American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
It seemed such an advancement to be promoted from Professor to
Chancellor that it was no surprise to have him accept, and to see Mrs.
Behrens begin hastily to pack up the family belongings. But what
did surprise us was the sudden revelation brought out by this event,
of a great home-sickness on the part of the Behrens to get back to a
“civilized country.” This was one of the phrases Julie overheard her
father saying to her mother, which she repeated to me, and I to my
parents. A faculty circle gets its news by about the same channels as
an army post or a village sewing circle. So by the time this remark
had reached my parents it did not surprise them. The Behrens, although
still heartily grateful for all the kindness that had been shown
them, although still feeling a lively affection for the good-hearted
qualities in American life, could not conceal their immense relief at
the prospect of the change. Professor Behrens discussed the question
with the open frankness of a scientist before a new phenomenon: “I
had no idea, till I had to go without them, how vital to civilization
are the finer shades, the polish, the stability, the decorum, which
comes only with long life of a society in an old country. I had never
thought of them, had always supposed, of course, they were to be found
everywhere. It is not that I blame America for not having them ...
nothing but time can give them ... but there is no denying that they
give a different color to life, the same difference of color there
is between camping out in a cave, ever so fine and airy and open a
cave, and living in a well-ordered house with the appurtenances of
civilization. There is a certain something which springs up from such
niceties of life.... I can hardly wait to get home, and give a real
dinner with well-trained servants, and cultivated, established guests
who have had a social position for so long that it is a part of them.
The crudeness, the abruptness, the roughness in human intercourse
here! And the total lack on the part of people in the lower classes of
any sense of the fitness of things! The _conductor on the street-car_
slapped me on the back the other day!”
So we gave them a grand good-by reception in the gymnasium, and we
faculty-children fairly swam in lemonade and wallowed in left-over
cake. The faculty presented Professor Behrens with a beautifully bound
edition of Emerson, and Mrs. Behrens with a little pearl pendant; and
then they went away, and we supposed we would never see them again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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