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In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Prue and I do not entertain much; our means forbid it. In truth,
other people entertain for us. We enjoy that hospitality of which no
account is made. We see the show, and hear the music, and smell the
flowers of great festivities, tasting as it were the drippings from
rich dishes. Our own dinner service is remarkably plain, our
dinners, even on state occasions, are strictly in keeping, and
almost our only guest is Titbottom. I buy a handful of roses as I
come up from the office, perhaps, and Prue arranges them so prettily
in a glass dish for the centre of the table that even when I have
hurried out to see Aurelia step into her carriage to go out to dine,
I have thought that the bouquet she carried was not more beautiful
because it was more costly. I grant that it was more harmonious with
her superb beauty and her rich attire. And I have no doubt that if
Aurelia knew the old man, whom she must have seen so often watching
her, and his wife, who ornaments her sex with as much sweetness,
although with less splendor, than Aurelia herself, she would also
acknowledge that the nosegay of roses was as fine and fit upon their
table as her own sumptuous bouquet is for herself. I have that faith
in the perception of that lovely lady. It is at least my habit—I
hope I may say, my nature, to believe the best of people, rather
than the worst. If I thought that all this sparkling setting of
beauty—this fine fashion—these blazing jewels and lustrous silks and
airy gauzes, embellished with gold-threaded embroidery and wrought
in a thousand exquisite elaborations, so that I cannot see one of
those lovely girls pass me by without thanking God for the vision—if
I thought that this was all, and that underneath her lace flounces
and diamond bracelets Aurelia was a sullen, selfish woman, then I
should turn sadly homewards, for I should see that her jewels were
flashing scorn upon the object they adorned, and that her laces were
of a more exquisite loveliness than the woman whom they merely
touched with a superficial grace. It would be like a gaily decorated
mausoleum—bright to see, but silent and dark within.
"Great excellences, my dear Prue," I sometimes allow myself to say,
"lie concealed in the depths of character, like pearls at the bottom
of the sea. Under the laughing, glancing surface, how little they
are suspected! Perhaps love is nothing else than the sight of them
by one person. Hence every man's mistress is apt to be an enigma to
everybody else. I have no doubt that when Aurelia is engaged, people
will say that she is a most admirable girl, certainly; but they
cannot understand why any man should be in love with her. As if it
were at all necessary that they should! And her lover, like a boy
who finds a pearl in the public street, and wonders as much that
others did not see it as that he did, will tremble until he knows
his passion is returned; feeling, of course, that the whole world
must be in love with this paragon who cannot possibly smile upon
anything so unworthy as he."
"I hope, therefore, my dear Mrs. Prue," I continue to say to my
wife, who looks up from her work regarding me with pleased pride, as
if I were such an irresistible humorist, "you will allow me to
believe that the depth may be calm although the surface is dancing.
If you tell me that Aurelia is but a giddy girl, I shall believe
that you think so. But I shall know, all the while, what profound
dignity, and sweetness, and peace lie at the foundation of her
character."
I say such things to Titbottom during the dull season at the office.
And I have known him sometimes to reply with a kind of dry, sad
humor, not as if he enjoyed the joke, but as if the joke must be
made, that he saw no reason why I should be dull because the season
was so.
"And what do I know of Aurelia or any other girl?" he says to me
with that abstracted air. "I, whose Aurelias were of another century
and another zone."
Then he falls into a silence which it seems quite profane to
interrupt. But as we sit upon our high stools at the desk opposite
each other, I leaning upon my elbows and looking at him; he, with
sidelong face, glancing out of the window, as if it commanded a
boundless landscape, instead of a dim, dingy office court, I cannot
refrain from saying:
"Well!"
He turns slowly, and I go chatting on—a little too loquacious,
perhaps, about those young girls. But I know that Titbottom regards
such an excess as venial, for his sadness is so sweet that you could
believe it the reflection of a smile from long, long years ago.
One day, after I had been talking for a long time, and we had put up
our books, and were preparing to leave, he stood for some time by
the window, gazing with a drooping intentness, as if he really saw
something more than the dark court, and said slowly:
"Perhaps you would have different impressions of things if you saw
them through my spectacles."
There was no change in his expression. He still looked from the
window, and I said:
"Titbottom, I did not know that you used glasses. I have never seen
you wearing spectacles."
"No, I don't often wear them. I am not very fond of looking through
them. But sometimes an irresistible necessity compels me to put them
on, and I cannot help seeing." Titbottom sighed.
"Is it so grievous a fate, to see?" inquired I.
"Yes; through my spectacles," he said, turning slowly and looking at
me with wan solemnity.
It grew dark as we stood in the office talking, and taking our hats
we went out together. The narrow street of business was deserted.
The heavy iron shutters were gloomily closed over the windows. From
one or two offices struggled the dim gleam of an early candle, by
whose light some perplexed accountant sat belated, and hunting for
his error. A careless clerk passed, whistling. But the great tide of
life had ebbed. We heard its roar far away, and the sound stole into
that silent street like the murmur of the ocean into an inland dell.
"You will come and dine with us, Titbottom?"
He assented by continuing to walk with me, and I think we were both
glad when we reached the house, and Prue came to meet us, saying:
"Do you know I hoped you would bring Mr. Titbottom to dine?"
Titbottom smiled gently, and answered:
"He might have brought his spectacles with him, and I have been a
happier man for it."
Prue looked a little puzzled.
"My dear," I said, "you must know that our friend, Mr. Titbottom, is
the happy possessor of a pair of wonderful spectacles. I have never
seen them, indeed; and, from what he says, I should be rather afraid
of being seen by them. Most short-sighted persons are very glad to
have the help of glasses; but Mr. Titbottom seems to find very
little pleasure in his."
"It is because they make him too far-sighted, perhaps," interrupted
Prue quietly, as she took the silver soup-ladle from the sideboard.
We sipped our wine after dinner, and Prue took her work. Can a man
be too far-sighted? I did not ask the question aloud. The very tone
in which Prue had spoken convinced me that he might.
"At least," I said, "Mr. Titbottom will not refuse to tell us the
history of his mysterious spectacles. I have known plenty of magic
in eyes"—and I glanced at the tender blue eyes of Prue—"but I have
not heard of any enchanted glasses."
"Yet you must have seen the glass in which your wife looks every
morning, and I take it that glass must be daily enchanted." said
Titbottom, with a bow of quaint respect to my wife.
I do not think I have seen such a blush upon Prue's cheek
since—well, since a great many years ago.
"I will gladly tell you the history of my spectacles," began
Titbottom. "It is very simple; and I am not at all sure that a great
many other people have not a pair of the same kind. I have never,
indeed, heard of them by the gross, like those of our young friend,
Moses, the son of the Vicar of Wakefield. In fact, I think a gross
would be quite enough to supply the world. It is a kind of article
for which the demand does not increase with use. If we should all
wear spectacles like mine, we should never smile any more. Oh—I am
not quite sure—we should all be very happy."
"A very important difference," said Prue, counting her stitches.
"You know my grandfather Titbottom was a West Indian. A large
proprietor, and an easy man, he basked in the tropical sun, leading
his quiet, luxurious life. He lived much alone, and was what people
call eccentric, by which I understand that he was very much himself,
and, refusing the influence of other people, they had their little
revenges, and called him names. It is a habit not exclusively
tropical. I think I have seen the same thing even in this city. But
he was greatly beloved—my bland and bountiful grandfather. He was so
large-hearted and open-handed. He was so friendly, and thoughtful,
and genial, that even his jokes had the air of graceful
benedictions. He did not seem to grow old, and he was one of those
who never appear to have been very young. He flourished in a
perennial maturity, an immortal middle-age.
"My grandfather lived upon one of the small islands, St. Kit's,
perhaps, and his domain extended to the sea. His house, a rambling
West Indian mansion, was surrounded with deep, spacious piazzas,
covered with luxurious lounges, among which one capacious chair was
his peculiar seat. They tell me he used sometimes to sit there for
the whole day, his great, soft, brown eyes fastened upon the sea,
watching the specks of sails that flashed upon the horizon, while
the evanescent expressions chased each other over his placid face,
as if it reflected the calm and changing sea before him. His morning
costume was an ample dressing-gown of gorgeously flowered silk, and
his morning was very apt to last all day.
"He rarely read, but he would pace the great piazza for hours, with
his hands sunken in the pockets of his dressing-gown, and an air of
sweet reverie, which any author might be very happy to produce.
"Society, of course, he saw little. There was some slight
apprehension that if he were bidden to social entertainments he
might forget his coat, or arrive without some other essential part
of his dress; and there is a sly tradition in the Titbottom family
that, having been invited to a ball in honor of the new governor of
the island, my grandfather Titbottom sauntered into the hall towards
midnight, wrapped in the gorgeous flowers of his dressing-gown, and
with his hands buried in the pockets, as usual. There was great
excitement, and immense deprecation of gubernatorial ire. But it
happened that the governor and my grandfather were old friends, and
there was no offense. But as they were conversing together, one of
the distressed managers cast indignant glances at the brilliant
costume of my grandfather, who summoned him, and asked courteously:
"'Did you invite me or my coat?'
"'You, in a proper coat,' replied the manager.
"The governor smiled approvingly, and looked at my grandfather.
"'My friend," said he to the manager, 'I beg your pardon, I forgot.'
"The next day my grandfather was seen promenading in full ball dress
along the streets of the little town.
"'They ought to know,' said he, 'that I have a proper coat, and that
not contempt nor poverty, but forgetfulness, sent me to a ball in my
dressing-gown.'
"He did not much frequent social festivals after this failure, but
he always told the story with satisfaction and a quiet smile.
"To a stranger, life upon those little islands is uniform even to
weariness. But the old native dons like my grandfather ripen in the
prolonged sunshine, like the turtle upon the Bahama banks, nor know
of existence more desirable. Life in the tropics I take to be a
placid torpidity. During the long, warm mornings of nearly half a
century, my grandfather Titbottom had sat in his dressing-gown and
gazed at the sea. But one calm June day, as he slowly paced the
piazza after breakfast, his dreamy glance was arrested by a little
vessel, evidently nearing the shore. He called for his spyglass, and
surveying the craft, saw that she came from the neighboring island.
She glided smoothly, slowly, over the summer sea. The warm morning
air was sweet with perfumes, and silent with heat. The sea sparkled
languidly, and the brilliant blue hung cloudlessly over. Scores of
little island vessels had my grandfather seen come over the horizon,
and cast anchor in the port. Hundreds of summer mornings had the
white sails flashed and faded, like vague faces through forgotten
dreams. But this time he laid down the spyglass, and leaned against
a column of the piazza, and watched the vessel with an intentness
that he could not explain. She came nearer and nearer, a graceful
spectre in the dazzling morning.
"'Decidedly I must step down and see about that vessel,' said my
grandfather Titbottom.
"He gathered his ample dressing-gown about him, and stepped from the
piazza with no other protection from the sun than the little smoking
cap upon his head. His face wore a calm, beaming smile, as if he
approved of all the world. He was not an old man, but there was
almost a patriarchal pathos in his expression as he sauntered along
in the sunshine towards the shore. A group of idle gazers was
collected to watch the arrival. The little vessel furled her sails
and drifted slowly landward, and as she was of very light draft, she
came close to the shelving shore. A long plank was put out from her
side, and the debarkation commenced. My grandfather Titbottom stood
looking on to see the passengers descend. There were but a few of
them, and mostly traders from the neighboring island. But suddenly
the face of a young girl appeared over the side of the vessel, and
she stepped upon the plank to descend. My grandfather Titbottom
instantly advanced, and moving briskly reached the top of the plank
at the same moment, and with the old tassel of his cap flashing in
the sun, and one hand in the pocket of his dressing gown, with the
other he handed the young lady carefully down the plank. That young
lady was afterwards my grandmother Titbottom.
"And so, over the gleaming sea which he had watched so long, and
which seemed thus to reward his patient gaze, came his bride that
sunny morning.
"'Of course we are happy,' he used to say: 'For you are the gift of
the sun I have loved so long and so well.' And my grandfather
Titbottom would lay his hand so tenderly upon the golden hair of his
young bride, that you could fancy him a devout Parsee caressing
sunbeams.
"There were endless festivities upon occasion of the marriage; and
my grandfather did not go to one of them in his dressing-gown. The
gentle sweetness of his wife melted every heart into love and
sympathy. He was much older than she, without doubt. But age, as he
used to say with a smile of immortal youth, is a matter of feeling,
not of years. And if, sometimes, as she sat by his side upon the
piazza, her fancy looked through her eyes upon that summer sea and
saw a younger lover, perhaps some one of those graceful and glowing
heroes who occupy the foreground of all young maidens' visions by
the sea, yet she could not find one more generous and gracious, nor
fancy one more worthy and loving than my grandfather Titbottom. And
if in the moonlit midnight, while he lay calmly sleeping, she leaned
out of the window and sank into vague reveries of sweet possibility,
and watched the gleaming path of the moonlight upon the water, until
the dawn glided over it—it was only that mood of nameless regret and
longing, which underlies all human happiness,—or it was the vision
of that life of society, which she had never seen, but of which she
had often read, and which looked very fair and alluring across the
sea to a girlish imagination which knew that it should never know
that reality.
"These West Indian years were the great days of the family," said
Titbottom, with an air of majestic and regal regret, pausing and
musing in our little parlor, like a late Stuart in exile,
remembering England. Prue raised her eyes from her work, and looked
at him with a subdued admiration; for I have observed that, like the
rest of her sex, she has a singular sympathy with the representative
of a reduced family. Perhaps it is their finer perception which
leads these tender-hearted women to recognize the divine right of
social superiority so much more readily than we; and yet, much as
Titbottom was enhanced in my wife's admiration by the discovery that
his dusky sadness of nature and expression was, as it were, the
expiring gleam and late twilight of ancestral splendors, I doubt if
Mr. Bourne would have preferred him for bookkeeper a moment sooner
upon that account. In truth, I have observed, down town, that the
fact of your ancestors doing nothing is not considered good proof
that you can do anything. But Prue and her sex regard sentiment more
than action, and I understand easily enough why she is never tired
of hearing me read of Prince Charlie. If Titbottom had been only a
little younger, a little handsomer, a little more gallantly
dressed—in fact, a little more of the Prince Charlie, I am sure her
eyes would not have fallen again upon her work so tranquilly, as he
resumed his story.
"I can remember my grandfather Titbottom, although I was a very
young child, and he was a very old man. My young mother and my young
grandmother are very distinct figures in my memory, ministering to
the old gentleman, wrapped in his dressing-gown, and seated upon the
piazza. I remember his white hair and his calm smile, and how, not
long before he died, he called me to him, and laying his hand upon
my head, said to me:
"My child, the world is not this great sunny piazza, nor life the
fairy stories which the women tell you here as you sit in their
laps. I shall soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some
memento of my love for you, and I know nothing more valuable than
these spectacles, which your grandmother brought from her native
island, when she arrived here one fine summer morning, long ago. I
cannot quite tell whether, when you grow older, you will regard it
as a gift of the greatest value or as something that you had been
happier never to have possessed.'
"'But grandpapa, I am not short-sighted.'
"'My son, are you not human?' said the old gentleman; and how shall
I ever forget the thoughtful sadness with which, at the same time he
handed me the spectacles.
"Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my grandfather. But I
saw no grandfather, no piazza, no flowered dressing-gown: I saw only
a luxuriant palm-tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape.
Pleasant homes clustered around it. Gardens teeming with fruit and
flowers; flocks quietly feeding; birds wheeling and chirping. I
heard children's voices, and the low lullaby of happy mothers. The
sound of cheerful singing came wafted from distant fields upon the
light breeze. Golden harvests glistened out of sight, and I caught
their rustling whisper of prosperity. A warm, mellow atmosphere
bathed the whole. I have seen copies of the landscapes of the
Italian painter Claude which seemed to me faint reminiscences of
that calm and happy vision. But all this peace and prosperity seemed
to flow from the spreading palm as from a fountain.
"I do not know how long I looked, but I had, apparently, no power,
as I had no will, to remove the spectacles. What a wonderful island
must Nevis be, thought I, if people carry such pictures in their
pockets, only by buying a pair of spectacles! What wonder that my
dear grandmother Titbottom has lived such a placid life, and has
blessed us all with her sunny temper, when she has lived surrounded
by such images of peace.
"My grandfather died. But still, in the warm morning sunshine upon
the piazza, I felt his placid presence, and as I crawled into his
great chair, and drifted on in reverie through the still, tropical
day, it was as if his soft, dreamy eye had passed into my soul. My
grandmother cherished his memory with tender regret. A violent
passion of grief for his loss was no more possible than for the
pensive decay of the year. We have no portrait of him, but I see
always, when I remember him, that peaceful and luxuriant palm. And I
think that to have known one good old man—one man who, through the
chances and rubs of a long life, has carried his heart in his hand,
like a palm branch, waving all discords into peace, helps our faith
in God, in ourselves, and in each other, more than many sermons. I
hardly know whether to be grateful to my grandfather for the
spectacles; and yet when I remember that it is to them I owe the
pleasant image of him which I cherish, I seem to myself sadly
ungrateful.
"Madam," said Titbottom to Prue, solemnly, "my memory is a long and
gloomy gallery, and only remotely, at its further end, do I see the
glimmer of soft sunshine, and only there are the pleasant pictures
hung. They seem to me very happy along whose gallery the sunlight
streams to their very feet, striking all the pictured walls into
unfading splendor."
Prue had laid her work in her lap, and as Titbottom paused a moment,
and I turned towards her, I found her mild eyes fastened upon my
face, and glistening with happy tears.
"Misfortunes of many kinds came heavily upon the family after the
head was gone. The great house was relinquished. My parents were
both dead, and my grandmother had entire charge of me. But from the
moment that I received the gift of the spectacles, I could not
resist their fascination, and I withdrew into myself, and became a
solitary boy. There were not many companions for me of my own age,
and they gradually left me, or, at least, had not a hearty sympathy
with me; for if they teased me I pulled out my spectacles and
surveyed them so seriously that they acquired a kind of awe of me,
and evidently regarded my grandfather's gift as a concealed magical
weapon which might be dangerously drawn upon them at any moment.
Whenever, in our games, there were quarrels and high words, and I
began to feel about my dress and to wear a grave look, they all took
the alarm, and shouted, 'Look out for Titbottom's spectacles,' and
scattered like a flock of scared sheep.
"Nor could I wonder at it. For, at first, before they took the
alarm, I saw strange sights when I looked at them through the
glasses. If two were quarrelling about a marble or a ball, I had
only to go behind a tree where I was concealed and look at them
leisurely. Then the scene changed, and no longer a green meadow with
boys playing, but a spot which I did not recognize, and forms that
made me shudder or smile. It was not a big boy bullying a little
one, but a young wolf with glistening teeth and a lamb cowering
before him; or, it was a dog faithful and famishing—or a star going
slowly into eclipse—or a rainbow fading—or a flower blooming—or a
sun rising—or a waning moon. The revelations of the spectacles
determined my feeling for the boys, and for all whom I saw through
them. No shyness, nor awkwardness, nor silence, could separate me
from those who looked lovely as lilies to my illuminated eyes. If I
felt myself warmly drawn to any one I struggled with the fierce
desire of seeing him through the spectacles. I longed to enjoy the
luxury of ignorant feeling, to love without knowing, to float like a
leaf upon the eddies of life, drifted now to a sunny point, now to a
solemn shade—now over glittering ripples, now over gleaming
calms,—and not to determined ports, a trim vessel with an inexorable
rudder.
"But, sometimes, mastered after long struggles, I seized my
spectacles and sauntered into the little town. Putting them to my
eyes I peered into the houses and at the people who passed me. Here
sat a family at breakfast, and I stood at the window looking in. O
motley meal! fantastic vision! The good mother saw her lord sitting
opposite, a grave, respectable being, eating muffins. But I saw only
a bank-bill, more or less crumpled and tattered, marked with a
larger or lesser figure. If a sharp wind blew suddenly, I saw it
tremble and flutter; it was thin, flat, impalpable. I removed my
glasses, and looked with my eyes at the wife. I could have smiled to
see the humid tenderness with which she regarded her strange
vis-à-vis. Is life only a game of blind-man's-buff? of droll
cross-purposes?
Click Here for Part II
Titbottom's Spectacles
A Classic Funny Story
by
George William Curtis |
