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- 5402
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:56.336Z
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- 5330
- text
- THE FIDDLER
So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody
forever and ever. Intolerable fate!
Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism and rushed out into
Broadway, where enthusiastic throngs were crowding to a circus in a
side-street near by, very recently started, and famous for a capital
clown.
Presently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me.
"Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what's the matter? Haven't been
committing murder? Ain't flying justice? You look wild!"
"You have seen it, then!" said I, of course referring to the criticism.
"Oh, yes; I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure
you. But here comes Hautboy. Hautboy--Helmstone."
Without having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I
was instantly soothed as I gazed on the face of the new acquaintance
so unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a
juvenile, animated cast to it. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye
sincere, cheery, and gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an
overgrown boy. From his hair I set him down as forty or more.
"Come, Standard," he gleefully cried to my friend, "are you not going
to the circus? The clown is inimitable, they say. Come, Mr. Helmstone,
too--come both; and circus over, we'll take a nice stew and punch at
Taylor's."
The sterling content, good-humor, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere
expression of this most singular new acquaintance acted upon me like
magic. It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation
from so unmistakably kind and honest a heart.
During the circus performance I kept my eye more on Hautboy than on the
celebrated clown. Hautboy was the sight for me. Such genuine enjoyment
as his struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing
called happiness. The jokes of the clown he seemed to roll under his
tongue as ripe magnumbonums. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed
to attest his grateful applause. At any hit more than ordinary, he
turned upon Standard and me to see if his rare pleasure was shared.
In a man of forty I saw a boy of twelve; and this too without the
slightest abatement of my respect. Because all was so honest and
natural, every expression and attitude so graceful with genuine
good-nature, that the marvelous juvenility of Hautboy assumed a sort
of divine and immortal air, like that of some forever youthful god of
Greece.
But much as I gazed upon Hautboy, and much as I admired his air, yet
that desperate mood in which I had first rushed from the house had not
so entirely departed as not to molest me with momentary returns. But
from these relapses I would rouse myself, and swiftly glance round
the broad amphitheatre of eagerly interested and all-applauding human
faces. Hark! claps, thumps, deafening huzzas; the vast assembly seemed
frantic with acclamation; and what, mused I, has caused all this? Why,
the clown only comically grinned with one of his extra grins.
Then I repeated in my mind that sublime passage in my poem, in which
Cleothemes the Argive vindicates the justice of the war. Ay, ay,
thought I to myself, did I now leap into the ring there, and repeat
that identical passage, nay, enact the whole tragic poem before them,
would they applaud the poet as they applaud the clown? No! They would
hoot me, and call me doting or mad. Then what does this prove? Your
infatuation or their insensibility? Perhaps both; but indubitably the
first. But why wail? Do you seek admiration from the admirers of a
buffoon? Call to mind the saying of the Athenian, who, when the people
vociferously applauded in the forum, asked his friend in a whisper,
what foolish thing had he said?
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