[No Wisdom Like Silence]

(From Novel Notes, 1893)

I was travelling from Buffalo to New York, and, during the day, it suddenly occurred to me that I might make the journey more interesting by leaving the cars at Albany and completing the distance by water. But I did not know how the boats ran, and I had no guide-book with me. I glanced about for some one to question. A mild-looking, elderly gentleman sat by the next window reading a book, the cover of which was familiar to me. I deemed him to be intelligent, and approached him.

“I beg your pardon for interrupting you,” I said, sitting down opposite to him, “but could you give me any information about the boats between Albany and New York?”

“Well,” he answered, looking up with a pleasant smile, “there are three lines of boats altogether. There is the Heggarty line, but they only go as far as Catskill. Then there are the Poughkeepsie boats, which go every other day. Or there is what we call the canal boat.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well now, which would you advise me to – ”

He jumped to his feet with a cry, and stood glaring down at me with a gleam in his eyes which was positively murderous.

“You villain!” he hissed in low tones of concentrated fury, “so that’s your game, is it? I’ll give you something that you’ll want advice about,” and he whipped out a six-chambered revolver.

I felt hurt. I also felt that if the interview were prolonged I might feel even more hurt. So I left him without a word, and drifted over to the other end of the car, where I took up a position between a stout lady and the door.

I was still musing upon the incident, when, looking up, I observed my elderly friend making towards me. I rose and laid my hand upon the doorknob. He should not find me unprepared. He smiled, reassuringly, however, and held out his hand.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “that maybe I was a little rude just now. I should like, if you will let me, to explain. I think, when you have heard my story, you will understand, and forgive me.”

There was that about him which made me trust him. We found a quiet corner in the smoking-car. I had a “whiskey sour,” and he prescribed for himself a strange thing of his own invention. Then we lighted our cigars, and he talked.

“Thirty years ago,” said he, “I was a young man with a healthy belief in myself, and a desire to do good to others. I did not imagine myself a genius. I did not even consider myself exceptionally brilliant or talented. But it did seem to me, and the more I noted the doings of my fellow-men and women, the more assured did I become of it, that I possessed plain, practical common sense to an unusual and remarkable degree. Conscious of this, I wrote a little book, which I entitled How to Be Happy, Wealthy, and Wise, and published it at my own expense. I did not seek for profit. I merely wished to be useful.

The book did not make the stir that I had anticipated. Some two or three hundred copies went off, and then the sale practically ceased.

I confess that at first I was disappointed. But after a while, I reflected that, if people would not take my advice, it was more their loss than mine, and I dismissed the matter from my mind.

One morning, about a twelvemonth afterwards, I was sitting in my study, when the servant entered to say that there was a man downstairs who wanted very much to see me.

“I gave instructions that he should be sent up, and up accordingly he came.

“He was a common man, but he had an open, intelligent countenance, and his manner was most respectful. I motioned him to be seated. He selected a chair, and sat down on the extreme edge of it.

“‘I hope you’ll pard’n this intrusion, sir,’ he began, speaking deliberately, and twirling his hat the while; ‘but I’ve come more’n two hundred miles to see you, sir.’

“I expressed myself as pleased, and he continued: ‘They tell me, sir, as you’re the gentleman as wrote that little book, How to Be Happy, Wealthy, and Wise.”

He enumerated the three items slowly, dwelling lovingly on each. I admitted the fact.

“‘Ah, that’s a wonderful book, sir,’ he went on. ‘I ain’t one of them as has got brains of their own – not to speak of – but I know enough to know them as has; and when I read that little book, I says to myself, Josiah Hackett (that’s my name, sir), when you’re in doubt don’t you get addling that thick head o’ yours, as will only tell you all wrong; you go to the gentleman as wrote that little book and ask him for his advice. He is a kind-hearted gentleman, as any one can tell, and he’ll give it you; and WHEN you’ve got it, you go straight ahead, full steam, and don’t you stop for nothing, ’cause he’ll know what’s best for you, same as he knows what’s best for everybody. That’s what I says, sir; and that’s what I’m here for.’

“He paused, and wiped his brow with a green cotton handkerchief. I prayed him to proceed.

“It appeared that the worthy fellow wanted to marry, but could not make up his mind WHOM he wanted to marry. He had his eye – so he expressed it – upon two young women, and they, he had reason to believe, regarded him in return with more than usual favour. His difficulty was to decide which of the two – both of them excellent and deserving young persons – would make him the best wife. The one, Juliana, the only daughter of a retired sea-captain, he described as a winsome lassie. The other, Hannah, was an older and altogether more womanly girl. She was the eldest of a large family. Her father, he said, was a God-fearing man, and was doing well in the timber trade. He asked me which of them I should advise him to marry.

“I was flattered. What man in my position would not have been? This Josiah Hackett had come from afar to hear my wisdom. He was willing – nay, anxious – to entrust his whole life’s happiness to my discretion. That he was wise in so doing, I entertained no doubt. The choice of a wife I had always held to be a matter needing a calm, unbiassed judgment, such as no lover could possibly bring to bear upon the subject. In such a case, I should not have hesitated to offer advice to the wisest of men. To this poor, simple-minded fellow, I felt it would be cruel to refuse it.

“He handed me photographs of both the young persons under consideration. I jotted down on the back of each such particulars as I deemed would assist me in estimating their respective fitness for the vacancy in question, and promised to carefully consider the problem, and write him in a day or two.

“His gratitude was touching. ‘Don’t you trouble to write no letters, sir,’ he said; ‘you just stick down “Julia” or “Hannah” on a bit of paper, and put it in an envelope. I shall know what it means, and that’s the one as I shall marry.’

“Then he gripped me by the hand and left me.

“I gave a good deal of thought to the selection of Josiah’s wife. I wanted him to be happy.

“Juliana was certainly very pretty. There was a lurking playfulness about the corners of Juliana’s mouth which conjured up the sound of rippling laughter. Had I acted on impulse, I should have clasped Juliana in Josiah’s arms.

“But, I reflected, more sterling qualities than mere playfulness and prettiness are needed for a wife. Hannah, though not so charming, clearly possessed both energy and sense – qualities highly necessary to a poor man’s wife. Hannah’s father was a pious man, and was ‘doing well’ – a thrifty, saving man, no doubt. He would have instilled into her lessons of economy and virtue; and, later on, she might possibly come in for a little something. She was the eldest of a large family. She was sure to have had to help her mother a good deal. She would be experienced in household matters, and would understand the bringing up of children.

“Julia’s father, on the other hand, was a retired sea-captain. Seafaring folk are generally loose sort of fish. He had probably been in the habit of going about the house, using language and expressing views, the hearing of which could not but have exercised an injurious effect upon the formation of a growing girl’s character. Juliana was his only child. Only children generally make bad men and women. They are allowed to have their own way too much. The pretty daughter of a retired sea-captain would be certain to be spoilt.

“Josiah, I had also to remember, was a man evidently of weak character. He would need management. Now, there was something about Hannah’s eye that eminently suggested management.

“At the end of two days my mind was made up. I wrote ‘Hannah’ on a slip of paper, and posted it.

“A fortnight afterwards I received a letter from Josiah. He thanked me for my advice, but added, incidentally, that he wished I could have made it Julia. However, he said, he felt sure I knew best, and by the time I received the letter he and Hannah would be one.

“That letter worried me. I began to wonder if, after all, I had chosen the right girl. Suppose Hannah was not all I thought her! What a terrible thing it would be for Josiah. What data, sufficient to reason upon, had I possessed? How did I know that Hannah was not a lazy, ill-tempered girl, a continual thorn in the side of her poor, overworked mother, and a perpetual blister to her younger brothers and sisters? How did I know she had been well brought up? Her father might be a precious old fraud: most seemingly pious men are. She may have learned from him only hypocrisy.

“Then also, how did I know that Juliana’s merry childishness would not ripen into sweet, cheerful womanliness? Her father, for all I knew to the contrary, might be the model of what a retired sea-captain should be; with possibly a snug little sum safely invested somewhere. And Juliana was his only child. What reason had I for rejecting this fair young creature’s love for Josiah?

“I took her photo from my desk. I seemed to detect a reproachful look in the big eyes. I saw before me the scene in the little far-away home when the first tidings of Josiah’s marriage fell like a cruel stone into the hitherto placid waters of her life. I saw her kneeling by her father’s chair, while the white-haired, bronzed old man gently stroked the golden head, shaking with silent sobs against his breast. My remorse was almost more than I could bear.

“I put her aside and took up Hannah – my chosen one. She seemed to be regarding me with a smile of heartless triumph. There began to take possession of me a feeling of positive dislike to Hannah.

“I fought against the feeling. I told myself it was prejudice. But the more I reasoned against it the stronger it became. I could tell that, as the days went by, it would grow from dislike to loathing, from loathing to hate. And this was the woman I had deliberately selected as a life companion for Josiah!

“For weeks I knew no peace of mind. Every letter that arrived I dreaded to open, fearing it might be from Josiah. At every knock I started up, and looked about for a hiding-place. Every time I came across the heading, ‘Domestic Tragedy,’ in the newspapers, I broke into a cold perspiration. I expected to read that Josiah and Hannah had murdered each other, and died cursing me.

“As the time went by, however, and I heard nothing, my fears began to assuage, and my belief in my own intuitive good judgment to return. Maybe, I had done a good thing for Josiah and Hannah, and they were blessing me. Three years passed peacefully away, and I was beginning to forget the existence of the Hacketts.

“Then he came again. I returned home from business one evening to find him waiting for me in the hall. The moment I saw him I knew that my worst fears had fallen short of the truth. I motioned him to follow me to my study. He did so, and seated himself in the identical chair on which he had sat three years ago. The change in him was remarkable; he looked old and careworn. His manner was that of resigned hopelessness.

“We remained for a while without speaking, he twirling his hat as at our first interview, I making a show of arranging papers on my desk. At length, feeling that anything would be more bearable than this silence, I turned to him.

“‘Things have not been going well with you, I’m afraid, Josiah?’ I said.

“‘No, sir,’ he replied quietly; ‘I can’t say as they have, altogether. That Hannah of yours has turned out a bit of a teaser.’

“There was no touch of reproach in his tones. He simply stated a melancholy fact.

“‘But she is a good wife to you in other ways,’ I urged. ‘She has her faults, of course. We all have. But she is energetic. Come now, you will admit she’s energetic.’

“I owed it to myself to find some good in Hannah, and this was the only thing I could think of at that moment.

“‘Oh yes, she’s that,’ he assented. ‘A little too much so for our sized house, I sometimes think.’

“‘You see,’ he went on, ‘she’s a bit cornery in her temper, Hannah is; and then her mother’s a bit trying, at times.’

“‘Her mother!’ I exclaimed, ‘but what’s SHE got to do with you?’

“‘Well, you see, sir,’ he answered, ‘she’s living with us now – ever since the old man went off.’

“‘Hannah’s father! Is he dead, then?’

“‘Well, not exactly, sir,’ he replied. ‘He ran off about a twelvemonth ago with one of the young women who used to teach in the Sunday School, and joined the Mormons. It came as a great surprise to every one.’

“I groaned. ‘And his business,’ I inquired – ‘the timber business, who carries that on?’’

“‘Oh, that!’ answered Josiah. ‘Oh, that had to be sold to pay his debts – leastways, to go towards ’em.’

“I remarked what a terrible thing it was for his family. I supposed the home was broken up, and they were all scattered.

“‘No, sir,’ he replied simply, ‘they ain’t scattered much. They’re all living with us.’

“‘But there,’ he continued, seeing the look upon my face; ‘of course, all this has nothing to do with you, sir. You’ve got troubles of your own, I daresay, sir. I didn’t come here to worry you with mine. That would be a poor return for all your kindness to me.’

“‘What has become of Julia?’ I asked. I did not feel I wanted to question him any more about his own affairs.

“A smile broke the settled melancholy of his features. ‘Ah,’ he said, in a more cheerful tone than he had hitherto employed, ‘it does one good to think about HER, it does. She’s married to a friend of mine now, young Sam Jessop. I slips out and gives ’em a call now and then, when Hannah ain’t round. Lord, it’s like getting a glimpse of heaven to look into their little home. He often chaffs me about it, Sam does. “Well, you WAS a sawny-headed chunk, Josiah, YOU was,” he often says to me. We’re old chums, you know, sir, Sam and me, so he don’t mind joking a bit like.’

“Then the smile died away, and he added with a sigh, ‘Yes, I’ve often thought since, sir, how jolly it would have been if you could have seen your way to making it Juliana.’

“I felt I must get him back to Hannah at any cost. I said, ‘I suppose you and your wife are still living in the old place?’

“‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘if you can call it living. It’s a hard struggle with so many of us.’

“He said he did not know how he should have managed if it had not been for the help of Julia’s father. He said the captain had behaved more like an angel than anything else he knew of.

“‘I don’t say as he’s one of your clever sort, you know, sir,’ he explained. ‘Not the man as one would go to for advice, like one would to you, sir; but he’s a good sort for all that.’

“‘And that reminds me, sir,’ he went on, ‘of what I’ve come here about. You’ll think it very bold of me to ask, sir, but – ’

“I interrupted him. ‘Josiah,’ I said, ‘I admit that I am much to blame for what has come upon you. You asked me for my advice, and I gave it you. Which of us was the bigger idiot, we will not discuss. The point is that I did give it, and I am not a man to shirk my responsibilities. What, in reason, you ask, and I can grant, I will give you.’

“He was overcome with gratitude. ‘I knew it, sir,’ he said. ‘I knew you would not refuse me. I said so to Hannah. I said, “I will go to that gentleman and ask him. I will go to him and ask him for his advice.’”

“I said, ‘His what?’

“‘His advice,’ repeated Josiah, apparently surprised at my tone, ‘on a little matter as I can’t quite make up my mind about.’

“I thought at first he was trying to be sarcastic, but he wasn’t. That man sat there, and wrestled with me for my advice as to whether he should invest a thousand dollars which Julia’s father had offered to lend him, in the purchase of a laundry business or a bar. He hadn’t had enough of it (my advice, I mean); he wanted it again, and he spun me reasons why I should give it him. The choice of a wife was a different thing altogether, he argued. Perhaps he ought NOT to have asked me for my opinion as to that. But advice as to which of two trades a man would do best to select, surely any business man could give. He said he had just been reading again my little book, How to Be Happy, etc., and if the gentleman who wrote that could not decide between the respective merits of one particular laundry and one particular bar, both situate in the same city, well, then, all he had got to say was that knowledge and wisdom were clearly of no practical use in this world whatever.

“Well, it did seem a simple thing to advise a man about. Surely as to a matter of this kind, I, a professed business man, must be able to form a sounder judgment than this poor pumpkin-headed lamb. It would be heartless to refuse to help him. I promised to look into the matter, and let him know what I thought.

“He rose and shook me by the hand. He said he would not try to thank me; words would only seem weak. He dashed away a tear and went out.

I brought an amount of thought to bear upon this thousand-dollar investment sufficient to have floated a bank. I did not mean to make another Hannah job, if I could help it. I studied the papers Josiah had left with me, but did not attempt to form any opinion from them. I went down quietly to Josiah’s city, and inspected both businesses on the spot. I instituted secret but searching inquiries in the neighbourhood. I disguised myself as a simpleminded young man who had come into a little money, and wormed myself into the confidence of the servants. I interviewed half the town upon the pretence that I was writing the commercial history of New England, and should like some particulars of their career, and I invariably ended my examination by asking them which was their favourite bar, and where they got their washing done. I stayed a fortnight in the town. Most of my spare time I spent at the bar. In my leisure moments I dirtied my clothes so that they might be washed at the laundry.

“As the result of my investigations I discovered that, so far as the two businesses themselves were concerned, there was not a pin to choose between them. It became merely a question of which particular trade would best suit the Hacketts.

“I reflected. The keeper of a bar was exposed to much temptation. A weak-minded man, mingling continually in the company of topers, might possibly end by giving way to drink. Now, Josiah was an exceptionally weak-minded man. It had also to be borne in mind that he had a shrewish wife, and that her whole family had come to live with him. Clearly, to place Josiah in a position of easy access to unlimited liquor would be madness.

“About a laundry, on the other hand, there was something soothing. The working of a laundry needed many hands. Hannah’s relatives might be used up in a laundry, and made to earn their own living. Hannah might expend her energy in flat-ironing, and Josiah could turn the mangle. The idea conjured up quite a pleasant domestic picture. I recommended the laundry.

“On the following Monday, Josiah wrote to say that he had bought the laundry. On Tuesday I read in the Commercial Intelligence that one of the most remarkable features of the time was the marvellous rise taking place all over New England in the value of hotel and bar property. On Thursday, in the list of failures, I came across no less than four laundry proprietors; and the paper added, in explanation, that the American washing industry, owing to the rapid growth of Chinese competition, was practically on its last legs. I went out and got drunk.

“My life became a curse to me. All day long I thought of Josiah. All night I dreamed of him. Suppose that, not content with being the cause of his domestic misery, I had now deprived him of the means of earning a livelihood, and had rendered useless the generosity of that good old sea-captain. I began to appear to myself as a malignant fiend, ever following this simple but worthy man to work evil upon him.

“Time passed away, however; I heard nothing from or of him, and my burden at last fell from me.

“Then at the end of about five years he came again.

“He came behind me as I was opening the door with my latch-key, and laid an unsteady hand upon my arm. It was a dark night, but a gas-lamp showed me his face. I recognised it in spite of the red blotches and the bleary film that hid the eyes. I caught him roughly by the arm, and hurried him inside and up into my study.

“‘Sit down,’ I hissed, ‘and tell me the worst first.’

“He was about to select his favourite chair. I felt that if I saw him and that particular chair in association for the third time, I should do something terrible to both. I snatched it away from him, and he sat down heavily on the floor, and burst into tears. I let him remain there, and, thickly, between hiccoughs, he told his tale.

“The laundry had gone from bad to worse. A new railway had come to the town, altering its whole topography. The business and residential portion had gradually shifted northward. The spot where the bar – the particular one which I had rejected for the laundry – had formerly stood was now the commercial centre of the city. The man who had purchased it in place of Josiah had sold out and made a fortune. The southern area (where the laundry was situate) was, it had been discovered, built upon a swamp, and was in a highly unsanitary condition. Careful housewives naturally objected to sending their washing into such a neighbourhood.

“Other troubles had also come. The baby – Josiah’s pet, the one bright thing in his life – had fallen into the copper and been boiled. Hannah’s mother had been crushed in the mangle, and was now a helpless cripple, who had to be waited on day and night.

“Under these accumulated misfortunes Josiah had sought consolation in drink, and had become a hopeless sot. He felt his degradation keenly, and wept copiously. He said he thought that in a cheerful place, such as a bar, he might have been strong and brave; but that there was something about the everlasting smell of damp clothes and suds, that seemed to sap his manhood.

“I asked him what the captain had said to it all. He burst into fresh tears, and replied that the captain was no more. That, he added, reminded him of what he had come about. The good-hearted old fellow had bequeathed him five thousand dollars. He wanted my advice as to how to invest it.

“My first impulse was to kill him on the spot. I wish now that I had. I restrained myself, however, and offered him the alternative of being thrown from the window or of leaving by the door without another word.

“He answered that he was quite prepared to go by the window if I would first tell him whether to put his money in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company, Limited, or in the Union Pacific Bank. Life had no further interest for him. All he cared for was to feel that this little nest-egg was safely laid by for the benefit of his beloved ones after he was gone.

“He pressed me to tell him what I thought of nitrates. I replied that I declined to say anything whatever on the subject. He assumed from my answer that I did not think much of nitrates, and announced his intention of investing the money, in consequence, in the Union Pacific Bank.

“I told him by all means to do so, if he liked.

“He paused, and seemed to be puzzling it out. Then he smiled knowingly, and said he thought he understood what I meant. It was very kind of me. He should put every dollar he possessed in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company.

“He rose (with difficulty) to go. I stopped him. I knew, as certainly as I knew the sun would rise the next morning, that whichever company I advised him, or he persisted in thinking I had advised him (which was the same thing), to invest in, would, sooner or later, come to smash. My grandmother had all her little fortune in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company. I could not see her brought to penury in her old age. As for Josiah, it could make no difference to him whatever. He would lose his money in any event. I advised him to invest in Union Pacific Bank Shares. He went and did it.

“The Union Pacific Bank held out for eighteen months. Then it began to totter. The financial world stood bewildered. It had always been reckoned one of the safest banks in the country. People asked what could be the cause. I knew well enough, but I did not tell.

“The Bank made a gallant fight, but the hand of fate was upon it. At the end of another nine months the crash came.

“(Nitrates, it need hardly be said, had all this time been going up by leaps and bounds. My grandmother died worth a million dollars, and left the whole of it to a charity. Had she known how I had saved her from ruin, she might have been more grateful.)

“A few days after the failure of the Bank, Josiah arrived on my doorstep; and, this time, he brought his families with him. There were sixteen of them in all.

“What was I to do? I had brought these people step by step to the verge of starvation. I had laid waste alike their happiness and their prospects in life. The least amends I could make was to see that at all events they did not want for the necessities of existence.

“That was seventeen years ago. I am still seeing that they do not want for the necessities of existence; and my conscience is growing easier by noticing that they seem contented with their lot. There are twenty-two of them now, and we have hopes of another in the spring.

“That is my story,” he said. “Perhaps you will now understand my sudden emotion when you asked for my advice. As a matter of fact, I do not give advice now on any subject.”