The Restless Sex

As for Meacham, he prowled noiselessly about his duties, little, shrunken, round-shouldered, as though no dislocation in the family circle had occurred; but every day since her departure, at Stephanie's place a fresh flower of some sort lay on the cloth to match the other blossom opposite.

In the library together, after dinner, father and son discussed the void which her absence had created.

"She'll get enough of it and come back," suggested Jim, but without conviction. "It's beastly not having her about."

"Perhaps you have a faint idea how it was for me when you were away," observed his father.

"I know. I had to go through, hadn't I?"

"Of course… But – with your mother gone – it was – lonely. Do you understand, now, why I took Steve when I had the chance?"

The young fellow nodded, looking at his father:

"Of course I understand. But I don't see why Steve had to go. She has everything here to amuse her – everything a girl could desire! Why the deuce should she get restless and go flying about after knowledge?"

"Possibly," said John Cleland, "the child has a mind."

"A feminine one. Yes, of course. I tell you, Father, it's all part and parcel of this world-wide restlessness which has set women fidgeting the whole world over. What is it they want? – because they themselves can't tell you. Do you know?"

"I think I do. They desire to exercise the liberty of choice."

"They have it now, haven't they?"

"Virtually. They're getting the rest. If Steve goes through college she will emerge to find all paths open to women. It worries me a little."

Jim shrugged:

"What is it she calls it – I mean her attitude about choosing a career?"

"She refers to it, I believe, as 'the necessity for self-expression.'"

"Fiddle! The trouble with Steve is that she's afflicted with extreme youth."

"I don't know, Jim. She has a mind."

"It's a purely imitative one. People she has read about draw, write, compose music. Steve is sensitive to impression, high strung, with a very receptive mind; and the idea attracts her. And what happens? She sees me, for example, scribbling away every day; she knows I'm writing a novel; it makes an impression on her and she takes to scribbling, too.

"Oswald Grismer drops in and talks studio and atmosphere and Rodin and Manship. That stirs her up. What occurs within twenty-four hours? Steve orders a box of colours and a modelling table; and she smears her pretty boudoir furniture with oil paint and plasticine. And that's all it amounts to, Father, just the caprice of a very young girl who thinks creative art a romantic cinch, and takes a shy at it."

His father, not smiling, said:

"Possibly. But the mere fact that she does take a shy at these things – spends her leisure in trying to paint, model, and write, when other girls of her age don't, worries me a little. I do not want her to become interested in any profession of an irregular nature. I want Steve to keep away from the unconventional. I'm afraid of it for her."

"Why?"

"Because all intelligence is restless – and Steve is very intelligent. All creative minds desire to find some medium for self-expression. And I'm wondering whether Steve's mind is creative or merely imitative; whether she is actually but blindly searching for an outlet for self-expression, or whether it's merely the healthy mental energy of a healthy body requiring its share of exercise, too."

Jim laughed:

"It's in the air, Father, this mania for 'doing things.' It's the ridiculous renaissance of the commonplace, long submerged. Every college youth, every school girl writes a novel; every janitor, every office boy a scenario. The stage to-day teems with sales-ladies and floor-walkers; the pants-presser and the manufacturer of ladies' cloaks direct the newest art of the moving pictures. Printers' devils and ex-draymen fill the papers with their draughtsmanship; head-waiters write the scores for musical productions. Art is in the air. So why shouldn't Steve believe herself capable of creating a few things? She'll get over it."

"I hope she will."

"She will. Steve is a reasonable child."

"Steve is a sweet, intelligent and reasonable girl… Very impressionable… And sensitive… I hope," he added irrelevantly, "that I shall live a few years more."

"You hadn't contemplated anything to the contrary, had you?" inquired Jim.

They both smiled. Then Cleland Senior said in his pleasant, even way:

"One can never tell… And in case you and Steve have to plod along without me some day, before either of you are really wise enough to dispense with my invaluable advice, try to understand her, Jim. Try always; try patiently… Because I made myself responsible… And, for all her honesty and sweetness and her obedience, Jim, there is – perhaps – restless blood in Steve… There may even be the creative instinct in her also… She's very young to develop it yet – to show whether it really is there and amounts to anything… I should like to live long enough to see – to guide her for the next few years – "

"Of course you are going to live to see Steve's kiddies!" cried the young fellow in cordially scornful protest. "You know perfectly well, Father, that you don't look your age!"

"Don't I?" said Cleland Senior, with a faint smile.

"And you feel all right, don't you, Father?" insisted the boy in that rather loud, careless voice which often chokes tenderness between men. For the memory that these two shared in common made them doubly sensitive to the lightest hint that everything was not entirely right with either.

"Do you feel perfectly well?" repeated the son, looking at his father with smiling intentness.

"Perfectly," replied Cleland Senior, lying.

He had another chat with Dr. Wilmer the following afternoon. It had been an odd affair, and both physician and patient seemed to prefer to speculate about it rather than to come to any conclusion.

It was this. A week or two previous, lying awake in bed after retiring for the night, Cleland seemed to lose consciousness for an interval – probably a very brief interval; and revived, presently, to find himself upright on the floor beside his bed, holding to one of the carved posts, and unable to articulate.

He made no effort to arouse anybody; after a while – but how long he seemed unable to remember clearly – he returned to bed and fell into a heavy sleep. And in the morning when he awoke, the power of speech had returned to him.

But he felt irritable, depressed and tired. That was his story. And the question he had asked Dr. Wilmer was a simple one.

But the physician either could not or would not be definite in his answer. His reply was in the nature of a grave surmise. But the treatment ordered struck Cleland as ominously significant.

CHAPTER X

To any young man his first flirtation with Literature is a heart-rending affair, although the jade takes it lightly enough.

But that muse is a frivolous youngster and plagues her young lovers to the verge of distraction.

And no matter how serious a new aspirant may be or how determined to remain free from self-consciousness, refrain from traditional mental attitudes and censor every impulse toward "fine writing," his frivolous muse beguiles him and flatters him, and leads him on until he has succumbed to every deadly scribbler's sin in his riotous progress of a literary rake.

The only hope for him is that his muse may some day take enough interest in him to mangle his feelings and exterminate his adjectives.

Every morning Jim remained for hours hunched up at his table, fondling his first-born novel. The period of weaning was harrowing. Joy, confidence, pride, excitement, moments of mental intoxication, were succeeded by every species of self-distrust, alarm, funk, slump, and most horrid depression.

One day he felt himself to be easily master of the English language; another day he feared that a public school examination would reveal him as a hopeless illiterate. Like all beginners, he had swallowed the axiom that genius worked only when it had a few moments to spare from other diversions; and he tried it out. The proposition proved to be a self-evident fake.

It was to his own credit that he finally discovered that inspiration comes with preparedness; that the proper place for creative inspiration was a seat at his desk with pencil and pad before him; that the pleasure of self-expression must become a habit as well as a pleasure, and not an occasional caprice to be casually gratified; and that technical excellence is acquired at the daily work-bench alone, and not among the talkers of talk.