Theophilus North Read Free Page B

situation the ‘Charles Marlow Complex’?”
    â€œYes, that would do very well. I have long looked for an appropriate name for it.”
    Theophilus suffered, as they say (though there was no suffering about it), from that Hemmung . Well, let other fellows court and coax, month after month, the stately Swan and the self-engrossed Lily. Let them leave to Theophilus the pert magpie and the nodding daisy.
    The E IGHTH, the rascal. Here I must resort to a foreign language, el picaro . My curiosities throw a wide net. I have always been fascinated by the character who represents the opposite of my New England and Scottish inheritance—the man who lives by his wits, “one step ahead of the sheriff,” without plan, without ambition, at the margin of decorous living, delighted to outwit the clods, the prudent, the money-obsessed, the censorious, the complacent. I dreamt of covering the entire world, of looking into a million faces, light of foot, light of purse and baggage, extricating myself from the predicaments of hunger, cold, and oppression by quickness of mind. These are not only the rogues, but the adventurers. I had read, enviously, the lives of many and had observed that they were often, justly or unjustly, in prison. My instinct had warned me and my occasional nightmares had warned me that the supreme suffering for me would be that of being caged and incarcerated. I have occasionally approached the verge of downright rascality, but not without carefully weighing the risk. This eighth ambition leads me into my last and overriding one:
    The N INTH, to be a free man. Notice all the projects I did not entertain: I did not want to be a banker, a merchant, a lawyer, nor to join any of those life-careers that are closely bound up with directorates and boards of governors—politicians, publishers, world reformers. I wanted no boss over me, or only the lightest of supervisions. All these aims, moreover, had to do with people—but with people as individuals.
    As the reader will see, all these aspirations continued to make claims on me. As they were conflicting they got me into trouble; as they were deep-lodged their fulfillment often brought me inner satisfaction.
    I was now free after four and a half years of relative confinement. Since my trip abroad, six years earlier, I had kept a voluminous Journal (from which the present book is largely an extract, covering four and a half months). Most of the entries in this Journal were characterizations of men and women I knew, together with as much of the life-story of each as I could learn. Myself was present for the most part only as witness—though occasionally an entry was devoted to an ill-digested bit of self-examination. I might almost say that for the last two years the center of my life had become that gallery of portraits. Only years later did I come to see that it was a form of introspection via extrospection. It’s wonderful the way nature strives to create harmony within ourselves.
    From the moment I resigned, two days before leaving the school, I discovered that several things were happening to me in my new state of freedom. I was recapturing the spirit of play—not the play of youth which is games (aggression under the restraint of rules), but the play of childhood which is all imagination, which improvises. I became light-headed. The spirit of play swept away the cynicism and indifference into which I had fallen. Moreover, a readiness for adventure reawoke in me—for risk, for intruding myself into the lives of others, for extracting fun from danger.
    It happened that in 1926 it became possible for me to enter upon my new liberty earlier than I expected. Six weeks before the school’s term-end an epidemic of influenza declared itself in central New Jersey. The infirmary filled up and overflowed. Beds were installed in the gymnasium which soon looked like a lazaret. Parents drove down and took their sons home. Classes came