BOOK I THE PROMPTINGS OF THE IDEAL
It was noon. Sir Edward had stepped from his brougham, and was proceeding on foot down the Strand. He was dressed with his usual faultless taste, but in alighting from his vehicle his foot had slipped, and a small round disk of conglomerated soil, which instantly appeared on his high arched instep, marred the harmonious glitter of his boots. Sir Edward was fastidious. Casting his eyes around, at a little distance he perceived the stand of a youthful bootblack. Thither he sauntered, and carelessly placing his foot on the low stool, he waited the application of the polisher’s art. “’Tis true,” said Sir Edward to himself, yet half aloud, “the contact of the Foul and the Disgusting mars the general effect of the Shiny and the Beautiful—and, yet, why am I here? I repeat it, calmly and deliberately—why am I here? Ha! Boy!”
The Boy looked up—his dark Italian eyes glanced intelligently at the Philosopher, and as with one hand he tossed back his glossy curls from his marble brow, and with the other he spread the equally glossy Day & Martin over the Baronet’s boot, he answered in deep, rich tones: “The Ideal is subjective to the Real. The exercise of apperception gives a distinctiveness to idiocracy, which is, however, subject to the limits of ME. You are an admirer of the Beautiful, sir. You wish your boots blacked. The Beautiful is attainable by means of the Coin.”
“Ah,” said Sir Edward thoughtfully, gazing upon the almost supernal beauty of the Child before him; “you speak well. You have read Kant.”
The Boy blushed deeply. He drew a copy of Kant from his blouse, but in his confusion several other volumes dropped from his bosom on the ground. The Baronet picked them up.
“Ah!” said the Philosopher, “what’s this? Cicero’s ‘De Sonertute,’—at your age, too! Martial’s ‘Epigrams,’ Caesar’s ‘Commentaries.’ What! a classical scholar?”
“E pluribus Unum. Nux vomica. Nil desperandum. Nihil fit!” said the Boy enthusiastically. The Philosopher gazed at the Child. A strange presence seemed to transfuse and possess him. Over the brow of the Boy glittered the pale nimbus of the Student.
“Ah, and Schiller’s ‘Robbers,’ too?” queried the Philosopher.
“Das ist ausgespielt,” said the Boy modestly.
“Then you have read my translation of Schiller’s ‘Ballads’?” continued the Baronet, with some show of interest.
“I have, and infinitely prefer them to the original,” said the Boy, with intellectual warmth. “You have shown how in Actual life we strive for a Goal we cannot reach; how in the Ideal the Goal is attainable, and there effort is victory. You have given us the Antithesis which is a key to the Remainder, and constantly balances before us the conditions of the Actual and the privileges of the Ideal.”
“My very words,” said the Baronet; “wonderful, wonderful!” and he gazed fondly at the Italian boy, who again resumed his menial employment. Alas! the wings of the Ideal were folded. The Student had been absorbed in the Boy.
But Sir Edward’s boots were blacked, and he turned to depart. Placing his hand upon the clustering tendrils that surrounded the classic nob of the infant Italian, he said softly, like a strain of distant music,—
“Boy, you have done well. Love the Good. Protect the Innocent. Provide for the Indigent. Respect the Philosopher.... Stay! Can you tell me what is The True, The Beautiful, The Innocent, The Virtuous?”
“They are things that commence with a capital letter,” said the Boy promptly.
“Enough! Respect everything that commences with a capital letter! Respect ME!” and dropping a halfpenny in the hand of the boy, he departed.
The Boy gazed fixedly at the coin. A frightful and instantaneous change overspread his features. His noble brow was corrugated with baser lines of calculation. His black eye, serpent-like, glittered with suppressed passion. Dropping upon his hands and feet, he crawled to the curbstone, and hissed after the retreating form of the Baronet the single word—
“Bilk!”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg