diff options
Diffstat (limited to '40232-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 40232-0.txt | 4719 |
1 files changed, 4719 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/40232-0.txt b/40232-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffe9beb --- /dev/null +++ b/40232-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4719 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40232 *** + +POST-IMPRESSIONS + + + + +POST-IMPRESSIONS + +An Irresponsible Chronicle + + +BY +SIMEON STRUNSKY + +Author of "The Patient Observer," "Through +the Outlooking Glass," etc. + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK +DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY +1914 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1913, +BY THE EVENING POST COMPANY, + +COPYRIGHT, 1914, +BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY + +The papers in the present volume were published during 1913 in the +Saturday Magazine of the _New York Evening Post_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I ALMA MATER BROADWAY 1 + II THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE 8 + III SUMMER READING 17 + IV NOCTURNE 26 + V HAROLD'S SOUL, I 35 + VI EDUCATIONAL 44 + VII MORGAN 53 + VIII THE MODERN INQUISITION 63 + IX THORNS IN THE CUSHION 72 + X LOW-GRADE CITIZENS 80 + XI ROMANCE 89 + XII WANDERLUST 99 + XIII UNREVISED SCHEDULES 108 + XIV SOMEWHAT CONFUSED 117 + XV HAROLD'S SOUL, II 126 + XVI RHETORIC 21 134 + XVII REAL PEOPLE 141 + XVIII DIFFERENT 150 + XIX ACADEMIC FREEDOM 157 + XX THE HEAVENLY MAID 166 + XXI SHEATH-GOWNS 176 + XXII WITH THE EDITOR'S REGRETS 185 + XXIII A MAD WORLD 194 + XXIV PH.D. 202 + XXV TWO AND TWO 211 + XXVI BRICK AND MORTAR 220 + XXVII INCOHERENT 228 + XXVIII REALISM 236 + XXIX ART 239 + XXX THE PACE OF LIFE 242 + XXXI MARCUS AURELIUS, 1914 244 + XXXII BY THE TURN OF A HAND 247 + XXXIII THE QUARRY SLAVE 250 + XXXIV MONOTONY OF THE POLES 253 + + + + +POST-IMPRESSIONS + + + + +I + +ALMA MATER BROADWAY + + +He came in without having himself announced, nodded cheerfully, and +dropped into a chair across the desk from where I sat. + +"I am not interfering with your work, am I?" he said. + +"To tell the truth," I replied, "this is the busiest day in the week for +me." + +"Fine," he said. "That means your mind is working at its best, brain +cells exploding in great shape, and you can follow my argument without +the slightest difficulty. What I have to say is of the highest +importance. It concerns the present condition of the stage." + +"In that case," I said, "you want to see Mr. Smith. He is the editor +responsible for our dramatic page." + +"I want to speak to the irresponsible editor," he said. "I asked and +they showed me in here. I think I had better begin at the beginning." + +I sighed and looked out of the window. But that made no difference. He, +too, looked out of the window and spoke as follows: + +"Last night," he said, "I attended the first performance of A. B. +Johnson's powerful four-act drama entitled 'H2O.' It was a remorseless +exposure of the phenomena attending the condensation of steam. In the +old days before the theatre became perfectly free the general public +knew nothing of the consequences that ensue when you bring water to a +temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The public didn't know and didn't +care. Those who did know kept the secret to themselves. I am not +exaggerating when I say that there was a conspiracy of silence on the +subject. A play like 'H2O' would have been impossible. The public would +not have tolerated such thoroughgoing realism as Johnson employs in his +first act, for instance. With absolute fidelity to things as they are he +puts before us a miniature reciprocating engine, several turbine +engines, and the latest British and German models in boilers, +piston-rods, and valve-gears. When the curtain rose on the most masterly +presentation of a machine shop ever brought before the public, the house +rocked with applause. But this was nothing compared to the delirious +outburst that marked the climax of the second act, when the hero, with +his arm about the woman he loves, proudly declares that saturated steam +under a pressure of 200 pounds shows 843.8 units of latent heat and a +volume of 2.294 cubic feet to the pound. The curtain was raised eleven +times, but the audience would not be content until the author appeared +before the footlights escorted by a master plumber and the president of +the steamfitters' union. + +"The third act was laid in the reception room of a Tenderloin resort--" + +"I don't quite see," I said. + +"That followed inevitably from the development of the plot," he replied. +"The heroine, you must understand, had been abducted by the president +of a rival steamfitters' union and had been sold into a life of shame. +She is saved in the nick of time by an explosion of the boiler due to +superheated steam. In the old days such a scene would have been +impossible and the author's lesson about the effects of condensation and +vaporization would have been lost to the world." + +"And the play will be a success?" I said. + +"It's a knockout," he replied. "No play of real life with a punch like +that has been produced since C. D. Brewster put on his three-act +tragi-comedy, 'Ad Valorem.' As the title implies, the play sets out to +demonstrate the difference between the Payne-Aldrich tariff law and the +Underwood law, item by item. I have rarely seen an audience so deeply +stirred as all of us were during the long and pathetic scene toward the +end of the first act in which the author deals with the chemical and +mineral oil schedule. Are you aware that under the Underwood law the +duty on formaldehyde is reduced from twenty-five per cent. to one cent a +pound?" + +"I hardly ever go to the theatre nowadays," I said. + +He looked at me reproachfully. + +"Some day you will find yourself, quite unexpectedly, facing a crisis in +which your ignorance of the duty on formaldehyde will cost you dear, and +then you will have cause to regret your indifference toward the progress +of the modern drama. However, the third act of 'Ad Valorem' is laid in +the reception room of a Tenderloin resort." + +"What?" I said. + +"It was bound to be," he replied. "Freed from all Puritanical +restrictions, the playwright of the present day follows wherever his +plot leads him in accordance with the truth of life. In 'Ad Valorem,' +for instance, the fabulously rich importer of oils and chemicals who is +the villain of the piece has succeeded in smuggling an enormously +valuable consignment of formaldehyde out of the Government warehouse. +What is more natural than that he should conceal the smuggled goods in +the Tenderloin? The case is a perfectly simple one. Forbid a playwright +to show the interior of a Tenderloin dive and the public will never know +the truth about the Underwood bill. You see, there is nothing about the +tariff in the newspapers. There is nothing in the magazines. College +professors never mention the subject. Campaign speakers ignore it. There +is a conspiracy of silence. Only the theatre offers us enlightenment on +the subject. Under such conditions would you keep the playwright from +telling us what he knows?" + +"Putting it that way--" I said. + +"I knew you would agree with me," he went on. "Take, for instance, E. F. +Birmingham's realistic drama, 'The Shortest Way,' in which the author +has demonstrated with implacable truthfulness and irresistible logic +that in any triangle the sum of two sides is greater than the third. In +a joint letter to the freshman classes of Columbia University and New +York University, the author and the producer of 'The Shortest Way' have +pointed out that nowhere have the principles of plane geometry been so +clearly formulated as in the second act of the play. The gunman has just +shot down his victim on the corner of Broadway and Forty-second Street. +He flees northward on Broadway to Forty-third Street and then doubles +backward on Seventh Avenue. The hero, who is a professor of mathematics, +recalling his Euclid, runs westward on Forty-second Street, and the +curtain descends. At the beginning of the next act we find that the +gunman has taken refuge in the reception room of a Tender--" + +"I know," I replied. "He was driven there by the irresistible logic of +the dramatist's idea." + +"Exactly," he said. And so left me. + + + + +II + +THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE + + +From the chapter entitled "My Milkman," in Cooper's volume of +"Contemporary Portraits," hitherto unpublished, through no fault of his +own, but because one publisher declined to handle anything but +typewritten copy, and another suggested that if cut down by half the +book might be accepted by the editor of some religious publication, and +still another editor thought that if several chapters were expanded and +a love story inserted, the thing might do, otherwise there was no market +for essays, especially such as failed to take a cheerful view of life, +whereupon Cooper insisted that his book was exceptionally cheerful, +inasmuch as it showed that life could be tolerable in spite of being so +queer, to which the editor replied that serializing a book of humour was +quite out of the question. "Then how about Pickwick?" said Cooper--but +let us get back to the chapter on the milkman. I quote: + +Would sleep never come! I shifted the pillow to the foot of the bed and +back; threw off the covers; pulled them over my head; discarded them; +repeated the multiplication table; counted footsteps in the street +beneath my window; lit a cigarette; tried to go to sleep sitting up and +embracing my knees the way they bury the dead in Yucatan. No use. I +would doze off, and immediately that unfortunate column of figures would +appear, demanding to be added up, and I unable to determine whether sums +written in Roman numerals could be added up at all. That is the +disadvantage of taking conversation seriously, after ten in the evening, +or at any time. I had been discussing the immigration problem till +nearly midnight, and now I was busy adding up the annual influx from +Austria-Hungary during the last twelve years expressed in Roman +numerals. Some people are different. Their opinions don't hurt them. I +have heard people say the most biting things about the need of +abolishing religion and the family, and five minutes later ask for a +caviare sandwich. Whereas I take the total immigration from +Austria-Hungary for the last twelve years to bed with me and cannot fall +asleep. + +I heard the rattle of wheels under my window. It was nearing daybreak. I +looked at my watch and it was close to five. I got up, washed in cold +water, dressed, and went outside. As I walked downstairs I heard the +clatter of bottles in the hallway below and some one whistling +cheerfully. It was the milkman. His wagon was at the curb, and as I +passed down the front steps and stopped to breathe in the sharp, clean, +mystic air of dawn, the milkman's horse raised his head, gazed at me for +a moment with a curious, friendly scepticism, and sank back into +thoughtful contemplation of a spot eighteen inches immediately in front +of his fore-legs. + +(Here one editor had written in the margin: "Amateurish beginning; +should have led off with a crisp phrase or two addressed to the milkman +and then proceeded to a psychological analysis of the milkman's horse.") + +I said to the milkman: + +"This life of yours must be wonderfully conducive to seeing things from +a new angle. A world of chill and pure half-shadows; the happiest time +of the twenty-four hours; the roisterers gone to bed and the +factory-workers not stirring for a good hour. I should imagine that men +in your line would all be philosophers." + +"It does get a bit lonely," he said. "But I always carry an evening +paper with me and read a few lines from house to house. Do you think +they'll let Thaw off?" + +"What do _you_ think about it?" I said. "I haven't been following up the +case." + +"I have read every bit of the story," he said. "He isn't any more crazy +than you or me. He's been punished enough; what's the use of persecuting +a man like that?" + +If Thaw were as sound in mind as my friend the milkman, there would be +no doubt that he deserved his freedom. My new acquaintance was so well +set up, so clear-eyed, with that ruddy glow which comes from shaving and +washing in cold water before dawn, with the quiet air of peace and +strength which comes from working in the silent hours. I thought what an +upright, independent life a milkman's must be, so free from the petty +chaffering and meanness that make up the ordinary tradesman's routine. +He has no competition to contend with. He is no one's servant. He +deposits his wares at your doorstep and you take them or leave them as +you please. He can work in the dark because he does not need the light +to study your face and overreach you. With no one to watch him, with no +one to criticise him, with leisure and silence in which to work out his +problems--I envied him. + +(Here another editor had written: "Tedious; chance for an excellent bit +of characterisation in dialogue entirely missed.") + +"You're an early riser," he said. + +"Can't fall asleep," I said. "This air will do me good." + +"A brisk walk," he suggested. + +"I'm too tired," I said. + +He turned on the wagon step. "Jump in," he said; and when I was seated +beside him he clucked to the horse, who raised his drooping head and +started off diagonally across the street, apparently confident that he +would find another cobblestone to contemplate, eighteen inches in front +of his fore-legs. + +"A good many more people find it hard to sleep nowadays than ever +before," he said. "You can tell by the windows that are lit up. Though +very often it's diphtheria or something of the sort. You hear the little +things whimper, and sometimes a man will run down the street and pull +the night-bell at the drug-store." + +"Then you don't read all the time while you are driving?" + +"Oh, you notice those things and keep on reading. It isn't very noisy +about this time of the day." He laughed. + +"I should think you'd be tired," I said. + +He said they did not work them too hard in his line. The hours were +reasonable. At one time there was an attempt on the part of the dairy +companies to make the hours longer; but the milkmen have some union of +their own, and there was a strike which ended in the companies agreeing +to pay for over-time from 7 to 9 A.M. Their association was more of a +social and benefit society than a trade union. Once a month in summer +they had an outing with lunch and some kind of a cabaret show and +dancing. They were a contented lot. The work was not too exacting. He +could read the evening paper when it got light enough, or sometimes he +could just sit still and think. + +Think what? + +Again I envied him. What extraordinary facilities this man had for +thinking straight, for seeing things clearly in this crisp morning air, +and around him silence and everything as fresh, as frank, as fragrant as +when the world was still young. + +He blushed and hesitated, but finally confessed that for more than a +year he had been carrying about in his head a scenario for a +moving-picture play. His story was naturally interrupted at frequent +intervals as he went about the distribution of his milk bottles. But +stripped of repetitions and ambiguities the plot he had evolved in the +course of more than a year's driving through the silent streets was +about as follows: + +The infant daughter of an extremely wealthy Mexican mine-owner is stolen +by the gipsies. When she grows up she is chosen by the gipsy king for +his bride. Before the wedding takes place the gipsies plan to rob the +house of a Mexican millionaire who is no other than the girl's father. +She volunteers to gain entrance into the house by posing as a celebrated +Spanish dancer. At night she opens the door to her confederates. Leaving +the girl to keep watch over their prisoner, the gipsies go about +ransacking the house. The unhappy man groans and cries out, "Ah, if only +I could see my little Juanita before I die." Father and daughter +recognise each other, she releases him from big bonds, and arming +themselves with Browning revolvers they shoot down the gipsy marauders +as they enter the room in single file. Juanita marries the young +overseer whom the childless old man has designated as his heir. + +(Here one editor wrote: "An ordinary plot; nothing in it to show that it +was written by a milkman instead of a clergyman or a structural iron +worker.") + +I think the criticism is a fair one. + + + + +III + +SUMMER READING + + +Our vacation plans last year were of the simplest. Personally, I said to +Emmeline, there was just one thing I longed for--to get away to some +quiet place where I could lie on my back under the trees and look up at +the clouds. To this Emmeline replied that in this posture (1) I always +smoke too much; (2) I catch cold and begin to sneeze; (3) I don't look +at the clouds at all, but tire my eyes by studying the baseball page in +the full glare of the sun. The newspaper habit is one which I regularly +forswear every summer on leaving town. I hold to my resolution to this +extent that I refrain from going down to the post office in the morning +to buy a paper. But toward eleven o'clock the strain becomes unendurable +and I borrow a copy of yesterday's paper after peering wistfully over +other people's shoulders. Emmeline thinks this habit all the more +inexcusable because, working for a newspaper myself, I ought to know +there is never anything in them. She can't imagine what drives me on. I +told her, perhaps it is the unconscious hope that some day I shall find +in the paper something worth while. + +Actually, one soon discovers that the simple act of lying on one's back +on the grass and looking up at the clouds involves an extraordinary +amount of preparation. I am inclined to think that there must be +correspondence courses which teach in ten lessons how to lie on one's +back properly and look up. There must be text-books on how to tell the +cumuli from the cirrus. There must be useful hints on how to relax and +lose yourself in the immensity of the blue void. + +The personal equipment one needs to gaze at the clouds, if you believe +the department stores, is tremendous. English flannels; French +shirtings; native khaki; silks; home-spuns; belts with a monogram +buckle; flowered cravats in colours to blend with the foliage; safety +razors; extra blades for the razors; strops to sharpen the blades; +unguents to keep the strops flexible; nickeled cases to keep the +unguents in; and metal polish for the nickeled cases. Arduous labour is +involved in going to Maple View Farm from the comparatively simple +civilisation of New York. I am not certain whether in the best circles +one can properly lie on one's back and look at the clouds without a +humidor and a thermos bottle. + +Emmeline said I must be sure and not forget my fishing-pole, as that +trout in the brook behind the barn would probably be expecting me. + +It seems absurd for a full-grown man to speak of hating a trout. But why +deny it? When I think of the utterly debased creature in the pool behind +the barn, the accumulated results of ten thousand years of civilisation +drop from me, and my heart is surcharged with venom. It all came about +so gradually. My landlord asked me one morning whether I shouldn't like +to try my luck with his rod. I said I should. I took his rod and hooked +the blackberry bush on the other side of the stream. I did better on my +next try. As my hook sank below the surface, a thrill ran along the +line, the slender bamboo stem arched forward, and I waited with my heart +in my mouth for an enormous trout to emerge and engage me in a +life-and-death struggle. But through three long weeks he refused to +emerge. Emmeline said it was the bottom of the soap-box whose upper edge +is visible above the surface. But that cannot be. No inanimate object +could elicit in any one the rage and the sense of frustrated +desire--perhaps I had better say no more. All my better instincts +corrode with the thought of that fish. It would have been compensation, +at least, if I had ever caught any other fish in that brook. It might +have been a near relation, a favourite son perhaps, and I should have +had my revenge--but there I go again. + + * * * * * + +What Emmeline wanted was a chance to catch up in her reading. It had +been a hard winter and spring, with the doctor too frequently in the +house and books quite out of the question. There were a half-dozen +novels Emmeline had in mind, not to mention Mr. Bryce's book on South +America, John Masefield, and Strindberg, whom she cordially detests. I +do too. I warned her against drawing up too ambitious a list, but she +was determined to make a summer of it. She said she felt illiterate and +terribly old. All I could do was to mention a few bookshops where she +could get the best choice with the least expenditure of energy. +Nevertheless she came back from her first day's shopping with a +headache. + +Éponge is a rough, Turkish-towel fabric, selling in many widths, and +eminently desirable for out-of-door wear because of its peculiar +adaptability to the slim styles which prevent walking. Éponge has this +fatal defect, however, that when it is advertised in ready-made gowns at +an astounding reduction from $39.50, all the desirable models sell out +some time before ten o'clock in the morning. Hence Emmeline's headache. +She took very little supper and expressed the belief that our vacation +would be a complete failure. The mountains are always hot and dusty and +the crowd is a very mixed one. + +After a while Emmeline had a cup of tea and felt better. We went over +our list of books for the summer and she wondered whether it wouldn't +pay to get a seamstress into the house and avoid the exhausting trips +downtown. On second thoughts she decided not to. Next morning she was +quite well and asked me to remind her not to forget Robert Herrick's new +novel. She said she might drop in at the office for lunch if she got +through early at the stores, and we might look at books together. + +Charmeuse is a shimmering, silk-like material which lends itself +admirably to summer wear, because it stains easily. But in its effect on +the shopper's nerves, charmeuse is even worse than éponge. In fact, as a +preparation for a summer's reading, I don't know what is more +exhausting than charmeuse, unless it be crêpe de Chine. Emmeline did not +drop in for lunch that day, and when I came home at night, I found her +more depressed than ever. There was nothing to be had downtown. Prices +were impossible and anything else wasn't fit to be touched. It might be +just as well to stay in town for the summer as go away and take the +chance of getting typhoid. The situation was somewhat relieved by the +arrival at this juncture of several parcels, some long and narrow, and +others short and square. One particularly heavy box felt as if it might +contain a set of Strindberg, but turned out to be a really handsome coat +in blue chinchilla which Emmeline explained would be just the thing for +cool nights in the country. She had bought it in despair at obtaining +the kind of crêpe de Chine she wanted. The crêpe de Chine came in a +smaller box. + +At breakfast the next day we were tremendously cheerful. I told Emmeline +of the handsome raincoat I had bought in preparation for lying on my +back on the grass and looking up at the clouds. From that we passed to +the new Brieux play. But when Emmeline intimated that she was going +downtown soon after breakfast, I grew anxious. + +"Do you think," I said, "that it will really make any difference to Mr. +Galsworthy whether you read him in a voile or in a white cotton ratine?" + +"If that is the way you feel about it," said Emmeline, "I can telephone +and have them take all these things back. I hate them anyhow." + +"What I mean is," I said, "that you don't want to wear yourself out +completely before we leave the city. We have a month's reading ahead of +us. Let us begin it in peace of mind." + +"With nothing to wear?" she said. + +Tulle is a partly transparent material, which in the hands of a skilful +milliner becomes an invaluable aid to a thorough comprehension of the +plays of M. Brieux, especially when studied amid the complexities of +life on Maple View Farm. As usual, it is the department stores which +have been first to discover this fundamental connection in life. They +have everything necessary for the thorough enjoyment of Mr. Bryce's book +on South America--blouses, toques, parasols, and tennis shoes. Special +bargains in linen crash and batiste are offered on the same day with a +cut-rate edition of "Damaged Goods." Reading Brieux in the country is +almost as complicated a diversion as lying on one's back and looking up +at the clouds. + + + + +IV + +NOCTURNE + + +Once every three months, with fair regularity, she was brought into the +Night Court, found guilty, and fined. She came in between eleven o'clock +and midnight, when the traffic of the court is as its heaviest, and it +would be an hour, perhaps, before she was called to the bar. When her +turn came she would rise from her seat at one end of the prisoners' +bench and confront the magistrate. + +Her eyes did not reach to the level of the magistrate's desk. A +policeman in citizens' clothes would mount the witness stand, take oath +with a seriousness of mien which was surprising, in view of the +frequency with which he was called upon to repeat the formula, and +testify in an illiterate drone to a definite infraction of the law of +the State, committed in his presence and with his encouragement. While +he spoke the magistrate would look at the ceiling. When she was called +upon to answer she defended herself with an obvious lie or two, while +the magistrate looked over her head. He would then condemn her to pay +the sum of ten dollars to the State and let her go. + +She came to look forward to her visits at the Night Court. + + * * * * * + +The Night Court is no longer a centre of general interest. During the +first few months after it was established, two or three years ago, it +was one of the great sights of a great city. For the newspapers it was a +rich source of human-interest stories. It replaced Chinatown in its +appeal to visitors from out of town. It stirred even the languid pulses +of the native inhabitant with its offerings of something new in the way +of "life." The sociologists, sincere and amateur, crowded the benches +and took notes. + +To-day the novelty is worn off. The newspapers long ago abandoned the +Night Court, clergymen go to it rarely for their texts, and the tango +has taken its place. But the sociologists and the casual visitor have +not disappeared. Serious people, anxious for an immediate vision of the +pity of life, continue to fill the benches comfortably. No session of +the court is without its little group of social investigators, among +whom the women are in the majority. Many of them are young women, +exceedingly sympathetic, handsomely gowned, and very well taken care of. + +As she sat at one end of the prisoners' bench waiting her turn before +the magistrate's desk, she would cast a sidelong glance over the railing +that separated her from the handsomely gowned, gently bred, sympathetic +young women in the audience. She observed with extraordinary admiration +and delight those charming faces softened in pity, the graceful bearing, +the admirably constructed yet simple coiffures, the elegance of dress, +which she compared with the best that the windows in Sixth Avenue could +show. She was amazed to find such gowns actually being worn instead of +remaining as an unattainable ideal on smiling lay figures in the shop +windows. + +Occupants of the prisoners' bench are not supposed to stare at the +spectators. She had to steal a glance now and then. Her visits to the +Night Court had become so much a matter of routine that she would +venture a peep over the railing while the case immediately preceding her +own was being tried. Once or twice she was surprised by the clerk who +called her name. She stood up mechanically and faced the magistrate as +Officer Smith, in civilian clothes, mounted the witness stand. + +She had no grudge against Officer Smith. She did not visualise him +either as a person or as a part of a system. He was merely an incident +of her trade. She had neither the training nor the imagination to look +behind Officer Smith and see a communal policy which has not the power +to suppress, nor the courage to acknowledge, nor the skill to regulate, +and so contents itself with sending out full-fed policemen in civilian +clothes to work up the evidence that defends society against her kind +through the imposition of a ten-dollar fine. + +To some of the women on the visitors' benches the cruelty of the process +came home: this business of setting a two-hundred-pound policeman in +citizens' clothes, backed up by magistrates, clerks, court criers, +interpreters, and court attendants, to worrying a ten-dollar fine out of +a half-grown woman under an enormous imitation ostrich plume. The +professional sociologists were chiefly interested in the money cost of +this process to the taxpayer, and they took notes on the proportion of +first offenders. Yet the Night Court is a remarkable advance in +civilisation. Formerly, in addition to her fine, the prisoner would pay +a commission to the professional purveyor of bail. + +Sometimes, if the magistrate was young or new to the business, she would +be given a chance against Officer Smith. She would be called to the +witness chair and under oath be allowed to elaborate on the obvious +lies which constituted her usual defence. This would give her the +opportunity, between the magistrate's questions, of sweeping the +court-room with a full, hungry look for as much as half a minute at a +time. She saw the women in the audience only, and their clothes. The +pity in their eyes did not move her, because she was not in the least +interested in what they thought, but in how they looked and what they +wore. They were part of a world which she would read about--she read +very little--in the society columns of the Sunday newspaper. They were +the women around whom headlines were written and whose pictures were +printed frequently on the first page. + +She could study them with comparative leisure in the Night Court. +Outside in the course of her daily routine she might catch an occasional +glimpse of these same women, through the windows of a passing taxi, or +in the matinée crowds, or going in and out of the fashionable shops. But +her work took her seldom into the region of taxicabs and fashionable +shops. The nature of her occupation kept her to furtive corners and the +dark side of streets. Nor was she at such times in the mood for just +appreciation of the beautiful things in life. More than any other walk +of life, hers was of an exacting nature, calling for intense powers of +concentration both as regards the public and the police. It was +different in the Night Court. Here, having nothing to fear and nothing +out of the usual to hope for, she might give herself up to the æsthetic +contemplation of a beautiful world of which, at any other time, she +could catch mere fugitive aspects. + +Sometimes I wonder why people think that life is only what they see and +hear, and not what they read of. Take the Night Court. The visitor +really sees nothing and hears nothing that he has not read a thousand +times in his newspaper and had it described in greater detail and with +better-trained powers of observation than he can bring to bear in +person. What new phase of life is revealed by seeing in the body, say, a +dozen practitioners of a trade of whom we know there are several tens of +thousands in New York? They have been described by the human-interest +reporters, analysed by the statisticians, defended by the social +revolutionaries, and explained away by the optimists. For that matter, +to the faithful reader of the newspapers, daily and Sunday, what can +there be new in this world from the Pyramids by moonlight to the habits +of the night prowler? Can the upper classes really acquire for +themselves, through slumming parties and visits to the Night Court, +anything like the knowledge that books and newspapers can furnish them? +Can the lower classes ever hope to obtain that complete view of the +Fifth Avenue set which the Sunday columns offer them? And yet there the +case stands: only by seeing and hearing for ourselves, however +imperfectly, do we get the sense of reality. + +That is why our criminal courts are probably our most influential +schools of democracy. More than our settlement houses, more than our +subsidised dancing-schools for shop-girls, they encourage the +get-together process through which one-half the world learns how the +other half lives. On either side of the railing of the prisoners' cage +is an audience and a stage. + +That is why she would look forward to her regular visits at the Night +Court. She saw life there. + + + + +V + +HAROLD'S SOUL, I + + +I agree with the publishers of Miss Amarylis Pater's book, "The New +Motherhood," that the subject is one which cannot possibly be ignored. I +have not only read the book, but I have discussed it with Mrs. Hogan, +and with my eldest son Harold, who will be seven next June. As a result +I am confronted with certain remarkable differences of opinion. + +Twenty years ago, as I plainly recall, the Sacred Function of Motherhood +was not a topic of popular interest. There were a great many mothers +then, of course, and there were unquestionably many more children than +there are to-day. People, as a rule, spoke of their mothers with +fondness, and sometimes even with reverence. The habit had been forming +for several thousand years, in the course of which poets and painters +never grew tired of describing mothers who were engaged in such highly +useful occupations as bending over cradles, watching by sick-beds, +baking, mending, teaching, laughing in play-rooms, weeping at the Cross, +manipulating with equal dexterity the precious vials of love and +sacrifice and the carpet slipper of justice. But though people had thus +got into the way of accepting their mothers as an essential part in the +scheme of things, they rarely thought it necessary to write to the +editor about the Sacred Function of Motherhood. I mean in the +impersonal, scientific sense in which Amarylis Pater uses the phrase. + +Life in general was a pitifully unorganised, rule-of-thumb affair in +those days. People fell in love because every one was doing it and +without any expressed intention to advance the purposes of Evolution. +They did not marry because they were anxious to render social service; +but waited only till they had saved up enough to furnish a home. They +bore children without regard to the future of the race. When the child +came it was not a sociological event. The family did not consider the +occurrence sacred, as Miss Vivian Holborn insists on calling it in her +frequent communications to the press. The family contented itself with +wishing the mother well and hoping the baby would not look too much like +its father. + +Here I thought it would be well to confirm my own impressions by the +testimony of a competent witness. So I turned and called through the +open door into the dining-room. + +"Mrs. Hogan," I said, "what do you think of the Sacred Function of +Motherhood?" + +"What do I think of what?" said Mrs. Hogan. + +"Of the Sacred Function of Motherhood," I repeated, rather timidly. + +She looked at me with a distrustful eye, her broom suspended in midair. + +Mrs. Hogan comes in once a week to help out. Distrust is her chronic +attitude toward me. She has all of the busy woman's aversion for a man +about the house while domestic operations are under way. But besides, +she cannot quite understand why a full-grown and able-bodied man should +be lolling at his desk, pen in hand, when he ought to be downtown +working for his family. She is aware, of course, that all the members of +my family are well-nourished, decently dressed, and apparently quite +happy. But that only renders the source of my income all the more +dubious. When any one asks Mrs. Hogan how many children she has, she +stares for some time at the ceiling before replying. From which I gather +that there must be several. + +"I refer to the business of being a mother, Mrs. Hogan. Have you never +felt what a sacred thing that is?" + +"An' what would there be sacred about the same?" she asked, seeing that +I was quite serious. "Bearin' a child every other year, an' nursin' +them, an' bringin' them through sickness, an' stayin' up nights to sew +an' wash an' darn, an' drivin' them out to school, an' goin' out by the +day's wurrk, where's the time for anythin' sacred to come into the life +of a woman?" + +"Just the same it does," I said. "Motherhood, Mrs. Hogan, is so holy a +thing nowadays that a great many women are afraid to touch it, +preferring to write in the magazines about it. Are you aware that when +you married Mr. Hogan you were performing an act of social service?" + +"I was not that," said Mrs. Hogan, "I was doin' a service to Jim, +besides plazin' myself. 'Twas himself needed some one to take care of +him." + +"But that would mean," I said, "that you were false to your own highest +self. If you had read Miss Pater's book you would know that any marriage +entered into without the sense of social service merely means that a +woman is selling herself to a man for life for the mere price of +maintenance." + +"When I married Jim," said Mrs. Hogan, "he was after being out of a job +for six months." + +She went back to her work more than ever puzzled why my wife and the +children should look so well taken care of. + +In those days--I mean about the time Mrs. Hogan was married to Jim, and +I was at college constructing my world of ideas out of the now forgotten +books which Mr. Gaynor was always quoting--I recall distinctly that the +sacred things were also the secret things. What burned hot in the heart +was allowed to rest deep in the heart. Partly this was because of a +common habit of reticence which we have so fortunately outgrown. But +another reason must have been that life then, as I have said, was +imperfectly organised. To-day we have applied the principle of the +division of labour so that we no longer expect the same person to do the +work of the world and to feel its sacred significance. Thus, to-day +there are women who are mothers and other women who proclaim the sacred +function of motherhood. To-day there are women who bring up their +children, and other women who, at the slightest provocation, thrill to +the clear, immortal soul that looks out of the innocent eyes of +childhood. + +At this moment the clear, immortal soul of my boy, Harold, finds +utterance in a succession of blood-curdling howls. He is playing Indians +again. The wailing accompaniment in high falsetto emanates from the +immortal soul of the baby. Those two immortalities are at it again. + +I call out, "Harold!" + +There is a silence. + +"Harold!" + +With extreme deliberation he appears in the doorway. I recognise him +largely by intuition, so utterly smeared up is he from crawling in +single file the entire length of the hall on his stomach. Beneath that +thick deposit of rich alluvial soil I assume that my son exists. I ask +him what he has been doing with the baby. + +He had been doing nothing at all. He had merely tied her by one leg to a +chair and pretended to scalp her with a pair of ninepins. He had +performed a war dance around her and every time his ritual progress +brought him face to face with the baby he made believe to brain her, but +he only meant to see how near he could come without actually touching +her, and he would strike the chair instead. He didn't know why the baby +shrieked. + +"Harold," I said, "do you feel the sacred innocence of childhood +brooding in you?" + +He was alarmed, but bravely attempted a smile. + +"Ah, father!" he said. + +I looked at him severely. + +"Do you know what I ought to do to you in the name of the New +Parenthood?" + +"Ah, father!" and his lip trembled. + +"You are a disgrace to the eternal spark in you," I said. + +He lowered his head and began to cry. It required an effort to be stern, +but I persisted. + +"Harold," I said, "you will go into your room and stand in the corner +for ten minutes. Close the door behind you. I will tell you when time is +up." + +He dragged himself away heartbroken and I found it was useless trying to +write any more. I had made two people utterly miserable. I threw down my +pen and rose to take a book from the shelf, but stopped in the act. Out +of Harold's room came music. I stole to the door and looked in. He had +not disobeyed orders. He had merely dressed himself in one of the +nurse's aprons and the baby's cap, and standing erect in his corner, he +sang "Dixie," with all the fervour of his fresh young voice. + +About his appearance there was nothing sacred. + + + + +VI + +EDUCATIONAL + + +Half-minute lessons for up-to-the-minute thinkers: + + +I. WORD STUDY + +CHILD, _noun_; a student of sex hygiene; a member of boy scout +organisations and girls' camp-fire organisations for the practice of the +kind of self-control that parents fail to exercise; a member of school +republics for the study of politics while father reads the sporting +page; a ward of the State; a student of the phenomena of alcoholism; a +handicap carefully avoided by specialists in child-study; one-third of a +French family; the holder of an inalienable title to happiness which the +Government must supply; in general, a human being under thirteen years +of age who must be taught everything so that he will be surprised at +nothing when he is thirty years of age. The ignorant and innocent +offspring of a human couple, obs. Synonyms: man-child; girl-child; +love-child. + +MOTHERHOOD, _noun_; a profession once highly esteemed, but rejected by +modern spirits as too frequently automatic. + +MOTHER, _noun_; a female progenitor; a term often employed by the older +poets in connection with the ideas of love, sacrifice, and holiness, but +now delicately described by writers of the _Harper's Weekly_ temperament +as being synonymous with cow. + +EUGENICS, _noun_; a condition of intense excitement over the future of +the human race among those who are doing nothing to perpetuate it. + +LITERATURE, _noun_; see SEX; WHITE SLAVE. + +DRAMA, _noun_; see SEX; WHITE SLAVE. + +PUNCH, _noun_; see DRAMA; LITERATURE; MAGAZINE ADVERTISING. + +ADENOIDS, _noun_; something that is cut out of children. + +SOCIAL-MINDEDNESS, _noun_; something that is injected into children. + + +II. GEOGRAPHY + +ARGENTINA; where the tango comes from. + +RUSSIA; where Anna Pavlova and ritual murder trials come from. + +PERSIA; where the harem skirt comes from, and other fashions eagerly +embraced by a generation which insists that woman shall no longer be +man's chattel and plaything. + +AMERICA; where the profits of all-night restaurants in Montmartre come +from. + +ASSYRIA, BABYLONIA, EGYPT, PERU, YUCATAN, PATAGONIA; where the +decorations for Broadway lobster-palaces come from. + +EQUATOR; the earth's waistline, unfashionably located in the same place +year after year. + +TENDERLOIN; where the world's wisdom comes from. + +CAMBRIDGE, NEW HAVEN, PRINCETON, MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS; the sites of once +celebrated educational institutions whose functions have now been taken +over by theatre managers on Broadway. + +UNDERWORLD; the world now uppermost. + +MOUNTAIN; a rugged elevation of the earth's surface which comes to every +self-constituted little prophet when he snaps his fingers. + +SEA; where we are all at. + +MEXICO CITY; residence of Huerta, the most eminent living disciple of +Nietzsche. + +BULGARIA; a nation which scornfully rejected peace and reaped honour, +widows, and orphans; where the Servians were the other day. + +SERVIA; where the Bulgarians may be next week. + +CHAUTAUQUA; any place outside the offices of the State Department. + + +III. ARITHMETIC + +1. A ship carrying 800 passengers and crew is in collision off the banks +of Newfoundland, and 700 are saved. Describe the method by which the +_Evening Journal_ computes 400 souls lost. + +2. The salary of a police lieutenant is about $2,500 a year. At what +rate of interest must this sum be invested to produce a million dollars' +worth of real estate in ten years? + +3. 2+2=4. Show this to be true otherwise than by writing a four-act play +with its principal scene laid in a house of ill fame. + +4. The loss to the nation from disease has been estimated at +$200,000,000 a year. Show the profit that would accrue to the nation +from abolishing every form of disease after deducting the cost of +maintaining the dependent widows and orphans of 50,000 doctors who have +starved to death. + +5. In a certain gubernatorial campaign several disinterested gentlemen +contributed $10,000 each to the campaign fund; yet the total of campaign +contributions was a little over $5,000. Explain this. + +6. If you were called upon to build a bridge to the moon, which would +you rather use, the total number of postage stamps on rejected magazine +contributions laid end to end, or the total number of automobiles +shipped from Detroit placed end to end? + +7. In a recent article on mortality statistics in the _World_, the +writer omitted to divide his average death rate by 2. Was his argument, +because of that, two times as convincing or only half as convincing? + +8. Describe the modifications in the laws of arithmetic introduced by +Mr. Thomas W. Lawson. + + +IV. HISTORY + +The supporters of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt have frequently remarked that +if Abraham Lincoln were alive to-day, he would be with them. Uncle Joe +Cannon has expressed the conviction that Abraham Lincoln if he were +alive to-day would be on his side. Is there anything in history to +indicate that Abraham Lincoln, great man though he was, could be in two +places at the same time? + +Mention three Republican administrations in which the rainfall was twice +as heavy as in any Democratic administration since 1837, and show what +this indicates for the prosperity of the country under Mr. Woodrow +Wilson. + +Julius Cæsar is said to have been in the habit of dictating to three +secretaries simultaneously. How does this compare with the literary +productivity of Mr. Arnold Bennett and Mr. Jack London? + +At the last meeting of the Tammany aldermanic convention of the Fifth +Assembly District a speaker declared it to be the most momentous event +in the history of the world. Compare the Fifth Assembly District +convention with (a) the battle of Marathon; (b) the meeting of the +States-General at Versailles in 1789; (c) the signing of the +Emancipation Proclamation. + + +V. LOGIC + +Prove that the department store is the principal cause of prostitution +by showing that the department store is fifty-six years old and the +social evil is forty thousand years old. + +The mortality rate in municipal foundling asylums is 99-1/2 per cent. +Develop this into an argument for the maintenance of all children by the +State. + +Compare the arguments advanced in at least four (4) New York newspapers +to show that the Giants would win with the reasons given in the same +newspapers why the Athletics won. + +Compare Richard Pearson Hobson's last speech on the Japanese peril with +Demosthenes's Oration on the Crown. + + +VI. SCIENCE + +The classification of the sciences has always presented peculiar +difficulties, but a partial list would include the following: + + Tonsorial Science, Sunday Supplement Science, + Science of Bricklaying Domestic Science, + Science of Cosmic Love Bohemian Science, + Science of Advertising Science of Sir Oliver Lodge, + Scranton, Pa., Science Science of Packy McFarland, + Science of Puts and Calls Science of Sexology, + Anti-vivisectionist Science, Science. + + + + +VII + +MORGAN + + +We were speaking of the man whose career was written in terms of huge +corporations and incomparable art collections. + +"What a life it was!" said Cooper. "From his office-desk he controlled +the destinies of one hundred million people. His leisure hours were +spent amidst the garnered beauty of five thousand years. Isn't it almost +an intolerable thought that the same man should have been master of the +Stock Exchange and owner of that marvellous museum in white marble on +Thirty-sixth Street?" + +"Cooper," I said, "you sound like the I. W. W." + +"I am that," he retorted. "I express the Inexhaustible Wonder of the +World in the face of this thing we call America. A nation devoted to the +principle that all men are born equal has produced the perfect type of +financial absolutism. A people given up to material aims has cornered +the art treasures of the ages. Need I say more?" + +"You needn't," I said. "You have already touched the high-water mark in +lyricism." + +But Harding waved me aside. + +"I have also been thinking of that marble palace on Thirty-sixth +Street," he said. "I can't help picturing the scene there on that +critical night in the fall of 1907 when Wall Street was rocking to its +foundations, and a haggard group of millionaires were seeking a way to +stave off ruin. I imagine the glorious Old Masters looking down from +their frames on that unhappy assembly of New Masters--the masters of our +wealth, our credit, our entire industrial civilisation. I imagine +Lorenzo the Magnificent leaning out from the canvas and calling the +attention of his neighbour, Grolier, to that white-faced company of +great American collectors. The perspiring gentleman at the head of the +table had one of the choicest collections of trust companies in +existence. The man at his elbow was the owner of an unrivalled +collection of copper mines and smelters. Facing him was an amateur who +had gone in for insurance companies. Others there had collected +railroads, or national banks, or holding companies. No wonder old +Lorenzo was moved at the prospect of so many matchless accumulations, +representing the devoted labour of years, going under the hammer. Around +the walls the wonderful First Editions stood at attention and some one +was saying, 'Naturally, on the security of your first mortgage bonds--'" + +"Putting poetry aside," I said somewhat impatiently, "what I should like +to know is whether this garnered beauty of five thousand years, as +Cooper calls it, really has any meaning to its owners. I understand that +most of our great collections are bought in wholesale lots, Shakespeare +folios by the yard, Chinese porcelains by the roomful. Does a man +really take joy in his art treasures in such circumstances?" + +"Of course he does," said Cooper. "If we buy masterpieces in the bulk, +that again is the American of it. I am certain that this man's +extraordinary business success is to be explained by the mental stimulus +he derived from his books and his pictures. His business competitors +really had no chance. Their idea of recreation was yachts or cards or +roof-gardens. But he found rest in the presence of the loveliest dreams +of dead painters and poets. Can't you see how a man's imagination in +such surroundings would naturally expand and embrace the world? No +wonder he thought in billions of dollars. Why, I myself, if I could +spend half an hour before a Raphael whose radiant beauty brings the +tears to your eyes, could go out and float a $100,000,000 corporation." + +"Having first dried your tears, of course," I suggested. + +"Well, yes," he said. + +Harding had been showing signs of impatience, a common trait with him +when other people are speaking. + +"When a rich man dies," he said, "the first thing people ask is what +will the stock market do. They were putting that question last week. +Your Wall Street broker is a sensitive being. Nothing can happen at the +other end of the world but he must rush out and sell or buy something. +Returning, he says to the junior partner, 'I see there has been a big +battle at Scutari. Where's Scutari and what are they fighting about?' +'Search me,' says the junior partner, 'but I think you did right in +buying.' 'I sold,' says the broker. 'Who won the battle?' says the +junior partner. 'I don't recall,' says the broker. But he is convinced +that no big battle should be allowed to pass without being reflected in +Wall Street. + +"But that is not what I wanted to say. Suppose the market does go up two +points or loses two points. What is the effect on the Stock Exchange +compared with the crisis that ensues in the art world when a rich +American dies? There's where things begin to look panicky. The +quotations on Rembrandts and Van Dycks are cut in two. There is +consternation in London auction rooms and Venetian palaces. In some +half-ruined little Italian town the parish council has almost made up +its mind to ship to New York the thirteenth-century altar piece which is +the glory of the cathedral. The news comes that Croesus is dead and +the parish authorities see their dreams of new schools and a new chapel +and a modern water supply vanish. That is the crisis worth considering." + +"Not to speak," I said, "of that little shop on Fourth Avenue where they +paint Botticellis." + +"I admit that Harding has made a very interesting suggestion, though +probably without any deliberate intention on his part," said Cooper. +"This steady drain by Wall Street upon Europe's art treasures is a +civilising process which scarcely receives the attention it deserves, +except when some Paris editor loses his temper and calls us barbarians +and despoilers. I am not sure who is the barbarian, the American trust +magnate who thinks a million francs is not too much for one of Raphael's +Madonnas, or the scion of Europe's ancient nobility who thinks that no +Madonna is worth keeping if you can get a million francs for it. +According to the European idea, the proper place for a masterpiece is a +corner of the lounging-room where the weary guest, after a hard day with +the hounds, may be tempted to stare at the canvas for a moment and say, +'Nice little daub, what?' Their masterpieces are made to be seldom seen +and never heard of. + +"Now see what we do with the same picture over here. Before it is +brought into the country all the papers have cable despatches about it, +and they have impressed its value on the public mind by multiplying the +real price by five. Then we advertise it by raising the question whether +it is genuine or a fake. Then we put it into a museum and countless +thousands besiege the doorkeeper and ask which is the way to the +million-dollar picture. Then the Sunday papers print a reproduction in +colours suitable for framing, but it isn't framed very often because the +baby destroys it while papa is busy with the comic supplement. Then the +New York correspondents of the Chicago papers write columns about the +picture. Then it is taken up by women's clubs, the reading circles, and +the Chautauqua. Before the process is completed that picture has entered +into the daily thought and speech of the American people." + +Harding interrupted. + +"The members of the European nobility have seldom been interested in +art. They have been too busy wearing military uniforms or pursuing the +elusive fox all over the landscape." + +"But that is just the point I was making," said Cooper indignantly. + +"Yes, but not so clearly as I have formulated it," said Harding. "The +fact is that art has always flourished under the patronage of the +merchant class. The Athenians were a trading people. Lorenzo the +Magnificent came from a family of pawn-brokers. Rembrandt sold his +pictures to the sturdy, and quite homely, tea and coffee merchants of +Holland. It is preposterous to suppose that because a man is lucky in +the stock market he is incapable of appreciating the very best things in +art. He is not incapable; only he keeps his interests separate. From ten +o'clock to three our patron of the arts is busy downtown attending to +the unfortunate financiers whom he has caught on the wrong side of the +market. If Cooper here were a Cubist painter, and you gave him the run +of a great art collector's front office on settlement day, he could +produce any number of pictures entitled Nude Speculator Descending a +Wall Street Staircase." + +"The European aristocracy doesn't always despise us," I said. +"Occasionally an American will be decorated by the Grand Duke of +Sonderklasse-Ganzgut with the cross of the Bald Eagle of the Third +Class, the person thus honoured being worth nine hundred million +dollars and the area of the Prince's dominions being eighty-nine square +miles." + + + + +VIII + +THE MODERN INQUISITION + + +QUESTIONNAIRE: _A favourite indoor amusement in uplift circles._ + +His eyes were bloodshot and he stared forward into vacancy. + +"We were married," he said, "shortly after I was graduated from law +school. For just five years we were happy. We were in love. I was making +good in my profession. Helen took delight in her household duties and +her baby. Then one day--the exact date is still engraved in letters of +fire on my memory--I received a letter. It was from the Society for the +Propagation of Ethical Statistics. It said that a study was being made +of the churchgoing habits of college graduates, and there was a printed +list of questions which I was requested to answer. I cannot recall the +entire list, but these were some of the items: + +"Do you go to church willingly or to please your wife? + +"Do you stay all through the sermon? + +"What is the average amount you deposit in the contribution plate (a) in +summer; (b) in winter? + +"Is your choice of a particular church determined by (a) creed; (b) the +quality of the preaching; (c) ventilation? + +"Are you ever overtaken by sleep during the sermon, and if so, at what +point in the sermon do you most readily yield to the influence? (Note: +In answering this question a state of recurrent drowsiness is to be +considered as sleep.) + +"Do you go to sleep most easily under (a) an Episcopalian; (b) +Presbyterian; (c) Methodist; (d) Rabbi; (e) Ethical Culturist? (Note: +Strike out all but one of the above names.) + +"Is your awakening attended by a sensation of remorse or merely one of +profound astonishment? + +"What do you consider to be the ideal length for a sermon, leaving +climatic conditions out of account? + +"I tossed the letter across the breakfast table to Helen and intimated +that I couldn't spare the time for an answer. But Helen insisted it was +my duty as a college graduate. If the science of sociology couldn't look +to us men of culture for its data, whom could it go to? So I telephoned +down to the office that I would be late and sat down to draft my reply. +It was much more difficult than I imagined. I was amazed to find how +little I knew of my own habits and processes of thoughts. It took the +greater part of the morning, and when I finally did get down to the +office I learned that my most important client, an aged gentleman of +uncertain temper, had gone off in a rage saying he would never come +back. He kept his word. + +"That letter was the beginning. I had no leisure to worry over this loss +of a very considerable part of my income, because the next morning's +mail brought a letter from the Association for the Encouragement of the +City Beautiful. It contained a very long questionnaire which I was +requested to fill out and forward by return mail. I was asked to state +whether the character of the telegraph poles in our neighbourhood was +such as to reflect credit on the civic spirit of the community, in +respect to material (a) wood, (b) ornamental iron; and secondly, as to +paint, (a) yellow, (b) red, (c) green, (d) no paint at all. I was also +to say whether conditions in our neighbours' back yards were conducive +to the propagation of the typhoid-bearing or common house-fly and to +give my estimate of the number of flies so propagated in the course of a +week, in hundreds of thousands. Finally, was the presence of the +house-fly in our community due to the negligence of individual citizens, +or was it the direct result of inefficient municipal government? And if +the latter, was our municipal administration Republican or Democratic, +and what were the popular majorities for mayor since the +Spanish-American war? + +"With Helen's assistance I managed to send off my reply within two +days. But when I came down to my place of business I found that I had +missed an important long-distance call from Chicago which the office-boy +had promised to transmit to me, but failed to do so because he did not +understand it in the first place." + +He sighed and stared at the floor. His emaciated fingers beat a rapid +tattoo on my desk. He droned on in dull, impersonal tones, as if this +story of the wreck of a man's happiness had no special concern for him. + +"Well," he said, "you can foresee the end for yourself. Within less than +two months my law business disappeared, because I simply could not +devote the necessary time to it. I resorted to desperate measures. I +wrote to our alumni secretary, asking him to remove my name from the +college catalogue; but it was too late. My name was by this time the +common property of all the sociological laboratories and research +stations in the country. At home, want began to stare us in the face. +Worry over my financial condition, added to the long hours of labour +involved in filling out questionnaires, undermined my health. I grew +morose, ill-tempered, curt in my behaviour to Helen and the child. We +still loved each other, but the glow and tenderness of our former +relations had disappeared. + +"Fortunately Helen did not feel my neglect as she might. For by this +time she, too, was getting letters from sociological experiment +stations. Helen was graduated from a New England college. Her letters, +at first, dealt with problems of domestic economy. She had to write out +model dietaries, statements of weekly expenses, the relative merits of +white and coloured help. Later she was led into the field of child +psychology. Our little Laura was hardly able to go out into the open +air, because her mother had to keep her under observation during so many +hours of the day. The child grew pale and nervous. Helen grew thin. In +her case, poor girl, it was actual lack of food. There was no money in +the house. One night as we sat down at table there was just a glass of +milk and a slice of bread and butter at Laura's plate; for us there was +nothing. At first I failed to understand. Then I looked at Helen and she +was trying to smile through her tears." + +He sobbed and I turned and stared out of the window. + +"That night," he said, "I went out and pawned my watch; my +great-grandfather had worn it. People rally quickly under trouble, and +the next morning we were fairly cheerful. I set to work on a list of +questions from the Bureau of Comparative Eugenics. Helen was busy with a +questionnaire on Reaction Time in Children Under Six, from the +Psychological Department at Harvard. I was resigned. I looked up and saw +Laura playing with her alphabet blocks. I thought: Well, our lives may +be spoiled, but there is the child. Life had cast no shadow on the +current of her young days. At that moment the hall-boy brought in a +letter. It was addressed to Miss Laura Smith--our baby. It was from the +Wisconsin Laboratory of Juvenile Æsthetics. It contained a list of +questions for the child to answer. How many hours a day did she play? +Did she prefer to play in the house or on the street? Did she look into +shop windows when she was out walking or at moving-picture posters? Was +she afraid of dogs? I was crushed. There was a mist before my eyes. I +fell forward on the table and wept." + +His lip trembled, but the manhood was not gone from him. He faced me +with a show of firmness. + +"Mind you," he said, "I am not complaining. The individual must suffer +if the world is to move forward. We have suffered, but in a good cause." + +I agreed. I recalled the tabulated results of a particularly elaborate +questionnaire printed in the morning's news. Questions had been sent to +a thousand college graduates. Of that number it appeared that 480 lived +in the country, 230 preferred the drama to fiction, 198 were +vegetarians, and 576 voted for Mr. Wilson at the last Presidential +election. Those who voted the Democratic ticket were less proficient in +spelling than those who voted for Colonel Roosevelt. Could anything be +more useful? + + + + +IX + +THORNS IN THE CUSHION + + +I have a confession to make and I have my desk to clean out. One is as +hard to go at as the other. If people would only refrain from putting my +books and papers in order whenever I am away, I could always find things +where I leave them and the embarrassment I am about to relate would have +been spared me. After all, there is efficiency and efficiency. If the +book I need at any moment is always buried beneath a pile of foreign +newspapers, it is only interfering with my work to haul it out during my +absence and put it on the desk right in front of me, where I cannot see +it. + +It was at Harding's place that I met Dr. Gunther. Harding had insisted +that we two ought to know each other. After I had spent half an hour in +the Doctor's company I agreed that had been worth my while; the rest is +for him to say. Gunther is a physician of high standing, but his hobby +is astronomy, and it was quite evident that he is as big an expert in +that field as in his own profession. We spent a delightful evening. As +he rose to say good-night, Gunther turned to me and smiled in a timid +fashion that was altogether charming. + +"I must confess," he said with a sort of foreign dignity of speech, +"that my desire to make your acquaintance was not altogether +disinterested. I have here," pulling a large envelope out of his pocket, +"a few remarks which I have thrown together at odd moments, and which it +occurred to me might be of interest to your readers. It is on a subject +which I can honestly profess to know something about. Perhaps you might +pass it on to your editor after you have glanced through it and decided +that it had a chance. In case it is found unavailable for your purposes, +you must be under no compunction about sending it back. You see, I have +put the manuscript into a stamped and addressed envelope. I know how +busy you journalists are." + +I told him I would be delighted to do what I could. I brought the +manuscript to the office next morning, laid it on my desk, and forgot +about it. It was a Saturday. After I left the office, the janitor's +assistant, being new to the place, came in and cleaned up my room. When +I looked for the paper on Monday, I could not find it. At first I was +not alarmed, because I reasoned that in the course of two or three weeks +it would turn up. + +But this was evidently Dr. Gunther's first experience as a contributor +to the press. He was impatient. Within a week I had a letter from him, +dated Boston, where, as he explained, he had been called on a matter of +private business which would keep him for some time. Without at all +wishing to seem importunate, he asked whether my editor had arrived at +any decision with regard to his manuscript. It was a vexing situation. I +shrank from writing and confessing how clumsy I had been; and besides +the paper was likely to be found at any moment. I saw that I must fight +for time. + +What I am about to say will confirm many good people in their opinion of +the unscrupulous nature of the newspaper profession; but the truth must +be told. I determined to write to Dr. Gunther as if I had read his +article. The terrible difficulty was that I did not know what it was +about. I was fairly sure it had to do with one of two things, medicine +or astronomy. He had said, when he gave me the manuscript, that it was a +subject on which he could claim special knowledge. But which of the two +was it? For some time I hesitated, and then I wrote the following +letter: + +"Dear Dr. Gunther: Before giving your valuable paper a second and more +thorough reading, I must bring up a question which suggests itself even +after the most cursory examination. It is this: Will your article go +well with illustrations, and if so where are they to be had? You know +that ours is a picture supplement, appealing to a general audience, and +there is every chance for inserting illustrations into an article of +scientific nature abounding in such close-knit argument as you present. +Of course there is not the least reason for haste in the matter. A reply +from you within the next four weeks will be in time." + +Next morning I found a telegram from Boston on my desk. It said: +"Naturally no objection to pictures. Suggest you reproduce some of the +illustrations from Langley's masterly work on the subject. Gunther." + +My ruse had succeeded. I was prepared now to keep up a fairly active +correspondence until the missing paper was found. I knew of Samuel +Pierpont Langley, one of the greatest of American astronomers and a +pioneer of aviation. I turned to the encyclopædia to see which one of +Langley's books was likely to be the one Gunther had in mind. There, +before me, was a biographical sketch of John Newport Langley, an English +physiologist, who had published, among other things, a treatise "On the +Liver," and another "On the Salivary Glands." I recalled that at +Harding's house Gunther, after an elaborate discussion of the present +state of meteorology, had drifted into a spirited tirade against the +evils of ill-cooked and undigested food. It might very well be this +paper "On the Salivary Glands" that Gunther had in mind. + +I delayed writing as long as I could while the office was being +ransacked for the missing article. It was a hopeless search. The +manuscript had evidently been swept away into the all-devouring waste +basket, another victim to mistaken ideals of efficiency. A few days +later came a long and friendly letter from Gunther. Without wishing to +flatter me, he said that he was quite as much interested in my opinion +of his article as in getting it published. He hoped to hear from me at +my very earliest convenience. + +I waited nearly a week, and yielding to fate wrote as follows: + +"Dear Dr. Gunther: The article is altogether admirable. It seems to me +that there are just two subjects which never lose their appeal to the +average man. One is the food by which he lives. The other is the +universe in which he lives. They represent the opposite poles in his +nature, one being no less important than the other. Let the primitive +man but satisfy the cravings of his stomach, and his awed gaze will turn +to the illimitable glory of the stars. I think of Pasteur's epoch-making +researches into the processes of food-fermentation and then I think of +Galileo. If you ask me which is the greater man, I will say frankly I do +not know. Your article will duly appear in our magazine, though not for +some time. In the meanwhile, it may be that additions or changes will +suggest themselves to you. Very likely you have a carbon copy of your +manuscript at home. Make such alterations as you see fit and send the +new manuscript to us as soon as you are satisfied with it." + +The foregoing letter was addressed to Dr. Gunther in Boston. Two days +later he wrote from his home address in New York. He said: "I cannot +speak adequately of the consideration you have given to my poor literary +effort. Your letter offering me an opportunity to revise the manuscript +reached me just before I left for New York. At home I found the original +article awaiting me, in my own envelope. Evidently it had occurred to +you that I might not have a copy of the article at hand--which is indeed +the case--and so you hastened to send me the original." + +Of course the envelope containing the good Doctor's manuscript had not +fallen into the hands of the janitor at all. It had caught the quick eye +of our conscientious mail-boy, who saw his duty and promptly did it. It +only remains for me to persuade the managing editor to print the article +when it comes back. After what I have gone through, this should not be +difficult. Our readers, therefore, may look forward to a masterly +article on a subject of great interest. Whether it is an astronomical +article or a pure food article the reader will learn for himself. + + + + +X + +LOW-GRADE CITIZENS + + +Cooper was in a confidential mood. + +"Isn't it true," he said, "that once so often every one of us feels +impelled to go out and assassinate a college professor?" + +"Why shouldn't one?" said Harding. "No one would miss a professor +except, possibly, his wife and the children." + +"That's just it, his children," said Cooper. "That's what makes a man +hesitate. The particular college professor I have in mind recently +published an article on Social Decadence in the _North American Review_. +He deplored the tendency among our well-to-do classes toward small +families. At the same time he deplored the mistaken zeal of our +low-income classes in trying to more than make up for the negligence of +their betters. He said, 'The American population may, therefore, be +increasing most rapidly from that group least fitted by heredity or by +income to develop social worth in their offspring. Such a process of +"reversed selection" must mean, for the nation, a constant decrease in +the social worth of each succeeding generation.' He brought forward a +good many figures, but I have been so angry that I am quite unable to +recall what they are." + +"In that case," Harding said, "you should lose no time in seeking out +the man and slaying him before his side of the case comes back to you." + +"People," said Cooper, with that happy gift of his for dropping a +subject to suit his own convenience, "have fallen into the habit of +saying that the art of letter-writing is extinct. They say we don't +write the way Madame de Sévigné did or Charles Lamb. This is not true. + +"For instance, on April 26, 1913, Charles Crawl, a low-income American +residing in the soft-coal districts of western Pennsylvania, wrote a +letter which I have not been able to get out of my mind. With that +unhappy predilection for getting into tight places which is one of the +characteristics of our improvident, low-income classes, Charles Crawl +happened to be in one of the lower workings of the Cincinnati mine when +an explosion of gas--unavoidable, as in all mine disasters--killed +nearly a hundred operatives. Charles Crawl escaped injury, but after +creeping through the dark for two days he felt his strength going from +him, and so, with a piece of chalk, on his smudgy overalls, he wrote the +following letter: + +"'Good-bye, my children, God bless you.' + +"He had two children, which for a man of low social worth was doing +quite well. But on the other hand he was improvident enough to leave his +children without a mother. When I was at college, my instructor in +rhetoric was always saying that my failure to write well was due to the +fact that I had nothing to say; and he used to quote passages from +Isaiah to show how the thing should be done. I think my rhetoric teacher +would have approved of Charles Crawl's epistolary style. I think Isaiah +would have." + +"But we can't all of us work in the mines," I said. + +"Therefore it is not to you that America is looking for the development +of an epistolary art," said Cooper; "an art in which we are bound to +take first place long before our coal deposits are exhausted. Charles +Crawl had his predecessors. In November, 1909, Samuel Howard was +thoughtless enough to let himself be killed, with several hundred +others, in the St. Paul's mine at Cherry, Illinois. He, too, left a +letter behind him. He wrote: + + "If I am dead, give my diamond ring to Mamie Robinson. The ring is + at the post-office. I had it sent there. The only thing I regret + is my brother that could help mother out after I am dead and gone. + I tried my best to get out and could not. + +"You see, being a low-income man, of small social worth and pitifully +inefficient, even when he did his best to get out, he could not. But +perhaps the subject tires you?" + +"You might as well go on," said Harding. "If you finish with this +subject you will have some other grievance." + +"I have only two more examples of the vulgar epistolary style to cite," +said Cooper. "Strictly speaking one of them is not a letter. But it is +to the point. On the night of April 14, 1912, an Irishman named Dillon +of low social value, in fact a stoker, happened to be swimming in the +North Atlantic. The _Titanic_ had just sunk from beneath his feet. But +perhaps I had better quote the testimony before the Mersey Commission, +which, being an official communication, is necessarily unanswerable, as +the late Sir W. S. Gilbert pointed out: + + "Then he [Dillon] swam away from the noise and came across Johnny + Bannon on a grating-- + +"From the fact that Johnny Bannon had managed to possess himself of a +grating we are justified in concluding that he was a man of somewhat +higher social worth than the witness, Dillon. However, + + "--came across Johnny Bannon on a grating. He said, "Cheero, + Johnny," and Bannon answered, "I am all right, Paddy." There was + not room on the grating for two, and Dillon, saying, "Well, so + long, Johnny," swam off-- + +In thus leaving Johnny Bannon in undisputed possession of the grating +you see that Dillon once more wrote himself down as a low-grade man +unfit for competitive survival. However, + + --"Well, so long, Johnny," swam off in the direction of a star + where Johnny Bannon had seen a flashlight. + +And as it turned out, it was, indeed, a flashlight, and Dillon was +pulled out of the water to go on stoking and accelerating the process of +national decadence. + +"My last letter," continued Cooper, "was written in October, 1912, in +the Tombs. The author was one Frank Cirofici, known to the patrons of +educational moving-picture shows all over the country as Dago Frank. It +was addressed to one Big Jack Zelig, a distinguished ornament of our +Great White Way, cut down before his time by a bullet from behind. +Cirofici wrote: + + "I know the night I heard Jip and Lefty were arrested I cried like + a little baby.--Dear pal, I have more faith in you than in any + living being in this country. I tell you the truth right from my + heart. I don't know you long, Jack, and I think if it wasn't for + you, I don't know what would happen to me. Being I am a Dago, of + course, you don't know what I know." + +"Please," said Harding, "please don't knock a hole into your own +argument by asking us to shed tears over the undefiled wells of purity +that lie deep in the soul of the Bowery gunman. You won't contend that +Dago Frank, when he leaves us, will be a loss to the nation." + +"It would be an act of delusion on my part," said Cooper, "to expect you +to see what I am driving at without going to the trouble of spelling it +out for you, Harding, even if you do belong to the classes of superior +social worth. What I want to express is the justifiable wrath which +possesses me at this silly habit of taking a pile of figures and adding +them up and dividing by three and deducing therefrom scarlet visions of +Decadence and the fall of Rome and Trafalgar, and all that rot. What if +empires, and republics, and incomes, and the size of families do rise +and fall? Does the soul of man decay? Do the primitive loyalties decay? +As long as we have men like Charles Crawl and Samuel Howard, do you +think I care whether or not Harvard graduates neglect to reproduce their +kind? The soul of man, as embodied in Dillon with his 'So long, Johnny,' +is as sound to-day as it was ten thousand years ago, before the human +race entered on its decline by putting on clothes. And Cirofici, pouring +his soul out to his 'pal,' crying like a child over those poor lambs, +Lefty Lewis and Gyp the Blood--" + +"If that's what you mean," said Harding with suspicious humility, "I +quite agree with you. You know, I have often--" + +"Once you agree with me," said Cooper, "I don't see why it is necessary +for you to continue." + + + + +XI + +ROMANCE + + +At 5:15 in the afternoon of an exceptionally sultry day in August, John +P. Wesley, forty-seven years old, in business at No. 634 East +Twenty-sixth Street as a jobber in tools and hardware, was descending +the stairs to the downtown platform of the Subway at Twenty-eighth +Street, when it occurred to him suddenly how odd it was that he should +be going home. His grip tightened on the hand rail and he stopped short +in his tracks, his eyes fixed on the ground in pained perplexity. The +crowd behind him, thrown back upon itself by this abrupt action, halted +only for a moment and flowed on. Cheerful office-boys looked back at him +and asked what was the answer. Stout citizens elbowed him aside without +apology. But Wesley did not mind. He was asking himself why it was that +the end of the day's work should invariably find him descending the +stairs to the downtown platform of the Subway. Was there any reason for +doing that, other than habit? He wondered why it would not be just as +reasonable to cross the avenue and take an uptown train instead. + +Wesley had been taking the downtown train at Twenty-eighth Street at +5:15 in the afternoon ever since there was a Subway. At Brooklyn Bridge +he changed to an express and went to the end of the line. At the end of +the line there was a boat which took him across the harbour. At the end +of the boat ride there was a trolley car which wound its way up the hill +and through streets lined with yellow-bricked, easy-payment, two-family +houses, out into the open country, where it dropped him at a cross road. +At the end of a ten minutes' walk there was a new house of stucco and +timber, standing away from the road, its angular lines revealing mingled +aspirations toward the Californian bungalow and the English Tudor. In +the house lived a tall, slender, grey-haired woman who was Wesley's +wife, and two young girls who were his daughters. They always came to +the door when his footsteps grated on the garden path, and kissed him +welcome. After dinner he went out and watered the lawn, which, after his +wife and the girls, he loved most. He plied the hose deliberately, his +eye alert for bald patches. Of late the lawn had not been coming on +well, because of a scorching sun and the lack of rain. A quiet chat with +his wife on matters of domestic economy ushered in the end of a busy +day. At the end of the day there was another day just like it. + + * * * * * + +And now, motionless in the crowd, Wesley was asking whether right to the +end of life this succession of days would continue. Why always the +south-bound train? He was aware that there were good reasons why. One +was the tall grey-haired woman and the two young girls at home who were +in the habit of waiting for the sound of his footsteps on the garden +path. They were his life. But apparently, too, there must be life along +the uptown route of the Interborough. He wanted to run amuck, to board a +north-bound train without any destination in mind, and to keep on as far +as his heart desired, to the very end perhaps, to Van Cortlandt Park, +where they played polo, or the Bronx, where there was a botanical museum +and a zoo. Even if he went only as far as Grand Central Station, it +would be an act of magnificent daring. + +Wesley climbed to the street, crossed Fourth Avenue, descended to the +uptown platform, and entered a train without stopping to see whether it +was Broadway or Lenox Avenue. Already he was thinking of the three women +at home in a remote, objective mood. They would be waiting for him, no +doubt, and he was sorry, but what else could he do? He was not his own +master. Under the circumstances it was a comfort to know that all three +of them were women of poise, not given to making the worst of things, +and with enough work on their hands to keep them from worrying +overmuch. + +Having broken the great habit of his life by taking an uptown train at +5:15, Wesley found it quite natural that his minor habits should fall +from him automatically. He did not relax into his seat and lose himself +in the evening paper after his usual fashion. He did not look at his +paper at all, but at the people about him. He had never seen such men +and women before, so fresh-tinted, so outstanding, so electric. He +seemed to have opened his eyes on a mass of vivid colours and sharp +contours. It was the same sensation he experienced when he used to break +his gold-rimmed spectacles, and after he had groped for a day in the +mists of myopia, a new, bright world would leap out at him through the +new lenses. + +Wesley did not make friends easily. In a crowd he was peculiarly shy. +Now he grew garrulous. At first his innate timidity rose up and choked +him, but he fought it down. He turned to his neighbour on the right, a +thick-set, clean-shaven youth who was painfully studying the comic +pictures in his evening newspaper, and remarked, in a style utterly +strange to him: + +"Looks very much like the Giants had the rag cinched?" + +The thick-set young man, whom Wesley imagined to be a butcher's +assistant or something of the sort, looked up from his paper and said, +"It certainly does seem as if the New York team had established its +title to the championship." + +Wesley cleared his throat again. + +"When it comes to slugging the ball you've got to hand it to them," he +said. + +"Assuredly," said the young man, folding up his paper with the evident +design of continuing the conversation. + +Wesley was pleased and frightened. He had tasted another new sensation. +He had broken through the frosty reserve of twenty years and had spoken +to a stranger after the free and easy manner of men who make friends in +Pullman cars and at lunch counters. And the stranger, instead of +repulsing him, had admitted him, at the very first attempt, into the +fraternity of ordinary people. It was pleasant to be one of the great +democracy of the crowd, something which Wesley had never had time to be. +But on the other hand, he found the strain of conversation telling upon +him. He did not know how to go on. + +The stranger went out, but Wesley did not care. He was lost in a +delicious reverie, conscious only of being carried forward on +free-beating wings into a wonderful, unknown land. The grinding of +wheels and brakes as the train halted at a station and pulled out again +made a languorous, soothing music. The train clattered out of the tunnel +into the open air, and Wesley was but dimly aware of the change from +dark to twilight. The way now ran through a region of vague apartment +houses. There were trees, stretches of green field waiting for the +builder, and here or there a colonial manor house with sheltered +windows, resigned to its fate. Then came cottages with gardens. And in +one of these Wesley, shocked into acute consciousness, saw a man with a +rubber hose watering a lawn. Wesley leaped to his feet. + +The train was at a standstill when he awoke to the extraordinary fact +that he was twelve miles away from South Ferry, and going in the wrong +direction. The imperative need of getting home as soon as he could +overwhelmed him. He dashed for the door, but it slid shut in his face +and the train pulled out. His fellow passengers grinned. One of the most +amusing things in the world is a tardy passenger who tries to fling +himself through a car door and flattens his nose against the glass. It +is hard to say why the thing is amusing, but it is. Wesley did not know +that he was being laughed at. He merely knew that he must go home. He +got out at the next station, and when he was seated in a corner of the +south-bound train, he sighed with unutterable relief. He was once more +in a normal world where trains ran to South Ferry instead of away from +it. He dropped off at his road crossing, just two hours late, and found +his wife waiting. + +They walked on side by side without speaking, but once or twice she +turned and caught him staring at her with a peculiar mixture of wonder +and unaccustomed tenderness. + +Finally he broke out. + +"It's good to see you again!" + +She laughed and was happy. His voice stirred in her memories of long +ago. + +"It's good to have you back, dear," she said. + +"But you really look remarkably well," he insisted. + +"I rested this afternoon." + +"That's what you should do every day," he said. "Look at that old maple +tree! It hasn't changed a bit!" + +"No," she said, and began to wonder. + +"And the girls are well?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"I can hardly wait till I see them," he said; and then, to save +himself, "I guess I am getting old, Alice." + +"You are younger to-night than you have been for a long time," she said. + +Jennie and her sister were waiting for them on the porch. They wondered +why father's kiss fell so warmly on their cheeks. He kissed them twice, +which was very unusual; but being discreet young women they asked no +questions. After dinner Wesley went out to look at the lawn. + + + + +XII + +WANDERLUST + + +April sunlight on the river and the liners putting out to sea. Paris! +Florence! the Alps! the Mediterranean! I turned away and let my thoughts +run back to the time when Emmeline and I were in the habit of making, +once a year, the trip to Prospect Park South. + +The Subway has brought this delightful region within the radius of +ordinary tourist travel, though I am told that the element of adventure +has not been completely eliminated, owing to the necessity of +transferring at Atlantic Avenue, where it is still the custom of the +traffic policemen to direct passengers to the wrong car. At the time of +which I am speaking, Prospect Park South lay off the beaten track, but +the difficulties of the venture were atoned for by the delight of +finding one's self, at the journey's end, in a world of new impressions, +a world untouched by the rush and clamour of our own days, and steeped +in the colour and poetry which Cook's, cotton goods, and the +cinematograph have been wiping out in Europe and the Near East. + +There were no Baedekers then for travellers to Prospect Park South. +To-day I presume guide-books and maps may be purchased at the Manhattan +end of the Brooklyn Bridge if people still go by that route. We did +without guide-books or guides, because the inhabitants of Prospect Park +South were a kindly folk and as a rule would wait for visitors at the +trolley stops, with an umbrella. When this did not happen, we asked our +way from passers-by. These were always strangers who had lost their way. +The inhabitants were either peacefully at home or waiting at the trolley +stops. For that matter an inhabitant, when encountered by rare chance, +was not really of assistance. A resident always referred to streets and +avenues by the names they bore when he first moved in; and inasmuch as +the streets in Prospect Park South are renamed every year and the +street numbers altered at the same time, the settlers, who would find +their own homes by intuition, were worse than useless as guides. On the +other hand, to meet a stranger who was lost was always a help. It was a +peculiarity of strangers who were lost in Prospect Park South that they +would always be passing the street you were looking for, while you in +turn had just turned in from the street they were looking for, so that +an exchange of information was always mutually profitable. + +The following hints for travellers to Prospect Park South are based upon +our experiences of some years ago. Those who go by the Interborough tube +will probably find that changed conditions have rendered many of these +rules obsolete. But for those who go by way of Brooklyn Bridge they may +still be of some value. First then as to dress. As a rule one should +dress for Prospect Park South very much as for a short run to Europe. +That is to say, woollens are always preferable, especially in the rainy +season (which in Prospect Park South is coextensive with the visiting +season), owing to the long waits between cars. It is true, as I have +said, that the inhabitants of Prospect Park South are accustomed to wait +at the trolley stations with an umbrella, and no household is without a +full assortment of old mackintoshes and rubbers to lend to improvident +visitors who believed the weather reports in the paper. But house +parties in Prospect Park South are frequently large and there may not be +enough old raincoats to go around. A light overcoat, an umbrella, +rubbers or a pair of stout shoes, and a pocket electric light for +reading names on the street lamps at night, will be found sufficient for +the ordinary traveller. + +The choice of route is important. Those who, like us, live in upper +Manhattan may lay their plans (excluding the Subway) either for the +Ninth Avenue L or the Sixth Avenue L. As far south as Fifty-third Street +the two lines coincide. Below Fifty-third Street the question of route +should be determined by one's personal preferences in the matter of +scenery; though not entirely. Veteran travellers assure me that there is +also a difference in comfort. The curves are sharper on Sixth Avenue, +but there are more flat wheels on the Ninth Avenue line. According as +the tourist is susceptible to lateral or vertical disturbances he will +make his choice. The front and rear cars are to be recommended above all +others because a seat may always be obtained. I recognise, however, that +if the traveller has long been a resident of New York he will force his +way into the middle cars. Then, hanging from a strap, he may curse the +company and be in turn cursed by the quick-tempered gentleman upon whose +feet he is standing. + +A phrase-book is not necessary. The English language is used on both the +Sixth and Ninth Avenue lines, and being equally incomprehensible, cannot +be looked up in a dictionary. Only legal currency of the United States +is accepted at the ticket-offices, but change is frequently given in +Canadian dimes. It is convenient, but not essential, to supply one's +self with reading matter at the beginning of the trip. Newspapers are +always to be had for the picking on the floor of the cars. The question +of fresh air, a topic of constant unpleasant controversy between +American travellers and Europeans on the Continent, need not concern the +traveller here. The matter is regulated by the company management which +keeps the windows closed in summer and open in winter. Passengers of an +independent turn of mind will be wary of opening windows on their own +account. The sudden entrance of air following upon the heavy +perspiration induced by the effort has been known to lead to pneumonia. + +With these few general considerations in mind, we may proceed to give a +rapid sketch of the route the tourist traverses. As we have said, down +to Fifty-third Street the passenger on the Sixth Avenue and on the Ninth +Avenue will pass through the same landscape. As the train makes the +magnificent curve through One Hundred and Tenth Street he will have +before him on the right the towering mass of the Cathedral of St. John, +which a kindly neighbour will tell him is Columbia University, and on +the left the lovely, wooded heights of Central Park, their base skirted +by a low line of garages and French dyeing establishments. At +Ninety-eighth Street, on the right, is a water tower of red brick, which +probably has the distinction of being the tallest water tower on +Ninety-eighth Street. At Seventy-seventh Street to the left is the +Museum of Natural History, which the same kindly informant to whom we +have referred will describe as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On every +cross street to the right one may catch a glimpse of the beautiful +Riverside Drive with the smoke from the New York Central's freight +engines rising above the trees. + +At Fifty-third Street the Sixth Avenue trains diverge to the left for a +short distance and then, turning south once more, carry the traveller +through a region heavily overgrown with skeleton advertising signs of +woman's apparel and table waters. If the Ninth Avenue route is selected +the vista is one of tenement houses and factories. At Thirty-third +Street is the new Pennsylvania Station, the cost of which the same +kindly neighbour will exaggerate by several hundred millions of dollars. + +Ten blocks further down are the buildings of the General Theological +Seminary, so beautiful in line and colour that no resident of New York +ever alludes to them. A few minutes further down the train rounds a +curve and the traveller, if he goes in the early morning, as every +visitor to Prospect Park South must, catches a glimpse of the fairy land +of steeples and battlements of lower New York, a Camelot wreathed with +wisps of steam. For the lover of scenery the Ninth Avenue is to be +unhesitatingly recommended, whereas the Sixth Avenue route will give +pleasure to the citizen who takes pride in the development of our +garment industries. + +I have no space to describe the interesting views to be had while +crossing Brooklyn Bridge. I can only mention the harbour with the +sunlight upon it, a spectacle of loveliness for which New York will be +forgiven much. Straight under the span of the bridge is the pier from +which Colonel Roosevelt set sail for South America. On the left, close +to the edge of the river, is the beetling mass of sugar refineries +famous the world over as the scene of an epoch-making experiment in +modifying the law of gravitation, when the sugar company succeeded in +weighing in three thousand pounds of sugar to the ton and paying duty on +the smaller amount to the United States Government. + +Of the trip through Brooklyn to Prospect Park South I will not attempt +to give any description. For that matter I will not pretend that on any +of our journeys I have carried away a definite idea of Brooklyn. For +that a lifetime is necessary. + + + + +XIII + +UNREVISED SCHEDULES + + +Life's ironies beset us whichever way we turn. The very day that Woodrow +Wilson signed the tariff bill, I discovered that Emmeline is a +Protectionist. + +Thrice in the course of the evening I alluded, with pretended calm, to +the signing of the bill, without awakening the least response in +Emmeline. The tariff apparently had no meaning to her. Thereupon I +reproached her openly. + +"It is characteristic of your sex," I said, "not to betray the slightest +interest in a matter that comes so intimately home to you. Here is a +bill which is bound to affect the problem of high prices. Every woman +who carries a market basket, every woman who shops, every woman who has +the management of a household on her hands, is directly concerned in the +question of lower tariff duties. Yet I dare say you haven't read two +lines on the subject in your newspaper." + +"What have we been paying duties on?" she said. + +"On everything," I replied with spirit. "Anchors, for instance. We have +been paying one cent a pound on them. That means twenty dollars a ton. +You know what the average anchor weighs, so you can figure out for +yourself what we have been paying out all these years for this commodity +alone. We have been paying 85 per cent. on bunion plasters, 10 per cent. +on animals' claws, and 85 per cent. on teazels." + +"But we hardly ever use any of these things," she said. + +"I was simply illustrating the iniquitous extremes to which our tariff +advocates were prepared to go," I said. "It may seem natural to put a +duty on beef, and shoes, and cotton goods. But the tariff barons were +not content. Insatiable greed demanded that a tax be put on teazels." + +"What is a teazel?" she said. + +"I am not sure that I know," I replied. "But that just illustrates one +of the favourite methods of the tariff plunderers. It consisted in +slapping a stiff duty on articles people did not know the meaning of and +so would pay without protest. I say teazels, but, of course, I mean +meat, and sugar, and cotton, and woollen goods, all of which things will +soon be within the reach of all. I should imagine that women would be +grateful for what has been done to make the living problem so much +easier." + +"Under the new tariff bill," she said, "will there still be only +twenty-four hours to the day?" + +"The new tariff doesn't repeal the laws of astronomy," I replied. + +"That is what I was thinking when you spoke of the living problem being +made easier for us," she said. "Putting twelve more hours into the day +would be a help. Did the old tariff have a big duty on hanging up +pictures?" + +"I don't know what you are driving at," I said, but in my heart I +thought I knew. + +"I mean," she said, "around moving time. I have always thought there +must be a very heavy tax on every picture that a man hangs up; or +rugs--" + +I decided that frivolity was the best way out of a situation that had +suddenly become menacing. "Usually we don't hang up rugs," I said. + +"That may be an oversight on our part," she replied. "Perhaps, if we +hung up rugs and put pictures on the floor it might appeal to your +passion for romance. You might even find it exhilarating." + +The idea seemed to fascinate her. + +"There are a great many things," she went on, "that I should like to see +on the free list. Seats in the Subway, for instance. I stood up all the +way from Twenty-third Street this afternoon, but I suppose the duty on a +man's giving up his seat to a woman is prohibitive. Then there's Mrs. +Flanagan who comes in by the day. She has a baby who is teething and +cries all night. I wish there was a lower duty on babies' teeth, so that +they came easier; and on sleep for mothers who have to go out by the +day. I also wish there was a lower duty on the whisky that her husband +consumes. She could possibly afford to stay at home more than she does." + +"He'd only drink himself to death," I said. + +But she was not paying attention. "There might be a lower duty on +efficient domestic help. It would be a relief." + +"Foreign household help are not under the tariff law at all," I said. +"They come in free." + +"That's what the girl said yesterday when she decided to quit, an hour +before dinner. And from the way she spoke to me I imagine that her +language also came in free. The more I think of it the fewer advantages +I can see for us women under your new tariff bill." And then the bitter +truth came out. "I think that on the whole I am in favour of a high +tariff on most things." + +"You are in favour of Protection," I stammered, hardly believing my +senses. + +"I am in favour of protecting domestic industry," said Emmeline, and I +saw that she had been reading the newspapers more carefully than I +imagined. + +The protective system which Emmeline outlined to me that evening would +have made Senator Penrose sob for joy. One of the first things she +demanded was a heavy duty on tobacco. She said she would be satisfied +with a flat rate of 100 per cent. on the nasty article, with a super tax +of 100 per cent. on all half-smoked cigars left lying around the house, +and another 100 per cent. on cigar ashes and half-burnt matches. +Alcoholic spirits should be totally excluded. She wanted a pretty heavy +duty on raincoats left lying on chairs when they should be hung up on +the proper hook. She was also in favour of a prohibitive tax on all +arguments tending to prove that woman's natural sphere is the home. +Lodge dues, club dues, and the practice of reading newspapers at the +breakfast table should be heavily taxed. There were a great many other +schedules she proposed, carrying a minimum duty of seventy-five per +cent. I cannot pretend to remember all, but my impression is that plays +dealing with the social evil and eugenics were among them. + +By this time it will be apparent that Emmeline's views on tariff +legislation were somewhat confused. She evidently made no distinction +between import duties, internal revenue taxes, and the police power of +the State. Before continuing our discussion I therefore insisted that we +restrict debate to the specific question of import duties and the cost +of living. The simple fact was that we had now changed from a +high-tariff nation to a low-tariff nation. How would this affect +ourselves and our neighbours? + +Thereupon I was subjected to a severe examination as to tariffs and +prices in other countries. My answers were, in a general fashion, +correct, though possibly I may have confused the British tariff system +with that of Germany. + +"From your statements, so far as I can make head or tail out of them," +said Emmeline, "I gather that in protection countries the cost of food +and clothing and rent is always just a little ahead of wages and +salaries." + +"You have followed me perfectly," I said. + +"Whereas in low-tariff countries people's wages and salaries are always +just a little behind the cost of food, clothing, and shelter. + +"That is due to quite a different set of causes," I said. + +"I imagined," she said, "that the causes must be other than those you +mentioned. But the fact remains that the choice which confronts most of +us is between having a little less than we need, or needing a little +more than we have. If that is so, it seems to me rather a waste of time +to spend--did you say seventy-five years?--in revising the tariff. I +prefer my own kind of tariff." + +"And the cost of living?" I said. + +"My kind of tariff gets much nearer to solving that problem," she said. + +"But then, why Mrs. Pankhurst?" I said. "If the making of laws has +nothing to do with the comfort of life, why do you want to vote?" + +"Because we want to assert our equality by sharing your illusions. +Besides, we can use the vote to bring about a state of things when +voting won't be necessary." + +On further thought, Emmeline is not a Protectionist; she is an +Anarchist. + + + + +XIV + +SOMEWHAT CONFUSED + + +He said: + +"Last night my wife took me to a lecture on Eugenics and the Future. The +night before, we went to a lecture on the Social Implications of the +Tango. I enjoyed them both immensely. Of course, after a long day in the +office, I am rather tired in the evening. If I dozed off on either +occasion it must have been just for a moment. I followed the arguments +perfectly." + +"Are you converted?" I said. + +He pushed his derby further back on his head. + +"Quite. I am not a mule. I know a good argument when I see one. Now, +isn't it true, as the speaker contended last night, that the human +animal, taking him by and large, is not a beautiful object? When he +isn't bow-legged, he is knock-kneed. There are too many men prematurely +bald. There are too many women prematurely wrinkled--and fat. We are +nothing but a shambling, stoop-shouldered race, in a permanent state of +ill-health. In summer we get sun-struck. In winter we get colds in the +head. Look at the ancient Greeks. Is there any reason why we cannot +produce a race as healthy, as beautiful, as graceful in the free play of +muscle and limb? An erect, supple, free-stepping race, breathing deeply +of life, looking the world full in the face, daring everything, afraid +of nothing. Our bodies are divine, as much so as our souls. To go on +being a race of physical degenerates, a snuffling, wheezing, perspiring +race that is always running to the doctor, is mortal sin; especially +when the remedy is close at hand." + +"You mean eugenics?" I said. + +"No," he said, "I refer to the tango. The speaker last night--or was it +the night before?--was absolutely convincing on the point. I am sure you +will agree." + +To make sure that I would agree he interrupted me just as I opened my +mouth to frame an objection. He continued rapidly: + +"Take this matter of old age. There's no reason why people should let +themselves grow old, is there now? And a properly constituted race would +see to it that old age was postponed indefinitely. After all, when a man +says he is eighty years old or ninety years old, it is only a figure of +speech. Look at Napoleon winning the battle of Leipzig when he was +seventy-eight years old." + +"I never heard that before," I said. "I thought Napoleon lost the battle +of Leipzig, and when he died--" + +"It may have been Hannibal," he said. "At that point I may possibly have +dozed off. But the principle of the thing is the same. Only a race of +weaklings will succumb to the ravages of time without making a fight for +it. There is really nothing beautiful in old age. You sit out the long +winter nights by the fire. Your eyes are too weak for the fine print in +the evening paper, and when you ask your son to tell you about the new +Currency Law he grows cross and scolds the baby. When you stop to buy a +ticket in the Subway, people grow impatient and murmur something about +an old ladies' home. It's all as plain as daylight. There is no reason +why people, as soon as they get to be sixty, should reconcile themselves +to the idea of debility, warm gruel, and chest protectors, when they +might go on being young, alert, graceful, full of the joy of life, if +they would only recognise the way of going about it." + +"You mean the tango?" I said. + +"No," he said. "I was alluding to eugenics." + +He spoke with assurance, but from the corner of his eye he threw me a +wistful, fugitive glance, as if to make sure from my bearing that this +was really what he meant. I did not contradict him. I was thinking of +his wife. For the first time in my experience my sympathies were with +the tired business man. It is good for the tired business man that his +wife shall be alive to the things that count; but two nights in +succession is rather hard. His wife, I knew, was alive to every phase of +our intense modern existence, and in rapid succession. She did not +precisely burn with that hard, gemlike flame which Mr. Pater +recommended. Sometimes I thought she burned with a sixty-four-candle +power carbon glow. It was a bit trying on the eyes. + +"Or take the question of sex," he said. "What is there in sex emotion to +be ashamed of? It is the most primordial of feelings. It comes before +the law of gravitation, as the speaker showed last night." + +"Does it though?" I said. + +"Well," he said, "perhaps it was the night before last. Around this +universal urge, of which we ought to be proud, as the most powerful +force in Evolution (the speaker last night was sure there could be no +doubt on the subject), we have built up an elaborate structure of +reticence and hypocrisy. All art, all literature, is of significance +only as it emphasises sex. If the Bible has impressed itself on the +imagination of humanity for two thousand years, it is because it +contains the most beautiful love songs in all literature. It is the +force which drives the sun in its course, as the Italian poet has said. +It has been the inspiration of all great deeds. If we searched deeply +enough, we should find that sex was the inspiration behind the discovery +of America, the invention of printing, and the building of the Roman +aqueducts. Only the most benighted ignorance will permit our prudish +sentiments on the subject to stand in the way of a movement which is +sweeping the world like wildfire." + +"Referring to eugenics?" I said. + +"No," he said, "I mean the tango." + +He looked out of the window and pondered. + +"Yes," he said, "that was night before last. What the speaker dwelt upon +last night was the subject of democracy. At present we know nothing of +true democracy, of true equality. Society is divided into classes with +separate codes of morals and standards of conduct. There are rich and +poor; workers and idlers; meat eaters and vegetarians; the old and the +young; the literate, the illiterate, and the advocates of simplified +spelling. It isn't a world at all; it is chaos. In the end it all +resolves itself into this: humanity is divided into the strong and the +weak. The surest way to do away with inequality is to produce a race in +which every member is strong." + +"You mean--" I said. + +"Pardon me," he said. "I haven't finished. Let me sum up the speaker's +concluding sentence as I recall it. As we look around us to-day there is +unmistakably one force which works for the elimination of that +inequality which is the source of all our troubles; a force which wipes +out all distinction of class, of age, and of education, and produces a +world in which everybody is engaged in doing the same thing as everybody +else." + +"Oh, I see," I said. "You are now speaking of the tango." + +"Not at all," he said, "I am referring to eugenics. But perhaps you do +not agree with me?" + +I hesitated. He was watching me eagerly, pushing his derby back until it +stood upright on its tail like a trained seal. + +"I have done my best to agree with you," I said, "but you have made it +rather difficult for me. Nevertheless I do agree with you. What I am +thinking of now is something which the speaker last night omitted to +mention--or was it the night before last? And it is this. Under the +conditions which you describe, how beautifully complex the art of +thinking will become. At present we can hardly be said to think at all. +We are cowards. We crawl along from one truth to another. We timidly +look back to our premises before jumping at the conclusion. We are +horrified by inconsistencies. We are enslaved by facts--facts of nature, +facts of human nature, facts of experience. How different it will all be +when we can sidestep facts, when we can dip over inconsistencies, when +we can hug boldly an apparent contradiction and make it our own; when +thinking, in short, will not be a timid regulated process, but a +succession of dips, twists, gallops, slides, bends, hurdles, sprints, +and pole vaults." + +"You are thinking of the tango?" he said. + +"No," I replied. "I had eugenics in mind." + + + + +XV + +HAROLD'S SOUL, II + + +You, mothers and fathers [said this particular advertising folder which +I found in my morning's mail], do you know what goes on in the soul of +your child? + +I, for one, know very little of what goes on inside of Harold. My +information on the subject would hardly furnish material for a single +university extension lecture on child psychology. It is an imperfect, +unsystematised knowledge based on accidental glimpses into Harold's +soul, odd flashes of self-revelation, and occasional questions the boy +will put to me. I don't know whether Harold is more reticent than the +average boy in the second elementary grade, but in his case it does no +good to cross-examine. He grows confused, suspicious, and afraid. He +resents the intrusion of my rough fingers into his sensitive world of +ideas. So I do not insist on detailed accounts of how the boy passes +his time in class or at play; for what are time and space and +grammatical sequence to the child? I am content to wait, and now and +then I make discoveries. + +Harold and I were discussing one day the rather important question, +raised by himself, from what height a man must fall down in order to be +killed. It began, I think, with umbrellas and how they behave in a high +wind. From that we passed on to parachutes and balloons and the loftier +mountain tops. We dwelt for some time upon the difficulties and dangers +of mountaineering. + +"Once there was a man," said Harold, "who used to drive six mules up a +mountain." + +"Six mules," I said. "How do you know?" + +"A bishop told me," he said. + +The sense of utter helplessness before the closed temple of Harold's +private life oppressed me. Let alone his soul, I found that I did not +even know how the boy was spending his time and who his associates +were. Fortunately, in this case it was a bishop; but it might have been +some one much worse. + +And why had Harold never spoken of his friend the bishop until our talk +of parachutes and mountain climbing brought forth his perfectly +matter-of-fact statement? Was it indifference on Harold's part? Was it +studied reticence? I thought with a pang of self-accusation how I would +have behaved, after meeting a bishop; how I would have turned the +conversation at the dinner-table to the declining influence of the +Church; how I would have found a way of comparing the Woolworth Building +with ecclesiastical architecture; how I might have steered a course from +golf to bridge and from bridge to chess; always ending with a careless +allusion to what the bishop said when we met. + +There was, as it turned out, a simple explanation for Harold's +statement. A notable conclave of bishops and laymen had been in session +for some days in our neighbourhood, and one of the visiting dignitaries +had addressed the school children at the opening exercises one morning. +I say the explanation is simple, though it is largely my own hypothesis +based on Harold's words as I have given them above; but I believe my +supposition to be true. With regard to the six mules up a steep mountain +I am not so sure; but probably it was a missionary bishop who +entertained the children with an account of his experiences in Montana +or British Columbia. What else the bishop told them Harold could not +say. He admitted, regretfully, that the bishop used long words. + +But I am not at all certain that other bits of information from that +ecclesiastical speech have not lodged in Harold's memory, to be brought +forward on some utterly unexpected but quite appropriate occasion. In +the meanwhile I can only think that it must be a very fine sort of +bishop, indeed, who could find time for an audience of school children +and was not afraid to use long words in their presence. As I can +testify, the encounter thus brought about did Harold good; and I am +inclined to think that it did the bishop good. + +We finally decided that no man could fall from a height over one hundred +and fifty feet and reasonably expect to live. + +You, mothers and fathers [this advertising folder petulantly insists], +can you appease the wonder that looks out of the eyes of your child? + +From Harold's eyes, I am inclined to think, no wondering soul looks out. +The world to him is quite as it should be. Everything fits into its +place. Harold does not think it strange that a bishop should address him +any more than he would think it strange to have the Kaiser walk into the +class-room and begin to do sums on the blackboard. Why should there be +anything to puzzle him? He has learned no rules of life and is, +therefore, in no position to be astonished by the exceptions of life. If +only you are unaware that two things cannot be in the same place at the +same time, or that the whole is greater than any of its parts, the world +becomes a very easy thing to explain. To Harold everything that is, is. +Everything that appears to be, is. Everything that he would like to be, +is; and nothing contradicts anything. + +It is true that Harold asks questions. But I believe he asks questions +not because he wonders, but because he suspects that he is being +deprived of something that should be his. It is that partly and partly +it is the desire to make conversation. He insists on having his privacy +respected, but often he appears to be seized with an utter sense of +loneliness. All children experience this recurrent necessity of clinging +to some one, and they do so by putting questions the answers to which +frequently do not interest them or else are already known to them. To +postpone the bed-time hour a child will try to make conversation as +desperately as any fashionable hostess with an uncle from the country in +her drawing-room. Children rarely deceive themselves, but they are +expert at the game of hoodwinking and concealment. I think we find it +difficult to understand how passionately they desire to be let alone +whenever they do not need us. + +And how desperately bent we are upon not letting them alone! The number +of ways in which I am constantly being urged to make myself a nuisance +to Harold is extraordinary. I am assailed by advertising folders, uplift +articles in the magazines, Sunday specials, Chautauqua lectures, +pedagogical reviews, and the voice of conscience in my own breast, to +inflict myself upon the boy, to win his confidence, make him my comrade, +guide his thoughts, shape his moral development, keep a diary of his +pregnant utterances, and in every other way that may occur to a fertile +mind bent on mischief, peer into him, pry into him, spy on him, spring +little psychological traps under him--a disgusting process of infant +vivisection which has no other excuse than our own vacant curiosity. +Provided Harold digests his food, sleeps well, does his lessons, and +abstains from unclean speech, it is no business of mine what Harold is +doing with his soul. I am thankful for what he consents to reveal at +odd moments. I guess at what I can guess and am content to wait. + +And waiting, I have my reward--occasionally. Not until several weeks +after I had discovered that Harold had the entrée into ecclesiastical +circles did the subject come up again. The boy paused between two +spoonfuls of cereal and asked me whether a bishop would not find it +easier to go up a mountain in an aeroplane. I foolishly asked him what +he was driving at and he grew shy. I am afraid he now thinks bishops are +not proper. + +But who shall say that the connection between high altitudes and the +episcopal dignity is not really an important one? Harold is apparently +occupied with the question and I shall take care not to disturb him. + + + + +XVI + +RHETORIC 21 + +Every time I happen to turn to the Gettysburg Address I am saddened to +find that, after many years of practice, my own literary style is still +strikingly inferior to that of Lincoln at his best. The fact was first +brought home to me during my sophomore year. + +(Incidentally I would remark that the opportunities for consulting the +Gettysburg Address occur frequently in a newspaper office. Every little +while, in the lull between editions, a difference of opinion will arise +as to what Lincoln said at Gettysburg. Some maintain that he said, "a +government of the people, for the people, by the people"; some declare +he said, "a government by the people, of the people, for the people"; +some assert that he said, "a government by the people, for the people, +of the people." Obviously the only way out is to make a pool and look +up Nicolay and Hay. When we are not betting on Lincoln's famous phrase, +we differ as to whether the first words in Cæsar are "Gallia omnis est +divisa," or "Omnis Gallia est divisa," or "Omnis Gallia divisa est." We +all remember the "partes tres.") + +In my sophomore year we used to write daily themes. We were then at the +beginning of the revolt from the stilted essay to the realistic form of +undergraduate style. Instead of writing about what we had read in De +Quincey or Matthew Arnold, we were asked to write about what we had seen +on the Elevated or on the campus. I presume this literary method has +triumphed in all the colleges, just as I know that the new school of +college oratory has quite displaced the old. Instead of arguing whether +Greece had done more for civilisation than Rome, sophomores now debate +the question, "Resolved, that the issue of 4-1/2 per cent. convertible +State bonds is unjustified by prevailing conditions in the European +money market." So with our daily themes. We did not write about +patriotism or Shakespeare's use of contrast. We wrote about football, +about the management of the lunch-room, about the need of more call-boys +in the library. + +The underlying idea was sensible enough. But it was disheartening to +have a daily theme come back drenched in red ink to show where one's +prose rhythm had broken down or the relative pronouns had run too thick. +Our instructors were good men. They did not content themselves with +pointing out our sins against style; they would show us how much more +skilfully the English language could be used. When I wrote: "That the +new improvements that have been made in the new gymnasium that has just +been inaugurated are all that are necessary," my instructor would pick +up the Gettysburg Address and read out aloud: "But in a larger sense, we +cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground." +Sometimes he would pick up the Bible and read out aloud: + + For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have + slept: then had I been at rest, + + With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate + places for themselves. + +Sometimes he would read from Keats's "Grecian Urn," or ask me, by +implication, why I could not frame a concrete image like "Look'd at each +other with a wild surmise, Silent upon a peak in Darien." + +Even then I laboured under a sense of injustice. I could not help +thinking that the comparison would have been more fair if I had had a +chance to speak at Gettysburg and Abraham Lincoln had had to write about +the new gymnasium. I thought how the red ink would have splashed if I +had ended a sentence with a comma like Job, or had said "kings and +counsellors which." Are there still sophomores whom they drill in +writing about the prospects of the hockey team and to whom they read +"The Fall of the House of Usher," as an example of what can be done with +the English language? And do some of them do what some of us, in +desperation, used to do? We cheated. We worked ourselves up into +ecstasies of false emotion over the hockey team or pretended to see +things in Central Park which we never saw. I always think of Central +Park with bitterness. We were to write a description of what we saw as +we stood on the Belvedere looking north. I wrote a faithful catalogue of +what I saw, and the instructor picked up "Les Misérables" and read me +the story of the last charge over the sunken road at Waterloo. I should +have done what one of the other men did. He never went to Central Park. +He stayed at home and, looking straight north from the Belvedere, he saw +the sun setting in the west, and Mr. Carnegie's new mansion to the east, +and the towers of St. Patrick directly behind him. He saw it all so +vividly, so harmoniously, that they marked him A. I got C+. Is it any +wonder that I cannot even now read the Gettysburg Address without a +twinge of resentment? + +And yet we were fortunate in one way. In those days they read the +Gettysburg Address to us as a model, and in spite of our resentment our +sophomore hearts caught the glory and the awe of it. But in those days +the art of text-book writing had not attained its present perfection, +and the Gettysburg Address had not yet been edited as a classic with +twenty pages of introduction and I don't know how many foot-notes. Am I +wrong in supposing that somewhere in the high schools or the colleges +this is what the young soul finds in the Gettysburg Address?: + + Fourscore and seven years[1] ago our fathers[2] brought forth on + this continent[3] a new nation,[4] conceived in liberty, and + dedicated to the proposition[5] that all men are created equal.[6] + Now we are engaged in a great civil war,[7] testing whether that + nation,[8] or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,[9] can + long endure. We are met on a great battlefield[10] of that war. + +NOTES + +[1] I.e., eighty-seven years ago. The Gettysburg Address was delivered +Nov. 19, 1863. Lincoln is here referring to the Declaration of +Independence. + +[2] Figuratively speaking. To take "fathers" in a literal sense would, +of course, involve a physiological absurdity. + +[3] The western continent, embracing North and South America. + +[4] "A new nation." This is tautological, since a nation just brought +forth would necessarily be new. + +[5] "Proposition," in the sense in which Euclid employs the term and not +as one might say now, "a cloak and suit proposition." + +[6] See the Declaration of Independence in Albert Bushnell Hart's +"American History Told by Contemporaries" (4 vols., Boston, 1898-1901). + +[7] The war between the States, 1861-65. + +[8] I.e., the United States. + +[9] See Elliot's Debates in the several State Conventions on the +adoption of the Federal Constitution, etc. (5 vols., Washington, +1840-45). + +[10] Gettysburg; a borough and the county seat of Adams Co., +Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border, 85 miles southwest of +Harrisburg. Pop. in 1910, 4,030. + + + + +XVII + +REAL PEOPLE + + +Among the most remarkable people I have never met is the family that had +just moved out of the apartment we were going to rent. My knowledge of +those strangers is based entirely on odd bits of information casually +furnished by the renting-agent in the course of a single interview. Yet +they are more actual and alive to me than many people with whom I have +lived in intimate communion for years. Is it our fate ever to meet? I +look forward to the event and dread it. I look forward with eagerness to +a new sensation, and I fear lest the reality fall short of the vivid +image I have built up with the help of the renting-agent. + +In the matter of picking out an apartment, it is an invariable rule that +I shall inspect the place and decide whether I like it. This I do after +Emmeline has paid down a month's rent and selected the wall-paper. On +questions of such nature, Emmeline is the Balkan States and I am the +European Concert. She creates a _status quo_ and I ratify. In the +present instance, however, I was really given a free hand. Emmeline +admitted she was suffering from headache when she told the renting-agent +that she rather liked the place. Later she recognised that the rooms +were altogether too small. What had swayed her judgment was that the +bedrooms had the sun in the morning and we should thus be saving on our +doctor's bills. In this respect expensive apartments are like +high-powered motor cars and a long summer vacation on the St. Lawrence. +They may be all easily paid for by cutting in two the doctor's annual +bills amounting to ninety-odd dollars. However, I understood that this +time Emmeline would be glad to be overruled. + +The European Concert had its first shock when it was confronted with the +size of the nursery bedroom. The renting-agent called my attention to +the wall-paper. It had a very pretty border, showing scenes from +"Mother Goose"; this at once revealed the purpose for which the room was +intended. But I pointed out to him that if we put a chest of drawers +against the wall and a little armchair in the corner, the crib would +come hard against the steam pipe and would project halfway across the +window. + +"Oh," he said, looking up in surprise. "There's a crib?" + +"Naturally," I said, "we should want this nursery for the baby." + +This did not seem to strike him as altogether unreasonable, but he was +puzzled nevertheless. + +"You see," he explained, "the people who were here before you had a +music-box." + +When a renting-agent discerns signs of disappointment in a prospective +tenant he immediately calls his attention to the shower. The agent's +face as he ushered me into the bath-room and pointed to the shower was +irradiated by a smile of ecstatic beatitude. He reminded me of Mme. +Nazimova when she waits for the Master Builder to tumble from the +church tower. + +"Does the shower work?" I asked. + +"Why, of course it does," he said. + +"That is very interesting," I said. "Most of them either drip or else +the hot water comes down all at once. I don't suppose you have to keep +away to one side and thrust your finger forward timidly before you +venture under the shower?" + +"Not at all," he said. "This has splendid pressure. Just turn it on for +yourself." + +I did as I was told, and after he had finished drying himself with his +handkerchief he asked me whether this wasn't one of the best showers I +had ever come across. I agreed, and he then told me that the very latest +ideas in modern bath-room construction had been utilised by the +architect. As for the people who had just moved out, they were so +delighted with the shower that they spent the greater part of the day in +the tub, often doing their reading there. + +On our way towards the library and living-room he called my attention +to the air in the hall. He said that if there was any breeze stirring +anywhere we were sure to get it in that particular apartment. This +puzzled me, because he had told Emmeline the same thing about another +apartment which she had inspected and which faces south and west, while +this one faces north and east. Suppose now a good northeast breeze-- But +we were now in the main bedroom and he was asking me to take notice of a +small iron safe let into the wall at the height of one's head. + +"This," he said, "is extremely useful for jewels and old silver. You +don't find it in every apartment house, I assure you." + +"That _is_ convenient," I said, and looked out of the window, "and of +course one could keep other valuables in there, too, like bonds and +mortgages and such things." + +"A great many people do," he said. + +We passed another bedroom which was so small that even the agent looked +apologetic. He said it was the maid's room, but that the people who had +just moved out had a woman come in by the day and used the chamber as a +store-room. He supposed we should prefer to have our maid sleep in the +house. + +"We do," I said, "but then we might get a short maid. The Finns, for +example, are a notoriously chunky race and attain their full height at +an early age. Let us look at the library." + +I did not like the room at all. It faced north and looked out upon the +rear of a tall building only thirty feet away. I asked him if the light +was always as bleak as it was to-day. + +"You get all the light you want in here," he said. "Lots of people, you +know, object to the sun. It's hard on the eyes. The people who had this +apartment always kept the window shades down. It made the room so cosy." + +I shook my head. The dimensions of the room were quite disappointing. It +was not only small, but there was little wall space, because the +architect had provided no less than three doorways which were supposed +to be covered with portières. I presume that architects find open +doorways much easier to plan than any other part of a room. + +He was surprised at my objections. There was plenty of space, he +thought. As libraries go it was one of the largest he had seen. Here you +put an armchair, and here you put a small, compact writing-desk, and you +had plenty of floor space in the middle for a small table. + +"And the bookcases?" I asked. + +He looked downcast. + +"You have bookcases?" he said. + +"We have six." + +He was about to say something, but I anticipated him. + +"I know, of course," I said, "that the people who lived here before used +to keep their books in the kitchen, but I hardly see how we could manage +that. It's too much trouble, and besides I am somewhat absent-minded. It +would be absurd if I should walk into the kitchen for a copy of 'Man and +Superman,' and come back with half a grapefruit on a plate. And, +furthermore, I like a library where a man can get up occasionally from +his writing-table and pace up and down while he is clarifying his ideas. +You couldn't do that here." + +"There is a nice, long hall," he said. "You might pace up and down +that." But he saw I was unconvinced, and he did not go to much pains in +exhibiting the dining-room, merely remarking that it did look rather +small, but the people who last lived in the apartment were accustomed to +go out for their meals. + +You will see now why I am so intensely interested in the tenants whose +successors we were on the point of being. With life growing more flat +and monotonous about us, how refreshing to come across a family which +keeps a music-box in the nursery, does its reading in the bath-tub, and +never eats in the dining-room. Is it studied originality on their part +or are they born rebels? And how far does their eccentricity go? Does +the head of the house, when setting out for his office in the morning, +walk upstairs? Do they walk downstairs when they wish to go to bed? + +I am still to meet these highly original citizens of New York, but their +numbers must be increasing. Every year I hear of more and more former +tenants who prefer dark rooms and libraries without shelf space. I have +never asked the renting-agent why, being so contented with their +surroundings, his tenants should have moved out. But probably it is +because they have found an apartment where the rooms are still smaller +and the windows have no sun at all. + + + + +XVIII + +DIFFERENT + + +Constantly I am being invited, through the mails or the advertising +columns, to buy something because it is different. Such appeals are +wasted upon me. In the realm of ideas, I am as radical as the best of +them, in many ways. But when it comes to shopping I am afraid of change. + +The advertising writer is the most unoriginal creature imaginable. He is +more imitative than a theatre manager on Broadway. He is more imitative +than the revolutionaries of art, the Impressionist who imitates the +Romanticist, the Post-Impressionist who imitates the Impressionist, the +Cubist who imitates the Post-Impressionist, the Futurist who imitates +the Cubist, and the Parisian dressmaker who imitates the Futurist. When +a happy word or phrase or symbol is let loose in the advertising world, +it is caught up, and repeated, and chanted, and echoed, until the sound +and sight of it become a torture. How long ago is it since every +merchantable product of man's ingenuity from automobiles to xylophones +was being dedicated to "his majesty the American citizen"? How long is +it since every item in the magazine pages was something ending in ly, +"supremely" good, or "potently" attractive, or "permanently" satisfying, +or in any other conceivable phrase, adverbially so? To-day the +mail-order lists are crammed with commodities that are different. Oh, +jaded American appetite that refuses to accept a two-for-a-quarter Troy +collar unless it is different! + +Now the truth that must be apparent to any man who will only think for a +moment--and by all accounts your advertising writer is always engaged in +a hellish fury of cerebration--is that there are a great many +commodities whose value depends on the very fact that they shall not be +different, but the same. If I were engaged in the business of publicity, +I cannot imagine myself writing, "Try our eggs--they are different." I +should also hesitate to write, "Sample our lifeboats, they are +different; try them and you will use no other." If I were working for +the gas company I should never think of saying, "Come in and look at our +gas metres, they are different." It requires little effort to draw up a +list of marketable goods, services, and utilities for which it would be +no recommendation at all to say that they are different. Thus: + + Railway time tables. + Photographs. + Grocers' scales. + Complexions. + Affidavits, and especially statements made in swearing off personal + property tax assessments. + Clocks. + Individual shoes of a pair. + The multiplication table. + The Yosemite Valley. + +In every instance it would manifestly be absurd to try to prove that the +object in question is anything but what we have always known it to be +or expected it to be. + +On the other hand, there is a great class of commodities which one would +never think of taking seriously unless we were assured that they are +different from what we have always found them to be. If some ingenious +inventor could really put on the market a Tammany Hall that was +different, or a hair tonic that was different, or something different in +the way of + + Hat plumes (guaranteed not to tickle). + Musical comedy. + Rag-time. + Domestic help. + Book-reviews. + Winter temperature at Palm Beach (as compared with temperature in New + York city). + Remarks on the weather. + Mr. Carnegie's speeches. + Remarks on Maude Adams. + Epigrams about women. + Epigrams about love. + Epigrams about money. + Epigrams. + Food prices. + Florence Barclay. + Golf drivers (guaranteed not to slice). + Brassies (guaranteed not to top). + Mid-irons (guaranteed not to cut). + Advertising. + +And countless other things which every one can imagine being different +in a better-organised world than ours. + +But does your advertising expert recognise the distinction between +things which must under no consideration be different and things which +must be made different if they are to find acceptance? Not in the least. +In season and out he sounds his poor little catch-word, and frightens +away as many customers as he attracts. Under such circumstances one can +only wonder why advertising should continue to be the best-paid branch +of American literature. Of what use are the Science of Advertising, the +Psychology of Advertising, the Dynamics of Advertising, the Ethics of +Advertising, the Phonetics of Advertising, the Strategy and Tactics and +Small-Fire Manuals of Advertising--on all of which subjects I have +perused countless volumes--if all this theoretical study will not teach +a man that it is appropriate to say: "Try our latest Hall Caine, it is +different," and quite out of place to say, "Try our quart measures, they +are different"? + +Between the things that must never be different and the things that +ought never to be the same, there is a vast class of commodities which +may be the same or may be different according to choice. Linen collars, +musical machines, newspapers, ignition systems, interior decoration--it +is evident that some people may like them the same and some people may +like them different. My own inclinations, as I have intimated, are +toward the same, but my sympathies are with those who want things +different. The argument advanced by the advertiser in behalf of his +latest three-button, long-hipped, university sack with rolling collar, +that it is different and that it radiates my individuality, leaves me +cold. I am not moved by the plea that the rolling-collar effect is so +different that a quarter-million suits of that model have already been +sold west of the Alleghanies. I remain indifferent on being told that +the three-button effect would radiate my individuality even as it is +radiating the individuality of ten thousand citizens of Spokane. When it +is a choice between wearing unindividual clothes of my own or being +different with a hundred thousand others, I suppose I must be classed as +a reactionary and a fossil. + + + + +XIX + +ACADEMIC FREEDOM + + +The approaching end of another college year gives peculiar timeliness to +the following account of a recent meeting of the Supercollegiate +Committee on Entrance Examinations. For the details of the story I am +indebted to the able and conscientious correspondent of the +Disassociated Press at Nottingham. The discerning reader will have no +difficulty in identifying the persons mentioned. Professor Münsterberg +is, of course, Professor Münsterberg. Professor Lounsbury is Professor +Lounsbury. Professor Hart is Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. Dr. Woods +Hutchinson is Dr. Woods Hutchinson. + +Professor Münsterberg: The meeting will please come to order. We are now +in the first week of October. This fact, which the average citizen has +probably accepted without question, has been amply confirmed in an +elaborate series of laboratory tests carried on by means of white and +yellow cards and rapidly revolving disks. Thus we are prepared to +discuss once more the highly interesting question, why the vast majority +of freshmen cannot spell. Neither can they write their native tongue in +accordance with the rules of grammar. + +Professor Lounsbury: Aw, gee! Why should they? Look at Chaucer, Milton, +and Browning. The fiercest bunch of little spellers you ever saw. And +their grammar is simply rotten. They didn't care a red cent for the +grammarians. When they saw a word or a phrase they liked they went to +it. If the grammarians didn't agree with them it was up to the +grammarians. Chaucer should worry. + +Dr. Hutchinson: Quite right. + +Professor Lounsbury: The question is this: Are freshmen made for the +English language or is language made for freshmen? Language is like a +human being; change does it good. Stick to your Lindley Murray and it's +a cinch your little old English tongue will be a dead one in fifty +years. + +Dr. Hutchinson: I agree with Professor Lounsbury, speaking from the +standpoint of physiology. Constant use of a plural verb with a plural +subject plays the deuce with the larynx. You know what the larynx is, +gentlemen. It's the rubber disk in the human Victrola. Drop the pin on +the rubber disk and the record will grind out the same formula, again +and again. Keep it up long enough and the record wears out. That's the +larynx under the operation of grammatical rules. It gets the habit, and +the first law of health is to avoid all habits. What you want to do is +to shake up the larynx by feeding it with new forms of expression. When +a man says "I done it," it imparts a healthy jolt to the delicate +muscles of the throat, limbers up his aorta and his diaphragm, and +reconciles him with his digestion. This is the opinion of eminent +physiologists, like Drinckheimer of Leipzig. + +Professor Lounsbury: Whom did you say the man is? + +Dr. Hutchinson: Drinckheimer, professor at Leipzig. He doesn't write for +the magazines. + +Professor Lounsbury: Then you agree with me that when a man has +something to say he will say it? + +Professor Münsterberg: We have an excellent illustration on this point +in a history paper submitted in the last entrance examinations. In reply +to the question, "Name the first two Presidents of the United States," +one candidate wrote, "The first pressident was Gorge Washington; his +predeceassor was Alexander Hamilton." Observe the extraordinary +psychological correlation between thought and expression in such a +reply. + +Professor Hart: I don't think the young man was guilty of an injustice +with regard to Alexander Hamilton. You will recall that Hamilton was one +of the principal founders of the system of privilege which has produced, +in our own day, Lorimerism and the purchase of Southern delegates. If +it had not been for Hamilton and his crowd we should not now be +compelled to wage a campaign for social justice and I should not be +under the necessity of writing Bull Moose history for _Collier's_. + +Dr. Hutchinson: But getting back to the real point of our inquiry, +whether the failure to spell and write correctly is a sign of mental +feebleness-- + +Professor Münsterberg: On that point I believe I can speak with +authority. Psychological tests in the laboratory show that the average +freshman is as quick-witted to-day as his predecessor of fifty or a +hundred years ago. We examined three hundred first-year men from eleven +colleges and universities. Each man was required to peep into a dark +box, shaped like a camera, through an eye-hole sixteen millimetres in +diameter. By pressing a button, light was flashed upon a slip of paper +inside the box, on which was printed, in letters nine millimetres high, +the following question: "What is your favourite breakfast food?" The +candidate was required to signify his answer by tapping with his finger +on the table, one tap for Farinetta, two taps for Dried Husks, three +taps for Atlas Crumbs, and so forth. The average time for three hundred +answers was six and seven-tenths seconds. Thereupon the candidates were +asked to think over the question at their leisure and to hand in a +written answer sworn to before a notary public. On comparing the written +answers with the laboratory results, it appeared that only thirty-seven +out of the three hundred had tapped the wrong answer. Need I say more? + +Professor Lounsbury: May I ask how the written answers showed up from +the point of view of spelling and grammar? + +Professor Münsterberg: They were impressively defective. + +Professor Lounsbury: I'm tickled to death. When you cut out bad spelling +and grammar, you queer the evolution of the English language. There's +nothing to it. + +Professor Münsterberg: But take the case of the freshman squad whom we +kept in a hermetically sealed room for twenty-four hours at a +temperature of eighty-nine degrees-- + +Professor Lounsbury: May I ask what their language was when they were +released at the end of twenty-four hours? + +Professor Münsterberg: Truth compels me to say it was something awful. + +Professor Lounsbury: But how about the grammar? + +Professor Münsterberg: There was no grammar to speak of. They used +mostly interjections. + +Dr. Hutchinson: Finest thing in the world, interjections. Good for the +lungs and the heart. Rapid process of inhalation and expulsion keeps the +bellows in prime order. That's all a man is, gentlemen, a bellows on a +pair of stilts driven by a hydraulic pump. If the bellows holds out +under sudden strain, that's all you want. That's why I like to hear +people swear. It's good for the wind. Next time you walk down a step too +many in the dark or lose your hat under a motor truck, don't hold +yourself back. It's the way nature is safeguarding you against asthma. + +Professor Münsterberg: Then it is the consensus of opinion here that the +psychological and cultural status of our college freshmen is everything +it ought to be? + +Professor Hart: I'd rather take the opinion of a roomful of freshmen on +any subject than the opinion of the United States Supreme Court. They +don't know anything about American history, but it's the kind of history +that isn't worth knowing. I prefer them to know things as they ought to +have been rather than as they were before the Progressive party was +born. Whatever is worth preserving from the past, including the +Decalogue, will be found in the Bull Moose platform. We don't want +examination papers. We want social justice. + +Professor Lounsbury: Between you and I, the English language won't get +what's coming to it until all entrance examinations have been chucked +into the discard. + +Dr. Hutchinson: Spelling is demonstrably bad for the muscles of the +chest and the abdomen. + +Professor Lounsbury: You've said it. + + + + +XX + +THE HEAVENLY MAID + + +As the familiar sound fell upon our ears, we walked to the window, drew +aside the curtains, and shamelessly stared into the windows of the +apartment across the court. That usually quiet home had been in evident +agitation all that afternoon. There was the noise of hurrying feet. +Excited voices broke out now and then. Twice a woman scolded and we +distinctly heard a child cry. Now the mystery was explained. + +"The new Orpheola has come," said Emmeline. "I wonder how late they will +keep it up the first night." + +In the apartment across the way the family was gathered in a reverent +circle about the new talking-machine, and we heard the opening strains +of the "Song to the Evening Star." + + * * * * * + +"Have you ever thought," I said to Emmeline, "how infinitely superior +the music of Wagner is to that of any other composer, in its immunity +against influenza? The German Empire, you know, has a moist climate, and +the magician of Bayreuth recognised that he must write primarily for a +nation that is extremely subject to cold in the head. It was different +with the Italian composers. Bronchial troubles are virtually unknown in +Italy. When Verdi wrote, he failed to make allowance for a sudden attack +of the grippe. That is why when Caruso catches cold they must change the +bill at the Metropolitan. But if a Wagnerian tenor loses his voice, the +papers say the next morning, 'Herr Donner sang Tristan last night with +extraordinary intelligence.' Sometimes Herr Donner sings with +extraordinary intelligence; sometimes he sings with marvellous +histrionic power; sometimes he sings with an earnest vigour amounting to +frenzy. Wagner, who foresaw everything, foresaw the disastrous effect of +steam-heated rooms on the delicate organs of the throat. So he developed +a music form in which the use of the throat is not always essential." + +"I know," said Emmeline, "that you'd much rather listen to the la-la, +la-la-la-la-la-lah from Traviata." + +"I'd much rather listen to Traviata," I said, losing my temper, "than +strive painfully to be electrified by the 'Ho-yo-to-ho' of eight +Valkyrie maidens averaging one hundred and seventy-five pounds and +leaping from crag to crag at a speed of two miles an hour." + + * * * * * + +When a man first acquires an Orpheola, he loses interest in his +business. He leaves for home early and bolts his dinner. The first night +he sits down before the machine from 6:30 to 11, and with a rapt +expression on his face he runs off every record in his collection twice. +No one but himself is permitted to return the precious rubber disk to +its envelope. Later in the week the eldest child, as a reward of good +behaviour, may be allowed to adjust the record on the revolving base +and to pull the starting lever, while mother watches anxiously from the +dining-room. At intervals grandma puts her head in at the door to make +sure that the proper needle has been inserted. The modern musical +cabinet does not eliminate the personal factor. People can put all of +their individuality into the music by choosing between a fine needle and +one with a blunt point. Persons of temperament are particular about the +speed at which the disk revolves. When a man is in high spirits he picks +out a sharp needle and winds the spring up tight. Pessimists do just the +opposite. It is imperative to keep the fine, steel points out of the +baby's reach because irreparable harm might thereby be done to the +record. + + * * * * * + +"Of course," said Emmeline, "I can see why you should be so greatly +attracted by the Italian ting-a-ling stuff. It's the result of your +journalistic training. It's the most superficial business there is. +Everything in a newspaper must be perfectly obvious at the first +glance, and there's nothing like a jingle to fetch the crowd. After a +while a man gets to be like the people he writes for." + +I had been called to the telephone and Emmeline had made use of the +interval to build up her little argument. It was unfair, but I +generously refrained from saying so. Besides, I, too, had not been idle +while I waited for Central to restore the connection. + +"I am not denying," I said, "that Wagner gets his effects, if you give +him time enough. But how does he do it? By wearing you out and knocking +you down and running away with you. That was the way, you will recall, +the old Teutonic gods and heroes used to make love. When a Germanic +warrior was attacked with the fatal passion, he would seize the +well-beloved by the hair, throw her over his shoulder and ride away with +her. It was different with Puccini's countrymen. In their hands a +mandolin on a moonlit night under a balcony melted away all opposition. +After half an hour of solid Wagnerian brasswork you surrender; but only +the way Adrianople surrendered. + +"That, too, was the case with the early Teutonic ladies. Their masters +did not always woo with a club. Now and then they interjected little +bits of kindness which were appreciated because they were so rare. That +is Wagner again. Every little while he throws you a kind word, a snatch +of golden melody that Verdi himself might have written, and, as a matter +of fact, did write all the time. With the master of Bayreuth these +little rifts in the clouds are doubly welcome. They shine out like a +good deed on a dark night." + +"How any one can listen to the last act of Tristan without feeling all +the sorrow of the universe, I cannot understand," said Emmeline. "Do you +mean to say that the Liebestod does not really carry you out of +yourself?" + +"It does not," I said. "But when Gadski in Aïda turns to the wicked +Amneris and sings 'Tu sei felice,' something in me begins to give way." + +"It is probably your intellect," said Emmeline. + + * * * * * + +One popular error with regard to talking-machines is that they have +solved the hitherto irreconcilable conflict between music on the one +hand and bridge and conversation on the other. At first sight it may +seem that the religious silence which one must maintain while some one +is singing--it may be the hostess herself--is no longer compulsory. You +cannot hurt the feelings of a mahogany cabinet three feet high. If the +worst happens, you can wind up the machine and start all over again. But +actually the situation is very much what it was before. I myself, on one +occasion when Tetrazzini was singing from Lucia, ventured to lean over +to my neighbour and whisper a word or two. Whereupon there came across +the face of my host, brooding fondly over the machine, a look of pain +such as I never want to bring to any face again. As it happened, it was +the man's favourite record. On the other hand, people who play cards +tell me that as between a living tenor and Caruso on the machine there +is not much to choose. Both are a hindrance to the correct leading of +trumps. + + * * * * * + +"Besides," I said, "any number of Wagnerians will tell you that the +music dramas in their unabridged form are much too long. You will recall +that Wagner himself said that many of his scores would benefit by +generous cutting. A great many eminent conductors have made a specialty +of cutting things out of Tristan. This serves a double purpose. It +permits the development of a class of post-graduate Wagnerians who can +take the whole opera without flinching, and it enables people to catch +the 11:45 for Montclair. Somewhere I have come across a story of two +great conductors who had charge of rival orchestras in one of the +principal cities of Europe. One man, when he conducted the Ring, was in +the habit of cutting out the first half of every act. The other man +played the first half, but omitted the second half of every act. For +many years there was a bitter controversy as to which of the two +conductors best brought out the real meaning of the composer." + +"I don't think it is a very good story," said Emmeline, walking to the +window and closing it; for our neighbour's machine had switched without +warning from the Ride of the Valkyrs to Alexander's Band. "It's a poor +story and I am inclined to think you made it up yourself." + +"As for that," I said, "that is just what Wagner did with his music." + + * * * * * + +When you overhear a man in the subway say to his neighbour, "Mine are +all twelve-inch, reversible, and go equally well on low or high speed," +you will know that the new Orpheola came home last week. Next week the +children will be allowed to handle the records without special +injunctions regarding the proper needle. The week after that, the baby +will be allowed to approach quite near and hear Mother Goose come out of +the mahogany toy. Within a month the master of the house will be looking +for his hat in the cabinet. The intolerable air of superiority and +aloofness with which he has been greeting you will disappear. + + + + +XXI + +SHEATH-GOWNS + + +From Emmeline I learned that I had been doing the fashion designers an +injustice. I had always imagined that styles were the creation of +Parisian dressmakers who worked with only two ends in view--novelty and +discomfort. But Emmeline assured me that styles are a faithful record of +the march of civilisation. When the Manchurian War was under way, +everything in the shops was Russian. When Herr Strauss produced +"Salome," half the world went in for the slim and viperous costume. The +revolution in Persia worked a revolution in blouse decoration. Later +everything was Bulgarian. + +"In that case," I said, "those poor fellows at Adrianople have not died +in vain. Under a rain of shot and shell I can hear the Bulgarian +officers rallying their men: 'Forward, my children! The eyes of Fifth +Avenue are upon you! Fix bayonets! For King, for country, and for +Paquin!' The Turks, being a backward millinery nation, naturally had no +chance." + +"What you say is extremely amusing, of course," remarked Emmeline. "But +I seem to remember an old suit of yours. It was about the time of the +Boer War. The coat was cut like an hour glass and there was cotton +wadding in the shoulders so that you had to enter a room sideways. The +trousers were Zouave. Yes, it must have been about the time of the Boer +War or the war with Spain." + +"That was just when the feminist movement was beginning to shape our +ideals," I retorted. + +Not only do the styles symbolise the process of historic evolution--I +distinctly recall toilets on Fifth Avenue which must have commemorated +the Messina earthquake and the report of the New York Tenement House +Commission--but styles actually follow an evolution of their own. They +do not change abruptly, but melt into each other. Thus the costume +which Emmeline described as Bulgarian could not have been altogether +that. The coat was military enough, with its baggy shoulders and a bold +backward sweep of the long skirts. But this coat was worn over a gown +that was unmistakably hobble, revealing the persistence of the Salome +influence. To call this outfit Bulgarian is to raise the supposition +that the Bulgarians hopped to victory at Kirk-Kilisseh. + +I pointed this out to Emmeline, and at the same time took occasion to +protest against the extravagant lengths to which the languorous styles +were being carried. It was bad enough, I said, to see elderly matrons +arrayed like Oriental dancing girls. But what was worse was to see young +girls, mere children, in scant and provocative attire. I thought the law +might very well take up the question of a minimum dress for women under +the age of eighteen. + +"Of course it's disgusting," said Emmeline, "but it's their right." + +"I know that youth has many rights," I said, "but I didn't know that +the right to make one's self a public nuisance and offence is among +them." + +"What I mean," said Emmeline, "is that we have outgrown the days when +young ladies fainted and wives fetched their husbands' slippers. We have +broken the shackles of mid-Victorian propriety and are working out a new +conception of free womanhood. Our ideas of modesty are changing. You +might as well make up your mind to be shocked quite frequently before +the process is completed." + +"Oh, I see," said I. "Enslaved within the iron circle of the home, +crushed by the tyranny of convention, of custom, of man-made laws, woman +lifts up her head and declares she will be free by inserting herself +into a skirt thirteen inches in diameter. Where's the sense of it?" + +"It's all very simple," said Emmeline. "It means that we are having an +awful time trying to escape from the degradation into which you have +forced us. We struggle forward, and then the habits of the harem +civilisation which you have imposed on us assert themselves. Do you +think we women love to dress? Every time we try on a pretty gown we know +that we are riveting on the chains of our own servitude." + +"But why make the chains so tight?" I said. + +She now turned to face me. + +"The reason for the sheath-gown is quite plain," said Emmeline. "Men +have always shown such a decided preference for actresses and dancing +girls that we others have taken to imitating actresses and dancing girls +in self-defence." + +"But that isn't so at all," I said. "Look at your trained nurses in +their simple white caps and aprons. They are bewitching. It is +universally conceded that the most dangerous thing in the world is for +an unmarried man to be operated on for appendicitis. That was the way, +you'll recall, Adam obtained his wife--after a surgical operation. The +case of the hospital nurse alone disposes of your entire argument about +our predilection for dancing girls." + +"That I do not admit," said Emmeline. "It is true that a man finds +himself longing for what is simple and wholesome whenever there is +something the matter with him." + +"When I spoke of the immodesty of present-day fashions," I said, +adroitly turning the subject, "I am afraid I gave you the wrong +impression. It isn't the viciousness of the thing that I object to, it's +the stupid, sheeplike spirit of imitation behind it. If the passion for +tight gowns indicated a kind of spiritual development, I shouldn't mind +it even if it was development in the wrong direction. There might be an +erring soul in the hobble, but still a soul. If the young girl of good +family who strives to look like a lady of the chorus did so out of sheer +perversity, there would be some comfort. One must think and feel to be +perverse. What appals me is the dreadful, unquestioning innocence with +which the thing is done. If we males are indeed responsible for what you +are, then we have a real burden on our souls. We have done more than +degrade you; we have made automata out of you. The little girl behind +the soda counter who paints her face and hangs jet spangles from her +ears will just as readily comply with fashion by putting on a military +cape and boots, or a pony coat, or calico and a sunbonnet, or an +admiral's uniform, or a _yashmak_." + +"A what?" said Emmeline, frowning slightly. + +"A _yashmak_," I replied, meeting her gaze steadily. "I use the word +with confidence because I have just looked it up in the dictionary. At +first I confused it with _sanjak_, which, on examination, turns out to +be a district in the Balkan Peninsula bounded on the east by Servia and +on the north by Bosnia-Herzegovina. A _yashmak_ is the long veil worn by +Moslem women to conceal the face and the outlines of the upper part of +the body." + +"You seem to have prepared pretty thoroughly for this discussion," said +Emmeline. + +"I have always considered it prudent before entering into debate with a +woman to have a few facts on my side," I said. + +"As if that made any difference," she replied scornfully. + +"As to the sheeplike way in which women follow the fashions of the +moment," continued Emmeline, "it simply isn't true." I could see she was +terribly in earnest now. "There are tens of thousands of women who dress +to please themselves; independent, courageous, self-reliant women who +face life seriously and rationally. We are going in more and more for +loose and comfortable things to wear." + +"Not the typical woman of to-day, I assure you." + +"Of course not the typical woman," said Emmeline. "Any Exhibition of +common-sense by a woman at once makes her a freak. You prefer the other +kind for your ideal of the eternal womanly. Take her and welcome. I +suppose it is necessary for a man to have something worthless to work +for." + + + + +XXII + +WITH THE EDITOR'S REGRETS + + +Talk of post-office-reform brings to my mind a conversation I had with +Williams, who is a poet. It was about the time, some two years ago, when +a Postmaster-General of the United States proposed the abolition of the +second-class mail privilege for magazines. + +I knew that Williams hates magazine editors with all the ardour of an +unsuccessful poet's soul. Consequently, when he sat down and lighted one +of my cigarettes and said that the magazines in their quarrel with the +post office had overlooked the strongest argument on their side, I +suspected irony. It is Williams's boast that he has one of the largest +collections of rejected manuscripts in existence, the greater part being +in an absolutely new and unread condition. Placed end to end, Williams +once estimated, his unpublished verses would reach from Battery Park to +the Hispanic Museum, at Broadway and One Hundred and Fifty-Sixth Street. +Every poem in his collection has been declined at least once by every +editor in the United States, and many of the longer poems have been +declined two or three times by the same editor, and for totally opposite +reasons. + +It is not mere brute persistence on Williams's part that is responsible +for this unparalleled literary accumulation. As a matter of fact he is +easily discouraged, although, of course, like all poets he has his +moments of exaltation. The trouble, he complains, is that with every +printed rejection slip there comes a word of sincere encouragement from +the editor. The editors are constantly telling Williams that his verse +is among the very best that is now being produced, but that a sense of +duty to their readers prevents them from printing it. They regret to +find his poems unavailable, and earnestly advise him to keep on writing. + +"You will recall," said Williams, "the principal point made by the +periodical publishers. Conceding that their publications, as +second-class mail matter, are carried at a loss, they argue that the +post office is more than compensated by the volume of first-class mail +sent out in response to magazine advertisements. The argument is sound, +as I can testify from personal experience. Not long ago I came across a +five-line 'ad' in agate which said, 'Are you earning less than you +should? Write us.' Well, the question seemed to fit my case and I wrote. +That was two cents to the credit of the post office. The post office +sold another stamp when I received a reply asking me to send fifty cents +in postage for instructions on how to double my income in three months. +I was somewhat disappointed. With my income merely doubled I should +still find it difficult to pay my landlady, but it was better than +nothing. So I sent the fifty cents in stamps. You will recall the +half-dollar." + +"Oh, don't mention it," I said. + +"Well, after a day or two I received in a penny envelope a paper-bound +copy of 'How to Succeed,' being a baccalaureate address delivered by the +Rev. Josiah K. Pebbles, who showed that honesty, thrift, and +perseverance were the secrets underlying the career of Hannibal, Joan of +Arc, John D. Rockefeller, and Theodore Roosevelt. So you see, by the +time the secret had been conveyed to me the post office had sold stamps +to the amount of fifty-five cents. Now assume that there are in the +United States between forty and fifty thousand poets and other literary +workers who would like to double their income, and it is plain that the +United States Government made a very handsome profit on that five-line +'ad.'" + +"But that is not what I started out to show," said Williams. "What the +magazines have omitted to point out is that by rejecting every +contribution at least once, the editors are doing more for Uncle Sam's +first-class mail business than through their advertising pages. And the +difference is this: While there must be a limit to the number of people +who will answer an advertisement, there need be no limit to the number +of times a manuscript is sent back. I can't see why the publishers and +the Postmaster-General should be flying at each other's throat, when +there's such a simple solution at hand. It is evident that there is no +postal deficit, however large, which cannot be wiped out by a sharp +increase in the average number of rejections per manuscript. Editors +will only have to augment by, say, fifty per cent. the number of reasons +why a contribution of exceptional merit is unavailable. My 'Echoes from +Parnassus' was sent back thirty-seven times before it found a publisher. +It would have been a simple matter to send the poem back a dozen times +more either absolutely or with a word of hearty encouragement." + +By this time I had made up my mind that it was indeed irony, and I was +sorry. I don't mind when Williams gets quite angry and lashes out; but I +hate to have a poet laugh at himself. + +"Not that I can help feeling sorry for the editor chaps," he went on. +"You couldn't help feeling sorry, could you, for a man who has been +trained to recognise the very best in literature, and to send it back on +the spot? And the more he likes it the quicker he sends it back. +Frequently I have been on the point of writing to the man and telling +him that if it is really such a wrench to return my poem to please not +consider my feelings in the matter, but to go ahead and print it. What +saves the editor, I imagine, is that after a while he does learn how to +detect some real fault in a contribution which just enables him to send +it back without altogether succumbing to grief. Of the fourteen men who +rejected my 'Echoes from Parnassus,' one wrote that I reminded him of +Milton, but that I lacked solemnity; another wrote that I reminded him +of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, but that I was a little too serious; another +wrote that my verses had the Swinburnian rush, but were somewhat too +fanciful. The editor who accepted the poem wrote that he couldn't quite +catch the drift of it, but that he would take a chance on the stuff." + +Here Williams got up and strode about the room and vowed that no +combination of editors could prevent him from continuing to write +poetry. "And I never refuse to meet them half way," he said rather +inconsequentially. "I went into Smith's office yesterday with a bit of +light verse and had him turn it down because it had the 'highbrow +touch.' 'My boy,' he said, 'we must give the people what they want. For +instance, I was going up to my apartment last night and the negro boy +who runs the elevator was quite rude to me; he had been drinking. Now +why couldn't you write a series of snappy verses on the troubles of the +flat-dweller? This line you're on now won't go at all with my readers; +they are not a very intelligent class, you know.' And that's another +thing I can't understand: Why should every editor be anxious to prove +that his subscribers are a bigger set of donkeys than any other editor +in town can claim?" + +"I was fool enough," Williams proceeded, "to reject Smith's suggestion. +I should have accepted it. My poet's mission won't feed me. If President +Eliot insists it is my mission to write stuff no editor will touch, he +doesn't know what he is talking about." + +"I don't think it was President Eliot," I said. + +"Wasn't it? Say Plato or Carlyle, then. You can't go on for ever +slapping us on the back and letting us starve. You have got to back up +your highly laudatory statements by purchasing our wares or we shut up +shop. We don't ask for champagne and truffles, but we do want a decent +measure of substantial appreciation, all of us people with a mission, +poets, artists, prophets, women. Now women, here comes Plato or Carlyle +and says it is a woman's mission to have at least eight children." + +"President Eliot said that," I interposed. + +"Oh it _was_ President Eliot? Eight children, says he, is her mission. +But let me tell you if you take her children and pitch them into the +waste basket, if you use them only to fill up your factories, and slums, +and reformatories, woman will be chucking that sacred mission of hers +through the window before President Eliot can say Jack Robinson. She is +doing it now and serve them right. Mission! Rot!" + +He seized a handful of my cigarettes and went out without saying +good-morning. + + + + +XXIII + +A MAD WORLD + + +_From an old-fashioned country doctor to an eminent alienist in New York +city:_ + +My dear Sir: + +I cannot claim the honour of your acquaintance. My name is quite unknown +to you. For some thirty years I have been established in this little +town, ministering to a district which extends five miles in every +direction from my house-door. My practice, varying little from year to +year consists largely in prescribing liniments, quinine, camphorated +oil, and bicarbonate of soda; and regularly I am summoned, of course, +into the presence of the august mysteries of birth and death. + +The life, though grateful, is laborious. The opportunities for keeping +in touch with the march of events in the great world outside are +limited. It has nevertheless been one of the few delights of my +restricted leisure to follow your career through the medium of the +public press. My own course, as I have shown, lies far from the highly +specialised and fascinating field of mental pathology to which you have +devoted yourself. But from the distance I have admired the expert skill +and the consummate authority which have made you the central figure in +an unbroken succession of brilliant criminal trials. I have admired and +kept silent. If I have departed from my custom in the present instance, +it is only because I feel that your brilliant services in the recent +Fletcher embezzlement case ought not, in justice to yourself and to our +common profession, to be passed over in silence. + +Let me recall the principal circumstances of the Fletcher case. The man +Fletcher was indicted for appropriating the funds of the trust company +of which he was the head. His lawyer pleaded insanity and called upon +you to give an account of several examinations you had made of the +prisoner's mental condition. You testified that on one occasion you +asked the defendant how much two plus two is, and he replied four, +thereby revealing the extraordinary cunning with which the insane assume +the mask of sanity. You then asked him to enumerate the days of the week +in their proper order. This the prisoner did without the least +hesitation, thereby supplying a remarkable instance of the unnatural +lucidity and precision of thought which, in the case of those suffering +from progressive insanity, immediately precede a complete mental +eclipse. + +On the other hand you found that the defendant was unable to recall the +name of the clergyman who had married him to his first wife at San +Jacinto, Texas, twenty-seven years ago; an unaccountable failure of +memory, which could not be passed over as an accident and must be +accepted as a symptom of the gravest nature. You cited the prisoner's +lavish expenditure on motor-cars and pearl necklaces as evidence of his +inability to recognise the value of money; and this in turn clearly +indicated a congenital incapacity to recognise values of any kind, +whether physical or moral. This contention you drove home by citing the +very terms of the indictment, in which it was charged that the prisoner +had failed to distinguish between what was his and what was not +his--another infallible sign of approaching mental deliquescence. + +You did not stop with the man Fletcher. You searched his family history +and found (1) a great-uncle of the defendant who used to maintain that +Mrs. E. D. N. Southworth was a greater genius than George Eliot; (2) a +second cousin who dissipated a large fortune by reckless investments in +wild-cat mining shares; and (3) a nephew who was accustomed to begin his +dinner with the salad and finish with the soup. + +At the trial, counsel for defence asked you a hypothetical question. It +contained between nine and ten thousand words arranged in two hundred +and fifty principal clauses, and nearly a thousand subordinate +adjective and adverbial clauses, with no less than eighty-three +parentheses and seven asterisks referring to as many elaborate +foot-notes. It would have taken a professional grammarian from three to +six days to grasp the proper sequence of the clauses. Yet it is on +record that within three seconds after the lawyer had finished his +question, and while he was still wiping the sweat from his forehead, you +answered "Yes." This is all the more curious because I gather from +statements in the press that while the question was being propounded to +you, you were apparently engaged in jesting with your fellow-experts or +nodding cheerfully to friends in different parts of the court-room. +Needless to say Fletcher was acquitted. + +I have mentioned your fellow-experts. That recalls to my mind another +admirable phase of your services in behalf of the medical art. Your +activity in the criminal courts has freed our profession from the +ancient reproach that doctors can never agree. As a matter of fact, +whether you have been retained by the prosecution or the defence, I +cannot think of a single instance in which you have failed to agree with +every one of the half-dozen other experts on the same side. More than +that, I firmly believe that if by some unexpected intervention you were +suddenly transferred from the employ of the defence to that of the +prosecution, or _vice versa_, your opinion would still be in complete +harmony with that of every one of your new colleagues. In offering your +services impartially to the District Attorney or to counsel for the +defence you have lived up to that lofty impartiality of service which is +the glory of our art. The physician knows neither friend nor foe, +neither saint nor sinner. From the rich store of your expert knowledge +you can draw that with which to satisfy all men. + +I find it hard to frame a single formula which shall describe the sum +total of your achievements in the field of medicine. Perhaps one might +say that you have discovered the unitary principle underlying the laws +of health and disease, for which men have searched since the beginning +of time. Behind all physical ills they have looked for Evil. Behind +diseases they have looked for Disease. That unitary principle you have +found in what goes by the general name of Insanity. The cynical opinion +of mankind long ago laid it down that all crimes may be resolved into +the single crime of allowing one's self to be found out. If a poor man +is caught, it is stupidity or negligence. But obviously, when a wealthy +criminal is apprehended, the only possible explanation is that he is +insane. + +The youthful degenerate who resorts to murder; the financier who steals +the savings of the poor; the lobbyist who buys a Senator-ship and sells +a State; the Pittsburg millionaire who seeks to rise above the laws of +bigamy, may all be explained, and acquitted, in terms of mental +aberration. The only parallel in history that I can think of, is the +elder Mr. Weller's belief in the efficacy of an alibi as a defence in +trials for murder and for breach of promise of marriage. + +I congratulate you, sir. You have discovered a principle which, like +charity, covers a multitude of sins. Like charity, too, your discovery +begins at home. For, as I have shown, there is no home in this broad +land wherein the expert will fail to discover the necessary great-aunt +or third cousin endowed with the precise degree of paranoia, paresis, or +infantile dementia required to secure an acquittal, or, at least, a +disagreement of the jury. + + Sincerely yours, + AN ADMIRER. + + + + +XXIV + +Ph.D. + + +The time has come when a serious attempt must be made to determine +Gilbert and Sullivan's permanent place in the world of creative art. A +brief review of the musical-comedy output during the last theatrical +season will convince any one that we are sufficiently far removed from +"Pinafore" and "The Mikado" to insure a true perspective. + +Happily, the material for a systematic examination of the subject is +accessible. It is true that we are still without a definitive text of +the Gilbert librettos. For this we must wait until Professor Rücksack, +of the University of Kissingen, has published the results of his +monumental labours. So far, we have from his learned pen only the text +for the first half of the second act of "The Mikado." This is in +accordance with the best traditions of German scholarship, which demand +that the second half of anything shall be published before the first +half. In the meanwhile, there are several editions of Gilbert available +which, though somewhat imperfect, ought to present no difficulties to +the scholar. For example, in my own favourite edition of "The Mikado" +(Chattanooga, 1913), the text reads: + + And he whistled an air, did he, + As the sabre true + Cut cleanly through + His servical vertebrae! + +where "servical" is evidently a misprint for "cervical." So, too, the +trained eye will at once discern that in the following passage from the +Peers' chorus in "Iolanthe": + + 'Twould fill with joy + And madness stark + The hoi polloi + (A Greek rebark), + +the sense is greatly improved by reading "remark" for "rebark," unless +we argue that the chorus had a slight cold in the head, an assumption +which nothing in the text would justify us in bringing forward, and +which, indeed, would be contradicted by the highly emphasised summer +style in which the chorus is apparelled. Thus forewarned, then, we are +ready to enter upon a detailed examination of the intensely animated men +and women in whom Sir William S. Gilbert has embodied his _ultima +ratio_, his _dernier cri_, and his _Weltanschaung_. + +In Ko-Ko, the author has given us a Man, with none of the +sentimentalities of August Strindberg, with nothing of the limited, +vegetarian outlook upon life of Bernard Shaw, with nothing of the +over-refinement of Mrs. Wharton. Ko-Ko is atingle with all the passion +and faults of humanity. He is both matter and spirit. He comes close to +us in his rare flashes of insight and in his moments of poignant +imbecility. The human being is not lost in the Lord High Executioner. He +is alive straight through to his entrails and liver, as Jack London +might say. He is infinite, even as life is infinite. He is, by turns, +affable, as with Pitti-Sing; cynically disdainful, as with Pooh-Bah; +paternal, as with Nanki-Poo. + +In the presence of Yum-Yum he is that most appealing figure, a strong +man in love torn between desire and duty. The firmness with which he +rejects the suggestion that he decapitate himself, arguing that in the +nature of things such an operation was bound to be injurious to his +professional reputation, reveals a character of almost Roman austerity. +There is something of the Roman, too--or shall we say something of the +German?--in the thoroughness with which he would enter on his career. He +would prepare himself for his functions as Lord High Executioner by +beginning on a guinea pig and working his way through the animal kingdom +till he came to a second trombone. This is the old standard of +conscientiousness of which our modern world knows so little. + +And yet a very modern man withal, this Ko-Ko. I cannot help thinking +that Mr. Chesterton would have loved him, and would have had no +difficulty in proving that his name should be pronounced not Ko-Ko, but +the second syllable before the first. He is modern in his extraordinary +adaptability to time and circumstance. Starting life as a tailor, he +adapts himself to the august functions of Lord High Executioner. He +adapts himself to Yum-Yum. He adapts himself to Katisha. No sooner is he +released from prison to become Lord High Executioner than he has ready +his convenient little list of people who never would be missed. Of his +powers of persuasion we need not speak at great length. His wooing of +Katisha is a triumph of romantic eloquence. It carries everything before +it, as in that superb climax when Katisha inquires whether it is all +true about the unfortunate little tom-tit on a tree by the river, and +Ko-Ko replies: "I knew the bird intimately." He is modern through and +through, our Ko-Ko. He is at one with Henri Bergson in asserting that +existence is not stationary but in constant flux, and that the universe +takes on meaning only from our moods: + + The flowers that bloom in the spring, + Tra la, + Have nothing to do with the case. + +Far less subtle a character is the Lord High Chancellor in "Iolanthe," +although, within the well-defined liminations of his type, he is as real +as Ko-Ko. Like Ko-Ko he has risen from humble beginnings. But whereas +our Japanese hero attains fortune by trusting himself boldly and +joyfully to life, letting the currents carry him whither they will, like +Byron, like Peer Gynt, and like Captain Hobson, the Lord High +Chancellor's rise is the result of painful concentration and steadfast +plodding. Ko-Ko is at various times the statesman, the poet, the lover, +the man of the world (as when he is tripped up by the Mikado's +umbrella-carrier). The Lord High Chancellor is always the lawyer. In +response to Strephon's impassioned cry that all Nature joins with him in +pleading his love, that dry legal soul can only remark that an +affidavit from a thunderstorm or a few words on oath from a heavy shower +would meet with all the attention they deserve. + +Plainly, we have here a man who has won his way to the highest place in +his profession by humdrum methods; the same methods which Sir Joseph +Porter, K.C.B., employed when, by writing in a hand of remarkable +roundness and fluency, he became the ruler of the Queen's navee; the +same methods brought into play by Major-General Stanley, of the British +army and Penzance, when he qualified himself for his high position by +memorising a great many cheerful facts about the square of the +hypothenuse. + +There is matter enough for an entire volume on Gilbert's self-made +men--Ko-Ko, the Lord High Chancellor, Major-General Stanley, and the +lawyer in "Trial by Jury," who laid the foundation of his fortunes by +marrying a rich attorney's elderly ugly daughter. I throw out the +suggestion in the hope that it will be some day taken up as the subject +of a Ph.D. thesis in the University of Alaska. That is only one hint of +the unworked treasures of research that await the student in these +librettos. How valuable would be a really comprehensive monograph on the +royal attendants in Gilbert, including a comparison of the Mikado's +umbrella-carrier with the Lord High Chancellor's train-bearer! + +As for Gilbert and Sullivan's women, I find that even if I were not so +near to the end of my chapter, I could not enter upon a discussion of +the subject. The field is too vast. I must content myself with merely +pointing out that Gilbert's ideas on women were painfully Victorian. It +is true that the eternal chase of the male by the female was no secret +to him. In Katisha's pursuit of Nanki-Poo we have a striking +anticipation of Anne's pursuit of John Tanner in "Man and Superman." But +on the whole, Gilbert describes his women of the upper classes as +simpering and sentimental--Josephine, Yum-Yum, Mabel, Iolanthe--and his +women of the working classes as ignorant and incapable. What an +extraordinary example of ineptitude is afforded by Little Buttercup, +who, in her capacity as baby-farmer, so disastrously mixes up Ralph +Rackstraw with Captain Corcoran. Or by Nurse Ruth of Penzance, who fails +to carry out orders and, instead of apprenticing her young charge to a +pilot, apprentices him to a pirate. Miss Ida Tarbell could not have +framed a severer indictment of inefficiency in the home. + + + + +XXV + +TWO AND TWO + + +Harding said that if he were ever called upon to deliver the +commencement oration at his alma mater, he knew what he would do. + +"Of course you know what you would do," I said. "So do I. So does every +one. You would rise to your feet and tell the graduating class that +after four years of sheltered communion with the noblest thought of the +ages they were about to plunge into the maelstrom of life. If you didn't +say maelstrom you would say turmoil or arena. You will tell them that +never did the world stand in such crying need of devoted and unselfish +service. You will say that we are living in an age of change, and the +waves of unrest are beating about the standards of the old faith. You +will follow this up with several other mixed metaphors expressive of the +general truth that it is for the Class of '14 to say whether this world +shall be made a better place to live in or shall be allowed to go to the +demnition bow wows. You will conclude with a fervent appeal to the +members of the graduating class never to cease cherishing the flame of +the ideal. You will then sit down and the President will confer the +degree of LL.D. on one of the high officials of the Powder Trust." + +But Harding was so much in earnest that he forgot to receive my remarks +with the bitter sneer which is the portion of any one unfortunate enough +to disagree with him. + +"The commencement address I expect to deliver," he said, "will precisely +avoid every peculiarity you have mentioned. It is the fatal mistake of +every commencement orator that he attempts to deal with principles. He +knows that by the middle of June the senior class has forgotten most of +the things in the curriculum. His error consists in supposing that this +is as it should be; that Euclid and the rules of logic were made to be +forgotten, and that the only thing the college man must carry out into +the world is an Attitude to Life and a Purpose. Which is all rot. There +is no necessity for preaching ideals to a graduating class. The ideals +that a man ought to cling to in life are the same that a decent young +man will have lived up to in college. The dangers and temptations he +will confront are very much like those he has had to fight on the +campus. The undergraduate of to-day is not a babe or a baa-lamb." + +He paused and seemed to be weighing the significance of what he had +said. Apparently he was pleased. He nodded a vigorous approval of his +own views on the subject, and proceeded: + +"It is not the temptations of the world the college man must be on the +lookout against, but its stupidities, its irrelevancies, its general +besotted ignorance. He is less in peril of the flesh and the devil than +of the screaming, unintelligent newspaper headline, whether it leads off +an interview with a vaudeville star or with a histrionic college +professor. What he needs to be reminded of is not principles, but a few +elementary facts. My own commencement address would consist of nothing +more or less than a brief review of the four years' work in +class--algebra, geometry, history, physics, chemistry, psychology, +everything." + +"How extraordinarily simple!" I said. "The wonder is no one has ever +thought of this before." + +"I admit," he said, "that it may be rather difficult to compress all +that matter in fifteen hundred words, but it can be done. It can be done +in less than that. My peroration, for instance, would go somewhat as +follows--that is, if you care to listen?" + +"It will do no harm to listen," I said. + +"I would end in some such way: 'Members of the graduating class, as you +leave the shades of alma mater for the career of life, the one thing +above all others that you must carry with you is a clear and ready +knowledge of the multiplication table. Wherever your destiny may lead +you, to the Halls of Congress, to the Stock Exchange, to the counting +room, the hospital ward, or the editorial desk, let not your mind wander +from the following fundamental truths. Two times two is four. A straight +line is the shortest distance between two points. Rome fell in the year +476, but it was founded in the year 753 B. C., and so took exactly 1,229 +years to fall. The northern frontier of Spain coincides with the +southern frontier of France. The Ten Commandments were formulated at +least 2,500 years ago. Japan is sixty times as far away from San +Francisco as it is from the mainland of Asia. Virginius killed his +daughter rather than let her live in shame. The subject of illicit love +was treated with conspicuous ability by Euripides. The legal rate of +interest in most of the States of the Union is six per cent. The +instinct for self-preservation is one of the elementary laws of +evolution. Hamlet is a work of genius. Victor Hugo is the author of "Les +Misérables." I thank you.'" + +"Thus equipped, any young man ought to become President in time," I +said. + +"Thus equipped," retorted Harding, "any young man ought to make his way +through life as a rational being, and not as a sheep. And that is the +main purpose of a college education, or of any process of education. No +amount of moral enthusiasm will safeguard a man against the statement +that the panic of 1893 was caused by the Democratic tariff bill; but the +knowledge that the tariff bill was passed in 1894 may be of use. It +saves a rational being from talking like a fool. Idealism will not keep +a man from investing in get-rich-quick corporation stock; but knowledge +of the fact that the common sense and experience of mankind have agreed +upon six per cent. as a fair return on capital will keep him from going +after 520 per cent. Mind you, it is not the fact that he will lose his +money which concerns me. It is the fact that there should be a mentality +capable of believing in 520 per cent. The dignity of the human mind is +at stake. Or take this matter of the boundary line between France and +Spain." + +"If you are sure it is related to the subject in hand," I said. + +"It is, intimately," he replied. "I am, as you know, exceedingly fond of +books of travel. I read them as eagerly as I do all the cheap fiction +that deal with brave adventures in foreign lands. Now a very common +trait in books of both kinds is the author's fondness for pointing out +the differences between the people of the southern part of a particular +country and the people living in the northern part. You are familiar +with the distinction. The inhabitants of the south are hot-headed, +amorous, given to mandolin playing, and lacking in political genius. The +people of the north are phlegmatic, practical, averse to love-making, +unimaginative, readers of the Bible, and tenacious of their rights. I +don't recall who first called attention to the fact. Perhaps it was +Macaulay. Perhaps it was Herodotus. The idea is sound enough. + +"But observe what the writers have made out of this simple truth. It +has escaped them that anything is north or south only by comparison with +something else. In the minds of our parrot authors the south has simply +become associated with one set of stock phrases and the north with +another. Here is where my Franco-Spanish frontier comes in. We learn +that the people of southern Spain are gay and fickle whereas the people +of northern Spain are sturdy and sober-minded. But cross over into +France and the people of southern France are once more gay and fickle, +in spite of the fact that they live further north than the sober-minded +inhabitants of northern Spain; and the people of northern France are +calm and self-reliant. Moving still further toward the Pole, into +Belgium, we find that the Belgians of the south are a frivolous lot, but +the Belgians of the north are eminently desirable citizens. From what I +have said you will no longer be surprised to hear that the inhabitants +of southern Sweden are a harum-scarum populace, whereas in the north of +Sweden every one attends to his own business. As a result of my long +course in travel literature I am convinced that the southern Eskimos are +not to be mentioned in the same breath, for hardihood and manly +self-control, with the sturdy inhabitants of northern Congo. People go +on writing this terrific nonsense and people go on reading it. A brief +review in geography would put a stop to the nefarious practice. Have I +made myself clear?" + +"The question is whether people are interested in the countries you have +mentioned," I said. + +Even then Harding was patient with me. + +"That is what I would try to do in my commencement oration--arm those +young minds against the catch-words and imbecilities of the great world. +Altruism, the passion for service, the passion for progress, are all +very well in their way. But first of all comes the duty of every man to +defend the integrity of his own mind and the multiplication table." + + + + +XXVI + +BRICK AND MORTAR + + +It is a pleasure to put before my readers the first completely +unauthorised interview with Professor Henri Bergson on the spiritual +significance of American architecture. We were speaking of Mr. Guy +Lowell's original design for New York's new County Court house. + +M. Bergson smiled pragmatically. + +"A round court house, you say? Suggestive of the Colosseum, with a touch +of the Tower of Babel, and the merest _soupçon_ of Barnum and Bailey? +Come then, why not? To me it is eminently just that your architecture +should typify the different racial strains that have entered into the +making of the American people. When one observes in the façade of your +magnificent public buildings the characteristic marks of the Chinese, +the Red Indian, the Turco-Tartar, the Provençal, the Lombard +Renaissance, the Eskimo, and the Late Patagonian, one catches for the +first time the full meaning of your so complex civilisation." + +The distinguished philosopher turned in his seat, struck a match on a +marble bust of Immanuel Kant just behind him, and lit his cigar. He +gazed thoughtfully out of the window. Before him stretched the +enchanting panorama of Paris so familiar to American eyes--Notre Dame, +the Gare de St. Lazare, the Bois de Boulogne, the Eiffel Tower, the +cypresses of Père Lachaise, the tomb of Napoleon, and the offices of the +American Express Company. + +"Yes," he said, "one envies the advantages of your multi-millionaires. +The kings and princes of former times, when they built themselves a +home, had to be content with a single school of architecture. Your rich +men on Fifth Avenue may have two styles, three, four--what say I?--a +dozen! And on their country estates, where there is a garage, a +conservatory, stables, kennels, the opportunities are unlimited." + +"But we have pretty well exhausted all the known styles," I said. "What +about the future?" + +"Have no fear," he replied. "The archæologists are continually digging +up new monuments of primitive architecture. By the time you need a new +City Hall excavations will be very far advanced in Peru and Ceylon. + +"The one secret of great architecture," M. Bergson went on, "is that it +shall contain a soul, that it shall be the expression of an idea. A +splendid courage accompanied by a high degree of disorder is what I +regard as the American Idea. Hence the perfect propriety of a +fifty-story Venetian tower overlooking a Byzantine temple devoted to the +Presbyterian form of worship. Too many of my countrymen are tempted to +scoff at your skyscrapers. But I maintain that a skyscraper perfectly +expresses the spirit of a people which has created Pittsburg, the Panama +Canal, and Mr. Hammerstein's chain of opera houses. Take your loftiest +structures in New York and think what they stand for." + +I thought in accordance with instructions, and recognised that the three +tallest structures in New York symbolised, respectively, the triumph of +the five and ten cent store, the sewing machine, and industrial +insurance at ten cents a week. + +"In your skyscrapers," he went on, "there speaks out the soul of +American idealism." + +I recalled what a drug the skyscrapers are on the real estate market, +how they yield an average of two per cent. on the cost, and I decided +that our tall buildings are indeed the expression of uncompromising +idealism. As an investment there was little to be said for them. + +"I repeat," said M. Bergson, "your skyscrapers stand for an idea, but +they also express beauty. Not only do they reveal the restless energy of +a people which waits five minutes to take the elevator from the tenth +floor to the twelfth, but they also embody the most modern conception of +fine taste. I think of them as displaying the perfection of the +hobble-skirt in architecture--tall, slim, expensive, and never failing +to catch the eye." + +We were interrupted by a trim-looking maid who brought in a telegram. My +host tore open the envelope, glanced at the message, and handed it to me +with a smile. It was from a Chicago vaudeville manager who offered M. +Bergson five thousand dollars a week for a series of twenty-minute talks +on the influence of Creative Evolution on the Cubist movement to be +illustrated with motion pictures. I handed the telegram to M. Bergson, +who dropped it into the waste basket. + +"People," he said, "have fallen into the habit of asserting that beauty +in architecture is not to be separated from utility. To be beautiful a +building must at once reveal the use to which it is devoted. But this +need not mean that a certain architectural type must be devoted to a +certain purpose. The essential thing is uniformity. The same form should +be devoted to the same purpose. Then there would be no trouble in +learning the peculiar architectural language of a city. When I was in +New York I experienced no difficulty whatsoever. When I saw a Corinthian +temple I knew it was a church. When I saw a Roman basilica I knew it was +a bank. When I saw a Renaissance palace I knew it was a public bath +house. When I saw an Assyrian palace I knew there was a cabaret tea +inside. When I saw a barracks I knew it was a college laboratory. When I +saw a fortress I knew it was an aquarium. The soul of the city spoke out +very clearly to me." + +He thought for a moment. + +"But yes," he said. "When I think of New York and its architecture I am +more than ever convinced that there is no such a thing as +predestination, that your American architect is emphatically a free +agent." + +"This seems so very true," I murmured. + +"Recently," he went on, "when I was the guest of your most hospitable +countrymen there was a sharp controversy regarding the appropriateness +of the architect's design for a memorial to be erected to your immortal +Lincoln in the national capital. There were critics who professed to be +shocked by the incongruity of placing a statue of Lincoln, the +frontiersman, the circuit-rider of your raw Middle West, the teller of +most amusing anecdotes, amusing, but--somewhat Gothic, shall I +say?--putting a statue of this typical American inside a temple of pure +Grecian design. Such critics, in my opinion, were in error. They made +the same mistake of concentrating on the specific use, instead of +searching after the broad meaning. Lincoln was an American. His monument +should be American in spirit. And I contend that it is the American +spirit to put a statesman in frock coat and trousers inside a Greek +temple. For that matter, what structural form is there which one might +call typical of your country, outside of your skyscrapers?" + +"There is the log cabin," I said, "but that would hardly bear +reproduction in marble. And there is the baseball stadium, but somehow +that sounds rather inappropriate." + +"So I should earnestly advise you," continued M. Bergson, "not to waste +time in studying what your architectural types ought to be, but to build +as the fancy seizes you. In the course of time the right fancy may seize +you. If anything, avoid striving for perfection. Continue to mix your +styles. It is not essential to cling to the original plans once you have +started. Change your plans as you go along. Avoid the spick and span. If +your foundations begin to sag a little before the roof is completed, so +much the better. If the right wing of your building is out of line with +the left wing, let it go at that. If your interior staircases blind the +windows, if your halls run into a _cul-de-sac_, instead of leading +somewhere, let them." + +"But that is precisely the way we build our State Capitols," I said. + +"Then you are to be congratulated on having solved the problem of a +national style," said M. Bergson. + + + + +XXVII + +INCOHERENT + + +A topsy-turvy chapter of no particular meaning and of little +consequence; whether pointing to some divine, far-off event, the reader +must determine for himself. + +He came into the office and fixed me with his glittering eye across the +desk. Under ordinary circumstances I should have found his manner of +speech rather odd. But it was the last week of the Cubist Exhibition on +Lexington Avenue, and a certain lack of coherence seemed natural. He +said: + +"Is there a soul in things we choose to describe as inanimate? Of course +there is. Can we assign moral attributes to what people usually regard +as dead nature? Of course we can. Why don't we do something then? Take +the abandoned farm. Doesn't the term at once call up a picture of +shocking moral degradation? We are surrounded by abandoned farms, and +do nothing to reclaim them morally. But I have hope. That is the fine +thing about the spirit of the present day. It abhors sentimentality. It +is honest. It recognises that before we can do away with evil we must +acknowledge that it exists. Look at the wild olive! Look at the vicious +circle! Look at Bad Nauheim!" + +"Are you sure it's me you wished to see?" I asked. "Because there's a +man in the office whose name sounds very much the same and the boys are +apt to confuse us. He is in the third room to your right." + +"It doesn't matter," he said. "The main thing is that the present uplift +does not go half far enough. Just consider the semi-detached family +house. Can anything be more depressing? There are happy families; of +them we need not speak. There are unhappy families; but there at least +you find the dignity of tragedy, of fierce hatreds, of clamour, of hot +blood running riot in the exultation of excess--Swinburne, you know, +Dolores, Faustina, Matisse, and all that. But a semi-detached family, a +home of chilly rancours and hidden sneers, too indifferent for love, too +cowardly for hate, a stagnant pool of misery--can you blame me?" + +"I do not," I said. "Far be it from me to censure the natural antipathy +for real estate agents which surges up--" + +"Thank you," he said. "That is all I wish to know." He rose, but turned +back at the door. "Of course," he said, "there is the other side of the +picture. Not all nature is degenerate. There are upright pianos. There +are well-balanced sentences. There are reinforced-concrete engineers. I +thank you for your courtesy." And he went out. + +I had no scruples in directing my visitor to the third floor from mine +on the right, because that room is occupied by the anti-suffragist +member of the staff. Between editions he reads the foreign exchanges +with a fixed sneer and polishes up his little anti-feminist aphorisms. +These he recites to me with a venomous hatred which Charlotte Perkins +Gilman would have no trouble in tracing back to the polygamous cave +man. He came in now and sat down in the chair just vacated by my +somewhat eccentric visitor. + +"Mrs. Pankhurst," he said, "is completely justified in asserting that +the leaders may perish, but the good fight will go on. There are plenty +of frenzied Englishwomen to carry the torch. The practice of arson, you +will observe, comes natural to woman as the historic guardian of the +domestic fire. We have great difficulty in preventing our cook from +pouring kerosene into the kitchen range. Instinct, you see." + +"But look at the other side of the question," I said. + +"That doesn't concern me in the least," he replied. "Of course you will +say there is the hunger strike. But what does that prove? Simply that +another ancient custom of the submerged classes has become an amusement +of the well-to-do. We are all copying the underworld nowadays. We have +borrowed their delightfully straightforward mode of speech. We have +learned their dances. We are imitating their manners. Now we are +acquiring their capacity for going without food. Not that I think the +hunger-strike is altogether a futile invention. Practised on a large +scale it will undeniably exercise a beneficent influence on the status +of woman. Modern fashions in women's garments have already reduced the +expenditure on dress material to an insignificant minimum. When the +wives of the middle and upper classes have learned to be as abstemious +with food as they are with clothes, it is plain that the economic +independence of women will be close at hand." + +"You are assuming that the sheath-gown is less expensive than the +crinoline," I managed to interject. + +"I consider your remarks utterly irrelevant to my argument," he said. +"Mind you, I don't deny that forcible feeding is a disgusting business +as it is carried on at present. But that is because it is being +misdirected. If the British Government were to apply forcible feeding in +Whitechapel and among the human wreckage that litters the Thames +Embankment, I am confident that the problem of social unrest would be +speedily disposed of." + +He, too, turned back at the door. + +"Mark my word," he said, "it won't be long before the manhood of England +asserts itself, and then look out for trouble! You know, even the earth +turns when you step upon it." + +But sometimes you find yourself wondering whether it is really (1) the +solid earth we tread to-day, or whether it is (2) on clouds we step, or +whether (3) we walk the earth with our heads in the clouds, or whether +(4) we are standing on our heads on earth with our feet in the clouds. +It isn't an age of transition, because that means progress in one +direction. It isn't revolution, because revolution is an extremely +clear-cut process with heads falling and the sewers running red with +blood; whereas the swollen channels to-day run heavy with talk chiefly. +It isn't a transmutation of values, because we have no single accepted +standard of exchange. It isn't a shifting of viewpoints, because it is +much more than that. + +It is a shifting of the optical laws, of the entire body of physical +laws. Pictures are painted to be heard, music is written to be seen, +passion is depicted in odours, dancing aims to make the bystander lick +his chops. Mathematics has become an impressionist art, and love, birth, +and death are treated arithmetically. Grown men and women clamour for +the widest individual freedom, and children, if you will listen to the +Princeton professor, should render compulsory service to the State. We +are in full revolt; in revolt toward State Socialism, toward Nietzsche, +toward Christian idealism, toward the paganism of the Latin Quarter and +Montmartre, toward university settlements, toward the cabaret. Are we in +a fog? Are we in the clouds striving toward the light? Well, I haven't +the least doubt that the mist will roll away and leave us in man's +natural position, his feet planted solidly on earth, his face lifted to +the sun. But for the moment it's puzzling. + + + + +XXVIII + +REALISM + +(AFTER A-N-LD B-N-ETT) + + +In the dining-room of her little apartment, from the windows of which +one might catch a glimpse of the Place de la Révolution on a clear day, +Madame Lafarge was laying the table for supper. She had folded the +table-cloth in two. With outstretched arms she held the four ends of the +beautifully laundered piece of napery between the thumb and +middle-finger of either hand. Suddenly she released two of the corners +of the white cloth, transferring her grip with practised deftness to the +two other corners, and whipped the flapping sheet across the table with +a confident gesture that emphasised the vigour of her ample bosom. The +further end of the cloth wrinkled. Perfect mistress of herself, Madame +Lafarge walked around the table and patted the offending creases into +an unblemished surface. She was extremely proud of her finger-nails, +upon which she spent fifteen minutes twice a day. + +From the china-closet at one end of the room, Madame Lafarge brought +forth two plates, which she placed on the table at either end of a +perfect diameter. This diameter she bisected with four salt and pepper +casters of cut-glass topped with silver elaborately chased in the +bourgeois style. While arranging the spoons she happened to look at the +clock and noticed that it was a quarter past five. M. Lafarge would be +leaving his shop behind the Palais Royal in half an hour. He would stop +at the tobacconist's for his semi-weekly bag of fine-cut Maryland and +would probably call at the cobbler's for Madame's second best shoes +which she was having resoled for the third time; they would last out the +winter. That would bring her husband home within an hour. In another +half hour it would be time to put the cutlets on the fire. As she walked +into the kitchen she wondered whether there was quite enough flour in +the sauce. A heavy sauce made M. Lafarge toss about in bed. + +Outside, on the Place, they were guillotining Marie Antoinette.... + + + + +XXIX + +ART + +(WHEN EMMY DESTINN SANG IN THE LION CAGE) + + +First Lion: I'm nervous. Aren't you? + +Second Lion: Not in the least. + +First Lion: Then why do you keep your tail between your legs? + +Second Lion: I always do that when I'm thinking. + +First Lion: What I want to know is, what do they want to go and put her +in the cage for? The place is crowded as it is and there isn't enough +raw beef to go around. + +Second Lion: Maybe she is a new kind of beef. + +First Lion: I wouldn't touch it for the world-- Now what are you doing? +Are you afraid? + +Second Lion: Who's afraid? + +First Lion: What made you back into me like that and growl when she +waved her upper limbs and stepped forward? + +Second Lion: Purely reflex action. Do you think she's hungry? + +First Lion: For heaven's sake, don't say that. What makes you think so? + +Second Lion: She has her mouth wide open and she emits prolonged howls. +I wish she wouldn't move forward so abruptly. + +First Lion: And I wish you wouldn't back into me like that without +warning. + +Second Lion: Perhaps she howls because she's afraid. + +First Lion: Whom would she be afraid of? + +Second Lion: The man outside who is turning the handle of the +picture-machine. + +First Lion: He has a red face. + +Second Lion: He must be juicy. I could fetch him in two leaps if I were +feeling just right. + +First Lion: There you go again. You'll be backing me against the bars +before you know it. + +Second Lion: Can't one stretch when one feels bored? + +First Lion: The red-faced man must be the new keeper. + +Second Lion: Probably, and she is howling for something to eat. I wonder +how long this will last. + +First Lion: I wonder. This is worse than the circus with nothing between +you and a crowd. What is it now? + +Second Lion: She's come nearer again and she is stretching out her upper +limbs in our direction. Suppose she's hungry and the red-faced man +refuses to let her have anything. + +First Lion: For heaven's sake, don't speak like that. + + + + +XXX + +THE PACE OF LIFE + +(AS RECORDED BY THE FILM DRAMA AND TIMED BY A DOLLAR WATCH) + + +From love at first sight to end of successful courtship, 2-1/2 minutes. + +Breakfast, 45 seconds. + +Ascent of the Jungfrau, 5 minutes. + +A riot, 1 minute, 45 seconds. + +A wedding, 1-1/2 minutes. + +A conflagration, 55 seconds. + +A night of restless tossing on a bed of pain, 35 seconds. + +From discovery of wife's faithlessness to attempt at suicide, 50 +seconds. + +Reconciliation between life-long enemies, 1 minute. + +Trust monopolist converted to endow a hospital and reorganise business +on a profit-sharing basis, 1-1/2 minutes. + +A piano recital, 30 seconds. + +A battle in Mexico, 1-1/2 minutes. + +A major abdominal operation, 19 seconds. + +Establishing identity of long-lost heir, 6 seconds. + +Buy your hats at O'Grady's--they're different, 2 minutes. + +Getting Central on the telephone, instantaneous. + +Central gives the right connection, 2 seconds. (Incidentally it may be +remarked that the film drama can never hope to reproduce the most +powerful comic device of the legitimate stage. This consists in saying +to Central, "Yes, I want two-four-six-thr-r-re-e," the most notable +advance in dramatic art since the invention of the inflated bladder.) + +Restoration of lost memory and discovery of hiding-place of lost +documents, 10 seconds. + +Orator sways hostile audience, 15 seconds. + +Detailed plan for robbing Metropolitan Museum formulated by six +conspirators, 15 seconds. + +Twenty years pass, 2 seconds. + + + + +XXXI + +MARCUS AURELIUS, 1914 + + +Let me exaggerate! For in exaggeration there is life and the punch that +makes for progress. Whereas no man can manifestly qualify as a live wire +who sees things as they are. + +Let me exaggerate the number of millions of bacteria to the cubic +centimetre in our morning milk; and the hosts of virulent bacilli that +make their encampment on the unlaundered dollar-bill; and the +anti-social micro-organisms that beset the common drinking-cup. + +Let me exaggerate the virtue of assiduously and courageously swatting +the common house-fly. + +Let me exaggerate the grey and monotonous life of the poor, forgetting +the children who dance to the sound of the hurdy-gurdy; and the mothers +who smile over their babies in tenement cradles, and the lovers in the +parks, and the May parties, and the millions who patronise the +moving-picture theatres, and the millions in Coney Island. + +Let me exaggerate the grinding, crushing, withering speed of modern +industry, forgetting the hundreds of thousands who throng the baseball +parks and the additional millions who study the score boards on Park +Row. + +Let me exaggerate the number of children who go breakfastless to school, +since nothing less than 25,000 gets into the newspaper headlines; and +the wickedness of regularly ordained clergymen who marry people without +asking for a physician's certificate; and the peril of helping an old +lady up the Subway steps lest she turn out to be a recruiter of white +slaves. + +Let me exaggerate the blessings of an age when babies shall be born +without adenoids and tonsils, and shall develop just as automatically +into clear-eyed little Boy Scouts and Camp-fire Girls. + +Let me exaggerate! Teach me that outlook upon life which the highbrow +pragmatists describe as the will to believe, and the low-brow describes +as pipe dreams! Save me from those twin devils, the Sense of Humour and +the Sense of Proportion; for in common sense is stagnation and death, +but progress lies in exaggeration! + + + + +XXXII + +BY THE TURN OF A HAND + + +In seven different ways has the world been on the point of being +regenerated since the Spanish-American War. For the completeness with +which the world has been reconstructed consult the current files of the +newspapers. + +The world was to be made over by the bicycle. The strap-hanger was to +abandon his strap and ride joyfully down the Broadway cable-slot, +snapping his fingers at traction magnates and imbibing ozone. The +factory-hand was to abandon his city flat and live in the open country, +going to and from his work through the green lanes at fifteen miles an +hour, with his lunch on the handle bars. The old were to grow young +again and the young were to dream close to the heart of Nature. The +doctors were to perish of starvation. But where is the bicycle to-day? + +The world was to be made over by jiu-jitsu. Elderly gentlemen were to +regain the waistline of their youth by ten minutes' attention every +morning to the secrets of the Samurai. Slim young women, when attacked +by heavy ruffians, were to seize their assailants by the wrist and hurl +them over the right shoulder. The police were to discard their revolvers +and their night sticks, and suppress rioters by mere muscular +contraction. The doctors, as before, were to grow extinct through the +rapid process of starvation. But where is jiu-jitsu to-day? + +The world was to be regenerated by denatured alcohol. Congress had +merely to remove the internal revenue tax and a new motive power would +be let loose, far transcending the total available horsepower of our +coal mines. Denatured alcohol was to drive the farmer's machines, propel +our war automobiles, run our factories, and reduce the cost of living to +a ridiculous minimum. But where is denatured alcohol to-day? + +The world was to be redeemed by the bungalow. The landlord was to +disappear and in his place would come a race of free-men bowing the head +to no man and raising their own vegetables. Kitchen drudgery was to be +eliminated by the simple device of abolishing the kitchen and calling it +a kitchenette. With no more stairs to climb, rheumatism would pass into +history. So would the doctors. The bungalow is still with us, and alas, +so are the doctors. + +The world was to be regenerated by sour milk; by the simple life; by +sleeping in the open air. But where now are Prof. Metchnikoff and Pastor +Wagner? And the pictures of rose-embowered sleeping porches in the +garden magazines have been supplanted by pictures of colonial farmhouses +transformed into charming interiors by two coats of white-wash and a +thin-paper edition of the classics. + +Does this show that we must give up all hope of seeing a new world +around us before 1915? By no means. We still have Eugenics. + + + + +XXXIII + +THE QUARRY SLAVE + + +The tired business man leaves his home in the country just in time to +catch the next train. By ten o'clock, at the latest, he is in his +office, having ridden up to the thirteenth floor in an express elevator +and so gained a distinct advantage over his London competitors who are +in the habit of walking up to their offices on the third floor. He finds +his mail opened and sorted on his desk. He glances over the most +important letters, puts aside those requiring immediate attention, and +has his shoes shined. At eleven o'clock he calls up on the telephone +and, in the course of fifteen minutes' conversation, transacts a great +deal of business which has to be confirmed by letter. His father would +merely have written the letter. + +Ignoring the primary rule of health which forbids the mingling of work +and recreation, he makes a business appointment for lunch, and between +one o'clock and half-past three he puts through a deal on which his +father would have spent at least half an hour during his busiest hours. +Returning to his office he dictates several letters which he dictated +the day before and into which a number of vital errors have been +introduced in the course of transcription. This necessitates repeated +reference to a card catalogue, an operation which takes some time +because the young man in charge has been brought up on the phonetic +system and experiences some difficulty in determining the proper place +of the letter G in the alphabet. From 3:30 to 4:30 the business man is +interviewed by an agent who demonstrates the merits of a new +labour-saving letter file. Donning his overcoat hastily he runs to make +an express which takes eight minutes to reach Grand Central Station, +whereas the local trains sometimes take as much as eleven minutes. + +Later, exhausted by his efforts of the day, he just manages to purchase +two seats on the aisle from a speculator, and staggers to his chair at +8:30 as the curtain rises on the first act of "The Girl and the +Eskimo." + + + + +XXXIV + +MONOTONY OF THE POLES + +(AT A FIVE O'CLOCK TEA) + + +The Lady: It's so good of you to come. It must be wonderful to have been +at the Pole. Do you know, when the news first reached us, I was so +excited I insisted on calling up all my friends on the telephone and +asking them if they had heard. It must have been a wonderful trip. Won't +you sit down and tell us all about it? + +The Explorer: Thank you. We left our winter camp in latitude 83 degrees +7 minutes on October 24, with five men, four sledges, and thirty-two +dogs. The long wait was spent in laying in stocks of seal-meat for the +dogs, constructing sledges, breaking the dogs to harness, making +meteorological observations, bathing, sleeping, and attending to the +dogs. In the cold of the Polar night, work moves on rather slowly, but +I always enjoyed the restful half-hour I devoted to winding up my watch. +On August 24 we caught the first sign of spring. + +The Lady: Of course. + +The Explorer: But it was not till October 24 that the sun rose and the +Polar day began. + +The Lady: How very interesting! + +The Explorer: We had been getting impatient. We were afraid the dogs +would grow too fat. We were glad when the edge of the sun's disk showed +above the horizon. + +The Lady: It must have been like the first day of creation; it must have +been like the radiant illumination of a great love. + +The Explorer: It was indeed. We immediately harnessed the dogs and set +out. The sledges had been loaded several days before. The dogs were in +excellent physical condition. The ice was smooth. The temperature was +minus 28 degrees Centigrade. What this is when expressed in terms of +Fahrenheit, madam, you will of course readily ascertain for yourself by +multiplying by 9, dividing by 5, and subtracting 32. + +The Lady: It is all too wonderful! + +The Explorer: On our first day's march we covered forty-three +kilometres, the kilometre being equal, as you are aware, to .62121 of a +mile. Part of the way we rode upon the sledges. Then the ice grew rough, +and we took to our skis. We camped in 83 degrees 29 minutes, and built +an igloo, which you will recall is a hut made of ice-blocks and snow. +First we fed the dogs. The daily ration for the dogs was one and a half +kilogrammes of seal-meat, the kilogramme, I need not tell you, being +equal to 2.2046 pounds. Then we turned in. + +The Lady: Your first night in the unknown! + +The Explorer: As you say, madam. The next day we camped in 83 degrees 53 +minutes, fed the dogs as usual, and built an igloo. The day after, we +camped in 84 degrees 29 minutes and built another igloo, after feeding +the dogs. Nothing happened for the next ten days. The dogs were in good +condition. The sledges held well. We made an average daily march of 36 +kilometres. But on the eleventh day, at the conclusion of a fairly good +march, one of the dogs in sledge number 2--we called him +Skraal--attacked and bit a dog we called Ragnar. We parted them with +great difficulty. The two days that followed were uneventful, but on the +third day Ragnar attacked and bit Skraal. We had to club them apart. On +the fifteenth day out Ragnar and Skraal attacked and bit a third dog +named Skalder, but he eventually recovered. That was in latitude 85 +degrees 87 minutes, at an altitude of 3,700 feet, and the temperature +was minus 27 degrees Centigrade. It occurred just after we had finished +building an igloo and were preparing to feed the dogs. + +The Lady: And always you were drawing nearer the goal! + +The Explorer: Naturally, madam. All this time we were busy laying down +depots of food for the dogs and the men. Because once we reached the +goal we must, of course, get back as fast as we could. We built a depot +at every degree of latitude, or, roughly speaking, every 100 kilometres. +Our depot in latitude 87 degrees 25 minutes was situated amidst very +picturesque surroundings. + +The Lady: In that wonderful landscape! + +The Explorer: Yes, the spot had some very extraordinary ice-formations. +Setting out from that point we marched 37 kilometres over rough ice, fed +the dogs, and built an igloo. The next day we marched 70 kilometres over +smooth ice, and, having attended to the dogs, built another igloo. The +next day we marched 50 kilometres over ice that was partly rough and +partly smooth, and had a good night's rest, after putting up an igloo +and caring for the dogs. The next day the ice was very soft, and the +dogs hung back and complained. However, we managed to cover 27 +kilometres that day, reaching 88 degrees 14 minutes. There we camped +and-- + +The Lady: And built another igloo! + +The Explorer: No, madam, a food depot. It was on the following day that +I first had reason to feel anxious for my men. Skaarmund, my chief +assistant, froze his ears. That was in latitude 88 degrees 36 minutes, +and the temperature was minus 40 degrees Centigrade. After being +vigorously rubbed for several minutes, he was all right again. Almost +immediately Knudsen complained of headache and we had to give him some +phenacetine. Half an hour later Lanstrup fell down a crevice in the ice. + +The Lady: Horrors! + +The Explorer: Fortunately the crevice was only two feet deep, and after +we had applied peroxide and vaseline, Lanstrup was as well as ever. +Owing to the high altitude we all experienced some difficulty in +breathing. It was very much like being stalled on a crowded train in +your Subway. It was our ambition to reach the Pole on the fifth day +after, because that was our national holiday. But we found the going too +rough. However, we celebrated the day by giving an extra +half-kilogramme of seal-meat to the dogs and a whole cup of coffee to +the men. Skaarmund had some cigarettes hidden about his person and we +smoked and took an extra hour's rest. Two days later, we were at the +Pole. + +The Lady: Where no man's foot had trod before! Alone amidst that +infinite stretch of virgin snow! + +The Explorer: Quite so, madam. Immediately after taking observations and +noting the temperature and the velocity of the wind, we built an igloo +and picketed the dogs. We remained there for three days, taking +additional observations, repairing the sledges, and resting up the dogs. +On the third day after we raised the flag over the Pole, we set out on +our return journey. + +The Lady: What thoughts must have been yours! You were coming back with +the prize of the centuries, to find the world at your feet. + +The Explorer: Exactly, madam. Not one of the dogs had failed us. Having +said farewell to the flag waving proudly at the apex of the globe, we +marched fifty-two kilometres. At the end of the march we built an igloo +and fed the dogs. At the end of the next day's march we killed two dogs: +we gave one to the other dogs, and the other we ate ourselves. It tasted +not unlike fresh veal. The following morning we had hardly commenced our +march when Malstrom cut his foot on a sharp piece of ice which +penetrated his boot. We washed his foot out with witch hazel and made +him ride for a mile or two on a sledge. The pain thereupon disappeared. +At exactly 89 degrees we built an igloo and slept for ten hours in one +stretch. Rising, we killed a dog for breakfast, took our observations, +and set out. Malstrom's foot gave him no trouble. That day we camped at +88 degrees 23 minutes, built another igloo, and killed another dog. Our +appetites were very active. On the way to the Pole we had allowed +ourselves two and one-half kilos of food per day. Now we were consuming +over four kilos a day. + +The Lady: Fancy eating four kilometres a day. + +The Explorer: No, madam, kilogrammes. But at the same time we were +travelling at a much faster pace; one day our record was ninety. + +The Lady: That was a great deal, wasn't it, ninety kilogrammes a day? + +The Explorer: No, madam, kilometres. And in this manner we arrived +safely at our winter camp. Five days later we were on board our ship, on +the way to civilisation. + +The Lady: How happy you must have been! + +The Explorer: We were. But perhaps madam may be interested in some of +the photographs illustrating incidents of our journey to the Pole? + +The Lady: How can you ask! + +The Explorer: This picture, you will see, shows our permanent camp, +situated in the midst of a snow plain stretching to the horizon in every +direction. This is a picture of the South Pole, similarly situated, you +will observe, in the midst of a snow plain stretching as far as the eye +can see. This is the sledge upon which I travelled to the Pole. The next +picture shows the same sledge viewed from the rear and a little to one +side, and this is still the same sledge as seen at a distance of 200 +feet to the left and from a slight elevation. The next picture shows the +sledge with its load, and the one after that shows the load itself +resting close to the walls of an igloo which is just going up. In this +picture you see the igloo completed and with the dogs lying in front. +The next picture shows the same group of dogs with two of the leaders +missing. The next two pictures show the sledge as it was before the +accident and after. The remaining pictures deal with similar subjects. + +The Lady: This has been so delightful! Do you know, your English +pronunciation is wonderful for a foreigner! + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Post-Impressions, by Simeon Strunsky + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40232 *** |