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diff --git a/1891-h/1891-h.htm b/1891-h/1891-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e34533a --- /dev/null +++ b/1891-h/1891-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1337 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + A Plea for Old Cap Collier, by Irvin S. Cobb + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Plea for Old Cap Collier, by Irvin S. Cobb + +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: A Plea for Old Cap Collier + +Author: Irvin S. Cobb + +Release Date: October 30, 2008 [EBook #1891] +Last Updated: January 9, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER *** + + + + +Produced by Kirk Pearson, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Irvin S. Cobb + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + To Will H. Hogg, Esquire + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + For a good many years now I have been carrying this idea round with me. It + was more or less of a loose and unformed idea, and it wouldn't jell. What + brought it round to the solidification point was this: Here the other + week, being half sick, I was laid up over Sunday in a small hotel in a + small seacoast town. I had read all the newspapers and all the magazines I + could get hold of. The local bookstore, of course, was closed. They won't + let the oysters stay open on Sunday in that town. The only literature my + fellow guests seemed interested in was mailorder tabs and price currents. + </p> + <p> + Finally, when despair was about to claim me for her own, I ran across an + ancient Fifth Reader, all tattered and stained and having that smell of + age which is common to old books and old sheep. I took it up to bed with + me, and I read it through from cover to cover. Long before I was through + the very idea which for so long had been sloshing round inside of my head—this + idea which, as one might say, had been aged in the wood—took shape. + Then and there I decided that the very first chance I had I would sit me + down and write a plea for Old Cap Collier. + </p> + <p> + In my youth I was spanked freely and frequently for doing many different + things that were forbidden, and also for doing the same thing many + different times and getting caught doing it. That, of course, was before + the Boy Scout movement had come along to show how easily and how sanely a + boy's natural restlessness and a boy's natural love for adventure may be + directed into helpful channels; that was when nearly everything a normal, + active boy craved to do was wrong and, therefore, held to be a spankable + offense. + </p> + <p> + This was a general rule in our town. It did not especially apply to any + particular household, but it applied practically to all the households + with which I was in any way familiar. It was a community where an + old-fashioned brand of applied theology was most strictly applied. Heaven + was a place which went unanimously Democratic every fall, because all the + Republicans had gone elsewhere. Hell was a place full of red-hot coals and + clinkered sinners and unbaptized babies and a smell like somebody cooking + ham, with a deputy devil coming in of a morning with an asbestos napkin + draped over his arm and flicking a fireproof cockroach off the table cloth + and leaning across the back of Satan's chair and saying: "Good mornin', + boss. How're you going to have your lost souls this mornin'—fried on + one side or turned over?" Sunday was three weeks long, and longer than + that if it rained. About all a fellow could do after he'd come back from + Sunday school was to sit round with his feet cramped into the shoes and + stockings which he never wore on week days and with the rest of him + incased in starchy, uncomfortable dress-up clothes—just sit round + and sit round and itch. You couldn't scratch hard either. It was sinful to + scratch audibly and with good, broad, free strokes, which is the only + satisfactory way to scratch. In our town they didn't spend Sunday; they + kept the Sabbath, which is a very different thing. + </p> + <p> + Looking back on my juvenile years it seems to me that, generally speaking, + when spanked I deserved it. But always there were two punishable things + against which—being disciplined—my youthful spirit revolted + with a sort of inarticulate sense of injustice. One was for violation of + the Sunday code, which struck me as wrong—the code, I mean, not the + violation—without knowing exactly why it was wrong; and the other, + repeated times without number, was when I had been caught reading nickul + libruries, erroneously referred to by our elders as dime novels. + </p> + <p> + I read them at every chance; so did every normal boy of my acquaintance. + We traded lesser treasures for them; we swapped them on the basis of two + old volumes for one new one; we maintained a clandestine + circulating-library system which had its branch offices in every stable + loft in our part of town. The more daring among us read them in school + behind the shelter of an open geography propped up on the desk. + </p> + <p> + Shall you ever forget the horror of the moment when, carried away on the + wings of adventure with Nick Carter or Big-Foot Wallace or Frank Reade or + bully Old Cap, you forgot to flash occasional glances of cautious inquiry + forward in order to make sure the teacher was where she properly should + be, at her desk up in front, and read on and on until that subtle sixth + sense which comes to you when a lot of people begin staring at you warned + you something was amiss, and you looked up and round you and found + yourself all surrounded by a ring of cruel, gloating eyes? + </p> + <p> + I say cruel advisedly, because up to a certain age children are naturally + more cruel than tigers. Civilization has provided them with tools, as it + were, for practicing cruelty, whereas the tiger must rely only on his + teeth and his bare claws. So you looked round, feeling that the shadow of + an impending doom encompassed you, and then you realized that for no + telling how long the teacher had been standing just behind you, reading + over your shoulder. + </p> + <p> + And at home were you caught in the act of reading them, or—what from + the parental standpoint was almost as bad—in the act of harboring + them? I was. Housecleaning times, when they found them hidden under + furniture or tucked away on the back shelves of pantry closets, I was + paddled until I had the feelings of a slice of hot, buttered toast + somewhat scorched on the under side. And each time, having been paddled, I + was admonished that boys who read dime novels—only they weren't dime + novels at all but cost uniformly five cents a copy—always came to a + bad end, growing up to be criminals or Republicans or something equally + abhorrent. And I was urged to read books which would help me to shape my + career in a proper course. Such books were put into my hands, and I + loathed them. I know now why when I grew up my gorge rose and my appetite + turned against so-called classics. Their style was so much like the style + of the books which older people wanted me to read when I was in my early + teens. + </p> + <p> + Such were the specious statements advanced by the oldsters. And we had no + reply for their argument, or if we had one could not find the language in + which to couch it. Besides there was another and a deeper reason. A boy, + being what he is, the most sensitive and the most secretive of living + creatures regarding his innermost emotions, rarely does bare his real + thoughts to his elders, for they, alas, are not young enough to have a + fellow feeling, and they are too old and they know too much to be really + wise. + </p> + <p> + What we might have answered, had we had the verbal facility and had we not + feared further painful corporeal measures for talking back—or what + was worse, ridicule—was that reading Old Cap Collier never yet sent + a boy to a bad end. I never heard of a boy who ran away from home and + really made a go of it who was actuated at the start by the nickul + librury. Burning with a sense of injustice, filled up with the realization + that we were not appreciated at home, we often talked of running away and + going out West to fight Indians, but we never did. I remember once two of + us started for the Far West, and got nearly as far as Oak Grove Cemetery, + when—the dusk of evening impending—we decided to turn back and + give our parents just one more chance to understand us. + </p> + <p> + What, also, we might have pointed out was that in a five-cent story the + villain was absolutely sure of receiving suitable and adequate punishment + for his misdeeds. Right then and there, on the spot, he got his. And the + heroine was always so pluperfectly pure. And the hero always was a hero to + his finger tips, never doing anything unmanly or wrong or cowardly, and + always using the most respectful language in the presence of the opposite + sex. There was never any sex problem in a nickul librury. There were never + any smutty words or questionable phrases. If a villain said "Curse you!" + he was going pretty far. Any one of us might whet up our natural instincts + for cruelty on Fore's Book of Martyrs, or read of all manner of + unmentionable horrors in the Old Testament, but except surreptitiously we + couldn't walk with Nick Carter, whose motives were ever pure and who never + used the naughty word even in the passion of the death grapple with the + top-booted forces of sinister evil. + </p> + <p> + We might have told our parents, had we had the words in which to state the + case and they but the patience to listen, that in a nickul librury there + was logic and the thrill of swift action and the sharp spice of adventure. + There, invariably virtue was rewarded and villainy confounded; there, + inevitably was the final triumph for law and for justice and for the + right; there embalmed in one thin paper volume, was all that Sandford and + Merton lacked; all that the Rollo books never had. We might have told them + that though the Leatherstocking Tales and Robinson Crusoe and Two Years + Before the Mast and Ivanhoe were all well enough in their way, the trouble + with them was that they mainly were so long-winded. It took so much time + to get to where the first punch was, whereas Ned Buntline or Col. Prentiss + Ingraham would hand you an exciting jolt on the very first page, and + sometimes in the very first paragraph. + </p> + <p> + You take J. Fenimore Cooper now. He meant well and he had ideas, but his + Indians were so everlastingly slow about getting under way with their + scalping operations! Chapter after chapter there was so much fashionable + and difficult language that the plot was smothered. You couldn't see the + woods for the trees, But it was the accidental finding of an ancient and + reminiscent volume one Sunday in a little hotel which gave me the cue to + what really made us such confirmed rebels against constituted authority, + in a literary way of speaking. The thing which inspired us with hatred for + the so-called juvenile classic was a thing which struck deeper even than + the sentiments I have been trying to describe. + </p> + <p> + The basic reason, the underlying motive, lay in the fact that in the + schoolbooks of our adolescence, and notably in the school readers, our + young mentalities were fed forcibly on a pap which affronted our + intelligence at the same time that it cloyed our adolescent palates. It + was not altogether the lack of action; it was more the lack of plain + common sense in the literary spoon victuals which they ladled into us at + school that caused our youthful souls to revolt. In the final analysis it + was this more than any other cause which sent us up to the haymow for + delicious, forbidden hours in the company of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill + Hickok. + </p> + <p> + Midway of the old dog-eared reader which I picked up that day I came + across a typical example of the sort of stuff I mean. I hadn't seen it + before in twenty-five years; but now, seeing it, I remembered it as + clearly almost as though it had been the week before instead of a quarter + of a century before when for the first time it had been brought to my + attention. It was a piece entitled, The Shipwreck, and it began as + follows: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In the winter of 1824 Lieutenant G——-, of the United States + Navy, with his beautiful wife and child, embarked in a packet + at Norfolk bound to South Carolina. +</pre> + <p> + So far so good. At least, here is a direct beginning. A family group is + going somewhere. There is an implied promise that before they have + traveled very far something of interest to the reader will happen to them. + Sure enough, the packet runs into a storm and founders. As she is going + down Lieutenant G——- puts his wife and baby into a lifeboat + manned by sailors, and then—there being no room for him in the + lifeboat—he remains behind upon the deck of the sinking vessel, + while the lifeboat puts off for shore. A giant wave overturns the burdened + cockleshell and he sees its passengers engulfed in the waters. Up to this + point the chronicle has been what a chronicle should be. Perhaps the + phraseology has been a trifle toploftical, and there are a few words in it + long enough to run as serials, yet at any rate we are getting an effect in + drama. But bear with me while I quote the next paragraph, just as I copied + it down: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The wretched husband saw but too distinctly the destruction of + all he held dear. But here alas and forever were shut off + from him all sublunary prospects. He fell upon the deck— + powerless, senseless, a corpse—the victim of a sublime + sensibility! +</pre> + <p> + There's language for you! How different it is from that historic passage + when the crack of Little Sure Shot's rifle rang out and another Redskin + bit the dust. Nothing is said there about anybody having his sublunary + prospects shut off; nothing about the Redskin becoming the victim of a + sublime sensibility. In fifteen graphic words and in one sentence Little + Sure Shot croaked him, and then with bated breath you moved on to the next + paragraph, sure of finding in it yet more attractive casualties snappily + narrated. + </p> + <p> + No, sir! In the nickul librury the author did not waste his time and yours + telling you that an individual on becoming a corpse would simultaneously + become powerless and senseless. He credited your intelligence for + something. For contrast, take the immortal work entitled Deadwood Dick of + Deadwood; or, The Picked Party; by Edward L. Wheeler, a copy of which has + just come to my attention again nearly thirty years after the time of my + first reading of it. Consider the opening paragraph: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The sun was just kissing the mountain tops that frowned down + upon Billy-Goat Gulch, and in the aforesaid mighty seam in the + face of mighty Nature the shadows of a Warm June night were + gathering rapidly. + + The birds had mostly hushed their songs and flown to their + nests in the dismal lonely pines, and only the tuneful twang + of a well-played banjo aroused the brooding quiet, save it be + the shrill, croaking screams of a crow, perched upon the top + of a dead pine, which rose from the nearly perpendicular + mountain side that retreated in the ascending from the gulch + bottom. +</pre> + <p> + That, as I recall, was a powerfully long bit of description for a nickul + librury, and having got it out of his system Mr. Wheeler wasted no more + valuable space on the scenery. From this point on he gave you action—action + with reason behind it and logic to it and the guaranty of a proper climax + and a satisfactory conclusion to follow. Deadwood Dick marched many a + flower-strewn mile through my young life, but to the best of my + recollection he never shut off anybody's sublunary prospects. If a party + deserved killing Deadwood just naturally up and killed him, and the + historian told about it in graphic yet straightforward terms of speech; + and that was all there was to it, and that was all there should have been + to it. + </p> + <p> + At the risk of being termed an iconoclast and a smasher of the pure high + ideals of the olden days, I propose to undertake to show that practically + all of the preposterous asses and the impossible idiots of literature + found their way into the school readers of my generation. With the passage + of years there may have been some reform in this direction, but I dare + affirm, without having positive knowledge of the facts, that a majority of + these half-wits still are being featured in the grammar-grade literature + of the present time. The authors of school readers, even modern school + readers, surely are no smarter than the run of grown-ups even, say, as you + and as I; and we blindly go on holding up as examples before the eyes of + the young of the period the characters and the acts of certain popular + figures of poetry and prose who—did but we give them the acid test + of reason—would reveal themselves either as incurable idiots, or + else as figures in scenes and incidents which physically could never have + occurred. + </p> + <p> + You remember, don't you, the schoolbook classic of the noble lad who by + reason of his neat dress, and by his use in the most casual conversation + of the sort of language which the late Mr. Henry James used when he was + writing his very Jamesiest, secured a job as a trusted messenger in the + large city store or in the city's large store, if we are going to be + purists about it, as the boy in question undoubtedly was? + </p> + <p> + It seems that he had supported his widowed mother and a large family of + brothers and sisters by shoveling snow and, I think, laying brick or + something of that technical nature. After this lapse of years I won't be + sure about the bricklaying, but at any rate, work was slack in his regular + line, and so he went to the proprietor of this vast retail establishment + and procured a responsible position on the strength of his easy and + graceful personal address and his employment of some of the most stylish + adjectives in the dictionary. At this time he was nearly seven years old—yes, + sir, actually nearly seven. We have the word of the schoolbook for it. We + should have had a second chapter on this boy. Probably at nine he was + being considered for president of Yale—no, Harvard. He would know + too much to be president of Yale. + </p> + <p> + Then there was the familiar instance of the Spartan youth who having + stolen a fox and hidden it inside his robe calmly stood up and let the + animal gnaw his vitals rather than be caught with it in his possession. + But, why? I ask you, why? What was the good of it all? What object was + served? To begin with, the boy had absconded with somebody else's fox, or + with somebody's else fox, which is undoubtedly the way a compiler of + school readers would phrase it. This, right at the beginning, makes the + morality of the transaction highly dubious. In the second place, he showed + poor taste. If he was going to swipe something, why should he not have + swiped a chicken or something else of practical value? + </p> + <p> + We waive that point, though, and come to the lack of discretion shown by + the fox. He starts eating his way out through the boy, a messy and + difficult procedure, when merely by biting an aperture in the tunic he + could have emerged by the front way with ease and dispatch. And what is + the final upshot of it all? The boy falls dead, with a large unsightly gap + in the middle of him. Probably, too, he was a boy whose parents were + raising him for their own purposes. As it is, all gnawed up in this + fashion and deceased besides, he loses his attractions for everyone except + the undertaker. The fox presumably has an attack of acute indigestion. And + there you are! Compare the moral of this with the moral of any one of the + Old Cap Collier series, where virtue comes into its own and sanity is + prevalent throughout and vice gets what it deserves, and all. + </p> + <p> + In McGuffey's Third Reader, I think it was, occurred that story about the + small boy who lived in Holland among the dikes and dams, and one evening + he went across the country to carry a few illustrated post cards or some + equally suitable gift to a poor blind man, and on his way back home in the + twilight he discovered a leak in the sea wall. If he went for help the + breach might widen while he was gone and the whole structure give way, and + then the sea would come roaring in, carrying death and destruction and + windmills and wooden shoes and pineapple cheeses on its crest. At least, + this is the inference one gathers from reading Mr. McGuffey's account of + the affair. + </p> + <p> + So what does the quick-witted youngster do? He shoves his little arm in + the crevice on the inner side, where already the water is trickling + through, thus blocking the leak. All night long he stands there, one + small, half-frozen Dutch boy holding back the entire North Atlantic. Not + until centuries later, when Judge Alton B. Parker runs for president + against Colonel Roosevelt and is defeated practically by acclamation is + there to be presented so historic and so magnificent an example of a + contest against tremendous odds. In the morning a peasant, going out to + mow the tulip beds, finds the little fellow crouched at the foot of the + dike and inquires what ails him. The lad, raising his weary head—but + wait, I shall quote the exact language of the book: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "I am hindering the sea from running in," was the simple reply + of the child. +</pre> + <p> + Simple? I'll say it is! Positively nothing could be simpler unless it be + the stark simplicity of the mind of an author who figures that when the + Atlantic Ocean starts boring its way through a crack in a sea wall you can + stop it by plugging the hole on the inner side of the sea wall with a + small boy's arm. Ned Buntline may never have enjoyed the vogue among + parents and teachers that Mr. McGuffey enjoyed, but I'll say this for him—he + knew more about the laws of hydraulics than McGuffey ever dreamed. + </p> + <p> + And there was Peter Hurdle, the ragged lad who engaged in a long but + tiresome conversation with the philanthropic and inquisitive Mr. Lenox, + during the course of which it developed that Peter didn't want anything. + When it came on to storm he got under a tree. When he was hungry he ate a + raw turnip. Raw turnips, it would appear, grew all the year round in the + fields of the favored land where Peter resided. If the chill winds of + autumn blew in through one of the holes in Peter's trousers they blew + right out again through another hole. And he didn't care to accept the + dime which Mr. Lenox in an excess of generosity offered him, because, it + seemed, he already had a dime. When it came to being plumb contented there + probably never was a soul on this earth that was the equal of Master + Hurdle. He even was satisfied with his name which I would regard as the + ultimate test. + </p> + <p> + Likewise, there was the case of Hugh Idle and Mr. Toil. Perhaps you recall + that moving story? Hugh tries to dodge work; wherever he goes he finds Mr. + Toil in one guise or another but always with the same harsh voice and the + same frowning eyes, bossing some job in a manner which would cost him his + boss-ship right off the reel in these times when union labor is so touchy. + And what is the moral to be drawn from this narrative? I know that all my + life I have been trying to get away from work, feeling that I was intended + for leisure, though never finding time somehow to take it up seriously. + But what was the use of trying to discourage me from this agreeable idea + back yonder in the formulative period of my earlier years? + </p> + <p> + In Harper's Fourth Reader, edition of 1888, I found an article entitled + The Difference Between the Plants and Animals. It takes up several pages + and includes some of the fanciest language the senior Mr. Harper could + disinter from the Unabridged. In my own case—and I think I was no + more observant than the average urchin of my age—I can scarcely + remember a time when I could not readily determine certain basic + distinctions between such plants and such animals as a child is likely to + encounter in the temperate parts of North America. + </p> + <p> + While emerging from infancy some of my contemporaries may have fallen into + the error of the little boy who came into the house with a haunted look in + his eye and asked his mother if mulberries had six legs apiece and ran + round in the dust of the road, and when she told him that such was not the + case with mulberries he said: "Then, mother, I feel that I have made a + mistake." + </p> + <p> + To the best of my recollection, I never made this mistake, or at least if + I did I am sure I made no inquiry afterward which might tend further to + increase my doubts; and in any event I am sure that by the time I was old + enough to stumble over Mr. Harper's favorite big words I was old enough to + tell the difference between an ordinary animal—say, a house cat—and + any one of the commoner forms of plant life, such as, for example, the + scaly-bark hickory tree, practically at a glance. I'll add this too: Nick + Carter never wasted any of the golden moments which he and I spent + together in elucidating for me the radical points of difference between + the plants and the animals. + </p> + <p> + In the range of poetry selected by the compilers of the readers for my + especial benefit as I progressed onward from the primary class into the + grammar grades I find on examination of these earlier American authorities + an even greater array of chuckleheads than appear in the prose divisions. + I shall pass over the celebrated instance—as read by us in class in + a loud tone of voice and without halt for inflection or the taking of + breath—of the Turk who at midnight in his guarded tent was dreaming + of the hour when Greece her knees in suppliance bent would tremble at his + power. I remember how vaguely I used to wonder who it was that was going + to grease her knees and why she should feel called upon to have them + greased at all. Also, I shall pass over the instance of Abou Ben Adhem, + whose name led all the rest in the golden book in which the angel was + writing. Why shouldn't it have led all the rest? A man whose front name + begins with Ab, whose middle initial is B, and whose last name begins with + Ad will be found leading all the rest in any city directory or any + telephone list anywhere. Alphabetically organized as he was, Mr. Adhem + just naturally had to lead; and yet for hours on end my teaches consumed + her energies and mine in a more or less unsuccessful effort to cause me to + memorize the details as set forth by Mr. Leigh Hunt. + </p> + <p> + In three separate schoolbooks, each the work of a different compilator, I + discover Sir Walter Scott's poetic contribution touching on Young + Lochinvar—Young Lochinvar who came out of the West, the same as the + Plumb plan subsequently came, and the Hiram Johnson presidential boom and + the initiative and the referendum and the I. W. W. Even in those ancient + times the West appears to have been a favorite place for upsetting things + to come from; so I can't take issue with Sir Walter there. But I do take + issue with him where he says: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, + So light to the saddle before her he sprung! +</pre> + <p> + Even in childhood's hour I am sure I must have questioned the ability of + Young Lochinvar to perform this achievement, for I was born and brought up + in a horseback-riding country. Now in the light of yet fuller experience I + wish Sir Walter were alive to-day so I might argue the question out with + him. + </p> + <p> + Let us consider the statement on its physical merits solely. Here we have + Young Lochinvar swinging the lady to the croupe, and then he springs to + the saddle in front of her. Now to do this he must either take a long + running start and leapfrog clear over the lady's head as she sits there, + and land accurately in the saddle, which is scarcely a proper thing to do + to any lady, aside from the difficulty of springing ten or fifteen feet + into the air and coming down, crotched out, on a given spot, or else he + must contribute a feat in contortion the like of which has never been + duplicated since. + </p> + <p> + To be brutally frank about it, the thing just naturally is not possible. I + don't care if Young Lochinvar was as limber as a yard of fresh tripe—and + he certainly did shake a lithesome calf in the measures of the dance if + Sir Walter, in an earlier stanza, is to be credited with veracity. Even + so, I deny that he could have done that croupe trick. There isn't a + croupier at Monte Carlo who could have done it. Buffalo Bill couldn't have + done it. Ned Buntline wouldn't have had Buffalo Bill trying to do it. Doug + Fairbanks couldn't do it. I couldn't do it myself. + </p> + <p> + Skipping over Robert Southey's tiresome redundancy in spending so much of + his time and mine, when I was in the Fifth Reader stage, in telling how + the waters came down at Ladore when it was a petrified cinch that they, + being waters, would have to come down, anyhow, I would next direct your + attention to two of the foremost idiots in all the realm of poesy; one a + young idiot and one an older idiot, probably with whiskers, but both + embalmed in verse, and both, mind you, stuck into every orthodox reader to + be glorified before the eyes of childhood. I refer to that juvenile + champion among idiots, the boy who stood on the burning deck, and to the + ship's captain in the poem called The Tempest. Let us briefly consider the + given facts as regards the latter: It was winter and it was midnight and a + storm was on the deep, and the passengers were huddled in the cabin and + not a soul would dare to sleep, and they were shuddering there in silence—one + gathers the silence was so deep you could hear them shuddering—and + the stoutest held his breath, which is considerable feat, as I can + testify, because the stouter a fellow gets the harder it is for him to + hold his breath for any considerable period of time. Very well, then, this + is the condition of affairs. If ever there was a time when those in + authority should avoid spreading alarm this was the time. By all the + traditions of the maritime service it devolved upon the skipper to remain + calm, cool and collected. But what does the poet reveal to a lot of + trusting school children? + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "We are lost!" the captain shouted, + As he staggered down the stair. +</pre> + <p> + He didn't whisper it; he didn't tell it to a friend in confidence; he + bellowed it out at the top of his voice so all the passengers could hear + him. The only possible excuse which can be offered for that captain's + behavior is that his staggering was due not to the motion of the ship but + to alcoholic stimulant. Could you imagine Little Sure Shot, the Terror of + the Pawnees, drunk or sober, doing an asinine thing like that? Not in ten + thousand years, you couldn't. But then we must remember that Little Sure + Shot, being a moral dime-novel hero, never indulged in alcoholic beverages + under any circumstances. + </p> + <p> + The boy who stood on the burning deck has been played up as an example of + youthful heroism for the benefit of the young of our race ever since Mrs. + Felicia Dorothea Hemans set him down in black and white. I deny that he + was heroic. I insist that he merely was feeble-minded. Let us give this + youth the careful once-over: The scene is the Battle of the Nile. The time + is August, 1798. When the action of the piece begins the boy stands on the + burning deck whence all but him had fled. You see, everyone else aboard + had had sense enough to beat it, but he stuck because his father had + posted him there. There was no good purpose he might serve by sticking, + except to furnish added material for the poetess, but like the + leather-headed young imbecile that he was he stood there with his feet + getting warmer all the time, while the flame that lit the battle's wreck + shone round him o'er the dead. After which: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There came a burst of thunder sound; + The boy—oh! where was he? + Ask of the winds, that far around + With fragments strewed the sea— +</pre> + <p> + Ask the waves. Ask the fragments. Ask Mrs. Hemans. Or, to save time, + inquire of me. + </p> + <p> + He has become totally extinct. He is no more and he never was very much. + Still we need not worry. Mentally he must have been from the very outset a + liability rather than an asset. Had he lived, undoubtedly he would have + wound up in a home for the feeble-minded. It is better so, as it is—better + that he should be spread about over the surface of the ocean in a broad + general way, thus saving all the expense and trouble of gathering him up + and burying him and putting a tombstone over him. He was one of the + incurables. + </p> + <p> + Once upon a time, writing a little piece on another subject, I advanced + the claim that the champion half-wit of all poetic anthology was Sweet + Alice, who, as described by Mr. English, wept with delight when you gave + her a smile, and trembled in fear at your frown. This of course was long + before Prohibition came in. These times there are many ready to weep with + delight when you offer to give them a smile; but in Mr. English's time and + Alice's there were plenty of saloons handy. I remarked, what an awful + kill-joy Alice must have been, weeping in a disconcerting manner when + somebody smiled in her direction and trembling violently should anybody so + much as merely knit his brow! + </p> + <p> + But when I gave Alice first place in the list I acted too hastily. Second + thought should have informed me that undeniably the post of honor belonged + to the central figure of Mr. Henry W. Longfellow's poem, Excelsior. I ran + across it—Excelsior, I mean—in three different readers the + other day when I was compiling some of the data for this treatise. + Naturally it would be featured in all three. It wouldn't do to leave Mr. + Longfellow's hero out of a volume in which space was given to such lesser + village idiots as Casabianca and the Spartan youth. Let us take up this + sad case verse by verse: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The shades of night were falling fast, + As through an Alpine village passed + A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, + A banner with the strange device, + Excelsior! +</pre> + <p> + There we get an accurate pen picture of his young man's deplorable state. + He is climbing a mountain in the dead of winter. It is made plain later on + that he is a stranger in the neighborhood, consequently it is fair to + assume that the mountain in question is one he has never climbed before. + Nobody hired him to climb any mountain; he isn't climbing it on a bet or + because somebody dared him to climb one. He is not dressed for mountain + climbing. Apparently he is wearing the costume in which he escaped from + the institution where he had been an inmate—a costume consisting + simply of low stockings, sandals and a kind of flowing woolen nightshirt, + cut short to begin with and badly shrunken in the wash. He has on no + rubber boots, no sweater, not even a pair of ear muffs. He also is + bare-headed. Well, any time the wearing of hats went out of fashion he + could have had no use for his head, anyhow. + </p> + <p> + I grant you that in the poem Mr. Longfellow does not go into details + regarding the patient's garb. I am going by the illustration in the + reader. The original Mr. McGuffey was very strong for illustrations. He + stuck them in everywhere in his readers, whether they matched the themes + or not. Being as fond of pictures as he undoubtedly was, it seems almost a + pity he did not marry the tattooed lady in a circus and then when he got + tired of studying her pictorially on one side he could ask her to turn + around and let him see what she had to say on the other side. Perhaps he + did. I never gleaned much regarding the family history of the McGuffeys. + </p> + <p> + Be that as it may, the wardrobe is entirely unsuited for the rigors of the + climate in Switzerland in winter time. Symptomatically it marks the wearer + as a person who is mentally lacking. He needs a keeper almost as badly as + he needs some heavy underwear. But this isn't the worst of it. Take the + banner. It bears the single word "Excelsior." The youth is going through a + strange town late in the evening in his nightie, and it winter time, + carrying a banner advertising a shredded wood-fiber commodity which won't + be invented until a hundred and fifty years after he is dead! + </p> + <p> + Can you beat it? You can't even tie it. + </p> + <p> + Let us look further into the matter: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + His brow was sad; his eyes beneath + Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, + And like a silver clarion rung + The accents of that unknown tongue, + Excelsior! +</pre> + <p> + Get it, don't you? Even his features fail to jibe. His brow is corrugated + with grief, but the flashing of the eye denotes a lack of intellectual + coherence which any alienist would diagnose at a glance as evidence of + total dementia, even were not confirmatory proof offered by his action in + huckstering for a product which doesn't exist, in a language which no one + present can understand. The most delirious typhoid fever patient you ever + saw would know better than that. + </p> + <p> + To continue: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In happy homes he saw the light + Of household fires gleam warm and bright; + Above, the spectral glaciers shone, + And from his lips escaped a groan, + Excelsior! +</pre> + <p> + The last line gives him away still more completely. He is groaning now, + where a moment before he was clarioning. A bit later, with one of those + shifts characteristic of the mentally unbalanced, his mood changes and + again he is shouting. He's worse than a cuckoo clock, that boy. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Try not the Pass," the old man said; + "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, + The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" + And loud that clarion voice replied, + Excelsior! + + "Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest + Thy weary head upon this breast!" + A tear stood in his bright blue eye, + But still he answered, with a sigh, + Excelsior! + + "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! + Beware the awful avalanche!" + This was the peasant's last Good night; + A voice replied, far up the height, + Excelsior! +</pre> + <p> + These three verses round out the picture. The venerable citizen warns him + against the Pass; pass privileges up that mountain have all been + suspended. A kind-hearted maiden tenders hospitalities of a most generous + nature, considering that she never saw the young man before. Some people + might even go so far as to say that she should have been ashamed of + herself; others, that Mr. Longfellow, in giving her away, was guilty of an + indelicacy, to say the least of it. Possibly she was practicing up to + qualify for membership on the reception committee the next time the + visiting firemen came to her town or when there was going to be an Elks' + reunion; so I for one shall not question her motives. She was hospitable—let + it go at that. The peasant couples with his good-night message a reference + to the danger of falling pine wood and also avalanches, which have never + been pleasant things to meet up with when one is traveling on a mountain + in an opposite direction. + </p> + <p> + All about him firelights are gleaming, happy families are gathered before + the hearthstone, and through the windows the evening yodel may be heard + percolating pleasantly. There is every inducement for the youth to drop in + and rest his poor, tired, foolish face and hands and thaw out his knee + joints and give the maiden a chance to make good on that proposition of + hers. But no, high up above timber line he has an engagement with himself + and Mr. Longfellow to be frozen as stiff as a dried herring; and so, now + groaning, now with his eye flashing, now with a tear—undoubtedly a + frozen tear—standing in the eye, now clarioning, now sighing, onward + and upward he goes: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + At break of day, as heavenward + The pious monks of Saint Bernard + Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, + A voice cried through the startled air, + Excelsior! +</pre> + <p> + I'll say this much for him: He certainly is hard to kill. He can stay out + all night in those clothes, with the thermometer below zero, and at dawn + still be able to chirp the only word that is left in his vocabulary. He + can't last forever though. There has to be a finish to this lamentable + fiasco sometime. We get it: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + A traveler, by the faithful hound, + Half buried in the snow was found, + Still grasping in his hand of ice + That banner with the strange device, + Excelsior! + + There in the twilight cold and gray, + Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, + And from the sky serene and far, + A voice fell, like a falling star, + Excelsior! +</pre> + <p> + The meteoric voice said "Excelsior!" It should have said "Bonehead!" It + would have said it, too, if Ned Buntline had been handling the subject, + for he had a sense of verities, had Ned. Probably that was one of the + reasons why they barred his works out of all the schoolbooks. + </p> + <p> + With the passage of years I rather imagine that Lieutenant G——-, + of the United States Navy, who went to so much trouble and took so many + needless pains in order to become a corpse may have vanished from the + school readers. I admit I failed to find him in any of the modern editions + through which I glanced, but I am able to report, as a result of my + researches, that the well-known croupe specialist, Young Lochinvar, is + still there and so likewise is Casabianca, the total loss; and as I said + before, I ran across Excelsior three times. + </p> + <p> + Just here the other day, when I was preparing the material for this little + book, I happened upon an advertisement in a New York paper of an auction + sale of a collection of so-called dime novels, dating back to the old + Beadle's Boy's Library in the early eighties and coming on down through + the years into the generation when Nick and Old Cap were succeeding some + of the earlier favorites. I read off a few of the leading titles upon the + list: + </p> + <p> + Bronze Jack, the California Thoroughbred; or, The Lost City of the + Basaltic Buttes. A strange story of a desperate adventure after fortune in + the weird, wild Apache land. By Albert W. Aiken. + </p> + <p> + Tombstone Dick, the Train Pilot; or, The Traitor's Trail. A story of the + Arizona Wilds. By Ned Buntline. + </p> + <p> + The Tarantula of Taos; or, Giant George's Revenge. A tale of Sardine-box + City, Arizona. By Major Sam S. (Buckskin Sam) Hall. + </p> + <p> + Redtop Rube, the Vigilante Prince; or, The Black Regulators of Arizona. By + Major E. L. St. Vrain. + </p> + <p> + Old Grizzly Adams, the Bear Tamer; or, The Monarch of the Mountains. + </p> + <p> + Deadly Eye and the Prairie Rover. + </p> + <p> + Arizona Joe, the Boy Pard of Texas Jack. + </p> + <p> + Pacific Pete, the Prince of the Revolver. + </p> + <p> + Kit Carson, King of the Guides. + </p> + <p> + Leadville Nick, the Boy Sport; or, The Mad Miner's Revenge. + </p> + <p> + Lighthouse Lige; or, The Firebrand of the Everglades. + </p> + <p> + The Desperate Dozen; or, The Fair Fiend. + </p> + <p> + Nighthawk Kit; or, The Daughter of the Ranch. + </p> + <p> + Joaquin, the Saddle King. + </p> + <p> + Mustang Sam, the Wild Rider of the Plains. + </p> + <p> + Adventures of Wild Bill, the Pistol Prince, from Youth to his Death by + Assassination. Deeds of Daring, Adventure and Thrilling Incidents in the + Life of J. B. Hickok, known to the World as Wild Bill. + </p> + <p> + These titles and many another did I read, and reading them my mind slid + back along a groove in my brain to a certain stable loft in a certain + Kentucky town, and I said to myself that if I had a boy—say, about + twelve or fourteen years old—I would go to this auction and bid in + these books and I would back them up and reenforce them with some of the + best of the collected works of Nick Carter and Cap Collier and Nick + Carter, Jr., and Frank Reade, and I would buy, if I could find it + anywhere, a certain paper-backed volume dealing with the life of the James + boys—not Henry and William, but Jesse and Frank—which I read + ever so long ago; and I would confer the whole lot of them upon that + offspring of mine and I would say to him: + </p> + <p> + "Here, my son, is something for you; a rare and precious gift. Read these + volumes openly. Never mind the crude style in which most of them are + written. It can't be any worse than the stilted and artificial style in + which your school reader is written; and, anyhow, if you are ever going to + be a writer, style is a thing which you laboriously must learn, and then + having acquired added wisdom you will forget part of it and chuck the rest + of it out of the window and acquire a style of your own, which merely is + another way of saying that if you have good taste to start with you will + have what is called style in writing, and if you haven't that sense of + good taste you won't have a style and nothing can give it to you. + </p> + <p> + "Read them for the thrills that are in them. Read them, remembering that + if this country had not had a pioneer breed of Buckskin Sams and Deadwood + Dicks we should have had no native school of dime novelists. Read them for + their brisk and stirring movement; for the spirit of outdoor adventure and + life which crowds them; for their swift but logical processions of + sequences; for the phases of pioneer Americanism they rawly but + graphically portray, and for their moral values. Read them along with your + Coopers and your Ivanhoe and your Mayne Reids. Read them through, and + perhaps some day, if fortune is kinder to you than ever it was to your + father, with a background behind you and a vision before you, you may be + inspired to sit down and write a dime novel of your own almost good enough + to be worthy of mention in the same breath with the two greatest adventure + stories—dollar-sized dime novels is what they really are—that + ever were written; written, both of them, by sure-enough writing men, who, + I'm sure, must have based their moods and their modes upon the memories of + the dime novels which they, they in their turn, read when they were boys + of your age. + </p> + <p> + "I refer, my son, to a book called Huckleberry Finn, and to a book called + Treasure Island." + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Plea for Old Cap Collier, by Irvin S. 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