Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal. Mary Lowell Putnam
promptly and brought in the well-stuffed russet knapsack—took the respectable umbrella from the corner where it was leaning, and followed us up-stairs—placed his load inside the chamber-door, and ran down again. I introduced the Doctor to the chair and table in my little study, where he installed himself contentedly.
When I came down, I found Harry standing by my mother. He was putting the flowers into water for her—consulting her, as he arranged them, now by a look, now by a question. She answered the bright smile with which he took leave of her, when his work was done, by one tender, almost tearful. I knew to whom that smile was given. I knew that beside her then stood the vision of a little boy, fair-haired, dark-eyed, like Harry, and full of such lovely promise as Harry's happy mother could see fulfilled in him. But the sadness flitted lightly, and a soft radiance overspread the dear pale face.
The name of our little Charles had been in my mind too, and my thoughts followed hers backward to that sweet infancy, and forward to that unblemished maturity, attained in purer spheres, of which Harry's noble and tender beauty had brought us a suggestion.
It was the absence of a moment. I was recalled by a greeting given in Harry's cordial voice. Tabitha stood in the doorway. She studied the stranger with a long look, and then, advancing in her stateliest manner, bestowed on him an emphatic and elaborate welcome. He listened with grave and courteous attention, as a prince on a progress might receive the harangue of a village mayor, and answered with simple thanks, which she, satisfied with having performed her own part, accepted as an ample return, and applied herself to more practical hospitality.
Harry had been intent on some purpose when Tabitha intercepted him. He now went quickly out, brought in the knapsack he had thrown down beside the door on his first arrival, and began to undo the straps. I felt myself interested, for there was a happy earnestness in his manner which told of a pleasure on the way for somebody, and it seemed to be my turn. I was not mistaken. He drew out a book, and then another and another.
"These are from Selden."
He watched me as I read the title-pages, entering warmly into my satisfaction, which was great enough, I am sure, to be more than a reward for the weight Selden's gift had added to his pack.
"It does not take long to know Harry Dudley. Dear, affectionate boy, in what Arcadia have you grown up, that you have thus carried the innocence and simplicity of infancy through your twenty years!" This I said within myself, as I looked upon his pure forehead, and met the sweet, confiding expression of his beautiful eyes. Yet, even then, something about the mouth arrested me, something of deep, strong, resolute, which spoke the man who had already thought and renounced and resisted. It does not take long to love Harry Dudley, but I have learned that he is not to be known in an hour. Selden might well leave him to make his own introduction. I can understand, that, to those who are familiar with him, his very name should seem to comprehend a eulogium.
Tabitha gave Dr. Borrow no such ceremonious reception as she had bestowed on Harry. She was hospitable, however, and gracious, with a touch of familiarity in her manner just enough to balance the condescension in his. As he had not been witness of the greater state with which Harry was received, he was not, I trust, sensible of any want.
We sat up late that evening. The hours passed rapidly. Dr. Borrow had laid aside his preoccupations, and gave himself up to the pleasures of discourse. He passed over a wide range of topics, opening freely for us his magazines of learning, scientific and scholastic, and displaying a power of graphic narration I was not prepared for. He aids himself with apt and not excessive gesture. In relating conversations, without descending to mimicry, he characterizes his personages for you, so that you are never in doubt.
Selden, telling me almost everything else about the Doctor, had said nothing of his age; but he spoke of him as of a friend of his own, and is himself only twenty-seven; so I had supposed it to lie on the brighter side of thirty. It did, indeed, seem marvellous that the stores of erudition attributed to him could have been gathered in so early, but I made allowance for Selden's generous faculty of admiration.
Dr. Borrow must be forty, or perhaps a little more. He is of middle height, square-built, of a dull complexion, which makes his open blue eyes look very blue and open. You are to imagine for him a strong, clear voice, a rapid, yet distinct utterance, and a manner which denotes long habit of easy and secure superiority.
I have never known the Doctor in finer vein than that first evening. We were only three to listen to him, but it was long since he had had even so large an audience capable of admiring, I will not say of appreciating him. Whatever his topic, he enchained our attention; but he made his power most felt, perhaps, when treating of his own specialty, or scientific subjects connected with it. He is, as he told us, emphatically a practical man, preferring facts to speculations. He propounds no theories of his own, but he develops those of others very happily, setting forth the most opposite with the same ingenuity and clearness. When, in these expositions, he sometimes approached the limits where earthly science merges in the heavenly, Harry's face showed his mind tending powerfully forward. But the Doctor always stopped short of the point to which he seemed leading, and was on the ground again without sharing in the fall he had prepared for his listeners.
Very entertaining to me were Dr. Borrow's accounts of his travelling experiences and observations in our own State and neighborhood. His judgments he had brought with him, and I soon found that his inquiry had been conducted with the view rather of confirming than of testing them. I felt myself compelled to demur at some of his conclusions; but I cannot flatter myself that I did anything towards shaking his faith in them: he only inculcated them upon me with greater zeal and confidence. When a little debate of this kind occurred, Harry followed it attentively, but took no part in it. I sometimes felt that his sympathies were on my side, and my opponent certainly thought so—for, when I pressed him a little hard, he would turn upon his travelling-companion a burst of refutation too lively to be addressed to a new acquaintance. The pleasant laugh in Harry's eyes showed him amused, yet still far within the limits of respect.
Sometimes, in the course of his narrations, or of his disquisitions upon men and manners, American or foreign, the Doctor turned for corroboration to Harry, who gave it promptly and gladly when he could. If he felt himself obliged to dissent, he did so with deference, and forbore to urge his objections, if they were overruled, as they commonly were.
I found, however, before the first evening was over, that, with all his modesty, Harry maintained his independence. When the Doctor, who is no Utopist, found occasion to aim a sarcasm at the hopes and prospects of the lovers of humanity, or pronounced in a slighting tone some name dear to them, Harry never failed to put in a quiet, but express protest, which should at least exempt him from complicity. And Dr. Borrow would turn upon him a satirical smile, which gradually softened into an indulgent one, and then take up again quietly the thread of his discourse. At times, Harry was forced into more direct and sustained opposition. I observed that his tone was then, if less positive than his antagonist's, quite as decided. If the Doctor's words came with all the weight of a justifiable self-esteem, Harry's had that of deep and intimate conviction. I am persuaded that conversation would lose all zest for the Doctor, if conducted long with persons who agreed with him. He kindles at the first hint of controversy, as the horse at the sound of the trumpet. To Harry sympathy is dearer than triumph; he enters upon contest only when compelled by loyalty to principle or to friendship.
The elder man needs companionship as much as the younger, and perhaps enjoys it as much, though very differently. The admiration he excites reacts upon him and stimulates to new efforts. Harry's tender and grateful nature expands to affectionate interest, as a flower to the sunshine.
The Doctor has a certain intellectual fervor, which quickens the flow of his thought and language, and enables him to lead you, willingly fascinated, along the road he chooses to walk in for the time. When Harry is drawn out of his usual modest reserve to maintain a position, his concentrated enthusiasm sometimes gives to a few words, spoken in his calm, resolute voice, the effect of a masterly eloquence. These words pass into your heart to become a part of its possessions.
I think I never fully understood the meaning of the expression personal influence, until I knew Harry Dudley. What a divine gift it is, when of