shallow talk for good shallow people, and I am sure she made a delightful impression on us all.
Then, at a signal from the president, Dr. Paulejeune made his way to the platform and delivered an address which I am sure will never be forgotten by those who heard it. It was a daring speech for any one to make, and particularly so for a stranger, and that it proved effective in a far higher degree than either of us had ever expected was due to the tact, scholarship, subtlety, and sincerity of my distinguished friend, Dr. Émile Paulejeune.