“Don’t you make any mistake,” rejoined the other; “it’s the sort of life I’m going to live.”
“It’s a cowardly life,” retorted Berkeley.
“Did I say it wasn’t? I said it was safe. You can call it what you like.”
“Well,” replied Berkeley, seating himself again, “my ideal career is just the opposite of that.”
“Suppose you explain yours, then,” said Armstrong.
Berkeley hesitated a few moments before beginning. He was a lean, tallish fellow, with a Scotch cast of countenance, a small blue eye, high cheek bones, a freckled skin, and whity-brown hair. He had a dry, cautious humor, fed by much out-of-the-way reading. He had been distinguished in college by methodical habits, a want of ambition, a disposition to keep to himself, and a mixture of selfishness and bonhomie which made him a cold friend but an agreeable companion. It was therefore with some surprise that we heard him deliver himself as follows:
“I believe that the greatest mistake a man can make is in not getting enough out of life. I want to lead a full life, to have a wide experience, to develop my whole nature to the utmost, to touch mankind at the largest possible number of points. I want adventure, change, excitement, emotion, suffering even,—I don’t care what, so long as it is not stagnation. Just consider what there is on this planet to be seen, learned, enjoyed, and what a miserably small share of it most people appropriate. Why, there are men in my village who have never been outside the county and seldom out of the township; who have never heard a word of any language but English; never seen a city or a mountain or the ocean—or, indeed, any body of water bigger than Fresh Pond or the Hogganum River; never been in a theatre, steamboat, library, or cathedral. Cathedral! Their conception of a church is limited to the white wooden meeting-house at ‘the center.’ Their art-gallery is the wagon of a travelling photographer. Their metropolitan hotel is the stoop and bar-room of the ‘Uncas House.’ Their university is the unpainted school-house on the hill. Their literature is the weekly newspaper from the county town. But take the majority of educated men even. What a rusty, small kind of existence they lead! They are in a rut, just the same as the others, only the rut is a trifle wider. If I had my way I would never do the same work or talk with the same people—hardly live in the same place for two days running. Life is too short to do a thing twice. When I come to the end of mine I don’t want to say J’ai manqué la vie; but make my brag, with the Wife of Bath,
‘Unto this day it doth myn herte bote
That I have had my world as in my time.’”
“Well, how are you going to do all those fine things?” inquired Armstrong. “For instance, that about not living in one place two days running. I’m afraid you’ll find that inconvenient, not to say expensive.”
“Oh, you mustn’t take me too literally. I may have to travel on foot or take a steerage passage, but I shall keep going all the same. I haven’t made any definite plans yet. I shall probably strike for something in the diplomatic line,—secretary of legation, or some small consulship perhaps. But the principle is the main thing, and the principle is: Don’t do anything because it’s the nearest and easiest and most obvious thing to do, but make up your mind to get the best. Look at the lazy way in which men accept their circumstances. There is the matter of acquaintance, for instance—we let chance determine it. We know the men that we can’t help knowing,—the ones in the next house, cousins and second cousins, business connections, etc. Here at college, now, we get acquainted with the fellows at the eating club or in the same society, or those who happen to sit next us in the class-room, because their names begin with the same letter. That’s it; it’s just a sample of our whole life. Our friendships, like everything else about us, are determined by the alphabet. We go with the Z’s because some arbitrary system of classification has put us among them, instead of fighting our way up to the A’s, where we naturally belong. The consequence is that one’s friends are mostly dreadful bores.”