“You can afford to say that because you have never had either contest or opposition,” he remarked, pleasantly. “You are a little lady accustomed to have her own way in everything. And yet, you do not find it dull—or monotonous! As long as the roses bloom and the butterflies dance, you will be perfectly satisfied!”
His voice was quite musical,—his expression kind—and Jack’s father began almost to like him. Certainly the Philosopher had his good points like other people, though they were not often apparent. The conversation now took another turn with the entrance of the master of the house,—the author of “The Deterioration of Language Invariably Perceived”—who very soon mounted on his hobby-horse and was not altogether uninteresting in his discourse.
“You Americans,” he said, addressing Jack’s father, “are not nearly so much to blame as we are in the spoiling of the English language. You often use, quite unconsciously, very good old English words and expressions which were common in Tudor times and are now fallen into oblivion. But we are at one in the general crime of slang. The vulgar exclamation ‘ripping’ uttered by men and women alike is a disgrace to speech. Some person writing ‘society’ twaddle in one of the pictorials, uses the lowest slang as profusely as a farm labourer scatters manure,—creating a positive stink in the nostrils of any lover of good English—yet she—it is a woman of course!—is admired for her ‘style’! ‘Style’!” and the old gentleman grunted his contempt. “‘Style’ perished with Addison and Macaulay. If my daughter dared to use the word ‘ripping’ in my presence I’d—I’d disown her!”
And, pulling out a red handkerchief, he rubbed his nose violently, while the Sentimentalist laughingly put her arm round him.
“Would you, Dad?” she asked. “Really and truly?”
He peered at her fair face and tender eyes, with a relenting smile.
“Well, perhaps not quite” he admitted. “But nearly!”
The Philosopher looked on and listened. He thought the Sentimentalist charming in her pretty attitude of coaxing tolerance for her father,—he wished she would put her arm round his neck in the same sort of way. But she never would—of that he felt pretty sure! And it was all the fault of that confounded Jack!—or was it the affair of the mutton? He was not clear as to which obstacle had arisen in the way of his very dilatory wooing—but he found himself considering that after all there might be a certain satisfaction in “caring about some one”—as his club friend had once suggested, or rather, having some one to care about yourself. He withdrew his interest from the general conversation as was his habit when he was not the centre of it, and went to a corner table where he pretended to write a letter. And he was surprised and not very pleased to hear the lively talk and laughter which ensued on his retreat. Even the gouty author of “The Deterioration of Language” made merry! Jack’s father told good stories and evidently had the keenest sense of humour. The old gentleman stayed a considerable time, and when ready to go, asked the Sentimentalist to walk home with him, to which proposition she readily assented. They left the room together, having apparently forgotten all about the Philosopher or his presence in the room. This was somewhat galling; especially as his host seemed likewise to have forgotten him, for he trotted slowly away back to his library, whistling as he went. An uncomfortable sense of emptiness was in the air,—and just for once in his self-absorbed existence the Philosopher felt he was “not wanted.” He was mentally placed outside the gates of a little family paradise where he plainly saw a notice put up—“No Philosophers need apply.” And he found himself growing inwardly sad and angry. Sitting down by the cheerful log fire he began to ask questions of his intellectual ego,—as, for example, did much learning add to the sum of human happiness? When one knew the scientific causes of every happening, did such knowledge make sorrow easier to bear, or life more tolerable? The answer, as certain leaders of the House of Commons would say, was in the negative. And yet, on the other hand, love, or what is called love, was, so the Philosopher asserted, only for very young people.
“Like a teddy-bear for a baby!” he mused, grimly. “And how soon the baby tires of the teddy-bear!”
Comfort,—physical and material comfort in life—that was, in his opinion, the chief thing to aim at.