Chapter 29

by Herman Melville

　　THE BOON COMPANIONS.The wine, port, being called for, and the two seated at the littletable, a natural pause of convivial expectancy ensued; the stranger'seye turned towards the bar near by, watching the red-cheeked,white-aproned man there, blithely dusting the bottle, and invitinglyarranging the salver and glasses; when, with a sudden impulse turninground his head towards his companion, he said, "Ours is friendship atfirst sight, ain't it?""It is," was the placidly pleased reply: "and the same may be said offriendship at first sight as of love at first sight: it is the only trueone, the only noble one. It bespeaks confidence. Who would go soundinghis way into love or friendship, like a strange ship by night, into anenemy's harbor?""Right. Boldly in before the wind. Agreeable, how we always agree.By-the-way, though but a formality, friends should know each other'snames. What is yours, pray?""Francis Goodman. But those who love me, call me Frank. And yours?""Charles Arnold Noble. But do you call me Charlie.""I will, Charlie; nothing like preserving in manhood the fraternalfamiliarities of youth. It proves the heart a rosy boy to the last.""My sentiments again. Ah!"It was a smiling waiter, with the smiling bottle, the cork drawn; acommon quart bottle, but for the occasion fitted at bottom into a littlebark basket, braided with porcupine quills, gayly tinted in the Indianfashion. This being set before the entertainer, he regarded it withaffectionate interest, but seemed not to understand, or else to pretendnot to, a handsome red label pasted on the bottle, bearing the capitalletters, P. W."P. W.," said he at last, perplexedly eying the pleasing poser, "nowwhat does P. W. mean?""Shouldn't wonder," said the cosmopolitan gravely, "if it stood for portwine. You called for port wine, didn't you?""Why so it is, so it is!""I find some little mysteries not very hard to clear up," said theother, quietly crossing his legs.This commonplace seemed to escape the stranger's hearing, for, full ofhis bottle, he now rubbed his somewhat sallow hands over it, and with astrange kind of cackle, meant to be a chirrup, cried: "Good wine, goodwine; is it not the peculiar bond of good feeling?" Then brimming bothglasses, pushed one over, saying, with what seemed intended for an airof fine disdain: "Ill betide those gloomy skeptics who maintain thatnow-a-days pure wine is unpurchasable; that almost every variety on saleis less the vintage of vineyards than laboratories; that mostbar-keepers are but a set of male Brinvilliarses, with complaisant artspracticing against the lives of their best friends, their customers."A shade passed over the cosmopolitan. After a few minutes' down-castmusing, he lifted his eyes and said: "I have long thought, my dearCharlie, that the spirit in which wine is regarded by too many in thesedays is one of the most painful examples of want of confidence. Look atthese glasses. He who could mistrust poison in this wine would mistrustconsumption in Hebe's cheek. While, as for suspicions against thedealers in wine and sellers of it, those who cherish such suspicions canhave but limited trust in the human heart. Each human heart they mustthink to be much like each bottle of port, not such port as this, butsuch port as they hold to. Strange traducers, who see good faith innothing, however sacred. Not medicines, not the wine in sacraments, hasescaped them. The doctor with his phial, and the priest with hischalice, they deem equally the unconscious dispensers of bogus cordialsto the dying.""Dreadful!""Dreadful indeed," said the cosmopolitan solemnly. "These distrustersstab at the very soul of confidence. If this wine," impressively holdingup his full glass, "if this wine with its bright promise be not true,how shall man be, whose promise can be no brighter? But if wine befalse, while men are true, whither shall fly convivial geniality? Tothink of sincerely-genial souls drinking each other's health at unawaresin perfidious and murderous drugs!""Horrible!""Much too much so to be true, Charlie. Let us forget it. Come, you aremy entertainer on this occasion, and yet you don't pledge me. I havebeen waiting for it.""Pardon, pardon," half confusedly and half ostentatiously lifting hisglass. "I pledge you, Frank, with my whole heart, believe me," taking adraught too decorous to be large, but which, small though it was, wasfollowed by a slight involuntary wryness to the mouth."And I return you the pledge, Charlie, heart-warm as it came to me, andhonest as this wine I drink it in," reciprocated the cosmopolitan withprincely kindliness in his gesture, taking a generous swallow,concluding in a smack, which, though audible, was not so much so as tobe unpleasing."Talking of alleged spuriousness of wines," said he, tranquilly settingdown his glass, and then sloping back his head and with friendlyfixedness eying the wine, "perhaps the strangest part of those allegingsis, that there is, as claimed, a kind of man who, while convinced thaton this continent most wines are shams, yet still drinks away at them;accounting wine so fine a thing, that even the sham article is betterthan none at all. And if the temperance people urge that, by thiscourse, he will sooner or later be undermined in health, he answers,'And do you think I don't know that? But health without cheer I hold abore; and cheer, even of the spurious sort, has its price, which I amwilling to pay.'""Such a man, Frank, must have a disposition ungovernably bacchanalian.""Yes, if such a man there be, which I don't credit. It is a fable, but afable from which I once heard a person of less genius than grotesquenessdraw a moral even more extravagant than the fable itself. He said thatit illustrated, as in a parable, how that a man of a dispositionungovernably good-natured might still familiarly associate with men,though, at the same time, he believed the greater part of menfalse-hearted--accounting society so sweet a thing that even thespurious sort was better than none at all. And if the Rochefoucaultitesurge that, by this course, he will sooner or later be undermined insecurity, he answers, 'And do you think I don't know that? But securitywithout society I hold a bore; and society, even of the spurious sort,has its price, which I am willing to pay.'""A most singular theory," said the stranger with a slight fidget, eyinghis companion with some inquisitiveness, "indeed, Frank, a mostslanderous thought," he exclaimed in sudden heat and with an involuntarylook almost of being personally aggrieved."In one sense it merits all you say, and more," rejoined the other withwonted mildness, "but, for a kind of drollery in it, charity might,perhaps, overlook something of the wickedness. Humor is, in fact, soblessed a thing, that even in the least virtuous product of the humanmind, if there can be found but nine good jokes, some philosophers areclement enough to affirm that those nine good jokes should redeem allthe wicked thoughts, though plenty as the populace of Sodom. At anyrate, this same humor has something, there is no telling what, ofbeneficence in it, it is such a catholicon and charm--nearly all menagreeing in relishing it, though they may agree in little else--and inits way it undeniably does such a deal of familiar good in the world,that no wonder it is almost a proverb, that a man of humor, a mancapable of a good loud laugh--seem how he may in other things--canhardly be a heartless scamp.""Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other, pointing to the figure of a palepauper-boy on the deck below, whose pitiableness was touched, as itwere, with ludicrousness by a pair of monstrous boots, apparently somemason's discarded ones, cracked with drouth, half eaten by lime, andcurled up about the toe like a bassoon. "Look--ha, ha, ha!""I see," said the other, with what seemed quiet appreciation, but of akind expressing an eye to the grotesque, without blindness to what inthis case accompanied it, "I see; and the way in which it moves you,Charlie, comes in very apropos to point the proverb I was speaking of.Indeed, had you intended this effect, it could not have been more so.For who that heard that laugh, but would as naturally argue from it asound heart as sound lungs? True, it is said that a man may smile, andsmile, and smile, and be a villain; but it is not said that a man maylaugh, and laugh, and laugh, and be one, is it, Charlie?""Ha, ha, ha!--no no, no no.""Why Charlie, your explosions illustrate my remarks almost as aptly asthe chemist's imitation volcano did his lectures. But even if experiencedid not sanction the proverb, that a good laugher cannot be a bad man, Ishould yet feel bound in confidence to believe it, since it is a sayingcurrent among the people, and I doubt not originated among them, andhence must be true; for the voice of the people is the voice of truth.Don't you think so?""Of course I do. If Truth don't speak through the people, it neverspeaks at all; so I heard one say.""A true saying. But we stray. The popular notion of humor, considered asindex to the heart, would seem curiously confirmed by Aristotle--Ithink, in his 'Politics,' (a work, by-the-by, which, however it may beviewed upon the whole, yet, from the tenor of certain sections, shouldnot, without precaution, be placed in the hands of youth)--who remarksthat the least lovable men in history seem to have had for humor notonly a disrelish, but a hatred; and this, in some cases, along with anextraordinary dry taste for practical punning. I remember it is relatedof Phalaris, the capricious tyrant of Sicily, that he once caused a poorfellow to be beheaded on a horse-block, for no other cause than having ahorse-laugh.""Funny Phalaris!""Cruel Phalaris!"As after fire-crackers, there was a pause, both looking downward on thetable as if mutually struck by the contrast of exclamations, andpondering upon its significance, if any. So, at least, it seemed; but onone side it might have been otherwise: for presently glancing up, thecosmopolitan said: "In the instance of the moral, drolly cynic, drawnfrom the queer bacchanalian fellow we were speaking of, who had hisreasons for still drinking spurious wine, though knowing it to besuch--there, I say, we have an example of what is certainly a wickedthought, but conceived in humor. I will now give you one of a wickedthought conceived in wickedness. You shall compare the two, and answer,whether in the one case the sting is not neutralized by the humor, andwhether in the other the absence of humor does not leave the sting freeplay. I once heard a wit, a mere wit, mind, an irreligious Parisian wit,say, with regard to the temperance movement, that none, to theirpersonal benefit, joined it sooner than niggards and knaves; because, ashe affirmed, the one by it saved money and the other made money, as inship-owners cutting off the spirit ration without giving its equivalent,and gamblers and all sorts of subtle tricksters sticking to cold water,the better to keep a cool head for business.""A wicked thought, indeed!" cried the stranger, feelingly."Yes," leaning over the table on his elbow and genially gesturing at himwith his forefinger: "yes, and, as I said, you don't remark the sting ofit?""I do, indeed. Most calumnious thought, Frank!""No humor in it?""Not a bit!""Well now, Charlie," eying him with moist regard, "let us drink. Itappears to me you don't drink freely.""Oh, oh--indeed, indeed--I am not backward there. I protest, a freerdrinker than friend Charlie you will find nowhere," with feverish zealsnatching his glass, but only in the sequel to dally with it."By-the-way, Frank," said he, perhaps, or perhaps not, to draw attentionfrom himself, "by-the-way, I saw a good thing the other day; capitalthing; a panegyric on the press, It pleased me so, I got it by heart attwo readings. It is a kind of poetry, but in a form which stands insomething the same relation to blank verse which that does to rhyme. Asort of free-and-easy chant with refrains to it. Shall I recite it?""Anything in praise of the press I shall be happy to hear," rejoined thecosmopolitan, "the more so," he gravely proceeded, "as of late I haveobserved in some quarters a disposition to disparage the press.""Disparage the press?""Even so; some gloomy souls affirming that it is proving with that greatinvention as with brandy or eau-de-vie, which, upon its first discovery,was believed by the doctors to be, as its French name implies, apanacea--a notion which experience, it may be thought, has not fullyverified.""You surprise me, Frank. Are there really those who so decry the press?Tell me more. Their reasons.""Reasons they have none, but affirmations they have many; among otherthings affirming that, while under dynastic despotisms, the press is tothe people little but an improvisatore, under popular ones it is too aptto be their Jack Cade. In fine, these sour sages regard the press in thelight of a Colt's revolver, pledged to no cause but his in whose chancehands it may be; deeming the one invention an improvement upon the pen,much akin to what the other is upon the pistol; involving, along withthe multiplication of the barrel, no consecration of the aim. The term'freedom of the press' they consider on a par with freedom of Colt'srevolver. Hence, for truth and the right, they hold, to indulge hopesfrom the one is little more sensible than for Kossuth and Mazzini toindulge hopes from the other. Heart-breaking views enough, you think;but their refutation is in every true reformer's contempt. Is it notso?""Without doubt. But go on, go on. I like to hear you," flatteringlybrimming up his glass for him."For one," continued the cosmopolitan, grandly swelling his chest, "Ihold the press to be neither the people's improvisatore, nor Jack Cade;neither their paid fool, nor conceited drudge. I think interest neverprevails with it over duty. The press still speaks for truth thoughimpaled, in the teeth of lies though intrenched. Disdaining for it thepoor name of cheap diffuser of news, I claim for it the independentapostleship of Advancer of Knowledge:--the iron Paul! Paul, I say; fornot only does the press advance knowledge, but righteousness. In thepress, as in the sun, resides, my dear Charlie, a dedicated principle ofbeneficent force and light. For the Satanic press, by its coappearancewith the apostolic, it is no more an aspersion to that, than to the truesun is the coappearance of the mock one. For all the baleful-lookingparhelion, god Apollo dispenses the day. In a word, Charlie, what thesovereign of England is titularly, I hold the press to beactually--Defender of the Faith!--defender of the faith in the finaltriumph of truth over error, metaphysics over superstition, theory overfalsehood, machinery over nature, and the good man over the bad. Suchare my views, which, if stated at some length, you, Charlie, mustpardon, for it is a theme upon which I cannot speak with cold brevity.And now I am impatient for your panegyric, which, I doubt not, will putmine to the blush.""It is rather in the blush-giving vein," smiled the other; "but such asit is, Frank, you shall have it.""Tell me when you are about to begin," said the cosmopolitan, "for, whenat public dinners the press is toasted, I always drink the toaststanding, and shall stand while you pronounce the panegyric.""Very good, Frank; you may stand up now."He accordingly did so, when the stranger likewise rose, and upliftingthe ruby wine-flask, began.