The End of the World: A Love Story

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE BACKWOODS PHILOSOPHER.

  One reason for Andrew's love of August Wehle was that he was a German.Far from sharing in the prejudices of his neighbors against foreigners,Andrew had so thorough a contempt for his neighbors, that he likedanybody who did not belong to his own people. If a Turk had emigrated toClark township, Andrew would have fallen in love with him, and built adivan for his special accommodation. But he loved August also for thesake of his gentle temper and his genuine love for books. And onlyAugust or August's mother, upon whom Andrew sometimes called, couldexorcise his demon of misanthropy, which he had nursed so long that itwas now hard to dismiss it.

  Andrew Anderson belonged to a class noticed, I doubt not, by every acuteobserver of provincial life in this country. In backwoods andout-of-the-way communities literary culture produces markedeccentricities in the life. Your bookish man at the West has neverlearned to mark the distinction between the world of ideas and theworld of practical life. Instead of writing poems or romances, he fallsto living them, or at least trying to. Add a disappointment in love, andyou will surely throw him into the class of which Anderson was therepresentative. For the education one gets from books is sadlyone-sided, unless it be balanced by a knowledge of the world.

  Andrew Anderson had always been regarded as an oddity. A man with a goodshare of ideality and literary taste, placed against the dull backgroundof the society of a Western neighborhood in the former half of thecentury, would necessarily appear odd. Had he drifted into communitiesof more culture, his eccentricity, begotten of a sense of superiority tohis surroundings, would have worn away. Had he been happily married, hisoddities would have been softened; but neither of these things happened.He told August a very different history. For the confidence of his"Teutonic friend" had awakened in the solitary man a desire to uncoverthat story which he had kept under lock and key for so many years.

  "Ah! my friend," said he with excitement, "don't trust the faith of awoman." And then rising from his seat he said, "The BackwoodsPhilosopher warns you. I pray you give good heed. I do not know Julia.She is my niece. It ill becomes me to doubt her sincerity. But I knowwhose daughter she is. I pray you give good heed, my Teutonic friend. _Iknow whose daughter she is_!

  "I do not talk much. But you have arrived at a critical point--a pointof turning. Out of his own life, out of his own sorrow, the BackwoodsPhilosopher warns you. I am at peace now. But look at me. Do you not seethe marks of the ravages of a great storm? A sort of a qualifiedhappiness I have in philosophy. But what I might have been if thestorm had not torn me to pieces in my youth--what I might have been,that I am not. I pray you never trust in a woman's keeping the happinessof your life!"

  "LOOK AT ME."]

  Here Andrew slipped his arm through Wehle's, and began to promenade withhim in the large apartment up and down an alley, dimly lighted by acandle, between solid phalanxes of books.

  "I pray you give good heed," he said, resuming. "I was always eccentric.People thought I was either a genius or fool. Perhaps I was much ofboth. But this is a digression. I did not pay any attention to women. Ishunned them. I said that to be a great author and a philosophicalthinker, one must not be a man of society. I never went to awood-chopping, to an apple-peeling, to a corn-shucking, to abarn-raising, nor indeed to any of our rustic feasts. I suppose thispiqued the vanity of the girls, and they set themselves to catch me. Isuppose they thought that I would be a trophy worth boasting. I havenoticed that hunters estimate game according to the difficulty ofgetting it. But this is a digression. Let us return.

  "There came among us, at that time, Abigail Norman. She was pretty. Iswear by all the sacred cats of Egypt, that she was beautiful. She wasindustrious. The best housekeeper in the state! She was high-strung. Iliked her all the more for that. You see a man of imagination is apt tofall in love with a tragedy queen. But this is a digression. Letus return.

  "She spread her toils in my path. While I was wandering through thewoods writing poetry to birds and squirrels, Abby Norman was ambitiousenough to hope to make me her slave, and she did. She read books thatshe thought I liked. She planned in various ways to seem to like what Iliked, and yet she had sense enough to differ a little from me, and somake herself the more interesting. I think a man of real intellect neverlikes to have a man or woman agree with him entirely. But let us return.

  "I loved Abigail desperately. No, I did not love Abigail Norman at all.I did not love her as she was, but I loved her as she seemed to myimagination to be. I think most lovers love an ideal that hovers in theair a little above the real recipient of their love. And I think we menof genius and imagination are apt to love something very different fromthe real person, which is unfortunate.

  "But I am digressing again. To return: I wrote poetry to Abby. I courtedher. I cut off my long hair for a woman, like Samson. I tried to dressmore decently, and made myself ridiculous no doubt, for a man can notdress well unless he has a talent for it. And I never had a genius forbeau-knots.

  "But pardon the digression. Let us return. I was to have married her.The day was set. Then I found accidentally that she was engaged to mybrother Samuel, a young man with better manners than mind. She made himbelieve that she was only making a butt of me. But I think she reallyloved me more than she knew. When I had discovered her treachery, Ishipped on the first flat-boat. I came near committing suicide, andshould have jumped into the river one night, only that I thought itmight flatter her vanity. I came back here and ignored her. She brokewith Samuel and tried to regain my affections. I scorned her. I trod onher heart! I stamped her pride into the dust! I was cruel. I wascontemptuous. I was well-nigh insane. Then she went back to Samuel, and_made_ him marry her. Then she forced my imbecile old father, on hisdeath-bed, to will all the property to Samuel, except this piece ofrough hill-land and one thousand dollars. But here I built this castle.My thousand dollars I put in books. I learned how, to weave thecoverlets of which our country people are so fond, and by this means,and by selling wood to the steamboats, I have made a living and boughtmy library without having to work half of my time. I was determinednever to leave. I swore by all the arms of Vishnu she should never saythat she had driven me away. I don't know anything about Julia. But Iknow whose daughter she is. My young friend, beware! I pray you takegood heed! The Backwoods Philosopher warns you!"