His _Lives of the Gods_ went into six editions. They
said--the big critics of his day--that he was "a poet who wrote no
poetry, yet lived it passionately in the spirit of old-world, classical
Beauty," and I know he was a wonderful fellow in his way and made the
dons and schoolmasters all sit up. We're proud of him all right. After
twenty-five years of successful "exchange" in New York City, I confess
I am unable to appreciate all that, feeling more in touch with the
commercial and financial spirit of the age, progress, development and
the rest. But, still, I'm not ashamed of the classical old boy, who
seems to have been a good deal of a Pagan, judging by the records we
have kept. However, Arthur peering up at that picture in the dusk, his
eyes half moist with emotion, and his voice gone positively shaky, is a
thing I never have forgotten. He stimulated my curiosity uncommonly. It
stirred something deep down in me that I hardly cared to acknowledge on
Wall Street--something burning. And the next time I saw him was in the summer of 1910, when I came
to Europe for a two months' look around--my wife at Newport with the
children--and hearing that he was in Switzerland, learning a bit of
French to help him in the business, I made a point of dropping in upon
him just to see how he was shaping generally and what new kinks his
mind had taken on. There was something in Arthur I never could quite
forget. Whenever his face came into my mind I began to think. A kind of
longing came over me--a desire for Beauty, I guess, it was. It made me
dream. I found him at an English tutor's--a lively old dog, with a fondness
for the cheap native wines, and a financial interest in the tourist
development of the village. The boys learnt French in the mornings,
possibly, but for the rest of the day were free to amuse themselves
exactly as they pleased and without a trace of supervision--provided
the parents footed the bills without demur. This suited everybody all round; and as long as the boys came home with
an accent and a vocabulary, all was well. For myself, having learned
in New York to attend strictly to my own business--exchange between
different countries with a profit--I did not deem it necessary to
exchange letters and opinions with my brother--with no chance of profit
anywhere. But I got to know Arthur, and had a queer experience of my
own into the bargain. Oh, there was profit in it for me. I'm drawing
big dividends to this day on the investment. I put up at the best hotel in the village, a one-horse show, differing
from the other inns only in the prices charged for a lot of cheap
decoration in the dining-room, and went up to surprise my nephew with
a call the first thing after dinner. The tutor's house stood some way
back from the narrow street, among fields where there were more flowers
than grass, and backed by a forest of fine old timber that stretched
up several thousand feet to the snow. The snow at least was visible,
peeping out far overhead just where the dark line of forest stopped;
but in reality, I suppose, that was an effect of foreshortening,
and whole valleys and pastures intervened between the trees and the
snow-fields. The sunset, long since out of the valley, still shone
on those white ridges, where the peaks stuck up like the teeth of a
gigantic saw. I guess it meant five or six hours' good climbing to get
up to them--and nothing to do when you got there. Switzerland, anyway,
seemed a poor country, with its little bit of watch-making, sour wines,
and every square yard hanging upstairs at an angle of 60 degrees used
for hay. Picture postcards, chocolate and cheap tourists kept it going
apparently, but I dare say it was all right enough to learn French
in--and cheap as Hoboken to live in! Arthur was out; I just left a card and wrote on it that I would be very
pleased if he cared to step down to take luncheon with me at my hotel
next day. Having nothing better to do, I strolled homewards by way of
the forest. Now what came over me in that bit of dark pine forest is more than I
can quite explain, but I think it must have been due to the height--the
village was 4,000 feet above sea-level--and the effect of the rarefied
air upon my circulation. The nearest thing to it in my experience is
rye whisky, the queer touch of wildness, of self-confidence, a kind
of whooping rapture and the reckless sensation of being a tin god of
sorts that comes from a lot of alcohol--a memory, please understand,
of years before, when I thought it a grand thing to own the earth and
paint the old town red. I seemed to walk on air, and there was a smell
about those trees that made me suddenly--well, that took my mind clean
out of its accustomed rut. It was just too lovely and wonderful for me
to describe it. I had got well into the forest and lost my way a bit. The smell of an old-world garden wasn't in it. It smelt to me as if
some one had just that minute turned out the earth all fresh and new. There was moss and tannin, a hint of burning, something between smoke
and incense, say, and a fine clean odour of pitch-pine bark when the
sun gets on it after rain--and a flavour of the sea thrown in for luck. That was the first I noticed, for I had never smelt anything half so
good since my camping days on the coast of Maine. And I stood still to
enjoy it. I threw away my cigar for fear of mixing things and spoiling
it. "If that could be bottled," I said to myself, "it'd sell for two
dollars a pint in every city in the Union!" And it was just then, while standing and breathing it in, that I got
the queer feeling of some one watching me. I kept quite still. Some one
was moving near me. The sweat went trickling down my back. A kind of
childhood thrill got hold of me. It was very dark. I was not afraid exactly, but I was a stranger in
these parts and knew nothing about the habits of the mountain peasants. There might be tough customers lurking around after dark on the chance
of striking some guy of a tourist with money in his pockets. Yet,
somehow, that wasn't the kind of feeling that came to me at all, for,
though I had a pocket Browning at my hip, the notion of getting at it
did not even occur to me. The sensation was new--a kind of lifting,
exciting sensation that made my heart swell out with exhilaration. There was happiness in it. A cloud that _weighed_ seemed to roll off my
mind, same as that light-hearted mood when the office door is locked
and I'm off on a two months' holiday--with gaiety and irresponsibility
at the back of it. It was invigorating. I felt youth sweep over me. I stood there, wondering what on earth was coming on me, and half
expecting that any moment some one would come out of the darkness and
show himself; and as I held my breath and made no movement at all the
queer sensation grew stronger. I believe I even resisted a temptation
to kick up my heels and dance, to let out a flying shout as a man
with liquor in him does. Instead of this, however, I just kept dead
still.