On his way to keep the appointment of the afternoon, Bennington de
Laney discovered within himself a new psychological experience. He
found that, since the evening before, he had been observing things
about him for the purpose of detailing them to his new friend. Little
beauties of nature--as when a strange bird shone for an instant in
vivid contrast to the mountain laurel near his window; an unusual
effect of pine silhouettes near the sky; a weird, semi-poetic
suggestion of one of Poe's stories implied in a contorted shadow cast
by a gnarled little oak in the light of the moon--these he had noticed
and remembered, and was now eager to tell his companion, with full
assurance of her sympathy and understanding. Three days earlier he
would have passed them by.
But stranger still was his discovery that he had always noticed such
things, and had remembered them. Observations of the sort had
heretofore been quite unconscious. Without knowing it he had always
been a Nature lover, one who appreciated the poetry of her moods, one
who saw the beauty of her smiles, or, what is more rare, the greater
beauty of her frown. The influence had entered into his being, but had
lain neglected. Now it stole forth as the odour of a dried balsam bough
steals from the corner of a loft whither it has been thrown carelessly.
It was all delightful and new, and he wanted to tell her of it.
He did so. After a little he told her about Aliris: A Romance of all
Time, in which she appeared so interested that he detailed the main
idea and the plot. At her request, he promised to read it to her. He
was very young, you see, and very inexperienced; he threw himself
generously, without reserve, on this girl's sympathies in a manner of
which, assuredly, he should have been quite ashamed. Only the very
young are not ashamed.
The girl listened, at first half amused. Then she was touched, for she
saw that it was sincere, and youthful, and indicative of clear faith
in what is beautiful, and in fine ideals of what is fitting. Perhaps,
dimly, she perceived that this is good stuff of which to make a man,
provided it springs from immaturity, and not from the sentimentalism of
degeneracy. The loss of it is a price we pay for wisdom. Some think the
price too high.
As he talked on in this moonshiny way, really believing his ridiculous
abstractions the most important things in the world, gradually she too
became young. She listened with parted lips, and in her great eyes the
soul rose and rose within, clearing away the surface moods as twilight
clears the land of everything but peace.
He was telling of the East again with a certain felicity of
expression--have we not said he had the gift of words?--and an abandon
of sentiment which showed how thoroughly he confided in the sympathy of
his listener. When we are young we are apt to confide in the sympathy
of every listener, and so we make fools of ourselves, and it takes us a
long time to live down our reputations. As we grow older, we believe
less and less in its reality. Perhaps by and by we do not trust to
anybody's sympathy, not even our own.