第53章 VIII.(2)

"There are reasons on both sides," answered Number Five. "I have often talked this matter over with The Dictator. This is the way he speaks about it. English blood is apt to tell well on the stock upon which it is engrafted. Over and over again he has noticed finely grown specimens of human beings, and on inquiry has found that one or both of the parents or grandparents were of British origin. The chances are that the descendants of the imported stock will be of a richer organization, more florid, more muscular, with mellower voices, than the native whose blood has been unmingled with that of new emigrants since the earlier colonial times. --So talks The Dictator. --I myself think the American will find his English wife concentrates herself more readily and more exclusively on her husband,--for the obvious reason that she is obliged to live mainly in him. I remember hearing an old friend of my early days say, 'A woman does not bear transplanting.' It does not do to trust these old sayings, and yet they almost always have some foundation in the experience of mankind, which has repeated them from generation to generation. Happy is the married woman of foreign birth who can say to her husband, as Andromache said to Hector, after enumerating all the dear relatives she had lost, 'Yet while my hector still survives, I see My father, mother, brethren, all in thee!'

How many a sorrowing wife, exiled from her native country, dreams of the mother she shall see no more! How many a widow, in a strange land, wishes that her poor, worn-out body could be laid among her kinsfolk, in the little churchyard where she used to gather daisies in her childhood! It takes a great deal of love to keep down the ° climbing sorrow' that swells up in a woman's throat when such memories seize upon her, in her moments of desolation. But if a foreign-born woman does willingly give up all for a man, and never looks backward, like Lot's wife, she is a prize that it is worth running a risk to gain,--that is, if she has the making of a good woman in her; and a few years will go far towards naturalizing her."

The Tutor listened to Number Five with much apparent interest. "And now," he said, "what do you think of her companion?"

"A charming girl for a man of a quiet, easy temperament. The great trouble is with her voice. It is pitched a full note too high. It is aggressive, disturbing, and would wear out a nervous man without his ever knowing what was the matter with him. A good many crazy Northern people would recover their reason if they could live for a year or two among the blacks of the Southern States. But the penetrating, perturbing quality of the voices of many of our Northern women has a great deal to answer for in the way of determining love and friendship. You remember that dear friend of ours who left us not long since? If there were more voices like hers, the world would be a different place to live in. I do not believe any man or woman ever came within the range of those sweet, tranquil tones without being hushed, captivated, entranced I might almost say, by their calming, soothing influence. Can you not imagine the tones in which those words, 'Peace, be still,' were spoken? Such was the effect of the voice to which but a few weeks ago we were listening. It is hard to believe that it has died out of human consciousness. Can such a voice be spared from that world of happiness to which we fondly look forward, where we love to dream, if we do not believe with assured conviction, that whatever is loveliest in this our mortal condition shall be with us again as an undying possession? Your English friend has a very agreeable voice, round, mellow, cheery, and her articulation is charming. Other things being equal, I think you, who are, perhaps, oversensitive, would live from two to three years longer with her than with the other. I suppose a man who lived within hearing of a murmuring brook would find his life shortened if a sawmill were set up within earshot of his dwelling."

"And so you advise me to make love to the English girl, do you?" asked the Tutor.

Number Five laughed. It was not a loud laugh, she never laughed noisily; it was not a very hearty laugh; the idea did not seem to amuse her much.

"No," she said, "I won't take the responsibility. Perhaps this is a case in which the true reading of Gay's line would be How happy could I be with neither.

There are several young women in the world besides our two Annexes."

I question whether the Tutor had asked those questions very seriously, and I doubt if Number Five thought he was very much in earnest.

One of The Teacups reminded me that I had promised to say something of my answers to certain questions. So I began at once: