WORLD'S END

Lanny felt as soon as he entered the house that here was a place ruled by love. Great-Great-Aunt Bethesda was a Quaker, gentle, quiet, like a little gray dove. She said: "Has thee had a pleasant trip?" - and this was something new to Lanny, and awakened his curiosity. He knew that the old gentleman was a Unitarian, and that this had been a scandal in its time, and still was to Grandfather Samuel, and perhaps to Stepmother Esther. One glance about was enough to tell him that Eli was a scholar, for the walls were lined with books that had been read and lived with.

Sitting in this patriarch's study, Lanny was invited to talk about himself, and didn't mind doing it. He was able to guess what would interest his relatives: the natural beauty of the place where he had lived, and the cultivated persons he had met, especially the old ones, such as M. Anatole France, and M. Priedieu, and M. Rochambeau. Eli Budd questioned him about his reading; and when Lanny named names, he didn't say: "All French writers." He had read them himself, and made comments on them, and was able to discover from Lanny's remarks that he had understood what was in them.

Between these two there took place that chemical procиss of the soul whereby two become one, not gradually, but all at once. They had lived three thousand miles apart, yet they had developed this affinity. The seventeen-year-old one told his difficulties and his problems, and the eighty-three-year-old one renewed his youth, and spoke words which seemed a sort of divination. Said he:

"Do not let other people invade your personality. Remember that every human being is a unique phenomenon, and worth developing. You will meet many who have no resources of their own, and who will try to fasten themselves upon you. You will find others eager to tell you what to do and think and be. But it is better to go apart and learn to be yourself."

Great-Great-Uncle Eli was a "transcendentalist," having known many of the old New England group. There is something in us all, he said, that is greater than ourselves, that works through us and can be used in the making of character. The central core of life is personality. To respect the personality of others is the beginning of virtue, and to enforce respect for it is the first duty of the individual toward all forms of government, all organizations and systems which men contrive to enslave and limit their fellows.

I V

Youth and age went out and strolled in the calm of twilight, and again in the freshness of the morning. They sat and ate the frugal meals which two gentle ladies prepared for them. But most of the time they just wanted to sit in the book-walled study and talk. Lanny had never heard anyone whose conversation satisfied him so completely, and old Eli saw his spirit reborn in this new Budd from across the sea.

Lanny told about his mother, and about Marcel; about Rick and his family, and about Kurt; he even told about Rosemary, and the old clergyman was not shocked; he said that customs in sexual matters varied in different parts of the world, and what suited some did not suit others. "The blood of youth is hot," he said, "and impatience sets traps for us, and prepares regrets that sometimes last all our lives. The important thing is not to wrong any woman - and that is no easy matter, for women are great demanders, and do not scruple to invade the personality." Great-Great-Uncle Eli smiled, but Lanny knew he was serious.

Free-thinker that this old man was, he was nevertheless a product of the Puritan conscience, and wanted men and women to become pure in heart. As Lanny listened, he began to recall a certain afternoon upon the heights by the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Port. His friend Kurt Meissner had not merely voiced the same ethical ideas, but had justified them by the same metaphysical concepts. Lanny mentioned that to the ex-clergyman, who said there was nothing strange about it, because New England transcendentalism had stemmed directly from German philosophical idealism. Interesting to see a son of New England bringing home another load of it, a century later!

Eli bade Lanny have the courage of his vision. Without it men "would be dull clods, and life would become blind greed and empty pleasure-seeking. "God save the Budds if they were never anything but munitions makers and salesmen!" exclaimed Eli; and these words pierced to the center of Lanny's being. When the time came for him to depart, this gentle yet hardy old man gave him a volume of Emerson's, essays inscribed by that great teacher's fine and sensitive hand. Emerson had been merely a name to Lanny; but he promised to read the book, and did so.

V