True, he kept to his original promise never to pay me wages, but he often handed me coins for pocketmoney, evidently satisfied I wasnt stealing, and he replaced my makeshift wardrobe with worn but decent clothing.
He had not exaggerated the possibilities of the books surrounding me. His brief warning, “—you can learn nothing,” was lost on me. I suppose a different temperament might have become surfeited with paper and print; I can only say I wasnt. I nibbled, tasted, gobbled books. After the store was shut I hooked a student lamp to the nearest gasjet by means of a long tube, and lying on my pallet with a dozen volumes handy, I read till I was no longer able to keep my eyes open or understand the words. Often I woke in the morning to find the light still burning and my fingers holding the pages open.
I think one of the first books to influence me strongly was the monumental Causes of American Decline and Decay by the always popular expatriate historian, Henry Adams. I was particularly impressed by the famous passage in which he reproves the “stay-at-home” Bostonian essayists, William and Henry James, for their quixotic sacrifice and espousal of a long-lost cause. History, said Sir Henry, who had renounced his United States citizenship and been knighted by William V, history is never directed or diverted by well-intentioned individuals; it is the product of forces with geographical, not moral roots.
Possibly the learned expatriate was right, but my instinctive sympathies lay with the Jameses, in spite of the fact that I had not found their books enjoyable. This was due at least partly to the fact that the small editions were badly printed and marred, at least so foreign critics claimed, by an excessive use of Yankee colloquialisms, consciously employed to demonstrate patriotism and disdain of imported elegance. For some reason, obscure to me then, I did not mention Adams to Tyss, though I usually turned to him with each of my fresh discoveries. When he came upon me with an open book he would glance at the running title over my shoulder and begin talking, either of the particular work or of its topic. What he had to say gave me an insight I might otherwise have missed, and turned me to other writers, other aspects. He respected no authority simply because it was acclaimed or established; he prodded me to examine every statement, every hypothesis no matter how commonly accepted.
Early in my employment I was attracted to a large framed parchment he kept hanging, slightly askew and highly attractive to dust, over his typecase. It was simply but beautifully printed in 16 point Baskerville; I knew without being told that he had set it himself:
The Body of
Benjamin Franklin
Printer
Like the Cover of an Old Book
Stripped of Its Lettering and Gilding
Lies Here
Food for Worms.
But the Work Shall Not Be Lost
For it will, As he Believed,
Come Forth Again
In a new and Better Edition
Revised & Corrected
By
The Author.
When he caught me admiring it Tyss laughed. “Felicitous, isnt it, Hodgins? But a lie, a perverse and probably hypocritical lie. There is no Author; the book of life is simply a mess of pied type, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There is no plan, no synopsis to be filled in with pious hopes or sanctimonious actions. There is nothing but a vast emptiness in the universe.”
“The other day you told me we admired the devil for rebelling against a plan.”
He grinned. “So you expect consistency instead of truth from me, Hodgins. There is no plan, authored by a Mind; it is this no-plan against which Lucifer fought. But there is a plan too, a mindless plan, which accounts for all our acts.”
I had been reading an obscure Irish theologian, a Protestant curate of some forsaken parish, so ill-esteemed he had been forced to publish his sermons himself, named George B Shaw, and I had been impressed by his forceful style. I quoted him to Tyss, perhaps as much to preen myself as to counter his argument.