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diff --git a/26405-h/26405-h.htm b/26405-h/26405-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cf97c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/26405-h/26405-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8802 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Penguin Persons & Peppermints, by Walter Prichard Eaton + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + + h1 {letter-spacing: 0.20ex; + line-height: 150%; + margin-bottom: 2em;} + + h2 {padding-bottom: 1em; + font-style: italic;} + + ul {list-style: none; + line-height: 150%; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + + td.leftalign {text-align: left; + padding-right: 8em;} + + td.rightalign {text-align: right;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + p.noindent {text-indent: 0em;} + + p.publisher {margin-top: 4em; + text-align: center; + font-size: smaller; + margin-bottom: 3em; + text-indent: 0em; + letter-spacing: 0.15ex; + } + + p.copyright {font-size: 80%; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + padding-bottom: 2em;} + + p.printer {font-size: 70%; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + padding-top: 1em;} + + p.author {font-size: 130%; + text-indent: 0em; + text-align: center; + } + + div.note {margin: 4em 10% 0 10%; + padding: 1em; + border: 1px dashed black; + color: inherit; + background-color: #F0F8FF; + font-size: smaller; + } + + img {border-style: none; + padding-top: 3em;} + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + right: 1%; + font-size: x-small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + letter-spacing: 0ex; + text-indent: 0em; + } + + a:link {text-decoration: none; + color: #104E8B; + background-color: inherit; + } + + a:visited {text-decoration: none; + color: #8B0000; + background-color: inherit; + } + + a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} + + a:active {text-decoration: underline;} + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + } + + .center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em;} + + .right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; + font-size: 90%; + } + + .poem br {display: none;} + + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + + .poem span.i0 {display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; + } + + .poem span.i1 {display: block; + margin-left: 1em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; + } + + .poem span.i2 {display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; + } + + .poem span.i4 {display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; + } + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Penguin Persons & Peppermints, by Walter Prichard Eaton + +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: Penguin Persons & Peppermints + +Author: Walter Prichard Eaton + +Release Date: August 23, 2008 [EBook #26405] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENGUIN PERSONS & PEPPERMINTS *** + + + + +Produced by Chrome, Michael Ciesielski, Irma Spehar and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>PENGUIN PERSONS &<br /> +PEPPERMINTS</h1> + +<p class="center">BY</p> +<p class="author">WALTER PRICHARD EATON</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 75px; padding-bottom: 2em"> +<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="75" height="172" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Essay Index Reprint Series</i></p> + +<p class="publisher">BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS<br /> +FREEPORT, NEW YORK</p> + +<p class="copyright">First Published 1922<br /> +Reprinted 1969</p> + +<p class="printer">STANDARD BOOK NUMBER:<br /> +8369-1288-8</p> + +<p class="printer">LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER:<br /> +72-93335</p> + +<p class="printer">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> + +<p class="center" style="padding-top: 4em"><i>To<br /> +My Little Sister<br /> +who was born just in time<br /> +to know the old, quiet ways of life<br /> +in their gentle decline—to<br /> +know and to love<br /> +them</i></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px; padding-top: 2em"> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> + + +<table summary="table of contents"> +<tr><td> </td><td class="rightalign"><small><i>Page</i></small></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Author's Foreword</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Penguin Persons</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Spring Comes to Thumping Dick</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Passing of the Stage Sundial</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">On Singing Songs with One Finger</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Immorality of Shop-windows</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">A Forgotten American Poet</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">New Poetry and the Lingering Line</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Lies We Learn in Our Youth</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Bad Manners of Polite People</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">On Giving Up Golf Forever</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">“Grape-Vine” Erudition</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Business Before Grammar</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Wood Ashes and Progress</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Vacant Room in Drama</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">On Giving an Author a Plot</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Twilight Veil</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Spring in the Garden</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Bubble, Reputation</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Old House on the Bend</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Concerning Hat-trees</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Shrinking of Kingman's Field</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Mumblety-peg and Middle Age</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Barber Shops of Yesterday</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">The Button Box</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="leftalign">Peppermints</td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Authors_Foreword" id="Authors_Foreword"></a>Author's Foreword +</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big>t</span> is not a little unfortunate that no one can +attempt the essay form nowadays, more especially +that type of essay which is personal, reminiscent, +“an open letter to whom it may concern,” without +being accused of trying to write like Charles +Lamb. Of course, if we were ever accused of +succeeding, that would be another story! There +is, to be sure, no doubt that the gentle Elia impressed +his form and method on all English writers +who followed him, and still reaches out across +a century to threaten with his high standards +those who still venture into this pleasant and +now so neglected field. Such are the rigors of +triumphant gentleness. Still—and he would have +been the first to recognize the fact—it is rather +unfair to demand of every essayist the revelation +of a personality like Lamb's. Fundamentally, all +literature, even naturalistic drama, is the revelation +of a personality, a point of view. But it +is the peculiar flavor of the essay that it reveals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> +an author through his chat about himself, his +friends, his memories and fancies, in something +of the direct manner of a conversation or a letter; +and he himself feels, in writing, a delightful +sense of intimacy with his future readers. That +Lamb was a master of this art like no other, +without a visible or probable rival, hardly constitutes +a reason for denying to less delightful +men and gifted artists the right also to practice +it, to put themselves and their intimate little +affairs and idiosyncrasies into direct and personal +touch with such few readers as they may find. +For the readers of his essays are the author's +friends in a sense that the readers of his novels +or dissertations, or the witnesses of his plays, +can never be. There will be no story to hold +them, no fictional, independent characters, no +ideas nor arguments on high questions of policy. +There will be only a joint interest in the minutiæ +of life. If I like cats and snowstorms, and +you like cats and snowstorms, we are likely to +come together on that mutual ground, and clasp +shadow hands across the page. But if you do +not like cats and snowstorms, why then you +will not like me, and we needn't bore each +other, need we?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> + +<p>The little papers in this volume, issued from +the peaceful town of Sewanee atop the Cumberland +plateau, between Thumping Dick Hollow +and Little Fiery Gizzard Creek, have been written +at various times and places in the past fifteen +years, many of them while I still dwelt in New +York, and babbled o' green fields, many before, +and some few after, the outbreak of the Great +War. That War, you will perhaps discover, finds +in them no reflection. It has been consciously +excluded, for though the world can never be +the same world again, as we are in no danger +of forgetting, there are some things which even +war and revolution cannot change, such as the +memories of our childhood, the joy of violets +in the Spring, the delight in melody, the humor +of small dogs, the coo of babies. I have +fancied we are sometimes by way of forgetting +that. At any rate, of such matters, in hours when +he has no thought but to please himself, the essayist +chats, and shall chat in the happy years that are +to come again, or all our bloodshed has been in +vain. If, at the same time, he chances to please +an editor also, and then to make a few friends who +like what he likes, smiles sympathetically at what +makes him smile, why, that is clear again!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></p> + +<p>This author has been fortunate enough to +please several editors in the past, and to all of +them, who have given him permission to reprint +such papers in this volume as have appeared in +their periodicals, he extends his gratitude. They +are specifically, the editors of <i>The Atlantic Monthly</i>, +<i>Scribner's</i>, <i>House and Garden</i>, <i>The Dial</i>, <i>Ainslee's</i>, +<i>The Scrap Book</i>, <i>The Boston Transcript</i> and <i>The +New York Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p class="right">W. P. E.</p> + +<p style="font-size: 90%; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: 0em">Twin Fires,<br /> +Sheffield,<br /> +Mass.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Penguin_Persons" id="Penguin_Persons"></a>Penguin Persons</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>A</big>fter</span> all, one knows so little about a man from +his printed works! They are the gleanings of +his thoughts and investigations, the pick of his +mind and heart; and they are at best but an +impersonal and partial record of the writer. +Even autobiography has something unsatisfactory +about it; one feels the narrator is on guard +always, as it were, and, aware of an audience +cold and of strangers, keeps this back and trims +up that to make himself more what he should +be (or, in some perverse cases, what he should +not be). But probably no man who is worthy +of attention sits down to write a letter to a +good friend with one eye on posterity and the +public. In his intimate correspondence he is +off guard. Hence, some day, when he has +died, the world comes to know him by fleeting +glimpses as he was,—which is almost as +near, is it not, as we ever get to knowing one +another?—knows him under his little private +moods, in the spell of his personal joys and sorrows, +sees his flashes of unexpected humor,—even,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +it may be, his unexpected pettinesses +Thus dangerous and thus delightful is it to publish +a great man's letters.</p> + +<p>Such letters were Ruskin's to Charles Eliot +Norton, which Professor Norton has given to +the world. No one can fail from those letters +to get a more intimate picture of the author of +<i>Modern Painters</i> than could ever be imagined +out of that work itself, and out of the rest of +his works besides, not excepting the wonderful +<i>Fors Clavigera</i>; and not only a more intimate, +but a different picture, touched with greater +whimsicality, and with infinite sadness, too. +Not his hard-wrung thoughts and theories, but +his moods of the moment—and he was a man +rich in the moods of the moment—tell most +prominently here. And with how many of +these moods can the Ordinary Reader sympathize! +Again and again as the Ordinary Reader +turns the pages he finds the great man under +the thralldom of the same insect cares and +annoyances which rule us all, until he realizes +as perhaps never before that poet and +peasant, genius and scribe, are indeed one in +a common humanity, and sighs, with a lurking +smile of satisfaction, “So nigh is grandeur +to our dust!”</p> + +<p>One of the points of convergence between +Ruskin and the Ordinary Reader which has appealed +to me with peculiar force occurs in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +letter from London dated in 1860. “When I +begin to think at all,” Ruskin writes, “I get +into states of disgust and fury at the way the +mob is going on (meaning by the mob, chiefly +Dukes, crown-princes, and such like persons) +that I choke; and have to go to the British +Museum and look at Penguins till I get cool. +I find Penguins at present the only comfort in +life. One feels everything in the world so +sympathetically ridiculous; one can't be angry +when one looks at a Penguin.”</p> + +<p>Why, of course one can't! It is absurdly true, +when one comes to think of it, this beneficent +influence of penguins, stuffed penguins, at that, +which cannot even waddle. I dare say few +readers ever thought of this peculiar bird (if it +is a bird) in just that light before Mr. Ruskin's +letter came to view; I'm sure I never did. But +few readers will fail to recall at a first reading +of the words that picture of a penguin which +used to adorn the school geographies, and presently +will come to them the old sensation of +amusement at the waddly fellow propped up on +his impossible feet, the smile will break over +their lips, and they will be one in mood with +Mr. Ruskin. They may affirm that of course +the author was only indulging in a little whimsicality, +and they may two thirds believe it, as +it is no doubt two thirds true; but just the +same, unless I am much mistaken, the image of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +a penguin will persist in their minds, as it persisted +in Ruskin's mind—else how did he come +to write of it in this letter?—and they will be +the better and the happier for the smile it +evokes, as Ruskin was the better and the +happier. Indeed, that letter was his cheeriest +for months.</p> + +<p>For me, however, the image has not faded +with the passing of the mood, or rather it has +changed into something more abiding. It has +assumed, in fact, no less a guise than the human; +it has become converted into certain of my +friends. I now know these friends, in my +thoughts of them, as Penguin Persons. I find +they have the same beneficent effect on me, and +on others around them, as the penguins on +Ruskin. I mean here to sing their praises, for +I believe that they and their kind (since everyone +enters on his list of friends, as I do, some +Penguin Persons) have, even if they do not +know it, a mission in the world, an honorable +destiny to fulfill. They prevent us from taking +life too seriously; they make everything “sympathetically +ridiculous”; they are often “as the +shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”</p> + +<p>But, at the very outset, I would not be misunderstood. +I do not mean that a Penguin +Person must resemble the amusing bird in +physical aspect. There are, I know, certain +people, a far more numerous class than is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +generally supposed, who see in almost everybody +a resemblance to some animal, bird, or fish. I +am one of these people myself. It is on record +as far back as the fourth generation that some +one of my successive ancestors had the same +unhappy faculty, for it is unhappy, since it imposes +on the person who resembles for us a pig, +in our thoughts of him, the attributes of that +beast, and so on through the natural history +catalogue. It is not pleasant to watch a puma +kitten sitting beside you in the opera house, +especially when your mere brain tells you she is +probably a sweet, even-tempered little matron, +or to wait in pained expectancy for your large-eared +minister to bray, even though you know +he will not depart from his measured exposition +of sound and sane doctrine. However, the Penguin +Persons are such by virtue of their moral +and mental attributes solely, of the similar effect +they produce on those about them by their +personalities. I have never met a man yet who +physically resembled a penguin, though I fancy +the experience would be interesting.</p> + +<p>Still less would I have it understood that +Penguin Persons are stupid. Far from it. Dr. +Crothers declares, in his <i>Gentle Reader</i>, that he +would not like to be neighbor to a wit. “It +would be like being in proximity to a live +wire,” he says. “A certain insulating film of +kindly stupidity is needed to give a margin of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +safety to human intercourse.” I do not think +that Dr. Crothers could have known a Penguin +Person when he wrote that. The Penguin Person +is not a wit, there is no barb to his shafts of +fun, no uneasiness from his preternatural cleverness, +for he is not preternaturally clever. You +never feel unable to cope with him, you never +feel your mind keyed to an unusual alertness to +follow him; you feel, indeed, a sense of comforting +superiority, for, after all, you <i>do</i> take the +world so much more seriously than he! And +yet he is not stupid; he is bright, alert, +“kindly,” to be sure, but delightfully humorous, +deliciously droll. Life with him appears to be +one huge joke, and there is an unction about +him, a contagion in his point of view, that +affects you whether you will or no, and when +you are in his presence you cannot take life +seriously, either,—you can but laugh with him. +He does you good. You say he is “perfectly +ridiculous,” but you laugh. Then he smiles +back at you and cracks another of those absurd +remarks of his, and you know he is “sympathetically +ridiculous.” Perhaps you were out +of sorts with life when you met him, but one +cannot be angry when one looks at a Penguin +Person.</p> + +<p>But do you say that the original bird is not +like that at all, that he is the most stupid of +fellows? Ah! then you have never seen a penguin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +swim! He is grace and beauty and skill +in the water. If it were only his stupidity that +made us smile, not he, but the hen, would be +the most amusing of God's creatures. It is +something more subtle, more personal, than +that. It can only be described as Penguinity.</p> + +<p>Penguinity! The word is not in the dictionaries; +it is beyond the pale of the “purists”; in +coining it I am fully aware that I violate the +canons of the Harvard English Department, +that I fly in the face of philology, waving a red +rag. Yet I do it gladly, assertively, for I have +confidence that some day, when Penguin Persons +have taken their rightful place in the +world's estimation, the world will not be able +to dispense with my little word, which will +then overthrow the dictionary despotism and +enter unchallenged the leather strongholds of +Webster and Murray.</p> + +<p>Yet before that day does come, and to hasten +its coming, I would record a tribute to my +first and firmest Penguin friend,—my friend +and the friend of how many others?—long and +lank of limb, thin and high-boned of face, alert, +smiling, ridiculous. On the nights when steamships +were sunk in the East River, or incipient +subways elevated suddenly above ground, or +other exciting features of New York life came +clamoring for publicity, he would sit calm and +smiling, coatless, a corncob pipe between his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +teeth, and read “copy” with the speed of two +ordinary men. The excited night city editor +would rush about, shouting orders and countermanding +them; reporters would dash in and +out; telegraph instruments would buzz; the +nerve-wracking whistle of the tube from the +composing room would shrill at sudden intervals, +causing everybody to start involuntarily +each time and to curse with vexation and anger; +the irritable night editor, worried lest he miss +the outgoing trains with his first edition, would +look furtively at the clock at three-minute +periods and plunge his grimy hand over his +sweating forehead; but the Penguin Person +would sit smiling at his place by the “copy” +desk, blue pencil in hand, serene amid the +Babel. And when the tension was greatest, the +strain nerve-breaking to get the big story, in all +its complete and coherent details, into the +hungry presses that seemed almost visible, +though they waited the stroke of one, ten +stories down, in the sub-basement, the Penguin +Person would sit back in his chair, grin +amiably, and say with a drawl, “Hell, ain't +it, fellers? D' you know what I'm going to +do to-morrow, though? I'm going to put +on my asbestos collar, side track some beaut, +take her to the theatre, and after the show, +thanks to the princely salary I'm paid for +keeping split infinitives out of this sheet, I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +going to rush her round to Sherry's or Delmonico's +and blow her to a glass of beer and +a frankfurter.”</p> + +<p>Then as if by magic the drawn faces of all +his associates would clear, the night editor +would laugh and forget to look at the clock, +we would resume our toil, momentarily forgetful +of the high pressure under which we labored, +and working the better for the forgetfulness; +and the Penguin Person, the smile still +expanding his mouth, would tilt down his chair +and work with us, only faster. If he had serious +thoughts, he never disclosed them to us—seriously. +When he opened his lips we waited +always in the expectation of some ridiculous +remark, even though it should clothe a platitude +or a piece of good, common-sense advice. And +we were never disappointed. Life with him was +apparently one huge joke, and it came about +that when we thought of him or spoke of him +among ourselves, it was always with a smile. +Yet now he is gone—and what a hole! Other +men can do his work as well, if not as quickly. +The paper still goes to press and the public sees +no change; but we, who worked beside him, +see it nightly. By twelve o'clock on a busy +night, nervous, drawn faces surround the central +desk, and profanity is snapped crossly back and +forth. There is no alleviation of cheerful inanity. +Presently somebody looks up, remarking,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +“I wish Bobbie Barton was back.” And somebody +else replies with profane asperity and lax +grammar, “I wish he was!” Bobbie, meanwhile +has become a lawyer, and can now afford +a whole plate of frankfurters at Delmonico's. +But we are the poorer, and, I do not +hesitate to declare, the worse men for the loss +of his Penguinity.</p> + +<p>Then there is David. David is penguinacious +by fits and starts, not wholly to be depended +on, sometimes needing himself to be cheered +with the Penguinity of others, but, when the +mood is on him, softly, fantastically ridiculous, +like the nonsense verse of Lewis Carroll, a sort +of <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> person. I should not hesitate +to recommend him to Dr. Crothers as a +neighbor; indeed I suspect the good doctor is +almost such a man himself,—too gentle, too +fantastic in humor to suggest, however remotely, +a “live wire,” and yet how far from being stupid! +David's mind works so unexpectedly. You +are quite sure you know what he is going to say, +and yet he never says it, giving his remark a +verbal twist which calls up some absurdly impossible +picture, and evokes, not a laugh, but a +deep, satisfying smile. There is something quaint +and refreshing about such a mind as David's. It +does not so much restore one's animal spirits, or +one's good nature, as it rejuvenates the springs of +fancy, brings back the whimsical imagination of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +childhood. David will people a room with his +airy conceits, as Mr. Barrie peopled Kensington +Gardens with Peter Pan and his crew; and it is +as impossible not to forget anger and care, not to +feel sweeter and fresher, for David's jests, as for +<i>The Little White Bird</i>. Only a Penguinity like +David's is subtle, a little unworldly, and, like +most gracious gifts, fragile. There are days when +the world is too much for David, when his jests +are silent and his conceits do not assemble. Then +it is that he in turn needs the good cheer of another's +Penguinity, and it is then my happy +privilege to reward him by hunting up Bobbie +Barton, if I can, and joining them at a dinner +party. Bobbie's Penguinity is based on an inexhaustible +fount of animal spirits, he is never anything +but a Penguin. He usually has David put +to rights by the roast.</p> + +<p>The other day, while Bobbie was running on +in his ridiculous fashion, in an idiom all his own +that even Mr. Ade could not hope to rival, telling, +I believe, about some escapade of his at +Asbury Park, where he had “put the police +force of two men and three niggers out of business” +by asking the innocent and unsuspecting +chief the difference between a man who had +seen Niagara Falls, and one who hadn't, and a +ham sandwich, I fell to musing on Ruskin's unhappy +lot, who did not know Bobbie, nor apparently +anybody like him. Poor Ruskin! After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +all, there is more pathos than humor in his +periodic visits to the penguins. Isolated, from +childhood, by parental care, from the common +friendships and associations of life, still further +isolated in mature years by his own genius and +early and lasting intellectual eminence, the wonder +is that he was not more unhappy, rather +than less. He had few friends, and those few, like +Professor Norton, were intellectual companions +as well, always ready and eager to debate with +him the problems of Art and Life which were +forever vexing him. Their companionship must +often have been a stimulant—when he needed, +perhaps, a narcotic. Their intercourse drove him +continually in upon himself, where there +was only seething unrest, when he needed so +often to be taken completely out of himself, +where there was peace. And, in his hours of +need, he turned to the Alps, and the penguins. +But both were dumb things, after all, that +could not quite meet his mood, could not quite +satisfy that hunger which is in all of us for +the common association of our kind, for the +humble jest and cheery laugh of a smiling +humanity. Neither of them was Bobbie, who +adds personality to the penguin, and satisfies a +double need.</p> + +<p>Bobbie would not have talked Art with Ruskin, +and for a very good reason,—he knows +nothing about it. Bobbie would not have cared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +a snap about his Turners, though he would have +been greatly reverent of them for their owner's +sake. But Bobbie would have enjoyed tramping +over the mountains with him, an eager and alert +listener to all his talks about geology and clouds, +and ten to one Bobbie would have made friends +of every peasant they met, every fellow traveler +on the road, and taught Ruskin in turn a good +bit about humdrum, picturesque mankind. And +he would have made him laugh! Possibly you +think it incongruous, impossible, the picture of +happy-go-lucky, ridiculous Bobbie, with his slang +and his grin and his outlook on life, and Ruskin, +the great critic, the master of style, the intellectual +giant. But then you reckon without Bobbie's +quality of Penguinity, and without Ruskin's +humanness. It is alike impossible to withstand +the contagion of Bobbie's Penguinity, and to +fancy a genius so great that he does not at times +yearn for the common walks and the common +talks of his humbler fellow creatures. He may +not always know how to achieve them, his own +greatness may be a barrier he cannot cross, or his +temperament and circumstances may hinder; but +be sure that he feels the loss, though he may not +himself, for all his genius, be quite aware of it. +That Ruskin lived in moody isolation, while +Shakespeare caroused in an alehouse, does not +prove Ruskin the greater man or the deeper +seer; it only shows that one knew how to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +achieve what the other did not,—contact with +the everyday, merry world, escape from the +awful and everlasting solemnity of life. Ruskin +could not achieve it for himself, he did +not know how; but Bobbie, all unknown to +either of them, would have shown him. Bobbie +would have made life for him “sympathetically +ridiculous,” for Bobbie is a Penguin +Person. And Bobbie would have been a living, +breathing human being, by his side and ready +to aid him, even to creep into his heart; not +a stuffed biped on a shelf in a musty museum. +Poor Ruskin, how much life robbed him of +when it made it impossible for him to win +in his youth the careless, unthinking, but undying +friendship of a few men like Bobbie, a few +Penguin Persons!</p> + +<p>Ah, well! “The dice of God are always +loaded.” Doubtless we must always pay for +greatness by isolation, or some more bitter toll. +And for our insignificance, in turn, come the +Bobbies as reward. It behooves those of us, +then, who are insignificant, to appreciate our +blessing, to cherish our penguins, the more since +we, when “the world is too much with us,” +when the tyranny of economic conditions oppresses +and the wrongness of life seems almost +more than we can bear, have not that inward +strength, that Titanic defiance, which is the +possession of the great, ultimately to fall back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +upon, and so sorely need to be shown a joke +somewhere, anywhere, in the universal scheme, +to find something that is “sympathetically ridiculous.” +That is why the Penguin Persons are +sent to us; thus we can see in them the swing +of the Emersonian pendulum.</p> + +<p>But they are naturally modest, and doubtless +have no idea of their mission, further than to +realize that “people are glad to have them +around,” as Bobbie would express it, and that it +is “up to them” (in the same idiom) to be +cheerful,—not a hard task, since cheeriness sits +in their soul. It is awful to think how self-consciousness +might ruin the flavor of their Penguinity +if they ever were awakened to a realization +of the fact that they were involved in +anything so serious as the Law of Compensation! +Though I do believe that David at his +best could make the eternal verities look ridiculous. +No, when the Penguin Persons do become +aware of their Penguinity, it is in a +funny, shamefaced fashion, as if they had been +up to boyish tricks their manhood should blush +for. Came Bobbie to me the other day and +confessed that he had about made up his mind +to be “serious.”</p> + +<p>“Everybody thinks I'm a joke,” he said, with +a melancholy grin; “they always expect me to +say something asinine, and get ready to laugh +before I speak. What shall I do?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Do!” I cried. “Do what you've been doing, +only do it more. Keep right on being a Penguin, +and God bless you!”</p> + +<p>Bobbie looked perplexed and a little hurt; but +I was too wise to explain, and three minutes later +he was rattling off some delicious absurdity to +my four-year-old hopeful, who had fallen down +on his nose and needed comforting—and a handkerchief. +Bobbie was supplying the latter from +his pocket, and from his penguinacious brain the +former was effectively coming in the shape of a +description of Rocky Mountain sheep, which, +according to Bobbie, have right-side legs much +shorter than their left-side legs, so they can run +along the mountain slopes without ever falling +on <i>their</i> noses.</p> + +<p>“But how do they get back?” asks the hopeful, +still bleeding, but eager for information.</p> + +<p>“They put their heads between their hind +legs and run backward,” says Bobbie. “They +have long necks, you know.”</p> + +<p>That, of course, may be unnatural history, but +it was a very present help in time of trouble. +Indeed, it made Bobbie, as well as the boy, forget, +and I have heard no more of his dreadful +intention to be serious.</p> + +<p>Some one—probably it was Emerson—once +said, “Each man has his own vocation. The +talent is the call.” It is no small thing, in this +grim world, to make people smile, to be absurd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +for their alleviation, to render all things “sympathetically +ridiculous” for a time, to bear in a +chalice of mirth the water of Lethe. If one's +talent lies that way, why, the call should be +clear! The Penguin Person should have no +doubt or shame of his vocation, nor should anyone +else allow him to. Little Joe Weber, who +was on the stage the most perfect example of +Penguinity, was as a stage character beloved of +all the thousands who saw him. He heard his +call and followed his vocation, and honor and +wealth and fame are now his. The merry host +of Penguin Persons who move outside the radius +of the spluttering calcium, whose proscenium is +the door frame of a home, may earn neither +wealth nor fame by doing as he has done, but +they will win no less a reward, for they will +have lightened for all around them the burdens +of life, they will have smoothed the gathering +frown and summoned the forgotten laugh, they +will have made of the ridiculous a little religion, +and out of Penguinity brought peace.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Spring_Comes_to_Thumping_Dick" id="Spring_Comes_to_Thumping_Dick"></a>Spring Comes to Thumping Dick</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>W</big>hen</span> the ordinary American who “does +things”—atrocious phrase, symbol of our unrecking +materialism that does not consider +the value of the things done—wants to give +a place a name, he affixes his own, or that of +his sister-in-law or the congressman from his +district. Thus our noblest North American +mountain is called McKinley, though it already +bore a beautiful Indian name—Denali, “The +Great One”; and thus in Glacier Park we find +a Lake McDermott, a Lake McDonald, and a +Mount Jackson, to contrast painfully with such +beautiful titles as Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, +Rising Wolf Mountain, and Morning Eagle +Falls. The Indians expressed their poetry in +their names. The pioneers and the colonial +rural Americans expressed, if not poetry, at +least a fine, spicy flavor of the local tradition; +their names grew out of the place. In the +corner of New England where I was born we +had a Slab City, a Tearbreeches Hill, a Puddin' +P'int—well-flavored names, all of them, descriptive +and significant, even the last, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +strangers mispronounced Pudding Point. Even +in old New York there were once such names +rich in historical association as Long Acre +Square, now reduced to Times Square to please +the vanity or cupidity of a newspaper. But, +save the Indians, no body of people on this +continent, not even the old-time cowboys and +prospectors with their Bright Angel Trail, have +ever rivaled the southern highlanders, the mountain +folk of the Blue Ridge, the Great Smokies +and the Cumberlands, in the bestowal of picturesque +titles. It is hard, sometimes, to say +whether the southern mountaineers are poets +or humorists or realists; they may be one or the +other, or all three at once. But they never fail +with the inevitable appellation. Not Flaubert +with his one right word, not the school “gang” +with its nicknames, can equal them.</p> + +<p>Thumping Dick Hollow, Milk-sick Hollow, +Little Fiery Gizzard Creek, Falling Water Cove, +Maniac's Hell, Lost Creek Cove, Jump Off +Point, Rainbow Hollow, Slaughterpen Hollow—they +come back to me in picturesque array, +and with them come back the memories of +the gray cabins, the clear bright water on the +race, the silent forests, the billows of laurel, the +song of the brown thrashers, the shy children +in a dusky doorway, the lean pigs not shy at all, +the bloodroot underfoot, the soft, hazy sky +overhead, the sense that here life was always as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +it is, and always will be, with no change but +the changing seasons. I remember once more +how I met the Spring at Thumping Dick, like +a dryad dancing through the wood, caught her +in the very act of climbing up from the cove +below to find a road to take her north. So we +loitered together for one whole, blissful day, +and when I came back to the college campus I +wore her violets in my hat.</p> + +<p>But first I must tell you how Thumping +Dick Hollow got its name. That is more important +even than knowing where it is. Many, +many years ago, so long ago that all traces of +his cabin have disappeared, a man called Dick +dwelt beside the little brown brook which flows +through a slight hollow on its way to the cove +below. Now, this Dick was averse to over-much +effort, unless it were effort connected with +the pursuit of bears or panther, and being of +an ingenious turn of mind he invented a labor-saving +device to pound his corn. (Unfortunately, +he still had to grow it himself.) He +took a hollow log and pivoted it across the +brook, at a little fall, in such a way that the +upper end would rest in the water while the +lower end projected over the rocks below the +falls. Then he fastened a board across the +lower half of this lower opening, and underneath +the log, also at the lower end, he fixed a +pestle. He then placed his mortar on a stone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +directly beneath. The water, flowing into the +hollow log, ran to the lower end and piled up +against the board till there was weight enough +to tip the entire log down. Then enough ran +out to tilt the log back again. Of course, each +time the lower end of the log descended the +pestle struck a blow in the mortar. All Dick +had to do was now and then to empty out his +pounded grain and put in a fresh supply. The +log kept at its solemn seesaw night and day, its +dull thumps resounding through the woods. So +Thumping Dick Hollow it is to this day, and +being close to Sewanee, Tennessee, instead of +New York City, Thumping Dick Hollow it +will remain, instead of becoming the Pratt +Street section of Elmhurst Manor.</p> + +<p>To be precise, it is four miles from Sewanee, +and to be more precise, Sewanee is eight miles +straight up hill from Cowan, and to be still +more precise, Cowan is thirty-five or forty miles +from Chattanooga, and now you begin to know +where you are. Chattanooga, as you know, is +in Tennessee, and sits beside the superb Moccasin +Bend of the Tennessee River, under the +shadow of Lookout Mountain, entirely surrounded +by freight trains. It runs Schenectady, +New York, a close race for the title of the +noisiest city in the United States. But after you +have taken a west-bound train in the quaint old +station of the N. C. & St. L. railroad you pass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +rapidly into silence, down the gorge of the +splendid river, and then into the broken, ragged +hills. At Cowan a pig meets you on the platform, +with the amiable curiosity of the small-town +resident toward the arriving stranger. +Here you change to the little branch line which +runs north, up the side of the gorge, to the +coal mines. Up and up the train climbs, puffing +and straining, through a tall forest of hardwoods, +and eventually reaches an almost level +plateau. Once on this plateau, you lose all +sense of mountain country and if you had not +been aware of the steep climb to get here, you +would not believe that you were on the southern +nose of the Cumberland Range. Presently you +reach a station—and that is Sewanee.</p> + +<p>There are no academic squatters at Sewanee, +in their $100,000 cottages, as there are at +Princeton. It is too far removed from any +cities, in the midst of its timbered mountain +domain. There is a little hotel, much frequented +in summer, to be sure, but for the most +part the town is the university and its preparatory +academy, and the university is the town. +Here is the Gothic chapel, the ivy-clad scholastic +buildings, the tree-shaded campus walks, +the wandering groups of hatless boys, the encircling +street lined with professors' houses—all +the traditional flavor of a college, in a setting +of forest. For it is one of the unique charms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +of Sewanee that a walk of a mile in any direction +is a walk back into the ancient order, into +the wilderness of the southern mountaineer, +into the eighteenth century. A class that +studies Shaw's plays in the morning may even +catch the vocabulary of Shakespeare in the +afternoon, repeated unconsciously by the lips of +mountain children in the coves.</p> + +<p>The word <i>cove</i> is omnipresent here. Even the +mountain folk are called cove-ites. It needs but +a short walk to show you why. The lower +Cumberlands, on the southern border of Tennessee, +are unlike any other mountain region, +with a charm all their own, inherent in their +topography. Apparently an almost level stretch +of timbered country along the little railroad, in +reality this level is the plateau top of a great +rock wall, a kind of huge mesa extending north +and south. If you walk to the edge, you discover +that it suddenly falls away with startling +abruptness, sometimes in sheer descents of +several hundred feet till the top of the ancient +shale pile is reached (now covered deep with +soil) and then dropping away more gradually +with that lovely curve of débris. But nowhere +is this Palisade-like wall continuous, and here +is where the southern Cumberlands get their +unique flavor. The descending water from the +plateau top has eroded deep into the precipice +every mile or even every half mile, each brook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +in the course of ages eating far back into the +mountain mass, forming a V-shaped depression +called a cove, and between two coves thus +formed is a reverse Ʌ, called a point, always, +naturally, composed of the hardest rock, and +not infrequently ending in a literal point so +sharp that it is like a vast granite bowsprit +thrust out into the green plains far below, terminating +in a sheer precipice of several hundred +feet. Roughly, then, you may visualize this +section of the Cumberlands as a giant double-edged +saw, a thousand feet thick, laid down +across the State, each tooth a “point,” each V +between the teeth a “cove.” Standing far out +on one of these rock bowsprits, in the soft, hazy +air of the southern mountains, you look over the +far valley lands below, you look north and south +at the other thrusting bowsprits growing bluer +and more mysterious as they recede, you look +to left and right down into the timbered green +lushness of the coves, where invisible water +tinkles.</p> + +<p>But the simile of the saw is only a rough +one, after all, because erosion is never mathematical, +some coves have bitten back far deeper +than others, side coves have developed, and if +you follow down the mystery of some brown +brook, Little Fiery Gizzard Creek, let us say, +for love of the name, you may very soon precipitate +yourself into such a maze of coves, such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +a tangle of tough, tearing shrubbery (the term +“laurel hell” is the mountaineer as realist), that +you will regret, perhaps, the day you abandoned +what in this region is euphemistically called a +road. But you will hardly forget the view +from some inland point, where you look, not +out over the Tennessee plains, but over a +branching cañon of coves, cut like the Grand +Cañon out of an apparent plain, but, unlike +that epic of naked magnificence, timbered with +great, upstanding hardwoods from floor to rim, +a soft, silent, hazy green hole where the forest +floor has sunk a thousand feet, to rise again in +the smoky distance and melt into the blue. +There is no sign of human habitation, though +in those coves, where the forest mould is rich +to clear and cultivate and the springs are never +dry, the cove-ites dwell, stock of the highlanders +who are almost a race apart in the fastnesses of +our southern Appalachians. They have no roads, +only dim trails or footpaths. The protecting +forest hides their little clearings. Only a hawk +sails on silent wings over the leafy depths, and +perhaps the faintest thread of smoke winds up +and is lost in the haze of the air, a haze which +seems faintly tinged with the all-pervading green.</p> + +<p>But I wander as aimlessly as the enchanted +visitor to Sewanee, and am by way of forgetting +that it was Spring I set out to recapture with +my pen—as if one could recapture the vanished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +Aprils! It <i>was</i> April, to be sure, early April, +very cold in the Berkshires, with great, dirty +drifts of snow still lingering on the northern +sides of walls and hedges, and ice on the pools +of a morning. Down here on the Cumberland +plateau the trees were still bare, too, and the +mornings chill, though you could easily find a +blade of grass “big enough to blow,” and the +brown thrashers sang in the dooryards. But +there came a day when the sun rose misty and +hot, and I wandered out through the woods, by +a dim, sandy cart track, missing the solemn +evergreen note of our northern forests but happy +in the fragrance of life reviving under last year's +leaves—that peculiar odor of the woods in +Spring. The little brown brook at Thumping +Dick was softly vocal, and it, too, smelled of +leaves. After a time I reached a point which +jutted out directly over the tops of the trees +growing on the débris pile below. These trees +were as tall as masts, and as straight, though +they were hardwoods, and from my rocky perch +I looked through their upper tracery of budding +twigs, as through a veil of faint green and red, +out on the brown and green plains of Tennessee +shining in the sun, or left and right across the +canons of the coves to the stately procession of +receding headlands. Then I cast about for a +way down into one of the coves, and presently +came upon a footpath.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> + +<p>It led down the headwall by sharp switchbacks +till it reached the easier declivity below, +passed a gushing spring where a tin dipper hung +on a twig proclaiming unseen passers, and +presently picked up the bed of a tumbling +brook. It was when I reached this brook that +I was aware of Spring coming up the slope. I +could see ahead, and to either side, a considerable +distance through the open woods, and, lo! +the Judas trees were in flower, stray bursts of +purplish pink lighting up the forest floor like +bright-robed, wandering dryads. (The mountain +folk call this shrub the red-bud.) I loitered on +down the brook side, through moist leaf-mould +and rocks, while overhead the trees began to +cover me with their frail, new foliage, and +under foot the forest floor began to burgeon +with bloom. Great double bloodroots came +first—I stepped suddenly into a garden of them +and hastily stooping crushed some juice on my +fingers. Next the umbrella tops of the May +apple leaves began to push up. There was a +great dogwood tree in full bloom beside the +path. A hedge-like bank of azaleas were showing +bud. Then came the violets, yellow violets, +wood violets, but especially the birdfoot variety, +with their pink-tinged blue petals ubiquitous +amid the leaves. To me this violet is particularly +dear, for it was the flower which in my +childhood was culled to fill those bright-colored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +May baskets we hung upon our sweethearts' +doors at the festival of Spring, gathering them +in the village cemetery, where they grew in +great beauty and profusion, quite as Omar would +have expected. Now I gathered a handful +again, for memory's sake, and stuck them in +the band of my hat, before I resumed my journey +down the cove.</p> + +<p>The first intimation I had of coming habitation +was a pig, a lean, black, razor-back pig +which grunted at my intrusion beneath his oak +tree and went racing off at a great pace, almost +gracefully, I might say, for even a pig which +wanders on a mountainside develops something +of the agility of a wild creature. Not far beyond +I came quite suddenly upon such a picture as you +may see nowhere in the world but in our southern +highlands, in the Spring. Aware of my coming, +if I was not aware of their proximity, six tow-headed, +bare-footed, single-garmented children, +the eldest a girl not over ten, the youngest an infant +just able to stand, were ranged in solemn row, +like a flight of steps, upon the top of a large flat +stone at the edge of a little clearing, in perfect +silence watching me approach, the violets and +bloodroot blossoms they had been gathering +dangling in loose bunches from their hands. +Behind them, just across the brook which ran, +like a road, in front of the gate, stood a weathered-gray +cabin, of rough boards, with a central<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +doorway and windows without sashes. At one +end was an outside chimney of field-stone, laid, +it seemed, with clay. Surrounding this cabin +was a rough picket fence, again of untrimmed +boards, with a gate opening on the brook and +stepping stones across to the path. In the little +compound thus enclosed, and almost overtopping +the cabin, were half a dozen peach and plum +trees, veritable geyser jets of pink and white +bloom. Behind, in a small clearing, was the +stubble of last year's corn. Squalid and poor +and mean enough a dwelling, a shiftless clearing, +a dirty family of children—yes. But under +its geyser jets of blossom that little gray cabin +was the essence of the picturesque, with the +forest wall rising behind it, and behind that the +great headwall of the cove. It was weathered +and old and primitive and lovely; and the six +little shy ragamuffins on the stone, still staring +at me with the eyes of timid animals, were—well, +they were six little shy ragamuffins, and +that is nice enough!</p> + +<p>“Hello,” said I, “I see you've got the baby +out to gather wild flowers, too.”</p> + +<p>The eldest girl found speech, after an effort. +“That ain't the baby,” she said, with a show of +scorn for my ignorance. “The baby's in the +house with maw.”</p> + +<p>My respect for the capacity of that little +cabin was still further increased by this revelation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +I asked the eldest girl some questions +about the way, finding her directions for spotting +a trail in this forest maze remarkably lucid, +and went again on my wanderings, my last backward +glimpse of the mouse-gray cabin under its +pink and white geysers of blossom still showing +the six little tow-headed, barefooted youngsters +standing like six little patiences on a pedestal, +staring after me. But when I had disappeared +down the trail I heard from far off, mingling +with the murmur of the brook, the shrill sound +of childish glee, as they resumed their search for +wild flowers. Then it was that Spring smiled, +and gave my fingers a little squeeze!</p> + +<p>So I wandered on, with Spring for company, +all that blissful day, through forests of oak and +chestnut where the Judas trees danced, past dogwood +thickets and over beds of violets, into unexpected +little clearings where always the same +gray cabin of rough, weathered boards sat under +its geyser jets of pink and white, while shy, +pretty children peeped like startled rabbits from +the dim doorway and the pig ran off through +the woods (when he did not follow me), and +finally up the steep slope at the head of a cove +again, into the region of the earliest bloodroots, +and so to the final shin up the last precipitous +wall to the plateau above. As I reached the +summit and looked back, I saw the cove was +green, and the veil I had gazed through that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +morning was hazier now; Spring had climbed +with me back up the slope and even here on the +two-thousand foot rim the trees were bursting +into leaf. There was a carpet of brilliant red +stonecrop on the rock at my feet. As I came +once more to the brook in Thumping Dick I +saw a bloodroot on the bank, with the dead leaf +it had that day pushed up still clinging to it. +Yes—and here was a tiny bed of violets, in a +warm, sheltered glade, opening to the sun. I +gathered them all, and redecorated my hat. +Then I bathed my hot face in the brook and +lay listening to a thrasher for a while, as the +long shadows of afternoon crept like lean, ghostly +fingers through the forest and between me and +the sky I could see the lacework of the budding +twigs, with here and there a tree that actually +showed leaf. No one passed me on the trail. +The thrasher and I had the woods all to ourselves, +except, of course, for Spring, who sat +beside me singing <i>mezza voce</i>, to herself, a song +curiously like the ripple of a brook.</p> + +<p>At last I rose and followed the dim trail back +toward the college, entering the campus as the +evening lights were coming on in the dormitory +windows, and somewhere a group of boys were +singing, not lustily but with the plaintive +quality that sometimes steals into the voices of +the young and happy at the twilight hour. I +tossed my hat on a table, and saw my withered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +violets falling dejectedly over the band. But I +did not care. Back below Thumping Dick was +a cove full on the march, coming up the slope, +the blue battalions of the Spring. Outside, in +the smoky, warm dusk, a thrasher still sang. +Spring had left me, for she had far to go, but all +the way north I should see the signs where her +feet had trod, and when at last I reached once +more my northern mountain home, I should find +her waiting with a smile, perhaps with just a +trillium in her hand to offer me, before she sped +on again toward Labrador. But, I thought, I +could never know her quite so well again as I +had this day; she would not loiter with me quite +so familiarly, with her dear, friendly squeeze of +my fingers as the childish voices drifted with the +brook song down the cove. I had kept tryst +with Spring at Thumping Dick, for once the +favored of all her myriad lovers.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="The_Passing_of_the_Stage_Sundial" id="The_Passing_of_the_Stage_Sundial"></a>The Passing of the Stage Sundial</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big>t</span> has been many years since I have seen a sundial +on the stage. There was a time when the +stage could not get along without them; but +styles have changed. “Iram indeed has gone +with all his rose,” and Eddie Sothern, best beloved +of romantic actors in your generation and +mine, has written his theatrical memoires, which +is the player's method of saying farewell. <i>The +Melancholy Tale of Me</i>, he calls them, perhaps +because they are not in the least melancholy—a +good and sufficient reason. Yet Mr. Sothern +strangely neglects the subject of sundials in his +book, although they were his prop in how many +a play back in the golden Nineties!—the golden, +promise-laden, contradictory Nineties, that <i>fin-de-siècle</i> +decade when Max Nordau thundered +that we were going to the dogs of degeneracy, +and we youngsters knew that we were headed +not alone for a new heaven, but what is much +more important, a new earth.</p> + +<p>My school and college days fell entirely in +the Nineties, or almost entirely, for I finally +emerged with a sheepskin written in Latin I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +could no longer translate, in June, 1900. I saw +my first modern realistic play in 1893, when I +was a little junior middler at Phillips Andover. +It was <i>Shore Acres</i>, and I have not yet forgotten, +after a quarter of a century, the thrill of +that revelation. It was almost as if my grandfather's +kitchen had been put upon the stage, +and with Herne himself to play the leading rôle, +to blow on the frosty pane that he could peer +into the night, to bank the fires, tip the stove +lids, lock the door, and climb slowly up to bed +while the old kitchen, in semi-darkness, seemed +like a closing benediction before the downrush +of the final curtain, I caught the poetry of the +commonplace, I had my first unconscious lesson +in literary and dramatic fidelity. And I ended +my college days, a much more sophisticated +person, championing Pinero and Jones, rushing +eagerly to special performances of Ibsen, and +ardently admiring the plays of G. B. Shaw, two +of which, <i>Arms and the Man</i> and <i>The Devil's +Disciple</i>, had been acted in America by Richard +Mansfield before the end of the century.</p> + +<p>Considering these plays now, and their effect +upon me—and not forgetting, either, the passionate +admiration, almost the worship, we +young men of twenty had in those days for the +acting of Mrs. Fiske—it would be easy to infer +that the whole period of the Nineties for us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +youngsters was a period of revolt and forward-urging, +that we were crusaders for what Henry +Arthur Jones called “the great realities of +modern life” in art. Crusaders we were, to be +sure. I well remember long debates with my +father, a man of old-fashioned tastes in poetry, +and a particular fondness for Burns, over the +merits of Kipling's poems. (Think of considering +Kipling's poems revolutionary! Indeed, +think of considering some of them poems!). +We debated from still more divergent viewpoints +over the novels of d'Annunzio. In college, +in my last year or two, some of us even +adopted the views of Tolstoy in his <i>What is +Art?</i> and under the urge of this new sociological +passion we took volunteer classes in night +schools. I remember instructing a group of +Jewish youths in the principles of oral debate, +or, rather, debating the principles of debating +with them, for being unblessed with an expensive +preparatory school and college education, +and being Jews into the bargain, they did not +propose to take anything on faith. I used to +return to my room in the college Yard wondering +just why it was that these working lads, +mere “foreigners”, of a race infinitely inferior, +of course, to the Anglo-Saxon, and without the +precious boon of a Harvard training, had so +much more real intellectual curiosity and mental +grasp than any of us “superior” youths.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +These classes interfered seriously with my academic +work, yet it seems to me now that they +were infinitely more profitable.</p> + +<p>However, it was a curious paradox of the +Nineties that while we were discovering Pinero, +Ibsen, Shaw, Tolstoy, we were also reading <i>The +Prisoner of Zenda</i> and yielding ourselves with +luxurious abandon into the arms of honey-sweet +romance. At the very time when the new, +realistic drama was leading us out of a pasteboard +world into something approximating an +intelligent comment on life, the cloak-and-sword +drama was having a fine little reactionary +renaissance, the calcium moon was shining down +on many a gleaming garden and flashing blade, +and ears were rapturously strained to catch the +murmur of love-laden words. Then it was that +the stage sundial flourished in all its glory, +generally flooded, to be sure, with moonlight—that +peculiar moonlight of the American +theatre which turns grease-paint to a horrible +magenta—and we youths, with the divine flexibility +of imagination only youth can know, +responded alike to <i>Hedda Gabler</i> and <i>An Enemy +to the King</i>.</p> + +<p>Do you remember the sundial, exactly at +stage centre, in the latter play? In what dulcet +tones, love-laden, the future Hamlet and Macbeth +murmured to his lady fair! Even the +sword duel in the last act, all over the chamber,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +across the great bed ripping down the curtains, +back and forth with flash of steel and rattle of +blade, was not so thrilling as that moonlit scene +across the dial plate. My constant companion +in those days was a boy who to-day preaches +each week from a famous pulpit, with gravity +and eloquence. He is a man of substantial parts, +on whom life's bitter realities press very hard as +he battles to relieve them. Does he now recall, +I wonder, how for weeks after we had hung +from the gallery rail at <i>An Enemy to the King</i> +he even said “Thank you,” when somebody +passed him a piece of bread, in the deep, long-drawn +tones of Sothern's romantic passion? He +was a handsome youth, and I know not what +mischief he wrought that winter in gentle +bosoms, with his vocabulary enlarged and romanticized, +his tones colored with emotion, as +he sought secluded corners at our dances and +practised his new art. Our Tolstoian moods +were not for dances, you may be sure! We +lived in a dual universe. In one world were +sundials and moonlight and the thrill of a +woman's eyes; there was slow music and the +ache of unfilled desire ever about to be gratified +by some hoped-for miracle. In the other world +were only facts, hard facts, and the scorn of +considering them emotionally, of considering +them in any way but with the intellect. I fear +in those days our moods did not connect intellect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +and the fair sex. Perhaps youth never does. +And perhaps youth is right, not in thus passing +judgment on women, for that is not what is +done, but in refusing to surrender any portion +of the divine romantic mystery of sex at two-and-twenty +to the cold light of reason. When +Shaw and Ibsen wrote, they wrote of daily life, +and we were learning to accept their contention +that it should be written about truthfully. But +there was no lie in these other plays, these sundial +romances, for they were not daily life, they +were ages long ago and far away, they belonged +to the Never-Never-Land of romantic fable—of +dreams and the heart's desire. There is no such +thing as a complete realist at twenty. Or, if there +is, he should be interned as an enemy alien.</p> + +<p>A generation has passed since the Nineties, +and there are no stage sundials any more. Perhaps +that is but another way of saying that I +am middle-aged, but, upon my word, I do not +think so. Do you remember the sundial over +which Dolly and Mr. Carter philandered, the +one which bore the motto—</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Horas non numero nisi serenas?</b><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent">I reread that dialogue the other day, and captured +some of the ancient thrill. No, the real +trouble is that a generation of realism, or what +has passed for realism on our American stage, +has done its deadly work. It has killed romance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +That is not at all what realism was intended to +do. Indeed, to the larger view, romance is a +part of the reality of life. Realism was a reaction +against sham and falsity and sentimentalism, +and, above all, perhaps, triviality of theme. +But the net result, so far as the American drama +is concerned, seems to have been the substitution +of a realistic setting and dialogue for a false one, +and then a continuance of the old sham, sentimentalism, +triviality. How else can we account +for the success of Mr. Belasco? But the taste +engendered by the realistic settings and dialogue +has banished the cloak and sword and sundial, +stripped romance of its charm and allure; and +once stripped of these, it ceases to be romance, +for it ceases to reach the heart through the sense +of beauty and of mystery. We have succeeded +in substituting a chocolate caramel for the apples +of Hesperides.</p> + +<p>Yet it cannot be that this condition will be +permanent. Comes a little play like <i>The Gypsy +Trail</i>, wherein even through the realistic setting +a strain of romance strikes, and all hearts respond. +Youth will not be denied, but, like +Sentimental Tommy, will “find a way.” It +may be that the old dualism of the Nineties +was the sane solution, as so many of the modern +“art theatre” directors maintain, at least by their +practice, and the realistic drama should stick +relentlessly to its last, while romance flourishes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +untroubled by any fetters, in free, fantastic, perhaps +poetic, form. I do not know. I only +know that the sundial must come back to the +stage, not, it may be, as the garden ornament +of old, but in some guise to further the dreams +and dear delusions of our beauty-hungry hearts. +For, as you may have guessed, the sundial is a +symbol.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 79px;"> +<img style="padding-top: 0em" src="images/ornament3.jpg" width="79" height="150" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="On_Singing_Songs_with_One_Finger" id="On_Singing_Songs_with_One_Finger"></a>On Singing Songs with One Finger</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>J</big>ames</span> Huneker has pointed out that lovers of +the drama, who are sound judges as well, too +frequently have so little taste in music that they +tolerate or even approve the most atrocious +noises emitted in the name of musical comedy; +while lovers and sound judges of music are quite +as often woefully remiss in their knowledge of +stagecraft, accepting scenery and stage management +in their opera which would put men less +skilled in the creation of theatric illusion than +David Belasco to the blush.</p> + +<p>How true it is that unto him who hath shall +be denied, and unto him who hath not shall be +given what the other man could use to such advantage! +The composer who can both pucker +the lips of the gallery-gods and satisfy the ears of +the musical critics, how infrequent a visitor on +this planet! so that Offenbach and Sullivan must +often have suffered from loneliness. The singer +who can also act, how rare a song-bird! The +interpreter of the <i>lieder</i> of Franz or Schubert or +Grieg who will sacrifice vocal display to the +composer's meaning, and who has the fineness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +of soul to grasp and make manifest the mood of +the lyric, how welcome a guest! And yet those +who could write undying comic music if only +they were composers, who could lift the hearts +of their hearers into the skies with “Hark, hark, +the lark,” if only they could sing, are legion in +number. How often, in short, like those two +in Lord Houghton's poem, are temperament +and technique—“strangers yet.”</p> + +<p>So are they in me, alas! total strangers. From +my earliest years I have been filled with the joyous +impulse of song, but never were ears more +false to the one true pitch than mine, never was +voice less commensurate with ambition. My +youthful dreams, when they were not of foot-ball +or swimming, were all of the Sirens, and I +deemed Ulysses, if prudent, none the less a lack-sentiment +sort of hero, not inspiring to know, +because he stopped his ears to their song. The +jeers of my fellows long ago taught me the bitter +lesson to keep my melody to myself, but the impulse +is still in me to sing, the myriad moods of +music are still mine, and I still consider Ulysses +the first of the Philistines.</p> + +<p>For some time I thought my own case unique, +but acquaintance with a music critic who cannot +hum a tune, and with a celestial tenor (such +tenors are so rare I fear this may be too personal +for print) who was the most stupid of men, +without the slightest capacity for high passion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +of any sort, convinced me of my error: and +many subsequent conversations with men and +women like myself incapacitated by nature for +self-expression, as well as much listening to bad +singers with good voices, have but forced conviction +home. And now, when unfeeling relatives +and scoffing friends smile the superior smile +of the “musically talented” at sight of my piano +which I play with one finger, and at the pile of +music upon it, I let them smile, calm in the assurance +that songs and instrument are mine by +better right, perhaps, than theirs, who can raise +voices quite on pitch to the accompaniment of +eight fingers and two thumbs.</p> + +<p>For, when none of them is by, I play with +my one finger the airs of the world's great <i>lieder</i>, +and hear from that slight suggestion the songs +as they should be sung. As I would rather read +<i>Hamlet</i> in my library than see the average actor +attempt the part, so I would rather play <i>Der Atlas</i> +with one finger, with my own imagination calling +forth the tragic power and grief, the superb +climax of surprise and thunder, than hear it sung +by any man at present on the concert stage. +The poignant sadness cross-shot with humor of +another of Schubert's songs, <i>The Hurdy Gurdy</i>, +vanishes in the concert room, melts hopelessly +into the dulcet tones of the young lady soprano, +whose friends titter when she is done, “What a +pretty song.” But my one-fingered rendering—aided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +in this song by occasional jabs with three +fingers of the left hand—brings to my inward +ear the pathos of the barrel-organ, heard over +the distant hum of a careless city, laden with +the sorrow of all the world; brings memories, +too, of that consummate singer of songs, Marcella +Sembrich. Under the touch of my blunt +forefinger the songs of MacDowell distill their +delicate melancholy, that in the homes of my +friends, where daughters ripple well-dusted piano +keys and display expensive voices, yield only +treacle and honey. Why should I mind the +supercilious smile of my neighbor next door +when he occasionally catches me at my unidigital +performance, he who is a soloist in a noted +church choir, but who, I very well know, prefers +<i>The Palms</i> or <i>Over There</i> to Purcell's <i>I'll +sail upon the Dog Star</i>, if, indeed, he ever heard +the madly melodious boast of the “roaring boy”?</p> + +<p>After all, there is nothing wonderful in this. +It but shows that the genius which creates and +the imagination which appreciates are akin, even +as Professor Spingarn has asserted. Even operas +and symphonies were composed at a piano. +Strauss heard the one hundred and five instruments +which are called on to represent the cry +of the baby in his <i>Symphonia Domestica</i> all tooting +and scraping in the notes his ten fingers +evoked from his piano keys. (Personally I +should rather have heard them so!) And why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +cannot I hear at least a simple little song in the +melody that my one finger plays? The numerical +ratio is in my favor, surely, although my +neighbor would doubtless rudely suggest that I +am not Richard Strauss. At any rate, for me +there is a great joy in singing songs as they +ought to be sung, if only with one finger, which +has done much to console me for the technical +powers nature has so plentifully denied me. I +offer the same solution to all others who are in +my case, only suggesting that it would be wise +of them, perhaps, to learn while they are yet +plastic the use of all ten fingers. They will not +thereby secure ten times as much enjoyment, +but their families will thank them.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="The_Immorality_of_Shop-windows" id="The_Immorality_of_Shop-windows"></a>The Immorality of Shop-windows</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>A</big>t</span> the heart of morality lies content. That is +a statement either optimistic or cynical, as you +choose to look at it; but it is a statement of fact. +Even the reformer seeks to allay his discontent, +which does not arise from the morality in him, +but from the immorality in other people. Anybody +who has lived with a reformer knows this. +Therefore are modern shop-windows—by steel +construction made to occupy the maximum +amount of space, to assault by breadth and brilliance +the most callous eye—one of the most +immoral forces in modern city life.</p> + +<p>This is especially true of the shop-windows on +Fifth Avenue, New York. For these windows, +even at night illuminated like silent drawing-rooms +vacant of people, expose to the view of +the most humble passer on the curb as well as +to the pampered rich racing by in motors, the +spoils of all the world. Here are paintings by +the old masters and the new; rare furniture and +marbles from Italian palaces; screens from Japan; +jewels and rugs from the Orient; silk stockings, +curios, china, bronzes, hats, furs; and again more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +curios, cabinets, statues, paintings; things rare +and beautiful and exotic from every quarter of +the globe, “from silken Samarcand to cedared +Lebanon.” And they are not collections, they +are not the treasures of some proud house, although +they might have been once; they are +for sale; they may be bought by anybody—who +has the price.</p> + +<p>But who has the price? That stout woman +riding by in her limousine, with a Pomeranian +on her lap instead of a baby? That fifteen-dollar-a-week +chorus-girl in a cab, half buried +under a two-thousand-dollar chinchilla coat? +That elderly man who hobbles goutily out of +his club and walks a few short blocks to his +house on Murray Hill, “for exercise”? Assuredly, +somebody has the price, for the shops are +ever open, the allurement of their windows +never less. But not you, who gaze hungry-eyed +at these beautiful objects, and then go to a Sixth +Avenue department store and wonder if you can +afford that Persian rug made in Harlem, marked +down from $50 to $48.87; or that colonial mahogany +bookcase glistening with brand new +varnish. Envy gnaws at your heart. And yet +you had supposed that yours was a comfortable +sort of income—maybe four thousand dollars a +year. Your father, on that income, back in a +New England suburb, was counted quite a man +in the community, and you put on airs. He selected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +the new minister, and you set the style +in socks. But now you are humiliated, embittered. +You rave against predatory wealth. Thus +shop-windows do make Socialists of us all.</p> + +<p>Nor are you able to accept the shop-windows +educationally, recalling that when you went to +Europe you saw nothing that had not already +stared at you through plate-glass on Fifth Avenue—for +sale. Who wants to view one of the +chairs that a Medici sat in, only to recall that +months before he saw its mate in a shop-window +at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-first +Street; or to contemplate a pious yellow heathen +bowed down before the image of Buddha, while +the tinkly temple bells are tinkling, only to +have rise in his mind the memory of a much +larger and more venerable Buddha which used +to smile out inscrutably at the crossing of +Twenty-ninth Street, below a much sweeter +string of tinkly temple bells?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We've a bigger, better Buddha in a cleaner (!), greener (!!) land,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Many miles from Mandalay.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">There is no romance in an antique, be it god or +chair or China plate, when it is exposed for sale +in a shop-window. And there is no romance in +it amid its native surroundings when you realize +that any day it may be carried <i>off</i> and so exposed. +Thus do shop-windows destroy romance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<p>But in the humbler windows off the Avenue +there is an equal, if grosser, element of immorality. +For these are the windows where price-tags +are displayed. The tag has always two prices, the +higher marked through with red ink, the lower, +for this very reason, calling with a siren voice. +The price crossed off is always just beyond your +means, the other just within it. “Ah,” you think, +swallowing the deception with only too great +willingness, “what a bargain! It may never come +again!” And you enter the fatal door.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you struggle first. “Don't buy it,” +says the inhibition of prudence. “You have +more neckties now than you can wear.”</p> + +<p>“But it's so cheap,” says impulse, with the +usual sophistry.</p> + +<p>And you, poor victim that you are, tugged on +and back by warring factions in your brain,—poor +refutation of the silly old theological superstitions +that there is such a thing as free will,—vacillate +on the sidewalk till the battle is over, +till your mythical free will is down in the dust. +Thus do shop-windows overthrow theology.</p> + +<p>Then you enter that shop, and ask for the +tie. Or perhaps it is something else, and they +haven't your size. You ought to feel glad, relieved. +Do you? You do not! You are angry. +You feel as if you had lost just so much money, +when in reality you have saved it. Thus do +shop-windows destroy logic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> + +<p>This has been a particularly perilous season +for the man with a passion for shirts. By some +diabolic agreement, all the haberdashers at one +and the same time filled their windows with +luscious lavenders and faint green stripes and soft +silk shirts with comfortable French cuffs, and +marking out $2.00 or $3.00, as the case might +be, wrote $1.50 or $2.50 below. The song of +the shirt was loud in the land, its haunting +melody not to be resisted. Is there any lure for +a woman in all the fluffy mystery of a January +“white sale” comparable to the seduction for a +man of a lavender shirt marked down from +$2.00 to $1.50? I doubt it. Heaven help the +woman if there is! So the unused stock in +trunk or bureau drawer accumulates, and the +weekly reward for patient toil at an office dribbles +away, and the savings-bank is no richer for +your deposit—and the shop-windows flare as +shamelessly as ever. There is only one satisfaction. +The man who sells shirts always has a passion for +jewelry. And that keeps him poor, too!</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="A_Forgotten_American_Poet" id="A_Forgotten_American_Poet"></a>A Forgotten American Poet</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big> have</span> written the title, “A forgotten American +poet,” and I shall let it stand, though I am +not sure that he was ever well enough known +to be spoken of now as forgotten. Ten or a +dozen years ago a friend of mine who was +working on an anthology of American poetry, +at the John Carter Brown library in Providence, +wrote to me with great enthusiasm of a poet he +had “discovered,” and of whom he had never +heard before. “His name is Frederick Goddard +Tuckerman,” my friend said, “and you will not +find him in Stedman's anthology, though it +seems incredible that Stedman left out anybody +or anything. Get a copy of his poems if you +can—Ticknor and Fields, 1860.”</p> + +<p>I sent in my order for the book, to Goodspeed's, +and then forgot the incident. But Goodspeed +didn't. A year later the book came. Evidently +it is an infrequent item at the auctions. +The copy I received was a second edition, dated +1864 (which seems to indicate the poems had +found some readers), but still in the familiar +brown of Ticknor and Fields, matching my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +first American editions of <i>The Angel in the +House</i>. This copy was of special interest because +it was a presentation copy from the author +to Harriet Beecher Stowe. The leaves had been +opened, but if Mrs. Stowe read, she had made +no marginal comments. The only addition to +the book was an old newspaper clipping pasted +in the back—a condensed history of the Beecher +family! I read the volume myself with increasing +interest and enthusiasm, and at the close I +desired to learn more of Frederick Goddard +Tuckerman, not of the Beechers. Mr. Stedman's +complete omission of these poems could +only have been explained, I felt, by an equally +complete ignorance of their existence. Compared +to the poems of Henry T. Tuckerman, +included by Stedman, the verses of his unknown +cousin were as gold to copper. Why, I wondered, +had this man been so completely obliterated +by Time, or why had he failed in his +life to reach a niche where Time could not +utterly efface him?</p> + +<p>I wrote to Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, +who, I discovered, had been a classmate +of Tuckerman's at Harvard, and who of course +knew practically everybody of consequence in +the literary world of his generation. Colonel +Higginson was able to supply some data, but +not much. Tuckerman was born in 1821, of a +rather well-known Boston family. Joseph Tuckerman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +philanthropist and early Unitarian clergyman, +was his uncle. He was a younger brother +of Edward Tuckerman, long famous as a professor +of botany at Amherst College, and who +gave his name to Tuckerman's Ravine on Mount +Washington. Frederick Goddard Tuckerman +entered Harvard with the class of 1841, but +remained only a year, passing over to the Law +School a little later where he secured his <small>LL.B.</small> +in 1842, and for a period evidently practised +law in Boston. “I remember he came back +among us at some kind of gathering during our +college course,” Colonel Higginson wrote, “and +seemed very friendly and cordial to all. I remember +him as a refined and gentlemanly fellow, +but did not then know him as a poet. I see +him put down as a lawyer in Boston (in Adams's +<i>Dictionary of American Authors</i>), but I have no +recollection of that fact.”</p> + +<p>It was not until I had written and published +in the <i>Forum</i> magazine a little appreciation of +his poetry that I learned from his son, now a +resident of Amherst, Massachusetts, that Frederick +Tuckerman, even as his verses seemed to +imply, early moved away from cities to the +beautiful valley under the shadow of the Holyoke +Range, and there passed his days, evidently +the world forgetting, and by the world forgot. +He issued his single volume of poems in 1860, +when he was thirty-nine, just before the outbreak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +of the Civil War, but no shadow of that +coming contest crosses their pages, as it crossed +the pages of Whittier and Emerson, or as it +affected the active life of his classmate Colonel +Higginson. The second edition, in 1864, was +still unaffected by the great struggle. He produced +his slender sheaf of poems amid the fields, +in quiet introspection, and he might well be +accused of a species of Pharisaism, were these +poems not so artlessly and passionately sincere, +and often so tinged with religious awe. His +withdrawal, in his verse, from the life of his +times was the act of a natural recluse.</p> + +<p>At the time Tuckerman's poems were issued, +it is interesting to consider briefly some of the +poetic influences which affected the public. +The two best-selling poets just then, even in +America, were Tennyson and Coventry Patmore, +the latter represented, of course, by <i>The +Angel in the House</i>. Indeed, the poems of these +two sold better than novels! Whitman was +hardly yet an influence. Julia Ward Howe had +written, and Booth had accepted, a drama in +blank verse. Our minor poets still wrote in the +style of Pope, and the narrative shared honors +with the moral platitude in popular regard. +Tennyson, of course, was a great poet, and +Patmore no mean one, even at that time, but +it is questionable whether the huge popular success +of their works, such as <i>The Princess</i> and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +<i>The Angel in the House</i>, was due to their +strictly poetic merits. At any rate, the poetry +of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, lacking narrative +interest, palatable platitudes, lyric lilt, but +being, rather, contemplative, aloof, delicately +minor and in many ways curiously modern, +must have fallen on ears not attuned to it. He +had none of the Bolshevik revolutionary vitality +of Whitman, to thrive and grow by the opposition +he created. He could have aroused no opposition. +It would have been his happy fate to +find men and women who could appreciate his +delicate observation of nature, his golden bursts +of imaginative vigor, his wistful, contemplative +melancholy, his disregard of academic form less +because it hampered him than because he was +careless of anything but the exact image. Such +readers it was apparently not his fate to find in +sufficient numbers to bring him fame. He was, +in a sense, a modern before his time, but without +sufficient consciousness of his modernity to +fight. He was a mute, inglorious Robert Frost—like +Frost for one year a Harvard student, like him +retiring to the New England countryside, like +him intent chiefly on rendering the commonplace +beauty of that countryside into something +magical because so true. Only he lacked Frost's +dramatic sense, and interest in human problems.</p> + +<p>Tuckerman's favorite medium was the sonnet; +but a sonnet to him was a thing of fourteen five-foot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +iambic lines, and there all rules ended. +Sometimes he even crowded six feet into a line. +It is possible his laxness of form was due to ignorance, +but more likely that it was due to a greater +interest in his mood than in the “rules” of poetry. +Many of his sonnets were in sequence, one flowing +into the next. Here are two, thus unified, +which show in flashes his sweep of imaginative +phrase, and his transcendental bent:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The starry flower, the flower-like stars that fade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And brighten with the daylight and the dark—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bluet in the green I faintly mark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The glimmering crags with laurel overlaid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even to the Lord of light, the Lamp of shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shine one to me—the least, still glorious made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As crowned moon or heaven's great hierarch.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so, dim grassy flower and night-lit spark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still move me on and upward for the True;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeking through change, growth, death, in new and old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The full in few, the statelier in the less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With patient pain; always remembering this—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His hand, who touched the sod with showers of gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stippled Orion on the midnight blue.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so, as this great sphere (now turning slow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up to the light from that abyss of stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now wheeling into gloom through sunset bars)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all its elements of form and flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And life in life, where crown'd yet blind must go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sensible king—is but a Unity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compressed of motes impossible to know;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which worldlike yet in deep analogy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have distance, march, dimension and degree;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">So the round earth—which we the world do call—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is but a grain in that which mightiest swells,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereof the stars of light are particles,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As ultimate atoms of one infinite Ball<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On which God moves, and treads beneath His feet the All!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Turning the page we come on a poem called +<i>The Question</i>. “How shall I array my love?” +he asks, and ranges the earth for costly jewels +and silks from Samarcand; but because his love +is a simple New England maid, he rejects them +all as unworthy and inappropriate, and closing +sings:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The river-riches of the sphere,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All that the dark sea-bottoms bear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wide earth's green convexity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The inexhaustible blue sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hold not a prize so proud, so high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That it could grace her, gay or grand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By garden-gale and rose-breath fanned;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or as to-night I saw her stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lovely in the meadow land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a clover in her hand.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Have not these lines a magic simplicity? It seems +so to me. They flow rippling and bright to the +inevitable finish, and there is no more to say.</p> + +<p>Tuckerman's power of close yet magical observation, +used not so much in the Tennysonian +way (for Tennyson was a close observer, make +no mistake about that) as in what we now think +of as the modern way, that is, as a part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +realistic record of homely events, with beauty +only as a by-product, is well illustrated in the +opening lines of a narrative poem called <i>The +School Girl, a New England Idyll</i>. Here again +a kinship with Frost is seen, rather than with +Tuckerman's contemporaries:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The wind, that all the day had scarcely clashed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cornstalks in the sun, as the sun sank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came rolling up the valley like a wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broke in the beech and washed among the pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ebbed to silence; but at the welcome sound—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaving my lazy book without a mark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In hopes to lose among the blowing fern<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dregs of headache brought from yesternight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stepping lightly lest the children hear—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I from a side door slipped, and crossed a lane<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bitter Mayweed lined, and over a field<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snapping with grasshoppers, until I came<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down where an interrupted brook held way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the alders. There, on a strutting branch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leaving my straw, I sat and wooed the west,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With breast and palms outspread as to a fire.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These powers of observation are again illustrated +in a poem of quite different import, called +<i>Margites</i>, a lyric of thirteen stanzas, some of +which are inexcusably crude. It begins:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I neither plow the field nor sow,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nor hold the spade nor drive the cart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor spread the heap, nor hill nor hoe,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To keep the barren land in heart.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></div></div> + +<p class="noindent">After four more stanzas in similar vein, comes +this bit of magic word-painting, so instinct with +our New England Autumn, yet so entirely the +work of a realist, with his eye on the object:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But, leaning from my window, chief<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I mark the Autumn's mellow signs—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The frosty air, the yellow leaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The ladder leaning on the vines.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The maple from his brood of boughs<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Puts northward out a reddening limb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mist draws faintly round the house;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And all the headland heights are dim.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The poem then continues to its close:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And yet it is the same as when<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I looked across the chestnut woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And saw the barren landscape then<br /></span> +<span class="i1">O'er the red bunch of lilac buds;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all things seem the same. 'Tis one<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To lie in sleep, or toil as they<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who rise beforetime with the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And so keep footstep with their day;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For aimless oaf and wiser fool<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Work to one end by differing deeds;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The weeds rot in the standing pool;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The water stagnates in the weeds;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And all by waste or warfare falls,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Has gone to wreck, or crumbling goes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since Nero planned his golden walls,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or the Cham Cublai built his house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But naught I reck of change and fray;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Watching the clouds at morning driven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The still declension of the day;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And, when the moon is just in heaven,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I walk, unknowing where or why;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or idly lie beneath the pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bite the dry brown threads, and lie<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And think a life well lost is mine.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“A life well lost”! The phrase is perhaps +pathetically revealing—and prophetic. Or are +we stretching the poet's ambitions to be known +as a poet? That he published what he wrote +indicates a normal desire for recognition, yet it +can hardly be doubted, either, that he was an +amateur in verse, whose life was rather centred +in his contemplative, retiring existence among +the fields and hills of Amherst. There may +even seem to some a delicate Pharisaism about +this sonnet, a Pharisaism removed from the robustness +of Thoreau, who would certainly have +argued the point with the farmer:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“That boy,” the farmer said, with hazel wand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pointing him out, half by the haycock hid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Though bare sixteen can work at what he's bid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From sun till set, to cradle, reap or band.”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard the words, but scarce could understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether they claimed a smile or gave me pain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or was it aught to me, in that green lane,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That all day yesterday, the briers amid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He held the plough against the jarring land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Steady, or kept his place among the mowers;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whilst other fingers, sweeping for the flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brought from the forest back a crimson stain?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was it a thorn that touched the flesh? or did<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The poke-berry spit purple on my hand?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet, as we have said, Tuckerman was far from +Pharisaism of any sort, either of the æsthete or +nature-lover. His mind was too genuinely occupied +with spiritual problems. Take, for example, +this closing sonnet in a sequence depicting +the discords of Nature:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not the round natural word, not the deep mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The reconcilement holds: the blue abyss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Collects it not; our arrows sink amiss;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And but in Him may we our import find.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The agony to know, the grief, the bliss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of toil, is vain and vain! clots of the sod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gathered in heat and haste, and flung behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To blind ourselves and others—what but this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still grasping dust and sowing toward the wind?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But leaving straining thought and stammering word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across the barren azure pass to God;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shooting the void in silence, like a bird—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A bird that shuts his wings for better speed!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Here, surely, is poetry that would not seem the +least among the myriad hosts in Mr. Stedman's +hospitable anthology! The rhyme scheme may +be quite unorthodox, but the poet's lips have +been touched by a coal from the high altar, +none the less.</p> + +<p>The volume closes with a sonnet sequence +which is poignantly intimate; almost it is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +diary of the poet's grief for the loss of the +woman he loved, and in its stabbing intensity +holds a hint of such poems as Patmore's <i>The +Azalea</i>. Here is one:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Again, again, ye part in stormy grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From these bare hills and bowers so built in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lips and hearts that will not move again—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pathetic Autumn and the writhled leaf;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dropping away in tears with warning brief:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wind reiterates a wailful strain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on the skylight beats the restless rain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And vapour drowns the mountain, base and brow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I watch the wet black roofs through mist defined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I watch the raindrops strung along the blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my heart bleeds, and all my senses bow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In grief; as one mild face, with suffering lined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes up in thought: oh, wildly, rain and wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mourn on! she sleeps, nor heeds your angry sorrow now.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such use of pictorial observation as “the raindrops +strung along the blind,” and “the wet +black roofs through mist defined,” is something +you will look for in vain through the pages of +Longfellow, for instance. This is the sonnet of +a realist. So, also, is this one, which does not +seem to me to deserve oblivion, and certainly so +long as my memory retains its power will have +that little span of immortality:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My Anna! when for thee my head was bowed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The circle of the world, sky, mountain, main,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drew inward to one spot; and now again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wide Nature narrows to the shell and shroud.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the late dawn they will not be forgot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And evenings early dark; when the low rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Begins at nightfall, though no tempest rave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know the rain is falling on her grave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The morning views it, and the sunset cloud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Points with a finger to that lonely spot;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crops, that up the valley rolling go,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever toward her slumber bow and blow!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I look on the sweeping corn and the surging rye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with every gust of wind my heart goes by!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It must not be supposed that the predominant +note in Tuckerman's poetry is elegiac; rather is +it a note of tender, wistful, and scrupulously +accurate contemplation of the New England +countryside, mingled with spiritual speculation. +But as the volume closed with the elegiac +poems, and as thereafter no more poems were +published, it may be surmised that the poet's +will to create was smothered in the poignant +ripple of his personal sorrow. Had it not been, +and had his pen continued to write, one cannot +help wondering how much closer he would +have come to the modern note in poetry. That +he already felt a tendency to progress from the +old metres to freer forms is constantly apparent; +and this tendency, combined with his unconsciously +scrupulous realism, might well have +brought him near to the present. I should like +to close this little paper to his memory with +one of his lyrics which throws over rhyme altogether,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +and strictly formal metre, also, though +the fetters are still there. It is the stab of grief +which comes through to haunt you, the bare +simplicity and the woe. Objective it certainly +is not, as the modernists maintain they are. Yet +the personal note will always be modern, for it +has no age. This lyric belongs to you and me to-day, +not in the pages of a forgotten book, on the +shelves of a dusty library. I would that some +of our <i>vers libre</i> practitioners could equal it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I took from its glass a flower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lay on her grave with dull, accusing tears;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the heart of the flower fell out as I handled the rose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my heart is shattered and soon will wither away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I watch the changing shadows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the patch of windy sunshine upon the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the long blue woods; and a grief no tongue can tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breaks at my eyes in drops of bitter rain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I hear her baby wagon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the little wheels go over my heart:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh! when will the light of the darkened house return?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh! when will she come who made the hills so fair?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">I sit by the parlor window,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When twilight deepens and winds grow cold without;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the blessed feet no more come up the walk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my little girl and I cry softly together.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="New_Poetry_and_the_Lingering_Line" id="New_Poetry_and_the_Lingering_Line"></a>New Poetry and the Lingering Line</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big> have</span> one grave objection to the “new poetry”—I +cannot remember it. Some, to be sure, would +say that is no objection at all, but I am not of +the number. It would hardly become me, in +fact, since I have, in a minor pipe, committed +“new poetry” myself on various and sundry occasions, +or what I presume it to be, particularly +when I didn't have time to write in rhyme or +even metre. The new poets may object all they +like, but it <i>is</i> easier to put your thought (when +you happen to have one) into rhythm than into +rhyme and metre. If, indeed, as the <i>vers libre</i> +practitioners insist, each idea comes clothed in +its own inevitable rhythm, there can be very +little trouble about the matter. The poem +composes itself, and your chief task will be with +the printer! I don't say the rhythmic irregularity +is not, perhaps, more suitable for certain effects, +or at any rate that it cannot achieve effects +of its own; I certainly don't say that it isn't +poetry because it does not trip to formal measure. +Poetry resides in deeper matters than this. +I recall Ibsen's remark when told that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +reviewers declared <i>Peer Gynt</i> wasn't poetry. +“Very well,” said he, “it will be.” Since it +now indubitably is, one is cautious about questioning +the work of the present, such work as +Miss Lowell's, for instance. Of course the mere +chopping up of unrhythmic prose into capitalized +lines without glow, without emotion, is +not poetry, any more than the blank verse of +the second-rate nineteenth-century “poetic +drama,” which old Joe Crowell, comedian, described +as “good, honest prose set up hind-side +foremost.” We may eliminate that from the +discussion once and for all. But the genuine +new poets, who know what they are about, and +doubtless why they are about it, I regard with +all deference, hailing especially their good fight +to free poetry of its ancient inversions, its mincing +vocabulary, its thous and thees, its bosky +dells and purling streams, its affectations and unrealities, +both of speech and subject. But I do +say they miss a certain triumphant craftsman's +joy at packing precisely what you mean, hard +enough to express in unlimited prose, into a +fettered, singing line; and I do say that I can't +remember what they write.</p> + +<p>At least, nobody can dispute this latter statement. +He may declare it the fault of my memory, +which has been habituated to retain only +such lines as have rhyme and metre to help it +out. But I hardly think his retort adequate,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +because, in the first place, the memory is much +less amenable to training and much more a +matter of fixed capacity and action than certain +advertisements in the popular magazines would +have the “twenty-dollar-a-week man” believe, +and in the second place, because my case, I find, +is the case of almost everybody with whom I +have talked on the subject. The solution, I believe, +is perfectly simple. Nearly anyone can +remember a tune; even I can, within limits. +At least, I can do better than Tennyson, who +could recognize, he said, two tunes; one was +“God Save the Queen” and the other wasn't. +But when music is broken into independent +rhythms, irregular and oddly related phrases, it is +only the person exceptionally endowed who can +remember it without prolonged study. The very +first audience who heard <i>Rigoletto</i> came away +humming “Donna e mobile.” And the very last +audience who heard <i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i> came +away humming—“Donna e mobile.” It is the +law. Needless to say, I enjoyed <i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i>, +but I cannot whistle it. What I recall is a +mood, a picture, a vague ecstasy, a hushed terror. +It was James Huneker, was it not, who, when +asked what he thought of the opera, replied that +Mary Garden's hair was superb.</p> + +<p>“But the music?” he was urged.</p> + +<p>“Oh, the music,” said he, “—the music didn't +bother me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>But the new poetry does bother me, because +I strive to remember not the mere mood or +picture of the poem, but the actual words which +created them, and I cannot. I want to compel +again, at will, the actual poetic experience, and +I cannot, without carrying a library in my +pocket. The words hover, sometimes, just beyond +the threshold of my brain, like a forgotten +name (“If you hadn't asked me, I could have +told you”—you know the sensation); but they +never come. I have no comfort of them in the +still hours of the day when I would be whispering +them to myself. Instead, I have to fall back +upon the old-fashioned Golden Treasury. I cannot +remember a single line that Amy Lowell has +written about her Roxbury garden, but I shall +never forget what Wordsworth said about that +field of gold he passed; I repeat his lines, and +then my heart, too, with pleasure fills and dances +with his daffodils.</p> + +<p>It is an immemorial delight, this pleasure in +the lingering line, in the haunting couplet, in +the quatrain that will not let you forget. By +sacrificing it, the new poetry has sacrificed something +precious, something that a common instinct +of mankind demands of the minstrel. It +will not suffice for the new poets to deny that +they are minstrels, to assert that they write for +the eye, not speak for the ear, that it is not +their mission to emit pretty sounds but so to pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>sent +their vision of the world that it shall etch +itself on men's minds with the bite of reality. +Such a creed is admirable, but defective. It is +defective because, in the first place, if the new +poets did not write for the ear quite as much as +the old poets, there would be no excuse even +for rhythm. Any reader who is sensitive enough +to care to read poetry is sensitive enough to hear +it with his inward ear even as he sees it with his +outward eye, and his after-pleasure, as it were, +his lingering delight, will be in proportion as +his ear retains the echo of the song. All poets +are minstrels, still. Such a creed is defective, +in the second place, because it has always +been the mission of genuine poets to impress +their vision of the world vividly on mankind, +though their vision included more, sometimes, +than what the realists choose to consider reality. +There is nothing new in such an effort. In +slack ages of poetic inspiration, however, the +versifiers have no vision of the world, but only +of its pale mirrored reflections in visions dead +and gone, and some jolt is needed to bring the +poets back to first-hand observation. Such a jolt +are the new poets. <i>Spoon River</i> is a medicine, a +splendid tonic. But the form of <i>Spoon River</i> is +not conditioned by eternal needs, only by temporary +ones. Its complete absence of loveliness, +of lines that linger, will be its greatest handicap +to immortality—for poetic immortality to-day as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +much as ever is not in the pages of a book on a +library shelf, but on the lips of men and women. +A poem from which nobody ever quotes is a +poem forgotten.</p> + +<p>Tennyson was something of an Imagist at +times, presenting his mood or picture with a +Flaubertian precision of epithet that even Amy +Lowell could not criticise. Consider, for example, +his famous <i>Fragment</i> on the eagle:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He clasps the crag with crooked hands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close to the sun in distant lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ringed with the azure world he stands.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beneath, the wrinkled ocean crawls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He watches from his mountain walls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like a thunderbolt he falls.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">The precision of wording here, the tremendousness +of scene evoked with stark economy of +means, the triumphant vividness of the adjective +“wrinkled,” transporting the reader at once to a +great height above the plain of the sea, the +complete absence of any touch of the “poetic” +(surely the beautiful word <i>azure</i> may be admitted +in modern company), make this poem a +masterpiece without date or time. It is as “new” +as the latest Imagist anthology. And, be it +noted, I have quoted it correctly, I feel confident, +from memory. My copy of Tennyson is +in storage, and I have not read the fragment +probably in ten or a dozen years. Yet whenever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +I wish to relive its mood, to see again its incomparable +picture, I have only to move my lips, +even only to repeat the lines inwardly, in silence, +and the poem is mine again.</p> + +<p>But I have just been reading the latest Imagist +anthology, especially the <i>Lacquer Prints</i> +by Amy Lowell, not ten years, but hardly ten +minutes ago—and I cannot repeat one of them. +I could learn them, of course, by an effort. But +that is not the way man desires to remember +music and poetry. It must come singing into +his head and heart—and remain there without +his effort. Here is a “Lacquer Print” called <i>Sunshine</i>. +It is indeed vivid, though (quite properly, +of course) a little garden pool to Tennyson's +vast ocean.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The pool is edged with blade-like leaves of irises.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I throw a stone into the placid water<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It suddenly stiffens<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into rings and rings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sharp gold wire.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Here is a vivid picture, here is economy and +scrupulous selection of epithet, here is no “poetic” +diction of the despised sort. But something +is lacking, none the less. It does not haunt +you, it does not ingratiate itself with your ear, +you do not find yourself repeating it days and +months later. Close the book—and the poem +perishes, even as those rings subside on the pool.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> + +<p>It would be only too easy to find much more +striking examples in the new verse. Take, for +instance, the opening stanza of Ezra Pound's +poem, <i>The Return</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">See, they return; ah, see the tentative<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Movements, and the slow feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The trouble in the pace and the uncertain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wavering!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">It is doubtful if any reader will fail to see the +trouble in the pace of these lines! No doubt it +was exactly the effect the poet desired, but it +will forever effectually prevent the repetition of +his poem by anybody without the book. When +a woman once boasted that she could repeat +anything on a single hearing, Theodore Hook +rattled off the immortal nonsense, beginning, +“She went into the garden patch to get a cabbage +head to make an apple pie, and a great she +bear coming up the road thrust her head into +the shop and cried 'What, no soap?' and so he +died—” and the woman was floored. Such a +poem as <i>The Return</i> would have floored her +quite as completely. I find, after reading carefully +all the twenty pages assigned to Ezra +Pound in <i>The New Poetry Anthology</i>, edited by +Miss Monroe (a greater space, I believe, than was +awarded to any other poet), that I can now repeat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +just one line—or, rather, two lines, such is Mr. +Pound's odd way of phrasing his rhythms. Here +they are:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dawn enters with little feet<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Like a gilded Pavlova.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">There is a certain humorous charm of epithet +here, and a rhythmic suggestion of metrical beat +to follow. That, no doubt, is why the line has +stuck in my memory. But the metrical beat did +not follow, and the rest of the stanza has gone +from me. I am sure even a gilded Pavlova +would be at some difficulty to dance to Mr. +Pound's rhythms.</p> + +<p>But Miss Monroe is catholic in her choice of +new poets. She includes, for instance, Walter +de la Mare, if in less than two pages. She selects +his wonderful poem <i>The Listeners</i>, and the +quaint, haunting, <i>Epitaph</i>. It is a little hard to +see just why <i>The Listeners</i> is new poetry, except +chronologically. Its odd, apparently simple but +really intricate and triumphantly fluid metrical +structure, so unified that there is no break from +the first syllable to the last; its lyric romanticism +of subject; its obvious delight in tune; even its +occasional lapses into the ancient “poetic” vocabulary +(the traveler “smote” the door, the listeners +“hearkened,” and so on), are all a part of the +nineteenth-century tradition of English verse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +It is no more modern than <i>La Belle Dame Sans +Merci</i>—which, to be sure, is quite modern indeed +to some of us. And it has lyric beauty, it +has lines of unforgettable musical loveliness, it +creeps in through the ear and echoes in the +memory. You surely remember the close:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Never the least stir made the listeners,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Though every word he spake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From the one man left awake:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the sound of iron on stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And how the stillness surged softly backward,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When the plunging hoofs were gone.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Is there really any loss of sharpness in the imagery +here because of the rhyme and metre? +Could any phrase, of any rhythm, however free, +render any better and more economically the +peculiar noise of a horse turning on a hard drive +and starting away in the night, than “the sound +of iron on stone”? The last two lines, surely, +are close to perfection. A genuine new poet +would probably have hunted long for a less +hackneyed word than “plunging,” but though +it would possibly have sharpened his final image, +it would, at the same time, in all probability, +have robbed it of that very vagueness sought +and captured. No, the passage pictorially and +emotionally is as near perfection as it is often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +permitted mortals to approach, and it lingers and +echoes in the memory, it will not be forgotten. +It has the lilt of music, the chime of tune, the +immemorial loveliness of song. If the precise +image, the desired emotional effect, the intellectual +content can be imparted in fettered verse, +and, in addition, the ancient loveliness can be +retained, which the new verse lacks, can it be +possible that the world will long endure to read +<i>vers libre</i> when <i>vers libre</i> has done its work of +bringing poets back to first-hand reality for their +subjects, relating the minstrels to the spirit of +their age? I cannot think so. I cannot but believe +that any poetry long to endure must be +memorable, in the literal sense, and that is +just what the new poetry is not. Already, it +seems to me from my acquaintance with under-graduates +and the just-graduated, <i>vers libre</i> is a +little the cult of the middle-aged, while youth, +the future, is swinging back gladly to the fetters +of metre and rhyme, and probably forgetful that +the public which awaits their effort has been prepared +anew for poetry by this revolt from what +was stale in tradition. I believe that memorable +poetry always has been, and always must be, irradiated +by</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The light that never was on sea or land,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">which is but another way of saying that it +must have elevation and the haunting mystery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +of beauty. The trouble is, of course, to catch +this authentic radiation, instead of some pale +reflection from Patmore or Rossetti. It was +against the sham of second-hand mood and +subject, rather than the great truth of music +and loveliness, that the new poets broke into +unmetrical protest. They have done a brave and +needed work,—but they have produced astonishingly +little quotable poetry, they have sung +their way not far into the hearts of their listeners. +The lingering, lovely line is not for +them. No, for still,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The soul of Adonais, like a star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="The_Lies_We_Learn_in_Our_Youth" id="The_Lies_We_Learn_in_Our_Youth"></a>The Lies We Learn in Our Youth</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>T</big>he</span> world for a great many years has accepted +the dictum of the poet, that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of all sad words of tongue or pen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The saddest are these: It might have been.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Even those people who refused to accept the +rhyme have accepted the reason. But the fact +is that the reason of this copybook couplet is as +bad as the rhyme. It would be much nearer the +truth to say that of all sad words of tongue or +pen, the saddest are these: He's succeeded again. +Here, too, the rhyme may be questioned, but +the reason is sound. An entirely successful man +is the most pitiful object in the universe. Not +only has he nothing to look forward to, but he +has nothing to look back upon. Having no regrets, +no shadows, in his life, he has no chiaroscuro, +no depth, no solidity in his picture. It is +painted in the flat. “Regret,” says George +Moore, to change the figure a little, “is like a +mountain top from which we survey our dead +life, a mountain top on which we pause and +ponder.” He has no point of view, then, either.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +So after all the words, “It might have been,” do +bear a sadness about them in his case; his life +might have been a success if it had only been a +failure. “It might have been” thus becomes +sad when it reflects back upon itself, when it +means there might have been a might have been +but there was only a was. So life whirls into +paradox!</p> + +<p>Let any man in honesty retire into the solitude +of his soul and reflect on his joys that +might have been and those that were, and let +him then answer whether any of his realizations +were the equal of his anticipations. Therefore, +if he had achieved the anticipated but lost delights +which form the burden of his “Might +have been,” they, too, would have been as ashes +in the mouth. The truth is that the essence of +delight is in the anticipation, the best of life is +the vision, not the reality. It is pathetic not to +have entertained the vision, but more pathetic, +perhaps, to have attained it. Wasn't it Oscar +Wilde who said that there is only one thing +more tragic than failure—success?</p> + +<p>Did our regretful poet dream at twenty-one +of being the perfect lover? In his dreams he +was the perfect lover, then. Yet actually what +was he? What was she? What was their courtship, +their marriage? You, prosy, contented, +forty and forgetful, by your prosy hearth or +shaking down the furnace fire, while the children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +are being put to bed, you dare to call “It +might have been” the saddest words of tongue +or pen? Those now almost forgotten dreams of +what might have been are the best you ever +were. Remember them as often as you can, as +bitterly, as happily, for your soul's salvation. +Without them you are the lowest of God's +creatures, a mere married man.</p> + +<p>Or take the case of Maud Muller herself, and +her judge. We learn that the judge—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wedded a wife of richest dower,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who lived for fashion, as he for power.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Maud, on the other hand,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wedded a man unlearned and poor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And many children played round her door.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Probably in both cases this was for the best. +Only the wildest sentimentalist could in seriousness +urge that Maud would have made a good +wife for the judge. Being a man who “lived for +power,” the probable unpresentableness of Maud +in a town house would have been a constant +thorn in his flesh. She could not appear barefooted +at his receptions, and the feet that have +gone bare through an agricultural girlhood do +not readily adapt themselves to the size of shoe +which urban fashion dictates. Moreover, the +vague yearnings of a young girl for an alliance +with a handsome stranger above her station, do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +not fit her to speak the speech and think the +thoughts and meet the social demands of that +station. No, Maud would have been a constant +thorn in the judge's side. Summer sunshine, the +smell of hay, a drink of cold water, a pretty, +barefoot girl—the mood is compounded. An +uneducated farmer's daughter for a wife—the +reality is accomplished.</p> + +<p>And as for Maud, who will say for certain +that she would not eventually have eloped with +the coachman because he praised her pies instead +of criticising her grammar?</p> + +<p>So to each of them—barefoot girl and bald-headed +judge (he probably was bald-headed, +though the poem omits to say so) did what was +best, and the school children for several generations +have been taught to waste unnecessary +sympathy over their fate, have been inculcated +with a false view of the whole matter. Both of +them found far more happiness in dreaming of +what might have been than ever they could +have found in the realization; for each of them +this dream brought undoubted sadness, but the +sadness which is really pleasure, the sadness, that +is, which comes over all of us when “we realize +that though we have missed certain ideals in our +lives we are still able to recall those ideals, we +are still not like all the dead, forgetful clods +around us, our wives and husbands and neighbors +and friends. We live with these people as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +one of them, of course, but we might have been +so much better than they! Such reflections as +these are a great comfort. They bring a sadness +which makes us mournfully happy. They reconcile +us with the scheme of things. They are +the outcroppings of that secret vanity which the +best and the worst of us nourish, and of which is +born our self-respect, our happiness, our heroism.”</p> + +<p>Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was +a town called Abdera. The good people of +the town were so much upset at seeing a performance +of the <i>Andromeda</i> of Euripides that +they caught a sort of tragic fever. This began +with bleeding and perspiration and was followed +in about a week's time, according to the course of +the disease, by an uncontrollable desire to recite. +The effect upon Abdera was surprising. The +people walked about in the streets day and +night reciting pages of Euripides until the epidemic +was cured by a return of the cold weather. +Well, Tolstoy would have us believe that the +European and English-speaking world to-day is +about in this condition regarding Shakespeare, +and that there is little hope of a cold spell. A +second-rate fellow, this Bard of Avon, according +to Tolstoy, whom by a gigantic process of hypnotic +suggestion we have been taught to think +great, till we go about quoting him as the law +and the prophet, while he fills some hundred +and seventeen pages of Bartlett.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is undoubtedly something in this view +of the matter. Without holding a brief either +for the alleged immortal William or the author +of <i>What Is Art?</i>, it may safely be hazarded +that at least fifty per cent of the “familiar quotations” +we children laboriously copied into ruled +blank books in our school days and have ever +since regarded as nuggets of truth and gems of +poetry are neither true nor, beyond the fact of +rhyme, poetic. Something as a wave of suggestion +passed over Europe and sent thousands of +little ones down to their deaths in the Children's +Crusades, thousands of youngsters in our +schools to-day are hypnotized into a lasting belief +in the poetic value of numberless couplets of +second-rate verse, and never come to know real +poetry at all. Having been forced to swallow +rhymed platitudes in the belief that they are +poetry, a permanent and perfectly natural repulsion +for the very name of poetry is too often +the children's only acquisition. In fact, it is a +pretty question if the decline of poetic appreciation +cannot be directly traced to the rise of +the memory-gem book.</p> + +<p>How well I remember my own sense of +weariness and repulsion when I was compelled +at the tender age of ten to copy out the whole +of <i>The Psalm of Life</i>, unconsciously committing +it to memory as I did so.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Life is real, life is earnest,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the grave is not its goal;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dust thou art, to dust returnest,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Was not spoken of the soul.—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">My infant lips muttered the meaningless words +while my poor little brain and imagination tried +to find some joy, some picture, some tangible +delight, some inspiration in the mournful, oppressive +poem. If I had then been assigned intelligible +verses to copy, an Elizabethan lyric, a +song that sang because it had to, a bit of imagery, +my childish fancy would have been fired, and I +should not have had to wait till I was eighteen +years old before I read a single poem voluntarily. +And I should not have detested <i>The Psalm of +Life</i> all the rest of my days—at least I don't +think I should. Longfellow when I was a child +was a particularly prolific mine of memory +gems, running as high as three thousand quotations +to the ton. I never had a teacher who +didn't know her Longfellow with an intimacy +almost as great as her ignorance of Keats, Shelley, +Herrick, Lovelace, Suckling, Herbert, Campion, +Coleridge, Burns and the rest of the kings who +lived before Agamemnon. Longfellow was a +lovely soul, and, within his limits, a very true +poet. But I was fed on his platitudes. I was +daily informed that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The heights by great men reached and kept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were not attained by sudden flight.—<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Just as if I cared, at ten, whether they were or +not. I was told in tripping measures of the village +chestnut tree, to the total exclusion of the +linden and ilex; and as for the land where the +citrons bloom, and golden oranges are in the +gloom, and the long silences of laurel rise—“Kennst +du das Land?” Not I! The spreading +chestnut tree alone cast its oppressive shadow +across my childish fancy.</p> + +<p>Another memory gem that I remember with +a lasting grudge was—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Kind hearts are more than coronets,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And simple faith than Norman blood.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">This I knew was false, and to be forced glibly +to chatter the words before the class shamed +and angered me. Had not a maiden aunt of +mine, after many trips to the library of the New +England Genealogical Society, traced back our +line to William the Conqueror? Was there +another boy or girl in the school who had descended +from William the Conqueror? No, sir! +Several of them had kind hearts, and doubtless +simple faith—whatever that was—but side of +my Norman blood this counted for nothing. It +is a vastly superior thing to have Norman blood, +and as for coronets—well, it may be that the +new age will wipe them literally out in a surge +of Democracy—some of us hope so—but to the +romantic heart of childhood they are a symbol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +not of caste and oppression but of dignity and +beauty and the heroic. Certainly they are not to +be eliminated by throwing at the child's head +such adult platitudes in rhyme as these, and telling +him it is poetry. Alas! he believes you, and that +is why he hates the very word poetry all the rest +of his days.</p> + +<p>My memory-gem book lies before me as I +write, saved I know not how out of the wreck of +boyhood. I have searched it in vain for a single +quotation of lyric song, a single scrap of verse that +paints the world in rosy colors and lets moral platitudes +go hang, a single strain of “Celtic magic.” +Instead, I learn that as a boy I was taught that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We are living, we are dwelling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a grand and awful time.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">I find that at eleven years of age—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I held it truth with him who sings<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To one clear harp of divers tones,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That men may rise on stepping-stones<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their dead selves to higher things.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Indeed, I must have been a very remarkable +child, how remarkable I had not hitherto suspected! +Evidently, too, I displayed an early +tendency to melancholia, for I find I was admonished +in the following words, with their +incontestable statement of fact:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Whether my sadness was caused by too much +reflection on the fact that life is real, life is +earnest, and the grave is not its goal, or on the +fact that Bill Carter's air-gun cost more than +mine, I cannot now recall. Either cause would +have been sufficient. At any rate I apparently +braced up and smiled once more, for the next +page is blank. That means I went fishing!</p> + +<p>Poor kiddies! Shall we grown-ups never learn +that their minds don't work as ours do, and what +may be poetry for some of us is cod-liver oil for +them? Why must we be forever nagging them at +home with “Don't do this” and “Don't do that,” +and forever preaching at them in school with ponderous +prose platitudes cut up into lengths? How +much wiser than we they are, who know that life +is free and pleasant and full of melody and beautiful +things, and dreams more real than reality, and reality +born of the dream! Yet we try our best to convince +them that they are wrong. We see to it that +Longfellow lies about them in their infancy.</p> + +<p>But perhaps all this is changed since my day, +and the nightmare this battered memory-gem +book recalls to my mind is no longer a load on +the children of the present. I profoundly hope +so. Can it be that the present revival of poetry +is due to the passing of the memory-gem book? +At least, no teacher would have the courage to +set her class the task of copying Amy Lowell +or <i>The Spoon River Anthology</i>!</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="The_Bad_Manners_of_Polite_People" id="The_Bad_Manners_of_Polite_People"></a>The Bad Manners of Polite People</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>A</big>ll</span> my life I have suffered from politeness—not +my own, but the politeness of other people. +So far as I know, nobody has ever accused me +of being polite. I suspect that I must be, however, +for hitherto I have borne the politeness of +other people without a protest. But I must +protest now, if only to vindicate my lack of +politeness; in other words, to prove my good +manners.</p> + +<p>For what I object to in polite people is their +bad manners. It is this I have suffered from, +as, I suspect, have many thousands of my fellows, +to whom life is real and earnest, and gabble +not its goal. As a rule, the politer the person +the worse are his (or more often, perhaps, her) +manners. The limit is reached when the amateur +is sunk entirely in the professional, and that +curious product of “Society” is developed, the +professional hostess. I cannot better illustrate +my theme than with a description of the professional +hostess.</p> + +<p>I call her professional because all the joy of +entertaining for its own sake has gone out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +her work. She does not invite people to her +parties because she is glad to see them, because +she is interested in them, or wishes to give them +pleasure. She invites them because to entertain +them is a part of her day's work—whether her +work be to get into a certain social stronghold, +to keep that stronghold against assault, or merely +to kill time, her arch-enemy. And, in performing +this task of hers, she has developed a technique +of politeness which is to the amateur's +technique what the professional golf-player's +style is to the form of the mere bumblepuppy. +Her politeness is astonishingly brilliant, flexible, +resourceful. It is aspired to by the lowly and +aped on the stage. And yet her manners are the +worst in the world.</p> + +<p>Let us suppose her about to give a dinner. +She is trimmed down to the fashionable slenderness +(perhaps), and brilliant with jewels. Cannel +coal snaps pleasantly in the drawing-room +grate, and the lights are gratefully shaded. A +guest or two arrive, whom she greets with affable +handshake. The man moves over to the +fire, warming his back; his wife talks to the +hostess rapidly, in the way women have when +they seem to think it better to say anything than +not to speak at all. But the hostess is quite at +her ease. Her politeness is triumphant. Presently +she turns to the man, who is, perhaps, an +author.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Your new book,” she begins, as if she had +been waiting all day to ask that question, “—what +is it going to be about? I'm tremendously eager +to know.”</p> + +<p>Already the genial fire has warmed the noted +author after his chilling ride in a street car to +this mansion of luxury. The kindly question +positively expands him. He launches eagerly +into his answer.</p> + +<p>“You see,” he begins, “the great modern +question is—”</p> + +<p>But suddenly he is aware that he has no listener. +His hostess has gone toward the door with outstretched +hand, and his own wife is gazing at the +gowns of the women entering. The author turns +and prods the grate with his toe. Perhaps, if he is +new at being “entertained,” he fancies that his +hostess will presently return to hear his answer. +He holds it in readiness. Poor man!</p> + +<p>The newcomers are brought into the circle. +When introductions are necessary, they are made +with studied informality. And then the author +hears the hostess say to a big, energetic woman, +who is among the arrivals, “Oh, dear Miss +Jones, I have heard so much about your perfectly +splendid work down there among the +horrid poor! I did <i>so</i> want to hear you talk +about it at the Colonial Club, this afternoon, +but I simply <i>couldn't</i> get there. Won't you tell +me just a bit of what you said?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The tone of entreaty betrays the utmost interest. +The big, energetic woman smiles, and +begins, “Well,” she says, “I was just trying to +get the members interested in our new health-tenement +for consumptives. You see, we need—”</p> + +<p>Then she, too, becomes aware that her audience +has departed toward the door. She turns +about to see if anybody else was listening, but +nobody was. The other women are engaged in +inspecting the newcomers. The men are looking +uncomfortable, or chatting with one another. +Only the author's sympathetic gaze meets hers.</p> + +<p>The guests have all gathered by now, but +dinner is not yet announced. The hostess moves +easily among them, stopping by each with a +winning smile, to ask some carefully chosen +personal question. Each as politely replies, only +to find himself talking to the empty air.</p> + +<p>There is soon a confused babble of voices, a +whir of windy words—and no one hears.</p> + +<p>The author watches her, still curious to know +whether she will remember that she has not yet +heard his answer. But she has quite forgotten. +She moves, the incarnate spirit of politeness, +about the room, rousing trains of eager ideas in +her guests, and as speedily leaving them to run +down a side-track into a bumper.</p> + +<p>She has no real interest in any of them, +probably she has no real understanding of them. +She thinks her manners are above reproach, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +she is treating her guests in the most exemplary +fashion. In reality, nothing could be worse than +her manners, and she is treating her guests most +shabbily. By being polite, she ends by being rude. +For nothing is so rude in this world as to ask a +man a question about some subject close to his +heart when you have no intention of listening to +his answer, nor any interest in it. The hostess +thinks to feed his vanity; she ends by wounding +it. She thinks to make her guests comfortable; +she ends by making them uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>The best manners I have ever seen were possessed +by the most impolite man I have ever +known. As a result, nobody that he ever invited +to his house felt uncomfortable there. He +was interested in all kinds and conditions of +people, all kinds and conditions of activities. +If he asked you a question, it was because he +wanted to hear your answer. He paid you the +compliment of assuming that it was worth +listening to, and other people waited till you +were through. At his table you weren't supposed +to confine your talk to the sweet young thing +on your left, who was more interested in the +gay young blade on <i>her</i> left, nor to the sedate, +elderly female person on your right, who was +more interested in the bishop on <i>her</i> right. Talk +was largely for the whole table; and if you +hadn't some definite contribution to make, you +were usually glad to keep still.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> + +<p>I say nobody ever felt uncomfortable in his +house. That is not quite true. Occasionally the +person who expressed an opinion on a subject he +knew nothing about must have felt uncomfortable. +For, though he was listened to gravely +while speaking, conversation was at once resumed +as if nothing whatever had been said.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more conventionally +impolite. And yet the act was so utterly free +from sham that it seemed the only decorous and +decent thing to do. Thus was the dignity of +conversation maintained; thus was each man and +woman made to feel his or her worth along +personal lines of endeavor; thus was a true +democratic spirit preserved, which is the real +essence of good manners. True democracy consists +in bringing each man out, not in reducing +him to a common level of inanity. Good manners +consist in showing him respect for what is +worthy of respect in him, treating him as a +rational human being, not as a mere social unit +who deposits his hard-won opinions, along with +his hat and stick, in the care of the butler when +he enters the house.</p> + +<p>That is why men have, as a rule, better manners +than women, though they are far less polite. +A man respects the judgment of a specialist +on any given subject, and he is rather intolerant +of the snap judgments of the dabbler or the +dilettante. He listens, if forced to, with unconcealed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +impatience to the babbling of his pretty +neighbor at table about art, perhaps, or engineering, +or some other topic concerning which +her ignorance is as profound as her cocksureness +is lofty. But, after all, to be polite to her is to +insult a whole race of engineers or artists! Put +one of them beside him, and see how readily he +will listen.</p> + +<p>Politeness too often consists of shamming. Good +manners are the absence of sham. It is not the gentleman's +place, certainly, to insult the lady. Good +manners seldom go quite so far as that. But even +politeness cannot expect him to endure the torture +for more than a limited time, especially if the topic +chosen chances to be his own specialty. It is his +place to lead the conversation, as gently as possible, +back upon more neutral ground, where he may +find what consolation he can in sprightly personalities—while +praying for the coffee.</p> + +<p>I enjoy the privilege of acquaintance with a +very charming person, who has never paid a +compliment to her sex except by being a woman. +Some of her sex say that she is a delightful +hostess and very beautiful. Others say that +she is atrociously rude, and they “can't see what +it is people admire in her.” Most men adore +her. She herself says that the only people she +cares to entertain are those who have earned +their own living. Her reasons are, I believe, interesting +and significant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<p>She earns her own living, I may state, and a +very considerable one, for she is famous and +highly successful in her branch of artistic endeavor. +Socially, one may say of her, in that +atrocious phrase which implies a queer jumble +of values, that she is “very much in demand.” +But, though a man in livery opens her front door, +the street-cars bring quite as many guests to her +house as do expensively purring motor-cars.</p> + +<p>“For,” as she puts it, “I can stand the talk of +the average woman in 'Society' just about fifteen +minutes, and then I have to scream. I don't +know how the fiction arose that American women +of the leisure classes are so superior mentally to +the women of other nations. The fact is, they +are not. The fact is, that they are so superficial +that a person who has really <i>done</i> something—I +don't mean who has played at it, but who has +really under the spur of necessity got to the bottom +of some one subject—can hardly endure +their conversation. They chatter, chatter, chatter, +about everything under heaven, and if you +happen to know anything about any of the subjects, +it is simply torture to listen.</p> + +<p>“Life is too short, and too interesting, and +the world too full of real people, to bother with +the folks who don't know their business. The +man or woman who has had to be self-supporting +has got to the bottom of some branch of activity, +however small, and learned humility. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +learn that mastery of even a tiny subject requires +effort and concentration and skill, is to learn respect +for other subjects; and it is to learn, too, +how to listen.</p> + +<p>“Nobody can listen who isn't truly interested, +and who hasn't the grasp of mind to appreciate +the complexities of a craft not his own, who +doesn't know enough to know when he doesn't +know anything. If I'm going to talk my shop, +I want to talk it with folks who've been in it. +If I'm going to hear some other shop discussed, +it must be by someone who is familiar with +that, not by directoired dabblers who, you feel +after three minutes have elapsed, don't know a +thing about the subject. If politeness consists in +letting them suppose that I take any stock in +what they say, then I plead guilty to being a +boor.”</p> + +<p>Probably no one who has experienced the +awful ordeal of listening to some female chatter +about his chosen subject, or who has undergone +the even worse ordeal of dropping great thoughts +of his own into the deep, deep pools of her incomprehension, +will fail of sympathy with my +friend.</p> + +<p>“But I tire you,” said an incessant gabbler +one day to the great Duc de Broglie.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” replied the duke; “I wasn't listening.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="On_Giving_up_Golf_Forever" id="On_Giving_up_Golf_Forever"></a>On Giving up Golf Forever</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>L</big>ast</span> season I gave up golf forever two days +before our course opened in May, on the evenings +of June 17th and July 4th, at noon on +July 27th, on the evenings of August 2nd, 9th, +15th, and 21st, at 11:15 <small>A.M.</small> on Labor Day, +again Labor Day evening, on September 19th, +23rd, 30th, and October 3rd, 11th and 18th. +I am writing this in mid-January, when the +drifts are piled five feet deep over our bunkers, +and the water-carries are frozen solid. I have +played my last game of golf. The coming season +I shall devote to the intensive cultivation of +my garden. The links have no allure for me.</p> + +<p>“And if,” says my wife, “I could believe that, +I should be happier than ever before in the long +years of my golf widowhood.”</p> + +<p>“But you can,” I answer, with grieved surprise.</p> + +<p>She looks at me, with that superior and +tolerant smile women know so well how to +assume.</p> + +<p>“You men are all such children!” is her, it +seems to me, somewhat irrelevant retort.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> + +<p>I fell to musing on my friend, the noted war +correspondent (now a Major in the United States +Army in France). All things considered, he +was the most consistent, or perhaps I should +say persistent, quitter the game of golf has ever +known. He used to quit forever on an average +of three times a week, and I have known him to +abandon the game twice during a round, which +is something of a record. He played every summer +on our beautiful Berkshire course, which +crosses and recrosses the winding Housatonic, +not to mention sundry swamps, and boasts the +most luxuriant fairway, and by the same token +the rankest rough, in all America. It is the +course Owen Johnson once immortalized in his +story, <i>Even Threes</i>.</p> + +<p>How well I remember that peaceful, happy +May, back in 1914! Our course had emerged +from its annual spring flood, newly top-dressed +with rich river silt, and a few warm days brought +the turf through the scars and made the whole +glorious expanse of fairway, winding through +the silver willows, a velvet carpet. I had given +my orders to the greens-keepers, and gone to +New York for a day or two—reluctantly, of +course—and there met the famous war correspondent, +in those peaceful times out of a +regular job and turned novelist <i>pro tem</i>. He had +just relieved himself of his final chapter, and +readily yielded to my persuasions to return with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +me to the velvet field and the whistling drive. +We “entrained,” as he would say in one of his +military dispatches.</p> + +<p>As far as the Massachusetts-Connecticut state-line +he talked of Mexican revolutions, Theodore +Roosevelt, Japanese art, <i>vers libre</i>, mushrooms, +and such other topics as were of interest in the +spring of 1914. But at the state-line, chancing +a look out of the window, he saw the doming +billow of blue mountains which marks the entrance +to our Berkshire intervales, and a strange +gleam came into his eyes. His square jaws set. +His whole countenance was transformed. Turning +back to me, he half hissed, grimly,—</p> + +<p>“I am <i>not</i> going to press this season!”</p> + +<p>I knew he was fairly on his way to giving +up golf forever.</p> + +<p>Of course, when a man hasn't played all +winter, but has been engaged in the mild and +harmless exercise of writing a novel, his hands +become soft. Then, when he suddenly begins +to play thirty-six holes a day, and takes a lock-grip +on his clubs as tightly as if he supposed +somebody was trying to snatch them away from +him, he is apt to develop certain blisters. To a +war correspondent and traveler over the Dawson +Trail, such blisters are nothing. To a golf player +they are of profound importance. The next day, +in our foursome, they affected the war correspondent's +game. He became softly querulous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I wish you wouldn't talk when I am about +to drive,” he complained to a caddie.</p> + +<p>“This mashie is too heavy for me,” he muttered +to himself.</p> + +<p>“Every time I make a stroke, that crack on +the third finger of my left hand, above the top +joint, opens and pains me,” he declared to anybody +who would listen.</p> + +<p>His drive from the eighteenth tee went kerplunk +into the mud, and buried itself like a +startled woodchuck. He said nothing, but took +a left-handed club from his bag—for he began +the game left-handed, and had switched over the +year before, upon hearing our professional say that +no left-handed player could ever become a great +golfer. With this fresh implement, he began to +dig. He finished the hole left-handed, with three +perfect shots! We tried to cheer him up, but he +was not to be cheered.</p> + +<p>“What's the use!” he wailed. “Here I've +spent a year and a fortune unlearning how to +play left-handed. I'm never going to play the +confounded game again!”</p> + +<p>And, by way of token, he began to talk about +Theodore Roosevelt.</p> + +<p>That was his first renunciation for 1914. The +next few days the game went well, and so did +work on a new novel he had commenced, fired +by his success in getting off seventeen perfect tee-shots. +But he reached his fourth chapter and an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +off afternoon on the same fair Saturday. What +a lovely day it was!—you know, one of those +early June days that invariably causes some woman +to quote Lowell. But the famous war correspondent +saw no charm in the leafy luxury around him, +in the blue sky, the lush grass. He heard no +pipe of birds nor whisper of the breeze. His +driver wasn't working right. Then his over-worked +mashie went back on him. By the +fourth green he was taking three putts, and by +the eighth he was picking up. His face was a +thundercloud; his vocabulary disclosed a richness +gleaned from camp and field which was a +revelation even to our caddies; and that is no +insignificant accomplishment.</p> + +<p>Our tenth hole in those days was close to the +club-house, and the tee was but 195 yards away—a +good iron to the green. By the time we reached +this tee, the war correspondent had very nearly +exhausted even the stock of expletives he had +acquired on the Dawson Trail, and had declared +seven times that he was <i>through</i>, yes, <i>forever</i>!</p> + +<p>“Oh, come on and play just this hole—keep +going to the club-house anyway,” we pleaded.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, “I'll take one more shot—it's +my last—positively. I'm going back to New +York to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>He tossed a scarred, cut, battered ball on the +turf, scorning to make a tee. Yanking a cleek +from his bag, he stepped up with the speed of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +Duncan and swung. To our amazement, the +ball flew like a bullet to the mark and disappeared +over the lip of the green, headed straight for the +pin. But he never saw it. He wasn't watching.</p> + +<p>“Good shot!” we cried, with real enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>“I wasn't looking, where'd it go?” he asked, +with an attempt at scorn, which, however, was +manifestly weakening.</p> + +<p>“Got a putt fer a two,” said his caddie.</p> + +<p>The noted man cast a withering look at this +object of his previous invective. He still suspected +something. We backed the caddie up, +and he strode down the fairway with a certain +reviving spring in his step.</p> + +<p>There on the green, not six inches from the +cup, reposed his battered ball!</p> + +<p>“Been anybody else it would have gone in!” +he muttered, as he sank it for a two.</p> + +<p>That was his proud surrender. He said no +more. He strode ahead to the next tee, and tore +out a long, straight drive. Then he lit a cigarette +and remarked that he had never seen the +willows more beautiful, more silvery in the +afternoon light.</p> + +<p>Ah, well, poor chap, he did give up golf on +the first of August, if not forever at least for the +longest period of abstinence in his career on the +links. On our last afternoon over the velvet together, +before he left for the steamer that was +to take him into the maelstrom, he paid little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +attention to his game, and a surprised and, I +fancied, even a slightly disappointed caddie followed +him. (He was always most generous to +his caddie when he had most abused him, like +the hero of Goldoni's comedy.)</p> + +<p>“I sha'n't see nice, sweet, unscarred green sod +again for a long time,” he said, digging up a +huge divot with unconscious irony. “I'm going +to my last war, though.”</p> + +<p>“Gracious,” said I, “are you going to give up +War forever, too?”</p> + +<p>“The world is going to give it up forever, +after this one,” he replied.</p> + +<p>I have seen him twice since, once when he +was still a correspondent, once more recently +when he came back in the uniform of Uncle +Sam. And each time his greeting has been the +same:—</p> + +<p>“Have you got rid of that hook yet?”</p> + +<p>Then he smiled—a wistful, tragic smile, and +asked where all the new traps and bunkers are, +how we contrived to lengthen the course, whether +the new sixth green is in play yet, all the pathetically +unimportant little gossip of our eighty acres +of green meadow.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” he said the last time we parted, “some +day I'm coming back and make that 79 at last! +Anybody can go over the top, but to break 80 +at Stockbridge—!”</p> + +<p>Then he left for the trenches of France.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p>I have another good friend who, unlike the +Major, has never given up golf forever. This, as +he himself admits (or I should not dare offer the +explanation), is because he has never yet really +played it. He, too, is rather well known at his +avocation of play-writing; but golf is his real +business in life when the season once gets under +way. He has enabled several professionals to buy +motor-cars, he has sent numerous fore-caddies +through the high school, he has practised by the +hour with individual clubs, but still, after almost +a quarter of a century, he has never broken 90 +on a first-class course. From my superior position +(I have on three never-to-be-forgotten occasions +broken 80, one of them at Manchester!), +I sometimes wonder what keeps him at the game. +Then I play with him, and realize. He has the +divine, inexplicable faculty, once or twice in a +round, of tearing off an astounding drive of 300 +yards, by some subtle miracle of timing, which +after hours of rolling finally comes to rest far +out beyond any other ball in the foursome, or +even the professional's drive. What does it matter +if he scruffs his approach? What does it matter +if he takes three putts? He has the memory +of that drive, the unexpected, thrilling feel of it +in arms and body, the tingling vision of the day +when he will find out how he did it, and be +able to repeat at will! That keeps him going—that, +and a trophy he once achieved by winning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +the beaten eight division of the sixth sixteen. It +was a little pocket match-safe, but it is more +precious in his eyes than pearls, aye, than much +fine gold or his reputation as perhaps the deftest +writer of dialogue on the American stage. +It represents definite achievement in the game +of Golf.</p> + +<p>You may suppose, dear Reader, if by some miracle +you are not a golfer, that I have been pressing +the essayist's privilege and indulging in an +attempt at whimsicality. Nothing, I assure you, +could be farther from the fact. I am, in this +chapter, a realist. All I have here set down is a +record of actuality. Nay, I have erred on the +other side. I have said nothing whatever about +my own reasons for giving up golf forever. Nor +have I told the story of the elderly gentlemen at +a course near Boston, whom I once observed in an +exhibition of renunciation that perhaps deserved +recording.</p> + +<p>This course was of nine holes (it is now the +site of several apartment houses), and the last +hole called for a carry over a little pond, to a +green immediately in front of the club-house. +The somewhat elderly and irascible gentleman +in question, playing in a foursome, had reached +this ninth tee on the shore of the pond, and even +from the club veranda it was evident that his +temper was not of the best. Things had not +been going right for him. His three companions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +carried the pond. Then he teed up, and drove—splash!—into +the water. A remark was wafted +through the still air. He teed again—another +splash. Then followed an exhibition which I +fear my wife would describe as childish. First +this elderly gentleman spoke, in a loud, vexed +voice. Then he hurled his driver into the pond. +Then he snatched his bag of clubs from the caddie's +shoulder, seized a stone from the pond side, +stuffed it into the bag, grasped the strap as a hammer-thrower +the handle of his weight, swung the +bag three times around his head, and let it fly +far out over the water. It hit with a great splash, +and sank from sight. His three companions, respecting +his mood, discreetly continued their game, +while he came up to the club-house, sought a +far corner of the veranda, and with a face closely +resembling a Greek mask of Tragedy, sank down +huddled into a chair.</p> + +<p>On the veranda, too, his grief was respected. +No one spoke to him. In fact, I think no one +dared. We were careful that even our mirth +did not reach his ears. He was alone with his +thoughts. The afternoon waned. His three companions +again reached the ninth tee, drove the +pond, and came into the club-house to dress. +The caddies were about to depart. Then a strange +thing happened; at its first intimation we tiptoed +to a window to observe. He roused himself, +leaned over the rail, and called a caddie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Boy,” we heard him say, in a deep, tragic +voice, “can you swim?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” the caddie replied.</p> + +<p>“All right. About thirty feet out in front of +the ninth tee there's a bag at the bottom of the +pond. Go get it for me, and I'll give you five +dollars.”</p> + +<p>The caddie ran, peeling his garments as he +went. Modestly retaining his tattered underclothes, +he splashed in from the tee, while the +somewhat elderly golf player gesticulated directions +on the bank. Presently the boy's toes +detected something, and he did a pretty surface +dive, emerging with the bag strap in his right +hand. He also rescued the floating driver, and +we saw the promised bill passed to him, and +watched him drag on his clothes over his wet +undergarments. Slowly, even tenderly, the somewhat +elderly gentleman emptied the water and +the stone from his bag, and wiped the clubs +on his handkerchief. With the wet, dripping +burden over his shoulder he came across the foot-bridge +and into the locker room, while we +hastened to remove our faces from the door and +windows, and attempted to appear casual.</p> + +<p>He entered in silence, and strode to his locker. +The silence grew painful. Somebody simply had +to speak, or laugh. Finally somebody did speak, +which was probably the safer alternative.</p> + +<p>“Decided to try again, eh?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The somewhat elderly gentleman wheeled +upon the assemblage, his dripping bag still hanging +from his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Yes, damn it!” he thundered.</p> + +<p>Well, I have never thrown my clubs into a +pond, and I am sure you have never done anything +so childish, either. But how many times +have you and I both given up golf forever, and +then returned to links the following day—“damn +it”! We do not play for the exercise, we do not +play because it “keeps us out in the open air.” +Neither motive would hold a man for a week +to the tantalizing, costly, soul-racking, nerve- and +temper-destroying game. We play it because +there is some diabolical—or celestial—fascination +about the thing; some will-o'-the-wisp +of hope lures us over swamp and swale, +through pit and pasture, toward the smooth +haven of the putting green; some subtle, mysterious +power every now and then coördinates +our muscles and lets us achieve perfection for a +single stroke, whereafter we tingle with remembrance +and thrill with anticipation. Golf is the +quest of the unattainable, it is a manifestation +of the Divine Unrest, it spreads before us the +soft green pathway down which we follow the +Gleam. That is why you and I shall be giving +it up forever on our eightieth birthday.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Grape-Vine_Erudition" id="Grape-Vine_Erudition"></a>“Grape-Vine” Erudition</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>Y</big>ou</span> may recall that Mr. Ezra Barkley acquired +a great reputation for learning by imparting to +the spinsters of Old Chester such astonishing facts +as the approximate number of roe contained in +a shad. His sister-in-law, in her ignorance, supposed +there were only two hundred! Ezra also +knew who first kept bees, and many other important +things, usually of a statistical nature. I +cannot recall that Mrs. Deland has told us where +Ezra acquired his erudition, and I used at one +time to wonder. But now I know. He read +the “grape-vine” in the first editions of our daily +papers.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you don't know what “grape-vine” is? +I rejoice in my ability to tell you. It is the name +given by newspaper men to the jokes and squibs +and bits of information clipped by the busy exchange +reader, and put into type, making short +paragraphs of varying lengths, which are dropped +in at the bottom of a column to fill up the vacant +space when the need arises. This need most +often arises in preparing the first edition, the one +which catches the early trains for the country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +By the time the city edition goes to press sufficient +news of battles, carnage, and sudden death, +of politics and stock exchanges, has been prepared +to fill every inch of available space. The city +reader, therefore, sees little of this “grape-vine.” +Thus we have a new argument for country life.</p> + +<p>I am now a resident of the country, one hundred +and fifty miles removed from New York +and as far from Boston; and I am by way of becoming +nearly as erudite as Ezra Barkley. I am, +indeed, almost bewildered with the mass of information +I am acquiring. This morning I read a +column about the European war, all of which I +have now forgotten. But how can I ever forget +the two lines of “grape-vine” at the very bottom +which filled out an otherwise vacant quarter inch? +I am permanently a wiser man.</p> + +<p>“Many Filipino women catch and sell fish +for a living.”</p> + +<p>Amid a world at war, too, how peaceful and +soothing is this tabloid idyl of piscatorial toil!</p> + +<p>After the acquisition of this morsel of learning +I set diligently to work on the day's papers, both +the morning editions and those “evening” editions +which come to us here by a train leaving +the city early in the afternoon, to see how +much erudition I could accumulate in one sun's +span. I think you of the cities will be astonished. +I was myself. In a few weeks I shall read +the encyclopædia advertisements with scorn instead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +of longing. For instance, I have learned +that “A new tooth-brush is cylindrical and is +revolved against the teeth by a plunger working +through its spirally grooved handle.” Obviously, +just the implement for boys interested in motor-cars +(as all boys are). They will play they are +grinding valves and run joyously to brush their +teeth.</p> + +<p>I have learned that “In the last five years our +national and state lawmaking bodies have passed +62,550 laws.” The surprising thing about this +information is that the number is so small!</p> + +<p>I have learned that “Russia has ten thousand +lepers, taken care of by twenty-one institutions.”</p> + +<p>I have acquired these valuable bits of ornithological +lore: “The frigate-bird is capable of getting +up a speed of ninety-six miles an hour with +hardly a movement of its wings. The greater +part of its life is spent in the air.” “The swallow +has a larger mouth in proportion to its size than +any other bird.”</p> + +<p>I have, from the bottom of a single column, +gleaned these three items of incalculable value: +“By harnessing a fly to a tiny wagon an English scientist +found it could draw one hundred and seventy +times its own weight over smooth surfaces.”</p> + +<p>“Missouri last year produced 195,634 tons of +lead, a fairly heavy output.”</p> + +<p>“The United States has five hundred and seventeen +button-factories.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The New York <i>Times</i> staggers me with this +statistical line: “One Paris motion-picture plant +produces an average of three million feet of +films weekly.” (This strikes me as a kind of +“French frightfulness.”)</p> + +<p>The New York <i>Evening Post</i> contributes to +my welfare and domestic comfort this item: +“Both an electric range and a refrigerator are +included in a new kitchen cabinet, but are hidden +from view by doors when not in use.”</p> + +<p>I am certainly a wiser man for knowing that +“The Mexican seacoast on the Pacific and the +Gulf of California is 4,575 miles.” And I am +at least interested in the fact that “An Englishman +has invented a cover for hatchways on vessels +that operates on the principle of a roll-top desk.” +If this hatchway operates on the principle of the +only roll-top desk I ever possessed, God help the +poor sailors when the storm breaks!</p> + +<p>Such items as these disclose to me the extent +of my previous ignorance:—</p> + +<p>“Bolivia is producing about one-third of the +world's output of tin.”</p> + +<p>“Records disclose that for several centuries an +infusion of nutgalls treated with sulphate of iron +composed the only known ink.”</p> + +<p>“The first job held by William G. McAdoo, +Secretary of the Treasury, was that of a newsboy +selling the Macon <i>Morning Telegraph</i>. His +next job was that of a farm laborer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“There are 2,500,000 freight-cars in the +country, and their average life is somewhere +about twenty years.”</p> + +<p>“Since gold was discovered in the Auckland +province, in 1852, there has been exported from +that district gold to the value of $116,796,000.”</p> + +<p>I should, to be sure, be more completely educated +if I could find somewhere, under the +sporting news, or at the base of the obituaries, a +statement of where Auckland is. But perhaps +that information will come to-morrow.</p> + +<p>Well, I have presented here only a tithe of +the knowledge I have to-day gleaned from the +daily press, that hitherto (by me, at least) underestimated +institution. I haven't stated that I now +know who first used anthracite coal as a fuel, and +when. You don't know that, I am sure. Neither +do you know how many acres of corn were +planted in England and Wales in 1915 and 1916, +nor how many government employees there were +in France before the war, nor that “A bundle of +fine glass threads forms a new ink-eraser.”</p> + +<p>However, I must share with you my choicest +acquisition. It seems little less than a crime to +keep such knowledge from the world at large, +to bury it at the bottom of a column on the +ninth page of the first edition of the Springfield +<i>Republican</i>. So I rewrite it here. For oral delivery, +I shall save it till some caller comes +whom I particularly desire to impress. Then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +with all the Old-World courtesy of Mr. Ezra +Barkley, I shall offer this guest a chair, and as I +do so I shall remark, with the careless casualness +of the truly erudite: “Guatemala has only one +furniture factory. It employs a hundred and +fifty men.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img style="padding-top: 0em" src="images/ornament4.jpg" width="100" height="229" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Business_Before_Grammar" id="Business_Before_Grammar"></a>Business Before Grammar</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>W</big>e have</span> just been perusing a copy of a certain +magazine which proclaims on its cover that it +has doubled its circulation in twenty months. +Within, the editor sets forth what he believes +to be the reasons for this gratifying growth. +“The magazine accepts man as he is—and +helps him,” says the editor. “The magazine +is edited to answer the questions that keep rising +and rising in the average man's head. It +is not edited with the idea of trying to force +into the average man's head a lot of information +which he does not hanker for and cannot +make use of.”</p> + +<p>Having always considered ourself an average +man, we turned the pages hopefully, only to +find a considerable amount of information we +had never “hankered” for, and could not make +use of, as, for instance, how to become the biggest +“buyer” in the universe, or how a certain +theatrical manager wants you to think he thinks +he got on in the world (there is, to be sure, a +quite unintentional psychological interest here), +or how to remember the names of a hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +thousand people—dreadful thought! So we decided +we were not, after all, an average man, +and shifted to the fiction.</p> + +<p>There were four short stories and a serial in +this issue, and not one of them concerned itself +with people who could speak correct English. +Some of the stories confined their assaults upon +our mother tongue to the dialogue, one was told +by a dog (which, of course, excuses much, in +prose as well as verse), and one was entirely +written in what we presume to be a sort of +literary Bowery dialect, which we have since +been informed by friends more extensively read +than ourself is now the necessary dialect of +American magazine humor, as essential, almost, +as the bathing-girl on the August cover.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“'I think we got about everything. I'll see that the +things is packed in them wardrobe trunks an' sent to +your hotel to-morrow morning. An' believe me, it's +been <i>some</i> afternoon, Mr. Bentley!'”</p></div> + +<p class="noindent">—This, at random, from one of the two stories +which dealt with the “business woman,” whose +motto seems to be, “Business Before Grammar,” +even as it is the motto of the editor. The other +“business woman” was not quite so lax. She +tried as hard to speak correctly as the author +could let her, and won a certain amount of +sympathy for her efforts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the gem, of course, was the story told all +in the literary Boweryese. A lack of acquaintance +with past performances by our author prevented +us from feeling quite sure who the supposed +narrator might be, without reading the +entire story, but we gathered from early paragraphs +and from the illustrations that the guy +was a pug. (You see, it's contagious.) At any +rate, this is how the story began:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The average guy's opinion of himself reaches its +highest level about five minutes after the most wonderful +girl in the world gasps 'Yes!' He always thought +he was a little better than the other voters, but now he +knows it! Of course, he figures, the girl couldn't very +well help fallin' for a handsome brute like him, who'd +have more money than Rockefeller if he only knew +somethin' about oil. He kids himself along like that, +thinkin' that it was his curly hair or his clever chatter +that turned the trick. Them guys gimme a laugh!</p> + +<p>“When Mamie Mahoney or Gladys Van de Vere +decides to love, honor and annoy one of these birds, +she's got some little thing in view besides light house-keepin'. +Some dames marry for spite, some because +they prefer limousines to the subway, and others want +to make Joe stop playin' the races or the rye. But +there's always <i>somethin'</i> there—just like they have to +put alloy in gold to hold it together. Yes, gentle +reader, there's a reason!</p> + +<p>“But if you're engaged, son, don't let this disturb +you. I've seen some dames that, believe me, I wouldn't +care <i>what</i> they married me for, as long as they did!”</p></div> + +<p>Having proceeded thus far, we turned back to +the table of contents for affirmation of what we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +vaguely remembered to have read there. Yes, +we <i>had</i> read it! The tale was labeled by the +editor, “A funny story.”</p> + +<p>So this is fiction for “the average man,” and +on this spiritual fare his cravings for literature +are fed! So this is the sort of thing which +doubles the circulation of a popular magazine in +twenty months! Such melancholy reflections +crossed our mind, coupled with the thought that +with no speech at all in the movies, and such +speech as this in his magazines, the “average +man” will either have to read his Bible every day +or soon forget that there was once such a thing +as the beautiful English language. And alas, the +circulation of the Bible hasn't doubled in the +past twenty months! “This magazine accepts +man as he is—and helps him”—so reads the +editor's self-puffery. What an indictment of man—and +what an idea of help! We would hate to +go to bed with his conscience,—if editors have +such old-fashioned impediments.</p> + +<p>But suddenly we caught a ray of light amid +the encircling gloom. The editor hadn't stated +what his circulation was twenty months ago! +We recalled how Irvin Cobb once told us that +the attendance at his musical comedy had doubled +the previous evening—the usher had brought +his sister. Doubtless the new circulation isn't +more than a million,—and what is a mere million +nowadays?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Wood_Ashes_and_Progress" id="Wood_Ashes_and_Progress"></a>Wood Ashes and Progress</h2> + + +<p class="noindent">“<span class="smcap"><big>O</big>nce</span> man defended his home and hearth; +now he defends his home and radiator.” The +words stared out of the bulk of print on the page +with startling vividness, a gem of philosophy, a +“criticism of life,” in the waste of jokes which +the comic-paper editor had read and doubtless +paid for, and which the public was doubtless +expected to enjoy. The Man Above the Square +laid aside the paper, leaned toward his fire, took +up the poker (an old ebony cane adorned with a +heavy silver knob which bore the name of an actor +once loved and admired) and rolled the top log +over slowly and meditatively. The end of the +cane was scarred and burned from many a contest +with stubborn logs, and the Man Above the +Square looked at the marks of service with a +smile before he stood the heavy stick again in its +place by the fireside.</p> + +<p>“It isn't every walking-stick which comes to +such a good end,” he said aloud.</p> + +<p>Then either because he was cold or in penitence +for the pun, he walked over to the windows +to pull down the shades. But before he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +did so he looked out into the night, his breath +making a frosty vapor on the pane. Below him +the Square gleamed in white patches under the +arc-lamps, and across these white patches here +and there a belated pedestrian, coat collar turned +up, hurried, a black shadow. The cross on the +Memorial Church gleamed like a cluster of stars, +and deep in the cold sky the moon rode silently. +A chill wind was complaining in the bare treetops +beneath him and found its way to his face +and body through the window chinks. He drew +down the shades quickly and pulled the heavy +draperies together with a rattle of rings on the +rods. Then he turned and faced his room.</p> + +<p>A scarf of Oriental silk veiled the light of the +single lamp, set low on his desk, and the fire +had its own way with the illumination. It sent +dancing shadows over the olive walls, it made +points of light of the picture-frames and a glowing +coal of the polished coffee-urn in the corner; +it pointed pleasantly out the numberless books, +but told nothing of their contents; it made dark +the spaces where the alcoves were, but suffused +the little radius of the hearth that was bounded +by an easy chair and a pipe-stand with a glow and +warmth and comfort which were irresistible. +The Man Above the Square came quickly into +this charmed radius and sank again into the +chair. “And some people insist on steam heat!” +he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then he looked into the rosy pit of wallowing, +good-natured flames, and fancied he was +meditating. But in reality he was going to sleep. +When he woke up the fire was out and he was +cramped and cold. He stumbled to a corner, +turned on the steam in a radiator, that the room +might be warm in the morning, and returned +to his chamber.</p> + +<p>“After all, you have to build a fire; but the +steam just comes,” he growled, as he crawled +sleepily into bed.</p> + +<p>Toward morning the steam did come, but +some hours before he was ready to rise. It came +at intervals, forcing the water up ahead and +thumping it against the top of the radiator with +the force of a trip-hammer and the noise of a +cannon. The Man Above the Square woke up +and cursed. The intervals between thumps he +employed in wondering how soon the next report +would come, which effectively prevented +his going to sleep again. Presently the thumping +ceased, and he dozed off, to awake later in +ugly temper. He went out into the sitting room +and found it cold as an ice-box.</p> + +<p>“Where in blazes is all that steam which +woke me up at daylight?” he shouted down the +speaking-tube to the janitor. The answer, as +usual, admitted of no reply, even as it offered +no satisfactory explanation. He dug into the +wood-box and on the heap of feathery white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +ashes which topped the pile in the fireplace like +snow—“the fall of last night” he called it—he +laid a fire of pine and maple. In three minutes +he was toasting his toes in front of the blaze, and +good nature was spreading up his person like the +tide up a bay.</p> + +<p>“Modern conveniences would be all right,” +he chuckled, looking from the merry fire to the +ugly radiator, “if they were ever convenient!”</p> + +<p>Then he swung Indian clubs for a quarter of +an hour, jumped into a cold plunge, and went +rosy to his breakfast and the day's work, with +the cheeriness of the fire in his heart.</p> + +<p>But while he was gone there entered the +chambermaid, and sad desecration was wrought. +Chambermaids are another modern inconvenience. +The Pilgrim Fathers got along without +chambermaids; and even at a much later period +chambermaids worked at least under the supervision +of a mistress of the household. But nowadays +they have their own way, even in abodes +where there is one who could be a mistress if +she would, or time from social duties and the +improvement of her mind permitted. Of course, +in the abode of a bachelor the chambermaid is +supreme, for bachelors, at least in New York, +have of necessity to live in apartments, not private +boarding houses presided over by a careful +mistress. Probably most of them prefer to; but +that does not prove progress, none the less. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +the Man Above the Square was not of this class. +He had a sharp elbow bone, in the first place, +which is to signify that he was a “good house-keeper,” +as they say in New England. And in +the second place, he knew the value to the +æsthetic and moral sense of personality in living +rooms, of an orderly, tasteful arrangement of +inanimate objects, carpets, pictures, furniture, +which, through weeks of comparative changelessness, +takes on the human aspect of a friend +and silently welcomes you when you return at +night, saying comfortably, “I am here, as you +left me; I am home.”</p> + +<p>So when he entered his room again that evening +and turned up the gas, his immediate utterance +was not strictly the subject for reproduction. +To begin with, the chambermaid had, in disobedience +to his strict orders, taken up the centre +rug and sent it up on the roof for the porter to +beat. Being an expensive rug, the Man Above +the Square did not particularly relish having it +frequently beaten. But still less did he relish the +way it had been replaced. It was not in the centre +of the room, so that two legs of the library +desk in the middle stood on the border and two +on the diamond centre. One end was too near +the piano, the other consequently too far from +the hearth. And in trying to tug it into position +the maid had managed to pull every edge out +of plumb with the lines of the floor. Of course,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +the photographs on the piano had smooches on +the margins, where the maid's thumb had pressed +as she held them up to dust beneath. Pudd'n-Head +Wilson would alone have prized them in +their present state. On the mantel each object +was just far enough out of its proper place to +throw the whole decorative scheme into a line +of Puritanic primness. And the chairs, silent +friends that are so companionable when an understanding +hand places them in position, were +now facing at stiff angles of armed neutrality, as +if mutually suspicious. Not one of them said, +“Sit in me.”</p> + +<p>But the worst was yet to come. Walking over +to the fireplace, the Man Above the Square looked +in and groaned.</p> + +<p>“She's done it again!” he cried. “I'd move +out of this flat to-night if I wasn't sure that any +other would be as bad, this side of the middle of +last century.”</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, a sorry piece of work. The +splendid pile of gray and white wood ashes +which that morning had been heaped high over +the arms of the firedogs, and which drifted high +into each corner and out upon the hearth, was +no more. A little pile remained, carefully swept +into the rear of the fireplace, but the bulk of the +ashes had been removed and the arms of the +firedogs stood inches above what was left.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I told her not to do it; confound it! I told +her not to do it!” he muttered aloud, storming +about the room. “Here I've been since Christmas +collecting that pile of ashes, and it had just +reached the point where I could kindle a fire +with three sticks of kindling and burn only one +log if I wished. And then that confounded chambermaid +disobeys me—distinctly disobeys me—and +shovels it all out!”</p> + +<p>He rang angrily for the chambermaid, whose +name was Eliza, and who was tall and angular.</p> + +<p>“Didn't I tell you under no consideration to +take away any of my ashes?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“But I swept the room into them, and they +got all dirty,” she protested.</p> + +<p>“Then don't sweep the room again!” he +interposed. “I want the ashes left hereafter.”</p> + +<p>“But the fire will burn better without so many +ashes; they chokes it,” said Eliza. “Most people +like 'em cleaned out every week.”</p> + +<p>“Most people are fools,” said the Man Above +the Square. “You may go now.”</p> + +<p>The loss of his ashes had so irritated him that +it was a long time before he could yield himself +to the influence of the blaze, which leapt merrily +enough, in spite of the too clear hearth. He +filled his pipe and smoked it out and filled it +again; he tried the latest autobiography and +Heine's prose and the current magazines; and +still his mind would not settle to restfulness and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +content. Then suddenly he remembered the +date, the 20th of January. He took down his +Keats. The owl, for all his feathers, might well +have been a-cold on that night, too, for a shrill +wind was up without. He glanced at his fire. +Already the kindlings were settling into glowing +heaps beneath the logs, a good start on a +fresh pile of ashes. He snuggled more comfortably +into his chair and began once more the +deathless poem.</p> + +<p>The clock ticked steadily; the wind sent +crashing down the limb of an elm tree outside +and shrieked exultingly; a log settled into the +fire with a hiss and crackle of sparks. But he +heard nothing. Presently he laid the book aside, +for the poem was finished, and looked into the +fire. It was sometimes a favorite question of his +to inquire who ate Madeline's feast, a point +which Keats leaves in doubt; but he did not ask +it to-night.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it was ages long ago,” he said at length. +“Ages long ago!”</p> + +<p>Then he leaned forward, poking the fire +meditatively, and added: “Steam heat in Madeline's +chamber? Impossible! But there might +have been just such another fire as this!”</p> + +<p>And was it a sudden thought, “like a full-blown +rose,” making “purple riot” in his breast, +too, or was it simply the leap of the firelight, +which caused his face to flush?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> + +<p>“I wonder where they are now?” he whispered. +“'They are together in the arms of +death,' a later poet says. But surely the world +has not so far 'progressed' that they do not live +somewhere still.”</p> + +<p>Then he recalled a visit he once made to a +young doctor in a fine old New-England village. +The doctor was not long out of college, and he +had brought his bride to this little town, to an +old house rich in tiny window panes, uneven +floors and memories. Great fireplaces supplied +the heat for the doctor and his wife, as it had +done for the occupants who looked forth from +the windows to see the soldiery go by on their +way to join Washington at the siege of Boston. +And when the Man Above the Square came on +his visit he found in the fireplace which warmed +the low-studded living room, that was library and +drawing room as well, a heap of ashes more than +a foot high, on which the great cordwood sticks +roared merrily.</p> + +<p>The doctor and his wife, sitting down before +the blaze, pointed proudly to this heap of ashes, +and the doctor said, “I brought Alice to this +house a year ago, on the day of our wedding, +and we kindled a fire here, on the bare hearth. +Since then not a speck of ashes has been removed, +except little bits from the front when the +carpet was invaded. That pile of ashes is the +witness to our year-long honeymoon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Then Alice smiled fondly into the rosy glow, +herself more rosy, and they kissed each other +quite unaffectedly.</p> + +<p>The Man Above the Square, when his memory +reached this point, let the ebony poker slide from +his grasp. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “her name was +really Madeline!”</p> + +<p>Again he looked into the fire. “Could the +ashes have been preserved if Madeline had not +given the matter her personal attention, but had +trusted to a housemaid?” he thought. What +further reflections this question inspired must be +left to conjecture. He did not speak again.</p> + +<p>But presently he got up, went to his desk, +and wrote a letter. He was a long time about +it, consulting frequently with the fire and smiling +now and then. When it was done he took +it at once to the elevator to be mailed. Perhaps +he thought it unsafe to wait the turning of the +mood.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="The_Vacant_Room_in_Drama" id="The_Vacant_Room_in_Drama"></a>The Vacant Room in Drama</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big> am</span> content to let Mr. John Corbin sing the +praises of the stage without scenery; I prefer to +sing the praises of the stage without actors. Ever +since I was a little boy, nothing in the world +has been for me so full of charm and suggestiveness +as an empty room. I remember as vividly +as though it were week before last being brought +home from a visit somewhere, when I was four +years old, and arriving after dark. My mother +had difficulty in finding the latch-key in her bag +(I have since noted that this is a common trait +of women), and while the search was going on +I ran around the corner of the house and peered +in one of the low windows of the library. The +moonlight lay in two oblong patches on the +floor; and as I pressed my nose against the pane +and gazed, the familiar objects within gradually +emerged from the gloom, as if a faint, invisible +light were being turned slowly up by an invisible +hand. Nothing seemed, however, as it did +by day, but everything took on a new and mysterious +significance that bewildered me. I think +it must also have terrified me, for I recall my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +father's carrying me suddenly into the glare of +the hall, and saying, “What's the matter with +the boy?” And to-day I cannot enter a theatre, +even at the prosaic hour of ten in the morning, +when the chairs are covered with cloths and +maids are dusting, when the house looks very +small and the unlit and unadorned stage very like +a barn, without a thrill of imaginative pleasure. +I have even mounted the stage of an empty +theatre and addressed with impassioned, soundless +words the deeply stirred, invisible, great audience, +rising row on row to the roof. At such +moments I have experienced the creative joy of +a mighty orator or a sublime actor; I have actually +felt my pulses leap. And then the entrance +of a stage-hand or a scrub-woman would shatter +the illusion!</p> + +<p>But it is when I am one of a real audience, +and the stage is disclosed set with scenery but +barren of players, that I derive, perhaps, the +keenest pleasure. A few playwrights have recognized +the power of the vacant room in +drama, but on the whole the opportunities for +such enjoyment are far too rare. This is odd, +too, with such convincing examples at hand. +There is, for instance, the close of the second +act of <i>Die Meistersinger</i>, when the watchman +passes through the sleepy town after the street +brawl is over, and then the empty, moon-bathed +street lies quiet for a time, before the curtain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +closes. Of course, here there is music to aid in +creating the poetic charm and soothing repose +of that moment. But at the end of <i>Shore Acres</i> +there was no such aid. Who that saw it, however, +can forget that final picture? After Nat +Berry—played by Mr. Herne, the author—had +scratched a bit of frost off the window-pane to +peer out into the night, locked the door, and +banked the fire, he climbed with slow, aged +footsteps up the stairs to bed. At the landing +he turned to survey the old kitchen below, that +lay so cozy and warm under the benediction of +his eye. Then he disappeared with his candle, +and the stage grew quite dim, save for the red +glow from the fire. Yet the curtain did not fall; +and through a mist of tears, tears it cleansed +one's soul to shed, the audience looked for a +long, hushed moment on the scene, on the now +familiar room where so much of joy and grief +had happened,—deserted, tranquil, but suddenly, +in this new light of emptiness, realized to be +how vital a part of the lives of those people who +had made the play! It used to seem, indeed, +as if the drama had not achieved full reality +until the old kitchen had thus had its say, thus +spoken the epilogue.</p> + +<p>It is strange to me that more playwrights +have not profited by such examples. The cry +of the average playgoer is for “action,” to be +sure; but even “action” may be heightened by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +contrast, by peace and serenity. Certainly the +vitality, the illusion, of a scenic background on +the stage can be enhanced by drawing a certain +amount of attention to it alone; and something +as Mr. Hardy, in <i>The Return of the Native</i>, +paints Egdon Heath—“Haggard Egdon”—in +its shifting moods before he introduces a single +human being upon the scene of their coming +tragedy, it is quite possible for the modern playwright, +with an artist to aid him, to show the +audience the scene of his drama, to let its suggestive +beauty, its emotional possibilities, charm +or fire their fancies before the speech and action +begin. So also, as Wagner and Mr. Herne +have demonstrated, there can be a climax of the +vacant stage. I look to the new stage-craft to +develop such possibilities.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="On_Giving_an_Author_a_Plot" id="On_Giving_an_Author_a_Plot"></a>On Giving an Author a Plot</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>T</big>here</span> are two people who annoy an author +more than any others—the person who calmly +supposes that everything he writes is biographical, +or even autobiographical, and the person who +declares, “I've got a dandy plot for you”—and +proceeds to tell it.</p> + +<p>The first person, of course, is annoying, because +an author's stories always <i>are</i> either biographical +or autobiographical, and he never cares +to admit, even to himself, how true this is. To +be sure, his characters are composites, and his +self-revelations are rather possibilities (or even, +alas, Freudian wishes!) than records of actuality. +But fancy trying to explain that to a gushing +female who has developed a sudden passion for +calling on your wife, and is heard to remark, +“Oh, is that where he writes?” as you flee by a +back door, down the garden!</p> + +<p>The second person is annoying not so much +because most of the “dandy plots” that he or she +tells are hoary with age, or even because most +writers don't start with a 'plot' at all, and couldn't +define a plot if they had to; but rather because a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +writer, however humble, has to feel the idea for +a story come glowing up over the horizon of his +brain out of the east of his own subconsciousness, +or it is never his, it never acquires the necessary +warmth to interest him, the color and +light to make it real. This is a curious fact, and +one which your modest writer shrinks from trying +to explain to his well-meaning friend, lest +he seem egotistical. Only the blessed publicity +of print could draw him out. Yet the psychology +involved perhaps deserves some attention.</p> + +<p>Suppose it is my common method, in writing +a story, to start from some social situation which +illumines a strata of life; suppose, let us assume, +that I am present at a dinner party where a radical +has got in by mistake and says something +which profoundly shocks some capitalistic pirate +who honestly feels himself a pillar of law and +order, and in this situation I see an irony which +gradually demands fictional expression, as imagined +characters and more extensive clashes begin +to shape in my brain. There you have a not +at all impossible evolution of a story. But now +suppose that instead of my being present at this +party, a friend had been present, quite as alive as +I to the ironies of the situation, and suppose my +friend later repeated the incident to me—why +should it not serve me just as well, why should +it not start the fictional urge, the gestation of +character and incident?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p> + +<p>Generalizing is dangerous work. Of course, +there may be authors in whom it would start +the process. But I have never known one. Even +in so exceptional a case as this—of course, the +usual friendly suggestion has no real meat of +fiction in it at all—something is lacking to fire +the imagination. It is exactly as if your nose +were called upon to sense, or your retina to image, +an odor or a scene described to you and not +directly experienced. Your brain accepts the description, +but there is no warmth in the reaction, +no tingle of life. Just so, it would almost seem, +the conception for a story, a poem, no doubt for +a picture, too, or a strain of music, is something +less, or more, than merely mental; it is in some +subtle way sensory, as if the brain had fingers +which must themselves touch the thing directly +to get the feel of it. Is it not, perhaps, this fact +which has caused so many artists, consciously or +unconsciously, to believe in “inspiration”?</p> + +<p>The singing line walks from nowhere into +the poet's head, the perfect situation comes to +the writer of fiction when he is least expecting +it. To take a humble example, I was once sitting +in an editor's office, listening while he expounded +to me a grand “plot” for a series of +stories. I looked across the street from his window +to avoid his eyes, lest I should show my +lack of appreciation, and there beheld a slight +incident which I instantly knew was a starting-point.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +It turned out to be worth a year's income +to me. Yet, to a merely impersonal judgment, +the editor's idea was more interesting and worth +while than mine. Only it wasn't mine; that's +the point. It was foreign born, and could never +become a citizen of my mental commonwealth. +I have not quite reached the pitch of calling my +ideas inspirations, but I long ago recognized that +unless they were my ideas from the dim days +before their birth they could never be mine, and +it was only a waste of time to wrestle with them. +So when a friend declares he has a dandy plot +for me, I summon what patience I may and pretend +to listen, while planning a better succession +of perennials for next year's garden, or mentally +reviewing the prospect of cutting three strokes +off my golf score.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="The_Twilight_Veil" id="The_Twilight_Veil"></a>The Twilight Veil</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>N</big>ew York</span>! How few of us call it home! We +have been sucked into it, as into a whirlpool, +and as we spin round and round on its mighty +unrest our hearts and fancies find repose in +memory—the memory of an old New England +village, or a corn field and a split-rail fence and +then the level prairie, or cotton fields and the +red handkerchiefs of the negroes, or the vineyard +slopes of Sicily, or the great white surf beating up +the cliffs of Connemara. It may be that the second +and third generations of immigrants, born on the +East Side, are true New Yorkers, just as a vanishing +generation of elderly men and women on +Murray Hill and the Avenue are true New Yorkers. +But the great majority of New York's five +millions cherish in their hearts either the memory +or the hope of some spot far away to which they +give the allegiance of home love. Ours is a curious +city in that respect. Perhaps, indeed, it is a +fortunate one. Without such memory or such +hope, the flat-dwelling imposed on most New +Yorkers by economic necessity would be a deadly +thing—or shall we say, a more deadly thing?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> + +<p>If you desire a curious experience, go into a +New York club like the Yale or Harvard or +Players' club, and collect a dozen men at random, +asking each for a little word-sketch of his childhood +home. Seldom enough will the scene of +that sketch be in New York City, and you will +probably be surprised to find how infrequently +it will be in any city. A kind of urban consciousness +gets complete possession of us after +we have lived long on Manhattan Island, and +we are prone to forget what a geographically +tiny spot it is. We forget the country. It comes +as a surprise when we discover how many of +our fellows were, like us, country bred. We are +still a nation, at bottom, of little white dwelling +houses, if not any longer of little white school +houses. (I know the phrase is little red school +houses, only they never were red, but white!) +This is probably one reason why our æsthetic +sense is not adjusted to find more beauties than +we do in the physical aspects of New York City. +Deep in our consciousness, if not rather our subconsciousness, +lies the ache for green vistas and +gardens, for low sky lines and quiet streets. +When we speak of the picturesque in New +York, we most often refer (aside from the obviously +striking aspect of the lower city from +the harbor) to the old brick houses on Washington +Square or the quaint streets of Greenwich +Village. Yet we do both the city and ourselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +an injustice by this more or less unconscious +attitude. Let us consider picturesque to mean +what is shaped by chance and the play of light +into a beautiful picture, and, if we but walk the +town with eyes upraised and open, we shall see +the picturesque on every side.</p> + +<p>There is the Plaza Hotel, for example. +Every New Yorker and every visitor to New +York knows it,—a great, white, naked sky-scraper, +with a green hip-roof, rising close to the Park +and St. Gaudens' golden bronze of General +Sherman. But how many know that it is probably +the one sky-scraper in the world which +can gaze at its own reflection in still water, and +that to the spectator looking at it over this water-mirror +it becomes a gigantic but ethereal Japanese +design, even to the pine limb flung across +the upper corner?</p> + +<p>They say there is an hour at twilight when +all men appear noble, and all women beautiful. +Certainly there is such a twilight hour when +New York City is veiled, oftimes, in loveliness; +and most lovely at this hour is the Plaza mirrored +in the pool. The view is not easy to find, unless +you are one of those who know your Central +Park. But a little searching will uncover +it. You will see in the southeast corner of the +Park a lake, and just beyond this lake you will +find a path turning west. That path leads to a +stone bridge over a northward-stretching inlet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +of the pond. Cross the bridge a few paces and +turn your face to the south. At your feet the +bank goes down sharply to the still, dark water. +Across the pond the bank rises steep and rocky, +covered with thick shrubbery and trees. Shooting +up apparently out of these trees is the white +wall of the Plaza, three hundred feet into the +air, and down into the water sinks its still reflection, +to an equal depth. It rises alone, open sky +to left and right, and there is just room in the +lake for its replica. The picture is impressive +by day, but as twilight begins to steal over the +scene, as the sky takes on a pearly softness, and +the shadows creep through the trees in the Park, +and the lights in half the windows up that white +cliff wall begin to gleam in golden squares, the +great building becomes curiously ethereal, the +pine limb flung into the foreground of the design +catches the eye, the reflection in the water is +as real as the reality. The Plaza, monstrous tons +of steel and stone, floats between two elements. +Then darkness gathers, the reflected lights in the +blackening water grow more golden, and suddenly, +perhaps, a duck swims across a tenth story +window and sets it dancing in golden ripples. +You may fare far among the ancient and “picturesque” +cities of the earth without finding a +rival for this strange bit of beauty in New York, +an ethereal sky-scraper in white and gold gazing +at its own reflection in the forest pool!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> + +<p>Twilight in the Park, indeed, converts more +than one building into a thing of beauty, and +the Plaza into a thing of beauty from more than +one view. For instance, as you pass into the +Park, seeking the spot we have described, turn +back before you have advanced far, and see the +great cliff wall going up beyond the slender tracery +of young trees, with the street lights, just +turned on, making a level strip of golden shimmer +at its base, curiously suggestive of crowds +and gaiety. There is at all hours a certain charm +to be found in the long line of high hotels and +apartment houses which line the Park to the +west, when you view them over treetops, rock +ledges, and running brooks, or over white fields +of snow. It is as if the city had crested in a great +wave along the green shore of the country, ready +to curl and fall and dash onward, but had been +suddenly arrested by some more potent King +Canute. Loveliness, however, is hardly a word +you would apply till twilight steals across the +scene. Down side streets into the west the golden +sunset glows for a time, and the shadows on +the snow are amethyst. Then the glow fades. +The arc lamps come on with a splutter, and they, +too, at first are amethyst. But in the gathering +dark they change to blue. The sky changes to +the deep blue of approaching night. The dim +bulks of the buildings change to blue. The +shadows about you are but a deeper blue. Even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +the snow at your feet is blue. In the great apartments +and hotels the golden window squares appear, +and the looming procession of blue shadow +bulks might be a fleet of giant liners going by +you in the night.</p> + +<p>There is always a mystery and poignant charm +about our parks in New York, if you let them +have their way with your imagination, which +you do not find in other parks intrinsically, perhaps, +more beautiful. No doubt this comes from +violent contrast between our city and the hush +and peace of trees. Our streets are all treeless, +and our great heave of masonry comes up to the +very edge of our green oases. Even the smaller +parks which fill but a block or two, when twilight +enfolds them, blurring the harsher outlines +and conjuring out the shadows, can captivate the +senses. If you chance to wander in Brooklyn—which +no self-respecting inhabitant of Manhattan +permits himself to do except under compulsing!—you +may come upon Fort Greene Park +when the evening shadows are stealing down the +streets to meet you, and the Martyrs' Monument +strangely converted into a pagan altar, silhouetted +against the sky amid its guardian druid grove +wherein the lamps glow and twinkle and dark +figures move mysteriously.</p> + +<p>But it is not even necessary to enter the parks +of New York to find the picturesque and lovely. +Such open areas as Washington and Madison<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +Squares hold varying aspects of beauty and imaginative +suggestion, from sunrise to moonset. +Large enough to admit the play of light and to +blur a bit the building lines at their further side, +these squares reward the seeing eye with many +an unguessed delight.</p> + +<p>For ten years my rooms were six stories up +on the east side of Washington Square, and for +ten years, at all seasons and all hours, I walked +daily up-town through Madison Square to the +Rialto, and back again. I have often regretted +that I kept no note-book of the changing aspects +of these two oases, as one keeps a note-book of +the seasons in the country. Spring comes in +Washington and Madison Squares with signs no +less unmistable than the hepaticas by the woodland +road. The western wall of the Flatiron +Building has its autumnal colorings; and though +the first snow fall may be black mud by noon, at +sun-up those brick-bounded areas laugh in white +and the aged trees arch their fantastic tracery.</p> + +<p>Spring in the Square! The central fountain +is playing again its rainbow jet of spray, the tulips +are a jaunty ring about it, the benches have put +forth a strange, sad foliage of humanity (you +must not think too much of the benches nor +look at them too long!), the shrill children are +everywhere, the green 'busses are gay with sight-seers +atop, and as you stand by the fountain and +look northward through the Washington Arch,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +you see that an amazing thing has come to pass. +The great arch spans the vista of the Avenue, +lined here with red brick dwellings and the +sunny white bulk of the old Brevoort House. +Far off, the sky-scrapers begin to loom, whipping +out flags and steam plumes. It is a treeless +vista, yet it is hazed with spring! Imagination, +you scoff—and dust. Yet you look again, and +it is not imagination, and it is not dust. It is +the veil of spring, cast with delicate hand over +the city. These laughing sight-seers atop the +green 'bus now going under the arch feel it, +too. These children screaming round your feet, +as they dash through the wind-borne fountain +spray, are aware of it. There is an answering +benignity in the calm, red brick dwellings up +the vista of the Avenue. Wait for a few hours, +let the sun sink behind the heights of Hoboken, +and then wander once more into the Square. +Twilight, a warm, balmy twilight, is upon your +spirit. Look through the arch southward now. +There is still plenty of light left in the sky, but +the great, springing, Roman masonry is dusky. +It frames the sweeping curve of the asphalt +around the fountain, and beyond that the Judson +Memorial tower, graceful, Italian, bearing its +electric cross against the failing day like a cluster +of timid evening stars. It is a tower from the +plains of Lombardy, or from an island in the +Tiber, seen through an arch of ancient Rome.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +Do you object to that in an American city? I +cannot argue the point. I only know that when +I see them so, the one framing the other, in the +spring twilight, or in the early dusk of a winter +day, my heart is very glad, and my spirit feels +a touch of that peace and calm the poet felt +among the Roman ruins,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Miles on miles....”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>How often in New York it is a tower which +gathers the picture together! Ours is a city of +towers. We hide Trinity spire in a well, and +Henry Arthur Jones, the playwright, once complained +that the windows of his hotel room on +the Avenue looked down upon the pinnacle of +a church steeple. Yet our towers rise just the +same, new ones leaping up as far above the new +three-hundred-foot sky-line as Trinity steeple +once lifted above lower Broadway. We aspire +still. Nor is the old Judson tower on Washington +Square yet dwarfed. How many red sunsets +have I seen glow through its belfry windows, +while the tower itself was a black silhouette +against the sky, and down in the shadowy Square +the night lamps began to come out, or the asphalt, +drenched by a shower, shone as if molten +copper had been rained upon it! In how many +deep, starlit nights have I thrown open my window +for a fresher breath and a moment of meditation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> +to see the deserted Square below me, its +white arch faintly gleaming in the radiation of +the arc lamps, the long stretch of city roofs beyond, +the twinkling lamps on the far heights of +Hoboken, and there in the centre of the picture +the dark, silent tower, keeping quiet watch and +bearing its steady cross like a star-cluster in the +night! Many a time I have gone to bed with its +beautiful image behind my eyelids.</p> + +<p>The Metropolitan tower in Madison Square +is less intimate. It has its moods, but they are +the moods of the mountain. It has dwarfed the +graceful, Spanish tower of the Madison Square +Garden, without a doubt, and taken the proud +Diana down a peg. But there are compensations +in its mightiness. Have you ever seen it on a +foggy day going up out of sight into the driving +vapors? Have you stood in ancient Gramercy +Park—still a bit of the old, domestic New York +of the '70's—and seen it booming up over the +red brick dwellings, white and confident into the +sun? Have you ever come down through Madison +Square late at night, when the relic of a +moon was rising behind the tower, and the +ghostly shaft stood up tremendous against the +pale, racing cloud-rack? Have you seen it with +the last pink glow of sunset upon it, and upon +the western wall of the Flatiron Building, and +upon nothing else, all lower buildings being in +shadows of obscuring twilight? That is one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +its delicate mountain moods, when it seems to +lift above our earth-bound vision and look over +those western cloud ranges into the Land Beyond +the Sunset.</p> + +<p>Have you seen it, too, down Madison Avenue +in the mysterious twilight hour of blue and gold +when all New York is beautiful? The street +lamps have come on; the dark figures of home-going +pedestrians hurry past you; there are lamps +in the windows of houses. A filmy blue veil of +twilight obscures the distances, so that they are +soft, alluring. The tower is pale, almost ethereal, +at the end of the vista. Its great clock, pricked +out with golden lamps, seems scarce a third of +the way up its side. The white walls rise on, +and on, with here and there a spot of gold, and +taper into nothing. They are lost in the gloom +of coming night. But still they must go on, +for far aloft you see the lantern glowing like +a star, hung between earth and heaven. In this +twilight hour of blue and gold the tower is the +mighty guardian spirit of the scene, sending +down sonorous word of the hours as they pass, +and lifting our eyes, like its steady lantern, toward +the watch-towers of Eternity. Must we be +forever reminded that those glowing window +squares up its flanks denote lawyers toiling late +at their briefs, or mining stock promoters planning +a new cast of the net? Must we be forever +told that this is not a spire in praise of God but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +a monument in praise of Mammon? Aspiration +is in its lines, beauty in its sky-borne shaft of blue +and gold, wonder in its shrouded summit.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“They builded better than they knew—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The conscious stone to beauty grew.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is enough. Let us wonder and be glad.</p> + +<p>There are many odd views of the tower to be +had for a little searching, spots where its peak +appears in unexpected places, or with unusual +suggestion. There is just one point in Union +Square, for example, about halfway round “dead +man's curve,” where you see the tapering pyramid +and the golden lantern overtopping the high +buildings between. You do not see it again, if +you are walking up Broadway, till you are close +to Madison Square. Then, if you lift your eyes, +you are suddenly aware of it looming far aloft +over the cornice-line to your right, shredding +the mists on a stormy day, or by night lifting +its lantern up with the stars. There is always an +added impressiveness about a tower when we +cannot see the base. The sheer drop of its sides +is left to our imagination, and the human imagination +may generally be trusted to embroider +fact. For that reason alone, the view of the +tower from a certain point on East Thirty-first +Street, between Madison and Fourth Avenues, +would be worth the searching out. But it has +another and unique charm. If you will walk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +along Thirtieth Street toward Fourth Avenue you +will see, tucked in between larger and more +modern buildings on the south side, a little two-story-and-a-half +wooden cottage, set back a few +feet behind an iron fence. It must have stood +there many years, for the wooden age in New +York was long, long ago. It is a quaint little +dwelling, with quaint pseudo-Gothic ornamentations, +and until recently was used as an antique +shop. A large weather-stained Venus stood upon +the front porch, ironically beside a spinning-wheel! +Now the house is untenanted, so that +you lift your eyes the sooner to look above and +beyond it. It occupies, of course, a slit between +higher buildings. Through that slit, as you stand +on the opposite curb, you look over a few spindly +black chimney-stacks in the foreground directly +to the Metropolitan Tower, booming up suddenly +and unexpectedly. You see only that for +a moment, because of its Titanic size and white +impressiveness. Then you notice something outlined +against it, a lower tower, much more slender, +a mere tracery of delicate shafts and belfries, and +crowning it, her bow forever poised, the lovely +limbed Diana. Whence either of these towers +come, you see not. They merely spring up into +the vision over the roof of the little wooden house, +the darker one outlined against the other for comparison. +Between and around them steam plumes +from unseen buildings drift like clouds. Diana<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +turns a little, and points her shaft into the wind +anew. The might of the new tower is mightier +for this close comparison. Yet the other tower, too, +does not suffer, its femininity is the more alluring. +But lift your eyes as you walk through this +commonplace cross-street of New York, and you +may see as picturesque a vista, over the quaint +wooden cottage, as any city, anywhere, affords—forty +stories looking down on two and a half, +and between them, in intermediate flight, St. +Gaudens' bronze Diana.</p> + +<p>Snow in the city! We in New York think +of bespattered boots, of horses falling down, of +dirty piles, more black than white, lining the +streets like igloos till the tip-carts come and +carry them off. “The frolic architecture” of the +snow is a thing of memory, not of present fact. +Like Whittier, we recall the hooded well-sweep +or fantastic pump, and the great drifts by the +pasture wall. Yet, once again, it is the seeing +eye we lack, nor do we need even to enter the +Park to discover the snow at its artistic handiwork. +Let Sixty-fifth Street enter the Park for +you, from the east, and do you stand upon Fifth +Avenue and note the conversion from ugliness +to beauty of a paved road, dipping into a dugway +between dirty stone walls. The soiled pavement +is hidden now, each rough stone on the +bounding walls is softly outlined with white, +not far into the Park a graceful stone foot-bridge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +spans the sunken street, supporting a second and +more graceful arch of snow, and the street curves +alluringly into the trees which rise beyond, a +gray wall of misty shadow, the eye is satisfied +with a clean, well-composed, strongly lined +picture, and the imagination almost deluded into +a belief of its rusticity.</p> + +<p>I remember once walking down Broadway +late at night, after an evening at some tiresome +play and supper at some yet more tiresome and +tawdry restaurant. I had been having what is +popularly supposed to be a “good time,” and I +was bored. There had been a recent deep fall +of snow. The night was clear and cold. Below +Herald Square I met comparatively few pedestrians, +and those few were not of the sort to +dispel my despondent mood.</p> + +<p>“Back home,” I thought, “the moon should +be shining on the white, clean hills, and underneath +my boots the snow-crust would squeak. +Perhaps a screech-owl would whistle his plaintive +call in the ghostly orchard. How beautiful +there the night would be! But here—” and I +flung out my arm instinctively toward the walls +which hemmed me in.</p> + +<p>But as I drew near Madison Square, and lifted +my eyes to the soaring ship's-prow of the Flatiron +Building, I noted suddenly that its upper +stories were bathed in a pale, golden glow; and +coming full into the square, I saw the moon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +riding small and high beyond the white tower. +The next strip of canon street shut it out once +more, but at Union Square it was waiting to +greet me, and as I entered the slit of Broadway +to the south and drew near Eleventh street, I was +aware of the snow-covered northward pitch of +Grace Church roof gleaming in its light, a great +rectangle of pale radiance at the bend of the +street. Above the roof the Gothic spire stood up +serenely. There were no passers at the moment, +not even a trolley-car. The greatest traffic artery +in town was hushed as death. The high buildings +about were dark and shadowy. At the angle +commanding the vista in either direction the +church slept in the moonlight.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Deep on the convent roof the snows<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are sparking to the moon.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">Tennyson's lines came to me instinctively, for +here in the heart of town was their very picture +and their simple magic. A little shamefaced for +my sceptic blindness, I passed on toward home.</p> + +<p>Somebody, probably Emerson, said that we +bring from Europe only what we take to it. But +need one go to Europe to demonstrate the principle? +We in New York, who are often our +city's harshest critics, find pretty much what we +look for. We do not look for beauty, and we +do not find it. Then, too, man is no less conventional +about beauty than about other things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +If he believes that the beauty of a city lies in a +level cornice-line, converging vistas, malls of +trees, “civic centres,” of what use to tell him +that there may be a beauty as well of non-conformity, +when the magic veil of twilight wraps +the city round, and twinkling lamps climb unbelievable +heights and all the town is a mighty +nocturne in blue and gold? We would not be +thought to say that New York is always beautiful, +or that a great deal of it is not much of the +time ugly beyond hope. But there is not a street +of it from end to end but has some point of pictorial +charm, whence one may see a span of the +Brooklyn Bridge leaping over the tenements, or +the scholastic Gothic spire of the City College +chapel crowning the rocks at the close of the +vista, or just a rosy sunset over the Hoboken +hills. And there are parks and squares of almost +constant charm, though it be a charm not of the +old world, but the new, of the uprearing steel +city of the twentieth century. And finally there +are certain hours when kindly Nature takes a +hand at coloring our drab mortar piles and +softening out distances and making our forests +of masonry no less wonderful to look upon than +her own forests of timber. Such an hour is the +blue twilight, such an hour may be the wet evening +when the pavements shine with molten gold +and the electric signs along upper Broadway, +like King Arthur's dragoned helmet, make “all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +the night a steam of fire,” and round the tall +tower of the Times Building the vapour clouds +drift, now concealing, now revealing some beam +of light from a window high aloft. After all, +it is no great credit to any of us to find the +ugliness in New York. The ugliness is rather +obvious. To find the beauty is a worthier task, +and might make us more keen to cherish and +to expand it. It is there for the seeing eye.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img style="padding-top: 0em" src="images/ornament5.jpg" width="100" height="309" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Spring_in_the_Garden" id="Spring_in_the_Garden"></a>Spring in the Garden</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>N</big>o daffodils</span> “take the winds of March with +beauty” in our Berkshire gardens. What daffodils +we have in that month of alternate slush and +blizzard bloom in pots, indoors. But one sign +of spring the gardens holds no less plain to read, +even if some people may not regard it as so poetic—over +across the late snow, close to the hotbed +frames, a great pile of fresh stable manure +is steaming like a miniature volcano. To the +true gardener, that sight is thrilling, nay, lyric! I +have always found that the measure of a man's +(and more especially a woman's) garden love was +to be found in his (or her) attitude toward the +manure pile. For that reason I put the manure +pile in the first paragraph of my praise of gardens +in the spring.</p> + +<p>That yellowish-brown, steaming volcano above +the slushy snow of March promises so much! I +will not offend sensitive garden owners who hire +others to do their dirty work, by singing the joy +of turning it over with a fork, once, twice, perhaps +three times, till it is “working” evenly all +through. Yet there is such joy, accentuated on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> +the second day by the fact that the thermometer +has taken a sudden jump upwards, the snow is +melting fast, and in the shrubs and evergreen +hedge the song-sparrows are singing, and the +robins. Last year, I remember, I paused with +the steaming pile half turned, first to roll up my +sleeves and feel the warm sun on my arms—most +delicious of early spring sensations—and +then to listen to the love-call of a chickadee, +over and over the three notes, one long and two +short a whole tone lower. I answered him, he +replied, and we played our little game for two +or three minutes, till he came close and detected +the fraud. Then a bluebird flashed through the +orchard, a jay screamed, as I bent to my toil +again. Beside me were the hotbed frames, the +glasses newly washed, the winter bedding of +leaves removed, and behind them last year's contents +rotted into rich loam. Another day or two, +and they would be prepared for seeding—if I +only could bring myself to work hard enough +until then!</p> + +<p>How much hope goes into a hotbed in late +March, or early April! How much warmth the +friendly manure down under the soil sends up by +night to germinate the seeds, though the weather +go back to winter outside—as it invariably does +in our mountains! Last year, for example, we +had snow on the ninth of April, and again on the +twenty-third and twenty-ninth, while the year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +before, on the ninth, six inches fell. In the lowland +regions gardening is easier, perhaps, but yet +there is a certain joy in this fickle spring weather +of ours,—the joy of going out in the morning +across a white garden and sweeping the snow from +hotbed mats, lifting the moist, steaming glass, +and catching from within, strong against your +face, the pungent warmth and aroma of the +heated soil and the delicate fragrance of young +seedlings. How fast the seeds come—some of +them! Others come so slowly that the amateur +gardener is in despair, and angrily decides to try +a new seed house next year. The vegetable +frames are sown in rows—celery, tomatoes, cauliflowers, +lettuce, radishes, peppers, coming up in +tiny green ribbons, the radishes racing ahead. +The flower frames, however, are sown in squares, +each about a foot across, and each labeled and +marked off with a thin strip of wood. These +are the early plantings of the annuals, for we +cannot sow out-of-doors till the first or even the +second week in May in our climate. Sometimes, +indeed, we do not dare to sow even in the frames +till well into April. The asters are usually up first, +racing the weeds. The little squares make, in a +week or so, a green checker-board, each promising +its quota of color to the garden, and very +soon the early cosmos, thinned to the strongest +plants, has shot up like a miniature forest, towering +over the lowlier seedlings, sometimes bumping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +its head against the glass before it can be +transplanted to the open ground in May. But +most prolific, most promising, and most bothersome, +are the squares labeled “antirrhinum,” +coral red, salmon pink, white, dark maroon, and +so on; tiny seeds scattered on the ground and +sprinkled with a little sand, they come up by +the hundred, and each seedling has to go into +a pot before it goes into the ground.</p> + +<p>There is work for an April day! I sit on a +board by the hotbed, cross-legged like a Turk, +while the sun is warm on my neck and I feel +my arms tanning, and removing a mass of the +seedlings on a flat mason's trowel, I lift each +strong plant between thumb and finger, its long, +delicate white root dangling like a needle, and +pot it in a small paper pot. When two score pots +are ready, I set them in a cold-frame, sprinkle +them, stretch the kink out of my back, listen to +the wood-thrush a moment (he came on the +fourteenth and is evidently planning to nest in +our pines), and then return to my job. Patience +is required to pot four or five hundred snapdragons; +but patience is required, after all, in +most things that are rightly performed. I think +as I work of the glory around my sundial in +July, I arrange and rearrange the colors in my +mind—and presently the job is done.</p> + +<p>But the steaming manure pile is not the only +sign of spring, nor the hotbeds the only things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +to be attended to. If they only were, how much +easier gardening would be—and how much less +exciting! There is always work to be done in +the orchard, for instance, some pruning and +scraping. I always go into the orchard on the +first really warm, spring-like March day, with a +common hoe, and scrape a little, not so much +for the good of the trees as for the good of my +soul. The real scraping for the scale spray was, +of course, done earlier. There is a curious, faintly +putrid smell to old or bruised apple wood, which +is stirred by my scraping, and that smell sweeps +over me a wave of memories, memories of childhood +in a great yellow house that stood back +from the road almost in its orchard, and boasted +a cupola with panes of colored glass which made +the familiar landscape strange; memories of youth +in that same house, too, dim memories “of sweet, +forgotten, wistful things.” My early spring afternoons +in the orchard are very precious to me +now, and when the weather permits I always +try to burn the rubbish and dead prunings on +Good Friday, the incense of the apple wood floating +across the brown garden like a prayer, the +precious ashes sinking down to enrich the soil.</p> + +<p>The bees, too, are always a welcome sign of +the returning season, hardly less than the birds, +though the advent of the white-throated sparrow +(who delayed till April twenty-first last year) is +always a great event. He is first heard most often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +before breakfast, in an apple tree close to the +sleeping-porch, his flute-like triplets sweetly +penetrating my dreams and bringing me gladly +out of bed—something he alone can do, by the +way, and not even he after the first morning! +But the bees come long before. The earliest +record I have is March thirty-first, but there +must be dates before that which I have neglected +to put down. Some house plant, a hyacinth possibly, +is used as bait, and when the ground is +thawing out beneath a warm spring sun we put +the plant on the southern veranda and watch. +Day after day nothing happens, then suddenly, +some noon, it has scarcely been set on the ground +when its blossoms stir, and it is murmurous with +bees. Then we know that spring indeed has +come, and we begin to rake the lawns, wherever +the frost is out, wheeling great crate loads of +leaves and rubbish upon the garden, and filling +our neighbors' houses with pungent smoke.</p> + +<p>There is a certain spot between the thumb and +first finger which neither axe nor golf-club nor +saw handle seems to callous. The spring raking +finds it out, and gleefully starts to raise a blister. +My hands are perpetually those of a day-laborer, +yet I expect that blister every spring. Indeed, +I am rather disappointed now if I don't get it, +I feel as if I weren't doing my share of work. +The work is worth the blister. I know of few +sensations more delightful than that of seeing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +the lawn emerging green and clean beneath your +rake, the damp mould baring itself under the +shrubbery, the paths, freshly edged, nicely scarrowed +with tooth marks; then of feeling the +tug of the barrow handles in your shoulder +sockets; and finally, as the sun is sending long +shadows over the ground, of standing beside the +rubbish pile with your rake as a poker and +hearing the red flames crackle and roar through +the heap, while great puffs of beautiful brown +smoke go rolling away across the garden and +the warmth is good to your tired body. Clearing +up is such a delight, indeed, that I cannot +now comprehend why I so intensely disliked +to do it when I was half my present age. Perhaps +it was because at that time clearing up was +put to me in the light of a duty, not a pleasure.</p> + +<p>There is alas, too often a tempering of sadness +in the joy of taking the covers off the garden. +One removes them, especially after a cold open +winter, with much the same anxious excitement +that one opens a long-delayed letter from a dear +friend who has been in danger. What signs of +life will the peonies show under their four inches +of rotted manure, and the Japanese irises by the +pool, and the beds of Darwins, so confidently +relied upon to ring the sundial in late May and +early June, before the succeeding annuals are +ready? How will the hollyhocks, so stately in +midsummer all down the garden wall, have withstood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> +the alternate thaws and freezes which characterized +our abominable January and February? +Then there are those two long rows of foxgloves +and Canterbury bells, across the rear of the vegetable +garden, where they were set in the fall to +make strong plants before being put in their +permanent places—or rather their season's places, +for these lovely flowers are perversely biennials, +and at least seven times every spring I vow I +will never bother with them again, and then +make an even larger sowing when their stately +stalks and sky-blue bells are abloom in summer! +Tenderly you lift the pine boughs from them +on a balmy April day (it was not until almost +mid-April last year), when snow still lingers, +perhaps, in dirty patches on the north side of +the evergreens. Will they show frozen, flabby, +withered leaves, or will their centers be bright +with new promise? It is a moment to try the +soul of the gardener, and no joy is quite like +that of finding them all alive, nor any sorrow +like that of finding them dead. At first I used +to give up gardening forever when the perennials +and biennials were winter-killed, just as a beginner +at golf gives up the game forever each +time he makes a vile score. Then I began to compromise +on a garden of annuals. Now I have +learned philosophy—and also better methods +of winter protection. Likewise, I have learned +that a good many of the perennials which were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +stone-dead when the covers were removed have +a trick of coming to life under the kiss of May, +and struggling up to some sort of bloom, even +if heroically spindly like lean soldiers after a +hard campaign. The hollyhocks, especially, have +a way of seeding themselves undetected, and presenting +you in spring with a whole unsuspected +family of children, some of whom wander far +from the parent stem and suddenly begin to shoot +up in the most unexpected places. An exquisite +yellow hollyhock last summer sprouted unnoted +beneath our dinning-room window, and we +were not aware of it till one July morning when +it poked up above the sill. A few days later, +when we came down to breakfast, there it was +abloom, nodding in at the open window.</p> + +<p>Another spring excitement in the garden is +the pea planting, both the sweet peas and what +our country folk sometimes call “eatin' peas.” +No rivalry is so keen as that between pea-growers. +My neighbors and I struggle for supremacy +in sweet peas at the flower show in +July, and great glory goes to him who gets the +first mess of green peas on his table. We have +tried sweet-pea sowing in the fall, and it does +not work. So now I prepare a trench in October, +partially fill it with manure, and cover it +with leaves, which I remove at the first hint of +warm weather in March. The earth-piles on +either side thaw out quickly, and I get an early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> +sowing, putting in as many varieties as I can afford +(my wife says twice as many as I can afford), +jealously guarding the secret of their number. +The vegetable peas are planted later, usually +about the first or second day of April, as soon as +the top soil of the garden can be worked with +a fork, and long before the plowing. We put +in first a row of Daniel O'Rourke's, not because +they are good for much, but because they will +beat any other variety we have discovered by two +days at least. Then we put in a row of a better +standard early variety. How we watch those +rows for the first sprouts! How we coddle and +cultivate them! How eagerly we inspect our +neighbors' rows, trying to appear nonchalant! +And doubtless how silly this sounds to anyone +who is not a gardener. Last summer we got +our first mess of peas on June twenty-first, and +after eating a spoonful, we rushed to the telephone, +and were about to ring, when somebody +called us. “Hello,” we said into the transmitter. +A voice on the other end of the wire, curiously +choked and munchy, cried, “We are eating our +first peas! My mouth's full of 'em now!”</p> + +<p>“That's nothing,” we answered, “we've got +our first mouthful all swallowed.”</p> + +<p>“Well, anyhow,” said our disappointed neighbor, +“I called up first! Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>How is that for a neck-and-neck finish at +the tape?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p> + +<p>As April waxes into May, the garden beds are +a perpetual adventure in the expected, each morning +bringing some new revelation of old friends +come back, and as you dig deep and prepare the +beds for the annuals, or spade manure around the +perennials, or set your last year's plantings of +hollyhocks, larkspur, foxgloves and campanulas +into their places, you move tenderly amid the +aspiring red stalks of the peonies, the Jason's +crop of green iris spears, the leaves of tulips and +narcissuses and daffodils, the fresh green of tiny +sweet William plants clustered 'round the mother +plant like a brood of chicks around the hen. +You must be at setting them into borders, too, +or putting the surplus into flats and then telephoning +your less fortunate friends. One of the +joys of a garden is in giving away your extra +plants and seedlings.</p> + +<p>One morning the asparagus bed, already +brown again after the April showers have driven +the salt into the ground, is pricked with short +tips. That is a luscious sight! Inch by inch they +push up, and thick and fast they come at last, +and more and more and more. My diary shows +me that we ate our first bunch last year on May +ninth. On that day, also, I learn from the same +source, the daffodils were out, the Darwin tulips +were budding, and we spent the afternoon +burning caterpillars' nests in the orchard—one +spring crop which is never welcome, and never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +winter-killed. At this date, too, we are hard at +work spraying, and sowing the annuals out-of-doors +in the seed beds, and planting corn (the +potatoes are all in by now), immediately following +the plowing, which was delayed till the first +of May by a belated snowstorm. Winter with us +is like a clumsy person who tries over and over +to make his exit from a room but does not know +how to accomplish it. It is a busy time, for +no sooner are the annuals planted, and the vegetables, +than some of the seedlings from the hotbeds +have to be set out (such as early cosmos), +and the perennial beds already have begun to +bloom, and require cultivation and admiration, +and the flowers in the wild garden—hepaticas +and trilliums and bloodroot and violets—are crying +to be noticed, and, confound it all, here is +the lawn getting rank under the influence of its +spring dressing, and demands to be mowed! Yes, +and we forget to get the mower sharpened before +we put it away in the fall.</p> + +<p>“May fifteen”—it is my diary for last year—“apple +blossoms showing pink, and the rhubarb +leaves peeping over the tops of their barrels this +morning, like Ali Baba and the forty thieves.”</p> + +<p>Well, well; straight, juicy red stalks the length +of a barrel, fit for a pie and the market! It is +our second commercial product, the asparagus +slightly preceding it. The garden is getting into +shape now, indeed; the wheel-hoe is traveling up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> +and down the green rows; the hotbed glasses are +entirely removed by day; and the early cauliflower +plants are put into the open ground at +the first promise of a shower. The annuals are +up in the seed beds; the pool has been cleaned +and filled, the goldfish are once more swimming +in it, the Cape Cod water-lily, brought from its +winter quarters in the dark cellar, has begun to +make a leaf, and we have begun to hope that +maybe <i>this</i> year it will also make a blossom, for +we are nothing in mid-May if not optimistic.</p> + +<p>The earlier Darwins are already in bloom. +The German irises follow rapidly. June comes, +and we work amid the splendors of the Japanese +irises and the flame-line of Oriental poppies, setting +the annuals into their beds, from the tender, +droopy schyzanthus plants to the various asters +and the now sturdy snapdragons. The color +scheme had been carefully planned last winter, +and is as cheerfully disregarded now, as some +new inspiration strikes us, such as a border of +purple asters against salvia, with white dahlias +behind—a strip of daring fall color which would +delight the soul of Gari Melcher, which delighted +me—and which my wife said was +horrible.</p> + +<p>So spring comes and goes in the garden, busy +and beautiful, ceaseless work and ceaseless wonder. +But there is a moment in its passage, as +yet unmentioned, which I have kept for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +close because to me it is the subtle climax of +the resurrection season. It usually comes in +April for us, though sometimes earlier. The +time is evening, always evening, just after supper, +when a frail memory of sunset still lingers +in the west and the air is warm. I go out hatless +upon the veranda, thinking of other things, +and suddenly I am aware of the song of the +frogs! There are laughing voices in the street, +the tinkle of a far-off piano, the pleasant sounds +of village life come outdoors with the return +of spring; and buoying up, permeating these +other sounds comes the ceaseless, shrill chorus +of the frogs, seemingly from out of the air and +distance, beating in waves on the ear. Why this +first frog chorus so thrills me I cannot explain, +nor what dim memories it wakes. But the +peace of it steals over all my senses, and I walk +down into the dusk and seclusion of my garden, +amid the sweet odors of new earth and +growing things, where the song comes up to me +from the distant meadow making the garden-close +sweeter still, the air yet more warm and +fragrant, the promise of spring more magical. +The garden then is very intimate and dear, it +brings me into closer touch with the awakening +earth about me, and all the years I dwelt a prisoner +in cities are but as the shadow of a dream.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="The_Bubble_Reputation" id="The_Bubble_Reputation"></a>The Bubble, Reputation</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>A</big> great</span> dramatist is authority for the statement +that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The evil that men do lives after them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The good is oft interred with their bones.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">That is no doubt in a measure true; yet it would +be grossly unfair to blame personally certain +great ones of the past for the evil that has lived +after them and borne their names. For instance, +it may be doubted whether Louis XIV of France +was all that he should have been. His private +life would hardly have escaped censure in Upper +Montclair, N. J., or West Newton, Mass., and +his public acts were not always calculated to +promote social justice and universal brotherhood. +But to blame him for all the gilt furniture which +has ever since stood around the walls of hotel +ballrooms and borne his name is a libel even on +that lax and luxurious monarch. Yet such is his +fate. You who are familiar with history, I who +know next to nothing about it, are alike in this—when +we hear the words <i>Louis XIV</i> we do not +think of a great monarch with a powdered wig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +and a powdered mistress, of magnificent fountains +and courtiers and ladies dancing the gavotte, of +a brilliant court and striking epoch. Not at all. +We think, both of us, of a gilt chair with a +brocaded seat (slightly worn), and maybe a sofa +to match. If you say that you don't, I must politely +but firmly—well, differ with you.</p> + +<p>Alas! poor Louis XIV was not the only worthy +(or unworthy) of the past who has come down +to the present, not as a personality but as a piece +of furniture, a dog, a boot, or some other equally +ignominious thing. Speaking of furniture, there's +the Morris chair. The man who made the Morris +chair was a great and good man—not because +he made the Morris chair, but in spite of it! +He composed haunting poems, he wrote lovely +prose romances of the far-off days of knights +and ladyes and magic spells, such as that hight +<i>The Water of the Wondrous Isles</i>, a right brave +book mayhap you have not perused, to your exceeding +great loss, for beautiful it is and fair to +read and full of the mighty desire of a man for +a maid. Beside all this, he printed lovely books +by other writers, and designed wall-paper, and +painted pictures, and thundered against the deadening +effect on men of mechanical toil, and in +social theories was far in advance of his age. Such +a man was William Morris—known to-day to +the mass of mankind for one of the most accursed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> +articles of furniture ever devised by human ingenuity +gone astray! Every day, in a million homes, +men and women sit in Morris chairs (made by +machinery) and read Robert W. Chambers and +Florence Barclay. Such, alas, is fame!</p> + +<p>Then there was Queen Anne—in many respects +an estimable woman, though leaving +much to be desired as a monarch. She had her +Rooseveltian virtues, being the mother of seventeen +children (none of whom lived to grow beyond +infancy, to be sure); and she had what the +world just now has come to regard as the monarchical +vice of autocracy. In her reign science +and literature flourished, though without much +aid from her, and the English court buzzed with +intrigue and politics. But speak the name <i>Queen +Anne</i> aloud, and then tell me the picture you +get. Is it a picture of the lady or her period? Is +it a picture of Pope and Dryden sitting in a +London coffee-house? No, it is not—that is, +unless you are a very learned, or a very young, +person. It is a picture of a horrible architectural +monstrosity built about thirty or forty years ago +in any American city or suburb, and bearing +certain vague resemblances to a home for human +beings. Whatever else Queen Anne was, she +was not an architect, and she wasn't to blame for +those houses, any more than she was to blame +for Pope's “Essay on Man.” But that doesn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +count. She gets the blame, just the same. She +is known forever now by those gables and that +gingerbread, those shingles and stains.</p> + +<p>She had a predecessor on the English throne +by the name of Charles. Like Louis in France, +he wasn't all he should have been, and there +were those in his own day who didn't entirely +approve of him. But it wasn't because of his +dogs. However, if you mention King Charles +now, it is a dog you think of—a small, eary +dog, with somewhat splay feet and a seventeenth-century +monarchical preference for the society +of ladies and the softest cushion. Maybe the royal +gentleman didn't deserve anything better of posterity; +but, anyhow, that's what he got.</p> + +<p>St. Bernhard fared better. If one had to be +remembered by a dog, what better dog could +he select, save possibly an Airedale? Big, strong, +faithful, wise, true to type for centuries, the most +reliable of God's creatures (including Man by +courtesy in that category), the St. Bernhard is a +monument for—well, not for a king, and a king +didn't get him; for a saint, rather. It is doubtful +if the old monk is playing any lamentations +on his harp.</p> + +<p>But I'm not so sure about that peerless military +leader, General A. E. Burnside. When you +have risen to lead an army corps against your +country's foes, when you have commanded men +and sat your horse for a statue on the grounds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +of the state capitol or the intersection of Main +and State Streets, it really is rather rough to be +remembered for your whiskers. Of course, as a +wit remarked of Shaw, no man is responsible for +his relatives, but his whiskers are his own fault. +Nevertheless, how is a great general to know +that his military exploits will be forgotten, while +his whiskers thunder down the ages, as it were, +progressing in the course of time with the changing +fashions from bank presidents to Presbyterian +elders, and finally to stage butlers? At last +even the stage butlers are shaving clean, and a +stroke of the razor wipes out a military reputation, +blasts a general's immortality! Fame is a +fickle jade.</p> + +<p>An artistic reputation lasts longer, and resists +the barber, proving the superiority of the arts +to militarism. “Van Dyke” is still a generally +familiar appellation and sounds the same, no +matter which way you spell it. Of course, there's +no rhyme nor reason in it—artist and whiskers +should be spelled the same way. Only they're +not. “Something ought to be done about it.” +However, to resume.... If you tell me John +Jones has a Vandyke, I don't visualize John as +an art-collector standing in his gallery in rapt +contemplation of a masterpiece by the great +Flemish painter. I visualize him as a man with +a certain type of beard. I may later think of the +master who put these beards upon his portraits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> +Then again, I may not. Exactly the same would +be true if I told you John Jones had a Vandyke, +instead of the other way about. Don't contradict +me—you know it's so. It is nearly as difficult +to-day to own a Van Dyke canvas as it is +to paint one, but anybody can raise a Vandyke +beard. In fact, many still do, and thus keep the +master's memory green. “By their whiskers ye +shall know them.”</p> + +<p>A military reputation, as we have already +proved by the case of General Burnside, is a precarious +thing. How many patrons of Atlantic +City, I wonder, know the hero of the wars in the +Low Countries and his greatest triumph by a certain +hotel on the Board Walk, and would be hard +put to say which half of the hyphenated name was +the general and which the battle? Then there +was Wellington, who at one time threatened to +be remembered for his boots, and Blucher who +still is remembered for his. A certain Massachusetts +statesman (anybody elected to the Massachusetts +House of Representatives is a statesman) +once said that the greatest triumph of Napoleon +was when Theodore Roosevelt stood silent +at his tomb. This is witty, but like most witty +sayings, not quite true. It was a great triumph, +of course, but rather spectacular. The greatest +triumphs are not showy. What actually proves +Napoleon's greatness is the fact that he is still +remembered as a commander after generations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> +have selected from the tray of French pastry +the detectable and indigestible morsel of sugar, +flour and lard that bears his name. To have +a toothsome article of food named after you, +and then to be still remembered for your actual +achievements, is the ultimate test of human +greatness. Only a Napoleon can meet it. Even +Washington might not now be known as the +father of his country if his pie had been a better +one.</p> + +<p>Who was King, for instance? Was he the cook, +or the man cooked for? I fancy I knew once, +but I have forgotten. But chicken-à-la-king will +live to perpetuate his name as long as there are +chickens to be eaten and men to eat them. Even +Sardou, spectacular dramatist, for all his <i>Toscas</i> +and <i>Fédoras</i> (and ten to one you think of Fedora +as a hat!), lives for me, a dramatic critic, by virtue +of eggs Victorien Sardou, a never-to-be-too-much-enjoyed +concoction secured at the old +Brevoort House in New York. He may actually +have invented this recipe himself, for he +was a great lover of the pleasures of the table. +If so, it was his masterpiece. An egg is poached +on the tender heart of an artichoke, and garnished +with a peculiar yellow sauce, topped with +a truffle. Around all four sides are laid little +bunches of fresh asparagus tips. What is <i>Tosca</i> +compared to this?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then, of course, there was Mr. Baldwin. Who +was Mr. Baldwin? The people of Wilmington, +Mass., know, because there is a monument to the +original tree in that town. But we don't know, +any more than we know who Mr. Bartlett was, +when we eat one of his pears, or Mr. Logan, +father of the wine-red berry. In this case the +Scripture is indeed verified, that by their fruits +shall ye know them.</p> + +<p>Two or three times a year my wife gets certain +clothes of mine from the closet and combs +them for moths, hangs them flapping in the breeze +for a while, and puts them back. Among the +lot is a garment once much worn by congressmen, +church ushers and wedding guests, known to the +fashion editors as “frock coats”, and to normal +human beings as Prince Alberts. Doubtless, in +the flux of styles (like a pendulum, styles swing +forth and back again), the Prince Albert will +once more be correct, and my wife's labor will +not have been in vain, while the estimable consort +of England's haircloth sofa and black-walnut +bureau queen will continue to be remembered +of posterity by this outlandish garment. Poor +man, after all, he achieved little else to be remembered +by!</p> + +<p>And as for the queen herself, she will be remembered +by a state of mind. Already “mid-Victorian” +has little or nothing to do with Victoria, +and is losing its suggestion, even, of a time-period.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> +It is coming to stand for a mental and moral +attitude—in fact, for priggishness and moral +timidity. Queen Victoria was a great and good +lady, and her home life was, as the two women +so clearly pointed out when they left the theatre, +totally different from that of Cleopatra. But +she is going to give her name to a mental attitude, +just the same, even as the Philistines and +the Puritans. It pays to pick the period you +queen it over rather carefully. Elizabeth had +better luck. To be Elizabethan is to be everything +gay and dashing and out-doory and adventuresome, +with insatiable curiosity and the +gift of song. Of course, Shakespeare, Drake, +Raleigh, ought to have the credit—but they don't +get it, any more than Tennyson comes in on the +Victorian discredit. The head that wears a crown +may well lie uneasy.</p> + +<p>The memory of many a man has been perpetuated, +all unwittingly, by the manufacturers +and advertising agencies. Here I tread on dangerous +ground, but surely I shall not be accused +of commercial collusion if I point out that so +“generously good” a philanthropist as George +W. Childs became a name literally in the mouth +of thousands. He became a cigar. Then there +was Lord Lister. He, too, has become a name +in the mouths of thousands—as a mouth wash. +And how about the only daughter of the Prophet? +Fatima was her name.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> + +<p>Who was Lord Raglan, or was he a lord? He +is a kind of overcoat sleeve now. Who was Mr. +Mackintosh? Was it Lord Brougham, too? Gasolene +has extinguished his immortality. Gladstone +has become a bag, Gainsborough is a hat. The +beautiful Madame Pompadour, beloved of kings, +is a kind of hair-cut now. The Mikado of Japan +is a joke, set to music, heavenly music, to be +sure, but with its tongue in its angelic cheek. +An operetta did that. You cannot think of the +Mikado of Japan in terms of royal dignity. I +defy you to try. Ko-ko and Katisha keep getting +in the way, and you hear the pitty-pat +of Yum-Yum's little feet, and the bounce of +those elliptical billiard balls. Gilbert and Sullivan's +operetta is perhaps the most potent document +for democracy since the Communist +Manifesto!</p> + +<p>The other day I heard a woman say that she +had got to begin banting. A nice verb, to bant, +though not approved of by the dictionary, which +scornfully terms it “humorous and colloquial”. +The humor, to be sure, is usually for other people, +not for the person banting. Do you know, +I wonder, the derivation of this word? It means, +of course, to induce this too, too solid flesh to +melt, by the careful avoidance of farinaceous, +saccharine and oily foods, and occasionally its +meaning is stretched by the careless to include +also rolling on the bedroom floor fifteen times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +before breakfast, and standing up twenty minutes +after meals. Yet the word is derived from the +name of William Banting, who was a London +cabinet-maker. Cabinet-making is a worthy trade; +indeed, it is one of the most appealing of all +trades; in fact, it's not a trade, it's an art. I +haven't a doubt that William made splendid furniture, +especially chairs, for nobody appreciates +a nice, roomy, strong chair like a fat man. I +haven't a doubt that it was his ambition in life +to be remembered for his furniture, even as the +brothers Adam, as Chippendale and Sheraton. But +it was not to be. In an unfortunate moment, +William discovered that by eating fewer potatoes +and cutting out two lumps of sugar from his tea +he could take off some of the corpulence that +troubled him. He told of his discovery—and the +world knows him now as a method of getting +number 44 ladies into a perfect 38. I have always +felt sorry for William Banting. He is one +of the tragic figures of history.</p> + +<p>Of course, there are many more, if none other +quite so poignant, but you must recall them for +yourself. For some paragraphs now I have been +working up to a climax of prophecy. I have +been planning to predict what Kaiser William II +will be noted for in the days that are to come. It +seemed to me that would make rather a neat conclusion +for this little essay. But, Gentle Reader, +I've got to turn that job over to you, also.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +Not that the space is lacking, but after long and +painful concentration I have been unable to think +of anything bad enough. It may turn out that +he will be known simply by the meek and nourishing +kaiser roll on the breakfast table—the only +surviving relic of a monarchical vocabulary in a +peaceful and democratic universe. Perhaps, for +him, that would be the bitterest fate of all, the +ultimate irony.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img style="padding-top: 0em" src="images/ornament4.jpg" width="100" height="229" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + + +<h2><a name="The_Old_House_on_the_Bend" id="The_Old_House_on_the_Bend"></a>The Old House on the Bend</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big> wonder</span> if other wayfarers through New England +greet, as I do, with special affection the +old house on the bend of the road? It is so +characteristic of an earlier civilization, so suggestive +of a vanished epoch—and withal so picturesque! +Even if you are unfortunate enough +to “tour” in a motor-car, which of course is far +from the ideal way to savor the countryside, still +you cannot miss the old house on the bend, even +though you do miss the feel of the land, the rise +and dip of the road, the fragrance of the clematis +by the wall, the already fading gold of the evening +primroses when you start off after breakfast.</p> + +<p>Even for a motorist, however, the old house +on the bend stands up to view, especially if you +are on the front seat with the driver. The car +swings into a straightaway, lined, perhaps, with +sugar-maples and gray stone walls. Between the +trunks are vistas of the green fields and far hills. +But the chief vista is up the white perspective +of the road, which seems to vanish directly into +the front door of the solid, mouse-gray house +on the bend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>The ribbon of road rushes toward you, as if +a great spool under your wheels were winding it +up. The house rushes on with it; grows nearer; +details emerge. You see the great square chimney; +the tiny window-panes, six to a sash, some +of them turned by time, not into the purple of +Beacon Hill but into a kind of prismatic sheen +like oil on water; the bit of classic egg-and-dart +border on the door-cap; the aged texture of the +weathered clapboard; the graceful arch of the +wide woodshed entrance, on the kitchen side; +the giant elm rising far above the roof. You +rush on so near to the house, indeed, that the +car seems in imminent danger of colliding with +the front door, when suddenly the wheels bite +the road, you feel the pull of centrifugal force, +and the car swings away at right angles, leaving +an end view of the ancient dwelling behind you, +so that when you turn for a final glance you see +the long slant of the roof at the rear, going down +within six or eight feet of the ground.</p> + +<p>Such is the view from the motor-car. If you +are traveling on foot, however, there is much +more to be observed, such as the great doorstep +made from a broken millstone, the gigantic rambler +by the kitchen window, the tiger-lilies gone +wild in the dooryard, and above all, the view +from the front windows. Since the house was +visible far up the road, conversely a long stretch +of the road is visible from the house. Standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +in front of it, you can see a motor or wagon +approaching a mile away, and from the end +windows, too, can be seen all approaching vehicles +from the other angle. Moreover, if you lived +within, you could not only see who was coming, +but you could step out of your door a pace or +two and converse with him as he passed. The +old house is strategically placed.</p> + +<p>When it was built, a century or even a century +and a half ago, no motors went by on that +road, and not enough of any kind of traffic to +raise a dust. The busy town to the south, the +summer resort to the north, were alike small +villages, given over to agriculture. There were +no telephones, no newspapers even. Fortunate +indeed was the man whose farm abutted on a +bend, for there he could set his house, close to +the road, viewing the approaches in either direction, +and no traveler could get by him, or at any +rate by his wife, without yielding the latest gossip +from the town above or below, perhaps from +the greater world beyond. The highroad was +then the sole artery of commerce, of communication, +of intercourse of man with man.</p> + +<p>How neighborly was the house on the bend, +shedding its parlor-candle rays like a beacon by +night down the mile of straightaway, or flapping +its chintz curtains in the June sunshine! What a +testimony it is, in its present gray ruin, to the human +hunger for news and gossip and friendliness!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old order has changed, indeed. We no +longer build on the bend. We don't have bends +if we can help it. They are dangerous and hard +to maintain. A house on one would be uninhabitable +with the dust. We do not seek the neighborliness +of the road, but retire as far as we can +to the back of our lot, with our telephone and +newspaper. The old house on the bend now +stands deserted. From country estates dimly seen +in their remote privacy of trees and gardens, the +stone highway leads to other estates equally remote +and scornful of publicity. Between them +the motors rush. The old house is dusty and +falling into ruin, and every passing car kicks up +some bit of crushed stone into its tangled dooryard. +It looks pathetically down the road with +unseeing eyes, the last relic of a vanishing order.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + + +<h2><a name="Concerning_Hat-trees" id="Concerning_Hat-trees"></a>Concerning Hat-trees</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big>t is</span> well sometimes, when we are puffed up +with our achievements as a race,—our conquest +of the elements, our building of mighty bridges +and lofty sky-scrapers, our invention of wireless +telegraphy and horseless carriages and aëroplanes +and machine guns and secret diplomacy and +wage slavery and war,—it is well to indulge in +the chastening reflection that there are still some +things we cannot achieve. We may reflect that +the appleless Eden has not yet been discovered, +or that the actor without vanity is yet unborn, +or the “treasonless” Senate yet unassembled. +My own method is to reflect that the ideal hat-tree +has never been constructed.</p> + +<p>At present I have no hat-tree, because I live in +an old farm house where there is a square piano +and a hall closet, and we don't need one. In New +York I never had one, either, because there is +never room in the hall-way of a modern apartment +both for a hat-tree and a passage-way. But +occasionally I visit at the homes of friends who +boast one of these arboreal adornments, and renew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +my acquaintance with the species. I was +to take a walk with one of these friends the +other day.</p> + +<p>“Wait,” he said, pausing in the hall, “till I +get a pair of gloves.” Stooping over, he pulled +at the hat-tree drawer. First it stuck on one +side; then it stuck on the other side; then it +yielded altogether, without warning. My friend +sat down on the floor, the ridiculously shallow +drawer in his hand, between his feet a sorry +array of the odds and ends of the outside toilet,—broken +hat pins, old veils, buttons, winter +gloves rolled into wads, old gloves, new gloves, +gloves pulled off in a hurry with the fingers inside +out, dirty white gloves belonging to his +charming sister. I turned away, feeling that I +gazed on a domestic exposure. My friend spoke +softly to the drawer.</p> + +<p>“Sh!” said I, “your family! Put the drawer +back.”</p> + +<p>“I will not put it back,” he said. “We would +never get started. Let the—”</p> + +<p>Again I cautioned him, and we set out on +our walk leaving the litter on the floor; and as +we tramped through the marvelous sky-scraper +wilderness which is Manhattan, we talked of +hat-trees, and the futility of human effort, and +sighed for a new Carlyle to write the philosophy +of the hat-tree drawer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> + +<p>How well I remembered the hat-tree that +sheltered my caps in youth, beneath the protecting +foliage of the paternal greatcoat and the +maternal bonnet! I did not always use it; the +piano was more convenient, or the floor. But +there it stood in the hall in all its black-walnut +impressive ugliness, with side racks for umbrellas, +and square, metal drip-pans always full +of the family rubbers. There was a mirror in the +centre, so high I had to climb three stairs to see +how uncle's hat fitted my small head. There +were pegs up both sides; but, as is the way with +hat-trees, only the top ones were useful; whatever +was hung on them buried everything below. +The only really safe place was the peak +on top, just above the carved face of Minerva. +Sometimes the paternal greatcoat lovingly carried +off the maternal shawl of a morning, which +would be found later somewhere between the +door and the station. And this hat-tree also had +a drawer, of course. There was the rub, indeed!</p> + +<p>Summer or winter, wet or dry, that drawer +always stuck. It had but one handle,—a ring +in the middle. First one side would come out +too far, and you would knock it back and pull +again. Then the other side would come out +too far, and you would knock that back. Then +both sides, by diabolical agreement, would suddenly +work as on greased ways, and you stood +with an astonishingly shallow drawer dangling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +from your finger, its long-accumulated contents +spread on the floor. The shock usually sent +down two derbies and a bonnet to add to the confusion. +When you had gathered up the litter and +stuffed it back, wondering how so small a space +ever held so much, the still harder task confronted +you of putting the drawer in its grooves +again. Sometimes you succeeded; more often +you left it “for mother to do”—that depended +on your temper and the time of your train. The +drawer was a charnel-house of gloves and mittens +and veils. When you cut your finger you were +sent to it to get a “cot”, and it had a peculiar +smell of its own, the smell of the hat-tree +drawer. A whiff of old gloves still brings that +odor back to me, out of childhood, stirring +memories of little garments worn long ago, of +a great blue cape that was a pride to my father's +heart and a wound to my mother's pride,—but +most of all of lost temper and incipient profanity +caused by the baulky drawer.</p> + +<p>My friend's recollections but supplemented +and reinforced my own. We called to mind +other hat-trees in houses where we had visited, +and one and all they were alike perverse, ridiculous, +ill-adapted for their mission in life. We +thought of various substitutes for the hat-tree, +such as a pole with pegs in it, which tips over +when the preponderance of weight is hung on +one side; the cluster of pegs on a frame suspended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +from the wall like a picture, while a +painted drain-pipe courts umbrellas in a corner; +a long, low table (only possible in a palatial hall) +on which the garments are placed by the butler +in assorted piles, so that you feel like asking him +for a check; the settle, often disastrous to hats. +We found none of them satisfactory, though they +eliminate the perils of the drawer.</p> + +<p>Only the wooden pegs which were driven in +a horizontal row into the board walls of grandfather's +back entry ever approximated the ideal. +But such a reversion to primitive principles +would now be considered out of the question, +even in my farm house—by the farmer's wife, at +least. The problem of a satisfactory hat-tree, +which baffled the genius of Chippendale, is still +unsolved in Grand Rapids, and it probably will +remain unsolved to the end of time, unless Eden +should be found again, where the hat-tree is the +least of the arboreal troubles.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="The_Shrinking_of_Kingmans_Field" id="The_Shrinking_of_Kingmans_Field"></a>The Shrinking of Kingman's Field</h2> + + +<p class="noindent">“<span class="smcap"><big>I</big>t was</span> rats,” said I.</p> + +<p>“It was warts,” said Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>“I know it was rats, I tell you,” I continued, +“because my uncle Eben knew a man who did +it. His house was full of rats, so he wrote a +very polite note to them, setting forth that, +much as he enjoyed their excellent society, the +house was too crowded for comfort, and telling +them to go over to the house of a certain neighbor, +who had more room and no children nor +cats. And the rats all went.”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred listened patiently. “That's +precisely right,” said he, “except it must have +been warts. You have to be polite, and also tell +them where to go. You rub the warts with a +bean, wrap the bean up in the note, and burn +both, or else throw them in the well. In a few +days the warts will leave you and appear on the +other fellow. My grandfather, when he was +a boy, got warts that way, so he licked the +other boy.”</p> + +<p>“Rats!” said I.</p> + +<p>“No, warts,” persisted Old Hundred.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p> + +<p>So that was how we two aging and urbanized +codgers came to leave the comfortable club for +the Grand Central Station, whence we sent +telegrams to our families and took train for the +rural regions north-eastward. The point had to +be settled. Besides, I stumped Old Hundred to +go, and he never could refuse a stump.</p> + +<p>But Old Hundred was fretful on the journey. +We called him Old Hundred years ago, because +he always proposed that tune at Sunday evening +meetings, when the leader “called for hymns.” +I address him as Old Hundred still, though he +is a learned lawyer in line for a judgeship. He +was fretful, he said, because we were sure to be +terribly disillusioned. But he is not a man accustomed +in these later years to act on impulse, +and the prospect of a night on a sleeping car, +without pajamas, did not, I fancy, appeal to him, +now that he faced it from the badly ventilated +car aisle, instead of the club easy-chair. Yet perhaps +he did dread the disillusionment, too. It +was always I, even when we were boys, who +loved an adventure for its own sake, quite apart +from the pleasure or pain of it—taking a supreme +delight, in fact, in melancholy. I have +still a copy of Moore's poems, stained with tears +and gingerbread. Some of the happiest hours of +my childhood were spent in weeping over this +book, especially over “Go Where Glory Waits +Thee,” which affected me with an incomprehensible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> +but poignant woe. Accordingly it was I +who rose cheerful in the morning and piloted a +gloomy companion to breakfast and a barber, +and so across Boston to the dingy station where +dingy, dirty cars of ancient vintage awaited, and +in one of which we rode, with innumerable stops, +to a spot off the beaten tracks of travel, but +which bore a name that thrilled us.</p> + +<p>When we alighted from the train, a large +factory greeted our vision, across the road from +the railway station. We walked up a faintly familiar +street to the village square. There we +paused, with wry faces. Six trolley lines converged +in its centre, and out of the surrounding +country were rolling in great cars, as big almost +as Pullmans. All the magnificent horse-chestnut +trees that once lined the walks were down, to +expose more brazenly to view the rows of tawdry +little shops. These trees had once furnished +shade and ammunition. I had to smile at the +sign above the new fish-market—</p> + +<p class="center"> +<small>IF IT SWIMS—WE HAVE IT.</small><br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent">But there was no smile on Old Hundred's face. +Here and there, rising behind the little stores +and lunch rooms, we could detect the tops of the +old houses, pushed back by commerce. But most +of the houses had disappeared altogether. Only +the old white meeting-house at the head of the +common looked down benignly, unchanged.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> + +<p>“The trail of the trolley is over it all!” Old +Hundred murmured, as we hastened northward, +out of the village.</p> + +<p>After we had walked some distance, Old Hundred +said, “It ought to be around here somewhere, +to the right of the road. I can't make +anything out, for these new houses.”</p> + +<p>“There was a lane down to it,” said I, “and +woods beyond.”</p> + +<p>“Sure,” he cried, “Kingman's woods; and it +was called Kingman's field.”</p> + +<p>I sighted the ruins of a lane, between two +houses. “Come on down to Kingman's, fellers,” +I shouted, “an' choose up sides!”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred followed my lead. We were in +the middle of a potato patch, in somebody's back +yard. It was very small.</p> + +<p>“This ain't Kingman's,” wailed Old Hundred, +lapsing into bad grammar in his grief. “Why, +it took an awful paste to land a home run over +right field into the woods! And there ain't no +woods!”</p> + +<p>There weren't. Nevertheless, this was Kingman's +field. “See,” said I, trying to be cheerful, +“here's where home was.” And I rooted up a +potato sprout viciously. “You and Bill Nichols +always chose up. You each put a hand round +a bat, alternating up the stick, for the first choice. +The one who could get his hand over the top +enough to swing the bat round his head three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> +times, won, and chose Goodknocker Pratt. First +was over there where the wall isn't any more.”</p> + +<p>“Remember the time we couldn't find my +'Junior League',” said Old Hundred, “and Goodknocker +dreamed it was in a tree, and the next +day we looked in the trees, and there it was? I +wonder what ever became of old Goodknocker?”</p> + +<p>He moved toward first base. The woods had +been ruthlessly cut down, and the wall dragged +away in the process. We climbed a knoll, through +the stumps and dead stuff. At the top was a +snake bush.</p> + +<p>“Here's something, anyhow,” said Old Hundred. +“You were Uncas and I was Hawk Eye, +and we defended this snake bush from Bill's +crowd of Iroquois. We made shields out of barrel +heads, and spears out of young pine-tree tops. +Wow, how they hurt!”</p> + +<p>“About half a mile over is the swamp where +the traps were,” said I. “Let's go. Maybe there's +something in one of 'em.”</p> + +<p>“Then times would be changed,” said he, +smiling a little.</p> + +<p>We walked a few hundred feet, and there was +the swamp, quite dried up without the protection +of the woods, a tangle of dead stuff, and in plain +view of half a dozen houses. “Why” cried Old +Hundred, “it was miles away from <i>anything</i>!”</p> + +<p>I looked at him, a woeful figure, clad in immaculate +clothes, with gray gloves, a cane in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +hand. “You ought to be wearing red mittens,” +said I, “and carrying that old shot-gun, with the +ramrod bent.”</p> + +<p>“The ramrod was always bent,” said he. “It +kept getting caught in twigs, or falling out. Gee, +how she kicked! Remember the day I got the +rabbit down there on the edge of the swamp? +It made the snow all red, poor little thing. I +guess I wasn't so pleased as I expected to be.”</p> + +<p>“I remember the day you didn't get the wood +pussy—soon enough,” I answered.</p> + +<p>Just then a whistle shrieked. “Good Lord,” +said Old Hundred, “there's one of those infernal +trolleys! It must go right up the turnpike, +past Sandy.”</p> + +<p>“Let's take it!” I cried.</p> + +<p>He looked at me savagely. “We'll walk!” +he said.</p> + +<p>“But it's miles and miles,” I remonstrated.</p> + +<p>“Nevertheless,” said he, “we'll walk.”</p> + +<p>It was difficult to find the short cut in this +tangle of slaughtered forest, but we got back to +the road finally, coming out by the school-house. +At least, we came out by a little shallow hole in +the ground, half filled with poison-ivy and fire-weed, +and ringed by a few stones. We paused +sadly by the ruins.</p> + +<p>“I suppose the trolly takes the kids into the +village now,” said I. “Centralization, you know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“There used to be a great stove in one corner, +and the pipe went all across the room,” Old +Hundred was saying, as if to himself. “If you +sat near it, you baked; if you didn't, you froze. +Do you remember Miss Campbell? What was it +we used to sing about her? Oh, yes—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Three little mice ran up the stairs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hear Biddy Campbell say her prayers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when they heard her say Amen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The three little mice ran down again.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">And, gee but you were the punk speller! Remember +how there was always a spelling match +Friday afternoons? I'll never forget the day you +fell down on 'nausea.' You'd lasted pretty well +that day, for you; everybody'd gone down but +you and Myrtie Swett and me and one or two +more. But when Biddy Campbell put that word +up to you, you looked it, if you couldn't spell it!”</p> + +<p>“Hum,” said I, “I wouldn't rub it in, if I +were you. I seem to recall a public day when +old Gilman Temple, the committee man, asked +you what was the largest bird that flies, and you +said, 'The Kangaroo.'”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred grinned. “That's the day the +new boy laughed,” said he. “Remember the +new boy? I mean the one that wore the derby +which we used to push down over his eyes? +Sometimes in the yard one of us would squat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +behind him, and then somebody else would push +him over backward. We made him walk Spanish, +too. But after that public day he and I went +way down to the horse-sheds behind the meeting-house +in the village, and had it out. I wonder +why we always fought in the holy horse-sheds? +The ones behind the town hall were never used +for that purpose.”</p> + +<p>This was true, but I couldn't explain it. “We +couldn't always wait to get to the horse-sheds, +as I remember it,” said I. “Sometimes we couldn't +wait to get out of sight of school.”</p> + +<p>I began hunting the neighborhood for the hide-and-seek +spots. The barn and the carriage-shed +across the road were still there, with cracks yawning +between the mouse-gray boards. The shed +was also ideal for “Anthony over.” And in the +pasture behind the school stood the great boulder, +by the sassafras tree. “I'll bet you can't +count out,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Pooh!” said Old Hundred. He raised his +finger, pointed it at an imaginary line of boys +and girls, and chanted—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Acker, backer, soda cracker,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Acker, backer, boo!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If yer father chews terbacker,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Out goes you.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">And now you're it,” he finished pointing at me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> + +<p>I was not to be outdone. “Ten, twenty, thirty, +forty,—” I began to mumble. Then, “One +thousand!” I shouted.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Bushel o' wheat and a bushel o' rye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All 't 'aint hid, holler knee high!”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">I looked for a stick, stood it on end, and let it +fall. It fell toward the boulder. “You're up in +the sassafras tree,” I said.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Old Hundred, “that's Benny.”</p> + +<p>Then we looked at each other and laughed.</p> + +<p>“You poor old idiot,” said Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>“You doddering imbecile,” said I, “come on +up to Sandy.”</p> + +<p>Somehow, it wasn't far to Sandy. It used to +be miles. We passed by Myrtie Swett's house +on the way. It stood back from the turnpike +just as ever, with its ample doorway, its great +shadowing elms, its air of haughty well-being. +Myrtie, besides a prize speller, was something +of a social queen. She was very beautiful and +she affected ennui.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Oh, dear, bread and beer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I was home I shouldn't be here!”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">she used to say at parties, with a tired air that +was the secret envy of the other little girls, who +were unable to conceal their pleasure at being +“here.” However, Myrtie never went home, +we noticed. Rather did she take a leading part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +in every game of Drop-the-handkerchief, Post +Office, or Copenhagen—tinglingly thrilling +games, with unknown possibilities of a sentimental +nature.</p> + +<p>“If I thought she still lived in the old place, +I'd go up and tell her I had a letter for her,” +said Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>“She'd probably give you a stamp,” I replied.</p> + +<p>“Not unless she's changed!” he grinned.</p> + +<p>But we saw no signs of Myrtie. Several children +played in the yard. There was the face of +a strange woman at the window, a very plain +woman, who looked old, as she peered keenly +at the two urban passers.</p> + +<p>“It <i>can't</i> be Myrtie!” I heard Old Hundred +mutter, as he hastened on.</p> + +<p>Sandy was almost the most wonderful spot in +the world. It was, as most swimming holes are, +on the down-stream side of a bridge. The little +river widened out, on its way through the meadows, +here and there into swimming holes of +greater or less desirability. There was Lob's +Pond, by the mill, and Deep Pool, and Musk +Rat, and Little Sandy. But Sandy was the best +of them all. It was shaded on one side by great +trees, and the banks were hidden from the road +by alder screens. At one end there was a shelving +bottom, of clean sand, where the “little kids” +who couldn't swim sported in safety. Under the +opposite bank the water ran deep for diving. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> +in mid-stream the pool was so very deep that nobody +had ever been able to find bottom there. +In the other holes, you could hold your hands +over your head and go down till your feet touched, +without wetting your fingers. But not the longest +fish-line had ever been long enough to plumb +Sandy's depths. Indeed, it was popularly believed +that there was <i>no</i> bottom in Sandy, and a mythical +horn pout, of gigantic proportions, was supposed +to inhabit its dark, watery abysses.</p> + +<p>Old Hundred and I stood on the bridge and +looked down on a little pool. “I could jump +across it now,” he sighed. “But I wish it were +a warmer day. I'd go in, just the same.”</p> + +<p>There was a honk up the road, and a touring +car jolted over the boards behind us, with a load +of veils and goggles. The dust sifted through +the bridge, and we heard it patter on the water +below.</p> + +<p>“I fancy there's more travel now,” said I. +“And the alder screen seems to be gone. Perhaps +we'd better not go in.”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred leaned pensively over the white +rail—the sign of a State highway; for the dusty +old Turnpike was now converted into a gray +strip of macadam road, torn by the automobiles, +with a trolley track at one side.</p> + +<p>“There's a lucky bug on the water,” he said +presently. “If we were in now, we might catch +him, and make our fortunes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“And get our clothes tied up,” said I.</p> + +<p>“As I recall it, you were the prize beef +chawer,” he remarked. “I never could see why +you didn't go into vaudeville, in a Houdini act. +I used to soak the knots in your shirt and dry +'em, and soak 'em again; but you always untied +'em, often without using your teeth, either.”</p> + +<p>“You couldn't, though,” I grinned.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Charlo beef,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The beef was tough,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poor Old Hundred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Couldn't get enough!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">“How many times have you gone home barefoot, +with your stockings and your undershirt, +in a wet knot, tied to your fish-pole?”</p> + +<p>“Not many,” said he.</p> + +<p>“What?” said I.</p> + +<p>“It wasn't often that I wore stockings and +an undershirt in swimming season,” he answered. +“Don't you remember being made to +soak your feet in a tub on the back porch before +going to bed, and going fast asleep in the +process?”</p> + +<p>“If you put a horse hair in water, it will turn +to a snake,” I replied, irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>“Anybody knows that,” said Old Hundred. +“If you toss a fish back in the water before +you're done fishing, you won't get any more +bites, because he'll go tell all the other fish. Bet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +yer I can swim farther under the water 'n you +can. Come on, it isn't very cold.”</p> + +<p>I looked hesitantly at the pool.</p> + +<p>“Stump yer!” he taunted.</p> + +<p>I started for the bank. But just then the +trolley wire, which we had quite forgotten, began +to buzz. We paused. Up the pike came +the car. It stopped just short of the bridge, by +a cross-road, and an old man alighted. Then it +moved on, shaking more dust down upon the +brown water. The old man regarded us a moment, +and instead of turning up the cross-road, +came over to us.</p> + +<p>(“Know him?” I whispered.)</p> + +<p>(“Is it Hen Flint, that used to drive the meat +wagon with the white top?” said Old Hundred. +“Lord, is it so many years ago!”)</p> + +<p>“How are you, Mr. Flint?” said I.</p> + +<p>“Thot I didn't mistake ye,” said the old man, +putting out a large, thin, but powerful hand. +“Whar be ye now, Noo York? Come back to +look over the old place, eh? I reckon ye find it +some changed. Don't know it myself, hardly. +You look like yer ma; sorter got her peak face.”</p> + +<p>“Where's the swimming hole now?” asked +Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>“I don't calc'late thar be any,” said the old +man. “The gol durn trolley an' the automobiles +spiled the pool here, an' the mill-pond's no good +since they tore down the mill, an' bust the dam.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +Maybe the little fellers git their toes wet down +back o' Bill Flint's; I see 'em splashin' round +thar hot days. But the old fellers have to wash +in the kitchen, same's in winter.”</p> + +<p>“But the boys must swim somewhere,” said I.</p> + +<p>“I presume likely they go to the beaches,” +said Henry Flint. “I see 'em ridin' off in the +trolley.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said I, “it must be easy to get anywhere +now, with the trolleys so thick.”</p> + +<p>“It's too durn easy,” he commented. “Thar +hain't a place ye can't git to, though why ye +should want to git thar beats me. Mostly puts +high-flown notions in the women-folks' heads, +and vegetable gardens on 'em.”</p> + +<p>He shook hands again, lingeringly. “Yer father +wus a fine man,” he said to Old Hundred—“a +fine man. I sold yer ma meat before you +wus born.”</p> + +<p>Then he moved rather feebly away, down the +cross-road. Presently a return trolley approached.</p> + +<p>“Curse the trolleys!” exclaimed Old Hundred. +“They go everywhere and carry everybody. +They spoil the country roads and ruin +the country houses and villages. Where they go, +cheap loafing places, called waiting-rooms, spring +up, haunted by flies, rotten bananas and village +muckers. They trail peanut shells, dust and +vulgarity; and they make all the country-side a +back yard of the city. Let's take this one.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>We passed once more the hole where the +school had been, and drew near a cross-road. +I looked at Old Hundred, he at me. He nodded, +and we signalled the conductor. The car stopped. +We alighted and turned silently west, pursued +by peering eyes. After a few hundred feet the +cross-road went up a rise and round a bend, and +the new frame houses along the Turnpike were +shut from view. Over the brambled wall we saw +cows lying down in a pasture.</p> + +<p>“It's going to rain,” said I.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Old Hundred, “that's only a sign +when they lie down first thing in the morning.”</p> + +<p>Then we were silent once more. Into the west +the land, the rocky, rolling, stubborn, beautiful +New England country-side, lay familiar—how familiar!—to +our eyes. To the left, back among the +oaks and hickories, stood a solid, simple house, +painted yellow with green blinds. To the right almost +opposite was a smaller house of white, with +an orchard straggling up to the back door. And +in one of them I was born, and in the other Old +Hundred. Down the road was another house, +a deep red, half hidden in the trees. Smoke +was rising from the chimney now, and drifting +rosily against the first flush of sunset.</p> + +<p>“Betsy's getting Cap'n Charles's supper,” said +Old Hundred.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Then Betsy's about one hundred and six,” +said I, “and the Cap'n one hundred and ten. +Oh, John, it was a long, long time ago!”</p> + +<p>“It doesn't seem so,” he answered. “It seems +only yesterday that we met up there in your +grove on Hallow-e'en to light our jack-lanterns, +and crept down the road in the cold white moonlight +to poke them up at Betsy's window. Remember +when she caught us with the pail of +water?”</p> + +<p>“I remember,” said I, “the time you put a +tack in the seat of Cap'n Charles's stool, in his +little shoemaker's shop out behind the house, and +he gave you five cents, to return good for evil; +so the next day you did it again, in the hope of +a quarter, but he decided there were times when +the Golden Rule is best honored in the breach, +and gave you a walloping.”</p> + +<p>“It was some walloping, too,” said Old Hundred, +with a reminiscent grin. “It would be a +good time now,” he added, “to swipe melons, if +Betsy's getting supper. Though I believe she had +all those melon stems connected with an automatic +burglar-alarm in the kitchen. She ought +to have taken out a patent on that invention!”</p> + +<p>He looked about him, first at his house, then +at mine. “How small the orchard is now,” he +mused. “The trees are like little old women. +And look at Crow's Nest—it used to be a hundred +feet high.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The oak he pointed at still bore in its upper +branches the remains of our tree-top retreat, a +rotted beam or two straddling a crotch. “Peter +Pan should rebuild it,” said I. “I shall drop a +line to Wendy. Do you still hesitate to turn +over in bed?”</p> + +<p>“Always,” Old Hundred confessed. “I do turn +over now, but it was years before I could bring +myself to do it. I wonder where we got that superstition +that it brought bad luck? If we woke +in the night, up in Crow's Nest, and wanted +to shift our positions, we got up and walked +around the foot of the mattress, so we could +lie on the other side without turning over. Remember?”</p> + +<p>I nodded. Then the well-curb caught my eye. +It was over the well we dug where old Solon +Perkins told us to. Solon charged three dollars +for the advice. He came with a forked elm +twig, cut green, and holding the prongs tightly +wrapped round his hands so that the base of the +twig stuck out straight, walked back and fourth +over the place, followed by my father and mother, +and Old Hundred's father and mother, and Cap'n +Charles and Betsy, and all the boys for a mile +around, silently watching for the miracle. Finally +the base of the twig bent sharply down. +“Dig there,” said Solon. He examined the twig +to see if the bark was twisted. It was, so he +added, “Bent hard. Won't have ter dig more'n<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +ten foot.” We dug twenty-six, but water came. +And such water!</p> + +<p>“I want some of that water,” said I. “I +don't want to go into the house; I don't even +know who lives in it now. But I must have +some of that water.”</p> + +<p>We went up to the well and lowered the +bucket, which slid bounding down against the +cool stones till it hit the depths with a dull +splash. As we were drinking, an old man came +peering out of the house. Old Hundred recognized +him first.</p> + +<p>“Well, Clarkie Poor, by all that's holy!” he +cried. “We've come to get our hair cut.”</p> + +<p>Clarkson Poor blinked a bit before recognition +came. “Yes,” he said, “I bought the old +place a couple o' year back, arter them city folks +you sold it to got sick on it. Too fer off the trolley +line for them. John's house over yon some +noo comers 'a' got. They ain't changed it none. +This is about the only part o' town that ain't +changed, though. Most o' the old folks is gone, +too, and the young uns, like you chaps, all git +ambitious fer the cities. I give up cuttin' hair +'bout three year back—got kinder onsteady an' +cut too many ears.”</p> + +<p>A sudden smile broke over Old Hundred's +face. “Clarkie,” he said, “you were always up +on such things—is it rats or warts that you write +a note to when you want 'em to go away?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it's rats, isn't it?” I cried, also reminded, +for the first time, of our real quest.</p> + +<p>“Why,” said Clarkie, “you must be sure to +make the note very partic'lar perlite, and tell +'em whar to go. Don't fergit that.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” said we, “but is it warts or rats?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Clarkie, “it's both.”</p> + +<p>We looked one at the other, and grinned rather +sheepishly.</p> + +<p>“Only thar's a better way fer warts,” Clarkie +went on. “I knew a boy once who sold his. +That's the best way. Yer don't have actually +to sell 'em. Just git another feller to say, 'I'll +give yer five cents fer yer warts,' and you say, +'All right, they're yourn,' and then they go. +Fact.”</p> + +<p>We thanked him, and moved down to the +road, declining his invitation to come into the +house. Westward, the sun had gone down and +left the sky a glowing amber and rose. The fields +rolled their young green like a checkered carpet +over the low hills—the sweet, familiar hills. For +an instant, in the hush of gathering twilight, +we stood there silent and bridged the years; +wiping out the strife, the toil, the ambitions, we +were boys again.</p> + +<p>“Hark!” said Old Hundred, softly. Down +through the orchard we heard the thin, sweet +tinkle of a cow-bell. “There's a boy behind, +with the peeled switch,” he added, “looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +dreamily up at the first star, and wishing on it—wishing +for a lot of things he'll never get. But +I'm sure he isn't barefoot. Let's go.”</p> + +<p>As we passed down the turnpike, between the +rows of cheap frame houses, we saw, in the increasing +dusk, the ruins of a lane, and the corner +of a small, back-yard potato patch, that had been +Kingman's field. We hastened through the noisy, +treeless village, and boarded the Boston train, +rather cross for want of supper.</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” said Old Hundred, as we moved +out of the station, “whether we'd better go to +Young's or the Parker House?”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="Mumblety-peg_and_Middle_Age" id="Mumblety-peg_and_Middle_Age"></a>Mumblety-peg and Middle Age</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>O</big>ld Hundred</span> and I were taking our Saturday +afternoon walk in the country—that is, in such +suburbanized country as we could achieve in the +neighborhood of New York. We had passed innumerable +small boys and not a few small girls, +but save for an occasional noisy group on a base-ball +diamond none of them seemed to be playing +any definite games.</p> + +<p>“Did we use to wander aimlessly round that +way?” asked Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>“We did not,” said I. “If it wasn't marbles +in spring or tops in autumn it was duck-on-the-rock +or stick-knife or——”</p> + +<p>“Only we didn't call it stick-knife,” said Old +Hundred, “we called it mumblety-peg.”</p> + +<p>“We called it stick-knife,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Your memory is curiously bad,” said Old +Hundred. “You are always forgetting about these +important matters. It was mumblety-peg.”</p> + +<p>“My memory bad!” I sniffed. “I suppose +you think I've forgotten how I always licked +you at stick-knife?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred grinned. Old Hundred's grin, +to-day as much as thirty years ago, is a mask +for some coming trouble. He always grinned +before he sailed into the other fellow, which +was an effective way to catch the other fellow +off his guard. I presume he grins now before +he cross-questions a witness. “I'll play you a +game right now,” he said softly.</p> + +<p>“You're on,” said I.</p> + +<p>We selected a spot of clean, thin turf behind a +roadside fence. It was in reality a part of somebody's +yard, but it was the best we could do. I still +carry a pocket-knife of generous proportions, to +whittle with when we go for a walk, and this I produced +and opened, handing it to Old Hundred. +“Now begin,” said I, as we squatted down.</p> + +<p>He held the knife somewhat gingerly, first by +the blade, then by the handle. “Wha—what do +you do first?” he finally asked.</p> + +<p>“Do?” said I. “Don't you remember?”</p> + +<p>“No,” he replied, “and neither do you.”</p> + +<p>“Give me the knife,” I cried. I relied on the +feel of it in my hand to awaken a dormant muscular +memory to help me out. But no muscular +memory was stirred. Old Hundred watched me +with a smile. “Begin, begin!” he urged.</p> + +<p>“Let's see,” said I, “I think you took it first +by the tip of the blade, this way, and made it +stick up.” I threw the knife. It stuck, but almost +lay upon the ground.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + +<p>“You've got to get two fingers under it,” said +Old Hundred. He tried, but there wasn't room. +“You fail,” he cried. “There's a point for me.”</p> + +<p>“Not till you've made it stick,” said I.</p> + +<p>We grew interested in our game. We threw +the knife from our nose and chin, we dropped +it from our forehead, we jumped it over our +hand, we half-closed the blade and tossed it +that way, and finally, when the talley was reckoned +up in my favor, I began to look about for a +stick to whittle into the peg.</p> + +<p>Old Hundred rose and dusted his clothes. +“Here,” I cried. “You're not done yet!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes I am!” he answered.</p> + +<p>“Quitter, quitter, quitter!” I taunted.</p> + +<p>“That may be,” said he, “but a learned lawyer +of forty-five with a dirty mug is rather more +self-conscious than a boy of ten. I'll buy you +a dinner when we get to town.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very well,” said I, peevishly, “but I +didn't think you'd so degenerated. I'll let you +off if you'll admit it was stick-knife.”</p> + +<p>“I'll admit it,” said Old Hundred. “I suppose +in a minute you'll ask me to admit that +prisoners'-base was relievo.”</p> + +<p>“What <i>was</i> relievo, by the way?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Relievo—relievo?” said Old Hundred. +“Why that was a game we played mostly on +the ice, up on Birch Meadow, don't you remember? +When we got tired of hockey, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +all put our coats and hockey sticks in a pile, one +man was It, and the rest tried to skate from a +distant line around the pile and back. It the +chap who was It tagged anybody before he got +around, that chap had to be It with him, and so +on till everybody was caught. Then the first one +tagged had to be It for a new start.”</p> + +<p>“I remember that game,” said I. “I remember +how Frank White, who could skate like a +fiend, used to be the last one caught. Sometimes +he'd get around a hundred boys, ducking and +dodging and taking half a mile of ice to do it, +but escaping untouched. Sometimes, if there +weren't many playing, he'd go around backwards, +just to taunt us. But I don't think that game +was relievo. That doesn't sound like the name +to me.”</p> + +<p>“What was it, then?” said Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>“I don't know,” I answered. “It's funny how +you forget things.”</p> + +<p>By this time we were strolling along the road +again. “Speaking of Birch Meadow,” said Old +Hundred, “what glorious skating we kids used +to have there! I never go by Central Park in +winter without pitying the poor New York youngsters, +just hobbling round and round on a half-acre +pond where the surface is cut up into powder +an inch thick, and the crowd is so dense +you can scarcely see the ice. Shall you ever +forget that mile-long pond in the woods, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> +deep enough to drown in anywhere, and frozen +over with smooth black ice as early as Thanksgiving +Day? How we used to rush to it, up Love +Lane, as soon as school was out!”</p> + +<p>“Do you remember,” said I, “how we passed +it last year, and found the woods all cut and the +water drained off?”</p> + +<p>“Don't be a wet blanket,” said Old Hundred, +crossly. “The country has to grow.”</p> + +<p>I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. +The mood of memory was on him. I repented +of my speech. “Yes,” I answered. “No doubt +the country has to grow. The colleges now play +hockey on ponds made by the fire department. +But there isn't that thrilling ring to your runners +nor that long-drawn echo from the wooded +shores when a crack crosses the ice.”</p> + +<p>“I can see it all this minute,” said Old Hundred. +“I can see my little self like a different +person [which, indeed, he was!] as one of the +crowd. We had chosen up sides—ten, twenty, +thirty on a side. Stones, dragged from the shores, +were put down for goals. Most of us had hockey +sticks we had cut ourselves in the woods, hickory, +with a bit of the curved root for the blade. You +were one of the few boys who could afford a +store stick. We had a hard rubber ball. Bobbie +Pratt was always one goal because he had +big feet. And over the black ice, against the +sombre background of those cathedral aisles of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +white pine, we chased that ball, charging in solid +ranks so that the ice sagged and protested under +the rush of our runners, wheeling suddenly, darting +in pursuit of one boy who had snaked the +ball out from the maze of feet and was flying with +it toward the goal, all rapid action, panting +breath, superb life. It really must have been a +beautiful sight, one of those hockey games. I +can still hear the ring and roar of the runners +as the crowd swept down in a charge!”</p> + +<p>I smiled. “And I can still feel the ice when +somebody's stick got caught between my legs. +'Hi, fellers, come look at the star Willie made!' +I can hear you shouting, as you examined the spot +where my anatomy had been violently super-imposed +on the skating surface.”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred smiled too. “Fine little animals +we were!” he said. “I suppose one reason why +we don't see more games nowdays is because we +live in the city. Even this suburbanized region +is really city, dirtied all over with its spawn. +Lord, Bill, think if we'd been cramped up in an +East Side street, or reduced to Central Park for +a skating pond! A precious lot of reminiscences +we'd have to-day, wouldn't we? They build the +kids what they call public play-grounds, and +then they have to hire teachers to teach 'em +how to play. Poor beggars, think of having to +be taught by a grown-up how to play a game! +They all have a rudimentary idea of base-ball;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +the American spirit and the sporting extras see +to that. But I never see 'em playing anything +else much, not even out here where the suburbs +smut an otherwise attractive landscape.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” I ventured, “not only the lack of +space and free open in the city has something +to do with it, but the fact that the seasons there +grow and change so unperceived. Games, you +remember, go by a kind of immutable rotation—as +much a law of childhood as gravitation of the +universe. Marbles belong to spring, to the first +weeks after the frost is out of the ground. They +are a kind of celebration of the season, of the +return to bare earth. Tops belong to autumn, +hockey to the ice, base-ball to the spring and +summer, foot-ball to the cold, snappy fall, and +I seem to remember that even such games as +hide-and-seek or puss-in-the-corner were played +constantly at one period, not at all at another. +If you played 'em out of time, they didn't seem +right; there was no zest to them. Now, most +of these game periods were determined long ago +by physical conditions of ground and climate. +They stem us back to nature. Cramp the youngsters +in the artificial life of a city, and you snap +this stem. My theory may be wild, all wrong. +Yet I can't help feeling that our games, which +we accepted and absorbed as a part of the universe, +as much as our parents or the woods and +fields, <i>were</i> a part of that nature which surrounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +us, linking us with the beginnings of +the race. Most kids' games are centuries upon +centuries old, they say. I can't help believing +that for every sky-scraper we erect we end the +life, for thousands of children, of one more game.”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred had listened attentively to my +long discourse, nodding his head approvingly. +“No doubt, no doubt,” he said. “I shall hereafter +regard the Metropolitan Tower as a memorial +shaft, which ought to bear an inscription, +'Hic jacet, Puss-in-the-corner.' Yet I saw +some poor little duffers on the East Side the +other day trying to play soak with a tattered old +ball, which kept getting lost under the push +carts.”</p> + +<p>“They die hard,” said I.</p> + +<p>We had by this time come on our walk into +a group of houses, the outskirts of a town. +Several small boys were, apparently, aimlessly +walking about.</p> + +<p>“Why don't they <i>do</i> something,” Old Hundred +exclaimed, half to himself. “Don't they +know how, even out here?”</p> + +<p>“Suppose you teach 'em,” I suggested.</p> + +<p>Again Old Hundred grinned. He walked over +among the small boys, who stopped their talk +and regarded him silently. “Ever play duck-on-the-rock?” +he asked, with that curiously embarrassed +friendliness of the middle-aged man trying +to make up to boyhood. After a certain period,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +most of us unconsciously regard a small boy as a +kind of buzz-saw, to be handled with extreme +care.</p> + +<p>The boys looked at one another, as if picking +a spokesman. Finally one of them, a freckle-faced, +stocky youngster who looked more like a +country lad than the rest, replied. “They dunno +how,” he said. “They're afraid the stones'll hurt +'em. We used to play it up State all the time.”</p> + +<p>“There's your theory,” said Old Hundred in +an aside to me.</p> + +<p>“You're a liar,” said one of the other boys. +“We ain't afraid, are we Bill?”</p> + +<p>“Naw,” said Bill.</p> + +<p>“Who's a liar?” said the first speaker, doubling +his fists. “I'll knock your block off in about a +minute.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, come on an' do it, Rube!” taunted the +other.</p> + +<p>Old Hundred hereupon interfered. “Let's not +fight, let's play,” he said. “If they don't know +how, we'll teach 'em, eh Rube? Want to learn, +boys?”</p> + +<p>They looked at him for a moment with the +instinctive suspicion of their class, decided in +his favor, and assented. Like all men, Old Hundred +was flattered by this mark of confidence +from the severest critics in the world. He and +Rube hunted out a large rock, and placed it on +the curb. Each boy found his individual duck,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +Old Hundred tried to count out for It, couldn't +remember the rhyme, and had to turn the job +over to Rube, who delivered himself of the following:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“As I went up to Salt Lake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I met a little rattlesnake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'd e't so much of jelly cake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It made his little belly ache.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When It was thus selected, automatically and +poetically, Old Hundred drew a line in the road, +parallel to the curb, It put his duck on the +rock, and the rest started to pitch. Suddenly one +demon spotted me, a smiling by-stander. “Hi,” +he called, “Old Coattails ain't playin'.”</p> + +<p>“Quitter, quitter, quitter!” taunted Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>I started to make some remark about the self-consciousness +of a learned <i>litterateur</i> of forty-five, +but my speech was drowned in a derisive howl +from the buzz-saws. I meekly accepted the inevitable, +and hunted myself out a duck.</p> + +<p>After ten minutes of madly dashing back to +the line pursued by those supernaturally active +young cubs, after stooping again and again to +pick up my duck, after dodging flying stones and +sometimes not succeeding, I was quite ready to +quit. Old Hundred, flushed and perspiring, was +playing as if his life depended on it. When he +was tagged, he took his turn as It without a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> +murmur. He was one of the kids, and they +knew it. But finally he, too, felt the pace in +his bones. We left the boys still playing, quite +careless of whether we went or stayed. We were +dusty and hot; our hands were scratched and +grimed. “Ah!” said Old Hundred, looking back, +“I've accomplished something to-day and had a +good time doing it! The ungrateful little savages; +they might have said good-bye.”</p> + +<p>“Yet you wouldn't pull up the mumblety-peg +for me,” I said.</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow,” he replied, “that is quite +different. To take a dare from a man is childish. +Not to take a dare from a child is unmanly.”</p> + +<p>“You talk like G. K. Chesterton,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Which shows that occasionally Chesterton +is right,” said he. “Speaking of dares, I'd like +to see a gang of kids playing dares or follow-your-leader +right now. Remember how we used +to play follow-your-leader by the hour? You +had to do just what he did, like a row of sheep. +When there were girls in the game, you always +ended up by turning a somersault, which was a +subtle jest never to be too much enjoyed.”</p> + +<p>“And Alice Perkins used to take that dare, +too, I remember,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Alice never could bear to be stumped,” he +mused. “She's either become a mighty fine +woman or a bad one. She was the only girl +we ever allowed to perform in the circuses up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +in your backyard. Often we wouldn't even admit +girls as spectators. Remember the sign you +painted to that effect? She was the lady trapeze +artist and bareback rider. You were the bareback, +as I recall it—or was it Fatty Newell? +Anyhow, one of her stunts was to hang by her +legs and drink a tumbler of water.”</p> + +<p>I felt my muscles. “I wonder,” said I, “if +I could still skin the cat?”</p> + +<p>“I'll bet I can chin myself ten times,” said +Old Hundred.</p> + +<p>We cast about for a convenient limb. There +was an apple-tree beside the road, with a horizontal +limb some eight feet above the ground. +I tried first. I got myself over all right, till I +hung inverted, my fountain-pen, pencil, and eyeglass +case falling out of my pocket. But there +I stuck. There was no strength in my arms to +pull me up. So I curled clean over and dropped +to the ground, very red in the face, my clothes +covered with the powdered apple-tree bark. Old +Hundred grasped the limb to chin himself. He +got up once easily, he got up a second time with difficulty, +he got up a third time by an heroic effort, +the veins standing out on his forehead. The fourth +time he stuck two inches off the ground.</p> + +<p>“'You are old, Father William,'” I quoted.</p> + +<p>He rubbed his biceps sadly. “I'm out of practice!” +he said with some asperity. But we tried +no more stunts on the apple-tree.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p> + +<p>Beyond the orchard was a piece of split-rail +fence, gray and old, with brambles growing at +the intersections—one of the relics of an elder +day in Westchester County. Old Hundred looked +at it as he put on his coat.</p> + +<p>“There ought to be a bumblebees' nest in that +fence,” he said. “If we should poke the bees +out we'd find honey, nice gritty honey, all over +rotted wood from our fingers.”</p> + +<p>“Are you looking for trouble?” I asked. +“However, if you hold your breath, a bee can't +sting you.”</p> + +<p>“I recall that ancient superstition—with pain,” +he smiled. “Why does a bee have such a fascination +for a boy? Is it because he makes honey?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all; that's a secondary issue. It's because +he's a bee,” I answered. “Don't you remember +the fun of stoning those gray hornets' +nests which used to be built under the school-house +eaves in summer? We waited till the first +recess to plug a stone through 'em, and nobody +could get back in the door without being stung. +It was against the unwritten law to stone the +school-house nests in vacation time!”</p> + +<p>“Recess!” mused Old Hundred. “Do you +know, sometimes in court when the judge announces +a recess (which he pronounces with the +accent on the second syllable, a manifest error), +those old school-days come back to me, and my +case drops clean out of my head for the moment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“I should think that would be embarrassing,” +said I.</p> + +<p>“It isn't,” he said, “it's restful. Besides, it +often restores my mislaid sense of humor. I +picture the judge out in a school-yard playing +leap-frog with the learned counsel for the prosecution +and the foreman of the jury. It makes +'em more human to see 'em so.”</p> + +<p>“A Gilbertian idea, to say the least,” I smiled. +“Why not set the whole court to playing squat-tag?”</p> + +<p>“There was step-tag, too,” said Old Hundred. +“Remember that? The boy or girl who was It +shut his eyes and counted ten. Then he opened +his eyes suddenly, and if he saw any part of you +moving you became It. On 'ten' you tried to +freeze into stiffness. We must have struck some +funny attitudes.”</p> + +<p>“Attitudes,” said I, “that was another game. +Somebody said 'fear' or 'cat' or 'geography,' and +you had to assume an attitude expressive of the +word. The girls liked that game.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the girls always liked games where they +could show off or get personal attention,” replied +Old Hundred. “They liked hide-and-seek because +you came after them, or because you took +one of 'em and went off with her alone to hide +behind the wood-shed. They liked kissing games +best, though—drop-the-handkerchief and post-office.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Those weren't recess games,” I amended. +“Those were party games. You played them +when you had your best clothes on, which +entirely changed your mental attitude, anyhow. +When a girl dropped the handkerchief behind +you, you had to chase her and kiss her if you +could, and when you got a letter in post-office +you had to go into the next room and be +kissed. Everybody tittered at you when you +came back.”</p> + +<p>“Well, soak and scrub were recess games, anyhow. +I can hear that glad yell, 'Scrub one!' +rising from the first boy who burst out of the +school-house door. Then there were dare-base, +and foot-ball, which we used to play with an +old bladder, or at best a round, black rubber ball, +not one of these modern leather lemons. We +used to kick it, too. I don't remember tackling +and rushing, till we got older and went to prep +school—or you and I went to prep school.”</p> + +<p>“I'd hate to have been tackled on the old +school playground,” said I. “It was hard as +rocks.”</p> + +<p>“It <i>was</i> rocks,” said Old Hundred. “You +could spin a top on it anywhere.”</p> + +<p>“Could you spin a top now?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Sure!” said Old Hundred. “And pop at a +snapper, too.”</p> + +<p>“It's wicked to play marbles for keeps,” said +I impressively. “Only the bad boys do that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Poor mother!” said Old Hundred. “Remember +the marble rakes we used to make? We +cut a series of little arches in a board, numbered +'em one, two, three, and so on, and stood the +board up across the concrete sidewalk down by +Lyceum Hall. The other kids rolled their marbles +from the curb. If a marble went through +an arch, the owner of the rake had to give the +boy as many marbles as the number over the +arch. If the boy missed, the owner took his +marble. It was very profitable for the owner. +And my mother found out I had a rake. That +night it went into the kitchen fire, while I +was lectured on the awful consequences of gambling.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said I. “It was almost as terrible +as sending 'comic valentines.' Remember the +'comics'? They were horribly colored lithographs +of teachers, old maids, dudes, and the +like, with equally horrible verses under them. +They cost a penny apiece, and you bought 'em +at Damon's drug store. They were so wicked +that Emily Ruggles wouldn't sell 'em.”</p> + +<p>“Emily Ruggles's!” exclaimed Old Hundred. +“Shall you ever forget Emily Ruggles's? It was +in Lyceum Hall building, a little dark store up +a flight of steps—a notion store, I guess they +called it. To us kids it was just Emily Ruggles's. +It was full of marbles, tops, 'scholars' companions,' +air-guns, sheets of paper soldiers, valentines,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +fire-crackers before the Fourth, elastic for slingshots, +spools, needles and yards of blue calico +with white dots, which hung over strings above +the counters. Emily was a dark, heavy-browed +spinster with a booming bass voice and a stern +manner, and when you crept, awed and timid, +into the store she glared at you and boomed out, +'Which side, young man?' Yet her store was a +kid's paradise. I have often wondered since +whether she didn't, in her heart, really love us +youngsters, for all her forbidding manner.”</p> + +<p>“Of course she loved us,” said I. “She loved +her country, too. Don't you remember the story +of how she paid for a substitute in the Civil War, +because she couldn't go to the front and fight +herself? Poor woman, she took the only way she +knew to show her affection for us. She stocked +her little shop with a delectable array which +kept a procession of children pushing open the +door and timidly yet joyfully entering its dark +recesses, where bags of marbles and bundles of +pencils gleamed beneath the canopies of calico. +Nowadays I never see such shops anymore. I +don't know whether there are any tops and marbles +on the market. One never sees them. Certainly +one never sees nice little shops devoted +to their sale. Children are not important any +longer.”</p> + +<p>Old Hundred sighed. We walked on in silence, +toward the brow of a hill, and presently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> +the Hudson gleamed below us, while across its +misty expanse the hills of New Jersey huddled +into the sinking sun. Old Hundred sat down on +a stone.</p> + +<p>“I'm weary,” he said, “and my muscles ache, +and I'm stiff and sore and forty-five. Bill, you're +getting bald. Wipe your shiny high-brow. You +look ridiculous.”</p> + +<p>“Shut up,” said I, “and don't get maudlin +just because you can't chin yourself ten times. +Remember, it's because you're out of practice!”</p> + +<p>“Out of practice, out of practice!” he said +viciously. “A year at Muldoon's wouldn't bring +me back the thoughtless joy of a hockey game, +would it? No, nor the delight of playing puss-in-the-corner, +or following a paper trail through +the October woods, or yelling 'Daddy on the +castle, Daddy on the castle!' while we jumped +on Frank Swain's veranda and off again into his +mother's flower-bed!”</p> + +<p>“I trust not,” said I. “Just what are you getting +at?”</p> + +<p>“This,” answered Old Hundred: “that I, you, +none of us, go into things now for the sheer exuberance +of our bodies and the sheer delight of +playing a game. We must have some ulterior +motive—usually a sordid one, getting money or +downing the other fellow; and most of the time +we have to drive our poor, old rackety bodies +with a whip. About the time a man begins to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> +vote, he begins to disintegrate. The rest of life +is gradual running down, or breaking up. The +Hindoos were right.”</p> + +<p>“Old Hundred,” said I, “you are something +of an idiot. Those games of ours were nature's +school; nature takes that way to teach us how to +behave ourselves socially, how to conquer others, +but mostly how to conquer ourselves. We were +men-pups, that's all. For Heaven's sake, can't +you have a pleasant afternoon thinking of your +boyhood without becoming maudlin?”</p> + +<p>“You talk like a book by G. Stanley Hall,” +retorted Old Hundred. “No doubt our games +were nature's way of teaching us how to be men, +but that doesn't alter the fact that the process of +being taught was better than the process of putting +the knowledge into practice. I hate these +folks who rhapsodize sentimentally over children +as 'potential little men.' Potential fiddle-sticks! +Their charm is because they <i>ain't</i> men yet, because +they are still trailing clouds of glory, because +they are nice, mysterious, imaginative, +sensitive, nasty little beasts. You! All you are +thinking of is that dinner I owe you! Well, +come on, then, we'll go back into that monstrous +heap of mortar down there to the south, where +there are no children who know how to play, +no tops, no marbles, no woods and ponds and +bees' nests in the fences, no Emily Ruggleses; +where every building is, as you say, the gravestone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +of a game, and the only sport left is the +playing of the market for keeps!”</p> + +<p>He got up painfully. I got up painfully. We +both limped. Down the hill in silence we went. +On the train Old Hundred lighted a cigar. “What +do you say to the club for dinner?” he asked. “I +ought to go across to the Bar Association afterward +and look up some cases on that rebate suit. +By Jove, but it's going to be a pretty trial!”</p> + +<p>“That pleases me all right,” I answered. “I've +got to meet Ainsley after the theatre and go +over our new third act. I think you are going +to like it better than the old.”</p> + +<p>At the next station Old Hundred went out +on the platform and hailed a newsboy. “I want +to see how the market closed,” he explained, +as he buried himself in his paper.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="Barber_Shops_of_Yesterday" id="Barber_Shops_of_Yesterday"></a>Barber Shops of Yesterday</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big> have</span> just been to a barber shop,—not a city +barber shop, where you expect tiled floors and +polished mirrors and a haughty Venus by a table +in the corner, who glances scornfully at your +hands as you give your hat, coat, and collar to +a boy, as much as to say, “Manicures himself!”—but +a country barber shop, in a New England +small town. I rather expected that the experience +would repay me, in awakened pleasant memories, +for a very poor hair-cut. Instead, I got a very +good hair-cut, and no pleasant memories were +awakened at all; not, that is, by the direct process +of suggestion. I was only led to muse on +barber shops of my boyhood because this one +was so different. Even the barber was different. +He chewed gum, he worked quickly, he used +shaving powder and took his cloths from a sterilizer, +and finally he held a hand-glass behind +my head for me to see the result, quite like his +city cousins. (By the way, was ever a man so +brave as to say the cut <i>wasn't</i> all right, when the +barber held that hand-glass behind his head? And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> +what would the barber say if he did?) No, this +shop was antiseptic, and uninteresting. There +was not even a picture on the walls!</p> + +<p>But, to the barber's soothing snip, snip, snip, +and the gentle tug of the comb, I dreamed of +the barber shops of my boyhood, and of Clarkie +Parker's in particular. Clarkie's shop was in Lyceum +Hall block, one flight up—a huge room, +with a single green upholstered barber's chair between +the windows, where one could sit and watch +the town go by below you. The room smelled +pungently of bay rum. Barber shops don't smell +of bay rum any more. Around two sides were +ranged many chairs and an old leather couch. +The chair-arms were smooth and black with the +rubbing of innumerable hands and elbows, and +behind them, making a dark line along the wall, +were the marks where the heads of the sitters +rubbed as they tilted back. Nor can I forget the +spittoons,—large shallow boxes, two feet square,—four +of them, full of sand. On a third side of +the room stood the basin and water-taps, and +beside them a large black-walnut cabinet, full +of shelves. The shelves were full of mugs, and +on every mug was a name, in gilt letters, generally +Old English. Those mugs were a town +directory of our leading citizens. My father's +mug was on the next to the top shelf, third<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +from the end on the right. The sight of it used +to thrill me, and at twelve I began surreptitiously +to feel my chin, to see if there were any hope +of my achieving a mug in the not-too-distant +future.</p> + +<p>Above the chairs, the basin, the cabinet, hung +pictures. Several of those pictures I have never +seen since, but the other day in New York I +came upon one of them in a print-shop on Fourth +Avenue, and was restrained from buying it only +by the, to me, prohibitive price. I've been ashamed +ever since, too, that I allowed it to be prohibitive. +I feel traitorous to a memory. It was a lurid +lithograph of a burning building upon which +brave firemen in red shirts were pouring copious +streams of water, while other brave firemen +worked the pump-handles of the engine. The +flames were leaping out in orange tongues from +every window of the doomed structure (which +was a fine business block three stories high), but +you felt sure that the heroes would save all adjoining +property, in spite of the evident high wind. +Another picture in Clarkie's shop showed these +same firemen (at least, they, too, wore red shirts) +hauling their engine out of its abode; and still +another displayed them hauling it back again. +On this latter occasion it was coated with ice, +and I used to wonder if all these pictures depicted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +the same fire, because the trees were in full leaf +in the others. There also hung on the walls a +truly superb engraving of the loss of the Arctic. +Her bow (or was it her stern?) was high in air, +and figures were dropping off it into the sea, +like nuts from a shaken hickory. This was a +very terrible picture, and one turned with relief +to Maude S. standing before a bright green hedge +and looking every inch a gentle champion, or +the stuffed pickerel, twenty-four inches long, +framed under glass, with his weight—a ponderous +figure—printed on the frame.</p> + +<p>Clarkie Parker was in reality a barber by avocation. +The art he loved was angling. Patience +with a rod and line, the slow contemplation of +rivers, was in his blood, and in his fingers. It +took him a long time to cut your hair, even +when, on the first hot day of June, you bade +him, “take it all off with the lawn-mower.” (Do +any boys have their heads clean-clipped in summer +any more?) But while he cut, he talked +of fishing. You listened as to one having authority. +He knew every brook, every pool, every pond, +for miles around. You went next day where +Clarkie advised. And there was no use expecting +a hair-cut or a shave on the first of April, +when “the law went off on trout.” Clarkie's +shop was shut. If the day happened to be Saturday,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +many a pious man in our village had to go +to church upon the morrow unshaven or untrimmed.</p> + +<p>I know not what has become now of Clarkie +or his shop. Doubtless they have gone the way +of so many pleasantly flavored things of our vanished +New England. I only know that I still +possess a razor he sold me when my downy face +had begun to arouse public derision. I shall always +cherish that razor, though I never shave +with it. I never could shave with it! But I love +Clarkie just the same. He only proved himself +thereby the ultimate Yankee.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament2.jpg" width="369" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<h2><a name="The_Button_Box" id="The_Button_Box"></a>The Button Box</h2> + + +<p class="noindent">“<span class="smcap"><big>H</big>ave</span> you,” said I, “anything like the ones +left?”—and I held out to my wife a shirt just +back from the laundry, and minus a strategic +button.</p> + +<p>“I'll look in my button box and see,” she +answered, taking the shirt.</p> + +<p>Her button box! I did not know she had one, +and followed her into her retreat to see it. But +alas! it was a grievous disappointment, being +nothing but a drawer set in some sort of a fancy +contraption of chintz-covered pasteboard, like a +toy bureau, which stood on her work table. No +doubt it contained buttons, and was serviceable. +But a button box! To call it that were to libel +a noble institution of an elder day.</p> + +<p>As I waited for the restoration of my shirt +I thought tenderly of the button box of my childhood. +It was no dinky six-by-four-inch pasteboard +drawer, not two inches deep—no, sir! It +was a cylindrical wooden box of the substantial +and finished workmanship which went into even +such humble things as a butter box a century +ago, for mother had inherited it from her mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +It must once have contained ten pounds of +butter, but all traces of its original service had +long disappeared. The drum, of very thin, tough +wood, which had kept its shape uncracked, had +been polished a dark nut brown by countless +hands. The bottom and cover, of pine, were +darkened, too, but without polish. This box +dwelt on the second shelf of the old what-not, +which, in turn, stood in the closet passage underneath +the stairs. When any accident befell our +garment fastenings, “Go and get the button +box,” mother said, as she reached for her needle. +Or, on rainy days, when we grew more and +more restless and all other devices failed, “You +may go and get the button box,” mother would +say, and we were solaced till supper time.</p> + +<p>No modern patent sewing-table receptacle +could possibly hold one quarter of the contents +of that button box, the accumulation of at least +three generations. It was heavy, and having no +handles, you had to grasp it with open palms on +either side—hence the polish. It rattled when +taken down from its shelf, and the very first +thing you did when the lid was off was to plunge +your two hands down into the mass, and let fistfuls +of buttons trickle through your fingers.</p> + +<p>Sometimes we played it was a treasure chest, +and these buttons were Spanish doubloons. Sometimes +we trickled them just for the cool feel of +it, the sound of the rattle, the sensation of plunging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +fingers into the oddly liquid mass. There +were great steel buttons, little pearl buttons, +white bone buttons, black suspender buttons, +cloth buttons, silk buttons, crocheted buttons, +elongated crystal buttons (which we held to the +light “to make prisms”), lovely agate buttons, +brass military buttons with the U. S. eagle upon +them, wooden buttons, either once covered or +yet to be covered, shoe buttons (which invariably +were in practical demand and invariably had sunk +to the bottom of the box), strange great buttons +from some long-forgotten garment of grandmother's, +familiar buttons from some newly remembered +garment of our own.</p> + +<p>It seems odd, when I think of it now, the endless +delight we children got just from the contemplation +and discussion of those buttons. Sometimes, +of course, we picked out the suitable ones, +and strung them in long chains. Sometimes we +used them for counters in games. But often we +just turned them over and over, or tipped them +out on a paper spread on the floor, and from the +hints they gave us reconstructed ancient garments +or recalled forgotten clothes of our own.</p> + +<p>“Oh, that one used to be on my winter jacket!”</p> + +<p>“Look, here's one of papa's pants buttons—it +says 'Macullar and Parker' on it!”</p> + +<p>“Hi, there's my old brown overcoat!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear, I wish I still had that pretty gray +suit, with those steel buttons on it!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>The silly talk of children—and how like some +conversations the propinquity of piazzas has since +forced me to listen to!</p> + +<p>To find just the button she wanted was sometimes +a long task for mother, and father, it must +be admitted, had varied the proverbial needle +simile for our domestic establishment, to read, +“like hunting for a button in your mother's button +box.” But still the odd buttons continued +to go in, and only the ones needed came permanently +out. You never could tell, to be sure, +when the most unlikely button would come in +handy. Sometimes there were days when the +village dress-maker arrived after breakfast and +remained till almost supper time, converting the +upstairs front chamber into a maze of threads +and snippings, and requisitioning the button box +in long searches for “a set of six”. That was a +fine game! Sometimes it was easy. Sometimes +only five could be found of the type she particularly +desired. But never did the box fail completely; +always there were enough of <i>some</i> button +that, she said, without dropping the pins from +her mouth, would do, “though it ain't quite what +I wanted.”</p> + +<p>All this flashed through my memory as I +waited for my wife to reëstablish connections on +my shirt. As she finally finished, and pushed in +her silly little drawer, I said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Do you call that thing a button box? Why +don't you have a real one?”</p> + +<p>“That's quite large enough when you have +to find a match,” said she, “and too large when +you drop it.”</p> + +<p>Women are practical creatures; there is no +sentiment in them. Their alleged possession of +it is the most spurious of all the arguments against +equal suffrage.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +<img src="images/ornament1.jpg" width="380" height="100" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h2><a name="Peppermints" id="Peppermints"></a>Peppermints</h2> + + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap"><big>I</big> have</span> just purchased a little bag of peppermints, +and returned with them to my rooms +above the Square. I did not purchase them at +the promptings of a sweet tooth, but of a hungry +heart. They take me back into the forgotten +Aprils of my life, where I often love to loiter, +not from any resentment that I have been unable +to emulate Peter Pan and remain a boy forever, +but because this great town is drab and +dusty and imprisoning, and it is sweet to escape +down the green lanes of April, even if only in +a memory. A physical sensation—the sound of +a voice, a hand patting us to the rhythm of “Tell +Aunt Rhody”, an odor—can plunge us deeper +and swifter down to the buried places of our +memory than any process of deliberate recollection. +No robin sings against my window of a +morning here—only the noisy sparrows twitter +and quarrel, reminding me of the curb market. +No lilac sheds its perfume on the still air. I am +perforce reduced to peppermints. The taste of +peppermints on my tongue, the pungent fragrance +of them in my nostrils, have the power,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +however, to transport me far from this maze of +mortared cañons, back across the years, to a land +where the robins sang against the spacious sky +and a little boy dreamed great dreams.</p> + +<p>So now I am sitting high up above the Square, +with my little bag of peppermints before me +(somewhat diminished in quantity already), and +think, between slow, sipping nibbles, of that little +boy.</p> + +<p>In his day, in the land where he came from, +peppermints were almost a symbol of life's best +things—of grandmothers and other dear old ladies +who kept cookies in cool stone crocks in sweet-smelling +“butt'ries” (sometimes foolishly called +pantries by those who put on airs); of Christmastides +when to the joy of peppermint sticks +was added the unspeakable delight of sucking +barley toys,—red dogs, golden camels that lost +their humps and elephants that lost their trunks +as the tongue went succulently 'round and 'round +them; of the wonderful village “notion” store, +presided over by a terrible female person with a +deep bass voice, who asked you over the counter +as you entered, “Which side, young man?” It +was bad enough to be called “Bubbie”, but to +be called “young man” in this ironic bass was +almost insufferable. Yet you bore it nobly, for +the sake of the pound of shot for your air-gun +or the blood-alley or the great pink and +white peppermints, two for a cent, that reposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> +in a glass jar on the left side of the shop. Was +Miss Emily so terrible a person, I wonder now? +She was always looked upon a little askance by +the ladies of our village because she was “so masculine”. +But if she did not conceal a softness +for children under her stern exterior why did +she keep a stock of so many things dear to the +childish heart, from paper soldiers (purchased by +the yard) to sleds and shot? Perhaps that fantastic +stock of hers was her curious expression +of the Eternal Motherly. After she died, every +year on the 30th of May the “Vet'rans,” as they +marched two by two in annually dwindling lines +about the cemetery, placed a fresh print flag and a +basket of geraniums on her grave, because she had +sent a substitute to the War. To us youngsters +this substitute used to explain why she kept shot +for sale; she was by nature a bellicose person, and, +we were sure, her great grief was her sex.</p> + +<p>In my own family peppermints were directly +connected, by legend, with feminine attractiveness. +A great grandmother on my mother's side +had been in her day a famous beauty. And when +asked the secret of her charm, as she frequently +was (to my infant imagination she appeared as +a superhumanly radiant vision who walked about +the streets in a hoop-skirt with an admiring +throng in her wake, constantly being forced to +explain why she was beautiful), she did not utter +testimonials for anybody's soap, nor for a patent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +dietary system, nor even for outdoor exercise. +She replied simply, “Peppermints”. Great +grandmamma died when my mother was +a girl, and to mother fell the task of going +through the old lady's possessions. She says it +was a task; probably it was a privilege. At any +rate, my mother records that she found peppermints +everywhere, in every kind of wrapper, +stowed in the different receptacles, in boxes, +bags, trunks, in bureau drawers and writing desks +and “secretaries”. They were among letters and +laces, in the folds of silk gowns and even the +table linen. Some of the peppermints had +crumbled and almost evaporated. Some had “ossified”, +as mother says. “And,” she used to add, +telling the tale to large-eyed, hungry-mouthed +little me, “I have not seen so many peppermints +outside a candy shop since that day.”</p> + +<p>“But did the peppermints really make great +grandmamma beautiful?” I would ask.</p> + +<p>“She always said so,” my mother would reply, +“and she was certainly very beautiful.”</p> + +<p>“Is that why you eat peppermints?” I then +inquired, on a day when I had detected her +with a bag of the confection.</p> + +<p>At this point there was a masculine chuckle +from the armchair by the bookcase. Also, a +peppermint was promptly produced for my personal +consumption. I had a great fondness for +the memory of my beautiful ancestor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> + +<p>Peppermints, too, are intimately connected +with the religious experiences of my childhood; +or, perhaps I should say, with the religious observances +of my childhood. Our minister's whiskers +always interested me more than his discourses. +As I nibble a peppermint from the bag before +me—lingeringly, for the supply is being fast depleted—and +the frail yet pungent odor fills my +nostrils, I am once more in that half-filled church, +on a Sabbath morning in early Spring, dozing +through the sermon, with my head tumbling +sleepily now and then against my father's shoulder. +Slowly the scene comes back, in every least +detail, the smallest sights and sounds of that +morning all here, but all thin and faint and frail, +spun of the gossamer web of memory. Can I +hold them till they are set down? I shall have to +eat another precious white lozenge from my bag.</p> + +<p>My cheek had bumped my father's shoulder +again when I caught a sudden whiff of peppermint +drops and raised my head just in time to see an +old lady across the aisle whisk her dress down +over her petticoat pocket. For a few moments +I watched her in envy, for her mouth was moving +ever so little and I could fancy the delicious +taste. But how could she enjoy the candy and +not make her mouth go more than that, I wondered. +I did not shut my eyes again, but sat +very still against my father's arm and let my +eyes wander around the church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ours was one of the “new” churches. The +beautiful old “meeting house” at the head of the +village green, with its exquisite white spire and +its pillard pulpit and windows of “common” +glass, purpling with age, was the property of the +Methodists—which in some manner I could not +then understand (and do not clearly yet) was always +a source of resentment in our congregation. +Our church had stained windows, a chocolate +brown field with white stars in the centre and +around the edges tiny squares of many colors, atrocious +reds, blues and yellows. These windows were +opened a little at the top, and through the openings +came soft sounds of Spring, the wind racing among +the budding branches, the sudden call of a bird, +and occasionally the crooning, sleepy cackle of +hens from a distance. Now and then a cloud +drifted by, across the sun, dimming the interior +for a moment, so that the minister's voice seemed +to come from farther off. The sunlight through +the stained glass projected colored splotches here +and there. I wondered if the people knew how +homely they looked with those splotches on +their faces, like great birth-marks. That suggested +a pastime to relieve the monotony.</p> + +<p>Starting with the choir (which consisted of +four people, boxed in before the organ at the +right of the pulpit) I began to count people +with colored spots. First there was the tenor +with a purple spot on his left cheek and on his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +sandy hair and beard. But the organist and soprano +were splashed with scarlet. Then I forget +to count, because I noticed that the 'alto had a +new violet hat, which eclipsed the soprano's old +green one. I wondered whether she had gone +to Boston to buy it, or had “patronized home +industries”—a phrase I had just discovered with +pride in our local paper. The bass was nodding +and letting his hymn book slip toward a fall. I +hoped slily that it would fall, and braced my +nerves for the crash. But he woke with a funny +jerk, like my jack-in-the-box, just in time to +catch it, and began listening intently to the sermon +as if he had been awake all the while. The +soprano smiled at someone in the congregation, +whispered to the tenor, and then sat silent again.</p> + +<p>My gaze wandered to the minister's pleasant +face, with its great square-cut gray beard, which +always suggested to me—why, I don't know—one +of the minor prophets; and then past him +to the gilded cross that was painted on the apsidal +wall behind him. I knew that if I looked +at this cross, with its gilded rays spreading out +in all directions, long enough the rays would +begin to melt together and then to turn 'round +and 'round in a kind of dizzy dance. So I looked +steadily, till I had to shake the sleep out of my +eyes with a great effort. Then I fell to speculating +on the tablets painted at the left of the +pulpit, to balance the organ. These tablets were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +encased in a design that suggested a twin tombstone. +On one of them were the words, “God +is a spirit, and they that worship Him must +worship Him in spirit and in truth,” a sentence +which had always given me great difficulty. But +this morning I interpreted it at last to my satisfaction. +It meant, I decided, that a man must +first die and become a ghost, a spirit, before he +could tell what church he really ought to go to. +I wondered if, in that spirit region, there would +be any Methodists.</p> + +<p>Directly below the tablets, in a front pew, sat +Miss Emily, she of a bass voice and the “notion” +store. Her Paisley shawl was folded tightly +around her broad, bony shoulders, and made the +lower half of a diamond down her back, the pattern +exactly in the middle. If the pattern had not +been exactly in the middle I am sure the service +would have stopped automatically, till it was adjusted. +She sat very straight and looked with +partly turned head, showing her masculine profile, +sternly at the minister, as if defying him to +be unorthodox. I tried to picture her asking +<i>him</i>, as he entered her shop, “Which side, old +man?” Would she dare, I wondered? And what +would he reply? A few pews behind Miss Emily +sat “the spilled-over old lady”. My sister had +first called her the spilled-over old lady, because +she seemed to have been crowded out by the six +old ladies in the pew behind, and to have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> +permanently soured by the slight. Her hair was +done up in a tight, emphatic pug, her profile +suggested vinegar—or perhaps it was her complexion. +At any rate, when I looked at her I +thought of vinegar. I wondered if she ever ate +peppermints, and if they tasted the same to her +as to other people.</p> + +<p>Presently I leaned forward and extracted a +hymn book from the rack attached to the back +of the pew in front. This rack contained, besides +hymn books, a pair of old gloves done into +a wad wrong side out, two fans, “leaflets” of all +sorts, and little envelopes for the collection. Most +of the “leaflets” were appeals for charity, I fancy. +At any rate, many of them were full of pictures +of poor little city children suffering from all +sorts of diseases, and oppressed me horribly. But +I could always rely on the hymn book. My first +consciousness that there is any difference between +prose and poetry except in the matter of rhyme +came from reading the hymn book, from Whittier's,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I know not where His islands lift<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Their fronded palms in air;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I only know I cannot drift<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beyond His love and care.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">I had no idea what kind of a palm a fronded +palm is, but I fancied it something much grander +and taller than other palms; and the whole hymn +filled my mind with a large, expansive imagery,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> +breathed over my little spirit an ineffable serenity. +This hymn I now read while the minister talked +away behind his minor-prophet whiskers;—this, +and Wesley's,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A charge to keep I have,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A God to glorify;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A never-dying soul to save,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And fit it for the sky.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="noindent">This stanza always made me want to get up and +shout. I read and re-read it, repeating it, with +noiseless lips. The tune it went to seemed inadequate, +the more so as in our church tunes were +always dragged to the limit of non-conformist +dolorousness. The stanza seemed to me, even +then, happy, hopeful, staccato, jubilant. I wonder +what I should have thought had I known +its author was a Methodist? Could good come +out of Nazareth, after all? Instead, I fell to wondering +about the after life in the sky. Heaven +I pictured as a city builded on a cloud. If, on +a very clear day, the cloud should dry up what, +I speculated, would the angels walk on? Then +it occurred to me that they do not walk, they fly. +So they would go flying about streets out of which +the bottoms had dropped, and look right through +far down to the earth, which to their sight would +doubtless resemble the raised map of America in +our school, that stood on a table in the corner +and always had chalk dust, like snow, in the inch-deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> +ravines of the Rocky Mountains. I wondered +if the lower stories of the houses would +have any floors. The cellars wouldn't, anyway. +What kept the furnaces in position? Perhaps they +didn't need furnaces in heaven; it was the other +place where the furnaces were. Then I dozed.</p> + +<p>In our church Sunday School began at noon, +immediately following the church service, in a +large room at the rear, known as the vestry. The +first small boy on his way to school stamped by +on the walk outside, with what sounded like +defiant aggressiveness. I roused from my doze in +time to see the old man in front of me wake up +with a start at the sound and reach quickly for +his hymn book, as if he supposed the sermon +were over. Then the stamping of other children +was heard on the walk. The scholars passed in +groups, talking shrilly. I knew it must be nearly +twelve o'clock. In the congregation there was +a rustle of gathering restlessness; women put on +their gloves, tried to glance back at the clock +without seeming to do so, stirred in their seats. +The last vestige of sleep mysteriously yielded to +this influence and left me. At last the minister +came to the conclusion of his discourse, and instantly +there was a sound all over the church as +of waters released and hurrying over dead leaves. +It was the congregation shifting their positions, +expelling their breaths, and turning the pages of +their hymn books. I listened curiously for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> +next sound. It was the clearing of a hundred +throats, getting ready to sing. I too arose and in +my tuneless treble made a joyful noise unto the +Lord. Then church was over.</p> + +<p>And my peppermints are all eaten, too, and +the gossamer web of memory dissolves, the picture +fades, and I see before me this room of mine, +littered with some learned literature but more +pipes and prints and miscellaneous rubbish, and +I hear outside in the Square, not the spring wind +racing among the budding branches, but the +coughing of a consumptive motor car, the penetrating +squeak of a trolley rounding a curve on +a dry track, the irritating jolt of heavy drays, +and a great, subdued, never-ceasing rumble and +roar, the key-note of the giant city. Only the +little bag remains. Shall I blow it up and “bust” +it? That act, with a final pop, will bring back +a flash of my childhood. Here goes....</p> + +<p>It didn't pop nicely at all. It exploded in a +kind of a spudgy collapse, with very little noise. +Ah, well, you cannot eat your peppermints and +have them too—nor the bag! But it has been +very pleasant to eat them, to wake up with a +whiff and a nibble the memory of those vanished +days, those voices and peaceful paths of +life very far from here and now. It may be true +that we mount on our dead selves to higher things, +but it is well to hold little Memorial Days now +and then, and on the graves of our dead, especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> +of those who died young in the flower of +innocence, to leave a peppermint, as the soldiers +leave on the grave of Miss Emily a print flag +and a basket of geraniums. A cemetery need +not be a mournful place. Maids were wooed +and won in <i>our</i> cemetery, and the high school +pupils ate their lunches out of collapsable tin +boxes every noon on the tomb of Major Barton, +he of Revolutionary fame, who horse-whipped +the British captive when he refused to eat beans. +Noble New Englander! And perhaps my own +peppermint feasts are not so much memorial +banquet, after all, as ceremonial rites in honor +of my native land. For I cannot think of this +great city of New York as my home, I cannot +fit into the rushing, roaring cogs and grooves of +its machinery without a protest, without a hope +that some day I may hear the wheels no longer +roar at their cruel revolutions. Thus my peppermints +speak to me of home, of quiet, of +certain green places and a lilac hedge; there is +about them the taste and odor of the ideal. They +are for the future as well as for the past. Perhaps +in some subtle way they do after all have +potency for beauty. I fancy that some day I too +shall stow away bags of them amid my worthless +precious junk, and when prying hands disturb the +dust the nostrils of a youngster now unborn will +be greeted by a frail yet pungent aroma. I can +only trust that he will know well what it is.</p> + +<div class="note"> +<h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3> + +<p>Since the book is a collection of essays printed at different magazines +and at different times, varied spelling has been preserved. Obvious +typographic errors have been corrected. See the list below for details.</p> + +<h4>Issues fixed:</h4> +<ul> +<li>page <a href="#Page_15"> 15</a>—typo fixed: changed 'conciousness' to 'consciousness'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_16"> 16</a>—typo fixed: changed 'hankerchief' to 'handkerchief'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_23"> 23</a>—spelling normalized: changed 'debris' to 'débris'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_38"> 38</a>—typo fixed: changed 'captrued' to 'captured'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_43"> 43</a>—typo fixed: changed 'supurb' to 'superb'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_52"> 52</a>—typo fixed: changed 'Wentworh' to 'Wentworth'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_100">100</a>—typo fixed: changed 'tremendiously' to 'tremendously'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_105">105</a>—typo fixed: changed 'spash' to 'splash'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_107">107</a>—typo fixed: changed 'tantelizing' to 'tantalizing'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_107">107</a>—typo fixed: changed 'there it' to 'there is'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_140">140</a>—typo fixed: changed 'hadows' to 'shadows'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_146">146</a>—typo fixed: changed 'mountian' to 'mountain'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_147">147</a>—typo fixed: changed 'latern' to 'lantern'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_155">155</a>—typo fixed: changed 'nitnh' to 'ninth'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_171">171</a>—typo fixed: changed 'hourse' to 'horse'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_172">172</a>—typo fixed: changed 'coures' to 'course'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_174">174</a>—typo fixed: changed 'morsal' to 'morsel'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_181">181</a>—typo fixed: changed 'centrifugul' to 'centrifugal'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_184">184</a>—typo fixed: changed 'appartment' to 'apartment'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_185">185</a>—typo fixed: changed 'First is' to 'First it'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_191">191</a>—typo fixed: changed 'innumerble' to 'innumerable'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_192">192</a>—typo fixed: changed 'arouud' to 'around'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_192">192</a>—typo fixed: changed 'lasping' to 'lapsing'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_192">192</a>—typo fixed: changed 'grammer' to 'grammar'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_198">198</a>—typo fixed: changed 'hankerchief' to 'handkerchief'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_232">232</a>—typo fixed: changed 'suberb' to 'superb'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_234">234</a>—typo fixed: changed 'griveous' to 'grievous'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_235">235</a>—typo fixed: changed 'possible' to 'possibly'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_236">236</a>—typo fixed: changed 'bottons' to 'buttons'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_239">239</a>—typo fixed: changed 'rythm' to 'rhythm'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_244">244</a>—typo fixed: changed 'interrior' to 'interior'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_246">246</a>—typo fixed: changed 'unothordox' to 'unorthodox'</li> +<li>page <a href="#Page_247">247</a>—typo fixed: changed 'imagry' to 'imagery'</li> +</ul> + +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Penguin Persons & Peppermints, by +Walter Prichard Eaton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENGUIN PERSONS & PEPPERMINTS *** + +***** This file should be named 26405-h.htm or 26405-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/4/0/26405/ + +Produced by Chrome, Michael Ciesielski, Irma Spehar and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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