"She's very much taken up with Mr.Blake's enterprises, and leads a very exciting life.She says she's like people who have been home from Europe three years; she's past the most poignant stage of regret, and hasn't reached the second, when they feel that they must go again."Lapham leaned a little toward Mrs.Corey, and said of a picture which he saw on the wall opposite, "Picture of your daughter, I presume?""No; my daughter's grandmother.It's a Stewart Newton;he painted a great many Salem beauties.She was a Miss Polly Burroughs.My daughter IS like her, don't you think?"They both looked at Nanny Corey and then at the portrait.
"Those pretty old-fashioned dresses are coming in again.
I'm not surprised you took it for her.The others"--she referred to the other portraits more or less darkling on the walls--"are my people; mostly Copleys."These names, unknown to Lapham, went to his head like the wine he was drinking; they seemed to carry light for the moment, but a film of deeper darkness followed.He heard Charles Bellingham telling funny stories to Irene and trying to amuse the girl; she was laughing, and seemed very happy.
From time to time Bellingham took part in the general talk between the host and James Bellingham and Miss Kingsbury and that minister, Mr.Sewell.They talked of people mostly;it astonished Lapham to hear with what freedom they talked.
They discussed these persons unsparingly; James Bellingham spoke of a man known to Lapham for his business success and great wealth as not a gentleman; his cousin Charles said he was surprised that the fellow had kept from being governor so long.
When the latter turned from Irene to make one of these excursions into the general talk, young Corey talked to her;and Lapham caught some words from which it seemed that they were speaking of Penelope.It vexed him to think she had not come; she could have talked as well as any of them;she was just as bright; and Lapham was aware that Irene was not as bright, though when he looked at her face, triumphant in its young beauty and fondness, he said to himself that it did not make any difference.He felt that he was not holding up his end of the line, however.When some one spoke to him he could only summon a few words of reply, that seemed to lead to nothing; things often came into his mind appropriate to what they were saying, but before he could get them out they were off on something else;they jumped about so, he could not keep up; but he felt, all the same, that he was not doing himself justice.
At one time the talk ran off upon a subject that Lapham had never heard talked of before; but again he was vexed that Penelope was not there, to have her say; he believed that her say would have been worth hearing.
Miss Kingsbury leaned forward and asked Charles Bellingham if he had read Tears, Idle Tears, the novel that was making such a sensation; and when he said no, she said she wondered at him."It's perfectly heart-breaking, as you'll imagine from the name; but there's such a dear old-fashioned hero and heroine in it, who keep dying for each other all the way through, and making the most wildly satisfactory and unnecessary sacrifices for each other.
You feel as if you'd done them yourself.""Ah, that's the secret of its success," said Bromfield Corey.
"It flatters the reader by painting the characters colossal, but with his limp and stoop, so that he feels himself of their supernatural proportions.You've read it, Nanny?""Yes," said his daughter."It ought to have been called Slop, Silly Slop.""Oh, not quite SLOP, Nanny," pleaded Miss Kingsbury.
"It's astonishing," said Charles Bellingham, "how we do like the books that go for our heart-strings.And Ireally suppose that you can't put a more popular thing than self-sacrifice into a novel.We do like to see people suffering sublimely.""There was talk some years ago," said James Bellingham, "about novels going out." "They're just coming in!"cried Miss Kingsbury.
"Yes," said Mr.Sewell, the minister."And I don't think there ever was a time when they formed the whole intellectual experience of more people.They do greater mischief than ever.""Don't be envious, parson," said the host.
"No," answered Sewell."I should be glad of their help.
But those novels with old-fashioned heroes and heroines in them--excuse me, Miss Kingsbury--are ruinous!""Don't you feel like a moral wreck, Miss Kingsbury?"asked the host.
But Sewell went on: "The novelists might be the greatest possible help to us if they painted life as it is, and human feelings in their true proportion and relation, but for the most part they have been and are altogether noxious."This seemed sense to Lapham; but Bromfield Corey asked:
"But what if life as it is isn't amusing? Aren't we to be amused?""Not to our hurt," sturdily answered the minister.
"And the self-sacrifice painted in most novels like this----""Slop, Silly Slop?" suggested the proud father of the inventor of the phrase.
"Yes--is nothing but psychical suicide, and is as wholly immoral as the spectacle of a man falling upon his sword.""Well, I don't know but you're right, parson," said the host;and the minister, who had apparently got upon a battle-horse of his, careered onward in spite of some tacit attempts of his wife to seize the bridle.
"Right? To be sure I am right.The whole business of love, and love-making and marrying, is painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproportion to the other relations of life.
Love is very sweet, very pretty----"
"Oh, THANK you, Mr.Sewell," said Nanny Corey, in a way that set them all laughing.
