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diff --git a/1891.txt b/1891.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..935d762 --- /dev/null +++ b/1891.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1195 @@ +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 + +Posting Date: October 30, 2008 [EBook #1891] +Release Date: Spetember, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER *** + + + + +Produced by Kirk Pearson + + + + + +A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER + +By Irvin S. Cobb + + +To Will H. Hogg, Esquire + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + + 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. + +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: + + 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! + +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. + +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: + + 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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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: + + "I am hindering the sea from running in," was the simple reply + of the child. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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: + + So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, + So light to the saddle before her he sprung! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + + "We are lost!" the captain shouted, + As he staggered down the stair. + +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. + +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: + + 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-- + +Ask the waves. Ask the fragments. Ask Mrs. Hemans. Or, to save time, +inquire of me. + +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. + +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! + +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: + + 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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +Can you beat it? You can't even tie it. + +Let us look further into the matter: + + 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! + +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. + +To continue: + + 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! + +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. + + "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! + +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. + +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: + + 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! + +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: + + 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! + +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. + +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. + +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: + +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. + +Tombstone Dick, the Train Pilot; or, The Traitor's Trail. A story of the +Arizona Wilds. By Ned Buntline. + +The Tarantula of Taos; or, Giant George's Revenge. A tale of Sardine-box +City, Arizona. By Major Sam S. (Buckskin Sam) Hall. + +Redtop Rube, the Vigilante Prince; or, The Black Regulators of Arizona. +By Major E. L. St. Vrain. + +Old Grizzly Adams, the Bear Tamer; or, The Monarch of the Mountains. + +Deadly Eye and the Prairie Rover. + +Arizona Joe, the Boy Pard of Texas Jack. + +Pacific Pete, the Prince of the Revolver. + +Kit Carson, King of the Guides. + +Leadville Nick, the Boy Sport; or, The Mad Miner's Revenge. + +Lighthouse Lige; or, The Firebrand of the Everglades. + +The Desperate Dozen; or, The Fair Fiend. + +Nighthawk Kit; or, The Daughter of the Ranch. + +Joaquin, the Saddle King. + +Mustang Sam, the Wild Rider of the Plains. + +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. + +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: + +"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. + +"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. + +"I refer, my son, to a book called Huckleberry Finn, and to a book +called Treasure Island." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Plea for Old Cap Collier, by Irvin S. 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