Of course the reading of the poem at the end of the last paper has left a deep impression. I strongly suspect that something very much like love-making is going on at our table. A peep under the lid of the sugar-bowl has shown me that there is another poem ready for the company. That receptacle is looked upon with an almost tremulous excitement by more than one of The Teacups. The two Annexes turn towards the mystic urn as if the lots which were to determine their destiny were shut up in it. Number Five, quieter, and not betraying more curiosity than belongs to the sex at all ages, glances at the sugarbowl now and then; looking so like a clairvoyant, that sometimes I cannot help thinking she must be one. There is a sly look about that young Doctor's eyes, which might imply that he knows something about what the silver vessel holds, or is going to hold. The Tutor naturally falls under suspicion, as he is known to have written and published poems. I suppose the Professor and myself have hardly been suspected of writing love-poems; but there is no telling,--there is no telling. Why may not some one of the lady Teacups have played the part of a masculine lover? George Sand, George Eliot, Charles Egbert Craddock, made pretty good men in print. The authoress of "Jane Eyre" was taken for a man by many persons. Can Number Five be masquerading in verse? Or is one of the two Annexes the make. believe lover? Or did these girls lay their heads together, and send the poem we had at our last sitting to puzzle the company? It is certain that the Mistress did not write the poem. It is evident that Number Seven, who is so severe in his talk about rhymesters, would not, if he could, make such a fool of himself as to set up for a "poet." Why should not the Counsellor fall in love and write verses?
A good many lawyers have been "poets."
Perhaps the next poem, which may be looked for in its proper place, may help us to form a judgment. We may have several verse-writers among us, and if so there will be a good opportunity for the exercise of judgment in distributing their productions among the legitimate claimants. In the mean time, we must not let the love-making and the song-writing interfere with the more serious matters which these papers are expected to contain.
Number Seven's compendious and comprehensive symbolism proved suggestive, as his whimsical notions often do. It always pleases me to take some hint from anything he says when I can, and carry it out in a direction not unlike that of his own remark. I reminded the company of his enigmatical symbol.
You can divide mankind in the same way, I said. Two words, each of two letters, will serve to distinguish two classes of human beings who constitute the principal divisions of mankind. Can any of you tell what those two words are?
"Give me five letters," cried Number Seven, "and I can solve your problem! F-o-o-1-s,--those five letters will give you the first and largest half. For the other fraction"--Oh, but, said I, I restrict you absolutely to two letters. If you are going to take five, you may as well take twenty or a hundred.
After a few attempts, the company gave it up. The nearest approach to the correct answer was Number Five's guess of Oh and Ah: Oh signifying eternal striving after an ideal, which belongs to one kind of nature; and Ah the satisfaction of the other kind of nature, which rests at ease in what it has attained.
Good! I said to Number Five, but not the answer I am after. The great division between human beings is into the Ifs and the Ases.
Is the last word to be spelt with one or two s's? "asked the young Doctor.
The company laughed feebly at this question. I answered it soberly.
With one s. There are more foolish people among the Ifs than there are among the Ases.
The company looked puzzled, and asked for an explanation.
This is the meaning of those two words as I interpret them:
If it were,--if it might be,--if it could be,--if it had been. One portion of mankind go through life always regretting, always whining, always imagining. These are the people whose backbones remain cartilaginous all their lives long, as do those of certain other vertebrate animals,--the sturgeons, for instance. A good many poets must be classed with this group of vertebrates.
As it is,--this is the way in which the other class of people look at the conditions in which they find themselves. They may be optimists or pessimists, they are very largely optimists,--but, taking things just as they find them, they adjust the facts to their wishes if they can; and if they cannot, then they adjust themselves to the facts. I venture to say that if one should count the Ifs and the Ases in the conversation of his acquaintances, he would find the more able and important persons among them--statesmen, generals, men of business--among the Ases, and the majority of the conspicuous failures among the Ifs. I don't know but this would be as good a test as that of Gideon,--lapping the water or taking it up in the hand. I have a poetical friend whose conversation is starred as thick with ifs as a boiled ham is with cloves. But another friend of mine, a business man, whom I trust in making my investments, would not let me meddle with a certain stock which I fancied, because, as he said, "there are too many ifs in it. As it looks now, I would n't touch it."
