第71章 MAURICE KIRKWOOD'S STORY OF HIS LIFE(7)

If I quit my native land before the trees have dropped their leaves Ishall place this manuscript in the safe hands of one whom I feel sure that I can trust;to do with it as he shall see fit.If it is only curious and has no bearing on human welfare,he may think it well to let it remain unread until I shall have passed away.If in his judgment it throws any light on one of the deeper mysteries of our nature,--the repulsions which play such a formidable part in social life,and which must be recognized as the correlatives of the affinities that distribute the individuals governed by them in the face of impediments which seem to be impossibilities,--then it may be freely given to the world.

But if I am here when the leaves are all fallen,the programme of my life will have changed,and this story of the dead past will be illuminated by the light of a living present which will irradiate all its saddening features.Who would not pray that my last gleam of light and hope may be that of dawn and not of departing day?

The reader who finds it hard to accept the reality of a story so far from the common range of experience is once more requested to suspend his judgment until he has read the paper which will next be offered for his consideration.

THE REPORT OF THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE.

Perhaps it is too much to expect a reader who wishes to be entertained,excited,amused,and does not want to work his passage through pages which he cannot understand without some effort of his own,to read the paper which follows and Dr.Butts's reflections upon it.If he has no curiosity in the direction of these chapters,he can afford to leave them to such as relish a slight flavor of science.But if he does so leave them he will very probably remain sceptical as to the truth of the story to which they are meant to furnish him with a key.

Of course the case of Maurice Kirkwood is a remarkable and exceptional one,and it is hardly probable that any reader's experience will furnish him with its parallel.But let him look back over all his acquaintances,if he has reached middle life,and see if he cannot recall more than one who,for some reason or other,shunned the society of young women,as if they had a deadly fear of their company.If he remembers any such,he can understand the simple statements and natural reflections which are laid before him.

One of the most singular facts connected with the history of Maurice Kirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to the fate which had fallen upon him.He did not choose to be pumped by the Interviewer,who would show him up in the sensational columns of his prying newspaper.He lived chiefly by himself,as the easiest mode of avoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in almost every society into which he might venture.But he had learned to look upon himself very much as he would upon an intimate not himself,--upon a different personality.A young man will naturally enough be ashamed of his shyness.It is something which others believe,and perhaps he himself thinks,he might overcome.But in the case of Maurice Kirkwood there was no room for doubt as to the reality and gravity of the long enduring effects of his first convulsive terror.He had accepted the fact as he would have accepted the calamity of losing his sight or his hearing.When he was questioned by the experts to whom his case was submitted,he told them all that he knew about it almost without a sign of emotion.

Nature was so peremptory with him,--saying in language that had no double meaning:"If you violate the condition on which you hold my gift of existence I slay you on the spot,"--that he became as decisive in his obedience as she was in her command,and accepted his fate without repining.

Yet it must not be thought for a moment,--it cannot be supposed,--that he was insensible because he looked upon himself with the coolness of an enforced philosophy.He bore his burden manfully,hard as it was to live under it,for he lived,as we have seen,in hope.The thought of throwing it off with his life,as too grievous to be borne,was familiar to his lonely hours,but he rejected it as unworthy of his manhood.How he had speculated and dreamed about it is plain enough from the paper the reader may remember on Ocean,River,and Lake.

With these preliminary hints the paper promised is submitted to such as may find any interest in them.

ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF GYNOPHOBIA.

WITH REMARKS.

Being the Substance of a Report to the Royal Academy of the Bio~logical Sciences by a Committee of that Institution.

"The singular nature of the case we are about to narrate and comment upon will,we feel confident,arrest the attention of those who have learned the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light upon her laws by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from time to time are observed.We have done with the lusus naturae of earlier generations.We pay little attention to the stories of 'miracles,'except so far as we receive them ready-made at the hands of the churches which still hold to them.Not the less do we meet with strange and surprising facts,which a century or two ago would have been handled by the clergy and the courts,but today are calmly recorded and judged by the best light our knowledge of the laws of life can throw upon them.It must be owned that there are stories which we can hardly dispute,so clear and full is the evidence in their support,which do,notwithstanding,tax our faith and sometimes leave us sceptical in spite of all the testimony which supports them.