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diff --git a/22699-8.txt b/22699-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef7c586 --- /dev/null +++ b/22699-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6300 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pipefuls, by Christopher Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Pipefuls + + +Author: Christopher Morley + + + +Release Date: September 21, 2007 [eBook #22699] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIPEFULS*** + + +E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Marcia Brooks, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 22699-h.htm or 22699-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/9/22699/22699-h/22699-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/6/9/22699/22699-h.zip) + + + + + +PIPEFULS + + * * * * * + +_Other Books by the Author_ + + PARNASSUS ON WHEELS + + THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP + + SHANDYGAFF + + MINCE PIE + + KATHLEEN + + SONGS FOR A LITTLE HOUSE + + THE ROCKING HORSE + + HIDE AND SEEK + + TRAVELS IN PHILADELPHIA + + * * * * * + + + +PIPEFULS + +by + +CHRISTOPHER MORLEY + +[Illustration] + +Illustrated by Walter Jack Duncan + + + + + + + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company +1920 + +Copyright, 1920, by +Doubleday, Page & Company +All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation +into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian + + + + +THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED +TO +THREE MEN + +HULBERT FOOTNER +EUGENE SAXTON +WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT + +BECAUSE, IF I MENTIONED ONLY ONE +OF THEM, I WOULD HAVE TO +WRITE BOOKS +TO INSCRIBE TO THE OTHER TWO + + + + +PREFACE + + +Sir Thomas Browne said that Eve was "edified out of the rib of +Adam." This little book was edified (for the most part) out of +the ribs of two friendly newspapers, The New York _Evening Post_ +and The Philadelphia _Evening Public Ledger_. To them, and to +_The Bookman_, _Everybody's_, and _The Publishers' Weekly_, I am +grateful for permission to reprint. + +Tristram Shandy said, "When a man is hemm'd in by two indecorums, +and must commit one of 'em let him chuse which he will, the world +will blame him." Now it is one indecorum to let this collection +of small sketches go out (as they do) unrevised and just as they +assaulted the defenceless reader of the daily prints; and the +other indecorum would be to take fragments of this kind too +gravely, and attempt by more careful disposition of their pallid +members to arrange them into some appearance of painless decease. +As Gilbert Chesterton said (I wish I could say, on a similar +occasion): "Their vices are too vital to be improved with a blue +pencil, or with anything I can think of, except dynamite." + +These sketches gave me pain to write; they will give the +judicious patron pain to read; therefore we are quits. I think, +as I look over their slattern paragraphs, of that most tragic +hour--it falls about 4 P. M. in the office of an evening +newspaper--when the unhappy compiler tries to round up the +broodings of the day and still get home in time for supper. And +yet perhaps the will-to-live is in them, for are they not a naked +exhibit of the antics a man will commit in order to earn a +living? In extenuation it may be pleaded that none of them are so +long that they may not be mitigated by an accompanying pipe of +tobacco. + +THE AUTHOR. + +Roslyn, Long Island, +July, 1920. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +Preface vii + +On Making Friends 3 + +Thoughts on Cider 10 + +One-Night Stands 18 + +The Owl Train 25 + +Safety Pins 29 + +Confessions of a "Colyumist" 34 + +Moving 42 + +Surf Fishing 48 + +"Idolatry" 52 + +The First Commencement Address 60 + +The Downfall of George Snipe 63 + +Meditations of a Bookseller 66 + +If Buying a Meal Were Like Buying a House 71 + +Adventures in High Finance 74 + +On Visiting Bookshops 78 + +A Discovery 83 + +Silas Orrin Howes 91 + +Joyce Kilmer 97 + +Tales of Two Cities 109 + + I. _Philadelphia_: + An Early Train + Ridge Avenue + The University and the Urchin + Pine Street + Pershing in Philadelphia + Fall Fever + Two Days Before Christmas + In West Philadelphia + Horace Traubel + + II. _New York_: + The Anatomy of Manhattan + Vesey Street + Brooklyn Bridge + Three Hours for Lunch + Passage from Some Memoirs + First Lessons in Clowning + House Hunting + Long Island Revisited + On Being in a Hurry + Confessions of a Human Globule + Notes on a Fifth Avenue Bus + Sunday Morning + Venison Pasty + Grand Avenue, Brooklyn + +On Waiting for the Curtain to Go Up 236 + +Musings of John Mistletoe 240 + +The World's Most Famous Oration 242 + +On Laziness 244 + +Teaching the Prince to Take Notes 249 + +A City Notebook 253 + +On Going to Bed 270 + + + + +PIPEFULS + + + + +ON MAKING FRIENDS + +[Illustration] + + +Considering that most friendships are made by mere hazard, how is it +that men find themselves equipped and fortified with just the friends +they need? We have heard of men who asserted that they would like to +have more money, or more books, or more pairs of pyjamas; but we have +never heard of a man saying that he did not have enough friends. For, +while one can never have too many friends, yet those one has are always +enough. They satisfy us completely. One has never met a man who would +say, "I wish I had a friend who would combine the good humour of A, the +mystical enthusiasm of B, the love of doughnuts which is such an +endearing quality in C, and who would also have the habit of giving +Sunday evening suppers like D, and the well-stocked cellar which is so +deplorably lacking in E." No; the curious thing is that at any time and +in any settled way of life a man is generally provided with friends far +in excess of his desert, and also in excess of his capacity to absorb +their wisdom and affectionate attentions. + +There is some pleasant secret behind this, a secret that none is wise +enough to fathom. The infinite fund of disinterested humane kindliness +that is adrift in the world is part of the riddle, the insoluble riddle +of life that is born in our blood and tissue. It is agreeable to think +that no man, save by his own gross fault, ever went through life +unfriended, without companions to whom he could stammer his momentary +impulses of sagacity, to whom he could turn in hours of loneliness. It +is not even necessary to know a man to be his friend. One can sit at a +lunch counter, observing the moods and whims of the white-coated +pie-passer, and by the time you have juggled a couple of fried eggs you +will have caught some grasp of his philosophy of life, seen the quick +edge and tang of his humour, memorized the shrewdness of his worldly +insight and been as truly stimulated as if you had spent an evening with +your favourite parson. + +If there were no such thing as friendship existing to-day, it would +perhaps be difficult to understand what it is like from those who have +written about it. We have tried, from time to time, to read Emerson's +enigmatic and rather frigid essay. It seems that Emerson must have put +his cronies to a severe test before admitting them to the high-vaulted +and rather draughty halls of his intellect. There are fine passages in +his essay, but it is intellectualized, bloodless, heedless of the +trifling oddities of human intercourse that make friendship so +satisfying. He seems to insist upon a sterile ceremony of mutual +self-improvement, a kind of religious ritual, a profound interchange of +doctrines between soul and soul. His friends (one gathers) are to be +antisepticated, all the poisons and pestilence of their faulty humours +are to be drained away before they may approach the white and icy +operating table of his heart. "Why insist," he says, "on rash personal +relations with your friend? Why go to his house, or know his wife and +family?" And yet does not the botanist like to study the flower in the +soil where it grows? + +Polonius, too, is another ancient supposed to be an authority on +friendship. The Polonius family must have been a thoroughly dreary one +to live with; we have often thought that poor Ophelia would have gone +mad anyway, even if there had been no Hamlet. Laertes preaches to +Ophelia; Polonius preaches to Laertes. Laertes escaped by going abroad, +but the girl had to stay at home. Hamlet saw that pithy old Polonius was +a preposterous and orotund ass. Polonius's doctrine of friendship--"The +friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul +with hoops of steel"--was, we trow, a necessary one in his case. It +would need a hoop of steel to keep them near such a dismal old +sawmonger. + +Friendships, we think, do not grow up in any such carefully tended and +contemplated fashion as Messrs. Emerson and Polonius suggest. They begin +haphazard. As we look back on the first time we saw our friends we find +that generally our original impression was curiously astray. We have +worked along beside them, have consorted with them drunk or sober, have +grown to cherish their delicious absurdities, have outrageously imposed +on each other's patience--and suddenly we awoke to realize what had +happened. We had, without knowing it, gained a new friend. In some +curious way the unseen border line had been passed. We had reached the +final culmination of Anglo-Saxon regard when two men rarely look each +other straight in the eyes because they are ashamed to show each other +how fond they are. We had reached the fine flower and the ultimate test +of comradeship--that is, when you get a letter from one of your "best +friends," you know you don't need to answer it until you get ready to. + +Emerson is right in saying that friendship can't be hurried. It takes +time to ripen. It needs a background of humorous, wearisome, or even +tragic events shared together, a certain tract of memories shared in +common, so that you know that your own life and your companion's have +really moved for some time in the same channel. It needs interchange of +books, meals together, discussion of one another's whims with mutual +friends, to gain a proper perspective. It is set in a rich haze of +half-remembered occasions, sudden glimpses, ludicrous pranks, +unsuspected observations, midnight confidences when heart spoke to +candid heart. + +[Illustration] + +The soul preaches humility to itself when it realizes, startled, that +it has won a new friend. Knowing what a posset of contradictions we all +are, it feels a symptom of shame at the thought that our friend knows +all our frailties and yet thinks us worth affection. We all have cause +to be shamefast indeed; for whereas we love ourselves in spite of our +faults, our friends often love us even on account of our faults, the +highest level to which attachment can go. And what an infinite appeal +there is in their faces! How we grow to cherish those curious little +fleshy cages--so oddly sculptured--which inclose the spirit within. To +see those faces, bent unconsciously over their tasks--each different, +each unique, each so richly and queerly expressive of the lively and +perverse enigma of man, is a full education in human tolerance. +Privately, one studies his own ill-modeled visnomy to see if by any +chance it bespeaks the emotions he inwardly feels. We know--as Hamlet +did--the vicious mole of nature in us, the o'ergrowth of some complexion +that mars the purity of our secret resolutions. Yet--our friends have +passed it over, have shown their willingness to take us as we are. Can +we do less than hope to deserve their generous tenderness, granted +before it was earned? + +The problem of education, said R. L. S., is two-fold--"first to know, +then to utter." Every man knows what friendship means, but few can utter +that complete frankness of communion, based upon full comprehension of +mutual weakness, enlivened by a happy understanding of honourable +intentions generously shared. When we first met our friends we met with +bandaged eyes. We did not know what journeys they had been on, what +winding roads their spirits had travelled, what ingenious shifts they +had devised to circumvent the walls and barriers of the world. We know +these now, for some of them they have told us; others we have guessed. +We have watched them when they little dreamed it; just as they (we +suppose) have done with us. Every gesture and method of their daily +movement have become part of our enjoyment of life. Not until a time +comes for saying good-bye will we ever know how much we would like to +have said. At those times one has to fall back on shrewder tongues. You +remember Hilaire Belloc: + + From quiet homes and first beginning + Out to the undiscovered ends, + There's nothing worth the wear of winning + But laughter, and the love of friends. + + + + +THOUGHTS ON CIDER + +[Illustration] + + +Our friend Dove Dulcet, the poet, came into our kennel and found +us arm in arm with a deep demijohn of Chester County cider. We +poured him out a beaker of the cloudy amber juice. It was just in +prime condition, sharpened with a blithe tingle, beaded with a +pleasing bubble of froth. Dove looked upon it with a kindled eye. +His arm raised the tumbler in a manner that showed this gesture +to be one that he had compassed before. The orchard nectar began +to sluice down his throat. + +Dove is one who has faced many and grievous woes. His Celtic +soul peers from behind cloudy curtains of alarm. Old unhappy +far-off things and battles long ago fume in the smoke of his +pipe. His girded spirit sees agrarian unrest in the daffodil and +industrial riot in a tin of preserved prunes. He sees the world +moving on the brink of horror and despair. Sweet dalliance with a +baked bloater on a restaurant platter moves him to grief over the +hard lot of the Newfoundland fishing fleet. Six cups of tea warm +him to anguish over the peonage of Sir Thomas Lipton's coolies in +Ceylon. Souls in perplexity cluster round him like Canadian dimes +in a cash register in Plattsburgh, N. Y. He is a human sympathy +trust. When we are on our deathbed we shall send for him. The +perfection of his gentle sorrow will send us roaring out into the +dark, and will set a valuable example to the members of our +family. + +But it is the rack of clouds that makes the sunset lovely. The +bosomy vapours of Dove's soul are the palette upon which the +decumbent sun of his spirit casts its vivid orange and scarlet +colours. His joy is the more perfect to behold because it bursts +goldenly through the pangs of his tender heart. His soul is like +the infant Moses, cradled among dark and prickly bullrushes; but +anon it floats out upon the river and drifts merrily downward on +a sparkling spate. + +It has nothing to do with Dove, but we will here interject the +remark that a pessimist overtaken by liquor is the cheeriest +sight in the world. Who is so extravagantly, gloriously, and +irresponsibly gay? + +Dove's eyes beaconed as the cider went its way. The sweet +lingering tang filled the arch of his palate with a soft mellow +cheer. His gaze fell upon us as his head tilted gently backward. +We wish there had been a painter there--someone like F. Walter +Taylor--to rush onto canvas the gorgeous benignity of his aspect. +It would have been a portrait of the rich Flemish school. Dove's +eyes were full of a tender emotion, mingled with a charmed and +wistful surprise. It was as though the poet was saying he had not +realized there was anything so good left on earth. His bearing +was devout, religious, mystical. In one moment of revelation (so +it appeared to us as we watched) Dove looked upon all the +profiles and aspects of life, and found them of noble outline. +Not since the grandest of Grand Old Parties went out of power has +Dove looked less as though he felt the world were on the verge of +an abyss. For several moments revolution and anarchy receded, +profiteers were tamed, capital and labour purred together on a +mattress of catnip, and the cosmos became a free verse poem. He +did not even utter the customary and ungracious remark of those +to whom cider potations are given: "That'll be at its best in +about a week." We apologized for the cider being a little warmish +from standing (discreetly hidden) under our desk. Douce man, he +said: "I think cider, like ale, ought not to be drunk too cold. +I like it just this way." He stood for a moment, filled with +theology and metaphysics. "By gracious," he said, "it makes all +the other stuff taste like poison." Still he stood for a brief +instant, transfixed with complete bliss. It was apparent to us +that his mind was busy with apple orchards and autumn sunshine. +Perhaps he was wondering whether he could make a poem out of it. +Then he turned softly and went back to his job in a life +insurance office. + +As for ourself, we then poured out another tumbler, lit a corncob +pipe, and meditated. Falstaff once said that he had forgotten +what the inside of a church looked like. There will come a time +when many of us will perhaps have forgotten what the inside of a +saloon looked like, but there will still be the consolation of +the cider jug. Like the smell of roasting chestnuts and the +comfortable equatorial warmth of an oyster stew, it is a +consolation hard to put into words. It calls irresistibly for +tobacco; in fact the true cider toper always pulls a long puff at +his pipe before each drink, and blows some of the smoke into the +glass so that he gulps down some of the blue reek with his +draught. Just why this should be, we know not. Also some +enthusiasts insist on having small sugared cookies with their +cider; others cry loudly for Reading pretzels. Some have +ingenious theories about letting the jug stand, either tightly +stoppered or else unstoppered, until it becomes "hard." In our +experience hard cider is distressingly like drinking vinegar. We +prefer it soft, with all its sweetness and the transfusing savour +of the fruit animating it. At the peak of its deliciousness it +has a small, airy sparkle against the roof of the mouth, a +delicate tactile sensation like the feet of dancing flies. This, +we presume, is the 4-1/2 to 7 per cent of sin with which +fermented cider is credited by works of reference. There are +pedants and bigots who insist that the jug must be stoppered with +a corncob. For our own part, the stopper does not stay in the +neck long enough after the demijohn reaches us to make it worth +while worrying about this matter. Yet a nice attention to detail +may prove that the cob has some secret affinity with cider, for a +Missouri meerschaum never tastes so well as after three glasses +of this rustic elixir. + +That ingenious student of social niceties, John Mistletoe, in his +famous Dictionary of Deplorable Facts--a book which we heartily +commend to the curious, for he includes a long and most informing +article on cider, tracing its etymology from the old Hebrew word +_shaker_ meaning "to quaff deeply"--maintains that cider should +only be drunk beside an open fire of applewood logs: + + And preferably on an evening of storm and wetness, when the swish + and sudden pattering of rain against the panes lend an added + agreeable snugness to the cheerful scene within, where master and + dame sit by the rosy hearth frying sausages in a pan laid on the + embers. + +This reminds one of the anecdote related by ex-Senator Beveridge in his +Life of John Marshall. Justice Story told his wife that the justices of +the Supreme Court were of a self-denying habit, never taking wine except +in wet weather. "But it does sometimes happen that the Chief Justice +will say to me, when the cloth is removed, 'Brother Story, step to the +window and see if it does not look like rain.' And if I tell him that +the sun is shining brightly, Judge Marshall will sometimes reply, 'All +the better, for our jurisdiction extends over so large a territory that +the doctrine of chances makes it certain that it must be raining +somewhere.'" + +Our own theory about cider is that the time to drink it is when it +reaches you; and if it hails from Chester County, so much the better. + +We remember with gusto a little soliloquy on cider delivered by another +friend of ours, as we both stood in a decent ordinary on Fulton Street, +going through all the motions of jocularity and cheer. Cider (he said) +is our refuge and strength. Cider, he insisted, drawing from his pocket +a clipping much tarnished with age, is a drink for men of reason and +genteel nurture; a drink for such as desire to drink pleasantly, +amiably, healthily, and with perseverance and yet retain the command and +superintendence of their faculties. I have here (he continued) a +clipping sent me by an eminent architect in the great city of +Philadelphia (a city which it is a pleasure for me to contemplate by +reason of the beauty and virtue of its women, the infinite vivacity and +good temper of its men, the rectitudinal disposition of its highways)--I +have here (he exclaimed) a clipping sent me by an architect of fame, +charming parts, and infinite cellarage, explaining the virtues of cider. +Cider, this clipping asserts, produces a clearness of the complexion. It +brightens the eye, particularly in women, conducing to the composition +of generous compliment and all the social suavity that endears the +intercourse of the sexes. Longevity, this extract maintains, is the +result of application to good cider. The Rev. Martin Johnson, vicar of +Dilwyn, in Herefordshire, from 1651 to 1698 (he read from his clipping), +wrote: + + _This parish, wherein sider is plentiful, hath many people that + do enjoy this blessing of long life; neither are the aged + bedridden or decrepit as elsewhere; next to God, wee ascribe it + to our flourishing orchards, first that the bloomed trees in + spring do not only sweeten but purify the ambient air; next, that + they yield us plenty of rich and winy liquors, which do conduce + very much to the constant health of our inhabitants. Their + ordinary course is to breakfast and sup with toast and sider + through the whole Lent; which heightens their appetites and + creates in them durable strength to labour._ + +There was a pause, and our friend (he is a man of girth and with a brow +bearing all the candor of a life of intense thought) leaned against the +mahogany counter. + +That is very fine, we said, draining our chalice, and feeling brightness +of eye, length of years, and durable strength to labour added to our +person. In the meantime (we said) why do you not drink the rich and winy +liquor which your vessel contains? + +He folded up his clipping and put it away with a sigh. + +I always have to read that first, he said, to make the damned stuff +palatable. It will be ten years, he said, before the friend who sent me +that clipping will have to drink any cider. + + + + +ONE-NIGHT STANDS + +[Illustration] + + +To those looking for an exhilarating vacation let us commend a +week of "trouping" on one-night stands with a theatrical company, +which mirthful experience has just been ours. We went along in +the very lowly capacity of co-author, which placed us somewhat +beneath the stage hands as far as dignity was concerned; and we +flatter ourself that we have learned our station and observe it +with due humility. The first task of the director who stages a +play is to let the author know where he gets off. This was +accomplished in our case by an argument concerning a speech in +the play where one of the characters remarks, "I propose to send +a mental message to Eliza." This sounds (we contend) quite a +harmless sentiment, but the director insisted that the person +speaking, being an Englishman of studious disposition, would not +say anything so inaccurate. "He would use much more correct +language," said the director. "He ought to say 'I _purpose_ to +send.'" We balked mildly at this. "All right," said our mentor. +"The trouble with you is you don't know any English. I'll send +you a copy of the Century dictionary." + +This gentleman carried purism to almost extravagant lengths. He +objected to the customary pronunciation of "jew's-harp," +insisting that the word should be "juice-harp," and instructing +the actor who mentioned this innocent instrument of melody to +write it down so in his script. When the dress rehearsal came +round, he was surveying the "set" for the first act with +considerable complacence. This scenery was intended to represent +a very ancient English inn at Stratford-on-Avon, and one of the +authors was heard to remark softly that it looked more like a +broker's office on Wall Street. But the director was unshaken. +"There's an old English inn up at Larchmont," said he, "and this +looks a good deal like it, so I guess we're all right." + +Let any one who imagines the actor's life is one of bevo and +skittles sally along with a new play on its try-out in the +one-night circuit. When one sees the delightful humour, +fortitude, and high spirits with which the players face their +task he gains a new respect for the profession. It is with a +sense of shame that the wincing author hears his lines repeated +night after night--lines that seem to him to have grown so stale +and disreputably stupid, and which the ingenuity of the players +contrives to instill with life. With a sense of shame indeed does +he reflect that because one day long ago he was struck with a +preposterous idea, here are honest folk depending on it to earn +daily bread and travelling on a rainy day on a local train on the +Central New England Railway; here are 800 people in Saratoga +Springs filing into a theatre with naïve expectation on their +faces. Amusing things happen faster than he can stay to count +them. A fire breaks out in a cigar store a few minutes before +theatre time. It is extinguished immediately, but half the town +has rushed down to see the excitement. The cigar store is almost +next door to the theatre, and the crowd sees the lighted sign and +drops in to give the show the once-over, thus giving one a +capacity house. Then there are the amusing accidents that happen +on the stage, due to the inevitable confusion of one-night stands +with long jumps each day, when scenery and props arrive at the +theatre barely in time to be set up. In the third act one of the +characters has to take his trousers out of a handbag. He opens +the bag, but by some error no garments are within. Heavens! has +the stage manager mixed up the bags? He has only one hope. The +girlish heroine's luggage is also on the stage, and our comedian +dashes over and finds his trousers in her bag. This casts a most +sinister imputation on the adorable heroine, but our friend +(blessings on him) contrives it so delicately that the audience +doesn't get wise. Then doors that are supposed to be locked have +a habit of swinging open, and the luckless heroine, ready to say +furiously to the hero, "_Will_ you unlock the door?" finds +herself facing an open doorway and has to invent a line to get +herself off the stage. + +Going on the road is a very humanizing experience and one gathers +a considerable respect for the small towns one visits. They are +so brisk, so proud in their local achievements, so prosperous and +so full of attractive shop-windows. When one finds in Johnstown, +N. Y., for instance, a bookshop with almost as well-assorted a +stock as one would see here in Philadelphia; or in Gloversville +and Newburgh public libraries that would be a credit to any large +city, one realizes the great tide of public intelligence that has +risen perceptibly in recent years. At the hotel in Gloversville +the proprietress assured us that "an English duke" had just left +who told her that he preferred her hotel to the Biltmore in New +York. We rather wondered about this English duke, but we looked +him up on the register and found that he was Sir H. Urnick of +Fownes Brothers, the glove manufacturers, who have a factory in +Gloversville. But then, being a glove manufacturer, he may have +been kidding her, as the low comedian of our troupe observed. But +the local pride of the small town is a genial thing. It may +always be noted in the barber shops. The small-town barber knows +his customers and when a strange face appears to be shaved on the +afternoon when the bills are announcing a play, he puts two and +two together. "Are you with that show?" he asks; and being +answered in the affirmative (one naturally would not admit that +one is merely there in the frugal capacity of co-author, and +hopes that he will imagine that such a face might conceivably +belong to the low comedian) he proceeds to expound the favourite +doctrine that this is a wise burg. "Yes," he says, "folks here +are pretty cagy. If your show can get by here you needn't worry +about New York. Believe me, if you get a hand here you can go +right down to Broadway. I always take in the shows, and I've +heard lots of actors say this town is harder to please than any +place they ever played." + +One gets a new viewpoint on many matters by a week of one-night +stands. Theatrical billboards, for instance. We had always +thought, in a vague kind of way, that they were a defacement to a +town and cluttered up blank spaces in an unseemly way. But when +you are trouping, the first thing you do, after registering at +the hotel, is to go out and scout round the town yearning for +billboards and complaining because there aren't enough of them. +You meet another member of the company on the same errand and +say, "I don't see much paper out," this being the technical +phrase. You both agree that the advance agent must be loafing. +Then you set out to see what opposition you are playing against, +and emit groans on learning that "The Million Dollar Doll in +Paris" is also in town, or "Harry Bulger's Girly Show" will be +there the following evening, or Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties +in Person. "That's the kind of stuff they fall for," said the +other author mournfully, and you hustle around to the box office +to see whether the ticket rack is still full of unsold pasteboard. + +At this time of year, when all the metropolitan theatres are +crowded and there are some thirty plays cruising round in the +offing waiting for a chance to get into New York and praying that +some show now there will "flop," one crosses the trail of many +other wandering troupes that are battering about from town to +town. In remote Johnstown, N. Y., which can only be reached by +trolley and where there is no hotel (but a very fine large +theatre) one finds that Miss Grace George is to be the next +attraction. On the train to Saratoga one rides on the same train +with the Million Dollar Doll, and those who have seen her "paper" +on the billboards in Newburgh or Poughkeepsie keep an attentive +optic open for the lady herself to see how nearly she lives up to +her lithographs. And if the passerby should see a lighted window +in the hotel glimmering at two in the morning, he will probably +aver that there are some of those light-hearted "show people" +carousing over a flagon of Virginia Dare. Little does he suspect +that long after the tranquil thespians have gone to their +well-earned hay, the miserable authors of the trying-out piece +may be vigiling together, trying to dope out a new scene for the +third act. The saying is not new, but it comes frequently to the +lips of the one-night stander--It's a great life if you don't +weaken. + + + + +THE OWL TRAIN + +[Illustration] + + +Across the cold moonlit landscapes, while good folk are at home curling +their toes in the warm bottom of the bed, the Owl trains rumble with a +gentle drone, neither fast nor slow. + +There are several Owl trains with which we have been familiar. One, +rather aristocratic of its kind, is the caravan of sleeping cars that +leaves New York at midnight and deposits hustling business men of the +most aggressive type at the South Station, Boston. After a dissolute +progress full of incredible jerks and jolts these pilgrims reach this +dampest, darkest, and most Arctic of all terminals about the time the +morning codfish begins to warm his bosom on the gridirons of the sacred +city. Another, a terrible nocturnal prowler, slips darkly away from +Albany about 1 A. M., and rambles disconsolately and with shrill +wailings along the West Shore line. Below the grim Palisades of the +Hudson it wakes painful echoes. Its first six units, as far as one can +see in the dark, are blind express cars, containing milk cans and +coffins. We once boarded it at Kingston, and after uneasy slumber across +two facing seats found ourself impaled upon Weehawken three hours later. +There one treads dubiously upon a ferryboat in the fog and brume of +dawn, ungluing eyelids in the bleak dividing pressure of the river +breeze. + +But the Owl train we propose to celebrate is the vehicle that departs +modestly from the crypt of the Pennsylvania Station in New York at +half-past midnight and emits blood-shot wanderers at West Philadelphia +at 3:16 in the morning. The railroad company, which thinks these +problems out with nice care, lulls the passengers into unconsciousness +of their woes not only by a gentle and even gait, a progress almost +tender in its carefully modulated repression of speed, but also by +keeping the cars at such an amazing heat that the victims promptly fade +into a swoon. Nowhere will you see a more complete abandonment to the +wild postures of fatigue and despair than in the pathetic sprawl of +these human forms upon the simmering plush settees. A hot eddy of some +varnish-tinctured vapour--certainly not air--rises from under the seats +and wraps the traveller in a nightmarish trance. Occasionally he starts +wildly from his dream and glares frightfully through the misted pane. It +is the custom of the trainmen, who tiptoe softly through the cars, +never to disturb their clients by calling out the names of stations. +When New Brunswick is reached many think that they have arrived at West +Philadelphia, or (worse still) have been carried on to Wilmington. They +rush desperately to the bracing chill of the platform to learn where +they are. There is a mood of mystery about this Owl of ours. The +trainmen take a quaint delight in keeping the actual whereabouts of the +caravan a merciful secret. + +Oddly assorted people appear on this train. Occasional haughty +revellers, in evening dress and opera capes, appear among the humbler +voyagers. For a time they stay on their dignity: sit bravely upright and +talk with apparent intelligence. Then the drowsy poison of that stifled +atmosphere overcomes them, too, and they fall into the weakness of their +brethren. They turn over the opposing seat, elevate their nobler shins, +and droop languid heads over the ticklish plush chair-back. Strange +aliens lie spread over the seats. Nowhere will you see so many faces of +curious foreign carving. It seems as though many desperate exiles, who +never travel by day, use the Owl for moving obscurely from city to city. +This particular train is bound south to Washington, and at least half +its tenants are citizens of colour. Even the endless gayety of our dusky +brother is not proof against the venomous exhaustion of that boxed-in +suffocation. The ladies of his race are comfortably prepared for the +hardships of the route. They wrap themselves in huge fur coats and all +have sofa cushions to recline on. Even in an all-night session of +Congress you will hardly note so complete an abandonment of disillusion, +weariness, and cynical despair as is written upon the blank faces all +down the aisle. Even the will-power of a George Creel or a Will H. Hays +would droop before this three-hour ordeal. Professor Einstein, who talks +so delightfully of discarding Time and Space, might here reconsider his +theories if he brooded, baking gradually upward, on the hot green plush. + +This genial Owl is not supposed to stop at North Philadelphia, but it +always does. By this time Philadelphia passengers are awake and gathered +in the cold vestibules, panting for escape. Some of them, against the +rules of the train, manage to escape on the North Philadelphia platform. +The rest, standing huddled over the swaying couplings, find the +leisurely transit to West Philadelphia as long as the other segments of +the ride put together. Stoically, and beyond the power of words, they +lean on one another. At last the train slides down a grade. In the dark +and picturesque tunnel of the West Philadelphia station, through thick +mists of steam where the glow of the fire box paints the fog a golden +rose, they grope and find the ancient stairs. Then they stagger off to +seek a lonely car or a night-hawk taxi. + + + + +SAFETY PINS + +[Illustration] + + +Ligature of infancy, healing engine of emergency, base and +mainstay of our civilization--we celebrate the safety pin. + +What would we do without safety pins? Is it not odd to think, +looking about us on our fellowmen (bearded realtors, ejaculating +poets, plump and ruddy policemen, even the cheerful dusky +creature who runs the elevator and whistles "Oh, What a Pal Was +Mary" as the clock draws near 6 P. M.)--all these were first +housed and swaddled and made seemly with a paper of safety pins. +How is it that the inventor who first conferred this great gift +on the world is not known by name for the admiration and applause +of posterity? Was it not the safety pin that made the world safe +for infancy? + +There will be some, mayhap, to set up the button as rival to the +safety pin in service to humanity. But our homage bends toward +the former. Not only was it our shield and buckler when we were +too puny and impish to help ourselves, but it is also (now we are +parent) symbol of many a hard-fought field, where we have +campaigned all over the white counterpane of a large bed to +establish an urchin in his proper gear, while he kicked and +scrambled, witless of our dismay. It is fortunate, pardee, that +human memory does not extend backward to the safety pin +era--happily the recording carbon sheet of the mind is not +inserted on the roller of experience until after the singular +humiliations of earliest childhood have passed. Otherwise our +first recollection would doubtless be of the grimly flushed large +face of a resolute parent, bending hotly downward in effort to +make both ends meet while we wambled and waggled in innocent, +maddening sport. In those days when life was (as George Herbert +puts it) "assorted sorrows, anguish of all sizes," the safety pin +was the only thing that raised us above the bandar-log. No wonder +the antique schoolmen used to enjoy computing the number of +angels that might dance on the point of a pin. But only +archangels would be worthy to pirouette on a safety pin, which is +indeed mightier than the sword. When Adam delved and Eve did +spin, what did they do for a safety pin? + +Great is the stride when an infant passes from the safety pin +period to the age of buttons. There are three ages of human +beings in this matter: (1) Safety pins, (2) Buttons, (3) Studs, +or (for females) Hooks and Eyes. Now there is an interim in the +life of man when he passes away from safety pins, and, for a +season, knows them not--save as mere convenience in case of +breakdown. He thinks of them, in his antic bachelor years, as +merely the wrecking train of the sartorial system, a casual +conjunction for pyjamas, or an impromptu hoist for small clothes. +Ah! with humility and gratitude he greets them again later, +seeing them at their true worth, the symbol of integration for +the whole social fabric. Women, with their intuitive wisdom, are +more subtle in this subject. They never wholly outgrow safety +pins, and though they love to ornament them with jewellery, +precious metal, and enamels, they are naught but safety pins +after all. Some ingenious philosopher could write a full tractate +on woman in her relation to pins--hairpins, clothes pins, rolling +pins, hatpins. + +Only a bachelor, as we have implied, scoffs at pins. Hamlet +remarked, after seeing the ghost, and not having any Sir Oliver +Lodge handy to reassure him, that he did not value his life at a +pin's fee. Pope, we believe, coined the contemptuous phrase, "I +care not a pin." The pin has never been done justice in the +world of poetry. As one might say, the pin has had no Pindar. Of +course there is the old saw about see a pin and pick it up, all +the day you'll have good luck. This couplet, barbarous as it is +in its false rhyme, points (as Mother Goose generally does) to a +profound truth. When you see a pin, you must pick it up. In other +words, it is on the floor, where pins generally are. Their +instinctive affinity for terra firma makes one wonder why they, +rather than the apple, did not suggest the law of gravitation to +someone long before Newton. + +Incidentally, of course, the reason why Adam and Eve were +forbidden to pick the apple was that it was supposed to stay on +the tree until it fell, and Adam would then have had the credit +of spotting the principle of gravitation. + +Much more might be said about pins, touching upon their curious +capacity for disappearing, superstitions concerning them, +usefulness of hatpins or hairpins as pipe-cleaners, usefulness of +pins to schoolboys, both when bent for fishing and when filed to +an extra point for use on the boy in the seat in front (honouring +him in the breech, as Hamlet would have said) and their curious +habits of turning up in unexpected places, undoubtedly caught by +pins in their long association with the lovelier sex. But of +these useful hyphens of raiment we will merely conclude by saying +that those interested in the pin industry will probably emigrate +to England, for we learn from the Encyclopædia Britannica that in +that happy island pins are cleaned by being boiled in weak beer. +Let it not be forgotten, however, that of all kinds, the safety +is the King Pin. + + + + +CONFESSIONS OF A "COLYUMIST" + +[Illustration] + + +I can not imagine any pleasant job so full of pangs, or any painful job +so full of pleasures, as the task of conducting a newspaper column. + +The colyumist, when he begins his job, is disheartened because nobody +notices it. He soon outgrows this, and is disheartened because too many +people notice it, and he imagines that all see the paltriness of it as +plainly as he does. There is nothing so amazing to him as to find that +any one really enjoys his "stuff." Poor soul, he remembers how he +groaned over it at his desk. He remembers the hours he sat with +lack-lustre eye and addled brain, brooding at the sluttish typewriter. +He remembers the flush of shame that tingled him as he walked sadly +homeward, thinking of some atrocious inanity he had sent upstairs to the +composing-room. It is a job that engenders a healthy humility. + +I had always wanted to have a try at writing a column. Heaven help me, I +think I had an idea that I was born for the job. I may as well be +candid. There was a time when I seriously thought of inserting the +following ad in a Philadelphia newspaper. I find a memorandum of it in +my scrap-book: + + HUMORIST: Young and untamed, lineal descendent of Eugene Field, + Frank Stockton, and François Rabelais, desires to run a column in + a Philadelphia newspaper. A guaranteed circulation-getter. + + Said Humorist can also supply excellent veins of philosophy, + poetry, satire, uplift, glad material and indiscriminate musings. + Remarkable opportunity for any newspaper desiring a really + unusual editorial feature. Address HUMORIST, etc. + +So besotted was I, I would have paid to have this printed if I had not +been counselled by an older and wiser head. + +I instance this to show that the colyumist is likely to begin his job +with the conception that it is to be a perpetual uproar of mirth and +high spirits. This lasts about a week. He then learns, in secret, to +take it rather seriously. He has to deal with the most elusive and +grotesque material he knows--his own mind; and the unhappy creature, +everlastingly probing himself in the hope of discovering what is so rare +in minds (a thought), is likely to end in a ferment of bitterness. The +happiest times in life are when one can just live along and enjoy things +as they happen. If you have to be endlessly speculating, watching, and +making mental notes, your brain-gears soon get a hot box. The original +of all paragraphers--Ecclesiastes--came very near ending as a complete +cynic; though in what F. P. A. would call his "lastline," he managed to +wriggle into a more hopeful mood. + +The first valuable discovery that the colyumist is likely to make is +that all minds are very much the same. The doctors tell us that all +patent medicines are built on a stock formula--a sedative, a purge, and +a bitter. If you are to make steady column-topers out of your readers, +your daily dose must, as far as possible, average up to that same +prescription. If you employ the purge all the time, or the sedative, or +the acid, your clients will soon ask for something with another label. + +Don Marquis once wrote an admirable little poem called "A Colyumist's +Prayer." Mr. Marquis, who is the king of all colyumists, realizes that +there is what one may call a religious side in colyumizing. It is hard +to get the colyumist to admit this, for he fears spoofing worse than the +devil; but it is eminently true. If I were the owner of a newspaper, I +think I would have painted up on the wall of the local room the +following words from Isaiah, the best of all watchwords for all who +write: + + Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put + darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for + sweet, and sweet for bitter! + +The most painful privilege of the colyumist's job is the number of +people who drop in to see him, usually when he is imprecating his way +toward the hour of going to press. This is all a part of the great and +salutary human instinct against work. When people see a man toiling, +they have an irresistible impulse to crowd round and stop him. They seem +to imagine that he has been put there on purpose to help them solve +their problems, to find a job for their friend from Harrisburg, or to +tell them how to find a publisher for their poems. Unhappily, their +victim being merely human, is likely to grow a bit snappish under +infliction. Yet now and then he gets a glimpse into a human vexation so +sincere, so honest, and so moving that he turns away from the typewriter +with a sigh. He wonders how one dare approach the chronicling of this +muddled panorama with anything but humility and despair. Frank Harris +once said of Oscar Wilde: "If England insists on treating her criminals +like this, she doesn't deserve to have any." Similarly, if the public +insists on bringing its woes to its colyumists, it doesn't deserve to +have any colyumists. Then the battered jester turns again to his machine +and ticks off something like this: + + _We have heard of ladies who have been tempted beyond their + strength. We have also seen some who have been strengthened + beyond their temptation._ + +Of course there are good days, too. (This is not one of them.) Days when +the whole course of the news seems planned for the benefit of the +chaffish and irreverent commentator. When Governor Hobby of Texas issues +a call for the state cavalry. When one of your clients drops in, in the +goodness of his heart, to give you his own definition of a pessimist--a +pessimist, he says, is a man who wears both belt and suspenders. When a +big jewellery firm in the city puts out a large ad-- + + Bailey, Banks & Biddle Company + Watches for Women + Of Superior Design and Perfection + of Movement + +all that one needs to do to that is to write over it the caption + +SO DO WE ALL + +and pass on to the next paragraph. + +The more a colyumist is out on the streets, making himself the reporter +of the moods and oddities of men, the better his stuff will be. It seems +to me that his job ought to be good training for a novelist, as it +teaches him a habit of human sensitiveness. He becomes filled with an +extraordinary curiosity about the motives and purposes of the people he +sees. The other afternoon I was very much struck by the unconscious +pathos of a little, gentle-eyed old man who was standing on Chestnut +Street studying a pocket notebook. His umbrella leaned against a +shop-window, on the sill of which he had laid a carefully rolled-up +newspaper. By his feet was a neat leather brief-case, plumply filled +with contents not discernible. There he stood (a sort of unsuccessful +Cyrus Curtis), very diminutive, his gray hair rather long abaft his +neck, his yellowish straw hat (with curly brim) tilted backward as +though in perplexity, his timid and absorbed blue eyes poring over his +memorandum-book which was full of pencilled notes. He had a slightly +unkempt, brief beard and whiskers, his cheek-bones pinkish, his linen a +little frayed. There was something strangely pathetic about him, and I +would have given much to have been able to speak to him. I halted at a +window farther down the street and studied him; then returned to pass +him again, and watched him patiently. He stood quite absorbed, and was +still there when I went on. + +That is just one of the thousands of vivid little pictures one sees on +the city streets day by day. To catch some hint of the meaning of all +this, to present a few scrawled notes of the amazing interest and colour +of the city's life, this is the colyumist's task as I see it. It is a +task not a whit less worthy, less painful, or less baffling than that of +the most conscientious novelist. And it is carried on in surroundings of +extraordinary stimulation and difficulty. It is heart-racking to +struggle day by day, amid incessant interruption and melee, to snatch +out of the hurly-burly some shreds of humour or pathos or (dare one +say?) beauty, and phrase them intelligibly. + +But it is fun. One never buys a package of tobacco, crosses a city +square, enters a trolley car or studies a shop-window without trying, in +a baffled, hopeless way, to peer through the frontage of the experience, +to find some glimmer of the thoughts, emotions, and meanings behind. And +in the long run such a habit of inquiry must bear fruit in understanding +and sympathy. Joseph Conrad (who seems, by the way, to be more read by +newspaper men than any other writer) put very nobly the pinnacle of all +scribblers' dreams when he said that human affairs deserve the tribute +of "a sigh which is not a sob, a smile which is not a grin." + +So much, with apology, for the ideals of the colyumist, if he be +permitted to speak truth without fear of mockery. Of course in the +actual process and travail of his job you will find him far different. +You may know him by a sunken, brooding eye; clothing marred by much +tobacco, and a chafed and tetchy humour toward the hour of five P. M. +Having bitterly schooled himself to see men as paragraphs walking, he +finds that his most august musings have a habit of stewing themselves +down to some ferocious or jocular three-line comment. He may yearn +desperately to compose a really thrilling poem that will speak his +passionate soul; to churn up from the typewriter some lyric that will +rock with blue seas and frantic hearts; he finds himself allaying the +frenzy with some jovial sneer at Henry Ford or a yell about the High +Cost of Living. Poor soul, he is like one condemned to harangue the +vast, idiotic world through a keyhole, whence his anguish issues thin +and faint. Yet who will say that all his labour is wholly vain? Perhaps +some day the government will crown a Colyumist Laureate, some majestic +sage with ancient patient blue eyes and a snowy beard nobly stained with +nicotine, whose utterances will be heeded with shuddering respect. All +minor colyumists will wear robes and sandals; they will be an order of +scoffing friars; people will run to them on crowded streets to lay +before them the sorrows and absurdities of men. And in that day + + The meanest paragraph that blows will give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for sneers. + + + + +MOVING + +[Illustration] + + +Man, we suspect, is the only animal capable of persuading himself +that his hardships are medicine to the soul, of flattering +himself into a conviction that some mortal spasm was a fortifying +discipline. + +Having just moved our household goods for the fourth time in four +years, we now find ourself in the singular state of trying to +believe that the horrors of the event have added to our supply of +spiritual resignation. Well, let us see. + +The brutal task of taking one's home on trek is (we can argue) a +stirring tonic, a kind of private rehearsal of the Last Judgment, +when the sheep shall be divided from the shoats. What could be a +more convincing reminder of the instability of man's affairs than +the harrowing upheaval of our cherished properties? Those dark +angels, the moving men, how heartless they seem in their brisk +and resolute dispassion--yet how exactly they prefigure the +implacable sternness of the ultimate shepherds. A strange life is +theirs, taking them day after day into the bosom of homes +prostrated by the emigrating throe. Does this matter-of-fact +bearing conceal an infinite tenderness, a pity that dare not show +itself for fear of unmanly collapse? Are they secretly broken by +the sight of the desolate nursery, the dismantled crib, the +forgotten clockwork monkey lying in a corner of the cupboard +where the helpless Urchin laid it with care before he and his +smaller sister were deported, to be out of the way in the final +storm? Does the o'ermastering pathos of a modest household turned +inside out, its tender vitals displayed to the passing world, +wring their breasts? Stoic men, if so, they well conceal their +pangs. + +They have one hopelessly at a disadvantage. In the interval that +always elapses before the arrival of the second van, there is a +little social chat and utterance of reminiscences. There is a +lively snapping of matchheads on thumbnails, and seated at ease +in the débris of the dismantled living room our friends will +tell of the splendour of some households they have moved before. +The thirty-eight barrels of gilt porcelain, the twenty cases of +oil paintings, the satin-wood grand piano that their spines +twinge to recall. Once our furnitures were moved by a crew of +lusty athletes who had previously done the same for Mr. Ivy Lee, +and while we sat in shamed silence we heard the tale of Mr. Lee's +noble possessions. Of what avail would it have been for us to +protest that we love our stuff as much as Mr. Lee did his? No, we +had a horrid impulse to cry apology, and beg them to hurl the +things into the van anyhow, just to end the agony. + +This interval of social chat being prolonged by the blizzard, the +talk is likely to take a more ominous turn. We are told how, only +last week, a sister van was hit by a train at a crossing and +carried a hundred yards on the engine pilot. Two of the men were +killed, though one of these lived from eleven o'clock Saturday +morning until eleven o'clock Monday night. How, after hearing +this, can one ask what happened to the furniture, even if one is +indecent enough to think of it? Then one learns of another of the +fleet, stalled in a drift on the way to Harrisburg, and hasn't +been heard from for forty-eight hours. Sitting in subdued +silence, one remembers something about "moving accidents by flood +and field," and thanks fortune that these pitiful oddments are +only going to a storage warehouse, not to be transported thence +until the kindly season of spring. + +But packing for storage instead of for moving implies subtler and +more painful anguishes. Here indeed we have a tonic for the soul, +for election must be made among one's belongings: which are to be +stored, and which to accompany? Take the subject of books for +instance. Horrid hesitation: can we subsist for four or five +months on nothing but the "Oxford Book of English Verse" and +Boswell's Johnson? Suppose we want to look up a quotation, in +those late hours of the night when all really worthwhile reading +is done? Our memory is knitted with a wide mesh. Suppose we want +to be sure just what it was that Shakespeare said happened to him +in his "sessions of sweet silent thought," what are we going to +do? We will have to fall back on the customary recourse of the +minor poet--if you can't remember one of Shakespeare's sonnets, +at least you can write one of your own instead. Speaking of +literature, it is a curious thing that the essayists have so +neglected this topic of moving. It would be pleasant to know how +the good and the great have faced this peculiarly terrible crisis +of domestic affairs. When the Bard himself moved back to +Stratford after his years in London, what did he think about it? +How did he get all his papers packed up, and did he, in mere +weariness, destroy the half-done manuscripts of plays? Charles +Lamb moved round London a good deal; did he never write of his +experience? We like to think of Emerson: did he ever move, and if +so, how did he behave when the fatal day came? Did he sit on a +packing case and utter sepulchral aphorisms? Think of Lord Bacon +and how he would have crystallized the matter in a phrase. + +Of course in bachelor days moving may be a huge lark, a humorous +escapade. We remember some high-spirited young men, three of +them, who were moving their chattels from rooms on Twenty-first +Street to a flat on Irving Place. Frugality was their necessary +watchword, and they hired a pushcart in which to transport the +dunnage. It was necessary to do this on Sunday, and one of the +trio, more sensitive than the others, begged that they should +rise and accomplish the public shame early in the morning, before +the streets were alive. In particular, he begged, let the route +be chosen to avoid a certain club on Gramercy Park where he had +many friends, and where he was loath to be seen pushing his +humble intimacies. The others, scenting sport, and brazenly hardy +of spirit, contrived to delay the start on one pretext or another +until the middle of the forenoon. Then, by main force, ignoring +his bitter protest, they impelled the staggering vehicle, grossly +overloaded, past the very door of the club my friend had wished +to avoid. Here, by malicious inspiration, they tilted the wain to +one side and strewed the paving with their property. They skipped +nimbly round the corner, and with highly satisfactory laughter +watched their blushing partner labouring dismally to collect the +fragments. Some of his friends issuing from the club lent a hand, +and the joy of the conspirators was complete. + +But to the family man, moving is no such airy picnic. Sadly he +goes through the last dismal rites and sees the modest fragments +of his dominion hustled toward the cold sepulture of a motor van. +Before the toughened bearing of the hirelings he doubts what +manner to assume. Shall he stand at the front door and exhort +them to particular care with each sentimental item, crying "Be +careful with that little chair; that's the one the Urchin uses +when he eats his evening prunes!" Or shall he adopt a gruesome +sarcasm, hoping to awe them by conveying the impression that even +if the whole van should be splintered in collision, he can get +more at the nearest department store? Whatever policy he adopts, +they will not be much impressed. For, when we handed our +gratuity, not an ungenerous one, to the driver, asking him to +divide it among the gang, we were startled to hear them burst +into loud screams of mirth. We asked, grimly, the cause. It +appeared that during the work one of our friends, apparently +despairing of any pourboire appropriate to his own conceptions of +reward, had sold his share of the tip to the driver for fifteen +cents. We are not going to say how much he lost by so doing. But +this gamble put the driver in such a good humour that we believe +he will keep away from railroad crossings. + + + + +SURF FISHING + +[Illustration] + + +All day long you see them stand thigh-deep in the surf, fishing. +Up on the beach each one has a large basket containing clams for +bait, extra hooks and leaders, a little can of oil for the reel, +and any particular doo-dads dear to the heart of the individual +fisherman. And an old newspaper, all ready to protect the +anticipated catch from the rays of the sun. + +Some of them wear bathing suits; others rubber hip-boots, or +simply old clothes that won't mind getting wet. If they are very +full of swank they will have a leather belt with a socket to hold +the butt of the rod. Every now and then you will see them pacing +backward up the beach, reeling in the line. They will mutter +something about a big strike that time, and he got away with the +bait. With zealous care they spear some more clam on the hook, +twisting it over and over the barb so as to be firmly impaled. +Then, with careful precision, they fling the line with its heavy +pyramid sinker far out beyond the line of breakers. + +There they stand. What do they think about, one wonders? But what +does any one think about when fishing? That is one of the happy +pastimes that don't require much thinking. The long ridges of +surf crumble about their knees and the sun and keen vital air +lull them into a cheerful drowse of the faculties. Do they +speculate on the never-ending fascination of the leaning walls of +water, the rhythmical melody of the rasp and hiss of the water? +Do they watch that indescribable beauty of the breaking wave, a +sight as old as humankind and yet never so described that one who +has not seen it could picture it? + +The wave gathers height and speed as it moves toward the sand. It +seems to pull itself together for the last plunge. The first wave +that ever rolled up to a beach probably didn't break. It just +slid. It was only the second wave that broke--curled over in that +curious way. For our theory--which may be entirely wrong--is that +the breaking is due to the undertow of previous waves. After a +wave sprawls up on the beach, it runs swiftly back. This +receding undercurrent--you can feel it very strongly if you are +swimming just in front of a large wave about to break--digs in +beneath the advancing hill of water. It cuts away the foundations +of that hill, which naturally topples over at the crest. + +The wave of water leans and hangs for a delaying instant. The +actual cascade may begin at one end and run along the length of +the ridge; it may begin at both ends and twirl inward, meeting in +the middle; it may (but very rarely) begin in the middle and work +outward. As the billow is at its height, before it combs over, +the fisherman sees the sunlight gleaming through it--an ecstasy +of perfect lucid green, with the glimmer of yellow sand behind. +Then, for a brief moment--so brief that the details can never be +memorized--he sees a clear crystal screen of water falling +forward. Another instant, and it is all a boil of snowy suds +seething about his legs. He may watch it a thousand times, a +million times; it will never be old, never wholly familiar. +Colour varies from hour to hour, from day to day. Sometimes blue +or violet, sometimes green-olive or gray. The backwash tugs at +his boots, hollowing out little channels under his feet. The sun +wraps him round like a mantle; the salt crusts and thickens in +his hair. And then, when he has forgotten everything save the +rhythm of the falling waves, there comes a sudden tug---- + +He reels in, and a few curious bathers stand still in the surf +to see what he has got. They are inclined to be scornful. It is +such a little fish! One would think that such a vast body of +water would be ashamed to yield only so small a prize. Never +mind. He has compensations they wot not of. Moreover--although he +would hardly admit it himself--the fishing business is only a +pretext. How else could a grown man with grizzled hair have an +excuse to stand all day paddling in the surf? + + + + +"IDOLATRY" + +[Illustration] + + +Once in a while, when the name of R. L. S. is mentioned in +conversation, someone says to us: "Ah well, you're one of the +Stevenson idolators, aren't you?" And this is said with a curious +air of cynical superiority, as of one who has experienced all +these things and is superbly tolerant of the shallow mind that +can still admire Tusitala. His work (such people will generally +tell you) was brilliant but "artificial" ... and for the true +certificated milk of the word one must come along to such modern +giants as Dreiser and Hergesheimer and Cabell. For these artists, +each in his due place, we have only the most genial respect. But +when the passion of our youth is impugned as "idolatry" we feel +in our spirit an intense weariness. We feel the pacifism of the +wise and secretive mind that remains tacit when its most perfect +inward certainties are assailed. One does not argue, for there +are certain things not arguable. One shrugs. After all, what +human gesture more eloquent (or more satisfying to the performer) +than the shrug? + +There is a little village on the skirts of the Forest of +Fontainebleau (heavenly region of springtime and romance!) where +the crystal-green eddies of the Loing slip under an old gray +bridge with sharp angled piers of stone. Near the bridge is a +quiet little inn, one of the many happy places in that country +long frequented by artists for painting and "_villégiature_." +Behind the inn is a garden beside the river-bank. The _salle à +manger_, as in so many of those inns at Barbizon, Moret, and the +other Fontainebleau villages, is panelled and frescoed with +humorous and high-spirited impromptus done by visiting painters. + +In the summer of 1876 an anxious rumour passed among the artist +colonies. It was said that an American lady and her two children +had arrived at Grez, and the young bohemians who regarded this +region as their own sacred retreat were startled and alarmed. +Were their chosen haunts to be invaded by tourists--and tourists +of the disturbing sex? Among three happy irresponsibles this +humorous anxiety was particularly acute. One of the trio was sent +over to Grez as a scout, to spy out the situation and report. The +emissary went, and failed to return. A second explorer was +dispatched to study the problem. He, too, was swallowed up in +silence. The third, impatiently waiting tidings from his +faithless friends, set out to make an end of this mystery. He +reached the inn at dusk: it was a gentle summer evening; the +windows were open to the tender air; lamps were lit within, and a +merry party sat at dinner. Through the open window the suspicious +venturer saw the recreant ambassadors, gay with laughter. And +there, sitting in the lamplight, was the American lady--a +slender, thoughtful enchantress with eyes as dark and glowing as +the wine. Thus it was that Robert Louis Stevenson first saw Fanny +Osbourne. + +A few days later Mrs. Osbourne's eighteen-year-old daughter +Isobel wrote in a letter: "There is a young Scotchman here, a Mr. +Stevenson. He is such a nice-looking ugly man, and I would rather +listen to him talk than read the most interesting book.... Mama +is ever so much better and is getting prettier every day." + +"The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson," written by her sister +Mrs. Sanchez (the mother of "little Louis Sanchez on the beach at +Monterey" remembered by lovers of "A Child's Garden of Verses") +is a book that none of the so-called idolaters will want to +overlook. The romantic excitements of R. L. S.'s youth were tame +indeed compared to those of Fanny Van de Grift. R. L. S. had +been thrilled enough by a few nights spent in the dark with the +docile ass of the Cevennes; but here was one, sprung from sober +Philadelphia blood, born in Indianapolis and baptized by Henry +Ward Beecher, who had pioneered across the fabled Isthmus, lived +in the roaring mining camps of Nevada, worked for a dressmaker in +Frisco, and venturously taken her young children to Belgium and +France to study art. She had been married at seventeen, had +already once thought herself to be a widow in fact by the +temporary disappearance of her first husband; and was now, after +enduring repeated infidelities, prepared to make herself a widow +in law. Daring horse woman, a good shot, a supreme cook, artist, +writer, and a very Gene Stratton Porter among flowers, fearless, +beautiful, and of unique charm--where could another woman have +been found so marvellously gifted to be the wife of a romancer? +It seems odd that Philadelphia and Edinburgh, the two most +conservatively minded cities of the Anglo-Saxon earth, should +have combined to produce this, the most radiant pair of +adventurers in our recent annals. + +The reading of this delightful book has taken us back into the +very pang and felicity of our first great passion--our idolatry, +if you will--which we are proud here and now to re-avow. When was +there ever a happier or more wholesome worship for a boy than the +Stevenson mania on which so many of this generation grew up? We +were the luckier in that our zeal was shared in all its gusto and +particularity by a lean, long-legged, sallow-faced, brown-eyed +eccentric (himself incredibly Stevensonian in appearance) with +whom we lay afield in our later teens, reading R. L. S. aloud by +the banks of a small stream which we vowed should become famous +in the world of letters. And so it has, though not by our +efforts, which was what we had designed; for at the crystal +headwater of that same creek was penned "The Amenities of Book +Collecting," that enchanting volume of bookish essays which has +swelled the correspondence of a Philadelphia business man to +insane proportions, and even brought him offers from three +newspapers to conduct a book page. It seems appropriate to the +present chronicler that in a quiet library overlooking the clear +fount and origin of dear Darby Creek there are several of the +most cherished association volumes of R. L. S.--we think +particularly of the "Child's Garden of Verses" which he gave to +Cummy, and the manuscript of little "Smoutie's" very first book, +the "History of Moses." + + * * * * * + +Was there ever a more joyous covenant of affection than that of +Mifflin McGill and ourself in our boyish madness for Tusitala? It +is a happy circumstance, we say, for a youth, before the +multiplying responsibilities of maturity press upon him, to pour +out his enthusiasm in an obsession such as that; and when this +passion can be shared and doubled and knitted in partnership with +an equally freakish, insane, and innocent idiot (such as our +generously mad friend Mifflin) admirable adventures are sure to +follow. The quest begun on Darby Creek took us later on an +all-summer progress among places in England and Scotland hallowed +to us by association with R. L. S. Never, in any young lives past +or to come, could there be an instant of purer excitement and +glory than when, after bicycling hotly all day with the blue +outline of Arthur's Seat apparently always receding before us, we +trundled grimly into Auld Reekie and set out for the old +Stevenson home at 17 Heriot Row, halting only to bestow our +pneumatic steeds in the nearest and humblest available hostelry. +There (for we found the house empty and "To Let") we sat on the +doorstep evening by evening, smoking in the long northern +twilight and spinning our youthful dreams. This lust for hunting +out our favourite author's footsteps even led one of the pair to +a place perhaps never visited by any other Stevensonian +pilgrim--old Cockfield Rectory, in Suffolk, where Mrs. Sitwell +and Sidney Colvin first met the bright-eyed Scotch boy in 1873. +The tracker of footprints remembers how kind were the then +occupants of the old rectory, and how, in a daze of awe, he trod +the green and tranquil lawn and hastened to visit a cottage near +by where there was an ancient rustic who had been coachman at +the rectory when R. L. S. stayed there, fabled to retain some +pithy recollection. Alas, the Suffolk ancient, eager enough to +share tobacco and speech, would only mull over his memories of a +previous rector, describing how it had fallen to him to prepare +the good man for burial; how he smiled in death and his cheeks +were as rosy as a babe's. + +It would take many pages to narrate all the bypaths and happy +excursions trod by these simple youths in their quest of the +immortal Louis. The memories come bustling, and one knows not +where to stop. The supreme adventure, for one of the pair, lay in +the kindness of Sir Sidney Colvin. To this prince of gentlemen +and scholars one of these lads wrote, sending his letter (with +subtle cunning) from a village in Suffolk only a few miles from +Sir Sidney's boyhood home. He calculated that this might arouse +the interest of Sir Sidney, whom he knew to be cruelly badgered +with letters from enthusiasts; and fortune turned in his favour, +granting him numerous ecstatic visits to Sir Sidney and Lady +Colvin and much unwarranted generosity. But, since our mind has +been turned in this direction by Mrs. Sanchez's book, it might be +appropriate to add that one of the most thrilling moments in the +crusade was a season of April days spent beside the green and +stripling Loing, in the forest of Fontainebleau region, visiting +those lovely French villages where R. L. S. roamed as a young +man, crowned by an afternoon at Grez. One remembers the old gray +bridge across the eddying water, and the door of the inn where +the young pilgrim lingered, trying to visualize scenes of +thirty-five years before. + +It is not mere idolatry when the hearts of the young are haunted +by such spells. There was some real divinity behind the +enchantment, some marvellous essence that made all roads Tusitala +trod the Road of Loving Hearts. In these matters we would trust +the simple Samoans to come nearer the truth than our cynic friend +in Greenwich Village. The magic of that great name abides +unimpaired. + + + + +THE FIRST COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS + +(_Delivered to Cain and Abel, the first graduating class of the +Garden of Eden Normal School._) + +[Illustration] + + +My young friends--It is a privilege to be permitted to address you this +morning, for I am convinced that never in the world's history did the +age beckon with so eager a gesture to the young men on the threshold of +active life. Never indeed in the past, and certainly never in the +future, was there or will there be a time more deeply fraught with +significance. And as I gaze upon your keen faces it seems almost as +though the world had amassed all the problems that now confront us +merely in order to give you tasks worthy of your prowess. + +The world, I think I may safely say, is smaller now than ever before. +The recent invention of young women, something quite new in the way of +a social problem, has introduced a hitherto undreamed-of complexity into +human affairs. The extreme rapidity with which ideas and thoughts now +circulate, due to the new invention of speech, makes it probable that +what is said in Eden to-day will be known in the land of Nod within a +year. The greatest need is plainly for big-visioned and purposeful men, +efficient men, men with forward-looking minds. I hope you will pattern +after your admirable father in this respect; he truly was a +forward-looking man, for he had nothing to look back on. + +You are aware, however, that your father has had serious problems to +deal with, and it is well that you should consider those problems in the +light of the experiences you are about to face. One of his most +perplexing difficulties would never have come upon him if he had not +fallen into a deep sleep. I counsel you, therefore, be wary not to +overslumber. The prizes of life always come to those who press +resolutely on, undaunted by fatigue and discouragement. Another of your +father's failings was probably due to the fact that he was never a small +boy and thus had no chance to work the deviltry out of his system. You +yourselves have been abundantly blessed in this regard. I think I may +say that here, in our Normal Academy, you have had an almost ideal +playground to work off those boyish high spirits, to perpetrate those +mischievous pranks that the world expects of its young. Remember that +you are now going out into the mature work of life, where you will +encounter serious problems. + +As you wend your way from these accustomed shades into the full glare of +public life you will do so, I hope, with the consciousness that the eyes +of the world are upon you. The sphere of activity in which you may find +yourselves called upon to perform may be restricted, but you will +remember that not failure but low aim is base. You will hold a just +balance between the conflicting tendencies of radicalism and +conservatism. You will endeavour to secure for labour its due share in +the profits of labour. You will not be forgetful that all government +depends in the last resort on the consent of the governed. These catch +words in the full flush of your youth you may be inclined to dismiss as +truisms, but I assure you that 10,000 years from now men will be +uttering them with the same air of discovery. + +It is my great pleasure to confer upon you both the degree of bachelor +of arts and to pray that you may never bring discredit upon your alma +mater. + + + + +THE DOWNFALL OF GEORGE SNIPE + + +George Snipe was an ardent book-lover, and sat in the smoking car +in a state of suspended ecstasy. He had been invited out to +Mandrake Park to visit the library of Mr. Genial Girth, the +well-known collector of rare autographed books. Devoted amateur +of literature as he was, George's humble career rarely brought +him into contact with bookish treasures, and a tremulous +excitement swam through his brain as he thought of the glories he +was about to see. In his devout meditation the train carried him +a station beyond his alighting place, and he ran frantically back +through the well-groomed suburban countryside in order to reach +Mr. Girth's home on time. + +They went through the library together. Mr. Girth displayed all +his fascinating prizes with generous good nature, and George grew +excited. The palms of his hands were clammy with agitation. All +round the room, encased in scarlet slip-covers of tooled morocco, +on fireproof shelves, were the priceless booty of the collector. +Here was Charles Lamb's "Essays of Elia," inscribed by the author +to the woman he loved. Here was a copy of "Paradise Lost," +signed by John Milton. Here was a "Hamlet" given by Shakespeare +to Bacon with the inscription, "Dear Frank, don't you wish you +could have written something like this?" Here was the unpublished +manuscript of a story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here was a note +written by Doctor Johnson to the landlord of the Cheshire Cheese, +refusing to pay a bill and accusing the tavern-keeper of +profiteering. Here were volumes autographed by Goldsmith, Keats, +Shelley, Poe, Byron, DeFoe, Swift, Dickens, Thackeray, and all +the other great figures of modern literature. + +Poor George's agitation became painful. His head buzzed as he +surveyed the faded signatures of all these men who had become the +living figures of his day-dreams. His eye rolled wildly in its +orbit. Just then Mr. Girth was called out of the room, and left +George alone among the treasures. + +Just at what instant the mania seized him we shall never know. +There were a pen and an inkpot on the table, and the frenzied +lover of books dipped the quill deep in the dark blue fluid. He +ran eagerly to the shelves. The first volume he saw was a copy of +"Lorna Doone." In it he wrote "Affectionately yours, R. D. +Blackmore." Then came Longfellow's poems. He scrawled "With deep +esteem, Henry W. Longfellow" on the flyleaf. Then three volumes +of Macaulay's "History of England." In the first he jotted "I +have always wanted you to have these admirable books, T. B. M." +In "The Mill on the Floss" he wrote "This comes to you still warm +from the press, George Eliot." The next book happened to be a +copy of Edgar Guest's poems. In this he inscribed "You are the +host I love the best, This is my boast, Yours, Edgar Guest." In a +copy of Browning's Poems he wrote "To my dear and only wife, +Elizabeth, from her devoted Robert." In a pamphlet reprint of the +Gettysburg Speech he penned "This is straight stuff, A. Lincoln." +But perhaps his most triumphant exploit was signing a copy of the +Rubaiyat thus: "This book is given to the Anti-Saloon League of +Naishapur by that thorn in their side, O. Khayyam." + +By the time the ambulance reached Mr. Girth's home George was +completely beyond control. He was taken away screaming because he +had not had a chance to autograph a copy of the "Songs of +Solomon." + + + + +MEDITATIONS OF A BOOKSELLER + +(Roger Mifflin _loquitur_) + +[Illustration] + + +I had a pleasant adventure to-day. A free verse poet came in to see me, +wanted me to buy some copies of "The Pagan Anthology." I looked over the +book, to which he himself had contributed some pieces. I advised him to +read Tennyson. I wish you could have seen his face. + +If you want to see a really good anthology (I said) have a look at +Pearsall Smith's "Treasury of English Prose," just out. The only thing +that surprises me is that Mr. Smith didn't include some free verse in +it. The best thing about free verse is that it is often awfully good +prose. + +It's a superb clear night: a milky pallor washed in the blue: a white +moon overhead: stars rare but brilliant, one in the south twinkles and +flutters like a tiny flower stirred by faint air. The wind is "a cordial +of incredible virtue" (Emerson)--sharp and chill, but with a milder +tincture. To-day, though brisk and snell on the streets, the sunshine +had a lively vigour, a generous quality, a promissory note of the +equinox. I felt it from first rising this morning--the old demiurge at +work! As I sat in the bathtub (when a man is fifty he may be pardoned +for taking a warm bath on winter mornings) my mind fell upon the desire +of wandering: it occurred to me that a spread of legs in the vital air +would be richly repaid. The windows called me: as soon as shirt and +trousers were on, I was at the sill peering out over Gissing Street. +Later, even through closed panes, the chink of milk bottles on the +pavement below seemed to rise with a clearer, merrier note. Setting out +for some tobacco about 8:30, I stopped to study the ice-man's great +blocks of silvery translucence, lying along the curb by a big apartment +house. "Artificial" ice, I suppose: it was interesting to see, in the +meridian of each cake, a kind of silvery fracture or membrane, with the +grain of air-bubbles tending outward therefrom--showing, no doubt, if +one knew the mechanics of refrigeration, just how the freezing +proceeded. Even in so humble a thing as a block of ice are these +harmonic and lovely patterns, the seal of Nature's craft, inscrutable, +inimitable. I might have made a point of this in talking to that free +verse poet. I'm glad I didn't, however: he would have had some tedious +reply, convincing to himself. That's the trouble with replies: they are +always convincing to the replier. As a friend of mine used to say, one +good taciturn deserves another. + +I was thinking, as I took a parcel of laundry up to the Chinaman on +McFee Street just now, it would be interesting to write a book dealing +solely, candidly, exactly, and fully with the events, emotions, and +thoughts of just one day in a man's life. If one could do that, in a way +to carry conviction, assent, and reality, to convey to the reader's +senses a recognition of genuine actual human _being_, one might claim to +be a true artist. + +I have found an admirable book for reading in bed--this little anthology +of prose, collected by Pearsall Smith. He knows what good prose is, +having written some of the daintiest bits of our time in his "Trivia," a +book with which I occasionally delight a truly discerning customer. What +a fascination there is in good prose--"the cool element of prose" as +Milton calls it--a sort of fluid happiness of the mind, unshaken by the +violent pangs of great poetry. I am not subtle enough to describe it, +but in the steadily cumulating satisfaction of first-class prose there +seems to be something that speaks direct to the brain, unmarred by the +claims of the senses, the emotions. I meditate much, ignorantly and +fumblingly, on the modes and purposes of writing. It is so +simple--"Fool!" said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write!"--all +that is needful is to tell what happens; and yet how hard it is to +summon up that necessary candor. Every time I read great work I see the +confirmation of what I grope for. How vivid, straight, and cleanly it +seems when done: merely the outward utterance of "what the mind at home, +in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to +herself." Let a man's mind depart from his audience; let him have no +concern whether to shock or to please. Let him carry no consideration +save to utter, with unsparing fidelity, what passes in his own spirit. +One can trust the brain to do its part. All that is needed is honourable +frankness: not to be ashamed to open our hearts, to speak our privy +weakness, our inward exulting. Then the pain and perplexity, or the +childish satisfactions, of our daily life are the true material of the +writer's art, and that which is sown in weakness may be raised in power. +Curious indeed that in this life, brief and precariously enjoyed, men +should so set their hearts on building a permanence in words: something +to stand, in the lovely stability of ink and leaden types, as our speech +out of silence to those who follow on. Indefensible absurdity, and yet +the secret and impassioned dream of those who write! + +I was about to say that, for the writing of anything truly durable, the +first requisite is plenty of silence. Then I recall Dr. Johnson's +preface to his Dictionary--"written not in the soft obscurities of +retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid +inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow." + + + + +IF BUYING A MEAL WERE LIKE BUYING A HOUSE + + +This Indenture + +between A. B., an innkeeper, organized and existing under the +laws of good cooking, party of the first part, and C. D., party +of the second part, witnesseth: + +That the said party of the first part, for and in consideration +of the sum of $1.50, lawful money of the United States, paid by +the said party of the second part, does hereby grant and release +unto the said C. D., and his heirs, administrators, and assigns +forever, + +All that certain group, parcels, or allotments of food, viands, +or victuals, situate or to be spread, served, and garnished upon +the premises of said A. B., shown and known and commonly designed +as one square meal, table d'hôte, together with the drinking +water, napkin, ash tray, finger-bowl and hat-and-coat-hanging +privileges or easements appurtenant thereto, + +And Together With the rights, privileges, and opportunities (as +an easement additionally appurtenant to the meal above nominated) +to partake, eat, enjoy, and be nourished upon said victuals, and +to call for extra pats, parcels, or portions of butter. + +Subject to the following restrictions, to wit: That neither the +party of the second part, nor his heirs, executors, or assigns, +will feast immoderately upon onions, to the confusion of his +neighbours; nor will the said C. D. or his guests smoke any form +of tobacco other than cigars and cigarettes, the instrument +commonly known as a pipe being offensive to the head waiter (a +man of delicate nurture); nor will said party of the second part +covet, retain, nor seek to remove any knives, forks, spoons, or +other tableware whatsoever; nor is anything said or implied or +otherwise intimated in this covenant to be construed as +permitting the party of the second part to carry on loud +laughter, song, carnival, nor social uproar; nor unnecessarily, +further than is tactful for the procurement of expeditious +attention, to endear himself to or otherwise cajole, compliment, +and ingratiate the waitress. + +And Furthermore, that title to said Meal does not pass until the +party of the second part has conveyed, of his mansuetude and +proper charity, a gratuity, fee, honorarium, lagniappe, +pourboire, easement or tip of not less than 15 per cent of the +price of said Meal; which easement, while customarily spoken of +as a free-will grant or gratuity, is to be constructively +regarded as an entail and a necessary encumbrance upon said Meal. + +And the said party of the first part covenants with the said +party of the second part as follows: That the said C. D. is +seized of the said Meal in fee simple, and shall quietly enjoy +said Meal subject to the covenants and restrictions and +encumbrances hereinbefore set out, subject to the good pleasure +of the Head Waiter. + +In Witness Whereof these presents are signed, + +(LOC. SIG.) + + + + +ADVENTURES IN HIGH FINANCE + +[Illustration] + + +There is no way in which one can so surely arouse the suspicions of +bankers as by trying to put some money in their hands. We went round to a +near-by bank hoping to open an account. As we had formerly dealt with an +uptown branch of the same institution, and as the cheque we wanted to +deposit bore the name of a quite well-known firm, we thought all would be +easy. But no; it seemed that there was no convincing way to identify +ourself. Hopefully we pulled out a stack of letters, but these were +waved aside. We began to feel more and more as though we had come with +some sinister intent. We started to light our pipe, and then it occurred +to us that perhaps that would be regarded as the gesture of a hardened +cracksman, seeking to appear at his ease. We wondered if, in all our +motions, we were betraying the suspicious conduct of the professional +embezzler. Perhaps the courteous banker was putting us through some +Freudian third degree ... in these days when the workings of the +unconscious are so shrewdly canvassed, was there anything abominable in +the cellar of our soul which we were giving away without realizing ... +had we not thought to ourself, as we entered the door, well, this is a +fairly decent cheque to start an account with, but we won't keep our +balance anywhere near that figure ... perhaps our Freudian banker had +spotted that thought and was sending for a psychological patrol wagon ... +well, how _could_ we identify ourself? Did we know any one who had an +account in that branch? No. + +We thought of a friend of ours who banked at another branch of this +bank, not far away. The banker called him up and whispered strangely +over the phone. We were asked to take off our hat. Apparently our friend +was describing us. We hoped that he was saying "stout" rather than +"fat." But it seemed that the corroboration of our friend only +increased our host's precaution. Perhaps he thought it was a carefully +worked-out con game, in which our friend was a confederate. We signed +our name several times, on little cards, with a desperate attempt to +appear unconcerned. In spite of our best efforts, we could not help +thinking that each time we wrote it we must be looking as though we were +trying to remember how we had written it the last time. Still the banker +hesitated. Then he called up our friend again. He asked him if he would +know our voice over the phone. Our friend said he would. We spoke to our +friend, with whom we had eaten lunch a few minutes before. He asked, to +identify us, what we had had for lunch. Horrible instant! For a moment +we could not remember. The eyes of the banker and his assistant were +glittering upon us. Then we spoke glibly enough. "An oyster patty," we +said; "two cups of tea, and a rice pudding which we asked for cold, but +which was given us hot." + +Our friend asserted, to the banker, that we were undeniably us, and +indeed the homely particularity of the luncheon items had already made +incision in his hardened bosom. He smiled radiantly at us and gave us a +cheque book. Then he told us we couldn't draw against our account until +the original cheque had passed through the Clearing House, and sent a +youth back to the office with us so that we could be unmistakably +identified. + +As we left the banker's office someone else was ushered in. "Here's +another gentleman to open an account," said the assistant. "We hope he +knows what he had for lunch," we said to the banker. + + + + +ON VISITING BOOKSHOPS + +[Illustration] + + +It Is a curious thing that so many people only go into a bookshop when +they happen to need some particular book. Do they never drop in for a +little innocent carouse and refreshment? There are some knightly souls +who even go so far as to make their visits to bookshops a kind of +chivalrous errantry at large. They go in not because they need any +certain volume, but because they feel that there may be some book that +needs them. Some wistful, little forgotten sheaf of loveliness, long +pining away on an upper shelf--why not ride up, fling her across your +charger (or your charge account), and gallop away. Be a little knightly, +you book-lovers! + +The lack of intelligence with which people use bookshops is, one +supposes, no more flagrant than the lack of intelligence with which we +use all the rest of the machinery of civilization. In this age, and +particularly in this city, we haven't time to be intelligent. + +A queer thing about books, if you open your heart to them, is the +instant and irresistible way they follow you with their appeal. You know +at once, if you are clairvoyant in these matters (libre-voyant, one +might say), when you have met your book. You may dally and evade, you +may go on about your affairs, but the paragraph of prose your eye fell +upon, or the snatch of verses, or perhaps only the spirit and flavour of +the volume, more divined than reasonably noted, will follow you. A few +lines glimpsed on a page may alter your whole trend of thought for the +day, reverse the currents of the mind, change the profile of the city. +The other evening, on a subway car, we were reading Walter de la Mare's +interesting little essay about Rupert Brooke. His discussion of +children, their dreaming ways, their exalted simplicity and absorption, +changed the whole tenor of our voyage by some magical chemistry of +thought. It was no longer a wild, barbaric struggle with our fellowmen, +but a venture of faith and recompense, taking us home to the bedtime of +a child. + +The moment when one meets a book and knows, beyond shadow of doubt, that +that book must be his--not necessarily now, but some time--is among the +happiest excitements of the spirit. An indescribable virtue effuses from +some books. One can feel the radiations of an honest book long before +one sees it, if one has a sensitive pulse for such affairs. Its honour +and truth will speak through the advertising. Its mind and heart will +cry out even underneath the extravagance of jacket-blurbings. Some +shrewd soul, who understands books, remarked some time ago on the +editorial page of the _Sun's_ book review that no superlative on a +jacket had ever done the book an atom of good. He was right, as far as +the true bookster is concerned. We choose our dinner not by the +wrappers, but by the veining and gristle of the meat within. The other +day, prowling about a bookshop, we came upon two paper-bound copies of a +little book of poems by Alice Meynell. They had been there for at least +two years. We had seen them before, a year or more ago, but had not +looked into them fearing to be tempted. This time we ventured. We came +upon two poems--"To O, Of Her Dark Eyes," and "A Wind of Clear Weather +in England." The book was ours--or rather, we were its, though we did +not yield at once. We came back the next day and got it. We are still +wondering how a book like that could stay in the shop so long. Once we +had it, the day was different. The sky was sluiced with a clearer blue, +air and sunlight blended for a keener intake of the lungs, faces seen +along the street moved us with a livelier shock of interest and +surprise. The wind that moved over Sussex and blew Mrs. Meynell's heart +into her lines was still flowing across the ribs and ledges of our +distant scene. + +There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling +in love, and like that colossal adventure it is an experience of great +social import. Even as the tranced swain, the book-lover yearns to tell +others of his bliss. He writes letters about it, adds it to the +postscript of all manner of communications, intrudes it into telephone +messages, and insists on his friends writing down the title of the find. +Like the simple-hearted betrothed, once certain of his conquest, "I want +you to love her, too!" It is a jealous passion also. He feels a little +indignant if he finds that any one else has discovered the book, too. He +sees an enthusiastic review--very likely in _The New Republic_--and +says, with great scorn, "I read the book three months ago." There are +even some perversions of passion by which a book-lover loses much of his +affection for his pet if he sees it too highly commended by some rival +critic. + +This sharp ecstasy of discovering books for one's self is not always +widespread. There are many who, for one reason or another, prefer to +have their books found out for them. But for the complete zealot nothing +transcends the zest of pioneering for himself. And therefore working for +a publisher is, to a certain type of mind, a never-failing fascination. +As H. M. Tomlinson says in "Old Junk," that fascinating collection of +sensitive and beautifully poised sketches which came to us recently with +a shock of thrilling delight: + + To come upon a craft rigged so, though at her moorings and with + sails furled, her slender poles upspringing from the bright plane + of a brimming harbour, is to me as rare and sensational a delight + as the rediscovery, when idling with a book, of a favourite + lyric. + +To read just that passage, and the phrase _the bright plane of a +brimming harbour_, is one of those "rare and sensational +delights" that set the mind moving on lovely journeys of its own, +and mark off visits to a bookshop not as casual errands of +reason, but as necessary acts of devotion. We visit bookshops not +so often to buy any one special book, but rather to rediscover, +in the happier and more expressive words of others, our own +encumbered soul. + + + + +A DISCOVERY + +[Illustration] + + +We are going to tell the truth. It has been on our mind for some +time. We are going to tell it exactly, without any balancing or +trimming or crimped edges. We are weary of talking about +trivialities and are going to come plump and plain to the +adventures of our own mind. These are real adventures, just as +real as the things we see. The green frog that took refuge on our +porch last night was no more real. Perhaps frogs don't care so +much for wet as they are supposed to, for when that excellent +thunderstorm came along and the ceiling of the night was sheeted +with lilac brightness, through which ran quivering threads of +naked fire (not just the soft, tame, flabby fire of the domestic +hearth, but the real core and marrow of flame, its hungry, +terrible, destroying self), our friend the frog came hopping up +on the porch where we stood, apparently to take shelter. How +brilliant was his black and silver eye when we picked him up! His +direct and honourable regard somehow made us feel ashamed, we +know not why. And yet we have plenty to be ashamed about--but how +did he know? He was still on the porch this morning. Equally real +was the catbird on the hedge as we came down toward the station. +She--we call her so, for there was unmistakable ladyhood in her +delicately tailored trimness--she bickered at us in a cheerful +way, on top of those bushes which were so loaded with the night's +rainfall that they shone a blurred cobweb gray in the lifting +light. Her eye was also dark and polished and lucid, like a bead +of ink. It also had the same effect of tribulation on our spirit. +Neither the catbird nor the frog, we said to ourself, would have +tormented their souls trying to "invent" something to write +about. They would have told what happened to them, and let it go +at that. So, as we walked along under an arcade of maple trees, +admiring the little green seed-biplanes brought down by the +thrash of the rain--they look rather as though they would make +good coathangers for fairies--we asked ourself why we could not +be as straightforward as the bird and the frog, and talk about +what was in our mind. + +The most exciting thing that happened to us when we got to New +York last February was finding a book in a yellow wrapper. Its +title was "Old Junk," which appealed to us. The name of the +author was H. M. Tomlinson, which immediately became to us a name +of honour and great meaning. All day and every day intelligent +men find themselves surrounded by oceans of what is quaintly +called "reading matter." Most of it is turgid, lumpy, fuzzy in +texture, squalid in intellect. The rewards of the literary +world--that is, the tangible, potable, spendable rewards--go +mostly to the cheapjack and the mountebank. And yet here was a +man who in every paragraph spoke to the keenest intellectual +sense--who, ten times a page, enchanted the reader with the +surprising and delicious pang given by the critically chosen +word. We sat up late at night reading that book, marvelling at +our good fortune. We wanted to cry aloud (to such as cared to +understand), "Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for here is born a +man who knows how to write!" In our exuberance we seized a pen +and wrote in the stern of our copy: "Here speaks the Lord God of +prose; here is the clear eye, the ironic mind, the compassionate +heart; the thrilling honesty and (apparent) simplicity of great +work." Then we set about making the book known to our friends. We +propelled them into bookshops and made them buy it. We took our +own copy down to William McFee on S.S. _Turrialba_ and a glad +heart was ours when he, too, said it was "the real thing." This +is a small matter, you say? When the discovery of an honest pen +becomes a small matter life will lose something of its savour. +Those who understand will understand; let the others spend their +time in the smoker playing pinochle. Those who care about these +things can get the book for themselves. + +Of Mr. Tomlinson in person: he is a London newspaperman, we +understand, and now on the staff of the London _Nation_. (Trust +Mr. Massingham, the editor of that journal, to know an honest +writer when he sees him.) Mr. Tomlinson says of himself: + + My life is like my portrait. It won't bear investigation. I am + not conscious of having done anything that would interest either + a policeman or the young lady of the kind who dotes on Daddy Long + Legs; worse luck. It's about time I got down to business and did + something interesting either to one or the other. That is why it + won't bear investigation, this record of mine. I am about as + entertaining as one of the crowd coming out of the factory gates + with his full dinner pail. All my adventures have been no more + than keeping that pail moderately full. I've been doing that + since I was twelve, in all sorts of ways. I was an office boy and + a clerk among London's ships, in the last days of the clippers. + And I am forced to recall some of the things--such as bookkeeping + in a jam factory and stoking on a tramp steamer--I can understand + why I and my fellows, without wanting to, drifted about in + indecision till we drifted into war and drifted into peace. And + of course, I've been a journalist. I am still; and so have seen + much of Africa, America, and Europe, without knowing exactly why. + I was in France in 1914--the August, too, of that year, and woke + up from that nightmare in 1917, after the Vimy Ridge attack, when + I returned to England to sit with my wife and children in a + cellar whenever it was a fine night and listened to the guns and + bombs. God, who knows all, might make something of this sort of + inconsequential drift of one day into the next, but I give it up. + +But now we pass to the phase of the matter that puzzles us. How +is it that there are some books which can never have abiding life +until they perish and are born again? We have noticed it so +often. There is a book of a certain sort to which this process +seems inevitable. One need only mention Leonard Merrick or Samuel +Butler as examples. The book, we will suppose, has some peculiar +subtlety or flavour of appeal. (We are thinking at the moment of +William McFee's "Letters From an Ocean Tramp.") It is published +and falls dead. Later on--usually about ten years later--it is +taken up with vigour by some other publisher, the stone is rolled +away from the sepulchre, and it begins to move among its destined +lovers. + +This remark is caused by our delighted discovery of a previous +book by the author of "Old Junk." "The Sea and the Jungle" is the +title of it, the tale of a voyage on the tramp steamer _Capella_, +from Swansea to Para in the Brazils, and thence 2,000 miles along +the forests of the Amazon and Madeira rivers. It is the kind of +book whose readers will never forget it; the kind of book that +happens to some happy writers once in a lifetime (and to many +never at all) when the moving hand seems gloriously in gear with +the tremulous and busy mind, and all the spinning earth stands +hearkeningly still waiting for the perfect expression of the +thought. It is the work of a hand trained in laborious task-work +and then set magnificently free, for a few blessed months, under +no burden save that of putting its captaining spirit truthfully +on paper. And this book--in which there is a sea passage that not +even Mr. Conrad has ever bettered--this book, which makes the +utmost self-satisfied heroics of the Prominent Writers of our +market place shrivel uncomfortably in remembrance--this book, we +repeat, though published in this country in 1913, has been long +out of print; and the copy which we were lucky enough to lay hand +on through the courtesy of the State Librarian of Pennsylvania +had not previously been borrowed since November 18, 1913. Someone +asks us if this man can really write. Let us choose a paragraph +for example. This deals with the first day at sea of the tramp +steamer _Capella_: + + It was December, but by luck we found a halcyon morning which had + got lost in the year's procession. It was a Sunday morning, and + it had not been ashore. It was still virgin, bearing a vestal + light. It had not been soiled yet by any suspicion of this + trampled planet, this muddy star, which its innocent and tenuous + rays had discovered in the region of night. I thought it still + was regarding us as a lucky find there. Its light was tremulous, + as if with joy and eagerness. I met this discovering morning as + your ambassador while you still slept, and betrayed not, I hope, + any grayness and bleared satiety of ours to its pure, frail, and + lucid regard. That was the last good service I did before leaving + you quite. I was glad to see how well your old earth did meet + such a light, as though it had no difficulty in looking day in + the face. The world was miraculously renewed. It rose, and + received the newborn of Aurora in its arms. There were clouds of + pearl above hills of chrysoprase. The sea ran in volatile flames. + The shadows on the bright deck shot to and fro as we rolled. The + breakfast bell rang not too soon. This was a right beginning. + +The above is a paragraph that we have chosen from Mr. Tomlinson's +book almost at random. We could spend the whole afternoon (and a +happy afternoon it would be for us) copying out for you passages +from "The Sea and the Jungle" that would give you the extremity +of pleasure, O high-spirited reader! It is an odd thing, it is a +quaint thing, it is a thing that would seem inconceivable (were +we not tolerably acquainted with the vagaries of the reading +public) that a book of this sort should lie perdu on the shelves +of a few libraries. Yet one must not leap too heartily to the +wrong conclusion. The reading public is avid of good books, but +it does not hear about them. Now we would venture to say that we +know fifty people--nay, two hundred and fifty--who would never +have done thanking us if we could lay a copy of a book of this +sort in their hand. They would think it the greatest favour we +could do them if we could tell them where they could go and lay +down honest money and buy it. And we have to retort that it is +out of print, not procurable.[1] Is it the fault of publishers? +We do not think so--or not very often. For every publisher has +experience of this sort of thing--books that he knows to be of +extraordinary quality and fascination which simply lie like lead +in his stockroom, and people will not listen to what he says +about them. Whose fault is it, then? Heaven knows. + +[1] Since this was written, a new edition has been published by +E. P. Dutton & Co. + + + + +SILAS ORRIN HOWES + + +There died in New York, on February 11, 1918, one who perhaps as +worthily as any man in any age represented the peculiar traits and +charms of the book-lover, a man whose personal loveliness was only +equalled by his unassuming modesty, a man who was an honour to the fine +old profession of bookselling. + +There will be some who frequent Brentano's bookstore in New York who +will long remember the quiet little gentleman who held the post nearest +the front door, whose face lit with such a gentle and gracious smile +when he saw a friend approach, who endured with patience and courtesy +the thousand small annoyances that every salesman knows. There were +encounters with the bourgeois customer, there were the exhausting +fatigues of the rush season, there were the day-long calls on the +slender and none too robust frame. But through it all he kept the +perfect and unassuming grace of the high-born gentleman he was. An +old-fashioned courtesy and gallantry moved in his blood. + +It was an honour to know Silas Orrin Howes, and some have been fortunate +to have disclosed to them the richness and simple bravery of that lover +of truth and beauty. The present writer was one of the least and latest +of these. Twice, during the last months of his life, it was my very good +fortune to spend an evening with him at his room on Lexington Avenue, to +drink the delicious coffee he brewed in his percolator given him by +William Marion Reedy, to mull with him over the remarkable scrap-books +he had compiled out of the richness of his varied reading, and to hear +him talk about books and life. + +Silas Orrin Howes was born in Macon, Georgia, October 15, 1867. He +attended school in Macon and Atlanta, and then in Franklin, Indiana. He +never went to college. + +When he was born, a passion for books was born with him. His niece tells +me that by the time he was twenty-one he had collected a considerable +library. He began life as a newspaper man, on the Macon _Telegraph_. +About the age of twenty-four he went to Galveston where he was first a +copy-reader, and then for seven years telegraph editor of the Galveston +_News_. + +I do not know all the details of his life in Galveston, where he lived +for about twenty years. He told me that at the time of the disastrous +storm and flood he was working in a drug store near the Gulf front. He +gave me a thrilling description of the night he spent standing on the +prescription counter with the water swirling about his waist. He slept +in a little room at the back of the store, where he had a shelf of books +which were particularly dear to him. Among them was a volume of Henley's +poems. When the flood subsided all the books were gone, but the next day +as he was looking over the wreckage of neighbouring houses he found his +Henley washed up on a doorstep--covered with slime and filth but still +intact. He sent it to Brentano's in New York to be rebound in vellum, +instructing them not to clean it in any way. He wrote to Henley about +the incident, who sent him a very friendly autographed card which he +pasted in the volume. That was one of the books which he held most dear, +and rightly. + +I do not know just when he came to New York; about 1910, I believe. He +took a position as salesman at Brentano's. After a couple of years there +he became anxious to try the book business on his own account. He and +his nephew opened a shop in San Antonio. Neither of them had much real +business experience. Certainly Howes himself was far too devoted a +book-lover to be a good business man! After a few months the venture +ended in failure, and all the personal library which he had collected +through patient years was swallowed up in the disaster. After this he +returned to Brentano's, where he remained until his death. About a year +before his death he was run over by a taxicab, which shook his nerves a +great deal. + +At some time during his career he came into intimate friendly contact +with Ambrose Bierce, and used to tell many entertaining anecdotes about +that erratic venturer in letters. He edited one of Bierce's volumes, +adding a pleasant and scholarly little introduction. He was an +occasional contributor to _Reedy's Mirror_, where he enjoyed indulging +in his original vein of satire and shrewd comment. He was a great lover +of quaint and exotic restaurants, and was particularly fond of the +Turkish café, the Constantinople, just off Madison Square. It was a +treat to go there with him, see him summon the waiter by clapping his +hands (in the eastern fashion), and enjoy the strangely compounded +dishes of that queer menu. He had sampled every Bulgar, Turkish, Balkan, +French, and Scandinavian restaurant on Lexington Avenue. His taste in +unusual and savoury dishes was as characteristic as his love for the +finer flavours of literature. I remember last November I elicited from +him that he had never tasted gooseberry jam, and had a jolly time +hunting for a jar, which I found at last at Park and Tilford's, although +the sales-girl protested there was no such thing. I took it to him and +made him promise to eat it at his breakfasts. + +He had the true passions of the book-lover, which are not allotted to +many. He had read hungrily, enjoying chiefly those magical draughts of +prose which linger in the mind: Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne, Pater, +Thoreau, Conrad. He was much of a recluse, a little saddened and +sharpened perhaps by some of his experiences; and he loved, above all, +those writers who can present truth with a faint tang of acid flavour, +the gooseberry jam of literature as it were. One of my last +satisfactions was to convert him (in some measure) to an enthusiasm for +Pearsall Smith's "Trivia." + +As one looks back at that quiet, honourable life, one is aware of a +high, noble spirit shining through it: a spirit that sought but little +for itself, welcomed love and comradeship that came its way, and was +content with a modest round of routine duty because it afforded inner +contact with what was beautiful and true. One remembers an innate +gentleness, and a loyalty to a high and chivalrous ideal. + +Such a life might be a lesson, if anything could, to the bumptious and +"efficient" and smug. Time after time I have watched him serving some +furred and jewelled customer who was not fit to exchange words with him; +I have seen him jostled in a crowded aisle by some parvenu ignoramus who +knew not that this quiet little man was one of the immortal spirits of +gentleness and breeding who associate in quiet hours with the unburied +dead of English letters. That corner of the store, near the front door, +can never be the same. + +Such a life could only fittingly be described by the gentle, inseeing +pen of an E. V. Lucas. + +My greatest regret and disappointment, when I heard of his sudden +death, was that he would never know of a little tribute I had paid him +in a forthcoming book. I had been saving it as a surprise for him, for I +knew it would please him. And now he will never know. + +February, 1918. + + + + +JOYCE KILMER + +[Illustration] + +I + + +I wonder if there is any other country where the death of a young +poet is double-column front-page news? + +And if poets were able to proofread their own obits, I wonder if +any two lines would have given Joyce Kilmer more honest pride +than these: + +JOYCE KILMER, POET, +IS KILLED IN ACTION + +which gave many hearts a pang when they picked up the newspaper +last Sunday morning. + +Joyce Kilmer died as he lived--"in action." He found life +intensely amusing, unspeakably interesting; his energy was +unlimited, his courage stout. He attacked life at all points, +rapidly gathered its complexities about him, and the more +intricate it became the more zestful he found it. Nothing +bewildered him, nothing terrified. By the time he was thirty he +had attained an almost unique position in literary circles. He +lectured on poetry, he interviewed famous men of letters, he was +poet, editor, essayist, critic, anthologist. He was endlessly +active, full of delightful mirth and a thousand schemes for +outwitting the devil of necessity that hunts all brainworkers. +Nothing could quench him. He was ready to turn out a poem, an +essay, a critical article, a lecture, at a few minutes' notice. +He had been along all the pavements of Grub Street, perhaps the +most exciting place of breadwinning known to the civilized man. +From his beginning as a sales clerk in a New York bookstore +(where, so the tale goes, by misreading the price cipher he sold +a $150 volume for $1.50) down to the time when he was run over by +an Erie train and dictated his weekly article for the New York +_Times_ in hospital with three broken ribs, no difficulties or +perplexities daunted him. + +But beneath this whirling activity which amused and amazed his +friends there lay a deeper and quieter vein which was rich in its +own passion. It is not becoming to prate of what lies in other +men's souls; we all have our secrecies and sanctuaries, rarely +acknowledged even to ourselves. But no one can read Joyce +Kilmer's poems without grasping his vigorous idealism, his keen +sense of beauty, his devout and simple religion, his clutch on +the preciousness of common things. He loved the precarious +bustle on Grub Street; he was of that adventurous, buoyant stuff +that rejects hum-drum security and a pelfed and padded life. He +always insisted that America is the very shrine and fountain of +poetry, and this country (which is indeed pathetically eager to +take poets to its bosom) stirred his vivid imagination. The +romance of the commuter's train and the suburban street, of the +delicatessen shop and the circus and the snowman in the +yard--these were the familiar themes where he was rich and +felicitous. Many a commuter will remember his beautiful poem "The +12:45," bespeaking the thrill we have all felt in the shabby +midnight train that takes us home, yearning and weary, to the +well-beloved hearth: + + What love commands, the train fulfills + And beautiful upon the hills + Are these our feet of burnished steel. + Subtly and certainly, I feel + That Glen Rock welcomes us to her. + And silent Ridgewood seems to stir + And smile, because she knows the train + Has brought her children back again. + We carry people home--and so + God speeds us, wheresoe'er we go. + The midnight train is slow and old, + But of it let this thing be told, + To its high honour be it said, + It carries weary folk to bed. + +To a man such as this, whose whole fervent and busy adventure was lit +within by the lamplight and firelight of domestic passion, the war, with +its broken homes and defiled sanctities, came as a personal affront. +Both to his craving for the glamour of such a colossal drama, and to his +sense of what was most worshipful in human life, the call was +irresistible. Counsels of prudence and comfort were as nothing; the +heart-shaking poetry of this nation's entry into an utterly unselfish +war burned away all barriers. His life had been a fury of writing, but +those who thought he had entered the war merely to make journalism about +it were mistaken. Only a few weeks before his death he wrote: + + To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, + except in so far as writing is the expression of something + beautiful. And I see daily and nightly the expression of beauty + in action instead of words, and I find it more satisfactory. I am + a sergeant in the regimental intelligence section--the most + fascinating work possible--more thrills in it than in any other + branch, except, possibly, aviation. Wonderful life! But I don't + know what I'll be able to do in civilian life--unless I become a + fireman! + +As journalist and lecturer Kilmer was copious and enthusiastic rather +than deep. He found--a good deal to his own secret mirth--women's clubs +and poetry societies sitting earnestly at his feet, expectant to hear +ultimate truth on deep matters. His humour prompted him to give them +the ultimate truth they craved. If his critical judgments were not +always heavily documented or long pondered, they were entertaining and +pleasantly put. The earnest world of literary societies and blue-hosed +salons lay about his feet; he flashed in it merrily, chuckling inwardly +as he found hundreds of worthy people hanging breathless on his words. A +kind of Kilmer cult grew apace; he had his followers and his devotees. I +mention these things because he would have been the first to chuckle +over them. I do not think he would want to be remembered as having taken +all that sort of thing too seriously. It was all a delicious game--part +of the grand joke of living. Sometimes, among his friends, he would +begin to pontificate in his platform manner. Then he would recall +himself, and his characteristic grin would flood his face. + +As a journalist, I say, he was copious; but as a poet his song was +always prompted by a genuine gush of emotion. "A poet is only a +glorified reporter," he used to say; he took as his favourite assignment +the happier precincts of the human heart. As he said of Belloc, a true +poet will never write to order--not even to his own order. He sang +because he heard life singing all about him. His three little books of +poems have always been dear to lovers of honest simplicity. And now +their words will be lit henceforward by an inner and tender +brightness--the memory of a gallant boy who flung himself finely +against the walls of life. Where they breached he broke through and +waved his sword laughing. Where they hurled him back he turned away, +laughing still. + + +II + +Kilmer wrote from France, in answer to an inquiry as to his ideas about +poetry, "All that poetry can be expected to do is to give pleasure of a +noble sort to its readers." He might have said "pleasure or pain of a +noble sort." + +It is both pleasure and pain, of a very noble sort, that the reader will +find in Robert Cortes Holliday's memoir, which introduces the two +volumes of Kilmer's poems, essays, and letters. The ultimate and +eloquent tribute to Kilmer's rich, brave, and jocund personality is that +it has raised up so moving a testament of friendship. Mr. Holliday's +lively and tender essay is worthy to stand among the great memorials of +brotherly affection that have enriched our speech. To say that Kilmer +was not a Keats is not to say that the friendship that irradiates Mr. +Holliday's memoir was less lovely than that of Keats and Severn, for +instance. The beauty of any human intercourse is not measured by the +plane on which it moves. + +Pleasure and pain of a noble sort are woven in every fibre of this +sparkling casting-up of the blithe years. Pleasure indeed of the +fullest, for the chronicle abounds in the surcharged hilarity and +affectionate humour that we have grown to expect in any matters +connected with Joyce Kilmer. The biographer dwells with loving and +smiling particularity on the elvish phases of the young knight-errant. +It is by the very likeness of his tender and glowing portrait that we +find pleasure overflowing into pain--into a wincing recognition of +destiny's unriddled ways with men. This memory was written out of a full +heart, with the poignance that lies in every backward human gaze. It is +only in the backward look that the landscape's contours lie revealed in +their true form and perspective. It is only when we have lost what was +most dear that we know fully what it meant. That is Fate's way with us: +it cannot be amended. + +There will be no need for the most querulous appraiser to find fault +with Mr. Holliday on the score of over-eulogy. He does not try to push +sound carpentry or ready wit into genius. Fortune and his own impetuous +onslaught upon life cast Kilmer into the rôle of hack journalist: he +would have claimed no other title. Yet he adorned Grub Street (that most +fascinating of all thorny ways) with gestures and music of his own. Out +of his glowing and busy brain he drew matter that was never dull, never +bitter or petty or slovenly. In the fervent attack and counter-attack, +shock and counter-shock of his strenuous days he never forgot his +secret loyalty to fine craftsmanship. He kept half a dozen brightly +coloured balls spinning in air at all times--verses, essays, reviews, +lectures, introductions, interviews, anthologies, and what-not; yet each +of these was deftly done. When he went to France and his days of hack +work were over, when the necessities of life no longer threatened him, +the journalistic habit fell away. It was never more than a garment, worn +gracefully, but still only what the tailors call a business suit. + +In France, Kilmer wrote but a handful of pieces intended for +publication, but at least one of them--the prose sketch "Holy +Ireland"--showed his essential fibre. The comparative silence of his pen +when he found himself face to face with war was a true expression. It +bespoke the decent idealism that underlay the combats of a journalist +wringing a living out of the tissues of a busy brain. The tender humour +and quaint austerity of his homeward letters exhibit the man at his +inmost. What could better the imaginative genius of the phrase in which +he speaks of friendship developed by common dangers and hardships as "a +fine, hearty, roaring, mirthful sort of thing, like an open fire of +whole pine trees in a giant's castle?" + +The memoir and Kilmer's own letters admit us to see something of the +spiritual phases of this man's life, whose soul found "happiness and +quiet kind" in the Roman Catholic faith. The most secret strengths and +weaknesses that govern men's lives are strangely unknown to many of +their intimates: one wonders how many of Kilmer's associates on the +_Times_ staff knew of his habit of stopping daily at the Church of the +Holy Innocents, near the newspaper office, to pray. It was the sorrow of +personal affliction that brought Kilmer to the Catholic Church. Shortly +after being received into that communion he wrote: + + Just off Broadway on the way from the Hudson Tube Station to the + Times Building, there is a church called the Church of the Holy + Innocents. Since it is in the heart of the Tenderloin, this name + is strangely appropriate--for there surely is need of youth and + innocence. Well, every morning for months I stopped on my way to + the office and prayed in this church for faith. When faith did + come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralyzed daughter. + Her lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny feet still know + beautiful paths. + +Mr. Holliday does well to point out that Kilmer was almost unique in +this country as a representative of the Bellocian School of Catholic +journalism, in which piety and mirth dwell so comfortably together; +though he might have mentioned T. A. Daly as an older and subtler master +of devout merriment, dipping in his own inkwell rather than in any +imported bottles. It is to Belloc, of course, and to Gilbert +Chesterton, that one must go to learn the secret of Kilmer's literary +manner. Yet, as Holliday affirms, the similarity is due as much to an +affinity of mind with these Englishmen as to any eagerness to imitate. +Kilmer was like them in being essentially a humorist. One glance at his +face, with its glowing red-brown eyes (the colour of port wine), and the +twitching in-drawn corners of the mouth, gave the observer an impression +of benignant drollery. Mr. Holliday well says: "People have made very +creditable reputations as humorists who never wrote anything like as +humorous essays as those of Joyce Kilmer. They fairly reek with the joy +of life." + +"He that lives by the pen shall perish by the pen," the biographer tells +us, quoting James Huneker. "For a sapling poet, within a few short years +and by the hard business of words, to attain to a secretary and a butler +and a family of, at length, four children, is a modern Arabian Nights +Tale." Aye, indeed! But Joyce Kilmer will have as genuine a claim on +remembrance by reason of his friends' love as in anything his own hand +penned. And what an encircling, almost paternal, gentleness there is in +the picture of the young poet as a salesman at Scribner's bookstore: + + His smile, never far away, when it came was winning, charming. It + broke like spring sunshine, it was so fresh and warm and clear. + And there was noticeable then in his eyes a light, a quiet glow, + which marked him as a spirit not to be forgotten. So tenderly + boyish was he in effect that his confrères among the book clerks + accepted with difficulty the story that he was married. When it + was told that he had a son they gasped their incredulity. And + when one day this extraordinary elfin sprite remarked that at the + time of his honeymoon he had had a beard they felt (I remember) + that the world was without power to astonish them further. + +And even more striking is what is implied in the narrative: that when +this "elfin sprite," this gently nurtured young man of bookish pursuits, +took up the art of war, he gloried in his association with a rip-roaring +regiment recruited mainly from hard-handed fellows of the type we may +call (with no atom of disrespect) roughnecks. Hardships and exertions +familiar to them were new to him, but he set himself to win their love +and respect, and did so. He was not content until he had found his way +into the most exhausting and hazardous branch of the whole job. He said, +again and again, that he would rather be a sergeant with the 69th than a +lieutenant with any other outfit. There was a heart of heroism in the +"elfin sprite." The same dashing insouciance that dictated the weekly +article for his paper when in hospital with three broken ribs after +being run down by a train was hardened and steeled in the sergeant who +nightly tore his uniform into ribbons by crawling out through the barbed +wire. + +Laughter and comradeship and hearty meals clustered about Kilmer: +wherever he touched the grindstone of life there flew up a merry shower +of sparks. There is convincing testimony to the courage and beauty that +lay quiet at the heart of this singer who said that the poet is only a +glorified reporter, and wished he had written "Casey at the Bat." + +Let us spare his memory the glib and customary dishonesty that says "He +died as he would have wished to." No man wishes to die--at least, no +poet does. To part with the exhilarating bustle and tumult, the blueness +of the sky, the sunlight that tingles on well-known street corners, the +plumber's bills and the editor's checks, the mirths of fellowship and +the joys of homecoming when lamps are lit--all this is too close a fibre +to be stripped easily from the naked heart. But the poet must go where +the greatest songs are singing. Perhaps he finds, after all, that life +and death are part of the same rhyme. + + + + +TALES OF TWO CITIES + +I. PHILADELPHIA + + + + +AN EARLY TRAIN + +[Illustration] + + +The course of events has compelled me for several months to catch an +early train at Broad Street three times a week. I call it an "early" +train, but, of course, these matters are merely relative; 7:45 are the +figures illuminated over the gateway--not so very precocious, perhaps; +but quite rathe enough for one of Haroun-al-Raschid temper, who seldom +seeks the "oblivion of repose" (Boswell's phrase) before 1 A. M. + +Nothing is more pathetic in human nature than its faculty of +self-deception. Winding up the alarm clock (the night before) I meditate +as to the exact time to elect for its disturbing buzz. If I set it at +6:30 that will give me plenty of time to shave and reach the station +with leisure for a pleasurable cup of coffee. But (so frail is the human +will) when I wake at 6:30 I will think to myself, "There is plenty of +time," and probably turn over for "another five minutes." This will mean +a hideous spasm of awakening conscience about 7:10--an unbathed and +unshaven tumult of preparation, malisons on the shoe manufacturers who +invented boots with eyelets all the way up, a frantic sprint to +Sixteenth Street and one of those horrid intervals that shake the very +citadel of human reason when I ponder whether it is safer to wait for a +possible car or must start hotfoot for the station at once. All this is +generally decided by setting the clock for 6:50. Then, if I am spry, I +can be under way by 7:20 and have a little time to be philosophical at +the corner of Sixteenth and Pine. Of the vile seizures of passion that +shake the bosom when a car comes along, seems about to halt, and then +passes without stopping--of the spiritual scars these crises leave on +the soul of the victim, I cannot trust myself to speak. It does not +always happen, thank goodness. One does not always have to throb madly +up Sixteenth, with head retorted over one's shoulder to see if a car may +still be coming, while the legs make what speed they may on sliddery +paving. Sometimes the car does actually appear and one buffets aboard +and is buried in a brawny human mass. There is a stop, and one wonders +fiercely whether a horse is down ahead, and one had better get out at +once and run for it. Tightly wedged in the heart of the car, nothing can +be seen. It is all very nerve-racking, and I study, for quietness of +mind, the familiar advertising card of the white-bearded old man +announcing "It is really very remarkable that a cigar of this quality +can be had for seven cents." + +Suppose, however, that fortune is with me. I descend at Market Street, +and the City Hall dial, shining softly in the fast paling blue of +morning, marks 7:30. Now I begin to enjoy myself. I reflect on the +curious way in which time seems to stand still during the last minutes +before the departure of a train. The half-hour between 7 and 7:30 has +vanished in a gruesome flash. Now follow fifteen minutes of exquisite +dalliance. Every few moments I look suddenly and savagely at the clock +to see if it can be playing some saturnine trick. No, even now it is +only 7:32. In the lively alertness of the morning mind a whole wealth of +thought and accurate observation can be crammed into a few seconds. I +halt for a moment at the window of that little lunchroom on Market +Street (between Sixteenth and Fifteenth) where the food comes swiftly +speeding from the kitchen on a moving belt. I wonder whether to have +breakfast there. It is such fun to see a platter of pale yellow +scrambled eggs sliding demurely beside the porcelain counter and +whipped dextrously off in front of you by the presiding waiter. But the +superlative coffee of the Broad Street Station lunch counter generally +lures me on. + +What mundane joy can surpass the pleasure of approaching the station +lunch counter, with full ten minutes to satisfy a morning appetite! +"Morning, colonel," says the waiter, recognizing a steady customer. +"Wheatcakes and coffee," you cry. With one deft gesture, it seems, he +has handed you a glass brimming with ice water and spread out a snowy +napkin. In another moment here is the coffee, with the generous jug of +cream. You splash in a large lump of ice to make it cool enough to +drink. Perhaps the seat next you is empty, and you put your books and +papers on it, thus not having to balance them gingerly on your knees. +All round you is a lusty savour of satisfaction, the tinkle of cash +registers, napkins fluttering and flashing across the counters, coloured +waiters darting to and fro, great clouds of steam rising where the big +dish covers are raised on the cooking tables. You see the dark-brown +coffee gently quivering in the glass gauge of the nickel boiler. Then +here come the wheatcakes. Nowhere else on earth, I firmly believe, are +they cooked to just that correct delicacy of golden brown colour; +nowhere else are they so soft and light of texture, so hot, so +beautifully overlaid with a smooth, almost intangible suggestion of +crispness. Two golden butter pats salute the eye, and a jug of syrup. +It is now 7:38. + +As everyone knows, the correct thing is to start immediately on the +first cake, using only syrup. The method of dealing with the other two +is classic. One lifts the upper one and places a whole pat of butter on +the lower cake. Then one replaces the upper cake upon the lower, leaving +the butter to its fate. In that hot and enviable embrace the butter +liquefies and spreads itself, gently anointing the field of coming +action. Upon the upper shield one smilingly distributes the second +butter pat, knifed off into small slices for greater speed of melting. +By the time the first cake has been eaten, with the syrup, the other two +will be ready for manifest destiny. The butter will be docile and +submissive. Now, after again making sure of the time (7:40) the syrup is +brought into play and the palate has the congenial task of determining +whether the added delight of melting butter outweighs the greater +hotness and primal thrill of the first cake which was glossed with the +syrup only. You drain your coffee to the dregs; gaze pityingly on those +rushing in to snap up a breakfast before the 8 o'clock leaves for New +York, pay your check, and saunter out to the train. It is 7:43. + +This, to be sure, is only the curtain-raiser to the pleasures to follow. +This has been a physical and carnal pleasure. Now follow delights of the +mind. In the great gloomy shed wafts and twists of thick steam are +jetting upward, heavily coiled in the cold air. In the train you smoke +two pipes and read the morning paper. Then you are set down at +Haverford. It is like a fairyland of unbelief. Trees and shrubbery are +crusted and sheathed in crystal, lucid like chandeliers in the flat, +thin light. Along the fence, as you go up the hill, you marvel at the +scarlet berries in the hedge, gleaming through the glassy ribs of the +bushes. The old willow tree by the Conklin gate is etched against the +sky like a Japanese drawing--it has a curious greenish colour beneath +that gray sky. There is some mystery in all this. It seems more +beautiful than a merely mortal earth vexed by sinful men has any right +to be. There is some ice palace in Hans Andersen which is something like +it. In a little grove, the boughs, bent down with their shining +glaziery, creak softly as they sway in the moving air. The evergreens +are clotted with lumps and bags of transparent icing, their fronds sag +to the ground. A pale twinkling blueness sifts over distant vistas. The +sky whitens in the south and points of light leap up to the eye as the +wind turns a loaded branch. + +A certain seriousness of demeanour is noticeable on the generally +unfurrowed brows of student friends. Midyears are on and one sees them +walking, freighted with precious and perishable erudition, toward the +halls of trial. They seem a little oppressed with care, too preoccupied +to relish the entrancing pallor of this crystallized Eden. One carries, +gravely, a cushion and an alarm clock. Not such a bad theory of life, +perhaps--to carry in the crises of existence a cushion of philosophy and +an alarum of resolution. + + + + +RIDGE AVENUE + + +One of the odd things about human beings is, that wherever they happen +to live they accept it as a matter of course. In various foreign cities +I have often been amused (as every traveller has) to see people going +about their affairs just as though it were natural and unquestionable +for them to be there. It is just the same at home. Everyone I see on the +streets seems to be not at all amazed at living here instead of (let us +say) Indianapolis or Nashville. I envy my small Urchin his sense of the +extreme improbability of everything. When he gets on a trolley car he +draws a long breath and looks around in ecstasy at the human scenery. I +am teaching him to say in a loud, clear tone, as he gets on the car, +"Look at all the human beings!" in the same accent of amazement that he +uses when he goes to the Zoo. Perhaps in this way he will preserve the +happy faculty of being surprised. + +It is an agreeable thing to keep the same sense of surprise in one's +home town that one would have in a strange city. You will find much to +startle you if you keep your eyes open. Yesterday, for instance, I was +lucky enough to meet a gentleman who had stood only a few feet away from +Lincoln when he made the Gettysburg Speech. Then I found that in a +certain cafeteria which I frequent the price you pay for your lunch is +always just one cent less than that punched on the check. The cashier +explained that this always gives a pleasant surprise to the customers, +and has proved such a good advertising dodge that the proprietor made it +a habit. And I saw, in a clothing dealer's window on Ninth Street, some +fuzzy caps for men, mottled purple and ochre, that proved that the +adventurous spirit has not died in the breast of the male sex. + +There is much to exercise the eye in a voyage along Ridge Avenue. +Approaching by way of Ninth Street, one sees in the window of a barber +shop the new contract that the employing barbers have drawn up with +their journeymen. This agreement shows a sound sense of human equities, +proclaiming as it does that "the owner must not do no act to injure the +barber personal earnings." It suddenly occurred to me, what I had not +thought of before, how the barbers of Great Britain must have grieved +when a London newspaper got up (some years ago) an agitation in favour +of every man in England raising a beard in memory of King Edward. The +plan was that the money thus saved was to be devoted to building--I had +almost said "growing"--a battleship, to be named after the Merry +Monarch. Of course, one should not speak of raising a beard, but of +lowering it. However---- + +Ridge Avenue begins at Ninth and Vine, in a mood of depression. Perhaps +the fact that it runs out toward the city's greatest collection of +cemeteries has made it morbidly conscious of human perishability. At any +rate, it starts among pawnshops, old clothing and furniture, and bottles +of Old Virginia Bitters, the Great Man Restorer. The famous National +Theatre at Callowhill Street has become a garage; it is queer to see the +old proscenium arch and gilded ceiling dustily vaulted over a fleet of +motortrucks. After a wilderness of railway yards one comes to a curious +bit in the 1100 block; a little brick tunnel that bends around into a +huddle of backyards and small houses, where a large green parrot was +stooping and nodding on a pile of old boxes. This little scene is +overlooked by the tall brown spires of the Church of the Assumption on +Spring Garden Street. + +There is matter for tarrying at the Spring Garden Street crossing. Here +is an ambitious fountain built by the bequest of Mary Rebecca Darby +Smith, with the carving by J. J. Boyle picturing another Rebecca (she of +Genesis xxiv, 14) giving a drink to Abraham's servant and his camels. It +is carved in the bronze that the donor gave the fountain "To refresh the +weary and thirsty, both man and beast," so it is disconcerting to find +it dry, as dry as the inns along the way. The horse trough is boarded +over and thirsting equines go up to Broad Street for a draught. The +seat by the fountain was occupied by a man reading the New York +_Journal_, always a depressing sight. + +Across from the fountain is one of the best magazine and stationery +shops in the city. Here I overheard a conversation which I reproduce +textually. "What you doing, reading?" said one to another. "Yes, reading +about the biggest four-flusher in the Yew-nited States," said he, +looking over an afternoon paper which had just come in. "Who do you +mean?" "Penrose. Say if it was a Republican in the White House, theyda +passed the treaty long ago." The proprietor of this shop is a humorist. +Someone came in asking for a certain brand of cigarettes. He does not +sell tobacco. "Next door," he said, and added: "And you'll find some +over on the fountain." + +Ridge Avenue specializes in tobacco shops, where you will find many +brands that require a strong head. Red Snapper, Panhandle Scrap, Pinch +Hit, Red Horse, Brown's Mule, Jolly Tar, Penn Statue Cuttings, Nickel +Cross Cut, Cotton Ball Twist. In the shop windows you will see those +photographs illustrating current events, the two favourites just now +being a picture of Mike Gilhooley, the famous stowaway, gazing +plaintively at the profile of New York, and "Jack Dempsey Goes the +Limit," where Jack signs up for a $1,000 war-savings certificate. One +wonders if Jack's kind of warfare is really so profitable after all. + +There are a number of little side excursions from the avenue that repay +scrutiny. Lemon Street, for instance, where in a lane of old brown +wooden houses some children were playing in an empty wagon, with the +rounded tower of the Rodef Shalom synagogue looming in the background. +Best of all is Melon Street and its modest tributary, Park +Avenue--stretches of quiet little brick homes with green and yellow +shutters and mottled gray marble steps. These little houses have the +serene and sunny air so typical of Philadelphia byways. Through their +narrow side entrances one sees glimpses of green in backyards. In the +front windows move the gently swaying faces of grandmothers, lulled in +the to and fro of a rocking chair. There are shining brass knobs and +bell-pulls; rubber plants on the sills, or perhaps a small bowl of +goldfish with a white china swan floating. In one window was a sign +"Vacancies." Over it hung a faded service flag with a golden star. Who +could phrase the pathos of these two things, side by side? + +At Broad Street, Ridge Avenue leaps up with a spurt of high life. In the +window of a hotel dining room a gentleman sat eating his lunch, +stevedoring a buttered roll with such gusto that one felt tempted to +applaud. There are the white pillars of a bank and the battleship gray +of the Salvation Army headquarters. Beyond Broad, the avenue spruces up +a bit and enters upon a vivacious phase. Dogs are frequent: white bull +terriers lie sunning in the shop windows. Offers to lend money are +enticing. There is a fascinating slate yard at 1525, where great gray +slabs lie in the sun, a temptation to urchins with a bit of chalk. In +the warm bask of the afternoon there rises a pleasing aroma of fruits +and vegetables piled up in baskets and crates on the pavement. Grapes +give off a delectable savour in the golden air. Elderly ladies are out +in force to do the marketing, and their eyes are bright with the +bargaining passion. Round the windows of a ten-cent store, most +fascinating of all human spectacles, they congregate and compare notes. +A fruit dealer has an ingenious stunt to attract attention. On his cash +register lies a weird-looking rotund little fish--a butter fish, he +calls it--which has a face not unlike that of Fatty Arbuckle. Either +this fish inflates itself or he has blown it full of air in some +ingenious manner, for it presents a grotesque appearance, and many +ladies stop to inquire. Then he spoofs them gently. "Sure," he says, +"it's a jitney fish. It lives on the cash register. It can fly, it can +bite, it can talk, and it likes money." + +At the corner of Wylie Street stands an old gray house with a mansard +roof and gable windows. Against it is a vivid store of fruit glowing in +the sun, red and purple and yellow. Here, or on Vineyard Street, one +turns off to enter the quaint triangular settlement of Francisville. + + + + +THE UNIVERSITY AND THE URCHIN + +[Illustration] + + +Sunday afternoon is by old tradition dedicated to the taking of Urchins +out to taste the air, and indeed there is no more agreeable pastime. And +so, as the Urchin sat in his high chair and thoughtfully shovelled his +spoon through meat chopped remarkably small and potatoes mashed in that +curious fashion that produces a mass of soft, curly tendrils, his +curators discussed the question of where he should be taken. + +It was the first Sunday in March--mild and soft and tinctured with +spring. "There's the botanic garden at the University," I suggested. +The Urchin settled it by rattling his spoon on the plate and sliding +several inches of potato into his lap. "Go see garden!" he cried. With +the generous tastes of twenty-seven months he cares very little where he +is taken; he can find fascination in anything; but something about the +word "garden" seemed to allure him. So a little later when he had been +duly habited in brown leggings, his minute brown overcoat, and white hat +with ribbons behind it, he and his curators set out. The Urchin was in +excellent spirits, for he had been promised a ride on a trolley car--a +glorious adventure. In one pocket he carried his private collection of +talismans, including a horse-chestnut and a picture of a mouse. Also, +against emergencies, a miniature handkerchief with a teddy bear +embroidered in one corner and a safety pin. The expedition may be deemed +to have been a success, as none of these properties were called upon or +even remembered. + +The car we boarded did not take us just where we expected to go, but +that made little difference to the Urchin, who gazed steadfastly out of +the window at a panorama of shabby streets, and offered no comment +except one of extreme exultation when we passed a large poster of a cow. +Admirably docile, he felt confident that the unusual conjunction of both +arbiters of destiny and an impressive trolley car would in the end +produce something extremely worth while. We sped across Gray's Ferry +bridge--it seems strange to think that region was once so quiet, green, +and rustic--transferred to another car on Woodland Avenue, past the +white medley of tombstones in Woodland Cemetery, and got off at the +entrance to the dormitory quadrangles at Thirty-seventh Street. We +entered through the archway--the Urchin's first introduction to an +academic atmosphere. "This is the University," I said to him severely, +and he was much impressed. As is his way, he conducted himself with +extreme sobriety until he should get the hang of this new experience and +see what it was all about. I knew from the serene gold sparkle of his +brown eyes that there was plenty of larking spirit in him, waiting until +he knew whether it was safe to give it play. He held my hand +punctiliously while waiting to see what manner of place this University +was. + +A college quadrangle on a Sunday afternoon has a feeling all its own. +Thin tinklings of mandolins eddy from open windows, in which young men +may be seen propped up against bright-coloured cushions, always smoking, +and sometimes reading with an apparent zeal which might deceive a few +onlookers. But the slightest sound of footfalls on the pavement outside +their rooms causes these heads to turn and scan the passers. There is +always a vague hope in these youthful breasts that some damsel of +notable fairness may have strayed within the bastions. Groups of ladies +of youth and beauty do often walk demurely through the courts, and may +be sure of hearing admiring whistles shrilled through the sunny air. +When a lady walks through a college quadrangle and hears no sibilation, +let her know sadly that first youth is past. Even the sedate +guardianship of Scribe and Urchin did not forfeit one Lady of Destiny +her proper homage of tuneful testimonial. So be it ever! + +One who inhabited college quadrangles not so immeasurably long ago, and +remembers with secret pain how massively old, experienced, and worldly +wise he then thought himself, can never resist a throb of amazement at +the entertaining youthfulness of these young monks. How quaintly +juvenile they are, and how oddly that assumption of grave superiority +sits upon their golden brows! With what an inimitable air of wisdom, +cynicism, ancientry, learned aloofness and desire to be observed do they +stroll to and fro across the quads, so keenly aware in their inmost +bosoms of the presence of visitors and determined to grant an appearance +of mingled wisdom, great age, and sad doggishness! What a devil-may-care +swing to the stride, what a nonchalance in the perpetual wreath of +cigarette smoke, what a carefully assumed bearing of one carrying great +wisdom lightly and easily casting it aside for the moment in the pursuit +of some waggish trifle. "Here," those very self-conscious young visages +seem to betray, "is one who might tell you all about the Holy Roman +Empire, and yet is, for the moment, diverting himself with a mere +mandolin." And yet, as the Lady of Destiny shrewdly observed, it is a +pity they should mar their beautiful quadrangles with orange peel and +scraps of paper. + +We walked for some time through those stately courts of Tudor brick and +then passed down the little inclined path to the botanic garden, where +irises and fresh green spikes are already pushing up through the damp +earth. A pale mellow sunlight lay upon the gravel walks and the Urchin +resumed his customary zeal. He ran here and there along the byways, +examined the rock borders with an air of scientific questioning, and +watched the other children playing by the muddy pond. We found shrubbery +swelling with buds, also flappers walking hatless and blanched with +talcum, accompanied by Urchins of a larger growth. Both these phenomena +we took to be a sign of the coming equinox. + +Returning to the dormitory quadrangles, we sat down on a wooden bench to +rest, while the Urchin, now convinced that a university is nothing to be +awed by, scampered about on the turf. His eye was a bright jewel of +roguishness, for he thought that in trotting about the grass he was +doing something supremely wicked. He has been carefully trained not to +err on the grass of the city square to which he is best accustomed, so +this surprising and unchecked revelry quite went to his head. Across and +about those wide plots of sodden turf he trotted and chuckled, a small, +quaint mortal with his hat ribbons fluttering. Cheering whistles hailed +him from open windows above, and he smiled to himself with grave +dignity. Apparently, like a distinguished statesman, he regarded these +tributes not as meant for himself, but for the great body of childhood +he innocently represents, and indeed from which his applauders are not +so inextricably severed. With the placid and unconscious happiness of a +puppy he careered and meandered, without motive or method. Perhaps his +underlying thought of a university, if he has any, is that it is a place +where no one says "Keep Off the Grass," and, intellectually speaking, +that would not be such a bad motto for an institution of learning. + +I don't know whether Doctor Tait McKenzie so intended it, but his +appealing and beautiful statue of Young Franklin in front of the +University gymnasium is admirably devised for the delight of small +Urchins. While their curators take pleasure in the bronze itself, the +Urchin may clamber on the different levels of the base, which is nicely +adapted for the mountaineering capacity of twenty-seven months. The low +brick walls before the gymnasium and the University museum are also just +right for an Urchin who has recently learned the fascination of walking +on something raised above the ground, provided there is a curator near +by to hold his hand. And then, as one walks away toward the South +Street bridge an observant Urchin may spy the delightful spectacle of a +freight train travelling apparently in midair. Some day, one hopes, all +that fine tract of open space leading from the museum down to the +railroad tracks may perhaps be beautified as a park or an addition to +the University's quadrangle system. I don't know who owns it, but its +architectural possibilities must surely make the city-planner's mouth +water. + +By this time the Urchin was beginning to feel a bit weary, and was glad +of a lift on a parental shoulder. Then a Lombard Street car came along +and took us up halfway across the bridge. So ended the Urchin's first +introduction to a university education. + + + + +PINE STREET + + +Our neighbourhood is very genteel. I doubt if any one who has not lived +in Philadelphia can imagine how genteel it is. Visitors from out of town +are wont to sigh with rapture when they see our trim blocks of tall +brick dwellings--that even cornice running in a smooth line for several +hundred yards really is quite a sight--and exclaim, "Oh, I wish we had +something like this in New York!" But our gentility is a little +self-conscious, for we live on the very frontier of a region, darker in +complexion, which is far from scrupulous in deportment. Uproarious and +naïve are the humours of South Street, lying just behind us. Stanleys +have gone exploring thither and come back with merry tales. South Street +on a bright evening, its myriad barber shops gleaming with lathered +dusky cheeks, wafting the essence of innumerable pomades and lotions, +that were a Travel indeed. On South Street the veins of life run close +to the surface. + +We are no less human on our street, but it takes a bit more study to get +at the secret. There is a certain reticence about us. It would take an +earthquake to cause much fraternization along Pine Street. Perhaps it +is because three houses out of every four bear the tablets of doctors. +The average layman fears to stop and speak to his neighbour for fear it +will develop into a professional matter. We board up our front windows +at night with heavy wooden shutters. We have no druggists, only +"apothecaries." These apothecaries are closed on Sundays. They sell +stamps in little isinglass capsules, to be quite sanitary, two twos in a +capsule for five cents. In their shops you can still get soda water with +"plain cream" and shaved ice, such as was customary twenty-five years +ago. When our doctors go away for the summer, someone comes twice a week +from June to October to polish up the little silver name plate. It is +the custom in our neighbourhood (so one observes through drawing room +windows) to have reading lamps with rosy pink shades and at least two +beautiful daughters of débutante age. I hope I am not unjust, but our +street looks to me like the kind of place where people take warm baths, +in a roomy old china tub, on Sunday afternoons. After that, they go +downstairs and play a hymn on the piano, at twilight. + +[Illustration] + +There are a number of very odd features about our neighbourhood. There +is a large schoolhouse at the next corner, but as far as I can see, it +is not used as a school, not for children, at any rate. Sometimes, about +8 o'clock in the evening, I see the building gloriously illuminated, and +a lonely lady stooped and assiduous at a table. She seems quite +solitary. Perhaps her researches are so poignant that the school board +has prescribed entire silence. But midway down the block is a very jolly +little private school, to which very genteel children may be seen +approaching early in the morning. The little girls come with a bustle of +starch, on foot, accompanied by governesses; the small boys arrive in +limousines. They are small boys dressed very much in the English manner, +with heavy woollen stockings ending just below the knee. They probably +do not realize that their tailor has carefully planned them to look like +dear little English boys. Then there is a very mysterious small theatre +near by. If it were a movie theatre, what a boon it would be! But no, it +is devoted to a strange cult called the Religion of Business, which +meets there on Sundays. Before that, there was a Korean congress there. +There is a lovely green room in this theatre, but not much long green in +the box office. Philadelphia prefers Al Jolson to Hank Ibsen. + +We have our tincture of vie de Bohème, though, in our little French +table d'hôte, a thoroughly atmospheric place. Delightful Madame B., with +her racy philosophy of life, what delicious soups and salads she serves! +Happy indeed are those who have learned the way to her little tables, +and heard her cheerful cry "À la cuisine!" when one of her small dogs +prowls into the dining room. Equally unique is the old curiosity shop +near by, one of the few genuine "notion" shops left in the city (though +there is a delightful one on Market Street near Seventeenth, to enter +which is to step into a country village). This is just the kind of shop +bought by the old gentleman in one of Frank Stockton's agreeable tales, +"Mr. Tolman," in the volume called "The Magic Egg". The proprietress, +charming and conversable lady, will sell you anything in the "notions" +line, from a paper of pins to garter elastic. Then there is the laundry, +whose patrons carry on a jovial game known as "Looking for Your Own." +Every week, by some cheery habit of confusion, the lists are lost, and +one hunts through shelves of neatly piled and crisply laundered garments +to pick out one's own collars, pyjamas, or whatever it may be. The +amusing humour of this pastime must be experienced to be understood. + +The little cigar and magazine shop on the corner is the political and +social focus of the neighbourhood. I shall never forget the pallid and +ghastly countenance of the newsdealer when the rumour first went the +rounds that "Hampy" was elected. Every evening a little gathering of +local sages meets in the shop; on tilted chairs, in a haze of tobacco, +they while the hours away. In tobacco the host adheres to the standard +blends, but in literature he is enterprising. Until recently this was +the only place I know in Philadelphia where one could get the +_Illustrated London News_ every week. + +There are twinges of modernity going on along our street. Some of the +old houses have been remodeled into apartments. There is an "electric +shoe repairer" just round the corner. But the antique dealers and +plumbers for which the street is famous still hold sway; the fine old +brick pavement still collects rain water in its numerous dimpled +hollows, and the yellowish marble horse-blocks adorn the curb. The nice +shabby stables in the little side streets have not yet been turned into +studios by artists, and the neighbourhood's youngest urchins set sail +for Rittenhouse Square every morning on their fleet of "kiddie-cars." +Their small stout legs, twinkling along the pavements in white gaiters +on a wintry day, are a pleasant sight. Even our urchins are notably +genteel. Surrounded on all sides by the medical profession, they are +reared on registered milk and educator crackers. If Philadelphia ever +betrays its soul, it does so on this delightful, bland, and genteel +highway. + + + + +PERSHING IN PHILADELPHIA + +[Illustration] + + +The pavement in front of Independence Hall was a gorgeous jumble of +colours. The great silken flags of the Allies, carried by vividly +costumed ladies, burned and flapped in the wind. On a pedestal stood the +Goddess of Liberty, in rich white draperies that seemed fortunately of +sufficient texture to afford some warmth, for the air was cool. She +graciously turned round for Walter Crail, the photographer of our +contemporary, the _Evening Public Ledger_, to take a shot at her. + +Down Chestnut Street came a rising tide of cheers. A squadron of mounted +police galloped by. Then the First City Troop, with shining swords. +Fred Eckersburg, the State House engineer, was fidgeting excitedly +inside the hall, in a new uniform. This was Fred's greatest day, but we +saw that he was worried about Martha Washington, the Independence Hall +cat. He was apprehensive lest the excitement should give her a fit or a +palsy. Independence Hall is no longer the quiet old place Martha used to +enjoy before the war. + +The Police Band struck up "Hail to the Chief." Yells and cheers burst +upward from the ground like an explosion. Here he was, standing in the +car. There was the famous chin, the Sam Browne belt, the high laced +boots with spurs. Even the tan gloves carried in the left hand. There +was the smile, without which no famous man is properly equipped for +public life. There was Governor Sproul's placid smile, too, but the +Mayor seemed too excited to smile. Rattle, rattle, rattle went the +shutters of the photographers. Up the scarlet lane of carpet came the +general. His manner has a charming, easy grace. He saluted each one of +the fair ladies garbed in costumes of our Allies, but taking care not to +linger too long in front of any one of them lest any embracing should +get started. A pattering of tiger lilies or some such things came +dropping down from above. He passed into the hall, which was cool and +smelt like a wedding with a musk of flowers. + +While the Big Chief was having a medal presented to him inside the hall +we managed to scuttle round underneath the grand stand and take up a +pencil of vantage just below the little pulpit where the general was to +speak. Here the crowd groaned against a bulwark of stout policemen. +Philadelphia cops, bless them, are the best tempered in the world. (How +Boston must envy us.) Genially two gigantic bluecoats made room against +the straining hawser for young John Fisher, aged eleven, of 332 +Greenwich Street. John is a small, freckle-faced urchin. It was amusing +to see him thrusting his eager little beezer between the vast, soft, +plushy flanks of two patrolmen. He had been there over two hours waiting +for just this adventure. Then, to assert the equality of the sexes, +Mildred Dubivitch, aged eleven, and Eva Ciplet, aged nine, managed to +insert themselves between the chinks in the line of cops. An old lady +more than eighty years old was sitting placidly in a small chair just +inside the ropes. She had been in the square more than five hours, and +the police had found her a seat. "Are you going to put Pershing's name +in, too?" asked John as we noted his address. + +Independence Square never knew a more thrilling fifteen minutes. The +trees were tossing and bending in the thrilling blue air. There was a +bronzy tint in their foliage, as though they were putting on olive drab +in honour of the general. Great balloons of silver clouds scoured across +the cobalt sky. At one minute to 11 Pershing appeared at the top of the +stand. The whole square, massed with people, shook with cheers. + +Had it been any other man we would have said the general was frightened. +He came down the aisle of the stand with his delightful, easy, smiling +swing; but he looked shrewdly about, with a narrow-eyed, puckered gaze. +He was plainly a little flabbergasted. He seemed taken aback by the +greatness of Philadelphia's voice. He said something to himself. On his +lips it looked like "What the deuce," or something of similar purport. +He sat down on a chair beside Governor Sproul. Not more than four feet +away, amazed at our own audacity, we peered over the floor of the stand. + +He was paler than we expected. He looked a bit tired. Speaking as a +father, we were pleased to note the absence of Warren, who was (we hope) +getting a good sleep somewhere. We had a good look at the renowned chin, +which is well worth study. It must be a hard chin to shave. It juts +upward, reaching a line exactly below the brim of his cap. Below his +crescent moustache there is no lower lip visible: it is tucked and +folded in by the rising thrust of the jaw. It is this which gives him +the "grim" aspect which every reader of the papers hears about. He is +grim, there's no doubt about it, with the grimness of a man going +through a tough ordeal. "I can see him all right," squeaked little John +Fisher, "but he doesn't see me." The first two rows of seats at the +right of the aisle were crammed with generals, two-star and three-star. +From our lowly station we could see a grand panorama of mahogany leather +boots and the flaring curves of riding breeches. It was a great day for +Sam Browne. The thought came to us that has reached us before. The +higher you go in the A. E. F. the more the officers are tailored after +the English manner. It is the finest proof of international cousinship. +When England and America wear the same kind of clothes, alliance is knit +solid. + +Pershing sat with his palms on his knees. He looked worried. There was a +wavering crease down his lean cheeks. The plumply genial countenance of +Governor Sproul next to him was an odd contrast to that dry, hard face. +The bell in the tower tolled eleven times. He stood up for the +photographers. Walter Crail, appearing from somewhere, sprang up on the +parapet facing the general. "Look this way!" he shouted as the general +turned toward some movie men. That will be Walter's first cry when he +gets to heaven, or wherever. Mayor Smith's face was pallid with +excitement. His nicely draped trouserings, which were only six inches +from our notebook, quivered slightly as he said fifteen words of +introduction. + +As Pershing stood up to speak the crowd surged forward. The general was +worried. "Don't, don't! Somebody will get hurt!" he called sharply. Then +Mayor Smith surged forward also and said something to the police about +watching the crowd. + +The general took off his cap. Holding it in his left hand (with the +gloves) he patted his close-cropped hair nervously. He frowned. He began +to speak. + +The speech has already been covered by our hated rivals. We will not +repeat it, save to say that it was as crisp, clean-cut, and pointed as +his chin. He was nervous, as we could see by the clenching and +unclenching of his hands. His voice is rather high. We liked him for not +being a suave and polished speaker. He gestured briskly with a pointing +forefinger, and pronounced the word _patriotic_ with a short +A--"pattriotic." Later he stumbled over it again and got it out as +_patterotism_. We liked him again for that. He doesn't have to pronounce +it, anyway. We liked him best of all for the unconscious slip he made. +"This reception," he said, "I understand is for the splendid soldiery of +America that played such an important part in the war with our Allies." +A respectful ripple of laughter passed over the stand at this, but he +did not notice it. He was fighting too hard to think what to say next. +We liked him, too, for saying "such an important part." A man who had +been further away from the fighting would have said that it was America, +alone and unaided, that won the war. He is just as we have hoped he +would be: a plain, blunt man. We have heard that he is going to enter +the banking business. We'd like to have an account at that bank. + + + + +FALL FEVER + +[Illustration] + + +About this time of year, when the mellow air swoons (as the poets say) +with golden languor and the landscape is tinged a soft brown like a +piece of toast, we feel the onset and soft impeachment of fall fever. + +Fall fever is (in our case at any rate) more insidious than the familiar +disease of spring. Spring fever impels us to get out in the country; to +seize a knotted cudgel and a pouchful of tobacco and agitate our limbs +over the landscape. But the drowsiness of autumn is a lethargy in the +true sense of that word--a forgetfulness. A forgetfulness of past +discontents and future joys; a forgetfulness of toil that is gone and +leisure to come; a mere breathing existence in which one stands vacantly +eyeing the human scene, living in a gentle simmer of the faculties like +a boiling kettle when the gas is turned low. + +Fall fever, one supposes, is our inheritance from the cave man, who +(like the bear and the--well, some other animal, whatever it is) went +into hibernation about the first of November. Autumn with its soft +inertia lulled him to sleep. He ate a hearty meal, raked together some +dry leaves, curled up and slid off until the alarm clock of April. + +This agreeable disease does not last very long with the modern man. He +fights bravely against it; then the frost comes along, or the coal bill, +and stings him into activity. But for a few days its genial torpor may +be seen (by the observant) even in our bustling modern career. When we +read yesterday that Judge Audenried's court clerks had fallen asleep +during ballot-counting proceedings we knew that the microbe was among us +again. Keats, in his lovely Ode, describes the figure of Autumn as +stretched out "on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep." Unhappily the +conventions forbid city dwellers from curling up on the pavements for a +cheerful nap. If one were brave enough to do so, unquestionably many +would follow his example. But the urbanite has taught himself to doze +upright. You may see many of us, standing dreamily before Chestnut +Street show windows in the lunch hour, to all intents and purposes in a +state of slumber. Yesterday, in that lucid shimmer of warmth and light, +a group stood in front of a doughnut window near Ninth Street: not one +of them was more than half awake. Similarly a gathering watched the +three small birds who have become a traditional window ornament on +Chestnut Street (they have recently moved from an oculist to a +correspondence course office) and a faint whisper of snoring arose on +the sultry air. The customs of city life permit a man to stand still as +long as he likes if he will only pretend to be watching something. We +saw a substantial burgher pivoted by the window of Mr. Albert, the +violin maker, on Ninth Street. Apparently he was studying the fine +autographed photo of Patti there displayed; but when we sidled near we +saw that his eyes were closed; this admirable person, who seemed to be +what is known as a "busy executive," and whose desk undoubtedly carries +a plate-glass sheet with the orisons of Swett Marden under it, was in a +blissful doze. + +Modern life (as we say) struggles against this sweet enchantment of +autumn, but Nature is too strong for us. Why is it that all these +strikes occur just at this time of year? The old hibernating instinct +again, perhaps. The workman has a subconscious yearning to scratch +together a nice soft heap of manila envelopes and lie down on that couch +for a six months' ear-pounding. There are all sorts of excuses that one +can make to one's self for waving farewell to toil. Only last Sunday we +saw this ad in a paper: + + HEIRS WANTED. The war is over and has made many new heirs. You + may be one of them. Investigate. Many now living in poverty are + rich, but don't know it. + +Now what could be simpler (we said to ourself as we stood contemplating +those doughnuts) than to forsake our jolly old typewriter and spend a +few months in "investigating" whether any one had made us his heir? It +might be. Odd things have happened. Down in Washington Square, for +instance (we thought), are a number of sun-warmed benches, very +reposeful to the sedentary parts, on which we might recline and think +over the possibility of our being rich unawares. We hastened thither, +but apparently many had had the same idea. There was not a bench vacant. +The same was true in Independence Square and in Franklin Square. We will +never make a good loafer. There is too much competition. + +So we came back, sadly, to our rolltop and fell to musing. We picked up +a magazine and found some pictures showing how Mary Pickford washes her +hair. "If I am sun-drying my hair," said Mary (under a photo showing her +reclining in a lovely garden doing just that), "I usually have the +opportunity to read a scenario or do some other duty which requires +concentration." And it occurred to us that if a strain like that is put +upon a weak woman we surely ought to be able to go on moiling for a +while, Indian summer or not. And then we found some pictures by our +favourite artist, Coles Phillips, with that lovely shimmer around the +ankles, and we resolved to be strong and brave and have pointed +finger-nails. But still, in the back of our mind, the debilitating +influence of fall fever was at work. We said to ourself, without the +slightest thought of printing it (for it seemed to put us in a false +light), that the one triumphant and unanswerable epigram of mankind, the +grandest and most resolute utterance in the face of implacable fate, is +the snore. + + + + +TWO DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS + + +Will the hand-organ man please call? Our wife has dug up our old +overcoat and insists on giving it to him. We intended to give it to the +Honolulu Girls around at the Walnut Theatre, they looked a bit +goose-fleshed last week, but we always have hay fever when we get near +those grass skirts. Grass widows is what the profession calls the +Hawaiian ladies. Hope the temperature isn't going up again. We love the +old-fashioned Christmas and all that sort of thing. Nipping air makes +cheeks pink; we love to see them nestled in fur coats on Chestnut +Street. This is the time of year to do unexpected kindnesses. We know +one man who stands in line for hours in front of movie theatres just in +order to shout _Merry Christmas_ through the little hole in the glass. +Shaving seems less of a bore. Newspapers are supposed to be heartless, +but they all take a hand in trying to help poor children. Find ourselves +humming hymn tunes. Very odd, haven't been to a church for years. Great +fun surprising people. We've been reading the new phone book; noticed +several ways in which people might surprise each other by calling up and +wishing many happy returns of the day. Why doesn't Beulah R. Wine ring +up Mrs. Louis F. Beer, for instance? Or, A. D. Smoker and Burton J. +Puffer might go around to W. C. Matchett, tobacconist, at 1635 South +Second Street, and buy their Christmas cigars. George Wharton Pepper +might give Mayme Salt a ring (on the phone, that is). What a pleasant +voice that telephone operatrix has. Here's to you, child, and many of +them. Grand time, Christmas. + + * * * * * + +Fine old Anglo-Saxon festival, Christmas. A time of jovial cheer and +bracing mirth. Must be so, because Doctor Frank Crane and Ralph Waldo +Trine have often said so. Christmas hard on people like that, however: +they are bursting with the Christmas spirit all the year round; very +trying when the real occasion comes. That's the beauty of having a +peevish and surly disposition: when one softens up at Christmas +everybody notices it and is pleased. Chaucer, fine old English poet, +first English humorist, gave good picture of Christmas cheer more than +five hundred years ago. Never quoted on Christmas cards, why not copy it +here? Chaucer's spelling very like Ring Lardner's, but good sort just +the same. Says he: + + And this was, as thise bookes me remembre, + The colde, frosty sesoun of Decembre.... + The bittre frostes with the sleet and reyn + Destroyed hath the grene in every yard; + Janus sit by the fyre with double beard, + And drynketh of his bugle horn the wyn; + Biforn hym stant brawn of the tusked swyn, + And "_Nowel_" crieth every lusty man. + +Janus, god of doors, what we call nowadays a janitor. Had two faces so +he could watch the front and back door at once and get a double tip at +Christmas time. Also, that was why he wore a beard; too much trouble to +shave. We don't cry _Nowel_ any more; instead we petition the janitor to +send up a little more steam. But what a jolly picture Chaucer gives of +Christmas! Wine to drink (fine ruddy wine, as red as the holly berries), +crackling flitch of pig to eat, and a merry cry of welcome sounding at +the threshold as your friends come stamping in through the snow. + +Grand time, Christmas! No one is really a Philadelphian until he has +waited for a Pine Street car on a snowy night. Please have my seat, +madam, there's plenty of room on the strap. Wonder why the pavement on +Chestnut Street is the slipperiest in the world? Always fall down just +in front of our bank; most embarrassing; hope the paying teller doesn't +see us. Very annoying to lose our balance just there. Awfully nice +little girl in there who balances the books. Has a kind heart. The +countless gold of a merry heart, as William Blake said. She looks +awfully downcast when our balance gets the way it is now. Hate to +disappoint her. Won't have our book balanced again for a devil of a +while. Even the most surly is full of smiles nowadays. Most of us when +we fall on the pavement (did you ever try it on Chestnut between Sixth +and Seventh on a slippery day?) curse the granolithic trust and wamble +there groaning. But not nowadays. Make the best of things. Fine panorama +of spats. + + * * * * * + +Association of ideas. Everybody wears silk stockings at Christmas time. +Excessive geniality of the ad-writers. Uproarious good cheer. Makes one +almost ashamed to notice the high price of everything. Radicals being +deported. Why not deport Santa Claus, too? Very radical notion that, +love your neighbour better than yourself. Easy to do; very few of us +such dam fools as to love ourselves, but so often when you love your +neighbour she doesn't return it. Nice little boxes they have at the +ten-cent stores, all covered with poinsettia flowers, to put presents +in. Wonder when poinsettia began to be used as a Christmas decoration +and why? Everyone in ten-cent store calls them "poinsettias," but named +after J. R. Poinsett. Encyclopedia very handy at times; makes a good +Christmas present, one dollar down and a dollar a month for life. Nobody +can tell the difference between real pearls and imitation; somebody +ought to put the oysters wise. Save them a lot of trouble and anxiety. +Don't know just what duvetyne is, but there seems to be a lot of it +drunk nowadays. Hope that clockwork train for the Urchin will arrive +soon; we were hoping to have three happy evenings playing with it before +he sees it. Fine to have children; lots of fun playing with their +presents. We are sure that life after death is really so, because +children always kick the blankets off at night. Fine bit of symbolism +that; put it in a sermon, unless Doctor Conwell gets there first. + +Grand time, Christmas! We vowed to try to take down our weight this +winter, and then they put sugar back on the menu, and doughnut shops +spring up on every street, and Charles F. Jenkins sent us a big sack of +Pocono buckwheat flour and we're eating a basketful of griddle cakes +every morning for breakfast. Terrible to be a coward; we always turn on +the hot water first in the shower bath, except the first morning we used +it. The plumber got the indicator on the wrong way round, and when you +turn to the place marked HOT it comes down like ice. Our idea of a +really happy man is the fellow driving a wagonload of truck just in +front of a trolley car, holding it back all the way downtown; when he +hears the motorman clanging away he pretends he thinks it's the +Christmas chimes and sings "Hark the Herald Angels." + +Speaking of Herald Angels reminds us of a good story about James Gordon +Bennett; we'll spring it one of these days when we're hard up for copy. +Jack Frost must be a married man, did you see him try to cover up the +show windows with his little traceries the other day when the shopping +was at its height? There was a pert little hat in a window on Walnut +Street we were very much afraid someone might see; the frost saved us. +Don't forget to put Red Cross seals on your letters. Delightful to watch +the faces on the streets at Christmas time. Everybody trying hard to be +pleasant; sometimes rather a strain. Curious things faces--some of them +seem almost human; queer to think that each belongs to someone and no +chance to get rid of it; sorry we're not in the mirror industry; never +thought of it before, but it ought to be profitable. Happier most of us, +if mirrors never had been invented. Hope all our nice-natured clients +will have the best kind of a time; forgive us for not answering letters; +we are too disillusioned about ourself to make any resolutions to do +better. We're going home now; on the way we'll think of a lot of nice +things we might have said, write them down and use them to-morrow. Hope +Dorothy Gish will get something nice in her stocking. Don't make the +obvious retort. Grand time, Christmas! + + + + +IN WEST PHILADELPHIA + +[Illustration] + + +Climbing aboard car No. 13--ominously labelled "Mt. Moriah"--I voyaged +toward West Philadelphia. It was a keen day, the first snow of winter +had fallen, and sparkling gushes of chill swept inward every time the +side doors opened. The conductor, who gets the full benefit of this +ventilation, was feeling cynical, and seeing his blue hands I didn't +blame him. Long lines of ladies, fumbling with their little bags and +waiting for change, stepped off one by one into the windy eddies of the +street corners. One came up to pay her fare ten blocks or so before her +destination, and then retired to her seat again. This puzzled the +conductor and he rebuked her. The argument grew busy. To the amazement +of the passengers this richly dressed female brandished lusty epithets. +"You Irish mick!" she said. (One would not have believed it possible if +he had not heard it.) "That's what I am, and proud of it," said he. The +shopping solstice is not all fur coats and pink cheeks. If you watch the +conductors in the blizzard season, and see the slings and arrows they +have to bear, you will coin a new maxim. The conductor is always right. + +It is always entertaining to move for a little in a college atmosphere. +I stopped at College Hall at the University and seriously contemplated +slipping in to a lecture. The hallways were crowded with earnest youths +of both sexes--I was a bit surprised at the number of co-eds, +particularly the number with red hair--discussing the tribulations of +their lot. "Think of it," said one man, "I'm a senior, and carrying +twenty-three hours. Got a thesis to do, 20,000 words." On a bulletin +board I observed the results of a "General Intelligence Exam." It +appears that 1,770 students took part. They were listed by numbers, not +by names. It was not stated what the perfect mark would have been; the +highest grade attained was 159, by Mr. (or Miss?) 735. The lowest mark +was 23. I saw that both 440 and 1124 got the mark of 149. If these +gentlemen (or ladies) are eager to play off the tie, it would be a +pleasure to arrange a deciding competition for them. The elaborate care +with which the boys and girls ignore one another as they pass in the +halls was highly delightful, and reminded me of exactly the same thing +at Oxford. But I saw the possible beginning of true romance in the +following notice on one of the boards: + + WANTED: Names and addresses of ten nice American university + students who must remain in Philadelphia over Christmas, away + from home, to be invited to a Christmas Eve party to help + entertain some Bryn Mawr College girls in one of the nicest homes + in a suburb of Philadelphia. + +Certainly there is the stage set for a short story. Perhaps not such a +short one, either. + +Naturally I could not resist a visit to the library, where most of the +readers seemed wholly absorbed, though one student was gaping forlornly +over a volume of Tennyson. I found an intensely amusing book, "Who's Who +in Japan," a copy of which would be a valuable standby to a newspaper +paragrapher in his bad moments. For instance: + + SASAKI, TETSUTARO: One of the highest taxpayers of Fukushima-ken, + President of the Hongu Reeling Partnership, Director of the Dai + Nippon Radium Water Co.; brewer, reeler; born Aug., 1860. + + SAKURAI, ICHISAKU: Member of the Niigata City Council; Director + of the Niigata Gas Co., Niigata Savings Bank. Born June, 1872, + Studied Japanese and Chinese classics and arithmetic. At present + also he connects with the Niigata Orphanage and various other + philanthropic bodies. Was imprisoned by acting contrary to the + act of explosive compound for seven years. Recreations: reading, + Western wine. + +Relying on my apparent similarity to the average undergrad, I +plunged into the sancta of Houston Hall and bought a copy of the +_Punch Bowl_. What that sprightly journal calls "A little group +of Syria's thinkers" was shooting pool. The big fireplaces, like +most fireplaces in American colleges, don't seem to be used. They +don't even show any traces of ever having been used, a curious +contrast to the always blazing hearths of English colleges. The +latter, however, are more necessary, as in England there is +usually no other source of warmth. A bitter skirmish of winds, +carrying powdered snow dust, nipped round the gateways of the +dormitories and Tait McKenzie's fine statue of Whitefield stood +sharply outlined against a cold blue sky. I lunched at a varsity +hash counter on Spruce Street and bought tobacco in a varsity +drug store, where a New York tailor, over for the day, was +cajoling students into buying his "snappy styles" in time for +Christmas. There is no more interesting game than watching a lot +of college men, trying to pick out those who may be of some value +to the community in future--the scientists, poets, and teachers +of the next generation. The well-dressed youths one sees in the +varsity drug stores are not generally of this type. + +The Evans School of Dentistry at Fortieth and Spruce is a +surprising place. Its grotesque gargoyles, showing (with true +medieval humour) the sufferings of tooth patients, are the first +thing one notices. Then one finds the museum, in which is housed +Doctor Thomas W. Evans's collection of paintings and curios +brought back from France. Unfortunately there seems to be no +catalogue of the items, so that there is no way of knowing what +interesting associations belong to them. But most surprising of +all is to find the travelling carriage of the Empress Eugenie in +which she fled from France in the fatal September days of 1870. +She spent her last night in France at the home of Doctor Evans, +and there is a spirited painting by Dupray showing her leaving +his house the next morning, ushered into the carriage by the +courtly doctor. The old black barouche, or whatever one calls it, +seems in perfect condition still, with the empress's monogram on +the door panel. Only the other day we read in the papers that the +remarkable old lady (now in her ninety-fourth year) has been +walking about Paris, revisiting well-known scenes. How it would +surprise her to see her carriage again here in this University +building in West Philadelphia. The whole museum is delightfully +French in flavour; as soon as one enters one seems to step back +into the curiously bizarre and tragic extravagance of the Second +Empire. + +One passes into the dignified and placid residence section of +Spruce and Pine streets, with its distinctly academic air. Behind +those quiet walls one suspects bookcases and studious professors +and all the delightful passions of the mind. On Baltimore Avenue +the wintry sun shone white and cold; in Clark Park, Charles +Dickens wore a little cap of snow, and Little Nell looked more +pathetic than ever. There is a breath of mystery about Baltimore +Avenue. What does that large sign mean, in front of a house near +Clark Park--THE EASTERN TRAVELLERS? Then one comes to the famous +shop of S. F. Hiram, the Dodoneaean Shoemaker he calls himself. +This wise coloured man has learned the advertising advantages of +the unusual. His placard reads: + + Originator of that famous Dobrupolyi System of repairing. + +When one enters and asks to know more about this system, he +points to another placard, which says: + + It assumes the nature and character of an appellative noun, and + carries the article The System. + +His shop contains odd curios as well as the usual traffic of a +cobbler. "The public loves to be hood-winked," he adds sagely. + + + + +HORACE TRAUBEL + + +We wait with particular interest to hear what Philadelphia will have to +say about the passing of Horace Traubel. Traubel was the official echo +of the Great Voice of Camden, and in his obituary one may discern the +vivacity of the Whitman tradition. This is a matter of no small concern +to the curators of the Whitman cult. The soul of Philadelphia cannot be +kept alive by conventions and statistics alone. Such men as Traubel have +helped. + +There are two kinds of rebels. By their neckties you may know them. Walt +Whitman was of the kind that wears no necktie at all. Then there is the +lesser sort, of which Traubel was one--the rebel who wears a flowing +black bow tie with long trailers. Elbert Hubbard wore one of these. It +is a mild rebellion of which this is symbol. It often goes with shell +spectacles. + +[Illustration] + +We never knew Horace Traubel, though he was the man we most wanted to +meet when we came to Philadelphia. We have heard men of all conditions +speak of him with affection and respect. He was dedicated from boyhood +to the Whitman cause. From Walt himself he caught the habit of talking +about Walt, and he carried it on with as much gusto and happiness as +Walt did. Only recently he said in his little magazine _The +Conservator_: + + When I was quite small I used to want to be a great man. But in + my observations of the old man's better than great way of meeting + the gifts as well as the reverses of fate I didn't want to be a + great man. I only wanted to stay unannexed to any institution as + he was. No college ever decorated him. For the best of reasons. + No college could. He could decorate them. + +So Traubel remained unannexed. He was fired from a bank because he +happened to take issue in public with one of the bank's chief +depositors. He floated about happily, surrounded by young Whitman +disciples, carrying on his guerrilla for what his leader called the +"peerless, passionate, good cause" of human democracy. His little +magazine led a precarious life, supported by good friends. His protest +against iniquities was an honest, good-humoured protest. + +Horace Traubel will be remembered, as he wished to be remembered, as the +biographer of Whitman. Whitman also, we may add, wished Traubel to be so +remembered. In his careful record of the Camden sage's utterances and +pulse-beats he approached (as nearly as any one) the devoted dignity of +Boswell. We were about to say the self-effacing devotion of Boswell; but +the beauty of biography is that the biographer cannot wholly delete +himself from the book. One is always curious about the recording +instrument. When we see a particularly fine photograph our first +question is always, "What kind of camera was it taken with?" + +It seems to us--speaking only by intuition, for we never knew him--that +Traubel was a happy man. He was untouched by many of the harassing +ambitions that make the lives of prosperous men miserable. He was +touched in boyhood by one simple and overmastering motive--to carry on +the Whitman message and spread it out for the younger world. Much of the +dunnage of life he cast overboard. He was too good a Whitman disciple to +estimate success in the customary terms. When he left his job in the +bank he opened an account in the Walt Whitman philosophy--and he kept a +healthy balance there to the end. + + + + +TALES OF TWO CITIES + +II. NEW YORK + + + + +THE ANATOMY OF MANHATTAN + + +She is the only city whose lovers live always in a mood of wonder and +expectancy. There are others where one may sink peacefully, contentedly +into the life of the town, affectionate and understanding of its ways. +But she, the woman city, who is bold enough to say he understands her? +The secret of her thrilling and inscrutable appeal has never been told. +How could it be? She has always been so much greater than any one who +has lived with her. (Shall we mention Walt Whitman as the only possible +exception? O. Henry came very near to her, but did he not melodramatize +her a little, sometimes cheapen her by his epigrammatic appraisal, fit +her too neatly into his plot? Kipling seemed to see her only as the +brutal, heedless wanton.) Truly the magic of her spell can never be +exacted. She changes too rapidly, day by day. Realism, as they call it, +can never catch the boundaries of her pearly beauty. She needs a mystic. + +No city so challenges and debilitates the imagination. Here, where +wonder is a daily companion, desire to tell her our ecstasy becomes at +last only a faint pain in the mind. If you would mute a poet's lyre, +put him on a ferry from Jersey City some silver April morning; or send +him aboard at Liberty Street in an October dusk. Poor soul, his mind +will buzz (for years to come) after adequate speech to tell those cliffs +and scarps, amethyst and lilac in the mingled light; the clear topaz +chequer of window panes; the dull bluish olive of the river, streaked +and crinkled with the churn of the screw! Many a poet has come to her in +the wooing passion. Give him six months, he is merely her Platonist. He +lives content with placid companionship. Where are his adjectives, his +verbs? That inward knot of amazement, what speech can unravel it? + +Her air, when it is typical, is light, dry, cool. It is pale, it is +faintly tinctured with pearl and opal. Heaven is unbelievably remote; +the city itself daring so high, heaven lifts in a cautious remove. Light +and shadow are fantastically banded, striped, and patchworked among her +cavern streets; a cool, deep gloom is cut across with fierce jags and +blinks of brightness. She smiles upon man who takes his ease in her +colossal companionship. Her clean soaring perpendiculars call the eye +upward. One wanders as a botanist in a tropical forest. That great +smooth groinery of the Pennsylvania Station train shed: is it not the +arching fronds of iron palm trees? Oh, to be a botanist of this vivid +jungle, spread all about one, anatomist of the ribs and veins that run +from the great backbone of Broadway! + +To love her, one thinks, is to love one's fellows; each of them having +some unknown share in her loveliness. Any one of her streets would be +the study and delight of a lifetime. To speak at random, we think of +that little world of brightness and sound bourgeois cheer that spreads +around the homely Verdi statue at Seventy-third Street. We have a +faithful affection for that neighbourhood, for reasons of our own. +Within a radius, thereabouts, of a quarter-mile each way, we could live +a year and learn new matters every day. They call us a hustling folk. +Observe the tranquil afternoon light in those brownstone byways. Pass +along leisurely Amsterdam Avenue, the region of small and genial shops, +Amsterdam Avenue of the many laundries. See the children trooping +upstairs to their own room at the St. Agnes branch of the Public +Library. See the taxi drivers, sitting in their cars alongside the Verdi +grass plot (a rural breath of new-mown turf sweetening the warm, crisp +air) and smoking pipes. Every one of them is to us as fascinating as a +detective story. What a hand they have had in ten thousand romances. At +this very moment, what quaint and many-stranded destinies may hail them +and drive off? But there they sit, placid enough, with a pipe and the +afternoon paper. The light, fluttering dresses of enigmatic fair ones +pass gayly on the pavement. Traffic flows, divides, and flows on, a +sparkling river. Here is that mystery, a human being, buying a cigar. +Here is another mystery asking for a glass of frosted chocolate. Why is +it that we cannot accost that tempting riddle and ask him to give us an +accurate précis of his life to date? And that red-haired burly sage, he +who used to bake the bran muffins in the little lunchroom near by, and +who lent us his Robby Burns one night--what has become of him? + +So she teases us, so she allures. Sometimes, on the L, as one passes +along that winding channel where the walls and windows come so close, +there is a felicitous sense of being immersed, surrounded, drowned in a +great, generous ocean of humanity. It is a fine feeling. All life +presses around one, the throb and the problem are close, are close. Who +could be weary, who could be at odds with life, in such an embrace of +destiny? The great tall sides of buildings fly open, the human hive is +there, beautiful and arduous beyond belief. Here is our worship and here +our lasting joy, here is our immortality of encouragement. Yes, perhaps +O. Henry did say the secret after all: "He saw no longer a rabble, but +his brothers seeking the ideal." + + + + +VESEY STREET + +[Illustration] + + +The first duty of the conscientious explorer is to study his own +neighbourhood, so we set off to familiarize ourself with Vesey Street. +This amiable byway (perhaps on account of the proximity of Washington +Market) bases its culture on a solid appreciation of the virtue of good +food, an admirable trait in any street. Upon this firm foundation it +erects a seemly interest in letters. The wanderer who passes up the +short channel of our street, from the docks to St. Paul's churchyard, +must not be misled by the character of the books the bibliothecaries +display in their windows. Outwardly they lure the public by Bob +Ingersoll's lectures, Napoleon's Dream Book, efficiency encyclopædias +and those odd and highly coloured small brochures of smoking-car tales +of the Slow Train Through Arkansaw type. But once you penetrate, you may +find quarry of a more stimulating kind. For fifteen cents we eloped with +a first edition of Bunner's "Love in Old Cloathes," which we were glad +to have in memory of the "old red box on Vesey Street" which Banner +immortalized in rhyme, and which still stands (is it the same box?) by +the railing of St. Paul's. Also, even nobler treasure to our way of +thinking, did we not just now find (for fifteen cents) Hilaire Belloc's +"Hills and the Sea," that enchanting little volume of essays, which we +are almost afraid to read again. Belloc, the rogue--the devil is in him. +Such a lusty beguilery moves in his nimble prose that after reading him +it is hard not to fall into a clumsy imitation of his lively and frolic +manner. There is at least one essayist in this city who fell subject to +the hilarious Hilaire years ago. It is an old jape but not such a bad +one: our friend Murray Hill will never return to the status quo ante +Belloc. + +But we were speaking of Vesey Street. It looks down to the water, and +the soft music of steamship whistles comes tuning on a cold, gusty air. +Thoroughly mundane little street, yet not unmindful of matters +spiritual, bounded as it is by divine Providence at one end (St. Paul's) +and by Providence, R. I. (the Providence Line pier) at the other. +Perhaps it is the presence of the graveyard that has startled Vesey +Street into a curious reversal of custom. On most other streets, we +think, the numbers of the houses run even on the south side, odd on the +north. But just the opposite on Vesey. You will find all even numbers on +the north, odd on the south. Still, Wall Street errs in the same way. + +If marooned or quarantined on Vesey Street a man might lead a life of +gayety and sound nourishment for a considerable while, without having +recourse to more exalted thoroughfares. There are lodging houses in that +row of old buildings down toward the docks; from the garret windows he +could see masts moving on the river. For food he would live high indeed. +Where will one see such huge glossy blue-black grapes; such enormous +Indian River grapefruit; such noble display of fish--scallops, +herrings, smelts, and the larger kind with their dead and desolate eyes? +There are pathetic rows of rabbits, frozen stiff in the bitter cold +wind; huge white hares hanging in rows; a tray of pigeons with their +iridescent throat feathers catching gleams of the pale sunlight. There +are great sacks of nuts, barrels of cranberries, kegs of olive oil, +thick slabs of yellow cheese. On such a cold day it was pleasant to see +a sign "Peanut Roasters and Warmers." + +Passing the gloomy vista of Greenwich Street--under the "L" is one of +those mysterious little vents in the floor of the street from which +issues a continual spout of steam--our Vesey grows more intellectual. +The first thing one sees, going easterly, is a sign: THE TRUTH SEEKER, +_One flight Up_. The temptation is almost irresistible, but then Truth +is always one flight higher up, so one reflects, what's the use? In this +block, while there is still much doing in the way of food--and even food +in the live state, a window full of entertaining chicks and ducklings +clustered round a colony brooder--another of Vesey Street's interests +begins to show itself. Tools. Every kind of tool that gladdens the heart +of man is displayed in various shops. One realizes more and more that +this is a man's street, and indeed (except at the meat market) few of +the gayer sex are to be seen along its pavements. One of the tool shops +has open-air boxes with all manner of miscellaneous oddments, from mouse +traps to oil cans, and you may see delighted enthusiasts poring over the +assortment with the same professional delight that ladies show at a +notion counter. One of the tool merchants, however, seems to have +weakened in his love of city existence, for he has put up a placard: + +WANTED TO RENT _Small Farm Must Have Fruit and Spring Water_ + +How many years of repressed yearning may speak behind that modest +ambition! + +Our own taste for amusement leads us (once luncheon dispatched; you +should taste Vesey Street's lentil soup) to the second-hand bookshops. +Our imagined castaway, condemned to live on Vesey Street for a term of +months, would never need to languish for mental stimulation. Were he +devout, there is always St. Paul's, as we have said; and were he +atheist, what a collection of Bob Ingersoll's essays greets the faring +eye! There is the customary number of copies of "The Pentecost of +Calamity"; it seems to the frequenter of second-hand bazaars as though +almost everybody who bought that lively booklet in the early days of the +war must have sold it again since the armistice. Much rarer, we saw a +copy of "Hopkins's Pond," that little volume of agreeable sketches +written so long ago by Dr. Robert T. Morris, the well-known surgeon, and +if we had not already a copy which the doctor inscribed for us we would +certainly have rescued it from this strange exile. + +There are only two of the really necessary delights of life that the +Vesey Street maroon would miss. There is no movie, there are no +doughnuts. We are wondering whether in any part of this city there has +sprung up the great doughnut craze that has ravaged Philadelphia in the +past months. As soon as prohibition became a certainty, certain astute +merchants of the Quaker City devoted themselves to inoculating the +public with a taste for these humble fritters, and now they bubble gayly +in the windows of Philadelphia's most aristocratic thoroughfare. It is +really a startling sight to see Philadelphia lining up for its noonday +quota of doughnuts, and the merchants over there have devised an +ingenious method of tempting the crowd. A funnel, erected over the +frying sinkers, carries the fragrant fumes out through a transom and +gushes it into the open air, so that the sniff of doughnuts is +perceptible all down the block. There is a fortune waiting on Vesey +Street for the man who will establish a doughnut foundry, and we +solemnly pledge our own appetite and that of all our friends toward his +success.[2] + +At its upper end, perhaps in memory of the vanished Astor House, Vesey +Street stirs itself into a certain magnificence, devoting its window +space to jewellery and silver-mounted books of prayer. At this window +one may regulate his watch at a clock warranted by Charles Frodsham of +84, Strand, to whose solid British accuracy we hereby pay decent +tribute. Over all this varied scene lifts the shining javelin-head of +the Woolworth Building, seen now and then in an almost disbelieved +glimpse of sublimity; and the golden Lightning of the Telephone and +Telegraph pinnacle, waving his zigzag brands in the sun. + +[2] Since this was written, the lack has been supplied--on Park Row, +just above the top of Vesey Street; probably the most luxurious doughnut +shop ever conceived. + + + + +BROOKLYN BRIDGE + +[Illustration] + + +A windy day, one would have said in the dark channels of downtown ways. +In the chop house on John Street, lunch-time patrons came blustering in, +wrapped in overcoats and mufflers, with something of that air of +ostentatious hardiness that men always assume on coming into a warm room +from a cold street. Thick chops were hissing on the rosy grill at the +foot of the stairs. In one of the little crowded stalls a man sat with a +glass of milk. It was the first time we had been in that chop house for +several years ... it doesn't seem the same. As Mr. Wordsworth said, it +is not now as it hath been of yore. But still, + + The homely Nurse doth all she can + To make her foster-child, her Inn-mate Man, + Forget the glories he hath known. + +It's a queer thing that all these imitation beers taste to us exactly as +real beer did the first time we tasted it (we were seven years old) and +shuddered. "Two glasses of cider," we said to the comely serving maid. +Alas + + That nature yet remembers + What was so fugitive. + +There is a nice point of etiquette involved in lunching in a crowded +chop house. Does the fact of having bought and eaten a moderate meal +entitle one to sit with one's companion for a placid talk and smoke +afterward? Or is one compelled to relinquish the table as soon as one is +finished, to make place for later comers? These last are standing +menacingly near by, gazing bitterly upon us as we look over the card and +debate the desirability of having some tapioca pudding. But our +presiding Juno has already settled the matter, and made courtesy a +matter of necessity. "These gentlemen will be through in a moment," she +says to the new candidates. Our companion, the amiable G---- W----, was +just then telling us of a brand of synthetic whiskey now being +distilled by a famous tavern of the underworld. The superlative charm of +this beverage seems to be the extreme rigidity it imparts to the +persevering communicant. "What does it taste like?" we asked. "Rather +like gnawing furniture," said G---- W----. "It's like a long, healthy +draught of shellac. It seems to me that it would be less trouble if you +offered the barkeep fifty cents to hit you over the head with a hammer. +The general effect would be about the same, and you wouldn't feel nearly +so bad in the morning." + +A windy day, and perishing chill, we thought as we strolled through the +gloomy caverns and crypts underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Those twisted +vistas seen through the archways give an impression of wrecked Louvain. +A great bonfire was burning in the middle of the street. Under the Pearl +Street elevated the sunlight drifted through the girders in a lively +chequer, patterning piles of gray-black snow with a criss-cross of +brightness. We had wanted to show our visitor Franklin Square, which he, +as a man of letters, had always thought of as a trimly gardened plot +surrounded by quiet little old-fashioned houses with brass knockers, and +famous authors tripping in and out. As we stood examining the façade of +Harper and Brothers, our friend grew nervous. He was carrying under his +arm the dummy of an "export catalogue" for a big brass foundry, that +being his line of work. "They'll think we're free verse poets trying to +get up courage enough to go in and submit a manuscript," he said, and +dragged us away. + +A windy day, we had said in the grimy recesses of Cliff and Dover +streets. (Approaching this sentiment for the third time, perhaps we may +be permitted to accomplish our thought and say what we had in mind.) But +up on the airy decking of the Brooklyn Bridge, where we repaired with +G---- W---- for a brief stroll, the afternoon seemed mild and tranquil. +It is a mistake to assume that the open spaces are the windier. The +subway is New York's home of Æolus, and most of the gusts that buffet us +on the streets are merely hastening round a corner in search of the +nearest subway entrance so that they can get down there where they feel +they belong. Up on the bridge it was plain to perceive that the March +sunshine had elements of strength. The air was crisp but genial. A few +pedestrians were walking resolutely toward the transpontine borough; the +cop on duty stood outside his little cabin with the air of one ungrieved +by care. Behind us stood the high profiles of the lower city, sharpened +against the splendidly clear blue sky which is New York's special +blessing. On the water moved a large tug, towing barges. Smoke trailed +behind it in the same easy and comfortable way that tobacco reek gushes +over a man's shoulder when he walks across a room puffing his pipe. + +The bridge is a curiously delightful place to watch the city from. +Walking toward the central towers seems like entering a vast spider's +web. The footway between the criss-cross cables draws one inward with a +queer fascination, the perspective diminishing the network to the eye so +that it seems to tighten round you as you advance. Even when there is +but little traffic the bridge is never still. It is alive, trembling, +vibrant, the foot moves with a springy recoil. One feels the lift and +strain of gigantic forces, and looks in amazement on the huge sagging +hawsers that carry the load. The bars and rods quiver, the whole lively +fabric is full of a tremor, but one that conveys no sense of +insecureness. It trembles as a tree whispers in a light air. + +And of the view from the bridge, it is too sweeping to carry wholly in +mind. Best, one thinks, it is seen in a winter dusk, when the panes of +Manhattan's mountains are still blazing against a crystal blue-green +sky, and the last flush of an orange sunset lingers in the west. Such we +saw it once, coming over from Brooklyn, very hungry after walking in +most of the way from Jamaica, and pledged in our own resolve not to +break fast until reaching a certain inn on Pearl Street where they used +to serve banana omelets. Dusk simplifies the prospect, washes away the +lesser units, fills in the foreground with obliterating shadow, leaves +only the monstrous sierras of Broadway jagged against the vault. It +deepens this incredible panorama into broad sweeps of gold and black and +peacock blue which one may file away in memory, tangled eyries of +shining windows swimming in empty air. As seen in the full brilliance of +noonday the bristle of detail is too bewildering to carry in one clutch +of the senses. The eye is distracted by the abysses between buildings, +by the uneven elevation of the summits, by the jumbled compression of +the streets. In the vastness of the scene one looks in vain for some +guiding principle of arrangement by which vision can focus itself. It is +better not to study this strange and disturbing outlook too minutely, +lest one lose what knowledge of it one has. Let one do as the veteran +prowlers of the bridge: stroll pensively to and fro in the sun, taking +man's miracles for granted, exhilarated and content. + + + + +THREE HOURS FOR LUNCH + + +Hudson Street has a pleasant savour of food. It resounds with the dull +rumble of cruising drays, which bear the names of well-known brands of +groceries; it is faintly salted by an aroma of the docks. One sees great +signs announcing cocoanut and whalebone or such unusual wares; there is +a fine tang of coffee in the air round about the corner of Beach Street. +Here is that vast, massy brick edifice, the New York Central freight +station, built 1868, which gives an impression of being about to be torn +down. From a dilapidated upper window hangs a faded banner of the Irish +Republic. At noontime this region shows a mood of repose. Truckmen loll +in sunny corners, puffing pipes, with their curved freight hooks hung +round their necks. In a dark smithy half a dozen sit comfortably round a +huge wheel which rests on an anvil, using it as a lunch table. Near +Canal Street two men are loading ice into a yellow refrigerator car, and +their practiced motions are pleasant to watch. One stands in the wagon +and swings the big blocks upward with his tongs. The other, on the wagon +roof, seizes the piece deftly and drops it through a trap on top of the +car. The blocks of ice flash and shimmer as they pass through the +sunshine. In Jim O'Dea's blacksmith shop, near Broome Street, fat white +horses are waiting patiently to be shod, while a pink glow wavers +outward from the forge. + +[Illustration] + +At the corner of Hudson and Broome streets we fell in with our friend +Endymion, it being our purpose to point out to him the house, one of +that block of old red dwellings between Hudson and Varick, which Robert +C. Holliday has described in "Broome Street Straws," a book which we +hope is known to all lovers of New York local colour. Books which have a +strong sense of place, and are born out of particular streets--and +especially streets of an odd, rich, and well-worn flavour--are not any +too frequent. Mr. Holliday's Gissingesque appreciation of the humours of +landladies and all the queer fish that shoal through the backwaters of +New York lodging houses makes this Broome Street neighbourhood +exceedingly pleasant for the pilgrim to examine. It was in Mr. +Holliday's honour that we sallied into a Hudson Street haberdashery, +just opposite the channel of Broome Street, and adorned ourself with a +new soft collar, also having the pleasure of seeing Endymion regretfully +wave away some gorgeous mauve and pink neckwear that the agreeable +dealer laid before him with words of encouragement. We also stood +tranced by a marvellous lithograph advertising a roach powder in a +neighbouring window, and wondered whether Mr. Holliday himself could +have drawn the original in the days when he and Walter Jack Duncan lived +in garrets on Broome Street and were art students together. Certainly +this picture had the vigorous and spirited touch that one would expect +from the draughting wrist of Mr. Holliday. It showed a very terrible +scene, apparently a civil war among the roaches, for one army of these +agile insects was treasonously squirting a house with the commended +specific, and the horrified and stricken inmates were streaming forth +and being carried away in roach ambulances, attended by roach nurses, to +a neighbouring roach cemetery. All done on a large and telling scale, +with every circumstance of dismay and reproach on the faces of the dying +blattidæ. Not even our candour, which is immense, permits us to reprint +the slogan the manufacturer has adopted for his poster: those who go +prowling on Hudson Street may see it for themselves. + +In the old oyster and chop house just below Canal Street we enjoyed a +very agreeable lunch. To this place the Broome Street garreteers (so Mr. +Holliday has told us) used to come on days of high prosperity when some +cheque arrived from a publisher. At that time the tavern kept an open +fireplace, with a bright nest of coals in the chilly season; and there +was a fine mahogany bar. But we are no laudator of acted time; the +fireplace has been bricked up, it is true; but the sweet cider is +admirable, and as for the cheesecake, we would back it against all the +Times Square variety that Ben De Casseres rattles about. It is +delightful and surprising to find on Hudson Street an ordinary so droll +and Dickensish in atmosphere, and next door is a window bearing the sign +WALTER PETER. We feel sure that Mr. Holliday, were he still living in +those parts, would have cajoled the owner into changing that E to an A. + +Our stroll led us north as far as Charlton Street, which the geographers +of Greenwich Village claim as the lower outpost of their domain. +Certainly it is a pleasing byway, running quietly through the afternoon, +and one lays an envious eye upon the demure brick houses, with their +old-fashioned doorways, pale blue shutters, and the studio windows on +the southern side. At the corner of Varick Street is a large house +showing the sign, "Christopher Columbus University of America." +Macdougal Street gives one a distant blink of the thin greenery of +Washington Square. + +An unexpected impulse led us eastward on Grand Street, to revisit Max +Maisel's interesting bookshop.--We had never forgotten the thrill of +finding this place by chance one night when prowling toward Seward Park. +In bookshops of a liberal sort we always find it advisable to ask first +of all for a copy of Frank Harris's "The Man Shakespeare." It is hardly +ever to be found (unfortunately), so the inquiry is comparatively safe +for one in a frugal mood; and it is a tactful question, for the mention +of this book shows the bookseller that you are an intelligent and +understanding kind of person, and puts intercourse on good terms at +once. However, we did find one book that we felt we simply had to have, +as it is our favourite book for giving away to right-minded people--"The +Invisible Playmate," by William Canton. We fear that there are still +lovers of children who do not know this book; but if so, it is not our +fault. + +Grand Street is a child at heart, and one may watch it making merry not +only along the pavement but in the shop windows. Endymion's gallant +spirit was strongly uplifted by this lively thoroughfare, and he strode +like one whose heart was hitting on all six cylinders. Max Maisel's +bookshop alone is enough to put one in a seemly humour. But then one +sees the gorgeous pink and green allurements of the pastry cooks' +windows, and who can resist those little lemon-flavoured, +saffron-coloured cakes, which are so thirst-compelling and send one +hastily to the nearest bar for another beaker of cider? And it seems +natural to find here the oldest toyshop in New York, where Endymion +dashed to the upper floor in search of juvenile baubles, and we both +greatly admired the tall, dark, and beauteous damsel who waited on us +with such patience and charity. Endymion by this time was convinced that +he was living in the very heart and climax of a poem; he became more and +more unreal as we walked along: we could see his physical outline +(tenuous enough at best) shimmer and blur as he became increasingly +alcaic. + +Along the warm crowded pavement there suddenly piped a liquid, gurgling, +chirring whistle, rising and dropping with just the musical trill that +floats from clumps of creekside willows at this time of year. We had +passed several birdshops on our walk, and supposed that another was +near. A song sparrow, was our instant conclusion, and we halted to see +where the cage could be hung. And then we saw our warbler. He was little +and plump and red-faced, with a greasy hat and a drooping beer-gilded +moustache, and he wore on his coat a bright blue peddler's license +badge. He shuffled along, stooping over a pouch of tin whistles and +gurgling in one as he went. There's your poem, we said to +Endymion--"The Song-Sparrow on Grand Street." + +We propose to compile a little handbook for truants, which we shall call +"How to Spend Three Hours at Lunch Time." This idea occurred to us on +looking at our watch when we got back to our kennel. + + + + +PASSAGE FROM SOME MEMOIRS + + +How long ago it seems, that spring noonshine when two young men (we will +call them Dactyl and Spondee) set off to plunder the golden bag of Time. +These creatures had an oppressive sense that first Youth was already +fled. For one of them, in fact, it was positively his thirtieth +birthday; poor soul, how decrepitly he flitted in front of motor trucks. +As for the other, he was far decumbent in years, quite of a previous +generation, a perfect Rameses, whose senile face was wont to crack into +wrinklish mirth when his palsied cronies called him the greatest poet +born on February 2, 1886. + +It was a day--well, it is fortunate that some things do not have to be +described. Suppose one had to explain to the pallid people of the +thither moon what a noonday sunshine is like in New York about the Nones +of May? It could not be done to carry credence. Let it be said it was a +Day, and leave it so. You have all known that gilded envelopment of +sunshine and dainty air. + +These pitiful creatures arose from the subway at Fourteenth Street and +took the world in their right hands. From this revolving orb, said they, +they would squeeze a luncheon hour of exquisite satisfactions. They +gazed sombrely at Union Square, and uttered curious reminiscences of the +venerable days when one of them had worked, actually toiled for a +living, upon the shores of that expanse. Ten years had passed (yes, at +least ten--_O edax rerum!_). Upon a wall these observant strollers saw a +tablet to the memory of William Lloyd Garrison. Strange, said they, we +never noticed this before. Ah, said one, this is hallowed ground. It was +near here that I used to borrow a quarter, the day before pay-day, to +buy my lunch. The other contributed similar recollections. And now, +quoth he, I am grown so prosperous that when I need money I can't afford +to borrow less than two hundred dollars. + +They lunched (one brushes away the mist of time to recall the details) +where the bright sunlight fell athwart a tablecloth of excellent +whiteness. They ate (may one be precise at so great a distance?)--yes, +they ate broiled mackerel to begin with; the kind of mackerel called +(but why?) Spanish. Whereupon succeeded a course of honeycomb tripe, +which moved Dactyl to quoting Rabelais, something that Grangousier had +said about tripes. Only by these tripes is memory supported and made +positive, for it was the first time either had tackled this dish. +Concurrent with the tripes, one inducted the other into the true mystery +of blending shandygaff, explaining the first doctrine of that worthy +draught, which is that the beer must be poured into the beaker before +the ginger ale, for so arises a fatter and lustier bubblement of foam. +The reason whereof they leave no testament. While this portion of the +meal was under discussion their minds moved free, unpinioned, with airy +lightness, over all manner of topics. It seemed no effort at all to +talk. Ripe, mellow with long experience of men and matters, their +comments were notable for wisdom and sagacity. The waiter, overhearing +shreds of their discourse, made a private notation to the effect that +these were Men of Large Affairs. Then they embarked upon some salty +crackers, enlivened with Camembert cheese and green-gage jam. By this +time they were touching upon religion, from which they moved lightly to +the poems of Louise Imogen Guiney. It is all quite distinct as one looks +back upon it. + +[Illustration] + +Issuing upon the street, Dactyl said something about going back to the +office, but the air and sunlight said him nay. Rather, remarked Spondee, +let us fare forward upon this street and see what happens. This is ever +a comely doctrine, adds the chronicler. They moved gently, not without a +lilac trailing of tobacco fume, across quiet stretches of pavement. In +the blue upwardness stood the tower of the Metropolitan Life Building, a +reminder that humanity as a whole pays its premiums with decent +regularity. They conned the nice gradations of tint in the spring +foliage of Gramercy Park. They talked, a little soberly, of thrift, and +of their misspent years. + +Lexington Avenue lay guileless beneath their rambling footfalls. At the +corner of Twenty-second Street was a crowd gathered, and a man with the +customary reverted cap in charge of a moving picture machine. A swift +car drew up before the large house at the southeast corner. Thrill upon +thrill: something being filmed for the movies! In the car, a handsome +young rogue at the wheel, and who was this blithe creature in shiny +leather coat and leather cap, with crumpling dark curls cascading +beneath it? A suspicion tinkled in the breast of Spondee, in those days +a valiant movie fan. Up got the young man, and hopped out of the car. Up +stood the blithe creature--how neatly breeched, indeed, a heavenly +forked radish--and those shining riding boots! She dismounted--lifted +down (so unnecessarily it seemed) by the rogue. She stood there a moment +and Spondee was convinced. DOROTHY GISH, said he to Dactyl. Miss Gish +and her escort darted into the house, the camera man reeling busily. At +an upper window of the dwelling a white-haired lady was looking out, +between lace curtains, with a sort of horror. Query, was she part of the +picture, or only the aristocratic owner of the house, dismayed at +finding her home suddenly become part of a celluloid drama? Spondee had +always had a soft spot in his heart for Miss Dorothy, esteeming her a +highly entertaining creature. He was disappointed in the tranquil +outcome of the scene. He had hoped to see leaping from windows and all +manner of hot stuff. Near by stood a coloured groom with a horse. The +observers concluded that Miss Gish was to do a little galloping shortly. +Dactyl and Spondee moved away. Spondee quoted a poem he had once written +about Miss Dorothy. He recollected only two lines: + + She makes all the rest seem a shoal of poor fish + So _we_ cast _our_ ballot for Dorothy Gish. + +Peering again into the dark backward and abysm, it seems that the two +rejuvenated gossips trundled up on Lexington Avenue to Alfred +Goldsmith's cheerful bookshop. Here they were startled to hear Mr. +Goldsmith cry: "Well, Chris, here are some nice bones for you." One of +these visitors assumed this friendly greeting was for him, but then it +was explained that Mr. Goldsmith's dog, named Christmas, was feeling +seedy, and was to be pampered. At this moment in came the postman with a +package of books, arrived all the way from Canada. One of these books +was "Salt of the Sea," a volume of tales by Morley Roberts, and upon +this Spondee fell with a loud cry, for it contained "The Promotion of +the Admiral," being to his mind a tale of great virtue which he had not +seen in several years. Dactyl, meanwhile, was digging out some volumes +of Gissing, and on the faces of both these creatures might have been +seen a pleasant radiation of innocent cheer. Mr. Goldsmith also +exhibited (it is still remembered) a beautiful photo of Walt Whitman, +which entertained the visitors, for it showed old Walt with his +coat-sleeve full of pins, which was ever Walt's way. + +How long ago it all seems. Does Miss Dorothy still act for the pictures? +Does Chris, the amiable Scots terrier, still enjoy his bones? Does old +Dactyl still totter about his daily tasks? Queer to think that it +happened only yesterday. Well, time runs swift in New York. + + + + +FIRST LESSONS IN CLOWNING + +[Illustration] + + +A medley of crashing music, pungently odd and exhilarating smells, the +roaring croon of the steam calliope, the sweet lingering savour of +clown-white grease paint, elephants, sleek barking seals, trained pigs, +superb white horses, frolicking dogs, exquisite ladies in tights and +spangles, the pallid Venuses of the "living statuary," a whole jumble +of incongruous and fantastic glimpses, moving in perfect order through +its arranged cycles--this is the blurred and ecstatic recollection of an +amateur clown at the circus. + +It was pay day that afternoon and all the performers were in cheerful +humour. Perhaps that was why the two outsiders, who played a very +inconspicuous part in the vast show, were so gently treated. Certainly +they had approached the Garden in some secret trepidation. They had had +visions of dire jests and grievous humiliations: of finding themselves +suddenly astride the bare backs of berserk mules, or hoisted by blazing +petards, or douched with mysterious cascades of icy water. Pat Valdo had +written: "I am glad to hear you are going to clown a bit. I hope you +both will enjoy the experience." To our overwrought imaginations this +sounded a little ominous. What would Pat and his lively confrères do to +us? + +We need not have feared. Not in the most genial club could we have been +more kindly treated than in the dressing room where we found Pat Valdo +opening his trunk and getting out the antic costumes he had provided. +(The eye of a certain elephant, to tell the truth, was the only real +embarrassment we suffered. We happened to stand by him as he was waiting +to go on, and in his shrewd and critical orb we saw a complete disdain. +He spotted us at once. He knew us for interlopers. He knew that we were +not a real clown, and his eye showed a spark of scorn. We felt shamed, +and slunk away.) + +A liberal coating of clown-white, well rubbed into the palms before +applying; a rich powdering of talcum; and decorations applied by Pat +Valdo with his red and black paint-sticks--these give an effect that +startles the amateur when he considers himself in the mirror. Topped +with a skull-cap of white flannel (on which perches a supreme oddity in +the way of a Hooligan hat) and enveloped in a baggy Pierrot garment--one +is ready to look about and study the dressing room, where our fellows, +in every kind of gorgeous grotesquerie, are preparing for the Grand +Introductory Pageant--followed by the "Strange People." (They don't call +them Freaks any more.) Here is Johannes Joseffson, the Icelandic +Gladiator, sitting on his trunk, with his bare feet gingerly placed on +his slippers to keep them off the dusty floor while he puts on his +wrestling tights. As he bends over with arched back, and raises one leg +to insert it into the long pink stocking, one must admire the perfect +muscular grace of his thighs and shoulders. Here is the equally muscular +dwarf, being massaged by a friend before he dons his pink frills and +dashing plumed hat and becomes Mlle. Spangletti, "the marvel +equestrienne, darling of the Parisian boulevards." Here is the +inevitable Charley Chaplin, and here the dean of all the clowns, an old +gentleman of seventy-four, in his frolicsome costume, as lively as +ever. Here is a trunk inscribed _Australian Woodchoppers_, and sitting +on it one of the woodchoppers himself, a quiet, humorous, cultivated +gentleman with a great fund of philosophy. A rumour goes the rounds--as +it does behind the scenes in every kind of show. "Do you know who we +have with us to-day? I see one of the boxes is all decorated up." "It's +Mrs. Vincent Astor." "Who's she?" interjects the Australian woodchopper, +satirically. "It's General Wood." "Did you hear, Wood and Pershing are +here to-day?" Charley Chaplin asserts that he has "a good gag" that he's +going to try out to-day and see how it goes. One of the other clowns in +the course of dressing comes up to Pat Valdo, and Pat introduces his two +pupils. "Newspaper men, hey?" says the latter. "What did you tell me +for? I usually double-cross the newspaper men when they come up to do +some clowning," he explains to us. We are left wondering in what this +double-crossing consists. Suddenly they all troop off down the dark +narrow stairs for the triumphal entry. The splendour of this parade may +not be marred by any clown costumes, so the two novices are left +upstairs, peering through holes in the dressing-room wall. The big arena +is all an expanse of eager faces. The band strikes up a stirring ditty. +A wave of excitement sweeps through the dingy quarters of the Garden. +The show is on, and how delirious it all is! + +Downstairs, the space behind the arena is a fascinating jostle of odd +sights. The elephants come swaying up the runway from the basement and +stand in line waiting their turn. Here is a cage of trained bears. In +the background stands the dogcatcher's cart, attached to the famous +kicking mule. From the ladies' dressing quarters come the aerial human +butterflies in their wings and gauzy draperies. On the wall is a list of +names, _Mail Uncalled For_. One of the names is "Toby Hamilton." That +must mean old Toby, and we fear the letter will never be called for now, +for Toby Hamilton, the famous old Barnum and Bailey press agent, who +cleaned up more "free space" than any man who ever lived, died in 1916. +Suddenly appears a person clad in flesh tights and a barrel, carrying a +label announcing himself as _The Common People_. Someone thrusts a large +sign into the hands of one of the amateur clowns, and he is thrust upon +the arena, to precede the barrelled Common People round the sawdust +circuit. He has hardly time to see what the sign says--something about +"On Strike Against $100 Suits." The amateur clown is somewhat aghast at +the huge display of friendly faces. Is he to try to be funny? Here is +the flag-hung box, and he tries to see who is in it. He doesn't see +either Wood, Pershing, or Mrs. Astor, who are not there; but a lot of +wounded soldiers, who smile at him encouragingly. He feels better and +proceeds, finding himself, with a start, just beneath some flying +acrobats who are soaring in air, hanging by their teeth. Common People +shouts to him to keep the sign facing toward the audience. The tour is +made without palpable dishonour. + +Things are now moving so fast it is hard to keep up with them. Pat Valdo +is dressed as a prudish old lady with an enormous bustle. Escorted by +the clown policeman and the two amateurs, Pat sets out, fanning himself +demurely. Hullo! the bustle has detached itself from the old lady, but +she proceeds, unconscious. The audience shouts with glee. Finally the +cop sees what has happened and screams. The amateur clowns scream, too, +and one of them, in a burst of inspiration, takes off his absurd hat to +the bustle, which is now left yards behind. But Pat is undismayed, turns +and beckons with his hand. The bustle immediately runs forward of its +own accord and reattaches itself to the rear of the skirt. You see, +there is a dwarf inside it. The two amateur clowns are getting excited +by this time and execute some impromptu tumbling. One tackles the other +and they roll over and over desperately. In the scuffle one loses both +his hat and skull-cap and flees shamefast from the scene. It is asserted +by our partner that "this went big." He swears it got a laugh. Pat Valdo +hurries off to prepare for his boomerang throwing. Pat is a busy man, +for he is not only a clown, but he and Mrs. Valdo also do wonderful +stunts of their own on Ring Number One. + +And there are moments of sheer poetry, too. Into the darkened arena, +crossed by dazzling shafts of light, speeds a big white motor car. Bird +Millman descends, tossing aside her cloak. "A fairy on a cobweb" the +press agents call her, and as two humble clowns watch entranced through +the peepholes in the big doors the phrase seems none too extravagant. +See her, in a foam of short fluffy green skirts, twirl and tiptoe on the +glittering wire, all grace and slenderness and agile enchantment. She +bows in the dazzle of light and kisses her hands to the crowd. Then she +hops into the big car and is borne back behind the scenes. Once behind +the doors her gay vivacity ceases. She sits, wearily, several minutes, +before getting out of the car. And then, later, comes Mlle. Leitzel. +She, like all the other stars, is said to have "amazed all Europe." We +don't know whether Europe is harder to amaze than America. Certainly no +one could be more admiringly astounded than the amateur clowns gazing +entranced through the crack of the doorway. To that nerve-tightening +roll of drums she spins deliriously high up in giddy air, floating, a +tiny human pin-wheel, in a shining cone of light. One can hear the crowd +catch its breath. She walks back, all smiles, while her maid trots ahead +saying something unintelligible. Her tall husband is waiting for her at +the doorway. He catches her up like a child and carries her off, limp +and exhausted. One of the clowns (irreverent creature) makes a piteous +squawk and begs us to carry him to his dressing room. + +A trained pig, trotting cheerfully round in search of tidbits, is +retrieved from under the hooves of Mrs. Curtis's horse, which is about +to go out and dance. The dogcatcher's wagon is drawn up ready to rush +forth, and the trained terrier which accompanies it is leaping with +excitement. He regards it as a huge lark, and knows his cue perfectly. +When the right time comes he makes a dash for a clown dressed as an +elderly lady and tears off her skirt. One of the amateurs was allowed to +ride behind the kicking mule, but to his great chagrin the mule did not +kick as well as usual. Here are Charley Chaplin and some others throwing +enormous dice from a barrel. No matter how the dice are thrown they +always turn up seven. Into this animated gamble the amateur clown enters +with enjoyment. All round him the wildest capers are proceeding. The +double-ended flivver is prancing about. John Barleycorn's funeral +procession is going its way. "Give me plenty of space," says Charley +Chaplin to us, "so the people can watch me." We do so, reverently, for +Charley's antics are worth watching. We make a wild dash, and plan to do +a tumble in imitation of Charley's. To our disappointment we find that +instead of sliding our feet dig into the soft sawdust, and the +projected collapse does not arrive. Intoxicated by the rich spice of +circus odours, the booming calliope, the galloping horses, we hardly +know what we are doing half the time. We hear Miss May Wirth, the Wonder +Rider of the World, complaining bitterly that someone got in front of +her when she was doing her particularly special stunt. We wonder +dubiously whether we were the guilty one. Alas, it is all over but the +washing up. Pat Valdo, gentlest of hosts, is taking off his trick hat +with the water cistern concealed in it. He has a clean towel ready for +his grateful pupils. + +The band is playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," and all the clowns, in +various stages of undress, stand at attention. Our little peep into the +gay, good-hearted, courageous, and extraordinary world of the circus is +over. Pat and his fellows will go on, twice a day, for the next six +months. It takes patience and endurance. But it must be some consolation +to know that nothing else in the world gives half as much pleasure to so +many people. + + + + +HOUSE-HUNTING + +[Illustration] + + +A curious vertigo afflicts the mind of the house-hunter. In the first +place, it is sufficiently maddening to see the settled homes of other +happier souls, all apparently so firmly rooted in a warm soil of +contentment while he floats, an unhappy sea-urchin, in an ocean of +indecision. Furthermore, how confusing (to one who likes to feel himself +somewhat securely established in a familiar spot) the startling panorama +of possible places in which he visualizes himself. One day it is Great +Neck, the next it is Nutley; one day Hollis, the next Englewood; one +day Bronxville, and then Garden City. As the telephone rings, or the +suasive accents of friendly realtors expound the joys and glories of +various regions, his uneasy imagination flits hoppingly about the +compass, conceiving his now vanished household goods reassembled and +implanted in these contrasting scenes. + +Startling scenarios are filmed in his reeling mind while he listens, +over the tinkling wire, to the enumeration of rooms, baths, pantries, +mortgages, commuting schedules, commodious closets, open fireplaces, and +what not. In the flash and coruscation of thought he has transported his +helpless family to Yonkers, or to Manhasset, or to Forest Hills, or +wherever it may be, and tries to focus and clarify his vision of what it +would all be like. He sees himself (in a momentary close-up) commuting +on the bland and persevering Erie, or hastening hotly for a Liberty +Street ferry, or changing at Jamaica (that mystic ritual of the Long +Island brotherhood). For an instant he is settled again, with a modest +hearth to return to at dusk ... and then the sorrowful compliment is +paid him and he wonders how the impression got abroad that he is a +millionaire. + +There is one consoling aspect of his perplexity, however, and that is +the friendly intercourse he has with high-spirited envoys who represent +real estate firms and take him voyaging to see "properties" in the +country. For these amiable souls he expresses his candid admiration. +Just as when one contemplates the existence of the doctors one knows, +one can never imagine them ill, so one cannot conceive of the friendly +realtor as in any wise distressed or grieved by the problems of the +home. There is something Olympian about them, happy creatures! They deal +only in severely "restricted" tracts. They have a stalwart and serene +optimism. Odd as it seems, one of these friends told us that some people +are so malign as to waste the time of real estate men by going out to +look at houses in the country without the slightest intention of +"acting." As a kind of amusement, indeed! A harmless way of passing an +afternoon, of getting perhaps a free motor ride and enjoying the novelty +of seeing what other people's houses look like inside. But our friend +was convinced of one humble inquirer's passionate sincerity when he saw +him gayly tread the ice floes of rustic Long Island in these days of +slush and slither. + +How do these friends of ours, who see humanity in its most painful and +distressing gesture (i.e., when it is making up its mind to part with +some money), manage to retain their fine serenity and blitheness of +spirit? They have to contemplate all the pathetic struggles of +mortality, for what is more pathetic than the spectacle of a man trying +to convince a real estate agent that he is not really a wealthy creature +masking millions behind an eccentric pose of humility? Our genial +adviser Grenville Kleiser, who has been showering his works upon us, +has classified all possible mental defects as follows: + + (_a_) _Too easy acquiescence_ + + (_b_) _A mental attitude of contradiction_ + + (_c_) _Undue skepticism_ + + (_d_) _A dogmatic spirit_ + + (_e_) _Lack of firmness of mind_ + + (_f_) _A tendency to take extreme views_ + + (_g_) _Love of novelty; that is, of what is foreign, ancient, + unusual, or mysterious._ + +All these serious weaknesses of judgment may be discerned, in rapid +rotation, in the mind of the house-hunter. It would be only natural, we +think, if the real estate man were to tell him to go away and study Mr. +Kleiser's "How to Build Mental Power." In the meantime, the vision of +the home he had dreamed of becomes fainter and fainter in the seeker's +mind--like the air of a popular song he has heard whistled about the +streets, but does not know well enough to reproduce. How he envies the +light-hearted robins, whose house-hunting consists merely in a gay +flitting from twig to twig. Yet, even in his disturbance and nostalgia +of spirit, he comforts himself with the common consolation of his +cronies--"Oh, well, one always finds something"--and thus (in the words +of good Sir Thomas Browne) teaches his haggard and unreclaimed reason to +stoop unto the lure of Faith. + + + + +LONG ISLAND REVISITED + + +The anfractuosities of legal procedure having caused us to wonder +whether there really were any such place as the home we have just +bought, we thought we would go out to Salamis, L. I., and have a look at +it. Of course we knew it had been there a few weeks ago, but the title +companies do confuse one so. We had been sitting for several days in the +office of the most delightful lawyer in the world (and if we did not +fear that all the other harassed and beset creatures in these parts +would instantly rush to lay their troubles in his shrewd and friendly +bosom we would mention his name right here and do a little metrical +pirouette in his honour)--we had been sitting there, we say, watching +the proceedings, without the slightest comprehension of what was +happening. It is really quite surprising, let us add, to find how many +people are suddenly interested in some quiet, innocent-looking shebang +nestling off in a quiet dingle in the country, and how, when it is to be +sold, they all bob up from their coverts in Flushing, Brooklyn, or Long +Island City, and have to be "satisfied." What floods of papers go +crackling across the table, drawn out from those mysterious brown +cardboard wallets; what quaint little jests pass between the emissaries +of the title company and the legal counsel of the seller, jests that +seem to bear upon the infirmity of human affairs and cause the +well-wishing adventurer to wonder whether he had ever sufficiently +pondered the strange tissue of mortal uncertainties that hides behind +every earthly venture ... there was, for instance, occasional reference +to a vanished gentleman who had once crossed the apparently innocent +proscenium of our estate and had skipped, leaving someone six thousand +dollars to the bad; this ingenious buccaneer was, apparently, the only +one who did not have to be "satisfied." At any rate, we thought that we, +who entered so modestly and obscurely into this whole affair, being only +the purchaser, would finally satisfy ourself, too, by seeing if the +property was still there. + +Long Island and spring--the conjunction gives us a particular thrill. +There are more beautiful places than the Long Island flats, but it was +there that we earned our first pay envelope, and it was there that we +first set up housekeeping; and as long as we live the station platform +of Jamaica will move us strangely--not merely from one train to another, +but also inwardly. There is no soil that receives a more brimming +benison of sunshine than Long Island in late April. As the train moves +across the plain it seems to swim in a golden tide of light. Billboards +have been freshly painted and announce the glories of phonographs in +screaming scarlets and purples, or the number of miles that divide you +from a Brooklyn department store. Out at Hillside the stones that +demarcate the territory of an old-fashioned house are new and snowily +whitewashed. At Hollis the trees are a cloud of violent mustard-yellow +(the colour of a safety-matchbox label). Magnolias (if that is what they +are) are creamy pink. Moving vans are bustling along the road. Across +the wide fields of Bellaire there is a view of the brown woods on the +ridge, turning a faint olive as the leaves gain strength. Gus Wuest's +roadhouse at Queens looks inviting as of old, and the red-brown of the +copper beeches reminds one of the tall amber beakers. Here is the little +park by the station in Queens, the flag on the staff, the forsythia +bushes the colour of scrambled eggs. + +Is it the influence of the Belmont Park race track? There seem to be, in +the smoking cars, a number of men having the air of those accustomed to +associate (in a not unprofitable way) with horses. Here is one, a +handsome person, who holds our eye as a bright flower might. He wears a +flowing overcoat of fleecy fawn colour and a derby of biscuit brown. He +has a gray suit and joyful socks of heavy wool, yellow and black and +green in patterned squares which are so vivid they seem cubes rather +than squares. He has a close-cut dark moustache, his shaven cheeks are a +magnificent sirloin tint, his chin splendidly blue by the ministration +of the razor. His shirt is blue with a stripe of sunrise pink, and the +collar to match. He talks briskly and humorously to two others, leaning +over in the seat behind them. As he argues, we see his brown low shoe +tapping on the floor. One can almost see his foot think. It pivots +gently on the heel, the toe wagging in air, as he approaches the climax +of each sentence. Every time he drives home a point in his talk down +comes the whole foot, softly, but firmly. He relights his cigar in the +professional manner, not by inhaling as he applies the match, but by +holding the burned portion in the flame, away from his mouth, until it +has caught. His gold watch has a hunting case; when he has examined it, +it shuts again with a fine rich snap, which we can hear even above the +noise of the car. + +On this early morning train there are others voyaging for amusement. +Here are two golfing zealots, puffing pipes and discussing with amazing +persistence the minutiæ of their sport. Their remarks are addressed to a +very fashionable-looking curate, whose manners are superb. Whether he is +going to play golf we know not; at any rate, he smiles mildly and +politely to all they say. Perhaps he is going round the course with +them, in the hope of springing some ecclesiastical strategy while they +are softened and chastened by the glee of the game. The name of their +Maker, it is only fair to suspect, has more than once been mentioned on +the putting green; and if it should slip out, the curate will seize the +cue and develop it. In the meantime, one of the enthusiasts (while his +companion is silenced in the act of lighting his pipe) is explaining to +the cloth how his friend plays golf. "I'll tell you how he plays," he +says. "Imagine him sitting down in a low chair and swinging a club. Then +take the chair away and he still keeps the same position. That's what he +looks like when he drives." The curate smiles at this and prepares his +face to smile with equal gentleness when the other retorts. + +After Floral Park the prospect becomes more plainly rural. The Mineola +trolley zooms along, between wide fields of tilled brown earth. There is +an occasional cow; here and there a really old barn and farmhouse +standing, incongruously, among the settlements of modern kindling-wood +cottages; and a mysterious agricultural engine at work with a spinning +fly-wheel. Against the bright horizon stand the profiles of Garden City: +the thin cathedral spire, the bulk of St. Paul's school, the white +cupola of the hotel. The tree-lined vistas of Mineola are placidly +simmering in the morning sun. A white dog with erect and curly tail +trots very purposefully round the corner of the First National Bank. We +think that we see the spreading leaves of some rhubarb plants in a +garden; and there are some of those (to us very enigmatic, as we are no +gardener) little glass window frames set in the soil, as though a whole +house, shamed by the rent the owner wanted to charge, had sunk out of +sight, leaving only a skylight. + +As we leave East Williston we approach more interesting country, with a +semblance of hills, and wooded thickets still brownly tapestried with +the dry funeral of last year's leaves. On the trees the new foliage +sways in little clusters, catching the light like the wings of perching +green butterflies. Some of the buds are a coppery green, some a burning +red, but the prevailing colour is the characteristic sulphur yellow of +early spring. And now we are set down at Salamis, where the first and +most surprising impression is of the unexpected abundance of competitive +taxicabs. Having reached the terminus of our space, we can only add that +we found our estate still there--and there are a few stalks of rhubarb +surviving from an earlier plantation. + + + + +ON BEING IN A HURRY + + +New York is a perplexing city to loaf in. (Walt Whitman if he came back +to Mannahatta would soon get brain fever.) During the middle hours of +the day, at any rate, it is almost impossible to idle with the proper +spirit and completeness. There is a prevailing bustle and skirmish that +"exerts a compulsion," as President Wilson would say. The air is +electric and nervous. We have often tried to dawdle gently about the +neighbourhood of the City Hall in the lunch hour, to let the general +form and spirit of that clearing among the cliffs sink into our mind, so +that we could get some picture of it. We have sat under a big brown +umbrella, to have our shoes shined, when we had nothing more important +to do than go to the doughnut foundry on Park Row and try some of those +delectable combinations of foods they have there, such as sponge cake +with whipped cream and chocolate fudge. And in a few seconds we have +found ourself getting all stirred up and crying loudly to the artist +that we only wanted a once-over, as we had an important appointment. You +have to put a very heavy brake on your spirit in downtown New York or +you find yourself dashing about in a prickle of excitement, gloriously +happy just to be in a hurry, without particularly caring whither you are +hastening, or why. + +[Illustration] + +One of the odd things about being in a hurry is that it seems so +fiercely important when you yourself are the hurrier and so comically +ludicrous when it is someone else. We see our friend Artaxerxes +scorching up Church Street and we scream with laughter at him, because +we know perfectly well that there is absolutely not one of his affairs +important enough to cause him to buzz along like that. We look after him +with a sort of mild and affectionate pity for a deluded creature who +thinks that his concerns are of such glorious magnitude. And then, a few +hours later, we find ourself on a subway car with only ten minutes to +catch the train for Salamis at Atlantic Avenue. And what is our state of +mind? We stand, gritting our teeth (we are too excited to sit, even if +there were a seat) and holding our watch. The whole train, it seems to +us, is occupied by invalids, tottering souls and lumbago cripples, who +creep off at the stations as though five seconds made not the slightest +difference. We glare and fume and could gladly see them all maced in +sunder with battle-axes. Nothing, it seems to us, could soothe our +bitter hunger for haste but to have a brilliant Lexington Avenue express +draw up at the platform with not a soul in it. Out would step a polite +guard, looking at his watch. "You want to catch a train at 5:27?" he +asks. "Yes, sir, yes, sir; step aboard." All the other competitors are +beaten back with knotted thongs and we are ushered to a seat. The bells +go chiming in quick sequence up the length of the train and we are off +at top speed, flying wildly past massed platforms of indignant people. +We draw up at Atlantic Avenue, and the solitary passenger, somewhat +appeased, steps off. "Compliments of the Interborough, sir," says the +guard. + +The commuter, urgently posting toward the 5:27, misses the finest +flavour of the city's life, for it is in the two or three hours after +office work is over that the town is at her best. What a spry and +smiling mood is shown along the pavements, particularly on these clear, +warm evenings when the dropping sun pours a glowing tide of soft rosy +light along the cross-town streets. There is a cool lightness in the +air; restaurants are not yet crowded (it is, let us say, a little after +six) and beside snowy tablecloths the waiters stand indulgently with +folded arms. Everybody seems in a blithe and spirited humour. Work is +over for the day, and now what shall we do for amusement? This is the +very peak of living, it seems to us, as we sally cheerily along the +street. It is like the beginning of an O. Henry story. The streets are +fluttering with beautiful women; light summer frocks are twinkling in +the busy frolic air. Oh, to be turned loose at the corner of Broadway +and Thirty-second Street at 6:15 o'clock of a June evening, with nothing +to do but follow the smile of adventure to the utmost! Thirty-second, we +might add, is our favourite street in New York. It saddens us to think +that the old boarding house on the corner of Madison Avenue is vanished +now and all those quaint and humorous persons dispersed. We can still +remember the creak of the long stairs and the clink of a broken slab in +the tiled flooring of the hall as one walked down to the dining room. + +Affection for any particular street largely depends on the associations +it has accumulated in one's mind. For several years most of our +adventures in New York centred round Thirty-second Street; but its +physique has changed so much lately that it has lost some of its appeal. +We remember an old stone-yard that used to stand where the Pennsylvania +Hotel is now, a queer jumbled collection of odd carvings and relics. At +the front door there was a bust of Pan on a tall pedestal, which used to +face us with a queer crooked grin twice a day, morning and evening. We +had a great affection for that effigy, and even wrote a little piece +about him in one of the papers, for which we got about $4 at a time +when it was considerably needed. We used to say to ourself that some day +when we had a home in the country we would buy Pan and set him in a Long +Island garden where he would feel more at home than in the dusty winds +of Thirty-second Street. Time went on and we disappeared from our old +haunts, and when we came back Pan had vanished, too. You may imagine our +pleasure when we found him again the other day standing in front of a +chop house on Forty-fourth Street. + +But one great addition to the delights of the Thirty-second Street +region is the new and shining white tunnel that leads one from the Penn +Station subway platform right into the heart of what used (we think) to +be called Greeley Square. It is so dazzling and candid in its new tiling +that it seems rather like a vast hospital corridor. One emerges through +the Hudson Tube station and perhaps sets one's course for a little +restaurant on Thirty-fifth Street which always holds first place in our +affection. It is somewhat declined from its former estate, for the upper +floors, where the violent orchestra was and the smiling little +dandruffian used to sing solos when the evening grew glorious, are now +rented to a feather and ostrich plume factory. But the old basement is +still there, much the same in essentials, by which we mean the pickled +beet appetizers, the minestrone soup, the delicious soft bread with its +brittle crust, and the thick slices of rather pale roast beef swimming +in thin, pinkish gravy. And the three old French waiters, hardened in +long experience of the frailties of mortality, smile to see a former +friend. One, grinning upon us rather bashfully, recalls the time when +there was a hilarious Oriental wedding celebrating in a private room +upstairs and two young men insisted on going in to dance with the bride. +He has forgiven various pranks, we can see, though he was wont to be +outraged at the time. "Getting very stout," he says, beaming down at us. +"You weigh a hundred pounds more than you used to." This is not merely +cruel; it is untrue. We refrain from retorting on the growth of his bald +spot. + + + + +CONFESSIONS OF A HUMAN GLOBULE + + +As a matter of fact, we find the evening subway jam very restful. Being +neatly rounded in contour, with just a gentle bulge around the +equatorial transit, we have devised a very satisfactory system. We make +for the most crowded car we can find, and having buffeted our way in, we +are perfectly serene. Once properly wedged, and provided no one in the +immediate neighbourhood is doing anything with any garlic (it is well to +avoid the vestibules if one is squeamish in that particular) we lift our +feet off the floor, tuck them into the tail of our overcoat, and remain +blissfully suspended in midair from Chambers Street to Ninety-sixth. The +pressure of our fellow-passengers, powerfully impinging upon the +globular perimeter we spoke of, keeps us safely elevated above the +floor. We have had some leather stirrups sewed into the bottom of our +overcoat, in which we slip our feet to keep them from dangling +uncomfortably. Another feature of our technique is that we always go +into the car with our arms raised and crossed neatly on our chest, so +that they will not be caught and pinioned to our flanks. In that +position, once we are gently nested among the elastic mass of genial +humanity, it is easy to draw out from our waistcoat pocket our copy of +Boethius's "Consolations of Philosophy" and really get in a little +mental improvement. Or, if we have forgotten the book, we gently droop +our head into our overcoat collar, lay it softly against the shoulder of +the tall man who is always handy, and pass into a tranquil nescience. + +The subway is a great consolation to the philosopher if he knows how to +make the most of it. Think how many people one encounters and never sees +again. + + + + +NOTES ON A FIFTH AVENUE BUS + +[Illustration] + + +Far down the valley of the Avenue the traffic lights wink in unison, +green, yellow, red, changing their colours with well-drilled promptness. +It is cold: a great wind flaps and tangles the flags; the tops of the +buses are almost empty. That brisk April air seems somehow in key with +the mood of the Avenue--hard, plangent, glittering, intensely material. +It is a proud, exultant, exhilarating street; it fills the mind with +strange liveliness. A magnificent pomp of humanity--what a flux of +lacquered motors, what a twinkling of spats along the pavements! On what +other of the world's great highways would one find churches named for +the material of which they are built?--the _Brick Church_, the _Marble +Church_! It is not a street for loitering--there is an eager, ambitious +humour in its blood; one walks fast, revolving schemes of worldly +dominion. Only on the terrace in front of the Public Library is there +any temptation for tarrying and consideration. There one may pause and +study the inscription--_But Above All Things Truth Beareth Away the +Victory_ ... of course the true eloquence of the words lies in the +_But_. Much reason for that _But_, implying a previous contradiction--on +the Avenue's part? Sometimes, pacing vigorously in that river of lovely +pride and fascination, one might have suspected that other things bore +away the victory--spats, diamond necklaces, smoky blue furs nestling +under lovely chins.... Hullo! here is a sign, "Headquarters of the Save +New York Committee." Hum! Save from what? There was a time when the +great charm of New York lay in the fact that it didn't want to be saved. +Who is it that the lions in front of the Public Library remind us of? We +have so often pondered. Let's see: the long slanting brow, the head +thrown back, the haughty and yet genial abstraction--to be sure, it's +Vachel Lindsay! + +We defy the most resolute philosopher to pass along the giddy, enticing, +brilliant vanity of that superb promenade and not be just a little moved +by worldly temptation. + + + + +SUNDAY MORNING + + +It was a soft, calm morning of sunshine and placid air. Clear and cool, +it was "a Herbert Spencer of a day," as H. G. Wells once remarked. The +vista of West Ninety-eighth Street, that engaging alcove in the city's +enormous life, was all freshness and kempt tranquillity, from the gray +roof of the old training ship at the river side up to the tall red spire +near Columbus Avenue. This pinnacle, which ripens to a fine claret +colour when suffused with sunset, we had presumed to be a church tower, +but were surprised, on exploration, to find it a standpipe of some sort +connected with the Croton water system. + +Sunday morning in this neighbourhood has its own distinct character. +There is a certain air of luxurious ease in the picture. One has a +feeling that in those tall apartment houses there are a great many +ladies taking breakfast in negligée. They are wearing (if one may trust +the shop windows along Broadway) boudoir caps and mules. Mules, like +their namesakes in the animal world, are hybrid things, the offspring of +a dancing pump and a bedroom slipper. They are distinctly futile, but no +matter, no matter. Wearing mules, however, is not a mere vanity; it is +a form of physical culture, for these skimpish little things are always +disappearing under the bed, and crawling after them keeps one slender. +Again we say, no matter. This is no concern of ours. + +[Illustration] + +Near Broadway a prosperous and opulently tailored costume emerges from +an apartment house: cutaway coat, striped trousers, very long pointed +patent leather shoes with lilac cloth tops. Within this gear, we +presently see, is a human being, in the highest spirits. "All set!" he +says, joining a group of similars waiting by a shining limousine. Among +these, one lady of magnificently millinered aspect, and a smallish man +in very new and shiny riding boots, of which he is grandly conscious. +There are introductions. "Mr. Goldstone, meet Mrs. Silverware." They are +met. There is a flashing of eyes. Three or four silk hats simultaneously +leap into the shining air, are flourished and replaced. The observer is +aware of the prodigious gayety and excitement of life. All climb into +the car and roll away down Broadway. All save the little man in riding +boots. He is left on the sidewalk, gallantly waving his hand. Come, we +think, he is going riding. A satiny charger waits somewhere round the +corner. We will follow and see. He slaps his hunting crop against his +glorious boots, which are the hue of quebracho wood. No; to our chagrin, +he descends into the subway. + +We sit on the shoeshining stand on Ninety-sixth Street, looking over the +Sunday papers. Very odd, in the adjoining chairs men are busily engaged +polishing shoes that have nobody in them, not visibly, at any rate. +Perhaps Sir Oliver is right after all. While we are not watching, the +beaming Italian has inserted a new pair of laces for us. Long afterward, +at bedtime, we find that he has threaded them in that unique way known +only to shoe merchants and polishers, by which every time they are tied +and untied one end of the lace gets longer and the other shorter. Life +is full of needless complexities. We descend the hill. Already (it is +9:45 A. M.) men are playing tennis on the courts at the corner of West +End Avenue. A great wagon crammed with scarlet sides of beef comes +stumbling up the hill, drawn, with difficulty, by five horses. + +When we get down to the Ninety-Sixth Street pier we see the barque +_Windrush_ lying near by with the airy triangles of her rigging +pencilled against the sky, and look amorously on the gentle curve of her +strakes (if that is what they are). We feel that it would be a fine +thing to be off soundings, greeting the bounding billow, not to say the +bar-room steward; and yet, being a cautious soul of reservations all +compact, we must admit that about the time we got abreast of New Dorp +we would be homesick for our favourite subway station. + +The pier, despite its deposit of filth, bales of old shoes, reeking +barrels, scows of rubbish, sodden papers, boxes of broken bottles and a +thick paste of dust and ash-powder everywhere, is a happy lounging +ground for a few idlers on Sunday morning. A large cargo steamer, the +_Eclipse_, lay at the wharf, standing very high out of the water. Three +small boys were watching a peevish old man tending his fishing lines, +fastened to wires with little bells on them. "What do you catch here?" +we said. Just then one of the little bells gave a cracked tinkle and the +angler pulled up a small fish, wriggling briskly, about three inches +long. This seemed to anger him. He seemed to consider himself in some +way humiliated by the incident. He grunted. One of the small boys was +tactful. "Oh, gee!" he said. "Sometimes you catch fish that long," +indicating a length which began at about a yard and diminished to about +eighteen inches as he meditated. "I don't know what kind they are," he +said. "They're not trouts, but some other kind of fish." + +This started the topic of relative sizes, always fascinating to small +boys. "That's a pretty big boat," said one, craning up at the tall stem +of the _Eclipse_. "Oh, gee, that ain't big!" said another. "You ought to +see some of the Cunard boats, the _Olympic_ or the _Baltic_." + +On Riverside Drive horseback riders were cantering down the bridlepath, +returning from early outings. The squirrels, already grossly overfed, +were brooding languidly that another day of excessive peanuts was at +hand. Behind a rapidly spinning limousine pedalled a grotesquely humped +bicyclist, using the car as a pacemaker. He throbbed fiercely just +behind the spare tire, with his face bent down into a rich travelling +cloud of gasoline exhaust. An odd way of enjoying one's self! Children +were coming out in troops, with their nurses, for the morning air. Here +was a little boy with a sailor hat, and on the band a gilt legend that +was new to us. Instead of the usual naval slogan, it simply said +_Democracy_. This interested us, as later in the day we saw another, +near the goldfish pond in Central Park. Behind the cashier's grill of a +Broadway drug store the good-tempered young lady was reading Zane Grey. +"I love his books," she said, "but they make me want to break loose and +go out West." + + + + +VENISON PASTY + +[Illustration] + + +The good old days are gone, we have been frequently and authoritatively +assured; and yet, sitting in an agreeable public on William Street where +the bright eye of our friend Harold Phillips discerned _venison pasty_ +on the menu, and listening to a seafaring man describe a recent "blow" +off Hatteras during which he stood four hours up to his waist in the +bilges, and watching our five jocund companions dismiss no less than +twenty-one beakers of cider, we felt no envy whatever for the ancients +of the Mermaid Tavern. After venison pasty, and feeling somewhat in the +mood of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, we set off with our friend Endymion +for a stroll through the wilderness. The first adventure of note that we +encountered was the curb market on Broad Street, where we stood +entranced at the merry antics of the brokers. This, however, is a +spectacle that no layman can long contemplate and still deem himself +sane. That sea of flickering fingers, the hubbub of hoarse cries, and +the enigmatic gestures of youths framed in the open windows gave an +impression of something fierce and perilous happening. Endymion, still +deeming himself in Sherwood Forest, insisted that this was the abode of +the Sheriff of Nottingham. "Stout deeds are toward!" he cried. "These +villain wights have a damsel imprisoned in yonder keep!" With difficulty +we restrained him from pressing to the rescue of the lady (for indeed we +could see her, comely enough, appearing now and then at one of the +windows; and anon disappearing, abashed at the wild throng). But +gradually we realized that no such dire matter was being transacted, for +the knights, despite occasional spasms of hot gesticulating fury, were +mild and meant her no ill. One, after a sudden flux of business +concerning (it seemed) 85 shares of Arizona Copper, fell suddenly +placid, and was eating chocolate ice cream from a small paper plate. +Young gallants, wearing hats trimmed with variegated brightly coloured +stuffs (the favours of their ladies, we doubted not), were conferring +together, but without passion or rancour. + +We have a compact with our friend Endymion that as soon as either of us +spends money for anything not strictly necessary he must straightway +return to the office. After leaving the curb market, we found ourselves +in a basement bookshop on Broadway, and here Endymion fell afoul of a +copy of Thomas Hardy's "Wessex Poems," illustrated by the author. +Piteously he tried to persuade us that it was a matter of professional +advancement to him to have this book; moreover, he said, he had just won +five dollars at faro (or some such hazard) so that he was not really +spending money at all; but we countered all his sophisms with slogging +rhetoric. He bought the book, and so had to return to the office in +disgrace. + +We fared further, having a mind to revisit the old Eastern Hotel, down +by the South Ferry, of whose cool and dusky bar-room we had pleasant +memories in times gone by; but we found to our distress that this also, +like many more of our familiar landmarks, is a prey to the +house-wrecker, and is on its way to become an office building. On our +way back up Broadway it occurred to us to revisit what we have long +considered one of the most impressive temples in our acquaintance, the +lobby of the Telephone and Telegraph Building, on Dey Street. Here, +passing by the enticing little terrace with brocaded chairs and soft +lights where two gracious ladies sit to interview aspiring telephone +débutantes, one stands in a dim golden glow, among great fluted pillars +and bowls of softly burning radiance swung (like censers) by long +chains. Occasionally there is an airy flutter, a bell clangs, bronze +doors slide apart, and an elevator appears, in charge of a chastely +uniformed priestess. Lights flash up over this dark little cave which +stands invitingly open: UP, they say, LOCAL 1-13. The door-sill of the +cave shines with a row of golden beads (small lights, to guide the +foot)--it is irresistible. There is an upward impulse about the whole +place: the light blossoms upward from the hanging translucent shells: +people step gently in, the doors close, they are not seen again. It is +the temple of the great American religion, _Going Up_. The shining gold +stars in the ceiling draw the eye aloft. The temptation is too great. We +step into the little bronze crypt, say "Thirteen" at a venture, and are +borne softly and fluently up. Then, of course, we have to come down +again, past the wagons of spring onions on Fulton Street, and back to +the office. + + + + +GRAND AVENUE, BROOKLYN + + +We have always been a strong partisan of Brooklyn, and when we found +ourself, in company with Titania, set down in the middle of a golden +afternoon with the vista of Grand Avenue before us, we felt highly +elated. Just how these two wayfarers chanced to be deposited in that +quiet serenity, so far from their customary concerns, is not part of the +narrative. + +There are regions of Brooklyn, we have always felt, that are too good to +be real. Placid stretches of streets, with baby carriages simmering in +the sun, solid and comfortable brownstone houses exhaling a prosperous +condition of life, tranquil old-fashioned apothecaries' shops without +soda fountains, where one peers in and sees only a solitary customer +turning over the pages of a telephone book. It is all rather like a +chapter from a story, and reminds us of a passage in "The Dynamiter" +where some untroubled faubourgs of London are winningly described. + +Titania was wearing a little black hat with green feathers. She looked +her best, and was not unaware of it. Our general plan, when destiny +suddenly plumps us into the heart of Brooklyn, is to make our way +toward Fulton Street, which is a kind of life-line. Once on Fulton +Street we know our way. Moreover, Fulton Street has admirable +second-hand bookshops. Nor do we ever forget that it was at the corner +of Fulton and Cranberry streets that "Leaves of Grass" was set up, in +the spring of 1855, Walt doing a good deal of the work himself. The only +difficulty about getting to Fulton Street is that people will give you +such contradictory instruction. One will tell you to go this way; the +next will point in the opposite direction. It is as though Brooklynites +suspect the presence of a stranger, and do not wish their sacred secrets +to be discovered. There is a deep, mysterious freemasonry among the +residents of this genial borough. + +At the corner of Grand and Greene avenues we thought it well to ask our +way. A lady was standing on the corner, lost in pleasant drowse. April +sunshine shimmered all about: trees were bustling into leaf, a wagonload +of bananas stood by the curb and the huckster sang a gay, persuasive +madrigal. We approached the lady, and Titania spoke gently: "Can you +tell me----" The lady screamed, and leaped round in horror, her face +stricken with fearful panic. She gasped and tottered. We felt guilty and +cruel. "We were not meditating an attack," we said, "but just wanted to +ask you the way to Fulton Street." Perhaps the poor soul's nerves were +unstrung, for she gave us instruction that we felt instinctively to be +wrong. Had we gone as she said (we now see by studying the map) we would +have debouched into Wallabout Bay. But undoubtedly it was the protective +instinct of the Brooklynite, on guard before strangers. Is there some +terrific secret in Brooklyn that all residents know about but which must +never be revealed to outsiders? + +Making a mental note not to speak too suddenly at the next encounter, +the two cheerful derelicts drifted along the sunny coast of Grand +Avenue. A shining and passionless peace presided over the streets. A +gentle clop-clop of hooves came trotting down the way: here was a man +driving a white horse in a neat rubber-tired buggy without a top. He +leaned back and smiled to himself as he drove along. Life did not seem +to be the same desperate venture it appears round about Broadway and +Wall Street. Who can describe the settled amiability of those rows of +considerable brown houses, with their heavy oak doors, their pots of +daisies on the stoop, their clear window panes, and now and then the +face of a benignant grandmother peeping from behind lace curtains. The +secret of Brooklyn, perhaps, is contentment, and its cautious residents +do not want the rest of us to know too much about it, lest we all flock +over there in swarms. + +We then came to the bustle of Fulton Street, which deserves a book in +itself. Some day we want to revisit a certain section of Fulton Street +where (if we remember rightly) a rotisserie and a certain bookstore +conspire to make one of the pleasantest haunts in our experience. We +don't know exactly what the secret of Brooklyn may be, but we are going +to spend some time over there this spring and lie in wait for it. + + + + +ON WAITING FOR THE CURTAIN TO GO UP + +[Illustration] + + +We often wonder whether people are really as human as they appear, or is +it only our imagination? Everybody, we suggest, thinks of others as +being excessively human, with all the frailties and crotchets +appertaining to that curious condition. But each of us also (we are not +dogmatic on this matter) seems to regard himself as existing on a +detached plane of observation, exempt (save in moments of vivid crisis) +from the strange whims of humanity en masse. + +For example, consider the demeanour of people at a theatre while waiting +for the curtain to go up. To note the censoriousness with which they +study each other, one concludes that each deems himself (herself) +singularly blessed as the repository of human correctness. + +Incidentally, why is it that one gets so thirsty at the theatre? We +never get thirsty at the movies, or not nearly so thirsty. The other +evening we drank seven paper cups full of water in the intermissions of +a four-act play. + +The presence of people sitting behind one is the reason (we fancy) for a +great deal of the queer antics that take place while one is waiting for +the curtain to rise, particularly when it is twenty minutes late in +going up as it was at a certain theatre the other evening. People behind +one have a horrible advantage. One knows that they can hear everything +you say, unless you whisper it in a furtive manner, which makes them +suspect things far worse than any one would be likely to say in a +Philadelphia theatre, except, of course, on the stage. The fact that you +know they can overhear you, and intend to do so, leads one on to make +the most outrageous, cynical, and scoffish remarks, particularly to +denounce with fury a play that you may be enjoying quite passably well. +All over the house you will hear (after the first act) men saying to +their accompanying damsels, "How outrageously clumsy that act was. I +can't conceive how the director let it get by." Now they only say this +because they think it will make the people behind feel ashamed for +having enjoyed such a botch. But does it? The people in the row behind +immediately begin to praise the play vigorously, for the benefit of the +people behind _them_; and in a minute you see the amusing spectacle of +the theatre cheering and damning by alternate rows. + +Here and there you will see a lady whispering something to her escort, +and will notice how ladies always look backward over a lily shoulder +while whispering. They want to see what effect this whispering will have +on the people behind. There is a deep-rooted feud between every two rows +in an audience. The front row, having nobody to hate (except possibly +the actors), take it out in speculating why on earth anybody can want to +sit in the boxes, where they can see nothing. + +What the boxes think about we are not sure. We never sat in a box except +at a burlicue. + +And then a complete essay might be written on the ads in the theatre +program--what high-spirited ads they are! How full of the savour and +luxurious tang of the _beau monde_! How they insist on saying +_specialité_ instead of specialty! + +Well, all we meant to say when we began was, the heroine was Only +Fair--by which we mean to say she was beautiful and nothing else. + + + + +MUSINGS OF JOHN MISTLETOE + + +It was old John Mistletoe, we think, in his "Book of Deplorable Facts," +discussing the congenial topic of "Going to Bed" (or was it in his essay +on "The Concinnity of Washerwomen?") said something like this: + + Life passes by with deplorable rapidity. _Post commutatorem sedet + horologium terrificum_, behind the commuter rideth the alarm + clock, no sooner hath he attained to the office than it is time + for lunch, no sooner hath lunch been dispatched than it is time + to sign those dictated letters, no sooner this accomplished, 'tis + time to hasten trainward. The essential thing, then, is not to + let one's experiences flow irrevocably past like a river, but to + clutch and hold them, thoughtfully, long enough to examine and, + in a manner, sieve them, to halt them in the mind for meditation. + The relentless fluidity of life, the ease with which it vanisheth + down the channel of the days, is the problem the thoughtful man + must deal with. The urgent necessity is to dam the stream here + and there so we can go swimming in it. + + Time is a breedy creature: the minutes propagate hours, the hours + beget days, the days raise huge families of months, and before we + know it we are crowded out of this sweet life by mere surplus of + Time's offspring. This is a brutish Malthusianism which must be + adamantly countered. Therefore it is my counsel that every man, + ere he retire for the night and commit his intellect to + inscrutable nothingness, do let it hop abroad for a little + freedom. Life must be taken with a grain of saltation: let the + spirit dance a measure or two ere it collapse. For this purpose + it is my pleasure, about the hour of midnight, to draw a jug of + cider from the keg and a book from the shelf. I choose some + volume ill written and stupidly conceived, to set me in conceit + with myself. I read a few pages, and then apply myself to the + composition of verses. These done, I burn them, and go to bed + with a cheerful spirit. + + + + +THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS ORATION + +Address to An Employer Upon Demanding a Raise, or, The Battle of +Manila Envelopes + + + _As Planned_ _As Delivered_ + +I think you will admit, If you are not too +sir, that the quality busy, sir, there is one +of my work during the other matter--in fact, +last two years has been the truth of the matter +such that my services in fact is exactly--well, +could not easily be replaced. sir, I was precisely +I speak more wondering whether--of +in pain than in anger course I know this is a +when I say that it has bad time--indeed I have +been a matter of profound been very pleased to see +surprise to me to business picking up a +note that you have not bit lately, and I am sure +seen fit to acknowledge my own department has +my value to the firm in been--but to tell you the +some substantial way. I truth, sir, I have been +think I may say that wondering--of course it +I have been patient. is just as you think best +I have continued my and I wouldn't think of +efforts with unremitting insisting, but after all, +zeal, and I think I may perhaps I have made a +flatter myself that my mistake in mentioning +endeavors have not been it, but I was thinking +without result. I have that possibly you might +here, carefully tabulated, bear in mind the idea of +a memorandum of a possible future raise in +the increased profits in salary at some future time. +my department during +the last twelve months, +due in great part to my +careful management. I +am sorry to have to +force you into a decision, +but I think I owe it to +myself to say candidly +that unless you see the +matter in the same way +that I do I shall feel +obliged to deprive the +firm of my services. + + + + +ON LAZINESS + +[Illustration] + + +To-day we rather intended to write an essay on Laziness, but were too +indolent to do so. + +The sort of thing we had in mind to write would have been exceedingly +persuasive. We intended to discourse a little in favour of a greater +appreciation of Indolence as a benign factor in human affairs. + +It is our observation that every time we get into trouble it is due to +not having been lazy enough. Unhappily, we were born with a certain fund +of energy. We have been hustling about for a number of years now, and +it doesn't seem to get us anything but tribulation. Henceforward we are +going to make a determined effort to be more languid and demure. It is +the bustling man who always gets put on committees, who is asked to +solve the problems of other people and neglect his own. + +The man who is really, thoroughly, and philosophically slothful is the +only thoroughly happy man. It is the happy man who benefits the world. +The conclusion is inescapable. + +We remember a saying about the meek inheriting the earth. The truly meek +man is the lazy man. He is too modest to believe that any ferment and +hubbub of his can ameliorate the earth or assuage the perplexities of +humanity. + +O. Henry said once that one should be careful to distinguish laziness +from dignified repose. Alas, that was a mere quibble. Laziness is always +dignified, it is always reposeful. Philosophical laziness, we mean. The +kind of laziness that is based upon a carefully reasoned analysis of +experience. Acquired laziness. We have no respect for those who were +born lazy; it is like being born a millionaire: they cannot appreciate +their bliss. It is the man who has hammered his laziness out of the +stubborn material of life for whom we chant praise and allelulia. + +The laziest man we know--we do not like to mention his name, as the +brutal world does not yet recognize sloth at its community value--is +one of the greatest poets in this country; one of the keenest satirists; +one of the most rectilinear thinkers. He began life in the customary +hustling way. He was always too busy to enjoy himself. He became +surrounded by eager people who came to him to solve their problems. +"It's a queer thing," he said sadly; "no one ever comes to me asking for +help in solving _my_ problems." Finally the light broke upon him. He +stopped answering letters, buying lunches for casual friends and +visitors from out of town, he stopped lending money to old college pals +and frittering his time away on all the useless minor matters that +pester the good-natured. He sat down in a secluded café with his cheek +against a seidel of dark beer and began to caress the universe with his +intellect. + +The most damning argument against the Germans is that they were not lazy +enough. In the middle of Europe, a thoroughly disillusioned, indolent +and delightful old continent, the Germans were a dangerous mass of +energy and bumptious push. If the Germans had been as lazy, as +indifferent, and as righteously laissez-fairish as their neighbours, the +world would have been spared a great deal. + +People respect laziness. If you once get a reputation for complete, +immovable, and reckless indolence the world will leave you to your own +thoughts, which are generally rather interesting. + +Doctor Johnson, who was one of the world's great philosophers, was lazy. +Only yesterday our friend the Caliph showed us an extraordinarily +interesting thing. It was a little leather-bound notebook in which +Boswell jotted down memoranda of his talks with the old doctor. These +notes he afterward worked up into the immortal Biography. And lo and +behold, what was the very first entry in this treasured little relic? + + Doctor Johnson told me in going to Ilam from Ashbourne, 22 + September, 1777, that the way the plan of his Dictionary came to + be addressed to Lord Chesterfield was this: He had neglected to + write it by the time appointed. Dodsley suggested a desire to + have it addressed to Lord C. Mr. J. laid hold of this as an + excuse for delay, that it might be better done perhaps, and let + Dodsley have his desire. Mr. Johnson said to his friend, Doctor + Bathurst: "Now if any good comes of my addressing to Lord + Chesterfield it will be ascribed to deep policy and address, + when, in fact, it was only a casual excuse for laziness." + +Thus we see that it was sheer laziness that led to the greatest triumph +of Doctor Johnson's life, the noble and memorable letter to Chesterfield +in 1775. + +Mind your business is a good counsel; but mind your idleness also. It's +a tragic thing to make a business of your mind. Save your mind to amuse +yourself with. + +The lazy man does not stand in the way of progress. When he sees +progress roaring down upon him he steps nimbly out of the way. The lazy +man doesn't (in the vulgar phrase) pass the buck. He lets the buck pass +him. We have always secretly envied our lazy friends. Now we are going +to join them. We have burned our boats or our bridges or whatever it is +that one burns on the eve of a momentous decision. + +Writing on this congenial topic has roused us up to quite a pitch of +enthusiasm and energy. + + + + +TEACHING THE PRINCE TO TAKE NOTES + +[Illustration] + + +The Prince of Wales probably suffers severely during his tours abroad, +for he is a shy youth; but he also makes many friends, for he is a +delightfully simple and agreeable person. When we used to see him he +looked a good deal like the traditional prince of the fairy tales, for +he was a slender boy with yellow hair, and blue eyes, and a quick pink +blush. And we feel toward him the friendly sense of superiority that the +college alumnus always feels toward the man who was a freshman when he +himself was a senior; for the prince and ourself stood in that relation +a few years ago at a certain haunt of letters. + +There was a course of lectures on history that we were to attend. It was +a popular course, and the attendance was large. Arriving late at the +first lecture the room was packed, and we could see from the door that +there was only one empty seat. This happened to be in the very front +row, and wondering how it was that so desirable a place had not been +seized we hastened to it. The lecturer was a swift talker, and we fell +to taking notes busily. Not for some minutes did we have a chance to +scrutinize our surroundings. We then saw that in the adjoining chair sat +the prince, and surmised that no one had wanted to take the chair for +fear of being twitted by his companions for a supposed desire to hobnob +with royalty. + +If we remember correctly, it was the prince's first term of college +life. The task of taking notes from a rapid-fire lecturer was plainly +one to which he was not accustomed, and as he wrestled with his notebook +we could see that he had not learned the art of considering the +lecturer's remarks and putting down only the gist of them, in some +abbreviated system of his own, as every experienced student learns. +Grant Robertson, the well-known historian, was lecturing on English +constitutional documents, and his swift and informal utterance was +perfectly easy to summarize if one knew how to get down the important +points and neglect the rest. But the unhappy prince, desperately eager +to do the right thing in this new experience, was trying to write down +every word. If, for instance, Mr. Robertson said (in a humorous aside), +"Henry VIII was a sinful old man with a hobby of becoming a widower," +the experienced listener would jot down something like this: H 8, +_self-made widower_. But we could see that the prince was laboriously +copying out the sentence in full. And naturally, by the end of a few +paragraphs, he was hopelessly behind. But he scribbled away +industriously, doing his best. He realized, however, that he had not +quite got the hang of the thing, and at the end of the lecture he turned +to us with most agreeable bashfulness and asked if we would lend him our +notebook, so that he could get down the points that he had missed. We +did so, and briefly explained our own system of abbreviating. We noticed +that in succeeding sessions our royal neighbour did very much better, +learning in some measure to discriminate between what was advisable to +note down and what was mere explanatory matter or persiflage on the part +of the lecturer. But (if we must be candid) we would not recommend him +as a newspaper reporter. And, indeed, the line of work to which he has +been called does not require quite as intense concentration as that of a +cub on what Philip Gibbs calls "The Street of Adventure." + +No one could come in contact with the prince without liking him, for his +bashful, gentle, and teachable nature is very winning. We remember with +a certain amusement the time that Grant Robertson got off one of his +annual gags to the effect that, according to the principle of strict +legitimacy, there were in Europe several hundred (we forget the figure) +people with a greater right to the British throne than the family at +present occupying it. The roomful of students roared with genial mirth, +and the unhappy prince blushed in a way that young girls used to in the +good old days of three-piece bathing suits. + + + + +A CITY NOTEBOOK + +(_Philadelphia_) + + +It would be hard to find a more lovely spot in the flush of a summer +sunset than Wister Woods. Old residents of the neighbourhood say that +the trees are not what they were fifteen and twenty years ago; the +chestnuts have died off; even some of the tall tulip-poplars are a +little bald at the top, and one was recently felled by a gale. But still +that quiet plateau stands in a serene hush, flooded with rich orange +glow on a warm evening. The hollyhocks in the back gardens of Rubicam +Street are scarlet and Swiss-cheese-coloured and black; and looking +across the railroad ravine one sees crypts and aisles of green as though +in the heart of some cathedral of the great woods. + +Belfield Avenue, which bends through the valley in a curve of warm thick +yellow dust, will some day be boulevarded into a spick-and-span highway +for motors. But now it lies little trafficked, and one might prefer to +have it so, for in the stillness of the evening the birds are eloquent. +The thrushes of Wister Woods, which have been immortalized by T. A. Daly +in perhaps the loveliest poem ever written in Philadelphia, flute and +whistle their tantalizing note, while the song sparrow echoes them with +his confident, challenging call. Down behind the dusty sumac shrubbery +lies the little blue-green cottage said to have been used by Benjamin +West as a studio. In a meadow beside the road two cows were grazing in +the blue shadow of overhanging woodland. + +[Illustration] + +Over the road leans a flat outcrop of stone, known locally as "The Bum's +Rock." An antique philosopher of those parts assured the wayfarer that +it is named for a romantic vagabond who perished there by the explosion +of a can of Bohemian goulash which he was heating over a small fire of +sticks; but one doubts the tale. Our own conjecture is that it is named +for Jacob Boehm, the oldtime brewer of Germantown, who predicted in his +chronicles that the world would come to an end in July, 1919. From his +point of view he was not so far wrong. + +Above Boehm's Rock, in a grassy level among the trees, a merry little +circle of young ladies was sitting round a picnic supper. The twilight +grew darker and fireflies began to twinkle. In the steep curve of the +Cinder and Bloodshot (between Fisher's and Wister stations) a cheerful +train rumbled, with its engine running backward just like a country +local. Its bright shaft of light wavered among the tall tree trunks. One +would not imagine that it was less than six miles to the City Hall. + + * * * * * + +A quarter to one A. M., and a hot, silent night. As one walks up +Chestnut Street a distant roaring is heard, which rapidly grows louder. +The sound has a note of terrifying menace. Then, careering down the +almost deserted highway, comes a huge water-tank, throbbing like an +airplane. A creamy sheet of water, shot out at high pressure, floods the +street on each side, dashing up on the pavements. A knot of belated +revellers in front of the Adelphia Hotel, standing in mid-street, to +discuss ways and means of getting home, skip nimbly to one side, the +ladies lifting up their dresses with shrill squeaks of alarm as the +water splashes round them. Pedestrians plodding quietly up the street +cower fearfully against the buildings, while a fine mist envelops them. + +After the tank comes, more leisurely, a squad of brooms. The street is +dripping, every sewer opening clucks and gurgles with the falling water. +There is something unbelievably humorous in the way that roaring +Niagara of water dashes madly down the silent street. There is a note of +irony in it, too, for the depressed enthusiasts who have been sitting +all evening in a restaurant over lemonade and ginger ale. Perhaps the +chauffeur is a prohibitionist gone mad. + + * * * * * + +While eating half a dozen doughnuts in a Broad Street lunchroom at one +o'clock in the morning, we mused happily about our friends all tucked +away in bed, sound asleep. There is one in particular on whom we thought +with serene pleasure. It was charming to think of that delightful, +argumentative, contradictory, volatile person, his active mind stilled +in the admirable reticence of slumber. He, so endlessly speculatory, so +full of imaginative enthusiasms and riotous intuitions and troubled +zeals concerning humanity, lost in a beneficent swoon of +unconsciousness! We could not just say why, but we broke into chuckles +to think of him lying there, not denying any of our statements, +absolutely and positively saying nothing. To have one's friends asleep +now and then is very refreshing. + + * * * * * + +Off Walnut Street, below Fifth, and just east of the window where that +perfectly lovely damsel sits operating an adding machine--why is it, by +the way, that the girls who run adding machines are always so +marvellously fair? Is there some secret virtue in the process of adding +that makes one lovely? We feel sure that a subtracting engine would not +have that subtle beautifying effect--just below Fifth Street, we started +to say, there runs a little alley called (we believe) De Silver Court. +It is a sombre little channel between high walls and barred windows, but +it is a retreat we recommend highly to hay fever sufferers. For in one +of the buildings adjoining there seems to be a warehouse of some company +that makes an "aromatic disinfector." Wandering in there by chance, we +stood delighted at the sweet medicinal savour that was wafted on the +air. It had a most cheering effect upon our emunctory woes, and we +lingered so long, in a meditative and healing ecstasy, that young women +immured in the basement of the aromatic warehouse began to peer upward +from the barred windows of their basement and squeak with astonished and +nervous mirth. We blew a loud salute and moved away. + + * * * * * + +We entered a lunchroom on Broad Street for our favourite breakfast of +coffee and a pair of crullers. It was strangely early and only a few of +the flat-arm chairs were occupied. After dispatching the rations we +carefully filled our pipe. With us we had a copy of an agreeable book, +"The Calamities and Quarrels of Authors." It occurred to us that here, +in the brisk serenity of the morning, would be a charming opportunity +for a five-minute smoke and five pages of reading before attacking the +ardours and endurances of the day. Lovingly we applied the match to the +fuel. We began to read: + + Of all the sorrows in which the female character may participate, + there are few more affecting than those of an authoress---- + +[Illustration] + +A stern, white-coated official came over to us and tapped us on the +shoulder. + +"There's a sign behind you," he said. + +We looked, guiltily, and saw: + +POSITIVELY +NO SMOKING + + * * * * * + +The cocoateria on Eighth Street closes at one A. M. Between +twelve-thirty and closing time it is full of busy eaters, mostly the +night shift from the Chestnut Street newspaper offices and printing and +engraving firms in the neighbourhood. Ham and eggs blossom merrily. The +white-coated waiters move in swift, stern circuit. Griddle cakes bake +with amazing swiftness toward the stroke of one. Little dishes of baked +beans stand hot and ready in the steam-chest. The waiter punches your +check as he brings your frankfurters and coffee. He adds another +perforation when you get your ice cream. Then he comes back and punches +it again. + +"Here," you cry, "let it alone and stop bullying it!" + +"Sorry, brother," he says. "I forgot that peach cream was fifteen +cents." + +One o'clock. They lock the door and turn out the little gas jet where +smokers light up. As the tables empty the chairs are stacked up on top. +And if it is a clear warm evening the customers smoke a final weed along +the Chestnut Street doorsteps, talking together in a cheery undertone. + + * * * * * + +No man has ever started upon a new cheque-book without a few sourly +solemn thoughts. + +In the humble waters of finance wherein we paddle we find that a book of +fifty cheques lasts us about four months, allowing for two or three duds +when we start to make out a foil payable to bearer (self) and decide to +renounce that worthy ambition and make it out to the gas company +instead. + +It occurs to us that if Bunyan had been writing "Pilgrim's Progress" +nowadays instead of making Christian encounter lions in the path he +would have substituted gas meters, particularly the quarter-in-the-slot +kind that one finds in a seaside cottage. However---- + +Four months is quite a long time. It may be weak of us, but we can never +resist wondering as we survey that flock of empty cheques just what +adventures our bank account is going to undergo during that period, and +whether our customary technique of being aloof with the receiving teller +and genial and commentary with the paying ditto is the right one. We +always believe in keeping a paying teller in a cheerful frame of mind. +We would never admit to him that we think it is going to rain. We say, +rather, "Well, it may blow over," and try not to surmise how many +hundreds there are in the pile at his elbow. Probably we think the +explanation for the really bizarre architecture of our bank is to keep +depositors' attention from the money. Unquestionably Walt Whitman's tomb +over in Harleigh--Walt's vault--was copied from our bank. + +The cheques in our book are blue. We have always regretted this. If we +had known it beforehand perhaps we would have inflicted our problems +upon another bank. Because there are so many more interesting colours +for cheques, tints upon which the ink shows up in a more imposing +manner. A pale pink or cream-coloured cheque for $2.74 looks much more +exciting than a blue cheque for $25. We have known gray, pink, white, +brown, green, and salmon-coloured cheques. A friend of ours once showed +us one that was a bright orange, but refused to let us handle it. But +yellow is the colour that appeals to us most strongly. When we were very +young and away from home our monthly allowance, the amount of which we +shall not state, but it cost us less effort than any money we ever +received since, came to us by way of pale primrose-coloured cheques. +For, after all, there are no cheques like those one used to get from +one's father. We hope the Urchin will think so some day. + + * * * * * + +We like to pay homage to the true artist in all lines. At the corner of +Market and Marshall streets--between Sixth and Seventh--the collar-clasp +orator has his rostrum, and it seems to us that his method of harangue +has the quality of genuine art. He does not bawl or try to terrify or +bully his audience into purchase as do the auctioneers of the +"pawnbrokers' outlets." How gently, how winningly, how sweetly he pleads +the merits of his little collar clasp! And there is shrewd imagination +in his attention-catching device, which is a small boy dressed in black, +wearing a white hood of cheesecloth that hides his face. This peculiar +silent figure, with a touch of mystery about it, serves to keep the +crowd wondering until the oration begins. + +[Illustration] + +With a smile, with infinite ingratiation and gentle persuasion, our +friend exhibits the merits of his device which does away with the +traditional collar-button. His art is to make the collar-button seem a +piteous, almost a tragic thing. His eyes swim with unshed tears as he +describes the discomfort of the man whose collar, fastened by the +customary button, cannot be given greater freedom on a hot, muggy day. +He shows, by exhibition on his own person, the exquisite relief afforded +by the adjustable collar clasp. "When the day grows cool," he says, +"when you begin to enjoy yourself and want your collar tighter, you just +loosen the clasp, slide the tabs closer together, and there you are. And +no picking at your tie to get the knot undone. Now, how many of you men +have spoiled an expensive tie by picking at it? Your fingers come in +contact with the fibres of the silk and the first thing you know the tie +is soiled. This little clasp"--and he casts a beam of affection upon +it--"saves your tie, it saves your collar, and it saves your patience." +A note of yearning pathos comes into his agreeable voice, and he holds +out a handful of the old-fashioned collar-buttons. "You men are wearing +the same buttons your great-grandfathers wore. Don't you want to get +out of collar slavery? _Don't_ you want to quit working your face all +out of shape struggling with a collar-button? Now as this is a +manufacturing demonstration----" + + * * * * * + +On a warm evening nothing is more pleasant than a ride on the front +platform of the Market Street L, with the front door open. As the train +leaves Sixty-ninth Street it dips down the Millbourne bend and the cool, +damp smell of the Cobb's Creek meadows gushes through the car. Then the +track straightens out for a long run toward the City Hall. Roaring over +the tree tops, with the lights of movies and shops glowing up from +below, a warm typhoon makes one lean against it to keep one's footing. +The airy stations are lined by girls in light summer dresses, attended +by their swains. The groan of the wheels underfoot causes a curious +tickling in the soles of the feet as one stands on the steel platform. + +This groan rises to a shrill scream as the train gathers speed between +stations, gradually diminishing to a reluctant grumble as the cars come +to a stop. In the distance, in a peacock-blue sky, the double gleam of +the City Hall tower shines against the night. Down on the left is the +hiss and clang of West Philadelphia station, with the long, dim, amber +glow of the platform and belated commuters pacing about. Then the smoky +dive across the Schuylkill and the bellow of the subway. + + * * * * * + +From time to time humanity is forced to revise its customary notions in +the interests of truth. This is always painful. + +It is an old fetich that the week-end in summer is a time for riotous +enjoyment, of goodly cheer and mirthful solace. A careful examination of +human beings during this hebdomadal period of carnival leads us to +question the doctrine. + +[Illustration] + +When we watch the horrors of discomfort and vexation endured by +simple-hearted citizens in pursuit of a light-hearted Saturday and +Sunday, we often wonder how it is that humanity will so gleefully +inflict upon itself sufferings which, if they were imposed by some +taskmaster, would be called atrocious. + +We observe, for instance, women and children standing sweltering in the +aisles of trains during a two-hour run to the seashore. We observe the +number of drownings, motor accidents, murders, and suicides that take +place during the Saturday to Monday period. We observe families loaded +down with small children, who might have been happy and reasonably cool +at home, struggling desperately to get away for a day in the country, +rising at 5 A. M., standing in line at the station, fanning themselves +with blasphemy, and weary before they start. We observe them chased home +by thunderstorms or colic, dazed and blistered with sunburn, or groaning +with a surfeit of ice cream cones. + +It is a lamentable fact (and the truth is almost always lamentable, and +hotly denied) that for the hard-working majority the week-end is a curse +rather than a blessing. The saddest fact in human annals is that most +people are never so happy as when they are hard at work. The time may +come when criminals will be condemned, not to the chair, but to twenty +successive week-ends spent standing in the aisles of crowded excursion +trains. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + +Strolling downtown to a well-known home of fish dinners, it is +appetizing to pass along the curve of Dock Street in the coolness of the +evening. The clean, lively odours of vegetables and fruit are strong on +the air. Under the broad awnings of the commission merchants and +produce dealers the stock is piled up in neat and engaging piles ready +to be carted away at dawn. Under the glow of pale arcs and gas lamps the +colours of the scene are vivid. Great baskets of eggplant shine like +huge grapes, a polished port wine colour; green and scarlet peppers +catch points of light; a flat pinkish colour gleams on carrots. Each +species seems to have an ordered pattern of its own. Potatoes are ranged +in a pyramid; watermelons in long rows; white and yellow onions are +heaped in sacks. The sweet musk of cantaloupes is the scent that +overbreathes all others. Then, down nearer to the waterfront, comes the +strong, damp fishy whiff of oysters. To stroll among these gleaming +piles of victuals, to watch the various colours where the lamps pour a +pale silver and yellow on cairns and pyramids of vegetables, is to +gather a lusty appetite and attack the first oyster stew of the season +with a stout heart. + +It being a very humid day, we stopped to compliment the curly-headed +sandwich man at Ninth and Market on his décolleté corsage, which he +wears in the Walt Whitman manner. "Wish we could get away with it the +way you do," we said, admiringly. He looked at us with the patience of +one inured to bourgeois comment. "It's got to be tried," said he, "like +everything else." + + * * * * * + +We stopped by the Weather Man's little illuminated booth at Ninth and +Chestnut about 10 o'clock in the evening. We were scrutinizing his +pretty coloured pictures, wondering how soon the rain would determine, +when a slender young man appeared out of the gloom, said "I'm sorry to +have to do this," switched off the light, and pulled down the rolling +front of the booth. It was the Weather Man himself. + +We were greatly elated to meet this mythical sage and walked down the +street a little way with him. In order to cheer him up, we complimented +him on the artistic charm of his little booth, with its glow of golden +light shining on the coloured map and the bright loops and curves of +crayon. We told him how almost at any time in the evening groups of +people can be seen admiring his stall, but his sensitive heart was +gloomy. + +"Most of them don't understand it," he said, morosely. "The women are +the worst. I've gone there in the evening and found them studying the +map eagerly. Hopefully, I would creep up behind to hear their comments. +One will say, 'Yes, that's where my husband came from,' or 'I spent last +summer over there,' pointing to some place on the map. They seem to +think it's put there for them to study geography." + +We tried to sympathize with the broken-hearted scientist, but his spirit +had been crushed by a long series of woes. + +"The other evening," said he, "I saw a couple of girls gazing at the +map, and they looked so intelligent I really was charmed. Apparently +they were discussing an area of low pressure that was moving down from +the Great Lakes, and I lent an ear. Imagine my chagrin when one of them +said: 'You see the colour of that chalk line? I'm going to make my next +knitted vestee just like that.' And the other one said: 'I think the +whole colour scheme is adorable. I'm going to use it as a pattern for my +new camouflage bathing-suit.'" + +"Thank goodness," cried the miserable Weather Man: "I have another map +like that down at the Bourse, and the brokers really give it some +intelligent attention." + +We went on our way sadly, thinking how many sorrows there are in the +world. It is grievous to think of the poor Weather Man, lurking with +beating pulses in the neighbourhood of Ninth and Chestnut in the hope +of finding someone who understands his painstaking display. The next +time you are standing in front of his booth do say something about the +Oceanic High in the South Atlantic or the dangerous Aleutian Low or the +anticyclonic condition prevailing in the Alleghenies. He might overhear +you, and it would do his mournful heart good. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + +It was eight o'clock, a cool drizzling night. Chestnut Street was gray +with a dull, pearly, opaque twilight. In the little portico east of +Independence Hall the gas lamp under the ceiling cast a soft pink glow +on the brick columns. + +Independence Square was a sea of tremulous, dripping boughs. The quaint +heptahedral lamps threw splashed shimmers of topaz colour across the +laky pavement. "Golden lamps in a green night," as Marvell says, +twinkled through the stir and moisture of the evening. + + + + +ON GOING TO BED + + +One of the characters in "The Moon and Sixpence" remarked that he had +faithfully lived up to the old precept about doing every day two things +you heartily dislike; for, said he, every day he had got up and he had +gone to bed. + +It is a sad thing that as soon as the hands of the clock have turned ten +the shadow of going to bed begins to creep over the evening. We have +never heard bedtime spoken of with any enthusiasm. One after another we +have seen a gathering disperse, each person saying (with an air of +solemn resignation): "Well, I guess I'll go to bed." But there was no +hilarity about it. It is really rather touching how they cling to the +departing skirts of the day that is vanishing under the spinning shadow +of night. + +This is odd, we repeat, for sleep is highly popular among human beings. +The reluctance to go to one's couch is not at all a reluctance to +slumber, for almost all of us will doze happily in an armchair or on a +sofa, or even festooned on the floor with a couple of cushions. But the +actual and formal yielding to sheets and blankets is to be postponed to +the last possible moment. + +The devil of drowsiness is at his most potent, we find, about 10:30 +P. M. At this period the human carcass seems to consider that it has +finished its cycle, which began with so much courage nearly sixteen +hours before. It begins to slack and the mind halts on a dead centre +every now and then, refusing to complete the revolution. Now there are +those who hold that this is certainly the seemly and appointed time to +go to bed and they do so as a matter of routine. These are, commonly, +the happier creatures, for they take the tide of sleep at the flood and +are borne calmly and with gracious gentleness out to great waters of +nothingness. They push off from the wharf on a tranquil current and +nothing more is to be seen or heard of these voyagers until they +reappear at the breakfast table, digging lustily into their grapefruit. + +These people are happy, aye, in a brutish and sedentary fashion, but +they miss the admirable adventures of those more embittered wrestlers +who will not give in without a struggle. These latter suffer severe +pangs between 10:30 and about 11:15 while they grapple with their fading +faculties and seek to reëstablish the will on its tottering throne. This +requires courage stout, valour unbending. Once you yield, be it ever so +little, to the tempter, you are lost. And here our poor barren clay +plays us false, undermining the intellect with many a trick and wile. "I +will sit down for a season in that comfortable chair," the creature +says to himself, "and read this sprightly novel. That will ease my mind +and put me in humour for a continuance of lively thinking." And the end +of that man is a steady nasal buzz from the bottom of the chair where he +has collapsed, an unsightly object and a disgrace to humanity. This also +means a big bill from the electric light company at the end of the +month. In many such ways will his corpus bewray him, leading him by +plausible self-deceptions into a pitfall of sleep, whence he is aroused +about 3 A. M. when the planet turns over on the other side. Only by +stiff perseverance and rigid avoidance of easy chairs may the critical +hour between 10:30 and 11:30 be safely passed. Tobacco, a self-brewed +pot of tea, and a browsing along bookshelves (remain standing and do not +sit down with your book) are helps in this time of struggle. Even so, +there are some happily drowsy souls who can never cross these shallows +alone without grounding on the Lotus Reefs. Our friend J---- D---- +K----, magnificent creature, was (when we lived with him) so potently +hypnoidal that, even erect and determined as his bookcase and urgently +bent upon Brann's _Iconoclast_ or some other literary irritant, sleep +would seep through his pores and he would fall with a crash, lying there +in unconscious bliss until someone came in and prodded him up, reeling +and ashamed. + +But, as we started to say, those who survive this drastic weeding out +which Night imposes upon her wooers--so as to cull and choose only the +truly meritorious lovers--experience supreme delights which are unknown +to their snoring fellows. When the struggle with somnolence has been +fought out and won, when the world is all-covering darkness and +close-pressing silence, when the tobacco suddenly takes on fresh vigour +and fragrance and the books lie strewn about the table, then it seems as +though all the rubbish and floating matter of the day's thoughts have +poured away and only the bright, clear, and swift current of the mind +itself remains, flowing happily and without impediment. This perfection +of existence is not to be reached very often; but when properly +approached it may be won. It is a different mind that one uncovers then, +a spirit which is lucid and hopeful, to which (for a few serene hours) +time exists not. The friable resolutions of the day are brought out +again and recemented and chiselled anew. Surprising schemes are started +and carried through to happy conclusion, lifetimes of amazement are +lived in a few passing ticks. There is one who at such moments resolves, +with complete sincerity, to start at one end of the top shelf and read +again all the books in his library, intending this time really to +extract their true marrow. He takes a clean sheet of paper and sets down +memoranda of all the people he intends to write to, and all the plumbers +and what not that he will call up the next day. And the next time this +happy seizure attacks him he will go through the same gestures again +without surprise and without the slightest mortification. And then, +having lived a generation of good works since midnight struck, he +summons all his resolution and goes to bed. + +[Illustration] + + +[Illustration] + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS + +GARDEN CITY, N. 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