|
It is not often that I trouble the readers of The Atlantic Monthly.
I should not trouble them now, but for the importunities of my wife,
who "feels to insist" that a duty to society is unfulfilled, till I
have told why I had to have a double, and how he undid me. She is
sure, she says, that intelligent persons cannot understand that
pressure upon public servants which alone drives any man into the
employment of a double. And while I fear she thinks, at the bottom
of her heart, that my fortunes will never be re-made, she has a
faint hope, that, as another Rasselas, I may teach a lesson to
future publics, from which they may profit, though we die. Owing to
the behavior of my double, or, if you please, to that public
pressure which compelled me to employ him, I have plenty of leisure
to write this communication.
I am, or rather was, a minister, of the Sandemanian connection. I
was settled in the active, wide-awake town of Naguadavick, on one of
the finest water-powers in Maine. We used to call it a Western town
in the heart of the civilization of New England. A charming place it
was and is. A spirited, brave young parish had I; and it seemed as
if we might have all "the joy of eventful living" to our hearts'
content.
Alas! how little we knew on the day of my ordination, and in those
halcyon moments of our first housekeeping! To be the confidential
friend in a hundred families in the town—cutting the social trifle,
as my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped-syllabub
to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which is the foundation"—to keep
abreast of the thought of the age in one's study, and to do one's
best on Sunday to interweave that thought with the active life of an
active town, and to inspirit both and make both infinite by glimpses
of the Eternal Glory, seemed such an exquisite forelook into one's
life! Enough to do, and all so real and so grand! If this vision
could only have lasted.
The truth is, that this vision was not in itself a delusion, nor,
indeed, half bright enough. If one could only have been left to do
his own business, the vision would have accomplished itself and
brought out new paraheliacal visions, each as bright as the
original. The misery was and is, as we found out, I and Polly,
before long, that, besides the vision, and besides the usual human
and finite failures in life (such as breaking the old pitcher that
came over in the Mayflower, and putting into the fire the alpenstock
with which her father climbed Mont Blanc)—besides, these, I say
(imitating the style of Robinson Crusoe), there were pitchforked in
on us a great rowen-heap of humbugs, handed down from some unknown
seed-time, in which we were expected, and I chiefly, to fulfil
certain public functions before the community, of the character of
those fulfilled by the third row of supernumeraries who stand behind
the Sepoys in the spectacle of the Cataract of the Ganges. They were
the duties, in a word, which one performs as member of one or
another social class or subdivision, wholly distinct from what one
does as A. by himself A. What invisible power put these functions on
me, it would be very hard to tell. But such power there was and is.
And I had not been at work a year before I found I was living two
lives, one real and one merely functional—for two sets of people,
one my parish, whom I loved, and the other a vague public, for whom
I did not care two straws. All this was in a vague notion, which
everybody had and has, that this second life would eventually bring
out some great results, unknown at present, to somebody somewhere.
Crazed by this duality of life, I first read Dr. Wigan on the
Duality of the Brain, hoping that I could train one side of my head
to do these outside jobs, and the other to do my intimate and real
duties. For Richard Greenough once told me that, in studying for the
statue of Franklin, he found that the left side of the great man's
face was philosophic and reflective, and the right side funny and
smiling. If you will go and look at the bronze statue, you will find
he has repeated this observation there for posterity. The eastern
profile is the portrait of the statesman Franklin, the western of
Poor Richard. But Dr. Wigan does not go into these niceties of this
subject, and I failed. It was then that, on my wife's suggestion, I
resolved to look out for a Double.
I was, at first, singularly successful. We happened to be recreating
at Stafford Springs that summer. We rode out one day, for one of the
relaxations of that watering-place, to the great Monsonpon House. We
were passing through one of the large halls, when my destiny was
fulfilled! I saw my man!
He was not shaven. He had on no spectacles. He was dressed in a
green baize roundabout and faded blue overalls, worn sadly at the
knee. But I saw at once that he was of my height, five feet four and
a half. He had black hair, worn off by his hat. So have and have not
I. He stooped in walking. So do I. His hands were large, and mine.
And—choicest gift of Fate in all—he had, not "a strawberry-mark on
his left arm," but a cut from a juvenile brickbat over his right
eye, slightly affecting the play of that eyebrow. Reader, so have
I!—My fate was sealed!
A word with Mr. Holley, one of the inspectors, settled the whole
thing. It proved that this Dennis Shea was a harmless, amiable
fellow, of the class known as shiftless, who had sealed his fate by
marrying a dumb wife, who was at that moment ironing in the laundry.
Before I left Stafford, I had hired both for five years. We had
applied to Judge Pynchon, then the probate judge at Springfield, to
change the name of Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. We had explained
to the Judge, what was the precise truth, that an eccentric
gentleman wished to adopt Dennis under this new name into his
family. It never occurred to him that Dennis might be more than
fourteen years old. And thus, to shorten this preface, when we
returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there entered Mrs.
Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingham,
and my double, who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by as good right as I.
Oh, the fun we had the next morning in shaving his beard to my
pattern, cutting his hair to match mine, and teaching him how to
wear and how to take off gold-bowed spectacles! Really, they were
electroplate, and the glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes
were excellent). Then in four successive afternoons I taught him
four speeches. I had found these would be quite enough for the
supernumerary-Sepoy line of life, and it was well for me they were.
For though he was good-natured, he was very shiftless, and it was,
as our national proverb says, "like pulling teeth" to teach him. But
at the end of the next week he could say, with quite my easy and
frisky air:
1. "Very well, thank you. And you?" This for an answer to casual
salutations.
2. "I am very glad you liked it."
3. "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said,
that I will not occupy the time."
4. "I agree, in general, with my friend on the other side of the
room."
At first I had a feeling that I was going to be at great cost for
clothing him. But it proved, of course, at once, that, whenever he
was out, I should be at home. And I went, during the bright period
of his success, to so few of those awful pageants which require a
black dress-coat and what the ungodly call, after Mr. Dickens, a
white choker, that in the happy retreat of my own dressing-gowns and
jackets my days went by as happily and cheaply as those of another
Thalaba. And Polly declares there was never a year when the
tailoring cost so little. He lived (Dennis, not Thalaba) in his
wife's room over the kitchen. He had orders never to show himself at
that window. When he appeared in the front of the house, I retired
to my sanctissimum and my dressing-gown. In short, the Dutchman and,
his wife, in the old weather-box, had not less to do with, each
other than he and I. He made the furnace-fire and split the wood
before daylight; then he went to sleep again, and slept late; then
came for orders, with a red silk bandanna tied round his head, with
his overalls on, and his dress-coat and spectacles off. If we
happened to be interrupted, no one guessed that he was Frederic
Ingham as well as I; and, in the neighborhood, there grew up an
impression that the minister's Irishman worked day-times in the
factory village at New Coventry. After I had given him his orders, I
never saw him till the next day.
I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the Enlightenment
Board. The Enlightenment Board consists of seventy-four members, of
whom sixty-seven are necessary to form a quorum. One becomes a
member under the regulations laid down in old Judge Dudley's will. I
became one by being ordained pastor of a church in Naguadavick. You
see you cannot help yourself, if you would. At this particular time
we had had four successive meetings, averaging four hours
each—wholly occupied in whipping in a quorum. At the first only
eleven men were present; at the next, by force of three circulars,
twenty-seven; at the third, thanks to two days' canvassing by
Auchmuty and myself, begging men to come, we had sixty. Half the
others were in Europe. But without a quorum we could do nothing. All
the rest of us waited grimly for our four hours, and adjourned
without any action. At the fourth meeting we had flagged, and only
got fifty-nine together. But on the first appearance of my
double—whom I sent on this fatal Monday to the fifth meeting—he was
the sixty-seventh man who entered the room. He was greeted with a
storm of applause! The poor fellow had missed his way—read the
street signs ill through his spectacles (very ill, in fact, without
them)—and had not dared to inquire. He entered the room—finding the
president and secretary holding to their chairs two judges of the
Supreme Court, who were also members ex officio, and were begging
leave to go away. On his entrance all was changed. Presto, the
by-laws were amended, and the Western property was given away.
Nobody stopped to converse with him. He voted, as I had charged him
to do, in every instance, with the minority. I won new laurels as a
man of sense, though a little unpunctual—and Dennis, alias Ingham,
returned to the parsonage, astonished to see with how little wisdom
the world is governed. He cut a few of my parishioners in the
street; but he had his glasses off, and I am known to be
nearsighted. Eventually he recognized them more readily than I.
I "set him again" at the exhibition of the New Coventry Academy; and
here he undertook a "speaking part"—as, in my boyish, worldly days,
I remember the bills used to say of Mlle. Celeste. We are all
trustees of the New Coventry Academy; and there has lately been "a
good deal of feeling" because the Sandemanian trustees did not
regularly attend the exhibitions. It has been intimated, indeed,
that the Sandemanians are leaning towards Free-Will, and that we
have, therefore, neglected these semi-annual exhibitions, while
there is no doubt that Auchmuty last year went to Commencement at
Waterville. Now the head master at New Coventry is a real good
fellow, who knows a Sanskrit root when he sees it, and often cracks
etymologies with me—so that, in strictness, I ought to go to their
exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting through three long July
days in that Academy chapel, following the program from
Tuesday Morning. English Composition. Sunshine. Miss Jones,
round to
Trio on Three Pianos. Duel from opera of Midshipman Easy. Marryatt.
coming in at nine, Thursday evening! Think of this, reader, for men
who know the world is trying to go backward, and who would give
their lives if they could help it on! Well! The double had succeeded
so well at the Board, that I sent him to the Academy. (Shade of
Plato, pardon!) He arrived early on Tuesday, when, indeed, few but
mothers and clergymen are generally expected, and returned in the
evening to us, covered with honors. He had dined at the right hand
of the chairman, and he spoke in high terms of the repast. The
chairman had expressed his interest in the French conversation. "I
am very glad you liked it," said Dennis; and the poor chairman,
abashed, supposed the accent had been wrong. At the end of the day,
the gentlemen present had been called upon for speeches—the Rev.
Frederic Ingham first, as it happened; upon which Dennis had risen,
and had said, "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so
well said, that I will not occupy the time." The girls were
delighted, because Dr. Dabney, the year before, had given them at
this occasion a scolding on impropriety of behavior at lyceum
lectures. They all declared Mr. Ingham was a love—and so handsome!
(Dennis is good-looking.) Three of them, with arms behind the
others' waists, followed him up to the wagon he rode home in; and a
little girl with a blue sash had been sent to give him a rosebud.
After this debut in speaking, he went to the exhibition for two days
more, to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned. Indeed, Polly
reported that he had pronounced the trustees' dinners of a higher
grade than those of the parsonage. When the next term began, I found
six of the Academy girls had obtained permission to come across the
river and attend our church. But this arrangement did not long
continue.
After this he went to several Commencements for me, and ate the
dinners provided; he sat through three of our Quarterly Conventions
for me—always voting judiciously, by the simple rule mentioned
above, of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who had before
been losing caste among my friends, as holding myself aloof from the
associations of the body, began to rise in everybody's favor. "Ingham's
a good fellow—always on hand"; "never talks much—but does the right
thing at the right time"; "is not as unpunctual as he used to be—he
comes early, and sits through to the end." "He has got over his old
talkative habit, too. I spoke to a friend of his about it once; and
I think Ingham took it kindly," etc., etc.
This voting power of Dennis was particularly valuable at the
quarterly meetings of the Proprietors of the Naguadavick Ferry. My
wife inherited from her father some shares in that enterprise, which
is not yet fully developed, though it doubtless will become a very
valuable property. The law of Maine then forbade stockholders to
appear by proxy at such meetings. Polly disliked to go, not being,
in fact, a "hens'-rights hen," and transferred her stock to me. I,
after going once, disliked it more than she. But Dennis went to the
next meeting, and liked it very much. He said the armchairs were
good, the collation good, and the free rides to stockholders
pleasant. He was a little frightened when they first took him upon
one of the ferry-boats, but after two or three quarterly meetings he
became quite brave.
Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. Indeed, being of that
type which is called shiftless, he was only too happy to be told
daily what to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting or in any
way original in his discharge of that duty. He learned, however, to
discriminate between the lines of his life, and very much preferred
these stockholders' meetings and trustees' dinners and commencement
collations to another set of occasions, from which he used to beg
off most piteously. Our excellent brother, Dr. Fillmore, had taken a
notion at this time that our Sandemanian churches needed more
expression of mutual sympathy. He insisted upon it that we were
remiss. He said, that, if the Bishop came to preach at Naguadavick,
all the Episcopal clergy of the neighborhood were present; if Dr.
Pond came, all the Congregational clergymen turned out to hear him;
if Dr. Nichols, all the Unitarians; and he thought we owed it to
each other that, whenever there was an occasional service at a
Sandemanian church, the other brethren should all, if possible,
attend. "It looked well," if nothing more. Now this really meant
that I had not been to hear one of Dr. Fillmore's lectures on the
Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that he did not hear one of my
course on the Sandemanianism of Anselm. But I felt badly when he
said it; and afterwards I always made Dennis go to hear all the
brethren preach, when I was not preaching myself. This was what he
took exceptions to—the only thing, as I said, which he ever did
except to. Now came the advantage of his long morning-nap, and of
the green tea with which Polly supplied the kitchen. But he would
plead, so humbly, to be let off, only from one or two! I never
excepted him, however. I knew the lectures were of value, and I
thought it best he should be able to keep the connection.
Click Here for Part II
My Double; and How He Undid Me
A Classic Funny Story
by
Edward Everett Hale |
