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Page 16
And off he went, as excited as a schoolboy at the beginning of an
adventure. I began to think he was allowing his imaginations to pray him
tricks--purposely allowing himself to be deceived, as a child that is
nearing the age of reason still delights in the old fairy tales and the
Santa Claus myth, long after its mind has penetrated the deception.
Still, in the end it proved we were very far--very far indeed from being
upon an idle quest.
By eight o'clock I had obtained Doctor Castleton's consent that
Bainbridge and I might visit Peters, and remain as long as we should
desire.
"I will run out myself, early in the morning," said Castleton, "and do
what I can to keep life in the old man. Don't let Bainbridge get into
the old fellow any of his newfangled, highfalutin remedies--if you do, I
will not answer for the consequences. I don't say that Bainbridge will
not in time--in time, mark you--be a dazzling therapeutist; but not
until experience has modified his views, and shown him that Rome was not
built in a day, nor with a toothpick, either. Don't tell him what I say,
please--I wouldn't like to hurt his young feelings, you know."
When Doctor Bainbridge drove up in front of the hotel, I was waiting for
him; and we were soon on our way toward the Peters domicile.
The SIXTH Chapter
The time required by Doctor Castleton to reach the home of Dirk Peters
had been about forty minutes; the time required by Doctor Bainbridge was
two and one-half times forty minutes, or only twenty minutes short of
two hours. Bainbridge drove a single horse, a beautiful, large, dappled
bay--an excellent animal, which, as most horses do, had learned those of
his master's ways that bore relation to his own interests. Bainbridge
was a lover of animals, as Castleton was not; Castleton was an admirer
of horses for their action, whilst with Bainbridge the welfare of his
horse was everything, and he never drove rapidly without a particular
and pressing necessity.
So we drove along in a leisurely way, conversing of Dirk Peters and the
Pym story, until we had arranged a plan of action for drawing out of the
old man an account of that voyage, the mere thought of which, coming
suddenly upon him, had affected him in the terrible manner which I had
that afternoon witnessed. Doctor Bainbridge explained to me that the
wild demonstrations made by Peters and described by me were a result,
not so much of any thought of those adventures on which he must have
pondered thousands of times in the forty-eight or forty-nine intervening
years, as it was of the manner in which the thoughts or mental pictures
had been brought to his mind.
"I need only remind you," he said, "of a single mental characteristic
within the experience of almost every person, to make this matter clear,
and to indicate what our course with the old man must be, and why I said
to you to come prepared for a long stay. Suppose, for instance, a woman
to have lost her husband through some extremely painful accident, his
death being not only sudden but of a horrifying nature, and that several
years have elapsed since she was widowed. Now, she has thought the
matter over ten thousand times, as the suggestion to do so entered her
mind by a hundred different routes, as, for instance, by the seeing of
something that her husband in life possessed, or by the drift of her own
thought bringing her to the subject by association or by indirect paths
of suggestion. Every day her mind has many times pictured the horrible
scene of death, until she is dry-eyed and passive amid a storm of sad
ideas. But now, after all these years, bring to her mind, suddenly and
by a strange route of suggestion, the same old horror--let a voice, and
particularly the voice of a stranger, remind her of the terrible
scene--and immediately the demonstration follows: the sobs of anguish,
the tears, all, as on the day of the accident. It is the method of
approach--the mode of suggestion when the fact is known but latent in
consciousness, that is responsible for the nervous demonstration. In
another instance, visual suggestion might have a similar result and
audible suggestion be harmless. I anticipate no serious obstruction in
the path to Peters' confidence. Patience, care, deliberate action--the
fact ever in mind that 'The more haste the less speed,' and we shall win
the prize for which we strive."
As we drove along in the bright moonlight, after we had determined on
our "method of approach" to Peters' mind, I felt confident that with the
knowledge and tact of Bainbridge we should certainly succeed in our
efforts; and I began to think along other lines. The friendly manner in
which I had been treated by all whom I had met in America, from the
millionaire coal operator down to the bell-boy, came into my thoughts. I
had not been treated as a foreigner, except to my own advantage, the
older residents of the town seeming to look upon me more as they might
look upon a man from another State of the Union. In America, even the
inland towns are cosmopolitan, while in England only the larger cities
and seaport towns have that characteristic. I was therefore able to
judge of certain questions not only from hearsay, but from actual
observation. I noticed, for example, that among the American
working-classes there existed a feeling of repugnance for the Chinaman.
Of the lower-class Italian, everybody thought enough to keep out of his
reach after dark. Germans and Irishmen were numerous, and each
individual was taken on his own merits. The English were universally
liked, wherever I went. True, there was a little tendency to allude to
the glories of Bunker Hill and the like; but this tendency was evinced
in a manner rather amusing than objectionable to an Englishman. If there
exists in the American heart a drop of bitterness for the English, I
never discovered it. I am writing now of the American-born American. I
gathered the idea that Frenchmen, as seen in America, were scarcely
taken seriously; though all Americans have been systematically educated
to respect and admire the French Nation. Of Spaniards, the prevalent
idea seemed to be that they were better at arm's length. (Anglo-Saxon
literature has been very unkind to the Spaniard.) I did not meet an
American that seemed to hate anybody--I do not conceive it possible for
an American to harbor the feeling of hatred.
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