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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fef8b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63888 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63888) diff --git a/old/63888-0.txt b/old/63888-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0ac1135..0000000 --- a/old/63888-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3064 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great American Novel, by William Carlos -Williams - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: The Great American Novel - -Author: William Carlos Williams - -Release Date: December 05, 2020 [EBook #63888] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images generously - made available by The Internet Archive.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL *** - -THE GREAT -AMERICAN NOVEL - -_BY_ - -WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS - - - -_PARIS_ - -Three Mountains Press - -1923 - - - - -CONTENTS -CHAPTER I -CHAPTER II -CHAPTER III -CHAPTER IV -CHAPTER V -CHAPTER VI -CHAPTER VII -CHAPTER VIII -CHAPTER IX -CHAPTER X -CHAPTER XI -CHAPTER XII -CHAPTER XIII -CHAPTER XIV -CHAPTER XV -CHAPTER XVI -CHAPTER XVII -CHAPTER XVIII -CHAPTER XIX - - - - -[Illustration] - - -_The Great_ -American Novel - - - - -CHAPTER I - -The Fog - - -[Illustration] - -If there is progress then there is a novel. Without progress there is -nothing. Everything exists from the beginning. I existed in the -beginning. I was a slobbering infant. Today I saw nameless grasses--I -tapped the earth with my knuckle. It sounded hollow. It was dry as -rubber. Eons of drought. No rain for fifteen days. No rain. It has never -rained. It will never rain. Heat and no wind all day long better say hot -September. The year has progressed. Up one street down another. It is -still September. Down one street, up another. Still September. Yesterday -was the twenty second. Today is the twenty first. Impossible. Not if it -was last year. But then it wouldn't be yesterday. A year is not as -yesterday in his eyes. Besides last year it rained in the early part of -the month. That makes a difference. It rained on the white goldenrod. -Today being misplaced as against last year makes it seem better to have -white--Such is progress. Yet if there is to be a novel one must begin -somewhere. - -Words are not permanent unless the graphite be scraped up and put in a -tube or the ink lifted. Words progress into the ground. One must begin -with words if one is to write. But what then of smell? What then of the -hair on the trees or the golden brown cherries under the black cliffs. -What of the weakness of smiles that leave dimples as much as to say: -forgive me--I am slipping, slipping, slipping into nothing at all. Now -I am not what I was when the word was forming to say what I am. I sit so -on my bicycle and look at you greyly, dimpling because it is September -and I am older than I was. I have nothing to say this minute. I shall -never have anything to do unless there is progress, unless you write a -novel. But if you take me in your arms--why the bicycle will fall and it -will not be what it is now to smile greyly and a dimple is so deep--you -might fall in and never, never remember to write a word to say good-bye -to your cherries. For it is September. Begin with September. - -To progress from word to word is to suck a nipple. Imagine saying: My -dear, I am thirsty, will you let me have a little milk--This to love at -first sight. But who do you think I am, says white goldenrod? Of course -there is progress. Of course there are words. But I am thirsty, one -might add. Yes but I love you and besides I have no milk. Oh yes, that -is right. I forgot that we were speaking of words. Yet you cannot deny -that to have a novel one must have milk. Not at the beginning. Granted, -but at the end at least. Yes, yes, at the end. Progress from the mere -form to the substance. Yes, yes, in other words: milk. Milk is the -answer. - -But how have milk out of white goldenrod? Why, that was what the Indians -said. The bosom of the earth sprays up a girl balancing, balancing on a -bicycle. Rapidly she passes through the first--the second eight years. -Progress, you note. But September was rainy last year and how can it -ever be dry again unless one go back to the year before that. There are -no words. It cannot be any otherwise than as this is built the bosom of -the earth shrinks back; phosphates. Yet to have a novel--Oh catch up a -dozen good smelly names and find some reason for murder, it will do. But -can you not see, can you not taste, can you not smell, can you not hear, -can you not touch--words? It is words that must progress. Words, white -goldenrod, it is words you are made out of--THAT is why you want what -you haven't got. - -Progress is to get. But how can words get.--Let them get drunk. Bah. -Words are words. Fog of words. The car runs through it. The words take -up the smell of the car. Petrol. Face powder, arm pits, food-grease in -the hair, foul breath, clean musk. Words. Words cannot progress. There -cannot be a novel. Break the words. Words are indivisible crystals. One -cannot break them--Awu tsst grang splith gra pragh og bm--Yes, one can -break them. One can make words. Progress? If I make a word I make myself -into a word. Such is progress. I shall make myself into a word. One big -word. One big union. Such is progress. It is a novel. I begin small and -make myself into a big splurging word: I take life and make it into one -big blurb. I begin at my childhood. I begin at the beginning and make -one big--Bah. - -What difference is it whether I make the words or take the words. It -makes no difference whatever. - -There cannot be a novel. There can only be pyramids, pyramids of words, -tombs. Their warm breasts heave up and down calling for a head to -progress toward them, to fly onward, upon a word that was a pumpkin, now -a fairy chariot, and all the time the thing was rolling backward to the -time when one believed. Hans Anderson didn't believe. He had to pretend -to believe. It is a conspiracy against childhood. It runs backward. -Words are the reverse motion. Words are the flesh of yesterday. Words -roll, spin, flare up, rumble, trickle, foam--Slowly they lose momentum. -Slowly they cease to stir. At last they break up into their letters--Out -of them jumps the worm that was--His hairy feet tremble upon them. - -Leaving the meeting room where the Mosquito Extermination Commission had -been holding an important fall conference they walked out on to the -portico of the County Court House Annex where for a moment they remained -in the shadow cast by the moon. A fog had arisen in which the egg-shaped -white moon was fixed--so it seemed. They walked around the side of the -old-fashioned wooden building--constructed in the style of the fine -residences of sixty years ago and coming to the car he said: Go around -that side as I will have to get in here by the wheel. The seat was wet -with dew and cold--after the exceptionally hot day. They sat on it -nevertheless. The wind-shield was opaque with the water in minute -droplets on it--through which the moon shone with its inadequate light. -That is, our eyes being used to the sun the moon's light is inadequate -for us to see by. But certain bats and owls find it even too strong, -preferring the starlight. The stars also were out. - -Turning into the exit of the parking space he stopped the car and began -to wipe the wind-shield with his hand. Take this rag said the other, -with one hand already in his trowser pocket. So the glass was wiped on -both sides, the top and the bottom pane and the cloth--which looked a -good deal like a handkerchief--was returned to the owner--who put it -back where it came from not seeming to mind that it was wet and dirty. -But of course the man is a mechanic in a certain sense and doesn't care. - -On the highway they began to encounter the fog. It seemed in the rush of -the car to come and meet them. It came suddenly, with a rush and in a -moment nothing could be seen but the white billows of water crossed in -front by the flares of the headlights. And so it went all the way home, -sometimes clearer, sometimes so thick he had to stop, nearly--ending in -his own bed-room with his wife's head on the pillow in the perfectly -clear electric light. The light shone brightest on the corner of her -right eye, which was nearest it, also on the prominences of her face. - -Her right arm was under her head. She had been reading. The magazine -Vanity Fair, which he had bought thinking of her, lay open on the -coverlet. He looked at her and she at him. He smiled and she, from long -practice, began to read him, progressing rapidly until she said: You -can't fool me. - -He became very angry but understood at once that she had penetrated his -mystery, that she saw he was stealing in order to write words. She -smiled again knowingly. He became furious. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -[Illustration] - -I'm new, said she, I don't think you'll find my card here. You're new; how -interesting. Can you read the letters on that chart? Open your mouth. -Breathe. Do you have headaches? No. Ah, yes, you are new. I'm new, said -the oval moon at the bottom of the mist funnel, brightening and paling. -I don't think you'll find my card there. Open your mouth--Breathe--A -crater big enough to hold the land from New York to Philadelphia. New! -I'm new, said the quartz crystal on the parlor table--like glass--Mr. -Tiffany bought a cart load of them. Like water or white rock candy--I'm -new, said the mist rising from the duck pond, rising, curling, turning -under the moon--Unknown grasses asleep in the level mists, pieces of the -fog. Last night it was an ocean. Tonight trees. Already it is yesterday. -Turned into the wrong street seeking to pass the power house from which -the hum, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm--sprang. Electricity has been discovered for -ever. I'm new, says the great dynamo. I am progress. I make a word. -Listen! UMMMMMMMMMMMM-- - -Ummmmmmmmmm--Turned into the wrong street at three A.M. lost in the fog, -listening, searching--Waaaa! said the baby. I'm new. A boy! A what? Boy. -Shit, said the father of two other sons. Listen here. This is no place -to talk that way. What a word to use. I'm new, said the sudden word. - -The fog lay in deep masses on the roads at three A.M. Into the wrong -street turned the car seeking the high pitched singing tone of the -dynamos endlessly spinning in the high banquet hall, filling the house -and the room where the bed of pain stood with progress. Ow, ow! Oh help -me somebody! said she. UMMMMMM sang the dynamo in the next street, -UMMMM. With a terrible scream she drowned out its sound. He went to the -window to see if his car was still there, pulled the curtain aside, -green--Yes it was still there under the light where it would not be so -likely to be struck by other cars coming in the fog. There it was as -still as if it were asleep. Still as could be. Not a wheel moved. No -sound came from the engine. It stood there under the purple arc-light, -partly hidden by a pole which cast a shadow toward him in the masses of -floating vapor. He could see the redtail-light still burning brightly -with the electricity that came from the battery under the floor boards. -No one had stolen the spare tire. It was very late.--Well, said he, -dropping the shade and thinking that maybe when he was busy someone -might easily come up from the meadows and take the spare tire--Well, I -suppose I had better see how things have progressed. - -And so he backed out into the main street and turned up another block. -And there he saw. The great doors were open to full view of the world. A -great amphitheatre of mist lighted from the interior of the power house. -In rows sat the great black machines saying vrummmmmmmmmmmmm. Stately in -the great hall they sat and generated electricity to light the cellar -stairs with. To warm the pad on Mrs. Voorman's belly. To cook supper by -and iron Abie's pyjamas. Here was democracy. Here is progress--here is -the substance of words--UMMMMM: that is to say meat or linen or belly -ache.--Three A.M. To be exact twenty-eight minutes past three. - -And all this was yesterday--Yesterday and there at her window I saw her, -the lady of my dreams her long and sallow face, held heavily near the -glass, overlooking the street where the decayed-meat wagon passes and -the ice-cream cart rumbles with its great power and the complicated -affairs of the town twitter toward the open sewer in the meadows by the -Button Factory. Orange peel, tomato peel floating in a whitish, soapy -flow--Her face without expression, the lady I am dying for, her right -shoulder as high as her ear, the line of the shoulder sloping down -acutely to the neck, her left shoulder also raised so that her head -seemed to lie loose in a kind of saddle. - -Supreme in stupidity and a fog of waste, profit in what is left. Oh what -delectable morsel is left. Blessed hunchback, scum of loves weekly -praying in all churches--which by the way take up the very best sites in -the town. There she sat, her body low down below the window frame, only -her face showing, and looked at me dully, looked because I looked--and -my heart leaped up to her in passionate appeal that she should be my -queen and run with me over the foggy land--Forward--Onward and upward -forever. - -So saying the day had progressed toward the afternoon and under the -poplars the dried leaves had begun to collect. It had been unbearably -hot. September is a hot month. The leaves had fallen one by one. No -wind. One by one pushed off by the buds which swollen by the heat had -thought that winter was over. Off with you. You stand in the way of -progress, say the young leaves. Sitting on his chair he seemed like any -other man but to get to the bed he suddenly descended to the floor. On -his long arms--he Apollo, and using the stumps of his legs, apelike on -all fours and talking quietly he swung himself up over the edge of the -bed and lay down. - -Over the field--for the fog had left the grasses in the early morning -when the sun came up with majestic progression, haughtily leaving the -dropping city under him--over the field--for it was late in the -afternoon and the sunlight shone in with his poor broken legs, crippled -as he was--the sun shone in from the west. The car had turned in to the -wrong street and he had gone into the store where the paralysed -Scotchman whom he had never seen before put him on the way--climbing -into his bed sent his rays almost level over a patch of red grass hot -and blinding. Over the field the heat rose and in it even from a -distance due to the blur of light on their wings a great swarm of gnats -could be seen turning, twisting in the air, rising falling--over the -grass, fringed with the progressing sun. - -But with great sweeps and sudden turns a dozen dragon flies seeming -twice as large as they really were, from the sun blurring their -transparent wings, darted back and forth over the field catching and -eating the gnats. Swiftly the gnats progressed into the dragon flies, -swiftly coalescing--and from time to time a droplet of stuff fell from -the vent of a feeding dragon fly,--and the little sound of this stuff -striking the earth could not be heard with its true poetic force. Lost. -Lost in a complicated world. Except in the eyes of God. But a word, a -word rang true. Shit, said the father. With this name I thee christen: -he added under his breath. - -And yet--one must begin somewhere. - -Deeply religious, he walked into the back yard and watching lest the -children see him and want what they shouldn't have he approached the -grape vines. Selecting a bunch of Delawares he picked it with some -difficulty spilling a few of the fruit. Then he walked to the other side -and found some blue ones. These too he ate. Then some white which he ate -also one by one swallowing the pulp and the seeds and spitting out the -skins. He continued to eat but no word came to satisfy. - -Somehow a word must be found. He felt rather a weight in his belly from -eating so many grapes. He, himself that must die someday, he the deeply -religious friend of great men and women in incipience, he couldn't find -a word. Only words and words. He ate another bunch of the grapes. More -words. And never THE word. - -A novel must progress toward a word. Any word that--Any word. There is -an idea. - -His brother was ill. He must go home. The sun will soon be on the -Pacific coast. To bed, to bed--take off the clothes beginning on the -outside and working in. How would it be to take off the underwear first, -then the shirt-- - -Progress is dam foolishness.--It is a game. Either I have or--a thieves' -game. Hold me close, closer, close as you can. I can't hold you any -closer. I have been stealing. I should never touch anything. I should -never think of anything but you. I love another. It is a word. I have -left you alone to run wild with a girl. I would be tame. Lies flicker in -the sun. Visions beset noonday. Through the back window of the -shoe-shine parlor a mass of golden glow flashes in the heat. Come into -my heart while I am running--jumping from airplane to plane in mid-air. -I cannot stop: the word I am seeking is in your mouth--I cannot stop. -Hold me against-- - -You are wrong, wrong Alva N. Turner. It is deeper than you imagine. I -perceive that it may be permissible for a poet to write about a poetic -sweet-heart but never about a wife--should have said possible. It is not -possible. All men do the same. Dante be damned. Knew nothing at all. -Lied to himself all his life. Profited by his luck and never said -thanks. God pulled the lady up by the roots. Never even said thank you. -Quite wrong. Look what he produced. Page after page. Helped the world to -bread. Have another slice of bread Mr. Helseth. No thank you--Not hungry -tonight? Something on his mind. - -The word. Who. - -Liberate the words. You tie them. Poetic sweet-heart. Ugh. Poetic -sweet-heart. My dear Miss Word let me hold your W. I love you. Of all -the girls in school you alone are the one-- - -Dramatise myself make it sing together as if the world were a bird who -married to the same mate five years understood in the end transmigration -of souls. - -Nonsense. I am a writer and will never be anything else. In which case -it is impossible to find the word. But to have a novel one must progress -with the words. The words must become real, they must take the place of -wife and sweet-heart. They must be church--Wife. It must be your wife. -It must be a thing of adamant with the texture of wind. Wife. - -Am I a word? Words, words, words-- - -And approaching the end of the novel in his mind as he sat there with -his wife sleeping alone in the next room he could feel that something -unusual had happened. Something had grown up in his life dearer -than--It, as the end. The words from long practice had come to be -leaves, trees, the corners of his house--such was the end. He had -progressed leaving the others far behind him. Alone in that air with the -words of his brain he had breathed again the pure mountain air of -joy--there night after night in his poor room. And now he must leave -her. She the--He had written the last word and getting up he understood -the fog as it billowed before the lights. - -That which had been impossible for him at first had become possible. -Everything had been removed that other men had tied to the words to -secure them to themselves. Clean, clean he had taken each word and made -it new for himself so that at last it was new, free from the world for -himself--never to touch it--dreams of his babyhood--poetic sweet-heart. -No. He went in to his wife with exalted mind, his breath coming in -pleasant surges. I come to tell you that the book is finished. - -I have added a new chapter to the art of writing. I feel sincerely that -all they say of me is true, that I am truly a great man and a great -poet. - -What did you say, dear, I have been asleep? - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -[Illustration] - -It is Joyce with a difference. The difference being greater opacity, -less erudition, reduced power of perception--Si la sol fa mi re do. -Aside from that simple, rather stupid derivation, forced to a ridiculous -extreme. No excuse for this sort of thing. Amounts to a total occlusion -of intelligence. Substitution of something else. What? Well, nonsense. -Since you drive me to it. - -Take the improvisations: What the French reader would say is: _Oui, ça; -j'ai déjà vu ça; ça c'est de Rimbaud._ Finis. - -Representative American verse will be that which will appear new to the -French . . . . prose the same. - -Infertile Joyce laments the failure of his sterile pen. Siegfried Wagner -runs to his Mama crying: Mutti, Mutti, listen, I have just composed a -beautiful Cantata on a theme I discovered in one of father's operas. - -In other words it comes after Joyce, therefore it is no good, of no use -but a secondary local usefulness like the Madison Square Garden tower -copied from Seville--It is of no absolute good. It is not NEW. It is not -an invention. - -Invention, I want to buy you some clothes. Now what would you really -like to have? Let us pretend we have no intelligence whatever, that we -have read ALL there is to read and that Rimbaud has taught us nothing, -that Joyce has passed in a cloud, that, in short, we find nothing to do -but begin with Macaulay or King James, that all writing is forbidden us -save that which we recognise to be inadequate. NOW show your -originality, _mon ami_. NOW let me see what you can do with your vaunted -pen. - -Nothing could be easier. - -My invention this time, my dear, is that literature is a pure matter of -words. The moon making a false star of the weather vane on the steeple -makes also a word. You do not know the fine hairs on a hickory leaf? Try -one in the woods some time. You will grasp at once what I mean. - -But Joyce. He is misjudged, misunderstood. His vaunted invention is a -fragile fog. His method escapes him. He has not the slightest notion -what he is about. He is a priest, a roysterer of the spirit. He is an -epicurean of romance. His true genius flickers and fails: there's the -peak, there in the trees--For God's sake can't you see it! Not that tree -but the mass of rocks, that reddish mass of rocks, granite, with the sun -on it between that oak and the maple.--That is not an oak. Hell take it -what's the use of arguing with a botanist. - -But I will not have my toothpicks made of anything but maple. Mr. Joyce -will you see to it that my toothpicks are not made of anything but -maple? Irish maple. Damn it, it's for Ireland. Pick your teeth, God -knows you need to. The trouble with writing of the old style is that the -teeth don't fit. They were made for Irishmen--as a class. - -Tell me now, of what in your opinion does Mr. Joyce's art consist, since -you have gone so far as to criticise the teeth he makes?--Why, my dear, -his art consists of words. - -What then is his failure, O God.--His failure is when he mistakes his -art to be something else. - -What then does he mistake his art to be, Rosinante?--He mistakes it to -be several things in more or less certain rotation from botany--Oh well -it's a kind of botany you know--from botany to--to--litany. Do you know -his poetry? - -But you must not mistake his real, if hidden, service. He has in some -measure liberated words, freed them for their proper uses. He has to a -great measure destroyed what is known as "literature." For me as an -American it is his only important service. - -It would be a pity if the French failed to discover him for a decade or -so. Now wouldn't it? Think how literature would suffer. Yes think--think -how LITERATURE would suffer. - -At that the car jumped forward like a live thing. Up the steep board -incline into the garage it leaped--as well as a thing on four wheels -could leap--But with great dexterity he threw out the clutch with a -slight pressure of his left foot, just as the fore end of the car was -about to careen against a mass of old window screens at the garage end. -Then pressing with his right foot and grasping the hand-brake he brought -the machine to a halt--just in time--though it was no trick to him, he -having done it so often for the past ten years. - -It seemed glad to be at home in its own little house, the trusty -mechanism. The lights continued to flare intimately against the wooden -wall as much as to say: Here I am back again. The engine sighed and -stopped at the twist of the key governing the electric switch. Out went -the lights with another twist of the wrist. The owner groped his way to -the little door at the back and emerged into the moonlight, into the -fog, leaving his idle car behind him to its own thoughts. There it must -remain all night, requiring no food, no water to drink, nothing while -he, being a man, must live. His wife was at the window holding the shade -aside. - - -And what is good poetry made of -And what is good poetry made of -Of rats and snails and puppy-dog's tails -And that is what good poetry is made of - -And what is bad poetry made of -And what is bad poetry made of -Of sugar and spice and everything nice -That is what bad poetry is made of - - -_A Rebours_: Huysman puts it. My dear let us free ourselves from this -enslavement. We do not know how thoroughly we are bound. It must be a -new definition, it must cut us off from the rest. It is in a different -line. Good morning Boss said the old colored man working on the railroad -and started to sing: Jesus, Jesus I love you. It was Sunday, he was -working on the railroad on Sunday and had to put up some barrier. It is -an end to art temporarily. That upstart Luther. My God don't talk to me -of Luther, never changed his bed clothes for a year. Well, my dear, IT'S -COMING just the same. To hell with art. To hell with literature. The old -renaissance priests guarded art in their cloisters for three hundred -years or more. Sunk their teeth in it. The ONE solid thing. Don't blame -me if it went down with them. DOWN, you understand. Fist through the -middle of the rose window. You are horror struck. One word: Bing! One -accurate word and a shower of colored glass following it. Is it MY -fault? Ask the French if that is literature. - -Do you mean to say that art--O ha, ha. Do you mean to say that -art--O ha, ha. Well spit it out. Do you mean to say that art is -SERIOUS?--Yes. Do you mean to say that art does any WORK?--Yes. -Do you mean--? Revolution. Russia. Kropotkin. Farm, Factory and -Field.--CRRRRRRASH.--Down comes the world. There you are gentlemen, -I am an artist. - -What then would you say of the usual interpretation of the word -"literature"?--Permanence. A great army with its tail in antiquity. -Cliche of the soul: beauty. - -But can you have literature without beauty? It all depends on what you -mean by beauty. - -There is beauty in the bellow of the BLAST, etc. from all previous -significance.--To me beauty is purity. To me it is discovery, a race on -the ground. - -And for this you are willing to smash-- - -Yes, everything.--To go down into hell.--Well let's look. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -[Illustration] - -That's all very fine about _le mot juste_ but first the word must be -free.--But is there not some other way? It must come about gradually. -Why go down into hell when--Because words are not men, they have no -adjustments that need to be made. They are words. They can not be -anything but free or bound. Go about it any way you chose. - -The word is the thing. If it is smeared with colors from right and left -what can it amount to? - -I'd hate to have to live up there, she said with a frown. It was the -soul that spoke. In her words could be read the whole of democracy, the -entire life of the planet. It fell by chance on his ear but he was -ready, he was alert. - -And the little dusty car: There drawn up at the gutter was a great truck -painted green and red. Close to it passed the little runabout while -conscious desire surged in its breast. Yes there he was the great -powerful mechanism, all in his new paint against the gutter while she -rolled by and saw--The Polish woman in the clinic, yellow hair slicked -back. Neck, arms, breast, waist, hips, etc. This is THE thing--The small -mechanism went swiftly by the great truck with fluttering heart in the -hope, the secret hope that perhaps, somehow he would notice--HE, the -great truck in his massiveness and paint, that somehow he would come to -her. Oh I wouldn't like to live up there! - -FOG HOLDS UP LINERS say the head lines. It is a blackness, a choking -smother of dirty water in suspension.--You should have been here this -morning. You could look out and see nothing but a sea of cloud below us. -Right at our feet the fog began and stretched off as far as the eye -could perceive. - -Up out of the trees with a whirr started the sparrows. With a loud -clatter the grouse got up at his feet. The ground was full of mushrooms. -Everything, no matter what it is must be re-valuated. - -The red grass will soon open into feathers. - -Peter Broom, yes sah, my grandfather sah, the greatest man in Prince -George County. He had three hundred children. - -So many things, so many things: heat. - -What then are you trying to say in THIS chapter? And what of your quest -of THE word? What of A.N.T. ant? - -Why someone has offended Wells. He has retorted with NEO-ACADEMICIAN: -And: No new form of the novel required. Lack of substance always takes -the form of novelty mongering. Empire must be saved! Saved for the -proletariat. - -On the side of the great machine it read: Standard Motor Gasoline, in -capital letters. A great green tank was built upon the red chassis, FULL -of gas. The little car looked and her heart leaped with shy wonder. - -Save the words. Save the words from themselves. They are like children. -Young Men's Hebrew Association. Save them while they're still young. -Words must not be allowed to say, to do--Geld them. They are not REALLY -words they are geldings. Save the words. Yes, I repeat SAVE THE WORDS. -When Voronoff would have had words to transplant, interstitial words--he -said save the words. - -And what has anything Wells says to do with serious writing. FIRST let -the words be free. The words are men, therefore they are not men. They -cannot, must not, will not be mustered of the people, by the people, for -the people. They are words. They will have their way. - -Puh, puh, puh, puh! said the little car going up hill. But the great -green and red truck said nothing but continued to discharge its gasoline -into a tank buried in the ground near the gutter. - -And the fog had coalesced into rain. Rain to soak the firewood the boys -had left beside their old fire, like good scouts, for those to come -after and the great car continued to discharge. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -[Illustration] - -What then is a novel? _Un Novello_, pretty, pretty Baby. It is a thing -of fixed form. It is pure English. Yes, she is of Massachusetts stock. -Her great grandfather was thrown out of the Quaker church for joining -the Continental army. Hates the English. Her life is a novel--almost too -sensational. - -The story of Miss Li--so well told. - -_Qu'avez-vous vu_? Or they that write much and see little. Not much use -to us. - -Speak of old Sun Bow pacing his mesa instead of Felipe Segundo in the -barren halls of El Escorial--or asleep in his hard bed at one corner of -the griddle. - -My mother would have a little nigger boy come with a brush and sit at -her feet and brush her legs by the hour. - -Expressionism is to express skilfully the seething reactions of the -contemporary European consciousness. Cornucopia. In at the small end -and--blui! Kandinsky. - -But it's a fine thing. It is THE thing for the moment--in Europe. The -same sort of thing, reversed, in America has a water attachment to be -released with a button. That IS art. Everyone agrees that IS art. -Just as one uses a handkerchief. - -It is the apotheosis of relief. Dadaism in one of its prettiest modes: -_rien, rien, rien_.--But wait a bit. Maybe Dadaism is not so weak as one -might imagine.--One takes it for granted almost without a thought that -expressionism is the release of SOMETHING. Now then Aemilius, what is -European consciousness composed of?--Tell me in one word.--_Rien, rien, -rien_! It is at least very complicated. Oh very. - -You damned jackass. What do you know about Europe? Yes, what in Christ's -name do you know? Your mouth is a sewer, a cloaca. - -Complicated consciousness quite aside from a possible revaluation. It -has no value for ME. It is all very interesting and God knows we have -enough to learn. The swarming European consciousness. But there it is -much simpler--No good to us. - -Swarming European consciousness: Kreisler and Ysaye were the only ones -with any value. They had a few pennies over and above expenses. They -swarm here now for something to eat. But the funniest are the ones from -Russia; each excoriates the playing of the other and calls the other a -Sheeny. Wow! - -Really you are too naive. They are merely reacting to the American -atmosphere--It is their work that counts. And besides a virtuoso is not -really creative in any serious sense. Would a great artist, say -Kandinsky--? In any case it all seems to preoccupy you so, and in a book -about America, really-- - -Take their work. I resent it all. I hate every symphony, every opera as -much as a nigger should hate _Il Trovatore_. Not perhaps hate it in a -purely aesthetic sense but from under. It is an impertinence. Where in -God's name is our Alexander to cut, cut, cut, through this knot. - -Europe is nothing to us. Simply nothing. Their music is death to us. We -are starving--not dying--not dying mind you--but lean-bellied for words. -God I would like to see some man, some one of the singers step out in -the midst of some one of Aida's songs and scream like a puma. - -But you poor fellow, you use such inept figures. Aida has been dead -artistically in Munich for fifty years. - -Wagner then--Strauss. It is no difference to me. Tear it all apart. -Start with one note. One word. Chant it over and over forty different -ways. - -But it would be stupid-- - -It would, if it were what I mean--it would be accurate. It would -articulate with something. It would signify relief. Release I mean. It -would be the beginning. - -Do not imagine I do not see the necessity of learning from Europe--or -China but we will learn what we will, and never what they would teach -us. America is a mass of pulp, a jelly, a sensitive plate ready to take -whatever print you want to put on it--We have no art, no manners, no -intellect--we have nothing. We water at the eyes at our own stupidity. -We have only mass movement like a sea. But we are not a sea-- - -Europe we must--We have no words. Every word we get must be broken off -from the European mass. Every word we get placed over again by some -delicate hand. Piece by piece we must loosen what we want. What we will -have. Will they let it go? Hugh. - -I touch the words and they baffle me. I turn them over in my mind and -look at them but they mean little that is clean. They are plastered with -muck out of the cities.-- - -We must imitate the motivation and shun the result. - -We are very few to your many-- - -But what is all this but waste energy. - -No it is not. It is as near as I can come for the present to the word. -What good to talk to me of Santayana and your later critics. I brush -them aside. They do not apply. They do not reach me any more than a -baby's hand reaches the moon. I am far under them. I am less, far less -if you will. I am a beginner. I am an American. A United Stateser. Yes -its ugly, there is no word to say it better. I do not believe in -ugliness. I do not want to call myself a United Stateser but what -in--but what else am I? Ugliness is a horror to me but it is less -abhorrent than to be like you even in the most remote, the most minute -particular. For the moment I hate you, I hate your orchestras, your -libraries, your sciences, your yearly salons, your finely tuned -intelligences of all sorts. My intelligence is as finely tuned -as yours but it lives in hell, it is doomed to eternal--perhaps -eternal--shiftings after what? Oh to hell with Masters and the rest of -them. To hell with everything I have myself ever written. - -Here's a man wants me to revise, to put in order. My God what I am doing -means just the opposite from that. There is no revision, there can be no -revision-- - -Down came the rain with a crash. For five days it had been pending. With -a loud splash it seemed to strike the earth as if it were body meeting -body. The poplar leaves swirled and swirled. The gutters were wedged -with water. - -Oh fool you are thicker than rain drops. - -Give me to Moussorgsky. I am tired. Take me to the opera tonight and let -me see Nijinsky dance his _Til Eulenspiegel_ for I am tired to death -with looking for sense among American poets. Igor will retrieve my -courage. I could sit and listen in his lap for ever. Were not the -American Indians Mongols? Oh they must have been. Why could they not -have been Chinese? Why could not the early Emperors have discovered -America? Tell me, wet streets, what we are coming to, we in this -country? Are we doomed? Must we be another Europe or another Japan with -our coats copied from China, another bastard country in a world of -bastards? Is this our doom or will we ever amount to anything? - -Drown me in pictures like Marsden, make me a radical artist in the -conventional sense. Give me the intelligence of a Wells. God, Hueffer is -so far beyond him that what Wells says really sounds sensible. - -Must it be a civilization of fatigued spirits? Then give me Hueffer. My -God it is too disgusting. - -Great men of America! O very great men of America please lend me a penny -so I wont have to go to the opera. - -Why not capitalise Barnum--? - -_Bravo, bravo mon vieux_! A noble apostrophe to your country but don't -you realize that it is not a matter of country but the time--The time. - -For God's sake Charlie bring a lemon pie. - -So they lay in the little brook and let the cold water run up their bare -bellies. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -[Illustration] - -In spite of the moon in mid sky and the plaster of dully shining leaves -on the macadam and all the other signs of the approach of fine weather -there rang in his head: Such a cuddle muddle: Is that modern German -poetry? I never saw such a lot of things mixed together under one title. -These are modern times, Pa, airships and automobiles; you cover space-- - -And that's all right-- - -O America! Turn your head a little to the left please. So. Now are you -ready? Watch my hand. Now: _Lohengrin_ in ITALIAN, SUNG AT -MANHATTAN--San Carlo Company Revives Wagner Opera, with Anna Fitziu as -Elsa. - -Sweet kisses that come in the night--O argyrol! - -Rain, rain, for three days and three nights. - -In the night a cesura. Suddenly the fire bell begins to ring. I wake -with a start and hear the small boy calling from the next room. Eight -thousand people wake and count the strokes of the black bells. It is not -our signal. Someone has been set afire. The engines pass with a crash -and roar of the exhausts. Their siren whistles shriek with a fortissimo -rise and fall. In a thousand beds men of forty, women of thirty eight, -girls in their teens, boys tired from football practice and little boys -and girls down to babyhood wake and think the same thoughts. They listen -and count the number of strokes, and sink back saying to themselves: -Fire! Presently all but the few who are immediately affected are again -asleep. The fire has burnt itself out. Slowly the sun has been crossing -Europe and will soon appear fresh from the sea with his benison. The tie -of that black thought in the night will be broken. The opportunity will -be lost forever. Each will rise and dress and go out into the rain on -whatever errand the day has chosen for him. - -Rain all day long. The sun does not appear. The heat is suffocating. The -rattle of the torrent fills the ears. Water is everywhere. - -In the night a wind wakens. It comes from the south-west about midnight -and takes the trees by their heavy leaves twisting them until they -crack. With a roar the wind batters at the houses, shaking them as if it -were a heavy hand. And again for the second night running eight thousand -men and women and boys and girls wake and listen or get up to close -windows and to look out at the trees leaning with snapping branches, -tossing and seething with a sound of escaping steam. It has grown cold. -Pull up the covers. It has grown cold. Sixteen thousand hands have drawn -the covers closer about the bodies. The wind is cold. - -The sun has come back. The air is washed clean. Leaves lie plastered -upon the streets, against the tree trunks, upon the very house sides. -The bird bath is filled to overflowing. A lame man is hurrying for the -train. - -They had talked for hours. The new project was beginning to take form. -It was the evening of the second day. There stood the train puffing out -great volumes of dense smoke which no sooner arose than it was caught in -the wind and sent flying out ahead of the train. I wish to God I were on -that train wherever it might be going. Oh well, remarked the younger man -and said good-bye, which is what it is to be a man. - -He was too old, remarked the voice in the room next to the one in which -the woman was lying, he never should have gone out in that rain. Too -cold! At times it seems possible, even now. She took the hair between -her thumb and index finger of the right hand and using her left hand -swiftly stroked the little hair strands back toward the head to make it -stand out. Ratting it, I told her. It ruins the hair. Oh well I haven't -much left, it might as well be broken. - -She wore blue stockings under a very quiet dress but the world has not -beheld a more maddening spectacle. Devoted to the art of writing, he -read with his mind watching her and his mind in the sky seeking, seeking -some earth to stand on when the boys were tearing up the soggy turf -with their cleats. What to do? There it is. The wind hesitated whether -or not to impregnate her. So many things were to be considered. In the -years since his passage over Ponce de Leon's soldiers on the beach--the -wind footloose, gnawing the leaves had witnessed flying footballs that -it had blown out of bounds. He had not a word to stand on, yet he stood, -not knowing why. Fear clutched his heart. Visions of uprooted trees -passed over his heart as he shook her heavy skirt about her knees. But -she, oblivious to it all, walked with downcast eyes--looking at her feet -or smiling pleasantly at one here and there in the crowd that was -shouting and pressing to see the players. - -In the night all nature was asleep as she lay with her young cheek -pressed against her pillow and slept. The boys tossed and turned from -the stiffness in their joints and from the bruises received in the game. -But she lay quiet and asleep, the breath coming slowly in regular flow -from her hollow nostrils moving them slightly back and forth. - -Under the covers her young form could be made out, the left shoulder, -the hips and the legs and feet, the left knee slightly bent and fallen -to the mattress before the other. Not a sound in the room for a million -years. Still she lay there asleep.--The wind has turned into hail. - -Spring flowers are blossoming in the wind. There is the tulip, the -jonquil and the violet--for it is September and no man shall know his -defeat. So there are spring flowers that grew up through the ice that -will be present later. It is of ice that they have made the flowers. - -Yet sometimes it seems that it would still be possible. And this is -romance: to believe that which is unbelievable. This is faith: to desire -that which is never to be obtained, to ride like a swallow on the -wind--apparently for the pleasure of flight. - -The swallow's bill is constructed in such a way that in flying with his -mouth open tiny insects that enter are ensnared in hairlike gills so -that he is fed. - -Here are a pretty pair of legs in blue stockings, feed. Yet without the -thought of a possible achievement that would make it possible to command -the achievement of certain--The boys kick the ball and pay no attention. -The boys kick the ball up into the wind and the wind hurriedly writes a -love note upon it: Meet me tonight. Say you are going to the Library and -I will have my car at the corner of Fern Street. I have something to -tell you. There is one word you must hear: YOU. - -There is one word you must hear. It will come out at my lips and enter -in at your ears. It might be written with letters on white paper but it -is a word that I want you to have out of the lips into your ear. And she -answers: I will be there. So he does not keep his appointment. Off he -goes in search of a word. - -But she goes home and weeps her eyes out. Her pillow is wet with her -tears-- - -What do you think! He has left his wife, and a child in the high school -has been ill a week, weeping her eyes out and murmuring his name. Is it -not terrible? - -It is the wind! The wind is in the poplars twiddling the fading leaves -between his fingers idly and thinking, thinking of the words he will -make, new words to be written on white paper but never to be spoken by -the lips to pass into her ear. - -Quietly he goes home to his wife and taking her by the shoulder wakes -her: Here I am. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -[Illustration] - -Nuevo Mundo! shouted the sailors. The sea was rippling like the bottom -of a woven grassrope chair. A new world! Taking out their finest satins -and putting on new armor the commanders of the little party ordered -boats to be made ready and the royal standards of Aragon and Castile to -be taken into men meanwhile feeling the balmy air and seeing green and a -shore for the first time in two months were greedily talking of fresh -fruit--after their monotonous and meager diet of meat--of milk, of a -chance to walk free in the air, to escape their commanders, and of -women. Yes perhaps there would be women, beautiful savages of manifold -charms. But most of all they were filled with the wild joy of release -from torment of the mind. For not one among them but expected to be -eaten by a god or a monster long since or to have been boiled alive by -a hypertropical sea. Excitedly they went down the ladders and took their -places at the words of the boatswain spoken in the Castilian tongue. - -Of Columbus' small talk on that occasion nothing remains but it could -not have been of Eric the Discoverer. Nor of the parties of Asiatics and -Islanders--Pacific Islanders who had in other ages peopled the -continents from the east. No matter: _Nuevo Mundo_! had shouted the -sailors and _Nuevo Mundo_ it was sure enough as they found out as soon -as they had set foot on it and Columbus had kneeled and said prayers and -the priest had spoken his rigmarole in the name of Christ and the land -was finally declared taken over for Ferdinand and Isabella the far -distant king and queen. - -Yes it was indeed a new world. They the product of an age-long -civilization beginning in India, it is said, and growing through -conquest and struggle of all imaginable sorts through periods of success -and decline, through ages of walkings to and fro in the fields and woods -and the streets of cities that were without walls and had walls and -burst their walk and became ruins again; through the changes of speech: -Sanscrit, Greek, Latin growing crooked in the mouths of peasants who -would rise and impose their speech on their masters, and on divisions, -in the state and savage colonial influences, words accurate to the -country, Italian, French and Spanish itself not to speak of Portuguese. -Words! Yes this party of sailors, men of the sea, brothers of a most -ancient guild, ambassadors of all the ages that had gone before them, -had indeed found a new world, a world, that is, that knew nothing about -them, on which the foot of a white man had never made a mark such as -theirs were then making on the white sand under the palms. _Nuevo -Mundo_! - -The children released from school lay in the gutter and covered -themselves with the fallen poplar leaves.--A new world! All summer the -leaves had been thick on the branches but now after the heat and the -rain and the wind the branches were beginning to be bare. More sky -appeared to their eyes than ever before. With what relief the children -had pranced in the wind! Now they lay half covered in the leaves and -enjoying the warmth looked out on the new world. - -And he was passing and saw them. And wondered if it were too late to be -Eric. What a new world they had made of it with their Cortezes, their -Pizarros yes and their Lord Howes, their Washingtons even. The -Declaration of Independence. I wonder, he said, whether it could be -possible that the influence of the climate--I wonder if the seed, the -sperm of that, existed in Columbus. Was it authentic? Is there a word -to be found there? Could it be that in those men who had crossed, in the -Norse as; well as the Mongols, something, spontaneous could not have -been implanted out of the air? Or was the declaration to be put to the -credit of that German George? Was it only the result of local -conditions? - -"A new declaration of independence, signed by Columbus, found in Porto -Rico." - -Indians in any case, pale yellow and with lank black hair came to the -edge of the bushes and stared: The Yaquis territory lay north of the -river Fuertes. To the south was Carrancista territory. The valley was, -fertile, the Indians wanted it. - -During the week of November 13th, 17th, 1916--word reached Los Mochis -that Gen. Banderas and the Villistas from Chihuahua had been defeated by -the Carrancistas near Fuertes and were in retreat. During this week two -Indians were captured by Los Mochis police and hung on willow trees -below the Jaula. - -On Saturday November 13th, Col. Escobar and his Carrancistas of the -Fifth regiment of Sinaloa were withdrawn from Los Mochis and Aguila and -concentrated in San Blas. Banderas and his Villistas meanwhile had come -down the Fuertes, effected a junction with Bacomo and his Mayo Indians, -and Monday night crossed the river above Los Tastos, tore out the -telephone at the pumps and started for Los Mochis. All gate keepers -encountered on the road were killed as were their families. Mr. Wilcox -estimated the combined forces participating in the raid and on the other -side of the river at 6,000. - -The first intimation of the raid was at one o'clock in the morning of -Tuesday when with a "_Villa! Vive Villa! Vive Villa_!" the raiders -swarmed into Los Mochis from three sides, shooting cursing as they -galloped into town. From all over the town came the sound of smashing -doors and windows, shots, yells and screams. - -When I came here the Indians all used bows and arrows. Conscripted -during the many revolutions they had deserted with their rifles until at -last, after 800 of them, in a body, went over they used the rifle -extensively. Wilcox lived at the pumps with his wife and daughter. A -cocky Englishman, he poopooed the danger. He had been in the habit of -telephoning into the town, seven miles, whenever a raid was coming. It -was agreed we Americans were to keep to our houses, take our animals off -the roads and wait with more or less excitement until it was over. We -never notified the Mexicans. Had we done so once we should not have -escaped the next raid. This time the Villistas were with the Indians. As -you saw the first thing they did was to rip out the wires. Washington -had just accepted Carranza as the power in authority and the Villistas -were angry. - -Wilcox and his wife and daughter were locked in a room all the first -night while Banderas and Bacomo argued over their fate. Banderas was for -killing Wilcox and taking over his wife and daughter for camp women. But -the Indian stood out against him. It seems Wilcox had at one time given -the Indians some sacks of beans when they were hard up for food. They -remembered this. It was a good thing for the three. - -At a previous raid an American engineer living near Wilcox was found -dead. He was supposed to have run. Looked just like a pin-cushion, with -the feathered arrows that were in him. Funniest thing you ever saw in -your life. There were four bullets in him also. - -The Americans were too scattered to resist. It was decided to save the -few guns by hiding them. Bacomo rode up to the house with his -escort,--ordered to give up all guns and cartridges. At the last moment -he turned back from the stairs, entered Mrs. Johnson's room where the -ladies were sitting on the beds and ordered them to get up. Under the -mattress a miscellaneous collection of riot guns, rifles, shot guns, -automatics, pistols and cartridges were found. When all the guns and -cartridges to the last shell had been loaded on the horses behind the -drunken soldiers Bacomo refused C.'s request for one of the riot guns -and with a polite bow and a "_Con permiso, senores_," he rode off. - -In Mr. Johnson's cellar they had found all sorts of bottles from Scotch -to German _Scheiswasser_ and had drunk it all indiscriminately. - -Cattle had eaten the standing rice. The pigs had got loose and over-run -everything. Returning there were corpses on all sides. About one of -these a triple battle raged. The pigs were ranged on one side, the dogs -on another and from a third a flock of vultures crept up from time to -time. The pigs and dogs would make a united rush at the birds who would -fly a few feet into the air and settle a yard or so away. - -These pictures are of Bacomo taken a year later just as he was being -taken from the train by his captors. He was a physical wreck at the time -but at the time of the raid he was a magnificent specimen of a man. It -seemed there was some silver buried near Los Mochis which they wanted. -He would not disclose its whereabouts unless they freed him and they -would not free him unless he spoke first. - -The end is shown in this picture. Here he is with the pick and spade at -his feet surrounded by the Carrancista soldiers. He dug his grave and -was shot and they buried him there. - -The Indians have made a local saint of him and every night you will see -candles burning on the spot and little plates of rice and other food -placed there for his spirit.-- - -For a moment Columbus stood as if spell-bound by the fact of this new -country. Soon however he regained his self-possession and with Alonzo -Pinzon ordered the trunks of trifles to be opened which, being opened, -the Indians drew near in wonder and began to try to communicate with -these gods. - -It was indeed a new world. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -[Illustration] - -No man can tell the truth and survive--save through prestige. And no -child either. Aristocracy is license to tell the truth. And to hear it. -Witness the man William in Henry Fifth, the camp incident. Fear clutched -at his heart. - -Agh-ha-ha! Shouted the _vaqueros_ plunging their spurs into the -bronchos' sides. Up with the heels. Buck, buck, buck. Agh-ha-ha! -_Fortissimo_. The wild and unexpected cry out of the Mexican Indian -country rang through the quiet house so that the pup leaped up and -rushed to the door. - -Someone had taken the apple. Both denied they had had a hand in it. Each -accused the other. The truth did not appear. For an hour the man tried -his best to arrive at a just decision. Joseph Smith shook where he stood -and fell frothing at the mouth. He was of Vermont mountain stock. His -birth among the poor white trash there had not even been thought worth -recording. Yet a vision came to him of the marriage in Cana. Christ -drank the wine and Martha and Mary her sister became his wives--so to -speak. It is the truth. The world shall be saved anew, said Joseph Smith -in the mountains of Vermont--where the mushrooms are so plentiful among -the fir trees. - -Who had given the boy the apple against the father's express orders? Had -he taken it himself--which he denied or had the girl gone into the store -room--as he asserted but which she denied--and selected it herself? -Where was the truth? - -In Illinois Brigham Young was recruited. Off they set with fifty oxen -for the Promised Land away over the prairies and deserts--through the -Sioux country, in search of Zion. The whole world they would leave -behind and for the truth's sake they would live in that far country--to -be discovered, to which the Lord would lead them. - -Go upstairs sir and take your clothes off. You shall go to bed for this -lie--I'll say I took the apple Daddy, said the boy sobbing violently, -but she gave it to me. In minute detail he repeated the story of how the -apple was picked out of the basket by the girl and handed to him to eat. - -Lions of the Lord. The boy would not give up his bride to Brigham and -was _altered_, as a rebel. She went mad. In '49 a party of gold seekers -came by accident into the valley they had found. They were gently -received. A warning was given of hostile Indians and a special guard was -appointed to conduct them safely on their way. But Brigham had had a -dream. Men must not wander into the valley of Zion to disturb the ways -of God's holy ones. A blood sacrifice had been demanded of Brigham by -the Lord. John D. Lee was selected as he who must lend himself to the -Almighty will of God for the good of the church and state. Slowly the -party of gold seekers departed for California. At the narrow defile at -Mountain Meadow the treacherous business was performed. All but a child -were killed and Brigham and the Lord were revenged. Later John D. Lee -was convicted of murder by government authorities and shot. A poor -ignorant tool in the hands of that most mighty Lion of the Lord. - -And you my girl. You have lied to me before this. Did you or did you not -take the apple? No one will be punished but I must have the truth. -Tomorrow is Sunday. You shall go to church, and up to the minister you -shall march, and he will ask you what I am asking you now. In the face -of God you shall say to him that you did not take that apple, then I -shall know. Did you or did you not take that apple? I will have the -truth. And you my young sir, I shall not punish you but I must have the -truth. You shall stay in bed all day tomorrow, all next week as long as -it takes for one of you to change your story. I will have the truth. - -The mountains are savage about the valley. The lake is bitter, scalding -with the salt. They knew they had found the Dead Sea. At last the child -confessed, with bitter and hard tears that he had taken the fruit -himself. It was the truth. - -Clear and cold the moon shone in the partly denuded poplars. It was -midnight and the little fellow to whom he had determined to teach the -meaning of the truth was snug in his bed. Years before that Utah had -been admitted to the Union as a state and polygamy had been more or less -abandoned. The young folk were beginning to be ashamed of the narrowness -of their cult and the bones of the fathers were rotten. - -The glassy half moon in the dark leaves cast a dull light over the world -upon which a calm had descended. Suddenly the pleiades could be heard -talking together in Phœnician. Their words were clear as dropping -water: What things they do in this new world: they said. Let us from now -on swear to each other that we will give up every thought of wisdom and -seek no further for the truth--which is, after all a veritable moon.--At -this the moon was overcast for a moment by a falling leaf. The answer -that came from that clear but broken ball rose slowly toward the stars: -The child is asleep. Let us warn him of the folly of words. Let us bless -him only with words that change often and never stiffen nor remain to -form sentences of seven parts. To him I send a message of words like -running water.--At this the stars smiled for they were married to one-- - -_Elena, yo soy un_ wonder, she would say. _Vu par le jury_. And who is -the jury but myself. The boy had struck her with a stone. Come we shall -go and apologise, said Brigham Young. Into the neighbour's kitchen they -walked. An older sister was cleaning the gas range. Where is your -sister? But the truth is that all the while he had been hoping that just -what had happened would happen. His eye ran up and down the girl's form. -Secretly he was happy to have found her alone. I'm sorry, I will never -do it again, Never again. Never again. Oh never, never again. - -And how can I, now that it is all over, and I am old? But at first I -tell you I cried my eyes out. I had just been admitted to the Beaux -Arts. All was as near perfect as could well be. I had the friendship of -La Baronne d'Orsay and then the stars withdrew their aid. I had to go -back to Porto Rico. I had to leave everything behind to go back to that -country where there was nothing. - -There life ended. But it is over now. I was just beginning to do things. -I tell you I cried my eyes out. But I am old now. I wanted you to see -these drawings, to show you it was not a bluff. - -The Indians are gone. It is late now. It is cold. September is over. -October is cold. Words should be--Words should be--I am tired to death. - -But two enormous women, middle aged, dignified, with still broad backs -came down the street just as the very dirty little boy was crossing -over. The three arrived at the entrance to the path at the same moment. -The women looked hard at the filthy little boy whose face was stickily -from apple-juice and black, with a great circle of dirt around the -mouth. The women looked and the little boy hung his head and stumbled -off into the long grass, almost falling into the abandoned foundation. - -And so the little company went on foot 20,000 miles along what later -became known as Emigration Trail, overcoming incredible obstacles, -eating the draught oxen, through savage mountains on, on to the Mountain -Meadow Massacre. For they would worship the Lord their God in peace and -in their own way. At last the Mayflower was in the harbor and the -pilgrims had landed and dispersed. - -Yes, it was a New World. - -But they have prospered and today the Mormon Church is all for goodness -and it is powerful and rich. - -A favorite trick of the Mayo Indians is, if they meet a man with good -clothes, to take what they want and let him go on in his drawers. - -So it was with infinite satisfaction that on looking up the little boy -saw those two terrible viragos suddenly as low as he. _Nuevo Mundo_. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -[Illustration] - -Calang-glang! Calang-glang! went the bells of the little Episcopal -Church at Allandale. It was eight o'clock in the evening. A row of cars -stood along the curb, each with its headlights lit, but dimmed so as not -to make too much of a glare on the road, at the same time to save the -battery while complying with the law! - -On sped the little family all crowded into one seat, the two children -sleeping. - -In the Dutch church on the old Paramus Road Aaron Burr was married to -Mrs. Prevost, Jataqua! It is near Hohokus, cleft-in-the-rocks, where the -Leni Lenapes of the Delaware nation had their village from time -immemorial. Aaron, my darling, life begins anew! It is a new start. Let -us look forward staunchly together-- - -The long, palm-like leaves of the ailantus trees moved slowly up and -down in the little wind, up and down. - -And along this road came the British. Aaron, the youth from Princeton, -gathered his command together and drove them back. Mother I cannot sleep -in this bed, it is full of _British soldiers_. Why so it is! How horrid. - -And he too, on his memorable retreat, that excellent judge of -horseflesh, George Washington, he too had passed over this road; and -these trees, the oldest of them, had witnessed him. And now the wind has -torn the finest of them in half. - -Nothing more wonderful than to see the pears attached by their stems to -the trees. Earth, trunk, branch, twig and the fruit: a circle soon to be -completed when the pear falls. They had left at eleven and soon they -would be home. The little car purred pleasantly to itself at the thought -of the long night. Oh, to be a woman, thought the speeding mechanism. -For they had wrapped something or other in a piece of newspaper and -placed it under the seat and there were pictures there of girls--or -grown women it might be, in very short skirts. Steadily the wheels spun -while on the paper were printed these words: - -The Perfection of Pisek-designed Personality Modes: A distinctly forward -move in the realm of fashion is suggested by the new personality modes, -designed by Pisek... modes that are genuine inspirations of individual -styling, created for meeting the personal preferences of a fastidiously -fashionable clientele, the woman and the miss who seek personality in -dress in keeping with their charms, characteristics and station . . . -Thus you can expect at Pisek's only those _tailleurs_, gowns, wraps and -frocks that bear the unmistakable stamp of individuality--styles that -encourage and inspire admiration for their splendid simplicity and -differentness... come to Pisek's . . . (the more the better) . . . see -the new ideas in fashions . . . You'll not be disappointed . . . - -What chit of a girl could have appreciated you, my darling boy, as I do. -A man of your personality, so fresh in wit, so brimming with vigor and -new ideas. Aaron my dear, dear boy, life has not yet begun. All is new -and untouched in the world waiting, like the pear on the tree, for you -to pluck it. Everyone loves you and will wait on you. For you everything -is possible. Bing! and Hamilton lies dead. - -As old Mr. Goss, who lost his hearing from an explosion of fireworks in -Philadelphia after Lee's defeat, has said in his high nasal twang: Quite -right, quite right, I've seen the country saved 8 times in the last -fifty years. - -At any rate it was a new world to them; they two together would conquer -and use, life had smiled upon them. _Nuevo Mundo_. - -Along the road the Dutch settlers came out from their attractive brown -stone houses as the happy and distinguished couple went by. It was a -great day for the little colony of New Jersey. There over the misty -meadows the lights of Weehawken were beginning to glimmer as the little -car and its precious freight drew near the end of the journey. The pear -fell to the earth and was eaten by the pigs. - -I wonder if he'll recognise me in my Greenwich Village honkie-tonk -bobbed hair. The hairdresser said: Don't you do it, when I said I'd like -mine bobbed too. So many of the girls had theirs done a year ago and now -its just at that impossible stage where you can't do a thing with it. -Better go to Europe or California until it grows again. There's a reason -for travel: As the hair progresses the days grow fewer. - -But is South Africa after all the country of the future? - -Over the great spaces of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana he sped -in the Pullman car. City after city swept up to him, paused awhile at -his elbow and plunged away to the rear with the motion of a wheel whose -hub was hidden in infinity. And such indeed was exactly the case. He was -being ground between two wheels, one on either side of the car and it -was their turning that thrust him forward at such speed. The wheat was -up in the fields but a fellow passenger assured him that in Kansas, only -two days before, he had seen wheat twice as high--which explains the -cause of so many abandoned farms in Vermont, he remembered, and settled -back to another hour of idle staring. A new country he kept saying to -himself. On a siding were cars loaded with emigrants from Holland booked -through to San Francisco. - -Into the elevator stepped the young man in a petty officer's uniform. -His Spanish was exquisite to hear. The first battleship since the -Spanish-American war was anchored in New York harbor. How well he bears -himself. The Spanish are the only people in Europe whom civilization has -not ruined. Savage men, big bearded chins--but shaved clean. They know -how to treat their women--better than the French for the French--after -all are _blagueurs_ to a man. The Spanish stand still. What an ass a man -will make of himself in a strange country! In armor De Soto wandering -haphazard over Alabama. The Seminoles for guides. Buried him in the -Mississippi. It is my river, he said. Roll Jordan roll. It is _my_ river -for I discovered it and into it let my body, in full armor, be put to -rest. The cat-fish ate it. So roll Jordan roll. Diada Daughter of -Discord: read it. - -In Illinois, far in the west, over that trackless waste of forest and -mountain and river and lake they came at last to a valley that pleased -them and there they determined to build. So they fell to hewing trees -and building their houses, work to which they had been bred and trained -for two generations since Plymouth and Salem days. Cornwallis had been -beaten fifty years before and Pitt had rushed to see the King crying: -All is lost. A new world had been born. Here in the primeval forest the -little colony of New Englanders hoped to realize success and plenty. - -In Bonnie, Illinois, the Presbyterian minister is a very good man. He is -as good a preacher as Bonnie can afford and if anybody said that Bonnie -is made up of mad-men--He would be shot. _Nuevo Mundo_, shouted the -sailors. But their cry was by now almost extinct. - -In polite stories the world had been made acquainted with the -picturesque lives of these commonplace but worthy people. In detail -their story had been told. Over the precipice in Yosemite the Bridal -Veil Falls had been launching its water for a thousand years and -ignorance was fattening his belly apace. - -Bonnie, Ill., October 22. Dear Bill: Am up to my ears in painting, and -am preparing to go to Alton, Ill., to work in the State Hospital, if I -get a call, so am too busy now to read your book but think I'm going to -like it and will devour it later. Sincerely. A. N. Turner. - -And the little boy crept into the great chest like Peppo into the -Cardinal's tomb and began to pick up the mothballs that had been left -there when the winter things were removed. - -An Indian would sense the facts as he wished. A tree would speak to him -with a definite identity. It would not at least seem endowed with human -characteristics: a voice, that would be all. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -[Illustration] - -Arnold, this wind is, the wise and sagacious captain. Henchman of the -wind. The wind is a lion with hooked teeth. The saber-toothed tiger -inhabited the region west of the Alleganies throughout the pleistocene -age. With a snarl it wrenches the limbs of the trees from their places -and tosses them to earth where they lie with the leaves still -fluttering. - -Vacuous; full of wind. Her whole pelvis is full of intestine but aside -from the ptosis I find nothing really wrong. The uterus appears to be -normal. The bleeding may come from a cyst. At least there is no good -reason for removing--for a hysterectomy. There it is. It. Like some -tropical fruit color of the skunk cabbage flower. There it is, that -mystical pear, glistening with the peritoneum. Here the cavern of all -caverns. Alpha if not omega. Talk politely and obey the law. But do not -remove it. - -Oh my country. Shall it be a hysterectomy? Arnold there is a wind with a -knife's edge. - -And Remy says the spring of curiosity is broken at thirty. Nothing left -at fifty but the facts of bed and table. He has the lilt of Heine at his -best and in places quite equals the work of the author of Danny Deever. -The catgut had slipped out of the needle. The young interne held the -point of the suture between his fingers and the nurse approached the -needle as accurately as she could. But the man's hand trembled slightly. -For a moment they tried to complete the connection but failing in their -attempt the nurse took the end in her other hand and soon had the needle -threaded. The young doctor looked up as much as to say thank you. - -Such a wind. At fifteen they seem noble, desirable beyond dreams. In the -winter the trees at least remain stems of wood that resist with a will, -whose branches rebound against the impact of sleet. At thirty they are -what they are. The boy rebels and she with her hair in distressed -tangles about the disorderly boudoir cap, at mid-day, whines and -snatches at him as he jerks and defies her. It is beyond her strength to -control a boy of nine. Clutching her dressing sack--oh slobbery -morsel--about her breastless form with one hand she rushes as far as she -dares to the porch edge, glancing furtively about for chance gentlemen -or neighbors and tries to overtake the youngster. No, the young man has -really escaped. He goes to school filthy again and what will they think -of his mother. - -At fifteen they are slender and coquettish and they cry if you are rough -with them. Great burly fellow, she seemed to him all that he was not, -the quintessence of Ibsenism, the wind among the reeds. Or perhaps the -reed in the wind. Something to love, to take into the arms, to -protect--If you can find any reason for doing a hysterectomy doctor, do -it. Her husband is good for nothing at all. She at least is a power in -her family. She is not like the native American women of her class, she -is a Polock. You never saw such courage. - -The schooner left Southampton bound for New York with a cargo of -rails--steel rails. But the English emigrants were not like these modern -messes. Those round, expressionless peasant faces of today. See that one -there with the little boy at her side. Castle Garden. At last we are to -be in America, where gold is in the streets. Look at that face. That is -the kind of immigration we want. Look at the power in that jaw. Look at -that nose. She is one who will give two for every stroke she has to -take. Look at the intensity of her gaze. Well, she's English, that's the -reason. Nowadays they have no more of that sort. These Jews and Polocks, -Sicilians and Greeks. Goodbye America! - -The head nurse's legs under her practical short skirt were like mighty -columns. They held the seriousness of her looks, her steady, able hands. -A fine woman. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -[Illustration] - -The American background is America. If there is to be a new world Europe -must not invade us. It is not a matter of changing the y to i as in -Chile. They are bound. - -The background of America is not Europe but America. - -_Eh bien mon vieux coco_, this stuff that you have been writing today, -do you mean that you are attempting to set down the American background? -You will go mad. Why? Because you are trying to do nothing at all. The -American background? It is Europe. It can be nothing else. Your very -method proves what I say. You have no notion what you are going to write -from one word to the other. It is madness. You call this the background -of American life? Madness? - -As far as I have gone it is accurate. - -It is painting the wind. - -Ah, that would be something. - -_Mais ça_, are you a plain imbecile? That is a game for children. Why -do you not do as so many of your good writers do? Your Edgar Lee -Masters, your Winesburg, Ohio. Have you not seen the photographs of men -and women on your walls? They are a type, as distinct as a Frenchman or -a German. Study these men, know their lives. You have a real work to do, -you have the talent, the opportunity even. This is your work in life. -You Americans, you are wasteful, mad-- - -Our background. - -You would paint the wind. Well, it has been tried--many times, and do -you know where that leads? - -I know where it has led. - -But do you know? Have you seen, felt, heard what they have seen, felt, -heard, our Villons-- - -Apollo was out of breath but the nymph was more tired than he. The chase -must soon have ended when she falling to her knees half from the will to -be there half from fatigue besought her mistress Diana to save her from -the God's desire. And she was changed into a laurel bush. - -All about the hills where they stood the hard waxen leaves of the laurel -glistened above the dead leaves of the hardwood trees, the beech, the -maple, the oak. - -You imagine I am French because I attack you from the continental -viewpoint. You are wrong. I am from the country of your friends -Mussorgsky, Dostoevsky, Chekov. At least if you will not yield me the -point that America cannot be new, cannot do anything unless she takes -the great heritage which men of all nations and ages have left to the -human race. - -You mean that I should not be an American but--Turgenev, enjoy you more -if, well, if you were more comprehensible, a little more particular, -_vous comprenez_? You sweep out your arms, you--I see no faces, no -details of the life, no new shape-- - -The druggist's boy cannot be distinguished from his master when he says, -Hello, over the phone--Is that what you mean? - -Well, you are very much children, you Americans. - -It is not to be avoided as far as I can see. - -Let us have now a beginning of composition. We have had enough of your -improvisations. - -I am consumed by my lusts. No American can imagine the hunger I have. - -It is the itch, monsieur. It is neurasthenia. Desire is not a thing to -speak of as if it were a matter of filling the stomach. It is wind, gas. -You are empty my friend. Eat. Then and then only. - -Like all men save perhaps the Chinese you are most transparent when you -imagine yourself most protected. - -Her bosom reached almost to her knees. That morning in the October -garden she had picked a violet for him and placed it in his coat. -Watching the feet of men and women as they touched the pavement a strong -odor of violets crossed his path. - -He turned and saw the massive Jewess waddling by. It had been good -perfume too. - -These Polocks. Their heads have no occiput. They are flat behind. It is -why when they put on their American hats the things slip down about -their ears. The nigger's head isn't that way. You know how the bump goes -out behind in so many of them. The club sandwich on her plate kept -sliding apart, the top slice of bread would slip. Then she took the -pieces in her fingers and poked the lettuce in under the sheet. On her -breast was a black pin. It formed a circle. She looked up with her mouth -full of food and resting both elbows on the table chewed America -thoughtfully while she held the state of Maryland in her firm fingers. -The ends of each finger were stubby, the nails cut short and as clean as -well manicured nails could well be. Clatter, clatter, clatter. He could -see himself in the plate glass behind her. He was conscious of his hat -which he had not removed. He was at this table with these five -women--one of them young, ready--and he had not removed his hat. There -was in fact no place to put it. - -I am begging, frankly. Ten cents a ticket. I have to raise fifty dollars -by the end of next week. We want to fit up a room in our hall where the -colored working girls can come and rest. On Thursdays we serve tea. Then -they go back to the office. When the impact is over the man must think. -I tell you I do not contemplate with relish seeing my children bred out -of all these girls. Is it wrong? Well, I thought you said you had an -appetite. Impregnate eighty of them, right and left as you see them here -in this room. It would not be impossible. I cannot think of my children -running about in the environment in which these have to live. My dear -sir, you are a fool. You are lying to yourself--As to the girls, I -frankly desire them. I desire many, many, many. - -There she sat on the bench of the subway car looking idly about, being -rushed under the river at great speed to the kitchen of her mother's -flat. Malodorous mother. Or wrinkled hard-put-to-it mother. Savior of -the movies. After the impact his great heart had expanded so as to -include the whole city, every woman young and old there he having -impregnated with sons and daughters. For everyone loved him. And he knew -how to look into their eyes with both passion and understanding. Each -had taken him to her soul of souls where the walls were papered with -editorials from the Journal and there he had made himself father to her -future child. As they went upstairs he saw how her heels were worn--Who -will understand the hugeness of my passion? - -But he had understood. The truth lay under the surface. Why then not--No -two can remain together without training. Who better than that one who -is practiced. The faithful husband of the clothing store madam is used -to her. They functionate well together. He puts his hat in the right -place. His money in the right bank. His arm fitted in just the posture -best suited to their mutual height and width. All their practices were -mated. - -But he was an outsider. He was new to all. Her shoes are stitched up the -back. - -Card-index minds, the judges have. Socialism, immorality and lunacy are -about synonyms to the judge. Property is sacred and human liberty is -bitter, bitter, bitter to their tongues. - -Walk up the stairs there little girl. But she is naked! These are all -doctors. So the little tot struggled up the very high clinic steps, -naked as she was, and all the doctors looked at her. She had some spots -on her body that had been there a year. Had I been her father I would -know why I am a fool. - -Naked and free, free to be damned in to hell by a chance vagrant to whom -she had taken a fancy. Her father did not know her. Did not even know -that she existed. Cared less. We will look after her said the head -doctor. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -[Illustration] - -That cat is funny. I think she'd be a good one for the circus. When -she's hungry she bites your legs. Then she jumps at you as much as to -say: _Carramba_, give me something. - -America needs the flamboyant to save her soul--said Vachel Lindsay to -the indifferent mountains. - -He might have added that America tries to satisfy this need in strange -and often uncatalogued ways. America, living an exemplary -three-meals-a-day-and-bed-time life in a wall-papered home, goes now and -then _en masse_, by Gosh, to the circus to see men, women and animals -perform exquisite and impossible feats or daring. What could be more -flamboyant than the trapeze-performer hurtling through the air, the -tiger leaping through man-made hoops, or the elephant poising his mighty -bulk on his two forelegs lifted to the top of bottles? What more -flamboyant than the painted clown, timeless type of the race, laughing -that he may not weep, grinning through a thousand tragic jests while -little human beings perform their miraculous tricks around him? - -Jazz, the Follies, the flapper in orange and green gown and war-paint of -rouge--impossible frenzies of color in a world that refuses to be drab. -Even the movies, devoid as they are of color in the physical sense, are -gaudy in the imaginations of the people who watch them; gaudy with -exaggerated romance, exaggerated comedy, exaggerated splendor or -grotesqueness or passion. Human souls who are not living impassioned -lives, not creating romance and splendor and grotesqueness--phases of -beauty's infinite variety--such people wistfully try to find these -things outside themselves; a futile, often a destructive quest. - -The imagination will not down. If it is not a dance, a song, it becomes -an outcry, a protest. If it is not flamboyance it becomes deformity; if -it is not art, it becomes crime. Men and women cannot be content, any -more than children, with the mere facts of a humdrum life--the -imagination must adorn and exaggerate life, must give it splendor and -grotesqueness, beauty and infinite depth. And the mere acceptance of -these things from without is not enough--it is not enough to agree and -assert when the imagination demands for satisfaction creative energy. -Flamboyance expresses faith in that energy--it is a shout of delight, a -declaration of richness. It is at least the beginning of art. - -All right go ahead: A TEXAS PRIZE CONTEST--The Southern Methodist -University at Dallas, Texas, recently emerged from a prize contest which -had a strange _dénouement_-- - -Look here young man, after this you examine those girls in the cold -weather. - -Who is Warner Fabian? _Flaming Youth_ is the story of the super-flapper, -of her affairs at country clubs and cozy home-dances with all the -accompaniments of prohibition stimulants. Warner Fabian believes that -the youth of this country feeds on excitement and rushes to knowledge -"heeled" by way of petting parties and the elemental stimulus of jazz. -The barriers of convention are down. Youth makes its own standards and -innocence, according to the author, has been superseded by omniscience. - -It doesn't matter that Warner Fabian is a _nom de plume_ which conceals -the identity of one of the ablest scientists of this country who has -dared to look facts in the face, facts physical, moral and emotional. He -has written the truth about youth, the youth of today as he sees it. - -FLAMING YOUTH by Warner Fabian is the writing on the wall. It is the -_Quo Vadis_? of the present moment. - -Those who are following in the Metropolitan Magazine the fortunes of -Pat, the most sophisticated and yet at the same time one of the most -deliciously lovely heroines of recent novels, and the fortunes of her -two sisters, may protest that Mr. Fabian's portrayal of youth in this -novel is outscotting Fitzgerald and overdancing in the Dark. We feel -however that this story of three girls and their many men is one which -may sufficiently frighten mothers and electrify fathers and hit the -younger set hard enough between the eyes to help America's youth to, at -least, a gradual return to sanity. - -And so the beginning of art ends in a gradual return to sanity. - -Today Modern scientific research has provided the most efficient agent -for the treatment of local inflammation: DIONAL applied locally over the -affected area acts promptly with prolonged effect. Drugless. -Non-irritant. Non-toxic. Indicated in Mastitis, Burns, Boil, -Tonsillitis, Mastoiditis, Sprain, Abscess, Bronchitis, Mumps, Contusion, -Ulcers, Pneumonia. - -If a man died on a stretcher he simply said: Dump it out. And ordered us -back for another load. - -Intended to stop at the school but his mind waylaid him. Down the hill -came the ash-cart--on the wrong side of the street. He, up the hill, -perforce went wrong also and with great headway. Just as he was about to -pass the cart another car swung out from behind it, headed down hill at -full speed. It was too late for any of the three to stop. In three -seconds there would be death for someone. Angels would be waiting for -mother's little boy. Without the minutest loss of time, in time with the -Boston Symphony Orchestra at its best he swung far to the left, up over -the curb, between two trees, onto the sidewalk--by luck no one was -passing--and going fifty feet came back between two trees, over the curb -to the roadway and continued his empty progress, rather hot in the face, -it must be confessed. He felt happy and proud. - -But he had missed his street. - -Well let it go. Far away in front of him a locomotive stood -indifferently at the avenue end, emitting great clouds of smoke. It was -autumn, clear and cold. - -But you Scandinavians, said the Frenchman, it is impossible to live in -this way. Why France, which is ten times as rich as your countries, -could not do it. You do not know what money is for. You throw it away -like a sickness. To drink champagne like this is madness, and it is -every night, everywhere, in Christiania, Copenhagen, everywhere. - -And there she sits staring out, not at the sea, but over Long Island -Sound. Dreaming of her sons--and of the money she will make next year -by renting the better of her two little shacks. - -When you have paid up the twenty shares you may, if you like, retain -them as paid up shares in which case you will receive the 5% interest, -or, if you feel that you would like to do so, you may increase your -holding to thirty shares and receive the 6%. Of course everyone is not -able to do that. Do not worry about it, we will notify you in plenty of -time when your book is balanced at the end of the six months. - -Let's see. What is the number of your house? Four eighty? I'll see that -they send it right up. - -You know last Sunday was my birthday. Seventy-three years old. I had a -party, a surprise party--my relatives came from all sides. But I -couldn't get her downstairs. She's afraid. We had a banister put on the -stairs, cost me nine dollars but she will not do it. She's so fat you -know, she's afraid of falling. - -Re Commissions due--Amount $1.00. Dear Sir:--You will please take notice -that unless we receive payment in full of your account within FIVE DAYS -after receipt of this letter, we shall draw upon you for the amount due. - -A collection agency draft notifies the banks--those great institutions -of finance--that there is serious doubt regarding the way you pay your -honest obligations. The bank will take note of it. From there the -information quietly passes to the various Mercantile Agencies, Dun's, -Bradstreet's, Martindale's. And this is ONLY ONE cog in the wheel of -ARROW SERVICE. Our reports cover the whole field of credit reporting. - -Your continued indifference to our requests for payment has forced us to -consider this action. The draft, with a full history of the debt leaves -our office in five days unless your check is received in the meantime. - -Let your better judgement guide you, and pay this account without any -more trouble or expense. Yours very truly--MEMBERS: Retail Credit Men's -National Association. Commercial Law League of America. Rotary -International. O Rotary International! - -At this, De Soto, sick, after all the months of travel, stopped out of -breath and looked about him. Hundreds of miles he had travelled through -morass after morass, where the trees were so thick that one could -scarcely get between them, over mountain and river but never did he come -to the other side. The best he had done was to locate a river running -across his path, the greatest he had ever seen or heard of, greater than -the Nile, greater than the Euphrates, no less indeed than any. Here he -had confronted the New World in all its mighty significance and -something had penetrated his soul so that in the hour of need he had -turned to this Mighty River rather than to any other thing. Should it -come to the worst he had decided what to do. Out of the tangle around -him, out of the mess of his own past the river alone could give him -rest. Should he die his body should be given to this last resting place. -Into it Europe should pass as into a new world. - -Near the shore he saw a school of small fish which seemed to look at -him, rippling the water as they moved out in unison. Raising his heavy -head De Soto gave the order to proceed. Four of the men lifted him on an -improvised stretcher and the party, headed by the Indians, started again -north along the bank. - -The whole country was strange to them. But there at the edge of that -mighty river he had seen those little fish who would soon be eating him, -he, De Soto the mighty explorer--He smiled quietly to himself with a -curious satisfaction. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -[Illustration] - -It was a shock to discover that she, that most well built girl, so -discrete, so comely, so able a thing in appearance, should be so stupid. -There are things that she cannot learn. She will never finish school. -Positively stupid. Why her little brother, no bigger than Hop o' my -Thumb has caught up to her and will soon outstrip her. Her older brother -is the brightest boy in the High School. She will I suppose breed stupid -children. Plant wizards choose the best out of lots running into the -millions. Choose here there everywhere for hybrids. A ten-pound white -leghorn cockerel, hens that lay eggs big enough to spoil the career of -any actor. She might though have bright children. What a pity that one -so likely should be so stupid. Easier to work with but I should hate a -child of mine to be that way. Excuses--Try first. Argue after. Excuses. -Do not dare. - -There sat the seven boys--nine years old and there-abouts--planning -dire tortures for any that should seduce or touch in any way their -sisters. Each strove to exceed the other. Tying his antagonist to a tree -Apollo took out his knife and flayed him. For sweet as the flute had -been yet no man can play the flute and sing at the same time. But the -God had first played his harp and then sung to his own accompaniment--a -thing manifestly unfair. No doubt, his sense of being in the wrong -whetted his lust for the other's hide. In any case he got what he was -after. He was the winner and that was all there was about it. - -Each boy would think with a secret glow of a new torture: I would dip -his hands in boiling lead--they often melted old pieces of lead in a -plumber's pot over a field fire to make slugs for their bean -shooters--then I would tie a rope to his feet and drag him on cinders -etc.... each inventing a worse torture than that pictured before. And -all for their sisters' virtue. So there under the east wall of the -Episcopal Church they sat in a group on the grass and talked together -for an hour. - -The real empire builders of our colonial period were not the statesmen, -the men of wealth, the great planters but the unknown pioneers who -fought single-handed and at once both the primeval wilderness and the -lurking savage. The hand crooked to the ploughtail was shaped to the -trigger. - -The Mesa Verde cliff dwellers--a much advanced race--formed a -partnership with nature in the science of home building. Masterpieces of -architecture, the survivals of the cliff dwellings tell the story of the -ages. - -On the top of a point high above the steep cliffs stood Sun Temple, so -called, scene of the great ceremonial dramas of the clan. The building -is in the form of the letter D and many of the stones which make up the -thousand-odd feet of walls are highly decorated. - -The corner stone of the building contains a fossil leaf of a palm tree. -Influenced by anything which even in shape resembled the sun, the -primitive people walled in the leaf on three sides and made a shrine. - -The word _bayeta_ is merely Spanish for _baize_. Great quantities of -this were made in England for the Spanish and Mexican trade, the major -part of which was of a brilliant red color. In this way English _baize_ -became Spanish _bayeta_ to the Indians of the American Southwest. -Familiar with the art of weaving, these Indians unraveled the bayeta, -retwisted it into one, two or three strands, and then rewove it into -their blankets, which are now almost priceless. This old blanket was -picked up by the author in a New Mexican corral, for the purpose of -wiping his buggy axle. It was covered with filth and mud. A number of -washings revealed this glorious specimen of the weaver's art. - -Accepted by a cultured and talented belle, Lincoln, according to his law -partner, had already been refused by Sarah Rickard, an obscure miss of -sixteen, of whom apparently nothing further is known. - -It was twelve feet from the rock into the water. As he stood looking -down it seemed twenty. His eyes being five feet from his heels made it -seem by that much higher than it was. He had never dived from such a -height in his life. He had climbed up there to dive and he must dive or -yield. What would he yield? At least it was something he did not intend -to yield. He tried his best to imitate the others, he stood on the edge -and plunged. It seemed to him that he plunged. As a matter of fact he -dropped over the edge with his body bent almost double so that his -thighs hit the water with a stinging impact, also the lower part of his -belly, also the top of his head. He did not feel certain of himself for -a moment or two after rising to the surface. That was about enough. -Memory began to fill the blank of his mind. - -There it was still, the men around Mrs. Chain's table on Locust St.: -$3.50 a week. A week? Yes, three-fifty a week. And that place in Leipzig -where they had only half cooked fresh pork. _Schwein schlacherei_! Bah. -One week was enough there. Fraulein Dachs, _pflaumen suppe_. That purple -and sweet soup. The white cakes they sold on the station platform near -Malaga, what were they called? It seemed to be some native bake peculiar -to the place. The devil fish in a black sauce in Seville. Big lumps of -dough, big as snowballs, _sauer braten_. But Mrs. Chain's prunes were -the most wonderful. Watery tidbits. It was prunes or applesauce. Her -daughter was simple I guess. Did her best to land one of the students, -kept it up for twenty years. At that table I met one of my dearest -friends. Will you have some bread? Yes. That look. It was enough. Youth -is so rich. It needs no stage setting. Out went my heart to that face. -There was something soft there, a reticence, a welcome, a loneliness -that called to me. And he, he must have seen it in me too. We looked, -two young men, and at once the tie was cemented. It was gaged accurately -at once and sealed for all time. The other faces are so many prunes. - -Have you ever seen a dish of small birds all lying on their backs on the -dish and with feet in the air, all roasted stiff but brown and savory? -Rice birds I think they called them. Or snails or baked eggs? - -The old man raked slowly. It took him all day to finish the small lawn. -But it was autumn and the leaves had fallen thickly. The bird bath was -full of leaves. It was a sentimental picture. But after all why? The -leaves must fall into every corner. If they fall into the bird bath that -is all there is to it. Still it calls many things to the mind that are -not evoked by the twingling of waves on a lake shore in August. - -Clark had taken a job as clerk at Pocono, and she was a Quakeress. They -got to know each other very, very well. And this girl in the steamer -chair, it was the cattle men who attracted her. Let her go then, he said -tying the cord with a piece of gauze twisted into a rope. When you bathe -the baby for the first time do not put him into a tub but sponge him off -carefully before the fire with castile soap and warm water. Be careful -not to get the soap into his eyes. Is it nitrate of silver they use for -a baby's eyes? - -I could not tell whether it was a baby or a doll the little girl was -coddling. The Italians' babies are often so very small. They dress them -up so grotesquely too. It must be a rigid custom with them. - -Nothing at all. All at once it seemed that every ill word he had ever -heard spoken struck his ear at the same moment. What a horrible roar it -made. But there were other things, too many to record. Corners of rooms -sacred to so many deeds. Here he had said so and so, done so and so. On -that picnic he had dared to be happy. All the older women had watched -him. With one girl under each arm he had let his spirit go. They had -been closer than anything he could now imagine. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -[Illustration] - -Particles of falling stars, coming to nothing. The air pits them, eating -out the softer parts. Sometimes one strikes the earth or falls flaming -into Lake Michigan with a great hiss and roar. And if the lawless mob -that rules Ireland with its orderly courts and still more orderly minds -will not desist it must be crushed by England. So that to realize the -futility of American men intent upon that virtue to be found in -literature, literature, that is, of the traditional sort as known in -France and Prussia--to realize how each serious American writer in turn -flares up for a moment and fizzles out, burnt out by the air leaving no -literary monument, no Arc de Triomphe behind him, no India subdued--To -realize this it is necessary to go back to the T'ang dynasty where -responsibility rested solely on the heads of the poets--_etc., etc_... -Or better still why not seek in Aleppo or Jerusalem for the strain to -save us. - -America is lost. Ah Christ, Ah Christ that night should come so soon. - -And the reason is that no American poet, no American man of letters has -taken the responsibility upon his own person. The responsibility for -what? There is the fire. Rush into it. What is literature anyway but -suffering recorded in palpitating syllables? It is the quiet after the -attack. Picking a sliver of bone from his mangled and severed leg he -dipped it in his own gore and wrote an immortal lyric. Richard Cœur de -Lion shot through the chest with an iron bolt wrote the first -English--no, French, poem of importance. What of democratic Chaucer? He -was only a poet but Richard was a man, an adventurer, a king. The half -mad women rush to impregnate themselves against him. And this is -literature. This is the great desirable. Soaked in passion, _baba au -rhum_, the sheer proof of the spirit will do the trick and America will -be King. Up America. Up Cœur de Lion. Up Countess Wynienski the queen -of Ireland. - -Polyphemus took first one shape then another but Odysseus, the wise and -crafty, held firm. He did not let go but Polyphemus did. In fact the God -could not exist without Odysseus to oppose him. - -Why man, Europe is YEARNING to see something new come out of America. - -In a soup of passion they would see a little clam. Let us smile. This -is-- - -The danger is in forgetting that the good of the past is the same good -of the present. That the power that lived then lives today. That we too -possess it. That true novelty is in good work and that no matter how -good work comes it is good when it possesses power over itself. Europe's -enemy is the past. Our enemy is Europe, a thing unrelated to us in any -way. Our lie that we must fight to the last breathe is that it is -related to us. - -We are deceived when they cry that negro music is the only true American -creation. It IS the only true from the European point of view. -Everything is judged from that point of view. But to us it is only new -when we consider it from a traditional vantage. To us it means a -thousand things it can never mean to a European. To us only can it be -said to be alive. With us it integrates with our lives. That is what it -teaches us. What in hell does it matter to us whether it is new or not -when it IS to us. It exists. It is good solely because it is a part of -us. It is good THEREFORE and therefore only is it new. Everything that -is done in Europe is a repetition of the past with a difference. -Everything we do must be a repetition of the past with a difference. I -mean that if negro music is new in an absolute sense---which it is not -by any means, if we are to consider the Ethiopian--the probable -Ethiopian influence in Egypt--then it is new to Europe as it is to -us. - -It is not necessary for us to learn from anyone but ourselves--at least -it would be a relief to discover a critic who looked at American work -from the American viewpoint. - -We are a young nation and have not had time or opportunity to catch up -with nations that had ten centuries start of us. We still labor under -the handicap of our Puritan lineage.... - -We shall not be able to plead childhood any longer. - -Eric the Red landed in Providence, Long Island, and was put in a cage so -everyone could see him. - -This sort of stupidity we have to combat. I am not talking of the mass -of plumbers and carpenters. I am talking of the one thing that is -permanent. Spirits. I am saying that America will screw whom it will -screw and when and how it will screw. And that it will refrain from -screwing when it will and that no amount of infiltration tactics from -"superior civilizations" can possibly make us anything but bastards. - -We are only children when we acknowledge ourselves to be children. -Weight of culture, weight of learning, weight of everything such as -abandon in any sense has nothing to do with it. We must first isolate -ourselves. Free ourselves even more than we have. Let us learn the -essentials of the American situation. - -We who despise the blackguards in the old sense. We too are free. Free! -We too, with paddles instead of turbines will discover the new world. We -are able. We are kings in our own right. - -We care nothing at all for the complacent Concordites? We can look at -that imitative phase with its erudite Holmeses, Thoreaus, and Emersons. -With one word we can damn it: England. - -In Patagonia they kick up the skulls of the river men out of the dust -after a flood. In Peru, in Machu Pichu the cyclopean wall on the top of -the Andes remains to rival the pyramids which after all may have been -built of blocks of some plaster stuff of which we have lost the -combination. - -I know not a land except ours that has not to some small extent made its -title clear. Translate this into ancient Greek and offer it to Harvard -engraved on copper to be hung in the waterclosets which freshmen use. - -And why do they come to naught? these falling stars, etc. - -It has been generally supposed that among the peoples of the earth the -age of maturity comes earliest in the tropics and increases gradually as -one goes northward. But in North America this rule has one striking -exception. It is not rare among Esquimau women that they have their -first child at 12 and children born before the mothers were 11 have been -recorded. Point Barrow Alaska 300 miles north of the Arctic circle. - -But the early maturity of the Esquimau girls is strictly in accord with -the supposition that the hotter the environment the earlier the -maturity. To all intents and purposes the typical Esquimau lives under -tropical or subtropical conditions. The temperature of the Esquimau -house indoors frequently rises to 90°. When they go out the cold air -does not have a chance to come in contact with the body, except for the -limited area of the face. When an Esquimau is well dressed his two -layers of fur clothing imprison the body heat so effectively that the -air in actual contact with his skin is always at the temperature of a -tropical summer. He carries the climate about with him inside his -clothes. - -When an Esquimau comes inside such a house as the one I have been -speaking of he strips off all clothing, immediately on entering, except -his knee breeches, and sits naked from the waist up and from the knees -down. Great streams of perspiration run down the face and body and are -being continually mopped up with handfuls of moss. - -The effect of the overheated houses is more direct upon the women than -the men for they remain indoors a large part of the winter. - -Otherwise in North America among the Indians as one goes north from -Mexico toward the arctic sea the colder the average temperature of the -air that is in contact with the body through the year, the later the -maturity of the girls. The most northerly of the Atabasca Indians appear -to suffer a great deal from the cold. - -The Dog Rib and Yellow Knife Indians are often so poorly clad that they -have to be continually moving, for if they stop for even half an hour at -a time their hands become completely numb. - -In the evenings their wigwams are cheerful with a roaring fire but while -one's face is almost scorched with the heat of the roaring flames one's -back has hoar-frost forming upon it. At night the Indians go to sleep -under their blankets covering up their heads and shivering all night. -The average age of maturity of the girls of these tribes is as high or -higher than that of north European whites. - -But north from the Slavey and Dog Rib Indians to the Esquimau country -the conditions suddenly change. One comes in contact with a people that -has a system of living almost perfectly adapted to a cold climate, while -the northern Indians have a system almost unbelievably ill adapted to -the conditions in which they live. - -In Puritan New England they wrapped the lover and his lass in one -blanket and left them before the dying hearth after the family retired. -There was a name for it which I have forgotten. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -[Illustration] - -It was another day ended. Another day added to the days that had gone -before. Merest superstition. The eternal moment remained twining in its -hair the flowers of yesterday and tomorrow. The newer street lights -sparked in the dark. The uphill street which that morning had been -filled at its far end with the enormous medal-with-rays of the sun was -now flecked with sparkles. It was Carlstadt, established as a free -thinker's corporation by Carl Weiss of Berne from which all churches had -been excluded. Another day--any day--. - -There lay that great frame of a man with his heavy features relaxed his -loose jowls rising and falling with each breath while the busy surgeons -tinkered at his elbow. Soon they struck gold and out spurted the red. -Martha, who had not gone downstairs for over an hour caught it in a -white porcelain bowl, an ounce, two ounces--she thought--estimating the -amount swiftly. Then four ounces, eight. He was a large man. When will -they check it! His breathing had grown easier. He was benefited. A -pint! He was white. In an hour men on horseback were riding north and -south. Washington was dead. It was another day. Any day. - -Davy Crockett had a literary style. Rather than blow his squirrel to -bits he'd strike the tree just under its belly so that the concussion -would stun it. Such was the country with the element of time subtracted. -What is time but an impertinence? - -Homesteading in the far western states was a struggle. Every child born -there had a mother who is thrice a heroine. A woman in such a country -approached motherhood at a time when her husband had to be away from -home. Up to the day of her confinement she had to milk, churn, care for -the chickens, work in the garden and carry water to the house from a -well three hundred yards away... The day of her confinement she did a -large washing then walked two miles to the home of a neighbor. - -For that the brat seized her by the lug with his little sharp teeth and -drew blood. We'll have to put him on the bottle. - -Nothing, save for the moment! In the moment exists all the past and the -future! Evolution--! Anti-peristalsis. Eighty-seven years ago I was born -in a little village in the outskirts of Birmingham. The past is for -those that lived in the past, the present is for today. Or--today! The -little thing lay at the foot of the bed while the midwife--It was in -England 1833. And now by the sea a new world death has come and left his -chewing gum in an artery of her brain. But I'll pay you for this, she -said as they were sliding her into the ambulance, I'll pay you for this. -You young people think you are awfully smart, don't you. I don't want to -see them again, those fuzzy things, what are they, trees? - -Good gracious, do you call this making me comfortable? The two boys had -her on the stretcher on the floor. Yes, stay here a week then I can do -what I please but you want to do what you please first. I wonder how -much she planned. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -[Illustration] - -Another day, going evening foremost this time. Leaning above her baby in -the carriage was Nettie Vogelman, grown heavier since we knew her in the -sixth grade twenty-five years before and balancing great masses of -prehistoric knowledge on her head in the shape of a purple ostrichplume -hat. - -But where is romance in all this--with the great-coat she was wearing -hanging from the bulge of her paps to the sidewalk? Romance! When -knighthood was in flower. Rome. Eliogabalus in a skirt married his man -servant. - -We struggle to comprehend an obscure evolution--opposed by the true and -static church--when the compensatory involution so plainly marked -escapes our notice. Living we fail to live but insist on impaling -ourselves on fossil horns. But the church balanced like a glass ball -where the jets of evolution and involution meet has always, in its -prosperous periods, patronised the arts. What else could it do? Religion -is the shell of beauty. - -The fad of evolution is swept aside. It was only mildly interesting at -the best. I'll give you a dollar my son for each of these books you -read: Descent of Man and Origin of Species, reprinted by Dombie and -Sons, Noodle Lane, Ken. W. London; England 1890. - -Who will write the natural history of involution beginning with the -stone razor age in Cornwall to the stone razor age in Papua? Oh China, -China teach us! Ottoman, Magyar, Moor, teach us. Norse Eric the -Discoverer teach us. Cœur de Lion, teach us. Great Catherine teach us. -Phryne, Thaïs, Cleopatra, Brunehilde, Lucretia Borgia teach us. What -was it, Demosthenes, that she said to you? Come again? - -Borne on the foamy crest of involution, like Venus on her wave, stript -as she but of all consequence--since it is the return: See they return! -From savages in quest of a bear we are come upon rifles, cannon. From -Chaldeans solving the stars we have fallen into the bellies of the -telescopes. From great runners we have evolved into speeches sent over a -wire. - -But our spirits, our spirits have prospered! Boom, boom. Oh yes, our -spirits have grown-- - -The corrosive of pity, Baroja says, giving up medicine to be a baker. - -Marriage is of the church because it is the intersection of _loci_ by -which alone there is place for a church to stand. Beauty is an arrow. -Diana launched her shaft into the air and where the deer and the arrow -met a church was founded and there beauty had died. - -So youth and youth meet and die and there the church sets up its -ceremony. - -Who will write the natural history of involution? - -I have forgotten something important that I wanted to say. Thus having -forgotten and remembered that it was important the folly of all thought -is revealed. - -The deer lay panting on the leaves while Diana leaned over it to stab it -in the neck with her dagger. - -I have forgotten what I wanted to say. - -Venus and Adonis. - -The second time I saw her it was in a room of a hotel in the city. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -[Illustration] - -As the Southern mountains are not like other mountains, so the -mountaineers are not like others. For all their beauty these mountains -are treacherous and alien, and the people who must wring a livelihood -from the sawmills or from the tiny perpendicular farms high up under the -sky come to be wary and secret like their woodlands. - -The Cumberland mountain mother, by nature sharp and sane, has studied -the moods of the mountains and of the animals. Illiterate though she be, -she is full of ripe wisdom. Many, superior to the mountain woman in, -say, sanitation might learn from sitting on cabin doorsteps that they -are most often inferior to her in sanity. - -Yet, frankly, it is often better to sit on the cabin doorstep than to go -inside. The mountain mother struggles bravely against dirt, but if you -live in a lonely two-room cabin, if you are the sole caretaker of six -children under ten, and two cows and a large stony garden, and must help -in the cornfield besides, you are excusable if in the end you "quit -struggling." The mountain mother does not make herself and her husband -and her children slaves to the housekeeping arts. - -A mountain woman dips snuff--surreptitiously if she is young, frankly if -she is old. - -We settle down on the doorstep probably on straight chairs with seats of -cornhusks twisted into a rope and then interwoven. There is a sound to -which the mountains have accustomed me--the sharp jolting thud when a -mother, if she possesses neither cradle nor rocker, puts her baby to -sleep by jerking forward and backward on two legs of a straight chair. -There is usually some two-year-old lying fast asleep on the bed just -inside the door; or on the porch floor, plump and brown as a bun and -studded with flies thick as currants. - -Mountain children are as vigorous as baby oaks until they reach their -teens, and then over-work begins to tell on growing bodies. A reedy boy -of thirteen, just beginning to stretch to the length of spine and limb -that characterises the mountaineer, often gets a stoop that he never -afterward conquers. In the more remote lumber districts I have seen boys -of ten and twelve work all day loading cars. There too, slim mountain -girls of twelve and fourteen stand all day in the icy spray of the flume -to stack bark on the cars. - -Here where isolation makes people fiercely individualistic public -opinion is as slow to deny a man's right to marry at the age he wishes -as it is to deny his right to turn his corn into whisky. At the age when -boys and girls first awake to the fact of sex they marry and the -parents, although regretfully, let them. - -The unmarried mother is most rare. A boy of sixteen sets himself to all -the duties of fatherhood. A fourteen-year-old mother, with an ageless -wisdom, enters without faltering on her future of a dozen children. - -But here is Lory. But again a digression--: In any account of the -mountains one must remember that there are three distinct types: the -people of the little villages, almost all remote from railroads; the -itinerant lumber workers, woodchoppers and mill-hands who follow the -fortunes of the portable sawmill as it exhausts first one remote cove -then another; and the permanent farmers who have inherited their -dwindling acres for generations. Yet at bottom the mountain mother is -always the same. - -Lory lives in a one-room lumber shack, and moves about once in three -months. The walls are of planks with inch-wide cracks between them. -There are two tiny windows with sliding wooden shutters and a door. All -three must be closed when it is very cold. For better protection the -walls are plastered over with newspapers, always peeling off and gnawed -by woodrats. The plank floor does not prevent the red clay from oozing -up. The shack is some fifteen feet square. It contains two stoves, two -beds, two trunks, a table and two or three chairs. In it live six souls: -two brothers, their wives and a baby apiece. - -Lory is part Indian, one surmises from the straight hair dropping over -her eyes and her slow squawlike movements. Her face is stolid except -when it flashes into a smile of pure fun. Dark though she is her breast, -bared from her dark purple dress, is statue white. She looks down on her -first baby with a madonna's love and her words have in them a madonna's -awe before a holy thing: "I ain't never a-goin' to whip him. He ain't -never a-goin' to need it, for he won't get no meanness if I don't learn -him none." - -The setting is fairyland. Mountain folk go far toward living on beauty. -The women may become too careless and inert even to scrape away the -underbrush and plant a few sweet potatoes and cabbages. They may sit -through lazy hours mumbling their snuff sticks, as does Mrs. Cole, while -children and dogs and chickens swarm about them: but even Mrs. Cole can -be roused by the call of beauty. - -"My husband he's choppin' at the first clearin' two miles from here, and -he's been plumb crazy over the yaller lady slippers up that-a-way. He's -been sayin' I must take the two least kids, what ain't never seen sech, -and go up there and see 'em 'fore they was gone. So yesterday we went. -It sure was some climb over them old logs, but Gawd them lady slippers -was worth it." I shall never understand the mystery of a mountain -woman's hair. No matter how old, how worn or ill she may be, her hair is -always a wonder of color and abundance. - -Ma Duncan at fifty-five is straight and sure-footed as an Indian; tall -and slim and dark as a gypsy, with a gypsy's passionate love of -out-of-doors. Her neighbors send for Ma Duncan from far and near in time -of need. Going forth from her big farm boarding-house on errands of -mercy. Up wild ravines to tiny cabins that seem to bud out like lichens -from grey boulders wet with mountain streams, over foot logs that sway -crazily over rock creeks, through waist-high undergrowth Ma Duncan goes -with her stout stick. - -As we reach a little grassy clearing Ma Duncan drops down to stretch out -happily: So as I can hear what the old earth has to say me... Reckon it -says, "Quit your fussin' you old fool. Ain't God kept your gang a young -uns all straight so fur? He ain't a-going back on you now, just because -they're growd." - -Presently Ma Duncan sits up, her hands about her knees, her hat fallen -from her wealth of hair, her gun on the ground beside her--often she -carries a gun in the hope of getting a gray squirrel to be done in -inimitable brown cream gravy for breakfast. - -She looks out sadly over much worn woodland, with the great stumps -remaining: - -"I wish you could have seen the great old trees that used to be here. If -folks wasn't so mad for money they might be here and a preachin' the -gospel of beauty. But folks is all for money and all for self. Some-day -when they've cut off all the beauty that God planted to point us to him, -folks will look round and wonder what us human bein's is here fur--" - -"The mountain woman lives untouched by all modern life. In two centuries -mountain people have changed so little that they are in many ways the -typical Americans." - -"The Lord sent me back" former pastor tells men in session at the -church. With tears in his eyes, he enters meeting, escorted by two sons. -Dramatic scene follows as he asks forgiveness for mistake he has made. -Was in Canada and Buffalo. His explanation of absence is satisfactory to -family and members he met last night. - -Miss Hannen in seclusion at home. Her family declines to give statement. - -Dominie Cornelius Densel, forty eight years old, former pastor, etc... -who left his wife and eight children etc. came home last night. - -Miss T. Hannen, twenty-six years old, etc... who disappeared from her -home, etc... on the same afternoon that the dominie was numbered among -the missing also came to her home the same evening. - -Pictures of the missing dominie and member of his church who are home -again. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -[Illustration] - -Commodius renamed the tenth month Amazonius. But he died a violent death -and the old name was returned. - -I had five cents in my pocket and a piece of apple pie in my hand, said -Prof. M. I. Pupin, of Columbia University describing the circumstances -of his arrival in America in the steerage of the steamship Westphalie -from Hamburg half a century ago. - -Today that American scholar of Serbian birth holds the chair in -electro-mechanics at Columbia University. - -Prof. Pupin is merely one of a host of former immigrants whose names are -linked with the great strides in science, commerce, finance and industry -and whose careers furnish living proof that America, besides breeding -great men, imports them. - -Claude Monet was born in Columbia, Ohio. - -In industry and commerce the stories of many of the successful -immigrants read like romances. - -There is C. C. A. Baldi of Philadelphia who began with nothing and who -is now one of America's foremost citizens of foreign birth. When he -landed in this country thirty years ago he had only a few pennies in the -pockets of his ragged trowsers. He knew no English and knew nothing of -American customs, but he had heard of the opportunities which America -offers to a wide-awake, ambitious immigrant willing to work. - -Mr. Baldi bought thirty lemons with his pennies. He peddled them and -with the proceeds of sales bought more lemons and peddled them. Before -long he had a cart loaded with hundreds of lemons. In time the push-cart -became a store and the store grew into a great business. - -Other spectacular instances of success are furnished by the careers of -Louis J. Horowitz, one of America's greatest builders and S. M. -Schatzkin, who came to this country twenty-five years ago with 3 dollars -carefully tucked away in his clothes and began peddling coal in the East -side of New York. Today Schatzkin has large sums invested in many big -American enterprises. - -Horowitz, who came here thirty years ago, built the Woolworth and the -Equitable buildings, one the tallest and the other the largest office -building in point of floor space in the world. His first job was that of -an errand boy. Later he worked as a parcel wrapper, then as a stock boy -and then as a shoe salesman. After selling shoes he started selling real -estate. - -Witness? oh witness these lives my dainty cousins. Dear Madam:--It has -often been said that one of the most interesting spots in America is the -small space covered by the desk of the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. - -All the qualities which make up the interest of life,--joy, sorrow, -romance, ambition, experience,--seem to center in this spot in turn, -radiating from every nook and corner of the world. - -"Adventures," remarked the talented Mr. Disraeli, "are for the -adventurous," and it is to those who think of life as the supreme -adventure that the Atlantic is most confidently addressed. - -If you care for a magazine that satisfies, vexes and delights by turn, -you can safely subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly for the coming year. - -Public Service Railway Company, Newark, N. J. Amazonius 10, 1920.--To -our Patrons: As a fair minded citizen, your impartial consideration of -the facts set forth in subjoined letter, written by me to the Board of -Public Utility Commissioners under date of Amazonius 7th. 1920, is -respectfully requested. Very truly yours? Thomas N. McCarter, President. - -To the Board of Public Utility Commissioners of the State of New Jersey, -Trenton, New Jersey. Dear Sirs: The rate of fare of 7 cents, with one -cent for a transfer, etc..., etc... Such large cities as Boston, New -Haven, Hartford and Pittsburg already have a 10c. flat rate. Etc... -etc... Under the foregoing statement of facts the company is forced to -file herewith a flat rate of 10c. where 7c. is now charged. Etc... -Etc... - - -Now when Christmas bells ring clear -Telling us that love is here -And children sing -Gifts that speak of thoughtful love -Just like angels from above -Glad tidings bring. - - -Rugs, mirrors, chairs, tables, W. & J. Sloane, N.Y., Wash., San F. -Christmas Gifts Sure to be Appreciated.: Standing lamps, table lamps, -book ends, Sheffield ware, desk sets, framed prints, porcelains, soft -pillows, foot rests (D-2968 Rocking foot rest in Mahogany. Formerly -$45.00. Sale Price $30.00!) sconces, mantel clocks, wall clocks, tall -clocks, small tables, smoking stands, occasional chairs, screens, -oriental rugs, Chinese embroideries, vacuum cleaners--Mirrors. Small -Oriental Rugs: Mossouls, Pergames, Beloochistans, Lilehennas, Sarouks -and Kirmanshahs. - -California was peopled by the Indians first and then by the Padres who -brought with them their sprigs of vine and of orange and of fig and also -the art of irrigation. So that you will find today from the very -northernmost part, from Klamath Lake down to the Imperial Valley in the -South, the lands of California watered and made as fertile as the valley -of the Nile. - -That's all right. Yes Sir. But I come from the Eastern shore of -Maryland. I'm an East Sho' man. Have you ever been on the Eastern Sho'? -No? Well sir, we're a strange people and we have some strange legends on -the East Sho'. When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden they fell -sick and the Lord was very much disturbed over them, so he called a -council of his angels and wanted to know where they should be taken for -a change of air. - -Gabriel suggested the Eastern Sho' of Maryland but the Lord said, No, -No; that wouldn't be sufficient change. - -Yes sir, down at Chincoteague they have the biggest and the finest -oysters in the world. Big as your hand and when you get a half dozen of -them a couple of hours out of the water you know you have something. - -It was at Chincoteague two Spanish galleons went ashore in the old days -and some ponies swam ashore. To this day they have a yearly round-up on -the island where the breed of these ponies is coralled, a short special -breed of horse. - -Tangier Island is another place. That's where the sheriff shot the boy -who wouldn't go in off his front porch on Sunday morning during church -service. Either in church or in the house during that hour. He shot him -all right. They have little individual canals up to their back doors -from the bay. - -And the native, coming up to him suddenly with a knife as long as your -arm, said; _Yo soy mas hombre que tu_! and started a swing at him. Had -he not been so quick to seize a chair and bring it down on the man's -head--What would have happened? - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -[Illustration] - -Sometimes the men would come in and say there was a turkey nest down in -the meadow and they'd send me to look for it. - -Once I fell in the mireage up to my waist. My, they was mad at me. -"Can't tramp a meadow without falling in the mireage?" they said. - -I miss it often. At nine they let me drive the hay-hoist with one horse -and later with two. One morning I had the young team out. It was Allie's -team of greys, they was only just no more than colts. They shied at a -piece of paper. I could hear the men up in the barn yelling. "Hey, -what's the matter down there!" But it was no use. I tried to get to -their heads. I wasn't afraid of them. Allie said afterward he wouldn't -have been surprised to have seen me killed. - -One of the women stood in the road waving a broom. I can see her yet. I -might have been able to manage them if it hadn't been for her but they -simply jumped over a wagon and smashed the hay-fork and ran down the -road two miles. Then they came back again. My but the old man was mad at -me. All the black looks I got! - -I used to hate the Old Man. Sometimes I'd be getting wood and he'd ask -me why I hadn't done something. I'd say I hadn't gotten round to it yet. -Maybe he'd throw a piece of wood at me. - -I can remember the churning. I wouldn't exactly like to go back to it -all but sometimes I miss it terribly. Sometimes it would n't take you -more than five minutes to get the butter and sometimes you'd churn for -45 or two hours and sometimes it would never come. We'd get four or five -pounds or more at a churning. Then it would have to be washed and salted -and packed in jars in the cellar. - -So now that it is raining. So now that it is Amazonius--we go to buy a -metal syringe at the factory because we know the men who live on our -street who own the bricks that make the walls that hold the floors that -hold the girls who make mistakes in the inventories: - -Every order that comes in is copied. You must rely on your help. As the -orders come in they are handled by a girl who puts them on our own -uniform order sheets. So right there it begins. You have to rely on a -young flyaway who has perhaps been up dancing the night before. It's -easy enough for her to write "with" for "without" and--that's the sort -of thing that happens. There is a certain minimum of error that you must -count on and no reputable house will fail to make good promptly. - -The glass blowers have never in my entire experience of 17 years -suffered any harm from their trade. Why we had a boy in the old factory, -a cripple, a withered leg, the weakest, scrawniest lad you ever saw. -He's been blowing for us for 15 or 17 years and you should see him -today. Why the fat fairly hangs down over his collar. - -In our thermometer work they blow the bulb then fill it with mercury -which is in a special container like the cups you get at Child's -restaurant say. They never have to touch the stuff. When the bulb is -full they seal it. Then the mercury in the bulb is warmed by passing the -bulb through a flame. This is to drive it up the capillary tube. There -can be no volatilization since the mercury is in the tube and this is -the only time the stuff is heated. Then when the metal rises from the -heat the other end of the glass is dipped in the stuff so that as the -bulb now cools the mercury is sucked up filling the thermometer -completely. - -Sometimes, of course, a bulb breaks in heating so that the floor is full -of the stuff. - -The hydrofluoric acid for marking is used under a hood with a special -exhaust-blower that has nothing else to do but exhaust that hood. There -is not the slightest odor of fumes in the room. The air is as good there -as here. - -And what is your business? - -Rag merchant. - -Ah yes. And what does that mean? - -Our main specialty is shoddy. - -Ah yes. Shoddy is made from-- - -From woolen rags. The whole mass is put into a vat and the cotton -dissolved out. It comes out in a great wet heap of stuff that has to be -washed and dried. - -Sometimes they burn the cotton out with gas. For instance you'll see a -piece of cloth, grey cloth. The gas will take out the black cotton and -leave the wool fibres all running in one direction. One of the secrets -of the trade is the selection of the colors. That is red shoddy is made -from red rags and so on. But they even take the dyes out of the cloth -and use it over again. - -You know the army coats the boys wore. They were 70% shoddy. It's all -wool but the fibre has been broken. It makes a hard material not like -the soft new woven woolens but it's wool, all of it. - -After the stuff from the vats is dry they put it on the donkeys which -turn it into loose skeins. From that stage it goes on to the making of -the yarn for weaving when any quantity of fresh wool can be mixed that -you desire. - -The shortest fibre, that can't be used for anything else, is made into -these workingmen's shirts you see. The wool is held in a container in -the loosest state possible. This is connected up with a blower in front -of which a loom is set for weaving a fairly tight cotton mesh. Then as -the loom is working the wool is BLOWN IN! Where the cotton warp and woof -cross the shoddy is caught. - -Recently a Jew came in to complain of the lightness of the shirts he was -getting. All we did was to yell out, "George turn on the blower a little -stronger." One washing and the wool is gone. But the Jews are the smart -ones. You got to hand it to them. They invent machinery to do anything -with that stuff. Why one man made a million before the government -stopped him by making cheap quilts. - -He took any kind of rags just as they were collected, filth or grease -right on them the way they were and teased them up into a fluffy stuff -which he put through a rolling process and made into sheets of wadding. -These sheets were fed mechanically between two layers of silkolene and a -girl simply sat there with an electric sewing device which she guided -with her hand and drew in the designs you see on those quilts, you know. - -You've seen this fake oilcloth they are advertising now. Congoleum. -Nothing but building paper with a coating of enamel. - -¡_O vida tan dulce_! - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL *** - -***** This file should be named 63888-0.txt or 63888-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/8/8/63888/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: The Great American Novel - -Author: William Carlos Williams - -Release Date: December 05, 2020 [EBook #63888] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images generously - made available by The Internet Archive.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL *** -</pre> -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/novel_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - - -<h2>THE GREAT<br /> -AMERICAN NOVEL</h2> - - -<h5><i>BY</i></h5> - - -<h3>WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS</h3> - - - -<h4><i>PARIS</i></h4> - -<h4>Three Mountains Press</h4> - -<h5>1923</h5> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>CONTENTS</h4> -<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a></p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> -<img src="images/figure01.jpg" width="400" height="100" alt="" /> -</div> - - -<h4><i>The Great</i><br /> -American Novel</h4> - -<p><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></h4> - -<h4>The Fog</h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure02.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>If there is progress then there is a novel. Without progress there is -nothing. Everything exists from the beginning. I existed in the -beginning. I was a slobbering infant. Today I saw nameless grasses—I -tapped the earth with my knuckle. It sounded hollow. It was dry as -rubber. Eons of drought. No rain for fifteen days. No rain. It has never -rained. It will never rain. Heat and no wind all day long better say hot -September. The year has progressed. Up one street down another. It is -still September. Down one street, up another. Still September. Yesterday -was the twenty second. Today is the twenty first. Impossible. Not if it -was last year. But then it wouldn't be yesterday. A year is not as -yesterday in his eyes. Besides last year it rained in the early part of -the month. That makes a difference. It rained on the white goldenrod. -Today being misplaced as against last year makes it seem better to have -white—Such is progress. Yet if there is to be a novel one must begin -somewhere.</p> - -<p>Words are not permanent unless the graphite be scraped up and put in a -tube or the ink lifted. Words progress into the ground. One must begin -with words if one is to write. But what then of smell? What then of the -hair on the trees or the golden brown cherries under the black cliffs. -What of the weakness of smiles that leave dimples as much as to say: -forgive me—I am slipping, slipping, slipping into nothing at all. Now -I am not what I was when the word was forming to say what I am. I sit so -on my bicycle and look at you greyly, dimpling because it is September -and I am older than I was. I have nothing to say this minute. I shall -never have anything to do unless there is progress, unless you write a -novel. But if you take me in your arms—why the bicycle will fall and -it will not be what it is now to smile greyly and a dimple is so -deep—you might fall in and never, never remember to write a word to -say good-bye to your cherries. For it is September. Begin with September.</p> - -<p>To progress from word to word is to suck a nipple. Imagine saying: My -dear, I am thirsty, will you let me have a little milk—This to love -at first sight. But who do you think I am, says white goldenrod? Of course -there is progress. Of course there are words. But I am thirsty, one -might add. Yes but I love you and besides I have no milk. Oh yes, that -is right. I forgot that we were speaking of words. Yet you cannot deny -that to have a novel one must have milk. Not at the beginning. Granted, -but at the end at least. Yes, yes, at the end. Progress from the mere -form to the substance. Yes, yes, in other words: milk. Milk is the -answer.</p> - -<p>But how have milk out of white goldenrod? Why, that was what the Indians -said. The bosom of the earth sprays up a girl balancing, balancing on a -bicycle. Rapidly she passes through the first—the second eight years. -Progress, you note. But September was rainy last year and how can it -ever be dry again unless one go back to the year before that. There are -no words. It cannot be any otherwise than as this is built the bosom of -the earth shrinks back; phosphates. Yet to have a novel—Oh catch up a -dozen good smelly names and find some reason for murder, it will do. But -can you not see, can you not taste, can you not smell, can you not hear, -can you not touch—words? It is words that must progress. Words, white -goldenrod, it is words you are made out of—THAT is why you want what -you haven't got.</p> - -<p>Progress is to get. But how can words get.—Let them get drunk. -Bah. Words are words. Fog of words. The car runs through it. The words -take up the smell of the car. Petrol. Face powder, arm pits, food-grease -in the hair, foul breath, clean musk. Words. Words cannot progress. -There cannot be a novel. Break the words. Words are indivisible -crystals. One cannot break them—Awu tsst grang splith gra pragh og -bm—Yes, one can break them. One can make words. Progress? If I -make a word I make myself into a word. Such is progress. I shall make -myself into a word. One big word. One big union. Such is progress. It is -a novel. I begin small and make myself into a big splurging word: I take -life and make it into one big blurb. I begin at my childhood. I begin at -the beginning and make one big—Bah.</p> - -<p>What difference is it whether I make the words or take the words. It -makes no difference whatever.</p> - -<p>There cannot be a novel. There can only be pyramids, pyramids of -words, tombs. Their warm breasts heave up and down calling for a head to -progress toward them, to fly onward, upon a word that was a pumpkin, now -a fairy chariot, and all the time the thing was rolling backward to the -time when one believed. Hans Anderson didn't believe. He had to pretend -to believe. It is a conspiracy against childhood. It runs backward. -Words are the reverse motion. Words are the flesh of yesterday. Words -roll, spin, flare up, rumble, trickle, foam—Slowly they lose -momentum. Slowly they cease to stir. At last they break up into their -letters—Out of them jumps the worm that was—His hairy feet -tremble upon them.</p> - -<p>Leaving the meeting room where the Mosquito Extermination Commission had -been holding an important fall conference they walked out on to the -portico of the County Court House Annex where for a moment they remained -in the shadow cast by the moon. A fog had arisen in which the egg-shaped -white moon was fixed—so it seemed. They walked around the side of the -old-fashioned wooden building—constructed in the style of the fine -residences of sixty years ago and coming to the car he said: Go around -that side as I will have to get in here by the wheel. The seat was wet -with dew and cold—after the exceptionally hot day. They sat on it -nevertheless. The wind-shield was opaque with the water in minute droplets -on it—through which the moon shone with its inadequate light. That -is, our eyes being used to the sun the moon's light is inadequate -for us to see by. But certain bats and owls find it even too strong, -preferring the starlight. The stars also were out.</p> - -<p>Turning into the exit of the parking space he stopped the car and began -to wipe the wind-shield with his hand. Take this rag said the other, -with one hand already in his trowser pocket. So the glass was wiped on -both sides, the top and the bottom pane and the cloth—which looked a -good deal like a handkerchief—was returned to the owner—who put -it back where it came from not seeming to mind that it was wet and dirty. -But of course the man is a mechanic in a certain sense and doesn't care.</p> - -<p>On the highway they began to encounter the fog. It seemed in the rush of -the car to come and meet them. It came suddenly, with a rush and in a -moment nothing could be seen but the white billows of water crossed in -front by the flares of the headlights. And so it went all the way home, -sometimes clearer, sometimes so thick he had to stop, nearly—ending -in his own bed-room with his wife's head on the pillow in the perfectly -clear electric light. The light shone brightest on the corner of her -right eye, which was nearest it, also on the prominences of her face.</p> - -<p>Her right arm was under her head. She had been reading. The magazine -Vanity Fair, which he had bought thinking of her, lay open on the -coverlet. He looked at her and she at him. He smiled and she, from long -practice, began to read him, progressing rapidly until she said: You -can't fool me.</p> - -<p>He became very angry but understood at once that she had penetrated his -mystery, that she saw he was stealing in order to write words. She -smiled again knowingly. He became furious.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure03.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>I'm new, said she, I don't think you'll find my card here. You're -new; how interesting. Can you read the letters on that chart? Open your -mouth. Breathe. Do you have headaches? No. Ah, yes, you are new. I'm -new, said the oval moon at the bottom of the mist funnel, brightening -and paling. I don't think you'll find my card there. Open your -mouth—Breathe—A crater big enough to hold the land from New -York to Philadelphia. New! I'm new, said the quartz crystal on the -parlor table—like glass—Mr. Tiffany bought a cart load -of them. Like water or white rock candy—I'm new, said the -mist rising from the duck pond, rising, curling, turning under the -moon—Unknown grasses asleep in the level mists, pieces of the fog. -Last night it was an ocean. Tonight trees. Already it is yesterday. -Turned into the wrong street seeking to pass the power house from which -the hum, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm—sprang. Electricity has been discovered -for ever. I'm new, says the great dynamo. I am progress. I make a word. -Listen! UMMMMMMMMMMMM—</p> - -<p>Ummmmmmmmmm—Turned into the wrong street at three A.M. lost in the -fog, listening, searching—Waaaa! said the baby. I'm new. A boy! A -what? Boy. Shit, said the father of two other sons. Listen here. This is no -place to talk that way. What a word to use. I'm new, said the sudden word.</p> - -<p>The fog lay in deep masses on the roads at three A.M. Into the wrong -street turned the car seeking the high pitched singing tone of the -dynamos endlessly spinning in the high banquet hall, filling the house -and the room where the bed of pain stood with progress. Ow, ow! Oh help -me somebody! said she. UMMMMMM sang the dynamo in the next street, -UMMMM. With a terrible scream she drowned out its sound. He went to the -window to see if his car was still there, pulled the curtain aside, -green—Yes it was still there under the light where it would not be so -likely to be struck by other cars coming in the fog. There it was as -still as if it were asleep. Still as could be. Not a wheel moved. No -sound came from the engine. It stood there under the purple arc-light, -partly hidden by a pole which cast a shadow toward him in the masses of -floating vapor. He could see the redtail-light still burning brightly -with the electricity that came from the battery under the floor boards. -No one had stolen the spare tire. It was very late.—Well, said he, -dropping the shade and thinking that maybe when he was busy someone -might easily come up from the meadows and take the spare tire—Well, I -suppose I had better see how things have progressed.</p> - -<p>And so he backed out into the main street and turned up another block. -And there he saw. The great doors were open to full view of the world. A -great amphitheatre of mist lighted from the interior of the power house. -In rows sat the great black machines saying vrummmmmmmmmmmmm. Stately in -the great hall they sat and generated electricity to light the cellar -stairs with. To warm the pad on Mrs. Voorman's belly. To cook supper by -and iron Abie's pyjamas. Here was democracy. Here is progress—here is -the substance of words—UMMMMM: that is to say meat or linen or belly -ache.—Three A.M. To be exact twenty-eight minutes past three.</p> - -<p>And all this was yesterday—Yesterday and there at her window I saw -her, the lady of my dreams her long and sallow face, held heavily near the -glass, overlooking the street where the decayed-meat wagon passes and -the ice-cream cart rumbles with its great power and the complicated -affairs of the town twitter toward the open sewer in the meadows by the -Button Factory. Orange peel, tomato peel floating in a whitish, soapy -flow—Her face without expression, the lady I am dying for, her right -shoulder as high as her ear, the line of the shoulder sloping down -acutely to the neck, her left shoulder also raised so that her head -seemed to lie loose in a kind of saddle.</p> - -<p>Supreme in stupidity and a fog of waste, profit in what is left. Oh what -delectable morsel is left. Blessed hunchback, scum of loves weekly praying -in all churches—which by the way take up the very best sites in -the town. There she sat, her body low down below the window frame, only -her face showing, and looked at me dully, looked because I looked—and -my heart leaped up to her in passionate appeal that she should be my -queen and run with me over the foggy land—Forward—Onward and -upward forever.</p> - -<p>So saying the day had progressed toward the afternoon and under the -poplars the dried leaves had begun to collect. It had been unbearably -hot. September is a hot month. The leaves had fallen one by one. No -wind. One by one pushed off by the buds which swollen by the heat had -thought that winter was over. Off with you. You stand in the way of -progress, say the young leaves. Sitting on his chair he seemed like any -other man but to get to the bed he suddenly descended to the floor. On -his long arms—he Apollo, and using the stumps of his legs, apelike on -all fours and talking quietly he swung himself up over the edge of the -bed and lay down.</p> - -<p>Over the field—for the fog had left the grasses in the early -morning when the sun came up with majestic progression, haughtily leaving -the dropping city under him—over the field—for it was late in -the afternoon and the sunlight shone in with his poor broken legs, crippled -as he was—the sun shone in from the west. The car had turned in to -the wrong street and he had gone into the store where the paralysed -Scotchman whom he had never seen before put him on the way—climbing -into his bed sent his rays almost level over a patch of red grass hot -and blinding. Over the field the heat rose and in it even from a -distance due to the blur of light on their wings a great swarm of gnats -could be seen turning, twisting in the air, rising falling—over the -grass, fringed with the progressing sun.</p> - -<p>But with great sweeps and sudden turns a dozen dragon flies seeming -twice as large as they really were, from the sun blurring their -transparent wings, darted back and forth over the field catching and -eating the gnats. Swiftly the gnats progressed into the dragon flies, -swiftly coalescing—and from time to time a droplet of stuff fell from -the vent of a feeding dragon fly,—and the little sound of this stuff -striking the earth could not be heard with its true poetic force. Lost. -Lost in a complicated world. Except in the eyes of God. But a word, a -word rang true. Shit, said the father. With this name I thee christen: -he added under his breath.</p> - -<p>And yet—one must begin somewhere.</p> - -<p>Deeply religious, he walked into the back yard and watching lest the -children see him and want what they shouldn't have he approached the -grape vines. Selecting a bunch of Delawares he picked it with some -difficulty spilling a few of the fruit. Then he walked to the other side -and found some blue ones. These too he ate. Then some white which he ate -also one by one swallowing the pulp and the seeds and spitting out the -skins. He continued to eat but no word came to satisfy.</p> - -<p>Somehow a word must be found. He felt rather a weight in his belly from -eating so many grapes. He, himself that must die someday, he the deeply -religious friend of great men and women in incipience, he couldn't find -a word. Only words and words. He ate another bunch of the grapes. More -words. And never THE word.</p> - -<p>A novel must progress toward a word. Any word that—Any word. -There is an idea.</p> - -<p>His brother was ill. He must go home. The sun will soon be on the -Pacific coast. To bed, to bed—take off the clothes beginning on the -outside and working in. How would it be to take off the underwear first, -then the shirt—</p> - -<p>Progress is dam foolishness.—It is a game. Either I have -or—a thieves' game. Hold me close, closer, close as you can. I -can't hold you any closer. I have been stealing. I should never touch -anything. I should never think of anything but you. I love another. It -is a word. I have left you alone to run wild with a girl. I would be -tame. Lies flicker in the sun. Visions beset noonday. Through the back -window of the shoe-shine parlor a mass of golden glow flashes in the -heat. Come into my heart while I am running—jumping from airplane -to plane in mid-air. I cannot stop: the word I am seeking is in your -mouth—I cannot stop. Hold me against—</p> - -<p>You are wrong, wrong Alva N. Turner. It is deeper than you imagine. I -perceive that it may be permissible for a poet to write about a poetic -sweet-heart but never about a wife—should have said possible. It is -not possible. All men do the same. Dante be damned. Knew nothing at all. -Lied to himself all his life. Profited by his luck and never said -thanks. God pulled the lady up by the roots. Never even said thank you. -Quite wrong. Look what he produced. Page after page. Helped the world to -bread. Have another slice of bread Mr. Helseth. No thank you—Not -hungry tonight? Something on his mind.</p> - -<p>The word. Who.</p> - -<p>Liberate the words. You tie them. Poetic sweet-heart. Ugh. Poetic -sweet-heart. My dear Miss Word let me hold your W. I love you. Of all -the girls in school you alone are the one—</p> - -<p>Dramatise myself make it sing together as if the world were a bird who -married to the same mate five years understood in the end transmigration -of souls.</p> - -<p>Nonsense. I am a writer and will never be anything else. In which case -it is impossible to find the word. But to have a novel one must progress -with the words. The words must become real, they must take the place of -wife and sweet-heart. They must be church—Wife. It must be your wife. -It must be a thing of adamant with the texture of wind. Wife.</p> - -<p>Am I a word? Words, words, words—</p> - -<p>And approaching the end of the novel in his mind as he sat there with -his wife sleeping alone in the next room he could feel that something -unusual had happened. Something had grown up in his life dearer -than—It, as the end. The words from long practice had come to be -leaves, trees, the corners of his house—such was the end. He had -progressed leaving the others far behind him. Alone in that air with the -words of his brain he had breathed again the pure mountain air of -joy—there night after night in his poor room. And now he must leave -her. She the—He had written the last word and getting up he -understood the fog as it billowed before the lights.</p> - -<p>That which had been impossible for him at first had become possible. -Everything had been removed that other men had tied to the words to -secure them to themselves. Clean, clean he had taken each word and made -it new for himself so that at last it was new, free from the world for -himself—never to touch it—dreams of his babyhood—poetic -sweet-heart. No. He went in to his wife with exalted mind, his breath -coming in pleasant surges. I come to tell you that the book is finished.</p> - -<p>I have added a new chapter to the art of writing. I feel sincerely that -all they say of me is true, that I am truly a great man and a great -poet.</p> - -<p>What did you say, dear, I have been asleep?</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure04.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>It is Joyce with a difference. The difference being greater opacity, -less erudition, reduced power of perception—Si la sol fa mi re do. -Aside from that simple, rather stupid derivation, forced to a ridiculous -extreme. No excuse for this sort of thing. Amounts to a total occlusion -of intelligence. Substitution of something else. What? Well, nonsense. -Since you drive me to it.</p> - -<p>Take the improvisations: What the French reader would say is: <i>Oui, -ça; j'ai déjà vu ça; ça c'est de Rimbaud.</i> Finis.</p> - -<p>Representative American verse will be that which will appear new to the -French . . . . prose the same.</p> - -<p>Infertile Joyce laments the failure of his sterile pen. Siegfried Wagner -runs to his Mama crying: Mutti, Mutti, listen, I have just composed a -beautiful Cantata on a theme I discovered in one of father's operas.</p> - -<p>In other words it comes after Joyce, therefore it is no good, of no use -but a secondary local usefulness like the Madison Square Garden tower -copied from Seville—It is of no absolute good. It is not NEW. It is -not an invention.</p> - -<p>Invention, I want to buy you some clothes. Now what would you really -like to have? Let us pretend we have no intelligence whatever, that we -have read ALL there is to read and that Rimbaud has taught us nothing, -that Joyce has passed in a cloud, that, in short, we find nothing to do -but begin with Macaulay or King James, that all writing is forbidden us -save that which we recognise to be inadequate. NOW show your -originality, <i>mon ami</i>. NOW let me see what you can do with your -vaunted pen.</p> - -<p>Nothing could be easier.</p> - -<p>My invention this time, my dear, is that literature is a pure matter of -words. The moon making a false star of the weather vane on the steeple -makes also a word. You do not know the fine hairs on a hickory leaf? Try -one in the woods some time. You will grasp at once what I mean.</p> - -<p>But Joyce. He is misjudged, misunderstood. His vaunted invention is a -fragile fog. His method escapes him. He has not the slightest notion -what he is about. He is a priest, a roysterer of the spirit. He is an -epicurean of romance. His true genius flickers and fails: there's the -peak, there in the trees—For God's sake can't you see it! Not that -tree but the mass of rocks, that reddish mass of rocks, granite, with the -sun on it between that oak and the maple.—That is not an oak. Hell -take it what's the use of arguing with a botanist.</p> - -<p>But I will not have my toothpicks made of anything but maple. Mr. Joyce -will you see to it that my toothpicks are not made of anything but -maple? Irish maple. Damn it, it's for Ireland. Pick your teeth, God -knows you need to. The trouble with writing of the old style is that the -teeth don't fit. They were made for Irishmen—as a class.</p> - -<p>Tell me now, of what in your opinion does Mr. Joyce's art consist, since -you have gone so far as to criticise the teeth he makes?—Why, my -dear, his art consists of words.</p> - -<p>What then is his failure, O God.—His failure is when he mistakes -his art to be something else.</p> - -<p>What then does he mistake his art to be, Rosinante?—He mistakes -it to be several things in more or less certain rotation from -botany—Oh well it's a kind of botany you know—from botany -to—to—litany. Do you know his poetry?</p> - -<p>But you must not mistake his real, if hidden, service. He has in some -measure liberated words, freed them for their proper uses. He has to a -great measure destroyed what is known as "literature." For me as an -American it is his only important service.</p> - -<p>It would be a pity if the French failed to discover him for a decade or -so. Now wouldn't it? Think how literature would suffer. Yes -think—think how LITERATURE would suffer.</p> - -<p>At that the car jumped forward like a live thing. Up the steep board -incline into the garage it leaped—as well as a thing on four wheels -could leap—But with great dexterity he threw out the clutch with a -slight pressure of his left foot, just as the fore end of the car was -about to careen against a mass of old window screens at the garage end. -Then pressing with his right foot and grasping the hand-brake he brought -the machine to a halt—just in time—though it was no trick to -him, he having done it so often for the past ten years.</p> - -<p>It seemed glad to be at home in its own little house, the trusty -mechanism. The lights continued to flare intimately against the wooden -wall as much as to say: Here I am back again. The engine sighed and -stopped at the twist of the key governing the electric switch. Out went -the lights with another twist of the wrist. The owner groped his way to -the little door at the back and emerged into the moonlight, into the -fog, leaving his idle car behind him to its own thoughts. There it must -remain all night, requiring no food, no water to drink, nothing while -he, being a man, must live. His wife was at the window holding the shade -aside.</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">And what is good poetry made of</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And what is good poetry made of</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of rats and snails and puppy-dog's tails</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And that is what good poetry is made of</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And what is bad poetry made of</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And what is bad poetry made of</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of sugar and spice and everything nice</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That is what bad poetry is made of</span></p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p><i>A Rebours</i>: Huysman puts it. My dear let us free ourselves from -this enslavement. We do not know how thoroughly we are bound. It must be a -new definition, it must cut us off from the rest. It is in a different -line. Good morning Boss said the old colored man working on the railroad -and started to sing: Jesus, Jesus I love you. It was Sunday, he was -working on the railroad on Sunday and had to put up some barrier. It is -an end to art temporarily. That upstart Luther. My God don't talk to me -of Luther, never changed his bed clothes for a year. Well, my dear, IT'S -COMING just the same. To hell with art. To hell with literature. The old -renaissance priests guarded art in their cloisters for three hundred -years or more. Sunk their teeth in it. The ONE solid thing. Don't blame -me if it went down with them. DOWN, you understand. Fist through the -middle of the rose window. You are horror struck. One word: Bing! One -accurate word and a shower of colored glass following it. Is it MY -fault? Ask the French if that is literature.</p> - -<p>Do you mean to say that art—O ha, ha. Do you mean to say that -art—O ha, ha. Well spit it out. Do you mean to say that art is -SERIOUS?—Yes. Do you mean to say that art does any WORK?—Yes. -Do you mean—? Revolution. Russia. Kropotkin. Farm, Factory and -Field.—CRRRRRRASH.—Down comes the world. There you are -gentlemen, I am an artist.</p> - -<p>What then would you say of the usual interpretation of the word -"literature"?—Permanence. A great army with its tail in antiquity. -Cliche of the soul: beauty.</p> - -<p>But can you have literature without beauty? It all depends on what you -mean by beauty.</p> - -<p>There is beauty in the bellow of the BLAST, etc. from all previous -significance.—To me beauty is purity. To me it is discovery, a race -on the ground.</p> - -<p>And for this you are willing to smash—</p> - -<p>Yes, everything.—To go down into hell.—Well let's look.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure05.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>That's all very fine about <i>le mot juste</i> but first the word must -be free.—But is there not some other way? It must come about -gradually. Why go down into hell when—Because words are not men, they -have no adjustments that need to be made. They are words. They can not be -anything but free or bound. Go about it any way you chose.</p> - -<p>The word is the thing. If it is smeared with colors from right and left -what can it amount to?</p> - -<p>I'd hate to have to live up there, she said with a frown. It was the -soul that spoke. In her words could be read the whole of democracy, the -entire life of the planet. It fell by chance on his ear but he was -ready, he was alert.</p> - -<p>And the little dusty car: There drawn up at the gutter was a great truck -painted green and red. Close to it passed the little runabout while -conscious desire surged in its breast. Yes there he was the great -powerful mechanism, all in his new paint against the gutter while she -rolled by and saw—The Polish woman in the clinic, yellow hair slicked -back. Neck, arms, breast, waist, hips, etc. This is THE thing—The -small mechanism went swiftly by the great truck with fluttering heart in -the hope, the secret hope that perhaps, somehow he would notice—HE, -the great truck in his massiveness and paint, that somehow he would come to -her. Oh I wouldn't like to live up there!</p> - -<p>FOG HOLDS UP LINERS say the head lines. It is a blackness, a choking -smother of dirty water in suspension.—You should have been here this -morning. You could look out and see nothing but a sea of cloud below us. -Right at our feet the fog began and stretched off as far as the eye -could perceive.</p> - -<p>Up out of the trees with a whirr started the sparrows. With a loud -clatter the grouse got up at his feet. The ground was full of mushrooms. -Everything, no matter what it is must be re-valuated.</p> - -<p>The red grass will soon open into feathers.</p> - -<p>Peter Broom, yes sah, my grandfather sah, the greatest man in Prince -George County. He had three hundred children.</p> - -<p>So many things, so many things: heat.</p> - -<p>What then are you trying to say in THIS chapter? And what of your quest -of THE word? What of A.N.T. ant?</p> - -<p>Why someone has offended Wells. He has retorted with NEO-ACADEMICIAN: -And: No new form of the novel required. Lack of substance always takes -the form of novelty mongering. Empire must be saved! Saved for the -proletariat.</p> - -<p>On the side of the great machine it read: Standard Motor Gasoline, in -capital letters. A great green tank was built upon the red chassis, FULL -of gas. The little car looked and her heart leaped with shy wonder.</p> - -<p>Save the words. Save the words from themselves. They are like children. -Young Men's Hebrew Association. Save them while they're still young. Words -must not be allowed to say, to do—Geld them. They are not REALLY -words they are geldings. Save the words. Yes, I repeat SAVE THE WORDS. When -Voronoff would have had words to transplant, interstitial words—he -said save the words.</p> - -<p>And what has anything Wells says to do with serious writing. FIRST let -the words be free. The words are men, therefore they are not men. They -cannot, must not, will not be mustered of the people, by the people, for -the people. They are words. They will have their way.</p> - -<p>Puh, puh, puh, puh! said the little car going up hill. But the great -green and red truck said nothing but continued to discharge its gasoline -into a tank buried in the ground near the gutter.</p> - -<p>And the fog had coalesced into rain. Rain to soak the firewood the boys -had left beside their old fire, like good scouts, for those to come -after and the great car continued to discharge.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure06.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>What then is a novel? <i>Un Novello</i>, pretty, pretty Baby. It is a -thing of fixed form. It is pure English. Yes, she is of Massachusetts -stock. Her great grandfather was thrown out of the Quaker church for -joining the Continental army. Hates the English. Her life is a -novel—almost too sensational.</p> - -<p>The story of Miss Li—so well told.</p> - -<p><i>Qu'avez-vous vu</i>? Or they that write much and see little. Not -much use to us.</p> - -<p>Speak of old Sun Bow pacing his mesa instead of Felipe Segundo in the -barren halls of El Escorial—or asleep in his hard bed at one corner -of the griddle.</p> - -<p>My mother would have a little nigger boy come with a brush and sit at -her feet and brush her legs by the hour.</p> - -<p>Expressionism is to express skilfully the seething reactions of the -contemporary European consciousness. Cornucopia. In at the small end -and—blui! Kandinsky.</p> - -<p>But it's a fine thing. It is THE thing for the moment—in Europe. -The same sort of thing, reversed, in America has a water attachment to be -released with a button. That IS art. Everyone agrees that IS art. -Just as one uses a handkerchief.</p> - -<p>It is the apotheosis of relief. Dadaism in one of its prettiest -modes: <i>rien, rien, rien</i>.—But wait a bit. Maybe Dadaism is -not so weak as one might imagine.—One takes it for granted -almost without a thought that expressionism is the release of -SOMETHING. Now then Aemilius, what is European consciousness composed -of?—Tell me in one word.—<i>Rien, rien, rien</i>! It is at -least very complicated. Oh very.</p> - -<p>You damned jackass. What do you know about Europe? Yes, what in Christ's -name do you know? Your mouth is a sewer, a cloaca.</p> - -<p>Complicated consciousness quite aside from a possible revaluation. It -has no value for ME. It is all very interesting and God knows we have -enough to learn. The swarming European consciousness. But there it is -much simpler—No good to us.</p> - -<p>Swarming European consciousness: Kreisler and Ysaye were the only ones -with any value. They had a few pennies over and above expenses. They -swarm here now for something to eat. But the funniest are the ones from -Russia; each excoriates the playing of the other and calls the other a -Sheeny. Wow!</p> - -<p>Really you are too naive. They are merely reacting to the American -atmosphere—It is their work that counts. And besides a virtuoso is -not really creative in any serious sense. Would a great artist, say -Kandinsky—? In any case it all seems to preoccupy you so, and in a -book about America, really—</p> - -<p>Take their work. I resent it all. I hate every symphony, every opera as -much as a nigger should hate <i>Il Trovatore</i>. Not perhaps hate it in a -purely aesthetic sense but from under. It is an impertinence. Where in -God's name is our Alexander to cut, cut, cut, through this knot.</p> - -<p>Europe is nothing to us. Simply nothing. Their music is death to -us. We are starving—not dying—not dying mind you—but -lean-bellied for words. God I would like to see some man, some one of the -singers step out in the midst of some one of Aida's songs and scream like a -puma.</p> - -<p>But you poor fellow, you use such inept figures. Aida has been dead -artistically in Munich for fifty years.</p> - -<p>Wagner then—Strauss. It is no difference to me. Tear it all apart. -Start with one note. One word. Chant it over and over forty different -ways.</p> - -<p>But it would be stupid—</p> - -<p>It would, if it were what I mean—it would be accurate. It would -articulate with something. It would signify relief. Release I mean. It -would be the beginning.</p> - -<p>Do not imagine I do not see the necessity of learning from -Europe—or China but we will learn what we will, and never what -they would teach us. America is a mass of pulp, a jelly, a sensitive -plate ready to take whatever print you want to put on it—We have -no art, no manners, no intellect—we have nothing. We water at the -eyes at our own stupidity. We have only mass movement like a sea. But we -are not a sea—</p> - -<p>Europe we must—We have no words. Every word we get must be -broken off from the European mass. Every word we get placed over again -by some delicate hand. Piece by piece we must loosen what we want. What -we will have. Will they let it go? Hugh.</p> - -<p>I touch the words and they baffle me. I turn them over in my mind and -look at them but they mean little that is clean. They are plastered with -muck out of the cities.—</p> - -<p>We must imitate the motivation and shun the result.</p> - -<p>We are very few to your many—</p> - -<p>But what is all this but waste energy.</p> - -<p>No it is not. It is as near as I can come for the present to the word. -What good to talk to me of Santayana and your later critics. I brush -them aside. They do not apply. They do not reach me any more than a -baby's hand reaches the moon. I am far under them. I am less, far less -if you will. I am a beginner. I am an American. A United Stateser. Yes -its ugly, there is no word to say it better. I do not believe in -ugliness. I do not want to call myself a United Stateser but what -in—but what else am I? Ugliness is a horror to me but it is less -abhorrent than to be like you even in the most remote, the most minute -particular. For the moment I hate you, I hate your orchestras, your -libraries, your sciences, your yearly salons, your finely tuned -intelligences of all sorts. My intelligence is as finely tuned -as yours but it lives in hell, it is doomed to eternal—perhaps -eternal—shiftings after what? Oh to hell with Masters and the rest of -them. To hell with everything I have myself ever written.</p> - -<p>Here's a man wants me to revise, to put in order. My God what I am doing -means just the opposite from that. There is no revision, there can be no -revision—</p> - -<p>Down came the rain with a crash. For five days it had been pending. With -a loud splash it seemed to strike the earth as if it were body meeting -body. The poplar leaves swirled and swirled. The gutters were wedged -with water.</p> - -<p>Oh fool you are thicker than rain drops.</p> - -<p>Give me to Moussorgsky. I am tired. Take me to the opera tonight and let -me see Nijinsky dance his <i>Til Eulenspiegel</i> for I am tired to death -with looking for sense among American poets. Igor will retrieve my -courage. I could sit and listen in his lap for ever. Were not the -American Indians Mongols? Oh they must have been. Why could they not -have been Chinese? Why could not the early Emperors have discovered -America? Tell me, wet streets, what we are coming to, we in this -country? Are we doomed? Must we be another Europe or another Japan with -our coats copied from China, another bastard country in a world of -bastards? Is this our doom or will we ever amount to anything?</p> - -<p>Drown me in pictures like Marsden, make me a radical artist in the -conventional sense. Give me the intelligence of a Wells. God, Hueffer is -so far beyond him that what Wells says really sounds sensible.</p> - -<p>Must it be a civilization of fatigued spirits? Then give me Hueffer. My -God it is too disgusting.</p> - -<p>Great men of America! O very great men of America please lend me a penny -so I wont have to go to the opera.</p> - -<p>Why not capitalise Barnum—?</p> - -<p><i>Bravo, bravo mon vieux</i>! A noble apostrophe to your country but -don't you realize that it is not a matter of country but the time—The -time.</p> - -<p>For God's sake Charlie bring a lemon pie.</p> - -<p>So they lay in the little brook and let the cold water run up their bare -bellies.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure07.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>In spite of the moon in mid sky and the plaster of dully shining leaves -on the macadam and all the other signs of the approach of fine weather -there rang in his head: Such a cuddle muddle: Is that modern German -poetry? I never saw such a lot of things mixed together under one title. -These are modern times, Pa, airships and automobiles; you cover -space—</p> - -<p>And that's all right—</p> - -<p>O America! Turn your head a little to the left please. So. Now are you -ready? Watch my hand. Now: <i>Lohengrin</i> in ITALIAN, SUNG AT -MANHATTAN—San Carlo Company Revives Wagner Opera, with Anna Fitziu as -Elsa.</p> - -<p>Sweet kisses that come in the night—O argyrol!</p> - -<p>Rain, rain, for three days and three nights.</p> - -<p>In the night a cesura. Suddenly the fire bell begins to ring. I wake -with a start and hear the small boy calling from the next room. Eight -thousand people wake and count the strokes of the black bells. It is not -our signal. Someone has been set afire. The engines pass with a crash -and roar of the exhausts. Their siren whistles shriek with a fortissimo -rise and fall. In a thousand beds men of forty, women of thirty eight, -girls in their teens, boys tired from football practice and little boys -and girls down to babyhood wake and think the same thoughts. They listen -and count the number of strokes, and sink back saying to themselves: -Fire! Presently all but the few who are immediately affected are again -asleep. The fire has burnt itself out. Slowly the sun has been crossing -Europe and will soon appear fresh from the sea with his benison. The tie -of that black thought in the night will be broken. The opportunity will -be lost forever. Each will rise and dress and go out into the rain on -whatever errand the day has chosen for him.</p> - -<p>Rain all day long. The sun does not appear. The heat is suffocating. The -rattle of the torrent fills the ears. Water is everywhere.</p> - -<p>In the night a wind wakens. It comes from the south-west about midnight -and takes the trees by their heavy leaves twisting them until they -crack. With a roar the wind batters at the houses, shaking them as if it -were a heavy hand. And again for the second night running eight thousand -men and women and boys and girls wake and listen or get up to close -windows and to look out at the trees leaning with snapping branches, -tossing and seething with a sound of escaping steam. It has grown cold. -Pull up the covers. It has grown cold. Sixteen thousand hands have drawn -the covers closer about the bodies. The wind is cold.</p> - -<p>The sun has come back. The air is washed clean. Leaves lie plastered -upon the streets, against the tree trunks, upon the very house sides. -The bird bath is filled to overflowing. A lame man is hurrying for the -train.</p> - -<p>They had talked for hours. The new project was beginning to take form. -It was the evening of the second day. There stood the train puffing out -great volumes of dense smoke which no sooner arose than it was caught in -the wind and sent flying out ahead of the train. I wish to God I were on -that train wherever it might be going. Oh well, remarked the younger man -and said good-bye, which is what it is to be a man.</p> - -<p>He was too old, remarked the voice in the room next to the one in which -the woman was lying, he never should have gone out in that rain. Too -cold! At times it seems possible, even now. She took the hair between -her thumb and index finger of the right hand and using her left hand -swiftly stroked the little hair strands back toward the head to make it -stand out. Ratting it, I told her. It ruins the hair. Oh well I haven't -much left, it might as well be broken.</p> - -<p>She wore blue stockings under a very quiet dress but the world has -not beheld a more maddening spectacle. Devoted to the art of writing, he -read with his mind watching her and his mind in the sky seeking, seeking -some earth to stand on when the boys were tearing up the soggy turf with -their cleats. What to do? There it is. The wind hesitated whether or not -to impregnate her. So many things were to be considered. In the years -since his passage over Ponce de Leon's soldiers on the beach—the -wind footloose, gnawing the leaves had witnessed flying footballs that -it had blown out of bounds. He had not a word to stand on, yet he stood, -not knowing why. Fear clutched his heart. Visions of uprooted trees -passed over his heart as he shook her heavy skirt about her knees. But -she, oblivious to it all, walked with downcast eyes—looking at her -feet or smiling pleasantly at one here and there in the crowd that was -shouting and pressing to see the players.</p> - -<p>In the night all nature was asleep as she lay with her young cheek -pressed against her pillow and slept. The boys tossed and turned from -the stiffness in their joints and from the bruises received in the game. -But she lay quiet and asleep, the breath coming slowly in regular flow -from her hollow nostrils moving them slightly back and forth.</p> - -<p>Under the covers her young form could be made out, the left shoulder, -the hips and the legs and feet, the left knee slightly bent and fallen -to the mattress before the other. Not a sound in the room for a million -years. Still she lay there asleep.—The wind has turned into hail.</p> - -<p>Spring flowers are blossoming in the wind. There is the tulip, the -jonquil and the violet—for it is September and no man shall know his -defeat. So there are spring flowers that grew up through the ice that -will be present later. It is of ice that they have made the flowers.</p> - -<p>Yet sometimes it seems that it would still be possible. And this is -romance: to believe that which is unbelievable. This is faith: to desire -that which is never to be obtained, to ride like a swallow on the -wind—apparently for the pleasure of flight.</p> - -<p>The swallow's bill is constructed in such a way that in flying with his -mouth open tiny insects that enter are ensnared in hairlike gills so -that he is fed.</p> - -<p>Here are a pretty pair of legs in blue stockings, feed. Yet without the -thought of a possible achievement that would make it possible to command -the achievement of certain—The boys kick the ball and pay no -attention. The boys kick the ball up into the wind and the wind hurriedly -writes a love note upon it: Meet me tonight. Say you are going to the -Library and I will have my car at the corner of Fern Street. I have -something to tell you. There is one word you must hear: YOU.</p> - -<p>There is one word you must hear. It will come out at my lips and enter -in at your ears. It might be written with letters on white paper but it -is a word that I want you to have out of the lips into your ear. And she -answers: I will be there. So he does not keep his appointment. Off he -goes in search of a word.</p> - -<p>But she goes home and weeps her eyes out. Her pillow is wet with her -tears—</p> - -<p>What do you think! He has left his wife, and a child in the high school -has been ill a week, weeping her eyes out and murmuring his name. Is it -not terrible?</p> - -<p>It is the wind! The wind is in the poplars twiddling the fading leaves -between his fingers idly and thinking, thinking of the words he will -make, new words to be written on white paper but never to be spoken by -the lips to pass into her ear.</p> - -<p>Quietly he goes home to his wife and taking her by the shoulder wakes -her: Here I am.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure08.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>Nuevo Mundo! shouted the sailors. The sea was rippling like the bottom -of a woven grassrope chair. A new world! Taking out their finest satins -and putting on new armor the commanders of the little party ordered -boats to be made ready and the royal standards of Aragon and Castile to -be taken into men meanwhile feeling the balmy air and seeing green and a -shore for the first time in two months were greedily talking of fresh -fruit—after their monotonous and meager diet of meat—of milk, -of a chance to walk free in the air, to escape their commanders, and of -women. Yes perhaps there would be women, beautiful savages of manifold -charms. But most of all they were filled with the wild joy of release -from torment of the mind. For not one among them but expected to be -eaten by a god or a monster long since or to have been boiled alive by -a hypertropical sea. Excitedly they went down the ladders and took their -places at the words of the boatswain spoken in the Castilian tongue.</p> - -<p>Of Columbus' small talk on that occasion nothing remains but it could -not have been of Eric the Discoverer. Nor of the parties of Asiatics and -Islanders—Pacific Islanders who had in other ages peopled the -continents from the east. No matter: <i>Nuevo Mundo</i>! had shouted the -sailors and <i>Nuevo Mundo</i> it was sure enough as they found out as soon -as they had set foot on it and Columbus had kneeled and said prayers and -the priest had spoken his rigmarole in the name of Christ and the land -was finally declared taken over for Ferdinand and Isabella the far -distant king and queen.</p> - -<p>Yes it was indeed a new world. They the product of an age-long -civilization beginning in India, it is said, and growing through -conquest and struggle of all imaginable sorts through periods of success -and decline, through ages of walkings to and fro in the fields and woods -and the streets of cities that were without walls and had walls and -burst their walk and became ruins again; through the changes of speech: -Sanscrit, Greek, Latin growing crooked in the mouths of peasants who -would rise and impose their speech on their masters, and on divisions, -in the state and savage colonial influences, words accurate to the -country, Italian, French and Spanish itself not to speak of Portuguese. -Words! Yes this party of sailors, men of the sea, brothers of a most -ancient guild, ambassadors of all the ages that had gone before them, -had indeed found a new world, a world, that is, that knew nothing about -them, on which the foot of a white man had never made a mark such as -theirs were then making on the white sand under the palms. <i>Nuevo -Mundo</i>!</p> - -<p>The children released from school lay in the gutter and covered -themselves with the fallen poplar leaves.—A new world! All summer the -leaves had been thick on the branches but now after the heat and the -rain and the wind the branches were beginning to be bare. More sky -appeared to their eyes than ever before. With what relief the children -had pranced in the wind! Now they lay half covered in the leaves and -enjoying the warmth looked out on the new world.</p> - -<p>And he was passing and saw them. And wondered if it were too late to be -Eric. What a new world they had made of it with their Cortezes, their -Pizarros yes and their Lord Howes, their Washingtons even. The -Declaration of Independence. I wonder, he said, whether it could be -possible that the influence of the climate—I wonder if the seed, the -sperm of that, existed in Columbus. Was it authentic? Is there a word -to be found there? Could it be that in those men who had crossed, in the -Norse as; well as the Mongols, something, spontaneous could not have -been implanted out of the air? Or was the declaration to be put to the -credit of that German George? Was it only the result of local -conditions?</p> - -<p>"A new declaration of independence, signed by Columbus, found in Porto -Rico."</p> - -<p>Indians in any case, pale yellow and with lank black hair came to the -edge of the bushes and stared: The Yaquis territory lay north of the -river Fuertes. To the south was Carrancista territory. The valley was, -fertile, the Indians wanted it.</p> - -<p>During the week of November 13th, 17th, 1916—word reached Los -Mochis that Gen. Banderas and the Villistas from Chihuahua had been -defeated by the Carrancistas near Fuertes and were in retreat. During this -week two Indians were captured by Los Mochis police and hung on willow -trees below the Jaula.</p> - -<p>On Saturday November 13th, Col. Escobar and his Carrancistas of the -Fifth regiment of Sinaloa were withdrawn from Los Mochis and Aguila and -concentrated in San Blas. Banderas and his Villistas meanwhile had come -down the Fuertes, effected a junction with Bacomo and his Mayo Indians, -and Monday night crossed the river above Los Tastos, tore out the -telephone at the pumps and started for Los Mochis. All gate keepers -encountered on the road were killed as were their families. Mr. Wilcox -estimated the combined forces participating in the raid and on the other -side of the river at 6,000.</p> - -<p>The first intimation of the raid was at one o'clock in the morning of -Tuesday when with a "<i>Villa! Vive Villa! Vive Villa</i>!" the raiders -swarmed into Los Mochis from three sides, shooting cursing as they -galloped into town. From all over the town came the sound of smashing -doors and windows, shots, yells and screams.</p> - -<p>When I came here the Indians all used bows and arrows. Conscripted -during the many revolutions they had deserted with their rifles until at -last, after 800 of them, in a body, went over they used the rifle -extensively. Wilcox lived at the pumps with his wife and daughter. A -cocky Englishman, he poopooed the danger. He had been in the habit of -telephoning into the town, seven miles, whenever a raid was coming. It -was agreed we Americans were to keep to our houses, take our animals off -the roads and wait with more or less excitement until it was over. We -never notified the Mexicans. Had we done so once we should not have -escaped the next raid. This time the Villistas were with the Indians. As -you saw the first thing they did was to rip out the wires. Washington -had just accepted Carranza as the power in authority and the Villistas -were angry.</p> - -<p>Wilcox and his wife and daughter were locked in a room all the first -night while Banderas and Bacomo argued over their fate. Banderas was for -killing Wilcox and taking over his wife and daughter for camp women. But -the Indian stood out against him. It seems Wilcox had at one time given -the Indians some sacks of beans when they were hard up for food. They -remembered this. It was a good thing for the three.</p> - -<p>At a previous raid an American engineer living near Wilcox was found -dead. He was supposed to have run. Looked just like a pin-cushion, with -the feathered arrows that were in him. Funniest thing you ever saw in -your life. There were four bullets in him also.</p> - -<p>The Americans were too scattered to resist. It was decided to save -the few guns by hiding them. Bacomo rode up to the house with his -escort,—ordered to give up all guns and cartridges. At the last -moment he turned back from the stairs, entered Mrs. Johnson's room where -the ladies were sitting on the beds and ordered them to get up. Under the -mattress a miscellaneous collection of riot guns, rifles, shot guns, -automatics, pistols and cartridges were found. When all the guns and -cartridges to the last shell had been loaded on the horses behind the -drunken soldiers Bacomo refused C.'s request for one of the riot guns -and with a polite bow and a "<i>Con permiso, senores</i>," he rode off.</p> - -<p>In Mr. Johnson's cellar they had found all sorts of bottles from Scotch -to German <i>Scheiswasser</i> and had drunk it all indiscriminately.</p> - -<p>Cattle had eaten the standing rice. The pigs had got loose and over-run -everything. Returning there were corpses on all sides. About one of -these a triple battle raged. The pigs were ranged on one side, the dogs -on another and from a third a flock of vultures crept up from time to -time. The pigs and dogs would make a united rush at the birds who would -fly a few feet into the air and settle a yard or so away.</p> - -<p>These pictures are of Bacomo taken a year later just as he was being -taken from the train by his captors. He was a physical wreck at the time -but at the time of the raid he was a magnificent specimen of a man. It -seemed there was some silver buried near Los Mochis which they wanted. -He would not disclose its whereabouts unless they freed him and they -would not free him unless he spoke first.</p> - -<p>The end is shown in this picture. Here he is with the pick and spade at -his feet surrounded by the Carrancista soldiers. He dug his grave and -was shot and they buried him there.</p> - -<p>The Indians have made a local saint of him and every night you will see -candles burning on the spot and little plates of rice and other food -placed there for his spirit.—</p> - -<p>For a moment Columbus stood as if spell-bound by the fact of this new -country. Soon however he regained his self-possession and with Alonzo -Pinzon ordered the trunks of trifles to be opened which, being opened, -the Indians drew near in wonder and began to try to communicate with -these gods.</p> - -<p>It was indeed a new world.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure09.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>No man can tell the truth and survive—save through prestige. And -no child either. Aristocracy is license to tell the truth. And to hear it. -Witness the man William in Henry Fifth, the camp incident. Fear clutched -at his heart.</p> - -<p>Agh-ha-ha! Shouted the <i>vaqueros</i> plunging their spurs into the -bronchos' sides. Up with the heels. Buck, buck, buck. Agh-ha-ha! -<i>Fortissimo</i>. The wild and unexpected cry out of the Mexican Indian -country rang through the quiet house so that the pup leaped up and -rushed to the door.</p> - -<p>Someone had taken the apple. Both denied they had had a hand in it. Each -accused the other. The truth did not appear. For an hour the man tried -his best to arrive at a just decision. Joseph Smith shook where he stood -and fell frothing at the mouth. He was of Vermont mountain stock. His -birth among the poor white trash there had not even been thought worth -recording. Yet a vision came to him of the marriage in Cana. Christ -drank the wine and Martha and Mary her sister became his wives—so to -speak. It is the truth. The world shall be saved anew, said Joseph Smith -in the mountains of Vermont—where the mushrooms are so plentiful -among the fir trees.</p> - -<p>Who had given the boy the apple against the father's express orders? Had -he taken it himself—which he denied or had the girl gone into the -store room—as he asserted but which she denied—and selected it -herself? Where was the truth?</p> - -<p>In Illinois Brigham Young was recruited. Off they set with fifty oxen -for the Promised Land away over the prairies and deserts—through the -Sioux country, in search of Zion. The whole world they would leave behind -and for the truth's sake they would live in that far country—to -be discovered, to which the Lord would lead them.</p> - -<p>Go upstairs sir and take your clothes off. You shall go to bed for this -lie—I'll say I took the apple Daddy, said the boy sobbing violently, -but she gave it to me. In minute detail he repeated the story of how the -apple was picked out of the basket by the girl and handed to him to eat.</p> - -<p>Lions of the Lord. The boy would not give up his bride to Brigham and -was <i>altered</i>, as a rebel. She went mad. In '49 a party of gold -seekers came by accident into the valley they had found. They were gently -received. A warning was given of hostile Indians and a special guard was -appointed to conduct them safely on their way. But Brigham had had a -dream. Men must not wander into the valley of Zion to disturb the ways -of God's holy ones. A blood sacrifice had been demanded of Brigham by -the Lord. John D. Lee was selected as he who must lend himself to the -Almighty will of God for the good of the church and state. Slowly the -party of gold seekers departed for California. At the narrow defile at -Mountain Meadow the treacherous business was performed. All but a child -were killed and Brigham and the Lord were revenged. Later John D. Lee -was convicted of murder by government authorities and shot. A poor -ignorant tool in the hands of that most mighty Lion of the Lord.</p> - -<p>And you my girl. You have lied to me before this. Did you or did you not -take the apple? No one will be punished but I must have the truth. -Tomorrow is Sunday. You shall go to church, and up to the minister you -shall march, and he will ask you what I am asking you now. In the face -of God you shall say to him that you did not take that apple, then I -shall know. Did you or did you not take that apple? I will have the -truth. And you my young sir, I shall not punish you but I must have the -truth. You shall stay in bed all day tomorrow, all next week as long as -it takes for one of you to change your story. I will have the truth.</p> - -<p>The mountains are savage about the valley. The lake is bitter, scalding -with the salt. They knew they had found the Dead Sea. At last the child -confessed, with bitter and hard tears that he had taken the fruit -himself. It was the truth.</p> - -<p>Clear and cold the moon shone in the partly denuded poplars. It was -midnight and the little fellow to whom he had determined to teach the -meaning of the truth was snug in his bed. Years before that Utah had -been admitted to the Union as a state and polygamy had been more or less -abandoned. The young folk were beginning to be ashamed of the narrowness -of their cult and the bones of the fathers were rotten.</p> - -<p>The glassy half moon in the dark leaves cast a dull light over the -world upon which a calm had descended. Suddenly the pleiades could be -heard talking together in Phœnician. Their words were clear as dropping -water: What things they do in this new world: they said. Let us from now -on swear to each other that we will give up every thought of wisdom and -seek no further for the truth—which is, after all a veritable -moon.—At this the moon was overcast for a moment by a falling -leaf. The answer that came from that clear but broken ball rose slowly -toward the stars: The child is asleep. Let us warn him of the folly of -words. Let us bless him only with words that change often and never -stiffen nor remain to form sentences of seven parts. To him I send a -message of words like running water.—At this the stars smiled for -they were married to one—</p> - -<p><i>Elena, yo soy un</i> wonder, she would say. <i>Vu par le jury</i>. -And who is the jury but myself. The boy had struck her with a stone. Come -we shall go and apologise, said Brigham Young. Into the neighbour's kitchen -they walked. An older sister was cleaning the gas range. Where is your -sister? But the truth is that all the while he had been hoping that just -what had happened would happen. His eye ran up and down the girl's form. -Secretly he was happy to have found her alone. I'm sorry, I will never -do it again, Never again. Never again. Oh never, never again.</p> - -<p>And how can I, now that it is all over, and I am old? But at first I -tell you I cried my eyes out. I had just been admitted to the Beaux -Arts. All was as near perfect as could well be. I had the friendship of -La Baronne d'Orsay and then the stars withdrew their aid. I had to go -back to Porto Rico. I had to leave everything behind to go back to that -country where there was nothing.</p> - -<p>There life ended. But it is over now. I was just beginning to do things. -I tell you I cried my eyes out. But I am old now. I wanted you to see -these drawings, to show you it was not a bluff.</p> - -<p>The Indians are gone. It is late now. It is cold. September -is over. October is cold. Words should be—Words should be—I am -tired to death.</p> - -<p>But two enormous women, middle aged, dignified, with still broad backs -came down the street just as the very dirty little boy was crossing -over. The three arrived at the entrance to the path at the same moment. -The women looked hard at the filthy little boy whose face was stickily -from apple-juice and black, with a great circle of dirt around the -mouth. The women looked and the little boy hung his head and stumbled -off into the long grass, almost falling into the abandoned foundation.</p> - -<p>And so the little company went on foot 20,000 miles along what later -became known as Emigration Trail, overcoming incredible obstacles, -eating the draught oxen, through savage mountains on, on to the Mountain -Meadow Massacre. For they would worship the Lord their God in peace and -in their own way. At last the Mayflower was in the harbor and the -pilgrims had landed and dispersed.</p> - -<p>Yes, it was a New World.</p> - -<p>But they have prospered and today the Mormon Church is all for goodness -and it is powerful and rich.</p> - -<p>A favorite trick of the Mayo Indians is, if they meet a man with good -clothes, to take what they want and let him go on in his drawers.</p> - -<p>So it was with infinite satisfaction that on looking up the little boy -saw those two terrible viragos suddenly as low as he. <i>Nuevo -Mundo</i>.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure10.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>Calang-glang! Calang-glang! went the bells of the little Episcopal -Church at Allandale. It was eight o'clock in the evening. A row of cars -stood along the curb, each with its headlights lit, but dimmed so as not -to make too much of a glare on the road, at the same time to save the -battery while complying with the law!</p> - -<p>On sped the little family all crowded into one seat, the two children -sleeping.</p> - -<p>In the Dutch church on the old Paramus Road Aaron Burr was married to -Mrs. Prevost, Jataqua! It is near Hohokus, cleft-in-the-rocks, where the -Leni Lenapes of the Delaware nation had their village from time -immemorial. Aaron, my darling, life begins anew! It is a new start. Let -us look forward staunchly together—</p> - -<p>The long, palm-like leaves of the ailantus trees moved slowly up and -down in the little wind, up and down.</p> - -<p>And along this road came the British. Aaron, the youth from Princeton, -gathered his command together and drove them back. Mother I cannot sleep -in this bed, it is full of <i>British soldiers</i>. Why so it is! How -horrid.</p> - -<p>And he too, on his memorable retreat, that excellent judge of -horseflesh, George Washington, he too had passed over this road; and -these trees, the oldest of them, had witnessed him. And now the wind has -torn the finest of them in half.</p> - -<p>Nothing more wonderful than to see the pears attached by their stems to -the trees. Earth, trunk, branch, twig and the fruit: a circle soon to be -completed when the pear falls. They had left at eleven and soon they -would be home. The little car purred pleasantly to itself at the thought -of the long night. Oh, to be a woman, thought the speeding mechanism. -For they had wrapped something or other in a piece of newspaper and -placed it under the seat and there were pictures there of girls—or -grown women it might be, in very short skirts. Steadily the wheels spun -while on the paper were printed these words:</p> - -<p>The Perfection of Pisek-designed Personality Modes: A distinctly forward -move in the realm of fashion is suggested by the new personality modes, -designed by Pisek... modes that are genuine inspirations of individual -styling, created for meeting the personal preferences of a fastidiously -fashionable clientele, the woman and the miss who seek personality in -dress in keeping with their charms, characteristics and station . . . -Thus you can expect at Pisek's only those <i>tailleurs</i>, gowns, wraps -and frocks that bear the unmistakable stamp of individuality—styles -that encourage and inspire admiration for their splendid simplicity and -differentness... come to Pisek's . . . (the more the better) . . . see -the new ideas in fashions . . . You'll not be disappointed . . .</p> - -<p>What chit of a girl could have appreciated you, my darling boy, as I do. -A man of your personality, so fresh in wit, so brimming with vigor and -new ideas. Aaron my dear, dear boy, life has not yet begun. All is new -and untouched in the world waiting, like the pear on the tree, for you -to pluck it. Everyone loves you and will wait on you. For you everything -is possible. Bing! and Hamilton lies dead.</p> - -<p>As old Mr. Goss, who lost his hearing from an explosion of fireworks in -Philadelphia after Lee's defeat, has said in his high nasal twang: Quite -right, quite right, I've seen the country saved 8 times in the last -fifty years.</p> - -<p>At any rate it was a new world to them; they two together would conquer -and use, life had smiled upon them. <i>Nuevo Mundo</i>.</p> - -<p>Along the road the Dutch settlers came out from their attractive brown -stone houses as the happy and distinguished couple went by. It was a -great day for the little colony of New Jersey. There over the misty -meadows the lights of Weehawken were beginning to glimmer as the little -car and its precious freight drew near the end of the journey. The pear -fell to the earth and was eaten by the pigs.</p> - -<p>I wonder if he'll recognise me in my Greenwich Village honkie-tonk -bobbed hair. The hairdresser said: Don't you do it, when I said I'd like -mine bobbed too. So many of the girls had theirs done a year ago and now -its just at that impossible stage where you can't do a thing with it. -Better go to Europe or California until it grows again. There's a reason -for travel: As the hair progresses the days grow fewer.</p> - -<p>But is South Africa after all the country of the future?</p> - -<p>Over the great spaces of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana he sped -in the Pullman car. City after city swept up to him, paused awhile at -his elbow and plunged away to the rear with the motion of a wheel whose -hub was hidden in infinity. And such indeed was exactly the case. He was -being ground between two wheels, one on either side of the car and it -was their turning that thrust him forward at such speed. The wheat was -up in the fields but a fellow passenger assured him that in Kansas, only -two days before, he had seen wheat twice as high—which explains the -cause of so many abandoned farms in Vermont, he remembered, and settled -back to another hour of idle staring. A new country he kept saying to -himself. On a siding were cars loaded with emigrants from Holland booked -through to San Francisco.</p> - -<p>Into the elevator stepped the young man in a petty officer's uniform. -His Spanish was exquisite to hear. The first battleship since the -Spanish-American war was anchored in New York harbor. How well he bears -himself. The Spanish are the only people in Europe whom civilization has -not ruined. Savage men, big bearded chins—but shaved clean. They -know how to treat their women—better than the French for the -French—after all are <i>blagueurs</i> to a man. The Spanish stand -still. What an ass a man will make of himself in a strange country! In -armor De Soto wandering haphazard over Alabama. The Seminoles for -guides. Buried him in the Mississippi. It is my river, he said. Roll -Jordan roll. It is <i>my</i> river for I discovered it and into it let -my body, in full armor, be put to rest. The cat-fish ate it. So roll -Jordan roll. Diada Daughter of Discord: read it.</p> - -<p>In Illinois, far in the west, over that trackless waste of forest and -mountain and river and lake they came at last to a valley that pleased -them and there they determined to build. So they fell to hewing trees -and building their houses, work to which they had been bred and trained -for two generations since Plymouth and Salem days. Cornwallis had been -beaten fifty years before and Pitt had rushed to see the King crying: -All is lost. A new world had been born. Here in the primeval forest the -little colony of New Englanders hoped to realize success and plenty.</p> - -<p>In Bonnie, Illinois, the Presbyterian minister is a very good man. He is -as good a preacher as Bonnie can afford and if anybody said that Bonnie -is made up of mad-men—He would be shot. <i>Nuevo Mundo</i>, shouted -the sailors. But their cry was by now almost extinct.</p> - -<p>In polite stories the world had been made acquainted with the -picturesque lives of these commonplace but worthy people. In detail -their story had been told. Over the precipice in Yosemite the Bridal -Veil Falls had been launching its water for a thousand years and -ignorance was fattening his belly apace.</p> - -<p>Bonnie, Ill., October 22. Dear Bill: Am up to my ears in painting, and -am preparing to go to Alton, Ill., to work in the State Hospital, if I -get a call, so am too busy now to read your book but think I'm going to -like it and will devour it later. Sincerely. A. N. Turner.</p> - -<p>And the little boy crept into the great chest like Peppo into the -Cardinal's tomb and began to pick up the mothballs that had been left -there when the winter things were removed.</p> - -<p>An Indian would sense the facts as he wished. A tree would speak to him -with a definite identity. It would not at least seem endowed with human -characteristics: a voice, that would be all.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure11.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>Arnold, this wind is, the wise and sagacious captain. Henchman of the -wind. The wind is a lion with hooked teeth. The saber-toothed tiger -inhabited the region west of the Alleganies throughout the pleistocene -age. With a snarl it wrenches the limbs of the trees from their places -and tosses them to earth where they lie with the leaves still -fluttering.</p> - -<p>Vacuous; full of wind. Her whole pelvis is full of intestine but aside -from the ptosis I find nothing really wrong. The uterus appears to be -normal. The bleeding may come from a cyst. At least there is no good -reason for removing—for a hysterectomy. There it is. It. Like some -tropical fruit color of the skunk cabbage flower. There it is, that -mystical pear, glistening with the peritoneum. Here the cavern of all -caverns. Alpha if not omega. Talk politely and obey the law. But do not -remove it.</p> - -<p>Oh my country. Shall it be a hysterectomy? Arnold there is a wind with a -knife's edge.</p> - -<p>And Remy says the spring of curiosity is broken at thirty. Nothing left -at fifty but the facts of bed and table. He has the lilt of Heine at his -best and in places quite equals the work of the author of Danny Deever. -The catgut had slipped out of the needle. The young interne held the -point of the suture between his fingers and the nurse approached the -needle as accurately as she could. But the man's hand trembled slightly. -For a moment they tried to complete the connection but failing in their -attempt the nurse took the end in her other hand and soon had the needle -threaded. The young doctor looked up as much as to say thank you.</p> - -<p>Such a wind. At fifteen they seem noble, desirable beyond dreams. In the -winter the trees at least remain stems of wood that resist with a will, -whose branches rebound against the impact of sleet. At thirty they are -what they are. The boy rebels and she with her hair in distressed -tangles about the disorderly boudoir cap, at mid-day, whines and -snatches at him as he jerks and defies her. It is beyond her strength to -control a boy of nine. Clutching her dressing sack—oh slobbery -morsel—about her breastless form with one hand she rushes as far as -she dares to the porch edge, glancing furtively about for chance gentlemen -or neighbors and tries to overtake the youngster. No, the young man has -really escaped. He goes to school filthy again and what will they think -of his mother.</p> - -<p>At fifteen they are slender and coquettish and they cry if you are rough -with them. Great burly fellow, she seemed to him all that he was not, -the quintessence of Ibsenism, the wind among the reeds. Or perhaps -the reed in the wind. Something to love, to take into the arms, to -protect—If you can find any reason for doing a hysterectomy doctor, -do it. Her husband is good for nothing at all. She at least is a power in -her family. She is not like the native American women of her class, she -is a Polock. You never saw such courage.</p> - -<p>The schooner left Southampton bound for New York with a cargo of -rails—steel rails. But the English emigrants were not like these -modern messes. Those round, expressionless peasant faces of today. See that -one there with the little boy at her side. Castle Garden. At last we are to -be in America, where gold is in the streets. Look at that face. That is -the kind of immigration we want. Look at the power in that jaw. Look at -that nose. She is one who will give two for every stroke she has to -take. Look at the intensity of her gaze. Well, she's English, that's the -reason. Nowadays they have no more of that sort. These Jews and Polocks, -Sicilians and Greeks. Goodbye America!</p> - -<p>The head nurse's legs under her practical short skirt were like mighty -columns. They held the seriousness of her looks, her steady, able hands. -A fine woman.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure12.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>The American background is America. If there is to be a new world Europe -must not invade us. It is not a matter of changing the y to i as in -Chile. They are bound.</p> - -<p>The background of America is not Europe but America.</p> - -<p><i>Eh bien mon vieux coco</i>, this stuff that you have been writing -today, do you mean that you are attempting to set down the American -background? You will go mad. Why? Because you are trying to do nothing at -all. The American background? It is Europe. It can be nothing else. Your -very method proves what I say. You have no notion what you are going to -write from one word to the other. It is madness. You call this the -background of American life? Madness?</p> - -<p>As far as I have gone it is accurate.</p> - -<p>It is painting the wind.</p> - -<p>Ah, that would be something.</p> - -<p><i>Mais ça</i>, are you a plain imbecile? That is a game for children. -Why do you not do as so many of your good writers do? Your Edgar Lee -Masters, your Winesburg, Ohio. Have you not seen the photographs of men -and women on your walls? They are a type, as distinct as a Frenchman or -a German. Study these men, know their lives. You have a real work to do, -you have the talent, the opportunity even. This is your work in life. -You Americans, you are wasteful, mad—</p> - -<p>Our background.</p> - -<p>You would paint the wind. Well, it has been tried—many times, and -do you know where that leads?</p> - -<p>I know where it has led.</p> - -<p>But do you know? Have you seen, felt, heard what they have seen, felt, -heard, our Villons—</p> - -<p>Apollo was out of breath but the nymph was more tired than he. The chase -must soon have ended when she falling to her knees half from the will to -be there half from fatigue besought her mistress Diana to save her from -the God's desire. And she was changed into a laurel bush.</p> - -<p>All about the hills where they stood the hard waxen leaves of the laurel -glistened above the dead leaves of the hardwood trees, the beech, the -maple, the oak.</p> - -<p>You imagine I am French because I attack you from the continental -viewpoint. You are wrong. I am from the country of your friends -Mussorgsky, Dostoevsky, Chekov. At least if you will not yield me the -point that America cannot be new, cannot do anything unless she takes -the great heritage which men of all nations and ages have left to the -human race.</p> - -<p>You mean that I should not be an American but—Turgenev, enjoy you -more if, well, if you were more comprehensible, a little more particular, -<i>vous comprenez</i>? You sweep out your arms, you—I see no faces, -no details of the life, no new shape—</p> - -<p>The druggist's boy cannot be distinguished from his master when he says, -Hello, over the phone—Is that what you mean?</p> - -<p>Well, you are very much children, you Americans.</p> - -<p>It is not to be avoided as far as I can see.</p> - -<p>Let us have now a beginning of composition. We have had enough of your -improvisations.</p> - -<p>I am consumed by my lusts. No American can imagine the hunger I -have.</p> - -<p>It is the itch, monsieur. It is neurasthenia. Desire is not a thing to -speak of as if it were a matter of filling the stomach. It is wind, gas. -You are empty my friend. Eat. Then and then only.</p> - -<p>Like all men save perhaps the Chinese you are most transparent when you -imagine yourself most protected.</p> - -<p>Her bosom reached almost to her knees. That morning in the October -garden she had picked a violet for him and placed it in his coat. -Watching the feet of men and women as they touched the pavement a strong -odor of violets crossed his path.</p> - -<p>He turned and saw the massive Jewess waddling by. It had been good -perfume too.</p> - -<p>These Polocks. Their heads have no occiput. They are flat behind. It is -why when they put on their American hats the things slip down about -their ears. The nigger's head isn't that way. You know how the bump goes -out behind in so many of them. The club sandwich on her plate kept -sliding apart, the top slice of bread would slip. Then she took the -pieces in her fingers and poked the lettuce in under the sheet. On her -breast was a black pin. It formed a circle. She looked up with her mouth -full of food and resting both elbows on the table chewed America -thoughtfully while she held the state of Maryland in her firm fingers. -The ends of each finger were stubby, the nails cut short and as clean as -well manicured nails could well be. Clatter, clatter, clatter. He could -see himself in the plate glass behind her. He was conscious of his hat -which he had not removed. He was at this table with these five -women—one of them young, ready—and he had not removed his hat. -There was in fact no place to put it.</p> - -<p>I am begging, frankly. Ten cents a ticket. I have to raise fifty dollars -by the end of next week. We want to fit up a room in our hall where the -colored working girls can come and rest. On Thursdays we serve tea. Then -they go back to the office. When the impact is over the man must think. -I tell you I do not contemplate with relish seeing my children bred out -of all these girls. Is it wrong? Well, I thought you said you had an -appetite. Impregnate eighty of them, right and left as you see them here -in this room. It would not be impossible. I cannot think of my children -running about in the environment in which these have to live. My dear -sir, you are a fool. You are lying to yourself—As to the girls, I -frankly desire them. I desire many, many, many.</p> - -<p>There she sat on the bench of the subway car looking idly about, being -rushed under the river at great speed to the kitchen of her mother's -flat. Malodorous mother. Or wrinkled hard-put-to-it mother. Savior of -the movies. After the impact his great heart had expanded so as to -include the whole city, every woman young and old there he having -impregnated with sons and daughters. For everyone loved him. And he knew -how to look into their eyes with both passion and understanding. Each -had taken him to her soul of souls where the walls were papered with -editorials from the Journal and there he had made himself father to her -future child. As they went upstairs he saw how her heels were -worn—Who will understand the hugeness of my passion?</p> - -<p>But he had understood. The truth lay under the surface. Why then -not—No two can remain together without training. Who better than that -one who is practiced. The faithful husband of the clothing store madam is -used to her. They functionate well together. He puts his hat in the right -place. His money in the right bank. His arm fitted in just the posture -best suited to their mutual height and width. All their practices were -mated.</p> - -<p>But he was an outsider. He was new to all. Her shoes are stitched up the -back.</p> - -<p>Card-index minds, the judges have. Socialism, immorality and lunacy are -about synonyms to the judge. Property is sacred and human liberty is -bitter, bitter, bitter to their tongues.</p> - -<p>Walk up the stairs there little girl. But she is naked! These are all -doctors. So the little tot struggled up the very high clinic steps, -naked as she was, and all the doctors looked at her. She had some spots -on her body that had been there a year. Had I been her father I would -know why I am a fool.</p> - -<p>Naked and free, free to be damned in to hell by a chance vagrant to whom -she had taken a fancy. Her father did not know her. Did not even know -that she existed. Cared less. We will look after her said the head -doctor.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure13.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>That cat is funny. I think she'd be a good one for the circus. When -she's hungry she bites your legs. Then she jumps at you as much as to -say: <i>Carramba</i>, give me something.</p> - -<p>America needs the flamboyant to save her soul—said Vachel Lindsay -to the indifferent mountains.</p> - -<p>He might have added that America tries to satisfy this need in strange -and often uncatalogued ways. America, living an exemplary -three-meals-a-day-and-bed-time life in a wall-papered home, goes now and -then <i>en masse</i>, by Gosh, to the circus to see men, women and animals -perform exquisite and impossible feats or daring. What could be more -flamboyant than the trapeze-performer hurtling through the air, the -tiger leaping through man-made hoops, or the elephant poising his mighty -bulk on his two forelegs lifted to the top of bottles? What more -flamboyant than the painted clown, timeless type of the race, laughing -that he may not weep, grinning through a thousand tragic jests while -little human beings perform their miraculous tricks around him?</p> - -<p>Jazz, the Follies, the flapper in orange and green gown and war-paint of -rouge—impossible frenzies of color in a world that refuses to be -drab. Even the movies, devoid as they are of color in the physical sense, -are gaudy in the imaginations of the people who watch them; gaudy with -exaggerated romance, exaggerated comedy, exaggerated splendor or -grotesqueness or passion. Human souls who are not living impassioned -lives, not creating romance and splendor and grotesqueness—phases of -beauty's infinite variety—such people wistfully try to find these -things outside themselves; a futile, often a destructive quest.</p> - -<p>The imagination will not down. If it is not a dance, a song, it becomes -an outcry, a protest. If it is not flamboyance it becomes deformity; if -it is not art, it becomes crime. Men and women cannot be content, any -more than children, with the mere facts of a humdrum life—the -imagination must adorn and exaggerate life, must give it splendor and -grotesqueness, beauty and infinite depth. And the mere acceptance of -these things from without is not enough—it is not enough to agree and -assert when the imagination demands for satisfaction creative energy. -Flamboyance expresses faith in that energy—it is a shout of delight, -a declaration of richness. It is at least the beginning of art.</p> - -<p>All right go ahead: A TEXAS PRIZE CONTEST—The Southern Methodist -University at Dallas, Texas, recently emerged from a prize contest which -had a strange <i>dénouement</i>—</p> - -<p>Look here young man, after this you examine those girls in the cold -weather.</p> - -<p>Who is Warner Fabian? <i>Flaming Youth</i> is the story of the -super-flapper, of her affairs at country clubs and cozy home-dances with -all the accompaniments of prohibition stimulants. Warner Fabian believes -that the youth of this country feeds on excitement and rushes to knowledge -"heeled" by way of petting parties and the elemental stimulus of jazz. -The barriers of convention are down. Youth makes its own standards and -innocence, according to the author, has been superseded by omniscience.</p> - -<p>It doesn't matter that Warner Fabian is a <i>nom de plume</i> which -conceals the identity of one of the ablest scientists of this country who -has dared to look facts in the face, facts physical, moral and emotional. -He has written the truth about youth, the youth of today as he sees it.</p> - -<p>FLAMING YOUTH by Warner Fabian is the writing on the wall. It is the -<i>Quo Vadis</i>? of the present moment.</p> - -<p>Those who are following in the Metropolitan Magazine the fortunes of -Pat, the most sophisticated and yet at the same time one of the most -deliciously lovely heroines of recent novels, and the fortunes of her -two sisters, may protest that Mr. Fabian's portrayal of youth in this -novel is outscotting Fitzgerald and overdancing in the Dark. We feel -however that this story of three girls and their many men is one which -may sufficiently frighten mothers and electrify fathers and hit the -younger set hard enough between the eyes to help America's youth to, at -least, a gradual return to sanity.</p> - -<p>And so the beginning of art ends in a gradual return to sanity.</p> - -<p>Today Modern scientific research has provided the most efficient agent -for the treatment of local inflammation: DIONAL applied locally over the -affected area acts promptly with prolonged effect. Drugless. -Non-irritant. Non-toxic. Indicated in Mastitis, Burns, Boil, -Tonsillitis, Mastoiditis, Sprain, Abscess, Bronchitis, Mumps, Contusion, -Ulcers, Pneumonia.</p> - -<p>If a man died on a stretcher he simply said: Dump it out. And ordered us -back for another load.</p> - -<p>Intended to stop at the school but his mind waylaid him. Down the hill -came the ash-cart—on the wrong side of the street. He, up the hill, -perforce went wrong also and with great headway. Just as he was about to -pass the cart another car swung out from behind it, headed down hill at -full speed. It was too late for any of the three to stop. In three -seconds there would be death for someone. Angels would be waiting for -mother's little boy. Without the minutest loss of time, in time with the -Boston Symphony Orchestra at its best he swung far to the left, up over -the curb, between two trees, onto the sidewalk—by luck no one was -passing—and going fifty feet came back between two trees, over the -curb to the roadway and continued his empty progress, rather hot in the -face, it must be confessed. He felt happy and proud.</p> - -<p>But he had missed his street.</p> - -<p>Well let it go. Far away in front of him a locomotive stood -indifferently at the avenue end, emitting great clouds of smoke. It was -autumn, clear and cold.</p> - -<p>But you Scandinavians, said the Frenchman, it is impossible to live in -this way. Why France, which is ten times as rich as your countries, -could not do it. You do not know what money is for. You throw it away -like a sickness. To drink champagne like this is madness, and it is -every night, everywhere, in Christiania, Copenhagen, everywhere.</p> - -<p>And there she sits staring out, not at the sea, but over Long Island -Sound. Dreaming of her sons—and of the money she will make next year -by renting the better of her two little shacks.</p> - -<p>When you have paid up the twenty shares you may, if you like, retain -them as paid up shares in which case you will receive the 5% interest, -or, if you feel that you would like to do so, you may increase your -holding to thirty shares and receive the 6%. Of course everyone is not -able to do that. Do not worry about it, we will notify you in plenty of -time when your book is balanced at the end of the six months.</p> - -<p>Let's see. What is the number of your house? Four eighty? I'll see that -they send it right up.</p> - -<p>You know last Sunday was my birthday. Seventy-three years old. I had a -party, a surprise party—my relatives came from all sides. But I -couldn't get her downstairs. She's afraid. We had a banister put on the -stairs, cost me nine dollars but she will not do it. She's so fat you -know, she's afraid of falling.</p> - -<p>Re Commissions due—Amount $1.00. Dear Sir:—You will please -take notice that unless we receive payment in full of your account within -FIVE DAYS after receipt of this letter, we shall draw upon you for the -amount due.</p> - -<p>A collection agency draft notifies the banks—those great -institutions of finance—that there is serious doubt regarding the -way you pay your honest obligations. The bank will take note of it. From -there the information quietly passes to the various Mercantile Agencies, -Dun's, Bradstreet's, Martindale's. And this is ONLY ONE cog in the wheel of -ARROW SERVICE. Our reports cover the whole field of credit reporting.</p> - -<p>Your continued indifference to our requests for payment has forced us to -consider this action. The draft, with a full history of the debt leaves -our office in five days unless your check is received in the meantime.</p> - -<p>Let your better judgement guide you, and pay this account without any -more trouble or expense. Yours very truly—MEMBERS: Retail Credit -Men's National Association. Commercial Law League of America. Rotary -International. O Rotary International!</p> - -<p>At this, De Soto, sick, after all the months of travel, stopped out of -breath and looked about him. Hundreds of miles he had travelled through -morass after morass, where the trees were so thick that one could -scarcely get between them, over mountain and river but never did he come -to the other side. The best he had done was to locate a river running -across his path, the greatest he had ever seen or heard of, greater than -the Nile, greater than the Euphrates, no less indeed than any. Here he -had confronted the New World in all its mighty significance and -something had penetrated his soul so that in the hour of need he had -turned to this Mighty River rather than to any other thing. Should it -come to the worst he had decided what to do. Out of the tangle around -him, out of the mess of his own past the river alone could give him -rest. Should he die his body should be given to this last resting place. -Into it Europe should pass as into a new world.</p> - -<p>Near the shore he saw a school of small fish which seemed to look at -him, rippling the water as they moved out in unison. Raising his heavy -head De Soto gave the order to proceed. Four of the men lifted him on an -improvised stretcher and the party, headed by the Indians, started again -north along the bank.</p> - -<p>The whole country was strange to them. But there at the edge of that -mighty river he had seen those little fish who would soon be eating him, -he, De Soto the mighty explorer—He smiled quietly to himself with a -curious satisfaction.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure14.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>It was a shock to discover that she, that most well built girl, so -discrete, so comely, so able a thing in appearance, should be so stupid. -There are things that she cannot learn. She will never finish school. -Positively stupid. Why her little brother, no bigger than Hop o' my -Thumb has caught up to her and will soon outstrip her. Her older brother -is the brightest boy in the High School. She will I suppose breed stupid -children. Plant wizards choose the best out of lots running into the -millions. Choose here there everywhere for hybrids. A ten-pound white -leghorn cockerel, hens that lay eggs big enough to spoil the career of -any actor. She might though have bright children. What a pity that one -so likely should be so stupid. Easier to work with but I should hate -a child of mine to be that way. Excuses—Try first. Argue after. -Excuses. Do not dare.</p> - -<p>There sat the seven boys—nine years old and -there-abouts—planning dire tortures for any that should seduce or -touch in any way their sisters. Each strove to exceed the other. Tying -his antagonist to a tree Apollo took out his knife and flayed him. For -sweet as the flute had been yet no man can play the flute and sing at -the same time. But the God had first played his harp and then sung to -his own accompaniment—a thing manifestly unfair. No doubt, his -sense of being in the wrong whetted his lust for the other's hide. In -any case he got what he was after. He was the winner and that was all -there was about it.</p> - -<p>Each boy would think with a secret glow of a new torture: I would dip -his hands in boiling lead—they often melted old pieces of lead in a -plumber's pot over a field fire to make slugs for their bean -shooters—then I would tie a rope to his feet and drag him on cinders -etc.... each inventing a worse torture than that pictured before. And -all for their sisters' virtue. So there under the east wall of the -Episcopal Church they sat in a group on the grass and talked together -for an hour.</p> - -<p>The real empire builders of our colonial period were not the statesmen, -the men of wealth, the great planters but the unknown pioneers who -fought single-handed and at once both the primeval wilderness and the -lurking savage. The hand crooked to the ploughtail was shaped to the -trigger.</p> - -<p>The Mesa Verde cliff dwellers—a much advanced race—formed a -partnership with nature in the science of home building. Masterpieces of -architecture, the survivals of the cliff dwellings tell the story of the -ages.</p> - -<p>On the top of a point high above the steep cliffs stood Sun Temple, so -called, scene of the great ceremonial dramas of the clan. The building -is in the form of the letter D and many of the stones which make up the -thousand-odd feet of walls are highly decorated.</p> - -<p>The corner stone of the building contains a fossil leaf of a palm tree. -Influenced by anything which even in shape resembled the sun, the -primitive people walled in the leaf on three sides and made a shrine.</p> - -<p>The word <i>bayeta</i> is merely Spanish for <i>baize</i>. Great -quantities of this were made in England for the Spanish and Mexican trade, -the major part of which was of a brilliant red color. In this way -English <i>baize</i> became Spanish <i>bayeta</i> to the Indians of the -American Southwest. Familiar with the art of weaving, these Indians -unraveled the bayeta, retwisted it into one, two or three strands, and then -rewove it into their blankets, which are now almost priceless. This old -blanket was picked up by the author in a New Mexican corral, for the -purpose of wiping his buggy axle. It was covered with filth and mud. A -number of washings revealed this glorious specimen of the weaver's art.</p> - -<p>Accepted by a cultured and talented belle, Lincoln, according to his law -partner, had already been refused by Sarah Rickard, an obscure miss of -sixteen, of whom apparently nothing further is known.</p> - -<p>It was twelve feet from the rock into the water. As he stood looking -down it seemed twenty. His eyes being five feet from his heels made it -seem by that much higher than it was. He had never dived from such a -height in his life. He had climbed up there to dive and he must dive or -yield. What would he yield? At least it was something he did not intend -to yield. He tried his best to imitate the others, he stood on the edge -and plunged. It seemed to him that he plunged. As a matter of fact he -dropped over the edge with his body bent almost double so that his -thighs hit the water with a stinging impact, also the lower part of his -belly, also the top of his head. He did not feel certain of himself for -a moment or two after rising to the surface. That was about enough. -Memory began to fill the blank of his mind.</p> - -<p>There it was still, the men around Mrs. Chain's table on Locust St.: -$3.50 a week. A week? Yes, three-fifty a week. And that place in Leipzig -where they had only half cooked fresh pork. <i>Schwein schlacherei</i>! -Bah. One week was enough there. Fraulein Dachs, <i>pflaumen suppe</i>. That -purple and sweet soup. The white cakes they sold on the station platform -near Malaga, what were they called? It seemed to be some native bake -peculiar to the place. The devil fish in a black sauce in Seville. Big -lumps of dough, big as snowballs, <i>sauer braten</i>. But Mrs. Chain's -prunes were the most wonderful. Watery tidbits. It was prunes or -applesauce. Her daughter was simple I guess. Did her best to land one of -the students, kept it up for twenty years. At that table I met one of my -dearest friends. Will you have some bread? Yes. That look. It was enough. -Youth is so rich. It needs no stage setting. Out went my heart to that -face. There was something soft there, a reticence, a welcome, a loneliness -that called to me. And he, he must have seen it in me too. We looked, -two young men, and at once the tie was cemented. It was gaged accurately -at once and sealed for all time. The other faces are so many prunes.</p> - -<p>Have you ever seen a dish of small birds all lying on their backs on the -dish and with feet in the air, all roasted stiff but brown and savory? -Rice birds I think they called them. Or snails or baked eggs?</p> - -<p>The old man raked slowly. It took him all day to finish the small lawn. -But it was autumn and the leaves had fallen thickly. The bird bath was -full of leaves. It was a sentimental picture. But after all why? The -leaves must fall into every corner. If they fall into the bird bath that -is all there is to it. Still it calls many things to the mind that are -not evoked by the twingling of waves on a lake shore in August.</p> - -<p>Clark had taken a job as clerk at Pocono, and she was a Quakeress. They -got to know each other very, very well. And this girl in the steamer -chair, it was the cattle men who attracted her. Let her go then, he said -tying the cord with a piece of gauze twisted into a rope. When you bathe -the baby for the first time do not put him into a tub but sponge him off -carefully before the fire with castile soap and warm water. Be careful -not to get the soap into his eyes. Is it nitrate of silver they use for -a baby's eyes?</p> - -<p>I could not tell whether it was a baby or a doll the little girl was -coddling. The Italians' babies are often so very small. They dress them -up so grotesquely too. It must be a rigid custom with them.</p> - -<p>Nothing at all. All at once it seemed that every ill word he had ever -heard spoken struck his ear at the same moment. What a horrible roar it -made. But there were other things, too many to record. Corners of rooms -sacred to so many deeds. Here he had said so and so, done so and so. On -that picnic he had dared to be happy. All the older women had watched -him. With one girl under each arm he had let his spirit go. They had -been closer than anything he could now imagine.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure15.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>Particles of falling stars, coming to nothing. The air pits them, eating -out the softer parts. Sometimes one strikes the earth or falls flaming -into Lake Michigan with a great hiss and roar. And if the lawless mob -that rules Ireland with its orderly courts and still more orderly minds -will not desist it must be crushed by England. So that to realize the -futility of American men intent upon that virtue to be found in -literature, literature, that is, of the traditional sort as known in France -and Prussia—to realize how each serious American writer in turn -flares up for a moment and fizzles out, burnt out by the air leaving no -literary monument, no Arc de Triomphe behind him, no India subdued—To -realize this it is necessary to go back to the T'ang dynasty where -responsibility rested solely on the heads of the poets—<i>etc., -etc</i>... Or better still why not seek in Aleppo or Jerusalem for the -strain to save us.</p> - -<p>America is lost. Ah Christ, Ah Christ that night should come so -soon.</p> - -<p>And the reason is that no American poet, no American man of letters has -taken the responsibility upon his own person. The responsibility for -what? There is the fire. Rush into it. What is literature anyway but -suffering recorded in palpitating syllables? It is the quiet after the -attack. Picking a sliver of bone from his mangled and severed leg he -dipped it in his own gore and wrote an immortal lyric. Richard -Cœur de Lion shot through the chest with an iron bolt wrote the first -English—no, French, poem of importance. What of democratic Chaucer? -He was only a poet but Richard was a man, an adventurer, a king. The half -mad women rush to impregnate themselves against him. And this is -literature. This is the great desirable. Soaked in passion, <i>baba au -rhum</i>, the sheer proof of the spirit will do the trick and America will -be King. Up America. Up Cœur de Lion. Up Countess Wynienski the queen -of Ireland.</p> - -<p>Polyphemus took first one shape then another but Odysseus, the wise and -crafty, held firm. He did not let go but Polyphemus did. In fact the God -could not exist without Odysseus to oppose him.</p> - -<p>Why man, Europe is YEARNING to see something new come out of -America.</p> - -<p>In a soup of passion they would see a little clam. Let us smile. This -is—</p> - -<p>The danger is in forgetting that the good of the past is the same good -of the present. That the power that lived then lives today. That we too -possess it. That true novelty is in good work and that no matter how -good work comes it is good when it possesses power over itself. Europe's -enemy is the past. Our enemy is Europe, a thing unrelated to us in any -way. Our lie that we must fight to the last breathe is that it is -related to us.</p> - -<p>We are deceived when they cry that negro music is the only true American -creation. It IS the only true from the European point of view. -Everything is judged from that point of view. But to us it is only new -when we consider it from a traditional vantage. To us it means a -thousand things it can never mean to a European. To us only can it be -said to be alive. With us it integrates with our lives. That is what it -teaches us. What in hell does it matter to us whether it is new or not -when it IS to us. It exists. It is good solely because it is a part of -us. It is good THEREFORE and therefore only is it new. Everything that -is done in Europe is a repetition of the past with a difference. -Everything we do must be a repetition of the past with a difference. I -mean that if negro music is new in an absolute sense—-which it is not -by any means, if we are to consider the Ethiopian—the probable -Ethiopian influence in Egypt—then it is new to Europe as it is to -us.</p> - -<p>It is not necessary for us to learn from anyone but ourselves—at -least it would be a relief to discover a critic who looked at American work -from the American viewpoint.</p> - -<p>We are a young nation and have not had time or opportunity to catch up -with nations that had ten centuries start of us. We still labor under -the handicap of our Puritan lineage....</p> - -<p>We shall not be able to plead childhood any longer.</p> - -<p>Eric the Red landed in Providence, Long Island, and was put in a cage so -everyone could see him.</p> - -<p>This sort of stupidity we have to combat. I am not talking of the mass -of plumbers and carpenters. I am talking of the one thing that is -permanent. Spirits. I am saying that America will screw whom it will -screw and when and how it will screw. And that it will refrain from -screwing when it will and that no amount of infiltration tactics from -"superior civilizations" can possibly make us anything but bastards.</p> - -<p>We are only children when we acknowledge ourselves to be children. -Weight of culture, weight of learning, weight of everything such as -abandon in any sense has nothing to do with it. We must first isolate -ourselves. Free ourselves even more than we have. Let us learn the -essentials of the American situation.</p> - -<p>We who despise the blackguards in the old sense. We too are free. Free! -We too, with paddles instead of turbines will discover the new world. We -are able. We are kings in our own right.</p> - -<p>We care nothing at all for the complacent Concordites? We can look at -that imitative phase with its erudite Holmeses, Thoreaus, and Emersons. -With one word we can damn it: England.</p> - -<p>In Patagonia they kick up the skulls of the river men out of the dust -after a flood. In Peru, in Machu Pichu the cyclopean wall on the top of -the Andes remains to rival the pyramids which after all may have been -built of blocks of some plaster stuff of which we have lost the -combination.</p> - -<p>I know not a land except ours that has not to some small extent made its -title clear. Translate this into ancient Greek and offer it to Harvard -engraved on copper to be hung in the waterclosets which freshmen use.</p> - -<p>And why do they come to naught? these falling stars, etc.</p> - -<p>It has been generally supposed that among the peoples of the earth the -age of maturity comes earliest in the tropics and increases gradually as -one goes northward. But in North America this rule has one striking -exception. It is not rare among Esquimau women that they have their -first child at 12 and children born before the mothers were 11 have been -recorded. Point Barrow Alaska 300 miles north of the Arctic circle.</p> - -<p>But the early maturity of the Esquimau girls is strictly in accord with -the supposition that the hotter the environment the earlier the -maturity. To all intents and purposes the typical Esquimau lives under -tropical or subtropical conditions. The temperature of the Esquimau -house indoors frequently rises to 90°. When they go out the cold air -does not have a chance to come in contact with the body, except for the -limited area of the face. When an Esquimau is well dressed his two -layers of fur clothing imprison the body heat so effectively that the -air in actual contact with his skin is always at the temperature of a -tropical summer. He carries the climate about with him inside his -clothes.</p> - -<p>When an Esquimau comes inside such a house as the one I have been -speaking of he strips off all clothing, immediately on entering, except -his knee breeches, and sits naked from the waist up and from the knees -down. Great streams of perspiration run down the face and body and are -being continually mopped up with handfuls of moss.</p> - -<p>The effect of the overheated houses is more direct upon the women than -the men for they remain indoors a large part of the winter.</p> - -<p>Otherwise in North America among the Indians as one goes north from -Mexico toward the arctic sea the colder the average temperature of the -air that is in contact with the body through the year, the later the -maturity of the girls. The most northerly of the Atabasca Indians appear -to suffer a great deal from the cold.</p> - -<p>The Dog Rib and Yellow Knife Indians are often so poorly clad that they -have to be continually moving, for if they stop for even half an hour at -a time their hands become completely numb.</p> - -<p>In the evenings their wigwams are cheerful with a roaring fire but while -one's face is almost scorched with the heat of the roaring flames one's -back has hoar-frost forming upon it. At night the Indians go to sleep -under their blankets covering up their heads and shivering all night. -The average age of maturity of the girls of these tribes is as high or -higher than that of north European whites.</p> - -<p>But north from the Slavey and Dog Rib Indians to the Esquimau country -the conditions suddenly change. One comes in contact with a people that -has a system of living almost perfectly adapted to a cold climate, while -the northern Indians have a system almost unbelievably ill adapted to -the conditions in which they live.</p> - -<p>In Puritan New England they wrapped the lover and his lass in one -blanket and left them before the dying hearth after the family retired. -There was a name for it which I have forgotten.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure16.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>It was another day ended. Another day added to the days that had gone -before. Merest superstition. The eternal moment remained twining in its -hair the flowers of yesterday and tomorrow. The newer street lights -sparked in the dark. The uphill street which that morning had been -filled at its far end with the enormous medal-with-rays of the sun was -now flecked with sparkles. It was Carlstadt, established as a free -thinker's corporation by Carl Weiss of Berne from which all churches had -been excluded. Another day—any day—.</p> - -<p>There lay that great frame of a man with his heavy features relaxed his -loose jowls rising and falling with each breath while the busy surgeons -tinkered at his elbow. Soon they struck gold and out spurted the red. -Martha, who had not gone downstairs for over an hour caught it in a white -porcelain bowl, an ounce, two ounces—she thought—estimating the -amount swiftly. Then four ounces, eight. He was a large man. When will -they check it! His breathing had grown easier. He was benefited. A -pint! He was white. In an hour men on horseback were riding north and -south. Washington was dead. It was another day. Any day.</p> - -<p>Davy Crockett had a literary style. Rather than blow his squirrel to -bits he'd strike the tree just under its belly so that the concussion -would stun it. Such was the country with the element of time subtracted. -What is time but an impertinence?</p> - -<p>Homesteading in the far western states was a struggle. Every child born -there had a mother who is thrice a heroine. A woman in such a country -approached motherhood at a time when her husband had to be away from -home. Up to the day of her confinement she had to milk, churn, care for -the chickens, work in the garden and carry water to the house from a -well three hundred yards away... The day of her confinement she did a -large washing then walked two miles to the home of a neighbor.</p> - -<p>For that the brat seized her by the lug with his little sharp teeth and -drew blood. We'll have to put him on the bottle.</p> - -<p>Nothing, save for the moment! In the moment exists all the past and the -future! Evolution—! Anti-peristalsis. Eighty-seven years ago I was -born in a little village in the outskirts of Birmingham. The past is for -those that lived in the past, the present is for today. Or—today! The -little thing lay at the foot of the bed while the midwife—It was in -England 1833. And now by the sea a new world death has come and left his -chewing gum in an artery of her brain. But I'll pay you for this, she -said as they were sliding her into the ambulance, I'll pay you for this. -You young people think you are awfully smart, don't you. I don't want to -see them again, those fuzzy things, what are they, trees?</p> - -<p>Good gracious, do you call this making me comfortable? The two boys had -her on the stretcher on the floor. Yes, stay here a week then I can do -what I please but you want to do what you please first. I wonder how -much she planned.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure17.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>Another day, going evening foremost this time. Leaning above her baby in -the carriage was Nettie Vogelman, grown heavier since we knew her in the -sixth grade twenty-five years before and balancing great masses of -prehistoric knowledge on her head in the shape of a purple ostrichplume -hat.</p> - -<p>But where is romance in all this—with the great-coat she was -wearing hanging from the bulge of her paps to the sidewalk? Romance! When -knighthood was in flower. Rome. Eliogabalus in a skirt married his man -servant.</p> - -<p>We struggle to comprehend an obscure evolution—opposed by the true -and static church—when the compensatory involution so plainly marked -escapes our notice. Living we fail to live but insist on impaling -ourselves on fossil horns. But the church balanced like a glass ball -where the jets of evolution and involution meet has always, in its -prosperous periods, patronised the arts. What else could it do? Religion -is the shell of beauty.</p> - -<p>The fad of evolution is swept aside. It was only mildly interesting at -the best. I'll give you a dollar my son for each of these books you -read: Descent of Man and Origin of Species, reprinted by Dombie and -Sons, Noodle Lane, Ken. W. London; England 1890.</p> - -<p>Who will write the natural history of involution beginning with the -stone razor age in Cornwall to the stone razor age in Papua? Oh China, -China teach us! Ottoman, Magyar, Moor, teach us. Norse Eric the -Discoverer teach us. Cœur de Lion, teach us. Great Catherine teach us. -Phryne, Thaïs, Cleopatra, Brunehilde, Lucretia Borgia teach us. What -was it, Demosthenes, that she said to you? Come again?</p> - -<p>Borne on the foamy crest of involution, like Venus on her wave, stript -as she but of all consequence—since it is the return: See they -return! From savages in quest of a bear we are come upon rifles, cannon. -From Chaldeans solving the stars we have fallen into the bellies of the -telescopes. From great runners we have evolved into speeches sent over a -wire.</p> - -<p>But our spirits, our spirits have prospered! Boom, boom. Oh yes, our -spirits have grown—</p> - -<p>The corrosive of pity, Baroja says, giving up medicine to be a baker.</p> - -<p>Marriage is of the church because it is the intersection of <i>loci</i> -by which alone there is place for a church to stand. Beauty is an arrow. -Diana launched her shaft into the air and where the deer and the arrow -met a church was founded and there beauty had died.</p> - -<p>So youth and youth meet and die and there the church sets up its -ceremony.</p> - -<p>Who will write the natural history of involution?</p> - -<p>I have forgotten something important that I wanted to say. Thus having -forgotten and remembered that it was important the folly of all thought -is revealed.</p> - -<p>The deer lay panting on the leaves while Diana leaned over it to stab it -in the neck with her dagger.</p> - -<p>I have forgotten what I wanted to say.</p> - -<p>Venus and Adonis.</p> - -<p>The second time I saw her it was in a room of a hotel in the city.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure18.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>As the Southern mountains are not like other mountains, so the -mountaineers are not like others. For all their beauty these mountains -are treacherous and alien, and the people who must wring a livelihood -from the sawmills or from the tiny perpendicular farms high up under the -sky come to be wary and secret like their woodlands.</p> - -<p>The Cumberland mountain mother, by nature sharp and sane, has studied -the moods of the mountains and of the animals. Illiterate though she be, -she is full of ripe wisdom. Many, superior to the mountain woman in, -say, sanitation might learn from sitting on cabin doorsteps that they -are most often inferior to her in sanity.</p> - -<p>Yet, frankly, it is often better to sit on the cabin doorstep than to go -inside. The mountain mother struggles bravely against dirt, but if you -live in a lonely two-room cabin, if you are the sole caretaker of six -children under ten, and two cows and a large stony garden, and must help -in the cornfield besides, you are excusable if in the end you "quit -struggling." The mountain mother does not make herself and her husband -and her children slaves to the housekeeping arts.</p> - -<p>A mountain woman dips snuff—surreptitiously if she is young, -frankly if she is old.</p> - -<p>We settle down on the doorstep probably on straight chairs with seats of -cornhusks twisted into a rope and then interwoven. There is a sound to -which the mountains have accustomed me—the sharp jolting thud when a -mother, if she possesses neither cradle nor rocker, puts her baby to -sleep by jerking forward and backward on two legs of a straight chair. -There is usually some two-year-old lying fast asleep on the bed just -inside the door; or on the porch floor, plump and brown as a bun and -studded with flies thick as currants.</p> - -<p>Mountain children are as vigorous as baby oaks until they reach their -teens, and then over-work begins to tell on growing bodies. A reedy boy -of thirteen, just beginning to stretch to the length of spine and limb -that characterises the mountaineer, often gets a stoop that he never -afterward conquers. In the more remote lumber districts I have seen boys -of ten and twelve work all day loading cars. There too, slim mountain -girls of twelve and fourteen stand all day in the icy spray of the flume -to stack bark on the cars.</p> - -<p>Here where isolation makes people fiercely individualistic public -opinion is as slow to deny a man's right to marry at the age he wishes -as it is to deny his right to turn his corn into whisky. At the age when -boys and girls first awake to the fact of sex they marry and the -parents, although regretfully, let them.</p> - -<p>The unmarried mother is most rare. A boy of sixteen sets himself to all -the duties of fatherhood. A fourteen-year-old mother, with an ageless -wisdom, enters without faltering on her future of a dozen children.</p> - -<p>But here is Lory. But again a digression—: In any account of the -mountains one must remember that there are three distinct types: the -people of the little villages, almost all remote from railroads; the -itinerant lumber workers, woodchoppers and mill-hands who follow the -fortunes of the portable sawmill as it exhausts first one remote cove -then another; and the permanent farmers who have inherited their -dwindling acres for generations. Yet at bottom the mountain mother is -always the same.</p> - -<p>Lory lives in a one-room lumber shack, and moves about once in three -months. The walls are of planks with inch-wide cracks between them. -There are two tiny windows with sliding wooden shutters and a door. All -three must be closed when it is very cold. For better protection the -walls are plastered over with newspapers, always peeling off and gnawed -by woodrats. The plank floor does not prevent the red clay from oozing -up. The shack is some fifteen feet square. It contains two stoves, two -beds, two trunks, a table and two or three chairs. In it live six souls: -two brothers, their wives and a baby apiece.</p> - -<p>Lory is part Indian, one surmises from the straight hair dropping over -her eyes and her slow squawlike movements. Her face is stolid except -when it flashes into a smile of pure fun. Dark though she is her breast, -bared from her dark purple dress, is statue white. She looks down on her -first baby with a madonna's love and her words have in them a madonna's -awe before a holy thing: "I ain't never a-goin' to whip him. He ain't -never a-goin' to need it, for he won't get no meanness if I don't learn -him none."</p> - -<p>The setting is fairyland. Mountain folk go far toward living on beauty. -The women may become too careless and inert even to scrape away the -underbrush and plant a few sweet potatoes and cabbages. They may sit -through lazy hours mumbling their snuff sticks, as does Mrs. Cole, while -children and dogs and chickens swarm about them: but even Mrs. Cole can -be roused by the call of beauty.</p> - -<p>"My husband he's choppin' at the first clearin' two miles from here, and -he's been plumb crazy over the yaller lady slippers up that-a-way. He's -been sayin' I must take the two least kids, what ain't never seen sech, -and go up there and see 'em 'fore they was gone. So yesterday we went. -It sure was some climb over them old logs, but Gawd them lady slippers -was worth it." I shall never understand the mystery of a mountain -woman's hair. No matter how old, how worn or ill she may be, her hair is -always a wonder of color and abundance.</p> - -<p>Ma Duncan at fifty-five is straight and sure-footed as an Indian; tall -and slim and dark as a gypsy, with a gypsy's passionate love of -out-of-doors. Her neighbors send for Ma Duncan from far and near in time -of need. Going forth from her big farm boarding-house on errands of -mercy. Up wild ravines to tiny cabins that seem to bud out like lichens -from grey boulders wet with mountain streams, over foot logs that sway -crazily over rock creeks, through waist-high undergrowth Ma Duncan goes -with her stout stick.</p> - -<p>As we reach a little grassy clearing Ma Duncan drops down to stretch out -happily: So as I can hear what the old earth has to say me... Reckon it -says, "Quit your fussin' you old fool. Ain't God kept your gang a young -uns all straight so fur? He ain't a-going back on you now, just because -they're growd."</p> - -<p>Presently Ma Duncan sits up, her hands about her knees, her hat fallen -from her wealth of hair, her gun on the ground beside her—often she -carries a gun in the hope of getting a gray squirrel to be done in -inimitable brown cream gravy for breakfast.</p> - -<p>She looks out sadly over much worn woodland, with the great stumps -remaining:</p> - -<p>"I wish you could have seen the great old trees that used to be here. If -folks wasn't so mad for money they might be here and a preachin' the -gospel of beauty. But folks is all for money and all for self. Some-day -when they've cut off all the beauty that God planted to point us to him, -folks will look round and wonder what us human bein's is here -fur—"</p> - -<p>"The mountain woman lives untouched by all modern life. In two centuries -mountain people have changed so little that they are in many ways the -typical Americans."</p> - -<p>"The Lord sent me back" former pastor tells men in session at the -church. With tears in his eyes, he enters meeting, escorted by two sons. -Dramatic scene follows as he asks forgiveness for mistake he has made. -Was in Canada and Buffalo. His explanation of absence is satisfactory to -family and members he met last night.</p> - -<p>Miss Hannen in seclusion at home. Her family declines to give -statement.</p> - -<p>Dominie Cornelius Densel, forty eight years old, former pastor, etc... -who left his wife and eight children etc. came home last night.</p> - -<p>Miss T. Hannen, twenty-six years old, etc... who disappeared from her -home, etc... on the same afternoon that the dominie was numbered among -the missing also came to her home the same evening.</p> - -<p>Pictures of the missing dominie and member of his church who are home -again.</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure19.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>Commodius renamed the tenth month Amazonius. But he died a violent death -and the old name was returned.</p> - -<p>I had five cents in my pocket and a piece of apple pie in my hand, said -Prof. M. I. Pupin, of Columbia University describing the circumstances -of his arrival in America in the steerage of the steamship Westphalie -from Hamburg half a century ago.</p> - -<p>Today that American scholar of Serbian birth holds the chair in -electro-mechanics at Columbia University.</p> - -<p>Prof. Pupin is merely one of a host of former immigrants whose names are -linked with the great strides in science, commerce, finance and industry -and whose careers furnish living proof that America, besides breeding -great men, imports them.</p> - -<p>Claude Monet was born in Columbia, Ohio.</p> - -<p>In industry and commerce the stories of many of the successful -immigrants read like romances.</p> - -<p>There is C. C. A. Baldi of Philadelphia who began with nothing and who -is now one of America's foremost citizens of foreign birth. When he -landed in this country thirty years ago he had only a few pennies in the -pockets of his ragged trowsers. He knew no English and knew nothing of -American customs, but he had heard of the opportunities which America -offers to a wide-awake, ambitious immigrant willing to work.</p> - -<p>Mr. Baldi bought thirty lemons with his pennies. He peddled them and -with the proceeds of sales bought more lemons and peddled them. Before -long he had a cart loaded with hundreds of lemons. In time the push-cart -became a store and the store grew into a great business.</p> - -<p>Other spectacular instances of success are furnished by the careers of -Louis J. Horowitz, one of America's greatest builders and S. M. -Schatzkin, who came to this country twenty-five years ago with 3 dollars -carefully tucked away in his clothes and began peddling coal in the East -side of New York. Today Schatzkin has large sums invested in many big -American enterprises.</p> - -<p>Horowitz, who came here thirty years ago, built the Woolworth and the -Equitable buildings, one the tallest and the other the largest office -building in point of floor space in the world. His first job was that of -an errand boy. Later he worked as a parcel wrapper, then as a stock boy -and then as a shoe salesman. After selling shoes he started selling real -estate.</p> - -<p>Witness? oh witness these lives my dainty cousins. Dear Madam:—It -has often been said that one of the most interesting spots in America is -the small space covered by the desk of the editor of the Atlantic -Monthly.</p> - -<p>All the qualities which make up the interest of life,—joy, sorrow, -romance, ambition, experience,—seem to center in this spot in turn, -radiating from every nook and corner of the world.</p> - -<p>"Adventures," remarked the talented Mr. Disraeli, "are for the -adventurous," and it is to those who think of life as the supreme -adventure that the Atlantic is most confidently addressed.</p> - -<p>If you care for a magazine that satisfies, vexes and delights by turn, -you can safely subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly for the coming year.</p> - -<p>Public Service Railway Company, Newark, N. J. Amazonius 10, -1920.—To our Patrons: As a fair minded citizen, your impartial -consideration of the facts set forth in subjoined letter, written by me -to the Board of Public Utility Commissioners under date of Amazonius -7th. 1920, is respectfully requested. Very truly yours? Thomas N. -McCarter, President.</p> - -<p>To the Board of Public Utility Commissioners of the State of New Jersey, -Trenton, New Jersey. Dear Sirs: The rate of fare of 7 cents, with one -cent for a transfer, etc..., etc... Such large cities as Boston, New -Haven, Hartford and Pittsburg already have a 10c. flat rate. Etc... -etc... Under the foregoing statement of facts the company is forced to -file herewith a flat rate of 10c. where 7c. is now charged. Etc... -Etc...</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Now when Christmas bells ring clear</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Telling us that love is here</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">And children sing</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Gifts that speak of thoughtful love</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Just like angels from above</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Glad tidings bring.</span></p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<p>Rugs, mirrors, chairs, tables, W. & J. Sloane, N.Y., Wash., San F. -Christmas Gifts Sure to be Appreciated.: Standing lamps, table lamps, -book ends, Sheffield ware, desk sets, framed prints, porcelains, soft -pillows, foot rests (D-2968 Rocking foot rest in Mahogany. Formerly -$45.00. Sale Price $30.00!) sconces, mantel clocks, wall clocks, tall -clocks, small tables, smoking stands, occasional chairs, screens, -oriental rugs, Chinese embroideries, vacuum cleaners—Mirrors. Small -Oriental Rugs: Mossouls, Pergames, Beloochistans, Lilehennas, Sarouks -and Kirmanshahs.</p> - -<p>California was peopled by the Indians first and then by the Padres who -brought with them their sprigs of vine and of orange and of fig and also -the art of irrigation. So that you will find today from the very -northernmost part, from Klamath Lake down to the Imperial Valley in the -South, the lands of California watered and made as fertile as the valley -of the Nile.</p> - -<p>That's all right. Yes Sir. But I come from the Eastern shore of -Maryland. I'm an East Sho' man. Have you ever been on the Eastern Sho'? -No? Well sir, we're a strange people and we have some strange legends on -the East Sho'. When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden they fell -sick and the Lord was very much disturbed over them, so he called a -council of his angels and wanted to know where they should be taken for -a change of air.</p> - -<p>Gabriel suggested the Eastern Sho' of Maryland but the Lord said, No, -No; that wouldn't be sufficient change.</p> - -<p>Yes sir, down at Chincoteague they have the biggest and the finest -oysters in the world. Big as your hand and when you get a half dozen of -them a couple of hours out of the water you know you have something.</p> - -<p>It was at Chincoteague two Spanish galleons went ashore in the old days -and some ponies swam ashore. To this day they have a yearly round-up on -the island where the breed of these ponies is coralled, a short special -breed of horse.</p> - -<p>Tangier Island is another place. That's where the sheriff shot the boy -who wouldn't go in off his front porch on Sunday morning during church -service. Either in church or in the house during that hour. He shot him -all right. They have little individual canals up to their back doors -from the bay.</p> - -<p>And the native, coming up to him suddenly with a knife as long as your -arm, said; <i>Yo soy mas hombre que tu</i>! and started a swing at him. Had -he not been so quick to seize a chair and bring it down on the man's -head—What would have happened?</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4><a id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a></h4> - - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/figure20.jpg" width="100" alt="" /> -</div> -<p>Sometimes the men would come in and say there was a turkey nest down in -the meadow and they'd send me to look for it.</p> - -<p>Once I fell in the mireage up to my waist. My, they was mad at me. -"Can't tramp a meadow without falling in the mireage?" they said.</p> - -<p>I miss it often. At nine they let me drive the hay-hoist with one horse -and later with two. One morning I had the young team out. It was Allie's -team of greys, they was only just no more than colts. They shied at a -piece of paper. I could hear the men up in the barn yelling. "Hey, -what's the matter down there!" But it was no use. I tried to get to -their heads. I wasn't afraid of them. Allie said afterward he wouldn't -have been surprised to have seen me killed.</p> - -<p>One of the women stood in the road waving a broom. I can see her yet. I -might have been able to manage them if it hadn't been for her but they -simply jumped over a wagon and smashed the hay-fork and ran down the -road two miles. Then they came back again. My but the old man was mad at -me. All the black looks I got!</p> - -<p>I used to hate the Old Man. Sometimes I'd be getting wood and he'd ask -me why I hadn't done something. I'd say I hadn't gotten round to it yet. -Maybe he'd throw a piece of wood at me.</p> - -<p>I can remember the churning. I wouldn't exactly like to go back to it -all but sometimes I miss it terribly. Sometimes it would n't take you -more than five minutes to get the butter and sometimes you'd churn for -45 or two hours and sometimes it would never come. We'd get four or five -pounds or more at a churning. Then it would have to be washed and salted -and packed in jars in the cellar.</p> - -<p>So now that it is raining. So now that it is Amazonius—we go to -buy a metal syringe at the factory because we know the men who live on our -street who own the bricks that make the walls that hold the floors that -hold the girls who make mistakes in the inventories:</p> - -<p>Every order that comes in is copied. You must rely on your help. As the -orders come in they are handled by a girl who puts them on our own -uniform order sheets. So right there it begins. You have to rely on a -young flyaway who has perhaps been up dancing the night before. It's -easy enough for her to write "with" for "without" and—that's the sort -of thing that happens. There is a certain minimum of error that you must -count on and no reputable house will fail to make good promptly.</p> - -<p>The glass blowers have never in my entire experience of 17 years -suffered any harm from their trade. Why we had a boy in the old factory, -a cripple, a withered leg, the weakest, scrawniest lad you ever saw. -He's been blowing for us for 15 or 17 years and you should see him -today. Why the fat fairly hangs down over his collar.</p> - -<p>In our thermometer work they blow the bulb then fill it with mercury -which is in a special container like the cups you get at Child's -restaurant say. They never have to touch the stuff. When the bulb is -full they seal it. Then the mercury in the bulb is warmed by passing the -bulb through a flame. This is to drive it up the capillary tube. There -can be no volatilization since the mercury is in the tube and this is -the only time the stuff is heated. Then when the metal rises from the -heat the other end of the glass is dipped in the stuff so that as the -bulb now cools the mercury is sucked up filling the thermometer -completely.</p> - -<p>Sometimes, of course, a bulb breaks in heating so that the floor is full -of the stuff.</p> - -<p>The hydrofluoric acid for marking is used under a hood with a special -exhaust-blower that has nothing else to do but exhaust that hood. There -is not the slightest odor of fumes in the room. The air is as good there -as here.</p> - -<p>And what is your business?</p> - -<p>Rag merchant.</p> - -<p>Ah yes. And what does that mean?</p> - -<p>Our main specialty is shoddy.</p> - -<p>Ah yes. Shoddy is made from—</p> - -<p>From woolen rags. The whole mass is put into a vat and the cotton -dissolved out. It comes out in a great wet heap of stuff that has to be -washed and dried.</p> - -<p>Sometimes they burn the cotton out with gas. For instance you'll see a -piece of cloth, grey cloth. The gas will take out the black cotton and -leave the wool fibres all running in one direction. One of the secrets -of the trade is the selection of the colors. That is red shoddy is made -from red rags and so on. But they even take the dyes out of the cloth -and use it over again.</p> - -<p>You know the army coats the boys wore. They were 70% shoddy. It's all -wool but the fibre has been broken. It makes a hard material not like -the soft new woven woolens but it's wool, all of it.</p> - -<p>After the stuff from the vats is dry they put it on the donkeys which -turn it into loose skeins. From that stage it goes on to the making of -the yarn for weaving when any quantity of fresh wool can be mixed that -you desire.</p> - -<p>The shortest fibre, that can't be used for anything else, is made into -these workingmen's shirts you see. The wool is held in a container in -the loosest state possible. This is connected up with a blower in front -of which a loom is set for weaving a fairly tight cotton mesh. Then as -the loom is working the wool is BLOWN IN! Where the cotton warp and woof -cross the shoddy is caught.</p> - -<p>Recently a Jew came in to complain of the lightness of the shirts he was -getting. All we did was to yell out, "George turn on the blower a little -stronger." One washing and the wool is gone. But the Jews are the smart -ones. You got to hand it to them. They invent machinery to do anything -with that stuff. Why one man made a million before the government -stopped him by making cheap quilts.</p> - -<p>He took any kind of rags just as they were collected, filth or grease -right on them the way they were and teased them up into a fluffy stuff -which he put through a rolling process and made into sheets of wadding. -These sheets were fed mechanically between two layers of silkolene and a -girl simply sat there with an electric sewing device which she guided -with her hand and drew in the designs you see on those quilts, you know.</p> - -<p>You've seen this fake oilcloth they are advertising now. Congoleum. -Nothing but building paper with a coating of enamel.</p> - -<p>¡<i>O vida tan dulce</i>!</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<pre style='margin-top:6em'> -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL *** - -This file should be named 63888-h.htm or 63888-h.zip - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/8/8/63888/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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