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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10023-0.txt b/10023-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e1cdaa --- /dev/null +++ b/10023-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3165 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10023 *** + +Other Books by the Same Author: + + "Journeys to Bagdad" + _Sixth printing_. + + "Chimney-Pot Papers" + _Third printing_. + + "Hints to Pilgrims" + + + + +THERE'S PIPPINS + +AND + +CHEESE TO COME + +BY + +CHARLES S. BROOKS + +1917 + + +Illustrated by Theodore Diedricksen, Jr. + + + + +TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. There's Pippins and Cheese to Come + +II. On Buying Old Books + +III. Any Stick Will Do to Beat a Dog + +IV. Roads of Morning + +V. The Man of Grub Street Comes from His Garret + +VI. Now that Spring is Here + +VII. The Friendly Genii + +VIII. Mr. Pepys Sits in the Pit + +IX. To an Unknown Reader + +X. A Plague of All Cowards + +XI. The Asperities of the Early British Reviewers + +XII. The Pursuit of Fire + + + + +THERE'S PIPPINS AND CHEESE TO COME + + + + +There's Pippins and Cheese To Come + + +In my noonday quest for food, if the day is fine, it is my habit to shun +the nearer places of refreshment. I take the air and stretch myself. Like +Eve's serpent I go upright for a bit. Yet if time presses, there may be had +next door a not unsavory stowage. A drinking bar is nearest to the street +where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror to such +red-faced nature as consorts within. Yet you pass the bar and come upon a +range of tables at the rear. + +Now, if you yield to the habits of the place you order a rump of meat. +Gravy lies about it like a moat around a castle, and if there is in you the +zest for encounter, you attack it above these murky waters. "This castle +hath a pleasant seat," you cry, and charge upon it with pike advanced. But +if your appetite is one to peck and mince, the whiffs that breathe upon the +place come unwelcome to your nostrils. In no wise are they like the sweet +South upon your senses. There is even a suspicion in you--such is your +distemper--that it is too much a witch's cauldron in the kitchen, "eye of +newt, and toe of frog," and you spy and poke upon your food. Bus boys bear +off the crockery as though they were apprenticed to a juggler and were only +at the beginning of their art. Waiters bawl strange messages to the cook. +It's a tongue unguessed by learning, yet sharp and potent. Also, there +comes a riot from the kitchen, and steam issues from the door as though the +devil himself were a partner and conducted here an upper branch. Like the +man in the old comedy, your belly may still ring dinner, but the tinkle is +faint. Such being your state, you choose a daintier place to eat. + +Having now set upon a longer journey--the day being fine and the sidewalks +thronged--you pass by a restaurant that is but a few doors up the street. +A fellow in a white coat flops pancakes in the window. But even though the +pancake does a double somersault and there are twenty curious noses pressed +against the glass, still you keep your course uptown. + +Nor are you led off because a near-by stairway beckons you to a Chinese +restaurant up above. A golden dragon swings over the door. Its race has +fallen since its fire-breathing grandsire guarded the fruits of the +Hesperides. Are not "soys" and "chou meins" and other such treasures of the +East laid out above? And yet the dragon dozes at its post like a sleepy +dog. No flame leaps up its gullet. The swish of its tail is stilled. If it +wag at all, it's but in friendship or because a gust of wind has stirred it +from its dreams. + +I have wondered why Chinese restaurants are generally on the second story. +A casual inquiry attests it. I know of one, it is true, on the ground +level, yet here I suspect a special economy. The place had formerly been a +German restaurant, with Teuton scrolls, "Ich Dien," and heraldries on its +walls. A frugal brush changed the decoration. From the heart of a Prussian +blazonry, there flares on you in Chinese yellow a recommendation to try +"Our Chicken Chop Soy." The quartering of the House of Hohenzollern wears a +baldric in praise of "Subgum Noodle Warmein," which it seems they cook to +an unusual delicacy. Even a wall painting of Rip Van Winkle bowling at +tenpins in the mountains is now set off with a pigtail. But the chairs were +Dutch and remain as such. Generally, however, Chinese restaurants are on +the second story. Probably there is a ritual from the ancient days of Ming +Ti that Chinamen when they eat shall sit as near as possible to the sacred +moon. + +But hold a bit! In your haste up town to find a place to eat, you are +missing some of the finer sights upon the way. In these windows that +you pass, the merchants have set their choicest wares. If there is any +commodity of softer gloss than common, or one shinier to the eye--so +that your poverty frets you--it is displayed here. In the window of the +haberdasher, shirts--mere torsos with not a leg below or head above--yet +disport themselves in gay neckwear. Despite their dismemberment they are +tricked to the latest turn of fashion. Can vanity survive such general +amputation? Then there is hope for immortality. + +But by what sad chance have these blithe fellows been disjointed? If +a gloomy mood prevails in you--as might come from a bad turn of the +market--you fancy that the evil daughter of Herodias still lives around the +corner, and that she has set out her victims to the general view. If there +comes a hurdy-gurdy on the street and you cock your ear to the tune of +it, you may still hear the dancing measure of her wicked feet. Or it is +possible that these are the kindred of Holofernes and that they have supped +guiltily in their tents with a sisterhood of Judiths. + +Or we may conceive--our thoughts running now to food--that these gamesome +creatures of the haberdasher had dressed themselves for a more recent +banquet. Their black-tailed coats and glossy shirts attest a rare occasion. +It was in holiday mood, when they were fresh-combed and perked in their +best, that they were cut off from life. It would appear that Jack Ketch the +headsman got them when they were rubbed and shining for the feast. We'll +not squint upon his writ. It is enough that they were apprehended for some +rascality. When he came thumping on his dreadful summons, here they were +already set, fopped from shoes to head in the newest whim. Spoon in hand +and bib across their knees--lest they fleck their careful fronts--they +waited for the anchovy to come. And on a sudden they were cut off from +life, unfit, unseasoned for the passage. Like the elder Hamlet's brother, +they were engaged upon an act that had no relish of salvation in it. You +may remember the lamentable child somewhere in Dickens, who because of an +abrupt and distressing accident, had a sandwich in its hand but no mouth +to put it in. Or perhaps you recall the cook of the Nancy Bell and his +grievous end. The poor fellow was stewed in his own stew-pot. It was the +Elderly Naval Man, you recall--the two of them being the ship's sole +survivors on the deserted island, and both of them lean with hunger--it was +the Elderly Naval Man (the villain of the piece) who "ups with his heels, +and smothers his squeals in the scum of the boiling broth." + +And yet by looking on these torsos of the haberdasher, one is not brought +to thoughts of sad mortality. Their joy is so exultant. And all the things +that they hold dear--canes, gloves, silk hats, and the newer garments on +which fashion makes its twaddle--are within reach of their armless sleeves. +Had they fingers they would be smoothing themselves before the glass. Their +unbodied heads, wherever they may be, are still smiling on the world, +despite their divorcement. Their tongues are still ready with a jest, their +lips still parted for the anchovy to come. + +A few days since, as I was thinking--for so I am pleased to call my muddy +stirrings--what manner of essay I might write and how best to sort and lay +out the rummage, it happened pat to my needs that I received from a friend +a book entitled "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened." Now, before +it came I had got so far as to select a title. Indeed, I had written the +title on seven different sheets of paper, each time in the hope that by +the run of the words I might leap upon some further thought. Seven times I +failed and in the end the sheets went into the waste basket, possibly +to the confusion of Annie our cook, who may have mistaken them for a +reiterated admonishment towards the governance of her kitchen--at the +least, a hint of my desires and appetite for cheese and pippins. + +"The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened" is a cook book. It is due you +to know this at once, otherwise your thoughts--if your nature be +vagrant--would drift towards family skeletons. Or maybe the domestic traits +prevail and you would think of dress-clothes hanging in camphorated bags +and a row of winter boots upon a shelf. + +I am disqualified to pass upon the merits of a cook book, for the reason +that I have little discrimination in food. It is not that I am totally +indifferent to what lies on the platter. Indeed, I have more than a tribal +aversion to pork in general, while, on the other hand, I quicken joyfully +when noodles are interspersed with bacon. I have a tooth for sweets, too, +although I hold it unmanly and deny it as I can. I am told also--although +I resent it--that my eye lights up on the appearance of a tray of French +pastry. I admit gladly, however, my love of onions, whether they come +hissing from the skillet, or lie in their first tender whiteness. They +are at their best when they are placed on bread and are eaten largely at +midnight after society has done its worst. + +A fine dinner is lost within me. A quail is but an inferior chicken--a poor +relation outside the exclusive hennery. Terrapin sits low in my regard, +even though it has wallowed in the most aristocratic marsh. Through such +dinners I hack and saw my way without even gaining a memory of my progress. +If asked the courses, I balk after the recital of the soup. Indeed, I am so +forgetful of food, even when I dine at home, that I can well believe that +Adam when he was questioned about the apple was in real confusion. He had +or he had not. It was mixed with the pomegranate or the quince that Eve had +sliced and cooked on the day before. + +A dinner at its best is brought to a single focus. There is one dish +to dominate the cloth, a single bulk to which all other dishes are +subordinate. If there be turkey, it should mount from a central platter. +Its protruding legs out-top the candles. All other foods are, as it were, +privates in Caesar's army. They do no more than flank the pageant. Nor may +the pantry hold too many secrets. Within reason, everything should be +set out at once, or at least a gossip of its coming should run before. +Otherwise, if the stew is savory, how shall one reserve a corner for the +custard? One must partition himself justly--else, by an over-stowage at the +end, he list and sink. + +I am partial to picnics--the spreading of the cloth in the woods or beside +a stream--although I am not avid for sandwiches unless hunger press me. +Rather, let there be a skillet in the company and let a fire be started! +Nor need a picnic consume the day. In summer it requires but the late +afternoon, with such borrowing of the night as is necessary for the +journey home. You leave the street car, clanking with your bundles like an +itinerant tinman. You follow a stream, which on these lower stretches, it +is sad to say, is already infected with the vices of the city. Like many a +countryman who has come to town, it has fallen to dissipation. It shows the +marks of the bottle. Further up, its course is cleaner. You cross it in the +mud. Was it not Christian who fell into the bog because of the burden on +his back? Then you climb a villainously long hill and pop out upon an open +platform above the city. + +The height commands a prospect to the west. Below is the smoke of a +thousand suppers. Up from the city there comes the hum of life, now +somewhat fallen with the traffic of the day--as though Nature already +practiced the tune for sending her creatures off to sleep. You light a +fire. The baskets disgorge their secrets. Ants and other leviathans think +evidently that a circus has come or that bears are in the town. The chops +and bacon achieve their appointed destiny. You throw the last bone across +your shoulder. It slips and rattles to the river. The sun sets. Night like +an ancient dame puts on her jewels: + + And now that I have climbed and won this height, + I must tread downward through the sloping shade + And travel the bewildered tracks till night. + Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed + And see the gold air and the silver fade + And the last bird fly into the last light. + +By these confessions you will see how unfit I am to comment on the old cook +book of Sir Kenelm Digby. Yet it lies before me. It may have escaped your +memory in the din of other things, that in the time when Oliver Cromwell +still walked the earth, there lived in England a man by the name of Kenelm +Digby, who was renowned in astrology and alchemy, piracy, wit, philosophy +and fashion. It appears that wherever learning wagged its bulbous head, Sir +Kenelm was of the company. It appears, also, that wherever the mahogany did +most groan, wherever the possets were spiced most delicately to the nose, +there too did Sir Kenelm bib and tuck himself. With profundity, as +though he sucked wisdom from its lowest depth, he spouted forth on the +transmutation of the baser metals or tossed you a phrase from Paracelsus. +Or with long instructive finger he dissertated on the celestial universe. +One would have thought that he had stood by on the making of it and that +his judgment had prevailed in the larger problems. Yet he did not neglect +his trencher. + +And now as time went on, the richness of the food did somewhat dominate his +person. The girth of his wisdom grew no less, but his body fattened. In +a word, the good gentleman's palate came to vie with his intellect. Less +often was he engaged upon some dark saying of Isidore of Seville. Rather, +even if his favorite topic astrology were uppermost about the table, his +eye travelled to the pantry on every change of dishes. His fingers, too, +came to curl most delicately on his fork. He used it like an epicure, +poking his viands apart for sharpest scrutiny. His nod upon a compote was +much esteemed. + +Now mark his further decline! On an occasion--surely the old rascal's head +is turned!--he would be found in private talk with his hostess, the Lady of +Middlesex, or with the Countess of Monmouth, not as you might expect, on +the properties of fire or on the mortal diseases of man, but--on subjects +quite removed. Society, we may be sure, began to whisper of these snug +parleys in the arbor after dinner, these shadowed mumblings on the balcony +when the moon was up--and Lady Digby stiffened into watchfulness. It was +when they took leave that she saw the Countess slip a note into her lord's +fingers. Her jealousy broke out. "Viper!" She spat the words and seized her +husband's wrist. Of course the note was read. It proved, however, that Sir +Kenelm was innocent of all mischief. To the disappointment of the gossips, +who were tuned to a spicier anticipation, the note was no more than a +recipe of the manner that the Countess was used to mix her syllabub, with +instruction that it was the "rosemary a little bruised and the limon-peal +that did quicken the taste." Advice, also, followed in the postscript on +the making of tea, with counsel that "the boiling water should remain upon +it just so long as one might say a _miserere_." A mutual innocence being +now established, the Lady Digby did by way of apology peck the Countess on +the cheek. + +Sir Kenelm died in 1665, full of years. In that day his fame rested chiefly +on his books in physic and chirurgery. His most enduring work was still to +be published--"The Closet Opened." + +It was two years after his death that his son came upon a bundle of his +father's papers that had hitherto been overlooked. I fancy that he went +spying in the attic on a rainy day. In the darkest corner, behind the +rocking horse--if such devices were known in those distant days--he came +upon a trunk of his father's papers. "Od's fish," said Sir Kenelm's son, +"here's a box of manuscripts. It is like that they pertain to alchemy or +chirurgery." He pulled out a bundle and held it to the light--such light as +came through the cobwebs of the ancient windows. "Here be strange matters," +he exclaimed. Then he read aloud: "My Lord of Bristol's Scotch collops are +thus made: Take a leg of fine sweet mutton, that to make it tender, is +kept as long as possible may be without stinking. In winter seven or eight +days"--"Ho! Ho!" cried Sir Kenelm's son. "This is not alchemy!" He drew out +another parchment and read again: "My Lord of Carlile's sack posset, how +it's made: Take a pottle of cream and boil in it a little whole cinnamon +and three or four flakes of mace. Boil it until it simpreth and bubbleth." + +By this time, as you may well imagine, Sir Kenelm's son was wrought to an +excitement. It is likely that he inherited his father's palate and that the +juices of his appetite were stirred. Seizing an armful of the papers, he +leaped down the attic steps, three at a time. His lady mother thrust a +curled and papered head from her door and asked whether the chimney were +afire, but he did not heed her. The cook was waddling in her pattens. He +cried to her to throw wood upon the fire. + +That night the Digby household was served a delicacy, red herrings broiled +in the fashion of my Lord d'Aubigny, "short and crisp and laid upon a +sallet." Also, there was a wheaten flommery as it was made in the West +Country--for the cook chose quite at random--and a slip-coat cheese as +Master Phillips proportioned it. Also, against the colic, which was +ravishing the country, the cook prepared a metheglin as Lady Stuart mixed +it--"nettles, fennel and grumel seeds, of each two ounces being small-cut +and mixed with honey and boiled together." It is on record that the Lady +Digby smiled for the first time since her lord had died, and when the +grinning cook bore in the platter, she beat upon the table with her spoon. + +The following morning, Sir Kenelm's son posted to London bearing the +recipes, with a pistol in the pocket of his great coat against the crossing +of Hounslow Heath. He went to a printer at the Star in Little Britain whose +name was H. Brome. + +Shortly the book appeared. It was the son who wrote the preface: "There +needs no Rhetoricating Floscules to set it off. The Authour, as is well +known, having been a Person of Eminency for his Learning, and of Exquisite +Curiosity in his Researches. Even that Incomparable Sir Kenelme Digbie +Knight, Fellow of the Royal Society and Chancellour to the Queen Mother, +(Et omen in Nomine) His name does sufficiently Auspicate the Work." The +sale of the book is not recorded. It is supposed that the Lady Middlesex, +so many of whose recipes had been used, directed that her chair be carried +to the shop where the book was for sale and that she bought largely of it. +The Countess of Dorset bought a copy and spelled it out word for word to +her cook. As for the Lady Monmouth, she bought not a single copy, which +neglect on coming to the Digbys aroused a coolness. + +To this day it is likely that a last auspicated volume still sits on its +shelf with the spice jars in some English country kitchen and that a worn +and toothless cook still thumbs its leaves. If the guests about the table +be of an antique mind, still will they pledge one another with its honeyed +drinks, still will they pipe and whistle of its virtues, still will they-- + +"EAT"--A flaring sign hangs above the sidewalk. By this time, in our +noonday search for food, we have come into the thick of the restaurants. In +the jungle of the city, here is the feeding place. Here come the growling +bipeds for such bones and messes as are thrown them. + +The waiter thrusts a card beneath my nose. "Nice leg of lamb, sir?" I waved +him off. "Hold a bit!" I cried. "You'll fetch me a capon in white broth as +my Lady Monmouth broileth hers. Put plentiful sack in it and boil it until +it simpreth!" The waiter scratched his head. "The chicken pie is good," he +said. "It's our Wednesday dish." "Varlet!" I cried--then softened. "Let it +be the chicken pie! But if the cook knoweth the manner that Lord Carlile +does mix and pepper it, let that manner be followed to the smallest +fraction of a pinch!" + + + + + +On Buying Old Books + + +By some slim chance, reader, you may be the kind of person who, on a visit +to a strange city, makes for a bookshop. Of course your slight temporal +business may detain you in the earlier hours of the day. You sit with +committees and stroke your profound chin, or you spend your talent in the +market, or run to and fro and wag your tongue in persuasion. Or, if you be +on a holiday, you strain yourself on the sights of the city, against being +caught in an omission. The bolder features of a cathedral must be grasped +to satisfy a quizzing neighbor lest he shame you later on your hearth, a +building must be stuffed inside your memory, or your pilgrim feet must wear +the pavement of an ancient shrine. However, these duties being done and the +afternoon having not yet declined, do you not seek a bookshop to regale +yourself? + +Doubtless, we have met. As you have scrunched against the shelf not to +block the passage, but with your head thrown back to see the titles up +above, you have noticed at the corner of your eye--unless it was one of +your blinder moments when you were fixed wholly on the shelf--a man in +a slightly faded overcoat of mixed black and white, a man just past the +nimbleness of youth, whose head is plucked of its full commodity of hair. +It was myself. I admit the portrait, though modesty has curbed me short of +justice. + +Doubtless, we have met. It was your umbrella--which you held villainously +beneath your arm--that took me in the ribs when you lighted on a set of +Fuller's Worthies. You recall my sour looks, but it was because I had +myself lingered on the volumes but cooled at the price. How you smoothed +and fingered them! With what triumph you bore them off! I bid you--for I +see you in a slippered state, eased and unbuttoned after dinner--I bid you +turn the pages with a slow thumb, not to miss the slightest tang of their +humor. You will of course go first, because of its broad fame, to the page +on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and their wet-combats at the Mermaid. But +before the night is too far gone and while yet you can hold yourself from +nodding, you will please read about Captain John Smith of Virginia and his +"strange performances, the scene whereof is laid at such a distance, they +are cheaper credited than confuted." + +In no proper sense am I a buyer of old books. I admit a bookish quirk +maybe, a love of the shelf, a weakness for morocco, especially if it is +stained with age. I will, indeed, shirk a wedding for a bookshop. I'll +go in "just to look about a bit, to see what the fellow has," and on an +occasion I pick up a volume. But I am innocent of first editions. It is +a stiff courtesy, as becomes a democrat, that I bestow on this form +of primogeniture. Of course, I have nosed my way with pleasure along +aristocratic shelves and flipped out volumes here and there to ask their +price, but for the greater part, it is the plainer shops that engage me. If +a rack of books is offered cheap before the door, with a fixed price upon a +card, I come at a trot. And if a brown dust lies on them, I bow and sniff +upon the rack, as though the past like an ancient fop in peruke and buckle +were giving me the courtesy of its snuff box. If I take the dust in my +nostrils and chance to sneeze, it is the fit and intended observance toward +the manners of a former century. + +I have in mind such a bookshop in Bath, England. It presents to the street +no more than a decent front, but opens up behind like a swollen bottle. +There are twenty rooms at least, piled together with such confusion of +black passages and winding steps, that one might think that the owner +himself must hold a thread when he visits the remoter rooms. Indeed, such +are the obscurities and dim turnings of the place, that, were the legend of +the Minotaur but English, you might fancy that the creature still lived in +this labyrinth, to nip you between his toothless gums--for the beast grows +old--at some darker corner. There is a story of the place, that once a raw +clerk having been sent to rummage in the basement, his candle tipped off +the shelf. He was left in so complete darkness that his fears overcame his +judgment and for two hours he roamed and babbled among the barrels. Nor was +his absence discovered until the end of the day when, as was the custom, +the clerks counted noses at the door. When they found him, he bolted up the +steps, nor did he cease his whimper until he had reached the comforting +twilight of the outer world. He served thereafter in the shop a full two +years and had a beard coming--so the story runs--before he would again +venture beyond the third turning of the passage; to the stunting of his +scholarship, for the deeper books lay in the farther windings. + +Or it may appear credible that in ages past a jealous builder contrived the +place. Having no learning himself and being at odds with those of better +opportunity, he twisted the pattern of the house. Such was his evil temper, +that he set the steps at a dangerous hazard in the dark, in order that +scholars--whose eyes are bleared at best--might risk their legs to the end +of time. Those of strict orthodoxy have even suspected the builder to have +been an atheist, for they have observed what double joints and steps and +turnings confuse the passage to the devouter books--the Early Fathers in +particular being up a winding stair where even the soberest reader might +break his neck. Be these things as they may, leather bindings in sets of +"grenadier uniformity" ornament the upper and lighter rooms. Biography +straggles down a hallway, with a candle needed at the farther end. A room +of dingy plays--Wycherley, Congreve and their crew--looks out through an +area grating. It was through even so foul an eye, that when alive, they +looked upon the world. As for theology, except for the before-mentioned +Fathers, it sits in general and dusty convention on the landing to the +basement, its snuffy sermons, by a sad misplacement--or is there an +ironical intention?--pointing the way to the eternal abyss below. + +It was in this shop that I inquired whether there was published a book on +piracy in Cornwall. Now, I had lately come from Tintagel on the Cornish +coast, and as I had climbed upon the rocks and looked down upon the sea, I +had wondered to myself whether, if the knowledge were put out before me, I +could compose a story of Spanish treasure and pirates. For I am a prey to +such giddy ambition. A foul street--if the buildings slant and topple--will +set me thinking delightfully of murders. A wharf-end with water lapping +underneath and bits of rope about will set me itching for a deep-sea plot. +Or if I go on broader range and see in my fancy a broken castle on a hill, +I'll clear its moat and sound trumpets on its walls. If there is pepper +in my mood, I'll storm its dungeon. Or in a softer moment I'll trim its +unsubstantial towers with pageantry and rest upon my elbow until I fall +asleep. So being cast upon the rugged Cornish coast whose cliffs are so +swept with winter winds that the villages sit for comfort in the hollows, +it was to be expected that my thoughts would run toward pirates. + +There is one rock especially which I had climbed in the rain and fog of +early morning. A reckless path goes across its face with a sharp pitch to +the ocean. It was so slippery and the wind so tugged and pulled to throw me +off, that although I endangered my dignity, I played the quadruped on the +narrower parts. But once on top in the open blast of the storm and safe +upon the level, I thumped with desire for a plot. In each inlet from the +ocean I saw a pirate lugger--such is the pleasing word--with a keg of rum +set up. Each cranny led to a cavern with doubloons piled inside. The +very tempest in my ears was compounded out of ships at sea and wreck and +pillage. I needed but a plot, a thread of action to string my villains on. +If this were once contrived, I would spice my text with sailors' oaths and +such boasting talk as might lie in my invention. Could I but come upon a +plot, I might yet proclaim myself an author. + +With this guilty secret in me I blushed as I asked the question. It seemed +sure that the shopkeeper must guess my purpose. I felt myself suspected as +though I were a rascal buying pistols to commit a murder. Indeed, I seem +to remember having read that even hardened criminals have become confused +before a shopkeeper and betrayed themselves. Of course, Dick Turpin and +Jerry Abershaw could call for pistols in the same easy tone they ordered +ale, but it would take a practiced villainy. But I in my innocence wanted +nothing but the meager outline of a pirate's life, which I might fatten to +my uses. + +But on a less occasion, when there is no plot thumping in me, I still feel +a kind of embarrassment when I ask for a book out of the general demand. I +feel so like an odd stick. This embarrassment applies not to the request +for other commodities. I will order a collar that is quite outside the +fashion, in a high-pitched voice so that the whole shop can hear. I could +bargain for a purple waistcoat--did my taste run so--and though the +sidewalk listened, it would not draw a blush. I have traded even for +women's garments--though this did strain me--without an outward twitch. +Finally, to top my valor, I have bought sheet music of the lighter kind and +have pronounced the softest titles so that all could hear. But if I desire +the poems of Lovelace or the plays of Marlowe, I sidle close up to the +shopkeeper to get his very ear. If the book is visible, I point my thumb at +it without a word. + +It was but the other day--in order to fill a gap in a paper I was +writing--I desired to know the name of an author who is obscure although +his work has been translated into nearly all languages. I wanted to know a +little about the life of the man who wrote _Mary Had a Little Lamb_, which, +I am told, is known by children over pretty much all the western world. It +needed only a trip to the Public Library. Any attendant would direct me to +the proper shelf. Yet once in the building, my courage oozed. My question, +though serious, seemed too ridiculous to be asked. I would sizzle as I +met the attendant's eye. Of a consequence, I fumbled on my own devices, +possibly to the increase of my general knowledge, but without gaining what +I sought. + +They had no book in the Bath shop on piracy in Cornwall. I was offered +instead a work in two volumes on the notorious highwaymen of history, and +for a moment my plot swerved in that direction. But I put it by. To pay the +fellow for his pains--for he had dug in barrels to his shoulders and had a +smudge across his nose--I bought a copy of Thomson's "Castle of Indolence," +and in my more energetic moods I read it. And so I came away. + +On leaving the shop, lest I should be nipped in a neglect, I visited the +Roman baths. Then I took the waters in the Assembly Room. It was Sam +Weller, you may recall, who remarked, when he was entertained by the select +footmen, that the waters tasted like warm flat-irons. Finally, I viewed +the Crescent around which the shirted Winkle ran with the valorous Dowler +breathing on his neck. With such distractions, as you may well imagine, +Cornish pirates became as naught. Such mental vibration as I had was now +gone toward a tale of fashion in the days when Queen Anne was still alive. +Of a consequence, I again sought the bookshop and stifling my timidity, I +demanded such volumes as might set me most agreeably to my task. + +I have in mind also a bookshop of small pretension in a town in Wales. For +purely secular delight, maybe, it was too largely composed of Methodist +sermons. Hell fire burned upon its shelves with a warmth to singe so poor a +worm as I. Yet its signboard popped its welcome when I had walked ten miles +of sunny road. Possibly it was the chair rather than the divinity that +keeps the place in memory. The owner was absent on an errand, and his +daughter, who had been clumping about the kitchen on my arrival, was +uninstructed in the price marks. So I read and fanned myself until his +return. + +Perhaps my sluggishness toward first editions--to which I have hinted +above--comes in part from the acquaintance with a man who in a linguistic +outburst as I met him, pronounced himself to be a numismatist and +philatelist. One only of these names would have satisfied a man of less +conceit. It is as though the pteranodon should claim also to be the +spoon-bill dinosaur. It is against modesty that one man should summon all +the letters. No, the numismatist's head is not crammed with the mysteries +of life and death, nor is a philatelist one who is possessed with the +dimmer secrets of eternity. Rather, this man who was so swelled with +titles, eked a living by selling coins and stamps, and he was on his way +to Europe to replenish his wares. Inside his waistcoat, just above his +liver--if he owned so human an appendage--he carried a magnifying glass. +With this, when the business fit was on him, he counted the lines and dots +upon a stamp, the perforations on its edge. He catalogued its volutes, its +stipples, the frisks and curlings of its pattern. He had numbered the very +hairs on the head of George Washington, for in such minutiae did the value +of the stamp reside. Did a single hair spring up above the count, it would +invalidate the issue. Such values, got by circumstance or accident--resting +on a flaw--founded on a speck--cause no ferment of my desires. + +For the buying of books, it is the cheaper shops where I most often prowl. +There is in London a district around Charing Cross Road where almost every +shop has books for sale. There is a continuous rack along the sidewalk, +each title beckoning for your attention. You recall the class of +street-readers of whom Charles Lamb wrote--"poor gentry, who, not having +wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open +stalls." It was on some such street that these folk practiced their +innocent larceny. If one shopkeeper frowned at the diligence with which +they read "Clarissa," they would continue her distressing adventures across +the way. By a lingering progress up the street, "Sir Charles Grandison" +might be nibbled down--by such as had the stomach--without the outlay of +a single penny. As for Gibbon and the bulbous historians, though a whole +perusal would outlast the summer and stretch to the colder months, yet with +patience they could be got through. However, before the end was come even a +hasty reader whose eye was nimble on the page would be blowing on his nails +and pulling his tails between him and the November wind. + +But the habit of reading at the open stalls was not only with the poor. You +will remember that Mr. Brownlow was addicted. Really, had not the Artful +Dodger stolen his pocket handkerchief as he was thus engaged upon his book, +the whole history of Oliver Twist must have been quite different. And Pepys +himself, Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., was guilty. "To Paul's Church Yard," he +writes, "and there looked upon the second part of Hudibras, which I buy +not, but borrow to read." Such parsimony is the curse of authors. To thumb +a volume cheaply around a neighborhood is what keeps them in their garrets. +It is a less offence to steal peanuts from a stand. Also, it is recorded in +the life of Beau Nash that the persons of fashion of his time, to pass a +tedious morning "did divert themselves with reading in the booksellers' +shops." We may conceive Mr. Fanciful Fopling in the sleepy blink of those +early hours before the pleasures of the day have made a start, inquiring +between his yawns what latest novels have come down from London, or whether +a new part of "Pamela" is offered yet. If the post be in, he will prop +himself against the shelf and--unless he glaze and nod--he will read +cheaply for an hour. Or my Lady Betty, having taken the waters in the +pump-room and lent her ear to such gossip as is abroad so early, is now +handed to her chair and goes round by Gregory's to read a bit. She is +flounced to the width of the passage. Indeed, until the fashion shall +abate, those more solid authors that are set up in the rear of the shop, +must remain during her visits in general neglect. Though she hold herself +against the shelf and tilt her hoops, it would not be possible to pass. She +is absorbed in a book of the softer sort, and she flips its pages against +her lap-dog's nose. + +But now behold the student coming up the street! He is clad in shining +black. He is thin of shank as becomes a scholar. He sags with knowledge. He +hungers after wisdom. He comes opposite the bookshop. It is but coquetry +that his eyes seek the window of the tobacconist. His heart, you may be +sure, looks through the buttons at his back. At last he turns. He pauses on +the curb. Now desire has clutched him. He jiggles his trousered shillings. +He treads the gutter. He squints upon the rack. He lights upon a treasure. +He plucks it forth. He is unresolved whether to buy it or to spend the +extra shilling on his dinner. Now all you cooks together, to save your +business, rattle your pans to rouse him! If within these ancient buildings +there are onions ready peeled--quick!--throw them in the skillet that the +whiff may come beneath his nose! Chance trembles and casts its vote--eenie +meenie--down goes the shilling--he has bought the book. Tonight he will +spread it beneath his candle. Feet may beat a snare of pleasure on the +pavement, glad cries may pipe across the darkness, a fiddle may scratch its +invitation--all the rumbling notes of midnight traffic will tap in vain +their summons upon his window. + + + + +Any Stick Will Do To Beat A Dog + + +Reader, possibly on one of your country walks you have come upon a man with +his back against a hedge, tormented by a fiend in the likeness of a dog. +You yourself, of course, are not a coward. You possess that cornerstone of +virtue, a love for animals. If at your heels a dog sniffs and growls, you +humor his mistake, you flick him off and proceed with unbroken serenity. It +is scarcely an interlude to your speculation on the market. Or if you work +upon a sonnet and are in the vein, your thoughts, despite the beast, run +unbroken to a rhyme. But pity this other whose heart is less stoutly +wrapped! He has gone forth on a holiday to take the country air, to thrust +himself into the freer wind, to poke with his stick for such signs of +Spring as may be hiding in the winter's leaves. Having been grinding in an +office he flings himself on the great round world. He has come out to smell +the earth. Or maybe he seeks a hilltop for a view of the fields that lie +below patched in many colors, as though nature had been sewing at her +garments and had mended the cloth from her bag of scraps. + +On such a journey this fellow is travelling when, at a turn of the road, he +hears the sound of barking. As yet there is no dog in sight. He pauses. He +listens. How shall one know whether the sound comes up a wrathful gullet or +whether the dog bays at him impersonally, as at the distant moon? Or maybe +he vents himself upon a stubborn cow. Surely it is not an idle tune he +practices. He holds a victim in his mind. There is sour venom on his +churlish tooth. Is it best to go roundabout, or forward with such a nice +compound of innocence, boldness and modesty as shall satisfy the beast? If +one engross oneself on something that lies to the lee of danger, it allays +suspicion. Or if one absorb oneself upon the flora--a primrose on the +river's brim--it shows him clear and stainless. The stupidest dog should +see that so close a student can have no evil in him. Perhaps it would be +better to throw away one's stick lest it make a show of violence. Or it may +be concealed along the outer leg. Ministers of Grace defend us, what an +excitement in the barnyard! Has virtue no reward? Shall innocence perish +off the earth? Not one dog, but many, come running out. There has gone +a rumor about the barn that there is a stranger to be eaten, and it's +likely--if they keep their clamor--there will be a bone for each. Note how +the valor oozes from the man of peace! Observe his sidling gait, his skirts +pulled close, his hollowed back, his head bent across his shoulder, his +startled eye! Watch him mince his steps, lest a lingering heel be nipped! +Listen to him try the foremost dog with names, to gull him to a belief that +they have met before in happier circumstances! He appeals mutely to the +farmhouse that a recall be sounded. The windows are tightly curtained. The +heavens are comfortless. + +You remember the fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not +digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, +in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not +overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs--sleepy dogs +blinking in the firelight, friendly dogs with wagging tails, young dogs in +their first puppyhood with their teeth scarce sprouted, whose jaws have not +yet burgeoned into danger, and old dogs, too, who sun themselves and give +forth hollow, toothless, reassuring sounds. When a dog assumes the cozy +habits of the cat without laying off his nobler nature, he is my friend. A +dog of vegetarian aspect pleases me. Let him bear a mild eye as though he +were nourished on the softer foods! I would wish every dog to have a full +complement of tail. It's the sure barometer of his warm regard. There's no +art to find his mind's construction in the face. And I would have him with +not too much curiosity. It's a quality that brings him too often to the +gate. It makes him prone to sniff when one sits upon a visit. Nor do I like +dogs addicted to sudden excitement. Lethargy becomes them better. Let them +be without the Gallic graces! In general, I like a dog to whom I have been +properly introduced, with an exchange of credentials. While the dog is by, +let his master take my hand and address me in softest tones, to cement the +understanding! At bench-shows I love the beasts, although I keep to the +middle of the aisle. The streets are all the safer when so many of the +creatures are kept within. + +Frankly, I would enjoy the country more, if I knew that all the dogs were +away on visits. Of course, the highroad is quite safe. Its frequent traffic +is its insurance. Then, too, the barns are at such a distance, it is only a +monstrous anger can bring the dog. But if you are in need of direction you +select a friendly white house with green shutters. You swing open the gate +and crunch across the pebbles to the door. To the nearer eye there is a +look of "dog" about the place. Or maybe you are hot and thirsty, and there +is a well at the side of the house. Is it better to gird yourself to danger +or to put off your thirst until the crossroads where pop is sold? + +Or a lane leads down to the river. Even at this distance you hear the +shallow brawl of water on the stones. A path goes off across a hill, with +trees beckoning at the top. There is a wind above and a wider sweep of +clouds. Surely, from the crest of the hill the whole county will lie before +you. Such tunes as come up from the world below--a school-bell, a rooster +crowing, children laughing on the road, a threshing machine on the lower +meadows--such tunes are pitched to a marvellous softness. Shall we follow +the hot pavement, or shall we dare those lonely stretches? + +There is a kind of person who is steeped too much in valor. He will cross a +field although there is a dog inside the fence. Goodness knows that I would +rather keep to the highroad with such humility as shall not rouse the +creature. Or he will shout and whistle tunes that stir the dogs for miles. +He slashes his stick against the weeds as though in challenge. One might +think that he went about on unfeeling stalks instead of legs as children +walk on stilts, or that a former accident had clipped him off above the +knees and that he was now jointed out of wood to a point beyond the biting +limit. Or perhaps the clothes he wears beneath--the inner mesh and very +balbriggan of his attire--is of so hard a texture that it turns a tooth. Be +these defenses as they may, note with what bravado he mounts the wall! One +leg dangles as though it were baited and were angling for a bite. + +There is a French village near Quebec whose population is chiefly dogs. +It lies along the river in a single street, not many miles from the point +where Wolfe climbed to the Plains of Abraham. There are a hundred houses +flat against the roadway and on the steps of each there sits a dog. As I +went through on foot, each of these dogs picked me up, examined me nasally +and passed me on, not generously as though I had stood the test, but rather +in deep suspicion that I was a queer fellow, not to be penetrated at first, +but one who would surely be found out and gobbled before coming to the +end of the street. As long as I would eventually furnish forth the common +banquet, it mattered not which dog took the first nip. Inasmuch as I would +at last be garnished for the general tooth, it would be better to wait +until all were gathered around the platter. "Good neighbor dog," each +seemed to say, "you too sniff upon the rogue! If he be honest, my old nose +is much at fault." Meantime I padded lightly through the village, at first +calling on the dogs by English names, but later using such wisps as I had +of French. "Aucassin, mon pauvre chien. Voici, Tintagiles, alors donc mon +cherie. Je suis votre ami," but with little effect. + +But the dogs that one meets in the Canadian woods are of the fiercest +breed. They border on the wolf. They are called huskies and they are so +strong and so fleet of foot that they pull sleds for hours across the +frozen lakes at almost the speed of a running horse. It must be confessed +that they are handsome and if it happens to be your potato peelings and +discarded fish that they eat, they warm into friendliness. Indeed, on these +occasions, one can make quite a show of bravery by stroking and dealing +lightly with them. But once upon a time in an ignorant moment two other +campers and myself followed a lonely railroad track and struck off on a +path through the pines in search of a certain trapper on a fur farm. The +path went on a broken zigzag avoiding fallen trees and soft hollows, +conducting itself on the whole with more patience than firmness. We walked +a quarter of a mile, but still we saw no cabin. The line of the railroad +had long since disappeared. An eagle wheeled above us and quarrelled at our +intrusion. Presently to test our course and learn whether we were coming +near the cabin, we gave a shout. Immediately out of the deeper woods there +came a clamor that froze us. Such sounds, it seemed, could issue only from +bloody and dripping jaws. In a panic, as by a common impulse we turned and +ran. Yet we did not run frankly as when the circus lion is loose, but in a +shamefaced manner--an attempt at a retreat in good order--something between +a walk and a run. At the end of a hundred yards we stopped. No dogs had +fallen on us. Danger had not burst its kennel. We hallooed again, to rouse +the trapper. At last, after a minute of suspense, came his answering voice, +the sweetest sound to be imagined. Whereupon I came down from my high stump +which I had climbed for a longer view. + +I am convinced that I am not alone in my--shall I say diffidence?--toward +dogs. Indeed, there is evidence from the oldest times that mankind, in its +more honest moments, has confessed to a fear of dogs. In recognition of +this general fear, the unmuzzled Cerberus was put at the gate of Hades. +It was rightly felt that when the unhappy pilgrims got within, his fifty +snapping heads were better than a bolt upon the door. It was better for +them to endure the ills they had, than be nipped in the upper passage. He, +also, who first spoke the ancient proverb, _Let sleeping dogs lie_, did no +more than voice the caution of the street. And he, also, who invented the +saying that the world is going to the bow-wows, lodged his deplorable +pessimism in fitting words. + +It was Daniel who sat with the lions. But there are degrees of bravery. On +Long Street, within sight of my window--just where the street gets into its +most tangled traffic--there has hung for many years the painted signboard +of a veterinary surgeon. Its artist was in the first flourish of youth. Old +age had not yet chilled him when he mixed his gaudy colors. The surgeon's +name is set up in modest letters, but the horse below flames with color. +What a flaring nostril! What an eager eye! How arched the neck! Here is a +wrath and speed unknown to the quadrupeds of this present Long Street. Such +mild-eyed, accumbent, sharp-ribbed horses as now infest the curb--mere +whittlings from a larger age--hang their heads at their degeneracy. Indeed, +these horses seem to their owners not to be worth the price of a nostrum. +If disease settles in them, let them lean against a post until the fit is +past! And of a consequence, the doctor's work has fallen off. It has +become a rare occasion when it is permitted him to stroke his chin in +contemplation of some inner palsy. Therefore to give his wisdom scope, +the doctor some time since announced the cellar of the building to be a +hospital for dogs. Must I press the analogy? I have seen the doctor with +bowl and spoon in hand take leave of the cheerful world. He opens the +cellar door. A curdling yelp comes up the stairs. In the abyss below there +are twenty dogs at least, all of them sick, all dangerous. Not since Orion +led his hunting pack across the heavens has there been so fierce a sound. +The door closes. There is a final yelp, such as greets a bone. Doubtless, +by this time, they are munching on the doctor. Good sir, had you lived in +pre-apostolic days, your name would have been lined with Daniel's in the +hymn. I might have spent my earliest treble in your praise. + +But there are other kinds of dogs. Gentlest of readers, have you ever +passed a few days at Tunbridge Wells? It lies on one of the roads that run +from London to the Channel and for several hundred years persons have gone +there to take the waters against the more fashionable ailments. Its chief +fame was in the days when rich folk, to ward off for the season a touch of +ancestral gout, travelled down from London in their coaches. We may fancy +Lord Thingumdo crossing his sleek legs inside or putting his head to the +window on the change of horses. He has outriders and a horn to sound his +coming. His Lordship has a liver that must be mended, but also he has +a weakness for the gaming table. Or Lady Euphemia, wrapped in silks, +languishes mornings in her lodgings with a latest novel, but goes forth at +noon upon the Pantilles to shop in the stalls. A box of patches must be +bought. A lace flounce has caught her eye. Bless her dear eyes, as she +bends upon her purchase she is fair to look upon. The Grand Rout is set for +tonight. Who knows but that the Duke will put the tender question and will +ask her to name the happy day? + +But these golden days are past. Tunbridge Wells has sunk from fashion. The +gaming tables are gone. A band still plays mornings in the Pantilles--or +did so before the war--but cheaper gauds are offered in the shops. Emerald +brooches are fallen to paste. In all the season there is scarcely a single +demand for a diamond garter. If there were now a Rout, the only dancers +would be stiff shadows from the past. The healing waters still trickle from +the ground and an old woman serves you for a penny, but the miracle has +gone. The old world is cured and dead. + +Tunbridge Wells is visited now chiefly by old ladies whose husbands--to +judge by the black lace caps--have left Lombard Street for heaven. At the +hotel where I stopped, which was at the top of the Commons outside the +thicker town, I was the only man in the breakfast room. Two widows, each +with a tiny dog on a chair beside her, sat at the next table. This was +their conversation: + +"Did you hear her last night?" + +"Was it Flossie that I heard?" + +"Yes. The poor dear was awake all night. She got her feet wet yesterday +when I let her run upon the grass." + +But after breakfast--if the day is sunny and the wind sits in a favoring +quarter--one by one the widows go forth in their chairs. These are wicker +contrivances that hang between three wheels. Burros pull them, and men walk +alongside to hold their bridles. Down comes the widow. Down comes a maid +with her wraps. Down comes a maid with Flossie. The wraps are adjusted. The +widow is handed in. Her feet are wound around with comforters against a +draft. Her salts rest in her lap. Her ample bag of knitting is safe aboard. +Flossie is placed beside her. Proot! The donkey starts. + +All morning the widow sits in the Pantilles and listens to the band and +knits. Flossie sits on the flagging at her feet with an intent eye upon the +ball of worsted. Twice in a morning--three times if the gods are kind--the +ball rolls to the pavement. Flossie has been waiting so long for this +to happen. It is the bright moment of her life--the point and peak of +happiness. She darts upon it. She paws it exultantly for a moment. Brief is +the rainbow and brief the Borealis. The finger of Time is swift. + +The poppy blooms and fades. The maid captures the ball of worsted and +restores it. + +It lies in the widow's lap. The band plays. The needles click to a long +tune. The healing waters trickle from the ground. The old woman whines +their merits. Flossie sits motionless, her head cocked and her eye upon the +ball. Perhaps the god of puppies will again be good to her. + + + + +ROADS OF MORNING + + +My grandfather's farm lay somewhere this side of the sunset, so near that +its pastures barely missed the splash of color. But from the city it was a +two hours' journey by horse and phaeton. My grandfather drove. I sat next, +my feet swinging clear of the lunchbox. My brother had the outside, a place +denied to me for fear that I might fall across the wheel. When we were +all set, my mother made a last dab at my nose--an unheeded smudge having +escaped my vigilance. Then my grandfather said, "Get up,"--twice, for the +lazy horse chose to regard the first summons as a jest. We start. The great +wheels turn. My brother leans across the guard to view the miracle. We +crunch the gravel. We are alive for excitement. My brother plays we are +a steamboat and toots. I toot in imitation, but higher up as if I were a +younger sort of steamboat. We hold our hands on an imaginary wheel and +steer. We scorn grocery carts and all such harbor craft. We are on a long +cruise. Street lights will guide us sailing home. + +Of course there were farms to the south of the city and apples may have +ripened there to as fine a flavor, and to the east, also, doubtless there +were farms. It would be asking too much that the west should have all the +haystacks, cherry trees and cheese houses. If your judgment skimmed upon +the surface, you would even have found the advantage with the south. It was +prettier because more rolling. It was shaggier. The country to the south +tipped up to the hills, so sharply in places that it might have made its +living by collecting nickels for the slide. Indeed, one might think that a +part of the city had come bouncing down the slope, for now it lay resting +at the bottom, sprawled somewhat for its ease. Or it might appear--if your +belief runs on discarded lines--that the whole flat-bottomed earth had been +fouled in its celestial course and now lay aslant upon its beam with its +cargo shifted and spilled about. + +The city streets that led to the south, which in those days ended in lanes, +popped out of sight abruptly at the top of the first ridge. And when the +earth caught up again with their level, already it was dim and purple and +tall trees were no more than a roughened hedge. But what lay beyond that +range of hills--what towns and cities--what oceans and forests--how beset +with adventure--how fearful after dark--these things you could not see, +even if you climbed to some high place and strained yourself on tiptoe. And +if you walked from breakfast to lunch--until you gnawed within and were but +a hollow drum--there would still be a higher range against the sky. There +are misty kingdoms on this whirling earth, but the ways are long and steep. + +The lake lay to the north with no land beyond, the city to the east. But to +the west-- + +Several miles outside the city as it then was, and still beyond its +clutches, the country was cut by a winding river bottom with sharp edges of +shale. Down this valley Rocky River came brawling in the spring, over-fed +and quarrelsome. Later in the year--its youthful appetite having caught an +indigestion--it shrunk and wasted to a shadow. By August you could cross it +on the stones. The uproar of its former flood was marked upon the shale and +trunks of trees here and there were wedged, but now the river plays drowsy +tunes upon the stones. There is scarcely enough movement of water to flick +the sunlight. A leaf on its idle current is a lazy craft whose skipper +nods. There were hickory trees on the point above. May-apples grew in the +deep woods, and blackberries along the fences. And in the season sober +horses plowed up and down the fields with nodding heads, affirming their +belief in the goodness of the soil and their willingness to help in its +fruition. + +Yet the very core of this valley in days past was a certain depth of water +at a turn of the stream. There was a clay bank above it and on it small +naked boys stood and daubed themselves. One of them put a band of clay +about himself by way of decoration. Another, by a more general smudge, made +himself a Hottentot and thereby gave his manners a wider scope and license. +But by daubing yourself entire you became an Indian and might vent yourself +in hideous yells, for it was amazing how the lungs grew stouter when the +clay was laid on thick. Then you tapped your flattened palm rapidly against +your mouth and released an intermittent uproar in order that the valley +might he warned of the deviltry to come. You circled round and round and +beat upon the ground in the likeness of a war dance. But at last, sated +with scalps, off you dived into the pool and came up a white man. Finally, +you stood on one leg and jounced the water from your ear, or pulled a +bloodsucker from your toes before he sapped your life--for this tiny +creature of the rocks was credited with the gift of prodigious inflation, +and might inhale you, blood, sinews, suspenders and all, if left to his +ugly purpose. + +Farms should not be too precisely located; at least this is true of farms +which, like my grandfather's, hang in a mist of memory. I read once of a +wonderful spot--quite inferior, doubtless, to my grandfather's farm--which +was located by evil directions intentionally to throw a seeker off. +Munchausen, you will recall, in the placing of his magic countries, was not +above this agreeable villainy. Robinson Crusoe was loose and vague in the +placing of his island. It is said that Izaak Walton waved a hand obscurely +toward the stream where he had made a catch, but could not be cornered to a +nice direction, lest his pool be overrun. In early youth, I myself went, on +a mischievous hint, to explore a remote region which I was told lay in the +dark behind the kindling pile. But because I moved in a fearful darkness, +quite beyond the pale light from the furnace room, I lost the path. It did +not lead me to the peaks and the roaring waters. + +But the farm was reached by more open methods. Dolly and the phaeton were +the chief instruments. First--if you were so sunk in ignorance as not to +know the road--you inquired of everybody for the chewing gum factory, to be +known by its smell of peppermint. Then you sought the high bridge over the +railroad tracks. Beyond was Kamm's Corners. Here, at a turn of the road, +was a general store whose shelves sampled the produce of this whole fair +world and the factories thereof. One might have thought that the proprietor +emulated Noah at the flood by bidding two of each created things to find a +place inside. + +Beyond Kamm's Corners you came to the great valley. When almost down the +hill you passed a house with broken windows and unkept grass. This house, +by report, was haunted, but you could laugh at such tales while the morning +sun was up. At the bottom of the hill a bridge crossed the river, with +loose planking that rattled as though the man who made nails was dead. + +Beyond the bridge, at the first rise of ground, the horse stopped--for I +assume that you drove a sagacious animal--by way of hint that every one +of sound limb get out and walk to the top of the hill. A suspicious horse +turned his head now and again and cast his eye upon the buggy to be sure +that no one climbed in again. + +Presently you came to the toll-gate at the top and paid its keeper five +cents, or whatever large sum he demanded. Then your grandfather--if by +fortunate chance you happened to have one--asked after his wife and +children, and had they missed the croup; then told him his corn was looking +well. + +My grandfather--for it is time you knew him--lived with us. Because of a +railway accident fifteen years before in which one of his legs was cut off +just below the knee, he had retired from public office. Several years of +broken health had been followed by years that were for the most part free +from suffering. My own first recollection reverts to these better years. +I recall a tall man--to my eyes a giant, for he was taller even than my +father--who came into the nursery as I was being undressed. There was a +wind in the chimney, and the windows rattled. He put his crutches against +the wall. Then taking me in his arms, he swung me aloft to his shoulder +by a series of somersaults. I cried this first time, but later I came to +demand the performance. + +Once, when I was a little older, I came upon one of his discarded wooden +legs as I was playing in the garret of the house. It was my first +acquaintance with such a contrivance. It lay behind a pile of trunks and I +was, at the time, on my way to the center of the earth, for the cheerful +path dove into darkness behind the chimney. You may imagine my surprise. I +approached it cautiously. I viewed it from all sides by such dusty light as +fell between the trunks. Not without fear I touched it. It was unmistakably +a leg--but whose? Was it possible that there was a kind of Bluebeard in the +family, who, for his pleasure, lopped off legs? There had been no breath of +such a scandal. Yet, if my reading and studies were correct, such things +had happened in other families not very different from ours; not in our own +town maybe, but in such near-by places as Kandahar and Serendib--places +which in my warm regard were but as suburbs to our street, to be gained if +you persevered for a hundred lamp-posts. Or could the leg belong to Annie +the cook? Her nimbleness with griddle-cakes belied the thought: And once, +when the wind had swished her skirts, manifestly she was whole and sound. +Then all at once I knew it to be my grandfather's. Grown familiar, I pulled +it to the window. I tried it on, but made bad work of walking. + +To the eye my grandfather had two legs all the way down and, except for +his crutches and an occasional squeak, you would not have detected his +infirmity. Evidently the maker did no more than imitate nature, although, +for myself, I used to wonder at the poverty of his invention. There would +be distinction in a leg, which in addition to its usual functions, would +also bend forward at the knee, or had a surprising sidewise joint--and +there would be profit, too, if one cared to make a show of it. The greatest +niggard on the street would pay two pins for such a sight. + +As my grandfather was the only old gentleman of my acquaintance, a wooden +leg seemed the natural and suitable accompaniment of old age. Persons, it +appeared, in their riper years, cast off a leg, as trees dropped their +leaves. But my grandmother puzzled me. Undeniably she retained both of +hers, yet her hair was just as white, and she was almost as old. Evidently +this law of nature worked only with men. Ladies, it seemed, were not +deciduous. But how the amputation was effected in men--whether by day or +night--how the choice fell between the right and left--whether the wooden +leg came down the chimney (a proper entrance)--how soon my father would go +the way of all masculine flesh and cast his off--these matters I could not +solve. The Arabian Nights were silent on the subject. Aladdin's uncle, +apparently, had both his legs. He was too brisk in villainy to admit a +wooden leg. But then, he was only an uncle. If his history ran out to the +end, doubtless he would go with a limp in his riper days. The story of the +Bible--although it trafficked in such veterans as Methuselah--gave not a +hint. Abraham died full of years. Here would have been a proper test--but +the book was silent. + +My grandfather in those days had much leisure time. He still kept an office +at the rear of the house, although he had given up the regular practice +of the law. But a few old clients lingered on, chiefly women who carried +children in their arms and old men without neckties who came to him for +free advice. These he guided patiently in their troubles, and he would sit +an hour to listen to a piteous story. In an extremity he gave them money, +or took a well-meant but worthless note. Often his callers overran the +dinner hour and my mother would have to jingle the dinner bell at the door +to rouse them. Occasionally he would be called on for a public speech, and +for several days he would be busy at his desk. Frequently he presided at +dinners and would tell a story and sing a song, for he had a fine bass +voice and was famous for his singing. + +He read much in those last years in science. When he was not reading +Trowbridge to his grandchildren, it was Huxley to himself. But when his +eyes grew tired, he would on an occasion--if there was canning in the +house--go into the kitchen where my mother and grandmother worked, and help +pare the fruit. Seriously, as though he were engaged upon a game, he would +cut the skin into thinnest strips, unbroken to the end, and would hold up +the coil for us to see. Or if he broke it in the cutting it was a point +against him in the contest. + +His diversion rather than his profit was the care and rental of about +twenty small houses, some of which he built to fit his pensioners. My +brother and myself often made the rounds with him in the phaeton. At most +of the houses he was affectionately greeted as "Jedge" and was held in long +conversations across the fence. And to see an Irishman was to see a friend. +They all knew him and said, "Good mornin'," as we passed. He and they were +good Democrats together. + +I can see in memory a certain old Irishman in a red flannel shirt, with his +foot upon the hub, bending across the wheel and gesticulating in an endless +discussion of politics or crops, while my brother and I were impatient to +be off. Dolly was of course patient, for she had long since passed her +fretful youth. If by any biological chance it had happened that she had +been an old lady instead of a horse, she would have been the kind that +spent her day in a rocker with her knitting. Any one who gave Dolly an +excuse for standing was her friend. There she stood as though she wished +the colloquy to last forever. + +It was seldom that Dolly lost her restraint. She would, indeed, when she +came near the stable, somewhat hasten her stride; and when we came on our +drives to the turning point and at last headed about for home, Dolly would +know it and show her knowledge by a quickening of the ears and the quiver +of a faint excitement. Yet Dolly lost her patience when there were flies. +Then she threw off all repression and so waved her tail that she regularly +got it across the reins. This stirred my grandfather to something not +far short of anger. How vigorously would he try to dislodge the reins +by pulling and jerking! Dolly only clamped down her tail the harder. +Experience showed that the only way was to go slowly and craftily and +without heat or temper--a slackening of the reins--a distraction of Dolly's +attention--a leaning across the dashboard--a firm grasping of the tail out +near the end--a sudden raising thereof. Ah! It was done. We all settled +back against the cushions. Or perhaps a friendly fly would come to our +assistance and Dolly would have to use her tail in another direction. + +The whip was seldom used. Generally it stood in its socket. It was +ornamental like a flagstaff. It forgot its sterner functions. But Dolly +must have known the whip in some former life, for even a gesture toward the +socket roused her. If it was rattled she mended her pace for a block. But +if on a rare occasion my grandfather took it in his hand, Dolly lay one ear +back in our direction, for she knew then he meant business. And what an +excitement would arise in the phaeton! We held on tight for fear that she +might take it into her mild old head to run away. + +But Dolly had her moments. One sunny summer afternoon while she grazed +peacefully in the orchard, with her reins wound around the whip handle--the +appropriate place on these occasions--she was evidently stung by a bee. My +brother was at the time regaling himself in a near-by blackberry thicket. +He looked up at an unusual sound. Without warning, Dolly had leaped to +action and was tearing around the orchard dragging the phaeton behind +her. She wrecked the top on a low hanging branch, then hit another tree, +severing thereby all connection between herself and the phaeton, and at +last galloped down the lane to the farm house, with the broken shafts and +harness dangling behind her. Kipling's dun "with the mouth of a bell and +the heart of Hell and the head of the gallows-tree," could hardly have +shown more spirit. It was as though one brief minute of a glorious youth +had come back to her. It was a last spurting of an old flame before it sunk +to ash. + +My grandfather gave his leisure to his grandchildren. He carved for us with +his knife, with an especial knack for willow whistles. He showed us the +colors that lay upon the world when we looked at it through one of the +glass pendants of the parlor chandelier. He sat by us when we played +duck-on-the-rock. He helped us with our kites and gave a superintendence to +our toys. It is true that he was superficial with tin-tags and did not know +the difference in value between a Steam Engine tag--the rarest of them +all--and a common Climax, but we forgave him as one forgives a friend who +is ignorant of Persian pottery. He employed us as gardeners and put a +bounty on weeds. We watered the lawn together, turn by turn. When I was +no more than four years old, he taught us to play casino with him--and +afterwards bezique. How he cried out if he got a royal sequence! With what +excitement he announced a double bezique! Or if one of us seemed about to +score and lacked but a single card, how intently he contended for the last +few tricks to thwart our declaration! And if we got it despite his lead +of aces, how gravely he squinted on the cards against deception, with his +glasses forward on his nose! + +When he took his afternoon nap and lay upon his back on the sofa in the +sitting-room, we made paper pin-wheels to see whether his breath would +stir them. This trick having come to his notice by a sudden awakening, he +sometimes thereafter played to be asleep and snored in such a mighty gust +that the wheels spun. He was like a Dutch tempest against a windmill. + +If a Dime Museum came to town we made an afternoon of it. He took us to all +the circuses and gave us our choice of side-shows. We walked up and +down before the stretches of painted canvas, balancing in our desire a +sword-swallower against an Indian Princess. Most of the fat women and all +the dwarfs that I have known came to my acquaintance when in company with +my grandfather. As a young man, it was said, he once ran away from home to +join a circus as an acrobat, having acquired the trick of leaping upon a +running horse. I fancy that his knack of throwing us to his shoulder by a +double somersault was a recollection of his early days. You may imagine +with what awe we looked on him even though he now went on crutches. He was +the epitome of adventure, the very salt of excitement. It was better having +him than a pirate in the house. When the circus had gone and life was drab, +he was our tutor in the art of turning cart-wheels and making hand-stands +against the door. + +And once, when we were away from him, he walked all morning about the +garden and in his loneliness he gathered into piles the pebbles that we had +dropped. + +I was too young to know my grandfather in his active days when he was +prominent in public matters. His broader abilities are known to others. But +though more than twenty years have passed since his death, I remember his +tone of voice, his walk, his way of handling a crutch, all his tricks of +speech and conduct as though he had just left the room. And I can think of +nothing more beautiful than that a useful man who has faced the world for +seventy years and has done his part, should come back in his old age to the +nursery and be the playfellow of his grandchildren. + +But the best holiday was a trip to the farm. + +This farm--to which in our slow trot we have been so long a time in +coming--lay for a mile on the upper land, and its grain fields and pastures +looked down into the valley. The buildings, however, were set close to the +road and fixed their interest on such occasional wagons as creaked by. A +Switzer occupied the farm, who owned, in addition to the more immediate +members of his family, a cuckoo clock whose weights hung on long cords +which by Saturday night reached almost to the floor. When I have sat at his +table, I have neglected cheese and the lesser foods, when the hour came +near, in order not to miss the cuckoo's popping out. And in the duller +spaces, when the door was shut, I have fancied it sitting in the dark and +counting the minutes to itself. + +The Switzer's specialty was the making of a kind of rubber cheese which one +could learn to like in time. Of the processes of its composition, I can +remember nothing except that when it was in the great press the whey ran +from its sides, but this may be common to all cheeses. I was once given a +cup of this whey to drink and I brightened, for until it was in my mouth, +I thought it was buttermilk. Beyond was the spring-house with cans of milk +set in the cool water and with a trickling sound beneath the boards. From +the spring-house there started those mysterious cow-paths that led down +into the great gorge that cut the farm. Here were places so deep that only +a bit of the sky showed and here the stones were damp. It was a place that +seemed to lie nearer to the confusion when the world was made, and rocks +lay piled as though a first purpose had been broken off. And to follow a +cow-path, regardless of where it led, was, in those days, the essence of +hazard; though all the while from the pastures up above there came the flat +safe tinkling of the bells. + +The apple orchard--where Dolly was stung by the bee--was set on a fine +breezy place at the brow of the hill with the valley in full sight. The +trees themselves were old and decayed, but they were gnarled and crotched +for easy climbing. And the apples--in particular a russet--mounted to a +delicacy. On the other side of the valley, a half mile off as a bird would +fly, were the buildings of a convent, and if you waited you might hear +the twilight bell. To this day all distant bells come to my ears with a +pleasing softness, as though they had been cast in a quieter world. Stone +arrow-heads were found in a near-by field as often as the farmer turned up +the soil in plowing. And because of this, a long finger of land that put +off to the valley, was called Indian Point. Here, with an arm for pillow, +one might lie for a long hour on a sunny morning and watch the shadows of +clouds move across the lowland. A rooster crows somewhere far off--surely +of all sounds the drowsiest. A horse in a field below lifts up its head and +neighs. The leaves practice a sleepy tune. If one has the fortune to keep +awake, here he may lie and think the thoughts that are born of sun and +wind. + +And now, although it is not yet noon, hunger rages in us. The pancakes, the +syrup, the toast and the other incidents of breakfast have disappeared +the way the rabbit vanishes when the magician waves his hand. The horrid +Polyphemus did not so crave his food. And as yet there is no comforting +sniff from the kitchen. Scrubbing and other secular matters engage the +farmer's wife. There is as yet not a faintest gurgle in the kettle. + +To divert ourselves, we climb three trees and fall out of one. Is twelve +o'clock never to come? Have Time and the Hour grown stagnant? We eat apples +and throw the cores at the pig to hear him grunt. Is the great round sun +stuck? Have the days of Joshua come again? We walk a rail fence. Is it not +yet noon? Shrewsbury clock itself--reputed by scholars the slowest of all +possible clocks--could not so hold off. I snag myself--but it is nothing +that shows when I sit. + +Ah! At last! My grandfather is calling from the house. We run back and +find that the lunch is ready and is laid upon a table with a red oil-cloth +cover. We apply ourselves. Silence.... + +The journey home started about five o'clock. There was one game we always +played. Each of us, having wisely squinted at the sky, made a reckoning and +guessed where we would be when the sun set. My grandfather might say the +high bridge. I named the Sherman House. But my brother, being precise, +judged it to a fraction of a telegraph pole. Beyond a certain turn--did we +remember?--well, it would be exactly sixteen telegraph poles further on. +What an excitement there was when the sun's lower rim was already below the +horizon! We stood on our knees and looked through the little window at +the back of the phaeton. With what suspicion we regarded my grandfather's +driving! Or if Dolly lagged, did it not raise a thought that she, too, was +in the plot against us? The sun sets. We cry out the victor. + +The sky flames with color. Then deadens in the east. The dusk is falling. +The roads grow dark. Where run the roads of night? While there is light, +you can see the course they keep across the country--the dust of horses' +feet--a bridge--a vagrant winding on a hill beyond. All day long they are +busy with the feet of men and women and children shouting. Then twilight +comes, and the roads lead home to supper and the curling smoke above the +roof. But at night where run the roads? It's dark beyond the candle's +flare--where run the roads of night. + +My brother and I have become sleepy. We lop over against my grandfather-- + +We awake with a start. There is a gayly lighted horse-car jingling beside +us. The street lights show us into harbor. We are home at last. + + + + +The Man Of Grub Street Comes From His Garret + + +I have come to live this winter in New York City and by good fortune I +have found rooms on a pleasant park. This park, which is but one block in +extent, is so set off from the thoroughfares that it bears chiefly the +traffic that is proper to the place itself. Grocery carts jog around and +throw out their wares. Laundry wagons are astir. A little fat tailor on an +occasion carries in an armful of newly pressed clothing with suspenders +hanging. Dogs are taken out to walk but are held in leash, lest a taste of +liberty spoil them for an indoor life. The center of the park is laid out +with grass and trees and pebbled paths, and about it is a high iron fence. +Each house has a key to the enclosure. Such social infection, therefore, as +gets inside the gates is of our own breeding. In the sunny hours nurses and +children air themselves in this grass plot. Here a gayly painted wooden +velocipede is in fashion. At this minute there are several pairs of fat +legs a-straddle this contrivance. It is a velocipede as it was first made, +without pedals. Beau Brummel--for the velocipede dates back to him--may +have walked forth to take the waters at Tunbridge Wells on a vehicle not +far different, but built to his greater stature. There is also a trickle +of drays and wagons across the park--a mere leakage from the streets, as +though the near-by traffic in the pressure had burst its pipes. But only at +morning and night when the city collects or discharges its people, are the +sidewalks filled. Then for a half hour the nozzle of the city plays a full +stream on us. + +The park seems to be freer and more natural than the streets outside. A man +goes by gesticulating as though he practiced for a speech. A woman adjusts +her stocking on the coping below the fence with the freedom of a country +road. A street sweeper, patched to his office, tunes his slow work to fit +the quiet surroundings. Boys skate by or cut swirls upon the pavement in +the privilege of a playground. + +My work--if anything so pleasant and unforced can carry the name--is +done at a window that overlooks this park. Were it not for several high +buildings in my sight I might fancy that I lived in one of the older +squares of London. There is a look of Thackeray about the place as though +the Osbornes might be my neighbors. A fat man who waddles off his steps +opposite, if he would submit to a change of coat, might be Jos Sedley +starting for his club to eat his chutney. If only there were a crest above +my bell-pull I might even expect Becky Sharp in for tea. Or occasionally I +divert myself with the fancy that I am of a still older day and that I have +walked in from Lichfield--I choose the name at hazard--with a tragedy in my +pocket, to try my fortune. Were it not for the fashion of dress in the park +below and some remnant of reason in myself, I could, in a winking moment, +persuade myself that my room is a garret and my pen a quill. On such +delusion, before I issued on the street to seek my coffee-house, I would +adjust my wig and dust myself of snuff. + +But for my exercise and recreation--which for a man of Grub Street is +necessary in the early hours of afternoon when the morning fires have +fallen--I go outside the park. I have a wide choice for my wanderings. I +may go into the district to the east and watch the children play against +the curb. If they pitch pennies on the walk I am careful to go about, for +fear that I distract the throw. Or if the stones are marked for hop-scotch, +I squeeze along the wall. It is my intention--from which as yet my +diffidence withholds me--to present to the winner of one of these contests +a red apple which I shall select at a corner stand. Or an ice wagon pauses +in its round, and while the man is gone there is a pleasant thieving of +bits of ice. Each dirty cheek is stuffed as though a plague of mumps had +fallen on the street. Or there may be a game of baseball--a scampering +on the bases, a home-run down the gutter--to engage me for an inning. +Or shinny grips the street. But if a street organ comes--not a mournful +one-legged box eked out with a monkey, but a big machine with an extra man +to pull--the children leave their games. It was but the other day that I +saw six of them together dancing on the pavement to the music, with skirts +and pigtails flying. There was such gladness in their faces that the +musician, although he already had his nickel, gave them an extra tune. It +was of such persuasive gayety that the number of dancers at once went up to +ten and others wiggled to the rhythm. And for myself, although I am past my +sportive days, the sound of a street organ, if any, would inflame me to a +fox-trot. Even a surly tune--if the handle be quickened--comes from the box +with a brisk seduction. If a dirge once got inside, it would fret until it +came out a dancing measure. + +In this part of town, on the better streets, I sometimes study the fashions +as I see them in the shops and I compare them with those of uptown stores. +Nor is there the difference one might suppose. The small round muff that +sprang up this winter in the smarter shops won by only a week over the +cheaper stores. Tan gaiters ran a pretty race. And I am now witness to +a dead heat in a certain kind of fluffy rosebud dress. The fabrics are +probably different, but no matter how you deny it, they are cut to a common +pattern. + +In a poorer part of the city still nearer to the East River, where +smells of garlic and worse issue from cellarways, I came recently on +a considerable park. It was supplied with swings and teeters and drew +children on its four fronts. Of a consequence the children of many races +played together. I caught a Yiddish answer to an Italian question. I fancy +that a child here could go forth at breakfast wholly a Hungarian and come +home with a smack of Russian or Armenian added. The general games that +merged the smaller groups, aided in the fusion. If this park is not already +named--a small chance, for it shows the marks of age--it might properly be +called _The Park of the Thirty Nations_. + +Or my inclination may take me to the lower city. Like a poor starveling +I wander in the haunts of wealth where the buildings are piled to forty +stories, and I spin out the ciphers in my brain in an endeavor to compute +the amount that is laid up inside. Also, lest I become discontented with my +poverty, I note the strain and worry of the faces that I meet. There is a +story of Tolstoi in which a man is whispered by his god that he may possess +such land as he can circle in a day. Until that time he had been living on +a fertile slope of sun and shadow, with fields ample for his needs. But +when the whisper came, at a flash, he pelted off across the hills. He ran +all morning, but as the day advanced his sordid ambition broadened and he +turned his course into a wider and still wider circle. Here a pleasant +valley tempted him and he bent his path to bring it inside his mark. Here +a fruitful upland led him off. As the day wore on he ran with a greater +fierceness, because he knew he would lose everything if he did not reach +his starting place before the sun went down. The sun was coming near the +rim of earth when he toiled up the last hill. His feet were cut by stones, +his face pinched with agony. He staggered toward the goal and fell across +it while as yet there was a glint of light. But his effort burst his heart. +Does the analogy hold on these narrow streets? To a few who sit in an inner +office, Mammon has made a promise of wealth and domination. These few run +breathless to gain a mountain. But what have the gods whispered to the ten +thousand who sit in the outer office, that they bend and blink upon their +ledgers? Have the gods whispered to them the promise of great wealth? Alas, +before them there lies only the dust and heat of a level road, yet they too +are broken at the sunset. + +Less oppressive are the streets where commerce is more apparent. Here, +unless you would be smirched, it is necessary to walk fast and hold your +coat-tails in. Packing cases are going down slides. Bales are coming up in +hoists. Barrels are rolling out of wagons. Crates are being lifted in. Is +the exchange never to stop? Is no warehouse satisfied with what it has? +English, which until now you judged a soft concordant language, shows here +its range and mastery of epithet. And all about, moving and jostling the +boxes, are men with hooks. One might think that in a former day Captain +Cuttle had settled here to live and that his numerous progeny had kept the +place. + +Often I ride on a bus top like a maharajah on an elephant, up near the +tusks, as it were, where the view is unbroken. I plan this trip so that I +move counter to the procession that goes uptown in the late afternoon. Is +there a scene like it in the world? The boulevards of Paris in times of +peace are hardly so gay. Fifth Avenue is blocked with motor cars. Fashion +has gone forth to select a feather. A ringlet has gone awry and must be +mended. The Pomeranian's health is served by sunlight. The Spitz must have +an airing. Fashion has wagged its head upon a Chinese vase--has indeed +squinted at it through a lorgnette against a fleck--and now lolls home to +dinner. Or style has veered an inch, and it has been a day of fitting. At +restaurant windows one may see the feeding of the over-fed. Men sit in club +windows and still wear their silk hats as though there was no glass between +them and the windy world. Footmen in boots and breeches sit as stiffly as +though they were toys grown large and had metal spikes below to hold them +to their boxes. They look like the iron firemen that ride on nursery +fire-engines. For all these sights the bus top is the best place. + +And although we sit on a modest roof, the shopkeepers cater to us. For in +many of the stores, is there not an upper tier of windows for our use? The +commodities of this second story are quite as fine as those below. And the +waxen beauties who display the frocks greet us in true democracy with as +sweet a simper. + +My friend G---- while riding recently on a bus top met with an experience +for which he still blushes. + +There was a young woman sitting directly in front of him, and when he came +to leave, a sudden lurch threw him against her. When he recovered his +footing, which was a business of some difficulty, for the bus pitched upon +a broken pavement, what was his chagrin to find that a front button of +his coat had hooked in her back hair! Luckily G---- was not seized with a +panic. Rather, he labored cautiously--but without result. Nor could +she help in the disentanglement. Their embarrassment might have been +indefinitely prolonged--indeed, G---- was several blocks already down the +street--when he bethought him of his knife and so cut off the button. As he +pleasantly expressed it to the young woman, he would give her the choice of +the button or the coat entire. + +Reader, are you inclined toward ferry boats? I cannot include those persons +who journey on them night and morning perfunctorily. These persons keep +their noses in their papers or sit snugly in the cabin. If the market is +up, they can hardly be conscious even that they are crossing a river. +Nor do I entirely blame them. If one kept shop on a breezy tip of the +Delectable Mountains with all the regions of the world laid out below, +he could not be expected to climb up for the hundredth time with a first +exhilaration, or to swing his alpenstock as though he were on a rare +holiday. If one had business across the Styx too often--although the +scenery on its banks is reputed to be unusual--he might in time sit below +and take to yawning. Father Charon might have to jog his shoulder to rouse +him when the boat came between the further piers. + +But are you one of those persons who, not being under a daily compulsion, +rides upon a ferry boat for the love of the trip? Being in this class +myself, I laid my case the other night before the gateman, and asked +his advice regarding routes. He at once entered sympathetically into my +distemper and gave me a plan whereby with but a single change of piers +I might at an expense of fourteen cents cross the river four times at +different angles. + +It was at the end of day and a light fog rested on the water. Nothing was +entirely lost, yet a gray mystery wrapped the ships and buildings. If New +Jersey still existed it was dim and shadowy as though its real life had +gone and but a ghost remained. Ferry boats were lighted in defiance of the +murk, and darted here and there at reckless angles. An ocean liner was +putting out, and several tugs had rammed their noses against her sides. +There is something engaging about a tug. It snorts with eagerness. It kicks +and splashes. It bursts itself to lend a hand. And how it butts with its +nose! Surely its forward cartilages are of triple strength, else in its +zest it would jam its nasal passages. + +Presently we came opposite lower New York. Although the fog concealed the +outlines of the buildings, their lights showed through. This first hour of +dark is best, before the day's work is done and while as yet all of the +windows are lighted. The Woolworth Tower was suffused in a soft and shadowy +light. The other buildings showed like mountains of magic pin-pricks. It +was as though all the constellations of heaven on a general bidding had met +for conference. + +The man of Grub Street, having by this time somewhat dispelled the fumes of +dullness from his head, descends from his ferry boat and walks to his quiet +park. There is a dull roar from the elevated railway on Third Avenue where +the last of the day's crowd goes home. The sidewalks are becoming empty. +There is a sheen of water on the pavement. In the winter murk there is a +look of Thackeray about the place as though the Sedleys or the Osbornes +might be his neighbors. If there were a crest above his bell-pull he might +even expect Becky Sharp in for tea. + + + + +Now that Spring is here + + +When the sun set last night it was still winter. The persons who passed +northward in the dusk from the city's tumult thrust their hands deep into +their pockets and walked to a sharp measure. But a change came in the +night. The north wind fell off and a breeze blew up from the south. Such +stars as were abroad at dawn left off their shrill winter piping--if it be +true that stars really sing in their courses--and pitched their voices to +April tunes. One star in particular that hung low in the west until the day +was up, knew surely that the Spring had come and sang in concert with the +earliest birds. There is a dull belief that these early birds shake off +their sleep to get the worm. Rather, they come forth at this hour to cock +their ears upon the general heavens for such new tunes as the unfaded +stars still sing. If an ear is turned down to the rummage of worms in the +earth--for to the superficial, so does the attitude attest--it is only that +the other ear may be turned upward to catch the celestial harmonies; for +birds know that if there is an untried melody in heaven it will sound first +across the clear pastures of the dawn. All the chirping and whistling +from the fields and trees are then but the practice of the hour. When the +meadowlark sings on a fence-rail she but cons her lesson from the stars. + +It is on such a bright Spring morning that the housewife, duster in hand, +throws open her parlor window and looks upon the street. A pleasant park is +below, of the size of a city square, and already it stirs with the day's +activity. The housewife beats her cloth upon the sill and as the dust flies +off, she hears the cries and noises of the place. In a clear tenor she +is admonished that there is an expert hereabouts to grind her knives. A +swarthy baritone on a wagon lifts up his voice in praise of radishes and +carrots. His eye roves along the windows. The crook of a hungry finger will +bring him to a stand. Or a junkman is below upon his business. Yesterday +the bells upon his cart would have sounded sour, but this morning they +rattle agreeably, as though a brisker cow than common, springtime in her +hoofs, were jangling to her pasture. At the sound--if you are of country +training--you see yourself, somewhat misty through the years, barefoot in a +grassy lane, with stick in hand, urging the gentle beast. There is a subtle +persuasion in the junkman's call. In these tones did the magician, bawling +for old lamps, beguile Aladdin. If there were this morning in my lodging an +unrubbed lamp, I would toss it from the window for such magic as he might +extract from it. And if a fair Princess should be missing at the noon and +her palace be skipped from sight, it will follow on the rubbing of it. + +The call of red cherries in the park--as you might guess from its Italian +source--is set to an amorous tune. What lady, smocked in morning cambric, +would not be wooed by such a voice? The gay fellow tempts her to a +purchase. It is but a decent caution--now that Spring is here--that the +rascal does not call his wares by moonlight. As for early peas this +morning, it is Pan himself who peddles them--disguised and smirched lest +he be caught in the deception--Pan who stamps his foot and shakes the +thicket--whose habit is to sing with reedy voice of the green willows that +dip in sunny waters. Although he now clatters his tins and baskets and +cries out like a merchant, his thoughts run to the black earth and the +shady hollows and the sound of little streams. + +I have wondered as I have observed the housewives lingering at their +windows--for my window also looks upon the park--I have wondered that these +melodious street cries are not used generally for calling the wares of +wider sale. If a radish can be so proclaimed, there might be a lilt devised +in praise of other pleasing merceries--a tripping pizzicato for laces and +frippery--a brave trumpeting for some newest cereal. And should not the +latest book--if it be a tale of love, for these I am told are best offered +to the public in the Spring (sad tales are best for winter)--should not a +tale of love be heralded through the city by the singing of a ballad, with +a melting tenor in the part? In old days a gaudy rogue cried out upon the +broader streets that jugglers had stretched their rope in the market-place, +but when the bears came to town, the news was piped even to the narrowest +lanes that house-folk might bring their pennies. + +With my thoughts set on the Spring I chanced to walk recently where the +theatres are thickest. It was on a Saturday afternoon and the walk was +crowded with amusement seekers. Presently in the press I observed a queer +old fellow carrying on his back a monstrous pack of umbrellas. He rang +a bell monotonously and professed himself a mender of umbrellas. He can +hardly have expected to find a customer in the crowd. Even a blinking +eye--and these street merchants are shrewd in these matters--must have told +him that in all this hurrying mass of people, the thoughts of no one ran +toward umbrellas. Rather, I think that he was taking an hour from the +routine of the day. He had trod the profitable side streets until truantry +had taken him. But he still made a pretext of working at his job and called +his wares to ease his conscience from idleness. Once when an unusually +bright beam of sunlight fell from between the clouds, he tilted up his hat +to get the warmth and I thought him guilty of a skip and syncopation in the +ringing of his bell, as if he too twitched pleasantly with the Spring and +his old sap was stirred. + +I like these persons who ply their trades upon the sidewalk. My hatter--the +fellow who cleans my straw hat each Spring--is a partner of a bootblack. +Over his head as he putters with his soap and brushes, there hangs a rusty +sign proclaiming that he is famous for his cleaning all round the world. He +is so modest in his looks that I have wondered whether he really can read +the sign. Or perhaps like a true merchant, he is not squeamish at the +praise. As I have not previously been aware that any of his profession ever +came to general fame except the Mad Hatter of Wonderland, I have squinted +sharply at him to see if by chance it might be he, but there are no marks +even of a distant kinship. He does, however, bring my hat to a marvellous +whiteness and it may be true that he has really tended heads that are now +gone beyond Constantinople. + +Bootblacks have a sense of rhythm unparalleled. Of this the long rag is +their instrument. They draw it once or twice across the shoe to set the key +and then they go into a swift and pattering melody. If there is an unusual +genius in the bootblack--some remnant of ancient Greece--he plays such a +lively tune that one's shoulders jig to it. If there were a dryad or other +such nimble creature on the street, she would come leaping as though +Orpheus strummed a tune, but the dance is too fast for our languid northern +feet. + +Nowhere are apples redder than on a cart. Our hearts go out to Adam in the +hour of his temptation. I know one lady of otherwise careful appetite who +even leans toward dates if she may buy them from a cart. "Those dear dirty +dates," she calls them, but I cannot share her liking for them. Although +the cart is a beguiling market, dates so bought are too dusty to be eaten. +They rank with the apple-john. The apple-john is that mysterious leathery +fruit, sold more often from a stand than from a cart, which leans at the +rear of the shelf against the peppermint jars. For myself, although I do +not eat apple-johns, I like to look at them. They are so shrivelled and so +flat, as though a banana had caught a consumption. Or rather, in the older +world was there not a custom at a death of sending fruits to support the +lonesome journey? If so, the apple-john came untasted to the end. Indeed, +there is a look of old Egypt about the fruit. Whether my fondness for +gazing at apple-johns springs from a distant occasion when as a child I +once bought and ate one, or whether it arises from the fact that Falstaff +called Prince Hal a dried apple-john, is an unsolved question, but I like +to linger before a particularly shrivelled one and wonder what its youth +was like. Perhaps like many of its betters, it remained unheralded and +unknown all through its fresher years and not until the coming of its +wrinkled age was it at last put up to the common view. The apple-john sets +up kinship with an author. + +The day of all fools is wisely put in April. The jest of the day resides in +the success with which credulity is imposed upon, and April is the month of +easiest credulity. Let bragging travellers come in April and hold us with +tales of the Anthropopagi! If their heads are said to grow beneath their +shoulders, still we will turn a credent ear. Indeed, it is all but sure +that Baron Munchausen came back from his travels in the Spring. When +else could he have got an ear? What man can look upon the wonders of the +returning year--the first blue skies, the soft rains, the tender sproutings +of green stalks without feeling that there is nothing beyond belief? If +such miracles can happen before his eyes, shall not the extreme range even +of travel or metaphysics be allowed? What man who has smelled the first +fragrance of the earth, has heard the birds on their northern flight and +has seen an April brook upon its course, will withhold his credence even +though the jest be plain? + +I beg, therefore, that when you walk upon the street on the next day of +April fool, that you yield to the occasion. If an urchin points his finger +at your hat, humor him by removing it! Look sharply at it for a supposed +defect! His glad shout will be your reward. Or if you are begged piteously +to lift a stand-pipe wrapped to the likeness of a bundle, even though you +sniff the imposture, seize upon it with a will! It is thus, beneath these +April skies, that you play your part in the pageantry that marks the day. + + + + +The Friendly Genii + + +Do you not confess yourself to be several years past that time of greenest +youth when burnt cork holds its greatest charm? Although not fallen to a +crippled state, are you not now too advanced to smudge your upper lip and +stalk agreeably as a villain? Surely you can no longer frisk lightly in +a comedy. If you should wheeze and limp in an old man's part, with back +humped in mimicry, would you not fear that it bordered on the truth? But +doubtless there was a time when you ranged upon these heights--when Kazrac +the magician was not too heavy for your art. In those soaring days, let us +hope that you played the villain with a swagger, or being cast in a softer +role, that you won a pink and fluffy princess before the play was done. +Your earliest practice, it may be, was in rigging the parlor hangings as a +curtain with brown string from the pantry and safety pins. Although you had +no show to offer, you said "ding" three times--as is the ancient custom of +the stage when the actors are ready--and drew them wide apart. The cat +was the audience, who dozed with an ear twitching toward your activity. A +complaint that springs up in youth and is known as "snuffles" had kept you +out of school. It had gripped you hard at breakfast, when you were sunk in +fear of your lessons, but had abated at nine o'clock. Whether the cure came +with a proper healing of the nasal glands or followed merely on the ringing +of the school bell, must be left to a cool judgment. + +Your theatre filled the morning. When Annie came on her quest for dust, you +tooted once upon your nose, just to show that a remnant of your infirmity +persisted, then put your golden convalescence on the making of your +curtain. + +But in the early hours of afternoon when the children are once more upon +the street, you regret your illness. Here they come trooping by threes and +fours, carrying their books tied up in straps. One would think that they +were in fear lest some impish fact might get outside the covers to spoil +the afternoon. Until the morrow let two and two think themselves five at +least! And let Ohio be bounded as it will! Some few children skip ropes, or +step carefully across the cracks of the sidewalk for fear they spoil their +suppers. Ah!--a bat goes by--a glove--a ball! And now from a vacant lot +there comes the clamor of choosing sides. Is no mention to be made of +you--you, "molasses fingers"--the star left fielder--the timely batter? +What would you not give now for a clean bill of health? You rub your +offending nose upon the glass. What matters it with what deep rascality in +black mustachios you once strutted upon your boards? What is Hecuba to you? + +My own first theatre was in the attic, a place of squeaks and shadows +to all except the valiant. In it were low, dark corners where the night +crawled in and slept. But in the open part where the roof was highest, +there was the theatre. Its walls were made of a red cambric of a flowered +pattern that still lingers with me, and was bought with a clatter of +pennies on the counter, together with nickels that had escaped my +extravagance at the soda fountain. + +A cousin and I were joint proprietors. In the making of it, the hammer and +nails were mine by right of sex, while she stitched in womanish fashion on +the fabrics. She was leading woman and I was either the hero or the villain +as fitted to my mood. My younger cousin--although we scorned her for her +youth--was admitted to the slighter parts. She might daub herself with +cork, but it must be only when we were done. Nor did we allow her to carry +the paper knife--shaped like a dagger--which figured hugely in our plots. +If we gave her any word to speak, it was as taffy to keep her silent about +some iniquity that we had worked against her. In general, we judged her to +be too green and giddy for the heavy parts. At the most, she might take +pins at the door--for at such a trifle we displayed our talents--or play +upon the comb as orchestra before the rising of the curtain. + +The usual approach to this theatre was the kitchen door, and those who came +to enjoy the drama sniffed at their very entrance the new-baked bread. A +pan of cookies was set upon a shelf and a row of apples was ranged along +the window sill. Of the ice-box around the corner, not a word, lest hunger +lead you off! As for the cook, although her tongue was tart upon a just +occasion and although she shooed the children with her apron, secretly she +liked to have them crowding through her kitchen. + +Now if you, reader--for I assume you to be one of the gathering +audience--were of the kind careful on scrubbing days to scrape your feet +upon the iron outside and to cross the kitchen on the unwashed parts, then +it is likely that you stood in the good graces of the cook. Mark your +reward! As you journeyed upward, you munched upon a cookie and bit scallops +in its edge. Or if a ravenous haste was in you--as commonly comes up in the +middle afternoon--you waived this slower method and crammed yourself with +a recklessness that bestrewed the purlieus of your mouth. If your ears lay +beyond the muss, the stowage was deemed decent and in order. + +Is there not a story in which children are tracked by an ogre through the +perilous wood by the crumbs they dropped? Then let us hope there is no ogre +lurking on these back stairs, for the trail is plain. It would be near the +top, farthest from the friendly kitchen, that the attack might come, for +there the stairs yielded to the darkness of the attic. There it was best +to look sharp and to turn the corners wide. A brave whistling kept out the +other noises. + +It was after Aladdin had been in town that the fires burned hottest in us. +My grandfather and I went together to the matinee, his great thumb within +my fist. We were frequent companions. Together we had sat on benches in the +park and poked the gravel into patterns. We went to Dime Museums. Although +his eyes had looked longer on the world than mine, we seemed of an equal +age. + +The theatre was empty as we entered. We carried a bag of candy against a +sudden appetite--colt's foot, a penny to the stick. Here and there ushers +were clapping down the seats, sounds to my fancy not unlike the first corn +within a popper. Somewhere aloft there must have been a roof, else the day +would have spied in on us, yet it was lost in the gloom. It was as though +a thrifty owner had borrowed the dusky fabrics of the night to make his +cover. The curtain was indistinct, but we knew it to be the Stratford +Church and we dimly saw its spire. + +Now, on the opening of a door to the upper gallery, there was a scampering +to get seats in front, speed being whetted by a long half hour of waiting +on the stairs. Ghostly, unbodied heads, like the luminous souls of lost +mountaineers--for this was the kind of fiction, got out of the Public +Library, that had come last beneath my thumb--ghostly heads looked down +upon us across the gallery rail. + +And now, if you will tip back your head like a paper-hanger--whose Adam's +apple would seem to attest a life of sidereal contemplation--you will see +in the center of the murk above you a single point of light. It is the +spark that will ignite the great gas chandelier. I strain my neck to the +point of breaking. My grandfather strains his too, for it is a game between +us which shall announce the first spurting of the light. At last! We cry +out together. The spark catches the vent next to it. It runs around the +circle of glass pendants. The whole blazes up. The mountaineers come to +life. They lean forward on their elbows. + +From the wings comes the tuning of the violins. A flute ripples up and down +in a care-free manner as though the villain Kazrac were already dead and +virtue had come into its own. The orchestra emerges from below. Their +calmness is but a pretense. Having looked on such sights as lie behind the +curtain, having trod such ways, they should be bubbling with excitement. +Yet observe the bass viol! How sodden is his eye! How sunken is his gaze! +With what dull routine he draws his bow, as though he knew naught but +sleepy tunes! If there be any genie in the place, as the program says, let +him first stir this sad fellow from his melancholy! + +We consult our programs. The first scene is the magician's cave where he +plans his evil schemes. The second is the Chinese city where he pretends to +be Aladdin's uncle. And for myself, did a friendly old gentleman offer me +lollypops and all-day-suckers--for so did the glittering baubles present +themselves across the footlights--like Aladdin I, too, would not have +squinted too closely on his claim. Gladly I would have gone off with him on +an all-day picnic toward the Chinese mountains. + +We see a lonely pass in the hills, the cave of jewels (splendid to the eye +of childhood) where the slave of the lamp first appears, and finally the +throne-room with Aladdin seated safely beside his princess. + +Who knows how to dip a pen within the twilight? Who shall trace the figures +of the mist? The play is done. We come out in silence. Our candy is but a +remnant. Darkness has fallen. The pavements are wet and shining, so that +the night might see his face, if by chance the old fellow looked our way. + +All about there are persons hurrying home with dinner-pails, who, by their +dull eyes, seem never to have heard what wonders follow on the rubbing of a +lamp. + +But how the fires leaped up--how ambition beat within us--how our attic +theatre was wrought to perfection--how the play came off and wracked the +neighborhood of its pins--with what grace I myself acted Aladdin--these +things must be written by a vain and braggart pen. + + + + +Mr. Pepys Sits in the Pit + + +When it happens that a man has risen to be a member of Parliament, the +Secretary of the British Navy and the President of the Royal Society, when +he has become the adviser of the King and is moreover the one really bright +spot in that King's reign, it is amazing that considerably more than one +hundred years after his death, when the navy that he nurtured dominates the +seven seas, that he himself on a sudden should be known, not for his larger +accomplishments, but as a kind of tavern crony and pot-companion. When he +should be standing with fame secure in a solemn though dusty niche in the +Temple of Time, it is amazing that he should be remembered chiefly for +certain quarrels with his wife and as a frequenter of plays and summer +gardens. + +Yet this is the fate of Samuel Pepys. Before the return of the Stuarts he +held a poor clerkship in the Navy Office and cut his quill obscurely at +the common desk. At the Restoration, partly by the boost of influence, but +chiefly by his substantial merit, he mounted to several successively higher +posts. The Prince of Wales became his friend and patron and when he became +Lord High Admiral he took Pepys with him in his advancement. Thus in 1684, +Pepys became Secretary of the Navy. When later the Prince of Wales became +King James II, Pepys, although his office remained the same, came to quite +a pinnacle of administrative power. He was shrewd and capable in the +conduct of his position and brought method to the Navy Office. He was a +prime factor in the first development of the British Navy. Later victories +that were to sweep the seas may be traced in part to him. Nelson rides upon +his shoulders. These achievements should have made his fame secure. But +on a sudden he gained for posterity a less dignified although a more +interesting and enduring renown. + +In life, Samuel Pepys walked gravely in majestical robe with full-bottomed +wig and with ceremonial lace flapping at his wrists. Every step, if his +portrait is to be believed, was a bit of pageantry. Such was his fame, that +if his sword but clacked a warning on the pavement, it must have brought +the apprentices to the windows. Tradesmen laid down their wares to get a +look at him. Fat men puffed and strained to gain the advantage of a sill. +Fashionable ladies peeped from brocaded curtains and ogled for his regard. +Or if he went by chair, the carriers held their noses up as though offended +by the common air. When he spoke before the Commons, the galleries were +hushed. He gave his days to the signing of stiff parchments--Admiralty +Orders or what not. He checked the King himself at the council table. In +short, he was not only a great personage, but also he was quite well aware +of the fact and held himself accordingly. + +But now many years have passed, and Time, that has so long been at bowls +with reputations, has acquired a moderate skill in knocking them down. Let +us see how it fares with Pepys! Some men who have been roguish in their +lives have been remembered by their higher accomplishments. A string +of sonnets or a novel or two, if it catches the fancy, has wiped out a +tap-room record. The winning of a battle has obliterated a meanly spent +youth. It is true that for a while an old housewife who once lived on the +hero's street will shake a dubious finger on his early pranks. Stolen +apples or cigarettes behind the barn cram her recollection. But even a +village reputation fades. In time the sonnets and glorious battle have the +upper place. But things went the other way with Pepys. Rather, his fate +is like that of Zeus, who--if legend is to be trusted--was in his life a +person of some importance whose nod stirred society on Olympus, but who is +now remembered largely for his flirtations and his braggart conduct. A not +unlike evil has fallen on the magnificent Mr. Pepys. + +This fate came to him because--as the world knows--it happened that for +a period of ten years in comparative youth, he wrote an interesting and +honest diary. He began this diary in 1659, while he was still a poor clerk +living with his wife in a garret, and ended it in 1669, when, although he +had emerged from obscurity, his greater honors had not yet been set on him. +All the facts of his life during this period are put down, whether good or +bad, small or large, generous or mean. He writes of his mornings spent in +work at his office, of his consultations with higher officials. There +is much running to and fro of business. The Dutch war bulks to a proper +length. Parliament sits through a page at a stretch. Pepys goes upon the +streets in the days of the plague and writes the horror of it--the houses +marked with red crosses and with prayers scratched beneath--the stench and +the carrying of dead bodies. He sees the great fire of London from his +window on the night it starts; afterwards St. Paul's with its roofs fallen. +He is on the fleet that brings Charles home from his long travels, and +afterwards when Charles is crowned, he records the processions and the +crowds. But also Pepys quarrels with his wife and writes it out on paper. +He debauches a servant and makes a note of it. He describes a supper at an +ale-house, and how he plays on the flute. He sings "Beauty Retire," a song +of his own making, and tells how his listeners "cried it up." + +In consequence of this, Samuel Pepys is now known chiefly for his +attentions to the pretty actresses of Drury Lane, for kissing Nell Gwynne +in her tiring-room, for his suppers with "the jade" Mrs. Knipp, for his +love of a tune upon the fiddle, for coming home from Vauxhall by wherry +late at night, "singing merrily" down the river. Or perhaps we recall him +best for burying his wine and Parmazan cheese in his garden at the time +of the Fire, or for standing to the measure of Mr. Pin the tailor for a +"camlett cloak with gold buttons," or for sitting for his portrait in an +Indian gown which he "hired to be drawn in." Who shall say that this is not +the very portrait by which we have fancied him stalking off to Commons? +Could the apprentices have known in what a borrowed majesty he walked, +would they not have tossed their caps in mirth and pointed their dusky +fingers at him? + +Or we remember that he once lived in a garret, and that his wife, "poor +wretch," was used to make the fire while Samuel lay abed, and that she +washed his "foul clothes"--that by degrees he came to be wealthy and +rode in his own yellow coach--that his wife went abroad in society "in +a flowered tabby gown"--that Pepys forsook his habits of poverty and +exchanged his twelve-penny seat in the theatre gallery for a place in the +pit--and that on a rare occasion (doubtless when he was alone and there was +but one seat to buy) he arose to the extravagance of a four-shilling box. + +Consequently, despite the weightier parts of the diary, we know Pepys +chiefly in his hours of ease. Sittings and consultations are so dry. If +only the world would run itself decently and in silence! Even a meeting of +the Committee for Tangier--when the Prince of Wales was present and such +smaller fry as Chancellors--is dull and is matter for a skipping eye. + +If a session of Parliament bulks to a fat paragraph and it happens that +there is a bit of deviltry just below at the bottom of the page--maybe no +more than a clinking of glasses (or perhaps Nell Gwynne's name pops in +sight)--bless us how the eye will hurry to turn the leaf on the chance +of roguery to come! Who would read through a long discourse on Admiralty +business, if it be known before that Pepys is engaged with the pretty Mrs. +Knipp for a trip to Bartholomew Fair to view the dancing horse, and that +the start is to be made on the turning of the page? Or a piece of scandal +about Lady Castlemaine, how her nose fell out of joint when Mrs. Stuart +came to court--such things tease one from the sterner business. + +And for these reasons, we have been inclined to underestimate the +importance of Pepys' diary. Francis Jeffrey, who wrote long ago about +Pepys, evidently thought that he was an idle and unprofitable fellow and +that the diary was too much given to mean and petty things. But in reality +the diary is an historical mine. Even when Pepys plays upon the surface, +he throws out facts that can be had nowhere else. No one would venture to +write of Restoration life without digging through his pages. Pepys wrote in +a confused shorthand, maybe against the eye of his wife, from whom he had +reason to conceal his offenses. The papers lay undeciphered until 1825, +when a partial publication was made. There were additions by subsequent +editors until now it appears that the Wheatley text of 1893-1899 is final. +But ever since 1825, the diary has been judged to be of high importance in +the understanding of the first decade of the Restoration. + +If some of the weightier parts are somewhat dry, there are places in which +a lighter show of personality is coincident with real historical data. +Foremost are the pages where Pepys goes to the theatre. + +More than Charles II was restored in 1660. Among many things of more +importance than this worthless King, the theatre was restored. Since the +close of Elizabethan times it had been out of business. More than thirty +years before, Puritanism had snuffed out its candles and driven its +fiddlers to the streets. But Puritanism, in its turn, fell with the return +of the Stuarts. Pepys is a chief witness as to what kind of theatre it was +that was set up in London about the year 1660. It was far different from +the Elizabethan theatre. It came in from the Bankside and the fields to the +north of the city and lodged itself on the better streets and squares. It +no longer patterned itself on the inn-yard, but was roofed against the +rain. The time had been when the theatre was cousin to the bear-pit. They +were ranged together on the Bankside and they sweat and smelled like +congenial neighbors. But these days are past. Let Bartholomew Fair be as +rowdy as it pleases, let acrobats and such loose fellows keep to Southwark, +the theatre has risen in the world! It has put on a wig, as it were, it has +tied a ribbon to itself and has become fashionable. And although it has +taken on a few extra dissolute habits, they are of the genteelest kind and +will make it feel at home in the upper circles. + +But also the theatre introduced movable scenery. There is an attempt toward +elaboration of stage effect. "To the King's playhouse--" says Pepys, "a +good scene of a town on fire." Women take parts. An avalanche of new plays +descends on it. Even the old plays that have survived are garbled to suit a +change of taste. + +But if you would really know what kind of theatre it was that sprang up +with the Stuarts and what the audiences looked like and how they behaved, +you must read Pepys. With but a moderate use of fancy, you can set out with +him in his yellow coach for the King's house in Drury Lane. Perhaps hunger +nips you at the start. If so, you stop, as Pepys pleasantly puts it, for a +"barrel of oysters." Then, having dusted yourself of crumbs, you take the +road again. Presently you come to Drury Lane. Other yellow coaches are +before you. There is a show of foppery on the curb and an odor of smoking +links. A powdered beauty minces to the door. Once past the doorkeeper, you +hear the cries of the orange women going up and down the aisles. There is a +shuffling of apprentices in the gallery. A dandy who lolls in a box with a +silken leg across the rail, scrawls a message to an actress and sends it +off by Orange Moll. Presently Castlemaine enters the royal box with the +King. There is a craning of necks, for with her the King openly "do +discover a great deal of familiarity." In other boxes are other fine ladies +wearing vizards to hold their modesty if the comedy is free. A board breaks +in the ceiling of the gallery and dust falls in the men's hair and the +ladies' necks, which, writes Pepys, "made good sport." Or again, "A +gentleman of good habit, sitting just before us, eating of some fruit in +the midst of the play, did drop down as dead; being choked, but with much +ado Orange Moll did thrust her finger down his throat and brought him to +life again." Or perhaps, "I sitting behind in a dark place, a lady spit +backward upon me by a mistake, not seeing me, but after seeing her to be a +very pretty lady, I was not troubled at it at all." + +At a change of scenes, Mrs. Knipp spies Pepys and comes to the pit door. He +goes with her to the tiring-room. "To the women's shift," he writes, +"where Nell was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very pretty, +prettier than I thought.... But to see how Nell cursed for having so few +people in the pit, was pretty."--"But Lord! their confidence! and how +many men do hover about them as soon as they come off the stage, and how +confident they are in their talk!" Or he is whispered a bit of gossip, how +Castlemaine is much in love with Hart, an actor of the house. Then Pepys +goes back into the pit and lays out a sixpence for an orange. As the play +nears its end, footmen crowd forward at the doors. The epilogue is spoken. +The fiddles squeak their last. There is a bawling outside for coaches. + +"Would it fit your humor," asks Mr. Pepys, when we have been handed to our +seats, "would it fit your humor, if we go around to the Rose Tavern for +some burnt wine and a breast of mutton off the spit? It's sure that some +brave company will fall in, and we can have a tune. We'll not heed the +bellman. We'll sit late, for it will be a fine light moonshine morning." + + + + +To an Unknown Reader + + +Once in a while I dream that I come upon a person who is reading a book +that I have written. In my pleasant dreams these persons do not nod +sleepily upon my pages, and sometimes I fall in talk with them. Although +they do not know who I am, they praise the book and name me warmly among +my betters. In such circumstance my happy nightmare mounts until I ride +foremost with the giants. If I could think that this disturbance of my +sleep came from my diet and that these agreeable persons arose from a +lobster or a pie, nightly at supper I would ply my fork recklessly among +the platters. + +But in a waking state these meetings never come. If an article of mine is +ever read at all, it is read in secret like the Bible. Once, indeed, in a +friend's house I saw my book upon the table, but I suspect that it had been +dusted and laid out for my coming. I request my hostess that next time, for +my vanity, she lay the book face down upon a chair, as though the grocer's +knock intruded. Or perhaps a huckster's cart broke upon her enjoyment. +Let it be thought that a rare bargain--tender asparagus or the first +strawberries of the summer--tempted her off my pages! Or maybe there was +red rhubarb in the cart and the jolly farmer, as he journeyed up the +street, pitched it to a pleasing melody. Dear lady, I forgive you. But let +us hope no laundryman led you off! Such discord would have marred my book. + +I saw once in a public library, as I went along the shelves, a volume of +mine which gave evidence to have been really read. The record in front +showed that it had been withdrawn one time only. The card was blank +below--but once certainly it had been read. I hope that the book went out +on a Saturday noon when the spirits rise for the holiday to come, and that +a rainy Sunday followed, so that my single reader was kept before his fire. +A dull patter on the window--if one sits unbuttoned on the hearth--gives +a zest to a languid chapter. The rattle of a storm--if only the room be +snug--fixes the attention fast. Therefore, let the rain descend as though +the heavens rehearsed for a flood! Let a tempest come out of the west! Let +the chimney roar as it were a lion! And if there must be a clearing, let +it hold off until the late afternoon, lest it sow too early a distaste for +indoors and reading! There is scarcely a bookworm who will not slip his +glasses off his nose, if the clouds break at the hour of sunset when the +earth and sky are filled with a green and golden light. I took the book off +the library shelf and timidly glancing across my shoulder for fear that +some one might catch me, I looked along the pages. There was a thumb mark +in a margin, and presently appeared a kindly stickiness on the paper as +though an orange had squirted on it. Surely there had been a human being +hereabouts. It was as certain as when Crusoe found the footprints in the +sand. Ah, I thought, this fellow who sits in the firelight has caught an +appetite. Perhaps he bit a hole and sucked the fruit, and the skin has +burst behind. Or I wave the theory and now conceive that the volume was +read at breakfast. If so, it is my comfort that in those dim hours it stood +propped against his coffee cup. + +But the trail ended with the turning of the page. There were, indeed, +further on, pencil checks against one of the paragraphs as if here the book +had raised a faint excitement, but I could not tell whether they sprang +up in derision or in approval. Toward the end there were uncut leaves, as +though even my single reader had failed in his persistence. + +Being swept once beyond a usual caution, I lamented to my friend F---- of +the neglect in which readers held me, to which the above experience in +a library was a rare exception. F---- offered me such consolation as he +could, deplored the general taste and the decadence of the times, and said +that as praise was sweet to everyone, he, as far as he himself was able, +offered it anonymously to those who merited it. He was standing recently +in a picture gallery, when a long-haired man who stood before one of the +pictures was pointed out to him as the artist who had painted it. At once +F---- saw his opportunity to confer a pleasure, but as there is a touch of +humor in him, he first played off a jest. Lounging forward, he dropped his +head to one side as artistic folk do when they look at color. He made a +knot-hole of his fingers and squinted through. Next he retreated across the +room and stood with his legs apart in the very attitude of wisdom. He cast +a stern eye upon the picture and gravely tapped his chin. At last when the +artist was fretted to an extremity, F---- came forward and so cordially +praised the picture that the artist, being now warmed and comforted, +presently excused himself in a high excitement and rushed away to start +another picture while the pleasant spell was on him. + +Had I been the artist, I would have run from either F----'s praise or +disapproval. As an instance, I saw a friend on a late occasion coming from +a bookstore with a volume of suspicious color beneath his arm. I had been +avoiding that particular bookstore for a week because my book lay for sale +on a forward table. And now when my friend appeared, a sudden panic seized +me and I plunged into the first doorway to escape. I found myself facing a +soda fountain. For a moment, in my blur, I could not account for the +soda fountain, or know quite how it had come into my life. Presently an +interne--for he was jacketted as if he walked a hospital--asked me what I'd +have. + +Still somewhat dazed, in my discomposure, having no answer ready, my +startled fancy ran among the signs and labels of the counter until I +recalled that a bearded man once, unblushing in my presence, had ordered +a banana flip. I got the fellow's ear and named it softly. Whereupon he +placed a dead-looking banana across a mound of ice-cream, poured on colored +juices as though to mark the fatal wound and offered it to me. I ate a few +bites of the sickish mixture until the streets were safe. + +I do not know to what I can attribute my timidity. Possibly it arises from +the fact that until recently my writing met with uniform rejection and +failure. For years I wrote secretly in order that few persons might know +how miserably I failed. I answered upon a question that I had given up the +practice, that I now had no time for it, that I scribbled now and then +but always burned it. All that while I gave my rare leisure and my stolen +afternoons--the hours that other men give to golf and sleep and sitting +together--these hours I gave to writing. On a holiday I was at it early. On +Saturday when other folks were abroad, I sat at my desk. It was my grief +that I was so poor a borrower of the night that I blinked stupidly on my +papers if I sat beyond the usual hour. Writing was my obsession. I need no +pity for my failures, for although I tossed my cap upon a rare acceptance, +my deeper joy was in the writing. That joy repeated failures could not +blunt. + +There are paragraphs that now lie yellow in my desk with their former +meaning faded, that still recall as I think of them the first exaltation +when I wrote them--feverishly in a hot emotion. In those days I thought +that I had caught the sunlight on my pen, and the wind and the moon and the +spinning earth. I thought that the valleys and the mountains arose from the +mist obedient to me. If I splashed my pen, in my warm regard it was the +roar and fury of the sea. It was really no more than my youth crying out. +And, alas, my thoughts and my feelings escaped me when I tried to put them +down on paper, although I did not know it then. Perhaps they were too +vagrant to be held. And yet these paragraphs that might be mournful records +of failure, fill me with no more than a tender recollection for the boy +who wrote them. The worn phrases now beg their way with broken steps. Like +shrill and piping minstrels they whine and crack a melody that I still +remember in its freshness. + +But perhaps, reader, we are brothers in these regards. Perhaps you, too, +have faded papers. Or possibly, even on a recent date, you sighed your soul +into an essay or a sonnet, and you now have manuscript which you would like +to sell. Do not mistake me! I am not an editor, nor am I an agent for these +wares. Rather I speak as a friend who, having many such hidden sorrows, +offers you a word of comfort. To a desponding Hamlet I exclaim, "'Tis +common, my Lord." I have so many friends that have had an unproductive +fling toward letters, that I think the malady is general. So many books are +published and flourish a little while in their bright wrappers, but yours +and theirs and mine waste away in a single precious copy. + +I am convinced that a close inspection of all desks--a federal matter as +though Capital were under fire--would betray thousands of abandoned novels. +There may be a few stern desks that are so cluttered with price-sheets and +stock-lists that they cannot offer harborage to a love tale. Standing desks +in particular, such as bookkeepers affect, are not always chinked +with these softer plots. And rarely there is a desk so smothered in +learning--reeking so of scholarship--as not to admit a lighter nook for +the tucking of a sea yarn. Even so, it was whispered to me lately that +Professor B----, whose word shakes the continent, holds in a lower drawer +no fewer than three unpublished historical novels, each set up with a full +quota of smugglers and red bandits. One of these stories deals scandalously +with the abduction of an heiress, but this must be held in confidence. The +professor is a stoic before his class, but there's blood in the fellow. + +There is, therefore, little use in your own denial. You will recall that +once, when taken to a ruined castle, you brooded on the dungeons until a +plot popped into your head. You crammed it with quaint phrasing from the +chroniclers. You stuffed it with soldiers' oaths. "What ho! landlord," +you wrote gayly at midnight, "a foaming cup, good sir. God pity the poor +sailors that take the sea this night!" And on you pelted with your plot to +such conflicts and hair-breadth escapes as lay in your contrivance. + +These things you have committed. Good sir, we are of a common piece. Let us +salute as brothers! And therefore, as to a comrade, I bid you continue in +your ways. And that you may not lack matter for your pen, I warmly urge +you, when by shrewdest computation you have exhausted the plots of +adventure and have worn your villains thin, that you proceed in quieter +vein. I urge you to an April mood, for the winds of Spring are up and +daffodils nod across the garden. There is black earth in the Spring and +green hilltops, and there is also the breath of flowers along the fences +and the sound of water for your pen to prattle of. + + + + +A Plague of All Cowards + + +Having written lately against the dog, several acquaintances have asked me +to turn upon the cat, and they have been good enough to furnish me with +instances of her faithlessness. Also, a lady with whom I recently sat at +dinner, inquired of me on the passing of the fish, whether I had ever +properly considered the cow, which she esteemed a most mischievous animal. +One of them had mooed at her as she crossed a pasture and she had hastily +climbed a fence. I get a good many suggestions first and last. I was once +taken to a Turkish bath for no other reason--as I was afterwards told--than +that it might supply me with a topic. Odd books have been put in my way. +A basket of school readers was once lodged with me, with a request that I +direct my attention to the absurd selection of the poems. I have been urged +to go against car conductors and customs men. On one occasion I received a +paper of tombstone inscriptions, with a note of direction how others might +be found in a neighboring churchyard if I were curious. A lady in whose +company I camped last summer has asked me to give a chapter to it. We were +abroad upon a lake in the full moon--we were lost upon a mountain--twice a +canoe upset--there were the usual jests about cooking. These things might +have filled a few pages agreeably, yet so far they have given me only a +paragraph. + +But I am not disposed toward any of these subjects, least of all the cat, +upon which I look--despite the coldness of her nature--as a harmless and +comforting appendage of the hearth-rug. I would no more prey upon her +morals than I would the morals of the andirons. I choose, rather, to slip +to another angle of the question and say a few words about cowards, among +whom I have already confessed that I number myself. + +In this year of battles, when physical courage sits so high, the reader--if +he is swept off in the general opinion--will expect under such a title +something caustic. He will think that I am about to loose against all +cowards a plague of frogs and locusts as if old Egypt had come again. But +cowardice is its own punishment. It needs no frog to nip it. Even the +sharp-toothed locust--for in the days that bordered so close upon the +mastodon, the locust could hardly have fallen to the tender greenling we +know today--even the locust that once spoiled the Egyptians could not now +add to the grief of a coward. + +And yet--really I hesitate. I blush. My attack will be too intimate; for I +have confessed that I am not the very button on the cap of bravery. I have +indeed stiffened myself to ride a horse, a mightier feat than driving him +because of the tallness of the monster and his uneasy movement, as though +his legs were not well socketed and might fall out on a change of gaits. I +have ridden on a camel in a side-show, but have found my only comfort in +his hump. I have stroked the elephant. In a solemn hour of night I have +gone downstairs to face a burglar. But I do not run singing to these +dangers. While your really brave fellow is climbing a dizzy staircase to +the moon--I write in figure--I would shake with fear upon a lower platform. + +Perhaps you recall Mr. Tipp of the Elia essays. "Tipp," says his pleasant +biographer, "never mounted the box of a stage-coach in his life; or leaned +against the rails of a balcony; or walked upon the ridge of a parapet; or +looked down a precipice; or let off a gun." I cannot follow Tipp, it may +be, to his extreme tremors--my hair will not rise to so close a likeness of +the fretful porcupine--yet in a measure we are in agreement. We are, as it +were, cousins, with the mark of our common family strong on both of us. + +There are persons who, when in your company on a country walk, will steal +apples, not with a decent caution from a tree along the fence, but far +afield. If there are grapes, they will not wait for a turn of the road, +but will pluck them in the open. Or maybe in your wandering you come on a +half-built house. You climb in through a window to look about. Here the +stairs will go. The ice-box will be set against this wall. But if your +companion is one of valor's minions, he will not be satisfied with this +safe and agreeable research--this mild speculation on bath-rooms--this +innocent placing of a stove. He must go aloft. He has seen a ladder and +yearns to climb it. The footing on the second story is bad enough. If you +fall between the joists, you will clatter to the basement. It is hard to +realize that such an open breezy place will ever be cosy and warm with +fires, and that sleepy folk will here lie snugly a-bed on frosty mornings. +But still the brazen fellow is not content. A ladder leads horribly to the +roof. For myself I will climb until the tip of my nose juts out upon the +world--until it sprouts forth to the air from the topmost timbers: But I +will go no farther. But if your companion sees a scaffold around a chimney, +he must perch on it. For him, a dizzy plank is a pleasant belvedere from +which to view the world. + +The bravery of this kind of person is not confined to these few matters. +If you happen to go driving with him, he will--if the horse is of the kind +that distends his nostrils--on a sudden toss you the reins and leave you to +guard him while he dispatches an errand. If it were a motor car there would +be a brake to hold it. If it were a boat, you might throw out an anchor. A +butcher's cart would have a metal drag. But here you sit defenseless--tied +to the whim of a horse--greased for a runaway. The beast Dobbin turns his +head and holds you with his hard eye. There is a convulsive movement along +his back, a preface, it may be, to a sudden seizure. A real friend would +have loosed the straps that run along the horse's flanks. Then, if any +deviltry take him, he might go off alone and have it out. + +I have in mind a livery stable in Kalamazoo. Myself and another man of +equal equestrianism were sent once to bring out a thing called a surrey and +a pair of horses. Do you happen to be acquainted with Blat's Horse Food? If +your way lies among the smaller towns, you must know its merits. They are +proclaimed along the fences and up the telegraph poles. Drinking-troughs +speak its virtues. Horses thrive on Blat's Food. They neigh for it. A +flashing lithograph is set by way of testament wherever traffic turns or +lingers. Do you not recall the picture? A great red horse rears himself +on his hind legs. His forward hoofs are extended. He is about to trample +someone under foot. His nostrils are wide. He is unduly excited. It cannot +be food, it must be drink that stirs him. He is a fearful spectacle. + +There was such a picture on the wall of the stable. + +"Have you any horses," I asked nervously, jerking my thumb toward the wall, +"any horses that have been fed on just ordinary food? Some that are a +little tired?" + +For I remembered how Mr. Winkle once engaged horses to take the +Pickwickians out to Manor Farm and what mishaps befell them on the way. + +"'He don't shy, does he?' inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +"'Shy, sir?--He wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vagginload of monkeys with +their tails burnt off.'" + +But how Mr. Pickwick dropped his whip, how Mr. Winkle got off his tall +horse to pick it up, how he tried in vain to remount while his horse went +round and round, how they were all spilt out upon the bridge and how +finally they walked to Manor Farm--these things are known to everybody with +an inch of reading. + +"'How far is it to Dingley Dell?' they asked. + +"'Better er seven mile.' + +"'Is it a good road?' + +"'No, t'ant.'... + +"The depressed Pickwickians turned moodily away, with the tall quadruped, +for which they all felt the most unmitigated disgust, following slowly at +their heels." + +"Have you any horses," I repeated, "that have not been fed on Blat's +Food--horses that are, so to speak, on a diet?" + +In the farthest stalls, hidden from the sunlight and the invigorating +infection of the day, two beasts were found with sunken chests and hollow +eyes, who took us safely to our destination on their hands and knees. + +As you may suspect, I do not enjoy riding. There is, it is true, one saddle +horse in North Carolina that fears me. If time still spares him, that horse +I could ride with content. But I would rather trust myself on the top of a +wobbly step-ladder than up the sides of most horses. I am not quite of a +mind, however, with Samuel Richardson who owned a hobby-horse and rode on +his hearth-rug in the intervals of writing "Pamela." It is likely that when +he had rescued her from an adventure of more than usual danger--perhaps her +villainous master has been concealed in her closet--perhaps he has been +hiding beneath her bed--it is likely, having brought her safely off, the +author locked her in the buttery against a fresh attack. Then he felt, good +man, in need of exercise. So while he waits for tea and muffins, he leaps +upon his rocking-horse and prances off. As for the hobby-horse itself, I +have not heard whether it was of the usual nursery type, or whether it was +built in the likeness of the leather camels of a German steamship. + +I need hardly say that these confessions of my cowardice are for your ear +alone. They must not get abroad to smirch me. If on a country walk I have +taken to my heels, you must not twit me with poltroonery. If you charge me +with such faint-heartedness while other persons are present, I'll deny it +flat. When I sit in the company of ladies at dinner, I dissemble my true +nature, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat. +If then, you taunt me, for want of a better escape, I shall turn it to a +jest. I shall engage the table flippantly: Hear how preposterously the +fellow talks!--he jests to satisfy a grudge. In appearance I am whole as +the marble, founded as a rock. + +But really some of us cowards are diverting persons. The lady who directed +me against the cow is a most delightful woman with whom I hope I shall +again sit at dinner. A witty lady of my acquaintance shivers when a +cat walks in the room. A man with whom I pass the time pleasantly and +profitably, although he will not admit a fear of ghosts, still will not +sleep in an empty house because of possible noises. I would rather spend a +Saturday evening in the company of the cowardly Falstaff than of the bold +Hotspur. If it were not for sack, villainous sack, and a few spots upon his +front, you would go far to find a better companion than the fat old Knight. +Bob Acres was not much for valor and he made an ass of himself when he went +to fight a duel, yet one could have sat agreeably at mutton with him. + +But these things are slight. It matters little whether or not one can mount +a ladder comfortably. Now that motors have come in, horses stand remotely +in our lives. Nor is it of great moment whether or not we fear to be out of +fashion--whether we halt in the wearing of a wrong-shaped hat, or glance +fearfully around when we choose from a line of forks. Superstitions rest +mostly on the surface and are not deadly in themselves. A man can be true +of heart even if he will not sit thirteen at table. But there is a kind +of fear that is disastrous to them that have it. It is the fear of the +material universe in all its manifestations. There are persons, stout both +of chest and limb, who fear drafts and wet feet. A man who is an elephant +of valor and who has been feeling this long while a gentle contempt for +such as myself, will cry out if a soft breeze strikes against his neck. If +a foot slips to the gutter and becomes wet, he will dose himself. Achilles +did not more carefully nurse his heel. For him the lofty dome of air is +packed with malignant germs. The round world is bottled with contagion. A +strong man who, in his time, might have slain the Sofi, is as fearful of +his health as though the plague were up the street. Calamities beset him. +The slightest sniffling in his nose is the trumpet for a deep disorder. +Existence is but a moving hazard. Life for him, poor fellow, is but a room +with a window on the night and a storm beating on the casement. God knows, +it is better to grow giddy on a ladder than to think that this majestic +earth is such an universal pestilence. + + + + +The Asperities of the Early British Reviewers + + +Book reviewers nowadays direct their attention, for the most part, to the +worthy books and they habitually neglect those that seem beneath their +regard. On a rare occasion they assail an unprofitable book, but even this +is often but a bit of practice. They swish a bludgeon to try their hand. +They only take their anger, as it were, upon an outing, lest with too +close housing it grow pallid and shrink in girth. Or maybe they indulge +themselves in humor. Perhaps they think that their pages grow dull and that +ridicule will restore the balance. They throw it in like a drunken porter +to relieve a solemn scene. I fancy that editors of this baser sort keep on +their shelves one or two volumes for their readers' sport and mirth. I read +recently a review of an historical romance--a last faltering descendant of +the race--whose author in an endeavor to restore the past, had made too +free a use of obsolete words. With what playfulness was he held up to +scorn! Mary come up, sweet chuck! How his quaint phrasing was turned +against him! What a merry fellow it is who writes, how sharp and caustic! +There's pepper on his mood. + +But generally, it is said, book reviews are too flattering. Professor +Bliss Perry, being of this opinion, offered some time ago a statement +that "Magazine writing about current books is for the most part bland, +complaisant, pulpy.... The Pedagogue no longer gets a chance at the gifted +young rascal who needs, first and foremost, a premonitory whipping; the +youthful genius simply stays away from school and carries his unwhipped +talents into the market place." At a somewhat different angle of the same +opinion, Dr. Crothers suggests in an essay that instead of being directed +to the best books, we need to be warned from the worst. He proposes to set +up a list of the Hundred Worst Books. For is it not better, he asks, to put +a lighthouse on a reef than in the channel? The open sea does not need a +bell-buoy to sound its depth. + +On these hints I have read some of the book criticisms of days past to +learn whether they too were pulpy--whether our present silken criticism +always wore its gloves and perfumed itself, or whether it has fallen to +this smiling senility from a sterner youth. Although I am usually a rusty +student, yet by diligence I have sought to mend my knowledge that I might +lay it out before you. Lately, therefore, if you had come within our Public +Library, you would have found me in one of these attempts. Here I went, +scrimping the other business of the day in order that I might be at my +studies before the rush set in up town. Mine was the alcove farthest from +the door, where are the mustier volumes that fit a bookish student. So if +your quest was the lighter books--such verse and novels as present fame +attests--you did not find me. I was hooped and bowed around the corner. I +am no real scholar, but I study on a spurt. For a whole week together I may +read old plays until their jigging style infects my own. I have set myself +against the lofty histories, although I tire upon their lower slopes and +have not yet persisted to their upper and windier ridges. I have, also, a +pretty knowledge of the Queen Anne wits and feel that I must have dogged +and spied upon them while they were yet alive. But in general, although +I am curious in the earlier chapters of learning, I lag in the inner +windings. However, for a fortnight I have sat piled about with old reviews, +whose leather rots and smells, in order that I might study the fading +criticisms of the past. + +Until rather near the end of the eighteenth century, those who made their +living in England by writing were chiefly publishers' hacks, fellows of +the Dunciad sucking their quills in garrets and selling their labor for a +crust, for the reading public was too small to support them. Or they +found a patron and gave him a sugared sonnet for a pittance, or strained +themselves to the length of an Ode for a berth in his household. Or +frequently they supported a political party and received a place in the +Red Tape Office. But even in politics, on account of the smallness of the +reading public and the politicians' indifference to its approval, their +services were of slight account. Too often a political office was granted +from a pocket borough in which a restricted electorate could be bought at a +trifling expense. To gain support inside the House of Commons was enough. +The greater public outside could be ignored. This attitude changed with +the coming of the French Revolution. Here was a new force unrealized +before--that of a crowd which, being unrepresented and with a real +grievance, could, when it liked, take a club and go after what it wanted. +For the first time in many years in England--such were the whiffs of +liberty across the Channel--the power of an unrepresented public came to be +known. It was not that the English crowd had as yet taken the club in its +hands, but there were new thoughts abroad in the world, and there was the +possibility to be regarded. To influence this larger public, therefore, men +who could write came little by little into a larger demand. And as +writers were comparatively scarce, all kinds--whether they wrote poems or +prose--were pressed into service. It is significant, too, that it was in +the decades subjected to the first influence of the French Revolution that +the English daily paper took its start as an agent to influence public +opinion. + +It was therefore rather more than one hundred years ago that writers came +to a better prosperity. They came out of their garrets, took rooms on the +second floor, polished their brasses and became Persons. I can fancy that a +writer after spending a morning in the composition of a political article +on the whisper of a Cabinet Minister, wrote a sonnet after lunch, and +a book review before dinner. Let us see in what mood they took their +advancement! Let us examine their temper--but in book reviewing only, for +that alone concerns us! In doing this, we have the advantage of knowing the +final estimate of the books they judged. Like the witch, we have looked +into the seeds of time and we know "which grain will grow and which will +not." + +In 1802, when the Edinburgh Review (which was the first of its line to +acquire distinction) came into being, the passion of the times found voice +in politics. Both Whigs and Tories had been alarmed by the excesses of the +French Revolution; both feared that England was drifting the way of France; +each had a remedy, but opposed and violently maintained. The Tories put the +blame of the Revolution on the compromises of Louis XVI, and accordingly +they were hostile to any political change. The Whigs, on the other +hand, saw the rottenness of England as a cause that would incite her to +revolution also, and they advocated reform while yet there was time. The +general fear of a revolution gave the government of England to the Tories, +and kept them in power for several decades. And England was ripe for +trouble. The government was but nominally representative. No Catholic, +Jew, Dissenter or poor man had a vote or could hold a seat in Parliament. +Industrially and economically the country was in the condition of France +in the year of Arthur Young's journey. The poverty was abject, the relief +futile and the hatred of the poor for the rich was inflammatory. +George III, slipping into feebleness and insanity, yet jealous of his +unconstitutional power, was a vacillating despot, quarrelling with his +Commons and his Ministers. Lord Eldon as Chancellor, but with as nearly the +control of a Premier as the King would allow, was the staunch upholder of +all things that have since been disproved and discarded. Bagehot said of +him that "he believed in everything which it is impossible to believe in." +France and Napoleon threatened across the narrow channel. England still +growled at the loss of her American colonies. It was as yet the England +of the old regime. The great reforms were to come thirty years later--the +Catholic Emancipation, the abolishment of slavery in the colonies, the +suppression of the pocket boroughs, the gross bribery of elections, the +cleaning of the poor laws and the courts of justice. + +It was in this dark hour of English history that the writers polished their +brasses and set up as Persons. And if the leading articles that they wrote +of mornings stung and snapped with venom, it is natural that the book +reviews on which they spent their afternoons had also some vinegar in them, +especially if they concerned books written by those of the opposition. And +other writers, even if they had no political connection, borrowed their +manners from those who had. It was the animosities of party politics that +set the general tone. Billingsgate that had grown along the wharves of the +lower river, was found to be of service in Parliament and gave a spice and +sparkle even to a book review. Presently a large part of literary England +wore the tags of political preference. Writers were often as clearly +distinguished as were the ladies in the earlier day, when Addison wrote his +paper on party patches. There were seats of Moral Philosophy to be handed +out, under-secretaryships, consular appointments. It is not enough to say +that Francis Jeffrey was a reviewer, he was as well a Whig and was running +a Review that was Whig from the front cover to the back. Leigh Hunt was not +merely a poet, for he was also a radical, and therefore in the opinions of +Tories, a believer in immorality and indecency. No matter how innocent +a title might appear, it was held in suspicion, on the chance that it +assailed the Ministry or endangered the purity of England. William Gifford +was more than merely the editor of the Quarterly Review, for he was as well +a Tory editor whose duty it was to pry into Whiggish roguery. Lockhart and +Wilson, who wrote in Blackwood's, were Tories tooth and nail, biting and +scratching for party. Nowadays, literature, having found the public to be +its most profitable patron, works hard and even abjectly for its favor. +Although there are defects in the arrangement, it must be confessed that +the divorce of literature from politics contributes to the general peace of +the household. + +The Edinburgh Review was founded in 1802, the Quarterly Review in 1809, +Blackwood's Magazine in 1817. These three won distinction among others of +less importance, and from them only I quote. In 1802, when Tory rule was +strongest and Lord Eldon flourished, there was living in Edinburgh a group +of young men who were for the most part briefless barristers. Their case +was worse because they were Whigs. Few cases came their way and no offices. +These young men were Francis Jeffrey, Francis Horner, Henry Brougham, and +there was also Sydney Smith who had just come to Edinburgh from an English +country parish. The eldest was thirty-one, the youngest twenty-three. +Although all of them had brilliant lives before them, not one of them had +made as yet more than a step toward his accomplishment. Sydney Smith had +been but lately an obscure curate, buried in the middle of Salisbury Plain, +away from all contact with the world. Francis Jeffrey had been a hack +writer in London, had studied medicine, had sought unsuccessfully a +government position in India, had written poor sonnets, and was now +lounging with but a scanty occupation in the halls of the law courts. +Francis Horner had just come to the Scottish bar straight from his studies. +Henry Brougham, who in days to come was to be Lord Chancellor of England +and to whose skill in debate the passing of the Great Reform bill of 1832 +is partly due, is also just admitted to the practice of the law. + +The founding of the Review was casual. These men were accustomed to meet of +an evening for general discussion and speculation. It happened one night as +they sat together--the place was a garret if legend is to be believed--that +Sydney Smith lamented that their discussions came to nothing, for they were +all Whigs, all converted to the cause; whereas if they could only bring +their opinions to the outside public they could stir opinion. From so +slight a root the Review sprouted. Sydney Smith was made editor and kept +the position until after the appearance of the first number, when Jeffrey +succeeded him. The Review became immediately a power, appearing quarterly +and striking its blows anonymously against a sluggish government, lashing +the Tory writers, and taking its part, which is of greater consequence, in +the promulgation of the Whig reforms which were to ripen in thirty years +and convert the old into modern England. In the destruction of outworn +things, it was, as it were, a magazine of Whig explosives. + +The Quarterly Review was the next to come and it was Tory. John Murray, the +London publisher, had been the English distributor of the Edinburgh Review. +In 1809, two considerations moved him to found in London a review to rival +the Scotch periodical. First the Tory party was being hard hit by the +Edinburgh Review and there was need of defense and retaliation. In the +second place, John Murray saw that if his publishing house was to flourish, +it must provide this new form of literature that had become so popular. +For the very shortness of the essays and articles, in which extensive +conditions were summarized for quick digestion, had met with English +approval as well as Scotch. People had become accustomed, says Bagehot, of +taking "their literature in morsels, as they take sandwiches on a journey." +Murray appealed to George Canning, then in office, for assistance and was +introduced to William Gifford as a man capable of the undertaking, who +would also meet the favor of the government party. The rise of the +Quarterly Review was not brilliant. It did not fill the craving for +novelty, inasmuch as the Edinburgh was already in the field. Furthermore, +there is not the opportunity in defense for as conspicuous gallantry as in +offensive warfare. + +It was eight years before another enduring review was started. William +Blackwood of Edinburgh had grown like Murray from a bookseller to a +publisher, and he, too, looked for a means of increasing his prestige. He +had launched a review the year previously, in 1816, but it had foundered +when it was scarcely off the ways. His second attempt he was determined +must be successful. His new editors were John G. Lockhart and John Wilson, +and the new policy, although nominally Tory, was first and last the +magazine's notoriety. It hawked its wares into public notice by sensational +articles and personal vilification. Wilson was thirty-two and Lockhart +twenty-three, yet they were as mischievous as boys. In their pages is found +the most abominable raving that has ever passed for literary criticism. +They did not need any party hatred to fire them. William Blackwood +welcomed any abuse that took his magazine out of "the calm of respectable +mediocrity." Anything that stung or startled was welcome to a place in its +pages. + +So Blackwood's was published and Edinburgh city, we may be sure, set up a +roar of delight and anger. Never before had one's friends been so assailed. +Never before had one's enemies been so grilled. How pleasing for a Tory +fireside was the mud bath with which it defiled Coleridge, who was--and you +had always known it--"little better than a rogue." One's Tory dinner was +the more toothsome for the hot abuse of the Chaldee Manuscript. What stout +Tory, indeed, would doze of an evening on such a sheet! There followed +of course cases of libel. The editors even found it safer, after the +publication of the first number, to retire for a time to the country until +the city cooled. + +I choose now to turn to the pages of these three reviews and set out before +you samples of their criticisms, in order that you may contrast them +with our own literary judgments. I warn you in fairness that I have been +disposed to choose the worst, yet there are hundreds of other criticisms +but little better. Of the three reviews, Blackwood's was the least +seriously political in its policy, yet its critical vilifications are the +worst. The Edinburgh Review, the most able of the three and the most in +earnest in politics, is the least vituperative. With this introduction, let +us shake the pepperpot and lay out the strong vinegar of our feast! + +In the judgment of the Edinburgh Review, Tom Moore, who had just published +his "Odes and Epistles" but had not yet begun his Irish melodies, is a man +who "with some brilliancy of fancy, and some show of classical erudition +... may boast, if the boast can please him, of being the most licentious of +modern versifiers, and the most poetical of those who, in our times, have +devoted their talents to the propagation of immorality. We regard his book, +indeed, as a public nuisance.... He sits down to ransact the impure places +of his memory for inflammatory images and expressions, and commits them +laboriously in writing, for the purpose of insinuating pollution into the +minds of unknown and unsuspecting readers." + +Francis Jeffrey wrote this, and Moore challenged him to fight. The police +interfered, and as Jeffrey put it, "the affair ended amicably. We have +since breakfasted together very lovingly. He has expressed penitence for +what he has written and declared that he will never again apply any little +talents he may possess to such purpose: and I have said that I shall be +happy to praise him whenever I find that he has abjured these objectionable +topics." It was Sydney Smith who said of Jeffrey he would "damn the solar +system--bad light--planets too distant--pestered with comets. Feeble +contrivance--could make a better with great ease." + +Jeffrey reviewed Wordsworth and found in the "Lyrical Ballads" +"vulgarity, affectation and silliness." He is alarmed, moreover, lest +his "childishness, conceit and affectation" spread to other authors. He +proposes a poem to be called "Elegiac Stanzas to a Sucking Pig," and of +"Alice Fell" he writes that "if the publishing of such trash as this be +not felt as an insult on the public taste, we are afraid it cannot be +insulted." When the "White Doe of Rylstone" was published--no prime +favorite, I confess, of my own--Jeffrey wrote that it had the merit of +being the very worst poem he ever saw imprinted in a quarto volume. "It +seems to us," he wrote, "to consist of a happy union of all the faults, +without any of the beauties, which belong to his school of poetry. It is +just such a work, in short, as some wicked enemy of that, school might be +supposed to have devised, on purpose to make it ridiculous." + +Lord Byron, on the publication of an early volume, is counselled "that he +do forthwith abandon poetry ... the mere rhyming of the final syllable, +even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet ... is +not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe," continued +the reviewer, "that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is +necessary to constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to +be read, must contain at least one thought...." It was this attack that +brought forth Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." + +As long as Jeffrey hoped to enlist Southey to write for the Edinburgh +Review, he treated him with some favor. But Southey took up with the +Quarterly. "The Laureate," says the Edinburgh presently, "has now been +out of song for a long time: But we had comforted ourselves with the +supposition that he was only growing fat and lazy.... The strain, however, +of this publication, and indeed of some that went before it, makes us +apprehensive that a worse thing has befallen him ... that the worthy +inditer of epics is falling gently into dotage." + +Now for the Quarterly Review, if by chance it can show an equal spleen! + +There lived in the early days of the nineteenth century a woman by the name +of Lady Morgan, who was the author of several novels and books of travel. +Although her record in intelligence and morals is good, John Croker, +who regularly reviewed her books, accuses her works of licentiousness, +profligacy, irreverence, blasphemy, libertinism, disloyalty and atheism. +There are twenty-six pages of this in one review only, and any paragraph +would be worth the quoting for its ferocity. After this attack it was +Macaulay who said he hated Croker like "cold boiled veal." + +The Quarterly reviewed Keats' "Endymion," although the writer naively +states at the outset that he has not read the poem. "Not that we have been +wanting in our duty," he writes, "far from it--indeed, we have made efforts +almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to be, to get through it; +but with the fullest stretch of our perseverance we are forced to confess +that we have not been able to struggle beyond the first of the four +books...." Finally he questions whether Keats is the author's name, for +he doubts "that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a +rhapsody." + +Leigh Hunt's "Rimini" the Quarterly finds to be an "ungrammatical, +unauthorized, chaotic jargon, such as we believe was never before spoken, +much less written.... We never," concludes the reviewer, "in so few lines +saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man, conscious +and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coarse flippancy, +to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and fidget himself into +the stout-heartedness of being familiar with a Lord." In a later review, +Hunt is a propounder of atheism. "Henceforth," says the reviewer, "... he +may slander a few more eminent characters, he may go on to deride venerable +and holy institutions, he may stir up more discontent and sedition, but he +will have no peace of mind within ... he will live and die unhonoured +in his own generation, and, for his own sake it is to be hoped, moulder +unknown in those which are to follow." + +Hazlitt belongs to a "class of men by whom literature is more than at any +period disgraced." His style is suited for washerwomen, a "class of +females with whom ... he and his friend Mr. Hunt particularly delight to +associate." + +Shelley, writes the Quarterly, "is one of that industrious knot of authors, +the tendency of whose works we have in our late Numbers exposed to the +caution of our readers ... for with perfect deliberation and the steadiest +perseverance he perverts all the gifts of his nature, and does all the +injury, both public and private, which his faculties enable him to +perpetrate." His "poetry is in general a mere jumble of words and +heterogeneous ideas." "The Cloud" is "simple nonsense." "Prometheus +Unbound" is a "great storehouse of the obscure and unintelligible." In the +"Sensitive Plant" there is "no meaning." And for Shelley himself, he is +guilty of a great many terrible things, including verbiage, impiety, +immorality and absurdity. + +Of Blackwood's Magazine the special victims were Keats and Hunt and +Coleridge. "Mr. Coleridge," says the reviewer, "... seems to believe that +every tongue is wagging in his praise--that every ear is open to imbibe the +oracular breathings of his inspiration ... no sound is so sweet to him as +that of his own voice ... he seems to consider the mighty universe itself +as nothing better than a mirror in which, with a grinning and idiot +self-complacency, he may contemplate the physiognomy of Samuel Taylor +Coleridge.... Yet insignificant as he assuredly is, he cannot put pen to +paper without a feeling that millions of eyes are fixed upon him...." + +Leigh Hunt, says Blackwood, "is a man of extravagant pretensions ... +exquisitely bad taste and extremely vulgar modes of thinking." His +"Rimini" "is so wretchedly written that one feels disgust at its pretense, +affectation and gaudiness, ignorance, vulgarity, irreverence, quackery, +glittering and rancid obscenities." + +Blackwood's wrote of the "calm, settled, imperturbable, drivelling idiocy +of Endymion," and elsewhere of Keats' "prurient and vulgar lines, evidently +meant for some young lady east of Temple Bar.... It is a better and a wiser +thing," it commented, "to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so +back to the shop, Mr. John, back to 'plasters, pills and ointment +boxes.'" And even when Shelley wrote his "Adonais" on the death of Keats, +Blackwood's met it with a contemptible parody: + +"Weep for my Tom cat! all ye Tabbies weep!" + +Perhaps I have quoted enough. This is the parentage of our silken and +flattering criticism. + +The pages of these old reviews rest yellow on the shelves. From them there +comes a smell of rotting leather, as though the infection spreads. The hour +grows late. Like the ghost of the elder Hamlet, I detect the morning to be +near. + + + + +The Pursuit of Fire + + +Reader, if by chance you have the habit of writing--whether they be sermons +to hurl across your pews, or sonnets in the Spring--doubtless you have +moments when you sit at your desk bare of thoughts. Mother Hubbard's +cupboard when she went to seek the bone was not more empty. In such plight +you chew your pencil as though it were stuff to feed your brain. Or if you +are of delicate taste, you fall upon your fingers. Or in the hope that +exercise will stir your wits, you pace up and down the room and press your +nose upon the window if perhaps the grocer's boy shall rouse you. Some +persons draw pictures on their pads or put pot-hooks on their letters--for +talent varies--or they roughen up their hair. I knew one gifted fellow +whose shoes presently would cramp him until he kicked them off, when at +once the juices of his intellect would flow. Genius, I am told, sometimes +locks its door and, if unrestrained, peels its outer wrappings. Or, in your +poverty, you run through the pages of a favorite volume, with a notebook +for a sly theft to start you off. In what dejection you have fallen! It is +best that you put on your hat and take your stupid self abroad. + +Or maybe you think that your creative fire will blaze, if instead of +throwing in your wet raw thoughts, you feed it a few seasoned bits. You +open, therefore, the drawer of your desk where you keep your rejected and +broken fragments--for your past has not been prosperous--hopeful against +experience that you can recast one of these to your present mood. This +is mournful business. Certain paragraphs that came from you hot are now +patched and shivery. Their finer meaning has run out between the lines as +though these spaces were sluices for the proper drainage of the page. You +had best put on your hat. You will get no comfort from these stale papers. + +One evening lately, being in this plight, I spread out before me certain +odds and ends. I had dug deeper than usual in the drawer and had brought up +a yellow stratum of a considerable age. I was poring upon these papers and +was wondering whether I could fit them to a newer measure, when I heard a +slight noise behind me. I glanced around and saw that a man had entered the +room and was now seated in a chair before the fire. In the common nature +of things this should have been startling, for the hour was late--twelve +o'clock had struck across the way--and I had thought that I was quite +alone. But there was something so friendly and easy in his attitude--he +was a young man, little more than a lanky boy--that instead of being +frightened, I swung calmly around for a better look. He sat with his legs +stretched before him and with his chin resting in his hand, as though in +thought. By the light that fell on him from the fire, I saw that he wore a +brown checked suit and that he was clean and respectable in appearance. His +face was in shadow. + +"Good evening," I said, "you startled me." + +"I am sorry," he replied. "I beg your pardon. I was going by and I saw your +light. I wished to make your acquaintance. But I saw at once that I was +intruding, so I sat here. You were quite absorbed. Would you mind if I +mended the fire?" + +Without waiting for an answer, he took the poker and dealt the logs several +blows. It didn't greatly help the flame, but he poked with such enjoyment +that I smiled. I have myself rather a liking for stirring a fire. He set +another log in place. Then he drew from his pocket a handful of dried +orange peel. "I love to see it burn," he said. "It crackles and spits." He +ranged the peel upon the log where the flame would get it, and then settled +himself in the big chair. + +"Perhaps you smoke?" I asked, pushing toward him a box of cigarettes. + +He smiled. "I thought that you would know my habits. I don't smoke." + +"So you were going by and came up to see me?" I asked. + +"Yes. I was not sure that I would know you. You are a little older than I +thought, a little--stouter, but dear me, how you have lost your hair! But +you have quite forgotten me." + +"My dear boy," I said, "you have the advantage of me. Where have I seen +you? There is something familiar about you and I am sure that I have seen +that brown suit before." + +"We have never really known each other," the boy replied. "We met once, but +only for an instant. But I have thought of you since that meeting a great +many times. I lay this afternoon on a hilltop and wondered what you would +be like. But I hoped that sometimes you would think of me. Perhaps you have +forgotten that I used to collect railway maps and time-tables." + +"Did you?" I replied. "So did I when I was a little younger than you are. +Perhaps if I might see your face, I would know you." + +"It's nothing for show," he replied, and he kept it still in shadow. "Would +you mind," he said at length, "if I ate an apple?" He took one from his +pocket and broke it in his hands. "You eat half," he said. + +I accepted the part he offered me. "Perhaps you would like a knife and +plate," I said. "I can find them in the pantry." + +"Not for me," he replied. "I prefer to eat mine this way." He took an +enveloping bite. + +"I myself care nothing for plates," I said. We ate in silence. Presently: +"You have my habit," I said, "of eating everything, skin, seeds and all." + +"Everything but the stem," he replied. + +By this time the orange peel was hissing and exploding. + +"You are an odd boy," I said. "I used to put orange peel away to dry in +order to burn it. We seem to be as like as two peas." + +"I wonder," he said, "if that is so." He turned in his chair and faced me, +although his face was still in shadow. "Doubtless, we are far different in +many things. Do you swallow grape seeds?" + +"Hardly!" I cried. "I spit them out." + +"I am glad of that." He paused. "It was a breezy hilltop where I lay. I +thought of you all afternoon. You are famous, of course?" + +"Dear me, no!" + +"Oh, I'm so sorry. I had hoped you might be. I had counted on it. It is +very disappointing. I was thinking about that as I lay on the hill. But +aren't you just on the point of doing something that will make you famous?" + +"By no means." + +"Dear me, I am so sorry. Do you happen to be married?" + +"Yes." + +"And would you mind telling me her name?" + +I obliged him. + +"I don't remember to have heard of her. I didn't think of that name once +as I lay upon the hill. Things don't turn out as one might expect. Now, I +would have thought--but it's no matter." + +For a moment or so he was lost in thought, and then he spoke again: "You +were writing when I came into the room?" + +"Nothing important." + +The boy ran his fingers in his hair and threw out his arms impatiently. +"That's what I would like to do. I am in college, and I try for one of the +papers. But my stuff comes back. But this summer in the vacation, I am +working in an office. I run errands and when there is nothing else to do, I +study a big invoice book, so as to get the names of things that are bought. +There is a racket of drays and wagons outside the windows, and along in +the middle of the afternoon I get tired and thick in my head. But I write +Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings." + +The boy stopped and fixed his eyes on me. "I don't suppose that you happen +to be a poet?" + +"Not at all," I replied. "But perhaps you are one. Tell me about it!" + +The boy took a turn at the fire with the poker, but it was chiefly in +embarrassment. Presently he returned to his chair. He stretched his long +arms upward above his head. + +"No, I'm not," he said. "And yet sometimes I think that I have a kind of +poetry in me. Only I can't get it into words. I lay thinking about that, +too, on the hillside. There was a wind above my head, and I thought that I +could almost put words to the tune. But I have never written a single poem. +Yet, goodness me, what thoughts I have! But they aren't real thoughts--what +you would regularly call thoughts. Things go racing and tingling in my +head, but I can never get them down. They are just feelings." + +As he spoke, the boy gazed intently through the chimney bricks out into +another world. The fireplace was its portal and he seemed to wait for the +fires to cool before entering into its possession. It was several moments +before he spoke again. + +"I don't want you to think me ridiculous, but so few understand. If only I +could master the tools! Perhaps my thoughts are old, but they come to me +with such freshness and they are so unexpected. Could I only solve the +frets and spaces inside me here, I could play what tune I chose. But my +feelings are cold and stale before I can get them into thoughts. I have no +doubt, however, that they are just as real as those other feelings that in +time, after much scratching, get into final form and become poetry. I +know of course that a man's reach should exceed his grasp--it's hackneyed +enough--but just for once I would like to pull down something when I have +been up on tiptoe for a while. + +"Sometimes I get an impression of pity--a glance up a dark hallway--an old +woman with a shawl upon her head--a white face at a window--a blind fiddler +in the street--but the impression is gone in a moment. Or a touch of beauty +gets me. It may be nothing but a street organ in the spring. Perhaps you +like street organs, too?" + +"I do, indeed!" I cried. "There was one today outside my window and my feet +kept wiggling to it." + +The boy clapped his hands. "I knew that you would be like that. I hoped for +it on the hill. As for me, when I hear one, I'm so glad that I could cry +out. In its lilt there is the rhythm of life. It moves me more than a +hillside with its earliest flowers. Am I absurd? It is equal to the pipe of +birds, to shallow waters and the sound of wind to stir me to thoughts of +April. Today as I came downtown, I saw several merry fellows dancing on +the curb. There are tunes, too, upon the piano that send me off. I play a +little myself. I see you have a piano. Do you still play?" + +"A little, rather sadly," I replied. + +"That's too bad, but perhaps you sing?" + +"Even worse." + +"Dear me, that's too bad. I have rather a voice myself. Well, as I was +saying, when I hear those tunes, I curl up with the smoke and blow forth +from the chimney. If I walk upon the street when the wind is up, and see a +light fleece of smoke coming from a chimney top, I think that down below +someone is listening to music that he likes, and that his thoughts ride +upon the night, like those white streamers of smoke. And then I think of +castles and mountains and high places and the sounds of storm. Or in fancy +I see a tower that tapers to the moon with a silver gleam upon it." + +The strange boy lay back and laughed. "Musicians think that they are the +only ones that can hear the finer sounds. If one of us common fellows cocks +his ear, they think that only the coarser thumps get inside. And artists +think that they alone know the glory of color. I was thinking of that, this +afternoon. And yet I have walked under the blue sky. I have seen twilights +that these men of paint would botch on canvas. But both musicians and +artists have a vision that is greater than their product. The soul of a man +can hardly be recorded in black and white keys. Nor can a little pigment +which you rub upon your thumb be the measure of an artist. So I suppose +that is the way also with poets. It is not to be expected that they can +express themselves fully in words that they have borrowed from the kitchen. +When their genius flames up, it is only the lesser sparks that fall upon +their writing pads. It consoles me that a man should be greater than his +achievement. I who have done so little would otherwise be so forlorn." + +"It's odd," I said, when he had fallen into silence, "that I used to feel +exactly as you do. It stirs an old recollection. If I am not mistaken, I +once wrote a paper on the subject." + +The boy smiled dreamily. "But if small persons like myself," he began, "can +have such frenzies, how must it be with those greater persons who have +amazed the world? I have wondered in what kind of exaltation Shakespeare +wrote his storm in 'Lear.' There must have been a first conception greater +even than his accomplishment. Did he look from his windows at a winter +tempest and see miserable old men and women running hard for shelter? Did +a flash of lightning bare his soul to the misery, the betrayal and the +madness of the world? His supreme moment was not when he flung the +completed manuscript aside, or when he heard the actors mouth his lines, +but in the flash and throb of creation--in the moment when he knew that he +had the power in him to write 'Lear.' What we read is the cold forging, +wonderful and enduring, but not to be compared to the producing furnace." + +The boy had spoken so fast that he was out of breath. + +"Hold a bit!" I cried. "What you have said sounds familiar. Where could I +have heard it before?" + +There was something almost like a sneer on the boy's face. "What a memory +you have! And perhaps you recall this brown suit, too. It's ugly enough to +be remembered. Now please let me finish what came to me this afternoon on +the hill! Prometheus," he continued, "scaled the heavens and brought back +fire to mortals. And he, as the story goes, clutched at a lightning bolt +and caught but a spark. And even that, glorious. Mankind properly accredits +him with a marvellous achievement. It is for this reason that I comfort +myself although I have not yet written a single line of verse." + +"My dear fellow," I said, "please tell me where I have read something like +what you have spoken?" + +The boy's answer was irrelevant. "You first tell me what you did with a +brown checked suit you once owned." + +"I never owned but one brown suit," I replied, "and that was when I was +still in college. I think that I gave it away before it was worn out." + +The boy once more clapped his hands. "Oh, I knew it, I knew it. I'll give +mine tomorrow to the man who takes our ashes. Now, won't you please play +the piano for me?" + +"Assuredly. Choose your tune!" + +He fumbled a bit in the rack and passing some rather good music, he held up +a torn and yellow sheet. "This is what I want," he said. + +I had not played it for many years. After a false start or so--for it was +villainously set in four sharps for which I have an aversion--I got through +it. On a second trial I did better. + +The boy made no comment. He had sunk down in his chair until he was quite +out of sight. "Well," I said, "what next?" + +There was no answer. + +I arose from the bench and glanced in his direction. "Hello," I cried, +"what has become of you?" + +The chair was empty. I turned on all the lights. He was nowhere in sight. I +shook the hangings. I looked under my desk, for perhaps the lad was hiding +from me in jest. It was unlikely that he could have passed me to gain the +door, but I listened at the sill for any sound upon the stairs. The hall +was silent. I called without response. Somewhat bewildered I came back to +the hearth. Only a few minutes before, as it seemed, there had been a brisk +fire with a row of orange peel upon the upper log. Now all trace of the +peel was gone and the logs had fallen to a white ash. + +I was standing perplexed, when I observed that a little pile of papers lay +on the rug just off the end of my desk as by a careless elbow. At least, +I thought, this impolite fellow has forgotten some of his possessions. It +will serve him right if it is poetry that he wrote upon the hilltop. + +I picked up the papers. They were yellow and soiled, and writing was +scrawled upon them. At the top was a date--but it was twenty years old. +I turned to the last sheet. At least I could learn the boy's name. To my +amazement, I saw at the bottom in an old but familiar writing, not the +boy's name, but my own. + +I gazed at the chimney bricks and their substance seemed to part before my +eyes. I looked into a world beyond--a fabric of moonlight and hilltop and +the hot fret of youth. Perhaps the boy had only been waiting for the fire +upon the hearth to cool to enter this other world of his restless ambition +and desire. + +Reader, if by chance you have the habit of writing--let us confine +ourselves now to sonnets and such airy matter as rides upon the +night--doubtless, you sit sometimes at your desk bare of thoughts. The +juices of your intellect are parched and dry. In such plight, I beg you +not to fall upon your fingers or to draw pictures on your sheet. But most +vehemently, and with such emphasis as I possess, I beg you not to rummage +among your rejected and broken fragments in the hope of recasting a +withered thought to a present mood. Rather, before you sour and curdle, +it is good to put on your hat and take your stupid self abroad. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of There's Pippins And Cheese To Come +by Charles S. Brooks + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10023 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2db143f --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10023 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10023) diff --git a/old/10023.txt b/old/10023.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..69cd022 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10023.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3583 @@ +Project Gutenberg's There's Pippins And Cheese To Come, by Charles S. Brooks + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: There's Pippins And Cheese To Come + +Author: Charles S. Brooks + +Release Date: November 8, 2003 [EBook #10023] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERE'S PIPPINS AND CHEESE TO COME *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +Other Books by the Same Author: + + "Journeys to Bagdad" + _Sixth printing_. + + "Chimney-Pot Papers" + _Third printing_. + + "Hints to Pilgrims" + + + + +THERE'S PIPPINS + +AND + +CHEESE TO COME + +BY + +CHARLES S. BROOKS + +1917 + + +Illustrated by Theodore Diedricksen, Jr. + + + + +TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. There's Pippins and Cheese to Come + +II. On Buying Old Books + +III. Any Stick Will Do to Beat a Dog + +IV. Roads of Morning + +V. The Man of Grub Street Comes from His Garret + +VI. Now that Spring is Here + +VII. The Friendly Genii + +VIII. Mr. Pepys Sits in the Pit + +IX. To an Unknown Reader + +X. A Plague of All Cowards + +XI. The Asperities of the Early British Reviewers + +XII. The Pursuit of Fire + + + + +THERE'S PIPPINS AND CHEESE TO COME + + + + +There's Pippins and Cheese To Come + + +In my noonday quest for food, if the day is fine, it is my habit to shun +the nearer places of refreshment. I take the air and stretch myself. Like +Eve's serpent I go upright for a bit. Yet if time presses, there may be had +next door a not unsavory stowage. A drinking bar is nearest to the street +where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror to such +red-faced nature as consorts within. Yet you pass the bar and come upon a +range of tables at the rear. + +Now, if you yield to the habits of the place you order a rump of meat. +Gravy lies about it like a moat around a castle, and if there is in you the +zest for encounter, you attack it above these murky waters. "This castle +hath a pleasant seat," you cry, and charge upon it with pike advanced. But +if your appetite is one to peck and mince, the whiffs that breathe upon the +place come unwelcome to your nostrils. In no wise are they like the sweet +South upon your senses. There is even a suspicion in you--such is your +distemper--that it is too much a witch's cauldron in the kitchen, "eye of +newt, and toe of frog," and you spy and poke upon your food. Bus boys bear +off the crockery as though they were apprenticed to a juggler and were only +at the beginning of their art. Waiters bawl strange messages to the cook. +It's a tongue unguessed by learning, yet sharp and potent. Also, there +comes a riot from the kitchen, and steam issues from the door as though the +devil himself were a partner and conducted here an upper branch. Like the +man in the old comedy, your belly may still ring dinner, but the tinkle is +faint. Such being your state, you choose a daintier place to eat. + +Having now set upon a longer journey--the day being fine and the sidewalks +thronged--you pass by a restaurant that is but a few doors up the street. +A fellow in a white coat flops pancakes in the window. But even though the +pancake does a double somersault and there are twenty curious noses pressed +against the glass, still you keep your course uptown. + +Nor are you led off because a near-by stairway beckons you to a Chinese +restaurant up above. A golden dragon swings over the door. Its race has +fallen since its fire-breathing grandsire guarded the fruits of the +Hesperides. Are not "soys" and "chou meins" and other such treasures of the +East laid out above? And yet the dragon dozes at its post like a sleepy +dog. No flame leaps up its gullet. The swish of its tail is stilled. If it +wag at all, it's but in friendship or because a gust of wind has stirred it +from its dreams. + +I have wondered why Chinese restaurants are generally on the second story. +A casual inquiry attests it. I know of one, it is true, on the ground +level, yet here I suspect a special economy. The place had formerly been a +German restaurant, with Teuton scrolls, "Ich Dien," and heraldries on its +walls. A frugal brush changed the decoration. From the heart of a Prussian +blazonry, there flares on you in Chinese yellow a recommendation to try +"Our Chicken Chop Soy." The quartering of the House of Hohenzollern wears a +baldric in praise of "Subgum Noodle Warmein," which it seems they cook to +an unusual delicacy. Even a wall painting of Rip Van Winkle bowling at +tenpins in the mountains is now set off with a pigtail. But the chairs were +Dutch and remain as such. Generally, however, Chinese restaurants are on +the second story. Probably there is a ritual from the ancient days of Ming +Ti that Chinamen when they eat shall sit as near as possible to the sacred +moon. + +But hold a bit! In your haste up town to find a place to eat, you are +missing some of the finer sights upon the way. In these windows that +you pass, the merchants have set their choicest wares. If there is any +commodity of softer gloss than common, or one shinier to the eye--so +that your poverty frets you--it is displayed here. In the window of the +haberdasher, shirts--mere torsos with not a leg below or head above--yet +disport themselves in gay neckwear. Despite their dismemberment they are +tricked to the latest turn of fashion. Can vanity survive such general +amputation? Then there is hope for immortality. + +But by what sad chance have these blithe fellows been disjointed? If +a gloomy mood prevails in you--as might come from a bad turn of the +market--you fancy that the evil daughter of Herodias still lives around the +corner, and that she has set out her victims to the general view. If there +comes a hurdy-gurdy on the street and you cock your ear to the tune of +it, you may still hear the dancing measure of her wicked feet. Or it is +possible that these are the kindred of Holofernes and that they have supped +guiltily in their tents with a sisterhood of Judiths. + +Or we may conceive--our thoughts running now to food--that these gamesome +creatures of the haberdasher had dressed themselves for a more recent +banquet. Their black-tailed coats and glossy shirts attest a rare occasion. +It was in holiday mood, when they were fresh-combed and perked in their +best, that they were cut off from life. It would appear that Jack Ketch the +headsman got them when they were rubbed and shining for the feast. We'll +not squint upon his writ. It is enough that they were apprehended for some +rascality. When he came thumping on his dreadful summons, here they were +already set, fopped from shoes to head in the newest whim. Spoon in hand +and bib across their knees--lest they fleck their careful fronts--they +waited for the anchovy to come. And on a sudden they were cut off from +life, unfit, unseasoned for the passage. Like the elder Hamlet's brother, +they were engaged upon an act that had no relish of salvation in it. You +may remember the lamentable child somewhere in Dickens, who because of an +abrupt and distressing accident, had a sandwich in its hand but no mouth +to put it in. Or perhaps you recall the cook of the Nancy Bell and his +grievous end. The poor fellow was stewed in his own stew-pot. It was the +Elderly Naval Man, you recall--the two of them being the ship's sole +survivors on the deserted island, and both of them lean with hunger--it was +the Elderly Naval Man (the villain of the piece) who "ups with his heels, +and smothers his squeals in the scum of the boiling broth." + +And yet by looking on these torsos of the haberdasher, one is not brought +to thoughts of sad mortality. Their joy is so exultant. And all the things +that they hold dear--canes, gloves, silk hats, and the newer garments on +which fashion makes its twaddle--are within reach of their armless sleeves. +Had they fingers they would be smoothing themselves before the glass. Their +unbodied heads, wherever they may be, are still smiling on the world, +despite their divorcement. Their tongues are still ready with a jest, their +lips still parted for the anchovy to come. + +A few days since, as I was thinking--for so I am pleased to call my muddy +stirrings--what manner of essay I might write and how best to sort and lay +out the rummage, it happened pat to my needs that I received from a friend +a book entitled "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened." Now, before +it came I had got so far as to select a title. Indeed, I had written the +title on seven different sheets of paper, each time in the hope that by +the run of the words I might leap upon some further thought. Seven times I +failed and in the end the sheets went into the waste basket, possibly +to the confusion of Annie our cook, who may have mistaken them for a +reiterated admonishment towards the governance of her kitchen--at the +least, a hint of my desires and appetite for cheese and pippins. + +"The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened" is a cook book. It is due you +to know this at once, otherwise your thoughts--if your nature be +vagrant--would drift towards family skeletons. Or maybe the domestic traits +prevail and you would think of dress-clothes hanging in camphorated bags +and a row of winter boots upon a shelf. + +I am disqualified to pass upon the merits of a cook book, for the reason +that I have little discrimination in food. It is not that I am totally +indifferent to what lies on the platter. Indeed, I have more than a tribal +aversion to pork in general, while, on the other hand, I quicken joyfully +when noodles are interspersed with bacon. I have a tooth for sweets, too, +although I hold it unmanly and deny it as I can. I am told also--although +I resent it--that my eye lights up on the appearance of a tray of French +pastry. I admit gladly, however, my love of onions, whether they come +hissing from the skillet, or lie in their first tender whiteness. They +are at their best when they are placed on bread and are eaten largely at +midnight after society has done its worst. + +A fine dinner is lost within me. A quail is but an inferior chicken--a poor +relation outside the exclusive hennery. Terrapin sits low in my regard, +even though it has wallowed in the most aristocratic marsh. Through such +dinners I hack and saw my way without even gaining a memory of my progress. +If asked the courses, I balk after the recital of the soup. Indeed, I am so +forgetful of food, even when I dine at home, that I can well believe that +Adam when he was questioned about the apple was in real confusion. He had +or he had not. It was mixed with the pomegranate or the quince that Eve had +sliced and cooked on the day before. + +A dinner at its best is brought to a single focus. There is one dish +to dominate the cloth, a single bulk to which all other dishes are +subordinate. If there be turkey, it should mount from a central platter. +Its protruding legs out-top the candles. All other foods are, as it were, +privates in Caesar's army. They do no more than flank the pageant. Nor may +the pantry hold too many secrets. Within reason, everything should be +set out at once, or at least a gossip of its coming should run before. +Otherwise, if the stew is savory, how shall one reserve a corner for the +custard? One must partition himself justly--else, by an over-stowage at the +end, he list and sink. + +I am partial to picnics--the spreading of the cloth in the woods or beside +a stream--although I am not avid for sandwiches unless hunger press me. +Rather, let there be a skillet in the company and let a fire be started! +Nor need a picnic consume the day. In summer it requires but the late +afternoon, with such borrowing of the night as is necessary for the +journey home. You leave the street car, clanking with your bundles like an +itinerant tinman. You follow a stream, which on these lower stretches, it +is sad to say, is already infected with the vices of the city. Like many a +countryman who has come to town, it has fallen to dissipation. It shows the +marks of the bottle. Further up, its course is cleaner. You cross it in the +mud. Was it not Christian who fell into the bog because of the burden on +his back? Then you climb a villainously long hill and pop out upon an open +platform above the city. + +The height commands a prospect to the west. Below is the smoke of a +thousand suppers. Up from the city there comes the hum of life, now +somewhat fallen with the traffic of the day--as though Nature already +practiced the tune for sending her creatures off to sleep. You light a +fire. The baskets disgorge their secrets. Ants and other leviathans think +evidently that a circus has come or that bears are in the town. The chops +and bacon achieve their appointed destiny. You throw the last bone across +your shoulder. It slips and rattles to the river. The sun sets. Night like +an ancient dame puts on her jewels: + + And now that I have climbed and won this height, + I must tread downward through the sloping shade + And travel the bewildered tracks till night. + Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed + And see the gold air and the silver fade + And the last bird fly into the last light. + +By these confessions you will see how unfit I am to comment on the old cook +book of Sir Kenelm Digby. Yet it lies before me. It may have escaped your +memory in the din of other things, that in the time when Oliver Cromwell +still walked the earth, there lived in England a man by the name of Kenelm +Digby, who was renowned in astrology and alchemy, piracy, wit, philosophy +and fashion. It appears that wherever learning wagged its bulbous head, Sir +Kenelm was of the company. It appears, also, that wherever the mahogany did +most groan, wherever the possets were spiced most delicately to the nose, +there too did Sir Kenelm bib and tuck himself. With profundity, as +though he sucked wisdom from its lowest depth, he spouted forth on the +transmutation of the baser metals or tossed you a phrase from Paracelsus. +Or with long instructive finger he dissertated on the celestial universe. +One would have thought that he had stood by on the making of it and that +his judgment had prevailed in the larger problems. Yet he did not neglect +his trencher. + +And now as time went on, the richness of the food did somewhat dominate his +person. The girth of his wisdom grew no less, but his body fattened. In +a word, the good gentleman's palate came to vie with his intellect. Less +often was he engaged upon some dark saying of Isidore of Seville. Rather, +even if his favorite topic astrology were uppermost about the table, his +eye travelled to the pantry on every change of dishes. His fingers, too, +came to curl most delicately on his fork. He used it like an epicure, +poking his viands apart for sharpest scrutiny. His nod upon a compote was +much esteemed. + +Now mark his further decline! On an occasion--surely the old rascal's head +is turned!--he would be found in private talk with his hostess, the Lady of +Middlesex, or with the Countess of Monmouth, not as you might expect, on +the properties of fire or on the mortal diseases of man, but--on subjects +quite removed. Society, we may be sure, began to whisper of these snug +parleys in the arbor after dinner, these shadowed mumblings on the balcony +when the moon was up--and Lady Digby stiffened into watchfulness. It was +when they took leave that she saw the Countess slip a note into her lord's +fingers. Her jealousy broke out. "Viper!" She spat the words and seized her +husband's wrist. Of course the note was read. It proved, however, that Sir +Kenelm was innocent of all mischief. To the disappointment of the gossips, +who were tuned to a spicier anticipation, the note was no more than a +recipe of the manner that the Countess was used to mix her syllabub, with +instruction that it was the "rosemary a little bruised and the limon-peal +that did quicken the taste." Advice, also, followed in the postscript on +the making of tea, with counsel that "the boiling water should remain upon +it just so long as one might say a _miserere_." A mutual innocence being +now established, the Lady Digby did by way of apology peck the Countess on +the cheek. + +Sir Kenelm died in 1665, full of years. In that day his fame rested chiefly +on his books in physic and chirurgery. His most enduring work was still to +be published--"The Closet Opened." + +It was two years after his death that his son came upon a bundle of his +father's papers that had hitherto been overlooked. I fancy that he went +spying in the attic on a rainy day. In the darkest corner, behind the +rocking horse--if such devices were known in those distant days--he came +upon a trunk of his father's papers. "Od's fish," said Sir Kenelm's son, +"here's a box of manuscripts. It is like that they pertain to alchemy or +chirurgery." He pulled out a bundle and held it to the light--such light as +came through the cobwebs of the ancient windows. "Here be strange matters," +he exclaimed. Then he read aloud: "My Lord of Bristol's Scotch collops are +thus made: Take a leg of fine sweet mutton, that to make it tender, is +kept as long as possible may be without stinking. In winter seven or eight +days"--"Ho! Ho!" cried Sir Kenelm's son. "This is not alchemy!" He drew out +another parchment and read again: "My Lord of Carlile's sack posset, how +it's made: Take a pottle of cream and boil in it a little whole cinnamon +and three or four flakes of mace. Boil it until it simpreth and bubbleth." + +By this time, as you may well imagine, Sir Kenelm's son was wrought to an +excitement. It is likely that he inherited his father's palate and that the +juices of his appetite were stirred. Seizing an armful of the papers, he +leaped down the attic steps, three at a time. His lady mother thrust a +curled and papered head from her door and asked whether the chimney were +afire, but he did not heed her. The cook was waddling in her pattens. He +cried to her to throw wood upon the fire. + +That night the Digby household was served a delicacy, red herrings broiled +in the fashion of my Lord d'Aubigny, "short and crisp and laid upon a +sallet." Also, there was a wheaten flommery as it was made in the West +Country--for the cook chose quite at random--and a slip-coat cheese as +Master Phillips proportioned it. Also, against the colic, which was +ravishing the country, the cook prepared a metheglin as Lady Stuart mixed +it--"nettles, fennel and grumel seeds, of each two ounces being small-cut +and mixed with honey and boiled together." It is on record that the Lady +Digby smiled for the first time since her lord had died, and when the +grinning cook bore in the platter, she beat upon the table with her spoon. + +The following morning, Sir Kenelm's son posted to London bearing the +recipes, with a pistol in the pocket of his great coat against the crossing +of Hounslow Heath. He went to a printer at the Star in Little Britain whose +name was H. Brome. + +Shortly the book appeared. It was the son who wrote the preface: "There +needs no Rhetoricating Floscules to set it off. The Authour, as is well +known, having been a Person of Eminency for his Learning, and of Exquisite +Curiosity in his Researches. Even that Incomparable Sir Kenelme Digbie +Knight, Fellow of the Royal Society and Chancellour to the Queen Mother, +(Et omen in Nomine) His name does sufficiently Auspicate the Work." The +sale of the book is not recorded. It is supposed that the Lady Middlesex, +so many of whose recipes had been used, directed that her chair be carried +to the shop where the book was for sale and that she bought largely of it. +The Countess of Dorset bought a copy and spelled it out word for word to +her cook. As for the Lady Monmouth, she bought not a single copy, which +neglect on coming to the Digbys aroused a coolness. + +To this day it is likely that a last auspicated volume still sits on its +shelf with the spice jars in some English country kitchen and that a worn +and toothless cook still thumbs its leaves. If the guests about the table +be of an antique mind, still will they pledge one another with its honeyed +drinks, still will they pipe and whistle of its virtues, still will they-- + +"EAT"--A flaring sign hangs above the sidewalk. By this time, in our +noonday search for food, we have come into the thick of the restaurants. In +the jungle of the city, here is the feeding place. Here come the growling +bipeds for such bones and messes as are thrown them. + +The waiter thrusts a card beneath my nose. "Nice leg of lamb, sir?" I waved +him off. "Hold a bit!" I cried. "You'll fetch me a capon in white broth as +my Lady Monmouth broileth hers. Put plentiful sack in it and boil it until +it simpreth!" The waiter scratched his head. "The chicken pie is good," he +said. "It's our Wednesday dish." "Varlet!" I cried--then softened. "Let it +be the chicken pie! But if the cook knoweth the manner that Lord Carlile +does mix and pepper it, let that manner be followed to the smallest +fraction of a pinch!" + + + + + +On Buying Old Books + + +By some slim chance, reader, you may be the kind of person who, on a visit +to a strange city, makes for a bookshop. Of course your slight temporal +business may detain you in the earlier hours of the day. You sit with +committees and stroke your profound chin, or you spend your talent in the +market, or run to and fro and wag your tongue in persuasion. Or, if you be +on a holiday, you strain yourself on the sights of the city, against being +caught in an omission. The bolder features of a cathedral must be grasped +to satisfy a quizzing neighbor lest he shame you later on your hearth, a +building must be stuffed inside your memory, or your pilgrim feet must wear +the pavement of an ancient shrine. However, these duties being done and the +afternoon having not yet declined, do you not seek a bookshop to regale +yourself? + +Doubtless, we have met. As you have scrunched against the shelf not to +block the passage, but with your head thrown back to see the titles up +above, you have noticed at the corner of your eye--unless it was one of +your blinder moments when you were fixed wholly on the shelf--a man in +a slightly faded overcoat of mixed black and white, a man just past the +nimbleness of youth, whose head is plucked of its full commodity of hair. +It was myself. I admit the portrait, though modesty has curbed me short of +justice. + +Doubtless, we have met. It was your umbrella--which you held villainously +beneath your arm--that took me in the ribs when you lighted on a set of +Fuller's Worthies. You recall my sour looks, but it was because I had +myself lingered on the volumes but cooled at the price. How you smoothed +and fingered them! With what triumph you bore them off! I bid you--for I +see you in a slippered state, eased and unbuttoned after dinner--I bid you +turn the pages with a slow thumb, not to miss the slightest tang of their +humor. You will of course go first, because of its broad fame, to the page +on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and their wet-combats at the Mermaid. But +before the night is too far gone and while yet you can hold yourself from +nodding, you will please read about Captain John Smith of Virginia and his +"strange performances, the scene whereof is laid at such a distance, they +are cheaper credited than confuted." + +In no proper sense am I a buyer of old books. I admit a bookish quirk +maybe, a love of the shelf, a weakness for morocco, especially if it is +stained with age. I will, indeed, shirk a wedding for a bookshop. I'll +go in "just to look about a bit, to see what the fellow has," and on an +occasion I pick up a volume. But I am innocent of first editions. It is +a stiff courtesy, as becomes a democrat, that I bestow on this form +of primogeniture. Of course, I have nosed my way with pleasure along +aristocratic shelves and flipped out volumes here and there to ask their +price, but for the greater part, it is the plainer shops that engage me. If +a rack of books is offered cheap before the door, with a fixed price upon a +card, I come at a trot. And if a brown dust lies on them, I bow and sniff +upon the rack, as though the past like an ancient fop in peruke and buckle +were giving me the courtesy of its snuff box. If I take the dust in my +nostrils and chance to sneeze, it is the fit and intended observance toward +the manners of a former century. + +I have in mind such a bookshop in Bath, England. It presents to the street +no more than a decent front, but opens up behind like a swollen bottle. +There are twenty rooms at least, piled together with such confusion of +black passages and winding steps, that one might think that the owner +himself must hold a thread when he visits the remoter rooms. Indeed, such +are the obscurities and dim turnings of the place, that, were the legend of +the Minotaur but English, you might fancy that the creature still lived in +this labyrinth, to nip you between his toothless gums--for the beast grows +old--at some darker corner. There is a story of the place, that once a raw +clerk having been sent to rummage in the basement, his candle tipped off +the shelf. He was left in so complete darkness that his fears overcame his +judgment and for two hours he roamed and babbled among the barrels. Nor was +his absence discovered until the end of the day when, as was the custom, +the clerks counted noses at the door. When they found him, he bolted up the +steps, nor did he cease his whimper until he had reached the comforting +twilight of the outer world. He served thereafter in the shop a full two +years and had a beard coming--so the story runs--before he would again +venture beyond the third turning of the passage; to the stunting of his +scholarship, for the deeper books lay in the farther windings. + +Or it may appear credible that in ages past a jealous builder contrived the +place. Having no learning himself and being at odds with those of better +opportunity, he twisted the pattern of the house. Such was his evil temper, +that he set the steps at a dangerous hazard in the dark, in order that +scholars--whose eyes are bleared at best--might risk their legs to the end +of time. Those of strict orthodoxy have even suspected the builder to have +been an atheist, for they have observed what double joints and steps and +turnings confuse the passage to the devouter books--the Early Fathers in +particular being up a winding stair where even the soberest reader might +break his neck. Be these things as they may, leather bindings in sets of +"grenadier uniformity" ornament the upper and lighter rooms. Biography +straggles down a hallway, with a candle needed at the farther end. A room +of dingy plays--Wycherley, Congreve and their crew--looks out through an +area grating. It was through even so foul an eye, that when alive, they +looked upon the world. As for theology, except for the before-mentioned +Fathers, it sits in general and dusty convention on the landing to the +basement, its snuffy sermons, by a sad misplacement--or is there an +ironical intention?--pointing the way to the eternal abyss below. + +It was in this shop that I inquired whether there was published a book on +piracy in Cornwall. Now, I had lately come from Tintagel on the Cornish +coast, and as I had climbed upon the rocks and looked down upon the sea, I +had wondered to myself whether, if the knowledge were put out before me, I +could compose a story of Spanish treasure and pirates. For I am a prey to +such giddy ambition. A foul street--if the buildings slant and topple--will +set me thinking delightfully of murders. A wharf-end with water lapping +underneath and bits of rope about will set me itching for a deep-sea plot. +Or if I go on broader range and see in my fancy a broken castle on a hill, +I'll clear its moat and sound trumpets on its walls. If there is pepper +in my mood, I'll storm its dungeon. Or in a softer moment I'll trim its +unsubstantial towers with pageantry and rest upon my elbow until I fall +asleep. So being cast upon the rugged Cornish coast whose cliffs are so +swept with winter winds that the villages sit for comfort in the hollows, +it was to be expected that my thoughts would run toward pirates. + +There is one rock especially which I had climbed in the rain and fog of +early morning. A reckless path goes across its face with a sharp pitch to +the ocean. It was so slippery and the wind so tugged and pulled to throw me +off, that although I endangered my dignity, I played the quadruped on the +narrower parts. But once on top in the open blast of the storm and safe +upon the level, I thumped with desire for a plot. In each inlet from the +ocean I saw a pirate lugger--such is the pleasing word--with a keg of rum +set up. Each cranny led to a cavern with doubloons piled inside. The +very tempest in my ears was compounded out of ships at sea and wreck and +pillage. I needed but a plot, a thread of action to string my villains on. +If this were once contrived, I would spice my text with sailors' oaths and +such boasting talk as might lie in my invention. Could I but come upon a +plot, I might yet proclaim myself an author. + +With this guilty secret in me I blushed as I asked the question. It seemed +sure that the shopkeeper must guess my purpose. I felt myself suspected as +though I were a rascal buying pistols to commit a murder. Indeed, I seem +to remember having read that even hardened criminals have become confused +before a shopkeeper and betrayed themselves. Of course, Dick Turpin and +Jerry Abershaw could call for pistols in the same easy tone they ordered +ale, but it would take a practiced villainy. But I in my innocence wanted +nothing but the meager outline of a pirate's life, which I might fatten to +my uses. + +But on a less occasion, when there is no plot thumping in me, I still feel +a kind of embarrassment when I ask for a book out of the general demand. I +feel so like an odd stick. This embarrassment applies not to the request +for other commodities. I will order a collar that is quite outside the +fashion, in a high-pitched voice so that the whole shop can hear. I could +bargain for a purple waistcoat--did my taste run so--and though the +sidewalk listened, it would not draw a blush. I have traded even for +women's garments--though this did strain me--without an outward twitch. +Finally, to top my valor, I have bought sheet music of the lighter kind and +have pronounced the softest titles so that all could hear. But if I desire +the poems of Lovelace or the plays of Marlowe, I sidle close up to the +shopkeeper to get his very ear. If the book is visible, I point my thumb at +it without a word. + +It was but the other day--in order to fill a gap in a paper I was +writing--I desired to know the name of an author who is obscure although +his work has been translated into nearly all languages. I wanted to know a +little about the life of the man who wrote _Mary Had a Little Lamb_, which, +I am told, is known by children over pretty much all the western world. It +needed only a trip to the Public Library. Any attendant would direct me to +the proper shelf. Yet once in the building, my courage oozed. My question, +though serious, seemed too ridiculous to be asked. I would sizzle as I +met the attendant's eye. Of a consequence, I fumbled on my own devices, +possibly to the increase of my general knowledge, but without gaining what +I sought. + +They had no book in the Bath shop on piracy in Cornwall. I was offered +instead a work in two volumes on the notorious highwaymen of history, and +for a moment my plot swerved in that direction. But I put it by. To pay the +fellow for his pains--for he had dug in barrels to his shoulders and had a +smudge across his nose--I bought a copy of Thomson's "Castle of Indolence," +and in my more energetic moods I read it. And so I came away. + +On leaving the shop, lest I should be nipped in a neglect, I visited the +Roman baths. Then I took the waters in the Assembly Room. It was Sam +Weller, you may recall, who remarked, when he was entertained by the select +footmen, that the waters tasted like warm flat-irons. Finally, I viewed +the Crescent around which the shirted Winkle ran with the valorous Dowler +breathing on his neck. With such distractions, as you may well imagine, +Cornish pirates became as naught. Such mental vibration as I had was now +gone toward a tale of fashion in the days when Queen Anne was still alive. +Of a consequence, I again sought the bookshop and stifling my timidity, I +demanded such volumes as might set me most agreeably to my task. + +I have in mind also a bookshop of small pretension in a town in Wales. For +purely secular delight, maybe, it was too largely composed of Methodist +sermons. Hell fire burned upon its shelves with a warmth to singe so poor a +worm as I. Yet its signboard popped its welcome when I had walked ten miles +of sunny road. Possibly it was the chair rather than the divinity that +keeps the place in memory. The owner was absent on an errand, and his +daughter, who had been clumping about the kitchen on my arrival, was +uninstructed in the price marks. So I read and fanned myself until his +return. + +Perhaps my sluggishness toward first editions--to which I have hinted +above--comes in part from the acquaintance with a man who in a linguistic +outburst as I met him, pronounced himself to be a numismatist and +philatelist. One only of these names would have satisfied a man of less +conceit. It is as though the pteranodon should claim also to be the +spoon-bill dinosaur. It is against modesty that one man should summon all +the letters. No, the numismatist's head is not crammed with the mysteries +of life and death, nor is a philatelist one who is possessed with the +dimmer secrets of eternity. Rather, this man who was so swelled with +titles, eked a living by selling coins and stamps, and he was on his way +to Europe to replenish his wares. Inside his waistcoat, just above his +liver--if he owned so human an appendage--he carried a magnifying glass. +With this, when the business fit was on him, he counted the lines and dots +upon a stamp, the perforations on its edge. He catalogued its volutes, its +stipples, the frisks and curlings of its pattern. He had numbered the very +hairs on the head of George Washington, for in such minutiae did the value +of the stamp reside. Did a single hair spring up above the count, it would +invalidate the issue. Such values, got by circumstance or accident--resting +on a flaw--founded on a speck--cause no ferment of my desires. + +For the buying of books, it is the cheaper shops where I most often prowl. +There is in London a district around Charing Cross Road where almost every +shop has books for sale. There is a continuous rack along the sidewalk, +each title beckoning for your attention. You recall the class of +street-readers of whom Charles Lamb wrote--"poor gentry, who, not having +wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open +stalls." It was on some such street that these folk practiced their +innocent larceny. If one shopkeeper frowned at the diligence with which +they read "Clarissa," they would continue her distressing adventures across +the way. By a lingering progress up the street, "Sir Charles Grandison" +might be nibbled down--by such as had the stomach--without the outlay of +a single penny. As for Gibbon and the bulbous historians, though a whole +perusal would outlast the summer and stretch to the colder months, yet with +patience they could be got through. However, before the end was come even a +hasty reader whose eye was nimble on the page would be blowing on his nails +and pulling his tails between him and the November wind. + +But the habit of reading at the open stalls was not only with the poor. You +will remember that Mr. Brownlow was addicted. Really, had not the Artful +Dodger stolen his pocket handkerchief as he was thus engaged upon his book, +the whole history of Oliver Twist must have been quite different. And Pepys +himself, Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., was guilty. "To Paul's Church Yard," he +writes, "and there looked upon the second part of Hudibras, which I buy +not, but borrow to read." Such parsimony is the curse of authors. To thumb +a volume cheaply around a neighborhood is what keeps them in their garrets. +It is a less offence to steal peanuts from a stand. Also, it is recorded in +the life of Beau Nash that the persons of fashion of his time, to pass a +tedious morning "did divert themselves with reading in the booksellers' +shops." We may conceive Mr. Fanciful Fopling in the sleepy blink of those +early hours before the pleasures of the day have made a start, inquiring +between his yawns what latest novels have come down from London, or whether +a new part of "Pamela" is offered yet. If the post be in, he will prop +himself against the shelf and--unless he glaze and nod--he will read +cheaply for an hour. Or my Lady Betty, having taken the waters in the +pump-room and lent her ear to such gossip as is abroad so early, is now +handed to her chair and goes round by Gregory's to read a bit. She is +flounced to the width of the passage. Indeed, until the fashion shall +abate, those more solid authors that are set up in the rear of the shop, +must remain during her visits in general neglect. Though she hold herself +against the shelf and tilt her hoops, it would not be possible to pass. She +is absorbed in a book of the softer sort, and she flips its pages against +her lap-dog's nose. + +But now behold the student coming up the street! He is clad in shining +black. He is thin of shank as becomes a scholar. He sags with knowledge. He +hungers after wisdom. He comes opposite the bookshop. It is but coquetry +that his eyes seek the window of the tobacconist. His heart, you may be +sure, looks through the buttons at his back. At last he turns. He pauses on +the curb. Now desire has clutched him. He jiggles his trousered shillings. +He treads the gutter. He squints upon the rack. He lights upon a treasure. +He plucks it forth. He is unresolved whether to buy it or to spend the +extra shilling on his dinner. Now all you cooks together, to save your +business, rattle your pans to rouse him! If within these ancient buildings +there are onions ready peeled--quick!--throw them in the skillet that the +whiff may come beneath his nose! Chance trembles and casts its vote--eenie +meenie--down goes the shilling--he has bought the book. Tonight he will +spread it beneath his candle. Feet may beat a snare of pleasure on the +pavement, glad cries may pipe across the darkness, a fiddle may scratch its +invitation--all the rumbling notes of midnight traffic will tap in vain +their summons upon his window. + + + + +Any Stick Will Do To Beat A Dog + + +Reader, possibly on one of your country walks you have come upon a man with +his back against a hedge, tormented by a fiend in the likeness of a dog. +You yourself, of course, are not a coward. You possess that cornerstone of +virtue, a love for animals. If at your heels a dog sniffs and growls, you +humor his mistake, you flick him off and proceed with unbroken serenity. It +is scarcely an interlude to your speculation on the market. Or if you work +upon a sonnet and are in the vein, your thoughts, despite the beast, run +unbroken to a rhyme. But pity this other whose heart is less stoutly +wrapped! He has gone forth on a holiday to take the country air, to thrust +himself into the freer wind, to poke with his stick for such signs of +Spring as may be hiding in the winter's leaves. Having been grinding in an +office he flings himself on the great round world. He has come out to smell +the earth. Or maybe he seeks a hilltop for a view of the fields that lie +below patched in many colors, as though nature had been sewing at her +garments and had mended the cloth from her bag of scraps. + +On such a journey this fellow is travelling when, at a turn of the road, he +hears the sound of barking. As yet there is no dog in sight. He pauses. He +listens. How shall one know whether the sound comes up a wrathful gullet or +whether the dog bays at him impersonally, as at the distant moon? Or maybe +he vents himself upon a stubborn cow. Surely it is not an idle tune he +practices. He holds a victim in his mind. There is sour venom on his +churlish tooth. Is it best to go roundabout, or forward with such a nice +compound of innocence, boldness and modesty as shall satisfy the beast? If +one engross oneself on something that lies to the lee of danger, it allays +suspicion. Or if one absorb oneself upon the flora--a primrose on the +river's brim--it shows him clear and stainless. The stupidest dog should +see that so close a student can have no evil in him. Perhaps it would be +better to throw away one's stick lest it make a show of violence. Or it may +be concealed along the outer leg. Ministers of Grace defend us, what an +excitement in the barnyard! Has virtue no reward? Shall innocence perish +off the earth? Not one dog, but many, come running out. There has gone +a rumor about the barn that there is a stranger to be eaten, and it's +likely--if they keep their clamor--there will be a bone for each. Note how +the valor oozes from the man of peace! Observe his sidling gait, his skirts +pulled close, his hollowed back, his head bent across his shoulder, his +startled eye! Watch him mince his steps, lest a lingering heel be nipped! +Listen to him try the foremost dog with names, to gull him to a belief that +they have met before in happier circumstances! He appeals mutely to the +farmhouse that a recall be sounded. The windows are tightly curtained. The +heavens are comfortless. + +You remember the fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not +digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, +in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not +overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs--sleepy dogs +blinking in the firelight, friendly dogs with wagging tails, young dogs in +their first puppyhood with their teeth scarce sprouted, whose jaws have not +yet burgeoned into danger, and old dogs, too, who sun themselves and give +forth hollow, toothless, reassuring sounds. When a dog assumes the cozy +habits of the cat without laying off his nobler nature, he is my friend. A +dog of vegetarian aspect pleases me. Let him bear a mild eye as though he +were nourished on the softer foods! I would wish every dog to have a full +complement of tail. It's the sure barometer of his warm regard. There's no +art to find his mind's construction in the face. And I would have him with +not too much curiosity. It's a quality that brings him too often to the +gate. It makes him prone to sniff when one sits upon a visit. Nor do I like +dogs addicted to sudden excitement. Lethargy becomes them better. Let them +be without the Gallic graces! In general, I like a dog to whom I have been +properly introduced, with an exchange of credentials. While the dog is by, +let his master take my hand and address me in softest tones, to cement the +understanding! At bench-shows I love the beasts, although I keep to the +middle of the aisle. The streets are all the safer when so many of the +creatures are kept within. + +Frankly, I would enjoy the country more, if I knew that all the dogs were +away on visits. Of course, the highroad is quite safe. Its frequent traffic +is its insurance. Then, too, the barns are at such a distance, it is only a +monstrous anger can bring the dog. But if you are in need of direction you +select a friendly white house with green shutters. You swing open the gate +and crunch across the pebbles to the door. To the nearer eye there is a +look of "dog" about the place. Or maybe you are hot and thirsty, and there +is a well at the side of the house. Is it better to gird yourself to danger +or to put off your thirst until the crossroads where pop is sold? + +Or a lane leads down to the river. Even at this distance you hear the +shallow brawl of water on the stones. A path goes off across a hill, with +trees beckoning at the top. There is a wind above and a wider sweep of +clouds. Surely, from the crest of the hill the whole county will lie before +you. Such tunes as come up from the world below--a school-bell, a rooster +crowing, children laughing on the road, a threshing machine on the lower +meadows--such tunes are pitched to a marvellous softness. Shall we follow +the hot pavement, or shall we dare those lonely stretches? + +There is a kind of person who is steeped too much in valor. He will cross a +field although there is a dog inside the fence. Goodness knows that I would +rather keep to the highroad with such humility as shall not rouse the +creature. Or he will shout and whistle tunes that stir the dogs for miles. +He slashes his stick against the weeds as though in challenge. One might +think that he went about on unfeeling stalks instead of legs as children +walk on stilts, or that a former accident had clipped him off above the +knees and that he was now jointed out of wood to a point beyond the biting +limit. Or perhaps the clothes he wears beneath--the inner mesh and very +balbriggan of his attire--is of so hard a texture that it turns a tooth. Be +these defenses as they may, note with what bravado he mounts the wall! One +leg dangles as though it were baited and were angling for a bite. + +There is a French village near Quebec whose population is chiefly dogs. +It lies along the river in a single street, not many miles from the point +where Wolfe climbed to the Plains of Abraham. There are a hundred houses +flat against the roadway and on the steps of each there sits a dog. As I +went through on foot, each of these dogs picked me up, examined me nasally +and passed me on, not generously as though I had stood the test, but rather +in deep suspicion that I was a queer fellow, not to be penetrated at first, +but one who would surely be found out and gobbled before coming to the +end of the street. As long as I would eventually furnish forth the common +banquet, it mattered not which dog took the first nip. Inasmuch as I would +at last be garnished for the general tooth, it would be better to wait +until all were gathered around the platter. "Good neighbor dog," each +seemed to say, "you too sniff upon the rogue! If he be honest, my old nose +is much at fault." Meantime I padded lightly through the village, at first +calling on the dogs by English names, but later using such wisps as I had +of French. "Aucassin, mon pauvre chien. Voici, Tintagiles, alors donc mon +cherie. Je suis votre ami," but with little effect. + +But the dogs that one meets in the Canadian woods are of the fiercest +breed. They border on the wolf. They are called huskies and they are so +strong and so fleet of foot that they pull sleds for hours across the +frozen lakes at almost the speed of a running horse. It must be confessed +that they are handsome and if it happens to be your potato peelings and +discarded fish that they eat, they warm into friendliness. Indeed, on these +occasions, one can make quite a show of bravery by stroking and dealing +lightly with them. But once upon a time in an ignorant moment two other +campers and myself followed a lonely railroad track and struck off on a +path through the pines in search of a certain trapper on a fur farm. The +path went on a broken zigzag avoiding fallen trees and soft hollows, +conducting itself on the whole with more patience than firmness. We walked +a quarter of a mile, but still we saw no cabin. The line of the railroad +had long since disappeared. An eagle wheeled above us and quarrelled at our +intrusion. Presently to test our course and learn whether we were coming +near the cabin, we gave a shout. Immediately out of the deeper woods there +came a clamor that froze us. Such sounds, it seemed, could issue only from +bloody and dripping jaws. In a panic, as by a common impulse we turned and +ran. Yet we did not run frankly as when the circus lion is loose, but in a +shamefaced manner--an attempt at a retreat in good order--something between +a walk and a run. At the end of a hundred yards we stopped. No dogs had +fallen on us. Danger had not burst its kennel. We hallooed again, to rouse +the trapper. At last, after a minute of suspense, came his answering voice, +the sweetest sound to be imagined. Whereupon I came down from my high stump +which I had climbed for a longer view. + +I am convinced that I am not alone in my--shall I say diffidence?--toward +dogs. Indeed, there is evidence from the oldest times that mankind, in its +more honest moments, has confessed to a fear of dogs. In recognition of +this general fear, the unmuzzled Cerberus was put at the gate of Hades. +It was rightly felt that when the unhappy pilgrims got within, his fifty +snapping heads were better than a bolt upon the door. It was better for +them to endure the ills they had, than be nipped in the upper passage. He, +also, who first spoke the ancient proverb, _Let sleeping dogs lie_, did no +more than voice the caution of the street. And he, also, who invented the +saying that the world is going to the bow-wows, lodged his deplorable +pessimism in fitting words. + +It was Daniel who sat with the lions. But there are degrees of bravery. On +Long Street, within sight of my window--just where the street gets into its +most tangled traffic--there has hung for many years the painted signboard +of a veterinary surgeon. Its artist was in the first flourish of youth. Old +age had not yet chilled him when he mixed his gaudy colors. The surgeon's +name is set up in modest letters, but the horse below flames with color. +What a flaring nostril! What an eager eye! How arched the neck! Here is a +wrath and speed unknown to the quadrupeds of this present Long Street. Such +mild-eyed, accumbent, sharp-ribbed horses as now infest the curb--mere +whittlings from a larger age--hang their heads at their degeneracy. Indeed, +these horses seem to their owners not to be worth the price of a nostrum. +If disease settles in them, let them lean against a post until the fit is +past! And of a consequence, the doctor's work has fallen off. It has +become a rare occasion when it is permitted him to stroke his chin in +contemplation of some inner palsy. Therefore to give his wisdom scope, +the doctor some time since announced the cellar of the building to be a +hospital for dogs. Must I press the analogy? I have seen the doctor with +bowl and spoon in hand take leave of the cheerful world. He opens the +cellar door. A curdling yelp comes up the stairs. In the abyss below there +are twenty dogs at least, all of them sick, all dangerous. Not since Orion +led his hunting pack across the heavens has there been so fierce a sound. +The door closes. There is a final yelp, such as greets a bone. Doubtless, +by this time, they are munching on the doctor. Good sir, had you lived in +pre-apostolic days, your name would have been lined with Daniel's in the +hymn. I might have spent my earliest treble in your praise. + +But there are other kinds of dogs. Gentlest of readers, have you ever +passed a few days at Tunbridge Wells? It lies on one of the roads that run +from London to the Channel and for several hundred years persons have gone +there to take the waters against the more fashionable ailments. Its chief +fame was in the days when rich folk, to ward off for the season a touch of +ancestral gout, travelled down from London in their coaches. We may fancy +Lord Thingumdo crossing his sleek legs inside or putting his head to the +window on the change of horses. He has outriders and a horn to sound his +coming. His Lordship has a liver that must be mended, but also he has +a weakness for the gaming table. Or Lady Euphemia, wrapped in silks, +languishes mornings in her lodgings with a latest novel, but goes forth at +noon upon the Pantilles to shop in the stalls. A box of patches must be +bought. A lace flounce has caught her eye. Bless her dear eyes, as she +bends upon her purchase she is fair to look upon. The Grand Rout is set for +tonight. Who knows but that the Duke will put the tender question and will +ask her to name the happy day? + +But these golden days are past. Tunbridge Wells has sunk from fashion. The +gaming tables are gone. A band still plays mornings in the Pantilles--or +did so before the war--but cheaper gauds are offered in the shops. Emerald +brooches are fallen to paste. In all the season there is scarcely a single +demand for a diamond garter. If there were now a Rout, the only dancers +would be stiff shadows from the past. The healing waters still trickle from +the ground and an old woman serves you for a penny, but the miracle has +gone. The old world is cured and dead. + +Tunbridge Wells is visited now chiefly by old ladies whose husbands--to +judge by the black lace caps--have left Lombard Street for heaven. At the +hotel where I stopped, which was at the top of the Commons outside the +thicker town, I was the only man in the breakfast room. Two widows, each +with a tiny dog on a chair beside her, sat at the next table. This was +their conversation: + +"Did you hear her last night?" + +"Was it Flossie that I heard?" + +"Yes. The poor dear was awake all night. She got her feet wet yesterday +when I let her run upon the grass." + +But after breakfast--if the day is sunny and the wind sits in a favoring +quarter--one by one the widows go forth in their chairs. These are wicker +contrivances that hang between three wheels. Burros pull them, and men walk +alongside to hold their bridles. Down comes the widow. Down comes a maid +with her wraps. Down comes a maid with Flossie. The wraps are adjusted. The +widow is handed in. Her feet are wound around with comforters against a +draft. Her salts rest in her lap. Her ample bag of knitting is safe aboard. +Flossie is placed beside her. Proot! The donkey starts. + +All morning the widow sits in the Pantilles and listens to the band and +knits. Flossie sits on the flagging at her feet with an intent eye upon the +ball of worsted. Twice in a morning--three times if the gods are kind--the +ball rolls to the pavement. Flossie has been waiting so long for this +to happen. It is the bright moment of her life--the point and peak of +happiness. She darts upon it. She paws it exultantly for a moment. Brief is +the rainbow and brief the Borealis. The finger of Time is swift. + +The poppy blooms and fades. The maid captures the ball of worsted and +restores it. + +It lies in the widow's lap. The band plays. The needles click to a long +tune. The healing waters trickle from the ground. The old woman whines +their merits. Flossie sits motionless, her head cocked and her eye upon the +ball. Perhaps the god of puppies will again be good to her. + + + + +ROADS OF MORNING + + +My grandfather's farm lay somewhere this side of the sunset, so near that +its pastures barely missed the splash of color. But from the city it was a +two hours' journey by horse and phaeton. My grandfather drove. I sat next, +my feet swinging clear of the lunchbox. My brother had the outside, a place +denied to me for fear that I might fall across the wheel. When we were +all set, my mother made a last dab at my nose--an unheeded smudge having +escaped my vigilance. Then my grandfather said, "Get up,"--twice, for the +lazy horse chose to regard the first summons as a jest. We start. The great +wheels turn. My brother leans across the guard to view the miracle. We +crunch the gravel. We are alive for excitement. My brother plays we are +a steamboat and toots. I toot in imitation, but higher up as if I were a +younger sort of steamboat. We hold our hands on an imaginary wheel and +steer. We scorn grocery carts and all such harbor craft. We are on a long +cruise. Street lights will guide us sailing home. + +Of course there were farms to the south of the city and apples may have +ripened there to as fine a flavor, and to the east, also, doubtless there +were farms. It would be asking too much that the west should have all the +haystacks, cherry trees and cheese houses. If your judgment skimmed upon +the surface, you would even have found the advantage with the south. It was +prettier because more rolling. It was shaggier. The country to the south +tipped up to the hills, so sharply in places that it might have made its +living by collecting nickels for the slide. Indeed, one might think that a +part of the city had come bouncing down the slope, for now it lay resting +at the bottom, sprawled somewhat for its ease. Or it might appear--if your +belief runs on discarded lines--that the whole flat-bottomed earth had been +fouled in its celestial course and now lay aslant upon its beam with its +cargo shifted and spilled about. + +The city streets that led to the south, which in those days ended in lanes, +popped out of sight abruptly at the top of the first ridge. And when the +earth caught up again with their level, already it was dim and purple and +tall trees were no more than a roughened hedge. But what lay beyond that +range of hills--what towns and cities--what oceans and forests--how beset +with adventure--how fearful after dark--these things you could not see, +even if you climbed to some high place and strained yourself on tiptoe. And +if you walked from breakfast to lunch--until you gnawed within and were but +a hollow drum--there would still be a higher range against the sky. There +are misty kingdoms on this whirling earth, but the ways are long and steep. + +The lake lay to the north with no land beyond, the city to the east. But to +the west-- + +Several miles outside the city as it then was, and still beyond its +clutches, the country was cut by a winding river bottom with sharp edges of +shale. Down this valley Rocky River came brawling in the spring, over-fed +and quarrelsome. Later in the year--its youthful appetite having caught an +indigestion--it shrunk and wasted to a shadow. By August you could cross it +on the stones. The uproar of its former flood was marked upon the shale and +trunks of trees here and there were wedged, but now the river plays drowsy +tunes upon the stones. There is scarcely enough movement of water to flick +the sunlight. A leaf on its idle current is a lazy craft whose skipper +nods. There were hickory trees on the point above. May-apples grew in the +deep woods, and blackberries along the fences. And in the season sober +horses plowed up and down the fields with nodding heads, affirming their +belief in the goodness of the soil and their willingness to help in its +fruition. + +Yet the very core of this valley in days past was a certain depth of water +at a turn of the stream. There was a clay bank above it and on it small +naked boys stood and daubed themselves. One of them put a band of clay +about himself by way of decoration. Another, by a more general smudge, made +himself a Hottentot and thereby gave his manners a wider scope and license. +But by daubing yourself entire you became an Indian and might vent yourself +in hideous yells, for it was amazing how the lungs grew stouter when the +clay was laid on thick. Then you tapped your flattened palm rapidly against +your mouth and released an intermittent uproar in order that the valley +might he warned of the deviltry to come. You circled round and round and +beat upon the ground in the likeness of a war dance. But at last, sated +with scalps, off you dived into the pool and came up a white man. Finally, +you stood on one leg and jounced the water from your ear, or pulled a +bloodsucker from your toes before he sapped your life--for this tiny +creature of the rocks was credited with the gift of prodigious inflation, +and might inhale you, blood, sinews, suspenders and all, if left to his +ugly purpose. + +Farms should not be too precisely located; at least this is true of farms +which, like my grandfather's, hang in a mist of memory. I read once of a +wonderful spot--quite inferior, doubtless, to my grandfather's farm--which +was located by evil directions intentionally to throw a seeker off. +Munchausen, you will recall, in the placing of his magic countries, was not +above this agreeable villainy. Robinson Crusoe was loose and vague in the +placing of his island. It is said that Izaak Walton waved a hand obscurely +toward the stream where he had made a catch, but could not be cornered to a +nice direction, lest his pool be overrun. In early youth, I myself went, on +a mischievous hint, to explore a remote region which I was told lay in the +dark behind the kindling pile. But because I moved in a fearful darkness, +quite beyond the pale light from the furnace room, I lost the path. It did +not lead me to the peaks and the roaring waters. + +But the farm was reached by more open methods. Dolly and the phaeton were +the chief instruments. First--if you were so sunk in ignorance as not to +know the road--you inquired of everybody for the chewing gum factory, to be +known by its smell of peppermint. Then you sought the high bridge over the +railroad tracks. Beyond was Kamm's Corners. Here, at a turn of the road, +was a general store whose shelves sampled the produce of this whole fair +world and the factories thereof. One might have thought that the proprietor +emulated Noah at the flood by bidding two of each created things to find a +place inside. + +Beyond Kamm's Corners you came to the great valley. When almost down the +hill you passed a house with broken windows and unkept grass. This house, +by report, was haunted, but you could laugh at such tales while the morning +sun was up. At the bottom of the hill a bridge crossed the river, with +loose planking that rattled as though the man who made nails was dead. + +Beyond the bridge, at the first rise of ground, the horse stopped--for I +assume that you drove a sagacious animal--by way of hint that every one +of sound limb get out and walk to the top of the hill. A suspicious horse +turned his head now and again and cast his eye upon the buggy to be sure +that no one climbed in again. + +Presently you came to the toll-gate at the top and paid its keeper five +cents, or whatever large sum he demanded. Then your grandfather--if by +fortunate chance you happened to have one--asked after his wife and +children, and had they missed the croup; then told him his corn was looking +well. + +My grandfather--for it is time you knew him--lived with us. Because of a +railway accident fifteen years before in which one of his legs was cut off +just below the knee, he had retired from public office. Several years of +broken health had been followed by years that were for the most part free +from suffering. My own first recollection reverts to these better years. +I recall a tall man--to my eyes a giant, for he was taller even than my +father--who came into the nursery as I was being undressed. There was a +wind in the chimney, and the windows rattled. He put his crutches against +the wall. Then taking me in his arms, he swung me aloft to his shoulder +by a series of somersaults. I cried this first time, but later I came to +demand the performance. + +Once, when I was a little older, I came upon one of his discarded wooden +legs as I was playing in the garret of the house. It was my first +acquaintance with such a contrivance. It lay behind a pile of trunks and I +was, at the time, on my way to the center of the earth, for the cheerful +path dove into darkness behind the chimney. You may imagine my surprise. I +approached it cautiously. I viewed it from all sides by such dusty light as +fell between the trunks. Not without fear I touched it. It was unmistakably +a leg--but whose? Was it possible that there was a kind of Bluebeard in the +family, who, for his pleasure, lopped off legs? There had been no breath of +such a scandal. Yet, if my reading and studies were correct, such things +had happened in other families not very different from ours; not in our own +town maybe, but in such near-by places as Kandahar and Serendib--places +which in my warm regard were but as suburbs to our street, to be gained if +you persevered for a hundred lamp-posts. Or could the leg belong to Annie +the cook? Her nimbleness with griddle-cakes belied the thought: And once, +when the wind had swished her skirts, manifestly she was whole and sound. +Then all at once I knew it to be my grandfather's. Grown familiar, I pulled +it to the window. I tried it on, but made bad work of walking. + +To the eye my grandfather had two legs all the way down and, except for +his crutches and an occasional squeak, you would not have detected his +infirmity. Evidently the maker did no more than imitate nature, although, +for myself, I used to wonder at the poverty of his invention. There would +be distinction in a leg, which in addition to its usual functions, would +also bend forward at the knee, or had a surprising sidewise joint--and +there would be profit, too, if one cared to make a show of it. The greatest +niggard on the street would pay two pins for such a sight. + +As my grandfather was the only old gentleman of my acquaintance, a wooden +leg seemed the natural and suitable accompaniment of old age. Persons, it +appeared, in their riper years, cast off a leg, as trees dropped their +leaves. But my grandmother puzzled me. Undeniably she retained both of +hers, yet her hair was just as white, and she was almost as old. Evidently +this law of nature worked only with men. Ladies, it seemed, were not +deciduous. But how the amputation was effected in men--whether by day or +night--how the choice fell between the right and left--whether the wooden +leg came down the chimney (a proper entrance)--how soon my father would go +the way of all masculine flesh and cast his off--these matters I could not +solve. The Arabian Nights were silent on the subject. Aladdin's uncle, +apparently, had both his legs. He was too brisk in villainy to admit a +wooden leg. But then, he was only an uncle. If his history ran out to the +end, doubtless he would go with a limp in his riper days. The story of the +Bible--although it trafficked in such veterans as Methuselah--gave not a +hint. Abraham died full of years. Here would have been a proper test--but +the book was silent. + +My grandfather in those days had much leisure time. He still kept an office +at the rear of the house, although he had given up the regular practice +of the law. But a few old clients lingered on, chiefly women who carried +children in their arms and old men without neckties who came to him for +free advice. These he guided patiently in their troubles, and he would sit +an hour to listen to a piteous story. In an extremity he gave them money, +or took a well-meant but worthless note. Often his callers overran the +dinner hour and my mother would have to jingle the dinner bell at the door +to rouse them. Occasionally he would be called on for a public speech, and +for several days he would be busy at his desk. Frequently he presided at +dinners and would tell a story and sing a song, for he had a fine bass +voice and was famous for his singing. + +He read much in those last years in science. When he was not reading +Trowbridge to his grandchildren, it was Huxley to himself. But when his +eyes grew tired, he would on an occasion--if there was canning in the +house--go into the kitchen where my mother and grandmother worked, and help +pare the fruit. Seriously, as though he were engaged upon a game, he would +cut the skin into thinnest strips, unbroken to the end, and would hold up +the coil for us to see. Or if he broke it in the cutting it was a point +against him in the contest. + +His diversion rather than his profit was the care and rental of about +twenty small houses, some of which he built to fit his pensioners. My +brother and myself often made the rounds with him in the phaeton. At most +of the houses he was affectionately greeted as "Jedge" and was held in long +conversations across the fence. And to see an Irishman was to see a friend. +They all knew him and said, "Good mornin'," as we passed. He and they were +good Democrats together. + +I can see in memory a certain old Irishman in a red flannel shirt, with his +foot upon the hub, bending across the wheel and gesticulating in an endless +discussion of politics or crops, while my brother and I were impatient to +be off. Dolly was of course patient, for she had long since passed her +fretful youth. If by any biological chance it had happened that she had +been an old lady instead of a horse, she would have been the kind that +spent her day in a rocker with her knitting. Any one who gave Dolly an +excuse for standing was her friend. There she stood as though she wished +the colloquy to last forever. + +It was seldom that Dolly lost her restraint. She would, indeed, when she +came near the stable, somewhat hasten her stride; and when we came on our +drives to the turning point and at last headed about for home, Dolly would +know it and show her knowledge by a quickening of the ears and the quiver +of a faint excitement. Yet Dolly lost her patience when there were flies. +Then she threw off all repression and so waved her tail that she regularly +got it across the reins. This stirred my grandfather to something not +far short of anger. How vigorously would he try to dislodge the reins +by pulling and jerking! Dolly only clamped down her tail the harder. +Experience showed that the only way was to go slowly and craftily and +without heat or temper--a slackening of the reins--a distraction of Dolly's +attention--a leaning across the dashboard--a firm grasping of the tail out +near the end--a sudden raising thereof. Ah! It was done. We all settled +back against the cushions. Or perhaps a friendly fly would come to our +assistance and Dolly would have to use her tail in another direction. + +The whip was seldom used. Generally it stood in its socket. It was +ornamental like a flagstaff. It forgot its sterner functions. But Dolly +must have known the whip in some former life, for even a gesture toward the +socket roused her. If it was rattled she mended her pace for a block. But +if on a rare occasion my grandfather took it in his hand, Dolly lay one ear +back in our direction, for she knew then he meant business. And what an +excitement would arise in the phaeton! We held on tight for fear that she +might take it into her mild old head to run away. + +But Dolly had her moments. One sunny summer afternoon while she grazed +peacefully in the orchard, with her reins wound around the whip handle--the +appropriate place on these occasions--she was evidently stung by a bee. My +brother was at the time regaling himself in a near-by blackberry thicket. +He looked up at an unusual sound. Without warning, Dolly had leaped to +action and was tearing around the orchard dragging the phaeton behind +her. She wrecked the top on a low hanging branch, then hit another tree, +severing thereby all connection between herself and the phaeton, and at +last galloped down the lane to the farm house, with the broken shafts and +harness dangling behind her. Kipling's dun "with the mouth of a bell and +the heart of Hell and the head of the gallows-tree," could hardly have +shown more spirit. It was as though one brief minute of a glorious youth +had come back to her. It was a last spurting of an old flame before it sunk +to ash. + +My grandfather gave his leisure to his grandchildren. He carved for us with +his knife, with an especial knack for willow whistles. He showed us the +colors that lay upon the world when we looked at it through one of the +glass pendants of the parlor chandelier. He sat by us when we played +duck-on-the-rock. He helped us with our kites and gave a superintendence to +our toys. It is true that he was superficial with tin-tags and did not know +the difference in value between a Steam Engine tag--the rarest of them +all--and a common Climax, but we forgave him as one forgives a friend who +is ignorant of Persian pottery. He employed us as gardeners and put a +bounty on weeds. We watered the lawn together, turn by turn. When I was +no more than four years old, he taught us to play casino with him--and +afterwards bezique. How he cried out if he got a royal sequence! With what +excitement he announced a double bezique! Or if one of us seemed about to +score and lacked but a single card, how intently he contended for the last +few tricks to thwart our declaration! And if we got it despite his lead +of aces, how gravely he squinted on the cards against deception, with his +glasses forward on his nose! + +When he took his afternoon nap and lay upon his back on the sofa in the +sitting-room, we made paper pin-wheels to see whether his breath would +stir them. This trick having come to his notice by a sudden awakening, he +sometimes thereafter played to be asleep and snored in such a mighty gust +that the wheels spun. He was like a Dutch tempest against a windmill. + +If a Dime Museum came to town we made an afternoon of it. He took us to all +the circuses and gave us our choice of side-shows. We walked up and +down before the stretches of painted canvas, balancing in our desire a +sword-swallower against an Indian Princess. Most of the fat women and all +the dwarfs that I have known came to my acquaintance when in company with +my grandfather. As a young man, it was said, he once ran away from home to +join a circus as an acrobat, having acquired the trick of leaping upon a +running horse. I fancy that his knack of throwing us to his shoulder by a +double somersault was a recollection of his early days. You may imagine +with what awe we looked on him even though he now went on crutches. He was +the epitome of adventure, the very salt of excitement. It was better having +him than a pirate in the house. When the circus had gone and life was drab, +he was our tutor in the art of turning cart-wheels and making hand-stands +against the door. + +And once, when we were away from him, he walked all morning about the +garden and in his loneliness he gathered into piles the pebbles that we had +dropped. + +I was too young to know my grandfather in his active days when he was +prominent in public matters. His broader abilities are known to others. But +though more than twenty years have passed since his death, I remember his +tone of voice, his walk, his way of handling a crutch, all his tricks of +speech and conduct as though he had just left the room. And I can think of +nothing more beautiful than that a useful man who has faced the world for +seventy years and has done his part, should come back in his old age to the +nursery and be the playfellow of his grandchildren. + +But the best holiday was a trip to the farm. + +This farm--to which in our slow trot we have been so long a time in +coming--lay for a mile on the upper land, and its grain fields and pastures +looked down into the valley. The buildings, however, were set close to the +road and fixed their interest on such occasional wagons as creaked by. A +Switzer occupied the farm, who owned, in addition to the more immediate +members of his family, a cuckoo clock whose weights hung on long cords +which by Saturday night reached almost to the floor. When I have sat at his +table, I have neglected cheese and the lesser foods, when the hour came +near, in order not to miss the cuckoo's popping out. And in the duller +spaces, when the door was shut, I have fancied it sitting in the dark and +counting the minutes to itself. + +The Switzer's specialty was the making of a kind of rubber cheese which one +could learn to like in time. Of the processes of its composition, I can +remember nothing except that when it was in the great press the whey ran +from its sides, but this may be common to all cheeses. I was once given a +cup of this whey to drink and I brightened, for until it was in my mouth, +I thought it was buttermilk. Beyond was the spring-house with cans of milk +set in the cool water and with a trickling sound beneath the boards. From +the spring-house there started those mysterious cow-paths that led down +into the great gorge that cut the farm. Here were places so deep that only +a bit of the sky showed and here the stones were damp. It was a place that +seemed to lie nearer to the confusion when the world was made, and rocks +lay piled as though a first purpose had been broken off. And to follow a +cow-path, regardless of where it led, was, in those days, the essence of +hazard; though all the while from the pastures up above there came the flat +safe tinkling of the bells. + +The apple orchard--where Dolly was stung by the bee--was set on a fine +breezy place at the brow of the hill with the valley in full sight. The +trees themselves were old and decayed, but they were gnarled and crotched +for easy climbing. And the apples--in particular a russet--mounted to a +delicacy. On the other side of the valley, a half mile off as a bird would +fly, were the buildings of a convent, and if you waited you might hear +the twilight bell. To this day all distant bells come to my ears with a +pleasing softness, as though they had been cast in a quieter world. Stone +arrow-heads were found in a near-by field as often as the farmer turned up +the soil in plowing. And because of this, a long finger of land that put +off to the valley, was called Indian Point. Here, with an arm for pillow, +one might lie for a long hour on a sunny morning and watch the shadows of +clouds move across the lowland. A rooster crows somewhere far off--surely +of all sounds the drowsiest. A horse in a field below lifts up its head and +neighs. The leaves practice a sleepy tune. If one has the fortune to keep +awake, here he may lie and think the thoughts that are born of sun and +wind. + +And now, although it is not yet noon, hunger rages in us. The pancakes, the +syrup, the toast and the other incidents of breakfast have disappeared +the way the rabbit vanishes when the magician waves his hand. The horrid +Polyphemus did not so crave his food. And as yet there is no comforting +sniff from the kitchen. Scrubbing and other secular matters engage the +farmer's wife. There is as yet not a faintest gurgle in the kettle. + +To divert ourselves, we climb three trees and fall out of one. Is twelve +o'clock never to come? Have Time and the Hour grown stagnant? We eat apples +and throw the cores at the pig to hear him grunt. Is the great round sun +stuck? Have the days of Joshua come again? We walk a rail fence. Is it not +yet noon? Shrewsbury clock itself--reputed by scholars the slowest of all +possible clocks--could not so hold off. I snag myself--but it is nothing +that shows when I sit. + +Ah! At last! My grandfather is calling from the house. We run back and +find that the lunch is ready and is laid upon a table with a red oil-cloth +cover. We apply ourselves. Silence.... + +The journey home started about five o'clock. There was one game we always +played. Each of us, having wisely squinted at the sky, made a reckoning and +guessed where we would be when the sun set. My grandfather might say the +high bridge. I named the Sherman House. But my brother, being precise, +judged it to a fraction of a telegraph pole. Beyond a certain turn--did we +remember?--well, it would be exactly sixteen telegraph poles further on. +What an excitement there was when the sun's lower rim was already below the +horizon! We stood on our knees and looked through the little window at +the back of the phaeton. With what suspicion we regarded my grandfather's +driving! Or if Dolly lagged, did it not raise a thought that she, too, was +in the plot against us? The sun sets. We cry out the victor. + +The sky flames with color. Then deadens in the east. The dusk is falling. +The roads grow dark. Where run the roads of night? While there is light, +you can see the course they keep across the country--the dust of horses' +feet--a bridge--a vagrant winding on a hill beyond. All day long they are +busy with the feet of men and women and children shouting. Then twilight +comes, and the roads lead home to supper and the curling smoke above the +roof. But at night where run the roads? It's dark beyond the candle's +flare--where run the roads of night. + +My brother and I have become sleepy. We lop over against my grandfather-- + +We awake with a start. There is a gayly lighted horse-car jingling beside +us. The street lights show us into harbor. We are home at last. + + + + +The Man Of Grub Street Comes From His Garret + + +I have come to live this winter in New York City and by good fortune I +have found rooms on a pleasant park. This park, which is but one block in +extent, is so set off from the thoroughfares that it bears chiefly the +traffic that is proper to the place itself. Grocery carts jog around and +throw out their wares. Laundry wagons are astir. A little fat tailor on an +occasion carries in an armful of newly pressed clothing with suspenders +hanging. Dogs are taken out to walk but are held in leash, lest a taste of +liberty spoil them for an indoor life. The center of the park is laid out +with grass and trees and pebbled paths, and about it is a high iron fence. +Each house has a key to the enclosure. Such social infection, therefore, as +gets inside the gates is of our own breeding. In the sunny hours nurses and +children air themselves in this grass plot. Here a gayly painted wooden +velocipede is in fashion. At this minute there are several pairs of fat +legs a-straddle this contrivance. It is a velocipede as it was first made, +without pedals. Beau Brummel--for the velocipede dates back to him--may +have walked forth to take the waters at Tunbridge Wells on a vehicle not +far different, but built to his greater stature. There is also a trickle +of drays and wagons across the park--a mere leakage from the streets, as +though the near-by traffic in the pressure had burst its pipes. But only at +morning and night when the city collects or discharges its people, are the +sidewalks filled. Then for a half hour the nozzle of the city plays a full +stream on us. + +The park seems to be freer and more natural than the streets outside. A man +goes by gesticulating as though he practiced for a speech. A woman adjusts +her stocking on the coping below the fence with the freedom of a country +road. A street sweeper, patched to his office, tunes his slow work to fit +the quiet surroundings. Boys skate by or cut swirls upon the pavement in +the privilege of a playground. + +My work--if anything so pleasant and unforced can carry the name--is +done at a window that overlooks this park. Were it not for several high +buildings in my sight I might fancy that I lived in one of the older +squares of London. There is a look of Thackeray about the place as though +the Osbornes might be my neighbors. A fat man who waddles off his steps +opposite, if he would submit to a change of coat, might be Jos Sedley +starting for his club to eat his chutney. If only there were a crest above +my bell-pull I might even expect Becky Sharp in for tea. Or occasionally I +divert myself with the fancy that I am of a still older day and that I have +walked in from Lichfield--I choose the name at hazard--with a tragedy in my +pocket, to try my fortune. Were it not for the fashion of dress in the park +below and some remnant of reason in myself, I could, in a winking moment, +persuade myself that my room is a garret and my pen a quill. On such +delusion, before I issued on the street to seek my coffee-house, I would +adjust my wig and dust myself of snuff. + +But for my exercise and recreation--which for a man of Grub Street is +necessary in the early hours of afternoon when the morning fires have +fallen--I go outside the park. I have a wide choice for my wanderings. I +may go into the district to the east and watch the children play against +the curb. If they pitch pennies on the walk I am careful to go about, for +fear that I distract the throw. Or if the stones are marked for hop-scotch, +I squeeze along the wall. It is my intention--from which as yet my +diffidence withholds me--to present to the winner of one of these contests +a red apple which I shall select at a corner stand. Or an ice wagon pauses +in its round, and while the man is gone there is a pleasant thieving of +bits of ice. Each dirty cheek is stuffed as though a plague of mumps had +fallen on the street. Or there may be a game of baseball--a scampering +on the bases, a home-run down the gutter--to engage me for an inning. +Or shinny grips the street. But if a street organ comes--not a mournful +one-legged box eked out with a monkey, but a big machine with an extra man +to pull--the children leave their games. It was but the other day that I +saw six of them together dancing on the pavement to the music, with skirts +and pigtails flying. There was such gladness in their faces that the +musician, although he already had his nickel, gave them an extra tune. It +was of such persuasive gayety that the number of dancers at once went up to +ten and others wiggled to the rhythm. And for myself, although I am past my +sportive days, the sound of a street organ, if any, would inflame me to a +fox-trot. Even a surly tune--if the handle be quickened--comes from the box +with a brisk seduction. If a dirge once got inside, it would fret until it +came out a dancing measure. + +In this part of town, on the better streets, I sometimes study the fashions +as I see them in the shops and I compare them with those of uptown stores. +Nor is there the difference one might suppose. The small round muff that +sprang up this winter in the smarter shops won by only a week over the +cheaper stores. Tan gaiters ran a pretty race. And I am now witness to +a dead heat in a certain kind of fluffy rosebud dress. The fabrics are +probably different, but no matter how you deny it, they are cut to a common +pattern. + +In a poorer part of the city still nearer to the East River, where +smells of garlic and worse issue from cellarways, I came recently on +a considerable park. It was supplied with swings and teeters and drew +children on its four fronts. Of a consequence the children of many races +played together. I caught a Yiddish answer to an Italian question. I fancy +that a child here could go forth at breakfast wholly a Hungarian and come +home with a smack of Russian or Armenian added. The general games that +merged the smaller groups, aided in the fusion. If this park is not already +named--a small chance, for it shows the marks of age--it might properly be +called _The Park of the Thirty Nations_. + +Or my inclination may take me to the lower city. Like a poor starveling +I wander in the haunts of wealth where the buildings are piled to forty +stories, and I spin out the ciphers in my brain in an endeavor to compute +the amount that is laid up inside. Also, lest I become discontented with my +poverty, I note the strain and worry of the faces that I meet. There is a +story of Tolstoi in which a man is whispered by his god that he may possess +such land as he can circle in a day. Until that time he had been living on +a fertile slope of sun and shadow, with fields ample for his needs. But +when the whisper came, at a flash, he pelted off across the hills. He ran +all morning, but as the day advanced his sordid ambition broadened and he +turned his course into a wider and still wider circle. Here a pleasant +valley tempted him and he bent his path to bring it inside his mark. Here +a fruitful upland led him off. As the day wore on he ran with a greater +fierceness, because he knew he would lose everything if he did not reach +his starting place before the sun went down. The sun was coming near the +rim of earth when he toiled up the last hill. His feet were cut by stones, +his face pinched with agony. He staggered toward the goal and fell across +it while as yet there was a glint of light. But his effort burst his heart. +Does the analogy hold on these narrow streets? To a few who sit in an inner +office, Mammon has made a promise of wealth and domination. These few run +breathless to gain a mountain. But what have the gods whispered to the ten +thousand who sit in the outer office, that they bend and blink upon their +ledgers? Have the gods whispered to them the promise of great wealth? Alas, +before them there lies only the dust and heat of a level road, yet they too +are broken at the sunset. + +Less oppressive are the streets where commerce is more apparent. Here, +unless you would be smirched, it is necessary to walk fast and hold your +coat-tails in. Packing cases are going down slides. Bales are coming up in +hoists. Barrels are rolling out of wagons. Crates are being lifted in. Is +the exchange never to stop? Is no warehouse satisfied with what it has? +English, which until now you judged a soft concordant language, shows here +its range and mastery of epithet. And all about, moving and jostling the +boxes, are men with hooks. One might think that in a former day Captain +Cuttle had settled here to live and that his numerous progeny had kept the +place. + +Often I ride on a bus top like a maharajah on an elephant, up near the +tusks, as it were, where the view is unbroken. I plan this trip so that I +move counter to the procession that goes uptown in the late afternoon. Is +there a scene like it in the world? The boulevards of Paris in times of +peace are hardly so gay. Fifth Avenue is blocked with motor cars. Fashion +has gone forth to select a feather. A ringlet has gone awry and must be +mended. The Pomeranian's health is served by sunlight. The Spitz must have +an airing. Fashion has wagged its head upon a Chinese vase--has indeed +squinted at it through a lorgnette against a fleck--and now lolls home to +dinner. Or style has veered an inch, and it has been a day of fitting. At +restaurant windows one may see the feeding of the over-fed. Men sit in club +windows and still wear their silk hats as though there was no glass between +them and the windy world. Footmen in boots and breeches sit as stiffly as +though they were toys grown large and had metal spikes below to hold them +to their boxes. They look like the iron firemen that ride on nursery +fire-engines. For all these sights the bus top is the best place. + +And although we sit on a modest roof, the shopkeepers cater to us. For in +many of the stores, is there not an upper tier of windows for our use? The +commodities of this second story are quite as fine as those below. And the +waxen beauties who display the frocks greet us in true democracy with as +sweet a simper. + +My friend G---- while riding recently on a bus top met with an experience +for which he still blushes. + +There was a young woman sitting directly in front of him, and when he came +to leave, a sudden lurch threw him against her. When he recovered his +footing, which was a business of some difficulty, for the bus pitched upon +a broken pavement, what was his chagrin to find that a front button of +his coat had hooked in her back hair! Luckily G---- was not seized with a +panic. Rather, he labored cautiously--but without result. Nor could +she help in the disentanglement. Their embarrassment might have been +indefinitely prolonged--indeed, G---- was several blocks already down the +street--when he bethought him of his knife and so cut off the button. As he +pleasantly expressed it to the young woman, he would give her the choice of +the button or the coat entire. + +Reader, are you inclined toward ferry boats? I cannot include those persons +who journey on them night and morning perfunctorily. These persons keep +their noses in their papers or sit snugly in the cabin. If the market is +up, they can hardly be conscious even that they are crossing a river. +Nor do I entirely blame them. If one kept shop on a breezy tip of the +Delectable Mountains with all the regions of the world laid out below, +he could not be expected to climb up for the hundredth time with a first +exhilaration, or to swing his alpenstock as though he were on a rare +holiday. If one had business across the Styx too often--although the +scenery on its banks is reputed to be unusual--he might in time sit below +and take to yawning. Father Charon might have to jog his shoulder to rouse +him when the boat came between the further piers. + +But are you one of those persons who, not being under a daily compulsion, +rides upon a ferry boat for the love of the trip? Being in this class +myself, I laid my case the other night before the gateman, and asked +his advice regarding routes. He at once entered sympathetically into my +distemper and gave me a plan whereby with but a single change of piers +I might at an expense of fourteen cents cross the river four times at +different angles. + +It was at the end of day and a light fog rested on the water. Nothing was +entirely lost, yet a gray mystery wrapped the ships and buildings. If New +Jersey still existed it was dim and shadowy as though its real life had +gone and but a ghost remained. Ferry boats were lighted in defiance of the +murk, and darted here and there at reckless angles. An ocean liner was +putting out, and several tugs had rammed their noses against her sides. +There is something engaging about a tug. It snorts with eagerness. It kicks +and splashes. It bursts itself to lend a hand. And how it butts with its +nose! Surely its forward cartilages are of triple strength, else in its +zest it would jam its nasal passages. + +Presently we came opposite lower New York. Although the fog concealed the +outlines of the buildings, their lights showed through. This first hour of +dark is best, before the day's work is done and while as yet all of the +windows are lighted. The Woolworth Tower was suffused in a soft and shadowy +light. The other buildings showed like mountains of magic pin-pricks. It +was as though all the constellations of heaven on a general bidding had met +for conference. + +The man of Grub Street, having by this time somewhat dispelled the fumes of +dullness from his head, descends from his ferry boat and walks to his quiet +park. There is a dull roar from the elevated railway on Third Avenue where +the last of the day's crowd goes home. The sidewalks are becoming empty. +There is a sheen of water on the pavement. In the winter murk there is a +look of Thackeray about the place as though the Sedleys or the Osbornes +might be his neighbors. If there were a crest above his bell-pull he might +even expect Becky Sharp in for tea. + + + + +Now that Spring is here + + +When the sun set last night it was still winter. The persons who passed +northward in the dusk from the city's tumult thrust their hands deep into +their pockets and walked to a sharp measure. But a change came in the +night. The north wind fell off and a breeze blew up from the south. Such +stars as were abroad at dawn left off their shrill winter piping--if it be +true that stars really sing in their courses--and pitched their voices to +April tunes. One star in particular that hung low in the west until the day +was up, knew surely that the Spring had come and sang in concert with the +earliest birds. There is a dull belief that these early birds shake off +their sleep to get the worm. Rather, they come forth at this hour to cock +their ears upon the general heavens for such new tunes as the unfaded +stars still sing. If an ear is turned down to the rummage of worms in the +earth--for to the superficial, so does the attitude attest--it is only that +the other ear may be turned upward to catch the celestial harmonies; for +birds know that if there is an untried melody in heaven it will sound first +across the clear pastures of the dawn. All the chirping and whistling +from the fields and trees are then but the practice of the hour. When the +meadowlark sings on a fence-rail she but cons her lesson from the stars. + +It is on such a bright Spring morning that the housewife, duster in hand, +throws open her parlor window and looks upon the street. A pleasant park is +below, of the size of a city square, and already it stirs with the day's +activity. The housewife beats her cloth upon the sill and as the dust flies +off, she hears the cries and noises of the place. In a clear tenor she +is admonished that there is an expert hereabouts to grind her knives. A +swarthy baritone on a wagon lifts up his voice in praise of radishes and +carrots. His eye roves along the windows. The crook of a hungry finger will +bring him to a stand. Or a junkman is below upon his business. Yesterday +the bells upon his cart would have sounded sour, but this morning they +rattle agreeably, as though a brisker cow than common, springtime in her +hoofs, were jangling to her pasture. At the sound--if you are of country +training--you see yourself, somewhat misty through the years, barefoot in a +grassy lane, with stick in hand, urging the gentle beast. There is a subtle +persuasion in the junkman's call. In these tones did the magician, bawling +for old lamps, beguile Aladdin. If there were this morning in my lodging an +unrubbed lamp, I would toss it from the window for such magic as he might +extract from it. And if a fair Princess should be missing at the noon and +her palace be skipped from sight, it will follow on the rubbing of it. + +The call of red cherries in the park--as you might guess from its Italian +source--is set to an amorous tune. What lady, smocked in morning cambric, +would not be wooed by such a voice? The gay fellow tempts her to a +purchase. It is but a decent caution--now that Spring is here--that the +rascal does not call his wares by moonlight. As for early peas this +morning, it is Pan himself who peddles them--disguised and smirched lest +he be caught in the deception--Pan who stamps his foot and shakes the +thicket--whose habit is to sing with reedy voice of the green willows that +dip in sunny waters. Although he now clatters his tins and baskets and +cries out like a merchant, his thoughts run to the black earth and the +shady hollows and the sound of little streams. + +I have wondered as I have observed the housewives lingering at their +windows--for my window also looks upon the park--I have wondered that these +melodious street cries are not used generally for calling the wares of +wider sale. If a radish can be so proclaimed, there might be a lilt devised +in praise of other pleasing merceries--a tripping pizzicato for laces and +frippery--a brave trumpeting for some newest cereal. And should not the +latest book--if it be a tale of love, for these I am told are best offered +to the public in the Spring (sad tales are best for winter)--should not a +tale of love be heralded through the city by the singing of a ballad, with +a melting tenor in the part? In old days a gaudy rogue cried out upon the +broader streets that jugglers had stretched their rope in the market-place, +but when the bears came to town, the news was piped even to the narrowest +lanes that house-folk might bring their pennies. + +With my thoughts set on the Spring I chanced to walk recently where the +theatres are thickest. It was on a Saturday afternoon and the walk was +crowded with amusement seekers. Presently in the press I observed a queer +old fellow carrying on his back a monstrous pack of umbrellas. He rang +a bell monotonously and professed himself a mender of umbrellas. He can +hardly have expected to find a customer in the crowd. Even a blinking +eye--and these street merchants are shrewd in these matters--must have told +him that in all this hurrying mass of people, the thoughts of no one ran +toward umbrellas. Rather, I think that he was taking an hour from the +routine of the day. He had trod the profitable side streets until truantry +had taken him. But he still made a pretext of working at his job and called +his wares to ease his conscience from idleness. Once when an unusually +bright beam of sunlight fell from between the clouds, he tilted up his hat +to get the warmth and I thought him guilty of a skip and syncopation in the +ringing of his bell, as if he too twitched pleasantly with the Spring and +his old sap was stirred. + +I like these persons who ply their trades upon the sidewalk. My hatter--the +fellow who cleans my straw hat each Spring--is a partner of a bootblack. +Over his head as he putters with his soap and brushes, there hangs a rusty +sign proclaiming that he is famous for his cleaning all round the world. He +is so modest in his looks that I have wondered whether he really can read +the sign. Or perhaps like a true merchant, he is not squeamish at the +praise. As I have not previously been aware that any of his profession ever +came to general fame except the Mad Hatter of Wonderland, I have squinted +sharply at him to see if by chance it might be he, but there are no marks +even of a distant kinship. He does, however, bring my hat to a marvellous +whiteness and it may be true that he has really tended heads that are now +gone beyond Constantinople. + +Bootblacks have a sense of rhythm unparalleled. Of this the long rag is +their instrument. They draw it once or twice across the shoe to set the key +and then they go into a swift and pattering melody. If there is an unusual +genius in the bootblack--some remnant of ancient Greece--he plays such a +lively tune that one's shoulders jig to it. If there were a dryad or other +such nimble creature on the street, she would come leaping as though +Orpheus strummed a tune, but the dance is too fast for our languid northern +feet. + +Nowhere are apples redder than on a cart. Our hearts go out to Adam in the +hour of his temptation. I know one lady of otherwise careful appetite who +even leans toward dates if she may buy them from a cart. "Those dear dirty +dates," she calls them, but I cannot share her liking for them. Although +the cart is a beguiling market, dates so bought are too dusty to be eaten. +They rank with the apple-john. The apple-john is that mysterious leathery +fruit, sold more often from a stand than from a cart, which leans at the +rear of the shelf against the peppermint jars. For myself, although I do +not eat apple-johns, I like to look at them. They are so shrivelled and so +flat, as though a banana had caught a consumption. Or rather, in the older +world was there not a custom at a death of sending fruits to support the +lonesome journey? If so, the apple-john came untasted to the end. Indeed, +there is a look of old Egypt about the fruit. Whether my fondness for +gazing at apple-johns springs from a distant occasion when as a child I +once bought and ate one, or whether it arises from the fact that Falstaff +called Prince Hal a dried apple-john, is an unsolved question, but I like +to linger before a particularly shrivelled one and wonder what its youth +was like. Perhaps like many of its betters, it remained unheralded and +unknown all through its fresher years and not until the coming of its +wrinkled age was it at last put up to the common view. The apple-john sets +up kinship with an author. + +The day of all fools is wisely put in April. The jest of the day resides in +the success with which credulity is imposed upon, and April is the month of +easiest credulity. Let bragging travellers come in April and hold us with +tales of the Anthropopagi! If their heads are said to grow beneath their +shoulders, still we will turn a credent ear. Indeed, it is all but sure +that Baron Munchausen came back from his travels in the Spring. When +else could he have got an ear? What man can look upon the wonders of the +returning year--the first blue skies, the soft rains, the tender sproutings +of green stalks without feeling that there is nothing beyond belief? If +such miracles can happen before his eyes, shall not the extreme range even +of travel or metaphysics be allowed? What man who has smelled the first +fragrance of the earth, has heard the birds on their northern flight and +has seen an April brook upon its course, will withhold his credence even +though the jest be plain? + +I beg, therefore, that when you walk upon the street on the next day of +April fool, that you yield to the occasion. If an urchin points his finger +at your hat, humor him by removing it! Look sharply at it for a supposed +defect! His glad shout will be your reward. Or if you are begged piteously +to lift a stand-pipe wrapped to the likeness of a bundle, even though you +sniff the imposture, seize upon it with a will! It is thus, beneath these +April skies, that you play your part in the pageantry that marks the day. + + + + +The Friendly Genii + + +Do you not confess yourself to be several years past that time of greenest +youth when burnt cork holds its greatest charm? Although not fallen to a +crippled state, are you not now too advanced to smudge your upper lip and +stalk agreeably as a villain? Surely you can no longer frisk lightly in +a comedy. If you should wheeze and limp in an old man's part, with back +humped in mimicry, would you not fear that it bordered on the truth? But +doubtless there was a time when you ranged upon these heights--when Kazrac +the magician was not too heavy for your art. In those soaring days, let us +hope that you played the villain with a swagger, or being cast in a softer +role, that you won a pink and fluffy princess before the play was done. +Your earliest practice, it may be, was in rigging the parlor hangings as a +curtain with brown string from the pantry and safety pins. Although you had +no show to offer, you said "ding" three times--as is the ancient custom of +the stage when the actors are ready--and drew them wide apart. The cat +was the audience, who dozed with an ear twitching toward your activity. A +complaint that springs up in youth and is known as "snuffles" had kept you +out of school. It had gripped you hard at breakfast, when you were sunk in +fear of your lessons, but had abated at nine o'clock. Whether the cure came +with a proper healing of the nasal glands or followed merely on the ringing +of the school bell, must be left to a cool judgment. + +Your theatre filled the morning. When Annie came on her quest for dust, you +tooted once upon your nose, just to show that a remnant of your infirmity +persisted, then put your golden convalescence on the making of your +curtain. + +But in the early hours of afternoon when the children are once more upon +the street, you regret your illness. Here they come trooping by threes and +fours, carrying their books tied up in straps. One would think that they +were in fear lest some impish fact might get outside the covers to spoil +the afternoon. Until the morrow let two and two think themselves five at +least! And let Ohio be bounded as it will! Some few children skip ropes, or +step carefully across the cracks of the sidewalk for fear they spoil their +suppers. Ah!--a bat goes by--a glove--a ball! And now from a vacant lot +there comes the clamor of choosing sides. Is no mention to be made of +you--you, "molasses fingers"--the star left fielder--the timely batter? +What would you not give now for a clean bill of health? You rub your +offending nose upon the glass. What matters it with what deep rascality in +black mustachios you once strutted upon your boards? What is Hecuba to you? + +My own first theatre was in the attic, a place of squeaks and shadows +to all except the valiant. In it were low, dark corners where the night +crawled in and slept. But in the open part where the roof was highest, +there was the theatre. Its walls were made of a red cambric of a flowered +pattern that still lingers with me, and was bought with a clatter of +pennies on the counter, together with nickels that had escaped my +extravagance at the soda fountain. + +A cousin and I were joint proprietors. In the making of it, the hammer and +nails were mine by right of sex, while she stitched in womanish fashion on +the fabrics. She was leading woman and I was either the hero or the villain +as fitted to my mood. My younger cousin--although we scorned her for her +youth--was admitted to the slighter parts. She might daub herself with +cork, but it must be only when we were done. Nor did we allow her to carry +the paper knife--shaped like a dagger--which figured hugely in our plots. +If we gave her any word to speak, it was as taffy to keep her silent about +some iniquity that we had worked against her. In general, we judged her to +be too green and giddy for the heavy parts. At the most, she might take +pins at the door--for at such a trifle we displayed our talents--or play +upon the comb as orchestra before the rising of the curtain. + +The usual approach to this theatre was the kitchen door, and those who came +to enjoy the drama sniffed at their very entrance the new-baked bread. A +pan of cookies was set upon a shelf and a row of apples was ranged along +the window sill. Of the ice-box around the corner, not a word, lest hunger +lead you off! As for the cook, although her tongue was tart upon a just +occasion and although she shooed the children with her apron, secretly she +liked to have them crowding through her kitchen. + +Now if you, reader--for I assume you to be one of the gathering +audience--were of the kind careful on scrubbing days to scrape your feet +upon the iron outside and to cross the kitchen on the unwashed parts, then +it is likely that you stood in the good graces of the cook. Mark your +reward! As you journeyed upward, you munched upon a cookie and bit scallops +in its edge. Or if a ravenous haste was in you--as commonly comes up in the +middle afternoon--you waived this slower method and crammed yourself with +a recklessness that bestrewed the purlieus of your mouth. If your ears lay +beyond the muss, the stowage was deemed decent and in order. + +Is there not a story in which children are tracked by an ogre through the +perilous wood by the crumbs they dropped? Then let us hope there is no ogre +lurking on these back stairs, for the trail is plain. It would be near the +top, farthest from the friendly kitchen, that the attack might come, for +there the stairs yielded to the darkness of the attic. There it was best +to look sharp and to turn the corners wide. A brave whistling kept out the +other noises. + +It was after Aladdin had been in town that the fires burned hottest in us. +My grandfather and I went together to the matinee, his great thumb within +my fist. We were frequent companions. Together we had sat on benches in the +park and poked the gravel into patterns. We went to Dime Museums. Although +his eyes had looked longer on the world than mine, we seemed of an equal +age. + +The theatre was empty as we entered. We carried a bag of candy against a +sudden appetite--colt's foot, a penny to the stick. Here and there ushers +were clapping down the seats, sounds to my fancy not unlike the first corn +within a popper. Somewhere aloft there must have been a roof, else the day +would have spied in on us, yet it was lost in the gloom. It was as though +a thrifty owner had borrowed the dusky fabrics of the night to make his +cover. The curtain was indistinct, but we knew it to be the Stratford +Church and we dimly saw its spire. + +Now, on the opening of a door to the upper gallery, there was a scampering +to get seats in front, speed being whetted by a long half hour of waiting +on the stairs. Ghostly, unbodied heads, like the luminous souls of lost +mountaineers--for this was the kind of fiction, got out of the Public +Library, that had come last beneath my thumb--ghostly heads looked down +upon us across the gallery rail. + +And now, if you will tip back your head like a paper-hanger--whose Adam's +apple would seem to attest a life of sidereal contemplation--you will see +in the center of the murk above you a single point of light. It is the +spark that will ignite the great gas chandelier. I strain my neck to the +point of breaking. My grandfather strains his too, for it is a game between +us which shall announce the first spurting of the light. At last! We cry +out together. The spark catches the vent next to it. It runs around the +circle of glass pendants. The whole blazes up. The mountaineers come to +life. They lean forward on their elbows. + +From the wings comes the tuning of the violins. A flute ripples up and down +in a care-free manner as though the villain Kazrac were already dead and +virtue had come into its own. The orchestra emerges from below. Their +calmness is but a pretense. Having looked on such sights as lie behind the +curtain, having trod such ways, they should be bubbling with excitement. +Yet observe the bass viol! How sodden is his eye! How sunken is his gaze! +With what dull routine he draws his bow, as though he knew naught but +sleepy tunes! If there be any genie in the place, as the program says, let +him first stir this sad fellow from his melancholy! + +We consult our programs. The first scene is the magician's cave where he +plans his evil schemes. The second is the Chinese city where he pretends to +be Aladdin's uncle. And for myself, did a friendly old gentleman offer me +lollypops and all-day-suckers--for so did the glittering baubles present +themselves across the footlights--like Aladdin I, too, would not have +squinted too closely on his claim. Gladly I would have gone off with him on +an all-day picnic toward the Chinese mountains. + +We see a lonely pass in the hills, the cave of jewels (splendid to the eye +of childhood) where the slave of the lamp first appears, and finally the +throne-room with Aladdin seated safely beside his princess. + +Who knows how to dip a pen within the twilight? Who shall trace the figures +of the mist? The play is done. We come out in silence. Our candy is but a +remnant. Darkness has fallen. The pavements are wet and shining, so that +the night might see his face, if by chance the old fellow looked our way. + +All about there are persons hurrying home with dinner-pails, who, by their +dull eyes, seem never to have heard what wonders follow on the rubbing of a +lamp. + +But how the fires leaped up--how ambition beat within us--how our attic +theatre was wrought to perfection--how the play came off and wracked the +neighborhood of its pins--with what grace I myself acted Aladdin--these +things must be written by a vain and braggart pen. + + + + +Mr. Pepys Sits in the Pit + + +When it happens that a man has risen to be a member of Parliament, the +Secretary of the British Navy and the President of the Royal Society, when +he has become the adviser of the King and is moreover the one really bright +spot in that King's reign, it is amazing that considerably more than one +hundred years after his death, when the navy that he nurtured dominates the +seven seas, that he himself on a sudden should be known, not for his larger +accomplishments, but as a kind of tavern crony and pot-companion. When he +should be standing with fame secure in a solemn though dusty niche in the +Temple of Time, it is amazing that he should be remembered chiefly for +certain quarrels with his wife and as a frequenter of plays and summer +gardens. + +Yet this is the fate of Samuel Pepys. Before the return of the Stuarts he +held a poor clerkship in the Navy Office and cut his quill obscurely at +the common desk. At the Restoration, partly by the boost of influence, but +chiefly by his substantial merit, he mounted to several successively higher +posts. The Prince of Wales became his friend and patron and when he became +Lord High Admiral he took Pepys with him in his advancement. Thus in 1684, +Pepys became Secretary of the Navy. When later the Prince of Wales became +King James II, Pepys, although his office remained the same, came to quite +a pinnacle of administrative power. He was shrewd and capable in the +conduct of his position and brought method to the Navy Office. He was a +prime factor in the first development of the British Navy. Later victories +that were to sweep the seas may be traced in part to him. Nelson rides upon +his shoulders. These achievements should have made his fame secure. But +on a sudden he gained for posterity a less dignified although a more +interesting and enduring renown. + +In life, Samuel Pepys walked gravely in majestical robe with full-bottomed +wig and with ceremonial lace flapping at his wrists. Every step, if his +portrait is to be believed, was a bit of pageantry. Such was his fame, that +if his sword but clacked a warning on the pavement, it must have brought +the apprentices to the windows. Tradesmen laid down their wares to get a +look at him. Fat men puffed and strained to gain the advantage of a sill. +Fashionable ladies peeped from brocaded curtains and ogled for his regard. +Or if he went by chair, the carriers held their noses up as though offended +by the common air. When he spoke before the Commons, the galleries were +hushed. He gave his days to the signing of stiff parchments--Admiralty +Orders or what not. He checked the King himself at the council table. In +short, he was not only a great personage, but also he was quite well aware +of the fact and held himself accordingly. + +But now many years have passed, and Time, that has so long been at bowls +with reputations, has acquired a moderate skill in knocking them down. Let +us see how it fares with Pepys! Some men who have been roguish in their +lives have been remembered by their higher accomplishments. A string +of sonnets or a novel or two, if it catches the fancy, has wiped out a +tap-room record. The winning of a battle has obliterated a meanly spent +youth. It is true that for a while an old housewife who once lived on the +hero's street will shake a dubious finger on his early pranks. Stolen +apples or cigarettes behind the barn cram her recollection. But even a +village reputation fades. In time the sonnets and glorious battle have the +upper place. But things went the other way with Pepys. Rather, his fate +is like that of Zeus, who--if legend is to be trusted--was in his life a +person of some importance whose nod stirred society on Olympus, but who is +now remembered largely for his flirtations and his braggart conduct. A not +unlike evil has fallen on the magnificent Mr. Pepys. + +This fate came to him because--as the world knows--it happened that for +a period of ten years in comparative youth, he wrote an interesting and +honest diary. He began this diary in 1659, while he was still a poor clerk +living with his wife in a garret, and ended it in 1669, when, although he +had emerged from obscurity, his greater honors had not yet been set on him. +All the facts of his life during this period are put down, whether good or +bad, small or large, generous or mean. He writes of his mornings spent in +work at his office, of his consultations with higher officials. There +is much running to and fro of business. The Dutch war bulks to a proper +length. Parliament sits through a page at a stretch. Pepys goes upon the +streets in the days of the plague and writes the horror of it--the houses +marked with red crosses and with prayers scratched beneath--the stench and +the carrying of dead bodies. He sees the great fire of London from his +window on the night it starts; afterwards St. Paul's with its roofs fallen. +He is on the fleet that brings Charles home from his long travels, and +afterwards when Charles is crowned, he records the processions and the +crowds. But also Pepys quarrels with his wife and writes it out on paper. +He debauches a servant and makes a note of it. He describes a supper at an +ale-house, and how he plays on the flute. He sings "Beauty Retire," a song +of his own making, and tells how his listeners "cried it up." + +In consequence of this, Samuel Pepys is now known chiefly for his +attentions to the pretty actresses of Drury Lane, for kissing Nell Gwynne +in her tiring-room, for his suppers with "the jade" Mrs. Knipp, for his +love of a tune upon the fiddle, for coming home from Vauxhall by wherry +late at night, "singing merrily" down the river. Or perhaps we recall him +best for burying his wine and Parmazan cheese in his garden at the time +of the Fire, or for standing to the measure of Mr. Pin the tailor for a +"camlett cloak with gold buttons," or for sitting for his portrait in an +Indian gown which he "hired to be drawn in." Who shall say that this is not +the very portrait by which we have fancied him stalking off to Commons? +Could the apprentices have known in what a borrowed majesty he walked, +would they not have tossed their caps in mirth and pointed their dusky +fingers at him? + +Or we remember that he once lived in a garret, and that his wife, "poor +wretch," was used to make the fire while Samuel lay abed, and that she +washed his "foul clothes"--that by degrees he came to be wealthy and +rode in his own yellow coach--that his wife went abroad in society "in +a flowered tabby gown"--that Pepys forsook his habits of poverty and +exchanged his twelve-penny seat in the theatre gallery for a place in the +pit--and that on a rare occasion (doubtless when he was alone and there was +but one seat to buy) he arose to the extravagance of a four-shilling box. + +Consequently, despite the weightier parts of the diary, we know Pepys +chiefly in his hours of ease. Sittings and consultations are so dry. If +only the world would run itself decently and in silence! Even a meeting of +the Committee for Tangier--when the Prince of Wales was present and such +smaller fry as Chancellors--is dull and is matter for a skipping eye. + +If a session of Parliament bulks to a fat paragraph and it happens that +there is a bit of deviltry just below at the bottom of the page--maybe no +more than a clinking of glasses (or perhaps Nell Gwynne's name pops in +sight)--bless us how the eye will hurry to turn the leaf on the chance +of roguery to come! Who would read through a long discourse on Admiralty +business, if it be known before that Pepys is engaged with the pretty Mrs. +Knipp for a trip to Bartholomew Fair to view the dancing horse, and that +the start is to be made on the turning of the page? Or a piece of scandal +about Lady Castlemaine, how her nose fell out of joint when Mrs. Stuart +came to court--such things tease one from the sterner business. + +And for these reasons, we have been inclined to underestimate the +importance of Pepys' diary. Francis Jeffrey, who wrote long ago about +Pepys, evidently thought that he was an idle and unprofitable fellow and +that the diary was too much given to mean and petty things. But in reality +the diary is an historical mine. Even when Pepys plays upon the surface, +he throws out facts that can be had nowhere else. No one would venture to +write of Restoration life without digging through his pages. Pepys wrote in +a confused shorthand, maybe against the eye of his wife, from whom he had +reason to conceal his offenses. The papers lay undeciphered until 1825, +when a partial publication was made. There were additions by subsequent +editors until now it appears that the Wheatley text of 1893-1899 is final. +But ever since 1825, the diary has been judged to be of high importance in +the understanding of the first decade of the Restoration. + +If some of the weightier parts are somewhat dry, there are places in which +a lighter show of personality is coincident with real historical data. +Foremost are the pages where Pepys goes to the theatre. + +More than Charles II was restored in 1660. Among many things of more +importance than this worthless King, the theatre was restored. Since the +close of Elizabethan times it had been out of business. More than thirty +years before, Puritanism had snuffed out its candles and driven its +fiddlers to the streets. But Puritanism, in its turn, fell with the return +of the Stuarts. Pepys is a chief witness as to what kind of theatre it was +that was set up in London about the year 1660. It was far different from +the Elizabethan theatre. It came in from the Bankside and the fields to the +north of the city and lodged itself on the better streets and squares. It +no longer patterned itself on the inn-yard, but was roofed against the +rain. The time had been when the theatre was cousin to the bear-pit. They +were ranged together on the Bankside and they sweat and smelled like +congenial neighbors. But these days are past. Let Bartholomew Fair be as +rowdy as it pleases, let acrobats and such loose fellows keep to Southwark, +the theatre has risen in the world! It has put on a wig, as it were, it has +tied a ribbon to itself and has become fashionable. And although it has +taken on a few extra dissolute habits, they are of the genteelest kind and +will make it feel at home in the upper circles. + +But also the theatre introduced movable scenery. There is an attempt toward +elaboration of stage effect. "To the King's playhouse--" says Pepys, "a +good scene of a town on fire." Women take parts. An avalanche of new plays +descends on it. Even the old plays that have survived are garbled to suit a +change of taste. + +But if you would really know what kind of theatre it was that sprang up +with the Stuarts and what the audiences looked like and how they behaved, +you must read Pepys. With but a moderate use of fancy, you can set out with +him in his yellow coach for the King's house in Drury Lane. Perhaps hunger +nips you at the start. If so, you stop, as Pepys pleasantly puts it, for a +"barrel of oysters." Then, having dusted yourself of crumbs, you take the +road again. Presently you come to Drury Lane. Other yellow coaches are +before you. There is a show of foppery on the curb and an odor of smoking +links. A powdered beauty minces to the door. Once past the doorkeeper, you +hear the cries of the orange women going up and down the aisles. There is a +shuffling of apprentices in the gallery. A dandy who lolls in a box with a +silken leg across the rail, scrawls a message to an actress and sends it +off by Orange Moll. Presently Castlemaine enters the royal box with the +King. There is a craning of necks, for with her the King openly "do +discover a great deal of familiarity." In other boxes are other fine ladies +wearing vizards to hold their modesty if the comedy is free. A board breaks +in the ceiling of the gallery and dust falls in the men's hair and the +ladies' necks, which, writes Pepys, "made good sport." Or again, "A +gentleman of good habit, sitting just before us, eating of some fruit in +the midst of the play, did drop down as dead; being choked, but with much +ado Orange Moll did thrust her finger down his throat and brought him to +life again." Or perhaps, "I sitting behind in a dark place, a lady spit +backward upon me by a mistake, not seeing me, but after seeing her to be a +very pretty lady, I was not troubled at it at all." + +At a change of scenes, Mrs. Knipp spies Pepys and comes to the pit door. He +goes with her to the tiring-room. "To the women's shift," he writes, +"where Nell was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very pretty, +prettier than I thought.... But to see how Nell cursed for having so few +people in the pit, was pretty."--"But Lord! their confidence! and how +many men do hover about them as soon as they come off the stage, and how +confident they are in their talk!" Or he is whispered a bit of gossip, how +Castlemaine is much in love with Hart, an actor of the house. Then Pepys +goes back into the pit and lays out a sixpence for an orange. As the play +nears its end, footmen crowd forward at the doors. The epilogue is spoken. +The fiddles squeak their last. There is a bawling outside for coaches. + +"Would it fit your humor," asks Mr. Pepys, when we have been handed to our +seats, "would it fit your humor, if we go around to the Rose Tavern for +some burnt wine and a breast of mutton off the spit? It's sure that some +brave company will fall in, and we can have a tune. We'll not heed the +bellman. We'll sit late, for it will be a fine light moonshine morning." + + + + +To an Unknown Reader + + +Once in a while I dream that I come upon a person who is reading a book +that I have written. In my pleasant dreams these persons do not nod +sleepily upon my pages, and sometimes I fall in talk with them. Although +they do not know who I am, they praise the book and name me warmly among +my betters. In such circumstance my happy nightmare mounts until I ride +foremost with the giants. If I could think that this disturbance of my +sleep came from my diet and that these agreeable persons arose from a +lobster or a pie, nightly at supper I would ply my fork recklessly among +the platters. + +But in a waking state these meetings never come. If an article of mine is +ever read at all, it is read in secret like the Bible. Once, indeed, in a +friend's house I saw my book upon the table, but I suspect that it had been +dusted and laid out for my coming. I request my hostess that next time, for +my vanity, she lay the book face down upon a chair, as though the grocer's +knock intruded. Or perhaps a huckster's cart broke upon her enjoyment. +Let it be thought that a rare bargain--tender asparagus or the first +strawberries of the summer--tempted her off my pages! Or maybe there was +red rhubarb in the cart and the jolly farmer, as he journeyed up the +street, pitched it to a pleasing melody. Dear lady, I forgive you. But let +us hope no laundryman led you off! Such discord would have marred my book. + +I saw once in a public library, as I went along the shelves, a volume of +mine which gave evidence to have been really read. The record in front +showed that it had been withdrawn one time only. The card was blank +below--but once certainly it had been read. I hope that the book went out +on a Saturday noon when the spirits rise for the holiday to come, and that +a rainy Sunday followed, so that my single reader was kept before his fire. +A dull patter on the window--if one sits unbuttoned on the hearth--gives +a zest to a languid chapter. The rattle of a storm--if only the room be +snug--fixes the attention fast. Therefore, let the rain descend as though +the heavens rehearsed for a flood! Let a tempest come out of the west! Let +the chimney roar as it were a lion! And if there must be a clearing, let +it hold off until the late afternoon, lest it sow too early a distaste for +indoors and reading! There is scarcely a bookworm who will not slip his +glasses off his nose, if the clouds break at the hour of sunset when the +earth and sky are filled with a green and golden light. I took the book off +the library shelf and timidly glancing across my shoulder for fear that +some one might catch me, I looked along the pages. There was a thumb mark +in a margin, and presently appeared a kindly stickiness on the paper as +though an orange had squirted on it. Surely there had been a human being +hereabouts. It was as certain as when Crusoe found the footprints in the +sand. Ah, I thought, this fellow who sits in the firelight has caught an +appetite. Perhaps he bit a hole and sucked the fruit, and the skin has +burst behind. Or I wave the theory and now conceive that the volume was +read at breakfast. If so, it is my comfort that in those dim hours it stood +propped against his coffee cup. + +But the trail ended with the turning of the page. There were, indeed, +further on, pencil checks against one of the paragraphs as if here the book +had raised a faint excitement, but I could not tell whether they sprang +up in derision or in approval. Toward the end there were uncut leaves, as +though even my single reader had failed in his persistence. + +Being swept once beyond a usual caution, I lamented to my friend F---- of +the neglect in which readers held me, to which the above experience in +a library was a rare exception. F---- offered me such consolation as he +could, deplored the general taste and the decadence of the times, and said +that as praise was sweet to everyone, he, as far as he himself was able, +offered it anonymously to those who merited it. He was standing recently +in a picture gallery, when a long-haired man who stood before one of the +pictures was pointed out to him as the artist who had painted it. At once +F---- saw his opportunity to confer a pleasure, but as there is a touch of +humor in him, he first played off a jest. Lounging forward, he dropped his +head to one side as artistic folk do when they look at color. He made a +knot-hole of his fingers and squinted through. Next he retreated across the +room and stood with his legs apart in the very attitude of wisdom. He cast +a stern eye upon the picture and gravely tapped his chin. At last when the +artist was fretted to an extremity, F---- came forward and so cordially +praised the picture that the artist, being now warmed and comforted, +presently excused himself in a high excitement and rushed away to start +another picture while the pleasant spell was on him. + +Had I been the artist, I would have run from either F----'s praise or +disapproval. As an instance, I saw a friend on a late occasion coming from +a bookstore with a volume of suspicious color beneath his arm. I had been +avoiding that particular bookstore for a week because my book lay for sale +on a forward table. And now when my friend appeared, a sudden panic seized +me and I plunged into the first doorway to escape. I found myself facing a +soda fountain. For a moment, in my blur, I could not account for the +soda fountain, or know quite how it had come into my life. Presently an +interne--for he was jacketted as if he walked a hospital--asked me what I'd +have. + +Still somewhat dazed, in my discomposure, having no answer ready, my +startled fancy ran among the signs and labels of the counter until I +recalled that a bearded man once, unblushing in my presence, had ordered +a banana flip. I got the fellow's ear and named it softly. Whereupon he +placed a dead-looking banana across a mound of ice-cream, poured on colored +juices as though to mark the fatal wound and offered it to me. I ate a few +bites of the sickish mixture until the streets were safe. + +I do not know to what I can attribute my timidity. Possibly it arises from +the fact that until recently my writing met with uniform rejection and +failure. For years I wrote secretly in order that few persons might know +how miserably I failed. I answered upon a question that I had given up the +practice, that I now had no time for it, that I scribbled now and then +but always burned it. All that while I gave my rare leisure and my stolen +afternoons--the hours that other men give to golf and sleep and sitting +together--these hours I gave to writing. On a holiday I was at it early. On +Saturday when other folks were abroad, I sat at my desk. It was my grief +that I was so poor a borrower of the night that I blinked stupidly on my +papers if I sat beyond the usual hour. Writing was my obsession. I need no +pity for my failures, for although I tossed my cap upon a rare acceptance, +my deeper joy was in the writing. That joy repeated failures could not +blunt. + +There are paragraphs that now lie yellow in my desk with their former +meaning faded, that still recall as I think of them the first exaltation +when I wrote them--feverishly in a hot emotion. In those days I thought +that I had caught the sunlight on my pen, and the wind and the moon and the +spinning earth. I thought that the valleys and the mountains arose from the +mist obedient to me. If I splashed my pen, in my warm regard it was the +roar and fury of the sea. It was really no more than my youth crying out. +And, alas, my thoughts and my feelings escaped me when I tried to put them +down on paper, although I did not know it then. Perhaps they were too +vagrant to be held. And yet these paragraphs that might be mournful records +of failure, fill me with no more than a tender recollection for the boy +who wrote them. The worn phrases now beg their way with broken steps. Like +shrill and piping minstrels they whine and crack a melody that I still +remember in its freshness. + +But perhaps, reader, we are brothers in these regards. Perhaps you, too, +have faded papers. Or possibly, even on a recent date, you sighed your soul +into an essay or a sonnet, and you now have manuscript which you would like +to sell. Do not mistake me! I am not an editor, nor am I an agent for these +wares. Rather I speak as a friend who, having many such hidden sorrows, +offers you a word of comfort. To a desponding Hamlet I exclaim, "'Tis +common, my Lord." I have so many friends that have had an unproductive +fling toward letters, that I think the malady is general. So many books are +published and flourish a little while in their bright wrappers, but yours +and theirs and mine waste away in a single precious copy. + +I am convinced that a close inspection of all desks--a federal matter as +though Capital were under fire--would betray thousands of abandoned novels. +There may be a few stern desks that are so cluttered with price-sheets and +stock-lists that they cannot offer harborage to a love tale. Standing desks +in particular, such as bookkeepers affect, are not always chinked +with these softer plots. And rarely there is a desk so smothered in +learning--reeking so of scholarship--as not to admit a lighter nook for +the tucking of a sea yarn. Even so, it was whispered to me lately that +Professor B----, whose word shakes the continent, holds in a lower drawer +no fewer than three unpublished historical novels, each set up with a full +quota of smugglers and red bandits. One of these stories deals scandalously +with the abduction of an heiress, but this must be held in confidence. The +professor is a stoic before his class, but there's blood in the fellow. + +There is, therefore, little use in your own denial. You will recall that +once, when taken to a ruined castle, you brooded on the dungeons until a +plot popped into your head. You crammed it with quaint phrasing from the +chroniclers. You stuffed it with soldiers' oaths. "What ho! landlord," +you wrote gayly at midnight, "a foaming cup, good sir. God pity the poor +sailors that take the sea this night!" And on you pelted with your plot to +such conflicts and hair-breadth escapes as lay in your contrivance. + +These things you have committed. Good sir, we are of a common piece. Let us +salute as brothers! And therefore, as to a comrade, I bid you continue in +your ways. And that you may not lack matter for your pen, I warmly urge +you, when by shrewdest computation you have exhausted the plots of +adventure and have worn your villains thin, that you proceed in quieter +vein. I urge you to an April mood, for the winds of Spring are up and +daffodils nod across the garden. There is black earth in the Spring and +green hilltops, and there is also the breath of flowers along the fences +and the sound of water for your pen to prattle of. + + + + +A Plague of All Cowards + + +Having written lately against the dog, several acquaintances have asked me +to turn upon the cat, and they have been good enough to furnish me with +instances of her faithlessness. Also, a lady with whom I recently sat at +dinner, inquired of me on the passing of the fish, whether I had ever +properly considered the cow, which she esteemed a most mischievous animal. +One of them had mooed at her as she crossed a pasture and she had hastily +climbed a fence. I get a good many suggestions first and last. I was once +taken to a Turkish bath for no other reason--as I was afterwards told--than +that it might supply me with a topic. Odd books have been put in my way. +A basket of school readers was once lodged with me, with a request that I +direct my attention to the absurd selection of the poems. I have been urged +to go against car conductors and customs men. On one occasion I received a +paper of tombstone inscriptions, with a note of direction how others might +be found in a neighboring churchyard if I were curious. A lady in whose +company I camped last summer has asked me to give a chapter to it. We were +abroad upon a lake in the full moon--we were lost upon a mountain--twice a +canoe upset--there were the usual jests about cooking. These things might +have filled a few pages agreeably, yet so far they have given me only a +paragraph. + +But I am not disposed toward any of these subjects, least of all the cat, +upon which I look--despite the coldness of her nature--as a harmless and +comforting appendage of the hearth-rug. I would no more prey upon her +morals than I would the morals of the andirons. I choose, rather, to slip +to another angle of the question and say a few words about cowards, among +whom I have already confessed that I number myself. + +In this year of battles, when physical courage sits so high, the reader--if +he is swept off in the general opinion--will expect under such a title +something caustic. He will think that I am about to loose against all +cowards a plague of frogs and locusts as if old Egypt had come again. But +cowardice is its own punishment. It needs no frog to nip it. Even the +sharp-toothed locust--for in the days that bordered so close upon the +mastodon, the locust could hardly have fallen to the tender greenling we +know today--even the locust that once spoiled the Egyptians could not now +add to the grief of a coward. + +And yet--really I hesitate. I blush. My attack will be too intimate; for I +have confessed that I am not the very button on the cap of bravery. I have +indeed stiffened myself to ride a horse, a mightier feat than driving him +because of the tallness of the monster and his uneasy movement, as though +his legs were not well socketed and might fall out on a change of gaits. I +have ridden on a camel in a side-show, but have found my only comfort in +his hump. I have stroked the elephant. In a solemn hour of night I have +gone downstairs to face a burglar. But I do not run singing to these +dangers. While your really brave fellow is climbing a dizzy staircase to +the moon--I write in figure--I would shake with fear upon a lower platform. + +Perhaps you recall Mr. Tipp of the Elia essays. "Tipp," says his pleasant +biographer, "never mounted the box of a stage-coach in his life; or leaned +against the rails of a balcony; or walked upon the ridge of a parapet; or +looked down a precipice; or let off a gun." I cannot follow Tipp, it may +be, to his extreme tremors--my hair will not rise to so close a likeness of +the fretful porcupine--yet in a measure we are in agreement. We are, as it +were, cousins, with the mark of our common family strong on both of us. + +There are persons who, when in your company on a country walk, will steal +apples, not with a decent caution from a tree along the fence, but far +afield. If there are grapes, they will not wait for a turn of the road, +but will pluck them in the open. Or maybe in your wandering you come on a +half-built house. You climb in through a window to look about. Here the +stairs will go. The ice-box will be set against this wall. But if your +companion is one of valor's minions, he will not be satisfied with this +safe and agreeable research--this mild speculation on bath-rooms--this +innocent placing of a stove. He must go aloft. He has seen a ladder and +yearns to climb it. The footing on the second story is bad enough. If you +fall between the joists, you will clatter to the basement. It is hard to +realize that such an open breezy place will ever be cosy and warm with +fires, and that sleepy folk will here lie snugly a-bed on frosty mornings. +But still the brazen fellow is not content. A ladder leads horribly to the +roof. For myself I will climb until the tip of my nose juts out upon the +world--until it sprouts forth to the air from the topmost timbers: But I +will go no farther. But if your companion sees a scaffold around a chimney, +he must perch on it. For him, a dizzy plank is a pleasant belvedere from +which to view the world. + +The bravery of this kind of person is not confined to these few matters. +If you happen to go driving with him, he will--if the horse is of the kind +that distends his nostrils--on a sudden toss you the reins and leave you to +guard him while he dispatches an errand. If it were a motor car there would +be a brake to hold it. If it were a boat, you might throw out an anchor. A +butcher's cart would have a metal drag. But here you sit defenseless--tied +to the whim of a horse--greased for a runaway. The beast Dobbin turns his +head and holds you with his hard eye. There is a convulsive movement along +his back, a preface, it may be, to a sudden seizure. A real friend would +have loosed the straps that run along the horse's flanks. Then, if any +deviltry take him, he might go off alone and have it out. + +I have in mind a livery stable in Kalamazoo. Myself and another man of +equal equestrianism were sent once to bring out a thing called a surrey and +a pair of horses. Do you happen to be acquainted with Blat's Horse Food? If +your way lies among the smaller towns, you must know its merits. They are +proclaimed along the fences and up the telegraph poles. Drinking-troughs +speak its virtues. Horses thrive on Blat's Food. They neigh for it. A +flashing lithograph is set by way of testament wherever traffic turns or +lingers. Do you not recall the picture? A great red horse rears himself +on his hind legs. His forward hoofs are extended. He is about to trample +someone under foot. His nostrils are wide. He is unduly excited. It cannot +be food, it must be drink that stirs him. He is a fearful spectacle. + +There was such a picture on the wall of the stable. + +"Have you any horses," I asked nervously, jerking my thumb toward the wall, +"any horses that have been fed on just ordinary food? Some that are a +little tired?" + +For I remembered how Mr. Winkle once engaged horses to take the +Pickwickians out to Manor Farm and what mishaps befell them on the way. + +"'He don't shy, does he?' inquired Mr. Pickwick. + +"'Shy, sir?--He wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vagginload of monkeys with +their tails burnt off.'" + +But how Mr. Pickwick dropped his whip, how Mr. Winkle got off his tall +horse to pick it up, how he tried in vain to remount while his horse went +round and round, how they were all spilt out upon the bridge and how +finally they walked to Manor Farm--these things are known to everybody with +an inch of reading. + +"'How far is it to Dingley Dell?' they asked. + +"'Better er seven mile.' + +"'Is it a good road?' + +"'No, t'ant.'... + +"The depressed Pickwickians turned moodily away, with the tall quadruped, +for which they all felt the most unmitigated disgust, following slowly at +their heels." + +"Have you any horses," I repeated, "that have not been fed on Blat's +Food--horses that are, so to speak, on a diet?" + +In the farthest stalls, hidden from the sunlight and the invigorating +infection of the day, two beasts were found with sunken chests and hollow +eyes, who took us safely to our destination on their hands and knees. + +As you may suspect, I do not enjoy riding. There is, it is true, one saddle +horse in North Carolina that fears me. If time still spares him, that horse +I could ride with content. But I would rather trust myself on the top of a +wobbly step-ladder than up the sides of most horses. I am not quite of a +mind, however, with Samuel Richardson who owned a hobby-horse and rode on +his hearth-rug in the intervals of writing "Pamela." It is likely that when +he had rescued her from an adventure of more than usual danger--perhaps her +villainous master has been concealed in her closet--perhaps he has been +hiding beneath her bed--it is likely, having brought her safely off, the +author locked her in the buttery against a fresh attack. Then he felt, good +man, in need of exercise. So while he waits for tea and muffins, he leaps +upon his rocking-horse and prances off. As for the hobby-horse itself, I +have not heard whether it was of the usual nursery type, or whether it was +built in the likeness of the leather camels of a German steamship. + +I need hardly say that these confessions of my cowardice are for your ear +alone. They must not get abroad to smirch me. If on a country walk I have +taken to my heels, you must not twit me with poltroonery. If you charge me +with such faint-heartedness while other persons are present, I'll deny it +flat. When I sit in the company of ladies at dinner, I dissemble my true +nature, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat. +If then, you taunt me, for want of a better escape, I shall turn it to a +jest. I shall engage the table flippantly: Hear how preposterously the +fellow talks!--he jests to satisfy a grudge. In appearance I am whole as +the marble, founded as a rock. + +But really some of us cowards are diverting persons. The lady who directed +me against the cow is a most delightful woman with whom I hope I shall +again sit at dinner. A witty lady of my acquaintance shivers when a +cat walks in the room. A man with whom I pass the time pleasantly and +profitably, although he will not admit a fear of ghosts, still will not +sleep in an empty house because of possible noises. I would rather spend a +Saturday evening in the company of the cowardly Falstaff than of the bold +Hotspur. If it were not for sack, villainous sack, and a few spots upon his +front, you would go far to find a better companion than the fat old Knight. +Bob Acres was not much for valor and he made an ass of himself when he went +to fight a duel, yet one could have sat agreeably at mutton with him. + +But these things are slight. It matters little whether or not one can mount +a ladder comfortably. Now that motors have come in, horses stand remotely +in our lives. Nor is it of great moment whether or not we fear to be out of +fashion--whether we halt in the wearing of a wrong-shaped hat, or glance +fearfully around when we choose from a line of forks. Superstitions rest +mostly on the surface and are not deadly in themselves. A man can be true +of heart even if he will not sit thirteen at table. But there is a kind +of fear that is disastrous to them that have it. It is the fear of the +material universe in all its manifestations. There are persons, stout both +of chest and limb, who fear drafts and wet feet. A man who is an elephant +of valor and who has been feeling this long while a gentle contempt for +such as myself, will cry out if a soft breeze strikes against his neck. If +a foot slips to the gutter and becomes wet, he will dose himself. Achilles +did not more carefully nurse his heel. For him the lofty dome of air is +packed with malignant germs. The round world is bottled with contagion. A +strong man who, in his time, might have slain the Sofi, is as fearful of +his health as though the plague were up the street. Calamities beset him. +The slightest sniffling in his nose is the trumpet for a deep disorder. +Existence is but a moving hazard. Life for him, poor fellow, is but a room +with a window on the night and a storm beating on the casement. God knows, +it is better to grow giddy on a ladder than to think that this majestic +earth is such an universal pestilence. + + + + +The Asperities of the Early British Reviewers + + +Book reviewers nowadays direct their attention, for the most part, to the +worthy books and they habitually neglect those that seem beneath their +regard. On a rare occasion they assail an unprofitable book, but even this +is often but a bit of practice. They swish a bludgeon to try their hand. +They only take their anger, as it were, upon an outing, lest with too +close housing it grow pallid and shrink in girth. Or maybe they indulge +themselves in humor. Perhaps they think that their pages grow dull and that +ridicule will restore the balance. They throw it in like a drunken porter +to relieve a solemn scene. I fancy that editors of this baser sort keep on +their shelves one or two volumes for their readers' sport and mirth. I read +recently a review of an historical romance--a last faltering descendant of +the race--whose author in an endeavor to restore the past, had made too +free a use of obsolete words. With what playfulness was he held up to +scorn! Mary come up, sweet chuck! How his quaint phrasing was turned +against him! What a merry fellow it is who writes, how sharp and caustic! +There's pepper on his mood. + +But generally, it is said, book reviews are too flattering. Professor +Bliss Perry, being of this opinion, offered some time ago a statement +that "Magazine writing about current books is for the most part bland, +complaisant, pulpy.... The Pedagogue no longer gets a chance at the gifted +young rascal who needs, first and foremost, a premonitory whipping; the +youthful genius simply stays away from school and carries his unwhipped +talents into the market place." At a somewhat different angle of the same +opinion, Dr. Crothers suggests in an essay that instead of being directed +to the best books, we need to be warned from the worst. He proposes to set +up a list of the Hundred Worst Books. For is it not better, he asks, to put +a lighthouse on a reef than in the channel? The open sea does not need a +bell-buoy to sound its depth. + +On these hints I have read some of the book criticisms of days past to +learn whether they too were pulpy--whether our present silken criticism +always wore its gloves and perfumed itself, or whether it has fallen to +this smiling senility from a sterner youth. Although I am usually a rusty +student, yet by diligence I have sought to mend my knowledge that I might +lay it out before you. Lately, therefore, if you had come within our Public +Library, you would have found me in one of these attempts. Here I went, +scrimping the other business of the day in order that I might be at my +studies before the rush set in up town. Mine was the alcove farthest from +the door, where are the mustier volumes that fit a bookish student. So if +your quest was the lighter books--such verse and novels as present fame +attests--you did not find me. I was hooped and bowed around the corner. I +am no real scholar, but I study on a spurt. For a whole week together I may +read old plays until their jigging style infects my own. I have set myself +against the lofty histories, although I tire upon their lower slopes and +have not yet persisted to their upper and windier ridges. I have, also, a +pretty knowledge of the Queen Anne wits and feel that I must have dogged +and spied upon them while they were yet alive. But in general, although +I am curious in the earlier chapters of learning, I lag in the inner +windings. However, for a fortnight I have sat piled about with old reviews, +whose leather rots and smells, in order that I might study the fading +criticisms of the past. + +Until rather near the end of the eighteenth century, those who made their +living in England by writing were chiefly publishers' hacks, fellows of +the Dunciad sucking their quills in garrets and selling their labor for a +crust, for the reading public was too small to support them. Or they +found a patron and gave him a sugared sonnet for a pittance, or strained +themselves to the length of an Ode for a berth in his household. Or +frequently they supported a political party and received a place in the +Red Tape Office. But even in politics, on account of the smallness of the +reading public and the politicians' indifference to its approval, their +services were of slight account. Too often a political office was granted +from a pocket borough in which a restricted electorate could be bought at a +trifling expense. To gain support inside the House of Commons was enough. +The greater public outside could be ignored. This attitude changed with +the coming of the French Revolution. Here was a new force unrealized +before--that of a crowd which, being unrepresented and with a real +grievance, could, when it liked, take a club and go after what it wanted. +For the first time in many years in England--such were the whiffs of +liberty across the Channel--the power of an unrepresented public came to be +known. It was not that the English crowd had as yet taken the club in its +hands, but there were new thoughts abroad in the world, and there was the +possibility to be regarded. To influence this larger public, therefore, men +who could write came little by little into a larger demand. And as +writers were comparatively scarce, all kinds--whether they wrote poems or +prose--were pressed into service. It is significant, too, that it was in +the decades subjected to the first influence of the French Revolution that +the English daily paper took its start as an agent to influence public +opinion. + +It was therefore rather more than one hundred years ago that writers came +to a better prosperity. They came out of their garrets, took rooms on the +second floor, polished their brasses and became Persons. I can fancy that a +writer after spending a morning in the composition of a political article +on the whisper of a Cabinet Minister, wrote a sonnet after lunch, and +a book review before dinner. Let us see in what mood they took their +advancement! Let us examine their temper--but in book reviewing only, for +that alone concerns us! In doing this, we have the advantage of knowing the +final estimate of the books they judged. Like the witch, we have looked +into the seeds of time and we know "which grain will grow and which will +not." + +In 1802, when the Edinburgh Review (which was the first of its line to +acquire distinction) came into being, the passion of the times found voice +in politics. Both Whigs and Tories had been alarmed by the excesses of the +French Revolution; both feared that England was drifting the way of France; +each had a remedy, but opposed and violently maintained. The Tories put the +blame of the Revolution on the compromises of Louis XVI, and accordingly +they were hostile to any political change. The Whigs, on the other +hand, saw the rottenness of England as a cause that would incite her to +revolution also, and they advocated reform while yet there was time. The +general fear of a revolution gave the government of England to the Tories, +and kept them in power for several decades. And England was ripe for +trouble. The government was but nominally representative. No Catholic, +Jew, Dissenter or poor man had a vote or could hold a seat in Parliament. +Industrially and economically the country was in the condition of France +in the year of Arthur Young's journey. The poverty was abject, the relief +futile and the hatred of the poor for the rich was inflammatory. +George III, slipping into feebleness and insanity, yet jealous of his +unconstitutional power, was a vacillating despot, quarrelling with his +Commons and his Ministers. Lord Eldon as Chancellor, but with as nearly the +control of a Premier as the King would allow, was the staunch upholder of +all things that have since been disproved and discarded. Bagehot said of +him that "he believed in everything which it is impossible to believe in." +France and Napoleon threatened across the narrow channel. England still +growled at the loss of her American colonies. It was as yet the England +of the old regime. The great reforms were to come thirty years later--the +Catholic Emancipation, the abolishment of slavery in the colonies, the +suppression of the pocket boroughs, the gross bribery of elections, the +cleaning of the poor laws and the courts of justice. + +It was in this dark hour of English history that the writers polished their +brasses and set up as Persons. And if the leading articles that they wrote +of mornings stung and snapped with venom, it is natural that the book +reviews on which they spent their afternoons had also some vinegar in them, +especially if they concerned books written by those of the opposition. And +other writers, even if they had no political connection, borrowed their +manners from those who had. It was the animosities of party politics that +set the general tone. Billingsgate that had grown along the wharves of the +lower river, was found to be of service in Parliament and gave a spice and +sparkle even to a book review. Presently a large part of literary England +wore the tags of political preference. Writers were often as clearly +distinguished as were the ladies in the earlier day, when Addison wrote his +paper on party patches. There were seats of Moral Philosophy to be handed +out, under-secretaryships, consular appointments. It is not enough to say +that Francis Jeffrey was a reviewer, he was as well a Whig and was running +a Review that was Whig from the front cover to the back. Leigh Hunt was not +merely a poet, for he was also a radical, and therefore in the opinions of +Tories, a believer in immorality and indecency. No matter how innocent +a title might appear, it was held in suspicion, on the chance that it +assailed the Ministry or endangered the purity of England. William Gifford +was more than merely the editor of the Quarterly Review, for he was as well +a Tory editor whose duty it was to pry into Whiggish roguery. Lockhart and +Wilson, who wrote in Blackwood's, were Tories tooth and nail, biting and +scratching for party. Nowadays, literature, having found the public to be +its most profitable patron, works hard and even abjectly for its favor. +Although there are defects in the arrangement, it must be confessed that +the divorce of literature from politics contributes to the general peace of +the household. + +The Edinburgh Review was founded in 1802, the Quarterly Review in 1809, +Blackwood's Magazine in 1817. These three won distinction among others of +less importance, and from them only I quote. In 1802, when Tory rule was +strongest and Lord Eldon flourished, there was living in Edinburgh a group +of young men who were for the most part briefless barristers. Their case +was worse because they were Whigs. Few cases came their way and no offices. +These young men were Francis Jeffrey, Francis Horner, Henry Brougham, and +there was also Sydney Smith who had just come to Edinburgh from an English +country parish. The eldest was thirty-one, the youngest twenty-three. +Although all of them had brilliant lives before them, not one of them had +made as yet more than a step toward his accomplishment. Sydney Smith had +been but lately an obscure curate, buried in the middle of Salisbury Plain, +away from all contact with the world. Francis Jeffrey had been a hack +writer in London, had studied medicine, had sought unsuccessfully a +government position in India, had written poor sonnets, and was now +lounging with but a scanty occupation in the halls of the law courts. +Francis Horner had just come to the Scottish bar straight from his studies. +Henry Brougham, who in days to come was to be Lord Chancellor of England +and to whose skill in debate the passing of the Great Reform bill of 1832 +is partly due, is also just admitted to the practice of the law. + +The founding of the Review was casual. These men were accustomed to meet of +an evening for general discussion and speculation. It happened one night as +they sat together--the place was a garret if legend is to be believed--that +Sydney Smith lamented that their discussions came to nothing, for they were +all Whigs, all converted to the cause; whereas if they could only bring +their opinions to the outside public they could stir opinion. From so +slight a root the Review sprouted. Sydney Smith was made editor and kept +the position until after the appearance of the first number, when Jeffrey +succeeded him. The Review became immediately a power, appearing quarterly +and striking its blows anonymously against a sluggish government, lashing +the Tory writers, and taking its part, which is of greater consequence, in +the promulgation of the Whig reforms which were to ripen in thirty years +and convert the old into modern England. In the destruction of outworn +things, it was, as it were, a magazine of Whig explosives. + +The Quarterly Review was the next to come and it was Tory. John Murray, the +London publisher, had been the English distributor of the Edinburgh Review. +In 1809, two considerations moved him to found in London a review to rival +the Scotch periodical. First the Tory party was being hard hit by the +Edinburgh Review and there was need of defense and retaliation. In the +second place, John Murray saw that if his publishing house was to flourish, +it must provide this new form of literature that had become so popular. +For the very shortness of the essays and articles, in which extensive +conditions were summarized for quick digestion, had met with English +approval as well as Scotch. People had become accustomed, says Bagehot, of +taking "their literature in morsels, as they take sandwiches on a journey." +Murray appealed to George Canning, then in office, for assistance and was +introduced to William Gifford as a man capable of the undertaking, who +would also meet the favor of the government party. The rise of the +Quarterly Review was not brilliant. It did not fill the craving for +novelty, inasmuch as the Edinburgh was already in the field. Furthermore, +there is not the opportunity in defense for as conspicuous gallantry as in +offensive warfare. + +It was eight years before another enduring review was started. William +Blackwood of Edinburgh had grown like Murray from a bookseller to a +publisher, and he, too, looked for a means of increasing his prestige. He +had launched a review the year previously, in 1816, but it had foundered +when it was scarcely off the ways. His second attempt he was determined +must be successful. His new editors were John G. Lockhart and John Wilson, +and the new policy, although nominally Tory, was first and last the +magazine's notoriety. It hawked its wares into public notice by sensational +articles and personal vilification. Wilson was thirty-two and Lockhart +twenty-three, yet they were as mischievous as boys. In their pages is found +the most abominable raving that has ever passed for literary criticism. +They did not need any party hatred to fire them. William Blackwood +welcomed any abuse that took his magazine out of "the calm of respectable +mediocrity." Anything that stung or startled was welcome to a place in its +pages. + +So Blackwood's was published and Edinburgh city, we may be sure, set up a +roar of delight and anger. Never before had one's friends been so assailed. +Never before had one's enemies been so grilled. How pleasing for a Tory +fireside was the mud bath with which it defiled Coleridge, who was--and you +had always known it--"little better than a rogue." One's Tory dinner was +the more toothsome for the hot abuse of the Chaldee Manuscript. What stout +Tory, indeed, would doze of an evening on such a sheet! There followed +of course cases of libel. The editors even found it safer, after the +publication of the first number, to retire for a time to the country until +the city cooled. + +I choose now to turn to the pages of these three reviews and set out before +you samples of their criticisms, in order that you may contrast them +with our own literary judgments. I warn you in fairness that I have been +disposed to choose the worst, yet there are hundreds of other criticisms +but little better. Of the three reviews, Blackwood's was the least +seriously political in its policy, yet its critical vilifications are the +worst. The Edinburgh Review, the most able of the three and the most in +earnest in politics, is the least vituperative. With this introduction, let +us shake the pepperpot and lay out the strong vinegar of our feast! + +In the judgment of the Edinburgh Review, Tom Moore, who had just published +his "Odes and Epistles" but had not yet begun his Irish melodies, is a man +who "with some brilliancy of fancy, and some show of classical erudition +... may boast, if the boast can please him, of being the most licentious of +modern versifiers, and the most poetical of those who, in our times, have +devoted their talents to the propagation of immorality. We regard his book, +indeed, as a public nuisance.... He sits down to ransact the impure places +of his memory for inflammatory images and expressions, and commits them +laboriously in writing, for the purpose of insinuating pollution into the +minds of unknown and unsuspecting readers." + +Francis Jeffrey wrote this, and Moore challenged him to fight. The police +interfered, and as Jeffrey put it, "the affair ended amicably. We have +since breakfasted together very lovingly. He has expressed penitence for +what he has written and declared that he will never again apply any little +talents he may possess to such purpose: and I have said that I shall be +happy to praise him whenever I find that he has abjured these objectionable +topics." It was Sydney Smith who said of Jeffrey he would "damn the solar +system--bad light--planets too distant--pestered with comets. Feeble +contrivance--could make a better with great ease." + +Jeffrey reviewed Wordsworth and found in the "Lyrical Ballads" +"vulgarity, affectation and silliness." He is alarmed, moreover, lest +his "childishness, conceit and affectation" spread to other authors. He +proposes a poem to be called "Elegiac Stanzas to a Sucking Pig," and of +"Alice Fell" he writes that "if the publishing of such trash as this be +not felt as an insult on the public taste, we are afraid it cannot be +insulted." When the "White Doe of Rylstone" was published--no prime +favorite, I confess, of my own--Jeffrey wrote that it had the merit of +being the very worst poem he ever saw imprinted in a quarto volume. "It +seems to us," he wrote, "to consist of a happy union of all the faults, +without any of the beauties, which belong to his school of poetry. It is +just such a work, in short, as some wicked enemy of that, school might be +supposed to have devised, on purpose to make it ridiculous." + +Lord Byron, on the publication of an early volume, is counselled "that he +do forthwith abandon poetry ... the mere rhyming of the final syllable, +even when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet ... is +not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe," continued +the reviewer, "that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is +necessary to constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to +be read, must contain at least one thought...." It was this attack that +brought forth Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." + +As long as Jeffrey hoped to enlist Southey to write for the Edinburgh +Review, he treated him with some favor. But Southey took up with the +Quarterly. "The Laureate," says the Edinburgh presently, "has now been +out of song for a long time: But we had comforted ourselves with the +supposition that he was only growing fat and lazy.... The strain, however, +of this publication, and indeed of some that went before it, makes us +apprehensive that a worse thing has befallen him ... that the worthy +inditer of epics is falling gently into dotage." + +Now for the Quarterly Review, if by chance it can show an equal spleen! + +There lived in the early days of the nineteenth century a woman by the name +of Lady Morgan, who was the author of several novels and books of travel. +Although her record in intelligence and morals is good, John Croker, +who regularly reviewed her books, accuses her works of licentiousness, +profligacy, irreverence, blasphemy, libertinism, disloyalty and atheism. +There are twenty-six pages of this in one review only, and any paragraph +would be worth the quoting for its ferocity. After this attack it was +Macaulay who said he hated Croker like "cold boiled veal." + +The Quarterly reviewed Keats' "Endymion," although the writer naively +states at the outset that he has not read the poem. "Not that we have been +wanting in our duty," he writes, "far from it--indeed, we have made efforts +almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to be, to get through it; +but with the fullest stretch of our perseverance we are forced to confess +that we have not been able to struggle beyond the first of the four +books...." Finally he questions whether Keats is the author's name, for +he doubts "that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a +rhapsody." + +Leigh Hunt's "Rimini" the Quarterly finds to be an "ungrammatical, +unauthorized, chaotic jargon, such as we believe was never before spoken, +much less written.... We never," concludes the reviewer, "in so few lines +saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man, conscious +and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coarse flippancy, +to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and fidget himself into +the stout-heartedness of being familiar with a Lord." In a later review, +Hunt is a propounder of atheism. "Henceforth," says the reviewer, "... he +may slander a few more eminent characters, he may go on to deride venerable +and holy institutions, he may stir up more discontent and sedition, but he +will have no peace of mind within ... he will live and die unhonoured +in his own generation, and, for his own sake it is to be hoped, moulder +unknown in those which are to follow." + +Hazlitt belongs to a "class of men by whom literature is more than at any +period disgraced." His style is suited for washerwomen, a "class of +females with whom ... he and his friend Mr. Hunt particularly delight to +associate." + +Shelley, writes the Quarterly, "is one of that industrious knot of authors, +the tendency of whose works we have in our late Numbers exposed to the +caution of our readers ... for with perfect deliberation and the steadiest +perseverance he perverts all the gifts of his nature, and does all the +injury, both public and private, which his faculties enable him to +perpetrate." His "poetry is in general a mere jumble of words and +heterogeneous ideas." "The Cloud" is "simple nonsense." "Prometheus +Unbound" is a "great storehouse of the obscure and unintelligible." In the +"Sensitive Plant" there is "no meaning." And for Shelley himself, he is +guilty of a great many terrible things, including verbiage, impiety, +immorality and absurdity. + +Of Blackwood's Magazine the special victims were Keats and Hunt and +Coleridge. "Mr. Coleridge," says the reviewer, "... seems to believe that +every tongue is wagging in his praise--that every ear is open to imbibe the +oracular breathings of his inspiration ... no sound is so sweet to him as +that of his own voice ... he seems to consider the mighty universe itself +as nothing better than a mirror in which, with a grinning and idiot +self-complacency, he may contemplate the physiognomy of Samuel Taylor +Coleridge.... Yet insignificant as he assuredly is, he cannot put pen to +paper without a feeling that millions of eyes are fixed upon him...." + +Leigh Hunt, says Blackwood, "is a man of extravagant pretensions ... +exquisitely bad taste and extremely vulgar modes of thinking." His +"Rimini" "is so wretchedly written that one feels disgust at its pretense, +affectation and gaudiness, ignorance, vulgarity, irreverence, quackery, +glittering and rancid obscenities." + +Blackwood's wrote of the "calm, settled, imperturbable, drivelling idiocy +of Endymion," and elsewhere of Keats' "prurient and vulgar lines, evidently +meant for some young lady east of Temple Bar.... It is a better and a wiser +thing," it commented, "to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so +back to the shop, Mr. John, back to 'plasters, pills and ointment +boxes.'" And even when Shelley wrote his "Adonais" on the death of Keats, +Blackwood's met it with a contemptible parody: + +"Weep for my Tom cat! all ye Tabbies weep!" + +Perhaps I have quoted enough. This is the parentage of our silken and +flattering criticism. + +The pages of these old reviews rest yellow on the shelves. From them there +comes a smell of rotting leather, as though the infection spreads. The hour +grows late. Like the ghost of the elder Hamlet, I detect the morning to be +near. + + + + +The Pursuit of Fire + + +Reader, if by chance you have the habit of writing--whether they be sermons +to hurl across your pews, or sonnets in the Spring--doubtless you have +moments when you sit at your desk bare of thoughts. Mother Hubbard's +cupboard when she went to seek the bone was not more empty. In such plight +you chew your pencil as though it were stuff to feed your brain. Or if you +are of delicate taste, you fall upon your fingers. Or in the hope that +exercise will stir your wits, you pace up and down the room and press your +nose upon the window if perhaps the grocer's boy shall rouse you. Some +persons draw pictures on their pads or put pot-hooks on their letters--for +talent varies--or they roughen up their hair. I knew one gifted fellow +whose shoes presently would cramp him until he kicked them off, when at +once the juices of his intellect would flow. Genius, I am told, sometimes +locks its door and, if unrestrained, peels its outer wrappings. Or, in your +poverty, you run through the pages of a favorite volume, with a notebook +for a sly theft to start you off. In what dejection you have fallen! It is +best that you put on your hat and take your stupid self abroad. + +Or maybe you think that your creative fire will blaze, if instead of +throwing in your wet raw thoughts, you feed it a few seasoned bits. You +open, therefore, the drawer of your desk where you keep your rejected and +broken fragments--for your past has not been prosperous--hopeful against +experience that you can recast one of these to your present mood. This +is mournful business. Certain paragraphs that came from you hot are now +patched and shivery. Their finer meaning has run out between the lines as +though these spaces were sluices for the proper drainage of the page. You +had best put on your hat. You will get no comfort from these stale papers. + +One evening lately, being in this plight, I spread out before me certain +odds and ends. I had dug deeper than usual in the drawer and had brought up +a yellow stratum of a considerable age. I was poring upon these papers and +was wondering whether I could fit them to a newer measure, when I heard a +slight noise behind me. I glanced around and saw that a man had entered the +room and was now seated in a chair before the fire. In the common nature +of things this should have been startling, for the hour was late--twelve +o'clock had struck across the way--and I had thought that I was quite +alone. But there was something so friendly and easy in his attitude--he +was a young man, little more than a lanky boy--that instead of being +frightened, I swung calmly around for a better look. He sat with his legs +stretched before him and with his chin resting in his hand, as though in +thought. By the light that fell on him from the fire, I saw that he wore a +brown checked suit and that he was clean and respectable in appearance. His +face was in shadow. + +"Good evening," I said, "you startled me." + +"I am sorry," he replied. "I beg your pardon. I was going by and I saw your +light. I wished to make your acquaintance. But I saw at once that I was +intruding, so I sat here. You were quite absorbed. Would you mind if I +mended the fire?" + +Without waiting for an answer, he took the poker and dealt the logs several +blows. It didn't greatly help the flame, but he poked with such enjoyment +that I smiled. I have myself rather a liking for stirring a fire. He set +another log in place. Then he drew from his pocket a handful of dried +orange peel. "I love to see it burn," he said. "It crackles and spits." He +ranged the peel upon the log where the flame would get it, and then settled +himself in the big chair. + +"Perhaps you smoke?" I asked, pushing toward him a box of cigarettes. + +He smiled. "I thought that you would know my habits. I don't smoke." + +"So you were going by and came up to see me?" I asked. + +"Yes. I was not sure that I would know you. You are a little older than I +thought, a little--stouter, but dear me, how you have lost your hair! But +you have quite forgotten me." + +"My dear boy," I said, "you have the advantage of me. Where have I seen +you? There is something familiar about you and I am sure that I have seen +that brown suit before." + +"We have never really known each other," the boy replied. "We met once, but +only for an instant. But I have thought of you since that meeting a great +many times. I lay this afternoon on a hilltop and wondered what you would +be like. But I hoped that sometimes you would think of me. Perhaps you have +forgotten that I used to collect railway maps and time-tables." + +"Did you?" I replied. "So did I when I was a little younger than you are. +Perhaps if I might see your face, I would know you." + +"It's nothing for show," he replied, and he kept it still in shadow. "Would +you mind," he said at length, "if I ate an apple?" He took one from his +pocket and broke it in his hands. "You eat half," he said. + +I accepted the part he offered me. "Perhaps you would like a knife and +plate," I said. "I can find them in the pantry." + +"Not for me," he replied. "I prefer to eat mine this way." He took an +enveloping bite. + +"I myself care nothing for plates," I said. We ate in silence. Presently: +"You have my habit," I said, "of eating everything, skin, seeds and all." + +"Everything but the stem," he replied. + +By this time the orange peel was hissing and exploding. + +"You are an odd boy," I said. "I used to put orange peel away to dry in +order to burn it. We seem to be as like as two peas." + +"I wonder," he said, "if that is so." He turned in his chair and faced me, +although his face was still in shadow. "Doubtless, we are far different in +many things. Do you swallow grape seeds?" + +"Hardly!" I cried. "I spit them out." + +"I am glad of that." He paused. "It was a breezy hilltop where I lay. I +thought of you all afternoon. You are famous, of course?" + +"Dear me, no!" + +"Oh, I'm so sorry. I had hoped you might be. I had counted on it. It is +very disappointing. I was thinking about that as I lay on the hill. But +aren't you just on the point of doing something that will make you famous?" + +"By no means." + +"Dear me, I am so sorry. Do you happen to be married?" + +"Yes." + +"And would you mind telling me her name?" + +I obliged him. + +"I don't remember to have heard of her. I didn't think of that name once +as I lay upon the hill. Things don't turn out as one might expect. Now, I +would have thought--but it's no matter." + +For a moment or so he was lost in thought, and then he spoke again: "You +were writing when I came into the room?" + +"Nothing important." + +The boy ran his fingers in his hair and threw out his arms impatiently. +"That's what I would like to do. I am in college, and I try for one of the +papers. But my stuff comes back. But this summer in the vacation, I am +working in an office. I run errands and when there is nothing else to do, I +study a big invoice book, so as to get the names of things that are bought. +There is a racket of drays and wagons outside the windows, and along in +the middle of the afternoon I get tired and thick in my head. But I write +Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings." + +The boy stopped and fixed his eyes on me. "I don't suppose that you happen +to be a poet?" + +"Not at all," I replied. "But perhaps you are one. Tell me about it!" + +The boy took a turn at the fire with the poker, but it was chiefly in +embarrassment. Presently he returned to his chair. He stretched his long +arms upward above his head. + +"No, I'm not," he said. "And yet sometimes I think that I have a kind of +poetry in me. Only I can't get it into words. I lay thinking about that, +too, on the hillside. There was a wind above my head, and I thought that I +could almost put words to the tune. But I have never written a single poem. +Yet, goodness me, what thoughts I have! But they aren't real thoughts--what +you would regularly call thoughts. Things go racing and tingling in my +head, but I can never get them down. They are just feelings." + +As he spoke, the boy gazed intently through the chimney bricks out into +another world. The fireplace was its portal and he seemed to wait for the +fires to cool before entering into its possession. It was several moments +before he spoke again. + +"I don't want you to think me ridiculous, but so few understand. If only I +could master the tools! Perhaps my thoughts are old, but they come to me +with such freshness and they are so unexpected. Could I only solve the +frets and spaces inside me here, I could play what tune I chose. But my +feelings are cold and stale before I can get them into thoughts. I have no +doubt, however, that they are just as real as those other feelings that in +time, after much scratching, get into final form and become poetry. I +know of course that a man's reach should exceed his grasp--it's hackneyed +enough--but just for once I would like to pull down something when I have +been up on tiptoe for a while. + +"Sometimes I get an impression of pity--a glance up a dark hallway--an old +woman with a shawl upon her head--a white face at a window--a blind fiddler +in the street--but the impression is gone in a moment. Or a touch of beauty +gets me. It may be nothing but a street organ in the spring. Perhaps you +like street organs, too?" + +"I do, indeed!" I cried. "There was one today outside my window and my feet +kept wiggling to it." + +The boy clapped his hands. "I knew that you would be like that. I hoped for +it on the hill. As for me, when I hear one, I'm so glad that I could cry +out. In its lilt there is the rhythm of life. It moves me more than a +hillside with its earliest flowers. Am I absurd? It is equal to the pipe of +birds, to shallow waters and the sound of wind to stir me to thoughts of +April. Today as I came downtown, I saw several merry fellows dancing on +the curb. There are tunes, too, upon the piano that send me off. I play a +little myself. I see you have a piano. Do you still play?" + +"A little, rather sadly," I replied. + +"That's too bad, but perhaps you sing?" + +"Even worse." + +"Dear me, that's too bad. I have rather a voice myself. Well, as I was +saying, when I hear those tunes, I curl up with the smoke and blow forth +from the chimney. If I walk upon the street when the wind is up, and see a +light fleece of smoke coming from a chimney top, I think that down below +someone is listening to music that he likes, and that his thoughts ride +upon the night, like those white streamers of smoke. And then I think of +castles and mountains and high places and the sounds of storm. Or in fancy +I see a tower that tapers to the moon with a silver gleam upon it." + +The strange boy lay back and laughed. "Musicians think that they are the +only ones that can hear the finer sounds. If one of us common fellows cocks +his ear, they think that only the coarser thumps get inside. And artists +think that they alone know the glory of color. I was thinking of that, this +afternoon. And yet I have walked under the blue sky. I have seen twilights +that these men of paint would botch on canvas. But both musicians and +artists have a vision that is greater than their product. The soul of a man +can hardly be recorded in black and white keys. Nor can a little pigment +which you rub upon your thumb be the measure of an artist. So I suppose +that is the way also with poets. It is not to be expected that they can +express themselves fully in words that they have borrowed from the kitchen. +When their genius flames up, it is only the lesser sparks that fall upon +their writing pads. It consoles me that a man should be greater than his +achievement. I who have done so little would otherwise be so forlorn." + +"It's odd," I said, when he had fallen into silence, "that I used to feel +exactly as you do. It stirs an old recollection. If I am not mistaken, I +once wrote a paper on the subject." + +The boy smiled dreamily. "But if small persons like myself," he began, "can +have such frenzies, how must it be with those greater persons who have +amazed the world? I have wondered in what kind of exaltation Shakespeare +wrote his storm in 'Lear.' There must have been a first conception greater +even than his accomplishment. Did he look from his windows at a winter +tempest and see miserable old men and women running hard for shelter? Did +a flash of lightning bare his soul to the misery, the betrayal and the +madness of the world? His supreme moment was not when he flung the +completed manuscript aside, or when he heard the actors mouth his lines, +but in the flash and throb of creation--in the moment when he knew that he +had the power in him to write 'Lear.' What we read is the cold forging, +wonderful and enduring, but not to be compared to the producing furnace." + +The boy had spoken so fast that he was out of breath. + +"Hold a bit!" I cried. "What you have said sounds familiar. Where could I +have heard it before?" + +There was something almost like a sneer on the boy's face. "What a memory +you have! And perhaps you recall this brown suit, too. It's ugly enough to +be remembered. Now please let me finish what came to me this afternoon on +the hill! Prometheus," he continued, "scaled the heavens and brought back +fire to mortals. And he, as the story goes, clutched at a lightning bolt +and caught but a spark. And even that, glorious. Mankind properly accredits +him with a marvellous achievement. It is for this reason that I comfort +myself although I have not yet written a single line of verse." + +"My dear fellow," I said, "please tell me where I have read something like +what you have spoken?" + +The boy's answer was irrelevant. "You first tell me what you did with a +brown checked suit you once owned." + +"I never owned but one brown suit," I replied, "and that was when I was +still in college. I think that I gave it away before it was worn out." + +The boy once more clapped his hands. "Oh, I knew it, I knew it. I'll give +mine tomorrow to the man who takes our ashes. Now, won't you please play +the piano for me?" + +"Assuredly. Choose your tune!" + +He fumbled a bit in the rack and passing some rather good music, he held up +a torn and yellow sheet. "This is what I want," he said. + +I had not played it for many years. After a false start or so--for it was +villainously set in four sharps for which I have an aversion--I got through +it. On a second trial I did better. + +The boy made no comment. He had sunk down in his chair until he was quite +out of sight. "Well," I said, "what next?" + +There was no answer. + +I arose from the bench and glanced in his direction. "Hello," I cried, +"what has become of you?" + +The chair was empty. I turned on all the lights. He was nowhere in sight. I +shook the hangings. I looked under my desk, for perhaps the lad was hiding +from me in jest. It was unlikely that he could have passed me to gain the +door, but I listened at the sill for any sound upon the stairs. The hall +was silent. I called without response. Somewhat bewildered I came back to +the hearth. Only a few minutes before, as it seemed, there had been a brisk +fire with a row of orange peel upon the upper log. Now all trace of the +peel was gone and the logs had fallen to a white ash. + +I was standing perplexed, when I observed that a little pile of papers lay +on the rug just off the end of my desk as by a careless elbow. At least, +I thought, this impolite fellow has forgotten some of his possessions. It +will serve him right if it is poetry that he wrote upon the hilltop. + +I picked up the papers. They were yellow and soiled, and writing was +scrawled upon them. At the top was a date--but it was twenty years old. +I turned to the last sheet. At least I could learn the boy's name. To my +amazement, I saw at the bottom in an old but familiar writing, not the +boy's name, but my own. + +I gazed at the chimney bricks and their substance seemed to part before my +eyes. I looked into a world beyond--a fabric of moonlight and hilltop and +the hot fret of youth. Perhaps the boy had only been waiting for the fire +upon the hearth to cool to enter this other world of his restless ambition +and desire. + +Reader, if by chance you have the habit of writing--let us confine +ourselves now to sonnets and such airy matter as rides upon the +night--doubtless, you sit sometimes at your desk bare of thoughts. The +juices of your intellect are parched and dry. In such plight, I beg you +not to fall upon your fingers or to draw pictures on your sheet. But most +vehemently, and with such emphasis as I possess, I beg you not to rummage +among your rejected and broken fragments in the hope of recasting a +withered thought to a present mood. Rather, before you sour and curdle, +it is good to put on your hat and take your stupid self abroad. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of There's Pippins And Cheese To Come +by Charles S. 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