Titbottom's Spectacles - by George William Curtis

Date read: 2023-01-02
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Key ideas: Published in 1856. "One might put it that our education served the function of Mr. Titbottom’s spectacles, which George William Curtis described in his exquisite little prose idyl called Prue and I. When Mr. Titbottom looked through his lenses, the appearance of the object he was looking at instantly vanished, and he saw its stark reality" (A. Nock)

NOTES

See things through my spectables

[Titbottom:]

Perhaps you would have different impressions of things, if you saw them through my spectacles.

There was no change in his expression. He still looked from the window, and I said:

Titbottom, I did not know that you used glasses. I have never seen you wearing spectacles.

No, I don’t often wear them. I am not very fond of looking through them. But sometimes an irresistible necessity compels me to put them on, and I cannot help seeing.

Titbottom sighed.

"Is it so grievous a fate to see?” inquired I.

“Yes; through my spectacles,” he said, turning slowly, and looking at me with wan solemnity.

Titbottom is the happy possessor of a pair of wonderful spectacles

“My dear,” I said, “you must know that our friend, Mr. Titbottom, is the happy possessor of a pair of wonderful spectacles. I have never seen them, indeed; and, from what he says, I should be rather afraid of being seen by them. Most short-sighted persons are very glad to have the help of glasses; but Mr. Titbottom seems to find very little pleasure in his.”

"It is because they make him too far-sighted, perhaps,” interrupted Prue quietly, as she took the silver soup-ladle from the sideboard.

We sipped our wine after dinner, and Prue took her work. Can a man be too far-sighted? I did not ask the question aloud. The very tone in which Prue had spoken, convinced me that he might...

It is a kind of article for which the demand does not increase with use. If we should all wear spectacles like mine, we should never smile any more. Or—I am not quite sure—we should all be very happy.”

“A very important difference,” said Prue, counting her stitches.

Titbottom's Grandfather

Not long before he died, he called me to him, and laying his hand upon my head, said to me:

'My child, the world is not this great sunny piazza, nor life the fairy stories which the women tell you here, as you sit in their laps. I shall soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some memento of my love for you, and I know of nothing more valuable than these spectacles, which your grandmother brought from her native island, when she arrived here one fine summer morning, long ago.

I cannot tell whether, when you grow older, you will regard them as a gift of the greatest value, or as something that you had been happier never to have possessed.’

‘But, grandpapa, I am not short-sighted.’

‘My son, are you not human?’ said the old gentleman; and how shall I ever forget the thoughtful sadness with which, at the same time, he handed me the spectacles.

Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my grandfather. But I saw no grandfather, no piazza, no flowered dressing-gown; I saw only a luxuriant palm-tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape; pleasant homes clustered around it; gardens teeming with fruit and flowers; flocks quietly feeding; birds wheeling and chirping. I heard children’s voices, and the low lullaby of happy mothers. The sound of cheerful singing came wafted from distant fields upon the light breeze. Golden harvests glistened out of sight, and I caught their rustling whispers of prosperity. A warm, mellow atmosphere bathed the whole.

I have seen copies of the landscapes of the Italian, painter Claude, which seemed to me faint reminiscences of that calm and happy vision. But all this peace and prosperity seemed to flow from the spreading palm as from a fountain.

I do not know how long I looked, but I had, apparently, no power, as I had no will, to remove the spectacles. What a wonderful island must Nevis be, thought I, if people carry such pictures in their pockets, only by buying a pair of spectacles! What wonder that my dear grandmother Titbottom has lived such a placid life, and has blessed us all with her sunny temper, when she has lived surrounded by such images of peace!

From the moment that I received the gift of the spectacles, I could not resist their fascination

“Misfortunes of many kinds came heavily upon the family after the head was gone. The great house was relinquished. My parents were both dead, and my grandmother had entire charge of me. But from the moment that I received the gift of the spectacles, I could not resist their fascination, and I withdrew into myself, and became a solitary boy.

There were not many companions for me of my own age, and they gradually left me, or, at least, had not a hearty sympathy with me; for, if they teased me, I pulled out my spectacles and surveyed them so seriously that they acquired a kind of awe of me, and evidently regarded my grandfather’s gift as a concealed magical weapon which might be dangerously drawn upon them at any moment. Whenever, in our games, there were quarrels and high words, and I began to feel about my dress and to wear a grave look, they all took the alarm, and shouted, ‘Look out for Titbottom’s spectacles,’ and scattered like a flock of scared sheep...

The revelations of the spectacles determined my feeling for the boys, and for all whom I saw through them.

No shyness, nor awkwardness, nor silence, could separate me from those who looked lovely as lilies to my illuminated eyes. But the vision made me afraid. If I felt myself warmly drawn to any one, I struggled with the fierce desire of seeing him through the spectacles, for I feared to find him something else than I fancied.

I longed to enjoy the luxury of ignorant feeling, to love without knowing, to float like a leaf upon the eddies of life, drifted now to a sunny point, now to a solemn shade—now over glittering ripples, now over gleaming calms,—and not to determined ports, a trim vessel with an inexorable rudder.

My companions naturally deserted me, for I had grown wearily grave and abstracted: and, unable to resist the allurements of my spectacles, I was constantly lost in the world, of which those companions were part, yet of which they knew nothing.

I grew cold and hard, almost morose; people seemed to me so blind and unreasonable. They did the wrong thing. They called green, yellow; and black, white. Young men said of a girl, ‘What a lovely, simple creature!’ I looked, and there was only a glistening wisp of straw, dry and hollow. Or they said, ‘What a cold, proud beauty!’ I looked, and lo! a Madonna, whose heart held the world. Or they said, ‘What a wild, giddy girl!’ and I saw a glancing, dancing mountain stream, pure as the virgin snows whence it flowed, singing through sun and shade, over pearls and gold dust, slipping along unstained by weed or rain, or heavy foot of cattle, touching the flowers with a dewy kiss,—a beam of grace, a happy song, a line of light, in the dim and troubled landscape.

And then I saw myself

I placed the glasses before my eyes, and beheld—myself, reflected in the mirror, before which she had been standing.

“Dear madam,” cried Titbottom, to my wife, springing up and falling back again in his chair, pale and trembling, while Prue ran to him and took his hand, and I poured out a glass of water— “I saw myself.”....

Perhaps you wonder it did not make me misanthropical. My dear friends, do not forget that I had seen myself. That made me compassionate not cynical.

I am not sure that I thank my grandfather

I do not believe you will be surprised that I have been content to remain a deputy book-keeper. My spectacles regulated my ambition, and I early learned that there were better gods than Plutus. The glasses have lost much of their fascination now, and I do not often use them. But sometimes the desire is irresistible.

Whenever I am greatly interested, I am compelled to take them out and see what it is that I admire.

To see things as they are, not as they appear.

"And yet—and yet,” said Titbottom, after a pause, “I am not sure that I thank my grandfather.”