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Brooks</title> + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body { + font-family: Georgia,serif; + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 15%; + } + + p { + text-align: justify; + line-height: 1.75; + text-indent: 2em; + margin: 0; + } + + p.continued {text-indent:0em;} + p.salutation {font-style:italic;text-indent:0em;} + p.pg {font-family: Times-Roman,serif; } + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + margin: 3em 0em; + font-weight: normal; + text-indent: 0em; + } + + h1.pg { + font-family: Times-Roman,serif; + text-align: center; + margin: 0em 0em; + font-weight: bold; + text-indent: 0em; + } + + h3.pg { + font-family: Times-Roman,serif; + text-align: center; + margin: 0em 0em; + font-weight: bold; + text-indent: 0em; + } + + span.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 1%; + right: 87%; + font-size: 12px; + text-align: left; + color: gray; + background-color: inherit; + padding: 0em; + text-indent: 0em; + font-weight: normal; + /*Comment next line to show the page numbers*/ + visibility: hidden; + } + + #title_page {margin:5em auto;} + .essay { margin: 3em 0em; } + .essay_title {padding:4em;margin-bottom:5em;} + .essay_title h2, #contents h2 {font-size:175%;letter-spacing: 0.15em;} + + #contents {margin: 3em 3em;} + #contents ol {margin-left:3em;font-size:125%;line-height:1.4;list-style-type: upper-roman;} + + img { border: none; } + + .illo { + padding: 2em 0em; + text-align: center; + width:100%; + margin: auto; + text-indent:0em; + } + + .inline_img {display:inline;vertical-align:bottom;} + + .epigram {margin:1.5em 0em;} + .epigram p {text-align:center;font-size:100%;text-indent:0em;} + + #title_page_text { + letter-spacing: 0.2em; + margin:6em auto; + } + + .author { + font-size: 1.75em; + margin: 1.5em; + } + .illustrator{font-size:1.25em;margin:1.5em;} + + .pub_info { margin-top: 2em; } + + #copyright_page { + margin: 6em auto; + width: 70%; + font-size: 90%; + } + + #copyright_page p, #title_page_text p { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + } + + .rights_statement { font-variant: small-caps; } + #publisher_note{margin-top:4em;} + #publisher_note p{text-align:left;} + #publisher_note p.pub_note_heading{text-align:center;} + + .poem { + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-bottom: 1em; + text-align: left; + } + + .poem .stanza { margin: 1em 0em; } + + .poem p { + margin: 0; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; + font-size: 95%; + line-height:1.25; + } + + .poem p.i2 { margin-left: 1em; } + .poem p.i4 { margin-left: 2em; } + .poem p.i6 { margin-left: 3em; } + .poem p.i10 { margin-left: 5em; } + .poem p.i16 { margin-left: 8em;} + + #the_beginning {border-top:2px gray solid;} + #the_end { border-bottom: 2px gray solid; } + + a:link { + color: #000066; + background-color: inherit; + text-decoration: none; + } + + a:visited { + color: #000066; + background-color: inherit; + text-decoration: none; + } + + a:hover { + color: #A8480E; + background-color: inherit; + } + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + border: solid black; + height: 5px; } + pre {font-size: 75%;} + --> + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Journeys to Bagdad, by Charles S. Brooks, +Illustrated by Allen Lewis</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p class="pg">Title: Journeys to Bagdad</p> +<p class="pg">Author: Charles S. Brooks</p> +<p class="pg">Release Date: December 12, 2006 [eBook #20095]</p> +<p class="pg">Language: English</p> +<p class="pg">Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p class="pg">***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNEYS TO BAGDAD***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + + <div id="title_page"> + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/title_page.png" width="70%" alt="Title Page" /> + </div> + <div id="title_page_text"> + <h1 class="title">JOURNEYS TO BAGDAD</h1> + <p class="author">BY CHARLES S. BROOKS</p> + <p class="illustrator">ILLUSTRATED WITH + ORIGINAL WOOD-CUTS + BY ALLEN LEWIS</p> + <div class="pub_info"> + <p>YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS</p> + <p>NEW HAVEN CONNECTICUT</p> + <p>M D CCCC XV</p> + </div> + </div> + </div> + + <div id="copyright_page"> + <p class="rights_statement">Copyright, 1915, by<br /> + Yale University Press</p> + <p>First printed November, 1915, 1000 copies</p> + <div id="publisher_note"> + <p class="pub_note_heading">PUBLISHERS’ NOTE</p> + <p>The Yale University Press makes grateful acknowledgment to + the Editors of the <i>Yale Review</i> and of the <i>New Republic</i> for permission + to include in the present work essays of which they were + the original publishers.</p> + </div> + </div> + <div id="contents"> + <h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + <p>CHAPTER</p> + + <ol id="contents_list"> + <li><a href="#essay_i">Journeys to Bagdad</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_ii">The Worst Edition of Shakespeare</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_iii">The Decline of Night-Caps</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_iv">Maps and Rabbit-Holes</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_v">Tunes for Spring</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_vi">Respectfully Submitted—To a Mournful Air</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_vii">The Chilly Presence of Hard-headed Persons</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_viii">Hoopskirts and Other Lively Matter</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_ix">On Traveling</a></li> + <li><a href="#essay_x">Through the Scuttle with the Tinman</a></li> + </ol> + </div> + <!--Blank Page (iv)--> + + <div class="essay" id="essay_i"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page1"> + <h2>JOURNEYS TO BAGDAD</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (2)--> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page3" name="page3"></a>3</span> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/i_illo_1.png" alt="A procession of people." /> + <img src="images/i_title.png" alt="Text: JOURNEYS TO BAGDAD" /> + </div> + + <p>Are you of that elect who, at certain seasons of + the year—perhaps in March when there is timid + promise of the spring or in the days of October when + there are winds across the earth and gorgeous panic + of fallen leaves—are you of that elect who, on such + occasion or any occasion else, feel stirrings in you to + be quit of whatever prosy work is yours, to throw + down your book or ledger, or your measuring tape—if + such device marks your service—and to go forth + into the world?</p> + + <p>I do count myself of this elect. And I will name + such stimuli as most set these stirrings in me. And + first of all there is a smell compounded out of hemp + and tar that works pleasantly to my undoing. Now + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page4" name="page4"></a>4</span>it happens that there is in this city, down by the river + where it flows black with city stain as though the toes + of commerce had been washed therein, a certain ship + chandlery. It is filthy coming on the place, for there + is reek from the river and staleness from the shops—ancient + whiffs no wise enfeebled by their longevity, + Nestors of their race with span of seventy lusty + summers. But these smells do not prevail within the + chandlery. At first you see nothing but rope. + Besides clothesline and other such familiar and + domestic twistings, there are great cordages scarce + kinsmen to them, which will later put to sea and will + whistle with shrill enjoyment at their release. There + are such hooks, swivels, blocks and tackles, such + confusion of ships’ devices as would be enough for + the building of a sea tale. It may be fancied that + here is Treasure Island itself, shuffled and laid apart + in bits like a puzzle-picture. (For genius, maybe, + is but a nimbleness of collocation of such hitherto + unconsidered trifles.) Then you will go aloft where + sails are made, with sailormen squatting about, + bronzed fellows, rheumatic, all with pipes. And + through all this shop is the smell of hemp and tar.</p> + + <p>In finer matters I have no nose. It is ridiculous, + really, that this very messenger and forerunner of + myself, this trumpeter of my coming, this bi-nasal + fellow in the crow’s-nest, should be so deficient. If + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page5" name="page5"></a>5</span>smells were bears, how often I would be bit! My + nose may serve by way of ornament or for the sniffing + of the heavier odors, yet will fail in the nice detection + of the fainter waftings and olfactory ticklings. Yet + how will it dilate on the Odyssean smell of hemp and + tar! And I have no explanation of this, for I am + no sailor. Indeed, at sea I am misery itself whenever + perchance “the ship goes <em>wop</em> (with a wiggle + between).” Such wistful glances have I cast upon + the wide freedom of the decks when I leave them on + the perilous adventure of dinner! So this relish of + hemp and tar must be a legacy from a far-off time—a + dim atavism, to put it as hard as possible—for I + seem to remember being told that my ancestors were + once engaged in buccaneering or other valiant livelihood.</p> + + <p>But here is a peculiar thing. The chandlery gives + me no desire to run away to sea. Rather, the smell + of the place urges me indeterminately, diffusedly, to + truantry. It offers me no particular chart. It but + cuts my moorings for whatever winds are blowing. + If there be blood of a pirate in me, it is a shame what + faded juice it is. It would flow pink on the sticking. + In mean contrast to skulls, bowie-knives and other + red villainy, my thoughts will be set toward the mild + truantry of trudging for an afternoon in the country. + Or it is likely that I’ll carry stones for the castle that + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page6" name="page6"></a>6</span>I have been this long time building. Were the trick + of prosody in me, I would hew a poem on the spot.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/i_illo_2.png" alt="A ship grounds on the Earth." /> + </div> + + <p class="continued"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page7" name="page7"></a>7</span>Such is my anemia. And yet there is a touch of + valiancy, too, as from the days when my sainted + ancestors sailed with their glass beads from Bristol + harbor; the desire of visiting the sunset, of sailing + down on the far side of the last horizon where the + world itself falls off and there is sky with swirl of + stars beyond.</p> + + <p>In the spring of each year everyone should go to + Bagdad—not particularly to Bagdad, for I shall not + dictate in matter of detail—but to any such town that + may happen to be so remote that you are not sure + when you look it up whether it is on page 47 which + is Asia, or on page 53 which is Persia. But Bagdad + will serve: For surely, Reader, you have not forgotten + that it was in Bagdad in the surprising reign + of Haroun-al-Raschid that Sinbad the Sailor lived! + Nor can it have escaped you that scarce a mule’s + back distance—such was the method of computation + in those golden days—lived that prince of medieval + plain-clothes men, Ali Baba!</p> + + <p>Historically, Bagdad lies in that tract of earth + where purple darkens into night. Geographically, + it lies obliquely downward, and is, I compute, considerably + off the southeast corner of my basement. It + is such distant proximity, doubtless, that renders my + basement—and particularly its woodpile, which lies + obscurely beyond the laundry—such a shadowy, grim + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page8" name="page8"></a>8</span>and altogether mysterious place. If there be any + part of the house, including certain dark corners of + the attic, that is fearfully Mesopotamian after nightfall, + it is that woodpile. Even when I sit above, + secure with lights, if by chance I hear tappings from + below—such noises are common on a windy night—I + know that it is the African Magician pounding for + the genie, the sound echoing through the hollow earth. + It is matter of doubt whether the iron bars so usual + on basement windows serve chiefly to keep burglars + out, or whether their greater service is not their + defense of western Christianity against the invasion + from the East which, except for these bars, would + enter here as by a postern. At a hazard, my suspicion + would fall on the iron doors that open inwards in the + base of chimneys. We have been fondly credulous + that there is nothing but ash inside and mere siftings + from the fire above; and when, on an occasion, we + reach in with a trowel for a scoop of this wood-ash + for our roses, we laugh at ourselves for our scare of + being nabbed. But some day if by way of experiment + you will thrust your head within—it’s a small hole and + you will be besmirched beyond anything but a Saturday’s + reckoning—you will see that the pit goes off in + darkness—<em>downward</em>. It was but the other evening + as we were seated about the fire that there came + upward from the basement a gibbering squeak. Then + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page9" name="page9"></a>9</span>the woodpile fell over, for so we judged the clatter. + Is it fantastic to think that some dark and muffled + Persian, after his dingy tunneling from the banks of + the Tigris, had climbed the pile of wood for a breath + of night at the window and, his foot slipping, the pile + fell over? Plainly, we heard him scuttling back to + the ash-pit.</p> + + <p>Be these things as they may, when you have + arrived in Bagdad—and it is best that you travel over + land and sea—if you be serious in your zest, you will + not be satisfied, but will journey a thousand miles + more at the very least, in whatever direction is + steepest. And you will turn the flanks of seven + mountains, with seven villainous peaks thereon. For + the very number of them will put a spell on you. + And you will cross running water, that you leave no + scent for the world behind. Such journey would be + the soul of truantry and you should set out upon the + road every spring when the wind comes warm.</p> + + <p>Now the medieval pilgrimage in its day, as you + very well know, was a most popular institution. And + the reasons are as plentiful as blackberries. But in + the first place and foremost, it came always in the + spring. It was like a tonic, iron for the blood. + There were many men who were not a bit pious, who, + on the first warm day when customers were scarce, + yawned themselves into a prodigious holiness. Who, + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page10" name="page10"></a>10</span>indeed, would resign himself to changing moneys or + selling doves upon the Temple steps when such + appeal was in the air? What cobbler even, bent upon + his leather, whose soul would not mount upon such + a summons? Who was it preached the first crusade? + There was no marvel in the business. Did he come + down our street now that April’s here, he would win + recruits from every house. I myself would care little + whether he were Christian or Mohammedan if only + the shrine lay over-seas and deep within the twistings + of the mountains.</p> + + <p>If, however, your truantry is domestic, and the + scope of the seven seas with glimpse of Bagdad is + too broad for your desire, then your yearning may + direct itself to the spaces just outside your own town. + If such myopic truantry is in you, there is much to + be said for going afoot. In these days when motors + are as plentiful as mortgages this may appear but + discontented destitution, the cry of sour grapes. And + yet much of the adventuring of life has been gained + afoot. But walking now has fallen on evil days. + It needs but an enlistment of words to show its + decadence. Tramp is such a word. Time was when + it signified a straight back and muscular calves and + an appetite, and at nightfall, maybe, pleasant gossip + at the hearth on the affairs of distant villages. There + was rhythm in the sound. But now it means a loafer, + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page11" name="page11"></a>11</span>a shuffler, a wilted rascal. It is patched, dingy, out-at-elbows. + Take the word vagabond! It ought to + be of innocent repute, for it is built solely from stuff + that means to wander, and wandering since the days + of Moses has been practiced by the most respectable + persons. Yet Noah Webster, a most disinterested + old gentleman, makes it clear that a vagabond is a + vicious scamp who deserves no better than the lockup.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/i_illo_3.png" alt="A man plays a flute." /> + </div> + + <p class="continued">Doubtless Webster, if at home, would loose his dog + did such a one appear. A wayfarer, also, in former + times was but a goer of ways, a man afoot, whether + on pilgrimage or itinerant with his wares and cart + and bell. Does the word not recall the poetry of the + older road, the jogging horse, the bush of the tavern, + the crowd about the peddler’s pack, the musician + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page12" name="page12"></a>12</span>piping to the open window, or the shrine in the + hollow? Or maybe it summons to you a decked and + painted Cambyses bellowing his wrath to an inn-yard.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/i_illo_4.png" alt="A man with a gouty foot sits at a table." /> + </div> + + <p>One would think that the inventor of these scandals + was a crutched and limping fellow, who being himself + stunted and dwarfed below the waist was trying to + sneer into disuse all walking the world over, or one + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" name="page13"></a>13</span>who was paunched by fat living beyond carrying + power, larding the lean earth, fearing lest he sweat + himself to death, some Falstaff who unbuttons him + after supper and sleeps on benches after noon. + Rather these words should connote the strong, the + self-reliant, the youthful. He is a tramp, we should + say, who relies most on his own legs and resources, + who least cushions himself daintily against jar in his + neighbor’s tonneau, whose eye shines out seldomest + from the curb for a lift. The wayfarer must go forth + in the open air. He must seek hilltop and wind. + He must gather the dust of counties. His prospects + must be of broad fields and the smoking chimneys + of supper.</p> + + <p>But the goer afoot must not be conceived as + primarily an engine of muscle. He is the best walker + who keeps most widely awake in his five senses. Some + men might as well walk through a railway tunnel. + They are so concerned with the getting there that a + black night hangs over them. They plunge forward + with their heads down as though they came of an + antique race of road builders. Should there be mileposts + they are busied with them only, and they will + draw dials from their pokes to time themselves. I + fell into this iniquity on a walk in Wales from Bala + to Dolgelley. Although I set out leisurely enough, + with an eye for the lake and hills, before many hours + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" name="page14"></a>14</span>had elapsed I had acquired the milepost habit and + walked as if for a wager. I covered the last twenty + miles in less than five hours, and when the brown + stone village came in sight and I had thumped down + the last hill and over the peaked bridge, I was a + dilapidated and foot-sore vagrant and nothing more. + To this day Wales for me is the land where one’s feet + have the ugly habit of foregathering in the end of + the shoes.</p> + + <p>Worse still than the athletic walker is he who takes + Dame Care out for a stroll. He forever runs his + machinery, plans his business ventures and introduces + his warehouse to the countryside.</p> + + <p>Nor must walking be conceived as merely a means + of resting. One should set out refreshed and for this + reason morning is the best time. Yours must be an + exultant mood. “Full many a glorious morning + have I seen flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign + eye.” Your brain is off at a speed that was impossible + in your lack-luster days. You have a flow of thoughts + instead of the miserable trickle that ordinarily serves + your business purposes and keeps you from under + the trolley cars.</p> + + <p>But all truantry is not in the open air. I know a + man who while it is yet winter will get out his rods + and fit them together as he sits before the fire. Then + he will swing his arm forward from the elbow. The + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name="page15"></a>15</span>table has become his covert and the rug beyond is + his pool. And sometimes even when the rod is not + in his hand he will make the motion forward from + the elbow and will drop his thumb. It will show that + he has jumped the seasons and that he stands to his + knees in an August stream.</p> + + <p>It was but yesterday on my return from work that + I witnessed a sight that moved me pleasantly to + thoughts of truantry. Now, in all points a grocer’s + wagon is staid and respectable. Indeed, in its adherence + to the business of the hour we might use it as + a pattern. For six days in the week it concerns itself + solely with its errands of mercy—such “whoas” and + running up the kitchen steps with baskets of potatoes—such + poundings on the door—such golden + wealth of melons as it dispenses. Though there + may be a kind of gayety in this, yet I’ll hazard + that in the whole range of quadricycle life no + vehicle is more free from any taint of riotous conduct. + Mark how it keeps its Sabbath in the shed! Yet + here was this sturdy Puritan tied by a rope to a + motor-car and fairly bounding down the street. It + was a worse breach than when Noah was drunk + within his tent. Was it an instance of falling into + bad company? It was Nym, you remember, who set + Master Slender on to drinking. “And I be drunk + again,” quoth he, “I’ll be drunk with those that have + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name="page16"></a>16</span>the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.” Or + rather did not every separate squeak of the grocer’s + wagon cry out a truant disposition? After years of + repression here was its chance at last. And with what + a joyous rollic, with what a lively clatter, with what a + hilarious reeling, as though in gay defiance of the + law of gravity, was it using its liberty! Had it been + a hearse in a runaway, the comedy would not have + been better. If I had been younger I would have + pelted after and climbed in over the tailboard to + share the reckless pitch of its enfranchisement.</p> + + <p>Then there is a truantry that I mention with + hesitation, for it comes close to the heart of my desire, + and in such matter particularly I would not wish to + appear a fool to my fellows. The child has this + truantry when he plays at Indian, for he fashions the + universe to his desires. But some men too can lift + themselves, though theirs is an intellectual bootstrap, + into a life that moves above these denser airs. + Theirs is an intensity that goes deeper than daydreaming, + although it admits distant kinship. + Through what twilight and shadows do such men + climb until night and star-dust are about them! + Theirs is the dizzy exaltation of him who mounts + above the world. Alas, in me is no such unfathomable + mystery. I but trick myself. Yet I have my + moments. These stones that I carry on the mountain, + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name="page17"></a>17</span>what of them? On what windy ridge do I build my + castle? It is shrill and bleak, they say, on the topmost + peaks of the Delectable Mountains, so lower + down I have reared its walls. There is no storm in + these upland valleys and the sun sits pleasantly on + their southern slopes. But even if there be unfolded + no broad prospect from the devil to the sunrise, there + are pleasant cottages in sight and the smoke of many + suppers curling up.</p> + + <p>If you happened to have been a freshman at Yale + some eighteen years ago and were at all addicted to + canoeing on Lake Whitney, and if, moreover, on + coming off the lake there burned in you a thirst for + ginger-beer—as is common in the gullet of a freshman—doubtless + you have gone from the boathouse + to a certain little white building across the road to + gratify your hot desires. When you opened the door, + your contemptible person—I speak with the vocabulary + of a sophomore—is proclaimed to all within by + the jangling of a bell. After due interval wherein + you busy yourself in an inspection of the cakes and + buns that beam upon you from a show-case—your + nose meanwhile being pressed close against the glass + for any slight blemish that might deflect your decision + (for a currant in the dough often raises an unsavory + suspicion and you’ll squint to make the matter + sure)—there will appear through a back door a little + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page18" name="page18"></a>18</span>old man to minister unto you. You will give no great + time to the naming of your drink—for the fires are + hot in you—but will take your bottle to a table. The + braver spirits among you will scorn glasses as + effeminate and will gulp the liquor straight from the + bottle with what wickedest bravado you can muster.</p> + + <p>Now it is likely that you have done this with a + swagger and have called your servitor “old top” or + other playful name. Mark your mistake! You were + in the presence, if you but knew it, of a real author, + not a tyro fumbling for self-expression, but a man + with thirty serials to his credit. Shall I name the + periodical? It was the <i>Golden Hours</i>, I think. + Ginger-beer and jangling bells were but a fringe + upon his darker purpose. His desk was somewhere + in the back of the house, and there he would rise to + all the fury of a South-Sea wreck—for his genius lay + in the broader effects. Even while we simpletons + jested feebly and practiced drinking with the open + throat—which we esteemed would be of service when + we had progressed to the heavier art of drinking real + beer—even as we munched upon his ginger cakes, he + had left us and was exterminating an army corps in + the back room. He was a little man, pale and + stooped, but with a genius for truantry—a pilgrim + of the Bagdad road.</p> + + <p>But we move on too high a plane. Most of us are + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name="page19"></a>19</span>admitted into truantry by the accidents, merely, of + our senses. By way of instance, the sniff of a rotten + apple will set a man off as on seven-league boots to + the valleys of his childhood. The dry rustling of + November leaves re-lights the fires of youth. It + was only this afternoon that so slight a circumstance + as a ray of light flashing in my eye provided me an + agreeable and unexpected truantry. It sent me + climbing the mountains of the North and in no less + company than that of Brunhilda and a troop of + Valkyrs.</p> + + <p>It is likely enough that none of you have heard of + Long Street. As far as I am aware it is not known + to general fame. It is typically a back street of the + business of a city, that is, the ventages of its buildings + are darkened most often by packing cases and bales. + Behind these ventages are metal shoots. To one + uninitiated in the ways of commerce it would appear + that these openings were patterned for the multiform + enactment of an Amy Robsart tragedy, with such + devilish deceit are the shoots laid up against the openings. + First the teamster teeters and cajoles the box + to the edge of the dray, then, with a sudden push, + he throws it off down the shoot, from which it disappears + with a booming sound. As I recall it was + by some such treachery that Amy Robsart met her + death. Be that as it may, all day long great drays + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20"></a>20</span>go by with Earls of Leicester on their lofty seats, + prevailing on their horses with stout, Elizabethan + language. If there comes a tangle in the traffic it + is then especially that you will hear a largeness of + speech as of spacious and heroic days.</p> + + <p>During the meaner hours of daylight it is my + privilege to occupy a desk and chair at a window that + overlooks this street. Of the details of my activity + I shall make no mention, such level being far below + the flight of these enfranchised hours of night wherein + I write. But in the pauses of this activity I see below + me wagon loads of nails go by and wagon loads of + hammers hard after, to get a crack at them. Then + there will be a truck of saws, as though the planking + of the world yearned toward amputation. Or maybe, + at a guess, ten thousand rat-traps will move on down + the street. It’s sure they take us for Hamelin Town, + and are eager to lay their ambushment. There is + something rather stirring in such prodigious marshaling, + but I hear you ask what this has to do with + truantry.</p> + + <p>It was near quitting time yesterday that a dray + was discharging cases down a shoot. These cases + were secured with metal reinforcement, and this metal + being rubbed bright happened to catch a ray of the + sun at such an angle that it was reflected in my eye. + This flash, which was like lightning in its intensity, + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name="page21"></a>21</span>together with the roar of the falling case, transported + me—it’s monstrous what jumps we take when the fit + is on us—to the slopes of dim mountains in the night, + to the heights above Valhalla with the flash of Valkyrs + descending. And the booming of the case upon the + slide—God pity me—was the music. It was thus that + I was sent aloft upon the mountains of the North, + into the glare of lightning, with the cry of Valkyrs + above the storm….</p> + + <p>But presently there was a voice from the street. + “It’s the last case to-night, Sam, you lunk-head. It’s + quitting time.”</p> + + <p>The light fades on Long Street. The drays have + gone home. The Earls of Leicester drowse in their + own kitchens, or spread whole slices of bread on their + broad, aristocratic palms. Somewhere in the dimmest + recesses of those cluttered buildings ten thousand rat-traps + await expectant the oncoming of the rats. And + in your own basement—the shadows having prospered + in the twilight—it is sure (by the beard of the + prophet, it is sure) that the ash-pit door is again + ajar and that a pair of eyes gleam upon you from the + darkness. If, on the instant, you will crouch behind + the laundry tubs and will hold your breath—as + though a doctor’s thermometer were in your mouth, + you with a cold in the head—it’s likely that you will + see a Persian climb from the pit, shake the ashes off + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22"></a>22</span>him, and make for the vantage of the woodpile, + where—the window being barred—he will sigh his + soul for the freedom of the night.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/i_illo_5.png" alt="A ghostly face stares out of a plain window." /> + </div> + + </div><!-- Journeys to Bagdad --> + + + +<div class="essay" id="essay_ii"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page23"> + <h2>THE WORST EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (24)--> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" name="page25"></a>25</span> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/ii_illo_1.png" alt="A nun is on her knees before a man in a short flared skirt." /> + <img src="images/ii_title.png" alt="Text: THE WORST EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE" /> + </div> + + <p>Reader, if by fortunate chance you have a son of + tender years—the age is best from the sixth to the + eleventh summer—or in lieu of a son, a nephew, only + a few years in pants—mere shoots of nether garments + not yet descending to the knees—doubtless, if such + fortunate chance be yours, you went on one or more + occasions last summer to a circus.</p> + + <p>If the true holiday spirit be in you—and you be of + other sort, I’ll not chronicle you—you will have come + early to the scene for a just examination of what + mysteries and excitements are set forth in the side-shows. + Now if you be a man of humane reasoning, + you will stand lightly on your legs, alert to be pulled + this way or that as the nepotic wish shall direct, + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name="page26"></a>26</span>whether it be to the fat woman’s booth or to the platform + where the thin man sits with legs entwined + behind his neck, in delightful promise of what joy + awaits you when you have dropped your nickel in + the box and gone inside. To draw your steps, it is + the showman’s privilege to make what blare he please + upon the sidewalk; to puff his cheeks with robustious + announcement.</p> + + <p>If by further fortunate chance, you are addicted, + let us say, in the quieter hours of winter, to writing + of any kind—and for your joy, I pray that this be so, + whether this writing be in massive volumes, or + obscure and unpublished beyond its demerit—if such + has been your addiction, you have found, doubtless, + that your case lies much like the fat woman’s; that + it is the show you give before the door that must + determine what numbers go within—that, to be plain + with you, much thought must be given to the taking + of your title. It must be a most alluring trumpeting, + above the din of rival shows.</p> + + <p>So I have named this article with thought of how + I might stir your learned curiosity. I have set + scholars’ words upon my platform, thereby to make + you think how prodigiously I have stuffed the matter + in. And all this while, my article has to do only with + a certain set of Shakespeare in nine calfskin volumes, + edited by a man named John Bell, now long since + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name="page27"></a>27</span>dead, which set happens to have stood for several + years upon my shelves; also, how it was disclosed to + me that he was the worst of all editors, together with + the reasons thereto and his final acquittal from the + charge.</p> + + <p>John Bell has stood, for the most part, in unfingered + tranquillity, for I read from a handier, single + volume. Only at cleaning times has he been touched, + and then but in the common misery with all my books. + Against this cleaning, which I take to be only a quirk + of the female brain, I have often urged that the great, + round earth itself has been subjected to only one + flood, and that even that was a failure, for, despite + Noah’s shrewdness at the gangway, villains still persist + on it. How then shall my books profitably + endure a deluge both autumn and spring?</p> + + <p>Thereafter, when the tempest has spent itself and + the waters have returned from off my shelves, I’ll + venture in the room. There will be something + different in the sniff of the place, and it will be + marvelously picked up. Yet I can mend these faults. + But it does fret me how books will be standing on + their heads. Were certain volumes only singled out + to stand upon their heads, Shaw for one, and others + of our moderns, I would suspect the housemaid of + expressing in this fashion a sly and just criticism of + their inverted beliefs. I accused her on one occasion + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name="page28"></a>28</span>of this subtlety, but was met by such a vacant stare + that I acquitted her at once. However, as she leaves + my solidest authors also on their heads, men beyond + the peradventure of such antics, I must consider it + but a part of her carelessness, for which I have warned + her twice. Were it not for her cunning with griddlecakes, + to which I am much affected, I would have + dismissed her before this.</p> + + <p>And now this Bell, which has ridden out so many + of my floods, is proclaimed to me a villain. We had + got beyond the April freshets and there was in consequence + a soapy smell about. It is clear in my mind + that a street organ had started up a gay tune and that + there were sounds of gathering feet. I was reading + at the time, in the green rocker by the lamp, a life of + John Murray, by one whose name I have forgotten, + when my eyes came on the sentence that has shaken + me. Bell, it said, Bell of my own bookshelf, of all + the editors of Shakespeare was the worst.</p> + + <p>In my agitation I removed my glasses, breathed + upon the lenses, and polished them. Here was one + of my familiars accused of something that was doubtless + heinous, although in what particulars I was at + a loss to know. It came on me suddenly. It was like + a whispered scandal, sinister in its lack of detail. All + that I had known of Bell was that its publication had + dated from the eighteenth century. Yet its very age + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29"></a>29</span>had seemed a patent of respectability. If a thing + does not rot and smell in a hundred and forty years, + it would seem to be safe from corruption: it were true + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name="page30"></a>30</span>peacock. But here at last from Bell was an unsavory + whiff. My flood had abated only a fortnight since, + and here was a stowaway escaped. Bell was proclaimed + a villain. Again had a flood proved itself a + failure.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/ii_illo_2.png" alt="A crowd of children, outside." /> + </div> + + <p>Now, I feel no shame in having an outsider like + Murray display to me these hidden evils; for I owe + no inquisitorial duty to my books. There are people + who will not admit a volume to their shelves until they + have thrown it open and laid its contents bare. This + is the unmannerly conduct of the customs wharf. + Indeed, it is such scrutiny, doubtless, that induces + some authors to pack their ideas obscurely, thereby + to smuggle them. However, there being now a + scandal on my shelves, I must spy into it.</p> + + <p>John Murray, wherein I had read the charge, had + been such a friendly, tea-and-gossip book, not the + kind to hiss a scandal at you. It was bound in blue + cloth and was a heavy book, so that I held it on a + cushion. (And this device I recommend to others.) + It was the kind of book that stays open at your place, + if you leave it for a moment to poke the fire. Some + books will flop a hundred pages, to make you thumb + them back and forth, though whether this be the + binder’s fault or a deviltry set therein by their authors + I am at a loss to say. But Shaw would be of this + kind, flopping and spry to mix you up. And in + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name="page31"></a>31</span>general, Shaw’s humor is like that of a shell-man + at a country fair—a thimble-rigger. No matter + where you guess that he has placed the bean, you will + be always wrong. Even though you swear that you + have seen him slip it under, it’s but his cunning to + lead you off. But Murray was not that kind. It + would stand at its post, unhitched, like a family horse.</p> + + <p>Here was quandary. I looked at Bell, but God + forgive me, it was not with the old trustfulness. He + was on the top shelf but one, just in line with the + eyes, with gilt front winking in the firelight. I had + set him thus conspicuous with intention, because of + his calfskin binding, quite old and worn. A decayed + Gibbon, I had thought, proclaims a grandfather. A + set of British Essayists, if disordered, takes you back + of the black walnut. To what length, then, of cultured + ancestry must not this Bell give evidence? (I + had bought Bell, secondhand, on Farringdon Road, + London, from a cart, cheap, because a volume was + missing.)</p> + + <p>And now it seemed he was in some sort a villain. + Although shocked, I felt a secret joy. For somewhat + too broadly had Bell smirked his sanctity on + me. When piety has been flaunting over you, you + will steal a slim occasion to proclaim a flaw. There + is much human nature goes to the stoning of a saint. + In my ignorance I had set the rogue in the company + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page32" name="page32"></a>32</span>of the decorous Lorna Doone and the gentle ladies + of Mrs. Gaskell. It is not that I admire that chaste + assembly. But it were monstrous, even so, that I + should neighbor them with this Bell, who, as it + appeared, was no better than a wolf in calf’s clothing. + It was Little Red Riding Hood, you will recall, who + mistook a wolf for her grandmother. And with what + grief do we look on her unhappy end!</p> + + <p>My hand was now raised to drag Bell out by the + heels, when I reflected that what I had heard might + be unfounded gossip, mere tattle, and that before I + turned against an old acquaintance, it were well to + set an inquiry afoot. First, however, I put him + alongside Herbert Spencer. If it were Bell’s desire + to play the grandmother to him, he would find him + tough meat.</p> + + <p>Bell, John—I looked him up, first in volume Aus + to Bis of the encyclopedia, without finding him, and + then successfully in the National Biography—Bell, + John, was a London bookseller. He was born in + 1745, published his edition of Shakespeare in 1774, + and after this assault, with the blood upon him, lived + fifty years. This was reassuring. It was then but + a bit of wild oats, no hanging matter. I now went + at the question deeply. Yet I left him awhile with + the indigestible Herbert.</p> + + <p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name="page33"></a>33</span>It was in 1774 that Bell squirted his dirty ink. In + <i>The Gentleman’s Magazine</i> for that year appear + mutterings from America, since called the Boston + Tea Party. I set this down to bring the time more + warmly to your mind, for a date alone is but a blurred + signpost unless you be a scholar. And it is advisedly + that I quote from this particular periodical, because + its old files can best put the past back upon its legs + and set it going. There is a kind of history-book that + sorts the bones and ties them all about with strings, + that sets the past up and bids it walk. Yet it will not + wag a finger. Its knees will clap together, its chest + fall in. Such books are like the scribblings on a tombstone; + the ghost below gives not the slightest squeal + of life. But slap it shut and read what was written + hastily at the time on the pages of <i>The Gentleman’s + Magazine</i>, and it will be as though Gabriel had blown + a practice toot among the headstones. It is then that + you will get the gibbering of returning life.</p> + + <p>So it was in 1774 that Bell put out his version of + Shakespeare. Bell was not a man of the schools. + Caring not a cracked tinkle for learning, it was not + to the folios, nor to any authority that he turned for + the texts of his plays. Instead, he went to Drury + Lane and Covent Garden and took their acting + copies. These volumes, then, that catch my firelight + hold the very plays that the crowds of 1774 looked + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name="page34"></a>34</span>upon. Herein is the Romeo, word for word, that + Lydia Languish sniffled over. Herein is Shylock, + not yet with pathos on him, but a buffoon still, to + draw the gallery laugh.</p> + + <p>A few nights later, having by grace of God escaped + a dinner out, and being of a consequence in a kindly + mood, the scandal, too, having somewhat abated in + my memory, I took down a brown volume and ran + my fingers over its sides and along its yellow edges. + Then I made myself comfortable and opened it up.</p> + + <p>There is nothing to-day more degenerate than our + title-pages. It is in a mean spirit that we pinch and + starve them. I commend the older kind wherein, + generously ensampled, is the promise of the rich diet + that shall follow. At the circus, I have said, I’ll go + within that booth that has most allurement on its + canvas front, and where the hawker has the biggest + voice. If a fellow will but swallow a snake upon the + platform at the door, my money is already in my + palm. Thus of a book I demand an earnest on the + title-page.</p> + + <p>Bell’s title-page is of the right kind. In the profusion + and variety of its letters it is like a printer’s + sample book, with tall letters and short letters, + dogmatic letters for heaping facts on you and script + letters reclining on their elbows, convalescent in the + text. There are slim letters and again the very + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name="page35"></a>35</span>progeny of Falstaff. And what flourishes on the + page! It is like a pond after the antics of a skater.</p> + + <p>There follows the subscribers’ list. It is a Mr. + Tickle’s set that has come to me, for his name is on + the fly-leaf. But for me and this set of Bell, Mr. + Tickle would seem to have sunk into obscurity. I + proclaim him here, and if there be anywhere at + this day younger Tickles, even down to the merest + titillation, may they see these lines and thus take a + greeting from the past.</p> + + <p>Then follows an essay on oratory. It made me + grin from end to end. Yet, as on the repeating of a + comic story, it is hard to get the sting and rollic on + the tongue. And much quotation on a page makes + it like a foundling hospital—sentences unparented, + ideas abandoned of their proper text. “Where grief + is to be expressed,” says Bell, “the right hand laid + slowly on the left breast, the head and chest bending + forward, is a just expression of it…. Ardent + affection is gained by closing both hands warmly, at + half arm’s length, the fingers intermingling, and + bringing them to the breast with spirit…. Folding + arms, with a drooping of the head, describe contemplation.” + I have put it to you and you can judge it.</p> + + <p>Let us consider Bell’s marginalia of the plays! + Every age has importuned itself with words. <i>Reason</i> + was such a word, and <i>fraternity</i>, and <i>liberty</i>. <i>Efficiency</i>, + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name="page36"></a>36</span>maybe, is the latest, though it is sure that + when you want anything done properly, you have + to fight for it. It is below the dignity of my page + to put a plumber on it, yet I have endured occasions! + This word <i>efficiency</i>, then, comes from our needs and + not from our accomplishment. It is at best a marching + song, not a shout of victory. It is when the house + is dirty that the cry goes up for brooms.</p> + + <p>So Bell in the notes upon the margins of his pages + echoes a world that is talking about <i>delicacy</i>, about + <i>sentiment</i>, about <i>equality</i>. (For a breeze blows up + from France.) It was these words that the eighteenth + century most babbled when it grew old. It + had horror for what was low and vulgar. It wore + laces on its doublet front, and though it seldom + washed, it perfumed itself. And all this is in Bell, + for his notes are a running comment of a shallow, + puritanistic prig, who had sharp eyes and a gossip’s + tongue. This was the time, too, when such words as + <i>blanket</i> were not spoken by young ladies if men were + about; for it is a bedroom word and therefore + immoral. Bell objected from the bottom of his silly + soul that Lady Macbeth should soil her mouth with + it. “Blanket of the dark,” he says, “is an expression + greatly below our author. Curtain is evidently + better.” “Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed + yourself?” Whereat Bell again complains that Lady + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page37" name="page37"></a>37</span>Macbeth is “unnecessarily indelicate.” “Though + this tragedy,” says Bell, “must be allowed a very + noble composition, it is highly reprehensible for + exhibiting the chimeras of witchcraft, and still more + so for advancing in several places the principles of + fatalism. We would not wish to see young, unsettled + minds to peruse this piece without proper companions + to prevent absurd prejudices.”</p> + + <p>It must appear from this, that, although one gains + no knowledge of Shakespeare, one does gain a considerable + knowledge of Bell and of his time. And + this is just as well. For Bell’s light on Shakespeare + would be but a sulphur match the more at carnival + time. Indeed, Shakespeare criticism has been such + a pageantry of spluttering candle-ends and sniffing + wicks that it is well that one or two tallow dips leave + the rabble and illuminate the adjacent alleys. It is + down such an alley that Bell’s smoking light goes + wandering off.</p> + + <p>As I read Bell this night, it is as though I listen + at the boxes and in the pit, in that tinkling time of + ’seventy-four. The patched Lætitia sits surrounded + by her beaux. It was this afternoon she had the + vapors. Next to her, as dragon over beauty, is a fat + dame with “grenadier head-dress.” “The Rivals” + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name="page38"></a>38</span>has yet to be written. London still hears “The + Beggar’s Opera.” Lady Macbeth is played in hoopskirts. + The Bastille is a tolerably tight building. + Robert Burns is strewn with his first crumbs. It is + the age of omber, of sonnets to Chloe’s false ringlets, + of odes to red heels and epics to lap dogs, of tinseled + struttings in gilded drawing-rooms. It was town-and-alley, + this age; and though the fields lay daily in + their new creation with sun and shadow on them, + together with the minstrelsy of the winds across them + and the still pipings of leaf and water, London, the + while, kept herself in her smudgy convent, her ear + tuned only to the jolting music of her streets, the + rough syncope of wheel and voice. Since then what + countless winds have blown across the world, and + cloud-wrack! And this older century is now but a + clamor of the memory. What mystery it is! What + were the happenings in that pin-prick of universe + called London? Of all the millions of ant hills this + side Orion, what about this one? London was so + certain it was the center of circumambient space. + Tintinnabulate, little Bell!</p> + + <p>So you see that the head and front of Bell’s villainy + was that he was a little man with an abnormal + capacity for gossip. If gossip, then, be a gallows + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39"></a>39</span>matter, let Bell unbutton him for the end. On the + contrary, if gossip be but a trifle, here were a case for + clement judgment.</p> + + <p>In the first place, there is no vice of necessity in + gossip. This must be clearly understood. It is + proximity in time and place that makes it intolerable. + A gossip next door may be a nuisance. A gossip in + history may be delightful. No doubt if I had lived + in Auchinleck in the days when Boswell lived at home, + I would have thought him a nasty little “skike.” + But let him get to London and far off in the revolving + years, and I admit him virtuous.</p> + + <p>A gossip seldom dies. The oldest person in every + community is a gossip and there are others still + blooming and tender, who we know will live to be + leathery and hard. That the life-insurance actuaries + do not recognize this truth is a shame to their perception. + Ancestral lesions should bulk for them no + bigger than any slightest taint of keyhole lassitude. + For it is by thinking of ourselves that we die. It + leads to rheums and indigestions and off we go. And + even an ignoble altruism would save us. I know one + old lady who has been preserved to us these thirty + years by no other nostrum than a knot-hole appearing + in her garden fence.</p> + + <p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40"></a>40</span></p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/ii_illo_3.png" alt="An old lady stands at a garden fence." /> + </div> + + <p>It is a matter of doubt whether at the fashionable + cures it is the water that has chief potency; or + whether, so many being met together each morning + at the pump, it is not the exchange of these bits of + news that leads to convalescence. It is marvelous + how a dull eye lights up if the bit be spicy. There + was a famous cure, I’m told, though I answer not for + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41"></a>41</span>the truth of this, closed up for no other reason than + that a deeper scandal being hissed about (a lady’s + maid affair), all the inmates became distracted from + their own complaints, and so, being made new, + departed. To this day the building stands with + broken doors and windows as testament to the blight + such a sudden miracle put on the springs.</p> + + <p>This shows, therefore, that gossipry must be judged + by its effects. If it allay the stone or give a pleasant + evening it should have reward instead of punishment. + And here had Bell diverted me agreeably for an hour. + It is true he had given me no “chill and arid knowledge” + of Shakespeare, but I had had ample substitute + and the clock had struck ten before its time. It were + justice, then, that I cast back the lie on Murray and + give Bell full acquittal.</p> + + <p>No sooner was this decision made than I lifted him + tenderly from the shelf where I had sequestered him. + Volume seven was on its head, but I set it upright. + Then I stroked its sides and blew upon its top, as is + my custom. At the last I put him on his former + shelf in the company of the chaste Lorna Doone and + the gentle ladies of Mrs. Gaskell.</p> + + <p>He sits there now, this night, on the top shelf but + one, just in line with the eyes, with gilt front winking + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42"></a>42</span>in the firelight. A decayed Gibbon, I had thought, + proclaims a grandfather. To what length, then, of + cultured ancestry must not this Bell give evidence?</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/ii_illo_4.png" alt="A person is being carried in a sedan chair." /> + </div> + + +</div><!-- The Worst Edition of Shakespeare --> + + <div class="essay" id="essay_iii"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page43"> + <h2>THE DECLINE OF NIGHT-CAPS</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (44)--> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" name="page45"></a>45</span> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/iii_illo_1.png" alt="A man in a nightcap with a devil pulling on the end." /> + <img src="images/iii_title.png" alt="Text: THE DECLINE OF NIGHT-CAPS" /> + </div> + + <p>It sounds like the tinkle of triviality to descend + from the stern business of this present time to write + of night-caps: And yet while the discordant battles + are puffing their cheeks upon the rumbling bass pipes, + it is relief if there be intermingled a small, shrill + treble—any slightest squeak outside the general woe.</p> + + <p>There was a time when the chief issue of fowl + was feather-beds. Some few tallest and straightest + feathers, maybe, were used on women’s hats, and a + few of better nib than common were set aside for + poets’ use—goose feathers in particular being fashioned + properly for the softer flutings, whether of + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46"></a>46</span>Love or Spring—but in the main the manifest + destiny of a feather was a feather-bed.</p> + + <p>In those days it was not enough that you plunged + to the chin in this hot swarm of feathers, for discretion, + in an attempt to ward off from you all snuffling + rheums, coughings, hackings and other fleshly ills, + required you before kicking off the final slippers to + shut the windows against what were believed to be + the dank humors of the night. Nor was this enough. + You slept, of course, in a four-post bed; and the + curtains had to be pulled together beyond the peradventure + of a cranny. Then as a last prophylaxis + you put on a night-cap. Mr. Pickwick’s was tied + under the chin like a sunbonnet and the cords dangled + against his chest, but this was a matter of taste. It + was behind such triple rampart that you slept, and + were adjudged safe from the foul contagion of the + dark. Consequently your bed was not exactly like + a little boat. Rather it was like a Pullman sleeper, + which, as you will remember, was invented early in + the nineteenth century and stands as a monument + to its wisdom.</p> + + <p>I have marveled at the ease with which Othello + strangled Desdemona. Further thought gives it + explanation. The poor girl was half suffocated + before he laid hands on her. I find also a solution + of Macbeth’s enigmatic speech, “Wicked dreams + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47"></a>47</span>abuse the curtain’d sleep.” Any dream that could + get at you through the circumvallation of glass, + brocade, cotton and feathers could be no better than + a quadruplicated house-breaker, compounded out of + desperate villainies.</p> + + <p>Reader, have you ever purchased a pair of pajamas + in London? This is homely stuff I write, yet there’s + pathos in it. That jaunty air betokens the beginning + of your search before question and reiteration have + dulled your spirits. Later, there will be less sparkle + in your eye. What! Do not the English wear pajamas? + Does not the sex that is bifurcated by day + keep by night to its manly bifurcation? Is not each + separate leg swathed in complete divorcement from + its fellow? Or, womanish, do they rest in the common + dormitory of a shirt <i>de nuit</i>? The Englishman <em>does</em> + wear pajamas, but the word with him takes on an + Icelandic meaning. They are built to the prescription + of an Esquimo. They are woolly, fuzzy and + the width of a finger thick. If I were a night-watchman, + “doom’d for a certain term to walk the + night,” I should insist on English pajamas to keep + me awake. If Saint Sebastian, who, I take it, wore + sackcloth for the glory of his soul, could have lighted + on the pair of pajamas that I bought on Oxford + Circus, his halo would have burned the brighter.</p> + + <p>Just how the feathery and billowy nights of our + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48"></a>48</span>great-grandparents were changed into the present is + too deep for explanation. Perhaps Annie left a door + or window open—such neglect fitting with her other + heedlessness—and notwithstanding this means of + entry, it was found in the morning that no sprite or + ooph had got in to pinch the noses of the sleepers. + At least, there was no evidence of such a visitation, + unless the snoring that abounded all the night did + proceed from the pinching of the nose (the nasal + orifice being so clamped betwixt the forefinger and + the thumb of these devilish sprites that the breath + was denied its proper channel). Unless snoring was + so caused, it is clear that no ooph had clambered + through the window.</p> + + <p>Or perhaps some brave man—a brother to him who + first ate an oyster—put up the window out of bravado + to snap thereby his fingers at the forms of darkness, + and being found whole and without blemish or mark + of witch upon his throat and without catarrhal + snuffling in his nose, of a consequence the harsh + opinion against the night softened.</p> + + <p>Or maybe some younger woman threw up her + window to listen to the slim tenor of moonlight + passion with such strumming business as accompanied—tinkling + of cithern or mandolin—and so + with chin in hand, she sighed her soul abroad, to the + result that the closing was forgotten. It is like + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name="page49"></a>49</span>enough that her dreams were all the sweeter for the + breeze that blew across her bed—loaded with the + rhythmic memory of the words she had heard within + the night.</p> + + <p>It was vanity killed the night-cap. What aldermanic + man would risk the chance of seeing himself + in the mirror? What judge, peruked by day, could + so contain his learned locks? What male with waxed + moustachios, or with limpest beard, or chin new-reaped + would put his ears in such a compress? You + will recall how Mr. Pickwick snatched his off when + he found the lady in the curl papers in his room. His + round face showed red with shame against the dusky + bed-curtains, like the sun peering through the fog.</p> + + <p>As for bed-curtains, they served the intrigue of at + least five generations of novelists from Fielding + onward. There was not a rogue’s tale of the eighteenth + century complete without them. The wrong + persons were always being pinned up inside them. + The cause of such confusion started in the tap, too + much negus or an over-drop of pineapple rum with + a lemon in it or a potent drink whose name I have + forgotten that was always ordered “and make it luke, + my dear.” Then, after such evening, a turn to the + left instead of right, a wrong counting of doors along + the passage, the jiggling of bed-curtains, screams + and consternation. It is one of the seven original + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name="page50"></a>50</span>plots. Except for clothes-closets, screens and bed-curtains, + Sterne must have gone out of the novel + business, Sheridan have lost fecundity and Dryden + starved in a garret. But the moths got into their red + brocade at last and a pretty meal they made.</p> + + <p>A sleeping porch is the symbol of the friendly + truce between man and the material universe. The + world itself and the void spaces of its wanderings, + together with the elements of our celestial neighborhood, + have been viewed by man with dark suspicion, + with rather a squint-eyed prejudice. Let’s take + a single case! Winds for a long time have borne bad + reputations—except such anemic collateral as are + called zephyrs—but winds, properly speaking, which + are big and strong enough to have rough chins and + beards coming, have been looked upon as roustabouts. + What was mere humor in their behavior has been set + down to mischief. If a wind in playfulness does but + shake a casement, or if in frolic it scatters the ashes + across the hearth, or if in liveliness it swishes you as + you turn a corner and drives you aslant across the + street, is it right that you set your tongue to gossip + and judge it a son of Belial?</p> + + <p>There are persons also—but such sleep indoors—in + whose ears the wind whistles only gloomy tunes. + Or if it rise to shrill piping, it rouses only a fear of + chimneys. Thus in both high pitch and low there is + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name="page51"></a>51</span>fear in the hearing of it. Into their faces will come + a kind of God-help-the-poor-sailors-in-the-channel + look, as in a melodrama when the paper snowstorm is + at its worst and the wind machine is straining at its + straps. One would think that they were afraid the + old earth itself might be buffeted off its course and + fall afoul of neighboring planets.</p> + + <p>But behold the man whose custom is to sleep upon + a porch! At what slightest hint—the night being yet + young, with scarce three yawns gone round—does he + shut his book and screen the fire! With what speed + he bolts the door and puts out the downstairs lights, + lest callers catch him in the business! How briskly + does he mount the stairs with fingers already on the + buttons! Then with what scattering of garments he + makes him ready, as though his explosive speed had + blown him all to pieces and lodged him about the + room!</p> + + <p>Then behold him—such general amputation not + having proved fatal—advancing to the door muffled + like a monk! There is a slippered flight. He dives + beneath the covers. (I draw you a winter picture.) + You will see no more of him now than the tip of his + nose, rising like a little Ætna from the waves.</p> + + <p>But does <em>he</em> fear the wind as it fumbles around the + porch and plays like a kitten with the awning cords? + Bless you, he has become a playmate of the children + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52"></a>52</span>of the night—the swaying branches, the stars, the + swirl of leaves—all the romping children of the night. + And if there was any fear at all within the darkness, + it has gone to sulk behind the mountains.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/iii_illo_2.png" alt="A small whirlwind deposits leaves at the corner of a building." /> + </div> + + <p>But the wind sings a sleepy song and the game’s + too short. Then the wind goes round and round the + house looking for the leaves—for the wind is a bit of + a nursemaid—and wherever it finds them it tucks + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53"></a>53</span>them in, under fences and up against cellar windows + where they will be safe until morning. Then it goes + off on other business, for there are other streets in + town and a great many leaves to be attended to.</p> + + <p>But the fellow with the periscopic nose above the + covers lies on his back beneath the stars, and contemplation + journeys to him from the wide spaces of the + night.</p> + + + + <!--Blank Page (54)--> + </div><!-- The Decline of Night-Caps --> + + <div class="essay" id="essay_iv"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page55"> + <h2>MAPS AND RABBIT-HOLES</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (56)--> + + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57"></a>57</span> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/iv_illo_1.png" alt="The rear end of a rabbit sticks out of a rolled-up map" /> + <img src="images/iv_title.png" alt="Text: MAPS AND RABBIT-HOLES" /> + </div> + <p>In what pleasurable mystery would we live were + it not for maps! If I chance on the name of a town + I have visited, I locate it on a map. I may not + actually get down the atlas and put my finger on + the name, but at least I picture to myself its lines and + contour and judge its miles in inches. And thereby + for a thing of ink and cardboard I have banished + from the world its immensity and mystery. But if + there were no maps—what then? By other devices + I would have to locate it. I would say that it came + at the end of some particular day’s journey; that it + lies in the twilight at the conclusion of twenty miles + of dusty road; that it lies one hour nightward of a + blow-out. I would make it neighbor to an appetite + gratified and a thirst assuaged, a cool bath, a lazy + evening with starlight and country sounds. Is not + this better than a dot on a printed page?</p> + + <p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name="page58"></a>58</span></p> + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/iv_illo_2.png" alt="A man sits on a grazing horse." /> + </div> + + <p>That is the town, I would say, where we had the + mutton chops and where we heard the bullfrogs on + the bridge. Or that town may be circumstanced in + cherry pie, a comical face at the next table, a friendly + dog with hair-trigger tail, or some immortal glass of + beer on a bench outside a road-inn. These things + make that town as a flame in the darkness, a flame + on a hillside to overtop my course. Many years can + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59"></a>59</span>go grinding by without obliterating the pleasant sight + of its flare. Or maybe the town is so intermingled + with dismal memories that no good comes of too + particularly locating it. Then Tony Lumpkin’s + advice on finding Mr. Hardcastle’s house is enough. + “It’s a damn’d long, dark, boggy, dirty, dangerous + way.” And let it go at that.</p> + + <p>Maps are toadies to the thoroughfares. They + shower their attentions on the wide pavements, holding + them up to observation, marking them in red, and + babbling and prattling obsequiously about them, + meanwhile snubbing with disregard all the lanes and + bypaths. They are cockney and are interested in + showing only the highroads between cities, and in + consequence neglect all tributary loops and windings. + In a word, they are against the jog-trot countryside + and conspire with the signposts against all loitering + and irregularity.</p> + + <p>As for me, I do not like a straight thoroughfare. + To travel such a road is like passing a holiday with + a man who is going about his business. Idle as you + are, vacant of purpose, alert for distraction, <em>he</em> must + keep his eyes straight ahead and he must attend to + the business in hand. I like a road that is at heart + a vagabond, which loiters in the shade and turns its + head on occasion to look around the corner of a hill, + which will seek out obscure villages even though it + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60"></a>60</span>requires a zigzag course up a hillside, which follows + a river for the very love of its company and humors + its windings, which trots alongside and listens to its + ripple and then crosses, sans bridge, like a schoolboy, + with its toes in the water. I love a road which goes + with the easy, rolling gait of a sailor ashore. It has + no thought of time and it accepts all the vagaries of + your laziness. I love a road which weaves itself into + eddies of eager traffic before the door of an inn, and + stops a minute at the drinking trough because it has + heard the thirst in your horse’s whinny; and afterwards + it bends its head on the hillside for a last look + at the kindly spot. Ah, but the vagabond cannot + remain long on the hills. Its best are its lower levels. + So down it dips. The descent is easy for roads and + cart wheels and vagabonds and much else; until in + the evening it hears again the murmur of waters, and + its journey has ended.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <!-- Unmarked page number (full page illustration) page 61 --> + <img src="images/iv_illo_3.png" alt="A monk uses dividers, a map and a globe are behind him." /> + </div> + + <p>There is of course some fun in a map that is all + wrong. Those, for example, of the early navigators + are worth anybody’s time. There is possibility in + one that shows Japan where Long Island ought to + be. That map is human. It makes a correct and + proper map no better than a molly-coddle. There + can be fine excitement in learning on the best of fourteenth + century authority that there is no America and + that India lies outside the Pillars of Hercules. The + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name="page62"></a>62</span>uncharted seas, the <i>incognova terra</i> where lions are + (<i>ubi leones erunt</i>, as the maps say), these must always + stir us. In my copy of Gulliver are maps of his + discoveries. Lilliput lies off the coast of Sumatra + and must now be within sight of the passengers bound + from London to Melbourne if only they had eyes to + see it. Brobdingnag, would you believe it, is a hump + on the west coast of America and cannot be far from + San Francisco. That gives one a start. Swift, + writing in 1725 with a world to choose from, selects + the Californian coast as the most remote and unknown + for the scene of his fantastical adventure. It thrusts + 1725 into a gray antiquity. And yet there are many + buildings in England still standing that antedate + 1725 by many years, some by centuries. Queen + Elizabeth had been dead more than a hundred years. + Canterbury was almost as old and probably in worse + repair than it is now, when Frisco was still Brobdingnag. + Can it be that the giant red trees and the + tall bragging of the coast date from its heroic past?</p> + + <p>Story-writers have nearly always been the foes of + maps, finding in them a kind of cramping of their + mental legs. And in consequence they have struck + upon certain devices for getting off the map and away + from its precise and restricting bigotry. Davy fell + asleep. It was Davy, you remember, who grew + drowsy one winter afternoon before the fire and sailed + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63"></a>63</span>away with the goblin in his grandfather’s clock. + Robinson Crusoe was driven off his bearings by stress + of weather at sea. This is a popular device for eluding + the known world. Whenever in your novel you + come on a sentence like this—On the third night it + came on to blow and that night and the three succeeding + days and nights we ran close-reefed before the + tempest—whenever you come on a sentence like that, + you may know that the author feels pinched and + cramped by civilization, and is going to regale you + with some adventures of his uncharted imagination + which are likely to be worth your attention.</p> + + <p>Then there was Sentimental Tommy! Do you + remember how he came to find the Enchanted Street? + It happened that there was a parade, “an endless row + of policemen walking in single file, all with the right + leg in the air at the same time, then the left leg. + Seeing at once that they were after him, Tommy ran, + ran, ran until in turning a corner he found himself + wedged between two legs. He was of just sufficient + size to fill the aperture, but after a momentary lock + he squeezed through, and they proved to be the gate + into an enchanted land.” In that lies the whole + philosophy of going without a map. There is magic + in the world then. There are surprises. You do not + know what is ahead. And you cannot tell what is + about to happen. You move in a proper twilight of + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name="page64"></a>64</span>events. After that Tommy went looking for policemen’s + legs. Doubtless there were some details of the + wizardry that he overlooked, as never again could he + come out on the Enchanted Street in quite the same + fashion. Alice had a different method. She fell + down a rabbit-hole and thereby freed herself from + some very irksome lessons and besides met several + interesting people, including a Duchess. Alice may + be considered the very John Cabot of the rabbit-hole. + Before her time it was known only to rabbits, wood-chucks, + and dogs on holidays, whose noses are muddy + with poking. But since her time all this is changed. + Now it is known as the portal of adventure. + It is the escape from the plane of life into its third + dimension.</p> + + <p>Children have the true understanding of maps. + They never yield slavishly to them. If they want a + pirates’ den they put it where it is handiest, behind + the couch in the sitting-room, just beyond the glimmer + of firelight. If they want an Indian village, + where is there a better place than in the black space + under the stairs, where it can be reached without + great fatigue after supper? Farthest Thule may be + behind the asparagus bed. The North Pole itself + may be decorated by Annie on Monday afternoon + with the week’s wash. From whatever house you hear + a child’s laugh, if it be a real child and therefore a + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name="page65"></a>65</span>great poet, you may know that from the garret + window, even as you pass, Sinbad, adrift on the + Indian Ocean, may be looking for a sail, and that + the forty thieves huddle, daggers drawn, in the coal + hole. Then it is a fine thing for a child to run away + to sea—well, really not to sea, but down the street, + past gates and gates and gates, until it comes to the + edge of the known and sees a collie or some such + terrible thing. I myself have fine recollection of + running away from a farmhouse. Maybe I did not + get more than a hundred paces, but I looked on some + broad heavens, saw a new mystery in the night’s + shadows, and just before I became afraid I had a + taste of a new life.</p> + + <p>To me it is strange that so few people go down + rabbit-holes. We cannot be expected to find the same + delight in squeezing our fat selves behind the couch + of evenings, nor can we hope to find that the Chinese + Mountains actually lie beyond our garden fence. + We cannot exactly run away either; after one is + twenty, that takes on an ugly and vagrant look, + commendable as it may be on the early marches. + Prince Hal is always a more amiable spectacle than + John Falstaff, much as we love the knight. But there + are men, however few, who although they are beyond + forty, retain in themselves a fine zest for adventure. + A man who, I am proud to say, is a friend of mine + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page66" name="page66"></a>66</span>and who is a devil for work by which he is making + himself known in the world, goes of evenings + into the most delightful truantry with his music. + And it isn’t only music, it is flowers and pictures and + books. Of course he has an unusual brain and few + men can hope to equal him. He is like Disraeli in + that respect, who, it is said, could turn in a flash from + the problem of financing the Suez Canal to the contemplation + of the daffodils nodding along the fence. + But do the rest of us try? There are few men of + business, no matter with what singleness of purpose + they have been installing their machinery and counting + their nickels, but will admit that this is but a small + part of life. They dream of rabbit-holes, but they + will never go down one. I had dinner recently with + a man who by his honesty and perseverance has built + up and maintained a large and successful business. + An orchestra was playing, and when it finished the + man told me that if he could write music like that we + had heard he would devote himself to it. Well, if he + has enough desire in him for that speech, he owes it to + himself that he sound his own depths for the discoveries + he may make. It is doubtful if this quest + would really lead him to write music, God forbid; it + might however induce him to develop a latent appreciation + until it became in him both a refreshment and + a stimulus.</p> + + <p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67"></a>67</span>There are many places uncharted that are worth + a visit. Treasure Island is somewhere on the seas, + the still-vex’d Bermoothes feel the wind of some + southern ocean, the coast of Bohemia lies on the + furthermost shore of fairyland—all of these wonderful, + like white towers in the mind. But nearer home, + as near as the pirates’ den that we built as children, + within sight of our firelight, should come the dreams + and thoughts that set us free from sordidness, that + teach our minds versatility and sympathy, that create + for us hobbies and avocations of worth, that rest and + refresh us. If we must be ocean liners all day, plodding + between known and monotonous ports, at least + we may be tramp ships at night, cargoed with strange + stuffs and trafficking for lonely and unvisited seas.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/iv_illo_4.png" alt="A man lying on a beach watches a sailing ship." /> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (68)--> + + </div> + + + <div class="essay" id="essay_v"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page69"> + <h2>TUNES FOR SPRING</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (70)--> + + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page71" name="page71"></a>71</span> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/v_illo_1.png" alt="A Satyr plays Pan pipes" /> + <img src="images/v_title.png" alt="Text: TUNES FOR SPRING" /> + </div> + <div class="epigram"> + <p>Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!</p> + <p>Spring, the sweet Spring!</p> + </div> + <p>If by any chance you have seen a man in a coat + with sagging pockets, and a cloth hat of the latest + fashion but two—a hat which I may say is precious + to him (old friends, old wine, old hats)—emerging + from his house just short of noon, do not lay his + belated appearance to any disorder in his conduct! + Certain neighbors at their windows as he passed, + raised their eyes in a manner, if I mistake not, of + suspicion that a man should be so far trespassing on + the day, for nine o’clock should be the penny-picker’s + latest departure for the vineyard. Thereafter the + street belongs to the women, except for such sprouting + and unripe manhood as brings the groceries, and the + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72"></a>72</span>hardened villainy that fetches ice and with deep voice + breaks the treble of the neighborhood. But beyond + these there are no men in sight save the pantalooned + exception who mows the grass, and with the whirr of + his clicking knives sounds the prelude of the summer. + I’ll say by way of no more than a parenthetical flick + of notice that his eastern front, conspicuous from the + rear as he bends forward over his machine, shows a + patched and jointed mullionry that is not unlike the + tracery of some cathedral’s rounded apse. But I go + too far in imagery. Plain speech is best. I’ll waive + the gothic touch.</p> + + <p>But observe this sluggard who issues from his + door! He knows he is suspected—that the finger is + uplifted and the chin is wagging. And so he takes + on a smarter stride with a pretense of briskness, to + proclaim thereby the virtue of having risen early + despite his belated appearance, and what mighty + business he has despatched within the morning.</p> + + <p>But you will get no clue as to whether he has been + closeted with the law, or whether it is domestic faction—plumbers + or others of their ilk (if indeed + plumbers really have any ilk and do not, as I suspect, + stand unbrothered like the humped Richard in the + play). Or maybe some swirl of fancy blew upon him + as he was spooning up his breakfast, which he must + set down in an essay before the matter cool. Or an + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73"></a>73</span>epic may have thumped within him. Let us hope that + his thoughts this cool spring morning have not been + heated to such bloody purpose that he has killed a + score of men upon his page, and that it is with the + black gore of the ink-pot on him that he has called + for his boots to face the world. You remember the + fellow who kills him “some six or seven dozens of + Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to + his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.’”</p> + + <p>Such ferocity should not sully this fair May morning, + when there are sounds only of carpet-beating, + the tinkle of the man who is out to grind your knives + and the recurrent melody of the connoisseur of rags + and bottles who stands in his cart as he drives his lean + and pointed horse. At the cry of this perfumed + Brummel—if you be not gone in years too far—as + often as he prepares to shout the purpose of his quest, + you’ll put a question to him, “Hey, there, what do + you feed your wife on?” And then his answer + will come pat to your expectation, “Pa-a-a-per + Ra-a-a-gs, Pa-a-a-per Ra-a-a-gs!” If the persistence + of youth be in you and the belief that a jest + becomes better with repetition—like beans nine days + cold within the pot—you will shout your question + until he turns the corner and his answer is lost in the + noises of the street. “Adieu! Adieu! thy plaintive + anthem fades—”</p> + + <p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name="page74"></a>74</span>To this day I think of a rag-picker’s wife as dining + sparingly out of a bag—not with her head inside like + a horse, but thrusting her scrawny arm elbow deep + to stir the pottage, and sprinkling salt and pepper + on for nicer flavor. Following such preparation + she will fork it out like macaroni, with her head + thrown back to present the wider orifice. If her + husband’s route lies along the richer streets she will + have by way of tidbit for dessert a piece of chewy + velvet, sugared and buttered to a tenderness.</p> + + <p>But what is this jingling racket that comes upon + the street? Bless us, it’s a hurdy-gurdy. The hurdy-gurdy, + I need hardly tell you, belongs to the organ + family. This family is one of the very oldest and + claims descent, I believe, from the god Pan. However, + it accepted Christianity early and has sent many + a son within the church to pipe divinity. But the + hurdy-gurdy—a younger son, wild, and a bit of a + pagan like its progenitor—took to the streets. In + its life there it has acquired, among much rascality, + certain charming vices that are beyond the capacity + of its brother in the loft, however much we may + admire the deep rumble of his Sabbath utterance.</p> + + <p>The world has denied that chanticleer proclaims + the day. But as far as I know no one has had the + insolence to deny the street-organ as the proper + herald of the spring. Without it the seasons would + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75"></a>75</span>halt. Though science lay me by the heels, I’ll assert + that the crocus, which is a pioneer on the windy borderland + of March, would not show its head except on + the sounding of the hurdy-gurdy. I’ll not deny that + flowers pop up their heads afield without such call, + that the jack-in-the-pulpit speaks its maiden sermon + on some other beckoning of nature. But in the city + it is the hurdy-gurdy that gives notice of the turning + of the seasons. On its sudden blare I’ve seen the + green stalk of the daffodil jiggle. If the tune be of + sufficient rattle and prolonged to the giving of the + third nickel, before the end is reached there will be + seen a touch of yellow.</p> + + <p>Whether this follows from the same cause as + attracts the children to flatten their noses on the + windows and calls them to the curb that they put + their ears close upon the racket that no sweetest + sound be lost, is a deep question and not to be lightly + answered. In the sound there is promise of the days + to come when circuses will be loosed upon the land + and elephants will go padding by—with eyes looking + around for peanuts. Why this biggest of all beasts, + this creature that looms above you like a crustaceous + dinosaur—to use long words without squinting too + closely on their meaning—why this behemoth with + the swishing trunk, should eat peanuts, contemptible + peanuts, lies so deep in nature that the mind turns + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name="page76"></a>76</span>dizzy. It is small stuff to feed valor on—a penny’s + worth of food in such a mighty hulk. Whatever the + lion eats may turn to lion, but the elephant strains + the proverb. He might swallow you instead, breeches, + hat and suspenders—if you be of the older school of + dress before the belt came in—and not so much as + cough upon the buttons. And there will be red and + yellow wagons, boarded up seductively, as though + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name="page77"></a>77</span>they could show you, if they would, snakes and + hyenas. May be it is best, you think—such things + lying in the seeds of time—to lay aside a dime from + the budget of the week, for one can never be sure + against the carelessness of parents, and their jaded + appetites.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/v_illo_2.png" alt="A boy feeds an elephant (whose trunk only is in the picture)." /> + </div> + + <p>But the hurdy-gurdy is the call to sterner business + also. I know an old lady who, at the first tinkle from + the street, will take off her glasses with a finality as + though she were never to use them again for the light + pleasure of reading, but intended to fill the remainder + of her days with deeper purpose. There is a piece + of two-legged villainy in her employ by the name of + William, and even before the changing of the tune, + she will have him rolling up the rugs for the spring + cleaning. There is a sour rhythm in the fellow and + he will beat a pretty syncopation on them if the + hurdy-gurdy will but stick to marching time. It is + said that he once broke the fabric of a Kermanshah + in his zeal at some crescendo of the <i>Robert E. Lee</i>. + But he was lost upon the valse and struck languidly + and out of time.</p> + + <p>But maybe, Reader, in your youth you have heated + a penny above a lamp, and with treacherous smile + you have come before an open window. And when + the son of Italy has grinned and beckoned for your + bounty—the penny being just short of a molten + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78"></a>78</span>state—you have thrown it to him. He stoops, he + feels…. You have learned by this how much more + blessed it is to give than to receive. Or, to dig deep + in the riot of your youth, you have leased a hurdy-gurdy + for a dollar and with other devils of your kind + gone forth to seek your fortune. It’s in noisier + fashion than when Goldsmith played the flute through + France for board and bed. If you turned the handle + slowly and fast by jerks you attained a rare tempo + that drew attention from even the most stolid + windows. But as music it was as naught.</p> + + <p>Down the street—it being now noon and the day + Monday—Mrs. Y’s washing will be out to dry. + Observe her gaunt replica, <i>cap-a-pie</i>, as immodest + as an advertisement! In her proper person she is + prodigal if she unmask her beauty to the moon. And + in company with this, is the woolen semblance of her + plump husband. Neither of them is shap’d for + sportive tricks: But look upon them when the music + starts! Hand in hand upon the line, as is proper + for married folk, heel and toe together, one, two, and + a one, two, three. It is the hurdy-gurdy that calls + to life such revelry. The polka has come to its own + again.</p> + + <p>Yet despite this evidence that the hurdy-gurdy sets + the world to dancing—like the fiddle in the Turkish + tale where even the headsman forgot his business—despite + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name="page79"></a>79</span>such evidence there are persons who affect to + despise its melody. These claim such perceptivity + of the outer ear and such fineness of the channels that + the tune is but a clack when it gets inside. God pity + such! I’ll not write a word of them.</p> + + <p>A spring day is at its best about noon. I thrust + this in the teeth of those who prefer the dawn or the + coming on of night. At noon there are more yellow + wheels upon the street. The hammering on sheds is + at its loudest as the time for lunch comes near. More + grocers’ carts are rattling on their business. There + is a better chance that a load of green wheelbarrows + may go by, or a wagon of red rhubarb. Then, too, + the air is so warm that even decrepitude fumbles on + the porch and down the steps, with a cane to poke + the weeds.</p> + + <p>If you have luck, you may see a “cullud pusson” + pushing a whitewash cart with altruistic intent + toward all dusky surfaces except his own. Or maybe + he has nice appreciation of what color contrasts he + himself presents when the work is midway. If he + wear the faded memory of a silk hat, it’s the better + picture.</p> + + <p>But also the schools are out and the joy of life is + hissing up a hundred gullets. Baseball has now a + fierceness it lacks at the end of day. There is wild + demand that “Shorty, soak ’er home!” “Butter-fingers!” + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name="page80"></a>80</span>is a harder insult. And meanwhile a pop-corn + wagon will be whistling a blithe if monotonous + tune in trial if there be pennies in the crowd. Or a + waffle may be purchased if you be a Crœsus, ladled + exclusively for you and dropped on the gridiron with + a splutter. It is a sweet reward after you have + knocked a three-bagger and stolen home, and is worth + a search in all your eleven pockets for any last penny + that may be skulking in the fuzz.</p> + + <p>Or perhaps there is such wealth upon your person + that there is still a restless jingle. In such case you + will cross the street to a shop that ministers to the + wants of youth. In the window is displayed a box + of marbles—glassies, commonies, and a larger browny + adapted to the purpose of “pugging,” by reason of + the violence with which it seems to respond to the + impact of your thumb. Then there are baseballs of + graded excellence and seduction. And tops. Time + is needed for the choosing of a top. First you stand + tiptoe with nose just above the glass and make your + trial selection. Pay no attention to the color, for + that’s the way a girl chooses! Black is good, without + womanish taint. Then you wiggle the peg for its + tightness and demand whether it be screwed in like + an honest top. And finally, before putting your + money down, you will squint upon its roundness. + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81"></a>81</span>Then slam the door and yell your presence to the + street!</p> + + <p>Or do you come on softer errand? In the rear of + the shop is a parlor with a base-burner and virtuous + mottoes on the walls—a cosy room with vases. And + here it is they serve cream-puffs…. For safe + transfer you balance the puff in your fingers and + take an enveloping bite, emerging with a prolonged + suck for such particles as may not have come safely + across, and bending forward with stomach held in. + I’ll leave you in this refreshment; for if the money + hold, you will gobble until the ringing of the bell.</p> + + <p>By this time, as you may imagine, the person with + the sagging pockets whom I told you of, has arrived + in the center of the city where already he is practicing + such device of penny-picking as he may be master of.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/v_illo_3.png" alt="A basket of flowers." /> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (82)--> + + </div><!-- Tunes for Spring --> + + + +<div class="essay" id="essay_vi"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page83"> + <h2>RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED<br /> + TO A MOURNFUL AIR</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (84)--> + + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name="page85"></a>85</span> + + <div class="illo"> + <!-- FIXME: --><img src="images/vi_title.png" alt="Text: RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED TO A MOURNFUL AIR" /> + </div> + <p class="salutation">To any one of several editors.</p> + + + <p>Dear Sir: I paid a visit to your city several days + since and humored myself with ambitious thoughts + in the contemplation of your editorial windows. I + was tempted to rap at your door and request an + audience but modesty held me off. Once by appointment + I passed an hour in your office pleasantly and + profitably and even so tardily do I acknowledge your + courtesy and good-nature. But a beggar must choose + his streets carefully and must not be seen too often + in a neighborhood as the same door does not always + offer pie. So this time your brass knocker shows no + finger-marks of mine.</p> + + <p>You did not accept for publication the last paper + I sent to you. (You spread an infinite deal of sorrow + in your path.) On its return I re-read it and now + confess to concurrence with your judgment. Something + had gone wrong. It was not as intended. + Unlike Cleopatra, age had withered it. Was I not + like a cook whose dinner has been sent back untasted? + The best available ingredients were put into that + confection and if it did not issue from the oven with + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name="page86"></a>86</span>those savory whiffs that compel appetite, my stove + is at fault. Perhaps some good old literary housewife + will tell me, disconsolate among my pots and pans, + how long an idea must be boiled to be tender and how + best to garnish a thought to an editor’s taste? + And yet, sir, your manners are excellent. It was + Petruchio who cried:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>What’s this? Mutton?—</p> + <p>’Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.</p> + <p class="i10">Where is the rascal cook?</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p class="continued">Manners have improved. In pleasant contrast is + your courteous note, signifying the excellence of my + proffered pastry, your delight that you are allowed + to sniff and your regret for lack of appetite and + abdominal capacity. Nevertheless, the food came + back and I poked at the broken pieces mournfully. + It is a witch’s business presiding at the caldron of + these things and there is no magic pottage above my + fire.</p> + + <p>And yet, kind sir, with your permission I shall + continue in my ways and offer to you from time to + time such messes as I have, hoping that some day + your taste will deteriorate to my level or that I shall + myself learn the witchcraft and enter your regard.</p> + + <p>Up to this present time only a few of my papers + have been asked to stay. The rest have gone the + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87"></a>87</span>downward tread of your stair carpet and have passed + into the night. My desk has become a kind of + mausoleum of such as have come home to die, and + when I raise its lid a silence falls on me as on one who + visits sacred places.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/vi_illo_1.png" alt="A man on a donkey picks fruit from a tree." /> + </div> + + <p>There is, however, another side of this. Certain + it is that thousands of us who write seek your recognition + and regard. Certain it is that your favorable + judgment moves us to elation, and your silence to + our merits urges us to harder endeavors. But for all + this, dear sir, and despite your continued neglect, we + are a tolerably happy crew. It may be that our best + things were never published—best, because we enjoyed + them most, because they recall the happiest + hours and the finest moods. They bring most freshly + to our memories the influences of books and friends + and the circumstances under which they were written. + It is because we lacked the skill to tame our sensations + to our uses, the patience to do well what we wished + to do fast, that you rightly judged them unavailable. + We do not feel rebellious and we admit that you are + right. Only we do not care as much as we did, for + most of us are learning to write for the love of the + writing and without an eye on the medal. With no + livelihood depending, with no compulsion of hours or + subject, under the free anonymity of sure rejection, + we have worked. It has been a fine world, these hours + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88"></a>88</span>of study and reflection, and when we assert that one + essay is our best, we are right, for it has led us to + happiness and pleasant thoughts and to an interpretation + of ourselves and the world that moves about + us. In these best moods of ours, we live and think + beyond our normal powers and even come to a distant + kinship with men far greater than ourselves. Knowing + this, prudence only keeps us from snapping our + fingers at you and marking each paper, as we finish + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page89" name="page89"></a>89</span>it, “rejected,” without the formality of a trip to you, + and then happily beginning the next. We are learning + to be amateurs and although our names shall + never be shouted from the housetops, we shall be + almost as content. Still will there be the morning + hours of study with sunlight across the floor, the + winding country roads of autumn with smells of corn-stacks + and burdened vineyards, the fire-lit hours of + evening. Still shall we write in our gardens of a + summer afternoon or change the winter snowstorm + that drives against our windows into the coinage of + our thoughts.</p> + + + <p>We shall be independent and think and write as + we please. And although we enclose stamps for a + mournful recessional, please know, dear sir, that even + as you dictate your polite note of refusal, we are hard + at it with another paper.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/vi_illo_2.png" alt="A hand snapping fingers." /> + </div> + <!-- Blank Page (90) --> +</div><!-- Respectfully Submitted --> + +<div class="essay" id="essay_vii"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page91"> + <h2>THE CHILLY PRESENCE OF HARD-HEADED PERSONS</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (92)--> + + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page93" name="page93"></a>93</span> + + <div class="illo"> + <!-- FIXME: --><img src="images/vii_title.png" alt="Text: THE CHILLY PRESENCE OF HARD-HEADED PERSONS" /> + </div> + + + <p>It is rash business scuttling your own ship. Now + as I am in a way a practical person, which is, I take + it, a diminutive state of hard-headedness, any detraction + against hard-headedness must appear as leveled + against myself. Gimlet in hand, deep down amidships, + it would look as if I were squatted and set on + my own destruction.</p> + + <p>But by hard-headed persons I mean those beyond + the ordinary, those so far gone that a pin-prick + through the skull would yield not so much as a drop + of ooze; persons whose brain convolutions did they + appear in fright at the aperture on the insertion of + the pin—like a head at a window when there is a fire + on the street—would betray themselves as but a kind + of cordage. Such hard-headedness, you will admit, + is of a tougher substance than that which may beset + any of us on an occasion at the price of meat, or on + the recurrent obligations of the too-constant moon.</p> + + <p>I am reasonably free from colds. I do not fret + myself into a congestion if a breath comes at me from + an open window; or if a swirl of wind puts its cold + fingers down my neck do I lift my collar. Yet the + presence of a thoroughly hard-headed person provokes + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page94" name="page94"></a>94</span>a sneeze. There is a chilly vapor off him—a + swampish miasma—that puts me in a snuffling state, + beyond poultice and mustard footbaths. No matter + how I huddle to the fire, my thoughts will congeal + and my purpose cramp and stiffen. My conceit too + will be but a shriveled bladder.</p> + + <p>Several years ago I knew a man of extreme hard-headedness. + As I recall, I was afflicted at the time—indeed, + the malady co-existed with his acquaintance—with + a sorry catarrh of the nasal passages. I can + remember still the clearings and snufflings that obtruded + in my conversation. For two winters my + complaint was beyond the cunning of the doctors. + Despite local applications and such pills as they + thought fit to administer, still did the snuffling continue. + Then on a sudden my friend left town. + Consequent to which and to the amazement of the + profession, the springs of my disease dried up. As + this happened at the beginning of the warm days of + summer, I am loath to lay my cure entirely to his + withdrawal, yet there was a nice jointry of time. My + acquaintance thereafter dropped to an infrequent, + statistical letter, against which I have in time proofed + myself. But the catarrh has ceased except when some + faint thought echoes from the past, at which again, + as in the older days, I am forced to blow a passage + in the channel for verbal navigation.</p> + + <p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page95" name="page95"></a>95</span>This man’s interest in life was oil. It oozed from + the ventages of his talk. If he looked on the map of + this fair world, with its mountains like caterpillars + dozing on the page—for so do maps present themselves + to my fancy—<em>he</em> would see merely the blueprint + and huge specification of oil production and + consumption. The dotted cities would suggest no + more than agencies in its distribution, and they would + be pegged in many colors—as is the custom of our + business efficiency—by way of base symbolism of + their rank and pretense; the wide oceans themselves + would be merely courses for his tank ships to bustle + on and leave a greasy trail. Really, contrary to my + own experience and sudden cure, one might think + that such an oleaginous stream of talk, if directed in + atomizer fashion against the nostrils of the listener, + would serve as a healing emulsion for the complaint + I then suffered with.</p> + + <p>Be these things as they may, what I can actually + vouch for is that when this fellow had set himself + and opened a volley of facts on me, I was shamed to + silence. There was a spaciousness, a planetary sweep + and glittering breadth that shriveled me. The commodity + which I dispensed was but used around the + corner, with a key turned upon it at the shadowy end + of day against its intrusion on the night. But his oil, + all day long and all night too, was swishing in its + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page96" name="page96"></a>96</span>tanks on the course to Zanzibar. And all the fretted + activity of the earth was tributary to his purpose. + How like an untrimmed smoky night-candle did my + ambition burn! If I chanced to think in thousands + it was a strain upon me. My cerebrum must have + throbbed itself to pieces upon the addition of another + cypher. But he marshaled his legions and led them + up and down, until it dazed me. I was no better than + some cobbler with a fiddle, crooked and intent to the + twanging of his E string, while the great Napoleon + thundered by.</p> + + <p>The secret channels of the earth and the fullness + thereof made a joyful gurgle in his thoughts. And + if he ever wandered in the country and ever saw a + primrose on the river’s brim—which I consider + unlikely, his attention being engaged at the moment + on figuring the cost of oil barrels, with special consideration + for the price of bungs—if this man ever did + see a primrose, would it have been a yellow primrose + to him and nothing more? Bless your dear eyes, it + would have been a compound of by-products—parafine, + wax-candles, cup-grease, lamp-black, beeswax + and peppermint drops—not to mention its proper + distillation into such rare odors as might be sold at + so much a bottle to jobbers, and a set price at retail, + with best legal talent to avoid the Sherman Act.</p> + + <p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page97" name="page97"></a>97</span>This man has lived—my spleen rises at the + thought—in many of the capitals of Europe. For + six months at a time he has walked around one end + of the Louvre on his way home at night without once + putting his head inside. Indeed, it is probable he + hasn’t noticed the building, or if he has, thinks it is an + arsenal. Now in all humility, and unbuttoned, as it + were, for a spanking by whomsoever shall wish to + give it, I must confess that I myself have no great + love for the Louvre, regarding it somewhat as an + endurance test for tired tourists, a kind of blow-in-the-nozzle-and-watch-the-dial-mount-up + contrivance, + as at a country fair. And so I am not sure but that + the band playing in the gardens is a better amusement + for a bright afternoon, and that a nursemaid + in uniform with her children—bare-legged tots with + fingers in the sand—that such sight is more worthy + of respect than a dead Duchess painted on the wall. + It is but a ritualistic obeisance I have paid the gods + inside. My finer reverence has been for benches in + the sun and the vagabondage of a bus-top.</p> + + <p>If ever my friend gets to heaven it will be but + another point for exportation. How closely he will + listen for any squeaking of the Pearly Gates, with a + nostrum ready for their dry complaint! When he is + once through and safe (the other pilgrims still + coming up the hill—for heaven, I’m sure, will be set + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page98" name="page98"></a>98</span>on some wind-swept ridge, with purple distance in + the valleys—) how he will put his ear against the + hinge for nice diagnosis as to the weight of oil that + will give best result! How he will wink upon the + gateman that he write his order large!</p> + + <p>Reader, I have sent you off upon a wrong direction. + I have twisted the wooden finger at the crossroads. + The man of oil does not exist. He is a piece of fiction + with which to point a moral. Pig-iron or cotton-cloth + would have served as well; anything, in fact, whereon, + by too close squinting, one may blunt his sight.</p> + + <p>We have all observed a growing tendency in many + persons to put, as it were, electric lights in all the + corners and attics of their brains, until it is too much + a rarity to find any one who will admit a twilight in + his whole establishment. This is carrying mental + housekeeping too far. I will confess that I prefer a + light at the foot of the back stairs, where the steps + are narrow at the turn, for Annie is precious to us. + I will confess, also, that it is well to have a switch in + the kitchen to throw light in the basement, on the + chance that the wood-box may get empty before the + evening has spent itself. There is comfort, too, in not + being forced to go darkling to bed, like Childe Roland + to the tower, but to put out the light from the floor + above. But we are carrying this business too far in + mental concerns. Here is properly a place for a rare + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page99" name="page99"></a>99</span>twilight. It is not well that a man should always + flare himself like a lighted ballroom.</p> + + <p>Much of our best mental stuff—if you exclude the + harsher grindings of our business hours—fades in too + coarse a light. ’Tis a brocade that for best preservation + must not be hung always in the sun. There must + be regions in you unguessed at—cornered and shadowed + places—recesses to be shown at peep of finger + width, yielding only to the knock of fancy, dim + sequesterings tucked obscurely from the noises of the + world, where one must be taken by the hand and + led—dusky closets beyond the common use. It is in + such places—your finger on your lips and your feet + a-tiptoe on the stairs—that you will hide away from + baser uses the stowage of moonlight stuff and such + other gaseous and delightful foolery as may lie in + your inheritance.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/vii_illo_1.png" alt="A mouse climbs on a melted (and snuffed) candle." /> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (92)--> + +</div><!-- Hard-Headed Persons --> + + +<div class="essay" id="essay_viii"> + <div class="essay_title" id="page101"> + <h2>HOOPSKIRTS & OTHER LIVELY MATTER</h2> + </div> + + <!--Blank Page (102)--> + + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>103</span> + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/viii_illo_1.png" alt="A woman in hoopskirt fans herself at the top of a staircase" /> + <img src="images/viii_title.png" alt="Text: HOOPSKIRTS & OTHER LIVELY MATTER" /> + </div> + + <p>Several months ago I had occasion to go through + a deserted “mansion.” It was a gaunt building with + long windows and it sat in a great yard. Over the + windows were painted scrolls, like eyebrows lifted + in astonishment. Whatever was the cause of this, it + has long since departed, for it is thirty years since + the building was tenanted. It would seem as if it + fell asleep—for so the blinds and the drawn curtains + attest—before the lines of this first astonishment + were off its face. I am told that the faces of men + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>104</span>dead in battle show in similar fashion the marks of + conflict. But there is a shocked expression on the + face of this house as if a scandal were on the street. + It is crying, as it were, “Fie, shame!” upon its + neighbors.</p> + + <p>Inside there are old carpets and curtains which spit + dust at you if you touch them. (Is there not some + fabulous animal which does the same, thereby to + escape in the mirk it has itself created?) Most of the + furniture has been removed, but here and there bulky + pieces remain, an antique sideboard, maybe too large + to be taken away; like Robinson Crusoe’s boat, too + heavy to be launched. In each room is a chandelier + for gas, resplendent as though Louis XV had come + again to life, with tinkling glass pendants and + globules interlinked, like enormous Kohinoors.</p> + + <p>Down in the kitchen—which is below stairs as in + an old English comedy—you can see the place where + the range stood. And there are smoky streaks upon + the walls that may have come from the coals of + ancient feasts. If you sniff, and put your fancy in + it—it is an unsavory thought—it is likely even that + you can get the stale smell from such hospitable + preparation.</p> + + <p>From the first floor to the second is a flaring staircase + with a landing where opulence can get its + breath. And then there is a choice of upward steps, + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>105</span>either to the right or left as your wish shall direct. + And on each side is a balustrade unbroken by posts + from top to bottom. Now the first excitement of my + own life was on such a rail, which seemed a funicular + made for my special benefit. The seats of all my + early breeches, I have been told, were worn shiny + thereon, like a rubbed apple. These descents were + executed slowly at the turn, but gathered wild speed + on the straight-away. There was slight need for + Annie to dust the “balusters.”</p> + + <p>An old house is strong in its class distinctions. + There is a front part and a back part. To know the + front part is to know it in its spacious and generous + moods. But somewhere you will find a door and + there will be three steps behind it, and poof!—you + will be prying into the darker life of the place. In + this particular house of which I write, it was as if the + back rooms, the back halls and the innumerable + closets had been playing at hide and seek and had + not been told when the game was over, and so still + kept to their hiding places. It is in such obscure + closets that a family skeleton, if it be kept at all, + might be kept most safely. There would be slight + hazard of its discovery if the skeleton restrained + itself from clanking, as is the whim of skeletons.</p> + + <p>It was in the back part of this house that I came + on a closet, where, after all these years, women’s + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>106</span>garments were still hanging. A lighted match—for + I am no burglar with a bull’s-eye as you might suspect—displayed + to me an array of petticoats—the + flounced kind that gladdened the eye of woman in + those remote days—also certain gauzy matters which + the writers of the eighteenth century called by the + name of smocks. Besides these, there were suspended + from hooks those sartorial deceits, those lying mounds + of fashion, that false incrustation on the surface of + nature, known as “bustles.” Also, there was a hoopskirt + curled upon the floor, and an open barrel with + a stowage of books—a novel or two of E. P. Roe, + the poems of John Saxe, a table copy of Whittier + in padded leather, an album with a flourish on the + cover—these at the top of the heap.</p> + + <p>I choose to trace the connection between the styles + of dress and books, and—where my knowledge + serves—to show the effect of political change on both. + For it is written that when Constantinople fell in + the fifteenth century Turkish costumes became the + fashion through western Europe—maybe a flash of + eastern color across the shoulders or an oriental buckle + for the shoes. Similarly the Balkan War gave us + hints for dress. Many styles to-day are marks of + our kinship with the East. These are mere broken + promptings for your own elaboration. And it seems + to sort with this theory of close relation, that the + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>107</span>generation which flared and flounced its person until + nature was no more than a kernel in the midst, which + puffed itself like a muffin with but a finger-point of + dough within, should be the generation that particularly + delighted in romantic literature, in which likewise + nature is so prudently wrapped that scarce an + ankle can show itself. It would be a nice inquiry + whether the hoopskirt was not introduced—it was + midway in the eighteenth century, I think—at the + time of the first budding of romantic sentiment. The + “Man of Feeling” came after and Anne Radcliffe’s + novels. Is it not significant also, in these present + days of Russian novels and naked realism, that + costume should advance sympathetically to the edge + of modesty?</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/viii_illo_2.png" alt="A woman stands near a large plume of smoke." /> + </div> + + <p>There is something, however, to be said in favor + of romantic books, despite the horrible examples at + the top of this barrel. Perhaps our own literature + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>108</span>shivers in too thin a shift. For once upon a time + somewhere between the age of bustles and ourselves + there were writers who ended their stories “and they + were married and lived happily ever after.” Whereas + at this present day stories are begun “They were + married and straightway things began to go to the + devil.” And for my own part I have read enough + of family quarrels. I am tired of the tune upon the + triangle and I am ready for softer flutings. When + I visit my neighbors, I want them to make a decent + pretense. It was Charles Lamb who found his + married friends too loving in his presence, but let us + not go to extremes! And so, after I have read a few + books of marital complication, I yearn for the old-fashioned + couple in the older books who went hand + in hand to old age. At this minute there is a black + book that looks down upon me like a crow. It is + “Crime and Punishment.” I read it once when I was + ill, and I nearly died of it. I confess that after a very + little acquaintance with such books I am tempted to + sequester them on a top shelf somewhere, beyond + reach of tiptoe, where they may brood upon their + banishment and rail against the world.</p> + + <p>Encyclopedias and the tonnage of learning properly + take their places on the lowest shelves, for their + lump and mass make a fitting foundation. I must + say, however, that the habit of the dictionary of + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>109</span>secreting itself in the darkest corner of the lowest + shelf contributes to general illiteracy. I have known + families wrangle for ten minutes on the meaning of + a word rather than lift this laggard from its depths. + Be that as it may, the novels and poetry should be + on the fifth shelf from the bottom, just off the end + of the nose, so to speak.</p> + + <p>Now, the vinegar cruet is never the largest vessel + in the house. So by strict analogy, sour books—the + kind that bite the temper and snarl upon your better + moods—should be in a small minority. Do not mistake + me! I shall find a place, maybe, for a volume + or two of Nietzsche, and all of Ibsen surely. I would + admit <em>uplift</em> too, for my taste is catholic. And there + will be other books of a kind that never rouse a + chuckle in you. For these are necessary if for no + more than as alarm clocks to awake us from our + dreaming self-content. But in the main I would not + have books too insistent upon the wrongs of the world + and the impossibility of remedy.</p> + + <p>I confess to a liking for tales of adventure, for + wrecks in the South Seas, for treasure islands, for + pirates with red shirts. Mark you, how a red shirt + lights up a dull page! It is like a scarlet leaf on a + gray November day. Also I have a weakness for the + bang of pistols, round oaths and other desperate rascality. + In such stories there is no small mincing. A + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>110</span>villain proclaims himself on his first appearance—unless + John Silver be an exception—and retains his + villainy until the rope tightens about his neck in the + last chapter but one; the very last being set aside for + the softer commerce of the hero and heroine.</p> + + <p>You will remember that about twenty years ago a + fine crop of such stories came out of the Balkans. + At that time it was a dim, unknown land, a kind of + novelists’ Coast of Bohemia, an appropriate setting + for distressed princesses. I’ll hazard a guess that + there was not a peak in all that district on which + there was not some Black Rudolph’s castle, not a road + that did not clack romantically with horses’ hoofs + on bold adventure. But the wars have changed all + this by bringing too sharp a light upon the dim + scenery of this pageantry, and swash-bucklery is all + but dead.</p> + + <p>To confess the truth, it is in such stories that I like + horses best. In real life I really do not like them at + all. I am rather afraid of them as of strange organisms + that I can neither start with ease nor stop with + safety. It is not that I never rode or drove a horse. + I have achieved both. But I don’t urge him to + deviltry. Instead I humor his whims. Some horses + even I might be fond of. Give me a horse that nears + the age of slippered pantaloon and is, moreover, + phlegmatic in his tastes, and then, as the stories say + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>111</span>“with tightened girth and feet well home”—but + enough! I must not be led into boasting.</p> + + <p>But in these older stories I love a horse. With + what fire do his hoofs ring out in the flight of elopement! + “Pursuit’s at the turn. Speed my brave + Dobbin!” And when the Prince has kissed the + Princess’ hand, you know that the story is nearly over + and that they will live happily ever after. Of course + there is always someone to suggest that Cinderella + was never happy after she left her ashes and pumpkins + and went to live in the palace. But this is idle + gossip. Even if there were “occasional bickerings” + between her and the Prince, this is as Lamb says it + should be among “near relations.”</p> + + <p>I nearly died of “Crime and Punishment.” These + Russian novelists have too distressful a point of view. + They remind me too painfully of the poem—</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i2">It was dreadful dark</p> + <p class="i2">In that doleful ark</p> + <p>When the elephants went to bed.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p class="continued">Doubtless if the lights burn high in you, it is well to + read such gloom as is theirs. Perhaps they depict + life. These things may be true and if so, we ought + to know them. At the best, theirs is a real attempt + “to cleanse the foul body of the infected world.” But + if there be a blast without and driving rain, must we + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>112</span>be always running to the door to get it in our face? + Will not one glance in the evening be enough? Shall + we be always exposing ourselves “to feel what + wretches feel”? It is true that we are too content + under the suffering of others, but it is true, also, that + too few of us were born under a laughing star. Gray + shadows fall too often on our minds. A sunny road + is the best to travel by. Furthermore—and here is + a deep platitude—there is many a man who sobs upon + a doleful book, who to the end of time will blithely + underpay his factory girls. His grief upon the book + is diffuse. It ranges across the mountains of the + world, but misses the nicer point of his own conduct. + Is this not sentimentally like the gray yarn hysteria + under the spell of which wealthy women clicked their + needles in public places for the soldiers? Let me not + underrate the number of garments that they made—surely + a single machine might produce as many + within a week. But there is danger that their work + was only a sentimental expression of their world-grief. + I’ll sink to depths of practicality and claim + that a pittance from their allowances would have + bought more and better garments in the market.</p> + + <p>Perhaps we read too many tragical books. In the + decalogue the inheritance of evil is too strongly visited + on the children to the third and fourth generation, + and there is scant sanction as to the inheritance of + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>113</span>goodness. It is the sins of the fathers that live in the + children. It is the evil that men do that lives after + them, while the good, alas, is oft interred with their + bones. If a doleful book stirs you up to life, for + God’s sake read it! If it wraps you all about as in + a winding sheet for death, you had best have none + of it.</p> + + <div class="illo"> + <img src="images/viii_illo_3.png" alt="A woman walks away." /> + </div> + + <p>I had now burned several matches—and my fingers + too—in the inspection of the closet where the women’s + garments hung. And it came on me as I poked the + books within the barrel and saw what silly books + were there, that perhaps I have overstated my position. + It would be a lighter doom, I thought, to be + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>114</span>rived and shriveled by the lightning flash of a modern + book, even “Crime and Punishment,” than stultified + by such as were within.</p> + + <p>Then, like the lady of the poem</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Having sat me down upon a mound</p> + <p>To think on life,</p> + <p>I concluded that my views were sound</p> + <p>And got me up and turned me round,</p> + <p>And went me home again.</p> + </div> + </div> +</div><!--Hoopskirts & Other Lively Matter--> + + + +<div class="essay" id="essay_ix"> + + +<div class="essay_title" id="page115"> + <h2>ON TRAVELING</h2> +</div> + +<!--Blank Page (116)--> + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>117</span> +<div class="illo"> + <img src="images/ix_illo_1.png" alt="A man walks in seven-league boots" /> + <img src="images/ix_title.png" alt="Text: ON TRAVELING" /> +</div> + +<p>In old literature life was compared to a journey, +and wise men rejoiced to question old men because, +like travelers, they knew the sloughs and roughnesses +of the long road. Men arose with the sun, and +toddled forth as children on the day’s journey of +their lives, and became strong to endure the heaviness +of noonday. They strived forward during the hours +of early afternoon while their sun’s ambition was hot, +and then as the heat cooled they reached the crest +of the last hill, and their road dipped gently to the +valley where all roads end. And on into the quiet +evening, until, at last, they lie down in that shadowed +valley, and await the long night.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>118</span>This figure has lost its meaning, for we now travel +by rail, and life is expressed in terms of the railway +time-table. As has been said, we leave and arrive +at places, but we no longer travel. Consequently +we cannot understand the hubbub that Marco +Polo must have caused among his townsmen when +he swaggered in. He and his crew were bronzed by +the sun, were dressed as Tartars, and could speak +their native Italian with difficulty. To convince the +Venetians of their identity, Marco gave a magnificent +entertainment, at which he and his officers received, +clad in oriental dress of red satin. Three times +during the banquet they changed their dress, distributing +the discarded garments among their guests. +At last, the rough Tartar clothing worn on their +travels was displayed and then ripped open. Within +was a profusion of jewels of the Orient, the gifts of +Kublai Khan of Cathay. The proof was regarded +as perfect, and from that time Marco was acknowledged +by his countrymen, and loaded with distinction. +When Drake returned from the Straits of +Magellan and, powdered and beflunkied, told his lies +at fashionable London dinners, no doubt he was +believed. And his crew, let loose on the beer-shops, +gathered each his circle of listeners, drank at his +admirers’ expense, and yarned far into the night. +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>119</span>It was worth one’s while to be a traveler in those +times.</p> + +<p>But traveling has fallen to the yellow leaf. The +greatest traveler is now the brakeman. Next is he +who sells colored cotton. A poor third pursues health +and flees from restlessness. Wise men have ceased +to question travelers, except to inquire of the arrival +of trains and of the comfort of hotels.</p> + +<p>To-day I am a thousand miles from home. From +my window the world stretches massive, homewards. +Even though I stood on the most distant range of +mountains and looked west, still I would look on a +world that contained no suggestion of home; and if +I leaped to that horizon and the next, the result would +be the same—so insignificant would be the relative +distance accomplished. And here I am set down with +no knowledge of how I came. There was a continuous +jar and the noise of motion. We passed a +barn or two, I believe, and on one hillside animals +were frightened from their grazing as we passed. +There were the cluttered streets of several cities and +villages. There was a prodigious number of telegraph +poles going in the opposite direction, hell-bent +as fast as we, which poles considerately went at half +speed through towns, for fear of hitting children. +The United States was once an immense country, and +extended quite to the sunset. For convenience we +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>120</span>have reduced its size, and made it but a map of its +former self. Any section of this map can be unrolled +and inspected in a day’s time.</p> + +<p>In the books for children is the story of the seven-league +boots—wonderful boots, worth a cobbler’s +fortune. If a prince is escaping from an ogre, if he +is eloping with a princess, if he has an engagement +at the realm’s frontier and the wires are down, he +straps these boots to his feet and strides the mountains +and spans the valleys. For with the clicking +of the silver buckles he has destroyed the dimensions +of space. Length, breadth and depth are measured +for him but in wishes. One wish and perhaps a +snap of the fingers, or an invocation to the devil of +locomotion, and he stands on a mountain-top, the +next range of hills blue in the distance; another wish +and another snap and he has leaped the valley. +Wonderful boots, these! Worth a king’s ransom. +And this prince, too, as he travels thus dizzily may +remember one or two barns, animals frightened from +their grazing, and the cluttered streets nested in the +valley. When he reaches his journey’s end he will +be just as wise and just as ignorant as we who now +travel by rail in magic, seven-league fashion. For +here I am set down, and all save the last half-mile of +my path is lost in the curve of the mountains. From +my window I see the green-covered mountains, so +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>121</span>different from city streets with their horizon of +buildings.</p> + +<p>I fancy that, on the memorable morning when +Aladdin’s Palace was set down in Africa after its +magic night’s ride from the Chinese capital, a housemaid +must have gone to the window, thrown back +the hangings and looked out, astounded, on the barren +mountains, when she expected to see only the courtyard +of the palace and its swarm of Chinese life. +She then recalled that the building rocked gently in +the night, and that she heard a whirling sound as of +wind. These were the only evidences of the devil-guided +flight. Now she looked on a new world, and +the familiar pagodas lay far to the east within the +eye of the rising sun.</p> + +<p>There are summer evenings in my recollection when +I have traveled the skies, landing from the sky’s blue +sea upon the cloud continent, and traversing its +mountain ranges, its inland lakes, harbors and valleys. +Over the wind-swept ridges I have gone, watching +the world-change, seeing</p> + + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i16">the hungry ocean gain</p> + <p>Advantage on the Kingdom of the shore,</p> + <p>And the firm soil win of the watery main,</p> + <p>Increasing store with loss and loss with store.</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The greatest traveler that I know is a little man, +slightly bent, who walks with a stick in his garden +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>122</span>or sits passive in his library. Other friends have +boasted of travels in the Orient, of mornings spent +on the Athenian Acropolis, of visiting the Theatre of +Dionysius, and of hallooing to the empty seats that +re-echoed. They warn me of this and that hotel, and +advise me concerning the journey from London. The +usual tale of travelers is that Athens is a ruin. I +have heard it rumored, for instance, that the Parthenon +marbles are in London, and that the Parthenon +itself has suffered from the “wreckful siege of battering +days”; that the walls to Piræus contain hardly +one stone left upon another.</p> + +<p>And this sets me to thinking, for my friend denies +all this with such an air of sincerity that I am almost +inclined to believe his word against all the others. +The Athens he pictures is not ruinous. The Parthenon +stands before him as it left the hand of +Phidias. The walls to Piræus stand high as on that +morning, now almost forgotten, when Athens awaited +the Spartan attack. For him the Dionysian Theatre +does not echo to tourists’ shouts, but gives forth the +sounds of many-voiced Greek life. He knows, too, +the people of Athens. He walked one day with +Socrates along the banks of the Ilissus, and afterwards +visited him in his prison when about to drink +the hemlock. It is of the grandeur of Athens and her +sons that he speaks, not of her ruins. The best of his +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>123</span>travels is that he buys no tickets of Cook, nor, indeed, +of any one, and when he has seen the cities’ sights, his +wife enters and says, “Isn’t it time for the bookworm +to eat?” So he has his American supper in the next +room overlooking Attica, so to speak.</p> + +<div class="illo"> + <img src="images/ix_illo_2.png" alt="A man sits reading on the back of a snail." /> +</div> + +<!--Blank Page (124)--> + +</div><!--On Traveling--> + + + +<div class="essay" id="essay_x"> + +<div class="essay_title" id="page125"> + <h2>THROUGH THE SCUTTLE WITH THE TINMAN</h2> +</div> + +<!--Blank Page (126)--> + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>127</span> +<div class="illo"> + <img src="images/x_illo_1.png" alt="A man on a ladder looks through a roof opening." /> + <img src="images/x_title.png" alt="Text: THROUGH THE SCUTTLE WITH THE TINMAN" /> +</div> + +<p>Yesterday I was on the roof with the tinman. He +did not resemble the tinman of the “Wizard of Oz” +or the flaming tinman of “Lavengro,” for he wore +a derby hat, had a shiny seat, and smoked a ragged +cigar. It was a flue he was fixing, a thing of metal +for the gastronomic whiffs journeying from the +kitchen to the upper airs. There was a vent through +the roof with a cone on top to shed the rain. I +watched him from the level cover of a second-story +porch as he scrambled up the shingles. I admire men +who can climb high places and stand upright and +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>128</span>unmoved at the gutter’s edge. But their bravado +forces on me unpleasantly how closely I am tied +because of dizziness to Mother Earth’s apron strings. +These fellows who perch on scaffolds and flaunt themselves +on steeple tops are frontiersmen. They stand +as the outposts of this flying globe. Often when I +observe a workman descend from his eagle’s nest in +the open steel frame of a lofty building, I look into +his face for some trace of exaltation, some message +from his wider horizon. You may remember how +they gazed into Alcestis’ face when she returned +from the House of Hades, that they might find there +a token of her shadowed journey. It is lucky that +I am no taller than six feet; if ten, giddiness would +set in and reversion to type on all fours. An undizzied +man is to me as much of a marvel as one who in +his heart of hearts is not afraid of a horse.</p> + +<p>Maybe after all, it is just because I am so cowardly +and dizzy that I have a liking for high places and +especially for roofs. Although here my people have +lived for thousands of years on the very rim of +things, with the unimagined miles above them and the +glitter of Orion on their windows, so little have I +learned of these verities that I am frightened on my +shed top and the grasses below make me crouch in +terror. And yet to my fearful perceptions there +may be pleasures that cannot exist for the accustomed +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>129</span>and jaded senses of the tinman. Could he feel +stimulus in Hugo’s description of Paris from the +towers of Notre Dame? He is too much the gargoyle +himself for the delights of dizziness.</p> + +<p>Quite a little could be said about the creative power +of gooseflesh. If Shakespeare had been a tinman he +could not have felt the giddy height and grandeur +of the Dover Cliffs; Ibsen could not have wrought +the climbing of the steeple into the crisis and calamity +of “The Master Builder”; Teufelsdröckh could not +have uttered his extraordinary night thoughts above +the town of Weissnichtwo; “Prometheus Bound” +would have been impossible. Only one with at least +a dram of dizziness could have conceived an “eagle-baffling +mountain, black, wintry, dead, unmeasured.” +In the days when we read Jules Verne, was not our +chief pleasure found in his marvelous way of suspending +us with swimming senses over some fearful abyss; +wet and slippery crags maybe, and void and blackness +before us and below; and then just to give full measure +of fright, a sound of running water in the depths. +Doesn’t it raise the hair? Could a tinman have +written it?</p> + +<p>But even so, I would like to feel at home on my +own roof and have a slippered familiarity with my +slates and spouts. A chimney-sweep in the old days +doubtless had an ugly occupation, and the fear of a +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>130</span>sooty death must have been recurrent to him. But +what a sable triumph was his when he had cleared his +awful tunnel and had emerged into daylight, blooming, +as Lamb would say, in his first tender nigritude! +“I seem to remember,” he continues, “that a bad +sweep was once left in a stack with his brush to indicate +which way the wind blew.” After observing the +tinman for a while, I put on rubber shoes and slunk +up to the ridgepole, the very watershed of my sixty-foot +kingdom, my legs slanting into the infinities of +the North and South. It sounds unexciting when +written, but there I was, astride my house, up among +the vents and exhausts of my former cloistered life, +my head outspinning the weathercock. My Matterhorn +had been climbed, “the pikes of darkness named +and stormed.” Next winter when I sit below snug +by the fire and hear the wind funneling down the +chimney, will not my peace be deeper because I have +known the heights where the tempest blows, and the +rain goes pattering, and the whirling tin cones go +mad?</p> + +<p>Right now, if I dared, I would climb to the roof +again, and I would sit with my feet over the edge and +crane forward and do crazy things just because I +could. Then maybe my neighbors would mistake the +point of my philosophy and lock me up; would +sympathize with my fancies as did Sir Toby and +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>131</span>Maria with Malvolio. If one is to escape bread and +water in the basement, one’s opinions on such slight +things as garters and roofs must be kept dark. Be +a freethinker, if you will, on the devil, the deep sea, +and the sunrise, but repress yourself in the trifles.</p> + +<p>I like flat roofs. There is in my town a public +library on the top story of a tall building, and on my +way home at night I often stop to read a bit before +its windows. When my eyes leave my book and +wander to the view of the roofs, I fancy that the giant +hands of a phrenologist are feeling the buildings which +are the bumps of the city. And listening, I seem to +hear his dictum “Vanity”; for below is the market of +fashion. The world has sunk to ankle height. I sit +on the shoulders of the world, above the tar-and-gravel +scum of the city. And at my back are the +books—the past, all that has been, the manners of +dress and thought—they too peeping aslant through +these windows. Soon it will be dark and this day also +will be done and burn its ceremonial candles; and the +roar from the pavement will be the roar of yesterday.</p> + +<p>Astronomy would have come much later if it had +not been for the flat roofs of the Orient and its glistening +nights. In the cloudy North, where the roofs +were thatched or peaked, the philosophers slept +indoors tucked to the chin. But where the nights +were hot, men, banished from sleep, watched the +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>132</span>rising of the stars that they might point the hours. +They studied the recurrence of the star patterns until +they knew when to look for their reappearance. It +was under a cloudless, breathless sky that the constellations +were named and their measures and orbits +allotted. On the flat roof of some Babylonian temple +of Bel came into life astrology, “foolish daughter of +a wise mother,” that was to bind the eyes of the world +for nearly two thousand years, the most enduring and +the strongest of superstitions. It was on these roofs, +too, that the planets were first maligned as wanderers, +celestial tramps; and this gossip continued until +recent years when at last it appeared that they are +bodies of regular and irreproachable habits, eccentric +in appearance only, doing a cosmic beat with a time-clock +at each end, which they have never failed to +punch at the proper moment.</p> + + +<p>Somewhere, if I could but find it, must exist a diary +of one of these ancient astronomers—and from it I +quote in anticipation. “Early this night to my roof,” +it runs, “the heavens being bare of clouds (<i>cœlo +aperto</i>). Set myself to measure the elevation of +Sagittarius Alpha with my new astrolabe sent me by +my friend and master, Hafiz, from out Arabia. Did +this night compute the equation <img class="inline_img" src="images/x_equation.png" alt="a=Dx/2T f(a, b c T_3)" />. +Thus did I prove the variations of the ellipse and +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>133</span>show Hassan Sabah to be the mule he is. Then +rested, pacing my roof even to the rising of the morning +star, which burned red above the Sultan’s turret. +To bed, satisfied with this night.”</p> + +<p>Northern literature has never taken the roof +seriously. There have been many books written from +the viewpoint of windows. The study window is +usual. Then there is the college window and the +Thrums window. Also there is a window viewpoint +as yet scarcely expressed; that of the boy of Stevenson’s +poems with his nose flattened against the +glass—convalescence looking for sailormen with one +leg. What is “Un Philosophe sous les Toits” but +a garret and its prospect? But does Souvestre ever +go up on the roof? He contents himself with opening +his casement and feeding crumbs to the birds. +Not once does he climb out and scramble around the +mansard. On wintry nights neither his legs nor +thoughts join the windy devils that play tempest +overhead. Then again, from Westminster bridges, +from country lanes, from crowded streets, from ships +at sea, and mountain tops have sonnets been thrown +to the moon; not once from the roof.</p> + +<p>Is not this neglect of the roof the chief reason why +we Northerners fear the night? When darkness is +concerned, the cowardice of our poetry is notorious. +It skulks, so to speak, when beyond the glare of the +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>134</span>street lights. I propound it as a question for +scholars.</p> + + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>’Tis now the very witching time of night,</p> + <p>When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out</p> + <p>Contagion to this world.</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="continued">Why is the night conceived as the time for the bogey +to be abroad?—an</p> + + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>… evil thing that walks by night,</p> + <p>In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,</p> + <p>Blue meager hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost</p> + <p>That breaks his magic chains at curfew time.</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="continued">Why does not this slender, cerulean dame keep +normal hours and get sleepy after dinner with the +rest of us—and so to bed? Such a baneful thing is +night, “hideous,” reeking with cold shivers and gloom, +from which morning alone gives relief.</p> + + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Pack, clouds, away! and welcome, day!</p> + <p>With night we banish sorrow.</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="continued">Day is jocund that stands on the misty mountain +tops.</p> + +<p>But we cannot expect the night to be friendly and +wag its tail when we slam against it our doors and, +until lately, our windows. Naturally it takes to +ghoulishness. It was in the South where the roofs +are flat and men sleep as friends with the night that +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>135</span>it was written, "The heavens declare the glory of +God: and the firmament showeth his handiwork."</p> + +<p>I get full of my subject as I write and a kind of +rage comes over me as I think of the wrongs the roof +has suffered. It is the only part of the house that +has not kept pace with the times. To say that you +have a good roof is taken as meaning that your roof +is tight, that it keeps out the water, that it excels in +those qualities in which it excelled equally three thousand +years ago. What you ought to mean is that +you have a roof that is flat and has things on it that +make it livable, where you can walk, disport yourself, +or sleep; a house-top view of your neighbors' affairs; +an airy pleasance with a full sweep of stars; a place +to listen of nights to the drone of the city; a +place of observation, and if you are so inclined, of +meditation.</p> + +<p>Everything but the roof has been improved. The +basement has been coddled with electric lights until +a coal hole is no longer an abode of mystery. Even +the garret, that used to be but a dusty suburb of the +house and lumber room for early Victorian furniture, +has been plastered and strewn with servants' bedrooms.</p> + +<p>There <em>was</em> a garret once: somewhat misty now after +these twenty years. It was not daubed to respectability +with paint, nor was it furnished forth as bedrooms; +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>136</span>but it was rough-timbered, and resounded +with drops when the dark clouds passed above. On +bright days a cheerful light lay along the floor and +dust motes danced in its luminous shaft. And +always there was cobwebbed stillness. But on dark +days, when the roof pattered and the branches of +trees scratched the shingles and when windows +rattled, a deeper obscurity crept out of the corners. +Yet was there little fear in the place. This was the +front garret where the theatre was, with the practicable +curtain. But when the darker mood was on +us, there was the back garret. It was six steps lower +and over it the roof crouched as if to hide its secrets. +The very men that built it must have been lowering, +bearded fellows; for they put into it many corners +and niches and black holes. The wood, too, from +which it was fashioned must have been gnarled and +knotted and the nails rusty and crooked. One window +cast a narrow light down the middle of this +room, but at both sides was immeasurable night. +When you had stooped in from the sunlight and had +accustomed your eyes to the dimness, you found yourself +in an uncertain anchorage of old furniture, +abandoned but offering dusty covert for boys with +the light of brigands in their eyes. A pirates' den +lay safe behind the chimney, protected by a bristling +thicket of chairs and table legs, to be approached +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>137</span>only on hands and knees after divers rappings. And +back there in the dark were strange boxes--strange +boxes, stout and securely nailed. But the garret has +gone.</p> + +<p>Whither have the pirates fled? Maybe some rumor +of the great change reached them in their fastnesses; +and then in the light of early dawn, in single file they +climbed the ladder, up through the scuttle. And +straddling the ridgepole with daggers between their +teeth, alas, they became dizzy and toppled down the +steep shingles to the gutter, to be whirled away in the +torrent of an April shower. Ah me! Had only the +roof been flat! Then it would have been for them a +reservation where they might have lived on and +waited for the sound of children's feet to come again. +Then when those feet had come and the old life had +returned, then from aloft you would hear the old cry +of Ship-ahoy, and you would know that at last your +house had again slipped its moorings and was off to +Madagascar or the Straits.</p> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,</p> + <p>Wary of the weather and steering by a star?</p> + <p>Shall it be to Africa, asteering of the boat,</p> + <p>To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p>So a roof must be more than a cover. The roof of +a boat, its deck, is arranged for occupation and is its +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>138</span>best part. Consider the omnibus! Even it has seats +on top, the best seats in fine weather. When Martin +Chuzzlewit went up to London it was on the <em>top</em> of +the coach he sat. Pickwick betook himself, gaiters, +small-clothes, and all, to the roof. Even the immaculate +Rollo scorned the inside seats. He sat on top, +you may remember, and sucked oranges to ward off +malaria, he and that prince of roisterers, Uncle +George. De Quincey is the authority on mail coaches +and for the roof seats he is all fire and enthusiasm. +It happened once, to continue with De Quincey, that +a state coach was presented by His Majesty George +the Third of England, as a gift to the Chinese +Emperor. This kind of vehicle being unknown in +Peking, “it became necessary to call a cabinet council +on the grand state question, ‘Where was the Emperor +to sit?’ The hammer cloth happened to be unusually +gorgeous; and partly on that consideration, but partly +also because the box offered the most elevated seat, +was nearest the moon, and undeniably went foremost, +it was resolved by acclamation that the box was the +Imperial throne, and for the scoundrel who drove, +he could sit where he could find a perch.”</p> + +<p>Consider that the summer day has ended and that +you are tired with its rush and heat. Up you must +climb to your house-roof. On the rim of the sky is +the blurred light from the steel furnaces at the city’s +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>139</span>edge and, paneling this, stands a line of poplars +stirring and sounding in the night wind.</p> + + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Alone upon the house-top to the North</p> + <p>I turn and watch the lightnings in the sky.</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="continued">Is it fanciful to think that into the mind comes a little +of the beauty of the older world when roofs were flat +and men meditated under the stars and saw visions +in the night?</p> + +<p>Once upon a time I crossed the city of Nuremberg +after dark; the market cleared of all traces of its +morning sale, the “Schöner Brunnen” at its edge, the +narrow defile leading to the citadel, the climb at the +top. And then I came to an open parade above the +town—“except the Schlosskirche Weathercock no +biped stands so high.” The night had swept away +all details of buildings. Nuremberg lay below like +a dark etching, the centuries folded and creased in +its obscurities. Then from some gaunt tower came +a peal of bells, the hour maybe, and then an answering +peal. “Thus stands the night,” they said; “thus stand +the stars.” I was in the presence of Time and its +black wings were brushing past me. What star was +in the ascendant, I knew not. And yet in me I felt +a throb that came by blind, circuitous ways from some +far-off Chaldean temple, seven-storied in the night. +In me was the blood of the star-gazer, my emotions +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>140</span>recalling the rejected beliefs, the signs and wonders +of the heavens. The waves of old thought had but +lately receded from the world; and I, but a chink and +hollow on the beach, had caught my drop of the +ebbing ocean.</p> +</div><!--Through the Scuttle with the Tinman--> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNEYS TO BAGDAD***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 20095-h.txt or 20095-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/0/9/20095">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/0/9/20095</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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